#ishvalan culture

[guardianspirits13]

As an avid fan of Fullmetal Alchemist for nearly twelve years, I am intrigued by how differently the story hits me as an adult.

As a kid, it was a story about alchemy and homunculi and defeating the literal, physical evil of false humans named after the seven deadly sins.

Looking back as an adult, I am cognizant of the overt fascism present in the government of Amestris.

The fictional Ishvalan war was awful from any angle, but as a kid I saw it mainly as a backstory for character development. In the modern day, with all of the daily horrors shared from Gaza, I am striken by the reality of those scenes.

This show was one of the ways I processed my understanding of the world as a kid, and it is deeply engrained into my personality.

I say this to preface the horror I feel looking back on these scenes which were drawn from the author's culture, and the history of the Ainu Genocide.

I think of that panel of Major Armstrong crying and holding the body of a child, the panels showing piles of bodies barely covered by white sheets. And I see those same images in photos and videos from now.

In the same vein, I remember the discomfort I felt as a kid discovering that in the context of our world Maes Hughes, a lovable and popular character, would have been a Nazi, as depicted in the Conqueror of Shamballa.

At the time it was almost a joke, to say to friends who loved him "hey he's a Nazi in this movie!" and laugh at their surprise.

But as an adult, I understand why. The adults in this story are members of a fascist, militant government. They are lied to and manipulated, yes, but they also uphold the system. The important part though is that they come to realize this.

They look at Ed and Al, these young hopeful teenagers who are one bad day away from being coerced into enacting war crimes, and they do their research. They realize that the government is fucked up, and stage a coup.

Aside from all of the fantastical alchemic elements, it is a wonderfully grounded story that is painfully reflective of both historical and modern systems of corrupt power.

[fullmetal-scar-simping]

Remember that scene where Heinkel implores Alphonse to use the Philosopher’s Stone against Pride, arguing the souls within it would want him to fight?

That should’ve been Scar and his mentor. Those are Ishvalan lives, and while Heinkel at least wasn’t involved in the genocide and has also been dehumanized and experimented on by the system, he’s still a white man and a former soldier, imploring a white boy to use these resources to save Amestris.

Idk I think it’d be soooo much more compelling if Scar’s mentor went from being skeptical of his violence to recognizing the need. To see him remind Scar that he’s ultimately committing an alchemical taboo anyway for the sake of his fellow Ishvalans. Something about Ishvalan souls reclaiming actual agency via the mentor being a fellow Ishvalan himself, acknowledging they would likely want Scar to use them.

And not to protect Amestris, but to protect the Ishvalan refugees within the circle. That isn’t talked about enough, if at all; Scar says he’ll save this country so he can change it (so he can save his people) but what about the fact that we’ve already seen two communities within the border of the circle?

What about him doing this to prevent the remaining Ishvalans from being sacrificed into a Philosopher’s Stone, and how the lives of a prior stone would feel the same way? What about Scar recognizing that the Promised Day transmutation circle was what his people were slaughtered for, and so he won’t let anymore die in direct fulfillment of it?

And then when Scar is mortally stabbed by Wrath, whose mindless violence is contrasted with Scar’s meaningful, justified violence, he actually gets to use the stone to save his own life and live and heal. Because these Ishvalans would give up their lives to save their kinsmen. That’s exactly what Scar is doing. It would give them peace to reclaim their objectification as energy that is instead used to prevent further harm to their community. All while giving their souls peace by freeing them.

At least it’s not a white doctor who created this specific stone from their lives speaking on their behalf to a war criminal who’s killed more Ishvalans than anyone else, saying that Mustang needs to heal his eyes and ultimately use these souls for the good of the remaining Ishvalans so if you think about it this is what these Ishvalan souls would REALLY want. Because there’s no way Mustang could possibly give reparations to the Ishvalan community as a blind man who is still wealthy and with connections to the new Fuhrer (reminder that state alchemist payrolls are huge and there’s multiple jokes about this too).

Man I wish instead of Father talking hot shit about how life is unfair in a neutered take on Dante’s Equivalent Exchange is Bullshit speech, with Ed rebuking him, Father did the opposite; Contrasting Dante’s speech by suggesting this ‘injustice’ of Roy losing his sight IS the rightful toll for his genocide. Maybe even insinuating that Hughes’ murder was also justice, too, ever think about that human? Both villains in either version of the story having different takes on whether equivalent exchange is real, yet ultimately using it to deliver the same brutal wake-up call to our MC.

If this had been what Brotherhood served instead of the hot garbage that is its actual canon I'd have been over the moon. (Would still dislike a lot of other things, but at least I'd be able to say I enjoyed it enough to not want to launch it into the sun.) Seriously, I love this take on the last chunk of mangahood.

We were absolutely robbed of any opportunity for a dialogue between Scar, his Master, living Ishvalans, and the souls that comprise that particular stone. How that could have eventually led his Master to rigorously challenge both Scar's and his own clashing spiritual, culture-honouring, and political philosophies. Perhaps have some other monks of Ishvala (is there a specific way to refer to practitioners of the Ishvalan faith?) bring up their own shift in perspectives, some agreeing with the methods of rebel fighters and Scar's tactics. And contrast these opinions with those who are resistant to adapting their beliefs and goals (because of course some will not budge). The dissonance between passivity feigning as tradition, leaving Ishvalans at the mercy of Amestris and other powerful nations for the foreseeable future; versus an active stance of principled violence and land reclamation, that seeks to give Ishvalans a fighting chance against full annihilation/unending displacement/amalgamation. Coming to a head with the Master imploring Scar to use it as needed, in a form of restitution and ceremony that finally grants the dead to peace.

