Fullmetal Analyst @fullmetalanalyst - Tumblr Blog

Another thought (because ofc these mfs have been living in my head rent-free for the last couple of days). Lots of Royai fans seem to believe that Roy and Riza were always aware of how much they love each other. I'm not entirely sure, though. Roy basically told her she's allowed to kill him. She has that right because she entrusted flame alchemy to him and he messed up. Ok, I get it. He thinks he needs someone to keep him in check. That makes sense. What doesn't make sense is that this is the absolute worst fucking thing you could ask of someone that loves you, especially when he knows how much she hates killing people.

Then we have Riza. In ch. 44, she tells Havoc: "That man… he didn't forsake me when I'd given up on life. And then he asked me to keep protecting his back. He's not capable of giving up on anyone."

She seems a bit perplexed that he still wants her around. But at the same time she thinks he's incapable of telling her to go away. Not because she's special or anything, though. He'd do this for anyone.

I think they only started realizing the extent of their feelings after that fight with Lust. I don't think Roy had any idea how much he meant to Riza until she lost the will to live and broke down crying for him. I'm pretty sure her reaction then must've been what prompted him to ask what she'd do after she killed him. He hadn't realized how cruel his request had been until she pretty much confessed her undying love to him. As for her… I sure hope she doesn't think he'd do human transmutation for just about anyone lol

this headcanon also makes sense. i feel like they’re also not the type of people to indulge in anything other than their goal, so it’s a possibility that they were only able to express all that when either of their lives were at stake

Hello, I'm back. Maybe I'm just slow asf, but I've just realized something kind of disturbing and I don't know how to feel about it, so ofc I had to share.

Roy is kind of a combination of Grumman and Berthold. - Grumman: Roy's silly, flirty side. Loves chess. Ultimate goal in life is to become fuhrer. - Berthold: Roy's "absolute trainwreck of a man" side. Genius alchemist who wants to use mass destruction alchemy for good but has no idea how. Can't trust his own judgement. Relies on the most important woman in his life to make decisions for him.

It makes sense that he has traits of both of his mentors, but to me it was wild to realize that Riza fell for a man that shares so many similarities to her father and grandpa 😂

AGREE WITH PLANS I LOVE THIS i never really thought of this until you said it

#fma #fma meta #roy mustang #grumman #berthold

Hello there. I just wanted to talk about something that's been bothering me. That scene in FMA:B when Riza shows her tattoo to Roy after her father's funeral is so fucking awkward. She's there hunched over holding her chest like she wants to disappear into the ground, while Roy apparently has no expression on his face whatsoever, like it's totally normal that his master's daughter is suddenly stripping for him and that she has a giant tattoo on her back with the research he's been dying to get

I get where you’re coming from, it does seem awkward. Although, I feel like it’s how they depict royai: physically distant yet emotionally intimate.

Personally, I liked that scene because it was only until then had I pieced things together that the back tattoo was for flame alchemy.

As much as I don’t want to dwell on the awkwardness of it all, my brain just wants to Make Sense Of It, so my answer is just a headcanon

In the flashback scene, the distance could show Roy’s respect for her and this unspoken boundary they have between them (her being his deceased mentor’s daughter). I imagine Roy thinking she’d show him the chalkboard but instead she stripped (lol).

I think him just standing still after the reveal is merely a lapse on the animation haha I imagined him to be as surprised as he was in the Ishval scene (when she told him to burn it off). Though he still didn’t move, he just stood there and clenching his fist.

idk I’m all out of brainjuice right now but I agree with the awkwardness of how Roy just stood there, but I still think that scene deserves to be animated (albeit it should have done better at animating the reactions).

#ask #royai #tattoo reveal

royriza

Hi there. I'm new to this fandom, but I really need to talk to someone about that ch. 62 panel where Madame Christmas tells Roy to "go someplace fun" with Elizabeth, because I think that's the biggest Royai evidence of all. First of all, it confirms some things about their relationship:1) Riza is the best person to cheer him up when he's feeling down. 2) Roy and Riza do hang out together outside of work, but they're using her codename, so that's a secret. (part 1)

THIS IS FANASTIC (and also, welcome to the fandom)

I had to drop everything I’m doing and search for the said panel HAHA

and it’s funny that Roy responded with “I’d go on a date with you anytime” lol situationship is situationshipping

I think their whole situation is… complicated. A favorite headcanon of mine is that there is no teenage love confession, just mutual pining. Roy’s more open in pursuing Riza but Riza just shrugs him away (thinks of it as a joke or because it would hamper their work). aside from fraternization laws they’re also scared of losing each other ? in a sense that if they risk a romantic relationship and it didn’t work, what comes next? especially since they’re basically codependent on each other

in a meta sense, the whole “why don’t they get married— it’s because of fraternization laws” also makes sense to me because I don’t think anyone in the fma manga are married (maybe arakawa wants to be religion-sensitive?) or like marriage and family isn’t the only happy ending the characters should have. some of them are at the peak of their careers even near-retirement, or at the height of their redemption arcs.

emmentalpeach

I'm not thinking about the minuscule flinch Riza made when Olivier unsheath her Saber, how it's barely perceptible because she immediately schooled her expression right after, of her realizing that the sight of the same sword that slit her throat on Promised Day still managed to unsettle her despite Promise Day being long over.

