really is bizarre the way fandoms largely do not like women at ALL. itâs been happening for ages but when you see people straight up just hating on women characters more often now (+ the general rise in misogyny) and then you come on here and everyoneâs just pretending women donât even EXIST in any media ever. itâs like thatâs not much better. fandom isnât activism but it does reveal peopleâs internal biases. like women being excluded, sidelined and erased in everythingggg. people will take characteristics that are compelling in a female character and give it to a man in fan content just so they donât have to engage with a woman ever. fics, fan art, ships, etc. a hollywood produced movie/tv show wonât even sideline a woman as much as the average fandom blogger will
There is genuine coding, but there is also just you heavily projecting and making stuff up or taking it heavily out of context to justify your headcanon.
Does anyone just not care anymore about anything? Like, every time I see someone getting cancelled now, I'm just like, ok. This media is 'problematic' ok. This person you follow is bad, ok. This opinion is bad, ok. Don't ship this thing, write this thing, or draw this thing, ok.
I don't care, I'm 31 and have bills to pay and papers
to sign, I don't have time to worry about bullshit. I'm not wasting time worrying about that shit or caring what someone else says. If I like it, I like it, I'm not influenced anymore.
I'll do whatever I want and I don't care. I don't care.
I don't care.
Fujoshis shouldn't exist the way they do today. Back then they were a closed-off group who at least had the decency to feel ashamed for fetishizing gays and vilifying women. They lurked like incels in anonymous forums. It's no coincidence. They're the same kind of plague that ruins fascinating works, making excuses that two utterly incompatible men have more chemistry and that most women are badly written. How is this normalized now? The internet makes me want to puke blood sometimes.
I don't know who needs to hear this but its actually okay if your 'blorbo' is cis/straight/neurotypical. I am not bashing on headcanons but I swear I see such hot takes on a character that they can't be a filthy cis straight neurotypical because they can't like them if they are. Like dude. It's fine. You don't have to be exactly like a character to relate to them or find their character compelling. You're gonna give yourselves brain aneurysms with mental gymnastics like that.
Willow isn't suppose to be blasian appearantly. IDK how I really feel about that. While I do understand the point of the OP, and how bad white people are at representing mixed races, I feel like it's such a step back from what Willow was.
It sucks cause its one step to clarify representation that then erases so many more representations. Like its cool to think of both Willow's dads as her bio dads. Its cool to think Willow was mixed! Even if her skin doesn't show it, cause well that can happen with mixed people! And I know thats the basis for white washing but having her not be mixed white washes a lot more when it comes to people shipping and drawing Willows kids. So many people with weird biases just got a pass to draw Willow and whatever fan kids she has as white as can be.
I miss when headcanons actually helped flesh out a character's personality and backstory before they just became a list of queer identities. "Blorbo headcanons: They're bi and trans u3u". Yes. We know you headcanon them as bi and trans. You are on Tumblr. Home of "every character is bi and trans". You don't have to tell us you headcanon them as bi and trans. If you're here we probably already guessed you headcanoned that. Do you have. ANYTHING else.
I honestly find it almost... surprising? How easily the fandom loses engagement with most of the IDW OCs. I only frequent the IDW Sonic tag and thus I definitely don't get a full overview of everything the whole of Tumblr contains, but posts with Belle in them seem to have almost completely disappeared off the face of the website. The same with Surge and Kit: there was a huge surge (heh) of fanart & posts around them when Imposter Syndrome was getting released and when they were in the main comics, but now there is just so much less of it. Same with the Diamond Cutters when they first were revealed, Mimic, a little bit of Nite and Don (because they were so minor but still, not a peep about those two anymore), and probably tons of OCs I'm completely forgetting about (because let's be real, they can definitely be not very remarkable). The moment they haven't been in a new or recent issue, tons of people from their fandom seem to forget about them completely. I quite wonder if the same if the same is going to happen if/when Lanolin gets directed to the background again.
It's because their so much more one-dimensional and thus far more boring compared to the game characters. Belle, as you mentioned, is especially so because she's tied to a plot point that overstayed it's welcome from being dragged on and on and because writers think that using speech quirks relating to her nature is interesting and quirky when it isn't.
