#puppyshipping fic

[mistakenlyfoundnico]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Yu-Gi-Oh! Duel Monsters (Anime & Manga) Rating: Not Rated Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Jounouchi Katsuya | Joey Wheeler/Kaiba Seto Characters: Kaiba Seto, Jounouchi Katsuya | Joey Wheeler Additional Tags: Angst and Tragedy, Angst, Hurt No Comfort, Character Death, Suicidal Thoughts, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Guilt, Kaiba Seto Has Issues, Kaiba Seto Needs a Hug, Established Jounouchi Katsuya | Joey Wheeler/Kaiba Seto I used the tumblr share on ao3 and I am not quite sure if I like the format of this but it will make due. I wrote another fic as the link above may suggest, it is based on My Tell Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe, I have what I was trying to do with it the notes of the work itself, I enjoyed writing and think it turned out nicely even if it is short but I guess that is a matter of opinion. It is really important that you read the tales, it is not too bad but there are some heavy themes like suicide that you might want to take note of, it is angst and no comfort because that is all I seem to write, next time I think I might just make some fluff or something of that nature before I post the religious trauma fic, I hope you enjoy it if you decide to read it and if you do I have another Puppyshipping fic I posted on there that is a bit longer but is still short and it is hurt with comfort so if no comfort is something you rather not read I have some comfort in another fic, Happy Halloween :]]]

[sharkrocket]

I've been reading so much fic lately and I'm getting it out of my system

[rainbowwinedemon]

I been looking everywhere for this

[violetsdaisy]

Instead of the “fake dating” trope, it would be really funny to see Kaijou in a trope where they’re dating but no one believes them.

Them at dinner bickering like they hate each other. Everyone exchanging looks like “yeah, no there’s no way.”

They don’t do PDA and they don’t mind doing things without the other so everyone is like… “This can’t be true. You’re totally lying.”

Then one day, Kaiba gets so annoyed that he just grabs Jou’s hand right in front of the entire Kaiba Dome and national tv. “Now will you shut up about it?”

[alectoperdita]

I woke up possessed by something this morning and banged out the last parts of some joukai smut from a chapter 3 of Duelist's Pride. Given that I haven't written chapter 2 or published anything else in a while, I'm just gonna dump it here.

And yes, this continues on the theme of more joukai CNC.

Under the cut due to explicit sexual content, purposefully porn-worthy dirty talk, dom/sub overtones, humiliation kink, comeplay, ass to mouth, and light dacryphilia (might be other stuff I've forgotten, sorry I haven't even proofread this thing)

---

"Your ass' got a nice bounce to it now. Must be 'cuz of the cream I've been pumping into ya."

A hard smack across his butt cheek made him clench fiercely.

"Whaddaya say, Kaiba? Should I keep creaming your ass pussy until you got a nice, round bubble butt?"

Slap. Pummel. Slap. Pummel. Each strike of hand and cock shot his scrambled nerves to hell. Kaiba merely whined, drool flowing over his lips and dripping down the window glass. Not that Jounouchi cared to hear his answer. He was always going to do whatever he wanted. The brute only cared about getting his dick wet inside Kaiba's increasingly spongy hole.

The next spank flipped a switch in Kaiba's head, blanking his thoughts. A switch that made his orgasm go on for seemingly forever as his ass suckled on Jounouchi's cock. His hanging erection jerked and jumped between his splayed legs, shooting semen like a pissing animal.

His stomach gave a funny lurch as heat bloomed inside him. For a maddening moment, he wondered if it was another orgasm right on the tail of his last.

"Fuck yeah, a whore like you can't resist cream pies," grunted Jounouchi in his ear. He was panting like a dog yet Kaiba couldn't muster the brain cells to mock him. "Take it. Feel it? I'm painting your insides white. You're never getting rid of me."

Jounouchi's load made him keen anew. Kaiba trembled. The heat scoured him. It seeped into his furthest nooks and crannies. No matter how deep he tried to reach and scrap it clean, a part of him would always be branded by Jounouchi's claim.

He hadn't realized he was pushing back onto Jounouchi's pulsing cock until a sudden hand on his jaw tilted his chin back. Their eyes, both dark and wild, locked. They mirrored each other's lust and desperation.

Jounouchi's nostrils flared, and he flattened Kaiba against the window again. His wet cock and hard nipples smeared against the glass. The painful drag on his sensitive parts tore another filthy moan from Kaiba.

Jounouchi humped him still. "You're mine, Kaiba." His voice was soft in contrast to the obscene sounds of Kaiba's used ass squelching. "And everyone can see it now too."

Fat tears rolled down his cheeks, mixing with the saliva and semen already staining the glass. Jounouchi had beaten him. Bested his will and broken him with the hammer strikes of his hard cock. Kaiba has lost himself completely to him, and he didn't even care anymore. Not about his pride or his reputation.

"Oh, baby, don't cry," Jounouchi cooed. A thumb wiped away a teardrop but more followed. "It just makes me wanna mess you up some more. Give you something to really cry about."

Against his will, his breath hitched at the hint of menace. His sobs intensified even as they got caught in his throat. His entire body was a livewire, and he couldn't stop shaking.

He couldn't take much more of this. Yet he might have to.

Maybe he deserved it. To have Jounouchi ruin him forever.

When Jounouchi withdrew from him, it felt like his ass was unplugged. There was the fain rustle of clothing as Jounouchi moved to the desk. Cool air rushed in to filled the space vacated by Jounouchi's cock. Gravity raked its fingers along his walls, dragging the cooling come to his entrance and turning it into an open bubbling fountain of depravity.

