#nona excerpt spoilers

[i-hardlyknowher]

This post on Twitter pointed out an amazing parallel between the new Nona excerpt and a scene in Harrow the Ninth, and I can't stop thinking about it.

The parallel in question:

The most interesting part about this, to me, is the use of wording.

In the new excerpt, the scene where A— and M— hold each other is described as "the dream". They're described as "babies".

Then, at the end of Harrow the Ninth, they "hold each other like children who'd had a nightmare". Which parallels so well with the excerpt.

Not only have they aged from babies to children, they've come to realise this life of theirs wasn't a dream but a nightmare.

#alternatively: pre-resurrection stuff = a dream & post-ressurection stuff a nightmare? #I don't have many coherent thoughts on this; just feelings :') #nona excerpt spoilers #nona spoilers #tlt #htn #augustine the first #mercymorn the first #tlt mine #john gaius #tlt theories #the locked tomb

[hornedgod]

this part of Nona had me gasping audibly. Gideon has dreamed her entire life of a revenge fantasy where it turns out that she’s actually secretly one of the most important people in the universe, because then they’ll be sorry. except that it turns out that she is the daughter of the Emperor—a demigod, a personal Jesus—the most important man in the universe to the Ninth. and Crux doesn’t care! he respects her just as much as Crown Prince Kiriona Gaia as he did when she was literal property of the Ninth. he hates her and will never see her as anything other than that disrespectful little kid whose life he dedicated to making miserable.

of course you didn’t get your catharsis, of course it didn’t feel good, Gideon. you got your wish and you were right all along but you were playing a game with someone who was never going to play fair.

#legit spent like 45 minutes looking for that third excerpt #I was so sure it was in GtN but it was in the Gideon chapters of HtN orz #gideon the ninth #harrow the ninth #nona the ninth #nona the ninth spoilers #kiriona gaia #gideon nav #literary analysis #the locked tomb spoilers #tlt #also pls excuse the picture HtN is the only ebook I don’t have

[macgyvertape]

This essay is part a note on how most of John’s PoV is sympathetic because he naturally casts his opponents as Acceptable Targets (meaning a group that is deemed justified to hold in contempt), but the Trillionares and their plan was just as bad as he said. Thematically the point of John’s POV isn’t “John was always a monster”, but John was originally no better or worse than an average person but the power to kill indiscriminately without consequences corrupts, and when death gives you a rush you’re incentivized to kill as a problem solving method.

Much as the memes serve to make John relatable in HtN because it’s a point of familiarity in an unfamiliar setting, when John had his rant of: 

“At that point I wished I’d used the fucking conspiracy theorists instead… nobody would’ve cared if I’d turned people inside-out who think vaccines have nanites in them that mine cryptocurrency”.

Neither Alecto or Harrow know what an anti-vaxxer is much less cryptocurrency but I sure do. After living through 2 years of a pandemic in a Bible Belt state I have a deep and personal hatred of anti-vaxxers so a large part of me was like “yeah fuck ‘em”.  In the same vein Billionaires are inherently immoral, so how much worse does that make Trillionaires, whose plans of fleeing to space are an intentional parallel to certain real life figures? I found it easy to dislike the people John hated, and thereby John felt more likable even though his actions in HtN were fresh in my mind.

I don’t think John was lying about how bad the corporations and Trillionaires were, and I’ve seen some posts that miss the details of why they are so hateable. They’re introduced wielding structural power in the epitome of healthcare industry putting profit over people’s lives. 

8% chance of death or long term damage isn’t great, but comments saying that the cryo project was right to be shut down over 8% are literally misunderstanding that the Trillionare’s justification is a facade. The Trillionaires were fine with 70% severe damage (implied to be crippling if not fatal) and excluding anyone who was pregnant, because the Trillionaires never planned to take that risk and would staff a ship with only thousands awake vs the billions cryo could hold. It’s interesting the parts of John’s recounting where he’s almost too angry to speak.

I’ve seen posts that more ships could have been built once the first wave left, but that ignores the text about how the planet is being strip-mined of resources just so the Trillionares can take excess with them, literally faking people on the manifest just to have more room. The Trillionares fund the early launch by giving away most of their money, but John’s right that if the Trillionaires are giving away money it's because money no longer has worth, it's a stand in for goods and services that are gone. If there were enough resources that more ships could be built it wouldn’t happen before massive population die off due to environmental catastrophes with the reference to “the next round of climate starvation.” The “us” in those left behind is everyone not rich or deemed useful aka most of the global population. With this kind of stakes it’s understandable why any amount of violence starts to seem justified to John.

When John does start killing people I think it's meant to be a shocking moment not just to the other characters but the reader as well. 

 “I dropped everyone with a gun in a kilometre radius. Stopped the hearts of the army guys, the rent-a-cops, the peacekeepers, the locals. There were over a hundred of them, but I didn’t discriminate”

His response to P- (Pyrrha) confronting him is a quip “talk about police abuse”, and a lie that it was an accident with the chilling follow up to Alecto/Harrow “Guys as careful as me don’t have accidents”. For as much as he respected Pyrrha for being on his side, as soon as she confronts him she’s just another “bad cop” who uses too much force. (I am very aware gun and police culture has different history in NZ vs US, so I am sure there is context I’m missing). John’s framing isn’t ACAB and justice for the 5 people looking to join who were killed but all the things he was figuring out with death power. Pyrrha is a character Nt9 readers are probably very attached to at this point; John’s framing her as just a “bad cop” in this scene is meant to demonstrate he’s begun to stop respecting his comrades or tell them the truth; just as he’s becoming fine with collateral damage.  It's the kind of “if you aren’t with me you’re against me” view John holds that we see play out in HtN with Augustine and Mercymorn. If there’s a divergence point of “what could have changed for the outcome to differ” I think it was this moment or shortly after where John stops treating everyone else as equals.

The tragedy is that Necromancy is pretty useless for directly fixing the environment with “stabilizing glaciers” or “trapping atmosphere”, but it could have done wonders for 8% cryo damage. John went from a mission statement of “no one left behind” and plans to save a livable Earth to caring more about stopping the Trillionaires at whatever cost so he nuked the world then ate the solar system in an attempt to kill all of them. Ten thousand years later he still punishes the descendants of those who escaped in the manner of “the sins of the father” and God!John has become so much like the Trillionaires he hated, there’s some sort of eldritch zombie apocalypse across the Empire and John is doing nothing with all his resources to stop it. 

