#also hints that Vash is maybe not quite human

[mega-ringsandthings-world]

I’ve been thinking a lot about tristamp Vash and Knives’ mother, not Rem but what’s technically their bio mother, the Plant that birthed them. I wonder if they ever knew anything about her or vice versa. We do see Rem showing Vash and Knives around the Plant rooms, presumably it was one of those Plants who gave birth to them (and Tesla) so they could have seen their “mother” without knowing, or Rem could have even pointed her out to them, though that seems very unlikely. It’s quite likely that their mother Plant was decommissioned (studied by the SEEDS 5 scientists, given the rarity of Plant births) after their birth or was used up Last Run style to birth them, (in trimax we see how gruesome Knives’ rebirth is) or else was just kept a secret from them or was highly classified by SEEDS 5. I don’t think that their “bio mother” would be something that Vash or Knives would have cared about during the first year of their lives, seeing as how they had Rem, but after finding Tesla they might have gotten curious about their roots, pun intended, or at least Knives would have, because there’s the sense that Vash might have shied away from finding anything out after Tesla. While there’s no information about their plant mother in the files we see Vash and Knives access, it has to be somewhere, Vash and Knives and Tesla’s births were recorded on SEEDS 5, so the Plant or Plants that birthed them, (since it’s  Tesla may have had a different plant mother and probably did) would also be on record. It’s entirely possible that Knives may have looked for information on their plant mother (and Tesla’s) and maybe did find out about her, maybe found out that she was no longer living, or even that she was. Maybe he saw her at some point on SEEDS 5, or maybe he couldn’t find her at all, maybe she was lost somewhere on the planet in the Fall.  Maybe one of his reasons for doggedly collecting the red plants and any plants in general, as we see him take the healthy plant in Jenora, is that he’s looking for his “real” mother. Be it out of genuine curiosity, spite against Rem, or a want to use her in his plans.   In any case, it would be very interesting to see that meeting between her and Vash and Knives. In trimax, Plants are in fact sentient and have will and awareness, and in tristamp the scene in the Sand Steamer seems to hint that they also have will and awareness despite whatever Dr. Conrad says (because that man is lying) in the Sand Steamer the Plant responded to Vash’s plea for help, she knew he was a plant as well, so I wonder if Vash and Knives came face to face with their “mother” Plant, would she recognize them or display some special connection to them? Would she be able to communicate any differently with them than the others? Plants are not human, but tristamp plants are very close to human, and seeing the twins might evoke a “maternal” instinct in the same way Vash’s distress evoked aid from his sister plant. I can see Knives trying to use her to foster a sense of connection between the Plants and Vash, i.e, pointing her out as the one who physically created them, and seeing the being that is technically his bio mother might actually succeed in doing that to a degree, knowing how Vash is about mothers. There are just so many things to consider about Vash and Knives’ plant mother, and it’s such a shame the Plants are never discussed in enough depth to even get a hint to speculate on about things like that.

[wander-wren]

i finally watched the first seven episodes of trigun stampede today and i have to say 👀👀👀 i have thoughts. i will attempt to be vague and not spoil things

first of all this is a puppy of a man and he is my new best friend

second of all, y’all weren’t kidding bout the christ allegory and all that. wow. it’s kinda goofy but like, also believable? in context?

i already knew going in that vashwood was a thing and i was waiting to see how gay, exactly, they were gonna be. and then one of the first things vash says to him is about how he has Good Person Eyes with his silly little smile and i’m like Oh okay. gay.

also it’s just, like, really sad. darker than i expected from what little i saw beforehand/the opening. (well. not the first four minutes. after that.) (maybe i should’ve taken the first four minutes as a hint.)

and more violent than i expected, ig i’m still new to anime and not used to my Silly Cartoons being full of The Violence. but also i get squicked by hand gore and arms are close enough to hands that some of the ep2/3 bits were. hm! hm. it’s cool tho. ig i should’ve expected something like that when there’s a bad guy named knives.

