#i wanted to talk about hnk a bit more but this became more and more self analysis as i was actually writing it

[disquiet-dream]

I do think Cairngorm is a very interesting character. I really like them- I just wish Ichikawa was more clear on if the switch was really honest or if they just got manipulated by Aechmea. I always thought it was more of manipulation as I felt like the prince just put on gender roles so that Cairn (or Welegato at this point) would be more like a “wife”.

I think so especially since gems don’t have concept of gender…AT ALL. I don’t think Wele is really trans if it’s not even really a thing in their society and if I remember correctly they still used their old pronouns (I could be wrong tho). I think it’s a weird switch from how the hnk fandom knowing how manipulative Aechmea is doesn’t really question that much if what happened to Welegato was actually controlled by him or something.

But honestly- i really love seeing different takes on this character since I love them a lot- so I’m happy to see anyone talking about them, wether I agree with them or not. You don’t have to answer to this hjshshsj.

Hmm

(Overly long response incoming. I talk too much)

Well, I do think it being ambiguous is the intent, and there definitely is room for Aechmea being manipulative and the gender stuff being part of that

But!

So far in this story I've erred on the side of characters being less sinister than they could be, and tbh I think that's been accurate. Kongou was ultimately as good as he seemed, Aechmea was revealed to basically be a bodhisattva (forgoing his own chance at eternal rest to spend thousands of years trying to help those who would be left behind), etc.

It's like... It feels like there's a consistent theme of people hurting others not out of malice or even necessarily selfishness, but out of a want to do something good. Kongou wanted to build a paradise for the gems, Aechmea wanted all the damned souls to get rest, Phos wanted... a lot of things, but none of them particularly bad.

And all of them caused so much suffering with those pure wishes

So basically tl;dr it feels more thematically consistent if he was genuinely trying to help, at least to me.

And for the gender stuff like, I think the moon chapters are very aware of the fact that the gems do not have gender, and Werregat (that's what my translation uses at least) being so feminine is very much an outlier.

(there's even the bit around the wedding where what's his face calls Phos a woman and then goes "well, that's not right" and Phos is just kind of confused)

And like, the easy analogy from their situation to a trans person's, the big shifts in presentation, them being the gem who wants to change their body most, them being the one gem that gets a new name, on top of the direct gender stuff

feels like it's supposed to be a kind of transition, or at least choosing to adopt a gender when they previously had none. Which is to say, the gems don't have gender... but the Lunarians do, and on being introduced to the concept Werregat seemingly embraced it.

(and as for pronouns, that's complicated b/c in Japanese you can easily just avoid using gendered pronouns at all, and I assume that the text just continued to do that even after Cairn became Princess and such. so like, less continuing to use whatever pronouns and more continuing to not use them.

with that said like. eh. even if it were originally english, pronouns don't have to change, things are complicated. even when I say Werregat is trans I don't strictly mean they're literally a human trans woman so much as there is Gender going on, and it's feminine when it usually isn't.

also like, the rare occasions the language demands you do use gendered pronouns the gems tend to lean male (like Bort calling Dia "nii-san" and not "nee-san"), and again, it's just hard not to take Werregat being so feminine as a reversal of that.)

anyway, I don't know how much this makes sense but. yeag. 👍

[mir-mape]

lil ramble about hnk, and me, and change, because it's 1:20 am and i can't bear to be alone with my thoughts so i'm going to scream into the void of the internet for comfort

hnk is a story i started reading a few years ago. i didn't get past the start. sooner this year, maybe around january or so, i gave it another try, and i finished all the available chapters in the span of like two days. And i think i did so because it's fundamentally a story about change, and as a dumb child about to start college, i really need a story to cling onto that deals with that topic

don't expect me to make a lot of sense, but like,, i've always struggled with handling change. i've always been the top of my class, mom and dad's pride, the friend you can always rely onto at any given time to help you with anything. so if my life's been that great why on earth would i want to change who i am. people already are happy with who i am. changing anything about myself is unnecessary at best and an inconvinience for everyone at worst

and so when adolescence hit, instead of trying to figure out who i was, it became a game of balancing what i wanted to be and the image other people had of me that i couldn't let go of because i didn't want to disappoint them.

then the lockdown happened, and turns out having a lot of time for myself without having to take into account anyone else was really enlightening (albeit also very maddening). that and also my closests friends now have helped me realize that if i ever want to be happy, i really need to start accepting that i'm no longer who i was as a child.

But that realization didn't "cure" me of my fear of change and dissappointing people around me that knew that old version of me. I was scared that being the person I wanted to be would inconvenience them, and they'd want back who I once was, and would I really be loved then? Like, of course my close friends and family would still love me in some way or another, but everyone else? How would I go on with life knowing I had everyone's approval and I threw it all away?

I went on an impressibly long personal tangent there and I'm sorry, but going back to my relationship with houseki no kuni—

phos is like. the completely opposite thing to me. they want to change for other people because they don't feel like they're good enough as it is, and i want to change for myself, but the fear of no longer being good enough for other people has always stopped me. And tragic as hnk is, it somehow manages to give me a bit of a cathartic feeling.

i'm terrified of change. i'm going to uni in like, what, two weeks? i'm going to live independently from my parents. i'm going to meet new teachers that know nothing about me and don't expect anything from me. same goes for my new classmates!! i can make new friends that could love me, and not old me!! it's a whole change of everything!

it's literally the opportunity that i always strived for. and yet i've spent the whole summer with this heavy feeling in my chest because gosh im TERRIFIED of growing up. what if i become nothing but wasted potential. i fear that i've spent so much of my life trying to live up to my older self that i no longer can make decisions in benefit of my own, current self

and yet... it's a bit like little phos, isn't it? i've always been alone with myself, and i will always be alone with myself. and i'm taking this out of the hnk story context, but I, myself, is the only person that I can assure will always be with me. So I should always be by her side in whatever she needs.

Hnk is an interesting story with incredibly complex character arcs and story,,, and yet, I feel like I will always hold it dear to me not only for that, but mostly because of it's core concept of change. This summer's been a tough one for me, I overthought my life way too much, and hnk has managed to bring me a strange comfort in the middle of all that. In the middle of the pain of becoming, as the last comic/fanart I reblogged before writing this post (accurately) called it

[pemprika]

HNK 94 SPOILERS

i will just. word vomit all my emotions and feelings first... like the way adamant finally shattered at the command of phos... and hearing adamant say his final words to phos kinda snapped my heart in half ^_T at this point, phos has lost everything, including their comrades, their true self and identity, and now, their only master who had loved them unconditionally. I’M... i’m going insane.... it’s pretty nuts to know how much phos is burdening in every update... ichikawa is over here like, “but wait, there’s more..! ;-)” (and not the way she lost her ps5 raffles rip sensei... someone help her)

all sadness and despair aside, i found this chapter to be incredibly compelling not just with ichikawa’s captivating visuals but with another interesting development with phos. aechmea has been an interesting “antagonist” since the beginning, and i appreciate his role in driving phos forward, for better or for worse. their dynamic is insanely interesting!! it’s very likely that aechmea appeared to manipulate phos into putting adamant’s eye on. i think... he might have been there to distract phos in order to take all of their broken companions, perhaps to provoke phos and force them to pray. i’m only guessing, as they’re now left entirely on their own (literally can’t go anywhere either; they have no means of lunar transportation? and i am like, so sure aechmea ain’t coming back lol)-- and it just feels like the only thing they can do now is.... pray. that would ultimately be what aechmea wants, so maybe?? i also found it really peculiar that phos hallucinated the six impacts, and it makes me wonder if adamant had suffered through these visions during his time on earth ;; i’m not sure why phos is seeing them now, but i’m curious about its symbolism to the story and what this could mean for phos here on out.

