MASTERPOST For The One True School Master Of Vault 41

MASTERPOST for The One True School Master of Vault 41

This is a continually updating table of contents to help with navigating my posts about TOTSMOV41, my WIP longfic.

The fic's premise: Sophie joins forces with a resurrected, former lover in the midst of trying to get Tedros back onto Camelot's throne, but that's not even half the uphill battle: rogue psyches and distrust abound and threaten to shatter the present state of the Woods as everyone knows it.

or

In which Rafal is resurrected during the events of One True King and things go horribly, disproportionately wrong!

Also, the fic will not be published for a very long time, so don't expect to see it anytime soon. I'm still on draft zero/the outline/script.

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—Table of Contents—[Pre-Publication of Fic]

1. Title reveal and associated music

2. Round I of Excerpts

3. Apparently, the tag "otk" is banned from tumblr.

4. The misleading trope hint

5. Round II Excerpt

6. Visual ref. 1

7. Facts about the fic

8. Reblog #1

9. Aesthetic for one of the first scenes (and flower trivia in the comments)

10. A Peek at My Outline Process

11. Reblog #2, dialogue, and reference to suicide

12. Round III of Excerpts

13. Sketch - Rafal got punched in the face.

14. Screenshots of my Pinterest board for the fic

15. Update, more facts about the fic, and its references to philosophic concepts

16. Round IV Excerpt

17. Cover Reveal

18. Reblog #3

19. Reblog #4

20. Reblog #5

21. Hypothetical Non-Excerpt

22. The Recurring Japeth Punchline

23. Reblog #6

24. Reblog #7

25. Three "Fun" (Incongruous) Facts

26. Thanatos drive reference mentioned

27. Reblog #8

28. Reblog #9

29. Reblog #10

30. Ask containing minor fic trivia

31. Update and Round V of Excerpts

32. Which wizard is this? (a.k.a. The Tedros Insanity Poll)

33. Reblog #11

34. Reblog #12

35. Reblog #13 and Fic Tags

36. Round VI Excerpt

37. The Suffering Scale

38. Word Ask Game

39. Word Ask #1

40. Word Ask #2

41. Word Ask #3

42. Results of the Tedros Poll

43. Round VII of Excerpts

44. Guess the Last Verb/Noun

45. Minor Spoilers

46. Reblog #14

47. Reblog #15

48. Reblog #16

49. Visual ref. 2

50. Reblog #17

51. Slightly Cursed Thought?

52. Aesthetic

53. Round VIII of Excerpts

54. Scrapped Hypothetical Scene

55. Reblog #18

56. Visual ref. 3

57. Reblog #19

58. Reblog #20

59. Deliberate or Not Deliberate?

60. Update and Another Ask Game

61. Page Number Ask #1

62. Page Number Ask #2

63. Visual ref. 4

64. Visual ref. 5

65. Reblog #21

66. Reblog #22

67. Reblog #23

68. Reblog #24

69. Reblog #25

70. Verbing Nouns

71. Reblog #26

72. Reblog #27

73. A Little News

—The Story— [Links TBA after publication.]

Part I: Of Solipsism, Sophistry, and Storians.

Part II: Great Mistake II, Great Mistake III, and Verisimilitude

Part III: Phantoms, Prescience, and the Pen

Deleted Scene

Meta post

Fic Analysis, Commentary & Trivia

Propaganda

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Need-to-Knows (a.k.a How I'm meddling with canon):

This fic will involve Rafal being resurrected, and lead up to an alternate continuity of plot events, all set during One True King. Thus, its title will be: The One True School Master of Vault 41. However, the title may or may not be a bit of a misnomer, so I might just end up subverting your expectations after all.

There will be a form of "psyche travel," or an approximation of time travel, using Dovey's crystal ball like in ACOT, the arson of a certain Wizard Tree to look forward to, and some offbeat, unprecedented action taken by the Storian. Of course, Agatha and Rafal will bicker a lot while Sophie plays the role of mediator. And, oh, Rafal will be tortured, slightly…

Additionally, there's a couple things to note about the premise and the changes I've made to canon, for context:

1. The fic will disregard Fall as canon, yet will acknowledge Rise.

2. There are several canon elements I'm not using. The Rafal is the fic is him from Rise, and also from TLEA. I decided to only acknowledge Rise but not Fall because I didn't want to work with the identity-swap twist. So Rafal is Rafal is Rafal in this case. I will draw from both his Rise characterization and his TLEA characterization.

