#baira (Yugioh)
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Hanoi Fortress 2 (or the unusual trollers)
#the knight of hanoi#knight of hanoi#yugioh#ygo#yugioh vrains#vrains#yu gi oh#ygo vrains#vrains revolver#ryoken kogami#kogami ryoken#kyoko taki#dr genome#dr genome vrains#baira vrains#faust vrains#spectre vrains#varis#yugioh meme
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Asking silly questions in a house full of nerds
#spectre vrains#kogami ryoken#pandor vrains#baira vrains#faust vrains#dr. genome#vrains#ygo vrains#yugioh vrains#areillu#speryospe
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I find it very funny that Revolver has this whole spiel about Playmaker's actions putting all of his coworkers in danger, like dude, YOU did that.
#spk watches vrains#yugioh#vrains#yugioh vrains#ygo vrains#revolver vrains#ryoken kogami#kougami ryouken#klarissa turner#kyoko taki#baira vrains#shitty edits
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Specter: What should we do? I am bored
Faust: Jailbreak?
Genome: Jailbreak?
Specter: Jailbreak?
Varis:... Jailbreak.
Baira, in her cell: Jailbreak.
#yugioh vrains#ryoken kogami#specter Vrains#faust#genome#baira#knights of hanoi#source: bleach abridged#this was their thought process while breaking into that jail
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Watching more VRAINS with my bestie today. Her theory about the voice who spoke to Yusaku as a child is Baira.
She's usually better at predicting twists than this. Can't believe she ruled out Rev.
#yugioh#ygo#yugioh vrains#ygo vrains#vrains#baira vrains#kyoko taki#ryoken kogami#revolver#revolver vrains
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This Time on Yu-Gi-Oh Vrains Analysis: How the Fuck Did Aoi's Writing Get Worse
Got sidetracked by GX Week, but I'm back to talk about Aoi again, because oh boy...
So for season 1, I'd heard the rumors of how they screwed her over, and they were mostly in line with the ways I expect Yugioh female characters to be failed by the writers. Overall I still liked Aoi and, while I found some decisions distasteful, I didn't think the actual quality of her writing was worse than other characters'.
Aoi's writing in season 2 is several times worse than it was in season 1. It's truly a disaster, amateurish and baffling, in a way that I think most viewers don't even consciously realize. And while it may not be the worst moment in Yugioh -- it is, in my opinion, the worst writing I've ever seen in Yugioh.
Anyway, that's how I wrote 4k words descending into Aoi madness. Enjoy!
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Before I begin, a fair warning: I'm gonna say some harsh things in this post. Because being mean is funny, and I deserve it after what I just watched.
But I also want say up front that I don't think the Vrains writers are bad writers, and I still have respect for them. Writing for children's television is grueling work that I could never do, and there are many reasons why bad art is released into the world besides simple writing skill. Vrains clearly had a troubled production, and I have other suspicions about why it turned out the way it did. If there's interest, I think that could be its own post, too.
Also, I refer to the "writers" in this post when I criticize Vrains's storytelling, but to be clear, directors, producers, storyboarders, and others can have just as much influence over the show's story as writers, or even more so. I use the term writers for convenience's sake.
Without further ado...
⇀ Losing My Mind Immediately
Akira lets Aoi go into the restricted area, which nobody has ever returned from.
Ahem... WHO ARE YOU??? Why is Akira, overprotective onii-san numero uno, extremely willing to put his sister on house arrest for her own safety, has never given Aoi his permission to fight, suddenly letting her go off into a danger zone with a 0% survival rate, right after she lost to Spectre immediately in the Tower of Hanoi conflict.
Oh, so now you think she's capable? Why???
Not only that, they make Ghost Girl be the one to say it's too dangerous for her. What?? Ghost Girl is the one who encouraged Aoi to sneak out and into the danger zone in season 1. These are literally the last two characters who would say these things to Aoi.
Then, when they enter the restricted area, Aoi immediately gives up her emergency logout program to an NPC. Normally I'd brush this off. Naivety being used to emphasize female characters' moral virtuosity is passé, but it's not a big deal. It wouldn't be, if the next 30 seconds didn't make me completely go off the rails. This is the speech that is possibly the worst writing, line by line, that I have ever seen in Yugioh.
Roll the tape...
