#Between him and Elendira just

[revenantghost]

I somehow managed to go into Trimax with no spoilers as to who Razlo was and MAN that was a good twist, hats off to you Nightow for making this fun little mystery

#TrigunBookclub #I know he shows up in this volume but #It's early in the week so I won't spoil it #Also I don't have the disorder myself but #Someone I care about very VERY much does #So I've done quite a lot of research to support that person as best I can #And have a bit of knowledge #And while it falls into some early tropes that is a bit tiring #Overall it's such wildly thoughtful rep for an action-based seinen??? #I think about this example specifically when I talk about how much Nightow seems to know about trauma #Because like??? #My dude must have HUNTED for information when this was being published to get this right #Even if he happened to have it like #It's not exactly the most realistic #But it's so much more thoughtful than MOST rep #Idk I just think Razlo's Neat #Especially given the era he was written and the obvious thought put into him #Between him and Elendira just #Man #MAN!!!! #Anyway

[iwritenarrativesandstuff]

Why We Never See Elendira's Story

In a story that emphasizes the human or otherwise sympathetic aspects to its focal characters, it’s very intriguing that Elendira remains an enigma right up until the very end of her story.

We receive some tantalizing hints that there is much, much more to Elendira than what we’re explicitly shown – asides from her apparent sole interest in witnessing the end of the world (to which she'd prefer to see Knives' chosen ending, but is prepared to act herself if he fails), she looks somewhat resigned when saying that nice men “die so easily”, that no matter what Vash does, humans will “ruin it”, and so on and so forth.

[ID: Two screenshots from Trigun Maximum Volume 11. In the first, over a rocky ground, Elendira says "I liked you better when you had nothing to lose. What a shame." She looks down, somewhat resigned, and continues "I don't like nice men. They die so easily." In the second, she stands, frowning and saying "No matter what Vash the Stampede does... there will always be those..." On a close up of her right eye, she says "...who ruin it." End ID.]

Elendira seems to have little to no faith in humanity, and in that sense, she seems a lot like Knives. Knives, who aims to become more and more powerful, and in the process, severing all meaningful ties he has with others on his quest to ensure no one can take advantage of him or use him. We know, of course, that Knives doesn't quite succeed here... but Elendira has. She is the peak of human (or part human? We never get an answer to her unexplained abilities) capability in speed, skill, and strength. The only reason Livio stood any chance in that fight was due to his incredible regeneration.

(As an interesting aside, she also has an interesting commonality with Vash - what comes to mind is her telling the kids to bury Livio because he "died" trying to protect them. Why does she care about that? Why does it matter? None of the other GHGs do this. This is not important to the point I'm making here but it's just interesting to me. There's very few characters who explicitly make a point of burying the dead.)

The point being, Elendira is the height of strength... and at the top, she is alone.

[ID: A panel from Trigun Maximum Volume 13. Elendira is in the action of dropping her white coat, which she has taken off to reveal an underarmour suit that is almost skeletal in appearance. She looks confident. End ID.]

In a story where characters' motives and pasts are told through their connections with others, through their memories with people they cared for, and through the eyes of the people who care for them...

Vash's story is eventually told in pieces to humanity through Meryl, through Luida, and through his sisters. Rem survives in Vash's memories, and we see the part of her story that young Vash saw, just as we also see his own past from this recollection of her.

Milly is a clarifier and communicator who sees so strongly the sides of Meryl and Vash that they suppress, all that grief and fear, for the sake of remaining steadfast. She is the one whose eyes we see through. It had to be seen to be told. Wolfwood does this too.

The rest of GHGs get some elaboration also. Hoppered is defined through his loss of the woman he cared for in July. Midvalley is defined by his fear and contention with Knives. They also have a dynamic between them that few of the other GHGs shared - and it's likely for this reason we received more elaboration on the two of them than many of the others. But even characters like Rai-Dei, for whom we don't get very much at all, has at least his sunk-cost fallacy explained through the memories of the people he's killed to get to that point.

Chronica's story, though largely removed from the people of No Man's Land, is given definition and stakes through the loss of Domina, and we are told about her incredible determination and strategy she has through her reputation with the Earth fleet.

Legato, desperate to play a singularly important role in Knives' story, tells his own through that lens and that lens only. The moment his life changed was the moment Knives entered it, and that is likely the most important memory to him - Knives is the only meaningful bond he has (sadly for him, this was not reciprocated). Well, an argument can be made for the contentious dynamic he builds with Vash too.

Even Knives, for all that he tried to separate himself from others, is known and seen through his connection with Vash - and his acceptance and unwillingness to fully lose this connection is not only what eventually saves him, but also the reason we, as the audience, know his story so well.

We see characters' stories in Trigun mainly through the bonds they share with others - never the whole story, but the sides that others knew of them.

So, who does Elendira have? Every interaction she has is shallow, dismissive, and exceedingly temporary. Through her dislike of Legato, we get that she may be somewhat bitter about his important status to Knives... but there is no elaboration, because it goes no further than that. Knives calls her directly on the phone, and she is very invested in his vision for the end of the world and intrigued by him... but it goes no further than that. He does not really seem to care about her beyond her effectiveness, and she does not offer any information about herself. Even her allegiance is kind of flimsy. She's only there because she wants to be.

During their final fight, Wolfwood lives on through Livio, through his actions and resolve. It is the teamwork between him and Razlo, in the spirit of Wolfwood, that eventually overpowers Elendira. Amusingly (at least to me), Livio is quite literally never alone, because he always has Razlo - and now, Wolfwood too.

"Yer too strong... and that's why yer gonna lose."

[ID: A screenshot from Trigun Maximum Volume 13. Livio narrates over a shot of his eye, Razlo's eye, and finally, his whole face, with Wolfwood's final vial of serum between his teeth. "...to me... to Razlo... and to him." End ID.]

Elendira has succeeded in separating herself from everyone – she is the most powerful of the GHG, and every battle with her is basically one-sided – but she’s alone, and that’s not only why she loses… it’s also why we never get to know her in any meaningful way.

Because no one knows her. She has no personal connection with anyone. Her motivations never get any clarity. We don’t even know who did her modifications or how she gained her power. Even if she did have someone she cared for in the past, she apparently does not hold onto their memory. And maybe that's the reason she told the kids to bury Livio - not out of respect, but because to her, that is where the past belongs - dead and buried, soon to be joined by the rest of the world and humanity as it all comes to an end.

We never see Elendira’s story… because there is no one from whose eyes we can see it in any capacity.

#storyrambles #just my two cents lmao i'm sure there are far simpler explanations such as 'the author just didn't write it out' hdfbvdsh #but i like this one thematically #elendira is so cool. she's one of my favourites fr #trigun #trimax #trigunbookclub #elendira the crimsonnail #trigun meta #call me ace detective the way i am ace. and also a detective. #can i get all my analyses done before october ends? let's find out! (aaaaaa)

[needle-noggins]

Time for Vol. 5: Meryl's very bad no good horrible day

Even though she saved the day by shooting Legato, breaking the craziest stand-off while also scared shitless. I love my wife. She can hold so much complexity in her. Now let's get into it:

First, a moment from Vash:

Our boy is in utter agony here, and the thought of Meryl is what keeps him going. Obviously she's in danger and needs rescuing, but come on. He's enduring this pain for her. He can't quit, for her. Yeah, this is par for the course for our anime jesus figure, but come on. Let me have this.

Quick moment of Meryl seeing Vash's feathers for the first time and she's terrified. It's interesting how Wolfwood and Meryl are both so deeply terrified of Vash, but Wolfwood saw a lot more up front at Jeunora Rock and from a distance. Meryl, on the other hand, is trapped. I also think Wolfwood processes it completely differently because he also sees himself as a monster, so to him it's recognition of the self through the other (deragatory). For Meryl, it's just all traumatic. She's just a 23 year old woman and she didn't ask for this.

I think these panels above explain my question from earlier - Meryl is definitely seeing Vash's flashbacks to July here. She sees the black hole gate, the destruction, and the angel arm; I'm not sure if she knows about the part with Knives, but based on some really helpful people on my earlier post today, I think she reveals that she saw that too (oof). I'm not sure what she's seeing in the bottom panel of page 95, though. If someone could explain, I would be super appreciative.

