A Snob

First, a couple of ch progress notes:

1) Separate 文官 and 武官 divisions is too complicated. Fanelia is a small country, and beyond the literary ranks shown in opposing Goau's marriage and the coronation magistrate and his assistants, the screenshots for Van's coronation, Goau's death, etc. were all of armored men. And given Fanelia's stress on martial attributes (rite of dragonslaying, Van's coronation armor, Escaflowne as kingdom heirloom), it's likely that the chief vassals are a large part in Fanelia's political structure, opposite from Asturia and its more modern divisions (their military minister is only one of several other members on the high council).

There are still literary roles, though. Belian is the master recordkeeper, but his function is really the director of admin operations :P Hmmm, I just thought of this, but it'd be really cool if Leal and Belian were twins.

2) Chocolatelova's comments about having more Van's views in ch5 made me think about how exactly he'd see it. Since he'd avoid looking at his own feelings, he'd probably project them instead as Hitomi's feelings, but still with sort of a selfish, egotistical focus on himself. He'd think on external circumstances (dangers, rumor, awkward meetings), until the actual meeting with Hitomi to make him realize that's actually not what she thinks. And it'd be the same for Hitomi in ch6, but to a lesser degree. She's obviously much better at empathy, but it had been 10 years of trying to live like a normal Japanese adult.

A little convulted: projection of a projection. I'll try ._. At least I've finally clarified what ch5 should be.


Not sure if I've mentioned this in an earlier post, but recently I've felt like such a snob.

One example is food. I love both cheap food and good food. I'd happily eat McDonalds cheeseburgers (the 39 cent Tuesdays were glorious) or spend $14 on a pair of sushi. What I dislike is mediocre food for $20 a plate at these glorified family-themed restaurants, served on lukewarm plates and everything made to please the general tastes. Snob, check.

And then these couple of months I've begun to experience the duality of writing that perhaps all starting writers feel. On one hand, I feel that someone who calls himself a writer by merely putting words to a page is like someone who calls himself a chef because he cooks. On the other hand, I agree with one writer book that "universal writing" effectively eliminates half the population because they can't read, and then a greater part because we strive to be "literature".

Did you know that most people think they're better than average? Obviously, it's hypocritical of me to be snobbish--after all, writing fanfiction as literature is already a joke.

Maybe I'm thinking about DS too seriously. I'll leave you, then, with a picture of Van, who always seems to impart an air of happy feelings (oh how my tolerance level with internet kids increase when I have some Van music videos in the background). This is my favorite "this is how I roll" expression: