#japeth sader-mistral of foxwood

[secretly-a-catamount]

Despite Rhian being both Evelyn and Rafal’s favorite, Japeth is actually the one who’s most like them.

He killed his brother and then stole his identity, all to raise his lover from the dead, a lover who never loved him at all.

They loved Rhian because he was what they wanted to be. Good.

They hated Japeth because he was what they were. Evil.

[iamverynormalaboutsge]

I want to cry when I think of the old gen in SGE.

You're telling me it's canon that Lady Lesso was Callis' Dean (With Callis being the not-so-ugly uglification teacher).

It's cannon that Lady Lesso absolutely despised Evelyn and Rafal because hello, Evelyn ratted her out and Rafal forced her to make a choice, BUT THEN Evelyn and Rafal's son (Japeth) is obsessed with Lady Lesso's son (Aric).

It's cannon that 2 generations, no, THREE generations of evil were obsessed with Sophie? Rafal(love interest), Rhian(Love interest)/Japeth(Interest) and Evelyn(Interest). Although truth be told Evelyn was probably a bit irritated after she read the Story of Agatha and Sophie and saw Sophie kissing Rafal. Maybe she pushed it to the side with 'Oh it's fine, he's just using her'. Ok Miss Clown and you think he ain't using you? She probably realized he is when he turned her to dust.

Do you guys ever think that Sophie thinks that she practically dated a father and his son(s)? As we know her probably not.

Here's my question, I can't exactly recall if in book 5 when we are shown how Rhian and Japeth's existence came about if Rafal was young and beautiful or not(aka if he was old).

But if he WASN'T old and ugly then what happened in the meantime? How did he turn wrinkled and ugly as hell?

Was he also ugly or not when he tried to propose with Calissa? Cuz I can't remember for the life of me.

Are we also just gonna ignore that Evelyn was practically on the streets and that the Green Knight, the OG Japeth took care of her? Talk about being a deadbeat dad Rafal (cough RHIAN cough).

How does he keep seducing all these women?! I mean with Calissa it was a fail, Sophie was easily manipulated, and hell only knows what Evelyn's thinking process was given how easily she dismissed her each time she tried to be 'useful' to him.

Do you guys think Rafal knew that Japeth liked Aric? And if so is that why he made Aric the Dean of New evil(besides his own...evilness and the fact that he is Lady Lesso's son and inherited her magic).

We don't forget that 'Rafal' literally laughed when he was told he'd have to marry a woman for evil, right? Right? And then he became the Number 1 playboy. But the apple doesn't fall far from the tree because his true name sake(Rhian) took Sophie for the same reason (power) as his father while liking Kei and Japeth, the son that took after him, took Sophie with the intent of reviving Aric.

(I still refuse to believe Japeth was conscious of how Aric would act towards him when he came back. Japeth x Aric feels like it has a weird symmetry to Evelyn x Rafal due to the possible toxicity between the two given Aric was low-key homophobic. Well... More than low-key but that's beside the point)

[liketwoswansinbalance]

Vague Non-Spoiler

(This is partly just a reminder to myself, but maybe someone will also find verbing nouns interesting.)

In TOTSMOV41, Japeth and Sophie each "pull a Rafal" (two completely different deeds), Rafal "pulls a Sophie," and Agatha "pulls an August Sader."

[flah-se-dah]

Here have a quick sader-mistral twins drawing I did on my phone during break because I know no one in my french class

[rosie-xeilia]

Random OCs I just made up

I wondered what if Rhian and Japeth had another sibling, soooo.....

Introducing... Mariposa Evelyn Sader-Mistral!

She has long, wavy brown hair down to her waist. Her good looks attest to her attractive parents. Her sports a slender frame that made a fair lot of people in Foxwood fall for her(much to the ire of her brothers, Rhian and Japeth)

Mariposa is the youngest of the three triplets

She has a half good, half evil soul, somehow

She controls butterflies, similar to her mother

Rhian is fusses over her. Japeth is the kind of brother that watches over their sibling in the darkness, randomly popping up to help them whenever they need it

She and Aric get along surprisingly well, considering Aric's dislike for girls. She is the only girl that Aric actually tolerates

She knows Chaddick as they attended the same school before he was taken as a student for the School for Good

She was however, taken in the second book to become a student in the School for Girls

She is on board with changing everything back to Good and Evil and thinks the Boys and Girls divide is stupid considering she has 2 brother triplets

Helps Agatha with avoiding Evelyn's butterflies and everything

Aric froze the second his violet eyes landed on the slender brunette. He prowled around Mariposa, his narrowed eyes inspecting every inch of the girl.

"So it's really you.." he mumbled.

