Houseki no Kuni/Land of the Lustrous

A bit of crossover fanart from a webcomic artist I like, Mary Cagle of Sleepless Domain, Kiwi Blitz, and Let's Speak English

Steven Universe's Pearl if she were a Lustrous: https://twitter.com/cubewatermelon/status/1172004574548418566?s=19

SU's Lapis Lazuli in the summer uniform: https://twitter.com/cubewatermelon/status/1172015212800675840?s=19

Edited by sgamer82 on Sep 11th 2019 at 11:14:37 AM

Ah yessssssss....Phos descent into full blown villainy is solidified, a monster who seeks to destroy everything just like the Lunarians.

I personally found the last remaining eye of Phos quite an interesting case of symbolism here after some thinking. One: It's the pearl eye, aka the "Lunarian" eye, meaning that Phos right now is only seeing this from the Lunarian perspective and not "Sensei's" aka the "shell eye" he made for them which vanished when Sensei started praying, anymore. Two: It's only one eye remaining, meaning that Phos is right now seeing everything through "tunnel vision", aka, not seeing the whole picture and is laser-guided at the "light at the end of the dark tunnel", which is also a death imagery in on itself, fitting as Phos just want to die at this point and nothing else. Phos is not seeing the full picture (which is fitting since they don't even know what praying even does) and the reasoning behind "grinding the earth lustrous to dust" could be justified with "I'll have them put together again later...". In short, Phos needs to learn the full truth or this is going to end in a complete disaster...

The Buddhist/Hindu halo forming from her alloy also points toward her having becoming more and more aligned with the Lunarian view of things.

Seriously, just put her out of her misery now, while there's still a chance. Before she ends up some weird, unkillable thing like the Lunarians.

Edited by danime91 on Oct 4th 2019 at 9:11:29 AM

Welp Phos really is dedicated to their Negative Character arc considering it's pretty clear she's just as evil as Aechmea now. He Doesn't even want to restore gems anymore just to destroy..

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Nov 26th 2019 at 7:42:39 AM

Is this the Endgame now?

The final battle where everything will be decided?

More likely that Phos fucks up some more and Aechmea likely ends up vreaking so permanently by what they do, leaving the souls and Moon Gems in a meaningless empty eternity while the rest are dead.

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Nov 26th 2019 at 7:53:39 AM

Hahaha Alex is so string he literally breaks his own neck while Benito holds him at bay with the leash and tries to tell Neptunite to run, and then Alex broken head from their absurd strength comes off and destroys Benito.

Also Phos really is going full Sith Lord especially with that Evil Laugh at all but one gem destroyed by his pawns, including his own allies

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Mar 10th 2020 at 2:07:18 AM

Welp Aechmea has been manipulating Phos from chapter 1.

Also yes Aechmea smart idea to make something "more" than human since Adamant cannot pray via a crazy lunatic you created. That can't possibly go wrong!

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Mar 30th 2020 at 3:58:42 AM

What I find interesting in regards to Kumera, is that the first thing that popped up to my mind when learning about it, was that japanese curse involving bugs trapped in a jar. The lunarians there basically engaged in macabre acts of cannibalism, murder, and killings, but not out of pleasure or wickedness, but sheer despair and boredom, perhaps even hoping that one day, their deaths will stick since suicide didn't work out at all before that. And then Achmea appeared to open that jar and let the "bugs" out in order to grant them salvation as well. Got to appreciate the man for not leaving anyone behind when he can do something about it.

I say that the entire image and perspective in regards to the lunarians have been changed for me now.

They're not "evil" per say...

...they are just tired.

I dunno, when given complete freedom and you decide to descend into rampant violence and hedonism. They're not evil in the same way that a virus isn't evil, but it still kills people anyway. You let what apparently are the worst of humanity stew in their own filth for untold aeons, then let them loose, and it's no wonder the Lunarians are the way they are.

"Freedom"?