3. Later in the fic, Rise Rhian only has minor appearances, and is present in Rafal's psyche, but he will not actually be a character until I write a possible sequel, if I ever do reach that point. So, you can assume Rhian was moderately Good to grey on the morality scale, and that Rafal was the one who ultimately committed the fratricide for the purposes of this fic.

4. I've decided not to acknowledge the OTK parentage twist. To clarify, Rafal will have no relation to Japeth, simply because it felt out of character for him to have children with a woman he seemed to loathe, even if it may have been less out of character for the canon Rhian falsely disguised as "Rafal." I personally thought it contradicted Rafal's characterization, so Japeth's placeholder father, who probably won't even be mentioned in the story, will be the Green Knight, to explain his magical prowess as the Snake.

Otherwise, for the most part, this fic is alternate continuity "canon," and diverges at some point during OTK.

I've tried to set the stage, eradicate confusion, and mediate potential disappointment as best as I could above, but if anyone would like me to demystify anything about the fic, my writing process, or ask anything else at all, feel free to send questions to me! Yet, I might not be able to answer everything, for various reasons, including limiting excessive spoilers, so please keep that in mind.

Wizard Guessing Game

Somebody sent Tedros to the insane asylum (not literally) in TOTSMOV41. Guess who.

I'm sure you've all heard of: "Which witch is which?" Well, this is: Which wizard is this? Feel free to write out your reasoning. I'm curious.

Tedros’ head lolled to the side. “'Tis ungodly, my hears. Ears. Myne eyen hear. 's the Evil wizard, foul, foul." He laughed to himself as if he had witnessed a joke no one else was privy to. His head snapped to the other side sharply, his gaze unfocused. "No—foul fowl!” he burbled in a daze, approaching incoherence.

Good point about age/maturity! (Though personally, I still see prequel Rafal's illustrations as looking younger than a man, sort of.)

When I read prequel Rafal and TLEA "Rafal" as the same person (before the Fall twist) I would rationalize his more poetic side as being an aspect that emerged because he was either in love or playing at being in love, more something situational rather than an inherent personality trait, as he never felt overt, romantic love in the prequels, meaning, he never had reason to express that side of himself. Yet, thinking about TLEA "Rafal" as Rhian does make that trait more congruent.

I also chalked up TLEA "Rafal"'s composure as being part of his situation rather than his actual self as Rhian, but being Rhian explains it too. The way I saw it was that prequel Rafal is tossed around like a punching bag and has a marked lack of control a lot of the time, as if he has chronic Protagonist Suffering Syndrome. Yet, TLEA "Rafal" has the upper hand practically the whole time, which distinguishes him as less high-strung than prequel Rafal because, in his perspective, he knows he'll win, nearly without a doubt.

I'd never consciously thought of that, but it's mainly true for me too! I mock prequel Rafal more than I ever have TLEA "Rafal."

I wonder how much of TLEA "Rafal" is filtered through Sophie's perspective or the tonal difference in the prequels and main series, and how much of him is simply just Rhian/divergent character development. Though, I'm skeptical as to whether the Fall identity twist had existed as a concept since TLEA's publication date (especially since Rise Rafal overall seems to be cut from the same cloth as TLEA "Rafal." Where else could prequel Rafal's characterization have been drawn from anyway?).

Good for Alma! Tearing down facades left and right.

Unpopular, possibly controversial opinion: "Rafal" in the main series is slightly more alluring to me than Rafal in the prequels. Sure, you could call him creepy, but he had a certain power and mystique about him that was distinct from the original's.

Sadly, I don't feel the same about Rafal in TLEA. He's a lot more brooding and moody compared to his scenes in the other books.

Allow me to remind you how weird and unhinged this man is:

"Ah, but there's only one way in this world to prove who you are." The Storian stopped its busy writing, sensing a pivotal moment. Slowly the School Master turned. For the first time, his blue eyes had a glint of danger. "What's the one thing Evil can never have . . . and the one thing Good can never do without?"

Absolute fucking creeper. You can imagine the sound he makes as he slowly turns around, like a creaking door. Gives me chills. I love him.

Also, he's rather funny:

The Storian plunged to the page: "Stupid girls! They were trapped for eternity!" "I suspected as much," said the School Master.

