Do You Think The School Is Exempt From Having To Pay Taxes?

Do you think the School is exempt from having to pay taxes?

Yes, I do think the School is exempt from taxes, and there is no canonical evidence I can remember which suggests it is subject to taxes.

Given that funding was never an issue (or flat-out irrelevant to the plot) to Rhian with his renovations, as he never seemed to have any trouble getting the work done that he wanted, that could mean the School isn't subject to taxes, or that taxes were a minor enough non-issue amid everything else that went wrong that they wouldn't have warranted a mention in the narration.

Also, the School is a private institution, which could mean the Kingdom Council has less power to intervene with its ongoings, at least towards the beginning?

Aside from that, throughout the main series and the prequels, the School is capable of magically terraforming all on its own, usually on the basis of who is its master(s). Indeed, it's as if the setting were a character in its own right.

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If you had wanted to hear from the brothers themselves:

Rafal: Why care about the answer? I’m the only authority that matters. [expression and inflection darkening] If the Kingdom Council has a quarrel with that fact, by all means, I’m willing to negotiate.

Rhian: Rafal! Must you always embarrass me in front of polite company?!

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Yes, they are breaking the fourth wall.

I personally wouldn’t put Rafal above tax evasion, assuming he’d find a smart way to do it and never get caught. After all, he initially only wants “the best” for his School and Nevers, and for his alumni to emerge as the victors of the tales, from the eternal war of his Woods. If taxes wouldn't bode well for future Evil victories, well, he'd simply have to do away with them, wouldn't he?

And, he wouldn’t want needless fuss over his breaking the law, not that he cares about staying within the rule of law as a fugitive in Monrovia's eyes, so he'd probably stay within the bounds of the law rationally, within reason, unless he were certain he could get around them.

That, I’d figure, would be Rafal’s attitude towards the Woods' law and order in general, when the laws aren’t his own. If you want to hear about his unfortunately sour attitude toward my readers, you can read this similar ask dialogue post, in which he addresses all of you directly, once again, breaking the fourth wall.

Fun fact: The red sky was described in one of the excerpt posts I released.

Devils Horns sunrise during a partial eclipse (2019) located: Al Wakrah, Qatar

I am really curious to see your take on Aric and Japeth's relationship. I mean, the beloved author and creator of the series have addressed this issue with 'in their own sick wicked way they had loved' so yeah it's cannon cool. But I feel like the further implications of this? We saw evil 'unable to love'/ 'only ever have true love'. From what I remember Japeth mentioned Aric more than once, how they would write letters to each other how Aric 'begged' for Japeth to come to him but Japeth never did so and then bro spent the last of his life trying to bring Aric back to life. There are so many implications, the dynamics, the context, everything, but I love how you theorise and explore all sorts of ideas so I can't help but wonder how you view all of this :D.

Thanks for taking the time to read this and have a great day/afternoon/evening/night!

Sorry to disappoint, but I should probably start off with the fact that I don't ship Japeth and Aric. While I like Japeth, partly in thanks to @discjude winning me over, and further recognizing the tragedy surrounding him, his relationship to Aric never canonically does him any favors. And, with Aric, I think I'm apathetic enough towards him that I don't actively hate him; I just don't care about him. In truth, if not for Aladdin's pitiful existence actively hammering on my nerves, Aric would probably be my least favorite character.

The first thing I want to address is that Evil being "unable to love" or "only Evers have True Love" is actually false, despite the many times the series puts forth this claim. Yes, we are explicitly told this "fact" in book 1, but the book's point was to subvert/deconstruct the myth.

First, by the end, with her self-sacrifice, Sophie proved Evil's capacity to love, meaning: Evil being unable to love is just a commonly-held belief in the Woods, not the absolute, be-all, end-all truth.