Like I said, she's just a normal person. What was it that someone said to Vash earlier, that he's endured more pain than any person possibly could live with? And now Meryl feels some of that - a lot of it, perhaps, considering that July was so traumatic to Vash that he lost his memory of it. Someone else pointed it out wonderfully that while Fifth Moon was Knives controlling Vash, July was 100% Vash aiming to kill Knives and everyone else was an unlucky casualty of Vash's fear and anger. Meryl sees what Vash is capable of - and that he has killed scores of people - not just second-hand through circumstance, but in actuality.

ANGEL MODE GO CRAZY GO STUPID! GORE GORE GORE!

I mean, Vash doesn't have great control of his power anyway, between hardly ever using it and feeling intense emotion that affects it. Thank god he doesn't use the angel arm here, but holy shit? Meryl just saw what that thing is capable of, and Wolfwood saw it in real time, and he's yelling at Meryl to escape but she's trapped underneath him. After she was also trapped in an elevator, and the elevator fell, and holy shit if i were her I would need extensive therapy to go into an elevator ever again, never mind all of Vash. And then as Vash's angel arm powers down it morphs again into this ungodly homunculus of body parts like it's fucking Envy from Fullmetal Alchemist (*Trigun predates FMA, to be clear) and he is apologizing profusely, knowing how terrifying it is and he has no control over what's happening with his body.

Huh. Between that and how Knives keeps assaulting him, that's a pretty painful running theme.

Thankfully, as Elendira takes the spotlight (my other wife) (she can do no wrong, I love her dearly), I think it gives Vash some time to cool down long enough to go back to "normal". And then he holds a dying Hoppered's hand, showing compassion to a man who tried to kill him but then re-experienced the horrors of July with him, showing that Vash still cares that despite how terrifying and destructive he can be when he loses it. And Meryl watches on.

#trigunbookclub #i am fucking COOKING with vashmeryl thoughts #vashmeryl #many more of these posts incoming i just. this one i had to get out first #i will gladly pay for both vash and meryl's therapy thank you #ive been waiting for this scene #trimax

[collieii]

i'm sure it's been said but i do love how trimax handles wolfwoods death. i've seen so many stories that have characters die and they just go away after. i'm really used to stories where the other characters aren't allowed to grieve, the story keeps going and it feels like the other characters aren't really affected or get over it really easily. but in trimax wolfwoods death is so important. we see other characters grieving him. vash protecting the orphanage, expanding his power when he really shouldn't, because it was wolfwood's home, even though wolfwood is already gone. he gets an actual burial. vash and livio eating their way through the grief, which is more comedic but still shows us how important he was to the two of them, sets up how in many ways they're fighting in his memory.

even after he's gone he's still present in the story in such a strong way. we can see how he's affected the other characters, even when they don't explicitly mention him it's obvious that they're thinking about him. what he did when he was alive, and his death itself, are so important to the story even after he's not there. not just in a really abstract "this is someone we lost" way (though there are a lot of times his death and sacrifice motivate vash and livio to fight harder!) he's present in the finale in a material way to livio, who uses his serums to help fight against elendira, which ofc also ties into the way wolfwoods choice to ally with vash and fight against knives gave livio strength to do the same. wolfwood showed him that there are things worth fighting for, things worth protecting. that your body is a weapon, but you can choose what to do with it, use it for something meaningful.

and the way vash kills legato in order to save livio? vash outright says that he did it to protect what wolfwood fought for, sacrificed his life for. it's tied to the ongoing arc between vash and wolfwood, their conflict over the necessity of killing others. wolfwood pushed vash into having an understanding of his views when he was alive, demonstrating the necessity of that violence. simultaneously, vash inspired wolfwood to follow his path, a kinder one. vash remembers what wolfwood said to him, and his death gives those words added poignancy. wolfwood well and truly sacrificed everything to protect what he loved and fight for what he believed in. how can vash let that go to waste? he sacrifices something just as meaningful to himself, and he pulls the trigger. it brings him closer to wolfwood in a way he never was before. he understands now, fundamentally, what motivates people, motivated wolfwood, to act as he did when he took lives. there are so many other ways wolfwood is present in the story after his death i can't talk about all of them but it makes me so crazy

#trigun #trigun maximum #nicholas d. wolfwood #not to say that there aren't lots of stories that handle character death well bc there are! #i am by no means an expert in media but in my experience esp with like #action anime in particular it can be p common for important characters to die and then their death is just not processed at all #i know that stories have to keep things moving but it feels so weird when characters don't grieve or even cry at least a little! #like that was a person that you knew! are you not affected in any way! #it can feel so dehumanizing to me imo when characters bounce back so quickly after someone they knew died like c'mon #at least to me anyways #that's why i love the scene where vash cries after ww dies in 98 too. maybe i just don't consume enough media where characters die #but i was really surprised that they included that! surprised and pleased. it felt like such a human thing for him to do #to try and pretend everything is ok but he just can't ignore the fact that ww is dead and it just hits him #right there in the street in the middle of the day. and there's not anything he can do but cry. ugh #.lieii #trigun analysis #trigun livio #vash the stampede #trigun meta #.lieii txt #honestly i haven't read the finale arc in a while so i don't want to talk too in depth about it #but it is really excellent how present he is. without being present #talking about trimax is so hard bc there's so much. so many themes #me when a story has themes: GRAAH #like every post i make this is rambling and doesn't have much of a point but do you get what i'm saying #come to collieii hq where you get an essay in the post and another much worse essay in the tags #trimax spoilers

[triplesilverstar]

Valentine's Day 2024

Rating: 18+ Minors DNI 

Pairing: Vash X Wolfwood, Vash X F!Reader, Wolfwood X F!Reader,  Vash X F!Reader X Wolfwood

CW: Cunnilingus, hand jobs, making out, wedged between two hot dudes

Word count: Roughly 2.3K

A/N: You forgot what day it was, until you find a small box with chocolates on your desk. Here's hoping your lover's aren't too upset about it.

FOUR OUT OF FOUR! Now to go regret all my life decisions these last few days for writing this much.

“Look at these cute chocolates for Valentine's Day!” You groan hearing one of your coworkers mention what day it is. You knew you forgot something the last few days, feeling like you were being run ragged by Mr. Bluesummers with all the information he needed to be compiled for the final reports from the last year to submit for the tax season. You were starting to regret working directly for the man when required but you enjoyed it a lot more than previous jobs you had. 

“I knew I forgot something.” It’s your first year dating Vash and Nico and you had wanted to make it special and there’s no way you’re going to get off work before the stores are closed. Seeing the tiny box of chocolates on your desk you do smile, maybe you can make it work somehow. You don’t have time to ponder your situation as you hear your name being bellowed from the chief of staff’s office, time to get to work. 

Sliding past the door you sigh looking at your tiny box of chocolates. Five pieces. “I should have asked Elendira if she could run out and get me something bigger.” Slipping your flats off before heading deeper into the apartment, not taking notice of the low lighting or the brief noise of sudden movement in the living room.

Squealing as a set of warm hands settle on your waist and the lights are flicked on, revealing a grinning blond with beautiful blue eyes. “Hello, sweetheart!” Leaning closer and kissing your forehead before letting his lips trail down the bridge of your nose before bending his knees to press those plush lips to yours. It’s chaste yet still has that hint of yearning behind his movements before he pulls back and smiles at you full of affection. “Will you be part of my heart?” Giving you a flirty wink and you can only laugh as your heart rate starts to settle after the brief scare. 

“Are you trying to ask me to be your Valentine Vash?” Chuckling a little as you keep your eyes on him no matter how much you want to start to look around the room taking note of what he's wearing. Or you should say not wearing, since all he has on is a tie and a pair of boxers covered in hearts. 

“No. Well, sort of.” Trailing his hands down your arms before stepping back from you so you can see more of the room. “I love two people so I don't know if I can just have one Valentine.” You can't help but laugh at the confusion on his face over the thought of trying to figure out if you can have more than one Valentine or not. 