i was relieved to see phos’ anguish for their broken friends dissipate, but upset that they can’t make amends since aechmea took them all away LOL.... like ok great, cool ^_^!! i almost cried when phos desperately tried to search for adamant, shinsha, and the others so they could put them back together, but they were all missing.... also, to address the ask above, i wanted to give my perspective on the earth gems! everything ichikawa writes is never black and white, meaning there are many perspectives that deviate from a single story. phos has valid feelings of emotional turmoil, but it doesn’t mean their actions were moral. to the earth gems, phos appeared to be corrupt and became a potential danger to their society and adamant. all gems struggle with communicating their feelings and can’t comprehend what they need in order to tend to their emotional grievances. their natural “solution” is to bury issues; they went through centuries doing that in the time of war, and they would continue to do so because it’s what they know. everyone has their own agenda of “right” and “wrong”, so being angry at the earth gems for their reaction towards phos felt a bit bias. anyway, i hope we get to see the earth gems come back before the series ends!! they’re technically ok....though, i wonder what they’ll decide to do with them...if anyone has more 94 thoughts to share, i’d love to know!! thank you for reading my thoughts and cries!

PS to the anonymous: thank you so much for appreciating hnk and my art for it! i don’t have many friends to talk about it either, so i appreciate expressing it with you guys ;_; i love discussions...

[king-paimon]

HNK Chapter 82 unfiltered thoughts: The fall of ‘Phos’

Wow... so little happened in this chapter in terms of story but a lot in terms of character development, or maybe character degeneration to some of us? I wish the chapter was a bit longer but I’ll take what I can get. I apologize that this post won’t be as nicely organized as I would've wanted but ... oh well. I’ll most likely come back to edit certain parts but I just wanted to give me thoughts on this new short chapter. If anyone has any thoughts or comments of their own, I’d love to hear them!

Phos’s degeneration

Honestly, I’m not surprised that Phos’s mindset has been warped to this degree. After everything that he had done and gone through for the sake of his fellow gems, whether they be good, bad, or seriously questionable actions, it was only a matter of time for him to see them as his enemies. After the previous chapter, I don’t think anyone is surprised that he is now showing a degree of hostility towards the earth gems. But what was interesting is that this mentality isn’t just towards the earth gems, but it’s towards the Moon gems as well.

Anyone notice how during the whole chapter, Phos only spoke to Aechmea? He didn’t acknowledge or speak to Goshe, who had just rescued him, at all. In fact, he didn’t directly acknowledge the other gems, as well as Barbata and Cicada. And how during his proclamation about turning the gems into dust, his alloy arms were not only trapping the other gems but were also pointing sharp points at them? Maybe it was just me but it looked like Phos was ready destroy them right then and there.

I think it’s clear, though: Phos is so DONE WITH EVERYTHING. 

In his broken, warped mind... all of the gems are now nothing more than an obstacle that needs to be eradicated. He’s no longer thinking about their safety or happiness, which was one of his main reasons for going down this risky path in the first place. 

Part of me desperately does hope that Phos was saying all of these things was the result of a “spur of the moment” thought process or moment of hysteria like when he was forcing Adamant to pray and really REALLY hopes he doesn’t truly mean it but... after everything that has happened, who knows?

Man... look at our poor "hero.”  What has become of him?

Phos became this...because he wanted to find the truth of this world, to find a purpose for his existence and the others.. and this was what he gets. Now he’s just a shell of his former self, driven by pure, irrational emotions (kinda like Rutile in my opinion but that’s different) and needs to be brought to his senses before he really does anything he’d regret. 

Now, I’m not going to condemn anyone (except maybe Aechmea) for all of this because I believe all the characters are morally grey and no one is truly right or wrong, especially Phos. But still, what a sad fate to witness.

Our dear Phos is gone, in so many ways. But will it stay this way?

What happens next?

Too many possibilities for where this story will go... Ms. Haruka Ichikawa continues to prove how hard it is to predict her stories and it’s both nerve-wrecking and entertaining.

I’m sure that most readers are sad to see our poor broken hero get crushed once again, but maybe it’s for the best? As ‘fun’ as it is to see Phos go feral, I don’t know how the story would progress if Phos stayed in that state for too long.

Though it makes me wonder about Aechmea’s plans for Phos, since he is going to alter Phos’ memories of the past 200 years. Wouldn’t it be somewhat beneficial to have Phos retain his broken mental state since it did almost get Adamant to pray? Maybe to him, Phos was a lose cannon and would have caused more harm to his plans if he stayed feral? Or maybe he is going use this trauma to his advantage and have Phos stay feral but more controllable? I don’t know but why do I have the feeling that altering the memories won’t yield the result Aechmea wants... At least I hope so.

But if it is somehow successful, what will become of Phos afterwards? Will Phos regain some sanity after he mind is altered? Will he still have the desire to have his fellow gems destroyed? Will Phos still be ‘Phos’ after losing even more of their original body? So many ‘will’ questions that may or may not be answered for probably a good while.

Edit: In addition to this, this chapter continues to show how f*cked up Aechmea is, for it is likely that not only will he have Barbarta alter Phos’s memories, he’ll also likely alter Phos’s personality even more to be more obedient and docile and less of a problem... Kinda like Cairngorm ... OOoh I hate Aechmea so much. He’s nothing but bad news and I hope this doesn’t happen.

What about the other gems?

For the moon gems, in my eyes, they’re in an interesting position. After what they’ve just witnessed, how will they treat Phos from here on out?  Will my previous predictions regarding Cairn or the other gems telling Phos about the nature of the prayer somehow happen? Will the moon gems do ANYTHING to progress the story?? I honestly have no clue at this point. Maybe I’m putting too much faith in the moon gems but part of me still has hope for them, especially Cairn. 

(Edit: Honestly though, they might actually do nothing after Phos is brought back... Maybe poor Yellow will actually talk to Phos but the others....I don’t know. As much as I want them to be proactive, they probably won’t be. Sigh...)

Speaking of Yellow, I noticed that he wasn’t among the other moon gems in this chapter and I’m really glad he wasn’t there. I don’t think he could handle seeing Phos in his broken state nor do I think Yellow would handle the whole “turn all of the gems into dust” proclamation very well. 

Someone believes that the next chapter may focus on the earth gems and I hope this is true. No doubt that after what they witnessed, their view of Phos is still not good but now that Padparadscha is there, will they try to wake him up and get info from him? Will they talk to Adamant about what happened? How will they move forward from this point on? (And where the heck is Cinnabar??)