Kaiba didn't dare move. He barely breathed for fear of everything leaking out of him faster. Messier. The pool of wetness he was kneeling in continued to expand regardless.

A warm current of air heralded Jounouchi's return, settled right behind Kaiba again. Kaiba pre-emptively tensed even before thick fingers dipped into his gaping hole.

"God, you should see how pretty your ass is right now."

Three fingers curled and burrowed into him without mercy. He nearly hyperventilated when short, trimmed nails scraped across his tender walls. The stinging swiftly dulled as Jounouchi transitioned to massaging him. Pleasure sharpened in Kaiba's gut, much to his shame. The lazy thrusts of warm fingers and the slick sounds of himself being opened up again... Kaiba didn't know what to think. What to do.

Out of habit, he craned his head toward Jounouchi, seeking a familiar point of focus. But Jounouchi's attention wasn't on him. Both the camcorder and his gaze were aimed at Kaiba's ass. As if he was nothing more than his hole.

His breath hiccuped out of him. New tears pricked at the corner of his eyes.

Finally, Jounouchi's dark gaze flicked up to his face. His fingers peeled out of Kaiba next, and the recording followed their journey up to Kaiba's mouth. The wet finger pads slid across his lower lip, painting a balm. Kaiba swallowed, knowing very well what came next.

Jounouchi could force his mouth open. He could grab Kaiba's jaw and squeezed, threatening to break or dislocate it until Kaiba capitulated. Or he could hook a finger into the seam between his lips and pry his mouth open.

But he went a far more devastating route.

"Open," he commanded. His eyes twinkled wickedly behind the camcorder lens.

Another switch flipped in Kaiba's broken brain. His jaw yawned as wide as he could, showing off his teeth and tongue and tonsils to the recording.

"Fuck, Seto," Jounouchi swore. A crack in his character forming for the first time. It made him act even rougher as he crammed his fingers into Kaiba's waiting mouth.

Kaiba didn't need another command. He closed his mouth and eyes and sucked, drowning in the unspeakable shame of pleasure in such a humiliating act. He ran his tongue over the length of each finger, not caring if it made him drool. He could taste it. He could taste them, their combined essences—salty and bitter.

A moan rumbled deep in the recesses of his chest. Jounouchi pushed deeper. Kaiba welcomed the gagging sensation.

"You like that?" muttered Jounouchi.

Kaiba's eyelids fluttered open, and the sight of a red-faced Jounouchi greeted him. The camcorder was still running. The little red recording light blinked, but the shine in Jounouchi's eyes had softened, taking on more awe.

"If you want, I can keep you nice and full every damn day for the rest of you life."

In lieu of a verbal response, because Kaiba's verbal facilities were very much offline, he drew his mouth back until his lips kissed Jounouchi's fingertips. A rush swept over him when Jounouchi sucked in a sharp exhale, his Adam's apple bobbing as he swallowed in rapid succession. Contentment tugged at the corner of Kaiba's lips, and he lavished the tips with several kittenish licks before slurping the fingers back into his mouth. He toyed with the shaking fingers, nipping lightly and sucking, as Jounouchi played with his mouth.

He had no idea how long this went on. But eventually, Jounouchi pulled his pruney fingers out of Kaiba's aching mouth. Kaiba shivered and panted as their wet tips trailed over his tacky cheek, before petting his hair gently. Lost, he gazed up at Jounouchi and the camera.

Jounouchi stroked his head again, smiling. "You did good, Seto." He set aside the camcorder and extended both arms.

A shudder ran through him. Clumsily, he peeled himself away from the window and collapsed in his lover's waiting embrace. "Katsuya," he croaked and clung to the man's shirt.

"I'm here. It's okay. I love you, Seto."

Jounouchi and Kaiba faded away, and only Katsuya and Seto remained in their places.

[99problemsandallofthemarefandoms]

5+1 fic of Kaiba slowly being wooed by Joey's feats of athletics/strength. Ends with them in a one sided version of the argument "fine take your stuff and leave" Joey dead lifts Kaiba "if you say so" >:3

Short story even shorter: Joey is a strong workin' man and Kaiba is into that shit.

[ctrl-alt-cel]

when i was 13 i wrote an essay explaining the rationale of puppyshipping to some guy in a skype chatroom. found the essay again. wanted to rewrite it. without further ado:

HERE’S HOW PUPPYSHIPPING CAN STILL WIN: THE SEQUEL: 2 PUPPY 2 SHIPPING (4.3k words)

⠀

kaiba and jounouchi’s relationship stands at an awkwardly undefinable place in canon: they're not on good terms, but they're not enemies either. they know each other too well to be called passing acquaintances, but kaiba hardly acknowledges jounouchi as a duelist, let alone a potential rival. at best? they're mutual nuisances.

or, that's how jounouchi and kaiba choose to define it. both of them would love if their dynamic were that simple, nothing more than a back-and-forth of petty insults—but that’s not the truth. and they'll dance around the truth for five whole seasons, purposefully downplaying why they’re so obsessed with provoking each other whenever they’re in the same place.

they're foils.

—but the term "foils" is so dulled within fandom lexicon now that it can mean literally anything from two guys who just disagree with each other sometimes, so i'll sharpen this further. jounouchi and kaiba see their counterpart less as an individual person but more a representation of who they could have become if they had respectively, in their eyes, never learned the lessons they needed to. they project their own ideals onto the other and come away thinking they already know how the other operates, and the fun thing is, even when working from conjecture, their assumptions of one another happen to hit far closer to home than they have any right to.

so really, they can't leave each other alone because they can't stop seeing their failures reflected back at them. the other is a defective version of themselves that they need to correct because they can't stand constantly acknowledging who they used to be, so they try to bend the other to be more like their own image—an "i can fix him (by dragging him down to my level)".