“pretty sure there isn't a limit on them.” Finally looking around the room you have to admit it looks nice, with lots of pillows tossed around the floor and a blanket placed over the glass panel of the door to the deck. “Where's the other part of your heart if you want to go with that wording instead?” 

Only to yelp as a large pair of hands grab your butt and give it a hearty squeeze. “Right here.” Whispering in your ear with his face close enough you can feel the prickle of his stubble against the side of your face. “So what do you say? Will you complete our three piece heart?” 

it really is endearing to see and hear both of them being so open and cheesy with trying to not right out ask to be your Valentine. “Does it come with perks?” laughing as you swat at Nicholas's hands now on your hips that are stopping you from turning around to look at him. 

“Sure does Little Bear.” Nipping at your ear and grinding his hips into your backside you had a pretty good idea of what kind of perks he has in mind for you. 

Feeling yourself grow flustered at how both of them are acting you cough. It's obvious they put a lot of thought into this, and all you have to offer them in a small box of chocolates. “Id like to say yes but I feel like my gift is nowhere near as nice as both of yours.” Holding the box up and watching as Vash carefully takes it from your fingers and inspecting the box.

“Oh, we can have lots of fun with these I think. They're nice and small.” Dragging out the last word as if he's up to something naughty your body warms in response as you flush from the roots of your hair down to your toes. 

“Come on little bear, let's get you out of these clothes. You're a little too overdressed.” While Vash wanders off leaving you with a lovely view of his ass as he heads for the coffee table Nicholas is tugging on the edge of your jacket and shirt. 

“How do I know I've overdressed if I haven't seen you yet?” While you aim for teasing it is undercut by the fact you're helping him to divulge yourself of your clothes. Your jacket is tossed out into the hallway and your shirt is quick to follow before a set of tan fingers is working the zipper of your pants to try and get them undone. 

“Let's just say Vash and I are a matching set right now.” You can hear the smirk in his voice and the rumble of his bare chest against your back feels wonderful. Yet as the fabric of your pants slides down your legs you can't help but try and fire back at him with your own playful attitude. 

“Really? I can see Vash and he doesn't have a banana in his pants.” Leaning back and trying to glide your hands behind you to touch more of his skin. “Or are you just happy to see me?” 

“Banana!” Letting out a roar of laughter while you squeal as you're manhandled and lifted in the air and turned around, Nicholas's lips insistent as he works to slip his tongue into your mouth. It doesn't take a lot of convincing for you to let him in, moaning into the deeper kiss while his tongue slides against yours. His fingers trail along your sides while he licks against the inside of your mouth. 

“Boo, you always steal my thunder when I wanna make out.” Feeling the warmth from a second body press up against you and their hands wandering your body. At least before Nicholas pulls away from you and rolls his eyes at Vash behind you. 

“Fine, you dramatic blond.” You don't need to see as the two of them start to make out with you between them to still feel your body grow warmer and your sex starting to throb. No. The noises they make and the sensations of them making out next to the side of your head is more than enough to get you panting alongside them. You're not going to just stand there either, as their hands roam you and each other you're doing the exact same thing.  Raking your nails down one of Nicholas's shoulders while Squeezing one of Vash’s thighs, but men making more noises since they can’t see what you’re doing. All you really know is Vash matches Nicholas now with the firmness you feel against your ass, both of their cocks rubbing against your body and tenting their boxers. 

It does something to your core when they pull apart both panting and you feel the strands of saliva break to land on the skin of your shoulders and hear the noises from both men while their chests heave. “Boys” Dropping your voice and squirming between the two of them and hoping Nicholas at your front feels the wet spot forming on your panties. “My clothes are getting wet, I’d rather get both of you wet.” 

“Well let's move somewhere else then.” Nicholas nips at your lips before pulling away and heading towards the piles of pillows on the living room floor, sauntering over before dropping amongst the mounds of fabric as if he’s a king waiting for the rest of his court. “Well?” You can’t help but laugh seeing he is wearing the same kind of boxers as Vash with the large red hearts on them and clearly tented. 

Getting ready to move closer only to feel Vash tighten his arms around you first, running his tongue along the side of your neck before nipping your ear. “I want you to sit on Nico’s face.” 

Almost going weak in the knees with the force of your cunt clenching at the idea of dropping over that handsome face and feeling his stubble against your thighs. “Oh?” You’re not used to Nicholas being the one under your mercy, usually he takes charge of the three of you or as much as you let him take charge. 

“He lost a bet to me earlier.” His warm breath fanning out across your neck and your nipples are like hard pebbles sticking out through the fabric of your bar. “So tonight he’s doing what we want.” 

Snickering as one of his hands moves along your belly. “You mean what you want?” 

“Just for this round, next round is what you want Sweetheart.” His hand ghosting lower and his fingers play with the band of your panties. Oh, you like the idea of that. “Now make him work for that first orgasm and face his cock when you sit on his face.” Taking your hand in his as he strides closer. Helping you get into position and Nicholas adjusts you as you sit, not making a sound against the idea. 

“Well, Nico~” Aware with you sitting on his face that Nicholas can’t see the shit eating grin on Vash’s face. “I think you can guess what I want you to do to our pretty lady over your mouth.” Lifting Nicholas’s legs and moving closer so his clothed cock is pressed to his straining one. “Now get started or I won’t show you what I have in store for you~” 

You can’t help but let out a whine as you feel Nicholas’s tongue start to lick at your covered cunt, flicking the growing damp spot and curling his broad arms along your legs to give you in place when you first jerked your hips. “Nico~” 

“Good boy.” The soft praise from the blond has the tongue licking the fabric between your thighs even faster as his arms flex, the muscles a reminder of how much strength he holds in his fit body. “Except I want you to lick her skin, not those lacy things covering her up.” 

“Fuck!” If Nicholas had moved any faster you might not have even noticed with the speed his fingers shoved the fabric out of your pussy and shoved his tongue inside your walls. Your arms flail at the sudden intrusion as you almost come on the spot with his tongue undulating in your slick channel. 

“You really are a good boy Nico.” Vash has his cock in his hand pumping it with a light sheen of fluid covering his cock. “I think you deserve a reward.” His free hand reached between the gap in the fabric of Nicholas’s boxers and removed the tanned man’s dick from its confines. Shuffling closer to the man whose face you’re riding and you moan at the sight, as Vash’s long fingers wrap around both of their cocks and starting to slowly pump him. You could come just from watching that, but Nicholas lapping at your core like a starved man is certainly getting you there a lot faster. 

“Vash, Nico.” Panting as you try to squirm away from the man who has you in a vice and focused on trying to hold off your orgasm as he groans under your skin. “Close!” Your chest is heaving as your hand presses into your face trying to use your palms in the hopes of cooling your warm skin. 

“Let go, Sweetheart.” A hand tangled in your hair as Vash pulls you towards him for a searing kiss, the sound of slurping and skin on skin overtaking your senses as it becomes too much for you. Shaking as your orgasm rips through you. 

Nicholas under you groans as he licks your release up and grunts at the sudden added pressure to his hard cock in the blond's hand. You might have had your first release but he wants to hold out, wanting to paint your stomach in his and Vash’s release. Glad his arms are strong enough to keep you upright as Vash keeps kissing you senseless. 

Hours later you pant with a hand over your face, lazing against the pillows and well aware you can’t stand. The sound of a package opening and you groan, looking at Vash popping a chocolate in his mouth. “Sorry for the shitty Valentine's gift.” 

“What are you talking about little bear?” Grunting before taking another sip of water and tossing his used condom in the garbage can just outside your little love nest. 

“The chocolates. They were from work.” 

“Sweetheart?” His voice is soft as Vash joins you, holding out one of the chocolates for you to eat. “Did you think you needed to get use something for today?” 

A groan of frustration as you nod, watching both men look at each other before they start to roar with laughter. Vash ends up over on his side and one of the chocolates falls out of the box as he shakes with his mirth. “Babe.” Snorting as he tries to sit up only to fail. “We buy it tomorrow.”

“When it’s on sale.” Nicholas interjects almost having water sputter out of his nose. 

“I’m dumb.” You mutter dropping your hand over your face again. 

