What's the significance of trusting another man with your life once you've already given up living...?

-Edward Elric from Fullmetal Alchemist in Broken Stride

FRIENDS, WRITERS, FRIENDS OF WRITERS, LEND ME YOUR EAR

I have some tips for those who want to better protect their fics.

I had written an e-mail a long time ago listing the ways I have to protect my work as mine in case someone manages to hack my Fanfiction profile and sent it out to everyone I knew on FF.

Don't know how far the message got, but no matter how many precautions the web site installs there is always a chance that some determined A-hole is going to find a way in.

Here's what I wrote in the original e-mail with some unrelated junk edited out. If you consider the following information of any merit then please pass it on. I can't spread the word without YOU!

I found out from Caitlin that her pen name was stolen around three years ago.

A friend of hers also had his stolen about two years back and if you ask around you will find other victims.

She says that it's an ongoing problem on FanFiction.net.

Thinking that we should start something that gets passed around telling the other writers what to do if this happens to them.

Stuff like talking to their fans about their fics via e-mail and making their e-mail address available.

Also posting some of it, like the first few chapters and deleted scenes, on other sites. This gives them witnesses and the bastard committing the crime won't have the e-mails.

They can simply reply to old e-mails as proof.

If something like this ever happens to me I have all of these and saved AIM conversations between me and Crimson lantern. Some of my e-mails are almost as old as the fic itself and I've been keeping in touch with fans and other writers. I use AIM to tell her my ideas when I can't just write them out, it's easier telling them to someone, then I save the con for editing the ideas into completed segs, like a guideline.

So, you interested, because it can happen to anyone at any time and most writers don't have their ass covered nearly as well as mine.

Pass the above information on to as many people as possible.

Hope you found some of this useful.

On to the rest of the actual profile.

There are now three fics that I'm currently writing. All of them are being written out of sequence. That's why it takes me so long to update, they're all jumbled up in my head, but it’s the only way I write. I have already written fragments of the endings to most of them, the problem is getting started in the first place. I'm also posting on LiveJournal.com. My pen name there is Fullmetal_Angyl. There are things like song fic chapters that I cannot post on FanFiction.net, so I will be posting those on LiveJournal http://www.livejournal.com/. This is my link, http://fullmetal-angyl.livejournal.com/. I'll be telling you when I do this so you don't have to go there and read it just to find changes.

So far they’re all Fullmetal Alchemist fics.

To make things a bit more interesting I'm integrating the names of characters and places in other fics into mine. It isn't meant to be a rip off, it's as a tribute to authors I look up to.

In Levitas Fragosus http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2756714/1/ by BlackMercifulFaerie http://www.fanfiction.net/u/678986/ there is a doctor named Antley and I've named the main hospital in Broken Stride Antley Memorial.

Also in Broken Stride I'm naming the angel Leo's brother Logan after Lily's pet fox in Bittersweet http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3379874/1/, a FMA fic by Crimson lantern http://www.fanfiction.net/u/1012173/.

In Running in the Shadows I’m naming some horses after friends. Sara is ginger silver tongue http://www.fanfiction.net/u/584190/, Hannah is Crimson lantern, and Sable is Lily’s mother in Fetch http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3110934/1/, another FMA fic by Crimson lantern.

Stories

'Broken Stride' – Ch.4 Part 1 up. Angst/horror, my first fic and my pride and joy. I've been writing it since late February of 2005 not long after I first became a FMA freak and didn't post the preface till November 9, 2005. The preview and summary below give you a hint at the often times morbid nature of this fic.

Preview

Maes Hughes is talking to Roy Mustang.

“It was a nightmare… one, long, nightmare. When I’m trying to sleep I can still hear him screaming for the help I was powerless to give. When I close my eyes… I can ‘still’ see them Torturing him not Twenty-Feet Away! That kind of thing changes a man, Roy; it changes a man to his dying day. I’m still there… and part of me, will ‘never’ escape.” Maes suddenly grabbed his friend’s uniform at the chest and yanked him closer, thoroughly soaking it in his blood. “If Hell Truly Is Repetition I’m Living It!”

End preview

Another thing that may help give you a heads up is telling you that there is a poison that makes ordinary men go insanely violent like the reevers in the TV show Firefly and the movie Serenity. I'm talking people chewing off other people's faces while they're screaming.

BROKEN STRIDE IS PARTLY BASED ON SEVERAL TRUE STORIES.

SOME OF THE MORE TRAGIC EVENTS IN BROKEN STRIDE WERE INSPIRED BY REAL TRAGEDIES THAT HAVE BEFALLEN FAMILY MEMBERS. SOME ARE BASED ON PETS, BUT IT IS NOT MY PLACE TO IDENTIFY THE ONES BASED ON PEOPLE.

ONE OF THEM CAN BE READ AT THE FOLLOWING SITE. http://www.deviantart.com/deviation/24204875/

'Running in the Shadows' – Action/adventure/angst, possible death fic. Has the potential to become as long and gory as 'Broken Stride'.

I can't say much because chapter one builds up suspense for chapter two. You're not supposed to know anything till then.

Preview

“Ed, what is it?”

“Nothing.”

Then the tears fell and he buried his face in his hands, choking back a sob that cracked a defeated voice as he went into a complete breakdown.

“And everything!”

End Preview

'The Morals Of Murder' – Up At Last!! The preface can be read as a one-shot, but it goes much further and has the potential to become as long as 'Broken Stride' and every bit as dark, gritty, and angsty as 'Broken Stride' will get... replacing most of the fluff with military humor and innuendo.

I read a really good Fullmetal Alchemist angst/horror war fic called Pains of War http://www.fanfiction.net/s/2753173/1/ and this, more specifically Edward’s little speech in the preface, came to mind. So I have Roy-Fan-33 http://www.fanfiction.net/u/955323/ to thank for the ideas it gave me that led to the creation of this fic.

Sorry to say it, but I posted the first chapter before I had a foundation for the rest of the fic and it'll probably never get finnished.

Preview

Taking a calming breath, Winry walked back in. He looked just the way she left him, caked in dark red mud and grimacing in pain sitting up in his hospital bed.

“Edward?”

He flinched violently, almost like someone struck him, her voice startling him out of his thoughts. Edward wasn’t exactly in the mood to get bitched at and possibly even clonked with a wrench for doing whatever the hell was necessary to keep his unit, his men... ‘his boys’, breathing. They were like extended family to him and each other, and he’d just lost so many of them. The only response she got was him sagging his shoulders and hanging his head a little lower in foreboding. It hurt to see him like that, almost broken.

Then, after what seemed like forever...

“I killed today, Winry.”

She just couldn’t bring herself to believe that such a dead voice could come from Edward, and watched as a lone tear slipped from under the bandage, it already looked damp from past crying. Winry had overheard the stories of “Brass Balls Elric”; seen the reverence and strength in the eyes of men that spoke of him the way one speaks of a legend. And when she did, she wanted nothing less than to lob him upside the head with her wrench for taking such sick risks. But now, all she felt was guilt for coming to his room with such intensions in mind.

End preview

For those who are tired of waiting you can contact me for spoilers. I usually answer my e-mail within a few days. Despite taking over half-a-year (or longer) to post one chapter I want you all to know that I’m always working on my fics. Ask Crimson lantern if you don’t believe, There was a time we hardly went two days without talking about our fics and bouncing ideas off one another.

I write out of sequence so I have to bridge gaps before I can post more.