ECA 11-15

Hello there!

I'm back for my (slightly late) weekly update!

This week is ECA-related since I'm not liking how Sun Dagger is running along. The part after last week's "Family Discussion" was originally titled "Persuasion" but I think it's a useless 2,000 words, better suited as a "bonus" treat than as an actual continuation of the story. The next posted part will be "Acceptation" which I am currently messing with, trying to cut it down in size.

I also want to draw attention to the newly published "Index" page. This idea was inspired by AshMac, and what she did on Anima Spark. I shamelessly copied the organization idea and have filed most of the posts into categories. :) I also copy and get ideas for writing and life from her. :x So follow the link! Check it out! :D

Finally, if anyone remembers this guy from wayyyyyyyy back in March, he now has a surname and is Trevain de Corona. Yup. "Jerry de Corona" was a cafe owner and rebel group leader in one of my old writing projects from leik...5th, 6th grade and I happened to think of poor Trevain. This actually means nothing because I'm still not using him in any roleplays or writings, but I thought it would be amusing.

Ok! Let's talk about Elysia, Celestine and Arlin. When we last saw them, energetic, sometimes pensive Arlin was proposing the group join a "Campus Beautification Project". If you want, parts 1-5 and 6-10 can be found with their adjoining "comment blurbs" (that I'm still trying to think of a name for besides "comment blurbs".)

EDIT: The comment blurbs for this section are now posted at the end of this post! The next batch of ECA posts are planned to be up in a few weeks. :)

11. 33%

“I’m the only sane one of us three.”

Celestine flinched, overhearing. Not Arlin or Elysia, right?

“Anuna— crimson hair, pink eyes, and princess of the mythical Land of Dreams. Please.”

It wasn’t. Rhys Vesper, daughter of Chancellor Vesper was criticizing her odd roommates. 

Rhys spun on Fiana Tallwater. “You’re no better. Natural white hair and yellow irises. Demigod. Give me a break!.” 

Fiana almost sobbed aloud.

Celestine tugged her own cerulean hair. She’d always pretended it was magically altered. But what if she admitted it was natural? 

“99% on the group magic presentation. Sure. But our room’s only 33% sane.”

12. Dead Wrong

Elysia stood ankle-deep in mud. All around her smelled…damp. 

“Clear the weeds in the Western Farmland, sector 1? Shouldn’t take too long? Right Arlin.”

Wistfully, she envisioned her sword lying back in the dorm.

“Boring, and pointless?” She continued weeding. “Yes.”

Hours passed. Sweat, mud, hair and grass latched onto her skin and clothes and the setting sun spilled red over her. She was tired. But she was finished. The former swampland was weed-free and ready for planting.

“Finished here.”

Then in the corner of her eye the last ray of sunlight gleamed off a blade’s edge.

13. Running Away

“Hello?” Hello? Hello?

“Is anyone here?” Here? Here?

She blinked at the fog and stood cautiously. 

“Elysia?” Elysia? Elysia?

“Arlin?” Arlin? Arlin?

No answer. She was alone in this strange place.  Glancing fearfully about, she took a nervous step forward, radiating echos. She hugged herself.

“No one’s here. I’m ok. I’m safe,” she whispered. Safe! Safe!

“Are you scared?”

She looked up. No one.

“Don’t worry.” the wind said again. 

A moment of tension, then she burst into a run in any direction, tears streaking her face and steps echoing in the dreamscape. “No! I’m not crazy! Leave me alone!”

14. Judgement

Arlin leaned over the rail eagerly and Elysia looked asleep again. Celestine glanced around the box that was empty aside from the three of them, down at her partially finished homework and back at the Vesper Institute peer court for the verdict.

“Guilty.”

Arlin stifled a triumphant noise. 

“For stealing from the campus stores, he’ll… serve detention…” the Student Council President paused “…where?”

“Cleaning classrooms?” the ambassador suggested.

“Rhys’s campus beautification thing?” The historian turned to the vice president. 

“Sure. We don’t have many volunteers anyway.”

“50 hours with the campus beautification project then.”

The green haired thief only blinked.

15. Seeking Solstice

“We’re your friends, Celestine!” Celestine! Celestine!

“You’re not crazy!” Crazy! Crazy!

She could hear their voices speaking into her mind still, each utterance bringing back murmurs from her childhood. 

“She’s insane, Ms. Sesium.”

“Attention deficiency.”

“Aggressive. I’d even say she’s controlled by violent impulses.”

“Odd certainly. Dreaming or hallucinating, I can’t tell.” 

“Delirious.”

