#i think vash is a lil more complex

[rush-the-stars]

wolfwood as a masochist brat tamer……,.w a sadist bratty reader…,..,.

[the-nysh]

Everytime I rewatch Tristamp on subs I get a kick out of the fact the radio DJ is Masaya Onosaka, Vash's original JP voice actor. He was the voice of Vash for two decades and now he's sounding the call to hunt 'Vash the Stampede' down. I can almost imagine his Vash cackling behind the professional radio voiceover like 'now it's your turn kiddo'. (while Show Hayami, Wolfwood's original JP actor is the Eye of Michael radio televangelist in ep 5, which is its own irony...)

Considering I've just had an extensive listen to the 98's subs hearing all the vocal range + complexities there, aaaaa this has got to be one of those fun lil winkwink nudgenudge easter egg inside joke kinda things from Studio Orange's casting. x'D Also because the radio DJ's voice was almost always there, narrating along with them and present for most of the eps anyway (ep1-6, 10, 12) as they traveled around in Meryl's car! :'D That's so cute, because yeah, it's like old Vash was still there the whole time (in spirit~) guiding the new kids around the block.

Cause gosh do they sound so much older now, ahaha. (And I totally get why the casting directors would want to try a fresh new spin and/or different portrayal for the main chars.) But you can still catch some of that old sing-songy, playful and performative, yet clean and posh-sounding 'pretty boy' enunciation in his (Onosaka's) voice! ahaha

And there's no replacement for JYB's eng Vash portrayal either, who reprises his old role (yay!) and still kills it with all the wacky-silly-pathetic Noises(tm) and raw yelling Anguish (my favorite~) Cause man, all his natural energetic ad-libbing, to his soft vulnerability (and masked happy 'customer service' voice), to him screaming his heart out (damn did you hear him go off in ep12!) were still just as fantastic to hear again. :'3

But then of course, I'm not without praise for Stampede Vash's new jp voice! Matsuoka--whom you may also know as Inosuke (Demon Slayer) or Teru (mp100). Cause in my opinion, his portrayal brings...a different type of flavor. He can be just as soft/genuine/sincere, with just a little more throatier grit/gravel (pain) around the edges, but then he can suddenly drop to a much deeper register (like a more guttural, low chest resonant sound, like when he ordered E.G. Mine 'that's enough') or explode with spontaneous bizarre noises (like the Sneeze) that have you double-taking like---I beg your pardon!? O.O (Thinking: there's something weirdly odd and uncanny about this guy!!) Unassuming yet polite (esp vs his very soft appearance). Who def has the vocal range, like he's deliberately holding himself back, to go louder & feral--just like Inosuke does. Those things, I think, are the strengths he brings to Vash's new portrayal.

[sword-dad-fukuzawa]

got an ask on curious cat and wanted to crosspost it here because it's trigun meta!

hihi, really really loved your thread on knives/vash and the masks they wear. it was an insightful read and i admire your grasp on vash and knives' characters! (your post-trimax kv fic is also one of my favs in this fandom, GREAT shit right there) i would be curious to hear your thoughts on vash and how he experiences/deals with his trauma in trimax (PTSD/C-PTSD, rem and tesla, guilt from the big fall, the separation between him and knives, aftermath from the July/fifth moon incidents, plant body horror and all that jazz) i know there's a lot sjdfksjh you don't have to touch on all of those points but only if ur interested ofc!

HELLO. I REALIZE YOU SENT THIS TWO WEEKS AGO. IIII UHHH FORGOT I EVEN HAD A CURIOUS CAT SKNFDKLMFKDSSD HI, SORRY!!

thanks! i'm glad you enjoyed the meta and the fic!! seriously i think i blacked out while writing "we've got to get back to that stinking garden," i was so ill about them. still am. 

anyway. trauma, huh? i think i usually gloss over talking about vash's trauma only because it feels so clear to me. knives's is so easily misinterpreted for the purposes of lambasting him or woobifying him but vash wears all that pain on his sleeve. uh. literally. because of the. the arm thing. but the way he deals with it is so!! it's /so./ 

short answer: he runs away. all the time. 

long answer: it's his coolest thematic motif because his name is "the stampede," right, a horde of animals sprinting for their fuckin lives because something behind them spooked them so bad they're going to trample everything in their path just to get away. and occasionally, when he feels he /really really has to,/ because of a sense of sheer responsibility, he runs toward the Bad Things. said bad thing is usually knives because vash believes that his brother is inherently his responsibility, and also all the guilt from the big fall. that's trauma, as you mentioned, that manifests over and over again as soul-wrenching guilt. 

the reason vash fashions himself into gunsmoke's friendly neighborhood jesus figure is because he's tortured by that guilt, especially in stampede, because of that lil addition the writers made to the canon: that vash is partially responsible for letting his brother Commit Atrocities. and that's something that clearly drives him batshit insane. how can he laugh when the suffering of a whole planet sits partially on his shoulders? how can he eat when they're starving? how dare he /not/ be their meat shield over and over again when he's the reason they need one in the first place? 

his trauma drives him to atone for a sin that can't really be atoned for and can't really be ascribed solely to him. he was, of course, 1 year old (mentally ~6?) when he helped knives perpetuate the fall. it's an impossible, Sisyphean endeavor, but because he's functionally immortal and never /really/ had a chance to grow up properly, he's going to fuckin try. 

mf i'm running out of characters here this is evil!! anyway. i think his guilt about rem is why he develops such an, uh, oedipus complex about her that has even wolfwood thinking he's talking about a dead girlfriend. and i think with tesla he just. put her out of his mind. how the fuck do you even begin to cope with a sister dismembered and brutally killed, a sister kept in a jar, a sister you never knew you had or got the chance to love. i think vash just avoids it. it's too big, the ramifications too Much, when all he wants to do is move on and live his life. 

(in contrast, nai is forever stuck in that room, in that horrifying moment. he can't escape it even as vash runs and runs and runs away.)

The same thing happens post-July. Post-fifth moon. Vash sees the horror he’s wrought (that knives has wrought) and goes. Fuck this shit i’m outta here. Fight or flight more like flight or flight even fuckin faster amirite. But knives always catches up to him in the end, is the thing—nai is the physical symbol of his trauma, the narrative vehicle for vash’s pain. He is everything that has traumatized vash made flesh. It’s part of what makes every fight between the two so gripping, imo. By overcoming knives, by putting his brother in the ground, that’s him trying to atone and appease the guilt. This is vash overcoming his trauma. Trying to, anyway. 

Which is what also makes the ending of trimax so. So utterly vash. Because he says fuck this there’s another way, and it happens in a split second when he has to decide if he really and truly wants his brother dead. His trauma!! Does he want to overcome it like this!! With violence and blood and the corpse of nai rotting in the ground!! 

No. the answer’s no. 

He saves knives. He declares that even though nai has done all of these things to him, he still doesn’t have it in him to kill his brother. And that’s a way of coping with trauma, too, isn’t it? The declaration that you won’t let it rule you. Won’t let it dictate what you do anymore, how you live your life. It makes me so, so fuckin emotional ;-; 

Anyway, thanks for the ask! Didn’t touch on the plant body horror as much because i haven’t. Uh. read enough of trimax to properly talk about all that. My reading order is a little unhinged. Hope it satisfied regardless <3