Aoi: Recent events have taught me that I'm still a child. I took on Hanoi for my brother, but look how that turned out. I troubled everyone, and they needed to save me. I was full of myself, thinking I can do anything on my own, but in truth, the world is full of people and we're all connected. Everyone saved me. So this time, I want to save everyone. I'll become stronger, so this time, I'll do everything I can!
Literally none of these sentences make sense... Half of them aren't even true. It reads like ChatGPT asked to write a shonen speech -- the facade of being inspiring, but ultimately empty and nonsensical.
"I took on Hanoi for my brother," This is blatantly false. She had a whole goddamn episode focused on why she decides to fight Hanoi, it's her duel with Baira, and it's specifically about how she's not doing this for her brother, she's not doing this for herself, she's doing this for everyone. If anything, she disregards her brother in order to fight Hanoi.
Blue Angel: I learned something from my duels. When people believe in you, you're fighting for everyone. So I will fight for everyone from now on!
Sound familiar? It's the same goddamn thing she's saying right now, "this time, I want to save everyone." Why are they framing this as Aoi having a new realization, having learned her lesson? What they demonstrate with this is that Aoi hasn't learned her lesson. The reason she lost to Spectre is because trying to save everyone includes trying to save him, and he takes advantage of her naivety.
Blue Angel: You're the same as me... When you were alone, you sought love, and Blue Angel's blue is the ultimate love! Blue Angel will descend into your heart, and save your soul! Spectre: Really? *bows mockingly* Please, then, save my soul!
Naively trying to save others is exactly what she's doing right now, by thoughtlessly giving away her emergency logout in a place that nobody has ever returned from. Her character has gone completely backwards. I said in my last post that losses are good because we get to see characters grow -- I stand by the opinion that they could have made the Spectre loss work -- but they've bungled it on three different levels. She loses horribly, then they retcon her reason for losing, in order to make her character regress.
Apparently, the real reason Aoi lost to Spectre, is because "she was full of herself, thinking she could do anything on her own." I'm so mad. First of all, Aoi clearly wasn't acting on her own and never thought she was, Go and Yusaku were both fighting Hanoi too. Why are they acting like Aoi lost because of hubris?
You know who thought he could do everything on his own? Yusaku. But clearly he didn't need to learn that "the world is full of people and we're all connected." He clearly believed the opposite, because he did everything by himself and tried to reject allyship at every turn and yet lo and behold, he hasn't lost a single duel.
"Everyone saved me. So this time, I want to save everyone." NO, LITERALLY ONE PERSON SOLO'D HANOI, AND EVERYONE ELSE DID JACK SHIT. This resolution that Aoi comes to not only regresses her character, but it makes no goddamn sense. Who is the everyone you're talking about, Aoi? Are they in the room with us right now?
Who am I kidding, it's obvious who the "everyone" is, because as she says it, the clip that plays is Akira's manpain as Aoi gets turned into data. Because even in this moment that has nothing to do with Akira, the writers cannot resist bending Aoi's character to revolve around how much she loves her beloved onii-san, even though it makes no sense in this context of trying to save a random NPC.
Frankly, the whole "everyone saved me" also makes no sense in the context of trying to save a random NPC. But like, even less sense than that, because the actual context of this "heartfelt" shonen speech is that she's trying to get Ghost Girl to give up her emergency logout button. Ghost Girl, established to be self-serving and willing to throw others under the bus to advance herself. Why does this speech convince her? It doesn't even have anything to do with her.
Great, so now not only have they botched Aoi's character, but for the rest of the show, Ghost Girl is stripped of the characteristics that actually made her engaging.
If they wanted Aoi to convince Ghost Girl to give up her escape program and become more selfless, it's simple. Have her say, "We saved you." Ghost Girl wouldn't be standing here right now, if Aoi and the others hadn't risked everything to save everyone.
There's more I could pick on about these 30 seconds, like how the writers aren't content with handing Aoi a humiliating loss, but they also make her act like she deserved to be "humbled" by that experience: "Recent events have taught me that I'm still a child," "I troubled everyone, and they needed to save me." It's like they're not content with infantilizing her in the narrative, they need to make sure she infantilizes herself.
Which brings me back to the point about Aoi's "hubris." Because what is implied by saying that Aoi lost because of hubris when nothing she said or did suggested that, is that it was hubris for Aoi to fight at all. It was hubris for Aoi, and the audience, to believe she could do anything. Which is just maddening.
