#tua analysis

The tattoo is what made Five accept that those are his siblings, lying there in the rubble

The tattoo is another sign for Viktor that he'll never be part of the family, that he'll never be in a picture, no newspaper, no family portrait, nothing

The tattoo is what gave Diego a fear of needles so strong he faints from seeing one

On the other hand, Klaus willingly gets more tattoos later on. I fits with his character, his freedom of self expression, but also his self-destructive tendencies. He likes his pleasure with pain as shown by the torture scene. He gets used to needles, seeks them out actively

On the other hand, Diego went in the fully other direction. He wants to live as healthy as possible, he works out, he cares about protein, his body is a temple.

Luther: it's pretty obvious. He tries his best to be a good leader, to be responsible for his siblings, to be the number one that his father wanted. He tries to be good enough for him, to satisfy him, to make him happy, or hell to even make him love him too. But of course, even if he stayed behind the academy, following his orders, get sent to the moon, it's always never enough.

Diego: It's more on... rebellion. Most kids, especially teenagers, often rebel just to get their parent's attention. But mostly, Diego also want to prove reginald that he can be a better "number one" and not just "number two" He's just more desperate and eager than Luther.

Klaus: He gets himself into trouble just to also get his father's attention. And sometimes he wishes he was loved by his own father than just being punished for being a troublemaker.

Allison: I'm not really sure about her, but I'm sure she would also want her father's approval too. By being famous, and known for being in a superhero family, she's like doing a favor for the academy to be more and more famous. Think of it as advertising/j (I don't know how to explain it properly sorry 😭) I mean think of it this way in a scenario instead; a famous child doing a favor for their parent to be famous and the center of attention just to please them, and said parent probably uses their fame and money but doesn't love their child and only uses them. And, Allison probably stopped or gave up trying to aim for Reggie's approval after Ben died. She uses her fame just to get out of the academy, away from her father, but of course never her siblings.

Ben: Well I can't say much about him but sometimes he wishes instead of showing that he wants his father to love him too. Not just use him on missions, use him to do the killing, use him just to satisfy him. He just wants Reggie to love him who he is, not some "monster" that he can use just for stupid missions.

Viktor: same goes for Ben but he's more desperate with it. Although he isn't used in missions (sorry that was pretty brutal of me) he doesnt want Reggie to just see him as an ordinary child. He wants him to see him as a son, a son worthy enough to be loved. Not just a useless, powerless, and the black sheep of the family.

I saved best for last, five: what if the reason why he's so stubborn and eager to prove himself to Reggie, is his way of wanting his approval too? Maybe that's also probably the reason why he's so determined to stop the apocalypse, not just for his family, but also wanting to feel appreciated and enough for someone. Or even anyone in the family. But of course that's not what he got in return.

one of the most fun parts about five's character is that he is a man filled to the brim with contradictions. he is arguably the most devoted to his family but he constantly goes rogue and is a lone wolf. he is a time traveler but is always running out of time. he is ruthless and objective but also sentimental as fuck. he is brilliant to the point of stupidity.

one of the most obvious contradiction of his character is that he is simultaneously the oldest sibling and the youngest sibling. you cannot deny that five is old, that he is the sibling with the most experience, that after facing what he faced, you cant really call him a child. but it is precisely his experiences that stop him from maturity because when you are forced to rapidly mature, you end up not really maturing at all.

five is 58 and 13. he is simultaneously aged by his experience and preserved by it. and you can see it sometimes in the show! but it's better shown in the comics, at least it shows the dichotomy better.

comic five is just as snarky and asshole-y as show five. he has a larger body count that doesnt seem to stop rising. hes a paid mercenary but comic five has his dog that he HIMSELF named mr. pennycrumb. he gets excited over fortune cookies. he got himself ice cream after a job well done and offered it to the others because thats what they did as kids when they did well.

Five has the physical body of a 13-year-old, meaning that his brain, developmentally, is 13

He confirms this by saying MULTIPLE TIMES that he's going through puberty CURRENTLY

He may have the consciousness of a 58 or whatever-year-old man and be a super genius, but he is PHYSICALLY and DEVELOPMENTALLY a child

so this poor dude has been consuming gross amounts of alcohol, subjecting himself to an EXTREME amount of trauma for ANYONE but especially a person whose brain is still in development, and not to mention the lack of: sleep, consistent hygiene, any emotional support, etc etc, oh and I almost forgot the fuCKING WORLD IS CRUMBLING AROUND HIM CONSTANTLY LEAVING HIM AND ONLY HIM TO PICK UP THE PIECES

Lila Pitts is a character in the show “The Umbrella Academy”. The song “the moon will sing” by The Crane Wives serves as an important and beautiful look into her character and her backstory. 

