#naomi novik
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A formal portrait with Laurence and as much of Temeraire as would fit.
(btw is there an active Temeraire discord? I’m rereading the books and am having Feelings about them again 👀) nevermind, someone linked me
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His Majesty’s Dragon the comfort book ever.. yes I have five hundred books on my tbr yes I am instead reading Temeraire again
#was he ever this small. idk. he’s puppy#temeraire#naomi novik#william laurence#his majesty's dragon
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In retrospect, the scene of El going down the library stacks trying to get to Orion is so funny, because. She's doing such grim, survivalist, cold mental gymnastics to try and make sense of the school behavior. Over the course of it, El thinks the Scholomance is:
Trying to keep her from helping Orion so it can finish killing him
Accidentally loosing an invaluable, literally priceless, world-changing treasure to her in the attempt
Bribing her with an opportunity to show off, if only she lets the Mawmouth go devour all the little children
When in reality, what it was doing was:
Trying to keep El away from the Mawmouth, because its fucking job is to protect her.
Giving her a book that's already been paid for by her parents. It is literally just handing over her inheritance.
Asking for her help killing the Mawmouth, so it doesn't go devour all the little children.
It's. It's so funny. El is basically a cat trying to eat a piece of plastic, fighting against its helpless owner that just wants to help. She accused the school of trying to kill Orion whilst it was busy trying to save her fucking life. Herding teenagers: the world's most thankless job.
#The Scholomane#Scholomance#Naomi Novik#it is so endearing she's calculating the worst most evilest motivations the school could possibly have#and LITERALLY all it was doing was trying to keep her from being jumped by a fucking mawmouth.
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The thing that gets me about the Temeraire series is that the dragons are so seamlessly integrated into the time period that when other fantastical elements (e.g. sea serpents, bunyips, etc.) show up, it feels startling, as if this serious historical narrative has just taken a hard left turn into fantasy. And then you remember that oh, yeah, the military dragon units also did not actually exist.
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#I got POLLS#tamora pierce#mercedes lackey#dianna wynne jones#naomi novik#if you pick naomi novik you are potentially very young#also yes this is an only women of fantasy poll#because it is my poll#fantasy
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the thing about el higgins is that terry pratchett would have loved her.
I’ve never encountered a character or a series that I could call a spiritual successor to tiffany aching but el is perhaps the closest possible thing. the way that tiffany’s righteous anger is her magic, born from a sense of deeply rooted love and identity with her home and blossoms into a tempered, powerful ability to see what is in front of her. the way el rages against the systems of oppression she can see and how she follows that rage to the very core and from that core she dismantle those systems. how in both doing the right thing is a choice, always a choice, and one that requires choosing again and again and again. “this far and no further.” “you’re already dead but stay anyway.”
#Tiffany and el both have such strong narrative presence that it’s so easy to forget that they are not reliable narrators#they think they are and that’s how the stories function so incredibly well#because we must go through the journey of also being unreliable and learn along with the characters#no shade but this is a narrative choice that I much prefer to the parable-esque poppy wars or babel#the scholomance#el higgins#tiffany aching#naomi novik#terry pratchett#a post by me
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New commission!
I had started this in good time, then impulsively peeled off my screen protector because it got too dirty, not realising that I’m now so used to drawing with one on that I was incapable of continuing without ordering another, so I just got finished in time to retain my coveted Etsy perfect shipping record. Stressful!
Which of these have you read?
