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Been busy so I couldn't say much but 
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Aug 7, 2019 23:56
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| # ¿ May 19, 2024 07:02 |
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Gruckles posted:Long Distance Runaround, the B-side of Roundabout. I like this answer but I also want Old Town Road.
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Aug 12, 2019 03:45
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Gyro Zeppeli posted:And, as an aside, welcome ladies and gentleman to Gay Cowboy Subtext. I've half-joked and half-seriously said that Steel Ball Run might as well be American Literary Fiction, and Gay Cowboy Subtext is partly why because the way Johnny views Gyro in this story reminded me a lot of stuff like A Separate Peace and the like. Look at how he first sees Gyro when they first meet. He looks like a god among men instead of how we first meet him (Nyoho!), where Gyro comes across as, like, sexy but in a rat kind of way.
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Aug 12, 2019 23:11
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I like how their stars and stripes compliment each other. 
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Aug 12, 2019 23:37
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 Fellas is it gay to liken beauty to a guy you met on the beach? Is it gay to make it your goal to touch his balls one more time? Is it g
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Aug 13, 2019 00:08
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jivjov posted:So, uh, really not sure how I feel about the first few pages going into great detail about how "the white man's running style" is way better than anything native Americans can do...please tell me this isn't a running theme of the part? Not that I remember, no. It's not that it's "better", it's just that Sandman is actually willing to use sprinting to outrun them because they'd never want to do that. It's also pretty ironic (to me) since they're on horses, which were introduced to the Americas by the Spanish.
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Aug 13, 2019 04:25
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I love how so much happens in just the first volume alone that we have completely glossed over the Tiny Horses.
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Aug 13, 2019 04:46
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Diego is just good at Horse.
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Aug 13, 2019 05:09
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Gyro Zeppeli posted:When he said miniature horses, I was expecting ponies. Rereading this has made those horses haunt me. It's definitely one of those one-off things that sets the tone, like SBR is a period piece but it's also not quite set in the same reality as ours, but like. Are they toys? Or are they specially bred to be very very tiny horses? It doesn't really matter...but I want one so bad.
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Aug 13, 2019 17:49
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Yes but are they THIS tiny???
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Aug 13, 2019 18:20
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Johnny at the beginning was interesting to me because his basic concept IS being a different take on Jonathan, but he also has some talented/gifted kid baggage that he's going to have to toss as the story goes on. Johnny has been a genius at one thing since he was 5, and was shaped and molded to be that one thing for the rest of his life. His entire identity, and the reason people like him, and the reason he gets all these nice handouts, and the reason he has all these powerful connections, is because of this one thing. And yeah, you'd get cocky over that too if you were a teenager. It happens with smart kids or prodigies, and it especially happens with athletes. And cutting in line and his attitude was really lovely, yeah, but it didn't warrant getting shot in the spine. Imagine having this one identity, this idea of you, formed from the outside before you had the chance to make your own, and then it's tossed away like garbage. No one likes a has been, and celebrity culture kind of thrives off of seeing powerful people fall. Johnny may as well have been taken out back and shot like an actual racehorse with a broken leg. Everything that you've built up for yourself, all the knowledge that you've gained from this talent you have is now worth less than nothing. No wonder he's so desperate for his legs to work again. And no wonder he calls this a story of adolescence to adulthood. Johnny's nineteen and never got a proper adolescence, in the "forming your own identity" sense."
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Aug 14, 2019 03:23
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Okay, Volume 2 and I love how Pocoloco is like if you made a FalloutNV character and put all of his points into luck. Incredible. And lol at that German baron who ran out of gas at the start. EDIT: Okay so I completely forgot that Johnny tries to assess Pocoloco and does the JoJo thing where he's like, "Wow, this strategy is incredible, he must be a tactical genius" and I am losing my mind. BaDandy fucked around with this message at 17:45 on Aug 14, 2019 |
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Aug 14, 2019 17:33
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You will definitely love this next fact because, this is in extra material, but Pocoloco's Stand isn't the thing making him lucky. The only thing that his Stand is doing is boosting his self-confidence. That's it. His Stand has the power to give him the confidence to take those big risks.
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Aug 14, 2019 20:16
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There are so many Fleetwood Mac songs that would be so good, but my personal favorite is The Chain.
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Aug 16, 2019 01:26
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Yeah, and Gyro walks a fine line between goofy and serious, and at this point he's still obviously hiding some poo poo. When I first started reading, I was wondering which demeanor was "real" and what was for show. Gyro's kind of a fake rear end bitch and comes across more like Buccellati but with more goofy moments. I think one thing that helps with SBR is that there's a big cast but we get more time with them in pairs or by themselves, so we have more intimate moments with them acting like normal people while wild poo poo is going on. It was pretty good to see Johnny and Gyro's dynamic forming, like Johnny wants to learn from Gyro but he's waaaaay more focused and detail oriented while Gyro's constantly like, "It's fine, it's fine, it's fiiiiiine....probably." It's so fun.
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Aug 17, 2019 01:37
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Losing my mind about how jacked Johnny looks in this image.
