don't save the world

au where klaus finds his mom alive and they have to come drag him back to help save the world

THIS SCENE

God I think about this scene every day like ?? huh they are literally CUDDLING??

Look at Klaus just leaning against Ben, look at Ben's tiny smirk because, for once, he's not Numbe Two. He's just Ben.

Just LOOK AT THEM. So happy and relaxed, like they finally know they have found each other. My heart. It's breaking. I love them ugh.

And the way Ben calls out Klaus' name first thing the morning after, when he wakes up, in panic. Because he doesn't want to be alone anymore. Because he's scared he's being left alone again.

Oh the tears.

I’ve seen a lot of posts talking about how dumb it was that Five didn’t time travel in S3 to either escape the new end of the world or at least reverse time to save his siblings. On a rewatch, I don’t think the issue really is that he didn’t so much as the show didn’t fully explain why he couldn’t.

The Umbrellas arrive in 2019 and the Kugelblitz appears. Almost immediately after, we see Lila attempt to use a briefcase, and it completely fails. She steals another and the same thing happens — kaput. Five even says how astronomically impossible this is. The Commission briefcases have been the most reliable time travel in the show by a wide margin, way more accurate than Five’s powers and able to handle more jumps with more people far easier. Despite that, once the Kugelblitz started, they can no longer function.

Five and Lila do manage to time travel but it takes both of them plus a briefcase to barely get to the Fifties and back and doing so completely fries the commission briefcase. At this point, I don’t think even they together have the power to travel back unassisted without a briefcase. And that’s even before the Kugelblitz really powers up.

The big question here is why, which Five actually explains while they’re in Commission headquarters. The Kugelblitz is the opposite of the Big Bang — the timeline is collapsing in on itself, pretty much creating a giant black hole centered on 2019. This tells me two things:

1. Time, past and future, is literally collapsing into 2019. The Kugelblitz is an unimaginably powerful force that’s destroying the universe and only getting stronger by the second. If time travel is usually hard, I imagine trying to go backward against that force is next to impossible (I’d go with actually impossible once it got stronger). As mentioned, Five + Lila + the briefcase could barely do it. There’s little chance alone.

2. Despite all the destruction we see in the season, 2019 is the center point and the last thing to be destroyed. We see at the end of the show that the only thing left in the universe is the city block with the hotel. I’d imagine the same thing happened with the timelines. Why was every single person in the commission dusted? Because the commission headquarters is in the Fifties. If the timeline is collapsing, it makes sense that things further in the past are collapsing first. The Kugelblitz isn’t just destroying the present, it’s the collapse of the entire timeline with 2019 as the center point. I think by the time Lila and Five time travel, everyone from up to that point in history has been destroyed, not just the commission. Time is rolling up like a carpet with 2019 being the last to go. If they even could time travel, they would have even less time to live their lives or try to save the universe than they did in the Sparrow timeline.

I do think time travel could have worked. If they had known Harlan was the cause before Five and Lila time traveled, I think them with the briefcase could have made it back, killed him (sorry Harlan) and saved the world. But without that knowledge, they couldn’t have investigated and tried to save 7 different women before 1989 was dusted. And once they had the truth, the Kugelblitz was stronger and the briefcases were destroyed.

So yeah, there was literally no time traveling Five could do this season. I think even rewinds would be impossible against the gravitational pull on the timeline that was the end of the universe. For once, Five had to live it out with everyone else and accept fate.

Second worst realisation from tua s3 was that since klaus cant, die victor wouldn't have been able to kill him in s2, so he wouldve woken up not long after five left his 'body', which means he walked the apocalypse alone never finding his brother and going mad from loneliness until he died, if he could. The first worst is that pogo and the lady living in his trailer were probably fucking pretty regularly.

okay wait actually I think reggie was lying to klaus when he said that og reggie intentionally cut off klaus' powers. i think that was just sparrow timeline reggie going "hmm, i bet if i tell him that his father was blocking his powers but I the other father am teaching him to use them he will do whatever I want"

UMBRELLA ACADEMY S3 SPOILERS AHEAD

Finished umbrella academy today. I like the season overall, and I think it’s hands down my favorite out of all of them especially with how they delved into everyone’s relationship dynamics.

That being said, plot-wise, I feel there was much left to be desired. Jayme, Alphonso, Christopher, and to a lesser degree Marcus served virtually zero narrative purpose and it felt like they were shoved into the story for a number quota before they got on with the real story. There was absolutely zero follow up or explanation for Grace being a religious fanatic and why she worshipped the Kugelblitz. Klaus, whose whole character up until this point was based on the fact that he saw scary ghosts all the time involuntarily when sober, did not see scary ghosts involuntarily until Reggie 2.0 took him to the cemetery even though he wasn’t high at all this season. And like maybe it’s supposed to be a nod to how he felt like he had to stay high all the time to keep the ghosts at bay and as he stopped doing that, he’s learning he never had to in the first place, but that’s such a reach that requires too much heavy lifting from the audience. It’s not even remotely addressed.

And lastly there were all the recurring motifs that weren’t properly followed up on: the roaches, the guests at Hotel Obsidian that they consistently zoomed in on in the lobby, all of the samurai/Japanese influence wrt Hotel Oblivion and the guardians, etc. We could claim they’re setup for season 4 but come onnnnnn. Anyway rant over, I’m just being nitpicky. There are plenty of things I loved too I just get chatty when I’m annoyed. This was my favorite and, imo, the most bingeable season out of the three. The plot moves nicely and I like the more sentimental turn things took even if there are a few noticeably loose ends.

ASHTRAY IS IN THE UMBRELLA ACADEMY????

OH MY GOD I FORGOT ABOUT HARLAN

I have so much, SO MUCH 𝓯𝓮𝓮𝓵𝓲𝓷𝓰𝓼 after watching tua season 3

The amount of tears I cried for Klaus alone would be enough to drown myself in AND FOR WHAT?? nothing, nada, rien, niente

Just *incoherent screaming*

Ben. BEN. just. I want our benorino back. Please. PLEASE. gimme my emotional support ghost back.

Also Allison. I was kinda mad at her. But you know what. You go girlie. Girlboss. Girlkill.

On a happy note, I love how accepting everyone was towards Viktor. Makes my little queer soul happy. I'm not particularly fond of his hairstyle, the fringe is a little eh, but what do I know. Whatever makes him happy you know.

Very happy for Luther. Then very sad. Then VERY SAD. THEN CRYING TEARS OF BLOOD KINDA SAD.

happy for lila and diego though.

Also bring Stanley back, he reminds me so much of my little brother. And of course he's alive and fine. Waiting for lila and diego to sign the adoption papers. Mmhmm no I'm not in denial.

Anyway folks can't wait to read everyone's take and fics.

Toodles~~

Sure I wanna see what happened to Klaus after he got shot, but I also can’t wait to see Allison and Diego (hopefully) beat up a bunch racists

i love how Smart klaus is. his siblings and reginald tend to treat him like a clown who doesn’t know what he’s doing, but he consistently makes intelligent decisions they wouldn’t have though to make. like when he jumped onto the bison instead of getting kugelblitzed. he understood that it would just straight up wipe him from existence, and he wouldn’t be able to go to the other place. i love it he’s so smart

klaus has such a strong ability to accept shit as it comes and keeping moving that he didn’t notice that he kept dying

Yes good morning do we all agree that they are in this position when they wake up because the night before Klaus was on his knees and after sucking Ben off he went like nope ain't gonna climb up there I will just pass out right here and Ben was okay bye loser

Did Reggie lie? (Again)

So going into TUA season three, I thought we had pretty obvious cause and effect – the umbrellas made a mess of the dinner and Reggie used some method (Monocle, logic, take your pick) to make sure he got different babies this time. First trial was a failure, time for take two. Easy Peasy. Reggie even said something along those lines in the very first episode…But!

Later on, we learn that he never even got a choice. The Umbrellas were never born in this timeline. He only had 16 babies to choose from, and the Umbrellas were none of those choices (I’m going to assume all the Umbrellas died since they were energy signals familiar to Harlan. Ben was dead AND gone to the light before they ever could have met so he got lucky.)

I don’t know. Maybe Reggie was still planning to adopt different children and was just mildly pleased when they weren’t even options, or maybe he lied and was still planning to adopt some if not all of the Umbrellas if he could have. They were a mess but clearly powerful and having some knowledge of the future helps control variables/avoid mistakes.

Either way, he definitely exaggerated how much choice he had in the whole thing and I wonder if Sissy hadn’t died on October the First (the timing of which is a post for a later date) if the Umbrellas would have come back to a far more familiar universe like they were hoping.

The umbrella academy’s slogan and life philosophy: