#well done Stryfe

[kalinara]

Summers-Grey family reunions get a little awkward sometimes.

(X-Men #15)

[tarteggs]

i enjoy the stampede guy and his silly show :]

[nanomooselet]

Little but Fierce VI

She winds up… there's the pitch…

Poor Nick. It never stops being funny. I'd feel sorrier that this happened to him but he's such a bastard in his introductory episode. It's like karma in advance.

Heheh. Kar-ma.

Meryl and Wolfwood behave very much like siblings to each other, while Vash and Roberto treat them like their awful terrible kids. Roberto does actually try reach out to Vash as a mentor once or twice, but of course Vash is fuck-off old and doesn't need that kind of assistance, so he's gently deflected. Roberto is old and wise enough to keep his distance. Nick, for his part, enjoys pissing Roberto off, and Roberto is for his part duly pissed off.

Still, Vash is the reason they're all even there in the first place and Meryl shows him concern. And Vash, in his way, fusses over Nick the way Roberto feels responsible for Meryl. A lot of what Vash does, he's doing pretty much solely for Wolfwood's benefit. I mean, look at this pathetic wet kitten of a man - you can't tell me he doesn't need it.

I've already talked at some length about why exactly Vash is like he is about Wolfwood, but what's he like about Meryl?

Pretty much exactly as fond. He's just quieter about it. To my read, he's confident she and Roberto can look after themselves and each other. That's really endearing to him, but not something he has to do anything about. And Meryl's not suffering the same kind of identity crisis as the Punisher/Wolfwood/Nico. Meryl knows exactly who she is, she's just trying to get everyone else to acknowledge it, and Vash does so from the first - she's never anything but "Meryl" to him, not "newbie" or "little lady". She never has to demand that of him.

Nor is she in directly a victim of his godawful brother, which thankfully means she isn't his responsibility to help - or at least, no more so than any given human. Also, it's Vash. What's that? Someone is invested in his well-being? Golly, that sounds suspiciously like he's being cared for (which of course he doesn't deserve), or (more reasonably) like someone vulnerable to being caught up in Knives's manipulations. Or just someone vulnerable to Knives period. Stampede out!

I though you guys were buddies./I thought you three had something special. 

No way./Yeah, not really.

Too bad for him, he's met his match in Meryl Stryfe.

In direct contrast to every other character around Vash, she's only one there not because she has to be, or because she needs or wants something from him, but because she decided to be. She's one of the only characters with agency, after all.

Real people aren't monsters like that./He's a man, not a monster.

But I won't give up, no matter how unreasonable the assignment!/I won't abandon an assignment just because it's silly.

We can't just leave him hanging here./No way. We can't just leave him here.

And she's also decided he needs help. So come hell or high water, this man is getting helped.

It's her knack for finding the truth without quite knowing the reasoning behind it. In physical terms Vash really, really doesn't need help, and it's the mistake Knives always makes; that because Vash ostensibly doesn't have powers like him, he's in need of a defender. (And because this is Knives, that means it's up to him personally, and he's entitled to Vash and his exclusive love/loyalty/devotion in return. Any protests Vash makes are clearly just human corruption.) But what Vash actually needs is something his brother has never, in any version of the story, demonstrated the capacity to give him. Even sensitive little boy Knives back in Maximum relied on others for reassurance up until the moment he decided he couldn't.

Vash is more inclined to be someone others rely on, to the point of being maladaptive. It's being unable to help that gets to him, especially when he's held responsible.

What he needs is emotional support. Or, well... faith.

Wolfwood gives that to him eventually, but it takes some serious work, and it comes with its own attendant difficulties, like the fact that Nick's not in a position to extend Vash help himself no matter how much he might want to. Nick is, like Rosa and like Vash, a pragmatist. Do what you have to do.

Meryl has never needed that kind of direct demonstration. To her, Vash is a person, and people always need help, and she's not going to be prevented giving it. End of discussion. And despite being mistaken on some particulars, on this point she's more right than even she knows.

The contrast with Wolfwood is incidentally why Meryl hitting Woofwoof with the truck isn't just fucking funny, it's the perfect way for him to be introduced. He can't catch the same bus as Vash by happenstance because this time Vash is his actual target. He can't have Angelina II because personal transport is autonomy he's not permitted to have.

Instead, Meryl's own autonomy and narrative significance had her run the plot right into him, completely ruining whatever plans were laid for his entrance. Notice Roberto tries to steer Meryl away from the collision course they're on, to no avail, and Vash winds up flipped over. Fantastic.

Wolfwood is getting dragged around; Meryl is the one doing the dragging. When she discovers Vash's secrets, she works to accept them and integrate them into her worldview - which means that the moment she learns he's a Plant, she doesn't reject him or become fearful of him. She instantly accepts that must mean the Plants are also people. That gives her a fuller understanding of the conflict, and especially Vash's view of it, than most. It's not a matter of "Whose side are you on?" It's "How do we move forward together?"

Wolfwood's knowledge has all been filtered through the Eye of Michael, so he's more aware of the details, but can't disentangle his true beliefs from the ideology driving them.

Meryl has a better understanding of the abstract. And that, in turn, entitles her to learn what the available methods are, and judge them...

...But it also entitles her to something more precious: Vash's unquestioning trust.

It's certainly much less dramatic than the demonstrations between Vash and Nick, but I have to say: any amount of exposure to Knives and his histrionics would leave me, at least, pretty relieved to have it.

Part I

Part II

Part III

Part IV

Part V

Part VII

Part VIII

Part IX

[karlyboyyy]

WooWoo to the rescue

[lost-technology]

Explaining Vash Outside the Fandom!

So, today on another forum I mentioned Vash the Stampede. I mentioned him by way of "I don't ask myself WWJD? so much anymore as WWVtSD?" and explained "Vash the Stampede." I said "If anyone is unfamiliar with this name, go ahead and ask and I can fangirl all over you, but be warned, you will be reading all day." I got a taker. And then another taker who is a person on the forum who is straight up not having a good time right now and needs some distraction I feel - to read someone's dumb fangirling over a fandom they aren't in yet. So... I wrote up an essay explaining Vash the Stampede in Word and pasted it in shifts on the blog: (uck, looks like I'm gonna have to post this in shifts, too. Dumb tumblr!

*Flashes my fangirl license*  You asked about Vash the Stampede?  *Raises eyebrows.*  Big mistake.  You shall be here all day!  Vash is the protagonist of Trigun, an anime / manga by Yashiro Nightow.  Well, the manga is by him and there are two different animes to date, one originally airing in 1998 before the completion of the manga (and it gained the idea enough popularity that Nightow was able to continue the manga and purposefully took a different track to keep the story fresh.  Because he had to switch publishers the continuing story was titled Trigun Maximum).  As of 2023 there has been a reboot of the anime, Trigun Stampede, done in a cell-shaded CGI style that takes more cues from the manga.  It has done its own story elements, too, most notably having the City of July as a part of the story, making it almost a prequel, since the City of July is past tense in the other media.  A second set / continuation / completion of it is set for a future release date and as of yesterday, the “final phase” of the new anime will be titled Trigun Stargaze. Additionally, there was a feature-movie made in 2011 based solely upon the first anime titled Badlands Rumble, which is kind of the black sheep of the fandom (personally I enjoy it, find it very funny).  So, anyway, Vash is a tall blonde man with a Bart Simpson hairdo and a long red coat who lives on a desert planet with 10X the guns of ‘Murica.  There are two suns and five moons.  It’s a scavenger world where people barely eek out a living using a form of lost technology known as “Plants” – which are these energy and materials production entities housed in giant lightbulbs (or something more like tanks in Stampede).  No one knows how to create Plants anymore and few know how to maintain them, so everything is slowly dying (except, of course, the native sandworms.  Yep, there’s something Dune-like going on).  People live a half sci-fi half Old West existence and things are, again, very violent.  It’s a world where you have higher chances of making it out better as a bandit than a farmer.    Vash is a pacifist.  He is also an outlaw with Sixty-Billion-Double Dollars ($$) on his head because he has been shown to be capable of incredible destructive power.  Now, most of this comes accidentally from trying to weasel out of tough situations and people after him getting themselves hurt, but somehow towns fall apart.  Except for the City of July (or Jul-Ai in Stampede), which he did wipe out.  Under circumstances not of his own making or will, but the normal citizens of the planet don’t know that.  That was around 24 years ago in the first anime and in the manga.  July exists as of the beginning of Stampede.    Early on in the manga’s story, an insurance company that gets a lot of damage claims regarding damage he supposedly caused declares him a “Human Act of God” so as to avoid payouts.  He is assigned a pair of insurance agents, Milly Thompson and Meryl Stryfe, to follow him around to attempt to mitigate the damage he might cause.  In the anime, it is the same, except that his bounty is not removed for some reason.  (In the manga, the government removes his bounty per his “Act of God” status).  He is also known as the Humanoid Typhon, putting him in the same category as a destructive storm.  Vash-damage is thereafter treated in the same like as hurricane damage!  Honestly, this is one of the most creative things I have seen of any media – having the local superhero / super-cryptid followed by INSURANCE AGENTS. (I am fond of characterizing Trigun as “If Mayhem from the Allstate commercials was followed around by Flo from the Progressive commercials”).  (To Be Continued in Reblog-posts)

[whirlwindimagines]

Hey hey! I am an ex-barista (used to work at a local coffee shop) so I am totally a fan of coffee, lattes, all that kind of fun stuff.

