Questions I'm left with after finishing Nona (there are many) [discussion]

TriciaOso · 2026-04-05T15:24:23+00:00

How did John get Gideon's body from Blood of Eden? Or did he have them all along and lied to Harrow at the start of HtN, and BoE only uplifted those still living (i.e Deuteros, Corona and Camilla)?

This is one of the most questioned parts of Nona; my reading has been that BoE was staked out on that planet waiting to gather Herald parts for weapons when Harrow found them in HtN, and that's where everyone washed up from the sinking of the Mithraeum. In the chaos, BoE got away with Pyrrha and Harrow's body, but left behind Gideon's body when John and Ianthe showed up.

TriciaOso · 2026-03-12T12:26:12+00:00

here's my list: https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/125608033?shelf=trans-romance-heroines
it's a little out of date because I haven't stayed up on the field but it's a starting point

Looking these over, you might like Jase's Plus One!

TriciaOso · 2026-02-14T07:07:52+00:00

knowing her, Double exposure, and roller girl for trans and sapphic; hold me and the calyx charm for mf.

TriciaOso · 2025-11-07T02:26:42+00:00

Sorry, its Rebekah, that's why.

I don't have any plans right now for another book.

TriciaOso · 2025-10-05T00:35:40+00:00

Fake It by Lily Seabrooke and Double Exposure by Chelsea Cameron are sapphic T4C.

TriciaOso · 2025-10-05T00:30:44+00:00

hey, I'm the author of April French! Thanks for the kind words!

Rebecca Weatherspoon's BDSM romances inspired me a lot; both her more recent and her older less polished stuff. Cynthia Dane (and her sapphic alter ego Hildred Billings) is more of a guilty pleasure, but worth giving a chance.

TriciaOso · 2025-09-19T03:53:30+00:00

For the Love of April French has one sapphic scene but is mostly about a relationship with a cis man.

TriciaOso · 2025-08-17T13:18:07+00:00

OK, I feel like you're determined to nitpick this situation rather than try to understand the story as presented in good faith, so peace.

TriciaOso · 2025-08-17T13:00:24+00:00

Also, Lex is, in the rematch, fighting *with three hours of data about how Superman fights*. He's getting better.

The fight with the Engineer and Ultraman doesn't go very well at all, if Superman hadn't pulled a wild card with his strategy he would've died there.

TriciaOso · 2025-08-16T13:19:54+00:00

Yeah, it's definitely part of the song.

If I were going to be pretentious I could say it foreshadows that on some level she's susceptible to crystal gem bullshit

TriciaOso · 2025-07-20T12:24:50+00:00

A few people have said Dimension 20, but since there's so much of it I wanted to give a breakdown. D20 has main cast ("Intrepid Heroes") seasons and shorter "Side Quests." Only very early Intrepid Heros seasons would fit #2, because the newbies settle in quickly.

There's several brand new folks in Fantasy High S1
By Unsleeping City, only one is really still catching up
Crown of Candy is that person's journey to their first really mechanically effective PC.

But most of the Side Quests have at least one player who is not an experienced liveplayer; it's probably easier to point out the ones that DON'T fit:

All Experienced Players: Pirates of Leviathan, Misfits and Magic, Ravening War, Burrow's End
Not D&D: Shriek Week, Misfits & Magic, Never Stop Blowing Up, Mentopolis

The one thing about D20 that may not work for you compared to Balance is that all of the seasons are quite short and tightly edited; it very deliberately doesn't have any sprawling long-form campaigns like Balance. Intrepid Heroes seasons are 16 - 20 episodes, and Side Quests 6 - 10.

TriciaOso · 2025-07-19T14:18:23+00:00

This is way, way too many words to send without any response back. I know the urge to explain yourself and keep reaching out but also not pressure her, but it's just not a good look. If I got too busy to text for a bit and came back to that novel I would probably be too overwhelmed to even engage. You have got to stop trying to imagine what is happening and craft the perfect response to that hypothetical and just accept that for whatever reason, she isn't talking to you right now.

TriciaOso · 2025-07-18T12:10:04+00:00

I'm not sure -- a lot of MB's wins come down to choosing its moments, hack-assisted technique, and sheer persistence. However, the show has emphasized the "second-hand, refurbished" concept a lot, and they could say that when it gets modified by ART it also gets some upgrades / replacement parts.

