#at least i liked how the fighting scenes looked like and i also the Wolfwoods flashbacks artstyle

[fail-fren]

Btw I've finally watched and finished trigun stampede and.... yea I didn't like it all that much

[pancake-breakfast]

I think chapter 2 of TriMax Volume 6 might just be my favorite thus far. Everything in it hinges on this one iconic scene.

This isn't the first time Wolfwood has pointed a gun at Vash's head. Maybe it won't even be the last. But it holds a bit more weight here because just a few pages ago, we saw a flashback where Wolfwood pointed his gun at someone else's head.

His hand shakes as he aims at Knives. His breath is heavy, and the memory of the Fifth Moon incident is fresh in his mind. He knows if he can just pull the trigger, he can end it here. This being of destruction will be gone, and maybe this time his fancy scientists won't be able to bring him back.

But then Knives does Plant things, and under the weight of it Wolfwood finds he just can't follow through. He fears his own death too much, and Knives will surely kill him.

When he points his gun at Vash, it's different. His hand is steady, his breath calm. The memory of everything that happened at the Dragon's Nest is fresh in his mind; just this morning he warned Meryl that she and Milly should remember that, despite his ideals, Vash is still a loose cannon that they'd do well to avoid. He thinks to himself that if he can just pull the trigger, if he can just take out the less intimidating of the brothers, then one of these monstrous twins and half of the problem will be gone.

This time, there's no crushing sensation of oppression. There's no air of fear and malice. There are no threats or memories of twisted promises. There's only a look, wary and concerned...

...but even by the time this happens, Wolfwood has already lowered his gun. He's decided not to pull the trigger, not because of an immediate threat on his life, but because... well, it's Vash.

Wolfwood surely knows that if he pulls that trigger, he catastrophically fails his mission, and whatever consequences might await him on the far side of such a failure aren't going to be anywhere near pleasant. But it doesn't seem like it's fear of Knives that makes him lower his gun. At the very, very least, Wolfwood knows no one stands a better chance at taking down Knives, but he also knows Vash. He's seen Vash's fake smiles and knows his real ones. He understands Vash's ideals despite very much not wanting to and not knowing how he could possibly accept them for himself. He's fought side by side with Vash, and been standing at his back since day 1.

And before this night is out, only a few minutes after pulling a gun on Vash, Wolfwood's right back there again, moving in tandem with Vash, being a human shield so they can accomplish Vash's goals together.

It's only when the fight comes to a close that Wolfwood realizes that's what he's been doing. He didn't put any thought into falling in step behind Vash, didn't dwell on the fact that Vash trusted and moved with him during the fight. It's only afterwards, when they stop to catch their breath, that he realizes Vash hasn't looked his way through the whole battle. That Vash didn't need to look his way through the whole battle.

Not only did Vash trust Wolfwood at his back, but he knows Wolfwood well enough to move intuitively around him, not hesitating and always understanding what Wolfwood's about to do. And at that moment, Wolfwood realizes two things:

First, that there's no way Vash didn't notice when Wolfwood pointed a gun at him. If Knives could figure it out while half dead and barely knowing Wolfwood, then Vash, who's awake, alert, and has spent plenty of time with Wolfwood, can surely figure it out.

And second, that when he's fighting back to back with Vash, nothing else really matters. All his (quite legitimate) fears about what Vash is and how dangerous he can be, about Knives, about finishing his job, about what he himself has become... they all melt away. He's where he needs to be, where he should be, and that's all there is to it.

[iwritenarrativesandstuff]

What It Is to "See" in Trigun

"You can really lose yourself in that blue sky... Ah... There I go again. Rem... It's silly, isn't it... that I'm still thinking about... how I want to show it to you."

The theme of sight, showing, and eyes comes up quite a lot in Trigun. This isn't exactly an in-depth analysis, more just an examination of what "seeing" really is, at least in the context of this manga.

A notable recurring thing that happens in many of Knives' scenes is the obscuring of eyes and faces, either others (Vash, usually) or his own.

[ID: Two panels from Trigun Maximum Volume 7. One is of young Knives, his hand obscuring most of his face. His thumb is bleeding from where he's bitten it, and it streaks blood next to his open left eye. The other is also of young Knives, his face shadowed dramatically. His right eye is closed and crying. His left is wide open, ringed in darkness and blood from where his thumb has trailed down his face. End ID.]

The obscuring of one eye in the scene where Knives decides to crash the ships makes it so he only looks through one of his eyes - or, like he is only seeing one perspective, or one side to things. Knives, in his fear and anger, blinds himself to seeing anything other than what he already expects. In the second image, he is torn between a closed crying eye and a wide open one, dragging blood down the side of his face. He chooses the path of blood over tears, and refuses to change this from this point on.

[ID: A panel from Trigun Maximum Volume 13. A younger Legato leans over with a stricken expression. His right eye is obscured by his hair as tears spill from his right. End ID.]

As a bonus note, Legato's hair often conceals that same eye that Knives has obscured on himself, perhaps a visual representation of not only him also seeing only one path forward, but also that his path is one of devotion to Knives. Elendira's hair does much the same.

We also have the cult known as the Eye of Michael - "Eye", which counter to its name, actually blinds its disciples into again, only seeing one perspective - looking through only one eye. Half of Chapel's face is frequently shadowed. In the "shoot" scene, only Wolfwood's left eye is fully visible - as, even though he makes a definite point, he himself is genuinely rather hopeless at this point, only seeing one path and one perspective.

[ID: A screenshot from Trigun Maximum Volume 2. From a slightly overhead perspective, Wolfwood pulls the gun Vash is holding and aims it at his own head. Only his left eye is visible. End ID.]

It's why it's pretty significant that we start to see both his eyes in Volumes 9 and 10, and why I think it matters that he died with his eyes open.

Livio and Razlo are interesting in this regard too. Split between the two eyes, Livio with his obscured right eye and Razlo with his exposed left. When Livio cuts his hair, his eye becomes more visible, like something of a balancing - but it doesn't end there. Throughout the fight against Elendira, when the two are working together, both their eyes can be seen. They even do a switch, with Razlo being shown on the right, and Livio on the left, as if to show, through their conversation, that they have learned to see each other's perspectives better, and work as a team - they have learned to "see through each other's eyes".

[ID: Two panels from Trigun Maximum Volume 13. The first is Razlo shown from the right, eye wide and grinning as he rushes forwards. The second is Livio shown from the left, sweating in exertion. End ID.]

Speaking of seeing through other's eyes, we have Hoppered and Meryl's unwilling vision of Vash's memories, which, while incredibly traumatic, also gave them a new perspective they otherwise couldn't have had. This moment is actually key for Meryl to understand Vash as a person on a deeper level, to communicate what she knows about him to others, and to understand why he felt like he had to do everything alone... so that she could make it clear that he no longer had to.

Meryl and Vash, in particular, share in that painful past, and have come to the same conclusion about it - things take time to heal, but it's always worth it to try, and to work with others to bring a brighter world about.

This "seeing the world through another's eyes" is a running theme all throughout the story, and it's the reason for the first quote at the beginning of this write-up.

[ID: A screenshot from Trigun Maximum Volume 7. Young Vash stares, eyes wide, as Rem cries and says to him, "Let's see the world together, let's walk through it together. Because the world... I swear, it's not just full of worthless people." End ID.]

Vash doesn't just want Rem to see the beautiful blue sky, he wants to see it with her, because that was what he needed when he was a young kid, fresh from the trauma of discovering Tesla, and unable to see the good in the world all alone. He needed another perspective, someone who could show him something other than hopelessness and fear. Instead, he had to force himself to search for it alone.

When he wants to show Rem that blue sky, it's because he wants to show her he's found something worthwhile and good. Just like she promised. It's not all awful.

[ID: A screenshot from Trigun Maximum Volume 10. Amidst two panels of Vash's outstretched hand and Wolfwood falling towards him, on a white background, he thinks "That's why, after everything's been said and done, I wanted to see tomorrow with him. Isn't that right... Wolfwood?" End ID.]

When he wants to "see" tomorrow with Wolfwood, it's a promise of sticking together and of continuing to offset each other's perspectives - they trust each other to be their other set of eyes that makes seeing the hope in the world, and other pathways and options and interpretations different from their own just that much easier. Vash sees a future and a hope outside of fighting Knives through Wolfwood, something he previously could not do.

[ID: A screenshot from Trigun Maximum Volume 14. Ethereal looking feathers fall over a crowd of civilians, who look upwards at them with varying expressions of shock and curiosity. End ID.]

And when the Plants share their memories with humans, and the humans respond with tears, it's the ultimate culmination of what it is to "see" in Trigun - to see is to understand another's story and their personal plight.

To see is to understand is to hope for the better for yourself and for others, and that puts you on the path to slowly but surely healing. To making a change for the better, to finding that light in the dark. That blank ticket.

[ultraviolet-cello]

Today's episode analysis is number 7 - Wolfwood. Now from here on out I get wild abt theories so do watch out hehee

Spoiler warning for tristamp and trimax, general tws for most of those, and enjoy my analysis/details if you want :]

@tristampparty

TL;DR, there's still something fucked up with Livio and Razlo

I CANNOT believe this MOTHERFUCKER is wearing a seatbelt, but still reading a book and controlling the car steering with his mind. I hate him.

Okay so when Livio gets up here, he's been down for the count for a while, the mask has seemingly. Broken a little bit, his irises have contracted a noticeably amount, and the way he moves is different. So I could attribute that to just, whatever brainwashing EOM has on Livio is falling apart, but I think it's more likely Razlo is stepping into front in some way or another. If the remote-switch mask theory has anything to do with it, the breaking of the mask could be tugging them both into a rapid-switch state.

