It’s the most wonderful time of the year… for non-CoS Edwin shippers.

Winry light novel part 2: YES WINRY IS FIGHTING THE AUTOMAIL MAFIA!!!

-So, Winry is adorable and will hold a sandwich with her mouth for like several minutes when she’s intently working on something with both hands occupied, unfortunately Garfiel lectures her this is not ‘ladylike’, SHUT UP LET HER LIVE HER LIFE, though he does start laughing about it.

-She’s working on some new automail for Ed on the side, but Garfiel mistakes it for the other kid’s based on its size since it would fit a twelve year old and Winry’s like “omg I wish he was here to hear that” GIRL.

-SHIPPING TIME we can put Garfiel on the list of in universe people who ship Ed and Winry (I have to know if he questioned her taste after meeting him) she gets really mad after he calls them “precious” and is like “WE’RE JUST FRIENDS” and stomps off it’s a LITTLE on the nose but that doesn’t matter BECAUSE

-TIME TO FIGHT THE AUTOMAIL MAFIA!!!

The kid Winry’s been trying to help, Darish’s, little sister accidentally bumped into some a shelf full of automail stuff, and the shop owner tries to extort money from her. AND WINRY IS READY TO FIGHT THIS DUDE.

Winry then proves it’s pre-broken with some EXPERT AUTOMAIL NERD ASSESSMENT and:

HER SPECIAL MOVE

I love that this keeps in line with the fact like no, Winry’s not a physical fighter, but she can save people in her own way. And it looks like this book is going to continue with the FIGHTING THE AUTOMAIL MAFIA plotline, so this like, means officially, that the answer to “what was Winry doing whenever she was offscreen in the manga” is “saving small children and fighting the automail mafia.”

Amazing. Incredible. Transcendent.

did you know her name is Winry because anyone who meets her wins

The way alchemy works in FMA doesn’t resemble the way real-life alchemy is or was supposed to work, however, FMA is still packed full of references to real-life alchemy. The most obvious one is Hohenheim’s name, but there are plenty more! (Ed and Al also share their names with real-life famous occultists, Edward Kelly and Alphonse Constant (Eliphas Levi), but this might be a coincidence.) 

It is probably no accident that Ed’s color scheme is black, white, and red. The three main stages of alchemy are names the nigredo, the albedo, and the rubedo. Nigredo, the black stage, is when the matter of the Stone “dies” and putrefies, representing spiritual death. Albedo, the white stage, is when the matter of the Stone is washed, boiled, and turns to vapor, which condenses back into water, and the cycle repeats. This represents spiritual ascension and unification with the divine. Finally, during the rubedo, this “volatile” matter becomes “fixed,” crystallizing into the Philosopher’s Stone. Ed also has gold hair and eyes, which is fairly self-explanatory. Gold is a metaphor for the state of spiritual perfection.

The “Flamel” symbol of a serpent nailed to a cross that’s on the back of Ed’s coat, painted on Al’s pauldron, and tattooed on Izumi’s chest is the “crucified serpent,” which actually does come from Nicolas Flamel. It represents the completion of the Great Work, the union of the fixed and volatile, the mercurial serpent physically nailed down to the cross with its four arms representing the Four Elements (with Quintessence in the center) and the reconciliation of polarities. It also demonstrates the death and mortification of the old body that is necessary for the Philosopher’s Stone to be reborn:

The wings at the top of FMA’s “Flamel” is probably meant to represent Mercury’s Caduceus, and maybe also the resurrection of the snake. The crown references the “King” that is a metaphor for the Philosopher’s Stone. The Flamel symbol also bears resemblance to the Staff of Asclepius, which represents medicine in the real world.

Another example is the “Green Lion” on the flag of Amestris that acts a symbol of the military and is referenced a few other times:

In real alchemy, the “Green Lion” is a symbol of antimony ore and represents the Philosopher’s Stone in its “imperfect” state, before it’s been purified. The Green Lion eats the Sun (representing perfection and Gold), causing a solar eclipse, representing the nigredo (death), the first stage of the Great Work. Amestris was created for almost exactly that reason, and it is far from “purified,” with corruption running deep into its core.

The image of the lion eating the sun appears in the show, when Ed and Ling are in Gluttony’s stomach:

There’s also the transmutation circle itself, which looks so realistic, I actually thought it was real when I first saw it online:

Here’s a real magic circle:

Real magic circles are from ceremonial magic, not alchemy, but the text around the outside of the Human Transmutation Circle does reference alchemy. The “peacock’s feathers,” the spotted panther and the green lion (as previously mentioned), the progression of black, gray, white, and red, all are metaphors for chemical reactions that are supposed to take place in an ideal alchemical procedure.

Some of the more complicated transmutation circles that appear throughout the show are also based on real designs from manuscripts. There’s this design on the wall of the Fifth Laboratory:

Here we see the Sun and Moon (more on that in a minute) and three symbols of Mercury, which represent their unification. This looked very realistic, so I did some searching and this is what I found:

It’s not exactly the same, but it’s clearly an image from an alchemical manuscript, and it’s very similar.

