Do you have any opinions on Scholomance?
I do! I like it a lot. I really enjoyed all three books, blitzed through them easily and was much more excited to see how the plots unfolded than I'm used to these days, as a jaded adult, and I also really appreciated them as works of craft.
Especially the first one, I spent the whole time being all 'wow!' at how simple it was. So easy to read, but no waste. You really need to know what you're doing, to get that kind of pared-down elegance of form to work and still fit so much content in.
Like these are dense, there's a fantastic stylistic minimalism that allows El's character all the space it needs to breathe by making absolutely every other thing and person in the whole novel also do character work for her, which is exactly where the first person voice shines.
Also great use of character perspective to make the pacing feel really natural, so the fact that the first book takes three weeks, the second book takes one year, and the third book is like. Five or so incredibly stressful days spread out over the course of a few weeks? Doesn't feel imbalanced.
I actually got distracted from the story a few times by noticing the strength of Novik's technique. 😂 This is a me problem, in itself it's the opposite of distracting. Very low-profile.
I think the Scholomance is a great example of how far you can go in specfic when you aren't cringing from the label 'derivative,' because the Scholomance books feel very fresh ad clean specifically because nothing in them is concerned with standing out as 'original,' whatever that's supposed to mean, only with being well-executed and suitable to its task.
Hm, maybe that's where Liesel was born, the intersection of the efficient narrative style and the vast proportion of the story that concerns the maximization of utility and the instrumentalization of persons by themselves and others, and the forces that incentivize these behaviors. Or maybe she's just the narrative counterweight to Orion 'Head Empty' Lake lmao. How's that for a principle of balance, Galadriel?
I really did enjoy how beautifully it was laid out, over and over, in dozens of shades of humanity, how no matter where you go in an exploitative system almost everyone is being driven by the same survival instincts.
Because I don't think I've ever seen made so cleanly clear why you just can't expect any person or small group of people, no matter their level of goodwill or status, to unmake one of these systems from the inside; how it's not a matter of people being bad but of every single person being very...small.
And then not retreating into the idea of a person who is Big coming and breaking the cruel system from the outside as some kind of panacea, because 1) that is terrible, even if it's necessary and done in the best way possible and 2) that's not a sustainable answer to anything. Getting a balance between the protagonist being able to effect change and not subscribing to the great man theory of history can be really tricky!
Also did I mention, I love El, and I love most of the cast, even the dreadful ones. How am I going around with this many feelings about Li Shanfeng who doesn't appear until the actual climax?
The romance murdered me a bit, but it took up no more space than it absolutely needed to do its job, and I respect that. Also I appreciated Orion as a love interest; Novik has a slight record at this point of a version of that style of male love interest who's like a caricature of Mr. Darcy but old, which was shaping up to be my least favorite thing about her body of work.
...Orion is kind of like if you took the human king from Spinning Silver and gave him an alignment flip come to think of it, so he's not coming out of nowhere. Lmao.
Which reminds me (re: romance character typing) I've heard Novik didn't want it to be known she was astolat, which this series has renewed my sympathies if so. Because if I were a published novelist I wouldn't want people going 'you know, that resolution was really emotionally satisfying! reminds me of that fic she wrote where optimus prime and megatron get stuck in a hole underground and hatefuck about it.'
I don't even like Transformers. That fic almost made me cry. Actually I suspect it reads better if you don't like Transformers because I'm sure it does not give a shit about canon.
Anyway, whoever pointed out that one of the things El has going on is she's Enoby (and we're going to sit down and explore what the true reason to put your middle finger up at preps is, and what are some constructive ways to channel that socioeconomic wrath, and what it means that there is no ethical consumption under capitalism) was right and I'm not entirely over that either.
Fucking love El's mom as a character. Spectacular level of parent relevance and usefulness. A+.
Aadhya and Liu are also characters who fucking delivered.
Re: minimalism though, I laughed at the start of The Golden Enclaves when I realized that none of the enclaver characters who'd gotten development in the the first two books were from London, the enclave El was theoretically shooting for when we met her.