⠀

jounouchi and kaiba’s parallels run down to their origins, both set up against abysmal family situations they have no choice but to make the best of. seto and mokuba are orphaned at a young age until seto gets them adopted, while katsuya is separated from his sister and stuck with a deadbeat father who can't carry his own weight. trapped in an environment where nobody expects anything worthwhile from him, katsuya joins a gang and lives out a self-admittedly miserable existence before befriending yugi, while seto is in a battlefield of his own, faced with protecting mokuba while enduring against the nightmare that is gozaburo kaiba’s parenting.

what they do to survive those conditions determines the outlooks they carry for the rest of their lives: jounouchi learns that losing is inescapable and the best you can do is learn how to cope with it, whereas kaiba learns that losing is something you must protect yourself from because there's only so much you can afford to lose.

jounouchi is positioned as the underdog, fighting tooth-and-nail for every victory he can manage, while kaiba has power in excess and holds to the belief that it’s all he really needs. one would argue that they have the perspective the other lacks—they argue that they have the perspective the other lacks. but in my opinion? it doesn't actually matter. what interests me is how they treat each other as a result.

⠀

side: seto kaiba

kaiba degrades jounouchi a lot. like, to an uncomfortable extent. you know that one post that’s like “why does bullying exist? why are you mad that i’m ugly?” why is kaiba so mad over the fact that jounouchi loses so much?

it’s projection. he’s just holding jounouchi to the same standard he holds himself to. you need to be powerful if you want to play the same games as kaiba, and seeing jounouchi so openly lean on his friends, ask for help, and have the audacity to lose sets kaiba off because he’s not playing the way he’s supposed to. kaiba rubs jounouchi's losses in his face because he believes that's what loss is supposed to look like, and that it’s jounouchi’s fault for not understanding that yet. kaiba is trying to teach him. to kaiba, this degradation might as well be an act of generosity.

while kaiba stayed true to his own ambitions, seizing kaibacorp from gozaburo and turning it into a children's entertainment company, he beat gozaburo at his own game not by inventing new rules but by playing it better than his adoptive father ever could. and as impressive as that is, it’s not sustainable. gozaburo kills himself when faced with his own defeat, and kaiba internalizes this lesson: that all losses are final, and it’s better to die than adapt to the consequences of a defeat. gozaburo’s death was a suicide, but in the context of their game, kaiba might as well have killed him regardless.

he mirrors this when he threatens to kill himself in duelist kingdom, his heightened emotions catastrophizing losing the duel to immediately equal failing mokuba and coming to the conclusion that if he loses mokuba he’d rather be dead. being someone so fervently self-reliant, any alternate solution, a possibility that he can lose here and still find a different way to rescue mokuba never crosses his mind. and, look, this isn’t his fault. this is the only way of living he’s ever been taught. he’s never learned how to cope in the event of failure because he’s never had the luxury to fail to begin with.

he's burned and rebuilt himself over and over again to survive in the world he operates in, and that’s why jounouchi pisses kaiba off so personally. jounouchi loses so much and so messily, and kaiba tries to show him that if he doesn’t start reinventing himself from the broken pieces of his defeats until all that’s left of him are jagged edges the same way he has, he’s never going to win. but jounouchi…does win. and keeps winning. and even when he does lose, it’s as if he creates new victories for himself, like there’s still value to playing a game with someone when you don’t win it—power of friendship bullshit and whatever. jounouchi is still here, a competitor that kaiba can no longer write off as much as he desperately wants to. (and, yeah, it is pretty ironic how jounouchi will jump through a million hoops to get kaiba to look at him, but he doesn't realize that he doesn't need to do anything to keep kaiba’s attention, only continue being himself.)

jounouchi refuses to compromise who he is and still manages to get far when in kaiba’s mind, that shouldn’t be possible; he’s supposed to be punished the way kaiba was. jounouchi is proof that you can take a devastating blow and move on from it, that even when you do fuck up spectacularly, there’s still something worthwhile in starting again tomorrow.

so kaiba constantly needs to prove that he’s better than jounouchi, that jounouchi isn’t even worth his time in order to justify his worldview. because if kaiba isn’t right, then he'll have no choice but to confront the fact that the war is over. that his circumstances aren’t instant life or death anymore and that even though he’s freed himself from gozaburo’s influence, there’s still further growth as a person he could stand to undergo, now divorced from the harsh conditions of his upbringing. jounouchi is a testament to how it’s possible to make peace and move on from the past without constantly bleeding for closure, that maybe, kaiba’s headlong quest to get the last word on his rivalry with yami yugi may not actually be as fulfilling as he thinks.

but admitting that you might need to change the way you live feels like a defeat in and of itself—it’s infuriating to hear that after everything you’ve had to learn, the way you live now isn’t good enough. that surviving insurmountable trauma doesn’t inherently make you better or more worthy than other people—it just traumatizes you, and is something you must heal from. so, instead of reflecting on these revelations, it’s so much easier for kaiba to tell himself that jounouchi is only ever graceful when he’s dead.

