Latest Posts by the-strangest-thing-happened - Page 7

I’ve been screaming about this for a whole hour he really was just going to beat the fuck out of roy for no reason

Me: goes to the Fullmetal Alchemist exhibition once Also me: (shhh, I know this scene could never have happened. It’s a metaphor)

Fullmetal alchemist 2003 EP25 : Words of Farewell [Hughes ' Funeral]

Fullmetal Alchemist 2003 OP2 Ready Steady Go !!!

valleys of the young

I’m glad Maes Hughes died.

He’s a fan favorite character and I enjoy him a lot too, but I think fundamentally he’s a character who has to die. His role in the narrative is to haunt it.

I might be even more of a weirdo because I enjoy his manga characterization over his Brotherhood or ‘03 portrayal, but I love the idea of Hughes being someone the Elric brothers barely know - someone we, the audience, barely see.

Until he dies.

Because suddenly he’s everywhere. He was Roy’s friend and Armstrong’s superior officer and Winry’s acquaintance and Elicia’s father - and he was the soldier both Ed and Al knew, but didn’t actually know, that got killed because of them anyway.

In the manga Winry stays at Hughes’ place, but Ed and Al enter his house for the first time after they found out he died. For them, it’s not about losing a friend (though I am sure they liked him just fine) because that story is already Roy’s - for them it’s about realizing that this plot they’ve involved themselves in kills people that aren’t actually directly involved at all to begin with. It makes sense for their allies and friends and loved-ones to be targeted by the antagonists - but a soldier who mostly joined in because he was at the right (or wrong) place at the right (wrong) time? That’s not supposed to happen. And that’s what makes Hughes’ death so hard on them.

(and poor Elicia - abandoned children without their fathers were always a weakness of Ed’s)

But Roy? Yeah… he suffers. From the moment of Hughes’ dead on, Roy is haunted by it. By him. His best friend follows him everywhere. We see it in the way Roy only involves himself in the plot because Hughes figured something out and Roy is desperate for answers. He hunts down the homunculi to save this country, sure, but mostly so he can burn his best friend’s murderer to the ground. When Riza talks about winning against the Führer and their military dictatorship, she talks about all of them, not a hint of revenge coloring her vision - but Roy? It is telling that it isn’t a greater ideal that makes him torture Envy, but the agony of his best friend’s death.

The thing that almost breaks Roy is Maes.

No.

It’s Maes’ memory haunting the narrative.

And isn’t that beautiful?

The tragedy of it all, the horror, and the realization that Roy Mustang never really recovered from the War, that his friends are the only think keeping him in one piece, the fact that Roy Mustang is a Hero and a Monster and a fallible human capable of love.

Maes Hughes has to die to remind all of us of what Roy Mustang is capable of: love, loyalty, devotion…. and the slaughter and torture of numerous people.

His ghost is haunting the narrative - and for that I love him.

genuinely, the best thing about Roy and Hughes' friendship is that Roy is a brutal pragmatist who is haughty, ruthless, and often cold and Hughes is a goofball who is always friendly, cheerful, and welcoming, but Roy is the hopeful idealist and Hughes is the cynical realist

Just one of countless pictures the Mustangs received over the years ;3

running out of time

What does the manga add to Roy and Riza's relationship that the anime doesn't have? Asking out of curiosity since I'm an anime only and they're still one of my favourite pairs of all time!

Oh, ha, I didn’t specifically point to the manga because I have anything in particular against Brotherhood (…or 2003 for that matter) it’s just not my canon, and I’m used to specifying which version of FMA I mean when I talk about the series. I do have a list of petty grievances against Brotherhood, but there is nothing fundamentally altered between Roy and Riza.

..

I mean. Yes. A number of my petty grievances are related to them. And feel slightly less petty as thought is spent on them.

But I would need to go back and watch the anime scenes again to point out the specifics of why.

[many hours later]

Keep reading

Ed is … a misandrist

Lower your weapon

Train ride.

Bonus:

sluttiest thing a man can do is have an air of profound melancholy

Sometimes I remember that out of everyone else in the military that we've seen, it is the depressed seemingly cynical Roy Mustang who's written as the optimist and I sed a tear

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Part 2/3

I think what I find so interesting about Riza is that she’s fundamentally a pessimist and yet she chooses to be hopeful

Hear me out.

The family talk was revenge.

FMA has a conventionally attractive leading man and woman as bitter rivals and yet it’s absolutely clear that the only feelings they have for each other are pure spite. Immaculate.

I… I don’t know

Rewatching old YouTube videos like “woah. This is just like Full-Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood Episode 54: Beyond the Inferno” because something is fundamentally wrong with my neural-chemistry.

Two wildly different responses to the systemic dehumanization of being a soldier.

If you put them together they almost form one(1) functional adult.

Also bonus doodle because I couldn’t get this post out of my head

Al coming back from his travels: Xing was great! I've learned so much about alkahestry, and I think we're really making progress and getting Jerso and Zampano's bodies back! It was really nice to see Mei, and Ling is doing a great job as emperor, and I even got to visit some of Xing's neighbors to the east! I feel like I'm learning more about alchemy and alkahestry every day

Ed coming back from his travels: I Have Been Banned From Five Countries

Well it’s Team Mustang Week, so let’s start with a little picture collage!

