Buff Riza is my aesthetic @the-lamealchemist - Tumblr Blog

grapesofa

Maika's blogs masterlist

@maikamaika - My main blog

@maikamaika-art - My art blog

@drinking-tea-at-parties - My podcast blog (a lot of tbs)

@ineffable-dork - My book/webcomic blog

@the-lamealchemist - My anime blog (mostly fmab)

@forgive-me-i-have-simmed - My sims CC blog

tinfigs

Give me middle aged broad shouldered postcanon riza or give me death

fma does a poor job with its race themes

I’ve seen a lot of posts lately about how FMA/B is anti-fascist, anti-imperialist, anti-racist, etc and I want y’all to be careful about it. I obviously love the manga and show a lot, but it’s important to notice where it gets problematic.

It’s great that the FMA fandom knows how race works, but the source material really doesn’t.

Now, I can’t speak for 03, but when I read the manga and watched Brotherhood and saw so many problems with how they handled Ishval, and how they handled race in general. I have a meta sitting in my drafts breaking down how Arakawa messed up in depicting Major Miles.

It’s important to remember that although it’s a great manga and show, FMA’s race themes suck. It depicts a genocide of a race, but it portrays the perpetrators, the Amestrian soldiers, more sympathetically than the race itself. Scar and Miles are the only relevant Ishvalan characters, and of the two, Scar is a revenge-obsessed murderer who learns that he needs to let go of his hate.

Your friendly reminder that if you’re the survivor of a genocide, you very much are allowed to hate your oppressors.

FMA also fails to adequately portray and challenge imperialism. “But the expansion of Amestris is portrayed as bad,” you might say. But the only reason the source material gives for that is because Amestrian imperialism is intended to create a huge circle for human sacrifice.

In Sloth’s tunnel during the Briggs arc, it’s mentioned in passing that Amestris grew to the size it is by conquering other territories. That makes it an empire, and Amestris should have diverse cultures and people, like empires do. There should be scars to show how individual territories were hurt by Amestrian conquest. But as far as race goes? We only ever see Amestrian vs. Ishvalan. The only thing we see in the show to suggest that forcibly annexing other countries is a Bad Thing is that the Ishvalans weren’t too happy about it.

As far as anti-fascism goes, you can say that the show does address it as Riza talks about changing Amestris to a democracy. I personally think there could’ve been more, but at least it’s there.

I love Fullmetal Alchemist. But it’s really important to be critical of what you’re consuming and know where a piece of media has problems.

#yup yup

huh-enheim

I'm starting a collection

headspace-hotel

Good worldbuilding rewards you for questioning it.

asterrisms

some REALLY FAST… scar sketches…. i miss fma and most of all i miss him: the only character who matters…

#scar

tinfigs

Kain a freaque

silentwalrus1

#I love kain fuery#he is just a little guy. he’s regular please please I promise#ignore that he works directly for Roy mustang ignore it shhhh @idontpostanythingignoreme