“True Heroism Is Remarkably Sober, Very Undramatic. It Is Not The Urge To Surpass All Others At Whatever

a lot of people on this site are like, deeply existentially freaked out that they haven’t been in love by 19 or whatever, and are desperate for any explanation for this that might make it ok. i just want to say, you are completely ok, no explanation needed. this is MUCH more common than you think, especially if you’re not straight. you’re very very young. you’re 100% fine. if you want it, it will happen in its own time.

“WRITE IT BADLY. Write it badly, write it badly, write it badly, write it badly. Stop what you’re doing, open a Word document, put a pencil on some paper, just get the idea out of your head. Let it be good later. Write it down now. Otherwise it will die in there.”

— Brandon Sanderson on overcoming writer’s block to create a first draft as a professional author

some sites for when you’re bored and looking for new music

spotalike creates a playlist based on a song

magicplaylist  creates a playlist based on a song

dubolt  creates a playlist based on an artist

boilthefrog creates a playlist between any two artists 

predominant suggests you albums based on cover art color   

music-map  suggests similar artists

gnoosic  suggests similar artists and songs

you were raised in comparison.

it wasn't always obvious (well. except for the times that it was), but you internalized it young. you had to eat what you didn't like, other people are going hungry, and you should be grateful. you had to suck it up and walk on the twisted ankle, it wasn't broken, you were just being a baby. you were never actually suffering, people obviously had it worse than you did.

you had a roof over your head - imagine! with the way you behaved, with how you talked back to your parents? you're lucky they didn't kick you out on your ass. they had friends who had to deal with that. hell, you have friends who had to deal with that. and how dare you imply your father isn't there for you - just because he doesn't ever actually talk to you and just because he's completely emotionally checked out of your life doesn't mean you're not fucking lucky. think about your cousins, who don't even get to speak to their dad. so what if yours has a mean streak; is aggressive and rude. at least you have a father to be rude to you.

you really think you're hurting? you were raised in a home! you had access to clean water! you never so much as came close to experiencing a real problem. sure, okay. you have this "mental illness" thing, but teenagers are always depressed, right. it's a phase, you'll move on with your life.

what do you mean you feel burnt out at work. what do you mean you mean you never "formed healthy coping mechanisms?" we raised you better than that. you were supposed to just shoulder through things. to hold yourself to high expectations. "burning out" is for people with real jobs and real stress. burnout is for people who have sick kids and people who have high-paying jobs and people who are actually experiencing something difficult. recently you almost cried because you couldn't find your fucking car keys. you just have lost your sense of gratitude, and honestly, we're kind of hurt. we tell you we love you, isn't that enough? if you want us to stick around, you need to be better about proving it. you need to shut up about how your mental health is ruined.

it could be worse! what if you were actually experiencing executive dysfunction. if you were really actually sick, would you even be able to look at things on the internet about it? you just spend too much time on webMD. you just like to freak yourself out and feel like you belong to something. you just like playing the victim. this is always how you have been - you've always been so fucking dramatic. you have no idea how good you have it - you're too fucking sensitive.

you were like, maybe too good of a kid. unwilling to make a real fuss. and the whole time - the little points, the little validations - they went unnoticed. it isn't that you were looking for love, specifically - more like you'd just wanted any one person to actually listen. that was all you'd really need. you just needed to be witnessed. it wasn't that you couldn't withstand the burden, but you did want to know that anyone was watching. these days, you are so accustomed to the idea of comparison - you don't even think you belong in your own communities. someone always fits better than you do. you're always the outlier. they made these places safe, and then you go in, and you are just not... quite the same way that would actually-fit.

you watch the little white ocean of your numbness lap at your ankles. the tide has been coming in for a while, you need to do something about it. what you want to do is take a nap. what you want to do is develop some kind of time machine - it's not like you want your life to stop, not completely, but it would really nice if you could just get everything to freeze, just for a little while, just until you're finished resting. but at least you're not the worst you've been. at least you have anything. you're so fucking lucky. do you have any concept of the amount of global suffering?

a little ant dies at the side of your kitchen sink. you look at its strange chitinous body and think - if you could just somehow convince yourself it is enough, it will finally be enough and you can be happy. no changes will have to be made. you just need to remember what you could lose. what is still precious to you.

you can't stop staring at the ant. you could be an ant instead of a person, that is how lucky you are. it's just - you didn't know the name of the ant, did you. it's just - ants spend their whole life working, and never complain. never pull the car over to weep.

it's just - when it died, it curled up into a tight little ball.

something kind of uncomfortable: you do that when you sleep.

