TriMax 8 Chapter 2

[tiggymalvern]

Chapter Two - Silent Ruin


Sumire's back with me for this one, but Nightow has made changes.

Page 41 (Sumire's p131). Knives stands on the Ark as before, remembering Vash's words, but the dialogue's been edited for the tankubon. "Knives!!! Don't repeat the same mistakes." (Then "Who alone... it isn't coming back!"? Confusion from me on that line - is he saying that one person can't fix everything?) Knives has his line about this reality being warped, then, "Now, in this moment, I'm just rescuing our imprisoned people. If that results in the death of the imperfect beings..."


Pages 42-3. "...after all, it's been said they're a limited species(?)." (Interesting that Nightow has really toned Knives down here, made him more sympathetic - Knives is actually taking the trouble to justify to himself what he's about to do. Seems like Vash can still get through a little.)
Then we're back with Sumire with Livio standing among the dead soldiers, and Wolfwood commenting that he's changed.


Chapel's dialogue on p45 (135) has been amended slightly, or Sumire translated fairly loosely, but the gist is much the same.

Page 46 (Sumire's p136). Chapel finally baits Wolfwood into attacking him, but Livio stands between them. Wolfwood appeals to Livio, but Chapel says Livio can't betray him (seems he learned his lesson after Wolfwood....).


Pages 48-9. Knives launches himself from the top of the Ark, shedding his cloak as he falls, and Vash screams out, "KNIIIIIVES!"


The rest follows Sumire's translation, as the military finally cross the bridge-less gorge to the town near Knives' now abandoned hide-out.

Page 56 (Sumire's p146). The place is full of reeking corpses. There's narration here that isn't in Sumire's version, explaining that everyone died of hunger and thirst. They'd even started eating one another (I kind of hope I'm translating that wrong, but it's Nightow, so I'm probably not!)


Page 57. The Plant Bulbs are all shattered.


Page 59. And we see all the Plant Angels flying upwards to meet the falling Knives.


Page 60. Knives and the Plants all merge.


Page 62 (Sumire's p152). That is an awful lot of Plants Knives has collected. Doesn't look like their conditions are much better than when they were in the Bulbs, really, does it?


Page 64. Elendira fends off the military's attacks on the Ark. Legato, the imprisoned Vash and the battle of wills.


Page 65. Zazie and her sandworms watch as more of the planet goes to hell. Wolfwood depressed and frustrated.


Page 67 (Sumire's p157, though the last section of narration from her p156 is now here). What little semblance of law and order the planet had collapses.


There are a couple of extra pages added with more images of death and doom-and-gloom narration just to press the point home a bit more. Empty desert and skeletons - 'The world dried up. That situation was surprisingly peaceful.' Everything returning to how it was 150 years ago when the humans first fell.

Page 72 (Sumire's p160). Seven months later, Meryl and Milly arrive at the Seeds ship and are greeted by Luida.


And the final slide of Trigun into unrelenting misery is here....

Comments

[yma2.livejournal.com]

Ooooh, talk about DARK! Is the Seven Months later AFTER Knives has done his falling thing? That's a LONG time when you think about it. I wonder what they were up to in that time? Mmm...
Thanks for this again!

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

Is the Seven Months later AFTER Knives has done his falling thing?

Yeah. The timeline's doing a bit of skipping back and forth here - I guess Nightow thought it would get dull if each scene was just told linearly and uninterrupted. But basically Knives took a dive not long after the Ark launched, and collected all the Plants from nearby. During that seven months, the Ark's been flying around the planet gathering more Plants from more cities, and everybody dies without them.

It's a hell of a long time for Vash to spend in a cell with Legato in his head, which can hardly be ranked as one of life's pleasant experiences. And who knows what Wolfwood's been up to? Apart from feeling completely useless....

[yma2.livejournal.com]

Wow... seven months in a cell with Legato... I'll be damned if there isn't a fic in there somewhere. And what about Wolfwood? The poor priest is stuck in a stand-off with Chapel. I mean... you'd think he'd get muscle cramp or something... :)
But seriously, why the feck hasnt' he gone to help Vash or... something.
Meh. It makes sense but still... I'd like to see some fic about what was happening to Vash in that seven months. But then maybe that's just me being warped and insane.

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

The end of that little reunion between Wolfwood, Chapel and Livio is something of an intriguing mystery. I don't imagine he stuck with them any longer than he had to, though.

But seriously, why the feck hasnt' he gone to help Vash or... something.

It's got to be kind of hard when Vash is on board the big flying thing. I don't think Wolfwood got much training in spaceships. Cut the poor guy some slack!

I'd like to see some fic about what was happening to Vash in that seven months.

I think what you see is what you get. At the end of the seven months, Vash is in the exact same cell with Legato still sitting outside, and they're still having a staring match. Telepathic stalemate must be hugely tiresome.

[yma2.livejournal.com]

The Missing Seven Month Fic!

Vash: ::stare::
Legato: ::Stare::
Vash: ::stare::
Leago ::stare::
Vash ::stare::
Legato: ::stare::
Vash: 'Um... I think I need to go pee...
Legato: ...

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

I want to know when Legato sleeps, 'cos I'm betting Vash can hold out longer than a human on that score. Though it is possible to assume a way round that one, given what we see Legato do later.

