#(I'd post it all 3 times I think it fits but I don't wanna tagspam anymore then I'm doing now so I'll post it later)

[buccellato]

We're at one of my favorite parts of the story (and probably one of Vash's least favorite parts 😬😬), where we get to see how much Vash's family means to him

In book 1 of trimax, the Doc tells Brad that Vash's concept of family extends to the entirety of the human race

...So a Man revenge-killing a murderer isn't just 2 humans committing various levels of violence against each other (at differing levels of justifiable), it's 2 families members hurting each other and Vash can't bring himself to not try and stop it. Even if you understand *why* they fight, you probably wouldn't want your cousins to kill each other in front of you, right? And Vash struggles with it, because some of these people he's saving really do deserve the bullet reserved for them; but at the end of the day he still doesn't want to watch them to die.

And over the course of volume 1 and 2 of trimax, the story repeatedly brings up the question (either overtly or through subtext) "What would you do if you your family was in danger? What lengths would you go?"

Which leads us to the first big fight for this question when Vash's actual, closest living thing to a loving family is under attack. His anguish is palpable to everyone alive in the room with him, his wrath is close to deadly, and every new room he finds with more puppets just hurts him further. But even when he's faced with a monster that has destroyed his one vestige of safety in the world, even if that monster has talked about how he wants to do the same to him, he still can't bring himself to kill him! He even goes so far to try and spare him!

Not because of any specific moral reasoning (even though he's given one to Dominique before), but because before he was Leonof the Puppetmaster, he was a little boy named Emilio that loved his father's bread and had a crush on a girl named Isabel. He was someone that Vash knew, someone he recognized, and someone he undoubtedly cared for greatly at one point. And even if he couldn't save him, he at least had to try, because he was family at one point too.

And of course, it's not all pain and suffering for Vash, because when he wakes up in the hospital ready to blame himself for not being able to save everyone, Luida cuts him off: He did the best he could, he saved lives despite the losses, and at the end of the day he's still family to them, too. Even if the rest of humanity views him as a menace, there's still someone out there who reciprocates his love in a way that doesn't hurt him.

And boy, you can see how much of a relief (and source of stress it is for him) on his face lmao

#trigunbookclub #trigun #trigun spoilers #nobody else talked about the family stuff yet so I guess that I will lmao #Also it is Not A Coincidence that the chapter titled 'families' where Vash's love is reaffirmed has Knives on the title page #but I can't talk about that yet because I have no idea how to approach that topic yet without dropping massive spoilers lmao #It's such a good volume and it hurts so much anyways Luida please marry me I'll leave my resume on your desk thanks #Vash is the most tired sopping wet cat on the ship despite his better efforts to pretend otherwise #was gonna drop a song here because it fits imo but I'm saving it for a later volume because it fits there too lol #(really it's a good song) #(I'd post it all 3 times I think it fits but I don't wanna tagspam anymore then I'm doing now so I'll post it later) #shoutout to the overhaul project <3