In any case; something is clearly different - Livio's fighting style as we've seen is very steady, holding the guns in place and just walking forward. Maybe-Razlo here just gets up and flings himself at Vash, starts running, absolutely whaling on the Punisher with the Double Fangs (Which is accurate to Trimax - if you read their pages closely, Livio and Razlo have very different ways of moving that then converge into a more semi-coherent style post volume 10)

Also like, it doesn't have to just be one thing. All of the things I point out here can also be interpreted as just the breaking free from brainwashing thing. Could be both!

I'm Not Done with this scene yet because then uh. Livio-Maybe-Razlo starts looking a little dizzy, starts wobbling, hands shaking. So with Dissociative Identity Disorder, the difference between that and OSDD-1b (Another type of system) is usually the dissociative aspect. When alters switch in, it's usually accompanied by a period of dissociation, which looks to an outsider like the person is dizzy, vacant, or blank. The dissociative period is also common in rapid-switching. I read Livio and Razlo as a DID system and it is definitely the most well-known type of system, so if Studio Orange is trying to portray them as a system, they'll most likely be characterized as DID.

MORE VASH FIGHTING STYLE STUFF!!!

So aside from being just a physical martial artist, I dabble in traditional okinawan kobudo (weapons) as well - one of these being the tonfa, which is a baton type of weapon. Vash in this scene is using his gun similarly - holding it by the handle and swinging the muzzle to block and strike. In the second image you can see him winding up to get the full arc of the swing in for more power.

These are what tonfa look like, so I especially appreciate how similar Vash's gun functions! You hold the handle in a loose-ish grip and can swing them overhead and around for extra Thwack Power

Oh you can actually see him spin it back in that blocking position (holding the long end against your forearm so you can just lift and block with your forearm, since the part of the tonfa is shielding you) here! Come to think of it, when blocking with the Double Fangs, Livio uses them similarly.

Once again Roberto calling out that Vash is not human - again he's had the longest time to Hear about Vash's reputation and now he's seeing it firsthand. Imagine spending all your life knowing of a legendary guy and then when you actually see him he looks. like 20, and at least some of his fighting prowess is true.

I guess I'm also curious about like. The mask has been breaking for a While now, and then when it completely powers off that's when Livio starts coming back to reality, which could lend to it being neural-connected in some way. I think it's really really interesting that EOM has specifically suppressed or trained Livio's mind so well that he barely recognizes Wolfwood - But how did that happen without Razlo's interference? Did he agree to this, was he manipulated into it, did Livio make that decision and it was too late for Razlo's protectiveness to kick in? Or is this a means to control both of them? Season 2 please please please ple

I'VE GOT MY ONE FRAME OF RAZLO EVERYONE GO HOME

Okay seriously though I do want to uh. Has Razlo just always had that idea of what he wants to look like or is there some kind of Very drastic change going on lmao. Because there is no way Stampede "Twink" Livio has the body to pull this off, no matter how much hair gel and tits out clothes Razlo can put on. If that sort of image was created by eom as an intimidation thing (because Razlo is Chapel's golden child) though, that's fucked up especially because like. Razlo and Livio struggle sharing a body enough by themselves.

Not grabbing a screenshot but it's uhm. Well. Livio shoots himself in the head specifically, which does seem to be the weak spot for EOM agents, which uhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Like we've seen Razlo foreshadowing Right There there's not a chance he's actually dead, but it's probably gonna fuck him up. Further. I wonder if there's gonna be some body construction fuckery going on later on?

Roberto just sitting down and giving up is kinda funny but also like. Yeah. What do you do in the face of such alien, incomprehensible odds and events. Roberto's very,,, chill about dying, which is an attitude that lots of people would have on Gunsmoke/NML (I know it's nml. but i like gunsmoke). He just wants to go out drinking on his own terms (which... well, he does.)

Meryl's decisions in the control room are so so fascinating. Meryl in Trimax is a little bit insane about Vash (following him, quite literally, through the apocalypse), and we're starting to see her belief and trust in him in this scene. She believes in him And in Wolfwood. and Roberto, Roberto who has always said that he'd take the path to live, believes in Meryl, enough that he's apparently ready to take the chance to die with her, even when given the option to leave by himself.

Meryl is also taking control of her own agency in this situation; she has been an extremely reactive character up till now, but here she gets to say what Meryl Stryfe would do in this situation. Not getting yanked around by people bigger and taller than her, not having to report to her seniors, just making a choice on her own that she knows might kill her. Women on Gunsmoke/NML aren't afforded a lot of agency (Rosa had to try and capture Vash for the bounty so Tonis could live, Meryl in any iteration deals with a lot of adversaries using her as leverage against Vash or taking control away from her, hell, Tristamp Elendira isn't being afforded the agency to grow up! She's been like that for 20 years there is definitely some fuckery going on, whether it's Tesla cells not allowing her to age past the point Tesla was when she died, or Conrad or Knives keeping her that age for some reason). It's nice to see Meryl's arc revolve around taking that agency for herself.

OKAY NORMAL AGAIN. the fucking MUSIC in this scene is insane, it's so,,, I don't know how to explain it but it's so Big and Vast. Also the ion cannon laser looks much like a Punisher laser. Which uh. Woag, if that's the case. And Razlo gets three of those bitches? forget the deadly weapons everyone's gonna just die looking at the light show.

A design element I really like for Legato is his hair and how neatly it's trimmed. I drew a parallel to Knives cutting off a slice of his hair when they first met each other, but I do genuinely think that Legato might be so meticulous about it specifically because of that. Knives means so so much to Legato, and Legato seems to reclaim his body from his past sexual abuse by devoting himself to Knives in an act of empowerment (or at least that's how I read it), which,,, I mean it's hair, but i really am a curtains are blue guy.

Tristamp Wolfwood is often. A tad shorter than Vash which is extremely funny to me. Nightow said Wolfwood's taller and everyone, including the guys making a 3d animated love letter to trigun, said no he isn't ^_^

I need to start collecting these fucking smiles that Vash gives Wolfwood. It's specifically,,,, Trimax and 98 Wolfwood call Vash out on the fake smiles. But Tristamp Wolfwood doesn't, because most of the true smiles we see from Vash are directed at him. Or something. Idk i'm normal

Wolfwood has been holding the Punisher like this all episode, and it's ~~really cute~~ (Tristamp Wolfwood gives me awful cute aggression) but also,,, maybe self-soothing. Keeping the Punisher directly in front of himself as a shield. Looking out over Hopeland as the Punisher acts as a barrier.

White Girl Wasted :pensive:

Vash's hair looks like a little flower here :]

Annnnd Vash down for the count!

So there's so many things, always, to do with these episodes, and I will Not be stopping lmao

Thank y'all who left nice comments on my last analysis post, i'm glad everyone had fun reading it!

[goldenteaset]

So unlike my other posts for @tristampparty , this one is focused on two things that are connected but not directly. But they are about the twins, who are Plants, so it fits the theme. XD

I have so many thoughts about Vash's panicked/drowning reaction in the Plant fluid and Nai's reaction to it. "Breathe, Vash." It's another unexpected reminder that for all he projects onto Vash, he does genuinely care for him (which makes everything worse). As, well, erotic horror as the tentacles right afterward is, I can't help but read it also as Vash trying to fight off a life preserver...

And now, we get into what I like to call "I'm Biased Toward A Specific Sort of Antagonist And Unfortunately I'm Also A Writer", aka a fic idea poorly disguised as analysis. And also a post about how attractive(ly scary) Nai is. XD;

Every day I thank Studio Orange for Nai, and also hope desperately that at least some shred of what I'd like to see with him actually happens.

Look at him. What a wonderful smile! And it's so deliciously jarring compared to the corpses that are all around him and Vash. Episode 3 and that "Does it cure the loneliness?" line were the creators preparing a lure, and then by episode 9 they cast it with That Smile to younger Vash in this exact spot, and here they hooked me and never let go.

My favorite antagonists deeply care for the protagonist, often in very complicated ways that offer up a hundred interpretations, but the most common one is love. Nai loves Vash--the memories of him, the idea of him, the saint, the sinner. And in this moment, he almost comes to love him as a person, too. "Join me, and we can save our kind." (Also of note: I love how this is framed so that the audience can see this side of Nai as well. It's a very compelling moment and wouldn't be out of place in an otome game.)

I was so excited for more of this: more Nai gently denying Vash his autonomy, lovingly indoctrinating/baptizing him into his cult as a fellow Angel and what that might mean!

...And then I realized that this scene happened only a few minutes in and oh. Oh no.

Don't get me wrong: I love/am horrified by the Tesla scene, and the desert and Rem scenes are amazingly done. But they're forceful, like Nai is embodying that "Gentle Persuasion" meme, and that just isn't scary to me. I would've mostly kept them as they are, but maybe leaned more into the "Everything I did was for you/a paradise for us" lines. Because yes, Nai is being a manipulative slimeball here, but I also think he has 1000% chugged his own Freudian koolaid so much that it's leaking out of his pores.

So I'd do it all mostly backwards, is what I'm saying: show the scene with Rem first, then the desert, then Tesla, then combine the "Join me~" + geranium garden scenes into one. It can convince Vash and the audience. Vash is now worn down, and more importantly he sees Nai as both a savior and, like the other Plants, someone who needs him.

Have there be visions of Vash's companions in the geranium garden (but conveniently far away) happily interacting with the Plants. Show Rosa and her baby! Wolfwood and Livio with the other orphans! So many knife-twisting ways to make this all seem like the best of all possible worlds. Have Vash mindbreak himself.

Now when Vash transforms and starts consuming July/impregnating the Plants, it's not just happening because he's just an empty vessel: Vash earnestly thinks it's the right thing to do.

(To twist the knife, I'd also bring back the "I can hear you. Don't be afraid" line at this moment. Heck, maybe it can all even sound triumphant from his POV, with tender piano music or similar. And then we cut to Meryl, desperately trying to reach him...)

[deatmat]

I think one of the most interesting things about Wolfwood and Vash’s relationship is that they always have each other’s backs. And I’m not just talking about metaphorically - physically they are there protecting the other.

