#a different take in julai maybe?

[eventheodds]

[ RELIEF ]:     having lost sight of the receiver in an intense moment of danger, the sender spots them in the distance, and rushes to them, embracing them and resting their foreheads together out of sheer relief.

meme lost to the aether…

The smell of blood is strong.

In the chaos between patrols scouring every alley and every street now that Vash had been spotted in JuLai, Meryl hadn’t been able to escape unscathed. She’d been knocked to the ground as others were running in the opposite direction of where she needed to go, her face smashing onto the ground with an impact that definitely must’ve broken something, and the taste of copper on her tongue.

She’d since wiped it away with the sleeve of her jacket, a red blaring smear on the cream-coloured material. While focused on trying to navigate through the throngs of people running in whichever direction—so long as they got away from the gunshots—she could see that smear from the corner of her eye every time she got closer and closer to where she was going.

Her lungs ached and her nose hurt, and her cheeks felt as though they’d been scrapped across rough concrete, but pain was not something she was registering at this very moment.

Right now she needed to find Vash.

If anything, the patrols were helping her with their coordination seeing as they had more people to cover the area—and she could easily slip through, mostly unseen.

The staccato of gunshots make her stop, along with a raucous sound of cheers—both make her heart drop to her stomach as she has the briefest realization she may have been too late. A few loud curses tell her it’s a false alarm, that they still need to keep looking and Meryl resumes her own trek through the busy streets of this bustling city.

It’s hard to discern a noticeable red coat in the throes of all that’s going on, but she hears the cadence of Vash’s voice up ahead, along with the end of his coat as he rounds a corner. Something muttered about not having enough bullets and Meryl runs towards him, full pelt, until she crashes into him.

Somehow, though she’s not surprised to realize this, Vash knew it was her and turns around at the last possible second, embracing her in his arms and keeping his gun away from her. She can feel, even from his efforts, the barrel against her side and the heat radiating off it that’s seeping in through her jacket and shirt. He’d recently fired, this much she knows, but there’d been nothing about fallen bodies or even wounds from the patrol that were out hunting for him.

“Meryl—what happened?!”

She realizes he’s holding her at arm’s length, a look of both devastation and concern on his face as he takes in her own and sees the blood splattered across her cheeks and around her nostrils. It’s mostly dried—this much she can tell—because she can feel how it tugs at her skin.

“Guess I didn’t get so lucky when I tried to track you down,” she says, her voice a little watery as her eyes begin to blur with unshed tears. His own expression changes in an instant, from some kind of unbriddled anger to despair to wanting to cry, or she thinks it does, but that soon fades as she instinctively closes her eyes and lets him pull her towards him to rest their foreheads together.

“I’m sorry…I’m so sorry…”

It hits her how tired she is, how there’s more than just aches and pains in her face but her entire body as well. When she was knocked down, she’d felt the occasional foot kick her as people were trying to disperse and find shelter.

JuLai patrol, or some within their ranks, have become rather trigger happy as of late, though she doesn’t think anyone else was hurt. Thank God for that, she thinks as she keeps her eyes closed.

“I’m okay,” she says, her voice muffled in the way it would sound as if she had a really bad cold. “I promise I’m okay.”

It’s not enough—she can clearly see that—and he’s going to beat himself up about this, add it to the numerous weights he already carries on his shoulders.

As of right now, Meryl doesn’t have anything else she can say that could put his mind at ease.

[museqmeg]

A little (a very long) Vash & Meryl Trigun Stampede thought:

Let's talk about these two and how they view humanity and plantness. ("Plantness" is the plant equivalent of "humanity," right?)

Vash's plant reveal to the gang is meant to be shocking, but there's more to this moment than meets the eye. If you're a new member of the Trigun audience, Meryl is your avatar into the world of No Man's Land and who/what Vash is... but she is also so much more.

Meryl is a reflection of Vash's own humanity. Meryl is one living, breathing human who embodies all that he wants to protect. She is what Rem sacrificed her life for, but also selfishly in the best way, for himself - Vash truly loves humanity. Meryl is the humanity Vash aspires to be. Vash and Meryl are mirrors.

One of my favorite ways that Vash and Meryl demonstrate their mirror imagery, is through their views and treatment of plants. They both show so much care, compassion, and consideration for a being that is seen as less and to serve humanity. Offering these rights to another living creature puts plants and humans on equal ground. Coexisting.

