#Gwen Higgins

[dawn-the-rithmatist]

Rereading the scholomance (yes again, shush) and I’m a bit obsessed with the differences between Ophelia Lake and Gwen Higgins. Strict malia vs strict mana. Lives in a luxury enclave apartment vs lives in a yurt in the middle of nowhere. The way that they raised their kids.

Mostly though it’s their worldview that hits me, because they’re DEAD OPPOSITES. We spend three books being told that Gwen gives as freely as a person can, even when logic says she could stand to take more in return, and when she’s in need she just kind of blindly trusts in the goodness of humanity and the universe at large. Even when summoning the sutras, it’s the same pattern! She didn’t name a price, trusting that the world would be kind enough when asking her to pay!

On the other hand, Ophelia is a full maleficer. She takes even when she absolutely doesn’t need to- she has New York’s mana supply at her fingertips and STILL drains the people in her lab every day. And when confronted with the horror of mals being made when people use malia, she defends it by saying that everyone uses malia anyway- she builds her life on the assumption that the world will be selfish in the end, the exact opposite of the way Gwen banks on it being kind.

I just think it’s so fascinating the way that these two women are foils, even as El is trying to set up her and Orion as the ones truly balancing each other out. Every time she says that she’s balancing out her mom’s goodness, I need to shake her because 1) honey you are every bit as good as your mom, you’re just angrier, and 2) OPHELIA is balancing out your mom, you just don’t get to know it until after you survive graduation!!!

[tanoraqui]

Scholomance brick realization: Star-glasses. They’re star-glasses, they’re Galadriel’s star-glasses. Gwen Higgins’ famous mana storage crystals, glowing bright; Gwen Higgins the healer in the forest who when she has nothing else to give gives hope, who is a HUGE Lord of the Rings nerd—she modeled those crystals off of the Star-glass; I KNOW it.

I bet the incantation for her full-power burst of healing/stunning/clean-scouring light is “A Elbereth Gilthoniel.”

[ao-ihinata]

Going back to the Golden Enclaves, do you ever wonder if Gwen purposefully gentle parented el because of the prophecy ( she was probably doing it already but I think she got really hell bent on it ) as a F U to great-grandmother and the rest of the family who just accepted that el will become a big evil wizard five minutes after meeting cute baby el because the family Oracle said so. And also for the option of an off switch so that even if el is in her prime ( like she is in TGE ) Gwen can take away el's autonomy if she judges that it is the best option for el ( and everyone else but mostly her daughter ). And that is a scary sentence without context but as a reader u know that Gwen will only do that ( like she did in the book ) only once when it was necessary

[wheredidigowrite]

What I'd really like to know is when we're getting a prequel novel about Gwen and Arjun.

[readingabookmostofthetimes]

El's mother sounds too good for the world. She is a precious human

[ruinconstellation]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Scholomance - Naomi Novik Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings Characters: Scholomance (Scholomance) Additional Tags: sentient building, Worldbuilding, POV Nonhuman, the canon is the warning, Canon-Typical Death Rates, Canonical Character Death, School Summary:

The Scholomance watches its children die, in direct violation of its charge, for a hundred years and more.

by @raspberryhunter

[weirdlookindog]

Taste the Blood of Dracula (1970)

[erosia-rhodes]

Spellbreaker: A Scholomance Sequel

I finally finished my fic! I've been cranking away at it for 10 months like El translating the golden enclave spells when she should have been doing schoolwork, but it's finally done, yay!

Summary:

I wanted to be a wizard, but I guess I was doomed to be Grandma’s little monster instead.

El and Orion’s son is a mundane struggling to cope in the wizard world, but as Jacob gets older, his disdain for wizards’ treatment of mundanes grows like the distance between him and his parents. When Jacob develops a strange new ability, his maleficer grandmother preys on the opportunity. What side will Jacob land on? His decision could change the world of wizards and mundanes forever.

(This fic has a humorous tone similar to the original series, builds on the established magic system without contradicting any existing elements, and contains additional worldbuilding. )

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/47025136

Rating: Mature | Warnings: None

Fandom: Scholomance - Naomi Novik

ETA: I learned bookbinding and created a hardcover version of this fic! Here's a post with more pictures.

[esonetwork]

Taste The Blood Of Dracula |Episode 383

New Post has been published on http://esonetwork.com/taste-the-blood-of-dracula/

Taste The Blood Of Dracula |Episode 383

Jim looks back on the sequel to Hammer’s “Dracula Has Risen From The Grave,” – “Taste The Blood Of Dracula, ” starring Christopher Lee, Geoffrey Keen, Ralph Bates, Linda Hayden, Anthony Higgins, Peter Sallis, John Carson, Isla Blair, Martin Jarvis, Gwen Watford Roy Kinnear and Michael Ripper. Three wealthy London men seek thrills and cross paths with Count Draculs resulting in murder and mayhem. Find out more on this Halloween episode of MONSTER ATTACK!, The Podcast Dedicated To Old Monster Movies

[tanoraqui]

I didn’t mini-liveblog The Golden Enclaves like the others, so here are my key thoughts:

what ORPHEUS & EURYDICE BULLSHIT—

Gwen Higgins MVP

at some point in her youth, Liesel watched the s6 finale of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, specifically the scene where Xander talks Dark Willow down from destroying the world with a heartfelt monologue about friendship and a symbolic yellow crayon, and thought, “Yeah, that could be me!”, and I love that for her. Get this woman a yellow crayon.

I can’t find it now but I saw a poll asking what your top ugly sobbing moment for these books was, so let the record note that mine was, “He would have taken you up the mountain and holding you in his arms, leapt.”

I was totally comfortable with El in ratty, unwashed clothes in the Scholomance itself, but now that she’s out, I DO keep involuntarily imagining her dressed as her honored inspiration Ebony Dark’ness Dementia Raven Way.

Orion gets to stay at the school that he and he alone loved his time at, and protect all the magical children of the world…there are going to be students, starting with the freshmen class they already saved, whose only experience of the Scholomance includes the fierce guardianship of Orion and El… 🥹 😭 ❤️ I hope he gets some lame but appropriate and punny title like “Custodian.”

[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.

[sandange]

I feel like a lot of El's directness is her rebelling against her mom's more go with the flow lifestyle, which as teenage rebellions go, could be a lot worse. Also, I just realized the other day, Gwen can't really be older than 36-38, right? She was 18 when she had El, who is now 18. Small wonder this situation has been so rough on her.

Orion, you know full well feeling sorry for yourself or whatever is going on in that coconut you call a brain is just calling down the Wrath of El.

Ohhh, no, Liu, honey, stay put, your girls are coming for you, and El has her Golden Stone sutras at the ready!

The opening moments of El furious as she does everything she can to try and drag Orion out of the Scholomance is giving me flashbacks of 1. Susan in Thief of Time outraged at Lubsang Ludd"You...𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘰!" and 2. Annabeth Chase judo-flipping Percy when they're reunited at New Rome.

Just the most powerful "How fucking dare you, you goddamn idiot!" Tsundere outrage, with the added spice of "That's 𝘮𝘺 goddamn idiot!" fueling the fire.

El, honey. What, did you think Liesel would do when you forgot to check in? She's not a wait and see person, she's more likely to kick the door down and demand an answer, you know that. (also I think the audiobook narrator got a better handle on Liesel's accent in this one, she sounds more consistently German now.)

[zal-cryptid]

Do you have a list of Toyfolk inhabitants?

The Misfits:

Charles "Charlie" Scopp

Dolores "Dolly" Conley

Eleanor

Gabriel "Gabe" Bianco

Jennifer "Jen " Spagnoletti

Maria Martinez

Melissa "Mel" Ray

Pauline "Paul" Carson

Tabitha "Tammy" Yokoi

André?

Others

Apalala

Brendan

Carol

Flo

Morgan

Cadencia Martinez?

Floretta

Phineas Barnum

Romeo "Candlewick"

Hans

Dorothy "Dollie"

"Moonracer"

Anabel

Ayane Takahashi

Eli "Spots" Banas

Hanuman

Hensley

Molly

Octavia

Silus Zelinski

Suzanne "Zanny" 🏥

"Steadfast Tin Soldier"

"Paper Ballerina Doll"

"Babs"

Fan Characters (this list is incomplete)

Alfons

Alma Irons

Amy "Amy Sh-" Shipperton

Artie

Aster

Barnaby Alberto Alexander

Beatrice "Beau" Pierceson

Bene MaCrane

Bill Stanton

Billie "B.B." Oats

Bobbi

Buster Sweetwater

Butch Franklin

Camille "the Professor" Basset

Carlos

Catherine Hammond

Charlie

Conrad Fothergill

Danzel "Dizzy"

