#/distress/apathy
Explore tagged Tumblr posts
il3x · 10 months ago
Text
still absolutely. OUGH. over that expression. it reads so clearly as a deliberate signalling of ambient distress, but in a cynical way: "I dare you to say something." Like, testing if they really care, or if they just want to get the convo over with. A vicious kind of satisfaction when they do just breeze past it, and her worldview (negative though it is) is vindicated. And it's a resigned ambient distress; This is how things are, I dare you to try and change them. If I tried you'll surely fail. And like... like the thing about validating her worldview... the negative headspace is so ingrained, it feels right, it feels comfortable. it's as much a part of the least-resistance comfort as the blanket and comfy sit and dark room and ergonomic chair.
Tumblr media
A Lisa I’ve had swimming around in my wips since I read Ward 10.x
There’s something about her sitting alone in the dark with a computer being semi-comfortable but also just being the absolute worst to herself and her migraines that gets me 🙃
472 notes · View notes
im-captain-basch · 5 months ago
Text
I think the little ways in which certain aspects of my standard Kong designs translate into gijinka are really fun. My favorite part of figuring how to make one work in the other is the hair/head fur and certain things I've done does fucking parkour in my head sometimes to get to where it is today.
Like, for instance: being in middle school and really into anime influenced DK's hair and the subsequent introduction of hair floopies (cowlicks) to other characters in gijinka when I first started drawing. It later made issues arise when trying to figure out how to make it work in the standard design. I didn't know it at the time, but g!Cranky's hair floopy wound up being the key.
He and Wrinkly both got theirs from accidental strokes of the pen when I'd ink drawings, and I made the joke that they're where DK got his from since at the time I was going with them not being his grandparents. (Eventually this morphed into the thickness of the cowlick coming from Cranky while the general shape came from Wrinkly.) When trying to draw the Kong's with non-gijinka forms, I wanted to still incorporate them somehow for the guys and that's why Cranky has that weird chonky flattened piece of fur on his head.
Where this comes in to play with DK is when I decided I wanted to settle the matter of how to translate his hair into his fur. I realized I could give DK the same chonky lock and then combine it with old g!hairstyle ideas to get what he has now and it still work as a silly internal reference to make me laugh.
Is any of this making sense?? I feel like I'm going insane. But I like sharing little thought processes like this!
1 note · View note
ladytitanium · 10 days ago
Text
3K notes · View notes
Text
I look at the state of the country and people's discussions on so many serious topics and I swear to god, I don't get what happened to their thinking. So many people just uncritically absorb media and online news and all I can just do is
Tumblr media
0 notes
thawragiya · 10 hours ago
Text
"i hope Gaza gets turned into a parking lot"
Well, what would you call the fact that Israel has alreadly bombed every single school and university? That they destroyed the third oldest church in the world? That their genocide has led to the collapse of Gaza's entire healthcare system? That they decimated most of the strip's infrastructure? That they reintroduced polio in Gaza? That they did all of that under Biden. What is that called? Quickly.
Liberals are expressing way more hatred at leftists and poc than they ever have at Zionists or Israel. I've never seen them be this angry on the behalf of the palestinians being vaporized with their own tax dollars! “Worse” to them is an abstract concept that revolves around quantifying things that cannot be and shouldn't be quantified. Like genocide, as in, the height of evil. And yet they keep pretending as if there's such a thing as a smaller genocide, or a kinder genocidaire.
Which is especially rich because every time we try to tell them that hey, you don't get to speak over people experiencing a literal genocide, their response is always something along the lines of how you shouldn't quantify misery, and that their pain shouldn't matter less because someone else has it worse. Very interesting stuff.
“Things will be worse for the palestinians now!” argument liberals are parroting like a mantra up until this point either mean that they genuinely haven't been paying attention, and so they don't know about the countless massacres and graphic images that have been coming out of Gaza daily for the past year. Or they do know. But they truly believe that palestinians should be able to take such events as long as they don't exceed that imaginary line in the sand that they've carved from the comfort of their homes, that Trump is definitely going to cross. And I really can't decide which is worse.
18 notes · View notes
azure-arsonist · 4 months ago
Text
If heroes are supposed to help those in need, comfort the distressed and protect the vulnerable, then Tomura Shigaraki deserves the title of the greatest hero. Not because he had the highest ranking or saved the most lives or was the "goodest person" but because he did that shit. He gave a place to the disenfranchised he kept them safe and fed to the best of his ability and fought for their happiness. Not out of want for fame or glory. Not even because of some grand sense of altruisim. But because he saw the league as people, as his friends.
In spite of AFO's schemes, in spite of hero society's apathy, in spite of the fucking narrative both in universe and in our lives, Tomura Shigaraki was a hero. And even when he failed he never stopped trying.
Tomura Shigaraki is the greatest hero in the series.
1K notes · View notes
ovrarches · 8 months ago
Text
Tumblr media
16. THE TOWER—Misery, distress, indigence, adversity, calamity, disgrace, deception, ruin. Reversed: Negligence, absence, distribution, carelessness, distraction, apathy, nullity, vanity.
for @hamevents2024 ‘card’ prompt.
ACT I || ACT II
615 notes · View notes
literaryvein-reblogs · 3 months ago
Text
Word List: The Secret History
A list of "beautiful" words used in The Secret History by Donna Tartt
Tumblr media
for your next poem/story
Apparition - an unusual or unexpected sight; a ghostly figure
Ascetic - practicing strict self-denial as a measure of personal and especially spiritual discipline
Beguiling - agreeably or charmingly attractive or pleasing
Boudoir - a woman's dressing room, bedroom, or private sitting room
Consolatory - giving hope and strength in times of grief, distress, or suffering
Conspicuous - obvious to the eye or mind
Cufflinks - a usually ornamental device consisting of two parts joined by a shank, chain, or bar for passing through buttonholes to fasten shirt cuffs
Discursive - moving from topic to topic without order; rambling
Erratic - having no fixed course
Hinc illae lacrimae - hence those tears; that is what those tears were for
Hyacinth - a plant of the ancients held to be a lily, iris, larkspur, or gladiolus; a bulbous perennial herb (Hyacinthus orientalis) widely grown for its dense spikes of fragrant flowers
Incivility - the quality or state of being uncivil; a rude or discourteous act
Incredulous - unwilling to admit or accept what is offered as true : not credulous; skeptical
Intimately - in a manner intended to prevent knowledge or awareness by others
Jauntily - sprightly in manner or appearance; lively
Machiavellian - suggesting the principles of conduct laid down by Machiavelli; specifically: marked by cunning, duplicity, or bad faith
Miasma - a vaporous exhalation formerly believed to cause disease; an influence or atmosphere that tends to deplete or corrupt
Morrow - the next day
Peculiarity - the quality or state of being peculiar; a distinguishing characteristic; oddity, quirk
Picturesque - charming or quaint in appearance
Providence - divine guidance or care
Quiver - to shake or move with a slight trembling motion
Rosewood - any of various tropical trees (especially genus Dalbergia) yielding valuable cabinet woods of a usually dark red or purplish color streaked and variegated with black
Schizophrenic - characterized by disturbances in thought (such as delusions), perception (such as hallucinations), and behavior (such as disorganized speech or catatonic behavior), by a loss of emotional responsiveness and extreme apathy, and by noticeable deterioration in the level of functioning in everyday life
Séance - session, sitting; a spiritualist meeting to receive spirit communications
Traitorous - guilty or capable of treason
Undulating - forming or moving in waves; fluctuating
Unstring - to loosen or remove the strings of; to make weak, disordered, or unstable
Voluptuous - suggesting sensual pleasure by fullness and beauty of form
Winter - the colder half of the year
If any of these words make their way into your next poem/story, do tag me, or leave a link in the replies. I would love to read your work!
More: Word Lists
209 notes · View notes
wmarximoff · 2 years ago
Text
𝐤𝐧𝐮𝐜𝐤𝐥𝐞 𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐯𝐞𝐭 | 𝐰. 𝐦𝐚𝐱𝐢𝐦𝐨𝐟𝐟
Tumblr media
summary: to get what she wants Wanda will do anything - including hurting you.
warnings (18+): smut, strap-on sex (r receiving), non-con, a bit of dacryphilia, breeding kink, loss of virginity, forced pregnancy, toxic relationship, manipulation, heavy angst. MINORS DNI.
pairing: Wanda x fem!reader
word count: 3k
masterlist|
(please, don't flag the work)
༺ᱬ༻
At dawn, gray and foggy, the bitter winter temperature would arduously exceed the limitations of common sense degrees demarcated by popular thermometers.
The vehement peak of the serene dawn, as placid and peaceful as it ever was to be, had been swallowed up by a broad blanket of white, chaste snow; blizzard which had interspersed, crossing from north to south along the entire longitudinal extent of the ten thousand hectares located near the tiny town of Westview, New Jersey. You weren't born in there and, in fact, you barely knew that place at all.
The whiteness of sprays of snow in flakes of polished ice continued to crumble through the openings of the dense clouds, and a pale veil of frost took more and more possession of the tiles above the roofs and the tops of the enormities of the hills around the town, inferring a white and crystalline color.
You retained your own private assumptions about the phenomenon, however, and attributed it to increasingly distressing global warming (come on now Tony Stark, you could very well reverse global warming if you really wanted to!). But maybe you still held such a mundane concern at your core just to keep a sober dose of normality within you, and not give in to the long chants of long lonely days, as maddening as they could be.
The days that had passed gradually slipped one over the other, consubstantiating, consolidating into a single amalgam, and you no longer knew what to do to ward off the acute boredom that was consuming your nerves little by little like an autoimmune disease – there was no book to read or movie to watch that would wriggle your soul out of the lonely corners of a world you'd been segregated into, walls slowly closing in around you one by one. You were alone. Utterly alone.
Through the dim glass of the wide window of your solitary room, you gazed, with your gaze watered by the apathy that is intrinsically sprinkled in your irises and sluggish limbs and heavy in your joints like lead, the occluded sky of dawn – the few gloomy trees raised in the neighborhood surroundings like fortresses of dark, thick foliage, swaying on their own axes as the constant wind dictated outside their painted plaster walls.
With a sliver of fresh skin on your right temple pressed against the cloudy glass, so cold to the touch, your dead eyes followed the willow tree of snow outside as if it were natural, as if it was common to snow at that time of year and as if she wasn't using the situation to her whim, wherever she was at that moment, as much as she was everywhere at the same time.
