A simple writing exercise exploring different yandere types. Not to be taken very seriously as yandere taxonomy.
Warnings: nothing explicitly stated but allusions to (or threats of) stalking, abduction, forced cohabitation, physical restraints, humiliation, infantilization, manipulation, drugging, dub-con, physical abuse, and death (to others). Warnings do not apply to each section. More tame than it sounds.
Word Count: 0.7k
Yandere who treats you like...
...a pet.
Well, not the ideal scenario, but it could be worse. Unless you are dealing with a real piece of work, pets are treated pretty well. You get shelter, food, and enrichment. Despite initial concerns, you also get taken seriously. Experienced owners will be quick to explain that each pet is unique and will act strongly to their own ideals. So by taken seriously, of course, we mean as one would a particularly difficult cat. The entire house will be re-situated to your specific needs and tantrums. Cannot have you chewing on the wires, after all. You get free reign of the house, maybe the yard, maybe even the neighborhood, but do not confuse this for freedom. At the end of the day, pets are kept for the satisfaction of the owner, and it is their name engraved on your collar.
...a toy.
Whether you found yourself in the hands of a dedicated collector or a child throwing a temper tantrum, your prospects are not great. Toys are for playing, not thinking. Wear what they want, maneuver how they want, say what they want. Bisque doll or chew toy, you are their precious little plaything. Learn to become entertaining lest you be thrown out... or worse. Just hope things do not end with you being stored away in the drawer where keepsakes go.
...a mate.
Something like unto a spouse but a step to the left. Strangely, has the potential to be one of the more respectful options. Their expectations are relatively minimal while still holding you in high regard. Let them show off how good of a provider they can be, and in exchange all they ask for is affection and praise and for you to warm their nest. You can get away with a surprising amount of nonsense so long as you avoid actively fighting back. Food not to your liking? Absolutely, they should have done a better job catering to your tastes. Your lodgings not up to snuff? No problem. They can bring you anything you desire. They will even consider taking you to personally pick it out so long as no one attempts to look at or touch you. A good mate earns the love of their other half! Devotion is etched deep into their bones. Just don't expect them to extend that generosity to anyone else.
...something divine.
Your soles baptize the earth to consecrated grounds. Your every whisper a new blessing. Touching you would be sacrilegious, your body is pure and clean and never to be tarnished. Surface level, being worshiped seems safe enough, but there is always the fine print. Black-and-white thinking is strong with this one. Pray that the delusions are built on a strong foundation. Should they turn to sand and wash away, expect every altar to be torched along with it. That which is not holy is deception, and deception is blasphemy, and blasphemy must be cleansed.
...a master.
Your yandere lives to serve. They live to serve you. No task nor request is too outlandish, too small. So, please, ask them for anything. Ask them to kill for you. Careful, though. Do not make the mistake of equating 'servile' with 'submissive'. On paper, you might be the boss, but everyone knows which of you is really in-charge. (And, well, even if your yandere turns out to be on the more compliant side, don't expect them to be reasonable about it.) Sure, you may hold the leash, but who is the one with teeth? No worrying those frail, dainty hands of yours now. Leave the dirty work to your loyal servant.
...like anyone else.
Oh, did you think you were special? Well, if you are, you will never know. Whatever proclivities your yandere gets up to when the lights are off are none of your business. Never mind that the dark room is also your bedroom. It hardly counts if you are too asleep to notice. All the missing trinkets, stolen glances, hidden recordings--you will never truly appreciate how much of your day-to-day is being observed. You might go your entire life failing to notice the specter that haunts you. Perhaps they are your friend, your classmate, your coworker, the grocery clerk... Nod to the stranger on the street and wonder if they are your shadow.
Gift fic for @harmonysanreads, based off of her dream journal posts.
They say touching your soulmate is like waking up from a very deep sleep.
(or, the one where you find a corpse.)
