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[visarcana]

What do we know about... Cesario (Chezario)

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.

And what did I do with this for the fic? Well, we currently (as of chapter 16) find ourselves in Cesario. For a quick recap, Van escaped Fanelia with Hitomi, and, followed by a Zaibach squad headed out north. They got as far as Cesarian forests, where they were reunited with Crusade who had visited Fanelia shortly after their escape and started searching for them. And here is where they come across the Cesarian elite squad. 

I just sketched those characters vaguely in my head but I wanted to make them, you know, elite knights who are admirable for their strength but also kind of scary, especially to a POV character like Hitomi. Van leaves with them on their leviship that is also a pride of Cesarian army. Anyway, this elite force is also present in the questioning of the prisoners from chapter 16, again, I’m not too explicit due to POVs used, but obviously, when Van arrived to the camp up north with them, they planned their actions together and they will continue to be together for a while. 

We’ll see how much detail I’ll include about these guys in the next few chapters. Regarding Cesario itself, I imagine a pretty big country. Because I imagine Zaibach (including conquested land) as even bigger and if these guys are able to hold the candle to them, they probably aren’t little or weak either. Since we are coming up north, I imagined a lot of forests but also increasingly mountains. I also made them more technologically advanced than the medieval designs suggest; simply because they are close to Zaibach and these things tend to spill over the borders, unless you are a really isolated country. And if you’re waging a war against such an advanced enemy, technological progress becomes a matter of your survival. So yeah, after few years, these guys will not be so easily wiped out as they describe in the episode 25 scene.

The scene showed in the anime shows bare stone landscape that looks similar to what we see of Zaibach, but I decided it is just that particular area. Alliance is trying to make a breach from a different point, and the sceneries will be much different there. Bit of it was already revealed through Hitomi’s eyes when they make a stop in the Cesarian city. Allen rides to send a message to his king (I was not explicit but this is what he did there) and Crusade is refueling a bit. Hitomi makes some observations of the land and the city. 

Another bit is the camp and the mountainous border that we explore from both sides in chapter 16. I imagine pretty bleak (but beautiful) mountains and snow plains. Similar to the background of this blog, actually, one of the reasons I picked it! By the way, we will spend some more time here, so I will use Cesario as a playground some more!

[visarcana]

Kamakura pt. 3 - Hitomi's commute

I was doing some thinking/researching about where Hitomi lives, thanks to a question by @mirimiramiri. Aaand another portion of my useless ramblings came out of it... well, first of all, I still believe the place where Hitomi lives (Kanzaki family house) and the place where Hitomi's mom hosts Amano and Yukari (and shows them photos of Hitomi's grandma) could be two separate places. I already explained the theory in one of the previous posts.

I'm not exactly convinced but it can be also be argued, and Japanese wikipedia actually said at one point, that Hitomi lives in Fujisawa, which is the neighboring town of Kamakura. The wiki no longer says so btw. and I can't even find it in history so it's possible that edit was eventually marked as vandalism. One possible explanation of the Fujisawa thing is that when Hitomi goes back from school in ep 24, she wanders around town after dark (we see stairs and pedestrian crossing) but these stairs are actually near the station in Fujisawa, not Kamakura.

So that can make it look like only her school is in Kamakura and she goes home every day to Fujisawa (it's not far at all, actually, the green train that is featured in the anime goes only between Kamakura and Fujisawa as a short, local line). She's also alone, and now that I think of it, Yukari is not seen in the scenes with Hitomi waiting at the station in the anime. So it could mean they normally separate somewhere before that and Yukari may not even need to take the train to school like Hitomi does.

Meanwhile, going by the same logic of existing places again, the place where Hitomi's mom meets Hitomi's friends is certainly in Kamakura, because in that scene, we see another existing station that is in the town, the Kita-Kamakura station.