From a writers opinion (especially someone who is a fan of Trigun), I want to know what you think each character would get from a cafe. Bonus points if you can create a flavor profile for each of the characters. For example: I have a feeling that Vash would drink something either super sugary or something that would pair well with a donut. (Vanilla, brown sugar latte perhaps?)

Just something fun I thought about!

I’m gonna be honest with you guys I don’t drink caffeine at all lol I’m a Pink Drink girly 🤞😔 coffee would give me a headache so I just don’t drink it but I tried my best even though I have no clue about coffee orders lolol I like doing chaotic headcanons, so this is just some fun general ones, sorry if it's not the best lol Also thank you @hermitagecats lol who actually drinks coffee and helped by giving me some ideas

Vash the Stampede, Nicholas D. Wolfwood, Meryl Stryfe & Millions Knives Coffee orders and general headcanons.

Vash: 

He’s just trying to get through the day, likes caffeine more than he should lol

Likes sugary drinks as well, and enjoys trying something new! Not super picky, he will get a donut with every drink or some type of snack. 💖

Cries over the latte art, like he feels bad that he has to drink it 

Everyone knows him in the coffee shop! He’s so nice and gives such good tips like everyone loves him. 

His go-to order: Caramel Frappuccino but he gets extra espresso shots lol and will always get a sweet treat!  

Meryl:

Can not stand going with Vash and Wolfwood, like she will gladly just go in by herself just tell her what you want! 

Is normal and gets nice simple drinks, but likes to shake it up! Goes for something new each time! Is a fan of her coffee!

On days she’s busy and needs to focus, she’ll get something simple like a black coffee. But if she’s not in the need of a caffeine rush, she’ll get a Latte 

Likes to go to different cafes, the different locations help her get her work done and she likes trying the signature drink at each place. 

Her got-to order: While she’ll order anything she has a soft spot for a White Chocolate Mocha

Wolfwood:

When he’s with the others he gets a simple black coffee, 

Has asked them to fill a venti with just espresso shots they deny this request every time. 

Likes refreshers lol will ONLY get them when he’s alone, if you saw Wolfwood ordering a Pink Drink you did NOT

He’s a menace since they won’t give him his damn venti with espressos, he orders a black coffee, and then just as many espressos shots as they are legally allowed to give him and pours it right into his coffee in front of the workers.

His go-to order is: Largest black coffee they can give, with as many espresso shots as he can take lol 

Knives:

Gets the same coffee drink every single time, and refuses to try something new! He’s happy with his drink! Does not like getting coffee with Vash just the smell of the overly sugary drink his brother gets gives him a headache.

Will not go inside only goes through a drive-thru! 

This is a tea man 🤨 you gonna look at me and tell me I’m wrong? Now while he’ll get the same coffee every time, he does like trying different teas! 

He’s a Cappuccino man, but super specific instructions like this drink taste like shit and the worker is just like wtf is this? Vash tried it once and almost died, Knives says nobody understands his superior taste. 

His go-to order: it's a cappuccino but it's the worst thing in the world

[serialadoptersbracket]

Round 2, Match 53: Kim Dokja vs. Roberto de Niro

Submitted kids:

Kim Dokja: Lee Gilyoung and Shin Yoosung are the commonly accepted ones but you can also make a case for Lee Jihye and Biyoo

Roberto de Niro: Meryl Stryfe, Vash the Stampede, Nicholas D. Wolfwood

Propaganda under the cut!

Kim Dokja:

1. “In the first scenario (where you have to murder something alive) his first priority is to make sure Gilyoung makes it out alive (by giving him the grasshopper before letting others know about it), and when the future version of Yoosung (41st round) is going to cause havoc his first plan is to basically the past (his present) version of her so they would have her on her side (he takes her in as his incarnation- if that isn’t an adoption idk what is); Biyoo is literally the soul of 41st Yoosung that he WENT THROUGH AN UNDERWORLD TRIAL to get her back and she is legally his child. Lee Jihye is more like the older sister-teenager of the group be she’s still adopted by association and Han Donghoon is a kid who was hypnotized and exploited by the “prophets” and Kim Dokja saved him and became someone he trusts in- which is basically adopting. Mia is YJH’s little sister but with the family dynamic all of KimCom has she’s basically adopted too. This man is someone who believes the worst in himself but gives all these kids someone they need and in return they are the family he’s never had.”

2. "He saved Lee Gilyoung on the subway when he was orphaned at the time the apocalypse started even when he didn't need to and kept him by his side and fed him at his own expense and believed in him and taught him to be strong when no one else had really done that for Lee Gilyoung before.

MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD (pretty vague):

Shin Yoosung was a character in the world of the apocalypse that occured (long story, won't explain here lol) and she was supposed to be destined to become a monster that would destroy Seoul and the two people other than Kim Dokja who knew this wanted to kill her when they found her to prevent her from becoming that but Kim Dokja refused to kill her and physically stood to protect her and then he later became her sponsor (uhhh it's a whole thing in-universe but basically pledged to back her and help her ig) and the stigma (a special power thing that can be gained through a sponsor) he gave her was based in him protecting everyone in their group and his love for all of them.

Both Shin Yoosung and Lee Gilyoung are extremely attached to Kim Dokja and have on at least one canon occasion slept clinging to either side of him.

LESS MINOR SPOILERS AHEAD (though not terrible ig and still mostly vague at least):

Biyoo is. well she's Shin Yoosung actually but also not. So basically y'know that monster future Shin Yoosung was destined to become? so that monster version of her from a different timeline was sent backwards and sideways in time (idk how else to describe it jskdfs) and nearly did destroy Seoul as prophesied but Kim Dokja tried to save her—and he nearly did but then a shitty dokkaebi (they're like admin streamer people. idk would take a while to explain) did a shitty thing and forced her to be 'evil' and then she had to be killed ;-; but Kim Dokja promised to get revenge for her and after that he went and beat up the asshole dokkaebi who did that so badly that he gained a legendary Story. And then he traveled to the Underworld at risk of his own life to retrieve her soul and put that into a dokkaebi egg that he personally hatched. And she lost her memories for the most part but could still sense a bit what he'd done for her :') and so yeah she became Biyoo and is somehow both adopted and originally parented(?? idk saying biologically is. doesn't feel quite right lol) by him."

3. “Bro is THE DAD of the group”

4. “Adopted his kids so hard that they’d do like anything for him they love him so much”

Roberto de Niro:

“he's my dad”

[chibivesicle]

I would love to see an in depth breakdown of Stampede’s reworkings of Trigun’s female characters and how they compare to their original counterparts. Because although I’m not normally one to cry “misogyny” but I can’t help but feel like whoever decided to turn multifaceted characters like Meryl, Luida and Elendira into cutesy waifus and reduced Rem to the classic ‘dead mother’ trope has some explaining to do. There’s also the matter of the plants in Stampede being forcefully impregnated via Knives violating Vash, complete with swollen pregnant stomachs, which to me is just straight up, well, cursed(although something similar happened in the manga).

I can’t help but feel like there’s a lot of unspoken misogyny here.

Hello!

Now that Trigun Stampede is over and the dust has settled, I can 100% say that I agree with you. The level of lazy misogynistic writing in Stampede was high. When I was doing the weekly videos, I kept thinking, "Well, it isn't that bad. Is it?" until looking at the entire show and realizing, that "Yeah. It was terrible."

I'm not even going to touch on the entire sexual/impregnation of the plants via Knives by violating Vash at all! I'm sure one could write an entire meta about it and how cringe it is but I'm not feeling that vibe.

