#that she's been using to represent crucial bonding moments between mother/mother figure and child/child figure

[harrowharkwife]

i'm so used to there just being random unidentified bones laying around everywhere in these damn books that it finally occurred to me, just now, to wonder where the bones on new rho came from. y'know, the bones palamedes always tried to teach nona necromancy on.

they're his.

palamedes, who always loved teaching, living on borrowed time in a body that's not his own. palamedes, mentoring, teaching- parenting, by sixth standards, mind you. and that boy is sixth, through and through.

and the entire point of teaching nona necromancy in the first place was to try and determine if nona is, well, nonagesimus, right? so it has to be bones, it can't not be bones. bones are, like, her whole thing.

but they're not in the nine houses, anymore. things are different, on new rho.

they burn bones here. dig up the cemeteries. a society terrified of zombies will evolve to dispose of its dead differently.

the only bones he has access to now are his own. (camilla wouldn't let anyone take them- skull or hand, doesn't matter. they're still him, and she doesn't let go, remember? it's her one thing.)

palamedes woke up every morning wearing someone else's body to then gently place the shrapnel of his own in the cupped palms of a girl who's the closest thing he'll ever have to a daughter and try to teach her- how did the angel put it, again? normal school, as much as possible, for as long as possible.

(but hey, in a roundabout way, at least it's a chance for him to touch camilla again, right? nevermind that she's not there to feel any of it because he's in the driver's seat, that he can only stay for fifteen minutes at a time. it's atoms that belong to camilla touching atoms that used to belong to him, and that's close enough. he'll take what he can get, these days- if she can be their flesh, he can be the end. so what if holding his own bones is a mindfuck? so what if looking at them makes him nauseous? surely he can suck it up and deal with it for fifteen minutes. it's the least he can do— his poor camilla was the one who had to scrape the bloody pulp of them off the floors of canaan house.)

(speaking of, here's a fun fact: we actually only see nona practicing with the bones one time, on-page. camilla's final line in that scene, before palamedes takes over, is none other than: 'keep going. there are some bones left.' ow!)

remember, too, that the only part of dulcinea, the real dulcinea, that palamedes ever physically touched, was her tooth- the one that ianthe gave him, pulled from the ashes cytherea burnt her down to. he only ever touched dulcie once, and it wasn't until after she was already gone, but that doesn't matter- it still happened, and you can't take loved away.

in this same roundabout, bittersweet, by-proxy sort of way, palamedes has been physically touched by nona, too: the atoms she currently occupies, touching atoms that he used to occupy, and never will again.

the main interaction we've seen between palamedes and his mother took place back on the sixth, with her acting as mentor and him as pupil: the two of them studying a set of hand bones, juno encouraging him every step of the way.

we know that harrowhark's "most vivid memory of her mother was of her hands guiding harrow's over an inexpertly rendered portion of skull, her fingers encircling the fat baby bracelets of harrow's wrists, tightening this cuff to indicate correct technique."

they're still small for a nineteen year old, but the wrists are bigger, in this new set of memories nona's making. and it's not an inexpertly rendered portion of skull anymore- it's a hand, now, albeit one crafted from [a piece of skull reassembled (painstakingly—passionately—laboriously reassembled) from fragments, manually, and not by a bone magician, from the skull of someone who, soon after death or symptomatically during, had exploded.] and the identity and origin of these bones is no mystery at all. they belong to palamedes, and he's consented to their use for this purpose, and that matters.

but the details are just set dressing, really. the foundation of the memory is the same.

palamedes and his mother, juno and her son.

harrow and her mother; pelleamena and her daughter.

nona and her father-mother-teacher; palamedes and his daughter.

[dragonkeeper19600]

Houseki no Kuni vs. Steven Universe

Context: I commented on a Houseki no Kuni video on YouTube agreeing there was no point in comparing Steven Universe and Houseki no Kuni, as a lot of marketers have done in the past, because Steven Universe is clearly better. A Houseki no Kuni fan derided my view and “challenged” me to explain. So, I found myself writing an essay. An actual essay. To explain what Steven Universe does right and what Houseki no Kuni does wrong. And, I stand by it enough that I want to repost it here.

So, here we go. 

