#redeyeshipping

Mastershipping (Kaiba x Otogi)

Redeyeshipping (Jou x Dinosaur Ryuuzaki)

Euroshipping (Kaiba x Bakura Ryou)

Frightshipping (Yami Bakura x Jounouchi Katsuya)

~• Redeyeshipping •~

hello Not Cookie™

Alright so the easiest way for me to talk about these boys is to first mainly explain why I even ship them in the first place (putting under a read more because jfc i ramble a lot)

So the main thing that kept me coming back to redeyeshipping is that they are in very similar situations. Both have a friend more successful than them and they both continue to lose to their “rival” and both continue to live in the shadow of their closest friend. They both know the pain of being #2 and being forgotten.

I think it should’ve been crucial for joey to have someone who 1) respects him and 2) looks up to him/sees him as a rival. Because for the whole series, joey is kinda set up as a secondary rival. Like he has playful competitiveness with Yugi and he sees Kaiba as his rival that he desperately wants to beat. But he never gets to beat either of them. And honestly they don’t really see him as a serious threat (kaiba views yugi/atem as his rival, not joey).

And then there’s Rex who’s first scene (in the manga at least) is him losing to weevil. He just continuously loses to everyone he fights, even though he’s set up to be a good duelist that people respected. He’s never #1 he’s ALWAYS #2. And then he loses to joey. Like weevil lost too but he lost to Yugi, the king of fuckin games. If joey is largely ignored, imagine how low people must view rex. He lost to joey when he didn’t even know how to play the game. He lost his best card.

Even so, rex still continues dueling! Even when no one takes him seriously anymore, he keeps going. That’s the same kind of drive that joey has. Neither of them wants to give up no matter how many times they get beat down.

I think there’s an extremely good untouched relationship that could exist between them. Two undervalued but determined duelists. And in s2, Rex even tries to warn joey to be careful dueling someone who is a cheater. There’s no animosity between them. The forced anger in s4 always kinda bothered me because rex isn’t angry with joey in s2, but that could probably be chalked up to his mind being warped by the seal. (I also think that weevil egged him on and fed into his anger and frustration)

And like I rag on s4’s portrayal of Rex a lot, but it did give me some of my favorite scenes. During his duel with joey, joey says something like “keep dueling me! No matter how many times you lose keep challenging me” and that part kicked my ass. Because like…that’s exactly what joey does with Kaiba. He keeps on dueling him and Kaiba never even seems like he wants to. He never gives him the time of day. Joey is trying to be the rival for rex that kaiba never was for him.

So that brings me to the whole post canon universe that exists in my head. One of the central points is that rex takes joey up on his offer and they meet to have weekly duels to “compete over red eyes”. It originally starts with joey always winning and then rex starts to win too. So they keep trading off red eyes and it becomes this fun way for both of them to practice getting better. And as they keep going, joey sees more and more of himself in rex and rex opens up more to joey. And bada bing bada boom you got a friendship that could grow into something more.

my favorite relationship headcanon honestly is that joey lets rex info dump to him about dinosaurs and makes him feel valued and listened to :’)

its a national holiday!!!

hey remember in season 4 when joey carried rex around for a few episodes??