The Cat likes Coffee

Blackberry was trying to drink my coffee earlier this morning while I was trying to upload page 12. It wasn't pretty as she had been trying to help me type earlier, and DELETED HALF OF THE TEXT ON PAGE 12 -- THE HUMUNGOUS EXPLANATION SECTION!!! >:o Blackberry went into feline aviation mode after I discovered that... But we've made up, and she's now sitting on my lap and sleeping as the keys pound in her ears.

Page 12, like page 4 with Zanazei and Zen's little talk, has a lot of important information on it about the plot. Notice how Y'Mal doesn't mention angels as well as demons? Is he just ill informed, or is he hiding things? Well, you'll have to read more in the weeks to come to find out.

I've also put up information about what is happening in the plot in the outline. You won't get any future stuff, but a general overveiw of what has happened so far, as well as things to keep in mind for the next chapters. Only one more page until Chapter One is complete, so stay tuned, and ready for a long break until chapter two is inked and colored (there are so many bloody pages in chapter 2).

On a ranters note: half of my favorite AMVs on YouTube are no longer availiable. Luckily I was able to find alernative links, but still why was Waka Laka for Osaka taken down? And Bleeding Soul? Well, I can sort of understand Bleeding Soul, for the violence it contained, but it was artistic, and sometimes violence does happen.

Ranting on a different topic: Back to The Conqueror of Shamballa!

The real problem with the movie, I think, was that it didn't deliver strong characters. Without strong characters you can't have a strong plot, and the problem with these characters were that they just reacted. FMA as a series had characters that were real -- here they seemed rather flat, in the case of Wrath and Envy it was because they were barely allowed any time to say anything, and in the case of Winry and Scheizka because they didn't really have any significance to the plot, other than just being there.

The lack of Al's memories meant that his actions didn't tally with everything that we learned of him through out the series (i.e. everything he's ever said about trying not to hurt people went completely to the wind as soon as he learned some flashy alchemy), and turned him into a very 2D character. In fact the very idea of Al showing off so blatantly with all of his Alchemy is nothing like the practical nice guy that you come to expect in the show. Ed can't move an inch without using some form of Alchemy, but in the show Al combined alchemy with physical power, speech and good timing in order to fight his battles. The Movie's Al seems to have lost all confidence in his ability to understand people, and talk them out of things, and now relies entirely on flashy entrances (a la the tornado in Liore).

Mustang's self exile, although part and parcel with his habit of punishing himself for things beyond his control, was not realistic. While he could no longer be Fuhror, that didn't mean that he would stop trying to keep the State from getting into any more senseless wars. Like Ed, Mustang will strive for his own objectives no matter what. He can't help people out in the frozen North, and that was antithetical to his nature. Luckily he turned around quickly enough at the end of the movie, but you have to ask, how did he know to come back to Central just at the pivotal moment?

My summary: The movie was out to kill all of my favorite characters' personalities in favor of cool special effects.