The designs on Ed and Al’s doors are real. The design on Ed’s door is the Kabbalistic Tree of Life as depicted by Robert Fludd in his seventeenth-century book Utriusque Cosmi:

The design on Al’s door comes from an alchemical manuscript called The Marrow of Alchemy by George Ripley (as in, the Ripley Scroll). It depicts the alchemical process:

I haven’t managed to find where the design on Mustang’s gate comes from, but I wouldn’t be surprised if that one was real, too.

One more thing I want to draw attention to is this dialogue between child-Ed and child-Al in ”He Who Would Swallow God.”

The Sun and Moon are kind of a big deal in alchemy, and they are associated with maleness and femaleness respectively. Their role in real alchemy is as the metaphorical “parents” of the androgynous Philosopher’s Stone, the perfect being:

Through the “chemical wedding” of the Sun and Moon (sulfur and mercury), the Philosopher’s Stone is produced. I actually didn’t consider that a solar eclipse might be a symbol of the chemical wedding, until Ed and Al explicitly pointed it out in that episode. That’s not what an eclipse traditionally represents in alchemy (that’s the Green Lion swallowing the sun, the nigredo and dark night of the soul that follows the first chemical wedding), but I still think it makes sense. 

(An image of the Chemical Wedding itself actually appears on the door to the exam room in the 2003 anime.)

Alchemy in FMA mostly doesn’t resemble real alchemy beyond those references. Real alchemy isn’t equivalent exchange — changing something into something else of equal value — but rather, metamorphosing something into a more improved version of itself. Theoretically, this would be turning “lead” into “gold,” the most base form of metal into the most perfect form of metal (as was believed). But real alchemy isn’t about chemicals, and it never really was. Real alchemy is a spiritual process, meant to transmute the soul from its “base” human state into a “perfect” spiritual state. The way to do this is to separate out the “subtle” from the “gross,” i.e. the higher spiritual self from the mundane and earthly human self, and then joining them back together so that the spiritual self purifies the mundane self. This is summarized by the Latin phrase “solve et coagula,” to dissolve and to congeal, or alternately, to separate and to bring together. FMA parallels this with its two parts of alchemy being deconstruction (solve) and reconstruction (coagula). Therefore, the character whose goals and motivations come the closest to those of real alchemists is… believe it or not… Father.

What Father wants, or at least what he says he wants, is knowledge. He wants all the knowledge in the universe. That’s what most occultists want, actually. Most occultists want to either merge with or become alike to God, although they all have different theories and methods of doing that. In FMA, the Philosopher’s Stone is an alchemical catalyst powered by human souls, but in real life, the Philosopher’s Stone is (long story short) a metaphor for the perfect being that Father wants to become. The real Philosopher’s Stone is a being that is a perfect balance of male and female, sun and moon, dark and light, human and divine. It is therefore whole and complete. As I understand it, a person who has become the Philosopher’s Stone can, theoretically, have the power and knowledge of a god whilst still being able to live on earth as a human.

Father’s “perfect” form is a perverse version of this ideal.

(This form gives me some very confusing emotions.)

“As above, so below” is the Hermetic Principle of Correspondence, the closest thing to a real Law of Equivalent Exchange — it is the idea that the Macrocosm (God, the Universe, Truth) reflects the microcosm (humanity), and that by affecting one, you affect the other. The goal of the alchemist is to become the Philosopher’s Stone, the place where Human and Divine meet and become one thing.

I can’t believe it took me until now to see “As above, so below” represented here. Even the episode’s title makes that obvious! But despite that blatant symbolism, there is no healthy convergence of divine and human here. Many occultists believe in something called “ego death,” which I used to think meant losing one’s individuality, which sounded a lot like being trapped in a homunculus with a torrent of other screaming souls. Only now, after watching this show, do I understand what “ego death” really means. This scene is pure ego on Father’s part:

This isn’t a genuine attempt to understand God, this is just an inferiority-superiority complex. Father doesn’t care to understand anything about God. All he cares about is himself, and acquiring power for himself. Power is all he’s after, to assuage his inferiority complex. And there’s nothing inherently wrong with wanting power (e.g. Mustang), but godlike power to command the universe is a byproduct of having properly completed the alchemical process and become the Philosopher’s Stone. It is not the end in and of itself. “Ego” isn’t having a sense of self, it’s the inability to understand the spiritual. It’s viewing everything in a mundane lens, having all your motivations be ultimately small and petty, no matter how grand the spectacle. It’s wanting power or glory or whatnot just to make yourself feel better, but not having the self-awareness to actually admit that. The first stage of the alchemical process is nigredo, death — watching your old self die away so that it can be reborn as a better version of itself. Father never understands this, and The Truth says as much.

The Truth is a personification of the Hermetic Principle of Mentalism:

That’s basically it right there. God is All. All is God.