Tldr: In the words of my friend: “i loved that like, he cared more about winning than saving people. he starts out so sympathetic you're like okay i see how this is escalating and then its suddenly like "well they werent LISTENING so I HAD to destroy the entire planet" amazingggggg”

#the locked tomb #john gaius #nona the ninth #nona the ninth spoilers #sorry but the post broke with blockquotes longer than 2 sentences #so a lot is screenshot excerpts #tired of editing this so I'll just post it #under readmore b/c its long

[nonasbirthday]

ok but if Nona is hearing names as literal translations due to her mysterious Language Powers then why does she still hear “Camilla” and not “Acolyte” or “Attendant” or whatever

#many thoughts none of which come to a conclusion #yes i did just look this up #also i should have remembered that to go down the path of TLT name research is to make yourself both sad and confused #the locked tomb #nona the ninth #nona the ninth spoilers #nona the ninth excerpt

[camgoloud]

also “a bundle of meat he’d cut, thighs mostly” vs “ten thousand years since i’ve eaten human being” like call it a reach but john wHAT IS THE MEAT THERE EXACTLY

#literally i’m losing my MIND over this excerpt it’s literally just 3 pages and i can’t stop reading it over and over #the locked tomb #tlt spoilers #nona the ninth

[catharsis-in-a-bottle]

i'm hellbent on the theory that nona is alecto - and furthermore, that alecto is earth's resurrection beast. this is mainly because of the Nona Can Speak Languages By Looking At People's Mouths thing; if alecto is indeed an eldritch abomination of 10 billion earthling souls, than perhaps she can speak all of their languages!! and perhaps she doesn't know how to operate in just one measly human body (she doesn't!! it took nona months to get coordinated); perhaps by being too many humans, she is inhuman.

also nona prefers cold food and despises the idea of hot scrambled eggs. alecto's body has presumably been an iced corpse for 10,000 years. do with that what you will

#nona the ninth spoilers #ntn spoilers #<<for those who don't want to read the excerpts. i didn't but the siren call got me #ntn #nona the ninth #alecto #.txt

[thelonghairedone]

Honestly the most surprising part of the new Nona the Ninth excerpt was that John was a STEM major.

Like if someone had asked me to guess what John’s pre-apopocylpse career might have been I would have guessed something along the lines of an English professor.

#Mercymorn confirmed being in the medical field was a given really #Like this bit of backstory #the man likes making literary references when he is not memeing i thought that was a sign of his previous education #Nona the ninth spoilers #nona the ninth excerpt #the locked tomb #John Gaius #tlt #Gideon the Ninth

[nav-ix]

I was so prepared to think that John was the bad guy and he had been all along, or that he'd at least always been selfish or a coward but it seems like nothing is ever easy and he's gonna be complicated like every other character in this hot and stupid universe

#the excerpt is killing me #maybe its because im already so invested but something about the sad and distant tone and the story we already know the outcome of #is just so heartbreaking #nona the ninth spoilers

[clonerightsagenda]

My quirk is that if left with a media property long enough I will assign a character the role of Chuck Tingle.

#it started with TLC!Hal writing Chuck Tingle style stuff to be annoying and then spread #I was a 'Palamedes is the TLT universe's Chuck Tingle' truther #BEFORE the Nona excerpt confirmed he tried to write smut for cash #you see I'm always right about these things #nona the ninth spoilers/// #super vaguely #nona spoilers// #cut me own throat dibbler would write tinglers #wait FUCK Nanny Ogg writes tinglers #he's her distributor #she already did the sexy cookbook

[sacredfirmament]

JOHN SPILLI G THE BEANS ABT WHAT HAPPENED PRE-RESURRECTION????

#alecto origin story im literally calling it rn. it has to be what else can it be #tlt #nona the ninth spoilers #i love making theories out of an excerpt and a prayer its so fun

[tetrahedrals]

hello hello i read the nona excerpt and promptly fell ass-backwards into the pit of locked tomb feelings. time for RAMPANT SPECULATION !!!!

(spoilers for GTN and HTN)

- I have no idea who Nona is, but she doesn’t seem much like Harrow or Gideon. It takes so little to make her happy. Its going to be Really sad if she turns out to be G/H, and its just some small lost piece of them relishing the experience of having a childhood (something they obviously never got at the Ninth House).

- Speaking of TRAUMA, I actually really hope Nona isn’t Gideon at all. At the end of HTN, Gideon has just had a metric fuckton of massively shitty revelations dropped on her: namely that she owes her existence to a conspiracy of dead assholes. Like out of the four (4!!) adults who had a hand in her conception, not a single one of them ever gave a solitary fuck about her wellbeing. (I feel like Gideon/Pyrrha might have if given a chance? but they also fully pushed that baby out an airlock so like, not exactly parent-of-the-year material there either.) John seems willing to at least try now that he knows about her, but given what she has just learned about him that’s probably not much of a consolation. At any rate, the narrative doesn’t really give her (or us) time to process any of it, because there’s some wild shit happening and she has to get out of the River. But all her dreams about her mom/origin, the whole narrative she’d built for herself that helped her survive the Ninth- gone! The person she sacrificed her life for- not only gone, but also erased her from her memory. The last thing she sees is the Body, who she explicitly describes as being there to save Harrow. Like from her POV, this is just yet another shitty dead person who doesn’t give a fuck about her. That’s bleak man!!! That’s some rough stuff to be dealing with!! 

So I don’t really want to see happy-amnesia-child-Gideon in NTN: I want see a Gideon who is finally coming to terms with exactly how fucked up her life has been and is fucking PISSED about it.

My main critique of GTN (and part of why I prefer HTN), is that Gideon as a narrator can come off as a bit flippant, especially in the early part of the book when she’s still at the Ninth. A lot of terrible stuff is happening to her- locked in a freezing cell w/ no food for days, abused and manipulated by pretty much everyone, surrounded by adults who don’t give a shit about her, not to even get in to what’s going on between her and Harrow (full disclosure: their relationship was kind of a hard sell for me in this book!). But she never seems scared or even particularly upset by any of it, and since she’s the Narrator, that means that I as the reader don’t know how seriously I should be taking it. Maybe it’s not a big deal that she’s been abused her whole life? She doesn’t seem to think so? Is all of this just set-dressing so the book can establish her as some kind of Snarky Badass, too tough and cool to be fazed by years and years of child abuse? That seems like a weird message to be pushing, but then you get to Canaan House and the whole tone changes: she does start taking things seriously, suddenly it matters to her what happens to these people. And because of that, at the end she makes this incredible, heroic sacrifice. Only to wake up and find that that sacrifice has been rejected.

I would love to see a Gideon in NTN who isn’t particularly heroic or selfless, who is allowed to have feelings about the specific ways in which the people in her life have repeatedly failed her, instead of just papering over that trauma with snarky humor and bad puns and her devotion to Harrow. 

#hot tomb summer #TLT #nona the ninth #the locked tomb #ntn spoilers #sort of #for the excerpt anyway #this went a bit off the rails #my bad

[camillahex]

for all that it’s basically three new pages i am so emotionally raw rn that this new nona the ninth excerpt has me on the verge of like. overwhelmed tears

#on amazon there's a 'look inside' with new pages #god i can't fucking wait for september #77 days #locked tomb #nona the ninth #any posts abt the excerpts will be tagges w nona the ninth spoilers #posting

[sea-salted-wolverine]

Having seen the sheer confusion of people who have seen posts about the locked tomb series but not actually read the books themselves, I've got a few theories as to why that is.

The fandom refuses to focus on the plot, and instead gloms on to the particularly odd chunks instead. Post-apocalyptic magic lesbians unearth ancient and terrible secrets. Cool, good overview. Has anyone ever described that way? No. We're all stuck on revenant Barbie and DIY labotomies. Those are both spoilers that sound insane. They're actually more insane once you have context.

