I Can't Believe We Finally Get Closure On Them After Ten (well, More Like Eleven) Fucking Years

g*d i love drawing laphos

WHAT!!!!

You knever know how ignorant the media is until they fuck up something you know about

Zacharie! I like giving him the bloated weird neck, I think OFF characters should be at least a bit grotesque.

ALL* content warnings for trigun and trimax

my boyfriend and i have been compiling a warning list for trigun and trimax for anyone interested in starting the series, especially those finding the series through the trigun bookclub (over @trigunbookclub ) . it's taken quite a bit of work and im proud to turn it loose :]

i've tried to keep these as spoiler-free as possible for any new readers. while i read both the official dark horse translation as well as the @trigun-manga-overhaul translation, ill be using the overhaul translation by and large for clarity (and because im biased, and prefer the overhaul, and please go support their work). if you're using a different translation, please note that chapter titles and the language used will be different.

general warnings for TRIGUN are: frequent abuse of alcohol; frequent loss of autonomy, ie people being forced to do things against their will; passive suicidality; body horror; gun violence and corrupt authorities typical of the wild west genre; assume lots of blood and heaps of shooting. more specific warnings will be under the cut.

[Vol 1, Ch 01, "The $$60 Billion Double Dollar Man"] misogyny, sexual harassment towards women. [Vol 1, Ch 03, "Hard Puncher"] nondescript facial injury. [Vol 1, Ch 04, "Bang! Bang!"] heavy drinking. a child lies about their aunt being abusive and their uncle being a pedophile. [Vol 1, Ch 05, "Assault"] character is drugged. [Vol 1, Ch 06,"Die Hards"] character chokes a child, tosses child across room, and then rams a gun against their teeth. character almost pulls the trigger. [Vol 1, Ch 07, "Rem"] harm to a child. [Vol 1, Ch 08, "Duelists"] harm to a child. [Vol 1, Ch 09, "Between Wasteland and Sky"] harm to a child. organs are rendered. child is burned. [Vol 1, Ch 10, "Little Arcadia"] the arcadia arc centers around a conflict between a parent and their child. [Vol 1, Ch 11, "Son"] implied death of a child.

[Vol 2, Ch 01, "Blood and Thunder"] implied intent to harm a child. implied decapitation. [Vol 2, Ch 02, "Diablo"] someone is grabbed by the neck. [Vol 2, Ch 03, "Fragile"] character's arm is shot off. nondescript eye trauma. [Vol 2, Ch 04, "Scars"] character is heavily scarred. impaling. character is shown crucified with missing limbs. [Vol 2, Ch 05, "Murder Cafe"] loss of autonomy. women are enslaved. rape implied in text. misogynistic language. character is made to rip their heart out. organs rendered. copious amounts of blood. [Vol 2, Ch 06, "A Gathering of Demons"] copious amounts of blood. [Vol 2, Ch 07, "Demon's Eye"] copious amounts of blood. instance of vash misogyny where he jokes about groping someone. [Vol 2, Ch 08, "Fifth Moon"] character is shown to commit suicide, though their death isn't visualized. birthing scene. character is shown being mangled in a bloodless manner. loss of autonomy. character shoots themself to escape someone. [Vol 2, Extra, "Day In, Day Out"] narrowly avoided vehicular accident. misogynistic language. [Vol 2, Extra, "TRIGUN Pilot"] instance of vash misogyny where he upskirts a girl. facial gore.

anyways so i am back to life

red phobia

Tomorrow when the farm boys find this freak of nature, they will wrap his body in newspaper and carry him to the museum. 

 But tonight he is alive and in the north field with his mother. It is a perfect summer evening: the moon rising over the orchard, the wind in the grass. And as he stares into the sky, there are twice as many stars as usual.

Two-Headed Calf, by Laura Gilpin

Also partially inspired by Bloodborne

Absolutely incredible

Imagine making a movie with a budget of $25 million and making $130 million internationally during the first weekend while your movie is also on streaming!

So proud of Blumhouse and everyone who worked on this movie, I’m wholeheartedly looking forward to the sequels!

where the hell do i start learning about all this aaravos, child queen (??? the kid who locked him away? am i mistaking her for someone else?), elarion, deep tdp lore and timeline type stuff? it seems like there's so much and i have not kept track of any of it, and now im curious

So a lot of it has come from either 1) interviews over the years, 2) fans obsessively analyzing info from the show itself, and 3) Tales of Xadia (TDP's RRPG game) or the season novelizations (just one and two out now) providing extra information and lore hints. But here's the like, brief run-down?

