The NON-Canon Couples Thread of Non-Canony Crazy!

[Rainbow-Lord Crowmunculus]

lol, it's no one I'm following in case you were wondering - it's just that some of the people I follow track the FMA tag, and then they run into this BS and get indignant about it and reblog it angrily, and then I see their angry reblogs and need to angry reblog it myself XD;

Here's what I have so far for a longwinded intro:


So recently there’s been a buttload of FMA shipwar drama popping up on my dash. WHOSE RESPONSIBLE THIS: Specific new fans introduced to FMA ala Brohood who apparently think they are being original and edgy by getting indignant over the existence of RoyEd and Elricest, when really all they’re accomplishing is failed animal transmutation to bring that horse back from the dead so they can beat it some more. HORSEMUNCULUS

Look, specific new fans: I love new fans. I love the new life Brohood breathed into the fandom. But please, specific newbs, please be aware that the FMA fandom has been kicking around for almost ten years now. It’s a long-since established fandom and you are totally welcome to join the party, but fergodsake don’t insult the other partygoers. RoyEd and Elricest are not new concepts. It’s not some terrifying new trend that’s “ruining the fandom.” Sweetheart, ya gotta be kidding me. Those pairs you don’t like? They’ve been party topics from the start.

A fandom is a community and as such it is what we make of it. Think of fandom like alchemy: One is All, All is One. Fandom as the All could not exist without all the fans – all the Ones with all their different opinions. Fandom only exists because a group of people with a common interest got together and made it so. Do you know how you ruin a fandom? It’s certainly not by shipping a noncanon pair, or interpreting the canon a different way. You ruin a fandom by disrespecting the other people in the community.

Fandom is more than the fanworks produced; fandom is the fans. Fandom cannot exist independent of the fans. If you want your fandom to stick around, you need to make sure the fans stick around. If you want a healthy fandom, you need to be kind. You only get out of fandom what you put into it. If you’re nasty and judgmental you will find yourself surrounded by nasty and judgmental people. If you treat other fans with respect and love you will receive those in turn. We’re all in this sandbox together, so we might as well get along. We’re in the sandbox to build castles and have fun, not get sand thrown in our eyes. So don’t fucking throw sand.

On a side note, going back to the party metaphor: Please acknowledge that there are still first anime fans (seriously!) hanging out at the punch bowl, and when you make snide remarks about anime1 (which you’ve never watched) it’s the equivalent of pissing in our punch. Stop that, it’s unsightly. You have your anime with your canon het pairs, let us have ours without them. I get seriously sick of people getting pissy about Ed slash because “he loves Winry!” Okay. One, they’re not together in the first anime, which is still a valid canon whether you like it or not; two, yes he is in manga/Brohood canon, but fanwork is in no way limited by the canon. THIS IS FROM AN EDWIN AND ROYAI SHIPPER. Seriously you guys are an embarrassment to our ships. Cut it out.


THE POINT IS dolphins the point that I completely got sidetracked from is that RoyEd and Elricest have been around a damn long time and they’re not going away, so get the fuck used to them. You don’t have to like the pairs, but the shippers themselves are perfectly wonderful people who should be showered with love, not sand. So this is a post to appreciate contributions RoyEd and Elricest shippers have made to the fandom, because fandom is only what you make of it and these guys made it pretty damn awesome.




And then I'm gonna have lists/links to relevant items, which I'll post later when it's actually a comprehensive list instead of a big fail-pile like it is right now. I'm pretty well covered for Elricest, though more is always better if anyone has any recs. Unfortunately, the period of time where I was a big RoyEd fan was before I started saving links and such to my computer - I just bookmarked everything, and I've long since lost those bookmarks >_> So I've got some stuff for RoyEd, but I probably need a lot more.

Tara, would you want to be on the rec list for RoyEd? I started off with authors/writers that sort of everyone knows and who've been around the fandom since dinosaurs roamed Amestris, but I wound up also including some more recent writers and I definitely think you're notable enough (and good enough! <3) Are you cool with this?