“We love you anyway.” 

“Happy Valentine’s Day my sexy loves. Round four later?” You hope to everything that exists that Nicholas is joking. 

#trigun #trigun smut #vash the stampede #vash x reader #nicholas d. wolfwood #trigun stampede #twink writes #vashwood #wolfwood x reader #vash smut #wolfwood smut #trimax #modern au #vash x reader x wolfwood #vashwood smut #vash the stampede x reader #tristamp #trigun maximum #vashwolf

[nanomooselet]

Episode Zero: High Noon At July

So anyway, Vash is right about everything.

Yes, I'm exaggerating. There are plenty of caveats to Vash's ideals. There are hard ethical questions surrounding humanity's relationship with the Plants, and those will have to be answered or neither species is going to survive much longer. But nothing's going to get better if all they have is Vash, busy getting shot at, and Knives, busy getting his brother shot at. What Vash has been struggling with from the opening minutes of the show is that he's been assuming all the blame for what Knives does, taking punishment and abuse from him and from humans without a word of protest, simply because he believes it's what he deserves.

And it's not. It never has been. He's never been to blame. It is, unequivocally, something Knives did to him.

From those same opening minutes, Knives has been the twin with agency. Never mind that he caused the fleet to crash and instigated the entire plot, or that he was also the one who actively sought to discover Rem's secret; I mentioned before that he offered Rem a choice before escaping in the shuttle. But what I noticed the second time was something equally crucial. Nai is the one piloting the shuttle. Vash is just a passenger, carried along as Nai steered, subjected to his decisions and forced to bear the consequences for his actions. And Nai didn't exactly... ask to be one piloting. He just sits in the chair and takes the stick, not a word said. He assumes agency for himself and for Vash both without room for discussion.

When Nai offered Rem a choice, and she refused, he resolved to give no one else he loved a choice, ever again. But Vash never got a choice, not with Nai. And that became a pattern.

When Nai told Vash: you're my accomplice, you're the one who gave me the program access code (I'm all but one hundred percent certain he means that when Vash accessed Tesla's records, Nai remembered the code he entered), Vash started to run. He fled. He couldn't bear the culpability - it's pretty much the instant he began to engage in suicidal ideation. He ceased to exercise his agency because he believed it lead to this unimaginable horror. The die is already cast: he's Nai's accomplice. It's decided.

Or rather, Nai decided.

Did Vash really keep running for a hundred and fifty years? Well, no, not quite - Knives (naturally) called time-out when Vash pointed a gun at his face. Just wait for a short while...a mere century or so. I promise I'll build a world of Plants. Even he, I think, realised slicing off Vash's arm was a bit of a dick move and had to regroup. But a hundred years later the game was back on and Knives's next move was founding his cult, stealing Plants, committing murders and framing Vash, and Vash was just as bereft of agency as before.

Vash the Stampede is a name that humanity gave him, but they gave it to him because of Knives. Note how it fits the naming scheme of the other members of his cult. Zazie the Beast. Elendira the Crimsonnail. Nicholas the Punisher. Livio the Doublefang. Monev the Gale. E.G. the Mine. A stampede is a herd of running animals too scared to think about the damage they cause as they flee for their lives. And that doesn't really apply to Vash, but it describes the twins as a combined force - Vash flees, Knives follows him bringing destruction. Vash is afraid of facing Knives; Knives is afraid of being without Vash. And between them, complete and utter ruin is left in their wake.

So what changed?

I said before that Meryl is the only other character besides Knives with agency, with a couple of exceptions, and I'll say right now that Vash isn't one of them. In this game, Vash's agency - really Vash himself, his power, his soul - is the prize. People want to have Vash. They desire him. And he doesn't think he has a choice but to fulfil those desires in order to make up for his sins, which is why he went to confront Knives in July - despite knowing, deep down, that his brother will not be convinced and he's walking to a hideous fate, perhaps his death. Vash is an Independent, but he doesn't seem to think he has free will. It's been beaten out of him so viciously he attributes all his hard-earned skills to luck and his compassion to some instinctive bodily urge, as though he's a trained animal. Which Knives takes just the most disgustingly cruel jab at - You need to smile, show your charm, and behave like a harmless pet./They only love your charm, your tricks, and the tightness of your leash. Imagine if Rem had ever heard him talk that way to his brother. (I'm curious how the translation worked there.)

Ah, Rem. We see so little of her. We know almost nothing about her, save that she was an imperfect woman who did her best, who loved both her children as hard as she could. Who chose to love them. Who told them that as long as you can make a choice, you can choose a better future.

I think that was a belief she privately struggled to hold, personally. Knowing that by her inaction an innocent child was subjected to a worse fate than death, it would have been hard to imagine there could still be a future for her. I hope that in the end she came to forgive herself, even if only a little, and not just because of the twins. But we'll never know.

And after Rem, Luida. Who told Vash he was a survivor rather than a coward and he deserved to live, and who survived herself because of Vash - the very last time he stood by, frozen, as Knives tried to take away someone he loved. Who, with Brad, showed that humans can change and learn, and that though they still need to rely on Plants they need not consume them. Who began to take real, practical steps towards that chosen future for both, who gave Vash his coat and built him his hand - a protective memory and the part of the body that reaches out to another that his brother cut from him. Because of them he found contact with his own kind, and began to bridge the gap that had always existed between the two species, and the two sides of his own nature.

And finally tiny Meryl. Inexperienced, sheltered, easy to knock down, easy to pick up, unarmed, all alone, and absolutely filled to the brim with rage. Meryl's way of caring for things is by getting righteously, furiously angry about them. I wonder how long it's been since anyone knew and cared enough about Vash to be in the position to get angry on his behalf, over what's been done to him. Knives didn't take the slightest bit of notice of her (except to dismiss her as "another parasite" because he's a bitch like that) until Vash responded to her. She wasn't even supposed to be there - Zazie just thought it would be funny. Zazie is the best.

(I always wonder if the song Vash sings was him trying to answer Meryl's frantic cries for him to wake up. If he somehow how meant to lift her closer or build the path she climbed to reach him. Conrad said he couldn't speak human language anymore. What if that was the only other way?)

These three women all shared faith in Vash and his ideals, and loved him, rather than what he's "supposed" to be or what he could do for them. All helped form him into the man he is now. Each of them had agency and made choices, even hard ones. And so in the end, Vash's victory over Knives's cruelty also belongs to them. Vash awakens because the connection forged by these women allowed him to pull himself free of the pit of corrosive pain Knives plunged him into - breaking chains of guilt his brother had forged to keep him by his side forever. When the question is asked, "Whose side are you on?" the answer is neither the side of humans nor Plants, despite what Knives thinks. It's the side of Vash choosing his own future, inspired and supported by the women who loved him, rather than being trapped and frozen in the past. Inevitably there will be mistakes, losses - even horrors.

And it'll still beat any future this asshole chooses for him.

#trigun stampede #tristampparty #trigun meta #meta: tristampparty episodes #mother is the name of god #i also have feelings about vash's angel arm #but it is past midnight #that said #it absolutely sends me that knives ACTUALLY GOT his lame cowboy planet #and he doesn't appreciate it in the SLIGHTEST #like. what more could you even WANT from the universe when you have a whole-ass cowboy planet #yes i AM sleep deprived how did you know

[nepentheisms]

Volume 13 - Elendira's number, let's gooooo!

So I was pondering the significance of Livio's big throwdown fight being against Elendira, and it hit me once I looked at it in terms of their abilities: Elendira's weapon is nails; Livio's power is regeneration. This is the Crucifixion battling against the Resurrection - a very Christian metaphor being used to illustrate the conflict of ideas between Knives and Vash. Elendira acts to help carry out Knives' condemnation of humanity; she brings death and visions of death in the wake of Knives' crusade to punish those he sees as sinners. Livio, in contrast, is aligned with Vash's mission to save humanity; he's an agent for Vash's message of redemption and life persevering.

