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Everyone please read this and scream with me about it. My horror fix is calling!

Hollow

Summary: Seto and Mokuba are brought back to the abandoned Kaiba Mansion for what they hope will be the final time, only to find themselves caught by a ghost from their past in a fight for their freedom. Read on FanFiction.net here. Read on AO3 here.

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@bellamy-taft reminds me so much of The Toymaker’s Son meets YGO

Pegasus J Crawford. The town’s land baron. He owns everything and everyone in this town, whether by owning the land they live on, the stores, their debts, or in some cases practically their souls with the information he knows of them. He runs everything in this town. Most of the people don't complain, or maybe are too scared to anyway. The town’s growth is all thanks to him. Ever since he rolled into the town a few weeks after the Kaiba families’ demise. His current endeavor for the towns growth is a mystery, though. There seems to be something going on near the mines that Pegasus wants to keep the town out of, by any force necessary.

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@procrastiwriting

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This one just aches. The loss of time is palpable but the love is still there despite the awkwardness. The notion that Serenity could have been Mokuba and the genuine relief for her safety isn’t lost to me either. It says so much, so concisely.

And I think it adds to the overall tragedy of it for Joey especially. He went through a lifetime of trauma in two years. Eons to unpack, nowhere for it to go. He pushes it down and she can see it anyway. She’s gotten older, her vision sharper now, and it snags the edges of his memories as they flit across his face.

She’s been safe all this time. He wants to keep her that way. Sneakers to heals, ice cream to sushi, he can swallow the changes if he has to, for her. But reversing the line of duty? Her coming to his rescue? Commuting from school for visits?

That’s his job.

He’ll bury Crawford a thousand times to keep it that way.

His father sold his things and even Serenity doesn’t talk about it. “I wish you called to let me know you were moving.” When, in that case, moving would go without saying. Makes me wonder if she knew. Makes me wonder if some part of her repressed that their father was capable of boxing up his son and selling him to the highest bidder. And, if she could, it speaks all the more to Joey‘s protection of her throughout their lives. He shielded her from what could.

Glass Epilogue: Joey

Joey cupped his hand over the phone screen to block some of the sunlight, and leaned closer to watch Serenity’s graduation video. She had worn her hair braided—he’d never seen her wear it that way before now—and when she accepted her diploma, turned to find their mother in the crowd to give a wave.

“Can’t believe you wore heels for it.”

Serenity bumped her swing into his. “Of course I did. I could hardly wear sneakers.”

“Course you could’ve. More comfortable that way.”

“I don’t think the aim of graduating is comfort.”

Joey still drew stares, but he noticed less of them today. Maybe it was because they saw Serenity first and didn’t expect to find of the of DK7 with her.

He hated the name. Hated the label. Hated the reason for being labeled. Hated a man two-months buried.

Or maybe he burned after he fell.

“Tell me Ma treated you to ice cream after.”

“Hardly. I’m now at the age sushi is a more appropriate celebration.”

“Ridiculous.”

They rocked forward and back in silence, toes dragging ground, letting the weight of all Joey had missed hang between them. It wasn’t only that she graduated. He had left her an awkward teen and come back to find his sister a woman. She lived with roommates and worked at the student center around her class schedule. She told him about her strict professors and her dating coworkers and their mother’s new boyfriend.

He couldn’t tell her about the dungeon cell.

The park wasn’t too busy at noon on a Thursday. A few mothers or nannies sat around while children played on the equipment, and Joey wished he had chosen a different time. They weren’t loud enough. There were still too many quiet moments.

“I still wish you’d called to let me know you were moving,” Serenity said. “I would have helped.”

“Me and Trist managed it all. Not like I had anything too big.”

His dad pawned off everything except Joey’s clothes and some odds and ends. Joey could hardly blame him. If his dad disappeared for three years, he wouldn’t have held onto his shit.

He would have liked to keep his deck, though. Even considering the creator.

“Then I could have come for moral support. Made you a moving playlist.”

“You fishing for an invite?” Joey nudged.

“School’s not so far away. I can be here in an hour, anytime.”

He heard the real offer hidden poorly in her tone, and twisted on his swing to face her.

“I’m fine. Really, Ren. Or you just looking for an excuse to pop in on Trist?”

She twisted to face him too, but her expression read of overwhelming frustration.

“You aren’t fine. You still won’t talk about it.”

“What’s there to say? Crazy billionaire played a blame game and we all got caught up in it. Took him out like we always do to those creeps.”

“You were gone for years.”

“Okay, so we didn’t execute as well as we have before. That’s what we get for letting Kaiba take the wheel.”

