for the ship meme, how about Jou/Seto?
SCREAMS OUT LOUD because you have found my Favourite Thing™ everything i say here is from plotting with my jou's ship-exclusive kaiba, @brothersaved, who i adore so completely <3
i love kaijou / violetship because when its done well, it is just chef's kiss. to me, jou and seto go from these young, hot-headed, deeply angry teenagers still reeling from their traumatic childhoods and the frankly insane things that happened to them over the course of their time in high school, to these two much more tempered, more leveled out versions of themselves that come into being in the years after. they are two people who sort of stumble back into each other's lives unexpectedly, and clash again in that familiar, passionate way they remember so distinctly from before. but there is so much less malice, so much less anger and jealousy and blind rage. because they've each gotten perspective a little, healed a little. and now they're a little more ready to see eye to eye.
things are awkward and fumbling with them, and they bicker constantly but it's friendlier. their relationship is falling into old habits and fighting to make new, better ones. its making out with someone because they're sexy and aggravating and complicated and beautiful. its closeness without giving it a name, until you do, and you never want to stop saying the word lover. its having someone to return home to after business trips and tournaments and bad days and long shifts. its being too stubborn to ask for help for all your life until one day you do. and you never knew it could just be that easy.
jou and seto work best with that bit of distance and time. they're too hateful, too wound up in their competitiveness, their commitment to misunderstanding each other, their want to hurt one another when they first meet. there is no respect or love there, and i don't think at that time, either of them is willing to bend enough to let there be love there. sure, there may be an initial attraction, an aggravating, frustrating attraction, because there is such an intensity of emotion between the two of them ( and that attraction comes back full force when they meet again as adults, i assure you ) but this can't be the basis for anything that lasts.
it is my pet peeve when people call it 'puppyshipping' because it has all the WORST connotations about what this ship can be in fanon. it's something where seto disrespects jou fundamentally for all he is and jou never seems him as anything more than an asshole and a bully. they never make any progress past hating each other in high school. it's always a weird power dynamic, where seto 'owns' jou or something gross, and they are both reduced to their worst, most uninteresting parts. like, i get it, kissing your rival because you hate them is all well and good, but its meaningless to me unless your actually pining for them underneath.
jou and seto's relationship is about growth. it's about changing next to one another. it's about letting love and time soften you. it's about saying you're sorry you were wrong before, and you're so glad you've become who you are now, together.
