Haha, I Love This One! It Fits Them So Well. And I Love The Great Gatsby! Do You Think Rhian Would Do

Haha, I love this one! It fits them so well. And I love The Great Gatsby! Do you think Rhian would do a hit-and-run and let Rafal take the fall by forcing him to switch seats?

(Gavaldon could be the Valley of Ashes, and Marialena or the Storian could be Doctor T. J. Eckleburg.)

random sketch that i did while rewatching the great gatsby last night.

i was thinking about this all day LMAO and only got to doing it while watching a movie

...The turn-out of this poll surprised me. I did not realize that I'd get this much interest, so thank you for voting everyone. It seems we have a nearly unanimous consensus. Thus...

I will let Rafal degrade himself in the name of the greater "Good."

(Assuming I end up finishing the draft. It's something under 3,000 words at this point.)

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In fact, I've made some interesting observations about my fics, regarding word counts:

The complete AU premise took > 10,000 words.

A happier resolution to canon took about 4,000 words, to "fix" things.

Yet, breaking things seems to require fewer words, which appears to have some semblance of coherent logic to it, in my mind. As people say: "It takes years to build up trust and only seconds to destroy it."

So, as a general trend, fratricides seem to take over 3,000 words.

(Actually, I remember "THE ONE AND HIS BROTHER" taking more thought than the fratricide fics did to write. I had to think of all the loose ends I wanted to tie up.)

Lastly, the experimental, singular-concept or character-study type of fics seem to be the shortest of them all. (And, if I finish my WIPs, there will be more strange alternate ending or "concept" fics in the future, like my "pirate" Rafal draft, for instance.)

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Also, if anyone ever wants to send in fic-related asks, I'd gladly answer them!

Look, I know this is practically the antithesis of Rafal's character (with his whole "pirates are pests and subpar villain material" ideas and pirates being the opposite of his "orderly civilization" line of thought) but...

If I haven't convinced anyone based on premise alone, here's a drafted excerpt for the heck of it:

The iron stench of blood clung thick in the air, clung to Rafal’s new garments.

Craning his neck upwards at the barque, Rhian could’ve sworn his brother’s clothes smelt of blood, but he couldn’t see a trace of blood on him. Just, streaks of—blue—a strange, deep, sapphire blue on his clothes, tinging the edges of his hair, a spray of an inky substance speckling his jawline and the side of his face, and smears of blue on the… Night Crawlers assembled behind him.

And by the Storian’s grace, were those real Night Crawlers? He’d never seen them outside of storybooks. It was like Rafal had dredged himself out of a storybook, out of the deep undersea, like a myth among myths.

Rhian would have concluded it was blood, but it couldn’t be, could it?

Thoughts?

CONSIDER: Shadows and Light

The Symbolism Surrounding Rhian, Rafal, and the Pan

Fun fact: Under certain conditions, a flame will not cast a shadow.

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As we saw in Rise, Rhian could turn into a golden glow, turn into light, his non-human form, just as Rafal could turn into a shadow.

And those facts bring me to how the Pan subplot and the brothers' main plot might parallel each other more than we may think.

That Hook had to kill the Pan’s shadow was probably no accident. It likely couldn't have been a coincidence—it has to be a casual quality of the magic system in SGE and Peter Pan lore in general, no doubt.

So, we have: killing the shadow (the Pan's or symbolically, Rafal himself).

Rhian killed the shadow to his light.

And besides, an excess of light eradicates all shadows, and fire, specifically, can cast very distorted shadows because it's always in motion, and therefore, it's restless. This could mean fire as a light source could affect the shadow's "power," its appearance, just as Rhian, like a fairy-tale Nemesis (perhaps?), might have weakened Rafal as Rhian became stronger, and that Rhian had been a force that changed or warped Rafal as a person, while also becoming colder himself. Meanwhile, Rafal's hair curled slightly and he gained more color and warmth to his complexion towards the climax of their tale.

I wonder if, in getting his magic back from Hook when it was released, Rhian had been further corrupted or overpowered enough, to overpower Rafal (while, all the while, the Storian had been stripping Rafal of the magic he held) because it didn’t dissipate by itself, with the loss of his immortality(?). Hook could have been acting like a temporary storage unit for that magic, until it returned, meaning the Storian may not have been able to rescind it from Rhian directly.

(And did Kyma release Rhian's magic when it was transferred to her? Or did it just disappear/dissolve without returning to its owner?)