The text of the actual novels, often has the emotional character driven style of fan fiction. And like the good stuff where the title is a song lyric in all undercase and a single chapter with 15K word count. Which can make it difficult to tell apart excerpts from the actual book and excerpts from fan fiction. (This isn't even counting the part of the book where a character actually invented an alternate universe where she and her crush were in a cute coffee shop Au)

The memes. I saw a post where somebody had drawn like 8 different memes of the book. Except only one of them was a drawover of parks and rec, AND THE REST WERE CANNON SCENES FROM THE BOOK.

The naming conventions. The series is called the locked tomb. The 1st book is called Gideon the 9th. The 2nd book is called Harrow the 9th. The 3rd book is called Nona the 9th. The 4th book of what was intended to be a trilogy is called Alecto the 9th.

Somehow the POV character is always the person who is least qualified to tell the story. The narrator has no idea what's happening. The narrator may be clueless, haunted, possessed, in denial, or straight up lying. Why would any of us know what's happening? If you're trying to put together pieces from the outside with no context, you're just fucking doomed.

#gideon the ninth #harrow the ninth #nona the ninth #the locked tomb #Describing it sounds insane #Every character is competing for the title of chaotic bastard #Even the ones that you would think would be the holders of the brain cell #The 1st book starts out and they have terrible secrets that they must keep #and it does not take long to blow those catastrophes out of the water with bigger and worse catastrophes

[ruiyuki]

Aight folks, I went to watch Providence with Japanese subs TWICE in three days now and after the initial emotional anechoic chamber it put me through, I can finally recount the movie and make sense of its plot and themes. So here is a ⚠️‼️ VERY SPOILER HEAVY RECAP ‼️⚠️ of the whole movie (literally very long, scene-by-scene of everything I can rmbr) & some commentary under cut.

The movie opens with a group of assailants raiding a cargo ship. Seems like their target is a woman aboard named Professor Stronskaya who's accosted in her room by a man with red dreads and a blond man. Over the ship we see Kougami flying on a plane with Frederica over the radio. They're there to rescue the Professor. Kougami drops down to the ship (in only what I can call, a flying squirrel suit) and there's a shoot out. He finds the Professor's room but she's dead. He's attacked again and hears somebody speaking to him an excerpt of the bible. Things are exploding on the ship and Kougami escapes to safety by jumping into the ocean.

Cut to Nona tower after the OP credits. Akane is speaking at a meeting of Directors about Japan's upcoming decision to abolish the legal system now that judicial proceedings are more or less moot with Sybil in place. We meet Atsushi Shindou, Director of Welfare who tries to keep the peace among the members and he says a guest was suppose to join them but did not make it to the meeting. Akane gets an urgent call from Mika and excuses herself from the meeting.

Mika tells Akane about the attacked cargo ship that's sailed up to Japan's port and tells her to "stop playing politician and get back here already" lol. Shindou approaches Akane and accompanies her to the cargo ship. Turns out it was Shindou that invited Professor Stronskaya as the guest for the meeting and that she is a global researcher who wrote a document called "The Stronskaya Papers". They have a discussion in the car ride where Shindou tells Akane he has high hopes for her, but also, maybe she shouldn't piss off people that could help her in the long run. Big oops mood but also, nice to see our classic Akane still, haha.

Akane and Shindou arrive at the site of the cargo ship where we find Mika being difficult to Frederica to say the least lol. Frederica is with the Director of Foreign Affairs (who I honestly forgot his name so I'll just refer to him as "DFA"). Shindou calls up Kasei and she instructs Division 1 to hand over the case to Foreign Affairs. There's a funny moment after of Mika badmouthing the situation and Shindou sneaks up on her telling her to watch what she says cuz the DFA has a really special hearing aid LMAO.

Division 1 recaps to Akane what they could find on the ship in the short amount of time while Akane also fills in her team abt Professor Stronskaya. Gino mentions they found the Professor dead but confirming it would be difficult bc she was decapitated. Hinakawa says the Professor sent one last message out before she died and it was to Jouji Saiga (👀‼️).

Akane calls Saiga-sensei in the privacy of the MWPSB car. Shindou knocks on the window and joins in on the call. Turns out Shindou and Saiga-sensei know each other from their university days where Shindou was Saiga's senpai (again another 👀‼️). They talk abt Prof Stronskaya but Saiga says he wants to speak to Akane alone about it.

Akane meets Saiga-sensei in his isolation unit and they talk abt how he knows Shindou, Prof Stronskaya and the Stronskaya Papers. Saiga tells Akane the papers are about Sybil and its impact on society and that they could very well change the stability of the world and Japan. He confirms the last message he got from Prof Stronskaya is the location to a P.O. box in Dejima, Kyushu where the papers are kept. Akane asks if Saiga would help her retrieve the papers, ofc Saiga agrees.

Before they head out to Dejima, Akane meets with Kasei alongside Mika, Frederica, and the DFA. They debrief on the assailant group and its here we learn of the main baddie of our movie: a man call Tonami who was part of the Japanese military group, the "Peacebreakers" formed by the MOFA. The Peacebreakers were active overseas 5 years ago on behalf of the MOFA, but all its members including Tonami went rogue. Now that they're back in Japan, its decided this will be a joint operation to reign them in. Kasei says smth along the lines of "you cant hunt feral animals with dogs so what better way but with bloodhounds, make good use of him" referring to you know who !!!!

Cut to Division 1's office. Gino's livid and ready to start a fight at the sight of Kougami back in Japan (he's really yelling "how dare you show your face here again"). Sugo breaks them up as Akane, Mika, and Frederica enter the office. Kougami greets Akane with calling her "Inspector" (🥺) while Akane (tries to?) keeps a poker face.

Akane, Gino, Sugo escort Saiga with Frederica and Kou to Dejima while Mika, Yayoi, Hinakawa and Shion stay in Tokyo as support. They discuss Tonami again on the plane where Gino asks a question and Kou tried to answer but Gino retorts a petty "I wasn't asking you" LMAO. They arrive at one of the MOFA buildings for their stay and it's noted that Dejima is where all the refugees/immigrants live in Japan while they await naturalization.

Saiga looks into profiling Tonami and the Peacebreakers. He and Kou discuss it over liquor and Saiga-sensei gives some more dad advice to Kougami (he tells Kou to apologize to Akane while he still can 😂). Kou calls up Akane on the balcony a while later and they talk about why he's returned. Akane hangs up on him when he says he doesnt regret his decision (and his face is priceless 😂😂😂) cuz she was also hoping he would apologize but he didnt. Frederica meets with DFA for something and he tells her dont let Kougami or Saiga know of their plan.

The next morning the team goes to retrieve the papers at the P.O. box and there's another Saiga-dad moment where he teases Kougami for "[he] couldnt do it, huh" while Kou plays dumb (😂). The P.O box address was a fake, Prof Stronskaya didnt leave the document in there to be safe. Turns out DFA also planned Saiga to be a setup: there was a leak in the MOFA to lure the Peacebreakers targeting Saiga-sensei for the papers. Now the Peacebreakers—including the dreads guy and blond guy (now named Kai) from before—are attacking, and its a matter of keeping Saiga safe.

