#it’s a shitshow

[stvrchaser]

second chances

( pairing ) : sparrow!ben hargreaves x umbrella!gn reader 

( about ) : the brellies lost ben, but the sparrows lost the reader. the two reunite, but ben doesn’t seem so eager to catch up.

( warnings ) : angst, they actually hate each other – ben is a pain in the ass, the reader is no better, no happy ending bc they never resolve the problem… happy reading!

( words ) : 1800

( note ) : the person who requested this scenario asked for angst and i took that personally… anyway, the dialogue popped up in my head and i just had to write it down. i didn’t specify whether the feelings are romantic or not, so it’s really up to interpretation. also, i think this is the first work i’ve written in the past tense… no clue why i did that but my brain just wouldn’t have it any other way. i hope you guys don’t mind (but please leave your thoughts. i might keep writing in past tense in the future, if you guys prefer it)

*** also im really sorry about any duplicated paragraphs below the cut! i have trouble with this every time but i just can’t seem to get the formatting right :(

People don’t change overnight — everyone knows that. A person is too complex to turn over a new leaf in such a short span of time. Still, you dared to hope.

Things had gone well last night, all things considered. With the influence of alcohol and some newfound optimism for the newly-weds, Ben Hargreeves — the one who seemed to suck the life out of everyone whose oxygen he breathed — had been surprisingly tolerable. You’d hoped for it to last.

A stupid assumption, really.

From the way he stepped out of the elevator, alone, you should have known better than to keep your hopes up.

“Hey. You’re awake,” you greeted him, careful not to sound too chipper. Every second spent with him was calculated; each step held the potential to destroy the progress you’ve made, if any.

“Hey. You’re awake,” you greeted him, careful not to sound too chipper. Every second spent with him was calculated; each step held the potential to destroy the progress you’ve made, if any.

Situated by the kitchen counter, you made the best of what you had to cure a hangover — just a variation of tea, coffee, milk, sugar, and water. You supposed it made sense that your options were so limited. One can’t exactly go grocery shopping when most of the world is in ruins. You poured Ben a cup of tea, anyway. “Is Klaus on his way down?”

“How am I supposed to know?” he snapped. Whatever had been left of you that hoped things would change for the better suddenly retreated. It was as if he’d taken a needle to puncture your hypothetical bubble.

“Oh.” You tried not to sound too bitter. “Sorry. I assumed you guys patched things up after last night. You were practically attached at the hip.”

“There’s nothing to ‘patch up.’ We don’t even know each other.” He was being particularly nasty, spitting words like venom. You refused to stoop down to his level.

“Here. Have some tea,” you offer, setting the cup in front of him. Then, to lighten the mood, you tried to joke. “I don’t think the timeline changed your tastebuds, too.” He didn’t react, at first.

Seconds later, the change in him was almost palpable. It flashed through his eyes and coursed through him with such intensity that you swore you felt something in him snap.

It made him furious that you knew he preferred to take tea over coffee. Even worse, you knew exactly how to brew it. Except, of course, you didn’t know how he takes his tea. He’d never told you that. Well, not this version of you. You knew how to make Ben – the other Ben – his tea. This was just another excuse to compare the two of them again.

“Could you idiots stop smothering me?” He pushed the cup aside, a trail of steam left in its wake. The familiar hint of bergamot was intoxicating. Haunting. It flooded his senses, and while its scent was something he normally welcomed, the circumstance had made it strangely unsettling.

“We’re just trying to get to know you.” That was familiar, too – the infuriating, confounding, expected tone of compassion. One he hadn’t heard in years.

“Take the hint! I don’t want to get to know you. Any of you. I was drunk last night. Klaus kept bothering me. If I was sober, I wouldn’t have—”

Your blood boiled with fury to match his own. The personal jabs at yourself were bad enough, but there was something about the insults directed elsewhere — toward Klaus, of all people — that was simply unacceptable.

“That’s not fair,” you cut him off, your voice suddenly changed. You didn’t sound quite angry, but determined to get your defense across. “Klaus was trying to—”

“I don't care!” His fists slammed against the counter, the teacup trembling as he did. It creates a ripple, resembling that of a storm and the strong wind which might disturb the sea. Had you not been in the eye of the storm, it might have been mesmerizing. “It doesn’t seem like the rest of your siblings do, either. It’s just you and Klaus. You can stop pretending to give a shit. Maybe that’ll get him off my back.”

