#all of my guys are my homunculi. but mani is like. THE homunculus. like in canon. like not literally maybe

[moe-broey]

AWAUGH

Okay I think I'm done going insane on the Mani-to-be doll. For now. I have to wait for clay to arrive.

ADDED:

The Boots.... very cute! These are from yesterday, before I did a second layer on the soles and sealed the boot itself w mod podge (unsure if that is the best way to go about this. But I'm just experimenting). I didn't end up doing a second layer for the socks, or sealing them tbh. Like.... I sort of feel ambivalent to it rn. I might go back and add more finishing touches, I might not. I guess it depends on if I can make a passably cute pair of shoes on my own.

WWWWWAAAAAUYUGHGHGHHGH...... LOOOK at these TINY little pearlescent buttons............................... I have a bunch of these tiny ass beads (TOO SMALL to even PULL A NEEDLE THROUGH LIKE. There's probably smaller needles out there but what I could find laying around from my junk, the eyelet was too big! I had to get Weird about how I sewed these on LMFAO). Eventually, I do really want to make Mani's signature dress, which has those little decorative buttons on the chest piece, so! Def putting this idea in my pocket for later....

As for the black rose bracelet, it's nothing really special. I had several attempts where I just couldn't get the results I wanted consistently. You may not be able to tell from the pic, but these two roses are slightly bigger than the one on the bracelet, and I worried in general if I made it a cuff, it would get too bulky. Part of the inconsistency could be the fact that I'm really stubborn about using whatever I have, and instead of very thin ribbon I was using this sort of elastic material from an old headband. That I'd cut in half to get it this small. So. Maybe when the clay arrives, I can figure something else out. I imagine Mani's rose cuff is just plastic costume jewelry -- so making a hard miniature (maybe button like?) I can actually thread a string through (not just. Haphazardly hot glue onto the string.) could be the route! I guess just treat this like a mock-up. Proof of concept.

That's it!!!!! For now!!!!!!!!!!!! PERHAPS. I can think about other things now LMFAOOOO (REALLY REALLY REALLY. JUSG SENT ME INTO A FUCKING FRENZY. 😭😭😭😅😅😅)

[riveracheron]

hey guys have my wild magnus protocol theory that stemmed from me just overanalyzing the little bits of content we have

i think lena is a homunculus.

(spoilers for the pilot and jonny + alex’s post pilot discussion under the cut)

basically this stems from. a lot of places w small amounts of information so some of this might be stretches. But

1. a lot of marketing around protocol mentions the theme of “what does it mean to be a person?” which. leads me to believe there’s gonna be a plot around a protag being Not Human but has the heart or whatever the fuck. standard pinnochio or wizard of oz story. sure youre not human but ur a person bc of xyz free will or whatever

2. lena’s behavior in the pilot is So odd and almost inhuman in its extremely dull corporate jargon way. she literally uses things like “you can file a complaint” or “here at the oiar we….” (advertiser shit) , in genuine conversation. she doesn’t leave the building, either and has a Generic office party.

im genuinely thinking bureaucracy and the weird eldritch stuff of the oiar is Literally all she knows, not that shes being manipulative and evil in the trailer like elias; she doesn’t or maybe cannot question the whole. asking sam about the eldritch trauma thing, something something cant understand human emotions and why that might be troubling.

also “people like chocolate cake.” that sounds weird and something someone with only base knowledge of humanity would say.

she’s described as “an odd one” by jonny and that we will “get her soon”. im under the full belief that shes the non-human character of the bunch thatll yknow. have the Real Boy plot

3. homunculus specifically comes from all the alchemy shit around protocol, and homunculi are some of the most famous alchemical creations in popular culture, and i think she’s not. an entity creation. lenas too much of an important character to just be like. tied to An Entity, as a main character extremely tied to the OIAR, that entity would have to be the basis of like the entire plot of protocol; which i doubt theyd do.

the eye is so important to archives because the themes of archives was the consequences of knowledge- the entire plot was engineered around the Eye as the Main Character Entity and the Eye was written to be that in turn, sorta similarly to how Griffindor is the Main Character House (TM) of HP with its themes of bravery. i doooont think the oiar is tied to the stranger or flesh or any other simulacrum creating entities.

all that to say i think lena is a different kind of artificial human, one that’s manmade rather than entity made yknow?

we get glances of the people above her in status, theres mentions of an ephemeral “he” in the pilot, so. heres what i think

the He in question is an alchemist whose in charge of the OIAR (and maybe other branches but lets focus w the oiar). He created Lena the homunculus to be the middle manager of the branch in his stead; “programming” her to be as dull and corporate as possible to keep the employees in line or whatever. something something shes got a plot wrestling with that and her inherent lack of persondom

EDIT: totally forgot this part

adding that the first statement’s plot was about an abomination of corpses given a humanlike shape and coming back wrong which is. exactly what frankenstein’s monster is, and frankenstein’s monster is considered a homunculus.

with the anglerfish’s importance to season 3 of archives i definitely think the Arthur monster will come up again in some form, but maybe instead of Actually being In Podcast maybe its a parallel to the main characters’ story in the same way that many s4 statements were used to give us more information on how jon is working through it all. the zombie statement when he just wakes up comes to mind especially. maybe it’s a hint and echo of what a Character in podcast (lena) is

[felixcloud6288]

Fullmetal Alchemist Chapter 90

Now that I think about it, during the timeskip, Ed might have gotten in contact with Roy to plan everything out and coordinate a few things with him. But if so, Roy failed to mention that Selim is a Homunculus.

And Hohenheim mentions having a counter in place if Father activates the National Transmutation Circle. By Chekhov rules, that means Father is going to activate the circle.

That slice Olivier Mira Armstrong did to that guy. It went straight through the bone. That is the one graphic image in this series that I can't stomach no matter how many times I see it.

Major General Armstrong went on the offensive the moment these armchair generals started talking about people being sacrifices for their own advancement. She similarly lost her temper at Raven when he said the same stuff at Briggs.

She's a frontline general who actually spends time with and cares for the wellbeing of her team. It's understandable that this callousness to those who actually are responsible for your success is such a berserk button for her.

Is this guy an informant from Major General Armstrong or is he just some random soldier who thought Alex should know abut what happened?

Is the "gwoon" sound from Father drawing his Philosopher's Stone back twoard himself? Is he concentrating his power for what's about to happen?

The chimera alleyway is a bust. So we're not going to see if Jelso, Zanpano, and Darius could just casually walk amongst the Chimera guardians like Bido did.

I kinda forgot that Scar is still a wanted criminal.

And this is one of the best single images of Ed in the whole manga.

It's a good thing the guards were more concerned about the appearance of a terrorist and didn't ask questions about a missing State Alchemist appearing in front of them.

This looks like your typical JPRG final party.

Those artificial bodies had souls injected into them through nodes like the ones the Homunculi have. So that adds more credence to the idea that those nodes act as major concentration points to circulate the Philosopher's Stone through the body.

Entry # 190 of the Evil Overlord List: "If my mad scientist/wizard tells me he has almost perfected my Superweapon but it still needs more testing, I will wait for him to complete the tests. No one ever conquered the world using a beta version."

Dude should have listened.

Pretty solid consistency with where Barry's parts and original body had been left after the fight with Lust. The part with Barry's seal is even oriented the way it should be given the posture of the corpse. Only real issue is the pieces of Barry's armor were way closer together originally.

I couldn't make out anything about Pride's SOS signal. It all came out to a bunch of random letters no matter how I tried to define and cluster the sounds he was making.

If Al had a mean bone in his body (figuratively speaking since he doesn't have any bones), he would have taken the opportunity to just beat up Pride while he was defenseless and all this trouble could be avoided.

back

[sakura-code]

My Rain Code Swap AU

So I’ve been seeing many Rain Code swap AUs all throughout Tumblr, and after a recent one gave me some inspirations, I came up with my own Swap AU. Basically what if the Nocturnal Detective Agency and the Peacekeepers swapped roles, but the NDA characters are still the good guys and the Peacekeeper characters are still the bad guys?

Some ramblings below because this AU has a lot of explanations and canon divergence. Also game spoilers ahead!

Desuhiko, Halara, Vivia, and Fubuki are all from Kanai Ward, meaning yes, they are all Homunculi this time, while the Swap!Detectives (except Yomi) are human with Fortes of their own and a cyborg in the mix

Yakou will be the cowardly yet kind-hearted Director of the Peacekeepers (though still not the best leader at times as usual), Vivia is the Vice Director of the Peacekeeper and Yakou’s boyfriend, and Desuhiko, Halara, and Fubuki are the Section Chiefs of the Investigation Team and in Yakou’s close circle (of friends)

The Swap!NDA still have powers, but they are less powerful and more so like how they were before they trained them into Foresnsic Fortes (Yakou is still the same as usual). Halara has the power to see brief flashbacks when they touch objects and people, but it leaves them strained so they only rarely use it. Desuhiko can still transform into another person, but only with himself. Fubuki can sense time precisely and even sense when time is manipulated. And Vivia can sense, see, and hear ghosts all around him, but cannot transform into a ghost.

The characters’ personalities still stay the same, so this time the Swap!Detective Agency are the enemies as corrupt Detectives while the Swap!Peacekeepers are actually a fair police force trying their best to help the citizens of Kanai Ward

Yuma and Makoto are still the same where Yuma is the amnesiac detective-in-training and Makoto is the CEO of Amaterasu respectively

Yomi is the manipulative, charismatic detective chief that worked to make the Peacekeepers look unreliable and corrupt from spreading rumors to manipulating crimes and investigations to even bribing some Peacekeeper officers to abuse their powers and give him a hand

Yomi is still aware of Project Homunculus, having been working with Dr. Huesca in the shadows as a shadow benefactor. Director Yakou was never aware of the project going on at all, even when it’s shut down (he has heard rumors of the inhumane project though)

[salty-dracon]

rain code vivia and yakou dlc reactions

Vivia DLC

Of course Vivia immediately starts pulling some poetry. Unlike the FE Engage characters in that game's DLC, he seems like the kind of guy who would actually do it. Fuck it, he did! All game!

And here I thought he discovered a corpse. Nope, he's just trapped in an elevator with a generic Aetheria schoolgirl.

Someone in my building was trapped in the elevator a few months ago. I went out for a grocery run while hearing a man talking, then realized he was talking on the phone. When I got back, I saw the same guy, with a bunch of firefighters. When I asked them what had happened, they said that someone had been trapped in the elevator! And the elevator in this building is particularly small, cramped, and unsafe. I felt so bad for him.

Vivia you are NOT helping.

We put two emo asses in a room with no one else around. Stick around to see how it goes.

Emo to emo communication. They are actively making each other worse.

Wow, Vivia really did not like being a detective. He came here for no reason.

A building from which many suicides have happened.

goofy naruto run

Let's greentext this.

A woman in a red raincoat is a famous Japanese premise for a ghost story.

She was almost hit by a speeding car, yet didn't die.

No one lives in the building, yet the woman says she lives there.

The woman is surprisingly emo, saying she likes to "observe life" and that Vivia has "the smell of death".

We can conclude that the woman is a ghost.

The real twist of this DLC was that the evil scary ghost was actually very kind after all! She just wanted to save people from committing suicide! That's so kind of her.