So yeah, if Hitomi actually lived in Fujisawa, this would furthermore support my two houses theory. But there's another catch: after we see Hitomi walking around Fujisawa after dark, we see her on the train (again? or for the first time that evening?), and the direction she's riding seems to be... back to Kamakura. I realize now that she would even pass the station she seems to be waiting at in ep 26, so if we went by the existing stations, it would seem a deliberate detour into the neighboring town, then back to Kamakura, where she lives (after all).

Still, there's something irrational for me there, but I feel when they set the atmosphere with stills before they show the Kanzaki house and the place where Amano and Yukari meet Hitomi's mom, it feels different. I get the impression the Kanzaki house is closer to the shore but the other place is definitely in the area near the station above, in more traditional part of the town and farther away from the sea. Of course, I could be entirely off and Hitomi in fact takes the train from the imaginary mix of Koukou Mae and Hase stations in the south of the city and exits at the station above, Kita-Kamakura or North Kamakura, which is also where mom meets her friends. BUT WAIT, the Kita-Kamakura station is no longer on the same line and she would actually have to transfer from the green train (Enoden) to the regular, Tokyo-bound train (like you see on the cap on the station), even if it's not such a long trip.

AND it wouldn't even make a lot of sense to do all that either, because Hitomi's school is canonically called Kamakura Kita, or Kamakura North. If she actually lived somewhere near the North Kamakura station, she would not walk all the way south to take a train from there, because the school already IS in the north of the town and should be walking distance from her home. Unless she goes south only to see Yukari off, it would be an illogical detour. But we see do her waiting on the station south on the shore, without Yukari. I think that confirms it's part of her regular commute. So yeah, TL; DR I'm sticking to the two houses theory and I actually will make further use of that later in the story.

Anyway, here's the whole recollection of Hitomi's way back from school, at least on the day she first faints on the track (which is one day before "the fateful" one), using what I know from visiting the place and listing the (real locations):

Hitomi and Yukari walk out of their school (Sasuke Inari Shrine)

The two pass the "hair salon" and the church (Kamakuraoncho Church)

The two go down the stairs (Gokurakujizaka Pass)

The two have their talk in the tunnel (Shiyakusho Doori/Ave.)

Hitomi, already alone, wanders around town (Fujisawa station)

Hitomi is on the train (somewhere between Fujisawa and Kamakura)

Hitomi reaches the Kanzaki residence.

In real Kamakura, this actually stops making sense already by the stairs, at least if we consider the scene order as chronologically linear. Because the tunnel is right after the church on the same street and the referenced stairs are in another place totally and don't even lead to anything relevant.

Not to mention, the station Hitomi is seen waiting at in other scenes is also elsewhere and it makes no sense to go to it by the road they're taking. So you cannot retrace a linear route, they are practically teleporting around the town map.

So, the conclusion is, you probably cannot reference Escaflowne's Kamakura to the real place, they just used the "sceneries" and connected them as they liked without much heed to the directional accuracy or logic. They just made their own, imaginary Kamakura, keeping the atmosphere and sights of the actual place, and using the whole Shonan region, not exclusively Kamakura, as a reference. I shouldn't even be surprised, as this is how they deal with real life inspirations all over the anime, why should this be an exception just because it's on Earth? It's intriguing but also great pain to come to any conclusions about this stuff, obscure and tangled as it is. Yet I greatly enjoy the process for some reason.

Anyway, we can at least sort of piece together the idea of Hitomi's route home from school from episodes 1, 24, and 26 (although it seems she may have even taken a little walk/detour in ep 24):

her school is in the suburbs, next to a Shinto shrine

she walks by foot to the town centre/station, together with Yukari, traversing the long, steep stairs and the tunnel

somewhere on the way or maybe in the town centre she separates from Yukari, who either lives walking distance from school or takes another train (possibly from another station?)

she waits alone at the train station in the wider town center

she takes the train home

Related posts:

The reply about Hitomi's house

Kamakura pt. 1

Kamakura pt. 2: Hitomi's home

Kamakura pt. 3: Hitomi's commute (this one)

The Surprising Discoveries

The First Visit

The Whole Pilgrimage

[visarcana]

