Little Mushroom: Chapters 1-3 (EN) or 1-4 (CH)

[x_los]

Welcome to week 1's "Little Mushroom" (小蘑菇) discussion for English chapters 1-3 of Book 1 and Chinese chapters 1-4 (inclusive). This spreadsheet contains the schedule and concordances of the chapter endings across the Chinese and English versions. There's an associated Discord server (ask superborb for an invite if you'd like one), and we'll be running comment posts here.

This discussion will wrap up and next week's will begin on April 17th.

Chinese text
English text

SPOILER POLICY: I personally don't give a fuck or even like to give unearned credence to the concept, so since I'm writing the post, anything's fair game.

Comments

Re: Chapter 3, EN

[satbiym]

Interesting catch! I tried to go back to chap 3 and couldn't find this hint in the text. What tipped you off?

There is A Reason I can think of that is revealed later in the second book (which speaks more of... inherent familiarity with the opposite, so it's like - he never contemplated any alternatives to his own life experiences - which is an interesting parallel to his outside-looking-in observations on human behavior).

But I think just based on An Ze's memories (+his probably similar interactions with people similar to Hosen) and Hosen's general bad touch vibes and actions, since An Zhe seems to be forming generalizations about humans and human experiences based on his first interaction with humans, it makes some kind of sense - where he sees Hosen as being "greedy" and taking things which aren't his to take and he thinks maybe all non-reproductive human sexuality is like that since it's his only frame of reference.

Re: Chapter 3, EN

[x_los]

Mm, I think more--why has something that's only become human a few minutes ago internalised 'sexual assault' as a possible and special category of violence, I guess? Like why does he know not to want this advance? Maybe it's something An Zhe 1.0 wouldn't have desired, but does it follow that this An Zhe would care? It's like he understands sexual assault like a socialised human would, and idk why a fungi would have that as a baseline understanding of the situation.

Re: Chapter 3, EN

[satbiym]

ah, got what you mean.

I don't think he explicitly knew what was happening or what Hosen wanted to do. Through all his interactions with Hosen, An Zhe kept thinking of Hosen acting like a predator who wanted to eat him ("But humans don't eat each other" was something he thought).
And all he says is "Don't." when Hosen approached him

I see it more as prey instinct of danger or some kind of subconscious sense that something is not quite right. As a sentient mushroom who has lived in the abyss his whole life and seen predators of the highest degree. He kinda knew to be on guard.

I don't think he saw it as sexual assault per say, with all the context that requires. I bet if Hosen hadn't given off those bad touch vibes and just normalized his actions without his monologuing An Zhe wouldn't have seen it as something which was an invasion of his person.