Darcy

Davina & Bronnie

Emit

Eddy/Emi

Elizabeth "Liz" 🏥

Emma

Ezekiel "Zeke" Bridgman

Dr. Ernst 🏥

Fanny 🏥

Freddy "Eddy"

Ganda Green

Georgina George

Gretchen

Gwendoline "Gwen"

Heather Rigger

Horace Parker

Iris Nagi

Isabel "Izzy"

Jane Doe

Janice Ridgewalker

Jason Robbs

Jayden Storm

Jennifer

Jester

Jiro Kanedo

Julia, Thomas, James, and Andrea

Kelly

Kelsey Warren

Dr. Lacey Weaver 🏥

Lux Newton

Levy Atan

Lysandra Atwood-Terpsichore

Madeline

Madilyn "Maddie" Hoek

Mal

Marigold Hartford

Margaret "Margie" Bleeker

Margie

Markley Burke

Mars

Marvin

Mary Annette

Maximilian

Melody

Mike

Milo Otis

Min Hu

Monika

Naomi

Nessa

Nonna Macaw

Odelia Pines

Paul Higgins

Peter Rangers

Petra

Pierce Spotson

Dr. Quentin "Q.T." Darling 🏥

Rachel Thompson

Ralph Patrickson

Richard Tarkin

Rocky

Rodney

Roza Egorova

Ryder Cochran

Sam Greenway

Sandy

Scharlachrot

Sheila

Stanley "Stella" Olson

Sylvik

Taylor Seekins

Terra

Thomas Bower

Tracy Corbett

Walter

[read-and-write-]

24 reads in 24

Thanks to @alexlikesbooksandtea for tagging me!

Look, i don't even know if I'll read 24 book this year but let's pretend i will, this is a combination of my actual TBR wishes for the year, the books I tried to start last year and some that are already in my currently reading

Gwen and Art are not in Love - Lex Croucher

Laura Dean Keeps Breaking Up with Me - Mariko Tamaki

D'Vaughn and Chris Plan a Wedding - Chencia C. Higgins

Cementery Boys - Aiden Thomas

Maurice - E.M Foster

Rhythm of War - Brandon Sanderson

Little Women- Louisa May Alcott

La Rebelión de los Ángeles- Anatole France

Hell Followed with Us - Andrew Joseph White

The Secret History - Donna Tartt

Something to Talk About - Meryl Wilsner

Can't Spell Treason Without Tea - Rebecca Thorne

Bajo las Sombras: El misterio de la escritora - Stef Leon

The Fragile Threads of Power - V.E Schwab

Captive Prince - C.S Pacat

Gideon the Ninth - Tamsyn Muir

Last Night at the Telegraph Club - Malinda Lo

Pedro & Daniel - Federico Erebia

Babel - R.F Kuang

Vista desde una acera - Fernando Molano Vargas

Eminent Maricones: Arenas, Lorca, Puig, and Me - Jaime Manrique

In the Lives of Puppets - TJ Klune

Sizzle Reel - Carlyn Greenwald

Light from Uncommon Stars - Ryka Aoki

Tags under the cut!

Alright time to tag a bunch of people because this hasn't made rounds in rwrb fandom so, no pressure because I know most of y'all are only reading fic skdjhd @littlemisskittentoes @affectionatelyrs @inexplicablymine @happiness-of-the-pursuit @gayrootvegetable @hgejfmw-hgejhsf @rockyroadkylers @matherines @anincompletelist @heartitinthesilence @bidoofenergy @14carrotghoul @ssmtskw @sherryvalli @everwitch-magiks @raysletters @heybuddy-drabbles @suseagull04 and that's a lot of people so the rest is an open tag hehe

[paulinawoodpecker]

Watership down: a horror story

Coming soon

Cast:

Sandlefords:

Hazel: James corden

Fiver: Jacob tremblay

Bigwig: Trevor white

Blackberry: rob paulsen

Pipkin: Ciara bravo

Dandelion: Jospeh Balderrama

Hawkbit: frank mele

Clover: Diane Keaton

Bluebell: timothee chalamet

Sliver: Sam smith

Holly: Tom cruise

Toadflax: don cheadle

Violet: Anne Hathaway

The threarah: Hugh jackman

Speedwell: viola davis

Acorn: Tiffany haddish

Buckthorn: Jim Carrey

Cowslip’s Warren:

