#Nona the ninth

[dillusion-art]

[...] Why are you not appeased? That is how meat loves meat.

ig: d.ill.usion

[sarksarkos]

Nona Locked Tomb is at least three of these at any given time, and that's why her book was as difficult a read as House of Leaves

I feel like many people have a fundamental misconception of what unreliable narrator means. It's simply a narrative vehicle not a character flaw, a sign that the character is a bad person. There are also many different types of unreliable narrators in fiction. Being an unreliable narrator doesn't necessarily mean that the character is 'wrong', it definitely doesn't mean that they're wrong about everything even if some aspects in their story are inaccurate, and only some unreliable narrators actively and consciously lie. Stories that have unreliable narrators also tend to deal with perception and memory and they often don't even have one objective truth, just different versions. It reflects real life where we know human memory is highly unreliable and vague and people can interpret same events very differently

[bunny-super-blues]

quick quick comic where nona learns something new :3

[anoes1s]

Dulcinea and Palamedes

[yutarts]

sillies

[thanergetic-hyperlinks]

I loved them because you can really tell Tamsyn has been a teacher. Those scenes felt so true to life.

Also, I've frequently described NtN as “imagine Yotsuba! but set in war-torn Afghanistan”. It's a book that would be nothing without the slice-of-life component. I'm glad the fandom has grown to appreciate it.

The scenes at the refuge school with Hot Sauce's gang are some of my favorite parts of Nona the Ninth. They are kind of the entire point of the book to me. We spend the book slowly learning what John did and simultaneously seeing the result. These children, who have been displaced for most of all of their short lives, trying their best to live and play and grow up while multiple existential threats bear down on them. Their lives are the cost of John's endless spiteful expansion. Them and billions of other children growing up hungry and traumatized. It's a cost John has never had to see. However much he might think he understands the consequences John has never sat with a girl covered in burn scars or offered a homeless 12 year old a turpentine soaked rag because he might be able to sell it, or watched a boy walk away knowing his entire family was likely going to die fighting for a freedom that might never come. But Nona has, and she loved them and was loved by them. And now at least some part of Alecto remembers those children and I don't know exactly what that's going to mean but I know it will mean something.

[yurithusiast]

“But I don’t even remember about you most of the time”

Me when I LIE

You LIE Harrow

You speak untruths and you spread them.

You deceiver.

[faunandmartlet]

snippets of a new griddlehark WIP (i’m sorry in advance)

[doggomochi-talks-skam]

The Alectopause singlehandedly made me get into reading as a whole again. Sure, I can't pull the numbers I did at 14, sitting in my bedroom and doing nothing but read Percy Jackson for hours on end, but im still proud of my 2 weeks per book instead of literal years.

That said, jod I need Alecto crumbs. Something? Anything? Not even a cover reveal, or Release Date, just some light at the end of the tunnel ;-;

[mychemicalweevil]

Ianthe Tridentarius is a mystery to me in many ways EXCEPT when Coronabeth makes fun of her for not being able to hold her arms up long enough to braid her own hair. Girl, I’ve never related to anything more. I know she’s icky and we love her for that, but this specific facet of Ianthe is just reality when you’ve got cardiovascular or nervous system issues. Ianthe is objectively Gross and she leans into it, and I wonder how much of that is a way to take control of how people view her embodiment… or something else.

Let’s contrast Ianthe’s necromancy with Harrow’s quickly. Flesh and bone are very different domains, but for both characters their specialties seem deeply connected to them, internally (as in, their actual physical bodies).

Harrow braces her own weak limbs with bone constructs. I’m inclined to make the assumption that she does this regularly/for daily activities, not just when she needs to fight in HtN. This could all be explained away by the fact that she specializes in bone: of course she’ll think of a bone-related solution to her problems. But what if it’s also a bone problem? I’m not saying there’s textual evidence for this beyond Harrow bending her fingers backward to the point of dislocation when she’s nervous in HtN. I still think it would be fascinating if part of a necromancer’s ability was connected to their own body’s weaknesses. (This probably doesn’t hold up with spirit magic, sorry.)

Could Ianthe be so exquisite with flesh magic because her own flesh and blood are virtual beacons for thanergetic decay? I’ve talked about chronic illness as a potential well of thanergy a necromancer can dip into, but here I’m thinking about a one-to-one relationship between a physical illness (e.g., anemia) and a necromantic specialty (e.g., blood/flesh magic). Back to Ianthe and how she presents herself. Leaning into looking unsettling is absolutely an emotional response to people making enough comments about your unsettling appearance, but I wouldn’t put it past Ianthe to have made a connection between whatever is happening with her physically and her necromantic skillset, to the extent that it’s now a point of pride. Yes, she’s gross and physically weak. Maybe that in itself allows her to be such a prodigious necromancer. I can’t imagine how frustrated she was growing up in Coronabeth’s shadow, as much as she tries to make it seem like that was an entirely strategic move. She knows she’s not the good looking twin, and she knows people discount her because of that. This would be absolutely infuriating if Ianthe understood that the things that made her unattractive (anemia, chronic illness, non-specific necromancer syndrome) were LITERALLY the reasons why she was the necromantically gifted twin.

I’m clawing at the walls of my enclosure.

Let her be as gross as she WANTS, let her look physically disgusting and create flesh constructs that you can’t even imagine. Let her do all of this because illnesses are only allowed to present one specific way in women, and if you’re not ill in the tragic romantic damsel-in-distress way then you sometimes get treated like a freak. Ianthe is that freak, and I hope she gets worse ;)

[biblicallyaccuratebarbie]

What did the conversation for the parents of the 200 children look like? I don't remember if it's in the books but I just can't imagine asking your people to willingly give up their children when your population is already so small.

[sokkassocks]

The fact that Gideon says this in CHAPTER 2!!! Of GtN!!!! This series makes me insane!!!

[elfieafterdark]

I understand what Tasmyn was going for, I still think killing Gideon off for so long was a mistake.

I know it wasn't intended to be as long as it wound up being, Gideon was supposed to show up again for Alecto back when it was the third entry.

But it's still a mistake. She's one of the best things about the series and she's only fully in one out of three novels so far.

Alas that these dark days should be ours.

[starberry-cupcake]

I overdid it with the amount of pages I read and now the next recap is looking like this

idk how long it's gonna be, I should have stopped at two chapters, but I saw gideon's skull and didn't know when to stop

bonus placeholder while I finish this recap: here's dana reading with me outside

[the-beef-man]

I know Kiriona is Gideon when transliterated from it's pronunciation in Te Reo Māori but I wonder if Jod let her know that or if she actually pronounces it ki-ree-oh-nah