Noo why would I think about it? It's not like every High ranking military officials had that same decorative saber on their hip right? How Riza's role in Mustang's team probably means she will be around lots of military events and their formal dress codes which include said sabers too.

Definitely not thinking on how it's definitely NOT easy to just forget about being sliced on your throat and be able to do nothing as life bleeds out of you, forcing your fingers to stop trembling not wanting others to notice, because what if they deem your combat skills compromised? replace you with another? someone who wouldn't stumble mid-combat because the opponent pulled out a sword.

Also, I am truly. specifically. NOT thinking about how Roy being the only one who caught her reaction at first and knowing exactly why. Nope haha, why would I think about how he would stand in-between whoever military officials carrying a saber and his adjutant (he normally already stood between them since she's guarding his back, but leaning his body to cover whoever he spoke with is definitely not noticeable. Yep)

Oh! And how Roy would purposely forgot to bring his own decorative Saber to military events, basically never saw him actually use the thing really. Excusing himself with how the gloves are enough, he can just clap too now etc etc

Yeap. Definitely did not pass my mind at all.

royai

this is just me being annoying but Riza was neglected as a child. that shit’s canon, came straight outta her daddy’s mouth, and child neglect can be traumatic and considering it’s also canon that Ri was estranged from any family BESIDES her abusive father means that all she had until Roy showed up was, her shitty, dad, who neglected her and probably physically abused her too (tattoo). i’ll never blame her for hanging off Roy’s every word and trusting him w her bad dad’sTM research bc as far as canon is concerned the relationship Riza had w Roy was the only other significant one she’d ever had, periodt, until the formation of Team Mustang.

mylieutenant-deactivated2021061

Adding to the sentiment - Riza deserved to have that side of her explored because it gives so much insight into who she is as a person. When she trusted Roy with her dad’s research, it’s clear that she believed in its power to be used for good. She was naive (and as you said no one can really blame her for that!) and it’s only far later in life that she starts blaming Flame Alchemy for her dad’s “madness” and for Roy’s failings - as if neither man could be fallible by himself, as if Flame Alchemy was guilty and not the fact that the two most important men in her life are/were/could be terrible people all by themselves.

I always thought Riza voluntarily agreed to the tattoo... now that is still not consent because she was too young, and a victim of her abuser’s manipulation. What I mean is that I don’t think Berthold exactly held her down and forced her, but convinced her somehow, and she mistakenly believed it would be for the best. And I don’t think Riza realized the extent of her own trauma and the neglect/abuse she suffered until Ishval. When she offers the research to Roy she claims she was “entrusted” with it, and only in Ishval does she admit she feels her father “burdened” her with it. Big switch there, and we’ve missed all the in-between.

by-nina

Very, very important! Riza is such a case study on parental abuse and its effects, and its absence from 03 is one of the reasons I can never completely love it the way I do the manga/Brotherhood.

Riza undergoes a very complicated, very nuanced experience of processing the abuse she suffered, going from “willful” obedience, to tolerance, to reluctance, and finally to anger. She speaks reverently of her father’s work when she shows Roy her tattoo; she takes her duty very seriously for someone so young and who shouldn’t have been left in charge of such a heavy secret. She doesn’t start out hating Berthold, or she would have mentally signed off years ago and he would have died much sooner than he did. It takes a lot of nerve for a child to finally call parental abuse as they see it.

But let’s go beyond her sense of duty with the tattoo. Did she even have anything else to remember her father by? A family picture? A letter? I think it’s important to look at this parallel to Ed and Al’s lack of memorabilia of their mother; they made the conscious choice to never look back when they burned down the house. But Riza? Riza has a tattoo of her father’s research. She’s left with something very impersonal and unsentimental and forcibly permanent. That speaks volumes of their relationship and should never be taken lightly.

