#the scholomance

[reverie-quotes]

I imagine it’s always easier to do something monstrous if you can convince yourself you aren’t going to, up to the last minute, until you do.

— Naomi Novik, The Golden Enclaves

#the golden enclaves #naomi novik #the scholomance #quotes #literary quotes #fantasy #writing #books #spilled ink #thoughts #lit #pretty quotes #quote of the day #reverie #reverie quotes #quote #book quote #book quotes #inspiring quote #inspiring quotes #beautiful quote #beautiful quotes

[dawn-the-rithmatist]

A Deadly Education really said “stop asking who needs to pay the price of a broken system and start asking who’s going to help fix the broken system”

#like. it’s not even a metaphor. that’s literally what happens in the first book #hi guys I’m rereading the scholomance and it’s still fjucking brilliant #the scholomance #a deadly education

[viridializard]

I'm reading Scholomance and their friendship is v important to me

#no spoilers please I'm only halfway through the last graduate #galadriel higgins #guo yi liu #aadhya scholomance #the scholomance #scholomance fanart

[hatepotion]

so i read a deadly education

#a deadly education #the scholomance #scholomance #el higgins #orion lake #my art

[krakenattack]

Mild spoiler for The Last Graduate ahead, but:

Having just reread the whole series, I love how at odds El and the Scholomance are. Like, El's pessimism is a great way of making your narrator unreliable, since El is sometimes right and sometimes wrong always expecting the worst response from everyone around her(a thought worthy of another entire post), but it becomes very funny once she realizes that part of the problem at school is that she can't do small spells? Like, she spends the whole first book being like 'this school is the devil tempting me to evil, it wants me to become a maleficier, I can't even ask for a simple cleaning spell without getting horrible spells for summoning mortal flames and enslaving an army of people, I hate it', and meanwhile the Scholomance is flipping frantically through its catalogue of spells gathered over thousands of years, desperately trying to find a spell in a language El knows that she can also cast with her affinity for working incredibly large and powerful spells. El's over here driving a bulldozer and saying, 'I would like to build a Jenga tower' and the Scholomance is looking at her with the weary despair of a preschool teacher knowing they're going to be suffering through a temper tantrum soon but unable to stop it.

El, a furious teenager who doesn't know as much as she thinks she does: I don't wanna summon a mortal flame! I want my room clean!

The Scholomance, a giant building that cleans its own hallways, floors, dishes and various and assorted other workings with mortal flame: Why is this child testing me

Also hilarious in retrospect is El's blithe statement in the first book about how no one would ever give her that much mana to do these high volume spells bc mana isn't free or easy to acquire and so the school is clearly telling her to turn maleficier and kill her fellow students all while Orion is humming to himself as he kills mals and dumps oodles and oodles of mana into the New York power sharers.

El "I'd rather die than ask for help" Higgins: I won't do these spells bc no one will give me mana

The Scholomance, as loudly as a building who may or may not be partially sentient and who can't speak human languages: Wow, those sure are some HIGH MANA VOLUME spells you got there! If only there was SOMEONE around who would be able to provide you with a NIGH LIMITLESS FLOW OF MANA so that you'd be able to cast them!

Orion: :)

El: *hisses like a feral cat*

Orion: :(

The Scholomance: oh my freaking god

Hilarious. Top tier humor.

#the scholomance #a deadly education #the last graduate #naomi novik #I also truly believe that the scholance was trying to prep El for her future by giving her those spells #she ends up being able to use her knowledge of several of those spells to useful and non-malicious effects in the last two books #but it's funny to imagine a very tired scholomance trying to find enough complex and high mana-cost spells #to placate the bewildering moral whims of this angry wizard child

[elizabysmal]

I’m about a third of the way though the third book in the scholomance series and I’ve been rotating these two at 350 degrees in my brain for two weeks

#el higgins #orion lake #the scholomance #hARTcore #wanna draw more but I gotta finish the got dam thing like!!! get me my fucking boy back!!!!!!!!! #scholomance

[bleepabloopa]

two lonely kiddos

#the scholomance #fanart #a deadly education #the golden enclaves #el higgins #orion lake #ok I’m slowly coming up upon the end of scholo fanart drafts I’ve started #so don’t expect too much more :0

[izzenithal]

this is their whole dynamic and i love them for it

#the scholomance #naomi novik #orion lake #books #the last graduate #a deadly education #my art #fanart #I’m only on book 2 #so no spoilers please!!! #el higgins #galadriel higgins

[lexalovesbooks]

I love chosen one characters and I love characters that are overpowered as all shit. I love characters with one-of-a-kind powers and I love characters who seem like they’re Just Some Guy until they do something that should be impossible and you’re struck with the realization that. oh. I don’t think this character is human. I love characters so strong they’re basically untouchable and I love characters who are slowly crumpling under the weight of being the only person who can keep the world safe but can never show it and I love characters who spend years hiding who they truly are until circumstances force them to reveal themselves and now they can never go back to who they were before. I love characters who don’t even know exactly how much they’re capable of and aren’t sure they want to find out. How powerful can you become before you stop being a person?