Akane, Kou, and Frederica try to evacuate Saiga to the extraction point while Gino and Sugo fend off Peacebreakers on their own. They find out the Dominators dont work on Peacebreaker soldiers bc of (artifically) low Crime Coefficients and have to resort to brute force or guns. Kou's group is attacked by the man with red dreads shortly after walking past some bodies with bomb traps (where Kougami FUCKING RAN to protect his wife shield Akane from one that set off... gouchisousama deshita 🙏). Kou gets trapped in a shoot out with other Peacebreakers while Frederica engages the red dreads guy but gets overpowered. The red dreads guy ends up holding Saiga hostage at knife point but Kou manages to shoot the dreads guy in the head (literally mere inches from Saiga-sensei, Kou that's insane. Saiga calls him out on it lol).

But the red dreads guys isnt down yet (?!?!) Or at least, he is suppose to be very dead but his body still moves and talks like he's possessed by something. Kou engages him again but Saiga gets slashed and starts to fall off a ledge of the atrium they're at. Akane runs to catch him but she can't pull him up. Saiga-sensei looks up to Akane and puts his faith in her, tells her smth along the lines of "justice and truth can be seen by those high above and he believes she is capable of reaching there". He lets himself slip out of her grasp and falls to his death, crashing into the fountain under the atrium.

I asked where was Saiga-sensei in S3 but I didnt want the answer to be he fucking DIES 😭😭😭

Akane runs down to the fountain as Kou still tries to handle the dreads guy. Eventually Frederica takes over as Kai and the Peacebreakers make their retreat now that their target expired and Kou chases after Kai. There's a Kougami vs Kai 1v1 in a holo room while Frederica, now with Gino, fights the possessed dreads guy (there's a lot of hand-to-hand combat sequences in this movie) also Sugo got shot but he's ok. Kai manages to escape from Kougami, but not before monologuing at him another excerpt from a book and leaving Kou a dagger with a tassle stuck in his shoulder. Gino punches a hole through the dread guy's torso with his prosthetic arm just as the dreads guy sets off a grenade in suicide. Gino thankfully disconnects his prosthetic in time and jumps back to safety.

In the aftermath, Frederica finds out the DFA is missing bc of the Peacebreaker attack (he was initially observing their whole decoy plan from a surveillance room). Akane chews her out, but Shindou suddenly appears in Dejima and says he'll handle the clean up. Akane starts to get suspicious of Shindou at this point but there is nothing she can do since no one wanted Saiga-sensei to die. Kougami and Akane share an elevator ride where Akane's starting to cry over losing Saiga-sensei, and Kou gives her a pep talk of "keeping calm, she can cry after the case is over" (a callback to the pep talk he gave her after Yuki died by Makishima in S1 🥺).

Once Kou is back in his room, he thinks about the monologue Kai gave him and runs a search. The excerpt was from a book called the "Great Aso". He calls up Shion for the forensics result from the tassled dagger and she says the tassle was made of horse hair. He asks her to do a search of horses location restricted to Aso, Japan while the conversation moves to cognitive and scientific theory of body possession (makes sense given that Shion is a physician), and more specifically—possession of a body by a god?

By morning we get a scene of Shindou meeting with Arata, Kei, and Maiko in Dejima. If you've been paying attention to the names you'll realize Maiko is Prof Stronskaya's daughter. Shindou is there delivering the news of her death to the young'uns. On top of that, he mentions Kei's older brother—Akira—might be able to return for Kei and Maiko's wedding happening shortly after Lunar New Year. Shindou and Arata leave and stroll through Dejima as the immigrant residents prepare Lunar New Year festivities in the district.

There's a scene change to now watch the Peacebreaker side of things. We follow Kai as he walks through their secret base. He stops to observe Tonami speaking to Peacebreaker soldiers like a religious cult leader and it is revealed they kidnapped the DFA and are water torturing him. We follow Kai for a bit longer to his quarters where he struggles with body convulsions, takes some pills, then smash his reflection in the mirror (looking hot doing it). He gets a call from Tonami telling him to handle the DFA again as Tonami is now leaving to meet with their leader called The General.

Back to Akane's crew: Mika, Akane, Frederica have now found the Peacebreaker's secret base located in Aso, Kyushu thanks to Kougami's search. They request a raid with the use of traditional guns from Kasei who allows it. There's a really nice sequence of Kou and Gino partnered up being the vanguard of their raid. They get stuck in a gun fight against turret drones though and have to hide behind stone pillars until the drones are suddenly disabled. But by whom?

Surprise! It's Kai, who has extracted the DFA. Turns out Kai is an undercover agent for the DFA and Shindou, and his real name is ‼️ Akira Vasily Ignatov ‼️ Kei's brother!!!! Now it all makes sense—dropping the monologue and tassle dagger as clues.

Akira tells Kougami and Ginoza to restrain him and take him in before Tonami finds out about the base. DFA is recovered but needs medical attention, so Akane, Frederica, and Kou escort them both by heliplane back to Dejima while Akane leaves investigation of the Peacebreaker base to Gino. Aboard the plane, Akira reveals the details of the Stronskaya Papers: its actually a formula for a simulation using Sybil's Crime Coefficient concept to calculate society's likelihood of disagreement and unrest—a Conflict Coefficient. The Conflict Coefficient could be used to settle wars or elevate them which is why Tonami wants the papers. Akira reveals the data is stored in a chip implant in his brain, but also says there's a second implant in his brain from the Peacebreakers called "The Divider". The Divider can negate negative thoughts and emotions by sharing it to another entity, which is how they fake Crime Coefficients read by Dominators, and it's also how Tonami possesses a soldier's body.

When they reach Dejima, they're greeted by Shindou. Shindou thanks Akira saying it must have been hard on him. Akane requests to talk with Shindou, Frederica tends to DFA and Kou takes Akira in for his statement. Akira reveals he was the one that killed Prof Stronskaya to protect the mission (and it hurt him to do so now knowing their familial ties 😔) and that Tonami can possess members of the MOFA bc each MOFA agent already has a brain implant for translation, while Shindou explains why Akira was undercover in the first place. Akane questions Shindou on why everything he does seems to have no flaws, like things are perfectly laid out for him; he's about to answer when they're interrupted by Kougami's urgent call. Kou's and Akira's questioning was interrupted by Tonami possessing DFA who locked Frederica in the elevator and shot Kou in the leg. He's hijacked Akira's body and making a run for it, trying to escape with the Stronskaya data.

When Akane and Shindou catch up to the Tonami-possessed Akira, Akira tries to overcome the body possession and struggles pointing a gun at himself to suicide. He manages to shoot himself in the chest and chucks the gun at Shindou, pleading to be killed so Tonami can't get the Stronskaya data. Shindou obliges (but not before Akira asks him to look after Kei) and shoots Akira dead as Lunar New Year fireworks go off in the background and Akane and team watches on. Kasei arrives in Dejima to speak to Shindou.