And man, how that would enhance Scar's battle against Bradley. (What you wrote about how this could change that showdown, and what that would mean for the transmuted Ishvalans, Scar, and his people-!!!! 🥹) That he has to allow his own people to heal him, while reminded that Ishvalans are actually in his corner. That he isn't doing this for Amestris, that countering Father's nation-wide circle is to protect surviving Ishvalans. Having the knowledge that if he is forgiven and cared for by his own people, then salvation need not come from prostrating himself to Amestris whatsoever.

All of this would of course require Scar to have never fully reneged on his own actions against the State, even after being cornered into agreeing to aid the military insurrectionists. Some part of him cannot swallow their chauvinistic idealism that still centers the protection of the existing imperial nation. Slowly returning to a rejection of this rickety compliance with the military writ large. And you wouldn't necessarily have to retcon the fuck-awful Briggs recuperation of Scar either. It just can't go from the canon bs "Woah yeah, being an Ishvalan ~changing minds~ in the military is so based, unlike me, who is shitbad," to a sudden "We need violence to upend Amestrian domination of our people". Some part of him, even with his coerced comradery, would have to be internally rejecting that premise, and increasingly so. Without that, the change wouldn't scan imo.

Scar and his Master actually tearing into the meat of Scar's and his brother's blasphemy; what Scar has seen in his path of vengeance, as well as what he's seen/overheads regarding the attitudes of the military members who wish to overthrow Bradley, with their obvious bid for self-serving power rather than seeing Ishvalans and other occupied peoples as anything more than bartering chips; the will of the transmuted Ishvalans pushing through the stone just enough to rally their wishes for liberation of their living kinsmen; Scar and his Master having to reevaluate some of their long held beliefs and their distaste for all forms of alchemy. Hell, getting to see Scar admit to his Master what his brother had been studying and what he discovered in the process when he was recruiting Ishvalan refugees for the coup effort would have been a huge character moment for them both!

We could have had it all.

Rip to what could have been, but bless those few fans with taste and the wide range of changes/ideas you all have shared so far! You guys make talking about mangahood far more enjoyable than it has any right to be.

With the Ishvalan stone, I wouldn't be surprised if Scar would have to reclaim it out of Amestrian possession secretly. Maybe, without yet fully tapping into the unheard voices of their souls, he could feel them resonate and rejoice being in Ishvalan hands. The weeping of the damned who cannot bare to be used by Amestris for one second longer stirring his (re)growing suspicion and anger against the people who forced him to ally with their cause at the cost of his degradation and threat of imprisonment (and let's be real here, the threat of execution by the State was guaranteed if he rebuked Miles and therefore got arrested). He could feel their storm of memories and regrets, their hopes and their sorrows. If the stone could have called for action against the homunculi, they would just as much call for action against the human monsters as well.

But no, instead of all of that we focused on the will and humanity of the Xerxian philosopher's stone exclusively.

(Super love the military getting to exploit Scar's deep-seated self-hatred and suicidality for their own gain. Cool moment all around. Awesome. Really good stuff there. Very reformed. Checkmate, Scar.)

Everything you mentioned re: Father, his neutered approximation of Dante's speech, and what you would have preferred his perspective to be is 💯💯💯. ESPECIALLY with how he would mock Roy for having his eyesight taken in order to fulfill his own plans for yet another nation-wide sacrifice. It would serve as a biting counterargument to the nonsense excuse that Roy and friends "had no choice in joining the military and killing Ishvalans". His choices led him to desecrate so many lives for himself, to transmute as much of a (smaller) country as possible for their own goals (thus having already served Father). How would this be any different then? Mustang can argue with Truth and Father that he was forced to perform human transmutation, but why did that ever excuse anything in the past? Did clinging to the nation "betraying" Mustang's naivete ever spare any suffering for anyone? He has part of himself nonconsentually sacrificed now because of his continued pigheadedness, suffering only a fraction of what he's done. And Roy thinks he's going to make reparations for so thoroughly incinerating Ishval by vying for the Fuhrership? The very system Father and scores of humans built? This is the toll for everything foolish people like Roy have done. It's not random or unfair insofar that equivalency can merely be another way of describing consequences. Survivors might interpret Mustang's maiming as justice, so why should he resist that when he still wants to hold the power that decided their fates to begin with?

Father could have been a more cold, conniving fucker who grinds Mustang's remaining fortitude into dust. From there Roy would either have to have the greatest reckoning of his life as the eclipse fast approaches and understand that reforming what Father and his legions have created is not worth it after all, or be a husk who falls crumbles under his desperate need for a seat of power that would never be his anyway. Buuuuuuuut that would ruin the big fun shonen fuck yeah humans rock we're all best pals slapping faux-god wowowowow action scenes and alchemic-jojo punching and our protags were always right and just and super cool finale that 99% of the fanbase has been fellating since 2010. So. 💩

Total aside, but the design for Father's humanoid homunculus form (when he sheds Hohenheim's appearance for the eclipse) sucks so much ass lmao

[spectra-bear]

To all the fma fans here who have been following me for a while now, I'd like to bring a few chapters to light in consideration to the recent tragic palestinian apartheid

FMA has made sure to speak out about these reoccuring events, and whoever hasn't noticed from reading yet needs a critical thinking class.

Let's start with chapter 90:

Chapter 90 of the series, although censored heavily in the anime (but we'll get to that later), played a HUGE role in establishing what kind of message arakawa was building up to deliver to her audience as a plot B (ishvalan genocide) sided with plot A (the search of the philosopher stones, eventually turned plot A (overthrowing the military), a message meant to awaken her readers to the truth, and one that serves as a warning

Does this not all ring familiarity?

One of the reasons arakawa wrote this story was to bring this side of history into light,

the oppression, the abuse of military power, the imbalanace in arms between two parties at "war", the perfect guise of "protecting the people from radicalized terrorists", and using it to justify the murder of countless lives, committing war crime after war crime, massacring the land and lathering it with the spilled blood of countless innocents and people fighting back for their freedom, for their home. Those that die have their lives tragically cut short, too soon.