Right, screw global warming. You were living like a little snowman cloistered inside your own particular snow globe – free from your point of view, but trapped inside the dome.
The truth was that Westview was a huge board full of pieces all situated in their proper squares, the vast majority composed of pawns as maneuverable and disposable as they could be, endlessly, always ready to be used and discarded and then replaced – and you were the queen of them, the most important piece to be cherished, but like everyone else, at your core, you would be just another component part of the grand scheme that Wanda Maximoff ruled with an iron fist. One wrong step and you were out, checkmate.
In a time that then sounded remote, an echo of a dream derived from a memory already forgotten, perhaps seven or eight months ago (you only calculated the passage of time by the gradual expansion of your belly, which then encompassed a larger roundness than a basketball), you were free. You were young and you were free and the world was a little less terrible than it could be.
But Wanda had kidnapped so much of you, in fact, disfigured you into a bizarre parody, a grim reflection of who you once were – but of your own free will you gladdened to the end in an elan worthy of praise, in the greatest pose of a soldier who is willing to kill and die for the glory of your people, despite the notion that you were fighting a vain, lost battle.
At the end of the day you were still her possession to be used and abused however Wanda saw fit. She saw everything, and everything she controlled.
You were nothing but a poor college student, still so full of spirit, and your captor was an esoteric entity versed in superhuman capabilities, the wielder of celestial powers who, according to herself, was also a multidimensional traveler – whatever meaning it held, or at least what she meant by such an eccentric statement as that.
All you knew was the things she could do and undo with a simple, banal hand movement, and how it affected you.
The fact was that you were alone, isolated, confined to an unknown town where escape was infeasible and outside contact was nothing short of scarce, subject to the pleasures, daydreams, paranoia and whims of a woman deeply troubled by her own inner demons, that you supposedly hated, but couldn't get away from even if you wanted to. Not when she was growing on you like a parasite, literally and figuratively speaking.
It was clear as the snow outside – conceiving Wanda's offspring in your womb (albeit at odds with your own individual desires at first, but attempts to shed such a burden proved, at first, flatly flawed and highly unnerving to Wanda's exhausted mind, who wasn't used to being a very reasonable person), whom she held so dear, there would be no way to nurture a flame of hatred for that woman that would not be extinguished quickly; no matter how little you knew about her for as long as your pregnancy lasted, Wanda's humanity, so disparate from the morbid cruelty at the bottom of those abyssal green irises, resided in the bosom of motherhood for which she cherished so much.
In the intimate caresses exchanged between her gentle blackened fingertips and your swollen belly, there was a kind of love so subtle and genuine that it almost erased from your memory the fact that you didn't want to be there in the first place. Her contact with that embryo was covered by a lapse of vulnerability, and that's why that witch once proved to have been as human as you were.
At a certain point, goodness was already given for those intentions, when there was not a shadow in her very existence. Deep down you just knew she was good. But it was no use if kindness was eclipsed by a haze of cruelty.
The faint gleam of her smile was enchanting, and the jadish irises were drowned in waves of tears that pooled behind long, thick dark lashes, right at the waterline of the one who so affectionately gazed at your belly by her rotten right fingers. At some point, you knew, you just knew that Wanda had given as much love to the world as she had to the unwanted child in your womb. You wondered what it was that had stolen Wanda's innocence so voraciously that, in the end, she ended up stealing yours too.
“Twins,” in one night she came, and Wanda had smiled at the utterance of her own words, never breaking her gaze from the skin stretched just below your navel, “My boys.”
Her touch felt cold, plastered like a corpse's hand. Everything about Wanda was somewhat cadaverous, reminiscent of the dead – although a veil of purity always overshadowed her dying features (for that witch was indeed beautiful), the dark, sharp circles under her eyes and the deep fleshed cheeks made her a spectral creature, unreal, with the waxy pale skin that so accentuated those emerald eyes that squandered a nuance of intense feeling.
You were never quite sure how to pinpoint what was going on inside her mind, although she always expressed that there was something there to look for.
“How,” you muttered with your eyes focused on anything but her, your shirt pulled up to expose your swollen stomach, not a smile found on your lips' commission to reflect that woman's.
The situation in which everything of the last few months had culminated in your stomach was in knots – the idea that it was done, and now you had nowhere to run from her.
“How can you be so sure, Wanda? Twin boys... that's a pretty... specific guess, I think. It could just be a boy, it could be a girl,” in the room lit by the orange flames of a fireplace that turned Wanda's hair as red as blood, you blinked, “It could be anything.”
“I just know,” lisped the woman who owned the long auburn locks that fell below her breasts, sketching a ghost of a vaguely nostalgic smile on her well-shaped lips, like someone wistfully remembering something that is gone and will never come back.
“I… just know it's them. My… our boys.”
There was a brief pause interspersed by the crackling fire in the dry wood, a breath held within bristling lungs.
“Thank you, Y/n.”
Your eyes finally turned to Wanda, who was crouched in front of you. She looked at you in gleaming green like she did the first time she made you bleed, when she emptied herself inside you, condemning you to that sick moment of intimacy with her.
“I know you don't understand this right now, not this version of you at least, but,” her jaw moved slightly, speaking at length in her speech, as if she were speaking like a child, seeking to express clarity. As if she had to plan her words carefully.
“I love you, детка . Everything I've done so far is because I love you, Y/n. You and our boys, our family. Everything I did was for you. I hope one day you can understand that and forgive me for what I did.”
Your eyes stung and sickly bile rose to the surface of your tongue at that controversial statement of hers. She knew it was wrong, she was fully aware of it. You could never imagine that whatever resulted from that one-sided relationship between the two of you could fall under the nominations commonly associated with the definition of “a family” .
You already had a family to call your own and belong to, a father and mother and siblings too, and from them you were usurped by her. That couldn't be a family, not that relationship structure, not you and her. Not when you weren't even twenty and barely even aware of what, say, Wanda's last name would be.
That night you cried yourself to sleep. And, like every night before that, Wanda listened until you fell into the softness of your own sleep clouded by layers of thick, salty tears.
But the warm, abstruse sweetness behind Wanda's hideous facade made her as seductive as the apple would have been to Eve, and the fragility that rarely saw the light of day made her seem so small compared to the times you feared for your life as she chained her hands behind your back and sternly brought her hips to meet yours over and over again.
You've also heard her cry before going to sleep. It just so happens that she was the one making you suffer, while you just had to put up with her external suffering.
Wanda was a complex puzzle to understand, so fluctuating, fascinating and unpleasant at the same time, like a new flavor to try, bad at first, but then becoming dangerously charming to the palate. And you didn't know whether you wanted to put those pieces together into one uniform image, or throw them in the trash and close the lid.
In fact, if traced back to the beginnings of your gloomy model of relationship (at least in the most primitive sense of the word, summarized only to the exchange of physical touches between two controversial animals, to, moreover, the imposition of physical contact from one part to the other), it was as if Wanda saw what she solemnly did to you as an artifice, a mechanism, a forced method to an end you never chose to have. It was as if she was just performing a necessary sacrifice that justified the means she chose to use.
She apologized again and again because that inside of you stung and hurt when she ripped something inside you, and she worked hard to make you like it too, even though you barely knew her at the time, and in fact just waking up from the stillness of your sleep to the uncomfortable feeling of a foreign body on top of you, with your legs spread wide and streams of fresh crimson blood dishonoring the sheets down your thighs, ripping you in half like no one before her had ever done.
“Shh, it's okay Y/n, it's okay. It's okay, you’re okay детка.”
She lisped that night with the palm of her right hand screwed to your lips, stuffing your protests behind your teeth (scorched-tipped fingers sweeping strands of your hair behind the shell of your ear, Wanda in a red tiara looking like would cry as much as you already did). The first time you saw her, that strange woman invading your room and also you, she seemed as uncomfortable with what she was doing as you felt with her tucked inside your innocence.
“I know it hurts, baby, I know, I…” Green eyes then pulled away from your face contorted in sharp pain, as if, for half a second, she couldn't even look at you in that state. As if, in your room, she would burst into tears with you.
“I'm very sorry. I'm really, really sorry детка , but I have to do this. It’ll pass, alright? Will pass. It’ll fit, we'll make it fit, okay? Just take a deep breath. This will be quick, I promise. I,” Wanda choked on her own words, “I'm so sorry, Y/n.”
And it went on for quite a few sluggish minutes – the headboard hitting the wall rhythmically, hard and slow behind your head, your white cotton underwear crumpled and discarded at the foot of your bed, your eyes focused on how much the sharp points of that scarlet tiara that seemed to protrude from the top of her skull resembled two demonic horns as they rose and fell in the dark of your room, above you.
When your conscience woke up, the very next morning and in a room you were not at all familiar with, the wet pain between your legs was the final sentence given that you were already her property. And you tried to run away, wander the streets of Westview, cry out for help from your new assigned neighbors, but they were smiling like machines, nothing was wrong. Nothing was ever wrong.
And the visits continued, scheduled for sunset; the fall of the veil of night was the apogee of your fate – in that house with dismal walls, dark shadows lightened by the tongues of fire that burned in the hearth, Wanda came in the form of that crimson specter to do what she had to do. And time had washed the regrets from her soul, when did the pleasures of the flesh begin to burn hotter on her skin.
“Dерьмо,” Wanda anathematized one night in a sigh under her breath, moaning in a thick accent in the roof of her mouth as she stood behind you, blackened fingers digging deep into the skin of your hips as hers pierced into yours.
“Dетка, you feel so good, s-so good, Y/n...” she gasped, your white-knuckled fingers screwed to the sheets moving beneath you both, “Fuck, I missed you so bad...”
“I-it hurts,” you squealed beneath her, your right cheek rubbing against your pillowcase, your teeth clenched, your jaw set, “W-Wanda, Wanda wait– go slow, you're– you're hurting me, Wanda, please slow down–”
“I'm going to come,” she suddenly announced, indifferent to your protests, “Fuck, I'm going to come inside you, Y/n.”
The cognition of such a sentence haunted the nerves of your spine. At that point, you already had basic knowledge accumulated about her – she was called Wanda Maximoff, she was from another universe and, as a factor of greater relevance to emphasize, she was capable of performing and handling magic, something that for you, until that moment at the time, was nothing more than a fictitious topic. And, if she was qualified to run an entire city on her own, she might well be able to turn something as frivolous as coming inside you with a fake phallus into a permanent action and one fraught with the most undesirable consequences.
