75% sodium, 20% rage, 5% card games

General doodling and rambling inbound. Feel free to leave an ask,ect.

[yiippeeekaley]

"Sonic despises the very concept of technology and would never use so much as a phone"

Why is this a sentiment that people have and what is it even based on?

No, really. At what point could you ever come to the conclusion that Sonic has a rule against technology as a whole?

Before anyone says "but in CD-" CD has good futures where technology is a forefront element

[darklightheart]

Sounds like they got SatAM on the brain whenever this sentiment is expressed.

That show was utterly anti-technology propaganda that just so happened to plaster Sonic's face on it, it wouldn't surprise me if true.

[doctor--chaos]

No it wasn't.

The FF frequently made use of technology and even had their own lab.

[hotpinkashcrimson]

EVERYBODY SHUT THE FUCK UP POP TEAM EPIC MAKING A YGO ZEXAL REFERENCE USING THE ACTUAL VA'S FOR YUMA AND SHARK

[doctor--chaos]

Y’know, Rio looks pretty go for someone who was seared by otherworldly flames. I know advanced medicine and alien healing factors or something were in effect, but just seems odd that the victim of an accident sustained fewer injuries than the person who rescued her.

Also odd is the fact that despite being in intensive care and bedridden, possibly for several months, she’s able to outperform every one of Heartland Academy’s sports clubs on her first day back from the hospital.

What the hell is muscle atrophy? Something that Rio Kamishiro does not have time to deal with.

[doctor--chaos]

To the surprise of absolutely no one, Bohman won! Admittedly that’s all I really wanted out of this episode, since I like Bohman, but I’d feel bad not mentioning the match itself.

This was a damn fine duel. Damn fine.

This the first time in a while were one of Vrains’ duel kept me engaged. There were a lot of good plays from both sides and a liberal amount BS, particularly Tesseract’s annihilator multi-attacker pseudo-Skill Drain BS and that damn field spell! I now understand why Hydradrives probably won’t see the light of day, being a one-sided Skill Drain and all and I am even more terrified at the prospect of Marincess’ eventual release, though I’m not really gonna complain at the prospect of a new water archetype.

As far as characters are concerned... I’ll be honest, I stopped caring about that a long time ago. Bohman is a pretty cool dude, I guess. He was oddly respectful towards his brother’s killer, but I guess being an advanced super-AI means that he wouldn’t easily be swayed by emotions like anger. And Aoi... was there too! I mean, there were moments here, mainly flashbacks to really old episodes. I liked how the Zaizens were actually able to say goodbye to each other before Aoi goes into another coma (that makes three! She’s tied ‘deaths’ with Shark at this point! One more and she’ll be tied with Rio. Although those were actual deaths, as opposed to comas.) Honestly, I still don’t care much for her.

And speaking of characters I don’t care about-

Next week, we’re back with Yusaku, the human piece of wood!

[doctor--chaos]

Anyone else notice that Aoi is pretty much going through the same motions that Go went through back in the Another & Tower of Hanoi arcs?

Think about it.

Both are motivated by newly introduced characters that are extremely important to their pasts and have not been so much as alluded to at any prior point in the story. (Makoto/Miyu)

Both underwent a costume/name change. (Dark Onizuka/Blue Maiden)

They both scored a victory against a relatively low-tier villain. (Dr.Genome/Haru)

And then they ate shit against the season’s antagonist. (Revolver/Bohman (Admittedly, the last part hasn’t happened yet. Keyword being “yet.“ I’ll get back to you on Wednesday.))

The main difference is that instead of wrestling theatrics we get the slowly encroaching dread from the fact that a deck focused on swarming, hand traps and burn will one day be printed and I’m not sure I’m ready for that.

[doctor--chaos]

Update: IT’S WEDNESDAY and judgement has been cast.

Though it’d be remiss of me to say that Aoi ate shit against Bohman (it was a damn fine fight,) a loss is a loss. Who could’ve seen that coming?

Worth nothing is that in victory, Bohman was respectful to his opponent and applauded her efforts.

Just like Revolver did against Go.

It’s settled! Ms. Zaizen, you’re the new Go Onizuka. The old one broke down,  so we needed a replacement.

[doctor--chaos]

I know this will probably never happen, but I really wish Hydradrives would get printed at some point.

They remind me of C/Cs, but better.