Recent Surprising Discoveries

Case 1: Hitomi’s family lives in Fujisawa (not the neighboring Kamakura) Courtesy of: Japanese Wikipedia I don’t know where the Wikipedia got that info from, as I had not come across it while studying the artbooks. Maybe simply from the way she commutes and such? Nevertheless, it makes a lot of sense, even as I visited the places (I still need to finish the full report on that!) Anyway, I don’t mind and thankfully, it wouldn’t take much to update in the fic, either, if I decided to reflect on this discovery. It actually supports the idea I was working with (I was even wondering why she took the train in the wrong direction... it still looks wrong, btw, but I won’t dwell on it any longer). The idea that the place Hitomi comes home to and the place her mother invites Amano and Yukari to to show them the photoalbum are two different places. This adds the possibility that they may even be in different towns! I already loved the idea of making her live in her grandma’s house, now I love it more because it doesn’t make the whole chapter 1 fall apart. Phew!

The towns are close to each other and quite similar in size and stuff, btw. I had this idea that perhaps Hitomi’s father is from Fujisawa, it would be easy for him and her mom, a girl from a neighboring town, to meet. It is also fine that she would commute like half an hour to a school in the neighboring town, I mean, why not. Yukari and Amano also could be from Kamakura or somewhere else then, I guess? She seems to part ways with Yukari somewhere around the station, and continues the commute alone, including some sights from Fujisawa (this is what they could have based it on on the wiki). So Yukari seems to be from Kamakura.

Case 2: The map of Gaea as we know it is fanon Courtesy of: Escaflowne Slack Group, Escaflowne Fanbook

Yeah, the map that we use so well. Not gonna repost it again. The map itself was created from a rotated and flipped map of ice age Europe, as this Italian fansite discovered. But not by the anime creators, but the original Japanese fandom, who made this fanbook. Namely, a person called Keita Kamikita is credited for the map drawings in this book. A guy of the same name apparently coined the term light novel as the manager of a Japanese fantasy forum in the 90s. I don’t think this is a coincidence. Fascinating!

The map was apparently created from the pointers of the series itself and makes a lot of sense when it comes to Gaean geography (Gaean alps?) and biology, even (ancient forms of animals?). Yes, this is fanon of high level. I should have known, it’s Japanese fandom. I should have known from it being placed in the Fanbook (and nowhere else) itself, but guess I subconsciously didn’t want to admit it to myself and lose this bit of canon. 

Anyway, this gives us creators more freedom I guess, and coming up with your own map is a go! Still haven’t decided what to do in regards to my creation, but it’s of no immediate concern.

To put some picture to this post, I’ll just post this photo that windows 10 uses as one of its welcome screens. It always puts a smile on my face, because yes, in Switzerland Alps, it does kind of look like Fanelia to me (good job, fanon map):

[visarcana]

What do we know about... Basram

A.k.a. the first post in the ‘WDWK’ series. Well, it’s kind of hard to keep in mind all this information found in various artbooks and other sources, so I'll try to put it all into a single post regarding the selective topic. I will make them as many and about such topics as I’ll feel necessary in the progress of the story, so the posts probably won’t be regular or follow some kind of structure. Yeah, they will be a mess as you can see from just looking at this one. But I expect to make at least a few of them. 

And the first will be about the Gaean country of Basram. I tried to find what I could about it as I was thinking of Cyro, an original character coming from that country, who was introduced in chapter 4. And well, as I said in the author’s note, the official information about Basram is very scarce. But I will list all I could find here and also attempt to do a little analysis (or rather, I’ll be grasping at the straws tbh).

Note: I’ll be using abbreviations for the artbooks, ‘ESCAB’ is for the Escaflowne Settei Collection Artbook, ‘EFB’ are the Escaflowne Filmbooks

Canon information:

1. Basram is the only republic from among the Allied countries (EFB 6)

2. The coat of arms represents entwined double dragons

As seen in the artbooks (the text says ‘Basram crest’):

Regarding the colors, it’s hard to the flag in a screenshot, but it’s indeed red so these ancient images for ants with the copyright of Sunrise studios (??) that still float around the web look quite legit:

3. The design of the uniform for Basram soldiers

EFB 6 depicts the uniform of the common soldier (left) and the general.

