#x-rainflame-x

[novelmonger]

For the ask game: The Sound of Music 😌

This is one of those books that is maybe a bit tiresome when it's assigned reading for school, but when you come back to it as an adult, it's actually so beautiful. It's about the youngest daughter in a very musical family who becomes deaf after a terrible sickness. And the whole thing is about her trying to deal with suddenly not being able to hear the music and singing that used to be such a big part of her life, until finally she realizes that she can still feel the vibrations that the music makes. It's just sort of a slow, somber story, but very beautifully written, with an aching sort of sadness. They've made a movie out of it too, but not many people seem to have seen it.

[novelmonger]

The ask game: do you have pics of your ocs to share? C:

So you may have seen my post about it yesterday, but yes, I do! I can't draw myself, so I'm reliant on other people making fanart for me ^^'

My dear friend @sergeanttomycaptain has drawn several pics of my favorite OC, Jake Rogers (Steve's son in the Captain America AU I'm working on):

Just look at that cutie pie! >3<

I also have a couple older pics people made for a couple FMA OCs of mine. I wish I could find links to the artist's pages, but it's been over 10 years and deviantART is a scary place to try to navigate now ._.

So here is fanart of my OC Jenny Parker, who is Edward Elric's secretary when he grows up and rejoins the military (art by windrider01):

And then I have a couple of an OC I'm still rather fond of, Emily Atwater, whom I created specifically to pair her off with Alphonse Elric (art by HolyCowWorshipper):

(We started from the same point, then went off separately and created our own OCs to pair up with Al, so they're really similar in some ways but drastically different in others. Emily is the one on the right.)

(This one's a little anachronistic, because Emily doesn't actually meet Al until after he gets his body back. But she captured Emily perfectly, so I don't mind ^_^)

[griseldabanks]

10, 12, and 20 for the Ao3 wrapped? 👀

10. What work was the quickest to write?

Hmm, that's a little hard to measure, but I think it might have been the John and Sherlock fic I wrote for Let Me Count the Ways. I knew all along that if someone asked for John and Sherlock, I was going to delve back into my kidlock AU, and it wasn't very long after I got the request that I latched onto what moment from the show I wanted to play with. It had been several years since I wrote my last Sherlock fic, but their voices came surprisingly easily once I got started!

12. How many WIP’s do you have in your docs for next year?

I never know what counts as a WIP, because I have dozens of unfinished fics and stories that I'm intending to get to sooner or later. It's just...most of them aren't that high of a priority, I guess ^^'

My number one priority is my gargantuan Captain America fic Take Me In, the first draft of which I hope to finish writing in the first part of 2024. Hopefully by the end of winter! Not sure when I'll start posting it; that depends on how long and drawn-out the final editing process ends up being.

Another priority is a Christmas thing I'm writing for friends, but that will be done before the end of the year. Other than that, the main writing project I'm taking into the next year is outlining my original story The Ambassadors for SlowMoWriNo.

20. Which work of yours have you reread the most?

Already answered here. Instead, I think I'll do:

5. What work of yours got more feedback than you expected?

In terms of the fics I've written for Let Me Count the Ways and only posted on Tumblr so far, I never expected them to get much attention. This is a very small blog, after all ^^' So I was surprised that the one that's gotten the most notes so far is the one I wrote for Jak and Daxter. Apparently that game has quite a sizable (if dormant) fandom! And apparently there are a lot of people who detest Samos, so I guess I got more attention by treating him sympathetically ^^'

AO3 Wrapped

[novelmonger]

Oak, fuzzy blanket, and rain for the ask game 👀

oak - What is the wisest thing someone has said to you over the last year?

"It's okay to give up and let go of something that isn't there anymore."

fuzzy blanket - Share the last dream you remember.

Last night, I dreamed that Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes, and my OC Jake (Steve's five-year-old son) were attending a church, but for some reason they had to stay in a little room by themselves - almost like one of those little rooms some churches have for nursing mothers? And there was a slot in the door through which they received communion.

...I really have no idea where that came from ^^'

rain - What makes you feel at home?

More than anything, the smell of the laundry detergent my mom uses. It pervades everything in their luggage when they come to visit, and I only need to catch the briefest whiff of it, and I feel like a kid again, helping my mom hang up the laundry <3

Autumn ask game

[envythepalmtree]

31, 48!