[doctor--chaos]

Anyone else notice that Aoi is pretty much going through the same motions that Go went through back in the Another & Tower of Hanoi arcs?

Think about it.

Both are motivated by newly introduced characters that are extremely important to their pasts and have not been so much as alluded to at any prior point in the story. (Makoto/Miyu)

Both underwent a costume/name change. (Dark Onizuka/Blue Maiden)

They both scored a victory against a relatively low-tier villain. (Dr.Genome/Haru)

And then they ate shit against the season’s antagonist. (Revolver/Bohman (Admittedly, the last part hasn’t happened yet. Keyword being “yet.“ I’ll get back to you on Wednesday.))

The main difference is that instead of wrestling theatrics we get the slowly encroaching dread from the fact that a deck focused on swarming, hand traps and burn will one day be printed and I’m not sure I’m ready for that.

[doctor--chaos]

You’ve got to love the setup here.

Back when Aoi fought Haru, she needed a win to show-off her new deck and who was the most expendable member of the villain team? Haru. Technically, it’d be Bit-Boot, but they wanted that win to mean something.

Now it’s Bohman’s turn to show off his new cards and who is the most expendable member of the hero team? Spectre. But since he already died, Aoi’s next in line.

Though I’d feel bad saying that this is simply a worfing, since there are personal stakes here. Bohman wants to get even for Haru, a relationship that was mostly undefined until five episodes ago, and Aoi wants to avenge her dear friend. A friend so near and dear to her that she forgot about her for several years.

Again, there are stakes here. Sort of.

If nothing else, it’d be nice to have Bohman finally get a win. Hell, I’m just happy to see him duel someone who isn’t Yusaku!

[doctor--chaos]

Look at this... absolute masterpiece.

It’s like the box art for those old Action Replays. You know the ones.

[doctor--chaos]

Can we take a moment to appreciate the fact that the KoH have an official desktop background?

[doctor--chaos]

I finally saw the translated effect of that Hydradrive card that nearly gave me an aneurysm last week:

Equip only to a "Hydradrive" Link Monster. It must attack, if able. If your opponent controls a monster, any battle damage the equipped monster inflicts to them by a direct attack is doubled.

So it does work out and Haru isn’t quite as stupid as I pegged him. My issue came from the fact that the anime (or at least the translators) described it as:

I may be wrong, but at least I can rest easy, knowing that Vrains hasn’t gotten that bad yet.

aside from neo storm access

[doctor--chaos]

I get that shipping is shipping and shippers are gonna do whatever, but...

Can we just take a moment to acknowledge the fact that this ‘relationship’ is built of the foundation of a mistaken identity and attempted murder?

[doctor--chaos]

Can I say something?

This boy is dumb and I mean REALLY DUMB.

I knew he was gonna lose this match, I’m pretty sure everyone knew that going in, but I kinda thought it would be because Aoi just outplayed him, not because he forgot how to think! He has truly ascended with the likes of Harald, Jean and Shark, in terms of royally bungaling up a victory that was handed to you on a silver platter.

I get what they were going for (I think.) He’s a prototype and imperfect, so he makes mistakes, because he’s all emotional and stuff, but this was just painful.

Here’s the rundown:

Haru has Judgement Arrows up pointing at Twin Hydradrive Knight and Coolant Hydradrive. Coolant is also equipped with a card that doubles the damage it deals in direct attacks (on top of the boost from Arrows) but it is forced to attack.

Aoi has Marincess Coral Anemone (yay new water archetype, boo Cyberse) at 2800 ATK. She activates a trap that negates Coolant’s effect, but it still has to attack.

Haru, like the dopey prototype he is, crashes Coolant into Anemone, taking 800 and then destroys her with Twin Knight, allowing Aoi to set up a counterattack with her skill, which ends up winning her the match.

You see the problem?

He didn’t have to attack with Coolant first. It didn’t say that it had to go first, it just had to attack. I’m thinking that it might have been a better idea to attack with the 3600 monster first and then attack with Coolant, for a clean 4K. For an AI, he’s not very logical. It seems to run in the family, what with Bohman passing up the chance to KO Playmaker and all. The next generation of Artificial Intelligence, ladies and gentlemen!

[gauchebistro]

He declared the attack before the trap was used. He had to attack with it first as such.

[doctor--chaos]

Looking back at that, I see where I made that mistake.