[sara-tsuzuki.livejournal.com]

All is in big mess now...I think Wolfwood was angry and sad all the time, but maybe was impossible to rescue Vash. And he waits for a better moment to make a move on Vash .
*Uuups, that sounds weirdo?* >__

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

And he waits for a better moment to make a move on Vash.

Sounds perfectly reasonable to me XD

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

Well, Legato's outside the cell rather than in it - he's not that stupid!

Wolfwood must be having a pretty miserable time of it. Being helpless without a workable plan isn't his style at all.

And no, we never (so far) see a male Plant except for the twins. Maybe Nightow will get around to explaining that one. Maybe.

[ravenclaw42.livejournal.com]

I've basically spent the last few days reading every bit of your stuff since volume 5, not to mention all of your VxW fic, and... well... I love you.

*gets down on hands and knees and worships*

Hehe. ^_^. Anyway, foot-kissing aside, I am so utterly intruiged by the story! As everyone else has already said, there's more fic potential than you can shake a stick at in that telepathic stare-down. And the fact that Knives still feels the need to justify himself to Vash feeds my fic muse perfectly. Knives still cares how Vash sees him -- there's still an opening for communication there, though not by much.

*is slightly confused by the skipping timeline* So if I'm following this right, Milly and Meryl just spent seven months out there in the hell the world's reverted to, by themselves? Suddenly I'm feeling a lot more for the girls. And fic ideas are spawning. *stomps on them* Dammit, not when I need to be writing EtE.

I've rambled enough, just thought I'd jump in on a high (or I guess low, in the case of the story) note.
*anxiously waiting for more*
-Rave

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

Knives does still care about Vash - in a 'I'm going to lock you away in a dungeon now' kind of way that really doesn't appeal to me! Or to Vash, I imagine XD. If you were to ask him, Knives would insist he loves his brother, but damn, that's a weird way of going about it.

Yep, Meryl and Milly have obviously been doing their own thing for a while. Those girls are pretty tough. Meryl in the manga is all kick-ass practical, which makes me curse all the more whenever I go back to the anime and see a stupid romantic with no idea how the world really works. Ack. And while manga Milly has her fuzzy moments, she's not the childish woman the anime so often made of her. ::sigh::

[stickmarionette.livejournal.com]

...man, the sheer glorious angsty-ness of it all.

How was Vash still remotely sane after seven months of Legato poking around in his head? Or, for the matter, how did Wolfwood not go mad from his helplessness?

Their lives really, really, suck sometimes.

Thank you as always for bringing the pretty to us the manga-deprived. ^_^

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

How was Vash still remotely sane after seven months of Legato poking around in his head?

Yeah, that was my first question too! I mean, of all the people to have in your brain ::cringe:: He does look like shit at the end of it, I'll grant you, but he's got to be pretty resilient!

*nervously pokes*

[millyfan.livejournal.com]

I added you because I want to see these scan posts appear on my FL as they are made. I'm sorry if that's wanky or anything, and if it is, I'll remove you again, and you don't ever have to add me back.

*runs away*

Re: *nervously pokes*

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

My friending policy's in the user info - anyone can friend me, I friend back if I want to read your stuff. If your LJ's mainly personal stuff or fandoms/ships I'm not into, I often don't. Anyone who wants to can come here to read the public stuff; that's what it's there for.

Re: *nervously pokes*

[millyfan.livejournal.com]

I saw the policy, but I wondered if I, being who I am, was a special case. I could understand it if I was. I even hate myself for it. *shrugs* Thanks very much for letting me add you. ^_^

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

Given how bug ugly Nightow's artwork used to be right back at the start of Trigun, his artistic style by now can be really impressive! He has a real sense of composition in some of these pages, and there are so many more of them, most making one hell of an impression without any words at all.

Nightow is brilliant with the emotional stuff. Well, it sure as hell works on me, anyway!

I agree with you on Livio - Nightow does seem to reuse his character designs a bit. That girl in Gungrave was very much Meryl with light hair. And as for the thomases in Gungrave, I never did figure out what they were doing there!

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

Nightow hits all sort of emotional buttons without being manipulative in that cheap tear-jerker way.

Exactly. Cliched tricks just don't work on me (Wolfwood's long, drawn-out repenting-in-a-church death left me utterly cold in the anime, and wondering when the hell he was gonna shut up and die already), but Nightow has made me sob buckets over the manga because he knows how to make an impression through subtlety. I worship that.

Someone told me there's something about SEEDS in the Gungrave game

I don't know anything about the game, beyond hearing that it wasn't very good! :-(

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

Someone else feels that way about the death-in-a-church scene!

From discussions I've had with other people, quite a few someones do. Or maybe I just acquire extremely tasteful friends XD.

The anime really does go the melodrama route - it's all extremes and over-reaction, with nobody ever really willing to stop and think and be practical. The anime grabbed my interest enough to prod me into looking up the manga, but if the anime were all there was I'd have wandered off into another fandom long ago.

I've only seen the first 17 episodes.

I asusme you don't have too many hopes pinned on a happy ending... XD

[tiggymalvern.livejournal.com]

I still like the anime - okay, most of it. There are a few eps I just never watch. But the anime annoys me on a certain level, because its existence means that the manga will now never be animated properly, and I can't tell you how much I'd love to see a faithful adaptation. But it won't happen.

I agree, I can't see how Vash can have lived the way he has for so long and not have adapted his views. He's obviously deliberately ignoring reality, and that's not a trait I can admire.