"Who else do you think it is?" Mariposa demanded, placing her hands on her hips glaring at him through her long bangs as the lightly coloured butterflies on her dress and the ones around her fluttered faster. "Some voodoo doll from some crackpot?"

Aric could only snort, glancing at her in fond exasperation. Not that anyone could tell but her of cource. All anyone else saw was him glaring at her.

"Mariposa?" Chaddick blurts out, his cheeks alighting a bright pink as silvery eyes lanced right through him. "Well - uh-"

Mariposa offered him a half-hearted smile before she turned to the door.

"Weasel-boy should be coming soon." she hummed, sitting herself on a bed. Not at all looking repulsed at the dirty sheets that will probably stain her white dress.

"Mariposa, what are you doing here." Aric finally cracks. "Shouldn't you be with your brothers?"

"Mother brought me here. Dunno why though." Mariposa hummed.

A light purple butterfly fluttered into the room onto her palm. She lifted to delicately to her ear, listening to its quite meeps while the room stayed quiet.

They were, put quite simply, galled at the girl. A person from their enemy school who's butterfly traits corresponded eerily to their Dean. Their captain obviously knew her and made no attempt to harm her. And then, she talked to them breezily and sat on one of their beds.

She stood up, brushing her dress of daintily before she smiled sweetly at the black-haired boy.

"Well, Agatha will be here soon. Aric, do be a dear and escort them to young Princy Tedros." her lips quirked up at the nickname before she spun. The breezy dress swirled around her and the butterflies flew off her dress, spinning like a tornado for a second before they pressed to skin. A single pure white butterfly rose into the air before it fluttered out the room.

"I fou-

So yeah! That's all I got for now. Maybe I'll continue this soon. Maybe not.

[secretly-a-catamount]

WIP for a fanfic, I guess

  Dinner was a tense affair. The meal itself was lovely, of course, Camelot’s chefs not knowing how to make any other kind. A lush, creamy, goat-milk, lemon, and mint soup with a side of pan-fried potatoes wedges. Six separate salads, three of which were composed entirely of fruit. Roasted nuts and seeds dipped in a salty black sauce. Cuts of nearly every kind of meat imaginable, waterfowl and poultry, white meat and black meat, livestock and game, all so tender they bled juice the moment a knife sliced through their crust.

  Sophie ventured into the topic of conversation near the start of the sixth course. Her jade green eyes focused on the man seated across the table from her, taking note of the fact that his plate was a mirror of her own, treated more like a prop than something he was actually going to use.

  “Japeth, darling, do tell me about yourself. Your brother and I already get along so swimmingly”—sitting on her right, Rhian gave a wane smile, as if he was amused with her half-truth—“and since we’re going to be roommates I thought—“

  Japeth’s head snapped up. “What did you just say?”

  “There’s no need to throw a hissy-fit around it, I’m not any happier about this than you are,” Sophie sniffed, nibbling on the edge of a cucumber sandwich, “your brother’s the one who suggested it.”

  “Than he can un-suggest it.” Japeth snarled, tightened his grip on his knife, wearing the resigned expression of a dog who knew a beating was coming but was too tired to try and defend himself.

  Rhian didn’t look up. In the low light cast from the fireplace at the other end of the room the scar on his head looked like a thick, pink rat tail. Sophie had to fight the urge to reach over and brush it off.

  “Rhian—“

  “I’m not going to answer you while you’re emotional like this, Japeth, it’s unbecoming for our family.”

  “Rhian—“

  “Control your emotions, Japeth.” Rhian reprimanded, with the inflection of someone who was saying something so obvious it didn’t merit repeating.

  Like wiping a chalkboard clean, Japeth slowly managed to ‘control his emotions’, as Rhian had said, although not without some effort. Sophie was disappointed, she’d been hoping that they’d kill each other.

  “Better?” Japeth spat through clenched teeth.

  “Extremely.”

[liketwoswansinbalance]

Wizard Guessing Game

Somebody sent Tedros to the insane asylum (not literally) in TOTSMOV41. Guess who.

I'm sure you've all heard of: "Which witch is which?" Well, this is: Which wizard is this? Feel free to write out your reasoning. I'm curious.

Tedros’ head lolled to the side. “'Tis ungodly, my hears. Ears. Myne eyen hear. 's the Evil wizard, foul, foul." He laughed to himself as if he had witnessed a joke no one else was privy to. His head snapped to the other side sharply, his gaze unfocused. "No—foul fowl!” he burbled in a daze, approaching incoherence.

[liketwoswansinbalance]

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!