And will the Admirabilis play a part of this story again? It’s been a while since we’ve seen them and since it’s been over 200 years, there should be new generations of them now. Maybe they will be the ones who’ll help Phos somehow?

I don’t know how to end this post other than saying... Hopefully we’ll get more in the next chapter. Happy suffering, everyone. Until next time.

[rutilation]

Does mulching a prisoner of war into shiny little woodchips before burying them alive indefinitely count as a violation of the Geneva Conventions?  Asking for a friend.

(Hi guys, I’m back, and I brought 4,400 words with me.)

First of all, my apologies for the nearly five month wait.  Ever since last spring, I haven’t had much time at all to devote to writing and I’ve only been able to work on this essay in small increments.  And yet, despite the fact that I don’t have the time to do so, this essay somehow turned into a bloated treatise on the failings of gem society.  Truly, I am a slave to my obsessions.

I’ve refrained from reading chapter 80 because I just know that if I do, it will insinuate itself into my brain like a tumor and I won’t be able to concentrate on finishing this essay.  (That said, I did happen to see someone on twitter make a joking reference to third impact in regards to said chapter, so I am certainly Afraid.)  Though my takes may be ice cold by this point, I hope that there are some nuggets of insight to be found in this.  With that said, here are my thoughts on chapters 78 and 79.

While the past two chapters have certainly been…hard to read, I think that their contents have been a long time coming, primarily regarding the parallels between Phos and Kongou, and the uglier undercurrents of gem society reaching their logical conclusion.  (And I gotta say, this display of—for lack of a better term—inhumanity on the part of the gems jives quite well with all the Shirley Jackson I’ve been reading lately. When I get tired of one display of flagrant mob violence, I can quickly flip to another.)  

And then there’s the matter of the gems on the moon…  I remember that when I first got into hnk, which was right around the time when Phos and the others left for the moon, everyone was afraid that Phos would go off the deep end and the gems stuck on the moon would end up as collateral damage in Phos’s quest for vengeance.  But since Ichikawa is too powerful us, she said “what if it was the other way around, and Phos is the one getting thrown under the bus while the moon gems start a death cult?”

So there’s a lot to talk about, but let’s address the earth gems first, because these characters sure do live in a society.  (In order to make my prose more tolerable, I encourage my readership to take a shot every time I write the words “gem society.”)

First of all, I’ve seen a number of people interpret Kongou’s line about the gems forgetting Phos very literally, and assume that the earth gems all have Phos-specific amnesia. I highly doubt this is the case, and he probably just means that Phos is now out of sight and out of mind.

As bleak as the situation is, I think it’s been a long time coming.  From the beginning, one of the major philosophical elements of the story has been how the gems’ desire to give meaning to their long lives has compelled them to create a society in which only those with a concrete purpose have value.  The characters see themselves and each other as instrumentally but not inherently valuable.  With so much of the story focused on how this ethos hurts those individuals who aren’t seen as useful, how much it fosters shame and self-hatred, and how much it makes the gems unable and unwilling to help each other through hardship and depression, it makes sense to me that this inhumane mindset would eventually boil over into something truly cruel, and thus the other shoe has finally dropped.  In a strange way, I have more respect for Rutile’s attitude towards the situation than I do the rest of the earth gems (sans Euclase, who I’ll get to in a moment.)  Rutile is treating Phos like an enemy that must be vanquished, whereas the others are treating Phos as a kid treats their dirty clothes when they don’t want to do laundry—by shoving it in the back of a closet and trying to forget about it.  The former strikes me as less dishonest and dehumanizing than the latter.

Even before chapter 79 made it official, I had a gut feeling that the timetable for figuring out what to do with Phos was nonexistent.  I’ll be generous and assume Cinnabar was being sincere in the moment when they implied that they’d put Phos back together eventually.  But just like how everyone ignored Cinnabar’s suffering because there was no compelling incentive to do anything about it, or how they all turned a blind eye to the Kongou/Lunarian situation for millennia, I figured that Phos would end up as another problem they wouldn’t bother solving. (Regarding Cinnabar, while I hope they’re still on good terms with everyone after the time skip, I would not be the least bit surprised if the earth gems started ostracizing them again once it became apparent that there would be no new attacks from the moon and thus no further reason to tolerate their mercury.)

(Bort, please stick up for them.)

And to be clear, this is a problem that the earth gems are refusing to solve in exchange for a short-term sense of security.  If Phos and Kongou had been allowed to hash things out, and this stalemate hadn’t festered for 220 years, then maybe the moon gems wouldn’t be entertaining the idea of starting that aforementioned death cult.  (Tbh, this mostly applies to 84, Yellow, and Dia, since Cairn has been their own personal death cult since chapter 33.)  Even leaving aside how bad things have gotten already, if this state of affairs had continued to drag on, I think the situation would have gotten very ugly the second Aechmea got tired of waiting.  While playing fruit ninja or whatever with Cairngorm, he says something to the effect of losing a battle here or there isn’t important as long as you win the war in the end, which I’m pretty sure is meant to communicate to the audience that Aechmea is playing the long game.  And since he hasn’t done anything in the interim other than reluctantly and incrementally humor Cairngorm’s pet project, I don’t think it’s a stretch to say that he’s biding his time specifically for Phos, and that he’s counting on them eventually being reawakened.  In that case, what would have happened if Kongou had been too meek to interfere, and the gems succeeded in getting rid of Phos for good?  If Aechmea eventually gave up on his current scheme, scrapped working with Phos, and came up with a new plan, I’m betting things would quickly devolve into heinous war crimes since he’s only played nice so far in order to keep Phos on his side.

In chapter 78, we get to see two instances of the most common nugget of gem wisdom: only act when you’re guaranteed to succeed, and never take risks.  It been a common refrain, with Antarc, and more subtly, Dia being the only gems aside from Phos to push back against that sentiment.  And to be clear, I’m not saying any one of these iterations necessarily are bad advice, but it’s become increasingly obvious that it’s the only acceptable mode of dealing with problems in gem society.  More on that in a minute.

So, uh, regarding Euclase, here’s an exclusive picture of me, after I’d spent months writing: “Gee, this Euclase character seems pretty shady, but I have faith in Cinnabar, Bort, and Jade to act humanely!’

That said, I think I got at least one aspect of their characterization right in my Euclase-focused essay—that they have a greater comprehension of their mortality than most.  Unlike the other gems, they’re not childishly naïve enough to believe that ignoring their problems will save them; they understand that death is always around the corner, and that the (mostly) tranquil life the gems lead requires constant maintenance.  Simply sliding down the path of least resistance will come back to bite them all in the ass later down the line, and Euclase knows it.  That’s probably why they at least went through the motions of asking Kongou to pray every day for two hundred twenty years.