And to top it all off, to add insult to indignity to injury to insanity, she finishes her speech by saying, "I'll become stronger! This time, I'll do everything I can!"
AND THEN. SHE LOSES. IN THE NEXT EPISODE.
This speech reads like a bad influencer apology. First they "admit" their mistake (that Blue Angel didn't do anything in the Hanoi fight), then they deflect and change the story about what actually happened (it's because she was being full of herself! That's definitely why she lost), and finally they promise to do better (don't worry, this season, Aoi will get stronger and get some wins!), but they don't.
I can talk more about how the writers give Aoi shallow girlboss speeches instead of actually demonstrating her strength in duels, but that will come when I talk about Blue Maiden.
Right now... it's time to talk about Blue Girl vs. Soulburner.
⇀ What's in a re-introductory duel?
Something that's pretty standard in Yugioh is the concept of the season 2 "re-introductory duel." Think Shou's promotion duel in GX, the filter episodes that came before the World Grand Prix arc started, the Sector Security battle royale in Arc-V. They can be story-relevant, or completely filler, but the point is to re-familiarize you with the main supporting characters. If you look at the first 10 episodes of a Yugioh season 2, you'll generally see all the main supporting characters represented in a duel. And if they aren't, it may reveal something about how relevant they are to the writers (Misawa GX, Ruka 5D's, Yuzu Arc-V...)
Go gets his re-introductory duel against Soulburner, and though I have my issues with how they handled Go in Season 2, which I went into in my previous post, it succeeds in every way a re-introductory duel should. It addresses the transition of his character between seasons, sets up his conflict for this season, introduces his new cards, adds character to Soulburner, and establishes a dynamic between the two. Their opposition is natural, and if anything, the season fails to capitalize on how well this duel set things up.
Aoi's re-introductory duel... is also against Soulburner. And their opposition... uh...
Look, I'll be frank, there is only one reason for Soulburner to duel Aoi, his third duel already in 10 episodes: they are fast-tracking him into main character slot #2. I talked about this in the Soulburner analysis.
Aoi and Soulburner have no reason to be fighting, this match-up is completely artificial. They went "well Aoi needs to get a re-introductory duel because that's the Yugioh formula, and Soulburner needs more screentime, so let's shove them together," regardless of how it doesn't make narrative sense. How do they do that?
Blue Girl: We came to find the Ignis. SOL-- I mean, my brother can help you. Soulburner: You don't understand. The Lost Incident made us suffer for a long time. SOL Technologies was partly responsible for that. Entrust our future to them? Thanks, but we'll solve our own problems. Blue Girl: *frowning* In that case, those Ignis originally belonged to SOL Technologies. Give them back. Soulburner: What?
This is completely out of character for her. She knows that they're victims of the Lost Incident, she knows what they've been through, and they've just told her they're trying to save someone whose consciousness was stolen. She just said that her motivation is saving people, specifically to pay back the people who saved her. Guess who the only person who saved you was, Aoi? It wasn't your onii-san.
It would've made more sense for Ghost Girl to duel Soulburner. She's the one who was established to be a self-serving bounty hunter in Season 1. Oh, but if you gave Ghost Girl a re-introductory duel, it might give off the wrong impression that she's relevant?
This duel doesn't even add anything to Soulburner's character either, the way that Soulburner vs. Go did.
What could they have done if they were actually thinking about Aoi?
How about Aoi vs. Akira? Akira tells her that if she can beat him in a duel, he'll believe that she's strong enough to go into the restricted zone. Or they could do Aoi vs. Ghost Girl -- same thing, Ghost Girl tells Akira that if Aoi wins, it proves she's equally capable of going on this mission.
Either of these would check all the boxes for a re-introductory duel. It's a memorable matchup, it re-establishes the personalities and (IN-CHARACTER) relationships of these three, and it addresses the transition between seasons -- we left off from Aoi's devastating loss, and this duel would bridge her into an upwards character arc in Season 2.
Of course, if they did that, they would have to make an upwards character arc for Aoi.
