a singular croc o dile pokes its nose into your inbox.
🐊
it’s sniffing around. do you have honey cakes or bread or normal honey or something. it’s its dinner time i think it might be hungry. no meat please. it’s. um. special. special kind of croc o dile.
I have uhhhhh [rummages thru kitchen] a baguette and some carrot cake and a lil bit of honey, will that do?
hi i know it’s been like two whole months but i finally wrangled my brain into starting to read the antimemetics division series and ouughfhfhjfnfjf i’m only just getting into five five five five five but this shit’s so good. perfect blend of memory-melting mindfuckery that’s just the right balance of dread-inducing enough to keep you pulled in but not enough to put you off from it. thank you for recommending it i’ve never read scp stuff before and this has been a really good introduction to it
oh, I’m so glad, I thought it’d be right up your alley!
I should note the author also has a website full of even more upsetting sci fi that’s free to read - I recommend the short but meaty Lena. (it has a sequel, but that’s sadly print-exclusive)
wrote a thing for @mywaywardcupcake’s superlative yuujou gang au - a possible end for Hirutani after all the pain he’s put our boy through.
(with thanks to/thoroughly egged on by Oz, @phoenixwithapencil, @jack2-0 and @eggrolls-benedicts)
A lighter flicks, the click almost echoing in J’z’s empty bar. Tobacco crackles. Hirutani breathes deep, letting it fill his lungs, exhaling.
It’s been a banner week for Hirutani, all things considered. His territory grows, Mutou’s shitty little gang is on the back foot - even now, as Hirutani smokes and nurses a beer, his boys are liberating some property from Mutou’s people.
Hirutani glances at the clock by the bar. Been awhile, actually - those dickless wonders should’ve been back by now. He’s in the mood to gloat, and he can’t gloat until he knows they did the job right.
Hirutani frowns, reaching for his cellphone, and then the door to the bar creaks open, daylight peeking down the stairs. Boots resound on the landing. He perks up.
“Fuckin’ finally,” Hirutani says. “How did the raid g-”
The gang stepping into the bar isn’t his.
It’s Mutou’s.
They file in, one after another, armed to the teeth, blocking the exit. Out from the wall of men steps Jonouchi - and Yugi Mutou himself.
Mutou looks the same, though he’s missing that trademark bat of his. Jonouchi’s got a new get up on - a collar with what looks like fucking knives jutting out of it, shiny new knuckle dusters, clothes that look like they were hand-picked by that shrimpy fuck, a scowl he has no right to. Cute.
“Nice threads, Kacchan,” Hirutani sneers. “Make the lingerie ride up any?”
Jonouchi’s mouth curls in a snarl, new metal canine teeth glinting in the low light of the bar. Ooh, those are a nice touch. Hirutani will have so much fun pulling those out, just like he did with the old ones.
“We’re here to correct a mistake,” Yugi says, cold and business-like.
“Oh?” Hirutani drawls. “What mistake is that?”
“Letting you live,” Yugi says.
Silence hangs for a moment, thick like cigarette smoke. Hirutani snorts.
“Yeah, right,” he says.
Hirutani rolls his shoulders back, joints popping as he reaches into a pocket. Fingers close on cold plastic.
Hirutani smirks, drawing out his hand. “I have just the thing to make your mutt heel-”
Hirutani stops. Frowns. Looks at his hand.
It’s empty.
There. There was something in his hand, just now. Wasn’t there?
Hirutani stares at this empty palm, trying to make sense of the sudden nothing in his hand, in his mind.
It… He’s used it before. On Jonouchi. He’s used it a lot, he should know what’s called, he just had it, what -
Hirutani looks up.
The gang is gone. Weapons, people, gone.
There is only Yugi, leathers pitch black against the bar lights, his eyes almost glowing and ember red. He stalks forward with all the terrible purpose of a hungry lion. When he opens his mouth, his teeth are fangs, and his high voice is dragged deep and guttural as he growls,
“Run.”
Hirutani bolts.
J’z’s bar has a couple exits - Hirutani skitters up the exit closest to the bar, opposite from where Yugi came in, stumbling and skipping up the stairs. It’s narrow and it’s tricky but it leads right up to the street and he bursts through the door and skids into -
a hallway.
Hirutani freezes. The hallway is dark, doors every few feet on both sides. A fluorescent bulb above him flickers.