⠀

side: katsuya jounouchi

jounouchi is very stuck on this idea that he needs to be useful. his dad is an alcoholic with a gambling addiction and he believes it's not only his duty to pay his father's debts, but to be the household's sole source of income. his sister needs eye surgery and he believes it's his responsibility as an older brother not only to pay for it, but to act as her primary emotional support to get the surgery and throughout her recovery process. haga throws yugi's exodia into the ocean and jounouchi blames himself for not stopping it. jounouchi gets mind-controlled by malik and blames himself for causing his friends anguish from it. mai literally gets jounounchi’s soul stolen and he apologizes to her for messing up and making her sad. it's habitual, jounouchi doesn't know how to stop taking on the burdens of other people.

if you live with the mentality that you’re inevitably going to fail for long enough, you’ll come away with the belief that caring about your own wellbeing isn’t worth the effort. it depends on how pessimistic you want to read it, if it’s just his love language or jounouchi compensating for the damning act of being himself, but jounouchi quantifies his worth by how much he provides for other people. he’s always jumping in the line of fire for the sake of others because if you constantly undervalue your own wellbeing, you always have less to lose. as the underdog, he may not be as overtly powerful as kaiba or yugi, but he can still give himself away, and he’s convinced himself that it’s what he’s supposed to do. jounouchi is still new to this whole friendship thing. after a lifetime of supporting himself by himself, he doesn't know when he's allowed to ask for help yet—he’s supposed to be the help, dammit.

a key distinction between jounouchi and kaiba’s upbringings is that while kaiba’s biological parents died in an accident, jounouchi’s parents are still alive and they choose not to be responsible for him. jounouchi is conditioned to fend for himself by himself because having a parental figure actually present in his life isn’t a luxury he gets to have. to jounouchi, there has to be a reason why his mother only takes shizuka and never goes back for him in the six years he’s left with his father, and he rationalizes this with his notions of masculinity: he’s a strong man who can handle it. jounouchi is not delicate, he can endure it. men are responsible for their own circumstances. kaiba is hyperindependent out of a mixture of spite, paranoia, and self-defense. jounouchi is hyperindependent because he believes he deserves it. it’s the reason why he believes he’ll finally have a good relationship with his father if he just wins enough money to pay off his gambling debts—jounouchi can fix everything if only he were man enough to, and he can get people to stay if he demonstrates himself useful enough.

so death doesn’t carry nearly as much weight to jounouchi as it does to kaiba. in kaiba’s eyes, death is the punishment for failure, but to jounouchi, death is just the natural consequence for the kind of life he leads. he can't stop himself from fighting for the people he loves until he’s spent everything and forced to stop (read: dies), so during the several times jounouchi is confronted with his own death, he meets it with a solemn acceptance. like, yeah, it sucks, but he doesn’t regret the actions he took to end up here—he’d do it all over again, frankly. it’s better to die than not give everything he can, and at least he was able to give his life in service to someone else. it’s not necessarily good to die, but it doesn’t matter as much if he does.

so where kaiba is afraid of losing, jounouchi is afraid of outliving his usefulness (and being abandoned as a result), and kaiba disrupts jounouchi’s worldview specifically because he puts his ideology on the defensive. to jounouchi, kaiba’s presence never demands a question of “what can you do for me?” (nothing, kaiba doesn’t want jounouchi to do anything for him, and frankly, he’d be insulted if jounouchi even tried) but “what makes you worthy of standing on the same level as me?”, and jounouchi can’t sacrificial lamb get set on fire die a billion times into getting kaiba into seeing it his way (rather, that would only prove him right: kaiba would love nothing more than for jounouchi to lose the ability to fight and finally align with his preconceived notions of how the world works), and he can’t argue that his value is in how much he provides for others because that’s a non-answer. kaiba doesn’t care.

kaiba’s presence forces jounouchi into a position of self-reflection: jounouchi works so hard to preserve the friendships he’s created, but who is he—what does he value about himself in the absence of it? jounouchi needs to acknowledge something inherently valuable about himself if he wants to counter kaiba in any meaningful way, and it’s not like he doesn’t have valuable qualities either: he’s tenacious, he’s resourceful, he’s a quick learner—it takes intelligence to rank as high as he does in tournaments, but he undervalues all of it. these traits are all to be expected, they don’t actually count as extraordinary when it’s him. they’re only remarkable when they’re being applied to something greater. jounouchi believes he has the potential to become strong (and valuable by extension), only with the stipulation that he’s never actually there yet. he focuses too much on his inadequacies, constantly pontificating on how he needs to become a “true duelist”, but by the way he speaks about the title, the only way to be a true duelist is be named yugi muto, i guess.

so it’s very jounouchi-esque for him to miss this point with near deliberate precision and try to make himself useful to kaiba anyway. while kaiba is bent on seeing jounouchi fail to prove that his cynicism is superior to jounouchi’s altruism, the inverse is that jounouchi sees his old self in kaiba and he’s dying to teach kaiba a lesson. during battle for bronze, jounouchi states that they used to be the same, people who only relied on themselves and thought they’d be fine living like that. the argument jounouchi makes is that living that way is fucking miserable. he calls kaiba out: you’re supposed to be having fun. why are you playing duel monsters if you’re not having fun? he’s trying to show kaiba that he can be useful and teach kaiba things if kaiba would just let him, but for reasons mentioned in both of their sections, kaiba isn’t interested in being taught anything.

