#ngl it took me 10 minutes to figure out the one-shot you were referring to i kept going 'which one' LMAO

[i-eat-deodorant]

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ANE!!!!!!

Art Blast!!

Today is my birthday and I decided to make some sketches as a gift for the people who continue to feed my hyperfixation with cotl (and especially narilamb)

I've been working on this for the last two months while doing homework and somehow this was what pushed me to keep going, so thank you all :)

Long post notice

@acis-arts

@anuphim

@arsonistmoth

@asmodeauxx

@aubeezz

@aveloka-draws

@aychama

@ballad-of-the-lamb

@bamsara

@calamaricollie

@caramelldansenu

@chocosnowflake0

@circuscountdowns

@coffincrows

@deltamb3r

@dogiperson

@fanged-cotl

@ghosts-and-glory

@happymoxxy

@i-eat-deodorant

@lambment

@maybmila

Second part right away...

(I'm only now realizing how many I did)

[pendulumprince]

Hey. After reading your speculations about Ignis (or should we call him Ai now, since Ignis is the name of his species?) being purple, evil and human, or rather Yusaku accepting him like one. It's all great, but a dreadful realization just hit me. Yusaku ALREADY has by his side someone with purple hair, human and, as people like to speculate, possibly evil in future. This, and Shoichi's love for dogs and your theory about his deck hit me. Alas, Shoichi might become evil BECAUSE of Yusaku. (1/1)

(2/2) Why because of Yusaku? I’ve been watching their relationship dynamic and noticed some bells that their bonds’ downfall has actually already started. Why? It’s quite obvious that Shoichi loves Yusaku (in whatever way) and does anything for him (like breaking through SOL’s program or Data Storm itself). But, unfortunately, I see something not very good from Yusaku. It seems that he got so used to Shoichi as if he is his oxygen and it’s totally normal. Thus, Yusaku takes his help for granted.

(3/3) By for granted I mean just analyze his behavior. In episode 1 Yusaku bluntly disrupts Shoichi’s work as a hot dog vendor and Shoichi clearly express his annoyance. But okay, Yusaku smiled to him and said “We can do this if we work together”, and that sort of negated annoyance. Though Yusaku could have easily said “sorry” in regards of disrupting Shoichi’s job.

(4/4) But then there’s episode 5. After duel against Go Yusaku returns to the truck. Shoichi sits there clearly angry. He asks Yusaku “Why didn’t you log out right away?”. Yusaku’s answer was “Yes. I just wanted to duel him (Onizuka) more”. Again, what word was missing? Right, “sorry”. After all, Shoichi did create that escape root, it wouldn’t have been hard for Yusaku to say “Sorry. I just wanted to duel him more.” It’s great that Yusaku was having fun, but still Shoichi’s efforts…

(5/5) And next is the time Yusaku was lured by fake Blue Angel. It was clear that falling in it would be dangerous, both Shoichi and Ai told him that. But what did Yusaku? He told “I have a responsibility”. Again, “sorry” was missed. And yeah, the duel against Revolver is hard. Ai was almost lost, Playmaker got shot right in the face by Rev’s ace dragon. And yes, it’s true that Shoichi seemed like he was going to have a heart attack. And all the times the cameras were off? Shoichi’s panic?

(6/6) And yes, I’ve noticed too that every time Shoichi is nervous/tense it’s because of Yusaku. Also interesting fact: Shoichi in ED is also very tense and for some reason there is NOT A SINGLE shot of him together with Yusaku. Which is… weird. They’re confidants? They trust each other, right? And yet, Shoichi is all alone, under the rain and tense. And I repeat, so far the one who causes him to be in this state is Yusaku.

(7/7) Now to dogs and their symbolism regarding Shoichi. Dogs are known to be very loyal and they 100% their masters. I made a theory on discord that Shoichi’s VR form might be a werewolf. Dogs = Wolves = Werewolves. Shoichi’s deck might be also wolf-themed. And that’s the point. What if considering Yusaku’s lack of a simple gratitude Shoichi might start to think or, someone will help him, that he, Shoichi, is not a HUMAN but a DOG in Yusaku’s eyes? Like “Are you Playmaker’s pet?”

(8/8) And it’s painful! Because Shoichi might get tired of being worried about Yusaku all the time and his tiredness would lead him to believe that Yusaku does that on purposes, uses him for his own benefit, playing with him only to kick him out on the streets when he’ll accomplish his goals and Shoichi wouldn’t be needed anymore. And Yusaku treats Ai more as a human than him… Shoichi might feel very bitter. He is NOT a dog, he’s a human! He, NOT Ai!

(9/9) And that’s will be when Shoichi turns evil. It’s because of Yusaku’s “mistreatment” of him. Shoichi might think “So you’re thinking of me as a pet, a dog, a beast? Okay, I’ll act like one then? Tear you apart?” And THAT would be very bad, because it would create parallel of purple Ignis obtaining human-like qualities and purple-haired Shoichi losing them, turning into beast, willing to hurt Yusaku, to get his revenge on him for his broken heart.

(10/10) Tbh, I HATE this theory, but I’m afraid it’s very probable. And yeah, about Shoichi having a werewolf VR form. It’s again symbolical: a dog is a dog, it wouldn’t betray its master, but a werewolf is partially a human, and humans are treacherous. So I wonder how will it go in this sort of scenario? How will Yusaku and Shoichi be together again? After THIS?

(In reference to this post.)

