I'm getting kind of tired of all the bashing of the FMA anime that goes on. And for once I'm not talking about people on the MU*s but rather people scattered about LJ.

Guys, Bones did not up and decide to ruin a beautiful manga. They got the series when it wasn't very far into the manga, and it was only publishing once per month. They must have known from the start they'd have to split from canon at some point. Did they do a brilliant job of it? Well, no. But they did not set out to ruin your perfect story, nor did they deliberately screw it all up. They were operating under external constraints that forced them into rather less than ideal situations.

You want to see an anime that might as well have deliberately set out to screw things up? Go look at Bleach, its slipshod pacing, its rough insertion of characters in the wrong places, its careless cutting of important moments--when it had plenty to work with in the start.

FMA simply did not have that luxury. It would have been nice if they'd waited to license it until the manga was finished, but as things turned out, that wasn't what happened--so they had to stumble along with their own plot. It was nowhere near as good as it could/should have been, but to a point they did pretty damn well. They fleshed out a bunch of minor characters, captured several scenes beautifully, and in general gave us some excellent moments and a reasonably decent plot for a while.

It may not be the manga, and it may not be what you wanted, and it may not be everybody's cup of tea, but stop acting as if Bones is the Antichrist because they couldn't live up to the manga.

So I saw some fanart on DA--
Strength: Kakashi
The Star: Sakura + The Sun: Naruto + The Moon: Sasuke
--and of course that got me thinking. Mmm, character Tarot. I'm lazy, so I mostly stick to the Major Arcana when I think of these things, but still.
( FMATarot )
Coming soon: NaruTarot! In the meanwhile, damn I wish I could draw.

This is strange fanfic. It's...not really fanfic, actually. It's...well, nexuscity isn't open yet, so...I wrote Christmas there myself. This is extremely AU FMA. If you haven't had the whole crazy mess explained to you already, you'll probably be quite lost.

It's nothing much--just a quick blurb.
( Now I walk through blizzards just to get us back together. )

Remember that night when kotoludi decided she felt like having Archer be evil to someone? No, not that one, the other night--no, the other other night...okay, so she feels that way a lot. But this is the one where her victim was Hughes. It is full of angst and evil. It's also pretty hot.

Also, because we are crazy spammers (mostly kotoludi, I just sat there and shortposed at her), it's been cut into two posts.
( Part I. )

This one's rather angstier than my only other piece of FMA fanfiction to date, and quite a bit longer. The rating's also lower--either PG or PG-13, I'm not sure. Some implied sex, a little bad language.

Some of this is my own inspiration, and some is a present for amurderofcrows. I don't have a title for it yet for sure, although I've been using the working title "Looking Back." It'll go up on FF.net when people have looked it over here.
( Ed is angsty. Big surprise. )

Fullmetal Alchemist as a tabletop game:
scattersane says "Ed's player has to be either sleeping with the GM or paying for all the pizza. Special alchemy methods, steampunk limbs, and prodigy, all for the "diminutive size" flaw? Yeah, right."
annwyd says "I'd say paying for the pizza. If he was sleeping with the GM, he wouldn't get smacked around so much."
selphish says "It'd have to be more than pizza for all of that!"
selphish says "Hell, everyone'd start bringing snacks if all it took was pizza for all those goodies."
scattersane says "You seriously underestimate the sway that pizza holds on a gaming table."
annwyd says "Now, if someone brought sushi..."
scattersane says "You know, that would be the perfect gaming food."
scattersane says "Compact, not messy."
scattersane says "And you can make people eat wasabi to cancel rolls of 1."
scattersane says "Well, I know how I'm running tabletop from now on."

Many of you have been overexposed to a certain portrayal of Edward Elric. Unfortunately, this has tainted the character for you rather nastily. In the hopes of beginning to fix this, I present to you:
( The defense's statement )
La la la, there's more to say than that, but it's early and I got very little sleep. Just know that there's more to the character than how tainted he's been.

the angst it burns away all my capital letters

saaaaaaaad fangirl
( miscellaneous fma spoilage, only vague spoilers for 36 itself. )

Friendslocked because sometimes my father reads my Livejournal. This is the first smut I've ever written, so of course it's going to be tame. Take it and like it, bitches.

( OMG teh pr0n )

Home now. It's awfully rainy out, and I'm bored. But I got FMA 33, so all is good.
( Spoilers. )

I have no idea whether I'm completely making shit up here, or just stating the obvious. Yay!
( Cut for spoilers. )

There is no Funimation. There is no Cartoon Network. There is no dub.

There will be US-released DVDs. They will have an option to watch with subtitles, but even though they will also have an option to watch with dubs, THERE IS NO DUB.

Goddammit, they raised more questions!

At least they went over Izumi's backstory. I dunno--I'm thinking of taking her on blackgate, but I'm not sure I could do her. Also, if I let myself get too attached to her, they'll probably kill her off horribly.

Not that I'm bitter or anything.

Edit: Spoilers in comments.

I've looked and I've looked, and I've Googled incessantly, but the only hit I can turn up on a translation of either of the first two themesongs of FMA is a rough translation of "Melissa" on a messageboard somewhere. Not satisfactory. So I transcribed the AF-F/Sonchou and the ANBU/Anime-Keep translations for each, and I patched together a personal translation out of those. Eventually, I may do the other themesongs, but the first set is my favorite (although the second set is growing on me more and more as I listen to it). And Winry's new rack notwithstanding, I loathe the new ending theme.

This doesn't include the lyrics that aren't included in the short versions, alas; I don't have the raw translations for that.
( 'Melissa' and commentary )
( 'Kesenai Tsumi' and commentary )

Don't watch anime in the morning.

Coffee is a much better way to wake up than FMA 25.

(Those of you who know what I'm talking about, don't spoil; there may be people reading this who won't appreciate it.)

Fullmetal Alchemist is animated crack.

It owns my soul.

So amazing.

Thanks to amurderofcrows and fallofrain for being my pushe episode suppliers.

MUST HAVE MORE FMA.