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nebroadweTitle: Drabble: All Who Joy Would Win
Fandom: FMA (anime version)
Character(s): Ed, Al, OCs
Pairing(s): Al/OC (but nothing onstage)
Rating: G
Word Count: 300 (I needed a treble-length drabble; sue me)
Warnings: Implicit spoilage for the end of the series and the film.
A/N: I know exactly what happens to the Elric brothers for the next twenty-five years after the end of the film, but I never expected to write any of it besides "Tick-Tock". I just can't see myself doing the enormous amounts of research I'd need to make the "what did you do in the war, daddy?" part of the story credible. But this snapshot developed all on its own as I contemplated a friend's recent milestone -- and who am I to scorn inspiration? Crossposted from![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
nebroadwe to Höllenbeck (i.e. ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
fm_alchemist, fullservicefma, fma_gen, fma_writers and fma_fiction).
Dedication: Forlyricnonsense in honor of her graduation. Excelsior!
Zürich, 1936
By the time they reach the hall it's standing room only, so Ed props up a wall while Herr Brunner negotiates seats for his wife and daughter in the last row. Bargain struck, he bustles back to Ed, who takes a step away under the guise of making room. He has no desire to share this day with anyone -- particularly not a Swiss petit-bourgeois whose wife can't conceal her relief that her bluestocking daughter is about to reel in a husband. He's not sure what Al sees in the girl, either, but he's learned to stifle his doubts. Rubbing at a fading reminder of one such lesson on his left biceps, he hopes she appreciates what a formidable champion she's gained.
Once the ceremony begins, Ed taps his foot through the invocation and the addresses, counting the minutes until the only speech that matters: the announcement of his brother's name among the graduates, now and for all time Alphonse Elric, Ph.D. He picks his brother's black-gowned form out immediately when he rises with his fellows to receive his diploma, but finds it hard to keep him in focus once he steps onto the brightly-lit stage. He squints fiercely, conscious of watching not just for himself but for Granny Pinako and Winry and his mother and even the old bastard whose canny investments paid Al's tuition. See? There he is.
The bluestocking applauds so enthusiastically that her bobbed hair bounces above her shoulders and her mother feels compelled to pass some inhibiting remark. The girl folds her hands and leans away, frowning, but smiles again when her gaze crosses that of her fiancé's brother. See?
Meeting her apple-green eyes, proud and damp as his own, Ed finds unexpectedly that he doesn't mind sharing the moment after all.
Author's Note: In case anyone was wondering, Al is receiving his degree (in physics) from the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich (ETH), which began granting doctorates in 1909 and has numbered Wolfgang Pauli among its faculty and Albert Einstein among its graduates.
[Acknowledgments: Fullmetal Alchemist (Hagane no Renkinjutsushi) was created by Arakawa Hiromu and is serialized monthly in Shonen Gangan (Square Enix); the anime of the same title was directed by Mizushima Seiji and story-edited by Aikawa Sho. Copyright for these properties is held by Arakawa Hiromu, Square Enix, Mainichi Broadcasting System, Aniplex, Bones, and dentsu.]
Fandom: FMA (anime version)
Character(s): Ed, Al, OCs
Pairing(s): Al/OC (but nothing onstage)
Rating: G
Word Count: 300 (I needed a treble-length drabble; sue me)
Warnings: Implicit spoilage for the end of the series and the film.
A/N: I know exactly what happens to the Elric brothers for the next twenty-five years after the end of the film, but I never expected to write any of it besides "Tick-Tock". I just can't see myself doing the enormous amounts of research I'd need to make the "what did you do in the war, daddy?" part of the story credible. But this snapshot developed all on its own as I contemplated a friend's recent milestone -- and who am I to scorn inspiration? Crossposted from
nebroadwe to Höllenbeck (i.e. fm_alchemist, fullservicefma, fma_gen, fma_writers and fma_fiction).Dedication: For
lyricnonsense in honor of her graduation. Excelsior!By the time they reach the hall it's standing room only, so Ed props up a wall while Herr Brunner negotiates seats for his wife and daughter in the last row. Bargain struck, he bustles back to Ed, who takes a step away under the guise of making room. He has no desire to share this day with anyone -- particularly not a Swiss petit-bourgeois whose wife can't conceal her relief that her bluestocking daughter is about to reel in a husband. He's not sure what Al sees in the girl, either, but he's learned to stifle his doubts. Rubbing at a fading reminder of one such lesson on his left biceps, he hopes she appreciates what a formidable champion she's gained.
