#visarcana

Happy Belated Valentine's! 💕(art by @eireanness)

Two years ago (wow, time flies), Eireanness kindly shared with me another of her pieces inspired by VA! I think if you know that scene and know that chapter, you would know how it feels to be injured just by reading a fic. I recently reread and yeah, -1 HP, -2 HP, -1 HP.... shockingly overdramatic and frustrating. Whoever wrote it should be ashamed of themselves.

Anyway, I do note what people want to see in the fic and how they would fix it (there's even a manual out💗), so I thought it would maybe feel nice to more readers to see a more romantic rendition! As always, I love the artwork TTvTT! It's so...

beautiful

But just so that you don't say that we can't have ANYTHING nice here after that last post... today it is exactly 7 years since I posted the first chapter. It's not every year I realize but this time, I did. In celebration, I posted chapter 15 on AO3 that was sitting in my drafts, and, as a small thanks to people who have followed and supported the fic, many of them for a LONG time, here is the rough of the chapter 15 illustration I started about a week ago. Sketch for a sketch because that's my best rn.

Cyrien's Lament (1872 words) by Covert_Eyes Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Escaflowne Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Van Fanel/Kanzaki Hitomi Characters: OC - Character Additional Tags: Vis Arcana, Rinjou, Fanfic of Fanfic Summary: Cyro is stuck repairing Escaflowne yet again. . . .If only King Van would cooperate with his vision for things. Takes place after the final chapter (and bonus scenes) of the first book in her Vis Arcana series.

If you ever wanted to read something actually lighthearted, funny, and cute, set in my dark and frustrating universe, just. read. this! Honestly, that encouragement may be needed before (or during/after) what comes next.

@coverteyes thank you so much for thinking of something like this and making me laugh. It's great and wonderfully written! I'm always in this mode when I think about it:

In celebration of actually managing to start the second book, here's a small preview of the piece I started with the thought of being its cover. Last weekend I finally caught up on both websites, so now I can happily anounce that the future updates will come simultaneously from now, which may hopefully be less confusing. Latest releases:

Chapter 17 (book 2, chapter 1) FFN AO3

Chapter 16.5 (bonus scene) FFN AO3

Thank you to people who continue to show up and support the fic! You push me each small step of the way <3

We're starting a bit modest here as I'm still recovering from a huge writer's block. But there'll be more, hopefully soon. If anyone is daunted by the thought of rereading the monstrous book 1, here's a quick summary of where we at now (at the end of book 1) that I wrote up discussing with my unwaveringly loyal beta, @yilinglaowhoops:

I really wanted to thank you for writing this wonderful fic and share what I like so much about it. I know there are not many people left in the fandom but, more than 20 years after watching the show for the first time, I still find myself craving for Escaflowne content and your fanfic is one of the ones I come back to the most. It just feels so close to the original.

I really enjoy all the work you have put into the world building , your respect for the lore, and how accurate and immersive your descriptions are ( from Japan train lines to military camps and the flying fortress). I like that you feature all the original characters and you managed to have them mature but still stay so much in character. I am also excited that the story is taking us to all the different Gaia countries and I am interested in reading more about your take on Cesario and Basram which were not really covered in the show. I also like how you gave your original characters some strong back stories : Cyrien easy going personality and humor is a good balance for Van and Gilles is just too easy to dislike haha

I also like the parallels with the show with the phone instead of the pager, also the Allen / Hitomi kiss.

It feels very realistic that Hitomi considers her first trip to Gaia may have been a dream and her not having any powers and thinking she has lost them ( though I guess it may not be the case) also makes it interesting as she has to slowly get her courage back and rely on our own strengths. On the opposite, I wonder about Van new abilities and I am looking forward to reading more about it. It makes a lot of senses that he would suffer from some sort of PTSD ( ? ) , panic attacks with everything that happened to him and that he would use alcohol as a coping mechanism.

I adore slow burn romance and the yearning levels between Hitomi and Van make me cry in frustration and joy haha I am here for the angst, longing and miscommunication. I am really looking forward to getting Van s POV in book 2.