That’s - this isn’t right. This door goes up to the one of the alleyways, not upstairs. He couldn’t have got turned around, he knows this place like he built it himself - there isn’t a hallway this way -
“Did you think it would be that easy?”
Hirutani spins in place, breath catching in his throat.
Yugi’s voice sounds like he’s right behind Hirutani, but he’s not. Hirtuani can feel him like the gravity of an incoming meteor, hear his boots thudding as he comes up the steps. There’s still some distance, still some time. Hirutani picks a direction and runs.
“Did you think I’d cower?”
The hallway is impossibly long, unmarked locked doors one after the other running far past the length of the building. Hirutani should either be out in the street or in a different building entirely, but there’s only the doors and cracked linoleum and the same flickering fluorescent light. Hirutani’s lungs burn.
“Did you think this would be quick?”
Suddenly: an open door. Hirutani nearly runs past it, skids and trips as he grabs at the doorframe. He looks behind him - just for a second, half a second - and sees Yugi, the scant light warping around him like the accretion disk of a black hole. His eyes are redder. Brighter. His teeth flash like a steel trap.
“Did you think I’d be merciful?”
Hirutani bolts into the door, finds another staircase, takes it two, three steps at a time. This has to be it, this has to lead to the street -
Hirutani steps into another hallway. An identical hallway. The same light flickers, just above him.
He stares, unbelieving, breath heaving.
There’s. There’s no second floor. There’s the basement and the ground floor, there isn’t a second floor to J’z, he should be either in the alleyway or on the roof, what in the fuck is this?
“You think you deserve mercy?”
Yugi’s voice echoes, sepulchral, from the bottom of the staircase. Hirutani steps back from the void, heels digging as he - as he -
His legs don’t move.
They should. Shouldn’t they? There’s a way - a way for them to move to make Hirutani go fast, far away from here, he was just doing it. Right? Why. Why can’t he make them move the fast way? There’s a word for the fast way, he can feel the shape of it in his head, why can’t he think the word, why can’t he think it at his legs to make them go?
Hirutani looks up -
and is met with blood red eyes, an open snarl, and a third eye glowing bright as the sun.
“After what you’ve done?!”
Hirutani gasps, and a hand grabs him by the jaw, slams him into the linoleum. The tile cracks under him, his head ringing, blood in the back of his mouth. Fingers dig like claws into his face, and Hirutani raises his hands to -
to…
Do what, exactly?
Hirutani whines, the hole where the word for hurt the other person with your hands should be jagged and bloody in his mind, his hands flapping uselessly against the floor. His lungs burn and his legs lay limp and something cracks, like a gunshot, just in front of his face.
Hirutani freezes.
Yugi’s face slides, this way and that, cracking as it goes. Opens, wetly, a bloody flower blooming out, scraping teeth radiating out from the petal edges, and Hirutani opens his mouth to - to - to make a noise, any noise, a loud noise to make to get help, but the word is gone gone gone, scraped out of his brain by the radula of some horrible kind of leech, and he can only watch in mute horror as the teeth start to dig into the skin of his face, his nose, fangs piercing his eyeball and scraping against his skull and oh god oh god make it stop make it stop MAKE IT STOP -
“Enough.”
Hirutani blinks, and there’s the sensation of a rubber band snapping against the surface of his brain and then -
He’s back in J’z.
The gang is back, weapons in hand, Jonouchi standing in front of them. Yugi, looming over Hirutani, glaring, his eyes no longer red. Out of the corner of his eye he watches one of Yugi’s gang pick the Taser up off the floor and remove the battery.
Yugi turns, slowly, towards Jonouchi, who walks forward.
“I want him to be himself for what I’m gonna do to him,” Jonouchi says.
For a second Hirutani’s sure Yugi is gonna tell Jonouchi to fuck off, let him work. Instead his shoulders lower, just a fraction, his snarl loosening a notch. He licks his lips, teeth flashing.
“All right,” Yugi says. “How do you wanna do this?”
Jonouchi’s gaze slides to Hirutani. His eyes are flat and lightless. Maybe, once upon a time, he would’ve been conflicted. Held himself back. Hirutani made sure that wouldn’t be an option a long time ago.
“Get me a hammer and nails,” Jonouchi says to one of the gang. “And get the brand ready.”
7, 11, and 12 for the ask game. Also hope you get better soon! Being full of snot sucks unreasonably bad /:
thank u. mostly I am v sleepy, hopefully it will pass soon. anywho,
7. what's your favorite way to travel? Is there a mode of travel you haven't done that you want to experience?
