Fic: The Phoney War, Chapter Eleven of Twelve

[bob_fish]

Title: The Phoney War, Chapter Eleven: Gauntlet
Setting: Fullmetal Alchemist, mangaverse, post-series, slight ending AU.
Characters: Roy/Ed, Havoc/Rebecca, Riza/Miles, Al, Winry, ensemble.
Rating/content: NC-17 overall, this chapter a light R for violence and swears.
Word count: 5603
Summary: Two years on from the Promised Day. Amestris is

Comments

Re: this comment brought to you by crack!Tierfal in the office (2/2)

[tierfal]

Roy is a guy who acts like he does everything casually, but is actually painfully sincere and a person who has very strong feelings about anyone he's close to.
ajfkdsjfldajfldsajldfsa yes thissssss ♥

I think it was actually one of the parts with Al when I most realized… either when he's walking by the river and gets attacked by the Bad Dudes or one of the many times he's taking the Metro - your Central just felt so REAL and SPECIFIC and ALIVE, and the whole fic is like that, where it all just rings absolutely true. :D

thank you for remembering Katie Flowers!
omg. Just. I was in a bit of a sulky mood because my computer had just died, so I gave Riderless Horse a miss and went for the fic with straight-up pairing stuff in it, which basically worked out to mean that my first real introduction to this storyline was that first chapter. And I specifically remember sort of going along, "Okay, interesting, politics whee, Rebecca is funny… what. What. No. What. No, she has to li- No author would do that. No au- WHAT. WHAT. NOOOOOOOOO!" …and it was just one of the tensest, tightest, most staggering scenes I had ever read in a fic, and I was totally hooked. :D

ajfklsdajklfsa ♥

(Translation: If by "thoughtful" you mean "prone to keyboardsmashing", I am oh-so happy to oblige! XDD)

Re: this comment brought to you by crack!Tierfal in the office (2/2)

[bob_fish]

Ah, thank you! I feel like sometimes when the complexities of the plot close in around me, I lose the everyday details of Central a bit, but I love it and want the city to feel alive and characterful! In my head, Central is a terrible mash-up of a bunch of old European cities: Barcelona, Granada, a few French cities, London, Berlin, Siena, even Florence ... The scene by the canal was based closely on my memory of a street in Granada which is allegedly notorious for muggings. But I've spent a good few happy hours musing over the character of different areas of the city, on cafes and night life and bakeries and what the gay scene is like. I love it when people enjoy the details that make it into the fic. <3

Ahhh, I am a mean author! That was totally what I was going for with that scene. As is probably obvious by now, I love mysteries where you get to know the murder victim after their death by finding all about their complicated life. Anyway, thank you for saying such nice things about it. So flattered! <3 <3 <3

(I'm actually really pleased with how The Riderless Horse came out. But no pairings at all! Not even my usual bucket of UST, just bromance and plotty plot. XD)

Re: this comment brought to you by crack!Tierfal in the office (2/2)

[tierfal]

I read it with a bit of a London slant after I stalked you and found out you live there. And it certainly didn't hurt that I was living there when I started reading! XD I think there was also a lot of Paris in my head, but it really felt like its own place, which was faaaaaabulous. I'm kind of crap with settings, but I love it when people build them beautifully and get them exactly right. :DDDDD

That also feels so genuine to me... every time I'm at a funeral, sobbing because mortality, why, it's like this entirely new person emerges out of the things other people knew about them that I didn't. The way you just seem to GET stuff like that -- this is sort of a weird thing to say, but one of the things I love about your fic is that I can tell you have this wisdom of experience, and it makes the characters' interior worlds that much deeper.

Re: this comment brought to you by crack!Tierfal in the office (2/2)

[bob_fish]

That's great that it felt like its own place! There's some London in there for sure, even direct cameos when I felt like they would feel like a natural part of Central. The Little Cat Cabaret and its host is based on a long-running gay cabaret club that I've loved basically all my adult life. Katie and Rebecca's flat was based on a 20s apartment block where a friend of mine lived. Central University's campus is based on the Royal Maritime College at Greenwich (although I think my description of it is fragmentary enough that you can't tell). And I'm sure you caught the Hampstead Heath cameo in Chapter Twelve!

Haha, I don't know about wisdom of experience, but I do try to put stuff like that in. The crazier the stuff the characters get mixed up in, the more I want their experiences on an emotional level to feel real and recognisable. I don't know that I always get there, but it's one of my constant goals in writing so thanks for saying lovely things about it. <3

(And ohoho look, Team Anti-Saxon! So great together. ;;;_;;; Jack making them all tea in Martha's student flat kills me. BTW, tangent note, Martha's medical school/hospital is a thinly-disguised Guy's and St. Thomas', which was my wife's medical school. She loved having a self-insert in the TARDIS, and was flailing when her hospital ended up on the moon.)