The song begins with the lines “Tell me once again/I could have been anyone, anyone else/Before you made the choice for me/My feet knew the path/We walked in the dark, in the dark/I never gave a single thought to where it might lead”. These lyrics communicate the essence of her tragic backstory with the Handler. She “could have been anyone else”, but Five killed her parents and she was thrust into the life of a child soldier and assassin, much like the Hargreeves children. Additionally, the handler “made that choice for (her)” by executing the kill order and changing Lila’s life forever. Furthermore, she never questioned the handler because she saw her as a mother figure, and never “gave a single thought to where [the handler’s intentions] might lead”.  This section of lyrics is a testament to the handler’s sinister manipulation tactics. Lila was so used to those tactics that her feet “knew the path” and never questioned it. 

The song continues with the lyrics “All those empty rooms/We could have been anywhere, anywhere else/Instead I made a bed with apathy/My heart knew the weight/Ten years worth of dust and neglect/We made our peace with weariness and let it be”. Lila is used to living her life in “empty rooms”-wondering about her parents, leaving rooms empty because she has just murdered their inhabitants, traveling through time and never feeling like she belongs, and feeling the emptiness from the handler’s betrayal. She copes with this through “apathy”, or at least the facade of it. Getting betrayed so often is devastating and emotionally exhausting, and so are the trust issues that come from it. This makes vulnerability nearly impossible. Putting up a facade of apathy as a way to deal with the inevitable letdown makes it hurt less. It makes the sting from the “ten years of dust and neglect” that the handler put her through a little more bearable. This apathy also serves to create a bandaid for Lila’s larger self-esteem issues. She repeatedly tells Diego in season 3 that she “won’t make a good mom” and even tells him that “you should run from me” and that “a person who’s never had a family is in no position to ask for one”. The apathy that she has “made a bed with” has convinced her that she is truly a bad person who doesn’t deserve good things like family or love. She “makes peace with this weariness and lets it be”, and has accepted the apathy and the trust issues. This keeps her in the rut of thinking that she is a bad person that will never change. 

The next stanza in the song states “I loved you like the sun/Bore the shadows that you made/With no light of my own/I shine only with the light you gave me/I shine only with the light you gave me”. These lyrics serve to showcase the relationship between Lila and the Handler in greater detail. She “loves (the handler) like the sun” and simultaneously “bore the shadows that (the handler) made”. The handler is cruel, manipulative, and self-serving. Moreover, her mannerisms in season 2 suggest that she still thinks of Lila (who is 30) as a child who cannot think for herself (an essay for another time). When she has Lila’s parents killed, she forcefully places herself in the center of Lila’s galaxy of interactions, much like the sun in our Milky Way. She is the one who protects and counsels Lila. Lila should surely be grateful for that, shouldn’t she? But Lila also “bores the shadows that (the handler) made/with no light of my own”. She has so many trust issues and puts up facades because of the handler’s previous treatment of her, and bears the brunt of the handler’s complaints and temper tantrums. She’s never been in love or been allowed to live life as a normal person. Furthermore, since she’s been the handler’s daughter since the age of 4, she has no “light, or other experiences that she can use to question the handler’s tactics. She only “shines” with her powers and her skills as an assassin because the handler found her in London all those years ago. 

The final important stanza of the song states “We could have had anything, anything else/Instead you hoarded all that's left of me/Swallowing your doubt/Like swords to the pit of my belly/I want to feel the fire that you kept from me”. Lila could have had a perfect, loving, normal, life, but the handler took it all away from her and transformed her into a child soldier and assassin with loads of trust issues. She was only 4 when the handler took her and her flourishing personality and potential and “hoarded all that was left of (her)”. On the surface, Lila may be under the impression that the handler cares for her in season 2, but she continuously “swallows her doubt” and listens to the handler nonetheless. The handler doesn’t value her as a person and also constantly puts her down in backhanded ways, but Lila still “swallows” it anyway. Finally, at the beginning of season 3, Lila wants to “feel the fire that (the handler) kept from (her)”. She was deprived of so many normal experiences that she wants to feel them all now. She joins a band and dyes her hair bleach blonde. Not only does she become a more vulnerable person, her personal style also changes. Freedom from the handler marks a point of pivotal personal growth for her. 

Lila Pitts is one of my favorite characters in the Umbrella Academy. This essay was really fun to write and this is definitely HER song. She’s very special to me and I hope you enjoyed this essay. 

