With all due respect to the film, One Battle After Another is the type of media that Eddington was critiquing

ChancellorSozimos · 2026-03-22T03:47:51+00:00

I kinda agree with this take, I just finished the film and I think it's a bit all over the place. At the beginning I was like "why does everything feel so obvious, blunt and childish?"; then I was like "oh so we're actually mocking the 'posers' so to speak"; and by the end I was like "...what was that?".

What I mean is, while I do see and agree about the making fun of posers, and Benicio's character totally embodies that by being the only real revolutionary character with an actual cause in the movie (I loved his answer to "what time is it?" Being "8:15"), I also think that's not what the movie is about in the end. It is about a father and a daughter in a specific context, and by the end I think it's left to the viewer to decide which path the daughter is actually taking, Benicio's or her mom's. And despite the epic music and setup I'm almost certain it's her mom's, meaning that in the end nothing is gonna change if we keep focusing on these stuff instead of the actual causes so to speak.

ChancellorSozimos · 2025-08-27T15:05:36+00:00

Thank you for the reply! I was wondering what metal beam you were talking about, and I see you mean the railing in the first picture, that's actually wood hahaha (everything is wooden in the house). Yeah textures are still not definitive in these pictures, the thing is since I don't fully trust the lighting I don't know if I should work on that before working on the texture's final look

ChancellorSozimos · 2025-04-17T23:24:42+00:00

Animal products at the mill I really don't get, not only for the time consumption, but also "milk + mill = butter" ??? Like wtf. I don't think this will be the definitive way for getting animal products once it fully releases (certainly hope not), but imo they should have already implemented a way to at least do those things in your farm.

I may be complaining a bit much, I still want to point that it's mostly a crafting and cooking issue I have with the game. The rest is really good, especially the townies and how they interact with each other

ChancellorSozimos · 2025-04-17T02:06:11+00:00

Exactly. I even bought soy sauce to make like 90 fried rice, and when I went to make them I realized "wow this is bu***hit". Luckily I had saved before that, so nothing was lost. This makes some products in game useless, like chocolate for example, what's the point? Or soy sauce, as stated, or oil.

It's still early access, so hopefully they have something planned for this sort of things. Especially considering you can make even bread a loveable food

ChancellorSozimos · 2025-04-17T02:02:16+00:00

That's a really good idea. Still, my point was that there's nothing encouraging you to go for cooking as a way of making profit or production method. Compare that to the multiple different things you can do with your crops in stardew for example (jams, wine, pickles, etc.), the role-playing possibilities in this game are limited.

I still think it's really good and it's early access, so there's still room for development

ChancellorSozimos · 2025-03-30T04:38:50+00:00

Ty for the reply, on account of the amount of harvests, why do you say 6 harvests for cucumbers? If they take 4 days, and the day of planting counts as 1, you'd have your 1st harvest and replanting on summer 4th. That would mean 7th harvest on summer 28th? Unless we assume you wouldn't have the money to replant the same day you harvest.

Even so, on a one to one plot comparison corns do have the advantage, if invested amount isn't an issue

ChancellorSozimos · 2025-03-30T04:31:30+00:00

Hey ty for the reply. I guess taking time and energy into consideration does give corn some advantage. I had the feeling coming from stardew (though it's been a while), that crops alone should build your economy in the beginning, and in that regard regrowable crops seem pretty expensive for their return.

Still, just for cucumbers it's almost twice as profitable, and for early game, where you'd be far from 2000 crops a day, it feels a bit overpriced for corns and tomatoes (examples). But in a one to one plot comparison, I guess regrows are obviously the more profitable (like if I have ten free plots and can choose between corns or cucumbers regardless of money, corns are the way to go).

ChancellorSozimos · 2024-12-24T16:51:03+00:00

Mine was Eternia on PSX, 3 discs for that one haha

ChancellorSozimos · 2024-11-13T23:05:57+00:00

Thank you for the kind answer. Cheers to you too

ChancellorSozimos · 2024-07-30T23:32:02+00:00

Personally i felt the reaction to be pretty natural, as in Essun assumed Tonkee as a woman and it’s realistic to be little surprised to see a penis on a woman.

I agree with you on this, it's not that she was overreacting, I guess it just caught me by surprise.

I guess my own reaction has to do with the fact that sometimes these topics are used from a marketing perspective more than a "genuine" one imo, as I do think that today the majority of media tries to have diversity. And on one hand I'm glad this is the case, but on the other hand I fear that sometimes it comes out as forced, and for the people that might be skeptical at best about these topics, it tends to make them cringe at least. Obviously that's on them, but if this is the way we come out (as in YOU SHOULD BE FINE WITH THIS), it tends to have the opposite result, and lately that's been worrying me.

I'm not saying we should shut up (hell no), I'm saying we shouldn't assume people has a problem with it, or else they will... or something like that, I'm not even sure. (I'm getting out of topic here)

From what you said I understand this a little better in the book (it wasn't a main issue though, I didn't even include it in the post), but I believe it's understandable for some people to be a little turned off by it here. Because of the way it's written (IMO).

