#got one reply once

[heavenknowsffs]

feel free to comment on the tags / add more options i forgot

[peace-hunter]

I like the idea that the Matrix was said to contain "The wisdom of the Primes" and while it kind of DOES, what he actually got was the ability to commune with the Primes, and while everyone expects them to be a well of wisdom they're kind of just normal people and tell Optimus that Megatron's a glitch.

He's basically just got 13 older annoying siblings.

some times collective wisdom means knowing how to build and lead an entire army while restructuring your entire society after decades of oppression.

others it means knowing that mixing the cybertronian equivalent of vodka and tequila is a Stupid Idea and you will definitely regret it oh my god-

and being the youngest of fourteen sometimes means knowing that and doing it anyway lmao

but yeah that's basically it! that's kinda the point of the au! yeah they were wise and intelligent and almost divine but they were still people! and the concept of wisdom can be very subjective when there's thirteen of you and you have thousands if not millions of years of Opinions™ aklsjdlalds

haunted au

[yank-a-ton]

[lastoneout]

Ngl the fact that the guidelines for shinigami eyes say that theyfab is not an anti-trans slur and thus not enough to mark someone as anti-trans and equates transmedicalist as being just as harmful as "tenderqueer" despite it claiming to support nonbinary people is uh. Yeah starting to kinda think this extension has overall been a net negative for the trans and queer communities and was always going to end up like this.

[attyrocious]

mhmmm funky colors

[necrotic-nephilim]

this is not a ship post, but something that frustrates me a lot in fanon concerning Jason Todd that attempts to soften Jason's return to Gotham for the sake of found family domesticity or easy hurt/comfort or just sliding him into the Batfam sooner, is they all seem to fundamentally misunderstand Jason.

because there seem to be a lot of fandom popular concepts of Jason coming home much sooner and just not having his whole Under The Red Hood arc. which in theory is fine and i can see the want to simplify canon to make room for your lighthearted more fluff-leaning concepts. but in everyone without fail, the way they address the clown-shaped elephant in the room is by having some throwaway line that "oh Jason quietly kills the Joker and moves on".

when the Joker being dead or alive is not the *point*. if by some chance accident, the Joker had died prior to Jason's return, whether by ridiculous freak accident, getting whacked by a fellow villain, hell even someone actually doing so to avenge Jason, it *would not* satiate Jason's anger. because Jason's end goal in UtRH is not to simply kill the Joker: it is to make *Bruce* kill the Joker. Jason's anger is directed to the idea that to Jason, if Bruce truly loved Jason, he would've killed the Joker. that is love, for Jason. compromising your personal values for love and not letting someone go unavenged. when Jason was Robin, almost every angry or misguided thing he did was born of love. he wanted to kill/hurt Two-Face because he believed Dent killed his father. he was so angry at Felipe because an innocent woman was dead due to that man's actions. he wanted to save his mother in a situation he knew he shouldn't be in because he loved her. his anger, his violence, it is driven by love and feelings of righting wrongs. that is how he thinks wrongs *should* be righted. that is how you avenge and *love* someone.

because so long as Jason's return to Gotham doesn't end in Bruce killing the Joker (which, it never will bc Bruce is Bruce), Jason will never forgive Bruce. you cannot wave away the layers of hurt and complicated trauma by killing Joker offscreen. because Jason will still be angry that Bruce didn't avenge him. in his eyes, that means Bruce did not love him enough. he was not truly loved by Bruce the way he loved Bruce. bc Bruce was Jason's whole *world*. prior to being taken in, Dick and Tim, they had support systems. they had loved ones. they knew what stability and healthy family love looked like. Jason *didn't*. and that's not to say that Catherine Todd did not love him with her whole heart and thus he loved her, but it certainly wasn't a stable and safe support system for Jason to grow up in. Bruce was Jason's first real sense of a stable, healthy life. and so of course Jason poured everything into Bruce and loved Bruce so devoutly. Bruce was his world. like he says, if it had been Bruce, Jason would've stopped at nothing.