Warnings: yandere dynamics, soft yandere, explicit descriptions of blood and gore, explicit violence (not against Reader), off-screen original character death (not Reader), possessiveness, relationship negotiation, non-specific religious allusions, ambiguous setting (place and time), ambiguous situation, shaking our fists at the gods and fate (standard Phainon nonsense), allusions to Phainon spoilers
Word Count: 1.6k
Blood does not smell the way you had read about in books. There was nothing else to compare. ‘Metallic’ did not pay its due. A lifetime of papercuts and skinned knees carried no true likeness. Fresh raw steak was cleaned and drained before it ever touched your hands. All previous interactions were carefully sanitized.
The pooling fluid might smell metallic, but if it does, it is the least important scent in the room. Sanguine is not a body’s only humor. When perforated, more than red leaks out. The air is stagnant, heavy with musk. Acrid bile and sickly sweet melancholia cloy through the nasal cavities like a macabre heart note.
Blood does not smell the way you had read about in books, but you knew that already. This is not your first time finding a corpse.
At least Death had been swift, you suppose. It had visited quickly and fled just the same. Death had no intention of witnessing the lingering effects. Whoever had once owned the body had not been forced through the abuse of torture. The true enemy of its malice was not as simple as a person. His suffering was not the point. The vessel had been spared no such courtesy.
Its severed tongue had been pinned to the wall, skewered through with scissors. Both hands had been ripped from their sockets, removed as one might unscrew a jar lid. The eyes had been jammed into place—a wild fervor of incisions weaving a blindfold of cartilage and mucus. A rabid animal would have left more behind.
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What is left of the victim is marred beyond recognition, mutilated into something more meat than man. All the same, you know who he is was. Somewhere far behind you, muffled through the chaos, an old clock chimes twice to the hour. Outside, strengthening winds rustle through bare branches. Cooling red blood seeps into the soles of your slippers. On the floor of your shared bedroom, lies the scattered remnants of what was once your soulmate.
He thinks sometimes that he might be resentful.
(or, the one where you are a little too kind.)
Warnings: yandere dynamics, soft yandere, Aventurine's backstory and use of real name, all of the warnings that come with his backstory (if you know, you know), we do not linger on it but it is there, gambling, suicidal ideology, stalking, unreliable narrator, attempted mind games, Reader is hurt (not by violence), implied past abuse against Reader (ambiguous situation), Reader might be manipulative but we cannot trust the narrator... but what if?!, 'came back wrong' trope except the death is metaphorical, L*igi G*lvani
Word Count: 3.4k
Kakavasha is born a single grain of sand. A sliver of chromium quartzite among infinite others. Small, but no less important in the grander design of the desert. A piece of a whole.
He is born into love.
A shattering tears hearth from home. A grain becomes a grit becomes an irritation. He struggles and struggles and struggles until time and effort wear him down into something shining. Into something with edges. Anything deemed unnecessary, dispensable, is whittled away. He is left a remnant of carved facets and mirrored surfaces. What remains is worth showing off. Worth selling.
Whoever he once was dies with a number and a brand. A single bet leaves a corpse’s mouth, and something else takes his place. Wrath wears his skin like a coat. Spite keeps the skeleton upright. Grief keeps the blood pumping.
Aventurine wins the bet, of course. He always does. Blood stained rags make way for bespoke suits. Calloused hands are protected in ink dyed lamb leather. He adorns himself in gold bands and bright colors.
(With great irony, he covers himself in peacock feathers. He means it as a warning, as an omen, but the intent is lost on his marks entirely. They mistake it for opulence or charm. Anyone who would have remembered the significance is no longer watching.)
Observers call it ‘indulgence’, but he knows better. Only the nature of his chains have changed.
In games of chance, there is no tolerance for error. He learns to hide the tremor. He is trained to suppress the flinch. The ever growing familiar sight of sneering faces is met with a radiant smile.
Originally a request for the Holiday 2023 Tarot Request Game.
There was only ever one thing you had held in your hands that was truly yours, and you had refused it a name.
(or, the one where you build a snowman.)
