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Nona Liveblog. (2/5)

Warning: THIS LIVEBLOG WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS FOR THE WHOLE BOOK. I have finished reading and am posting these notes after the fact. Therefore, it will also contain blurbs about things I missed on my first read. Please be cautious.

Once again, big thank you to @elexuscal for reading my rants and reacting with frustratingly vague emojis~

Chekhov — 08/26/2023 11:50 AM “Okay. What do you think is sexy?” Nona cheered up immediately at being asked. “The huge old poster up on the side of the building at the end of the street —the one the dairy’s in. The old poster for shampoo.” Camilla looked at her for a few seconds too many. “The painting of the two flowers,” she said. “I think they’re very sexy flowers,” said Nona. You know what I would STILL kill for? Camilla and Palamedes' notes on Nona. Can you just imagine?ALT
Chekhov — 08/26/2023 12:13 PM Nona persisted, “Did you save anyone? Because you can tell Camilla and Palamedes if you did that, you know they’d like it.” “No,” said Pyrrha. “Not how they’d understand it.” ....well. A mercy kill still sounds like a damn better death than being burned alive. So. You know.............. silver linings. Dragon — 08/26/2023 12:13 PM 😬😔ALT
Chekhov — 08/26/2023 12:14 PM Nona said, “Okay. I don’t think redheads are very sexy.” “What? Hang on,” said Camilla, opening the door—no, Palamedes, opening the door, busy buttoning himself into Camilla’s jacket—“That’s a very interesting thing you just said, Nona. Let me write that down. :notes~1: okay but for real though, please show me the notes. "Does not find Redheads sexy." It's underlined three times and surrounded by question marks. The things you do for science............ALT
:sirenred: APARTMENT BREACH, APARTMENT BREACH :sirenred: ............OH, OKAY, not a dangerous one........ i guess.... ..............why does Nona still call her Crown if she KNOWS her name is Corona? This is fascinating. EDIt: OH IT'S THE TRANSLATION STUFF EDIT EDIT: why doesn't it do the same with Pyrrha and Camilla....? Dragon — 08/26/2023 12:30 PM Maybe cuzCamilla means what it means? I admittedly don't know what Pyrrha means Chekhov — 08/26/2023 12:32 PM yeah I guess Camilla is just a flower, right Pyrrha I think means red? Dragon — 08/26/2023 12:32 PM Hmmn Chekhov — 08/26/2023 12:32 PM wait that's Camellia Dragon — 08/26/2023 12:37 PM Wait Camellia is the flower?ALT