I was wondering what "they" would look like. And "they" is just legitimately a ton of evil grabby hands. Someone get the cat nun in here, she'll kill their asses in the name of God.

The real real twist of this DLC is that Vivia can turn into a ghost! Wait, we already knew that.

There's something funny about what's going on here being legitimately a very emo sort of story about life and death, and the only thing keeping the emo guy from going full emo is a sopping wet dog of a dad.

This was a real Bungou Stray Dogs episode of a DLC. The only thing missing is a multimillionaire.

Yakou DLC

I theorized before that the reason they asked you to finish the game before you picked up this DLC was that this one directly referenced Raincode's endgame twists, which were that every citizen in Kanai Ward had a homunculus made from their body, but those homunculi went berserk and murdered the original residents, before unknowingly replacing them, over the course of a week. My theory was that since this DLC features a young, beardless Yakou, that he somehow survived the onslaught. There's a scene in Chapter 4 where Yakou's spirit talks to Yuma and Vivia, but both reason that it couldn't have happened since Yakou was not technically dead at that point, so they weren't sure who it was. I wonder, given this information, if the voice could have been the original human Yakou, who was hiding in the ceiling of the lab of his wife's murderer and who could tell, based on how the other detectives were acting, that all of them deeply cared about his homunculus version.

Anyway, we'll see if my crack theory is true or not! Because I suspect it might be!

... Or it could be that the DLC starts out with the deteriorated homunculus Yakou in the emaciated Restricted Area lab after his death in Chapter 4.

Oh, he's trudging. Oh, he's trudging!

Aww, this is after he gives the disc to Yuma. Awwwwww.

Weird that they used some 2D drawings traced over the other detectives' 3D models instead of just taking screenshots of the 3D models.

*FALLS DOWN THE STAIRS EXTREMELY VIOLENTLY*

oh my god, his wife has the fucking goku drip jacket

fuck being a zombie. return to wife

I did the math and Yakou's paying less in rent for his office than I'm paying for my apartment.

Everything that goes down in this town always happens at Golden Path cafe. Or the hotel cafe.

This is surprisingly deep lore about Chapter 5.

It's fun to see these two on a date. Golden Path Cafe is literally my favorite building in the whole game, and that's because it's pretty. (I should go drink some coffee at my local plant cafe...)

You could literally see Yakou going SHITFUCKDAMMIT the moment his client walked into the room

Literally what's with detective games and giving their main characters, grown adults, child badges that they got when they were kids and still wear as adults???

OH. OH WELL THAT CHANGES THINGS...

I still don't get the full context of the ending. Yeah, that medicine means that there's hope for Kanai Ward's zombified homunculi, but does that make Yakou's wife in this scene a zombie who regenerated, a ghost, a human who escaped the onslaught, a living homunculus of his dead human wife, or even his own wife who survived her assassination?

I think I get it. Maybe. That medicine could regenerate the zombified Yakou. Then he could take over her research and create enough to save all of Kanai Ward's zombies. But that still doesn't explain who his wife is in that scene. I think it's a ghost.

[growling]

Your au reminds me of a pair of ocs I have. They're gonna teach Yomi how to properly arrest then eat people without getting caught/suspected of anything

Step number 1: fridge

sdfwadsfdjhfg Yomi's just gonna be forever clowned on for the carcass packed mancave incident isn't he… no one's never gonna let him live it down huh. "GUYS I DIDN'T HAVE A CHOICE IF I WAS BY ANY POINT NOTICED CARRYING SUSPICIOUSLY HUMAN-SHAPED BODY BAGS TO MY HOUSE AND A TEENAGER RECORDED IT AND UPLOADED IT TO TICTAC AND IT WENT VIRAL IT'D BE IN TROUBLE. NO I COULDN'T GET A PORTABLE FRIDGE TO THE DEN BECAUSE UH. THE SOCKET GOT BLOCKED BY SETH MEMORABILIA. SHUT UP!!! YOU DON'T KNOW SHIT YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT IM GOING THROUGH DON'T TELL ME YOU CAN DO BETTER" he scream cries, but there is nothing he can do anymore to salvage his reputation. He will be forever known as the Dumbass That Single Handedly Managed To Give All The Other Homunculi A Bad Name (via slaying so many connected people & sticking to a single location, literally dooming himself to get caught within a month, he also significantly sped up the process of the general public finding out homunculi are a thing. while this would be inevitable anyway no matter how yomi went about his meal prep it's very easy and fun to just blame that one guy you didn't like anyway for the Horrors that are about to befall your collective species or whatever.)

But yeah. Yomi sure does happen in the unnamed growling brand au. Also, concerning how both the homunculi and their human originals are in many cases both somewhat important (sometimes equally so, like in the case of Yakou Times 2), I've been thinking of alt names/nicknames/aliases/you name it for the homunculi. To. Differentiate somehow. Since Yakou & Yakou are for a large chunk of the story doing their epic switcheroos and engaging in acts of trickery Yakou doesn't yet need a diff name to tell him apart from Yakou, so in my mind it's just Yakou Furio & Yakou Tworio. Hmc Martina 100% needs one, and I mean I could just go the easy way and slap her back with the good old Suwaro/Swallow, but I also hc that to be her deadname which uhh sjdfdgufh we'll figure it out guys. Aide/Fake Zilch doesn't even have an actual name anyway and his human og gets fucking digested within the first week, so is Seth, so I might not even bother.......... now Yomi, or, "Yomi" is an important character here so he needs it. While human Yomi is dead from the very very early on, he is also referenced, spoken and thought about a very significant amount through a very long period, like, clone Yomi is fucking OBSESSED with his original, and not in a sexy way. Sooooooo,

(this will probably not be worded as well as I originally hoped because I'm still not all there for the past couple of days jsut bear with me)

Hmc Yomi is actually the only character so far that I'm like, actually somewhat sure on an alias, but he didn't pick it out himself, and moreso was thrust upon him by the media/Amaterasu mostly also around when the killings were still ongoing and the culprit was completely unknown (but it was pretty much agreed on that it was almost certainly a member of the company) but after it was made clear by the WDO it was most likely an escaped homunculus. Like, you get how those serial killers get these way too cool nicknames on the newspaper? Practically what happened to him, except his is slightly less dignified or straightforward it's just There

Still a subject to change but I've been thinking of making him (un)officially dubbed as Heartworm (a dangerous parasite species primarily affecting canids and other carnivores, residing in their lungs or, well, heart, causing serious damage to the tissues, arteries, potentially heart failure, and whatever the hell else.) for a long while. I.e. the public & Amaterasu essentially calling him a deadly parasite lodged in the corporation's heart that needs to be dealt with as fast as possible before he destroys it from the inside out. He fucking hates it ksdjfhgdsiwesdf but doesn't say anything for obvious reasons just stares motherfuckerly at everyone at the peacekeeper meeting when they're discussing this. Also getting nicknamed after a literal animal is fitting for him because all the homunculi are getting dehumanized to hell and back anyway he's not special in that regard you cannot pay an Amaterasu researcher enough to cease the it/its

I was initially hesistant on settling for this one though because heartworms notably aren't really as much of a concern for humans as they are for their natural hosts, that is dogs (and also cats, bears, ferrets, sea lions but more commonly dogs and other canids you know like they're the main host you get me). But then it came to me that the overwhelming majority of "Yomi's" victims were fellow peacekeepers, and it just so happens that in my language we derogatorily call cops "dogs" and... yeah so it just wrote itself lol lmao even woof woof bark bark. hmc Yomi voice I HATE humans they make me use a fridge and shout go Heartworm go

was tyat anything . also WALL OF TEXT BLAST HE LOREDUMPED AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!

[eccedentesian]

i would like to read children of bottle again && i know i could just pick up my ipad && read the ebook that i bought with my hard earned money but i have the physical copy that i bought with ~8 times the hard earned money && i prefer to read physical books but it's at my apartment && i am out of town && i might be silly && have my roommate mail it to me even though that'll also cost me money because i want to hold my fav b.accano book in my hands </3

anyway i just think elmer was insane for saying "you guys should make that hope of yours come true and learn about happiness… i'll teach you. i'll show you, all right? i'll teach you, i swear, no matter how many years it takes…" cuz like wtf. WHAT THE FUCK !!!!

also, on the same page, just a few lines before:

"in this world, see, lots of people die never even knowing the word hope. maybe their parents are dead the moment they’re born, or they’re starving and there’s not a drop of water in sight, or maybe they were born just to be killed… but you know about hope. denying that is an insult to your life."

lot to unpack in that paragraph && i've already picked it to pieces before but... those last two sentences are so real, first of all, but "or maybe they were born just to be killed" CAN HE STOP DROPPING PERSONAL BACKSTORY SO CASUALLY I WANT TO THROW UP SO BAD. also he says this:

"don't say sad things like that. i'm the one who gets sad, but, anyway." STOP!!!!! STOP!!!!!!!!!!!!!

it's the way he is utterly and entirely emotionally numb. he is incapable of feeling anything. if sad is your default state, if you never know the feeling of anything but despair, isn't that just the same as feeling nothing? that's the reality elmer lives every day && it makes me sick.

plus, because it's worth talking about again, this is one of three traits about elmer that are so deeply ingrained in huey's memory that he (probably half-unintentionally) made a homunculus with them. rail is: a) covered in scars across their whole body b) permanently smiling dude to sutures stretching their face c) incapable of feeling physical pain. now, we know that 99% of huey's homunculi are blonde women because he's obsessed with bringing back his dead wife, but to turn one of them into dollar store elmer && then to have them absolutely despite huey && everything he stands for... i can't imagine what that's like for him. lol

[thewolfno11-blog-blog]

Final Trailer Analysis Part 1

After seeing the final trailer, screaming in my head for about an hour, and calming down, I wanted to do a trailer analysis for the final trailer. That led to more than 43 screenshots, so the analysis must be split into multiple posts.

EDIT: I have found the achievement list and that has given me more insight about the trailer and also discover other new stuff. Which I have added. Also I actually studied the images some more.

If you don't want to be spoiled please don't read.

New Homunculi

I wanted start by talking about the new Homunculi we see in the trailer. The first new one we see is this fella:

Thanks to the released achievement list we have a name for this guy: Lars. Lars has a gas mask, making me wonder if he's one of the Homunculi that was made to be stronger against the effects of the fumes. In the memory, it does look like he's in area that's more heavily affected by the blight. It also looks like he is reporting while the mysterious Attuner woman is seen in the background. The achievement title is "Guardian", so it makes me wonder if he was supposed to be a bodyguard for the mysterious woman.

He seems to have some sort of movement ability, similar to Hati and Garm. His ability reminds me of Hollow Knight's Crystal Dash. It also does damage when passing through enemies.

The nest Homunculi is this one:

I have named thee; Ogre Warden. We only have one shot of this homunculus and I think this guy is just a miniboss. I will explain my reasons in a bit. Ogre Warden does have an interesting dialogue, but that is the only thing this final trailer shows.

Staying within the Japanese influence this next homunculi.

I recently finished Nine Sols and I will not lie. This homunculus gave me slight PTSD. Aside from the fact they are super cool-looking and clad in purple, we don't know a lot about them. We do have a name though thanks to the achievement list: No. 7. It's quite a curious name, it just might be that he was called that by the human that employed him. Which adds to the lore of how homunculi were treated as anything but human. At the same time, the number 7 suggests that there are 6 more like him. I think that Ogre Warden is one of them. Their memory doesn't reveal much, but the achievement Title is 'Vengeance'. I can't wait to fight them.

