Do you think Byakuren would absolutely hate Zanmu, or try to put her on the right path? Byakuren the kind, accepting Buddhist who tries to continue her life in Gensokyo vs. Zanmu, the selfish and controlling Buddhist who fell off the path from being falsely enlightened of the world's suffering and brings peace through fear, resignation and death... it's an interaction I think about a lot.
I wonder if Zanmu, a nihilistic person who only wants herself to be the one deciding the future, could ever let herself live a happier life through proper training at the Myouren Temple. She already knows her path was not a good one, as ZUN has commented on the fact that Zanmu sees herself in Reimu and refuses to let her do what Zanmu did in the supplementary material Whispered Oracle of Hakurei Shrine.
Zanmu, much like most of her own posse in 19, is a false idea of what they claim to be, or represent. Biten is not the real Son Wukong, Enoko is not actually Cerberus and Chiyari is not a real chupacabra. In that same breath, Zanmu is not the Buddha, nor a bodhisattva. She represents someone who failed their teachings, one who gained the wrong lessons from their teachings and resigned herself to eternal suffering. She saw the world's evils, its stubborn nature and inability to let this evil break its spine in half, and then fell into Hell of her own volition: she surrounded herself with the worst of those evils, the kinds removed from the cycle of reincarnation itself, deemed worthy of penalty and punishment before their souls can return.
In comparison, Byakuren was a very normal practitioner until things began to change for her. Though in time her fear of death had her turn into something wildly different than human, and her own empathy made it difficult for her to hate the youkai as others did. Her compassion for the world and use of taboos caused those close to her to fear and revile her, sealing her away in Makai. Zanmu chose the darkness that suited her blackened soul, while Byakuren was made to steep in the darkness by those who believed her deserving of it and came out stronger for it.
While Reimu is textually the only one free of Zanmu's nothingness, I wonder if Byakuren could stand a similar chance as someone who seeks enlightenment and calm, peace in the soul that cannot be tainted by doubt or depression or fear. If Zanmu's every defense fell before uncompromising faith like hers, could Zanmu be saved? I doubt it, but she could certainly at least be talked to, and that sounds absurdly interesting.
I've been getting into some older games this year, and I think the craziest thing I've gotten into (in terms of goodness:haven't played ratio) has to be the MOTHER games. I'm still only partway through 3, but these games have been kicking my ass in the best way.
I think the part that gets me the most about this series is that there's a lot of people who don't seem to like MOTHER 1???? Is this just a negativity bias on my end, or is there an entire crowd who think 1 is just some messy old NES RPG and 2 is like if 1 was worth a damn? Because there's a lot to love about 1.
One thing I keep coming back to, and a facet I really respect, is the sheer amount you are able to get out of MOTHER 1 as a story despite its console limitations. It has a full world with vibrant NPCs all around, with a fun theme and lots of heart to it. The storyline you get, even if it might need a bit of information from the accompanying guide the original game came with, is incredibly simple. But they wring so much out of the kind of story MOTHER 1 is.
I fucking adore MOTHER 1 Giegue. He's such a fascinating entity. I love how this alien was given love, the same love that brought Ninten to life in the present day, and that despite his mothership and his alien empire and his psychic powers he's nothing more than a frail, weak child stuck in a glass cage. A cursory glance at Giegue's stats confirms that much.
The way you defeat M1 Giegue is so fitting for this, too-- it's not through violence or continuing the conflict, it's not anything conventional. It's reminding Giegue of the kindness and love that made him who he is, and reminding him of what he lost. And in defeating him this way, making him call off his fleet, Giegue swore to one day come back for Ninten... but he never did. That was the end of it.
Ninten himself has a very unique thing with his heroism in the endgame, something that I don't think Ness could've had in his own narrative. When faced with the alien mothership and the source of all the kidnappings in places like Easter, Ninten chooses to stop Giegue with love through a recollection of Giegue's mother's passion. You can't face Giegue without the Eight Melodies, and in doing so you must destroy the land of Magicant, and Mary's own illusion that everything can go back to how it was.
