Helloooooo! I live! Please see the poll on my profile. Also see the bolded message just below the poll.

I love you guys. Your numbers and words are both the reason I haven't given up writing (in general) and the motivation to go along the path that's made me half good at it. I've started writing a couple original pieces that may or may not actually get finished (by mentioning them here, I hope to motivate myself further) and published, and it's all thanks to the three+ years I've spent on this haphazard little piece of shit. *pinches Felicity's cheek*

Side note: What do you guys think of a story about fugitives from another dimension possessing human bodies (humans would call them demons) and having a kid with two souls? Both women, but there are supernatural elements that make it possible. (Not for any weird diversity stunt; I just like the idea.) Yes? No?

I'll stop bothering you now. Read on.

Full story summary collection for your convenience. Bolded so it's easy to tell what's recap and what's new material. It's all just transition into the sequel.

Chapters 1 - 6: Felicity, some random thirteen year old girl from our world, inexplicably ends up in Amestris with three metal limbs. At first, she enjoys the idea of being in another world, if slightly freaked out by it, and gets herself into Central via Winry and Major Armstrong. Around that time, she finds out that something is "wrong" with her, and alchemists feel some kind of pressure/discomfort in her presence. Once she gets to Central, she meets Hughes and tells him everything about the anime in an attempt to save his life by asking him to fake his own death. (She proves the existence of anime by predicting the future.)

Chapter 7: Filler.

Chapters 8 - 11: Upon meeting the Elric brothers' alchemy teacher, she's pressured into learning how to defend herself by Izumi and then kidnapped by Greed along with Alphonse. Greed tells her that her soul is somehow a Philosopher's Stone in and of itself, something Wrath sensed as well, leading him to taking her into custody, where Father decides she might be useful
In the process, Felicity remembers a fraction of her coming to this world: Meeting the Gatekeeper. ("Truth.") According to him/her/it, Felicity had accidentally drawn a transmutation circle perfectly while half-asleep and was allowed to be transmuted into the other world because "fun." (Spoiler: It was lying.)

Chapters 12: Felicity wakes up back in the sewers where Greed had taken her to the sound of people looking for her. She tells them about the Gate and finds out that she does know how to do alchemy without a transmutation circle... but she can't, because that would end up drawing on the energy of her soul, which for some reason is weak and malleable.
She promises Izumi that she'll take care of the Elrics (yeah right: her?) and learn how to defend herself, after which Felicity and the Elrics leave. They stop to get their automail repaired and meet Ling, who seems to take a friendly fancy to Felicity.

Chapter 13: When they return to Central, Felicity finds out that Hughes did indeed die, leaving her a note explaining why he couldn't fake his own death. She puts the note in her pocket and forgets about it in her grief.

Chapter 14: Felicity is trying to learn alchemy from Alphonse, something she did briefly at the Rockbells' house but hadn't seriously gone into until now. Otherwise filler.

Chapter 15: Mustang briefly kidnaps Felicity to try and find out what the heck about her, then she bonds with Ling a bit.

Chapters 16 - 17: Physical training begins... sort of. After some anime hijinx, Felicity is kidnapped by Envy and spends some time in captivity with Father. He's testing her further to figure out how she can be used/where she came from, and he manages to get her to tell him about her world and a substantial amount of the future. (Whether through alchemy mind-tricks or torture, we'll never know.) Pride is there and learns quite a bit of English in the process, and Felicity ends up being drained of most of her life energy by Father and his enormous Philosopher's Stone, but it's not until way later that we learn any of this.

Chapters 18 - 22: First, Felicity finds out someone has died who shouldn't have and has a mild panic attack over it. Afterwards, it's revealed that the Elrics have found the note from Hughes in the pocket of the dummy set up to fake Felicity's death. (It was meant to be permanent, but then everyone found out about her being alive.) They get upset, and Ed doesn't trust her throughout the entirety of the rest of the fic. Felicity tries to explain her future knowledge as something the Gate taught her, but ends up spilling about the alternate world (not the anime) when General Armstrong up in Briggs demands answers.
Kimblee seems interested in her unusual "aura."

Chapters 23 - 25: They're all trapped in jail for a while, and Felicity talks about her world to the brothers. She also predicts Winry's coming and finds out that the Homunculi gave Kimblee permission to do alchemy experiments on her. Ed decides to bring her with them to Baschool, where May and Scar have been known to be hiding. There, Marcoh describes Felicity's aura as a microwave and puts the idea in her head to somehow fix this issue. She forgets it quickly, but ruminating on the idea of using a Philosopher's Stone leads to less hesitation later when she's given the chance to do so.
In the fight with Kimblee, Edward gets an injury much worse than Felicity had seen in the anime. She predicts this, being very paranoid, and injures her automail trying (and succeeding) to help him. They go off with Kimblee's former chimera men, now defected, to a doctor in North City.

