thecagedwyrm

[thecagedwyrm]

been reading achilles come down & the other fics in that series by @biscaanii / @biscaani & i am honestly obsessed. so of course i doodled some things inspired by it uwu

[thecagedwyrm]

I was told "this would do numbers on Tumblr"

[thecagedwyrm]

People underestimate how much it fucks you up to be subtly excluded as a kid. I would try to talk to my classmates and be met with disinterest or annoyance. The one friend I had, who I clung to and nodded along to his every word, had other friends he liked just as much or more. And his other friends didn’t care for me at all.

I look back at pictures from the time and see how separated I was from them. I remember knowing I was different. I remember posing questions about the world to the girls playing next to me and realizing that they had never asked the same ones to themselves. That the ways we thought couldn’t be more different.

I kept myself amused with my own fanatical stories and musings in my head. I would wander the playground on a circular path, imagining a friend and being sorely disappointed when it didn’t feel as real as I’d hoped.

There was a bubble separating me from everyone else, thin, and nearly invisible, but with a pearly sheen you could catch under the right conditions. I knew it was there, they knew it was there, and it changed me

[thecagedwyrm]

Harrison Wood Hsiang

[thecagedwyrm]

your fanfiction is valid

[thecagedwyrm]

[thecagedwyrm]

this randomly blew up on twitter so i figured i’d post it here bc lord knows everyone on this app is neurodivergent

[thecagedwyrm]

Happy one year anniversary to In Stars and Time!

[thecagedwyrm]

Is this anything

[thecagedwyrm]

after all this time? always.

[thecagedwyrm]

Reading Fate Unchained ⛓️ 🤍

[thecagedwyrm]

I have other things I should be working on

Have some dorks instead

[thecagedwyrm]

grimmy

[thecagedwyrm]

Grimmjow (2016, reupload from my old account)

[thecagedwyrm]

GRIMMJOW JAEGERJAGUEZ

[thecagedwyrm]

"I had choice paralysis :(" is a KILLER line.

He's such a comedic powerhouse, I'm glad more people are getting exposed to him :'D

[thecagedwyrm]

thinking a lot about fullmetal alchemist and due to the power of my adhd being medicated i have a lot to say about it

(i finally started reading the manga after having watched FMA:B a few times)

(spoilers below cut)

i didn't really pick up on this before, it's really hitting hard how the core theme of FMA is Hiromu Arakawa trying to process the trauma of growing up in post-war Japan, thinking as a child that their country is just and right and good, and then slowly discovering the extent of Japan's war crimes and the depravity and evil that the country sunk to during the war. (there are MANY. Unit 731 seems particularly relevant to Marcoh's philospher's stone research). and discovering how, at the end of the war, Japan's leadership was fully willing to sacrifice the civilian lives of the entire country to maintain their own personal glory (lots of similarities to The Father's plan to destroy all of Amestris in order to achieve godhood).

and like, in that context, Edward/Alphonse and Roy Mustang/Riza Hawkeye are such brilliant foils for eachother. both Edward and Roy Mustang are incredibly driven people with no fear of personal pain that are willing to do absolutely anything to achieve their own goals and better Amestris. but Edward is young, and hot-blooded, and a loose cannon, and (at the start) unaware of the evils committed in Amestris's name. and he gets angry when he discovers those. meanwhile, Mustang is older, and more measured and much more constrained by the military hierarchy he's operating in, and he directly helped commit many of the war crimes that Amestris perpetrated. but he's racked with guilt over the innocent lives he's taken, and rather than drifting through Amestris solving problems as they come up (like Edward), he's fully committed to working within Amestris's evil fascist dictatorship and pulling wires behind the scene in order to become the supreme leader of Amestris and make the government more righteous with the full power of an entire country behind him.

I've got less to say about Alphonse and Riza Hawkeye, but they both are committed to Edward/Mustang to the point of death. both Alphonse and Riza are more level-headed than their partners, will do anything to protect them, and have gone through a lot of personal pain in order to help them achieve their ultimate goals. Neither Edward nor Roy would be where they are without Alphonse or Riza's help. Both Alphonse and Riza were active partners in the sins their respective duos committed (human transmutation and war crimes). and, even separated from their partners, both Alphone and Riza are incredibly capable individuals that are more than able to hold their own.

this extends to the character design. look at how Edward and Mustang mirror eachother in their hair (bangs in particular) and angry expression

and look at how Alphonse and Riza mirror eachother -- also in their hair and their large, expressive eyes

what an incredible piece of art. love seeing the amount of love and care that went into this.

(P.S. Royai is like peak relationship goals. i want what they have)

(P.P.S. there's a lot of depictions of common people as honest, good, hardworking, and faithful people that are trapped in horrible machines beyond their control, esp. in the first few chapters (the Leto arc, the mining town arc). i really like how Arakawa goes out of her way to absolve the common people of the sins of their circumstances. it's good stuff)