However, during that second look, I found that Hydradrive Impact allows the equipped monster to attack directly if the opponent controls a monster. What was negated was Coolant’s monster ability to attack directly if the opponent controls a water monster.

[kah-hoa-raverkeinst-deactivated]

Disappointing duel. Not really a big win for Aoi if you compare it with others. Basically setting her up to lose again. Rip trickstars XD

This duel was a huge let down. for her debut duel Blue Maiden wasn’t even focused on, it felt like the characters’ speeches were rushed(as in, they were talking fast so they had time to play the entire duel) and the finishing move was lackluster.

This was a poorly executed idea. Haru and Aoi having a theme about older siblings and their bonds with them? Sure, could be super cool IF THEY SET IT UP properly!

They could build up their interactions little by little so it had a meaning when Haru was kicked out of the show, but…? I don’t know, was I really supposed to care about what happened if this development felt shoehorned? We barely knew about this character to mourn him.

[doctor--chaos]

Welcome to my problem with Vrains for the past few weeks.

It’s like they want things to happen, but don’t want to set them up in a way that’s actually meaningful or impactful.

[doctor--chaos]

Can I say something?

This boy is dumb and I mean REALLY DUMB.

I knew he was gonna lose this match, I’m pretty sure everyone knew that going in, but I kinda thought it would be because Aoi just outplayed him, not because he forgot how to think! He has truly ascended with the likes of Harald, Jean and Shark, in terms of royally bungaling up a victory that was handed to you on a silver platter.

I get what they were going for (I think.) He’s a prototype and imperfect, so he makes mistakes, because he’s all emotional and stuff, but this was just painful.

Here’s the rundown:

Haru has Judgement Arrows up pointing at Twin Hydradrive Knight and Coolant Hydradrive. Coolant is also equipped with a card that doubles the damage it deals in direct attacks (on top of the boost from Arrows) but it is forced to attack.

Aoi has Marincess Coral Anemone (yay new water archetype, boo Cyberse) at 2800 ATK. She activates a trap that negates Coolant’s effect, but it still has to attack.

Haru, like the dopey prototype he is, crashes Coolant into Anemone, taking 800 and then destroys her with Twin Knight, allowing Aoi to set up a counterattack with her skill, which ends up winning her the match.

You see the problem?

He didn’t have to attack with Coolant first. It didn’t say that it had to go first, it just had to attack. I’m thinking that it might have been a better idea to attack with the 3600 monster first and then attack with Coolant, for a clean 4K. For an AI, he’s not very logical. It seems to run in the family, what with Bohman passing up the chance to KO Playmaker and all.

The next generation of Artificial Intelligence, ladies and gentlemen!

EDIT: I made an error in analysis. Coolant’s effect had been negated after the attack was declared, so he couldn’t have attacked with Twin Knight first. However, Hydradrive impact does allow the equipped monster to attack directly if the opponent has a monster on the field, which she did.

So he still bungled it.

[doctor--chaos]

Well... This is a thing.

I wanted to say that a match like this doesn’t make a lot of sense, but on a grander scale, it sort of does.

Put simply, due to Vrains’ smaller cast of both heroes and villains, the hierarchy of who is and is not allowed to beat whom is much more strictly enforced. Unfortunately, even factoring in the Ignis, Aoi is really low on that scale. You have her and then you have Takeru above her and Ryoken above him and Yusaku even further up. Making things even harder is the fact that our main villains are already involved with other plot threads. Bohman and Lightning have to deal with Yusaku and Windy has to deal with Ryoken. Odds are that anyone else who fights them will likely lose (like Spectre!)

So this leaves us with a hard question: whose gonna lose to Aoi? I mean, she has to beat someone! They gave her an Ignis and yet another costume change, they can’t just let that go to waste- even GO managed to get a win before he got bopped. So that’s where Haru comes in. He’s pretty much the only villain who fits the qualification, which will probably bring some complications. The only problem with that is that Haru is kind of a nobody, he hasn’t really done anything all season, except stand around and be kinda sassy.

But hey, it’s an actual Duel! That’s more that I can say we got last week.

[doctor--chaos]

Are you really doing this, Vrains?

You had plenty of time to build on the dynamic between Bohman and Haru, because let’s be honest, people were staring to wonder what exactly Haru brings to the table, but you chose to do this now? Right before he gets bopped? He’s pretty much been an afterthought for most of this season and now you want to try and develop this whole thing.

Vrains, why are you like this?