I recall saying this, something along these lines in a previous reply to an ask;
Sonic Team: "Sonic is a bold and somehwhat arrogant explorer but he's very kind and hates injustice! He lives a life of adventure but likes to read books during the rainy season! He isn't a daydreamer, understands multiple languages because he speaks with his heart and grieves but in private. He enjoys chili dogs. He can change form via energy absorption and most of his abilities stem directly from his speed yet have huge variety!"
"Tails is humble but is a gifted mechanical genius. He wants to prove his worth to Sonic even though Sonic always acknowledges it. He adores mint candy! He has a habit of stating the obvious and blowing plans by talking too much. He can use his two tails not just to fly but to boost his speed whilst running. He's a brilliant pilot too."
Ian Flynn/Evan Stanley/Other IDW staff: "Starline gay! Mimic gay! Who-gives-a-shit the Owl and Nobody the Rooster gay! Whisper and Tangle gay! *Shoves it in your face with a lesbian flag background in a panel*. Silver is a perpetually, round-eyed happy boi in complete contrast to how he's actually portrayed in the games. Lanolin is the second coming of Sally. Look how evil Clutch and Mimic are with their EVIIILLL eyes! Sonic is a raging hypocritical gaslighting douchebag completely, utterly incompatible with his game incarnation. Unfitting song lyrics as actual dialogue."
I've seen mention of the HH news today that allegedly vel was declared to be a lesbian (and yes, I said "declared" instead of "confirmed" because that's what it is) and as always the whole "author said character is [identity label]" thing doesn't sit well with me
So I thought about it and I think I know why
It's not about a specific identity but about "telling" instead of "showing" and basically reducing character to "what" they are instead of "who"
It feels like a cope out and very lazy character (non)development
Especially in a show where they can show it on screen unlike a children show where any mention of queer things would be censored (hell, children shows fight to at least sneak it in)
Like
Imo there's a difference between saying "she's a lesbian" and actually describing her experience, like "she only dated girls" or "she never was interested in guys" or "she tried to date guys but never felt any connection and realised that she's more comfortable with women " etc
Same with "alastor is ace" or "alastor is mixed"
It's just a label without actual thought put into how it affected the character and their experience ("how did we get where we are now")
you read stuff on wattpad for shit and giggles where most of the fics there are reader-inserted ones written in 1st person pov where y/n is a barely legal white girl with blonde hair and blue âorbsâ whoâs so smol and fragile that sheâs dependent entirely on this morally questionable guy whoâs killing people for a living but for some reason happens to have a soft spot for her.
you read real actual literature on archive of our own where itâs two middle aged men, who are each otherâs sworn enemies, with tragic past, trauma and strong homoerotic tension. and while theyâve made each other bleed, killed each otherâs friends and loved ones out of jealousy / possessiveness, lied and betrayed and manipulated, the rawness, depth, complexity and slow burn will keep you up all night, haunt you during your day and possibly change your life forever. and also the sex isnât just smut. the sex is poetry that puts Shakespeare to shame
So? What makes you say that? What's wrong with just smut? What's wrong with orbs? If you just hate having fun, then say so. Just because a fic has a Y/N or some other combination of tropes doesn't make it 'not literature'. There's nothing about middle aged men, or murder, or homoeroticism that makes a fic 'real actual literature'. The author who wrote that story about Y/N's dark mysterious boyfriend probably put their whole heart and soul into it. Who gives a shit if you think it's bad? Just because it ticks some boxes and not others makes it a lesser work?
Don't like it? Write your own shit then. Maybe the barely legal white girls write because they want to feel special and loved.
'support fanfic writers' until they're on wattpad and then some of you look down on them & what they write. you're not an inherently better writer or person because you use ao3. talk shit about how wattpad operates and how they stealth delete people's shit and actively work to make the site ui and usability worse, not the fun little (maybe 'bad' but people's first!) stories people put on it.
I did not go to bat for fanfic being considered literature in my high school lit class with the teacher for you to say some fanfic is literature and another isn't just because of the site they're hosted on.
