Notes and Errata of Mark of the Asphodel

 I was going to take a stab at this meme, but then the latest round of LJ fail happened and I got distracted.

Except thirty-day memes are kind of boring.  Let's start with Day Four!

Your favorite character:

( Favorite FE guy )

( Favorite FE girl ) 

Don't know what I'll pick next; it'll be a surprise.

 French toast made with leftover chocolate-chunk sourdough is not nearly as nice as it sounds.  I mean, it was OK... I used a basic French toast batter recipe and added vanilla, so it tasted all right, but the texture wasn't great.  I used the remaining batter to make a sweet omelet, and that was also OK but was definitely a "not waste food" kind of thing instead of "mmm, yummy."

Just in case anyone thinks the stuff that comes out of my kitchen doesn't misfire on a regular basis...

-x-

Yo.  Got some tearjerker fic-recs. 

A Myrrh & Ephraim piece by raphien .

An FE6-era Eliwood story featuring Kent/Lyn by sacae .

And, fresh this morning, a Natasha & Knoll story by someone whose nom de web looks trollish but whose reviews have been insightful in the past.

-x-

Since the overall 'fic mood of this weekend appears to be ZOMG depressing, have a side order of this with your angst.

I was researching Scottish and other Celtic recipes in preparation for writing a Tana-centric 'fic called "The Basics of Frelian Cooking, " and I came across one of the most woe-inducing recipes ever, a skimmed-milk and barley-flour concoction known as "Sky Blue and Sinkers"-- a staple for starving Cornish miners and their equally hungry families.  Yeah, I'll take Confederate-era wallpaper paste and fried rats over diluted barley gruel.    

It was not appropriate at all for the Tana 'fic, but the recipe stuck with me, and I did have a use for it in the end.  Horribly depressing things can always find a home in Archanea-fic.  At least Caeda's not a total downer on her own.

So, thanks to myaru  and her own misadventures with macarons (not macaroons), I've been obsessed with the little meringue kisses.  I shelled out fifty bucks to import a 24-pack of them from France (chocolate, lemon, raspberry, coffee, vanilla, pistachio).  I arranged them on a tray with the intention of transporting them to a party Saturday night.  I tripped on my way out the door, dropped the tray, and the whole arrangement landed in the rock salt and pavement dirt.

I dusted them off and ate them anyway; they were quite good, especially the chocolate and raspberry.  The pistachio tasted a little too... green.

-x-

I love chestnuts.  I love them sauteed with Brussels sprouts and topped with crumbled bacon.  I love them mashed into butternut squash pasta sauce and served atop textured, colored, pasta shapes with a generous sprinkling of Parmesan cheese.  I have been having little slices of food heaven thanks to my chestnuts.

-x-

Dear fandom: please stop writing "Tactician in Magvel" stories.  The Good Guys of Magvel already have a tactician.  His name is Innes and he is definitely smarter than your OC or your FE7 expy.  If you don't think that's good enough, because Innes joins the party so late, keep in mind that Ephraim and Seth both know what they are doing.  Ephraim is not some dipstick teenager who is given an army and some cool toys to play with because the Plot Says So.  He does not need a babysitter.  He does not need your Gary Stu.  With the combined powers of Innes, Seth, and Ephraim on hand, the Good Guys of Magvel most certainly don't need your OC.

-x-

Caeda/Ogma is not one of my OTPs.  I like it quite a lot, both for what it is in the games and for what it could potentially be.  I don't really write it-- I don't much feature Ogma at all in my stories (shimizu_hitomi  writes him better than I ever can, and she can read and reference his actual dialogue and other source material, which I can't).  But it is a beautiful and moving relationship, one that has a dimension to it that puts it in a different territory from, say, Seth/Eirika.  Or Nyna/Camus.  Seth saves Eirika.  Camus saves Nyna.  But Ogma serves Caeda because she saved him.  

But I don't ship it.  Their FE11 dialogue, aka "Ogma gets friend-zoned," is reason enough for me not to.  The age difference is a factor for me, especially for anything set during the War of Darkness.  The social difference is a factor (especially with Caeda's father being alive during the games-- come on now).  But the real obstacle is straightforward-- that triangle featuring Caeda and Ogma has one hell of a hypotenuse.

