everyone always talks about That One panel of Trigun: Multiple Bullets, but i havent seen anyone talk about how fucking BATSHIT INSANE the surrounding fight is
like
Vash & Wolfwood fighting back-to-back, both using the punisher as a shield
(the rest under a readmore bc this accidentally got LONG...)
Vash seeing the shots coming from behind & purposefully not moving bc he knows if he does, Wolfwood would get hit
Wolfwood getting injured too, but not moving from Vash's back. the way he's stanced, it looks Protective. he's doing what he can to keep Vash out of the direct line of fire.
even when he's getting shot up for it, he Doesn't Move. (this also seems to be the moment he got hurt, which leads into the panel later)
& throughout this whole scene, we are only seeing Wolfwood's reactions.
until the girls give them an opening, and they burst out with THIS:
Wolfwood injured, so he can't properly aim the punisher... and he gets around this by sticking one of the leather straps in his Mouth
and then we FINALLY get to see Vash's face again as he grabs the punisher (with a "GAN" sound effect, so he fuckin SLAPPED that metal hand on the punisher).
Wolfwood trusts him enough to just do what he says in the thick of battle, so we FINALLY get to the iconic panel:
which brings us to the aboslute insanity of what Vash is actually Doing.
"DON DON" -> two shots fired for two missiles launched. he literally manages to TURN THEM AROUND MID-FLIGHT (interesting to note that they seem to have internal propulsion, rather than simply being fired by Wolfwood. how many of these does Wolfwood have? they seem heavy.)
he manages to avert the third missile from hitting the dude directly, and instead makes it land Behind him. then the other two missiles, he rests his arm on Wolfwood's shoulders to hit them and direct them behind the other two enemies
Boom.
killing no-one, but showing an INSANE level of fine control AND teamwork.
and in the end, Wolfwood's arm is in a cast, Vash seems either unhurt or hurt but unbothered by it (typical Vash). And Life Goes On.
(forgot to mention before, but all panels are from @trigun-manga-overhaul! thank u for the beautiful pages)
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One thing that I feel is really interesting and often forgotten about Essek is that fundamentally, his characterization has been from the start based upon his desperation for external perspectives and connection, which, along with much of his narrative and mechanical positioning, means that he actually has an extraordinary and almost (but not actually, as I'll show) counterintuitive capacity for both growth and trust.
(Buckle in. This is a long one.)
In particular, I would argue, knowing now that many places where the plot touches Ludinus have long been marked for connecting back into the current plot, that he was quite possibly built as a prime candidate for radicalization by the Ruby Vanguard. He felt isolated from his culture, he was desperate for other connection, and he was certainly of the type to believe he was too smart to be drawn into such a thing, given his initial belief that he could control the situation and the fallout. If things had gone any other way, he easily could've been on the other side by now.
As such, he has been hallmarked by being fairly open to suggestion, perhaps for this reason, but the thing about that kind of trait is that it is both how people are radicalized and deradicalized. This is certainly true of Essek, who experienced genuine kindness and quite frankly strangeness from the Nein and was able to move from the isolation the Assembly had engendered to meaningful and genuine connection, largely propelled by his own internal reflection. By the time Nein are aware of his crimes, he's already begun to express regret to an extent and, furthermore, doubt in the Assembly, including explicitly drawing a line against Ludinus, even in a position where he was on his own and probably quite vulnerable.
Similarly, when the Nein reach the Vurmas Outpost some weeks later, he has moved from regret for the position he's ended up carrying a heavy remorse. This makes sense! He's fairly introspective, seems used to spending a lot of time in his own head, and was left with plenty to mull over. It's not some kind of retcon for him to have progressed well past where the Nein left him; it just means he's an active participant in the world who has done his own work in the meantime.
