On Chapter 60

[evilhippo]

There's going to be just as much squeeing, though. Gah, I am such a sucker for backstory. What a way to persist at completely, constantly killing me with sympathising for characters I don't usually sympathize with, not to mention all the fangirling I am completely entitled to, stop looking at me like that had to do over Hughes' constant observations on everything. And being thrown into the middle of all the... and the characterization, and...

Okay, so on to slightly more coherent thoughts. As it turns out, I'm rather liking this turn in Roy and Hawkeye's relationship. Because hey guys, if they're not together now, and they've known each other all this time? I want to see someone writing pre-Ishbal Royai. Because I'd actually read that. I mean, gah, she's so shy there. I have this urge to just, like, run along behind her for the entire 10-year or whatever it is stretch between then and the "now" just to watch the character development.

I was also thinking about Roy's awkward haircut, and how awesome it is that Arakawa's got the hang of the whole guys don't often seem to have decent-on-them haircuts until they've actually grown up into themselves. Makes him look so dorky.

I still don't understand why I keep registering Ishbal-era Hughes as just-as-old and occasionally slightly-older-than normal time period. Guess he's one of those people who just always looks the same. Not that I don't know people who are guilty of that sort of thing. People I see every day.

The English major in me is hanging onto every time someone says "human" in this chapter in an odd way. At first I only noted it when someone non-human, or who I expect not to be said it, and I think they have a specific way of saying it that makes it stand out (because everyone else used the word "human" half a dozen times, too, including Hughes)... but goshdarnit, things like that don't work in translation often enough for me to hang on to anything. But mmm, flashback.

Also, I think Kimbley is almost creepier now because he's so goshdarn straight-facedly logical and, well "sane" by virtue of adherance to logic... Rather than just, well, nuts. Then again, we've yet to see the stone brought in, so that might finally tip things a little. He's still a jerkface, though. I am determined to look beyond his unexpected attractiveness.

Also, any bunnies I may have inadvertantly given myself yesterday re: Ishbal and crossovers that may or may not have had anything to do with spawning slightly different crossover bunnies involving a certain earlier chapters and some very mixed-up things that look like each other and... yes, those bunnies will be summarily ignored. They have to be. Though we all know I'll bring them up to some poor unsuspecting person sooner or later and suddenly they'll have to be written down.

Comments

[flutingfrenzy.livejournal.com]

I have this urge to just, like, run along behind her for the entire 10-year or whatever it is stretch between then and the "now" just to watch the character development.

The past and present pictures of her at the beginning of chapter 58 are such a great juxtaposition, because they're respectively the youngest and oldest versions of Hawkeye we've seen so far, and they are so different. (My seekrit shame at the moment is that one of the reasons I liked Hawkeye so much at first was that she did not have an angsty, complicated, mysterious past that was relevant to the plot. Of course, it's too late to turn back now.)

Roy's awkward haircut...Makes him look so dorky.

SQUEEEEEEE!!

It was so much easier to be dismissive of Kimbley when he was a skinny, wifebeater-wearin', maniacal-laughter-spewin' nutbar. Stupid manga, adding depth to characters like him and Barry the Chopper.

[evilhippo.livejournal.com]

Hehe, I'm just happy that, despite her apparent angsty complicated mysterious past, she's no longer angsting about it. (-: Though, the more I think about it, the more I'm not sure I'm entirely happy with the spin this puts on her loyalty to Roy. I'm glad there's more to it than the... well, lack-of-a-reason we had before, but mixing it in with loyalty to her father's... hmm. I haven't decided yet. (Also, I am still glad she's not Sekrit Alchemist Riza, because that would've, well... yes. This also proves that alchemical ability doesn't exactly run in families. Also, dude, what kind of father was he that he tattooed his research onto his daughter? Wtf...)

♥ young!dorky!Roy. So much. The amount of his dorkitude, really, and most of the mental backtalk on Hughes' part this chapter, really makes me think the whole coup thing was his idea, and Roy had to grow into it. I have no idea why I find this, of all things, rather cute. But I do.

[flutingfrenzy.livejournal.com]

The first time a Sekrit Alchemist is revealed will be the moment at which FMA jumps the shark. I'd really rather that Hawkeye not be the one who makes that happen. But more importantly, SERIOUSLY, did it never occur to her father that, aside from the gross exploitation of her body and her dependence on him, he was putting all his valuable things together in one neat little package that could so very easily be kidnapped or otherwise taken hostage, as the package was not yet a killing machine with a very protective dog? I don't think I like him much.

Young!dorky!Roy is so dorky and well-meaning and idealistic and earnest. I don't see how anyone could not find just about anything that affirms this to be cute. (And interesting idea re: Hughes...)

[evilhippo.livejournal.com]

I like to think that Arakawa will find a more interesting way to jump the shark, if she does at all. (-;

Oh, but no ordinary alchemist could decipher it, so obviously it'd be pointless to do something like kidnap her and hold her hostage until you could figure it out, which could be forever. Plus she's pretty, so, you know, keeping her hostage would't be all that bad. It's just asking to make your daughter into some sort of damsel-in-distress in the future, and he's very lucky he didn't do just that.

I'm trying not to let it make me sad that the war's going to break him soon... poor Young!Dorky!Roy.