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nebroadweTitle: Drabbles: Working Girl
Fandom: FMA (manga version)
Character(s): Winry, with appearances from others
Pairing(s): Canon 'ships in the background.
Word Count: 1500 so far.
Warnings: None.
A/N: So many of my friends, online and off, are job-hunting or experiencing job weirdness that it's invading my 'fic. So here's Winry Rockbell, working girl, in a variety of professional situations (or situations at least marginally related to her profession). The first two drabbles in this unlinked set were originally posted separately, here and here. Concrit welcomed with letters of recommendation. 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)
hagaren_manga, fm_alchemist, fma_gen, fma_writers, fma_fiction and winrylovers).
Dedication(s): See individual drabbles below.
13-15. Bank Holiday
for kanja177, as compensation for One of Those Weeks
Nature invites to repose ... there is no petulance, no fret;
there is eternal resource and a long tomorrow, rich and strong as yesterday.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
≈
This sticky summer morning the bus seems full of shrieking children and their already exhausted parents. Elicia bounces in her seat, pointing out every landmark en route to Central Reservoir, her period of oscillation shortening as they approach the park gates. "We're here, Auntie Winry, we're here!" she announces, and climbs over her mother's lap to collide with a fat man wrestling a picnic hamper as wide as he down the aisle. "Sorry, mister!"
While Gracia pursues her disappearing daughter, Winry helps wrangle the hamper, transmuting a peevish grumble into a grunt of thanks. Customer service teaches its own alchemy.
≈
The narrow beach is an album quilt of blankets, so Winry and Gracia spread theirs on the grassy knoll above the boardwalk, between the roots of a white ash, and take turns accompanying Elicia into the water. Winry shows her adopted niece how to float on its warm surface, her own toes twitching in the chilly, spring-fed zone beneath. Spelled by Gracia, she defiantly reads a bodice-ripper recommended by a client, watches the ash's pale leaves flutter against a periwinkle sky, or fends off potential mashers with feigned slumber.
On holiday, a snore's as good as a wrench.
≈
Elicia falls asleep on the ride home, her damp head propped on Winry's shoulder. Winry gazes out the window, but the long-shadowed verges and twilit roofs pass in a blur as her mind leapfrogs the present evening for the coming dawn. If I bleed Mrs. Hart's hydraulics first ...
Gracia reaches across her drowsing daughter and touches Winry's knee. "Leave tomorrow to tomorrow," she advises.
Winry looks at Gracia, then at her own hands, curled around imaginary tools. She nods, bracing Elicia as the bus swings around a corner, and pulls the bodice-ripper from her bag to avert temptation.
12. Neophyte
for evil_little_dog, as an unbirthday present, her birthday having slipped me by somehow ...
Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
≈
Winry leaves the clinic on her last day of probation with a spring in her step and a satisfactory evaluation in her hand. Tomorrow (finally!) she'll be allowed to see clients unsupervised. No more tag-team diagnoses -- no more delays while the boss scrutinizes her plans. New girl gets the walk-ins, of course, but Winry knows that won't last long: next month, my own clients -- next year, my own shop! She grins and whistles a fanfare as she turns onto the avenue ...
... where she's ambushed by her colleagues and dragged to the nearest pub. New girl gets the first round, too.
8-11. Wager of Friendship
... the best of life is conversation, and the greatest success is confidence,
or perfect understanding between sincere people.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
≈
When Ed overtakes her in the street, demanding to know why she's hitting up that bastard Mustang for money, Winry's just glad he didn't catch her at the clinic. "Where'd you hear that?" she demands in return. "And keep it down!"
Somehow Ed finds his indoor voice. "Havoc said Mustang said you're starting your own shop, and -- " He shuts his mouth on something olive-bitter, to judge by his scowl.
"'And?'"
Ed snarls, then bursts out, "And that you're too ... cute to fail!"
Ah, the usual masculine vote of confidence. Winry's sigh emerges as a snicker; flushing, Ed stomps away.
≈
The Elrics ambush Winry in her usual booth at the diner. She taps a pencil against her business plan as Al maneuvers the conversation around to her investors. "I didn't ask Mr. Mustang for money. I asked Ms. Riza." (Though she supposes, belatedly, that it amounts to the same thing now they're married.) "And I don't see why it's any of your business," she adds, glaring at a pinch-lipped Ed.
