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[ One-shot | Kaijou/Puppyshipping | Valentine's Day '25 fic ]

Summary: Seto knows what he has with Katsuya is a quiet kind of love, built upon small actions and passing moments. So, each morning he wakes, converging the essence of self in the stillness of the hour, and asks: what is it that he, Kaiba Seto, considers his centre? An introspection-driven relationship study of Seto and Katsuya. Note: Happy Valentine's to our boys! I decided to write them quietly happy for once (mostly; it's properly happy this time, really!) and living in bliss – because despite my withered husk of a heart, I only really want them to be (kinda realistically) happy c':

Click below for a few preview paragraphs!

It was 4.57am.

Seto awoke in the quiet, right on cue.

Whatever the impetus, this had been the single constant that followed him throughout his life. It was a habit he had cultivated from years of necessity – school, work, Gozaburo, stress. Once a product of authority and fear, Seto had since reclaimed its association, determined to cycle its rebirth from a past buried into a present of peace and rest.

Now, these hours he reserved for the anchoring of self before the ionisation of a day; a moment of him, for him – reflection rotated around the tightrope of interlude that separated his twilight from the awakening of the day.

It was one of the few luxuries Seto allowed himself.

He slipped, from his bed warmed by two into the embrace of quiet, footsteps light even though the bed hardly stirred. The shadow of his form the manual flicker against the slice of the city projected into the cover of their bedroom – constellations of city lights scattered across the corner of their duvet – gliding past the sliver at the edge of the curtains, one that fell just wayward of its seam against the corner of the wall. An imperfection, from when Katsuya caught the tail of the fabric a morning moons ago, sleep heavy in the clumsiness of his motions. 

An imperfection that neither had rectified since.

(Read the rest of the fic here!)

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Working-in-Panic (WIP) Wed!

A quiet introspective piece for V-day (technically tomorrow it's past Wed ha ha ha ha) between Myst working-in-panic for corporate deadlines :')

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A more normal Lunar New Year card for us to send out this year heh

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蛇年快乐！欢迎新年没克也有点依依不蛇 :') | Happy Year of the Snake!

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Belated but did a quick sketch of our golden boy for his birthday! :’) (Also desperately need a new icon so)

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it was a day like any other (16535 words)

[ One-shot | Joukai/Puppyshipping | 克也 '25 birthday fic ]

Summary: A cup of coffee, a white shirt, a barista, and a disgruntled CEO crossed paths, literally. And how that confluence of chance precipitated a day unlike any other. Note: Happy birthday to the bestest boy who deserves nothing but happiness! (Even though I keep writing him otherwise...) Also this may have been totes created from a terrible pun of kissaten ha ha ha I'm hilarious

Click below for a few preview paragraphs!

It was a day like any other.

Seto brisk walking down the length of the Central Business District, wearing his signature accessory of what might as well be a patented scowl, billowing trench coat a physical shield, never slowing – why would he need to accede to these plebeians? – passers-by, who knew better, parting like waves bowing back into the ocean at his urgency (or perhaps it was fury, even he couldn’t really tell).

It was a day like any other.

Katsuya ambling down the length of the Central Business District, a cuppa clutched in his cold hands – his daily treat he deemed more necessary than indulgent after a full shift at some pretentious bistro that was born out of a bored high-society wife’s capricious whims – steps light, relaxing into the hours that were finally his.

Turned out the universe had other ideas. (Universe here meaning Katsuya’s preoccupation with his drink and Seto’s obstinate refusal to step aside for anyone.)

“Oh, fuck—“

A clack of shoulders; a clop of stumbling heels; a clatter of a cup; a single click of the tongue.

A single very displeased click of Seto’s tongue.

(Read the rest of the fic here!)

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HAPPY BIRTHDAY KATSUYA THE LIGHT OF MY LIFE AHHHHH

He's love he's life he's light he's hope he's potential he's courage he's perseverance he's forgiveness he's tender he's warmth he's all the parts of me I hated and quelled and never wanted to acknowledged and the only way I can learn to love me was through loving him so thank you thank you thank you thank you jounouchi katsuya <3

Also I queued 24 different Katsuya posts, one for each hour, at my side blog to commemorate the day because dammit idk where my tablet is and I really should just buy another so no art and just me spamming

this boy is all street I swear

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How about Work-I-Purged Wed instead?