This is another interesting aspect to him. I've talked about this a bit before but I cannot find the post so I'll recap here: antagonists in D&D have significantly more agency than allied NPCs. Antagonists are active forces, against which the party is meant to struggle; allies are meant to support the PCs, which means they tend to be more passive in both their actions and their character growth. Essek was both built as an antagonist, in a position that gives him significant agency, and also was then given significant opportunity to grow specifically to act as a narrative mirror for Caleb's arc. Even when he becomes a more traditional D&D ally, he still retains much of that, though he occupies a supporting role.
I believe that this is especially true because of the nature of Caleb's arc, which I've already written on; the tl;dr of this post is that Caleb is both convinced that he is permanently ruined and also desperate to prove that change is possible. Essek is that proof, because he is simply the character in a position to do so. But this also means that his propensity for introspection and openness is accentuated! He has to do the legwork on his own, for the most part, because that's where he is in the meantime.
But he still ends the campaign necessarily constricted; he is under significant scrutiny, he's at risk from the Assembly, and he goes on the run fairly soon after the story ends. He spends most of the final arc anxious and paranoid, which is valid given the crushing reality of his situation. It would be very easy to extrapolate that seven years into this reality, he would be insular, closed off, and suspicious of strangers, even in spite of the lessons he's learned from the Nein and their long term exposure.
So seeing his openness and lightness now is surprising, but at the same time, given this combination of factors in his position in the narrative over time and his defining traits, it's not by any means unreasonable.
But one thing that I found so delightful is how much trust he exhibits, which is obviously a wild thing to say about Essek in particular, given much of what he learns is both earning and offering trust, which was something he says explicitly in 2x124 that he's never really experienced: "I've never really been trusted and so I did not trust." It makes up much of the progression of his relationship with Caleb, and the trust that he is offered by the Nein in walking off the ship is the impetus he needs to grow.
But I think it's easy to talk about trust when it comes to people who have proven themselves to you or to whom you've ingratiated yourself, and that's really the most we can say about Essek by the time he leaves the Blooming Grove. There is this sense in a lot of discussion of trust (not solely in this fandom) that it is only related to either naivete or love, but there's far more to it. Trust at its best is deliberate—cultivating an openness to the world at large is a great way to combat cynicism and beget connection instead. It allows a person to maintain curiosity and be open to experience, but it can be incredibly difficult to hold onto.
It is clear that the Essek we meet now is a very pointedly and intentionally trusting individual. He trusts Caleb and by extension Caleb's trust in Keyleth, as he shows up and picks up a group of strangers from a foreign military encampment and walks in without issue. He trusts the Hells to follow his lead moving through Zadash and to exhibit enough discretion so as to avoid bringing suspicion upon all of them. He trusts that Astrid will respond well to his entrance, but he also trusts himself and the Hells enough to execute a back-up plan in the case that she doesn't. In the end, he even trusts them enough to give them his name and identity.
He doesn't scan as someone who has spent half a dozen years living like a prey animal, afraid of any shadow he runs across in an alley, withdrawn into himself and an insular family, which would've been an easy route for him to take. He scans as someone who has learned the kind of trust borne of learned confidence and a trained eye for good will and kindness, which are crucial weapons one would need for staving off cynicism in his circumstances—as if he has survived thanks more to connection and kindness than paranoia and isolation. (If we want to be saccharine about it, he scans quite poignantly as a member of the Mighty Nein.)
So it is easy to imagine this trust and openness as a natural progression of his initial search for perspectives external to his own cultural knowledge. Though he makes those first connections with the Assembly to try to vindicate his personal hypotheses, he finds in them exposure to the deepest corruption among Exandrian mortals, which could've—and did, for a time—turned him further down that same dark path.
But it's also this same openness to exposure from the wider world that allows the Nein to influence him for the better, and in spite of the challenges he's certainly faced simply surviving over the past seven years, he seems to have held onto this openness enough to move through the world with self-assurance and a willingness to extend the kinds of trust and good will that he has been shown.
(I would be remiss not to mention that I was reminded about my thoughts on this by this lovely post from sky-scribbles and their use in the tags of 'light' to describe Essek's demeanor this episode, which is really such an apt word for it.)