Looking at Trigun, there are several scenes where Wolfwood shoots people coming at Vash from behind and when they fight back-to-back. Beyond their fighting style (which honestly is primarily Wolfwood shooting people and protecting Vash), Wolfwood also helps him out when he’s at his lowest. He’s the one to pick Vash up off his feet when he’s parading around as Eriks. Then (spoilers for end of Trigun 98) when Vash is fighting Knives, it’s Wolfwoods voice in his head and his gun that ends up helping to finish the battle. And it’s not just Vash getting aid from Wolfwood. In the manga Vash is constantly there to help Wolfwood with all his troubles. He helps him realize who he wants to be. He helps him by allowing him to stick around even though he knows he’s going to betray him bc he knows Wolfwood needs to protect his family. When Wolfwood protects the orphanage, Vash shows up in the end to help save what he loves. In that same scene, they work together so flawlessly that even Livio comments on it saying they look like they’ve fought together a thousand times as they panel shows them literally back-to-back. (Spoilers for volume 10) And Vash is the one beside him as Wolfwood dies, supporting him in his final hour.

Trigun Stampede takes a different approach and actually spells it out. The entirety of episode 4 Wolfwood makes note of the fact that Vash regularly turns his back to him as if trusting a stranger. It is said at least five times and is a key focus of the episode in my opinion. Episode 5 shows Vash leaning against Wolfwood’s back discussing how he knows Rollo, another form of the support (though in stampede it’s just the beginnings of that support since they don’t really have any sort of relationship yet).

I just think both of them aren’t used to having someone help them. Wolfwood has always been the big brother, the one who does work and cares for others instead of being cared for, and Vash never had anyone around to watch over him cuz he was always alone. And like, Meryl and Milly are there for them too which is really important to mention so it’s triple the support than either of them have ever gotten. It would be such a shock to them, and in Trimax/Tri98 you can see how that changes them as people.

Vash was so worried about being alone after Knives left him and now he’s surrounded by people who are there for him and I love that so much.

[hikennosabo]

trimax vol 12 random thoughts

okayyy i'm FINALLY done with all the art i had to do this week so i can focus on writing this post lol. this volume is so much, i don't know if i want to read it again...

i love that vash is ourple on the cover <3

chapter 1:

i like domina, she's cute. tbh i wasn't sure whether she was a plant at first because i assumed they were all blonde...

wait, pause, tell me about this. what are the circumstances of the other plant fusion incidents. were they rebelling against humans, same as knives? or were there other reasons??

vash's black hair is so STRIKING. i'm sad about it but i also kind of love how it looks...

the memory montage has been talked about like a dozen times by now, so idk if i can add anything that hasn't already been said... LOL. there's some deep cuts in here, i don't even remember them all... it really speaks to vash's memory of people. and there are anime-only characters too, which is cool! part of me wants to go through each page and label everyone but... nah.

ik they've taken a bit of a backseat in the latter half of the manga, but i feel like meryl and milly's section should be larger. :( and for that matter, legato takes up a lot of real estate on his page?! that's kind of unexpected... although legato and vash DID have that seven-month-long psychic battle... and i guess legato is on vash's mind rn because of the coins... so i suppose it makes sense...

a few things about the ghg page - first of all, WHO is that on the top right?! is that supposed to be elendira??? is it??? because it's not like vash doesn't know what she looks like, they've met face to face!

secondly... livio. this is his old self. face in shadow, skull mask visible. i don't think this necessarily means vash still views livio like this; that's unlike vash. livio's face is obscured while his mask and long hair are highlighted, both things that he has discarded along with his identity as a gung-ho gun. this is vash remembering the gung-ho guns specifically. it IS a bit sad that this is what livio gets... i suppose drawing him twice might've been redundant, but still...

a bunch of people have already pointed out wolfwood's grave being depicted next to rem and given equal weight/importance (page space) as her, so all i'll say is that scrolling through the pages and expecting to see wolfwood but getting hit with his grave instead was a fucking gut punch that i DID NOT need.

anti-plant missiles... so plant incidents have been common enough that they'd need to be built in the first place, and built into the fleet at that...

so they CAN be broken apart?! i see...

domina is so funny.

the ark just straight up vanishing really had me think for a second "wow! so that's the power of thor's hammer!" but no it just teleported. LOL

knives... oh, knives... he's looking less and less like a person. i'm probably supposed to be horrified, but i'm just sad.

chapter 2:

knives is the first creature in the universe to warp... wow... he's so talented~ i'm proud of him~

domina is so CUTE!!!! it's too bad what happens to her right after this... and it's impressive how likable she becomes in just a few short scenes. it makes her death more effective than it would be otherwise.

nothing to say, i just think they're cute.

knives putting his feelers out to interfere with the earth fleet was brought up in... volume 9, i think... so it's not like this was completely unexpected. (also "feelers" is kinda cute... like a bug...) wow... knives is fighting so smartly~ i'm proud of him~

i speculated a few volumes ago if knives would try to "save" the earth plants, but he just want to kill them... or at least kill the independents. i still feel like i don't have a full picture of what it's like for plants on earth or the relationship between humans and independents. either way, it's unconscionable to knives that independents would work with humans like this...

chapter 3:

perhaps i shouldn't laugh but shooting straight up into the air is such a dumb thing to do. haha get rained on idiots.

brad is stunned at their idiocy, lol.

chronica worrying over domina is sweet. she's not always "cold and calculating"...

i love how this spread is framed, with the black bars on the top and the bottom. it's cool.

and the double meaning of the chapter title. "the interceptor"... knives intercepting the earth fleet and vash intercepting knives's connection to the fleet...

uhhh... i don't have that much to say about this chapter...

chapter 4:

the universe conspired to deal me massive psychic damage by having 'brother' by gerard way start playing on shuffle while i was rereading this bit... i don't NEED this right now!!!!!

NOT THE IMAGE OF THEM AS KIDS

I'M EATING ROOOOOCCKKKKSSSS!!!!!!!

people have already pointed out knives covering his eyes (and vash covering his own with his sunglasses), it was a fucking punch to the gut the first time i read this chapter and it still is and i am fucking EATING!!!! ROCKS!!!!!!

is that REALLY the reason why you don't want to see your brother's corpse, knives?? is it really???

people have already talked about vash's little gunman speech so i won't say too much about it, except that it's fitting that we started this story with vash being just that - a gunman - we didn't even know about him being a plant - and now vash is determined to end this story as a gunman. well, "end," sort of. there's still 2 volumes left.

also, we're recycling chapter titles again for some reason... we already had a chapter titled "the gunslinger" in volume 6...

chapter 5:

should i call these their "teenage years"? ...i'm writing that in my notes.

i wish i could express my emotions about the plant twins beyond incomprehensible screaming and eating various things (rocks, glass, drywall...) because then i might have more substantial things to say LOL...

the virgin "did you really just shoot me?!" 98 knives vs the chad "if you're going to shoot me, improve your aim" manga knives

y'know, up until now, i never really bought the claim that "tristamp made knives more morally grey," because i was thinking along the lines of "the morality of his actions didn't change, orange just took a magnifying glass to his emotions, so he's easier to sympathize with," but... they COMPLETELY changed the context of knives cutting off vash's arm, huh?! i guess they DID make him more morally grey...

he's ready to go down with knives. if you'll excuse me, i'll be crunching on some more rocks.

chapter 6:

can't help but remember baby knives saying "we can work through a few little differences if we just talk to each other" :')

trying to talk to the plants... yeah... good idea! it's too little too late for knives because EVERYTHING is for him, but... it's a good idea!

okay, so the story of the village. they got kicked out of the city for being "contaminated," so they built their own village and had to resort to stealing from travelers to survive. right... chaining vash up is pretty extreme but i suppose it's indicative of their level of desperation. (especially since vash still looks like a teenager, like, as far as the villagers knew, the person they attacked was just a normal human kid...)

obviously this story doesn't move knives in the slightest, but even with the explanation for the villagers' actions, the bit about "the contaminated humans being kicked out of the city" is a different example of human cruelty that knives could've spat back at vash, lol. like, they were kicked out, and just left out there to die i guess? with no resources or plan to supply them with anything? except for the lone girl who seemed to be bringing canned goods back, but 1. this wasn't a regular thing for her since she hadn't been back in three years, 2. she was literally the only person trying to help, and 3. it was just luck that she wasn't contaminated to begin with - if it weren't for that there would be NO ONE trying to help. not trying to justify knives's worldview or anything but i just think this is interesting because even though now we know and understand the villagers' situation, there's still an undercurrent of human cruelty in this story, and that's something that can't be erased and something that knives invariably clings to to justify his actions.

and his worldview gets even further reinforced in this moment because the military starts shooting at the ark lmao. but then it's vash's friends to the rescue...! the takeaway from all this and the entire ethos of this story as a whole is "humans are complicated," they're not all bad and not all good, vash acknowledges that and tries to see it, and knives does not, blahblahblah it's been said a hundred times...

microorganisms :)

someone in the tag pointed this out already, but the way the earth fleet talks about independent plants is weird. "salvage," "persona," "repair"... that's weird, right? in my last post i said they were giving like, advanced-AI-robot vibes, and this is doing nothing to change that impression. but they're made of flesh and blood...

chapter 7:

knives is wrong about human nature but there sure are a lot of humans in this story who piss me off. fuck you, military guy!!

we all knew that vash was going in to this fight prepared to die, that his plan is to bring knives down with him, but actually seeing him bleeding so much... hurts.