Once the ceremony begins, Ed taps his foot through the invocation and the addresses, counting the minutes until the only speech that matters: the announcement of his brother's name among the graduates, now and for all time Alphonse Elric, Ph.D. He picks his brother's black-gowned form out immediately when he rises with his fellows to receive his diploma, but finds it hard to keep him in focus once he steps onto the brightly-lit stage. He squints fiercely, conscious of watching not just for himself but for Granny Pinako and Winry and his mother and even the old bastard whose canny investments paid Al's tuition. See? There he is.
The bluestocking applauds so enthusiastically that her bobbed hair bounces above her shoulders and her mother feels compelled to pass some inhibiting remark. The girl folds her hands and leans away, frowning, but smiles again when her gaze crosses that of her fiancé's brother. See?
Meeting her apple-green eyes, proud and damp as his own, Ed finds unexpectedly that he doesn't mind sharing the moment after all.
Author's Note: In case anyone was wondering, Al is receiving his degree (in physics) from the Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule Zürich (ETH), which began granting doctorates in 1909 and has numbered Wolfgang Pauli among its faculty and Albert Einstein among its graduates.
[Acknowledgments: Fullmetal Alchemist (Hagane no Renkinjutsushi) was created by Arakawa Hiromu and is serialized monthly in Shonen Gangan (Square Enix); the anime of the same title was directed by Mizushima Seiji and story-edited by Aikawa Sho. Copyright for these properties is held by Arakawa Hiromu, Square Enix, Mainichi Broadcasting System, Aniplex, Bones, and dentsu.]
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no subject
Date: 2007-05-20 12:49 pm (UTC)Very nice ficlet. It was an insightful peek into the Elric brothers lives years down the road.
Ed should consider himself lucky. At least his brother didn't get up there and tell the audience that his goal, now that he'd graduated, was to become a massage thearpist and midwife. (This actually happened at one of the graduation ceremonies; the girl had graduated with a 4.0, and the people around her were going to Harvard Law, Northwestern, etc...and this girl was going to massage thearpy school.)
no subject
Date: 2007-05-20 01:49 pm (UTC)You wouldn't be faculty somewhere, would you? :-) But yes, commencement season did have me thinking about this event and
Ed should consider himself lucky. At least his brother didn't get up there and tell the audience that his goal, now that he'd graduated, was to become a massage therapist and midwife. (This actually happened at one of the graduation ceremonies; the girl had graduated with a 4.0, and the people around her were going to Harvard Law, Northwestern, etc...and this girl was going to massage therapy school.)
Heh. My first Ph.D. adviser left the profession to train as an acupuncturist, so I'm not unfamiliar with the abrupt career-change phenomenon. Ed and Al have already had the "what are you going to do with your life?" argument well before this point, though, when Al secretly sits the ETH entrance exam (my sources tell me that as long as he passed it, it wouldn't matter that he couldn't produce an educational resume). That would be a year or so after the events of "Tick-Tock." Al wants to pursue the study of physics systematically (and pick up a little bioengineering on the side, so he can help maintain Ed's automail) and try to influence the development of nuclear technology into peaceful channels over the long haul from within; Ed is refusing to think about the issues on more than a case-by-case basis because he knows it's probably hopeless to put the genie back in the bottle but doesn't want to admit it. They work through their disagreement, though. (Maybe someday I'll write that story, too ... but the research, the research ... )
no subject
Date: 2007-05-20 02:14 pm (UTC)With any luck, I'll be done with my undegrad by next year. I hope, I hope, I hope!
My new boyfriend was graduating from the one ceremony where the girl had gone through college to become a masseuse. I was meeting his family for the first time that night and his father made the comment, "If I were her mother, I'dve killed her; or asked her to pay me back the money I spent to put her through college." I can understand leaving a discipline that you're not happy with...but this girl graduated with honors with the goal of becoming a massuese and midwife.
Somehow, I think it would have been easier to simply go to massage therapy school.
And I hear you about the research. However, it is summer coming up. Maybe you'll find you have more time to research?
no subject
Date: 2007-05-20 02:42 pm (UTC)Sniffles at this line.
no subject
Date: 2007-05-20 02:50 pm (UTC)[crosses fingers for you!]
Somehow, I think it would have been easier to simply go to massage therapy school.