while less malicious in display, it's important to note that jounouchi’s method of trying to teach kaiba doesn't make him the better person here. jounouchi isn’t coming from a place of understanding when he lectures kaiba, he’s coming from a place of misdirected self-flagellation. and from kaiba's perspective, jounouchi is just dispensing unwarranted advice for the sake of his own ego. the most egregious example is when jounouchi picks a fight with kaiba in duelist kingdom, demanding they duel when kaiba is clearly not in the mood, busy with more pressing matters like, i don’t know, trying to rescue his abducted brother? so, okay, maybe a little bit inconsiderate on jounouchi’s part.

they're two ideological extremes: kaiba lashes out at the world while jounouchi gives himself to it, and jounouchi will keep barging in on kaiba with his life lessons because it’s the only way he wants to engage with kaiba’s arguments otherwise. jounouchi interprets kaiba’s rejection of his ideals as the equivalent of the stubbornness jounouchi had before befriending yugi, and he uses it as a reason to keep pushing, not understanding that while he may have found the most honorable path for himself, you can imagine how constantly burning yourself for others isn’t very…appealing. or sustainable. and that maybe it’s something you need to work on, actually.

⠀

conclusion: how i WIN

what’s fun about jounouchi and kaiba is how wrong they are. they genuinely can't live the way the other demands them to, their respective environments won’t allow it. if jounouchi chased victory with the same cutthroat relentlessness as kaiba, he probably never would have left his gang. or, at least, he’d lose the selfless devotion and consideration he has for others, traits that helped him build his support system, and he never would have found the friendships he values in his life—his willingness to change and start again was how he was able to befriend yugi to begin with. (and if you wanted to get really extreme with hypotheticals, his self-destructive tendencies could have grown so severe in the absence of a support system that he probably would wind up getting himself killed somewhere. lol.) inversely, if kaiba granted himself the freedom to worry less about the outcome as long as he enjoyed himself, he’d put mokuba’s safety at constant risk. kaiba’s guarded nature isn’t without reason, there are powerful corporate executives who would love to see him fail, and there are very real consequences if kaiba slips up for even a second and gives his opposition any leeway. the way they live works for them because it’s theirs. it’s not so much that either of their lifestyles are in dire need of correction, but that the other represents the possibility that they could be living better.

and this is fantastic because it means that, despite what they think, neither of them are in the “wrong” and must learn to change their idiot ways or that the solution is to strong-arm each other into some kind of compromise. it’s a battle of perceived weakness. they need to, naturally and individually, accept that the traits they’ve always deemed immature and beneath them can be just as vital for survival, even when it’s not necessarily their own.

jounouchi and kaiba are essentially the most extreme example of two people who want what’s best for each other (gone wrong!) and puppyshipping is appealing because them getting together requires that they stop punishing themselves for who they used to be. they expect too much out of themselves and then inflict those demands onto each other, but if they’re not wrong for the ways they’ve overcome the circumstances they were left in, then it’s equally true that the ideals they abandoned to survive weren’t inherently naïve just because they weren’t given the space to utilize them. sometimes life will push you to your limits in the hope that you fail, and there’s no deeper meaning to it. it’s not life’s way of teaching you a necessary lesson to make you stronger or a test to see if you deserve to live, or that it’s your fault when it breaks you. sometimes there’s no great meaning to suffering. things happen, and you will adjust to it in order to live. when kaiba and jounouchi believe they know each other as much as they know themselves, pairing them is the hope that they’ll respect themselves enough to respect each other, that they’ll one day be able to embrace the parts of themselves they’re the most ashamed of.

(or, you know, for the alternative crowd, they most definitely can make each other worse.)

for two men who claim to be so self-assured in their own lifestyles, jounouchi and kaiba are fascinating because there’s so many layers of denial at play: the denial that they see anything in each other, denial that there may be aspects of the other that they’ve come to envy, denial that they even care, and it's so tempting to imagine if all of it was forced open. jounouchi and kaiba choose to maintain this delicate equilibrium where they never actually confront anything because the idea of admitting vulnerability viscerally disgusts them, and it begs what would happen if the balance irrevocably tipped for once. watching them is like watching a pencil teetering on the edge of a desk, always this close to some kind of breakthrough. i won’t even lie to you puppyshipping pisses me off half the time because i just want to shake them around until something metaphorically breaks.

kaiba and jounouchi never let each other become complacent in their pasts: whenever their personal tragedies and childhoods are brought up in the context of one another, it’s never because they are being vindicated for continuing to dwell in them, but because they are being contested on how much the mindsets they’ve carried over from their pasts should be allowed to determine their futures.

returning to canon, kaijou operates through the language of competition. jounouchi tries to prove himself as a competitor so remarkable that kaiba can no longer deny him, while kaiba already knows he’s remarkable, and that is precisely why acknowledging it pisses him off so much. so they’ll play their game: jounouchi will provoke kaiba into fighting him because he enjoys going up against challenging opponents in the hopes of becoming stronger, whereas kaiba keeps trying to set up situations where jounouchi will lose to the point of letting him die because he wants so badly to believe that losing does equal death and jounouchi’s existence is the most inconvenient counterargument of all. and obviously, jounouchi keeps not dying. and it's endlessly infuriating—almost slapstick at this point, that much to kaiba's frustration, no matter what he does, he can never make jounouchi submit for very long.

jounouchi and kaiba spur each other on to a ridiculous extent: kaiba enjoys pushing jounouchi past the breaking point, whereas jounouchi enjoys getting pushed to his limits to test his own capabilities. whether that’s necessarily a good thing though is…well…hmm. anyways. 

