#makes so much more sense to me if this is treize thinking of relena as the little sister of the guy he used to fuck

[gatormeister]

Gundam Wing is finished!

And while I might not have come out of it thinking it was peak Gundam, it was certainly at least good Gundam. These final 10 episodes were definitely the show at its best. Everything felt much more cohesive and well put together than what came before it. Zechs's turn to essentially Char's plan made a sort of sense. As far as I could tell Zechs essentially felt like he needed to become the villain in order to unite the Earth and colonies. And I assume he was aware he would fail when he didn't say anything to Heero telling him that the Wing Zero said he had no future. All in all a fantastic send off to a bumpy series.

Zechs and Treize were fantastic as always. Duo and Quatre remain my favorite Gundam pilots in the series. Lady Une returns, loved that. Noin actually stands out to me as another character I ended up really enjoying on screen. Poor Relena kept getting jerked around with whether or not she was allowed to make her own moves by giving up control to Treize. Which was kind of annoying, I really wanted Relena to be shown making her own moves in the politics game more often. She did whenever she had the power to, but the show was very quick to make sure she didn't have that power for very long at all, and that was kind of frustrating.

I suppose the hot take for this show is that I think it has worse opening episodes than Double Zeta. Double Zeta's big issue in it's opening episodes were the mood whiplash, every motivation and decision made some sort of sense sense, it was just a goofy sort of sense. The goofier tone of Double Zeta's front half would come to be charming in retrospect as the second half's own shift in tone broke down the goofballs you got to know. Wing's opening episodes left me frustrated with what felt like a ton of confusing characters, unknown motivations, and poor characterization. Now those were only the opening episodes Wing didn't take as long to ease those frustrations as Double Zeta did, but unlike Double Zeta it never made me come around and look fondly on those episodes either. It has the scene of Relena tearing up the card Heero leaves her, which was a very nice call back, but it was more a call back to Heero and Relena's strange relationship more than to the opening episodes themself.

That said I am going to watch Endless Waltz, and come back with another post. Looking forward to it since I've only heard good things so far.

[ikuzeminna]

Why I love Gundam Wing and hate Frozen Teardrop

With Frozen Teardrop being the first new thing released in the Gundam Wing universe in ages, I feel I should make my stance on it clear, seeing as I’ve read (and by now thankfully forgotten) a large chunk of it.

So, what do I like about Gundam Wing? I can say without lying, almost everything. I like the story, the characters, the themes, the designs and the music. I like its humor, its subtlety, the fact that everyone plays a role and that there's no definite bad guy (nor good one for that matter). I like its dynamics and how you can view it any way you want, e.g. the Gundam pilots being heroes or plain murderers. And I like that you can and even must dig to understand things. The whole composition really works for me.

And what's best is that this entire composition makes Gundam Wing more; it makes it unique. I grew up with classics like Dragonball and Sailor Moon, the forefathers of the 'Idiot Hero' archetype for both males and females. Even to this day you see series featuring these types of main characters. Classic scenario of a naive yet pure kid growing up to become the savior of the world. We've all seen that.

It's why Gundam Wing is so special to me. It has a completely atypical setup and there's absolutely no stereotype I can apply to any character, no matter what TV Tropes may say. Heero is hardly your typical hero, is he? Heck, Heero is hardly a typical anything. What's more, Gundam Wing doesn't follow the 'growing stronger' plotline that, for example, the original MS Gundam or Seed series used. No, Gundam Wing starts out with fully trained soldiers who can kick your butt from episode 1 and will kill you without qualms if the situation requires it. (That's not to say that the characters don't grow, it's the physical growth and capabilities I'm talking about.) What's truly surprising about that is the age of the characters. This is another important point. Gundam Wing and realism. Many times I hear that GW is realistic. I'm sorry but no. Teens fighting against armies isn't realistic. Teens leading said armies isn't either. Neither is bending steel bars, nor surviving jumping off cliffs or blowing up your suit, nor successfully back-flipping from a motorbike onto a clothesline, nor becoming the Queen of the World as a teen, nor stealing a MS carrier plus suit at the age of ten, nor walking around with bazookas at the age of ten nor what have you. It's safe to say that Gundam Wing lacks any sense of realism. But it does not lack logic.

Realism never was Gundam Wing's aim to begin with. The way I see it, it's not just the plot or circumstances that prove this, but also the "inhumanity" of the characters. Would a real person with a similar background as Heero, Duo or Trowa really exhibit such selflessness or noble-mindedness as them and risk his life for strangers by fighting a war that could end in their death? I don't think so. Would anyone as sheltered as Relena give up her lifestyle, have the guts to go against the world's armed rulers with just words and put her life on the line for the sake of others? Hard to believe.

And that's it. One of the things that contributes to Gundam Wing's uniquity and is therefore a, if not the, defining trait of the series, is that it doesn't tell the story about angst-riddled terrorists and princesses, but a tale of heroes. The characters are ridiculously noble, strong, selfless, courageous, determined, make the impossible possible and still retain a certain purity, despite having gone through hell and back. It's what makes them so awesome. It's what makes the series so awesome. Duo isn't badass because he fights in the war. He's badass because he fights "so that no one else will have to" and when you see what he went through, you can only say "wow". Lady Une killed Relena's father and when Relena is given the opportunity to take revenge, she declines, saying there's been enough bloodshed. That's role model material there. Something that is sorely lacking in a lot of shows nowadays. And something that a lot of people seem to miss the point of (I'm referring to those that call the pilots wussies for not killing in EW).

All of this is the reason I hate Frozen Teardrop with a passion. Forget the nonsensical, recycled plot or the billion clones of everyone or the terrible mobile suit names like Snow White or Merciless Fairies. Forget Treize getting French’d by his mom or the Zero System being a digital cat or Relena’s grandfather being a disgusting ephebophile. That stuff is messed up and random and dumb and I have no idea what was wrong with the author at the time to write this.

It’s also that he completely destroys the essence of the original series, making every single characters whine about some drama and the never ending “woe is me” monologue I had to wade through every chapter.

Let’s take Duo, for example. He woke up one morning and decided to become an irresponsible, gold-digging bastard. To get Hilde’s money, he agreed to her terms to cut his braid off and get a “proper” name, just to buy himself a motorbike with their joined assets. Then he inherited a church plus orphanage, which Hilde got stuck with, too, being his wife, and when she asked him how to fund the orphanage, Sumizawa wants me to believe that Duo freaking Maxwell was just “Eh, whatever, leave them to it. I’m out” before taking off? Excuse me, what???

I’ve had discussions with people about this and there were statements that maybe more people just need to learn how actual manic depressives and people with PTSD act in relation to Duo's development in Frozen Teardrop. I've noticed a tendency for people to want to apply realism to Gundam Wing, especially in fanfics, but as I said before, Gundam Wing and realism don't have anything to do with each other. So why should I apply it?

What I expect from anything featuring Gundam Wing's characters is the same "heroic" behavior that was displayed in the series. Sure, the pilots each had a mental burden to carry but it wasn't what defined them. For example, Trowa's insecurity about not having a name or yearning for a home never became the main focus unlike his endless selflessness. And Heero's bitterness about the colonies' betrayal was well hidden under his joining the Treize faction to be able to keep retaliating against OZ. A noble deed to fight on but was it really necessary for him to go for the missions with the lowest chance of survival?

As I said, Gundam Wing is unique because it is atypical. That encompasses pretty much everything; you have bloody murderers in the role of the 'heroes', noble, honorable 'bad guys' who value life and the ever flashy Gundams that can't even begin to compare to non-flashy Relena's influence and importance to the plot. So why on earth should I go along with Duo and Wufei bickering like kids, like characters from five million other series do? I want my uniquity. I'm not saying that it isn't a possible outcome for Duo and Wufei to become bitter and bicker and argue and not be able to stand each other when they become adults. But considering those two could get along splendidly, it's a letdown. Duo and Wufei are very much alike; they both lost people important to them twice, they both fight partly out of revenge and their loss has had the biggest impact on shaping them into what they are in the series, unlike the other pilots. Heck, they both wear their respective culture's colors for mourning. Despite that, their personalities (or ways of dealing) are exact opposites. It's enough to make for a more interesting relationship dynamic between them than what was done in Frozen Teardrop and a lot of Gundam Wing fanfics.

Heero's regression is the same. He was frozen because J said something to the extent of "a guy like him would be needed in the future". How J is even alive is another point of unnecessary addition. But what would a guy like Heero be needed for? Killing, apparently.

Way to ignore the ending of Endless Waltz.

I guess it's partly my wish for Heero and everyone else to live a well-deserved 'happily ever after' which makes me have such a knee jerk reaction to all the drama. That and the fact that there was nowhere near as much drama in Gundam Wing. Nor sap, nor stereotyping, nor "realism". >_>

This grated on my nerves, which was why I dropped Frozen Teardrop like a hot potato and haven’t bothered since. This novel does not only fail on a general level with all the random, messed up crap and terrible pacing, it also fails to satisfy the Gundam Wing fan in me because Sumizawa, the very head writer of the show, also ignored major character traits on top of everything else. Why would Catherine, who stated that she hates war and did everything she could to keep Trowa from fighting, train his clone to become a soldier? Why would Duo become that deadbeat I described above?

Being the sole writer of Frozen Teardrop meant he could take as many creative liberties as he wanted. But in the end, he took too many, which in turn resulted in so many inconsistencies with the series that Frozen Teardrop now takes place in an alternate universe, in which not the series but the manga Glory of Losers takes place. Which is the sole reason I’m not bothered by Frozen Teardrop’s existence anymore.

There were some good passages in the novel, it wasn’t all bad. The battles with the new characters were exciting at times, I’ll be honest, but even those couldn’t be called genuinely good because of the carbon copies deal. There is always some blemish. Like Heero’s proposal to Relena. I’ve seen fans of the pairing rejoice at the scene. Alas, I’m not one of them because frankly, the characters in the novel hardly resemble the original ones. So I don’t care.

As the head writer of the show I had expected him to treat the source material with more care and not run it over with retcons and meaningless additions. Best example being everything surrounding Odin. The world could've definitely done without him being Heero's father. Or freaking Trant being related to him.

But again, alternate universe so who cares.

[thisweekingundamwing]

This Week in Gundam Wing 24-30 November 2019

Here’s this week’s roundup!

Remember to give your content creators some love! And join in on the events at the bottom!

