#bh crit

[notes-from-athens]

everytime i see that fmab scene where winry nearly flashes edward and they have their stupid anime moment i start crying in the way a chinese emperor would mourn for his kingdom during the warring states period in asia

[fma-slothposting]

Am i the only one who finds it weird that 20+ y/o adults would watch 2 different series one being super generic shounen with super generic shounen themes like " (male) friendship is magic", "teen boy would know how to save any life situation" and where characters are developed in such way that the plot would made sense and work and another one that touches topics that barely any piece of media talks about and characters are developed bc they do mistakes and learn from those mistakes, and say "yes the generic white teen boy woshipping series is superior in fact". Like this is crazy to me.

[calangkoh]

FMAB Ed: We should just not see color. My town being inconvenienced by the genocide of the Ishvallans is on equal footing to the genocide of Ishvallans so we should forget it and get along, checkmate Miles. Tortured war veterans who give up on their dreams are dumb. Just stop being sad.

03 Ed: I can’t deny that I see color and am prejudiced from it. I need to be better. I contribute to ongoing war and imperialism by excusing my ignorance and acting like Al and I live in a vacuum. I have no right to tell this tortured war veteran how to live, especially when he seems to have made peace with his experiences that I have no grasp of.

[lethal-effect]

me seeing another viral post calling bh a perfect piece of media when 03 is RIGHT there: 

[fma-slothposting]

I don't remember if i said this here before but it's funny that a lot of fma03 fans will say 'i like this series bc it treated ishvalans better, things weren't sugarcoated and genocidal gov is demolished' and then bh fans will say 'but it doesn't have my fav female war criminal :(('

[fma-slothposting]

Imagine writing a comics series where you wanna show how "revenge is bad" and the plot point you choose is ......genocide/war. Wow, so cool.

[calangkoh]

i was explaining why i like ed in 03 way more than in fmab to my gf and it could be summarized by the fact that way more people tell ed to stfu in 03 and since my first impression of ed as a character was annoyance and hatred (i dont like arrogant im so smart and cynical and thus right about everything rude teen white boyz sorry—ill happily take my tempermental teen boys with parental issues any day tho), so it satisfies and endears me to have the series acknowledge the flaws i couldnt stand and have them be a point of development vs in fmab where he just kinda…stays the same and is right about everything.

and then i pointed out how in 03 ed admits to racial bias and how its hard to get away from so we have to expose ourselves and find our own answers and gets put in his place for lecturing a war veteran about his own trauma and what he should do about it, while the fmab equivalent of those two scenes had ed essentially say all lives matter and who cares about your racial genocide when i was inconvenienced as a kid and praised for being so morally correct for lecturing two war veterans on their own trauma and what they should do about it

[calangkoh]

03 ed is more inclined to open up to winry. fmab ed has that whole “he speaks with his actions” thing when winry wishes he’d talk about what’s bugging him, while 03 ed opens up about his feelings to her multiple times in the series, even willing to tell her about how he has killed people and will continue to do so if necessary. fmab ed would never, because he’d wanna protect winry from that kind of burden of knowledge of what he goes through. and this is a big reason why i like 03 ed and winrys relationship better, even if they dont have as many romantic moments. they feel more like equals and i never liked “the male action hero must be strong and never let the woman know of the horror he faces” sorta thing. fmab ed gets emotionally constipated and fights it out and winry is like “ah yes. u r right mr hughes. men dont discuss feelings they just lash out physically and this is fine and healthy :)” while in 03 ed gets emotionally constipated but opens up when he’s ready (he VERBALLY TELLS HER what happened in lab 5 and how he feels al must hate him) and winry is like “if you feel this way you have to TELL ppl ur never wrong to communicate your emotions to your loved ones”

yeah i greatly dislike this aspect of fmab. 03 wins by a landslide for me in this department.