Let's talk character, shall we? Now, a lot of fans of Houseki no Kuni bring up the fact that comparisons to Steven Universe are mostly arbitrary, that despite being gemstone-based works, both have different rules, lore, characters, story, etc. All of which is totally fair and accurate. We shouldn't assume that two stories are the same or are even trying to accomplish the same thing because they both have a character named "Yellow Diamond" or "Padparadscha" in them. But, that said, there are a few story similarities the two works share. Both deal with a main character who undergoes an arc from an immature idealistic to someone much more mature and wiser. (Though, this is a storytelling convention unique to neither series.) Additionally, a major focus in both works is the main character's relationship to their main parental figure and role model. In Houseki no Kuni, this would be Adamant-Sensei. In Steven Universe, this is Steven's mother, Rose Quartz. Rose Quartz is deceased, of course, and Sensei is not, but for the most part the protagonists' relationship to these individuals is very similar. Both Phos and Steven go from idolizing these figures and seeing them as the epitome of what they themselves should aspire to to strongly reevaluating their previous hero-worship and coming face to face with all the hardship they've truly caused in the past. In this way, Phos and Steven can be said to through similar stories with similar lynchpins to start their journeys.

However, the moment you realize this crucial similarity is when the comparisons between the two arcs begin to crop up. And, in every way, Steven Universe is more dramatic, more focused, and has a better setup and payoff than Houseki no Kuni. And don't think I'm saying that Steven Universe is tonally darker than Houseki no Kuni because it isn't. That's not what I mean by "more dramatic." Dramatic doesn't refer in this case to scariness of subject matter or imagery, it refers to how strongly motivated the protagonist's decisions are. How badly do they need something and how are their decisions motivated by that need?

Let's start with Steven Universe. While Steven's goals. problems, and beliefs change a lot throughout the course of the series, there are two clear motivations that remain throughout his entire journey. They are:

1. Protect the Earth.

2. Who am I?

That's it. Everything Steven does can more or less be boiled down to those two things. The first problem represents the biggest physical source of conflict in the series. There are wild gem monsters roaming the Earth endangering the human population, many of the antagonists who come to Earth want in some way to harm the Earth. Keeping the planet and the human race safe is what motivates not only Steven but all his allies.

The second motivation deals with Steven navigating his identity as not only a gem hybrid but, perhaps even more crucially, as the only child and heir to someone he's been taught to believe was a great hero. His mother, Rose Quartz, protecting humanity from destruction. She led a rebellion against a tyrannical government to free other gems. Despite being an alien, she grew to love humanity and fell deeply in love with one human man in particular. She gave up her very life to have Steven. Etc., etc. From the beginning, Steven has been attempting to live up to his mother's legacy. In this way, Steven's second motivation, who am I, is even more important than the first because it is what drives him, and the rest of the Crystal Gems, toward the first goal. The reason they fight so hard to protect Earth is largely because of the precedent set by Rose Quartz. This is what changes wanting to protect the Earth because it's the right thing to do to needing to protect the Earth as a way to connect to Rose Quartz, someone they all love and long for. When you compare the two, wanting will always be less powerful than needing.

As the story goes on, Steven learns slowly but surely that the situation isn't as black and white as he'd thought. The monsters he'd been fighting are actually gems who underwent an involuntary transformation, most of the villains who attack humanity aren't doing it simply because of their wickedness but are directly reacting to what Rose Quartz has done. Their actions are the fallout of her actions, and a lot of the antagonists are motivated by very real and (as Steven discovers) justified hurt by what Rose Quartz did to them. Many of them are mourning people who were lost in the war she caused, several were emotionally wounded by her directly, including some among Steven's closest friends. Steven's view of his mother changes from sunny and worshipful to one of uncertainty and even resentment. But, through Steven's growing knowledge, wisdom, and attitude change, his goal of "Who am I?" remains unchanged. Because now, his goal changes from proving he's like his mother to proving he's not like his mother by becoming a better class of hero, one who heals instead of hurts. Though his quest of self-realization has changed from "I am the same," to "I am different," the core goals that motivate his thinking have not changed. 

Now, keeping all of that in mind, Steven's needs and how the most important figure in his life informs those needs, let's go back to Houseki no Kuni. Phosphophyllite starts off the series in many ways the same position as Steven. He's the youngest gem, he's weak, he's inexperienced, and he's naive. He completely idolizes not only his Sensei but also the fighting skills of the other gems, wishing to be as strong as they are. The main difference in their situations is that while Steven started off the series being adored by the other gems, Phos mostly only irritates his people, but in all other ways, Phos and Steven start off in very similar places. 

Phos's goal is also clearly established in the first episode/chapter of Houseki no Kuni: "I want to be valuable." Phos is constantly derided for being a worthless gem. With a hardness of only 3.5, useless in battle, and in general incompetent, Phos wants to prove that he can be useful, that he can be needed. So far so good. That's a strong motivation and a clear way forward for the story. The building blocks of Phos's arc have been put in place. 