so his betrayal is rooted in that he was not avenged, not that Joker is alive. so long as the Joker does not die by Bruce's hands, it will never be enough for Jason. (in this era, at least.) notably, this is also why i don't think it would change a thing if Jason knew the whole "oh Bruce wanted to kill the Joker but Superman stopped him" tidbit that fanon has really latched onto as a way to pacify Jason's anger toward Bruce. Jason knowing that wouldn't change a thing, in my opinion. because Jason knows Bruce. and a tenant of Bruce's character is that he grapples with murder *every day*. the whole point is how *easy* it would be for him. he is a human weapon, trained by killers, trained to be deadly. he is the greatest strategist to exist. he knows he could kill someone and get away with it. *no* trace, no proof, nothing. and he knows he *wants* to. wants to kill the Joker, Joe Chill, anyone who's hurt him that viscerally.

but he *doesn't*. that's the point. Bruce wakes up every day with that question on his mind, and every day the answer is the same. Bruce's morality is not a decision he made in an alleyway when his parents died, it's a decision he continues to make every day and he *must* continue to make in order to remain who he is. Jason is quite familiar with the fact that Bruce grapples with this daily. i do not think it surprised nor fazed Jason to know that Bruce did *consider* killing the Joker. that he wanted to. maybe even planned to. but a consideration, a want, a plan, is just a thought. it's nothing substantial, and substance is everything to Jason. at the end of the day, Bruce didn't. he was talked down by *Clark* of all people with an excuse of diplomatic immunity, as if Jason and Bruce don't both know that Bruce could've *easily* found a way to make it look like an accident or some other loophole. because he's Batman. there's always a loophole. he always finds a way when he actually intends to. but he never actually intended to kill the Joker. so he didn't. and Jason would know that there was never an intent. it's an interesting piece of fodder to add to the nuance of Jason and Bruce, but honestly, i think it'd make Jason angrier to have that excuse thrown in his face. as if Bruce hasn't beaten Clark half a dozen times by now. it's a flimsy nonsense excuse that Jason would rip to shreds.

so while yes, i understand the wish for easy lighthearted fanfic that doesn't have to deal with the nuances of canon, i think that Jason's character will always be so deeply robbed and altered if you try to fix his thirst for vengeance with an off-page killing of Joker at Jason's hands. it was never the point. the point was that -in his own eyes- he wasn't loved enough for Bruce to make an acception. he realized that not even his *death* would come before Bruce's Mission. Jason truly believed that Bruce loved him and held him as the most important thing in the world, and now he has proof that Bruce didn't. because the Mission mattered more.

i'm not saying i have a solution to this conundrum if you're attempting to solve it for fanfic/fanon, nor am i even saying it's a bad thing it exists. i just think it becoming overwhelmingly common has led to misunderstandings surrounding Jason's motivations and feelings about this arc and it's an unsatisfying solution that only seeks to pacify Jason's rage and his trauma responses for the sake of found family-ification.

[mohntilyet]

same anon, do not apologize about taking an excuse to rant because it was a very enjoyable read 👍 especially because i share similar frustration regarding the lack of lore on rivain and even less lore on the lords as a faction. My very first rook was a lord and it was honestly kind of a miserable playthrough roleplaying wise 😭 i think i only got like five faction related dialogue options throughout the ENTIRE game!!! That combined with rook acting like they dont know anything about their own factions or even their own nation was absolutely maddening… anyway whoops sorry for my own little rant

RIGHT.... you do not have to apologise either anon i am right there with you. the map surrounding rivain being so nothing is just insult to injury when 1) like you said, almost no dialogue choices, 2) jack all content because i was running around for 70 hours hoping to find decor related to them/finding none because there IS none/absolutely nothing in the lighthouse being customised as a result and 3) they have decided the only thing you get to say about being a lord is repeating their catchphrase like this shit is scooby doo

the art book also has some pages on the lords that gave me mixed feelings lol spread that i scanned under the cut

