phantomrose96:

Hey yall I had a fuckin thought 

So, as it’s roughly explained, the state alchemist program is a kind of “recruit potential human sacrifices” mechanism, with a side-order of “brute strength for the army”. But basically, the state alchemist title is mostly about being a researcher–given people like Shou Tucker exist, and given that the only requirement to stay a state alchemist is to submit a yearly report of your research that says “look I’m still being a useful scientist”.

So far, so far this is sensible, yeah? Father and the delightful children from down the lane are running a recruitment program for potential human sacrifices. So sure–butter them up! Give them lots of money, get them buddy-buddy with the government, and give them endless resources for research. It’s be pretty easy to trick a state alchemist in that position to open the portal if Sugar DaddyBradley is nudging them to do it.

And I’m still willing to go with this logic for the whole “draft the state alchemists into war” move. They make it pretty clear that was something of a last-ditch effort. And the blood transmutation circle around Amestris was an absolute necessity for Father’s plan. So the risk of a few state alchemists dying or resigning from your Potential Sacrifice Pool is worth it for the completion of the circle.

Now. To get to my fucking thought. 

Edward fucking Elric. This fucking fight-me 12 year old troglodyte shows up to the exam and performs circle-less transmutation in front of mother fucking Bradley, demonstrating to one of the seven Actual Fucking Homunculi that he’d already opened the portal. Ed was literally prepped as a human sacrifice before he showed up to Central. A fully set human sacrifice showed up at the homunculi’s door, said “hey look what I can do!”, proved he’d opened the mother fucking portal already, and said “hey yeah hire me”. Human sacrifice, free shipping, no assembly required, handcuffs not included!

They could have just tossed Ed into a shoebox and kept him there until the Promised Day. They wouldn’t even need to make up an excuse he attacked the f u  c k i n g president. That’s fucking treason babey. He’s 12, he’s an orphan, he’s from a rural town in buttfuck nowhere, he’s literally the easiest person alive to disappear. They could have arrested him for assassination crimes, kept him in gay baby jail, and just popped him out for the Promised Day

What do they do instead?! “Oh lmao this kid’s great. Let’s give him infinite money, no supervision, no governmental responsibilities, access to all our secret resources, and toss him on a train to who-the-fuck-knows-where-land”

They fucking did that

And like? They then had the audacity to be concerned when Edward “Fight Me” Elric almost got himself killed about 293 times. Just an endless game of “I thought u were watching him” from one homunculus to another when Ed fucking absconds half-way across the globe to go entice some other hostile entity into murdering him to death. That’s the whole series. Every arc is Ed baiting death while the homunculi are in the background like “:/ wish he wouldn’t do that”

This only gets worse when you consider they later learned Al opened the portal too because really?? These two stab-happy globe-trotting public menaces are 40% of your final evil plan for godhood. 40%. Almost half. You couldn’t fucking set aside a cardboard box to keep these idiots in?

We all knew Father was terrible at planning when we learned his thousands-of-years-in-the-making-plan involved him procrastinating until the last five minutes to get his last sacrifice, while he was?? playing chess in his fucking basement, I guess. But it’s like every time I think about it like really think about it I find 7 more reasons Father was a fucking shit idiot moron, king of the stupid fucking idiot club, flesh and blood founder of seven other established dumbasses, all living in their idiot hovel under central, just giving random dumbass 12 year olds infinite money, j u s t  b e c a u s e.

sauntervaguelydown:

FMA 2003: equivalent exchange is a myth because the world is imperfect and you can suffer and work your whole life for nothing but also you don’t always have to suffer in order to “earn” the good things you have; think of equivalent exchange not as a hard and fast rule of the world but as a promise to work towards the future you want to create no matter what stands in your way

FMA Brotherhood: equivalent exchange is a myth because giving more than what you take and adding a part of yourself pays off later in your life. giving is what forms relationships with the people you love, and those people are the ones who will support you no matter what and will always be there to pick you back up

fullmetaladdiction:

thesoulthatmatters:

canalberona:

The truth is cruel

I just….I honestly cannot. Roy Mustang has always been my favorite character in FMA and this scene is the one that made me start crying. 

Roy had to pay a toll even though he never CHOSE to go through the Portal of Truth, he was forced. Truth does not discriminate between the innocent and the sinners; that’s a lesson not only Ed but we ALL learned in this scene. 

And THAT is why this show is so powerful. Because that’s real: equivalent exchange is bullshit. It is not a life philosophy to live by. Shit happens to good people, to bad people, to everyone. You may be able to chose the path you go on in life and the things that happen to you have to do with that BUT when someone gets sick, when someone gets in an accident? It’s not because of what they’ve done, it’s because shit HAPPENS. Things are taken away from you even if you don’t get given something in return.

But something that Brotherhood and the manga do that I think is so important is that  even with this fact, it doesn’t mean you can’t be happy. It doesn’t mean your life is over. Ed and Al moved on and pulled through their entire journey with their disabilities. Roy is seen studying Ishvalan facts in his hospital bed, knowing he’d never get his eyesight back before Marcoh arrived. Izumi Curtis took two kids into her care, two kids WITHOUT parents, and taught them everything she knew.

Shit happens, but life doesn’t have to stop because of it.  

I also think this scene is powerful because this is when Roy finally realized just how much Ed and Al had to go through at such a young age. Throughout the series, he knew how much shit they went through, but then he actually experienced it… well, part of it. And I think he was just like, “Wow, okay, fuck… this is scary.”

I’m not good with words, I hope you guys understand what I’m trying to point out.