Some thoughts about Little Mushroom
I finished reading the danmei Little Mushroom a week ago, I wish I wrote about it here while I was reading it or as soon as I finished it, but I didn't and now I don't know what to say besides that I LOVED IT and it became one of my favorites! It's really really good!
But I'm going to rescue (and expand) a little thread I wrote on Twitter/X before it disappears into the void!
HUGE SPOILERS! for real, to the point it could ruin you the end, so please don't read if you haven't finished the book first!
[Spoiler (click to open)]I'm SO glad Lu Feng got his happy end... it makes me sad thinking how determined and selfless he was to give his own happiness and life for humanity... and the payment was just fear and hate by the same people he was protecting!
To make it worst, he might never see the long term results of his job (humanity progressing in peace without mayor existential menaces). All anger for things nobody could control and change fell on him and that was so unfair, it's not like he caused magnetic poles to fade or created mutant creatures in a lab... he didn't even create the Arbiter's code, damnit! if anything, he was so self-aware that he was the only one who could be 100% sure of not killing uninfected people that he gave his life and happiness for everybody else's well being... NOTHING was his fault but people wanted to hate somebody.
The Lighthouse was as responsible as the Trial Court for the deads, because they weren't able to create the tech or medicines to prevent "infections" but you didn't see people blaming them. In a certain way, the Lighthouse was very hypocrital, being contrary to the Trial Court but never giving good alternatives to their methods (that's until they finally created a quick scan, but the thing is they didn't have any right to complain about the old methods if they weren't capable of doing anything to chage them). Yeah lady, you want to take your husband home but what will you do when he transforms into a monster and attacks you? of course! you'll blame the Arbiter for not doing his work well!
That man felt the responsibility of killing infected people all by himself because he knew it was the best way to not make mistakes! he was not only saving people's life, he was also saving the mental health of the other Trial members!
Couldn't he be a bit more egoistic? (of course not, being egoistic meant humanity's fall!
), even his own mom hated him and wished him the worst!!!! that's not fair!!!
I'm so so SO glad he could be happy in the end!
Colonel, enjoy your cute little mushroom, you deserve him!
If you like postapocalyptic sci-fi with existential issues (and I'd say it's fair to classify this in the cosmic horror genre, google it!), with a slowburn impossible love story, then I highly recommend it! (and go read the manhua because the art is absolutely GORGEOUS)