i really thought that they would lean into the "mix and match" thing especially because even when i was designing my rook pre release, i was trying to incorporate elements of this! i was looking at duncan's armor to try and patch together something that reflected rivain! but when the game comes out it's just. orientalist. and there's a bull on my crotch. even though the art book discusses this idea of the lords having patchwork armor that they've stolen or put together because they're so diverse. there's a few designs in here that i would have loved to see in the game with the more piratey longcoats and hats, and if they were going to draw inspiration i wish they'd looked more at mauritius and south india (kerala, tamil nadu) instead of . i'm not actually sure what the fuck they were doing here. my first thought when i saw the jewelry and design in game had been indigenous south american? but ofc the longer i looked the more i leaned away from that initial judgement and the more i got confused, and what little we know of rivain is obviously inspired by south asia (asha's maiden name being bahadur, bharv, hari, etc. but there's also mateo?) so i think it is the tried and true method white people looove to do where they mishmash cultures into one place and then get defensive when poc say "we aren't interchangable like that"

visually i think veilguard is so so successful in most cases with that consideration of shape language, colors, etc (though sometimes i think it goes too far. let the crows wear black again) but rivain/the lords is one of the weaker ones because i wish there was something specifically rivaini that tied it all together. like if dragons are found here (presumably. taash has a reputation as a dragon hunter. they would need to hunt dragons in rivain) then maybe scale armor as an identifier. or if rivain is known for pearl farming then it features more in their armor. or if the climate is hotter, so the fabric they wear would be linen and would actually cover more of their skin to avoid sunburn! or if they wear lots of blue, is that because they're a producer of that dye? just worldbuilding things like this completely ignored to make their main thing 'lots of gold and it should be revealing' and be weirdly racist/orientalist in the process.

[erabu-san]

Would jsut like to say that as an aroace who is always starved for platonic content and platonic intimacy, it means a lot to me that, even if not for the same reason, you’ve drawn so much platonic cyno and tighnari art <3 it’s just very comforting to know that there are people who like the same thing as me and won’t be an ass about whether their relationship has to be romantic, so thank you for that, and I’m sorry people aren’t getting the memo :(

Waaaah thank you anon 😭💕

I don't blame people, I imagine new comer in my account won't know that I don't ship them !

Oh I HAVE SO MANY idea for platonic content for some character 😭

Here my list (I didn't update, I just added cyno sethos gkdkd need to rethink abt it)

[swaps55]

It required two ladders and a makeshift scaffold to pull off, but we finally hung the incredible Mass Effect travel posters created by @legionofpotatoes.

I am SO EXCITED to have them up. They look incredible!!!

Photos of the scaffold under the cut, for the curious. It was hard and we are proud. XD

[snapedefender]

to be totally honest i feel like people forget that hp is a children’s book series and that the characters in it function the way they do to fit the narrative structure of children’s books. like. 

we can boo-hoo about snape being an abuser or w/e the fuck but the fact of the matter is that his place in the narrative is to be a mildly annoying antagonist. that’s why literally none of the kids except maybe neville are really that bothered by him beyond a “ah fucking SNAPE” attitude. like even that moment where snape insults hermione’s teeth gets blown over in like five pages??? in the next scene she’s totally fine. 

because snape’s narrative purpose is to be the annoying mean teacher. plot-wise, he functions as a narrative hook (what’s snape doing? why is he so suspicious?) and an obstacle to the goals of the protagonists. if we look at the events of a lot of the books, without snape in them there’s immediately way less tension because without snape in them, harry & co would immediately have a much easier time achieving their goals. like yeah, he’s mean but i think we’re also like... forgetting that “mean teacher” is as much a trope as like “prophecy child” or w/e. idk what to tell you except that it’s the same kind of annoying discouse that surrounds people who gasp in moral outrage over child protagonists being made to like fight the evil villains. because for most children’s stories, this isn’t a commentary on child soldiers or loss of innocence or anything like that, it’s just because... these books are for children and kids want to read about themselves conquering evil. it’s that simple. it’s a similar thing with snape. like at no point when i read this series as like a 10 year old did i think “wow that teacher is sooooo abusive and traumatizing his students!!! evil man!!!” i was like “wow he’s mean!! damn him, stop getting in harry & co’s way!!! foiled again by snape!!!” like when i was reaching as a kid/teen i regarded him as a scooby doo villain (affectionate) not a child-abusing sadist. 

and i think it’s just... really necessary to remember that characters in books serve a narrative purpose and also that the way they interact with their world is actually dependent on their genre, you know? and also because i had to read someone’s like four paragraphs on why snape is an evil abuser and i was thinking 2 myself yet again about how it’s Not That Deep. like. he’s a mean teacher. his function in the story is to Be The Mean Teacher. he’s an obstacle, not an abuser and the fact of the matter is harry & co always treat him like that bc that’s his purpose in the narrative. sorry 2 break it to you.

