#and then turn around and make wolfwood this spanish-speaking fellatio master completely unironically. it's funny to me.

[whatever-you-can-give-me]

i'm sure you've talked about this kinda thing before but what do you think about people saying, like, "stampede wolfwood characterization is bad and doesn't even feel like wolfwood"?

this feels like bait to get me to say something inflammatory, because my opinion on people dismissing stampede wolfwood out of hand is definitely something i've posted before, but i fucking love to talk about my opinions, so. [cracks knuckles]

basically. 1. he's a different version of the character in a different set of circumstances, of course he's going to be different. and 2. the thing most people imagine in their heads as wolfwood... is not the wolfwood that appears in any canon, lol.

i don't think that's even a notable observation. a lot of the trigun fandom is the "the vash and wolfwood collectively hallucinated out of a blend of all three canons, It's Free Real Estate" fandom now. it's a tale as old as time. fandom as we currently know it was built on slash and cherrypicking from canon.

i'm not going to be the fun police about it, or act like my way of engaging with trigun (keeping the individual canons separate and distinct in my head, analyzing small details, thinking really hard about the characters and the circumstances of creation) is the 'correct' or the only way to have fun in a fandom. like, i think i am engaging more with the canon, but some people just aren't interested in the actual specific details of canon as more than a jumping off point, and while i don't get it, i support making your own fun. go wild.

but, man, there sure is something. interesting. about how the platonic ideal of wolfwood that's been developed by the Vashwood Fandom completely diverges from wolfwood's actual personality in canon (it's happened to vash too, but that's an entirely different can of worms) and then people get irritated at the actual canons for wolfwood not being the guy in their head. stampede especially, because stampede wolfwood is a traumatized disaster, and that doesn't really work for the most common flavor of vashwood, where vash is the one who needs reassurance and comfort.

i just.... yall, wolfwood is so fucking awkward. he's always been awkward and messy and unsure of himself outside of the two specific situations he can manage (combat and dealing with children). stampede didn't invent the fact that he has no idea what he's doing and doesn't really know how to act around other adults because he's spent most of his life a deeply repressed assassin. i really have no idea where the idea of him as suave and romantic and self-assured came from...

anyway. i'm not going to tell anyone they shouldn't have the fun they're having. it's fandom. god knows there are more important things to worry about. but i have been noticing some patterns, is all.

tl;dr: anyone is welcome to dislike stampede wolfwood if they want, but wolfwood has always been most of the things i see people criticize about stampede wolfwood's characterization. stampede wolfwood is just harder to fit into the box fandom built for him.