[liketwoswansinbalance]

hi, do you have any takes/opinions or analysis of japeth? sorry if you've already posted something and i've missed it, i'm just eagerly hunting for japeth content 🫡🫡

I haven’t really done any substantial #japethposting, or anything exactly full-scale, but he has been a part of certain sections of some of the analyses I've done. You can find some of them by typing "#japeth" into the search bar of my blog. Or, if anyone wants me to, I could look for the links and send them to you. And, this overall precedent doesn’t mean I won’t possibly post about him in the future, potentially if/when I start my reread of The Camelot Years.

Generally speaking, I don't think I've paid enough attention to him to be able to analyze him in great depth. That said, I will redirect you to @discjude as she/they is/(are?) the Japeth expert, and her/their analyses are phenomenal! (Please tell me if I've gotten your pronouns wrong and sorry in advance if anything is wrong, Jude.)

Though, I will leave you with one meager headcanon: it seems unlikely, but if Japeth were musically-inclined, I think he’d play atypical instruments, like the serpent and the ophicleide because of course he would. Music could be his opportunity to rebel, defy what's expected of him, while also referencing his snake symbolism.

Here, you can listen to some orchestral performances involving these instruments. If you start the first of the videos around the timestamp 3:38 and listen to the end, you can hear the deeper, foreboding, lower-pitched parts and some tense, stringent parts that sound higher, like his Scims whirling, to my mind. There's a very obviously sinister "march" of sorts, with ghastly, winding, serpentine "movements," twists, and turns.

[iamverynormalaboutsge]

SGE roasts because I have a love-hate relationship with this book series

Look guys! It's everyone's favourite twins! Mentally unstable gay homophobic twin and mentally unstable gay twin! (Rhian and Japeth)

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If I had a nickel for every time two hormonal twins were the sole reason for an entire war around the entire world(endless woods) I would have two nickels. Which isn't a lot but it's weird that it happened twice and that they are from the same bloodline. (Rafal and Rhian OG twins+ Jr Rhian and Japeth/Jr Rafal)

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Ah yes the 'Its not a phase mom!'(Agatha) and Barbie(Sophie) friendship trope

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It's everyone's favourite love triangle! Dumb rich b#txh(Tedros), Entitled b#txh(Sophie), and too tired for their bs b#txh(Agatha)

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Look guys, it's the toxic yaoi of the fandom! Purple grape and mint leaf stick (Aric X Japeth)

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Ah yes. The twins. The oxidated copper and normal copper. (Rhian and Japeth)

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Would you look who is here? The 'I don't get paid enough for this'!(The entire faculty of SGE)

[iamverynormalaboutsge]

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@liketwoswansinbalance this is a swap AU. My head spins with it. I am curious to hear from you and maybe @discjude what you think other swap roles would work here?

Like what's going on with Aric and Japeth? Japeth swapped Rhian and Aric swapped Kei. Now what???

What are the dynamics.

What about Caliss? Is she now the birth mother of Agatha and Sophie? Or is it still Vanessa? Help me I am having a crisis

[liketwoswansinbalance]

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?

⸻

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

[iamverynormalaboutsge]

Are we just not going to talk about HOW exactly Aric got kicked out of the Arbed house? As far as I am concerned in that school they had boys who were evil to the rotten core and abandoned there by their parents in the hope the school reforms them, reshapes them, loves them into form, and some old ladies that were as equally as bad, acting like fairy Godmothers because in truth they knew how bad those kids actually were. So you will tell me that Kei, Rhian and the other boys and or old women kicked Aric out and Japeth had to just watch?

I mean that's my take on it because broski survived the woods long enough to be found and then kill a dog and attempt to kill the daughter of the family that saved him. And then we all know what he did when he ended up in the School for Good and Evil (Boys and Girls and then New Evil and Old Evil). I mean...? He is pretty wild, sure he has no magic(I mean he does but not to the extend of mastering it. He DID get a hole into Lady Lesso's shield with his finger glow that he either had unlocked as a kid or more likely Lady Lesso is a sorceress and her genes passed down to Aric), and sure he is pretty feral and brutal, primal if you may. But it messes me up how they somehow managed to take him out of the Arbed house if Aric cared for Japeth even in the slightest to then send him letters while he was at the school asking him to come back. Maybe he felt the need for an equal just how Tedros found an equal in Rhian instead of Chaddick? I mean I know they are cannon but I think of them and go 'toxic yaoi'. Also I can't help it but think that Aric is actually bi because come on. Come on he flirted with Sophie and Hester.

Excuse me but he just flirted with Hester right after he stabbed her just a few weeks/months ago (in the said moment when he did flirt with her to when the trial by tales happened). I don't know what his thinking process is to seduction but there certainly is a reason that Rafal(actually Rhian) looked at Aric and went 'this is my favourite subordinate now'.