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Aug 18, 2019 02:30
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Just gonna post this here because the coloring here in stunning. Love these. 
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Aug 20, 2019 17:27
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Finally finishing up this round and I always enjoyed how pre-Scary Monsters, you're waiting for the other shoe to drop with Diego but it turns out he's about as much of a gremlin man as Johnny or Gyro. Like he's not purposefully trying to trick anyone, he's just the type of person to go, "Actually, I'm totally fine. What's with the rocks? Why Johnny, you silly goose, it's a health fad. It's for digestion, you see. I'm normal." Like he'd rather die than admit he needs help or that something's wrong, which is totally Dio, if Dio were just an rear end in a top hat and not completely evil.
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Aug 26, 2019 00:27
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As the series continues, it becomes clearer that Determination is a synonym for Ruthlessness and it needs some kind of mitigating factor to balance it out, and it's looked into pretty well with SBR. Jonathan is able to use his determination effectively because he's inherently kind and empathetic. Ruthlessness isn't the same thing as being cruel, it's just very direct and focused, but it needs other factors to help direct it.
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Aug 26, 2019 19:43
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Ah yes, here it is. Yes.
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Aug 27, 2019 02:14
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One thing that's probably a bit more obvious now is that the corpse parts work a lot like the arrows, in that they "choose" a user. One eye clearly rolled over to Gyro, so the left arm must have hitched a ride on Johnny, etc.Johnny Joestar posted:that panel in particular gets a lot of traction when it comes to 'out of context jojo' reactions I unironically love this panel so much. It's so dumb! I love it. BaDandy fucked around with this message at 02:42 on Aug 27, 2019 |
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Aug 27, 2019 02:29
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I can also think of a couple of Westerns where there's a girl main character who's """"14""""" so if anything she's probably supposed to be like if Poco/Anne had a bigger role in the story and then sexual assault horror happens because we're not in a shounen publication anymore. Lucy's payoff is really good but the journey is, hhhh.
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Aug 27, 2019 15:53
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I feel like you can get a pretty clear reading of The True Man's World when Gyro sees his father basically tell him the same thing about sentimentality and Gyro tells him to gently caress off. That and with "Welcome....to the true man's world..." Gyro doesn't look like he accomplished something good or cool. He looks like he just did something dirty and awful. This was also the first time that we've seen Gyro do the same thing that Johnny does where they scream the other one's name, and Johnny almost getting killed is the thing that made it more personal to him. His sentimentality ended up winning the fight, in the end.
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Aug 29, 2019 03:50
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Now that I've caught up, is it cool to say who's corpse it is now? I feel like that bit with Blackmore is pretty much a reveal at this point.
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Aug 31, 2019 03:52
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Guys come on, it's clearly St. Peter.  edit: okay but for real, Gyro caught up with Diego because he let Jesus take the wheel. ...Horse? Horse.
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Aug 31, 2019 05:16
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Mmmn, I love Diego just showing up at the finish line and looking super calm but Gyro and Johnny (and the audience) know what he's doing and that it's actually a challenge to the two of them, the fact that he's not retiring from the race after all that.
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Sep 3, 2019 03:10
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I think that might be up to interpretation on purpose but, from my reading of it, Johnny having standards and not going to the president to help collect the parts while Diego goes to him for help paints a stark contrast. Of course, they have different goals. Diego's in it for the money and doesn't really care about the corpse while Johnny is searching for identity, or to feel whole again. His goal might seem selfish on first blush but it's more spiritually inclined, so I think he does have a leg to stand on, kind of, but it's also left vague for a little while what his relationship is to Diego, and if the rumors about Diego cheating to get ahead at horse racing are actually true.
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Sep 3, 2019 03:50
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Sam Faust posted:I don't know about that.  Also it's interesting how Valentine is such an obvious unlikeable villain sleazeball in these earlier parts. It's really weird how no one in the general fandom seems to remember these bits, or they characterize Johnny as an uwu crying widdle baby when, so far, I only remember seeing him really crying twice. 1) Waking up paralyzed (I'd be crying too! wtf) 2) "I don't want to give up the arm....I could move again...." The only other times he's really distressed is when Gyro looks like he's to die, which happens distressingly often. I've forgotten how Johnny is the more pragmatic, down-to-earth one while Gyro has the Joseph/Giorno tendency of doing ridiculous poo poo because he calculated far enough ahead to take a reasonable enough risk.