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i have come here to personally thank you for giving me more than i asked for 🙏🏻 i am utterly grateful like IDJFKDKKFODOD 🧎♀️🧎♀️🧎♀️ it made me so happy the last doodle has my heart he is so cute i will eat him
also there is a DROUGHT out there for us noritoshi fans like im living on CRUMBS its insane and omg dont even talk to me abt how it feels like to be a kashimo and ino lover (altho they are getting a bit more love now) my nori is still underrated :/ sooo hence im asking ur hand in friendship and in exchange i promise to share my hcs with you abt nori my sweet lil meow meow we're in this together 💪🏻💪🏻
also since its October, do you think he likes horror movies? i feel like he can withstand gory movies but its the jumpscares that get him and he wont tell u he's scared when u watch one with jumpscares owkfkdkd imagine him hiding his face against ur shoulder or something 😭😭😭 (i used to do that with my dad when we watched horror movies and i used to be like im not scared😤😤 when he asked if i was lmfao thats where this hc stemmed from)
N. NORITOSHI HIDING IN YOUR SHOULDER OR SUPPRESSING HIS REACTIONS TO THE JUMPSCARES....... WAS IT AN INVOLUNTARY REACTION TO USE YOU TO HIDE??????? WAS IT BUILT UP TRUST????? DID HE GROW USED TO HOLDING ONTO YOU WHEN HE GETS SURPRISED BECAUSE HE WANTS TO MAKE SURE HE HAS HIS VALUABLES SAFE????????? WAS IT A MOMENT WHERE HIS MIND JUST INSTINCTIVELY GRABBED THE FIRST THING HE WANTED TO PROTECT/BE PROTECTED BY???????? OH MY FUCK.
he's probably used to gore and gritty stuff like that since he sees it often being a jujutsu sorcerer and all. not to mention his technique is literally blood. maybe he's desensitized to gore films, the most you'll get from him is a disgusted scowl.
BUT DID YOU SEE HOW QUICK HIS EYE OPENED WHEN HANAMI SHOWED UP BEHIND HIM. YOURE SO FUCKING FR ABT JUMPSCARES. Noritoshi is that guy who wouldn't scream or yelp but gasp really loudly and jump out of his skin.
i feel like they get him most in horror because of the music building up anticipation. if its one of those fake outs where the jumpscare comes a bit after, he's fucked UP. It makes him instantly miffed, as he tries to regain his composure. He swears he's not usually like this, it got him by surprise is all..!
Noritoshi is the type that'd only watch a horror movie if the story is rich and complex. He's the type of guy to like open endings that make you think.. if it's a guilty pleasure movie where all the protags make stupid decisions, he gets annoyed right off the bat.
He's groaning and complaining about how imbecile the characters are, but would still watch it with you because you personally invited him. If he's lucky you could fall asleep on his shoulder or [insert movie cliche here] how could he pass that up? But Noritoshi wouldn't be able to focus on you if he gets twice as annoyed because its a bad movie + jumpscares. it still startles him, but the movie is so terrible, he's embarrassed it got him, especially in front of you!!!
if you get involved and you tell him to quiet down, Noritoshi would shift his focus towards you. like that awkward guy who thinks he's being smooth and lowkey about how he cuddles up next to you. He wants to be the tough guy who's shoulder you can hide in, and he is!! just not.. with jumpscares.......
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there's something so deeply erotic about this exchange. dean bites out a snarky comment, and sam immediately tenses up, waiting for his brother's disapproval. he expects it, he's waiting for it, because he's never good enough and he never does anything right.
but it doesn't come. dean tells him he's done good, he offers him whiskey in celebration, even, and it gives sam pause—he hesitates, like he doesn't know what to do, looks up at dean for confirmation, then accepts the offering. like he's proud of himself for gaining dean's approval, but he hardly knows what to do with it. how long has he been waiting for this anyway? how many years has he been trying and failing to get this simple, no-strings-attached praise out of him?
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