Disclaimer: I may misremember some things and/or the show hasn't been Super clear on some of these things, exactly, on purpose, so the timeline (especially of very early events) is subject to change.

Startouch elves, humans, dragons, etc. all lived together in Xadia as one land. Humans weren't born with magic; the Startouch elves (also called First Elves, which seems distinct from Primal elves, although we don't know why) especially disapproved of the idea of giving them magic. A unicorn - one of the few creatures also connected to the Star arcanum - gave some humans primal stones and taught them draconic. It is implied that some people(s), although we don't know who, didn't like that very much.

We don't know why or when, precisely, but Aaravos was cast down to earth. He may have already been helping humans or 'overly sympathetic' to them, or perhaps working with the unicorns to help them. We don't know.

Presumably after all this, the human settlement of Elarion was growing as a city. We actually see it mentioned by name in the flashback from 3x01 between Sol Regem (king of the Dragons at the time, it seems) and Ziard, who appears to be the first real human dark mage (but that's just speculation). His staff is a gift from one of the Great Ones, another name for the Startouch elves, and we know this gift giver to be Aaravos.

We know that Aaravos is also entwined with Elarion further because of the poem revealed in 2x08, written in Arabic that fans translated back in like, 2019ish? TDP Official later fully released the translated poem, called The Midnight Star. It seems to recount some sort of exchange of Aaravos giving the city of Elarion - or a person - what seems to be dark magic, but the language is too poetic to be fully clear.

We know that dark magic is probably what made humans turn away from becoming primal mages (as Ezran confirms that Callum is the first primal human mage in centuries, not ever, in S4). It may have been Aaravos' influence or their own inclinations. We don't know.

Dark mages accordingly later hunted down basically all the unicorns; this is one of the reasons humans were exiled to the West and the continent was split in two. We also know, thanks to some promo art released in the lead-up to S4, that Ziard was very much a pawn to Aaravos, same as the other human mages he's used. Originally humans were going to be murdered, but a daughter of a Moonshadow leader argued for an exile; this was a 'Merciful Compromise' under the leadership of the Dragon Monarch at the time, Luna Tenebris, who took over after Sol Regem was blinded by Ziard or otherwise seen as unfit to rule. (We see her mentioned in the S4 flashbacks regarding the draconic succession crisis, so I won't go into too much there! We also just know very little about her.)

But finally, we're at the turning point for the narrative, marked definitively 1,000 years ago when Xadia was split in two and the Breach was formed. About 700 years later (or 300 before the start of the show) we get the Orphan Queen. She is Harrow and Ezran's ancestor and the start of their royal line. In the events that likely led to her becoming queen of Katolis, she travelled to Xadia and revealed Aaravos' schemes to the Arch-dragons.

She also kept Aaravos' rune cube, also known as the Key of Aaravos, safe and passed it down to her descendants (Harrow and now Callum) although information has been lost on what it precisely unlocks and how it works. We know the human she's depicted with in the flashback was also a mage known only as the Jailor.

Here's where it gets Messy:

Specifically: when did Aaravos' chest piece get taken, if it is a physical piece he lost and then had, rather than something that flickers in and out per magical usage? (After all, it glows fully when channelling magic through Viren in 2x09, but there is every implication that Star gems called Quasar Diamonds do come from Star touch elves directly thanks to past concept art. Diamonds in real life ancient mythological times were also often seen as Fallen stars and tears of the gods, which would also line up.)

In the textbook's depiction here, he doesn't have it, and this seems to predate the Fall of Elarion and exile, although that's still speculative. (After all, he could've been 'helping' humans in their eyes after the fall, and this is where the art comes from; if he was planning on letting humans strike a blow against Xadia, that'd easily constitute the treachery Zubeia describes in 4x04, in her eyes at least).

However, in the flashback we get to the actual Exile, and in 1x01 no less, Aaravos has his crown (whose diamond pattern matches the ones often found on Katolis' clothing, including the princes) and his chest piece fully.

So like - which Is it?

We don't know.

So as you can see, there's a lot of lore, a lot we don't know, and a shit ton of speculation. Other places to start if you are interested:

Aaravos' short stories including: Birthday story, Patience, Ripples

Tales of Xadia tag

Deep Lore Dive tag

Orphan Queen tag

Elarion tag

Worldbuilding tag

Quasar Diamonds tag + more about the diamond pattern & repeated heraldry

Hope this helps & feel free to send in any more questions! <3 If you're really interested in all the lore and stuff I'd recommend Tales of Xadia for sure - the stuff about Star dragons is worth the price alone imo, they're so freaking cool (and one of them is even on S4's star chart map for the intros!)