LIVIOOOOO!!! I LOVE YOUUUUU!!!

he's so cute, what the fuck!!!! "i'm mr livio"?!?! oh my god. i'm sobbing. he's so cute.

gaslight, gatekeep, girlboss. manipulate, mansplain, malewife.

this image of a single man facing down an entire military...!!! he's so cool!!!!!! also he's kinda caked up too

and he just bowls through them like it's nothing!!! i LOVE watching him fight, livio is one of the coolest fighters in this entire story, i'm so glad we get to watch him kick some ass!!!

chapter 8:

they said it's just a projection, but this is what i was imagining the "consciousness" of the merged plants to look like...

no concept of the self except for independents, i suppose. so do all plants think the same? last volume, vash said something about billions of thoughts being "exchanged," so there is SOME mental distinction between individuals, i think...

i wonder what information chronica is gathering from this, exactly. just the essentials, since time is limited? or all of it, every single detail?? knives's past and trauma included??

he's talking as if this is a mercy. i wonder if that's really how he's justifying this to himself.

oh, just this panel by itself is a fun dynamic. i don't actually expect elendira to live to the end (sadly...) but i AM looking forward to seeing these two fight again. interestingly, she doesn't seem surprised that livio is still alive...

this last bit of the chapter feels like all the dominoes falling at once, lol. elendira and livio, chronica and knives... and then BOOM! LEGATO JUMPSCARE!! ...from. seemingly nowhere. where did he come from. also i still don't know what to make of his... iron maiden... giant matryoshka... i don't know what or who this is!! it's driving me nuts!! is it going to be explained?!?!

chapter 9:

it's SO funny that vash says this because I WAS ALSO WONDERING THE SAME THING!!! the previous volume put so much emphasis on the coins that i assumed vash would fight legato FIRST and THEN move on to knives. but he never wanted to fight legato to begin with, so it makes sense that he'd skip right to knives LOL.

knives GRINNING when the earth ship appears and then staring straight down the barrel of their cannon... he's not afraid at all. dare i say this scene is pretty cool. knives and chronica are now on even ground in terms of knowledge about each other, and knives probably knows this, but he's still so confident. and then the cannon fires and he BLOCKS it. i shouldn't be complimenting him so much in this post. but i must give cool credit where cool credit is due. this scene is COOL!!!!

oh, so this IS how his powers worked all along, okay... i was confused. i guess this means his power in tristamp is different... because it's clearly NOT strings... it's just straightforward telekenisis i think... hmmm...

... i'd previously heard about what legato's backstory entails, but actually seeing it...

...

knives isn't even visible in this spread. legato hasn't even seen knives yet. but the framing of legato looking at the vast sky, the light, is evocative enough.

legato being able to even control knives with his strings... well, he was able to (somewhat) control vash, so it makes sense that he could, but i've never really thought about the implications until now. under different circumstances he could've been a massive obstacle to knives, if not outright stopped him.

new hair, new outlook, right?

and okay, sure, it's likely that knives's train of thought was "i could use this power for myself, so i won't kill him," but i want to believe there was something else... legato was used and abused by humans, and knives isn't stupid, he can see that just from looking at the state legato's body is in. so maybe knives recognized there's a kinship between them, even if he'd never admit it... i dunno, it's just, his expression here... it's hard for me to describe, but it's something...

oh, this is making me feel something. this is implying knives gave legato his name, right? that's... oh man. i want to say that it was kind. i don't know if i can call it a bond, but their relationship, whatever it is, is deeper than i imagined.

"...but in that moment, i was reborn." new name, new life, new purpose...

on a lighter note, now i'm thinking about where legato's name actually comes from, and i'm remembering this comment from nightow:

i want to believe knives thought the same thing... LOL. as for "bluesummers," "blue" obviously came from his hair, but "summers"... i want to say maybe it was summer at the time of this flashback, but i'm not actually sure if this planet has seasons...? do they ever say if it does??

oh, legato... my legatito... i should've known he'd be one of my favorite characters the instant he showed up in tristamp voiced by kouki uchiyama LOL. i've laughed at him a lot and made fun of him a lot but i really do genuinely love him.

i fully do not expect him to live to the end... but i'm looking forward to seeing whatever else he does before he goes...

[alena-reblobs]

Trigun Bookclub Trimax Vol9 Part1

Vol01: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3  | Vol02: Part 1 | Part 2

Trimax: Vol01 Part 1 Vol01 Part 2 | Vol02 Part 1 Vol02 Part 2 | Vol 03 Part 1 | Vol03 Part2 | Vol04 Part1 | Vol04 Part2 | Vol05 | Vol06 | Vol07 | Vol08 Part1 | Vol08 Part2 | Vol09 Part1

Vol 9 recap start! It's late and I'm not having that many clever thoughts, so more just...reacting and saving cool panels :D

Chapter 1:

Aww Nico and Miss Melanie checking to see how Livio is doing. Nico's really got the big brother vibes.

Great catch, buddy!

Smiling and laughing little Wolfwood! This is killing me with so much cuteness. Also, love how he got his big Wolfwood nose as a kid too (I mean, of course he does, but then you never know, an author might make all kids look kinda similiar even unintentionally by giving them big kid eyes, small noses and such stuff...it's just nice to see distinct facial features drawn in different age states)

*** you for that evil trap, Chapel.

Livio not saying anything to that in that one panel is telling a lot actually. Now we know in what way he himself is tied to that orphanage...does he consider it a burden too? I wonder if Chapel struck a nerve with that sentence.

And just like that I knew I was gonna like Livio. Oooh he had it coming.

Hmm love this page. It really feels like the start of something.

Chapter 2:

So so proud of him...I read other bookclub posts about how Wolfwood symbolizes the humanity that CAN change and boy is that right.

I can only imagine Nightow having SO much fun drawing this!! :DD I have no idea but if I'd have to guess I'd say he was just waiting to draw a full page cool blockbuster scene of Wolfwood riding a motorcycle with an explosion in the backgrounds. Probably been wanting to do this since some volumes. And finally got his chance!! Cause there was no need to draw this so action-movie epic-like and he still did, hehe.

First of all, this page here looks so cool! Wolfwood is so shapey, but also the pose and composition...*mwah* Then in this fight we get to see just how good of a fighter Wolfwood actually is. Not that we didn't witness that before, but it was often together with Vash, or if alone, like with Ninelives, he was struggling quite a bit. But here to me it felt like we get this glimpse of a trained assassin he once was, fully in control of the situation, being fast and efficient (without killing).

Such badassery!!! I'm a big fan of how Livio, despite being fully indoctrined, still kinda protects the orphanage too! Well, maybe it's also because Chapel is prob sitting there too and they still need to use the orphanage as bait but STILL! I chose to believe that at this point some point inside Livio was still acting out of attachment to his old home.

Chapter 3:

Hey! That's not a nice thing to say boy! D: Also, she's obviously trying to reassure the kids so don't make them more scared by saying it won't do anything!

Oh fuck. The kids are talking about Nico here but this obviously applies to Vash, as well. Wolfwood can not rely on Vash now who is not around to help.

Also, may I say, what an utterly gorgeous drawing of Wolfwood and Livio.

RAZLOOOO

HMMMM Livio the Double FANG

And in that moment he thinks of that one moment where a person DID need him, where he saved someone :'(

These two pages look soooo cool. I never knew how ominous laundry cool look!

I do wonder...how did Razlo know about the Eye of Michael? Did he meet an informant some time, or overhear smth?

You're not going to kill your brother now, are you Wolfwood! (Not really brother but brother in heart, you know.)

Chapter 4:

Oh I misremembered, he DID mean to kill Livio? Or only momentarily put him out of order, knowing that he has SOME kind of regeneration abilities? I'm not quite sure now. What I do know is that Chapel has a creepy grin and I want that old man out of my face.

Ah hm maybe I should read at least the next page before rambling off. He really only wanted to incapacitate him. I'm relieved!

Rude! You didn't need to throw him through a suddenly spawned set of wood!

At this rate, Wolfwood must be riddled with bullets. Shot from behind, from the front, lost a HUGE amount of blood from his shoulder...

...and yet he's still going on. Oh my boy he's such an awesome character. (Also quick side note, love how Nightow draws hands)

Saving this because awesome pages. This is only the second time we're seeing these vials being used, right? Funny how quickly they became such an important plot device. (I wonder when Nightow planned them into the story...I'm guessing kinda late? Just wondering)

He must have really trusted on Livio blocking that thing!

Aww :(

Making a cut here! The rest will be done in a part 2 post, I don't want to get to the image limit in the middle of a chapter.

[comfy-sofa]

IM LOSING MY FUCKING M I N D

IM NOT OK AND NEITHER ARE YOU AFTER THIS EPISODE

Vashmeryl fans, y'all are getting FED TODAY GOOD FOR YALL

HIS FUCKING HAIR OUR BOY IS BACK AND SPIKIER THAN EVER

The whole fucking fight sequence mmhhhh DELICIOUS the whole entire time I was screaming BEAT HIS ASS BEAT HIS ASSSS DO IT FOT ROBERTO

Ok, the fact that Vash kinda knows how to use his abilities and condense into the fucking rubic cube is kinda dope

Also during the fight, DID VASH FUCKING BITE KNIVES???? IM FUCKING LOSING IT (peak sibling behavior)(edit: yes he fucking did dhvswrrvbn)

First off, the outfit change??? Like all his shit is black and the fucking BLACK WINGS YESS PLANT BOY SLAY

Also THE SPEED RELOADER???? DID HE HAVE THAT SHIT ENTIRE TIME???? At least he has it lmao

Fucking about time Wolfwood you fucking helped COTDAMN (also the run sequence with him stepping on the police officer mhmm good shit)

THE ANGEL ARM IM FUCKING CUMMING I LOVE ITS DESIGN

Knives KNIVES GET OUT THE FUCKING BEAM YOUR GETTING ROASTED LIKE A MARSHMALLOW (really out here giving me 'get out the fucking tank' vibes like)

Speaking of this scene, we finally get to see Vash fucking cry....I'm not ok

Oh my God, Vash just turned himself into a goddamm METEOR SIR ARE YOU OK???

Well RIP July and Mr. Police dude

Oooh two year time skip and my boy got his bouty back!