And yes, I already got IDEA and Rueme down for RoyEd artists XD Also Bambi Takada and GD-Mechano.

I would totally help out with your ask tumblr, but I suck at drawing people, especially anime style XDDDD; I can try to find an artist for you, though!

[PuzzleChick]

^ Oh yes, you must include Tara. =D I've only read a few of her short fics, and considering that RoyEd falls into an archtype I generally dislike, I find her fics fascinating and extremely well-written. Definitely wonderful contributions to the fandom. ^^

I would love to help out the campaign, but unfortunately I'm only vaguely involved at best with the OTPs I do ship, so I don't know any good sites about the ones I don't. OTL

I WISH YOU LUCK WITH IT.

[taranova]

Crow: Oh, okay. And I see a lot of that, too. I generally look up "royed", "roy/ed", and "royxed" tentatively depending on my mood, and most of what I find is ship-bashing. So, I completely understand where you're coming from, and I know a lot of other fans probably feel the same way. It's kind of offensive when people bash shippers over something they know nothing about.

I -love- your longwinded intro, by the way! It's absolutely beautiful, makes a lot of sense, and really, would be ludicrous for these people to blow off. You're not asking for much and you're not bashing anyone else, you're just asking for some leeway, which is really the purpose: feeling able to ship something you really like and not having to be afraid of other fans bashing you for it.

Feel free to copy-pasta the reasons why I like my preferred pairing, if you so choose. ^-^ Unless you think it's too opinionated or doesn't have much universal appeal as far as the pairings are concerned.

Here are some recommended RoyEd authors:
BeautifulFiction
BinaryTales
FuckMePumps
Kikiko
sarunotoki
Sisyphean Effort
Spirix
Torean
UP2L8
Zakai
Tyndall Blue
zosimos
seatbeltdrivein
Winds of Water
FractureFic
Skydark

Check them out, if you can. ;3

As for art, I follow a tumblr called fuckyeahroyed. I'm sure there's probably a fuckyeahelricest around there somewhere, as well. If you really need some diverse artists, you can check my deviantART favorites on both of these usernames: ~tammylita and ~taranova. My ~taranova account is newer and has mostly horror-themed favorites, not having to do with FMA, though I am a mod for two different FMA groups--FMA Pin-ups and Sadistic FMA. I'm also a member of a RoyEd group, though the art isn't always the best.

And, um--well, if you think I'm good enough, then sure! Love to. <3

I really don't need a professional artist. XD I draw stick figure porn. (Really.) I'm sure you (or someone else, if you could find them!) would be much better than I. Of course, however you can help is awesome, just know that I'll be maintaining the blog and all of the technicalities, so whoever helps with this wouldn't really have to do much except clean, lightly colored lineart. Nothing detailed.


Puzzle: '^-^ Glad to know I can make something unlikeable likeable. <3 -huggles-

[acedia]

I've seen all that too...>_> Feelings summed it up better than I can (all is one, one is all), so I'll just add that even though I'm not really a big fan of RoyEd or Elricest, all the complaining about it bothers me. And I don't really know many specific fanartists, but I'll see what I can do. I am down with non-canon.

(don't even get me started on the first-anime bashing, so what if it's "not canon"? >_>)

[taranova]

^ It's canon, it's just a different kind of canon, in my opinion. XD FMA has a LOT of different canons, between the manga, anime1, the first movie, the novels, the video games, the buttloads of OVAs...I think FMA canon is slightly irrelevant, especially given the size of its fandom. :3

Thank you for the input, acedia. ^-^

[taranova]

Oh, and this tumblr makes me sad:
dearmustang.tumblr.com/http

I think I want to start a shitlist of pages and people I hate, but that would be immature.