their dynamic is the type of messiness only two prideful high schoolers can get up to. maybe it’s just kaiba's repression and jounouchi's recklessness, but there is a fascination with each other that they’re incapable of leaving alone. there’s intimacy in knowing someone so well and fearing that fact, but kaiba and jounouchi never respond to this fear by avoiding it—they’re engaging with it time and time again. they infuriate each other with a passion that never sits still. kaiba and jounouchi seek a validation from their counterpart while simultaneously denying each other from it, and it’s mean, but invigoratingly so.

at some point, it’s not even about wanting validation anymore, but point-blank wanting its keeper by any capacity: wanting a visible reaction to their effort as proof of reciprocation, proof that says “i’ve finally affected you just as much as you affect me.” because kaiba and jounouchi want to leave a mark on each other, they want their counterpart to fully understand how much they’ve affected them, and they want to witness that reaction themselves. it’s no longer this big, nebulous ideological debate with a reflection: the pull between them is made both physical and personal. so, like, not to go the trite route of arguing that two men who can’t stand each other were ~secretly attracted to each other this whole time~, but how else are you supposed to word this?

in some hypothetical universe where they do come together, even the ways they love manage to compliment each other in its own clumsy way. seto kaiba never does anything in moderation: if he hates something he will destroy it, if he loves something he will possess it, and if he is obsessed with something, he will single-mindedly pursue it at the expense of everything else. his repression manifests itself in a passion so pressurized it’s all-consuming against everything it comes to contact with. inversely, katsuya jounouchi loves freely and transparently: showing affection comes as naturally as breathing to him. he embodies the belief that love is not only about the grand gestures, but the day-to-day acts of warmth and casual acknowledgments that it's there. a man who wants to be wanted by someone so badly it aches paired with someone who makes no reservations as to what he's committed to, capable of a love so overwhelmingly insatiable that it is neither fickle nor delicate, and a man who finds the act of trusting others with his affection so unthinkably humiliating that he’s convinced himself it’s something beneath him paired with someone who makes it look infuriatingly easy. they are going to invent a new language to love each other with. i believe in them. i would not write two separate essays titled “here’s how puppyshipping can still win” if i did not believe in them. 

ultimately, it feels cheap to build kaiba and jounouchi’s relationship off what life lessons they could "teach" each other reformation-style when they already have a legitimate dynamic in play. they can be good for each other, or they can tear into each other in ways they’d never expect to be capable of. there’s something exhilarating in knowing there’s someone who has that kind of power and wanting to keep them within your reach, a buzzing excitement in knowing someone who can not only withstand you at your worst, but fight back at you with twice as much vigor. sure, there’s potential for growth here, but that’s because there’s potential for literally anything.

kaiba and jounouchi inspire reinvention and self-determination from each other at the best of times and enable each other’s most self-destructive tendencies at their worst. so i think. puppyshipping is the most fun. when you ship them the same way you leave a fork in the microwave to watch it explode. the end.

TL;DR: me x the guy who keeps breaking my worldview and forces me to reevaluate myself every time i see him which i hate so much that i just want him to DIE

[part-timewonders]

a list of Kaiba fic recs, in honor of his birthday

I thought I'd have a fic ready for the 25th, but alas, it was not to be. So instead, I pulled together a fic rec list of some of my favorites I've read in the last few months, sorted by ship. I'm sure there's plenty more that I haven't been able to find the links to.

Happy reading! This got way too long so I put the list under the cut.

Flareshipping

it takes two to duel by ImagineYourself

Gen fics

Cozy, Distance by rainstormcolors

If Your Heart Were A House I’d Be Breaking In And Taking Photos Of Your Hair While You Sleep by rowanthestrange

The Inexperienced Spy by DrMiniPie

the last taiyaki by surrenderer (self-rec)

Mokuba Kaiba and the Very Pointed Prank by duelmepharaoh (captain_indigo)

Opinions Shared with The World by Winxhelina

The Past by EriksChampion

“What Common Mistakes Are You Making Over And Over Again?” (Number 3 will SHOCK you) by rowanthestrange

Prideshipping

Allargando by Slaycinder

Apep Swallows the Moon by bobtailsquid

by night by mimsical

The Haunted RV by Winxhelina

Hm n(y)w mri by bobtailsquid

Just Another Duel? by dragonwrangler

Inclement Weather by bobtailsquid

Our Fairly Modest Just A Few Close Friends Ancient Egyptian Wedding by rowanthestrange

Pharaoh's First Con by DrMiniPie

The Poetry of Logic by RookSacrifice

potential/kinetic by peachpal

Save Point by bobtailsquid

Stalemate by duelmepharaoh (captain_indigo), mooguriklaine

Studies and Sales by Winxhelina

sweeter when it's finally found by surrenderer (self-rec)

there's so much left unspoken between the two of us (it's so much more exciting to look when you can't touch) by JigsawLesbian

Unavoidable by DrMiniPie

Puppyshipping

In bed with the mob by Alecto

Menagerie by shadow_of_egypt (Shachaai)

Old Friends by Alecto

Rivalshipping

Doublebooked at 3:30 PM by grevola

Ticket to Ride by Desidera

Unrespectable Society by bobtailsquid

Trustshipping

Catching Z's by DrMiniPie

I Trust This Finds You Well by Sparklefists

Mess and All by DrMiniPie

Scenes From a Journey by JustAWritingAmateur

Self Destruction by MyMisguidedFairytale

when it’s you and me, it’s never too late by scorpionGrass

Does scandalshipping count? well, consider it a bonus, I guess...