I was interested in how the English dub would translate the Rem and Meryl scene. The subs I read translated his words to, âThank you, Meryl. I heard your voice, too.â But in the official translation, Vash says, âThank you, Meryl. I heard her voice through you.â
Both lines could very well mean the same thing. He heard Rem and Merylâs voices; both women helped him wake up. The significant difference here is that, in the official dub, Vash gives explicit credit to Meryl for giving him the opportunity to come back to reality by being his link to Rem.
Meryl had been calling out to Vash the entire time, not giving up on him even when the world was ending. Vash credits her for causing memories of Rem to manifest with her voice. Itâs a delicate connection to make considering Vash calls Rem his âmost important person,â but all the more meaningful since Meryl and Rem are both normal humans who accept and protect Vash through the harshest of trials, and Remâs words comforting Vash for protecting her dream concerning humans and plants coexisting lead him out of his trapped state and towards Meryl, and back to humanity.
It means that Rem is his idealized version of humans, and Meryl meets that standard for him. It fits because in the manga, Merylâs opinion of him matters more than any other character. Wolfwood can call him all sorts of horrible things, and he doesnât blink. Meryl can flinch away from him, and he BAWLS.
Meryl MATTERS deeply to Vash because she meets his standard which for him is Rem.
did Vash really have a romantic interest in Meryl?
spoiler alert: Trigun manga, Trigun Maximum
In the case of Meryl, there are several signs she has developed feelings for him. She accepts it and lets Vash be himself.
Mmm with Vash itâs hard to answerâŠ
We see theyâre good friendsâŠshe can be a bit tough with him but Vash always smiles to her.
I think thatâs really sweet and he acts like that with everyoneâŠ
BUT
When Zasie kidnapped Meryl, Vash goes to rescue her and yes, that is something he could do for anyone who needs his helpâŠbut in Trigun Maximum chapter 28 when Vash suffers remembering all Julyâs tragedyâŠhe thinks about Meryl in danger and keeps going.
And when he finally finds her in chapter 29, the worry and fear in his face is undeniable.
Then, thereâs something really interesting FOR HIM happening after that.
Meryl witnesses Julyâs tragedy in a memoryâŠand then she begins to be afraid every time she sees Vash in his angel form.
After seeing her so frightened, Vash says he feels like cryingâŠ
That could have separate themâŠ
BUT
Vash receives a revolver from Meryl, being really surprised that she still wants to look after him, and smilesâŠrelieved.
Meryl continues by his side, even after seeing his scariest powerâŠand cares about him no matter the circumstances.
If we look for a romantic relationshipâŠI think this is more complicated than that.
Oxford Languages defines romance as a feeling of excitement and mystery associated with love.
We canât say Vash is excited or nervous about MerylâŠAll we see is Vash nervous about Meryl crying most likely because he doesnât know what to do, but thatâs all (and thatâs really cute).
Instead of that, Vash could be more oriented to âloveâ instead of âromanceâ.
But for someone like him, who is 150 years old, full of sorrows and regretsâŠwhat does âloveâ mean?
Cambridge Dictionary says:
Love is used to describe all strong feelings of closeness and care between two people.
After all they have been though together, they developed really strong feelings for each other, especially closeness and care.
And there is this moment, one of the most precious to me in this relationship.
Almost at the end, Vash is going to confront Knives but he makes a promise to Meryl before he leaves.
(Yes, we know he was a bit late but remember he was really injured, he had to heal at human speed at that timeâŠbut he was already on his way when he was found again).
He could have made promises many other times in his life but here he doesnât only says he will return. He, who never asks nothing from anyone, asks her to wait for him.
Ok yes, he may be capable of love all humansâŠbut he has always been a lonely wolf. He has friends, but he always travels alone.
It is until he meets Wolfwood and Meryl that he wants to stay with someone.
And Meryl is the one Vash wants to wait for his return.
While watching Trigun Stampede, I ended up binging the Trigun â98 anime, and I will try, but no doubt fail, to articulate what it is about VashMeryl that makes me so feral, and I mean in all continuities because the themes rings true for the both of them regardless if itâs TriStamp, TriMax, or the anime.
