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iviarellereads · 1 year

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Nona the Ninth, Chapter 3

(Curious what I'm doing here? Read this post! For detail on The Locked Tomb coverage and the index, read this one! Like what you see? Send me a Ko-Fi.)

(Fruit tree icon)(1) In which Nona's friends are adorable, IMO.

People mostly trust Nona, and assume she's strange because she's been through some terrible trauma. Pyrrha says that Nona acts dumb, and people love those who are good-looking and dumb.(2) Only, Nona wants to be useful, which is why she got herself a job, even if it's one that doesn't pay.

At about four months, she was allowed to visit the surrounding buildings to their home. Nona caught the attention of a teacher who asked why she wasn't in school. Nona said she did lessons at home, entirely truthfully, but gave the teacher the apartment number anyway. The teacher came by, and talked to Pyrrha and Cam, but was shocked when Cam said Nona is nearly nineteen.

"But she's such a dot."(3) Pyrrha explained without missing a beat that what with everything Nona had gone through she had been ill and still didn't eat very much, which was why she was so knobbly and undergrown. The nice lady said that yes, many of the children had problems like that, but it was still hard to imagine Nona was anywhere over fourteen, wasn't it? The nice lady added that she obviously didn't get her build from her father, and she smiled at Pyrrha. Before anyone could stop her, Nona laughed and laughed and said, Pyrrha wasn't her father. The nice lady got suspicious--Nona could see it in her hands(4)--and suggested that Nona should come anyway, could even be a Teacher's Aide, someone who helped other children with their lessons. They told her Nona couldn't read or write and the nice lady said, Oh.

Still, Nona feels the lure of learning and spending time with other people, and says she wants to go very badly. The teacher asks if they can try it the next morning, just to see how it goes. Nona agrees without letting Pyrrha or Cam argue, and since they can't start an argument in front of a stranger, Pyrrha escorts the teacher back to the door, flirting with her mercilessly. When she comes back, she says she was saving them from the teacher thinking Pyrrha was Nona and Cam's pimp, though she'd "have had better luck pimping out Augustine and Alfred."

Nona gets in trouble for giving out their apartment number, and is forbidden from going to school. But, later, while Nona's having her bath, Pyrrha says Nona will be allowed to try school for half-days, as long as she practices answering questions first, so she can give safe answers. Palamedes convinced them.

Nona asks why Pyrrha flirted with the teacher, when Nona could tell Pyrrha didn't like the teacher. Pyrrha asks how Nona could tell. Nona can't explain it, she just understood the body language. Pyrrha wishes she'd had Nona "in the Bureau"(5) but fails to answer the question.

At any rate, Nona is allowed to become a Teacher's Aide. She likes three parts of school: games, the Hour of Science, and the whiteboard with markers she's allowed to use as much as she wants, and she really only likes the Hour of Science because she watches over the science teacher's dog, Noodle, while she teaches.(6) Even though the job is unpaid, it isn't hard, and it gives her something to tell people who inquire about what she does for a living.

It was just as hard to make Nona learn any facts as it was to make her learn the sword or the bones--harder, probably; as she explained all the time, as sweetly as she could, her brain simply wasn't interested in them. It was as though someone had probably told her everything before and she had already forgotten it.

The lessons all feel familiar, like she's heard them before, but they don't stick.

The teachers are impressed when they find out about Nona's languages trick, but Pyrrha explains it as her having been through many resettlements, which seems to satisfy them. And since teachers really just want help that can clean whiteboards and inform the smallest children where the bathroom is in the language they understand, they're content with her presence.

After her first week, Nona is informed by five of the children that she's their friend now. Hot Sauce is the eldest of the gang, at fourteen, but "queenly for her years". The children think that because she's older, Nona can get them drugs and show them cool things, but Nona absolutely has no idea how to get drugs or where to find things like dead bodies. Still, Hot Sauce says that Nona talks to the Angel, and looks after Noodle.

The Angel is their name for the Hour of Science teacher. The source of the name is unclear, but Hot Sauce idolizes her, and all the children like her.

Still, Nona's worth to the gang is considered very low, below Honesty and Beautiful Ruby, just above Born in the Morning, and the only one below that is Kevin. Those are all their real names, but nobody can tell Nona where Hot Sauce's name comes from.

