I SHOULD also do tags today. maybe that will slow me down enough I take two days to read this book.

sits here

a lot happens in heavenly tyrant

i cannot sit here since i've failed to catch up but i am liking it to come back and know that i am living here, spiritually

OH SHIT I DIDN'T REALISE THEY MANAGED TO GET IT PUBLISHED

IT WAS HAVING.

THE

WORST

TIME

AND THEY DIDN'T KNOW IF THEY WOULD MANAGE BECAUSE OF LOGISTICS AND LIKE VERY CRUEL INNER POLITICS OMMMFG NEED TO GET IT IMMEDIATELY

oh no

yeah they were vocally pro-palestine and then soooo many problems happened

OH SHIT THERE AR EPICTURES OF THE MECHS NOW

I'm crying the Plum Blossom Deer ascended form is so funny looking

why did we start using tone marks in this book. not really a complaint but confusing as a shift

in my Shimin derangement hours I wrote up a tumblr post where I talked a bit about how the way Shimin is persecuted is the persecution and dehumanization of convicts and anyway Qin Zheng just said the Rongdi theorize that the humans on this planet were dropped here because they were all criminals which is some original sin shit by the way

12 pages into the book and already brain spinning so hard I can't link all my thoughts together in a coherent fashion

the point being that Shimin's whole thing is he's scary and dangerous because he's a criminal esp from the perspective of Zetian who is positioned as not actually having a racial bias against him for being Rongdi, but she still holds Shimin to a different standard than she does herself or Yizhi even though they're also both criminals,

but truly if everyone is essentially a criminal. everything is just funny

Zetian's headspace feels very different at the start of this book compared to the last and Idk if it's just her current mood or like. a matter of the amount of real world time between the first book's completion/publishing and the second's completion/publishing

but it's honestly pretty jarring reading directly from the first to the next without pause

I feel a little sad reading Zetian describing piloting like it feels like a chore

it's not like it's surprising for her to feel so full of regret but it feels so immediate

oh my god. they're babies

catgirl maid

understand and sympathize with Zetian and hope she can get away from him soon but Qin Zheng is kind of a real one

it's really weird to have Qieluo of all people telling Zetian stuff like "just go along with it"

why are we bringing in Qieluo to as the spokesperson for "think about how it looks to the public"

SHE DIDN'T EVEN KNOW SHIMIN'S NAMMMEEEEE

SHRIEKING LAUGHING

kodoku...

yeah I can believe this guy came out of a bug jar

I wonder if he makes her use a manual wheelchair so she gets her arm reps in

I am not equipped to have deep thoughts about the Chinese communism commentary in this book. I am not educated enough for this

the feeling of it is certainly suffocating however.

it IS really interesting to juxtapose the Chinese Communist Revolution with Qin Shi Huang though. much to think about (*half of what I know about Qin Shi Huang I learned from fate/. I only have so many thoughts)

"Your enemy is not the Rongdi willing to accept lower pay out of greater desperation." HELPPPP LIKE I KNOW I WAS ALREADY SAYING THAT THE RONGDI DISCRIMINATION FELT LIKE A METAPHOR FOR OTHER KINDS OF RACIAL DISCRIMINATION EVEN THOUGH THE RONGDI ARE ALSO A REAL GROUP THAT EXISTS IRL BUT NOW WE'RE JUST SAYING IT

I saw some complaints about Zetian being the kind of character who inexplicably holds modern day moral beliefs in circumstances where it's not like she's gotten the opportunity to read any modern feminist feeling or anything but tbh as someone who is normally irked by that kind of thing I didn't really feel it chafe in book 1

it felt like her thoughts and beliefs were incredibly personal and emotion-driven and very easy to trace to "I hate this because it happened to me and therefore I think it should never happen at all and fuck everything that even vaguely reminds me of it"

but it is chafing a lot more now when she's picking up on pretty complicated concepts very quickly while actively thinking about how she has never thought about them before because they were invisible to the scope of her vision before

THE ORGAN REMOVAL IS A SMOKING GUN?????????? I CAN'T BELIEVE I'M ACTUALLY READING KOI TO USO AGAIN

THE REBEL LEADER ZHUGE LIANG

IN HYSTERICS

one thing that I do know enough at least to notice and be interested in with the qsh-ccp parallel stuff is the topic of information control

which has been waved at a bit obv with Qin Zheng's extreme reaction to Zetian even hinting to Qieluo about the truth about the gods and also propaganda and information control was already a constant significant theme even in book 1 and that has naturally continued

the hammer and sickle at the wedding is honestly killing me. I'm way past that already and it's just that every so often I remember and stop and stare at a wall. xjz really said "I will do everything in my power to make sure not a single soul reads this book and doesn't know it's about communism"

it was already really blatant but they went we can get even more unsubtle

the lesbians are fighting

when Shen Jiu was in 7horrors and Eliza told him about how in modern day the government has records of everyone's name and birthday and this is attached to their medical records and social security number etc he was like this sounds fucking dystopic. thank god that's not me

anyway I am thinking about that while reading about how everyone has to download the Citizen Central app now

I still kind of feel like the transition/development wasn't really smooth enough for me to feel satisfied and there are a lot of things I miss about book 1 Zetian but I do think the general direction for her character makes sense and as she is starting to adjust I am also starting to adjust. I DO still like her

I am much less happy about Qieluo having so much presence in book 2 but having virtually no connective tissue to book 1 Qieluo. this is just a separate character. you have simply given me a separate character

we got a Sherlock Holmes bitch up in here

"Every oppressor, through their denial of humanity, sows the seed of their own destruction."
me: like Shen Jiu from hit webnovel The Scum Villain's Self-Saving System

I think there are interesting contrasts to be drawn between Wan'er as someone whose family had power but lost it and so she does have some generational privileges passed down like education that only make her even more aware of the unfairness of her standing vs Qieluo who came into power from a family that very much did not have power and so has a lot less

like, foundation or reason to dissect the problems on a systemic level

but not entirely sure if we're necessarily going to get that. also even if we did Idk if the conversation would actually be enjoyable to read

Heavenly Tyrant is much less about feelings and much more about theory in comparison to Iron Widow which is a shame because every conversation between the characters about theory is so. like I don't need to read a book to experience this man I could just go on the internet

I am still having a good time but it is funny how much of the first book is romance in comparison to being almost halfway through Heavenly Tyrant which is like "and a major plot point is the romance does NOT get to have page time, ever"

what's stopping two people of the same gender from piloting a Chrysalis together? so I don't know if this will actually be a thing but the obvious answer to me is that it's necessary to strike a balance of yin qi and yang qi. but maybe we are just gonna be like "fuck Daoism entirely actually"

it is very funny that Di Renjie was like "you need to reform the prison system because it's inhumane" and Zetian was like "so I pardoned people who only commit crimes against the old regime" and then got offended when he didn't approve. even now you're failing Shimin on me girl

LOLLLL

CONGRATS! NOW EVERYONE CAN BE DRAFTED REGARDLESS OF GENDER!

KONG ZHUXI, NEPHEW TO THE LATE CHAIRMAN KONG

I don't always recognize names in this book. but when I do. it is always hysterical