#and i just really hope her character will have more to her in tristamp

[saltysnacksandtea]

unhinged and far-fetched tristamp s2 theories:

1) knives is dead. the one Legato restores is Tesla (why else would orange change her status to "alive" otherwise?)

2) Vash gets his og red and black colors back; he also goes through edgy phase. Milly gets the teal from his s1 look in her colour scheme and represents parts of him he not longer has

3) Razlo actually gets the Mr. Trigun Himself treatment and LR are portrayed as protagonists

[revenantghost]

Heyo, let’s talk about my girl Meryl and why she’s so critical to the plot of Trigun Stampede and Vash in particular! (Well, that’s true for any Trigun, but Tristamp theories are rotting my brain atm.) Some spoilers for Tristamp and vague talk/references to the other series ahoy!

Meryl gets way too many accusations thrown at her for doing nothing/not enough in Tristamp. To the point that I started a rewatch to see if I was misremembering, but absolutely not! Those first three episodes alone, she’s critical to how things develop! She’s a foil to Vash, just like Wolfwood is!! She’s essential to his humanity!!!

But it took until I was watching ‘98 for the first time this weekend for it to crash into me like a freight train exactly what Meryl means, just like it took Trimax for the full weight of Wolfwood to click into place for me. Because she’s set up a lot like her older anime counterpart (though no one gets the same amount of character interaction—Tristamp, I adore you, but please slow down and let these poor folks breathe). She doesn’t understand Vash at first, she even goes so far as to call him a coward in a really low blow for what she easily recognizes as his bravery (and sometimes stupidity) later. And while they both (well, pretty much all the Trigun protags, let’s be honest) share their bullheadedness, I see a lot of people say she’s just like Vash... And I disagree, sorta.

She’s just like Rem. Just look at that last episode.

The two women don’t have the same belief systems, they have wildly different paths, and they come into Vash’s life in incredibly different ways. Meryl may keep Vash in check sometimes, but she’s not a mother figure imo. But they still play a similar role.

After over a century of traveling alone, we see (especially in other versions of Trigun) that Vash is often used and abandoned. Even when he makes genuine friends, they let him drift in and out of their life—and to their credit, he’s good at that! He can’t handle any more pain, so he slips away before the hurt catches up. But not Meryl! She ain’t gonna let that happen!!! At first, yeah, she follows him because of her job, but it never takes her long to go from frustrated and fed up to growing fond of Vash. And I especially love the career shift in Tristamp allowing her a complete out, to walk away and abandon Vash when things get rough, and no one would blame her for it.

But she stays. Because she sees that he’s good and worthy of the love that he denies himself. She sees this vile, hopeless world that they live in through his eyes, and sees the beauty in it too. She’s the first person to have faith in Vash not just as a savior, but as a person—unlike anyone has since Rem.

When all hope is gone, when Vash has lost his way, when he stumbles and falls, Meryl—who starts off doubting him!—is the one there to pick him up and remind him that he’s loved, that his love for humanity isn’t for nothing. Throughout the entire series, she has faith in him. She chooses Vash even when he won’t choose himself. She’s tired and done living in this selfish world of awful people, and she becomes the anchor that ties Vash down to what’s good in humanity. She’s just as critical as Wolfwood in taking a distant, disheartened, and broken Vash and reconnecting him to a world that cast him aside. And we’ve already gotten so much of that in Tristamp. It’s most obvious in the ending, but it’s built up so beautifully imo. She’s not as flashy as our fighters YET, but she’s absolutely essential to Vash, and I will die on this hill. I can’t wait to see her come crashing back into the picture with Milly next season.

[hypermoyashi]

Chapter 2 & 3 of Trigun read! The second chapter was literally called "loony tunes" and. A very appropriate name! It was fun getting to watch Vash run around and dodge all the gunfire in the most ridiculous ways he can think of! But there was also an undertone of seriousness, when he got caught in the diner--him tearing up and asking the women there not to force him to fight them. It definitely undercuts some of the cool badass air and instead kind of shows the deeper depths of Vash's character, how he empathizes with them and wants to help them, but he also can't just let himself get turned over 'cause he's got things he needs to take care of. But he also! Really doesn't want to hurt them! He won't throw people under the bus or leave them in trouble for his own ends! In fact, he'll go out of his way to help them, even at great cost/inconvenience to himself--like completely ignoring the Nebraska family to dig unconscious people out of rubble.

And! On a different note!! Loved seeing Meryl and Milly! Milly's immediate "I want to go home and not die" was really funny, and it does kind of highlight the character growth and change she goes through in later chapters (which I won't get into now). It's nice they get to be just as goofy as Vash, and! Love that badass moment where they both land the final blow on the Nebraska family, and Vash's reaction! Congrats on your new found family, hope you like them Vash <3

Also! Rosa mention! She definitely got a lot more fleshed out for Tristamp, but she was mentioned by name as one of the women from the diner! I think she's specifically the one with the speech about doing anything for her sickly son, which checks out. I thought the child with the toy from the first chapter might be Tonis, but! It's hard to tell because if he was, then the woman I think is Rosa definitely wasn't the same woman who was assumingly his mom from the first chapter. But maybe Rosa dumped his dad and found him a new mom lol. It's interesting to see the details that Tristamp pulled from for the Jeneora Rock arc, definitely!

And! I have discovered the most comfortable reading positions for the big boy book are a) on stomach with book propped open on pillow or b) sitting up with book propped open on bed. Definitely more comfortable than having the chonky thing resting on my stomach.

Definitely excited to read more tomorrow!!

[deludedfantasy]

Trimax Vol 7 Ch 1-3

Sooooo, the first half of this volume might have destroyed me. I spent a lot of time staring into space between panels because the horrors were getting to me. Prepare for lots and lots of yelling. Here goes.

Ch 1

With a story like Trimax, I get incredibly nervous when an entire volume is named Happy Days. I know I am being lied to. 

The way the crew comes out of their pods really reads like people clawing their way out of coffins. Very ominous. 

Wow, this guy is rude. Rem hasn’t talked to anyone but Plant children in a whole year and the first thing that happens when the crew wakes up is that one of them harrasses her. Ugh. He could’ve stayed asleep for another three years if that’s how he was gonna be. 

Argh, there are way too many people in this chapter and I can’t tell who’s talking when the whole crew is together. 

I don’t know what to make of it, but Rem’s eyes are completely white when she lies to the crew. I know someone pointed out that Wolfwood’s eyes are white when he’s in an incredibly emotional state so I wonder if this is something similar?

Knives just messing around with the thrusters because he was curious. So not only do Independent plants grow quickly, they’re apparently incredibly smart. But also still kids because he absolutely messed something up.

Ah, young Conrad meeting the twins for the first time. I like that Tristamp made him a more important character because of what happened to Tesla. 

Knives is so concerned with what humans think of him! Having him be so drastically different as a child really makes you wonder what happened to make him hate humanity as much as he does. 

Oh no, baby Knives is crying! He just wants to be loved and accepted. Both of them love Rem so much too. Oh my god, I just wanna cry. This chapter is the sweetest, nicest one we’ve had in a while.

Pages that make me wanna sob because of dramatic irony. Little Knives is so hopeful…he’s so full of love and understanding and naivety. I don’t wanna watch it break.

Ohhhh. Now that I know what’s going on, this part makes a lot more sense to me. Knives and Vash think they see one of the people in cryo chambers awake, and they follow her. I think this is actually a telepathic Plant thing. Tesla is still alive, so she’s projecting herself into their minds and leading them to her. 