A Royal Excursion by TelepathJeneral

The Beast Of My Daydreams by Not Kujaku (WaterTreeProductions)

The High Priest by hakaibunshi

Hushed Scandal by Sparklefists

see me as a secret mission by surrenderer (self-rec)

Serpens Caput, Serpens Cauda by RookSacrifice

The Sound of Drums by shadow_of_egypt (Shachaai)

Throne Room Rendezvous by Slaycinder

[chesacakeripper]

Rating: Explicit

Fandom: Yu-Gi-Oh! DM

Relationships: Jounouchi Katsuya/Kaiba Seto

Word Count: 7,500

Warnings: Extremely Dubious Consent - Click through to read full warnings & tags

Complete - part 2 of 2

Read part 1 here

Description:

Kaiba Seto was not a benevolent man. What he wanted, he took. What he wanted was right in front of him, and the flesh was willing.

~~~

Following their release from Hirutani's clutches, Kaiba's possessive streak stops him from taking beaten and bloody Jounouchi to hospital. He'd much rather tend his wounds himself. Jounouchi is too out of it to resit - in fact, Jounouchi seems uncharacteristically willing to do whatever Kaiba says.

[seiyuna]

Title: Kaiba Judai

Pairing: Yusei/Judai, Kaiba/Jounouchi

Rating: T

Summary: Judai returns the Blue-Eyes White Dragon and Red-Eyes Black Dragon back to Kaiba and Jounouchi.

But he brings home not only their cards, but a boyfriend too.

Read here: AO3

[leechysmile]

Watched Scream tonight with my bf and some of his friend's he is introducing me to and all I can think if is Season 0 Kaiba being Ghostface on the phone with Joey but it's because he has a crush and is a sadist and wants to kidnap Joey and-

[saiikavon]

Joukai fic idea (just to get it out of my head): Newly-married Kaiba and Jounouchi are on a honeymoon cruise when tragedy strikes, and Jounouchi is lost at sea. After a long and fretful search, Jounouchi is declared dead, his body never found. Kaiba, however, refuses to give up the search.

Flash forward a year later, and Kaiba is still combing the seas for his lost husband, and harboring guilt over the argument they’d hand moments before Jounouchi went overboard.

Miraculously, his search team calls him with news - they’ve found something. Though they aren’t sure whether they can say it’s proof of Jounouchi’s death, or that he still lives.

What they’ve found, Kaiba soon discovers, is a merman wearing his husband’s face.

(Based a little bit on the Pet Shop of Horrors story, “Delicious,” as well as the general myths of people drowned at sea turning into merfolk. I dunno if/when I’ll actually write this,  but the idea is out there, now; that’s all I need.)

[rainbowwinedemon]

I'm in the mood for age gap joukai and their weird power dynamic

Like 30 y/o Jou who is a janitor at some fancy boarding school and 18 y/o barely legal Kaiba who's into him and and he's a brat about it.

Jou trying to be the responsible adult and do the decent thing. But Kaiba is restless, and really really flirty (slutty)

Just a thought

[alectoperdita]

Fanfiction: Duelist's Pride (16115 words) by Alecto

Chapters: 2/2 Rating: Explicit Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Relationships: Jounouchi Katsuya | Joey Wheeler/Kaiba Seto Additional Tags: Post-Canon, Established Relationship, Aged-Up Character(s), Explicit Sexual Content, Bottom Kaiba Seto, Top Jounouchi Katsuya | Joey Wheeler, Rape Roleplay, Rape Fantasy, Light Bondage, Rough Sex, Humiliation kink, Degradation, Dirty Talk, Dom/sub Undertones, Wet & Messy, Rimming, Anal Sex, Barebacking, Overstimulation, Multiple Orgasms, Aftercare, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Consensual Non-Consent, Edgeplay | High Risk BDSM Practices, Fear Play, Gags, Rough Oral Sex, FaceFucking, Deepthroating, Choking, spitting, Facials, Anal Fingering, colon fucking

Summary:

Kaiba lost, leaving him with nothing but his pride. Perhaps not even that much once Jounouchi's finished with him.

---

"I'll be in my green room. No disturbances," he barked at Isono as he marched past. He wanted to be left alone to prepare for the next round of the tournament.

The bodyguard nodded in acknowledgment and left.

As the president of KC and a tournament organizer, his personal room was farther removed from the others to afford him more space and privacy. He ran into nobody along the way, but sometimes, he felt as if he was being followed. Yet when he checked over his shoulder, he never saw anyone. The halls were eerily empty. He attributed it to his nerves and coming down from the highs of his hard-fought victory.

He quickened his steps as he spotted the door to his green room ahead. The door opened without resistance, but a sudden force at his back shoved him bodily inside. Kaiba stumbled three steps forward before catching himself and twirling around furiously. His pulse jumped as he watched another figure slip into the room after him and shut the door.

"Get out," he growled.

Jounouchi's reply was the harsh grind of the door lock slotting into place.

Read Chapter 2 on AO3

[99problemsandallofthemarefandoms]

*slaps table*

Silly idea. Kaiba has a secret Joey fan tumblr he posts to when he is drunk. Sometimes not drunk with very eloquent ramblings of Wheelers's wasted potential on luck cards or something. If there is any joey fan art you will find it on this blog.

No one can know. Not even Mokuba.

[ctrl-alt-cel]

top ten puppyshipping fics?

so thrilled about this ask...unfortunately i cant give you a list of puppyshipping top 10 without taking like 3 months to reread every joukai fic ive ever loved, but i can give you a handful that ive enjoyed recently!!

Second Chance Christmas by Elexcia (30k)

ex-husbands joey and kaiba are forced to spend the holidays together after 3 years of co-parenting and scrupulously avoiding each other. (atticus and alexis are their kids and its the cutest thing ever!!!!) theres a ton of adorable family shenanigans & how much joey and kaiba work together to ensure atticus and alexis have happy childhoods free from their own personal baggage, mixed with the most heartwrenching late-night conversations between joey and kaiba bc despite everything, they still love each other, but they remember the pain it brought them and don't know if they can endure that again. the emotions and uncertainties are so raw oftentimes i will remember a quote from this fic and my heart will ache all over again its so fcking good!!! its been on my mind ever since i read it!!!

