I do love how FMA acknowledges that Ed is intentionally the opposite of a self-insert male power fantasy character like a lot of anime main characters are.
Like any time he threatens to get too cool the story completely guts it so fast and reminds us that he's a bratty little shit idiot bastard, literally so much of a dumbass jerk that his brother is aggressively offended that someone thought they might be alike.
Favorite example tho is them having Hohenheim IMMEDIATELY call Ed out for burning down their house like "you didn't do it bcs you're a badass who won't look back you did it cuz you're a dumbass kid who's running from his mistakes" like truly I'll never be over how this story starts to set Ed up to be so cool you can't even relate to him only to make you NOT WANT to relate to him bcs he's The Worst 90% of the time and nearly everyone hates him like 10/10 we love to see it
would like to clarify that I’m not kidding about unironically loving this, Ed is a fantastic character, I adore him, and more fictional teenagers should be allowed to be angry fucked up losers with hearts of gold especially in anime
like FMA shines specifically because it lets it’s characters truly be FLAWED!! the entire story is about how no one is perfect, everyone is fundamentally flawed and yet humanity is still worth fighting for because no matter how far we may fall, no matter how flawed we are, no matter how much harm we do, how much evil exists in the world, we are capable of just as much good and kindness and selfless, reckless love and we can always, ALWAYS, choose to be better
Ed spends the entire show trying to act older than he is and be cool and powerful and hide his mistakes and the show knocks him down every time, over and over, until he at last accepts that he is nothing more or less than a human and that it’s always been enough
god FMA is fucking incredible
I love it how at the end he tries one last time to be Cool Anime Hero with the whole "I'll give you half my life if you give me half" to Winry and she's just like "shut up you fucking idiot, that's not how it works, we give each other all of our lives because we love each other, we share our lives and the time we have, you shitty brat, you complete fucking imbecile"
So, going by the idea of "every truly great story has a random Texan" (see: Dracula, His Dark Materials), I asked my Tolkien encyclopedia wife what race/culture in The Lord of the Rings is the Texan equivalent. They got real mad when I suggested the Rohirrim (because horse culture, I didn't actually think that was the answer but I wanted to provoke my wife), and... I'm gonna step aside so my wife can rant about who in LotR is the actual Random Texan.
Horse =/= Texan.
See the thing about the Texan is that they’re alien, they think overly much of themselves, and they’re not actually as good at shit as they think they are.
You know who hits all those buttons?
LEGOLAS GREENLEAF.
1) he’s not familiar to the POV characters, being an elf.
2) He and all Silvan elves think very highly of themselves even when it’s not really justified anymore.
3) he foregoes a saddle in a situation where riding bareback is actively harder and more inclined to overexertion, probably bc he doesn’t actually know how to handle a saddle but is, bc of point 2, unwilling to reveal he has no idea what the fuck he’s doing.
Legolas Greenleaf is the Texan of Lord of the Rings.
I was thinking the dwarves myself, but yeah, this fits.
dwarves are miners, misunderstood, and live in the ancient mountains. Dwarves are Appalachian.
Naw, LET HER COOK!
THE REAL QUEEN OF RAP!!!!
Leaving this in the tags was criminal
Ewan McGregor to Star in Drama Series ‘A Gentleman in Moscow’ for Paramount+ Internationally, Showtime in U.S.
Can you picture Ewan McGregor as Count Alexander Rostov?
We can!
One of the worst parts of current internet culture is that it makes good old fashioned complaining so difficult. I don’t wanna cancel anyone or bully anyone, I’m not trying to form a hate mob I’m not calling anyone out, i just wanna bitch about something. Because complaining is fun, good for you, even. Is that too much to ask? Where is the room for shooting the shit?