Then, we can ask ourselves: what was the only move that could kill Pan? Somehow, magically killing his shadow. His life source. The apparent source of his immortality.

And, Rhian killing the source of his former immortality (his brother, and as a result, their bond along with Rafal's death)? Well, that’s killing a shadow, too.

Thus, the two plots line up exactly.

Rafal was once Rhian's shadow, in a sense, the person who stayed by him, who saved him again and again. Thus, Rhian destroyed himself, to an extent, by killing that shadow. He not only killed his life source, the love that kept him alive, by severing the twins' bond, but lost a part of his identity when he killed Rafal. Thus, he ages. Like the Pan as he died, Rhian was no longer a perpetual youth, no longer a young "lost boy."

And sometimes, Rhian's shadow strayed too far and left him (Rafal deserting the School at the start), just as Pan’s shadow isn’t always right by the Pan himself. The Pan's shadow had a life and will of its own, seemingly, like Rafal did.

Rafal getting his own life, by venturing out, beyond the School, was one step away from having his identity always tied to Rhian. Maybe, just maybe, Rafal wasn't inseparable, inconceivable without Rhian (the light source), his other half. But, Rafal always did revolve around Rhian (when Rafal had his few, less selfish moments). Because, he simply can’t be brought up or thought of alone, at least not in the tales, in their world. One brother's presence always summons the other's to mind, when you talk about them. That’s how locked together, how insoluble their combined identity was, or plural roles were. The shadow was tethered to his object. They can’t be torn apart, not even in memory, which makes the nature of the tales themselves all the more reductive, dehumanizing, even.

@wisteriaum If you'd like, you can accept this as tribute for your magnificent art! (This was sort of a scene from a WIP, but it doesn't require any context to be understood since it probably won't fit into the plot.)

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In a Modern AU:

Rafal: Why are we friends?

Sophie: I answered the Scheherazade question on trivia night that you couldn’t.

Rafal: Mm. Shouldn’t call you or Rhian a friend or a loved one. Most people get to choose them. You two are more like shots in the heart I can’t remove. Not even surgically. Which senior superlative did you get voted for?

Sophie: “Most Dramatic.” Though, I suppose that’s a given, considering I’m in theater.

Rafal: Huh. That’s surprisingly unproblematic.

Sophie: What do you mean? What did you win, then? [she posed the question, tilting her head.]

Rafal: “Most Likely to Say the Ends Justify the Means,” [he groused.]

Sophie: [drily] Fitting. Verily. How astute of them to notice. [she laughs.] You should be thankful that there isn’t one for “Most Likely to Commit Genocide.”

Rafal: Do I really come across to others that terribly?

Sophie: Not to me. But to everyone else? Yes. Let’s just say you make a certain impression on most. But, you hate almost everyone anyway. And, I know you find me amusing.

Rafal: I don’t hate everyone. I just… find them unstimulating. That’s all.

Sophie: [sighs]

Rafal: What’s that supposed to mean?

Sophie: Nothing, darling, except that, well—no one is likely to act any more interesting than they usually are around you, especially if they fear you. They’re inhibited when in your presence. And, they’re not dull. Granted, some of them are. But most of them are… tolerable. Maybe, more than that: adequate or competent, if we’re speaking in your terms.

Rafal: What do you mean, my terms?

Sophie: You evaluate most people based on what they can offer you and how you can best use them to your own ends, like an old fogey calling the police about oafish children on his lawn, unless they do your yard work.

Rafal: I—

Sophie: Don’t think I haven’t noticed. At the start, you only spared me a glance when I answered the questions you couldn't. Though, I suppose your brother and I are the exceptions, hmm?

Rafal: [stares speechless for a moment.] You read me too well. Never do that in public ever again.

Sophie: Of course, but you’ve got to play your part. Be unpredictable to me for once.

Rafal: There’s no winning with you, is there? [he sighs, resigned.]

Sophie: When has there ever been a chance? I’m your match. Don’t forget it. [she sweeps away.]

Rafal: [dourly] Check. And mate.

Rhian: [steps up, not knowing the context of Rafal’s last conversation] There. Now, you’ve really done it! Blown it with the only girl who’s ever had the nerve and a sufficiently inflated ego to speak to you. Do you know how hard it was to get her paired up with you on trivia night?! I had to convince her you were worth her time!

@discjude Thank you! I'm glad it could turn out to be helpful to you! If you keep track, I'd love to know how many you manage to use—that's a cool idea.

