#Though the presence of Scrappy insinuates the 80s | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

xennariel · 7 years

Text

11 Questions AKA Xen Screams About Royai, FMA, and Hellsing

I was tagged by @ladywiltshire Thanks. =)

RULES: Always post the rules. Answer the questions asked, then write 11 new ones. Tag 11 people to answer your questions, as well as the person who tagged you.

1. Do you remember your first time watching or reading Fullmetal Alchemist? What was your first impression? - I think I first got into the FMA manga around late 2002. I loved Ed and thought he was great and that, plus the whole human transmutation thing got me hooked. I loved the 03 anime in its early episodes and I was such a big fan that I went out and bought the sweatshirt that looks like Ed’s jacket and the shoes that look like his. I wore them as often as I could in my junior year of high school. About midway through the anime I started disliking it, though, and I went back to reading just the manga and ignored the anime. But then the manga started taking too long to update for me and about halfway through that, I discovered Hellsing and that held my obsession for the next eight or nine years, making me completely forget about FMA until I heard the manga ended. I remember looking up the last chapter of the manga and thinking it was an awesome way to end it, even though I hadn’t read any of the manga since the halfway point. lol It wasn’t until I saw some royai art on my dash in early 2016 that I decided to watch Brotherhood, and boy am I glad I did because my initial impression of that was “AHHHHHH I LOVE THIS WHERE HAVE I BEEN FOR THE PAST SEVEN YEARS???” And whoops, this ended up being about how I went through my FMA phases instead of taking about my initial experience... Sorry about that.

2. Tell us about The Fave™. - I am guessing all of your questions refer to FMA? So Roy Mustang. I could scream about him all day and never get bored. He’s great. The best. So is Riza. They have so many layers and are so interesting and dynamic. I love them so much it hurts. And out of any media I’m a fan of, I think they’re my absolute favorites. Integra Hellsing is a definite runner up, though. Of course, my fav favs are my OCs Xennariel and Loki, but since they’re not part of an existing thing yet, I can’t exactly rave about how great they are because that would just make me sound dumb.

3. Do you have a favorite fan work? Fanfics? Comics? - For FMA, I have a few fics I love and I’ve mentioned them before so I’m not going to link them again because I’m feeling very tired and lazy today. And honestly, any art depicting both Roy and Riza’s scars are my weakness. As for other fandoms, I loved the writer Thess. Her Hellsing works were amazing. I also liked and kept up with a Hellsing fancomic called And Shine Heaven Now by Sailor Ptah. That was cute. But that was like, a long time ago. Thess hasn’t written anything since like 2009 and that webcomic ended in like 2007 or so. So yeah, it’s been a long time since I’ve been an active part of the Hellsing fandom, and I kind of miss it. I miss seeing what new stuff people are producing for that series, but a lot of the fandom on Tumblr seems a little...iffy. I see so much art reposted with no credit and I cannot support people like that so I don’t really follow many Hellsing blogs. It’s kind of sad.

4. Hit me with an analysis/opinion you have on the series or characters! - Again, I’m guessing you’re talking FMA, so uh... Jeez, I wish I wasn’t so tired, it would make this question a whole lot easier. Um, I think I’ve already written all the analysis I can think of though, which isn’t much. I’ve talked about Roy’s fight with Lust before, I’ve talking about how he looks at Riza during his fight with Envy in the manga, I’ve talked about how Roy is not actually drunk when he calls Riza to give her flowers, contrary to what many people seem to think. It’s hard for me to come up with this sort of stuff when I’m not prompted. lol I need to see something in direct contradiction of what I think or just general discussion about a subject before I have a lot of opinions. xD

I guess I could talk about the couple of reasons why Roy and Riza having a relationship in the manga could possibly be a thing? I am 80% sure that despite how clearly they loved each other, Roy and Riza did not have anything going on between them in the series. However, there are some points I want to make that lean toward them actually being together in a romantic sense throughout the manga.