These two episodes have succeeded in the exact opposite of what a re-introductory episode is supposed to do. It's a garbage fire of bad writing. They regress her character, and call it progress. She's out of character, in order to be unsympathetic. They don't set up an arc for Aoi this season, because they haven't thought of one. They introduce new cards that never come back. But none of it matters anyway, because Aoi isn't actually important! We'll just make up something new the next time we're contractually obligated to give her a few episodes (but not too many, god forbid!)
I guess there's one part of her character they make consistent, which is making her lose in the worst ways possible.
⇀ Blue Girl vs. Soulburner
You know how in my last Aoi post, I said that it's good when characters lose duels, and that "X should have won that duel" is a comment that often misunderstands how outcomes are about narrative purpose rather than deck matchups?
Forget everything I said. Aoi ABSOLUTELY should have won that duel holy shit. I just witnessed a goddamn crime.
So there is actually one more reason that Soulburner duels Aoi. It's that it's a good concept for a duel. Aoi should annihilate Soulburner. Go ahead with your 72 step Salamangreat combo I dare you. Go ahead and use Burning Draw I dare you. Everyone likes seeing how the underdog comes out of a pinch, and if I came out of the duel thinking, "Wow, I can't believe Soulburner pulled that off!" I could have forgiven it.
Ha ha... wow..... I can't believe Soulburner pulled that off......
I'm not usually that bothered by hyper specific made up anime cards, but what the fuck is that trap that negates effect damage under 300. Countering exactly 1) Skull Invitation 2) Ojama Trio 3) Every one of Aoi's cards. Yeah okay, fuck you Aoi.
And Aoi still should have won, if Soulburner didn't one-up Aoi's own Fusion Summon by Burning Draw YOLO topdecking a fucking Salamangreat Super Poly out of nowhere. Why??? Because the scripter couldn't think of a way out of the situation other than copying one of the strongest cards ever designed?? Fuck you Aoi.
Even Ghost Girl knows how robbed she was.
It's salt on the wound to cap off her "I'll get stronger speech" by having her lose a duel that was 99-1 in her favor. Soulburner deletes her life points in one attack, she screams and gets slammed into a cliff, and Soulburner stands over her and says, "Blue Girl, you're stronger than before."
Jesus, just look at that condescending framing.
Aoi doesn't show up again in a relevant capacity for 20 episodes, and doesn't have another duel for 30 -- that's a quarter of Vrains. Her last words as Soulburner stands over her are "You won because of the bond between a duelist and an AI?" before she passes out.
This, I suppose, is their weak attempt at introducing a plot for Aoi this season. It's... well...
⇀ Aqua and Miyu
The Miyu backstory is lazy as hell.
I'm sorry to all the fans rooting for female characters and wlw ships, but this writing was unbelievably sloppy. Someone put "Aoi's childhood friend was a victim of the Lost Incident and that's how she gets the Water Ignis" into the show notes and then didn't think about it until it was time to write the episode.
Miyu is not a cardboard cutout. She's not cut from cardstock, both of those at least have structural integrity. Miyu has the character solidness of wet tissue. She's an NPC, a parody of a generic little girl. The only reason to care about her is if you buy into the cheap writing shortcut of damselling little girls, or you're a desperate lesbian. I'm sorry, lesbians.
They could have done anything to give Miyu an actual character, I'm not asking for a lot. Give her any kind of trait or interest -- maybe she loves the ocean and shows Aoi her collection of seashells, and she says they should go to the beach together one day but they never do. They could talk about idols, and maybe that's what inspires Aoi to later become one. They could talk about Duel Monsters, it's Yugioh for christsake. A playground duel would be adorable.
There's a million things they could have done that are more compelling than playing on the slide, but there's one that's so obvious it pains me.
The Blue Angel picture book. The one that Aoi said was her childhood treasure in the duel with Spectre, the one that motivated her to try and save him, a victim of the Lost Incident. The book that's an established part of her backstory, which made her take on the Blue Angel moniker. The book that's about a girl who is all alone until she makes friends and no longer has to cry blue tears.
Could it be more obvious? Have Miyu be the one who gave the book to Aoi. It's a backstory on a silver platter. If the writers cared about Aoi at all, if they didn't immediately forget every single thing about her the second they turn in the script for the contractually obligated Aoi episodes, they would know this. But they don't. Because even the Blue Angel picture book was clearly something they made up on the spot.
