Talk About Your Special Interests!
Have you ever held back from unleashing all the details of your latest special interest in a conversation? Or worse, you decided to talk about it but ended up feeling embarrassed or ashamed?
We get it—special interests can be powerful and bring pure joy, focus, and fulfilment. You know that feeling when you dive headfirst into something that just lights up your brain? That's what we're all about here, and we were hoping you could share it with us.
We want to know all the nitty-gritty details that keep you hooked and the epic experiences you've had, thanks to your special interest.
Comments
I find myself often being very fixated on new exciting hobbies and recently have begun to put that attention into kendo, a martial art in which you use a bamboo sword to practice Eastern swordsmanship. I think it blends very well into my interests in gym and exercise and I was excited to apply what I have physically developed so far into something else!
I am not very strong or talented in physical exercises despite my passion for them, but I think how far I have come despite such shortcomings has been highly motivating and fulfilling for me. I hope everyone who has had similar experiences don't feel discouraged by the hardship they face with the things they love and keep their interests!
That's so interesting @DDandy do you enjoy learning about the philosophy of martial arts, too? There are plenty of wise lessons to learn through the way of the sword 🙂
eep okay so my two main special interests at the moment are the Umbrella Academy and Will Wood!
TW cuz I mention drug addiction a bunch in here but don't go into much detail
I first watched The Umbrella Academy in 2020 and it was an instant hyperfixation, but only last year did it become my main special interest. And I have watched it so. many. times. Anyway, it was originally a comic by Gerard Way (yes, the My Chemical Romance guy) and Gabriel Ba, and then it got adapted into the Netflix TV show, which is pretty different. For instance, the show is much more diverse, there's main character POC, a transguy (Viktor), and a pan guy (Klaus). And the diversity makes more sense because the whole plot is that 43 women around the world suddenly gave birth on the 1st October 1989, and all the babies have powers. But what I love is it's not your classic superhero show. In fact, a lot of their powers are the root of all their problems (like Klaus is a drug addict because he uses drugs to get rid of his powers (but that's not the reason in the comics!), and Allison lost custody of her kid because she used her powers on her). It's not a show/comic about superheroes even though they were forced to be superheroes as kids, it's a show/comic about a dysfunctional family and there just happens to be an apocalypse going on (every season). Annnd I'm still in a very infodump-y mood, so here's a breakdown on each of the Hargreeves siblings! (the main characters) Be warned, there's lots of spoilers ahead!
Their adoptive dad, Reginald Hargreeves, numbered them all because he couldn't be bothered giving them actual names. (And my theory is that they're numbered from least powerful to most, but they never got told this and decided themselves it was a hierarchical structure of leadership, from 1-7). Reggie was such an abusive father. We hate him. Then their robot mother, Grace, gave them all proper names later in their lives. So in order:
Luther is Number One (so considered himself the leader of the siblings), he's also called Spaceboy in the comics, but they don't really have those superhero codenames in the show. His power is superstrength. He was the last to leave the Academy, then on one mission on his own he nearly died, so Reginald gave him a serum that made him part chimp (oh and they have a butler/father figure who's a chimp, he's the only chimp in the show, but there's pretty much as many chimps as there are humans in the comics). Then a bit after that, Reginald sent Luther to the moon for a 'mission'. He only returned when Reginald died. He was very isolated up there so that was traumatising for him 😕 Also, he had a weird incestual thing with Allison in the show and comics, but it got dropped pretty soon in the show. Most of the fandom doesn't like the incest even if they're all adopted. In season 3, he marries someone else who is also Hargreeves and was raised by the same dad lol, but they aren’t actually related at all because of timeline/time travel shenanigans.
Then we have Number Two, Diego, also known as the Kraken in the comics. In the comics, his power is to be able to hold his breath for however long he wants, but in the show his power is a mild form of telekinesis where he can manipulate the movement of things he throws, usually knives. He’s a vigilante, and did originally go to the Police Academy, but dropped out because he didn’t like it. But that’s where he met Patch, who he dated for a bit. In season 2, he meets Lila who’s part of the Temps Commission (more on that later) and he’s gonna have a baby with her. Ummm yeah he likes knives, he has a hero complex, he has a lot of rivalry with Luther, and that’s all I can really think of to say.