The problem, the big problem that drags the rest of Houseki no Kuni down, is the execution. The inciting incident (the thing that gets the plot started) in Houseki no Kuni is when Sensei hands Phos the notepad and tasks him with writing the encyclopedia. Immediately, there's an issue of timing. Phos may be the youngest gem, but the story clearly establishes that when the story starts, he's 300 years old. Why is Sensei only now asking him to do this? The fact that gems are immortal beings doesn't change how many days and seconds long 300 years is, which is a lot. Phos's attitude and desire to be useful aren't a new thing, so why did Sensei wait until he was 300 to give him something to do? Like, what was Phos doing all that time? And, if Sensei was content to let Phos carry on doing nothing for 300 years, why did he decide now was the time to give him a job? Just a whim? Sorry, but a whim is not enough. Sensei doesn't need the encyclopedia done. If he needed it, it would have been done hundreds if not thousands of years ago. But no, he comes up with this on the spot, as Phos is lying in a bag in pieces, presumably just to make Phos feel important. 

But, okay, now Phos has been given a task. Finally. So, does Phos use this task to prove he can be useful? Does he strive to be the best writer/researcher he can be in the hopes that people will take him seriously? Does he even seem to care about the encyclopedia thing at all? Nope. His immediate reaction is to whine and complain that the encyclopedia assignment is not good enough. For the length of time that the encyclopedia remains a plot element (which is surprisingly little), Phos frequently expresses a lack of interest if not outright disdain for the project. Heck, even when Euclase tries to get him to investigate Ventricosus's shell, something he points out no other gem knows anything about and would be a huge discovery, Phos immediately tries to pass the task back to Euclase. They're outright asking him to do something important, something no one has ever done before, and he's not doing it.

Okay, that by itself wouldn't be so terrible because Phos finds another goal for himself in the form of Cinnabar. Early on, as Phos struggles to find a starting point for the encyclopedia, he talks to Cinnabar and discovers how bad his situation is. Cinnabar, too, carries on a task that he knows has no value (night patrol), he never interacts with anyone because the mercury constantly radiating off his body makes him a danger to everyone, and he's even more fragile than Phos with a hardness of only 2. Everything about Cinnabar's character seems designed to make him appear as the one person lowlier then Phos. Here is someone who could actually need Phos. Phos's vow to find him a better job (something only he can do) is a powerful moment because it shows how Phos is choosing to make himself valuable, by helping someone in a way no one else can.

So, then, Phos's bond with and desire to help Cinnabar is a big motivator in the story, right? 

That's a hard no, as well. After Phos returns from the ocean, his desire to help Cinnabar becomes mostly an afterthought. As the story goes on, Cinnabar becomes less and less relevant. The manga rapidly approaches the point where Phos never thinks of Cinnabar at all. Late in the story, the other gems actually find a better job for Cinnabar without Phos, something which is humiliatingly easy for them to do. I get that Phos slowly forgetting Cinnabar is supposed to be a tragedy, symbolic of him losing himself as more pieces are broken off and replaced, but it doesn't read as tragic because I didn't like the person Phos was in the first place. He was whiney, incompetent, and showed an inability to follow basic directions despite being 300 fucking years old. So, his transformation was just from "asshole" to "different kind of asshole." Yeah, I don't care about that. I don't miss who Phos used to be, and I don't like who he is now, so his transformation doesn't affect me as either positive or negative. It's just kind of a thing that happens.

But, why does Phos change so much? What is it that made him so bitter, so jaded (but somehow no wiser or more competent)? Well, that would probably be the winter with Antarcticite and his quest to learn more about Sensei and his connections with the Lunarians. Antarcticite's shattering and capture marks the first major personality change in Phos. It's the beginning of his cynical outlook, and his desire to rescue Antarcticite is what compels him to investigate the Lunarians, which leads him to Sensei. Since the Lunarians and Sensei are much more the focus of the plot, I'm not sure why we wasted so much time with the encyclopedia and Cinnabar if the true inciting incident was Anarticite's shattering (halfway through the anime!) but whatever. So, now we have clear motivation, right? We have a clear need, right?

