It's A Well-known Fact By This Point That Rafal Is Oftenthe More Mature Of The Brothers, But Actually,

It's a well-known fact by this point that Rafal is often the more mature of the brothers, but actually, something interesting I took note of is how this characterization can also be observed symbolically.

Vulcan calls Rhian "duckling." Rhian also wears a swan feather doublet when he attempts to stand up to Vulcan, yet fails, flounders in his role, and doesn't live up to the image of "swan."

And what sort of creature emerges from Rafal's chest as Fala? What at first appears to be a dark, furry duckling, but actually, it matures, and it turns out Rafal's soul has borne a swan.

Then again, Rafal is also somewhat emotionally immature, so it evens out.

A Peek at My Outline Process for The One True School Master of Vault 41

The largely non-spoilery page eight of my ridiculously long outline of TOTSMOV41 (81 pages and counting but with a lot of blank gaps and strange formatting). I don't know if anyone is interested, but essentially, this is an idea of what my inordinately-wordy brain-dump process looks like, usually before I settle on exact phrasings and flesh out scenes, and believe it or not: this is one of the cleaner pages.

And keeping things in chronological order is such a pain, haha. Serves me right because I started drafting chaotically in draft emails before I ever opened a proper Google doc. And I still haven't broken the habit, so now, I have an insanely outrageous grand total of 542 draft emails. Some have a few words, some are pages long, and not all of them are fic related, of course. At the very least, I had the good sense to label them at the time, but I've started opening documents instead, in hopes of forming a new habit.

Here's rough dialogue from a more skeleton-like section of the outline of TOTSMOV41, not fully "rendered" yet:

Agatha: What's he doing out of the grave?

Sophie: I don’t know!

Rafal: Taking a stroll out and about. Being dead is rather pointless. Had to stretch my legs.

Agatha: Can’t you put him back?

Sophie: Ah, well, I’m afraid the flower didn’t offer me a receipt. Besides, even if I could return him, I wouldn’t. I just got him back!

Agatha: Flower? What flower? Are you all right? Are you drugged?

Rafal coughed to interject.

Sophie spoke over him: It’s complicated.

Agatha: But—

Rafal coughed again and cleared his throat, but the girls paid him no mind.

Agatha: Why?

Rafal: As much as I don’t want this quarrel to end, I think we should flee.

The girls looked back.

And together, the three ran.

I never wanted to be a pile of dirt before, but there you have it. I’ve never wanted to be a freshly dug grave more in my life.

This tweet reminds me of Sophie and Rafal. (Though technically, it's untrue because Agatha understood Sophie, but from Sophie's pov, this is pretty accurate.)

I love this art! Incredible clothing design. I particularly love the feathered glove-vambraces. 🖤 🦢

theres like ZERO rafal fanart its so sad 😭

heres me contributing to the rafal fanart from sge