Nona explains everything about her time at school and with her friends over dinners at home, often hoping that they won't notice that she's using her mouth for talking instead of eating.(7) They all agree that Nona shouldn't buy the kids drugs, but Nona says Honesty found someone else to get drugs anyway. Pal asks if his name is really Honesty and Nona says that's how she hears it(8) but it shouldn't be his name because he lies and he's trying to teach Nona how, too.

Nona longs to be able to lie, but doesn't know how to stop her body from telling the truth. She catches all of Honesty's lies, and soon he confronts her and asks her to stop, and in exchange he'll give her a cigarette once a week. Nona knows he's lying, again, but agrees, and when she gets a cigarette, she gives it to Pyrrha.

Most things she learns from her family(9) but the children teach her everything else, especially new words.

They spend a lot of time loitering and doing nothing.(10) She learns that there used to be rail tracks on the huge road through the city that led down into the tunnels below the ground, but hardly anyone uses the tunnels now. Still, sometimes an earthquake rumbles, and Hot Sauce says it's The Convoy, which Nona trusts to be true though she has no idea what a convoy is for a long time after. She's disappointed when Pyrrha tells her, but she never gets over the feeling like there's something wonderful in it.

One day, the children are passing time in an abandoned office building, when Honesty asks if Hot Sauce is going to join.

"Join what? said Nona, the ignorant one. Which made the others do their usual chorus of-- "Nona doesn't know." "Nona doesn't know anything." "Tell Nona." And Honesty, who had been very nice since the cigarette arrangement, said: "When we leave school, we're going to kill zombies, we're gonna kill necromancers." "You shouldn't say the word," said Nona, forgetting in a panic that that was a Nona rule, not a school rule. All Honesty did was drum his heels on the floor next to the wheelie chair that the stuffing was coming out of and exclaim: "Who cares? I'm not scared. This isn't class, I can say what I want."

Born in the Morning brings up that he(11) once threw a rock at a necromancer and it died, and then the children spend some paragraphs litigating whether a thrown rock that may not have even hit a necromancer could have killed it when the necromancer was already on fire.(12) Ruby calls the argument pointless because the necromancers are all dead, but Born says, not all of them, the rest are in the barracks,(13) one of his dads said so.

Honesty interrupts this line of argument to say that sometimes the zombies go spying outside the barracks, so you have to make sure your friends can eat and bleed, so you know they're still them and not zombies. Nona says defensively that she eats, and Honesty says, nobody's accusing Nona of being a zombie, how stupid. Kevin says he saw Nona eat a pebble, and Nona tells him not to squeal, then tells Honesty that he shouldn't call her dumb again, because her family said she should tell Honesty that they know what he looks like and they'll beat him up. Honesty says fine, he doesn't want to piss off the pimp she lives with. Nona, having since learned what pimp means, feels a tantrum building.

Before any intragroup violence can erupt, however, Hot Sauce says the necromancers will come back, may even already be here. Ruby asks Hot Sauce, what about Varun the Eater?(14) Hot Sauce says it's here for them.

Honesty asks again if Hot Sauce is going to join up, but she doesn't answer. Kevin interrupts to say he has to go to the bathroom, and it's established that he could go alone but he freaks out when he's locked into places even if he can unlock it himself, so someone has to go in case he needs to be broken out. By the time that's resolved, the subject is dropped, and Hot Sauce is just looking at the sky.

Nona whispered, "Join what, Hot Sauce?"(15) Hot Sauce didn't answer her. When she did say anything, she asked a question instead, which was irritatingly like Pyrrha. "You like it here?" "I love it here," said Nona sincerely. "I wouldn't want to be anywhere else." "You're sweet," said Hot Sauce.

After that day, no one questioned Nona's belonging to the group. She loves her home family, but she loves her friend-family too.

Eventually, when it got dark enough, all their families would come looking for them--Cam always came horribly early--except for Hot Sauce, who had nobody to come looking for her, and Honesty, whom nobody ever remembered about. But even with this flaw in paradise, Nona could do nothing but hug her knees to her chest and feel fantastically, wonderfully lucky, luckier than anyone else who had ever had the pleasure of being born.

