#ishval au

[sometimesiwritetoo]

Give it ten years and Roy's gonna ask to be dismissed from their bed.

[screamting]

No no, all good points re; Ishvalan AU. I too like the concept, but there's only a few I would rec (namely Shanastoryteller's AU where she does a really credible job). It's one of those niche fic ideas that is surprisingly hard to do well and with a proper balance of respect towards real similar cultures and worldbuilding in the fantasy setting its a part of.

I tried to google the fic and

This is the funniest fucking way I've ever seen ao3 rendered

[fullmetalfuckery]

I'm finally sorting out the Ishvalan AU timeline!! I've also gone through the doc and changed Trisha's name to smth better! Check it out!

[screamting]

Oooooh, hmmm. What about your thoughts on an Ishvalan!Trisha AU? There are some good ones out there, how would you do it? Or Xingese!Trisha? Thats rarer.

I... Like the idea of the Ishvalan AU, but I tend to have trouble with how people actually... execute it. Especially with changing Ed and Al's given names and exoticizing Ishval in a way it feels like.

(It should be noted I am white and so Like. This is not a real ethnic group, but I might be having the Weird Feelings that a cis person trying to be an ally may have towards genuine good trans shit sometimes, which is why I just back tab when I get uncertain about the aus lol)

But genuinely with the name thing, I find a lot of AUs using arabic and persian names as if Ishval is a 1-to-1 translation of the middle east when all the named Ishvalan people we have are named like.... Rick. Miles. Shan. Lowe. Leo. Like, listen.... Scar's name could've been fucking Mike.

It's fully in people's rights if they want to take the AU in a direction that reminds them of the middle east? I just. Would like them to do it more decisively than their gut reaction being "ah a desert war! I know the names people have!"

I had my own personal strong reaction to the Ishval arc, and while there's definitely middle eastern influence, if you follow the "amestris is Germany" route then Ishval could line up with the herero wars where, you know, a systematic extermination of probably at least 65k people in modern day nambia occurred. If Amestris is a landlocked Japan analogue, then you can argue it's an analogue to the treatment of the Ainu people in Hokkaido, who are very invisible in society and have historically had their lands seized and culture suppressed. If it's Word of God, Arakawa has stated the events were influenced by Japanese war crimes in WWII so uh. 731. She also interviewed veterans of WWII and the sino-japanese war to get the details accurate.

Maybe the middle eastern angle bugs me because fma is very explicit about the systemic wiping out of Ishvalans, so naturally my 14 year old self mostly knows Systematic Genocide as holocaust, and (now as an older person) how people treated Jews in Europe afterwards as if the holocaust was something they brought upon themselves, and were now inconveniencing people by daring to survive and wanting their siezed property back.

So I'm definitely very interested in the au, theorerically, but how would I handle it?

With a history degree glfbkddn

[whenthemarshmallowmettheslayer]

👀

favorite response to one of your works

(Put on your) Doll faces

I don’t actually know the original tale of Red Riding Hood all that well, but the way you described the story sounds a lot to me like a japanese folktale called kachi kachi yama (fire cracle mountain). An old man and his wife live on firecracle mountain, spending their days taking care of their crop. One day, the old man catches tanuki - a known trickster - mucking aboit in his fields and ruining their harvest. After years of trying and failing, on this day the old man catches the tanuki and orders his wife to prepare tanuki as a soup for dinner that evening. the tanuki tricks the old woman - via flattery and acting innocent - to let him go. as soon as she does tanuki kills the old woman and transforms into her by wearing her skin. and so, prepares a soup for the old man put of his wife’s remains. he feeds the soup and meat to the old man dressed as his wife before revealing his trick and running away.

anyway, i’m loving these short fics of the ishvalan elrics and thought that maybe i should inform you of the theme you inadvertently created :)

[sodafizzyart]

Hopping on the Ishval Elric AU bandwagon.

[vanbrohenheim]

i had to contribute to this au eventually and i really loved allhailtheicebitch's ishvalan armstrongs idea so here's alex and catherine

[trash-raccoon]

So I’ve been seeing a lot of Ishvalan!Ed around and I have some thoughts to it.

First, the alchemy. Ishvalans, to put it one way, don’t like alchemy. But since the title is ‘Fullmetal Alchemist’ I’m pretty sure Ed still ends up trying to bring Trisha back and loses his arm and leg for it. So I’m guessing he’s pretty much neutral to alchemy, possibly because of Hohenheim. And maybe he’ll become a non-believer later on after his encounter with Truth. But since Ishvalans hold their religion in high regard, how did his neutral view of alchemy come to be?

Second, the military. Is it going to make his years in there worse? Being a child of 12 when he joined, Ed definitely would have faced many problems. Now, being part Ishvalan, how is it going to affect him? I’m guessing Roy and Riza will try to make it better for him, since they were part of the troops having to exterminate Ishval, as will Hughes, most likely. And the rest of Mustang’s team will support him as well, I’m sure. But what about the rest of the military? How will people like Denny Brosh and Maria Ross, who had nothing to do with the war, react to him? How will Bradley? Especially Bradley, considering he’s the one to give the go ahead of the extermination anyway and how Ed’s test to become State Alchemist went.

Third, his relationship with other Ishvalans. Since he practices alchemy, how will other Ishvalans react to this? He would be shunned, I guess, for practicing an act that defies the god Ishvala. And how about that episode when Scar tries to kill him? I’m pretty sure Scar won’t kill someone who shares his heritage, but then again he’s still a State Alchemist.

I know the Ishval!AU most likely began as someone’s fun idea, but I feel that these are questions worth asking. Please share your thoughts to this!