#trimax setting with some aspects of tristamp

[featherfangart]

The Lightning

Wolfwood lives. I said so. Here's part one of the AU.

Part TWO

[huginsmemory]

Hi i just wanna say i have read and loved your analysis for trigun/tristamp/vash/wolfwood etc! I came scross with them when i finished tristamp and slowly was reading the manga however i felt a very weird feeling when s1 ended and tried to see if it was only me or there were more out there. I am sorry if this comes out of nowhere its just that i have no one to talk about this :/// and the few people who watched tristamp they have not read the manga or care as much.

I love tristamp very much as a product, i think they did marvellous but the one aspect that made me just not be completely insane is how much they have changed the relationships. I feel the way they upped Knives and Vash and seems completely sided other characters felt like a disservice when i think about it, almost like fanfiction. I feel weird thinking about it this way because i do think and i have seen how much love and passion they put into the project but i just feel at this point s2 wont be able to set up the other relationships anymore.

The one i am the most sad about is Vashwood, shipping aside i feel their relationship is as detrimental to Trigun as Vash and Knives. And it just feel tristamp wrote themselves into a corner with them. And to be honest too, i just feel WW entire arc will be different now, so a whole diff character. It pains me 😢

I think tristamp did great making an argument for how knives is how he is and making him a great antagonist very grey scale but being so short i have already seen people completely disregarding Vash’s philosophy and actions are useless or stupid. I understand it comes from just watching the series but wow, idk i feel it can totally backfired on the long run.

Sorry for bothering you 🙏

Hey!! So sorry this is very late response haha, lifes been quite busy. Also you really have zero need to apologize, I always enjoy engaging with others, so actually thank you for the ask! Even if it takes me forever to do so... 😅 This ended up being pretty long, LOL, so it's beneath a readmore...

As for your comments about how tristamp has changed the relationships of the characters... I have to agree from what I've seen that it really makes me feel like the way they are setting it up will be detrimental, as you've put it, to the original arcs. There's a lot that's been changed, especially character wise (some of which I've delved into for Wolfwood and Vash in my previous opinion piece), which rubs me the wrong way. I know that it's technically supposed to be a prequel but theyve also shuffled some very important and heavy hitting trimax scenes into the prequel, which lacks the ooomph and build up to the scenes that occurs in the manga, and makes me question what they are going to do in the long run to replace those scenes.

Also on a more personal note, I really dislike pregnancy horror, especially pregnancy horror as a result of SA, which stampede has heavily leaned into... and which didn't feature at all in the manga. Indeed, there very much heavy discourse on bodily autonomy and sexual assault within the manga; but there isn't specifically pregnancy horror at all in the manga. The only thing related to the manga that does indeed have plant pregnancy related stuff is one of the guest comics in Trigun multiple bullets, which is HUGELY sexualized, and it's connotations with that then make me very wary to see it pop up in tristamp. Overall it feels a bit off and jarring to suddenly have it be centre stage as a theme/conflict, even if the theme behind it of bodily autonomy is the same. Honestly, it feels a bit sensationalist to me as if it's almost used as an attention grab of look at this doesn't it make you uncomfortable? And seeing how some of the other things in the show have shifted to be more sensationalist and very clear and open about themes/actions of characters (very contrary to Nightows style of writing, which tends to keep things grey and nebulous and slow burn-y, which I personally very much enjoy, because I like having to draw parallels rather then having thing spelled out for me) makes me wonder if they are doing a similar thing with that, and trying to be more overt about the themes of bodily autonomy and chose to do that via pregnancy horror. Or maybe someone in the team just had a pregnancy fetish... Anyhow, I've digressed from what you were talking about entirely, oops...

As you've put it about how some of the relationships feel like fanfiction, as I've put in the post I've linked above, I very much feel like they are trying to lean into a wide audience... Which means a more canon hetship as is seen with Meryl taking on some of Wolfwoods actions and literal lines from trimax for a Vash x Meryl relationship, while removing more obvious queer representation (or other things that may be considered 'unfit' for a larger audience, such as the removal of Razlo and making Livio just brainwashed so far...). As a result, I'm pretty sure Wolfwood will play a more minor role than he did in trimax, his relationship with Vash going to be not as deep. Personally, I'm unsure also at how they're going to go about the whole 'Wolfwood fully accepting Vash and loving him to the point of literally sacrificing his life and everything he's worked for to save Vash, fufilling Vash's disagreement with Knives on wether humans will truly fully accept plants', something that's pivotal to one of the underlying the themes and also making the story unequivocally queer in nature (since this is usually something a heterosexual love interest would fufill) even if Nightow didn't mean it to be. I feel Meryl might instead step in to fill that position instead, and while Wolfwood still has a somewhat deep relationship with Vash, it's going to be more shallow, which would be very disappointing (for me at least). It'll be interesting to see if they, like in 98, go for millywood as well for more hetships that can draw in the audience. In the meantime, the more canon queer rep is removed, and is instead very much relegated to subtext, such as Elendira being a literal child... but also including leaning into a queer subtext for garnering an audience that is interested in queer ships. And even twisting some characters motivations a little to lean into queer subtext to garner the queer section of a larger audience... Which includes Knives new 'I've done everything for you' in regards to Vash, which he doesn't say in trimax, and actually fully attempts to kill Vash in response of Vash standing in the way of his goal, even if he also has difficulty with his decision (very different!).

On the subject of Knives, I'd say that he's maybe got a bit better of a sympathetic goal within tristamp but I'd still say compared to trimax, I personally think it's still not particularly well written. I'm saying this specifically as they make stamp!Knives always detached from humans when in fact in trimax he very clearly has high hopes for being accepted by humans and even cries when Conrad accepts them when he was young and pre-Tesla. This allows him to be a much more fleshed out character then in either of the animes, since you understand that he's very much motivated by fear and stuck in the fear reaction of rejection of humans. It's possible we will get a more nuanced background in the new season, but considering that they've already set the story in that manner I don't have high hopes for it, but I also tend to be negative, haha.

At the same time, I'm very much in the same boat as you; it's incredible to see the love and effort put into the show, and makes me excited about it... But that excitement pales in comparison to the way they feel like they've hamfisted the characters a bit, and my own questioning on how they are going to continue the show, and how they've shifted some of the themes around. I've also seen/heard of other people deriding Vash for his beliefs, and I think the way they have set up the themes and make Vash feel a lot younger and inexperienced lends to that perception by people, which is... well, big yikes if a good portion of your audience is missing the themes. Hopefully moving forward this is remedied but I again doubt that. I know they were trying for a prequel so the way the handled the themes and want the character to 'grow' is part of that, but at the same time... there is no issues with the original character arcs for the characters within Trimax, and 98 barely scraped the lore that's available in trimax due to the majority of trimax not existing, so I don't really understand why they really decided to go for a completely new retelling (well, I do, but still...). Again, I'm absolutely happy to see that trigun is back and, hell I've gotten re-into trigun and actually read trimax this round, and it's lovely to see that the animators are putting in a lot of love and thought into tristamp... but at the same time feel like there's lots of issues with the themes and characterizations, and I honestly doubt that it'll be fixed moving forward, so you're not alone with that, and I've talked to multiple other people who have the same qualms about tristamp!