This is a bit of a tangent, but regarding my earlier point about the gems not commiserating at all, Peridot and Sphene come across as anomalies in that they helped each other through their grief over their lost partners, but that doesn’t seem to happen all that often.  As we see in the aftermath of the winter arc, it seemingly did not occur to any of the gems who had lost friends of their own to try and help Phos through their grief.  And I think it’s likely that they weren’t given much comfort in their hours of need either.  Yellow bottled up their grief, Alex and (presumably) Red Beryl threw themselves into their work to the point of obsession, and Ghost seemed to have largely withdrawn from everyone else.  But none of them really healed or helped anyone else heal.  Despite their society placing a high value on interdependence, the gems are truly alone when they have to reckon with complicated or inconvenient emotions.

It may be hard to remember, but Phos was once influenced by all these toxic mindsets as well.  Recall Phos’s conversation with Benito in chapter two: it implies that Cinnabar did live with the other gems during Phos’s lifetime, recently enough that Phos expects to find them in their room.  From this we can infer that our kindhearted Phos never reached out to the clearly lonely Cinnabar while they were actually around, and didn’t even notice when they left the school for good.  They may have had the potential for kindness from a very young age, but it was only when they were hit with with the stark truth of Cinnabar’s suffering that they snapped out of the fog of apathy that seems to surround the gems.

In fact, it almost seems like the struggle to drag the gems kicking and screaming out of their comfort zone is a macrocosm for what Phos had to grow out of at the beginning of the series.  You’ll recall that once upon a time they were lazy, wanted easy solutions to their problems, and had no faith in their ability to effect change.  In fact, I’d go so far as to say that in the eyes of gem society, the problem wasn’t really that Phos was lazy, it’s that their laziness manifested in the wrong ways.  They were supposed to be fastidious and reliable about things like crafting, or fighting, or writing reports, but apathetic towards anything that requires more nuance or imagination than that, kindness or cruelty be damned.

All this is cast into even sharper relief if you think back on the arc with Ventricosus.  She was in far more dire straits than the earth gems are now, and had a compelling incentive to throw Phos under the bus.  But in the end, that wasn’t a line she was willing to cross.  Her final line: “If we’re not willing to change our ways, we’ll end up just like the Lunarians,” seems quite portentous in retrospect.  I don’t think Ichikawa is positing that being immortal makes you a sociopath, otherwise characters like Kongou, Yellow, and Padpa wouldn’t be such cinnamon buns.  But I think she is insinuating that someone who refuses to change is dooming themselves to a state of perpetual immaturity, and that being truly kind requires growing up a bit.  It’s a harder for someone who knows they’ll die one day to remain in a state of arrested development than it is for someone who could indefinitely procrastinate on growing up, and just focus all their mental energy into making paper or whatever for all of eternity.

And this seems as good a point as any to stop harping on gem society and start talking about the gems on the moon, starting with my muse, my most problematic of faves.

I brought up in my chapter 77 essay that Aechmea may not be willing to divulge what he was about to tell Cairn, and that was exactly what happened.  Since he’s only willing to share this mysterious information if he literally would not be around for the fall out, I’m guessing that whatever this secret is, it’s not benign.  And while Cairn has probably put it out of their mind by chapter 79, it’s clear that it’s bugging them before the time skip.  I smell a shocking revelation brewing and I dread to imagine what could possibly top mind-control eyeballs.  Make no mistake, I’ve devoted an embarrassing amount of brainspace the past nine months or so to contemplating what it will look like when the other shoe finally drops for Cairn’s character arc.  (Is there a German word for the ambivalence that arises from wanting to call future plot twists for bragging rights, but not wanting to look like a dipshit if your predictions are wrong?)

Their line from chapter 78 that I alluded to earlier in this essay is rather interesting to me, because although they’re referring to Phos, they might as well be talking about Aechmea.  They exhausted themselves to their breaking point trying to look after someone who didn’t take care of themselves, but they’ve nonetheless latched onto someone who is also seeking self-destruction.  And as I pointed out earlier in this essay, this line also serves as yet another iteration of the defeatist sentiment that the gems often espouse.  But, for a while, it had seemed like Cairn was moving away from that.  The decision Cairn made in chapter 67 was certainly…fraught.  But, one can’t deny that it wasn’t a brave one on their part, to leave behind everything they knew and cared about for a shot at living authentically; the only problem was that they undercut that step forward by returning to their chronic doormat tendencies.  And again in chapter 70, they took a risk by sneaking off to earth knowing that Aechmea would pitch a fit later.  But ever since chapter 75, they’ve been backsliding.  As said chapter pointed out, their wish has shifted from wanting freedom to wanting what amounts to eternal codependency.  I also find it interesting that Cairngorm apparently hasn’t bothered with getting a new name, and is just copying Aechmea’s shtick of going by his title.  They’ve gone from sharing a name with Ghost, to having their own name, to not having a name at all.  In conclusion, my child is a god damned mess.

I know I said I was done talking about gem society, but I guess I’m not.  Going back to what I said in the last paragraph, about Phos not taking care of themselves, that’s been a reoccurring element throughout the series, and in my opinion, it was a significant contributor to the breakdown of Phos’s relationships.  The reason Phos never just tried to make friends with Cinnabar—which is what the latter really wanted, and only focused their efforts on following through on their promise, was because Phos’s self-loathing runs so deep that it doesn’t occur to them that anyone would actually want their company for its own sake. Chapter 14 is the most direct allusion to this in my mind.  Phos clearly wants to talk to Cinnabar, but instead they hide away and mutter that they’d have nothing to say to them.  And as I touched on a moment ago, Phos’s self-destructive tendencies wore down Cairngorm over the course of their partnership.  

But, here’s the thing: Phos’s self-loathing isn’t some immutable part of their nature, it was instilled in them by their society from the moment it became apparent that Phos couldn’t slot neatly into a role.  This is very apparent in the early chapters, in which no one ever misses an opportunity to remind Phos of their uselessness (except Dia, bless their heart.)  Back then, they pretended to not care about it by way of snark and bravado, but in truth, I think it warped their self-perception in an incredibly negative way.  

There’s also something that illustrates this which has been on my mind for a while, but I haven’t had the opportunity to talk about it.  When Phos was trapped by their arms during Antarc’s fateful capture, the insult they yelled at their arms to get them moving is the same one that Bort lobbed at them a few times in volume one.  I usually see different translations of the word between the two scenes, but to my non-Japanese-fluent ears, it sounded like the same word to me when I watched the anime.  It was a striking way of implying that this moment of personal growth had been seeded with something more insidious, that their self-loathing is a taint that has followed them across their many incarnations.  I’m not the first one to point this out, but there’s always been a certain tension within the text regarding Phos’s changes.  On one hand, their courage to change is framed as admirable and heroic, but on the other hand, they’re also hurting themselves because of social pressure to avoid being useless, which is kind of awful.  I think the narrative resolves this tension by making Phos’s quest for validation something which would eventually lead them to try and tear down the status quo that they hurt themselves for in the first place.  

Okay, back to the moon gems.  I’ve reread the part of chapter 79 focused on the moon several times, and it just feels more ominous with each iteration.  What exactly was their idea of administering therapy for Yellow?  Why is Amethyst on board with Cairn’s death bullshit?  Why is Dia okay with it?  Why did they stop fixing the dusted gems?  And most concerning, where are the other three gems—especially Alex who would probably be extremely opposed to halting the gem restoration?  It feels as if there’s something terrible just out of our field of view and chapter 79 is dancing around it.  (But hey, my intuition was wrong about Euclase so maybe when I read chapter 80 Ichikawa will tell me that Alex, Goshe, and Benito were at moon-disneyland the whole time, and that Aechmea is a real swell guy, actually.)