Speaking of memories let's take a look at this memory

At first, I thought it was the Samurai Homunculus, but after looking at it for a while I realized this was the white Witch Homunculi I talked about in an earlier post. That said, I have no idea what this image is trying to tell us, so the mystery still remains. The achievement list did reveal her name though: Luiseach. Interesting to note is that the achievement title is exactly the same as purifying Eleine; Lamentation.

We have three more images from the trailer we can look at. I believe that most of these are all new bosses that Lilac doesn't take with her on her adventure.

I believe the first one is in the factory. The second in the underwater section of what I have dubbed the Sorcerer's Academy in an earlier post. The Spider boss I want to talk more in depth in the next post.

Thanks to the Achievement list we have three more images and names for three more Homunculi that we do take with us on our journey.

The first one is named Reibolg, and the achievement title is 'Devotion'. It looks like some sort of knight.

The second one is named Lorna, and the achievement title is 'Grief'. The title grief has many implications which make me slightly worried. She seems to be blindfolded and I wonder if she never had them or somehow lost them.

The third one is named Huginn, and the achievement title is 'Restoration'. Huginn seems like an owl just like Muninn. I really hope that is not the case. I like owls, but it seems a bit odd to have two of them aesthetic-wise. Edit: just found out that Huginn and Muninn are the names of a pair of ravens that serve Odin. So it does make sense.

Speaking of the next post there is one more homunculi we can talk about, but I have a theory connected to that one. And this post is already long enough as it is. So see you next post!

[pluviatrix]

Why do you prefer ‘03 to Brotherhood? (genuinely curious)

i actually used to loathe 2003. thats obviously changed. but

in short, i watched 03 when i was young and green to non-children's media, and it totally shook up what i expected of stories. it rewired my little child brain and made me so fuckin weird

fmab/manga is a shōnen series. fma 2003 is a deconstruction of a shōnen series. if you like tragedies and you like the characters you could give it a shot.

in long...

i am not the person to get into how fma 03 handles fma’s themes of racism, fascism, and war as opposed to how fmab handled them. there are people far more qualified to talk about that and have done so in great length, so i’d direct you to them. now, it’s not perfect. there are some really questionable choices made in the movie. 

beyond that, from a story standpoint, there are so many choices they made that honestly work better. in fma 2003, the homunculi come from failed human transmutations. and the writers fucking milk this. it gives every homunculus so much more depth -- someone loved them enough to try and bring them back. there are so many emotional conflicts because of this -- i mean, shit dude, lust in 2003 is incredible to watch. she has so much depth and she’s genuinely interesting. not to mention, obviously, the repercussions of ed and al’s human transmutation.

one thing that stuck with me though was ed and al arguing over what to do with their homunculus -- al thinks their mother is still inside the homunculus, deep down. ed thinks al is being naïve. they do not resolve this conflict before ed kills her.

and that leads us into the characters -- one of the many things about fma 2003 that stuck with me for going on ten years now. fma 2003 is a character study. alphonse is his own character. he has so much depth to him and actually feels like a deuteragonist as opposed to a side character -- in fmab at least, al has so much less screentime which is a crying shame because he is my little guy and i love him so much. he has done nothing wrong ever.

beyond just alphonse, other characters that were sidelined in fmab have so much more depth to them because the writers took the beginning of the fma story and sprinted with it. 

ed was my favorite character, so obviously he’s the thing that sticks out in my mind a lot. fmab ed and fma 03 ed are diametrically opposed characters. fmab ed is supposed to be a hero first and foremost. and that’s fine. but fma 03 ed is supposed to be human. he has character flaws and he makes terrible choices and he tries his best and the story kicks him in the gut when he’s down.

while his english voice actor can eat asphalt and choke on it, his performance as ed in 2003 has this marked quality of rawness, vulnerability and softness that fmab ed doesn’t. fmab ed’s performance, for a good chunk of the time, sounds like a canned anime hero. part of this is because his voice actor is a one-trick pony lmao, but. yeah. i can’t speak on the japanese dub because i still have yet to watch it (i want to though!! i know romi park is an iconic voice)

fma 03 ed is this melancholy, quiet, sad character surrounded by tragedy just trying his best to make up for his mistakes, in universe that seems dead set on fucking him over. and he still tries to do good despite it all.

a list of scenes that, when i was twelve years old straight out of disney movies and cartoon network and nickelodeon, were like an electric shock to my brain:

1. 12-year-old edward elric beating shou tucker to a pulp in dead silence

2. 12-year-old edward elric trying to resurrect nina tucker’s dessicated remains in an alleyway, choking on sobs the whole time

3. “I killed Sloth while she was wearing the face of my own mother.”

4.  Ed digging up his mother’s grave with his bare hands in the sunset light. You can’t see his face. all you can hear is his breaths shaking and him apologizing to his mom while clutching something (one of her bones!!!!!!!!!) to his chest

5. him murdering Greed and then curling up in a ball on the floor and fucking screaming and breaking down because he just killed someone

6. Him getting impaled and choking on his own blood and then fucking dying. Like for real.

This scene ^ is the one that really did it for me when I was little. I had never, never, never seen a main character die. He was my favorite. It was so sudden too. And I completely hated it. I was so mad and so sad and refused to watch the 03 series for years. the bittersweet ending cemented this series in my brain. I liked fmab because it had a happy ending for characters I had grown to love. However, all of this above is what made me revisit it as I got older and had more media literacy and appreciation for tragic, grey narratives. 

also the soundtrack FUCKS and bratja never fails to make me cry to this day.

end note: i am not saying this series is perfect, it’s NOT, no way, it has its moments and it has places where it definitely stumbles and falls flat on its face. 

there are certain elements of the story that i won’t get into that aren’t in the best taste and should be warned against when going into it. it has pacing issues. it has some contrived and stupid ideas. it could handle some of its themes better and make better choices with its narrative. but also yknow. gesticulates above.

[as-above-so-below-story]

23. Camisado

Series: Fullmetal Alchemist ( Brotherhood ) Word count: 2,876 Warning: Violence

“ I can’t believe you let her just leave like that.”

Greed had taken his designated spot on the leather couch, his legs crossed over each other. He offered Dolcetto a glance before he shrugged,

“What? She’s a big girl. She can handle herself.”

“Yeah, she’s also very drunk,” Martel growled. Sure, men could walk the streets blasted out of their minds, but it was a different story for a woman. Even as a chimera, Martel wouldn’t dare walk in the dark if she wasn’t in her right mind. “ Besides, didn’t you bring her here because she was a fugitive?”

“I brought her here because I was curious. I wanted to see what all the fuss was about,” Greed let his head fall back against the couch. He was visibly annoyed with his subordinates questioning him. “She had a hefty price tag on her head, so I was expecting a little more excitement. Turns out she’s just another sloppy--”

Martel’s hand came up and slapped the backside of Greed’s head, rendering him silent for a moment. It wasn’t like it hurt – obviously, it took a lot more than that to put a dent in the Ultimate Shield – but the implication of it left the homunculus confused. Greed rubbed the back of his head and raised his eyebrows at her,

“ What’s got you all so riled up anyways? You barely know the girl. Geez.”

Dolcetto and Martel fell silent, sharing glances before they decided it was best to end the conversation there. He was right. Kijo was a stranger to them, so what did they care what happened to her? Martel didn’t want to say it. That it was the first time they’d seen the bar this lively in ages. That, albeit she was a strange girl, she had a magnetic personality and they’d been enjoying her company; But Greed was happy to let the bar fall into mindless background noise as the two finally dropped it.

She’ll be fine, Greed thought to himself. His eyes stared up into the ceiling, watching tuffs of cigarette smoke roll against the peeling paint. She’s running back to whoever that Leo guy is and she’ll be his problem instead.

“Who are you, Kijo? You can tell me. I’m great at keeping secrets. ”

“...I don’t think you want to know, because if I told you, it’ll change everything.”

What the Hell did she mean by that, though?

“ Greed.”

The homunculi had been so deep in his thoughts he hadn’t noticed the overwhelming silence of the bar. Martel’s concerned tone had him snapping his head forward, and he was surprised to find them surrounded by several men with various appearances – scars on their faces, indicating a rough life. Greed flashed his sharp teeth as he spotted a familiar man in the crowd,

“ Well well well, if it isn’t Mr. Armato. What a pleasant surprise.”

Greed’s amused smirk dropped when the green eyed man stepped away from the front door. Behind him, the same two goons that had given Kijo grief the first day she’d showed up, were holding up a body –

“Greed, what did you say about Kijo being able to handle herself?” Martel snarled. There was an accusatory tone in her voice, like she was telling him, this is your fault, but Greed didn’t offer much more than a grunt.

“ Please, Mr. Armato was my father. Call me Alonzo,” green eyes flashed mischievously in Greed’s direction. He nodded at the two men and the one with the scarred eye nodded. He licked the tip of his finger and stuck it into Kijo’s ear who immediately bolted upright, shouting out in surprise,

“ WHAT THE FUCK--”

Her face immediately soured and she shook her head, which only encouraged a more pained look on her face. Being slammed into a brick wall wasn’t exactly the best feeling thing in the world – how many times had that happened at this point? Was she losing brain mass because of it? When Kijo finally became coherent, she realized now wasn’t the time to ponder these questions. She blinked at the current situation in front of her before she realized the predicament she was in. Immediately, Kijo began squirming,

“ Let me go--”

“ Now, Greed. About our prior arrangement. You promised us a chimera soldier in exchange for use of the underground tunnels. We delivered on our promise, but you have yet to uphold your end of the bargain,” he jutted a finger at Kijo, grinning, “ so you either fulfill that request, or we’ll just make one out of your precious woman here. Or, perhaps, we’ll turn her  in for that generous bounty that’s on her head.”

“ Oh. She’s not my woman.”

Silence.

Confused faces glanced between each other as a bead of sweat dripped down Alonzo’s face.

“But… Earlier, you called her--”

“You misunderstand. She’s still not my woman.”

“But you said--”

“GREED YOU ASSHOLE!” Kijo suddenly roared out, her legs kicking angrily in tandem with her rage. Every expletive known to man came flying out of her mouth, and her insults were so vulgar the two men holding her couldn’t help but blush, “ ARE YOU SERIOUS RIGHT NOW?! They’re going to cart me off and turn me into a fucking chimera because you have no integrity, and thats what you’re concerned about?! Labels?!”

“ Whoa, whoa, calm down, Toots. I’m just trying to make sure everyone’s on the same page here,” Greed raised his hands defensively. Martel and Dolcetto stared at him from behind with incredulous expressions. He continued, “ anyways. Who said anything about letting them run off with you? I was simply distracting the poor idiot.”

“ Distracting?” Alonzo shot a confused look backwards and, looming just behind the man with the scarred eye was Roa. His sledgehammer came swinging, and the man’s head blew clean off – Kijo lurched forward in surprise as blood sprayed through the air. The other man holding her barked out in shock and yanked her backwards.