“Fine,” you surrendered. You meant it this time. “I’ll leave you alone. Just… go easy on Klaus, alright?” But Ben’s mouth kept plowing through your patience, like he didn’t believe you were willing to admit defeat so easily.

That was one thing they didn’t have in common, this stranger and your friend. Your Ben would have been smart enough to keep his mouth shut.

“You don’t even know me. I’m not your Ben. I’m not pathetic—”

“Stop it.” Your rage punctured through your patience, bleeding out in continuous droplets, steady like the ticking of a clock. “You can say whatever you want about the rest of us, but I won’t let you ruin what we have left to remember him by. Everybody loved Ben. And the fact that they were trying to get to know you meant they could have loved you, too.” You stopped yourself to draw a breath, to express your disbelief and to keep your voice steady. “Hell, they probably still do. It doesn’t matter that you’ve been a dick this entire time. Right now, you’re the closest thing we have.” The explanation only upset him.

“You sure have a fucked up way of showing it. When you walked into the Academy, what were you planning to do? Erase us out of existence? And now that you can’t do that you’re trying to play nice so we’ll do whatever you say? You don’t love me — whatever that means to you people. You probably didn’t even love your Ben.”

You had the urge to send the steaming cup flying into him so that he might feel the way his words burn. You settle and retaliate in the closest fashion.

“I’m not playing some sort of game here. We’re not trying to manipulate you into believing that you’re better off on our side. You have a family. I get that. But have you considered that, maybe, it’s so difficult to believe that we loved you in another timeline because you’ve never felt loved like that here?” Ben tensed, and you knew he considered the possibility. You knew you hurt him, too.

“You’ll say anything to convince me, won’t you?”

Maybe you would have. Maybe, you would stoop so low to exploit his grief just so he could acquaint himself with the guilt and misery you’ve suffered — agony he couldn’t care less about unless, perhaps, he learned to suffer it too.

“You want proof? All of us left the Academy the moment we could. It didn’t matter that we had nothing to our name or… or that didn’t know anything about the world. We left because there wasn’t any reason to stay. But we fell apart way before that. Do you know why? It’s because one of us died. Our Ben died. It was bad enough when Five disappeared, but at least we could hope he was somewhere out there. We could hope that we might see him again. We buried Ben’s body. And we were so distraught that we let it tear us apart. We would have done anything to have him back, even for just a day. We still want to, to make up for every year we wasted when he was around and didn’t prove to him that we loved him. We would do anything to make up for every year we’ve grieved after we lost him. If you’d just give us the chance, we could show you.”

“No! You leave me out of this. You fucked up the first time around. That’s on you. I’m not gonna be your second chance or whatever to make you feel better about yourselves. You’re just upset because we pulled ourselves together.”

His words struck hard, leaving lacerations the size of rivers in jagged topography. Had the damage been physical, you were sure it would have bled you to death. But it wasn’t. Somehow, that made it worse.

Somehow, bearing the truth in mind prolonged a bleeding heart. And it wouldn’t stop so long as you lived.

“You know what, you’re right. I’m pretty fucking upset about that, too.” Ben looked surprised. You thought it might have been the only expression you’d ever seen on him, aside from bitterness. “I died in this timeline, didn’t I? I died for the same reason you did. But look at all of you.” You might have laughed. Or sobbed. But a noise escaped you for just a split second, and Ben seemed to realize what you were suggesting. “The Sparrow Academy stays standing, even after what happened to me, didn’t it? I’m the one you didn’t care about.”

“Don’t turn this around.”

“No,” you hiss through gritted teeth. “You don’t get to belittle my family because we miss our brother. You don’t get to think you’re so much better when the only reason you’ve gotten this far is because you don’t give a shit about anyone else.” You let your tears fall, but your demeanor never faltered, not even as you approached him, eyes ablaze. “Being cold and heartless might have given you an upper hand, but that does not make you better than me.”

He leaned closer, still seated on the stool. Mocking. With only a marble countertop setting you feet apart, the end of the world wasn’t consuming the rest of the world outside. 

Damn the Kugelblitz, really. The end of the world should have started in that room.

“No, but it doesn’t change the fact that you’re all weak. You never stood a chance. You were always going to fall apart.”

“At least I’m trying to get it together. I’m trying to piece my family back together. I tried to get to know you because I thought, somewhere in there, I could find Ben. My Ben. I just wanted my family whole again. But you? You don’t even care that I’m here.”

