Liketwoswansinbalance - LikeTwoSwansInBalance

These quotations from The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy reminded me of Rhian, mostly from Rise:

“But however much he thought, he found no answer. And when it occurred to him, as it often did, that it was all happening because he had not lived right, he at once recalled all the correctness of his life and drove this strange thought away” (47).

“The dreadful, terrible act of his dying, he saw, was reduced by all those around him to the level of an accidental unpleasantness, partly an indecency [...] in the name of that very ‘decency’ he had served all his life; he saw that no one would feel sorry for him, because no one even wanted to understand his situation. [...] This lie around and within him poisoned most of all the last days of Ivan Ilyich’s life” (37-38).

There's this emotional suffering to it, or if I skew my interpretation, a restlessness, or failure to find love. Rhian's treated like his love life is something barely pitiable, his troubles minimized. He's not awarded any understanding, even by Rafal, his own brother!

No one bothered to sympathize with him because they didn't see his problems as worthwhile. Everyone saw his losses as shallow, generally, I'd say, like: his crush didn't work out, so what? He fell for a major red flag, so what? Even Rafal. Rafal failed at his job as a sympathizer. He lacked empathy, so we have to fault him for that.

Also, I'm pretty sure Rafal would be the type of child to pop Rhian's balloons intentionally when they were younger to spook him.

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.

Truer words have never been spoken.

rise of the school for good and evil? more like how much can we make rafal suffer within 352 pages

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