#log: vb

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Hank and Dean!!!

I wanted to try drawing them a couple months later from the movie bc i have an idea for a comic but this style kicked my ass so bad 😭

my hc is it’s Dean turn to grow a mullet (in his Brock era) and Hank unknowingly looks more like debbie (complementing her look not copying) without having met her yet.

Also firm believer that Hank no matter how hard he tries can’t grow facial hair while Dean can

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🗣️HANK NATION HOW WE FEELING?!!🔥🔥

These are my test designs of Hank a year or so later: he loses his hand, gets a robotic one that shoots darts/whatever he puts in there, smoke bomb marbles, gets an old plane flying around, and having a tv deal filming his adventures guerilla style!

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In vbros the act of being a part of the hero/arch business is toxic masculinity/men centering/man child fantasy the women of vbros become clear to me using that framework

Mol (sexualized, assassin fantasy, “tease”)

Shelia (my man my man my man warrior, woman who fixes everything, only woman in male dominated field, male centric)

Rose (token woman, her past “doesn’t exist” aside from being a mother)

I used to be very mad about this, I dragged the show on my priv twitter about this point. But in realizing the whole thing being male centric informs the women themselves, what they allow, how they are used as characters, the writers and the age old roles women are in comics makes Mantila interesting.

She rightly pointed out Shelia competence and Shelia replies with she WANTS to be like this. Effectively being okay with her role and reinforcing the writers place of her: male centric.

Mantila however is motivated by women, yes she says her dad is the reason she believes she is owed the head of GUILD but I would also argue Bobbie refusal of the business in general is the bigger reason. Add her “interest” in Shelia and using men to add the salt to wounds I think Mantila was the first character actually motivated by the decisions women in the world chose.

This could also add the Mantila is a fem lesbian thing I truly believe in but, the women in vbros eventually or outright are constantly shown to be okay as the support to the male centric identity in this world. Mantila and Rusty are outliers in a way that would’ve been VERY cool to have seen. Rusty relationship with women is shit. But Mantila and Rusty relationship is one not only similar issues but beneficial to their hate of the role they were forced into as a child enforcing their gendered place in this world.

Rusty carrying the boys and Mantila being just a donor has more to do with how both, I believe, decided to abandon the roles put on them by their parents, by their world, and the writers slight change out of misogyny.

This isn’t to say the women of vbros are bad they’re cool but they are 100% informed and created by the misogyny of the creators and the misogyny of the very genre they’re parodying. It’s only really until the movie that the very point is addressed, which I personally hated, but when I think about Shelia has never been anything outside of that and while Debbie was correct in pointing it out I feel so sad we never got to see Debbie character one of the only women characters who was free from the same set up in the show.

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In a weird way despite Doc being a bad dad, he still wants his kids to see him as authority but not a full loser which kinda just makes me go man that’s such a mom thing. No matter what your still my baby mindset that kind of makes me sad we only see it with Dean, but I get it Dean sees everyone vulnerability while Hank sees everyone as they are.

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Any which way but Zeus is a GREAT episode, but why the fuck did they do that to Hank.

“He’s a venture, he’ll never shake it.” [let’s cuddle!]

I understand this episode shows that Doc is actually aware of his sons but the way Hank has never got resolution for himself as a son and brother haunts me. So much time was dedicated to Dean finding his shit out and you can say the movie was for Hank finding himself but I’ll be honest I still didn’t find that satisfying either.

It just sticks so sore to me, especially since that scene was very similar to my own experience with my parent (mom) that I kind of sat there floored and feeling unwell that a character in fiction experiences the same thing I did. You aren’t cursed because of your family line, or meant to fail, it’s that nobody really cares anyways about you. You’re fine, not someone I need to be worrying about. You’re just like me. You can’t do anything about it.

The let’s cuddle addition is just cruelty, for a show not affectionate at all to punctuate that in the end of that scene felt like wow, alright, fuck me then.

I think about that scene way WAY more than anything else in vbros because it’s way too specific, hit close to home, but also adds my sadness for Hank entire development with relationships in general.