He shouldn’t, he thought. It didn’t matter that you and the Y/N he knew had so much in common — more than he and the other Ben, anyway. You weren’t the same. Not really. You never would be.

“Because you’re not Y/N. They would have never been so pathetic.” 

You let out a laugh, dispensed in short breaths, each of which seemed to force him to sink lower into his seat.

“And I’m sure they trusted you with their life, didn’t they?” 

Your voice sounded patronizing, but held a greater cruelty than you imagined. While impossible to envision, you had meant to this stranger as much as Ben had meant to you. Suggesting that the sentiment wasn’t returned… 

Well, it would haunt him as Ben’s death haunted you. 

“I’m sure they felt comfortable enough, safe enough, to be vulnerable around you. A cold, selfish bastard.”

“You don’t know anything,” his voice trembled. He looked pale. Undone.

Distraught.

You delivered the final blow.

“I know that no version of myself would have ever trusted, much less loved, someone like you.”

#recovering from a writing block #of course the first thing i write is angst #neither of them are cooperating #it’s a shitshow #the umbrella academy #sparrow ben x y/n #sparrow ben x you #sparrow ben x reader #ben hargreeves x reader #ben hargreeves x you #angst #no happy ending #tua netflix #netflix

[the-irrelevant-trumpeter]

me and my friends, watching all the drama go down at school because we just keep to ourselves and have nothing to do with it

#anyway our two school captains and one of the vice captains were in a love triangle situation #but now the two guys hate the girl and each other #and the other vice is just chilling ig #(except she’s a bitch so) #seriously our captains have each other blocked on every social #it’s a shitshow

[quietwingsinthesky]

Actually you know what, funny side note from my s6 AU series: Dean/Raphael team-up happens up until the point where Dean gets Sam & Adam back because Dean’s logic is “oh well we only agreed to team up to get what we wanted out of the Cage. There’s no actual bond between us. Raphael would have done the same thing if Michael got out without Sam & Adam. Gee I wonder why I feel like shit all of a sudden must be unrelated to me ignoring Raphael’s calls and ditching them after spending a good half a year being emotionally intimate with them.”

And then Sam & Adam start being Weird and Dean goes. “Fuck I should have kept contact with Raphael. Something is deeply wrong with these two and I have no one to discuss it with”

#meanwhile Sam & Adam summoning Raphael like: heyyy so. about the cage. #Raphael realizing Dean hasn’t told them about working together #and Raphael is mad and petty and so doesn’t say anything either #and Sam & Adam seem much more reasonable and helpful than Dean (even if they’re both insisting Lucifer has to be freed too) #whatever Raphael will deal with that later. getting Michael out is more important #Sam & Adam working with Dean’s ex-queerplatonic soulmate to open the deepest pit of hell #Dean is oblivious and suffering because of a situation caused by him being so emotionally stunted #Castiel & Crowley in the background doing hot girl shit for Castiel’s ‘become god’ plan #Michael and Lucifer in the cage fighting again because they r bad at communication without buffers (ie their humans) #it’s a shitshow #spn #supernatural #writing

[heritageposts]

Translation: What a shitshow. This years Eurovision has gone to hell. And it's first and foremost the EBU's fault.

Also, excerpt from the same article:

Throughout the course of the Eurovision Song Contest, the EBU has acted as if they live in a parallel universe. Eurovision is one thing, the world outside something else. The EBU has stuck its head in the sand. Shoved the problem under the rug. Held their hands over their ears and shouted LALALALALA. They appear to have done everything they can to pretend it's possible to hold an apolitical event in a world that's on fire. We have come together to be "united by music", they say, but the sharpshooters on Malmö's rooftops have nothing to do with us! In its struggle to remain apolitical, the EBU has become like a small fascist state in itself, where the artists' space for expression and action has been reduced as much as the undergarments of the Spanish dancers. It is reprehensible.

Reminder again to BOYCOTT EUROVISION 🇵🇸

Don't watch, don't vote.

#from the river to the sea palestine will be free #eurovision #boycott eurovision #also for those not following any esc updates the contest is completely imploding on itself rn #it really is a shitshow #headline on NRK (the norwegian broadcaster of ESC) is writing that that they think several countries might withdraw #and the contest begins in like... three hours?