Many people have praised Merylâs agency in Trigun Stampede, how a lot of the plot moves because of her contribution, and I canât help but compare this to the anime, where it was because of her that Vash has a breakthrough in how to deal with Knives (after her and Milly took the time to heal and take care of Vash, ugh, found family for the win). In both TriStamp and the â98 anime, Meryl is juxtaposed (contrasted? given a parallel with?) Rem.Â
And in the â98 anime, after Vashâs battle with Knives, he finds the peace to move on, casting aside what was in a way his clutch to Rem (his red geranium coat) to come back home to Meryl and Milly.Â
And I love the â98 anime because of the implications, that he willingly sheds his outlaw persona for a chance to live a quiet life with Meryl, Milly, and his brother. It was Meryl who gave him the hope to do that, through her words, her invitation to stay together permanently, and even through her actions in standing up for him. (Honestly, the only thing that would have made the â98 anime ending perfect for me is if we had Wolfwood. Which is why if Knives could survive 1/3 of the continuities, Iâm keeping my fingers crossed that Trigun Stampede is the continuity where Wolfwood actually gets to survive).Â
Even in the manga, he makes a promise to return to her, and though he ends up quite late, he does end up making his way back to Meryl and Milly eventually.
I love how thereâs a chain of influence that happens, and the parallels between the two. Rem says she had been influenced in her ideals because of the person she loved, Alex. Vash is influenced by her, and eventually Meryl is influenced by Vash to the point that sheâs ready to stake her life for what he believes in, such that it becomes her ideals too.Â
âYou canât save everyone, you can only be there for them.â And this really rings true for Meryl in that while she canât save him the way Vash tries to save everyone around him, she can still be there for him, whether itâs staying and trying to help him when no one else wonât (Trigun Stampede), making a home for him to return to (â98 Trigun), or telling him to unburden himself because heâs not alone (TriMax). Heâs superhuman but he gets hurt like anyone else. I love that Meryl doesnât scoff at his ideals or tell him to stop, but just helps him in whatever way she can, the way he tries to help everyone else. She treats him not like some act of God, destruction personified, or a savior, but simply as Vash, a softie who needs a bit of help sometimes (which is why when Meryl ends up scared of him, it was heartbreaking, but again this is something she chose to overcome because her love outweighed her fear).Â
But at the same time, she wonât simply wait around. Again, I love her agency. In TriStamp, she chooses to stay behind to help Vash (which was pivotal because who knows if Remâs spirit would have been triggered if not for her voice) and in TriMax, even if it was Vash who made the promise, when heâs late, what does she do? Goes and meets him herself.Â
In every continuity, sheâs always aggressively chasing after him. When Vash said in the TriStamp finale that heâd keep running and running, and when it becomes quiet again, heâd settle back by humanityâs side, it sounded so lonely.Â
And yet, when Vash runs, Meryl will chase after him. Even when he believes he should be alone because everyone who touches him dies, Meryl still wants to be by his side. Meryl proves over and over again that Vash is loved (in a way, to him as well) because she doesnât ever want to leave him alone. And again, itâs such a wonderful ending in both versions (the anime and TriMax) that when Vash eventually does stop running, itâs to Meryl (and Milly) that he returns home to.Â
You know? I just found out what I find more annoying than people trying to make Meryl the "mom friend".
People making it look like she's irrelevant, a token female character/love interest, a bitchy woman, as if she less important in Vash's life than Wolfwood or Knives and a loooong loooooooong etc.
And I wanna make clear that part of me lowkey understands where some people might be coming from about how she's written, I'm not about to claim that she's the pinnacle of feminist writing, I share the same annoyance about that too, believe me, I still remember my disappointment when I saw Nightow's character files and how small Meryl's was in comparison to almost everyone else's (except the minor characters đ) nor do I demand people to like her or make content of her if they don't want to.
It's almost an interesting problem. Because Meryl (and Milly) are normal people, living in No Man's Land. They give the reader the viewpoint to understand and get into the story, and give Vash and WW something to contrast again. It's so important that they be more or less normal people for that. Not to mention, in this whole thing (especially in Stampede) Meryl is kind of humanity's representative. Why shouldn't all of humanity die? Because she's there, banging on the glass for Vash to wake up. She's proof people can be good and care and make a different.