I guess it depends on where you are. In my part of the world, midwifery requires a master's degree in nursing (I have a friend who got hers from Georgetown), so it might not be as fluffy a career choice as it sounds.
And I hear you about the research. However, it is summer coming up. Maybe you'll find you have more time to research?
True, but there's research and then there's RESEARCH. I wouldn't be satisfied unless I could reproduce Nazi Germany and WWII Switzerland with a pretty high degree of surface plausibility. Then there's the trouble of getting the machination plotting to hang together (how do you break a half-sedated man out of a Soviet interrogation facility in Berlin in 1947 and smuggle him into one of the Allied zones without the cooperation of the Allies?). I have too many other irons in the fire to start down that road -- if I'm going to do research this summer, it'll be toward making my original story plausible (an easier task, since I'm making up the setting, so it only needs to be internally self-consistent. That said, I still intend to decant the library of every volume it has on Renaissance astronomy and telescopes. Sigh.).
Peace!
no subject
Date: 2007-05-20 02:53 pm (UTC)Do I even want to know where your icon comes from?
no subject
Date: 2007-05-20 03:01 pm (UTC)Gatchaman has plot holes one can drive whole squads of armies through but oh, the badness can be so very very funny...and the goodness can be just heartbreaking.
no subject
Date: 2007-05-20 03:44 pm (UTC)Oh, wait -- I know that! I saw a little of the mid-1970s American slash-n-dub. My elementary school bus was pessimally timed wrt the morning cartoons.
... wherein Our Heroes, in this particular episode, had to battle Galactors' newest mecha - which was designed in part when a sculptress carved Jesus' head into Mount Rushmore (no kidding) to go with the presidents ...
[snortle] Marvelous. For some reason, I don't think I saw that one back in the '70s ...
... and Galactor used said carving as a hiding place for their giant mecha...and when the mecha broke free, it boiled lava and stomped things.
Excuse me, I need to go run cold water on my head to stop the hysterics.
Gatchaman has plot holes one can drive whole squads of armies through but oh, the badness can be so very very funny...and the goodness can be just heartbreaking.
I keep hearing this from people. Something to put on the rental list, perhaps.
no subject
Date: 2007-05-20 07:11 pm (UTC)I love your post-movie fics... But they're so bittersweet at the same time.
It's a personal thing though... I want Ed and Al back on their own side of the Gate and I don't want them to get older!
I know, I know... and I want Hughes to be alive, too. I'm so pathetic! XD
no subject
Date: 2007-05-20 08:45 pm (UTC)Very much with the slash, indeed. *eyeroll* It was on in the afternoons when I got home from school and I watched it avidly. My father even watched with me - but then, he liked cartoons.
[snortle] Marvelous. For some reason, I don't think I saw that one back in the '70s...
I think it did actually play but it was chopped to bits so any passing resemblances (or mentions) of Disco Lava Jesus were, ah, controlled by call him another president or something.
Excuse me, I need to go run cold water on my head to stop the hysterics.
It's even better with sound effects of, "Rawr! Rawr!" which was all Disco Lava Jesus is capable of uttering. However, we were MST3K-ing with, "I shall smite thee mightily!" and "Jesus is coming, and boy is he pissed!"
Ahhhh, Gatch, the equal-opportunity blasphemers (can't wait for my "Laser-Beam Buddha!" icon).
I keep hearing this from people. Something to put on the rental list, perhaps.
As long as you remember that Tasunoko Pro didn't seem to have anyone with a science background on their storyboard team, you'll do fine. *laugh* But really, when it's good, it's amazing and when it's bad it's...amazing. For totally different reasons. *grins*
no subject
Date: 2007-05-20 11:14 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-20 11:33 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-21 01:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-21 02:13 am (UTC)It doesn't? Dang, and I thought I was being all subtle ... wanna hear about Al's children? His wife's name is Emmy, by the way. :-)
I love your post-movie fics... But they're so bittersweet at the same time.
Thanks. A dash of happy, a dash of angst, mix well ... I think my take on Ed's young adulthood is that's when he learns (of necessity) that love is not a zero-sum game; Al's relationships with others don't diminish their own bond. And Ed does get his own happy (romantic) ending in my timeline, with our world's Winry-analogue, although of course when he first meets her (in the early 1940s while helping to smuggle Jews and other undesirables out of Germany) she's got a fiancé in an Allied prison camp in North Africa somewhere and no sympathy for the resistance. This permits conflict, suspense and character development ... and more angst.
