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carnivalcarriondiscarded · 6 months

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hey remember that caramel-carmel Fake Script i was writing? yeah it's technically not done but i'm tired of tinkering with it so here it is! we'll just say it's a uhhhh uncovered partial script or somethin

this is not in any way official! it's a 100% unaffiliated fanwork & i am Just Fucking Around for Funsies

BARNABY: oh, I love carmul!

FRANK: [long, disgusted pause] …what?

BARNABY: Carmul! You know, those tasty little treats you’re holdin’!

FRANK: You mean caramel?

BARNABY: That’s what I said.

FRANK: [scoffs] No, you didn’t. You said carmul.

BARNABY: We’re sayin’ the same thing here.

FRANK: We absolutely are not!

JULIE: [giggles] You really aren’t.

BARNABY: Carmul, caramel, tomato, tomahto! What does it matter!

FRANK: [flustered, stammering] It - it matters! Julie, you agree with me, don’t you?

JULIE: Well… I don’t know, Frank! I think both are fun!

FRANK: You’re both wrong, then! Wally, you agree with me, don’t you?

WALLY: [hesitant] …I say carmul.

FRANK: No! Not you too! How could you poison him like this, Barnaby?

BARNABY: Don’t look at me! I’m innocent, honest!

FRANK: Ha! So you admit that carmul is the wrong pronunciation!

BARNABY: [groans] ah, geez… throw a dog a bone!

FRANK: I’d be delighted to if you’d just-

[distant yelp as Eddie trips off-screen]

FRANK: Eddie! Thank goodness, finally someone who can put an end to this debate!

EDDIE: [nervous laugh] Oh no, what did I stumble into this time?

BARNABY: Hold on a tic, Frank. Hey Ed, take this. What do you call that tasty treat?

EDDIE: [with a tinge of fear] A… caramel?

FRANK: [triumphant] a-HA!

SALLY: [approaching] Did someone mention carmul?

FRANK: AGH!

BARNABY: [delighted] Perfect timing, Sally!

SALLY: What, for a delicious morsel? Hand it over, thank you!

FRANK: You’re all wrong, and I’ll prove it! We’re going to go around the neighborhood and - wait. [under his breath] One two three four - [returns to normal volume] we’re taking this to Poppy’s!

BARNABY: Then Home, then Howdy, yeah yeah - might as well ask the daisies, too.

JULIE: Oooh, and the butterflies!

SALLY: While we’re at it, we should phone everyone in the book, just to get the widest audience input.

FRANK: [unamused] You all think you’re so funny.

EDDIE: Well, you gotta admit it’s… it’s…

[brief, tense pause. Eddie clears his throat]

EDDIE: It’s perfectly sensible!

[Frank makes an affronted noise]

FRANK: Poppy will see sense.

POPPY: I’d be delighted to have a cah-mehl, but I’m afraid it-

FRANK: [aghast, truly astonished] You’re joking. You have to be joking. CAH-MEHL? Does no one in this town have sense?! Besides Eddie, of course. And Julie - on a technicality.

EDDIE: [oddly pleased] Why thank you.

POPPY: My goodness, did- did I say it wrong?

BARNABY: [gleeful] Not in the least, Pops!

SALLY: As far as I’m concerned, you added an extra layer of… pizazz to the word. In fact, I may adjust my own pronunciation accordingly!

POPPY: [flustered] Oh, well, I didn’t - don’t change on my account -

SALLY: Take the compliment, Poppy.

POPPY: [meekly] Thank you.

[Sally wanders from the group, practicing the slightly adjusted pronunciation]

WALLY: I’m not sure I understand. What’s wrong with carmul or… care… mul… carmel…

POPPY: Don’t strain yourself dear, you’ll get a migraine.

FRANK: What’s wrong is that it’s ENTIRELY incorrect! It! Is! Pronounced! Caramel!

JULIE: Aww, Frank, I’m sure Home and Howdy will agree with us! Team Caramel, WOOO!

BARNABY: [barely restrained disbelief] Boy, won’t they!

POPPY: I’m not sure what the fuss is about… there isn’t much of a difference, is there?

[Frank makes a high pitched, frustrated noise and stomps off. He can be heard calling Home’s name in the background]

JULIE: Oop, there he goes!

POPPY: Oh - oh dear. I didn’t mean to rile him up.

BARNABY: Don’t twist your beak about it - Frank’s just bein’ Frank. Now if you’ll excuse us, I wanna see how it goes with Home.

