#sorry to the fans

[specialagentartemis]

ykw i am having so much fan watching you be a hater, that i’ve decided to ask for more. PLEASE give us a rant about a book you hated.

Haha aw I'm honored. And uh I hope you don't have any particular attachment to Becky Chambers. Sorry in advance.

But A Psalm for the Wild-Built won a Hugo and I do not get the love. Book 1 was nice enough, yeah. Book 2 had me tearing my hair out.

Sibling Dex is a restless Tea Monk who serves the God of Small comforts on the science-fantasy planet of Panga. I genuinely love the idea of a tea monk - part therapist, part confessor, travels around to the different towns, mixes tea blends for people, lets them talk about their worries and fears and stresses, and gives them, if not advice, then sympathy and a listening ear and some calming tea. This is meaningful work but they're unhappy. After doing this for a while they're still unsatisfied with their life, so they go into the woods searching for self-actualization, and meet a robot named Mosscap, a wild robot that lives in the woods. See, hundreds of years ago, all the robots "woke up" and became sentient one day, then they staged a quiet rebellion against humanity's greed and industrialization by walking into the woods and never coming back. Now, the continent is split in half: humans stay on the Human Side, and robots stay on the Robot Side. The Robot Side is kept wild and humans are discouraged from going in there because humans can't be trusted not to ruin Nature. The rpbots are welcome to come to the Human Side, they just never have. Dex is the first person in a While to venture into the woods of the Robot Side, and the first human since the great walkout to see a robot. Mosscap gives Dex a lot of philosophical pep talks about not pushing themself so hard, about allowing themself to just rest and appreciate the world without feeling like they need to be Providing A Service to justify their existence. It's a nice theme. Underbaked, imo, but nice. Relateable.

Book 2 was a goddamn mess.

Book 1 mostly takes place in the wilderness of the woods, so it's okay if the nice utopian human community Dex comes from was sketchily-built. It Just Works, and everyone Is Just Nice, this is a science-fantasy parable. There were some issues I had with it - like the strict ideological and physical divide between Nature and Humans, and the fact that Dex's religion seems to be the Only Religion In The World, and it's vaguely secular-humanist with the gods being not "really" gods but names given to primordial forces and philosophical concepts, and the religion not really making any demands of its adherents in any way except to become their best selves and devote themselves to what they like... it's potentially interesting, but overall kinda lazy. It felt like Becky Chambers was aware of the idea that having an enlightened-atheist sci-fi utopia is Problematic, so she made there be a central religion, but she also didn't want it to have any of the ~icky~ things religions have, like belief in anything supernatural, or dietary restrictions, or creeds, or codes of behavior, or expectations to make any kind of sacrifice in any way. All the gods "ask" is that humans observe and appreciate the world. But whatever.

In book 2, Dex and Mosscap return to Dex's society, and the book seems to want to explain how the world works, and oh my GOD is Chambers not prepared to do this.

"Observe and appreciate" is all anyone is asked to do. Book 2, A Prayer for the Crown-Shy, is an ode to ultimate virtue of Doing Nothing. There's this attitude I see in a LOT of utopian fiction, where the author is bluntly just not a good enough author to imagine a utopian society where people act like people, so in the world of Panga, utopian society is achieved through 1) homogeneity 2) no one giving a crap about anything.

As far as I can tell, there is the one religion. Most people are Fine with this. Most people are Fine with anything. There are no characters with distinct personalities. There's no money, except there is, except it's not real money and no one will deny you anything if your balance is in the red, even though your balance is available to be seen by anyone - this does not cause any kind of shame or pride or competition in any way, and Dex doesn't understand why it might. There are no hierarchies or governing bodies, people just volunteer to step up when things need doing (this is portrayed as great and not deeply concerning). There are different communities, but in them, everyone is uniformly nice, friendly, and helpful at all times. There are some parts of nature, like the seashore, where people are not allowed to go because they'll ruin the environment, and this is accepted as correct and necessary. Most people live in hippie, pro-recycling, high-tech, end-of-history green communities; there's one group they visit, however, that doesn't trust technology, and lives in a vaguely sci-fi-Amish way. You might think, Dex travelling around with a robot, this might cause conflict! It does not. The people from this community calmly explain their anti-technology position, Dex calmly explains their pro-technology position, and they politely respect each other. "Not bothered either way" is a phrase that turns up in various permutations a lot and is held up as the good, mature, responsible way to be.

There's a scene where they catch a fish for dinner, and instead of killing it, the scifi-Amish guy says "We let the air do that for us, and they let the fish slowly suffocate to death in the air while they all look on solemnly and sadly. This is portrayed as a deep, beautiful moment of them witnessing and honoring the final moments of a living being's life. And not. y'know. them torturing a living being to death so they can keep their own hands clean.