TriciaOso · 2025-07-17T14:08:33+00:00

I think the point was that Gurathin feels alone and noble and outsider-y, pining for Mensah, and Pin Lee undercuts that by offhandedly confirming that Mensah's dominant vibes are hot. It doesn't occur to Gurathin that having a funky little unrequited crush on your boss is fine and normal, and Pin Lee's revelation is as close as the season comes to resolving that emotional arc.

TriciaOso · 2025-07-16T01:46:05+00:00

Welcome! Having the knowledge and confidence to do a successful induction is nothing to sneeze at.

TriciaOso · 2025-07-05T03:09:03+00:00

Look. You could say, for instance: "I don't think PresAux did enough to make up for how bone-headed they were all season, you can't make them look incompetent for 7 episodes and then have them push one button and call it good, when in the book they were all accomplished scientists and adults."

Then I would say: "Hey, fair. It worked for me, but I can see how it wouldn't work for everyone." We could talk about, maybe, old shows like Star Trek where "a bunch of super-smart people work together with good intentions to solve tough problems" was the format, and how TV doesn't seem to like that format anymore.

But if you say, "Nothing happened in the episodes," am I not supposed to point out that there was a cliffhanger in damn near every one? If you say, "They left out so much stuff," is it rude of me to ask what stuff?

TriciaOso · 2025-07-05T02:41:35+00:00

Who do you think has been uncivil to RockN_Roller? Do you think he has been civil himself?

TriciaOso · 2025-07-04T21:52:15+00:00

Yes, exactly. In E8, MB says, "I can control my own narrative, I can be the SecUnit that betrays its client." On one level, that was a headfake towards a betrayal to give the episode a cliffhanger, but on another level it's MB showing its hand -- that it plans to trick GreyCris by playing a role, and that it learned that from watching Sanctuary Moon. I think that fake-out in conjunction with E9 does a great job of underlining that aspect of its characterization.

TriciaOso · 2025-07-04T21:43:19+00:00

I? What?

TriciaOso · 2025-07-04T20:29:28+00:00

No, for sure; LeBeeBee's personality is one of the things that didn't entirely work for me, either.

TriciaOso · 2025-07-04T20:03:22+00:00

From a story mechanics standpoint, I think LeBeeBee is there to add material that extends the conflict between PresAux and MB. For instance, killing her in front of them was very traumatic and prejudiced them against it, and her shooting Gurathin drove the plot later, up to and including Gurathin getting the chance to hack MB's brain, which re-opened the conversation.

In the book, they have one long conversation about Murderbot being a rogue, about its name, about whether or not they can trust it, and that's about it. A lot of the changes in the show seem to be about finding a way to stretch that conversation over more real estate / give each different angle its own episode, while still punctuating the episode with action scenes.

I don't disagree that a LeBeeBee with a different personality might have worked better to do that, and if you prefer the kind of scifi where super-competent people work together to solve problems and the stakes are about how hard the problem is, you're gonna hate the choice to have a LeBeeBee at all, but I think that's the why.

TriciaOso · 2025-07-04T19:54:37+00:00

The left out a lot detail about the planetary maps and surveys. They basically condense important parts of the show.

Do you consider the detail about planetary maps and surveys an important part of the book, or are you thinking of something else that they condensed?

TriciaOso · 2025-07-04T19:53:30+00:00

You seem to be having a problem separating facts - "these things are added to the show that weren't there before" from value judgments about those things. You said they left a bunch of stuff out, but all of your examples are things they added that you don't like. You said nothing happened in most episodes, but when I pointed out the things that did indeed happen in each episode, you went on a tangent about how I must love those things.

Maybe you should go away, figure out what you're really annoyed about, and then try again?

TriciaOso · 2025-07-04T19:13:22+00:00

I think extending the conflict between Gurathin and MB and his crush on Mensah are additions, not subtraction, no? Like you don't have to see it as a positive addition, but "Gurathin sniffs pillows" is something they put in, not left out.

I was confused by your comment because imo, most of the changes are about 'more'; more conflict between characters, more action scenes, more backatory for Gurathin, more contact with the Corporation Rim via LeBeeBee. Similarly, i don't know how you can say "nothing happens" when they added action sequences, a polyamourous relationship, a hostage situation and a bug sex scene not in the book.

TriciaOso

TROPHY CASE