According to the ESCAB, this is in fact a specific Basram general by the name of Quarto (Kuaruto):

However, in the series itself we see a different-looking commander instead - none other than Mr. Bombastic himself:

Since his ordinary pal from the artbook is present at the scene as well, I would say they just changed the design of the general in the end.

4. The position in the southeast of the ‘known Gaea’

At least as depicted by the part of the map of Gaea from one of the artbooks. According to it, the known neighboring countries are Egzardia to the Northeast, Asturia to the Northwest and Freid to the Southwest.

5. The development and use of the energist bomb

Basram decides to use the chaos on the battlefield and use their new weapon called the energist bomb, not only to wipe out the Zaibach army, but also to weaken their allies and assume the dominant position from among them and “rule Gaea themselves”.

This is the bomb and the ship which drops it:

Then there are several depictions of Basram guymelefs and that’s it for canon-only.

And now it gets more specific, but also way more speculative...

1. Republic

ESCAB says most of the hundreds of Gaean countries are monarchies that evolved from tribal communities where one clan accumulated enough power to rule over the others. Basram is apparently one of the exceptions. Republic (res publica - the state is a “public matter” made by and for the people) often comes to be as the result of overthrowing a tyrannic ruler (or ruling class/group), or via revolution. I chose that path as well, even though there probably are examples of state bodies which were already created as republic, too. With massive social changes, several groups can be hit hard of course, so I tried to incorporate that a bit when creating Cyro’s backstory.

2. Crest

Dragons here, dragons there, dragons everywhere. That’s Gaea for you. The official flag of Basram is the familiar symbol of symmetric entwined serpentine creatures, which probably can be dubbed as dragons. It’s quite similar to the crest of Asturia, which you see on the flags and banners, but also in the huge ‘altar’ thing at Millerna’s wedding:

So, it may have a religious connotation. In Asturia, it probably represents their sea dragon god, Jeture. But I was not so sure what it represents in Basram. The position of the dragons is certainly reverse from Asturia above (they face away from each other) and they seem to be breathing fire out of their mouths.

Well, since I’ve been writing this fic for a while, I had decided that Basram would have some sort of sun worship long time ago. But it was only recently I have discovered about the double dragons of Basram, so I tried to incorporate it somehow. In the end I settled on the dragons representing the Sun and the Moon (and no, I was in no way original, see for example the Gandhara dragons).

In Gaea’s case, it would probably be the Sun and the Mystic Moon. And the Moon can be their offspring. Just fanwanking here.

When it comes to the Vis Arcana universe, Cyro used to be a monk of Tonatis, the male/Sun aspect. But maybe there is (or was) a complementary female religious order worshiping the Moon?

I made the geographical terms I used correspond to this theory, Cyro mentions Heliopoli and I have thought of Lunasta. Kind of obvious, right? (I have not been too creative)

Anyway, it’s quite possible that the dragons were simply meant to represent Jeture as well, because it looks like Basram borders with the same sea as Asturia. The sea, where, you know, Jeture is supposed to reside.

3. Uniform

There are a few pointers of what Earth countries served as inspiration for the Gaean ones. The clothes being one of the more obvious. And what we are looking at here is an obvious case of a pickelhaube, which together with the overknee boots points right in the direction of Prussia for me. I mean look at this 19th century Prussian cuirassier [IMG SRC] side by side with our guy for example:

Or another good example here.

Of course, there are more countries and armies which used the pickelhaube over the history and maybe some of them would look similar, too. And I don’t think we should simply put a ‘=‘ between Basram and Prussia anyway, because this is still a fantasy universe, but well, there seems a certain inspiration. And for those familiar with European history, the militarism of Basram may come as less of a surprise.