Warnings: yandere dynamics, soft yandere, Reader's family dynamics are not healthy, ambiguous situations regarding forced relationship/marriage
Word Count: 1.2k
It had been a long time since you had thought about youthful things. There had come a point – earlier than comfortable – when the toys had been packed away. Times were hard, and that meant there was no room for the whimsy or the childish. Someone had needed to step up and be responsible.
No matter how much you took on, it could never be enough. You had tended to the housework, the maintenance, the firewood, and the traps. Still, the debt ran so much deeper than you could ever had hoped to imagine.
Destitution had begun long before you were born, and all of your efforts had been like a bucket against flood waters. There was only so much your two hands could manage alone. The rest of you, however?
There had come a night where your family sat you down. You were so handy, they had praised. So useful! So talented! What a wonderful spouse you will make. While no one wanted to use a loaded word like ‘sell’, it was obvious the intent. Someone wanted you, and they were willing to be quite generous about it.
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"can i request playing in the snow with childe..?" - Anon
So long as the metal cuts wood, nothing else matters.
(or, the one where a stranger is dying.)
Warnings: yandere dynamics, soft yandere, discussions of grief and death, implied parental death, implied past child abuse/bad family dynamics, mild implications of stalking, unedited
Word Count: 1.7k
The forest floor is littered in a carpet of mottled yellows and oranges that permeate the air with its apple-scented rot. It is warm in the sun, but you choose a spot in the shade and let the chill nip at your fingers as they strip a branch of its bark. Later you will have to pull the burrs from your sleeves and the ticks from your scalp, but for now you carve.
It is not that you are well-trained. You are not.
Your hands are clumsy, skin nicked and scarred. They tremble with the effort not to tremble. There is only the one blade in your toolbox, and so your choices are limited. You do not care. So long as the metal cuts wood, nothing else matters.
The crunching of boots on leaves announces his presence far in advance, but you do not pretend the intent goes unobserved. A man like him is only noticed when he wants to be.
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It is enough to know it had not always been like this.
(or, the one after the world ends.)
Warnings: yandere dynamics, soft yandere, forced marriage, structural changes to morality due to world events, use of Childe’s real name, brief appearance of Childe's family, there is a baby (baby is an orphan), ambiguous situations, mildly suggestive but nothing happens
Word Count: 2.0k
Hail and pebbles scratch at the windows, which in turn bend and groan under the force of the gales. Wind picks up and, with it, anything not nailed down. The sky churns impatiently with clouds dark and heavy in green, but conditions are not quite right for tunneling. Such storms are common in the Wastelands.
It has been a long time since the final war, and much has been lost to time. Despite the gaps in knowledge, many books managed to survive. It is enough to know it had not always been like this.
Fingertips trace patterns on fogging glass. Though it is inadvisable, you watch the storm from the window seat. You had never before been up so high, never been in a place so extravagant. It had been explained that this building was once a magnificent hotel, yet now repurposed into housing. Of course your husband owns a floor for himself, and another for his parents and siblings. Through his generosity, you are able to sit here – clean, in clothing untattered, and sheltered from the elements. You and the baby.
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Approximately one month ago, you stopped being a white cloud. All it took was ‘one of those’ patients and a bit of suicidal ideology and you have not known peace since.
(or, the one where you get fired.)
Warnings: yandere dynamics, soft yandere, Reader uses dark humor and suicidal ideology as a coping mechanism, Reader is an interning doctor, strong opinions of a failing medical system, treated a little like a medical drama, minor character death, improper use of Fatui NPCs, mentions of gun violence, workplace harassment, side character death (off screen, kind of graphic), actual philosophy about bodies and death, moderate injury through accident, violence as a love language, violence interpreted as a love language (yes this one's different), use of Childe's real name
Note: Implying it is modern day Teyvat and not the real world.
Word Count: 2.5k
This is a liminal place. Exits and new beginnings exist in equal measure. The smell alone is nauseating. Each room blooms its own fragrance of blood and iodine, or intestine and ether. Pilgrims wade from the river stench of rot to the sterile ocean of sanitized linoleum.