“See, while she may not be my woman in the general sense, that doesn’t mean I hadn’t planned on changing that.” Kijo’s face flushed when she made eye contact with him. “ And if you take her, unfortunately, I’ll consider that stealing from me. And nobody steals from me.”

“ Tch,” Alonzo sneered. He had just enough time to turn and bark at the man holding Kijo, “ what are you doing? You want your head smashed to pieces too? Get a move on! The rest of you – START SHOOTING!”

Shooting?!

In all the threats to exist in this world, Kijo had forgotten about the one that shared a commonality with hers, and that was guns. So now she had to add those to the list of things that could end her life prematurely. She shrieked as the bullets started flying, allowing herself to be pulled away as she ducked down to avoid being hit.

Greed watched after them for a moment before he turned, grinning. With a flex of his hand, his skin shifted into his Ultimate Shield and he advanced towards Alonzo with a threatening aura,

“ Hey, you just did me a favor �� now I don’t have to worry about her getting caught up in the crossfire..!”

–

“ Would you let me go already?!” Kijo desperately tried to pull herself free of the man’s grip but it was to no avail; he outclassed her in strength, and she was certain her pulling and tugging was akin to that of a small animals.

I have to get away from this guy or I’m in serious trouble! Alonzo’s threat of turning her in hung in the back of her mind. If she was turned in, that would mean that the homunculi would have her again, and she’d have to return to that God forsaken cell. She gritted her teeth at just the thought of being at Envy’s merciless taunting and that damn flickering light bulb.

It was that, or being turned into a chimera, and neither of those options sounded good.

Kijo’s free hand dipped into her pocket, searching for anything that could help. Her finger’s brushed against the handle of the knife Leo had given her and she pulled it out. Its blade shone in the dim passing light overhead. That’s it.

Without hesitation Kijo brought the blade down on Snaggle Tooth’s wrist, the blade piercing right through the thickest part. He released a pained howl, his grip loosening, and Kijo was able to pull her arm back. He reared on her quickly but the wind left his body as Kijo’s boot suddenly came in contact with his sternum and he stumbled back, loosing balance. Now’s my chance!

Kijo growled and threw all her weight against him and he slammed into the wall, his head hitting it with a sickening crack.

“ Hah! Take that, asshole!”

Kijo quickly made a break for it, leaving the man disorientated as she escaped. She wasn’t sure where she was going, though – all she knew was that she needed to find somewhere to hide.

That somewhere manifested in what appeared to be some sort of storage room; It held nothing but filled shelves with various things and a few crated boxes. Kijo was perturbed by a suspicious rust colored stain on the ground and when she turned to shut the door, she realized it was made of solid iron, much like the ones that had kept her sealed in that cell.

She didn’t spend much time thinking about it. Kijo pushed the door shut and focused her attention on one of the large, wooden crates. It didn’t take much for her to pull the lid off and slide inside, and once she was certain she was hidden well, she allowed herself to catch her breath and put her thoughts together.

Damn it! I should’ve known better than to try and tag along with Greed! Kijo cursed herself, gritting her teeth. She damned her hormones, blaming them for her poor decision making – it really had just been that. All Greed had to do was flash that arrogant smirk at her and she was jelly in his hands. How pathetic was that?

I’m making the same mistakes here that I was making back in my world… Kijo frowned as she pulled her knees to her chest. She stared at a piece of wood that splintered off of the crate’s paneling, and she busied her idle hands with it, letting myself think I can rely on someone for a change. I let my guard down and get burned every fucking time.

Kijo’s brows furrowed in frustration. Even with her newfound power – be it alchemy, magic, whatever – she still found herself totally helpless when things got rough. The only way she knew how to use it was by bleeding, and she was getting real tired of having to spill her own blood just to get out of these tough situations. Everyone else around her was completely useless though. The only person that had managed to deliver on their promise of keeping her safe had been Leo, and look at how she burned that bridge. Typical of Kijo to take a good thing and set it on fire.

Ugh – I can’t sit here feeling bad for myself. I need to focus. Should I wait it out? How long could this go on? Kijo curiously began looking around the crate. She could barely see through the gaps in the panels but they provided just enough space for her to keep an eye on the door and see if anyone was approaching. Kijo couldn’t help but wonder; if someone did come in, would she be able to transmute something out of the crate to protect herself? She’d been successful when she’d focused on transmuting Envy against the concrete wall that one time, but for the most part, her transmutations had been pure luck.

That was the thing, though. From what Kijo understood, you had to be incredibly intelligent and have a good understanding of science to be able to perform alchemy. Even though she was sloppy, as was Ed’s observation, her ability to practice alchemy didn’t make any sense. The mitochondria is the powerhouse of the cell was the only scientific fact she had memorized. That shouldn’t have been enough to grant her these amazing capabilities.

But Kijo knew that concrete was just various aggregates and water combined. She also knew that the wood of the crate she was sitting in was made up of pine. Maybe she wasn’t a scientist, but in her world, she was a practicing witch, and she had a good grasp of how elements worked.

Maybe I’m not practicing alchemy in the true sense of the word, but something else…? But if that were the case – why do I have to bleed for it to work? Is this all because I went through the Gate?

Kijo was pulled from her thoughts when she heard the iron door creaking open and she felt her body grow tense. Through the cracks of the crate she could see the man from earlier – Alonzo, she remembered – and his face was shining with a trail of blood. There was a noticeable limp in his gait and he winced as he pushed the iron door shut. It was evident that Greed had really roughed him up.

Good, Kijo scowled.

“ Damn it,” Alonzo panted. His side burned with a hot pain and when he pulled his hand back, it was sticky with his own blood – that bastard had gotten a good swipe in. Damn near pulled a chunk right off his stomach. Alonzo had been lucky to get away, but he knew it was only a matter of time. “ I didn’t ask for this shit… I shouldn’t have taken this fucking job..!”

Kijo squinted through the cracks. It seemed like an odd time to regret a career path – surely, he must’ve known the risks before stepping into a line of work like this. Kijo wasn’t one to talk, though. After all, she had been more than willing to give up her prior life for this one, and there hadn’t been a day she didn’t regret it.

Kijo watched as Alonzo stumbled over to the wall, gripping it to steady himself. His blood was practically pouring out over the floor and he gave a strangled gasp of pain as he moved.

Bleed out faster, you dumb fuck.

Kijo grew mortified. Did she really just think that? Of course Alonzo didn’t deserve much sympathy – but to sit there, counting down the minutes until he dropped dead from blood loss was below her. What was this world doing to her?

“ Boss, boss, are you in here?!”

“ Sharptooth--” Alonzo dug his fingers into the wall he leaned against as he barred himself against the pain, looking over his shoulder. The iron door was once again pushed open and the man that Kijo had successfully gotten away from earlier came rushing in. Kijo was amused to learn that his real name hadn’t been far off from the nickname she’d given him in her head, but she doubted it was anything more than some sort of title. She watched the two as they exchanged words,

“ Looks like she did quite the number on you,” Alonzo nodded towards Sharptooth’s bleeding wrist. The larger man snarled, holding his bloodied arm up.

“ I’m going to ring that neck of hers,” he growled. “ I’m going to find her, and I’m going to snap her in half.”

“Now, now, don’t go doing that. We have to get something out of this job, remember? You saw how big that bounty was.”

Sharptooth grumbled defiantly but didn’t seem to be feeling argumentative. Kijo attributed it not only his injured wrist, but the nice welt shining at the top of his head. She grinned to herself.

Plenty more where that came from.

The two continued talking, planning out their next steps – they seemed really hell bent on finding Kijo and using her as bait, but Kijo didn’t understand why. Greed had made it clear that it wouldn’t work.

“She’s not my woman.”

Kijo grumbled to herself,

“ Way to throw me under the fucking bus...”

Immediately, her hands slapped over her mouth as she realized she’d said that out loud. Alonzo and Sharptooth grew quiet, the only sound being the blood pulsing in Kijo’s ears.

Damn it, damn it, damn it –

Why did she have to open her big mouth? Why did Kijo have such a big habit of talking to herself?! That habit was only quirky and cute when it was in shows that didn’t have life threatening situations – now it was just getting her into trouble! Kijo could’ve screamed angrily at herself, but unfortunately, that would’ve only further complicated her situation. So instead, all she could do was sit and hope that they would assume it was rat and continue on.

Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case, as the lid to the crate was suddenly ripped straight off and Kijo sat, staring up into the eyes of the man that had just been discussing how eager he was to fold her like a pretzel.

He grinned,

“ Found you.”

[willsimpforazula]

Sokkla Month Day 3: FMA:B AU

A/N: NGL i did toy with making sokka as mustang and azula as hawkeye but it be like it do. It was either this or Fate/Stay Night AU where someone needs a mana transfer (if you didn't know what a mana transfer is, good. pls stay pure) Anyways, without further ado-

Tunnels

Fifth Laboratory

Central City

As soon as Envy started to brag about how Ty Lee couldn't bring herself to shoot her wife in the face and the look of shock on her face, Sokka knew by the way her entire body was tensing up that this was not going to end well for both sides. While Envy was still oblivious, Sokka braced himself for the screams that were sure to follow the smug laughs.

"Congratu-fucking-lations Envy, you've just played yourself." Azula coldly smirked, her face in a sort of grin that reminded Sokka way too much of Kimblee that it sent a chill down his spine. Pocketing her gloves to reveal a transmutation circle etched into the top of her hand, she turned to look Envy in the eye before snapping her fingers.

Instantly, the room was filled with the agonizing screams of the homunculus as its tongue was set ablaze in a flash of turquoise. Glaring at Azula, she merely remarked "Remarkable, isn't it? After all, the human tongue has a rather high percentage of fat, which makes it oh so easy to burn."

Turning to the rest of the assembled group, Azula barked "Go find this Father guy, me and the lieutenant will deal with this sack of shit."

"You heard the man, let's go."

"But-"

"That's an order." Sokka barked to Aang.

"Look kid, we don't got much time." one of the Chimeras urged. Reluctantly, they started to move deeper and deeper into the tunnels. Before Envy could even move to block, it found itself on the receiving end of another sapphire barrage, scorching it from head to toe.

"So, you're the one who burnt Lust to a crisp." it huffed and puffed, as it spent the lives the Philosopher's stone contained to regenerate its health.

"Then you know just what kind of fate awaits you."

Enraged, it abandoned its human disguise and took on it's true form, a massive green hulking beast that had a host of faces stretching against it's very skin, their death masks an unnerving sight.

"I was just going easy on you, but now I'll make sure you and your pretty little boytoy there is going to- AHHH!FUCK!"

"You truly are a special kind of dumbfuck aren't you? First you openly brag about killing my closest friend, now you give me a bigger target to hit?" she laughed, before zapping him with rapid strikes that soon filled the air with smoke, soot and the ever familiar smell of burning flash that for a brief moment, transported Sokka back to that hot, blood-soaked sands of Ishval.

Sensing that it probably wasn't the best idea to hang around in the place where Lust got fried by her, it chose the only sensible option and ran on all fours into the labyrinth.

"Sokka, stay here. This one's mine to settle."

"She was my friend too!"

" Lieutenant Sokka Hawkeye , this is a direct order from your superior to stand down."

"Fine."

Turning to face the tunnels, she strode in with a singular purpose and aim. To avenge the death of Ty Lee.

-----

"Scar?"

"What is it?"

"I need to talk to you?"