Orange did a wonderful job of parallel imagery to highlight this. Let's take a look, shall we?

Help

They ask a plant for help. Only when things are truly dire do they request the assistance of a plant. For Vash, it's his sister on the sand steamer. For Meryl, it's Vash in JuLai.

Something very small, but very important to me... In the English dub, they both say "please" when asking for help. It's clearly a choice given to each plant (sister or Vash), but their agency is kept.

(This particular parallel imagery makes me perish. Well done Orange.)

Choice

When both Vash and Meryl ask, both are willingly and freely answered.

Connection

When we see Vash connect with his sister, it's mysterious and otherworldly. However, when we see Meryl connect with Vash, it's so human and heartbreaking. The tension we feel as she desperately calls for him while he reaches out with his violet geraniums makes us feel the stark difference between plants and humans. The connection isn't so easy between the two species.

Poor tiny, human Meryl is trying so hard here. She's literally up against an interdimensional being while giving everything she has. But it's her voice. Her humanity. It calls out to Vash's own. It's the connection that comes easy.

"Follow your heart."

In this moment, humanity/Rem/Meryl is Vash's heart.

And Vash is Meryl's heart.

Two human hearts.

Dare I say it was actually Roberto who saved Vash and humanity? Roberto knew. He knew that Vash and Meryl were two sides of the same coin. Roberto had them pegged. His gentle nudge was the courage Meryl needed to act on her heart, creating a domino effect for Vash's courage.

Humanity

It was always inside him. Vash is human. He is so very lucky to have two very strong tethers: Rem & Meryl.

I very much interpret this moment as a handoff of Vash from Rem to Meryl. His anchors pulling him out of his brother's gate and plant state. Letting him be his true self.

Agency

Compassion. Respect. Love. They're integral to one's self-worth. Meryl giving all of that to Vash and seeing him as her equal, as human... gave him back his own identity and autonomy.

Heart

Two hearts.

Maybe all it took for a human and plant to connect and coexist was just a little heart. A little love & peace, if you will.

[revenantghost]

I've seen a lot of different takes on what happens post-JuLai, but I really like the idea of trauma-bonded Wolfwood and Meryl. Maybe they don't meet up or talk much, but their lives are now intrinsically tied together by grief and fond memories and just valuing and understanding each other.

And they still bicker and snark like siblings, of course <3

[magadauthan]

There was a lot of (justified) fandom fussing about the changes to Meryl's character in Tristamp. She's junior to a grumpy old drunk, where before she was the HBIC. She's as wet behind the ears as it gets and very naïve to the realities of the NML outback. She doesn't have any derringers. She's even shorter. And where is Milly wtf.

We all know by now that Tristamp is a reinterpretation and kinda-sorta a prequel to the main storyline, so some of those concerns have been addressed.

Meryl is the Everyman of the series and represents the viewer, and we grow alongside her as she learns about what props up her sheltered previous life in November. She's a cub reporter, so the expository monologuing that takes place when she and Roberto are around can be partially excused. She's finding out about the world, and gumption is all she has to run on. And sass. Lots of sass.

One major difference for her character arc is her personal tragedy. '98 Meryl and Trimax Meryl are office ladies who either got assigned the Vash detail or applied for it; Tristamp Meryl chose her story, as far as we know. '98 Meryl doesn't go through a major trauma other than what happens with Legato, and in Trimax, Vash is the trauma when he inadvertently downloads his memories into her.

Tristamp Meryl can't hold on to Tonis, and she loses her innocence in that moment when all her book learning and good intentions can't save him from losing his arm and falling. From then on, she has to live with the guilt, the same way Vash lives with his guilt over everyone who's suffered from associating with him and his own good intentions gone wrong (Rollo). Her burden is her own; she's not bearing it on behalf of Vash.

As the series moves on, she's told many times to stop, to back off, to go home, and she bears that additional burden when Roberto ultimately sacrifices himself for her persistence. Meryl tells Roberto he can leave, but he's no fool; she'll get wiped out in no time. He's not going to leave her out there by herself, and Vash and Wolfwood aren't going to look after her. That's not their job; it's his job. Meryl wants the scoop, in the classic teacher's pet overachiever paradigm. Roberto is there because his bosses said he had to keep her from getting herself killed in the process. He gets killed instead.

