#Aechmea

[princessinyellow]

I support men's wrongs and women's wrongs.

[randomy-chan]

The most human emotion

After having given it some thought, and also considering Chapter 97, I’ve thought a lot about what Enma said in chapter 88.

Of course, back when Phos went onto their revenge spree, most of us were on board with it, especially since the gems have wronged Phos greatly. But I never couldn’t really agree with what Enma said, especially since he considered Phos too pure after they got their gold aloy and agate legs.

And exactly that thinking is why the Moon people can’t pass into Nirvana. They considered Phos, while they were looking monstrous and only were out for blood (inclusions?) the most human that they’ve ever been,

while Adamant considered Phos human enough before (or rather saw Doctor Ayumu in them) that state.

If there is one thing that keeps getting Phos closer and closer to humanity, then it was them reveiving or showing love. When Ventri gave them the agate legs, she also gently petted over their broken face, or when they lost their arms, Antarc got themself into danger to get them new ones. Even receiving Lapis’ head was an act of love from Cairn. After each of those times they developed further and changed more. 

But when they got to the moon? They were forced to have the pearl eye, they were forced to wear the lunarian clothes. That is when they stopped developing and were stuck in that Laphos phase.

Through the moon they ended up desiring vengeance, which made them lose sight of who they originally were. So it’s notable, when they got the final and last treasures, Sensei’s eye and Cinnabar’s mercury that they radically changed again. One was due to a promise that was fulfilled and another to give Phos the chance to pray.

But they truly became enlightened through a motherly kiss.

Phos wasn’t human because they wanted vengeance, but because they love. The lunarians are so focused on wanting salvation, that they could never consider love as a way to reach Nirvana. They only hurt and destroy, because that’s the thing that got them onto the moon in the first place.

So in a way, a rock amalgation becoming a divine figure is more human than any human souls that are residing on the moon.

Because the most human emotion is love.

[mieowkoid09]

Do what you will with this parallel

I can now tell why Phos was so jealous of Welegato and Aechmea's relationship. Adamant couldnt even tell Phos that he was worried about them

[shimamom]

[killything]

Fan art I drew of aechmea dying in a glue trap

[mikenogen]

So what was Land of The Lustrous trying to say about Humanity?

Land of The Lustrous was one hell of ride. I just caught up with the manga few days ago and I could say this is probably one of the greatest manga I've read. Ichikawa truly created a masterpiece.

This might be what I considered a perfect manga, there's so many great thing about the story, the character, the theme, and philosophy surrounding it.

But, I still can't put this in my top 10 manga. There's just things that still bugs me and confuse me about the story. That is:

What is the point of this all?

This is probably my biggest criticism of the story. In these last few chapters, humans were painted awfully. And what makes it worse is that the reason why Phos had to suffer was because he is becoming human, more precisely developing human emotions: wanting to change and seeking truth.

As the the story goes, Phos developed an urge to change his situation (stop the gem from being kidnapped by the Lunarians) and finally seeking truth. We all know that the other gems doesn't care about Kongo/Adamant's connection with the Lunarians. Phos is the only gem that wants to know the truth.

There's nothing wrong in wanting to change and seeking the truth. He just want the gems to stop suffering (at least in the beginning). But in the end he has to suffer from his curiosity. He has to suffer all the consequences while the gems he tried to protect lived and "died" peacefully.

Even Aechmea who manipulated Phos to the point of no return, who IMO displayed the worse of humanity, doesn't suffer any consequences. The only thing we got from him in the end is that he felt bad and sorry for Phos.

It kinda sucks that if you think about it, Phos wouldn't have to suffer and any of this wouldn't happen if he just did the encyclopedia job like he was told to.

In the end I'm really confuse of what message Ichikawa wants to send. Is it that Human is evil so they need to disappear? Is she trying to tell us that nothing matters so why even try to change anything? Is it wrong to find answers?

Is it wrong to be human?

I've stuck in my mind for a couple of days and it just won't go away. I just can't comprehend this, or maybe I just can't accept the message. Maybe because my ideals crashes with what Ishikawa believe or what this manga trying to tell.

Maybe, I need to reread some of the chapters. Maybe I missed something important that would eventually answer all of this question. Or probably I just need to wait a little until this story finally ended so I it finally answer my question.

