Little Does He Know That That's What All Teenagers Think About

Don’t forget…

State Alchemist once again takes a nap

I’ve been meaning to draw this au forever

i see a lot of people talk about edward being disabled in fma, but it's less often talked about how alphonse is also disabled. i think it's partially because alphonse doesn't experience physical pain like edward so for a majority of the series, he's not having any of those kind of symptoms, but he is still disabled. also because alphonse's experiences are unique. like you don't see ant walking, talking suits of armour in real life (unless they're piloted by a human being physically inside them) and in world, there are about 3 others like alphonse).

alphonse is dependent on edward's survival to function. after fighting scar for the first time, alphonse is literally in pieces. he can't walk or anything until edward is in a position to fix him. similarly his body is dependent on nutrients from edward's body. like there's the point towards the end where edward gets impaled and alphonse collapses. furthermore, these periods where alphonse collapses start to become debilitating towards the end of the series and massively alter his daily living.

also, alphonse constantly talks about how upsetting it is for him to not feel any physical sensations. yeah, he's not feeling physical pain, but he's also not feeling the warmth of a fire, the sun on his face, or the fluffiness of the cats he keeps petting. he talks a lot about not being able to eat or sleep, and how there's a lot of foods he wants to try.

there's another thing that highlighted by edward at one point. alphonse's body doesn't regenerate at all. the parts scar destroys are gone forever; edward stretches out the metal that alphonse has left to repair his body. and obviously human beings don't regrow limbs, but imagine if your skin didn't ever heal over a cut. how long would your body last?

also alphonse gets told several times that his body is great throughout the series, and he literally argues against it every time, because to him it is shit. like he is missing some of his senses just for some supposedly immortal body that isn't even immortal.

even once alphonse gets his own body back, the amount of physical therapy the boy has to go through. his body has essentially been doing nothing and only receiving what nutrients it can get from edward for years. by the end of the series, he's still using a cane as a walking aid. it's unknown whether he requires that cane for the years to come, but for at least a period of time he requires a mobility aid. I don't know enough to say what effect muscle decay from inactivity and severe malnourishment during a major portion of his teenage years would have long term.

Idea: Takenaka is using his powers in this scene. He notices Reigen staring at him, and decides to listen to Reigen’s thoughts to see what’s up. But what Takenaka realizes in that process is that the man is also reading him like an open book – this telepath can hear Reigen breaking down every miniscule aspect of his current presentation, and the conclusions he’s drawing are so uncannily accurate that he might as well be a telepath himself. Being read like this is a new experience for Takenaka since he’s always been on the other side up to now, and this is honestly really unnerving for him.

One thing that makes the mind control in the Divine Tree arc sooooo creepy to me is how much the brainwashed characters still act like themselves. A lot of the time in fiction when characters are mind-controlled they become zombie-like or robotic, with their original personalities suppressed. Or sometimes they become actively sinister, an "evil version" of themselves.

Obviously Divine Tree doesn't do that. Dimple's telling the truth when he says he hasn't changed anyone's personality, he's just given them something new to care about. "A blessing for those who have nothing and long for a place to belong." And that's horrifying. Both because it feels like in some ways a deeper violation than simply making someone pretend to be a person they're not, and because it means that the effect it creates is basically the same as people who have been taken in by cult rhetoric in the real world. The Divine Tree doesn't use magic to create effects that can only be achieved by magic; it uses it to speedrun the radicalization process.

The Divine Tree Arc isn't the horror of having someone you know replaced by an alien consciousness. It's the horror of knowing that the person standing against you is really your friend, your classmate, your brother, your mentor--they just care about something new now. And it's the horror of knowing that when push comes to shove, they're always going to care about that new thing more than they care about you.

I can't believe Mob Mob Psycho 100 has died 😔 F, rest in peace, you'll be missed.... 🙏

[ID: art of Mob from Mob Psycho 100 laying on the ground, in the family guy death pose, flowers in his slack hand and blood pooling underneath him. Above him, there is the letter "F". End ID.]

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