[total-drama-brainrot]

Solo Victory Noah AU, where Noah is in Team Victory, instead of DJ... Noah later ends up becoming the final Team Victory Contestant... Alejandro keeps trying to sabotage Noah, but Noah always outsmarts all the sabotages... Noah ends up in the Final 3, with Alejandro and Heather... Owen is super-duper proud of Noah! 🏆

I've actually been toying with an AU where Noah ends up on Victory instead of CIRRRRH, watches what's happening to his team with thinly veiled annoyance, eventually grows sick and tired of sleeping in Economy (he's not at all concerned for the people he's watched be manipulated and/or his own position in the competition, why do you ask?) and manages to make it to the merge through the power of sheer spite despite being a one-man-team.

It's... not a very fleshed out idea, mind you, and I usually only ponder over it to make myself laugh at different scenarios where Alejandro is desperately trying to get Noah- the surprise one man army that no one saw coming- eliminated, and Noah managing to either outplay him at his own game or twist the circumstances to his favour in a very Looney Tunes-like fashion.

Because Alejandro would see the continued existence of Team Victory as a personal slight, so he'd put an increasing amount of time and effort into getting Noah eliminated if only to prove that he can. And Noah's just smart enough and finally motivated enough (initially by spite, turned vengeance, turned pure amusement) to spin Alejandro's schemes on their head every time. They're literally the Road Runner and Wile. E. Coyote.

It usually ends up with Team Chris or Team Amazon heading to an elimination ceremony, only for it to be a "surprise reward challenge" or something similar.

(Of course, they'd go through a "Alejandro tries to sweet talk Noah into an alliance" stage, like Alejandro does with DJ in canon, but Noah's switched on to Alejandro's true colours since he's literally watched him eliminate the rest of his team. Maybe Noah plays into Heather's offered alliance instead? Again, I haven't really thought too much on this silly AU.

After Chris doesn't allow Noah to join Team CIRRRRH, and Noah himself refuses Alejandro's offered alliance, it turns into Alejandro driving himself crazy trying and failing to eliminate Noah.)

The main draw of the idea, for me at least, is Noah not making it to the final three though. Because (in my mind) Noah doesn't even really want to be back in the competition- he just kind of went along with the crowd for the Celeb Manhunt bus chase, and inadvertently bagged himself a spot on World Tour. He's under no delusions that he'll ever win the million, but floating his way to the merge would at least make up for the embarrassment of being voted out first from the Gophers his short run in Island.

So he makes it to the merge after playing a glorified game of cat-and-mouse (Tom and Jerry Style) with Alejandro. He's got a hypercompetent Archvillain gunning for his elimination, and now that the teams are null and void, alliances are the name of the game. So what does Noah do?

He gets himself eliminated, just to take the satisfaction of doing so away from Alejandro. Probably through a technicality or something too, like Izzy's departure from the competition, to save himself the shame effort of jumping out of the jet.

That's mostly because I really like the idea of Noah reaching the merge, thinking "I've reached the goal I've set for myself. Might as well quit whilst I'm ahead!" and just-

Leaving.

(Which is ironic, because he's spent the last ~8 challenges actually trying to remain in the competition, and now he's just. Giving up. Drawing a line in the sand. "This is as far as I go.")

It's a shame that the London challenge happens pre-merge, because the idea of Duncan being forced back into the competition and the jet taking off before anyone realises that they're missing Noah- who snuck away into the city and is having a great time using Chris' debit card (of which he memorised during his time as Chris' assistant) to live it up bourgeoisie style in London- is fuelling me.