#the goblin emperor#gideon the ninth#martha wells#murderbot#naomi novik#my art#artists on tumblr#books#booklr#illustration#bookstack#paperbacks#fantasy books
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top temeraire audiobook moments in no particular order:
every single time laurence calls temeraire "my dear," rightfully the softest and tenderest thing any character says to any other in this series ever
tharkay in book three, mimicking the snotty accent of the british socialite: "you would do better to cultivate an elevated tone," the cuntiness of which defies description
temeraire in book six when Laurence volunteers to feed the newly hatched dragonet; according to the narration, he whirls around and says, "what? you would —?" in a voice "thrumming with distress and wrath," which Simon Vance pulls off really well considering he's trying to do a dragon voice
laurence in book four, now a french prisoner, when napoleon bonaparte comes up to him and kisses him on both cheeks: "your ... majesty," said a little hoarsely and with a noticeable pause between the two words (that doesn't show up in the original text) ;)
"O God, I wish I had not done it" I had to turn off the audiobook and go lie down quietly in a dark room
"the devil I am," said with every ounce of uppercrust english indignation simon vance can muster, which is A Lot
laurence in book two raising his voice at the first lord of the admiralty and the entire chinese embassy, "I will not do it, I will never do it, and be damned to you all" hearing him passionately refuse an order at the top of his lungs is what made me love the audiobooks so much in the first place!!! I have never wanted to cheer for anyone as much as I wanted to cheer for him in this scene
laurence in book seven cursing the living daylights out of one of the mutineers responsible for sinking the allegiance, "by God, you had best hope I do not think better of wasting the very air upon the lungs of a pack of misbegotten whelps of sea-dogs —" considering that the strongest fuck you we've ever heard him give anyone up to this point has been "sir, you may go to the devil" this sure was a
kind of moment.
tldr listen to the audiobooks
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Lien and Temeraire from Naomi Novik's books!
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William Laurence truly has one of the funniest character arcs of all time. He does a complete 360 over the course of the series. Totally turned around yet somehow exactly where he started. He completely changed his worldview while being absolutely steadfast about it. He undergoes impressive character development while his character does not change at all. He is so damn stubborn about his preconceived notions of honor that he is willing to abandon his preconceived notions of dragons, gender, and race. He transcends the regency society he lives in not by breaking the confines of rigid values but by expanding those confines to include everyone.
#temeraire#william laurence#will laurence#temeraire series#dragons#naomi novik#values#character development#books#captain laurence#emily roland#jane roland#catherine harcourt#tenzing tharkay
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Aaaaand (after a small delay) the fourth and final bonus Sketch-a-Wish from my 2nd Patreon anniversary - a frequently requested scene from Uprooted, featuring Sarkan (the Dragon) and Agnieszka! Phew, I'm art-pooped after this one. 🫠
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Fanart of Mirnatirus from Spinning Silver by @naominovik Was lucky enough to catch her on her UK tour! :)
#spinning silver#naomi novik#minratius#artists on tumblr#erion makuo art#it was great seeing her in person#ohmegosh!#and the church venue was *chef kiss* as well#i was so glad she recognized the character too :3!!
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bedtime stories (a mathematics textbook)
#temeraire#william laurence#naomi novik#can't believe i forgot to post this temeraire art here when this is where all the temeraire fans are#anyways............ please talk to me about these boys#just finishing up book 8 now..!!!#art requests are so welcome. i want to draw all the characters#once i finish the series i'm going to start it over again immediately i think
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Rereading (via the excellent audiobooks) the Temeraire series lately. William Laurence is THE most self-sabotaging stupidly honorable pinnacle of Regency masculinity to exist. Tough as nails, exceedingly competent, will sail you a ship or carry out a diplomatic mission or teach himself an entirely new career! He is kind and handsome and well-spoken and humble! A genuine hero! Comes in clutch!
But (picks up blorbo by his cravat) give this doofus bitch a chance to shoot his own foot off for Honor and dumbass needs a dragon the size of a 747 and a full team of passionately loyal comrades to keep him still standing. You have never seen the like. His (subtexty) boyfriend, his (subtext is for losers) girlfriend, and his own dragon all roast him for it on the regular. A legend.
Forgot how much I love him. And all the people around him that are like “damn I admire your commitment to honor, but you do NOT have to go that hard, calm down”
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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
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SPINNING SILVER ❆ NAOMI NOVIK
❝ THERE ARE MEN WHO ARE WOLVES INSIDE, and want to eat up other people to fill their bellies. That is what was in your house with you, all your life. But here you are with your brothers, and you are not eaten up, and there is not a wolf inside you. You have fed each other, and you kept the wolf away. That is all we can do for each other in the world, to keep the wolf away. ❞
#spinning silver#spinningsilveredit#naomi novik#naominovikedit#litedit#litblr#my edit#bookedit#fantasyedit#book aesthetic#staryk
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