Overall, I just want to get this out of my head. Still, I'm very grateful for Ichikawa Sensei for telling this story. May you enjoy your Suika game in peace.

side note: WHERE THE HELL IS SEASON 2

[cutebreatty123]

is this right

[houseki-no-suffering]

not entirely related to ch 96 but the thing i'm most fascinated by, in this whole ordeal, is that in his millennia of confinement on the moon aechmea didn't understand a damn thing about salvation.

first, humanity creates a robot to do the praying because they can't be bothered to be good people themselves or pray genuinely for salvation (which might be among the things that condemned some to the moon in the first place)

then, the robot breaks and instead of finding a better solution, dickmea orders genocide on the lustrous to try and force said machine's hands.

finally, when genocide doesn't work he thinks 'well, then i must create a human to do the praying' which seems perfectly reasonable if you ignore the immense amounts of pain phos had to go through for that to happen but THEN

then, instead of asking the new human to please pray for eveyone's salvation, he decides that the best course of action is to make the human inherit the powers of the machine. basically creating a new machine

sensei probably gave phos the 'eye' because he genuinely wanted them to be happy and, as a praying machine, that act was the only thing he could think of. if phos is a human and has the powers to pray and save everyone then why shouldn't they pray for themselves, first and foremost?

and it baffles me that at this point, after everything, after forgetting even about shinsha and their promise, phos is still kind. their first thought after acquiring the eye is that they should piece every gem back together. they have changed, but their core hasn't: they're still a kind child

aechmea, on the other hand, is just repeating the whole process that condemned him in the first place over and over, hoping that it works and without learning the actual lesson or changing

and since change is the core motive of hnk and since everyone is so damn bad at changing, besides phos, i'm pretty sure this new praying system also won't work.

[asuna20163]

[dragonkeeper19600]

How I Would Fix Houseki no Kuni

By now, you guys are probably more familiar than you’d like to be with the numerous posts I’ve made about what I see as the many narrative failings of Houseki no Kuni.

I’ve already written extensively about my gripes with this train wreck of a manga, and as much as I’ve said already, I could keep going. However, over the past few days, I’ve found myself wondering what I would change to make the story stronger. After all, it’s easy enough to identify a problem with a story, but it’s a great deal more challenging to come up with a solution. I’ve already suggested some potential changes in other posts, but I thought I’d assemble all of my brilliant ideas in one convenient location.

So, without further ado, here’s how I would fix the garbage fire that is Houseki no Kuni:

First, I’d have Phos keep the encyclopedia job longer. It always seemed weird to me that this story mechanic was dropped so soon after being introduced, and I don’t think that was to the story’s benefit. Phos becoming more devoted to and more competent at the encyclopedia job would showcase his growing maturity, plus it would lead to a growing curiosity. A big part of what sets Phos apart in the original story is how willing he is to question things that the other gems don’t, such as Sensei’s possible connection to the Lunarians or whether there’s another job for Cinnabar. You could have his desire to learn more come from his desire to get the encyclopedia job right because he’s already fucked up everything else he’s ever attempted, so this is his last chance to be good at something.

Similarly, I would not make Phos a fighter, or, at least, I would wait until later in the series to make him a fighter. Manga and anime is already oversaturated with stories about people who learn how to fight. Having a protagonist who’s strong suit is not fighting would make Houseki no Kuni stand out from other seinen series. Instead, Phos’s usefulness to the war against the Lunarians would be as a tactician, using the information he’s collected from other gems (such as Alexandrite’s obsessive knowledge of the Lunarians) and his own observations to help the other gems fight more efficiently. Phos accepting that he isn't cut out to be a fighter would be yet another sign of his maturity. In my version, after he gets his new agate legs, he decides he can ditch the encyclopedia job and become a fighter like he’s always wanted, just like in the original story. However, after he sees the Amethyst twins shattered by the Lunarian weapon made from Sapphire, he realizes battle isn’t cool and badass like he thought but scary and really tough, and he decides the encyclopedia thing is where he’s needed.

Of course, Phos would be forced to take up arms and finally fight later in the series as the war with the Lunarians is ramping up. Phos would have a moment to muse on the irony of finally getting to be a fighter just like he always wanted after already deciding he didn’t want it anymore.