Imagine if Aoi's season 2 climax duel was vs. a controlled Miyu (à la Jin), the themes from the Spectre duel returned. Aoi questions if she really can save someone from the Lost Incident, or if it's just her own naivety, destined to be crushed over and over. But she breaks through, because this time it's her turn to save someone who's all alone. This is how you connect seasons 1 and 2, this is how you take a loss and turn it into a payoff. We can even get Spectre's perspective, he's there in the final fight.
But that's not what we get. Instead, they play on the slide, and then Miyu drops a ring down a drain, which I guess is what they think is a relatable cause of conflict for little girls. I can guarantee they would have come up with something more substantive if these were two male characters. And the pacing is just comically clunky. "Aoi-chan, look, it's my mother's ring! Isn't it pretty? Oh no, I dropped it! Wahhhhh!"
Aoi lies to Miyu's mom and says she's the one who dropped the ring, even though Miyu denies it vehemently, clearly crying and in great distress as her mother drags her away and never lets her see Aoi again.
This, we're told, is how Aoi "saved" Miyu.
Aqua: While she was imprisoned, you kept her strong, Aoi. No matter how many duels she lost, no matter how much pain she endured, even after her meals were reduced, she never broke and promised to escape. So she could see you again and apologize for that day.
.........APOLOGIZE FOR WHAT???
What the fuck kind of message is this supposed to be? Aqua is supposed to be the Ignis of TRUTH, why are she and Miyu glorifying Aoi's lie as some courageous, inspirational action, when clearly it did nothing but harm? I'm not crazy, am I? The obvious takeaway from this flashback is that even if you had good intentions lying to protect your friend, it caused miscommunication, distress, and led to their friendship breaking apart? Like, their lives would have been just fine if Aoi didn't lie, and Miyu learned a reasonable lesson about not being careless with other people's expensive objects?
This backstory is comically bad. Just imagine Miyu, going through kidnapping, starvation, and torture, sustained only by the thought that one day... she can tell the girl that she played on the slide with years ago... that she's so sorry... that her hand slipped when taking off a ring and it rolled into a drain 5 feet away.
The story would make more sense if it was me in the Lost Incident, and I was plagued by guilt over dumping Cheeto crumbs on Rachel from Pre-K, because at least I actually did something bad.
It's difficult to even articulate how much all these sloppy writing decisions compound on each other. Because they wasted Aoi's introductory episodes and didn't set up anything for her, she has no role in the story for 30 episodes. Because she was given nothing for 30 episodes, they have to shove an entire backstory for Aoi into one episode. Because they shoved the backstory into one episode, Miyu and Aoi's relationship with her are painfully rushed, generic, and flimsy. Because their relationship is so flimsy, this whole backstory, Aoi's motivation to fight, her entire season 2 plotline, is soulless garbage.
Aoi didn't remember Miyu until this episode. The writers didn't create Miyu until this episode. You cannot ask the audience to be invested in Aoi rescuing Miyu, when you don't even care enough to conceptualize her.
And this is the most damning conclusion of this post. The writers don't care about Miyu. And they don't care about Aoi. And they don't care if you care about them. You weren't meant to care about them.
Again, I'm not saying that the Vrains writers are bad writers, or they hate women. There are other factors to consider, like the specifics of gender relations in Japan, how Yugioh animes primarily exist to advertise trading cards to young boys, the fact that there has not been a single female writer on Yugioh since season 2 of GX. And obviously, Vrains had production issues, and every character suffered from flawed writing.
But my point is, Aoi suffered the most for it.
⇀ Final Thoughts
There's a lot more that I could say about Aoi for the rest of the show. Like how she gets a magical girl transformation sequence, only to be irrelevant for 10 episodes again, and we have to wait that entire time to see her new deck. Then the duel, which really needed to be a two-episoder, is about Haru instead. The pointlessness of the Bohman duel. The pointlessness of Yusaku's "identity reveal" to Aoi. How they needed to have a third and fourth Akira manpain scene as Aoi is "taken away" from him, though I guess in that last one Aoi gets to have some girlpain too.
I did plan to talk about each of these duels, and more about how I would do an Aoi vs. Miyu conflict, but this post has gotten way out of hand already, and I've made the points I wanted to make.