WALLY: [quietly, thoughtful] But Home doesn’t talk like us…

POPPY: If you’re sure… Do let me know how it goes.

SALLY: [swaying back to the group] I’ll phone you post-haste! Or even better, I can come by for one of your delicious muffins and regale you with the whole escapade, in detail.

POPPY: [audibly pleased] That sounds - well that sounds like a wonderful idea! I have some fresh from this morning-

BARNABY: Sounds great! See you around, Poppy.

FRANK: Home, I have an important question to ask you. Is the correct pronunciation for this candy ‘carmul’, or ‘caramel’? One creak for caramel, two for the incorrect carmul.

BARNABY: Talk about a bias…

[Home stays silent. Sally yawns.]

FRANK: One creak for caramel, two-

[Home slowly shuts their curtains]

FRANK: Hmph! The nerve… well, I suppose a house that can’t speak shouldn’t have a say, anyway.

WALLY: Home can speak. He just does it differently.

BARNABY: And I’m pretty sure they just agreed with me, Walls, an’ Sally.

JULIE: They did not!

BARNABY: Looked like it to me!

SALLY: I have to agree with Julie. Home just declared itself a neutral party, and so the vote can’t be counted either way. On to Howardson!

JULIE: Yes! Howdy! Our last hope!

FRANK: He may have terrible taste in company, but he’s a sensible businessman. Poppy and Home have let me-

JULIE: Us!

FRANK: -us down, but surely Howdy will back us up.

BARNABY: [faux-serious tone, knows something they don’t] Absolutely. Without a doubt.

[store bell chimes]

HOWDY: Howdy-do - [brief pause, a tinge of surprise] everyone! My my, what brings the entire neighborhood to my bountiful bodega? Finally decided to clean me out for good?

BARNABY: [snorts] With how fast you restock? I think I’d break my funnybone!

FRANK: We have important business.

HOWDY: [mildly curious] Do we? That’s news to me! But I’m letting you know now that I don’t deal in bugs, Frankly. It’d be hypocritical.

FRANK: Believe me, I wish I were here to talk insects. Unfortunately, I need to settle a score. Mr. Dear, if you would?

EDDIE: If I would what?

SALLY: [stage-whisper] Barnabello gave you the, ah, parcel earlier?

EDDIE: The…? Oh! Oh, right - I have it right here, just… give me a second… which pocket…? There we go.

[sound of a small, hard candy placed on the countertop]

HOWDY: A carmul all for me? You shouldn’t have! No, really, you shouldn’t have. I’m on the clock.

BARNABY: [loud bark of laughter] I knew I could count on you, pal! So what’s the tally, Frankie?

[Frank mutters something inaudible]

BARNABY: What was that? I couldn’t hear you over the sound of me bein’ right!

FRANK: [explosive] You’re all wrong! The correct pronunciation is caramel, CARAMEL! You’re all - you’re all just - heathens! Heathens, I say! I’m taking my company elsewhere!

EDDIE: Mr. Frankly…

JULIE: [overlapping, following] Aw, c’mon Frank!

[the door jingles. Julie and Frank’s hushed arguing in the doorway underlies the dialogue]

HOWDY: It sounds like I missed quite the context! Mind filling me in?

BARNABY: That was pretty much it; a real potato potahto argument.

HOWDY: If you say so, Barn. Speaking of potahtos-

[the background argument abruptly cuts off, the door jingles again as it's closed]

FRANK: [rapidly rejoining the group] Hold it! You don’t really say potahto, do you?

BARNABY: [under breath] Here we go again…

SALLY: [deeply amused] Where on Earth did you pick up such a butchered pronunciation? I must have missed the sign on my tour down from the heavens.

EDDIE: [baffled, underlying the dialogue] I’ve never heard anyone say it that way.

JULIE: Oh! Is it a joke? Like, Barnaby says potato-potahto, and then you jokingly say potahto to make us laugh?

HOWDY: It’s not a joke. That’s how it’s said.

FRANK: [genuinely disturbed] No - no one says that. It’s potato.

HOWDY: Well I say potahto, thank you very much! And if you ever want one from my store again, you’d do well to accept that.

[Various grumbles of reluctant acceptance]

HOWDY: Good. Now, can I get any of you a refreshing drink after such a squall? You must be parched!

WALLY: I wouldn’t mind a glass of mulk.

