post-trimax vash meets stampede wolfwood
[ID: Black and white comic of Vash and Wolfwood of their Stampede versions. The comic starts with Wolfwood continuing off a conversation, saying “I didn’t mean t’say anythin’ bad to her. She just took it the wrong way. But anyway...” Wolfwood speaks with a hand gestured flippantly while Vash, who’s seated next to him, just listens. Vash thinks to himself, “Talks more about himself... Honest expressions... Immature, though he was pretty immature too.” He smiles and continues to think, “And yet...”
A panel of Vash’s eye directed now to the sky. He thinks, “Some things are bound to be the same with us...” He thinks of a memory, the version from Maximum of him and Wolfwood, back shown as they chatted underneath two moons, one moon with a hole through it. Vash continues, “Isn’t that right, W-“ His thoughts are interrupted by Wolfwood coming into a view, a close up his deadpan expression. Vash utters out “-olfwood..?” with a nervous expression. He starts to explain, “Um. Sorry if it seemed like I wasn’t listening, I was! So, let’s keep talking?”
Vash smiles and puts his hands together as he says, “okay?” Wolfwood glares at him with gritted teeth and Vash immediately remembers, “Right, he’s more short-tempered...” He continues to think, “Maybe Plan B works with him—“ before he’s grabbed by his coat collar aggressively and changes thoughts, “OK, never mind, brace for impact..!” But he’s surprised when he’s tugged instead, him and Wolfwood flops against the ground. Wolfwood puts an arm over Vash and says, “I don’t need to be entertained, blondie. If yer tired, we can go to sleep.”
Two close up panels of Wolfwood and Vash’s eyes looking at each other, Wolfwood taking off Vash’s glasses as he says, “Am I wrong?” Vash thinks to himself, “Actually... I was being genuine when I said I wanted to keep talking. I don’t feel tired at all. But, I think you know this body more than I do.”
Vash’s thoughts continue, “I can’t deny the me you’re fond of from being taken care of. And I could never deny your kindness. Even though...” Vash finally smiles and says, “You’re not wrong...” Wolfwood smiles back before tugging Vash closer and says, “Then, let’s sleep.” Vash asks, “Should we get a blanket?” Wolfwood asks, “Why?” before kissing Vash on the cheek, “I’ll keep you warm.” Vash puts his face into both his hands and flushes. Wolfwood smiles cheekily and asks, “What?” Vash responds, “I was caught off guard..” Wolfwood says, “You’ve said worse though.” Vash responds, “Did I...” The panel phases out and the dialogue returns to Vash’s thoughts. He thinks, “I want to stay a bit longer. Talk a bit longer.
You’re tired here too. The future is always going to be unfair to you. I want to protect you from it. I want to hold you close so you won’t go far.” The thoughts overlap the scene of Wolfwood now sleeping peacefully against Vash with an arm over him, Vash’s jacket draped against him as a blanket. Vash looks at him and a small thought bubble thinks, “He can fall asleep first...” His previous thoughts continue, “I know I can’t. I already had that chance.” A close up of Vash putting his hand over Wolfwood’s. He continues, “I wasn’t capable once, I can’t be sure I’d be capable a second time. And in a way...”
Vash’s thoughts continue with the back drop of the sky, Stampede’s sky of two moons without holes, “Some things are bound to be the same. But I know you’ll be loved again and again in a way I’d never know.” A split panel, one half contains the sleeping face of Wolfwood from Stampede, the other of Wolfwood from Trimax. In turn, the Vash lying down looking fondly at Wolfwood shifts to the post Trimax Vash while the other versions, Stampede and earlier Trimax, are faintly drawn next to him doing the same. Vash closes his eyes and finally drifts to sleep as the final text reads, “Goodnight, Wolfwood.”