"Um," Al begins, but his brother elbows him silent and bellows, "Idiot! Why didn't you ask us?"
The hovering waitress goggles. Winry turns her scarlet face to the wall.
≈
She pulls a brush through her damp locks, wincing as it meets another tangle. A hundred strokes each night, per her mother's long-ago advice, doesn't prevent knots -- maybe Mrs. Gracia knows a better remedy ...
Why didn't you ask us?
Winry drops the useless hairbrush, grimacing. She couldn't say You're not rich with Mrs. Gracia backing her gamble, as well as Granny and Ms. Riza. She might've settled for It's just us girls: apart from the bank, she won't owe a man a cen. But ...
None of your business!
It's too painful to admit she never thought to ask them.
≈
Ed stands her dinner -- not at the diner. "I'm sorry."
Winry nods, picking at her salad. Ed plows on, rehearsed and stiff.
"I was out of line. Your shop is your business. But -- if I -- " He stumbles now, off-script, his amber gaze skittering across her face. "If we could -- if you ever need -- or want -- just ask, all right?"
His incoherent sincerity unnerves her; she's not sure why. But Granny didn't raise a coward: she looks him in the eye, holds out her hand. "All right."
Ed shakes it, smearing his automail with dressing for her to wipe away.
7. Perspective
It is commonly said by farmers, that a good pear or apple costs no more time or pains to rear, than a poor one;
so I would have no work of art, no speech, or action, or thought, or friend, but the best.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
≈
Ed zigzags between market stalls like an oriole; Winry follows sedately, favoring her aching feet. "Hey, apples!" he calls, and while he investigates the barrel, she counts the months since she last baked a pie, or cooked anything more complicated than a boiled egg on her (clandestine) hot plate.
"That's five cens, mac."
Winry looks up to see Ed scraping the coins from his pocket, an apple plugging his mouth boar's-head fashion. He bolts half the fruit at once before noticing her smile. "What?" he asks mushily, cheeks stuffed with pulp.
"Nothing," she answers, selecting an apple for herself.
6. Playing Percentages
Paninya comes to visit, testing the waters: If you can make it in Central, maybe I can, too. She murmurs polite ahs and hmms throughout her tour of the clinic, but over tea afterwards she remarks, "Kinda soulless, isn't it?"
"You could say that," sighs Winry.
Paninya butters her toast. "So, when are you opening your own shop?"
"As soon as I have the money."
"Well, hurry up!" Paninya urges, pointing the greasy knife at Winry. "When I move here, I want my 'old friends' discount."
"Ha! Only if I get one, too," Winry counters.
They shake on it, laughing.
5. Immediate Jewel
for kanja177, obviously
The customer is the immediate jewel of our souls.
Him we flatter, him we feast, compliment, vote for, and will not contradict.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
≈
The receptionist catches Winry returning from lunch. "Mrs. Hart called," she sing-songs, waving a folded note and shrugging maliciously as Winry groans.
Everyone in the firm has worked on Mrs. Hart's leg. She attaches herself like a leech to new hires and sucks the life from them with passive-aggressive niggling: It's such a nuisance, but I don't suppose you can do anything about the ankle sticking ... Don't worry about the noise the knee makes; it only throws my balance off a trifle ...
Winry pins the latest message to her corkboard with a scraper, three punches and a knife.
4. Clandestine Engagement
for cornerofmadness,with warm wishes
(or perhaps wishes for warmth)
Winry's contract forbids her to moonlight. The company, claiming the rights to whatever she invents while in its employ, on or off the clock, cannot disclaim liability for any maintenance or installation she does in her free time, either. So Winry keeps her best inspirations in her head and disappoints most clients by refusing to tinker outside the office. Sorry; I need this job ...
Ed's the exception, of course, taking her oh-so-casual suggestions to Riesenbuhl for Granny to implement and trysting with her in discreet hotels for adjustments. It's like we're having an affair, she teases, grinning as he blushes.
3. Always Right
for my brother in business
Only a week on the job, she's summoned to answer a complaint. Winry doesn't recognize herself in the condescending shrew of the client's report -- all she remembers is trying to persuade him not to trick his automail out with what Granny calls phallic enhancements. "They'd increase the load on the mechanism without a corresponding gain in function," she argues. "He doesn't need them."