Meeting upon the threshold by Alecto (2.6k)

"kaiba has always been his own worst enemy" -- dsod!kaiba's dimension hopping lands him in an alternate timeline and face-to-face with a version of himself he doesn't recognize. this will always be the quintessential puppyshipping fic to me omg.. the amount of characterization covered in the brief interactions the two kaibas have is spectacular, and its so cool seeing just how different dsod!kaiba's dimension is compared to a dimension where kaiba chooses jounouchi instead. hell yeah

Double Date by thegraeyone (7.2k)

GOD this fic is so funny. kaiba tries so hard to have one normal, business-related work dinner with pegasus, but pegasus is more interested in having a double date between kaiba and his boyfriend joey + pegasus with his boyfriend bandit keith, and like, what else can kaiba do? for the sake of his company, he needs to play along with the most disasterous dinner date of his life if he wants pegasus to sign a damn contract already..!!!! the comedic potential for this specific set of characters makes me lose my mind & theres so many sweet moments within the fic too. i love it so much

Most Thrilling by Alecto (1.8k)

another funny fic! a cute moment with joey visiting his boyfriend kaiba during a lunch break, and silly conversations on how kaiba really does play to win. i love the brand of slight unhinged-ness kaiba has here in regards to jou omg... kaiba is intense when it comes to everything, of course that would include his dating life😭 & i adore how he manages to come across as infuriatingly romantic in his own type of way

The Weight of Water by phant0m (2.2k)

a gentle character piece, jounouchi has just moved out from the apartment he shares with his father, and for all the newfound freedom it should entail, he feels guilty about it more than anything. thankfully his boyfriend kaiba is there to stand by him. it's a kind look into the more somber parts of jou's character and i love the scene it sets :( oh my god jou and kaiba love each other so much..!!! *dies*

Shards by jirluven (2.9k)

more hurt/comfort >:) jounouchi flinches. kaiba isn't supposed to know what it means, its one of the unbroachable topics of their close yet purposely ambiguous relationship, but they both know each other far too well for that. i really enjoy how kaiba's perspective is written, with how he's most comfortable when he's logic-ing things out and surrounded by things he can easily categorize, but hes long given up on trying to categorize jounouchi, and its most evident when pushing himself into the unfamiliar territory of tactfully trying to comfort someone he cares about

Debt to Society by Elexcia (16k)

tech acquisitions lawyer seto kaiba is sentenced to 200 hours of community service after a barfight with rival lawyer & long-time nuisance ziegfried von schroder. to meet those hours, he's assigned to represent children in court as their legal advocate with social worker joey wheeler acting as his supervisor >:) (also featuring judge yugi & the doma arc kids!!) i think this setup is genius omg. with kaiba acting as a protector for underrepresented and vulnerable kids, of course his own personal (and messy) feelings are going to get involved whether he likes it or not!!! plus i love fics where jou and kaiba are colleagues working towards the same goal and moments where kaiba has to trust in and respect joey's skills. and i cant lie. seeing a worldly joey who's good with kids is an absolute treat

Lapse by AndroideQL (4.2k)

blossoming workplace romance!! jou is kaiba's assistant (yes, everyone is surprised about this outcome too) jou & kaiba are undoubtedly attracted to each other, but theres a couple of (important!!) things about it that theyre not entirely on the same page about. the banter and familiarity jou and kaiba have with each other in this fic is sooo charmingly affectionate, and there are several exchanges that make me laugh every single time. its a refreshing and cute fic that has me hopeful knowing that no matter what communication issues they get up to, they'll eventually get their shit straight

Small and Insignificant Things by Lafae (1.6k)

one more for the office romance train >:) joey, kaiba, and the conundrum of getting a good picture for your photo ID. short and sweet boyfriend shennanigans, i love how joey & kaiba play off of each other during these mundane moments between their hectic schedules and i feel like it perfectly captures the excitement of a fresh relationship and fondly discovering the more trivial details about your partner

Working My Way Back to You by SerenaJones (10k)

during an argument between jou and kaiba, jou angrily states that he wishes they never met. kaiba soon finds himself in a universe where they never did, and meets a rougher, more abrasive jounouchi who never quit his gang who just may be the key to his way back. the worldbuilding in this fic is super cool and extensively fleshed out! its so fascinating to experience how different the cast of yugioh and domino city itself would have become if canon had played out differently, and the interactions between kaiba and a jounouchi who isn't his jounouchi but is just charming is so much fun

Orpheus and Eurydice by saiikavon (3.4k)

post-dsod joey dies while chasing kaiba into the afterlife, and by the title, you can probably imagine what kaiba has to do to get him back. very fun kaiba characterization/study here, with how quick and confident he is to challenge death itself and rebuff anything that gets in his way. and! a bit of spoilers but i love when jou gets to be a little mean (lovingly!!!!) to kaiba hehehe