MILLY MILLY MILLY MILLY MILLY (also refreshing to the insurance company👍)

ERIKS AND LINA I CANT WAIT TO GET MY HEART RIPPED OUT

EARTH EARTH FUCKING WERE GETTING THE EARTH STORY FROM TRIMAX THANK FUCK (Also heyyy chronica)

Looks like season 2 is also confirmed! Dude, this was a journey and a half. I'm really glad that orange went the prequel route, and we got to see what led up to July's destruction. We actually get to see a glimpse of what the cast could've been like prior to the events of Trigun/TriMax.

Fuck I'm glad stampede was a thing in the first place, or I wouldn't have watched the anime or read the manga. Like fuck this is really a piece of media that sticks with you y'know? Like how the fuck am I gonna move on now? Like it's been a while since I thought of creating fanart or just rant on it because it's so fucking good. Like if I could ever create something like Trigun, something that sticks with people, like that would be a great accomplishment. Sure, there were some ups and downs (maybe I'll do like a legit review post, idk) but fuck I had a good time!

Now this post is getting long so I'm just gonna end it with that I'm glad I let orange cook and I can't wait for season 2

Peace and Love y'all ✌️

[takeshitakyuuto]

Trigun Book Club Update Trimax volume 2

Oh sweet Jesus just look at what I have to deal with here

These are THE SCANS. KMSSSSSS

Also, despite being intimately familiar with reading right to left, the fact that the next arrow is still the right one instead of the left one completely breaks my brain. Let’s see how this goes. Although I will say that this is a slight upgrade in that the last volume scanned two page spreads separately so I kinda had to imagine how they were supposed to look put together. I should’ve just bought the books

Ch 1. That’s also how I feel whenever I hear the saxophone my dad was a jazz saxophonist, I have a degree in classical oboe performance. How did this happen? idk

Jesus being crushed to death by the weight of other humans is a horrific way to die

Ch 2. Eat like a dog, Kaiba

Sorry I’m incapable of thinking about media outside of the contexts of other things I’ve read or seen, it’s in my nature. Remember that part in Hiraeth The End of the Journey where even though Hibino had a side cart for his motorcycle, he refused to let anyone ride in it because he was saving it for his soulmate? Yeah.

Totally obsessed with Raidei’s outfit

They say don’t bring a knife to a gun fight but they said nothing about a sword!

Ooooohhhhhhh it’s the last page of chapter two and I finally figured out that it’s supposed to be Raidei the Blade. I was like braid? Why braid what’s that supposed to mean?

Ch 3. Loving the title page art for this chapter

I will not make dirty jokes about Vash’s arm gun, I will not make dirty jokes about Vash’s arm gun, I w

Ngl, this fight reminded me of (oh god im doing it again) the coliseum chapter of Kino’s Journey. I’m leaving it at that but it seems like I’ve got a penchant for human-loving gunslinging protagonists

Ch 4. Chapter called Wolfwood? LETS GOOOOOO

Vash: I don’t kill people

Wolfwood: I do, get out of my way

The more interactions between Vash and Wolfwood I read, the more I understand why people ship them. Who doesn’t want someone to put your gun to their head and tell you to shoot them

Meryl and Millie! 🥹 It’s been so long!

They say lost technology a lot but this technology certainly doesn’t seem lost

Ch 5. Nico nii chan :3c (side note: totally forgot his first name was Nicholas for a second and thought it was a joke on him always smiling)

don’t click

I really do love how large of a role family plays in the story and the characters’ motivations and personalities. I still feel like we’re in the “early” part of the series, but to be already picking up on so many of these themes and motifs is really cool, and I’m definitely keen to see how they all come to a head in the series.

Love when there’s a kanji near the page fold and the scan makes it look like ▉

I’m still not sure what Y is... it seems like a group of bad guys? Maybe? Is it Kaiba’s group?

Ch 6. Gung Ho Guns just loves toying with Vash’s emotions huh

Ch 7. Sorry I’m laughing at Wolfwood’s sultry little pose in the chapter title art here

I’m on the verge of wringing the puppetmaster’s neck holy shit just speak Japanese for once please. All of you reading a translation- know you’re lucky

Final thoughts: This was definitely a lot more interesting than the last volume, and the pace seems to be picking up. I’m still kinda waiting for it to get out of “villain of the week” type plot, but at least we’re getting more depth out of it. Also, it seems like we’ve completely abandoned those twelve coin assassins at this point? There are some things I’m still unsure about, like Y, but I also know that I struggle to pick up on more indirect things in my second language, especially when it’s referencing something that we’re just supposed to figure out. So that’s my assumption on Y, but I still don’t have any ideas on why Wolfwood has such strong ties with it. Also, I feel like my thoughts were pretty short for this volume, but that’s also definitely because there was lots of action and fight scenes this time around, and my brain just kinda shuts off for those lolol

[ac-liveblogs]

The tl;dr on Trigun Stampede is that it’s a good show, but*

This is the show that I watched on a whim bc I thought Vash was cute and it consumed my brain for the next three months. I do not regret that decision. 

Heading into Trigun, I knew jackshit about it. I think the only character I could’ve recognised prior to this was 90s Vash (whose design I didn’t and still kind of don’t like!). I was too young for Adult Swim in the… very brief period of time that it was actually airing on Cartoon Network in Australia and I’m not sure if Trigun was even on it anyway, so I had absolutely no expectations walking in. 

Obviously, the most notable thing about this show to a newcomer is the animation. It’s been interesting watching RWBY vol 9 and Stampede back to back, let’s say that much. It’s stellar. I think this is one of the prettiest shows I’ve watched in a very long time, and the combat animation is fluid, energetic and full of so much personality. I was still deciding how I felt about the show right up until episode 3 - Millions Knives’ debut - and as soon as I saw the attack on Jeneora I was hitting up my WatchPal to recommend it. I think you can definitely see where Studio Orange cut corners - some locations can feel very empty - but for what they actually want you to focus on, the show looks great.

Episode 4’s reveal of Wolfwood’s Punisher (and what it can do) lives in my head rent-free to this day, and quite frankly episode 12 is one of my favourite fight scenes in pretty much anything. A lot of love and attention to detail goes into these fights, and the choreography is fresh and exciting. Vash shooting at Nai resembling a 3rd-person shooter was so much fun. WatchPal was very patient with me constantly asking to pause, rewind, watch that scene again, pick out this or that detail. Sorry dude. Worth it to see how terribad a fighter Nai actually is, though, shit’s hilarious. I think that even if you don’t care for the plot, this show is worth watching just for the fight scenes and set pieces. 

I think no one’s going to argue the plot is rushed, but what’s there is solid and interesting. This world is absolutely fascinating, and I had a lot of fun speculating on what was happening or what Nai’s goals were. The most fun I had was picking out the biblical themes (which I surprisingly know more of than I thought I did) and working out who was what was where and why, and I’ll be very curious to see where that all goes. I’m also an obnoxious Final Fantasy 7 purist, so I was obviously enjoying the heavy-handed pro-environmentalism themes and psychological horror elements. Nai was right until he was wrong. I’ll be… interested to see how this all resolves next season, because I’m not sure I’m meant to think Vash is right, exactly. 

Vash is an enjoyable MC, though he’s kind of a woobie, huh? I watched Badlands Rumble in the middle of all this and was shocked at the difference in characterisation (incidentally, not a good movie!) He was definitely a lot goofier in eps 1 and 2, but things took a real turn in episode 3 that he never quite cheered up from so I’m hoping to see him in his natural habitat once things chill out. “He’s both the hero and the heroine” is a phrase that’s stuck with me since I learnt the screenwriter apparently said it, and it’s certainly made the way he’s written incredibly interesting to dissect symbolically.

Picking apart symbolism in this show is one of my favourite things to do with it.

Surprisingly, I think William Conrad is one of the more interesting characters in the show. I’m so fascinated by the logic behind everything he’s done. I want more of this dude, I thought Meryl was gonna murk him and was pleasantly surprised when she didn’t.

I like Wolfwood. I like narrative foils and homoerotic subtext. I think Wolfwood is potentially really interesting and didn’t get to shine in Stampede, but he’s got at least one whole season ahead of him and I am already predicting that Trimax is going to make me exceptionally mentally unwell about him. I can pick ‘em. I can sense it. I can smell blood in the water. I am also saying, right now and for posterity, that Wolfwood is going to die. He’s gonna die in Stampede, he’s gonna die in Maximum, he probably died in the 90s. Sorry. It’s gonna happen.

If this weren’t a 12 episode series and it would’ve been unsatisfying for it to happen here, I would’ve expected him to die redeeming himself after betraying Vash in July. Now we’re past his Judas phase, I’m wondering what the New Biblical Imagery he’s going to pick up to replace it will be bc as is, uh... dude by all means should probably just power walk really fast in the other direction and never be seen or heard from again.

Nai is a really fun and sympathetic villain right up until he's fun and an absolute monster, and I respect his deranged manner and willingness to wrangle that twincest subtext as close to actual text as he could possibly get it. I am SO curious how much of that was in the original because jesus christ. I felt bad for the guy and agree with him to a certain extent, but my feelings about Nai’s handling are going to have to wait until I see how Vash’s arc continues and what happens to Plants going forward. Vash doesn’t seem particularly motivated to change the status quo at this stage which is... interesting. We’ll see what happens.

I was very lukewarm on Meryl until eps 10-12. Now it’s the Zazie-Meryl Power Hour. As soon as I realised they were parallels my brain woke up. While I’m really ??? unsure about Wolfwood’s trajectory going forward, I am very excited for Meryl’s. It also helps she turned into a chain-smoking disaster senpai in the timeskip. She’s Mary Magdalene also. That’s really cool. I felt really smart when I figured out that really obvious connection, finally, in episode 11. (I know some bible but not that much bible.)

