#trigun is catnip for women

[tatzelwyrm]

Learning that Nightow was surprised that Trigun attracted a large female audience is so wild.

This man creates the sweetest, silliest, most tormented character to ever exist and is surprised that women like that (also, this character has wings!).

This man creates two amazingly silly and likable female POV characters and then proceeds to not sexualize them at all and does not involve them in any romantic subplots whatsoever and is surprised that women like that.

This man then creates another incredibly tormented guy and has both of his tormented men create a deep bond over a thousand pages and cause profound character development in each other and is surprised that women like that.

[thebeauregardbros]

[BLANK TEMPLATE HERE] further explanation (rambling) below;

Other characters I didn't include:

Erminia (The Sword of Paros)

Laguna Loire (Final Fantasy VIII)

Snow Villiers (Final Fantasy XIII)

Firion (Dissidia 012: Duodecim)

Initial inspirations for Alus were primarily Firion, Erminia, and Harry. I never properly played FFII but Firion's fan wiki describes his personality as "weak to women, pacifistic in nature, and dreams of 'a world covered in wild roses'." I love this character and his voice actor, Johnny Yong Bosch, who also voice acts Vash from Trigun. Ever since falling in love with Dissidia's version of Firion, I started imagining Alus' voice claim as Johnny even though I could not for the life of me find any instance of Johnny voice acting with a British accent let alone in the same flowery speech style of Alus' shakespearian dialect lmfao. Regardless, and furthermore, Johnny's voicelines as Zero in Marvel VS Capcom sparked an inspiration for a soldier-like character which made Alus into a Paladin. Alus later turned into a character that incidentally related to Steiner's storyline in FF9 really well about a man who's conflict with loyalty to his job and his personal ethics and logic causes him turmoil. I was always a fan of Steiner, but never finished FF9 until years after Alus was already created. The Sword of Paros is one of many shoujo 1970s/1980s fantasy romance comics that inspired Alus' aesthetics. This comic in particular is important to me as its' main message is about fighting against hard rules to achieve what society deems the impossible. This is a common theme with Alus' character inspirations; Snow, Piros, Vash, Harry, and Ruka all have this as common character trait. Snow, Piros, and Ruka want to be storybook heroes (a major trait for Alus!) and Vash and Harry both strive for making a dark, chaotic world more kind and sympathetic.

Vash and Firion both share pacifistic values.

It's also just important to me that Alus is a goof. Harry, Vash, Piros, and Laguna are all very chaotically comedic characters. Characters who are goofy despite tragic backstories are Vash and Ruka. That shit is catnip to me.