2023-09-04 1:00:45 ¶ ●

Nona Liveblog. (4/5)

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~

She kept saying, “Stay with me, Camilla. Stay with me,” until Cam murmured, wetly and thickly—
“Not going anywhere.”
“I’m holding you to that,” said the body of Ianthe Naberius.
:emoji_35:
WAIT
IT'S PALAMEDES?????????
"You kept the faith, and were the instrument of both my vengeance and my grace. And now I have fought through time, and the River, and Ianthe the First—fought and bested Ianthe the First, and I hope I never fight her ever again … Will you not look at me now, Cam, and know me?”
Camilla raised her chin. She looked at the dead face. She said quietly—
“Yes, Warden, I will always know you.”
Their foreheads touched.
:crycatmic: :crylove: :flushedcry: :lovecry:
I'm in pieces. Fuck., Someone.hold me
how long can this last? I don't think Palamedes can possess a corpse forever. Nor would he want to.........

Chekhov — 08/27/2023 1:37 PM
“It’s a shit version of Mercymorn’s old entropy trap,” said Pyrrha. “[...] And I’m sorry, No-No, but that’s where you come in.”
I don't LIKE it but I understand.
Nona found herself sighing again, like her body wanted to let out all its sound at once. One of her ears felt slightly blocked, and when she tilted her head and blew her nose and pulled at her earlobe a little trickle of water came out.
This child has one leg in the River, to the point where River is coming out her dang face holes. Please someone help her.
STOP HURTING THIS POOR CHILD :catyell:

What happened made her think much better of the corpse. It opened its eyes—and its eyes were yellow, the gold of the old sky, like hers only much foggier. Those were beautiful: Nona had always adored her eyes, and here they were again, on the corpse, only partially spoiled for being dead. They looked like treasure at night.
I wanna be surprised pikachu but I'm not all that surprised, after all that happened.
The corpse looked at her in such mute, helpless appeal—spoke to her in her first language—that Nona did not have to think about what she did next.
She leant down and laid a kiss right on that cool, dead, crooked mouth.
When Nona turned to the girl, she was taken aback: the corpse’s eyes were closed and she lay completely still on the bed—arms loose, limbs heavy and untidy, the very picture of deadness.
I can't decide what's funnier - that seeing dead people is just a Feature, Not a Bug of Harrowhawk's body, or that Gideon got kissed by someone who looked like Harrow and just immediately decided to die as a reaction.

“It is her. Poor Gideon…”
Everyone keeps saying it's Gideon with such conviction that I'm beginning to doubt it's actually Gideon.
She was always like a corpse that had been dead for only minutes. They wrapped her in plex and dropped her in rivers, trying to see if that would do anything … I was there. It was awful at first,” she added, “and then it simply started being very funny …"
Interesting how much it echoes John's own discovery of necromancy.
Chekhov — 08/27/2023 1:44 PM
Also: funny how? Did they also prop Gideon up and pretend to play chess with her?
“One, that’s not going to work. Two, I fucking hate needles,” said the corpse. “Three—Sex Pal, if that’s how you get a lady’s pants off, holy shit, no wonder I stole your girl.”
GIDEON!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Chekhov — 08/27/2023 1:57 PM
oh ym god imagine being gideon nav, playing dead on the bed, and somehow who looks like a Much Nicer Harrow comes in and kisses you and then says a bunch of things that make little sense and you decide that the best course of action is to just ragdoll it
“Nope, and nope,” she said. “I’m Prince Kiriona Gaia the First, Her Divine Highness, First Lieutenant of the Cohort, Emperor’s Life Guards, non-auxiliary—honorary title but who cares—heir to the Emperor Divine, first of the Tower Princes. And I’m mega dead.”
Incredible. I'm inTRIGUED
The corpse prince tilted her head to one side, like a curious bird. “You haven’t been in the River lately, have you?” she said.
:squint~2: what's with the river?
“My father has made my skin turn away bullets. I am the perfect sword hand and the final expression of the art of the Nine Houses. Don’t you get it? I am the Emperor’s construct.”
....................Gideon Nav has finally lost it to the same degree as Harrow had lost it in HtN. Absolute fuck all.
“Those are my speed holes. They help me go fast,” said Kiriona quickly.
good old Nav.