[Horrified silence. A pin drop would be deafening]

[Sudden uproarious and overlapping argument]

#consider this a low budget dollar store fanfic #didnt want to write an actual fic so Just The Dialogue Works Fine #anyway ive never tried to write a script-adjacent Anything so have mercy on me #i dont know what im doing ever! im having fun anyways!#and for the record! im team carmul #well all pronunciations are valid in my book but i say carmul #always have always will dont know why dont know how #my parents tried to make me say it 'caramel' growing up and uhhh No <3 #its fuckin carmul to me. To Me.#i dont say potahto tho. who the fuck does that who isnt a 50s mob boss in jersey #if a 50s mob boss in jersey is reading this: you'll never catch me alive #absolutely unprompted #welcome home #hmmm i should have a writing tag at this point #yk what ill just reuse - wait no i cant reuse the one from my dc sideblog #oh fuck it we'll stay on theme #snippets from the bog #yeah this little writing thing has been in my docs for like.#checking my nonexistent watch here. mmmmmmdont know. a while #and im slightly terrified to post!#its one thing posting art - posting any sort of writing is like breaking your ribs open with a crab cracker #and saying Hi! Have A Taste! I Hope My Viscera Isn't Completely Disgusting!#my god i hope they're at least acceptably in character. im trying im trying #i hope this gives someone a laugh!#or at least a hearty Chortle #or... blowing air through your nose in amusement. yes

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bambiraptorx · 7 months

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@thedawningofthehour mentioned on this post that the turtles would pretend Draxum kidnapped them, and honestly? they totally would.

Featuring an oc that I really need to find a name for because I'm planning on drawing her more.

#rottmnt #rottmnt au #minor interference au #rottmnt baron draxum #rottmnt donnie #rottmnt oc #donatello hamato #rise of the tmnt #rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles #rottmnt fanart #rottmnt fanfiction #my art #naming characters is so hard and for no reason #like i know the vibe i'm going for: kinda old fashioned and maybe weird sounding? like idk Mildred or something #except not mildred that's not quite it #but some kind of granny-sounding name #mildred adjacent if you will #anyway the funniest part of this post (at least to me) is i do actually have a fic where draxum kidnaps all four turtles lol

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tennessoui · 25 days

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exploiting the body politic au -

“Oh,” Aayla says, and Anakin looks up from his phone. Aayla’s looking at her own phone, collapsed on her back on the couch. “Why’d you try glasses when you could have just passed these around to the bored suburban moms?”

“What?” Anakin says and leans over. He gets a deft kick to the ribs for his troubles, but then Aayla passes over her phone and—and all she’s been doing is scrolling through some male model’s recent press or something because all the pictures are of the same guy in various outfits, looking various levels of handsome while doing normal people things like picking up groceries or getting out of his car or leaving a coffee shop. “Probably cause these have nothing to do with Obi-Wan Kenobi,” he says, handing the phone back to her. “Are you trying to say you think I should grow a beard? Cause I’ve been thinking mayb—”

“Stop,” Aayla interrupts, holding up a hand. “First of all, I would never tell you to grow a beard. No one is ever going to tell you that. Second of all, that is Obi-Wan Kenobi.”

“No it’s not,” Anakin says automatically. “Kenobi is like, old.”

Well, he’s thirty-five, Anakin knows that. And thirty-five isn’t old, but it’s also certainly not devastatingly attractive.

“Give me that back,” he demands, extending his hand and grabbing at Aayla’s phone. He clicks on one of the photos on the screen at random, a shot of the bearded man carrying a paperbag full of groceries. It’s at least a few months old, because there’s a bouquet of spring flowers in the picture, balanced on top of the bag. The man’s hair looks reddish brown in the sun; his beard’s all neat and orderly and he’s wearing a light jacket over a loose shirt and slacks. Anakin was right the first time around—he’s very attractive in a way that screams look at me.

He supposes that’s something politicians could probably have in common with models, but the man in the photo is looking far too windswept and…and casual to be a politician.

But then he looks past the photo, down at its title and it says City Councilman Kenobi on Cars, Community, and Cooking in Coruscant.

It must have been a slow news day.

“Huh,” Anakin says, swiping across the phone’s screen to pull up the next picture. It’s part of the same article from the Coruscant Star, except this time, Kenobi is looking at the camera with one eyebrow raised, expression carefully crafted to look both infinitely patient and two seconds away from snapping. It must have been taken on a different day altogether because the man is dressed in a reasonably nice looking outfit, though his tie is all loose around his neck. He’s standing in his office, maybe, or a prop office more likely, leaning a bit over a very heavy and fancy looking desk, balanced on one of his forearms which is all freckly and exposed because he’s rolled up his sleeves.

