First of all, ehhhhh

#PEOPLE SERIOUSLY DON’T GIVE THEM ENOUGH CREDIT THO. THEY’RE USING THEIR INACCURATE REPUTATIONS TO DESTROY EVIDENCE AND AVOID SUSPICION. ROY IS WORKING HIS OBNOXIOUS WOMANIZER FACADE. AND OLIVIER IS PLAYING UP THE FALSE ASSUMPTION THAT SHE HATES ALL FORMS OF FEMININITY. AND THEY’RE ABLE TO SUCCESSFULLY ELIMINATE ANY TRACE. OF THE EXTREMELY DANGEROUS INFORMATION THAT WAS JUST PASSED. THESE KIDS ARE SMART AS HELL. 

the alphonse vs. kimblee + pride fight scene is really well done and super cool and watching alphonse beat their asses is very fun but also i love how they take a 2 minute conversation break mid-fight meanwhile pride is trapped in the cone of shame and has to just listen to them wax philosophical about the nature of the world

Greed and Ling when Pride ate Gluttony

we made it, ling…..

shell city…….

Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood surely is ironic.

oh the beautiful irony.

In fact this show should be called FullIrony Alchemist.

ok look i love this post but i have 2 big problems with it. one is that mustang isn’t a womanizer – he has the persona of a womanizer, in order to get ahead at his job but keep a low profile while he does it, but other people have written meta about that and done a better job than me so i’m not gonna get into that. what i DO wanna get into is greed’s death, because a lot of people seem to misread his death (just like this.)

yes, his death was partially because he was absorbed for his philosopher’s stone. but i think people miss out on the rest of it: he sacrificed himself. his last action wasn’t greed, it was selflessness.

at the very end, ling was the one holding him in. greed wasn’t fighting back; he was willing to be absorbed, because he had a plan to weaken father. he knew this plan would likely kill him. ling didn’t know about the plan, so ling was trying to hold onto him, and greed lied to him in order to get him to let go. then he shouted out “now, lan fan!” and lan fan chopped father’s arm off, separating greed and ling forever. this implies that they planned this before hand, maybe as a last resort, but it was planned. greed was going to sacrifice himself so that ling (and his other new friends) would be safe. 

i think there is certainly irony in greed’s death, but it comes from the fact that he willingly allowed it. his act of selflessness was what led to his death, not the greed of another person.

the element of irony in Lust’s death is complicated by a few factors, i think, including firstly that she died first before the pattern was set up, but more importantly that her relationship to her name-sin was different from those of the other homunculi.

unlike her brothers, there’s no evidence she’s herself particularly susceptible to the impulse she’s named for. which can in Doylistic terms be largely attributed to Arakawa following an existing sexist set of types for depicting the Seven Deadly Sins, but in-setting we can take as indicating that acquiring a human body did not make Flask Homunculus particularly horny, or at least not particularly inclined to aim that at anyone. (ace villain mood possibly lmao.)

instead the self-element he expelled for the concept of Lust seems to revolve mainly around the capacity to be sexually wanted and objectified by others.

when Lust dies, it’s directly because of the casual murder attempt she made on someone she’d weaponized her desirability against, in the attempt to manipulate his feelings for information. it’s because she stabbed her disposable fake boyfriend.

she doesn’t die because of what she is, or because she went up against Roy Mustang, or because she underestimated humans, or because of her father’s plans, or anything like that.

Lust dies because she does not respect the way people care about each other, doesn’t understand it, regards human relationships in zero-sum terms and affection as something to exploit.

Lust dies because while she didn’t love Havoc, not in the most infinitesimal degree, somebody did.

your expectations for female characters become so fucking high after reading/watching fullmetal alchemist because of shit like this. Arakawa spoiled us. Opened our EYES. The sheer wasted potential of every female character in every other piece of media…your fave could never

bar is high, LETS KEEP IT UP THERE

i feel like the edling side of the fma fanbase completely ignores the comedic potential of your brother being swallowed and sent to a hellish other plane of existence with your weird hungry friend and as soon as he comes back and you get to talk to him hes just like “im gay”

and you ask for elaboration and hes like “we ate my boot and i realized i was gay” so now you have so many questions you dont even know where to start

im so sorry to keep reblogging this but the concept is so funny and i realized it has two sides

Happy Meat Day everyone!

Several people have pointed out that in many countries outside the U.S., dates are written day/month rather than month/day, which would make Meat Day actually September 2nd. To which I would like to say:

1. In Japan it’s month/day, so February 9th would technically be the correct date 2. That being said… two Meat Days

QUEUED THIS FOR BOTH MEAT DAYS

every now and then i wonder how greedling got his new duds and I like to think it went something like this

brotherhood scar looks like 03 scar’s dad 

son. you disappointing boy. are you still in that “goth rock” band

its emo dad, not goth… god. i hate you. 

say what you will about roy mustang but i like the point hiromu arakawa makes w his character - ie that an irredeemable person living on and devoting themselves to right their wrongs is infinitely more respectable and effective than that person "redeeming" themselves via death without ever doing anything to improve the lives they've ruined

Finding something worth dying for is easy, and also meaningless.

Finding something worth living for, especially after committing atrocities for which you believe you deserve to be executed? That’s a hell of a thing.