Then we have Number Three, Allison, or the Rumour. Her power is to rumour people, which means she can make people do anything she wants by saying “I heard a rumour”, e.g. “I heard a rumour you shot your friend in the foot” or even “I heard a rumour you love me.” She used her powers to become a famous movie actress, and it’s implied she used it to make her ex-husband, Patrick, fall in love with her. She had a daughter, Claire, with Patrick, and a big plot point in seasons 1 and 3 are wanting to get back to Claire but she can’t for different reasons 😞 In season 2, in the 60s, she marries Raymond Chestnut. Allison overall is very nice and motherly, and in season 3 she gets a villain arc, but. I don’t like season 3, and I’m not alone in that opinion. I think a lot of them are out-of-character, and a bunch of other things I could infodump about another time.
Then my personal favourite (and most popular character in general), Klaus AKA Number Four AKA the Seance (AKA the Prophet AKA the Prince of Darkness (both only in the show)). His powers are basically to be able to see ghosts. Which he hates because they're constantly screaming at Klaus and they look horrific. Then at some point in his childhood, he discovered drugs block the ghosts out, so he eventually becomes a poly addict. When he moves out of the Academy, he's homeless. I think most of the fandom agrees he was a prostitute for drug money, and also slept with people just for a place to stay. So. yeah. Klaus got the worst end of the stick with his powers 😞 Although, in the comics, drugs don't inhibit his powers at all nor is he bothered by his powers, so he's a drug addict for unknown reasons (probs has something to do with his childhood trauma, which is part of show Klaus' addiction too but not the original cause). Although I really don't think the show handles Klaus' addiction very well, they sometimes make it angsty, but for the most part it's played off as a joke which sucks, but I read enough fanfiction to make up for it lol. And some of the fandom wants their "sewer rat" from season 1 back, which basically means they want Klaus to go back to hard drugs (he had been sober for 4 years at the start of season 2, then relapsed on alcohol a few episodes in, now he's just been using alcohol and no other drugs for the rest of the show so far), and I wanna throw that part of the fandom at all a wall, but anyway I'll stop my complaining for now lol. I must talk about Dave! Dave's such a minor character but he's so important! In season 1, Klaus accidentally time travels back to the Vietnam War, where he meets Dave. Who he says is "the only person I've ever truly loved more than myself" (personal translation: the only person who has ever truly loved me and I truly loved back even though I thought I was incapable of love/being loved). Dave dies 😞 Klaus takes his dog tags and doesn't take them off for the rest of the show. He goes back to 2019, and Diego makes him realise he can see Dave again if he conjures him, so he gets sober. He succeeds! Except because of time travel, in the official timeline he doesn't succeed… He can't conjure Dave's ghost… But in the 60s in season 2, Klaus starts a cult called Destiny's Children (yes named after the band Destiny's Child), and Dave visits after Klaus embarrassingly professes his love for Dave who doesn't know him (he gets punched by Dave, then Klaus relapses). And then that's their last meeting before Klaus loses Dave again forever, because Klaus can't stop him from enlisting in the war 😞
Oh boy that was long. Anyway, Five! AKA the Boy. Five is just Five because in the comics he left before they all got names, but in the show we don't know (because they were named already by the time he left), a lot of people say it's because he's very analytical and preferred the number name. His powers are jumping through space and time. Five also has one of the saddest backstories 😞 When he was 13 (10 in the comics), he ran away from home because Reggie wouldn't let him practise his time travelling ability. He ended up in 2019, but there was an apocalypse. And poor little 13-year-old Five found his dead adult siblings and buried them with his bare hands. He spent more than 40 years alone there (he couldn't jump back because Reggie was right, he couldn't control his time travelling powers well enough), barely surviving, and he became an alcoholic while he was there, but it's not really mentioned, just implied. He did have a mannequin, Delores, who was his wife, and he hallucinates(?) her speaking to him. One day, a woman named the Handler showed up and invited him to be an assassin with the Commission, and in return, he'd be able to go back to his family when he'd done his full term of service. The Commission was like Marvel's TVA, when there was a disturbance in the proper timeline, the Commission sent someone to kill someone in order to get the timeline back to normal. Five was their best assassin. Then on one mission, he didn't kill who he was supposed to and instead used the time travelling briefcase to get back to just a few days before the apocalypse to warn his siblings and get them to help him stop it. But he made an error with his calculations and accidentally got put back in his 13-year-old body (in the comics the error was which time he ended up in, he wanted to go back to his 10-year-old body and go back to that time but he ended up just a few days before the apocalypse).