Chapters 26 - 29: I ended up having to rewrite the 26th chapter, which is forever immortalized by the mixed reviews and my SHAME. Anyway, they stay at that doctor's place for a while before Greed turns up and has a hard time dealing with both Ling's constant rambling and Felicity's ever-growing intense soul-aura. He acts a bit out of character, which scares Felicity enough before she's confronted with the information about her shortened lifespan. From here on, she's having a very teen-angst-esque existential crisis while Ed tries to help her improve her alchemy.
They go to Liore and meet up with Al and Winry again. Felicity has her first major outward moment of her totally not obvious crush on Alphonse that never goes anywhere, then, later that night, she cries while he tries to comfort her. Before that, she figures out how bad her leg was damaged and that it needs surgery without painkillers to fix. (And Ed questions why she woke up without having remembered acquiring her new limbs. This is never closed up entirely, but Felicity theorizes that she was awake for it, but she forgot because of how painful it is. She's like... 40% correct. Hopefully I can get around to explaining properly.)

Chapter 30 (beginning): Felicity has a major break-down, and it's realized that this whole thing was written after-the-fact by her later on. She kind of breaks the fourth wall? It's stupid. Anyway, she questions why she even wants to go back, and then, born and raised Christian that she is, (this is never mentioned, but it has a weirdly large impact on her decision-making early on) she beats herself up mentally and emotionally for questioning what is obviously the best choice: To get home to her probably-missing-her-terribly family.

Chapter 30.5: A break from the first-person story of Felicity's angst, two years after promising it, I wrote a one-shot in which an amateur alchemist girl from Liore briefly comes into contact with Felicity and tries to figure out what's up with her weird aura. Cheryl (that's her name) accidentally hears Hohenheim and Greed talking about Greed's plan to take over the world. The Homunculus asks (demands) Hohenheim to "fix the issue" because he doesn't want his plans ruined "because a little girl throws off [his] game." There's more too it, but it's not relevant to the plot of Felicity's adventure. There are less than 200 views in total, so go read it! (I messed up in the a/n with the placement of it within the story; don't listen to it.)

Chapter 30 (the rest): The surgery on her leg is brushed off, and Hohenheim offers to fix Felicity's soul. They have a whole conversation about it, and Ho tells her that her life is in more danger than she thought, scaring the bejeezus out of her in the process. In the end, she agrees, and her soul is repaired... kind of. As described later on, Hohenheim gave Felicity some of his Philosopher's Stone juice (again, ruminating on using the Stone contributed to her decision) and placed a sort of shield around her soul. It's found out that her life-force is slowly draining away because of the differences between her world's souls and this world's souls, which is what sealed the deal for her.

Chapters 31 - 32: Felicity finally remembers the world is in danger and starts coming up with a plan. Healing happens, but she's determined to learn more alchemy and how to fight/defend herself, which Ed and Al gladly help with. The chimeras that weren't already in Liore return, having followed them from North City, and give her what she thought was a BRILLIANT idea: Do everything the same, but with more people to help! They talk to Hohenheim about it and go into hiding to await the Promised Day. Christmas and her birthday are mentioned.

Chapters 33: Pride comes a day early and reveals what really happened when Felicity was kidnapped. One of my lovely reviewers started shipping them, which weirded me out at first, but now I like the idea. (Neither of them were interested, though.) An immense hatred of Pride that has been festering in the form of fear starts to grow in Felicity, and she manages to end up in the giant dome enclosing Pride, where she hopes to keep him busy until the end of the Promised Day.

Chapter 34: She's trapped in the dome. Character and relationship building ensues

The rest: Holy crap, this part's complicated. Let's just say Felicity forgot about Sloth, and a lot of horribleness happened as a result. Father managed to open the planet's Gate, and he planned to go find Felicity's world and take their souls as well, but of course Hohenheim had that counter circle at the ready. Felicity and Ed destroy Pride (with a little indirect help from Father), and it's awesome.
Did I mention Felicity had a Philosopher's Stone through the first two sentences? She got it from Heinkel, who was killed by Pride, who was freed by Sloth then trapped again by Felicity and Marcoh and a few others. Oh, and Felicity killed Kimblee by accident. Where was I? Right, the Golden-Toothed Doctor man was involved. Where was I again? Right, Pride's a tiny baby because he escaped again.
Felicity and Ed go back out to battle Father, and Al ends up with his blood seal cracked. Felicity hits her head too many times. At the end, Father causes the first of two or three giant explosions, and Felicity, desperate to save the world and Alphonse, uses her own soul to transmute Al's soul back into the armored body. Her soul ends up in the void in front of her Gate because of how she sacrificed it instead of just dying. She stays there a while, until Ed and Al appear to get Al's body back the way they did in the show: By sacrificing one of their Gates. (Al's in this case.) They're all shocked and horrified for a minute or two, then the boys are pulled back out, and that's that.