Seen here: two people who don’t know the names of flowers

Chekhov — 08/26/2023 12:40 PM quite a lot of security, and yet they're still letting the Mama Lyctor and her two Baby Lyctors run free making pancakes n shit. What sort of kidnapping is this? Camilla said, “Twenty-two people were shot,” and the bodyguard said, “No. Nineteen people were shot, and three zombie loyalists got put down. Get your maths right. Do you care about the nineteen? Or the three?” Ahhh, how quickly we strip people of their people hood when they are not aligned with our political faction............... but Camilla at least deigned to call them all people. So what I'm getting from all this cross talk is basically this: After Blood of Eden's Precious Leader Who Slept With The Enemy AND the Enemy's Cavalier In The Back of His Head died after nearly slam-dunking a baby into a planet, a nice and united front against the Houses shattered...........and now they're in factions which are rated on a scale from Most Murdery and Trigger Happy to Less Murdery And Trigger Happy. And the Less are communicating with Lyctors, since they already had a symbiotic relationship with Augustine and Mercy and Cytherea.........while the More Murdery ones are just planning to gun EVERYONE down for a clean slate start. ahhhh wars.................ALT
Nona had seen shuttles planetside before the sky changed: big boxy cargo launchers with hooks on top so that they could attach to the space elevator and launch from the geostation. They looked like cake tins with company pictures etched on the sides. This looked sleeker and it wasn’t etched at all. There were bones inlaid in the sides like fossils in a dried-out riverbed: whole skeletons curled up as though they had fallen in the shuttle mould, beautifully and intricately set. And it had windows of dark glass. No cargo launcher had windows. ....................I love Necromancers, man. I love the fact that they absolutely do NOT need to go hard with the bone aesthetic or ANY death aesthetic but because their entire planetary ecosystem basically thrives on thanergy they just decided to go for broke and go all out. Love the commitment to the bit. “Back to point of origin. Either this shuttle’s derelict, or—it dropped through the River,” said Camilla. How are they dropping through the River when the dang Big Boy is in the River? Did they just skirt up beside him? He takin a nap? Or is he under their control? 🤔 That would be quite the twist. Ctesiphon’s interactions with Source Joyeuse and Source Piotra got us many things. Okay so I'm presuming....... Patience and Joy.... So that's A and M. Chekhov — 08/26/2023 12:47 PM Source Aegis whomst????? Source Shield? wait oh, I'm dumb it's fuckin GideonALT
Chekhov — 08/26/2023 12:58 PM “Tell them they’ll have a Lyctor, or equivalent, if they wait,” she said. ................do you mean Nona? Because like. She's not really. Ready. To be an anything. Except a professional dog walker. “It’s … it’s bones,” said Nona, struggling to articulate. “Beneath her clothes. The way she moves her bones,” and Camilla looked at her for the longest time. 🦴 💀 🩻 ❓ ❓ ❓ ❓ ❓ Dragon — 08/26/2023 1:05 PM IT'S ALL JUST BONESALT
Chekhov — 08/26/2023 1:08 PM Captain opened her mouth and droned, punctuated by huge wheezing lungfuls of air: “Dust of my dust—such similar star salt—what they did to you and what they wrung from you and what shape they made you fill—we see you still—we seek you still—we murdered—we who murder— you inadvertent tool—you misused green thing—come back to us—take vengeance for us—we saw you—we see you—I see you.” :espurr_flashbacks: :stare: :notes~1: ........hwat.ALT

Post book notes: Damnit. It was. Right there.

Chekhov — 08/26/2023 1:15 PM “Lately,” said Crown, after another pause. “I’m not sure she’s in actual pain.... Palamedes.” I was WONDERING if that's why they put on the sunglasses! How useful those things have been.... first from shielding Gideon's eyes....and then when Pyrrah picked them up to cover herself from Jod.........and now this. I am loving this single pair of traveling shades. Is this room REALLY not monitored? Palamedes and Crown AND Nona are down there with one of the dying of the Cohort and NO ONE has bugged the room? You really expect me to believe that? Because they are very clearly giving away the fact that they're all quite connected to one another emotionally in this very room, right now. It's quite obvious. Would hate for that to come back adn bite them in the ass eventually........... :reaction_yikes:ALT
Chekhov — 08/26/2023 1:25 PM “Ninth, where is the mercy of the Tomb? Where is your sword in the coffin? Who are your masters now, and who do you master? Where is my cavalier, Reverend Daughter? Where is yours?” Oof. Ouch. Right in the Cavalier.ALT
>“Because I saw her in the waves—she was there in the grey water—I saw them all—they hurt me—where is my hunger? I eat and eat and eat without surcease, my green thing, my green-and-breathing thing…” (GIF of cat going What What?!) ...........why does this sound like something......... the Revenant Beast would say. Why Is she begin possessed by..... Varun? Is Varun the Revenant Beast of earth?????? Green thing? Green and breathing thing? That's the earth, right? That's the earth??????????? > “Nona,” Crown said slowly, “The Captain didn’t say anything when you came into the room. She only screamed.” (GIF of the blinking white guy)ALT
oh, Nona can translate SCREAMS OF A DEAD PLANET now? Is THAT on the Detect Languages list????????? what the fuck???????? Dragon — 08/26/2023 1:34 PM [cackles]ALT

……………………….. (looks into the camera like I’m on the office)

