#and boy have i seen some things(tm) but i'm sure plenty more lost good stuff is out there

[the-nysh]

How do you think redeeming Knives went after the ‘98 ending? Not sure how Vash would reign in him

Welcome to the plot of countless fanfics exploring that very same question since the turn of the millennium!! 8'D

Understandable, since the 98 anime's ending was left deliberately open-ended (its plot way different from the manga too, since it hadn't been completed yet), with every other major character dead save for the brothers and Meryl & Milly, it's heavily implied Vash returned home - to the girls, as he was trusted to, while carrying the incapacitated Knives over his shoulder (while leaving all his/their guns and red coat behind, since those items were symbolically no longer needed anymore) rather than leaving on a one-way suicide mission where he & Knives would end up killing each other. No, Vash made the independent decision to survive and properly 'take care' of Knives the way their mother Rem wished for them -to live- upon her sacrificial goodbye. After Vash finally realizes/interprets what she meant after going through some huge life-changing revelations himself (especially from Meryl's successful non-violent demonstration in saving him, proving to him that Rem's belief, and having faith in humanity, actually works after suffering thru so many repeated failures where it didn't), it's important he chooses not to die, or kill, or abandon or give up on even his own brother as a lost cause too. :') So I think it's appropriate he perseveres in saving Knives too (with Vash essentially taking responsibility as the 'older' brother now), while holding firm onto the belief of a hopeful 'blank ticket' open future...even for those like himself, who've terribly wronged. After all, survival, recovery, and kindness are a choice. And definitely not easy. Especially on their harsh, unforgiving desert planet. But at least 98 Knives is alive to recover enough that he gets that choice of a future too.

And so...your guess is as good as mine as to what's implied post-canon when we get official art like this! (As amusingly noted: Knives gets his second chance forced into family group therapy as the petulant 'younger' brother now~) Where I definitely think it would take a group effort, and not just from Vash himself, to reform Knives with the right kind of therapy needed (both physical and emotional, since yup Vash basically shot thru all his limbs and Knives himself still has unaddressed childhood trauma from the SEEDS' ship to consider - note, cause the Tesla medical abuse incident never happened in the 98 canon to mentally scar him for life, BUT it's implied child Knives directly suffered some form of physical abuse from the prejudiced bad apples on their ship's crew behind closed doors that not even Vash knew about, so yeah.)

I've seen fics where it's absolutely not smooth sailing (for example, on the common premise where Vash has no clue or plan on how to deal with bringing Knives home--cold turkey style, to the girls), where Knives continues to be a dangerous threat and menace - especially towards the girls, even while physically incapacitated - since he still has mental powers of telepathy and manipulative coercion/brainwashing, etc etc (available fic Plant powers may vary - BUT since 98 Legato had Vash's grafted-on lost arm and used those--Vash's powers for evil, it's implied Vash has all those same powers too, the same or even greater than Knives, he's just untrained and/or chooses not to use them on people Like That. The interesting potential being that...Vash could. This is why structurally, 98 Legato works well as Vash's foil, and is arguably more of the 'main villain' than 98 Knives was, and also why Vash killing Legato, and therefore part of himself in the process, has some interesting layers/nuances to it that even the Trimax manga didn't have, since the lore was completely different. But anyway I'm going off-tangent...)

So overcoming Knives' fear/hatred/disgust towards humanity is one of the biggest hurdles to address. Again this where I often see the girls come in, especially the continued exposure and positive reinforcement from Milly's grace, often while he's still recovering and bedridden from his injuries fighting Vash, to slowly help 'restore his faith in humanity' kinda deal. I've even seen the fic idea where Milly raising her -speculated- child from Wolfwood gives Knives a whole new closeup perspective on human life he never got before. (Bottom line, I understand why all the post-canon Milly-Knives fics seemed to be popular back then.) But I think the creative ideas I find particularly interesting are the ones that capitalize on the telepathic link between Vash & Knives - where Knives can pick up on the thoughts/feelings Vash happens to broadcast while interacting with say...Meryl ;) to Knives' shock/confusion! that by proxy affect Knives' curiosity towards humans like her. Cause if he can sense how his brother can feel something like that towards them, different from how it ever was with Rem, then wtf is up with that?! Aha, many fun shenanigans can ensue with that!

Even better is when I see fics delve into some of Knives' deeper issues, like his broken levels of trust and feelings of betrayal, loneliness and abandonment he possibly fears even from Vash (after all, Rem 'chose' humanity over them, and Vash left him to 'choose' humanity over him too - having those kinds of doubts to come clean about.) There's some good stuff to explore there, on the topic of normal dysfunctional/estranged brothers trying to reconcile and reconnect as family again, and I'm sure there are plenty of 98 Knives-centric fics focusing on his redemption that I haven't even seen yet (the ones I ended up not liking are those that flip or roleswap to give Vash the short end of the stick, ie they redeem and give Knives all the happiness at the expense of Vash; now that's just unfair!) It's just...searching on the older sites like ff.net for that kinda stuff is difficult to know what you're getting into without appropriate tagging, so heck, even I'd be up for hidden recs people have found on the topic!