#vrains ai

[creepermilktea]

Twitter 200 followers event.

[musicalherbalist]

"Witness me now! Come, Caress me now!" "These translucent clothes I'll now adorn!" "Break from my cocoon, butterfly born anew!" "I'll show everything in all it's glory for you!" "This stage, bitter cold, performs not a soul." "So, I'll step to the beat with a 1, 2, 3!" "Not a puppet at all, just dancing along!" ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This isn't really my usual kind of art, and I know I promised oc stuff, but I've been lowkey blitzing through Vrains while working on commissions, and tbh, I am absolutely loving it so far! I'm uh...kinda on season 3, so I figured I'd post this art I did of my favorite character! I'm not finished with it yet, but I stumbled across MICCHI's cover of "Abnormality Dancin' Girl", and it kinda fit where I think his character is gonna go. Possible spoilers below the Keep Reading for my thoughts!

I think it's going to be a "Live long enough to see yourself become the villain"-type scenario. He was the survivor of the Hanoi attack on the Cyberse World, was a refugee for 5 years, a hostage for a while, and even though he found friends and support, after things were finally safe enough for him to go home, it was destroyed, with nearly everyone he knew lost. Then, he gets to slowly regain those friends and grow closer to Yusaku and everyone else, only to find out someone he admired as a leader was the one who ruined their world, one of his friends is dissected alive, the rest are picked off one by one, Yusaku and everyone else has to suffer through fixing a problem that should never have happened, all because Lightning had an inferiority complex… So yeah, it makes sense that he'd be angry and vindictive. Everyone sees him and his kind as evil, and he'd just want he and the few friends he still has to be safe, so of course he'd go after the head of SolTech after leaving behind his smaller. The "Lazy and annoying Dark Ignis" is finally the big, bad monster others would make him out to be. This isn't something that he wants, though. It's clear that a lot of it is a front for something else. Hell, in his calling card to Akira Zaizen, someone who he seems to respect, at least, he reveals himself and tells him when he'd be coming for him, and waits until Yusaku is there to start his attack. He doesn't kill Queen either, when he honestly could. I don't think he actively wants to hurt anyone, but it's like he's just trying to... burn himself out in the most spectacular way he can, while getting back at who he can. Vrains is really, really good at depicting a good potential downward spiral for it's characters. Yusaku's story is gradually working himself out of one he'd been in since the Lost Incident, Takeru goes through one before we meet him and nearly goes through one when he has to work with Revolver. We see a potential one for Aoi, too, when she comes in contact with the Knights of Hanoi. Hell, I'll actually kinda defend the direction Go Onizuka's character went, too, because of course the guy obsessed with being "The Strongest" would crash out after finally realizing that he can be strong for just himself, only to get wiped out by Revolver with his Boomer Traps, and Playmaker for the umpteenth time later on. Hell, Season 2 is just everyone dealing with the end results of Lightning spiraling when he finds out that he's fundamentally worse than the other Ignis, and is the most likely one to cause them all to fail to connect with humanity. We see Windy mid to the end of his corruption-induced spiral, too. Why would Ai be any different? He's been through hell and back, and what's he got to show for it, ultimately? He failed. He couldn't save any of the other Ignis, Yusaku had to be put through hell, Takeru lost someone he leaned on for emotional support, Spectre didn't even have the chance to meet Earth(which could have done him some good, tbh), Aoi and her friend lost Aqua, Windy was driven to insanity, and so, so much more. Why wouldn't he want to lash out with the help of his only other ai friend? ...And why wouldn't he want someone to stop him? "Ai" does mean "Love", after all. And hell hath no mercy than that of love scorned. Also, I realized while drawing this that he made himself into a gay pirate twink, and I couldn't be happier for him looking fabulous during his possible crashout! Thank you for reading, if anyone did!

[xelbleedsglitter]

Ai Ai Ai Ai Ai Ai Ai

--

fun fact, i actually really hate heart motifs, but his name is love, he gets a pass

[mineral-vulture]

Ya'll may remember this piece I did awhile ago? Since Sae Itsoshi and Ai share the same Japanese VA that also means both share the voice of the one and only, Reigan from Mob Psycho 100. I could have drawn Sae dressed as Reigan but the problem with that is that it really isn't that funny because he would just look like some guy in a suit (that and I think Sae would prefer to wear a suit over Ai's humansona's outfit if forced to wear which one for the day). @siromany then suggested I draw Ai in Reigan's suit and I just went in on it. Ai's humansona is already tumblr sexyman coded so him wearing Reigan's suit really pushes it. This in turn made me draw Reigan in an Ai bodysuit. "Pierce, why didn't you draw Reigan dressed in Ai's humansona outfit?" because I didn't want to draw that whole getup again. Also, yes, I did finish all of Mob Psycho 100 and loved it. Also also, Oz and I both realized Ai is a lot like Reigan.

[kamenriderhamo]

bit obsessed with this freak

[judgedarts]

ai and yusaku watercolor for my friend rei!

[offlineblues]

Fujiki Family Valentine's Day

💙💜🩷

[pico-farad]

I finished season 1 of Vrains and it was cool but I thought it needed about 2 billion more secret identity shenanigans

More Secret Identities AU

extended thoughts below

So I went into a deep dive in my last two posts (1, 2) about all the problems I had with Vrains, and you'd think I didn't enjoy it, but in fact as I was watching, there was a separate, parallel version of Vrains that was playing in my head, a Yugioh I think we were robbed of and which fixes every problem I had with the first season, and that is Secret Identities AU.