I HAVE A DUMB NITPICK ABOUT THE WORLDBUILDING THO. i do like the worldbuilding i think it’s really cool i love a good desert space planet. i like the sand worms. always gotta have sand worms. and the plants. it’s neat. but uh.

my question is why is the whole thing a desert and then there is ALSO the great sand ocean?? you can see the outline of the continent and everything?? but?? when we go to the great sand ocean it is literally just, yknow, more sand, and cars drive on it at the same speed as the ship, so like, what is the point. i thought maybe it’s like a big shelf, big drop off, like cliffs, but no? bc there is a genuine concern at one point about sailing into a town?? i’m so. i’m so confused. why is there an ocean. am i missing something??

ANYWAY my other nitpick is that meryl and roberto are very necessary to the story in the sense that they need to be there as outsiders to vash/knives/wolfwood/etc, as stand-ins for the audience, but like. they don’t DO anything so far. aside from occasionally doing one small useful task, they mostly just follow/drive vash around. i felt guilty about internalized misogyny for not liking meryl as much as vash/wolfwood, but cmon, one of them is a Smart Reporter who is interested in vash and has no sense of self preservation. two of them are very traumatized potentially not-quite-human gunslingers. and i like meryl! and roberto! i love a good grumpy mentor and his plucky newbie partner trope. they just don’t do much and dont give me a lot to latch onto.

yeah, that’s about it for right now. most of my thoughts are just that i love, love, love vash. so much. he’s so silly and strange and he’s a pacifist but he’s also veryy competent with a gun/in a fight. and he is sad. and he is a puppy. i want to give him a hug.

i saw that little thing about him refusing to eat after [redacted events] and how he “doesn’t deserve to cry” and meryl going “look at you!!” and clapping when he finally does, + him looking at wolfwood and repeating wolfwood’s comment about deserving to eat. oh my boy. oh i’m latching onto that so hard

same with wolfwood tbh tho i’m not as attached bc he came later and i’m still a little suspicious of some things. he’s also a weirdo but in a very different way. wow it’s almost like he and vash have really similar backstories but adapted in opposite directions.

(what if i was your narrative foil….and we were both boys…….)

oh! final thing is that i love the art style. the planets look so cool and the creature/machine designs are very neat and it’s just. pretty. yes.

hopefully i’ll have time to finish season 1 on tuesday? it doesn’t feel quite like a hyperfixation to me yet (which is good i don’t need to deal with that rn lol), but i’m definitely interested and want to take a wander through the fandom.

[humanoidtyphoons]

trimax vol 3:

-okay but wolfwood is kind of living in a horror story as he discovers that vash isn't human tbh???? like these hints that give vash away, and wolfwood is trying so hard to make sense of it, and how to feel about it, and yet he will trust vash when it comes down to it. like ooh it's so cool to see him be kind of creeped out by these realizations, bc the moon getting a hole in it was weird, but there's... kind of--he didn't know for sure what happened? and i'm just. so intrigued bc i don't remember this subplot but oh, i'm into it, and how he's trying to gauge it by talking to people who do know vash, and the fact he doesn't age.

-mmkay but how vash defeats leonoff? knowing him as emilio and making him remember what he forced himself to forget? brutal! brutal!!!

-love that brad plays a part in this!!!

-oh i kind of really like that it takes the entire of vol 2-3, for vash to acknowledge that he's too uncompromising with his beliefs, and that there is merit to killing, if it means more people will be saved. like. dgmw, i really do like 98 vash being unyielding tbh, like i 100% believe he forgave wolfwood for killing zazie, but i also like that he stuck true to his beliefs, and it took him a while to get over killing legato tbh? but i like him being more flexible in trimax too. i can't quite recall how tristamp vash reconcilles with wolfwood tbh.

-ninelives is uh. wow. weird in the manga!!! i get why the anime went for he's actually a robot, but i also really like this eldritch thing he is in trimax tbh!!!

-very cute that meryl and milly crash/flatten ninelives. it doesn't take, but it's nice that it happens!

-anytime wolfwood thinks of the orphanage my heart is going to hurt. you'd think i'd accept that by now, but the hits never stop coming tbh.

-legato noticing wolfwood’s change of heart… hmm…

-luida looks very different in trimax to tristamp i think???? i really do need to rewatch, and i will, bc i want to compare, bc i can't properly recall.

-also luida mentioning that vash could theoretically heal his scars but chooses not too. hmm.

i really was going to take this slow and maybe read a volume a day, but... i don't think i'm going to be able to do that. i just want to devour more and more tbh.