And there isn't a shred of doubt that Caeda loves him.  Marth, I mean.  Not Ogma.  Her feelings for him are not tacked on as a postscript.  They are not lurking in the margins.  They are waving flags and blaring sirens from every corner of the text.  Artful Caeda may be, but subtle she is not.  Not in this case.  And Ogma doesn't stick around to watch her enjoy married life, or to watch over her children by Marth.  This isn't MyUnit we're talking about.  Ogma gets out of there, destination unknown.

Funny thing, though.  In my headcanon-- my serious headcanon, the sort of stuff I drew on for the Tales of the Unified Kingdom-- there's always been the working assumption that Ogma turns up again after Marth kicks the bucket.  And it may sound an awful lot like a case of whacking the hypotenuse, but it feels right.  Because as far as I'm concerned, Ogma was there first.

 But first, some phanphiction phishing!

I got this in my inbox today:

"Name: Yoshino in the Moonlight4"

Subject: Ideas related to fanfiction...

Hello there? You seem to be a fan-fiction writer in the United States, and
well, I just wanted to tell you that I have some ideas that are somehow
related to fan-fiction, and I wonder if you would like to discuss with me
about them. I just wanted to ask someone in the United States about these
ideas - could you perhaps give me some additional thoughts about them?

Also, just wondering - just how much interest do you have in drawing?"

What-ever.

-x-

OK.  Anyway, in this installment of "Until the Sun Cries Morning," Caeda shows up and thickens the plot like a dose of arrowroot in the pudding.  This chapter, "For Sorrow of Inspiration," is subdivided to make it easier to read and to buy me time on writing the battles of Chickamauga and Missionary Ridge.  :D

 Inspired by shining_valor 's musings on Peg Knights and their... articles of dress.  I also got pix from kittykatloren 's gallery to illustrate this.  If I were clever, I'd do in-line pictures like penandpaper71 , but instead you get this:


( Very short and sour story under the cut. )

Because, seriously... while on the one hand I was happy to get a cheesecake picture of Catria, given what they've done to her in the game, it does appear to say something.

 I think I need a certain amount of external pressure to be productive.  The pressure is on now, and my brain is flowing over.

Here is an exploration of Caeda I wrote 80% of last year and have polished up for publication.  It's my attempt at depicting her between the wars, based on a curious glitch in the Archanean timeline.  It would appear that, in Year 607 when the War of Heroes is about to erupt, that Caeda has arrived in Altea fairly recently-- she and Marth are just on the verge of getting married when the whole Grust diversion unfolds.  Yet the War of Darkness wrapped up approximately two years prior, back in 605!  That's a rather lengthy engagement-- wouldn't there be a certain amount of hurry-up involved, what with Marth being the last of his bloodline and all?

I present the following excuses: 

1) One or both of them are deemed underage.  This is pretty feasible, given Marth isn't crowned king immediately.  Archanea, unlike primogeniture-happy European kingdoms, doesn't like child kings, and doesn't seem to go for child marriage, either.  We know he can't be any older than seventeen in 605, and I suspect Caeda to be a year or two younger than that, and perhaps that's just too young. ("Old enough for war, but not for voting," I guess.)

2) Altea is a mess and needs to be stabilized first.  OK-- but FE11 kind of indicates Caeda zips out there immediately, regardless.  And she kicks her heels for two long years doing what-- playing dolls with Elice?  Learning how to be a lady?  Your guess is as good as mine.

3) Talys is a piece of unfinished business.  Specifically, it's a recently unified "modern" kingdom, whose first king appears to have one (1) young daughter as his heir.  Seriously, if Caeda had a brother or three, wouldn't they have popped up somewhere in the plot?  Sending Caeda off to Altea to marry means that, in essence, Talys goes bye-bye in one generation.  Married heiresses in Archanea hand over all their authority to their husbands.  Witness Nyna.  Witness Artemis.  In the time it takes to say "I do," independent Talys becomes, in effect, an eastern province of Altea.  A neglected province of Altea, given they're at opposite ends of the archipelago.   

If I'd dedicated my life to making Talys one solid nation, I'd have second thoughts about that scenario.  Wouldn't you?