But in order to be that, she kind of lacks what makes Vash and Wolfwood so interesting. If she's just a normal human, she doesn't have a sad back story - not worse than most people on No Man's Land - and she doesn't stand much of a chance when you set her up against most of the threats.
What would make her more balanced with the boys? Idk.
You bring some very good points, but I think people are too quick to judge "normal" characters with "boring", "lacking of conflicts" or "without a depth", in the same way many people tend to equate the opposite with good writing or interesting - which imo is total bs, it's absolutely possible, and actually frequent to try and make an complicated character and having the execution be dumb, boring, or pretentious af - Shounen and seinen writers and its fandoms, tend to shove female characters into these ideas, there's a reason why the whole "hating women so much that circled back into homoeroticism" became a meme, and why people love to justify their misogyny (internalized or not) with the already tiresome argument of "female character are just not as interesting as male ones" (which I also call bs, to quote another post, you can give people the male character equivalent to a meal made with cardboard and they'll still think it's delicious...)
And unfortunately, as I already mentioned, Nightow is at least slightly guilty of this when it comes to writing, we know that there are humans in No Man's Land who have accomplished to become powerhouses, despite their limitations, there's little to no excuse for the author to not have had Meryl having some sort of significant power-up in Maximum, give her a full character arc and still fulfill her main role as character, but he doesn't, he didn't, and when he had at least some chance to give some depth even if it was of the "word of god" flavor, he also didn't. Tristamp gave us more info about Meryl as character and her goals, in her introduction scene than the manga didn't give us until almost the finale, which only highlights how low the bar was.
What are some ideas of what her character could have done? Honestly that's something that I can make a whole independent post about, and it very much has to do with her being a "representative of humanity" and the type of foil she is to both Vash and Wolfwood in that respect, but I'm afraid that would come across as passive-aggressive in this post, so I'll save it for later.
he makes her feel selfless and she makes him feel selfish
attempt at a meta or rather more incoherent gushing about these two
I love the contrast of the above scene, how Vash is joyous, all-smiling. While Meryl is wrecked, in tears. Most often, it seems thatâs how they also remember each other.
Meryl likes to remember Vash happy and at peace. Vash remembers Meryl while sheâs solemn and also a bit vulnerable. In a way, they inspire emotion in each other thatâs hard for them to express. Vash has had a lot of sadness in his life, but while he will always wear a smile, I think he finds it harder to let himself be genuinely happy than to cry. Meanwhile, Meryl hates to cry. She hates to let down her guard and appear as if she canât take care of herself, but with Vash, she really canât help herself.
I ship WildeHopps (another goofy tall character hiding sadness with a smirk and a straight-laced, determined shorty. even their eyecolors are the same!) and I remember that there was a thing in the fandom about foxes that they canât help but shout when they see their mate, and I donât know how accurate the translations are, but even when they reunite again, Vash canât help but shout out âMeryl!â in happiness (seriously despite how surprised he was, he couldât help his smile. and he only called out meryl despite milly also being there, like rude, vash, if milly wasnât such a sweetheart and loved you both to bits, but anyway, I digressâŠ)
I really loved the fistbump (*cough indirect kiss cough*) scene so much because in asmuch as it was Vash comforting Meryl, it was also about him taking comfort in Meryl, which when we remember from his waterworks when Marlon called him out on it, he previously found really hard to do.
On Merylâs side, we actually see that she has the same values as Vash. I love the Little Arcadia chapter/episode so much for this reason. Grandpaâs speech to Meryl about following your own path and your connection to your parents, resonated with her, but we as the readers also know that itâs something that would have also resonated with Vash. She wanted to resolve the conflict without anyone losing their life, and at first couldnât understand why something like land would be more important than life. But push comes to shove, when she sees the resolve of someone to protect something, she puts her life on the line anyway. We even see traces of it in the anime with how she also shoots non-lethal shots, and that one time when she saved Vash, she shot the light to fall on the person instead of shooting the person. That sort of pacifism is present in her and Milly although they may not be as obvious about it as Vash, which is why despite himself, Vash finds himself growing closer to the girls and considering them as among his most important people despite the fact that he knew them only recently compared to the people from Home and Marlon. Even Millyâs principles regarding family bonds would also be something that would resonate with Vash, and itâs important that he was there in the shadows because I think that was the turning point in how he started to consider them his friends. So in a lot of ways, despite Meryl not wanting him to, I think Vash truly sees the vulnerability that she tries to hide. And I find it so believable and endearing that he would be drawn to her because of that similarity and connection between them.