Chekhov — 08/26/2023 1:46 PM > I think you want Camilla to look at you like she looks at me. And you’re in love with th—” ................. yes Nona? I'm listening. 👁️ 👁️ Which Warden is it that she's in love with? > “All right, Nona. I’ve heard enough.” > Nona, when the hand was withdrawn, said thickly: “You’re mad at me. Shame on you.” Have Camilla nd Pyrrha taught Nona that she isn't allowed to be angry? Because she starts tantrums? Does this mean she is dangerous when this happens? Or is it just a precaution. Fascinating either way. She does sound a bit like Harrowhark here though. Chekhov — 08/26/2023 1:54 PM “Oh, I’m Camilla’s partner. But I can’t stay.” :wheeze: :wheeze: :wheeze: Corona that is RUDE. > “You darling, I know what you are, even if they refuse to see it,” she said softly. “All I can say, sweetheart, is I envy you more than anyone else in the universe.” (GIF of Jake the Dog from Adventure time rubbing his head as he thinks deeply) I don't...................know. I don't know. I don't think Nona is a blank slate of Gideon. I think it's far more likely that she's a blank slate of Harrow. But I think it's even MORE likely that she's one of the 200 dead children contained within Harrow. Or just all of them. At once. In a mixer. Dragon — 08/26/2023 2:09 PM SmoothieALT
Chekhov — 08/26/2023 2:13 PM Some deep well of need and terror welled up in her, and then—before she could walk it back, and without even really wanting to—she did it. She told Hot Sauce the Secret. ...............Hmmmm. I'm going to assume this is not the I'm Living With Two half-Lyctors and they are trying to make me remember who I Was secret. The reaction from Hot Sauce makes it sound like maybe it was another secret. Perhaps the secret that Nona likes Varun? And can..... hear him? “There’s a clinic in town,” Yeah, that's about the right reaction to someone telling you the blue monster in the sky is singing to you. Dragon — 08/26/2023 2:14 PM :madjoy:ALT

Realizing what this secret must have been in hindsight…… I wonder what Hot Sauce thought in that moment.

(Is………..is Hot Sauce’s real name………. Tabasco???)