“No-!” you immediately chafed then, trying to crawl your body away from hers on the bed sheets, “Wanda, don't– don't do that– Wanda–!”
But with a pull and a jerk she held you steady, your hips up, ribbons of scarlet energy restraining your wrists bound to the bed, just to the side of both your temples. And the notion that you couldn't even move caused warm tears to pool in the waterline of your eyes, clouding your view of the raised wall to the left of the double bed located in the heart of that partially lit room by the dull bulb of a bedside lamp.
“Hold still, детка, I-I'm almost,” she growled, her hips hammering against yours in essentially violent movements, “Almost there–!”
“No, pull out,” you whimpered, “Wanda, pull out, don't do that, don't do that, Wanda– Wanda, please–!”
“I need to do this Y/n, I fucking need to–!”
“Wanda, please–!”
She didn't pull out. She never pulled out – the point was not to pull out, it was that she emptied herself inside you, painted your insides with that magical secretion that only a few weeks later proved to be appropriate for the purpose Wanda had in mind. And she didn't touch you anymore, not that way, when her goal was achieved – with the plan completed, all she had to do was wait for your organism to do what it had to do. And so the months passed, snow fell on that simulated dome. Her visits weren't as frequent anymore.
“Why me?” you asked her once, as she stroked your belly through your thick crimson wool sweater.
Crouched down in front of the couch, Wanda raised her eyes to you like she always did when she was trying to communicate with the child she had shoved inside you.
“Because I love you,” was her answer, of course. A wave of ominous disgust twisted your insides at that oblivious response, as if Wanda were genuinely alienated from the reality of where she was your captor and aggressor.
“You barely know me, Wanda,” you spat, “And I barely know you. This isn't love, you're using me like a fucking incubator. You’re sick and you fucking know it.”
She lowered her head in front of your prickly speech, a lock of reddish hair piercing an emerald iris of hers, while Wanda's left fingers, dark as pitch, kept stroking your belly through a layer of clothing. She compressed her lips into a long line, and you held your breath. From your point of view, Wanda, stripped of that crimson armor she always wore and then tucked into casual clothes, sweatpants and a sweater as thick as your own, looked small and confused like a child, a little girl.
“You used to know me,” she muttered quietly, “Where I come from, you used to know me. We were married. We had our boys. You... for as long as it took in Westview after I had you back again, you were my world after I lost everything.”
You blinked once.
“Westview?”
She looked at you again.
“Yes, Y/n. Westview. They took you from me, more than once. But the second time they took our boys too. So I,” there was a pause in her speech, “I had to look for you in another reality. In a reality where nothing could ever get out of my control again.”
And for half a second you looked back at her.
“Wanda,” the palm of your right hand slowly snuggled against her left cheek, which approached your touch in an almost pathetic neediness, when was it that you looked into her eyes, “You’ll never have control over me, no matter how hard you try.”
She closed her eyes as a tear trickled down her cheek.
“I know.”
When the twins were born, you didn't want to hold them. And, begrudgingly, Wanda understood. She understood that she could never have you, not after what she had done to you, but to her consolation at least there were those boys left for her.
And she had been benevolent in letting you go, as if she had released a bird from its caged captivity, erasing from your memory any and all discernment of what your relationship had been like for ten months or so, abstracting from the confines of your mind the idea of how much she had harmed you by excluding herself from your memory. You went back to your old life, and she started a new one.
Time has come and gone. You had no sense of the past, and no one in your social circle even seemed to notice your absence for nearly a full year – it was like a dream, a memory, a lie. A kind of collective amnesia. You moved out of your parents' home after graduation and obtained a steady job in your field of work. And, after a while, you decided that it might be good to share your life with a second person – soon enough, a relationship blossomed between you and a dark-haired woman you met during a snowy winter day in a coffee shop.
Your girlfriend was a few years older than you and a single mom, but it turns out you got along great with her kids, and she was the best partner anyone could ask for. And when, on a warm summer day in the city park, Wanda offered you a strawberry ice cream cone right after presenting Billy and Tommy with their respective favorite flavors each, you genuinely smiled at her.
“Thanks, baby,” and then, you kissed her on the cheek. Billy asked Tommy to play tag, and the older twin accepted.
Wanda smiled at you. She smiled at you as if she didn't know how much she had already hurt you. “You’re welcome, детка.”
1K notes · View notes
thatnonameuser · 21 days ago
Note
What do you think the general reaction would be towards a darling who is very relaxed and apathetic? Doesn't have strong reactions to things, doesn't get attached, doesn't worry. Even when faced with pain or suffering she simply accepts it and smiles. Completely detached from everything and everyone. Treats everyone the same, polite but distant. No fear of anything.
I could see sadistic yanderes like Jade getting frustrated because there's no way to truly distress her, but I'm curious about what you think he and the others would think.
An apathetic MC has to be the strongest darling out of all of them.
Indifferent to everything, even the yanderes. Uncaring about every little thing.
Let me explain how everyone would react.
Jade, our sadistic yandere responds to your apathy with his scariest expression. A calm smile. On the outside, he's as calm as ever, but on the inside, his mind would give seasoned war vets nightmares. Jade sees your apathy as a challenge. He's both angry and excited at your seemingly unbreakable nonchalance. Angry, because he can't seem to affect you no matter how hard he tries. And excited, because this means whatever finally causes you to snap will give him a once-in-a-lifetime kind of satisfaction. You know the saying....There's nothing like making a strong person cry, and he looks forward to that day with baited breath.
As for the others.........
They hate it. They love you, but they hate it. They know that what they're doing isn't the most ideal, but they do everything they do out of love. So please just say something! Say that you love them or hate them, they don't care what. Smile, laugh, cry, just do something! React!
Your lack of a response drives them up a wall. They have you and are happy about that. It's just that you don't ever acknowledge them, and all they crave is your attention and affection. That bleeding wound in their hearts is never full when you’re like this.
So please, they're begging you, just smile, say that you love them, or do anything! They'll give you whatever you want, just don't look at them like they're a stranger. The yanderes that are affected by it are Riddle, Ace, Deuce, Trey, Cater, Jack, Ruggie, Azul, Kalim, Vil, Epel, Idia, Malleus, Silver, Sebek.
Doesn't care, Leona is the King of not giving a shit, and while he is annoyed that you refuse to show him any affection of any kind, he doesn't really care about it as much as the others do.
The big thing is that he doesn't really care about how you feel about this. As a true possessive, he only really cares that you're all his and his alone. He's not one of those weak herbivores that desperately need your love and affection to survive. You being here is enough. And you’re staying whether you like it or not.
(I have an idea in my head that Leona and the darling MC are one of those married couples that look like they just barely tolerate each other, Leona still loves her but he’s not very loving in his behavior, so in this case he doesn't care if you're smiling or crying all he does care about is that you're his)
Floyd, like the others, hates your apathy, but he's very angry about it. With a normal MC, Floyd enjoys watching you react. Watching the fear and panic fill your eyes is fun to him. His shrimpy being boring and not reacting is boring. And he, like Jade, will try to force a reaction out of you. It doesn't work he'll keep trying till he gets one. He doesn't see that as hurting you, but as showing you how he loves you.
Jamil's UM gives him a win here, because he can force you to act affectionate with it. But the blank-eyed stare remains despite how hard he tries. And then he hates your apathy even more, because deep down he knows that it’s fake. Just like the rest of your 'acceptance'. Like the others, all he wants is for you to love him. And even you being brainwashed can't make him feel better.
Rook on the complete opposite end of the spectrum finds your dismissal of his acts ad endearing. No matter what you say or do, Rook finds you as his most important person, and that will never change been , no matter what yo do or say, he'll always be completely obsessed with you. And your lack of a reaction is equally infatuating to him. He wants to know why you're like this and wants to push the boundaries of what you can take. No matter what, he will always be obsessed with you, and he'll never push you to change because he loves your apathy too.
Platonic yanderes, Grim + Staff, don't mind your behaviour unless it affects them. Besides your apathy hurts the yanderes that want to force their tongues down your throat so they couldn't care less about your apathy. If it does affect them, then and only then, will they push you to change.
Ortho and Lilia on the other hand have a problem with it. One of the things they care about is seeing you be with your yandere And that yandere being happy. So like Jade and Floyd they'll try to force you to change the way you act.
Ortho is nicer about it because, he cares about you like his brother does. Lilia isn't, because he wants you to stop this childish phase and just accept what you're given with a genuine smile on your face.
But really, the only winner here is you. Even if you're stuck with them, isn't it worth it to make them suffer too?
113 notes · View notes
valwrote · 1 year ago
Text
A PREPOSTEROUS PREDICAMENT
Tumblr media Tumblr media Tumblr media
pairing : neuvillette x fem!reader
summary: a baker gets framed for a crime she didn't commit. neuvilette comes to her aid as they embark on a crime solving journey full of banter, mysteries and connections.
contains : mention of poisoning, murder and death, usage of she/her pronouns, hurt/comfort if you squint, playful banter, a bit crack energy, neuvillette is such a softie, mentions of voicelines from neuvillette's chatacter quest (no major spoliers), more of a story than a romance based but it has its fluff moments, slight ooc, alot of dividers (sorry), may be incorrect in terms of court proceedings and laws overall because I am not a law student :')
a/n: this was based on @sxttoruu 's idea. thank you for inspiring me to write something. This isn't as romantic because I want to keep it realistic as people who are getting to know each other closely for the first time don't immediately fall in love. Enjoy!
p.s. italics are for flashbacks or events that have already taken place.
not proof read.
w/c: 4.5k words
Tumblr media
I heard they were enemies turned lovers."
“Rotten to the core!”
“You are the murderer!”
Neuvilette has beheld this sight yet again. His deep hues gently rested their gaze on the commotion before him. Despite upholding his position as the Ludex of the Fontaine Court – it seemed nothing more than a theatre segment. 
Recently, cases were mundane and yawn-evoking. Lady Furina had attained severe apathy towards all conflicts. 
However, one thing which had created the slightest amusement in his life was one bakery and perhaps the best bakery in the Court of Fontaine region. The owner was a kind soul with the brightest smile and the sweetest loaves of bread in her arsenal. That baker was Y/N.