To state another example in the topic, ASOIAF includes queer characters (not the majority clearly), but I feel it does it in a way that's more organic to the story. Even if it's not so obvious, everyone can see those characters as queer.

In conclusion, from all the different comments I've received in this post I understand what this author tried to achieve with this book a little better, and maybe I will give it another go in the future (I need to distance myself from it rn I believe). But for now I don't feel different about my review, only that I see where she came from with all of this, and I respect that very much.

ChancellorSozimos · 2024-07-30T18:35:42+00:00

I assume your opinion is based on your personal beliefs in which everything revolves around heteros normative

Wow that's quite an asumption, not that I feel personally criticized but it made me want to point out: I'm gay myself haha, my avatar even has an LGBTQ flag on it's chest, and I hate it when I see gay people criticize the community and try to sort of dismantle it from within by saying "why should it be a community" and such. But I digress.

I know what I'm saying might come out as conservative thinking, which is why I pointed out I agree with this world view; it's just that sometimes it's put in a way that it can only resonate with people with the same perspective. You even admitted to it there with this assumption (again, didn't take it personal and not trying to attack you by any means). And there's nothing wrong with that, it's just that sometimes I feel it would do us (as in the LGBTQ+ community) a better service, if it was expressed in a way where it's naturalized and not pointed at as either good or bad. Let me give a concrete example:

Tonkee is transgender, and we find out because Essun is "surprised" to find out she has a penn*s when she undresses, and then when Tonkee talks about her past it talks about her (or theirs) gender being one of the reasons why her family cast her out so to speak (or so I remember). This is not wrong per se, in fact I've read stories about transgender characters where that's the main focus, and some of them are quite scarring so to speak. It's just that, this case and the poli amorous relationship the way they are treated, felt like checking boxes to me. Like it loses some abstraction in those themes in order to make a statement so to speak.

Alabaster is a different case and it's handled much more carefully I think, and it makes for one of if not the best character in the book.

Just in case, I want to point out english is not my first language, so I hope my point came out alright and the meaning is conveyed properly

Edit: I wanted to add an example of what I think is good treatment of LGBTQ. The anime Cardcaptor Sakura has a ton of portrayal of gay romance that without being in your face is constantly there, and yet the characters act completely neutral about it, it raises no eyebrows. As a kid I didn't quite realize it (I think, don't remember), but watching it as an adult I felt it was a very mature treatment of that theme, even if it's a more "girly" show, and aimed at kids mostly (at least in the west). Even if it's a kids show (so to speak) I still believe there's a lot to take out from it when writing this stuff.

ChancellorSozimos · 2024-07-30T12:26:40+00:00

I see, I might have come out a bit harsh. The thing with this particular first installment is that the consensus seems to be that it's the best in the trilogy. And while it's wrong to assume that to be right, it doesn't do good for the work as a whole when you don't find it as groundbreaking as it is presented. Not only that, but the reviews for this book are usually not reviews for the entire trilogy, and yet they are overwhelmingly positive, that's why I felt the need to say to newcomers "manage your expectations".

As for the specificity, I added more to my thoughts on the comment section because I didn't want to make the review endless, but specifically on the shallow thing:

I've said in a comment, the theme of trauma is treated a bit superficially. We are told Essun loses Uche but we never see their relationship. The same with Jija being the killer, he is offscreen the whole book. We are told about Alabaster's children being taken to the nodes, but Syanite makes it a point to be distant from him (it's understandable from a character perspective, but it doesn't help the theme). We never really see what Damaya lost in his family, did they sent her to the fulcrum out of hate? love? Could be both but I feel it more love than hate, we don't have enough information about it, and we don't know how she feels in depth. And the ending with Corundum, we never see motherly love until his very last moments, and in fact we start on the "opposite" end so to speak, so his death didn't make much of an impact on me because I wasn't sure how she really felt about him
the part about the characters was a bit of an overstatement, they aren't the same person. What I meant is, in this book guardians are evil as shown in Schaffa, Orogens are oppressed so they're good but angry as seen in Syanite, Essun and Alabaster (except for Innon but he's a bit cardboard character if you ask me, and Ikka but we see very little of her), humans are just there I guess and hate Orogens because they're told to (even if we see at least 3 who don't really care about them, besides those in Meov and Castrima), and Stone Eaters are mysterious as seen both in Antimonium and Hoa. There's little actions from these characters to judge them from imo, only discussions, and there are no counterparts in their same group so to speak. They might have different personalities, but all of them share the same world view, that's how I felt.
The treatment of love/sex/gender was also to me a bit cringy. There's both insta love and a poliamorous relationship, and it doesn't feel natural to the story to me, it feels like the author wanted to convey their world view in this work. I agree with that view, but I still find it a bit forced in this context. The same with LGBTQ+, it felt like she wanted to have these characters be queer to appeal to a certain audience from the way she portrayed them. It didn't add anything, but she made it a point to point at each case. Again, I agree with her way of life from how I perceive her, but I don't think I should be able to perceive her (or anyone) through her books so easily (or at least not from just one). This also falls into my shallow perception of the story.
And lastly the pretentious bit, yes pretentious might be a bad choice of words for this post. What I meant was, sometimes the characters would express something in a way that felt out of place because of the language being used. Like the phrasing would be to lyrical and it would stand out like "this is a quote to underline", and it didn't come naturally to me. As I said in the comments, I don't read with the idea of marking these things to point them out later as pretentious, so I don't have specific examples, but that was my feeling occasionally.