I'll focus on the female cast and how they were shortchanged from the original work to this 're-imagining'. I will say that the Trigun manga, focuses less on the female characters. But they are all totally competent individuals who are not driven by the romantic need to marry some man. Overall, the '98 anime was even better by creating the quartet of Vash, Meryl, Milly and Wolfwood. I mentioned it from time to time in my reviews but the original anime passed the Bechdel test. Which on paper isn't a high bar for media to clear but soooo many things fail that test.

For overall female character significance and roles in the Trigun universe (multiverse?) the '98 anime is top. Meryl and Milly play a major role in how Vash and Wolfwood behave and also bear witness to their actions and support them. Yet, they are not weak but instead demonstrate how four people, will have four different ways to solve the exact same problem.

However, the manga has a greater cast of women and cannot be ignored. As you mentioned, Luida and Elendira appeared in Stampede from Trimax and both are great characters. Aaannnnddd, Stampede ruined them for me.

The best way to approach all of the key women of the series, we'll break it down by character.

Meryl Stryfe - insurance adjuster/reporter

Trigun manga - secondary character. Acts as human viewpoint watching Vash, reacting to the power of his angel arm, contemplating what it is like to kill someone with a firearm. Age at the start of manga 21. Age after time skip, 23. By the end of the series 24-25 ish?

Trigun '98 - main character. Acts as human viewpoint in observing Vash [again] but also feels compassion towards him as their friendship grows. Senior and experienced insurance adjuster both a friend and mentor for Milly. Competent on the job, hard worker, gets things done, leans for logic over emotions. Age not mentioned in anime, but likely similar to manga. Vocal, opinionated, and ready to take on any situation.

Stampede - main character. Newbie reporter for November news under Roberto. Older starting age of 23, yet acts like she's 16 or something. Her character is a disappointment in this version; with her being junior to Roberto there is no senior female in the cast and it shows. By no means is Meryl supposed to be a perfect person (this is Nightow after all) but he does not write cutesy female characters. No female character in his cast is like how she is in Stampede.

Milly Thompson - insurance adjuster/reporter/???TBD

Trigun manga - secondary character. Strong, emotional, a bit naive but still able to help Wolfwood out during a fight. Continues to be the junior to Meryl and follows her to their secondary career as journalists.

Trigun '98 - main character. Foil to both Meryl and Wolfwood. Besides Vash making Wolfwood change his viewpoints, she also pushes him to think about things differently. Most importantly, she doesn't judge him based on his actions and only shows that she cares. Emotionally intelligent, naive and honest to a fault.

Stampede - next season?

Enough said right there. Why was Milly replaced by lame ass old man info dump Roberto?

Rem Severem - Key team member of Project Seeds/Vash and Knives adopted mother

Trigun manga - Rem is the mother/moral guidepost for Vash in the manga. He tries to uphold her ideals and moral code to not kill anyone. She told him about the death of her significant other which left her feeling lost. However, a dream about her taking a train with a origin station but no destination created her philosophy that everyone's ticket to the future is blank.

She is an incredibly compassionate individual and even tries to stop Vash from committing suicide being injured herself in the events. It causes him to snap out of it as he put her in medical care. However, her philosophy is impossible to practice on the planet where the ships crashed. Yet for ~150 years Vash is able to not kill another person.

Trigun '98 - The exact same role as in the manga but with less backstory fleshed out. However, her quote of one's ticket to the future is blank is the same. Additionally, the anime adds in her love of a creation song which becomes a musical motif in the anime linking Vash to her and to the present day humans as they try to create a new world. Hence the creation myth song as Project Seeds was to allow for them to restart.

The anime links Rem to Meryl when Vash finds himself lost as she supports him before he heads off for his final showdown with Knives. It shows that a very similar philosophy still exists within humanity and that Vash can continue on with his personal moral compass.

Stampede - At first, we learn who Rem is, unlike the anime or manga. She shows us that she saved Vash and Nai and that she loved them. However, that was it. We never hear her personal philosophy. The flashback only focuses on how she tries to raise them as her own children but no deep moral discussions are had like in the manga or even the anime.

Again, this is a huge determent to her character in Stampede; the series very much went for tell not show. So to try to convey Rem's character through showing when the default was tell made it a disappointment. I waited, waited, waited for her to say at least some version of her quote about the ticket being blank. Nothing.

Rem barely spoke in the scheme of things. Nor did Vash have dream or one sided conversations with her in Stampede which also made it hard to understand why he wouldn't kill.

Elendira the Crimsonnail - 13th Gung-ho Gun/nail producing child-plant hybrid who doesn't age

Trigun manga - A trans woman and the strongest of the Gung-ho Guns. Truly a witty and fashionable individual with her briefcase that allows for her to pierce opponents with a rain of oversized nails. Elendira's character is quite nuanced, watching the fall of humanity on the planet while having complex conversations with Legato. The two of them are frequently at odds but both see their roles to assist Knives in his goals.

I found her character to be the most sane/rational viewpoint into Knives and his organization. She always has a witty remark or comment and seems to have chosen to work with Knives thinking that this would be the winning side.

After she's revealed to be trans, that's pretty much it. It isn't brought up time and time again, nor does it define her character - you know with the whole ending of humanity on the planet taking more precedence.

Her final battle against Livio is epic and overall, I liked her character. She was badass in the best way possible.

Stampede - Ugh, where do I even start. . . . Elendira appears to be a perma-prepubescent child being a human-plant hybrid. We see her with Grey the Ninelines when they steal a plant in episode 3 wearing a pink dress. So maybe a girl? Maybe a boy? No gender?

But then, when we get the Monev the Gale/Rollo flashback, she speaks to young Rollo calling herself an angel and appears the same age. Present events put her fight with Vash, Wolfwood, Meryl and Roberto 25 years later and she looks the same. Apparently, being a human-plant hybrid makes her inferior to Vash or Knives since she still has to plug herself into one of the glass aquariums to regulate her 'gate'. So, not a plant plant, but lacking the skills of an independent plant. Sort of a crappy outcome the more you think about it.

Despite her age being at least 35 (say she was 10 when she met Rollo) or even older than that - she acts like a child. Gets angry like a child and has not mentally matured at all. Again, didn't get the rapid aging bits of Vash so still mentally a child? Unless I am told otherwise, I'm gonna stick with she/her pronouns and based on the rest of writing for Stampede, they likely want us to see her as cis not trans.

You cannot even compare Trimax Elendira to Stampede. They are not the same character other than the name. They don't even use nails the same way! As far as I'm concerned, she's pointless in Stampede. A cutesy angry girl who will kill you with her gate manifested nails.

Luida - Leader of [un]crashed seeds ship/botanist

Trigun manga - leader of humans from the Project Seeds ship that had been in hiding with several generations of humans living on it above the barbaric planet below. As events worsen, becomes the de facto leader of all the humans resisting Knives and coordinates with the NML cavalry. Wise, straight shooting and in charge. Brad works for her after the death of the Sensei by the Leonoff the Puppet master situation.

She never really steals any scene but is critical to the success of their plan and acts as the link between the humans from Earth and the people on the planet's surface. Always framed in a strong position of leadership. A very androgynous appearance with spiked black hair, and simple clothing.

Stampede - Simplified to the second stand in mother figure for Vash. She also gets aged up with her first meeting Vash when he was a teenager and brought him into their home. Instead of being older than Brad, she is a peer with him and both of them are considerably older in the current time point. A plant biologist expert - something which is not even close to the role that she played in Trimax.

She also elicits the anti-mother anger from Knives in Stampede, meaning that Knives only wants Vash to himself. No women allowed to be mothers for them! Compared to the manga, she again like Elendira is a totally different character. We don't see a whole lot of that natural leadership and commanding presence from the manga.

Therefore, of this list of key female characters their fates are as such in Stampede:

Meryl - aged up but down in maturity and experience.

Milly - missing.

Rem - dead mother trope. Never said anything to convey why Vash is the way he is.

Elendira - infantilazation to a perma-child.

Luida - kind older lady/second mother.

Therefore, two female characters have been relegated to mother figures; Rem and Luida. Meryl was made less mature to be the junior to an old asshole. Elendira is as far as we know a perma-child.

All mature women with years of experience have been removed from the story. Yeah, I enjoyed the previous versions of Trigun for their killer girls, uwu-waifus, and doting mothers. Really connect with these sorts of characters. . . .

I'm sure you can tell I'm being sarcastic. Thus, I will rewatch the '98 anime, or reread the manga and turn my attention to Kekkai Sensen. Where there are more excellent female characters - shocking! K.K., Chain Sumeragi, Luciana Estavez, Aligura, Michella Watch (a blind woman in a wheelchair took out a Beyondian mad doctor remember?) and in the anime, White.

