Yep, yep, originally I had planned for three parts, from the POVs of Roy, Al, and then Ed. The whole thing began when Becky, who runs Tomomichi (sp? I can never remember) commented that she wished someone would write a story in which they deal with Ed's (apparent) anti-touch attitude, and deal with it in something longer than 1000 words...like, something with a plot.
So that was where I began the story, to see if I could bring together two competitive characters and get them not only cooperating but being friends. Wasn't sure if I could get them to the level of Hughes and Mustang in terms of friendship, but figured it was worth a try. And then at some point the question came up on FmA-fan, and several folks had some good points that made me think harder about the whole 'anti-touch' impression. I'd have to say that now I agree that Ed isn't bothered by physical touch; it's more that although still young, he holds himself distant physically in much the same way adults do; children have a much smaller area of private space than adults. Ed's moving in the adult world, so he comports himself accordingly; he never shrinks away from or flinches at someone's touch (other than one instance, and that's for understandable reasons but I won't spoil you if you've not seen the series).
So the real issue in the first book became less of "ooh, no one touch me!" and more of "this is my (former) commanding officer...weird." Heh.
As for the title, yeah, I figured Al filled Roy in on everything - I just didn't see reason to belabor it since the readers already knew all that. I glossed past it with something like one line of Al telling Roy about how it all began or some such. ;D
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Re: Question
Date: 13 Jan 2005 03:06 pm (UTC)So that was where I began the story, to see if I could bring together two competitive characters and get them not only cooperating but being friends. Wasn't sure if I could get them to the level of Hughes and Mustang in terms of friendship, but figured it was worth a try. And then at some point the question came up on FmA-fan, and several folks had some good points that made me think harder about the whole 'anti-touch' impression. I'd have to say that now I agree that Ed isn't bothered by physical touch; it's more that although still young, he holds himself distant physically in much the same way adults do; children have a much smaller area of private space than adults. Ed's moving in the adult world, so he comports himself accordingly; he never shrinks away from or flinches at someone's touch (other than one instance, and that's for understandable reasons but I won't spoil you if you've not seen the series).
So the real issue in the first book became less of "ooh, no one touch me!" and more of "this is my (former) commanding officer...weird." Heh.
As for the title, yeah, I figured Al filled Roy in on everything - I just didn't see reason to belabor it since the readers already knew all that. I glossed past it with something like one line of Al telling Roy about how it all began or some such. ;D