[b0tsbby]

"I would like to hear more from you"

Oh absolutely! I myself, tend to get quite obsessed with and verbal about Stampede Knives, whether I like him or not. (I don't like him, but he is also, my everything) So much so, I had to bust out the laptop at midnight for this.

I must say, in regards to 98, I think he is framed much differently and a lot closer to a "mad villain" archetype, but I feel his 'shallowness' could also be a matter of perspective. He feels evil as a villain is suppposed to be, but I think he also explores an aspect of being born into a world where you're already a second class citizen. He's still a victim. I mean he was abused. And his pain and confusion turned into anger, at both humans and the unjust nature of the world. As Knives tends to go in the narrative, it ended up being 'a little too much', at least from the perspective of humans.

I think his iteration just came across poorly cause i believe as an audience, we've heard that kinda story of a victim turning 'villainous' like one million times already. It's worth analysing in itself why, that trope in itself has somewhat lost weight and meaning.

But alas this is not about him right now. I'll be his defense attorney another day.

It's notably interesting to me you feel Stampede was a lot clearer. I'm not sure if you have engaged with Max, but he seems to take the trophy as the most readable and understandable antagonist of the three. (An achievement I think he deserves mind you). I say antagonist especially, as i struggle to really call any Knives a true and final villain. There's just too much in him and Trigun for me to really box them in these terms insinuating good or evil.

BUT Stampede Knives, by definition probably is the more villlainous of the three by a bit of a mile. He's...pretty selfish. Knives allegiance to some form of justice is floppy for all three, but Stampede really, really, has no/little concept of outward responsibility. His goal is one so deeply rooted in himself and I'm not sure if the weight of what he's done has really hit him on the noggin yet.

And even so, I get it. I get what you're saying and I get where he's coming from, more than I'd like to i think sometimes.

There's a myriad of themes interwoven into his design, his dialogue and the first season of the reboot as a whole! I could break him and Season 1 into themes of self-hatred, denial, identity, safety, autonomy, delusion and a coming of age...oh, and mommy issues of course.

In my view, every character feels so weightless and lacking substance in a way that's just so messy compared to their Max counterpart. I sound mean, and I don't know if it was truly an intention on Studio O's part, but I attributed a lot of that to the fact it feels a lot like growing up, and how messy that is. Shit, Knives entire character design is driven by the visual metaphor of a caterpiller nestled in a cocoon. If that doesn't at least whisper the hints of still developing into oneself I could simply be insane.

And I feel it. While Vash is driven by some sense of guilt and self punishment (WHICH IS A VERY FLIMSY MOTIVATION) in comparison, Knives first feels like at least, a 'villain' with maybe some sense of real direction...

Until he talks, and I'm listening to an edgy reddit gospel sermon.

Point is, it's funny, I think he's actually pretty hard to analyse, considering he really only shows his hand, or a semblance of real character, at the very end when he's literally dying on screen. While Vash is so painfully vulnerable and open to the viewer, its a game of masks with Knives. A game he seems to be playing with himself too. A master of lying to the world, but more importantly himself.

There's a lot on each individual theme, and we'll be here until 2025 if i try to get it all in one post, but I have to say S1 really sets up the brothers as black and white, a good vs evil debate for 98% of its running. Knives really plays a good big bad villain, and Vash a perfect noble heroic knight. We really don't get any Knives exposition beyond crumbs, cause the little church boy monologues don't mean shit.So any dislike feels warranted.

Perhaps I'll have to write that big essay after all.

It only concerns me a little bit I haven’t really seen a written introspection on Stampede Knives’ character, specifically him. 98 is 98 and Maximum Knives has enough elitists on his case to cover him, definitely not a fan favourite but people have broken him down.

I’m aware of how disliked he is, Stampede that is, but it really is something. Could I write it, and could I kill an analysis of him? Most likely. I’ve been injecting the character into my veins, breathing him in and out for a year, every incarnation of him.

But I’m so curious to see someone else do it. Curious to see if someone else will do it…Maybe to convince myself I’m not a complete fool, or stuck in delusion. Maybe to find someone else that got it.

Hate and disdain, is something I’ll never protect him from. He’s an asshole. But man, even he doesn’t deserve the shallow reading of him that’s too widely accepted I think.

But who am I to say what is and isn’t…