Being exiled to a crater on the dark side of a moon and denied everything except the company of each other (they weren't even allowed to have clothes, for crying out loud), even sunlight and nothing to do as they weren't even allowed to leave said crater until further notice?

That's a very odd definition of "freedom" you got there.

The fact they made a caste system about who deserved to pass on more is already a horrible idea and counter intuitive to the idea they were better than the people viewed as refuse at the bottom.

Honestly poor Adamant is as much a victim. Treated solely as a tool by his creators and the people who actually needed him the most were the ones he couldn't pass on naturally, while if these people really were "better" they'd be able to pass on easily through finding inner peace like Adamant's pet dog did.

Oh no I don't mean the ones in the pit. I mean Lunarian society in general. The ones in the pit are just the end result/distillation of it. Note how they "grew bored of eternal youth and hedonism and turned to trying to suicide their way out". Apparently it never occurred to them to simply commit to research to create a new Adamant that works the way they want him to.

In fact, I'm still not sure why they simply didn't do this already. Leave Adamant in peace with his Gems while they create a new one to pray them all away and then, I dunno, give him a spaceship so he can go where he wants afterward.

Edited by danime91 on May 25th 2020 at 9:42:01 AM

Do they have the capability to build such a thing, that's the tricky part. Especially if these are the dregs of society.

It depends on the nature of their existence, I guess? If as spirit beings they can't really fundamentally change themselves, I could see that being an issue of them being stuck in stasis, but their current state seems to hint that they can learn, research, and develop new things. What's to prevent them from spending a few thousand years just starting the Adamant research again from scratch?

It's likely they "awarded" his original creator first or they already pass on thanks to still living humans.

That's why I posited starting over from scratch. Even if they don't have access to any of the original research material, given enough time surely they could have worked their way back up the tech tree on their own.

Didn't Aechmea already say they tried, but can't reproduce Adamant's hexagonal diamond structure?

That was always the biggest sticking point with me, and felt on the verge of a Diabolus ex Machina. If humans desperately trying to escape the coming apocalypse thousands of years ago could do it, I don't see why the Lunarians couldn't have eventually done the same, if it's simply a matter of expertise. Unless Adamant's creator was some sort of once-in-a-universe genius whose work can never be replicated even with the millenia of effort of an immortal race.

Plus, you don't really see much of any sort of AI around the moon, do you? You'd think if they were trying to replicate Adamant, they'd go through the process of developing AI and working their way toward more and more complex ones, then leave the question of replicating Adamant's structure to them.

Edited by danime91 on May 29th 2020 at 7:34:50 AM

People forget that the lunarians we have been familiar with also are the worthless members of their society that got left behind.

Some have their area of expertise they excel in, but the wast majority of them are not geniuses. Just people who figured out how to use the technology left behind by the rest of their society that created it in the first place.

That and they are quite lazy.

"Why build a new machine when the old one still works?" (Even if it includes genocide to use it, the lunarians wants to get wiped out so they don't see it as a problem.)

One thought occurs to me, they may well have spent so long killing one another that they don't see the value in anyone's live anymore, given how badly they want to die themselves. If so, no wonder genocide is "plan A".

As an aside though, I remember watching the first couple episodes of this at a gaming convention, and getting a good laugh every time they'd mention the "Lunarians". You see, there is/was a science-fiction club in NYC I used to belong to, the "New York Science Fiction Society / Lunarians", and the idea of "Lunarians" as "villains" seemed humorous as the club itself was often vilified as much as it was supported. The club had run a convention (Lunacon) from 1957 to 2017 (just didn't have the staff, attendance or money to go any further).

And seeing a comment here like "My thought is that the Lunarians don't count as humans anymore..."; well, sometimes that was the opinion of people in SF fandom as well.

Latest chapter We got oozing gooey Cinnabar-Phos. Whatever shall the mixture become?

Edited by OmegaRadiance on Sep 4th 2020 at 8:06:52 AM

I felt a metaphor in that last chapter and it wasn't wholesome. Also the projection by Phos was off the charts, though I guess that's why he had a bond with cinnabar at all