(splitting this up cuz it's too many characters)
Now Number Six, Ben, the Horror. I forgor I was gonna talk about him in Klaus' section but that stuff can go here! Ben's powers were these tentacles in his stomach called the Horror. He hated them. He was such a soft guy but he had these deadly tentacles that would horrifically rip people to bits. He died when he was 16 during something called the Jennifer Incident. We don't yet know what actually happened. Then he spent his whole death hanging around Klaus, which, well, sucked. He tried to get Klaus to improve his life but Klaus never listened so he was stuck watching him make the same mistakes over and over again. Klaus can't see most ghosts when he's high, but he can see Ben for some reason. A lot of people say he never can't see Ben, but my original headcanon was that because Ben and Klaus are so close, Klaus can still see him longer than the other ghosts, but eventually if he's high enough, he'll disappear too. But now in the fanfiction I write I usually just go with Ben never disappearing cuz I see that most. Also I forgot to mention, Klaus has more powers that he learns about when he gets sober for Dave! He can make ghosts corporeal and visible! (he's also immortal) So during his cult days, he does fancy tricks like making Ben corporeal but not visible while Ben lifts him up, so it looks like he's floating (in the comics he can float on his own). Near the end of season 2, Ben finally leaves for the next phase of the afterlife. Now I could talk about season 3 Ben who's a completely different person and is part of the Sparrow Academy, but I don't feel like that today lol.
Finally we have Number Seven, Viktor, the White Violin. His powers were suppressed by medication for most of his life and he was told he was ordinary because Reggie was scared of him. So for his whole childhood, he was left out by all his siblings and never went on missions. As an adult, he wrote the book "Extra Ordinary: My Life as Number 7", which his siblings despised because he revealed family secrets, and in headcanons, he said awful things about each of his siblings. In 2019, he met Leonard, who manipulated him and made him discover his powers because Leonard secretly had Reggie's book of notes on each of the Umbrellas. Because he was no longer on his medication, Viktor actually felt all his feelings. Decades of fury broke out and he ended the world by playing the violin. Also, his clothes, eyes, and violin turned white during this, hence the name 'The White Violin'. In season 2, he meets Sissy and they both sort of realise they're lesbians. Then between seasons 2 and 3, Viktor's actor, Elliot Page, came out as trans, so Viktor came out in season 3. It's the best part of season 3 in my opinion (it made me cry in a good way).
I was going to infodump about Will Wood too but this is way too long 😭 Maybe another time. One thing I will say is Will is very Klaus core which is what got me into him and his music 😄 Anyway, I highly doubt anyone read all of this, but if you did, yay! If you have any questions or wanna learn about Will Wood, I'd be more than happy to answer 😄
Oh @utgard that was such a joy to read through - I'm also a big UA fan!! Reading through your run down has made me want to do a re-watch! Klaus is also my favourite, and when Elliot's character Viktor came out as trans in the show, it totally made me cry happy tears too 😭 I should really read the comics as well, are they pretty much the same as the show or has the show just used the comics as a kind of starting point?
Yes you should read the comics 😄 I prefer the show but the comics are still good! (I also definitely recommend You Look Like Death, Klaus' spin-off, which is my favourite, and if you get the whole volume as one thing it has a foreword by Robert Sheehan!) The comics are quite different to the show, I mentioned some of the differences in my ramble, but even the plot is fairly different. I don't wanna give too much away though so I won't say anything else