Realistically though, he'd probably sneak off in China during the eating challenge- because why would he stick around when Owen's gone? It wouldn't be hard for him to throw the eating challenge at the first round and then just. Not sit as the loser's table. Maybe he knows enough Mandarin to get by, and manages to stowaway himself back home to his family and beloved golden lab.

Meanwhile, Alejandro is seething.

Owen is really proud of his little buddy for making the merge, and a little disappointed in Noah for 'giving up', but when Noah expresses that he didn't have anything to stay for after Owen's departure, his disappointment turns to sentimentality.

[mwarlyn]

scaralyn except it’s just violent gut wrenching angst

[yxstxrdrxxm-a]

Just a reminder with asks to not send me any if it's for another person. I'll delete it if you do. I'm not your messenger, even if my blog theme (right now) is one.

Thanks.

[vickyvicarious]

i can't lie, i'm ESL (english as second language) and i consider myself basically fluent but when seward start talking about parallels and centrifuge i felt my brain short-circuiting. do you have any explanations and theories on wtf that part was supposed to mean? just the stream of consciousness ramblings of a spiraling dude? or something actually meaningful?

In selfish men caution is as secure an armour for their foes as for themselves. What I think of on this point is, when self is the fixed point the centripetal force is balanced with the centrifugal; when duty, a cause, etc., is the fixed point, the latter force is paramount, and only accident or a series of accidents can balance it.

He does mean something by this for sure, but much like his Latin earlier he's saying it in a way that can definitely be confusing to the average reader. In this case, he's using scientific language to describe his concept. I believe I get his intended message, but it's the kind of thing that I'm not really scientifically-minded enough to be sure I'm explaining correctly. So if anyone out there can do better, please hop in and correct me/elaborate as needed!

Spoken simply, he's invoking two concepts: centripetal and centrifugal. I think this comparison of the concepts is fairly approachable. But in even simpler (and admittedly less precise) terms...

centrifugal = pushing out

centripetal = pulling in

So, if you spin something around a central point, the connection that keeps it spinning rather than just flying away is centripetal. The sensation it has that is being pulled away from the middle is centrifugal.

There's all this stuff as well about how centrifugal force isn't technically a 'real' force, just an 'apparent' one, but that's not so relevant for Seward's point here. What's he's using this language to say, essentially, is this.

When 'selfishness' (inward focus, centripetal) is at the center of someone's nature, other things (outward focus, centrifugal) don't pull them off course too much because they're too worried about keeping themselves safe. This means they maintain a more fixed orbit, essentially. They're more predictable.

When a duty or cause is at the center, however, the two forces are not in balance, and they can suddenly stop spinning around in a circle to go flying off somewhere unexpectedly. They behave in unpredictable and possibly dangerous ways without necessarily giving much warning. This is because self-preservation (inward focus, centripetal) is less important to them than their duty/cause (outward focus, centrifugal). So even if flying out of orbit hurts them too, they won't care or stop.

Where he talks about accidents balancing things, he's basically saying that a balance between these forces is needed to keep them stable/predictable. And by his definition, unselfish people will only become balanced by chance, so long as the current situation suits their cause. There's not really a way to plan for it or count on them to make it happen in the same way he thinks selfish people can be predicted or managed. That's why selfish peoples' caution is an armor for both themselves and their enemies - being cautious keeps them safe, but makes them predictable which lets their enemies keep safe too.

To bring it all into focus with Renfield: if Renfield is more worried about keeping himself safe, he won't do anything risky to himself. But if he doesn't care about that and is fully driven by some fixation, then he might (for example) attack a person even if doing so will get him in greater trouble. As long as it serves his fixation, he wouldn't care about the consequences.

...hopefully that made a bit more sense to you!

[byanyan]

still alive ftr just... struggling to get myself to do stuff again bc ofc I am ajdgks

[alectoperdita]

Put That Guy in a Situation Ask Meme/Prompt

41. Panic Attacks

54. Kidnapping

58. Crying

I cannot decide which of these to pick so do whichever you're feeling, if any, (or combine if you want) but I think something with Jou and Hirutani could be cool. And Kaiba or Yugi is of course welcome to show up. Idk I just feel like there's a lot of missed angst potential between Jou and Hirutani

From Put That Guy in a Situation(TM) Ask Game

54. Kidnapping

Sorry, this took me so long.