(No, I’m not bitter in the least.)

I also find it interesting that in chapter 79, Cairn is espousing a lot of the same sentiments as poor Yellow, but since they can mask the dysfunction better, they’re treated as an expert rather than a victim.  In reality, both of them are in serious need of a therapist, which is apparently non-existent in the post-post-apocalypse.

And finally, Barbata continues to be the truest audience surrogate.  I find it interesting that he clearly doesn’t approve of all the bullshit going on, while at the same time being too reticent to do anything about it, aside from some side-eyes and passive-aggressive comments.  Perhaps there will be some payoff to this down the line?

At this point, let’s talk about Kongou, because both his actions and his role as a sort of parallel to Phos in the narrative are fascinating.  I think this is the first time in the story that he’s really done something proactive.  I touched on this in a cursory character analysis I did for him, but to reiterate, the impression I got from his at times obtuse and contradictory behavior was that he had completely given up on trying to solve the Lunarian problem long before the series had begun, and that the only thing cutting through his despair and compelling him to get up in the morning and not just “meditate” forever was the prospect of spending a little more time with the people he loves, even knowing that he couldn’t protect them in any way that mattered.  But watching Phos’s struggle reignited a tiny bit of hope in him, enough that he wanted them to succeed in their efforts, but not enough for him to believe that he himself could make a difference.  To me, that seems like the only explanation that accounts for both his obstinacy when Phos directly confronted him along with his casual acceptance of the path Phos has been walking.

So for him to go behind everyone’s back to fix Phos is quite the departure from his usual passivity, and it tells us that he’d rather subject himself and everyone else to Phos’s brand of chaos than endure stasis that comes with their absence.  And it really does seem like the world enters a stasis along with Phos whenever they end up comatose.  Nothing moves forward, and the only thing to mark the passage of time are small deteriorations: Morga and Goshe are captured, and Cairn quietly becomes suicidal, and this time around, Yellow gradually loses their mind, the Admirabilis that Phos tried to spare overcrowd the tiny waterways they were released into, and the gems on the moon stop caring about whether they live or die.

For a while now, various characters both gem and Lunarian have called Phos their hope, or their savior, or some variation thereupon, and with each new iteration, the sentiment feels more and more ironic.  Time and time again, Phos rises to the occasion only to buckle under pressure, their noble intentions haven’t gotten them good results since, like, chapter 10, and everyone who at one point had faith in them is completely done with them.  And at the end of it all, they don’t have it in them to ask Kongou to pray on anyone’s behalf but their own, as if they’ve become so exhausted that they don’t have the energy to be kind anymore.  And just to rub salt in the wound, their ambiguous phrasing makes it unclear whether Phos is asking to Kongou get rid of the Lunarians or themselves.

All of this seems to mirror what Kongou is implied to have gone through.  He was created to save the souls of humanity, but was ill-equipped for the task, and he’s spent god knows how many millennia dogged by his failure to deliver.  Aechmea’s line in chapter 55 about how his human creators didn’t bother to think about what would happen to him after everyone was gone, in my mind, parallels how Phos has been abandoned by the people who once supported them once they became too much of an inconvenience.

So now that these two failed saviors are finally confronting each other with no lies to hide behind, and nothing to get between them, what’s going to happen?  I get the feeling that chapter 80 is going to give us some long awaited catharsis, for better or worse.  (Please Ichikawa, make things a little better for once.)

On a related note, I’m hoping this possible catharsis might clarify something else for me.  For all that the series is steeped in Buddhist symbolism and philosophy, I’ve never been able to tell what Ichikawa actually thinks of Buddhism.  On one hand, the assumptions that life boils down to suffering and that the self is ephemeral and illusory are certainly present, but on the other hand, the characters who lean most heavily on the Buddhist aesthetic are villains, the characters most invested in reaching nirvana are portrayed as…let’s say misguided at best, and as I’ve already noted above, our two would-be Buddhas are chronically ineffectual.  If I had to take a stab at it, I’d guess that the aspect of the philosophy that she takes issue with is the idea of relying on a savior figure and the idea that there exists a nirvana that could save anyone from samsara.  But if the Lunarians’ wish were a complete pipe dream, then Shiro et al wouldn’t have already disappeared?  Unless that was a misdirection and their souls were actually reincarnated?  Idk, I don’t have enough brain cells to parse The Most Viable Interpretation at this juncture in the story.

Lastly, assuming Phos doesn’t ascend to nirvana via pure rage next chapter, I think their next replacement is going to be imminent.  All of Phos’s other changes have been accompanied by death and birth imagery: they lost their legs out at sea, which is where inclusions are said to emerge, they lost their arms and their head at the site of their birth, the time they spent comatose evoked the image of a shrouded corpse in a morgue, their first trip to the moon in which they got their new eye apparently lasted the length of a Buddhist funeral, and now, they’ve literally been buried.  (On a side note, it’s interesting that there’s a lot more death imagery for their later transformations, while their earlier changes alluded to birth.)  I’m not the first person to point this out, but it seems likely to me that Rutile made good on their threat to throw Phos into the ocean, and discarded whatever pieces they were assigned to bury.  And indeed, there seems to be a gaping hole in Phos’s torso.  I still think Padparadscha is the most likely candidate for a replacement—the red stone from the lotus sutra has been alternately described as ruby, carnelian, amber, or coral, and Padparadscha is the closest we have to any of those—but who knows.  Ichikawa might even decide to stop short of all seven treasures in service of some greater thematic purpose.

And with that, this belated essay is finally done.  Except it isn’t.  This is a complete tangent, but I recently looked up the one and only region where gem-quality phosphophyllite was briefly mined, a mountain in the Bolivian Andes called Cerro Rico.  Hundreds of thousands have died there since the 16th century while mining silver, and that figure may be lowballing it, as some scholars think the death toll is actually in the millions.  It is colloquially known as “the Mountain that Eats Men,” and the miners pay tribute to this fellow in hopes of avoiding cave-ins and pockets of toxic gas, but are otherwise doomed to die young from silicosis.  According to a forum post I found belonging to a mineral collector, the mineshaft where all the phosphophyllite came from had to be walled off with a concrete bulkhead because the poisonous gases that accumulated in the tunnel had killed a number of miners.  The idea of gem mining already conjures up images of exploited workers in abject conditions, but I must say that Maneater Mountain exceeded my expectations.

Okay, now I’m actually done.  I’m going to get some sleep on account of the fact that it’s 2 AM, but afterwards I shall read the new chapter and repeat this whole grueling cycle over again, but like, in a timely manner.

[cinnbar-bun]

In a Blink of an Eye

(Phos x Human! Reader)

A/n: Angst...angst...angst...first thing that isn’t GBF and ITS SOME HNK ANGST IM SORRY. CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR HNK. Also, male pronouns for the gems. 

