#not only is the worldbuilding really good

[piratejenna]

Spoilers for FMAB and FMA manga

Prompt: fic with your favorite worldbuilding

Title (series): It's an Enormous World

Author: @elfpen

Fandom: Fullmetal Alcehmist

Rating: varied (General and up)

Word Count: 26,028

Summary: My own ideas on what the Elric Brothers get up to post FMAB/Manga. Published at various times, I'll arrange this series in narrative chronological order.

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So this one's a little different since I'm talking about a whole series. I will point out my favorite individual fic, but this series as a whole has some of my favorite worldbuilding.

Alright, so this series is set post-canon, and as the title of the series implies, each fic is focused on what the Elrics are doing and where they are. There are a few worldbuilding aspects I like, and I want to hit each one.

First, I love the stuff with Al in Xing. The fic presents a cool picture of what Al's time there is like, and while I am delighted by the developing of Al and Mei's relationship, I really like how the author expands Al and Ling's relationship. "Legends" and "The Treaty" both give interesting looks into Al's role in Xing and what Ling is doing as emperor, and it's very cool.

Second, I really like this version of Ed and Winry's family. They have a bunch of kids, which is adorable. Winry has her automail shop which is great. In particular, I like that in "Inequivalent Exchange" Winry's shop is in Rush Valley (some people put them in Resembool, which I get, but personally I like this better). And of course, I love that Elfpen has perfectly shown Ed to be a wonderful dad, despite this never really being the focus of any of the fics.

Finally, this series has my favorite post-Ed, where he has become an alchemy professor in Central. I already love this concept, but Elfpen does a magnificent job in characterizing Ed as a professor. He both feels like he's grown from where we last see him in canon while also being recognizable as the same character. The scenes in his classroom are my favorite in the series.

The most recent fic, "Questions", is probably my favorite. This one is an outside pov (which I love), and has Al filling in for Ed's class, and it's so great! The development that is shown through Al dropping off-hand comments about the other characters is great. I particularly like the scene where the narrator sees Al and Mustang interacting.

The way Elfpen expands on canon throughout this series is so lovely to read. There's still room for the reader to fill in blanks, and I like that the author doesn't try to explain absolutely everything. There are still stretches of time we don't see, and that's part of what I love about "Questions". The worldbuilding is delivered in small snippets, in the way you'd expect in a book, where you learn about things from off-hand comments. And part of the effect is that in every fic, you get the feeling that these characters are doing things "off screen". Elfpen wonderfully creates the sense that this series is just giving us glimpses into a larger story.

I would strongly recommend this series to any FMA fans, and while "Questions" is my favorite, I'd recommend starting at the beginning since there are concepts that get built on overtime. (But if you are looking for Professor Ed, "The Circle" is a good one that you can start with).

[hedgehog-moss]

My top 10 nonfiction reads of 2023 (the asterisked ones are in French with no translation as of yet) :

Belle Greene, Alexandra Lapierre

The Indomitable Marie-Antoinette, Simone Bertière

Reporter: A Memoir, Seymour Hersh

Red Carpet: Hollywood, China and the Global Battle for Cultural Supremacy, Erich Schwartzel

Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty, Patrick Keefe

Servir les riches, Alizée Delpierre*

La Comtesse Greffulhe : L’ombre des Guermantes, Laure Hillerin*

Le Courage de la nuance, Jean Birnbaum*

The Book Collectors of Daraya, Delphine Minoui

Flowers of Fire: The Inside Story of South Korea's Feminist Movement, Hawon Jung

[lazycranberrydoodles]

portrait practice with SILO characters rahhhh (for each i tried to work from reference as much as i could and then switched to tracing so that they Looked Right.)

[13eyond13]

nothing more cringe than coaxing and half-forcing someone to go to the movies with you because you're talking up how good the last one in the series was and then they finally agree to go and then it ends up being over two hours long and also kinda the worst 😬

[randum-famdoms]

JK Rowling’s books are a building. And she stopped after creating shitty, waterlogged, deeply structurally unsound blueprints and half the scaffolding. Then left it to the elements (aka her Twitter), damaging it nearly beyond repair.

And the fandom looked at this, and put on hard hats. And they tore down that scaffolding, and took those blueprints and changed it into something that would work, and they built the most beautiful building you’ve ever seen.

The building JK Rowling designed was deeply flawed, it would never pass inspection, it would collapse under its own weight and lack of structural integrity within seconds of being built. The aesthetic design was tragic and hideous and offensive. But the fans looked at all of that, and said to themselves, “this building is fucked up, it will never be good if left like this, and everything about it is terrible and makes zero sense. But goddamnit, I have trauma and I can fix it because it must be done and no one else will.”

JK Rowling may have designed that original building. She may have had the initial idea. She may have built that unfinished scaffolding. She may have drawn those blueprints.

But this building is no longer JK Rowling’s.