Our queen Riza Hawkeye is a very strong, very loyal, very intelligent, very crucial character who commands awe and respect not just in FMA, but in all pop culture. But we should never forget that she is also a human being with very unpleasant experiences that give credence to who she becomes, and that exemplify what those who have similar experiences can all rise above.

eternalera

Love how in the manga they give us this cool little shot of riza's perspective when they learn that envy killed hughes. honestly its probably one of my fav shots in the whole manga because this is what she sees. shes watching his back, not his front. she doesnt see the facade he puts on for everyone else but rather everything he puts behind him. such as the anger from hughes' death. she sees how that slowly morphs him.

also i love how in the manga they kinda draw roy like a homonculus in a way. they shadow his face and give him glowing eyes (which we see given to the homonculi quite often) to signify him losing his humanity in this.

also his eyes in these scenes lowkey give me chills. they look so much harsher than anything we've ever seen on him before. actually i think that this might be the first time we've seen his expression like this ever. and the manga really emphasizes that.

dairogo

(Chapter 38 still)

Smarter people than I have gone into Roy's alchemy, but look, here it is: Roy transmuting hydrogen from water, using the alchemical circle on his gloves.

cyborgartalchemist2

Okay so the thing about this is that every fire and every environment are not the same. The reason flame alchemy is so hard to master is that the alchemist must account for different fuel sources. And maintain control of the fire! We most often see him using his flames in open air. But oxygen is not a fuel source, so that means he is maintaining the spark through rearranging other gasses until it reaches his target.

Roy has to manipulate and control the spark from snap to target. Accounting for heat, other present gasses or fuel sources, and distance.

This is why we see Roy above use water to his advantage, but produce no useable flame when fighting Scar. In the fight with Scar Roy is either A) baiting himself knowing full well he can't produce flame and that Riza will protect him. B) absolutely forgot that the rain needed to be transmuted DIFFERENTLY.

I would say he likely forgot. MOST of his battle experience with his alchemy took place in a desert. Where dry hot air was readily available making his alchemy perfect for use in Ishval.

But this is what makes his alchemy so terrifying. He has the discipline to control a flame to the point of only boiling Envy’s eyeballs. Not Envy’s brain or hair too. Just the fluid in the eyes. But he also makes big bad explosions.

And his speed…. He goes from big combustive blast to precision strike at a critical body part with maybe a second between. And the control degenerates into every snap is just raging burning fire. But that has more to do with emotional state than skill in that particular fight.

The fact of the matter is that Roy’s transmutation circle accounts for ALL four elements. (Yes I did look into this at the peak of my FMA hyperfixation.) Giving him the ability to tap into any and all fuel sources.

And this is why flame alchemy is rare. The alchemist has to be able to understand what molecular structure he is currently working with, how to manipulate it accordingly, and maintain the spark’s life over distances without turning everything into a flaming blaze.

mudwizardbignaturals

putting this in the main body because i ran out of tags :/

i'll add in my two cents as a chemist in progress and ex physics guy.

I interpreted flame alchemy as reforming the molecules in the air into useful compounds. Combustion in chemistry is a reaction between hydrocarbons and oxygen that produces CO2 and water, if the combustion is incomplete (there isn't enough oxygen), there will also be straight carbon produced, which is what smoke and soot are. He is most likely converting the molecules in the air into a hydrocarbon like methane, and combusting that using a spark from his gloves, he probably creates a small trail of concentrated fuel from his gloves to the site he wants to light on fire. He tries to obfuscate the way flame alchemy works so he probably lies and makes it a bit more showy (such as making it seem his spark travels further), to muddy the waters on how it actually works. Alchemy irl is a predecessor to chemistry. In FMA alchemists like the Elrics have been shown to be well-versed in the elements of the periodic table and think about things in terms of their base elements, which is what Mustang is doing here with the water, there is likely little difference between transmuting air and water to him, since he likely sees the world in terms of hydrogen, carbon and oxygen. Normally air has water in it, and he likely at least in part gets some of the hydrogen he needs by splitting up the water molecules in the air, so liquid water wouldn't be too much of a stretch. I always interpreted his alchemy as simply taking available carbon, oxygen and hydrogen in the air, (or water in this case), and turning that into fuel and then oxygen to make it more explosive. Every environment is not the same, and he uses his alchemy to make it the same.

His limiting factor usually seems to be his ability to make a spark. He can't create a spark with wet gloves, which is why he was using Havok's lighter while killing Lust. Rain gets his gloves wet, AND when it's raining there's too many different things of varying concentrations he has to think about. Instead of a somewhat uniform atmosphere there's pockets of water between the air that move in difficult to predict ways, so he can't create his pockets of fuel as cleanly, and might over or under-estimate how much fuel he needs for the space. That runs the risk of lighting things on fire that he shouldn't, and he's pretty well-established to be excessively careful about what he lights on fire, so he wouldn't take that kind of risk. To make matters worse for him, it's more difficult to create a spark when there's high humidity (such as when it's raining) because of some things with the physics of static electricity.

Which is to say, I don't see it as him trying to figure out different fuel sources, though he is figuring out how to use different sources to make the fuel, but his problem is usually how he can make a spark. The strength with flame alchemy To Me and why he doesn't want it to fall into the wrong hands is that it really seems there aren't any other alchemists who manipulate air, everyone else is manipulating solids or water (which is a fluid with a largely predictable concentrations of elements, unlike the atmosphere), and there's a lot worse things you can do with that ability than create fires.