Why must my feelings be "rational"? Is it not enough to sit quietly in my hawaiian shirt, deranged?

SITES FOR WRITERS

Fantasy name generator

Fighter’s block - try to defeat a monster by writing

Child’s Traits Calculator ; predict a child’s appearance 

Child’s Traits Calculator ; predict other traits

Fifty Plot Twist Ideas For Your Work-In-Progress!

Name generator (Character, Baby, Last name, etc.)

Plot generator ; Inspiration for your next novel, film or short story

Character generator ; Generate Rich Characters in Seconds

Writing Exercises ;  This site provides (completely free) writing prompts and exercises to help you get started with creative writing and break through writing blocks. 

Notebook ; create your characters, worlds, objects, places, etc. and save them

Festisite ; Create a fake license, marriage certificate, credit card, ticket and you can find other stuff as well.

The most common last names in the US

Lists of most common surnames

List of most popular given names

List of the least common surnames [last names] in America, rank 16,001-20,000

Fantasy name generator (again)

Random Name Generator (Choose origins, gender, etc.)

Said is dead (Remember that you can use said, don’t use it to less.)

How Much Blood Can The Human Body Lose? 

How Long Can Someone Go Without Breathing?

The 6 Types of Collars Every Man Should Know by Name 

18 Different Types of Sleeves Design Patterns

What are the most widely practiced religions of the world?

Differences Between a Short Story, Novelette, Novella, & a Novel

Hemingway editor ;  It grades your writing by its readability. 

Zen writer ; writing without distractions (Might not be free after a while)

33 Ways to Write Stronger Characters

75+ bad habits for your character

30 SCENE IDEAS FOR CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT

10 Things Writers Don’t Know About The Woods

British and American terms

Free writing worksheets

Feel free to add more!

au where Ray, Sissy and Harlan come back to the future with the academy and Klaus makes a big event of locking everyone in the library and giving a ridiculous powerpoint that’s like ‘How To Speed Run The Past 70 Or Whatever Years’ (Five from where he’s been handcuffed to the bar: “it’s 55 you dumbass-). highlights include:

- opening with a picture from the jfk assassination (since they were all a little busy when that was going on) with a big :( drawn over it

- a fifty minute long side-tracked rant about the Vietnam war that only Five is interested in

- “And finally, after a long, painful battle for the sensible people of the world…the Beatles were Defeated”

- “Highlight this note because it WILL be on the test later- Britney Spears was born on December 2nd, 1981″

- “So one day in 1989 43 babies with magic powers were born from women who hadn’t been pregnant, and like? you know? no one ever really looked into that further? we’re in our 30s, I feel like we should have some answers by now?’

 “Speaking of 1989, there’s this fantastic album-” 

   Vanya: “Klaus they don’t need to know who Taylor Swift is-”

   Diego: “Let Him Speak.”

- “And on this day I was innocently reading a magazine and discovered my previously beloved sister Allison is friends with Beyonce and she never bothered to introduce me or invite me to a single party-” *powerpoint slide switches to a picture with Allison’s head photoshopped onto a snake* *Sissy asks who Beyonce is and that turns into another sidetracked explanation that takes nearly two hours and involves Everyone screaming*

- “And this is when Luther went to the moon-”

   Ray: “the…moon? the fucking moon?”

   Klaus: “didn’t the moon landing happen for you guys yet?”

   Allison: “no that was ‘69???”

   Klaus: “FUCK”

   Luther: “Can you try to go in order? You didn’t even tell them Dad’s an alien yet-”

  everyone: W H A T?!!?!?!!?!