We get to the interlude before Act 3 of the movie now. Akane visits Kougami in hospital bed recovering from the leg injury regretful that he couldnt prevent the loss of Akira. Akane reminds him that they're a team, and they'll get Tonami next time (🥺 again, it's a nice call back to S1). Kasei meets with Shindou in his car in the middle of Dejima's Lunar New Year festivities, where Shindou addresses Kasei as "Sybil System". They discuss the events and Shindou taking responsibility for it. Kasei leaves Shindou with "a parting gift" and exits the car. Not long after, Shindou calls Akane to meet him, still in the midst of festivities and explains Kei is getting married very soon and he requests for Akane that news of Akira's dead not made public til after the wedding. He then invites Akane to attend the wedding too.

Shindou and Akane arrive for the wedding where they're greeted by Arata. Arata walks Maiko down the aisle and Kei and Maiko are really cute at the altar. Shindou gives a speech at the reception (that really is more cryptically directed to Akane and Arata, I think 👀) then immediately disappears after the speech. Arata and Akane notice Shindou's gone and go searching. He's in his car, looking at a photo of him with his wife and a child Arata. The parting gift from Kasei is a gun. He shoots himself. Arata and Akane find him.

At the morgue, Arata, Kei and Maiko mourn Shindou. Arata, distressed, tries to get answers from Akane to make sense of the events but Akane doesnt know either. The joint investigation between MOFA and Division 1 is called off and Division 1 is ordered back to Tokyo. Akane meets with Kasei who shows her a video message from Tonami. The Peacebreakers have relocated to the northernmost islands (the Kumail Islands? Or smth, I forgot the name) of Japan declaring independence with The General as their leader. Apparently Sybil has conversed with this General of theirs and agreed on the terms, and wants Akane to deliver the Stronskaya Papers to Tonami (as a peace offering I guess?). Kasei basically tells Akane to shut up and go with it, Akane will be out of MWPSB soon anyway as Sybil will have her take Shindou's place as the new Director of Welfare.

Ofc, Akane's never gonna "just shut up and go with it" lol. She reviews the notes Saiga-sensei came up while profiling Tonami that concludes with "God?" and calls up Kougami asking him to join her in solving this case. He says he was going to go with her regardless if she asked (🥺). Frederica overhears Akane's call and she agrees too to "finish the job their boss failed to do".

So the team assembles at the office. The plan is for Kou, Frederica and Gino to arrive at the islands to take down as many Peacebreaker soldiers before Akane arrives via MWPSB heli as the decoy for Tonami with the Stronskaya Papers. Sugo takes care of the transportation issue, and Mika, Shion, Yayoi again work logistisical support. We learn that the Peacebreakers have a satellite in the stratosphere which is how they do jamming and control The Divider devices, so Sugo will fly a drone within its airspace after dropping Kou's team off for Hinakawa to hack it. Akane makes a point that they'll operate by MWPSB standards and by that will mean use of Dominators, and she's already arranged for Kou and Frederica as temporary users.

I really like her speech of "if we are going to enforce the law, we will do so as MWPSB detectives" 🥺 bc that brings me back to her learning what it means to be a detective in S1 from Kou and Masaoka.

Everyone divides into their assignments. Kou's team loads onto the boat Sugo has arranged with the JDF submarine. There's a snarky tsundere-Mika moment as she gives Gino a new Dominator she's had R&D work on. Akane sees Kougami & co. off, though not without Kou tell her to not do anything reckless as the decoy and she replies "I can't guarantee that.." / Kougami: "Oi. 😑" / "So make sure you get there (to me) quickly".

On the boat, Gino and Kou have a heart-to-heart finally with Gino asking again why Kougami's come back. He says he's trying to do the responsible thing and Gino think it's at least an improvement. They share the thought that they are the reason for Akane tying herself down to her job as an inspector, and want to protect her for it.

I really loved this part bc you can feel the friendship is still there between Gino and Kou, and although they now see each other in different roles with respect to Akane (metaphorically, Gino being a "shield" for her, and Kougami as her "sword"), the shared guilt and understanding of their motivation ever since end of S1 is there which is what makes the team so great.

Kougami & co. get to the islands, setup, and start infiltrating the Peacebreaker base. Sugo flies the drone to the satellite after but is met with laser defences trying to shoot it down. (There's a whole CGI sequence for this part and the jury's still out on whether I like it or not 😂). Akane arrives at the base where Tonami greets her. She says the Stronskaya Papers are now in her brain from Akira's implant and that she wants to meet the General before handing them over. It's revealed that the General is a medical AI (the Bifrost in S3) that was initially created to support latent criminal rehabilitation within the Sybil System, but the project was scrapped and later repurposed by the MOFA for the Peacebreakers. Essentially (for what I can interpret at least), the Peacebreakers were created to do the MOFA's overseas dirty work where the implant in their brain would transmit negative thoughts & emotion to the medical AI as a sinkhole for the soldiers to stay.. unburdened (is the best word I can describe? Somebody pls correct me if I understood this wrong lol). Tonami and fellows resented that, the hypocrisy of them being used like that, which prompted their defection and subsequently trying to claim the medical AI as their own system to elevate world conflict through the addition of the Stronskaya Paper's simulation algorithm with religious rhetoric. Tonami tried to added Prof Stronskaya's decapitated brain to The General in place of the papers, but it didnt work which is why he's still after them. Akane debates that AI systems like Sybil and The General cannot replace the will of humanity but Tonami will have none of that and shoots her in the thigh.

Outside, Kougami's team is fending off Peacebreakers while Sugo drone-piloting is trying to hold out long enough for Hinakawa to hack the satellite. They cut it very close with Hinakawa excitedly exclaiming when they're finally hacked in. (I am so proud of him this whole movie cuz there were small moments where Hinakawa openly voices his thoughts on the case and his hacking capabilities: "if the enemy is using this type of thing, then I should be able to hack it"... it's a mile growth from the meek enforcer we met in S2!!). Shion & Yayoi use the hacking to shut down the Dividers creating fake Crime Coefficients and to put the Dominators online for Kou, Gino, and Frederica. The next bit is a nice sequence of Kougami initializing the Dominator's start up UI with the PSYCHO-PASS theme playing (more callbacks to S1, god I missed these moments). Gino's new Dominator from Mika is apparently a multi-target lock on Dominator, and Frederica's gets a new railgun Dominator with a multi-shot Destroy Decomposer. Once they get mostly control of the battle, Gino shouts at Kougami to "get to Tsunemori!" (he actually says "Tsunemori ō mamoru!" in Japanese which made me keel over cuz that can be translated as "go protect Tsunemori" 🥹), and Kou bolts.

Things are looking alright until Shion, Yayoi & Hinakawa realize the satellite isnt stopping its motion and is actually on course to crash into the Peacebreaker base as a fail-safe for being hacked. At this point, Mika actually suddenly left the operations room to go to Kasei. She argues to Sybil that Akane is too valuable to let die, so Sybil pulls the strings to get the JDF to shoot down the satellite before it crashes into the base. (I do appreciate that for all her attitude, Mika does respect Akane and see the importance she has in her role. We see another moment of this later on too. This movie finally moved me from negative opinion of Mika to neutral lol). The debris from the shot down satellite fall onto the base where Gino & Frederica are fending off the last of the Peacebreakers and they take cover. We finally catch up with Akane and Tonami.