[fallenandproud]

fun fact, the breaking point that led me to finally cave and make this sideblog was watching youtube shorts and the algorithm decied to throw a TON of hazbin hotel / helluva boss stuff at me and one came up with Lucifer Charlie's dad just as like. one of those edits and THEN i scroll and THE NEXT ONE IS SOMEONE DRAWING THE FALL FROM HEAVEN and i decided right then and there that on top of my demon fixation coping mechanism i now am going to project heavily onto LUCIFER HIMSELF.

[yamaylander]

finally finished monarch with friend. really damn good show

[waitineedaname]

I've been relistening to the homestuck soundtrack album by album while working lately and man. it's reminding me how much I genuinely loved about homestuck, and how that made the aspects of it that sucked so much more frustrating

[padfootastic]

Sunday Snippet

(is that a thing? idk but i literally just wrote this for FoD and it wont be posted for a few chapters--so a couple months minimum--but i just. really wanted to share it so. enjoy)

He casually points a finger at the hideous vase behind their heads, levitating it wandlessly and wordlessly. If he was around other wix, they would’ve been amazed and perhaps, slightly awed. That it was Muggles--and this particular set at that--meant they were almost vibrating out of their skin in fear. 

Good. 

“Do you know,” he started with a pleasant smile, bringing the floating vase closer to them, enjoying the way Petunia’s mouth opened in a wordless scream. He didn't even have to Silence them. “they thought I could kill 12 people, just like that, with one word. Not one person, not even my closest friends, believed otherwise.”

Once upon a time that statement would’ve hurt, it had hurt him everytime he was conscious enough to think about it in Azkaban. But he’d made his peace with it now, had accepted that there was a part of him that was inherently repulsive, untrustworthy, broken. 

“There was a reason for why they did that. My brother--you know him, James--was murdered. They thought I lost my mind, and perhaps I did, a little bit.” 

Because James was the last--and only--person who’d never turned away from him. He’d taken all of Sirius’ ugliness, all those rough edges he’d tried so hard to hide, cutting himself and the world in the process, and kept those with himself. Sirius never had to worry about himself around James, because he knew he’d take care of him. Wouldn’t let him break. 

At least, that’s how it should have been. They should’ve grown old together, stuck at the hip until their hearts and their magic gave out. James shouldn’t have been buried in the ground at the age of twenty fucking one while Sirius still had to live without him, god, it was so unfair. 

It was--

He shouldn’t be living without James. He was nothing without James. 

It was that thought that sent a fresh wave of anger through his veins, anger he knew was very plainly visible on his face, reflecting in his eyes, because the moment he looked at the Dursleys, he could hear two distinctive whimpers at once. 

“So,” he said, voice rough like gravel, almost unrecognisable to even him. He knew his eyes would be closer to black than their usual grey, the Madness stirring within him, wanting out. “What do you think I’ll do to people, to vermin like you, who touched my godson?” 

His only response was a slow, trickling sound and a pungent smell filling the living room. 

[shummthechumm]

part of me wants to say that MV couldve really benefitted from being longer, but then i immediately remember that this is wc we are talking about and no matter what; they will find a way to deny just how dangerous a way of life following the code can be for those who don’t fit within it’s rules. 

all of warriors does this and it only confuses the narrative more. im not surprised that there is so much discourse surrounding the story and it’s characters, man. and on top of that the series is targeted towards kids in elementary school so. 

[lord-squiggletits]

I know there are as many religious good guys as there are religious bad guys in IDW, but I think I pinned down the reason why it feels like the most prominent religious figures are all bad guys and it's pretty much due to the worldbuilding.

Maybe my memory of the comics is just really bad, but the religious worldbuilding in IDW is....kind of trash honestly. I'm not sure there's a single religion or religious custom that doesn't exist solely to further the plot along. Like, it's one thing for the Camiens to worship the Primes and that causes a lot of stuff in exRID/OP, but what does that worship actually look like? What are their holidays, customs, religious texts? What about "spectralism" which basically the only thing we know about is the Festival of the Lost Light and some hippie color coding and aura shit? Like sure, there are characters who are religious and their beliefs come into play sometimes, but it honestly feels (especially in MTMTE) more like their religiousness only exists when it's relevant to the plot and it's just kinda. Disappointing eh. Lacking in worldbuilding. Plus the more religious a character is the more it's written as their entire personality and the driving force making them evil so it just kinda made me cringe to read honestly.

[terpia]

What’s up with Fear and Hunger? You’re the second person I’ve seen blogging about it and I’m curious. It’s a video game - is it difficult or scary?

It's both!

Fear and Hunger is a survival horror game masking itself as an RPG. It kind of has a similar vibe to Pathologic, if you're familiar with it? Both games gained cult following due to how difficult and unforgiving they are, although to be honest, a lot of the difficulty in Fear and Hunger comes from not knowing what you're doing when you first start playing. That's very much on purpose - the game doesn't explain shit. As a result, you die a lot (especially if you try to play the game like a normal RPG), but each run helps you to gain a bit more knowledge of how the game, its world and the enemies operate, making each successive run slightly easier and more efficient.

