#hes kind of been thru a lot like honestly after accidentally getting branded with the sign of the absolute.. it was all downhill from there

[kotumari]

truly genuinely absolutely zero recollection of these drawings of my tav (also known as zhercis) but shoutout to sfw gale for allowing me to post them on tumblr since apparently ive never drawn like. a Normal picture of him.

hes a charlatan tiefling druid/rogue who has a bad history with ilmater, although his most recent beef is with astarion (for transgressions such as claiming zhercis never had sex with him, a blatant lie, and breaking 4 of zhercis' theives tools kits on a single lock)

[tfw-no-tennis]

mtmte liveblog issue 19

it’s 2021 now!! time for more transformers 

we start off w/a flashback showing tyrest retrieving ultra magnus’s body from the ship - and we get a look at magnus’s spark, which is the green color of a 0.1%er [eyes emoji]

tyrest punching magnus..... grrrrr leave my dad alone bastard man

‘the divided self’ what a good title 

rodimus is like listen man this is a lot for my poor thot brain to take in

in flashback land, we see tyrest immediately launch into a crazy person spiel about how he can and will edit the law as he sees fit to conform to the situation, because that doesn't seem like a blatant abuse of power or a huge conflict of interest or anything 

oooh the screen in the corner that says ‘thought warfare,’ I see that

oof, poor magnus. its gotta be rough to hear your boss rant about how bad at your job you are....especially bc this is right after overlord called magnus a joke and nearly killed him

its especially brutal bc as magnus says, his job is his life 

augh, I love the panel where the armor is falling off around minimus, and then the one where he’s holding the ultra magnus head...poetic 

its fascinating that there was an ‘original’ magnus who was an actual guy, and then tyrest chose to make him into this legacy symbol - I'm assuming the OG magnus had no say in this, and probably didn't even know that he was gonna become this lawman legacy figure

I do wanna know though - obviously everyone thought that ultra magnus was one dude, but how did the different guys wearing the armor deal w/that? like, did minimus have people coming up to him like ‘hey ultra magnus old buddy! remember when we fought those guys in that one place? good times!’ like, do they have to study up on the lives of the past armor wearers to prepare for the role of ultra magnus?

augh poor minimus, of course he’s been wondering about what happened with overlord after he was KO’d

oof, drift...I feel like minimus looks surprised and a little skeptical at the idea that drift was the one behind the entire overlord thing - which is interesting bc as we saw at the beginning of the story, he doesn't exactly trust drift, but it’s still pretty far-fetched that one person orchestrated the entire thing

tailgate :(

the concept of a load-bearer is SUPER cool, I love it so much

it also puts a much-needed limit on things - as in, there IS a limit to how much weight/mass a normal cybertronian frame can carry, which is why you don't see everybody upgrading to be Massive - bc they actually CANT

oof, the worst part is that tyrest is RIGHT, minimus essentially DID have a nervous breakdown after the war ended bc of the rigid way he views the world

mental health support is clearly in shambles for cybertronians, yikes. they literally have 1 therapist for their entire race, and he’s not even licensed anymore due to hipaa violations. what a mess

the ‘attention deflectors’ thing is so cool and clever and also a great explanation as to why ratchet or anyone else never said ‘hey wait a minute, you're actually a much smaller dude in a trench coat’ 

I love tailgate knowing all the stuff about the autobot code bc of magnus...my BOY

and THATS why minimus was asking about skids specifically earlier!

oh minimus, please don't put so much stock in tyrest being stable and resonable...

aaaand there's skids and swerve! brainstorm says it best - ‘because something unexpected hasn't happened for at least nine seconds.’ lmao ily brainstorm 

finally checking in w/whirl and cyclonus - god I love that. whirl asking cyclonus how many cons he killed and cyc is like psh I wasn't keeping count....................ok it was six

hhhhh cyclonus IS looking for a cure for tailgate, even though he told tg that there wasn’t anything to hope for....excuse me as I go be emo 

and now we flash over to the unethical medical conduct hell zone, where pharma is being weird and horny and ratchet is appropriately horrified 

I seriously love how unhinged pharma looks, the art & colors do such a good job conveying his feral energy 

ratchet has some massive dick energy for taunting pharma when he’s currently just a head and pharma has dual chainsaws for hands 

ugh, I love whirls speech about anger...and I feel like he really does see cyclonus as a peer, despite cyclonus wanting to kill him, which is why he tells cyclonus all of this 

I fuckgin love that cyclonus’s reaction to very suddenly getting stabbed thru the abdomen is to just glance down at the sword, looking mildly inconvenienced 

back over to ratchet - and at first its like oh wow I can’t believe pharma was stupid enough to let ratchet goad him into this contest....but then you see first aid and ambulon and its like UH OH this is gonna be BAD

the idea that getting sliced in half is no big deal for a cybertronian is wild

‘you're gonna let doctor djd cut us in half?’ yeahhhh that's an appropriate reaction, yikes