Sharing the one time I actually bothered to scrap a scene instead of forcefully working it in because I'd rather kill my darlings with plot than to delete anything for leisure writing ha ha ha

Yes, my angst-ridden heart wanted to include some of that pain into what is meant to be a happy fic smh

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Oops, missed Wednesday where did my week go asjsalf;jas At least I managed to write a bit today :') Hosting overseas folks for work is always a bit of a pain as an introvert ugh

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more to worry about (than me) (7348 words)

[ (7/? hierarchy of collapse) | Kaijou/Puppyshipping | hurtcember 2024 Prompt 7: Abandoned ]

Summary: Seto contends that the abandonment of self is justified in his pledge to exchange the blood of his hands for the blood of innocents, a price well worth its weight in gold. Meanwhile, Hirutani finds himself in the company of one with a particularly reckless abandon for violence. (Enjoy the whiplash from sad introspection to unhinged. Just, unhinged.) (Potential triggers in ao3 link)

Click below for a few preview paragraphs!

The palms of his doctor folded in hesitation, worry threading sunken wrinkles long deepened by the tribulations of a life afforded to others. The patient stood before him with resolution that could only be defined by denial; skin faded in reflection of the untold ghosts that haunted his night before, translucence bulged against the friction of bones, gossamer in dehydration. It thrummed, seeming to just barely contain the uneven surges of sluggish amber, poison, yet dissipated; defilement circulating in discolouration, manifesting in the unwilling pull of the neck into the grind of his jaw.

The retreat of limbs under twisted covers; the admonishment of eyes anchored in graves of blue. The unspoken refusal that rang in deafening clarity – a reminder, of a display of will none could contradict.

“Please rest well, Master Kaiba.”

The doctor bowed, the willow of his heart’s intent moderated by the physicality of his age. Seto eyed him until the heavy door of his room softly clicked shut, the unacknowledged humiliation of his transgressions preceding his usual respect for one whose hands guarded the integrity of his physical temple.

That left the presence of two others who still invaded the sanctity of his desired solitude.

(Read the rest of the fic here!)

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WIP (work-is-pain therefore Myst can't write) Wednesday

Work ramping up means I don't have the brain to write so here's another snippet from the kinda-cafe!au kaijou one-shot I'm working on instead :')

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Why am I starting another WIP when I still have the long fic I'd finally planned to completion awaiting its next chapter?

Also, have some lighthearted KaiJou before the anxiety of the work week kills me :DDD

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Turns out it is a thing to share 10 little-known or behind-the-scenes facts about your writing/fics! Totes hopping on that bandwagon! If anyone wants to share their own set of tidbits I'd love to read them too!

These are for my Yu-Gi-Oh! Kaijou/puppyshipping/violetshipping fics ofc :’)

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Top 10 Fun Ways I Like To Write Character Dynamics and Scenes in hierarchy of collapse Without Explicitly Writing Them

1. ⁠Instead of telling you what the non-POV character is thinking, a line or two about what they are doing in the scene is enough of a reflection (e.g. instead of Seto outright showing distress or anger, he drives more aggressively)

2. ⁠Because the setting is in East Asia, I love bringing in comparisons or metaphors birthed from the region (e.g. Tales of Heike, Buddhist tenets, Japanese and Chinese idioms…), and include specific things in their daily lives you tend to find there (e.g. rows of izakaya, old brutalist buildings from before the turn of the century in the working class or factories-laden areas, biz meetings in karaokes and discos my god I hated those)

3. ⁠You don’t always have the luxury of saying what you feel, so let the indirect comparisons in one’s speech and the actions taken between take you along instead! (e.g. deliberately watering down expensive alcohol before drinking it, spending time between another character’s speech attending to cooking their hotpot ingredients than eating yourself)

(Read the other 7 below the cut!)

4. ⁠Colours. I’m a visual thinker and colours play a huge part in the emotions I envision… which means they will be used as metaphors and as indirect references to the characters and their dynamics (e.g. blue in reference to Seto’s eyes for when Katsuya tries to forget him, greys for helplessness and hopelessness in reference to the barren walls and smoking habit he can’t seem to quit fully). It helps that I'm basically writing out the literal movie that plays in my head so even if they make less sense in traditional writing, I still add them in for atmosphere lol

5. ⁠Parallel descriptions are great for this pairing given their natural dichotomies! Especially for fics where both characters are physically apart but are thinking of each other or experiencing the same hurt (e.g. gold vs. blue; restrained vs. vivacious; cold apathy vs. heated anger)

6. ⁠Really like using repeated lines/quotes/sentence fragments from chapters before, usually italicised, to drive home certain themes or decisions made by the characters (e.g. sacrifice worth its weight in gold (also gold for katsuya cause why not))

7. ⁠I’m terrible at reading smut and even worse at writing them explicitly, which is why I fold everything into emotions and help those scenes along with metaphors and parallels instead (e.g. everything is just heat, tenderness, urgency and need lol)

