This Reminded Me Of Rhian.

This reminded me of Rhian.

The most correct and resonant thing I've heard anyone say all day, haha—

And I may have a few WIPs (if I finish them) lined up to sate that very need.

we need more rafal whump tbh

An AU Concept: The myth of Eos and Tithonus but applied to Rafal and Rhian. (Except, it would have to be interpreted platonically, and besides, Tithonius taking the form of a cicada for the rest of his days recalls Rhian in his moth form in my mind.)

I think it would be simultaneously hilarious and angst-ridden, actually. Like, curse the Storian! (The Pen would be cast as Zeus.) Except, in reality, the fault would really lie with Rafal lacking foresight, and the "precision of language" or inexact-requests-from-deities trope, which I'm often fond of.

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Here's a brief reference to the story if anyone needs it:

Encyclopedia Britannica

Tithonus | Immortal, Dawn, Lover

Tithonus, in Greek legend, son of Laomedon, king of Troy, and of Strymo, daughter of the river Scamander. Eos (Aurora) fell in love with Tit

And the answer is:

RAFAL

If you selected "Japeth" or "Multiple of them," you receive partial credit!

Japeth causes blood loss that sends Tedros into a not-quite-lucid state, and Rafal is specifically responsible for the provocation that sets Tedros off.

Also, I was surprised by the spread of the responses. Did most people see "fowl" and immediately think "Rafal?"

If anyone wants to sate my curiosity, what was your reasoning for other choices/your thought process in general? I also had Tedros' head turn to be intentionally misleading, as if he were addressing two people instead of one—did anyone latch onto that?

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.

Childhood Headcanons

These particular, sort of apocryphal headcanons (depends on who believes what after all) provide further context for the brothers' childhood under the constraints of my canon-divergent fic, "When Lightning Falls," that was proved wrong by canon after the release of Fall.

There's also an accompanying Creation Theory I made up, to provide context for the fic, which becomes especially relevant here.

And, if anyone's wondering, this post has been around for far too long—I just never posted it some while after the fic itself was done. I have a lot of stuff on backlog anyway, and figured I may as well edit and post this.

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Note:

Most of these thoughts focus on Rafal, and there is a slightly dark undercurrent that runs throughout this post.

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First, the brothers were originally foundlings, like in the fairy tales of yore.

Fittingly, they have been the youngest and the oldest beings ever to live at the School, at different points in time.

At first, they led a deathly existence, an insecure, unstable one, with potential death at every turn.

Rafal became used to death threats, and being called "demon spawn." He hardened in response. Ever townspeople tried to ward him off, but their feeble sigils did no good, did no true harm against him and his latent sorcery, even whilst he was still learning magic.

They were found, possibly, doddering around in the Woods, on the outskirts of the School, at somewhere from three to five years old? So, they conveniently have little to no memory of their existence beforehand, as vagrants, outcasts, rejects, waifs, who knows—they were alone in the world.

The twins crashed through the brambles, clothes torn, faces scratched, scrapes on their limbs, drenched by the rain, just... waiting to be taken in like strays, as if they simply... appeared.

Rhian trailed after Rafal who forged a path ahead, until they emerged in the light of a clearing, as if guided by the hand of fate, to the School for Good and Evil.

Shortly after their discovery, they became the youngest students to ever attend the school.

Of course, taking them in was the Good thing to do, but perhaps, if we let conspiracy run rampant, the Storian had a hand in the proceedings.

Oddly enough, the Pen just might have brainwashed all the faculty to come to the unanimous agreement of raising the brothers as their own, among the lot of them. How odd that they agreed for once, the one time in decades that Good and Evil have agreed on any matter.

It was probably done for the greater fate of the Woods, the way they were all swayed by the Storian, nearly unconsciously.

And so, they came to terms with the new status quo because there seemed to be something behind this decision of the Pen's, that was greater than they could ever know, or so they believed.

They accepted it. They didn't question it because it was so obviously the Storian's doing. Controlling their minds that had already been made for them. No chance to decide for themselves.

But, they let the Storian handle it, handed over all control to the Storian. Because, no one, not even the highest ranking sorcerer or fairy godmother of either School, or lord or lady could have taken issue with what the Storian did. No one went against it. No one could. Contradicting it would have been a death wish just waiting to happen.

And they all knew that. They knew that very well, considering the nature of the tales they taught.

Eventually, they came to the common conclusion that these children must have been their future School Masters.

Thus, they took the Storian's apparent decision to heart because it wasn't their place to step in.

No one could overrule the Pen, so they lived with it, and continued to train the mysterious, foundling brothers—while they worried for their lives and all that was to come.

That particular set of faculty became a little like the brothers' parents, until they died off, one by one, each from old age or the occupational hazards of working at such a School.

Their professional lives were demanding and they didn't pay as much attention to the brothers as they should have.

All they could do was follow through and hope the Pen had charted the right course, that it chose well in the end.

Even if they would never live to see the future, they were aware they had played a monumental role in securing safety and balance for the Woods, by acting as these children's first, human influences.

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"When Lightning Falls" takes place around three years after the brothers' arrival, when they're about seven, so they've had time to have grown used to the schools.

Everything has become a bit mundane to them. There's nothing new because it's all they've ever known and grown up with, unlike the incoming students' experience of the manor every four years.

So, they've never been around peers their own age, which led to Rhian feeling special and becoming fragile with no challengers and to Rafal gaining a massive superiority complex.

During those years is when Rafal starts on his skepticism, early in life.

Rafal starts to question the Pen, and ask why of everything and everyone that can possibly answer him, or that would answer him if he persisted and probed enough, and didn't relent. And he threatens his way to the answers, to get his way, to figure out what makes everything in this world of theirs tick.