If Stampede wanted to do scary cute well, they only needed to look at Aligura. One of the 13 kings and a gothic lolita. It takes ovaries to liquefy your boyfriend and inject him into your crush. But hey, it works. 'Cause based on her dismissal of Leo thinking that he was important to her, she's not one to cry like a perma-child like Elendira in Stampede. When one's monster truck, car eating vehicle of destruction causes thousands of casualties, you are pretty badass.

[fanatic-domain-fanfiction]

Bones in the Ocean - Prologue

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Archive Warning: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Category: M/M Fandom: Trigun Stampede (Anime 2023) Relationship: Vash the Stampede/Nicholas D. Wolfwood Characters: Rem Saverem, Vash the Stampede, Kni|Millions Knives, Nicholas D Wolfwood, Meryl Stryfe, Roberto De Niro, Milly Thompson Additional Tags: Selkie AU, Vash and Kni are selkies, Shipwrecks, They all live in a little fishing village Language: English

Summary: Vash is a selkie who lives by a small fishing village. He takes his time to help those who live there, even if he can't show who he really is. Things change when a new man arrives in the village and an unusual seal is spotted, hiding in the waters. Additional Notes: The title comes from the song "Bones in the Ocean" by The Longest Johns and the lyrics in the prologue are also taken from this song. I promise this is only for the first chapter. And a big thank you to @oloreandil on Tumblr who first put the idea in my head and has had to listen to me rambling about this.

Chapter 1: Prologue: A Brother’s Betrayal

Rem stepped out of her little cottage by the sea, a warm coat wrapped tightly around her and she made her away along the small dock she had built. The wooden jetty stretched out a little way into the sea, the water lapping against the support, turning orange under the setting sun.

“Kni! Vash!” she called out at the calm ocean before her. “Dinner’s ready!”

Nothing changed before her as she waited. The sea ran back and forth between the rocks of the little bay.

“Boys!” Rem shouted, hands on her hips as she got nearer to the end of the dock.

A sudden splash of water came from nowhere, drenching the bottom of her skirts. Then, two young seals popped their faces above the water. They were so young, that they still had their pale pelts. The paler of the two had an amused look on its face whilst the other, blonder in colour, was tightly holding a fish in its jaws.

Rem sighed with an amused look. “Okay, you two. You’ve had your fun.”

They disappeared under the water again, swimming their way over to the jetty and climbing up the small ramp. The blond pup still had the fish firmly clamped in its mouth, refusing to be parted from its catch. As they at last sat on the dock, the seal pups removed the hoods their pelts, revealing to young boys with seal skin coats draped over their shoulders.

“Rmmm! M hmmm m fmmm!”

“What Vash?”

The boy took the fish from his mouth, holding it out with a big grin. “I caught a fish! All by myself!”

“I helped you find it,” the other boy muttered, standing up and smoothing his coat out.

“But I caught it without you!”

“Okay. Okay. Boys.” Rem knelt down putting her hands one their shoulders. “Vash, I’m very proud of you for catching a fish by yourself. I know you struggle. And Kni, I know you find hunting easy but you should be proud of Vash too. And well done for spotting a fish for him to catch.” She wrapped her arms around them with a big smile. “I’m so proud of you both, my little pups!”

Rem stood up and took both of their hands. “Now, come on. Dinner’s getting cold.”

“But I caught dinner!”

“A growing boy like you needs far more than one fish.”

The three of them made their way back along the wooden dock to the cottage, quietly going back inside. As the boys took their pelts off, Rem hung them neatly by the door, swapping them over with some woollen coats. Kni was already at the table by the time Vash sat next to him. The two brothers smiling at each other as Rem set their plates down.

All of them were happy and smiling. Not a single worry in the entire world.

♊︎

That day had started off peacefully. Rem was humming a song to herself as she went about the morning’s tasks: reading her barometer, checking the boat and, waiting for the others of her little crew to arrive. Vash had sat at the back of the boat, watching the land disappear behind them. Out on the sea, with the boat anchored, Rem let the two young selkies play by the ship while she and her crew worked. The brothers swam around the ship, playing in the waves and seeing how far they could swim down, each daring the other to go further.

The day drew on and the clouds grew dark.

The air grew thick with a brewing storm but still, Rem worked and the brothers played.

It wasn’t until the waves grew higher that Rem began to grow concerned. She looked for her boys but couldn’t see where they played beneath the water. The wind drowned out her voice as she called for them… and the crews shouting drew her attention as the boat filled with water.

Kni kept Vash close by, playing a game of hide and seek among some rocks, his brother unaware of the tragedy happening above. They rolled and turned and twisted their way through the water, chasing and being chased. Hide and seek becoming tag. Their day still as peaceful as it had begun. Until wood splintered down upon them as the boat was sent onto the rocks.

Peace turned to chaos.

Calm to storm.

Life to death.

And the ship sank like a stone, becoming a shared coffin for those on board.

Vash looked on in horror as the boat and those within it disappeared from his view. The cold fingers of the depth dragged the vessel down into its watery embrace. The ocean was too deep for him to follow despite trying with everything he had, lungs burning as he tried to chase the condemned boat. His heart broke as he swam back to the surface, deep blue becoming grey as he resurfaced.

A storm battered the ocean; thunder roared and lightning flashed. Vash fought to keep his head up, the young selkie so small compared to the towering waves. The sea tossed him from wave crest to wave crest. It tried to drag him down as well but he battled his way to the rocks, hauling himself ashore. Still the waves battered him, the rocks cut him up, sharp edges digging into his skin and scouring his body.

As the souls of the dead fill the space of my mind I'll search without sleeping 'til peace I can find I fear not the weather, I fear not the sea I remember the fallen, do they think of me? When their bones in the ocean forever will be

A figure stood upon the rocks, laughing at the sky with pure, vicious delight.

The sky roared back in return; lightning crackling above them, as bright and as terrifying as the laughter.

Vash tore his hood off, scrambling up the rocks. His hands and feet being torn to shreds as he did so. “Kni! What have you done?”

The laughter stopped, and Kni turned round, the rain running down his face and sparkling under the lightning. “I’ve freed us, Vash! They can’t keep us trapped on the land anymore!”

“You killed them!! Even Rem!”

“It had to be done!”

“No! You’re wrong!” Tears streamed down Vash’s face, mixing with the rain and the salty sea. His heart breaking again. “YOU’RE WRONG!”

Plot a course to the night, to a place I once knew To a place where my hope died, along with my crew So, I swallow my grief and face life's final test to find promise of peace and the solace of rest A lightning bolt struck the sea, lighting up the coastline. A fog horn crying in the distance.

As Kni turned around, all he saw was the ripples left behind as a tail disappeared into the water.

As the souls of the dead fill the space of my ears Their laughter like children, their beckoning cheers My heart longs to join them, sing songs of the sea I remember the fallen, do they think of me? When their bones in the ocean forever will be

♊︎

Many years later, Vash sat on the rocks by an old lighthouse, looking out to the sea, pelt pulled tightly around him and humming the same song that Rem had on that fateful day. A storm brewed on the horizon, the sky already turning black. A small boat silhouetted against the sky.

“I’m sorry, Rem… everyone. I’m sorry I couldn’t save you then, but I won’t let there be another. Not in these waters. Not as long as I live. I’ll save them this time.” He pulled his hood up, diving into the turbulent waters below.

[lordkingsmith]

Nick Russell and Jack Rose joke au kid;

Will be linked into Nick’s au kid page when I get to him lol. The just dance verse is only tangentially related but I got crossover fic and they do have their own power ranger team. If only those four had names or I’d include them too. These kids are a little special as just dance related so they get picrew and a song they’d be the coach of in the game.

-

Jack temporarily escaped into the earth dimension sitting beside the Just Dance verse with Team Spectronizer, the power ranger team for the Just Dance verse. Jack met Minh Qwan, Billy Cranston and Zack Taylor while there, developing into a sort of adoptive sibling to Minh. While there he also encountered Nick Russell and the Mystic Force team. Nick and Jack hit into an immediate rivalry. Similar to Tommy Oliver and Jason Lee Scott, and barely got along at all. Teasing, pranking and fighting each other. At one point Jack breaks his hand (and Nick’s nose) punching him in the face, and at another Nick loses fifty bucks in a backfired attempt to embarrass Jack.