My main point is how comfortable they are around each other. A lot of people say there’s a lot of unresolved sexual or romantic tension between then throughout the series, but I honestly don’t see that. I see two people who clearly care about one another a great deal, who, with one look, make it obvious that they’re in love. But I don’t see them really pining for one another or anything like that. They act like an old married couple. They don’t seem to act like they want to kiss or jump each other desperately. Which, to me says that perhaps it’s because they already do. (This could be because I’m Ace, though, and I do not go looking for sexual implications in my OTPs, so maybe it just goes over my head all the time.)

Case in point, I knew my husband for ten years before we got married. In the first four years or so, we definitely were a couple of teenagers in love. We pined for one another when we couldn’t see each other. When in public, we stared at each other silently wishing we could go somewhere to be alone, we made out as often as possible. After about four or five years, the feeling of “I need to touch this person because I have a lot of pent up sexual and romantic tension for them” pretty much died down and we became very comfortable with each other. If we didn’t hug or kiss for a while, it was no big deal because we had each other and we knew we could arrange to be together to do those things whenever.

My point is, Roy and Riza act like that around each other, which tells me that perhaps the reason they aren’t desperate to touch one another all the time is because they already do. They’re used to intimacy so why would they itch to touch each other 24/7? If they were as in love as they appeared to be, but couldn’t be with each other, I think they’d show more signs of yearning for one another. This, of course, could be because we just don’t see it since they were not the focus of the series and their relationship had no huge importance to the story (and Arakawa has said that she does not include anything that doesn’t need to be in the story), but I feel like, even with the amount of time they had been together, if they had never touched each other or kissed or hugged or whatever, they’d have a hard time masking the want they would have for each other. Their comfort in each other’s presence could be more than just them having spent a long time together.

My other point is the Barry the Chopper scene where Roy gets super jealous of Barry touching Riza and prepares to burn him to a crisp. Riza stops him and seems absolutely unfazed by his jealousy, which could indicate that he’s acted like that multiple times in the past and she’s used to telling him to calm the hell down.

The last point isn’t exactly evidence, but Roy and Riza did change clothes in a car together and didn’t come out of that flustered or blushing or anything like they might have if they were unused to seeing each other in various states of undress. I mean, yeah, Roy learned his alchemy from her bare back, but it’s not like he saw anything else. I feel like he’d still get flustered if he saw her without a shirt on, even if it was just her back, because if they weren’t together, if they weren’t touching each other on a somewhat regular basis, he’s just a guy in love and he’d want to touch her and blush about it or get embarrassed easily about seeing her. Think about Ed in that scene where he was in the room when Winry was changing. He was flushed and embarrassed because he was a kid in love who had never touched the person he loved intimately before. So this one kind of goes back to my ‘comfortable with each other’ theory.

Also, that scene where Madame Christmas asks why Roy doesn’t just go play with Elizabeth. What kind of ‘play’ is she insinuating? And why does she know this? And why do the other girls think they have a ‘chance’ now that Elizabeth has been taken by another man. What has Roy been telling them about her?

Anyway, that’s all. Like I said, I am super tired and this analysis probably came out sounding weird or not convincing. Maybe I’ll write it up better sometime later.

5. Tell us about a project you have going on! Or if you don’t have one, maybe something you’ve always wanted to write or draw? - I am still working on my super long royai fanfic that I started in, like, June 2016. It chronicles the series from Roy and Riza’s viewpoint, starting from when they first meet, going through manga canon FMA, and finally ending with what happens post series. (Though I really dislike where it’s gone and I’ve been considering scrappy the last ten chapters and rewriting them...)

After that fic is finished, I plan to write another one that goes through the canon FMA manga storyline, only with Riza being an alchemist secretly the entire time and where she is also a candidate for sacrifice. (Though I may end up writing this one soon anyway just because I’m not liking Through Eyes of Flame anymore. I’ve lost a lot of reader so it’s just not worth it.)

And I also want to write a fic that takes place after canon FMA where evil demons from the world in my original novel end up finding a way into Amestris and plan to kill off all the humans so they can take over because they already tried that in their own world and failed. A couple of my OCs follow these demons and team up with Roy, Riza, the rest of team Mustang, and others from the military to stop the demons from killing everyone. I’m a little iffy about this one though because it would have OCs and I never know how well received OCs are in fics...

