What was the moment, if you can pinpoint one, that you found out you loved alchemy? I mean, there's so much work that goes into you being one of he top alchemists in Amestris, not to mention being probably the best in your field of flame alchemy, so what made you so passionate about it?
I don’t know that I can pinpoint one exactly, but it was early – I do know that when I arrived at my foster mother’s, scrawny and awkward too short to see over the bar counter, I already had an armful of alchemy books with which I refused to part, even though I hardly understood them at all. I just kept reading them, over and over, until they made more sense to me, which was probably somewhere around the age of ten.
At first, I admit, I got into alchemy because I was terrible at making friends – it took me quite a while to realize that when you raise your hand to answer every question in school, your classmates tend not to like you much, despite your encyclopedic knowledge of insect morphology, which I thought was quite a mark in my favor, at the time.
But somewhere along the line, I became fascinated with the basic alchemy texts I found in the science section at the city library, and in between my increasing shenanigans under my foster mother’s care and paying lip service to my formal education, I studied until I actually got good enough to be able to weasel myself in for an apprenticeship with the greatest alchemist I could find.
As far as what made me so passionate about it – honestly, what’s not to feel passionate about? Being able to summon flame basically from nowhere, and bend it to my will? Imagine how attractive this was to a young man who had recently become aware of the power of charisma and his own physical attractiveness – and to a young man with big ideals and who had been entirely powerless for most of his life.
There is a particular thrill to alchemy in general – to understanding the physical world, breaking it down, and rebuilding it in your own image. It’s electric, it’s addictive – and then, adding flame to that, adding real /power/ to a geeky interest…
I was willing to do anything to master it, and I did.
WHY DID I NOT KNOW YOU USED TO BE A HUGE FREAK FOR INSECT MORPHOLOGY
HOW HAVE YOU NOT TOLD ME THIS FOR FUCK’S SAKE MUSTANG
YOU JUST GOT LIKE TEN TIMES HOTTER
uh
fuck, uh
…well if it helps at all i used to be a piece of shit in school and ignore the teachers and basically raise hell all the time and no one except Al and Winry liked me either so i guess you sort of have to fall somewhere on the middle of the spectrum if you want to have a social life
anyway i think this is a prime example of what this community calls an a+ post
fucking awesome
It wouldn't be fun if I revealed all of my secrets at once, would it?
But I'm glad to know you find this... appealing, heh. I will have to brush up on my knowledge. Maybe even give you a bit of morphology-related dirty talk sometime.