“Ne, (Y/n), look what I made!” 

“It’s so pretty! These flowers are more beautiful than the ones from my time.” 

“Dia taught me how to make them into a crown. For you, uh, if you want?” 

“Of course, how could I resist? You made it for me!” 

“Since we’ve got nothing better to do, why don’t we sit in the fields for a while?” 

“Let’s go. There’s so much we have to talk about!” 

I remember that time. That was when (Y/n) kept talking about home. They said they missed it, but being with me made it easier for them. How strange. It felt strange to be wanted by someone. 

“Phos! Slow down! I can’t keep up with you!” 

“Heh, maybe all those snails are starting to drag you down!” 

“Meanie. I thought you cared for me!” 

“Of course I do. But~” 

“Oh no.” 

“Tickle fight!” 

“Stop! Phos! Heh, s-s-stop! I don’t wanna hurt you!” 

“Huh? Why would you hurt me?” 

“I wouldn’t. You just uh...” 

“O-oh...yeah...shattering...it’s fine, Rutile will patch me up again.” 

“But I’d feel awful if you broke because of me.” 

“You worry too much. Seriously, this is Rutile’s job, he’ll do it.” 

“If you say so...” 

Right...this was after I lost my legs...I chased (Y/n) around all the time. They always tried to run by my side, even though they were no where near as fast as me. It was fun running through the fields with them. We’d catch butterflies and just talk. They cried once because they thought they broke me. Even if they did, I wouldn’t mind, it was just nice to be with them. 

“You’re up for the winter?” 

“Of course. Where else would I be?” 

“Uh...hibernating?” 

“Humans don’t do that Phos, only some animals.” 

“Huh...strange...then how do you live with low levels of sunlight?” 

“I dunno. We don’t need it that much, we get energy from other things. Don’t be surprised if I’m tired and mopey all the time though!” 

“So then, what do you do for winter?” 

“A lot. We can go ice-skating, or sledding, or make snowmen and snow angels. Tons of things!” 

“What are those things?” 

“I’ll show you okay? Wait, even better! We can celebrate Christmas together!” 

“Christmas?” 

“It’s a holiday where friends and family get together and exchange gifts. We sit next to a warm fire and have dinner together, and then in the morning, we open the gifts Santa left us from that night.” 

“S-Santa?” 

I still don’t understand what Christmas is. They gave me a red hat with cotton on the end and said it was a “Santa hat”. Still don’t know what that is either. My gift was a book about how much they loved and cared for me. They felt awful they couldn’t get me anything, but I loved it. I kept it in my room. They helped me when Antarcticite was taken. They helped me when my arms became gold. My brothers were scared of me, but (Y/n) never stopped loving me. I felt better knowing that I could be by their side. 

“Phosphophyllite, you do know the dangers you are putting yourself in by getting attached to them, right?” 

“What are you talking about, Sensei? They’ve helped me and I don’t think I could be where I am without them.” 

“It’s much more complicated than you’d ever understand. Tell me, what would happen if they suddenly left?” 

“I’d go find them.” 

“What if they were to wither and break slowly?” 

“Then I’d fix them, like they did for me.” 

“Phos...you have much to learn. They’re not pleasant things to learn. Humans are different from gems. Once they’re gone, they’re gone.” 

“But we can always put them back together! Rutile will fix them!” 

“No, Phos, you cannot put back together a human body and soul. Death is a foreign concept to all of you, but you will learn the painful truth about life. Not everything can be brought back, and not everything can last. Some things are gone in a blink of an eye.” 

I wanted to argue with him, I wanted to say how I’d never let (Y/n) get hurt. How I didn’t care how bad I was injured, I’d rather they lived. Words cannot describe how wonderful they’ve been to me. 

“S-sorry, Phos...my body isn’t as young as it once was.” 

“It’s fine. I’m sure a little nap will fix that.” 

“Maybe...let’s sit under the sun again...” 

I noticed they always were tired and slow. They were becoming weaker and couldn’t keep up with me as much. They complained their back and their knees were hurting, but that they were fine. “Growing pains” they laughed. If they weren’t seriously injured, then I didn’t mind. (Y/n) was strong. I know that.

Yet...it’s strange...sometimes I hear them saying my name...talking to me... I want to say something back, but my voice never leaves me. And then one day, it stopped. It must have been my imagination. 

“Phos. Phos. Phos.” 

The sensation is new. I don’t understand what happened. Cairn is in front of me, a bewildered expression on his face. 

“You’re finally awake.” 

“I guess so...” This isn’t my head. I can feel it. 

Lapis. 

I looked around the room before looking back at Cairngorm. 

“I feel like I was supposed to see someone. Their name is on the tip of my tongue...it’s...it’s...” 

“(Y/n).” 

“Ah, yes, that’s it! Where’s (Y/n)?” I want to see them again and ask more about Santa. I want to to sit in the sun once more. 

“Uh...about that...” Cairn doesn’t face me. 

“What’s wrong? Why are you so sad?” 

“P-Phos?” I turn around and assumed it was (Y/n), but it didn’t sound like them. Diamond and Bort were at the door, staring at me in surprise. 

“It’s been over a hundred years! We thought you’d never wake up.” Diamond says before he embraces me. 

“Heh, well, I’m here. Do you know where (Y/n) is?” Diamond and Bort nod before they make me follow them. 

I feel giddy all over at the thought of seeing them. One hundred years without them has been quite boring, but I’d wait more for them. 

“Hey, we’ve been walking for a while now. Where are you taking me?” I ask impatiently. 

Bort shakes his head before we stop in the open meadow. I don’t see (Y/n) anywhere.

“Are they going to surprise me again?” I didn’t understand what was going on. 

“No. They’re right here.” Bort stated, pointing at a stone on the ground. 

“So funny, Bort. Come on, where are they?” 

“Phos, they’re right here. They died. Years ago.” Dia states a bit too casually for my taste. It was almost like it was a joke to them. 

“W-what? Dead? But it’s only been a hundred years, I’m not understanding wha-” 

“Phos.” Sensei steps forward and places a gentle hand on my shoulder. “Remember what we discussed a long time ago? Humans are much more different than you. They are gone quicker than you’ll ever realize.” 

“B-but...can’t we- can’t we put them back together?” I feel tears in my eyes. Why am I shaking so much? 

Sensei shakes his head. 

“Humans rot. They cannot be replaced. Their body does not exist anymore, all that’s left is bone.” 

“When did this...” I can hardly muster out the courage to ask. I’ve been gone for how long? How long had (Y/n) been dead while I was resting?

“Over eighty years ago. They barely reached one hundred years of life.” 

Barely a hundred? Was that even living? 

“So...so...they really are gone?” I huddle over the stone on the ground. This was the last remainder of (Y/n) I’d get. 

A horrid thought came into my mind. What if I forgot about (Y/n)? What if all our days together just disappeared? 

I can’t hear anything. I can’t feel anything. It’s just a horrible choking feeling, as if I was drowning. I don’t remember what happened next. Sensei had to pull me away from the stone and tried to hold me back. The other gems were screaming for me to stop. There’s some dirt on my hands and knees, but I can hardly even think about that. 

