#noviking

[emily-e-draws]

His Majesty’s Dragon the comfort book ever.. yes I have five hundred books on my tbr yes I am instead reading Temeraire again

[learnelle]

Autumn is here ! 🍂 Currently sick in bed with a cup of tea, looking at pictures I took recently and praying that I’ll get better before my Saturday morning flight to Ireland 🤧

[ace-and-ranty]

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.

[kirstysdreams]

Anastasia Novik

[ineedlelittlespace]

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.

[chekovpavelandreievich]

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.”

[mostlyghostie]

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?

[isvoc]

Lien and Temeraire from Naomi Novik's books!

[kingoftheu]

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.

[rosiethorns88]

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. 🫠

[emily-e-draws]

bedtime stories (a mathematics textbook)

[erionmakuo]

Fanart of Mirnatirus from Spinning Silver by @naominovik Was lucky enough to catch her on her UK tour! :)

[bogkeep]

i reread captive prince trilogy for the third or fourth time recently

[kirstydreaming]

Anastasia Novik

[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.