A total extermination

And to those that remain alive,

Forcefully immigrated from their own homeland

Or exploited for their bodies, harvested for their organs, abused, tortured and humiliated

Not only that, but the emphasis on making the reason behind starting the war in the first place, being the first bullet shot at a young child by a soldier, and intentionally making it seem "trivial" for the ishvalans to retaliate because of that, and painting them as animalistic

Writing off roy mustang and maes hughes as heroes for doing whats best for their country, glorifying their relationship as war buddies, and believing theyre in the right for putting down the people of the holy land, when they couldve backed down from contributing to this one-sided war,

and when they do step back from the field, theyre labelled as cowards. When they inevitably realize the abnormality and inhumanity of their actions, that theyve been solely used as tools and weapons of destruction, that impact is softened with rewards, of medals and cheers of accomplishment from the population-wide brainwashed by lies spread by the people in power, and if theyre lucky, accomodations for the negative mental effects of being part of a war

(arakawa interview source)

What do I conclude from this?

That the author of your favorite manga does not support genocide and in fact, condemns those who partake in it

If it isnt obvious, She included these stories because they have happened before

She is telling these stories, while not 100% protrayed correctly, to fill the empty gaps in the western perspective that have been contaminated with propaganda and demonization of these indigenous people

The designs of ishvalans and cultural clothing are intentionally influenced by japanese ethnic groups, middle eastern and south asian cultures, and the military intentionally european/western looking as an example for their expansion and dominance in mind

And now we are watching all this happen in reality, again, witnessed live, in much worse conditions, throughout history

Where the heroes arent kids who can sway elements at their command with the flick of a hand, but the people who stand against it in mass, marching in the streets to break the suffocating silence, and spread the voices of those seeking help and demanding their freedom back

Does everyone realize how fucked up that is? That the lines drawn between fantasy and reality blur so much that they become indistinguishable from each other? That is true horror, when the monsters and tyrants in your stories no longer stay on ink and paper, but are on your screens broadcasting their crimes, beyond humanity

You must understand that if these stories are included for you, the reader, they are not written just for the plot, but to bring awareness to you, and avoid history from repeating itself, and work against committing the same irredeemable mistakes as before

(thanks to @borkthemork for the help in outlining this and proofreading)

[sepublic]

Another thing I appreciate about 2003 is the backstory of the Grand Arcanum as an Ishvalan practice that was pretty clearly imperialistic and/or sacrificing its own citizens for the “prosperity” of the culture. And yet this is treated as kind of a frank fact; There isn’t some moment of OMG indigenous people can be evil too!!! So Amestris’ genocide is secretly justified or nuanced!!!

In fact the focus of this revelation was still about white racism, with how Ed’s takeaway was that he couldn’t imagine Ishbalans being capable of advanced alchemy, rather than him realizing Ishbalans Bad too. Because the point is that he’s already operating off of this idea deep down, and that PoC IRL don’t need more reminders by white people about how we’re degenerate.

I like this because you cannot discuss how PoC and indigenous cultures have also done slavery and empires, how you can’t support a PoC spearheading genocide, without Whataboutism idiots who believe in reverse racism crawling from the woodworks to use this as a rallying point to deflect any criticism towards white peoples, because ummm actually PoC do it too this is just a human thing and we’re absolved because of it! Maybe those PoC secretly had it coming!!!

And it’s telling because these people don’t give a fuck that these indigenous empires were bad because of what they did to (indigenous) victims, or that said victims were also slaughtered by white settlers too, even betrayed after making an alliance. They act as if those white settlers didn’t also believe in empire, and that any condemnation of indigenous empires would’ve been hypocritical with they’ve done, did, and would do. They don’t care about victims at all, just making themselves look less guilty as if that’s how it works.

They can’t let PoC have flaws while still having the full range and depth of the human experience, whereas white people obviously do because Not All White People. They can’t be normal about PoC also having problems without being in abject denial over their broken pedestal, or smug because now they can drag us down to their level! Never mind that the issues they bring up are no longer/less relevant, unlike white people’s continued, global-scale imperialism that I’m sure any brown cultures could also do under the right circumstances, but we’re not here about What Ifs are we???

Because when you talk about the actual victims caught between white and brown empires, it makes me think of how the Ishvalan revolution against the Grand Arcanum system wasn’t done by white saviors. It was done by Ishvalan folk who were likely chosen as sacrifices themselves. Ishvalan folk got themselves out of it too.

And those Amestrian dogs deserve to die just as much for their genocide because damn, it’s not like they know about the Grand Arcanum, it’s not as if they have any right to throw stones, it’s not as if genocide is okay under any circumstance. The Ishvalans were allowed to have an f’ed up system in the past without the narrative having them bend over backwards to repent for it amidst persecution, or acknowledge that this is proof both sides are humans too. Fuck those white people for their genocide.

Whites IRL still saw PoC as uniquely and unusually dangerous and not in the same way they as white people also are, so they didn’t take prisoners. White people were so horrified from killing other white people in WW1 that they devised the Geneva convention, and then in the same breath turned around and continued to exploit natives with the exact same ruthlessness, because it can't be a war crime if we're not at war!!! We cannot be good at all without a constant reminder by whites that we’re bad too btw. When white countries pull off a W you don’t have other whites immediately scrambling to remind you of their war crimes, meaning you can’t even enjoy it for a moment.

[indigenous-character-tournament]

Scar is canonically Indigenous. Ishvalan culture is based on Middle Eastern and Indian cultures. The creator, Arakawa Hiromi, stated the Ishvalans are also partial based off the Ainu.

Molly Shahnyaa Mabray is canonically Gwich'in, Koyukon, and Dena'ina Athabascan.

[sometimesiwritetoo]

Back to working on my Ishvalan AU (very intermittently) and as I'm going through it reminded about how much I liked the world building I did for this AU. For reference it vaguely Christian/Jewish/Muslim but also not at all those things bc it's a queer/sex positive society with Amestris being closer to culturally Catholic.