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Sep 3, 2019 16:11
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There really is a tendency in western (especially U.S.) audiences to view the outgoing, loud and funny character as the real protagonist when that's not really true, yeah. And Johnny's goals might be selfish by definition, but that's not necessarily a bad thing either, not that you're saying it is. Both Johnny and Gyro have these identities thrust upon them against their will by their families and deal with it differently, trying to find new ones. Gyro in America acts like a college student heading to Cancun for the first time. He's free! He's liberated! Maybe he'll get a grill or something. Who knows? In America, anything is possible, including defying the traditions of a kingdom that's been around for over a thousand years. The man's 25 and this is the first time he's been away from his family. But he's also here because of it, and he's here because this duty was thrust upon him. The audience doesn't know about his past at first because Gyro doesn't want people to know it, because he can't just be Gyro if you know who his family is, or why he's even here. Johnny, meanwhile, had the same thing regarding a kind of family legacy, but now it's gone. There is nothing to gain for his family if he wins this race, or even gets the corpse parts. He's been free from day one and has nothing left to lose. But racing was the only thing he's ever known. He built his entire identity around it, and now there's nothing for him to lean on. He can do whatever he wants, but he wants to go back to racing because, to him, it was the only thing he was really good at. "Going back to 0" is selfish, but it's a relatable selfishness that you can't really be mad about. Interesting then, when given the idea of Lucy helping them get another corpse part and putting her in danger, it isn't Johnny's idea and he's very much against it. Johnny Joestar posted:i've said it before but anyone who says johnny and gyro are anything but equally co-protagonists is really unobservant and shouldn't be trusted in regards to anything else they say on the subject 
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Sep 3, 2019 17:07
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If you took Johnny's dialogue about how the President is sending his terrorists to attack him so they can collect and assemble to corpse parts of [redacted], and put it with Dale Gribble, nothing would change.
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Sep 4, 2019 01:22
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 Ahh I missed that it flashed to Nicholas for a bit there. 
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Sep 5, 2019 05:06
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Also, for some reason, I thought "God took the wrong son" was gonna show up later and I wasn't ready. I know the real answer is "Araki didn't think of it at the time" but it's so easy to read that at the beginning, Johnny tells you his backstory really quick, and then later on when he's getting more into the story, he actually reveals that, not only do he and Diego have a prior history, but he had an older brother. And not only did he have an older brother, but he is convinced that he is responsible for his death and he totally deserved to get shot in the spine. And then he met Gyro, who would be about the same age as Nicholas if he were still alive, is just as forward and confident as Nicholas was, and who Johnny is putting all of his hero-worship feelings onto this time. drat.
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Sep 5, 2019 06:12
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Crusader posted:so... are we meant to infer that it’s possible Dio was really responsible for the mouse and Johnny is wrongly blaming himself, given the Phantom Blood parallels and Johnny already stating Dio would stoop to base methods to win? That said, it feels like that’s not as impactful if it really was Johnny’s Danny that startled the horse and Dio was an innocent bystander. It's tempting to think, isn't it? Diego ended up working his way into George's good graces, almost taking Nicholas' place as the better racer. Part of some of the tension involving Diego is waiting for the other shoe to drop, or going "What did he do back then, really?" Are those rumors true, or are they just rumors?
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Sep 5, 2019 17:19
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I'm not posting this to excuse anything, and I really don't want to be like "What the gently caress were you expecting" because that's super annoying and unhelpful, but one of Araki's favorite genres is Westerns. Not all that surprising that bit in the beginning with Sandman is like that. It's the same kind of disconnect he (and a lot of Western audiences who watch a lot of cop dramas) had when he was like, "Abbacchio wanting to become a police officer means that he had a righteous heart. But the justice system and everything surrounding it is bad and doesn't work. Except for these specific cops" etc, etc. Like he knows Native Americans having their land taken away is bad and wanted to write a character wanting to change that, but then the tribe is written like how you'd see them in a Western, which...there's a reason why the Western died out and any modern takes on it are more historically accurate takes.
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Sep 9, 2019 02:07
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I think my favorite aspect of Steel Ball Run so far is Araki introducing a character that has near superhuman abilities, and you're like "Oh, so that's his Stand?" And Araki's like, "What? No." In addition to Sandman, this happened with Gyro, Pocoloco, Mrs. Robinson, Diego to an extent.
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Sep 9, 2019 19:28
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This happened awhile ago, but does anyone else feel kind of weird about Gyro being like, "No, 14-year-old girl, you have to do this to save your husband!"? If it gets resolved in the way I think it does, then it's whatever, but I'm not sure I can say all of what I want to say about it without spoilers or without reading through everything again.
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Sep 10, 2019 22:32
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"Themes being more important than the specific mechanics of a power" is why I love Civil War so loving much. EDIT: For the record, original publishing dates for SBR started at the beginning of 2004. So uh 
BaDandy fucked around with this message at 05:19 on Sep 11, 2019 |
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Sep 11, 2019 05:16
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paragon1 posted:But yeah I guess Johnny talks to Jesus now!? If history is any indication, then he's going to start doing some weird new branch of Christianity after this. I was gonna say that this happened with Blackmore too but no, he just showed up and didn't speak and Blackmore still kind of lost it. Johnny's a lucky boy!
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Sep 12, 2019 16:29
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   Hmm
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Sep 13, 2019 15:24
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| # ¿ May 19, 2024 07:02 |
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I think one thing I appreciate about Civil War (the Stand) is that it's basically The Lock but with a drastically different tone and thematic implications. Edit: I'm going through each week slowly, and it's pretty interesting that H.P and Johnny have very similar guilt complexes that manifest differently, but they both view the corpse as a means of being forgiven, in a way.
BaDandy fucked around with this message at 01:53 on Sep 14, 2019 |
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Sep 14, 2019 01:41
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