(Y/n) was gone. 

A hundred years is nothing. I remembered the phrase Sensei used to describe humans. 

“They’re gone in a blink of an eye.” 

[phoslos]

ch. 70 thoughts here--press j to skip. im sorry to mobile users. 

couple of things: i was surprised at how much i loved cairngorm’s entrance, for one thing. the other thing is--all the gems seem off, not just the moon gems. 

If gems really are the bones left over from humanity, then we can assume they’ve never really were meant for fighting. Spirit and Flesh, that is what battles are for. Bones do not grow stronger or weaker as flesh/spirit can. Phos defies that, because, well, it’s Phos. 

Something of note--the bell toppling over (a symbol of wisdom in Buddhism, esp paired with a vajra), and Cairngorm’s weapon--another vajra. We’ve seen one before, with Semi/Cicada (I wanna know why post apoc subs has his name as Cicada but eh). Vajras are meant to be symbols of compassion--at least that is what most things said when I was researching. Honestly, I find this to be a good sign for Cairngorm. And Cairngorm felt like themself to me--rash, powerful, and violent. It made me happy, even if they shatter Phos’ (Lapis’) head. Honestly, I’d rather the head than the torso--the last bit of Phosphophyllite left. 

Worrisome. 

As for Padparadscha, I think they were cool! Rutile wouldn’t give in, and we can assume Padpa knew Yellow wouldn’t/couldn’t fight, so they went with the swiftest fix. We don’t know much about Pad’s fighting style, beyond that they’re only second to Bort. I think we definitely see that here. We’re used to seeing Padpa as the cool, older sibling sorta vibe (or Sleeping Handsome), but if HnK teaches us anything, it’s that there’s always more underneath the surface. 

Bortz was cool, too! I hate seeing the gems fight, but, well, I feel like we don’t really know what the purpose of the raid was--just talk, try to convince more to come? Break Sensei? Either way, the Earth Gems initiated battle. I think that’s undeniable, here. Also, Padpa likely knows that any breaks suffered could be repaired...Compared to Cinnabar’s mercury. And we don’t know what the Earth gems planned if they defeated our Primary Night Raid Trio (primary bc primary colors). That’s worrisome. Using Shinsha against Lunarians is one thing, but against other gems...? It makes me kinda sick. 

Is it weird for Euclase to be giving me Aechmea vibes? Gosh, would that make Jade Cicada/Semi? Awkward. But, somehow...I dunno if I can deny the parallels there, now. Few as they are. 

From the beginning, Phos has been special. While seen as annoying and useless, the gems do dote on Phos, even if it seems more teasing/light bullying (save Bortz). As Phos changed, the more special they became. Why? Why them? Why did Ichikawa go for a brittle gem, one that could not even be made into jewelry? What is the significance of that, beyond an interesting plotline for the protagonist? Why must so much of them be replaced to be stronger? 

For all we know, Euclase, with their amazing prediction skills, determined when a gem would be taken to the moon. “Helidor should be at the cave today.” We know they’re something of a secret leader, after all. (This is speculation btw, I absolutely adore Euc and really hope this isn’t the case--but choosing a gem with two sides like euclase? It’s a curious pick). 

I think I’ve already accepted Sensei is likely asleep, from one of red-dia’s posts a while back. Not to mention, I really doubt he would want them fighting Phos like this. 

To summarize: I have a good feeling about Cairngorm right now, Padpa only remained composed while ensuring Yellow and Phos’ survival, I really don’t like them using Shinsha’s mercury in battle against their own kind, weird vibes about Euclase but mostly just speculation, Phos continues to be a shining light for the future--whatever that future is, and...Earth gems initiated fighting. We don’t know what they would’ve done if they beat the primary raiders. 

I really encourage people to do research on Buddhism, especially as symbols come up (which is all the time). Ichikawa pretty much has said that the story has ties with Buddhism, anyways. Also, keep in mind the stories Ichikawa has told so far--how they deal with unhealthy/toxic/abusive relationships and the human condition. These are both points I think about a lot when I consider Houseki no Kuni. 

Also, Ventricosus and Antarc are still deeply missed by me, thanks for coming to my TED talk byeee

[rutilation]

So, I’m putting all my crack theories/observations about hnk in one place so that if any of them are proven correct I’ll be able to refer back to this and say that I called it.

The title of Ichikawa’s art book, Pseudomorph of Love seems to allude to her approach for Phosphophyllite’s changes.  Whenever Phos loses and gains a new body part, it’s an act of compassion in some way.  Except for the pearl eye, all of Phos’s alterations have followed this pattern

They lost their legs while trying to help Ventricosus, and gained their agate legs because Ventri decided to show them compassion and not stoop to the level of the Lunarians.

While Phos’s own self-hatred tempted them to chop off their arms, it was only when the ice floes preyed on their desire to save Cinnabar that Phos accidentally-on-purpose lost their arms.  Antarc initially dismisses the gold and platinum as useless, but when they see that Phos is not-so-subtly projecting their own feelings of uselessness onto the metals, Antarc changes their tune and decides to attach them to Phos.  In a roundabout way, Antarc is trying to communicate to Phos that they aren’t useless ;_;

Phos loses their head trying to save Cairngorm’s arm, and Cairngorm decides to give them Lapis’s head.  While they kind of can’t help but project Lapis onto Phos after they wake up, the fact that they were willing to give up their own head, and the fact that they finally admitted to themselves that they don’t believe any of the gems will be brought back indicate to me that they did this out of genuine concern for Phos and not because they’re trying to resurrect Lapis.

Edit as of 5/11: I totally forgot about this, but Phos loses Lapis’s hair trying to shield baby Morga and Goshe from the lunarians.

Edit as of 6/12: Phos had to have some pieces chipped off from trying to help Cinnabar.  They also lost the piece of their leg they offered to Variegatus.

Because the pearl eye is the exception to this, and is primarily associated with betrayal on Phos’s part and manipulation on Aechmea’s, I suspect it’s going to be replaced later on in the story, maybe by a red pearl, which is closer to how the pearl is described in the whole seven treasures thing. (and just as an aside, I totally buy that Ichikawa is referencing the seven treasures with Phos’s new limbs.  She said in an interview that Buddhist sutras about gemstones are what inspired her to write the story in the first place so I think it’s safe to say that she’s familiar with the concept.)  I also think that Phos will get this possible new eye from Cicada, because he is a cinnamon roll. 

I also think that Phos choosing to get rid of one of their alterations and replacing it with a more positive one would be a good way to progress their character arc while also forwarding the work’s themes about identity.  Perhaps the solution to the tragedy of Phos slowly losing themselves is gaining the capacity to choose how they change, which I find a lot more poignant than edgy pondering about how Phos isn’t Phos anymore–I find that take in particular to be a rather un-nuanced appraisal of Phos’s situation, and it bugs me how common it is.