31. The best road trip song

No idea what constitutes a road trip song, but may I recommend 10,000 Year Earworm to Discourage Resettlement Near Nuclear Waste Repositories by Emperor X

ok lemme explain this one. I've been obsessed with nuclear semiotics lately, which is basically the study of how to communicate to civilizations far in the future that they have to stay away from nuclear waste.

If you guys remember that tumblr post that was going around a couple weeks back where it was basically pictures of pools with text like "We considered ourselves to be a powerful culture. This place is not a place of honor." "The danger is to the body, and it can kill." That's nuclear semiotics!!

One of the things that people discussed was breeding house cats to change color with lots of radiation. So if someone moved with their cat to somewhere near a nuclear waste site, their cat would change color and they would know to move.

How would they know to move? Well, someone proposed an "atomic priesthood" that would keep the message alive through stories and songs and stuff. The guy who wrote this song wrote it so that hopefully it'd be catchy/annoying enough to last ten thousand years. I could go on and on lol.

Something I love about the song is like. it makes sure to say "take the cat with you!" because otherwise people might think their cat was radioactive or something and leave it behind

48. A song for a late night

Already answered this one, but I also love Good Goodbye by Linkin Park. Just. the sense of letting go and getting rid of what you no longer welcome. It's a fuck you, but almost happy.

Song rec asks

[by-nina]

Ooooooh, Whispers of a Sleeping City? :0

basically, roy takes walks around the city late at night when he can't sleep, throughout the canon timeline. lots of introspection, a good dose of angst, and a touch of spice down the line. i don't have the body of the story going yet but i have an outline now for all the walks he will be going on!

this came to me after a week of waking up once or twice in the middle of the night, possibly a side effect of the vaccine. 😂 also because if there's anything i'm on the same page with roy about besides loving riza, it's being a sleepy bitch.

[borkthemork]

🌹 FMA? :D

He cherished the drinking, the food, the late-night whispers, perhaps even the hazing. They were all memories. Memories of brighter days, of looser reveries — where the ambition was clear-cut, and relationships weren’t torn down by his gloved hands. Moments that reminded him of innocence, of unbroken promises.

But out of every recollection, out of everything he recalled in his thirty-three years of living:

The smile of the ruby-eyed man haunted him the most.

[idoodlestuffsometimes]

The Nature of Their Species?!?!

Or, you know, any Hoho snippet you wanna give I will gladly take :D

Fortunately for you, ALL of my FMA fics are chock full of Hoho snippets ;3 Uh, I guess I'll share the preliminary summary (because I'm a weirdo who finds it helpful to write the summary FIRST) and also a snippet.

The Nature of Their Species:

-alternate timeline fic, early planning stages, name stolen from one of Father's lines in canon despite him being very very dead

SUMMARY:

-In a timeline devoid of homunculi, Edward Elric lives a normal, peaceful life with his family in Resembool until the military turns up abruptly to snatch his father and brother away. With his life and family in tatters in the aftermath, Ed is confronted with unexpected questions. Why would the military go out of their way to get their hands on a bumbling country academic and his preteen son? How much does Ed's mother know? What have his parents been hiding? And most importantly, if Ed ever wants to put his family back together again, what is he going to do about it?

SNIPPET:

"Dad?" Ed found himself asking, and both his parents' heads snapped up to look at him, the lines of their backs going rigid. Tentatively, Ed moved forward, hand clinging to the doorframe as he stood half in and half out of the darkness. "Are you going somewhere?"

For a long moment, there came no answer. Dad looked at him, just long enough that Ed realized his eyes were red, like he'd been crying, then he turned his face away, his large hand coming up to brush quickly across it, and his long, untied hair fell forward, hiding his expression from view.

"…No," he whispered finally. "No, Edward, I'm not going anywhere."

The tenseness in Mom's shoulders fell away. She brushed her hand up Dad's back and rubbed his shoulder, pressing a kiss to his hair before getting up and taking Ed back to bed. The last thing Ed saw before she carried him from the room was Dad's silhouette, hunched, like a great weight rested on his shoulders.

Ed lay in his bed for ages afterwards, staring up at the ceiling, disconcerted for reasons he didn't understand.