One more thing about combat is that the gems would wear actual armor into battle. Red Beryl’s job wouldn’t be just to make cute moe moe outfits for the gems to strut their stuff in but to forge armor to protect the gems from the Lunarians’ weapons. The Lunarians would find ways to get through the armor, of course, but it would be better and more believable than sending these rocks into a war zone wearing but ties and shorts too tiny to pass a public school dress code. The gems can still wear their uniforms when they’re just hanging out at the school, that’s fine, but when they go on patrol, they suit up in fucking armor. The fact that they don’t wear their armor around the school could actually lead to some tense scenes where the Lunarians attack the school directly and the gems there are caught unprepared and underdressed.

Phos’s motive for not hibernating during the Winter Arc would be, again, to observe Antarcticite and the winter season for the encyclopedia. However, and this is big, by the time winter ends, Phos would come to blame Sensei for Antarcticite’s shattering. This is a change I suggested in a previous post. The exact scene I described back then is that Phos sees Sensei shatter Antarcticite himself, but I don’t think you need to go that far. Phos’s blaming of Sensei doesn’t even need to be justified; he could just be lashing out at Sensei out of misplaced grief. But something needs to happen during the Winter Arc, while everyone else is asleep, to make Phos suspicious of Sensei. Perhaps Phos actually sees the Lunarians surround Sensei and tug pleadingly at his clothes, like they did in the actual manga, and comes to realize that the Lunarians and Sensei are connected. Perhaps Sensei hesitates to strike back against the Lunarians, because he’s guilty about not being able to help them or whatever, and that hesitation leads to Antarcticite being shattered.

At any rate, by the time winter ends, Phos is the only witness to this suspicious side of Sensei, and he finds that nobody will believe him about what he saw because the others are all refusing to accept that Sensei is less than perfect. The only one who’s willing to listen to Phos at all is Cinnabar because Cinnabar is grateful to Phos for listening to him. Plus, since Cinnabar is already isolated from everyone else, he’s less willing to keep so strictly to the party line. While he still loves Sensei, he’s less complacent than the others. I suggest these changes to the Winter Arc and its fallout because I always thought the chain of events that led to Phos being suspicious of Sensei in the latter half of the anime was pretty week, plus Phos being able to turn to Cinnabar for support would make Cinnabar a more prominent part of the story instead of getting shunted aside like he is in the manga.

Speaking of the Lunarians, I would change basically everything about the Moon. The Moon is not a high tech, utopian society full of karaoke bars, ramen joints, labor unions, advanced laboratories, and all that other stuff, but a surreal, Lovecraftian landscape that looks as beautiful as an ink painting of the Pure Land but is actually nightmarish and hostile. The Lunarians are supposed to be the tormented souls of human sinners unable to pass on to the afterlife, and their world should reflect that. In my version, the Lunarians have been driven insane by their long perdition, and while they look like divine figures from a Buddhist scroll, their behavior is so weird and alien to the gems that they find it hard to believe that these creatures were ever human. They can’t even communicate with the gems because their minds have deteriorated to the point that they can’t even understand language. The only Lunarian who’s coherent and rational is Aechmea, and even he’s starting to lose his sanity after running the asylum by himself for so long. 

Aechmea himself would also need to be radically changed. Somewhere along the way, the manga kind of forgot that Aechmea was supposed to be the villain. They try for this reveal that Aechmea was actually benevolent all along, and it 100% doesn’t work because A. a lot of his wicked acts are just gratuitously cruel and don’t further his supposedly well-meaning goals at all and B. the Lunarians aren’t really suffering anyway. To fix Aechmea, his sympathetic qualities and his villainous qualities both need to be enhanced.

So, my version of Aechmea is a well-intentioned extremist who chose the path of the bodhisattva but doesn’t have the supernatural patience and wisdom necessary to handle it. His backstory would be the same, but because my version of the Moon is a hellscape where he’s the only sane person around, his desperation to get Sensei to pray to free both the other Lunarians and himself is way more understandable. At the same time, the story would condemn the cruel things he’s doing by pointing out that he’s got no right to make the other races suffer just to save his own people. Aechmea would be portrayed as a lost soul, pitiful, yet misguided. And, above all, the Lunarians’ salvation cannot come about because of Aechmea’s manipulations. The story needs to show that the path Aechmea is choosing to try and save them is the wrong one.