She shows up right after Knives’s revelation about working through their differences with humanity. I wonder how much she hears and is aware of, because it seems significant that she shows up then, like a vengeful ghost that wants to show him how wrong he is.

God, I hate reading the report notes. They’re so chilling and dehumanizing. They keep calling her a “subject” but what we see is a little girl. And she looks so small and scared. Man, I really shouldn’t be reading this late at night. I’ll be up all night thinking about this.

“Trouble over a question of ethics.” Well, that’s a fucking understatement! Question of goddamn ethics, you scanned her so often you gave her cancer! Because you were treating a living thing—no, a child—like an inanimate object that could take as much abuse as you threw at it. 

110 days is just over 3 months. I’m raging. How many times did they use radioactive scanning equipment on this little girl to give her tumors??? I had to get one CT scan done and they were extremely reluctant to do it because I was young and they weren’t sure it would show what was wrong with me. 

My brain is only capable of producing screaming noises right now. These last pages are brutal and gory and…yeah, really messed up. 

All the notes have to say is “Project is closed.” PROJECT??? PROJECT????? That was a little girl you experimented on so much that you basically killed her! I’m gonna throw my laptop out the window. 

I’ve come back a little calmer and actually, I can’t tell if she’s alive or not. In Tristamp, it seems like she was put into cryo sleep to preserve her while she was technically alive. But here, I can’t tell. Thing is, she wouldn’t be able to do her Plant telepathy otherwise. Hmmm.

Ch 2

Oh no no no no, little Vash’s dead eyed face is too much for me right now. He’s had his doubts about humans, sure, but this is too much for him to handle. This is the revelation of humanity’s evil that he’s far, far too young to be able to handle. 

Oh God, and he’s alone in there with Tesla’s dissected body because Knives fainted. He can’t look away, he’s never been able to look away, and all he can see now is how different he is from humanity. Right now, he doesn’t see any way they can reconcile their differences. 

This page, where Vash looks like he’s floating curled into a ball while tormented by those staring eyes, is a nice juxtaposition to a similar panel in the last volume. There, he was peacefully floating in zero-g and feeling safe. Here, is the exact opposite. Here, it’s the loss of his innocence. 

Vash is so angry. Rightfully so! What was done to Tesla was horrible and what proof does he have that the same won’t be done to him? Rem has been lying to him his whole life. He’s found out just how cruel the world is. It’s so easy to forget (and honestly not always easy to see) with adult Vash, but at heart, he is driven by anger. And I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing, because in his case, his kindness comes from that deep-seated anger. Remind me to write a longer post about that later. 

Still, it’s so interesting to see that anger and realize it’s always been in him, from the very beginning. 

But this is also the start of something worse—Vash’s suicidal ideation comes from here. He doesn’t see a point in living if the world would treat beings like him with such cruelty, forever leaving him marked as other and inhuman. He doesn’t want to live in a world of only humans. How does he become the man who will do anything in his power to defend humanity when all he has right now is fear and hatred? 

Vash refusing to eat because he just doesn’t see the point and doesn’t want to live—I see where Tristamp got Vash’s feelings about deserving to eat from. 

Oh my God??? OH MY GOD???? Vash was gonna stab himself. Like yes, I’ve read this before, and yes, I know he’s actively suicidal here, but just—this is the first time we’re seeing it exposed like this, the very depths of his despair. The past few pages, the way he’s been drawn, with his cheeks hollowed and his eyes without expression or emotion, it’s A Lot and I’m not okay. 

And Rem just fucking grabs the blade to stop him. She’s willing to hurt herself to keep him from dying. He learned all of this from her, every part of his ideology, and it wasn’t in abstraction. He saw it and, not only that, it was what Rem did to save him. He really becomes her continuation. 

Vash has this moment where he becomes very unhinged and actually sounds a bit like future Knives when he hurts Rem by pulling the blade away from her. He learns how powerful violence is, the relief and catharsis it can bring. But immediately after he has these thoughts, he sees how he hurt Rem and that snaps him back to himself, to the little boy he is who just loves his mother. 

He has her blood on his hands and that’s too much for him to take. She might be one of the humans that hurt Tesla, but he still loves her and it scares him to see her like that.  

He patches her up and gets something to eat….my heart is breaking. He’s just a little baby, why does this have to happen to him?

The blank ticket story is going to make me cry. There’s so much hope in it, especially when you consider the situation Rem had that dream in. She was depressed as hell, she’d lost someone she loved and probably didn’t see a point in going forward either. And it’s a reminder that there’s more to the world than evil and darkness. There’s kindness and goodness too and that’s what Vash needed to hear. 

I also think he needed to see Rem’s tears and remorse to remind him that he knows her. She might have made a mistake with Tesla but she never did anything to them. She’s trying to make up for it, with everything in her being she’s trying. 

Also, “If you hadn’t stopped me then, I never would have known that when you cry, Rem, you look like you’re laughing.” WOW, Vash you really picked up all your best and worst qualities from your mom, huh? You learn to do the same thing.

Knives wakes up with a dead-eyed look and then says he doesn’t remember anything. Yeahhhh, no, I don’t think so.

Ch 3

The chapter titles in this volume are going to be the death of me. I don’t know if I can handle reading something called “King of Loneliness” after that last chapter. Send help, I’m doing it anyway.  

“She hung her head low.” What happened weighs on Rem so much and you just know she ended up taking care of Knives and Vash as some kind of penance. I don’t think she expected to love them as much as she did by the end. But she also never intended on telling them any of this and just forging ahead with them into the new world, disappearing without ever having to face up to what she did.

I can’t blame her though. Is there a good way to tell a child a truth like that? But it would have been better if she’d told them all of this rather than Vash and Knives finding out on their own. Much like it would’ve been better if Vash was honest about who he was and what his mission was with Meryl, Milly, and Wolfwood from earlier on. Hiding things from the people you love rarely ends well. 

“There’s so much we have to do to make sure it never happens again.” Now that’s what I call foreshadowing and dramatic irony. We all know what Knives means by that. 

But Vash knows something’s wrong with Knives. And we see it too. This is the first time in these chapters his face is obscured in shadows, just like it was when we were first introduced to this younger version of him volumes ago. This is the first moment where Vash feels like he doesn’t know his brother. 

Knives is losing it. He’s painting himself in his own blood as he no doubt plans the Big Fall. His descent into fear and darkness here is masterfully done and so unsettling. 

The juxtaposition of these pages too, with his fearful face covered in blood and tears and the triumph as he watches the ships fall from the sky. This was an act of evil, yes, but it was driven by fear and helplessness. 

Knives claims all his decision making as rational, but these last few pages have shown that to be untrue. Certainly, there was logic behind it, but most of it was driven by emotion. 

Ohhhhh, I finally understand this bit! Knives merges with the Plant! He asks her for help and shows what he’s feeling, his anger at humanity and, ultimately, his plans. Last volume, he realized he doesn’t have the power to achieve his goals alone and this is how he plans to fix that. 

At the beginning of this chapter, I thought the King of Loneliness was going to be Vash, but really, it’s Knives. He pushed everyone away and destroyed the colony fleet. He pushes away the Gung Ho Guns and merges with the Plants to achieve his goals. Ultimately, he is still a scared lonely boy who never processed the terrible things he witnessed and learned. His trust was broken so completely, he never recovered.

[selineram3421]

Pew pew.

Isekai'd

Part 2: The Traveling Medic

Part 1

~

Vash (Tristamp) X Reader

Warning! ⚠

⚠ more cussing, mentions of blood, more weird dreams yay ⚠

You stared at yourself in the mirror, not fully believing that you were actually animated.