I think that the lower half of Phos’s torso is going to be the next thing to go, leaving only their chest (metaphorically, their heart) behind.  There are several bits of visual story telling that lead me to think this is a possibility.  The first is in the various non-permanent injuries that Phos suffers throughout the series.  I may be reading too much into things since there are only so many ways for Phos to break, but it’s possible they function as visual foreshadowing:

loses their arms and legs in the first chapter after getting caught up in Kongo’s attack

loses their arms while trying to grab cinnabar

is completely dissolved by Ventricosus (I’ll come back to this.)

left eye gets knocked off by one of Aculeatus’s tentacles

arms get shattered after Kongo yells at them

an arm gets broken after Phos falls off the roof of the school

they get cut in half by a lunarian’s arrow

their face is punched off twice by Cairngorm

they destroy their head during a mental breakdown, and then get punched in half by Jade–in more or less the same spot where they got shot before

lol I cannot keep track of all the injuries they got against the explosive shogi pieces

Cairngorm shatters their torso

Aechmea slices off their limbs

Every single one of Phos’s more permanent losses has been preceded by at least one injury to the exact same area.  In the first half of the manga, it was mostly losses of their arms and legs, in the second half, we see a lot of Phos getting either decapitated or bisected.

Another bit of visual storytelling comes from the anime.  The director has stated in an interview that he had a long chat with Ichikawa and is aware of future events not yet depicted in the manga.  While he obviously wasn’t allowed to overtly hint at said future events, there’s one bit of anime-original content that might hint at Phos’s future changes.  The abstract scene of Phos being put back together after being dug out of the shell is very different between the anime and manga.  In the manga, they slowly coalesce out of a stream of Cinnabar’s mercury.  In the anime, Phos forms out of a liquid of their own coloration.  What I want to focus on is what the camera emphasizes in this scene.  It focuses on Phos’s feet, arms, pelvis, head, and then their eye.  Apart from their pelvis, these are all parts that Phos eventually loses.  I suspect this scene was actually the director trying to include some visual foreshadowing.

Assuming I’m right about Phos losing half their torso, I think Padparadscha is going to be what replaces it.  Despite their few appearances, they’ve been given a lot of narrative weight, and have a similar coloration to carnelian, ruby, and amber–which are the different interpretations of the red gem written of in the aforementioned sutra.  Not to mention all the lotus symbolism surrounding them.

I think that the new Morga and Goshe are actually reincarnations of the old ones, only they were reincarnated as the others’ gemstone.  New Goshe’s personality matches old Morga’s and vice versa.  The fact that they heard Phos calling out to them in their dreams while Phos was dreaming of the shattered gems seems like a dead giveaway to me.  Although given how bad the translation is, I could be misinterpreting Goshe’s words.  That said, I do think that Phos is actually somehow psychically connecting to the dead gems in this scene and not just dreaming–the fact that it’s the first full-color scene we’ve had since the beginning of the manga just screams “Pay attention, this is important!”

I’m not the one who came up with this theory but I certainly agree with it: I think that the reason the gems were ground into a fine powder and not just turned into jewelry is because it allowed the Lunarians to extract the gems’ inclusions, and that’s what the human particle is made of.  In which case, the dusted gems are well and truly dead, and no amount of reconstruction will bring them back.  In my view, the thematic core of the story is about coming to terms with change, loss, and death.  Bringing back the lost gems would undercut this theme. 

However, I have a feeling that Antarc was actually kept alive.  This is one of my crackier theories but please bear with me:

As much as I love Phos to bits, Antarc would probably hate the person Phos has become, which means Ichikawa could still forward those themes I just mentioned even if Antarc was brought back.  Things would never be the same between them.

The fact that Aechmea had a replica of one of the broken pieces of Antarc’s face ready when he met Phos is reeeaaaallllly suspect.  At the very least, it means that Aechmea has been interested in Phos and has expected them to come to the moon eventually for a while now.  Why on earth would he just happen to have a piece of Antarc on him otherwise?  My theory is that when Aechmea became aware of Phos’s new arms and the fact that one of the seemingly static gems was rapidly changing, he took an interest in Phos and decided to spare Antarc so he could use them as leverage.  (Not that he really needed to since Phos was dumb enough to do his job for him and bring a bunch of potential hostages to the moon. rip)

Going back to the situation with Morga and Goshe, I think it’s possible something went wrong when the Lunarians tried to extract their inclusions which lead to their inclusions dying, and thus why Mora and Goshe were reincarnated whereas none of the other gems appeared to be.

Also going back to when Phos got dissolved and eaten, I think it might be foreshadowing that by the end of the story, Phos will have lost all their original parts.  Or maybe it’s just supposed to clue us in early on that the story we’re reading will be about how Phos is broken and repaired, both literally and metaphorically. One or the other…

I’ve noticed that apart from Phos (and kind-of-sort-of Cinnabar,) no one appears on the volume covers more than once.  Since they’ve been pretty active recently, I suspect that Euclase and Jade will be on the cover of volume nine.  On a related note, I think that Cinnabar will finally crawl out of their dust jacket hovel and onto the cover in the final volume. 

The Lunarians briefly mention a gem called Apophyllite after they collect Phos.  The fact that there used to be a gem who was the same color as Phos, as well as having a name with similar etymology–and said etymology refers to both gems’ breakage no less–makes me think they might be important later.  It wouldn’t be the first time Ichikawa casually name-dropped someone crucial to the plot many chapters before they became relevant.

While Kongo couldn’t understand Ventricosus, the way he talked about the ice flows made it sound like he could understand them.  So I think the ice flows must be speaking some human language.

The Admirabilis all seem to be named after the shapes of their shell.  Aculeatus means spiked, and he has a spiky shell.  Ventricosus means swollen or distended, which may refer to her round snail-like shell.  Variegatus means multicolored, so if we ever see her shell, I expect it will be very colorful.  I also think Variegatus herself might be bluish green like Phos, since the chapter focused on her definitely invited parallels between her and the old Phos, what with her outgoing personality, the fact that her people see her as a little kid and don’t take her seriously, her tendency to get herself in trouble, and her desire to venture past the safe confines of her society and explore the gems’ island and the moon.  Not to mention the fact that Phos themselves could be described as variegated at this point in the story.

Melon has pikachu powers as a sort of fantasy take on tourmaline’s pyroelectric (generates a charge when heated) and piezoelectric (generates a charge under applied mechanical stress)  properties.  But hemimorphite is also strongly piezo/pyroelectric.  I theorize that the reason the two were paired up was so that Hemimor could teach Melon about their electricity powers, and that we’ll see Hemimor using said powers sometime in the future.

Everyone’s already talking about that intriguing shot of the human particle after Phos gets the pearl eye, so I don’t really have much to add to that discussion.

Also, I’ve seen people speculate that the gems are all super short because of how tall they are compared to Kongo.  I don’t know if I buy this though, because that assumes that Kongo is as tall as an average human man, which has never been confirmed.  When we see Aechmea stand next to Phos, he’s not much taller than they are.  In any case, I think it’s a bit too early to speculate on how tall the gems are.

Well that’s about all I can vomit out of my brain for the moment.  And despite the wall of text I just wrote, I don’t have much of an idea of how the story will end.  I’m excited to see what Ichikawa will say with the ending regardless of how happy or sad the story ends up being.  Knowing her, it’ll at least be interesting.