That manga chapter lives rent-free in my head forever. There's established joukai in the background of this one, but Kaiba is only mentioned and doesn't appear. The main focus of the fic is on Jounouchi and Hirutani's interactions as requested. I hope I was able to do them justice in your mind. It's pretty ambiguous overall but feel free to imagine their past relationship as more than a wannabe gang boss and his lieutenant.

content warning: beating, non-graphic blunt force trauma, homophobic language, implied torture, open/ambiguous ending

---

Clink. Clink CLANG.

It was no use. There was zero give when he tugged, virtually swinging in the breeze like a fish hooked on a line. It accomplished nothing other than straining his already numb arms.

The chains were thick and heavy. They were the industrial kind used on construction sites and heavy machinery; not the sort that Katsuya could break with his bare hands, not unless he developed some new superpower in the next ten seconds. It'd simply tire him out and leave him even more vulnerable than he already was.

Shirtless, barefooted, arms extended over his head, wrists bound in metal and winched on a hook hanging from an exposed steel beam, hoisted until his shoulders pulled at their sockets and his tiptoes treading the concrete floor. This already seemed like it was as bad as this could get.

Or so he thought, until a door creaked open and someone stepped into the cavernous space. He came alone, and while the cheeks were more sunken than before, little else about the face had changed since they rancorously parted ways as young teenagers.

"You," he growled.

Hirutani meandered toward him slowly. His clothing still marked him as a thug, low rent despite the gaudy gold chains and piercings. He didn't stop when he finally reached Katsuya, instead circling around as if to inspect him like a piece of meat. Katsuya stiffened as soon as he left his line of sight, and try as he might, he couldn't twist enough to keep an eye on his captor.

After an interminable length of time, Hirutani stopped in front of him. "Howya doin', Joujou?" he greeted as if they were old friends.

Katsuya saw the move coming from miles away. Hirutani made no attempts to hide his intention. But there wasn't much Katsuya could do except slacken his jaw and neck and roll with the punch.

Copper exploded on his tongue. The sickening crunch echoed. His head snapped backward, and he was left rearing and swinging from the force. It knocked him off his toes, which meant his shoulders screamed as they threatened to dislocate under his own body weight.

Even as his feet scrambled to regain their footing, Katsuya made no sound, though. He wouldn't give him the satisfaction.

His breath wheezed out of him. Warm droplets splattered his chilly chest. His nose was definitely broken. Lips were probably busted, too. At least he managed to keep his teeth.

"You just had to go for the face first, you sonuvabitch," he spat, expelling a mix of saliva and blood on the concrete just centimeters shy of Hirutani's shoes. 

"It was pissing me off. You always looked better with a bit of blood on ya."

Katsuya bared his teeth. The lower half of his face ran slick, and a long-dormant sensation stirred within his ribcage. Its claws raked his insides. "Yeah? I could say the same about you. Lemme go and I'll show ya."

Hirutani merely hummed. After a beat, he pressed his scorching palm against Katsuya's sternum and pushed. Once again, he was knocked off his feet, flailing wildly as he tried not to rip his arms from their sockets.

Hirutani's laughter echoed through the abandoned warehouse. "Still putting on the tough guy act when I gotcha like this. It's good to know some things don't change."

"Yeah, neither has your ugly ass mug."

In a burst of strength, he clasped the chain overhead and hoisted himself upward, leveraging the momentum to take a swinging kick. His right foot connected with Hirutani's stomach, a solid hit that sent him wheeling back several steps.

It also left Katsuya wide open.

With a shout, Hirutani lunged forward and caught his ankle in his meaty hands. Panic surged through Katsuya's system, but he couldn't free himself in time. Hirutani gave a cruel twist, and an agonized cry clawed out of Katsuya's throat. Abruptly, Hirutani dropped him. Katsuya's foot barely twitched, and white-hot pain seared his leg.

Fuck, he couldn't put weight on his right leg anymore.