“.No. No. NO!” No! No! Before her the path broke into thin air and the land crumbled away. She’d reached the furthest point from the dreamscape’s heart. There was no more running. Celestine crumpled into a ball, pressing her hands against her ears. 

I”m not crazy!

Comment Blurbs

11. 33%

 I had an insanely hard time writing this segment and this is actually the super-edited third version. (Like with the old version of number 7, the original one will be featured in a "bonus" post later. Version 2 was basically the same scene as this, just described differently.)

Eventually though, I used it to introduce another triple in the story, the triple of secondary characters. 

Basically in this post, Rhys is criticizing her roommates and Celestine overhears. The 99% mentioned at the end was their group's (and coincidentally also their room's) score on a test. It isn't the giant history project that Elysia and Celestine were working on. 

So this is "F.A.R." as their initials would spell (not quite as cool as A.C.E., is it? >.<), consists of Fiana, Anuna and Rhys. Fiana is the same Fiana as Casayo's future girlfriend/ love interest in Spring Ball Trouble, though this is at least a year before the events of Spring Ball Trouble. She's got white hair and yellow irises and attributes these weird colorings to her being part seraph (angel). Fiana's story is actually currently being developed apart from this story, and gets pretty complicated; however, for the purposes of this story, she's just a white-haired, yellow eyed healing and summoning major who's best known for being too sensitive and always crying. 

Anuna has crimson hair and pink eyes and says it's because she's the princess of the "Land of Dreams," which Rhys quite frankly thinks is ridiculous. There'll be more on Rhys later in this post.

12. Dead Wrong

I made a diction mistake in this post. But I like the mistake because of the other effect it creates so I'll leave it be. Anyways, this is Elysia, talking to herself as she works for the Campus Beautification Project. She speaks a lot in questions, as I hopefully have been illustrating.

13. Running Away

This post is actually exactly how it was when I first wrote it. There was a small description of what she's wearing in the dreamscape, but I cut it out due to a the my self-imposed word count. The main purpose is to establish the scene of "Celestine's dreamscape," which comes up again a lot in the scenes we see Celestine alone. She's basically alone in a foggy flat landscape where everything echos except the voices that speak to her here. She tries to run, but the dreamscape apparently has an end and she can only go so far. More on her psychological conflict later. 

14. Judgement

This was definitely inspired by the peer court that was held in my high school once a semester--the awesome peer court...that I never was able to attend. Every time they held it I was already scheduled to go to something else at that exact time. It saddened be greatly to have never been able to see what it was like, but I imagined a little bit and put it into this. 

Anyways, ECA's schedule must be better than mine, because they're sitting in on one of the sessions. Going to this was definitely Arlin's idea. 

This also is our first glimpse of the Vesper University Student Council. Like the Alatus Institute from which this story was inspired, the Student Council is the main legislative and executive power at Vesper. This has nothing to do with anything, but your council members this year are:

President and Commissioner of Technology:      Zariah van Astira 

Vice President and Commissioner of Magic:      Rhys Vesper 

Secretary and Representative of General Ed Classes:      Emery Warni/ Yi

Treasurer and Commissioner of Weapons:      Wang Xue Tao

Historian and Commissioner of Healing:       Ethyn Archent

Ambassador and Commissioner of Summoning:       Ribelle Navynx

It mirrors Alatus...almost too much for my liking, but I really liked the concept so... XD

So Rhys is the chancellor's daughter, the student council vice president, commissioner of the magic department, and the organizer of the Campus Beautification Project. I'll let you form your own opinions on her. 

The green-haired thief...is pretty obvious because I only have leik 2 green-haired characters and only one that's a guy, but more on him when he shows up later. 

15. Seeking Solstice

I think this title is a typo and should be "Seeking Solace", since I can't figure out what "Seeking Solstice" is supposed to mean. But I followed the 100 theme title's spelling :P

So this batch's posts had a lot to do with introducing Celestine's psychological conflict: namely that she's nervous about any word like "crazy" or "insane" because it brings her invariably back to her childhood memories when she was declared crazy and insane and what not. 

I used this entry to continue the scene from Running Away because I liked the image of "running away" to "seek solace", but also because I like the irony it presents: running away from one thing and running towards another. If life's on a circle, then how do we know if we're running the right way? 

Celestine also gets the unfortunate touch of my own conflict with psychologists: Aside from the final "delirious", all those things said about her were once said about me. I didn't struggle as much with it as she does though, due in part to how our parents reacted to it. So Celestine's conflict here is kind of a hyper-exageration and partly created situation. 

Thanks for reading! The next batch of ECA posts are planned to be up in a few weeks. :) (Gawd passive voice =__=)

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