Your story is also really intriguing as we still do not know the real reason for Hitomi s return (no Van she did not come back for Allen’s blue eyes 😭) also so many questions about Ryuuji as Van double on Earth ? Is Dilandau really dead ? And what is Zaibach s final goal ?

Sorry for the messy comment I just wanted to thank you again for all the work you have put into this fanfic. I am always excited to read more but please work at your own pace, I will be rereading the previous chapters in the mean time ☺️

Hi rilunabi! I do remember your name from the reviews, kudos, and such! I'm glad I can thank you for them personally, since you left them as a guest. First of all, thank you so much for following and supporting the fic for so long. It's always my pleasure to deliver something to faithful readers such as yourself. I know there could be more and more often and I'm sorry for this when it doesn't work out despite my plans.

I have found many of my readers have very similar fandom history as myself; I also watched it 20 years ago and craved more content ever since. That was the soil that sprouted the fic as well. It's a great honor to be a fic you come back to; I know what that means as a reader. In today's world when there is so much content to distract you, it's rare to come back to a published book, not to mention an amateur fanfic.

Thank you for the note on worldbuilding! It's very important to me to feel that the fictional world seems somewhat organic. It's a struggle, but I feel it's worth it, especially since the original feels like that. I was also glad that after I lived in Japan and visited Hitomi's hometown, I changed maybe two sentences, lol. That meant my previous knowledge and online research was not too shabby, haha.

About the OCs, I think it's not that hard to make people like someone like Van (I'm not trying too hard and yet people love him lol) BUT making someone like/dislike, or even notice/remember your OC is a harder feat to pull. I'm glad if I managed, somehow! I value that greatly and will try to put in more of their backstory as we go.

YES, I do insert the series parallels quite often, I think I mentioned somewhere that I would like to make a list and see if people caught all of them. I just love the series and it's a homage to it that should bring some familiarity to the readers. Plus, history just DOES repeat itself, that's a fact.

Thanks for naming those things for Hitomi and Van, they are very intentional. I think it's important to see and watch Hitomi BEYOND her powers and see the toll fighting takes on Van, no matter how good he got at it. They are the protagonists BUT it doesn't mean they have to be superheroes. They are more interesting to me as a writer if they are imperfect and very human, instead of just doing some brave and fantastic feats.

Oh boy, I always wanted to make a reader cry but not in frustration, lol. That was totally unintentional. I wish I could write faster so the frustration didn't have to last so long. I'll try. We're also getting closer to knowing more from Van's POV, no worries. I'm glad you're sort of enjoying those things you named as well. I get that the fic wouldn't score many points for the actual, traditional romantic content already present between the two so far. BUT it's planned and the answers to all those questions lie in those (yet) unpublished parts as well.

For those who keep up with the fic; last we were somewhere around the country of Cesario (otherwise known as Chezario, which is closer to how it’s pronounced in the original). Let’s scour the artbooks and all for info about this Gaean country!

Previously in the WDWK series: Basram, Egzardia

Canon information

1. Cesario is the country that asks Van to lead their decimated vanguard to “boost the troop morale.”

The situation is, Van comes back after retrieving Hitomi (episode 24), and lands at a Cesarian military camp, in an unspecified area close(r) to the Zaibach border. The soldiers say they were humiliated as they were overwhelmed by Zaibach’s military might. The state of the camp is pitiful with many dead and many destroyed melefs. 

By the way, there are Cesario troops and leviships in Palas at the same time, so the defeated camp is definitely not all of the country’s army.

Next time we see Van, the main Alliance army is arrived but he is still with this Cesario force and separate from Allen and the others, so it seems there was a bit of camaraderie present at that point if they stayed together instead of Van joining the Asturians as usual.

The filmbook has a note saying they “value knighthood” and “take it upon themselves to spearhead the attack against Zaibach”. From this, I sort of always had a headcanon that people would know and like Van in Cesario. Like, if they like honor and chivalry, and they appreciate the young boy and his legendary guymelef enough to ask him to lead them, you just sort of know they have a fondness for a story like that and see magic in it.

2. The design of the soldiers/guymelefs

The design of the Cesarian characters looks like medieval European knights, I would even go as far as to say, actual Crusaders (not to be confused with the Crusade crew).

