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sharkneto · 6 months

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if you had a chance to write for the umbrella academy, what’s something you would’ve added or removed or otherwise changed about show canon

Oh. What an ask! You know, I try to stay positive here on tunglr.com about the Umbrella Academy. I adore the show, love the characters, focus on the positive and things I like rather than the negative things I don't. That said, the show has issues, more and more as the seasons progress. I do have opinions. And you asked :)

Read more because this is going to get long.

Starting in S1, there's not much I'd change - S1 is really tight, it's really character focused and its dark themes covered by sibling absurdity is delicious. Only thing I can think of off the top of my head to change is

Five has the gun in the finale. There is no tension with Allison having the gun for if she's going to shoot Viktor or not - we all know she isn't. It also makes Five just running up and getting caught in the energy tentacles stupid because he's never fought like that the entire show, he's more strategic than that. So, Five has the gun, we know from the comics Viktor gets shot -- it makes Five not shooting him more impactful, differentiates Five from his comic counterpart, and in general is a richer character moment for all involved. The only downside to all of that is it sidelines Allison, but some finagling of setting up the situation can put her back in a meaningful position (someone wrote a fantastic reimagining of this scene that gave Five the gun that still kept Allison in a key position with a heartful roll in how it shakes out, probably a couple years ago now. If anyone remembers who wrote that or can link it to me, I'd love to reread it again).

That's really it for S1, off the top of my head, anyway. On to S2! -

Handler stays dead, AJ is the big bad. The only downside to this is that we don't get Kate Walsh back, because she is so much fun, but the Handler absolutely died at the end of S1 and they retconned her to not-die so she could be in S2 (...because Kate Walsh is such a delightful villain). But AJ should have had a bigger roll in S2. He's the head of the whole Commission! The Handler was but a cog in the machine - what does that look like! The Hargreeves suddenly have the entire might of the Commission after them instead of a rogue Handler (pin in that for Point 2). Also, his character design fucking slaps, I'm still obsessed with him. And now, I'm hearing you go: But Lila! And I answer you - AJ is her adopted father. That whole plotpoint stays the same but AJ instead of Handler for parental figure. Diego's reaction to his girlfriend's father being a fish sells that all on its own.

The Commission should not be a benevolent force, with just the Handler as a rogue, evil agent. S1 Commission is a morally dark gray force of bureaucracy hiding behind the uncanny, cheerful veneer of the 50s. Their chosen method for keeping history "on track" is just a fuckton of murder. They left a kid to rot in the apocalypse for four decades. They have an entire department dedicated to making sure disasters occur (through strategic murder). The Infinite Switchboard is also dumb and only exists for fast plot for Diego to figure out what's going on - S1 method for the Commission knowing when the timeline is getting fucked is agents on the ground who call it in (S1 Commission inefficiency, my fucking beloved.). In summary, no one at the Commission is a good person (looking at you Herb and Dot! You are not and should not be positioned as good people!), and making the Handler the ~only~ bad egg there and everyone else positioned as good and allies weakened them significantly as a villain.

Viktor! He shouldn't have had amnesia! Robbed him of character development in facing what he'd done, how his life had been a lie, and the complicated feelings left behind between him and his siblings over all of that. I get it was a comic thing, but they didn't do the comic reason (Shot In Head), and they've changed lots else from the comics, so this should have been another point the deviated from.

Raymond should have gotten to meet Five. I just think that would have been fun.

The song that plays in Viktor's violin mind palace when he's getting tortured should have been [Viktor's] Orchestra from the S1 OST and not that goddamn Bach Partita. They already had a very meaningful and beautiful violin piece composed by Mr. Russo, what are they doing bringing in this random Bach? Missed opportunity. My feelings on this are so strong that I am including it with the above impactful plot changes.

There's probably some smaller tweaks for S2 that I'm not thinking of now, but that covers the main changes and this is already getting long and we haven't even gotten to S3. Because, oh boy. S3.

I give S3 a lot of forgiveness for being made during the pandemic. I think a lot had to be adjusted for Covid restrictions (There was supposed to be a whole Japan trip thing! Which is why the Hotel is all Japanese themed. The trip got scrapped, the theme did not, so it just comes off as weird and orientalist), and they still managed to have really great character moments and developments. That said -

Too much happened in S3. They should have done Sparrows or the Hotel (which I like to call the HOb, and is the shorthand I'll be using from now on). Both with the Kugelblitz made this season insane.

Lila isn't pregnant. The show has a real hard time writing women who aren't mothers or dead and they were almost doing a good job with Lila until this, she almost escaped it. I'm going to be honest, my first thought when it was revealed that she was actually pregnant and it wasn't just Stanley shenanigans was "Oh, abortion". I don't think it makes sense for where she is to be having a kid, and it ties her down in a weird way for the final season. Instead of being about her figuring out her shit after finding out her mom killed her, had her real parents killed, and her life is all a bit of a lie, it's now about being pregnant and/or being a mother.

The HOb isn't some weird universe reset button. Why didn't they like Fucked Up Space Prison from the comics??? That's so much fun! I'd allow it to be paired up with the Sparrows if it's a fucked up space prison, they compliment each other then. It being a reset button that Reggie has known about this whole time and is the reason he collected the kids also doesn't make sense with him killing himself in S1 for the original plot of the show. They almost hit the vibe they could have had with it, with the hallways and floors swapping around. Play with that more, make time weirder, don't have cheap-horror samurai guardians. Forever mourning how much cooler and weirder the HOb could have been.