[liketwoswansinbalance]

A Little, Non-Spoilery Ranking of Who Suffers the Most in TOTSMOV41:

1. Rafal

2. Agatha/Japeth (Not sure yet who has it worse.)

3. Tedros

4. Sophie (Her suffering is… how shall I put it? Less material and more psychological in nature.)

As usual, this may be subject to change as I get further in the writing process. Rhian is not on the list because his guest appearances (more like cameos) are too minor too count. If he were on the list, he'd probably tie with Agatha and Japeth.

[iamverynormalaboutsge]

Wake up fellow cult followers of the SGE cult it's time for conspiracy/symbolism irony because we need to bully the SGE villains to heal the mental breakdowns and meltdowns they gave us while we read the SGE series

What do you mean it's Aric? A-R-I-C spelled as Eric???

Nah dog it's Arici spelled as Arici

Tf you mean that this. With this

Were the sole reason the last 3 books of the SGE series were a mess?

Japeth what were you even thinking brother, you aren't even the same regnum. You're a serpentine he's a mammal get over it.

Also I forgot that the master mind behind all of this was this:

And the one that could have prevented all of this from happening died and brother was literally a freaking

Oh and all of it was helped and continued via three of these

And we also got a puppet because of course we need puppets.

And it's this

And this

I can't even- HOW DOES THIS WORK?!?!?

Rhian: *laughs because fairy safer bestie told him that he will have to marry a wicked girl*

Agatha, Sophie and Tedros too would have laughed if you told them that two puppets, three sticks, two birds, a hedgehog and a snake would be the whole reason they have severe headaches in the future. WITHOUT MENTIONING THE ACOLYTES LIKE-

Kei? Sounds like Chei, which is:

I can't stress this enough what is this-

So

This is hilarious given that Kei trapped Tedros in a cell via some keys so like-

Oh my, good lord

Someone pour me up a double shot of whiskey

[liketwoswansinbalance]

How do you think the twins (like all of them in SGE) would act in real life?

I'm not sure if I'm interpreting your question correctly, so you can correct me if I'm wrong! I will take the ask to mean that you'd like to know how I think they would they adjust to our modern world, not necessarily them in a Modern AU. (Also, would you like me to include Castor and Pollux? I'm not sure if I'd have an immediate response for them, but I'll try to think of something, if you'd like me to.)

Sophie and Rise Rhian would probably embrace modern conveniences, and Rhian would likely exhibit more fear than Sophie would, in response to them, or he'd conceptualize things like electricity, for instance, as a just another form of sorcery. They would both appreciate modern cosmetics and technology, and Sophie would probably never want to return to old, backward ways when the future is so pristine and sanitary. Rhian, however, would mourn the great architectural feats of our past and our obsession with pragmatism and designs purely focused on utility. Unfortunately, I could see them being prone to believing absurd, medical/political conspiracy theories, and their germophobia becoming worse.

Agatha, Rafal, TCY Rhian, and Japeth would be more skeptical about modernity, at first, I think. Agatha would probably grow used to it, but continue to live by her old ways and values, in many cases. She might get into environmentalism, humanitarian causes, or antiwar efforts, etc. If either Rafal, Rhian, or Japeth saw a use or benefit to modern technology and ways of life, they would likely adapt, especially if it could get them something they desperately wanted. Rhian would probably use some form of broadcasting or social media frequently—and eventually get cancelled. I could also see Rafal or Japeth trying to radically change or impact the modern world if it provoked them. Japeth could go down the activism route (if it's in regards to his being gay), but I can't see him being that selfless about others' rights, others who have nothing to do with him, and I can't come up with any modern objects or activities that might appeal to him. Maybe, he'd even disavow modern technology, if it proved it weren't a means to getting Aric back. In addition, I could also see Rafal being incredibly rude in commanding voice-operated devices, and refusing to entertain the trivial, human-like gestures machines are programmed to recite, like greetings, and he would rarely use "please" and "thank you" in his commands. He'd have no patience for small talk or manufactured, repetitive, pleasantness because it's just a machine, and he'd be damned if a machine expected more respect from him than any human subordinate ever would! And, he'd get irrationally offended by certain output before he realized why things did what they were preprogrammed to do, such as give simple-minded answers that could appear to be an insult to his intelligence and common sense, as, a machine couldn't know his identity. After all, machines aren't capable of being hostile like Adela Sader was. So, eventually, he'd learn. Also, getting automated or human directions from the bodiless voices of intercom systems, at self-checkout lines, or on public transportation would probably infuriate him because he's so used to being the greatest authority at all times. Why abide the law when you can keep above it?