something. about. the horror of being sent on an impossible (death) quest and obligations and hospitality politics. the trauma of not having a home, and then the trauma of being in a house that becomes actively hostile to you, one that would swallow you whole and spit out your bones if you step out of line. all of this is conditional, your existence continues to be something men want gone.
it's about going back as far as I can with the perseus narrative because there's always a version of a myth that exists behind the one that survives. the missing pieces are clearly defined, but the oldest recorded version of it isn't there! and there's probably something older before that!! but it's doomed to forever be an unfilled space, clearly defined by an outline of something that was there and continues to be there in it's absence.
and love. it's also about love. even when you had nothing, you had love.
on the opposite side of the spectrum, this is Not About Ovid Or Roman-Renaissance Reception, Depictions And Discourses On The Perseus Narrative.
edit: to add to the above, while it's not about Ovid, because I'm specifically trying to peel things back to the oldest version of this story, Ovid is fine. alterations on the Perseus myth that give more attention Medusa predate Ovid by several centuries. this comic is also not about those, either! there are many versions of this story from the ancient world. there is not one singular True or Better version, they're all saying something.
Perseus, Daniel Ogden
Anthology of Classical Myth: Primary Sources in Translation, edited & translated by Stephen M Trzaskoma, R. Scott Smith, Stephen Brunet
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man something about the way bruce speaks as a ghost fucking DESTROYS me. he sounds significantly more flat, more subdued, more gone than any of the others, even those who’d been there longer than him. he speaks so monotonously, his inflection hardly ever changes and when it does it really isn’t by much. he repeats himself more frequently, takes long pauses between sentences, like he’s struggling to even finish a thought. he doesn’t show up on screen, which of course is mostly a choice made for pacing and such, but it still says something about how we’re supposed to interpret his character postmortem i think.
and it’s not like this is all just a side effect of the whole death thing. the others who’d been there longer didn’t develop the same mannerisms to the degree that he did, if not complete opposite ones. there was something specifically about bruce — in his personality, his trauma response, his experience, maybe even the specific cause or circumstance of his death — that caused it. that detached, almost spacey way of speaking and thinking is unique to him.
of course i think that’s all intentional to really fuck with the audience by making the nice popular boy with a generally sunny disposition near completely stripped of all that energy and vibrance after having been through some of the the worst things that can happen to a child and FUCK YOU IT WORKED
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Home - Vash
hm are any of us surprised i churned this out at 1 am because i binged this show and couldn’t sleep? no? me neither
Anyway, *SPOILERS* ahead for Trigun Stampede (I’d say if you’ve seen episode 8 you’re safe), but nothing too crazy. This takes place in one of the random 150 years of Vash’s adventures. Enjoy Vash finding out he’s allergic to lavender and being the best boy ☺️
Also, sorry if some of these characters don’t act very canon. I’ve only seen Trigun Stampede and not the original or the manga and thus am kinda guesstimating how these characters would act in this scenario
Vash hasn’t visited Home in nearly twenty years. Even though time doesn't really have any meaning to him, it does to the people he cares about, so he can’t help but feel a little guilty as he approaches the ship. He knows he should come by more often to visit, and that Brad and Luida and the rest of the Home team would love to see him, but he can’t help but feel like a burden every time he does.
His cybernetic arm is hanging by little more than a thread, torn apart in a recent brawl over yet another plant that he’d only narrowly managed save. He’s exhausted. His arm hangs uselessly at his side, only jolting with the occasional shocking twitch.
To his luck, Brad and Luida are out of cryosleep and both wrap him up in a warm embrace as he walks through the ship’s doors, nearly sweeping him off his feet.
“Vash!” They both cry. Warmth spreads through Vash’s chest as Brad ruffles his hair and Luida buries her face in his shoulder. He remembers the days when he used to look up at them as a child, but now he towers over them.
“How have you been? Are you all right? We were hoping to see you this time when we woke up,” Luida says. She looks older, maybe in her late 40s now, and Brad looks about the same. Their hair is beginning to become streaked with white, and deep wrinkles have already set across their faces. It’s part of the reason he hates coming back here, to see them getting older while he stays eternally young.
“I’m okay, I missed you both. Have you been well?” Even though his arm is killing him, he doesn’t want to bring it up yet. He’s too wrapped up in the feeling of being welcomed home and seeing friendly faces, seeing the pride and affection and love in their eyes. If only he could bottle up this feeling and take it with him.