“Is this what the city council is using our tax dollars for?” Anakin asks, scandalized. “Soft-core porn shoots?”

“What?” Aayla says, demonstrating a freakish level of flexibility by leaning over to look at her phone screen without removing her feet from his lap. “It’s just a photo.”

Anakin splutters. “I may have pledged my undying loyalty to my hot TA, but even I cannot admit that that is not just a photo.”

“Whatever,” Aayla says, flopping back onto her back. “Don’t screenshot it and send it to yourself to beat off to later, that’s gross.”

“You’re gross,” Anakin replies, but he tosses her phone back at her. He wasn’t going to screenshot anything. “That’s our city councilman.”

“He’s your city councilman,” Aayla corrects lazily. “I’ve decided I was going to vote for his opponent.”

All politics is, Anakin decides, is one betrayal after another.

#obikin #body politics au #long post #when this fic is finally posted yall are gonna be like #wait i read all that #in 200 word chunks #on tumblr over the course of several weeks #and i will expose myself for not editing or rewriting almost anything ever in my life #anyway this fic is so silly and unserious #very very crack adjacent which is the decompression write i need rn #and you may need to read rn <3

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thebiscuitlabryinth · 2 months

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something something pure vanilla learning more about shadow milk, digging up his past and finding the remnants left behind, connecting the legends around the academy back to this Beast and slowly unearthing more and more fragments until he can put together a haphazard image

something something shadow milk acting less erratic around him in their mind encounters, engaging him in intelletual debate and philosophical questions, almost seeming to settle every once in while with the enrichment of conversation. pure vanilla slowly starting to gather hope that, maybe, the Beasts can be saved, even if he doesn't tell anyone

something something pure vanilla falling in love with a version of someone that is long dead, a heartache he knows too well but can't seem to prevent, and paying for it

(something something shadow milk loving pure vanilla, but not in a way that would ever be compatible with pure vanilla, the way he is now)

#this is sort of what inspired my previous fic (and i might elaborate on it later too)#but i was just thinking on how you can possibly write sv as explicitly romantic #while still keeping the characterisation canon adjacent. canon parallel if you will #more specifically with pv's pov because. it's pretty easy to shadowvanilla from sm's pov because he is. a freak (affectionate)#but this is the only way i can see it working from pv's pov (that doesn't also involve watering sm down too much)#and i have to clarify that THIS WOULD NOT BE HEALTHY. THIS WOULD BE A TRAGIC TRAIN WRECK #but it would be SO fascinating to watch #hm. i may have to make this an au actually. i'll get back to you guys on that #anyway pv has a type and it is doomed scholar driven to madness by the pursuit and power of knowledge :)#shadowvanilla

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theminecraftbee · 8 months

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Normally, traitors aren’t frog-marched to the Emperors themselves, regardless of what rank of information they had. These aren’t normal circumstances, though, Techno bemoans to himself. For one, the man is refusing to speak anything but French and a tiny amount of broken Bayesh. For another, on being made, he immediately handed over about three folders of classified information then loudly waited for handcuffs to be put on him.

Phil is lounging in his throne; he’d never been one for propriety. This leaves Techno to be, uh, the actually serious one. The one adorned in uniform, sitting and glowering down. It’s lucky that the traitor isn’t a pigman, because Techno isn’t actually great at glowering, but humans are weird about pigman facial expressions so he should be fine?

The traitor stands before them and grins. In perfect Bayesh, he says: “Finally. It took way too long for you to catch me, bitch.”

Techno pauses. He stares. In Piglish, he barks to his guards: “Everyone out. It’s Leader business.”

They file out. They’ll be waiting outside. Phil straightens in his seat and reaches for his own sword.

Techno, laboriously, drags his hand across his face. He switches back to Bayesh. God, does he regret being fluent in multiple languages sometimes. “What are you doing here, Tommy.”

“Showing you your intelligence weak points, fucker. Do you know how easy it is to slip Bayesh spies in here? I was smooth. A smooth customer. I was hearing classified milkitary secrets—”

“You were caught within two hours,” Techno says.

“That’s—that’s just what you think, innit?” Tommy says. Phil laughs. He’s the real traitor here.