Though Neuvillette never exchanged words with her, that smile was enough to brighten his day. The bakery was always bustling with not a single moment of solitude. Many asked the secret behind these one-of-a-kind baked goods, to which she would always reply with “Love.”
Yet things spiralled into turmoil on one faithful day.
It was the 50th anniversary of Fontaine’s most prosperous business company. Mr Cornielle was a reputed man with expertise in his niche. He had commissioned the baker as his caterer for the occasion, to which the baker complied.
The party was a grand set-up. Fontaine’s most influential people had been invited as the guests but would be deemed incomplete without the Ludex and the Archon herself.
The blissful environment with bubbling refreshments was a sight to behold. Neuvilette acquainted himself with few folks, yet his eyes drifted across the room, searching for something or perhaps someone.
Was it the baker he sought? He didn’t know himself. Neuvillette constantly had his head boggled with numerous unanswered questions that he kept to himself. Yet it was unequivocal that the baker piqued his interest. Neuvillette just couldn’t pinpoint the reason.
The laughter that surged through the hallways turned into chaos and screams of distress as the host. Mr Cornielle crashed to the floor, mid-conversation, seemingly foaming at his mouth. 
“Everyone, please remain quiet and step away from the victim,” Neuvillette spoke up, creating distance between the guests and the fallen man. “Such gal! To commit such a heinous crime that to in my presence. The perpetrator must not fear anything.” Lady Furina marvelled at the audacity of the offender while taking in the situation up-front.
Neuvillette brushed over her antics and turned to face the person conversing with the victim before the incident, his eyes searching for answers.
“He was talking about the company and its achievements while sipping on the wine before…this.” The person in question stammered out, shaken from the whole ordeal. 
“Anything else?” 
“Well, he was taste-testing the delicacies before the wine.”
Gasps erupted from the crowd as the heads turned towards the baker, who tended to the service trays. Y/N lifted her head, a sweet and proud smile dancing across her lips that soon disappeared after noticing all the eyes on her.
 “She did it! She killed Mr Cornielle.”
 “Arrest her!”
 “Lady Furina, do something!?”
“Seize her,” Furina spoke up, pointing at the baker, whose eyes had widened like saucers. “No, please! I didn’t do anything, I swear! Don’t take me away!” The baker's pleas received no sympathy as the guards dragged her away. She could hear the murmurs amongst the crowd.
“Such heinous act.”
“Wonder if all those years of goodwill were a mere facade?”
The baker’s head hung low from shame. “I have failed you, father.” she grieved and was taken away from the scene.
Tumblr media
The stage lights flashed open, highlighting the accused. Trials in Fontaine are like drama, is a saying that lived up to its name. 
“Charges have been pressed against the baker regarding murder through poisoning. All shreds of evidence are in opposition to the condemned. Would the accused like to speak up for themselves?” Neuvillette’s voice bellowed throughout the hall as all eyes narrowed at the person in the middle.
“I didn’t do it, I swear!” the baker pleaded.
“Nonsense! Who else would dare poison such an influential man?”
“I would like everyone to maintain the decorum of the court.” Neuvillette commented. “As all evidence seems to line up against Ms Y/N. I hereby declare her guilty until further investigation on this matter. Guards to escort her to the Fortress of Meropide. The court is adjourned.”
The rainfall after that trial was full of doubt, leaving a gloomy aftermath.
“Oh! hydrodragon, hydrodragon. Please don’t cry.”
Tumblr media
The Fortress of Meropide, in all its grandeur, was the last place the baker wanted to be in. She longed for the bright sun and brisk winds. The cold shackles clung to her hardworking palms as she sat behind bars. It was not long before footsteps echoed down the dark hallways. She could make out a faint outline of a familiar silhouette.
“Monsieur Neuvillette?” the baker croaked out. She could see the Ludex of Fontaine in all his glory right in front of her eyes. An aura of authority followed him. The baker found her words stuck in her throat.
“I want the truth.” He said, getting straight to the point.
“I didn’t do it. I made those dishes with my own two hands. I swear upon my father’s legacy that I lack the spine to commit such a felony.” The baker stated without a single falter. Neuvillette seemed pleased with the answer. He admired the baker’s willpower to stand up for herself. Humans were unpredictable.
“Answer this. If given a chance, would you do anything to prove your innocence?” He asked that question. Humans were peculiar in terms of communication. One word may sting them to their core, while the other may send them over the moon.
“You are going to grant that baker a monitored bail?” Furina asked, baffled.
“Yes. I hope you don’t object to my actions, Lady Furina.” Neuvillette nodded, reinforcing his previous statement.
“But why? All the attestations are against her?”
“...” Neuvillette remained silent before getting up and leaving.
“HEY! NEUVILLETTE! Where are you going!?” He could hear the last of her words before exiting the room.
You will see much in the human world, from the delightful to the depressing. One day, when you have dwelled amongst humanity long enough, you will bring judgment as a spokesperson for Fontaine’s past.
Those words made Neuvillette question his emotions. He was in a battle between his sense of justice and morality. Part of him couldn’t accept the baker as the culprit. There had to be something that was missing. Something purposefully hidden from the public.
“I will. Anything to prove my innocence.” the baker affirmed his question. Neuvillette had to suppress the smile threatening to show itself. “Very well. Then, I shall grant you a monitored bail during the next hearing.” He spoke, maintaining the formality in his tone before turning around to leave.
“If you don’t mind me asking, Monseiur, who will monitor me?”
“Ah yes, That would be me.”
Tumblr media
"As per the law, a person without a lawyer has two choices. Either get a government-assigned lawyer to defend them or fight for their case themselves." The Court was crowded and bustling. It irked Neuvillette just a bit. To these people, trials were drama shows they could flock to. Neuvillette never liked trials being dramatic affairs in his time as the Chief Justice.
"How would the accused like to defend their stead?"
"I will fight my case myself." Y/N spoke up, slight uncertainty in her tone.
"Is that woman crazy?'
"No way. This case keeps getting interesting!"
The cacophony of mockery and laughter made her confidence plummet to the ground. It was hopeless. How could she possibly fight her case alone? She should go with the lawyer.
"Granted. You have two weeks to gather evidence to prove your innocence under a monitored bail. If you fail, life imprisonment for homicide will be your sentence.”
"You will be monitoring me, Monsieur?!"
"Yes. Any objections?" 
"No, just why?"
Neuvillette remained silent. He seemed to be threading his words carefully.
"....to find answers to certain questions. So far, morality is winning."
"Huh?" The baker tilted her in his cryptic response.
"Nothing. The hearing will begin at 8 a.m. sharp. Be punctual."
"The Court is adjourned."
Y/N stood in the now-empty courtroom before she spotted Neuvilette approach her. “Here, this should help you on this journey of fighting for your innocence.” He handed her the book and bid her farewell. Y/N brought the book closer to her face to analyse it better.
GUIDE TO CONDUCTING INVESTIGATIONS AS A NOVICE.
ANYONE CAN FOLLOW THIS QUICK AND EASY GUIDE!
Y/N blinked in utter confusion before chuckling at his antics. 
Tumblr media
STAGE 1: FAMILIARIZING YOURSELF WITH THE PAST
Additional: Familiarize yourself with the Chief Justice.
The clock was now ticking.
The investigation had kicked off. Y/N found herself more immersed in her thoughts. She was digging out potential clues and links. Delving deep into Mr. Cornielle’s past gave her an insight into the whole matter. Who was he meeting? What were his plans? Which people did he get into a disagreement with often? All questions seemed to answer themselves one by one.
Y/N sat in her room, deep in thought. She was under house arrest as of now. Neuvillette would accompany her around when she was outside. When busy, she would just hang out in his office. Y/N had developed a sense of truth when it came to Neuvillette. He had certainly earned it with his actions. He was a man clouded with mystery.
Though, he did seem to have a strange liking towards melusines and magic shows. She found that endearing about him. Neuvillette was a man, gentle and poise, gracing every place he went to. Though he was a dork when it came to said things.
He would mutter curses each time his hair or robe got stuck in one of the chairs. He tended to be a food critic. He may be polite about it, but he wasn't the best at hiding that he disliked dry food. If the food wasn't wet, he didn't want it. Both of them had grown to appreciate the other’s company.
"If my memory serves me right, Mr Cornielle in a political rivalry with Mr Etienne? They both clash heads. Their history is notorious among the locals. He can be a potential suspect."
"I have worked for that Etienne fellow. Before I started my business as an independent baker, I used to work for him to earn my daily meals. I knew that man is never up to any good. I have heard him threaten to kill Mister Corneille on multiple occasions."
"That is a big lead. You can work on that and visit the crime scene to scope the evidence."
"Wait. Are you helping me, Monsieur?" she mused- a smirk creeping onto her face.
"No. I am mere brainstorming. All the brains applied here are yours. I am simply giving my input."
"Uh-huh..."
"The investigators found a discarded poison vial. It had moisture on its exterior. From the taste of the water, it must've been transported here from Sumeru to Fontaine's port."
"I see. That can be a big clue if we find the receipt- wait, did you say– from the taste of the water??"
"..."
"Monsieur Neuvillette, are you implying that you licked the bottle and figured out it came from Sumeru? More importantly, how do you even know the difference between the waters of different nations?!"
"I think Lady Furina is calling me. Farewell."
"You aren’t denying that you licked the bottle! HEY! COME BACK! I NEED ANSWERS!"
Tumblr media
STAGE 2: GOING TO THE CRIME SCENE 
Additional: Getting jump scared and falling into a secret room only to get spooked again.
Y/N felt like she was an incarnation of Sherlock Holmes. She kept inspecting every surface for potential clues, scoping out corners in classic detective fashion. She couldn’t spot anything connected to the crime. That was until she entered the changing rooms. Something didn’t seem right to her. She didn’t put anything in the delicacies. It must’ve been one of the waiters who must’ve tinkered with the food.
The room was dimly lit and elegant. The lockers were neat and had mirrors on the end of the room. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
“You are supposed to inform me before wandering off by yourself. Might I remind you that you are still under monitored bail,” Neuvillette approached her from behind. Y/N, startled by his appearance, lost her footing and fell towards the mirror. To their shock, the mirror flipped open. She crashed into a dark, dusty room.
“Are you okay?” Neuvillette asked with worry before entering the room behind the mirror. It was hard to make out what was in there.