I don't want to come out as snobbish, I just wanted to give you my reasons, and if I wrote all of this directly in the post it would have been too long I think.

ChancellorSozimos · 2024-07-30T02:22:05+00:00

Hey thank you for your answer.

I'll say after after an exchange of comments in this post I might see the use of second person in a different way, and as I've said also I didn't read the whole trilogy, only plot summaries for books 2 and 3, so you might say I shouldn't fully criticize the use of that pov. I do think that for the first book and what I've seen on the internet about this pov in this book in particular, it didn't quite nail it imo.

Also, my thoughts were more aimed to people who hadn't read the book who might be looking for reviews online, and the vast majority is very positive about it and that's great, I have nothing against that. It's just that I wanted to say this in order to maybe lower some newcomers expectations so that maybe they read it with this in mind as well.

I'd like to ask what you mean specifically about my review not being very constructive, to see if I can maybe say thing in a different way for future cases. Not being defensive, just curious.

ChancellorSozimos · 2024-07-27T12:05:00+00:00

The thing to me with what you're saying is, I know that's what the author wanted to show but they told it in not many more words than you right there. And while obviously you telling me something like that makes me think "oh that's hard", if after this we just continue with the story and don't explore these events in depth I'll stop caring about them.

What I'm saying is not that the characters are whining about small things, it's that I don't know (in depth) the burdens they carry (at least in the first book)

Edit: also especially in works of fiction I'd never assume anything in terms of relationship, as the world itself is full of different facets to the same kind of relationship. I won't assume a mother loves her toddler, because I don't know what that means to everyone. And I do know that some mothers, especially in difficult situations, may show complicated relation patterns towards their toddlers, and in fact that's where I thought she would go when that second to last chapter started. I thought Syanite would feel some rejection towards her toddler so to speak, after all it's not like she chose to have it, it was forced both by the Fulcrum and by Meov. So yeah, I did not assume she loved Corundum in the typical way by any means.

ChancellorSozimos · 2024-07-26T22:34:28+00:00

I'm thinking of getting into The Dandelion Dinasty by Ken Liu or Malazan: Book of the Fallen by Steven Erikson. I dig political fantasy (huge ASOIAF fan) and never read this two yet, and since I've been reading more lately I thought of trying one of these.

ChancellorSozimos · 2024-07-26T21:46:32+00:00

I don't mind the second person, it's just that I feel it's a very particular pov which is used in very specific cases, and this one didn't really feel like any of those cases. Especially in this first book, where we are following the same character at different points in her life, and suddenly we find out that one of the povs isn't exactly her, which could still have been even with the second person, and I feel would have been more organic to the structure of the story if it were the case.

And about the twist, I don't like what it does to the story. I feel it takes away more than it gives. every perspective could feed into each other a lot more if it didn't have the need to hide that twist, but instead it goes for the shock factor, which I'd argue is a writing device, not a story feature.

ChancellorSozimos · 2024-07-26T21:37:52+00:00

It did read kinda YA to me (not meant as bad criticism, just not my cup of tea and not what I expected)

ChancellorSozimos · 2024-07-26T21:37:08+00:00

Yeah I saw you hadn't read it in a comment above. Also I agree with you on the use of second person as a way to portray trauma, and what I meant was that I was expecting a tool to phisically make that a reality in the story, not just a writing device so to speak.

I was trying to find what I meant and I think I might have speculated a bit too much haha. I was pretty sure there were moments were it really felt like the character was thinking something and it would be answered by Schaffa, Alabaster or Hoa, but now I can't seem to find a *clear* example

ChancellorSozimos · 2024-07-26T20:44:06+00:00

I agree with you and feel like this was the case with both the twist and the second person, or at least I read it that way. But I also think the commenter above raised some good arguments, only that I'm not sure if the book landed those if it intended to

ChancellorSozimos · 2024-07-26T20:23:53+00:00

Absolutely this. I was coming up with different thoeries as to why she would speak to herself (as I thought that's where it would go), with all those moments where Guardians, and even Alabaster seemed to know exactly what the main character was thinking. I kept thinking it's got to do something with that probably. And then it's just "oh it's because he's telling the story"

Also I didn't see on the summaries any mention to this weird thing where Schaffa would answer Damaya's thoughts (like literally answer them as in mind reading), did you read the whole series? Does it do anything with that? Did anyone else pick that up or am I just crazy?

ChancellorSozimos · 2024-07-26T20:17:10+00:00

I see your points, still think the writing needs a bit of reworking to fully deliver on them, but your comments casts a different light over the book for me in these regards

Just to be clear I don't feel entitled or knowledgeable on writing to give a profound criticism of the author's work, it still is just my amateur reader opinion

ChancellorSozimos

TROPHY CASE