Not sure how common this interpretation is, but I've always thought of the Jackie cabin sequence in the season 1 finale as Shauna's dream, not Jackie's. Mainly because she directly wakes up from it, but also because it makes perfect sense that Jackie would be the main character in Shauna's dream, as Jackie being the main character in Shauna's life is the crux of the argument they had that preceded all this and their conflict in general. Shauna dreaming of taking Jackie inside, apologizing to her, telling her she loves her, all of the things she could have and should have done to fix it and now will never get the chance to because they're just kids having a fight but they're not in a "normal" fixable situation anymore and some mistakes can never be rectified.

natalie saving travis from ritualized slaughter in Doomcoming vs travis saving nat from ritualized slaughter in It Chooses... javi running away to his tree cave in Doomcoming vs javi running away to his tree cave (not quite) in It Chooses...

One thing I did notice about Shauna's Adam Martin storyline, spanning both seasons, is that it starts and ends with Callie. Shauna uses Jeff's apparent infidelity (actually blackmailing lmaooo) as an excuse to start the affair, but it's a small argument with Callie over the phone about taking out meat for the stew in s1e2 that actually causes her to rear end Adam's car. And then, once that storyline is finally fully wrapped up in the season 2 finale, the open thread in Shauna's storyline is Callie: Callie, who has been lying to the cops to protect her mom from a murder charge she knows is correct, who just found out about her brother, who stole a gun and shot a woman to protect her mom, who was pronounced "powerful" by the woman she just shot who in turn seems ecstatically happy to meet her for reasons she couldn't possibly know, who just witnessed a tragic death the import of which she couldn't possibly understand, who just met all of her mom's friends at the worst moment of their adult lives, who Shauna sees has a strange smile on her face at the very end as she watches events unfold. Callie, who Shauna has kept at arm's length for her entire life until she finally made her an accomplice to the trauma she hides so deep underneath the bored housewife exterior.

Sure, Jeff and the nature of their failmarriage is heavily involved too, but he already knew and accepted at least whatever Shauna wrote down in her journals. Shauna's relationship with Callie is what has fundamentally changed.

rewatching adam martin scenes in season 1

I think my favorite moment in Nona the Ninth was when Cristabel kills herself for John because 1) it's an established pattern now that, as a nun, entrusting her eternal soul to someone is how she apparently expresses her deepest love and trust and faith and 2) boy, did he ever NOT deserve it.

So sorry I missed this, I didn't even know I had an ask in here! I'm doing great! I haven't read any books in a while but I did finish NtN and recently-ish Simon Jimenez' The Spear Cuts Through Water, which I think a lot of you would love. I got to nominate both of them for the Hugo Award for best novel this year, so that was quite fun.

I loved Nona, which I was a little skeptical about as it's essentially a long prologue spun off into its own book for publishing business reasons - that does show in the final product, I think, but it also does work surprisingly well as its own thing. As ever it was completely different than anything I could've possibly expected from a third Locked Tomb book, or any other book I've ever read really, but that's why we love these books, right? It feels like sort of a side adventure focusing on all of the characters we didn't get to see in the last book, and once I made peace with that, I really enjoyed it. And I LOVE Nona the character with my WHOLE entire heart and I loved all of her weird little friends at the schoolhouse, too, and was sad to see them go. I've yet to reread it but I'm sure I'll be collapsing when I get back to the scenes of Varun the Eater speaking through Judith because I sure did not catch onto that the first time through.

Also, I gasped when I realized Tamsyn was writing Paul the first apostle of Jesus into this book. She's ridiculous. I would read the phone book if she rewrote it and filled it with fart jokes and allusions to the Epic of Gilgamesh, what can I say.