Feeling the blood drain from his face, Grumman rushed from the hostess bar. He had no idea what he was going to say, but he knew he couldn’t let his daughter leave without an explanation.
What kind of explanation though? What excuse could he give for being in such an establishment without giving away his ulterior motives?
“Theresa!” he shouted again, beginning to run, cursing his recent slacking off in military training.
He shouted again just before reaching her, grabbing her arm when she refused to turn, stopping her in her tracks.
“Ow!” she exclaimed, pulling her arm out of his hold, her eyes ablaze. “Get off of me!”
“Theresa, stop. Listen to me.”
“Listen to what?” the teenager snapped, yanking free of his old, brown eyes blazing with anger. “I don’t want to hear your pathetic excuses. Mother has barely been gone a month and here you are, soliciting whores -”
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Theresa let out a gasp as she fell onto the carpeted floor of the train, ignoring the stares of the other passengers as the train’s doors closed and a whistle sounded out announcing their departure.
“They didn’t see which train we got on,” her saviour said smugly as he looked out of the window.
Theresa let out a sigh of relief as she pulled herself up into a sitting position.
Now that she could think clearly, she took in the stranger’s appearance. He had sand coloured hair that reached past his collar, but in an attractive, ruggish way that her father would hate. He had small, almost beady eyes but were bright blue with a glimmer of something mischievous, and a crooked nose that looked like it had been broken at some point.
“Thank you,” she said, smiling up at him, “you have no idea how grateful I am.”
“I think I have an idea,” he said, returning her easy smile. “I don’t know what you did, but I’m no friend of the military.”
“I haven’t done anything wrong,” she felt obliged to tell him, “my father is a Colonel; apparently he thought I needed a whole entourage to bring me back to him.”
The man raised an eyebrow. “Oh, I see. The soldier’s rebellious little girl.”
“He wants me to enlist.”
“What a dick.”
Theresa couldn’t help but laugh and finally pulled herself up to stand.
“I’m - Elizabeth.”
She didn’t know why she said it. But if the incident in Monterosso had proved anything, it was that her father could track her down anywhere. Why make it easy for him?
“Berthold Hawkeye.” He didn’t hold out his hand, and Theresa didn’t ask for it.
“So, Berthold Hawkeye, what made you run from the military?”
“They’re not too pleased with me. I’m with the Anti-Military movement.”
Theresa raised an eyebrow. “You’re a rebel?”
She remembered her father’s griping about the Anti-Military groups around the country. They had roots from as far back as Amestris’ founding, but gained momentum when the war with Creta exploded around a decade ago. Her father called them terrorists interfering with the government and military, but all she felt was relief that other people cared too.
“I prefer the term freedom fighter.”
Theresa laughed for what felt like the first time in days.
“You know I think I might be one of those too.”
“Well, we always welcome new members.”
💬 0 🔁 0 ❤️ 6 · Post by @sevendeadlyseas · What a pair she and her husband made. The sharpshooter and the flame alchemist.
Moodboard for m
“It was an accident, Hughes,” Roy reminded him, “we’ve been home a week… I’m sure she understands you didn’t mean –”
“No, that’s the point, Roy,” Hughes snapped. “She doesn’t understand. She shouldn’t have to.”
That, Roy couldn’t disagree with.
“Well,” he said slowly, “no. She’s a civilian, she won’t understand. You just need to find out if she needs to understand, or if she’s willing to spend her life supporting you without understanding.”
Hughes let out a deep breath. “I hurt her, Roy.”
Roy couldn’t help but let out a short laugh. Instantly the image of Riza Hawkeye, laid on a rickety cot, her back scorched and tattoo illegible, thanking him through tears came to mind.
“Do you know how many people I’ve hurt and they’ve still forgiven me for some reason? How many people have hurt me and I’ve still forgiven them? That’s what makes us human, Hughes.”
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
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.
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.
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.
My favorite gender role reversal in SxF is that despite being modeled after the alluring seductive femme fatale archetype, Yor just brutally murders in her jobs, and that if we include the movie Loid has seduced more men than she has.
Do you ever think Chat Noir takes Ladybug's instructions to keep identities secret a little too seriously to the point it crosses back over to being hilarious?
I'm thinking in terms of "deliberately encourages misinformation about himself". The internet has a couple theories about Ladybug's identity (mostly just the basics which she's personally confirmed, because Ladybug is a very private person with a history of dropping the Eiffel Tower on people she doesn't like), but they've *exploded* over Chat Noir. Hundreds if not thousands of theories over who (and/or what, and/or how) he could be. They range from the mundane to the extreme, and Chat goes out of his way to "confirm" as many theories as possible, even when they're blatantly false and make zero sense whatsoever. Adrien Agreste has like ten separate sockpuppet accounts on Reddit and the Ladyblog forums and they're all devoted to spreading conspiracy theories about Chat Noir with varying levels of rationality.
It helps that Adrien has a huge variety of skills and talents that he basically never uses in his normal life because they were only stuff he learned to please his parents, but now he can put all those skills to use as "evidence" to confirm weird theories. "Hey, Chat Noir, is it true you're actually not from France but actually [random country]?" And Chat just responds with a couple sentences of perfectly fluent [random country's most common language] explaining that he's not allowed to confirm or deny that theory.
It drives Ladybug insane. It drives Alya Cesaire insane. It drives the villains insane. And it's the most fun Adrien's ever had. Maybe Ladybug was onto something with this "keeping our identities secret" thing after all!
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