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watching the entirety of jrwi: riptide again. here's some important things from the first few episodes that I feel we forgot (<110 mentions too though)
Jay
Had night terrors similar to those of Kubakinta's curse in episode 5, and they eventually start returning even after Loffinlot's curse is lifted
○ All of them were about her family and/or the navy
○ I simply think people leave her out of the nightmare stuff and she deserves it. Hurt her more, please (he said, lovingly)
was actually very upset at having to use her medal to get a Loffinlot rebellion to shut up
○ This could be because she didn't want them to guess she was a spy, but I choose to believe it's because she felt guilty
"If you're gonna be sailing with someone, you should have a good relationship with them. [nervous chuckle]." She says, while asking him for information about the Black Rose Pirates (ep. 10)
Said "thank god they didn't find me" after a nightmare about the navy attacking. Even when she was supposedly a spy, who one day would have to return to the navy
○ Very unclear if she was scared of her dad, or if it's because she was a secret spy so the navy would've just killed her
Rewatching, she was suspiciously into the plundering and gold and stuff. Like that was real sus. It doesn't fit her current character much
The only one among them who's gambled before
Chip
The entire thing literally starts off with Bizly holding a lit match
Called Gillion "Gill" and Jay "Sureshot" from an early stage
Was SO much more of a bastard. Lied to Gill constantly, didn't care about anything but the money, etc.
Had aggressive hand tremors alongside Jay's night terrors
○ Gill cures it with lay on hands
When he gets drunk married, they talk extensively about how he'd be released when he's dead. Welp.
They did actually break up and it was fine and they were still friends. They parted on good terms
Is really fucking good at chess
○ Beat Earl twice and Jay once. Jay had a point of exhaustion after a nightmare but Earl had no excuse
○ Lost to Gillion though, but only cause of prophetic screwup
○ This kid is smarter than he lets on, y'all
Was the first one to have a backstory dump while Jay is asking him about the Black Rose Pirates, yet still we know jack shit about his life before them other than "orphan"
Gill
Charlie has referred to Gillion with 'they' many times. I can pull receipts.
When describing Gill, Charlie said: "He's more.. elven, if you had to make a comparison. 'Cause I don't wanna be a fish guy". Oh, honey.
Smote a bald person by using his hair as a whip (ep. 4)
Was given anxiety and self-doubt alongside jay's night terrors and chip's tremors
○ "What do you want?" "I want the feeling of satisfaction I've been chasing my whole life."
○ This was episode FIVE.
First mention of the prophecy and how Gillion wasn't their ideal student is ep. 7, after he divine smites + prophetic screwups and deals like 60 damage to some beetles
○ Chip spends the next 30 seconds in gay awe
He refers to the crescent moon Niklaus tattoo as "my zodiac" (probably a bit)
○ It's not a lil basic white girl moon this thing is the entire size of his forearm
Gill had never heard about the Black Sea - it's unclear if the Undersea just don't know, or if that's just how sheltered he was (ep. 10)
Biz: "What would Gillion do. If he just had no goal - was just sitting there." "Gillion always has a goal." "Would his goal ever be to just.. Sit there?" "Absolutely not."
○ Later, Chip expresses that he doesn't know what Gillion likes. What he would want out of winning a bet. Gillion doesn't have an answer
Other
Apple, in a couple of early battles, acted like Gill's familiar (see: ep. 7)
They also pecked at his Niklaus tramp stamp and looked all confused at the idea of eating seeds
The specific crescent of the moon in the Niklaus tattoo is known as a symbol of "corruption" (ep. 9) and its antonym is the sun, for "life", similar to the yin and yang
○ Interesting to consider after what the tree said in 110 <_<
Pretzel has a masters degree in couple's therapy (ep. 10)
The Albatross/Millennium Chipper was described as the colour of rosewood or mahogany
Captain Lizzie's first introduction was a wanted poster, and Chip wanted to turn her in for the prize, then decided to try learn from her instead
Chip/Bizly called Old Man Earl "Erol" for a loooong time
○ Maybe it's an accent thing but I have an uncle called Erol and so this stands out to me
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Hey you said something about the my hero academia creator being unhinged about sexism, do you mind explaining?
I tried to write like, a thorough explanation of this and it just got longer and longer and longer and I have not touched this series in actual years and yet I've still got all these receipts a;lkjk;lfasd.