Akane's handcuffed by Tonami and bleeding from her leg profusely but she's still fighting back. She crawls far enough to reach her Dominator that has fallen on the ground and chucks it to the terminal that controls The General. Seems like she actually hid the Stronskaya data in her Dominator and the contact with the terminal updates The General's AI. Akane says she places faith in the system that The General's AI will choose to opposite outcome that Tonami wants, where the AI will choose reducing conflict with the peace Sybil brings to society. The AI does just that and assimilates itself once again with Sybil, updating itself to remove Tonami's influence within its system and shutting the base down. Tonami is ofc, livid at Akane's ideologies and shoots her again in the abdomen. She gets held at gunpoint with Tonami standing over her just as Kougami arrives. There's more debate between Tonami and Akane about the nature of using AI systems in society, with Kougami listening on, gun in hand (honestly his facial expression looks really unimpressed with what Tonami is saying during this part, I couldn't help but laugh LMAO). At the end of Tonami's spiel, Kougami shoots him in the head just when it looked like Tonami would shoot Akane again, and Kougami says that its true, he agrees with what Tonami is saying. Akane deflates saying she "promised she wouldnt let Kougami do that (kill/break the law) again" but Kougami explains that although he agreed with Tonami, he believes in Akane's sense of righteousness, and for that he also needs to be judged (by her and the laws upheld by their society with the Sybil system). He unlocks Akane's handcuffs (and there was someone that posted about him cuffing himself to Akane as they get up, symbolic of her arresting him, but I didnt catch that 😔) and bridal carries Akane out.

The case's aftermath is a recovered Akane meeting in Sybil's brain room. Gino and Sugo had gotten approvals to transfer from Division 1 to MOFA, while Kougami was placed in a cell as his punishment for breaking the law (I guess), but he's not there for long since Sybil deems him useful enough so he'll be approved to go back to MOFA soon. Sybil reveals the roles DFA and Shindou had with the case and that it will be buried with their deaths as Akane soon accepts her new position as Shindou's replacement. Sybil says Akane will walk the path of Atsushi Shindou as they've prescribed as Akane leaves the room (which didnt click to me until my second watching here that the reason there were never any flaws in Shindou's "moves" was bc Atsushi Shindou knew the truth about Sybil, considering that Arata is criminally asymptomatic. Shindou went along with everything he did with no flaws bc it was already arranged by Sybil.. in order to protect his son..). Shion, Yayoi, and Hinakawa comment that things will be different in Division 1 now that so many members have left, but now it's time to watch Akane's promotion ceremony broadcasted on live TV.

While the broadcast is happening, Kougami reads a letter from Akane in his cell. She writes about her thoughts on the case and tells him she now knows what she needs to do to question the nature of justice in their society, and its something that only she can do. Kougami realizes immediately what she intends and responds to that with a pained expression calling her an idiot (mirroring his letter to her in S1). At the ceremony, Akane dressed in uniform goes through the delegation, but when she's about to accept the promotion from Kasei, she pulls out a gun and shoots Kasei on stage with a blank expression. Mika, running security at the event points her Dominator at Akane where it reads her Crime Coefficient at 60. Akane leaves Mika with a bittersweet "please take care of Division 1" and Mika angrily says she cannot accept this. The news broadcasts that Akane committed a crime live on air in public but her Hue remained clear, bringing forth public questioning on the Dominator's judgement and that the dissolution of the legal system that was in dicussion at the beginning of the film is now halted. Akane is arrested and converses with Sybil in the MWPSB paddywagon, resolute in her decision. The film ends with Akane brought into her isolation cell where she can finally breakdown crying while Kougami leaves his cell promising to get Akane out.

👏👏👏 and that's it. Hopefully this will help anyone having trouble following the film (or aren't able to watch) bc I certainly missed a lot on first watch. Personally, I loved this film as a cumulation and celebration of the 10 years of this franchise. I have a few extra thoughts on how themes in this movie would fit with the rest of the franchise, but I actually haven't watched First Inspector yet and feel the need to rewatch S3 with a new perspective now. Hopefully enough people will get to see the film with international release now so maybe we'll get a S4. Prayer circles in the meantime I guess 😔🙏

#psycho pass providence #psycho pass #akane tsunemori #kogami shinya #ginoza nobuchika #psycho pass spoilers #psycho pass providence spoilers

[notedchampagne]

Sam, tell us the third house dynamics theories. We need it.

ALRIGHT one day ill need to support my claims with actual book lines but for now as far as we know, the third house is more or less the diplomacy/politics planet. the book says "Beneath their glittery exterior, they are a font of personal and political intelligence." but this is a very objective description and im much more interested in the subjective view through the tridentarii twins, so.

things we know about the third house through the view of the tridentarii:

usually with the royal heirs, giving them the same last name isnt common, even with twins. iirc taz said that by the chance that the twins are given the same name, theyre also given a plural- hence the existence of tridentarius vs tridentarii. this fact plus the knowledge that ianthe and coronabeth are so insanely codependent implies that they were ENCOURAGED to act as one whole

this whole fucking thing is perceived as creepy/unhealthy to the readers ESPECIALLY with the theming of corona & ianthe as the real necrocav pair instead of babs, [ NONA SPOILERS ] nona initially thinking ianthe in naberius' body was crowns boyfriend, etc etc like jesus fucking christ. it is abnormal to everyone except the two of them

not to mention other tidbits like them playing "suicide", coronas repeated "fake suicide baiting", [HARROW SPOILERS] the reveal that corona and ianthe both pretended to be necromancers to avoid whatever their father would do if he found out (even at the cost of others perceiving ianthe as the insecure and lesser one), the excerpt in as yet unsent where judith mentions corona and ianthe were allowed to only invite one person at their own birthday parties while their parents invited everyone else to mingle and posture around with - everything gives off the imagery that the entire planet revolves around politics under the image of lavishness and beauty

it then fits in perfectly they they would attempt to make their twin princesses a joint pair for not only popularity/appearances, but also for strategy. "heir and a spare" and whatnot. if both princesses are identical pillars in one corner, a loss to one wont immediately collapse the structure

ID ALSO LIKE TO MENTION HOW THEY JUST EAT LIVE FLESH? "The Third House has a traditional specialty for flesh magic, particularly that of animaphilia." GIRL HELLO? theres a pretty genius meta post theorizing how naberius likely ate his swordplay instructor to get that near-perfect skill, and we already know the twins used to use babs as a literal fucking chew toy. out of all the houses i think theyre the most accustomed/prepared to use lyctoral powers (next to the eighth house) due to them already surpassing other houses’ limits for drawing power from dead/live bodies. personally it just fits in So Perfectly with politics and intel-gathering the way they really hold no limits at getting what they need. of course the tridentarii act like that OF COURSE

#thanks for asking ily #the locked tomb #coronabeth tridentarius #ianthe tridentarius #talking back

[mercyisms]

Niche Nona liveblogging: Day Three - Five

And we continue my copious and niche note-taking and very predictable reactions. Previous and future installations can be found here. Spoilers for up to page 282 in the hardcover or up until Day Five. Also very, deeply cool to reblog or reply or come yell in my askbox. Whatever you please.