I… I don’t get points for figuring out which two biblical figures Vash is representative of. No one does. I do get points for noticing he yanked Wolfwood’s entire colour scheme when he started trying to kill Nai, though. That was cool. That fight was so fucking cool. 

Trigun Stampede is a really fun show.

*But. 

It is a show absolutely hamstrung by its episode count. When you’re dealing with either 12 or 24 episode seasons you’re inevitably going to run into problems when you’re not working with original material, and Stampede was having serious problems fitting in all the plot points that it needed to before the finale. This show’s pace is absolutely breakneck with absolutely no room to breathe, and in the end that means the main cast’s relationships suffer for it. I was very disappointed to find that I really liked Roberto in the episode that he died, and that was episode 10. 

Episodes 10-12 leaves the implication of shenanigans and much stronger relationships than we got. That’s a real shame because the show roughly broke into Vash-Wolfwood, Vash-Nai and Meryl-Roberto with very little crossover - I know Vash/Meryl is a classic, but she ended up having more chemistry with Wolfwood, and any semblance of party dynamic evaporated once we got to Home. And speaking of Home, that lack of space between episodes and the necessity to explain Vash and Nai’s backstory ended up with us teleporting in and out, and the rest of the trip to July getting crammed off-screen. Integral scenes are missing - I had to consult a more knowledgeable coworker about the missing pieces of Wolfwood’s backstory so I could get his rough timeline (and age) actually explained to me, and I did find myself wanting to explore this world a lot more than we had time to do. 

Like. Seriously. What the hell is up with Legato. Who are you. How are you doing that. Why are you here. Why is your hair blue.

The photo of the group in episode 12 in particular really makes me feel like there’s a lot we missed out on without a couple of breather episodes here and there. I think with the exception of Vash and Nai, whose relationship is quite interesting and intense, I enjoyed the concepts of the characters more than the actual execution. However, I’m also 100% sure that Nai and Vash was the Absolute Main Focus of this season, so, I can let this go if season 2 delivers. 

Sorry Vashwood, you’re very fun in theory and I like you a lot, but we’re kind of pulling at threads here. Trimax is apparently gonna be an Experience though. 

I try to take the circumstances of a work’s creation into account when I talk about it, and between a 12 or 24 episode series I understand why Studio Orange chose 12, but Stampede really needed 15 or 16 to shine with the narrative it wanted to tell. I also understand why Stampede chose to seed future plot points that went absolutely nowhere this season - Wolfwood’s beef with Livio, Legato and Elendira being prime examples (christ this guy is gonna be busy in season 2), and the trip Home specifically after the Sand Steamer feels a bit pointless at this stage - but I can’t help but wonder if that time would have been better spent elsewhere. 

Although, a lot of fans couldn’t even deal with Milly’s absence even though it took about 5 seconds for me, someone who confused Trigun with Cowboy Bebop until quite recently, to work out what Meryl’s rough character arc was and why Milly was absent (but pretty clearly coming back later in very predictable way), so maybe Studio Orange was being wise by assuring, uh, certain fans they hadn’t forgotten or maliciously chosen to delete these characters. 

I’ve heard Trigun wasn’t as popular in Japan as it was in the West, so maybe that 12 episode pick was playing it safe, but since S2 has been greenlit and Stampede seems to have been a pretty big success, hopefully Orange can spring for 24 episodes this time and make this show really shine.

Anyway, I’m gonna read the manga now.

[shastafirecracker]

for the ask meme: 3, 18, 22?

another break for writing rambles!

3 what’s one scene you always wanted to write but can’t be arsed to write all the setup and context it would need? I would love to write just some smutty smutty PWP of polygun all having fun with vash’s vine tentacles but I keep being hung up by my own inability to let go of canon characterization - the fact that those vines are incredibly traumatic to vash and I have such a hard time getting him in my mind to a place where he’d be okay with even manifesting them, much less railing three people at once with them. argh! it took me however many thousands of words of the VWL post-canon AU to get to a place where I think vash is fine with feathering out and having oops-accidentally-psychic sex with wolfwood and livio. do I have to do that with vash/wolfwood/meryl/milly also?? (maybe?? i’m not saying it’ll NEVER happen I’m just saying it makes me insane)

I also have a slew of AU ideas that I know would make great 100k+ epics but like, man, that’s work, that’s so hardddd whine whine whine

18 do any of your stories have alternative versions (abandoned plotlines, AUs of your own work, alternate characterizations)? again I can’t say anything about BB fic yet, though I will! probably in december I’ll make a roundup post of discards and trivia. and I don’t think I ever have alternate characterizations, because having a strong idea of the characterization through-line is usually where my fics start. but in both Trillium & Ivy and my bb fic I have thought to myself that it would be so fucking easy to make them polygun instead of vashwood. there’s a very noncanon-to-t&i wip of the wives and the bfs having a bi4bi4bi4bi weekend getaway, which… I’m gonna hold onto because there was a polygun event interest check recently and I do like the bones of this wip, it just needs a LOT of work, so. if there’s an event it might be just the thing, idk.

T&I has the most abandoned plotlines of probably anything I’ve ever written besides my old destiel AU. modern-setting AUs have so many potential ways to get sidelined, at least for me. probably the biggest thing is that according to the original outline, the final showdown was meant to take place in like a warehouse at some docks (why? what??), zazie was going to drive everyone there because elendira sent them to get her man back safely, the WHOLE crew was supposed to go (vash, nick, livio, meryl, milly, kaite, zazie) and there were going to be? whole gun fight scenes??

this is a blatant example of what is meant by “don’t be precious with your ideas” - I wrote several thousand words of outline and then looked at all of it and said what the fuck, time to put all of this in the garbage disposal and start over. don’t be precious = drawfee’s whole bit of “delete your art.” sometimes you gotta accept not even scavenging for bits to salvage, just burn it all.

the fic is MUCH better for it

22 do you reread your old works? how do you feel about them? I do! I love them! oh it’s the tea, for me, the tea for me, the tea specifically designed to kill me, etc etc! I drift off from rereading my own fics in older fandoms often because I’m just not rotating those blorbos in my head so hard anymore, but for finished fics in my current fandom, it’s like hey wow this author wrote a fic that will push every single one of my buttons with extreme precision, because this author lives in my head and is me, lol. also, when I get a review that mentions any specific thing, I have to go back and reread that bit to extract all the dopamine from seeing it through fresh eyes and imagining how the reader interpreted it or felt about it.

[pancake-breakfast]

I'm not usually this awake at this hour, but sometimes one gets a migraine, and even having the massive spoilers I have for this volume, I'm finding others trickling in, so let's get through a bit more of this before I have to attend morning work meetings.

I'm a profeshunal.

Stream-of-consciousness thoughts for TriMax Vol. 10, Chapters 4-5 below.

Chapter 4: Death Omen

As if we haven't had enough death omens since... like... volume 2 of the original manga....

Am I gonna get to watch these two move in beautiful tandem for a fight again? Please say yes.

What are you talking about, Vash? This is the perfect time for reminiscing!

You're gonna do what now, Wolfwood? My dude, don't be prideful here. That already almost got you killed once in this volume. Just let Vash help you.

THAT'S RIGHT, YOU TELL HIM VASH!!! Not like Wolfwood could stop Vash from helping, anyway.

Ohhh, shit, we're gonna go there now, are we? *deep breaths*

What a time for Vash to remember this scene. Strange that this is what he thinks of when he thinks about how close they've become. But perhaps that's when he realized how much Wolfwood genuinely cared about him. Also, I love how this memory interjects this sudden quietness in what's a very chaotic scene.

Vash is thinking about all the things Wolfwood has told him about why Wolfwood kills. As tragic as it might be, sometimes there are things one can only protect using extreme measures. One should always seek alternate solutions, if one can, but sometimes that's just not an option.

I'd bet good money that what Vash is specifically debating here is what extremes he's willing to go through to protect Wolfwood.

Yeah. There it is.

Heh, we get that line, and then we have Vash catch Wolfwood in almost an embrace. You can't tell me Nightow didn't know what he was doing here.

Ohhh, he can sense it in Wolfwood's body. His mans is not doing good.

This... this isn't the in-tandem fighting I wanted to see.

They've awoken angry protector Vash.

Man, he almost headshot Razlo. I feel like that might be the closest Raz is gonna get to a warning shot.

Hahahahaha, I was under the impression it was Wolfwood telling Vash to destroy someone in this panel. It just doesn't seem like something Vash would say. But they done really pissed him off.

Wolfwood gets how much he means to Vash here, too. Finally, these idiots understand each other, but... of course, it's a bit late in the game, isn't it.

Heh. Wolfwood's gonna give Raz an appropriate dressing down from his older brother.

Raz doesn't buy it.

The third arm is still stupid, but the layout of this panel is bomb.

That's so many bullets. Raz is getting his ammo from the same nebulous void that generates the unending ammo in Hellsing.

I always love seeing Wolfwood use the Punisher as a shield instead of a gun. There's something about the subversion of its intended purpose that just hits the right spot for me.

Chapter 5: Final Battle

This chapter title sucks. How dare it be the final battle. There are still four volumes to go....

Oof, there go Wolfwood's sunglasses. Matrix rules say he's in for it now.

Shoot, the gun didn't fire. But... does the Punisher even fire that way??

Raz makes Wolfwood look so small...

Did Wolfwood just disable one of Raz's Punishers?

Damn, kicking the empty magazine into Raz's chest is a crazy move.

RIP dumb metal arm. A very good tactical move since it's the one arm Raz can't regenerate.

Vash is just... watching. He knows this is what Wolfwood wants, but he doesn't look the least bit happy with this situation.

I'm not sure if it's Raz or Wolfwood speaking here, but if it's Raz, he sounds like someone who's trying to keep themselves psyched up when they're very clearly losing. If it's Wolfwood, then Wolfwood is just taunting him, since he's clearly already taken the upper hand.