It's a personal thing though... I want Ed and Al back on their own side of the Gate and I don't want them to get older!
I know, I know... and I want Hughes to be alive, too. I'm so pathetic!
I am so worried about the Hughes of Sit Vis Tecum. It suddenly dawned on me that if the plot's going where I think it's going, he could finish up dead and I got all unnerved. I mean, it would work and be all kinds of effective, but still ... dagnabit, I want him alive, too! And, like everyone in the world except Mizushima Seiji, I think Ed and Winry did have a future together. Thank heavens for the manga.
no subject
Date: 2007-05-21 02:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-05-21 02:24 am (UTC)Oh, ye GODS ... [goes off to find another bucket of water]
As long as you remember that Tasunoko Pro didn't seem to have anyone with a science background on their storyboard team, you'll do fine. *laugh* But really, when it's good, it's amazing and when it's bad it's...amazing. For totally different reasons. *grins*
My approach to stuff like that is frequently, "When the plot's incoherent, focus on the characters. When the characters make no sense, focus on the plot. When neither makes sense, pound the table and scream. Or, if it's a Gonzo product, watch the pretty backgrounds roll by." :-)
no subject
Date: 2007-05-21 04:12 am (UTC)He squints fiercely, conscious of watching not just for himself but for Granny Pinako and Winry and his mother and even the old bastard whose canny investments paid Al's tuition.
Loved that line. Absolutely LOVED it. It manages to hit so many notes: pride, bittersweet remembrance, snarkiness. So very Ed.
At least the alternate future you have has Ed actually learning that love isn't a zero sum game. DivEd might not learn that lesson until it's too late. (That's one of my underlying themes for Ed's character, so I suppose it's a necessary evil).
no subject
Date: 2007-05-21 11:46 am (UTC)*giggles* I think
When the plot's incoherent, focus on the characters. When the characters make no sense, focus on the plot. When neither makes sense, pound the table and scream.
Screaming is not a bad thing, no. (Remembers, "A Boy and His Cow" almost fondly.)
no subject
Date: 2007-05-21 12:27 pm (UTC)You're welcome! I trust you were late to this party because several others demanded your attention? Hope your commencement was a blast.
(And hopefully this chink will open up the floodgates to more sporadic post-movie drabbles, eh?
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, maybe ...
At least the alternate future you have has Ed actually learning that love isn't a zero sum game. DivEd might not learn that lesson until it's too late. (That's one of my underlying themes for Ed's character, so I suppose it's a necessary evil).
Ouch. I'll brace for the necessary evil, then, just in case. Although it's always seemed to me that, as long as one lives, that lesson is never learned altogether too late. In addition to not being a zero-sum game, love is also a matter of infinite possibility: there is (in my theology anyway) quite literally no end to loving once one starts in on it seriously. Of course, one can always miss particular opportunities and be diminished by that, but that doesn't efface the possibility of future fulfillment in other relationships. [looks down] Hey, who put this soapbox under my feet? I'm supposed to be writing comedy today! [hurriedly scrambles off]
no subject
Date: 2007-05-21 01:24 pm (UTC)Me, I find myself abruptly nostalgic for Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, which got me forever banned from sitting next to one of my dearest friends at the theater. (He almost got himself banned from ever sitting next to anyone at the theater by remarking during the opening sequence of Disney's Hercules, "Is that white I see on that black-figure vase?" :-)
no subject
Date: 2007-05-22 12:10 am (UTC)*DIES*
(Coming of Celtic bloodstock [well, presumably; if not, I've decided that my body shape and coloring fits in with theirs very well], as well as Playing A Celt in SCA, this tickled me all too pieces.)
no subject
Date: 2007-05-22 05:43 am (UTC)As for the necessary evil, it's always been one of my theories that the Ed and Al brotherly bond is so strong because Ed doesn't understand how important something is to him until he loses it. He loses Al physically but has a chance to make things right; that's partly why he's so fiercely protective of his brother. (I think that's why he tries to bring back his mother too, because he didn't realize how important she was to him until he loses her.)
The same thing happens in Divergence when he realizes he loved Winry. Too little too late. I suppose I wouldn't be giving away the ENTIRE story when I say that I think this is Ed's biggest character flaw, and one that will have repercussions for him throughout his life.