(Looking forward to all the Unorthodox Undercover Work Mini Bang entries going up this next week!)

~Mod Hel

Fanfiction/Snippets/AU Ideas:

@bobo-is-tha-bomb​

Encounters with Heero (Ch. 12 & 13) https://archiveofourown.org/works/21385951/chapters/51360610

F/M, Heero Yuy/Reader

Heero Yuy, Reader, Relena Peacecraft, Duo Maxwell, Hilde Schbeiker, Trowa Barton, Quatre Raberba Winner, Chang Wufei

Romance, Drama, Fluff, Friendship

This man oozed danger. Nonetheless you are attracted to him and you grow closer to him than anyone has ever before. Being nice to a stranger was what got it all started.

Burn to a Cinder (Ch. 7) https://archiveofourown.org/works/18781273/chapters/51374644

F/M, Zechs Merquise/Reader, Treize Khushrenada/Reader

Zechs Merquise, Treize Khushrenada, Lady Une, Mariemaia Khushrenada, Relena Peacecraft, Chang Wufei

Romance, Drama, Angst, Hurt/Comfort, Violence, Reader-Insert

Your path had been laid out for you from an early age, allowing you to move into the higher circles of society and catch the attention of one of the most powerful men in the Earth Sphere. As Treize’s mistress, you watch his rise to power and the disastrous war breaking out on Earth and in Space, putting your loyalty to the test. You are torn between your duty to His Excellency, and your unquellable lust for one of the top soldiers under his command. And when he rises to power in Outer Space, there is nothing you can do but stand back and watch them tear each other apart. This is no game of hearts, but yours is at stake, and the consequences can be felt for years to come. Labeled as OZ’s whore, you struggle to find your way, only for things to fall apart around you again. But then there is still Zechs, and the undeniable way he makes you feel…

@doctormegalomania​

Your Body’s Poetry (Ch. 7) https://archiveofourown.org/works/20438891/chapters/48490382

Duo Maxwell/Heero Yuy, Trowa Barton/Quatre Raberba Winner, Chang Wufei/Original Female Character(s), Duo Maxwell/Hilde Schbeiker, Relena Peacecraft & Heero Yuy, Duo Maxwell/Original Male Character(s)

Heero Yuy, Duo Maxwell, Trowa Barton, Quatre Raberba Winner, Chang Wufei, Sally Po, Relena Peacecraft, Lucrezia Noin, Zechs Merquise, Hilde Schbeiker

Past Relationship(s), Slice of Life, Post-Break Up, Slow Burn, Developing Relationship, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence

Long after the wars, long after peace is established the Gundam Pilots discover one immovable fact: Relationships are hard work.

@duointherain​

The Hidden Cherry (Ch. 1) https://duointherain.tumblr.com/post/189338568519/fic-the-hidden-cherry-1

Intersex Duo, disabled Heero

He closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. Duo wanted to think that the stress in his voice made him sound like an asshole and that would motivate the person on the other side of the phone. The space he was in was small, like 3 meters by maybe 5. His cigarette lighter had given him enough light to see the space, but it was back in his pocket now.  “I need an analyst. It’s fucking Wednesday. There is an analyst in the office.”

@janaverse​

Stickies from Heero (Ch. 26) https://archiveofourown.org/works/19796581/chapters/51374212

Chapter 26: ‘circumnavigating the simple truth’ is now on AO3. It was nice to actually get another story written for this odd universe!

Duo reads Heero latest note and fallout ensues.

Rough https://janaverse.tumblr.com/post/189270598643/drabble-day-38-adult-themes-rough-heero-stood

drabble - day 38 - adult themes

Consider it done https://janaverse.tumblr.com/post/187883433878/consider-it-done

So this is the follow up to my short fic ‘something to consider’ which I posted about a week or so ago.  You can find it here:  https://janaverse.tumblr.com/post/187689757828/something-to-consider or here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20669474 in case you have not read it yet. this fic will make infinitely more sense if you have!

pairing: 1X2X1

warnings: unholy amounts of sap and lovey dovey stuff. please take this warning seriously! lol  this is THE sappiest thing i have ever written!

Heero had entered the house first, taking off his soaked shoes and leaving them out on the front porch beside the door. Duo had followed suit, noticeably shivering once inside the house, and headed toward their bedroom to get changed. Heero had only removed his jacket and hung it on the coat rack inside the front door; opting to start a fire before getting out of his wet clothes and into something dry.

@ransomedbard​

Clipped Wings (Ch. 3) https://archiveofourown.org/works/21360976/chapters/51500641

Duo Maxwell, Hilde Schbeiker

Preventer!Duo, Criminal!Hilde, 2+H, Adventure, Kidnapping, mild violence, Crime doesn't actually pay

Time has a funny way of turning history on its head. Two years after the Eve Wars, former rebel Duo Maxwell is now a member of the secretive anti-terrorism unit Preventers, while Hilde has been living on the wrong side of the law on Earth. When he makes a visit to attempt to salvage their strained friendship, he’ll uncover just how much their paths have diverged, and end up getting caught up in her life on the run from a gang that wants revenge.

Fanart/Gunpla/Photo Manips:

@animethingsandstuff​

https://animethingsandstuff.tumblr.com/post/189231234100/w-night-by-%E3%82%80%E3%81%86%E3%81%9F%E3%82%8D-posted-with-permission-please

The G-boys and posing... and flowers.

Photosets/Gifsets/Screenshots/Manga Pages:

@vegalume​

https://vegalume.tumblr.com/post/189361489995/i-immediately-thought-of-heero-but-this-could-be

Before leaving the house, Heero does...

Fandom Discourse:

@amberlyinviolet

https://janaverse.tumblr.com/post/189290275628/i-am-here-for-the-giving-of-the-happily-ever-after

@noirangetrois​, @janaverse​

About the struggles of all GW characters.

@incorrectgundamwingquotes​

https://incorrectgundamwingquotes.tumblr.com/post/189326495789/unpopular-opinion-despite-the-horrible

Unpopular Opinion: FT had good points.

https://incorrectgundamwingquotes.tumblr.com/post/189326409984/for-unpopular-opinion-not-on-the-series-itself

Unpopular Opinion: 1X2 is overrated.

https://incorrectgundamwingquotes.tumblr.com/post/189326308699/i-dont-know-if-this-is-actually-an-unpopular

Unpopular Opinion: EW was not that great.

@lifeaftermeteor​

https://lifeaftermeteor.tumblr.com/post/189380639699/life-after-meteor

LAM has a website now!

@ransomedbard​

https://ransomedbard.tumblr.com/post/189357520583/thank-you

Fandom loves you too!

@terrablaze514​

https://terrablaze514.tumblr.com/post/189258275567/wing-zero-episodes

Wing Zero Episodes (Who flew it better?)

My opinions on Wing Zero and the impact it plays. Borderline meta I guess, and excuse the occurrence of Trowa and Zechs muses.

Quotes:

@incorrectgundamwingquotes​

https://gwminorcharactersrpblog.tumblr.com/post/189313789527/quatre-why-is-your-back-all-scratched-up-trowa

Quatre & Trowa

With additions made by @gwminorcharactersrpblog​

https://incorrectgundamwingquotes.tumblr.com/post/189293229002/texting-duo-hello-duo-are-you

Duo & Trowa

https://incorrectgundamwingquotes.tumblr.com/post/189298062910/quatre-you-should-be-nicer-to-people-heero

Quatre, Heero, Duo, Trowa, & WuFei

https://incorrectgundamwingquotes.tumblr.com/post/189326315129/zechs-you-played-me-like-a-fiddle-duo-oh-no-i

Zechs & Duo

https://incorrectgundamwingquotes.tumblr.com/post/189333739266/duo-whyre-you-ignoring-relena-heero-im

Duo, Heero, & WuFei

https://incorrectgundamwingquotes.tumblr.com/post/189338458478/trowa-handing-duo-some-pills-here-take-four-of

Trowa & Duo

https://incorrectgundamwingquotes.tumblr.com/post/189342871815/heero-ill-worry-about-that-bridge-when-i-get-to

Heero & Quatre

https://incorrectgundamwingquotes.tumblr.com/post/189358288319/heero-dont-correct-me-wufei-dont-be-wrong

Heero & WuFei

https://incorrectgundamwingquotes.tumblr.com/post/189397723234/duo-uh-its-salt-wufei-thats-what-i

Duo & WuFei

https://incorrectgundamwingquotes.tumblr.com/post/189377500808/une-about-mariemaia-you-cant-give-her-that

Une & WuFei

Calendar Events:

@gundamzine​

Rhythm Generation: Shooting Stars, Celebrating 25 Years of Gundam Wing

Zine Content https://gundamzine.tumblr.com/post/186791784139/rhythm-generation-shooting-stars-is-an-unofficial

Pre-orders Open! https://gundamzine.tumblr.com/post/189370843928/gundamzine-pre-orders-are-open-rhythm Open until January 11th!

Q about Free Merch https://gundamzine.tumblr.com/post/189215831466/are-you-really-giving-free-merch-i-am-kinda

@gundam-wing-bingo​

Gundam Wing Bingo is here!

Come and sign up for a card here: https://gundam-wing-bingo.tumblr.com/post/185466400076/gundam-wing-bingo

@gwcocktailfriday​

Cocktail Fridays!

Post responses on Friday, during Happy Hour between 3 & 5 pm in your own timezone.

Here’s the prompt for Friday, December 6th! https://gwcocktailfriday.tumblr.com/post/189390586070/cocktail-friday-post-responses-on-friday-december

For those going to Pillowfort, find us here.

If anyone has ideas for prompts, PLEASE send them in! Our ask box is always open.

In need of Winter prompts!

@thisweekingundamevents​

Gundam Wing Holiday Gift Exchange 2019/2020

https://thisweekingundamevents.tumblr.com/post/188113410410/holiday-gift-exchange

Schedule: 5-11 January: Post your Gifts!

Holiday Exchange Q & A: https://thisweekingundamevents.tumblr.com/post/188824081840/some-holiday-exchange-q-a

Criteria and Schedule Reminder! https://thisweekingundamevents.tumblr.com/post/188943007445/holiday-gift-exchange-reminder

Gundam Wing Unorthodox Undercover Work Mini Bang

Posting starts today!