Enjoy!

Admin Mustang

Roy Mustang Q&A (Character Guide Translation)

from pages 122 - 123 of Fullmetal Alchemist Character Guide

T/L notes: [comments/additions]. I did not translate literally, as usual, but I tried my best to keep the essence/tone of the sentences.

Q&A | REVELATION OF MUSTANG’S SECRETS

Four men + α (with no girlfriend) will answer questions about Mustang! Let’s reveal the secrets of the Colonel!!

Q: With whom did he spend his 30th birthday?

HAVOC: Somebody finally asked! [lit. trans.: I’ve been waiting!]. He was so proud that he celebrated every year with everyone, but only for his 30th birthday, he was alone and lonely, and went home and drank all by himself. Colonel Mustang — the king of popularity — drinking alone!! He was busy with the transfer to Central, and that’s on top of the mess with Barry, right? Moreover, he was confined in a military hospital so he could not make an appointment for a date. Serves him right!

FALMAN: While he [Mustang] was in the hospital, a bunch of visitors arrived at the headquarters [looking for him]. There weren’t any for the second lieutenant, though.

HAVOC: SCREW YOU!!!

Q: Is it true that he is the type [of person] hated by dogs?

FUERY: Instead of saying hated, I feel that it is at the same level as being regarded with dislike. In his attempt to make the dog obey, the colonel approaches it bossily, which in turn, makes the dog wary of him.  He tried to lure it with bait before, but it seems he failed. So even the colonel has his weak points…

Q: Is it true that he has a habit of sleeping with his mouth open? [it comes with the picture of Roy in the Archives Room with Szieska waking him up]

FALMAN: It’s true. While on duty, he is quite focused on showing that he is finishing his work that is why he is exhausted. I’ve also heard of a testimony that he was sleeping while hugging a pillow and was drooling with his mouth open in the nap room of the Eastern Headquarters. [this is based on Havoc’s report from Roy Mustang Observation Diary]

Q: How does he code his research notes?

BREDA: It seems that everything is [coded with] female names. Furthermore, his notes are written as a date diary. Well, in that case, he has to come up with women’s names one after the other.

Q: Did he really steal someone else’s girlfriend?

HAVOC: Some guys were jeering [at Mustang] when he fought Ed in the parade grounds in the past [in Flame vs. Fullmetal battle]. That would be unjustified resentment from a misunderstanding if the break-up line was “I have someone else I like.” Even so, I understand the desire to think that the girlfriend was stolen. Me too… *tears*

Q: Is it true that his drawing [skill] is bad?

FUERY: Rather than saying he is unskillful, [we can say] he is as good as an elementary school student. An alchemist is someone who can draw a perfect circle with his bare hands, but this is quite interesting. Edward seems to have the same level of drawing skill as the colonel.

Q: Is it true that his type of woman varies [i.e. he has a wide scope]?

EDWARD: He is on the same level as everyone else!! This is annoying~ You’re right. The Colonel smiles at any woman — no matter who she is —  and he says the sweetest things to her that teeth could fall off. He’s a scary bastard. I think older women are no exception.

Q: Which part of a woman is the most attractive?

MUSTANG: Wow. I would say a woman is attractive no matter where you look at, I can’t decide. *laughs* But if I may dare say, it’s the “thigh.” [yes, I triple checked the translation, it’s not the leg, but thigh!!]. With that said, Havoc…

HAVOC: BOOBS~!!

I really like the questions from this Q&A (OMG, the first and last Qs killed me!!), but translating Edward’s answer was such a pain. His speech pattern is so informal, I got confused with the words several times!!

I was laughing my head off while translating because Team Mustang (especially Havoc) is epic <3 Falman’s replies are very polite. Fuery’s answers are kind and cute. Havoc’s bitterness and snarky comments are absolutely hilarious. Ed is being annoying and angsty, while Roy is smooth as silk as usual.

I hope you enjoyed this as much as I did. There are still some interesting Q&A pages I’ve bookmarked from FMA Institute DX that I’d like to translate. I hope I find enough motivation to do them!! Until next time~

transparent flexing gif for all ur flexing needs

I genuinely love so much that Roy Mustang, for all his brutal pragmatism and haughty coldness and quick ruthlessness, is an idealist. I especially love that his idealism is explicitly different from a naive idealism that does not yet know what the reality is, like that of his youth.

The idealism he carries during the series is a very conscious, active, vicious idealism armed with teeth and claws that he stubbornly and aggressively chooses to possess. He tells Hughes, as the war ends, that he is aware that these are pipe dreams, that this is unrealistic, that this is runaway hope, but he chooses to dream anyway because it is necessary for better futures (and he's right, imagining a better future believing that things can become that IS necessary for change). It's an idealism that is wildly optimistic but in a very grounded, pragmatic way. And for that reason, it's actually never at odds with his very calculating and aloof manner.

It's just so great. He is a ruthless idealist, and his idealism itself is vicious in the way that it is prepared to fight bloody to protect and enact this dream of things getting better.

His Battlefield Once More

Book in Figure: BLUE