they both inspire hope in each other
When I say that Vash inspires Meryl to be selfless, itâs in the way she will risk everything just so she can be there for Vash, to overcome fear and her own human limitations, just so she can hold him close. Vash (and through his connections with others like Luida) inspires in Meryl hope for a better world. At the same time, I always got the feeling that the type of love that Meryl felt was something she would be content to keep on giving to this person who always kept on giving to others, even when there was a chance that she would never get it back or have it returned. I imagine that she would have been fine with that as long as Vash felt that he was unconditionally loved.
When I say, Meryl makes Vash feel selfish, it is within the context that selfish for Vash is already a normal level or base desire of wanting to be happy in other people. I remember Legatoâs observation of Vash, that he considered himself as having utterly no value in this world. Of course a person like that would be fine with dying!
But this person who considers himself worthless, eventually makes a promise like this.
Vash must know that thereâs a high likelihood heâll die. Someone as self-sacrificial as him wouldnât want anyone, much less a person he cares deeply for, to be hurt by him. And yet he makes this âselfishâ request of Meryl anyways. And it matters so, so much that he does. Because it shows that he can consider himself as someone who can make another person happy. Itâs a promise to her, as well as to himself, that he wonât let himself simply die. He wouldnât anyway because of how much he values Rem, but with this promise, it feels like his wanting to live is finally something he wants to do for himself, and not just as a continuation of Remâs memory. Like with the fistbump scene, this promise was as much for him as for Meryl. I know he still would have fought to live and to protect humans, but at the same time, in the wake of Wolfwoodâs death, I also felt that he would have been at peace should he have died trying. So this promise was to tether himself (to her). Itâs something to keep him fighting to live now that he knows thereâs someone out there waiting for him, by his own actions at that. More than that or simply put, itâs just a simple thing of allowing himself to want something or someone.
And this is how Meryl inspires hope in him. All this time heâs loved humans, but it always felt like he was living beside them and not with them. He doesnât know what it is with Meryl, maybe her sheer stubbornness, but somehow she ends up representing that hope, that possibility of finally living together with humans (with her). In contrast to Merylâs hope, itâs a very simple and humane one. To have someone care for him, to have someone wait for him, to have someone to come home to, to have someone who loves him. And itâs funny that it seems that Meryl expects nothing in return for her overwhelming love for Vash, because Vash actually meets her halfway. Heâs the one to initiate the kiss. Heâs the one to make the promise and have her promise. Finally, heâs taking the chance of his happiness into his own hands and doing something about it. I just, I really canât with them. No wonder I ended up being vashmeryl trash.
a small think piece on how media has been stripped of romance, sex appeal, and charm over the last 20 years using trigun and trigun stampede as an exampleâspecifically looking at this through wolfwood and vash as a tangible way to track this evolution.
itâs interesting and also unsurprising to me that trigun stampede stripped vash and wolfwood of some of their biggest personality traits from the 98 anime, which were their love of women. to be frankâ they were both dogs lol
but vash was this sort of forlorn man who, meryl, upon meeting him, adequately describes him by asking, âare you the type of man to fall in love right away and get your heart broken?â or something to that effect. and he says what, no way! and then proceeds to fall in love with the next beautiful woman he sees and gets his heart broken by the end of the episode. and we were seeing this constantly throughout the show, then even in the later movie of the early 2010s badlands rumble.
and the 2000s are notorious for dubious, sexist comments from men who are women-obsessed. our action movies are packed with sexy female characters only existing for romance, etc. etc. weâre sort of at the tail end of it in 2010. so arguably, vash is almost worse here to me? heâs really pushy and borderline inappropriate with how stubborn he is. in a way that, while persistent in the 98 anime, he had a little more boyish charm to him and they never made him so forceful.