Here’s everything you need to know to post! https://thisweekingundamevents.tumblr.com/post/189346329635/gw-uuw-mb-posting-again-lol

For those artists who haven’t a story, if you finished your piece, feel free to post it up on tumblr. Remember to tag us and I’ll get you in the End of Event Roundup anyway! ^_^

Posting Dates: https://thisweekingundamevents.tumblr.com/post/189405682420/posting-dates-gwuuwmb

Note! There is also a Gundam Wing Discord Meet-up going on right now! See @lifeaftermeteor​ for details and a discord invite if you aren’t in it already!

[gwydionae]

I have officially finished all of Gundam Wing for the first time in about 15 years, if my guess is correct. Man, I love Crunchyroll - only ever got my hand on 4 of the DVDs (1, 5, 6, and EW), so it was nice to be able to watch the whole thing legally online! Closing thoughts:

NOTE: Any comments about the fandom’s mindset is based on what I remember of it from back in the day mixed with a bit of current CR comments, and therefore I have no idea if any of it would apply to the GW fandom today.

Why do people hate Wufei and Dorothy so much?? No, seriously, help me out. I really don’t get it. Dorothy maybe a little as she seems a bit, er, confused, I suppose, but why Wufei? Honestly, he was like a breath of fresh air amongst the pilots for me. While everyone else was like, “I don’t know who to fight anymore because every side seems bad,” Wufei was like, “Yeah, every side DOES seem bad, so guess what? I’m not gonna just sit on my butt; I’m gonna go out there and take on everyone!” I mean, good on him, I say! LOL

Also finishing up the main series REALLY amps up just how badly he was portrayed in EW. Like... of all the pilots, he was the most proactive when it came to trying to bring about peace. It wasn’t about wanting to fight everyone - it was fighting everyone because he wanted peace and literally everyone was in the way of that. How the HECK did they think he would be the one to join up with the people ruining the peace he worked so hard to bring about??

Seriously, man, Wufei doesn’t get enough love. Second favorite GW pilot only to Duo for me.

And, also seriously, Dorothy is just kinda... fun? lol I mean, literally everyone in this show is over the top and crazy, so I don’t know why her kind of over the top and crazy is bad while, say, Heero’s isn’t. Don’t get me wrong, not saying people have to like her, I just don’t know why she’s always seemed pretty universally disliked, that’s all.

Speaking of dislike... holy heck could I have done with, like, 75% less Zechs, gosh dang. I wasn’t his fan in the beginning, and during the middle where he was all “I just want to fight Heero” I started finding him pretty annoying. And then at the end... oof. OOF, man. I don’t care what his end goal was, I don’t care if he was actually serious about following through with any of it or not or if he was just pulling off a big hoax with Treize the whole time. I don’t care. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING justifies putting LITERALLY THE ENTIRE PLANET at risk like that. That was some serious crap he pulled, and I was so confused and exasperated by everything he did and every word that came out of his mouth. My gosh.

Which brings me to the plot... let’s be real, it was kind of a mess. XD But most of the time I didn’t care. It’s one of those shows where I don’t always understand why the heck things are happening the way they are, but all the characters are just so amusingly passionate about it that it’s fun anyway. It had it’s moments where it dragged, and I wish we could have seen more of the Gundam pilots actually getting to work with each other (and not just Heero with a tagalong), but overall it kept me interested the majority of the time thanks to the vibrant cast of characters.

In that cast of characters there’s a surprising amount of fun and interesting females, for the record. I’ll be the first to admit I generally don’t much care about or notice this sort of thing, but for whatever reason it stood out to me.

Sally was a fast favorite. She’s got guts and isn’t afraid to fight for what she believes in. And in a series full of strong, military dudes, she stands out not only for her position but also the fact that she has no ties to any of said dudes, unlike most of the other females. Again, I’m not really one to care, but it did stand out.

Noin I was never super fond of, admittedly, but over the course of the show, I grew to like her more. Her friendship with Sally was nice, and I liked how at the end, even though she couldn’t bring herself to stop Zechs, she wasn’t about to help him either. She made sure to get in no one’s way and just lay witness to what was happening, wanting to be there in the end no matter the outcome.

Hilde, on the other hand, I loved instantly! She may only be in a handful of episodes, but she makes the most of all of them. She’s strong willed and stubborn, but also willing to hear what others have to say before passing judgement. And the episode where she risks her life just because she wants to help in the only way she can think to is honestly one of my favorites. If this show could have used more of something, it’s Hilde.

Lady Une is just... wow. What to say about her? Man, does she go through a transformation! I remember hating her back in the day, but now I find her quite amusing, actually. I’m not sure I can really explain why, but she has a very strong personality, and in a show like this filled with strong personalities, pointing her out specifically says something! lol

Ah, Relena. I really, really hated you the first time I saw this show. Like, a lot. I don’t anymore. You will never be my favorite, but my latest viewing has proved to me that your particular kind of crazy is vital to this show. Your unyielding view on peace and how to obtain it will always be a bit absurd to me, and I’ll always like you most when you’re trying to shoot Lady Une, but in a universe full of absurd people, it just works. Had this show tried to take itself more seriously, I probably still would have hated you, but it was all ridiculous enough that you and your ideas fit right in. So yeah, it would be awful nice if all it took was one person to stand up and say “We need to all drop our weapons and stop fighting” for it to actually happen - even if they had to say it a few different times before the message got across successfully. But in the end it’s kind of nice that it at least works out in a universe so driven by passionate if crazy people, lol.

I just found out that this series changed writers AND directors halfway through the show, and, honestly, that makes so, so much sense.

Was also seriously confused when I got to the end. I was SURE there was at least one scene missing! Wasn’t there a scene where the pilots all made it back to MO-II? Turns out, there was, but it wasn’t part of the series itself, only an old VHS OVA. Must have come across it back in the day, and was happy to see it at least kinda survived the years thanks to someone uploading it about a decade ago. Wonder if I still have my own copies of that somewhere...

Lastly, I just wanna say that I love Duo. He’s great. Probably one of - if not the - most sane character on the show. Which is funny as he likes to go around yelling about how he’s a shinigami all the time. XD He was my first cosplay, and this trip down memory lane reminded me of why I liked him enough to choose him first. It has also reminded me that at the time I also had a much bigger, more complicated dream cosplay... one that I could actually probably tackle now from time, money, and skill standpoints... who knows, maybe that Deathscythe Hell Custom cosplay I dreamed about back in the day could actually be a thing! lol

Well. That was fun. Just wanted to get some thoughts out. I enjoyed myself on this watch through of one of my earlier anime!

[icarusdusoleil]

Thank you so much for the replies! I never thought my blabbering about Gundam Wing would actually get a response! 

arinhelmelleide said: This is beautiful and I love you. Do much is this resonates with me (except for Relena, cause I’ve always loved her ;P)

Ahaha, I’m so happy that I like Relena now, because she’s such a great character. I just really like how she never compromises her beliefs. I also think that she’s really the character who matures the most over the course of the series and I find that really cool.

sicone said: I need more Gundam Wing in my dashboard, thank you for this. Personally, I appreciate Relena’s character but I can’t ever seem to like her. I disliked Wufei until I read the backstory if there pilots, not I just want to give that boy a hug and tell him all will be well just like the rest of them!

I also need more Gundam Wing on my dash and I just wish that we had even more of this story, because it’s just so good. And I totally get what you mean about appreciating Relena, but not liking her. I suppose I also feel that way about Wufei, because his character really makes sense in context of his backstory and his own belief system and he is still a great character and very pivotal to the story. Mostly, his personality just doesn’t really jive with mine and that’s mainly why I’ve never liked him unfortunately. That being said, I do love his rivalry with Treize and their final confrontation will forever be one of my favourite moments in the series. I could gush about that moment ahaha, but I think I’ll spare you unless you want me to...

[reversemoon255]

Gundam Wing HD Remaster Review

So a few months ago, Gundaminfo, the official Gundam YouTube Channel, started uploading the full run of Gundam Wing HD Remaster, which I proceeded to watch all of, with the final episodes being uploaded last Friday. If you’re curious about the show I recommend going to check it out, as it is free to watch.

Gundam Wing was my first Gundam series, all the way back when Toonami was a weekday thing in the afternoons. It’s what got me into Gundam, and part of the reason I’m still a fan today. I loved it as a kid, but as an adult?

The Good: If you’re from America and have even a passing knowledge of Gundam, these are the suits you think of when you hear that name. Wing, Deathscythe, Heavyarms; this series is packed with a lot of memorable MS designs. I personally have a lot more love for the Leo than the Zaku, and if they ever do an HG release of one expect a lot of customs as I will be maxing out my shopping cart. It’s not just the Leo, either. The Aries, Cancer, Pieces, Taurus, I love almost all the MS designs from this show.

Onto the show proper, it keeps the action pretty intense, and there’s almost no episode that goes by without some form of Mobile Suit fight, which were problems I had with both SEED and IBO. While this show has plenty of dumb dialogue, it also has a lot of action to keep you invested when that starts to get old and repetitive. And while I do find the dialogue to be, well, bad, when you boil it down there are a few moral nuggets to pull out of it. Mostly the automatization of war stuff, which is more a thing now than it was at the show’s release.

I’ll also say that there were several characters that I hated when they were introduced that I found actually grew on me as the series went on. Lady Une is a good example of that. I was actively wishing someone would off her in the first...12 episodes she was in, but was legitimately sad when she dropped out of the show half-way-through. Same thing with Eyebrows Dorothy. She was really obnoxious at the beginning, but I grew to love her crazy as I watched her joyously gesticulate about the wonders of war.

The So Bad It’s Good: The dialogue and scenarios in the show are ridiculous. Nobody in this show talks like a normal person. Even Duo and Quatre, the two most seemingly normal people, regularly spout tons of existential crap that makes little sense. I seriously got through 30 episodes of this show by just laughing at how wonky the writing was. And did I mention stuff like this:

There is literally a scene where Treize takes a bubble bath on top of a hill under a Roman-style veranda, talking to his secretary. Who does that!? There are a few situations like this in the beginning of the show. They sadly peter out as it goes on, but they were fun while they were there.

The Bad: The bad dialogue couldn’t save the entire show for me. I’m surprised it lasted me as long as it did. After if wore off, it became a tremendous slog to get through. It picked up again around when Libra started, but it was still a touch-and-go few weeks.