It's the only way he knows, to bribe or exchange, even unethically, or to beat and to hassle information out of others, to trap them in their own bedchambers or offices and not release them until they answered him or fulfilled his demands.

He learned the word "leverage" early on, and the Evil faculty thought he was a prodigy.

He doesn't know any other way because the Never faculty took him in first, claimed him as one of their own. They took a liking to him and his silence, over his crybaby brother.

Predictably, the Never faculty were rough around the edges and they never showed displays of pleading and begging, so Rafal never did that, even as a child.

He never learned the art of apologizing either. Everyone was remiss to let that pass by... but it was too late.

He refused to resort to such means as begging, to lower himself in that way, like Rhian would, even at such a young age, because he wasn't taught mercy. He was told kindness was a weakness and that justice was right. And so, even as a young child, he maintained an adult-like level of dignity in how he conducted himself, always.

Meanwhile, he'd look on at his brother, and wonder: why is he acting so childishly? Having Evil imposed on him forced Rafal to grow up sooner, before his time.

Evil taught him never to whine and whinge, to never cry to get his way. He could already get his way, by other, more sinister means. Cleverer, more artful, more guileful means besides, and in doing so, he could still feel superior, boosting his ego, inflating it and inflating it as a result.

So, that was what he'd grown up around. It was the natural way of things, to him.

At least, this is how children ought to be treated in his eyes, simple as that. And he turned out fine, didn't he? Of course he did. No question about it. He's him, and he's great. The best. Superior to all others, everyone else in his school.

He probably considered himself the smartest little boy alive, not necessarily the most knowledgeable, but the most clever or capable of outwitting others, of negotiating deals, and plotting schemes and doing other, crooked deeds. He thought himself smart in that artful sense, skilled to the point that he could outfox adults over twice his age, outdoing the teenage students in everything he did.

Oh, and if certain knowledge were established as forbidden? Rafal would still try all the more diligently to go after it. That's how he contended with all things.

And what of Rhian? To Rafal, Rhian was naive. Secretly, Rafal never considered Rhian his match. No way, no how. That brother of his couldn't tell Good from Evil in the simplest of challenges.

The Evil faculty were decently well-meaning, thinking Rafal would be good villain material, but again, they weren't exactly attentive or warm or caring like Good's faculty was in "parenting" Rhian.

They weren't neglectful either, but still, Rafal was left to his own devices outside of lessons, and he grew accustomed to being alone when Rhian wasn't around to play with him. Not that he really played that frequently.

Thus, time passed, and the staff believed the twins to be foundlings. That they were adopted, taken in under their wings. Children of the School.

In reality, the twins were children of the Storian.

Everyone knowingly buys into the lie because they didn't want to think beyond the present. They wanted to believe the brothers were of woman-born, abandoned, and insignificant. But, the truth could only be delayed, not buried.

The brothers are foundlings, they all said, persistently. That's what most of the faculty believed, and that's what the brothers were led to think.

Yet, a select few knew their actual purpose of existence: the brothers were not being trained up to follow the Rules of fairy tales themselves—they were being trained up to rule. (Or rather, "rule" as figureheads for the greater Pen.)

They were bound to the School grounds, and only a few people, none in living memory, knew they belonged to the Storian...

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Any thoughts anyone?

Rafal the Unethical Psychologist - Part 2

Further clarification on what exactly this actually is:

These posts are part of a loose AU collection that will consist of exactly what the title implies. The posts also kind of slice-of-life in a perverse way.

Most of the posts are headcanons, little snippets of scenes, or conversations, but they don't have enough plot or a structure to be a full-fledged story. It's just a vision, a collection of Rafal's musings, mishaps, misadventures, and miscalculations, concerning himself, the students, and his dubious teaching methods.

Also, these posts are largely intended to be humorous and satirical/hyperbolic in tone, sort of. You'll see.

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There will be some posts alluding to "experiments," trials, trial runs for new innovations, among other exercises in scientific rigor, all in order to sate Rafal's curiosity, and suit his personal interests—at least, according to the man himself.

At the discretion of Rafal's brother, "experiments" has been flagged with quotation marks, as he would've preferred the term: "criminal acts" or perhaps, "crimes against humanity."

The psychologist himself however has chosen to override this request, in what will be his latest publication, as according to him, Rhian is a "melodramatic pearl-clutcher," and constantly emits stricken gasps at a high frequency, especially for someone who should be accustomed to his brother's standard operating procedures.

Furthermore, to clear the air, Rhian isn't to be trusted as a reliable narrator of any forthcoming events. As such, readers should take Rhian's interjections of: "Horror. Oh, the horror" lightly.

Next, the term "mishaps" should be taken as "minor misunderstandings," "differences of opinion," or "split-perspectives."

Sophie herself refers to conflicts as: "a clash between you [Rafal], the epitome of sound judgment, and the Woods-Wide Scientific Institute's good sense. Your little tiffs and rows with them are absurd. They can find reason to quarrel about anything!"

Update: It's purported that Sophie has appended more to her previous statement: "Quite frankly, my role is exhausting! Storian knows what you've forced me to witness, stand trial to, mediate and mitigate. I've just about had enough of it, darling!"

Rhian Mistral was unable to comment during the time of the referenced press conference as he was too nauseated to speak. Thus, a written submission by him is pending.

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Bypassing dissenters' commentary, what could possibly go wrong? Nothing. Especially not with the victims, [hacking, wheezing cough, clears throat] ahem, students. My apologies.

Rhian: [with a long sigh] Freudian slip.