Chekhov — 08/26/2023 2:17 PM John 8:1 but Jesus went to the Mount of Olives. ... At dawn he appeared again in the temple courts, where all the people gathered around him, and he sat down to teach ... > ...sometimes they blacked out together. Only for seconds, really no time at all, but he didn’t like it. He’d never liked losing control. He’d never liked losing consciousness. In the dream she knew he could not be coaxed to sleep unless she stood in the doorway, or in the worst times stroking her thumb between his eyebrows, down the bridge of his nose. > In the dream she did not fear sleeping, but she did not know how to do it herself. Her body was a mystery to her. She did not understand what it meant or signified. Is this the River. And does this recreation of the earth depend on John's focusing on keeping it stable. Or is this................Varun. And they're wandering around the literal corpse of him. Or is this. A secret third thing. I'm also still confused about who N is. The one dating Mercy? Presumably Mercy. The nun friend? I don't believe she made it out. I don't think she's Mercy's cavalier. Is this someone else? > You’ve got this guy with an army of upward of forty walking corpses that he acquired legally but was meant to bury a while back, it’s time for some hard conversations. He’s curing cancer, that’s great, but he’s bookended by two zombies that they’ve dressed in outfits, that’s bad. Love or hate him, you gotta hand it to John, he's fucking funny. > You’ve got a wizard out in the wop-wops who’s now got blanket bans from nearly every video upload site and a whole bunch of people have entered the country because of his YouTube channel, the government isn’t all, Love that small-business entrepreneur spirit. well why not? He's got a very convincing business model.ALT
Dragon — 08/26/2023 2:23 PM ngl i'd subscribe to john's youtube channel Chekhov — 08/26/2023 2:24 PM "Hey guys, you're watching Necrolord Prime, Prince Eternal. Today we're going to be making these corpses do sick skateboard tricks! Respectfully, of course." Dragon — 08/26/2023 2:25 PM i think there's real in-universe media fic for john's twitch chat or that would be a great niche Chekhov — 08/26/2023 2:27 PM I would write that. Good lord Dragon — 08/26/2023 2:27 PM now i'm not sure i'd call John good 😛 Chekhov — 08/26/2023 2:29 PM Unethical LordALT
Dragon — 08/26/2023 2:29 PM mariobrothers69: yo where's john pizzasteve: stream's on pause, he went to pee mariobrothers69: necromancers still need to piss? GiveMeMercy [MOD]: This particular necromancer does, no word on the others. Chekhov — 08/26/2023 2:29 PM :wheeze: Dragon — 08/26/2023 2:32 PM John: Thank you so much to 'TheTrueBurgerKing' for subscribing, $50 kroner, don't know how that translates to NZD off the top of my head, but I appreciate it, every cent counts. He asks, "What does cryopreservation liquid taste like?" and i'm going to be honest, that's not really my area of expertise, but it smells vaguely like orange. Like orange la croix. Chekhov — 08/26/2023 2:33 PM Please write this. I would read this in a heartbeat Dragon — 08/26/2023 2:34 PM i very well mightALT
Chekhov — 08/26/2023 2:35 PM They were beef cattle and mutton; my way was a hell of a lot quicker than the abattoir. But it’s hard to be all, Let’s listen to magical inside-out animal-shield man. He obviously has some good ideas. It's fascinating to watch John's development here. Not because I disagree with the magical inside-out animal shield, but the man has clearly worked himself up into a decision. He has shown, on a smaller scale, that he IS ready to kill from necessity. Prior to this, his early character exploration featured being respectful of death. But this character choice was about how much he's willing to use death to his own means. They were the means to protect his family and yet. And yet.......... I cannot help to feel like this is.......in a way. Foreshadowing a much larger 'sparing from the abattoir'. Or back-foreshadowing? Backshadowing? Dragon — 08/26/2023 2:36 PM something is definitely being shadowedALT