I hope it was cathartic for everyone who was disappointed with Aoi, and perhaps gave language to people who were frustrated but unable to articulate why. I did some research into what other people have said about Aoi's character, such as this video by YugiohEverything, but I find that a lot of discourse in Yugioh is not very good at pinpointing why something works or doesn't work, and the actual skill of writing is oversimplified. This is especially true when it comes to Yugioh girls, and criticisms tend to fall back on losing duels or getting put in a coma, and while those can suck, they aren't the real problem.
In my last Aoi post I said "I'll just have to hope that they don't fumble whatever new thing they give her... but things tend to get bleaker for female Yugioh characters as the show goes on and whatever initial involvement they had in the story fizzles out," and this, I think, has been the real problem persistently for Yugioh girls. The writers are contractually obligated to come up with something when a series is first pitched, but when that period is up, or when concessions have to be made, the female characters are the first to be forgotten.
I just didn't think it would be this bad for Aoi.
Well. Expectations lowered.
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First Aoi analysis
All Vrains season analysis
#if you read the whole thing you a real one#yugioh vrains#vrains season analysis#aoi zaizen#ygo#pico commentary
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Gonna ramble about the Trickstars CAUSE I love them!!
Something’s that I just love about Aois Trickstar deck is how connected she is to the archetype and I may be biased because I love this archetype
But Characters Like, Spectre, and Aoi who are just so closely connected to their decks in more ways then one is my favourite types of yugioh characters
Aoi shares her name with one of the two Toxic plants her Ace monster is based on “HollyHocks” the Kanji for Aoi can be used for the Word blue and is also used for the plant Hollyhock which i just love??
Also after her first duel with playmaker I loved that whole seen of the virus just corrupting her brain and the way the feathers on her wings were falling down remind me sm of her trap card trickstar Reincarnation and just the way she looked unconscious reminded me of how Holly angel looked in the trap card
We love it when the Duelist and her Ace monster know how to plate and serve it 💅✨aahxhsn
Also!! Let me scream about Dark Angel and BellaMaDonna cause those two cards are based on the exact same plant!! Belladonna!!! One of, if not, the most popular and well known DANGEROUSLY poisonous plants out there!!
It can cause:
RAPID heart beating, dilated pupils, delirium, vomiting, hallucinations, and death due to respiratory failure (basically lung failure)!!!
I ADORE the fact these two cards are based on the same plant BECAUSE, Dark Angel was made by Baira to test the “Virus” she made to trap people’s consciousness into the VR world and the Hanoi tested it on Aoi then later on Bellamadonnas Appearence was used to defeat Baira and stop the very thing that happened to Aoi and I LOVE THAAAT!! And how here affect leaves her immune to effects cause she’s literally like an Anti-poison!!
Poisonous flowers I love you <333 you will always be famous <333
Love it when women are portrayed as beautiful and deadly flowers <33 love you poisonous flower women <33
Also!! Also!! I wanna Talk about some little fact that was probably a coincidence but if it wasn’t a coincidence then that was SO COOL
It’s about Spectre and Blue angels duel!! One of the monsters that makes an appearance in this duel is one of the Trickstars biggest support card and monster Crimson Heart! Or Bloody Mary in the Japanese!
In the duel Spectre takes control of Crimson Heart and Mama tree saves her from being attacked and destroyed which I LOVED BECAUSE!!
The Toxic flower she’s based on are The Bleeding Hearts!! And bleeding hearts are WOODLAND PLANTS!!!
Woodland plants are plants that require the Shady environment provided by- you guessed it- Trees!!!
Bleeding hearts must be planted underneath the shade of a tree in order to bloom!!! This is probably my favorite little detail in that duel!!
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[image description: a drawing of the knights of hanoi lieutenants. their designs are from the artist’s visual kei band alternate universe.
dr. genome stands smirking and tugging a surgical glove over his right hand. he has wrinkled light skin, except for half of his face, which is a sickly green with visible forehead stitches. his hair is half brown and half green and yellow. he wears a red monocle over his right eye, teal surgical scrubs, and an eggshell white coat with the sleeves rolled up; the left side of the coat is thrown over his shoulder. his right arm, shirt, and pants are covered in lots of blood.
aso stands with his legs crossed, left arm on his hip and right arm hanging, and a serious expression on his face. he has wrinkled brown skin and dramatic eyeliner. his spiky hair is deep blue and covers his right eye. he wears a black button-down, ripped black dress pants, faded belt, navy blue tie, and a white knee-length lab coat. the right arm, chest, and bottom of his coat are drenched in blood.