Adaptation is surgical masks. It is learned apathy, leaning into the liminal, chipping away at the soul. Medicine has too many parallels to butchery. Very quickly it is learned that all bodies are meat. Sentience does not protect you from the indignity of decay. Adaptation is menthol petroleum shoved directly into the nasal cavity, the burn more intoxicating than any stimulant.
No adaption prepares even the strongest willed from the places where the public cannot tread. Free from the toils of death and birth, there are the spaces of bureaucracy. Like wilting sunflowers chasing an elusive sun, managements’ offices collect up the west side of the hospital. You sit in a hard corian chair. Across from a laminated desk, a drooping man, damp from his own sweat, is three volleys deep into a conversation that has yet to transpire.
The manager adjusts his green-striped tie. It lays wrinkled over an ill-fitting, grey suit. He leans back with a sigh, and his high-back executive chair sighs with him. The pleather upholstery fills the air with the acrid aroma of treated plastic. Warm fluorescent lighting bounces blindingly off of white-washed walls covered only in the occasional provincial landscape print (which might have come original with the frame). The entire room stinks of kitsch – paying too much for the veneer of wealth with none of the consideration towards how its foundation crumbles underneath. The smell alone is nauseating.
...please read the rest on AO3. (Requires an Account)
There is only so much pushing, before your patience snaps.
(or, the one where you take a nap.)
Warnings: implied yandere dynamics, soft yandere, technically a story about stressful family members if that bothers you
Word Count: 1.4k
All things have a breaking point. There is only so much tapping, before an egg cracks; only so much weight, before a bridge caves in; only so much pressure, before a bone breaks. Oh, but oh, darling, there is only so much pushing, before your patience snaps.
Perhaps, the healthy thing is to assume that others mean well. Perhaps. Perhaps, that would be the healthy thing to assume, except for how the morning goes.
The morning does not start with coffee and breakfast. The morning starts with unwanted guests. Well, "unwanted" is not quite fair. After all, you did invite them. To be more accurate, the morning starts with wanted guests who bring with them unwanted behaviors.
They track their muddy boots through your clean kitchen. They rearrange your cupboards beyond redemption. They finish off the last of your favorite foods. Worst of all, they needle.
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"I personally would love a larger piece of the couch one shot 👀" - Anon
Today is the perfect day for a confession.
(or, the one where you fail at flirting.)
Warnings: yandere dynamics, soft yandere, (unfounded) jealousy, possessive behavior, a little bit of threatening behavior, Childe has violent thoughts, use of Childe’s real name, is actually pretty lighthearted and goofy
Word Count: 1.3k
The weather is idyllically pleasant. A gentle breeze carries over the harbor, blessedly not too humid. In a nearby stream, water softly babbles, adding to the serenity. You stand upon a small footbridge, shielded by the shade of a towering ginkgo, and name the minnows that float by.
Today is the perfect day for a confession.
In your head, the script has been written and rehearsed over and over again.You can practically taste the words on your tongue. Friends have suggested to try something more direct, but that is not the sort of relationship you two have. Your relationship is a sort of teasing, a sort of sparring, even if only ever in words.
There could not possibly be a more appropriate course of action.
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"May I request a scenario with Childe and possessiveness? Just the little ginger being possessive of his darling :3" - teabutmakeitazure
Suddenly your trips to market no longer feel calming.
(or, the one where you do your weekly shopping.)
Warnings: yandere dynamics, soft yandere, (unfounded) jealousy, use of Childe's real name
Word Count: 1.3k
Weekly trips to the market used to be a moment of peace in your increasingly more interesting life. There is something to the hustle and jostle of a busy square full of busy folk and busier vendors. The color on colors of fruits and imports piled atop each other in enticing displays that had you were always reminding yourself of budget. Though, you always kept just a little extra mora in your pocket for a special treat.
Tucked in a quiet corner, just outside of the usual foot traffic, there is a small florist's shop. ( It is nice, you think, to have a little green to liven up the house. ) A small bouquet would do just nicely. Something to smell sweet and lush, something to contrast the dark wood of your furniture. Something ephemeral to watch wilt, regardless of care, so that you might always remind yourself that all things end.