The first game in the series is a dungeon crawler heavily inspired by Berserk, while the second game is a weird mix of a post-WWII setting, a battle royale premise, and eldritch horror (although that last one is also very much present in the first game). Both games are very brutal and come with a ton of content warnings, but they're also made in the RPGMaker, so you know. Personally, I found that due to the weird stylised look of RPGMaker games, the graphic violence never felt like too much, even if the acts being depicted were in themselves brutal/disturbing.

If you'd like to find out more and enjoy long video essays, I'd recommend Super Eyepatch Wolf's video on the game! It's what made me fall into a rabbit hole of watching playthroughs/videos about the lore of Fear and Hunger, which in turn really got me into the game's story and made me want to play it myself. I'm currently playing the second game in the series and having a lot of fun with it!

[fragmentedblade]

No but even beyond the heathcliffean air of his story as a kid, Nelly scene and revenge fantasies included, and even beyond the identification of the self with the craft, the entire concept of Yingxing is so good.

The glimpse we get of the relationship he has with his master has so much potential. What it says about him, what it says about everyone around them, what it says about the kid.

The fact that already as a child Yingxing was vindictive, as he will be as Blade.

His self-consciousness about being a short life species, and how he is right to be self-conscious about it. How in such a short time, being so young, he's had to deal with enormous tragedy, so that he can even as a kid look the truth in the eye and admit it. Admit that he has to work harder, longer, more obsessively, and that still nonetheless there's little chance to get ever at the level of the long life species that look down on him and take him for granted. How he is able to overcome it.

It's incredible also in the context of Dan Feng. How both struggle with their identities and how they get new ones, but in totally opposite ways. Dan Feng is weighted down by what he is and what he can do, and wants to escape that fate, and dreams of a new life in which he can be something else; and Dan Heng is born. Yingxing takes pride in that which he can do, something he wasn't born into, something he had to work very hard to achieve, and that was the path to overcome the prejudices and undermining gazes he had to bear as a short life species. He crafts his place into the Xianzhou society and becomes the legendary Furnace Master. Even on a more personal level, one could argue this is his way of maneuvering his life, of expressing himself, this is how he deals with things; like his relationship with Jing Yuan having a turning point after giving him his weapon, or how he crafted that jade flask. And then he loses his ability to create and loses himself; he becomes Blade.

The fact that even as an adult, as an exceedingly arrogant craftsman, something of the shy self-conscious kid remains is both endearing and heartbreaking as well. In some ways we still see that in Blade.

We also see echoes of that personality in Mr. Xiao, who worked under him. And that alongside his craftsmanship, his ability to fix and create auromatons even though they are vanishing in the civilian landscape, live on through Mr. Xiao. And die alongside him, for Mr. Xiao too has become but a relic of another time.

The way the other stories of craftsmen enhance facets of Yingxing's is so good too. Mainly in the story of Master Ryan and Chengjie, with the insight we get of the struggles of short life species in the Xianzhou, especially those dedicated to a craft, and how hard it is for them to reach positions of prestige. It also poses the question of how we can transcend time, if it's possible at all, and how the sharing of knowledge, the passing down of skills, the shared loved, is one of the answers. This was all already significant before, but the information gains weight with the existence of Mr. Xiao. I'd argue there's echoes of Yingxing even in Master Gongshu. His love for his automatons, his sincere fondness for them, his pride on his job, his loyalty to his position and duties, the way he is both hard and stern as well as loving with his apprentices, and how he talks about short life species.

On a sort of ontological way, it's very interesting to see how Yingxing goes from craftsman to tool or weapon, from creator to creation, from subject to object. The potential in the context of Abundance/Destruction is also extremely intriguing, I think. He who created is unmade by a curse of Abundance. He who forged weapons now follows that path of destruction. There's so much going on with Yingxing conceptually around the cycles of death and rebirth, destruction and creation; it's so fitting that now Blade is stuck in such a cycle in the most literal way.

And it's so fitting too that, in all this context, given Yingxing's entire story, Blade's entire being, that which he made unmade him. That which he created and gave him so much pride was the weapon that killed him. And now he wields it himself, his tool of revenge while he follows the path to eternal and irrevocable death.

[elftwink]

hello gay people in my phone have any of you read Winter's Orbit by Everina Maxwell. if the answer is no. can you PLEASE so I have someone to talk to about it

[tamaharu]

What isekai are you reading if you don’t mind me asking?

okay... but youre not allowed to make fun of me... its called "50 tea recipes from the duchess." korean woman gets fired, gets isekai'd into the body of a duchess who is timid to the point of patheticness and everybody fuckin hates her. is like uggghh well i dont care if im hated as long as i have my special interest: TEA. and with her autistic girl swag (label pending) she makes both the society and her cold intimidating husband love her. 70% of it is her infodumping about tea to the delight of everyone around her.

[soldier-poet-king]

finally started stormlight archive bc ive been in such A Mood and needed at least one (1) fictional man to be sadder than me and oh boy is kaladin sure delivering the most depressed, wettest paper bag of a man in the whole entire world, i would die for him immediately