So rather than trying to build the whole massive case, here's a pared-down version. It's normal to have sexism in media, and shounen manga especially. Everyone does it. The level and mode and intentionality and so forth all vary, but of course it's there.
What's not normal is to have lots of varied and interesting female characters with discernible inner lives, and on-page discussion of how sexism is systemic and unjust and holds them back in specific ways, and then also deliberately make consistent sexist writing decisions even where they don't arise naturally from the flow of the narrative.
Horikoshi is actively interested in gender and sexism, he's aware of them in a way you rarely see outside of the context of, you know, fighting sexism. He is hung up on the thorny issue of what women are worth and deserve and how power and respect ties into it. He genuinely wants, I think, to have Good Female Characters, and not be (seen as) A Sexist Guy!
But. He doesn't actually want to fight sexism. He displays a lot of woman-oriented anxieties, and one of the many churning paddlewheels in his head seems to be that he knows intellectually that morally sexism is bad, but emotionally he really feels like it ought to probably be at least partly correct.
There are so many things I could cite, and maybe I'll get into some of them later, but the crowning item that highlights how the pattern is 1) at least partly conscious and deliberate and 2) about Horikoshi's own weird hangups rather than simply cynical market play, is Mineta Minoru.
The writer has stated Mineta is his favorite character. Mineta is also designed to be hated--that is, he is a particularly elaborate instantiation of a character archetype normally deployed to soak up audience contempt and (by being gross and shameless and unattractive and 'unthreatening') make it possible to include a range of sexual gratification elements into the narrative that would compromise the main characters' reputations as heroic and deserving, if they were the actors.
Good Guys don't grope girls' tits and run away snickering in triumph, after all. Non-losers don't focus intense effort around successfully stealing someone's panties. Nice Girls don't let themselves be seen half-dressed. And so forth. You need an underwear gremlin for that. So, in anime and manga, longstanding though declining tradition of including such a gremlin, for authorial deniability.
Horikoshi definitely uses him straight for this purpose, looping in Kaminari as needed to make a bit work. And yet he has Feelings about the archetype itself.
The passages dedicated to the vindication of Mineta, then, and the author's statements about him, let us understand that Horikoshi identifies with the figure of the underwear gremlin. He understands the underwear gremlin as a defining exemplar of male sexuality, at least if you are not hot, and finds the attached contempt and hostility to be a dehumanizing attack on all uh.
Incels, basically.
It's not fair to write Mineta off just because he's unattractive and horny (and commits sexual harassment). Doesn't he have a mind? Doesn't he have dreams? Doesn't he have human potential?
So what's going on with Horikoshi and gender, as far as I can figure out, is that he knows damn well that women are people and are treated unjustly by sexist society, but however.
He also understands the institutions of sexism as something protecting him and people like him from life being nebulously yet definitively Worse, and therefore wants to see them upheld.
So you get this really bizarre handling of gender where obviously women's rights good and women cool, women can be Strong, and the compulsory sexualization imposed by the industry isn't them or the author, and so forth.
But also it's very important that in the world he controls, women never win anything important or Count too much, and that jokes at their expense that disrupt the internal logic of their characters are always fair game, that women asked about sexism on TV will promptly get into catfights amongst themselves, and they are understood always in terms of their sexual and romantic interests and value, and sexual assertiveness and failures to perform femininity well enough are used to code them as dangerous and irrational, and that the sexy costumes are requisite and will never be subverted or rebelled against--at most they might be circumnavigated via leaning into cute appeal.
And that Yaoyorozu Momo, who converts her body fat into physical objects, is being frivolous when she wants to use money to buy things instead (rather than as sensibly moderating her Quirk use) and is never encouraged to eat as much as possible at every opportunity to put on weight and even shown being embarrassed by hunger (even though Quirk overuse gives symptoms that suggest she's been stripping the lipids out of her cell walls or nervous system to keep fighting) and always, no matter how many Things she has made, has huge big round boobies.
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