[insert rant about American infrastructure and car culture here] But! ☝️I actually really love driving, lol. I love that it’s a big part of my job, I love being to go wherever I please, I love being able to take in the scenery and spot wildlife as I go. Some of my best childhood memories were made on road trips, sucks I haven’t been able to do it in awhile.
That said, I’d really like to try long-distance passenger rail sometime - like those scenic sleeper car routes that Amtrak has? I think that’d be fun.
11. what kind of music is stuck in your head a lot lately?
Usually whatever I was last listening to when working or doing chores, or whatever random ear worm my brain listens to. Today it’s been either this remix of HEALTH’s “Antidote,” or “Hai Yorokonde.”
12. Dishes or laundry?
Folding/putting away laundry is annoying, but man. I’ve had to hand-wash dishes for the past five years and I’m sick of it, so I’m going w laundry.
thinking about Mama Mutou (and specifically my version of her (that is basically an OC)) and oops I have. another fuckin WIP
(context for the following: Mama Mutou (given name Karuta) has just caught Jonouchi “stealing” from her after she took him and Yugi thrift shopping. what follows is a lil conversation snippet)
And there’s -
- more than there should be?
That can’t be right. Karuta counts the bills again, and again, and - there’s definitely more in her pocketbook than there was when she got back from work, about [¥] and some change. The bills look different, too - the ones Karuta had to start are more crisp, because she just got them from the bank. The new ones, the ones she thought Jonouchi was stealing, are worn and crinkled and have nicks along the edges.
Karuta looks at the bills, then up at Jonouchi. There’s a question there, just on the tip of her tongue, but it refuses to come out.
“It’s for the coat,” Jonouchi says in a small voice.
Karuta stares at him uncomprehendingly.
“For, y’know,” Jonouchi says, fidgeting, “the winter coat, and the other one, and the um, clothes.”
Karuta shakes her head. “I don’t…”
“I don’t like owing people,” Jonouchi says. “And that’s not all of it, but I-I’m good for it, I promise, you’ll get the rest when I get paid.”
Karuta blinks. Something molten and ugly churns in her, makes her mouth go sour. What the hell is wrong with this kid?
“Jonouchi,” she says, slowly, “you don’t owe me anything.”
It’s Jonouchi’s turn to stare at her.
“…Yes I do?”
“No, no you-“ Karuta stops, sighs, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Those were gifts, you don’t have to pay me back.”
Inspiration from @junkverse seeing all their awesome dragons reminded me, Hey! I started out with mainly dragons and monsters since I was a wee one! And wanted to draw a more organic ish ig not proper word i think but just draw a good old dragon again, I uhh got out of hand abit with the lines but yea
Hi Zack! For the ask game Just wanted to say the bewd and red eyes look so cool!! Makes me want to draw bewd and red eyes more natural and how I used to draw dragons.
your untiled ones of your dragons with ygo things are very silly I think my fav is the one with the puzzle in its mouth
The way you draw dragons are very charming to look at
A random sketchbook page would be cool to see! not much paper drawings that I've seen of yours!
hi Nero! and thank you! my dragons are def my pride and joy
happened to have both my current and most recently filled sketchbook easily at hand, so have a page from both:
this spread is from my last filled sketchbook. I used to fill about one a year, but covid knocked me down so bad it took me five years to fill this one. I also like drawing straight ahead in pen sometimes
this page is from my current sketchbook. iterating on the design for a new dragon species for my fantasy headworld. trying to combine allosaurus + deinonychus with some extra bits thrown in
all righty, in light of various Tumblr blackout dates: I’ll do my best to off this site/app from tomorrow, March 18th, to end of Saturday, March 21st. I’ll pause the queue on my alt, as well
that said, if you wanna shoot the shit, send me something, yell about the card boys etc, I have a Discord! I don’t use it often but I will use it for y’all - I’m junkverse there, as well
all righty, in light of various Tumblr blackout dates: I’ll do my best to off this site/app from tomorrow, March 18th, to end of Saturday, March 21st. I’ll pause the queue on my alt, as well
that said, if you wanna shoot the shit, send me something, yell about the card boys etc, I have a Discord! I don’t use it often but I will use it for y’all - I’m junkverse there, as well
vaporwave
turnnoffyourmind
2087
titsay
gummygunk
annaxmalina
ellievsbear
blakekathryn