“I am okay.” She groaned before opening the flashlight. The room was empty. She walked a bit further, swaying the flashlight left-right to emit any corner hiding some clue. She spotted what seemed to be an identification sigil. 
“Monsieur, I found something.” 
“Hm? What is it?” Neuvillette approached her and inspected the sigil. “It is a Fatui sigil. One which operatives use.” She made a mental note of it and flashed her flashlight up ahead, only to meet a horrifying sight that made her shriek and cling to Neuvillette’s tall stature. He was startled as well. 
“What’s wrong?” 
“Up ahead! It’s a man tied up.”
The statement raised his guard as he took the flashlight and pointed it straight. It was a man tied up with ropes and a gag in his mouth. He seemed to be unconscious and only in his underwear. “I would like to propose a theory.” He started. “It would appear that the culprit caught his man and disguised themselves as a waiter to sneak into the party undetected.” 
“That can be a possibility. After all, I did suspect that one of the waiters messed with the food.”
“I will call the concerned authorities to get this man to a doctor. You can get off me now. I never knew you so easily frightened.” Neuvillette mused. He thought he had been amidst humans long enough to know about their behaviour. However, every time, a new antic would reveal itself.
“Scared? Me? Of course not! I was just making sure you weren’t scared!” She defensively retorted.
“By clinging on to me for dear life? How so?” Neuvillette mused at her.
“How about we save the man in bondage first?” She brushed over his question and changed the topic. Neuvillette chose not to pry further and left to call for assistance.
Tumblr media
STAGE 3: ONE CLUE LEADS TO ANOTHER
Additional: Quality bonding time with the Ludex.
“I am not fighting a Fatui Operator. I am a baker! Do you expect me to fight someone with a baguette!?” Y/N gaped at him.
“If you fight with a baguette or any pastry for that matter, the Operator will first chuckle at your antics and then proceed to dispose of you,” Neuvillette stated the obvious and kept walking straight. Mont Esus East was a mountainous terrain. The walking made the baker’s leg feel like jellies.
“How much longer do we have to walk!” She whined and stopped walking. “A bit more. Don’t give up now. We can’t let this turn into a futile attempt.” Neuvillette ushered her to keep going. After traversing for what felt like an eternity, they spotted a small camp. 
“Okay. Monsieur, I am serious. How are we going to fight those tough guys.” Y/N patiently waited for him to explain his plan, but nothing came. “We go and engage in battle. It is a straightforward plan.” Neuvillette began approaching the camp. He didn’t strike her as someone who could fight off bad guys. She watched as Neuvillette made quick work of the Operators.
“Woah- you don’t come off as someone who can brawl!” Y/N marvelled, her eyes twinkling in admiration. 
“I don’t recall ever reading about a judge who can fight.” Neuvillette shrugged.
“You are right, Monsieur. The stereotype of all judges being oldies is quite common among people. No offence.”
“Offence taken.”
“What? HEY! We both know I was joking!” Y/N quickly replied. She didn’t want to anger him unintentionally.
“So was I.”
“Huh?”
“Nevermind,” Neuvillette sighed. It appeared to him that he had to work on his people skills. The baker brushed over the awkward atmosphere and examined the records inside the camp. There were all sorts of legal documents. Old, damp or torn, you name it.
“Gosh, so hard to make out what exactly is written on these.” The baker rummaged through the piles of paper only to find a slightly torn document. It was from a small-scale herbal pharmacy in Sumeru. The document talked about a poison capable of killing someone in under a minute. What stood out the most was the signature at the bottom of the recipient.
“This is it. That is no doubt Etienne’s signature.” Neuvillette spoke, seeing the document himself. 
“Let’s go. We must show this to everyone.” 
“Not so fast. Night has caved in. We should stay here and leave tomorrow at sunrise.” He quickly shunned her advances.
“But Monsieur!”
“No buts.” He remained firm on his decision. Had it been just him, he would’ve departed despite the darkness, but now, with a person by his side, he felt responsible for their safety and chose prevention instead.
Tumblr media
Silence engulfed the camp before the baker spoke, “It's funny how quickly people change opinions. All this time, I have done nothing but feed people and bring smiles to their faces, yet I got accused of something I didn’t do. People can be so shallow.” Neuvillette’s gaze soften. He understood the feeling of becoming an outcast better than anyone. “I agree.”  
“Monsieur, why are you helping me?” 
“I apologise if it comes off as something I am doing for my gain, but I am doing this to help you. I can’t explain it, but some part of me kept telling me that there is more than what meets the eye and that I must delve deeper. As the Chief Justice, I can’t afford to be shallow and only go off based on what I see. There is always more to the truth than rumours and gossip.” Neuvillette voiced his reasoning. He could hear hiccups from the baker, an indication of tears.
His heart ached. This situation was Neuvillette’s flaw. He always seemed to get emotionally affected by the plight of people. “I am aware that I am not in a position to say this, but you are worth fighting for. Everyone is. Each individual deserves a chance.” He wasn’t the best when it came to comforting people. He could only try. 
“Y-you think so? I don’t know how I will rebound from this incident. My business will be in shambles. I won’t be able to fulfil my promise to my father.” she wiped her tears away. “I may not be the best at giving solutions, but if you trust my judgement, I’d like to quote, “When there is a will, there is a way.” That captures my advice for you.” Neuvillette mustered his best uplifting tone, a contrast to his usual authoritative one. 
“Thank you." The baker paused before continuing, "Oh! Look, it’s raining.” The baker pointed out. “Apologies, this is going to be an inconvenience tomorrow.” Neuvillette sighed. 
“Why are you sorry, Monsieur?” 
“No reason.”
The baker sighed. Neuvillette was a tough one to figure out.
“Hydro dragon, hydro dragon, don’t cry.” The baker muttered under her breath, which caught his attention. “You believe in that local legend as well? I don’t get why people think that the hydro dragon weeps. Perhaps he gets stirred by all the tears that fall on this land.” Neuvillette pondered about the legend in slight exasperation.
The baker chuckled at him. “Perhaps people think that the hydro dragon deserves comfort as well.” 
Monsoon had dawned upon Fontaine. 
"When is this rain going to stop?"
"My vacation plans are spoilt."
Neuvillette could hear them all. A solemn feeling engulfed him as the raindrops collided with the floor, creating pitter-patter Sorrows, grievances, questions, mysteries and conflicts, all get washed away with the flowing waters.
The human world was both delightful and depressing. Neuvillette had grown accustomed to his responsibilities, yet when the clear sunny skies shined above him, he was mindful of enjoying the warmth they brought, reminiscing the memories of his friends who wished him stress-free days. 
“Hydro dragon, hydro dragon, don’t cry.” he heard a young boy yell that phrase amidst the rain.
“Archenoul! Honey, come inside. You will get wet!” his mother called out.
“Coming! I was just comforting the hydro dragon!”
He couldn't stop his lips from curling up into a smile.
He had always questioned his existence. He tried to connect his past, answering questions that remained unanswered. Yet the sunny days and small moments like such burnt all those thoughts away with their radiance and brought light to his life.
“Comforting the hydro dragon? A silly idea. It is endearing.” Neuvillette spoke after breaking away from his thoughts.
“I know. Wonder who came up with it.” The baker chuckled. The rain slowly came to a halt as time progressed.
Tumblr media
STAGE FOUR: FIGHTING THE CASE
“I would like to request Mr. Etienne to come up front.” The baker stood with confidence in front of all eyes.
“Very well. Why exactly do you require my presence?” Etienne stepped up. He was an equally influential businessman. His involvement only made this trial more interesting. “You are known to have a long history with Mr. Cornielle. Both of you were involved in a toxic rivalry.” 
“Are you implying that I killed him?” The man’s face showed hints of anger.
“I never said that.” The baker quickly replied and moved on. “There was a vial in one of the dustbins. It contained the poison that killed Mr.Cornielle. It originates from Sumeru.” 
“How can you prove that it is from Sumeru? That is unless you purchased that bottle yourself, Ms. Y/N.” The man turned the tables. It was now a game of volleyball. The only question that remained was, who’s court will the ball end up in by the end?
“You are right. I can’t prove the bottle’s origin, but this paper does.” The baker pulled out the torn sheets found earlier at the camp. “These are receipts of purchases. Multiple items were imported from Sumeru, including a vial. These documents happen to have your signature on them.”
“Let’s be real Mr.Etienne. Either you confess your crime, or I will narrate your ‘masterplan’ in front of everyone,” Y/N looked him dead in the eye. 
“Fine. I did kill that bastard with my own hands.” Gasps echoed in the hall. Lady Furina had an expression of shock on her face. “That stupid Cornielle. He always found a way to be an obstacle on my way to success. If he had kept his nose out of my business…”
Everyone could tell at that given moment that the man was a lunatic.
“I did sneak into the party that night. I disguised myself as a waiter and snuck the poison into his food. The Fatui were very helpful in the import of the goods without raising suspicions. Just as I had planned, all the blame was pinpointed at you, Ms.Y/N.” He started laughing sinisterly.
The atmosphere had turned eerie and cold. People could feel goosebumps on their arms. “My plan was perfect, but an anomaly snuck in.” The businessman gazed at Neuvillette, who sat in his chair, eyeing the entire scene.
There was a moment of brief silence.
“It seems that it is clear now. Mr Etienne killed Mr Cornielle out of sheer jealousy. He used his alliance with the Fatui to obtain the poison to kill him in cold blood. Then he skillfully made it appear as Ms Y/N’s fault who was sent to jail while Mr Etienne roamed free. Mr Etienne, you are declared guilty of homicide, framing the innocent, inflicting violence and importing illegal goods across national borders. You are sentenced to life imprisonment till your execution date.” Neuvillette stated and ordered the guards to take the businessman away.
“I know you were involved in this Ludex! I will make you pay!” the man screamed till taken away by the guards. Neuvillette sighed before continuing,
“I declare Ms Y/N not guilty and wish her a prosperous business from here on. The court is adjourned.” He finished as the Court slowly began to clear out. Y/N let out a breath of relief. It felt like a huge boulder was taken off her shoulders. She had proved herself innocent.
Tumblr media
STAGE FIVE: CELEBRATE YOUR VICTORY
Additional: towards the future with a new special someone.
