#fma fandom crit

[fma-slothposting]

Am i the only one who finds it weird that 20+ y/o adults would watch 2 different series one being super generic shounen with super generic shounen themes like " (male) friendship is magic", "teen boy would know how to save any life situation" and where characters are developed in such way that the plot would made sense and work and another one that touches topics that barely any piece of media talks about and characters are developed bc they do mistakes and learn from those mistakes, and say "yes the generic white teen boy woshipping series is superior in fact". Like this is crazy to me.

[homunculusalphonse]

i agree the elric brothers deserve a good parental figure but 1) none of the adult characters in the franchise are good parents (except maybe scar but him parenting the elrics would be rlly weird imo), and 2) y'all ignore alphonse probably bc you think he's less traumatized than his brother, except al lost his body and he lost his mother in the same night. you guys forget that al is even younger than ed (even if just a year), that al apologizes every time he needs help, that he blames himself for his brother losing his limbs, and even the fact that al is very forgiving of hohenheim. and if you take fma 2003 into account, al doesn't even grow up: when he's restored, he's back as his ten year old self, without memories for the following two or three years.

basically, ed and al deserve better than this. and in this case, al deserves better than to be pushed aside constantly.

[the-bookwyrm]

Here are a list of my general fandoms with the tag I use for them, in case you'd like to blacklist any of them, or just get a quick glance at what I'm into!

I can't promise to get all of them lol, but here's a good attempt!

And if you want to look at any of these in particular, plug them in after https://the-bookwyrm.tumblr.com/tagged/

General tags:

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[envythepalmtree]

fma does a poor job with its race themes

I’ve seen a lot of posts lately about how FMA/B is anti-fascist, anti-imperialist, anti-racist, etc and I want y’all to be careful about it. I obviously love the manga and show a lot, but it’s important to notice where it gets problematic.

It’s great that the FMA fandom knows how race works, but the source material really doesn’t.

Now, I can’t speak for 03, but when I read the manga and watched Brotherhood and saw so many problems with how they handled Ishval, and how they handled race in general. I have a meta sitting in my drafts breaking down how Arakawa messed up in depicting Major Miles.

It’s important to remember that although it’s a great manga and show, FMA’s race themes suck.  It depicts a genocide of a race, but it portrays the perpetrators, the Amestrian soldiers, more sympathetically than the race itself. Scar and Miles are the only relevant Ishvalan characters, and of the two, Scar is a revenge-obsessed murderer who learns that he needs to let go of his hate.

Your friendly reminder that if you’re the survivor of a genocide, you very much are allowed to hate your oppressors. 

FMA also fails to adequately portray and challenge imperialism. “But the expansion of Amestris is portrayed as bad,” you might say. But the only reason the source material gives for that is because Amestrian imperialism is intended to create a huge circle for human sacrifice.

In Sloth’s tunnel during the Briggs arc, it’s mentioned in passing that Amestris grew to the size it is by conquering other territories. That makes it an empire, and Amestris should have diverse cultures and people, like empires do. There should be scars to show how individual territories were hurt by Amestrian conquest. But as far as race goes? We only ever see Amestrian vs. Ishvalan. The only thing we see in the show to suggest that forcibly annexing other countries is a Bad Thing is that the Ishvalans weren’t too happy about it.

As far as anti-fascism goes, you can say that the show does address it as Riza talks about changing Amestris to a democracy. I personally think there could’ve been more, but at least it’s there.

I love Fullmetal Alchemist. But it’s really important to be critical of what you’re consuming and know where a piece of media has problems. 

[zetalial]

Ling + Lan Fan’s escape from Wrath doesn’t make sense to me

Hey guys, I couldn’t resist a bit of critique of this memorable scene from FMAB. Sorry! Purely from a logistical standpoint - any character issues would be a separate issue. So, episode 24-25 of Brotherhood has Ed and Al decide to attack Scar in order to lure the homunculi out and Ling volunteers to help them with capturing a homunculus. It’s a fun sequence but it’s also one I have a few issues with. This is only based on the anime adaptation so if the Manga fills in these plot holes, feel free to tell me! I’m going to be more detailed than I probably really need to be. 