"It's about the Colonel, isn't it?."

A nod. "I figured as much.", he sighed, "That face, the rage, I used to be like that long ago. The way I see it, she'll burn herself up long before she'll even get a chance to recover."

As if to emphasize his point, the sounds of Envy's tortured screams as it was relentlessly pursued echoed through the corridors. "Come, we need to keep moving." Reluctantly, Aang nodded and grit his teeth, steeling his heart to the blood curdling screams of someone getting burnt repeatedly.

-----

"Show yourself, you freak! Weren't you all high and mighty, boasting about your exploits, hmm? Too scared to pick on someone your own size?" she taunted, eyes peeled for any sign of movement.

"Come out come out wherever you are...or else I'll burn off your skin, bit by teensy bit, you worthless piece of crap." she continued, her voice raising by several octaves and taking on an almost sadistic tone.. Hearing the echoing cries and the almost  sing song taunts, Sokka could stand it no longer and headed down the tunnels, his pistol at the low ready.

------

Turning a corner, Azula heard an all too familiar voice call out "Hey there, Colonel." Snapping around, she saw Ty Lee standing in her uniform leaning nonchalantly against the wall, before she lunged at her. She won't dare to touch her, not if the-

Her thoughts were cut short as Azula's face, twisted with rage, blasted the lookalike with an unceasing torrent. For good measure, she even charred the cartilage in its left knee and burnt out the soles on the right foot in addition to singing its eyes.

"If you think I'm afraid of calling in fires danger close, need I give you a lesson in who I am?" her lips curling in a feral grin before blasting her once more. At this point, Envy knew better than to try and reason with her and ran. "So much for homunculi being the superior being."  she tutted, her face stained with traces of soot and ash that left black streaks on her  creamy white skin.

Taking respite in a mass of pipes, it spotted Sokka, who was looking for her, hoping against hope that she didn't completely lose herself. Even injured, it formed up a devious plan as it stalked him from the shadows.

"Fuck, this place is like a maze." he uttered, wandering through the tunnels. Hearing the sound of boots, he clung to the shadows. When the noise drew level, he aimed it at her face at the same time Azula pointed her fingers at him. For a brief moment, neither side let their guard down, before exhaling.

"Didn't I tell you to stay back?"

"I couldn't Colonel. Besides, someone needs to make sure you don't do something stupid."

"You're probably right. An extra set of eyes would be helpful."

Traveling a short distance, Sokka suddenly paused and leveled his gun at the back of her head.

"Do you know who your gun is pointed at?"

"Who? Don't make me laugh, when it's just us, the Colonel calls me by my first name." Turning to face her, Envy (who was disguised as Azula) smirked. "So you two really are that close huh." Letting out a small breath, Sokka executed a double tap to the chest and one to the head before replying "I lied."

Shrugging off his shots, Envy got back up and tried to rush him, but Sokka calmly slammed two rounds into the kneecaps, making it kneel on the ground as he leisurely holstered his dry gun and drew two more from his back, knocking out its arms and wrists before finally unslinging the rifle and giving the homunculus a dose of high speed lead poisoning.

Thoroughly pissed off, Envy lashed out and stabbed his shoulder, making him drop the rifle before it wrapped an appendage around him and smacked him upside the head. Before it could paint the walls with his grey matter, the real Colonel Azula arrived and toasted Envy, rendering its grip on him a pile of soot and ash.

"You truly are a glutton for punishment aren't you? First you kill my friend and boast about it, now you hurt my lieutenant? I swear I will burn you until you're nothing but a pile of ash and dust. And I've got all the time in the world, you miserable rat." Even as she spoke, her fingers snapped like a machine gun setting it ablaze over and over again.

"How many lives you've got left? Six? Sixty? Six hundred? No matter, it's all the same to me. Tell me, how does it feel to get your ass roasted by the very same person who killed Lust in the very same way?"

"Why you-GAH!!!"

"Stop, please!"

"What, not hot enough? I'll gladly crank up the heat. Stay back lieutenant, it's going to get a little toasty in here." Like a well oiled machine, her snap came almost naturally and any humanoid form of Envy was finally turned into cinders, whilst the tip of her gloves were starting to char and smoke. From the ashes, a green six legged slug-esque creature crawled away, it's squeaking voice lamenting at having been reduced to this form once again.

Without hesitation, Azula applied pressure on the offending creature, before commenting "So this is your true form. What a pathetic little being."

"P-Please-don't kill me!" it begged.

"Envy means jealousy, does it not? Well then, you won't have anything to be jealous of very shortly."

"Nooo please I don't want to die, not like this!!" it screeched.

Before Azula could turn the hapless homunculus into the next life, a sound of a hammer being cocked gave her paused.

"And just what do you think you're doing?"

"That's far enough. I'll handle it"

"What does it matter if it's me or you that deals the final blow? The fucker is going to die regardless, so lower your weapon."

"No. I cannot obey that."

"I will not ask again."

"Put your damn hands in the air, now!"

A burst of alchemically created earth wave soon took the decision making away from them as it launched it right into Aang's hand, who kept a vice like grip on it.

"Nice of you to drop by. Now hand it over."

"No."

"This is a direct order by a superior officer, hand it over."

"No."

"Are you asking for a fight and a court martial?"

"Bring it on by all means. But take a good look at yourself and ask, is this the face you want to lead Amestris with?!"

"Kill it if you wish, what right do I have as someone who has done the same. But I shudder to think what kind of world such a person held prisoner by their desire for vengeance would create." Scar added.

"Colonel, I have no intention of letting that slimeball live to see the next sunrise but please, this is not your fight anymore."

"No, you don't understand! I finally ran the bastard down, the bastard who killed Ty Lee! I-"

"But still, I cannot let you do something so reckless! Justice is what she needed, not this blind hatred for her killer. If this is how you act if one person wrongs you, what then will you do if a region or hell, another nation crosses you? Will you turn it into another Ishval? No, I will not let you."

"Please, let it go. I know you're better than that, Azula. I'm begging you, please!" "Go on, do what you need to. Then what?"

"Then it'll be the second last shot I'll ever take. After that, what else is there to live for?"

"No, that won't happen. That can never happen." Summoning her rage, she loosed off an intense jet that blackened the walls of a nearby tunnel, it's heat making everyone sweat like a hot August day.

Looking at the people around her, she remarked "Ironic, isn't it? Scolded by a child, lectured by a man who has all the right to seek vengeance against me for the crimes against his people and you, you-"

"-I've done it again." she ended mournfully. Clasping the hand that was still pointing at her, she gently lowered it down, saying "I've hurt you. Please, forgive me.", before kneeling at his feet, covering her face as the waterworks were out in full force. Holstering his derringer, he too dropped to his knees, and held her in his arms as she cried into his shoulders.

"Azula, I forgive you." he whispered in her ear, all caution and decorum thrown right out of the window as he rubbed her back in small circles.

"Really?" she looked up with red rimmed golden eyes.

"Really."

"Thank you, Sokka. For pulling me back from the abyss. I love you."

"I love you too, my little firecracker."

"Goddamnit Lieutenant, I can't believe you lied to me!" Envy squeaked.

"Shut up you pipsqueak, who gave you the right to speak!" Aang scolded, making it shrink back in fear.

"Hey Azula?"

"Yes?"

"We still got a transmutation circle to stop."

"Right."

"The usual place, 8 pm tomorrow evening?"

"As long as you're the one footing the bill."

"Deal. Now let's go."

[steve0discusses]

The Fullmetal Alchemist Live Action Movie Part 7: More Philosopher Stones than their PC Farm Can Possibly Render

So last we left off, a bunch of weird stuff was happening. Mustang just set Envy on fire, Lust and Gluttony kind of walked up from stage left, and Ed and Hawkeye just broke out of bougie jail and barged through a chain link fence on some Jeep. Good thing Mustang is here to explain it all to us:

(FYI I am so bad at spelling homunculus. I don’t even know which way is real anymore.)

What is incredible about this movie is just how much everyone else already knows, while Ed knows freaking nothing. Also, if you know about homunculi, then you know about sorcerer stones, and you’d know about...most of the things in Fullmetal Alchemist. Assuming that Mustang, who can look at a homunculus tattoo and be like “yep that’s a homunculus” doesn’t know anything else is kind of a big leap.

This actor had fun. I legitimately enjoy the actor who plays Mustang, I really do.

Anyway, we do get a little bit more explanation at this point by going back to the part where Hughes dies and just...showing it a second time but with this extra  reveal:

(see Hughes die yet again under the cut because this movie did it not just once but twice)

It’s at this point that Hughes turns to the phone and in his dying breath is like “It’s lab 5, go to the old POW camp, at lab 5” but not only did I think that the person on the line was the general (Because Hughes originally said it was the general) apparently now the person on the line is...Mustang? And that’s why Mustang knew about lab 5?

Like it’s...it’s just kind of confusing. I know this plot because I���ve seen the anime, but if you have not seen the anime beforehand or read the books, you’d be so freakin up a creek right now about why we saw this scene twice, and why it was completely different both times.

To make things even more confusing, that whole Tucker side plot is so random, that not even our baddies know what is going on with that whole Tucker side plot.

Anyway we have to give Gluttony and Envy have to do something in order to make their presence make sense. Honestly Gluttony just needs to have a single line in this movie.

Just everything is that same shiny neutral Phong. Look at all that Phong. Like other parts of this movie are passable, this was just so hilariously overlooked.

And like I dunno if this was a teeth harness or not but damn. Damn that looks stupid from the back, hahaha. He kind of lumbers slowly after these 9 dudes (same extras we’ve seen everywhere else, ps—this is still just the same guys) and it’s not all that scary because like...they can easily outrun him. The only way you can die to Gluttony is if you trip and then take a nap for a little bit.

Mustang gets hurt and it’s kind of funny how they shot it. It was actually rough to cap because they have to do so many tricks to not show us exactly what is happening, so they rely on sounds, on zooming in on people’s shocked expressions, because they Do Not Have The Budget to do more than this.

I don’t remember if this happened in the anime, too. Like from this point forward everything is kind of like “can you spot the source material?” because it’s just become so jumbled at this point.

Ed, who as you can imagine is a bundle of emotions by default, suddenly gets really protective of his mean Dad although like...we’ve barely made Mustang seem like a Father. Hell, we’ve barely made Ed seem like a kid. Why would he get weird and conflicted now?

Just the awkward teenage energy that only occasionally stems off of Ed is very unpredictable.

This is a full grown man.

Finally, we make it to Lab Number Five, the correct one this time. It’s got an alchemy circle…

It’s got a ceiling full of...zombie corpses, if you squint real good because I have to shrink all these images (Yes, they fit in the zombie corpses, but could not fit in the North or Father or Ling Yao or like anything Armstrong) It’s got everything that we need to put that nail into that Fullmetal Alchemist coffin, but ran out of time to fully explain or do.

It’s even got Al!

Yep, this is happening now, this part of the show. Ed is just having a WILD TIME trying to keep up with it and so are we.

So apparently Shou could just turn Al “off” this whole time. This explains why Al was just chilling under a blanket for 36 hours, but like...doesn’t really explain how Shou can do this or why he is bothering to do it right now.

But we need Shou because...well someone has to tell Ed what the plot is and what he should be doing at this very moment.