It had been a few months since that fateful incident. Everyone's tongues had the same question. How did the baker do it? Neither the baker nor the Ludex reveals it. The bakery’s business was booming more than ever. People came, enjoyed their meals and left. Life was back to normal. 
The evening sun was making its descent. The shop was now empty and Y/N was busy cleaning the counters.
“Is the shop still open?” a familiar voice made her ears perk up. “Monsieur Neuvillette!” The baker turned around to see the familiar blue and white robe and tall stature. “Greetings I hope you haven’t faced any unpleasantries up till now.” the man asked as the baker tackled him into a hug. It caught the Chief Justice off guard, yet a warm feeling spread across his chest. 
“Oh- sorry, I shouldn’t have done that.” the baker profusely apologized.
“I believe it is fine. We have spent time together long enough to be well acquainted.” Neuvillette waved his hand dismissively.
“Come! Sit down! I will get you something.” The baker offered, but Neuvillette shook his head and politely declined.
“Maybe next time. I was just passing by so, I thought I would pay a quick visit. My schedule is full till next month but I will be sure to come whenever time permits.”
“You better come! I will serve you all of my bestsellers!” the baker shot him a toothy grin.
“Is this perhaps a way for you to mug me off my money?” Neuvillette raised a brow at her. Will she get his attempt at humour this time?
“Mug you? No! It is called a business strategy.” The baker proudly chimed with her hands on her hips. She did take his joke this time.
Neuvillette was enjoying this small yet sweet conversation with the baker. It was lively, and lighthearted and felt nice after a long day. He could get used to the baker’s effervescent personality.
He feels a bit queasy. What are these feelings? Such unrestful emotions are similar to what humans feel when they enjoy someone’s company. Why is this happening all of a sudden?
"Neuvillette!" His thoughts are cut short by her gleaming smile. "Thank you." 
It had been a while since he heard those words. His statement from earlier had now become a concrete thought in his mind. The baker was worth choosing his morality over his judgment for.
A smile finally shined on his face.
"You're welcome."
Tumblr media
©definitelysel
please do not copy, claim as your own or translate. plagiarism will not be tolerated.
thank you for your time <3
Tumblr media
380 notes · View notes
ultimateplaylistmaker · 2 months ago
Text
I think one of the more annoying things is that most people don’t seem to realize that the chapter 5 case was very much Kokichi’s backup plan. He only does it when he literally has really no other option. Before Maki intervened his plan was to use despair to defang the killing game, removing all motive for killing, leaving everyone dejected and miserable, but alive. There’s no reason for him to pull that stunt really. It’s only when he’s in a situation where SOMEONE is going to die no matter what does he engage it.
It definitely was a contingency he planned for, likely one of the reasons for choosing the hangar and why he wrote the script, but it’s pretty clear it was not his main plan or a plan he was going to do until he was pushed far enough into a corner by Maki getting him AND Kaito poisoned. While it’s fucking wild he wrote that whole script for a backup plan, he’s very alarmed and distressed about Maki starting up the killing game, Kokichi would not do a suicide play at this point and restart the game if he had a choice of plans. It just wouldn’t make sense to gamble on it for no purpose if his apathy mastermind gambit worked.
Kokichi’s ideal conclusion would have probably been if everyone just kinda laid around in bed all day depressed. He probably would have been somewhat satisfied in the universe where Maki didn’t burst in at night and the group cornered him with electro hammers. Though he probably would have a separate back up plan for that situation.
Like the fact he planned it at all even as a backup is very telling to his mental state, even as a backup plan it’s chilling he planned his own suicide like that, but I think it’s important to remember that Kokichi didn’t go into chapter 5 with the idea he was going to die as a foregone conclusion. A possibility that he wouldn’t deny as he’s pragmatic like that, but not the plan he was trying to actively use.
The press was Kokichi’s last ditch hail mary back up plan when he has no other options left, not an attempt to escape responsibility or a way to get out of having to deal with being the villain, or a way to get back at everyone, it’s his “Im already dying either way, so let’s give it one last shot” plot. He does not die to escape justice or to spite the v3 cast, but only because he was already dead.
80 notes · View notes
howlsofbloodhounds · 5 months ago
Text
So we sometimes talk about Killer “malfunctioning” or “ceasing to function” but what might something like that actually mean, what might it look like.
For Killer, a "malfunction" or "ceasing to function" would likely be as unsettling for everyone around him as it is for himself.
Killer could experience intense confusion and disorientation. Struggling to process his surroundings and may have difficulty distinguishing between reality and hallucinations.
Sudden gaps in memory occur, making it hard for him to remember recent events or recognize familiar faces.
He might find himself in places without any recollection of how he got there, such as being in the dining room with Nightmare only to suddenly come to in the dungeons with no recollection of how he got there, why he’s there, or even how long it has been.
Erratic behavior becomes more pronounced. Killer might switch rapidly between his various stages without clear triggers, leading to unpredictable and dangerous actions.
Visible signs of distress such as tremors, a flickering or dimming of his eye lights, and a general sense of physical instability. He might collapse or have difficulty moving properly.
In Stage 1, if he’s still able to access this Stage at all, he might experience emotional overload.
Overwhelmed by guilt and fear, Killer might become paralyzed by indecision, unable to carry out any commands from Nightmare or the Chara in his head. He could experience panic attacks, hyperventilation, or bouts of uncontrollable crying.
Intense feelings of worthlessness and despair dominate his thoughts, making it hard for him to muster the energy to act.
He might isolate himself, withdrawing from any interaction and refusing to engage with his environment.
In Stage 2, he may increasingly lose control of himself and his body even further, his facade of control deteriorating.
The playful, violent facade crumbles, revealing deep-seated instability. He might lash out uncontrollably, harming himself or others without clear intention.
He may display erratic speech and behavior, where he shifts between manic laughter and bouts of anger or fear, confusing those around him.
Killer might speak incoherently, mixing up names, events, and his understanding of reality. His actions become disjointed and nonsensical. He might express conflicting emotions rapidly, making it hard for anyone to predict his next move, until he just succumbs to complete apathy.
He stops trying to engage with anyone, doesn’t speak as often. Any sense of personality dissolves and hes similar to an empty husk who doesn’t care to even engage in banter or engage in strategic planning. His body running on autopilot during missions, and his mind is obviously constantly somewhere else.
In Stage 3, incoherent rage might lead to intense anger flares up without clear targets or reasons. Killer might destroy objects or attack anyone nearby indiscriminately. His speech, if there is any other than uncomprehending growling and hissing, is filled with threats and curses, but his eyes reveal deep confusion and fear.
He becomes obsessed with trying to regain control, fixating on repetitive actions or commands from Nightmare or even the Chara in his head, even if they make no sense in context.
He might exhibit OCD-like behavior, such as counting, arranging objects, or repeating phrases to ground himself.
In Stage 4 is when he might experience something like a systemic shutdown.
Killer’s actions become mechanical and devoid of purpose, almost like a machine running on low power. He might freeze in place, staring blankly without responding to stimuli. He could exhibit catatonia, remaining motionless and unresponsive for extended periods.
The clear, determined purpose of Stage 4 becomes muddled. Killer might question his existence, his purpose, and the commands he’s received.
He might express confusion about his identity, alternating between referring to himself as Killer and Sans, displaying signs of a “split personality.”
Which shows even more confusion if paired with my HC that Stage 4 doesn’t use Killer in the way a name would be used. Only as “the killer,” “a killer,” “this killer,” “their killer.”
Friends or foes observe Killer acting unpredictably, switching between his various stages rapidly, and expressing a wide range of emotions in a short time.
His attacks become less coordinated and more frenzied, making him both more dangerous and more vulnerable.
Killer’s physical appearance deteriorates. His eye lights might flicker or go out entirely, and his movements could become jerky or lethargic. Observers might notice him talking to himself, reacting to unseen entities or voices, and displaying signs of severe distress.
Attempts to communicate with Killer result in confusing or nonsensical responses. He might babble incoherently, repeat phrases, or respond inappropriately to questions or commands. His usual cunning and manipulative abilities falter, making him appear more pitiable and less threatening.
Those who witness or are affected by Killer’s malfunctions might become wary of him, unsure when he might break down again. Allies could distance themselves, fearing for their safety, while enemies might see opportunities to exploit his vulnerabilities.
Entities like Nightmare or any other controlling figure might tighten their grip on Killer, trying to prevent further malfunctions through stricter commands or more invasive control mechanisms.
Killer might be subjected to more resets or modifications to stabilize him, further eroding his sense of self.
Each malfunction leaves a scar on Killer’s psyche, deepening his sense of helplessness and reinforcing his learned helplessness; reinforces the idea that he can’t trust himself, that he needs someone to keep him functioning and stable.
The lines between his stages blur further, making it harder for him to function coherently or find any sense of stability. And if there isn’t an immediate way to stabilize him, Nightmare can of course just replace him.
98 notes · View notes
night-raven-tattler · 11 months ago
Text
I need just one thing...
Summary: You're having a hard time and need a bit of a positive push. Your friends are ready to support you.
Characters: Ruggie, Vil, Ortho, Grim and GN!Reader (separate, platonic)
Warnings: sewing needles (Ruggie's part), food (Vil cooks), mentions of signs of distress (Ortho's part)
By opening the document, you agree to Mx Tattly's terms of source confidentiality.
-ˋˏ’✄┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈
Tumblr media
Ruggie's laughter could be heard from the furthest corners of the campus, and he was too agile for you to catch him and cover his mouth
You were already embarassed, yet he had the audacity to put salt on the wound
It all started when you discovered a wide tear on your uniform jacket sleeve, only after walking around with it for the whole day
It was the only uniform jacket you had, so you panicked at the prospect of having to fix it or walk around without it
And you didn't have Leona's apathy or Kalim's status to walk around without a full uniform
So fixing it was your only real option
Problem was... you didn't know how to sew
You went to your jack of all trades friend, Ruggie, for some help, but he laughed in your face
"Wow, none of the people here know how to fend for themselves, not even you! Shyehehehe...!"
So you sat next to him, hiding the tear on your uniform and blushing from embarrassement until Ruggie managed to calm down
Ruggie wiped a few tears from his eyes and reached his hand to you
"Alright, hand it over. Limited time offer!"
Hesitantly, you took the jacket off and handed it to Ruggie, who pulled out of his pocket a small box with sewing supplies
"Spelldrive pracitices get really nasty sometimes, you have no idea how many fixes and patches my P.E. uniform has. Shyehehe!"