taki stands grinning, right arm hanging down and left arm raised, holding a hypodermic needle. she has wrinkled olive skin, stitches across her neck, and spikier dark red hair. she wears a gray-white doctor’s coat, buttoned up to hide an orange prisoner’s jumpsuit, complete with a name tag and medical cross. she also wears white arm-length gloves and black dress pants. the left leg of her pants is tied up by loose bandages. her coat, hands, and bandages are covered in blood.
end description]
my friends are talking about a VRAINS vkei AU
#art#my art#vrains#yugioh vrains#ygo#yugioh#knights of hanoi#lieutenantshipping#hanoi polycule#taki kyoko#aso#dr genome#clarissa turner#faust#baira#they are so difficult to tag#blood tw#hospitals tw#hospital tw#needles tw#ask to tag
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i genuinely did NOT keep track of how much time this took but it may as well be like 6 hours so BEHOLD
#ygo#yugioh#vrains#ygo vrains#yugioh vrains#the last supper#fujiki yusaku#ai vrains#kogami ryoken#spectre vrains#pandor vrains#aoi zaizen#akira zaizen#emma bessho#kusanagi shouchi#roboppi#faust vrains#dr genome#baira vrains#my art#this took#so long
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Hanois are cheering you :)
DNA
#yugioh#ygo#yu gi oh#yugioh vrains#ygo vrains#yu gi oh vrains#vrains#the knight of hanoi#hanois#dr genome vrains#dr genome#dr faust#faust vrains#baira vrains#kyoko taki#spectre vrains#vrains spectre
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Safety first [nsfw talk]
For the thing Pandor wants to talk about see here
#vrains#ygo vrains#yugioh vrains#spectre vrains#kogami ryoken#pandor vrains#dr. genome#baira vrains#faust vrains#speryospe#スペ了スペ#areillu
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Revolver : I think I have a crush on Playmaker
Spectre : Ik
Dr. Genome : What a surprise
Baira : You realized now?
Revolver : ...
Revolver : You're mean
#ygo#ygo vrains#yugioh#yugioh vrains#yugioh revolver#revolver#spectre#yugioh spectre#dr genome#yugioh dr genome#yugioh baira#incorrect yugioh quotes#incorrect quotes#datastormshipping
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Ryoken absolutely had every Knight Of Hanoi attend to the funerals of Genome, Baira and Faust and I refuse anyone saying otherwise
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if someone were to ask me about it i wouldnt even know where to start
#meme#anyways to the yugioh vrains fandom:#Emma worked with the hanoi as a freelancer more than she let on#all the lost incident kids dyed their hair (even at age 6) to look like that#Ryoken is a psych major (because of that one line in the episode 46 dub sorry it makes it funny)#Akira x Go is kinda poggers idk#btw is autisic yusaku canon yet because if it isn’t then yes it is actually#aoi is aroallo#litterally everyone in the dub was pretending to believe hotdogs were sandwiches to piss off kusanagi (and it works 🥺)#windy killed their human counterpart before lightning corrupted them. just for fun#Takeru transgener#ai copied down A Lot of things Yusaku said to quote them back to them and make season 3 hurt more#im babysteps from making naoki x yusaku my otp and i think yall would be too if naoki was skinny#all the ignis have copies of their data like ai did and they’re all laying doormant in the network somewhere#Baira Faust and Genome are a polycule#pandor was based off the ai used to fight against in the lost incident#thankyou and good night
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vrains season 1 reaction pt. 2 - going off about aoi
I had to give this one its own post because I had... a lot to say.
Part 1
Aoi
haha... goddamnit.....
What's frustrating is that all the pieces are there for her to be a good character. Of all the characters in S1, she's the only one who is given a dynamic internal conflict. Every duel she has is about more than just the duel, it's about her, and that's the heart of Yugioh. That's what's missing in Yusaku.
Her duel seeking out Playmaker is in direct response to her brother telling her to stop going into Link Vrains. Her duel against Baira is about reconciling being put in a coma, and developing her own resolve to fight Hanoi, to protect others from the same fate. And her duel against Spectre is about their clashing ideals, mirrored in their dueling styles (healing vs. burn). Even her throwaway duel against a literal NPC robot furthers her character, as she rebels against her brother who's forbid her from even leaving the house.