8. ⁠Adding to the above, love myself a good homophone (e.g. feel vs fill) or double entendre (e.g. mouthing into the head and wrapping your hands around the shaft…of microphones) to push away my own embarrassment ha ha

9. ⁠Part of the fun is having your readers interpret what is going on in the characters’ heads - I say as I expressly detail their thoughts - during key moments! So instead of writing say someone had deliberately gotten Seto drunker (or even drugged), up the descriptions of the room with sentences more disjointed and filled with sensory information to suggest that confusion, peppered with passing lines about imbibing alcohol throughout

10. ⁠Last one saved for how I adore using the space as extended metaphors for their mental and emotional states! A broken photo frame? Why not use their shards as mental reflections of how they were into how they never will be again? Passing a row of working class bars before a scene happens? Why not take the time to go into how Katsuya in all his loneliness is desperate to set foot in there for human contact but can’t because of how broke he is?

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This was a fun reflective exercise! Writing to me is more about experimentation than having a scene fulfilled or to create content that’s not already out there (selfish writing is the only non-professional writing I do hoho), so it’s nice to have an opportunity to share some of what I’ve woven into my stuff!

Curious to see what y'all weave into your own fics/pairings!

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the touch of him, forever pressed into me (8164 words)

[ (6/? hierarchy of collapse) | Kaijou/Puppyshipping | @hurtcember 2024 Day 6: Touch-Starved ]

Summary: Alone, under the witness of his four walls, how can Katsuya assuage this loneliness birthed from a tenderness he could never learn to kill? (How many ways can I make Katsuya hurt – or hurt a bit less – as he goes about his day? + Myst attempts her first smut, but with hurt) (Potential triggers in ao3 link)

Click below for a few preview paragraphs!

Surrounded by his silent witnesses, these four walls his keeper – inured to the baring of hope and hurt, fears and longing, a future and the impossibility of one. Within this utterly generous extent of twenty metres squared he had loaned to his name, was this his willing prison or a borrowed refuge? Where every centimetre he stood in had been saturated, overflowing from expressions of laments, laughter, loathing, loneliness birthed from a tenderness adrift within the cage of his hollows – always aching; always alone, yet one he had never learnt to (and could not) kill.

This was his new ritual. One manifested from inhibitions of his soul untethered, calling for him from the dusk of his unattended yearnings.

Katsuya leaned his head back and sighed deeply. He held his breath as he would a cigarette – unwilling to cede, teeth lightly grinding, rolling the heat that coalesced just under his throat until it became almost unbearable – only then expelling it into imaginary spirals in the air. His physical body cried for release, held prisoner by a mind ensnared with the illusions of them he could not set himself free from.

Who needs sleep when each day brings ya closer ta ya grave?

(Read the rest of the fic here!)

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Another scenic-ish piece, this time inspired by creating something more textured so that I can enjoy the tactile sensation when it’s hung up! (Dec, 2024)

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let me taste the honey of your gold in the burn of my amber (4476 words)

[ (5/? hierarchy of collapse) | Kaijou/Puppyshipping | @hurtcember 2024 Day 5: Faint ]

Summary: If only Seto could redefine the burn of his amber into the taste of Katsuya's wild honeys and warm golds. (Drinking in the den of your enemies when you are in denial about desperately missing someone is a bad idea.) (Potential triggers in ao3 link)

Click below for a few preview paragraphs!

Seto cracked his neck, vision sparking. Fire, the singular noun that looped on repeat, burning just under his skin like an itch he could not quite reach – tongue smouldering with whisky; nose and throat calcified from smoke; blood flowing with his repressed magma of emotions; skin flaring from agitation, alcohol, allergens and all that sat between. A kindled flame sat somewhere in his chest, burning, always burning, casting within its wavering light elongated shadows from the faint memory of a provenance – what he believed (had to believe) was the bottomless fount from which he fuelled the ivory tower of his convictions.

Was that white the righteousness of his knight, resplendent in opposition against the exploitation of black corporations? Or was that white the bleach that saturated his hands, until the blood of his sins were undyed? Or was that white the chalk of a future erased, one that tasted like wild honeys and warm golds?

The room felt claustrophobic – all literal smoke and mirrors, invoking phantoms he did not need to answer to; diffused by a tasteless disco ball that dangled annoyingly close whenever he stood up, scattering in its listless rotations a lurid mosaic of colours from the wayward spotlights onto the lukewarm food.

What did he eat, if at all? Not that it really mattered when everything he touched tasted of ash.

(Read the rest of the fic here!)