FUCKING LENGTHWAYS GOD

pharma you piece of shit

poor ambulon :( :( :( that's fucking brutal. amazing panel but....jesus

and like, to further my point from last issue’s liveblog - the fact that this very gore-y panel is okay, but swearing isn't...that's really funny honestly. I guess robo-gore is acceptable, while I'm guessing regular ole run of the mill human gore wouldn't be

then back to cyclonus, who is still looking only vaguely put out by the sword stuck right thru him

and then cyclonus just pulls it right out, which is a very bad idea for humans but probably not as big of a deal for big near-immortal alien robots

circle of light stuck in capitalistic urban hellscape cubicals 

poor skids, being asked to stand trial while having no idea what his crime is due to Big Amnesia 

OH SHITTTT I totally forgot that getaway shows up here

that is super clever though, with chromedome confusing the name ‘getaway’ with the concept ‘needing to escape’

cant believe tyrest is really dumb enough to tell minimus all his evil plans

BUT that means its time for some very important forged vs constructed cold lore

jro spelling ‘program’ as ‘programme’ made me remember when he said that he considers everyone on the lost light to be british, which is perhaps the least valid thing he’s ever said vhbghjsdbfjkhasbjk

the idea that they used the matrix - which is portrayed as kind of a holy object - in reproductive experiments is really interesting

AUGHHHHH this is all so good and interesting...im really fascinated w/this particular brand of like, alien robot racism/constructism/whatever you wanna call it - I feel like it does such a good job as a plot device, where many other ‘fantasy racism’ concepts from other franchises fail, bc there's not really a ‘human metaphor’ being used here (as far as I know/can tell) - as in, this isn't a thinly veiled metaphor for something that happened/could happen in human history

in fact, this type of bigotry (or w/e you wanna call it) isn't something that is even really possible in humans - I guess if there was a stigma against being born via ivf or something...? but there isn't, so there's no obvious real-world equivalent, which I take as a sign of good writing and worldbuilding - it makes the cybertronians feel more Real, bc of course they would have their own types of bigotry based off of completely different things than humans 

additionally - and this is crucial - tyrest is wrong: there’s no like, inherent moral corruption in cold constructed bots. there's no difference at all, other than method of construction. fantasy racism plotlines often flounder here, with the oppressors having a ‘valid reason’ for oppressing the oppressed, but tyrest is just operated on religious zealot bs and some biased science

like, dude, did you ever think that maybe there are other reasons why your trials only condemned cold constructed bots? like, maybe the trial itself was biased? or societal conditions were to blame? correlation is not causation, my dude, especially when the conclusion is ‘cold constructed bots are inherently SINNERS’ lmao 

like, tyrest rlly said ‘FUCK separation of church and state,’ huh

anyways I just think the whole cold construction vs forged thing is really interesting and well-done, and serves as a good precursor to the more fleshed-out functionism stuff we see later 

so tyrest is clearly off his rockers w/the whole drilling thing - dude, you accidentally gave yourself a lobotomy, okay - but I find it kinda funny that he’s right about a lot of that stuff he said at the end, about primus and the guiding hand and stuff being real 

cyclonus saying ‘tailgate and the others’...I see you, man, I see you

also cyclonus looks fine now??? didn't he just get stabbed??? 

ah, tyrest sprinkling a little light genocide onto his plan to find salvation. nice, dude!

MINIMUS NOOOOOOOOO

‘fully deserved’ SHUT UP BIIIIITCH

poor minimus is taking a lot of Ls this arc, geez

oof, great issue! again, as usual....I loved the lore we got this issue, its so interesting...and some good character stuff too. I love minimus, I feel like he’s gonna be my fav this readthru; my first read my fav was brainstorm, second readthru was whirl, and I feel like its minimus/magnus this time. I just love his character arc...

hype af for more B) 

[dillydedalus]

december reading + top10 of the year

books.

a feast for crows, my main man grrm (#4 asoiaf) tbh i think this one is underrated - i understand feeling a bit underwhelmed on a first read bc it’s so much slower than asos & half the major characters aren’t in it & you get a bunch of new ones instead, but the thematic depth here! brienne seeing the devastation of the riverlands, thinking about outlaws & broken men & vigilante justice, sansa & arya both embarking on their apprentice arc & losing their identity in the process, the political intrigue in dorne, & the fucking hilarious shitshow that is cersei’s kings landing.... love it. 4.5/5

herkunft, saša stanišić (audio, sadly abridged) really good memoir/reflection about belonging, origin (national, ethnic, linguistic, familial, emotional), family, and living in germany as a refugee.  it’s really smart, really heartfelt, really funny, and i’m sooo annoyed that my library only has the abridged version. oh yeah it won the german book prize shortly after peter ‘serbian war criminals’ #1 fanboy’ handke won the nobel prize, which was nice. 4/5