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Direly hoping/looking forward to seeing Bagi witness just how much Cellbit *cares* about the eggs and treats them so softly and would be such a wonderful Uncle to Empanada. She's only ever seen him without the eggs around, the closest thing being to when he's around Roier YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND she's never actually seen him at his best and that side of him that only seems to show up when he's watching over or talking to one of the children and I think that would just be something special when thus far she's only been seeing him getting worse, and seeing this side of him that was locked away since the eggs went missing can only benefit their relationship and I want to see the look on her face when she sees him greeting the eggs (especially Richas, Em, and Tallulah) again for the first time, I can guarantee we would visibly see her heart melt through her eyes and smile and I CRAVE TO WITNESS THAT FEELING AFTER ALL THE NEGATIVITY BETWEEN THEM. It would prove to her that he can still change for the better, that there's still something there to hope for and reach out to and bond with, all's not lost between them and the eggs are a line of stability that even if they don't stray him from his present path of destruction it's still there to show there is still hope and a reason for him to not completely lose himself *claws at the walls*
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okay more on jackson’s senior center based off this post:
- it started as just miss shirley and her best friend darla wanting to live together and asking maria if she could maybe find a house for them to settle in together instead of living apart
- before this, mama shirley and darla would have to walk five houses each way to see each other for afternoon tea, which just won’t do. mama shirley is 92 and darla is 90 now, and both of them are too old to be have to walking that much everyday, mama shirley tells maria. she quickly and vehemently agrees
- maria has the idea of fixing a house up for jackson’s senior citizens to live in if they’d like to. it takes a lot of unnecessary convincing to get the council to dedicate one of jackson’s best houses to a maximum of five people, but maria gets it done. they pick one of the few houses that are placed in the farther back part of jackson, near the farm and the daycare center, so that it can be far-reaching from the entrance of jackson
- the first people to movie in are shirley and darla, who share a room on the second floor (thanks to tommy replacing the stairs in the house with a reliable ramp with a wall-attached handlebar)
- gary moves in not long after he breaks his left hip while herding the goats. he likes that the house is designed to be wheel-chair access and far away from most people in town. he also likes it because he can be close to darla, who he has feelings for, but nobody knows about that except for tommy and joel
- mr. wilson moves in on maria’s insistence that he’ll get hurt if he continues to live alone and try to do everything himself. his name is harold, but he insists that anyone younger than him calls him mr. wilson on account of maintaining a respectful distance. he’s a grumpy, gruff old asshole that reminds joel more of bill than bill himself, but he’s also known to do anything and everything maria tells him with only a small amount of grumbling. somehow, she convinces him to move in after he accidentally sets his kitchen on fire trying to make himself a pocketknife (which?????? maria still doesn’t have an answer for????? why harold was trying to do that????)
- last but not least is sandra dee, jackson’s oldest and most enigmatic member. nobody really knows where she came from or what her story is: she’s the only one of jackson’s seniors that managed to get to town on her own, arriving to town at 94 about a year after its founding with nothing but a backpack and three handguns. she clamed to be sandra, but they’re not entirely sure if sandra dee is her real name. she hums songs from musicals all the time and has expressed that grease was always her favorite. at least once a month she requests to go hunting with patrol and gets mad when maria tells her no
- senior center tea: shirley and darla have longstanding beef with sandra dee because she always cheats at cards during game night, shirley knows about gary being sweet on darla but is lowkey jealous about it because SHE is sweet on darla, and everyone thinks mr. wilson has a thing for maria but he actually told her in confidence last month that he is actually sweet on gary. mama shirley and mr. wilson can’t STAND each other
- tommy calls the seniors the jackson five. all of them call him thomas. he and joel bring them all basic living supplies at least once a week, but are known to be around there pretty often
tsym for anyone having interest in this pls feel free to add anything u want!!
tagging :))) @clickergossip @nerdieforpedro @mrsmando @callmekittenandyourmajesty @steeb-stn (ty for the idea of putting it next to the daycare!) @thatoneobsessedlinguist-writes
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Right here's what I hope happens since we're not getting a qsmp stream like Foolish and Tina said we would get this weekend.
- they reset the art in the museum on Monday doing a nepotism and putting Tina's art of Pomme in
- wait a few days for people to see it and those that don't know about it realise that it THE TinaKitten that drew it
- have a lore stream that's potentially just Tina (and Foolish) escaping because Bagera and Cellbit chose to stay while Tina and Foolish were running to the boat and wanted to escape
- Foolish and Leo reunion, Teaduo reunion
- Tina finally gets to meet Empanada and immediately hit it off then they go to the museum as a mini family
- Tina points out the Pomme drawing and how she got in because nepotism and Empanada asks her to draw her
- Tina immediately does it off stream and privately messages the admins to put it in the museum and then she'll post it on the next monday after they've seen it so it's not spoiled
- chat and Em both freak out at seeing Tina's adorable drawing and then all the other eggs keep asking Tina to draw them
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