“Just…give me anything,” Serenity said. “I want to help.”

“Got the shrink for that.”

Although, he hadn’t told her anything about it either. How to explain magic items and a man trying to revive a dead wife to someone trained to tell him it was all in his head? No one was trained to deal with anything like what they’d gone through. He didn’t need someone trying to convince him that the months alone in the dark twisted his mind.

“I’m your sister.” It came out half accusation.

“I don’t know how to explain it anymore than he knew what to do with us,” Joey said. “And I want that time to be over. I need to put it behind me.”

A horn blared from the street and helped keep Joey grounded in the present. Serenity had grown, but she had been safe through it all. She easily could have been another Mokuba. They were on a playground, like old times. The island was far behind him.

He resolved to keep it there.

Her lips tightened, but the frustration shifted into something softer.

“When you’re ready, I’m always here for you.”

“Never doubted it,” Joey said, and gave her a smile he almost believed was real.

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“Past and present lost depth perception.” Is an incredible line and I adore how well it brings the whole struggle into focus.

I also love the continued Glass motif in both segments of the epilogue so far. In some ways free, in some ways exchanging one prison for another. A room. A bottle. A window. Because how do you measure time as it moves on without you? How do you mark days you aren’t part of?

His father comes in with demands — an exchange of wardens and wants — and the fire won’t quite numb him to it. He can’t tell if the island is behind him, or if it will ever be. He can’t tell if it matters.

The only way to exist is to break wide open. To feel something. But it means trusting that he’s awake. That they got out. That it was all for something. Which I suppose is what his father is trying to prove, that life can and has to go on, despite being so crass about it.

The ending lines are insane and I can’t stop thinking about them. There’s a coldness to the truth in them that is so fitting.

“He didn’t kill you.” (Don’t make it sound so much like mercy. Some accomplishment or a blessing. Don’t give him credit I’m due. Don’t give him credit at all.) “Don’t kill (what’s left of) yourself.”

Glass Epilogue: Duke

Duke finished off his bottle of scotch and stared at the door he refused to close. His phone rang, and he silenced it before the second vibration. When it rang again immediately after, he threw it at the wall just hoping it would shatter.

Being lightheaded only took the worst of the edge off. Nothing helped. Nothing made the days pass any faster, or calmed the ever present nerves. If the doors all stayed open, there wasn’t any risk.

His fire stayed lit. The flames reflected off his glass, more of a comfort when the glass was filled to the rim. He never had anything hard to drink in that narrow tower room. To remind himself of their escape, Duke kept the fire roaring and his drink topped off.

Duke stumbled against his chair when he stood—dizziness kicking in—but he pressed on, determined to replace his empty bottle.

The maid hadn’t come in…maybe since Thursday. With how often his father was calling today, Duke took it to be a weekday. But with the amount of dishes and old take out containers littering the countertops, the maid hadn’t been by in days. She always brought his groceries, which these days, mostly consisted of vodka and scotch.

However much she brought by last time hadn’t been enough. A thorough search of the kitchen and cabinets only revealed the last dredges of a bottle of Gray Goose from his freezer. He downed it, then tossed the bottle into the already overflowing sink.

He returned to the chair in front of the fire in defeat. With nothing to do but wait on more drinks to arrive, Duke lost himself in watching the flames. By the time Yugi got him out of his cell, the island had been all smoke and flame. Then came the whir of the helicopter.

Then Yugi on the ledge. Mokuba begging.

It hadn’t been in his head. They all had gone through it, and all had gotten out.

A few minutes a day, Duke convince himself to believe it.

The rest of the time, lost in the daze of the scotch, Duke could have been back on the island. Pegasus left him alone long enough his mind drifted as the only form of escape. He might have imagined the fire. How could he really believe any of that last day was true? They’d told him the stories. A bullet through the eye. How had that really happened?

He could still be there. The daze wasn’t from the alcohol, but insanity. He imagined the fire. Everything was in his—

Knocks pounded on the front door, and because Duke never could bring himself to lock it, his father stormed in.

“Stopped answering your phone?”

“Didn’t invite you.”

“You have obligations,” his father said. “Day drinking will get you nowhere.”

“Says you.”

“When you’ve given yourself over to irrationality, someone has to speak for you.”

“I’m not asking for your help,” Duke said. He stumbled to the fireplace to add a log and stoke the fire until it threatened to light the rug near it. The room stayed stifling Duke’s collar clung to his throat.

It was better than the room on the island. The intensity of the heat countered the dread of memory. Memory was a weight hanging as a noose. He could strangle himself with booze and heat or let recollection take over.