There’s also the fact that a lot of stuff doesn’t make sense, which I felt was at its worst near the end of the show. Like, there’s this scene where Quatre is directing everyone using the Zero System, but how his instructions actually work, how they instantaneously turn the situation around, and how he is able to predict his opponent despite this being their first battle and never having said two words to them before this scene is never explained.

Also, the animation isn’t that great. It certainly gets better around the time the opening sequence changes, but stock footage plagues this show from start to stop. There are even scenes where it’s half-good and half-bad which makes it really noticeable. Seriously, watch the scene where Relena goes to Libra for the first time (coincidentally the only scene she and Milliardo are in the same room together, over 40 episodes in). There’s a few shots where Milliardo is heavily shaded and she isn’t and it’s super distracting.

Speaking of Relena and the characters in general, barely anyone is explained in this show. Like, try explaining to me how Relena goes from rich schoolgirl to queen. Or why Wu Fei calls his Gundam Nataku. I know why he does it, but they never say it in the show, which is a shame because it adds a lot to his character if you know why. Which is another character issue! Literally all we know about the Gundam Pilots is there direct present, what we see them go through and nothing else. This show has no flashbacks, which I find a detriment since we know absolutely nothing about these characters other than what they go through, which would be fine if three of them weren’t stoic and emotionless! None of the main characters have any motivation. You shouldn’t have to look up supplemental material to make a show make sense; it can add to it, but it shouldn’t feel necessary.

And, I know there’s been a lot of them but this is my last negative point: there is no humor in this show. It was 49 Episodes of childish politics pretending to be deep and fighting. That’s it. Despite how often I laughed at this show, I never felt like I was supposed to do that. It might be the most dry of any Gundam show or movie I’ve ever watched. And I have watched several.

The Ugly: When I was planning this review out I wasn’t planning on doing an Ugly. I was just going to add in the bad it’s good section in its place and that’s it. But as I reached Episode 46 I had an epiphany:

00 did it better. 00 literally took a ton of elements from this and UC and made a better Wing out of it. It’s dialogue is easier to follow, the animation is overall great, the characters are much more down to earth and act as a team throughout the show rather than just at the end, we actually learn things about them and their motivations, its supplemental material adds to the show while not being necessary, and it has actual levity to it.

Overall, this series feels like it was targeted toward a teenage demographic, and when I was a teenager I loved it. Now coming back as an adult, it shows the test of time and its flaws in spades. It was still my first Gundam, and I will always love aspects of it, but its writing is not one of them.

[ninthfeather]

Gundam IBO Gundam Wing

Okay, for the record, setting this in a fictional timeline in which everyone is simultaneously alive and present. Also I didn’t watch the last half-season of IBO so I am unaware of things that happened in that period of time.

the characters i’d ship

Honestly probably no one.  Honestly, I’m not much of a shipper, even in crossovers.  

the characters who would be BFFs

Relena and Kudelia, definitely--they have very similar backstories and positions and they tend to try to make allies first before making enemies.  Also probably Atra and Catherine Bloom, as both of those two are “caring sister” types with spines of absolute freakin’ steel underneath (and a fair bit of childhood trauma; Catherine’s an orphan who grew up in a circus after all).  Those two would probably also get along with Biscuit and Hilde, who are smart and used to hanging back in support roles and would also be friends, I think.

Lady Une and Fumitan would get each other.  They might not talk much but they’d hang out.  Their personalities are similar enough.

Sally Po, Merribit Stapleton, and Nady Yukinojo Kassapa would form a sort of informal commiseration group, most likely with alcohol, dedicated to the subject of “why won’t these kids stay out of the fighting.”  If you adhere to Sally’s (ridiculously young for her appearance and role) canon age, she can have sparkling grape juice.

the characters who would be enemies

With regard to Treize, Zechs, McGillis and Gaelio...well, it depends on which point in canon I’m considering them to be at exactly how many of them are fighting each other, but it’s safe to say that during a crossover the protagonists wouldn’t actually have to worry about them, because they’d be too busy fighting each other, in one configuration or another.   All of them are capable of being goal-oriented but are able to be derailed by a good challenge, which the others present.  Whoops.

We’re just going to hope that Relena doesn’t find out about the Turbines.  She will jump to very bad conclusions and probably attempt to “liberate” a bunch of very capable robot pilots and support staff from their place of work and chosen refuge.  She would not like Naze, and even if she found out that the harem thing was a cover, she’d still probably disapprove.  I think she’s capable of learning the value of subterfuge but in canon that isn’t a thing she’s yet managed.

the characters who would be allies

Quatre and Orga would very quickly work out that there were enough similarities in their goals to make collaboration worthwhile, and further, that the other was sharp enough to make collaboration a rewarding experience.

They would probably end up making an arrangement by which the entire Tekkadan and the Gundam pilots would be somewhat allied.  In a formal fashion that wasn’t too binding and allowed for the fact that Quatre’s got a Heero and a Duo and Orga’s got a Mika and a Eugene.

the characters who would be allies, but reluctantly

Lucretia Noin, Crank Zent, Naze Turbine and Amida Arca are reluctantly invited to the drinking-and-commiseration group.  Noin’s and Zent’s invitations are reluctant because they keep fighting the children, Naze’s is so because he “runs a harem” and lets some of the 18yos in it fight (and Amida is party to it).  Naze, of course, isn’t about to tell strangers about the whole flying women’s shelter thing, and Merribit and Nady are keeping his secrets for him, so Sally still objects to his inclusion.

Mika and Heero are too alike and too paranoid to trust one another but since both groups are in some senses fighting for their respective sets of colonies both of them would have to buckle down and get along.

the characters who would drive each other bananas

Wufei and...really, most of the Tekkadan would absolutely grate on each other’s nerves.  It gets exaggerated in fic, Wufei doesn’t go around yelling “Honor!” in canon, but ideologically, he does fight according to a code of honor, the same way Crank Zent did.  Zent’s death was a demonstration of how foreign that concept is to the Tekkadan.  They fight to survive; ethics and codes don’t enter into their considerations, so Wufei approaching those subjects would fray tempers fast.  And their refusal to listen to his input would tick Wufei off just as badly.

Duo would take personal offense at Eugene’s grumpiness and probably try to fix it.  He might at least not go after Mika once it became clear that Mika was even more likely to shoot him than Heero, but Eugene?  Eugene is getting teased until he loosens the heck up.  Eugene will not appreciate this.

the characters i think are the most alike

Kudelia and Relena start from a very similar place.  I feel like Kudelia is something like what I would have liked to see happen with Relena.

my favorite character from each fandom & how i think they would get along

Duo and Orga...they’d be dangerous.  Orga would have a plan and Duo would make suggestions of how to make it more effective but also like 2 times more risky (which is never a thing that Orga’s plans need to begin with, mind!) and it would work, because Duo is in fact that good, in addition to being an actual daredevil with a superweapon. Duo, meanwhile, loves Orga’s plans, though he does like to...embellish.  Usually with extra explosions.  Orga, who’s used to Mika following plans to the letter, doesn’t like this at first, but Duo’s additions usually work, and he learns to go with it.

Send me two or more fandoms and I will answer questions about a crossover!

[bryony-rebb]

books that make me think of gundam wing

Or, an excuse to name drop some (sci fi) books I like. Bahahaha!

1) Altered Carbon, by Richard Morgan It’s been some years now since I read this and memory is fading. It’s nothing like GW really - it’s a futuristic film noir-ish private eye story at heart. There’s a hotel which is an AI Jimi Hendrix, I remember that much. It was a fun read. I also remember that it was this book which, in a throwaway couple of lines near the end, suddenly made the entire GW AC universe make sense to me. I don’t even remember what the actual lines were anymore, but I remember that feeling of epiphany really clearly. Up until I read this book, I’d totally dismissed all the funny little anachronisms in GW - the old fashioned military uniforms, Romefeller, etc etc - as just that. Kinda meaningless stuff the animators thought would look cool or charming to offset the fact GW is supposed to be some futuristic world. And then suddenly realizing, OH, THERE ARE REASONS FOR THIS? IT ALL MAKES PERFECT SENSE?!?! Totally game changing for me, especially when it comes to worldbuilding in fanfic.

2) Ancillary Justice, by Ann Leckie Again, nothing overtly to do with GW, I think I just take everything that I love - aw, hell, just everything I randomly encounter in the world - and jump up and down on it until it fits into my GW Box. It’s a habit I can’t quit. But I do love this book. Gender ambiguity where everyone’s referred to as “she”? Yes please! I always envision Lieutenant Awn as Noin, which makes me love her even more. And the setting - a far flung future where everyone drinks tea and wears gloves does make me think of OZ - and especially of Treize. That incredible intimacy, to the point that it’s honestly kind of kinky, of just taking off a glove to touch a person with your own hand, your bare flesh. Yes hello, I’m definitely looking at you, Treize. And hopefully one of these days that will somehow come across in the 13x9 lemon I’m now committed to writing. (I can’t unsee it, so it must be done!)

3) Annihilation, by Jeff VanderMeer I just really wanna read this book as a GW AU. Strong female characters and unexplained, unsettling, ominous, vaguely creepy mission-style plot, really, what is not to love. It just makes me wanna read about Sally and Une on some kind of doomed mission together, trekking through an unforgiving jungle, lost, probably gonna die. That kinda vibe.

4) Hedda Gabler, by Henrik Ibsen I know, not sci fi... not even really a book. I just keep hoping that if I say this loudly enough and often enough someone else will eventually jump on this bandwagon with me! (What, there’s no 19th-century Norwegian drama nerds out there? :P) But seriously... Dorothy is Hedda Gabler. Dorothy IS Hedda Gabler. Like, after joining up with Miliardo and White Fang, she hands Relena a gun and tries to see if she can get her to assassinate him - Dorothy is freaking Hedda Gabler! Ah well, one day I’ll finish this darn fanfiction, and it will be glorious haha. And until then I will just keep pushing this bandwagon every opportunity I get... :)

[gw-frozen-yogurt]

*art by the amazing Kevin Wada*

When you watch Gundam Wing, you start noticing a really huge thing.

This is a world where the poor and the oppressed have gone off to space in search for a new life, while the ruling classes have been left to rot on Earth in a stew of tradition and stagnation.

The characters of Earth are white; the characters from space are mostly people of color.