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(1) Another new icon! Thinking about the contents of the chapter… what could it mean? (2) I'm not really a fan of the ableism but it's hard to describe an 18-year-old who, well, acts like Nona without going there. She's only six months old, in a literal sense, though she's obviously got more capability than an infant. (3) Dot - slang for "useless person" as well as "attractive woman". (4) Not the only time in this chapter that Nona just knows, somehow, what body language means. What an odd talent for a girl who's only had this body six months. Also, I love that all of this is filtered through Nona's perceptions. Many people have observed that the Locked Tomb series so far is always narrated by the person least equipped to understand what's really going on, and that goes tenfold for Nona. She knows the teacher is upset but has no idea why (she wants to protect Nona, and possibly Cam, from a potential threat in Pyrrha) (5) Presumably, some sort of military or intelligence outfit, in the beforetimes. (6) Noodle is the pupper on the cover of the book. (7) Nona definitely seems to struggle with some sort of eating disorder. She seemed eager about cold food earlier, but not the eggs. At that point it could have been temperature, but now she's definitely avoiding eating outright. (8) Hm. So Nona's language understanding might be kicking in for names, as well. Makes you think about all the names we just got told, and whether Nona's narration is recounting the name as used or the name meaning in its original form. (9) This word hasn't been used to describe them but what else are they, if not this? (10) Well, that's what kids do, especially when they're not given anything else to fill their time for any number of reasons, like living in what amounts to a refugee city. (11) Technically, no pronoun is used for Born in the Morning here, but "he" and "him" are used several times later in the book in contexts that can only refer to Born in the Morning, so I'm comfortable using his pronouns sooner than they appear. This is in no way meant to undermine any headcanons that Born in the Morning may be some sort of genderfluid or nonbinary, I just needed a pronoun, any pronoun, to use to make the sentence less awkward, and the first two instances I came across attached directly to the name were he/him. (12) Muir really, truly remembers what it was to be a weird kid with weird friends, because this is so completely stuff I'd argue about as a kid. (13) The same barracks Pal wants so badly to liberate? Likely, given context. (14) Varun the Eater, huh? From context, it's the thing in the sky. The thing Pyrrha said could stop telescoping? Wasn't that a term used for the Resurrection Beasts in HtN? Hmm… If Varun is here for the necromancers, it does track with the RB lore we were given. (15) We don't get an answer, but I think we can make an educated guess. What organization fights the necromancers?

#the locked tomb #tlt #nona the ninth #ntn #nona the ninth spoilers #ntn spoilers #nona #pyrrha dve #camilla hect #palamedes sextus #hot sauce (ntn)#beautiful ruby #honesty (ntn)#born in the morning #kevin (ntn)

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leafleaf · 3 months

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Princess

Summary: Luke never would have thought he'd ever have eyes for the daughter of Hades and Persephone.

Warnings!: Fem! Hades & Persephone reader, because Hades cabin doesn't exist yet, she's a minor god, so she stays in whatever cabin she pleases until the time of Nico Di Angelo. Timing is placed before tlt . She has pyro kenesis basically fire control. I've changed somethings, she's not considered a forbidden child because she's born from two gods, not a god and a human. This isn't canon obvi i made it up to fit the story.

Whenever Luke was called to the big house, he knew he was never in trouble. It was always to show around and be informed of a new arrival. But this time when he got to Chiron and Mr. D they seemed a little bit more..serious about this new camper.

"Ah Luke, come sit with us." Chiron beckoned him to sit with him and Mr. D while they were playing cards. This was already out of the ordinary, usually when there was a new camper, he would get a brief run down of who they were and when they were coming, and he would be sent back on his merry little way. He slowly pulled out the chair and sat. "We have a new camper coming tomorrow."

Okay nothing new, "That's great, I'll be showing them around tomorrow?" He asks knowing the answer is yes.

"Yes, but there are some things you need to know before her arrival." Chiron answers. Great, so the new camper is a girl.

"This girl.." Chiron continues. Luke waited. He was so curious. Was she a forbidden child? Was she a crazy psycho? "She's the daughter of Hades, and Persephone." That answered all of Luke's questions.