Like I didn't think about how fun it is to write a character who cannot fathom a strict gender binary. Or how fun it is to assign different parts of Ishval different traditions. It's fun.

[fairy-writes]

ok so quick question about fma/fmab

who are the ishvalans based off of? like how amestrians are vaguely based off of germans and the xingese are based off of the chinese if i remember right?? i need to come up with names for a story i’m working on and want to come up with names that would be accurate to the culture if that makes sense.

i’m just getting conflicting answers from the internet 🫠

[waitineedaname]

There had been a time when Scar had done things out of love. It was why he became a monk – out of love for his people, his culture, his family. He had always been a rather gruff man, but he loved deeply, and he loved the people of Ishval more than anything.

He could pinpoint with horrific clarity the exact moment when that man died, and he became a man fueled by hatred. The moment Amestris took everything from him and destroyed it in front of his eyes, the moment his hand was forced and he left his name behind him to set off on the path of revenge – that was a memory burned irreparably into his mind. He still loved his people, but love and hate were close cousins. It was his love of his people that made his hatred burn so bright. Knowing how many lives had been lost, how many people had been forced from their homes, how much poverty swept through their communities only made the injustice more evident. He did not like being Scar, the murderer exacting justice against other murderers, but Amestris left him no other choice. The moment his family was slaughtered and he awoke with his brother’s arm, his path forward was decided.

He could not, with the same accuracy, identify the moment when he began doing things out of uncorrupted love again, but he suspected it had something to do with the little girl.

Mei Chang insisted she was thirteen years old with the defiance only possessed by preteens, but he struggled to believe it sometimes. She was so small, much smaller than he and his brother had been at that age, smaller than any of his young cousins had been. There could be any number of explanations for it. Perhaps Xingese girls tended to be shorter than Ishvalan girls. Maybe her parents were short, and it was just genetics. Scar suspected otherwise, though. He had seen it in his own people, among the children who were young during the war, and those born afterwards. They were scrawny and small. Poverty and tragedy led to a whole generation of children shrinking, the effects of malnourishment glaringly obvious.

He couldn’t help but find similarities between her struggle and the plight of his people. They weren’t exactly the same, of course. Mei Chang was technically royalty, after all, and though her clan was marginalized compared to others in Xing, there had not been an outright genocide on the scale of Ishval. That didn’t stop him from seeing her drive to help her people at any cost, her desperation to live and keep her loved ones alive, her stubborn determination beyond her years, and identifying with it. That thought was shockingly painful. She was sweet and baby-faced and kind and gentle. The idea that she could turn out at all like him if her path continued in a certain direction – it was dreadful. 

He could not change her circumstances. He knew little about the politics of Xing, and it wasn’t within his power to give her clan what they needed to survive. Instead, he had to focus on what was within his power. The girl was hungry and malnourished. He could do something about that.

When traveling, he and the others tended to stick to the slums, particularly where Ishvalan refugees gathered. Scar felt conflicted about the experience. On one hand, he knew it was safer, since he stood out less, and his own people were less likely to turn him over to the authorities. The familiarity was also a comfort. It was a reminder that his people were not all dead, they were still building lives out of what they had, and even when he was so far from home, he could still surround himself with familiar faces, familiar smells, familiar scraps of culture. At the same time, it was a painful reminder that all they had were scraps. A reminder that they were forced into these slums miles away from their homeland, that they were a small population on the outside of Amestrian society. A double-edged sword, as always.

Though small, the slum they were currently camping outside of had a market. It was nothing like the grand sensory experience that the markets in Ishval were, but it had enough to cover his needs. He was able to find chickpeas and a cut of lamb easily, as well as vegetables and dried fruits. He only faltered when selecting the spices. Not for the first time, he wished he’d paid more attention when his mother and aunts cooked meals for the family. He wished he’d had the foresight to write down their recipes, so they wouldn’t be lost to time.

The spice vendor took pity on him when he stood silently in front of her stall for too long. “What are you making, young man?” she asked, more gentle than he deserved. She was elderly, old enough to be his grandmother, certainly too old to still be working. Her knuckles were swollen and arthritic, and her eyes crinkled kindly when she smiled at him. 

“Do you know what spices go into lamb tagine?” he asked instead of thinking about how terribly she reminded him of the older women in his family.

“Of course I know that,” she said, chuckling at him. She sat up and began distributing spoonfuls of spices into their containers. “You’ll want more cumin than the other spices, but not so much that it only tastes like cumin. I wish I had saffron to give you, but it’s hard to get these days.” She handed him the spices and told him a price that was much too low. When he handed her the cenz, she briefly clutched his hand. “You remind me of my nephew. He was a strong young man, just like yourself.”

She did not have to tell him out loud that her nephew had been killed. It went without saying. “May he be at rest with Ishvala,” he told her, bending his head solemnly.

She squeezed his hand briefly, then released it. Her eyes shone with tears, but she still smiled kindly at him. “I hope your family enjoys your meal.”

The thorned knot of love, hate, and grief pressed closer around his heart. He thanked her and ducked out of the market as quickly as he could. 

Yoki complained loudly about dinner taking several hours to cook, but a sharp glare from Scar was enough to silence him. Mei, however, sidled up next to him, eyes wide, as he added more water to cover the last several ingredients. “That smells amazing, Mr. Scar!” she exclaimed. Xiao-Mei was practically drooling at her side. “What’s in it?”

“Lamb, onion, dried fruit, chickpeas, squash,” he listed, stirring the meal and covering it so the squash would cook through, “Honey and spices. My mother would make it on cold nights.”

As if reminded of the cold, Mei hugged her arms around herself and tucked in closer to Scar’s side. Xiao-Mei curled up on her lap and shivered. The girl was uncharacteristically quiet for a while, staring into the fire. Scar allowed her the silence. “I miss my mom’s cooking,” she eventually said, voice quiet.