“Come on, boy. I’m Gideon version two. I know up to five necromancy facts now.”
I swear that like. When Gideon and Harrow's souls were put in the Distiller of Teen Angst, all the goodness went into Nona, and all the Piss All went into Gideon, apparently.
Nona had never seen anyone so sad in her whole short life. It made her nearly afraid to die.
:(
Griddle..........................

EDit: Coming back to this after re-reading the scene........ I'm thinking about the horrible tragedy of Nona saying "You just looked like someone who wanted to be kissed."

Nona can read body language extremely well. It's safe to say that her assertion of Gideon then was correct. Gideon opened her eyes, saw someone who looked like Harrow at a glance and her instinctual reaction was to want Harrow to kiss her.

And then she DOES. Except it's not Harrow. Except it's not what she wanted at all. Harrow isn't kissing her. Harrow isn't there. Fuck. Griddle. You poor meow meow.

Chekhov — 08/27/2023 2:51 PM
“How many underground sites—” began Palamedes, but Nona’s neck hadgone stiff of its own accord. Her short-term memory, never very good, had developed a sharp picture in her head: she could hear a high, frightened voice saying fucking nuts man, fucking nutter; she could taste little green fruits.
Were the Sixth's House.... in the Caravan????
“We’re cool,” she said, and, awkwardly: “I’ll always love you, Nona.” Nona found that huge tears were dripping out of her eyes, making it hard to see Hot Sauce.
“Can I be in the gang again?” she whispered.
Ther'es tears in my eyes too. Dang these KIDS.
Just because the convoy was in one place last week doesn't mean it'll be there though?????

Chekhov — 08/27/2023 3:07 PM
I'm completely entranced by this whole thing. Varun, the beast, and Nona, and the Captain. My brain is trying to rush up, understand how it all ties together. Is the Captain channeling Varun itself? Is Nona a part of it somehow??
Nona lay on her back atop the stretched canvas, and Nona’s mouth said—“Just wait. Just help me … help me do this. I might be different … soon.”
what does that. mean.
(GIF of a dog looking around nervously)
She closed her eyes. “No,” she finally admitted. “And I never was.”
(GIF of an even closer shot of a dog looking around nervously)

Chekhov — 08/27/2023 3:25 PM
You have thirty minutes to tell Pan-Euro that there is no way those gates are opening for those ships.
They said, You wouldn’t. It would be nuclear war.
I said, I’d do anything. You know I would. Cows exhibit mourning behaviour for other cows.
Absolute madness, this is compelling.
She said, Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. And she shot herself.
Is the nun. ...........Is the nun The Body? Is that who it is..............? The first one he brought back????????
When I touched her soul, I touched you.
The soul..........is attached to a soul of the planet? You cannot start the necromancy without flipping a planet.................... so to be able to manipulate souls, you must first kill the mother in order to be able to free everything attached to it through umbilical cords.
That's.........why the other worlds call the Houses zombies.

Chekhov — 08/27/2023 4:19 PM
"....And my favourite out of all of them…”
He gave a long, shuddering sigh.
“My favourite was her old Hollywood Hair Barbie,”
Jod, walking into the remains of a theatre: two--sigh..... one ticket to Barbie, please............
‘I picked you to change, and this is how you repay me?’
I'm fascinated, held aloft by this line like a tether. The implication that.........the earth itself had given John the power. The earth itself gave him a look into how it all worked. And he had taken it and, in his grief and rage and drive for vengeance, had twisted it into a cataclysmic mutation.
I want to sit with this chapter for a long time. I think I'll come back to reread this again and again and again.
It's true what they say. This book keeps on giving. Each chapter is a new color in a spectrum. Your eyes change the more you understand. And when you turn around to read once more all that you HAVE read, you realize how much there was to see, which you did not recognize, because you were colorblind

Dragon — 08/27/2023 4:57 PM
THIS BARBIE IS A PERSONIFICATION OF MOTHER GAIA HERSELF
Chekhov — 08/27/2023 5:01 PM
YEAH I ACTUALLY GOT THAT LATER.
I think in the moment it didn't fully hit me and thenI was like 'OH, ALECTO LOOKS LIKE THAT BECAUSE OF THE---OH.'