When it did call on people's personalities -- like Hohenheim's death scene -- it would concentrate on one character while leaving everyone else to fend for themselves. The strength of the show was the multitude of characters and how they interacted with one another. Hohenheim's death is another place where you need to have some stuff added, and his death soliloquy could definitely have been paired down and put into a tri-alogue between Ed Envy and Daddy dearest.

~~~

"What? Aren't you going to beg for your life, old man?" Envy's voice hissed up through his gullet, as he carefully kept his mouth from moving too much against the rotten and bleeding wedge that was Hohenheim.

"Now why would I -- want to do that?" the ancient alchemist gasped around the blunt fangs that punctured his rib cage. "I've lived a fuller -- and longer life -- than I've needed," air poured from his mouth, turning into a wheezy sigh. "Aren't you supposed to be killing me, son?"

"DON'T CALL ME THAT!" the steel jaws clamped down in Envy's anger, before the abomination realized what he was doing as blood coursed into his mouth. "Oh no, none of that you bastard," he hissed, "you're going to stay alive for a long time yet."

"You're lucky that they've all gone home for the night," Hohenheim observed weakly. "After that display they'd probably stick more pins in you."

He heard a ripping sound as Envy bunched his great serpentine length against the harpoons anchoring him to the raised platform. He could not help smirking as dragon's body shivered in pain. Hohenheim guessed that the abomination had torn his own skin and muscles by doing that.

"Amazing what humans can do, isn't it?" the former alchemist observed to his captive captor.

"Shut up, old man," Envy snarled. "Humans are worthless creatures on either side of the gate. All that they have going for them is numbers."

Hohenheim sighed again, feeling the blood seeping from his rotted chest begin to congeal. "Your moter really did teach you well, didn't she? Or were you the one who taught her? I've always been curious about that fact."

"Dante was a bitch, Hohenheim, and an idiot. What does it matter who taught who?" Envy snarled. "Besides, you could have found out if you'd just stayed with us," the former homunculus mocked his father, before turning serious. "I may not be able to take anything else from you right now, but I can keep you from gaining any more knowledge."

"Hitting me where it hurts, now, are you?" Hohenheim asked, feeling muscles ripling over him, as Envy's reptilian lips curved upward.

"Why not? You and I both know that's all you really care about in the end. Trisha, the pipsqueak, the tin can -- they were all just enjoyable distractions for you. Your interest in humans is as little as mine -- less so, even. At least I admit that I see no use or merit in their pathetic actions."

Hohenheim's response was unexpected, and unwelcome. "You'll never understand, Envy, that's why I pity you."

"You pity ME?" Envy thrashed against his bonds again in his anger.

"Yes."

"You're a broken, decaying corpse, who can't face his own family out of fear of them seeing you for what you really are!" Envy's angry hiss echoed around the circular room. "If anyone is to be pitied here it should be you!"

"I didn't spend four hundred years of my unnatural life plotting revenge on a man who wronged me no more than my mother did," Hohenheim retorted.

"Dante was a fool, old man! She didn't even know where to begin when it came to hurting me!"

"Wrong. She gave you that name," Hohenheim twisted painfully, to look up at Envy's red eye glowing in the dark. "Whether you like it or not, humans do have power. Much of our power is invested in words. She named you as a sin before you had a chance to discover other possibilities for yourself. You were damned by her from the moment she named you. Each one of the homunculi that she gathered to her, she damned. You were just the first."

The man could feel the great serpent breathing heavily. Finally, a retort emerged deep from within Envy's anger towards the world. "But you were the one who left me. She may have manipulated every day of my existance, but you were the one who left me to be manipulated."

"True. I've been trying to learn from that mistake," Hohenheim conceeded.

Envy was quiet, allowing both captive to hear voices echoing up from the floor below, coming towards the circular room.

"That's Eckhart," Hohenheim said, listening.

"I can tell that, you fool," Envy hissed, his eyes glinting with malice for the useless human female. "The son that you love is with her."

It was Hohenheim's turn to be quiet.

"As you can see," the precise German voice of the scientist echoed around them, "your father is serving us in a different capacity."

Light flared, and Hohenheim found himself looking down into Edward's startled features.

"Dad?"

Envy made a muffled noise of contempt laced hatred.

"The great serpent would only calm down when we gave your father to it. Luckily for us, Hohenheim seems to be rather resistant to death."

"Hello, Ed. I personally find this position rather ironic. I suppose they want you to open the gate?" Hohenheim asked.

Ed didn't respond at first, horror was only too clearly written on his features. Hohenheim could hear Envy's quiet snigger echoing in his ears. Ed looked down and stuck his hands in his pockets. "Yeah, that's what they want."

"I want you to do it Ed," Hohenheim told him.

"What!" Ed looked up again, aghast. "I'd have to transmute you!"

"And Envy, here."

Envy snarled, and began to thrash again, shuddering in pain as he did so.

"Please Ed. I want you to go home, and there's nothing that you can do for me or Envy. They've pierced his spine in several places. You wouldn't believe the pain he's in," Hohenheim told Ed.

"Dad, he's a homunculus! A monster! Just because he's stuck in the shape of a big snake doesn't mean that he's not the same creature that killed hundreds of people! He's going to kill you!" Ed cried. "He doesn't derserve your pity!"

"Edward -- look at us. Have you ever read Frankenstein? Victor Frankenstien was a doctor who set out to cheat death with science. The man he made was a monster, and he ran from it. It followed him over years, and ulimately laid the reckoning at his door. Every sin that the monster commited was his creators fault in the end for the creator would not take up the responsibility for his own creation. Dr. Frankenstein was the beginning of his monster, and the end of it."

"I did take the ethics course at the university for a semester," Ed grimaced. "And you forgot that the monster was a better person than Frankestein. Envy certainly isn't better than you. He may be as bad as you, but he's not --,"

"You're not listening Ed. The beginning and the end. I've lived countless years. And I've been running away for most of them. But my mistakes started with my wish to make my first born son come to life again, and they will end with the monster I turned him into."

"The ouro boris," Ed whispered. "The serpent that eats it's own tail. The mark of a homunculus -- and that's all that Envy is."

"So I'm to die as part of this basard's attempt at atonement?" the monstrous serpent hissed.

"No, you're going to die so that Ed can get back home," Hohenheim replied.

"What?!" Ed and Envy shouted at the same time.

"Please. Just to open the gate," Hohenheim said. "Kill me," he reached out, and began to shut the serpent's jaws.