#the ending of the last graduate

[rotationalsymmetry]

OK so having slept after finishing the last graduate with no idea how the golden enclaves starts (spoilers for the first/speculation about the latter):

I can see three general possible ways things might go from here.

One, the most straightforward narratively from the way TLG ended: El gets shoved through the portal, Orion gets shut into a school that's about to eat itself, Orion gets to have his epic ultra boss fight until he wins or gets eaten or dies in the void or goes mad in the void, we'll never find out which. Presumably El will have a lot of distress over this.

Downsides: does not offer clear direction for what actually happens in the entire final 1/3 of the trilogy (that's more the sort of thing you have at the end of a story), doesn't really explain El's mum's warning, if we can trust El that her mum wouldn't give that warning for avoiding pain alone. (Unless El is pregnant and the warning related to that. But damn, El's mum warning her about getting pregnant while in the Scholomance would have some really weird implications for their relationship. It's not unusual for a woman who got pregnant young to not want her daughter to do the same, but...I have trouble seeing El's mum specifically addressing that concern in that way. Especially since it's not like Orion was the only boy in school. Except maybe if there's something weird about the pregnancy due to the circumstances, but I'm hoping we're not going in a magical/cursed/supernaturally very scary pregnancy direction.)

Two, El finds a way to either keep herself from getting thrown out of the portal -- finding something to literally or magically grab onto -- or somehow manages to get back in right after. The door closes, and they're both trapped in the void with a bunch of mals. In an exploding school. I actually really like this idea? It might get very surreal for a bit. But it also might mean that there was a reason the school was rewarding El for learning so much about the golden sutras while still in school -- and the school was pushing her to do that, that double independent study -- when El was fully aware that the sensible thing to do was to focus on survival for now and the sutras after graduation.

Especially since, while the phase spell was used near the end of A Deadly Education to patch up the hole in the walls, as far as I can tell the sutras weren't even slightly used after New Year's. El used the Mandarin (I assume, for some reason it was all "Mandarin" and "Shanghaiese" in book 1 and then all of a sudden "Chinese" in book 2? Kind of hoping that's a different editions issue because why would you do that??? Like I can understand simplifying things, but pick one or the other and definitely don't go from the more subtle/nuanced approach to the dumbed down one, that's just wrong) that she was picking up mostly to speak with the freshmen more than she used the Sutras in the last half of the year. Including that plot hook where she was getting really excited about the most recent spell she was on and then we never found out what it was because then she had to hurry to breakfast and then that was it for classes for the rest of the year.

Anyways. Advantage: maybe use the sutras to build new enclave from the shattered remnants of the exploding school in the void? Without dying or getting eaten or going mad, somehow? It'd be weird but cool. Plus it provides direction for the book, and lets our fascinating couple be together. Although it would mean we don't get to meet El's Mum Higgins for much longer, which would be terrible. It would also explain the Word Of Mum since presumably getting caught in an exploding school full of mals that has been cut off from the real world and is floating in the void, is something a parent would consider a negative outcome for their child, and it only happens because El is emotionally attached to Orion. (Maybe. Or maybe she'd try to save him anyways, idk.)

Third option: El manages to yank Orion out. This has most of the disadvantages of option one (no direction for where to take book 3, kind of anticlimactic) plus doesn't even have Angst unless El does something Evil to do it and it fucks up their relationship, El's relationship with herself, and El's relationship with her mother all in one go. Like either pulling mana from Orion against his will, or maybe mind-controlling him (we know she has mind-control spells.) The part of my brain that loves feeling awful really likes this suggestion. I'm not sure where it would go from there though.

Part of me really, really wants to see El have a descent into honest to god evil at this point. I'm pretty sure the story isn't going that way, El's done such a great job of walking towards the light and resisting even the smallest step in the other direction. And I suspect thematically the book is supposed to be "fuck what people expect you to be, YOU get to decide that" which wouldn't really work if El goes evil after all.

Anyways: advantages: high angst, would explain mum's warning; disadvantages, do we actually want that much angst? also, where would the title fit in?

(I was going to bed when the title of the second book, which had seemed pretty straightforward throughout the whole thing (El is last graduate because she's going out last to save everyone and is also destroying the school, so no more graduates after her) really hit. El's the last graduate because she graduated and Orion didn't.) (Well. If option 1 plays out anyways.)