“Tommy. I don’t wanna have to cause an international incident, but I’ve had a really long day, so if you just tell me who hired you to run a spy op, and why you decided it was a good idea to run it yourself, instead of sending one of your experts…”

“No one,” Tommy says.

“Hey, don’t lie you little shit. Techno might not want to start an incident but I don’t care,” Phil says. He grins and holds up his sword. “You wanna wake up in a jail cell and reveal some secrets? We may all be Leaders but it won’t stop torture from hurting.”

“What the fuck, Phil,” Tommy says.

“No one’s torturing anyone. We’ll just bomb them later if we must,” Techno says.

“And I wasn’t lying. It’s—can I take the wig off by the way? It fucking itches.”

“I despise you.”

Tommy takes off the black wig, revealing his blonde hair. “Anyway, I don’t want to work with you guys either, so I figured I’d get your attention by like, acting like we’re enemies and stuff. Got hired for espionage enough back in the day to pick up that much.”

“Who the fuck wanted you as a spy?” Phil asks.

“Fuck you,” Tommy says and doesn’t elaborate.

“Please just tell us what you want,” Techno says. “Please. I can’t handle this much you at any given time.”

“This needs to be Leader to Leader,” Tommy says, and something heavy laces his words. The hairs on Techno’s arms stand up.

“You coulda asked,” he says, in one final desperate bid for normality.

“No, I couldn’t have,” Tommy says. “I think Chip’s dead.”

Techno doesn’t notice that he’s standing until he is.

“What?”

“Yeah,” Tommy says. “Yeah. And, uh, I fucking. Need your help to figure out what happened. Before we get blamed. And I know, politically, you’ve got no reason, but if we don’t figure out—”

Techno sits back down, heavy.

“I know you understand Piglish. Let me talk in my native language. Phil.”

“Yeah, mate?”

“Go get the stuff.”

Phil’s eyes darken. “Right. That. Well, I’ll be back.”

Tommy’s voice, for the first time since Techno met him as a newly-minted Leader, standing on a wooden bench and yelling about executions, is small.

“You believe me?” he says.

“Why else would you come here?” Techno asks. “Not like we like you.”

“Good, because I’m shit at infiltrations. Would have been embarrassing if you, like, didn’t know your enemy well enough to know that,” Tommy says. He’s saying something else underneath it. Techno is neither good enough at Bayesh or at Tommy to guess what.

“Let’s work out an excuse to make a treaty. And you tell me everything.”

#smp earth #WELL THAT'S A TAG I HAVEN'T HAD TO USE IN A WHILE.#a bee fic #anyway have you ever had to excise a story hook that's appeared in your head?#anyway: in which business bay gets framed for murdering chip and unfortunately as much as tommy would like the notoriety #he can't afford to let a guy who could kill chip just run around. also no one believes him.#so he goes to the antarctic empire hoping to ruffle enough feathers to at least get them out of the way #and technoblade immediately goes 'oh god something that incredibly stupid WOULD happen to you. oh no.'#AND THEN THEY ARE FORCED TO WORK TOGETHER TO CATCH THE GODKILLER #for the record. i probably won't write this.#if you're in a certain server with me please ignore how much i've been going 'but i COULD write bedrock bros' recently i PROBABLY WONT #anyway. i thought maybe you all would like this. the worldbuilding is like. ADJACENT to empires earth? with a lot of months in-between #like it definitely has influences from when i was doing the empires earth stuff.

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nostalgia-tblr · 2 months

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"are people not into that?" i ask, after posting my weird niche shit to the internet, despite knowing it to be weird niche shit.

#jsyk sylkius or anything adjacent to it does not “Do Numbers” in any way and i observed this some time ago #i assume that's the “rival ships” element at work but who knows really #that sort of thing is like femslash in that everyone approves of it but nobody actually reads or writes it #but who would have thought sylvie beating loki with a stick would not bring in droves of readers???! shocking twist there!#& i don't consider sifki a rarepair but my rarepair standards are VERY strict like if there's >5 fics a pairing is basically mainstream #chasing popularity would annoy me though & i just don't have the mental spoons to try writing stuff i wouldn't personally read #yeah i *could* put my blorbos to work in a coffee shop but what cost to my own enjoyment levels? AT WHAT COST FANGELA???#you can't please everyone so you may as well just please yourself and if anyone else likes it you've found some fellow freaks so yay #i don't mean please yourself in a wanking sense. though feel free to do that too it probably counts as a cardio workout idk.#BUT ANYWAY #fic related #ps i am v glad there's the “warning: loki” tag because i think/hope it acts as a filter for 'he did nothing wrong in his life ever' types #who are Valid & etc obviously but i write my morally grey characters to be morally grey and the tag might help avoid conflict #though tbh i write almost every character to be morally grey in some way so i can't claim to have left my comfort zone here #(i'm not joking when i say the 1987-89 run of Dr Who shaped my entire future fannish life from a young and apparently v impressionable age)