(First off, disclaimer: it’s a goddam shame that mostly all of the characters are coded as white regardless of their background. And also- WHERE ARE THE BLACK PEOPLE? Anime is largely shit at depicting any race other than the “default,” which, interestingly enough, depends on who’s watching it. I don’t remember my first watch all that much, but I bet I thought Heero was white (or likely, I didn’t even think about his race at all, since he looked “white”), while the Japanese have no trouble accepting Heero as Japanese. Still, the following essay is a bit of conjecture that largely doesn’t matter in the actual series. It’s not a show about race relations or the plight of minorities. But the creators did make it clear what race each character is, which indicates that race is just as big a factor in the future of AC 195 as it is today.)

Let’s review the backgrounds of our main characters, the Gundam pilots. 3 out of 5 are POC, and the other 2 are unclear (but probably white).

1) Heero: Everyone thinks Heero is Japanese, but he’s actually listed as a Nikkeijin, which just means Japanese heritage. It makes more sense now that he's a blue-eyed Japanese, seeing as it's canon now his father is Odin Lowe. In Japan, citizenship and ethnicity are inescapably linked, as 99% of Japanese citizens are of Japanese ancestry, and most people born to Japanese immigrants abroad are considered “Nikkeijin” even if they are 100% Japanese in ethnicity. It could be that Japan no longer exists on this version of Earth, or that the L1 colonies are no longer considered a part of Japan. 2) Duo: Listed as a descendent of American settlers of the L2 colonies. Duo reads pretty white to me, but he could be anything really, seeing as American is not an ethnicity (unfortunately, most Japanese equate American with being white). 3) Trowa: Listed as unknown. Trowa also reads white to me, but many sources list him as Latin. I don’t think that’s canon, but I like the idea, which could give a wide variety of backgrounds. My head-canon is he's Latin American (and not actually related to Catherine Bloom), just because there aren't any South American representatives in Gundam Wing. 4) Quatre: Listed as Middle Eastern, though he's also biracial with his mother being French. However, I know they were going for a Lawrence of Arabia vibe with Quatre (the only white person in a sea of brown faces), so it’s kind of ridiculous to applaud him as some awesome representation of a main character of Arabic origin...I’m conflicted on that.  I do love seeing representations of him with darker skin and fair hair. I also love how the most gentle and sensitive of the pilots is a Middle Eastern boy. Can you imagine a character like Quatre today?   5) Wufei: Pretty interestingly, he's listed as “Chuugokujin,” which in Japanese refers both to both Chinese ethnicity and citizenship (It can certainly refer to just ethnicity, but as Heero was referred to as a Nikkeijin, I thought this was an interesting comparison). China as a country still exists in Gundam Wing’s world (we do it see a portion of it when Sally meets Wufei), and the culture of the L5 colony still closely resembles its origin point, unlike the other colonies which don’t contain those sorts of cultural markers. 

Now let’s look at the Earth-based characters. Relena: White Zechs: White Noin: White Treize: White Dorothy: White The whole of the Romafeller Foundation: White

(Of the Earth characters, only Sally Po is a quarter Chinese, and Lady Une is unknown if I recally correctly. The only time you clearly encounter people of color on Earth is when Duo and Quatre take refuge in the Maguanac village around episode 12-13, and when Wufei and Sally are fighting in China around that time as well. And those people are extremely oppressed by the ruling OZ regime)

They hit the point home hard with those formal outfits. The Earth characters look like they’re from the 18th century, the age of European imperialism. Why would a society regress to this?

I believe this regression is the reason for minority flight to outer space. Or maybe, because minorities started to flee to space, society regressed back to this point.

I think there were some horrific tragedies on Earth in the time since the space colonies were founded. America is a non-player in the Gundam Wing universe - what happened to the global hegemon of the 21st century? Earth is ruled by European interests, and the only places you see in America are military bases. The same thing with Japan, China, most of Africa. You never get to see how the little people live on Earth, even though the scenes on the colonies are chock full of people living their lives.

My head-canon is there may have been a huge global war on Earth at some point. There may have been a huge economic depression. Perhaps it was the colonies that sparked this off, as building these massive satellites must have taken so many resources and energy. I can see China, Japan, the USA competing to build their colonies, fighting for resources until an ultimate resource war. Then European interests may have banded together to prevent more fighting from happening, ultimately crushing weakened countries in order to get them under control.

During this strife, the poor and working classes may have traveled to space for a better life than on Earth. And that would be mostly non-white people.

In this vision of humanity’s future, humans were once again being crushed by powerful land owners in Europe who thought they were superior. It’s no wonder these countries looked to space to regain their power.  

In a way, Gundam Wing is about the struggle of the poor and the minorities to break free from the ruling classes, the capitalist top of society. They're trying to make a new life in the colonies, and the Earth is dragging them backwards.

And it is the members of those oppressed classes that end up saving humanity in the end.

[untitledtallgeesepodcast]

[TRANCRIPT] EPISODE 14: ROAD TRIP (NO APOLOGIES)

Cathy  00:03

Hello and welcome back to Untitled Tallgeese Podcast, a podcast where four old friends rewatch and discuss Gundam Wing. I am Cathy, your moderator for this episode, and I am joined as always, by Kat, Mallory, and Caitlin. If you have been following along, you know that this week's episode — Episode 27, Locus of Victory and Defeat and Episode 28, Passing Destinies — are recap episodes, following the unofficial Season Finale from last time. As mentioned previously, we will be spending the bulk of this episode discussing a topic near and dear to all of our hearts, Gundam Wing fanfic from the early 2000ish through the lens of one very special fic, Road Trip by Sunhawk.  But first, there isn't a lot to talk about that's new in episodes 27 and 28, but I would be remiss if I didn't mention two bits of new information we got. First, that Relena has switched wardrobes, and is now in a Sanc Kingdom school uniform. And she no longer is informing Heero that he needs to come over here and kill her but rather to return to her, echoing Quatre's telepathic insight into Heero's Golden Aura from the end of Episode 26. And second, Treize is now being placed under house arrest by the Romefeller Foundation for his speech in front of Duke Dermail. At the end of Episode 28 we see that he's not alone in house arrest, but rather joined by a ghostly Lady Une still in her peaceful ambassador outfit, who joins Treize, as he looks at blueprints of yet another mysterious Gundam-like mobile suit on his laptop, which spoiler alert, is Epyon. I think, you know, these are interesting episodes. And Caitlin, I know you had something to say about the way the recaps are done in 27 and 28.

Caitlin  01:45

Yeah, I think that it's really interesting how they, I mean, that new information comes to us via these framing narratives, where you have Relena, and a little bit Heero, and then Treize narrating everything that's happened to them. So we get a Relena narration where she's much more strongly identifying herself as the ruler of the Sanc Kingdom. And then we get a Treize narration that links together a lot of his dubious political thought, in the midst of his defeat.

Kat  02:18

It felt like the first time we really understood like, exactly what Lady Une thought his politics were, or his plans were and how he changed those plans, like explicitly.

Cathy  02:29

Yes, there was this moment where he reflects on the beauty of where he is trapped, which I believe is the Luxembourg base, but I don't know if they ever say that. And he articulates it as if to say, "this is what I wanted to preserve. This is what I joined OZ thinking it was to preserve," and then traces his change in thought, which I don't remember that ever coming through necessarily. What he thought he was doing originally before he became the Treize that we know.

Kat  02:56

Cathy, I did want to say that it felt like Treize was really reciting from your theory of anime from last episode when he talks about these "warriors with rebellious wings," and how their like purity of spirit completely changed his life.

Cathy  03:12

Yes, I love it. I felt like [laughter]--

Mallory  03:15

Yeah, I wrote, "Cathy! strong wills, what purity! theory of anime!" in my notes. So there you go. 

Caitlin  03:22

Now we have to address the possibility that Cathy is Treize. Treize was God, he was Hannibal, and now he's Cathy. 

Cathy  03:28

It does, I think, speak to why I've always found Treize a really fascinating character, even if I think he is a huge asshole, and none of his ideas make any sense. But you know, I am always drawn to this idea of people who, and I think I phrased it as "get sucked into other people's deranged orbits?" and Treize is both a person who creates a deranged orbit around himself [laughter] and also gets sucked into the orbit of the Gundam pilots, so I do love that about him.

Caitlin  03:56

Interesting. That explains a lot about you, but also makes me understand Treize a little bit better framing him that way.

Kat  04:03

I know you're sick of her but I did like that Une finally figured out the soul of OZ, that the purpose of battles isn't limited to making ideals into reality.

Mallory  04:11

Since you brought it up... why does Treize refer to her as like, my love? Or beloved? He says, "Lady Une, my love, rest in peace." So is the show trying to make me believe that Treize has feelings for Lady Une? 

Kat  04:26

Is it just awkward writing?

Caitlin  04:28

I think it's just awkward writing but also kind of that. I think the dub at least -- and I only listened to the dub this time -- decided that Treize was in love with her and is going with that.

Kat  04:39

Both of these episodes felt very much like, "Hey, remember this heterosexual pairing?"

Cathy  04:44

Yes! And I remember one time we talked about whether or not this show actually ships heterosexual pairings or just, they thought they were but they're just so horrible at writing heterosexual romances [laughter] that everything comes off really strange and this is definitely an example of that. Like, I could see both sides of this, that we are supposed to believe that Treize had romantic feelings for Lady Une and then it just was written so poorly because nobody on the show has met a real woman before. [laughter] Or, and I guess this would be my interpretation, it isn't that he is like romantically interested in her or was in love with her. But she was very important to him and represented, you know, one of the people that I think he wielded the biggest influences on and that touches him deeply. And her quote unquote, fate being that she is, quote unquote, dead at the end of Episode 26 weighs heavily on him.

Caitlin  05:40

But she's not dead. [laughing] Why does he say it? I know that in the episode, it's meant to be a fake out like, Oh, we know, we saw Lady Une die. And then Treize is talking to her as though she's dead so it's really not until the very end of episode 28 that we get the reveal that she's alive. It doesn't make a lot of sense.

Cathy  05:59

So let's address fake outs because there are characters talking in episodes 27 and 28, and I'm not sure if we are supposed to believe that they're talking at the time of the flashback footage being shown to us, or afterwards, right now, in the world of Episode 28.

Kat  06:16

I think Relena's was the only narration that actually seems like 100% anchored to what we were looking at. So... like Treize definitely we hear his earlier thoughts at the beginning and then he explains how they've changed, but with Heero it's just sort of like A, and then B. 