[Rainbow-Lord Crowmunculus]

I don't have an actual shitlist as much as a mental tally of places to avoid for the sake of my blood pressure, but I understand the sentiment -_-

Hokay so I can respect a roleplay blog having to stay in character, and that RoyEd is like Elricest in that it either exists in a universe or it really doesn't, and if it's a verse where Roy really doesn't have any romantic/sexual feelings for Ed then yeah he'd be skeeved out by it. But for chrissakes, the rp-muns of the world should have some TACT. Remember that other people can't always tell whether it's your character getting pissy or YOU getting pissy through your character, and act accordingly when speaking to people who aren't participating in the RP. It's one thing for a character to get uptight about a pairing - though to be honest I always cringe when I see in-character rpers touching the topic of pairings, because you just know it's going to end in tears and why do it unless you want to stir up shit - but it's another thing altogether if you're using your character as an excuse to be a shithead to shippers. I HAVE A LOT OF FEELINGS.

NOW HERE HAVE SOME MORE FEELINGS: ASKLJDAFKARRGHASDKL I HATE WHEN PEOPLE OVERSIMPLIFY THE ISSUES INHERENT IN A ROY/ED RELATIONSHIP. THE ISSUES ARE WHAT MAKE IT INTERESTING.

"Pedophilia" is a legal term as much as a psychological disorder, and this trips people up sometimes. I think it varies from place to place but I'm pretty sure that in the U.S. the word pedophilia as a legal term is even used to describe statutory rape cases where the underage participant is weeks shy of the age of consent (usually 18, 16 in some states.) From a strictly psychological standpoint, though, pedophilia is a term that applies to sex acts with prepubescent children. Though his height may lead one to believe otherwise (lolI'mnotsorry) Ed at 15 isn't prepubescent.

What really bugs me is that these people never touch upon the fact that Amestris has a different legal system and cultural values system than the modern-day real-world West (where all the whiners I've ever seen come from.) Why would you do that. Why would you skimp on that. THAT SHIT IS FASCINATING.[/b]

First: Ed at fifteen or sixteen is not physically or emotionally an "adult" (as seen through a 21st century Western lens.) But what about legally? He joined the military at 12; how does the military define him? He's given the privileges and responsibilities of an adult, to an extent. Does he have a legal guardian or is he emancipated? What about Al? If Ed is emancipated, is Ed Al's guardian, or is Al emancipated as well? Is Roy, as Ed's immediate superior, both Ed and Al's legal guardian? What the hell is Hohenheim? If he were to show up and HQ one day and try to take Ed on a fishing trip or something, would being a blood parent and (previously) provider mean he counts as Ed's legal guardian and allow him to whisk Ed away for fishing adventures, or did he lose that right when he vanished; if Hohenheim does count as Ed's legal guardian, what would that make Roy if Roy was also Ed's guardian? What if Ed was emancipated?

Second: What the hell is the age of consent in Amestris? People automatically assuming it's 18 "because anything younger is wrong!" make me roll my eyes. Dude, the age of consent in my state is 16. State as in U.S. state. It's not 18 everywhere, even in the western world. Many European countries have 16 as the legal age of consent, and as Amestris is heavily based on England with a German-style military, it's fair to place Amestris's age of consent at 16.

Fans also need to remember that FMA takes place in the early 1900s. 21st century cultural values don't always apply. Winry assisted in Ed's automail surgery when she was 11, and started practicing on the general public at 15/16. And need I remind everyone that Ed JOINED THE GODDAMN MILITARY at age 12. You couldn't do that shit nowadays in the West. Amestris clearly has different ideas about childhood and children's capacity for work. They have a very different cultural view of childhood; children are likely expected to mature and assist their parents with work much earlier. Would they have similar attitudes at what age it's appropriate for kids to have sex?

AND THEN, the age of consent isn't always the age of majority (age you can vote) or the age when your parents are no longer required to care for you. For example, while the age of consent in Washington state is 16, 18 is still the age of majority and the age your parents can kick you out as per federal laws. What's the age of majority in Amestris? How long are parents required to support their kids?