Scar watched the flames lick under the pot in silence for a long moment. “I do too,” he eventually admitted.

He did not put an arm around her when she leaned against his side, but he allowed her to stay there until he was satisfied the squash was fully cooked. 

When the meal was finally distributed into bowls, Mei devoured it like her life depended on it. “This is delicious, Mr. Scar!” she said once she finally came up for air, allowing Xiao-Mei the chance to steal a chunk of butternut squash. 

“It would be better over couscous,” Scar said, though he couldn’t argue with her. It wasn’t as good as his mother’s cooking, but the flavors were familiar. It tasted like home, or a memory of it.

“Would we be able to find couscous in the next town we go to?” Her eyes were wide with excitement at the prospect of a way to make an even more delicious meal. 

“Unlikely. Not unless we go back east.” He noticed her bowl was already empty and reached over to scoop another serving into it, ignoring Yoki’s whines for seconds.

She stared at her bowl, then looked up at him with the kind of fierce determination she typically reserved for combat. “The next chance we get, I want you to teach me how to make this!” she declared. “And I’ll teach you something my mom makes. That way we can make them for each other when we’re missing home.”

His heart ached again, though this time he didn’t feel hatred and grief’s thorns pressing in quite as tightly. He did not smile at her, but he did nod. “Alright,” he said, and her smile was bright enough for both of them. “Eat your meal before Xiao-Mei eats it all.”

Mei squeaked in surprise and began scarfing down her lamb again.

He could not return to the same home he left. It had been destroyed beyond recognition, and he had changed too, not necessarily for the better. For the first time in a long time, though, as he watched Mei eat his mother’s recipe until her stomach hurt and she fell asleep with a full belly against his side, he felt as though his family might be smiling down upon him. He feared sometimes that the only use for his hands was destruction, but when he carefully laid Mei down on her sleeping bag and covered her with his jacket, he wondered if they could be for love as well.

He put out the fire, laid down beside her, and dreamt of home cooked meals.

[spidermanifested]

having Scar Thoughts. thinking about him going the whole series having forsaken his name because ishvalan names are a gift from god and he considers himself undeserving of his, and then that culminating with him at the end saying that he "doesnt need a name", even though by this point hes resolved to rejoin his community and help rebuild ishval, like is this a sign that he still considers himself undeserving but has come to terms with it, because i feel like thats kind of a downer ending for him despite how hopeful its presented otherwise. is it just supposed to signify him throwing away his past and turning over a new leaf, because that seems like throwing the baby out with the bathwater, given that his name signifies his attachment to his culture and religion and family and going back to using it would imo be more of a contrast than staying nameless. arakawa said in one of the bonus q&as earlier on in the manga that she DID have a name for him and that it would be revealed, so it was definitely a choice she made later on to not only Not reveal it but to have him forsake it for good...... id like to hear other peoples thoughts and onions on this i dont know its just A Narrative Decision For Sure

[patron-saints]

🧣 and 🍓 for antoinette 😘

hi ana these are such good choices i love you thank u

🧣(scarf) - What comforts your oc? Is it an item? An action? A person? Whatever it is, how any why does it comfort them?

at the point she's at in her life right now i think she's able to get comfort from a lot of things! mainly miles, and probably snuggling with her kids, but i think she's worked really hard to build in little things through the day that make it easier too. like the new much better coffee machine olivier recently installed in the engineering dept. when she was younger i think she probably had a lot of stims, and a lot that weren't great, but she's figured out other ways to get her nervous energy to go away And much better stims. i feel like she made herself a lil gadget she keeps in her pocket too, like a tiny lever or a switch she can fiddle with without people noticing.

🍓 (strawberry) - Does your oc believe in anything? Are they superstitious? Religious? Atheistic? Has anything in their past made them this way?

religion is always such a challenge for me in fma because of how little of it exists in canon, or how complicated it is for some of the cast who have met god, lol. i think growing up, antoinette was influenced by her mama, evgeniya's drachman stories, and probably superstitions, and i think her papa, hannah, also had a Different set of superstitions so hers are a weird mishmash of the two. getting to know miles and his family was her introduction to ishvala and ishvalan culture, and i don't know if she would necessarily convert, i haven't fully decided that? but i think she absolutely celebrates holidays with him and wants to help him preserve and educate his cultural practices whenever possible.

[maxarat]

Guys I'm in FMA it's totally canon just like manga only

This is Conrad Curtis, nibling of Sig and Izumi Curtis. They're part Ishvalan on their mom's side, and though their family is pretty assimilated, the eyes and knowledge of the culture remains.

Connie's parents both fought in the Ishvalan Civil War, and were killed in it, so they were raised by Sig and Izumi, and learned alchemy from their aunt, with the Elrics when they were there. Connie took to it like a duck takes to water, along with history, and at 12 started to get suspicious of the Amestrian government. They home soon after to see if there was a resistance to join.

In the course of the story, Conrad keeps running into the Elrics and other members of our main cast, and helps them turn on Bradley faster.

They're ADHD and Autism coded with mobility issues. They use they/he pronouns and are rather irritable but it's fine lol

[fullmetal-scar-simping]

Hi hi hi! Tis the OC anon, now off-anon! (That was fast ngl but whatever I'm here to have a good time on a quality blog) and yeah!

If you won't mind, here are some more tidbits about the AU:

Miles got arrested via the manga iirc where Ishvalan soldiers got rounded up and executed for “treason” but Miles got off scot-free supposedly because of his diluted lineage (which I have some doubts about, maybe he chose to swear allegiance to Amestris somehow and that's why he was spared, but I could very well be wrong and it really was just a matter of blood), he was held there for a while, during which time his wife collapsed and passed away while his daughter got shipped off to an orphanage bc Marigold's relatives did not want to raise an Ishvalan child.