All of this is to say that Tristamp Meryl and her motivations have gone off in a very different direction than either of her progenitors, in ways that will keep her central to the plot. Which is a good thing - one criticism of Trimax is that the insurance girls disappear for long periods of time (not for nothing, but Livio and Elendira had a metaphorical peeing contest for an entire tankoubon.)

Zazie's interest in Meryl was another new wrinkle. Zazie is the voice of the planet, and it stands to reason that they felt more concordance with Nai. He styles himself as the speaker for the hivemind of Plants, which they understand on an instinctive level, and unlike the interloper humans, his mission statement is to eschew the rapacious consumption shown by the human trash. Sounds like a good deal, right? That's until Nai shows his hand and demonstrates that he does not give one single shit about anything but his agenda, and he doesn't mind wiping out the Wams along with the humans. It's the first time we see Zazie get worried. Maybe they made a bad bet.

They know Meryl-as-reporter and that her role is to speak to humans, which is what they're used to with Nai. She and they know the truth about JuLai and what Vash was trying to do. So, they pick Meryl as their new liaison with humankind, warning her that the bet has to pay off this time.

And Meryl of all people knows that trying isn't enough.

Her character design reflects her tragedy. She's wearing sunglasses, which may be a style choice but can also represent that she has something to hide. She's gone from wanting to be respectable to ditching her assignment and sneaking off to JuLai to pay her respects. She gets threats from her superiors about getting busted down to insurance duty for insubordination. She chooses to earn those derringers. Meryl Stryfe is the rebel who champions the weirdos, and she didn't do it for Vash; she did it for herself.

With all that in mind, it will be interesting to see how her relationship with Vash is different this time. I'd argue that they aren't close in Tristamp.

...yet.

[gnomebud]

📝Share a snippet of an unposted WIP, with or without context.

im posting two bc i want to!

“Not that that did much in the end,” he says, sounding slightly desperate. “You should be mad I betrayed you.” It’s an echo of his earlier words about Elendira, before Julai fell. You should be mad that somebody tried to kill you. “I was,” she explains quietly, “but I’m not anymore. You kept him safe. And besides, he wasn’t mad about it, so I shouldn’t be –” “Don’t fucking say that,” Wolfwood snaps, jerks his hand out of her grasp. She startles. “Don’t – don’t take all the shit that he did. Please. Fine, you’re not fuckin’ angry, though you should be. Whatever. But don’t turn yourself into him.”

post-tristamp s1 long-ish fic that i'm very stuck on at the moment but is about meryl & ww hanging out during the timeskip! this bit is immediately post-julai. meryl's figured some things out, ww is extremely stressed

Wolfwood makes Meryl sleep in when she’s up too late working on an article, unable to stop trying to prove herself even as her eyes blur with sleep, and massages her hands when she’s done writing so they don’t get as stiff and sore as they could. Meryl lets Wolfwood cry into her neck when he finally tells her about Livio, the night after they travel to Hopeland for one of Meryl’s assignments and he runs into Miss Melanie in the market. Wolfwood teaches Meryl to shoot; Meryl reads him every one of her articles when he asks, even the boring ones about December politics. They aren’t perfect. Wolfwood’s second favorite habit is self-destruction, and his first is digging his own grave deeper, unable to stop himself from letting out snapping comments even when tears blink in Meryl’s eyes. Meryl is a little too eager to throw herself into the middle of action and a little too unconcerned about her own safety, which results in scrapes and fractures and one harrowing drive to a hospital with a gunshot wound in the leg and Wolfwood yelling at her, frantic and worried, the entire time.

untitled maybe-sequel to another post-tristamp s1 merylwood fic that You Know About that is probably going to get chopped up and discarded bc the actual sequel i want to write for it is now completely different and would not require this much list-y exposition. so! since this bit may never see the light of day. here is A Lot of it

(from the WIP asks!)

[lotus-mirage]

Trigun Stampede episode 5 liveblog!

Oh already going in with more allusions to christianity, okay.

I feel like I should focus a little bit more on these, but honestly idk who’s speaking and if their philosophies actually are relevant outside of worldbuilding. Here goes anyway!

