If You Got The Time, I’ve Got My Coffin Ready. Rip Me. Lay It One Me.

If you got the time, I’ve got my coffin ready. Rip me. Lay it one me.

I…. hhhh okay, essay on why i ship snakeeyes, let’s go

Where to start…

I’m the kind of shipper that needs to see the spark of narrative before my little shipping heart can set aflame. I don’t need much, but I need something more than just “oh they look cute next to each other.” 

With snake eyes, it happened the second I saw that these two had an onscreen moment together that was private. 

This is them in the Devil’s office. They’re just talkin’ shop, talkin’ about the cup bros and all, but my dumb little brain went off and was like “Oh… the Devil and King Dice are obviously close enough that the big boss trusts his manager around his money, in his personal space, and listens to what he has to say…”

That was enough for me to see this whole… I dunno, history between them. 

From the way they talk to each other, my brain instantly decided upon a few things:

- They’ve been in business together for a long time

- They talk regularly in private. Confide in each other

- The Devil trusts Dice, at least insofar as to listen to his opinions and trusts him manage his whole damn casino

- They regularly make bets and schemes together

- Dice sets up souls for the Devil, Tees him up, if you would, and then lets him take the shot.

like look at this shit eating grin. Look at Dice just loving the sight of Cuphead betting him and his brother’s soul away, knowing full well that “we got another, boss.” He’s so confident and smug. It’s a practiced look. Like, they HAVE to have done this thousands of times over!! 

Also, side note, Dice is refers to himself ad the Devil’s right hand man in his song, after all, so he’s not just his manager. He’s his confidant. His assistant. His partner in crime.

Ahh I’m getting carried away. 

Let me be the first person to admit that I’m kinda grasping at straws here. This is literally their only on screen interaction together, aside from their spoken references to each other. There are a couple of times where Dice will reference the Devil when speaking to the player, sort of serving as a buffer between you and the Big Boss (”Y’ain’t seeing the big cheese until you collect those contracts!” something like that..) Conversely, upon kicking Dice’s ass in his boss fight, which we’ll get to in a moment, the Devil calls Dice a “good for nothing lackey.” 

My point here being, even when they’re not on screen together, they talk about each other.

So I’m like a’ight. They spend time together and talk about each other. It’s not much, but there is a relationship here. 

Yeah, you can stop it at the “work buddies” thing, or just call it a brotp and be done with it, but in this house we furiously read into things and turn every slight nod and acknowledgment into romance resulting in a wedding day pfff.

Okay, so let’s talk about their boss fights~

Geographically, these two are on a whole isle all to their own, Inkwell Hell. All the other bosses take place on one of the three main isles, but the Devil and Dice are all on a level all on their own. 

Well duh, Mouse, you might say, they’re the casino bosses. Of course they have their own isle. 

Yeah, but… You have to fight Dice to get to the Devil…

Meaning that Dice is competent enough to be trusted to, for lack of a better word, guard the Devil. Not that he’s someone that needs protecting, but Dice is the guy he serves you up before he can tango with him. Like, “if you can take out this guy, then I’m gonna have to step in myself.”

Again, I read too much into things, but I like to perceive that this is the Devil respecting Dice and his abilities. At least, until you beat him. Then the Devil gets angry. Laughs it off. Calls him a good for nothing lackey. 

A low jab if you were disappointed in someone you trusted, I admit, but I don’t really see their relationship as being entirely fluffy and healthy, either. They are bad guys, after all. I wouldn’t hold it above the Devil to get mad at a friend (or a lover…) and then say something shitty about them behind their back in a fit of rage. Hell, assuming he even has friends. Most everyone under him is probably their not of their own free will. Which brings me to my last, big big point.

All the bosses you defeat through out the game, you collect soul contract from them. You are collecting these to bring them to the Devil himself. Assuming you do that, you collect contracts from every single boss.

Except King Dice.

Granted, you can argue that you’re not trying to bring his soul contract to the Devil, since he didn’t ask for it, but I like to interpret it more like this:

In my head, the fact that you don’t collect Dice’s soul contract is a suggestion that he doesn’t have one. 

Meaning he’s there of his own free will.

He serves the Devil, in the highest capacity as his manager and right hand man,  because he’s good at it. He’s effective, he’s competent, he’s all these things.

but most importantly, he serves the Devil because he chooses to. He wants to be there. To serve him. 

He respects him. He admires him, I would say. He takes his job seriously and does his best to please his boss…

Now if that ain’t the most edgy, romantic shit ever……

Like. This is it. This is all it took for me to just run wild with this dynamic. I can see them in such a specific, romantic, passionate, and visceral way together just from this. This dymanic is interesting and exciting enough for me to want to make a whole damn comic about it lmao.

Ughghhh.. over 6 months later and im still in so deep for these assholes.

Let me end this fucking ramble-fest here. That’s all the in-game context I got for ya, really. Everything else is all my own dumb conjecture… But I hope that helps contextualize their relationship for you a little. Maybe as you read Young Blood you can start to see similar themes and dynamics that I’m playing with between my version of King Dice and this reincarnated version of the Devil, Bub.

So. There you have it. That’s my essay on why I ship snakeeyes…

Um. Thanks for coming to my fucking TEDtalk lmao.