[rotzaprachim]

too many conspiracy theories about oil in gaza and not enough practical understanding of the fact that bibi netanyahu and his cronies have extreme personal reason to keep this war going as long as possible and at any level of civilian cost because the moment it's over he'll no longer be a wartime prime minister and will have to face the repercussions for being a massive reason why the october 7 attacks ended up with a body count as high was it was

#he is not popular. he has extreme reason to keep it going #he doesn't give a fuck about anyone in gaza but you've got to understand he's been massively implicated in the shitshow that was oct 7 #and he's refused to care about the hostages at allll #it is in his and his party's personal interests to keep this going as long as possible

[true-bean]

#twitter #butch #welcome to the shitshow

[autumn-warrior]

I’m gonna go stress-cry in the shower, does anyone need anything while i’m there?

#i’m so fucking stressed about work #and i’ve been back for 5 days??? #it’s a shitshow

[juliuscaesar-txt]

elon musk went fucking feral

#i was never on twitter #still sometimes catch up with whatever’s going on there and oh fuck #it’s a shitshow #actually glad to use the hellsite

[tiniesttinsel]

The only thing hotter than this font were the hellfires of Malmö 2024

[un-memed version under the cut]

#traditional drawing #eurovision #boycott eurovision #baby lasagna #joost klein #käärijä #boy oh boy was it a shitshow #at least i can doodle these guys as therapy

[superchat]

this isnt even a bit, its just true

#gsdfkgsjdhflgjhsdf #what a shitshow #silent hill

[o-vera-nalyzing]

junior year is my favorite season of fantasy high yet cause it really showcases the fact that the bad kids act exactly how a group of six comedians would act if they somehow got really popular in high school

#which like. obviously #but idk i just think it’s funny cause it’s like lemonade mouth #like the nerds and theater kids and other people who would never be really popular normally just get really fucking popular for no reason #and it’s a shitshow but somehow they make it work #d20 fhjy #fhjy #dimension 20 #fantasy high #lemonade mouth #adaine abernant #fabian aramais seacaster #gorgug thistlespring #riz gukgak #kristen applebees #fig faeth #original overanalyzing

[lyoneve]

“Lover, where do you live? In the sky, in the clouds, in the ocean?”

#our flag means death #ofmd fanart #edward teach #stede x ed #i started this painting a month ago but january was a shitshow so it took a while to finish #it was pretty therapeutic to work on tho #i especially enjoyed drawing the tentacles #i sure hope this doesn’t awaken anything in me👀 #my art #blackbeard #ofmd #gentlebeard #blackbonnet #who said i was finished with the stede/ed angst?? #oh right it was buttons #well he lied!!

[superfruitland]

one of those nights.

a mini comic very loosely based on a conversation i had with @vangh17a a while back. thanks for being a wonderful distraction, you goober /aff /p

#tc*st buzz off #rottmnt #rise of the tmnt #rottmnt leonardo #rottmnt donatello #disaster twins #lee's art #get loved idiot /p #← that extends to all of my mutuals/friends #you're all amazing and i thank you all for being here with me thru this shitshow i'm in rn <3 #tumblr wasnt cooperating so this is an hour late ajdkgn

[hedgehog-moss]

On the eve of planned nationwide demonstrations, I want to offer an overview of the ways the protests in France are being handled by the government so far (and if what you’ve heard is that this is over a 2 year increase in retirement age, please do take a minute to read this post to get a better idea of the context)

1. In Paris on March 21, a CRS (cop) threw a tear gas grenade in the air towards protesters (they’re supposed to throw them near the ground); the grenade landed and exploded on a protester’s head. (x)

2. Massive use of tear gas at every protest, on this vid from March 17 you can see the Place de la Concorde (largest public square in Paris) drowned in tear gas. (x)

3. In Paris on March 20, video of a CRS with a baton hitting protesters who are cowering against a wall (x)

4. CRS grabbing demonstrators in (illegal) chokeholds and dragging them by the neck (x)

5. In Strasbourg on March 21, police trapped about a hundred protesters in a narrow alleyway and tear gassed them from both ends of the alley so they couldn’t escape; an asthmatic person lost consciousness; people who lived there opened their doors and let the protesters enter their houses to get to safety. (x)

6. In Paris on March 20, a CRS shot a protester with an LBD riot gun (rubber bullets) and shouted at him “Pick up your balls now, fucker” (x) (an allusion to the several instances in recent years of protesters having testicle injuries from LBD guns - and non-protesters too, in 2015 a Muslim teenage boy lost a testicle after being shot by a cop with rubber bullets when he was shooting firecrackers in a park on July 14th / Bastille day). A few seconds later in the video another CRS tells the one who said that “careful there’s a camera”