Mallory  06:34

Right, when Heero in Episode 27 says, "I don't consider the other Gundam pilots my comrades, I've never had comrades from the start," I have no idea if this narration is trying to tell me that Heero at this point in time currently, after Episode 26, does not believe the Gundam pilots are his friends. Or if he's referring to how he felt back then.

Caitlin  07:00

I under-understood that as definitely he's talking about that point in the flashback.

Cathy  07:05

It is kind of thrown out there. And it seems like by now he would have had so much interaction with these guys, especially at least with Trowa, that it would be kind of wild for him to say that [laughing]

Caitlin  07:18

He considers Trowa his comrade boyfriend, y'know? [cat meows in background]

Mallory  07:20

It was making me laugh because we've been reading this fic, this road trip arc. And it's kind of incredible how much this arc -- and we'll talk about this -- how much this arc and formed my idea of what the Gundam pilots' relationships were or like, their, their relationship dynamics or that they /had/ relationships with each other. So when I read all these fic, I was thinking like, "Wow, I didn't see any of this coordination in the show. Like there are no safe houses in the episodes that I watched. Oh, that like, it's okay, that must have come later." And now I'm later in the series, [laughing] and I'm finding out that actually, they interact very tangentially for the most part, where I was imagining a lot more camaraderie as the episodes progressed.

Kat  08:11

I know in Episode Zero, you were really distraught to learn that it's not like, "let's all five meet up and team up!" ... 

Mallory  08:19

Yeah!

Kat  08:19

...kind of anime

Mallory  08:21

I mean, I'm really enjoying where it's going now. And I enjoy the sort of bits of relationships that we're getting and the ways that their personalities bounce off each other. And that's what makes, that's what makes Gundam Wing such a rich field to mine for fic, because you get all of these like, glimpses of what these characters could be to each other, within the canon of the show. And it's really easy for writers like Sunhawk to kind of just like, take them and run.

Cathy  08:52

Yes, so let's talk about Road Trip by Sunhawk. Road Trip is part of a larger, 17 part series called the Road Trip Arc by its fans. We are going to be talking mostly about just the first installment -- which is actually barely shippy. Like there are hints of the relationship that will come to be especially the 1x2 part of it. And the rest of the series is very staunchly 1x2 with background 3x4, question mark with Wufei, which I'd really love to talk about later. But at least in the first part, it's kind of more of a, I don't know if action story is the right word...  You know, it starts at some unspecified time in the canon. Heero and Duo are escaping a mission that is kind of going south. They land on earth, on a beach. Heero is badly injured, Duo is you know, kind of beat up but is still mostly functional. You know, he's not internally bleeding and concussed, which is what Heero is. So he's forced to drive them to safety, and eventually to a rendezvous point where the idea is that Quatre and the others will pick them up. But when they get there OZ is basically hot on their heels. So Duo is able to leave Heero, basically in secluded cover, but he has to redirect OZ's attention, which gets him into more trouble. And he almost essentially drowns. So exhausted, pummeled within an inch of his life, he limps his way back to a safe house, again, unspecified location, or why he knows that that thing is there, but whatever, where all the rest of the pilots are staying at. So that's Quatre, Trowa, and Wufei. Heero's already in the hospital, you know, Duo basically passes out. He's given immediate medical attention, including drugs that cause him to lash out and nearly kill everybody around him. But finally, Heero, near death himself, manages to sneak out of his hotel--hospital room to sit by Duo's side, which calms Duo down and the fic ends with them having this really cute exchange about Duo's IVs.  So I did want to talk about the landscape of fanfic reading at this time, before we really dive deep into Road Trip itself. Do you guys have any memories, you know, or impressions of what it was like at the time when you first started reading Gundam Wing fanfic?

Caitlin  11:12

I remember that... I'm pretty sure I read this fic on a site that had either an all black background with white text; a sepia tinted background, that was like, you know, like a light, brownish, and then like a sort of off gray text. Because back in 2000, the only HTML any of us knew was how to change background color and how to change font color. You could put one image... They had gifs back then. And I don't, that's probably why my eyes are bad now. [laughter]

Kat  11:45

Yeah, it was either like very weirdly colored websites or really, really intensely over-styled websites, where it like, it's a little pop up and it's butterfly-shaped.

Mallory  11:58

Yeah. And there's like glitter and sparkles when you move your mouse and stuff. I didn't have fast like, I didn't get DSL until really late, like I was a senior in high school. So all of these websites just like crashed our internet constantly. [laughing] It was, it was hard for me to read those kinds of archives and stuff. 

Caitlin  12:22

The point here is that these fics were hosted on like, a bunch of different sites. And it was just small, privately run, I guess you could say archives, like it's like it's one person who wants to save all the Gundam Wing fic in the world. Which is actually why we have Road Trip preserved on AO3, Archive of Our Own, which is that it's part of the Open Doors Project where a archivist by the name of Dacia used to run a site called A Little Piece of Gundam Wing, she was really into Duo. She read pretty much every Duo pairing if I recall correctly, like she was really into like all Duo pairings and she started collecting fic from various places where like, she-she wanted to curate like the best fic in her mind. So she would like ask authors, "Oh, can I host this on my site too?" after finding the fic other places and so she collected a bunch of, a bunch of fic. And as probably a lot of us know, Archive of Our Own, which is run by the Organization for Transformative Works, has a program called Open Doors where they will import archives that are closing, fanfiction archives that are closing, or that the maintainers just don't want to maintain anymore. So they maintain, they import them wholesale from the original archive and put them on Archive of Our Own.

Kat  13:49

It's pretty great because there are tons of fic from that time period that I wish I could remember or find or go back and to be able to like even search stuff on AO3 that was on those is great.

Cathy  14:02

So we've talked about this before, but that's where Gundam Wing Addiction is actually pretty funny because they did rescue some of these sites. You know, we talked about the Izumi Fountain District with Alexe Cinz stuff last time, but they also rescued, I want to say it's Lev or Levwolf or something like that? 

Kat  14:23

Leviathan's Lair. 

Cathy  14:25

The-the Leviathan's Lair. There we go. 

Kat  14:26

Ooh, I remember this site. Wow--

Mallory  14:28

Yeah

Kat  14:28

Looking at this site is like getting slapped in the face. 

Cathy  14:31

Yeah, I definitely read a lot of fic on A Little Piece of Gundam Wing, which I remember had a lot of text that was like accent text in orange [laughter]. And one of my favorite authors. well, they were an author pair, TB and Marsh, they were hosted on A Little Piece of Gundam Wing, that's where I first discovered them. But same thing with Sunhawk, who wrote two really famous series you know, Road Trip is the first one -- and in my memory, the more famous one although I think some people might say it's the Ion Arc, which I really don't remember anymore. 

Kat  15:06

No, like reading Road Trip -- it's sort of like if I didn't read Road Trip, I read a bunch of fics like it, but the Ion Arc doesn't really ring a bell. 

Cathy  15:15

Ok, yeah. So it was also the one that was easiest to talk about because the first part of Ion isn't really meaty enough, I think to talk about whereas Road Trip, the first installment is almost perfectly self-encompassing of a lot of stuff. In terms of dates, you know, I cannot find a definitive date of when Sunhawk first wrote and posted Road Trip, the first archive I could find that was still crawled by Web Archive, thank you Web Archive, was from November 2001 on Steelsong, who was another moderator of a large network of websites, a lot of which were Gundam Wing websites and specifically had their own Gundam Wing fanfic archive. By the time that Steelsong had put Sunhawk on their site, which was some time around November 2001, Sunhawk had already written much of Road Trip, she had already written the first six installments, which is a lot of fic. And at that time, at least in 2001, 2002, Sunhawk was writing Road Trip concurrently with Ion.  My suspicion is that Sunhawk probably first wrote this on a mailing list, you know, the 1x2 mailing list was a really popular one at the time, and so maybe it was that she first started there and then later got into the archives. But this would mean that Sunhawk probably started writing Gundam Wing fic right after Gundam Wing's run on Toonami in 2000.  So another thing I did want to point out is that we are really lucky now that Gundam Wing is available on streaming on Hulu, that there's all these wiki sites that we could basically find all the information we would want. It's possible that Sunhawk did not actually have a way to fact check anything that she was writing at the time. And so you know, one thing I did want to talk about with the fic was this indeterminate canon timeline issue, I don't know when in the series, this was supposed to happen. You know, Deathscythe is called Deathscythe. Much later in the series, Wufei's Gundam is referred to as Altron, which is his second Gundam. But we don't ever get this kidnapping phase that happens in the fic. So I don't know. But then again, I realized when I was Sunawk in 2001, how was she supposed to have checked that? Right?

Kat  17:29

I think also, nobody gave a shit back then. [laughs] 

Mallory  17:32

Yeah. Like, it's also sort of like, did it really matter to your enjoyment? Like, you have all the elements of the Gundam Wing pilots and them interacting and the shipping, and like, it doesn't really matter what canon we're supposed to be in because we're already out of, outside of canon.

Kat  17:52

I feel like there were only like two timelines for fic and it was basically like pre-Endless Waltz and then post-Endless Waltz. I never really felt like, even though there's definitely a definitive plot split between, like, from all the episodes we've seen, and all the episodes we're about to see, I never really felt like fic did.

Caitlin  18:12

It's, it's sort of an interesting question in like Film Studies, where, you know, up until VHS, there was no way to really rewatch a movie that you were writing about. So a lot of film criticism and film theory was written by people who had only like, watched the movie once. So there's, it's kind of like a pathology we have nowadays that we can rewatch everything over and over again, so we can get this sort of like perfect timeline, this perfect like, sense of a film. Whereas in the past, like nobody ever watched anything like that. And there are, there are some film theorists nowadays who's still argue for that as like the true model of cinema, though obviously, that's much less prominent now. That, that gets into my whole idea of fanfic as a form of like interpretation, like fanfic is like a type of criticism of the original series. 

Kat  19:01

Yeah, absolutely. And the thing that people wanted more of in Gundam Wing was gay shit and safe houses. 

Mallory & Caitlin  19:08

Yeah. 

Caitlin  19:09

And it's and it's easy to just like put that in. Like reading Road Trip, I wasn't thinking too much about like, where does this fit in the timeline because who cares?

Cathy  19:16

This is a first person POV fic, which in my mind now is pretty rare for big fanfics to be first person POV. But you, Mallory, had noted how much this voice sounded like the dub Duo voice. 