The settei gives us, as usual, an image of an ordinary soldier and of a general, plus the general’s name. This time, it’s Ferme (Ferume) or its variations. Easter egg, Escaflowne Compendium had a mention of “Vermeer” in the code on the subpage about characters (it was something that was not visible on the website itself), I believe it could be one of the many possible transcriptions of this guy’s name from Japanese (I don’t think there is a source for that or any other romanization though and that’s probably the reason why it was hidden from view).

By the way, the names of these generals are pretty solidly confirmed; I have found three artbook sources for them already although they are never used in the series and the whole role of the alliance generals is practically to order their troops to turn on each other. Here is the Ferme guy calling for Cesario to “use the chance to rise to lead Gaea,” please note the color scheme looks a bit different in episode 26 (pale blue instead of dark).

Anyway, back to the design. The chainmail, the cross-quartered overshirt... where does it lead? I think the answer is pretty clear this time...

First of all, it has to be said Crusades are WAY older stuff than what I found before, showing the inspiration for the designs of soldiers of Basram or Egzardia that seems to be the 17th-19th century Europe, which is coincidentally also the level of development of Gaea according to the official materials. Crusades are hundreds of years before that! Plus, there were several of them, spanning centuries.

So, finding a drawing of a Crusader that would be authentic, non-fictional, and from the same period, is way harder. Many of the illustrations from which we form the image of a crusader come from later period, especially around the romantism movement in 19th century. And these representations, especially the most common image of templars, fit our Cesarians quite well. 

With the way their head gear is constructed, I think the reference may have been some encyclopaedia depiction of knights templar. These are some of the closest examples I could find (obviously, the variation is too great and probably also was with the real people).

But just out of curiosity I took a look:at the contemporary art (14th/15th century and older), it seems way harder to detect that typical image of the crusader with that huge cross across his chest, but yeah, you can obviously often see the motif of a cross and the chain mail.

And these two are prominent even in the design of our Cesarians. The same shape is visible even on their guymelefs (title picture), and yep, on their flag.

4. The flag/coat of arms

The cross on Cesarians seems to match the design of their flag, and to me, it looks nothing more like than the sword handle/crossguard. 

This time again, we don’t have the official Sunrise image for ants but we have plenty sources of how it should look in color so I spent 3000 hours in MS Paint and there you go.

Anyway, the sword hilt would obviously match it being such a heroic and militaristic country, although it’s quite simple imagery, I like the decorative detail put in there. Any other ideas?

5. Cesario is a neighboring country to Asturia and possibly to Zaibach

I repeat myself once again, this is because we know Asturia formed an alliance with its neighboring countries (episode 23) and Cesario came to their help. But actually, this is also confirmed in the text of the Roman Artbook. 

It also strongly looks like they may share a border also with Zaibach, although the filmbooks just say they are in the vanguard in the attack against them. That was my idea without looking at the books anyway since they are attacked by them in that camp and once the main force arrives to the same place and then they practically fight to invade Zaibach already! 

There is a bit of a mystery of Zaibach general Adelphos, too, who is impatiently waiting for the orders to attack “the alliance filth” that he believes can be easily defeated. After this scene, we are shown Allen and the alliance main force still in Asturia, so it seems Adelphos could have meant these Cesarians? 

So, from all this, it would seem to me the main forces of Zaibach and the Alliance have gathered on the border between Cesario and Zaibach although it does not say explicitly that in the canon.

Anyone remembers when I did this the last time? If you don't, here are reminders number one and number two. This time it's Folken, Merle, and my Cyro. Might be the final one, I will just post the sketches one by one or use them for the chapters I guess.

The first of these (I don't know what to call them) was done for the fic's second bday, the second one around the third. And now it's been... six years, exactly few days ago. Wow. Also, while the first two are sort of love triangles, this one does not contain any pairings (just to be clear). The sketches are rougher compared to the previous ones, well, everything seems to be nowadays. You can practically see the difference here between the OC's face (that's of an earlier date) and the other two (that I finalized only recently). I could try harder and give it some more time but I'm just happy and thankful to be drawing again at all. I will need to get a practiced hand again to get a little bit smoother and I would like to finally start something new. As you know, I like these sort of rough sketches best though tbh I'm dying to color something as well.