4. Geography

According to the map, Basram is located quite down south, souther than Asturia itself, nearing Freid. And that would make the climate quite Mediterranean/hot. But only if you think in Earth’s terms. These people do not really look like they live somewhere in a warm climate, but heck if I know. On the map it looks like they have a seacoast, some major rivers and mountains. Then there is that thing of Gaean map being just the rotated version of ice age Europe which would tell us more about the topography, but nah. Too lazy for that for now.

5. Energist Bomb

Well. The whole bomb business may also sound very familiar. A new, unexpected strange weapon with enough destructive force to wipe out whole armies and cities, leaving nothing in its wake.  Maybe even more so when you know what followed in the series, i.e. the allied countries turning on each other. The nuclear bomb was not just about Japan either, it was also about deterring any potential future enemies from among the Allies (well, especially one of them). And the US certainly certainly were a republic from the beginning. So yeah, more sources of inspiration here at work probably...

Okay, guess that’s it for today. Didn’t think this would get so long! I think a similar post about Egzardia may be next. You’re welcome to ask questions or discuss this if you want of course!

[visarcana]

Kamakura

Since I have made quite a lot of research about Hitomi’s hometown, I thought it may not be a bad idea to write it all down. In this part, Kamakura itself, the trains and Hitomi’s school. I plan to make a shorter second part, too.

The series’ production team modeled the scenes after the real Kamakura, which is a Japanese coastal town with a quite long and important past. At one time, it was considered the (unofficial) capital, which is why one chapter of Japan’s history is named “Kamakura period”. Today, the population is under 200 000, which cannot be compared to the biggest cities of Japan, but it can be reached from Tokyo in just about an hour, which by some definitions makes it a part of the Greater Tokyo Area. It is probable Hitomi&co. can make trips to Tokyo quite easily. For example, Hitomi’s dream date with Allen takes place near (a version of) Tower 109 in Shibuya.

The very first scene of the series takes us to an imaginary school called Kamakura Kita Private High School (Shiritsu Kamakura Kita Koukou), where Hitomi experiences her early high-school dramas together with her classmate, Yukari Uchida, and the upperclassman, Susumu Amano. The inscription on the track suit suggests the name of the school can be casually shortened to ‘Kamakita’.

Since the school is private and ‘all ages’ type, I somehow believe that the students are middle class and higher. I made especially Amano’s family loaded in my fic, it was just offering itself with his overseas study and the connection to Allen (whose family is by no means poor either).

Kamakura Kita itself means “Kamakura North”, which would suggest the position of the school in the city. As Hitomi and Yukari are on their way back from school, they pass by some existing buildings (I have an artbook with map regarding just that). However, the most specific location given is by the Sasuke Inari shinto shrine, which (but only when this anime is concerned), is right across the street from Hitomi’s school track field. Of course, in real Kamakura, there is no high school in the vicinity (in fact, there are no buildings where the school is supposed to be - just hills with a forest). The shrine itself is one of the main tourist attractions of the town, along with the steps with the set of red gates which lead to it.

As Hitomi&co. run “up the hill” to escape from the dragon, you see them pass something that looks like a bus stop sign to me, called Kita Kou-mae - “(in front of the) North High (school)”.

But on her way to school, Hitomi waits at the Kamakura Koukou-mae tram station, which means “(in front of the) Kamakura High School” itself, probably dating back to when there was just one high school in town (meaning, it’s a coincidence and the station is not close to Hitomi’s school, but rather, her home).

It is one of the most famous stations in Japan because of it’s captivating views of the sea, Mt. Fuji and Enoshima island. And because it serves the historical electric railway (or tram) called Enoden. The tram connects the railway stations of Kamakura and the neighboring town. The station has besides Esca been featured in the anime/manga Slam Dunk and some movies!

Anyway, it can be assumed that Hitomi (and possibly Yukari, who accompanies her on her way home) live somewhere in the southern (southwestern) part of town, closer to the sea, and take the tram on their commute to their school which is located more north (northeast).