Chekhov — 08/26/2023 3:16 PM "...how many do we have of those? Seventeen? Well, someone’s in for a long night—" Gaius, is that you. The camera swung back and forth a few times, which made Nona nauseous— there were brief flashes of boots and legs: of whites so white they looked yellow except where they were splotched with reds so red they looked orange, a multihued melange of faces and walls—before it settled on a desk. Ten thousand years and still no one knows how to operate a camera with even a shred of common sense. It's humbling. The person themselves was frighteningly pale of skin, and their hair alarmingly perfect in shape and form. Nona had never seen hair like that before. It was as though it had been sculpted, not grown. It was a rich middling brown, ----I was ABOUT to say 'Hell'o Ianthe, you little piece of shit' but apPARANTLY this............... isn;t???????? But their huge, screen-magnified eyes were quite pretty, Nona decided: blue, with brown bits. She had never seen eyes like that before. .....................Niberius?????????????? :_whate: :whatdidIdraw: :What: :pika_huh: what the hap is fuckening Or wait, it's Ianthe but not? Wait, no, yes, Ianthe was a Lyctor so she WOULD have Niberius' eyes. But then why change her hair? What does THAT mean? If anything? I say this with all the authority invested in me as Prince Ianthe Naberius the First, the Lyctor Prince, the Saint of Awe.” .........so it............IS Ianthe. But no longer. Tridentarius?ALT
huge screenshot of > Their crooked mouth You're shitting meALT
> The only alive thing about this second person was their hair, neatly arrayed with a wreath of fingerbones and white, springlike blossoms: wildly red hair, red enough to make the electric hexagons struggle with it. It was the face of the girl in her dream. GRIDDLE????????? GRIDDLE'S BODY???\ :lazer_eyes: :lazer_eyes: :lazer_eyes: And their eyes— WHAT ABOUT THE EYES???????? :megacatscream: :megacatscream: :megacatscream: :megacatscream: :megacatscream: :megacatscream: YOU CAN'T DROP THAT ON ME AND NOT SAY SHIT > Her Most Serene Highness, Crown Prince Kiriona Gaia, heir to the First House, the Emperor’s only daughter. (GIF of Bert the muppet staring with huge eyes into the camera) Her Most Serene Highness KIRIONA??????????????ALT
Chekhov — 08/26/2023 3:23 PM There was something irrepressible hovering at the edges of the person called Prince Ianthe Naberius’s mouth at love and at concern—like a struggle not to smile, or not to explode in a fit of temper. ...........IS SHE ACTUALLY NOT A CORPSE???????? Is she ALIVE? ............WHO THE FUCK'S IN THERE!!!!?!???!?!?! Edit: oh wait it says Ianthe. So it's just the body???? Dragon — 08/26/2023 3:23 PM Kiriona 🙂 🙂 🙂 Chekhov — 08/26/2023 3:24 PM WHOMST THE FUCK Dragon — 08/26/2023 3:24 PM Nona The Ninth AKA: Tell Me Who's In Who's Body OR SO HELP ME Chekhov — 08/26/2023 3:24 PM you DRESS UP Gideon Nav? You PROP HER UP AND RENAME HER FOR A PR MOVE???? JAIL FOR EMPEROR. JAIL FOR A HUNDRED THOUSAND YEARS Dragon — 08/26/2023 3:25 PMALT
Chekhov — 08/26/2023 3:26 PM I'm in agony. What is happening. Why. Gideon. Ianthe, what the hell is even. Nona CLEARLY recognizes Nav as the 'other' girl in the dream /screaming Dragon — 08/26/2023 3:28 PM [pat pat]ALT
Chekhov — 08/26/2023 9:49 PM “Who is driving this fucking car,” said the driver. They had a low, terse voice and surprisingly good House. “You, so make sure we have a car to drive by the end of the journey,” said the Angel. Who is this woman(person?) I need to know if she's actually secretly from the Houses. If she's actually a spy, or a necromancer in disguise. “Nona,” she said, “Pyrrha went to pick you up from school before lunch. I thought she was with you.” :catyell: PYRRHA NO don't DO THIS TO MEALT
JOHN 19:18 There they crucified him, and with him two others—one on each side and Jesus in the middle. This entire scene is like a delicious popsickle. John walking away in a fit of rage to scream about they money being funneled away from research for safe space travel..... Talking about how he wanted to resurrect the two dead bodies he'd fixed to a certain point - to the soul, as it were. He's created several KINDS of necromancy, right? But not all of them. He's got Bone magic and ligaments and meat, crude forms of them. He's got body preservation, like the Seventh. He's got movements. But they're not alive. The Fifth House lies, undiscovered. We were the ones who argued them down to 8%. They were ready to go when we were just in the seventies, they were all, ooh, everyone knows it’s a risk, and it’s not like it’s thirty percent fatality, it’s thirty percent chance of damage, what’s that even, ooh. He said, They hadn’t given a fuck about maternity, said people should terminate before they got packed as a rule. When M— had been all, I will not accept those numbers, I will not accept a plan that incorporates reproductive injustice, and we stood beside her, we said that’s not acceptable, they whinged about the money for a while and eventually said fine. And now they were acting like eight percent wasn’t good enough. Like we hadn’t tried. (GIF of Spongebob looking sadly at a steaming cup of liquid, in deep contemplation)ALT