I'm thrilled the Japeth one got to you! (When I came up with his list, I specifically thought: "I wonder if Jude would have anything to say about it?")

Kei is kind of a hard one, to me. Off the top of my head, I'd assign him: turning point, in medias res, and third person limited pov, which is just another way of saying he's a little unknowable, and/or I don't know him well enough as a character aside from the role he played in forwarding the plot. And, I'm referencing his sudden appearance and relevance.

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I should have assigned symbolism to someone, so that goes to Sophie, Guinevere, and the Storian.

Arthur (and the kingdom of Camelot itself) get magical realism/fabulism, and haunting the narrative. And a less modern way of defining Lancelot could've been "the vernacular." Also, Merlin gets puns.

And, I came up with overlap for Rhian I and Rhian II: oxymoron, paradox, and passive voice (especially when used to displace blame onto another, or to leave out a designated, clear subject performing the deed).

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Latin is a roundabout way of saying: “Rafal is old.”

(In One True King, I'm pretty sure Sophie freaks out and derides him, calling him "Father Evil.")

The more elaborate explanation is that he does not and will never suffer from "belatedness." (Except, in the context of Soman drawing inspiration from elsewhere.)

Rafal is the “first,” in a sense, which lends to him the special, rare advantage of not feeling self-conscious of his work. He was likely the "innovator" of Evil, to an extent, we could speculate, and I doubt he was predated by too many exceptional villains, especially considering how he's held up by those at The Black Rabbit as some kind of exemplar, the Master of Evil, who gets a free pass in on some basis of his actual prodigiousness, something other than his just being a feared authority figure.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but: every other villain or antagonist, major or minor, in the entire series (not counting the Storian) exists after him in time, or exists because of him and the influence he exerts, the hostility he elicits, the violence he incites. He's the proverbial "giant," and others stand on his shoulders.

Here, I briefly trawled the internet:

"Quick Reference. In Harold Bloom's theory of literary history (see anxiety of influence), the predicament of the poet who feels that previous poets have already said all that there is to say, leaving no room for new creativity. From: belatedness in The Oxford Dictionary of Literary Terms » Subjects: Literature."

"Belatedness definition: The state or quality of being belated or of being too late."

In addition, while Latin is mostly a reference to Rafal’s age and his lack of suffering from belatedness, it's also the provenance of lots of words from the English language. (I know the Greeks as epic poets came first, but Latin works better for these comparative purposes.) That's why I tied the concept of the etymological roots of words into his list.

If Rafal were a modern scholar, I'm tempted to say he'd pursue the study of philology because it works well for him, as a symbol:

"A theory of language development which traces the ‘family tree’ of modern natural languages like English, French, and German back to their historical origins. The central point of interest of such research is to show the common ancestry of words dispersed across several languages."

Or the common ancestry of all Evil. Horrible, isn't it?

Plus, we might have a sliver of evidence for this so-called "great inheritance" in Fall. Whatever he said to the demimagus in its language or in the language of sorcery (or if we take into account the spells and incantations of SGE in general) they all seem to be derived from Latin, as is common practice among authors.

Thus, he's old—despite being part of an archetype greater than himself anyway. Because, actually, sorry to break it to you: he’s an “Archimago” figure!

(Well, by my interpretation, at least. And besides that, other literary characters I don't know probably predate Edmund Spenser's Archimago as well.)

Thusly, we have:

Lecherous, Bad "Catholic" Rafal -> Making Good Holy Knights Doubt Their True Love, Truth, and Faith & Posing As An Ancient Hermit Since 1590.

I promise I'm not insane. If anyone would like some reference:

SGE Characters as Literary Things

(Not all of these are actual literary or rhetorical devices; some are just writing techniques, forms, genres, mediums, etc.)

This is a bit abstract, so I’m curious about how subjective these might be. Does anyone agree or disagree? And feel free to make additions if you think I left anything out, or request another character that isn’t here.

Hopefully this makes (intuitive?) sense. As always, I'm willing to explain my thought process behind any of the things I've listed.

Also, anyone can treat this like a “Tag Yourself” meme, if you want. Whose list do you most relate to, use, or encounter?

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LANCELOT (I know—how odd that I’m starting with a minor character and not Rafal, but wait. There’s a method to my madness. Also, watch out for overlap!):

Metonymy, synecdoche (no, literally, to me, these are him.)

