#bradofarrell

[kinghellcat]

hokay so the whole thing going on about Brad O'Farell is such bullshit. basically he was like, "I don't like this thing, and here is a valid reason why I don't like the thing." and a bunch of rude babies were like, "no no how can you not like the thing we all like? you're not allowed to dislike a thing we like."

[bryonycloud]

bradofarrell replied to your post: the only one of JRR Tolke...

The hobbit movie is the hobbit plus all the other middle earth stories from other books that occurred around that time

oh ok! I thought maybe I was just remembering it wrong. That's cool! I like Legolas.

[cartoonowl]

[bryonycloud]

not as hard hitting as when she said "fuck you very much" to the exiting president of another country in his lame duck term

she's so edgy 

[ladyloveandjustice]

Hey I'm one of the people who reblogged you mentioning authorial intent but I'm skimming your blog and yeah I agree with you and stuff. BUT the FMA stuff on your blog got me thinking of the inversion? FMA is not very feminist at face value but hailed as feminist cuz it has a female writer. But my take away from FMA was "SHUT UP ROSE A SMART ATHEIST IS TALKING" ugh. Do you have any thoughts about FMA and feminism? Edward is such a turd to women IMO, he's like, the opposite of Steven Universe.

I’ve literally never seen anyone hail FMA as feminist just because it has a female writer? I think it is IMPORTANT that Arakawa is a woman, because in some cases she’s clearly transferring her own experiences onto the page (like she specifically said she included a lot of working women in the story because she always worked) and that in itself is empowering for a lady- I’ve actually posted about it here: http://adventuresofcomicbookgirl.tumblr.com/post/42742171421/about-the-great-feminist-anime-and-manga-review-hiromu

And yeah, I think FMA is feminist. Not solely because Arakawa is a lady writer (lots of things written by ladies fail at feminism), but because the female characters have great arcs and a lot of it is about women reclaiming their agency.  It’s not the MOST PERFECT EXAMPLE  OF FEMINIST STORYTELLING EVER, but I think the character arcs of a lot of the ladies is very easily open to feminist interpretation, as are a lot of the themes. I go waaaaay in depth here: http://adventuresofcomicbookgirl.tumblr.com/tagged/fma-feminist-analysis (posts on Winry, Riza and Lan Fan, more to come)

Andddd I’m not sure why you’d take the Rose thing away from the narrative as the most important thing, considering it was the first chapter of a 108 chapter narrative and before Ed had gone through a lot of his major character development (and learned to be more respectful of other people). TBH, a lot of Ed’s character development is learning to be more respectful of Winry, and by extension women in general, so yeah he starts out as a bit of a turd, but turns into a pretty cool guy through growing and learning to be respectful and honest towards his girlfriend, which I find very feminist.

AS for the thing w/ Rose, there’s a difference between a character being a douche and the narrative supporting that. FMA is NOT an atheist manga (and Ed’s not an atheist, he’s agnostic- he knows a Godlike being exists, he just fuckin’ hates it). The ending is very much an affirmation of religion. And Ed is SUPPOSED to be arrogant and douchey in the way he treats people, especially at first (Winry is offended when she hears how Ed talked to Rose, even if Rose is okay with it- “talking to a person who’s depressed like that is like rubbing salt in their wound!!! I’m so sorry he’s like that, I don’t understand why he can’t be nicer sometimes”). I’ve actually talked about this before:

yeah I mean I can understand initially getting the impression that FMA itself is anti-religion and being turned off by that, bc the first major religious figures are Cornello (who is just using religion as a tool to manipulate) and Scar (who is using religion to justify killing people), but it’s very much NOT, since religion transforms into a positive force in Scar’s life and keeps the Ishvalans together, and Bradley is basically, as Mark put it, the eldrich abomination Richard Dawkins of FMA, and gets soundly schooled by Scar and his faith. And Arakawa is a Buhddist and there’s so many Buhddist themes in FMA it’s ridiculous.

I mean, even at the beginning it’s made clear Arakawa is showing how religion can be used to manipulate and justify terrible things, but she’s also drawing parallels to how SCIENCE can be used to justify and cause terrible things too with the whole alchemy bit.And Ed’s speech to Rose is 50 percent being shitty to her about her religion, and 50 percent hating hardcore on himself because he thought he could solve everything with science. He sees that Rose thinks the same thing about religion, so he’s lashing out at her because she reminds him of himself there.

I mean, by episode 5 Ed already isn’t the kind of person who’d say that to Rose anymore. He specifically goes from “alchemists are the closest thing to Gods!!!” to “…we’re just human”. So he’s not supposed to be in the right in his arrogant speech.

I mean, not saying everyone has to do a feminist interpretation of FMA, but it's a valid one, and nothing Arakawa has said has ever contradicted it, but rather enforced it- she made an active effort to include female characters even when editorial was kinda down on it, she wanted to reflect various experiences, I even think she said her mom was really hardcore so she based Izumi off that.

[bryonycloud]

The first time I ever saw Leslie Hall she was sitting next to me at a conference and I didn't know who she was and she was dressed 'in character' but we had some small talk (out of character) and I was like wow she is so confident with this look

!!!