The Storian To The Brothers, Centuries Ago: I've Rescuedyou From Mediocrity. Be Grateful.

The Storian to the brothers, centuries ago: I've rescued you from mediocrity. Be grateful.

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Rafal to Rhian: I've rescued you from being alone. You have me. You don't need anyone else.

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"Rafal" to Sophie: I've rescued you from mediocrity and from being alone. Why aren't you happy?

Sophie: Were you ever happy?

Agatha: Did anyone ever bother to ask what we wanted?!

"Rafal": No? Why is that important?

Draft Excerpt from a Potential WIP Fic

This is set in Stymph Forest, during Rise. It isn't a TOTSMOV41 excerpt.

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He tossed his blackened handkerchief into the glade from atop his high perch.

It landed in the circle of Stymphs, the birds arranged much like a fairy ring of living corpses.

His birds stared back up at him. One cocked its head.

Rafal smirked back.

Here he was, airing out dirty laundry. Literally if not figuratively.

Bah! That was Good’s job. Exposing villains. And whatever went on amongst his graduates.

Lately, the lot of them had been disappointments. But really, all that was the decline of the youth. Couldn’t be his teaching methods. His methods had never failed him before.

A few decades ago, villainy was worthwhile. Not now.

Ought he to change?

No. The problem lay with the students themselves. Children were becoming stupider with every passing generation.

Probable that the tales were making their parents soft. Less bloodshed these days. Fewer blood oaths than ever, even if his from a century ago hadn’t been the last. Far from it.

Yet, allowing the stupid duffers to live and procreate had been a mistake on the Pen’s part. They were the culprits, from a few generations back. The tales ought to have not been so merciful, sparing them!

A few too many dimwitted Evers and even the slower Nevers he’d not seen before in his time hadn’t just managed to stall their deaths with the comforts of advancing technology and so-called conveniences. They’d seemingly thrived.

And restaurants! In the densest parts of the Woods, no less. And spellcasts. And squirrely nuts of all things! Even the vermin had longer memories than his students did, if they could recite letters with that much precision.

It was more than he could say about his latest class. Besides the rampant insubordination and how they’d just barely passed their last impromptu examination.

They’d had it too soft for too long. Those conveniences wouldn’t be so convenient when they were stranded alone in the Woods. When they had nothing but birds and cloaks for company. Not even birds in their cases, he reasoned. His Stymphs served him and him alone.

No wonder those parents’ offspring couldn’t keep up with his curriculum. They’d all gone to rot—brains leaking through their ears, moth-eaten attention-spans. Worse every generation, it was.

It was all ludicrous, this, this accursed modernity. Look what it’d bought them: a marked lack of survival skills.

And the result of that deficit was premature deaths when the cushioning ceased to exist, when all the fail-safes excess inter-kingdom tourism had engineered fell to ruins like all enterprises did in time, like the hotels and spas some of his brother’s vapid colleagues couldn’t even begin to live without did. And they called themselves “professionals.”

He tossed his head back, tilting his chin skywards. Nothing endured forever. Not even the stars.

Forever was only as long as you could prolong it to be, through sheer force of will, and that was assuming you were shrewd enough to see forthcoming disaster on the horizon.

And if the tales didn’t result in death, then they ended with the living afflicted by grave stupidity. Which was worse. Incurably worse than ridding the Woods of the problem at all.

Yet, Good’s mortality rates these days were at an all-time low.

He couldn’t ease up. Not now. When he’d return, he’d require better performance from them all—if only so they could crane their necks to live up to great heights and exceed his expectations as Nevers. Prove they were deserving of his attention.

His eyes lit up as he grinned to himself.

And, if they couldn’t, well, there was always the chopping block. Or the pruning shears for Mogrifs.

He couldn’t let old standards decline. Not even while he was gone.

If he could scout out someone exemplary, to replace the rancid, rotted-through students with, those limp-spined lost causes, maybe they’d rally together and make something of themselves. Live to see another day in their future tales, if they garnered the Pen’s attention at all.

It was the best he could do.

That said, he should probably keep up with the tales while he was away, once they were released into the Woods, via printed copies, if not the Pen’s first editions.

There’d be a delay in acquiring storybooks, but what could go wrong in his absence? The manor was secure, even if his brother wasn’t fortress material.

I love how his hair turned out in this one. It's very sheep-like!

because my brain has to relate everything that exists to sge i drew an undertale sprite of rhian because i remembered undertale existed

also i am not a pro at pixel art so if it looks wonky thats why😭

Whichever reference you used, I think it looks excellent!!! I love the addition of the feathers, and yes, the trial he spent all trussed up like that was one of my favorite scenes—so ironic that he of all people was actually caught.

Could you draw Rafal in a straitjacket please? I just think it would be funny.

i spent so long looking at references for straitjackets cause every image on google and pinterest looked different😭

anyway, i took some inspiration from rise since there’s actually a scene in rise where he’s in a straitjacket lol (which is why there are feathers)

hope this satisfies!

I'd try to give Rafal little dollhouse plates, to see if he'd try to shatter them. Rhian can get a thimble of red wine.

very simple tutorial, make sure to follow otherwise they may bite

If you get this, answer w/ three random facts about yourself and send it the last five blogs in your notifs. Anon or not, doesn’t matter, let’s get to know the person behind the blog <3

As this uses the word “random,” I will try to be random, accordingly.

I currently have four instruments in my house: a piano, one plastic recorder, and decorative, dusty flamenco castanets and a replica bagpipe (gaita) on the wall. (Also, a strange thing I'm willing to bet people will find random: there is a miniature model hórreo (type of granary) in our dining room. It only takes up a bureau surface in a corner, but even if it did take up a lot of space, it wouldn't matter much because our dining table is covered in stacks of paperwork, so we can't actually eat there, unless we cleared it off for guests, haha.)

Rosemary Wells’ picture books were some of my favorites as a kid.

“Speech" incoming.

I had an interesting conversation yesterday that reminded me of something I think about every so often—I absolutely love the Hold Someone to Their Exact Words Exploitive Loophole as a trope and am a bit of a grammar enthusiast. However, I would never go into law. (And I understand having varying dialects and cultural differences. I think some people irl, even those with mostly standard "correct" speech, are just bored by grammatical/structural/rhetorical features, so I don't get to talk about it often.)

Fun fact: if you remove certain modal verbs from your speech and use declarative statements, you may automatically sound more confident in what you’re talking about. I don’t know if you can bluff with this trick/tip, but maybe someone out there will find it useful.

Second fun fact: To anyone, not even just English language learners, the native speakers I've observed lately often don't use the subjunctive (the hypothetical tense) or the right forms of adverbs when they should. It's surprisingly common, using phrasing like "was" instead of "were” in if-then statements. That said, maybe some people don't know or go for authenticity in oral speech over "correctness." And ultimately, there's nothing wrong with that. Breaking the rules for expressive or artistic purposes is fine!

However, I do have an example that bothers me because I haven't found a way around it. It's when people say: [omitted: "Get it done] quick!"

"Quick" used as a second person command works so well because it has a hard, monosyllabic impact, but it's wrong. If I'm not mistaken, "Quickly" would be the correct form. Why can't I be dramatic and correct at the same time, language?