#tw: guilt

[in-love-with-writing-whump]

"Whumpee asked for you specifically, A. I'll let you in to see them," Whumpee's medic and lover, Caretaker, said.

A couldn’t believe it. Whumpee wanted to see them? Before their best friend, B? After they sacrificed themself and were tortured by Whumper for months because of them?

They followed Caretaker, refusing to let them down, even as their face burned with shame, guilt gnawing at their insides.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Leader Whumpee sat in the wheelchair, whiteboard sitting across their blanketed lap as Caretaker opened the door for A, the younger, sibling-like member of Team. A's breath hitched, eyes widening.

"They’re okay, A," Caretaker assured them. "Their throat is still healing, and they're still weak, but they're going to be okay."

A nodded, Caretaker letting out a deep breath. "Now, if you excuse me, I'm going to give the two of you some privacy. I have some things to attend to." The door shut behind them, leaving A standing before Whumpee, unable to meet their eyes at the sight of matching wounds from Whumper.

Whumpee's eyes burned with the shame of being unable to even give A a hug, or tell them that none of this was their fault. They attempted a smile, scribbling on their board.

"I missed you."

A's eyes welled with tears. "I'm so sorry, Whumpee," they whispered, hands curling into fists.

Whumpee shook their head vigorously, scribbling big letters on the board before tapping it when their marker. A looked up, hiccuping when they saw the message.

"It’s not your fault. They would've just killed you and taken me anyways. It's not your fault."

As A sank to their knees, they wrapped their arms around Whumpee in a hug, holding back tears as they pressed their face into the blanket.

[dhoom-dhaam-diaries]

When Life Gives You Tangerines - Episode 6

** warning: spoilers **

I always knew my family dynamic was fucked up. But I don’t think I fully comprehended how normalized toxicity was to me.

I’m watching When Life Gives You Tangerines right now, and in this week’s episodes, Gwan-sik (Park Bo-gum’s character) and Ae-sun(IU) go through a devastating summer as they lose their youngest child.

For context, there is a terrible storm and Ae-sun hears that her daughter fell off her bike and hurt herself. As-sun runs to her daughter and tells the neighbor to keep an eye on her sons, but the neighbor doesn’t hear her. The oldest son tells the youngest to stay in the house and follows his mother. Gwan-sik was out working and wasn’t in the house. Unfortunately, the youngest ventures out and is swept up by the storm. 

Ae-sun and Gwan-sik spiral into guilt, mourning their child’s death. What forces them to move on is when they realize that their children feel just as guilty for their brother’s death. Ae-sun and Gwan-sik reassure them multiple times that they’re not at fault and that they’re not mad at them for how things turned out.

And that simple reassurance hit me harder than the child’s death. I was sobbing. Because I know, had this been my parents, they would never let me live this down. They would constantly remind me that it was my fault for not taking care of my siblings, or for getting hurt, etc. I would have had to carry this burden with me for the rest of my life.

I know there are loving parents out there. But I do not think I will ever truly know what that feels like.

The love I experienced was always conditional.

[system-vent]

tw: slight cursing , dormancy (?) idk. im so tired.

sometimes we'll see videos of when we were younger, or pictures and i always feel like we failed to protect that little kid who was once here. she isn't here anymore, we know that for sure. and it hurts so much to think about, because she had dreams and aspirations and wanted to be someone, even if she was so small and innocent. i want to say im sorry to her. we failed to protect you. you deserved the world and more and you deserved to be a kid. im sorry we couldnt save your childhood, im sorry. im sorry that you had that ripped away from you. someone should have been there for you, someone should have protected you. but they hadnt. im sorry. i wish you can have had the chance to grow up into the person you wanted to be. i wish you had a chance in this world, but we were dealt a crappy hand and i just wish you were given chance, an opportunity. but you werent, and im sorry. i feel so much guilt for it, its so unfair. she deserved so much better, we deserved so much better. but she didnt have a chance when i think about it. she was so small, and innocent, and tiny. so young and i cant bear to think about it for too long because she was a living breathing person and she had her traits that made her unique and shes gone because the adults in her life failed her. i wish i could have done better.

.