Or maybe I just like torturing the little pipsqueak for being so boneheaded in the movie. That's also possible.
no subject
Date: 2007-05-22 02:13 pm (UTC)Yeah, if you put that in a room with Rosemary Sutcliff's book, say, there'd be this huge explosion and we'd all be walking around afterward singing the ballad of William of Cloudesley instead.
The only redeeming feature (besides The Sheriff of Nottingham) is when My Hero, the Sheriff, says something along the lines of, "Get me the evillest, most vile, disgusting people to hunt down Robin Hood." And Guy of Gisbourne makes big eyes and says, "Not, not...?" And the Sheriff shows all his teeth and says, "Yes. The Celts."
I'm a medievalist and I can remember totting all the errors in the opening scene where the
Ku Klux Klanwitches surround the castle. At least one of which you don't have to be a medievalist to notice: YOU'RE IN A CASTLE, DUDE. SHUT THE GATES UNTIL THEY GO AWAY.I swear, if that movie didn't have the dialogue it does ("Why a spoon, cousin?" "Because it's DULL, you twit. It'll hurt more."), I wouldn't have lasted five minutes in that theater.
no subject
Date: 2007-05-22 03:48 pm (UTC)Because you are now a potential donor and they don't want you to see the kind of housing your dollars support. The fact that kicking you out might also alienate you from contributing your future fortune all on its own is merely one of the unhappy paradoxes of university fundraising.
The same thing happens in Divergence when he realizes he loved Winry. Too little too late. I suppose I wouldn't be giving away the ENTIRE story when I say that I think this is Ed's biggest character flaw, and one that will have repercussions for him throughout his life.
Gah. I mean, excellent flaw and everything, but as a reader rather than a writer or critic I really want someone to slap Ed upside the head and point out that (once he's realized what he's lost and angsted over it and possibly driven Sara right out of his life) he needs to move on. One love is not the only love. (One of the non-angst-producing reasons my unwriteable WWII fic posits a fiance for its Winry-analogue is to put the kibosh on a romantic relationship long enough for Ed to recognize that Winfried Steinhardt is attractive to him as her own self, not just as a Winry-analogue. Al has to prod him a bit on this point. And then Winfried has to have it out with her fiance, but fortunately he can't cope with her resistance work. And then all can end happily, more or less -- that is, after another few action sequences that finally persuade Ed he's not suited for solo black ops anymore ... )
Or maybe I just like torturing the little pipsqueak for being so boneheaded in the movie. That's also possible.
Ah, he's young and dumb and believes in cosmic justice, so of course he's going to be boneheadedly self-sacrificing. Which is why I want to see him live happily ever after. It will so mess with his head. :-)
no subject
Date: 2007-05-22 05:35 pm (UTC)Yup, that's one of the trickiest parts of Div, to balance out Ed's maturation and moving on with the fact that he still has this inherent internal hangup. And of course it brings to the forefront Sara's big character flaw and plays with that... They do have as happy an ending as Ed can have though, which is something.
Of course, this all takes place within a 4-20 year span down the line from where they are now, so I should probably get back to writing so I can get there.
no subject
Date: 2007-05-22 05:49 pm (UTC)Heh. Yes. Nothing like the Brownian motion of human interaction to make issues of character hell on wheels to write. Great stuff if you can pull it off, though.
They do have as happy an ending as Ed can have though, which is something.
To this reader, everything. I'll take it. :-)
Of course, this all takes place within a 4-20 year span down the line from where they are now, so I should probably get back to writing so I can get there.
Twenty years, eh? I look forward to seeing your answer to the what-did-you-do-in-the-war-daddy? question, then ... Happy writing!
Peace.
no subject
Date: 2007-05-23 01:47 am (UTC)YES. OH, YES. VERILY YES.
The sad thing - I'm well known for my Robin Hood squeedom - so what happened after that movie came out, but I wound up with tons of paraphenalia from it. I think I've got action figures, posters, trading cards...all for a movie that isn't worth watching again as far as I'm concerned. *sighs*
no subject
Date: 2007-10-28 10:51 pm (UTC)Of course, *the* moist-eyes-line has got to be this one: He squints fiercely, conscious of watching not just for himself but for Granny Pinako and Winry and his mother and even the old bastard whose canny investments paid Al's tuition. See? There he is. ^^ Beautiful!
no subject
Date: 2007-10-29 02:24 pm (UTC)