This is what I mean about the valorization of passivity: observing is all you are ever obligated to do. Letting a fish die in the air is better than killing it quickly and humanely, because doing things gets your hands dirty, while letting things simply happen is the Correct way to do it.

At the end, Mosscap and Dex blow off all their promises and appointments and just hang out at the beach chilling out instead, because do what you want forever, you don't have to do shit. This is the happy affirming ending. Mosscap you fucking said you'd meet with the city leaders as the robot ambassador to the humans, did you tell them you were blowing off this commitment because you didn't feel like doing that anymore??? Did you even let them know??????

It is SUCH a baffling book. The theme wants to be "you are more than your job, you deserve to just Be" and ends up feeling like "you don't have to do anything ever, and no one can make you do anything you don't want to do if you don't feel like it, and you don't owe anyone anything and searching for a purpose in your life is just making you stressed out so chill at the beach instead."

The thing that drives me crazy is like. Mosscap cheerfully tells Dex about robots that spend twenty years in a cave watching stalactites form because they think it's beautiful, and those robots are just as much a valued part of society as anyone else. Appreciating beauty and wonder is good enough, you don't need to be productive. And I'm just. fuckin. like. Humans are not robots! Robots don't need to eat or sleep! Humans need food, and clothes, and shelter, and medical care, and if we don't have SOMEONE working to provide that, we Die! Nice as it would be, we CAN'T just all do nothing forever until we feel like it! We can't do that!

And at the same time, the book bizarrely treats wanting a purpose in life as like... almost disordered. If you are seeking a purpose in life it's because you just haven't let go of your guilt and relaxed enough. It's bizarre. Valorization of passivity. Humans aren't meant to be in nature so we just Shouldn't. Doing nothing and having no strong opinions is the most self-affirmed you can possibly be. Letting a fish suffocate is more moral than quickly breaking its neck or spiking its brain. Someone else will do it. Who, if we're all supposed to be resting and only doing what we feel like? Don't worry about it.

"The heart of this book is comfort [...] There is nothing in it that can hurt you." YOU LIAR BECKY CHAMBERS THE FISH SCENE STILL DISTURBS AND UPSETS ME TO THIS DAY

[vigilskeep]

im not going to stop being mad at halsin and i have to just accept that i think

[the-crow-binary]

Tbh I feel like everything could have been fine if there was a little bit more care into it I'm not French and I don't much about the revolution so i can't say anything about the it but I'm black so I can empathize with Annette a little more I think the Idea behind her is interesting.

Oh boyyyyyyyy okay I finished watching the show so now I can rant.

We pretty much agree. The idea behind Annette is not the problem I have with her (well, except for the fact that they felt the need to give her powers when it would've been much more meaningful and impactful to me if she hadn't had any). The problem is the show uses her to emphasize how much SLAVERY IS BAD AND EVIL (as if we don't already know that) but to the point of straight-up insulting everyone else.

First off, there's this dialogue from Annette, talking to Richter and Maria: "You're not cowards. You're just children with no experience of the world. No experience of the hard choices adults have to make." Basically, Annette is saying she knows more than them because SHE SUFFERED MORE. Maria and Richter don't know pain! They were never slaves! And everyone knows only black people and slaves knows what the world is REALLY LIKE and what TRUE PAIN IS. It infuriated me so much, and it was only the beginning.

When Richter ran away from Olrox (because that's the vampire who killed his mother in front of him and traumatised him as a CHILD, Tera told her that, his panic attack was understandable), Annette had a whole monologue about how being a slave is terrifying, about how they know the cost of freedom, about how she wouldn't run away (even though she literally ran away from her ex-owner). Later on, she will say about Richter that he was "useless as fuck". I get it, she's mad, but the fact she had to make it about her and her problems like Richter did not have as much as her is still a bitch move.

In another scene, she uses magic to talk to her teacher, and at first, it was fine. When Annette complained that Richter ran away, the woman gave her a piece of her own medicine by telling her "Everyone starts by running away, Annette.", hintingat her running away from her slave owner, and Annette goes "It's completely different, how can you even compare that!" even though SHE is the one who compared her story to Richter's to begin with to invalidate his feelings and make him look like a jerk. But then, the teacher says:

"Even these french with their high ideas, what do they know about we've suffered? And what do they care? They're building new world, but it won't be freedom, or equality or brotherhood for US"

I will talk about this more in details in another post, because the problem I have with it don't concern Annette directly. I just wanna say that there is big problems with this and that Annette did not contradict her, she did not try to say she was wrong, she took it as the truth. And that bothers me. In a earlier scene, in episode 3, the teacher also shat on the french revolution and "the whites" because it would not help THEM, so I should've expected it, really. Also Annette, just like everyone else at that moment, applauded this woman.