“We Sinners were cast upon this land when the ark crashed.” -> two important things here. First, the term ‘sinners,’ unless the ark was carrying, like, convicts, this is presumably a basic christian idea that everybody sins during their life. However tonally this doesn’t read like it’s followed with ‘and then everybody is forgiven,’ more like the speaker hates humanity in general, including themselves. Second, probably more important plot-wise. ‘Ark’ - the most likely reading is this is the spaceship that brought humans to the planet. It’s probably not the same one that we saw with child Vash, but since they also had Plants they’re probably related? ‘Crashed’ is an interesting term to use - I’d assumed that the Plants were planned to be used as resources for colonization, as convenient as they seem to be, but I guess it would make sense that maybe the rest of a high-tech civilization just doesn’t know about these guys if they crashed.

Then again, this guy may be totally mistaken, so who knows.  He’s certainly got an agenda of his own already.

It has been 8 seconds into the episode. I need to stop overthinking.

“Angel of Salvation” oh interesting.  I bet somebody’s gonna try to claim this role.

Oh this is definitely a cult, okay.

wait a second isn’t there a whole thing in Christianity about only worshiping God or an aspect of him? Like isn’t that the (nominal) reason for a bunch of denominational splits?? Certainly seems like the focus here is on this angel and not God.

(Actually come to think of it - I have no idea how the worship of saints is factored into... all of that.  Idk if that’s totally relevant though, I don’t think they’re quite deified like this guy seems to be doing)

“Please let the wind blow. Otherwise I...” gonna be relevant later, noted.  Also wow that was interesting background music.

Oh it keeps going I thought I could take a break sdfjgkl okay

Two angels now!  Okay yeah that one seems pretty obvious at least that’s the twins.  Bridge of light, though. Sounds nice, but I suspect it’s rather ominous, esp with it leading them ‘to the land of god’. Like I know that’s kind of how christianity goes but like it also sounds like this bridge might straight-up just kill everybody.  Idk what it could be though.  Also no idea how this guy knows about them!

Also interesting that this is being broadcasted wide enough that they can just pick it up, I’d assumed this was a smaller-scale cult thing, but maybe it’s more widespread?

Oh details! Church of plant worshipers. New? In JuLai? Yeah that checks out.  Assumedly connections to Knives?

Aaand the two people with potentially relevant insight are asleep for this.

Roberto, dude, you good? This is the most animated we’ve seen him I think lol.

Interesting, that place looks a bit like a greenhouse maybe?

EAT THE SACRIFICED CHILDREN, WHAT

Oh it is a death cult

Nope, definitely not a greenhouse lol

Okay interesting now we’ve got meteorological shifts happening

What’s up with this guy’s head?? Is that like a full-on LED display?? It gives him a head-in-a-jar vibe.

Presumably the scenes with the new kid are a flashback?

the framing with the kid running away and every beat the screen size shrinks is really cool, you don’t see that too often!

Oh interesting! So going in I knew Wolfwood had like a limited regeneration/healing thing, but looks like this guy also does, and Wolfwood is surprised about it.  That implies that they’re different factions and the method isn’t widespread, so... guess we’ll just have to see what’s up with that!

Ah.  He delivered the kid back to his impending death.  Wonderful

“If God won’t save you, I will!”

that’s a statement and a half.  You know what, not touching that one.

Aaaand there’s a cross in the background behind him.  Yeah okay.

Incredibly upfront about being a death cult, wow

Uh.  Humanoid robots? Cyborgs? not sure.  but with one of Knive’s allies. Which makes sense, but uh.  Why is Rollo here? I assumed maybe this was part of the sacrifice process, but its dark and there aren’t many people around. If it is, though, I feel like the sacrifices are related to the aforementioned cyborg-looking guys.  Which is horrifying ngl.

ughhh needles

not gonna deal with the fire at all huh

okay. dichotomy of sacrifice and angel. previously the way it’s been used one would assume they’re non-exclusive, but the way she answered that makes me feel like she thinks entirely the opposite. and also that the sacrifices are probably for the angels.

oh lmao more cross imagery. they really don’t let up huh.

ugh more needles hooray

is Rollo the guy they’re fighting now?

huh the angel kid is heterochromatic. could be a design choice, but I guess could be relevant?

oh that looks disgusting. and painful.

yep that’s Rollo.  fun times.

oh that’s ironic.  he can produce wind, but only now that everything is gone. :(

oh.  oh he has self awareness.  oh that’s even worse.

wait, Vash could recognize him??

Twenty years, huh? Yeah that makes sense actually, given the wear on the town. And the story about the massacre.  Sooooo implication: Vash doesn’t age.