(A fun history example of how this works: In the U.S., until the 16th Amendment passed in 1971, kids could get kicked out at 18 but in most states couldn't legally vote until they were 21. This became an issue with the Vietnam war: boys could be drafted at 18, but couldn't vote for or against the politicians approving or disapproving of the draft until they were 21 - they had no control over what their government was doing with them, legal adults. The student activism of the era pushed the passage of the 26th Amendment, which requires all states allow all citizens 18 years and older the right to vote. This isn't all that relevant for Amestris, because uh I really don't think it matters if you get to vote or not, Bradley is a mean motherfucker and he does what he wants @_@

A modern-day example of weird age laws: supporters of lowering the drinking age note the absurdity of allowing one to sign up for war at 18 but making you wait three more years to legally buy and consume alcohol. Also, even though your parents aren't required to give you shit after you turn 18, if you're applying for federal college aid through FAFSA, the amount of cash available to you in a Pell grant is based upon the income of your blood parents until you're 24. Also also, if you inherit money, you yourself legally can't access that money until you're 24 - it needs to be proctored to you by someone over the age of 24. Crazy shit.)

Continuing on with this crazy train: Even supposing that sixteen is the age of consent/majority/adulthood in Amestris, there might be issues with the age gap between Roy and Ed. Some places have separate ages of consent: one where it's legal to have sex with people of a similar age (Example: Romeo and Juliet sorta laws that allow for that 17 year old and 18 year old to be together without worrying about statutory rape charges) and one where it's legal to have sex with everyone above that age. Some places have a different age of consent for men and women - usually younger for the women, older for the men; this is more common in places steeped in misogyny. Some places have an age of consent for het sex and an older age of consent for homo sex - specifically sex between two cismen, specifically sodomy. That last one is more common in places steeped in homophobia.

(Not-so-quick sidenote: Amestris for its era is remarkably forward-thinking about the role of women, something to which I credit the lack of a state religion (namely single-deity patriarchal religion and all the bs that can be derived from that.) You've got Winry and her mother as surgeons, Ross and Riza and Rebecca in the military and of course Olivier. If you look at the military brass it's mostly a boy's club, and you'll notice we never see any female state alchemists; Amestris still has its hangups over women in the workforce, but it looks like it's in a period of social change where things are getting better, and they'll only continue to get better under a democratic government.)

So what's the social climate in Amestris like for queer people? You've got Garfiel strutting his stuff, so it's clearly not illegal, and he's got a well-paying job as a health service provider so there are out members of the rainbow crowd in the upper class. Again, no central religion and religion itself isn't widely practiced, so there's no religious bigotry to mess with queer rights. I'd intuit from the military dictatorship style government though that homosexuality is on some level frowned upon - you need straight sex to make babies to grow up and be soldiers - but whether that's reflected in the laws or not in terms of marriage legality, staggered ages of consent, etc. is up to the fan-author.

Third: Holy shit all the endless combinations of those different factors, and all the different scenarios that could result. If Roy is Ed's legal guardian until Ed is 16, is it legal for him to sex Ed up after Ed's 16th birthday? If Ed is emancipated, how does this affect consent? Something I didn't even bother to touch on because I know nothing about it - what the fuck does Amestris think of fraternization? Is it kosher or not?

And what of the age gap? If Ed is of legal age (whatever that may be)
would it still be frowned upon? Remember, this may be an alternate history but it's still the early 1900s, where a 16-year-old being with at thirtysomething man was not uncommon. Of course, that comes from the true definition of "traditional marriage" where a much older man married a much younger woman; would the dynamics be the same with a same-sex couple, seeing as homosexuality is legal in Amestris, or is it not normalized enough in society to be seen as equal to a straight couple? Is homosexuality treated much like it's treated nowadays in the West, where it's still not widely considered as equal to heterosexuality, or are they at a point where culturally the gender identities of the people in the couple don't matter?

It's just - AUGH, so many possibilities! So much drama! SO MUCH POTENTIAL *A*

So when all people can come up with is "But Ed's 15 and Roy is 29!" I just want to stare at them and say WHERE THE FUCK IS YOUR IMAGINATION. That's only the tippytop of the gorram iceberg of social Issues!