When Night Swan came to collect her son, she almost succeeded in turning Nick Russell and Ollie Akana into Night Selves, evil versions of themselves. Jack managed to get them both to safety. Once everything was said and done, months after that, Jack came back to live in the home town and reality Leda abandoned, and Nick was there waiting. Deciding to give it a go after it all. They’re together, but don’t live together. Nick made their kids through magic, and Jack visits often, splitting his time between his responsibilities in one world and his family in another. They have two children, Stryfe and Wren Russell.

Stryfe Russell

Age 26. Runs a vintage music and music related retro item store in Briarwood. The one time he went to visit his sister, he got into a slight situation that lead to him being the Coach to the song Dive by Lost Frequencies and Tom Gregory

A bit of a charmer, a little bit of a skirt chaser, but often gets easily flustered if people flirt back. He was mainly raised in Briarwood with his sister, but they did go see Jack on weekends. Less impulsive or brash than his sister, Stryfe manages to live up to his name by being an over thinker and his overthinking causing a lot of problems in general. However he’s also a good source of advice. He just never follows any advice he personally gives out. Respects his sister’s choices to live in Eternyx, but recognizes while he loves music…he has no sense of rhythm. It is something he’s embarrassed about. He’s only managed to dance well once. Is trying to make peace with it, all things considered. He is however a very proficient sorcerer. Not interested in universe domination, just interested in making things a little more fun or interesting or easy for those he loves. Is really close to his mystic grandparents, perhaps a bit more than his mystic father. He and Wren are observed closely but neither of them are showing any signs of villainy. To Jack and Nick’s deep relief. Not associated with a color.

Wren Russell

Age 22. She is the current Red Ranger of Team Spectronizer and Solo Coach of the song Armor by Iniko

While she was raised in the Enchanted Realm with Nick and her Mystic grandparents she is a dance instructor in Eternyx. She uses mystic magic in tandem with flow, and calls herself the groove witch. She’s very job oriented, whether that means dance instructor or ranger, and often has to be reminded by brother or parents to slow down, to breathe, to just be for a bit. She’s intense, with better social skills than either parent. She’s not exactly friendly but she’s not prickly either. Comfortable in her own skin and at peace with her strange heritage. Growing up she was apprenticed to Xander, and had secondary teachings by Rita Repulsa over the matter of her dark sorceress grandmother. If anyone could handle any darkness popping up in the girl, it’d be Rita. She has a penchant for feathers, and is as intense about perfectionism as Leda was before she met Traveler, but that is all.

She has a girlfriend, the current Yellow Wynona. Wynona grounds Wren like nobody else. While she loves her brother and he’s a great source of advice, Wynona is the rock Wren can settle on when things get rough. They compliment each other well.

[screechthemighty]

Remember that time travel AU I kept alluding to and wrote like three chapters of but I didn't want to post them because I wanted to see what the finale did first? Well...I've seen what the finale did, so now it's time to start posting LMAO. Usually I'd post an AO3 link in a reblog BUUUT since I'm probably gonna post the other two chapters tonight too, we'll just wait for that until later. Cool? Cool.

the unknowable tomorrow | a tristamp fanfic part 1: july city

Note: While this chapter does touch on the events of ep. 11, it's not NEARLY as explicit as the canon on the physical violation angle, so don't worry, that's not a focus here.

.

Reporters were meant to observe. That was her job. It was a job she’d wanted, more than anything.

She thought she had, at least. Right now, Meryl Stryfe would have given anything for the ability to act. Not simply watch.

But she couldn’t. There were too many unknowns. If she killed Conrad, there might not be anyone to stop the machines. If she shot the glass, assuming it wasn’t bulletproof, she could hurt Vash. Or she could catch the attention of Millions Knives, and she wouldn’t be of any use as a bloody smear on the floor. She could scream her friend’s name as much as she wanted, over and over, but it didn’t seem to do anything. Vash stayed frozen in place, floating, staring at his brother, the flora-like tendrils still leaking out of his body.

That didn’t stop her from trying, because it was the only option she had.

“Vash! Vash!” Meryl’s fist bounced off the glass. The progress had stalled, Conrad had said. Maybe he’d heard her. Maybe… “Vash, you have to fight it!” She glanced back over her shoulder at Conrad. “I can’t believe you.”

Conrad kept his head down and his hands braced against the console. She couldn’t tell if he was avoiding her gaze or staring at the screens, so she kept talking. “He’s hurting Vash. Hey!” Meryl stepped away from the glass, the derringer aimed fruitlessly again. “Is this right to you? How does this fit with not demeaning them, huh?”

He flinched. Meryl saw it then, the twitch of his eyes to the tank, to her, back down to the screens. That was something. It had to be something. “Memory manipulation? How is that respectful? Throwing him into a pit so he can’t escape? How is that respectful?”

“It’s necessary…”

“He doesn’t want this! I don’t care how necessary you think it is!” She gave up aiming the pistol, instead slamming both fists down on the top of the console. “Look at him! Look at what you’re doing to him!”

Another quick dart of the eyes. Up to Vash. Down to her. Back up to Vash, this time to linger. Look at him. Look at how much he’s hurting. Look at what your god is doing to his own brother. His own flesh and blood. How is that right? How is any of this right?

Conrad’s chest heaved in a sigh, his eyes dropping down to the consoles again. “How much,” he asked, “did Vash the Stampede’s struggles ever really accomplish? He wanted to help people; what good has any of it done?” His eyes stayed fixed on the frozen percentage, as if willing it to start moving again. “Here, now, his presence will accomplish something. This will fix the world.”

Meryl’s blood ran cold. Her mind scrambled for a response, but found nothing. There were no words that could adequately sum up the disgust she felt, the utter loathing for the man in front of her. She could live to be as old as Vash and never have the right words. All she had was silence–furious, trembling silence.

Someone else had the words, though.

“Hey, Doc?” The figure in the doorway hefted his weapon. “Fuck you.”

The bullet was the loudest thing in that room–louder than Meryl’s racing thoughts, than the echoes of her accusation, than the writhing growth of the flora. It passed right through Conrad’s skull and hit the glass. It lodged itself there, surrounded by a web of spider-thin cracks, but didn’t pierce through.

Oh, Meryl thought distantly. It is bulletproof.

Self-preservation kicked in when she heard footsteps. She raised the derringer. She did not lower it when she realized she knew the person stepping in. “You?!”

Nicholas D. Wolfwood looked sickly in the room’s light–pale and haggard, nauseated. His eyes were full of contempt as they slid over Conrad’s body before moving to Meryl. “Look, if you want to shoot me, do it later,” he snapped. “How do we turn this thing off?”

Meryl started to reply.

She never got the chance.

~ ~ ~

That’s why I crashed the ships.

It’s my fault?

I did it all for you.

Vash broke, then. Something tore through his soul, shredding through reality too as it went: a black hole, literal and figurative.

Knives had expected it to happen. There would be no severed limbs this time, nothing to get in the way. The gate would be opened. He would have his brother back. Everything was going exactly as he’d planned.

But he hadn’t been able to account for everything.

Knives didn’t see it at first. His focus stayed fixed on stalking down that final memory–on eliminating the final thread keeping his brother from him. But as he stepped closer, ready to finally free him…

~ ~ ~

“What the hell is that?!”

~ ~ ~

Red.

Not red like Rem’s geraniums. Red like one of their dying siblings. Red like blood.

The gate to the Higher Dimension was opened, just as he’d planned. But there were other gates, other doorways. Perhaps it was Vash’s mind trying to protect itself, to find some way to escape; perhaps it was inexperience combined with emotions too deep and painful to contain. The result was the same: one door opened. Dozens more followed.

Vash the Stampede broke.

So did everything else.

~ ~ ~

Meryl couldn’t grasp what she was looking at.

It was as if someone had taken a knife and stabbed the air, tearing open a wide hole. More tears appeared–in the tank, above it, all over the room. On the other side was nothing, nothing but an emptiness so dark she couldn’t believe that it was real. Nothing could be so dark. Even the night had the stars, the moons, but this was…

Nothing.

And the nothingness was starting to swallow her.

“Shit!” Wolfwood braced his weapon against the console and held out a hand to her. “Stryfe!”

Meryl barely managed to grab his hand before she was lifted off her feet. She tried to look into the tank, but the flora had so thoroughly filled the space that she couldn’t tell where anything was. “Vash!” she screamed. “Vash! Vash you have to stop! You - “

meryl

The voice came not from the tank, or from Wolfwood as he desperately gripped her hand. It came from behind her. As she glanced over her shoulder into the yawning, terrifying voice, she could’ve sworn she heard it again -

meryl! meryl!