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I think Dean called Brock Dad once. And Hank never did but when Dean did call Brock Dad it was like a bomb went off and Dean ran to Hank in tears embarrassed af about the whole thing. Doc doesn’t know this at all btw it’s a sibling sharing a really embarrassing experience moment

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Ok sad potential topic (content warning sexual assault)

Hank didn’t seem like he had sex with Sirena, idk if it’s because of what happened to him before but idk if that scene was supposed to be a joke or indication of Hank having trauma/aversion to sex.

A constant I see is active/passive pursuit of sex in venture bros especially around sex. Now bear with me because I’m gonna word this weird but Hank is a lot like Rusty as in he isn’t an ACTIVE person when it comes to sex. While Dean and Brock match in the sense (Dean is….Dean but you get me) of actively pursue someone with sex as intention or interested.

Hank isn’t some guy who’s too innocent or whatever, that’s simply not true he had an interest of sex, of relationships before Dean. I think he still does. my point of contemplation is when Hank is put into a box he has the lowkey panic or tries to side step it. From gender, to his personality, to his perceived role in his family Hank likes to commit to the bit but not embody the idea. His self discovery journey is also proof of that, the attempt to fit into one hank going wrong.

Do I think Sirena hooked up with Dean because he was more sure of himself even in his self destruction?sorta. But I don’t blame her like I DO (bc wtf) but in your 20s you’re gonna make some weird decisions off the basis of not communicating, or not being able to communicate what you want from someone because YOU don’t even know what you want from someone.

It’s the shitty af thing to do to someone we never got an explanation for, and while Hank doesn’t owe anyone sex bc he doesn’t this is like the only way I could POSSIBLY fathom the sex that Dean and Sirena decided to mutually agree to do. Again Dean and Sirena agreed on this, Dean to reinforce his idea of himself, Sirena to fulfil a missing frustration that blew up on Hank the person who is related to both their mindset but not the direct reason.

I hold the firm belief that Hank isn’t the reason why this happened, Hank was definitely a thought in the line of thought domino but not the reason. In the end, vbros has a lot of insecurity at its core and the act of sex amplifies the insecurity.

Hank I think, would have trouble here on out. He will repeat this again, he will fall back into the sweet boyfriend trope but paranoid about what wasn’t enough (re Sirena) not realizing it’s good and well that you want to be a sweet guy. But people want to know that you WANT them, that you desire them, that you want to fuck them. I think Hank would meet someone who gets that and takes it slow, instead of Hank calling the shots it’s this other person, allowing Hank NOT to think about it and doing what Hank likes best: the chase. Only this time he gets caught, because he does like getting “caught”, his partner would be patient with him to open up the other side sex. But I think in a relationship that’s compatible it wouldn’t be a waiting game, it would just be Hank allowing himself to express sexual interest or yk both.

Basically can’t believe they punished Hank Venture for believing in love and not being freaky immediately, like wow give him a MINUTE?

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So my Brock masculinity post has become a monster that has hit not only Brock but the whole show thing about masculinity vs femininity.

I have parts of hunter being stuck in limbo due to her identity and the osi core identity stuck in masculinity so she detransitions, Brock legacy of masculinity to others but it not existing in his family unless necessary, Molotov being masculine herself but weaponizing her femininity as to why her and Brock would never work but chase each other, Dean constantly being put in position of negative situations with women, Hank flipping between tropes of gender from fiction with no real malice bc he has no real genuine feeling for it, Hatred entire character, Jonas reinforcing Rusty weakness through emasculation effectively making Rusty in feminine lense even though Jonas makes no overt comments (Jonas as hero and rusty as damsel).

I also by accident had a bit about the creators themselves which is honestly playing with fire at least personally for me bc I don’t like making notes about the creator psychology but ik this huge ass post on the topic of simply Masculinity in vbros alludes a lot of my thoughts on the creators.

This is all to say holy shit there’s too much idk if I’ll ever make this a post, atp I’m writing a paper.