“You’ve wallowed plenty long,” his father said. “The world isn’t waiting for you to get over being locked in a room for a couple years.”

“Fuck you.”

“It’s time to get over yourself.”

“Get out.”

“So you can drink yourself to death? So the maid can find you in a pool of piss and vomit when she comes by?”

Duke searched out something to grab, something to throw, something to break. He skittered and stumbled to the mantle, where framed photos of a niece he’d never met were placed by trinkets from places he’d never been. They told him they were always thinking about him in the life they lived while he was gone.

“Are you even remotely sober?” his father asked. “Do you understand you’re killing yourself?”

“Get out,” Duke demanded again. He took a tropical figurine and threw it at his father, but with his vision so doubled, he couldn’t tell whether his aim was off. He heard a thud. Maybe it at least dented the hardwoods. He could destroy and leave a mark so when he left again, this time, they wouldn’t forget.

“Duke, look at me.”

“It’s too late for your help.”

“That’s what you think? Two years and you’ll give yourself over to this internal rampage?”

“You have no idea—”

“So tell me. Tell someone. Talk to someone. At least give life a fair shake before killing yourself.”

Duke fumbled for something else to throw. Breaking felt the only way to get his point across. He could make himself big enough no one could ignore him. No one would forget him again.

But before the frame left his hand, his father caught his wrist. Duke hadn’t seen him approach. Everything appeared near and far simultaneously. Past and present lost depth perception.

“You need help. You’re leaving this house and if it takes a year in rehab, then it’ll be a year in rehab.”

“No.”

Now his father wanted to send him away. Lock him away. Hide him to return to their ignorance and trivial daily happenings.

“I’m not going anywhere,” Duke said, then insisted louder in a raised voice, “I’m not going anywhere!”

“Then take a look at yourself.”

His father released his arm, with enough force to knock his shoulder against the mantle, shaking the frames. It stole his breath and he couldn’t tell if the culprit was the force or the shock.

He thought he might get sick. The motion jostled his stomach, empty except the various drinks.

“He didn’t kill you. Don’t kill yourself.”

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This is so intense and invigorating in the best way. I love how keenly you feel her struggle and power even in the helplessness of it.

She can't do anything about the memories flaring up, won't do anything about the handprints on the windows, but the ink in the heat?

The rhythm of old songs?

Those are hers to claim and reclaim, her boundaries to define.

I love the notion that survival is messy and unhinged and that there’s glory in that chaos. There’s so much freedom and strength in the revelation that she doesn’t have to hide, and won’t. So what if she’s two summers behind? She lost the time. They all did. It’s time to take it back now.

Really speaks to Tea’s spirit. I adore your characterization and the overall pace and tone of this.

Glass Epilogue: Tea

Tea found it impossible to return to routine.

She almost left the lights off. The floor to ceiling windows on the far side of the studio provided enough light to see her way around, and at least offered the illusion of privacy.

Gripping the strap of her dance bag, Tea flipped on the switch. She wouldn’t live in the shadow. She wouldn’t let the fear he instilled in her dictate her life anymore. Pegasus was dead and she would go on.

Tea went to the mirrored wall and stared down her reflection until her racing heart fell into line. She spent none of her own money renting the studio for the afternoon, only the money from Pegasus’s estate. Tea would spend every dime of it to reclaim her life. Pegasus tried to steal it. He failed.

He failed.

He failed.

Tea sat against the mirror and took her shoes from her bag. When her hands dared to shake, she paused to berate the weakness. She pulled the laces too tightly, held them, and with a forced breath, relaxed. Her hands relaxed, giving slack back to the laces, but her chest remained tense and tight. Too tight, an intense, deep squeeze threatening to steal her breath.

She traced the light rays coming through the streaked windows, and with every pass of her gaze, the next breath came easier. Enough had been stolen from her. She wouldn’t steal anything from herself.

Reclaim

The word on her wrist smudged after the walk over in the heat. She drew it on with a fine point marker every morning. One day, she might get it tattooed. But it was too soon for any permanent reminder, even if that reminder was a declaration of strength.

The other shoe on, Tea pushed to her feet. Her palms left smudges on the mirror behind her, and she left them there. The mark proved she had been here. She wasn’t missing anymore.

She made it out alive.

They won.

And lost all the same.

Her vision blurred, and angrily, blinked until it cleared. Her phone shook when she clicked through to her old playlist, made back in the great before. She had two years of music to catch up on, and didn’t want to put this off any longer.

Tossing her phone on top of her bag, Tea closed her eyes. Her tinny speaker played out the first song, a song popular two summers ago, and Tea let it fill her. The rhythm back through her shoulders, the beat in the sway of her hips, the lyrics a breath on her tongue.

