#antagoshipping

Buckle up you've accidentally popped the lid off of like two months of insane chittering so this will be a long one. (also jumping straight to the answer of where I'm at with these two without first explaining my work will seem like madness. because it is.)

Okay so I would call what @ospreyonthemoon and I have made an AU except it's more like a sandbox where we're testing new and interesting ways to fuck up Kaiba's life. which started with 'one more cursed amulet (Seto reverse engineering a soul storing amulet from the millennium items) couldn't hurt' and has uh. spiraled.

(Osprey cares to call it a particle accelerator where we throw elements at each other and record the results. They aren't wrong.)

The base premise went 'okay Kaiba gets a cursed amulet containing the spirit of Seto shoved on him by a very desperate Mokie (who Did Not think this would work) to wake him up from his coma. Kaiba is going to start losing time by the fistful and also maybe accidentally discover that he's plural if he doesn't put his soul back together fast enough. what are the Consequences?'

Osprey actually made a very helpful chart of the two main timelines we've made that was meant to be a joke but speedruns a lot of me trying and failing to explain things in a condensed manner

The relevant answers are 'he is now buddies with Ryou on merit of having no good very bad times with their amulets', 'he is now friends with Yamiba by extension (you are both people who bit and clawed for everything you had in life and also if you're angry you can express that frustration and he won't be upset or scared or try to leave. worst you'll do is like- tussle about it.' and 'Kaiba either is plural and has a dragon alter or is somewhere in the ballpark of being a dragon therian'

which is to say you get Kaiba getting quite attached to Yamiba while also getting more violent than it has been previously (ESPECIALLY if itgets left in the dark on the whole Seto thing and doesn't get help,,,, this is already rambley enough as it is, but more stress = more backed into a corner = more lashing out)

(also yeah trans it/its kaiba)

Hey you made it to the actual explanation of the ship! ->

you arrive at this dynamic where Kaiba is acting more and more like a dragon and Yamiba is just leaning into it and praising it and oh. when was the last time anyone offered Kaiba genuine praise for anything?

And then at some point you get Yamiba thinking and eventually saying 'my dragon' in reference to Kaiba and it's? it's not even in an ownership way? It's in the way that some people wholeheartedly talk about their dog or horse or whatever as an equal and companion. It's 'you're laying on the couch and letting me put little braids in your hair. you're powerful. you're wanted.' it's 'I can steal every treasure in the world, but I have /earned/ this. it's been freely given to me. (that's more compelling than I could have anticipated)'. it's gender euphoria. it's 'I've lived my whole life having to trust no one to have my best interests at heart. You've seen me at my worst and weakest, you could find some way to hurt me, I'm laying on the couch defenseless (I'm laying on the couch and I bite! and you don't fear me- you're one of the only people who doesn't fear me) and you choose to put little braids in my hair'

anywho yeah. somewhere in that mess you get oh. there is something shaped like love. I don't actually know that it's romantic, but it IS love and everyone is baffled by its existence. I don't really think that it is. Osprey and I kinda decided that yeah Kaiba and Ryou/Bakura decide they are in a relationship now and the only things that change are that Ryou gets cat privileges at Kaiba Corp (he can be wherever he damn well pleases so long as it doesn't pose imminent bodily risk, no laboratory/workshop time for you Ryou) and Kaiba gets more forehead kisses (in the way one gives their pets forehead kisses)

all that said, I'm sure there are various ways to get here (some of which involve less,,, heedless ripping apart of canon with high explosives) and many places to go from here and many imaginings of what a relationship between these two might look like and blah blah blah this is just my recipe for this version of antagoshipping soup, taste test and adjust the recipe accordingly or yanno make something else entirely with the base parts, world's your oyster.

Made for @deathandnonexistentialdread

Now for some Kaiba ships, there's a whole lot of these to cover. I invite literally everyone to reblog this with propaganda for these ships. 💛

Euroshipping: Seto Kaiba x Ryou Bakura

There are so many Yu-Gi-Oh ships that come down to "these nerds would be so obsessive together" and this is absolutely one of them. There's not a ton in common between the two of them, except that they're both on the fringes of the Yugang and have deeply strong affinity for a special game that got them through their childhood. They both have links to Ancient Egypt that aren't exactly positive, and both need tons of therapy. I ship them quite hard, personally; I think Ryou could have the ability to soothe Kaiba's soul.

Puppyshipping: Seto Kaiba x Joey Wheeler

This one is hard to keep brief, but I'll try. They're narrative foils of each other with a lot of similar motivations, but their values differ. It's not just a "they gate each other, so they need to kiss" ship, but it can be that too lol. They make each other better. They make each other worse. They're two sides of the same coin. They're too similar, and that's why they don't get along, but it's also why they fall in love.

Antagoshipping: Seto Kaiba x Yami Bakura

They would make each other worse in the most entertaining way. These are two characters that home incredible grudges and never let anything go, so then teaming up (against Yugi) could easily be catastrophic to the entire world—especially if you take the Season Zero versions of them. Delicious toxic yaoi 😘👌 But! It also doesn't have to be! @iamallyetnotatall has a great fic that covers it in Twelve Years Waiting

Silentshipping: Seto Kaiba x Serenity Wheeler

Let's pretend this is post canon and everybody's an adult. There's typically two ways I see this ship done: First, that Kaiba is dating Joey's sister out of spite (and maybe falls in love with her for real); Second, that Serenity's presence during Battle City and her little speech to Kaiba about mercy actually made a lasting impression that makes him want to be a better person. It could be cute or awful, and that's kind of fun imo.

yugioh duel monsters fic

antagoshipping/euroshipping/tendershipping mid-canon and then post-canon

5474 words, explicit.

i wanted to write something with hyperspecific rules about how i was allowed to refer to the ring spirit and i wanted to write about sucking tdick, so i combined them. both of the bodies involved are transmasc, and seto is a massive sub because i know what i like.

Summary: Seto has admittedly made some mistakes in his life, but this one is possibly the worst. He should have known Bakura would rather torture him with the gift he specifically asked for than actually accept it.

Summary: Yknow that roof scene where yami bakura and seto duel. pretend it got gay instead of bakura running off.

Summary: “Is this an S&M thing?” had asked Seto.

The Demon did not know what that meant, so Seto had explained it to him.

Bakura had burst into laughter. “Are you for real…? You fucking mortals… That’s the most boring thing I’ve heard the whole day."

*Warnings: explicit sex (not very explicit), underage sex, Yami Bakura nonconsensually using Ryou's body to have consensual sex with Kaiba (I don't believe that's a situation most of this site's users have been in, so probably not a potential trigger but who knows), cutting.

Summary: Kaiba's musings on his relationship with Ryou.

*Warnings: brief but explicit mentions of sex, mentions of mental instability, hints of possible eating disorders and self harm.

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- And the first antagoshipping fic I read a long time ago (more on the dark side/ depression) :

Brave New World by Koneko Cain