I bet I could talk the prof into watching it, too

[mousapelli]

I have to do this assignment, wherein i produce a paper/song/poem/etc about my response to a movie/book/song/media which deals with a group that is marginalized by society. I was seriously disgruntled about it when i found out the project existed like a week ago.

But then, I had an epiphany last night. FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST. There's tons of marginalized groups in that anime! The Ishbalans, the military, the Lior City rebels, the Homunculi, the Chimeras, the people who've committed the taboo, people with automail, alchemists in general...

AND, if songs and poems (blargh) are allowed, surely short stories must be too!

In short: I am completely writing fanfiction for my project. HAHAHAHAHA, I OWN YOU ED DEPT.

Now all I need is a bunny. Any suggestions? *eyes laylah and ponderosa121 warily*

Comments

[laylah.livejournal.com]

Oh, dear lord, there are whole books to be written about the Ishvarran people as displaced/marginalized/exiles. Personally, I find the Judaism parallels awfully striking -- particularly in the way that their minority status is conceived by the Amestrian majority, i.e., as a difference that is partially racial but more importantly religious.

...I also sort of desperately want to see somebody, some day, tackle the fact that Colonel Gran appears to have Eastern blood -- the darker skin and the red eyes that we see in Ishvar and later (as Kimberly not-so-tactfully points out) in Lior -- but has no cultural ties to them. Assimilationist creepiness, anyone?

Um. How much do you need to write for this project?

[mousapelli.livejournal.com]

i'm sure if i'm asked she will give me no kind of clear response.

so the short answer is, whatever I can write in the next week and a half or so. That can be a good amount really.

I was sort of thinking about something with Roy and Scar, since Scar is a self-imposed exile on top of everything else, but I like your idea too. Feel free to unload any bunny desires that you have, I'd love to hear!

[instantramen]

Two of my bigger projects in 10th grade English were fanfiction of a sort--one of the projects was actually assigned that way and one my teacher let me do. Ah, sweet geekery...

[mousapelli.livejournal.com]

speaking of fandoms, i've been updating my site (oh god why wont it END) and i'm trying to decide where to put the NaNo stuff.

there's already a slot on my original page for the actual thing, although it isn't up cause i'm still waffling about that, but what about the stuff that comes after? Is it canon cause I write it? Or am i ficcing myself? Where does it go? What is it? WHAT IS THE MEANING OF LIFE?!

I'm not sure i want to separate it from all the other fics, but i think it really goes on the other page. *pokes*

[instantramen]

It's canon unless you declare otherwise, I think, since it IS all yours. Which, basically, means flip a coin to decide whether the original stuff all goes on a separate page and if you don't like the answer, go the other way. ;) (Also, 42. Obviously.)

[vejiicakes.livejournal.com]

I think the most striking argument/fic you could make toward marginalized societies would inevitably be Ishbal-centric, whether or not Scar plays a more prominent figure in it. Frankly, when I first watched the series, it was very closely in conjunction with America's war in Iraq, and I thought that particular portion of FMA was supposed to be a statement on it. Of course, the timing wouldn't have made much sense, but it seemed awfully suspicious that it was essentially about a major military power invading a marginalized society's country under false pretenses, which turned out to be more about the desires of the one leading the charge than anything the military believed ...

Though I'm sure whatever you decide to focus on will turn out to be a stunningly analytical and creative effort. Even if it's porn. Perhaps even especially if it's porn. You could use literal fucking as a figurative device!! (I'm almost serious ..)

[laylah.livejournal.com]

Scar definitely has multiple layers of alienation going on, what with bearing the marks that make him taboo among his own people -- through an event that wasn't even his own doing -- in addition to belonging to the group that's been marginalized by the conquerors. He bears so much of the burden of both the Ishvarites' oppression and the alchemists' transgression.

I have...fanon-related problems with Roy, so I can't help you much with him -- what made you want to bring him into it?

[mousapelli.livejournal.com]

i was tossing around ideas without any real plan, and i was thinking about how Roy never quite does try human transmutation, which i think is why he's in Rizembool looking for Hoenheim in the first place, but it had to do with Al trying to get Ed back and Roy having crises. I don't know. Or maybe something about him and Kimblee during their early Ishvarran days that has to do with him not really stopping Kimblee, or anybody else, from doing a lot of particularly awful things.

Being Scar does suck an awful, awful lot. i like it, I like the way his people's focus, at least from outsider's point of view, is mainly religious, and he's essentially nothing but a sacrilegious object.

I can't even decide when I want the thing set. I've tossed around ideas from the original Ishvarran massacre to up past the end of the series. there's so many possibilities I can't quite get going.

[laylah.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I don't really see Roy's woe and Scar's woe as having much to do with each other. I mean -- you'd have so much work to do just to get them in the same place at the same time doing anything besides trying to kill each other.

So I'd say you need to decide which of them you'd rather write about -- personally, I think it'd be easier to make a case for Scar as marginalized than for Roy (who is, after all, part of the established order of power, even if he reaches a point where he wants to rebel against the system). Scar's oppressed; Roy's angst-ridden.

...What about something before the Ishvar war really gets going? When Scar's brother has been exiled, Scar's already in a difficult spot -- there are tensions with the people outside their community, and there are tensions for him within the community, because his brother was a heretic.

[mousapelli.livejournal.com]

they didn't really have much to do with each other, they were separate ideas.

Really i'm trying to think in ease of selling this to someone who ostensibly knows nothing about FMA. I think that is a good idea about Scar being strung between the disaster with his brother, and the impending disaster with the military. I think i'm going to rewatch a few episodes and hopefully get massively inspired.