...please read the rest on AO3. (Requires an Account)
"May I request Childe with jealousy? It could be either Childe or the reader experiencing the emotion." - Anon
On quiet, rainy nights like tonight, there is very little to do but to wait. Rain kept people inside. Night kept people in bed. The only thing that happens on nights like this, are nothing at all or complete and utter hell.
(or, the one where you get saddled with a difficult patient.)
Warnings: yandere dynamics, soft yandere, Reader uses dark humor and suicidal ideology as a coping mechanism, Reader is an interning doctor, strong opinions of a failing medical system, treated a little like a medical drama, minor character death, improper use of Fatui NPCs, gun violence, threats of violence, workplace harassment, due to plot reasons Childe is a little OOC (that will clear up with the head injury)
Note: Implying it is modern day Teyvat and not the real world, but I don't really get around to naming locations in this one.
Word Count: 2.7k
It is raining. It is raining and it is darkening and it is quieting and you are waiting. You are waiting because you are not sleeping. You are not sleeping because you are making mistakes.
Had you the opportunity, you would take your younger self aside and tell them: learn a trade or become an illustrator or default to vagabond. Maybe you will have been poor, but current choices have made you poor regardless and miserable and you are not sleeping and your body is barely working. There are no guarantees in life, but you could have chosen to be happy. You could have chosen anything else but this. You could have been anything else but this. Anything else, but a doctor.
Yet, this did not happen. Instead, you studied hard, studied tricks, met the right people, fed your soul to the wheel, and failed. Though eventually, trying again and squeaking in. Half the game, sometimes, is luck. If only you had realized then, that it was when you were failing, that luck was trying to save you.
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He had imagined this going differently.
(or, the one where he wants to meet your parents.)
Warnings: yandere dynamics, soft yandere, implied past child abuse, parents being flawed people, implied/ambiguous forced marriage/relationship, Reader has questionable morals, use of Childe's real name
Word Count: 1.6k
When he had asked to meet your family, he had imagined this going differently.
He had imagined seeing the inside of your childhood home. To have the thrill of walking down hallways lined with cutesy baby pictures and cherishing the shrine of your old bedroom decorated to a child's discretion. The sheets would smell like you and dust, sun-bleached but still a memory of your favorite color. The shelves would be littered with love-worn toys and forgotten mementos.
He so badly wanted to meet the wonderful influences responsible for making you. It would be obvious that you have your mother's eyes and your father's smile. Together, as a family, all would sit to a homemade meal and get to know each other. Your parents would share embarrassing stories about the mistakes children make and other such ways of teasing. You would get flustered and pout, and he would fall even more in love with you.
He would tell your mother she was beautiful and youthful and watch her blush. He would gift your father with Snezhnayan firewater and bond over 'manly' things like fishing (very loudly) and politics (very carefully).
After winning them both over, he would take them by the hand and ask them the only question that matters: May I have your blessing?
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Happy birthday, Childe. It's still the 20th in my timezone, dammit
Childe x g/n Reader
Soulmate!AU
It grates at you the way it sounds like an inside joke. Like you should already know the punchline.
(or, the one where injuries sustained by your soulmate are inked onto your skin)
Warnings: general yandere themes, mostly soft yandere honestly, past abuse, past sexual abuse, implied child abuse, none of the abuse is shown but the effects are described in detail, descriptions of blood and violence, self-mutilation, panic attacks, Childe does not do violence against Reader but does do violence, some of the warnings might not apply to this chapter, introduction of a funky lil fellow, unedited at time of posting (will edit later)
Word Count: 3.6k
You do not remember the walk. You remember very little. Time is an incoherent jumble of blinks and flashes pushing you forward, pulling you in. Desperately you grasp at the cotton that fills you mind, but all it does is tangle in your claws and pull into cloying whisps that fill the air and coat your tongue.
You do not remember the walk, but your soles count the steps. Bloody footprints trail in the snow, proof that there was ever a before. Evidence of a you leaving itself behind.
