Fullmetal Fears

Hello and welcome, dear reader,

If you're reading this, you've stumbled upon our little AU blog for Fullmetal Fears - a TMAxFMA AU.

Here, we'll post lore, writing tidbits, art, and answer questions! Mostly this is to prevent clogging up our main blogs and keep ideas and tidbits in one place, both for ourselves and the potential enjoyment of others who may find it interesting. This blog is currently run by Luna and Foxy, two creatives who wanted to have a bit of fun in their spare time and may have gone a bit overboard on the world-building.

A brief disclaimer: we have hopes to turn this project into a full collaborative fic at some point in the far future, though we make no promises on it, nor that we will update this blog with any sort of consistency. We will also be posting/discussing spoilers for FMA (manga, 03, and Brotherhood) and TMA, as well as the contents of the media which some readers may find disturbing. We will do our best to tag posts appropriately, but still advise you to explore our blog with caution.

With these things in mind, dear reader, we hope you stick around and enjoy what we offer to you!

~Foxy & Luna

Lore/World-Building:

The Beginning

An Evening Visit

A Sad Fairytale

Art:

Alphonse Elric

Oblivion & Gramps

Jon Sketches

Confessionals:

001

Howdy hey! Thanks for your interest in our AU that means so much!!

It goes! We've both been busy with school and work stuff but we still discuss stuff when we can. Writing just happens when the stars align. Its for fun after all!

Feel free to ask us any questions about your favorite character or plot and we'll try our best to answer.

But I do 100% think FMA made the other characters far too quick to forgive Hoenheim for leaving the boys.

In the manga, it was directly said that Hoenheim wrote back home but in the anime you get NOTHING. Either way, the man left for a decade, during the most important period of his children's lives as children... because he felt like a monster. Not because he was actually doing things to his kids, but HE wanted to live like a human.

It's shitty. It's awful. One of the people that Ed and Al were supposed to rely on most left because he couldn't get over his own misery. Instead of waiting even a few years to make sure they could even take care of themselves better before leaving, he left before they could even really remember him at all.

I say this not because I don't think it was a good character decision. In fact I think it's tragic in a way that the series needs. The lack of clear lines between monsters and people, where one of Hoenheim's worst decisions is leaving his wife and kids, something that any person can do.

Hoenheim's real flaw when it comes to his family is not valuing that people want him to be there.

Which makes his final offer to Ed to sacrifice himself take on a different light.

In canon, the manga/anime make it clear that Ed calling Hoenheim a shitty father was meant to be as much Ed chastising Hoenheim for not understanding they won't use philosopher stones as it is an acknowledge that Ed accepts him as his father.

But to me, it shows that Hoenheim still hasn't learned why leaving was such an awful blow to the family. Yes, Trisha died because he wasn't there but even if he came back ten years later, did he still expect it to be from a loving family? Did Hoenheim expect the world to stand still while he left?

Hoenheim is still sacrificing himself after all this damn time. He still doesn't see that being there for his kids could invaluable. Maybe they grew up without him, and hell, maybe he doesn't deserve a second chance after so long, but for the boys, making sure you live to the next day is their entire philosophy. And Hoenheim, is willing to give that next day up.

In context, he's giving himself up for his boys after all this time of putting his own feelings first, but he would still be gone. What's worse, in Ed's perspective it's an impossible choice. If Ed couldn't have thought of another way to get Al back, Hoenheim basically offered Ed a chance to kill him in exchange for his brother.

You know. Killing. The one thing that Ed will not fucking do.

Hoenheim doesn't understand Ed. He also even after all this time doesn't get that living for them and to move forward would be the best thing he could do.

So yeah. I adore Hoenheim but the manga/anime kinda does a clumsy job with him. It does such a good job of setting Hoenheim up as looming negative premise in the beginning and then the story overcorrects in trying to make you like him that it forgets that, yeah, leaving your wife and kids for a decade is kinda bad actually!!!

It doesn't help that no one else is angry at Hoenheim. Izumi knew the boys as small children, presumably orphans and yet greets Hoenheim warmly. In the manga the people of Risembol are baffled on his arrival but otherwise move on. Pinako WHO BASICALLY HELPED RAISED THEM is just sorta neutral towards him. Even Al isn't angry. He just wants his dad back which is fine, but it leaves Ed's anger as an outlier, like it's childish of him not to understand.

By the time of his death, Hoenheim doesn't really learn anything. He's forgiven because he really was a good dude and he felt really bad about leaving for a decade so he can totally be forgiven by everyone right?

Right.

So yeah. Hoenheim? Great character, but awful dad which is part of why he's a good character but the story really pulls its punches about him.

"Ok cool what does this have to do with the AU?" I hear you shouting.

Who is Trisha Elric? Who is Jon Sims? Who is Oblivion? In our AU, these are all people with complicated identities predicated on the need to show up in different ways. Trisha is different from Mom. Jon is different from Gramps and the Heirophant. Oblivion is different from Sloth and Martin.

Oblivion especially is an interesting example to discuss BECAUSE of his dichotomy with identity. His isn't Martin anymore. Martin Blackwood no longer exists. But he's still a sliver, a history, of Oblivion.