On a similar note, Aechmea can’t make Phos into a human. I’ve already made a separate post about this note, and the reception to it was pretty positive. If Phos becomes a human/enlightened/bodhisattva/whatever, it needs to be in spite of Aechmea, not because of him. Phos needs to become human through his growing experience and his own choices, not Aechmea’s. 

Instead, in my version of the story, Aechmea chooses Cairngorm as Sensei’s replacement. Aechmea chooses Cairngorm because Cairngorm has been sealed inside of Ghost Quartz for most of his life, and thus, has never had any real agency. Hell, maybe Ghost Quartz is shattered specifically so Aechmea can then swoop in and claim Cairngorm, all so he can groom him into becoming a new prayer machine. It’s a sad fact that abuse victims are often abused multiple times in their lives by different people, and oftentimes, their current abuser is someone who “rescued” them from a previous abuser. When Aechmea “frees” Cairngorm from Ghost Quartz’s influence, he portrays himself as a savior who will show Cairngorm what he’s “really meant to be.” Aechmea and Cairngorm’s relationship in the manga already comes across as super predatory and sus, so I think the story would be better if it actually acknowledged that Aechmea grooming Cairngorm is bad instead of portraying their wildly unequal marriage as the “happily ever after” that it does.

Phos, on the other hand, would become a foil to Cairngorm because their growth and change happens because of their own choices and not because of Aechmea’s (you know, like the opposite of how it is in the manga). Phos would also choose to replace his body parts, instead of his body parts being lost through circumstance or being swapped out for him by other people. Him losing his legs can still be an accident, but it has the effect of showing Phos that his inclusions are special because they can assimilate basically any other material while still leaving Phos’s consciousness in control. However, after he gets his agate legs, every other new body part has to be a deliberate acquisition. For example, when he finally decides that he has to fight, he intentionally seeks out the gold alloy to replace his arms, whereas in the manga and anime, his arms were taken away by the ice floes, and replacing them with gold alloy was Antarticite’s idea.

Finally, the ending. In the manga, Phos is essentially tricked into enduring 10,000 years of mind rape to become the new prayer machine. In my version, Phos chooses to undergo the 10,000 year transformation, knowing that it’ll be tortuous and awful, because he’s willing to make that sacrifice to bring the Lunarians peace and finally end the conflict. The gems don’t become Lunarians in this version. My version of Lunarian society isn’t idyllic the way it is in the manga, so the gems wouldn’t want to join them, plus my Lunarians don’t have that kind of technology anyway. The sacrifice in this case is that Phos praying will also cause the gems that have been shattered to pass on as well, meaning Phos will never see Antarcticite again, and all the other shattered gems will be dead for good. But Phos is okay with that because 1. They realize from their interactions with the Lunarians and Yellow Diamond’s declining mental state that immortality is a curse and 2. They’ll still be around, and they’ll still remember Antarcticite, which is specially poignant because Phos has lost so many of their memories by now. 

There’s also some tension because when Phos makes this choice, no one is sure that he’ll be able to handle the nightmarish transformation without going insane the way the Lunarians did, and there’s a chance he’ll emerge after the 10,000 years as some kind of monstrous eldritch abomination. And because he looks so weird and alien after the transformation is complete, the surviving gems aren’t sure if he’ll actually be able to pray the Lunarians away or if he’ll become a new threat.

But, ultimately, he shows that the transformation was a success, and he prays all of the Lunarians away. Yes, even Aechmea, because for all the evil he’s done, he also lived every day in pure agony, so there’s no point in punishing him any further.

The surviving gems would still be alive, as would the Admirabilis. (Yeah, the plot point about the living races descended from humanity also being wiped out in the prayer is really contrived and makes no sense, so I’m chucking it entirely.) Phos, however, would no longer live among the other gems because he’s become so enlightened that the other gems can’t relate to them anymore. So, Phos remains aloof. But the other gems know where he is. When a gem is finally ready to die, they seek out Phos, who will ensure that they pass on. Phos vows not to pass on himself until the last gem has been shattered. Phos, the little gem everyone called worthless, has become the benevolent bodhisattva that both Aechmea and Sensei failed to be. End.