Zeugma

Analogy

Figures of speech

Slang, argot

Colloquialisms

Idioms

TEDROS:

Simile

Metaphor

Rhyming couplets

Rhyme schemes

Sonnets

Commercial fiction

Coming-of-age genre

Line enjambment

Overuse of commas

Cadence, prose speech

Waxing poetic, verse (not prose)

Alliteration

Kinesthetic imagery

Phallic imagery/sword sexual innuendos (sorry)

The chivalric romance genre

AGATHA:

Anaphora, repetition

Semicolon, periods

Line breaks

Terse, dry prose

Semantics (not syntax)

Elegy

Resonance

Consonance, alliteration

Pseudonym

Narrative parallels

Realism

Satire

SOPHIE:

Sophistry (yes, there is a word for it!)

Imagery

Italics, emphasis

Em dash

Aphrodisiac imagery

Unreliable narrator, bias

Rashomon effect

Syntax (not semantics)

Diction

Chiasmus (think: “Fair is foul and foul is fair.”)

Rhetorical purpose

Provocation, calls to action

Voice, writing style

Rhetorical modes: pathos, logos, ethos

Metaphor

Hyperbole, exaggeration

Sensationalism, journalism

Surrealism

Verisimilitude

Egocentrism

Callbacks (but not foreshadowing or call-forwards)

Narrative parallels

Paralepsis, occultatio, apophasis, denial

Hypothetical dialogue

Monologue

JAPETH:

Sibilance

Lacuna

Villanelle (an obsessive, repetitive form of poetry)

Soliloquy

ARIC:

Sentence fragments

RHIAN (TCY):

Unreliable narrator

Setup, payoff

Chekhov’s gun

Epistolary novel

RHIAN (prequels):

Multiple povs

Perspective

Dramatic irony

Situational irony

Chiaroscuro (in imagery)

Endpapers

Frontispiece

Deckled edges

Narrative parallels

Foreshadowing

Call-forwards

Foil

Death of the author

RAFAL:

Omniscient narrator

Perspective

Surrealism

Etymology

Word families or 'linguistic ecosystems'

Latin

Verbal irony

Gallows humor

Narrative parallels

Call-forwards

Circular endings

Parallel sentences or balanced sentence structure

Narrative parallels

Foil

Juxtaposition

Authorial intent (“return of the author”)

HESTER:

Protagonist

Allusions

Gothic imagery

ANADIL:

Defamiliarization

Deuteragonist (second most important character in relation to the protagonist)

Psychic distance

Sterile prose

Forewords, prologues

Works cited pages

DOT:

Tone

Gustatory imagery

Tritagonist (third most important character in relation to the protagonist)

KIKO:

Sidekick

Falling action

Dedications, author's notes, epigraph, acknowledgements

Epitaph (Tristan)

BEATRIX:

Pacing

Rising Action

Climax

HORT:

Unrequited love

Falling resolution

Anticlimax

Malapropism

Innuendo

Asides

Brackets, parentheses

Cliché

EVELYN SADER:

Synesthetic imagery

Villanelle

Foreshadowing

AUGUST SADER:

Stream of consciousness style

Imagery

Foreshadowing

Coming-of-age genre

Elegy

Omniscience

Rhetorical questions

Time skips, non-linear narratives

Epilogues

MARIALENA:

Diabolus ex machina

Malapropism

Malaphors, mixed metaphors

Slant rhyme

Caveat

Parentheses

Footnotes

MERLIN:

Deus ex machina

Iambic pentameter

Filler words

BETTINA:

Screenwriting

Shock value

Round VIII of Excerpts from The One True School Master of Vault 41

I'm only dropping a few short snippets from the draft (currently at around 178 pages—I haven't been doing much with it lately since the last update) because they connect in a very incorrect, misleading way, which I find funny, even if I already know the context with the redacted parts. Sorry (or not sorry)! Things aren't what they appear to be, and that's all I can say for now.

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[When I re-read this part, it occurred to me that I had possibly written an unintentional but legitimate burn.]

[...]

Rafal stared at her in the mask. “What are you wearing that for?”

“I-I felt strange, looking in the mirror. And well, the mask makes me feel less like you…”

[...]

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Rafal had made up his mind. He would execute his plan, no matter the consequences.

[...]

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[...] Sophie really was timely. Or perhaps, she was watching him [...] The thought almost made him laugh.

[...]

"Death to the School Master!" He raised a fist, and led them to class.

"DEATH TO THE SCHOOL MASTER!" They chanted in unison.

All according to plan.