The corpse prince looked at her, and her expression was flat, and cool, and metallic.
Kiriona said, “Where is she?”
Nona didn’t know what to say. The corpse prince urged—
“Come on. Where’d she go? Where is she?”
Oh Griddle.
You were always really bad at pretending, in a pinch.

Chekhov — 08/27/2023 5:06 PM
But from some hole in the back of Nona’s cupboard behind a fake plank of wood in Nona’s brain, her voice said roughly: “Don’t touch me.”
(GIF of kitten covering its mouth with a paw as if in shock)

Update: I love Palamedes' mother.
Dragon — 08/27/2023 5:10 PM
Sammmee

Chekhov — 08/27/2023 5:12 PM
“Whatever you think we’re doing, we’re not,” he said.
“Whatever you think you’re doing,” said Pyrrha, “you shouldn’t.”
Camilla said, “Just watch us.”
Are they trying to achieve Lyctorhood? Or something more? :emoji_35:
Camilla Hect stared at him stolidly, and then burst into tears. She made very little noise, but the tears were violent anyway; Palamedes took her hands and said in distress, “Cam—dear one—don’t.”
(GIF of a child banging on glass as tears roll down their cheeks)
are they.... are they trying to perfect lyctorhood? Merge their souls???
“Palamedes, yes,” she said. “My whole life, yes. Yes, forever, yes. Life is too short and love is too long.”
Not me bawling my fucking eyes out.
He demanded: “Tell me how to do it, and I’ll do it.”
Camilla said, “Go loud.”
:uglysobbing: :uglysobbing: :uglysobbing: :uglysobbing: :uglysobbing: :uglysobbing: :uglysobbing: :uglysobbing:

Calamedes...... Pamilla? Is interesting and I'm sure they did what they needed to, but also. That's still losing two people Nona loves.
A death of id, for that kind of power. Is it a kinder death than Lyctorhood? Indubitably. But what is it but a complete erasure, instead of half? What is it but another sort of death?
........PAUL..............
I'll never let them live that down.

Chekhov — 08/27/2023 5:25 PM
“But I exist,” said the Angel. “Pardon—we exist. And as long as we exist, we are a terrible liability. The commander will get some breathing room if she doesn’t have to take us into account with every movement.”
:squint~2: ..........is. Is Angel..............a Lyctor? I thought the she-they discrepancy was stylistic for the sake of pronouns but now I'm. Not......sure.
Is it Noodle? Is it herself and Noodle she's talking about?
Emma Sen......... Aim. .......... :Thinking:

Chekhov — 08/27/2023 5:47 PM
JOHN 5:4 For an angel went down at a certain season into the pool, and troubled the water

Anyone I feel had no part in it. Anyone I can look at the face of and forgive. And my loved ones … The ones I left, I’ll bring back. I know I can. Even G—. In fact, G —’ll be easiest—he won’t remember the compound—none of them will have to remember anything. I know where remembrance lives in the brain, and he won’t have any of it. You know that too, don’t you? It’s the easiest thing in the world … to forget.
The stage is silent. The actors all lie dead, (for now). Until the single man remaining decides to prop them up and enact a play of his own devising. He will wipe the slate clean and parody all that he has burned with his own wrath.
It's eerie and tragic and horrible all at once. Compels me though.
“They are still out there. There can be no forgiveness.”
:reaction_yikes:
maybe you could have just like. Let it go. You already killed the entire damned solar system.

“But that’s the grace of it, Harrow. If I’m God, I can start over. The flood, you know? You can wash things clean. That’s all the end of Earth was … making things clean. It gets dirty again, you clean it again. Like those old power-washing ads. Spray and walk away, right?"
(GIF of the guy from Parks and Rec going UH OH)

Your energy is limitless and you can sustain your theorems without a thought—forget about them—because she is so enormous, and you and she are one. She understands at this point that she does not have to die—that she can never die, if you’re alive. And she’s scared to die. You’re afraid of so many things, but she’s only afraid to die. Then, when the disciples come to you and say the word Lyctor, she does not understand that they want the thing you did to her—she watches as you watch … watch them misunderstand the process.”
..............I am still so confused about how the Resurrection Beasts fit into all this. If Alecto IS the cavalier, but she is also.........earth? Reincarnated? Then what soul does she possess? The Ressurection Beasts are the revenants of the planet, right? So then how? How is Alecto different from them?