(Winry is here too)

So, with the threat of Winry getting shot in the head, Shou Tucker demands that Ed make it impossible to do any magic, because magic is very expensive and hard to animate. I could be wrong...but I’m pretty sure he also took off his right arm in the show at some point nearish to the end...I think? Forgive me, everything before 2020 is kind of a haze in my memory.

PS him ripping his hand off with all these sparks everywhere gave me serious Star Wars prequel vibes that I can’t explain. Something about the CGI, something about this contrived mess was like “Ah, I’ve felt this insanity before...long ago in a simpler time” and it was kind of nostalgic for me.

GOL LOOK AT THAT.

This Mickey Mouse glove just hot chilling on that sparking end. Hahaha I love it so much!

Shou just...delivers one of the most important reveals, sending Ed on a bit of a spirit journey because the stones he’s wanted for so long are actually very bad.

As you can imagine, because Ed likes to freak out, he has a big ass freak out, to top all freak outs. This actor spent like sooo much of his time just screaming at the ground. Which, I mean this is a shonen, so that checks out.

I’m just letting you know in case you decide to watch this movie and you have some epilepsy issues--skip this part. Just skip it. I don’t personally have it, but like...they went kind of extra in this part.

Now unlike the show, this movie has like...no apology for Dr Marcoh. Freakin stabbed him through the chest and was like “I don’t care if it means we can’t have the original FMA ending I freakin hate this guy” and you know...good on you, movie. Dr Marcoh was a really bad person. Thank you for not even attempting to justify this godawful man.

This crazy ass fanfiction movie.

Anyway, Shou directs Ed to look 10 feet up to get the rest of that juicy content. That Juicy FMA DLC that was within eye distance this entire time but youknow...cropped offscreen so it just didn’t exist.

Can’t believe this wasn’t the FIRST THING you’d notice when coming into this room, since Ed has been hardwired for red stones for like 10+ years. But youknow.

Anyways, we’re getting a ton of visual elements from FMA, just checking off that check list here in the last 1/3 of the movie. But wait, it gets weirder.

What I love about this is that Shou tells us all of this stuff because I guess Ed asked for Philosopher stones once, and even Shou is like...heyyy I figured it out! But like...hell would anyone even want to do this though?

Because that’s what happens when you have Shou freakin Tucker reveal the big master plan when he is not the big master. Like this explains nothing about Father, about Ed’s Dad, about the homunculi, about the corpses in the ceiling, like there’s just no explanation, other than just –“hey! Look at this atrocity I found just now!”

There is actually a horror element to that, where you don’t need to explain everything if you’re doing horror. If this were a horror movie, this would probably...be fine. You could have a fully explained movie by just saying “they turned POW camp people into rocks and now the zombies are here!” and that would be fine.

But it’s just...that isn’t this movie. I had so many expectations. And honestly...I expected way too much from 1.5 hours of content.

So Shou pulls a gun on Ed, which makes sense. Ed is lookin to make stones, and if stones are made out of people—then it’s time to kill Ed. First thing that make sense in this movie, but I don’t know if it makes sense coming from Shou freakin Tucker who made it seem like he just wanted to kill Ed because Ed got him arrested that one time.

It may have been just the translation on my end but like...Shou’s reason for pulling a gun out here was a little nonsense. But Shou himself is already a little nonsense anyway.

So we say goodbye, for the last time, being honest—he’s fully dead—he’s not coming back—to Shou Freakin Tucker. You were a mess Shou. I won’t miss you.

And if I forgot that this guy comes back, I fully apologize ahead of time, but I am 99% positive that I remembered that this guy never comes back.

(He might come back.)

And then Lust is like “Hakuro why did you do that? Like what are you even doing???”

And everyone else is like “Oh, the General. Of course. Why didn’t I uhhh….see that coming?”

Because they had to condense a whole bunch of corrupt Generals for this movie into one character, and so I guess Hakuro took it for the team?

Also these guys are here.

Just every single person standing in this room is pretty confused, as you can imagine. No one really expects to open up Volume 2 of FMA and it’s accidentally printed the last page of the entire series.

Anyway, that’s all for this 15 minutes (It was actually a little short 15 because there was ton of caps) I’m very tired because I did this workout routine with bro that was like 300 squats and I don’t know what day it is. I wrote “update blog” in my bullet journal (because it’s January, so I’m bullet journaling) so I’m just gonna do that because I want to use this green sparkly jelly pen and cross off all of today. Mm. Satisfying.

https://steve0discusses.tumblr.com/tagged/fma/chrono

[jounetsunosymphonia]

The Clockwork Heartbeat (Mankai Stage Spring 2019 translation)

translation for the stage version of spring’s third play! the song can be listened to in full here. and please, please listen to it while reading.

hello folks. i cried multiple times while translating this. and while watching it. and listening to it. clockwork hurts. i might be a winter but it’s my favourite a3 play ever i have every fucking emotion thinking about it. please enjoy.

cast list

Minagi Tsuzuru (Maekawa Yuuki) as Luke Citron (Furuya Yamato) as S Sakuma Sakuya (Yokota Ryugi) as Colt Chigasaki Itaru (Tateishi Toshiki) as Boyd and Narrator Usui Masumi (Makishima Hikaru) as Alf

-

Narrator In a certain town in a certain country A time where people’s lives depend upon steam The alchemist Luke— creates a homunculus, an artificial human, forbidden by law.

Luke There, it’s finished. Your name is S!

S: Good morning, master. Please give me an order.

Luke I won’t order you around You and I are friends

S: That will be a problem. If I am not given orders, I cannot move.

Luke: …alright then, let’s give you one. Be my friend.

S: Friend…?

Luke: Yes.

S: Understood.

Luke: How dry...oh! Let’s shake hands! It’s how humans greet each other.

Luke: S, are you left-handed? Ah…this is hard to explain. S, a handshake is when you clasp hands together.

S: Hands together…understood.

Luke No, no. We have to take each other’s hands. This is a handshake.

S: Handshake…

Luke: It’s a sign of our friendship.

S: Master and I, are friends. Handshake.

[spring telepathy time part 1!]

Citron: (Oh! Like I thought, doing manzai with Tsuzuru is the best!)

Tsuzuru: (No, we’re acting right now. Jeez…making me do comebacks even in my head…)

Citron: (I’ve had it!)

Tsuzuru: (But thank you. You helped out a lot this time.)

Citron: (I didn’t do anything. I just always want to be able to play around with you.)

-

Colt: Good morning, sir! Eh? Did you get a new apprentice?

Luke: Hey, Colt. He’s S, he’s my friend.

Colt: I’m Luke’s apprentice, Colt! Nice to meet you, S!

S: I’m Master’s friend, S. It’s nice to meet you, too.

Colt: Ow ow ow! My hand’s going to break!

S: This is a handshake.

Luke: You’re doing it too strongly, S.

Colt: Sir, is S—?

Luke: He is, but he’s my friend.

S: Yes. I am Master’s friend.

Colt: Ah, is that so. I’d expect no less from you, sir!

Narrator Luke teaches S many things S slowly absorbs it all. Luke has a lot of fun, and perhaps…S does as well

Boyd: But there’s no way it’ll be fine like this, fool apprentice.

Luke: Master—!

S: Master…?

Luke: S, this is my alchemy teacher, Boyd.

S: I am Master’s friend, S. It is nice to meet you.

Boyd Homunculi are outlawed throughout the land Get rid of that doll at once

Luke: S is my friend. Please don’t talk about him like that.

Boyd: Their kind can’t understand human emotions.

Luke Yes, they can! I’ll teach him. I’ll give S a heart!

Boyd: My, my. Perhaps rather than teach you alchemy, I should have shown you how to make friends.

[spring telepathy time part 2!]

Itaru: (Having me be both the narrator and the teacher is a bit much.)

Tsuzuru: (It’s a role only you can do, Itaru-san.)

Itaru: (Tsuzuru, you say that every time.)

Tsuzuru: (Has acting become more fun than games?)

Itaru: (Who knows. But…your scripts are interesting.)

-

S: Master, do I not have a “heart”?

Luke: That’s not true—

S: But Master’s teacher said so.

Luke: Your master is me.

S: What is a heart?

Luke: Why do you keep asking about this—

S: Master, please order me to have a heart.

Luke: It’s not something I can just order you to have.

S: But if I do not have a heart, I will be destroyed.

Luke: I won’t let that happen! …anyway, S. Maybe you should step outside for a bit.

S: Is this an order?

Luke: An order? …yes, yes it is.

S: Understood.

-

Narrator Luke hides S from prying eyes, but it is already too late. The news on his existence reaches commanding officer Alf.

Alf: Robots with artificial intelligence are illegal in this country.

Luke: S isn’t a robot. He’s completely human.

Alf If machines and humans mingle, it will only bring misfortune The law exists to prevent that. As soon as a homunculus is discovered, it will immediately be— —destroyed.

Alf: What’s this door?

Luke: Please, don’t!

Colt: Sir, let’s make a run for it!

Alf: Just a smoke bomb, eh. These alchemists…Go after them! Find them no matter what!

Luke: S, the guards are after us. We have to escape.

S: Escape? But if we run from the law, then Master will become a criminal.

Luke: If I don’t, then you’ll be destroyed!

S: Is it because I do not have a heart? Because I am a doll?

Alf: Give up. Treating mechanical dolls as equal to humans is merely hubris.

Luke: …hubris…?

Colt: You’re mistaken! My teacher’s become so much brighter. All because S is his friend!

Alf: They’re only playing at being friends. Your imitation of friendship ends here.

-

S: Master.

Luke: S! S, fight. We’ll get out of here!

S: I do not wish to cause you trouble.

Luke: That’s an order. You’re my friend. Our friendship isn’t just make-believe!

S: Understood.

(back at it again with “watch it if you can” but citron fighting is just. chef kiss. i love my boy so much. i would give up my life for furuya yamato.)

Luke: S!

[spring telepathy time part 3!]

Tsuzuru: (Citron-san, this is…!)

Sakuya: (He had some special training with Banri-kun and Sakyo-san!)

Masumi: (You’ve gotten a little better than before.)

Citron: (I was learning self defense from friends, so that came in handy, right!)

Sakuya: (We’ll all definitely come together to live up to your script!)

Tsuzuru: (Don’t make me cry in the middle of the play, now.)

Masumi: (Don’t cry.)

Tsuzuru: (I won’t!)

-

Alf: After them!

Narrator: But in the battle, S takes a great deal of damage, and the clockwork in his chest is bared.

Luke: S, that wound—!

S: It is not a problem. There are only screws and gears within me.

Luke: Let’s get back to the laboratory. We have to get you patched up right away.

Colt: But the laboratory’s going to be crawling with guards—

Luke: We can defeat them again. At this rate, S is going to stop functioning.

Colt: Sir, your crimes are just going to pile up!

Luke: If he stops working now, he’ll lose all his memories from when he first woke up!

S: Master, please remove my key.

Luke: What are you saying. If I do that, you’ll break—

S: If I cease functioning, you will no longer be chased.

Luke: No, I can’t. We’ll run together. That’s an order.

S: I will not obey. I wish to save you.

Luke: Why won’t you listen to your master’s orders?!

S: Because…I am…your friend, Luke. You gave me a life. You gave me friends. You gave me…a heart. And my heart is saying—even if I can no longer move, I’ll always be your friend.