and then the middle and later 2010s happen where marvel takes over our action movies and romance and sex and womanizers are all but killedâoriginally, in reaction to the sexism. itâs important to note that the me too movement picks up in the middle and later 2010s too and becomes well-known by the end of this decade. and in response, i think we nosedive into puritanical ideas and sentiments by the end of the decade.
now we must always remember when a movement (ie feminism in this case) has a critique or reaction that catches on (the me too movement, men being pushy and overly flirtatious in our media, treating women in action movies only as sexy romance options, or showcasing toxic dynamics that subconsciously tell men to keep chasing her, even if sheâs not interested) then the oppressive force (patriarchy in this case) will always transform as a way to take control again (bringing puritanical ideals backâwe shouldnât be showing sex or romance in our movies. we should not be consuming any dark content, ever. etc etc.)
i believe we killed romance and sex in the later 2010s because of an over correction of our sex-obsessed media of the 2000sâor rather, the patriarchy over corrected in order to maintain control. there were critiques of the 2000s that were valid, but like i said, the oppressive force will always transform to maintain power, so we hit puritanical beliefs again. âpolitical correctnessâ if you will.
(capitalism surely has something to do with this too and itâs definitely along the lines ofâbe more beautiful and even hotter, but your body is not a sexual one, but a visual or capitalistic one. etc. etc. another topic, another time.)
and so here we are and we donât really have any flirty or womanizing characters like we used to. and we see this very plainly in 2023s trigun stampede, where they have completely stripped vash and wolfwood of any of those traits.
and i sort of miss them? i think a 2023 forlorn vash who loves great and hard and gets his heartbroken would not be a bad thingâone who is effected and charmed by women, maybe rather than nearly stalking them like in the 2010 movie. i think it shows another piece of vash and that is quite literally that he wears his heart on his sleeve. and he gets hurt for it, endlessly. more than that there is a little more whimsy to him? and aching. heâs this lonely man who wants love so, so badly.
now, wolfwood in 98 version was less this forlorn chaser and more this suave womanizer. many jokes are made where vash is chasing a girl that wolfwood sorta already has if he wants her. but heâs this lone wolf who leaves everyone a little high and dry. (of course until the endâwith milly âwhere, in a very classic lone-man way, he dies after leaving a woman with his child. the tragedy being that when he was ready to stop roaming and settle down with her and meryl and vash, he dies, thus still leaving everyone). and i mean even his appearance in the 98 versionâbig chested with low-buttoned shirt, shaggy hair and stubble. he looks like a 90s rockstar. he looks like your lone cowboy. heâs reminiscent of spike from cowboy bebop who has a similar charming air to him that never leads anywhere because heâs destined to be solo. the unintentional, intentional womanizer.
then the later 2010s hit and we kill the charming womanizer. (tony stark kills the womanizer. another topic, another time.)
and now in 2023, wolfwood is completely stripped of any of his sex appeal and suave personality that the 98 and even 2010 version of him oozed naturally. gone is the cool, tough, lone wolf. replaced with a sort of boy-bandish, squeaky-clean, semi villain, semi hero. heâs crass and heâs snarky and heâs supposed to be rough around the edges. but he doesnât look it? and he lacks the charm that 98 wolfwood naturally had. which aided him when he talked to kidsâhe was softer. charming. people liked wolfwood, even when he was being crass. he knew how to talk to people, maybe even how to con them when he wanted.
2023âs wolfwood is tough to get along with. and while fun sometimes, i think it does lose thisâŠromanticism to him? there is a softness in wolfwood that is sorta lost in 2023s version. while we get a fuller and better written backstory, we sort of lose this other aspect of him. weâre supposed to infer from his backstory and his relationship to his brother that he is a good man, just one put in a horrible situation, always had bad luck. whereas the 98 version, we saw that wolfwood was good with kids. gentle. women loved himâhe charmed rowdy men, even swindled when he needed to. we saw that there was something good in wolfwood, even if he remained mysterious.
all this to say i do miss the romanticism? i do miss these men beingâŠromantic? flirty? charming? and not even in a fangirl way but in aâŠhumans are romantic creatures way? we are sexual beings? and romance and sex can tell us a lot about characters and their personalities.
and i think looking at vash and wolfwood in particular is a good way to track how we lost this romanticism in our media over the last 20 yearsâwe literally see it in them, in their remaking in 2023, where they are stripped of it.
i think the mid and later 2020s will continue to return to it in some wayâwe already see this with the resurgence in romance novels (or these dark fantasy romance novels gaining popularity) and even fandom spaces being more âmainstreamâ on social media. but in late stage capitalism (and thus late stage patriarchy, racism, etc.) it looks a little like a carnival mirror of romance and sex to me.
