Fic: The Phoney War, Chapter Ten

[bob_fish]

Title: The Phoney War, Chapter Ten: Flashpoint
Setting: Fullmetal Alchemist, mangaverse, post-series, slight ending AU.
Characters: Roy/Ed, Havoc/Rebecca, Riza/Miles, Al, Winry, ensemble.
Rating: NC-17 overall, this chapter a mere PG-13
Word count: 8163 this chapter
Summary: Two years on from the Promised Day. Amestris is without a Fuhrer, the

Comments

[forochel]

SHRIIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEKS AN UPDATE!

God, I love this series so much. The politics! The state of war! The intriguing! The little human moments! HURRAY THEY GOT MARRIED. My nose totally got all sour when I read the scene with Ed & Roy at the wedding party. I'm so glad you resolved it within this chapter, honestly.

[bob_fish]

Thank you!

I had to resolve it in this chapter, honestly! I couldn't leave it hanging like that (and neither could Ed).

[tierfal]

I wish you could've seen my face when I glanced at my F-list during a breather at work and went full on :O and then full-on :D for fifteen seconds straight at the office.

I will come back and gush properly when I have regrouped some brain cells!! *______* For now, to make a long story short, I love everything. Everything.

[bob_fish]

I am excited for regrouped brain cells and gushing! Glad you enjoyed. \o/

[tierfal]

…so now you know why I often want to gush all over fics and then can never set aside enough time to do it properly. XD

[bob_fish]

Oh my goodness me! You wrote me an essay! ;;;_;;; <3 <3 <3

[lazylamia]

I think that Roy should take a page from Jean/Becky book and stop wasting his time trying to push Ed away - it won’t do any good for both of them.
Great chapter - but only one more to go in this fic. I hope that’s not the end of Ed/Roy adventures is this verse

[bob_fish]

Well, Ed won the argument in the end. XD

Thanks, glad you enjoyed! The end is in sight, but there's a five-chapter sequel and it's in progress. It's shorter and much of it's done so I hope to get it out asap and not to tax my lovely regular readers' patience again. XD

[stultiloquentia]

*runs around in circles*

*plops*

*reads*

Damn, your writing is such a pleasure. I'm so grateful for your Ed characterization; I love him so much. His maturity, his boldness and knack for learning from his mistakes keep catching me by surprise. I have realized this is not because he's OOC; he's in fact gloriously in character; it's because I read a lot of fanfic and watch TV and am therefore conditioned to expect all adult protagonists to have the relationship skills of 14-year-olds.

OTOH, the fact that you gave them that nice moment makes me think your plot outline is set to deliver a whumping any minute now.

[bob_fish]

\o/

So glad you're still reading and enjoying! This thing has taken me two years to finish so it is awesome to still have patient readers on board.

Ed's post-canon maturity is a big thing of mine. By the latter half of the manga he's really grown up a ton, and he continues to grow. He and Al have a ton of moral authority, maturity and good sense for people so young, and it's partly Ed being this grounded and mature that makes this pairing work for me. Sometimes I feel like romance plots both fandom and pro create silly obstacles (e.g. huge misunderstanding out of nowhere, with neither party thinking to just have an adult conversation). I enjoy it more when, if there are obstacles, they arise out of more human, character-driven stuff about just learning to be in a relationship with someone!

>_> Plotty plot is about to be plotty for sure. There's a five chapter sequel to this fic, and I'm nearly done on chapter three.

Part I/II

[tierfal]

THINGS THAT I LOVE ABOUT THIS CHAPTER
a short essay/outline by Tierfal
1. The Hughes flashback. I believe I may have mentioned at some point that your Hughes is brilliant - the perfect mixture of bright and manic and deadly smart. And I think he brings out a very beautiful, cynical-but-reluctantly-trying-to-hope strain in your Roy more than any other character.
a. This. Damn. Line: “What brought on this unannounced, non-consensual therapy session?” Which just so happens to be perfect. XD
b. THIS LINE: “I can’t work out if given the Grand Plan you just don’t want to give hostages to fortune, or if you think you have to kick yourself out of the Human Club for misbehaviour.” Which is perfect in an entirely different way.
c. Hughes brought to his family the same devastating certainty with which he approached all his endeavours. I LOVE this observation about him - and I also really love that the sheer compunction to make a decision and go is something I'd never really noticed that Hughes and Ed have in common. Which then, I think,

Part II/III, actually

[tierfal]

e. as if that was just what naturally happened when Roy’s hands were on his shoulders. And Roy kissed back, because that was what naturally happened when Ed kissed him. *weeping*
f. He’d fallen hard, and that was exactly how it felt: like falling onto concrete and dragging someone else down with him. *WEEPING*
g. He took a step back, until they were too far away to touch. He didn’t say anything. He tried to look cold. *WEEPING*
h. Hero!Ed with his hero's soul. I just. ♥
i. and a fragment of the joy they deserved - *lying on the floor sobbing into the carpet*
j. I love that Roy lets Riza go, which quietly and rather unequivocally proves everything Ed just said.

5. GAH HAVOC/REBECCA NEWLYWEDS SCENE
a. The whole description of Rebecca encapsulates all of her awesome sexy wonderfulness, but this: a girl who looked at him like she couldn't believe her luck; who looked at him the way he looked at her. …just. ;_________; *OTPs for an eternity

…maybe that's more like II-and-a-half?

[tierfal]

7. Something in me expected them to back down or find a way to weasel around the confrontation. I am so glad you went for it - it's terrifying and AWESOME.
a. The eggs in the icebox were stamped with a date a week from now. There'd be a new government by then. Perhaps it would be Roy. Perhaps he would be dead. This is so fucking amazing. Also, Roy, baby, LET ME HOLD YOU~
b. He felt like an idiot. But, he asked himself, how would he feel tomorrow if he didn’t go up? This. This is ED. Doing it because it makes sense and it's right and at that point why would you do anything else? x3
c. He'd bickered aimlessly with Greed and then they'd never spoken again; he'd assumed Hohenheim would be around to bug him forever, and he'd been wrong. This made me suffer beautifully. XD
d. OMG ROY, TRYING THE FRIEND-ZONE? REALLY?? -____-
e. He felt like he wanted to open his chest and show Roy this feeling, to heave it out and say look at this, this is what I’m talking about. Don’t you have this exact thing too? ajkfjdklsajfklds ♥
f. Ed looked at

Re: …maybe that's more like II-and-a-half?

[bob_fish]

7. a) I know, poor Roy. Writing him makes me want to give him a hug sometimes