[vvaywardhunter]

I’m sorry. Did I step on your moment? (based on this scene)

@unheald

Dean hadn't really intended to fall in with Rosita and her people when they met, but he could admit it was nice to have a few more people he could trust at his back, a little more safety in numbers when things got hairy. He'd had his doubts about Alexandria from the start, and hardly a day passed that he didn't think about bailing, friends or not. In his experience, anything that seemed too good to be true probably was, and he and Sam had always done fine on their own.

Then there was Negan. Dean still probably could have walked away if he hadn't gone out of his way to make it personal from the start. There had been something deeply satisfying about watching Rosita point a gun at him, even if it had all promptly gone to shit after that. It had taken two of Negan's guys to hold him back while he had a knife on her, and if he was being honest, he hadn't expected either of them to live through it.

Of course, Negan somehow managed to make it feel worse than dying would have. "Pretty sure that was your moment. I'll never forget you pointing a gun at that prick for as long as I live." The corner of his mouth turned up in a smile, but it was hard to feel very good about it with the dirt from digging Olivia's grave still under his fingernails. Dean had killed more monsters and walkers and humans than he could count at this point, but there was a very specific cruelty to Negan's kills that he could never replicate. He always hurt the people who least deserved it.

[thorfromwork]

⚡ @fortitudina liked for a starter

Thor had failed before on a fairly grand scale. Just look at the fact that Asgard as a planet no longer existed--and yes, he could argue all he wanted that it was a people, not a place, but that didn't erase the fact that the place itself was gone because he'd failed to protect it. That was almost trivial compared to his failure to defeat Thanos. He could still taste it in his mouth, bitter and burning, even months after the fact. If he'd thought chopping that ugly purple head off would make him feel better, he was mistaken. There was little satisfaction in it, and it didn't change anything. All those people were still gone.

It would never be an easy decision to leave his people, but at heart, Thor was a warrior more than a king. Brunnhilde was better suited to it, and he knew she would be a fair and just ruler. He couldn't sit in one place and let the guilt shrivel him from the inside out. The universe might be down half its population, but there were still going to be people who needed help. He sometimes joined the Guardians of the Galaxy, sometimes went solo, and now he found himself alongside Captain Marvel. They should have been celebrating another success, but try as he might, the mood never stayed with him long. He'd stepped away from the revelry for some fresh air, the clouds rumbling distantly with his mood.

[xdefendingandy]

andy + matt

@defectivexfragmented

A little over a year after the deaths of his wife and son, and Andy had relocated from Massachusetts to New York City and more or less settled into his new job. The firm was a significant step down from District Attorney, but at this point, he was grateful to be practicing at all. It hadn’t been a sure thing in the aftermath, and losing his license might have been the thing that finally tipped him over the edge. He’d been dangerously near it for a while there anyway, until he realized he had to become someone else to survive. Gone was the joint career and family man, and the one that remained was a little rougher around the edges, a little more prone to gritted teeth and bruised knuckles and abrupt ends to conversations.

After being at the epicenter of a small-town scandal that nevertheless made national news, he appreciated the anonymity afforded by a larger city, although it was far from foolproof. The renewed media circus over the one-year anniversary had involved a few bottles of whiskey and at least one patched-over hole in the wall of his apartment. It had mercifully died down except for the occasional paparazzo who didn't have anything better to do, but Andy gave them nothing. Everything he’d intended to say about it had already been made public.

The fact that his statements barely scratched at the surface of the truth was irrelevant. He wasn't sorry for the lies he'd told, not to the press or the courts, not even to his family. The truth had killed them, the weight of it too much for them to hold, and those bonds were more fragile than he'd ever imagined. If there was a single moment in all of it that he regretted, it was sharing his doubts with Laurie. He'd been holding everything together until that night, but he'd slipped and let his fear overrule his sense. If he'd just kept his mouth shut, knowing full well she couldn't handle the reality of it, things might have gone differently. Instead, that moment of weakness cost them their lives.

He could die in that wreckage with them, or he could stand up and walk away from it, and for whatever reason, Andy had never been the type to quit, even when he knew he was beaten. His life had narrowed down considerably, his days filled with therapy, swimming and boxing at the gym (the latter a new hobby meant to channel some of that pent-up aggression), and work. It was mostly the worst cases that came his way these days, but he still put everything he had into them. It was maybe the one point of pride he had left, and it filled the endless empty hours to focus his mind on familiar, solvable problems. His success rate was better than it should have been, all things considered, but it wasn't like he had a lot of other things distracting him.