Squishing your cheeks, messing with your hair, making weird faces. The reflection copied your every movement.

"This is really happening..", you mumble and look down at the sink, remembering what happened earlier.

.

After almost giving the doctor a heart attack with your sudden screeching, he introduced himself as Doctor Thomas. Then he provided you with some better clothes to help with the heat.

There wasn't anything he could do about your shoes though.

"You could stay here at the clinic for a while. Until you get your memory back.", Dr. Thomas offered.

"I can?", you asked, holding onto your new clothes and feeling thankful.

He nods.

I can't stay here for free though.. You thought and came up with a quick idea.

"Hey Doc, if its alright. Can I work at the clinic as well?", you ask.

"Now, you don't have to do that-", he says but you continue.

"Its fine! I'll work here until I regain my memory or until I can go out on my own.", you push. "I'll do my best as a medic or even just as a cleaning person!"

The old man pauses.

Please please please please please-! You repeat in your head, hoping he'll agree.

"Very well.", he says.

You almost jump up to cheer.

"But-"

You stop yourself quickly.

"-you'll be doing both.", the doctor finishes.

"That's ok with me!", you say with a grin. "I'll keep this place spotless! And don't worry about blood, I can handle that stuff!"

Later, the doctor led you upstairs to an apartment above the clinic. Giving you the one at the end of the hallway.

"Some of these were made into rooms for the patients, so don't be too loud.", he says. "I'll let you know what rooms to clean tomorrow.", he then gives you a key before bidding you a good night.

.

"Geez.", you sigh as you make your way out of the bathroom. "I can't believe I met one of the characters already."

The bathroom was a small, with a toilet, sink, and bathtub.

Same with the apartment, it was a small space. With the living room, bedroom, and kitchen all in one room. It was better than sleeping in the desert though.

You shiver in disgust when thinking about the heat. "Ugh."

Having showered earlier, you get ready for bed, fluffing up the pillow before lying down and pulling the sheets over your form.

I wonder if this is all just a dream and I'll wake up in my actual apartment on Earth. You think before closing your eyes, letting sleep take hold.

✴

Red.

That's the first color you see when opening your eyes.

You realize its the flower that Vash always thinks of whenever he remembers Rem.

They are pretty, swaying slightly as a breeze passes by. The blades of grass also moving with the wind.

What was it called again? Gerainium? Geranuim? You try to remember the name.

"Geranium."

A voice says.

"That's right! They're called geranium!", you say with a smile.

Wait a second.

You sit up quickly and look to where you heard the voice, seeing the woman from last time.

"Rem.", you mumble.

She gives you a closed eyed smile, standing in the meadow of flowers with her hands behind her back.

Rushing to stand up, you begin firing off questions as you make your way over to the woman in white. "Why am I here? How did I get here? Can I go back home? Is there even a way back? And why do you keep showing up in my dreams?"

Now standing a few feet away, you start to feel tingles throughout your body.

"Why did this happen?", you ask, the tingles getting stronger.

Rem opens her eyes, still smiling at you.

"Take care of Vash for me."

Then her body starts slowly turning into red petals.

"Wait! You didn't answer me!", you shout and try to move but feel yourself sinking into the ground. "Please!", you reach out to her.

The ground is to your waist, and it continues to pull you down.

"WHERE IS HE ANYWAY!?"

She just continues smiling before completely turning into petals.

✴

You sit up with a gasp, breathing rapidly.

Looking around, you see that you're still in the small apartment and everything still looks animated.

"Shit.", you groan and flop back, the bed slightly shakes as you do so.

The sun is barely rising and you can hear movement outside your room. Looking over at the clothes you got yesterday, you decide its time to get up.

Let's get this show on the fucking road. You huff and get up, taking the clothes with you into the bathroom.

For most of the day, you cleaned the clinic. Sweeping the hallway, washing the surgical tools, and putting away medicine in the cabinets.

You're used to most of this work, as you helped your Mom with similar stuff back on Earth at her crummy job. She worked for two medical companies but only got paid for one, barely getting a raise when she deserved more.

Stop thinking about it. You shake the thoughts out of your head. Mom is fine.

Then later in the day, the doctor would teach you the basics. Luckily, you remembered most of the things from having taking a class on human anatomy.

Eventually, you started to help the doctor with treating patients.

It was mostly taking out bullets from wounds, or stitching someone up, but there was the occasional sick person. Then you got to learn about medicine. You knew some, but now you got to know in depth.

While doing all this, you earned some money and got to buy some proper clothes. Boots were the first thing you bought.

No more sand in my shoes!

After learning everything you needed to, you told the doctor that you remembered something.

"I remember coming from Jeneora Rock! Maybe someone will recognize me!"

You felt a little bad, but you had to leave.

"Alright.", Dr. Thomas said with a smile. "Let's get you prepared for the journey."

He helped you get everything you needed, like a map. Packing all of it in a medic backpack. Also putting a sleeping cot and tent.

The morning you had to leave, he gave you one last thing.

"Here, in honor of your completion of medical training.", he said and handed you a white pin with a red cross.

"Thanks Doc.", you said with a sad smile. "I'll write to you, ok?"

"Good luck.", he says and waves as you head out.

While walking towards the gate of the town, something catches your eye. Looking over, you see a clothing shop with a really cool red and white coat on display.

Might as well look like a badass. You smile and head over to buy it.

While getting the coat, you snag a pair of red shades. As you finally leave Lowland city, you put the pin on the breast pocket of your coat. It shines a bit when the sunlight hits it.

"Alright Noman's Land! Get ready for this traveling medic!", you say, raising a fist into the air.

Then a gust of hot wind slaps a paper onto your face.

"Ack!"

I wonder how you'll imagine the outfit.

~Seline, the person.

Next: Part 3

Taglist@

@summerdazed @+?

ML Vash | ChL Isekai'd

[hikennosabo]

trimax vol 13 random thoughts (ch 5-9)

part 1 here!

chapter 5:

okay, it took me way longer than it should have to figure out what happened in this scene, lol. razlo gets behind elendira and blocks her nail gun with the nail that's already in his body which jams her gun and pushes the nail further into his torso which takes them both by surprise.

"some dumbasses"?? do you mean wolfwood and vash?? LOL

come on, come on, come on!!! he's so cute, lol. he's like a dog who wants to play.

i love watching razlo fight!!! it's so fun seeing him fight a different way due to not having his punishers/third arm anymore. he's having so much fun too, it's infectious~

UNTIL ELENDIRA USES A PSYCHIC ATTACK ON HIM. JESUS CHRIST. THAT ONE ALMOST HAD ME.

chapter 6:

ma'am could you please stop serving cunt for a second i'm trying to read manga and you are distracting me

AAAAAGH AND THEN SHE BLASTS HIS LEG OFF. THAT ONE WASN'T FAKE THAT ONE WAS REAL. he'll be okay but :(

CHEKHOV'S VIAL?!

uuuueeee... wolfwood... just seeing the little panel of him... i miss him so much... and the reminder of wolfwood brings livio back out. ueee... waaahhhh...

i'm sitting here trying to articulate my feelings about livio and razlo and i can't, really... :') livio feeling so bad and apologizing that he has to rely on razlo so much, razlo doing his best to encourage livio... they really care about each other a lot. it's very sweet. i care them. :(((

oh this is so very much not how DID works but it's both cool and important to their character arcs so it's FINE!!!! it's fine

huuuhhhmmmmm something something symbolism in livio's guns being reversible and livio and razlo working together, two as one... is this anything? am i connecting any dots here?

they were able to bring elendira to her knees with their teamwork!!!!

chapter 7:

uwaaahhh! young livio flashback!! this is where his twinky stampede self came from i guess. i hope season 2 gives us a beefier version-

...wait. wait, wait, wait, wait, wait wait wait. hold on. speaking of stampede. give me a second.