Also tagging my favorite diegolila accs

@himbohargreeves

@cowboylikediegolila

From what we've seen, it appears as though Five's decision for talking to Reginald in the 1960's was both logic driven and emotionally driven. Five makes his decisions by taking into account everything he knows of a situation and throwing it all together to come up with a conclusion or plan.

When making the decision to speak to Reginald, there were several factors present. These were:

1. Hazel gave Five a video that was a 'key to stopping the apocalypse'. Reginald Hargreeves is present in the video. Therefore, Reginald has something to do with the apocalypse.

2. Five needs to find a way to get his siblings out of the timeline before the apocalypse occurs. He isn't planning on stopping the apocalypse, just avoiding it. This means he needs to figure out a way to time travel, and fast.

3. Reginald knows more than Five about time travel. When Five ran out from dinner all those years ago, Reginald had warned him that time travelling could be catastrophic. Five didn't listen and ran out anyways. Reginald turned out to be correct.

From these three pieces of information, seeking out Reginald is a logically sound decision.

1. Reginald has something to do with the apocalypse. So if Five finds him, he may learn more information about it, and may even have enough information to prevent it and buy himself more time to get his siblings out of the 60s.

2. Five's main goal is to get his siblings out of the 60s. He can't use his powers because they are unreliable. His powers must be not working properly because they rely on math and Five doesn't have the right equation/knowledge to safely time travel.

In the 60s, Five doesn't have the time to correct his equations. It took him decades in the apocalypse to figure out how to simply travel back in time, and even then he still made an error. He can't stand to make another.

3. Since Reginald knew about how time travel worked when Five was younger, it isn't too far to hope that speaking to Reginald will reveal a hint or clue, or even a solid answer, that will allow Five to fix his equations so that he can travel his siblings back home without any more mishaps or negative consequences.

So that is Five's plan when he goes to speak with Reginald: Maybe, just maybe, Reginald has the exact thing Five needs to get his siblings safely home. If Reginald has the right knowledge, the right equations, then Five can transport his siblings back home using his powers. Just like that. It's a quick, easy, simple solution, and hinges entirely on Reginald having the right kind of information.

(Which Reginald doesn't.)

Ultimately, the meeting is mostly just information gathering. Five doesn’t have very many options available to him, but Reginald has the potential of knowing about both the apocalypse and how to time travel. So speaking with Reginald has the potential to give Five an informational edge to come up with a new plan.

(Five does get an informational edge, the seconds-not-decades advice, but it isn’t immediately useful. So Five is sent back to the drawing board.)

That said, there's a bit more to Five talking with Reginald than just Reginald having the key to Five finally getting the right equation to get his siblings home.

It's a bit smaller, a little bit less important to the grand scheme of things, but Five has a lot wrapped up over seeking out his father for advice. Five doesn't have Daddy issues with Reginald, so much as he has a boatload of guilt and regret.

Five is still someone who is very much stuck in the past and hasn't moved on.  He has a lot of trauma wrapped up in time travel. The day he ran out and time travelled for the first time still haunts him. His entire mission to keep his siblings alive stems from seeing them dead in the apocalypse. Five, in a lot of ways, is still stuck over what happened to him.

The way Five sees it, Reginald is an authority figure on time travel because he was right. When Five was thirteen, Reginald told Five that he shouldn't time travel.

Five did it anyway and suffered the consequences.

Not only was Reginald right about time travel and Five didn't listen, but Reginald was right and it kicked Five in the ass for decades. Because of that one choice to not listen to Reginald, Five was firmly stuck in a world of ash, death, and isolation for half of a lifetime.

From his experiences, Five has learned that he should have listened to Reginald the first time around. And when a situation presents itself for Five to go to Reginald for advice? Well. Reginald is the most viable authority figure Five knows. He was right about time travel once before. He’s likely to be right again, if he knows something that can help.

So Five seeks him out. Because Five can’t fix his equations on his own. Because every single time Five has time travelled with his own calculations, he has done it wrong in some way or another. Because Reginald knows about time travel, warned Five about it, and was correct. Because last time Reginald gave a piece of advice that Five didn't heed, Five ended up in the apocalypse. And because Reginald was the only one to ever really warn Five of the consequences of time travel and know exactly what they were talking about.

Five recognizes that he needs some kind of help, and most promising opportunity that presents itself lies with his father.

So Five chooses to talk with Reginald. Because Five doesn’t have many other good options. Because maybe, just maybe, Reginald will know what to do. And because maybe, just maybe, Reginald will be able to give him advice, like he did all those years ago when Five was actually thirteen, and foolish and refused to heed it.