By the time Miles gets out he's like “Where's my wife? Where's my daughter?” and while he gets a definitive answer regarding his wife (oof, feels guilty for being unable to be there for her), NOBODY KNOWS WHERE HIS DAUGHTER IS.

Our little daughter (nameless though I did give her a name) faces so much mistreatment in the orphanage that she decides to haul ass and try living on the streets instead and runs into Isaac McDougal.

In this AU, there would be a faction of former Amestrian soldiers who went “no fuck this shit I ain't gonna slaughter civilians what the hell” and defected from the military, which of course the government wasn't happy about so they got bounties on their heads.

Isaac is one of them.

Their cause might or might not expand to ally with other ethnic minority movements that the Amestrian majority has caused problems with.

Anyways, she gets picked up by Isaac (she must be, what, 11?) who is decidedly NOT suited for raising a child, much less a traumatized one. Also he was a bluecoat and she's an Ishvalan kid.

Some foils could be drawn between Miles and Isaac, I realize, both with ties to the army, one choosing to stay despite everything and the other leaving because he couldn't bear the injustice, both “father” to the girl, both probably less-than-stellar parents...

She becomes a brash, harsh, no-shits-taken, borderline reckless type of person.

Anyways he might or might not teach her water alchemy. Also via the anime I've seen some folk headcanon that Isaac can use alkahestry so maybe he went to Xing and took the girl with him too and they both know alkahestry?

They're both part of the coalition that wants to get rid of the current system of government.

Isaac abruptly discovers the whole nationwide alchemical circle thing and leaves on his own to go and put that to a stop, gets killed by Bradley a la canon, our girl who was not told what he discovered was like “????? I'm gonna go find out”

Which kicks off the plot, and... originally I just had it stick to canon for the most part (except the ending) just told from a different perspective but methinks I should really lean into the whole AU thing and go off the rails somehow

Anyways for fear of the ask getting too long here are some rapid-fire bullet points:

Mei becomes the Emperor in the AU. Sorry not sorry, I don't care about Ling all that much.

Miles' daughter offers to be a bodyguard for Mei and help her win the throne in exchange for her helping Ishval later. She agrees, and a badass duo is formed.

Our girl felt shame for being disconnected from her culture, she feels like she's not “Ishvalan enough”, even her name is Amestrian, so she discarded her name, just like Scar.

If she could allow herself to be vulnerable enough to say it aloud she'd tell Scar, “I wish you were my father instead” but homegirl is kinda constipated where her insecurities are concerned.

Complicated dynamic with Winry

Does NOT get along with Ed unless he gets his shit together and grows

Running into Miles in the North would be... a catastrophe

She thought her dad was dead all along but he's alive AND IN THE MILITARY?

I need to map out Miles' development if I'm not gonna stick w canon, he can't be Arakawa's mouthpiece who only appears once in a blue moon he gotta be a presence somehow

Marigold... haunts both Miles and their daughter. Miles' guilt, the daughter's anger and hurt and not understanding why her parents won't say anything beyond “be a model citizen and prove them wrong”— and of course, grief at losing Marigold, losing both her parents, even if they weren't perfect by any means.

I don't know if it's feasible for Miles to recognize his daughter whom he has not seen in years but the girl would absolutely recognize Miles. Yeesh.

Anyways Miles will have much to think about. And will eventually get his shit together but not right away. He's quite shaken after seeing his daughter again for the first time, though. Probably happens when the north crew had Scar trapped and Mei + the girl come to his rescue. To add to the absolute fucking MESS.

Scar and the girl would eventually take on new names as part of their healing or whatever, as their old name selves kinda “died” long ago? [Scar] died when his brother died, [the girl] died when she fell through the cracks of the system and never came back up.

Also Kimblee deserves no dignity he should've been killed by Scar.

Mustang does NOT get to use the fucking Philosopher's Stone to heal his eyes, if he even comes to need it— he might not even get yeeted into the Gate in the AU, someone else might have to take up the burden or things never come to that point, the Ishvalans are given back their dead and Marcoh gives either Scar or the girl or both the way to destroy a Stone. So they do. As part of a funerary rite for those who got turned into a Stone. It doesn't erase what was done to their people, but... it's closure, at least.

On the topic of that, the other day I went to check the Ishval tag after sending my previous ask to you, and. Uh. Uhhhhhhhhhh.

There was a post going “wouldn't it be so cool for Mustang to have red Ishvalan eyes since he used a Stone made of Ishvalans to heal his eyes?” and I had such a visceral reaction to it that I immediately exited the tag.

Yeahhhhhhhhhh

Regret™

Oh and there's also a couple underdeveloped Ishvalan OCs I have one of whom wants to be a doctor and may or may not become the girl's love interest? He's a soft boy.

This AU didn't really get all that much developed compared to my other AUs so I'm still up in the air on how the cast would react to my OC(s)— Olivier could be like “whomst the fuck is this upstart tyke and also that's a threat” and that could potentially drive some conflict between her and Miles, Miles is, understandably, distraught over everything, Ed... probably wouldn't like her tbh, no idea on how the Mustang gang or the homunculi would react to her, it's just a whole bag of ?????

Omg @heartisrote you wanna draw my baby? 🥹

Here are some older drawings I did back before I had the means to do digital art (when the earlier versions of the girl had a younger brother, unfortunately he got scrapped, he may get inserted again in another shape, question mark?) and after that, before my stylus fucking broke 🥲 (that's her potential love interest next to her)

Anyways, apologies for rambling so much in your inbox!

Hey Egg! Hope hopping off anon wasn't too intimidating. Maybe the cool Miles/Scar anon will get in contact with you in the near future.

Also, hell yeah, OC AU breakdown! Loved all the details you provided; I'm really digging the outline of the story so far.