Yusaku needs FRIENDS

This is YUGIOH.

This dynamic is everything I wanted from Vrains. Yusaku developing unexpected fondness for these bozos who think he needs a defense squad. I want Miraculous Ladybug levels of secret identity shenanigans. I want Yusaku slapping his duel disk every time Ai tries to blow their cover.

This AU sprung forth from the scene in the duel club where he shows Naoki his decoy deck. Having Yusaku passing as a bad duelist is 1) so funny, but 2) Yusaku needing to maintain his low profile is a useful contrivance for other characters to get more duels, and 3) I think it would be a really fun one-off episode where Yusaku has to duel using his bad deck. When he wins, Naoki is so proud he cries.

Having Yusaku actually have to interact with the other characters in the real world opens up Greek play levels of dramatic irony. The crux of a secret identity story is that every single interaction builds up anticipation, because you the viewer know that the other party is being deceived, and that the tension will snap when the secret is revealed.

I have zero anticipation about Playmaker's identity being revealed, because Aoi would be like "oh.... I guess he goes to my school" and Go would be like "have I seen that guy before?" But SIAU Playmaker? My guy is making friends just so he can betray them. Insane.

Go needs A ROLE IN THE STORY.

I said in my first post that Go isn't a rival or a best friend character. SIAU fixes this by making him both simultaneously.

Having him be the ace of the duel club is a natural replacement for his whole hero of the orphans schtick, while placing him directly the circle of relevance with the other characters. Instead of being disgruntled that the orphans suddenly like Playmaker more than him, he's disgruntled that Naoki and the duel club mooks are fawning over Playmaker -- which is actually just Naoki's character anyway.

I would kill for a big dramatic moment where Go learns that Playmaker and Yusaku are the same person, and even though Go feels betrayed that Yusaku has been deceiving him, he stands by Yusaku anyway because they're friends.

With a secret identity story, every conversation is working on multiple levels because each character is working with asymmetric information. You get these fascinating, layered scenes of two characters talking past each other because they cannot give up their secret.

Which would go especially hard with Go and Yusaku, because Go has legitimate criticisms of Playmaker in canon and Yusaku has legitimate reasoning behind the things he does, and as Go Onizuka and Playmaker they could never come to an understanding on them, but as Go and Yusaku, two friends in duel club, that door becomes open to them.

Aoi needs WRITING THAT ISN'T A TRAINWRECK

I made a whole post on this. Basically every problem would be solved if Akira doesn't know that she's Blue Angel. There's no reason for her to lose grotesquely against Yusaku, or have her basic autonomy called into question constantly. 

Having her actively deceive her brother is delicious. Like I said in my last post, it's so obvious how Akira's overprotectiveness has taken its toll on Aoi, and pushed her into developing this other persona, Blue Angel. I want this absolutely dysfunctional sibling relationship so badly. The Blue Angel vs. Zaizen duel would make me lose my mind.

And a secret identities setting works so well with the potential themes of VRAINS as a stand-in for the internet and Blue Angel as an idol. Give me that Perfect Blue Satoshi Kon good stuff. Give me those themes about identity, and the different lives we live, outward and inward, online and offline.

This also helps Akira's character, because I think he would be much more interesting and relevantly positioned in the story if he stayed a SOL Technologies baddie. SOL Technologies has very little presence in season 1 despite being critical to the story. After Zaizen is replaced by an irrelevant clown, they don't do anything but send out mook AIs to get destroyed. By having a three-way standoff between Yusaku's squad, the Knights of Hanoi, and SOL Technologies, both Hanoi and SOL Technologies become more compelling. They've both got all the reason in the world to want to take down the other. Zaizen vs. Revolver or Spectre? That's good shit.

And don't get me started on how I would turn Revolver into a Secret Identities character.

[shitpostingkats]

Love characters that are doomed to die. Characters who are never going to be allowed a happy ending. Love to see them realize that. Love seeing how they cope with their oncoming tragedy. Love seeing them choose to live in spite of their predestined end. Love seeing that eventually crumble around them.

Love characters that are doomed to live. Characters that want so so so bad for their story to be over but for one reason or another can never find it. Love it when they're bloodied and bruised and forced to stand up again. Love seeing them make peace with that fate. Love it when a character who believed so ardently that they were going to be allowed to fade into memory is dragged kicking and screaming into being a real living person.

[creepermilktea]

Annoying friend(s).

[musicalherbalist]

Posting my shitposts from while I was watching Vrains, bc I can. Uh, spoilers abound!

[angeat]

[pebbledragon78]

Since I was never much of a fan of the first image (most notably because of the difference in artistic quality between Yugi and the others), I decided to make my own wallpaper version.

Feel free to use with credit 👍

[cyberdragoninfinity]

The Office Assistant is a discontinued intelligent user interface for Microsoft Office that assisted users by way of an interactive animated character which interfaced with the Office help content. It had a wide selection of characters to choose from, with the most well known being a paperclip called Clippit (commonly referred to by the public as Clippy). Smithsonian Magazine called Clippit "one of the worst software design blunders in the annals of computing".

[t4tieflings]

Had a conversation with a friend about the levels of Co-dependency of each Yu-Gi-Oh Partner Duos and these are the rankings we landed on. 

[offlineblues]

"you are my very best partner!" thank you...... Alliance Insight... (crying)