Who knows what's happening in this panel. I assume they're sparring with the Punishers like they're giant swords.

So many bullets....

Heh, Wolfwood's using the ammo belt itself as a weapon.

I appreciate how the Punisher's diminishing stability here reflects Wolfwood's physical state. He's going down, but goshdarn, if he isn't making use of every resource at his disposal, even if it's in very non-traditional ways, to make sure he gets the job done.

Dang, he done fucked Raz up.

LOL, Raz gets it. Bit late, bro.

Seems like the only thing that's incensing Raz more than the thought of dying to Wolfwood is the thought of not dying to Wolfwood. That Wolfwood might show him mercy in the end.

Or maybe he just doesn't want to go out via something as simple as a punch to the face.

That'll do for now. I'll save the rest of the pain for... later....

Archive

Trigun Vol. 1: Covers + 1-3, 4, 5-6, 7-8, 9-10 || Vol. 2: Covers + Extras, 1, 2-4, 5-6, 7-8

TriMax Vol. 1: Covers + 1-2, 3-4, 5-6 || Vol. 2: Covers + 1, 2-4, 5, 6-7 || Vol. 3: Covers + 1-3, 4-5, 6-7 || Vol. 4: Covers + 1-2, 3-5, 6-7 || Vol. 5: Covers + 1-2, 3-4, 5-6 || Vol. 6: Covers + 1-2, 3-4, 5-6 || Vol. 7: Covers + 1-2, 3-4, 5-6 || Vol. 8: Covers + 1-2, 3-4, 5 + Bonus || Vol. 9: Covers + 1-2, 3-4, 5-6 || Vol. 10: Covers + 1-3

Extra Credit: Trigun Vol. 1: Nebraska vs. Vash's Motivations, Vash's Loneliness, Vash's Depression (pt 2 of post), Soupy Brains || Vol. 2: Coin Factoids || TriMax Vol. 1: Lina, Vash, and a Haircut || Meryl, Vash, and the Pursuit of Happiness || Vol. 5: Knives, Vash, and Hatred for Humanity || Vol. 6: Coping Series: Wolfwood, Meryl, Vash || Vol. 8: The Uncoordinated Counterattack || Vol. 9: Justice, Punishment, and Mercy, The Tolling of an Iron Bell

[iwritenarrativesandstuff]

Meryl, Luida, and Bridging the Gap

This is just a quick little side-note I wanted to make about the similarities between Meryl and Luida that I noticed as I was reading, and how they end up occupying similar, yet complementing roles in the story.

***Disclaimer: I was sick when I wrote this and my head is full of fog lmao. If I have completely left out a word or something... don't even worry about it it's fine.

First off, on a surface level, they both are characterized as capable, intelligent, level-headed women, who are suddenly thrust into leadership positions, with Meryl being assigned the task of tracking down and mitigating the damage caused by Vash the Stampede plus looking out for her new protégé, Milly, and Luida stepping up to take charge of Ship 3 and its residents after Doc's death.

While the demand placed on them both is immense, nonetheless, they are shown to be quite capable of shouldering this kind of responsibility - however, given their intense focus and objective-driven personalities, they actually both get scenes where they are somewhat horrified by their own temporary prioritization of objectives over morality. We see this with Meryl in Trigun Volume 1 when she doesn't react in righteous anger to Badwick threatening his parents and had shut herself off from writing to her own in pursuit of her job, and with Luida when she briefly considers the idea of another July incident to stop Knives. Both think negatively of themselves for this - of course, I'm of the mind that since they are upset with themselves on reflection, this proves the exact opposite, really. I think they both have hearts of gold, they're just under a lot of stress, especially as time goes on. The two of them are human beings who falter, but whose morals ultimately align closely with what Vash wants to see in the world. Really, what the two of them hate most here is the idea of their own inaction or taking the easy way in the face of wrongdoing - a concept that drives them into action going forward.

[ID: Two images from Trigun and Trigun Maximum. The first is from Trigun Volume 1. Over images of trees and Badwick's father, Meryl says "But I... I just stood there and took it all in without even budging. I am such a cold person. I chose this path of blood and tears without thinking about the rest of my life. All I can see is what's right in front of me." Meryl starts to cry as she continues, "Why could I not see... that when I closed myself off to him, something was wrong? I..." She then slaps her cheeks and says "No... never mind!" The second image is from Trigun Maximum Volume 8. A single tear runs down Luida's cheek. Meryl says "Miss Luida...?" Her back turned to Meryl, Luida says "I'm sorry. I... was thinking for a moment. If something like July would happen again... it could stop Knives, but... ... I'm a terrible woman. End ID.]

Both of them also have a connection to Vash's past that gives them a different perspective on him as a person, instead of just an ally - Meryl, of course, gets brain-blasted in Volume 5 with Vash's memories (poor thing), but Luida is also more familiar with him than even a lot of the people on Ship 3, it seems - enough that she calls him out for blaming himself after the attack, clearly used to hearing this from him. She also is the one to clear up at least some of Wolfwood's confusion and uncertainty.

We also get this interesting parallel of them both watching Vash walk away to face Knives, him having rejected their offers of help. It's something that clearly saddens them both, as they watch him fight alone again and again, and wish he wouldn't. Both of them have moments where they feel they can't offer much in the way of assistance, or that their best efforts aren't enough.

[ID: Two images from Trigun and Trigun Maximum. The first is from Trigun Volume 2. Vash, his back turned, runs off into the chaos, a Plant seen above him and the city ahead, as he yells back "Get as far away from here as you can! Get to safety!" Meryl watches him from the door. In the second image, from Trigun Maximum Volume 8, a grainy flashback shows Vash's turned back as he walks away from a young Luida, who is reaching out to him. End ID.]

Of course, we the readers know this isn't true at all! Meryl and Luida do so much over the course of the story.

Interestingly, they don't start off as the ones completely in charge - Meryl works for Bernadelli even if she is in charge of her assignment, and Luida is presumably part of the Council, but the one in charge is initially Doc. But once they do take over - Luida after Doc's death, and Meryl once the world is thrown into ruins and Bernadelli no longer exists - there is a striking difference in the way they act from their predecessors.

Meryl goes from simply following Vash around to taking a self-directed and active role in assisting him however she can - looking for his old belongings and anything else of potential use, asking Marlon to repair his gun, creating a distraction with Milly, and helping the Earth Federation in the final hour with no hesitation.

Luida takes a much more active role in rallying Ship 3 to assist Vash as well. While some of this may simply have been because the stakes were raised much higher after Volume 3, Ship 3, while already a base of support for Vash, was a distant safe haven, kept largely separate from the rest of the world. Up until that point, they had provided Vash with aid, but not fought alongside him, something that clearly bothers Luida on multiple occasions. She decides to change this. She's the one who sets out to help as many of the towns ravaged by the Ark as possible. She rallies the Ship 3 residents for a rescue mission to help Vash. She's the one to step forward and attempt to bring all the leaders around to standing with Vash.

Which brings me to my last comparison point. They're both staunchly supportive of Vash, quick to come to his aid, and quick to defend his character from those who doubt his intent - Luida even sharply calls out her own people for their moment of mistrust after hearing about July. These two know and care about Vash on a more personal level than most - and as we all know, due to his avoidant tendencies, this is not an easy thing to do. Vash is frequently misinterpreted, and these two are often the ones to set the record straight.

[ID: A panel from Trigun Maximum Volume 3. Luida, sternly, says "That's a foolish question. You would know the answer just by looking at the scars on his body. If he had used his true immortality, those scars would not be there. End ID.]

In this way, much like Vash is a bridge between humans and Plants, Meryl and Luida are something of a bridge between humans and Vash.

And they're able to do this because deep down, their ideals align closely with his - they're not just supporting someone they care about; they have a similar desire to see the kind of world he fights for, and they choose to fight for it too.

But while Luida is something of a spokesperson for Vash, reaching out to humanity, it is almost as if Meryl becomes the voice of humanity reaching back, responding to him, and agreeing that not everything in the world is awful; that it is worth believing in the best in others. They need to stand together.

[ID: A panel from Trigun Maximum Volume 14. Meryl, in a spacesuit, with frank determination, says, "Because we decided to stand together. We stand with Vash the Stampede." End ID.]

Meryl is the voice of proof that some people believe in the love and peace he speaks of, and are willing to say it back to him in turn.

Updated on my masterpost - my other book club stuff can be found here!

[iwouldtrademyfatherforatictac]

So I just watched the first episode of Trigun and in an attempt (failing) to not endlessly talk about it to everyone i meet I’m dumping thoughts here lol

First off... it wasn’t bad. I will admit a part of me is a little disappointed in this just because if the show does get worse then it hurts more but it also means that it could get better.

I’m not happy with how they decided to speed up the plot. It took what 10+episodes to even mention Knives and they bust him out in the first episode? Imo in the original the fact that he wasn’t mentioned, the fact that he wasn’t a main focus antagonist was nice. It let the viewers get to know the characters outside of the main plot and let you get a feel for them. I also think it helped cement Trigun as a funky space western, Stampede feels like its a show set in space with a little bit of western thrown in. Granted this might change in the future.

I actually didn’t mind the animation as much as I thought I would. Most 3D anime’s that I’ve tried have looked incredibly clunky and weird but Stampede didn’t do bad, it still had its clunky looks but even 2D has those lol

I will say mostly out of spite I don’t think I can or will ever appreciate Roberto de Niro’s character. Milly is an important part of the story and I’m very curious to see how they are going to handle Wolfwoods story without her in it. And! I don’t see why they couldn’t have put her in? Even if they kept then as reporters having both the girls would have been great and wouldn’t really change the story they’ve got going so far.

Speaking of the insurance girls I am personally 70/30 on liking what they did with Meryl’s character. I liked her in the original, she was kinda a bitch and very confident in herself, she would be the one to take charge of situations and had clearly been in some dangerous situations before and I liked that.

