Last Mistake

It’s not new.

Stop blowing it out of proportion.

Here we are, 2018, and the Republicans control ALL branches of the government. They still failed to compromise and negotiate.

This is the first time the government shutdown under a one-party government. Ever.

Finally finished it \(TwT )

Here’s my first tutorial! Made possible thanks to my patrons, hope it may be helpful :)

You can watch the timelapse video of that owl doodle here

*caution: loud*

If you’re a fan of the Fullmetal Alchemist manga/Brotherhood, you’ve probably seen people analyzing the deaths of the homunculi and the ironies therein before, whether in full essay format or in super simplified lists. Gluttony is eaten by an ally/brother homunculus, Greed finds peace and satisfaction in self-sacrifice for the sake of the friends he always wanted and actually had in the end, Envy commits suicide after being called out on his jealousy of humans despite his outspoken derision of them, etc. etc. 

I recently saw one of these simplified lists elsewhere online and one of the points this person put up bothered me. Well, two, actually, but the one about Pride is something I’d want to get into separately if at all.

This is about Lust’s death, and Mustang’s part in it. This is about the idea - held by some fans, but not all, I’m certain - that it was ironic because she was killed by a womanizer.

This is based on a misconception. I want to pick at it a little bit, for the sake of my own brain if nothing else. I’m sure others have made this analysis before. I’m going to do it over myself anyway. So, here we go:

Mustang was not, in actuality, a womanizer, or anything similar. He just made sure he appeared that way for his own reasons. For one thing, it made him seem less of a threat to senior officers as he climbed the ranks. A young officer with obvious laser focus on higher and higher seats, on more and more power, on getting into positions of command further up the chain and giving all he had to get there? That’s a concern. But a young officer with an almost lackadaisical attitude about him, one who, yes, does his job and all and even generally seems to do it well, but who primarily seems to have flirting and dating and general fooling around on the mind whenever he can spare a thought? Not such a big deal. Sure, he’s still getting promotions despite his relative youth, but it’s not like he’s gunning for them, right?

For another, it masks his information network, his alchemical notes, and the off-the-record missions he gives his closest and most trusted subordinates. Those dates he goes on, almost every time with a different girl? Totally just dates. He’s a young playboy officer. Everybody knows it. It doesn’t even bear thinking about.

Except…no. Not dates. Not girlfriends or romantic or sexual interests. Those are his adoptive sisters masquerading as the interest of the day, and those are information trading meetings masquerading as fun, easygoing, inconsequential nights out on the town.

His alchemy notes, encrypted as a harmless little black datebook. This is entirely in keeping with his persona. A cookbook written by a scientific researcher with no further explanation or apparent reason honestly stands out more. But Mustang’s datebook? Who’s going to think twice about it? For that matter, who’s going to want to sit and try to decipher whatever’s on the surface of that just on the assumption that there’s more to it?

And those missions. Everybody who knows of Mustang’s office habits knows that when Lt. Hawkeye is out on leave, Mustang takes it as an excuse to slack off and fool around on the job. Without her watchful, strict, no-nonsense eye on him, he feels free to call up his favorite ladies and pass the time in flirty chitchat. What an idle fool he is, unable to discipline himself and focus on anything other than pretty women and petty charms when left to his own devices, right?

Only on the surface, really. The readers and watchers of the manga and Brotherhood know better. We got to see “Elizabeth” on the other end of the line. We caught the double meanings of their conversations after that was revealed. But to an outsider, who doesn’t already know what’s up? Clearly Mustang’s up to his womanizing ways again, and there’s nothing more to it.

So that’s Mustang and womanizing. Now let’s bring it around to Lust and the lead-up to her incineration. Let’s look at Mustang’s motivations to crisp her down to ash and bones.

First, there’s her part, however small, in Hughes’ death. Mustang’s been on the hunt for his friend’s killer since it happened of course, and while Lust wasn’t the one, she pretty much admitted in their confrontation that she was at least involved. She said it was too bad she couldn’t finish him off herself. That’s the first thing that set him off, even before attempting incinerations.

Second, she nearly killed Havoc, one of Mustang’s subordinates. She definitely paralyzed him, as we discovered later, but there was certainly intent to kill. That drove him to try to rip the stone from her very chest in an attempt to save Havoc’s life. She also attempted to kill Mustang after this, and, most cruelly of all perhaps, left him to slowly bleed out while watching Havoc do the same.

And finally, when Mustang caught up with her, she was about to kill Hawkeye.

Vengeance and protection, for the sake of his friends and loved ones. That’s what drove Mustang to go as far as he did. That’s why he reduced her to ash over and over and over again, until her apparent immortality ran out and she faded away forever.

Lust wasn’t killed by a womanizer. She was killed by someone who simply wore the mask of a womanizer. 

Her death wasn’t ironic because she was killed out of lust, or even by a man who lusted.

Beyond the red glow of the heaters and the hot-white of the spotlights, the massive drafty room is dark and quiet, broken only by the instructor’s whispers and the scratch of charcoal on paper. Me, I’m just dozing, ‘cause my ancient dorm was heated with creaky old steampipes that never really got warm, and with the new extra-powered space heater alongside the others, that night was the warmest I’d been in a month. I dozed, basking in the glorious warmth.

And then I fell asleep.

And then I fell off the stool.

I woke up rather abruptly on the cold wooden platform, and looked up to see an entire ring of terrified and worried faces around me. Everyone had their hands up, ready to help me up, except no one had touched me. Naked chick laid out face-down on the floor, and all the men and women were suddenly acutely aware they couldn’t just grab a half-asleep dazed naked chick.

Fortunately someone had the bright idea to tear the sheet down from the backdrop, lay it over me as a wrap, and then everyone was quick to help me up.

After that, the instructor and students got used to taking turns talking to me, just to make sure I wasn’t dozing off. Which was weird, at first, because I’d done two semesters just being a silent prop, and now I was interacting. It gave the class a vibe completely unlike any other I’d modeled for, and it ended up one of my favorite modeling experiences.