Not really. Because there's no reason Antarcticite's fate would lead to Phos being suspicious of Sensei. There isn't. I get why he would become more interested in the Lunarians, but why would that lead to growing hostility toward Sensei? Antarcticite's shattering wasn't Sensei's fault, and none of the other gems who have lost partners have a desire to blame or question Sensei, so why does Phos? Because he's just special or something? Phos discovers that all the other gems suspect something's up with Sensei and the Lunarians, but they've all agreed not to bring it up because they respect Sensei. Phos was just as devoted to Sensei as everyone else, so why can't he let it go? He doesn't grieve more than the others, he isn't any smarter than the others, so what? It gets even more muddled when he realizes Antarcticite also knew and didn't want Sensei investigated. So, Antarcticite, Phos's main source of grief who is supposedly so special to Phos and his main motivator doesn't want Phos to investigate Sensei, and Phos still can't let it go. There's a moment (which is featured in this very video), where Phos murmurs to himself that he "just wants to know the truth." Oh, he just "wants to know?" So, we're back into wanting instead of needing. Phos's quest for the truth, by his own admission, is a want and not a need. But, just wanting is not good enough. Wanting is not compelling, wanting is not interesting. He has to need the truth about Sensei.

Like, suppose the Winter Arc happened differently and Antarcticite's shattering was Sensei's fault? Like, Sensei does something or says something that leads to Antarcticite's shattering. The most extreme version of this is that Sensei shatters Antarcticite himself (something we've seen him do to Phos and other gems before) because Antarcticite accidentally discovered something about Sensei's connection to the Lunarians. And, suppose Phos was the only witness to this incident because it's winter and all the other gems are hibernating. And, let's further suppose that Phos tries to tell the other gems what happened when they wake up, but none of them believe him because Sensei is just so beloved. Now, Phos has a real reason not to go along with everyone's complacency, now Phos's quest for knowledge becomes a need instead of a want. Because now, it's not just curiosity driving him, he's compelled to seek justice for Antarcticite. And this goal sets Phos apart and makes him valuable in the way he always wanted because now he's the only one who will hold Sensei accountable, someone no one else is willing to do. And, this carries the same tragic irony that the actual story tries and fails to convey. In his desire for self-actualization, Phos has condemned himself to a lonely road no other gem would choose to walk and that he himself wouldn't have chosen at the start of the story. 

But, that's not the version of the story we were given. Instead, it's curiosity that moves Phos, and as he loses more pieces of himself, the things that he used to care about, rescuing the other gems from the moon, fighting the Lunarians, helping Cinnabar, all fall away as Phos constantly gives up on his previous goals in pursuit of new ones. Again, I get that this is supposed to be tragic, but if the main character can't be bothered to care, then why should I? It's not helping that Pho's character arc is caused by (not symbolized by, caused by) physical changes that basically means he becomes brain-damaged every time he loses a body part. Instead of changing and growing organically, as Steven does, Phos is instead having his mind, memories, and personality reset after every arc. That's not growth or character development, that's just stat change.

I could go even deeper into the series and all of its problems: how the Lunarians' motivation is also a "want" instead of a "need," how the series uses Buddhist imagery and motifs to trick people into thinking the story is more profound than it really is, how the character designs for the gems make them all look like the same person wearing different wigs, and how many of the side character have one-note personalities as opposed to Steven Universe's complex characters and unique character designs, but when you get right down to it, Houseki no Kuni's main core issue is that there isn't a good enough reason for anything to happen. Steven Universe has clear emotions that drive the story forward. Houseki no Kuni does not.

When I was in sixth grade, my language arts teacher told us that a story was not just a collection of events. It's not just, "this happened, and then this happened, and then this happened." It's, "this happened because of this or this happened to complicate this." Steven Universe does that. Everything that happens is a consequence of what happened before. Houseki no Kuni just kind of has things happen. Why does Sensei give Phos the encyclopedia assignment? Just a whim. Why does Phos want to investigate Sensei? He's just curious. Why do the Lunarians want to pass to the next world? They just think it'd be nice. Why did Sensei reconstruct Phos after 220 years? Because Sensei is a dick. 

In light of all this, I'm fully convinced that the reason Houseki no Kuni gained any kind of popularity at all is because of the art style of the anime. That's it. Because, when you really break it down, it doesn't have anything else going for it. Except the soundtrack, I guess. The soundtrack is nice. 

[vileart]

Jogging Dramaturgy: Hanane Hajj Ali @ Edfringe 2017

Hanane Hajj Ali 

Jogging 

Demonstration Room, Summerhall, 15 - 23 August 2017 (not 21), 11:50 (12:50) 

EDINBURGH FRINGE PREMIERE 

Alone on a bare stage and dressed in black, Hanane, woman, wife and mother, lifts the veil on her identity in expressionist performance Jogging. 