*returns 30 minutes later* HUH. INTERESTING. so stampede shows us livio working hard in EoM to catch up with wolfwood, but in the manga, it's all but outright stated that he's trying to catch up with razlo.

sorry i'm just fascinated by the tristamp/manga differences and seeing younger livio doing pushups reminded me (stamp!livio does pushups the same way!!)

we're not supposed to know that razlo exists yet in tristamp; i wonder if or how season 2 is going to reframe any of this. it's not like i dislike livio and wolfwood's relationship in stampede!! i think it's really sweet, introducing livio into ww's story earlier is a good move, and livio joining EoM to catch up with ww makes everything in the relevant episodes more emotional. but the relationship between livio and razlo is just as important!!

razlo encouraging livio is SO cute, uwaaaahhh...

WAAAHHHHH!!!! I LOVE THESE TWO SO MUCH!!!!!

babygirl, please, i am begging. why are you so sad. tell me who hurt you. i am on my hands and knees.

to him... while drinking wolfwood's last vial... i am going to fucking throw up i feel so normal about this

chapter 8:

elendira, killed by her own nail... oh girl... my beloved... i did not expect her to live but i'm still sad she's gone. what a fantastic fight though. might be my favorite fight in this manga.

also livio's gonna have an interesting time trying to get up and get her off of him once his limbs regenerate... uh... if they can regenerate? i'm assuming they can...

i am gonna fucking CRYYYY... calling him by name... wwwaaaaahhhhh...

he would be so proud of you, livio!!!! WAAAAHHH!!!

okay, time to cut back to my other faves having their own battle.

it's so funny that legato thinks this. dude, she hates your guts. if she knew she was gonna see you in the afterlife soon she WOULD worry.

huh? that's her name? like the painting?

also i've been wondering this whole time why she looks like that. like why is she designed to look like a woman. did legato design her himself?? is this his aesthetic sense??

haha ouch! thanks for spelling out the metaphor so plainly!

ahhhh, july flashback... this was uhhh... *checks* ten years ago. supposedly. i'm not sure how much i trust the timeline anymore.

actually i do wonder how measuring time works on this planet. like, everything seems to be measured the same way it is on earth, so does noman's land also have 365 days in a year and 24 hour days?

he's so cute, i am holding him gently in my hands.

knives is so mean... to be just a tiny little bit fair to him, i too would be low on patience if my brother just blasted me with a death beam and someone suddenly started handling my guts that were hanging out. but he's so mean!! i feel bad for legato!!

i AM surprised that knives is still conscious... and that he's still mostly intact. like his guts are hanging out but it looks like his legs and arms (or at least one arm) are still attached, and he's still got. y'know. most of his skin. certainly more intact than his stampede self, lmao.

vash, honey, what on earth makes you think he plans on living through this fight any more than you are. :')

i just like this spread.

chapter 9:

OH BOY, HE'S FERAL!!! truly, he is going out in a blaze of glory just like he wanted. i wouldn't expect anything else from him at this point.

ahhh... stampede!legato talks a lot about discarding emotion in favor of devotion. but emotion and devotion are intrinsically linked. legato is a pretty emotional person, he cries a lot and yells a lot... as long as he can express his devotion to knives, he feels like he's fulfilling his purpose, so he's happy... i'm glad he's having fun at least... :')

WAAAAHHH VASH IS REMEMBERING WOLFWOOD NOW... his face is not quite visible but... vash is remembering wolfwood's words because he's thinking he really is going to have to kill legato to end this fight... killing legato just like in the 98 anime...

i get caught up in the action, but every time they bring wolfwood up i realize how much i miss him...

this panel fucks.

i love watching legato go fucking crazy fighting. i wanna see this fight animated so bad :''')

when i read the top panel, i was like, "because of knives, right?" then i read the bottom panel... ahhh... not just knives... every plant... it's a good thing tristamp established this relatively early because we don't really see vash doing this in the story lol

i'm remembering "do you think we can become friends with them?" "yeah... it might take a lot of effort though..." :'''')

chronica, girl, i know you're very angry with knives, but as far as revenge goes, you need to get in line. you got here like five minutes ago, there are other people with much longer-lasting beef than you who deserve a shot at him before you.

the smallest meryl u can imagine...

WAAAAH this is so sweet, they love him so much :(

i said this already but i LOVE seeing legato go all-out, it's cool!! it gets me pumped up!!! this is just... such a good fight!!!

wait, is the earth ship falling because chronica used up so much energy firing the cannon multiple times?? GIRL...

THIS PAGE FUCKS!!!

THIS SPREAD ALSO FUCKS!! the way that the debris fades out above them, they're only focused on each other...!!!

final thoughts... i'm surprised legato survived this volume?! i really thought he would die in this one... he lasted longer than i thought he would, not that i'm complaining... UUAAAAAGHHH i am gnawing on my arm rn, i can't believe there's only one volume left?! i'll be finished *checks day* TOMORROW?!?!? if i don't procrastinate on reading... which i might do because i don't want it to be over... waaaah...

how will knives be defeated? can humanity survive? will livio's limbs regenerate? and most importantly, HOW WILL VASH GET HIS WILL TO LIVE BACK?!?!

[grelleswife]

Ooh so you're watching 98 Trigun. What do you think?

I’m really liking it so far! Though I should probably hold off on extensive comparisons with TriStamp until I’ve finished 98, I think these anime adaptations are a prime example of the “two cakes” philosophy: Distinctive versions that each bring something good and unique to the table. It might a bit hypocritical of me to call 98 Trigun’s style “nostalgic” since I didn’t enter weebdom until around 2017, but the animation has this feel of belonging to a bygone era that gels nicely with the western elements. The cast for the English dub give an entertaining performance, especially the voice actors for Vash and Milly.

And, speaking of Milly…Milly Thompson, woman that you are! 😍 A himbo lesbian with keen powers of perception, big guns (of both the metallic and muscular variety), and a heart of gold. If she snapped me in half, I’d thank her, but she’s likely the type to give out warm bear hugs instead. 🥰 I definitely understand why fans of the original were so irate over her absence in Trigun Stampede (barring the offscreen mention in the last episode), because she’s a treasure! 💕 Milly also makes a great foil to her girlfriend Meryl. While I’m fond of TriStamp Meryl, I love how the 98 version gives us assertive, spitfire (complimentary) Derringer Meryl right off the bat. She’s serving fashion and putting outlaws in their place with her coat of many guns, and her complete lack of patience with Vash’s tomfoolery (to the point where she stubbornly denies the possibility of this chucklehead being the Humanoid Typhoon for several episodes) cracks me up every time. 😂 I also like the running gag of Milly and her being insurance agents. Although TriStamp’s decision to make Meryl a journalist worked fine—giving her a plausible motive for chronicling Vash’s misadventures—her original position as an insurance worker places a greater emphasis on the violence and destruction which plague the story (as she and Milly scramble to document the havoc wreaked in Vash’s wake), albeit with a comical twist.

Vash remains my darling babygirl, whether caught up in madcap hijinks or betraying the deep sadness hidden behind that smile. Johnny Bosch does a wonderful job bringing him to life (I mostly watched the sub when TriStamp was airing, so getting to hear his interpretation of the character is a treat!). However, I’m not a huge fan of the stereotypical “sleazy womanizer” bit inexplicably tacked on to Trigun 98—my plant boi drinks his respecting ladies juice, thank you very much! 😤 But perhaps it’s just part of his silly goofy guy act, albeit a distasteful one, so I’m hoping it’ll be phased out as the show progresses.