(And the belief could've been perpetuated by "Rafal's"/Rafal's way of running his institution that literally shapes the Wood's perceptions and the future. Alongside this claim about love, consider the existence of the Doom Room, created to punish a singular mutinous class of first-years, based on a now-revised philosophy about Nevers' learning from harsh treatment and (probably) disproportionate retribution that an excessively stubborn dead man already too entrenched in his old ways never had the chance to change because he died—and this is all aside from the fact proven by the display at the very first Circus of Talents, that Rafal's students did indeed learn better when he finally listened to them and mentored them as an equal in their position (as Fala). In addition, the statement: "Nevers learn from deprivation" similarly reveals how the Woods really do generalize about Nevers—until Sophie, the "exception" and iconoclast, comes along.)

Second, Sophie's non-romantic True Love at some point was said to be Agatha, and I think this established fact is consistently maintained throughout the series, even if other elements overshadow it, so not only Evers can have True Love.

My take on Japeth and Aric is that Japeth's love for Aric, however twisted or sincere it was, drove him to become the Snake, follow along with Rhian's Camelot ambitions and initial staging-terrorism-and-hostage-scenarios plot, and commit all his other, duplicitous, villainous acts throughout TCY, later by his own will, which is a motive I find fascinating (and contradictory about the nature of the Woods' Good and Evil souls, whenever Japeth is set next to the rather grey Rhian).

So, while Japeth's devotion to Aric could be viewed as romantic, it's just not appealing to me, personally, due to the relationship's ambiguous one-sidedness in particular. And, I think I once may've read something about Japeth as a Never fighting for True Love (or his perception of "True Love") and Rhian as an Ever fighting for power (the Nevers' ideal fairy-tale ending) being ironic or inverted in some way. That's also some world-building fodder to consider, or even just another point that could overturn the Rules as we know them, yet again. I'm not surprised by that subversion honestly. Japeth is very much like his parents. Nearly every SGE villain Soman has ever written has been motivated by the pursuit of love, or by the overwhelming force of their own (often obsessive) infatuations (with the exception of somewhat flatter, less-developed, secondary villains, like Aric, Vulcan, Marialena, and Peter Pan).

Also, thanks for the compliment!

Inspired by the nursery rhyme "Rub-a-dub-dub":

Rub-a-dub-dub, Three mortals in a tub, And who do you think they be? The princess, the witch, the former School Master, Run from the burnt Wizard Tree.

if she's your girl then how come she's hallucinating my 10,000-y.o. dripping wet corpse

Remember my "turn your blorbo into a mythical being" poll? Get ready for the sequel:

Clarifications below:

-"Involuntary Beast Form" means 1) turning into an animal under certain conditions, and 2) losing human cognition. Examples include were-creatures and the curse from Ladyhawke

"Monstrous Appearance" could include turning into animals IF they retain human intelligence. Examples include Brother Bear, Frog Princess, and Beast from "Beauty and the Beast"

-"Speech Constraints" means limits on what you can say. Examples include "can only speak the truth," "can only speak in rhyme," and even "cannot speak aloud at all" like in Little Mermaid.

-"Gradual Degradation" is something that spreads across the body over time and will eventually be lethal, or as good as lethal. Examples include mummy rot or slow zombification

-"Confined/Exiled" is like, "you can never enter you home again," or "you can never leave this glade again." It is distinct from being trapped in an object, because you're still able to interact with the regular world, just in a smaller space. "Indiana Jones Grail Knight" as opposed to "Genie in a Lamp"

-"Cursed Loved Ones" can be any curse, but it has to happen to the blorbo's loved ones instead of to them specifically. Assume, for the purposes of this poll, that your blorbo has at least one person this curse applies too. Same for killing a loved one.

-Yes, vampirism counts as its own curse

How much do I have to pay you to draw Rafal as this image

HELLO I AM BACK

you pay me by finally making me do this trend after like two months of thinking about it

also my process is so wonky here LMAO just ignore all the layer switches and stuff

(modern rhian coming soon)