But if Rollo was a breakthrough success like that, why’d they just leave him here?

Okay yeah more confirmation he doesn’t age, good to have that solidified. 

Wait. Wait, was this the same religious faction as is going on in JuLai? I’ve been conflating them in my head, but they could be separate. But if the death cult was already well established in the windmill town and Vash was around enough to have a photo of him with a local baby Rollo, how did he not know about it??

“just a monster now” wonder if that’s something he fears for his own future

ah. headshot. can’t say there wasn’t leadup, but uh. oof.

presumably stuff under the mask can’t do the same regeneration/healing we saw before?

“Mercy. There’s no way to return his humanity” Wonder if that is also self-projection.

Wait, okay.  The wind returned after Rollo died.  Symbolic, or like.  Is the implication that the cult was actually onto something?? What.

Okay so further confirmation that it’s all just Knives’ group. Including Wolfwood, which I went into this kind of knowing.

Wait lmao they’re crediting the kill to the gun? The big cross-shaped lazer-firing machine gun with the skull on it? lmao.

Unless they’re using that as a different title for him.  Which would probably make more sense actually.  Which ah. Conflating him and his weapon.  Or could just be his title?

Actually putting that together with the whole Christianity bent gives some weird results not going to lie.  If it’s the gun, well it’s cross-shaped and ends up weirdly implying agency??  If it’s Wolfwood, that implies a couple of different roles.  None of which, as far as I’m aware, tended to tote a cross around. Then again I have not actually read the bible so who knows.

The windmill still works!? That took me off guard, but it is quite an image.

End notes:

I need to stop pausing and going on speculative rambles about stuff that gets elaborated on two lines later.  It has taken me over an hour and fifteen minutes to watch a single episode.  This is just silly.  orz

I think most of the stuff of interest I covered during the beat-by-beat segment. I think the visuals are getting more interesting?  There’s a little less everybody-flopping-around-everywhere, but the animation itself is very good while I find myself more and more interested by the framing.

I’m not actually sure if I knew Vash was somewhere unspecified between unaging and immortal, but I find myself unsurprised. I do wonder about the timeline though.

[priellan]

having watched both ‘98 trigun and stampede in about a week, i have thoughts

i like the lighter tone at the start of/scattered throughout ‘98 trigun

i think the tone of stampede is somewhat more consistent and i laud it for that, but i do miss the levity

i still want someone else who’s seen the saved by wolves op to tell me if i’m crazy for thinking there are some similarities with the stampede op someone out there pls go into deep analysis mode with me here

in line with the tone, i do miss goofier vash. i miss vash getting to smile and have a good time on occasion. poor boy needs a fucking hug.

i think the original series sets up better why vash is such a walking disaster and why he has a bounty on his head - maybe a bit too well, they spend too many episodes goofing off on one-offs about how he’s a well-meaning vortex of destruction, but it is set up, whereas we just have to take the series’ word for it in stampede that he deserves to have a bounty on his head

speaking of which, wait a tic, if vash is heading for julai in stampede and it hasn’t been destroyed yet, why does he have a bounty on his head? the original bounty we’re told about in ‘98 trigun is for july, right?

wait another tic, why’s it spelled julai? july city, augusta, may city, that’s the naming convention, right? why change it? is this part of making things less silly? hi i’m scratching my head

speaking of less silly, MILLY MY BELOVED WHERE ART THOU

roberto’s just a bland character so far. he’s okay. nothing against him, i just... why him instead of milly? what reason was there?

i enjoy vash’s new design but at the same time i doubt he’d ever shave like the 90s design of him would? he’s been blorbofied. i love both versions, they both have different appeal.

i appreciate stampede getting into what the fuck’s up with wolfwood much sooner and in more depth

it remains to be seen whether the pacing of stampede is better than ‘98 trigun, but i will say it’s certainly moving much faster and i appreciate on some level it delving into character backstory deeper and sooner than ‘98.

on the other hand, i appreciate ‘98 taking its time to let us enjoy the characters and have some fun, to let the characters breathe and let me feel emotionally invested by the time the big battles rolled around. eps 23 and 24 were much more devastating than stampede eps 5 and 7 had time to be.

thank god they dropped the 90s perviness i hate that shit

WOLFWOOD IS HOW OLD IN STAMPEDE?

poor kid jesus

no wonder he smokes like he doesn’t know how to smoke