9 notes ♥“You dropped this.”
“But isn’t this what you’re after? Didn’t you think about taking it yourself and leaving?”
“Course, and a younger me would’ve walked away with it without a second thought. But I can’t forget the faces of all those people we saw today, and you use that in their treatments right? That Stone belongs to them, and so do you.”
This is the same Edward who walked into Marcoh’s house demanding access to his research.
But when it comes to the Stone itself, Ed isn’t as willing to just take it like he would have in Lior. Or like he would have when he started out.
Later, Ed pretty much gets a dealbreaker when he finds out how the Stone is made, but I like that the series (and mangahood if I am not mistaken) gave him a real, legitimate chance to take a Stone before he knew that—he had what he basically perceived as his and Al’s salvation and he rejected it because he knew it would be selfish to just take it and deprive the townspeople of their treatment.
Ed is slowly but surely learning to think outside his own dreams, as he eventually states in episode 48.
83 notes ♥conqueror of shamballa was set a little bit after ww1 and obviously a lot of the characters had been affected by it
but uh about envy
can we talk about this german propaganda poster for war bonds and the serpent and the fucking arrows
i wonder what that reminds me of
47 notes ♥why does no one talk about 2003 wrath
i think his death was quite literally the worst for me
i just want to go home
where mommy is
he fuckin sacrificed himself to save alphonse’s life
if it wasn’t for him ed and al wouldn’t have been reunited
and plus LOOK HOW TRAGIC HIS FACE IS
LIKE IF THAT’S NOT UP THERE WITH HUGHES AND NINA THEN Y’ALL CAN GO FUCK YOURSELVES
94 notes ♥Alright, here goes.
So lately I’ve been immersing myself in the 2003 FMA anime. I’ve also been finishing up the Hunger Games series- Catching Fire and Mockingjay in the past few days. So let’s just put it there that it’s an been angst fest, and, many of the characters break down and shed tears. And being so involved in these fandoms in the past week, I’ve seen a lot of criticism about characters such as Edward and Katniss (who I draw quite a few similarities between anyways) crying. People have been calling them weak and timid; “they’re the main characters, they’re supposed to be strong to get through their plots. They can’t cry.”
And I’m just going to come straight out and say that’s bullshit: saying a character can’t cry because they’re ‘too strong’. They might be strong, they might be the protagonists, but they are still human. And being a series I’m more familiar with, I’m going to use FMA’s Edward Elric to help me provide examples- it can work for 2003 or Brotherhood, really.
First we’ll start out with the implications of Ed’s life, and all the troubles he’s gone through. The horrors that a boy had experienced already at the age of 11. 11 years old and he’d already had his father leave him, his mother die, survive on a deserted island for one month with nothing but a knife and his brother, only to come back home and ultimately rip that brother from his body and lose his own arm and leg. He goes through an automail surgery and a rehab process that should take 3 years in only 1, only to sell himself directly to the military and become a 12 year old human weapon. He watches people he cares about die before him, he faces death, murder, torture, corruption, genocide, ambiguous morals most people can’t even comprehend, destroyed faith, and has his entire basis of life (Equivalent Exchange) stripped from him before he’s even 16 years old. I think everyone who’s watched Fullmetal Alchemist can say he’s had a pretty rough life.
And he’s been strong through it, supporting Al and supporting Winry and Granny and himself and many other people on literally only half a real body, and two prosthetics. Yet, when this tortured boy, who has nightmares of his mistakes haunting him nightly and even sometimes in waking hours, takes the time to break down and let out some of the weight on his shoulders, there are people in his fandom who have the audacity to call him weak.
It’s not just Ed. It’s a reoccurring problem in many fandoms— especially with male characters. “If a male character cries, he is weak. He’s too feminine (which is another problem all in itself) and he can’t be a proper hero”. NO. A lot of people seem offended by the idea that a male character or even a previously emotionally-hardened female character, could finally have all the events in their life and plot pile up on them and break them down to the point of needing to release tears. Which I don’t understand because these characters are human, and crying is a human emotion.
From the moment humans are born they’re expected to cry. It’s a sign they came out of the mother alright— breathing. Maybe not water-works crying, but making a fuss, whining. Which can be just as real as shedding tears. And a lot of times, people have come to think that crying as you get older proves you pathetic or weak, which is not the case. The fact is that crying is not a sign of weakness, but a sign of compassion.
Crying means we are upset over the damage of something we care about. May that be a sentimental object, someone we are close to, an animal we are close to, a memory, or when we’re upset, our feelings. It doesn’t mean you can’t hold yourself up. It means that you’ve held yourself up for so long that the pressure and the stress is squeezing you out, and you’ve got the courage to show the relief.
Personal experience: I’m the rock of my family. Always have been. I’ve carried my mom and little sister through my dad’s year long deportation to Iraq— twice. Through my grandfather’s death, my grandmother’s hospitalization, my mom’s hospitalization, my sister’s still on-going depression and admission to a behavioral health center, and my mother’s chronic sickness. I didn’t cry at my grandfather’s funeral. I couldn’t shed a tear. On the way home after we left my sister at the center, I was the one holding my mom and asking if she was alright, making sure she was alright to drive home. I’ve always been “the rock” literally, hard and the one to lean on.
Recently, though, I’ve found things piling up quickly and impossibly and it’s getting hard for me not to break down because I don’t lean against my family. And I was scared to for the longest time— I was scared to let them see me emotional or upset because I still needed to be the rock.
But I’ve realized that crying doesn’t make you weak, and you can be emotional and still be strong. You don’t have to be a stone wall to be supportive, because let me ask you this. If you need something to comfort you, then which would you rather lean against? An uncomfortable rock-hard wall, or something a bit softer, that you know will still catch you?
So when Ed cries, he is not breaking down into a “useless, whiny little boy”. By no means. He has millions of things and literally the lives of so many people resting on his shoulders. He does not have to be an emotionless piece of steel that everyone thinks he does. His upset emotions are not his downfall— it’s actually when he tries to push people away and act strong that he makes the most mistakes— snapping at people or acting without thinking. But it’s when he stops to think and realizes his life, gets upset and cries, that he has the best revelations.
And I think the ending message is here: Letting some water roll down your cheeks is not your demise.
It lets people know you can still feel something. You still have something worth getting upset over. There’s still something there you hate seeing get hurt— enough to shed tears over. May it be Ed realizing Nina was important to him and now gone, or valuing his life after nearly being killed, or valuing Al’s life after hegives it up to the brother who screwed it up for him in the first place. He doesn’t cry because he has nothing else to do. His tears mean he feels remorse for the loss of something more to his already crumbling life.
Fictional or a real person, crying shows life and the will to survive, because there’s something you still care about that’s worth crying about, and maybe you can still fight to fix it.