To delve into Christian soteriology for a bit, the significance of the crucifixion in the New Testament is that it is the act of Jesus taking on the punishment for all of humanity's sins. "The wages of sin is death," as Romans 6:23 says, so Jesus dies, but then Jesus rises again to complete the path to humanity's reconciliation with God. The idea is that in becoming followers of Christ, Christians spiritually share in the experience of crucifixion, death, and resurrection with Jesus. To love Jesus is to be changed as though one were raised from the dead. The passage below from Paul's letter to the Romans is an example of that perspective.

Romans 6:4-6 (NRSV):

(4) Therefore we were buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life. (5) For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. (6) We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, so we might no longer be enslaved to sin.

It's very appropriate that Paul's words get brought up here, because I think Livio can be seen as something of a Paul figure. He's a powerful member of a religious order that opposes the followers of the Christ figure, he plays a big role in the death of a "disciple," and he undergoes an intense experience that changes him into one of the most devoted followers of the Christ figure. And the stuff Paul wrote about being crucified with Christ? Livio sure went through a crucifixion alright.

With all that said, when we bring Razlo into the equation, things get really interesting and a bit subversive when viewed through the lens of Paul's teachings in the Christian Bible. In stories that are more straightforwardly Christian in their messaging, a character like Razlo - a personality who acts as someone's darker half- would typically be treated as a force of evil to be overcome. This represents how the pre-salvation self is supposed to die so that a more Christ-like nature can take its place.

In Livio's case, however, Razlo is not extinguished after Livio chooses to live by Wolfwood's and Vash's example. Instead of being framed as the more sinful aspect of Livio that needed to be purified out of him, Razlo is portrayed as a powerful asset in preserving Livio's life, and that's something that really resonated with me - the way that Livio didn't need to erase his darker half but instead learned to work in harmony with it. In doing so, he found wholeness.

#trigunbookclub #trigun #trigun maximum #elendira the crimsonnail #livio the double fang #religion mention #christianity mention #trigun book club sure has been an exercise in dusting off my old bible knowledge #this is the most I've thought about christianity and the bible in a long time lol #Guns&God meta

[mrbluesummers-moved]

I've been thinking about Knives and the title of "King of Loneliness", and I think it's something Stampede has taken pretty literally by having Knives be almost completely alone. He sits at the top of a tower looking down on everyone feeling completely disconnected from all of it. It's a lonely existence.

In the comics, though, Knives has the Gung Ho Guns. He has dozens if not hundreds of people begging at his feet to be closer to him. He has so many options, and yet he feels completely alone in a crowded room. Which is fair, most of the people who want to associate with him aren't exactly peak friend material, but then you have Elendira, Conrad, and Legato.

Before he was killed, Conrad, I think, genuinely wanted to help Knives. Elendira was fully devoted to him, and also pretty sane and probably one of the people Knives trusted most. And Legato… He's a little more complicated because he did genuinely care for Knives, but he was also then raised to be Knives' tool to the point where he was chastised for crying out of concern for Knives.

What I'm saying is, basically, Knives had all of this potential for a good support system if he just opened himself up to it, and stopped being so afraid of reaching out, because it wasn't just the Gung Ho Guns. It started before that with Rem and Vash and his refusal to just be honest with them about how much he was hurting. He was stuck in a horrible death spiral of jumping between being afraid and being afraid of what would happen if he admitted it.

It really was just a deep, seemingly inescapable loneliness, fit for a king.

#trigun #trigun maximum #trigun stampede #millions knives #anyway sorry to anyone who's tired of these long ass posts #i cannot be stopped #i am not normal about trigun #i do not know if any of my thoughts are comprehensible but it seems like people like them

[ruporas]

I don't know if this is a heavy question to ask- it may be. Feel free to ignore it.

But I was questioning myself if it was even an okay thing to ship Tristamp! vash x tristamp! wolfwood due to the age gap???

In the manga it was proven ww was of age (since the treatments went over a course of years) but it wasn't so clear in tristamp, especially with the whole forced growth sequence being more cut short than the manga. He may be in the body of a man but, isn't he still a child? is what I mean to ask.

At the end of the day I know they are all fictional and to block if I don't like but it still has me wondering.

I've seen a lot of people simultaneously pull "dni pedos" (which is more than okay and I agree) but then also go and ship what they ship.

I'm just genuinely confused I think. Is there something I am missing? or is he still a child in a man's body?

I don't know who else to ask, because I also know at the end of the day you're just an artist on the other end of the line. I'm sorry 😭

yeah, it's confusing because stampede never states it directly, but i'm certain that wolfwood is an adult from the brief glimpses of time shown in stampede itself and in trusting the studio themselves.

as we saw with rollo, he was experimented on for 5 years before ending up like this

and then we see him again in this same state 20 years later in episode 5. we get concrete numbers for rollo who we can estimate to be in his 20s when he dies. see here too that elendira, 20 years ago, also still looks like that, the same in the present. i'm saying all of this to dissuade any arguments that might be like "wolfwood should look older and not the same as he did in the flashback of ep 6" because there are only so many 3d models orange studio can make and design. i also think that ep 5 itself is meant to exemplify the quick years that can go by when in reference to a flashback.

the mention of wolfwood aging "in just a few months" shouldn't be an indicator of his age because narrative-wise, they only brought that up to emphasize him being a s+ grade and unique and to highlight how much he's suffered in just a short period of time. wolfwood's flashback is put together in one(1) episode, much of it is used to highlight the bond between him and livio in their childhood because that's the point of his arc. because of that, any scenes that shows him working under the eye of michael are all cut because it isn't important at this time of the show. there's a huge time gap missing in wolfwood's history because studio orange chose specific years to give weight to the arc they wanted to present to us first.

this is like the only scene we get of him doing his job under the eom, at the beginning of ep 6

and him here is different from how he is here.

so from the show itself, i think those are the obvious points that suggests wolfwood is not Still 10 years old when he gets sent to retrieve vash.

in reference to my second point of believing in the studio -- because they heavily based stampede off of maximum, i find it Hard to believe they'd randomly make wolfwood a minor because it genuinely serves no benefit to his story to make that change. there would be less weight to his bond with vash because wolfwood has always been the character to challenge vash, they're meant to be equals. much of maximum and 98, Even Badlands Rumble, play up the significance of vash and wolfwood's relationship and how the two can argue and depend on each other as people with similar life experiences. orange studio pour love into stampede and respects nightow and his craft and as a result, i think they'd keep vash and wolfwood on the same level in this adaption too.

all and all, they're both adults in previous versions and they're both adults in this version. final phase will probably give room for more of wolfwood's past experiences now that we know most of vash's story, maybe that would resolve any confusion.

hope that helps!

#asks #if anyone wants me to tag this with cw or tw anything please lmk #but yeah. stampede could benefit from being more direct with it #however i think storytelling wise there's just no point in it. imo looking at how he interacts with the other 3 #and the actions and choices he makes throughout the series is telling enough so

[aidonotknow]

That is a interesting theory! But my thoughts went in different directions.

Considering the plots of the 98 and 23 animations, my theory/headcanon is that humans have indeed changed - becoming more and more biologically similar to plant, because this is the reason why plant were created.

If it is for unlimited energy, there is no reason for humans to create "humanoid" biobatteries and cause ethical problems. The reason why plant is in human form is because what those scientists originally wanted to creat was actually the "spare body", and it's the ageless body.

We can see that they already got the technology for full-body prosthetics. As long as the rejection problem is overcome, humans can be directly transplanted into plant.

This is why the 23plant is considered "soulless", and every version of the plant remains dormant, because they are deliberately prevented from producing "life" or "consciousness". So plants have human appearances, good-looking faces, and are all female. The reason is the same as Jurassic Park (?

However, the problem of transplant rejection cannot be solved, so the by-product: the huge energy that keeps cells from aging, is instead used as a biological battery.

Therefore, as soon as Tesla, an Independent that is more similar to humans and can leave the life-sustaining light bulb, appears, scientists of SEED are eager to conduct radical experiments.

As long as it's proven that the two organisms are compatible, it will be a major breakthrough for mankind. But there are obviously still obstacles. What happened to Tesla may be severe transplant rejection.

As the article quoted at the beginning said, the earth may have achieved some kind of balance or compromise. Even when the emotions were intense, Chronica did not attack Knives with her A. arm but with machinery. Maybe it's not that she avoided using plant's power attack, she just can't use it.