...Please tell me I'm not the only freak who seriously thinks about all this ^^; It's interesting! I love worldbuilding, and I love learning and thinking about how setting influences social and legal constructs!

I can totally respect people being squicked by the age/power differences between Roy and Ed. A lot of the time I'm squicked by it, because whether or not Roy is Ed's legal guardian he still acts in loco parentis for him various times throughout both canons. It's not something that would be remotely acceptable in real life; however, people sometimes forget that this is a fantasy setting, and Ed is extremely unusual for someone his age, in many ways more mature and capable of making important life decisions for himself. Age restrictions exist in real life because exceptions like Ed are rare, and it's more important to protect the majority of people who do fall within age norms. But again, fic =/= real life I say as I preach to the choir

If it's not your thing, cool. There's nothing wrong with not liking a ship. Ship and let ship and stay awesome. But getting pissy at someone who ships it, and saying or implying that they're "sick" or "bad" for liking it? Jeezus. Look, most of the Roy/Ed shippers I've met are mature enough to tell the difference between fiction and reality, something the antishippers have yet to grasp.

...

...

...I'll leave you alone forever now.

/epic tl;dr

[helle is a SLYTHERIN <3]

Sept 24, 2011 15:28:40 GMT -5 Rainbow-Lord Crowmunculus said:

Second: What the hell is the age of consent in Amestris? People automatically assuming it's 18 "because anything younger is wrong!" make me roll my eyes. Dude, the age of consent in my state is 16. State as in U.S. state. It's not 18 everywhere, even in the western world. Many European countries have 16 as the legal age of consent, and as Amestris is heavily based on England with a German-style military, it's fair to place Amestris's age of consent at 16.

Actually, Pluto and I had to look up the age of consent in Germany for a story and it's fourteen, so it may be even younger than that. (And I believe the specifications for statutory rape in Germany is that one must be over the age of 21 and have manipulated or pressured the under-21 into it. Also if you're under fourteen)

(On a side note, I honestly do not care if other people ship things I don't ship, as long as they don't get all obnoxious and try to make me ship it or whatever. I mean. I ship Remus/Lily and Doctor/SOMEONEWHOISNOTROSE. - also, Janto is LOVELY and I'm really not as into the TW fandom as I am DW or HP, but I don't think I've seen a single Janto basher and it is the most wonderful whoniverse pairing next to Amy/Rory and Doctor/TARDIS. Like I don't think anyone can like Torchwood and bash non-het ships. With FMA, it's mostly that the only ships that appeal to me seem to be het, with the exception of crack.)

Personally, RoyEd squicks me out because of the age difference, but I'm not going to tell people that it's sick and wrong because they're characters. I don't like it, so I'm not going to read fanfic of it to bash or look at fanart to yell at the artist about it. People need to relax; they're fictional characters. I also started off with the manga and then went on to Brotherhood, and still haven't finished all of anime 1, buuuut the subtext in Shamballa.

AND IN NON-CANON I HAVE RECENTLY BECOME INFATUATED WITH SELIM/ELYSIA. OLDER!ELYSIA, OBVIOUSLY, AND SELIM WHEN HE'S NOT ACTUALLY PRIDE.
I DON'T KNOW.
I JUST THOUGHT ABOUT IT ONE DAY
AND IT SEEMED AMUSING.


...also, i somehow crackship Alfons/Winry.

[piedpiperpluto]

^ Also, an interesting side note: Germany's age-of-consent law is rather unusual, because it has a bit where 14- and 15- year olds in relations with older people can get the older people in legal trouble if they feel intimidated/coerced into anything sexual, but if, say, the kid's parents walk in on them, they can't press those charges.

@crow: Your tl;drs are the best tl;drs.

[PuzzleChick]

Crow's tl;drs make me sad. Because I realize I'll never be able to type anything as awesome and impressive and interesting as her soapboxes/manifestos. Anything I write looks bland and poser-y beside hers.

But then I realize I get to brag about being her friend to other people in awe of her so I guess that's okay. xD

/creeping in the thread and leaving nothing of substance lololol

[neoeevee]

Crow, I want to post that post on my Tumblr now. And everywhere. Because SERIOUSLY, that needs to be said.