And then there was this. When a case failed to keep his interest and he couldn’t stare down another sleepless night, counting the hours until dawn, he found himself in a bar. It was rarely the same one twice, nothing about his existence right now geared toward making lasting connections. It had been so long since he’d done this one night stand shit, just a couple years in college before he met Laurie and things got serious. It was almost uncanny how easily it came back, picking up strangers and deleting numbers from his phone on the sidewalk as the sun came up. He smiled when he said he wouldn't call to take the sting out of it, but he was never anything less than honest about exactly what it was (if not about who he was, if they didn’t already know). Still, people heard what they wanted to. He didn’t feel guilty about it, but he didn’t feel good about it either, and that was okay. He wasn’t sure he was going to feel good ever again.

This place was new to him and a bit of a dive, which suited him fine. He'd found he could no longer stomach the kind of upscale place where lawyers in nicely pressed suits congregated for happy hour, if he’d ever really had a taste for it. He had nothing to say to those people, and they sure as hell didn't have anything to say to him anymore. Happy hour had long since passed anyway, night having fallen outside the tinted windows. He was on his second drink and had just caught the bartender's attention for a third. "Do you mind? Thanks." He nodded toward the man at the other end of the bar, signaling to send him another of whatever he was drinking as well. A long shot, but fuck it. He was easy on the eyes, and Andy was just buzzed enough to not care if he got punched by a homophobe.

[obsession-withthenight]

⛓️

"It hurts."

‐---

Guilt was an emotion so tied to grief that it was hard to tell them apart. Even when a loss wasn't her fault, she couldn't help blaming herself.

Guilt felt like the photos of three smiling kids. It smelt like the stench of burning warehouses and explosives. It sounded like the words "best friends forever." Like the scrape of metal on a concrete floor. It felt like an empty space in the air where a friend used to be. It sounded like the news anchors announcing Belladonna's latest crime. It looked like the blood of people she couldn't save. It tasted like tears.

(She very much blames herself for not being able to stop Belladonna and thus also for everything Belladonna has done to hurt others. She definitely needs therapy, but she won't get it.)

[timeguardians]

Nightmares: Brianna & Alfred

@palaceofmuses

Alfred stops just inside the doorway, having woken and calmed Brianna down from yet another nightmare late at night.

He smiles gently as he makes his way to the edge of her bed, smoothing the blanket on her before sitting on the nearby chair. "I'm not going anywhere," he promises.

__________________

Bri launches upright, tangled in sheets, with her pallored face dripping in a frigid sweat. Strangled breathes struggle for a release from aching lungs. A release that does not come easily. Shaking uncontrollably Brianna's tiny hand moves to find his.

They're still GONE. Wayne Manor is EMPTY without them. It's a shallow shell, devoid of the vivacious life it once carried.

Two very tangible absences are whispered in every agonizing heartbeat. They're dead and it's HER fault. Her's alone. If Brianna hadn't been so scared of bats or the acrobats at the theater, maybe, just maybe, they'd still be alive. That internalized thought gnaws upon her spirit until it becomes embedded in the marrow of her bones. Tears follow in it's brutal wake.

"It w--wa-- was my fault," the eight year old rasps. "If I wasn't so scared--" If fear hadn't gotten the better of her, they wouldn't be alone. They wouldn't be subjected to this. Alfred would never have had to carry the financial and emotional burden of her misstep.

There is a measure of comfort found in Alfred's steadfast presence. Even more-so when he smooths the tangle of blankets from it's strangle-hold over her small form. Choking on a breath, she softly prods. "Will you read to me?" Of course, she hadn't truly required anyone to read to her since she was four. But the sound of Alfred's voice is what she desperately needed to hear. It alone could drown out the negative one rattling well within her cranium.

[meltedmush]

Sorry! 😭

[vvaywardhunter]

🍻 a local dive bar/pub

@occulticmusings

Losing people on a case was always hard for Dean. It didn't matter if he knew them or not. Obviously, it was harder if he did, but in some ways, watching strangers die left him with even more guilt. They hadn't chosen this life the way hunters did. Most of them didn't even know what was happening to them or why, but the fear on their faces would haunt his nightmares. The monsters were dead, too late to matter. Sometimes he felt more like the cleanup crew than the hero.

