No Original Content

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."

☠️Our King

Never give up

I CANNOT get over @asexualzoro​‘s headcanon that Brook doesn’t know who or what the Pirate King is and so I just.

brook ride or die ready to commit regicide for his captain

At the age when they imitate everything

i spent so much fucking time on this

[x] Artist:  おうぎ

spider noises

Okay, but real talk for a second… Journey’s End is not a happy ending.

Like… We can talk about Ed realizing he doesn’t need alchemy and all that jazz, but seriously?

Let’s take this step by step, because lawdy but I have been stewing about this since I finished the show two months ago.

Firstly… Everyone else gets their happy ending. Al gets his body back, gets the girl. Winry gets the guy, and gets to keep making at least one automail limb for said guy. Roy gets his eyesight back, and (presumably) becomes Fuhrer. Hohenheim gets to die and abandon his kids again so he can be with his dead wife. Ling gets a philosopher stone, and becomes emperor. May Chang gets her knight in shining armor, and the safety of her clan.

But Ed? He got his brother back… Still has an automail leg. Lost his alchemy. Most likely either had to amputate his arm, or lose a lot of functionality, because Truth is a goddamn asshole, and just shoved that arm back on over top of the STEEL PORT.

And he was a prodigy. Not that I give a shit about how Amestris feels about losing their prodigy, but… Personal story time, when I was a kid, I was a piano ‘prodigy’. One of those kids who could just sit down and play anything. If I heard it, I could play it. And then, through a rather depressing chain of events that are irrelevant to this post, all of the fingers, and many of the smaller bones on my left hand were shattered. Even after months of rehab, I still couldn’t play like I used to. I could barely play for more than five or ten minutes before my hand began to cramp up and stop moving.

And this thing… This thing that I did better than anyone else I knew… It was gone. Just gone. This one thing that made me stand out, that made me special, that made me feel good about myself… and it was just gone. I could still pick apart any music I heard, I still knew exactly how I would play it… If I could. But I couldn’t.

And for Ed… Alchemy was who he was. It was what he did. It was an integral part of both himself, and how he viewed the world. And it’s just… gone. Boop. No more alchemy. All gone now, thanks for playing, kid. You’re no longer unique, you’re no longer special, you now have nothing that sets you apart from everyone else. You dragged yourself to the top of that pillar, and enjoyed the view, until a squiggly outline asshole Sparta kicked you off it, and then ground your face in the mud for good measure.

But, Nightmares, you say! He got his brother back! He still had Al!

Ah, but he didn’t, dear reader! That’s the thing! No Al hate here, because I love Al as much… well, nearly as much as I do Ed, but like… Al got better -and we all know who helped him through the months of recovery -and then bounced right the hell off to Xing. “Haha, yes, Brother! I shall go a thousand miles this way, you go a thousand miles that way, and we shall research this thing that you used to be able to do, that you used to be a prodigy at, that you can no longer do! Don’t forget to write, dear brother!”

…

Okay. I’m slightly less angry now. But seriously, that ending was just… ugh, utterly heart-breaking. Watching Ed trying to transmute the roof, and then just sigh, and say, “Well, at least the view’s nice.” was just… painful as hell.

memento mori

Inukag Week - Day 2 : Possession

“marineford au with luffy would be very angsty” is a 100% true statement but also i think he’d get on sengoku’s nerves so much he’d just toss him out of there

he might be lost

Cashing up....

The most striking thing about Papyrus (aside from his limitless positivity) is the fact that it is literally impossible to die in a fight against him. Even Toriel, who starts purposefully missing you once your health gets low enough, can accidentally kill you, but Papyrus? It is literally impossible. Papyrus has incredible control over his power! Wow, what a great and impressive skeleton. And, even though he could probably deal some legit damage to you on the murder run, his only action is to spare you, because he’s heckin worried about this little emotionless murder child.

A lot of people like swap aus where Sans is the one that dies and Papyrus is forced to shed his naivete and face you going all-out, which makes sense, but also, Papyrus is just so. Papyrus. I feel like if Papyrus had to be the final murder-run boss, it’d be more like, “After losing Sans, the world seems like a different place. I can’t imagine what you must’ve gone through for you to see the world the way you do.”

He only has one attack, but it’s a really long one and powerful one (kind of like Sans’ before his ‘special attack’), plus he talks during it, which would be pretty distracting. whenever he gets your hp down to 1, combat automatically stops and you’re ejected back into the judgement room. if you try to talk to him without healing, he’ll just say you’re too hurt - a gust of wind could knock you over! after you heal at the conveniently placed save point and go back to fight him, he has stuff to say about how you don’t have to be alone, you don’t have to do this, you might think there isn’t any good in you and it’s too late to change, but there is and it isn’t! After a few of those, he’ll talk about Undyne and Sans, and they always tried to help him, even when they thought he wouldn’t notice. He’s got a ton of stories about that. After he says his piece there’s an option to either fight or don’t fight, and every time you pick fight he looks disappointed, but he goes all out. He’s always able to be spared.

if you survive his attack, he goes down in one hit. his last words would probably be an apology, even though he tried really hard he still couldn’t show you a better path

Yes, yes, yes.

I think it’s notable that, while there’s plenty of neutral endings where Papyrus is worrying over various of his friends (or kept protectively oblivious), the only ending where he seems truly miserable is the one where he becomes king of the underground. 

He’s clearly overwhelmed and stressed and has so many new responsibilities and people depending on him and asking him to solve impossible problems.  And he’s still trying so. hard. 

Faced with ridiculous pressure he still chooses to judge the goodness or evillness of humans on a “case-by-case” basis (and still reaches the conclusion that all types should get puzzles, suggesting that Papyrus believes that all people have the potential to change and grow and deserve this opportunity.)

He still maintains his positivity and optimism, apparently through sheer stubborn willpower and a belief that this is the most important thing he can do.  

And in doing so he’s still a source of these things for other people.

This is Papyrus grown up.  This is Papyrus stepping up to the line.  This is maybe not Papyrus with his brother gone or his naivete broken, but this the unwavering core that emerges when you start stripping away everything else.

This kind of narrative is really important, because it’s such a selfish thing for a lot of people to imagine that if kind and gentle types were just confronted with the horrors of Real Life, they’d learn that it’s necessary to be cruel sometimes. That despair and violent conflict is an intrinsic part of adulthood. 

But that’s just not the case: plenty of people go from naively believing the best in everyone, to making an informed and rational decision to believe the best in everyone. Brutality is a choice, not a stage of maturity. 

uhhhhh i love him actually LMFAO

Illustration for the fable "The Fox and the Grapes." Aesop's fables in rhyme. 1924.

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