Oh, d'arvit

Ok so I know I literally just posted this like two seconds ago but:

check out these nerds

do you ever think about how FMA writes Nina Tucker off as an unsalvageable ruin who is better off mercy killed but then you meet Greed's crew and Kimblee's bodyguards and it turns out that the military can just produce perfect human chimerae whenever it feels like it. the military has chimera alchemy down to a science. they could have called up a Doctor Moreau or whoever and had him fix Nina and turn her into a cute kemonomimi if he wasn't too busy being a state secret and producing shapeshifting supersoldiers for the brass to jack off to

when you first meet Greed's crew it seems super weird that Shou Tucker was even getting research grants because his work was objectively CRAP. he wasn't just committing crimes against humanity, he was being MEDIOCRE. but then you learn more about the fascist state he lived in and everything that happened to Tucker's family takes on a whole new layer of horror.

because there's no innovation left to be done! Father knows just about everything there is to know about alchemy. he came directly out of the Gate of Truth and was a part of the All-In-One. the military has been learning at his feet and running experiments at his behest for decades, to the point that they can manufacture armies of alchemically produced supersoldiers and keep human transmutation experts on retainer. there are no more boundaries left in reach of bureaucrats to push. the only mysteries that remain are theosophies better suited to the contemplation of lone archwizards than the nationalized arsenals of warhawks and policy wonks.

reading between the lines, the only way to square Shou Tucker's "groundbreaking innovations" with the state of the alchemical art as we see it in later chapters is to admit that the State Alchemist system is a naked, repugnant farce. a system which pushes public-facing researchers like Tucker to constantly make innovations or else lose their grant money and military privileges doesn't exist to elicit progress, because there is no progress those scientists can possibly make. not on the periphery of the military-industrial complex as they are.

instead, the State Alchemist system exists to take very smart people who are too clever for their own good and make them desperate. the seemingly degenerate outcome where an alchemist pushes limits in the hopes of rushing under the wire and meeting a deadline is actually the system working as intended, because Father wants to take useless pawns - lone wolves with no meaningful skill in the scheme of things - and trick them into making useful idiots of themselves by violating the taboos against human transmutation.

what do you want to bet that the official who came around to check Shou Tucker's work for yearly review knew exactly what he was looking at? that the brownshirt paper pusher who showed up on his doorstep could tell Tucker had mutilated his wife, and they rubber-stamped his research grants anyways?

"Hey, splicing humans with animals, that's cute. Maybe if we let him keep this up, he'll really bite off more than he can chew."

mmm doodles i love you fma

went digging to find this, drew it back in 2018

women who commit war crimes <3

"ed and his 2 new furry dads incidentally force greed to undergo character development" is my favorite arc in fma

Amestris better have Halloween cuz these two would probably go off every year 🎃

ling sketch

olivier mira armstrong

Ling vs King Bradley