Star Signs - Writing Help

TIP ONE - Hargreeves Siblings Fics

Hargreeves Siblings Fics

In The Umbrella Academy fics, it is very common for the OC to be a member of the titular academy. I, personally, am of two minds on these types of fics.

On one hand, I find it the best way to explore the story of TUA. While romance does exist — especially in season 2 — the story is, at it's heart, about a family. A broke, traumatized family. More over, it's very closed off. The only main characters are the family and it's near impossible to add in others. In season 1 and 3 because it's entirely based on the family, and season 2 anyone introduced there cannot follow out of the 60s.

Basically, it's the easiest and best way into the plot.

On the other hand, though? I tend not to read them a lot. Because they're very rarely are explored to their full potential.

So, I guess, that's what this is for. To help explore this idea to it's fullest.

Incest

I'm just going to be honest with you — just don't do it. I know it's so popular in Wattpad because almost every fic is focused on romance. But beyond the fact it's incest, it seems to take away the point of making them siblings at all. When people write incest fics, they end up in a weird dichotomy where they're both supposed to be treated as siblings and things impact as if they're siblings, and often the OC even calls everyone but their love interests their siblings, but the OC is never allowed to bond with them as siblings. They always have to insist their not, always keep them at arms length, so we never get real relationship development.

See, here's the thing, no matter how writers pretend otherwise, they are siblings and do consider each other siblings. In fact, saying otherwise goes against the entire point — that despite Reginald's attempt to dehumanize and isolate them, or keep them from bonding, they did become a family.

But you want romance? I say that because it seems most people do — ignore if you really don't. There are some pretty easy ways to fix this.

If a Hargreeves love interest is a must, then...just don't make a Hargreeves OC. They can be a friend from outside, and since Reginald didn't adopt all of super powered children, they can still have powers.

If making a Hargreeves OC is a must, then you can make your own love interest. Write an OC for them to have tension with. Maybe even start them off in a relationship. Of course, this requires a little more work. You need to make your own character to have them in a relationship with. You'll need to write new scenes to build that relationship. However, ultimately, it will add to your story more than incest will.

Numbers

There seems to be two places people mainly put their OC — Number Zero and Number Eight. Which makes sense. Those are where you can put them without having to adjust any other numbers. Personally, just stick with number eight.

The is that the numbers have meanings to the family. Luther is Number One because he's the leader, those sorts of thing. If it's number eight, then they just for the number because that's when they were adopted. With number zero you would need a specific reason for them to get what is pretty much a number outside the counting system — since it would come before one, but they wouldn't be the leader, and on top of that zero isn't usually included in the counting system. When you make your character number zero, it gives off the vibe that there's a reason.