#graduate or die

[checkoutmybookshelf]

You Have My Attention: The Scholomance First Lines

Naomi Novik has never written a bad book in her life (she said, singing the song of her people). Her first lines have pulled many fans into the Temeraire series, so I wanted to look at how she does the same for the Scholomance books!

I decided that Orion needed to die after te second time he saved my life. I hadn't really cared much about him before then one way or another, but I had limits. It would've been all right if he'd saved my life some really extraordinary number of times, ten or thirteen or so--thirteen is a number with distinction. Orion Lake, my personal bodyguard; I could have lived with that. But we'd been in the Scholomance almost three years by then, and he hadn't shown any previous inclination to single me out for special treatment.

-- A Deadly Education

Keep far away from Orion Lake.

Most of the religious or spiritual people I know--and to be fair, they're mostly the sort of people who land in a vaguely pagan commune in Wales, or else they're terrified wizard kids crammed into a school that's trying to kill them--regularly beseech a benevolent and loving all-wise deity to provide them with useful advice through the medium of miraculous signs and portents. Speaking as my mother's daughter, I can say with authority that they wouldn't like it if they got it.

-- The Last Graduate

The last thing Orion said to me, the absolute bastard, was El, I love you so much.

And then he shoved me backwards through the gates of the Scholomance and I landed thump on my back in paradise, the soft grassy clearing in Wales that I'd last seen four years ago, ash trees in full green leaf and sunlight dappling through them, and Mum, Mum right there waiting for me.

-- The Golden Enclaves

[boldlypaletraveler]

THIS BOOK!!!!!! 🔥🔥🔥

[socksandcrocs]

AND EVERYONE LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER

[bon-sides-sw]

Cal's account Pt1

Part 2

[mintypsii]

yk adorable group hug and luffy moment aside, did zoro just kick the ground . after he was hugged . is this show even real

sorry but the way nami went 🤨🏳️‍🌈 TWICE

[iisthings]

[hybridtheories]

smile

[xxplastic-cubexx]

what’s that one figure of erik tying charles up called?? i cant find it anyone and i feel like you’d know lol

if you mean This statue

then it's by Graven Labs! 'Magneto Triumphant' to be specific

[checkoutmybookshelf]

Graduate or Die

I'm not here to talk about specific books, but I do want to talk a bit about a trope (although ngl, I am SO tempted to call this a setting rather than a trope) that has been slowly evolving and getting popularized in books. Graduate or die is, generally speaking, applicable when a story is set in a school or college or training center and once you are accepted, you can only leave by surviving and graduating...or dying.

Yes, this is basically exactly what it says on the tin.

But I'm a bit intrigued by this spin on school fiction because as far as I'm aware, this is a recent development. Previous school stories didn't tend to be quite this deadly, and I'm seriously wondering if some of this is stemming from the shift in how North American (and let's be real, primarily US) schools are perceived by students. Given the massive rise in school shootings, is it any wonder that there might be more of an interest in stories where schools are no longer the safe-ish spaces they used to be in literature? Even literature like A Separate Peace, which focuses on a death in a school, doesn't have the graduate or die aspect. Phineas's death is a tragedy tied up in a metric boatload of guilt about culpability and intentions, but neither Gene nor Phineas EXPECTS to die going into school, and they don't expect a certain number of their classmates not to survive.

But that is very much the reality that Ikenna, Violet, and El walk into at the Praetorian Academy, Basgiath War College, and the Scholomance, respectively. They expect their classmates to die, are well aware they could die, and there really isn't a whole hell of a lot to do other than survive.

I feel like I'm just describing The Hunger Games with extra steps here, but there is a different feel to graduate or die stories than there was to the dystopian genre Suzanne Collins popularized. Possibly what I'm getting from at least Violet and Ikenna is a distinctly "grad school" feel. These protagonists aren't teenagers, these books aren't YA. Vi and Ikeena are grown-ass women who made choices and have specific, concrete goals in a way that Katniss never really did. Even El lacks some of the YA flailing, and I think that's from the structure of a school setting. It's much harder to flail around and be lost when you have teachers and a library RIGHT THERE.

I'm interested to see if the graduate or die mini boom expands at all and can actually be tied to a reaction to all the gun violence in schools and universities or if this is just a bit of a fluke. We shall have to see, and if anyone has any additional thoughts on this, please reblog with them!

[foxstens]

are we ever gonna talk about this

[cloudysfluffs]

oh hey look i actually bothered to make the tickly version to this piece!! this is what was going on in my head when i drew the og

kink/nsfw/fetish blogs dni please!!!

[daily-dose-of-bucket]

can you let kugie and Kanna live happily ever after no kugie is not dead what r u talking sbout

Day 78: of course they lived happily ever after, here's Kanna's high school graduation photo!

[clean-air-is-king]

I’M SORRY BUT CHARLIE SLIMECICLE ????

he’s always been fine but he’s evolving like a pokémon…

starting here: nerdy guy with big smile (so cute smile)

and suddenly he takes off his glasses…

and that’s okay, we’ve seen him without his glasses it’s okay, the messy hair is a bonus

BUT THEN???

SUDDENLY HE GRADUATED GAY HIGH SCHOOL

AND FUCKING GAY COLLEGE

EXCUSE ME ???? i am dead, i am actually 100% fucking dead

HE IS TOO HOT FOR HIS OWN GOOD

[amyriver]

amy, rory and river deserved a full episode focused on their relationship & i’ll never be over it

[limon-rat]

Thinking about domestic Lautski

Let them be happy

[isitfanon]

I speed-read The Scholomance trilogy in 4 days and I have never felt more like I've been run over by a train than right now