Epilogue #1: From Ed's and Al's points of view. Felicity is technically dead. Lots of mourning. Ling cries. (Fu lived, though.) When Alphonse gets his body back, he asks the Gatekeeper to use the excess energy from his Gate (because, unlike Ed in the show, he wasn't asking for an entire human form, just the body) to "repay [her] soul." Ed gets frustrated about how little he knew about her.

Epilogue #2 will be summarized through quotes.

I hope I got all that right. I know it seems weird that I've remembered so much detail about those two years I spent in that world—so it would be completely understandable if you don't believe me. I'm not perfect. A lot of it was probably wrong, and a lot of it was probably left out, but it did happen.

...

"Equivalent Exchange hasn't been met."

"For you. Being here. Existing. Losing the life you were meant to have, gaining friends you wouldn't have had, learning things you shouldn't have learned... Performing the taboo in a world it shouldn't even work in. And... For a certain request."

"I'm confused. Am I...going...beyond, or something?"

"You were supposed to be completely destroyed for that transmutation. It was extremely advanced—of course it would need more energy than you sacrificed... but that wouldn't have been full Equivalence."

"What?"

"The point is that you aren't done yet. In order to come to Equivalence, I need to give you an opportunity to bypass it. ... Maybe I'll explain it someday—if you don't learn on your own. Who can say? But for now, you have two options, and I am obliged to tell them to you."

"One: You can cease to exist. Your soul would dissolve into the universe and experience everything and everyone at once. You would know all, be all, see all, hate all, and love all. You would essentially become me."

"Two: You can do the opposite of that. You can, under special circumstances, be taken in by another universe. This option means you'll have a chance to get back to your original life with little consequence, aside from your lived experiences, but it means you have to work for it. It doesn't guarantee any one outcome. It also leaves you with a shorter lifespan and no chance to ever go back to option one."

"So does that mean I can go back to Ed and Al's world, or...?"

"No. You did what you came there to do. This is different."

I thought about it. Two options. With one, I'd just...be gone. Who I am would vanish, and I guessed I would experience all the shit the universe had to offer anyway. That sounded horrific. Then, with the other, I guessed the universe was offering me a chance to get back home on my own somehow. It would be a "challenge." But, apparently, it wouldn't be easy...and I would die young. 'How young, though?'

"Unless you find some way of increasing it, (unlikely) you'd naturally live to be nine-thousand, nine-hundred and fifty-two days old." It paused. "And eighty-four minutes."

My mouth fell open, but I couldn't think of anything to say to that. I tried doing the math in my head. 'Nine-thousand... Almost ten... Divided by three-hundred sixty-five...um... That's like...three years each thousand or so...so...so like thirty years?' I looked to the Gatekeeper for confirmation, but it didn't respond. 'Would I be okay with that?' I wondered. 'Fifteen more years of something I can't be sure of, and then...some...unknown afterlife. Or becoming the universe.'

I decided.

I clenched my nonexistent fists. "I want to take the chance."

The universe lowered its head. "You're sure about that."

"Yes!"

It didn't move for a moment. It was still as ever, with its misty outline giving it the illusion of life. Then it leaned back and crossed its (my) arms. "It's time, then."

In that moment, the Gate behind the being in front of me began to creak open. I felt like I had to stand up to face it, so I did. I was sure that, if I had a heart right now, it would be pounding. As it was, I felt nothing. Or at the very least, I felt little. I was...excited? Maybe? Being all astral and non-existent did a real number on me. I wanted to be out of there—and this was my chance!

The Gatekeeper's arms began deconstructing themselves into nothingness. "Your body's been decaying for a while now, so it seems you're in need of a new one. I prepared for this outcome when you arrived by taking these, as well as some unneeded flesh and bone that may have done something to your height."

"Wait...what?"

It ignored me. "Of course, that wouldn't be enough on its own. We'll use some excess energy for the transmutation, and that'll be just enough to give you that chance I was talking about."

I looked down at it. "Excess energy from what?"

It grinned. As it grinned, the Gate's eye opened, something just familiar enough to give me ghostly chills. "Why, from your knight in shining armor, of course. You didn't really think the Gate of Truth was only worth a cadaver, did you? I'm almost insulted."

While it was speaking, those weird appendages from the Gate lashed out, grabbing my spiritual limbs to pull me into it. They reminded me eerily of Pride, but I didn't resist.

The Gatekeeper's words didn't fully click until those doors shut behind me, and the world went temporarily dark. In the calm before the storm, I thought, 'Was he talking about Al?'

And then my whole world changed.

Again.

Sequel is up. It's called "The Tilt Shift."