I honestly have to agree here, and cite another example from the 90's that would never work out as a reboot today:
Austin Powers.
I grew up with the Austin Powers movies, and I was very surprised to see the backlash of offended viewers when the movies appeared on streaming platforms like Netflix and made a small comeback. It unnerved me to see such vociferous outcry about the movies crass and sexual sense of humor. Later, it made me sad to realize that the reviewers were probably a lot younger than me, and didn't understand what media and cinema in the 90's was like, or understood that the Austin Powers movies are meant to be PARODIES.
Like Vash and Wolfwood in Trigun '98, Austin Powers is an exaggerated Flower-Power era British spy and playboy, except, because the movies are comedic parodies of James Bond and other spy movies, things like Austin's hypersexual behavior toward women was written to dunk on how characters like James Bond, in spite of being the do-gooder protagonist, treat women as sex objects to be manipulated rather than as actual human beings.
What made me especially sad at seeing people shit on the Austin Powers series is that everything displayed in the movies was okay to portray seriously in drama and other types of media all the time, and Mike Myers was deliberately trying to portray through satire how toxic those behaviors actually were. Austin Powers even shows a specific code of ethics when it comes to sex! There's a scene in the very first movie where the secondary protagonist, Vanessa, gets sloppy drunk and finally, drunkenly, offers to yield to Austin's ridiculous flirtations and have sex with him. She even gets him into bed and pins him down to try to get him to sleep with her!
Austin's response? "No, Vanessa, you're drunk. It's not right." He rolls her off, and refuses to have sex with her, in spite of flirting with her and generally making a fool of himself thirsting over her before and after that scene, and goes to bed alone after making sure Vanessa gets to bed safely and falls asleep. Because she knows that Vanessa isn't in a state where she's really able to make an informed decision and consent.
The same things apply with Vash and Wolfwood in Trigun '98: they're hound dogs, but they have a line, and that's called consent. They may irritate the hell out of the women around them and get their asses beat on occasion for hitting on the wrong person, but a fundamental part of both of their characters that marks them out as good people is that they wouldn't actually take advantage of a woman without her enthusiastic, clear-headed consent. How they go about achieving it leaves something to be desired, certainly, but it also shows us examples of how women were commonly treated in real life, as well as in those shows.
A lot of you younger viewers that are trying out classic TV and movies really need to slow down and recognize that it's only been in the past decade or two that addressing patriarchy and the male gaze, especially in Hollywood, has started to make visible progress when it comes to gender equality and normalized misogyny. Before the 2010's or so, it was rare to ever come across a movie or TV show that didn't feature a woman being sexually harassed, assaulted, or otherwise pressured for sex or used entirely as an accessory for the male protagonist. Especially in the 90's and earlier, it was normal to see, because it was normal in our day-to-day lives, too.
But the truly important thing about the portrayal of horny-yet-well-meaning men in older movies and TV is that it shows us how far we've come, and also where we came from to get where we are now. We can't go rallying against the return of old 90's and 80's cinema to streaming services when we're also trying to preserve older media from being destroyed beyond all hopes of salvaging. Just like it's a horrible idea to try to ban books like Huckleberry Finn, trying to cancel shows like Trigun '98 or movies like the Austin Powers series only destroys important elements of our history of fighting for respect between men and women.
In the words of Winston Churchill, "The farther backward you can look, the farther forward you will see." If old content and how women are portrayed in it makes you uncomfortable? That's a good thing. It helps shape your morals and values throughout your life, and helps to inform you of who you really are and what you stand for, especially with regards to change.
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