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君と出逢った
あの日が
始まりのSTORY

imaginary family

(click for big version)

Tree of the current Arcane royal family, goes up four generations. I cannot begin to imagine how and why the family grew so big. Though it cannot be seen from here, Aligon is the elected Arcane King and you can deduce the rest of the relations.  Funny that it's no longer much of "the Luzerno family" at all even if the story's centred around them. Lora and her branch are included because Lora is Aleigh's classmate.

quote dumping begins here

"It's also how you thank someone you hold in high regard," he said. 

She turned aside to hide her grin. "High regard, eh? High enough, it would seem, for you to have neglected saying goodbye to me for near three entire months." 

“I am sorry,” he replied. “You have, after all, been the epitome of politeness these three months.” 

“And you’ve been most deservingly humble, your Highness.”

Just a day in the life.

I do like to think we all stand equal.

"Nothing that grieves us can be called little: by the eternal laws of proportion a child's loss of a doll and a king's loss of a crown are events of the same size."

- Mark Twain, Which Was the Dream?

well maybe I overthink

I will do it because I need to, not because you tell me I must and because it's conventional and customary and respectful.

What use is custom unless custom is based on necessity? What use are traditions, besides the psychological grounding one might gain from anchoring one's life routines to a preset system? The ones who came up with this system--their possessiveness died with their neural impulses, so don't go serving their vengeful ghosts or the habits they ingrained in you.

I don't long your structure and I don't need it, so stop telling me traditions are meant to be kept and that systems must run without modification.

Respect, I understand. Respect is the bribe for benefit. I bow to you now because you are my ruler and you have every right of mine upon your fingertips, easily confiscated at the slightest inkling of disagreement with your system. But if my acts serve nothing but your rule and your preference then this is tyranny, and you can be quite certain it will do nothing for the love you crave in return from me.

still struggling with the same things, six years on

Your work gives me motivation to improve on mine. Maybe the feeling isn't quite positive, but observing gives me a sense of how far I have to go, helps me know what I have to do. But I will continue to long superiority, and that is what I will work for, till I indisputably have it, or till the torment of its eluding me turns me away completely.

flaws and characterisation

Must...reduce...Sueness...

And also, I must remove any scenes that would tempt one to portray a character as a Mary-Sue.

It's such a temptation to write a character who gets everything right. Mistakes hamper story progress. Badly-done, they make a character seem more idiotic than human. Where are the flaws in my main character? She's rude. She thinks pestering and bullying others will get her everything she wants. She hates anyone who tells her how to behave.

But I haven't quite proven that those are bad traits in context, have I? She could have those flaws, but if they do not earn her ridicule, or if no one rightly accuses her of wrongdoing without eventually being put down--then they aren't really flaws, are they?

So some people in-story think she's inappropriate. Some nag at her. Others stick their noses up in her presence. But I portray them as cruel, vain, pretentious--is that my bias, or is that an artifact of writing from her limited point of view? Am I making her look right in her point of view only; have I made it clear enough that we're supposed to disagree with her, or are objective events not enough of a clue for readers to realise so?

Character development is normally the route from these doldrums--have her grow out of it, look back, and realise how stupid she was being. That's my aim, but till the story ends the reader would probably not see much of that. That is my fear.

silence

You know those situations, fictional or real, where someone--not wanting another's attention--ignores them entirely? Well, living has taught me that doing so never achieves that aim. You become a puzzle. Instead of cooling interests, that void of response is intriguing, begets more interest. It becomes somewhat of a challenge too; who so easily snubs the advances of another? I've always attempted to seek interest by responding readily--but perhaps it's silence that is more alluring.

=.=.=

Meh. Apparently I was forced into a collab when I agreed to compose for this year's farewell video. I don't want to come across as proud to the other person, and it is likely he/she would be able to make the work much better than I can manage, but it just doesn't fit into my work process, to have another in on it and able to modify what I've written...

all these things I'm not a part of

identities

None of my identities every actually stuck. I still take time to recall who I am to whom, and repeatedly find myself unable to imagine myself carrying these images. How is it some think me poetic? Others think me a waste? A "taken" person, in a place where we're the minority? It's strange.