He will never be Martin Blackwood again. But that doesn't mean that identity still doesn't exist somewhere within him. Sharing vague memories, thoughts, and old feelings, sometimes he feels like he understands Martin, who he used to be. He rejects it, he mourns it, he loves it. But Martin Blackwood can no longer exist. The share a soul but not a life. Oblion is his own person now - Martin is just who he once was.

Sloth is simply the name given to him while working with Father. He's the passive, confused, and angry man who dug tunnels to give himself time to think. He thought he had no other choices - after all, living is a bit of a pain and confusing already.

Oblivion is the identity he chose for himself. Granted a combination of several things, but Oblivion: the neutral party, the one with choices to make, the complicated monster - is the one he CHOSE.

Our first fic! Please enjoy!

For this AU I just adore playing with the fears. In specific, the fact that the fears are in a new world means that they reflect the fears of the people within it. The fears being a reflection of our own fears is something I think is generally underutilized in fics. So it would make sense that they would change in confronting entirely different cultures and "magic systems" as it were. In FMA's case, Truth already exists and precides as its cosmic force as it were. The fears combining into Truth and then morphing it to have properties of the fears and Truth is just such a fun option. It lets us make alchemy that much more horrific, change the homonculi to have more fear related powers, but also, gives us other options when it comes to Jon's abilities.

With the change in fears, it felt correct to change what type of avatar Jon became. We have a system where Jon uses alchemy to distill essentially pills of fear to consume. It's not satisfying but it works to keep him from hurting people especially when there aren't written statements anymore. However, it has a different consquence where Jon can transition between fears without 100% realizing it. Foxy wrote a "confession" earlier. They're statements but their connotations are different as well as how they're given. To put it bluntly, Jon becomes a confessional of sorts for people who have faced fears. The hierophant, aka a "priest" but also a companion who gives advice.

Jon slowly transitions from being an avatar of the Beholding to becoming an avatar of the Maker. He listens and gives advice, as the people speak their "sins". He is judgemental to those who wrong him, and he is not afraid to make you feel such shame that it boors into your immortal soul.

It's fitting, how someone who became a god even for a brief moment, knows how to put the fear of it in others.

[Image Description: Digital sketches of Jon from the fullmetal fears AU. On the left is a full body sketch of Jon, a shorter older man with fully grayed hair pinned up in a bun and a bushy mustache. He has scars around his eyes, on his neck, and hand. His eyes are closed and has a cane as well. He's wearing a long sleeved green sweater with a white collared undershirt underneath, a blue plaid skirt, brown work pants, and brown work boots. Top right shows two sketches of his head, side-by-side. The left is a close up of his face, outlining the scars around his eyes, face, and neck. Its labelled "Scars." The right shows the back of his hair. Its shaggy, pinned back in a high bun, with shaggy hair hanging down to his shoulders and braids tied randomly into the locks. Its labelled "Winry Braids." Below are detailed pictures of his eyes; open, empty sockets surrounded by long eyelashes. Finally, below them is Jon's name and title: "Jonathon Sims, the Hierophant." End ID].

Just a couple more detailed sketches of Jon.

[Image Description: Digital art of Oblivion and Jon from the fullmetal fears AU. Oblivion is a tall white man with short black hair and red eyes and freckles. He has an ouroboros tattoo on his left cheek and a blank expression. He's wearing a long sleeved baggy shirt and black pants with red interconnecting lines and circles across the chest of the shirt, the pant leg, and to his hands. Jon is a shorter older man with fully grayed hair pinned up in a bun and a bushy mustache. He has scars around his eyes, on his neck, and hand. His eyes are closed and has a cane as well. He's wearing a long sleeved green sweater with a white collared undershirt underneath, a blue plaid shirt, brown work pants, and brown work boots. End ID].

Oblivion, also known as the homunculus Sloth, and in a previous life, Martin Blackwood. He's a mysterious anomaly among the other homunculi, rolling in and out with the fog to sit alone away from the others. No one knows much about him or what's going through his head. Not even Jon, anymore.

Jonathon Sims stands beside him, the 'Witch of Resembool' and known as 'Gramps' to the Elric brothers and Winry Rockbell. He lives alone, reclused in his family's old home, where he peacefully tends to his cows and conducts his research, which he prefers to keep to himself. Oddly, he seems to look much like his father, as well as the other Sims men, who settled in Resembool ages ago. Despite this long history, he's reluctant to speak of any family, and reluctant to get involved with others in the village.

It's funny how I used to think death was the scariest thing that could happen to a person.

I wonder when that changed. Was it when I became a soldier? Was it the Ishvalan War?

No. No, I don't think so. I was still afraid of death then. I was still proud of my vocation, my role in the war. I was proud to be a soldier despite that fear and I reveled in the victory of life. I was the one that made it. I was one of the heroes.

I can see the odd look on your face. You mentioned you weren't originally from here - from Amestris, from Resembol. You have to understand, little boys in Amestris, no matter where, all played war games when they were children. War touches the culture of this country in the same way God touched Ishval. Our parents and teachers encouraged us just as much as the government, for, you see, being a soldier was a source of pride.

Soldiers were heroes. Soldiers were martyrs.