The Princess of the Underworld would be coming to Camp Half-Blood, and he needed to escort her around.

"She'll arrive tomorrow early in the morning, be ready kid. O' eight hundred. " Dionysus continued.

"You are dismissed." Chiron says not once looking up from his intense game or cards with Mr. D. Whelp, this was gonna be very interesting for Luke.

Luke woke up the next morning at around 7 am. Perfect amount of time to get ready and to eat something before showing the new camper around. It had occurred to Luke that he didn't know her name. Chiron hadn't told him. By the time he was done getting ready and had a bite to eat, it was about 7:50. Perfect timing.

He made it to the borders of camp to wait for the girl. Nonethe less when the clock struck 8:00am and all of the campers started to ride due to the morning conch. A big pink flame of fire emerged from the ground. It startled Luke, but as the flame started to go away, the silhouette of a girl peaked through. She was facing the other way looking around. And when she turned around..

Oh boy.

Luke fell hard. His palms were starting to sweat, he felt his heart thumping. Of course he had always heard the myths and the stories about the Princess of the underworld. In almost all of them they had all mentioned her beauty. And boy were those words true.

"Are you the boy that's showing me around? Father said that I would have an escort?" She said. Her voice was like the calm after a storm. Luke didn't answer. "Uhm? Sir?" She questioned.

"Oh! Uhm yes! that's me. Uh I'm Luke." He managed to get out while offering his hand to her.

She took it, boy her hands were soft like feathers. "I'm Y/n, it's nice to meet you, but can we get going? It's quite hot today." She said

Without thinking Luke says "You'd think you'd be used to the heat, being from the underworld and all." Luke's eyes widen when he realized what he said.

He looked her in the eyes and at first he thought he fucked up. She had a deadpan on her face. But when they stared at each other for a bit she started to crack, and she let out the most beautiful laugh Luke had ever heard.

"Well, let's get going Luke, we wouldn't wanna burn out here," She said with a little giggle sending a small amber his way.

He was in awe. She had fire powers, just like the stories said.

After a while. The pair got close. They were friends...that's if you still count them as your friends even though you're constantly flirting all of the time.

And that was the dynamic between the two. They were always bickering or flirting, or both at the same time. Luke knew from the moment he saw her he was doomed. He had never felt this way about anyone before. Every camper saw it, Luke looked at Y/n like she hung the stars in the sky, and honestly if you told Luke she did, he would believe you.

After a while the two had even received a name, the princess and her guardian. Because wherever Y/n was Luke wasn't too far by lingering around her, always keeping an eye on her.

They never admitted they're feelings for each other however. Not until the incident about a year after Y/n's first summer at camp.

"Oh come on Y/n, why don't you ditch that loser Luke and be with me." Ben from Aphrodite cabin said to her as she sat by herself with her lunch waiting for Luke.

"Excuse me?" She said with offence. Luke for one was NOT a loser, okay maybe he was just a bit but still. That was rude, and Y/n didn't like rude people.

"You heard me doll." He said with a smug smirk. Gross, that nick name did not come out as good as he thought it did.

"Leave me alone please, now you're just being ridiculous." She stated. Y/n was very open with her boundaries and did not like it when they were crossed.

"Oh come on, you know you want to." This guy just couldn't take the hint.

"She said leave dude." Luke stated from behind you. You looked back and smiled mouthing "Thank you."

"Well well, the loser himself. Y/n deserves a real man, after all, she is a princess." He said in a snarky tone.

"Dude seriously just back off." Luke said stepping up chest to chest with him now. Y/n stood now, she didn't like conflict, and she definitely did not want to be the reason why it started.

"Come on Luke, let's just go." She said trying to tug him away. Luke looked at her then back at the smug boy. Luke huffed and turned around.

"Yeah go ahead and go cry to your daddy! Oh wait..." Ben shouted as they walked away. This time Luke wasn't the only one that was fighting now. Y/n knew all about Hermes and how he treated Luke. Now this made her angry.

"What did you say?" Y/n said as she turned around.

"You heard me clear and-" He stopped talking as he took in Y/n's state. Her eyes burned with fire. Her fists ready with flames.

"Can you repeat yourself?" She said coming closer to him.