Their plan works in that they attract the attention of Wrath and Gluttony (Not Envy for some unknown reason.) So while Ed and Al are busy with Scar, Ling and Lan Fan fight Wrath and Gluttony. 

Their first exchange goes interestingly, as we briefly see more of Lan Fan’s impressive fighting tactics where she’s willing to take an injury in order to deal damage, as she breaks one of Wrath’s swords with her kunai but he strikes her and she falls down and can’t fight anymore - her left arm is badly injured. 

Ling grabs her and picks her up over the shoulder, unwilling to leave her behind and... here’s where my issues start to arise. Alright, Ling has two powerful bodyguards who generally fight for him but it turns out he’s also a really impressive fighter in his own right - not too surprising but his skills in this encounter suggest he’s just as good or better than them as he fends off Wrath while holding Lan Fan over one shoulder. 

This annoys me as Lan Fan is the trained professional where Ling is a prince. Granted Wrath has only one and a half swords now - (though sidenote I can’t believe one broke at all given how unbreakable they’ve been until now) and Gluttony doesn’t actually contribute too much, with Ling easily slashing him up. Ling isn’t winning but it’s still pretty ridiculous to me - especially when juxtaposed with how easily Lan Fan was taken out.

Either way, Ling gets punched into a nearby house and gets followed by Wrath and he looks to be cornered - Wrath taunts him a bit suggesting he could get away if he dropped Lan Fan whom he is still carrying over one shoulder. Lan Fan intervenes though by letting off a flash bomb to blind Wrath and Ling take sthis chance to try and escape the room. 

...But then Wrath reveals he can still see fine as he unveils his other eye beneath his eye patch and Ling’s hopes are dashed. How will he get out of this one???

...There’s another explosion and he jumps out the window. Ling has escaped the building and is running away, still carrying Lan Fan over one shoulder. We only get an outsider perspective so we don’t see the details.

Wrath just watches before giving chase. So I have to imagine what happened a bit - obviously Lan Fan let off another bomb and they really got past Wrath while cornered that easily? Oh well. And just another reminder that Wrath is extremely fast and Ling is carrying Lan Fan so he must be slowed down. And he’s literally just jumped out of a building. There are people about but Wrath was fighting them right outside a few minutes before so why would he suddenly care about appearances now? If jumping out of a building is unnatural then I’ll remind you that Ling just jumped out of the building with little problem.

He even runs into a dead end before forced to turn around with Wrath still tracking him. (and he deliberately went to a deserted part of town for some reason) Wrath isn’t exactly hurrying now though, I suppose. Anyway, so Lan Fan’s asking him to leave her so he can get away and Ling’s refusing, still running away and so Lan Fan grabs another kunai...

We get another cut away here. Next time we’re in Wrath’s perspective and he follows the blood and... it’s a decoy! Lan Fan has cut off her arm and used it as false bait allowing them both to escape. 

That super cool but- you’re seriously telling me that Ling got far enough away that they had time to tie up a bloody arm to a random dog and then run away before Wrath caught them? And it all happened off-screen? (Gosh that would have been such a cool and emotional scene to see too. Far better than the reveal without the how.)

...

I cannot imagine this. 

...

I’ll try though: Lan Fan cuts her arm off, and presumably Ling freezes in horror briefly and I’d imagine they might have made some noise as she slices her own arm off. And then Lan Fan is bleeding like crazy and I don’t know - would Ling rip off his shirt to use to bandage the wound first or would he pick up the freshly severed arm first and start attempting to tie it to a dog that just happens to be there? A very cooperative dog. So, he ties the arm on and convinces the dog to start running before picking up Lan Fan and heading directly into the sewer to hide. 

Frankly, I bet they could have hid in the sewer without Lan fan needing to cut off her arm - Wrath was following their blood trail which will still be visible and lead straight to their sewer entrance if he backtracks just a little. (And she just cut off her arm and Ling tied it in a hurry - I think she’d still be dripping blood - see how much blood she dripped when it was a more minor injury... actually why didn’t they just tie that injury better in the first place if all they really need to do to hide is stop dripping blood. The false trail wastes way more time -and blood- than just hiding better!) 