In the end it's a matter of the show drilling into our heads that Annette is so oppressed and SLAVERY BAD left and right that made me dislike her (that and the bitchy attitude she sometimes has for no reason). The writers does not know how to handle such a heavy topic and it shows (especially a heavy topic from another country :)). You know you fucked up when you can't talk about X people suffering without shitting on the suffering of others.

I don't know about her religion so I can't tell wich problems there is, if any, but I wouldn't be surprised if the writers messed that up too.

Good for you and everyone else who likes her, for any reason. You do you. I personnally can't stand her. She's not all bad (she was fine during the first episodes), but the show ruined her for me, I'm afraid. :/ I just can't look at her without thinking that the writers used her as a tool to defend that black people suffered more than anyone else (and it infuriates me even more when I remember that she used to be a white woman who's only crime was that she couldn't fight. i really wish everyone would stop turn the "weak" women into girlbosses who fights and make them actually strong in ways other than physical. and the fact they made her black just so they could tackle racism and slavery leaves a sour taste in my mouth). And shit a bit on the french revolution while they were at it. So yeah, just like you said. Could have been fine with a little bit more care put into it.

[beautifulsummersunsets]

About Idolish7... (If you are a fan of this anime, you better not read this because you won't like it) 🙃

I've given Idolish7 a second chance because on the internet, it's been getting a lot of hype, saying that it's not the typical idol anime, that it's not what it looks like, they compare it to Oshi no Ko, blah blah blah so I said to myself "Why not? Maybe this way I'll put aside my disgust for idol shows 🤷🏼‍♀️"

I mean, to be honest I love TsukiPro/Uta 💕 so how bad Idolish7 can be?

Well, I'm on S2 E7 and so far I can say that the whole anime is It's like running on a hamster wheel, always the same. These people, Idolish7, are like a toxic couple, they don't stop fighting and making up and the worst thing is that it's always for the same thing, they do not evolve or anything, they always end up upset for the same reasons over and over again 🤦🏼‍♀️

Of all the songs I've listened to, I still don't like even one, but I expected that, I don't like idol music, Tsukiuta/Pro is like a miracle, the exception to the rule in my case 😂 (Well, I admit that I also like Utapri's songs and I find them good 🤔 so there are 2 exceptions to the rule).

But the worst of all in my opinion and for the moment, are Tamaki and Riku, they need a couple of well given slaps 😒.

Tamaki behaves like a spoiled kindergarten kid, I mean, there's a limit to how egotistical one can be, don't you realize that you cause problems to the rest with such an unprofessional attitude? It's your job buddy! There are things you can and can't do and Riku… Ah Riku, this guy lives in his yuppie world, his idealism/happiness borders on the absurd, he looks like an abandoned puppy all the time "Tenn-ni doesn't recognize me" boy, snap out of it and leave your brother alone already 🙄 Is it that his character can't do anything that doesn't revolve around Kujo Tenn?

They just exhaust me, I swear to god all I7 members exhaust me.

Luckily for everyone there are 2 more groups 🙏🏻 I haven't seen too much of RE:Vale yet, so I can't give my opinion, but thank goodness, I thank heavens that Trigger exists because otherwise I would have shot myself by now because of how annoying Starish 2.0 are 😩

[chessb0r3d]

Analysis so bad you don't even know what it's talking about anymore.

[yourfavecharacterisqueer]

hypothetical scenario for you all: the real king arthur returns. you meet him and you welcome him into your home. what is the first thing you do with him? keep in mind, this is a man from the 500s (he died in 542), and you are from the 21st century (2024).

[paintedcrows]

Revelations - Little peek at a longer continuation to my Stan & Bill accidental internet buddies comic!

After the reveal, Stan initially doesn't want to tell Ford his (former) internet best friend was Bill Cipher, because he doesn't want him to worry. Stan later doesn't want to tell Ford because he (and Bill) would rather die.

[kiryuing]

[minjimunji]

bi 4 bi percabeth,,,,, 👉👈

[protocolseben]

Well. That’s a 1D thing to wake up to

[foogriffy]

would you still love me if i was a worm?

[planefood]

rules for thee and not for me

[minteehell]

Robin’s winter outfit made me feel things…

Bonus comic :

[syrcinus]

October 31st, 1981.

[alleesaur]

my robo miku design! (m1-ku if you would)

[chloesimaginationthings]

Pomni and Gummigoo reunite in TADC!