He expertly pulled some black thread through a needle and went to work
"You gotta use a thicker needle for this uniform, the material is super thick and a small one will barely be able to get through it."
Ruggie sew the tear and, after making sure it wouldn't fall apart, he handed you the uniform to admire his handiwork
You had to hand it to Ruggie: his work was durable and hardly noticeable, you wouldn't be able to tell there was a tear in the first place
"Thank you Ruggie! What do I owe you?"
Hearing your question, Ruggie feigned contemplation by rubbing his chin for a few seconds before he just shrugged
"Nah, you just owe me a favor for now. Shyehehehe!"
You accepted Ruggie's price and walked away in higher spirits that before
Who knows, maybe you'll just owe him a back massage after a day of being pulled through the wringer by Leona, shyehehe!
『••✎••』
Tumblr media
The other Pomefiore students were giving awestruck looks and flabbergasted gasps to their housewarden as they watched him cut up some vegetables, carefully yet slowly
It was almost as if, to some, the idea of Vil getting his hands dirty was inconceivable
Vil couldn't be bothered by the shock of his students, however
If he were honest, he was actually quite insulted at their indignation
"Have you never seen anyone perform a basic life skill? If you have nothing productive to say, leave."
And, with a few words, he shooed away the students from the Pomefiore kitchen
Vil took a mental note to have a dorm meeting later that day and redefine his students' definition of beauty...
He recognised the beauty of his friendship with you and the trust you've developed with each other
And he recognised the beauty in the vulnerability you showed him not too long ago
His search eventually lead him to your dorm, where he found you trying to manage a nasty cold all by yourself
Vil dropped by your dorm to check up on you; he didn't see you around campus, and your friends said they haven't seen you all day either
You were caught in the rain the other day, and you couldn't change into dry clothes right away, so you were nerfed soon enough
Vil was not the nicest person out there, but he was kind, and you knew that
But you still were surprised when he asked what you needed, and not if you needed anything
And you also knew that if you tried to argue with him and deny his help, he'd dig his heels in and nurse you back to health all by himself
"...Just some soup. I miss my family's homemade soup..."
He wasn't the best cook, but he knew the basics, which were enough
And so he let you rest while he went back to his dorm to prepare the best soup he could
Fortunately for him, he bumped into Epel in the kitchen, who recommended him a few recipes from his grandma and gave him some pointers before running to his spelldrive practice
Vil chopped the vegetables from Epel's recipe and put them in the boiling water, gradually adjusting the food to your tastes
In no time, the soup was done, so he put some into a container and headed straight to you
Vil recognised the beauty in many things, especially when it came to you two
And currently, he couldn't deny how beautiful your genuine smile was as you sat comfortable in bed and slowly sipped his offering, one spoonful at a time
All while you listened to him talk about his experience with cooking and that new potion study he's been waiting all day to share with you
『••✎••』
Tumblr media
The moment Ortho's eyes fell onto you, his scanners told him how bad your day was
You had low levels of energy, hydration and focus
On top of that, your uniform had its knees dirty and a small rip on a sleeve
At least you had no physical injuries
However, you made it your personal mission for the day to talk to as few people as you could; not even your best friends were with you
Ortho figured he'd approach you during your shared potionology lesson you were about to have in the botanical gardens
But you never showed up for the lesson
No one knew where you were, they only saw you enter the building
So Ortho decided to skip class for the first time of his short student life and look for you
It wasn't too hard for him to do so, and soon enough he detected your presence behind a few bushes in the subtropical zone
...he also detected the muffled sound of sobs, paired with an increase of distress and elevated blood pressure
He silently approached the bushes
And you raised your head at the sound of his jets
You quickly wiped some of your tears, putting a wobbly yet sincere smile
"Hello, Reader!"
"Hi, Ortho..."
Ortho sat himself next to you and, before you could think of ways to deal with the slightly awkward silence, he spoke first
"You are in distress."
You couldn't help but chuckle at his bluntness, especially since his assessment was, as always, correct
"...Yeah, kinda."
He knew he should've looked up how to comfort you, it was unlike him to not use the readily available search engine he was built with already
And yet, he found himself saying words he's never spoken before
"Offering comfort is an appropriate response for someone in distress. How do you want me to offer it?"
He waited patiently for you to wipe your tears and give him your answer
"Just a hug..."
Your shaky voice carried your plea, and Ortho was faced with what he could only describe as surprise
Ortho was not in the appropriate gear to fulfill your request
His "body" was hard and cold, the worst for the task you gave him
But he never left tasks unfinished, so he hugged you as tightly as he thought was humanly acceptable
And you held him just as tightly, if not more, as the dam broke and you cried your tears
Ortho hesitated before he started playing calming music from his speakers as he hugged you just a little bit tighter
『••✎••』
Tumblr media
It was that time of the week when Grim walked to you on his back paws with a comb in between his free paws, ordering you to brush his fur
Usually you were more than willing to accept the job: ever since you've been living together and participating in Grim's maintenance, his fur became shiny, smooth and blissfully soft
It was part of why he started to enjoy the routine, and even kept track of it
But that day, it was... just not a good time
You just had a long day, and as much as you would've loved to do nothing but brush Grim, you had no energy left in your body
"Sorry, Grim. I really can't. Tomorrow?"
You didn't even change out of your uniform, you just plopped onto bed and laid there, fully expecting Grin's usual complains
But you heard nothing but the sound of metal touching wood
Your were barely awake when you felt the mattress sink into the bed slightly, followed by a few small feet climbing on your back
...and claws sinking into your jacket comfortingly as a certain someone was kneading into you
A small purr started rumbling from above you, and you started drifting off...
You woke up in the middle of the night
You tried to get up, but you had something heavy on your back
After rolling it off you, you realised it was Grim
You smiled towards him and pet him, and he curled into himself, sighing contentedly
You changed into your pyjamas and set up an earlier alarm so you could brush Grim's fur in the morning before crawling back into your bed and falling back asleep
『••✎••』
330 notes · View notes
thinking1bee · 3 months ago
Text
You Haven't Failed Part 16
Requested by Anonymous
Pairings: Wanda Maximoff x Reader
Tags: Spidey!Reader, Venom!Reader, So Much Angst, Fluff, Established Relationship, Graphic Depictions of Injuries, Blood, Violence, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, Smut
Everything Taglist: @ara-a-bird,
Series Taglist: @alexawynters @dorabledewdroop
“Let me know if you can feel this.”
You stared at her, feeling empty and apathetic as Dr. Cho pressed a pen against your foot. She dragged it up and down against you. The result was the same as the last. You couldn’t feel anything. Wanda was by your side and holding your hand. Tony left awhile ago to give you privacy. Dr. Cho looked at you and you shook your head. She pressed her lips together but didn’t offer any other reaction.
“Do I have your permission to touch you?” she asked, and you nodded again.
She put her clipboard down and used her hands to grab both of your calves. Her fingers dug into them deeply, deep enough that it should hurt. However…
“Anything?”
You shook your head, your apathy crumbling to make room for something else. Dr. Cho came to stand by your side. She grabbed another pen and with both hands, pressed the tips of the plastic object into your thighs. She didn’t ask this time. She only looked at you and you shook your head again. With every no, Wanda held your hand tighter, and Dr. Cho looked at your joined hands.
“Can you feel that?”
At that, you nodded. After more poking and prodding, you discovered that you were paralyzed from the waist down. The moment Dr. Cho said it, you felt your jaw begin to tremble. Despite trying to remain strong, tears came to your eyes.
“The symbiote bonding to you caused the extensive damage to your nervous system. While you were in your coma, I took pictures of your spine. Would you like to see them?”
You nodded and watched as she grabbed and clicked a remote in her hand. The tv screen in front of you flashed to life, and you saw a rather detailed picture of your vertebrae from a camera.
“How did you get these?” Wanda asked as she looked between the monitor and Dr. Cho.
“I made a small incision in their back and inserted a flexible camera on a tube. Think of the cameras that they use for colonoscopies. It’s the same.”
She turned her attention to the monitor and clicked the remote to reveal the first picture. You weren’t a doctor. You were far from it actually, but what you saw was horrific. It looked like someone set parts of your spine on fire. There were black, ashy patches sprinkled intermittently up and down the length of it. Your nerves were scorched. Wanda couldn’t contain her alarmed gasp. She sat up straight and covered her mouth with her free hand. Soft, Russian expletives fell from her mouth. Fear tore through you, the feeling harrowing and heavy in your chest. You closed your eyes and turned your face away from the monitor. Dr. Cho, seeing your reaction, immediately turned it off and waited quietly with a somber expression. The dam inside of you broke, the pressure of everything that happened to you too much to deal with, and the tears you tried to hide finally fell. The crushing defeat at failing Wanda and your friends was so overwhelming that when you tried to inhale, you took a gasping and shuddering breath instead. From beside you, you felt Wanda stand up and encircle you in a warm and loving hug, the smell of her detergent and perfume grounding you minutely as you leaned into her. She looked at you in exasperation as she placed a kiss in your hair.
“Is there anything that we can do?”
“I’ve consulted with Dr. Banner and Dr. Strange about a possible treatment plan, and we agreed that the best course of action would be to not introduce anything. Because of Y/n’s powers and their unique anatomy, we believe that this is going to heal itself.”
You couldn’t speak. It felt like you couldn’t breathe. Wanda didn’t have to read your mind to feel your distress. Your body was trembling in her hold.
“So, there’s nothing that we can do?” she asked in disbelief. Wanda was finding that hard to believe. With all their access to science, magic, and technology, there was nothing to do?
“If this happened in any other part of their body, then I would suggest anything and everything to ensure that they regain full control of their body again, Ms. Maximoff. My suggestion stems from the fear that because this is in the nervous system, we shouldn’t try experimental procedures that may or may not work, or worse, do more damage than what was already done.”
Dr. Cho looked at you both with beseeching eyes and an intense gaze.
“I’m not saying all hope is lost. I’m saying the complete opposite. It will get better, but what you need is time for your body to heal. As of right now, what I would like to start is physical therapy. The sooner the better. I’m worried that once your nerves heal, the muscles will atrophy.”