All the while Wrath is giving chase but was apparently far enough away that they had time to do this. It’s just I can’t imagine this would be that fast - they shouldn’t be more than a minute ahead of Wrath and even that’s a stretch - it’s a stretch that they escaped from his immediate vicinity in the first place. At the start of this sequence Ling was literally in viewing range of him and was burdened by carrying Lan Fan. 

After this, Ling leaves Lan Fan in the sewers and jumps out to help Ed and Al capture Gluttony. At this point, Ling’s feats seem OP to me but anyway we get to see him obliterate Gluttony while shirtless. (And, wow, he can jump high.)

Wrath chuckles about how he’s been outsmarted by this clever girl, having taken great enjoyment in this fight. And it’s thankfully over so I don’t have to think about it any more. 

If I’ve missed anything or got it wrong, please tell me! This is a very important sequence both for plot and character and if there’s something I’m missing, I’d love to know. I love Lan Fan in this part and think she’s great but basically everything else annoys me.

[homunculusalphonse]

// fma comparison, bh crit (but also in fandom terms)

i noticed that the fandom never rlly criticizes ed in brotherhood. although i may be wrong since i don't interact with the fandom that much, i rarely see ppl pointing out ed's flaws or his ignorance. like he's rude but not in a justified way, he's just a jerk, and he never faces any consequences for it.

on the other hand, ppl hate 03 ed because "he cries too much". in other words, they hate 03 ed for showing any vulnerability. for making it clear to the audience that he is indeed just a kid that has faced a shit ton of trauma from a young age.

ed isn't the perfect shonen protagonist, he's flawed and 03 actually acknowledges it. ed openly admits that he's racist and he's willing to change it. but guess which adaptation is deemed the antiracist masterpiece? yeah, you guessed it: Not All Amestrians Are Bad. I Don't See Color. truly based. /sarcasm

[envythepalmtree]

do you think there’s a problem in the fma fandom with drawing east asian skintones really weirdly, especially with ling? i constantly see fanart of him with some dull ashy skintone, when chinese people especially have warmer and more yellow undertones. meanwhile, roy is constantly whitewashed, which becomes very apparent when drawn next to riza. this has been bothering me (as a chinese person myself) and i was wondering if anyone has been thinking the same :’)

(note for any people that just followed me: I'm speaking from the perspective of a Han Chinese person born in the US)

Hmm I didn't really notice that before with Ling, but I searched around and I kind of see what you mean! Although it's a pretty common misconception in makeup theory that East Asian skin is always warm toned - yellow can have cool undertones too.

Also for any artists reading this! You might have seen this already, but here's a pretty good resource on Asian features. It's not comprehensive but hopefully it's helpful.

My biggest issue with how Ling is drawn, both in canon and in fanart, is his eyes always being closed. Like yes, Arakawa is East Asian, but I don't think she considered harassment of East Asian children in the West when she made the decision for Ling to walk around with his eyes shut. Also, the fact that he's called "squinty eyes" in canon? Bleh. I've seen people incorporate nicknames like that into their art, which just. please don't do that.

Since Roy isn't actually coded in canon as Xingese, him being drawn without East Asian features doesn't really bother me. It's my favorite headcanon and I'm writing a very detailed fic about it, but I wouldn't want it to be canon for reasons I explain here. But I LOVE it when people draw him (or Ling or Mei or Lanfan) with a wider, flatter nose! I grew up thinking my nose was ugly so it's nice to have a little representation :')

Another thing I'd really like to see is the Xingese characters with darker skin. It bothers me how most characters in anime and manga, especially those that are clearly Japanese, are very light-skinned. Yes, East Asia has a lot of light-skinned people. It also has a lot of dark-skinned people. There's so much colorism, too. And yes, part of the reason is probably because it saves ink to print panels where none of the characters need shading, but sometimes I'll be reading a manga like:

[Image description: Edited Mean Girls meme that reads, "if you're from Japan, why are you white?" end ID]

Especially when the characters in question have like. blonde hair and blue eyes.

[homunculusalphonse]

actually i think i know why i’m aggressively neutral on parental roy mustang. because it doesn’t involve my precious son alphonse elric at all.