Before I get into the meat of this, I’ve been wondering the same thing about what we’re supposed to call Ignis/Ai. I think I’m going to wait a bit longer to see if we get any confirmation, but I understand why some people are switching over now. 

In any case, getting on to Shoichi! 

When I mentioned the purple=evil coded theme, ngl Shoichi totally slipped my mind. But this is an apt point. We’ve also had purple-coded antagonists in every. Single. Spinoff. 

DM

GX

5Ds

Zexal

Arc V

And I’m sure there’s someone I’m missing. Mind you, we have had good purple-coded characters before, but… the only two that readily come to mind are Yuto and Ruri. And Yuto was ¼th demon god, so—

Anyway, getting back to Vrains. We have purple Ignis, who’s already shown some shady traits

and purple Shoichi. 

And I just went all around town on this one, because… unless I’m blanking on a shit-ton of characters, the number of good purple characters is vastly outnumbered by their evil counterparts. Which is a HUGE point in favor of the Shoichi-will-heel-turn speculations.

But you know me, I always figured he’d only heel turn if Rev is his little brother. What you’re suggesting here is that he’s going to heel turn regardless, all on his own, because of Yusaku’s ingratitude. 

And I would agree. Their relationship is established enough that Yusaku doesn’t have to go spouting his gratitude every five minutes, but he doesn’t seem very concerned with how much Shoichi actually does for him. He also doesn’t seem to realize how his actions (some of which suggest a lack of regard for his own life) effect Shoichi. 

You listed off some really great evidence concerning Yusaku’s lack of gratitude, so I’m not going to rehash that. I’ll just take a stab at why I think their relationship is like this. 

I think in Yusaku’s mind, he does show gratitude to Shoichi just by being cordial. We know he’s typically very blunt, even callous with people—but Shoichi is spared all of that. So far, he’s has never been dismissive of Shoichi, tried to roast him, or push him away. He’s the person Yusaku respects the most, by far. 

And Shoichi might let it slide because of what Yusaku’s been though. Being kidnapped and fucking experimented on is no joke, and this trauma has clearly effected the way he interacts with people. I’m also sure he compares Yusaku’s suffering to his brother’s. Maybe Shoichi feels like he can’t help it, that if he brings up how Yusaku’s actions adversely effect him, it’ll be like invalidating his experience.

Which is wrong. So, SO wrong. If you truly have a stable relationship with someone, you’ll feel comfortable voicing when you’re feeling mistreated no matter what they’ve been through. 

This hits a little close to home because of recent shenanigans, so I’ll just say this: you need to take the people you love into account with everything you do. You can’t go off and do things that you know are going to adversely effect them, because when you do that you’re spitting on that person’s love. It’s a sign of shortsightedness at best, and total selfishness at worst. Somewhere between those two extremes lies ingratitude.

And really, it’s the most awful thing in the world to give your heart and soul to someone… only to be lead to believe they never cared about you. Whether or not this is actually the case doesn’t matter. Those feelings are hard to get over, and that sort of emotional betrayal can cut very deep.

It can easily make you feel like a dog. Because dogs can be mistreated by their masters, but (generally) that loyalty will still be there. So if someone mistreats you and is then surprised when you react badly to it, it suggests they think you have the same undying loyalty a dog would towards their master. If they then replace you, it only sends home the message that they never considered you to be an equal… because callous types will replace their pets if they run away/aren’t of any use anymore. 

To be clear, I am NOT trying to suggest Yusaku feels this way about Shoichi. We know he respects and loves Shoichi a great deal. But… this doesn’t mean Shoichi can’t come to this conclusion anyway.

If Ghost Girl is any indication, more people are probably going to start catching on that Playmaker has an ally. I wouldn’t be surprised at all if Shoichi has go into Link Vrains himself one day to get Playmaker out of a jam. And the enemy might look at his VR design—the hypothetical werewolf—and say what Shoichi’s always been afraid is the case:

“Who are you, Playmaker’s pet? The dog’s come to save his master?”

That, coupled with the near-guarantee that Yusaku and Ignis’s relationship is only going to improve? It could lead Shoichi to feel that he was only ever a means to an end whose place in Yusaku’s life has been replaced by a literal machine. 

No matter how lifelike Ignis is, at the end of the day he’s an artificial intelligence program. Like Revolver said, he doesn’t have a heartbeat or the breath of life—and barring a miracle, he never will. Sentient or not, it would be completely understandable if Shoichi took this as a slap to the face. 

Because that sort of betrayal, if the relationship was especially cherished, can be searing. He’d have all this anger and no idea what to do with it. If he couldn’t voice his concerns to Yusaku when things were still good, how can he when things are on the rocks? So he might take it out on someone else… or suppress it. But when you suppress any sort of emotion, it will eventually explode. Guaranteed.

If this happened, like you said, it would be a beautiful parallel: Ignis becoming more human while Shoichi becomes more beast-like. If done especially well, Shoichi could heel-turn and attack Yusaku/Playmaker out of the blue, in a way that’s totally random to everyone but Shoichi. 

How they’d reconcile would depend on what Shoichi’s heel turn entailed. It could be a one or two episode thing if no one else is involved, because then they can settle it with a duel (and Yusaku can finally apologize for everything, because I’m sure he’d come to see where he went wrong). 

But if Shoichi totally goes off the deep end and starts aiding Playmaker’s enemies? Joins the KoH/SOL/whoever? Then… it becomes more serious. That’s when they start trying to take each other out permanently. 

… for someone who supposedly hates this theory, you sure thought up a beautiful set up for it lol