itsjonga

[itsjonga]

Mushrooom Huuuntiiiiinnngggggg

[itsjonga]

whatever. go my apex hunt down my adversaries

[itsjonga]

Rey Dau (レ・ダウ)

My favorite monster of Wilds so I needed to do a proper fanart to this majestic creature

[itsjonga]

why houseki no kuni is important

the contemporary train of thought, to nobody's surprise, is highly existentialist. more than that, it is an eternally reverberating set of waves spawned by individuals whose thoughts swing back and forth like broken pendulums swinging between ephemeral states of positivity and eternal states of negativity. everybody wants to emulate themselves as happier than they are, despite constantly self sabotaging themselves. i always think back to houseki no kuni whenever i see these sorts of thoughts manifest in any space, be it in the comments of a tiktok, a conversation with a friend, listening to a random youtube video, and frankly present in just the implications of really anything postmodern. this sense of dread permeates through everything that we exist within, and it is easier said than done to dispel it.

houseki no kuni is a dark fantasy work that centers around gems, a species with an extremely small population that inhabit a large island, where they simply focus on surviving through their relatively long lifespans. the plot is significantly pushed forth by invasions from an extraterrestrial species known as the lunarians. the work is a beautiful look into what exactly constitutes the incredible breadth of emotions experienced by individuals, as well as a retrospective on finding meaning and understanding what to make of our inherent goals and the relationships and connection-dependent bonds that make up the human conditions. this work will contain spoilers for houseki no kuni's ending and i will mostly be discussing it vaguely as a product of the story rather than something akin to an in-depth analysis or even a thematic overview

the reason i bring up the idea of existentialism as a pendulum is that i think houseki no kuni represents this exact pendulum, taken to its utter extremes, where the tragedies and experiences of phosphophyllite seem to reflect how i view my own life. briefly looking at the process of phos as a character, we see that from the very first moment they can recall, all they ever wanted was to be useful to people. they feel this inherent debt towards the people around them, some that are seemingly based in a desire for approval and others that stem from a desire to simply provide unconditionally for those around them. a lot of works look at this sort of dichotomy between self-sacrifice and selfishness, and the possibility that both are not mutually exclusive outcomes, and i think that houseki no kuni is no exception however it applies an interesting perspective to it.

the first thing that we need to understand about phos is that their desire to help others doesn't just come from nowhere. it is a product of the society that they live in, and it is not as if the gems live by rules and implied ideas that are any different than ours. when you judge a member of society, in your own world, i want you to think about what fairly objective metric you would use to determine their worth? while there are a few valid answers, i think most of them would be based on their contributions, or some extension of their character that you think is a net positive on society. in the land of the lustrous (see what i did there), there is a heavy emphasis on survival, and the value of individuals is determined by the qualities that contribute the most to the society (hardness and capability as a fighter seem to be clear determinants of the hierarchy) and if you can't fight, your other methods of contribution, such as rutile's ability to fix the broken gems. as such, phos's desire to contribute, while seemingly based in self-sacrifice is really just a product of their own desire to be acknowledged. but this is not to say that phos is selfish, because they are a genuinely kind gem, and while we see several gems that maintain this order, contribute and are self-sacrificing in similar manners, a lot of them do it out of self-preservation, whereas phos has a desire to simply just help. they want to feel as if they're a part of the greater society

part of what makes this idea of self-sacrifice inherently disagreeable and difficult to extend to a lot of people's individual lives is exactly that they feel highly individualistic. in a world where there is everybody (8 billion is not a small number) people are inclined to think that there is only them that matters. even if we consider that there are a special few that we let into our lives and view as special, oftentimes these bonds are crude and inevitable to be broken in the pursuit of oneself ultimately the plague of individualism is exactly what separates people from the ability to unconditionally view their lives in service of others as an ouroborostic ideal, where the fulfillment of ones self stems from the fulfillment of others.

the subsequent phases of the story go through phos's increase in strength at the cost of antarcticite's life, coupled with a lot of trauma and an inability to accept the position that they always desired as a fighter. this, coupled with a distrust in kongo leads to phos's deep dive into a desire for the truth, but really it is not truth that they pursue but change because they feel it as their duty, letting it usurp and become them, as the pressure of this duty breaks phos on and on.