Hirutani wasn't done with him either. Blows pelted him. Each knocked the air from his lungs and sent him helplessly swinging in the wind. His shoulders creaked with the chains.

He became a human punching bag.

(Or a yo-yo. He would've laughed if someone was trying to beat the shit out of him.)

By the time Hirutani let up, the other man was breathing harshly. Sweat dripped from his furrowed brows and landed on Katsuya's neck when he wrenched his head back. "This would go a lot easier if you learned your place."

"Fuck you," he gasped, ears ringing.

The world spun. Faster than a tilt-a-whirl. God, he wanted to puke.

The rough hand fell away from his hair. He lolled his head forward, jutting his bloodied chin out. Their eyes locked. Katsuya refused to look away, though his eyes watered from the pain.

A sleazy grin wormed across Hirutani's face. "I'll give you some time to calm down and consider your situation. When I come back, we can have a nice, friendly chat. Like old times."

Katsuya could only fume while Hirutani exited. The sound of clicking heels retreated into the distance until there was only silence and his own labored breathing.

****

The worst thing about being kidnapped—and Katsuya had been captured enough times to say this with relative confidence—was the boredom. Because eventually, his mind numbed like his arms. Just like the rest of his body when the cold settled into his bones. Then, he was left with nothing to do except stare at the same four walls.

Should he be plotting his escape? Absolutely.

For all the good that'd do for him, because he wouldn't get far on that ankle...

Every time he forgot to support himself and leaned too heavily on his right ankle, a searing pain reminded him how momentously he'd screwed up. He was not only a sitting duck. He was a lame one, too.

More uncontrolled shivers wracked his body. The warehouse was neither well-insulated nor heated. Maybe if he was lucky, he'd succumb to hypothermia before whatever sick plans Hirutani had in mind.

There was another reason mind-numbing boredom was preferable. The only other options were his racing thoughts.

How long had he been here? How long had he been knocked out cold beforehand? Would anyone notice him missing? Maybe his co-workers would. Shit, what about Scapegoat? Who was going to feed him? His poor cat didn't deserve to suffer because he was stuck here. And Seto—

A slamming door reverberated off the walls with the volume of thunder. It yanked Jounouchi from the miasma of his dangerous spiraling.

As promised, Hirutani returned.

Katsuya stared long and hard as he approached.

"What's wrong? Didja miss me?" the thug arched his eyebrow.

"Yeah, like foot fungus," Katsuya deadpanned.

"Joujou,"—the old nickname alone made Katsuya want to hurl—"is that any way to talk to an old friend?"

"You got the old part right. Yeesh, ya ever heard of moisturizer? But I guess nothing ages ya like being a useless piece of sh—"

The blow to his stomach left him reeling and dry-heaving.

Shut up, shut up. He could hear Seto's voice hissing in his head.

He was doing everything wrong. He knew he was.

Years ago, when his "boyfriend" status was freshly minted in the public eye, Seto made him sit through a lecture from the head of corporate security about how to act if he was ever kidnapped. The hour-long lecture could be distilled down to three main points: don't make eye contact with the captor and give them the impression you could be a threat; try to foster a personal connection and appeal to their humanity; and make them want to help you.

It was safe to say Katsuya had done the exact opposite.

But this was no random kidnapper. This was Hirutani, and they had a "personal connection" and history neither could erase.

"There you go running that mouth of yours again. I admit it used to be cute when we were kids. Like a yapping dog. At least you had the bite to go with the bark."

Choosing to focus on the floor, Katsuya took several fortifying breaths before he replied, "Cut the crap. Whaddya want with me? If it's money, I ain't got much. You'd get more knocking over a liquor store."

Dirt-splattered shoes edged forward. "I dunno. There's probably someone willing to pay out the nose for ya."

Goosebumps erupted across Katsuya's clammy skin, but he refused to react. Did Hirutani intend to use him to blackmail Seto? Or sell him to a third party for one purpose or another?

"But first, you and I are gonna catch up. Reminisce about the good old days."