Ah, so Miles' arrest is a manga detail that was eschewed for Brotherhood. Sigh, I really do have to read it don't I? But good to know, since it makes sense given the actions of the Amestrian government. They disbarred Amestrian Ishvalans from the service, so I thought it odd that Miles was spared. Initially I thought perhaps Olivier had thrown her pedigree behind keeping him in her squadron (which could still be true) or that his placement at Briggs provided plus his mixed blood gave him some leeway. But now I wonder if Briggs and Olivier only enter his military career and life post-arrest. 🤔

Excuse my ignorance, but is Miles canonically married? Doesn't matter either way, this is a cool AU, but I realize that my recollection of Brotherhood is perhaps spotty in that regard, or maybe the show also elided that info. Anyway, rip Marigold

So the poor daughter was utterly rejected by the Amestrian side of her family and gets sent to an orphanage. Man. It's realistic tho, since many families under a racial-class system deny, hide, or disown members of the "wrong" racial/ethnic makeup. Miles must have been distraught by both losses.

Good for her for running away from her abusers. Love that McDougall and his merry band of insurrectionists take her in! He may not be parent of the year (especially given the parallels between him and Miles in this AU), but it had to have been better than being at the mercy of a racist, indifferent orphanage. His death must have been like losing yet another parent.

With how much has shifted in the AU's plot, divergences are all the more likely to occur/become necessary. Especially once you get into the nitty-gritty of it all.

Lmao oh shit, Ling doesn't get the thrown. Ripppp, all hail Mei! Daughter becoming allies/friends with Mei on the agreement that, should Mei ascend to emperor, she and Xing aid Ishval is smart political maneuvering on Daughter's part. (If there's some other way I should refer to your oc, lemme know). With the alchemy/alkehestry thag Isaac taught her, Mei can further sharpen Daughter's alchemic skills.

And of course the two of them becoming an inseparable duo puts them in-line with meeting Scar. 🎉 Man's gotta properly father two tween girls while hunting down fascist pigs (thankfully they're both capable and willing to throw down). No surprise she's emotionally constipated, but hey, Scar's just as blocked up. But I gotta say: awwwwww 🥺

Oof yeah, her dynamic with Winry would be messy. And Ed, maaaaaan. Maybe in this AU he can actually shape up to be a better person (but unlike what Miles believes, that's not Daughter's nor Scar's responsibility)

Omg, that meeting between Daughter and Miles will be ROUGH. And during that scene in the Briggs mining town?? Nobody is prepared for the earthquake to follow

Yessss, the pair of them having to reconnect with who they will become, who they want to be, questioning who are they without the lives they once lived, with so much pain to come. Having someone else in similar straits would be an interesting dynamic

Amen. Kimblee got off easy in mangahood, when he shoulda had his spine ripped out by Scar (glad he gets murked by Scar in 03). Glad he gets his in this AU

Seems like Mustang's fate has been solidified quite yet, but I can appreciate that the Ishvalan philosopher's stone will not be misappropriated for him and his posse. It returns to its rightful people to receive final rights.

Ok, that post in the Ishval tag that you encountered. What the actual fuck. Wtf wtf wtfffffffffffffff

This fucking fandom, man

Anyway!

Fine tuning the interactions between your OCs and the canon cast will be quite the task, given the length of mangahood's story. There's no way Olivier (probably the entire Briggs unit) won't seriously complicate things with Daughter and Miles, but it's promising that Miles is slated to get his shit together eventually.

And the character designs! I really dig Daughter's design, she looks so good! The way you draw her hair is 🤌 Rip to the scrapped brother, but I can see how his passing as Amestrian would have thrown a wrinkle into her life and her insecurities. The love interest is adorable af. He's the one who's going to become a doctor, yeah?

Time to get some artwork of your oc done. Godspeed, heartisrote!

Thanks so much for sharing your OCs and AU! No apologies necessary for the length of the ask, I enjoyed reading it. 😄 If it gets posted anywhere, lemme know.

[anti-ao3]

As someone who loves Fantasy as an artistic genre, I do not know if most people know that genres by themselves do not exist in vacuums, and there is a difference between exploring serious adult topics with honest sensitivity and being-dark-and-edgy for shits and giggles.

Yeah, I'm not entirely familiar with the fantasy genre, but I have heard about harmful stereotypes, such as goblins being money-hungry creatures, which alludes to antisemitic beliefs (H/arry P/otter notably does this but I think other fantasy media might have adopted it as well, though correct me if I'm wrong). Considering a lot of these stories try metaphors for marginalization, usually by creating a fictional group, they definitely don't exist in a vacuum. I can think of SO MANY examples here - from the top of my head, I think of Fullmetal Alchemist and the Ishvalans, and also the Liorans in the 2003 adaptation. Both these groups are brown people who live in the desert, victims of oppression and genocide.

(I almost forgot to mention Game of Thrones, but I refuse to ever interact with it.)

It's what I've said before, fiction is not detached from reality. It doesn't exist on its own. Someone - one person or more - creates it, based on what they learned, and they still send a message even if it's not the intention. Again, they don't always agree with their characters, but some usually make that clear, like Vladimir Nabokov about the main character of Lolita. I've seen time and time again the argument that fiction "doesn't have to teach anything", but more often than not, the creators do end up saying something. I say this as an artist and a writer. Although it's not fantasy, I think of The Last of Us originally being inspired by Israel and Palestine, and the creator is clearly a Zionist who wanted Palestinians dead for killing an Israeli soldier. I read that it's more obvious in the second game. Hell, what about Marvel movies? I learned from Pop Culture Detective that the military is the one that approves their movies, and many other action movies like Independence Day and Top Gun. The military holds a lot of power over fictional movies and videogames. I would say the police does, too.

Sorry for going a little off-topic, these are the examples I could think of since, again, I'm not very familiar with fantasy media. Regardless, I agree with you. Feel free to talk more about this topic if you want!