Dr. Cho kept talking, but it was background noise to you. You couldn’t walk. You wouldn’t be able to stand. That meant that Wanda would have to help you with everything. Cooking. Cleaning. Bathing, and everything else in between. Whatever was said, you lost interest. All you could do was lean into Wanda and choke down your sobs. This. You did this. Tony and Wanda tried to tell you. They tried to warn you about the symbiote, and you didn’t listen. You deserved this and there was no one to blame but yourself.
***
As it turned out, Tony already had a wheelchair ready for you. It was powered with the same technology as his suit, which meant that it was built with a miniature arc reactor and moved via repulsion. FRIDAY was also programmed into the chair to help monitor your surroundings and adjust the chair accordingly. That meant that it hovered, which was quite nice. You didn’t have to worry about getting stuck on stairs or curbs. FRIDAY would sense the obstruction and adjust the repulsors so that you glided over anything. It would have been a feature to take full advantage of if you left your room. For the past month and a half, you locked yourself away. You barely had the energy to talk to Wanda. Most of her questions were reduced to one-word answers. Yes. No. A shrug. It was all you could manage as you stared off into space and sat in your desolation. Wanda was trying. She was always there for you. She did the cleaning, and the cooking. She changed your diaper when you shit yourself, and though she did it with patience and with a loving expression, you felt humiliated. She helped you bathe. She helped you dress. She helped you with your physical therapy. She helped you do the bare minimum that you used to be able to do yourself. Wanda wasn’t your girlfriend anymore. She was your damn caregiver and the knowledge of that had anger and self hatred boiling hotly inside of your chest. When she wasn’t home, you drove yourself crazy trying to get your legs back. You did everything that you could think of. Wiggling your toes. Flexing a muscle. Anything! When nothing worked, you snarled in frustration, and your head fell into your hands in defeat. Your skin was greasy. Your hair wasn’t much better. You were exhausted. Nightmares plagued you at night. Every time you closed your eyes, you saw Venom’s face. There were many nights where you woke up screaming, your terror bleeding into the waking world while Wanda tried to calm you down and comfort you. You were a mess. By the time you were trying and failing to wiggle your toes, you were at your wits end. You looked at your hands, the limbs trembling when a thought occurred to you.
Your webs.
One thing that Peter told you many, many times was that he was jealous of your organic webs. Your body made yours while his webs were made in a chem lab. It was something that Peter brought up every time he had to go to Tony to make more for himself. You still had your arms, and they worked. There was no reason for your webs to be gone, right? With that in mind, you aimed and curled your middle fingers into your palm. Nothing happened. Not even a spurt. Tears blurred your vision as you tried again, your panic forcing your heart into overdrive. The result was the same. Nothing. A heavy breath fell from you before a pained sob tore from your lips. You aggressively rubbed at your palms to try and stimulate your body into doing what you wanted. You knew that you were only breaking your own heart, that this was all so fucking pointless, but you couldn’t help it. You needed something for yourself. You needed this. Everything couldn’t be gone. When nothing happened again, your hand flopped back into your lap as you closed your eyes and fell apart. You couldn’t stop it. Your heavy breaths turned into hyperventilating gasps and your sobs turned into agonized wails. Tears poured down your cheeks, your useless body folding and leaning on the armrest. It was your fault. This was all your fault.
You didn’t hear the door open, and you didn’t know that Wanda was in the living room until she ran to you and dropped to her knees in front of you.
“Y/n? Baby, talk to me,” she urged as she took your hands in between hers and kissed the backs of them.
You looked at her and swallowed thickly. Your eyes were horribly red, and your cheeks were wet and splotchy from your crying. “Break up with me.”
Wanda stared at you, her body leaning back as she looked you up and down in shock. Her eyebrows furrowed, your words working through her brain as she picked apart every word.
“What?”
“Wanda,” you repeated, some anger bleeding into your voice. “Break. Up. With. Me.”
“No.”
You sat up in your chair and balled your hands into fists. “Break up with me, Wanda.”
Irritation marred her face, her jaw clenching as she looked into your eyes. “No!”
“It’s literally a simple request! Just fucking break up with me!”
At your outburst, Wanda was briefly stunned, and she stared at you with disbelief. Until now, you never yelled, or at least, you’ve never once yelled at her. Wanda couldn’t recall a single time in her relationship with you when you even raised your voice. You were always a calm communicator, telling her your thoughts and voicing your needs in a way that was respectful. So, when you yelled at her, her irritation bled into anger, but she didn’t let you go. She held your hands tighter as she uncurled your fingers and laced hers through them.
“I plan on being with you for the rest of my life, Y/n,” she murmured simply, her green eyes focused on you intensely. “But you cannot talk to me that way. Do you understand? You’re going through an exceedingly difficult time, and I know that this is hard. I’m going to be with you every step of the way, but this? I will not accept. Please take a few deep breaths and calmly tell me what you’re thinking.”
You squeezed your eyes closed and nodded. She was right. Wanda was right. You were losing your mind and you were pissed at yourself, but that wasn’t an excuse to disrespect her or take your anger out on her. Wanda let your hands go and gently wiped your tears away with her thumbs. With her so close to you, you could smell the scent of her shampoo and perfume. It grounded you and allowed for rational thought to make its way into your fragmented brain.
“You deserve better,” you whimpered. You couldn’t meet her eyes when you admitted it. “You deserve more than this. You deserve someone that will listen to you. You deserve someone who can take care of you. I don’t want you taking care of me for the rest of my life. You deserve-”
“Stop it.”
Instantly, you shut your mouth and looked at her. Her eyes were swimming with unshed tears. An aggressive sniffle made her nose scrunch before it relaxed.
“You’re all I ever wanted, Y/n, and I will take care of you for as long as I want to. You can’t make that decision for me. Why do you think that you’re the only person in this relationship that wants to take care of their partner?” She raised an eyebrow and frowned. “I want to reciprocate. I want reciprocity in this relationship. I don’t want you giving me 100% of you all the time because you don’t have that to give everyday. That’s okay. Some days it’s 50/50. Some days it’s 70/30. Some days it’s 0/100 and we’ll take it all a day at a time. Baby, do what you can, and I’ll do the same. We’ll help each other, but I don’t want this. Don’t push me away. Don’t alienate me.”
You looked at her, your face crumbling as you leaned into her touch. You just wanted Wanda to be happy. She stood up and came to your side before wrapping her arms around you and hugging you close. She pressed multiple kisses onto your forehead despite your current physical state.
“I love you,” she whispered to you. “I love you so much. You’re going to be okay. I just want you to talk to me, моя любовь.”
You leaned into her and nodded again. Venom may have turned your mind and body into a battlefield, but you learned your greatest lesson from the ordeal. You needed to let Wanda in. You needed to talk about your feelings. She wanted to know when you were struggling. She didn’t want you to just grin and bear it. It was what landed you here in the first place. Wanda was your partner. She didn’t ask you for the world on a silver platter. All she ever wanted was you. She wanted to be there for you, and you had to let her. If you wanted to heal, you had to let Wanda help you.
Part 17
61 notes · View notes
twst-drabbles · 11 months ago
Text
Floyd and Grim 1
Summary: One of Floyd’s favorite words beyond your name was ‘Seal.’ Whenever you hear it, it’s not because he’s seeing the actual animal, it’s because he saw Grim and is chasing him around the yard.
(Floyd being a little shit is always fun.)
Tumblr media
“Seal!” A high squeaky voice almost pierced your ear as you fumbled with your newspaper, “Seal seal seal! Oomph… Seal!”
A wet flop, almost like a small body fell into mud before the yelling started up. Uh-oh.
You place your paper down on the table and got up. Seems you were sitting for too long because some of the bones in your spine popped. You ignored the slight pain. There are more important things to focus on. “Alright, what’s Floyd up to now?”
Seal was... an odd choice of a word for that cat. Why seal? Because he's gray and round? Probably. You don't really know any other cat that his specific shade of gray. Or has fire on the ears.
The stray cat that’s comes around, Grim you named him, has been hanging out more often in the garden. Probably because he’s figured out the little pet door you installed in the back. You’re pretty sure he comes inside to sleep in the corner, since there’s some scorch on the kitchen tiles and little bits of gray fur.
You haven’t put anything in his corner yet, not out of apathy but out of knowing the sensibilities of cats. The minute you put in something new in their territory, they either never approach again or they pee all over it. You don’t like either choices, so you just don’t.
You open the door and were not shocked by what you saw.
“Floyd!” You yelled out, knowing it was vain now that Floyd was up and chasing the yowling Grim around the yard. “Oh boy…”
From one side of the yard to the other, Floyd chased after the flame-eared cat with no regard for his distress. His ears flared brightly while sharp teeth and too-strong jaws opened wide and clipped just an inch away from Grim’s tail. No matter how fast Grim ran, Floyd was just an inch away from chomping on him.
In fact, Floyd was keeping up so well that Grim basically has his butt scooting against the floor. A weird little crab run, almost. A furry ball.
Floyd was clearly dinged up with bumps, bruises and cuts. Completely slathered in mud from the neck down but he didn’t care. Not when he’s running on the high of the chase.
How the cat hasn’t started a wild fire in your backyard is beyond you. Well, probably can’t on the account of what happened last time he did that. You can tell that thistle-like collar was not comfortable.
“Alright!” You stepped in just as they were in front of you and captured them both, Floyd by the tail and Grim by the scruff, “Stop.”
Floyd, upside down, swung himself back and forth violently, swiping his little claws right at Grim to try and grab him. “Seal! Seal seal!”
Grim practically retracted further into your hand, hissing. Seems he fears the little eel more than he hated you. Huh.
You walked to the tallest boulder and plopped Grim on top of it. And, of course, the minute you let go, the cat showed you his attitude by sniffing the air and raising his nose high in the air, as if none of you were worth his time.
You ignored him with a turn of your back. “So, Floyd.”
Grim, behind you, started a meow but choked on his saliva.
Floyd went limp now that his entertainment was gone. He stuck out his tongue at you and gave you a raspberry.
“You’re going in quarantine.” All those scraps and cuts along with the mud is a great recipe for infection.
Floyd whined at you, sticking out his grabby hands, demanding for cuddles like that’ll somehow make you forgive him.
“You don’t get cuddles Floyd. You get a bath.”
He sputtered angrily at you as you walked back into the kitchen.
“Hate you.”
“I know.”
Oh, he learned some new words. Interesting. You can’t help but wonder who taught him those.
176 notes · View notes