Mallory  19:30

Yeah, she has gotten Duo's voice down. [laughs] I think it's just the slang that she kind of throws in there, the sort of casual way that Duo thinks and speaks feels very "of the show." Like I hear Scott McNeil's voice in my head [laughs] reading her fic is how good I think it is. Like there's like a cheesy earnestness in the dialogue of both the show and the fic that I think like works really well and is like really charming.

Caitlin  20:05

And I think that, so I think Duo's voice is very well established and it is at least, I only read the first two parts, but in the second part which is Heero's first person point of view, Duo's dialogue lines are also very strongly Scott McNeil-esque, I felt. I think Heero's voice is a little bit less distinct. One of my struggles with these fics was like, does this read as Heero to me? Like I really wasn't sure. And I'll say with regards to the first person point of view, maybe this gets us on to a different topic, but there are so many things about this fic where if I opened a fic like this now in 2020, I would hit I would hit the back button so hard. 

Cathy  20:48

No, I want to talk about this, this is a great topic. I love this. 

Caitlin  20:51

So I would never read something with this much violence. I'd always be like, what I don't want to read that, I don't want to read Duo getting beaten up or tortured, or whatever.

Mallory & Kat  21:00

Oh! [laughter]

Caitlin  21:02

I know! I like, I don't, I don't read that sort of fic these days. Like I don't read whump, the ancient genre of whump. [laughs]

Kat  21:10

Oh, whump I guess is like a ancient genre but an everlasting genre to me. 

Caitlin  21:15

Yes.

Kat  21:15

Cathy, when you were trying to classify this fic, I was thinking, "this is definitely whump, pre-slash."

Mallory & Caitlin & Cathy  21:21

Yes, yes. Yes. 

Mallory  21:22

At least part one is pre-slash.

Kat  21:24

Yeah

Caitlin  21:25

And I would never read something like that these days... Like if it was, it was tagged pre-slash, rated M, and I be like, "but how can it be rated M if they don't have sex?" I'd be like, "no, there's got to be some other reason for this to be rated M, I can't handle it. I need to go back." Like I would hit the back button so hard. And I'd be wrong because this fic is really good. 

Kat  21:47

It definitely feels from, from an older time~

Cathy  21:50

Yes, I agree. And I second everything Caitlin said. This fic was surprisingly readable and I know that sounds like a backhanded compliment but what I mean is, I didn't expect it to still sound as good and like something I would see someone write now, but it is. It's still really good, you know the voices are really good, the dialogue are really, is really good. But everything about it screams back button. Like I hated Quatre and Trowa even in this fic. [laughing]

Caitlin  22:19

Oh my god, oh my god [laughter]

Cathy  22:20

[laughter] Even though they do nothing, I hated them. Outside of Gundam Wing I did not ever read whump or hurt/comfort fic, you know, this was just not a genre that I was ever interested in. In Gundam Wing it was almost unavoidable? 

Kat  22:33

I was gonna say there's no way [crosstalk]

Cathy  22:34

because of the plot [crosstalk] So you kind of had to--

Kat

especially if you like Duo--

Cathy

Especially if you liked Duo! And then of course all of the little fandom tropes that kill me now about the fic might actually have not yet been as deeply entrenched in fanon at the time she was writing as they are now but--

Caitlin  22:51

True

Cathy  22:51

Certainly now when I read it, I'm like, well, there's the safe house.

Mallory  22:55

Yeah, it's like a checklist almost. Like oh, there's that mention of Duo's hair smelling like sandalwood,

Cathy  23:02

Yes!

Caitlin  23:02

Why sandalwood?

Mallory  23:03

It was always sandalwood and it was always Duo. Duo's hair always smelled like sandalwood..

Kat  23:08

I mean it might be this fic though, like this is  The the fic, the landscape of fic reading and stuff, there was just less of it and like the people who are into it are like really spending time to find it and stuff. We're talking about different archives, I read like everything on 1x2x1--

Mallory  23:10

Mmhmm

Kat  23:10

Uh wing-- Shinigami and Wing like and so I think it was like, fanon still coalesces pretty fast now but I think because there's less access to source material too it's like so much easier for it to grow like this, just sort of permeate the entire fandom, not just one pairing.

Mallory  23:48

Yeah, I mean like Kat you were saying earlier you may not have read this particular fic but you have definitely read 10 or 15 other ones that are very similar to it in terms of what you can expect from the action and the characters and the pairings.

Kat  24:04

Duo is gonna get hurt. Heero is gonna be angry over something that he doesn't need to be angry about. Trowa is gonna to be a calm head, Quatre's the kind heart. Wufei I like in this because he's like the friend, the bro, instead of the standoffish fifth guy. 

Mallory  24:19

Yeah, 

Kat  24:19

so that's nice--

Caitlin  24:20

Yeah. Wufei good in this but he has a better like,

Kat  24:25

Rapport?

Caitlin  24:25

He has more rapport with Duo than Heero does [laughter]  

Mallory  24:28

Yes. I was going to say--

Caitlin  24:31

I'm sure we were all in on this but I was side shipping Duo and Wufei a lot. Wufei gave him a bath!

Mallory & Kat  24:38

Wufei gets him! 

Cathy  24:40

Do you guys, can I spoil something about the rest of the Road Trip arc? 

Caitlin  24:43

Yes! 

Mallory & Kat  24:44

Yeah. 

Cathy  24:45

So I okay. And I will first give readers this warning, if you do want to read the rest of the installments of Road Trip, there are warnings on AO3 but I must add that there is a significant part of Duo's backstory that deals with rape and trauma and especially rape of Duo when he was very under age so--

Caitlin  25:10

This also something that would be auto back button for me.

Cathy  25:13

Yeah so I have to I have to put in that disclaimer because I don't want people wandering into the rest of the story. Road Trip the first installment is fine but the rest of the story this is, this is a big part of his character so please don't read it if it is triggering. But one thing about Wufei is you find out later he actually has a BIG honkin' crush on Duo and he is almost always--

Mallory 25:36

I must have read this.

Caitlin  25:37

Nooooo!

Cathy  25:37

 He is almost always there basically like helping like pick Duo up and like--

Caitlin  25:43

no [crosstalk] this is too sad!

Cathy  25:43

Supplements this like emotional stuff that like Heero doesn't get because Heero has a bad problem 

Caitlin  25:49

[agonized] Noooo--

Cathy  25:49

in Road Trip of like treating Duo as like too fragile which pisses Duo off  

Kat  

That was a common dynamic. 

Cathy

He comes to this like realization that he's like really in love with Duo but then he has to shelve it because he realizes that Duo and Heero are soulmates? And so he like, he says he'll be a friend forever and he gives like do this plush dragon. And then the whole thing is it's set up to be eventually a Wufei and Sally Po story? But the very last installment -- that is part 16 of the 16 part series -- is essentially a story where Duo has an anxiety freak out while Heero's away. He calls Wufei over to his apartment, they spend a night together completely platonically. Duo realizes that Wufei is like eaten up inside by something that Wufei won't tell Duo about. And it's like this crush, which all of us know because we all read the part with the Wufei point of view, but like Duo didn't get the memo. 

Mallory

Oh my god?

Kat

I picked up on this and I only read one chapter.

Caitlin

I can't handle this.

Cathy

So he's not sure what's happening. And that at the very end, you know, Wu Fei is like basically telling Duo that he doesn't want to start dating Sally Po because he's afraid of like, basically something that like, and he phrases it in a way that makes Duo think he's talking about his former dead wife, but it's actually about Duo. [crosstalk: No!] And Duo says to him, you have to let the past go. And so then Wufei does and call Sally up for a date. 

Kat

Okay, that plush dragon thing just lit up eight synapses.

Caitlin

I hate this.

Kat

I have read this fic, 100%.

Caitlin  25:57

It's possible that this is why I got into 2x5.

Cathy  27:32

So I just had to add this here because like, I truly felt the same way. Like I shipped Wufei and Duo was so hard and the more Heero like became this like, super protective like... I like this story, but I don't buy it as Heero characterization. Like I don't think Heero was very convincing. But I do find Duo and Wufei very convincing in the series. [laughs]

Caitlin  27:51

Yeaaah.

Kat  27:51

I think this is a big problem with a lot of Heero fanon characterization at the time, though, because like the logical conclusion of the fanon characterization of Heero is just a huge asshole nobody wants to date. [laughs] When the Toonami series aired, it was like a ton of 1x2. That was it. It was like 1x2, 3x4 blah, blah but I think as fanon crystallized like pairing diversity also increased.

Caitlin  28:17

Yeah, the thing is that I'm fine reading fanfic between assholes that nobody would want to date. That is, tends to be the type of fanfic that I read anyway. 

Kat  28:27

Look, I get that.

Caitlin  28:27

So Heero being terrible is fine. The problem is that this fic characterizes him as less terrible than he seems to actually be?

Mallory  28:36

Mmm.

Caitlin  28:36

Like, I don't think Heero is this, I don't think he's this protective. I don't think he's this in tune with his feelings. Part Two, really, like, as some of you might know, I never read established relationship fic, so I wasn't going to continue past Part Two anyway. Even though they have a lot of problems, I'm just like, all right, they already confessed their feelings. I'm not interested anymore. But I just found it really hard to believe that Heero would be able to confess his feelings or even like, recognize love, emotions, or romance that early on. 

Kat  29:10

It's the combined problem of he's an asshole who no one would want a date and the fic is still trying to convince me that him and Duo are like really great together in general. So I wrote a lot of Gundam Wing fic in middle school, so I consumed so much of it on [laughing] fanfiction.net and the characterization ended up getting really, really far removed even further removed than this fic from the actual show, I guess.

Cathy  29:35

So one thing I did want to point out, it's less obvious in Part One, but becomes increasingly obvious as you move through this arc is the total lack or mention of Relena Peacecraft. And, and I mean it, she is not mentioned once in this entire fic, which is odd because it goes from middle of the canon through until the post-Endless Waltz and then [laughter] seven to eight years, and seven to eight years after--

Mallory  30:05

Wow 

Cathy  30:05

the end of Endless Waltz, which, and again at by the end of this fic series, spoilers, Duo, Wufei, and Heero all work for the Preventers. So it seems very [laughter] weird that none of them would interact with Relena. So like I did--

Caitlin  30:14

It seems like they would run into Relena sometime [laughter]. 

Cathy  30:21

I did want to open the floor to talk about Relena Peacecraft and her place in Gundam Wing fanfic.