- 2004: the tragic beginnings of Vanya’s weaboo stage 

- 2006: Diego has his first kiss with an Ambassadors daughter after a mission and IMMEDIATELY pukes on her after they finish. (next slide features news footage of the event; Luther has to hold Diego back from attacking Klaus while everyone else is losing their shit)

- “Klaus I really don’t think Twilight counts as a historical event”

   Five: “No, actually, it does-”

- *2 hours spent infodumping about Chernobyl while his audience gets progressively more drunk*

- “Klaus, can we please move on from the 90s already-”

  “THEY NEED TO UNDERSTAND WHAT THE MEDIA DID TO WINONA RYDER”

- footage of Allison’s Less Than Graceful reaction when she got snubbed at the Oscar’s one year

- at some point he tries to explain Modern Speak™ and Internet Culture™ to them and it ends up going like this:

- “anyway here’s a list of probable war crimes our dad committed”

- *explanation of Ellen DeGeneres’ entire career from start to finish*

- *footage of 14 year old Luther dancing like he got a touchdown after he killed a man in battle*

- Cha Cha Slide: The Song That Changed Everything

- he slips an Entirely Fake historical event in there just to prank them and his siblings try to call him out on it but then Five backs him up because he’s drunk and wants to cause problems. Three Years Later Ray will still mention something about like The Fall Of Telephonia that resulted after a bloody battle between the two rulers and whoever he’s talking to just like. smiles and nods politely

- “And here’s the news clip where 10 year old Five found out on live air that Santa Claus isn’t real. We literally never saw him smile ever again after this”

- he starts explaining Kardashian/Jenner scandals as if they’re political scandals

but anyway. not the most educational lesson plan but I want everyone to have a break and laugh thank you goodnight lmao

oh, i am finally old enough to know why my parents took so long to grab their coats. why they would ask us to get ready to go only to sit down for another round of coffee. what would i tell myself, at 10 years old? it’s okay. sit down with them too. take in the extra hour with your friend and her family. when you get home, write down every moment in your diary. one day you will be older and you will be waving goodbye to your best friend, and you will turn the key to start your beat up little car engine, and you will look back over your shoulder. her hair will be blowing in the wind and she will be beautiful and you will be, for a moment, struck by all of it. what you will feel is so wide and nameless that it will engulf you. and you will think of being 14 and kicking her under the table in math every time you wanted to whisper something behind the teacher’s back. you will think about how long the days felt, and how you could hold her hand whenever you wished, but you didn’t. and you will think about all of the people you could have lingered with. and you will wish, more than you have ever felt a wish, that the universe just gave you that - more time to linger. more time to say - i love you. i know i need to leave, but i don’t want to leave you. and when i go, i am leaving a piece of my heart that lingers too. 

one more round of coffee. the days are so short, and you are so lovely.

I’ve been a fool! 

How often is Stan sad, for whatever reason, and he’s a sulker. Always looking worriedly into the distance, sighing heavily, hiding his head on his knees… and Richie sidles up next to him and like, pokes him and is like “Staaaaaan…”

And Stan mumbles “Stop it Richie,” and Richie spends the next indeterminate period of time making bad jokes and doing lame impressions and Stan’s like “You’re not funny Richie,” but Richie is like “Then why are you smiling?”

And Stan’s like “I’m not smiling!” Only because of that he has to start fighting back a smile. And pretty soon Richie cracks his worst joke yet and Stan full on grins and Richie’s like “Holy shit we’re witnessing a miracle!” and he does another terrible impression and Stan pushes Richie away like “I mean it Richie,” only it’s too late.

Because Stan is full on giggling now, and then Richie goes in for the kill: Stan is ticklish. Only Richie has access to this arcane and powerful knowledge. Stan basically made Richie swear not to tell anyone else, and as collateral he has a polaroid of Richie dressed up as Sailor Moon.

It’s too effective, and soon Stan is crying laughing and he forgot what he was even moping about. And Richie sing songs his refrain of “Smile for me Stanley!”

Because Richie wants everyone around him to be happy. If Richie can’t be happy, he tries his hardest to make everyone else happy. Poor Richie. Good thing Stan is a perceptive bitch! Because when Richie is down he always brings him little gifts. Home baked cookies, the latest comic book Richie was eyeing at the store after he blew his allowance on ice cream, maybe a pressed wildflower?? 