"You're not here to decide what he needs," her supervisor replies. "Just give him what he wants."
"That's irresponsible!"
"That's customer service." He scribbles a note on the complaint. "Consider this your first warning."
Winry gapes, speechless.
2. Saturday Night
for evil_little_dog, who is too noble a soul
to consider replacing someone's bath salts with something else. Probably.
We have a great deal more kindness than is ever spoken.
Maugre all the selfishness that chills like east winds the world,
the whole human family is bathed with an element of love like a fine ether.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson, "On Friendship"
≈
The boardinghouse is stuffy in summer, chilly in winter, and smells of cabbage in all seasons, but since Winry only sleeps and stores her clothes there, these defects hardly signify. She reserves her ire for the cramped washroom, complaining relentlessly to the Elric brothers about its lack of a tub. Ed replies that baths are for babies and even Al wonders whether showering isn't more efficient. She always knew they were idiots.
Trudging home from work Saturday night, she barks her shins on the big tin basin and box of bath foam sitting outside her door and revises her opinion.
1. Overqualified
for evil_little_dog. Knock 'em dead at your interview! (Er ... you know what I mean.)
Job-hunting during a recession makes most people desperate; Winry Rockbell just gets cranky. So it's inevitable that when yet another sweaty-palmed male chauvinist leers at her and suggests he might be able to find her an opening, if she proves ... qualified ... she pulls a wrench on him.
"How about this?" she asks sweetly. "You give me the job because I'm a qualified engineer, and I won't crush your ugly supraorbital foramen."
Fortunately Granny wires the bail money without question, so Ed and Al need never hear about Mr. Sweaty Palms. One attempt at human transmutation is enough for a lifetime.
[Acknowledgments: Fullmetal Alchemist (Hagane no Renkinjutsushi) was created by Arakawa Hiromu and is serialized monthly in Shonen Gangan (Square Enix). Copyright for these properties is held by Arakawa Hiromu and Square Enix. All rights reserved.]
Fandom: FMA (manga version)
Character(s): Winry, with appearances from others
Pairing(s): Canon 'ships in the background.
Word Count: 1500 so far.
Warnings: None.
A/N: So many of my friends, online and off, are job-hunting or experiencing job weirdness that it's invading my 'fic. So here's Winry Rockbell, working girl, in a variety of professional situations (or situations at least marginally related to her profession). The first two drabbles in this unlinked set were originally posted separately, here and here. Concrit welcomed with letters of recommendation. Crossposted from
nebroadwe to Höllenbeck (i.e. hagaren_manga, fm_alchemist, fma_gen, fma_writers, fma_fiction and winrylovers).Dedication(s): See individual drabbles below.
13-15. Bank Holiday
kanja177, as compensation for One of Those Weeksthere is eternal resource and a long tomorrow, rich and strong as yesterday.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
≈
This sticky summer morning the bus seems full of shrieking children and their already exhausted parents. Elicia bounces in her seat, pointing out every landmark en route to Central Reservoir, her period of oscillation shortening as they approach the park gates. "We're here, Auntie Winry, we're here!" she announces, and climbs over her mother's lap to collide with a fat man wrestling a picnic hamper as wide as he down the aisle. "Sorry, mister!"
While Gracia pursues her disappearing daughter, Winry helps wrangle the hamper, transmuting a peevish grumble into a grunt of thanks. Customer service teaches its own alchemy.
The narrow beach is an album quilt of blankets, so Winry and Gracia spread theirs on the grassy knoll above the boardwalk, between the roots of a white ash, and take turns accompanying Elicia into the water. Winry shows her adopted niece how to float on its warm surface, her own toes twitching in the chilly, spring-fed zone beneath. Spelled by Gracia, she defiantly reads a bodice-ripper recommended by a client, watches the ash's pale leaves flutter against a periwinkle sky, or fends off potential mashers with feigned slumber.
On holiday, a snore's as good as a wrench.
Elicia falls asleep on the ride home, her damp head propped on Winry's shoulder. Winry gazes out the window, but the long-shadowed verges and twilit roofs pass in a blur as her mind leapfrogs the present evening for the coming dawn. If I bleed Mrs. Hart's hydraulics first ...