as we move through the story, we see phos sacrifice bits and pieces of themself, both metaphorically, and literally, as they attempt to satisfy every goal and every task requested of them, and when it boils down to it, they either are unable to fulfill any of it, or fail at doing so. this slow burn through the story, while essentially exposition, is crafted in such a compelling manner. you can truly feel the disappointment the characters experience in phos, and the disappointment they experience in themselves. this manifests itself ultimately in a destruction of all of phos's ideals that they spawned in with. their shift back to individualism is viewed as a negative thing for a lot of readers, and while the context of the story does a lot of heavylifting for the viewer's frame of mind, there should be no surprise that people tend to scorn individualistic frameworks of thought.

it is not as if ichikawa is inherently disregarding phos's pursuit of the truth as a bad thing, but i think the idea that you should do it entirely by yourself is something that Ichikawa considers self-destructive, which i think is the main idea behind everything up until chapter 80ish, where phos decides to make kongo pray. this is where the rest of the story funnels into its big sacrifice for phos. the big twist, where phos is left with nothing but themself for 10000 years. over this time, phos has tons to reflect on everything that the gems did to betray their trust and good will, and despite all of this, phos still decides to pray. following this, phos even sacrifices themself finally.

i don't want to talk at length about this portion of houseki no kuni for a couple of reasons. one is that there are tons of incredibly intelligent and perceptive people that have written about phos's prayer, and shared their perspectives, the good and the bad about it, and i find my thoughts to be nothing unique and mostly a reflection of the general consensus. what i do want to touch on, is ichikawa's final thoughts. what happens after the prayer?

first thing to point out is phos's very obvious realization. they sacrificed everything when all they really wanted was to be loved. they desired change, truth, love, but never really did anything to satisfy their own craving for love, just missions that they hoped would serve as a means to that end.

phos ends up finding a new species, new people to love and people that love them. and they live out their happy years until the sun comes to envelope them. phos feels committed to their duty and decides to stay back to sacrifice themself to the sun, and this ultimate act of self-sacrifice is i think what has brought me to the core of houseki no kuni

it was one of the most raw, and rough endings of all time, and it was filled with moments that were hard to really rationalize, and an unusual explanation of a lot of the things that were inherent to the story, but in the end, all that was left was phosphophyllite

and phosphophyllite was light... really light... there was really nothing left of them besides their goal. when everything was fully erased, that inherent desire never truly left, and so they hope they can brighten someone's day.

people feel so often that they have no purpose, and that they cannot feel loved by anyone, and yet they will never acknowledge their inherent need to love, and their inherent need to acknowledge their purpose. repressing and burdening yourself over the years with all of these thoughts, only for the most fleeting, light, and authentic portion of yourself to still yearn for you to maybe get yourself out of the passenger seat and drive it yourself. the desire to be loved is not one that can be enacted passively, and the desire for purpose is not something that can be enacted actively. to be loved and to love, and to act for your purpose, and act as a means to your purpose. houseki no kuni reminds you what exactly to pursue.

[itsjonga]

[itsjonga]

dungeon meshi ah dungeon meshi

[itsjonga]

Belgian Miku.......... 🖤💛❤️

Hopped on the miku train on twitter...Lots of little references to Belgium in here :~)

[itsjonga]

florida hatsun miku i do not mkae the rules

[itsjonga]

[Fig. 01 Mikuchondria]

The powerhouse of YOUR cell

[itsjonga]

ts pmo

in the process of reading Elizabeth Barrett Browning's sonnets on love, I think I'm incapable of writing anything that scales more than half the page

[itsjonga]

[itsjonga]

Rey Dau

[itsjonga]

[itsjonga]

Danse Macabre & Danse Mystique

(prints here)

[itsjonga]

smokin the shit that makes that conga go lala

[itsjonga]

souvlaki and non-verbal communication

words are a very powerful thing, and carry a lot of meanings, but i believe that they are also a reductive means of communication. a lot of works have considered the ideas of a pure distilled communication, from one brain to another, unified in thought. works such as evangelion, rahxephon explore this idea on a deeper internal consciousness level, while some other works like star trek or sense8 look at a unifying collective will and drive, or the breaking down of personal boundaries through the shared collective experience of life. these shows express this concept as true understanding, but they often take it to the level of a fusing of consciousness, which i think eliminates personal expression and identity. i think it is fundamentally interesting, but as a common theme of this blog, it is not practical for people to fuse their consciousness or somehow become completely unified in thought, and as a lot of these works look into, maybe it isn't even ideal for two to become one. our individuality and uniqueness and our ability to come together and coalesce as one is what enhances the human condition, rather than to eliminate ourselves in purpose of a more effective collective.