Giegue offers to let Ninten live. Think about that, and think about the absolute abomination that Giygas is in 2. He was ready to offer Ninten and Ninten alone a spot on the mothership, and Ninten refused. Ness really never had a choice: Giygas, by 2's time, is an embodiment of destruction and ruin. Everything would be doomed if he backed down.
It's worth noting that it's vaguely implied that Giegue killed his mother. In the dialogue of Queen Mary's consorts, they mention her "having nightmares", involving "punishing a child" and then "crying out about being afraid". We don't have any other indication for how Maria died, and seeing as the memory of the Eight Melodies-- Giegue's lullaby-- is what reminds her of her passing and allowing her to go with George, it implies a connection to her death and Giegue.
Despite this immense tragedy, Maria never stopped loving Giegue. Giegue never stopped loving Maria. That love passed onto Ninten, despite the decades of time that had passed between their lives.
Giegue may have been an alien, but despite all of the chaos and suffering, he was a person. And I think that in 2, he still is a person. A destroyed one, forcibly contained in a machine made for a devil and "taken care of" by Porky, someone who entirely dehumanizes Giygas as a chaotic, evil, mindless monster. But Giygas talks to us.
All of Giygas's words to Ness are... fascinating, and heavy. Giygas spends the entire fight begging for Ness to run away, go back, but also exclaiming their own feelings. It feels good. He's so sad. He's lost all control of himself, his personality has collapsed and he is dying, but nothing can really help him anymore.
Giygas, in a sense, is also crushed by love... it's just a different kind of love. Giygas is crushed by a combination of love for the world and its people, manifested by the player; but they're also crushed through what feels, to me, most akin to mercy. I don't think Ness was scared of Giygas, really. I think Ness could feel the eternal connection he had with Giegue, the connection to his ancestor Ninten and Ninten's own ancestors, something correlated with his ability to use PSI since birth, and gave it the only thing that could bring it peace.
Giygas's entire life is defined by those who control him. Those who shape him. In turn, he becomes like them all, in different ways. His alien heritage made him destined to go to Earth for conquering. His father took the chance he found, and ran away. His mother stayed, and cared for him until fate took her away too. He grew up with a cowardly father and a loving mother, until growing up with nothing. And the world around him began to shape him, people like Porky and the Happy Happy cult used his power, believed him a bringer of chaos and destruction, feared him, and he reflected their fear. He became a beacon of paranoia, feverishly doing everything to try and stop Ness's journey when he learned of it.
When you think about it, Giygas might have simply been pleading for his life in that last fight. Begging Ness to turn around, to not hurt him. But it already hurts. He tries to minimize his pain, to distance from it, by declaring how good he feels. But it's all very crushing, and everything leading up to this point has left Giygas with an irrevocable sadness. Nothing he does can be comprehended anymore, and despite it being unfathomable and unrecognizable, the universal truth is that in the end, everything Giygas does hurts Ness.
They took a child, gave it love, then replaced it with a shell. Then the world put its expectations on the child, the prophecies of Ness vanquishing it, the promise of a great evil, and against that child's own wishes... it began to take shape into it. The shell changed, it turned into a machine made for a devil. A remorseless monster of ruin. But in reality, everyone who made the shell, everyone who feared it and hated it and took it away from everything it loved, they were just fertilizing an egg. So when Giygas hatched from the egg of Giegue like a wretched monster given new life, was it ever the child's fault?
This isn't really an essay or anything as much as it is a chance for me to yap about MOTHER 1 and 2. I think you cannot have 2 without 1, and I think you cannot have 1 without 2. I think they work so deeply, painfully well as a two-piece meal and to ignore one because it's "badly designed" (read: has random encounters and large dungeons) and then overly glorify the other (despite it being, in my opinion, worse in its design through the harshly easy-to-perform redundance of most game systems the moment you can buy multi bottle rockets) is to do both a cruel, harsh injustice.
