Imperial Privilege

I ran the title through an online title capitalization checker, and it came out looking like that. It feels wrong, as if everything should be capitalized or "If" should be lowercase to keep "off" company.

And that is not at all the point of this blog.

Some of you might have seen I finally have a story up and running after a lot of time hemming and hawing over one. I decided to suck it up, bite the bullet and do other things with my mouth to crank something out, even though I'm sure it won't live up to my lofty expectations. Oh well. I will get better as I continue to flex these old creative muscles. (I hope.)

The Magnificence has only just begun, and my brain is already trying to spit out new ideas.

Shirou and Kairi mention Vegas as a background incident, and that's honestly all it was going to be. So, of course, my brain starts putting something together as soon as the idea is out there. If The Magnificence is Seven Samurai with mages, the Vegas story would be pure Smokin' Aces. Picture a young Shirou who has tentatively joined the Enforcers with some misgivings just before a big job in Vegas that ultimately shakes his faith in the organization and leads him to go solo years before he tracks Kairi to that bar. Years ago, the younger Shirou first meets Kairi, one of the many free agents gunning for the target (who is politically sensitive and would be better off dead for a lot of powerful people), and Bazett may or may not be heading up Shirou's five-man team. Some cameos here and there from people like Cornelius Alba as another assassin, but a lot of the rival assassins/bounty hunters would be original characters who exist chiefly as a vehicle for fight scenes with fantastic powers.

Totally unrelated to that is something that comes up in Heaven's Feel.

Archer mentions that he's encountered something like Angra Mainyu in the past, but all he could do was retreat because he was so horribly ill-equipped to deal with it. We also know that he encountered Ciel at some point, or at least Nasu was willing to joke about it.

This dovetails with a post I made in the Fanfic Idea Thread about Kariya winning the Grail lottery and getting Berserker Arcueid during the Fourth. Alaya flips the fuck out and forces Jeanne and EMIYA on Kiritsugu and Tokiomi as a preemptive measure. I like the idea of Berserker Arcueid, particularly in all of the pants-ruining terror she would evoke in EMIYA when he realizes what he's up against. There could have been sub-plots about EMIYA being heartbroken to see his idol in full Magus Killer mode, even though he realized Kiritsugu must have dirtied his hands in the same way, and Mr. Kerry trying to manipulate Gilles's fascination with Jeanne instead of killing him at the first opportunity. This would, of course, be kept secret from Jeanne, who believes smiting him is the only way to save him. Drama, drama everywhere.

Then someone pointed out that Arcueid wasn't summoned at all in Extra. Gatou just dug her up on Earth and dragged her into the Moon Cell simulation.

So that idea was dead in the water.

Then I remembered that bit about Angra and it started synergizing with the idea of Sleeping Beauty Arceuid. Let's assume sleeping Arc was found on Earth by someone other than Gatou, who won't be born for a few decades. Let's assume that the finder is a rogue magus on the run for his research into vampirism, and Shirou is hot on his heels. Our Sealing Designate, with a cult of personality and a following to match, stumbled upon Arc's sleeping place and intends to use her as a key component for some elaborate ceremony of generic pure evil. In the meantime, he sics a bunch of shadow beasts on Shirou that have been derived from his study of Fabro Rowan's research materials and augmented by her power. Shirou's reluctantly retreats right into the middle of a Church black ops team headed up by the Burial Agency. Ciel's there! And Merem! Maybe even Caren! And, eventually, Shiki is, too, because he'll be damned if he lets some dirty magus turn his waifu into a generator.

Cue lots of gratuitous team up action as Shiki and Shirou pointedly ignore the Church's threats to get lost and do a bunch of shooting and stabbing just general kicking bad guy ass in an avalanche of non-sexual fanservice

But who knows? I'll have at least a few dozen new ideas by the time I'm finished with The Magnificence, which isn't even three members deep at this point. I'm sure I'll have moved on to some other thing featuring post-Grail War Shirou.

It's kind of funny, really. I'm not big on Archer, but I'm fascinated by Shirou's journey into Archer. And I just generally like the idea of older, wiser, international do-gooder Shirou Emiya, jet setting around the planet to save the world one day at a time

Which, of course, is the crux of Archer's problem. He can't save everyone, but I'd like to see Shirou try.