Making the Grades
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| Making the Grades | |
|---|---|
| Author | Jasper Flynn |
| Format | Novel series (3 books, each released as 3 novellas before a collected edition) |
| Universe | Subconium Shared Universe |
| Genre | Dark contemporary romance / psychological erotic thriller / light paranormal |
| Published | 2025 onward |
| Status | Ongoing |
About
Making the Grades is a novel series set in the Subconium Shared Universe, written by Jasper Flynn. It takes place in Verdant, Connecticut and primarily on the campus of Eastern Tsuga College. Each of the three books follows a different female protagonist whose life becomes entangled with the calculated manipulations of Professor William Taylor, a psychology professor whose published research provides respectable cover for a private program that is ethically unsanctioned at best.
The series is not a fantasy or supernatural thriller. The paranormal elements are ambient and background. Making the Grades is primarily a dark romance and psychological thriller about power, desire, and what happens when someone who understands human behavior very well decides to use that understanding without restraint.
Publication
Each book is released as three novellas before being collected into a single complete edition.
Making the Grades: Kelly's Unveiling (2025)
- Part One — January 23, 2025 (Amazon ASIN: B0DR9H73Z8)
- Part Two — February 24, 2025 (Amazon ASIN: B0DRDLCN78)
- Part Three — March 24, 2025 (Amazon ASIN: B0DRDQZZP8)
- Complete Edition — TBD
Making the Grades: Allie's Descent
In progress. Publication date not yet established.
Making the Grades: Heather's Awakening
Forthcoming. Details not yet established.
Plot
Each book follows a different ETC student through a remediation arrangement with Professor Taylor that begins with a missed quiz or missed class and escalates across the semester through psychological manipulation, power dynamics, and escalating tasks. Taylor's methodology evolves across the series as he learns from each encounter.
The books are designed to be read in order but each can stand alone. Readers who have read the earlier books will understand more about Taylor, about Verdant, and about the invisible forces shaping each protagonist than the protagonists themselves ever do.
Characters
- Professor William Taylor — connective antagonist across all three books; psychology professor; House Subconium member
- Kelly Spaihts — protagonist of Making the Grades: Kelly's Unveiling; junior sociology major; Astraea Society member
- Allison Branigan — protagonist of Making the Grades: Allie's Descent; sophomore English major; DareGrid user
- Heather — protagonist of Making the Grades: Heather's Awakening; details not yet established
- Cassandra Blake — Kelly's Astraea Big Sister; prior arrangement with Taylor
- Bridgette Hutchinson — Astraea Society member; Kelly's dominant partner by Book Three
- Mark Rogers — Kelly's secret hookup; Order of Kratos member
- Chelsea Zhou — Strawbridge Sentinel journalist; live threat to Taylor's operation
Key themes
Making the Grades operates in a dual register. On the surface it is a dark romance about submission, control, and desire. Beneath it is a story about institutional power, psychological exploitation, and the specific damage done when someone with authority and intelligence decides to use both without ethical constraint.
The Hemlock Veil provides a subtle supernatural underpinning. Taylor benefits from its effects without knowing it is real. His results are amplified by a 350-year-old spell he considers superstition. The gap between his explanatory framework and what is actually happening is one of the series' richest structural tensions.
Other themes include the psychology of surrender, the difference between what people want and what they allow themselves to admit they want, the specific social architecture of a small college town, and the question of what accountability looks like when institutional power makes it nearly impossible.
Background
Making the Grades is adapted in part from branching Chyoa source chapters written before the novel drafts. The Chyoa versions contain multiple branching paths. Characters and locations from those branches are confirmed canon SSU entities. The specific paths taken in the final published novels are confirmed as canon; branching alternatives are not.
The in-universe framing positions Jasper Flynn as the author documenting real events he was commissioned by House Subconium to record. Flynn's external site is jasperflynn.com.
Connections to the broader SSU
Making the Grades shares the universe with Comply, a visual novel set one year after the series in Fall 2024. Characters and organizations from Making the Grades exist in Comply's world as background. Taylor is still at ETC. The Astraea Society still operates. Camera Noctis is still running. The Darewright Jar, which begins circulating on the ETC campus in 2023 during the events of Making the Grades: Allie's Descent, is a thread connecting the two works without the characters of either knowing it.
Canon notes
- Heather's Awakening protagonist surname and semester not yet established
- The Chyoa epilogue in which Taylor is burned and disgraced is not the direction of the published novels
- Whether Making the Grades will extend beyond three books has not been established
- Complete edition publication dates for Kelly's Unveiling not yet confirmed