pansexuwhale

Not like, in relation to other published books, mind you, but normal for something a queer person on tumblr who likes Terry Pratchett and video games where you get to fuck the werebear in full shift and The Murderbot Diaries would write.

Anyway, I've said before that my idea of a good indie movie (this also applies to other media) is one that panders shamelessly to a audience so niche it has most critics muttering, "Who is this even for?!" and I think this book accomplished that.

Weird, sure. But internally consistent!

I LOVED the “in which …” chapter titles. I’ve seen those used for humor before, but these are both funny and give fascinating emotional background to each chapter. Mostly it’s a small emotion that’s highlighted, but it adds so much depth to what happens next. Here’s the prologue title for example:

I also loved the way the tone of the book shifted rather gently from “this is a comedy“ to “this is a horror novel“. I don’t know that it actually was a horror novel? Definitely speculative fiction. Maybe horror lite? Too much of a happy ending for horror, but too far from Happy Ever After to be traditional comedy. But that inability to nail down “who is this book for“ is part of it charm! 

The emotional drift of the story is Very Compelling. The slow breakdown of losing everything to get the one thing you want - and how that is happens differently for The Mad Sorcerer and for Sir Cameron. The grasping at bits of joy in the midst of chaos and confusion. The getting everything you wanted and it being confusing and different from what you pictured.

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You might know him from a thread where he was getting wowed by free appetisers in a Mexican restaurant.

Firstly: He is doing a bit pretending to be a wandering samurai. It's a joke and his posts are all made up. This is very obvious if you actually look at his account and website:

He does purport to be Japanese but based on some of the other content he posts there's reason to believe he's British.

Which brings me to my second point: his Samurai content is interspersed with posts like this:

And this:

Yeah this is also the guy from the truck thread going around. That's what prompted this post and in retrospect I should have said so explicitly.

He claims he just uses AI to translate his posts from Japanese. He also says the art on his website isn't AI generated. I think he is full of shit on both counts.

I only gave a couple of examples but even on a brief look through his twitter it was apparent that he posts a LOT about UK politics to the point where he's quite patently British. He is a Restore supporter which is a party that split away from mainstream far right party Reform due to feeling they weren't right wing enough.

It might not surprise you to hear he does not seem to know shit about Japan? Both the salsa story and the truck story failed the smell test for people who are familiar with Japan. There's also a story about going to a potluck where he seemingly couldn't come up with a single Japanese dish for the character to cook??

I do take some issue with the reading that he heroically CHOSE to stay there when he could have gone back. Because going back would be the most logical and beneficial decision to make, for both him and for his species (he could report back on the issues with time and distance behaving strangely, warn the eridian space agencies about the mysterious sickness, confirm that there was a Petrova line at Tau Ceti ect), and we know Weir is big on unemotional logic and that rocky is very very smart. I think its more likely that he didnt have the navigational skills to find his way back without the crew members who specialised in navigation, and was worried that if he tried he would get lost in space and any subsequent rescue mission would then gain nothing from him.

TLDR: the 12th of August a new EU law goes into effect that forces every business to pay exorbitant fees per European country they want to ship to, under the guise of ‘encouraging packaging waste reduce’ (and there are 27(!) countries in the EU)

Which is a good idea in theory, but mostly meant for the big businesses who sent thousands of packages each month, not an artist who sends three keychains often already in recycled packaging 🤡

Lets flood them with (politely worded) complaints 🙌🏼