Katsuya's breath hitched, but he raised his head to meet Hirutani's gaze dead-on. "There was nothing 'good' 'bout it. The lying, the bullying, the thieving, the fights—it was all a shitshow."

"Doesn't change the fact that you owe me. I took care of ya and ya betrayed me."

"I don't owe ya jack shit! The only one you ever cared about was yourself!" A barking laugh tore out of him. "That's what this is about, ain't it? You're in some kinda trouble and in over your head, so you've decided to use me as an ATM/punching bag combo?"

Hirutani's expression darkened. He had no immediate retort.

Something jagged as shrapnel rattled in Katsuya's chest. "Shit, Hiru, don't tell me I gotcha number there. That's lame, dude."

"Do you think you'd be here today if it wasn't for me? You'd be nothing without me."

"I outgrew you," spat Katsuya. "Moved onto bigger and better things instead of rolling around in the mud you're clearly still stuck in."

Hirutani narrowed his eyes, invaded the scant bubble of personal space Katsuya had in such a situation, and grabbed his jaw in a bruising iron grip. His tar-ridden breath washed over Katsuya's face as he laughed, "Bigger and better, huh? Is that what ya call taking that rich boy's limp dick up your ass? Being Kaiba's pampered little bitch gotta have its perks somewhere."

He bristled. He couldn't say what raised his rankles more: the insinuations about his sex life, which wasn't Hirutani's and anyone else's business, or the casual denigration of his almost decade-long relationship.

"Keep his name out of your mouth," he snarled and bared his teeth.

"Tell me I'm wrong, Jounouchi, cuz it looks to me like you've gone soft."

Hirutani released his chin, only to pinch his midsection. Katsuya resisted squeaking, but he felt the skin distend. His body was different from what it used to be, from what Hirutani remembered from their youth. He was now flabbier and his belly carried a soft curve. Security, stability, and love furnished him with more than skin, bone, and the scrappy muscle needed for survival in between.

Which was not an easy notion for Katsuya to accept, but he had been trying to in recent times. It was not a bad thing. It was not a failing, as Hirutani seemed to suggest with his venomous tone.

Katsuya was more than the beaten dog others had treated him as. He deserved more than scraps.

Hirutani continued, hissing with a seething rage, "You used to be a fighter. You used crack jaws and skulls like peanuts. Now look at you."

If only Hirutani came a tad closer, he could bite the bastard's nose right off.

Instead, Hirutani reeled back, followed by a hocking sound emanating from his throat. Something warm and slimy landed on Katsuya's cheek. It left a gooey trail as it dripped down his chin. He froze, caught between disgust and rage. His fingers curled into fists around the chain he couldn't break.

The sonuvabitch spat on him.

"Pathetic." Hirutani sneered and flashed his yellow-stained teeth. "What? You think your fag boyfriend's coming to your rescue?"

Not anytime soon, unfortunately. Seto was abroad for another week, swamped with business. It might be a day or two before he noticed anything awry. For the first time, he regretted not taking Seto on his offer to accompany him to the tech conference. Las Vegas must be heaven compared to this.

Not that he'd tell Hirutani any of that.

"That's up to you. Y'know Kaiba's a scorched earth kinda guy, right?" He stared down the length of his broken nose at the other man. "If you let me go now, he might kill ya fast. Not me, though. I'd make it last."

Threatening his kidnapper probably topped the list of things he shouldn't do. But Katsuya was too angry to care.

"You act like you and your boy toy are the only ones that can hold a grudge. I got one, too, y'know. And it's with you. You'll be begging me to put you down like a dog before I'm done." Hirutani's eyes gleamed with malice as he peeled something from his waistband.

At first, Katsuya thought it was a gun. But then he recognized it as something that made the pit of his stomach drop. He broke into a cold sweat when he saw the electricity that arced between two metal prongs. Air whooshed out of his lungs, and it didn't come back.

His mind blanked before the taser ever touched his skin. The screams, however, arose loudly and involuntarily.

Read other prompt fill ficlets here

If you wanna read another fic where Hirutani kidnaps both Kaiba and Jounouchi, I highly recommend @chesacakeripper's About to Break. Please let them know how awesome and amazing their fic is.