Gracia reaches across her drowsing daughter and touches Winry's knee. "Leave tomorrow to tomorrow," she advises.
Winry looks at Gracia, then at her own hands, curled around imaginary tools. She nods, bracing Elicia as the bus swings around a corner, and pulls the bodice-ripper from her bag to avert temptation.
12. Neophyte
evil_little_dog, as an unbirthday present, her birthday having slipped me by somehow ...-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
≈
Winry leaves the clinic on her last day of probation with a spring in her step and a satisfactory evaluation in her hand. Tomorrow (finally!) she'll be allowed to see clients unsupervised. No more tag-team diagnoses -- no more delays while the boss scrutinizes her plans. New girl gets the walk-ins, of course, but Winry knows that won't last long: next month, my own clients -- next year, my own shop! She grins and whistles a fanfare as she turns onto the avenue ...
... where she's ambushed by her colleagues and dragged to the nearest pub. New girl gets the first round, too.
8-11. Wager of Friendship
or perfect understanding between sincere people.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
≈
When Ed overtakes her in the street, demanding to know why she's hitting up that bastard Mustang for money, Winry's just glad he didn't catch her at the clinic. "Where'd you hear that?" she demands in return. "And keep it down!"
Somehow Ed finds his indoor voice. "Havoc said Mustang said you're starting your own shop, and -- " He shuts his mouth on something olive-bitter, to judge by his scowl.
"'And?'"
Ed snarls, then bursts out, "And that you're too ... cute to fail!"
Ah, the usual masculine vote of confidence. Winry's sigh emerges as a snicker; flushing, Ed stomps away.
The Elrics ambush Winry in her usual booth at the diner. She taps a pencil against her business plan as Al maneuvers the conversation around to her investors. "I didn't ask Mr. Mustang for money. I asked Ms. Riza." (Though she supposes, belatedly, that it amounts to the same thing now they're married.) "And I don't see why it's any of your business," she adds, glaring at a pinch-lipped Ed.
"Um," Al begins, but his brother elbows him silent and bellows, "Idiot! Why didn't you ask us?"
The hovering waitress goggles. Winry turns her scarlet face to the wall.
She pulls a brush through her damp locks, wincing as it meets another tangle. A hundred strokes each night, per her mother's long-ago advice, doesn't prevent knots -- maybe Mrs. Gracia knows a better remedy ...
Why didn't you ask us?
Winry drops the useless hairbrush, grimacing. She couldn't say You're not rich with Mrs. Gracia backing her gamble, as well as Granny and Ms. Riza. She might've settled for It's just us girls: apart from the bank, she won't owe a man a cen. But ...
None of your business!
It's too painful to admit she never thought to ask them.
Ed stands her dinner -- not at the diner. "I'm sorry."
Winry nods, picking at her salad. Ed plows on, rehearsed and stiff.
"I was out of line. Your shop is your business. But -- if I -- " He stumbles now, off-script, his amber gaze skittering across her face. "If we could -- if you ever need -- or want -- just ask, all right?"
His incoherent sincerity unnerves her; she's not sure why. But Granny didn't raise a coward: she looks him in the eye, holds out her hand. "All right."
Ed shakes it, smearing his automail with dressing for her to wipe away.
7. Perspective
so I would have no work of art, no speech, or action, or thought, or friend, but the best.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
≈
Ed zigzags between market stalls like an oriole; Winry follows sedately, favoring her aching feet. "Hey, apples!" he calls, and while he investigates the barrel, she counts the months since she last baked a pie, or cooked anything more complicated than a boiled egg on her (clandestine) hot plate.
"That's five cens, mac."
Winry looks up to see Ed scraping the coins from his pocket, an apple plugging his mouth boar's-head fashion. He bolts half the fruit at once before noticing her smile. "What?" he asks mushily, cheeks stuffed with pulp.
"Nothing," she answers, selecting an apple for herself.
6. Playing Percentages
Paninya comes to visit, testing the waters: If you can make it in Central, maybe I can, too. She murmurs polite ahs and hmms throughout her tour of the clinic, but over tea afterwards she remarks, "Kinda soulless, isn't it?"
"You could say that," sighs Winry.