Luke: No…I don’t want you to break.

S: I want you to do it. Not anyone else.

Luke: Being created and destroyed on the whims of a human…isn’t this too cruel?

S: We’ll meet again someday. Saying goodbye makes me sad too, but when I think that we’ll meet again, I’m okay.

(luke clutches s’ hands tightly, resulting in the most painful callback i have ever seen)

S: Luke, that hurts. You’re doing it too strongly.

Luke: I’m glad I met you, S.

S: Tha…nk…you……Lu…ke…

Colt: Please, won’t you let us go? My teacher, he—!

Alf: Thank you for your compliance with the law. Pardon the impoliteness.

Colt: You’re not taking S away?

Alf: We don’t have the free time to be confiscating broken inventions. Now, if you’ll excuse me.

-

Boyd: Huh. That straight-laced commanding officer did that?

Colt: Yes, he was really cool!

Boyd: So, how are that guy’s wounds healing up?

Colt: He seems fine now. He even went on a stroll this morning!

Boyd: That shut-in did? You’re not mistaken, are you?

Colt: Since then, teacher’s changed quite a bit. It’s like a bolt from the blue!

Luke: Hey, Colt. Don’t exaggerate.

Colt: Oh, teacher!

Boyd: You seem perfectly well now, don’t you.

Luke: Thankfully.

Boyd: A wind-up key? Quite a tasteless necklace you have there, my idiot apprentice.

Luke: This is an important key, I don’t want to lose it. So that I don’t forget a precious friend’s heart.

All Living on in my heart Important things don’t have to be seen

S So that one day we’ll meet again

Luke So that I don’t forget

All The ticking noise resounds

(then it goes into omoide no nejimaki here, from here again boop)

All Thoughts are superimposed on each other, acting like a spring To the proof of the connection that we created

Luke The last greeting is a source of calm wind

S Let’s go to sleep like this

Luke It was left in the hand

Luke, S A key to memories

[fizzingwizard]

Yay it’s my favorite time of the week! Digimon Adventure:! Can’t believe we’re already at episode 16! This week somewhat recapped the mission we’ve been on for... 14 episdoes now x’D and I realized I forgot all kinds of shit. It’s so funny, when I was ten and watching Digimon Adventure I could remember everything, but now that I’m sadly an adult I can’t keep track of these high paced children’s shows!

(Supposedly they spoon feed kids stories so they can understand it more easily... but I gotta say I think I’m the one that needs the help, bahahaha)

ALSO... apparently there was an earthquake this morning! It was too north of me so I didn’t feel it (I was... also sleeping >-> so...) But it was right when the show started airing so the info came scrolling across the screen. At first it said

“Just in case, be careful of tsunami”

and like just three min or so later

“There is no need to worry about a tsunami due to this earthquake”

Phew! Also, Digimon causes earthquakes! Hide yo wife hide yo kids! Is that meme still current?? Does it matter???? I’m a millennial, boomers hate me, gen Z hates me, at least let me have my memes! XD

OK enough goofing off, on to what really matters, freaking Digimon man! This episode gave me tons of Taichi spam. Mmm my favorite kind of spam! But it also gave me avocado cheeseburger spam too!

So although I completely forgot about it, I was pretty excited for this ep when they allegedly return to the real world! Last week’s preview made it pretty obvious it was going to be either a fake reality or the evil Digimon had taken over the real world much more deeply than we realized. Fake reality made the most sense. But they tried to trip us up anyway! The opening shots are clear references to the famous episode 21 of 99 Adventure, although given that was the best animated episode of the entire show, this one just doesn’t do it justice.

He’s not sweating, the sun isn’t as intense... it just makes Fizz nostalgic

Finding them suddenly home, the kids are all pretty bewildered at first. Predictably, Mimi is the first to recover. What motivates her?

AVOCADO CHEESEBURGER! AVOCADO CHEESEBURGER!

From Burger Jack’s bahahahaha

Mimi starts excitedly listing all the things she wants to do now that they’re home. Aside from eat delicious burgers, she wants to take a shower, change clothes...

I’m like “Oh, so these kids HAVE been feeling the effects of how much traveling they’ve been doing!”

Seriously though why didn’t anyone comment on it before now?? In 99 Adventure most of the kids couldn’t shut up about the lack of basic necessities and creature comforts. It was really easy to feel how much they were struggling! Everyone in this series is so darn serious all the time. Sora even brought that big bag of emergency supplies but we only rarely see it get used.

Taichi and Koushirou are a little more wary, though they come across as mainly confused.

Mimi wants to go eat burgers right off, but Taichi convinces her they should go home first. “Oh yeah, I have parents” - Mimi, probably.

They get on a train. The Digimon are very cute. They finally notice that no one’s paying attention to them. It took 0.3 seconds for Tokyoites in ep 21 of 99 Adventure to start freaking out over Koromon, so this was a big clue if you somehow missed that there’s something not right.

On the other hand, for a world that is presumably an illusion created by some Digimon, it sure is, er...

... accurate in surprising ways, bahahaha

(no seriously did we NEED bikini girls?? did we NEED them? I know it’s everywhere on every train for all kinds of proucts but did we NEED them here)

(the TEEN 17 in particular is killing me)

Some gratuitous Taichi spam

Mimi lives in the affluent Shibuya area now so the kids split up to continue on home. I love Taichi called her ‘ojousama.’

Taichi wonders if Yamato and the others got home okay too. Koushirou wonders if whatever was causing the blackout has really been defeated. (Mimi’s theory is “Sora-san and the others must have done something about it!” Which I just liked because by naming her she identifies Sora as the one she feels closest to awww)

They won’t say it, but the truth is these two are kinda disappointed... lol

However they won’t be disappointed for long... because this midnight train really isn’t going anywhere. *wink* see what i did there

Mimi’s walk home has also turned into a labyrinth. Which is totally normal for Toyko subways really. Mimi gets so tired from walking that she starts hallucinating that Palmon’s head is in fact an avocado.

Girl you got a problem but no judging. I got the same problem.

AVOCADO BURGER!! Think of it in your heart and it will appear!

Now that’s not creepy at all.

Several episodes ago we learned that Mimi has never seen The Mummy. Apparently she’s never seen any horror movies at all, because she still approaches the counter to order her freaking burger even after seeing the cashier’s shadowy clearly evil visage.

YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR LITTLE GIRL

On finally realizing that this train can’t go anywhere but Shibuya, Taichi and Koushirou get off and reunite with Mimi, who has learned nothing and continues talking to people. The only possible result of this is...

... creepy eyes appearing and trying to EAT her

Mimi: “Taichi-san!!”

she could ask her partner for protection but Taichi’s around and he’s everyone’s big brother so

The cause of all this mischief turns out to be this creepy dude! He’s kind of cute!

Also rather larger and more solid than I anticipated!

Of course this nightmare won’t end so easily.

You know you’re in for it when the walls are covered in glowing red eyes. That uh, shoot laser beams at you.

Cyclops: Not lasers! Concussive optic rays!

It turns out there wasn’t just one creepy dude, there were many. I’ve found my Halloween costume!

Our heroes finally figure out that this world is not their real world when they come across these tetris people.

For someone who’s never watched a single scary movie, Mimi does an impressive white-girl-in-a-horror-flick face.

I know she’s not white I’m saying she’s good at impressions she should become a comedienne

Now that we know the blackout in Japan is still ongoing and causing all sorts of issues, we get our usual peek into what’s going on for the people of Tokyo. We get to see Hikari! She’s cool as a cucumber. Her mom’s freaking out and packing a suitcase. Her mom says “Hikari go get ready!” Hikari just says “Oh I’m ready anytime!”

Hikari: I’m not worried about anything, big brother’s taking care of it!

Awww we get to see Miko! And that looks like a cat carrier <3 Mom’s not leaving their furry friend behind in the dark while they evacuate to grandpa’s place in Ibaraki...

... She is apparently cool with leaving behind her only son though! X’D

The letter reads “Taichi, we’re going to Grandpa’s place in Ibaraki. Call me when you get home.” The arrow says “Address.”

Ibaraki is a bit over an hour from Tokyo (I used to live there!) so not too far and very easy to get to by train. Still... there’s a huge power outage, I can only assume Mom’s reason here really is evacuation and not just “seems like a great time to go on a visit!” but she doesn’t know where one of her kids is and she’s just like “eh no worries he’ll figure out his way home!” Does she KNOW her son is 11? Japanese kids use trains very independently but again, POWER OUTAGE. ONE HOUR+ AWAY.

I’m remembering episode 1 when Taichi was acting like such a Dad and his mom was totally on board. Apparently that is going to be a Thing in their family. Taichi is the kid in Home Alone. Scratch that, he’s like the pets in Homeward Bound X’D

Mimi is understandably disappointed that she doesn’t get to shower... I mean see her parents... I mean, eat a freaking avocado cheeseburger

But Palmon knows how to make her feel better. “We’ll come back here someday and eat avocado cheeseburgers together.”

Mimi: “Heck YEAH I’m psyched!! AVOCADO CHEESEBURGER!”

this show understands the only true way to a woman’s heart is through food.

Our heroes are surrounded by Homunculus from FMA.

They merge together forming the aptly named EYESMON!!! lmao

Look at freaking long Greymon’s cyborg arm is. Whut.

AtlurKabuterimon gets hit by a train buhaahaha. Somehow this was way funnier to me than Lilymon getting hit by a plane or buildings falling on MetalGreymon.

The kids are outnumbered when look who appears!

The three of them sitting on Zudomon is the cutest thing ever also I JUST NOTICED ZUDOMON’S DOLPHIN PATCH WHAT THE HECK HAS THAT ALWAYS BEEN THERE!??!?!?!!?

So this was the reunion ep after all! I’m a little disappointed just because I wanted something more dramatic.

What Fizz, illusion magic and homunculi plus exploding Shibuya isn’t dramatic enough for you?

I mean EMOTIONALLY dramatic. Like, someone should hug.

Oh well. This is the face Taichi makes when he sees Yamato. D’aww. I guess i’ll be satisfied with this.

Yamato gets them started on a plan and they all fight as a group!! But Koushirou’s realized that this Digimon, whatever it is, is what’s causing the blackout. They can’t properly defeat it...

... and it’s already the night of the third day. Soon their 72 hour window will be up. Then Ariel will turn back into a Mermaid and the Sea Witch wins :’<

We end with an ominous digivolution! Next week....

Orochimon!!! I love multi headed monsters.

More Taiyama action!!! Lookin a bit beat up but still cool!

OK so in sum this episode was pretty fun. I still feel like the writers for this season just don’t dig in deep enough to really make things come alive. They’re so concerned with battles that they miss moments for fun character interactions etc. And in the end, the whole of this episode can be recapped simply as “They discover the world they’re in is an illusion and they fight the bad guy.” However, we got a lot of fun with Mimi in particular, and though we didn’t get the kind of Taishiro teamwork my heart yearns for, at least we saw them sticking together and hashing things out.

I really do hope this show dials up the character relationships a bit soon though. We keep getting tidbits so it’s not like they don’t have things planned. It’s just a matter of execution. Anyway I’m happy to have the whole group (well as many as we’ve got so far) together again!