Puppy love “just made you want to open the puppy’s lips and play with the puppy’s teeth.” God. Some of these observations are simply too good.   Pouring several out at “You’d never act like you were married to me” and “Landmine people” (at first sight!?) and “I mean, also redheads. Love a redhead.” Pyrrha Dve I am still free on Monday, on Tuesday, on Wednesday and my hair is very technically red. I’ll work on the Molotov cocktail personality. We have clocked Nona’s skin being described as an egg carton (brown ones, I assume? Not grey) and Corona having “skin like amber.” We are very much paying attention to these descriptions. “Crown Him with Many Crowns Thy Full Galant Legions He Found It in Him to Forgive” – I don’t have Wake’s full name handy right now, but we are noting the gender happening in “Crown Him” but also that hymn is pared with what I am seeing is an excerpt from the Côte d'Ivoire national anthem (Thy Full Galant Legions) plus a song by Dominion Road called Mutiny Within. Mutiny Within, well! That seems very apt for Coronabeth. But with the play off of Dominion Road, we have three name-parts that all evoke sovereignty. Fitting + perhaps this will idk be mobilized in some way in the text. (Also compare “He Found it in Him to Forgive” with John’s professed “There can be no forgiveness.” Possibly a useful ideological difference to map?) Noting the portrait of Wake (Pyrrrhaaaa) but also the plastic flowers, which is very logical but a bit different from Blood of Eden’s previous associations with more organic substances. Then again, war zone commanders can’t, we suspect, be choosers. (Though, of course, they were never entirely organic! Just thinking, thinking.) “Let us move on from playing games with how clever and how old you are. I am not impressed, and they annoy my colleague.” + “Yes. Good. The intel, I mean, not anybody’s romantic history, which I abhor.” I do not abhor We Suffer and We Suffer. In fact, I love her, and also while she would loathe it, there is a little slight waft of Mercymorn energy. I’ll say, I will. An itch, you see, of “mean lady” is being scratched. “When Nona was angry her cheeks went red and her voice got squeaky.” Terrifying implications for whoever’s body she’s in. Also Nona’s relative smallness to Coronabeth/Crown --> that’s a point in Harrow box, to be sure. “There were bones inlaid in the sides like fossils in a dried out riverbed…” Aesthetics of environmental collapse + frankly, the ship just sounds sexy (152). Great design. “Assume the worst, ignore the best… Do not catastrophe.” Wake content, we love to see it. Oh, also, of course the No Hopers comment is fascinating, though the extent of my knowledge on the historic/Christian adjacent “No Hopers” is Emily Dickinson. So. I’m noting it, but I���m likely not someone to take it up. Source Joyeuse and Source Piotra AND Source Aegis AND Source Chrysaor !! God I love all of these BACKSTABBING DEMI-GODS. Joyeuse and Aegis seem very straightforward as far as code names. I am totally unsure what to do with Augustine as Source Piotra?? Why? Is it to do with St. Peter and can someone explain that to me? Not sure why Cytherea’s been given the name of a dude who sprouted from Medusa’s fallen head / Pegasus’s… sibling? Y? But I love any mention of that beautiful, beloved, evil girl and it is very dramatic. I’m sure she’d like that. (How much say did the Lyctors have in their code names and did Mercymorn insist on absolute near-literality? If so, Mercymorn, your self-preservation game is so weak. I love you.) “Lyctors take the very flooring from beneath our feet. We cannot see them coming. We can never stop them. When they arrive the clock starts, and another home is taken away from us… our children stateless, our grandchildren perpetual nomads.” Love an insight into Lyctors-in-combat. Fascinating. Devastating. The worst part of me was dying to see some of those old fuckers fight, I must admit (156). “The Eighth was killed by something we don’t understand.” WHEN are we going to talk about the stoma and the teeth and WHATEVER happen to Colum?? What ate him??? My true, teethy love. It's necessary to talk about Chapter 13 all together, so the fact that Nona and only Nona hears the Captain (sensitive, immensely, to Varun/RB7?) say: “Dust of my dust…what shape they made you fill—we see you still—we seek you still…you misused green thing—come back to us—take vengeance for us” – I mean, this has to be RB sweet talk from one Resurrection Beast to another and I am deeply interested in listening to the planets talk and not in an astrology way. But also we are bookmarking “the Captain didn’t say anything when you came into the room. She only screamed.” & Nona’s capacity to understand the scream as language, and potentially screams as planetary (post-trauma? post-destruction?) language. IF all is as I assume, that’s a fascinating thread to pull on later. “Camilla was gone and then we met Harrowhark, and she came back” devastating, btw. “Love that melodrama. Is there Eighth somewhere in your family tree?” Please. Please. Show me the Eighth. Show me what Mercymorn and a nun (????) wrought and also, I am certain, abandoned. Show me this million-fold cult. “That meant Nona was only being ordinarily selfish, not dangerously selfish.” I love you, Nona. “You’re scared of Pyrrha, and you do think she’s nice-looking, but you’re confused when you think that so you don’t look at her very much. You want Camilla to cuddle you but not in a—a sexy way. I think you want Camilla to look at you like you look at me. And you’re in love with th—” [e Captain, surely.] Yum. Desperate to know, though, Coronabeth’s intel on The Saint of Duty & Gideon/Pyrrha’s inter-empire reputation per “I’ve heard too much of the Saint of Duty to trust Pyrrha Dve.” “That’s why I should ask you what I look like, and ask my sister what I’m feeling… You’ll always tell me I look beautiful and she’ll always tell me what I want her to think.” Equally invested in the Tridentarii situation but especially the implication that Corona believes she can deceive Ianthe (175). “He never liked losing control… 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.” A very ‘I am paying deep attention to the John/Alecto (??)’ vibes to you too (188). “M-- had brought her best friend, the nun” The stadium getting to their feet, chanting Cristabel! Cristabel! Cristabel! And I am the stadium, entire. Also of course the very neat “And then A—brought in his little brother who was a hedge fund manager. A—Junior was useless but he was a darling, I couldn’t fault A—for adding him into the mix.” Because of course Cristabel and Alfred are introduced together, as A—and M—were. We have completed a set that is very dear and darling to me. (Mildly losing it over Cristabel and Alfred being less named and rendered, instead, in the possessive in relation to A—and M—. I’m crawling the walls over it a little, actually.) Although, I will say, they are the detail throwing me most for a loop right now. I have to recalculate all of my assumptions about Cristabel and Alfred. Cristabel? Wildly competent and brisk and a nun?? Applying to and arguing with the Vatican? Insisting John keep office hours and learn practical lessons from Christ? I am listening. I am fascinated. I’m tearfully rolling up my weeaboo Cristabel headcanons and getting ready to replace them with new and equally dazzling colours. (Okay, but what if she has Neon Genesis Evangelion energy?? Did Madoka not die for our sins??? Here’s how weeaboo Cristabel can still win, etc.) Likewise, Alfred being Augustine’s younger brother and not older or a twin is the last thing I expected. Even more so than hedge fund manager. (God, what a family. I am imagining it