“I would say it was Dad who implemented all of this […] my alienation through procedures, through harsh […] all followed for fear of the alternative. And to an ex[tent?] […] true. I can’t forgive what he did to me - but somet[…] where Dad’s actions ended and my siblings’ beg[an] […] consider what a mind, especially a young mind […] harness when put into dire situations, it’s not […] believe that my siblings learned cruelty from […] [ev]entually made it their own. It wasn’t just th[e] […] of top-secret meetings, anymore. It jus[t] […] [wou]ld sit at the end of the table, so Die[go] […]ique, or so Allison could paint Klaus’ […]omed to sulking and watching the […] oatmeal went uneaten and […] 

(p.???)

      Meals became the only time of day […] to be together - and I met them with equal parts […] and dread. Would today be the day I [engaged Allison?] […] stand up to Diego’s taunts? Maybe I’d show Five […] I’d been working on for years.       Though prone to arrogance and […] than the average preteen, Five was my sole confidant years before he [disappeared] […] It almost seemed fitting […] the siblings to leave […] ////////////// Dad’s manipulation […]

[Five’s hand obscures the page.]

      One morning […]   ///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// behind, I think I even […] from home following me when […] a bus stop, and I sat there all day long  […] //////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////  had thought I was alone my future life […] something new and entirely different. I was afraid of what […] and would [choose Dad’s torment any day?] dark stretched down our street. […] waved the kind drivers away. That night I walked  […] front doors, and no one knew I had ever left to […] I wonder how long it would have […] extra girl they never needed was […] To this day, I’m not sure. The next time […] when we all did. After what happened to […] everyday existence was full of evidence that Dad […] into […] experiments. Not children […]mals. And what  happened to Ben was the […] shattered the illusion for the others. I […] all along what they realized that day. I didn’t […] to leave on my own. It wasn’t until Allison […]ood and Diego [cursed out?] the old man […] were ultimately a broken family. […] that my family would accept me into the fold. I […] [as] long as there was a [club?] to […] to […] notice me and invited me to. Everyone would […]ya, we can’t believe we’ve wasted so much […] you’re our sister after all.       […] it was then that I realized something […]ing for me to aspire to be anymore. It was liberat[ing] […] that I had wanted for as long as I could remember […]y fallen apart. Without The Umbrella Academy […] [fre]edom to be whomever I chose. Suddenly, my violin [was]n’t stupid - it was something that made me special.” 

(p.??-??)

Extracts from Vanya Hargreeves, Extra Ordinary: My Life as Number Seven,[TUA 1X05]

Things to conclude from this extract:

Reginald Hargreeves was an A-grade Bad Dad, whose iron fisted rule ensured the children internalised Vanya’s exclusion from the ‘club’, and would ostracise her from any social activities from a young age. Vanya attributes this in part to the ‘dire situation’ of their childhood under Reginald’s strict tutelage, but cannot forgive their inability to think for themselves.

Five & Vanya: Five was Vanya’s sole confidant, but despite this, she spent years working on something (perhaps practising her violin?) without sharing it with him or anyone else, for fear of rejection and ridicule. 

Vanya & the others: perhaps felt intimidated by Allison (did not feel confident enough to ‘engage’ her - in conversation? Confrontation?) and was taunted by Diego.  

Vanya ran away: she went so far as to spend all day sitting at a bus stop, wondering if anyone would miss her. However, she lacked the confidence to run away, and returned to the Academy - where no one had noticed she was gone. 

Reginald’s Star Pupil: It’s implied Reginald felt the loss of Five acutely, and trained the other children past even the most tenuous ethical guidelines to compensate for his absence. It was not until Ben died, possibly as a result of these experiments, that the others finally started thinking for themselves. However, even now, they did not realise their treatment of Vanya, and did not welcome her ‘into the fold’.

Diego swore at Reginald, probably until he was blue in the face. 

Something special: Vanya realised her hopes for reconciliation with her siblings were ultimately empty. All those ‘extraordinary’ people in her life were still cruel, even without Reginald’s guiding hand. But for Vanya, it was a moment of epiphany. Where her violin had once been an embarrassment in comparison to the talents of her siblings, it was now something special all its own.   

Something else to consider: Why is this (the part about his own preteen angst and disappearance) the passage Five reads as he considers the error in his calculations? Is it a fixed point in time? Is this the ‘quantum state version’ of himself he projected himself into?