She hadn’t forgotten how to listen. Not for footsteps in a hall, or the cart knocking into that one uneven stone six feet outside the bolted door. The music spun around her head, an almost tangible sensation, and she moved in free interpretation.

Without cameras in every corner, she had no reservations. No one could watch her dancing across the floor, no unnamed guards, only her own passing glances in the mirror. Only her and the music.

The island had no frosted windows.

The song switched. The beat quickened. She matched the new rhythm, unable to quiet her mind or dismiss the constant mantra: I’m okay. I’m okay.

The chant carried her from one melody to the next, her rhythm increasing until, nearly frantic, she spun and caught herself on the wooden bar mounted to the mirrored wall. Her chest rose and fell in heavy motions, and she met her own reflection—red, sweating, and entirely in control.

She felt good.

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i do love that kaiba is shown doing the most homework/analysis of actual dueling strategy, like how to defeat pegasus, how to defeat ra, figuring out how to beat the mime’s infinite-power up combo with slifer, in DOMA when he duels pegasus a second time and he’s like ‘toon world won’t work on me again,’ etc. he studies up. smart boy

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My favorite pastime is soaking in all the suffering!!

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I want to read a fic but I want to read MY fic that I haven't finished yet

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@bellamy-taft did you write this post??

I think one of the worst things a story can be is unproblematic.

Nothing makes a story more unreadable than being able to see the author squirm apologetically for the story they actually want to write—wringing their hands and imploring the reader please, please don’t be mad, I know it’s ideologically questionable but I need you to not be mad at me!

For example: a Good King™️. It’s one thing for a story to present a fictional monarchy and ask me to root for it. It’s another thing for a story to say, hey, I know what you’re thinking—but don’t worry! I can justify this premise! I have introduced a lot of convoluted self-aware political justifications for why my king is good and likable without actually asking any risky ideological questions! These characters aren’t actually problematic! Don’t be mad at me!

Commit to the bit. Apologetic, defensive writing designed to bypass obvious criticisms often winds up offending me far more than stories that are just kind of surface-level problematic. If I’m gonna be a hater you cannot stop me; the more you insist that a character is actually a good oil tycoon because of all these exceptional situations and beyond my reproach, the more I resent you and hate your stupid book.

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*fills my own schedule with events and tasks that are fun or good for me*

Well what the fuck. Where’s my seven daily hours of dicking around time.

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Mercy of the Fire is even more incredible than its title collage which is a feat in and of itself.

It’s so hard to gush without spoiling but suffice to say it’s the most unique and intriguing spin on a new villain I’ve read in the HP fandom.

If you like dark fiction and have ever wondered about the less watered down version of the Death Eaters, their culture, their hierarchy, give Mercy a try.

It’s a gripping and immersive power struggle from the first word.

Mercy of the Fire:

When Crabbe kills Dumbledore and is allowed to name his prize, Draco is sent into hiding with the only person willing to offer him help. Harry promises there is nowhere safer than Privet Drive, but Draco has never felt so exposed. Or: Wizard school rivals are on the run from a pack of werewolves, and there was only one bed.

New Chapter out soon! Get caught up now!

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Ygo au where the kaiba brothers are isekaied into Mokuba's favourite romantic fantasy novel : The Pharaoh is actually a player?

Tldr; Something Something obscure rofan isekai au parody

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Flawless addition. Ryou is getting progressively more embarrassed because Pegasus is a 10 time champion of “are you more stubborn than a six year old” and by the end of it Ryou is begging Amane to give up.

“Maybe all there is to do, my dear girl, is leave milk and cook—“

“A-HA, that’s proof!”

“What, pray tell, is it proof of?”

“That you’re making up Santa! Japanese Santa would be LACTOSE INTOLERANT.”

“Who am I to taste test Santa’s milk? It may be almond or oat milk, I, myself, set out hot cocoa.”

“If he’s fat, how does he fit down a chimney? And also what if there /is/ no chimney?”

“He uses magic, of course.”

“That’s not how magic works!”

“Is too.”

“Call your witnesses!”

Current headcanon

6 year old lawyer in the making, Amane Bakura, laying out a case for why Santa isn’t real and Pegasus Why-The-Fuck-Did-I-Create-A-Children’s-Card-Game Crawford flying by the seat of his pants through a flawless explanation for every loophole.

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Current headcanon

6 year old lawyer in the making, Amane Bakura, laying out a case for why Santa isn’t real and Pegasus Why-The-Fuck-Did-I-Create-A-Children’s-Card-Game Crawford flying by the seat of his pants through a flawless explanation for every loophole.