now.) I really thought Augustine specifying he was a few inches taller than Alfred but clearly wearing heels was a secret little hint that they might be twins but Augustine had a warped and inflated ego. This, this is good too. “A—and M—were making black jokes about taking volunteers from the crowd for the skeleton army,” They future-hate each other. They can’t stop working together. They have the same sense of humour. They ruined my life. “I can’t believe nobody’s ever going to laugh at my jokes again… It’s all gone, I’m the only one left. It’s just me and you and no more jokes.” (193) Genuine pathos here, for me. This is truly John characterized at his most #millenial, this chapter. But ALSO cf. some of the early things I’ve pulled out around Nona and Nona/Alecto’s atonement to loneliness vs. the profound loneliness and isolation of John. And now: terrible occupation politics. Good. “Prince Ianthe Naberius the First, the Lyctor Prince, the Saint of Awe” + “Crown Prince Kiriona Gaia, heir to the First House, the Emperor’s only daughter” + “Tower Princes” – we note, of course, the Gender and this move to, with the end of the emperor’s lyctors, tower princes. Ianthe and Gideon being prices is very interesting to me. We also note that Cytherea’s naming convention (disliked by Augustine and Mercymorn, all too apt for G1deon) has been adopted by Ianthe, which is… fascinating. Also, John renaming Gideon with an Indigenous name and the pivot back? to Indigeneity in the empire – fascinating, rich stuff. Also I was today years old when I realized Gaius was maybe not a play on like “just some guy” or any of the characters from Tacitus et al. but potentially the masculine of Gaia as in Earth. God!!! “Pretending you can bandage bipeds” I cannot remember where I learned the fact that a vet is more ideal in an apocalypse situation than a doctor, but it’s in my brain and you can have it now too. (You want someone with more diverse than specialized knowledge, is the thought process.) (Again, I cannot remember where I learned this, so who knows if it’s valuable. I would also very much take a doctor in a doomsday situation, personally.) Which reminds me: this book is really making me wish I had a more useful degree to ingratiate myself to our future undead leader. And also it is, again, patently unfair that John is a science guy and that well-read. It’s not the unkillable thing that’s OP to me. It’s that he can quote Poe and do math. Smh. “Chance to be her, huh? A little independent living for once?” “It is my enormous privilege to be they.” I am very EYES EMOJI at whatever is happening with Angel but also with their gender more broadly. (215) I feel like I have not commented on how much I love all of Nona’s school friends, but I really do & think they are deployed ingeniously, I do. Perhaps we can discuss it later, but I fear I have more Old People adjacent things to transcribe. Sorry to teenagers everywhere. “[John] was scared of that—he was always scared of the water” (219). We are both fascinated by the scope of John’s powers but also comparing this to Nona’s (Alecto’s??) love of salt water… (CAN John swim? Asking for a friend.) “’Don’t follow me, I’m mad.’ … She wondered again why anything that hurt them only hurt briefly, but that anger took such a long time to go away.” (220) I’m. “When M—had been all, I will not accept those numbers, I will not accept a plan that incorporates reproductive injustice…” We stan a girlboss and a feminist. Also “I couldn’t follow, but A—could” – god, love an awful man who, again, can do mental quadratics. “M—freaked out…. And A—agreed with her, which was how you knew it was really, really bad.” 😊 Also if you knew how prominently generational ships had featured in my life this past year… And, like, that one forgotten Canadian generational ship show, where I think one wing of the ship is just Amish..? It sure is an idea. “They left you. They left you….  She said, ‘I don’t remember.’ He said, ‘I cannot forget.’” I mean, look, God being the only person (I assume, based on Mercymorn and Augustine having this gap in their memory as well) who can remember the death of the planet, and at the hand of trillionaires and ineffectual governments… and neither being able to forget or let go or forgive… and becoming that himself… It’s compelling stuff, I think. I think. (It’s very [redacted] of him. I need to run this take by someone before I post it outright, so, sorry, just noting it here so I remember.) “Another plastic echo of buttons. The same voice answers, but not the same person. The conversation that followed was filled with weird pauses, as though they were actors in a play who couldn’t quite get their cues right.” (229) Take this whole recorded conversation and pull my heart out through my eyeballs. Also adding it to latent thoughts abt sixth house epistolary forms. “Love and freedom don’t coexist, Warden.” A lot about love in this book, and all books, and this line… We are highlight it for later. (230)  (“I am your end.” As in, I will destroy you? As in, I am where you reach your limits? Or I am your limits, your boundaries? Every way you cut it: good. A fun twist on ye olde oath.) “[Pyrrha] was teaching Nona how to dance.” Someone write that fic, too. Someone (Tamsyn) confirm or deny the number of terrible dad moves Pyrrha has or if she exactly dances or what. We note that Lemuria is a fake and sunken city. (239) “Edenites go through people like water… His dads are baggage.” (250) We remain interested in this third ‘civilian’ pov, but also belatedly noting that the increased proliferations of languages, genders, and family formations really does show you have regimented and controlled House life (or elite House life anyway, as we can only really speak for the upper-class representatives) is. It is smart and, again, revealing. “Time exited her body.” (255) re: depictions of violence, death, and John’s potential abilities. Also just very effective writing. “It was A—‘s little brother who said, Well you have to understand money is one big shared hallucination…” Obsessed with Alfred being a hedge fund guy who makes these caveats. I am listening, I am learning, I am adjusting my perception of Alfred Quinque. And also someone, apparently, semi to totally fluent in crypto. Incroyable. “M-- and A—were a united front, and that was scary as fuck. It was always frightening when they stood together.” We have been taking too many shots re: every time John points out A + M acting as a united pair!!! This feeds me. This truly does. “A—and M—looked at it, and looked at me, and they said, Do it.”  + “And that’s when A—and M—stepped in to negotiate.” “They were hitting the table like in a police drama, like, We can end this whenever we want! The ball’s in our court!... I was like Wow, sorry guys, I don’t really know either of these two, they’re very unexpected and mean. I came here to have a good time and I think they’re being very harsh.” This alone could nourish me for weeks, but also Mercymorn/Augustine horrible TV serial AU when. Also deeply revealing for how John has always positioned himself, really. Characterization! We love it! His hands and his fingers and his gestures and his angry, way harsh fists. (274) “Nona… let out a long, bellowing scream, one that went on for ever and ever… and she was screaming blood as well as sound.” (276) Noting for scream-as-language purposes. Good. Good. Good. Good. God, this is so well structured. Inhuman how Tamsyn can say so much and plot so tightly and it’s all so fast as well. 300ish pages just whizzing by. The Acts are strong, etc. You know the drill, more from me here.

#nona the ninth #ntnspoilers #nona spoilers #nona the ninth spoilers #m: nona liveblogging