first things first, whats been on my mind this whole week.... hoppered did all that for vashs sake right?

obv hoppered did it for himself, too. taking care of vash and calling him eriks was a way for hoppered to relive what he had lost.

and hoppered pulling the trigger while vash held the gun was hoppered's way of joining the people who died in julai, joining the real eriks and meeting what wouldve been his fate if he didnt happen to be outside the city when everything went down. in a suicidal way, this is also hoppered acting for his own sake (and a reminder that vash killed all those people, unintentionally yes, but this gives a face to it, we see him pull the trigger, we're reminder why this effected him so heavily, and yet again, its not of his own choice)

but what im talking about is building the weapons, fighting vash, using jessica as a means to kick vash into action, that was for vash's sake, right?

last ep i was right in thinking he was building his weapons, but i thought it was maybe for revenge. this feels. distinctly not like revenge imo. he tells vash to live and suffer, but he also tells him to wake up. to me it feels less like a curse (keep suffering because i hate you) and more like... advice? keep suffering because its the only way to be more than a catatonic shell, and you should live, you should suffer, dont let life pass you by so numbly. it might be a little bit of a curse, too

a few things make me think that hoppered wanted to get vash out of that fugue state, and that's why he fought him. one is jessica says this

followed by saying something about their home and apologizing because she probably isn't making sense to hoppered. Then, we get an ominous piano key and an ominous eye

i love all the glimpses under hoppered's mask, they're so cool

to me, this shows hoppered is thinking about what jessica said, it somehow sets him off. the idea of leaving vash the way he is makes him get this determined/upset/decisive look? and then the next scene is him making the ultimatum for vash.

another thing that makes me think he was trying to get vash to wake up for vash's sake is hoppered was remembering eriks and how she seemed to maybe improve slightly but never really come out of that fugue. with all the parallels with vash and eriks, this is maybe showing hoppered feeling regret he couldn't get eriks out of the darkness, as he calls it

ALSO ALSO we get "the darkness is crushing me" then hoppered is startled as a light comes into the shot, and then we see vash walking in, backed by the sun. vash is a light in the darkness, hoppered wants there to be hope, there to be recovery and a future for people who've had wrong done to them. and vash wakes up, he doesn't let the darkness keep its hold on him

maybe because vash is, well, vash the stampede, hoppered started making the weapons with the idea of getting vash's fighting reflexes going. its definitely a complicated response, but i really think he did what he did so that he could help vash. otherwise, well, he could've gotten revenge and died in a much simpler way... :(

we still have time to see if hoppered was ever connected to the gung ho guns in this version, but for now .... i think he was purely internally motivated to do what hes done, which is such an interesting angle. and hes so nice, like he still has an inclination toward violence (the razor from ep 1, the bloody knuckles, the gauntlet weapons) but in comparison to most people in the world of trigun, his violence is probably pretty par for the course honestly. ultimately, the way he treated eriks and vash-as-eriks kindly and gently and imo, specifically wanted to help vash out of his catatonic state... hes so kind. a really great addition for a story about the kind nature of people in a cruel world. its not straightforward but it is kindness, as well as anyone can get.

vash thinks hoppered is kind too...

this scene got me. "I've been in a long dream. In it, Hoppered, you were kind to me. You could have killed me at any time. Why didn't you? I could accept death at your hands."!!!!!???????? omg. what a moment. i wonder how they'll translate that for the dub. vash continues on "I may have been thinking that, somewhere in my mind. But not now. Not anymore. I can't let you kill Jessica." so he doesn't feel that way anymore, but the fact he thinks hoppered is a good enough person that he could kill vash and vash would've accepted it?? so sad and compelling!!!

GOD STARGAZE JUST MAKING ME CRAZY FOR HOPPERED NOW WTF!!! IM NOT MAD THO JUST SURPRISED!!!!

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okay so the rest of this is a kind of play by play as i'm rewatching the episode and it is a cool bit of world building that the unnamed scientist at the beginning says "It's a miracle. A fleet that left Earth a century or a century and a half ago just happened to be headed in our direction and just happened to pick up the transmission from our home." I think this is interesting because it means that project seeds was not just one set of ships sent off, it was ongoing. So this isn't a rescue mission from Earth, it's a sailboat finding people stranded on a deserted island because of the smoke signals they're sending off.