In Vis Arcana, Yukari&co. take the same tram to the main railway station so they can board the Tokyo train there. The logistics got a bit difficult, because I could not give up on some details, for example, I wanted to open with Yukari having the same view Hitomi had at the end of the series (which fixed her at the tram station). And I could not really see how Hitomi could get into the life-threatening situation there.

Now that I look at the screenshots, I see a similar scene as the one I wrote was maybe possible, but looking at the map I thought there was not even a reason to cross the track on the tram station. Or the road. Because you know, the very first draft of this chapter from, idk, 2014 or something, had Hitomi almost ran over by a car. But then I was hit by a realization, “Wait, you have her being ran over by a CAR in front of a TRAIN station???” Also, I specifically wrote it to be a VAN... and when I reread later I was like... “Won’t someone take this as a symbolism of the crappiest sort imaginable, lol?”

Anyway, the main train station looks something like this [IMG SRC]:

What surprised me is that there are only two tracks/platforms and the station is relatively small. Apparently, the Tokyo train always leaves from the track/platform 2. Since there are train otaku out there, I even found a video of how it looks like, haha (from about 3:00 there are trains leaving from platform 2):

When I saw the situation on Google Maps, I saw that backyard shortcut opportunity, you can even get to the parking lot behind the station with Street View and see the little hill and fence which divides it from the station.

So there, this should explain the first chapter in more detail than anyone ever wanted, haha. In my defense, this is several years of rewriting the chapter, occasional rewatching and researching. Especially when I felt I wrote myself into a corner, things like these helped me to get back on track (no pun intended).

I plan to make another (much shorter) post like this in relation to chapter 4, because there were some interesting findings as well... see ya!

~Rin

[starvalisedham]

Based on the conversation in the comments section I've had with @fan-of-young-royals over on ao3, if you've read my fic where Ayub made a cheesecake with a Doritos crumb base, which recipe do you think he (and Simon and Rosh and Wille) followed?

Choose one (1) 🤔

the Mountain Dew cheesecake recipe (green)

the Nacho cheesecake recipe (red)

vanilla extract / bald / pithy "I want to see results" joke

Voting ended onJun 13, 2024

Link to the Mountain Dew cheesecake recipe.

Link to the Nacho cheesecake recipe.

Link to the fic I'm talking about.

[starvalisedham]

Getting new readers for love is stored in the clementine is such a joy because

it's one of the very first fics I wrote for Young Royals, back when season two was but a twinkle in people's eyes, and I really had no idea what I was in for re: actively participating in fandom, and

it's also the first one-shot I've written/published in literal years, so all the writing growing pains evident in that piece of work? I look back on it with complete and utter fondness

So like, cheers to the anon who recently recc'd the fic! Much love to you, etc etc. Here's a little piece of trivia about that particular fic that might interest some people~

I said in the ao3 notes bit that some of the dialogue was taken from incorrect quotes over here on this hellsite (affectionate), but did you know that another conversation between Wilmon was heavily inspired by (i.e. directly taken from 😂) one of my favourite TV shows?

Simon found his seat in the new classroom and very quickly built a wall using his textbooks, just so he didn’t have to look at Wilhelm more than necessary. His plan to avoid interacting with the boy worked until the teacher assigned pair conversation practice during the last ten minutes of class. Simon in turn tried to bury himself in his textbook; he officially hated English more than he hated Maths. “I feel sick,” Simon grumbled using the very limited English that he could summon up at the moment. “That’s not a very polite thing to say,” Wilhelm teased, whispering lowly since he didn’t want to be caught not speaking in English. “What can I say instead?” Simon asked, stubbornly refusing to revert to Swedish. “Indisposed,” Wilhelm offered, pronouncing the foreign word carefully. “I will be indisposed,” Simon repeated just as carefully, “out of my mouth.” “Wait, that’s not–” “I am indisposed of this conversation.” Wilhelm struggled to keep the laughter out of his voice. “Okay, let’s move on.”

Some people might know by this point that I am Obsessed™ with the ITV show Victoria. Well, that "sick"/"indisposed" bit was taken from a scene from that show! Like, seriously. I've taken so much from Victoria that it's fairly evident in the things I write/publish, I've actually given up trying to be subtle about it.

