Nona The Ninth Is One Of My Favorite Books Of All Time. Not Just Because It's Locked Tomb, But It Is

can i just say that i am so proud of every single person reading this?

it may sound preachy but these past few months have been pretty tough on the majority of people,,

and while some people have been fine with quarantine, others have struggled and that’s PERFECTLY OKAY!

not everyone can deal with constantly being at home with their family, or constantly by themselves,, some people can deal with the workloads that they were given and others can’t,, and no matter how you dealt with it,, YOURE SUPER VALID!! don’t let anyone tell you otherwise!

here’s also a reminder to drink some water and have a snack! take care of yourself!

update: he was so pleased :D he says if you have any questions, you should ask me (me Anne, here on tumblr) and he (my roommate) will be happy to answer them in detail

making my way slowly through your roommate's biblical hebrew gtn translation. not a scholar of semitic linguistics but i am learning modern hebrew and trying to read the fic is absolutely breaking my brain, i understand maybe every fifth word at BEST. but i love it. and it's indirectly helping me study for an upcoming exam. tell your roommate i appreciate him very much

AWW anon thank you, I will tell him as soon as he wakes up!! I'm also learning modern hebrew rn so I'm having the same experience 😂 Good luck on your exam!! if you want any help practicing (or with understanding the fic) feel free to PM me :D this makes me so happy :D

Same

Today my wife texted me this, and then immediately called me to make sure I got it because it was “an urgent message”.

It amuses me just how unhinged Merlin is as Dragoon, he gives zero shits and fears no god and it shows. Sassy boy becomes an even sassier old man and roasts people with the confidence of a youtube commenter who knows they have the benefit of anonymity

I’m the original question asker, but I couldn’t find a way to tag joyousgard in a comment so I’m reblogging from them to say thank you. This answer is so encouraging, thank you so much for writing this out. I’m super excited to dive deeper into Arthuriana now :D

Hi! I’m a teen, and I’m really interested in Arthuriana, but I’m not in a position to take college courses on it or anything at the moment (hoping to in the future tho!!!). I’m trying to read and annotate SGatGK, but I have a host of executive dysfunction problems (and starting college) that make it difficult. My question is, how do I make sure I don’t seem like I’m pretending to know more than I am when I tell people about it (I just get so excited!!)? And at what point can I say I know a lot about it (this one is just to motivate me to finish the book lmao) ? Anyway, thank you for reading this :) your master list of the texts is very useful :)))

Firstly, I’m so glad my list had been helpful!

Secondly, PLEASE do not worry about this. You don’t have to pass a test or read a certain number of texts to be able to tell people about a cool thing you are excited about!! Arthuriana is so vast, no one can know anything. Theres so much I don’t know and tons of texts I haven’t read yet, which is awesome I think! Theres so much out there!

As far as being a self proclaimed “arthuriana knowing about-er” goes, like, youre reading medieval literature for fun. you are already beyond general knowledge of arthuriana!

Also, you dont have to read tons of texts to enjoy arthuriana or engage with it! You dont have to read quickly, read untranslated, etc if that isnt what is fun/doable for you. I read a lot but i also really struggle motivating myself to read when im doing it because i feel like i *should*, not because i enjoy it and am interested. so go at your own pace!!

something i've noticed while studying jewish history is how immediate it feels. it isn't history, not really—it dwells a half step behind us, an echo that redoubles and visits us again and again, as though it happened mere hours ago and not a thousand years. the collective memory of the jewish people is long, vibrant, and alive, a creature all its own with a deep, abiding loyalty to its people that has been cultivated through thousands of years of dedicated cultural transmission. red ochre handprints on the cave walls that we gently touch up every day with the materials we have nearby, keeping the imprints of our people alive. and i think that's beautiful.

Ahh he’s a terrible person who’s done terrible things but like??? He keeps people around for what they do, not what society says they should do???

Now I can’t stop thinking about my sweet child going through the entire journey to Fjerda not telling Kaz about how the leverage aspect of the plan won’t work. I know it was incredibly difficult and terrifying for Wylan to tell him in the first place (especially now that Kaz is being extra terrifying with him focusing on Inej’s injuries) but he had to go on the entire first part of the journey worrying about how he could be the weak link in this plan! Not only does he have to worry about his secret getting out, but he has to worry about Kaz possibly dismembering him or something equally horrible for not being the leverage they need! 

And in the end Kaz is just like “nah it’s cool”

*Arthur and Merlin sneeking around the castle at night* uh yeah we’re doing.........poetry

Leon: uhhh ok...I’ll leave you to your...poetry... *leaves*

Arthur to Merlin: YOU DUMB FUCK NOW HE THINKS I LIKE POETRY

Meanwhile...

Leon to Gwaine, Percy, Elian, Gwen, and Mordred: yeah they’re definitely fucking

*Elian hands money to Gwen*

Everyone agrees that if Merlin and Arthur were together, the entire kingdom would know and everyone would be chill with it, and I have no problem with Merthur (I mean have you seen the way they look at each other), HOWEVER I do think it would be a million times funnier if everyone assumed they were together (because Merlin totally gets mistress treatment) and they actually weren’t. I just think that would be really, really funny.

you can always tell who has 0 critical reading skills/has never known or known anyone that’s experienced trauma when they complain that the ages for the characters in SOC are unbelievable. like, the entire point of them being so dark and so mature at such young ages is because all of them have gone through things that have forced them to mature. in some way or another the adults in their lives have failed them.

wylan’s dad abused him, jarl brum used matthias’ pre-existing trauma from having his family die against him, kaz was failed by both pekka rollins (scamming 2 lost kids in a city, what a piece of shit) and to an extent jordie due to his naivete & irresponsibility (kaz even admits this). in a sense zoya failed nina by being so harsh on her nina had little qualms about running off from her, colm forced jesper to hide an important part of himself for so long it basically irreversibly changed him for the worse, and inej was absolutely failed by tante heleen, who stole her innocence at a painfully young age. all these factors forced the main characters to grow up fast even when they didn’t want to.

and as someone who has experienced trauma at the hands of people who were never supposed to hurt them, who were supposed to do the opposite and be there for them let me tell you: that shit forces you to mature. because you realize then that the people who look after you aren’t doing that, so you need to look after yourself. you become your own parent, but something is always off with how you raise yourself because it was never supposed to be that way in the 1st place. you adapt to whatever circumstances you need to, its hardly even living. kaz became ruthless because he knew you had to be to survive, nina knew that her beauty and powers were considered her strongest assets in the barrel so she made them seem like they were who she was, etc etc.

(also, and this is small but still important imo: you can see the main characters really act their age once they all interact with colm fahey. nina giggling that jesper is in trouble, jesper tattling on nina to matthias, the kaz/jesper fight being broken up by colm, etc.)

TL;DR if you think the SOC kids are too young to be acting how they do you need to: gain some critical complex reading skills and also read further in the book to understand why these characters are the way they are, and see them act their age.