7. In Paris on March 21, a group of 4 or 5 CRS who were dispersing demonstrators, threw a homeless man to the ground who had been shouting at them (hard to hear what he said, the first sentence is “How can you do this job?”), kicking him in the head while he was down and mocking him when he couldn’t get up, calling him a ‘fatso’ and ‘sack of shit’ (the woman you can hear at the end of the video is yelling at the CRS to help the guy get up and telling them “do you lack humanity to this point?”) (x)

8. That same day Macron gave a speech on TV in which he said “the crowd [= the protesters] has no legitimacy against the people, who express themselves through their elected representatives” even though he passed his reform without a vote from the elected representatives—and considering polls show the vast majority (>70%) of the country is against the reform, the “people” and the “crowd” are one and the same. Today (March 22) he gave another TV speech in which he compared what’s happening in France right now to the January 6 US capitol attack.

9. During today’s speech Macron also said “minimum-wage workers have never seen such an increase in purchasing power” which is a mad thing to say in the middle of a cost of living crisis, and he used the term ‘smicard’ in this sentence— the minimum wage in France is called the SMIC and smicard is a derogatory word for minimum-wage workers. He decried the “extreme, unregulated violence” of protesters but had nothing to say about the unregulated violence of his police forces, and instead stoked the fire with contemptuous language that angers people the day before a planned mass protest.

10. Hundreds of protesters (and even people who weren’t protesting but just nearby) have been arrested and taken into custody in “preventative arrests”; the vast majority were then released due to “absence of an offence.” Here’s a thread by a woman who was arrested in Paris along with 11 other women (one was a 17 year-old girl) for taking part in a peaceful protest. They spent 20 hours all in one cell, were only allowed to go to the toilet if they left the door open, were frisked and had their fingerprints and DNA samples taken. Also, in Nantes on March 14, four young women age 18-20 reported having been sexually assaulted by police during body searches while participating in a student protest.

And a thread by a 19-year-old Black student who spent 48 hours in custody last week along with 4 other people who were arrested in Paris as they were walking down the street. Lots of racist shit in this thread. He had already spent 14 hours in custody after a protest a couple of days before, and ended up being charged for refusing to have his DNA samples taken.

This article in Le Monde from yesterday (it’s in French and unfortunately paywalled) talks about people who took part in last week’s protests having been handcuffed and searched in their underwear then released free of charges the next day; a lawyer comments how this is clearly meant to discourage people from demonstrating. The article also mentions two 15 year old Austrian boys who were on a class trip to Paris and were rounded up with a group of demonstrators, so the Austrian embassy had to intervene. (Journalist mentions sarcastically “We don’t know if these high schoolers’ DNA samples were taken.”)

11. There are videos from various protests of journalists wearing the press armband being threatened, hit, or shoved to the ground by police. In Montpellier yesterday, a journalist took this photo as a CRS was pointing his rubber bullet gun at his head and another was running at him with his baton telling him “I don’t give a fuck about your press card” —the photographer managed to run away. (x)

This is all from the past ten days (and mostly from the past two days) and far from an exhaustive list, there's so much outrageous stuff happening (like the Minister of the Interior lying and saying participating in an undeclared demonstration is illegal, when it’s not) but it gives a good idea of what French democracy looks like under Macron. The above photo says it all really. And thank you to all the people who continue taking part in the protests and strikes.

#frpol #police violence #not sure what to tag this as #i know it's very far from the usual theme of this blog but people should know what a shitshow this country is rn #all the photos are from the tweets that i've linked

[hollowblossom]

personally, if my mother chose some old ass elf dude over me, i’d be pretty upset about it

#laura bailey #vex’ahlia #vex’ahlia de rolo #jester lavorre #imogen temult #critical role #her relationship with mothers is. hm. a spectrum for sure #also yes i’m aware imogen doesn’t want to kill her mother but after the shitshow that was C3x51… it’s not looking good for lilliana 💀

[true-bean]

Proposal at the Boston vs Montreal PWHL game May 4, 2024

#I nearly CRIED #I tried adding this to my post but I could not (devastating) #pwhl #hockey #lesbians #lesbian #wlw #Boston pwhl #Montreal pwhl #video #welcome to the shitshow