(Haven’t reached Wolfwood’s intro yet, but I’m looking forward!)

The 98 anime’s more relaxed pace is another point in its favor. As much as I enjoyed TriStamp, that 12-episode limit plaguing so many contemporary anime often left the plot with little room to breathe, which I think might be one reason why the melancholy undertones came through with such unremitting force from the very beginning. In contrast, 98 Trigun can afford to be stealthier, keeping things light in the early episodes, but with occasional somber moments betraying the brutal angst to come. Both approaches have merit, though! Like I mentioned earlier, the two Triguns are a pair of cakes: Different frosting and flavors, but both delicious.

The OP is, as the younglings say, a banger. I’m normally not a huge fan of instrumental OPs, but I inevitably find myself rocking out to this one! 🎶 Meanwhile, the languorous ED evokes lazy Sunday afternoons dozing in the shade; it makes me want to take a nap in a hammock like Vash is in one of the stills.

TL; DR: The ride’s a blast, and I am fully prepared to get hurt again. 😎

[browniefox]

Fanfic Director Cut: Gunsmoke and Daemons?

:D Gunsmoke and Daemons! I've been having so so so much fun writing this fic series <3 Some of the things I say here might've been said in the author notes too, but oh well lol. Time to go through the fics!

Souls from Earth

Chapter 1

Choosing daemons are always tricky, because you want to pick something that rally fits the character, but also sometimes you want to go a little more abstracted in the characters. The names were even harder; I always picked the daemon names divorced from the daemon's forms, because ultimately they wouldn't be related when the name was chosen. I usually tried to pick names I felt would be important to people in No Man's Land - things they're familiar with or aspects they want to instill on their kid.

(This'll be long so I'm putting it below a cut)

Meryl's daemon Caelum was chosen to be a black cat, both as a reference to Kuro Neko, and because I think giving her a somewhat 'plain' or common daemon fits Meryl's role in the story. Caelum's name just means sky.

Roberto's daemon Devana is also pretty straight forward; she's a bloodhound because of how Roberto is good at sniffing out people and tracking down and noticing things. Similarly, Devana's name comes from a hunting goddess.

Wolfwood's daemon Fenneke is a maned wolf. When I get to the second chapter of the Wolfwood fic I'll go into this as well. Maned wolves are neither foxes nor wolves - Wolfwood does feel he fits into things anymore. Her long limbs are emblematic of how Wolfwood literally grew up too fast. Her name means protection, something his parents would've wanted for Wolfwood and Fenneke.

One thing I'm always trying to make clear is how strange it would be for people to see Vash without a daemon. I guess this does mean it extends to all people who have insect daemons, to a degree, but it stands that not seeing one is like seeing someone inexplicably missing their head.

I'm also trying to keep the plot more or less the same, but also not just seem like I'm rewriting Tristamp word for word, but with 'and Caelum said hi' or whatever sprinkled through. In that vein, I like having the daemons be able to notice things before their human counter parts.

Chapter 2

According to HDM lore, humans can recognize daemons on sight, which makes writing Zazie tricky, so I just kind of have to hand wave that with 'well, it would make more sense for that worm to be a daemon, wouldn't it?'

Chapter 3

I really liked playing with the fact Caelum, being the small cat around canine daemons, can easily be pulled around by the others, and how Meryl and Caelum need to learn to stand up for themselves and not be pulled around, very literally. I think being yanked around by your daemon and range like that is super uncomfortable and VERY rude, but it's done by Roberto in an effort to save Meryl's life. Still, that doesn't mean it's super great to pull someone's daemon away from them like that.

The reaction Caelum and Devana have to Vash after he's accessed his gate kind of came to me while writing. It's like how animals are usually shown in movies to react to supernatural creatures; it's not so much that they think Vash is a threat, more that there is something Wrong going on there, and until they can understand it keeping the distance is safer. Fenneke reacts similarly, but more so because she's familiar with an Independent, and did not like her experiences with it.

Fenneke also hints at another thing I hope to go into in the Wolfwood fic: that he didn't not know, going in, entirely what Vash was. Finding out he's an Independent is shocking and is almost like betrayal.

We also get the great scene of Meryl having to fight to get Caelum to follow her to Vash, and her war between seeing something totally alien to her and wanting to help her friend, where the desire to help wins out.

Chapter 4

Similar to Zazie, people can tell that Pax is not typical flora right off the bat, but most people don't realize she's a daemon - or let themselves believe she's a daemon, because everyone knows daemons don't look like that!

Luida's daemon Wiglaf, named after a character from the Beowulf poem who kind of embodies the human and flawed hero that comes after the death of Beowulf. He's a gray eagle, which I thought looked cool and big :)

Brad's daemon is Arch, which means brave. She's a raccoon because she's smart and handy.

Chapter 5

I forgot to mention this, I'll probably finally mention it in the Wolfwood fic, but because Elendira's neither human nor Plant, her daemon is not flora nor animal: her daemon is cordyceps fungi that's 'infected' a tarantula (not really infected since uh her daemon came like that).

Having Meryl hold Devana before she died was a choice I struggled with, I was way overly worried how it would be received. But I felt like it was such an intimate moment that it warranted it. I'm going back and forth on whether I'll write the epilogue/Milly chapter, and if I do how I'll write it. one of the aspects that was considered to be included, however, was Milly being Roberto's niece or something, and Meryl telling Milly about this.

In general, with daemons deaths is so interesting; you know when someone is dead, because their daemon has disappeared.

I really liked the scene between Meryl and Wolfwood, mostly for their daemons being able to be more honest, to have the conversation that they themselves are unable to have at that moment. I've also by this point made a few references to Wolfwood and Fenneke's range. Another thing I hope to touch on in the Wolfwood fic, but to settle one question: no they are not separated, the Eye of Michael would not destroy someone as useful as Wolfwood like that. Their range has, however, been stretched from an incident.

While writing the scene with Vash in the tank, originally I had Pax growing just as much as Vash himself, but that never sat well with me. Pax represents Vash, but more than that she represents his soul. Conrad mentions that at the end of the procedure, Vash is a Plant, seeming to imply Vash is more like his sisters than before (in my opinion) and normal Plants don't have daemons, so I had Pax withering instead. On Ship Three, her bush is withering as well. Was the vines growing out of Vash also Pax, though? Honestly, I'm not sure if I'd say they are or aren't.

Pax does get to reach out to Meryl, holding onto Meryl a few times in a desperate effort to bring Vash some kind of strength, to connect with Meryl. After all, Pax has been there the entire time, she has come to trust and love Meryl and Caelum just as much as Vash.

The decision to make Vash's daemon a plant actually came from my sister, @the-east-art! For a while, we weren't sure how deal with her; obviously the range between Vash and Pax would be basically witch-like. At one point, she was just in one place, flourishing on a random spot of No Man's Land where she'd landed. Then there was her stuck on Ship Three. I really like the idea of the cuttings though that allow her to grow in different places, letting Vash keep a stronger and bigger form of her with Ship Three, but also carry her with him.

There was, for a bit, also the idea of adding a sixth chapter of Meryl and Wolfwood, post July, with Wolfwood escorting her back to November (where I'm saying the tabloid agency is). And then, at the end, she would've given him part of Pax and they would've both carried her. However, the idea of Meryl deciding to cut up Pax didn't sit right with me, and I think Wolfwood wouldn't have accepted it, not thinking he was right to carry Vash's daemon like that.

