249 | a flurry of brief updates and an unexpected FMA mood

[straightforwardly]

Reading: Just finished up Star Mother by Charlie N. Holmberg & greatly enjoyed it.
Listening: High Rollers: Aerois.
Playing: Still Bravely Default!
Watching: n/a
Writing: An overly ambitious project for FIAB. Fingers crossed that I can manage it!

► Brief update on my High Rollers: Aerois progress: Lucius putting himself in theoretical danger by immediately hurrying to Arval’s (the dwarf NPC) defense (and calling him his friend!) when the party found him being menaced by the wild elves definitely gave me some feelings. Look at this cute useless disaster being brave on someone else’s behalf! <3

► So, with Bravely Default, I haven’t actually got all that much further since my last update, in that I’m still working on the Vampire Castle Sub-Scenario. I’d forgotten that before you even enter the castle, you have to tackle the incredibly tedious and time-consuming task of defeating six dragon bosses, which definitely demotivated me a little. I tackled the first two at home and was very unenthusiastic about there being four more to go.

But then, I went on a little trip to see my cousin at the beginning of the week, which involved several long train rides. On the way there, I had an uninterrupted stretch of 1 hour 41 minutes on one train (plus a few shorter journeys), while the way back consisted of about an hour each on two different trains, and it occurred to me that I could use that travel time to tackle the tedious task of beating those dragons. So I did! I did three of the bosses during that 1h41m train ride—it literally took the entirety of that journey, minus a short break to eat the sandwich I’d taken with me—and then did the last remaining one (the dark dragon, which I actually beat surprisingly quickly) on the journey back. I haven’t progressed further yet, but oh my god, am I relieved to have that all over with, and I’m so pleased to have found a more time efficient way of having done it.

► The other thing I did on train trip back home was read Thaumaturgical Studies, a FMA/Harry Potter crossover fic—WIP, currently 58K, last updated in April of this year. Despite it including one of my crossover pet peeves (aka, trying to pretend that the setting of a secondary world canon—in this case, FMA—is actually somewhere in our world, in order to make the crossover happen), it still really worked for me, and I’d recommend it.

It did throw me into an unexpected FMA mood. I’m not sure if I’ve ever talked about this under this username, but FMA (specifically, the 2003 anime) and Inuyasha were my very first fandoms. It’s hard to say which of the two was truly the “first”—there’s arguments to be made for the both of them. But though I’m still very fond of FMA (and did eventually watch and enjoy Brotherhood as well), it’s not something I’ve engaged with on a fannish level in a very long time.

I’ve collected some fics to read since then, though of the handful I’ve tried out so far, most of them haven’t quite clicked with me enough to rec. The one exception to this was a reread—Good Intentions (1.9K, outsider POV in the form of Ed’s granddaughter, set many years after the end of the 2003 anime).

I did also come across* some interesting meta about Ed’s automail and his identity as a disabled character (with a part two here), which gave me a lot to chew over. This is definitely not the lens I was viewing the character through back when I was first introduced to the series at 11 or 12 years old, so it’s been interesting to have that shift in perspective.

*I think it was linked by the author of the HP crossover fic?

So that’s been my past week in fandom in a nutshell.

Comments

[kalloway]

That's some fantastic and fascinating FMA meta, thank you for the link. It's been Some Time since I read/watched any of it, but now I want to go back to it with all this in mind. (Thinking about it, those 20-25lb estimates the author makes seem kind of light, though. Hmm.)

[straightforwardly]

Right? It's been a long while for me too, but it makes me kind of want to go and read the manga (which is admittedly the version of the series that I'm least familiar with—I've read a few of scattered volumes, but that's it) for the same reason.

[kalloway]

I have most of the manga around somewhere, but honestly I'm an '03 person at heart. I have been tempted by the light novel re-releases I've seen around, though, especially since some of those made it into '03 for some of the filler episodes.

[straightforwardly]

I'm a fan of both versions! I haven't seen the 2003 anime in a very long while and have been meaning to rewatch it too for reasons unrelated to the above meta, but it's what originally got me into the series (and also fandom as a whole, as I mentioned above), and it has a very special place in my heart because of it. (It actually took me like eight years to watch Brotherhood, partially because I bounced off the opening episodes, but mostly because I was so so so salty about how some of the more vocal fans of it kept bashing the original anime.) I love that the two series went in such different directions—it makes things so interesting to me—and I'm so glad both exist. I do think Brotherhood/the manga is more polished in some ways, but imo the 2003 anime has a lot of heart and charm, and it's easier for me to engage with it on a fannish/fandom level. I remain eternally obsessed with how Envy is depicted in the 2003 anime.

[kalloway]

I watched the first few episodes of Brotherhood at a tiny comic show and they really seemed to whoosh through things. By the time I could have gotten my hands on my own copies, I'd kinda soured on the canon due to the fandom. *points at your comment*

So I really do want to give it another try at some point but it'll probably be 03->Manga->Brotherhood.

I feel like 03 did a really good job of just taking some of the central ideas and Making Shit Up and I'll always like it for that.

[straightforwardly]

The pacing at the beginning of Brotherhood truly is terrible. Imo, the pacing improves once they get past the parts of canon it shares with the 2003 anime. When I gave it a second chance, I actually straight-up skipped the first 10+ episodes of it. I think I picked it up somewhere after Hughes' death?

I feel like 03 did a really good job of just taking some of the central ideas and Making Shit Up and I'll always like it for that.

Very very agreed!