Paninya butters her toast. "So, when are you opening your own shop?"
"As soon as I have the money."
"Well, hurry up!" Paninya urges, pointing the greasy knife at Winry. "When I move here, I want my 'old friends' discount."
"Ha! Only if I get one, too," Winry counters.
They shake on it, laughing.
5. Immediate Jewel
kanja177, obviouslyHim we flatter, him we feast, compliment, vote for, and will not contradict.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson
≈
The receptionist catches Winry returning from lunch. "Mrs. Hart called," she sing-songs, waving a folded note and shrugging maliciously as Winry groans.
Everyone in the firm has worked on Mrs. Hart's leg. She attaches herself like a leech to new hires and sucks the life from them with passive-aggressive niggling: It's such a nuisance, but I don't suppose you can do anything about the ankle sticking ... Don't worry about the noise the knee makes; it only throws my balance off a trifle ...
Winry pins the latest message to her corkboard with a scraper, three punches and a knife.
4. Clandestine Engagement
cornerofmadness,with warm wishes(or perhaps wishes for warmth)
Winry's contract forbids her to moonlight. The company, claiming the rights to whatever she invents while in its employ, on or off the clock, cannot disclaim liability for any maintenance or installation she does in her free time, either. So Winry keeps her best inspirations in her head and disappoints most clients by refusing to tinker outside the office. Sorry; I need this job ...
Ed's the exception, of course, taking her oh-so-casual suggestions to Riesenbuhl for Granny to implement and trysting with her in discreet hotels for adjustments. It's like we're having an affair, she teases, grinning as he blushes.
3. Always Right
Only a week on the job, she's summoned to answer a complaint. Winry doesn't recognize herself in the condescending shrew of the client's report -- all she remembers is trying to persuade him not to trick his automail out with what Granny calls phallic enhancements. "They'd increase the load on the mechanism without a corresponding gain in function," she argues. "He doesn't need them."
"You're not here to decide what he needs," her supervisor replies. "Just give him what he wants."
"That's irresponsible!"
"That's customer service." He scribbles a note on the complaint. "Consider this your first warning."
Winry gapes, speechless.
2. Saturday Night
evil_little_dog, who is too noble a soulto consider replacing someone's bath salts with something else. Probably.
Maugre all the selfishness that chills like east winds the world,
the whole human family is bathed with an element of love like a fine ether.
-- Ralph Waldo Emerson, "On Friendship"
≈
The boardinghouse is stuffy in summer, chilly in winter, and smells of cabbage in all seasons, but since Winry only sleeps and stores her clothes there, these defects hardly signify. She reserves her ire for the cramped washroom, complaining relentlessly to the Elric brothers about its lack of a tub. Ed replies that baths are for babies and even Al wonders whether showering isn't more efficient. She always knew they were idiots.
Trudging home from work Saturday night, she barks her shins on the big tin basin and box of bath foam sitting outside her door and revises her opinion.
1. Overqualified
evil_little_dog. Knock 'em dead at your interview! (Er ... you know what I mean.)Job-hunting during a recession makes most people desperate; Winry Rockbell just gets cranky. So it's inevitable that when yet another sweaty-palmed male chauvinist leers at her and suggests he might be able to find her an opening, if she proves ... qualified ... she pulls a wrench on him.
"How about this?" she asks sweetly. "You give me the job because I'm a qualified engineer, and I won't crush your ugly supraorbital foramen."
Fortunately Granny wires the bail money without question, so Ed and Al need never hear about Mr. Sweaty Palms. One attempt at human transmutation is enough for a lifetime.
[Acknowledgments: Fullmetal Alchemist (Hagane no Renkinjutsushi) was created by Arakawa Hiromu and is serialized monthly in Shonen Gangan (Square Enix). Copyright for these properties is held by Arakawa Hiromu and Square Enix. All rights reserved.]