The Plant and the Flora

I've said this a few times now, but Pax's name means peace. He tells people her form is that of a wolf spider, which is a reference to the spider and the butterfly question. It also shows that Vash is not afraid to associate himself with humans or 'the spiders'. Pax's exact appearance is, uh, deliberately left vague. She's a fantasy plant.

Rem's daemon is Evander, which means strong man. I went with a black-footed ferret because they're similar to a pine marten. How much does the HDM canon fit here? IDK, but I like how it gives Rem a little more holy connection. At one point, I considered making Evander a spider as well, but ultimately decided I wanted something else, and that it would feel weird for Rem to have a spider and then for Vash to pretend Pax is one.

I don't really show it in the scene, but when Ship Five is burning, Nai does feel it as well, and it does hurt, but he sees it as him freeing himself. It does take Amare a while to bounce back from that, however, and I think she struggles for a while to completely agree with Nai about what he decided to do.

When Vash was found by Ship Three, Pax had fallen out of the pendant. For a while, Ship Three ran experiments, but when it became clear that Pax wasn't doing so well, they placed her in the Herborium in hopes it would help her to grow stronger and kept most experiments and sample-taking to a minimum. Still, Pax couldn't grow in Ship Three until Vash felt safe there. None of it was done with cruel intentions, but it still hurt Vash. But, well, Vash's trust in humanity means nothing if it doesn't come with struggle.

There's like one (1) person left on Ship Three who remebers enough about psychology classes to try and be a therapist, and that's single-mention Haru. Give it up for Haru, she's a busy lady.

I went back and forth on who would give Vash the Pax cutting, between it being Luida and on purpose, or Brad on accident. I decided it was much more likely Brad would do it in a panic, in a desperate act to make sure that Pax lived. And I think it's a good gesture for him, for Brad to give Vash back his daemon, as well as to officially untether him from Ship Three with the act.

Amare's name means love, but she and Knives changed it to Papilio, which means butterfly, as that's what Knives views himself as, doing what he has to do survive the spiders. She's managed to grow so big because of how comfortable Knives is with himself, and how strong his powers are (I'm also thinking she's grown thorns, but I never mentioned that). Pax and Vash, on the other hand, try to fit in, and thus Pax usually never gets bigger than a bush.

Because Pax is with Meryl and some of her is still alive on Ship Three, Eriks always a sense of love and comfort, because his daemon is in good hands <3

Eve and the Original Sin

To those (my sister) who were hoping to see a lot of Tesla, I'm so sorry, but I think the relationship between Rem and Mendel ends up being soooo interesting. The exploration of 'should you participate in something terrible if you think you can mitigate the damage, or should you stay to the side and still be complicit and still watch as terrible things happen - maybe even go worse because you aren't doing anything - but at least you're not doing it yourself'?

Fun fact! If I remember right, what makes a bonsai is how you prune it, which forces the leaves to grow smaller. So basically Rem if accidentally making Mendel into a bonsai.

When Rem plants Mendel in the herbarium, Mendel continues to live there. He does not grow any bigger or healthier, more or less in stasis with the rest of him and Tesla.

[ghoooooooooooooooost]

i had to reread n edit this before posting like i was going over an essay jesus christ ((tristamp spoilers))

tldr; i was honestly disappointed but i still don't think it was completely awful + i hope if they do a 2nd season it's better *wants to see milly*.... fuck the director though

EDIT!!! 2nd season was confirmed so you can ignore the points where i question if it will happen lol

EDIT 2 actually idt i'll watch the 2nd season... for reasons that just hit me so.... + fuck night*w as well

most of this was written before the finale eek

the major problems were that the pacing was soooooo weird n some of the changes (both story wise and design wise) they made were questionable esp towards the latter half

my positive points:

i do still think individual eps at the first half were really good

i loved the animation + how they used colors

the backgrounds are cool

the artstyle shift in wolfwood's flashback was cool

i've always been "ok" abt vashwood honestly (sorry) but i will acknowledge they were very yaoiful here. i saw a person who didn't ship vashwood say the ep in tristamp where they literally just met made them ship it which was really funny bc how did that change your mind so fast

i'm ngl the milly + eriks name drops made me *JAWDROP* but that's something that only matters to ppl who watched/read the ogs first

my negative points (uh oh):

white washed wolfwood (+ his skintone is soo inconsistent in merch)

they gave vash no room to breathe n he doesn't get big sillay moments after ep 3

^ this is true for every character except i guess roberto? more on roberto later

^^^ goes with the previous too points but it felt like they were way too focused on the drama n sadness without enough (long lasting) happy or hopeful moments to contrast or balance it out overall - to the point were the characterization of our main cast suffered for it bc there wasn't enough there with them to make that properly work. and THEN the silly moments ended up suffering too bc they start feeling out of place. the drama beats kept happening one after the other at breakneck speed without breaks, messing up the pacing as well (i can kinda blame this at least partially on the fact they only had 12 eps when the og was 26 eps but i've watched plenty of 12 ep series with great pacing so i don't really know what happened here?)

i disagreed with this at first, but the lore with vash being front-loaded really did hurt the story a bit in the long run. obviously they did still spread the full details out over the course of the show but it was :\

specific to "the running man"- it's my fav ep tbh but it was strange how all the townsfolk were partying w the nebraskas with no indication they'd arrest them after they did so much damage n vash didn't even get to fix the damaged plant?? so why were they so joyous when the initial problem wasn't solved?

roberto.... was such a weird character... he managed to be both a dick n a guy w no personality, he was there to give exposition + attempt to be funny? n then die. also the marketing staff fucking hates him he's never in any merch wtf ((edited after the finale: well now we know he wasn't meant to replace milly (i had a whole paragraph complaining abt that lol) + now i feel like they added him just to kill someone other than wolfwood off))

i can't speak much on elendria bc i had so much trouble reading trimax forever ago that i never retained anything abt her other than she's trans, but everything involving her in tristamp felt strange/ like it didn't work. i have essentially same feeling about livio here. they threw legato to the side??

what the fuck was the thing with the plants towards the end. it just hit me what the hell

minor nitpicks:

i miss the old anime's ost :( tristamp's ost isn't bad by any means n there are tracks that i really like it's just idk man. especially with the the op song, i couldn't get myself to not skip the op SORRY. could you imagine how hype it would've been if a new rendition of H.T. or NO-BEAT started playing

i'm fine with stamp vash's design (blasphemous i know) but man would'n've one of his og coat designs worked well in 3d? i feel like it would've ((added after the finale: the new coat did look nice in black + they brought back his old hair in the last ep tho so. MAYBE... IN SEASON 2.... CLASSIC COAT....? *delusional*))

NO LOVE & PEACE?!?!?!?!

one of my nitpick points was that they technically didn't give vash the black hair bc i really wanna see it animated one day but assuming they are teasing a season 2 maybe they will eventually. but then how...?

[humanoidtyphoons]

trigun omnibus vol 2:

-oh no kidding, vash is much more angry in the manga. like his rage towards knives is just. jeez, you have to take a minute to let sink in how much he hates knives! (despite everything, in 98 & tristamp, i don't think vash hates knives, he's disappointed and afraid but also... doesn't know what to do with him either when they meet, so he runs, and kinda hopes the meeting never comes, imo?) 98!vash is... to me, he's primarily true self is sad, and he's a lil glass eyed and cheery; i'm not quite decided on tristamp!vash, tbh. but vash -- no, i think monev is right in the manga: the real vash is angry beyond belief -- he's looking for knives to kill him bc he killed rem but simultaneously doesn't know where he is since july, those 20 years ago. but i also really like how he tries to use his image of rem as a morality point, when he despairs, when he is about to kill, he relies on her image to hold himself back.