“How…?”

Wolfwood slipped. The sudden disruption was enough to make Meryl lose her grip. She thought she heard Wolfwood scream after her as she was pulled through but the sound was quickly swallowed up by…

Nothing.

Just the vast, vast void, and the distant sound of her own name.

meryl! meryl, i’m here! meryl. meryl - !

~ ~ ~

His body slammed into the console hard enough to knock the wind out of him. His hands still worked well enough to grab onto something, but Wolfwood knew it wouldn’t last. It was a clumsy grip, and the whole damn room was being sucked into whatever those things were. He barely managed to dodge Conrad’s body as it flew past. “Shit!”

His mind scrambled for a solution–something, anything. If he could break the glass, kill Knives, maybe…but he didn’t see where Punisher had gone, and he wasn’t sure he could control it in all this chaos anyway. And if he hit Vash…

nico!

The sound of the name nearly made him lose his grip. Wolfwood desperately scanned the room. No, it couldn’t be, it wasn’t…he knew it wasn’t. It couldn’t be.

“Livio?”

But even as the name left his lips, he knew it wasn’t Livio. The voice was all wrong. That was what Livio always called him, but that wasn’t him, couldn’t be him. It sounded more like…

A piece of debris hit his face, knocking the thought away. It took almost everything else with it, including his grip. Wolfwood was only semi-conscious when he fell, unable to really perceive anything around him, not even the sound of his own name. Only one thing felt real to him: a singular thought running through his mind.

You did this. Your fault.

Good job, Wolfwood.

~ ~ ~

In another time and place, a hundred gates opened. The last chaotic screams of a mind too in pain to control anything sounded through space and time.

In another time and place, July City tore itself apart.

[eventheodds]

It’s like taking a deep breath before a great plunge. Gathering all the air she can into her lungs, there is no resistance from her as he pulls her towards him, the space between a mere hairline at this point. 

She can feel every point of contact where he’s touching her, holding her, and the sharp ache of her bruises remind her, yet again, how human she is and how, if it hadn’t been for him, she would have not made it out alive. She either be buried or reduced to shreds or nothing at all—Meryl Stryfe stricken from the world. 

There is the urge to laugh and cry without reservation simultaneously, but she refrains, rather pouring all of her energy into this—in these frantic moments where both she and Nicholas are here in the desert, having survived something so horrific that thinking about it would make her spiral out of control again.

As he holds her to him, as his lips close over hers and she can feel the tip of his tongue against her bottom lip, her mouth parts to take in a shuddering breath, inhaling his scent as she does so, and almost whines when she feels that pressure on her waist and when his mouth is pulled from hers. Instinctively, she tilts her head upward, allowing him more, as she wants to feel the graze of his teeth on her skin.

That sharpness that comes with this hunger, this want and desire. 

His voice cuts through the pounding in her ears, but she catches every word as it’s pushed out, like it’s taking its toll on him to speak. She’s not said a word since she asked if this was okay, not trusting her voice to sound like herself if she tried, but Meryl needs to reassure him that he is, that this is what she wants.

She needs him to know.

The fact that he’s not pulled away, or even dropped her from his lap, speaks volumes, because he could very well have done so—minutes and hours ago. He could have been halfway from where they’ve decided to hold up for the night, never looking back after he left her here, but he’s chosen to stay and that has to mean something.

So, she lets him know by way of how deep and laboured her breathing has become; by way of how she gazes down at him, her eyes blown wide and more black than storm; by way how she reaches up and brushes his hair from his face, smoothing it away; by way of how she bends and trails her own lips against his jaw, more teeth and tongue than mouth even if she’s aware now that there won’t be any marks there come morning or even in the next hour. 

“You are,” she breathes, the words pushed out with every exhale. “You are, Nicholas,” she repeats herself, saying his name the same way she said it before while also wanting to cast out any bad memories of Conrad and the Eye of Michael. It won’t happen overnight, she knows this, and may not even happen for a while, but it’s a promise to never stop, even after the fact.

Never parting from him, Meryl finds a way to maneuver so that she’s shucked off her jacket, tossing it to the side, uncaring in the moment if it gets buried by sand. Her clothes need to be replaced regardless, torn as they are, but she’s hardly thinking about that right now. 

Right now, she’s brought her arms between them, her kisses frantic and lungs burning, and started fumbling with the buttons of her shorts, a soft groan leaving her as she’s having trouble undoing them. She’d have to stop kissing Nicholas and look down at what she’s doing, but there’s no way she’s going to pull away—not now.

Wolfwood is trained, honed. Little escapes his tactical scrutiny. Even so, he still does not know what he should anticipate. Reproach would be simpler to take. Anger would be easier to stomach, counter to the gnawing void there.

Despite his best efforts, he does in fact have a heart. It beats steadily under Meryl's palm. Maybe a touch quicker as she guides his hand. He can feel the bruised warmth radiating through fabric from skin. It would be nothing to dump her off of his lap and into the sand, turn and walk right the hell away. He ought to. It would be better for her, for both of them, he thinks.

But would it really? They reel unmoored, sure as the vault of stars and moons transitions unfeeling overhead.

"...s'to be expected when you're runnin' into a firefight like you're moonlighting as a damned bullet sponge," he murmurs, knowing full well that he's a hypocrite for it. Resilient and headstrong as she is, she'd be dead. That thought clings to him like a tick. She'd be dead, atomized, dashed and broken or sliced to ribbons. She'd be dead, lost to the crater, an echo of a memory, shadow of a shadow, if he hadn't come back.   

He doesn't ask what she was thinking. Doesn't have to, because he was thinking it too. The Punisher was never meant to protect. But then, Nicholas has never been good at taking orders.

Meryl closes in when she really should be running the hell away. That isn't her style. There she is, and there they are, nose to nose, sharing breath. Kind eyes, she says. Such a tender affirmation jams up with denial! warning! in the back of his brain and clenches in his chest as something else clicks into place, sealed together between their lips. He answers, first, with stillness, eyes open as she presses in.

Stunned. Staggered. Spiraling.

Embers.

All it takes is a breath for them to catch fire amid the tinder-rubble of grief. He knows what this is. Thinks he knows.

Nicholas D. Wolfwood is a monster. He is also human.

He acts. Responds. Seizes hold of the ragged thread stretched between them, tether, lifeline.

The hand at the small of her back cups, tenses, pulls her further down, closer along the line of his torso, not quite crushing but almost. He slants, thighs lifted up behind her in his cross-legged tuck, hemming, surrounding amid the drape of fabric. He looms forward with a tilt of head and a jut of chin to claim her mouth whole.

Hard at first, with an aborted sound guttering somewhere between his chest and throat--and then softening, parting, just a touch, just a hair, to glide the point of his tongue against the curve of her lower lip. A flirtation of teeth belies the gnarl of his fingers at the nip of her waist, tempered just above bruising, and that arrests some of his focus, because for once in his damn life he'd like to not cause harm.

"...m'not good for- this," he rasps, and he's not pulling away, not when she's bullied herself into this snare, but he also pushes no further than leaning in and grazing his incisors to the corner of her jaw.

[nanomooselet]

Little but Fierce

Now, I might be mistaken, but judging by the number of bare pectoral muscles strewn over my dash at any given moment, I'm gonna say Wolfwood is pretty popular? And that's understandable (he's a loser <3) but it's a genuinely terrible shame that Meryl gets overlooked. Especially in Stampede. Orange have done some really amazingly cool things with Meryl.

And it makes me a little nervous to say so, but I think they only could have done them by detaching her from Milly, at least for a time. Milly's still going to show up and I'm confident from this precedent they'll treat her well, so I'm at peace with her absence for now.

Nightow is unexpectedly good in many ways. He treats sex workers as human, which is a low bar that many nevertheless fail to clear, and my only serious disappointment in Maximum was in how the girls vanished for long periods. I recall an interview where he said something to the effect of being reluctant to put them in harm's way, and while I'm disinclined to take anything Nightow says entirely at face value (I don't think he's a liar, but I do think he has a sense of humour that inclines him to kindly trolling, which I respect), that would line up, I think.

I think Orange are taking the opportunity to remedy this disappointment.

It's exciting. It's the kind of writing for female characters in genre media I've always craved. I will not be silenced on how extremely gay I am for Meryl Stryfe.

Unfortunately that means for this first entry, I'll have to talk about Knives. (Whom I also love, but not in a gay way. More an affectionate revulsion. He's fascinatingly horrible, this man.)