Not just that but like. I am on my first watchthrough of FMAB and just got past the episodes that actually showed what they were doing in Ishval. Where Ed learns what Roy’s plan is.

His plan isn’t just “something worth living for” - he’s trying to dismantle the military state that committed the atrocities, reinstate the democratic government that had been drained of power, and then get people - INCLUDING HIMSELF AND SOME OF HIS CLOSEST FRIENDS - tried for war crimes, which would probably end in them getting executed.

Roy Mustang’s plan to atone for what he did and the people he hurt is to try to make sure that people - including himself - pay for what happened in a very public way. He would not be remembered as a hero, but as a mass murderer and war criminal, and that’s what he wants, because it’s the right thing to do.

And Riza, who shouldn’t really have even been PART of all of it except he’d inspired her into thinking joining the military to protect their people was a noble thing to do, is right behind him, supporting him and ready to take him out if he ever decides that actually, he’d rather just take the power and not face the consequences he really should be facing.

That blows my mind and is an amazing fuckin storyline to give someone, even if it doesn’t end up happening that way in the end. A+.

FMAB but greed’s thoughts are audible

Ok so maybe you already know but I rewatched FMAB this year, and once more I realized that it is and it will always be one of my favorite shows of all time. And I can’t begin to explain how much Arakawa’s creation means to me. Like I really can’t, but I’ll try

It’s filled by amazing, diverse and complex and lovable characters, and I love each one of them (yes Kimblee, you too); it has an excelent and well-carried plot, it made me laugh, it made me cry, it made me feel intrigued and all sort of things. But in the end, the thing that clicked for me was its core message, one that speaks about connection. The people we meet along the way and the true reason of our existence on this world, the things that really matter

I think that when Ed and Al burned their house, that October the 3rd, they were beginning a journey that, ironically, would lead them back to where they started: home, family, friends. Connection. 

Like Josh Ritter says in one of my favorite songs: “Only a full house’s gonna make a home“

I think of that song and that line in particular when I think of FMA

I tried to portrait that connection in this piece, I hope that gets through~

Happy October 3rd, everyone 😊💖

-

This is avaliable as a print on Redbubble 🖼

Rewatching Brotherhood, and one of the things I’ve always loved is how Team Mustang always treated Ed like the kid he was, despite his State Alchemist qualification.

I mean, don’t get me wrong, they respect him—but they respect him as a person rather than respecting for the title. When Maria Ross and Denny Brosh first meet the boys, they address Ed as they would a superior. Even when they reprimand him, they apologize to him for it and are afraid they’ll be punished since he technically has the rank of “major.” But Team Mustang never did that. In fact, the first time we see them interact with Ed (that is, the full team, rather than just Roy or Riza), we see that Fuery just addresses them by name:

I’m pretty sure Ed outranks Fuery, being a State Alchemist and all, but you wouldn’t know that by the way Fuery addresses him by name like that. The others are the same, too, for the most part. This one is from Havoc:

We get this from Breda:

And while, yes, both of those nicknames use the word “boss,” they sound far more like terms of endearment rather than respect. (Especially since Breda followed that comment with, “I hope he’s okay,” and Falman followed it up with, “As do I.”) 

Falman, as far as I can recall, always addresses them by name (and addresses them as “The Elric brothers?!” when he reunites with them at Briggs). Riza calls them by name, Roy calls Al by name (I think) and always calls Ed “Fullmetal” … they’re nicknames, terms of endearment. They’re shown respect, but they’re also treated like … well, let’s put it this way: if Team Mustang really is a ragtag sort of family (and let’s be real, it is), then Ed and Al are the kids of that family and have always been treated as such.

I mean, remember the Scar incident?

Havoc helping Ed up and making sure he’s okay (with some other faceless soldier, sure, but look at how concerned Havoc looks).

Mustang—of all people, MUSTANG—smiling like that as the brothers reconcile (after Al yells at Ed for almost throwing his life away and the two calm down and say, “yeah, we’re still alive”). And yes, Hughes looks all put-out, but it’s okay, a moment later and he’s in on it too:

And then Riza gives Ed her jacket:

And just—would you just look at them:

Even Armstrong gets in on it and he’s not even a member of Team Mustang (but he’s kind of like an honorary member in the sense that he’s on Team Mustang’s side from the start, just like Hughes, though Hughes is even more of an honorary member of Team Mustang than Armstrong).

I’ve always just really, really, really loved the way Team Mustang treats Ed and Al, like they’re kids/family/part of the time, how they really, genuinely care about them and always have. It’s not just that Ed outranks them, but more that Ed is Ed and they care about him for that reason (and care about Al because Al is Al). It really shows, and I’ve always loved it.

(And you know? I would guarantee you that Ed and Al love it too, even if Ed is a bit more reluctant to admit/talk about it.)

I mean if you think about it, Roy and Riza only ever call each other by their rank, even in private. So maybe Roy’s insistence on calling Edward “Fullmetal”- except when Roy’s angry, and even then it’s just “Elric”- is his own weird way of showing affection while technically maintaining his position as Ed’s superior. Edward, Riza, and Madame Christmas are the only people we see him address by title as a matter of course. Alphonse gets his first name, and the rest of Team Mustang are usually addressed by their surnames instead of their ranks.