Chekhov — 08/27/2023 5:54 PM
Gideon Nav asks "where is she"
Well actually, she's in the River, at a youth camp, and she's about to go climb a tower. So maybe swing by with your truck and pick her up or something?
Chekhov — 08/27/2023 6:18 PM
There was a thought above and below that knew what it was, but the moment she looked at either thought she’d lose the game.
...........god fucking damnit. :angorsponge: Tamsir Miur........
How to say that she wanted to go as Nona—with all her thoughts and feelings being Nona feelings, which might only be about six months old and therefore not very good, but were still her own? What could she do with the little selfish thought that now Camilla and Palamedes were gone—even if they had left behind Paul, which was probably quite nice of them—and Pyrrha was broken somehow, it was hard to want to live, hard to want everyone else to live, even lovely Crown?

:,(

(I keep on thinking about this Above Thought and Below Thought thing. I think Nona is the sandwich entity between Alecto and Harrow. Because clearly there are two streams there, not one. It’s described as the two of those thoughts with her being the sandwich filling multiple times. I think there is a thread of Harrow in there as well.)

Paul looked at her, with those dark grey-brown pupils widening, slightly.
“Nona,” they said, “Noodle’s in the back.”

:crycatmic: NOODLE
DO IT FOR NOODLE, NONA. FOR NOODLE!!!
“Oh my God,” she said, in a panic. “I forgot about Noodle.”
The windshield cracked all the way across the middle. Paul leant their full weight on the accelerator. Nona drove the truck home.
It's not fair to make me laugh AND cry
oh noodle.........
Chekhov — 08/27/2023 6:52 PM
(Image of Nona cradling noodle in her arms, while the dog looks up at her, a tongue flipping out to catch his own nose. The background is stained with oranges while the two subjects are in deep blue shadow. Lights rush past them like ash.)
nwoodle......

Chekhov — 08/27/2023 7:38 PM
Kiriona made a noise that sounded almost amused, and said, “Fine. I’m going. Keep up or you’re probably dead.”
GIDEON DON'T SPLIT THE DAMN PARTY
She noticed, vaguely, that Paul and Pyrrha weren’t talking to her anymore. They weren’t talking to each other either, just trudging steadily on through the darkness.
Don't ignore her. :( don't let her fade away alone. Gideon doesn't care because she isn't Harrow. Someone please care about Nona. At least leave her with Noodle.
“Don’t—that’s where my heart used to be,”
:lovecry:

Chekhov — 08/27/2023 7:45 PM
“Don’t—that’s where my heart used to be,” but the old soldier’s gaze had already fallen upon Nona.
Nona cringed back in Pyrrha’s arms, because the expression was as bad as every single time Camilla had caught her putting a mouthful of chewed-up food in the potted plant or elsewhere. She could read this very old, very furious soldier like a book: the woman was angry, and blamed her.
Aiglamene being angry at Harrow for allowing Gideon to die. Aiglamene, who convinced Gideon to go with Harrow. Harrow, who never WANTED Gideon to die for her, but lived because Gideon decided to anyway. Gods, the hurties.,
“Lady,” he said, in a much softer creak, “you’ve gone away again, my lady; where have you run? Remember your catechism and your lesson, and remember them well now: this is where you come back to—you have your little escape. You’ll feel better for coming back … you remember that, Harrowhark.”
Nona whispered, “I’m sorry—I’m not Harrowhark.”
“Ay, and you’ve said that before,” said the old man. “Who are you this time, if not my Lady Harrowhark?”
:stare: She's. Done this. Before?
Has this been a part of the unreality stuff that Crux previously helped her with? Is this a part of the schizophrenic episodes? Would she disassociate to such an extent? Is this not the first time???? Or does this mean......... does this mean Alecto has possessed her before???

Chekhov — 08/27/2023 8:10 PM
“Camilla and Palamedes were loved by Nona,” said Paul. “Pyrrha was loved by Nona. It’s finished, it’s done. You can’t take loved away. We loved you too. Palamedes and Camilla loved you.”
why is the bloody Cheap Mustache Rides t shirt bit making me sob into a tissue
it's not fair