-oh so knives does have a mole under his eye in the manga! i couldn't really see it in vol 1, but vol 2? def. visible!!!! long haired knives is a look, ngl!!

-wolfwood, wolfwood, wolfwood! my darling boy!!!! okay so one of my favourite things about characters is that -- they make a nice likeable impression, and then a lil bit later, that character turns up again and it's like oh shit, they're more integral to the plot than i thought!! they're potentially more sinister than i first assumed! i'm in trouble! an excellent example of that is meeting blackbeard for the first time in one piece, bc you don't know his name until the end of his first appearance and then he reveals it and then oh shit, yk??? and so him and vash meeting on the bus, vash spotting him in the desert, and wolfwood mentioning his motorbike, and then they just... vibe, it's... sweet, yk? that vash begins the chapter by saying 'i can see the true heart of people, what they're like', and then wolfwood says 'finally, a real smile on your face... the other one is so forced it's heartbreaking', and. just. ugh. ugh. ugh.

-anyway then, when they split ways, and wolfwood goes to the church, and meets legato, where he's called chapel... i just love it. their pathways happened to have crossed, bc they were going the same direction, not knowing (i think) that they were destined to be against each other.

-the whole knives vs vash fight. it's so different to the 98 anime, where i think legato causes it to happen, and wolfwood is outside augusta, and arrives too late, and kills raidei. but in the manga? something about all of the remaining gung ho guns watching in the shadows like observers, and wolfwood is just. freaking out. bc vash shot the moon. it's so good. it's SO good. and god!!!!! i need a third anime that's more faithful bc it's cinematic to me.

-the angelic imagery. the feathers. it's so... it's breathtaking and i'm so glad it continues in trimax bc the body horror of it all... it's gorgeous.

-something soooo interesting about pairing monev the gale fight vs vash, with flashbacks of bb vash&knives, even tho knives is unseen, he's there. i think maybe 98 did better by removing the flashback and giving its own separate episode after augusta gets destroyed tbh, but then. it's so intriguing to juxtapose them here, bc monev is the first one to go after vash, tho legato gives a 'friendly' heads' up, and it's just. mm, no wonder vash is furious.

-fuck, the two years later thing happens here in the manga. ooh tristar, i am excited!!! eriks eriks eriks!!!

-ngl i kinda dig milly/vash a smidge more in the manga? like her perception... while not always 100%, i do like that she's the one who is always a bit. aware of the changes in vash's expressions, she notices, so he has to put his glasses on so he becomes harder to read.

-it's so interesting that vash doesn't have much of a relationship/friendship with milly and meryl in the manga. like i love 98 for meryl (esp.) coming to terms with vash, and from being kinda annoyed by him, to slowly caring and worrying about him. and while you do have that in the manga, it's not... quite as gradual? meryl is shocked that vash actually calls them by their names for the first time, and it's been like 14 chapters since they met, and vash is about to fight monev. but it also feels harder to call them friends? bc the pacing is kinda choppy and frenetic, whereas 98 got to meander for a bit before things felt serious and vash wanted to cut ties with them much later.

-pilot chapter is so cute! vash you freaking weirdo dancing into a ransom situation!!! you're so cute!!! you're so cute!!! vash doing his morning routine and going by a different name is also v. cute, and i like how the anime included them.

-knives hitting legato and saying who said you could kill vash? while i don't think it's as... extreme? as the tristamp version, i do dig his possessiveness. but there's a monstrousness in tristamp knives love that i adore, his selfish fierce protection of vash, that he wants to kill humanity to that extent, to keep vash safe, to not let tesla repeat ever again, regardless if that's what vash wants. (it isn't what vash wants at all.) it's not quite that in trimax, tbh, but it's still. still compels me.

okay curious to know where the true divergence happens, bc trimax must have started already, bc the 98 anime continues to include aspects of it, and makes it its own, even tho there's a lot that changes too.

-tbh... i still think vash masks less in the manga than the anime? i think it's easier for 98 vash to mask, bc there's a lot of filler episodes so he can have that front more evident when comparing to later episodes, so he gets to be more silly thanks to the situations made up for him, but i also think the vocal performance helps immensely, bc of how his voice changes based on the situation. like he's still does mask in the manga, dgmw, bc meryl and milly see his scarred torso, and are shocked at the sight, the price he has to pay, bc of his ideals, whereas he often acts as if... he's fine, his injuries don't affect him. (but they do. they don't regenerate. i thought maybe he might heal faster, but he's never getting his arm back, he's never going to be unscarred either i don't think, but maybe he recovers fasher than a normal human being would.)

anyway, onto trimax vol 1!

[glaivenoct]

🥳 Why did you start writing fanfic?

🦋 Which character is your favorite to write?

🦈 Which character is the toughest to write?

(Fanfic Writer Asks Here)

Thank you for sending some! ^.^ Rambly Brina incoming ^^;

🥳 Why did you start writing fanfic?

Honestly I started writing fanfic before I even really understood what the concept of fanfic was. But particularly, I'd never written fanfic to post until that one fateful day in December 2017, with my very first NyxNoct fic 'string lights'. I hadn't written fic for a hot minute prior to this, and I was in such a bad rut with my original work at the time. Nothing up until that point had quite gripped my brain like NyxNoct - like holy shit, I wish I had the right words to describe it. And I mean that in the sense of wanting to create and actively contribute to something in a fandom. Never had I EVER shared my writing with anyone that wasn't super close friends. Sharing my work for anyone to see and comment on? UNHEARD OF, I never thought I'd do that.

And of course it's not just NyxNoct itself, its the people who were playing in that sandbox. Creative, inspiring people who wrote (and still write) on levels that just lit this spark/desire in me!!! That is something truly special. Some of them have become very special and dear to me as friends all these years later. And if they're reading this, I hope they know or don't mind a reminder that they are inspiring. Even if they don't think that of themselves or their own writing - too bad. You are inspiring to Brina and her slow writer brain and that hasn't changed after all this time.

So shout out to them for making me want to be brave, write fic again, and actually put it out there.

🦋 Which character is your favorite to write?

Given that a majority of my stuff is NyxNoct lol, if I had to choose between the two of them... I think I'd have to choose Noct. The way I write both Nyx and Noct come pretty naturally to me at this point, but Noct is probably the one I felt most comfortable or confident with.

If you ask me to choose outside of those two - I'd probably pick Gladio, Crowe and Pelna! I've been going back and forth between wanting more reasons or excuses to write Pelna in particular!

🦈 Which character is the toughest to write?

I've said this before, but I still very much struggle with Ignis. The most I've ever written him was for the cagefighter AU aside, and man oh man was that a challenge. I still wonder if I even really did a decent job, but I'm still proud of the end result regardless.

I'm going to honorable mention these two as well because, you see - I've been dabbling in some Vashwood writing lately. And while it's been fun, I'm going to say that writing both Vash and Wolfwood feels a little tough/intimidating because they're new. For the most part, I think I'm doing ok. But it's baby's first Vashwood/Tristamp fic and naturally I am a little nervous about it (a much wider audience compared to NyxNoct too)!! Hoping to do them justice when I finish it!

Thank you again for sending some in!! <3

[serenephenix]

There are already some really good points made here and I hope it's okay for me to add my two double dollars.

Please keep in mind that what I am going to talk about here is Trimax and Tristamp exclusively, since I never managed to finish the 98 anime.