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saltysideblog · 2 months

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Gotham, exterior, night

Robin, Batman and The White Rabbit stand on a roof, staking out an abandoned building across the street. Robin stretches and groans,

Robin: We've been at this all night! What time is it?

White Rabbit checks a golden pocket watch on a chain looped around her waist,

White Rabbit: Almost two AM...

Batman does not look up from his binoculars,

Batman: You really committed to the theme.

White Rabbit: Seems to be the only way to be taken seriously 'round here...

She hands him a small object,

White Rabbit: Is this bat shaped throwing knife yours?

Batman: Touché.

Robin, still stretching: They're called batarangs.

White Rabbit, laughing: What? That's the most ridiculous thing l've ever heard!

Robin: Hey, don't look at me! I didn't come up with it!

Both Robin and The White Rabbit look over at Batman expectantly.

Batman: ...

Batman: I thought it was funny.

Robin: Told ya!

White Rabbit: I'll be darned, I had no idea Batman had a playful side!

Batman, smirking: There's a lot you don't know about me.

...later...

District Attorney's office, interior, day

Bruce: What's that on your desk?

He points to a batarang being used as a paperweight. Wendy picks it up and hands it to him,

Wendy: This? A gift from The Batman.

Bruce: Someone pinch me, is Wendy Babbitt a friend of The Batman?

Wendy: Now now, Mr. Wayne, don't mistake my fondness for the man as an endorsement of his methods.

Bruce: You're fond of him? Must've been quite an evening...

He sits on the edge of her desk, turning the batarang around in his hand. She crosses her arms,

Wendy: Why do you care so much, Wayne? If I didn't know any better, l'd say you were jealous.

Bruce: No! No... just surprised.

Wendy: Sure. Well, you know, if you save my life once or twice, I may grow fond of you yet.

Bruce, pouting: You haven't already?

Wendy rolls her eyes with a smile and grabs her coat. She doesn't have the courage to tell him... more than you know.

Wendy: C'mon, Bruce, I'm starving.

Bruce stalls, feigning hurt. Wendy laughs, shoving him off her desk,

Wendy: I can tell you all about him on the way.

Bruce stands, chucking the batarang back on the desk.

Bruce: It's a bit... oddly shaped, wouldn't you say?

Wendy, eagerly: That's not the half of it, you'll never believe what he calls those things!

Bruce smiles, holding the door open for her. Their conversation continues and fades out as they leave together.

#idk what this is #a fic? no. a script?? maybe...#fic writing #fic... adjacent?#tfw u don't wanna draw the comics #but ideas come to u anyway #u gotta write it down SOMEWHERE #robin #batman #the white rabbit #dick grayson #bruce wayne #character dialogue #dcau oc #batman tas oc #batman x oc #my ocs #self insert #dialogue bits and bobs

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ctrl-alt-cel · 1 year

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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

#puppyshipping #violetshipping #seto kaiba #joey wheeler #ship analysis #character study #not intended to convince anyone of anything this was a silly project to do on the side for MEEE #also i genuinely dont think any of the points i make are new #in my quest to be as holistic as possible and read every puppyshipping-adjacent meta analysis i could get my hands on #defense essays. criticism. livejournal blogposts #ive found several times that every point i make has already been made before in some kaijou 200k longfic posted in like 2011 #so if this essay is for ANYONE who isnt me.#its for the kaijou fic authors who have put in the work. god's strongest soldiers etc etc #actually. might reblog with an actual afterword citing my favorite ygo analysis i read in prep for this lol #i allude to a few of them in certain sections but i think youd have to be REALLY chronically online to notice #(coughing)#anyways special thanks to the friends who kindly beta read a document titled 'YAOI THESIS FINAL.docx'#fer + voski + cherry + sully + eric + cleo + gabby + chris + clover + vio #dear god i have inflicted this essay onto so many people #i love you.#you have enabled me and now we're all paying the price #yugioh

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