You also (unintentionally) identified one of the things I cannot STAND about high school AUs: you have a marvelously rich universe like Fullmetal Alchemist, and you're going to strip it down to something "safe and familiar" because you're afraid to step outside your comfort zone, get creative and DO SOME RESEARCH?

I know I could get on a soapbox about this, but I get the feeling I have before, and I'm getting off topic so I'll just stop myself now.

[acedia]

Crow, that was a fascinating read. No joke. (and no, you're not the only one who ever thought about what Amestrian society was like.) I agree- I'm still not into Roy/Ed (I respect people who are but it's not my thing.) but obviously, there would be issues, and honestly, I think most FMA pairings would have issues attached. Both non canon AND canon. because basically everyone has been through so much.
(am I the only one who thinks that the canon pairings would all have serious baggage? Trisha and Hohenheim for obvious reasons; Sig and Izumi because of the whole human transmutation thing, even though they love each other very much that's not something you can just ignore; Roy and Riza have been through a hell of a lot together; and I still have a hard time believing that Ed and Winry had absolutely no problems after the manga ended and that their life from then on was a fairy tale...ok this is the wrong thread for that but still)

[taranova]

You guys. I just wrote fluff. FLUFF.

It's the end of the world as we know it.

[Rainbow-Lord Crowmunculus]

Thank you guys ;~~~; I'm glad my tl;dr was worthwhile XD;

You all are and always have been awesome about ships - my frustration lies solely with people who make inflammatory posts in public places intending to stir up drama. Because that's not cool.


@slytherclaw: SELIM/ELYSIA. YES. IT COULD WORK.

I also kinda crackship first anime Wrath/older!Elysia. IDEK BUT IT'S CUTE OKAY. I at one point had this whole weird AU thing going on for them that eventually turned into original fiction...

Add Ed into the equation and I am more than okay with that. Alfons/Winry/Ed is my kryptonite.


@pluto: <333333 my tl;dr and I are both very happy :')


@puzzle: DO NOT SAY THAT YOU ARE AWESOME TOO AND I GET TO BRAG ABOUT YOU BEING MY FRIEND. WE CAN BOTH BE AWESOME OKAY. IN FACT EVERYONE IN THIS FORUM IS AWESOME, BECAUSE I DEEM IT SO. YES.

But no seriously never sell yourself short <3


@neo: Thank you! <3 And soapboxes are good! If I'm allowed to soapbox for fifty billion words SO ARE YOU. Soapbox away! You know that's what bothers me about high school AU as well even if well-done high school AU is my super secret weakness...it's just never written well...


acedia: Thank you, and I'm glad I'm not the only one! XD I'll probably wind up studying more sociology, it's something I'm really interested in, including how it factors into making and interpreting fiction.

And you're totally right, even the canon FMA pairs have their baggage! Like, I love RoyAi but I think I interpret it differently from a lot of the rest of the fandom...they are so not functional, and so few people actually address that. People get stuck on the grand romantic ideals of the pair - Riza not wanting to live in a world without Roy - that they miss out on how twisted those ideals really are. It's romantic in fiction with these larger-than-life characters whose personalities require nothing less, but less so when applied to real life. People tend to skimp on the codependency and trauma and Issues and try to force them into the lovey-dovey too-perfect mold of generic het romance everywhere, and I just don't get it.

And with EdWin, I think Ed would have a lot of difficulty with the white picket fence ending. I have this epic Thing I'll never finish writing about Ed dealing with not having alchemy while Al still does, how that affects their relationship, etcetera. I both love and hate all that the manga ending left open for us to interpret for ourselves XD


@tara: HOLY SHIT TARA WROTE FLUFF WHAT IS THIS IS THIS SOME KIND OF WEIRD FEVER DREAM WHAT PAIRING

YOU GOTTA POST IT

[PuzzleChick]

^ Thank you Crow. ='3

TARA, I WANNA READ YOUR FLUFF. <3