He said he wasn’t even sure the FTL thing was real. He said they were going to try to generation ship it to Tau Ceti using stuff we’d come up with, tech we’d created, and just be all bye-bye, fuck you, planet, thanks for the oil and for the chicken yakitori, we loved that stuff. :psyduck_oh: And I said again, Guys, nobody’s going to fall for that. They’re going to have to give numbers. They’re going to have to prove they’re making the other ships. Nobody’s going to fall for that. [...] At that moment in the dream he got up off the car, and he said, “Fuck,” in a normal voice, and then he said, “FUCK,” so loudly that it echoed off the crumbling concrete shell and the bones and was carried off into the mist. (GIF of a cat laying supine against the corner of the wall, staring desolately out into the middle distance)ALT
Chekhov — 08/26/2023 9:59 PM You know. I understand that Gaius is a very demented immortal. But damn if this shit doesn't make for a compelling story. Dang if this doesn't make him at least sympathetic. You can feel the anger radiating from him. You can understand the mental journey. Sure, he's a horrible genocidal maniac who thinks he's invented a Utopia by........killing a resurrecting nine planets and putting some people on em to play Fantasy DnD Dream House - Necromancers Only edition. He invented two new genders - wizard and fighter - and thinks he's fixed the energy crisis. We only got to see how bad shit was on the 9th, but I bet the rest weren't that much better off. ................and yet. I can't help but be invested in this story. This is. Oof.ALT
Dragon — 08/26/2023 11:53 PM Yeah. Yeah. This part. Hurts Dragon — 08/26/2023 11:57 PM Right? Right. Like what hits me is he clearly cared so much. He wanted to make a better society. So here John. You got your wish. 10k years later, what does it look like? One whole planet lives in bone slums, eating leeks exclusively. The 7th breeds people with childhood leukemia; the 8th breeds batteries; the 4th breeds canon fodder. You lost sight of it, John. You lost sight. Chekhov — 08/26/2023 11:58 PM I wonder if it WAS possible to really become a godlike creature and make a society without any downfalls. Because as other books have mentioned, he wasn't exactly in the Dominicus System at all. So it's not like he's exerting his will on them to be like that? I suppose the Cohort is, in a way. But it's weird that they mostly seem to be self governing.ALT
Chekhov — 08/27/2023 12:01 AM Least fucked up houses appear to be 5th and 6th. But idk enough to judge. The fifth at least produced two functioning adults. Dragon — 08/27/2023 12:04 AM Yeah. And I mean I don't know if have an out of touch immortal in charge of everything would be better. But. But. At the very least he could have stopped siphoning so much of their population into a literal undead army.,and maybe built some greenhouses. Y'know? Dragon — 08/27/2023 12:06 AM Magnus and Abigail are/were just. The most well adjusted people we met. Followed by Pal and Cam. But call me crazy, I don't think good exam scores should be the only requirement to run a Planetary government at like 18 Chekhov — 08/27/2023 12:07 AM Yeah no, that's absolutely a fair point. It's not ideal in any sense. And he absolutely did allow/miss out the fact that the Ninth house resorted to child genocide to keep their bloodline running. Even if he was properly horrified about it The whole mess with Blood of Eden isn't entirely clear either At least not yet Dragon — 08/27/2023 12:14 AM Yeah A lot of things messed up But hey, if you're gonna claim the title of "God", you get to take responsibility for itALT
Chekhov — 08/26/2023 10:12 PM She didn’t ask anything else, except: “You heard about the broadcast?” and Nona said, faintly, “Yes,” ready to tell her about the girl from the dream; but Camilla had immediately changed tack... p a i n Why do they want a Lyctor on tap?” Another pause, another clack. “To remove the R.B.?” ...........R......essurection Beast....? :squint~2: "Camilla, I can’t bear this. I’m eating your life.” Clack. Pause. “I’d carry you with me either way.” Pause. “What do you mean?” Pause. Clack. “I’ve carried you, Warden. And I’ve carried your memory … I’d rather carry you.” (GIF of crying cat animated to blink sadly with eyes full of tears) oh, alright. okay. is that how it is. Clack. “Camilla, I mean it.” Pause. “I meant it too. You used to say it to me.” “We are one flesh.” Clack. “I am your end.” :buffcry: :crycatmic: :cryalot: :hardcry: d.....dont..... do dis tdo me.......ALT