Notes and Errata of Mark of the Asphodel

So, this was a Western AU that I really wanted to write but I wasn't sure where to develop it. It wasn't just a Western AU, as it had a touch of what I like to call "arc-light punk" and then got into stuff like heavier-than-air flight and the obsolescence of old sabers-n-cavalry warfare. But straight-up retellings of game plot, even in an alternate setting, just don't hold my attention and so it's been sitting untouched since before my laptop crashed in March.

I guess it'll go here, for now, just to prove it existed.

Public Enemies

 

I do not own Fire Emblem or any of its characters.

 

( Gen2 Wild West AU with a twist... )

Stolen from Raphi and Manna, who swiped it from others.

give me a pairing and I will tell you their modern AU...

•professions
•hobbies
•how they met
•other stuff maybe

Yeah, I'll get to the top four characters on that meme sometime... soonish.

( Published WIP )

Anything not mentioned isn't discontinued, just on the back burner with minimal heat.

( Unpublished WIP )

-x-

Found something interesting in the candy aisle at Holiday Market yesterday: Bavarian Malt Candy.  It's great; I like barley-sugar candy anyway, but this comes in nice irregular chunks instead of smooth lozenges and the taste is rich and a little smoky.  Nice stuff.

Huh.  This is the only thing I've worked at all on in the second half of this month, and most days I haven't even touched 'fic.  I think of things during the day, and I'm too tired to write when I finally get the chance at night.  Meh.

Anyway, in this chapter, we get to spend a bit of time inside girl!Marth's head, which an annoying hurdle for the writer in any genderbend story, IMO.  

( Read this after reading the 'fic, unless you don't want to read the 'fic. :P )
PS: Beer as a secret ingredient in chicken stew works really, really well.  Hard cider would do likewise, I'm sure.

Is is wrong that I'm having to restrain myself from writing a baseball AU wherein awesome pitcher/catcher buddy duo Eliwood and Hector of the Lycian Dukes are the scrappy underdogs facing the well-heeled Magvel Royals?

Nineteen down.  One to go.

Utena reference completely intentional.

I was gonna do some comprehensive notes on this thing, wasn't I? 

...

Nope, too tired.  Later.

Oh yeah.  Chapter 18 is up.  I wouldn't expect to have 19 or 20 up any time soon; as I've said before, spinning out plot threads is the easy and fun part.  Tying them up neatly is the problem.

( Subplot discussion under the cut )

Going to be in one of those barroom trivia contests today.  Hopefully this will go better than the last one, which was heavily skewed toward post 1950s pop culture.  My team of geeks bombed.  When your Hail Mary moment is remembering the title to "The Adventures of Pluto Nash," it's not an especially proud day.

It's still the 42nd anniversary of the Apollo XI moon landing... for another twelve minutes.  In my time zone.

So, here you go.

Surprise, surprise.

Mind you, this doesn't exactly incorporate anything from my STS-135 jaunt, but the experience did give me a kick in the tail.  I so want to write a sequel that's all about Ephraim, but I keep talking myself out of it, because sequels to AUs are so often fucked up and pointless (not talking about this fandom, just in general).

Speaking of Ephraim, I finally took his name off the description field of the story.  It wasn't getting me any more readers.

Oh yeah.  At Kennedy Space Center, the parking lots are numbered 1-7, each one given the name of a Project Mercury astronaut.  If you're in Al Shepherd's Numero Uno parking lot, you're special, and if you're in Deke Slayton's #7 lot, you have a hell of a walk.  This made me giggle, as I wasn't aware of the parking lot issue until last Wednesday.

So, I'm trying to get a quota of interesting cooking in before I get sent to Vegas.  Yesterday, I harvested some daylily buds and made a stir-fry with lamb, daylily, and fresh mushrooms from the farmers market.  If I'd been feeling more ambitious I'd have made a real nice dish with a ginger-black bean sauce, but bottled sauce did work in a pinch and it was pretty good except for the soggy brown rice.  I am SO switching back to jasmine rice... the brown rice turns out better when I don't follow the directions.

This morning, I decided to offload some of the excess strawberries I bought on Friday (also at the farmers market) in the form of a sweet omelet.  No, not one of those super-fancy fallen-souffle deals; this was more like a flourless crepe, not too sweet and pretty darned tasty.  Warmed, sliced, fresh strawberries are so much nicer than gloppy pie-filling stuff, which I've come to loathe.  

-x-

Yesterday I completed two more must-see goals in the Metro Detroit experience-- a tour of the legendary Rouge Factory and a trip to the top of the Renaissance Center.  Seeing the First Wonder of the Industrialized World gave a huge boost to my inner technology geek (though the official presentations on the tour are whitewashed beyond credibility), while being at the top of the tallest building in Michigan was pretty amazing.  I could see the spoke-like outlay of the city, with the main arteries of Michigan, Jefferson, Woodward, Gratiot, and Grand River spreading out for miles and miles and miles... I swear I could see the city lights of Mount Clemens off in the distance.  We were above helicopters.

Also, while Coach Insignia is a place I'm absolutely going back to for dinner, I'd sure hate to be a paying guest on the night of a wedding reception.  There's nowhere to run from the music.  I'm sure we annoyed people.

-x-

Maybe I'll use the FE big bang as an excuse to finally do steampunk!Archanea, but I'd want a collaborator because I am not doing that on my own.

But that way I can finally get a picture of Merric with goggles.  And Linde.  Steampunk Linde.  Mmm.

-x-

"The Art of Manufacturing" (a short film shown at the Rouge tour) is like Koyaanisqatsi as filmed by Disney.  Makes you wonder what might've happened had Henry Ford and Walt Disney joined forces to create one empire of fantasy Americana.  

-x-

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night remains awesome beyond comparison.