Meryl, and by extension Milly, are an essential part of the plot. No matter whether Tristamp or Trimax, Meryl fulfills a very important role and is the one to get important notions, that other background characters had to make as a collective effort, across to Vash.

With Trimax, Meryl's and Milly's purpose was at first presented as comic relief. After all, No Man's Land is a lawless rock of sand, and the mere idea of there even being an insurance company is absolutely hilarious. It is also a genius writing move, because frankly speaking, there would have been no way for someone as level-headed as Meryl to tag alongside someone crazy like Vash long enough to get to know him.

Meryl and Milly, throughout the entirety of Trimax represent a simple but very important concept in this over the top sci-fi western universe - they represent the mostly average people in an environment fraught with different but extreme problems. They are the grounding force of the narrative representing the normal people and normal background characters that litter the world of Trigun.

They are the characters and supporting cast/main cast needed to balance everything out.

As much as Vash and Nick are foils in their own right, so are Meryl and Milly to them.

In a way, the boys often get too caught up in their otherness, of them being undeserving of kindness and forgiveness, or their simple right to just exist. And then here are Milly and Meryl, two of the arguably most normal and sanest people in the story (considering the circumstances), returning to them (un)prompted at different times in the story, despite everything that would drive most away.

They represent the hope for a better future to Vash and Nick, because they stand in such stark contrast to all of the terrible things that seem to follow them.

Milly does it a bit more overtly than Meryl, with being her caring self that takes time out of her day to write to all of her extended family. She has a deeply ingrained sense of right and wrong, is a good listener, more observant than people give her credit for and, most importantly, she isn't one to judge people too quickly despite her morals.

Her determination and capabilities allow her to hold her ground in a lot of fights, which is decisive in the last battle against Knives where she and Meryl thwart the military's attack on the ark.

And she teaches a lesson to the boys when Meryl is kidnapped by Zazie: Asking for help is okay. The fact that help is something we sometimes need is okay.

As for Meryl, she undergoes her own arc during Trimax. As mentioned earlier, Meryl starts out as a business-woman. She is level-headed, has little patience for nonsense, and has already a pretty good grasp on how the world is supposed to work.

In a sense, she is just as jaded as Nick, but in a different, more day to day kind of way. She is well aware of how difficult it is to live even a simple life on this arid planet and how dangerous things can get at the drop of a hat. She has already had to shoot someone to keep herself safe and is ready to do so again, albeit reluctantly. But her experiences have left her callous towards anyone who is a stranger, thus repeating the terrible cycle people live through on this planet.

That is, until she meets Vash, and he leaves an impression on her with his well of kindness. And the crucial thing is that she understands that it takes a lot of effort and fortitude to be kind on this planet.

And as @sleepyinstardewvalley already pointed out, this gives Meryl hope in a better future, making her more proactive after Vash's return when she realises what the company was planning to do after he reemerged.

And her overcoming the fear of the monstrous is so important because she also stood in perfect contrast to Nick when Vash transformed.

While Nick was shocked but able to compartmentalise by virtue of all the shit he has been through, Meryl was overwhelmed by what had happened. For one, because she was starting to realise just what she had gotten herself into, and second, because she saw what Vash had lived through over the years.

And it is obvious that while she was deeply afraid, she felt very guilty about her reaction after they had parted ways with Vash and Wolfwood. Because, ultimately, it isn't Vash's fault that he is the way is he is.

But she knows that she can't let fear consume her, because it will ultimately mean that more people will die.

And her managing to stand by Vash's side till the bitter end, after Vash already lost someone important to him, in spite of fear still persisting, it is her trust in him that actually gives Vash the strength and the hope he in turn needed to go through with the plan of separating Knives and the Plants.

Because, in a sense, Meryl represents the majority of the people living on No Man's Land. And if she can work up the courage to understand, so can they.

As for Meryl in Tristamp, she is different from her Trimax iteration but her core remains the same. While she may be more naïve, more sheltered and less experienced, she is once again the grounding force.

But the reason why she also is the foil to Roberto, is that even here she is willing to believe in Vash despite the odds and the unanswered questions. She will be important to Vash not losing hope, because he already helped her realise that pure nihilism and cowardice will get nothing accomplished.

She wants things to get better and that means taking a leap of faith that so very few are willing to take in No Man's Land.

i made a mini essay of a post abt this already but seeing the more shipping obsessed trigun fans view vashmeryl as the boring cutesy fluffy one and vashwood as the narritively richer, angst ridden, "and they were narritive foils" sexy one is infuriating bc it shows in abundant clarity that they have not bothered to take 2 more seconds to think about meryl besides "aww shes so cute"

like bro. there is some truth to seeing them that way considering the difference in ending both pairings get and how VW spend more time together and have more physical contact and are in life or death situations far more often but w VM its more Quiet Pining, You Stay I Go, Run Off Into The Sunset Together but thats not ALL they are

as someone who fucking LOVES both it gets very annoying when certain (thankfully not many) VW stans start acting. You Know. about meryl and theres a whole thing about misogyny and gay male fetishisation in here that i wont get into bc its 1am n i have fish fingers (fish sticks 4 all the sexy bodacious american babes in the audience) in the oven

vashmeryl are so rich and maybe they dont have that same Sworn Allies (But Maybe More) With A Tragic End sting that vashwood do but theres other things in there. Please Consider Understanding them a bit. maybe ill continue this post wen im eating and can think straight..

[secret-plantcest-sideblog]

@general-cyno absolutely no need to apologize!

I've just been thinking the past few days about how tristamp bumped his "reunion" with Conrad way earlier in his timeline, along with him having to witness the "final run" and thinking "oh God yeah no shit he's so angry"

and then somehow for the first time it finally, really hit me that he was a kid when he brought about the big fall. Like you said (that he said lol), he wasn't thinking "rationally" when he did it; he's not some calculating mastermind; he's a traumatized child who no longer trusts the one person looking after him (but was still going to let her live). So he wound up killing a bunch of his sisters, too.

Honestly, I think some people just don't get how similar he and Vash are, just in opposite directions. When he fails to remove all Plants from humans' reach in Trimax, he's ready to die at that point. Absolutely just conjecture, but I do think his goals of this grand exodus of Plants is his attempt at atonement. He's condemned his sisters to even longer in this state, so he must be the one to release them. And in that too comes his deeply warped desire to "save" Vash from himself.

If tristamp gets a s2, I really really really hope it explores that in-between time after the twins learn about Tesla but before the fall, both to contextualize and affirm that Vash was and is furious, but making the conscious choice to be kind, and also because I think that whole section just. Gave so much more depth to Knives as a character and foil for Vash. Like, in trimax it is so clear that Tesla is to Knives what Rem is to Vash, but the anime hasn't gotten to show just how much he was impacted.

Also--you mentioned him being much more self-aware than he tends to be given credit for--again, all the more reason for s2 to delve into that in-between period, where it's so clear he's masking severe turmoil! Like, I definitely understand why it's not in s1; it's a lot more of an important story section for Knives, with it mostly supporting what we already know about Vash's character, and it's not a stretch of time that would easily be justified putting into the plotline for s1.

But they did mention Rem's train dream with the blank ticket, and that was a moment in that in-between time that we didn't get covered so! Fingers crossed!

Anyway I feel like it kinda gets glossed over that Knives was a child when he caused the big fall and idk I think that's kind of important because he's lived with that for over 100 years and just like Vash has lived with knowing the people he loves and fights for don't see him or his kind as anything more than a tool at best or a monster at worst, Knives has most definitely lived with knowing he's the leading reason why this system has remained in place