There are a couple questions that are very important here, namely, what the fuck is Orion thinking? And, what was El's mum thinking?

It's possible that Orion was thinking that he had to fight the mawmouth from hell to keep it from getting out, even though El didn't think that. Or that he thought there was some risk to El's plan and he wanted to make sure the mawmouth from hell didn't get out. We don't actually know what his perspective was here. I think it's somewhat more likely that Orion knew he could get out safely and chose to have his epic boss battle instead. It's more than adequately foreshadowed. We know Orion loves fighting mals, believes he's invincible, and has never once expressed the slightest interest in backing down from a challenge (and has generally been resistant to El trying to get him to back down.) El tends to see that as a martyr complex thing, but in the graduation hall she realizes it's not, he really does like fighting mals just that much. She also concluded he could learn to like other things as well, but she did figure out that yeah, he really does enjoy this stuff, a lot. Orion walking away from the biggest boss fight ever would be like an Olymplic athlete who's been training to be a swimmer or whatever from toddlerhood just...walking away right before the finals. Your life wouldn't make sense after that. Orion is not primarily motivated by protecting people (if he was, he'd be happy at the lack of mals in the first part of the year) he's directly motivated by the fights themselves. So it does not matter that he doesn't need to fight the mawmouth to protect anyone. Fighting the mawmouth is its own reward. (One worth presumably dying over.)

El's mum: I do not know, this really hasn't been answered yet. I'm inclined to trust El that the warning wouldn't be about pain alone, El's mum seems the type to encourage her child to make her own decisions unless there was an overwhelmingly important reason not to. Telling her child to not fall in love to avoid heartbreak is the exact opposite of what someone like El's mum would do. She's probably told a zillion grieving people that grief is love that has nowhere else to go (or whatever), that it's a healthy thing and part of being alive. There is no way she'd want El to be alone her senior year rather than close to Orion just because Orion wasn't going to make it, she's not that kind of person.

Whatever is going to happen, it's going to be worse than Orion dying/getting lost in the void or Orion being unable to forgive El for pulling him away from his big boss fight.

Or, it's not going to be about El and Orion's relationship at all. It might be that while the Scholomance thought what they were doing was right, that there will be Unintended Consequences to the world of them destroying the Scholomance and a metric shit ton of mals in the process.

And I just realized a fourth option. That in getting Orion out, El manages to also undo their hard work and let all the mals pour back out too.

But that doesn't make sense either. El's mum doesn't do the lesser evil. She wouldn't let Orion die to save other people's lives, and she wouldn't want El to do that either. So while I could see that happening as a plot point, I don't see that explaining El's mum's message. Dammit.

I think the message only makes sense if El's connection to Orion results in her doing something evil/going down the maleficer path, at least a little bit, or at least El's mother thinks she is likely to. Or maybe if there's some evil that isn't caused by a lesser good. But not if there's a greater evil caused by saving one person.

I don't know.

Or maybe El has fundamentally misunderstood her mother. That is definitely possible. The parent a child sees is not the whole adult, and realizing your parent isn't as perfect as you thought is a very common coming of age experience.

[crescentfool]

reunion 🌸

[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.

[maelancoli]

i'm kind of late to this but i just finished reading the scholomance trilogy by naomi novik and i feel like it is such an underrated urban fantasy?? taking the chosen one trope and turning it on its head with a fmc who has been prophesied to bring death and destruction, who is imbued with terrible power, but cannot even properly use said power to solve any of her obstacles because it would obliterate them and her soul. it takes a tired trope and the idea of an 'overpowered mary sue' and throws it back in your face by showing how all the power and destiny in the world is useless against a system filled with corruption that has burdened you with an easy way out (evil/destructive magic) that you can't take so now you have to work twice as hard as everyone else just to do simple, constructive spells instead of flicking your wrist and being done with it.

[zeb-z]

I know it’s played as a bit at first, but Chip struggling to wield Destiny’s Blade in Gillion’s absence is so important, because that’s just it, isn’t it. The weight of his destiny is something so great, so heavy of a burden, but there hasn’t really been insight into that until recently, and now both Chip and Jay are getting a look into just how hard it is to carry such a destiny. To raise the sword that Gillion does seemingly with ease.