The reason why the Homunculus never grew beyond his days in the flask is because, despite wanting to acquire knowledge, he never actually learned anything. Trying to drag God down to Earth is sheer hubris, not because Earth is too far beneath it, but for the opposite reason — it can come down to Earth whenever it likes. It is everywhere and everything. And the Homunculus never did any of the introspective work needed to find God within himself. He tried to separate out (solve) his perceived “flaws” (the Seven Deadly Sins, i.e. the other homunculi) but did not reintegrate them back into himself (coagula), thus only completing half the alchemical process. He is neither human, nor divine, he only steals Hohenheim’s human shape and Truth’s divine power. He never broadened his thinking or improved himself mentally/spiritually, and thus can’t become alike to God. He never became more than what he is, the dwarf in the flask, and thus his Gate is blank.

Edward, by contrast, loses almost everything in attempting human transmutation (nigredo), and then accepts his own humanity at the gate of Truth (albedo), losing the ability to perform alchemy but becoming a better version of himself (rubedo) — thus, completing the alchemical process. In the end, he’s free, which is all Father wanted to be. He acknowledges that you don’t have to use alchemy or whatnot to become more than you are, because who you are is enough.

Thus, Edward becomes the best version of himself, which is what real alchemists aspired to be. He’s completed the Great Work, and therefore has no need for alchemy anymore. “That is the correct answer, alchemist!”

Hey y'all remember that 03 FMA scene / Winry and Ed? Ed disguises himself with green hair to hop on the train to get answers after finding out Hughes died?

Winry was about to yell at him for not getting up and just blushes seeing him in just boxers, and he's like "It's okay" and performs a simple alchemy trick that she finds so cool and interesting.

And then Winry offers to braid his hair cause she knows she can't stop him from going out and being reckless but she wants him to know she cares and wants to help anyway she can? And then Ed BLUSHES and lets her after seeing her smile a little?

That scene is SOFT and has me WEAK cause it's frickin ADORABLE.

Okay. So the past few days, I've been stuck in our room with awful asthma purgatory. As in, the sort of asthma that's bad enough to hinder every aspect of my life, but manageable, and therefore not worth risking the pandemic hospitals over. I went down the hall to get a cookie for my spouse, and came back gasping and out of breath, so... Working has not really been an option the past few days. It's really sucked, because I'm the sort of person who has to work really hard to not spiral into dark places if I feel like I'm doing enough.

Anyway. If you don't know, my spouse and I have been living out of a hotel. And trying to stay safe in that situation means basically never getting to take a day off, ever. We managed to save a little so we could weather it when stuff like this happens, but... Now we're at a tight spot. Hotels here currently have this rule of that you can't stay more than 28 days unless they're specifically an extended stay hotel (which are more expensive and we can't afford), so we're going to need to move locations tomorrow. But we don't currently have the money to manage that, because I haven't been able to work.

If we could just get enough to cover two nights at the new place, I think that would give me enough time to actually be okay again. And then we can theoretically get back to the routine we've been managing to make work. I just need to buy a little time for my asthma. Which currently, ends up being $163.72. Heck, if we can get even half of that by tomorrow morning, I could at least get one night of safety for us.

I hate having to ask for help like this again, I seriously do. I hate living like this. It's like I'm too disabled to actually work the way everyone wants me to, but too healthy to qualify for disability because I can work at all. I'm just... Hoping we can survive long enough that we can see some kind of break.

Anyway, thanks for at least reading and hearing me out, no matter what. Sometimes it can feel like my entire life is just getting sucked into a void before anyone can even hear me, so. Listening means a lot.

Paypal: https://www.paypal.me/thatashfordperson Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/theodoreashford CashApp: $thatashfordperson Venmo: @thatashfordperson

Based on last reblob

I just think every single person in the world is constantly in some stage of grief

grief as a cycle rather than stages. You are always on the cycle. Acceptance until the shock comes again

If you love anyone, anything, you're going to end up grieving. All grief is is love, really. And to love is just... human. To live is to love, to love is to grieve.

And what's saddest is that we've been taught to be ashamed of grieving, because it hurts. Because modern western society (especially America) loves to run from grief. It's selfish to grieve, weak to grieve. We can't take the time to grieve, it's too depressing to grieve.

Grieving is an intense, powerful, and honestly beautiful thing. There's no such thing as good and bad emotions. There's pain, and there's joy, sure, but how they feel doesn't create a moral compass any more than a tag creates genders on clothes. It's okay to just lean into the grief. All it really is is the pained expression of love. Love for someone who's gone, love for a rainforest, love for the child you never got to be. It's just the opposite of joyful love. Yes, you will probably be experiencing it in some form or another constantly, for your entire life. No, that's not bad. It's better to just lean into it and let yourself feel it. It means you're letting yourself love.

Une image qui m’est venue à l’esprit alors que je regardais FMA brotherhood. Les étapes de mises en couleur sont dispo sur mon blog.

Quick practice doodle I never posted