Ben started to panic. "Help!" He yelled, as if everyone eyes weren't on them the second Y/n turned around. "This girl is crazy!" He cried.

Y/n fake lunged forward toward him which scared him endlessly making him run off to cry to mommy. Of course Y/n wasn't going to actually hurt him. Just scare him a bit so he wouldn't mess with her and Luke.

Now that Ben was away, so was the crowd. Nothing to watch anymore so everyone went about their day. Now it was just her and Luke.

She calmed and so did her fire. She turned to see Luke staring at her with more twinkle in his eyes than usual.

"Yes?" She asked.

"I'm in love with you." Luke said.

"What?"

"I love-" Luke was cut off with a pair of lips colliding with his. It was everything Luke thought it would be. Her lips were soft, just like he imagined. He always thought he would kiss her first though. I guess some things can't be predicted.

"I love you too Luke Castellan." She said after they pulled apart.

The two stared at each other with their rosy cheeks and they're foreheads pushed together.

Luke never would have thought in a million years that he would be with the Princess of the Underworld, there's a first to everything though.

A/n: I've been having writers block recently. I literally don't know what to write, so if you have an requests, they're open on my acct!!

#luke castellan x reader #luke castellan #luke castellan x you #luke castellan fic #pjo #percy jackson

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thecooler · 5 months

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Alright everyone let's settle this....

These are the only options don't ask about anyone else

#the locked tomb #i tabbed out to check the spelling of someone's name and when j tabbed back #tumblr had replaced options 1-9 with Sarpedon. i considered publishing like that

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vaguely-concerned · 3 months

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For personal reasons: Nona’s conversation with Varun towards the end of NtN (I had to do my own transcription of the audio book here, so pardon any errant punctuation or mistakes)

The Captain opened her mouth and said, “Get him! Get him! Get him, he flees!”

“I can’t!” said Nona, “I can’t do anything. I don’t want to do anything.”

The Captain moaned sharply. “All for nothing! You asked for help — you asked — and all for nothing, only pain! You asked. I gave you blood for blood!”

Nona, grief-stricken, hollered: “Not like this! I love this place!”

“Do you love?” said the Captain’s mouth.

Nona struggled. “Yes! No. Yes,” she said, then, “I don’t know what it means. I say it, and I don’t know what it means. Did I ever know what it meant?”

“Green thing,” said the Captain, “green—and—breathing thing — the ghost, the drinker, transformed — what will you eat now? Where will your body go? What did he do to you to make you this way? You eat yourself. I gorge on unliving marrow!”

It was true. The Captain looked as if she were withering before Nona’s eyes. She cried out in haste, “Don’t! Stop that! I can’t stop it, but you can stop it. Stop hurting her! She doesn’t know what you’re doing.”

“You cry mercy?” said the Captain.

“Yes! Mercy, yes!” said Nona.

“I have crossed the face of the universe,” said the Captain. “I poison it to match my grief!”

“Yes,” said Nona, “but — but stop this. Stop hurting the Captain.” She rooted around wildly to find a phrase, and fell back on Cam. “You’re acting out. Maybe you should take five.”

“For eight thousand unjust bodies I will stop,” said the Captain.

Nona said, “NO! I want you to stop now!”

“They concoct their own vengeance,” said the Captain. “Their justice is not my justice. Their water is not my water. I came to help. I am made a mockery. The danger is upon you, and you do not even know. They are coming out of their tower, salt thing. There is a hole at the bottom of their tower. I will pull their teeth. I will make it blank for you.”

Nona said, “Hot Sauce never did anything wrong. Or Beautiful Ruby, or Born-In-The-Morning, or Kevin. And Honesty — “ here, she was compelled by the truth, “Honesty doesn’t know any better. Camilla and Palamedes never did anything wrong. Pyrrha says she did a lot wrong, but at least she knows it. And we don’t like the Captain, but we pity her. Stop hurting the Captain. Don’t do this.”

And Nona found herself saying: “I’m ready to die. Really ready.”

“Nothing is really ready to die,” said the Captain.

. . .

Nona looked at the Captain’s face with its closed eyes — still wasted, but not dead, and looking a little less like a piece of fruit someone had sucked all the juice out of.

