Notes and Errata of Mark of the Asphodel

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.