The 50-something Lebanese performer jogs every day to avoid osteoporosis, obesity, depression and anxiety. Her route takes her through her own personal space and the public spaces of Beirut, revisiting and contemplating roles, characters, desires, aspirations and disappointments along the way.

What’s the inspiration behind your performance?

The inspiration comes from an overlap between my roles as a citizen and artist. It is based on my daily life in Beirut and the workouts that I did to resist stress and osteoporosis. There are really two things that I do to allow me to maintain my relationship with the relentlessly transforming Beirut: sport and theatre. I always think about my dreams and disappointments in my daily runs in the city. At the same time, I notice how Beirut is being radically transformed and I try to figure out my role in it. A major part of this, of course, is in my role as an actress. 

I’ve always been enamored by the character of Medea (a fictional ancient Greek character that kills her children following her husband’s betrayal). I’ve always wondered about what it would take for a mother to even think about killing her children. I started feeling the same emotions, though, when my son dealt with a very dangerous form of cancer when he was seven. 

I started having dreams about killing him to relieve us both from the pain and suffering that we were going through. I started thinking about the parallels between my story and Medea’s as well as considering what her equivalent be in 2017 Beirut. 

The city currently features numerous restrictions on freedom of speech. Censorship on artistic productions has been imposed since the 1975 Civil War. I wanted to take my story and represent it without restraint in an agora of the realest proportions in the performance. I wanted to use it as an avenue to affirm that if our minds are repressed in any way, then one can’t really do theatre, or be a good citizen for that matter. I named it “Jogging: Theatre in Progress” because in my mind, theatre needs to remain as an open avenue for discussion, critical thinking, and experimentation. 

How has the audience reaction to it been in your various screenings thus far?

The common element in all of my performances in Lebanon has been shock. Another commonality that I noticed was that the show really bonded together all economic classes and stirred in their minds a whole bunch of things. It’s almost like the show was directly communicating with the hidden thoughts that they had buried deep inside of them about political and social oppression. 

People started feeling that if someone could be that bold in an approach to theatre, then honest self-expression was really a possibility for them. The authenticity of the play and complexity in its various facets were huge draws for audiences.

After once playing the show in a part of Lebanon that was ruled by a group averse to the ideas that I was presenting, an audience member walked up to me and asked if I was afraid for my life, as people had certainly been killed for less in the country. I answered by asking “why should I be afraid? Am I not portraying real life? 

All I’m doing is using my artistic background to portray reality.”

How do you expect a foreign audience such as the one in Edinburgh to react to the play?

Well, a lot of foreigners have already attended the play in its screenings in Lebanon; reactions have generally been very interesting. There are subtle alterations that you could always do to make sure that the show is well received by foreign audiences. 

The essence always hits home even if some elements remain a bit incomprehensible for them. A couple of weeks ago, for example, an attending American playwright and director asked me for access to the rights of the play to air it abroad.

What would you say is the play’s main message?

It’s really all about questioning the so called “sacred trio” of taboos: politics, religion and sex. The play also illustrates how free a veiled character really could be on stage, whether that’s regarding her body, the things that she discusses, or her dreams. 

She really leaves no stone unturned and is completely free to discuss and question various taboo topics, not only in front of the audience, but with God as well. There’s no intermediate really between her angry boldness and the Lord Almighty. 

Another crucial pillar in the play is using Medea’s story to outline how a woman could kill her children metaphorically as well as literally. The performance presents various facets to the killing of one’s children by utilizing mythology and encouraging audience interactions.

Behind the shock over her husband’s betrayal, the play shows the main character’s realization that everything in this world is fleeting, and how she begins prioritizing her relationship with god above all else as a consequence. Then, she starts having an infatuation with having her children become martyrs as this is the best road to heaven. 

In 2006, her wish comes true when two of her kids die in the conflict between Lebanon and Israel. She’s satisfied and keeps living under the fantasy until her third and last child dies later that year while fighting in Syria. Her entire world then collapses as she starts facing her illusions. 

What do you love the most about theatre?

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Its nature and what it’s all about at its core. It’s well chronicled that part of its main charm is that its moments are never repeated. Apart from that, we always forget how and why theatre was established in the first place: It was invented so that we could become better people. The word ‘theatre’ itself is derived from the Greek work ‘theatron’, which means the place that allows citizens, both actors and spectators, to see each other for what they are. 

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