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.”

Planet ghost arrives to pick up little sister after she called it crying her eyes out earlier that night; thousands wounded hundreds dead natural order continues to be in shambles. To be serious though — Nona’s plea for humanity here has stuck with me so deeply. I love this place. I love these people. Don’t hurt them. The love is stronger than the rage, and Varun listens. She cries mercy, and is heard, if ony momentarily. Not happily and not forever, but it agrees to wait and to help her in the way she needs it to. (“We had the choice to stop”/”I can’t stop it, but you can stop it”............) It ties in very neatly with the overarching themes of vengeance in TLT: that you have to love and care for what’s hurting more than you hate what inflicted the damage, or else very bad things can start to happen. (Also ‘Honesty — doesn’t know any better’ is the funniest and the loveliest part of it to me. Like yeah. If you want to love humanity that’s such a crucial part of it. You have to accept that the Honestys of the world won’t know any better no matter what you do or say and that they’re still worth it; they live here too.)

#the locked tomb #nona the ninth #nona #varun the eater #justice for varun the eater tbh #and judith deuteros is just hanging out as a necromantic telephone line! I'm so sorry about your life judith god #interesting that nona never pleads with varun; she never says 'please'. she's got so much self-worth god bless cam pal and pyrrha

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transbutchblues · 9 months

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locked tomb morning thoughts : something about John being born from Alecto (born on Earth + his powers come from her) and being immortal and somehow controlling time at least a little bit, and, in Greek mythology, Cronos (Titan, son of Gaïa) being associated with Chronos (Titan of time) and eating his children because one of his kids would become more powerful than him and overthrow him…. John told Kiriona she could become his cavalier…. idk. maybe it’s just my brain trying to create more links between my hyperfixation (TLT) and my special interest (ancient greek religion)

#the locked tomb #tlt #tlt meta #tlt series #tlt theories #tlt analysis #alecto tlt #john gaius #kiriona gaia #greek mythology #ancient greek religion

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theriverbeyond · 10 months

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hello!! I love your tlt posts and metas and everything 😍 these books are just so packed with detail that I feel like I’m always learning more and more it’s so exciting.

I just finished NTN and have a question I haven’t been able to find answers to on the internet! I picked up on the fact that Nona is mishearing the names of the kids in the gang, both because when she says “honesty” and pyrrha or cam (I forget who) asks is that really his name she’s like that’s what I heard anyways or something like that, and then also when she says “born in the morning” to someone else they’re like you mean born in the morning and she’s like that’s what I said, implying she’s not saying it right but is still hearing it the same way even when someone corrects her. I was guessing that “honesty” is “augustine” and “born in the morning” is “mercymorn” but couldn’t figure out kevin or beautiful ruby or anything else, and could totally be getting that wrong anyways (I know there are so many references and details I’m not catching). But wondering if you’ve come across any explanations about who the kids are in reference to or any kind of significance about their names or anything like that!

thank u thank u 💌

Hi!! thanks so much!!! SO, general consensus is that you're right, Nona is not hearing the name but the meaning, i.e. would theoretically hear "John" as "God is gracious". to my knowledge there is no connection between the new Rho kids and Lyctoral characters.

One interesting thing is she is only hearing SOME people's names as meanings. This could be for many reasons, possibly just to make it less confusing to the reader, but for example she knows Camilla as Camilla, and not "helper to the priest" (which, btw, is such an on point name for her character), and the teacher Jolie as Jolie and not like, "one who was agreeable". And we know from the scene in the tomb that she hears John's name as John, and *not* actually as "God is gracious". So that is still kinda up in the air.

There are a couple of good posts out there discussing this! I really like this post by @onefleshonepod, linked here, that has a nice breakdown of possibilities! There are also some discussions on reddit, here and here. None of these have been canon confirmed (though perhaps we will get more info in the incoming NtN paperback glossary!), but good thoughts to be had all around.

For Hot Sauce, I think she is just named after the food! So it doesn't have any deeper meaning, besides the fact that it is a thing she loves and wants to be named after.

#if you search on the reddit there are a few more discussion posts as well!#ask #moonmanateee #new rho #new rho kids gang

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