In Stampede they toned a lot of her down. She feels younger, is younger and I don’t really like that, and she is written to be naive and most of that feels like it was done so they had someone closer to the audience that things could be explained to so everyone could understand but that was also why I liked the team of Meryl and Milly. Neither of them knew everything so they did need things explained to them from time to time and that felt natural because (spoiler) humans have only been on Gunsmoke for 150ish years? That isn’t a whole lotta time to set things up so everyone has information readily available.

But they did still keep how confident she is in herself and how she doesn’t really beat around the bush with things which I did appreciate.

I also think that they did a decent job on Vash as a character, he has almost the same vibes to me as OG Vash. I.E he’s still kinda a dumbass in the first couple episodes and trying to hide who he is.

I will also say based on the first episode the 3D animation is going to make for some cool fight scenes which I am excited for.

I hope they do go back and explain more about what happened on the Seeds ship and why Knives crashed them because I would LOVE to see that part of the manga’s story line animated. It is one of my favorite parts in the manga.

I think overall I’m not blown away but I will admit that might be slightly because the original and the manga are in my top 5 favorites and that makes me a bit biased. I’m gonna watch at least the second episode and see how they go from there but I cautiously like it and I think it has potential to be really good.

I sincerely hope that one day someone writes a fic where Milly takes the place of Roberto in some way because he is the only thing that I truly dislike about the show so far. I kinda feel like they wanted to introduce a Wolfwood esk character before introducing Wolfwood but either way he kinda sucks rn

[severalspoons]

Long Rambling Trigun Meta Discussion 2

I *hate* the reply function in Tumblr. As far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t function. It doesn’t even open up a findable page so I can respond, and I can’t directly answer the reply. That’s why I reblog.

So, here’s the next best thing:

tiggymalvern

I don't recall anything like that fic you mention from either canon. It's a lovely idea, if only I could imagine Vash and Knives stopping arguing with each other for long enough to do it.

This fic I’m remembering was surprisingly hard to find, and now I’m wondering if it’s from FF.net rather than AO3. Will share once I find it!

The twins argue while doing it, IIRC, and have very different approaches. Luckily for the humans, in this fic the engineer likes the plant and takes care of it well, given how little is actually known about how to do so post-crash. Even so, Knives almost kills the engineer, but Vash stops him and leaves behind a little journal full of advice and encouragement. 

IMO, I feel like this is something Vash would be motivated to do more than Knives:

-- to repair his relationship with Knives

-- because he feels responsible for the people Rem saved

-- because he wants the bulb plants to be safe and happy

(listed in the order I thought of them)

But Knives would see this as slight progress towards Vash seeing things his way, so he’d go with it. What do you think?

tiggymalvern

I've never been entirely clear on the manga ending myself, and I think Nightow left it somewhat ambiguous deliberately. Vash and Knives are fighting, and then the earth forces attack them both, Livia intevenes and Vash and Knives fly off and

six months later we find Vash in hiding with the people who saved him, because Knives convinced them to, and then Knives plants an apple tree to help feed the peopl looking after Vash, and then he vanishes...

I assume he chose not to stay with humans and just went off somewhere, but it's left open

Interesting! Yeah, I got the sense it was supposed to be deliberately ambiguous, too. 

Many people say that Knives died giving his last energy to save Vash, to the point where I thought that was canon. 

No matter what happened with Knives and the tree, I have questions. If Knives planted the tree before dying or disappearing or whatever, I’d want to know where he got the apple seeds, and if providing the energy to make that tree survive on Gunsmoke killed him. If he turned into a tree (which I thought was the canon, but maybe not?), how? I can see why you didn’t interpret Knives as turning into a tree.

All I know for sure is, if Knives were dying, he’d want to do it on his own terms. Ideally in a way that would express his point and make an impression on Vash. I was going to say that creating a tree doesn’t seem like Knives’ style, but then I thought about the apple tree scenes in the anime. However that tree came to be, Vash would most likely associate it with happier times on the ship. Maybe he’d be fucked up enough to see it as a gesture of love. 

Maybe it was the closest thing to a gesture of love someone as manipulative and self-absorbed as Knives could manage...

tiggymalvern  Knives really is a person with no middle ground. When he believed Rem's teachings, he believed them wholeheartedly, that everything would turn out fine and people just needed to be given a chance. When he rejected those teachings and decided it was all just rubbish, he went maximum speed to the other extreme. Reject ALL humans, not just the individuals who had proven that they suck. And reject as in eradicate, not just avoid... 

I love Knives’ all-or-nothing way of being. Maybe because I know and love so many people with a little streak of that. And it’s so believable. Reminds me of a quote I read somewhere about how a misanthrope is a disillusioned idealist.

Knives thinks in utilitarian terms (”the greatest good for the greatest number with the least possible sacrifice”) as a kid for the few short scenes before he turns evil. He also seems to think in terms of groups rather than individuals (”humans,” “spiders,” “butterflies”). It saves him the grief Vash goes through at coming to know and lose so many people, but it also helps him justify a racist ideology. I love that about him, actually. If I were to write a Knives redemption fic, a key arc would be helping him learn to see others as individuals. I have a few paragraphs of something like that written...

Kids definitely need wonder and to see the beauty in the world, but it's also a good idea to mention the possibility of weird strangers offering candy that are best avoided. For these bizarre new non-human children, those warnings would have been extra pertinent, and maybe would have reduced the shock of what came after. Knives is definitely more mature than Vash in those flashbacks. Like you say, he wants to discuss issues with Vash, and Vash just parrots Rem. 

Agree.

I have a theory. Earth, in Trigunverse, seems a lot like our world, only worse.

I’ve seen a lot of people’s sense of wonder, beauty, fun, and curiosity squished. I was the weirdo in preschool, among other four year olds, for being too much like that. Maybe on Trigun Earth, a bleak place to begin with, that’s the norm. (And destroying people’s wonder/curiosity/etc. leads to depression and the ennui of modern life, but that’s another essay).

Some people, like those who run Waldorf schools, overreact by going to the opposite extreme. The worst, most ideologically rigid ones, deliberately wait to teach kids to read so they can explore the world unmediated by words a little longer. (And will even discourage kids who learn to read early, grr). Waldorf philosophy assumes young kids are basically sensing, feeling, and imagining beings, rather than thinking ones. 

I get the sense that Rem is one of these sorts. She was squashed and made to feel worthless for the way she saw the world. Maybe that’s part of the reason she was so depressed and needed Alex’s help. She’s raising the twins the way she wished she had been raised.

That sort of parenting wasn’t appropriate for a plant, of course. But no one had raised independent plants to adulthood before. No one knew what was appropriate. No one knew how to teach them about danger (or how not to). 

Growing up as a neurodivergent person in the Dark Ages, the only kid with allergies and sensory processing problems, etc., I understand all too well how badly things can go when even the most loving parents just don’t know what to do, and can’t find helpful information anywhere. Where helpful information isn’t just hard to find, but it doesn’t exist yet. 

So as critical as I’m being of Rem, I sympathize with her. She really didn’t have much to go on but her own knowledge and experience, and she bravely did the best she could.

Vash isn't thinking for himself yet, but he's a kid, so that's allowable. It does make it harder for Knives, though, who feels he has to be responsible for them both. 

You know, Knives does feel responsible for them both, and I hadn’t thought much about it and about the implications of that. No wonder he was so frustrated and furious. There’s definitely a sense of “something is deeply unfair and wrong” for a child trying to raise not only themselves, but their younger sibling(s).  Perhaps that’s part of the reason I saw Knives as caring about Vash, in his toxic, screwed up way. 

Plant biology is MASSIVELY confusing, and the more you try to piece it together, the more your head hurts LOL. But I think that's almost the point? ...Leaving the readers struggling to figure out the plants is the human perspective.

What do you think about the anime being so much from a human pov, especially considering that the most important characters in it are not?

Wolfwood is the support Vash needs to learn to control his plant powers among other things, the powers that have terrified Vash for so long that he ignored them. But Wolfwood isn't scared of them - or rather, he is, but not scared enough to abandon Vash because of them. He knows all about Vash, he knows all about July and the hole in the moon, he's seen Vash transform into some weird crazy thing with feathers, and Wolfwood still stays. Wolfwood lets Vash know that Vash's mistakes can be forgiven, and Vash is still a worthwhile person despite them. And because Wolfwood believes it, Vash can start to believe it. 

Between how well you put this and the dynamic itself, I’m...blown away and don’t know what to say. 

– “Vash, take care of Knives.” This breaks my heart because so far … he hasn’t. First he follows Knives around. Then abandons him. Then attacks him. I really do think Vash was trying. He followed Knives around for so long while being so angry with him for what he'd done, and yes, part of that was because he didn't want to be alone himself, but part of it was him trying to follow Rem's advice. 

Yeah, true, he did try at first. I undervalued it because by the time the series starts, that was far into the past and Vash probably doesn’t even remember it, but still.

In the manga, Rem specifically says, 'Vash, don't leave Knives alone,' because I think she recognises that Knives is prone to extremes and needs a balance. 

See, that instruction makes so much more sense. And I think the plants would have agreed. (Well, of course they would. They’re a collective consciousness, after all).

Rem probably also knew it’s bad for anyone’s health or sanity to be alone, and an emotionally unstable twin plant even more so. Knives would be in a solitary confinement of his own making.

Vash tried and tried to get Knives to change; he spent so much effort trying to explain why genocide wasn't the answer. But Vash failed, and eventually he recognised that he was always going to fail. So he left Knives, because he needed a life that wasn't that failure. He needed to do something to compensate for Knives. He took upon himself the responsibility of not only protecting the humans from Knives, but protecting the humans from the worst in themselves, which Knives' actions brought to the surface. And that is one hell of a lot to take on, and not a recipe for a happy life.

Yeah, that’s...a heroic life, but not a happy one. In a way, it seems almost as doomed as trying to change Knives.