I just like the pose. And the way he looks at her…
love my disabled son
First season of FMA:B is actually unreasonably funny because every episode at the 2 minute mark Ed goes “remember Al we can’t let anyone know our bodies are metal and we committed human transmutation. Because the military will probably execute us” and then every episode at the 14 minute mark Ed is screaming at the top of his lungs about how he and Al are made of metal and committed human transmutation. And also the President of the Military is there smiling and nodding and not giving a fuck because Ed is the military’s specialist little boy and he’s expressly permitted to commit murder in the streets and do arson and treason and tax evasion if he’s got enough hands for it and that’s completely fine because, as previously stated, he’s their specialist little sacrifice boy.
And also the military already knows he committed human transmutation and they think that’s really really great. It’s their favorite Edward Elric fun fact.
@redrobin-detective it is in fact a really great subversion of the “teenage protagonist successfully has the Adult Institution scrambling and fumbling, due to his cunning teenage wiles.” Ed DOES fancy himself cunning, but he’s literally only getting away with this because Bradley Is Letting Him. For the first several seasons they’re just letting him.
In the arc leading up to the Promised Day when all cards are out on the table, adult military strategist Roy Mustang is leading a charge against the establishment while Ed has faked his death and gone into hiding as, genuinely, the only thing he’s capable of doing on his own as a naive and scared 16 year old just trying to survive.
'on his own' even then he's being babysat by two chimeras and a homunculus + prince having a custody dispute over a teenage body! And before then half the time Mustang is lobbing problems at Ed like enrichment in their enclosure, or Armstrong, Ross, Brosh and Hughes are keeping an eye on him - he is regularly on his own in the field or when he's going rogue to be a curious little shit, but there's very often the hand of an adult present! Even several! It takes a village to raise a smartass child soldier and his brother 💕
(It's also really fun once the gloves come off and Bradley goes 'okay your special little boy privileges are revoked. That includes you Mustang btw I'm taking your toys away'. Timeout for naughty disruptive scientist-magician-soldiers.)
You know when I was younger I didn’t really mind that Brotherhood front-loads the Elric brothers’ backstory to episode 2 and has the anime-only ensemble cast introduction in episode 1, but I do actually think this takes away from the smart craft of how Arakawa drip-feeds you information throughout the earlier chapters.
You’re not supposed to learn Ed and Al’s full backstory until Izumi Curtis confronts them about it
Then, of course, there is the fact that Brotherhood speeds past many of the earlier smaller arcs that got covered already in FMA03. Which I don't really blame them for given the circumstances but it does hamper the experience.
So truly my recommendation is to read the Fullmetal Alchemist manga as well, up through Ling's introduction or--really--the whole thing.
*re-enters through the revolving door I just left by* FURTHERMORE, read volume 15. That's chapters 58-61.
This is the other part of the manga that Brotherhood absolutely truncated. Most volumes get 2 or 2.5 episodes to cover them. Volume 15 only got one episode (with a few short scenes moved elsewhere). And I suspect highly it had nothing to do with timing or pacing.
Because this is in fact the entire recount of the Amestrian military's involvement in Ishval and--for reasons I'd have loved to listen in behind closed doors to learn--the Brotherhood adaptation neutered quite a lot of it. And I specifically mean removing or toning down the more heinous things the military did, or offloading them to some nameless hegemony of 'horde of Amestrian soldiers' instead of how the manga actually handles it.
I have a longer post about this from about 10 years back. The earlier Brotherhood truncations were for the sake of not rehashing what FMA03 already covered. But I am so certain the truncating of volume 15 was political.
happy pride month!! 🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️✨
here's the cover for the transmasc riza zine :) will be released later this month! (hopefully…!)
this zine is being made to support my journey towards getting my top surgery! please consider supporting my fundraiser on ko-fi too ^__^
Still never gonna be over the fact that it took Maes Hughes one night to figure out the truth about Amestris when it took the rest of the cast half the series
these tags lmfao
These tags by parkersgeorg are necessary to include actually 💅
funny things Ed and Al do after getting their bodies back (a non-exhaustive list):
- Ed fcking decks anything with his right hand (and almost breaks it after a while) because he keeps forgetting it’s not made of metal and no ed you cant just crush a can under your fist anymore stop
- Al forgetting to wear affect on his face sometimes. He just sits while people are talking to him with a stone-cold murder expression and Winry and Ed constantly remind him relaxed face al! (sometimes just under their breath) and they soon learn to tell him by just a signal by tapping their cheek twice and he shakes his head to snap out of it and smiles because yes! he can smile again!
- Ed’s right arm isn’t as heavy as automail so sometimes gestures just go flying like he’ll lift a plate and accidentally fckin fling the plate across the room behind himself because he accounts for the weight of his automail by accident and moves with way too much gusto
- Al getting pneumonia because he keeps sneaking outside whenever it rains to fcking stand in the rain
- Ed just lifting hot things w/ his right hand without an oven mitt and burning himself
- Al usually sitting with his legs curled close to his chest or legs folded because he couldn’t do that in his armoured body and it feels so nice!! he feels so small!!
- Ed being ambidextrous since he was forced to master writing with his left hand and he perfects the art of drawing transmutation circles with two hands at TOP EFFICIENCY SPEED just because he can
feel free to add more!
- Al reflexively looking down when people try to get his attention before he realises he’s not 10ft tall anymore
- Ed calling Al in Xing with some bullshit alchemy theory like “if we put all the ingredients for a cake in a transmutation circle would we be able to make a perfectly cooked cake here Al I drew the circle already listen very carefully”
- Al at 3am in the morning, dead serious, drawing the cake transmutation circle on the floor
- Al trying to hide kittens under his shirt and finding it’s Not As Effective as being an empty suit of armor
- Ed: I have retired from the military,, they don’t own me anymore,,, from now on I reject and shun their moniker and I shall now be known as,,, the quartermetal non-alchemist
- Al, upon encountering a minor inconvenience, such as eating something he doesn’t like, or getting too hot during summer: getting my body back was a mistake