#character tropes #huehjuehshsd i can’t stop thinking about these types of tropes lately i just loved overpowered characters. so much!!! #people complain about the chosen one trope but that’s my SHIT!!!!! #people who don’t like that trope need to consider the inherent tragedy of being a normal person living your life when suddenly. it’s #revealed you were never normal you never had any choice This is what you have to do and you can never go back like HELLO?? #the scholomance #cuz i’m thinkni about el #chosen ones

[tanoraqui]

I’ve started reading the Scholomance books—okay, I’m 2/3 of the way through the first one—and my favorites parts so far are

How utterly completely fucking bizarre El and Orion’s relationship and every single interaction in it looks to every single outsider

Aadhya’s “fuck it, we ball” attitude toward El

#the scholomance #scholomance

[jadempress]

Imagine you're in school, fall in love, and get pregnant. He comes from wealth, so you think you and your baby are going to live a nice cushy life with your new man. Then he gets mauled by a bear. He's eaten right in front of you. You grieve for him. You go to his family, hoping they'll take you in, but they're awful and they want to harm your baby. So you end up raising her alone. It's tough being a single mother, but you do your best to love and protect her. She grows up and goes to school. The school is known for its bear attacks, but what can you do? It's a good school, and you can only protect her so much. Eventually your baby has to fend for herself. You can't help but worry though. The cell service is terrible but you manage to reach her and warn her to stay away from bears. She seems happy though, and even tells you she's made friends. Finally she graduates, and you're so happy she's safe. She brings her boyfriend home to meet you. It's the bear that ate your boyfriend.

Anyway, that's what happened to Gwen Higgins of the schomance series.

#the scholomance #naomi novik #a deadly education #the last graduate #the golden enclaves #galadriel higgins #el higgins #orion lake #elrion

[fullmetalfisting]

ok I'm rereading the Scholomance trilogy by Naomi Novik and I'm at the part in the second book where Orion says, "Even my mom and dad, they always thought something was wrong with me....they always thought I was weird."

And I'm like. Can you imagine being a woman who gave herself a pseudo-abortion to create a child who was a ghastly, already-dead, always-hungry monster and then incubating him in your womb and raising him like a Normal Boy™ and then being like, "It's really weird that this nuclear weapon I made and impregnated myself with shows no interest in anything other than being a nuclear weapon. I should make him feel guilty about his lack of interest in this XBox I bought him."

#naomi novik #the scholomance #a deadly education #orion lake #the last graduate #golden enclaves #galadriel higgins #tw abortion

[dawn-the-rithmatist]

Obsessed with authors like Naomi Novik whose books always seem to say “no, fuck that, there is another way than cruelty, and we do have a choice to be decent, and not choosing it isn’t a burden but a cop out.”

Authors like Neil Gaiman whose books seem to say “we are all simply human, and that is so valuable. This world is worth more because we are in it, when we choose to notice and care”

Authors like Brandon Sanderson whose books say “We are all a little broken, and there is strength in not turning away from us, and there is pain in healing but there is also strength and hope.”

Seriously, these folks do more for my faith and hope in this life than any religion ever has. I don’t have the words to describe it yet but just. Warm cup of apple cider held close to the chest on cold autumn night?? That’s the best I got

#recommendations #does this count as a recommendation?? everyone should read their things if they get the chance. must recommend. there now it’s a red #dawn speaks #the sandman #where death goes from person to person and the episode is a celebration of life as much as it’s life’s end #good omens #where people literally look at Heaven and Hell and say ‘we’re good thanks. we like Human better than Good and Evil’ #the scholomance #where people see ‘for the greater good’ and say in response ‘do better’ #the stormlight archive #which is some kind of ode to pain and healing and the way that process holds something difficult but so so beautiful #I have read fanfiction that has perfectly captured the human condition #and watched children’s shows that spit in the face of all the ways we have chosen to hate each other #it just. it hits different okay. #anyways thanks to people who make things #because you reach people <3

[ceescedasticity]

One thing I like in the Scholomance book is that lofty ideals matter even when they have never been followed. The Scholomance was always set up to favor Western European/American enclavers — but it still mattered that what they wrote into the foundations was protect all the wise-gifted children of the world. The enclaves were always rotten at the core — but it still mattered that some of those benefiting from the system thought they shouldn't be.

As long as they teach these are the ideals we follow, there's the possibility for people (or semisentient buildings) to insist on following them even when most people don't.

You have to believe things that aren't true. How else can they become so?

#the scholomance

[ace-and-ranty]

I don’t think we appreciate enough the comedic genius that the best, most efficient killing spell in The Scholomance is difficult to cast because you have to be snobby and French enough about it, or else it just kills you instead.

#The Scholomance #'A la mort' is the funniest spell in the series #followed closely by El's childhood compulsion spell #if you don't act FRENCH ENOUGH the spells kills you. #can you believe it.

[lostinhewe]

She has such a way with words

*Orion’s hair gets fluffier*

#the scholomance #a deadly education #orion lake #galadriel higgins #naomi novik #violence is always the answer #feminine rage