I think I just wanted to get my thoughts out. They're cluttered and messy and probably haphazard and assumptive. But they come from me, and I want to think that coming from a mind trying to learn and improve gives any writing, even messy writing like this, an innate value. Much like people, art is always worth it because it is created, and someone took the effort and struggle and hardship to try and make it real, to make you see it, and to bring out your true colors in how you respond to it.
Giygas, much like any piece of art, or any child, is a canvas projected on by people. Regardless of his own wants, his own love, his own autonomy, he cannot help but be shaped. People shape art, and art shapes people, and in the end we're all so decorated that we might not even tell which parts are us and which parts are what we ate along the way. Is Giygas an alien, a monster, a demon, a human? I think that's for the reader to decide.
I wonder if Toriyama intentionally designed Gomah's Third Eye form to make you think of Jiren. Their outfits are incredibly similar, and they have similar concepts tied to them, yet managed quite differently.
Jiren and Gomah both hold the potential for great seats of power. Jiren works alongside the God of Destruction Belmod and is implied to be stronger than some of his crew, while Gomah is the king of the Demon Realm and seeks to ensure his longevity. Note that Jiren is a genuinely heroic individual, while Gomah has a position that inspires false platitudes of adoration and admiration.
Both Jiren and Gomah are obsessed with the idea of power, in similar ways. They both struggle to trust others, having the opinion that the only thing they can trust are themselves, and their own immense power. Note that Jiren became this way through years of repeated immense trauma and suffering on his way to the top, while Gomah seems to simply be paranoid of someone like Arinsu coming by to usurp the throne because he is weak.
They both even have that bad streak in them, abandoning or forsaking allies— the idea of allies themselves, even— as they reach an emotional and physical zenith. Jiren went from an independent yet valued member of his team to declaring that he can only rely on his own power, forsaking Toppo after he abandons his ideals, and facing Universe 7 alone. Gomah abandoned Degesu and did him dirty, because once he had that power he had no reason to rely on anyone else anymore.
But it's worth noting that both face the exact same failing in the end, too. Both of them underestimate Goku, they put too much stock in their power and truly struggle to imagine the strength of this random soft-spoken boy. They underestimate the weight of Goku's actions in his home universe, both from a similar stance of ignorance due to not living there. They don't realize that Goku is strong, of course, but his greatest strength is the growth and power he inspires in others. It is Goku accepting the help of his friends that pushes Jiren out of the arena, and the Third Eye out of Gomah's kind of gross head. And in that same breath, it shows the strongest difference between these two.
Jiren learned from this all. He learned the power of Universe 7's bonds, he learned of Goku, and what it meant to have someone who could truly push you without truly hurting you. Jiren's life is one where failure is not ever tolerated; if Jiren lost against a villain, not only could nobody else stop that villain in that universe except for maybe Belmod if he felt like it, but as a result he'd likely lose even more he's close to than he already has. Failure means death, loss, destruction, and ruin. He does not fail, because he is Jiren, and Jiren does not fail.
But since he did to Goku, and learned that Goku is strong— as strong as him, even— while relying on others, shoring up his weaknesses, and being stronger together, he realized the power that brings Goku happiness. In that moment, their relationship as characters became equals. Jiren is the pinnacle of strength that Goku may have once sought, but Goku shows a special kind of heroism— to inspire change and care even in heartless monsters— that Jiren could learn from too, and they both became masters of their own domain.
Gomah, obviously, did not learn this lesson. In averting his demise at the hands of Arinsu, he sealed it by siccing Goku on himself. In contrast to a flawed world that Jiren fights to protect, Gomah perpetuates a flawed world to protect himself, and as Goku befriend Glorio and Panzy and the disadvantaged demon people, Gomah was made to conflict with a Goku who would defeat him for the sake of his friends, just as much as he would to restore his own adulthood. He never stopped being afraid, he hid that fear under a shield of power just like Jiren... but in Gomah's case, that shield grew too heavy and flattened him.
I HAVE SPENT FAR TOO MUCH TIME TRYING TO MAKE A SATISFACTORY THEME. DO NOT TRUST ME WITH WEB DESIGN.