These two could've been a comedy duo. Too bad the Storian sucks.

Maybe it's also the way I'm writing him in Ever Never After. Kinda makes me wish I didn't have plans for him to revert to his original appearance permanently. I mean, it's a real fix-it fic.

I just...

MMMMMMMMmmmmysterious.

Round VI Excerpt from The One True School Master of Vault 41

I just think this one is funny and luckily, it's non-spoilery.

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Immediately, Agatha began to sift through memories in the name of espionage. As she flicked through the black crystals, she was only mildly surprised by what she saw:

Happy, blond man.

Stymphs.

The same blond man but distressed.

Smug, blond man.

Pirate.

Blushing, blond man.

Pirate.

Vampires?

Pirate.

Glass castle.

Blushing, blond man.

An enormous taxidermied bat?

Pirate.

Blood spatters in his field of vision and a brief darkness.

Man-Wolf.

Students being tortured.

Stymphs.

Moat.

Torture.

Torture—again?

Torture.

Agatha rolled her eyes.

Torture.

Torture.

Anxious, blond man.

Sobbing, blond man on the shoreside.

Torture.

Torture.

Torture.

Torture.

Evelyn.

Torture.

Stymphs.

Sophie.

Dead, red butterflies.

Sophie.

The Old Villains.

Sophie.

Sophie.

Sophie.

Sophie.

Torture.

Brig.

Sophie in a crown.

Blood again.

Sophie.

A whirlwind of ashes.

Flashes of golden hair. Sophie?

Well... this had been fruitless.

Ooh, I understand what you meant now! And I agree that the Rafal on Fall's cover looks younger, possibly compared to Rise's cover. When you said "man," I had pictured a more visibly adult man since, even if Rafal were 18-19 or in his twenties physically, I would still consider him marginally a teenager, or more precisely, an adolescent (brain-development-wise despite the immortality/actual, old age), yet an adult by modern, legal standards—just, an adult on the younger side of things.

I could see adult "Rafal" in the main series looking more like an adult, like in the illustration above (before aging), but actually, due to book one, I imagined him as a stooped, withered, old man, by that point in canon. Then again, I may not be the best judge, especially considering that he's wearing a mask.

Thanks, haha!

Yes! Exactly! And, I know for a fact, from EverNeverTV, that Soman never even had a name for Rafal until he wrote TLEA, so I'd highly doubt he'd have Rafal's backstory planned at all. And that's also why I see Rise Rafal and TLEA "Rafal" as approximately the same Rafal because, to me, Fall seemed to have course-corrected, in both twins' characterizations, just to make the final twist work.

Unpopular, possibly controversial opinion: "Rafal" in the main series is slightly more alluring to me than Rafal in the prequels. Sure, you could call him creepy, but he had a certain power and mystique about him that was distinct from the original's.

Sadly, I don't feel the same about Rafal in TLEA. He's a lot more brooding and moody compared to his scenes in the other books.

Allow me to remind you how weird and unhinged this man is:

"Ah, but there's only one way in this world to prove who you are." The Storian stopped its busy writing, sensing a pivotal moment. Slowly the School Master turned. For the first time, his blue eyes had a glint of danger. "What's the one thing Evil can never have . . . and the one thing Good can never do without?"

Absolute fucking creeper. You can imagine the sound he makes as he slowly turns around, like a creaking door. Gives me chills. I love him.

Also, he's rather funny:

The Storian plunged to the page: "Stupid girls! They were trapped for eternity!" "I suspected as much," said the School Master.

These two could've been a comedy duo. Too bad the Storian sucks.

Maybe it's also the way I'm writing him in Ever Never After. Kinda makes me wish I didn't have plans for him to revert to his original appearance permanently. I mean, it's a real fix-it fic.

I just...

MMMMMMMMmmmmysterious.

How would Rafal react to Rhian finding his Soulmate ( True Love ) ?

Rafal: [flatly, without much expression or animation] Rhian has a True Love. My Rhian? ...I suppose he's not a complete failure of an Ever after all.

Rafal's internal monologue: WHAT THE HELL. How do I know this isn't another substitute come to replace me? What does this even mean? For us? For the balance? This "True Love" of Rhian's had better state his intentions regarding my brother... or there's always interrogation tactics. Finally, I'll have the chance to put the Doom Room to a good, productive use... [a languorous grin creeps across his face]