[clonerightsagenda]

ashe-thedynastqueen

When FMA 2003 was airing this was a question as many including within Japan saw parallels with the Iraq War and Aikawa's actual influence the Russo-Japanese war. Much of this discussion and introspection has been lost once FMA:B/the manga took over as it's focus shifted the systemic issues onto Father so it became a non-existent thought to the point that the tribunals Mustang wanted weren't talked about again nor done. 1/2

Arakawa has Ainu blood but grew up with no cultural ties to them so IMO her handling of Ishval came from being of the Yamato majority, aware of its imperialism but not knowing what reconciliation/restorative justice looks like from the side of the oppressed thus Ishvalans having no say in what Roy/Marcoh do. As a Black American thats a common pitfall of allies where (subconsciously) absolving their complicity feels like the goal vs being oppressed people's megaphone 2/2

FMA 03 has come up a few times in discussion around this post and I do think I'd appreciate its handling of Ishval and the military; unfortunately some of the other stuff I've heard about it is enough of a turnoff that I can't bring myself to invest time into watching it. Re: the tribunals, one could argue that Roy is waiting until he becomes the country's leader so he can force them to happen, but the longer he waits the more it seems like stalling. While I get the desire to not end your children's adventure manga with war crime trials, it is a glaring absence after hearing so much about his and Riza's motivation.

Regarding Arakawa's Ainu heritage, I've wondered if Hohenheim is an attempt to grapple with that. You're from a group of people whose deaths aided the creation of the nation you now live in. You've been cut off from your culture but also benefit in this new society directly from their suffering. He shares blood with the victims and perpetrators of Xerxes' destruction. Of course there's the additional layer of him having been enslaved and accidentally being complicit in Xerxes' undoing, both of which complicate that parallel.

Finally, I'm a white American, so while I find these 'are we the baddies?' stories interesting as something I have to grapple with as a privileged settler, I 100% get that they can come across very differently to people with different positionalities. I enjoy FMA/FMAB (mangahood I've seen it called?). I also think it has flaws and elements I wish it would have delved deeper into, and I can see why it could be offputting or frustrating to others.

[indigenous-character-tournament]

Tao is canonically Indigenous. He is part of the fictitious Hiva tribe who resided on the sunken continent of Mu near the Galapagos Islands. Thank you @yana125 for the image submission!

Scar is canonically Indigenous. Ishvalan culture is based on Middle Eastern and Indian cultures. The creator, Arakawa Hiromi, stated the Ishvalans are also partial based off the Ainu.

[paragonrobits]

it is also genuinely kind of funny to me how in Fullmetal Alchemist 2003 Bradley acts as a self-appointed agent of God (more or less so Roy can make comments about ‘THERE IS NO GOD’ that come out of nowhere and sort of smack of authorial thesis), yet in what the original manga ultimately becoes and in Brotherhood, Bradley is an out and out athiest, specifically the kind of real asshole who constantly demeans and mocks people and entire cultures with a strong belief structure, mocking the people he is actively genociding for having belief

This in turn, I think, heavily foreshadows him and the Scarred Ishvalan ultimately being foils; not in the sense of having contrasting personalities or being similar characters, but in the same way that Edward and Pride or foils, or how Kimblee (an ordinary human with alchemy who has no compassion or concern for others) and Alphonse (a soul bounding to a suit of armor, hollow inside but more human than anyone else). Bradley is responsible for everything the Scarred Ishvalan has suffered, for though the plan was Father’s, Bradley carried it out. They are both defined by wrath; Bradley consumed with implacable hatred without cause or reason, just mindlessly fighting everyone and everything. the Scarred Ishvalan a man tormented by the horrors he has survived, driven to avenge them by hurting the Amestrians until at last they are all dead or he dies, bringing the cycle of revenge to a close, kept going only by the potent mixture of guilt, righteous rage and a certainty that he has done too much already to stop now.

Bradley sincerely doesn’t believe in God and is kind of a total asshole about it. The Scarred Man is a believer, and some of his private dialogue indicates that he KNOWS his cause isn’t as righteous as he makes it sound, or that he wants to be, referring to his battle as throwing away everything God gave him; the Amestrians took everything from him, and he threw away everything that was left. For him, his character development is a lot about reclaiming those things one bit at a time, despite his own protests and a sincere design to find peace in the death the Ishvalan Civil War denied him.

And in the end, Bradley, while in the midst of ranting about how he is convinced the Scarred Man must also think that there is no God, the sun (which in alchemy is the symbol of God) flashes across his blade, blinding him for the brief moment it takes for the Scarred Ishvalan to end him once and for all, avenging the people of Ishval whom Bradley presided over the genocide of, as well as all those whom Father’s own anger and hatred of humanity victimized.

And in the end, the Scarred Man (as well as Lan Fan) leave Bradley to bleed out rather than killing him then and there. The detail of way is up to the reader, I think; it could be they deny him the satisfaction of acting like he would, leaving him to bleed out as his anger fades for something more soft and genuine. Horrible and just as wicked as the rest of the man, but its a kind of grace Bradley himself could never be capable of. Bradley was, in the end, a monster defined by lack of restraint, and the Scarred Man and Lan Fan both show that restraint, and in the end, they are left standing, and Bradley is dead.

And in the end, the Scarred Man returns to Ishval, potentially reclaiming his status as a monk of Ishvala once more, as Lan Fan returns to Xing, her mission fulfilled. And in this, I think there’s another point of contrast between them and Bradley; both of them are heavily defined by loyalty, community and duty, to the point of it driving their actions and, in the Scarred Man’s case, underlying the best parts of his character growth; he’ll complain and grit his teeth and bitterly hate himself for it the whole time, but in the interests of saving his people and removing the cancer that has made Amestris into what it is, he will work with former enemies to make something better of Amestris and, at least, return home; it is his duty that overcomes his hatred, even as it fills him at the very end of the story.