[sweetpaopao]

FMA 2003 (Re)Watch

I recently planned a hybrid watch of both the 2003 series and Brotherhood; the original plan was to skip over to BH at the divergence point, but I was enjoying the first part of 03 so much that I decided to keep going. I saw 03 when it aired on TV back in the day and watched BH a few years after it was released, so while both are technically rewatches, a lot of 03 was hazy. Also FYI, I was switching back and forth between sub and dub kind of randomly throughout my watch.

A bunch of random thoughts:

-The first half of 03 is done really well, and I enjoyed it a lot. I like the extra time they spent on the early arcs, and I really enjoyed the episode on the train, the one with Barry, and the one with Yoki. I did skip that one filler with the thief because I remember it being super cringe.  

-The music is good. Of course "Brothers" is the best, but I like a lot of the other tracks too.

-The origin of the Homunculi as failed transmutations is neat. It's creative, works with the established setup of alchemy, and makes the Homunculi relatable and sympathetic. They mention Lust being "the new Lust" several times, which makes me wonder how many different versions of the Sins have existed over the centuries, and what happened to each of them.  

-I like the extra screen time and development that Lust received. Though she loses points for getting "Cotton Eye Joe" stuck in my head on multiple occasions, lol  

-Al seems way younger in this version. He's supposed to be a year behind Ed, but he acts like he's 3-4 years younger. I think it's mainly the writing, but the dub voice actor might contribute to this, since it's obvious it's an actual child and not an adult doing a child's voice.  

-Sloth is 100% better in 03 than in BH, hands down. I do wish she had been given a little more development, at least as much as Lust was given, since she's so connected to the main characters. Her water powers were cool..."death by evaporation" is definitely unique.  

-On the other hand, I friggin' HATE Wrath. He's an insufferable brat, and his voice made me want to stab out my ears (no offense to either voice actor - it's the part that's the problem. It's impossible to NOT be obnoxious when 80% of your lines are screeching and/or whining). I also hate that he looks so much like Envy...character design 101 says that each character should have their own distinct look, so I can't fathom why they would make him look like Envy Jr instead of giving him his own design. At least give him different clothes? Cut his hair, or put it in a ponytail?  

-Greed had barely any part in the story at all. The poor guy was practically a "Hi and die". His death scene was one of the things I had strong memories of, but I thought it was much later, near the very end of the series (I think the library in Dante's house and the ballroom in that city merged together in my mind). The lack of Greed love was a little disappointing, since he's my favorite homunculus.  

-It's sometimes said that Winry doesn't have much of a part in this series, which honestly is wrong - she's in it a lot, just not as a love interest. I liked her espionage plotline with Sheska.  

-Sheska got way more screentime here. I don't really care all that much about her, but I can see where she would have favorite character potential for some people (or waifu potential, even). I laughed out loud at the "she's an alien" line.  

-Havoc is a shyguy and very much NOT a badass stud, lol  

-Hohenheim...uh. I absolutely hated everything they did with him. He's basically a villain, he was a creep to Ross, he looks like a drowned rat, and he literally stinks. Poor Hoho, why did they do this to you?  

-Riza also got screwed. She had that one cool manga scene where she saves Mustang by tripping him, and then proceeded to get shit on for the rest of the series. She was basically an unintelligent lump who exists to be talked down to and treated like an annoyance. And speaking of the Colonel...  

-Dear God, 03 Mustang is a DICK. I remember he was popular back in the day, so fans must have had a high douchebag tolerance then. He got so bad at points that my finger was itching to skip ahead every time he opened his mouth, and I nearly punched the screen when he told Hawkeye to "wipe that crap off your face" in that one scene. Christ. I vastly, VASTLY prefer his softer Brotherhood personality.  

-Ed is kind of a dick in this version too. They took the short-tempered hothead aspect of him and leaned on it too far, IMHO. He seems to have 100% contempt for everyone in the world except Al, who he only has 50% contempt for. I had occasionally had similar reactions to him that I had to Mustang. Again, Ed had a softer personality in BH that I strongly prefer.  

-This leads into my main complaint about the 03 series...it has a "mean streak", especially in the 2nd half. It's hard to explain, but it's like there's this undercurrent of cynicism that runs through it, and it comes out in the writing, especially in the characters. It gives me the same kind of feeling that I get from things like Game of Thrones or The Walking Dead...this uneasy atmosphere of negativity and bitterness that leaves me feeling kind of gross afterward.  

-Overall, I have mixed feelings about this series. The first half was great! I like the slower pace and the small-scale worldbuilding (I seriously want to take a train ride around Amestris), and the more intimate focus on Ed and Al at the beginning. I like that the writers took the small amount of source material that they had and developed it to its maximum potential. But once they ran out of manga to adapt, I think things slowly went downhill. My enjoyment gradually decreased episode by episode, until I was kind of relieved to reach the end.  

-I'm glad I rewatched this series, since there was a lot that I had forgotten about, and some parts brought back a lot of good memories. The first half will probably go on my regular rewatch list, but I doubt I'll ever want to revisit the 2nd half again. I appreciate the effort they put into this series, and it's definitely worth watching. But overall Brotherhood will stay as my favorite version (and I'll be rewatching that soon too).  

[mirrorfalls]

The Alchemist When He’s Full of Metal, Vol. 27

(Vol. 1, Vol. 2, Vol. 3, Vol. 4, Vol. 5, Vol. 6, Vol. 7, Vol. 8, Vol. 9, Vol. 10, Vol. 11, Vol. 12, Vol. 13, Vol. 14, Vol. 15, Vol. 16, Vol. 17, Vol. 18, Vol. 19, Vol. 20, Vol. 21, Vol. 22, Vol. 23, Vol. 24, Vol. 25, Vol. 26)

And lo, there shall be an ending.

A double-triple-deluxe ending. It’s never an easy prospect, giving everyone something to do in your Grand Finale, but the genre pretty much demands it - even when the finesse needed to juggle dozens of protagonists and deuteragonists in the same room have crushed countless otherwise-talented writers. On the low end of the scale, of course, we have our pick of any Big Two kill-a-hundred-C-listers-cripple-a-couple-more crisis crossover (which, adding insult to injury, never actually end anything apart from the fans’ patience), and on the high end...

... on the high end, this is a pretty good candidate.*

I suppose I’m cheating, since this particular Final Battle started anywhere from one to six volumes beforehand, during which everyone from the Armstrongs to the Curtises to the Xingese to Scar to Marcoh to Yoki got to contribute something. But this is where the not-my-our victory theme truly congeals. Here, a lesser writer would’ve decided everyone else has already done their part and relegated them to cheerleading while Ed pastes the Dwarf solo; here, Arakawa makes damn sure that you know Ed owes it all to the sacrifices of unambiguous friends....

... and supposed foes.

Now, in case you think I’m getting too gushy: I still think the Dwarf in itself is an underwhelming Big Bad, and its actual “death” scene is visually impressive but emotionally not too different from setting the week’s trash out on the curb. I’m also not too unsympathetic to those who came away from this scene deciding Truth is the real Big Bad of the series**, or that the true moral is closer to “Equivalent Exchange rules all... but there’s still a guy at the top who gets to rule on what Equivalent is.”

A point made all too clear by what comes after.

Don’t get me wrong - I love that Arakawa doesn’t let the Epic War story get the last word over the small, all-too-human quest the Elrics started out on. And Ed’s giving up all his powers (and implicitly at least 75% of his combat ability) is still refreshingly unique among Shonen protagonists, even counting those whose powers are literally lethal curses. But I really could’ve done without Truth suddenly deciding to like and approve of the kid like some kind of auxiliary sensei. Even if it’s not a cheat - and I don’t think the manga ever denies that every single Gate Exchange only happened because Truth let it happen - it drains quite a bit of ambiguity and hardship from a scene that could only have benefited from both.

And then you’ve got Mustang’s equivalent to the above:

Okay, so Mustang never willingly entered the Gate - it’s fair enough he’d get his eyes back with less fuss, and on top of that he doesn’t actually get to be Fuehrer. I’ve no complaints on that front, but I wish a bit more space had been devoted to the Ishvalans beyond “Bad Army Men out, Good Army Men make everything okay for you oppressed peons now!” In particular, it feels off for Scar’s final scene to be with the uniforms that wreaked so much havoc on his people; I’m not saying he should’ve turned his backs on them entirely, but tell me it wouldn’t have been more heartwarming to see him rejoining the other Ishvalan refugees, or even Mei and Yoki.

Speaking of heartwarming... okay, I don’t have the time or space to go into all of the different epilogue-threads, but I’d just like to highlight this one in particular, because more than any of the others it lands just the right amount of hope.

Selim is, in the final analysis, a Nina who was saved - an innocent child, involved in repulsive alchemy experiments through no fault of his own, now untangled from it all and allowed to live as freely as he can. And through him, Arakawa raises a question I’d been wondering a while now: why should Homunculi be so feared and hated on sight, to the point where Mustang and friends spend multiple chapters acting like the Fuehrer being a Homunculus should in itself be a career-ending scandal? Oh, the seven Sins have the whole stigma from the Dwarf, fair enough, but they can’t have been the only Homunculi in existence, else the secrecy of their existence would preclude Amestris even having a term for it; and hell, when the chips were down, one of those seven turned around and gave its life to do the right thing.

They can learn. They can change. They can love. Not for certain - but then, a child should never be a promise, only potential. Potential to go higher than the last generation ever dreamed - or lower than it ever dreaded.

And that, ladies and gents, was Fullmetal Alchemist.

Is it good? Definitely.

Is it great? In many parts, yes.

Is it the epitome of everything the Internet says it is? No - at least, not at the stage I read it.

I can say this without hesitation: if this had been my first or second or even fifth Shonen, devoured anytime during my school years, I’d almost certainly be a full-on stan today. It’s a machine with many, many excellent parts - maybe too many to build a properly excellent whole. You’ve got all the talent and ingredients for a first-rate fighting fantasy, or globetrotting political thriller, or horror-fable about the follies of playing God, or goofy-ass romcom, or heartbreaking war drama, or a half-dozen other storytypes. Perhaps a more seasoned author could’ve mined the strongest benefits of each while keeping them all in line; as-is, they compete with each other as much as they complement. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve seen a perfectly poignant moment cut apart by an ill-timed joke, or how many many potentially interesting plot/character moments were either let down by insufficient worldbuilding or left dangling altogether.

(I’m told that 108 is some sort of sacred number in Japan, so I presume Arakawa had the total length mapped out before she even started the series, But as any author can tell you, no outline survives contact with reality; some characters might have been better off folded into others, some plot-threads trimmed altogether. I, for one, still can’t quite figure out why the heroes needed four chimeras turned to their side.)

At my current age, I suppose my eyes are a little too jaded, a little too impatient with (or worse, eager to point out) shortcomings big and small and subjective alike. But make no mistake: I don’t regret finally finishing this little epic, and if half my mutuals’ accounts are to be believed, it's just the start of the real fun to be had with the series.

Hi-ho, to AO3!

*The midpoints that come most immediately to (my) mind are Harry Potter, Gravity Falls, and Samurai Jack. Which stands atop which is an exercise for the individual reader.

**Y’know, there is still plenty of time for Arakawa to roll out a sequel series where our heroes fight actual God instead of a wannabe. ‘til then, let’s content ourselves with this.