6. Favorite opening/ending number and why? - For FMA? I love Chemistry and Rain. The songs are catchy and the animations for those have some of my favorite things from all of the openings and endings.

7. Tell me about a scene that really touched your or made you realize something about yourself. - In FMA, I honestly don’t know. I lot of scenes touched me or made me feel something like Hughes’ burial and Nina’s whole experience and subsequent death. Riza getting her throat slit and Roy freaking out. Roy losing himself in the fight against Envy, but having enough sense of self when he looked at Riza to still be soft to her like usual. Lan Fan cutting off her damn arm just to save Ling. I don’t know if I learned anything about myself from any of that though, other than I realized how much I love royai and lingfan and what badasses they all are imo.

8. OTPs! Who are they? Why are you WEAK FOR THEM?? - RoyxRiza, of course. Royai is the OTP of OTPs. They don’t even need to touch on screen or even say anything for you to see that they care about each other deeply. Plus, I’m all about that ‘forbidden relationship’ trope. But even without that, they’ve been together a long time and get along so well. Their dynamic is wonderful and interesting and just pulls me in. They’re not just in love, they’re best friends and that’s the best relationship to have. They protect each other’s backs, Roy knows when Riza is upset without even needing to see her, they just know each other so well and work so well together.

Same with AlucardxIntegra from Hellsing. I like them for much the same reasons and they used to be my OTP of OTPs until I got back into FMA. They’re another battle couple, and they never touch in the series, but it’s heavily implied and obvious they have a thing for each other. And that fucking scene where he bows to her on the battlefield surrounded by dead and impaled bodies? I died, okay. I screamed and raved when that manga chapter came out and I still scream about it whenever I see it. They didn’t even touch, but it was the hottest thing. And then when Alucard comes back to her after 30 years, he says himself that he could have gone anywhere, but he chose to be there. And then she fucking bites her right ring finger (the finger used for wedding bands in Romania) and makes a ring out of blood on it and lets him drink from it? End me. It’s canon.

9. Funniest headcanon you’ve ever seen. Go! - Uhm... I don’t know, actually. I’ve never really seen many funny headcanons go around.

10. What spurred you to join the fandom?

- I got back into Royai and it was around when Royai week 2016 was happening and I had been looking to get back into writing around then too so I thought it would be a good thing to participate in to practice writing. A couple of people liked my stuff and started following me for that and then I found a bunch of authors from FFNet that I liked had Tumblrs, so I followed them and kept up with the writing and before I knew it, I was deep in the FMA/Royai fandom. lol

As for Hellsing, it just kind of happened. And much like with FMA, as soon as I started writing for it, I started getting people that would talk to me about stuff, so that was fun. I’m not an active participant in that fandom anymore, but I never really left it. My love for the series hasn’t diminished, I’m just more focused on FMA these days. Roy and Riza are easier to write for then Alucard and Integra.

11. Definitely the same question… have a fandom meltdown here and tell me why you love your fandom or show/comic so much! - We’ll start with the FMA manga because holy shit it’s amazing and has such good characters and good ships and AHHHHH! It’s such an inspiring piece of work. The thought that went into it, the research, the fucking detail. It’s incredible.Hellsing is one of the best mangas too, if you like gore and horror. Awesome characters, great ships, fantastic plot about killing vampire nazis. What’s not to love, honestly? Alucard is such a complex main character. And Integra is just boss. She is Queen. I highly recommend the manga and OVA. Stay away from the first anime aka the Gonzo anime. It was terrible, much like FMA 03 was terrible, but honestly, I’d rather watch FMA 03 than the first Hellsing anime. That’s how bad it was. lolAnd The Slayers is legit the funniest anime I have ever seen while simultaneously being one of the coolest. The magic system in that is flawless and amazing and the humor is top notch. Go watch the series if you haven’t already. Lina is the best.Also, the book that spoke to me the most was Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion. Go read it and the nits prequel and then the sequel. It’s well worth it. I read it at a time in my life when I was very low emotionally and I saw myself in R and what he says and does is so relatable.

#xen responds #fma #royai #alucardxintegra #hellsing #meta

5 notes · View notes