#happy fma day

[dyingroses]

Don't Forget October 3rd!

[sassydefendorflower]

There is this common misconception in the fandom that to get the "fullest" Fullmetal Alchemist experience, you should watch the first 20 or so episodes of 03 (up until Hughes' murder) and finish the show watching Brotherhood.

I think that's bullshit.

Not because I have anything against 03. Oh, I think 03 is a perfectly valid interpretation of the text with a few absolutely genius moments thrown in there that make Brotherhood pale in comparison.

But it is an interpretation of the text.

Don't get me wrong, so is Brotherhood.

And while Brotherhood is a lot more faithful to the text, especially later on, that anime as well cuts out a lot of important worldbuilding in the beginning. Which is where this idea of inter-cutting those two animes even stems from.

But these two stories have wildly different interpretations of the same characters! The depth of characterization in both 03 and Brotherhood gets undercut by a mix and match that does both a disservice.

Ed is a lot more vulnerable in 03 - he is the tragic hero we follow who will make horrible choices in order to save his brother only to suffer and fail and break. The anime establishes this by introducing him to us at the age of 12, when he's only just starting in his journey. Many of his first adventures (the train, meeting Hughes, Nina and Alexander) take place at a point where Ed is a lot softer, a lot less hard, a lot less broken - they are what breaks him in a way. What eventually leads him down the path he takes.

That is a hugely different interpretation of the text as Brotherhood offers it to us.

In Brotherhood we meet Ed when he's at the top. The priest of Liore is no problem for him, he's been doing this for years, he's internalized a lot of the hurt he grew up with. Getting hurt doesn't faze him, his biggest hindrance is his urge to finally get this done and over with. He's cocky and self-assured and oh, so insecure. Which is why we need Nina, to remind him of the fragility in life and his own powerlessness. In Brotherhood Nina is the linchpin that leads to Ed finding out about Philosopher's Stones.

In many ways this interpretation of the text is a lot closer to the source material, but, yes, it is still an interpretation. Someone once said the biggest mistake Brotherhood made was include the Elrics' backstory in episode two and I agree - it is often what hooks first time viewers with the stark horror of what these kids went through, but it stands at odds with the original purpose of the backstory only being revealed in vol.6 of the manga.

Because in the original story, up to that point, we don't know why Ed and Al are the way we are. We've seen flashes, we know Ed has nightmares, we know certain things spook them, and we know they committed a taboo whatever the hell that means. And only when we meet Izumi, only when Ed has to forcibly drop all the walls he spend the last three years building, do we see what actually happen. It's also the closest Ed comes to crying - clinging to Izumi and begging her for forgiveness.

These are three very different ways to tell the same story.

All of these are valid. All of these can be fun.

But they hold fundamentally different approaches to the characters within them, which makes them not interchangeable.

The same is true for Hughes, who - in 03 - is a presence in the Elrics' lives from the very beginning, their friend and confidant in ways not even Mustang is. He helps them during the train hijacking and Elicia shares Ed's birthday.

That's a significant switch-up from the manga, where Ed and Al only meet him once they go to Central to search through the First Library - and in which only Winry ever really grows close to Hughes as a person, and not as a mistake made by the brothers.

And Brotherhood tells a different story again, by having Ed and Al meet Hughes in the first episode, as they visit Central to catch the Freezer and befriend Mustang's ally who invites them home - placing that relationship somewhere in the middle of coworkers and close, intimate friends.

These are three different characters, who are connected to our main duo in three different ways.

There's overlaps and I am not keeping anyone from having fun (03 Roy Mustang being the one to kill Winry's parenty, my beloved) but to really enjoy these stories, they need to be understood as three different texts.

03 stands strong in its originality, Brotherhood in its closeness to the source material, but if you want the OG experience just read the manga. It shouldn't stop you from enjoying the other two as well.

If anything, it should be more fun to have three similar - but different - worlds to play in.

[endmeseymour]

Woe, Long Edward Elric be upon ye.

[hey-akaaaashi]

older brother

[roseofbattles]

With hands that shook she poured more for herself, then reached for his glass. Her hand, when she took it from him, was cold.

“What should we toast to?” she asked, handing it back, a considerable measure fuller.

He met her eyes in the light over the stove, her mouth thin as the horizon, an infinite distance contained in her expression. However close they stood – and it was close, he realized – she was always so far away.

“I think we would be tempting fate to toast to anything,” he said.

Once she would have smiled at that. Not tonight. Instead she glanced down at her glass, swirled the wine, and said, “To the lives we could have had, then,” she said. To something we could have been.

“I could drink to that,” he said, because there was nothing more for them to lose that they had not already lost. X

[artbyfalcon]

Happy October 3rd

[alchembee]

The opening episodes of 2003 FMA may very well be seared into my brain forever. Visual parallels !

Will eventually add colour to this sketch study

[overlordneptune]

I DIDN’T MANAGE TO FINISH IT BUT THE DAY IS ALMOST OVER :(

DON’T FORGET YALL. DON’T FORGET.

[shironezuninja]

I didn’t forget. But this section (and many others) of my multiverse died 4 years ago.

happy fma day

[snowlattes]

3rd October memento

[legendofjune]

[kensatou]

“you dropped your dead bear": a love story

[it-was-520-cens]

directly inspired by @cataclysmcrows because I say "it is pride month fullmetal. You know what that means" every day. EVERY DAY. Also happy pride. Also happy inaugural post on this sideblog

[smol-ackerman]

"Welcome home, dummies!"

NEVER FORGET!

3RD OCT. 11

HAPPY FMAB DAY!

[areyousanta]

Don't Forget

[chewytran]

happy royai day to them! 💙☁️✨

ref used here!