A lot of people complain that the Sparrows were so minor in the season. I am not one of those people - most of them were tertiary characters, and with all the other plot happening and the focus (rightly) on the Umbrellas, they featured exactly as much as they needed and should have (without changing the season to make them the main antagonists). My only change here is Sloane shouldn't know physics. Why does she know physics and why is she as good as Five, who has 30 years on her. There's no set up or indication she is a math person (she loves reading and travel!) until they have their Kugelblitz math discussion and then it's never alluded to again. Is this petty? Yes. Do I stand by it? Yes.

Ah, Five. Obviously, Five shouldn't be the founder of the Commission. That whole plot, while great for the Five and Lila Frenemy Trip, reeks of Cool Reveal We Thought Of To Be Cool. It doesn't have any real major impact on anything, and it makes no sense for Five as a character that he would have created the Commission and then sat alive in their basement by himself. The guy spent a lifetime alone and tore the universe apart to be with his family and they want me to believe he sets up his life to end by himself and away from his family after making evil corporate time cops? Yeah, alright, sure, mmm-hmm.

There should have been a conversation about what happened in the barn at the end of S2. That was huge - Five unlocked a whole new application of his powers and watched his whole family die again. With the rewind powers, they should have given an in-universe reason for why Five couldn't use them at any point and not just pretend they didn't exist anymore. The Kugelblitz is eating time, if it's eating time there is nothing for Five to rewind or jump back to - there. I did it. Just some sort of acknowledgement for why Five's plot-breaking powers aren't breaking the plot.

Five should have been friendlier and more trusting of Reggie, incorrectly viewing them as relative equals thanks to his age and experience. From Five's point of view, Reginald has always been right and Reginald did help him when he talked to him in the 60s. He's a dick and unpleasant, but so is Five. It was the perfect set up for some delicious betrayal and hard lessons for Five to understand their father the same way the rest of the Umbrellas do.

I'm going to be honest - there is probably plot things I would change for how Harlan slots in with the Kugelblitz, but S3 is my least rewatched season, and when I do rewatch it I usually do a Five Watch (just skip through and watch Five plot), so I do not remember it well enough to point out what I would change.

Final point I'm going to make - Allison. I genuinely loved where Allison went this season. The most controversial part of her plot, assaulting Luther, I thought made perfect sense and I have a lot of thoughts about where her mind was during all of that. But I do not think the writers understood just how fucked up her doing that was, and that scene should have had further fallout and more direct conversation about what happened. Give it more gravity and consequences, if only for Emmy's sake because it really felt like the writers dropped her in the deep end for the amount of hate Allison got for it.

There are probably more things, but it is getting late and this is getting long. I adore this show, but my god does it leave so much potential on the floor. Leaves us lots to write ourselves because of that, I suppose as a silver lining.

#this got looong #so i hope you were expecting and wanting an essay anon #tldr for those not sure if they want to click the Read More:#i went through by season for things i would have changed #they get more numerous and more specific as the seasons go #shark's tua thoughts #ask response #thank you anon this was fun

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cuips-not-cute · 2 days

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Heya cuips! Long-time listener, first-time caller (not entirely true, I've left a comment of each brl chapter so far 😂)

blinking red light has permanently burned itself into my brain at this point, and I'm so keen for the next update! I, no joke, stare at the AO3 tab in my Chrome app like it's my husband who's currently at war.

Other than the GO fic that you have labelled as the main inspo, what inspired you to write brl and fanfiction as a whole?

Ps. Hope you're having a good day❤️

aww well hello!! you are such a sweetheart omg,, however i could not find a comment under this same username on ao3, what handle do you use on there? (and if you use the same one and i somehow missed you then i am so so sorry<3)

ahhh it really means a lot that you're excited about the next update, i'm sincerely hoping to post it within the next few days, but if i can't finish it by this sunday i'll put it up next weekend for sure!! it's at almost 12k now, super chunky.

hmm i think it really was just closed set that inspired it!! i remember being at work last july and daydreaming about the fic & thinking about how much i loved it when i suddenly realized, "hey wait a second, i could steddie-ify this" and i kinda let that idea simmer for a while (was still working on cyclical at that point and i am not the type of person who can write multiple wips at a time) before reaching out to @racketghost about potentially writing smth inspired by their fic!! and they of course were really lovely about it so i started the planning process which took FOREVER because i actually ended up rewriting ch1 several times,,, fun fact originally the plot was gonna be "eddie lies about making tapes with steve harrington to a gang of bullies in order to save his ass from getting beat, except now he feels bad about it and goes to steve to come clean, cue shenanigans when steve offers to actually make the tapes" but i reallyyy wasn't liking what that was doing to eddie's character, plus i couldn't figure out how to make it fit within the post s4 timeline i wanted to write it in because i am just a SUCKER for post canon fics. however it was a bee in my goddamn bonnet and i was GOING to figure out how to make it work because i really really wanted to write a steddie sex tape au inspired by one of my fav stories in the world, so through a hearty combination of bitching and moaning about it to my most incredible friend @lollaika, actually rewatching zack and miri, and generally pacing around the kitchen while the puzzle pieces slowly fell into place i finally figured out how i needed the plot to work and voilà, chapter one!!

as far as writing fic as a whole tho? i can't pinpoint one thing that got me into it, but i've always kinda been a writer, used to have a blue glittery notebook i carried around everywhere as an elementary schooler for that exact reason, and that love for stories has just stuck ever since!! and then getting into fandom opened my eyes to a whole new world of writing that i gotta say i like a whole lot. like so much. you people are the fucking greatest❤️❤️

#this ask was so sweet and so fun #thank you so much for sending it<3 #sorry it got so looong tho omg #asks #brl #blinking red light #st

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