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2009-02-01 01:00 pm (UTC)I for one welcome the efforts of those more knowledgeable in the fields of medicine and engineering than I to depict this aspect of Winry's life. The research issues are one thing that's held up "Errand of the Eye" (Winry and Paninya go to the movies with a bunch of other techies and discuss techie things) for going on three years now. Time to go back and have at it again. (It also hints of Ed/Winry -- in fact, it was my first attempt to write anything even remotely touching on romantic feelings, so that section would probably benefit from a makeover.)
no subject
Date: 2009-02-01 04:21 pm (UTC)Well engineering doesn't apply to me, though that was something I was trying to do with "Everything I've Ever Had" but I actually am starting to think that I'm more at a disadvantage coming from the perspective of modern medicine. We were told our first couple weeks of school that saying something like "If you don't hold still for the pictures, we have to repeat the exam," to a difficult patient can get us sued for assault - contrast that with a screaming automail surgery patient and I kind of end up scratching my head a little bit.
Not to mention I have a hard time deciding what technology they'd use - medical x-rays had only been in use about ten years at the turn of the century - and what would be something they'd have to build/repair (i.e. automail) and what an amateur alchemist could be employed to do (I think in one of my Snapshots I mention Ed mixing an alloy for Winry's automail).
This is all the stuff that's hold up that Rush Valley fic that I have about a rough page of, but nothing else.
Time to go back and have at it again.
Yes yes yes! Of course I could cheer you on more but would be lacking for something to give out in return... (Write write write!)
no subject
Date: 2009-02-01 05:36 pm (UTC)[blinks rapidly] Er, what? Under what controlling legal authority? [is appalled, but also curious]
Not to mention I have a hard time deciding what technology they'd use - medical x-rays had only been in use about ten years at the turn of the century - and what would be something they'd have to build/repair (i.e. automail) and what an amateur alchemist could be employed to do (I think in one of my Snapshots I mention Ed mixing an alloy for Winry's automail).
Given that the 21st century is just starting to get bionic limbs off the ground, I think we're allowed to make some appropriate Amestrian tech up to backstop the steampunk biomedical engineering they've got. The key word there is "appropriate," though. Sigh. Research issues will be the death of me.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-01 06:52 pm (UTC)It's one of those worst case of a worst case scenario, but basically our Patient Care book advised us to consider purchasing insurance once we were graduated an registered with the ASRT and our teacher told us she'd never heard of a tech getting insured personally before, but if you're in a situation like this, where you say something like that to a patient "Hold still or we'll have to repeat the whole thing!" or "Your doctor needs these x-rays!" or something in that line and the patient either does not realize they can refuse the procedure or doesn't until partway through, we could get hit with an assault or false imprisonment charge if they filed a complaint or even a police report if they felt violated enough/had someone exploiting the situation. If that ever happened, the most likely scenario would be that the hospital would deal with it and settle, but the individual tech would very likely be branded a danger to patients and fired. I guess there are cases of a hospital throwing a tech under the bus, but our teacher tried to reassure us that it doesn't happen very often.
(And once JCAHO is brought in you're screwed. It's the end of the world.)
I think more than anything it's a warning to us techs to always be aware of how we're talking to patients and to embrace CYA documentation, but it's more than a little intimidating sometimes.
The key word there is "appropriate," though.
Bingo. I think I didn't really explain it right though - I mean the technology is hard to decide, but there are also policies that I always consider too (i.e. HIPAA and all that junk) - which is easy to brush away in the sense of "Oh they didn't use it back then!" - but there has to be SOME structure to the automail industry, especially once you consider how fraught with peril these surgeries can really be.
no subject
Date: 2009-02-03 01:12 pm (UTC)Eek. I am reminded yet again why I'm much happier in my current job. Books don't get angry if you mishandle them. (Supervisors do, but that's another story. Fortunately, all my supervisors have been good sorts. And they don't even read this blog!)
Bingo. I think I didn't really explain it right though - I mean the technology is hard to decide, but there are also policies that I always consider too (i.e. HIPAA and all that junk) - which is easy to brush away in the sense of "Oh they didn't use it back then!" - but there has to be SOME structure to the automail industry, especially once you consider how fraught with peril these surgeries can really be.
Or maybe not -- the early twentieth century in our world includes the Progressive Era, after all, when people finally began to wake up and say, "Eww -- somebody please regulate the meat-packing industry!" and so forth. It might be fun to imagine the automail industry in a similar situation (I can see Winry fulminating as she repairs somebody else's botched installation at cost, because the poor sap who went with cheap over good didn't realize s/he had no recourse once the contract was signed, or something). Hmmm ...