He had no intention of celebrating that failure, but if he didn't find a way out of his own head soon, he couldn't be responsible for what happened next. He'd strode into the dive bar--indistinguishable from every dive bar in every small town in every state he'd ever been in--downed three shots, and challenged some rando to a game of pool. Even well on his way to tipsy and still drinking, though he'd switched to beer, Dean was able to smoke him easily, pocketing the money as he leaned on the bar by what looked like a terrifyingly sober Bobby. "I think you need to get on my level."

[petrichal]

I see him sometimes.

same AU as this

[grimmusings]

i’m not scared, not of you. (peter @ whoever)

Answered here! 💜

[xghostspider]

"i’m not scared, not of you."

@nctafraid

Gwen had been living down her reputation on her own Earth ever since she blew her secret cover and went to prison for the death of her world's Peter Parker-- not strictly her fault, since he'd been going super villain at the time, but still something she carried around a lot of guilt for.

Using this Peter's Earth as her vacation home was becoming something of a habit when she needed the break from everyone knowing that Gwen Stacy was Ghost Spider. It meant that all her mistakes were headlined under both names, no escaping from them.

"Well, that makes one of us." Gwen gave a weak smile, her legs kicking back and forth over the edge of the tall building she was perched on. High places always brought her comfort. Fewer threats up there, and from a distance, the city always looked a little nicer.

[tehcherrya]

The house of his spirit crumbles... He is burning... Already burning...

Denethor & His Son Faramir + Ivan the Terrible & His Son Ivan

I have seen many artists' renditions of this painting, yet I have yet to see one with Denethor and Faramir, despite its narrative potential for perfection. So I tasked myself to bring it into existence--

[in-love-with-writing-whump]

TW: Implied Abuse, Strong Language

Caretaker couldn’t find Whumpee anywhere. They'd been searching the seedy part of the city— this is where they lived?— all night after they had stormed out after an argument, and still nothing. Caretaker didn't like this place, all grimy and full of faces that smiled with too many fangs to be human. The bars clamored with the worst type of clientele, and though their coat did little to protect from the cold, and the warmth enticed them, they ignored it.

They heard some murmuring from a small crowd, and their stomach turned to lead. They pawed their way through the crowd, glaring up at the jostling gossipers. They parted through the sea of people, finally able to see.

Whumpee laid there, still dressed in the less-than-winter-appropriate outfit from earlier, blood matted into their hair, skin all scraped up and bruised. One of their eyes appeared swollen shut, blood dripping from their split lip as they trembled in their unconscious state.

Caretaker shoved the people around them back. "Get the fuck out of here! Don't you have places to be?!"

The crowd grumbled but dispersed upon seeing Caretaker's gun. They crouched before Whumpee, cautious not to touch them. They didn’t want to scare them, instead letting Whumpee see their hands.

"Whumpee?"

They let out what sounded like a whimper, eyelids fluttering but never fully opening. Caretaker had a million questions, but sighed, pinching the bridge of their nose. They already knew have the answers, and besides, they weren't going to get much out of them like this anyway.

Caretaker stood up, shrugging off their coat, thankful for the thick top they had on underneath. They laid it over Whumpee, holding back a cry at how small they looked like that. They weren't supposed to be small.

"Whumpee, I'm going to pick you up now. I'm going to bring you home, alright?"

Their face scrunched up, voice too hoarse. "Whumper... No, please..."

Caretaker knelt back down, eyes burning as Whumpee's arm flailed, not hitting anything, just revealing more bruises and cigarette burns.

"I'm here now, Whumpee. Whumper won't hurt you while I'm here. I'm right here."

They gingerly scooped Whumpee up into their arms, wincing at how hollow they felt, like a strong breeze would blow them away. Whumpee's face nestled into Caretaker's shoulder, and as Caretaker carried them back home— their real home— they let that act as the smallest insurance that they might be okay.

[lemoonmers]

It's hurt to yearn for you

thinking about Catholic Soap and his guilt...