So. I've noticed a distressing tendency for Knives's... really almost anything that ever comes out of his mouth (seriously) to be taken as the honest, objective truth. After all, they didn't call him a villain.

And what an honest face he has!

As Knives has it:

Vash is pretty, but he's useless without his brother. He's a powerless, weak, pathetically naïve, blubberingly sentimental little baby who doesn't care about the Plants, too busy enabling humanity's abuse via performing his cringing, grasping abasement before them to notice how his brethren suffer. Knives himself is the more powerful (and much less human-like) of the twins; the strongest and most righteous activist for necessary change now that, sadly despite all good faith attempts at communication, non-violent solutions have failed. He truly has only the best and most altruistic intentions: the freedom of his people, and the happiness of his brother.

Here's the problem. This has always been the problem. Every one of the statements in the paragraph above is false. Except the one about Vash being pretty.

Once more with feeling: They are completely untrue. They are supported by literally nothing. All we have is his word that they're true and there's so much existing evidence to disprove his claims that even the thought of compiling it exhausts me.

However, I did say that Zazie is a truth-teller in this story, didn't I? So let's examine some of Zazie's conclusions.

Now, I've seen reference to the surviving human communities on No Man's Land as "colonisers", and that their treatment of the Plants even before the Fall is analogous to slavery. (My strong suspicion is that Knives is purposefully invoking those comparisons, in fact.) Those are both extremely loaded analogies, culturally and emotionally, and I just want to gently, respectfully caution those who make them against overlooking the more nuanced and purposeful analogies being made. Or maybe should I say, the actual individuals to whom they apply.

Zazie is very careful to say this: Knives told them humans can't be trusted to learn from consuming their home planet. Knives was the one who said humans will have Zazie's planet next, and that only Knives will "use" the Plants correctly - so Zazie should ally with Knives.

Here's what Knives meant by "using the Plants correctly":

I, uh, think Zazie may have made the wrong call on this one! And that Zazie thinks the same.

This is what makes the interaction with Wolfwood so funny and sad - the all-knowing, ostensibly unkillable Zazie is freaking the hell out, staggering under the weight of realising just how apocalyptically badly they have fucked up. Wolfwood, who also directly instigated this disaster but under duress, is grimly amused - he did everything he did fulfilling the contract to protect the kids, even as his conviction failed, even though he would rather have died, even after Livio... and thus he personally rendered all his own efforts and sacrifices moot.

And he's just like, "Heh, yeah. That tracks." This poor boy.

Afterwards, Zazie is confused and even a little saddened that Vash was demonised in the wake of July's destruction. Never let it be said the bug fails to learn from experience: Vash is the one everyone blames? Ah, so he was in fact spectacularly heroic and clever and it's entirely Knives's fault it turned out so badly.

Also, crashing on this specific planet wasn't exactly humanity's choice. Guess whose choice it was.

Go on, guess. Better yet, guess why.

Yeah. It was also Knives who said to Zazie that both he and Vash crashed the ships... trying to stop us. From doing exactly what Knives tried to do the very instant he got the chance.

The thing is, Knives does everything he can to look like he's right by positioning himself as the most authoritative source, but he isn't ever backed up by like... facts. Or evidence. Or reality. Or anything. Ever. He crowned himself king of the Plants. He speaks and acts for them by divine right, apparently. He didn't take a vote or anything - in his mind it's self-evident only he understands the world, and Vash, and the correct way to use the Plants. Because remember that it's not using Plants he gives a damn about, even using them to death in the Last Run, as long it's him doing it. It's being dependent upon humans; he views providing for our basic survival needs as wasteful and inherently, exclusively parasitic, even if we're helping the Plants to survive in turn. Because it's humans that he's frightened of, and he wants the yucky things gone.

The thing is, when he's not being purposefully manipulative (though Vash is the only one he manipulates in person, probably because Vash is the only one he pays enough attention to for his tactics to be effective) he's being a dense fucking idiot. At very few points do his delusions intersect with reality.

The thing is, Knives is a known, proven, and entirely unrepentant liar. It's the logical extension of the way he gaslights Vash. He is in no way a trustworthy source of information.

All that he says is part of a heroic narrative about being the specialest boy evar that he came up with to avoid taking any blame or responsibility for the consequences of his actions. Knives considers himself perfect, but he's made plenty of mistakes, which I do think he would consider mistakes - among them Rem's death, alienating Vash, cutting off his arm and rendering him disabled, and what I suspect to be the large number of Plants killed in the Fall, along with the ones consumed by the Last Run in the desperation that followed.

So he tells himself... little stories. Inside his head. It's how he reconciles it. It's how he copes.

Basically, if you want to find any truth in anything Knives ever says, look closely at what he says, and believe the opposite.

Now, onto my girl and how completely fantastic she is.

Part II

Part III

Part IV

Part V

Part VI

Part VII

Part VIII

Part IX

[chellerbelles]

Batch #8: X-Force expansion, and 3 heroes from the Promos box: Warpath, Multiple Man, and Old Man Logan.

I reckon this lot got the best eyes I've done so far. I'm so happy.

Yay Domino. I'm honestly amazed I manage to get the black spots on her face done right the first time. Which is a relief considering I'd've had to paint over any mistakes with white. Other than the pouches, I'm very happy with how she came out.

I don't like the beige parts on Cannonball. They don't seem quite right to me. But otherwise I'm happy with him.

Cable and his evil clone Stryfe came out just fine. I don't think that the scars over Cable's eye came out very well, but otherwise no complaints.

Shatterstar's just a great big blob of white, isn't he? I think his face looks weird, but how much of that was me and how much was the model, who can say?

Warpath: There had to be one hold out with the eye thing, didn't there. I'm not a fan of these masks they wear, they make painting eyes so much harder. There's some detail in the belt that didn't come out very well either. Disappointing.

Really happy with Multiple Man, except for the yellow bits on his chest.

I'm very happy with how Old Man Logan came out.

[fiercestpurpose]

hi u talked about how jean often gets overlooked as a mother, would u be willing to talk more about it? its really curious to me how scott is often associated with the role of 'father' and his relationships with nathan and rachel, how he 'failed them etc, gets talked about to death but people dont talk about jeans as much. anyways would love to hear what u have to say!

Hi! I really have three main categories of thoughts about this: Jean’s relationship with Rachel, Jean’s relationship with Cable, and Jean’s relationship with the idea of family/her own motherhood.

Jean’s relationship with Rachel is… complicated. First of all, Jean is incredibly important in Rachel’s life, but it’s not always our (616) Jean. Rachel is obviously the biological daughter of another woman, 811 Jean, and that woman raised her and was her mother until she died when Rachel was about 8 (well before the rest of Rachel’s X-Men did). Losing a parent that young is frequently very traumatic and defining, and it certainly was for Rachel, so she develops this relationship that is not so much with Jean as it is with Jean’s death. She comes to the 616 and she learns that Jean is already dead, and she vows to reclaim the name Phoenix and honour her mother’s memory (even though 616 Jean is not really her mother). And then, at least twice during the Cross-Time Caper, Rachel has to watch different universe’s versions of Jean die, trying and failing to save her. So Rachel has this whole relationship with Jean as a concept, with Jean dying and leaving her, before she and 616 Jean ever develop a real relationship with each other.

And sometimes, people (fans and writers both) use Rachel’s preexisting relationship with Jean As A Conceptual Mother as evidence that 616 Jean doesn’t really count as Rachel’s mother. However, 616 Jean and Rachel do have a relationship. It starts with Jean rejecting Rachel, denouncing her because she doesn’t accept the future that Rachel represents and doesn’t want to consider her as her daughter. She later apologizes for this, saying that she shouldn’t have pushed her problems onto Rachel because they weren’t Rachel’s problems to deal with. And we see them hug and make up and it’s clear that they consider each other family.

That relationship, the daughter viewing her mother as a concept more than a person, the mother pushing her problems onto the daughter and trying not to accept the future that she thinks the daughter represents, reads to me as a very believable mother-daughter relationship. The circumstances are a little strange, but the emotions are familiar. Many children have a hard time adjusting to seeing their parents as their own people. Many parents have a hard time recognizing their grown children as being their own people and also their children. It’s a very complex relationship that’s certainly worth exploring, and referencing it only when they want to make a joke of it (as X-Men Gold and All-New X-Men both did) is a sign of writers who are not really invested in the emotional lives of those characters.