Kat  30:29

Well, so either you're a het shipper so you're, you're, you're doing fine, your Heero is probably very different. [laughter]

Caitlin  30:41

Wait, let's let's be clear that there were a lot of het shippers

Kat  30:44

Yes.

Caitlin  30:44

And they still are there. There was a lot of het shipping in the Japanese fandom too. I think Heero and Relena were popular. 

Kat  30:51

Duo and Hilde. 

Caitlin  30:53

And the official media that came out was like, oh Duo and Hilde. And, oh Heero and Relena.

Cathy  30:58

Yeah.

Kat  30:59

Relena and fanfiction so you're a het -- you could be a het shipper, so then she's in it a lot. 

Mallory

Or you hate her and she's a monster and she's the the thing standing between Heero and Duo falling in love or being together, which I feel like I read a lot of.

Kat  31:15

She could be shipping them but that was way more rare I thought and then like just not having her around.

Caitlin  31:22

So like, from the perspective of the contemporary moment, it looks bad to just not write Relena at all in your 300,000 word fic about characters who talk to Relena all the time. Like it seems bad 

Kat  31:38

But! 

Caitlin  31:39

but she was so controversial that I could see like I can see the logic of just not including her.

Kat  31:45

And as a reader I, I often preferred that she just kind of not be there be like very peripheral over... like I think at the beginning I really enjoyed the like Relena hating because there's just very viscerally satisfying, but later on, I was like, hmmm.

Caitlin  32:01

The other option is like, write a explainer about why your Heero in your fic doesn't love Relena, he only loves Duo. It just becomes, like, tedious to write that every single fic.

Cathy  32:15

One thing that I was digging up was a lot of Relena hate sites. And one thing we had talked about in past episodes was kind of like hating her because she was this rich girl, she had this entourage, we couldn't really relate to her. And there was a lot of that in why people expressed why they hated Relena. Like she was spoiled. She had everything. She was obsessed with Heero and so she definitely like wanted him as one of her belongings kind of thing? So I think it is one of those moments where now that I've read a lot more other types of Gundam Wing fanfic that I wasn't reading at that time that have, I think, much more interesting Relena characterization, and much more I think realistic ideas about what Heero and Relena's relationship would be like. I think, "God I was so stupid!" but I feel that same way about like everything I was into, right? [laughs] So like, it is kind of humbling and also funny. 

Mallory  33:14

Like reading this fic it's about as comforting as like finding your favorite High School sweater, you know, in the back of your closet when you're visiting home and putting it on and finding out it still fits. And it's because it sort of hits all of those familiar tropes that I remember reading, like the use of "Gods" is like--

Kat  33:32

Yes!

Mallory  33:33

punch in the face.

Caitlin  33:34

Why does everyone say gods? 

Mallory  33:36

Yes. 

Cathy

Everybody!

Mallory  33:37

Okay, and I don't remember, like I remember this being a thing in Gundam Wing fic I don't remember why--

Caitlin  33:43

[crosstalk] Duo was American and was raised in a—

Cathay

[laughing] Catholic!

Caitlin

Catholic. Why would he say Gods?

Kat  33:48

[crosstalk] Yeah Duo would never.

Cathy  33:49

I kind of get maybe the idea of why others would do it if this became like a post colony thing but certainly not Duo.

Kat  33:57

In like middle school. I was always wondering like, "oh, what kind of weird event happened in the future that made everybody until like a polytheist?" [laughter] Like, what kind of world building is this?

Mallory  34:07

Yeah, I thought that there had to be like a reason or is there a rule?

Caitlin  34:12

I kind of thought that just like the people writing fanfic at the time tended to be like pagans. Like, like, that was fine. And they and they were pushing their pagan agenda by having everybody say gods. 

Cathy  34:22

No, I, I, 100. That's 100% my theory.

Caitlin  34:25

that's what I think it is. 

Cathy  34:26

So I mean, Sunhawk was one of the older writers at the time, but I think a lot of the people who were archivists and writers at the time were older, she was probably at least I want to say in her 30s. They're usually older, some of them are Wiccan or pagan and a lot of them were very interested in like education and sort of like bringing up the younger members of the fandom. So Sunhawk specifically, like had a personality who was like very educational? I'm not saying that that's why she did particularly this "Gods" thing, but I do think that that was like part of the general dismantling of monotheistic-- 

Mallory 35:01

Christian god. 

Cathy  35:02

Yeah. So the last thing I want to talk about in terms of this fanfic is all the five pilots working together, coordinating pickup and rescue missions. 

Mallory  35:11

Rendezvous points? How are they in contact with each other? 

Cathy  35:15

And they all appear to have like similar missions? Like, it seems like Heero and Duo were on this mission together instead of what we see in the show, which is that they don't...? Again, I think I just love this idealistic view of the Gundam pilots where they're all not just friends, but also comrades in arms.

Caitlin  35:33

Yeah, I mean, this makes more sense than what the show does, which is that on the show, it's always, oh, they just happen to run into each other on the same mission. And they're like, oh, who are you? Why do you have the same Gundam as me? [laughter]

Mallory  35:47

We shouldn't be fighting. 

Caitlin  35:48

But Quatre's the only one who says that everybody else is like, let's blow each other up.

Cathy  35:53

We joke a lot about how this podcast is basically us questioning the internal logic of Gundam Wing, like why would anybody do this thing where they just sent five teenagers without any knowledge that there are four other of them and just be like, here you go.

Mallory  36:07

Complete a vague unspecified mission.

Kat  36:10

I feel like fanfiction really made them way more competent. Like there's literally that whole scene where the doctors are like, "You guys fucking suck. You're not the perfect soldiers at all." [laughter] 

Mallory 36:21

"You don't know anything." 

Kat  36:22

And then in fics it's like Heero's like, "I'm the perfect soldier. I know everything! 

Mallory  36:28

"I must be the perfect soldier." 

Caitlin  36:30

Oh, yeah. Like they all seem to be much better fighters than they are in canon. 

Kat  36:36

Yeah

Caitlin  36:36

I feel like in canon Wufei is the only one who does his job. And in fanfic, it seemed like they were all doing jobs.

Kat  36:43

Trowa's maybe just doing his own thing. 

Mallory  36:46

But he's doing A Job.

Caitlin  36:47

Yeah, clowning. Trowa's job is clowning! 

Kat  36:50

Everybody got way more trauma than Quatre did in fic even though the show is like here's Quatre's biggest trauma. 

Mallory  36:58

You know, that's very true. 

Kat  36:59

Which didn't even show up in the clip show.

Caitlin  37:02

Yeah, it also doesn't really make sense that Quatre's always this really sane one in fanfic when he's the main one we've seen in canon go apeshit. 

Kat  37:12

Reading this fic and then watching the clip show, I was like, damn, like Wufei/Treize/Zechs was like it's, a whole ass universe. And it's just like, one scene in the first 27 episodes. [laughter] But what a scene. 

Mallory  37:27

Such a good one.

Caitlin  37:29

I think that it's important to note that Sunhawk passed away last year, and so we could consider this episode our very weird tribute to her.

Cathy  37:37

Yes, in 2019 in March, there was a post on Sunhawk's LiveJournal, by her daughter, who had become in Sunhawk's words, essentially somewhat of a fandom secretary for Sunhawk, noting that if you are reading this entry, now, it means that she had passed away, she had been diagnosed with cancer, like in 2015, she said four and a half years ago from the time of the writing of the entry. So Sunhawk, beginning in 2007, did a tradition where every year for the 12 days leading up to Christmas, she would post the ficlet, or fanart inspired by her fics, usually 1x2 related usually an excerpt from or like a special scene or bonus scene from one of her stories about Duo and Heero. And she continued that tradition even up until 2019. 

Kat  38:25

Oh wow

Cathy  38:25

So prior to that she had actually queued up 12 Days of Christmas for 2019, which her daughter posted. And the very last story actually was a coda for the Ion arc, which was left unfinished and her daughter finished it for her. And if you had the chance, and of course, we'll link to this, I really highly recommend you read the goodbye post from Sunhawk.

Caitlin  38:49

It's, wait, it's really good. Can I read just a little bit of this? 

Cathy  38:51

Yes, please. 

Caitlin  38:52

Before I shuffle on off, though, I would be remiss if I didn't address the fandom that I have called home for almost two decades. To everyone, thank you, I realized that we aren't as large as we used to be that the heyday is over. But I've enjoyed being here and writing for you all. And there is one thing that I've learned through all of my years, and all of my time with the fandom that I want to share that I think applies not just to our little corner of the internet, but all fandom. Write it, draw it, sing it, create it, share it. We all start somewhere. We all start with works that are horribly out of character. We write tropes that have been written up million times before. We all stare at blank canvases unable to get the lines down in a way that we want. And we all scrap ideas that we feel just aren't good enough. But a fandom lives because of the people who produce for it. And by those who come to read and view. Yes, maybe that 500 word drabble in which two strapping young men are trapped in a remote cabin during some horrible weather event and there is only one bed, isn't your best work. But what about the work after that, or the one that follows? With each creation you learn, you polish yourself, you grow. Never stop yourself from growing. Never let others stop you from growing. Share the stories you have in you. Post your heart -- Post your art, because at the end of the day life is too damn short to spend not doing something you love to do. To all of the Gundam Wing fandom and all of my friends, I want to again say thank you, reading my work supporting me talking with me, you've made my stay here a pleasant one.

Cathy  40:21

I find it really heartwarming. And one thing that I did for this episode is I went back and I read some of Sunhawk's first LiveJournal posts in 2002, when she started her LiveJournal, and even in the comments to people who were, I don't think close friends of hers, you know, just fans, she was always extremely, you know, encouraging and welcoming, and always told her fans that they should just write, you know, even if they felt like whatever they did wasn't perfect or wasn't in their words going to match up to what she did. She always told them just write it. Coming to Sunhawk and realizing that she'd spent two decades in a fandom that I think a lot of us considered dead and she was still cranking out work there and like encouraging people and being loving in that fandom, it just is it's like everything that one hopes one span that experience will be like and how they'll be remembered when they leave. Well, I want to thank you guys for joining me on this episode where we talk about, you know, Sunhawk and fanfic and being really young and on the internet with dial up. I really, you know, appreciate all of your memories, which are also my memories. And together, we'll keep Sunhawk's spirit alive. Write it, draw it, sing it, create it and share it. Thank you very much and see you in two weeks.