[choeloeth]

They wanted me

They're talking about Aechmea

I saw this quote and immediately thought of them

They're so silly, I love them

[princessinyellow]

I feel like the people who get mad about everyone in HNK getting turned into Lunarians or whatever, is missing the metatextual point of the story. The question is not “why did they have to become Lunarians?” it’s “if thousands of immortal people with an idyllic society want to die, is it worth it for one man to subtly manipulate (but not push, coerce, or force) one child into unimaginable suffering?” It’s the classic trolley problem!... KIND of...

One of the first dilemmas which caught my eye was with Padparadscha. If someone is receiving help they do not want, is it okay for them to turn down the help, knowing that this will lead to many of their peers being hurt? Padparadscha decides no, and can’t even consider the alternative. Telling Rutile to abandon them is unthinkable, because it would then almost certainly cause Rutile to abandon all doctoring duties. The gems would be pretty screwed while a new gem gradually learns doctoring from the ground up.

Later Phos makes the opposite decision for them, stealing Pads from Rutile and taking them to the moon. With the added wrinkle that Phos knows they have more advanced technology there which would almost certainly provide an actual cure. Which is does indeed! Twice!! There’s so many layers!!!

And of course this is about Cairngorm cause everything in my life is about Cairngorm now!!! Is it better to force someone into altruism, or give them the freedom to be selfish? Most of you fuckers are like NO YOU FORCE THEM, IF THEY EVER GET HAPPINESS THEY’RE THE WORST!!!

And the idea that Cairngorm’s ENTIRE personality on the moon is 100% pure grooming is absolute cope. Aechmea makes such a point of encouraging her to make her own choices, and treating her well, and she’s ACTUALLY HAPPY as a girl!!! And she shows literally no hesitation or fear in talking shit. She’s always telling him how creepy he is and how bad he is at gifts and stuff. But she also actively chooses to show him affection.

She obviously doesn’t trust him but she obviously CHOOSES to love him anyways. Basically the same as with the earth gems and Kongo! Except when Aechmea yells at her (one time and only ever once), he doesn’t shatter her body into a million pieces. Aechmea is objectively better to be emotionally close to than Kongo.

As someone who sees the stiff anger in Cairngorm’s body on earth, the uncertain frustration etched into her face until she meets Aechmea, and then the bright bubbly joy she expresses most of the time then on... I know how that journey feels. I’ve felt it. And let me tell you; it’s no coincidence that “no they’re not really a woman! They’ve just been groomed into acting like it, in ways that are entirely speculative and not even slightly evident,” sounds pretty horrifically familiar these days. (It’s the same conspiratorial thinking, applied on the same topic)

It honestly seems like most of the hostility Cairngorm and Cairnmea gets is because self-absorbed fans think the main character is the center of all morality. But for me, someone to whom Cairngorm’s emotional journey is delightfully familiar. To whom her success is absolutely dreamlike in its beauty. I just don’t see these invisible shadows of abuse. The real, perceptible abuse Cairngorm suffered from was all from Ghost and Phos.

[touyanii]

wouldn't it be funny if phos prayed everyone away except for aechmea

[mieowkoid09]

Someones probably already made this meme but oh well

Coincidentally I have a friend who's had a relationship that I've found similarities to Aechmea's and Welegato's, but that relationship was wayyy worse. Thankfully my friend's relationship got broken up, whew!

[affablyevilshowdown]

Small Bracket Round 1-2

Fans hate him

Daniel (Camp Camp): Fans say: I haven't seen him stop smiling or blink ONCE

Ladd Russo (Baccano!): He wears a white suit to his "Let's get on a train and murder a bunch of people party" because

☆: .｡. aesthetic .｡.:☆

"Even though we are going to shatter thousands of lives, wearing white is gonna make the blood look so pretty."

Aechmea (Houseki no Kuni): Fans say: "I want to punch him soooo bad like he should be dead die gone forever" and "gives himself bunny ears???? hello???? only soemthiens tho."

[19-bellwether]

My favorite twist in Land of the Lustrous is that Aechmea isn't a king or a deity, he's an intern that got put in charge because everyone else left and he is very serious about his new rank being respected.