as such, i want to talk about slowdive, and specifically souvlaki, and how they have embraced this concept of non-verbal communication that feels like a true heart to heart, like a story said without words. I'll roughly go through a few of the album's tracks, highlighting how this idea displays itself through not just the lyrics but the songs as a whole, and how this central idea reflects what the point of souvlaki is.

souvlaki is an album that is centered around the breakup of the band's leading members, neil halstead and rachel goswell, and a lot of the songs discuss the various stages of their relationship, various experiences of not just love, but hate, and the collective whole experience of the two. it often talks about moments shared, and times passed, and uses the ambient elements of a genre like shoegaze to envelop the listener into the experience. the words are only used to express the sentiment and concept of the situation and all of these aspects aggregate and work off each other to bring the viewer into the world of souvlaki. it feels like you are watching a jumbled biography of their relationship play out in your eyes. i remember the first time i watched a slowdive music video i was in awe at how the music video felt like it was exactly what my mind had painted, and i just witnessed as it played out in front of me. the music and the lyrics painted a scenery for me that seemed to be a unified expression and this is in no short part the talent of rachel, neil and other members of slowdive in being able to create a shared vision of an experience. focusing on sonicality and instrumentation in a genre like shoegaze is a bit like beating a dead horse, but i would be remiss to not mention how incredibly well composed every song is, and how it plays right into the lyrics and drastically enhances the experience of souvlaki as a narrative.

looking at individual songs, first up on the podium is alison. alison has been one of my favorite songs of all time and is very comfortably my favorite off of souvlaki. alison plays out as a conversation between two people, where a man is begging for the aforementioned alison to understand that their relationship is a self-dooming prophecy. they are sinking together and he is trying to pull her out, but under the influence of their miasmatic relationship, she laughs it off, and he just gives it all up. there are several interpretations that could work for this song, such as the male being in a trance, or alison being dead, but they all come together to paint the same idea through the song, of a desperate individual trying so hard to break out of this poisonous chamber, but ultimately just being dragged back in. the imagery of a silent alison that is talking, the hallucination brought upon by the pills, and the desperation of the male character solely narrating his desire to break free, only for nobody to really be hearing him cuts deep through the listener. i think this song serves as an example of the disconnect brought about by something like non-verbal communication, as well as how your words and actions can often conflict. despite begging to leave and escape, the male character just sits there side by side with alison, engaging in the same worldview, and while his words reflect one thing, to someone who is not listening, his actions seem like they are indicating that everything is going just fine, as the song concludes on the note of alison simply laughing off his concerns about their sinking ship of a relationship

souvlaki space station is a lot more directly enchanted into the concept of words being paltry. the very first words, "closed doors bring open minds and i don't want to see you" could very well be interpreted as keeping your mouth closed to open a deeper connection. the continuing lines play off of this, with the line "see you smile inside and i don't want to know you" talking about how the visual and non-verbal communication matters more than talking about oneself. the bouncing notes in the music almost replicate the sound of a wavelength, rippling and connecting, as nothing is said but the pendulum of connection fiercely connects the two. the subsequent verse "doors close and feelings flow [...] through my mind i feel his" are another very direct way of showing how non-verbal communication enables people to understand each other more directly.

the last song i'd like to mentions is melon yellow, but i don't have too much to add. i mean it speaks for itself -

Follow the sun, I watched you follow the sun Sitting here I watched you dance Looking for the sun I watched you dance So long, so long It's just a way to love you So long, so long It's just a way to love you I saw you looking at the sun I saw you looking at the sun

love isn't just words or romantic/sexual actions. an expression is worth a million words, and the silence between the irrelevant words is where two people truly connect, and that is what souvlaki embraces beautifully in the story it shares.

[itsjonga]

Something I don't think will get mentioned all that often but I really like about Wilds is that they establish very sincerely that hunting monsters is always the last resort, to be used only when it is necessary to save lives.

And nothing highlights this more than the way the game handles quests - it requires two people to say yes before you can hunt a monster. You (implicitly: if you dont take down the monster its pretty blatant you didnt sign off on it dying) and Alma, your Handler, who is the one acting on behalf of the guild to give you authorization to hunt a monster.

You're given special permission to use a weapon and to be a Hunter at all, and it will have been ensured that you will do right by the natural world, but you cannot unilaterally decide to hunt a monster, at least in canon quests. You have to have Alma sign off on it too. Every time, she has given you permission on behalf of the Guild, so that when questioned, you can both individually attest to the necessity of disturbing an ecosystem the Guild was not a part of until very recently.

I adore this level of respect - a level that's been true in Monster Hunter the entire time, but put front and center in this game for in my opinion the first time.