#i love tristamp but i really really wish theyd focused at least a bit more on the post-tesla experience

[orcelito]

so was anyone gonna tell me that vash literally stabs Rem bc she interrupted him trying to stab himself after days of starving himself due to the horror of seeing the truth about his sister being experimented on to death, or was i supposed to just find that out while reading the manga by myself

no joke i think chapter 41 is currently my favorite chapter bc of how fucking Raw it is. Rem fighting tooth and nail to get through to Vash that she cares, that she never wanted any of that to happen, that she was willing to perform a major violation of code just to keep them safe. & in the end it's her literally putting her life on the line that gets through to him that she cares

and afterwards, him finally eating again, & her telling him the story of her dream of the train & the blank ticket to the future.

it's practically criminal that tristamp didnt include this. Vash literally starving himself, trying so hard to kill himself out of abject horror of the reality he was living in & total fear and hatred of humanity. but This human shows him that it's not all like that, they're not all like that, & it gets him to smile and say he's glad she stopped him

it's just. tristamp does communicate that she's dear to him, but it shows it as just a simple mother kind of situation. she didnt just raise him, she Fought for him every step of the way. the only thing we see post-tesla in his childhood is him approaching knives and being like "Lets have faith in humanity" & even at the time i was just like "man this feels kind of baseless" like where does that faith come from? and knives clearly thinks the same, given his reaction.

but it's this. This is where that comes from. Rem literally catching the knife with her hand for him, uncaring of it slicing her so long as she keeps him alive. and even after he Literally stabs her, when she wakes up and sees him eating, she Smiles. she shares this story, her faith in humanity, & it gets through to him. because of Her, he believes in humanity, too.

meanwhile Knives didnt get this trauma processing. he passed out, woke up, got filled in with the story... and then just pretended to be okay with it all. pretended like it didnt rock his entire world down to its very foundations. he didnt get this same experience, he didnt get to See how rem fought for him. in the end, it was "us" against "them" in his mind, him and vash and this girl the humans killed through their curious nature. so of course. of Course he wanted them gone.

while vash turned his fear and hatred inwards, knives turned it outwards. and thus, their stances as adults was established.