“Yes, we’ve been— Christ, Vash, what’ve you done to your arm this time?” Brad finally takes notice when a spark of electricity spikes off his arm. He gently picks up the appendage, turning it over in his hands with a practised grace.
“Ah-ha, well, about that…” He grins sheepishly, cheeks burning red as he scratches the back of his head. “I saved the hand this time, though!”
Brad rolls his eyes and starts walking towards his room, waving him along. “C’mon, I’ve got my tools in your room, as usual. Luida, we’ll be done in time for dinner.”
“Don’t take too long! I want to catch up with Vash too!” Luida calls after them. Vash turns to give her a beaming smile and a wave goodbye before following Brad down the hall.
It feels so good to be Home.
A couple of hours later and lots of admonishing from Brad, Vash’s arm is beginning to regain feeling again.
“You should go out into the garden and see the new flora that Luida has been working on,” Brad tells him as he’s bent over his forearm. He’s just putting on the last of the stabilising touches to make it “Vash-proof”, as he calls it.
“There’s this new one called lavender. It’s got a long, thin stem and purple bunches of petals at the top. The humans on Earth used to use it for its calming effects. Smells great too. Go check it out, but make sure you’re back in time for dinner.”
One more flourish with welding tool, and he’s done. Brad pushes himself out of the chair, swiping his palms together. “And take better care of that arm!”
Vash chuckles, flexing his left hand. The joints feel better already. “Thank you, Brad. I’ll go take a look.”
He slides into his coat and follows Brad out of the room before making his own way down to the garden. The path is so familiar to him, he could do it with his eyes closed.
The garden looks gorgeous as it always has. It’s sunset now, creating a golden, rose-tinted shadow across the flora. He walks down the stone path, taking note of the new blue flora popping up, a new tree that's grown, before he finds the lavender that Brad had been speaking about.
Huh, Vash hadn’t expected it to look like that. It looks more like a bush or a tumbleweed than an actual flower. He bends down to get a closer look.
The purple petals are so stunning that he almost doesn’t notice the itch blossoming in his nose. He reaches his hand out to touch the stem, then feels the soft petals with the pad of his finger. Ah, that’s the scent that Brad mentioned. He loves it. It smells light and clean.
He rubs at his nose as he bends closer to the plant. He doesn’t dare break off a stem to get it closer to his face, so instead he crouches into a squat to lean forward and smell it.
It does feel calming. Vash can see why the humans on Earth liked it so much. Craving more, he inhales deeply through his nose just as the itch becomes too much to bear—
“Hih’iTSHhh! Hh.. H’TSCHhh!” The two sneezes catch him by surprise. He has to catch himself on the ground to avoid losing his balance.
Shaking his head, he sniffles and paws at his nose, which is beginning to take on a pink flush. How strange, he thinks. Must be something in the air. Usually only dust and the desert sand makes him sneeze, but there’s none of that in here.
He wants to sniff the lavender again and reaches out to feel the petals, but the itch has buried itself deeper in his nose. His breath catches in his chest, his aquamarine eyes slipping shut as his lips draw back over his teeth—
“H’TSH’itsch! Hh.. hihh— h’ITSCHhh’ue! Hh’eHTSSHhh’iu!” The last sneeze is so forceful that it makes him lose his balance. He falls back on his ass and tumbles flat on his back. His glasses are askew on his pink, irritated nose. Allergic tears fill his eyes as he stares up at the rose sunset sky.
Can he be allergic to flora? Or perhaps it’s this one in particular? He’s never had such a reaction to flora before, even in Rem’s garden.
Vash sniffles and rubs at his nose, which has now started to run. Instead of abating the itch, it only serves to set him off again— “H’ITSHhhiew! Haah.. heh-hh! H’ihdTSShh!”
It must be the lavender that's causing this. He can’t help but feel a bit sad, because he had really liked the scent of the lavender. Maybe Luida will have some medicine to offset the symptoms.
He lays there on the ground for a while, staring up at the sky, feeling a swirl of melancholy and happiness in his chest. Those two emotions seem to be the familiar, funny feeling that he always carries with him, even when he's back on the ship.
He stays there, sneezing occasionally and sniffling, until Luida calls for him for dinner. She chides at him for laying on the ground and says he’ll catch a cold like that, which makes him grin. He lets her shoo him inside and down the corridor towards the dining hall. Vash can’t help but revel in the tenderness he feels at her gentle reprimands, the way she fixes his hair or dusts off his coat or gives him one last hug before they enter the dining hall, because it all feels like Home.
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