But despite its weight, Chip keeps it close. He uses it when he’s out of ideas, when he needs options. He holds it tight to summon water, so Pretzel will have something in her bowl. He lifts it up to summon a shield when he needs protecting from a thousand different blades that would otherwise kill him. And there’s something too about how it’s Gillian’s blade, left behind without it’s wielder, protecting his friends despite his absence. How the manifestation of this magic is an imitation of Gillian’s - the shield protecting Chip as a swirling sphere of water, the shape water spell a Gillion classic of course. Even when he’s gone, his influence, what he’s left behind in both possessions and memory, are protecting Jay and Chip.

Maybe there’s something there about how whatever destiny Gillion has felt the weight of, it will always include protecting his friends - his family. Or about how their destinies are now forever intertwined, because Chip is using this Destiny’s Blade to find Gillion and it’s now his burden to bear. And it’s hard, and it hurts, and he feels the weight of his own actions now more than ever - but Jay promises he won’t bear it alone. And even while he’s lost, and unable to protect himself - Gillion still has a hand in protecting them.

[karamell-sweetz]

you know what guys. after this whole thing goes down, i hope we get the ACTUAL kamiyama school festival and it is a very good comparison to the first one. where we can see clearly how much mizuki has grown since that first event in january 2021, since that first school festival in middle school.

and i hope mizuki gets to have fun with her friends and can hang out with ena. and i hope ena has fun too. i hope she gets to tease akito, forge bonds with her classmates at the fried squid stall, and hopefully get roped into a dumb show with the oddballs 1 2. i hope this is ena’s pandemonium. i hope we all can have a little bit of joy and whimsy while getting to see how much the gang’s lives have changed at this point.

and i hope rui is a little worried for mizuki — i sincerely hope he is somewhere in mizu5, quietly waiting by the rooftop like he always has for her. but by the end of the schoolfes event he can look at mizuki, her whole face bright as all eight students in our little kamikou main cast gang come down from the rooftop (for one last time maybe, but we don’t talk about graduation in front of rui… unless ofc we bring it up this event) and he can say “you’ve come such a long way, haven’t you, mizuki? i’m happy for you.”

[yoohyeon]

Tag by @sunmiyane for this really cute poll game 🫶 I honestly don’t have a lot of cool thing in my room so I spend all day thinking about what I could put and half of it is pokemon fjsbjdbd

Tagging : @niteview @hoforwonho @lenteur @kimjunnoodle @doyeons @yunwooisms @jaebeomtual @bixiaoshi @insomtiny @wonhos-fabuloso @chlotual @taeraenomuyeppeo and anyone wanting to join on the fun ! 🫶

[hella1975]

i passed all my exams

[isitfanon]

Ophelia Lake deserved to die and I will take no criticism please and thank you

[makorragal-312]

Manifesting Season 8 ending with Buddie's first kiss in the Diaz kitchen after Chris' graduation party

[thealogie]

I was not expecting the ending of staged to be sad and profound. Like wtf guys, it’s a little zoom comedy show where the stakes are literally “David is struggling to write a screenplay” and “Michael wants prawn crackers” and then they’re suddenly like: timeloops! Time paradox! Meta-meta-meta-meta-narrative! I don’t want it to end! Everything ends! You have to answer the door! Knock knock! Olivia Coleman! The heartfelt “you always made me look good” “you too”!!! We’ll be okay!!

[dawn-the-rithmatist]

Rereading The Last Graduate and I just. I just.

El and the Scholomance are the same.

Constantly misunderstood by those around them as something evil and horrible, due to the circumstances of their creation that they can’t control- mals for the scholomance, doom and murder affinity for El. They both, at their very cores, want to be better than that- are better than that- and want to be the lesser evil.

Both of them want to see everyone get out safe, whether they’re enclavers or loser indie kids. And sometimes that means doing something they don’t like. Lording power over everyone so they cooperate for obstacle course runs. Throwing mals at that one really strong student, so no one else has to get hit. A lesser evil- but they don’t want that, not really, because they don’t want to be evil at all.

They’re the same, HOW am I supposed to be NORMAL about this

[anaalnathrakhs]

love this part of my life where the things that are difficult but challenging and good for me are things i can stop and skip and halfass, but the things that are difficult and painful and pointless are the things i have to live with no matter what

[milangakokoros]

My prom dress design (I have to sew it myself at school)

Close up of the face (in theory it's my face irl)

Moodboard:

[alexanderpearce]

i lowkey have a month until i finish my bachelor's degree

[dorindameddler]

I love loumand for what they are but there’s a certain way of shipping them that is so baffling to me