Cowslip: Alec Baldwin

Strawberry: Alex Kelly

Silverweed: Ryan gosling

Efrafra:

General woundwort: Gary Martin

Hyzenthlay: pippa Bennett Warner

Campion: Joe mele

Vervain: Seth rogen

Orchis: sean Austin

Blackavar: Jung kook

Groundsel: Chris hemsworth

Thethuninnang: Emma stone

Nelthilta: Katie Higgins

Vilthurill: Julia Roberts

Chervil: Pedro pascal

Mystical characters:

Frith: Ed Sheeran

El-ahrairah: will smith

Rabscuttle: Ryan renolds

Prince rainbow: Adam James

The black rabbit of inle: Lizzo

Hufsa: Tom Kenny

King Darzin: Keanu reeves

Rowsby wolf: Justin Timberlake

Yona the hedgehog: Gwen Stefani

Other voices:

Keehar: Peter capaldi

Laurel: SIA

Boxwood: Anna Kendrick

Haystack: Renee Rapp

The mouse: Cathy Ang

Flyarith: Angela basset

Stone crop: Dwayne Johnson

Spartina: Andra day

Granite: Ethan hawke

Shale: Tom holland

Feldspar: Michael Peña

Bark: Margot Robbie

The weasel: will Farrell

[whetstonefires]

I'm rereading Golden Enclaves right now and just reached the Li Shanfeng scene and it's really interesting to notice how they both deliberately keep the discussion of what he did, of his enclave-expansionism decisionmaking, in the safely abstracted horror of creating more maw-mouths.

Because of course, that's the big symbolic evil, the lasting consequence that everyone has to live with, that is imposed on everyone external to the protective structure and will if unchecked eventually destroy everyone, even its makers; the one that exists on the magical version of the same level as 'colonialism' and 'capitalism.' The one where he's playing the same game as Ophelia, in the role of her opposite number; the game that makes you more like one another.

In fact, apparently Ophelia became what she is in response to him. In probably a more human and less metaphysical way than El is a response to Orion. She committed mass human sacrifice to make a weapon because he was making so many maw-mouths.

Because her goal is stopping the same expansion of enclaves and security and population (and malia use and maleficaria) that he's driving.

(Something in there about how countries like America and Britain go around blaming countries that industrialized later and that they are still actively exploiting on an economic level for ecological damage, and America's self-assignment of the role of the world's police force and outrageous military investments. Something even more blatant about ecofascist overpopulation narratives.)

But Li Shanfeng doesn't acknowledge within that discussion, and neither does El because she can't afford to get too mad to be able to work with him, what exactly his compromise really was. Not the 'getting back' at America by delivering them monster for monster, that turns it all into a game of geopolitics and metaphorical nukes. The rawer, more horrible thing that he has never touched and yet owns.

How even if she can't hate him, they both know he can never be clean of:

Every one of those enclaves required an innocent human sacrifice.

Beijing wasn't one of his, it was older, probably as old as Shanghai's original foundation, but the rebuild El stopped--that was. That was, as she spells out, almost certainly his stamping device; his beautiful and elaborate new-and-improved sophisticated foundation stone design.

His deathlessness. That might have been his very own handwriting, on the stone disc telling the lie eternal life.

Liu was every bit as much Li Shanfeng's victim as she was the victim of the enclave as a whole, or of those council members Orion ganked before they could assassinate El.

And it's not useful to be angry, but...'forty enclaves worth of mawmouths' means roughly forty human sacrifices, all drawn specifically from the pool of people who never hurt a fly, at least not to gain power.

The question of whether he's really 'better' than Ophelia just because he doesn't commit his own murders is one worth asking, that doesn't get fully resolved because it can't be.

If she's not going to tear the world down for being built on evil, if she's choosing the living over the sacrificed, how much can she truly hate him for what he did with the same truth? And yet how can he ever be forgiven.

The hero of Shanghai knows what he decided to become, and so does El, and neither of them quite says it directly because it's too awful to look straight at, if you want to be good for anything else.

He's absolutely the El who chose compromise, and the final proof that that was a choice she had to refuse to make.

That her great-great-grandmother couldn't have chosen not to make that prophecy, despite everything it cost.

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.