23Dr. continued this plan with the consent of Knives (don't know why). They approached this from two aspects:

Eye of Michael: Modify human beings and adapt them to plant cells.

Elendira: A literal human-plant hybrid.

The MangaDr. has no obvious achievements in this regard, also his relationship with EOM is not very close. The specialized bodies of members of GHG may have been modified by him, such as Dominic's hypnotic eye, which is obviously From Transplant; The giantess carrying Legato's Coffin; Gauntlet and 9 Lives, etc.

MangaEl was very disdainful of EOM modified people, not sure if it was because she was born with plant cells.

Regarding Legato, because it is not certain when he was picked up by Knives, the inferences that can be made are limited:

98L- Perhaps because the action of transplanting an arm is so strange, most people are not aware of something even more abnormal - that is a cross-species transplant, and it seems that not only did Legato not have any rejection reactions, he also adapted very well - That means that there is little biological difference between legato and plant/Independent.

(I felt... uncanny, when I thought that he and plant twins would have no problem donating blood to each other)

23L- There may not be a transplant, but genetic modification or mutation, and NL's acquired environment caused him to directly evolve powers similar to those of a plant.

MangaL- We know His physique is better than that of ordinary humans, his "thread" ability, he can sense Knives and he "will lose to Vash"... But none of them can be explained😅 Also we can say Dr. attaches great importance to him. After Legato had his limbs chopped off by Knives, he tried to save Legato even though Knives might be displeased, risked being fired by Vash's A. Arm, even if he couldn't lift Legato.

Taken together, I guess Legato is a new human being born accidentally, and it is also evidence that humans and plants will one day become the same species. This is not man-made, but it is a victory for mankind. 23Dr's human experiments are based on him as a model, and Dr. therefore claims that he "chose human"... If they are still human by then.

Legato existence also subverted Knives' biological determinism, but for some reason Knives did not kill Legato as soon as possible. Contrary to his words, his actions not only did not dislike the human-plant blend theory, but supported it. Again, I don't know why. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

#trigun spoilers #headcanon

[hikennosabo]

#tristampparty day 5, episode 5: child of blessing

day 5 of @tristampparty let's gooooo

our radio djs today are... show hayami!!! (aka original wolfwood) and masaya onosaka again! i'm OBSESSED with casting hayami as the religious radio dj, i love these cameos so much and clearly there was a lot of thought put into where the cameos would be. very very cool

one thing i really think is interesting about trigun - every version of trigun - is the fact that god and religion (christianity) have such a presence but there is never confirmation one way or the other about the existence of god.

who is Missionary Michael

"newly"... we know they've been around for a while, though... and roberto's the guy with Information and Knowledge so i don't think he would make a mistake timeline-wise... EoM had an established presence in (or, more like an iron grip on) windmill village, so it's not like they were operating in complete secret until recently or anything like that. soooo, new relative to what?

wind... typhoon... is this anything

wait no i'm cooking. rollo was born on a windless day -> vash met rollo when he was a baby, the photo is taken -> rollo, as we see in the flashback at the beginning of the episode, prays for wind, implying that there hasn't been any wind in a long time -> rollo runs away, meets vash again, vash makes a promise he can't keep -> rollo gets turned into monev the gale... GALE... WIND... -> vash returns, "reunites" with rollo -> monev gets killed -> the wind blows again

TYPHOON, GALE, IS THIS ANYTHING??? I DON'T KNOW WHAT I'M COOKING HERE

this is when wolfwood notices that monev is a product of EoM... that's all he needs to know to decide what must be done.

vash has no idea about EoM or the experiments or the village sacrificing children, BUT if he hadn't brought rollo back to the village... maybe none of this would have happened. or it could've ultimately played out the same. maybe rollo would have been found by someone else. or maybe he would have died out there in the desert. but still. another thing for vash to feel guilty about even though it wasn't really his fault.

savior complex bouncing between him and knives like a ping pong ball

i love the phrasing. he's not god. he's a man. as much as he positions himself as a god, he's still... very human. as loathe as he would be to admit that.

*looks at previous screenshot* i'm seeing a pattern here.

as much as i don't like elendira ii, i think we should consider also giving little fangs to elendira i.

SPEAKING OF CHARACTERS I DON'T LIKE. tristamp conrad is so unbelievably cruel, what the hell. don't get me wrong he's still not GOOD in the manga and he DOES bear responsibility for, y'know, resurrecting knives and all... and generally being too little too late in taking action against knives... but THIS conrad is just so. ugh. why did they do him like this...

so the timeline would be...

20 years ago, the village was destroyed. assuming he was in the lab for 5 years (in other words, he was not let out and could have not wrecked the town during that time), would mean 25 years ago, rollo was taken and became monev. we don't know exactly how old he was at the time, let's say he was 10 for the sake of keeping it even. so ~35 years ago the photo with vash was taken, give or take.

we also don't know how many children were taken before rollo, or how often. but it was an established practice in the village which no one questioned. how long has this been going on exactly?

also just wanted to note that roberto notices the EoM banner in the house. i think that's a detail that gets forgotten because meryl finds the photo of vash right after... but remember that roberto is the one who tells us what EoM is (or rather, what their cover story is) in the first place...

... i don't need to say anything.

actually no there is something i want to say. right after this, monev loses one of his gun... arm... gloves...? uncovering his hand underneath. and also his mask turns off. and we see his face. in other words, there's still a human under there.

OKAY HERE'S THE TALLY I REALLY WANTED TO DO!!!!

wolfwood vial count: 1

wolfwood drinking a vial right before shooting monev... revealing/reinforcing his own "inhumanity" (to the audience? to himself?) right before mercy killing a fellow EoM victim...

i wonder what vash would have done had wolfwood not killed rollo. like. what was the plan. was there a plan? (probably not...) like, had rollo lived, he wouldn't have been able to live a normal life no matter how you look at it, right? wolfwood's mercy kill seems to have been not just the right call, but perhaps the only call...?

vash asking him to wake up... foreshadowing perhaps. maybe foreshadowing livio not actually dying from a gunshot wound to the head, unlike monev. or maybe foreshadowing the words vash might say when... no. i shan't.

speaking of livio... this is gonna come back next episode.

yeah, a lot of what wolfwood says about monev can be applied to himself and livio both. really makes you think.

god i love that the village lights up after everything is over. it makes me think... i don't know what to make of this. like. the reason why the village kept sacrificing children to EoM was because they believed sacrifices would bring blessings. and we know the village was struggling due to a lack of wind. so was EoM preventing the wind from blowing somehow?? there's no way, right??? how would they even do that...? and why would they continue to prevent the wind from blowing in a place that got destroyed 20 years ago?? so this brings me back to the beginning of this post... does god actually exist in this universe?? did god make the wind blow??? and why now? i... i don't know!!! i don't know, man!!!

i do like the way orange adapted monev. or... adapted isn't the right word. they reimagined him from the ground up. they made him more intertwined with vash, used him as a vehicle to introduce EoM, tied him into wolfwood and vash's clash of ideals... and the episode itself is tight, self-contained. and very tragic.

we don't actually know that much about the original monev... he was imprisoned, he has a line about "the man i thought was my father"... i don't remember anything else. the main reason why the monev fight in 98/trimax is memorable is because it contains vash's diablo moment, and it's the first time we really see him seriously consider killing someone. but here, this version of monev... well, we get the opposite. vash wants to avoid killing monev - rollo - at all costs. makes me wonder if we'll get a diablo moment from vash in season 2...

there's probably more to say but i'm tired and my brain isn't working at full capacity lol i need to go to bed. see you tomorrow for episode 6!

#tristampparty #trigun talk #june speaks #sidenote Windmill Village is the name of luffy's hometown in op #so it always throws me for a loop a little bit

[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.

#storyrambles #i think this one got away from me guys. sorry if it doesn't make sense. sigh. #trigun #trimax #trigun spoilers #trigun meta #trigunbookclub #call me ace detective the way i am ace. and also a detective.