a brief history of seven killings, marlon james (uni) marlon james probably laughed his ass off at calling this 700-page book (very small print) a brief history. anyway, this is about the attempted assassination of bob marley in the 70s, the cultural and political context in jamaica at the time, and the fallout of that event. honestly, reading this on a tight schedule for uni was just wrong for this book bc i had to rush thru it & ended up skimming quite a bit. it’s an impressive achievement, but i can’t say i enjoyed it very much. 3/5

she would be king, wayétu moore a magical realist story about the foundation of liberia, told thru three characters - an indigenous woman, an ex-slave from the us, and a mixed-race jamaican - all of whom have magical abilities. i really wanted to like this, but while there are a lot of good ideas, structurally this is kind of a mess (the first part, which introduces the characters is way too long & not very interesting, the connection between the three is supposed to be super significant but it really doesn’t come across, one character gets way more page time than the others), the writing is occasionally p awkward, and there is an odd thing where the narrator (kinda a ghost, kinda the wind) intrudes literally only to call one of the characters her darling or whatever & it’s irritating af. 2.5/5

a dance with dragons, grrm (#5 asoiaf) tbh this is by far my least favourite of the series.... it’s just way too long, a bit of a slog (especially the tyrion chapters...) & there is not a single sansa chapter which is fucked up. a lot of the storylines are really good tho (jon, THEON, asha, jaime...). i ended up liking the parts i used to dislike a bit more this time around tho if i ever read it again i will probably do the combined affc+adwd read bc that sounds fun & interesting. 4/5

the sellout, paul beatty (uni) smart & pretty funny satire about the idea of a post-racial america, in which a black man in the LA region tries to segregate the local community. there’s a lot of cool stuff in here and i really liked the ambiguity & refusal to present any clear-cut answers, solutions, or closure. 3/5

tamburlaine must die, louise welsh fun little novella about the last days of kit marlow, which made for an entertaining 2 hours altho the ending is pretty weak imo & the language slips into entirely too modern occasionally. kinda disappointed because based on the blurb i’d assumed that tamburlaine actually, literally came to life out of marlow’s plays which. is not the case. but would have been super cool. 2/5

radiance, grace draven not to reveal how profoundly problematique i am: this is a book about a human noblewoman entering into an arranged political marriage with a dude from the off-brand dark-elves dynasty & it is. way too wholesome, there is little angst, ildiko & brishen get along very well from the start & like, where’s the fear, the tension, the delicious, delicious ANGST?? 2.5/5

water shall refuse them, lucie mcknight hardy atmospheric witchy folk horror set in a small village in wales during the '76 heat wave - narrator nif’s family comes to live in a cottage there to take some time off after the accidental drowning of nif’s younger sister - the mother is consumed by grief and guilt, the father is trying to hold everyone together, and nif is constructing a witchy creed out of bird eggs and bones and magical thinking to cope, comparing weird witchy practices with local outsider mally. i liked this & altho i saw the twist coming miles away, it still makes for a pretty disturbing ending, and the way the book evokes the dizzy blurry heat and nif’s state of mind - detached, angry, confused, compulsive - is really effective. 3.5/5

a knight of the seven kingdoms, george r.r. martin dunk! is! babey! (except for moments where he displays staggering BDE) anyway these are three novellas set about 100 years pre-asoiaf, about dunk/duncan the tall & his squire, egg/aegon, the OG secret targaryen. the stories are wholesome, funny, cute, have a lot of dunk being a true knight but not a real knight which is extra-sweet when you realise that he’s almost definitely true-but-not-real knight brienne’s (great?)grandpapa. 4.5/5

my cousin rachel, daphne du maurier philip ashley, our narrator, really is like ‘hmmm have i been misogynistic yet today?? better get on that’, he’s awful & so is his older cousin ambrose, who marries distant cousin rachel in florence & then gets ill and dies, making phil rather suspicious about rachel. did rachel poison ambrose? is she trying to seduce and/or poison philip? or are they both just paranoid assholes who hate women (they def. hate women)? this is some good psychological thriller type stuff, what we can construct out of philip’s distorted view of rachel is intriguing (and like, if she poisoned ambrose? #goodforher), the narrator is an ass but well-written, and the first/last lines.... chills. 3.5/5

top 10 of the year (no rereads!)

antigonick, anne carson

a canticle for leibowitz, walter m. miller

dedalus, chris mccabe

the complete maus, art spiegelman

the artificial silk girl, irmgard keun

o caledonia, elspeth barker

the sparrow, mary doria russell

sleep of the righteous, wolfgang hilbig

how to survive a plague, david france

rain wild chronicles, robin hobb

(the last three are kinda randomly picked from the high-4s based on my mood in the moment but they’re all really good so.)