it does make me really curious what the ending is going to be like? because in the manga, we see the Earth federation (i think thats the name) going after vash and bringing supplies to people on the planet. they get tv and stuff. but this fleet passing by doesn't have supplies to leave on noman's land, it is offering to bring people off the planet. and so far we really haven't seen anyone who would want to stay. which is sad imo. you can't tell me there isn't anyone who has some connection to place on noman's land. the rock formation they played in as kids, seeing the worms light up the sky like ep 4(?) of stampede, twin suns, and never seeing any of it ever again... not sure if they'll explore that angle but there's gotta be someone who wouldn't want to leave. i guess there's the cryosleep stuff where they'll wake up in a new world but... idk. its sad to me

to me, i see a few paths from this, either 1) everyone leaves noman's land at the end, 2) some people leave and some people stay 3) they achieve some kind of harmony with plants that makes noman's land more hospitable and equitable 4) the arriving fleet also settles on noman's land, or some combination thereof. i just came up with #3 as I was writing this and actually, I think that might be what happens. That's my leading theory so far. and if they do that, #4 might not be off the table.

also i love luida sm. "We can't say for sure that we'll be saved. Don't let your guard down. But for sure, there is hope." pragmatic queen

I think leonof and his puppets totally in shadow is a really cool way to introduce him. very whimsical but ominous.

ALSO THE REM PARALLELS WITH BRAD???? THAT GUY IS SO GONNA DIE. JESSICA EVEN SCREAMING AS THE ESCAPE POD GOES OFF LIKE VASH DID WHEN REM SENT HIM AND NAI OFF??? ITS A DIRECT PARALLEL okay i'm done yelling now. orange just likes killing old dudes. rip roberto, (preemptively) rip brad

hoppered helping jessica... awe. again, he just seems so nice

I like this quick scene where hoppered finds vash, and how broken vash looks. i mean hoppered finds him at his lowest, naked and catatonic??? its a really important moment, especially with the parallel we get a few minutes later with the real eriks

(shrinking this bit so you can ignore it if you want) the one thing i will say is i'm a little disappointed at some admittedly small details in these two shots of vash. for the first one, vash's mouth and nose are at the wrong angle for his head and eyes, causing his face to look scrunched unnaturally. i drafted a post with more details on that but idk if i'll post it because like. who cares. maybe i'll just redraw it in my style to satisfy that itch, that feels like a much more positive option.

for the second one, i don't like how stiff vash looks. I'm not opposed to him being tense, but his head is held up off the rock, his legs look like they're supporting his body weight, his arms could be read as holding his torso up a little. I don't feel like he looks collapsed or limp, he looks like he's doing a weird wall squat or mid scrambling backwards. this is also weird to me because i really like how they drew eriks in the basically same situation. idk why vash has these little mistakes.

Overall, i'm a little sad because this could've hit a lot harder with some small changes, but i like the moment with vash, just irked by some of the execution

Okay moving on, I think its tragic ship 3 knew vash was alive, but didn't know he needed help. To me that implies they are used to vash coming to them if he needs help, sending a distress signal, or maybe checking his vitals (because they did pick him and the rest of the gang up in stampede without vash having to seek them out, right?). the vitals thing is interesting to me because of the idea of him being physically fine but emotionally wrecked. poor baby...

also i already talked about hoppered and how i love his character here, but i have to talk about his lying to make things seem better than they are because i find it so endearing and sad. last ep he told vash-as-eriks that the people in town were nice to him even though they weren't. Here, he tells real-eriks that "I talked to them. Don't worry. They'll never bother you again. In fact, they promised." and then we see his bloody hand, where the implication is he probably killed whoever hurt eriks. and then later, "Don't worry, I'm not hungry. You can have it all." 🥺😭

vash's reactions..... "Shoot. Do it like you did in Julai." 😭😭😭

"What you took from me was half of my entire being" (i don't really think this line will come back when wolfwood probably dies this season, but wouldn't that be cool? terribly sad but cool)

and then vash lets hoppered get a hit on him 😭😭 vash's face makes me so sad

i saw some people talking about how vash killing hoppered is adapting when he kills legato in the manga, but i disagree. here, vash did not pull the trigger willingly. vash killing hoppered (hoppered making vash kill him) is more a face to put to julai and everyone who died. vash has already killed the entire population of julai, just not willingly. if we get vash killing legato, which i feel like we will, it would be the first time vash decides to kill, instead of someone (this time literally) forcing his hand.

and then meryl hits wolfwood with her car!!! i love that she's obviously so excited about vash being spotted but still wants to give milly lots of advice its so cute. and milly being so cheeky 'yeah, but you still gotta look forward, too.' *pointing at wolfwood*

their dynamic is really on point.