The problem with these duels... is that the writers don't actually care about her character growth.
So, I think a lot of discussion by Yugioh fans about whether X character "deserved better" tends to centralize around "X should have gotten that duel" or "X should have won that duel," which really comes up a lot when it comes to female characters, but I think often misses the point of how duels are devices for storytelling in Yugioh.
Aoi was not shafted because she lost against Yusaku and Spectre. Yes, the virus corruption and falling on her head scenes sucked and were gratuitous. But losing duels is good for characters. Losses are where we see major turning points in their arcs. That's the basic modus operandi for a Yugioh rival, and the same logic can and should apply to the Yugioh girls.
The problem is that the reason Aoi loses those duels has nothing to do with Aoi. She is put in a coma during the Playmaker duel because the writers needed to engineer a conflict between Playmaker and Akira (in other words bring SOL Technologies into the picture). She loses to Spectre because the writers want Yusaku to go into the final battle alone.
Even if they really wanted to contrive these scenarios, they still could have given Aoi something to work with story-wise. They could dwell on her self-doubt, after her brother is proven right that Link Vrains is dangerous. They could have her question her beliefs after the duel with Spectre, perhaps a parallel with her brother, whose duel with Yusaku similarly has him extending what he thinks is compassion toward Yusaku, but which falls flat because he's failing to understand Yusaku.
Even though Aoi has a repeated story beat of trying to prove to her brother that she's autonomous and capable, the actual writing tries to stomp it out at every turn. Either she loses, which reinforces her brother's belief that fighting is too dangerous for her and she needs to be coddled. Or she wins, but her brother continues to think she's incapable, and neither of their characters develop.
Which brings me to what I think the biggest flaw in her writing is -- Akira.
The show romanticizes Aoi and her brother's relationship, but it's SO obvious the toll that Akira's overprotectiveness takes on Aoi, how it's led her to be isolated and insecure, and how the Blue Angel persona is a form of release for her.
Akira cares about Aoi, but he doesn't respect her, and it's damaging to Aoi's sense of self.
This is what aggravates me, because I think that would be a great story to tell with her character, but the writers cannot see what's right in front of them.
And this would strengthen Akira's character too. It is good that Akira is a controlling, flawed person. It is also consistent with his duel with Yusaku, where he's also very patronizing, and misguidedly believes he's doing the right thing by sheltering Yusaku from the truth about the Lost Incident. In which Yusaku rightfully tells him to fuck off, Akira has no business prying into his trauma and telling him what he should do about it.
Which would have been a great moment for Akira to connect some dots about how he thinks he knows what's best for other people and how he infantilizes his sister. But instead the duel ends with Yusaku saying some real bullshit about how Aoi and Akira deserve to stay together and protect each other.
Anyway... there are still two seasons that I'm going to watch, but I have my doubts that they'll pick these particular strings back up. I'll just have to hope that they don't fumble whatever new thing they give her... but things tend to get bleaker for female Yugioh characters as the show goes on and whatever initial involvement they had in the story fizzles out.
A few positive notes to end on...
I like both of her designs, she's the only character who takes advantage of contrasting the expressiveness of the Vrains avatars with her plain real appearance. And it's a little funny that Blue Angel is... just Hatsune Miku.
I like her Blue Angel voice. It's still an idol girl voice, but it's very unique. The Trickstars are aesthetically kind of boring (they're too similar to Yuzu's Melodious cards imo) but seeing a burn deck is cool, since anime duels tend to distill to Attack With Big Number. Even though it's a crime that she doesn't win her duels in a 4000 LP format.
I think ultimately, I still do like Aoi even among the Yugioh girls, because of the missed potential I talked about. I've got one more planned Vrains post coming, which goes into that.
But also, at the time of writing this, I just finished the Soulburner vs. Blue Girl duel in season 2 and holy moly was that the biggest bullshit I've ever seen. So maybe the Vrains thoughts will continue.
#i do like vrains i just can't help media analyzing yugioh#aoi zaizen#yugioh vrains#pico commentary#ygo#vrains season analysis
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Baira: Women in STEM.
Spectre: Women in petal and leaf.
#baira (vrains)#kyoko taki#spectre (vrains)#incorrect vrains quotes#yugioh vrains#vrains#yugioh#source: tumblr#mod playmaker original™
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