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several-spoons · 3 years ago

Text

Notes for a post I intend to write some day on the way Vash redefines masculinity and transcends the gender binary

From a conversation on Discord that started as discussing each other’s drabbles:

lostjune: Yeah, the every cut worth a life is meant to refer to Vash's scars. But less about his guilt for the Fall, but his determination to sacrifice his own body to save another life. Like... it's hard to explain.. like, every time he takes the abuse and defends Rem’s beliefs he is proving Steve’s POV wrong? Trying to be not like him, abusive and aggressively dominant. But at the same time he has integrated a lot of his lesson, before his defenses were up. hurting himself, seldom opening up to others, being all self-sufficient and hiding his true emotions.

Me: Saving people is a way to be...powerful and in control, I guess...without being cruel like Steve. He's defining and proving an alternate view of strength, and perhaps masculinity, and that's cool af!

This is one of the things I love about Vash, too! Brilliant. Honestly, I wish more men were like him IRL.

lostjune: YES YES YES!!!! That's one of the main points why I fell in love with Trigun again, because for ONCE we have in a gun-action-anime not only a great story, but a hero that is not a blueprint of toxic masculinity but defines it way differently. Like the scene when he strips to so solve the conflict non-violently? Totally unashamed und full of dignity.

Branch #1: Implications for Slash

Me: It's also one of the things that pisses me off in most doujinshis and some fanfic and fanart, where Vash is a wibbly, blushy, shy uke stereotype. That whole seme-uke dynamic is a total misunderstanding of Vash's unique and amazing expression of gender, tbh.

Branch #2: How Vash treats women

lostjune: That's one reason his creepy behaviour towards women in the anime makes me so sad. I mean, look at his role models. But yeah, the "omg-embarrassed-moment" was like played for laughs and diversion. I mean, they continue to chat while he was sorta shirtless?

Me: perhaps that's one reason I choose to see the creepy behavior as a fake used deliberately to keep women away, because unlike those caught in toxic masculinity, he knows women hate it.

lostjune: Yeah, good point. but it's still creepy and harmful. But well, no one is perfect. and to grow up with Steve and later on macho-Gunsmoke, it's a small miracle that he is as cool as he is

Me: tbh, he doesn't have a lot of role models for the sort of person he wants to be. It seems like he's synthesized a lot of different images, combined them with his own personality...but how does he refresh it and remind himself when he's constantly surrounded by toxic macho bullshit and everyone is as convinced that that's necessary to survive as they're sure the suns will come up tomorrow?

lostjune: Honestly, I think he's just a good observer. There are not only machos on Gunsmoke, they are also the kind people of July, Lina and her grandmother, other women for example, men that are not shitty. People helping each other out and the sky people taking him in.

I feel because he is so kind, he is able to see kindness.

^ That’s an interesting point in itself that probably needs its own post to unpack.

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