Anyways. I'm very locked in on classpecting lately, despite the everything in my head going on, so I decided to do more classpecting. My takes are probably messy, or contentious, but they're mine. And that means they have, at least, a 5-day shelf life.
Phosphophyllite is one of my favorite characters ever and even thinking about them sends me into intensive bursts of emotional energy that some may describe as "fits". So I'm writing about Phos now. This will feature heavy spoilers from the manga of Land of the Lustrous, by Haruko Ichikawa.
So, for starters, we should probably talk about Phosphophyllite as a character. I've never really planned out a post, so we can discuss their character traits and storyline and then diagnose them with their assumed classpect, which I will then go into on its own. Expect jot notes.
Phosphophyllite, or Phos for short, is the main character of the manga and anime series known as Land of the Lustrous. Some people call it Houseki No Kuni, but they are one in the same. This manga takes place on a post-apocalyptic Earth, the land now inhabited by three different species; the land is kept by the Gems, sentient mineral-based lifeforms guided by their "teacher" Kongō (sometimes written by fans as Adamant); the ocean is beheld by the aquatic Admirabilis, mortal beings ruled by a primarily feminine monarchy and a fixation on beautiful things; and the skies above are dominated by the powerful Lunarians, an astral people sat upon the Moon who are comprised of departed human souls.
In this dynamic, the Gems take center stage as powerful yet fragile people who fulfill various roles in their society, each role being specially chosen for each Gem by their shared teacher. While the Admirabilis mostly do their own thing, the Lunarians regularly attack Earth for what they believe to be the sole purpose of kidnapping its Gems.
This is the treacherous post-humanity world that Phos finds themself in. They're the youngest Gem of the bunch, measuring up to a mere 300 years old at the start of the manga, and they're mainly characterized at the beginning through their bickering attitude with Kongō, their intense want to be acknowledged by their peers, and their complete inability to do any job that Kongō assigns them. They're intensely brittle, easily shattered, and of a fair color that the Lunarians would eagerly take away at a moment's notice. Even worse, they're clumsy. Even more worse, they really want to try fighting. In their mind, finding their job, their purpose, and fighting for Kongō's sake are what would bring them the love they wanted and the recognition from their peers that they're more than a pushover or a burden, despite their literal fragility as a gemstone.
Phosphophyllite's story is one of change. Every single step along their journey to self-actualization and their pursuit of usefulness involves harshly destroying themself, and then remaking themself. Each time, they change. They sink further and further as this goes on, becoming less recognizable in the wake of what they want, and what they've done. They are a pure emblem of change, both good and bad. Those around them change allegiances constantly, they become unsure of who to trust, they change irreversibly. A young, impatient and passionately kind Phos collapses inward, turning into a horrible monster hellbent on destroying their home... before once again changing, into the god that brings about the new people, the ones free of humanity's sins. Look at the below comparisons and know that this is the same character.
This is the heart of Phosphophyllite's character, their want for love. They will fight, they will break, they will risk certain death just to gain it, all the while unaware that they had that love from the very instant they were welcomed to this world. And after crushing themself, initiating the process that unmade everyone in the world but Phos alone, and sitting in pure grief for 10,000 years... they began to understand their inner self, and change. They became the god of a new world, and began shepherding the new people, using their almighty power on nothing more than keeping their people company. There was no need for protection, or need to fight, because they were all going to get along, and they were all going to be happy as they were.
I yapped a lot there. I'll now try to put it all together, and remind you that this is a Homestuck post. Sorry about that.
Phos is a character defined by their want for love. They want to meet up to what they see as their teacher's expectations, and everything about themself begins to change as they keep pursuing this goal. As mistakes are made and lives are lost, they echo in Phos's being just as much as their new legs, their new hands, and their new head. They become multiple things at once, all of them snuffing out the original Phos that their teacher loved like his own child. In the end, they could accept that and bring all people to salvation, before initiating a new world that echoed their inner peace. Their final form takes the shape of a single chunk of phosphophyllite, free of the life they previously lived and living in peace with the other inhabitants of the world. In seeking that inner peace for 10,000 years, they had freed themself of human suffering. They exceeded their potential. Beyond everything else, they were finally happy.
