restraint of desire

[kaigou]

draft removed now that final (errr, mostly final) is posted.

Comments

[rurounitriv.livejournal.com]

Yay for Ed playing possum. Patience isn't normally his strong point, but he certainly managed it this time.

Al's going to be walking funny for days, I bet, and not just because of the ankle. Sounds like he's got some nasty saddle sores there. ^^;

And why am I not surprised that Mustang can ride a horse? ;)

[mikkeneko.livejournal.com]

thanks to Mikke for the suggested spelling

Thanks to femmelethale, not me. :) SHe's the one who did the research and came up with the name.

[solitude1056.livejournal.com]

otay. thank her for me. ;-)

Guess I should make a list and put that down as resources, too? Got the original URL and list of folks who helped?

[solitude1056.livejournal.com]

Uh, because I wrote a whole flashback on Mustang riding horses as a young boy?

Hey, just being on a horse for an hour will make you damn sore...but it won't give you saddle sores. It'll just make you hurt very very bad. Heh.

Question

[kytyngurl2.livejournal.com]

First let me say thank you so very much for continuing this! The Contraries Arc is truly one of the best FMA fics out there and your work is much appreciated. These new chapters really brightened up my dismal week. :)

I heard before that there was going to be a 3rd book to the Arc... with actual Roy/Ed stuff. Is that still going to happen?

Also, just curious... when exactly did Al tell Roy his title? When he was hiding under the bed and chatting with Roy?

Thanks again... and much much thanks to the donators. You guys are wonderful people!!

[ravensilver.livejournal.com]

Yeah! More Ed and Al and Roy! :)

Finally got around to reading. Love it, just love it. I'm wishing that the series had continued like that. It would have been very interesting. Thanks so much for writing!

[hinotori.livejournal.com]

Heh. I'm not usually one for violence, but Oh My Gate did those two creeps get what they deserved or what? I hope they get Becky out there all right, too...

The "Desires" arc is love. <3

Re: Question

[solitude1056.livejournal.com]

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

[solitude1056.livejournal.com]

Hell, I dunno, the series itself was pretty kick-ass.

Roy, taking the matches from Havoc? One of my favorite bits...poor Havoc, he never gets any respect. Heh.

[solitude1056.livejournal.com]

Y'know, it just dawned on me that I named the OC with the same name as the person who first suggested the story. Hunh. That was NOT intentional! Time for global search and replace!

And yeah...I know originally it was "don't kill them so we can question them" -- hmm, ah, it's a draft. Expect revisions. ;D

(Got another 2K in last night before I crashed. So hopefully, after various errands and crap today, I'll have the final posted by this evening.)

[tiercel]

HAH! I'm so glad that SOB is dead.

Also, I love the horse=Ed comparison.

I do have some reservations about the story ending so soon - mostly based around the fact that the first few chapters are really focused on Roy's state of mind. You're a very subtle writer, and you've shown that he and Ed have the beginnings of a closer friendship, but there's an incomplete feeling to it. You also raised the side issue of Ed feeling without a purpose, and that's not going to be resolved in an epilogue. I'm not trying to tell you how to write your own story; it just feels like there's a lot of unexplored territory left, and examining it would balance out the focus on character that marked the first arc of the story.

[solitude1056.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm aware of that. Rereading before I started adding new chapters, I can see where from Ed's POV there are still unresolved issues. Mustang's issues have been answered, to some extent: he realizes that he's not nearly as alone as he'd thought he'd been, and that much of his isolation was due entirely to his own choice, not because he should be alone. And Ed's search for "some new purpose" was to be the third part of the series.

Failing the time or energy to write that entire third part, I figured I'd go with an epilogue to at least wrap up the specific lessons learned from the events. I doubt they'll answer the general Ed-POV issues, but they will (hopefully) deal with the specific fallout. I think. Gotta finish Al's part, first.