[pancake-breakfast]

Sunbathing for the micro fiction game! (And if you're feeling it, for Trigun)

Thanks for the ask! (Prompt list for reference)

#8: Sunbathing (with a Trigun flavor)

Wolfwood opened the door to the patio and immediately winced. On the one hand, he had found his targets. On the other hand....

"What the hell are you two doing?"

Legato and Elendira were each sprawled out on outdoor recliners and stripped down to nearly nothing. Their skin was covered in a sheen of oil that made them glisten in the light of the twin suns. Between them on a small table sat a pitcher and two tall glasses filled with a yellow-orange drink that smelled of fruit and alcohol. But most confusingly, they both seemed to have placed pieces of cucumber over their eyes.

"Apapap! Shhhhh." Elendira pinched her fingers together indicating Wolfwood should shut his trap. "You're ruining the mood. Try again in a more suitable tone if you have anything important to say."

Wolfwood took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly, trying to keep his composure. He didn't think anything was wrong with his original tone, but Elendira had clearly made up her mind and he was in no mood to piss her off.

"Conrad wanted you guys for something," he said. "But why're ya both sitting out here dressed like that? What's with the cucumbers? Ya had too much to drink?"

"Oh, darling, we haven't had nearly enough." Elendira picked up her glass and took a sip through a straw that looked needlessly complicated, but did prevent her from having to lift her head enough to disturb the cucumbers.

"We're sunbathing," said Legato. "And these are swimsuits, the traditional attire for sunbathing. Not that I'd expect a cretin like you to know."

Wolfwood felt his cheeks flush. Legato was right, though. Wolfwood couldn't even conceive of why someone would want to do anything resembling "bathing" in the unbearable heat of the suns.

"It's good for the complexion," said Elendira.

A smile tugged at the edges of Legato's lips. "I never said that."

"What?" Elendira lowered her drink and tilted her head ever-so-slightly in Legato's direction.

"I said it was good for your health," said Legato, reaching for his own drink, "and it is, but not for your skin. The two suns plus the oil are absolutely terrible for keeping one's skin light and healthy."

Elendira had sat up entirely as Legato explained, cucumbers falling away from eyes that burned with malice.

"What's your problem?" Legato's casual tone was betrayed by the wolfish grin spread across his face. "Surely you're not mad at me for your own misinterpretation of things."

Elendira's jaw was clenched so tight Wolfwood thought she might crack her teeth. She turned to him and forced a smile on her face.

"And what exactly did Conrad want from us, Punisher?"

Wolfwood shrugged. "Didn't say. Just said I should find ya and tell ya to go to his office."

"Very well." Elendira stood up and wrapped herself in a robe she had draped over the back of her recliner. "I'll handle this myself. With any luck, it will include some much-needed violence." She practically spat the last words in Legato's direction. Legato himself seemed unfazed. With a "hmph," Elendira strode off back into the facility.

Legato waved a hand at the glass and pitcher next to him.

"Mimosa, Punisher?"

Wolfwood stared for a moment, uncertain he'd followed any of what had just happened. Then he plopped himself down on the Elendira's vacated recliner and reached for the pitcher. "Yeah, sure. What the hell."

#just everyday life with the gung-ho guns #legato doesn't really know what a swim suit is either he's just bullshitting his way through this #thanks for the ask! #nicholas d. wolfwood #legato bluesummers #elendira the crimsonnail #trigun #trigun stampede #trigun fanfiction #pancake asks #sometimes i write stuff

[b0tsbby]

Swap Au rambles cause

All I’m saying for the horrible protagonist enjoyers, the dysfunctional narrative enthusiasts, the drakengard 3 fans, is that there’s HELLA potential.

• Knives is just as abrasive obviously. He also still hates humanity just as much. Also still has the Knives. Also still…still kills people🧍‍♂️

• BUT he doesn’t have time to be killing all of humanity cause his brother is too busy orchestrating a mass suicide plan for the whole planet.

• and he really can do that

• So instead Knives has to focus on disabling the bomb that is his brother and that’s why he only kills people that gets in his way

•Vash like, ACTUALLY has a cult. He is very involved god figure and like a lot of people agree with him about life after Earth being meaningless.

• We got, Legato, Elendira and LR on the team. Yea

• as intimidating and winning the idgaf war as knives is, he’s also…really bad at this…he’s good…but like…genuinely bad at this. He is really struggling with temporarily meeting humans halfway and the more subtle requirements of doing this hero thing (like working in a team, using charm instead of straight up threatening people).

• Prefers to work alone. Not a selfless act people really just piss him off naturally.

• I like to think Knives sees himself in Legato here in this au and encourages him to live so he can have his revenge…he can do that after the plants are saved tho.

• Knives promises to wipe out humanity when he gets Vash to calm down a bit…does he though

• I’m aware the people expect millionsummers…but nah personally I’m good! KLR moment!

• I just think, between Knives and LR, LR would be the “is your solution to everything just to kill?” Braincell of the pair.

• Vash dying would be really funny (NOT) I think he’d implode on himself like a black hole (🙍‍♂️)

Idk I’m just thinking and braindumping with my brains. Probably would still have to think about a lot teehee🙆‍♂️

#b0tstalks #trigun #trigun swap au

[nanomooselet]

Little but Fierce VIII

Knives is totally dismissive of Meryl. He acknowledges she exists all of three times.

Once in Vash's memories, to delete her from them; once as he's piercing the Core, to call her a parasite and dismiss her attempts to get Vash to wake up; and once to try and violently kill her because... she succeeded in waking Vash up.

Whoops.

I listed all those statements that Knives claimed to be the truth; now here's everything that I believe proves them false.

Vash is pretty, but he's useless without his brother.

Vash does not need his brother. He loves him - of course he does. He wants to save him. But he's never needed him. Rem was the one he relied on for support, and after her death, Vash was too afraid of Nai to give him that kind of trust. He's spent decades surviving away from him, something Knives simply will not acknowledge. He tries to remove Vash's autonomy because as long as he has it, Vash is at risk of abandoning him again, just as Rem did.

Remember that once Knives initiated the memory retrieval process, Dr. Conrad warned Meryl that breaking that connection would kill Vash? Knives made Vash need him, made him dependent. That's his idea of making Vash perfect.

He's a powerless, weak, pathetically naïve, blubberingly sentimental little baby who doesn't care about the Plants, too busy enabling humanity's abuse via performing his cringing, grasping abasement before them to notice how his brethren suffer.

Knives developed his powers first. But Vash's powers are greater. He can do everything a normal Plant can do; he can also do much more, and he's such a wonderful, kind and compassionate man, with amazing reserves of emotional strength. Knives wouldn't have had to try and subjugate him otherwise.

Vash personally talks to the Plants, cares for them, soothes their pain. And he's been doing that not just to help them, but to help the humans panicking because if the Plants died, so too would they. He spent years travelling between crash sites helping Plants and teaching humans to take care of them, assuming an authoritative role even as a little boy, and if he hadn't figured out he could do that, he would almost certainly have killed himself. Remember he finally made the choice to live in order to save a dying Plant, not a human - dying because the environment was incompatible. You know, because they'd all been crashed on a desert planet. Certainly many Plants are still suffering. Because Vash is the only one doing this. He can't rest or delegate. It has to be him alone; it all depends upon him.

And Knives has been too busy playing his stupid piano to take any notice. And having other people do things for him. Oh, and making it damn near impossible for Vash to do what he does, partly because Vash has been convinced he bears all the responsibility and accepts the punishment himself. It's incredible he's held up even as well as he has.

If Knives is even aware Vash can heal Plants, he likely wouldn't care, because he views Plants in dependent form as imperfect, the same way he has contempt for Vash's fondness for eating. When Vash tried to talk to him about the needs of the other Plants based on his own direct experience, Knives didn't just shut him down by calling what Rem said a lie, he started mocking Vash's grief over her death, complaining that she inconvenienced him. He isn't interested in an alternative. His is the only way. It always has to be his way; that's been reflected in all his abuse.

Knives himself is the more powerful (and much less human-like) of the twins; the strongest and most righteous activist for necessary change now that, sadly despite all good faith attempts at communication, non-violent solutions have failed.