Onto Cable! In some ways, Jean’s relationship with him is a lot simpler because he is actually and inarguably her child. To be clear, she’s not his biological mother, and we’re going to put her blood relationship to his biological mother aside because it’s not actually that important. Jean is his mother because she raised him. In X-Factor vol 1, she becomes one of his primary caregivers once his mother is out of the picture, largely because she is dating his father at the time. (I’m not going to get into the whole Sinister-creating-Maddy-to-breed-with-Scott thing or the Maddy-living-in-Jean’s-head thing. It’s messy and it complicates things, but it doesn’t change the basic facts of Jean’s situation.) Jean in X-Factor is a co-parent with a day job, a woman who’s responsible for feeding the baby and changing his diapers and helping teach him how to walk and talk and keeping him safe from harm (that time she takes him into a fight excluded, of course). The first manifestation of baby Christopher’s psychic powers is that he and Jean share a special telepathic bond. It’s hard to tell how long this goes on for (comic timelines are, as always, vague and difficult to pin down), but it’s at least several months.

After Simonson’s run on X-Factor, baby Christopher is removed from the picture by being sent off to the far-future — only to be raised by Slym and Redd, who are, of course, Scott and Jean. As a Scott fan, a Jean fan, and a Scott/Jean fan, I’m always surprised and frustrated by how little The Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix gets referenced. This is years of their lives that they spend raising their son. Specifically, twelve years, which is quite a long time, and means that Cable is probably 13 by the time Slym and Redd have to leave. Redd is the mother that Cable remembers when he grows up. She’s the one who rocks him to sleep, who negotiates with his father about how to properly raise their son, who does everything in her power to protect him while continuing to participate in a secret rebel organization. And the telepathic connection he had to her resurfaces, so that they are able to fight together on the astral plane.

(If you ever want to cry about Scott/Jean or Cable’s childhood or the Summers family in general, I highly recommend The Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix. I will forgive Lobdell any number of crimes because he gave us such an excellent miniseries.)

But she isn’t just there during his childhood. Jean has a relationship with her adult son as well. They work together as X-Men many times, before and after she realizes that he is her son. Of course, there are those incredibly cute panels you may have seen of Scott and Jean and Cable all getting together to celebrate Christmas. And after the defeat of Apocalypse, when Scott is believed to be dead, Jean and Cable become especially close. It is Jean that Cable confides in, sharing with her his feelings, his loss of purpose now that his war is over, how hard it is for him to be vulnerable again. And when Jean thinks Scott is still alive but no one else believes her, Cable is the one who comes with her and helps her bring him back. Unfortunately, post-Search for Cyclops, Morrison comes in, and Morrison has no interest in love or families and does have an interest in killing Jean off to further his ship.

Prime Cable is dead now, of course, so I cannot hope that writers will explore that relationship any further. (EDIT: Oh, yeah, he maybe sort of came back again in a comic last month. Clearly that shocking turn of events made a big impression on me.) I did enjoy getting to see Jean and Hope bond after his death over the love they shared for him, and I can wish that the writers will carry that relationship forward. As for Bable (baby Cable), he’s an angry teenager who experienced the events of The Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix #4 about three or four years ago. He’s angry, he’s upset, he’s lashing out by killing his future self. There could be something really interesting there, in Jean’s relationship with Bable, if they chose to remember that he’s still the kid she raised. Her place as the mother of a rebellious teenager is complicated because he’s both the boy who brought her husband back to life and the boy who killed the adult son that she loved. If writers looked past the soap opera of it all to actually acknowledge the emotions involved, they’d see there was an interesting story there, one that is not just about the Scott/Cable relationship but necessarily involves Jean as well.

I’m sure there are things to be said about Stryfe and Nate Grey, but I honestly do not know or care enough about alternate versions of Cable to really have a coherent picture of Jean’s relationship with them, so I’m gonna skip that.

Next, I want to talk about Jean’s relationship with the concept of family. I would like to mention (as I always do), that Jean’s entire family — her parents, her siblings, and her siblings’ children — were murdered by aliens. How she feels about this is a mystery, as the comics have not addressed it at all, but she might feel guilty, because though it’s not her fault, they were killed because of her. She might also feel guilty because while family in the abstract is very important to her, her relationship with them was strained and she wasn’t as close to them as she’d like to be. She might also feel angry as hell that somebody decided to murder her family despite them doing absolutely nothing to provoke it. Any of those emotional responses would influence how she relates to her children and her granddaughter. Maybe she becomes a little more attached and attentive because she has no other family left. Maybe she distances herself from them out of grief. Maybe she rounds up her incredibly angry son and takes him into the stars to attack aliens so they can be angry together. I think any of those, done properly, could be interesting and in-character for her, and I just want some writer to acknowledge Jean as a character with her own history and her own relationships that shape her actions.

Finally, Jean’s relationship with the concept of her own motherhood. Jean is someone who wanted and expected to be a mother. I usually tend to read Jean as coming from a more traditional and conservative family, but I don’t think that’s an adequate explanation. I think Jean genuinely wants children. In X-Factor, she says, “I always thought we’d have a girl,” when talking to Scott, showing that she had thought about children being part of their future. When she talks to Rachel about her upcoming marriage to Scott, she mentions that she thinks it likely that another Rachel will be born. She wants kids, she’s seen them as part of her future for a long time, and then she got them! She got to be a mother, to Nathan Christopher and to Rachel, as explained above. I think a woman who wanted to be a mother and now is a mother should be allowed to have real relationships with her children. This isn’t like Emma, whose distance from the Cuckoos can be read as her viewing herself more as their teacher than their mother, since Emma always understands herself as a teacher. When Jean holds a baby in X-Men Red and winks at the mother and tells her that she’s implanted a psychic suggestion he not cry so much, that’s because Jean has been responsible for a baby before. Being a mother is part of who Jean is, just like it’s part of who Jubilee is or who Sue is, and I wish that writers and fans understood that.

[deathpacito]

merynger​:

punisheye​:​

It’s admirable how Livio is handling this. He’s really changed a lot. Wolfwood gnaws on the blunt nail of his thumb as the other man speaks, his eyes flickering between him and Meryl. He really wishes he had his cigarettes on him, but it’s not safe to smoke outside and Meryl would probably slap the shit out of him if he tried inside. His mouth is itching.

Both brows raise when he hears ‘the dead need to stay dead’, and he considers making a comment about it, but he thinks about himself and how these seem to be… totally different cases.

Not like he showed up here covered in blood and bullet holes with a ruptured heart. These things are walking around with the wounds they died from. They’re not alive.

“Yeah, they’ll stay dead. I had to mow down a few that got into Spikey’s place— 'n’ the other pair that chased me 'n’ Liv here.”

Wolfwood glances at the pistol that Livio handed her.

“Have you even held a gun before?”

And then, to Livio, “You think I’m really 'bout to let ya just run off on yer own? Yer jokin’.”

@merynger

➥ Meryl lets out a tiny Eep as Livio pulls, of all things, a handgun from his bag to give to her. She double-checks the safety’s on and promptly places it out of her hands on the side table. “I’ve done safety training,” she tells Wolfwood, feeling vaguely nauseous at the reality of the situation. “My dad took me to a range a few times. But it’s been a while.” She’ll take it if they have to leave her condo, but frankly, while they’re here — she scampers off the sofa and heads for her room, grabbing the baseball bat tucked between her bed and nightstand. It’s sturdy enough — and practically half her size — but most importantly she feels far more comfortable holding it than the gun. “Backup?”

The idea of just Livio leaving makes her wince. He certainly looks capable enough, but… “I don’t think any of us should go anywhere alone.” But she’s also got no idea how to get all of them in one place. Her Wolfwood’s probably going to be completely obstinate if he’s already decided he’s finding Vash, and both Vashes are probably trying to fix everything by themselves… “We don’t even know where he is yet.”

@deathpacito

He’s not sure if the baseball bat will do more than a gun (it won’t...) but if she feels safer, than okay.

“Alright.” A nod. “You got any nails? You know, like--” and Livio mimes a hammer and a nail. That can at least be helpful. He’s also relieved she has some kind of experience. 

And maybe, later, later, Livio will hear what he’d said, and realize what a stupid thing to say it was, but that’s for another day when Razlo feels like bringing it up. Right now, the others are in danger. 

“We don’t, but I’ll track ‘em down. I do think I’ll go out there alone-- I know it--” his eyes hold Wolfwood’s for a moment. “This makes sense, and you know it. They might have a better chance of coming here if you are, Nick. Especially if Miss Stryfe is too.” 

They don’t know him as well, mostly, but he’ll cross that bridge when he gets there. He can be persuasive.....with tHESE HANDS. 

“We can’t all go.”

@punisheye​