Yeah. Happy Tuesday, folks!

[starvalisedham]

Ok for some reason it won’t let me reply to your comment on ao3 so I have to reply here lmao. Your version (Wille never finds out) is much better than mine. You win, 100%, no contest. I do have a follow-up question: who else knows about the sweater? Is it just Simon and the stylist? Or do more people know and it’s just Wille left in the dark? What do you think? 🤔

Hey, fancy seeing you here in my neck of the woods 🤭 and there's absolutely no competition, I'm all for alternative endings to things!!

That wedding scenario of yours is great, especially if you consider the whole "something borrowed" element to these things and imagine Simon sheepishly returning that orange jumper¹ to Wille on their wedding day. Simon's a lil shit but he's a lil shit with impeccable timing.

As for the alternative future scenario that I cooked up in the comments: lmaooo could you imagine if everyone in the palace knew about Simon's weird clothing-based kleptomania except for Wille?! Would love for rumours to get around about a Simon-in-his-fifties being (playfully, bemusedly?) accused of theft² because why the heck are the crown prince's orange jumpers going missing all the time?

More under the cut because my mind is on fire and I want to answer your questions properly 👉👈

Shenanigans based on public perceptions aside, I don't think anyone really cottons on with Simon's long con jumper thievery. I cannot stress enough that Wille's orange jumper is just a jumper. No one cares if an item of (modern) clothing goes missing. If it's a royal heirloom like a historic cape or whatever, then sure. Call the police and have specialised detectives flown in to hunt that piece of history/culture down.

But for a jumper? Nah, fam.

And in that sense, I'd like to think that Simon gets away with keeping a second wardrobe solely to keep all those stolen orange jumpers hidden. Wille's stylist would have undoubtedly gone slightly mad at the point in the future timeline where Simon's awkwardly asking for a second wardrobe in his and Wille's suite at Haga Palace (married Wilmon, amirite?), but they're not gonna snoop around. That's not in their job description and, frankly, the crown prince's wardrobe budget can cover a few hundred or so replacements.

It still drives the stylist wild, though. The conspiracy of the missing orange jumpers, as it's known to be called in certain circles. But Wille seems to be under the impression that Simon likes him in orange? He keeps smiling that secretive smile of his whenever Wille wears that particular jumper.

And so the stylist keeps buying replacements and, as I've established already in the fic, Wille is none the wiser. This is a silent, one-sided war between Simon and Wille's stylist, who is frankly not paid enough to deal with all this thievery shenanigans and they're so, so glad to graciously retire when the time comes. And then Simon gives all the orange jumpers back and the stylist goes apoplectic in relief-rage and the resulting meltdown is hilarious.

But it's all good bc there's an all-expenses-paid cruise or whatever hidden under the jumpers for the stylist and their partner/family³/entire polycule if that's your jam, and really... Simon's just glad for the years-long amusement that messing with the stylist has provided. It certainly offset the dull monotony of Royal Life, those weird kleptomaniac rumours notwithstanding.

Just... the next stylist in line (to the throne for the job) has big shoes to fill.

Bonus fun fact: Simon first starts storing the stolen jumpers in one of those large plastic IKEA bags. He keeps it in the corner of his room at home in Bjärstad but Wille never questions or looks inside it because apparently? Everyone reuses those IKEA bags for random storage. It's all fine. Also, why would he snoop when Simon's right there to have and to hold and easily smother in kisses?!

.

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¹ Look, I know the fandom ran away with the whole "Wille's orange sweater" concept but to me, that orange thing Wille wears is a jumper and it's going to be an uphill battle for me to change my mind.

² This is in homage to the rumours surrounding a real-life royal, Mary of Teck (wife of George V of the UK).

³ Ohmygod, imagine a group picture with the stylist's family and they're all wearing the orange jumpers. Even the little kids. So cute! (Or deranged lol this is 100% up to the readers to decide.)