Remember Zazie, Elendira and Vash himself all have said don't judge by appearances. Yeah, Knives's colouration makes him look a bit more like the dependents than Vash does. That doesn't mean he's less human.

When he first started using his chosen name, Knives was doing nothing to help his brethren in the wake of the Fall. All he did was retaliate against humans and obsess over Vash. He bet everything on being able to carry out his plans using his brother's power. He didn't bother to communicate with any human other than Dr. Conrad. Seriously, count how many humans he addresses directly in the series. The total shrinks to one if you leave out those he doesn't immediately try to kill.

As for the "less human-like" part...

Dr. Conrad and Knives believe a soul is what gives a Plant free will, makes an Independent. Knives is referred to as an angel, and as perfect.

But angels don't have souls, so much as they are souls - they're beings of spirit, not matter. Humans are the ones who have both souls and material bodies. The dependents are in their tanks because their bodies can't survive outside of them. What makes Vash and Knives what they are isn't a soul. It's their humanity.

Thus I simply can't take the idea that Knives is "perfect" at face value. I stand by the assertion that Knives, in defining all humanity as selfish and greedy parasites, inadvertently exposes how human he is himself.

He truly has only the best and most altruistic intentions: the freedom of his people, and the happiness of his brother.

Look at what he did to Vash. The only other member of his kind he knows to be a person, and he chained and silenced him. Look at how often Knives is around dying Plants, dying because of the situation he forced them into. Do you believe it?

I don't. I find no truth in his words. I can count on one hand the moments I think he's being honest about anything. And I'd like this to be kept in mind as I continue.

I said before that the series seems mostly to take on Knives's point of view, and it's worth also keeping that in mind - especially when you remember the Punisher was Knives's chosen, custom-tailored agent. A gift. He was the one Knives obviously expected would become Vash's chief emotional support; all the better to kick it out from under him. After all, his brother is the one Vash truly loves; the brother who is a weapon, a punisher of human sin, who's done all he's done for his family. Who better to bring Vash home than an imperfect replacement, reminding him of what it was in his life that's been absent for so long? His human inadequacy would add strength to Knives's argument. And so focus goes to Wolfwood, showing how being forced to take on this role has made him suffer. He is, literally, pivotal; his backstory and conflict is revealed and resolved in 6/7, the midpoint of the series.

Naturally, it just demonstrates all the ways Wolfwood isn't like Knives, and that Vash never needed his help. Wolfwood is the one saved by Vash, not the other way round.

So… because Knives was so focused on Wolfwood and what he would mean to Vash, he never once thought Meryl mattered, not to Vash and not to the Plants and not to the world at large. She's a parasite, nothing more. There's no way some silly officious little womanchild with no weapons or powers could mean anything.

Right up until the moment she did, and he promotes her instantly, all the way from insignificant to tango primary.

Meryl in his mind goes from insect he can't be bothered to swat to an ideological threat on the level of Rem Saverem, and he starts shrieking denials that she's beaten him. And remember that I said you should believe the opposite of whatever he says?

She has.

Because she loves Vash. (Platonic or romantic as usual doesn't matter.) She's chosen to follow him even to the edge of reality. Though she found Vash frustrating, she didn't try to change him, nor does she need or want anything from him. She saw how much strength he had, what he could do if someone just had faith. When Vash declares I won't stop until they believe in me, he can draw hope from the assurance that Meryl already does. And unlike Rem, Luida, Rosa - Knives can't do jack-shit about it.

And Vash, in turn, has deep appreciation for her support. She tied him up all the way back in ep 1 - which I called "laying a claim" - and here Vash reciprocates, binding them together. She's lent him her agency, her independence, and she didn't have to resort to anything like the grotesque extremes Knives did. It required no more or less from her than unyielding love - an ordinary human's love. Just like Rem. Thank you, Meryl. I heard her voice through you.

Her love is rooted in seeking and embracing the hard truth rather than shoring up a comforting lie. When Vash starts to break free of Knives's illusion, it's by holding to the truth - it was Rem who promised to protect him, not Nai. Nai isn't an innocent little boy anymore but monster of metal chains and blades, something Vash has every reason to run from. Rem loves Vash no matter what's been done to him, and Knives cannot kill her as long as she remains alive in him. Knives is too frightened to face the truth, regards it with so much terror he tries to flee back into the ignorance of the childhood before he learned it. In contrast, Meryl's courage and conviction, her dedication to seeking and spreading truth, is so strong in her they steel that which is within those surrounding her; Roberto, Wolfwood, even in Vash. She may be small, but her power is sufficient.

Never ever overlook Meryl motherfucking Stryfe. That's a mistake so great it can see a man go from the threshold of victory to on fire.

And I'm still not done talking about her. One more instalment.

Part I

Part II

Part III

Part IV

Part V

Part VI

Part VII

Part IX

#trigun stampede #tristampparty #trigun meta #meryl stryfe #millions knives #meta: little but fierce #tw sui ideation #computer still being fsssjhfa dumb #why must i have no money for repair

[pepplemint]

I don't know for sure how many of these are actual parallels and which I just made up but

Here's a list of all biblical references I remember in Trigun

Story-wise:

Vash & Knives acquiring "forbidden knowledge" and bringing the literal downfall of humanity (Adam & Eve eating the forbidden fruit of knowledge and getting thrown out of Eden)

The city preying on travellers being destroyed, only a girl who had been out of town left alive. (The City of Sodom; God sends two angels to carry out his judgement on the town of sin. As all the men in town rally around to kill the angels, only Lot is left alive as he leaves the town.)

Knives getting all the dependent plants that are largely being abused by humans in an attempt to bring them all to a new promised land, bringing out revenge on those that oppose them (Moses bringing the oppressed israelites out of Egypt, "and the Lord said: But I know that the king of Egypt will not let you go unless a mighty hand compels him. So I will stretch out my hand and strike the Egyptians with all the wonders that I will perform among them.")

More literal:

The independents being referred to as "angels" and having wings (the most typical depiction of biblical angels)

The plants being created by humans (God creating humans in his own image)

The plants virgin births (The Virgin Mary giving birth to Jesus)

Wolfwood carrying a giant cross (Jesus carrying his own death sentence)

The Eye of Michael (Archangel Michael, the right hand of God and leader of God's people in the endtime battle between heaven and hell)

The Seven Cities, two of which had Vash angel-out on them (The Five Cities of the plains - Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, Zeboim, and Bela - Sodom & Gomorrah famously destroyed by two angels for their sins)

12 Gung Ho Guns (12 Disciples of Jesus.)

The independent plants created as a bridge between humanity and plants, created by plants but raised by a human mother (Jesus as half divine/half human)

Vash's unhuman levels of forgiveness (Jeezy boy taking on the sins of mankind through his suffering)

Elendira fighting with nails (Jesus being nailed to the cross rather than tied which was custom)

Vash promising Meryl that he will be back walking into what looks like a suicide mission (Jesus telling his followers that he will come back from death)

Knives ship where he brings all the saved plants being called "The Ark" (Noah building an ark (large boat) and housing a pair of every animal on it as God sends a flood over the earth, drowning all the sinners, only the people and animals on the ark being left alive)

Vaah & Wolfwood arguing about the righteousness of taking a life, Wolfwood's death at the orphanage and Vash burying him (Job 6:26-27 "Do ye imagine to reprove words, and the speeches of one that is desperate, which are as wind? (Do you reprimand those that are desperate for their views and call their words meaningless?) Yea, ye overwhelm the fatherless, and ye dig a pit for your friend.")

Meryl & Milly as reporters following Vash (The Prophets and their job of spreading the word of Jesus/the lord)

The appletree (the symbol of Eden)

Quotes that appears inspired by the bible:

Vash saying "we should never have been born" (Job, God's specialest little boy, curses his birth as misery befalls him)

Elendira comparing humanity to maggots ( "The stars are not pure in his eyes, how much less a mortal, who is but a maggot? A human being, which is a worm!)

#Vashs whole looks and Esau's description being he is ''red & hairy'' lmao #trigun #vash the stampede #millions knives #elendira the crimsonnail #nicholas d. wolfwood #biblical references #trigun maximum #trigun meta