Start Your Day Right With My Favorite Shot Of Tome Kurata From The Reigen Manga.

I like how MP100 fully sidesteps the "But Who Deserves Redemption?" question bc honestly it's a bad framing that gets extremely bogged down in philosophical debates about Good and Evil and who gets to make the call and becomes an awful quagmire and is also not necessary. the better questions are:

Is this person capable of change? (Answer: Yes, always.)

Are they actually going to change? (Answer: That's up to them.)

Do you want them in your life? (Answer: That's up to you.)

if u have some spare time and u don’t mind, I would love to see Roy actually well dressed for once. Maybe a tuxedo? Who knows?

listen…. I’m actually reeeeally fond of his black coat… it’s just…… so…… good

hey ! any tips on how to draw ritsus emo ass hair? u dont have to tho

here are my tips n tricks + general assumed structure

i dont draw his hair consistently but tbh you dont have to. just give him bangs and spikes that sprout from the whorl and ur good

there is a lot of talk (rightfully so) about ???% and how mob has been invalidating and repressing him pretty much his whole life, and how ???% feels about that - i really recommend this excellent post by user luciferstit (I'm not able to @ them for some reason), which really hits the nail on the head imo. no matter how much mob wishes they'd disappear, his powers have saved him countless times, and to reject that idea is to live in denial.

but somehow it never occurred to me until this episode how much the reverse is also true. it's not like the show was trying to be subtle about it, but for some reason i never properly thought about it. ???% wishes mob would disappear because he feels that he's only been holding both of them back, but... mob is the reason they have friends and other people in their life. mob is the one who's been reaching out, over and over, and forging connections. the anime really drove the point home by having this shot of mob extending his hand to ???%.

how many times have we seen mob reach out to people just like this? i've lost count at this point. the side of shigeo that believes in other people's ability to improve themselves and change, the side of him that forgives those who have done wrong in the past and gives them an opportunity to grow, the side of him that shapes others and is shaped in return... that's all mob.

???% says (in the manga) that he doesn't trust anyone and that he doesn't care if no one will come near them, and maybe that'd be true at first, but. people need other people. that's one of the key messages in the show. without mob, living life the way ???% wants to, they'd be completely alone.

???% may (rightly) feel like mob has been invalidating him, but repressing mob in return and making him disappear isn't the answer either. it's like reigen said, everyone has multiple sides to them, but it's because of each of those sides that we are who we are. we just have to accept them.

???% has saved both himself and mob, multiple times, so they survive. but mob has given them connections with other people, so they can live. both are equally important.

reuniting with mom

idol worship

didn't in make it in time for tsubomi day, so mezato day it is!

Riza misquotes Shakespeare at one point in the manga and it got me thinking about what kind of plays they’d like

So the spirit copies someone you trust. For Tome that was Reigen. For Reigen that was Mob…

And for the spirit possessing Reigen (Rusty) that was becoming Reigen, because you can see his head forming from the Mimic spirit. Which is sad but expected, as it means the few nice words and promises Reigen gave Rusty to trick it were the best it ever heard, side no other face appears on Mimic.

Roy and Riza vs defeated idealism.

Roy and Riza's journey in Fullmetal Alchemist is the struggle of the naive idealism of youth against the cynical realism of adulthood. At the core of their characters there is a tenet: that Alchemy — or rather power — should be used for the benefit of the people. Like many things in FMA there is an irony in this. This belief that's so crucial to their characters is something they inherited from someone who, in a way, represents the antithesis of this idea.

Berthold Hawkeye.

The Manga goes out of its way to tell us this is something Behold believed in and passed on to them. First when Roy uses it to justify why he joined the military, and then when Riza admits that she believed in her father's words.

The thing is that there is a dissonance between Berthold's teachings and his character's actions. Berthold is a recluse living away from the people his hoarded knowledge is supposed to help. Roy and Riza know this, and they call him out on it.

They both fervently believe in Berthold's teaching, and they don't understand why he's so adamantly against putting it to practice. When they join the military they don't do so to spite him, they do so because they believe in what he preaches, so much so that they want to prove his cynicism wrong.

The problem is that Berthold is right.

He's sooo freaking right.

Their government is corrupt. All that talk about protecting their people is pure propaganda. His cynicism is the pain of someone who was burned too much by the world's cruelty. Berthold is an idealist that has given up, much like Hohenheim before Trisha. He is someone that once wished to help people, and probably came to the same painful realization that Roy and Riza eventually had in Ishval. The path to hell can be paved with good intentions, and sometimes you're completely powerless to do anything about it.

Now, what makes Riza and Roy such great characters, is the fact that instead of falling into despair and secluding themselves like Berthold did, they decide to fight back and continue clawing at the world with their own — no longer so naive — idealism. They have seen where defeat leads to, and they refuse to walk that path.

My favorite example of Roy's acceptance of both Berthold's teaching, as well as his rejection of Berthold's character, is his conversation with Hughes in Ishval.

This conversation is such a beautiful call back to Berthold telling Roy that alchemists die when they cease to think. This is Roy doubling down, acknowledging that yes he was naive — the world is a much more complicated and painful place than he realized — but still he refuses to give up on the face of reality like Berthold did. Where Berthold accepted his fate, as a man who was already dead inside, Roy and Riza continue to struggle to survive.

Berthold might have taught Roy and Riza that power should be used for good, but his biggest lesson to them was perhaps serving as an example of what happens when you allow your dreams and hope to die.

Ps. This thematic of children following on their parent/mentor footsteps and surpassing them is constant on FMA. Winry being a mechanic like her grandma and deciding to be like her parents by forgiving Scar. Ed and Al becoming alchemist like Hohenheim, but also embracing their familiar bonds and continue to help people despite their trauma. Ling Yao becoming emperor and dismantling the infighting his father had promoted. Scar embracing his brother's alchemy and dream. It is then fitting that Roy and Riza also inherited something from Berthold and then surpassed him.