Now, how do we relate this to Homestuck's own god-making game? What role does Phos take, ultimately guiding the world as a whole to its best form and true happiness? What kind of role could possibly fit that sort of arc, with the dark depths reached and the ultimate highs attained? This is only my guess. I'm probably missing something. My memory's quite bad, after all.
Starting simply... I feel like there's a very reasonable chance that Phos is an Heir or a Witch. Clarifying my beliefs about these two, briefly:
These two are the manipulation classes, the ones tied to change. The Witch brings change with their aspect, the Heir is changed by their aspect. Witches change things, things change Heirs.
Between these two, I think Heir makes the most sense. Everything Phos does, deep down, is motivated by others. They're pushed to action by the decisions and words of others, and those actions change them over and over again. They have a unique ability to change, as other Gems cannot simply take in any mineral into their bodies like Phos can.
This essentially means that the expectations Phos puts on themself, the endless potential any Gem can hold, and the want to bring happiness to their teacher incite change within both themself and others. When I hear this, the combination that comes to mind would be something like an Heir of Life.
An Heir of Life. Someone who is changed by their life, their own growth and freedom to choose changes them, and they bring change in what others want to do, their own autonomy, at times even exerting harsh control over it in bouts of rage. In the end, they can become Life itself... they usher in a new world, new lives, and join its ranks in the end after millennia of harsh isolation and sacrifice that brought Phos peace.
Witch of Life could maybe fit Phos too, in a way. They do command others at their worst, they do have a unique connection to Life and change through being the one best-suited at it... but the fact that Phos joins their people in peace, sacrificing the memory of their suffering and their life and letting go, it feels more right to say they're an Heir to me.
Technically speaking, by nature of their solo new-world-creation project, you can probably make a case of Phos being a Muse of Life, or a Muse of [insert other Aspect here]. I don't know enough about Muses to wanna talk about them, so I figured I'd cut that out by default.
I similarly believe reads tied to Page and Knight, as well as Hope, Heart, Doom or Rage could also work. Life simply felt like the best manifesting of their entirety, all of Phos's journey, in comparison.
Apologies for the article length, I've never made a post this big and the words simply kept coming out of my head. It used to be a bit longer, but I got caught info-dumping the manga's original plot with no iteration from myself in really redundant ways. If you read this all and didn't know about the original manga, it is not too late and these spoilers do not ruin the material for you, please read it for me, it means the world to me. It is an unfairly good manga.
is it any surprise that the guy called Exdeath who is born from a tree and incites natural disaster and calamity for the sake of returning all life to its inception is most likely a Lord or Prince of Life
it's always important to remember that everyone can betray you, anyone can hurt you if they choose to, the warmest happiest smiles around you can sharpen the longest daggers, that pierce into your skin and erode the flesh of your hope
sometimes the only solace is knowing that they will die, but if they're crafty murderers they'll know the methods by heart anyways. you'll bleed out, in the snow, caressed by cold and nothing else, but they'll die in character. they'll keep their charade up, and you'll probably have to deal with people telling you how much this must hurt you, how much you'll miss them, how much the deceased meant to them
and it is your responsibility in the social construct to look at that and either dully agree, or simply nod. even their death is a celebration and a party, so how can you bring down the mood?
the only safe harbor is people who you can reasonably believe would die without you, who cannot bear to be without you, yet sometimes even the lovingly reliant and dependent can only push someone deeper into loneliness and i find that really funny
you cannot disappear. they would win, or whatever, so now even a break isn't really permitted. for a world of art where love conquers all, the only thing that lets you actually persist is deep, burning spite that tears a hole in your gut and tastes of vomit in the back of your throat
EVER SINCE ANDREW HUSSIE TALKED ABOUT HER FATHER AND HVC COLOR COMPOSER IT HAS BEEN REALLY INSANE LOOKING AT DAVE AND BRO'S RELATIONSHIP YOU WILL FEEL EVIL