What weight does the past hold when the present is stilled feet on a rickety bridge? A massive void lays itself bare to your judgment -- cold and inviting, warm and desolate. Somewhere deep in frosted bone, you know that should you jump, that there is no bottom to be found.
Something flits in the edges of your vision. You recognize the faceless shade for the way it haunts your skin, a reflection of regrets. Like a hound, it follows the copper path.
It reaches out for you, but you stop it with a glance.
Shivering hands grip taunt rope. You lean further over the side and tremble softly. You do not know what scares you more: the falling, or that there will be nowhere for your corpse to land.
You have known for a while now that there is something spiritually challenging about your soulmate. This is not the first time they have saw fit to purposely mark you
(or, the one where injuries sustained by your soulmate are inked onto your skin)
Warnings: general yandere themes, mostly soft yandere honestly, past abuse, past sexual abuse, implied child abuse, none of the abuse is shown but the effects are described in detail, descriptions of blood and violence, self-mutilation, panic attacks, Childe does not do violence against Reader but does do violence
Word Count: 7.6k
In a perfectly average city, on an entirely normal road, there is a house. It is modest and comfortable, same as any other.
In that house, there is a man. He is neither tall nor short, neither strong nor frail. He attends work on time, performs adequately. He has hobbies. He has friends. He is unexceptional, same as any other.
To the wisp of a child cowering in the corner, he is everything.
This man, who towers over them like a behemoth, asks simply, asks only:
“Now what will you do?”
The child knows there is no correct answer. The child knows many things.
They know that the old lady next door secretly feeds feral cats, even though she is allergic. They know that too much soap in the bath is a waste, but indulges in the bubbles anyway. They know that they are a good student, but struggle in history class.
They know to cushion their head first. They know how to twist their arm back into socket. They know the orange, hazy warmth of a body with no blood left to bleed. They know that they are being molded into something they cannot bear, into something that does not know what it is when its hands do not shake.
They know that no good comes from crying. That there are other monsters waiting and listening. They know that these actions have been witnessed and judged unremarkable.
Despite it all, more than anything, they know that this man is not merciful enough to kill.
Hoyo has been like this from the beginning. I'm glad more people are starting to notice. Probably because this is a particularly egregious example. But even to the people who are pointing out Sumeru, Hoyo has been like this from the very beginning. Different groups have been complaining about the use of their cultures (especially closed cultures) for a while now. Not just in Genshin but also in their other games. I am also pointing at the Hilichurls.
If this is something that has upset you and you are unaware, there is currently an organized boycott ongoing. They are not asking people to stop playing MHY games, but they are requesting people stop spending money and to leave 1* reviews with an explanation as to why the recent news was disappointing.
He is four the first time he notices the colors.
He is six when he realizes something is wrong.
(or, the one where injuries sustained by your soulmate are inked onto your skin)
Warnings: general yandere themes, mostly soft yandere honestly, past abuse, past sexual abuse, implied child abuse, none of the abuse is shown but the effects are described in detail, descriptions of blood and violence, self-mutilation, panic attacks, Childe does not do violence against Reader but does do violence, there is a tiny amount of food porn early on, spoils Childe's character story, use of Childe's real name
Word Count: 4.5k
Ajax is four the first time he notices the colors.
His tiny, child hands are dyed a rosy hue, bleeding out into orange and teal. It reminds him of sunrise, of following his father to iced-over waters for early morning fishing.
He wipes his palms down the front of his pants, but nothing changes. The colors do not run when rinsed in clean snow. He thinks he does not mind, because it is beautiful and mesmerizing, but he asks his mother anyway.
She takes his hands in hers, thumbs gentle circles over the marks, and smiles.
“You have proof of a soulmate, malyshonuk. Someone who will share the burden of your pain, and you, theirs. These colors are where they hurt. As they heal, the colors will fade. So always be sure to kiss the ink better and think, for them, beautiful thoughts.”
He smiles giddily. A soulmate, he thinks in wonder, and kisses the palms of his hands. He has a soulmate.
...please read the rest on AO3.
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