had a sword fight with the most beautiful person

How could I ever leave him? He can remove with you to Donwell. You know he never would. He could not stand it.

Ed: Haha, hey do you guys dare me to kiss Mustang?

Al: …No.

Ed: *shaking head and chuckling* I can’t believe you guys are making me do this.

Ling: We’re not.

I think it's okay to ship whatever you want. I don't believe writing fictional "problematic" content is indicative of morality. Royed shippers can do whatever they want forever because it's all pretend.

I mean, Mustang is a character that we're supposed to sympathize with and root for, and he committed war crimes. Does that mean Arakawa and anyone who likes Mustang as a character condones and commits genocide? No, that's stupid. So, do people who ship Royed condone and commit pedophilia? No, that's equally stupid.

I find their relationship to be a really fun twist on the mentor/mentee shounen trope, and easily one of the most compelling dynamics in FMA. But I actually didn’t come out of FMA as a royed shipper.

Unfortunately, I found that the vast majority of the fandom sees Roy and Ed as having a father/son kind of relationship, and this is 90% of what platonic royed fics are about. Frankly, I feel like parental!Roy flattens so much of their more interesting elements as a dynamic and removes a very important thing both mangahood and 03 establish by the end of their runs: Roy and Ed are equals. If not in actual societal status, then how they view each other. Ed has grown up enough and understands the world enough that he can look Roy in the eye. Parental Roy kind of… reverses that in my mind, as well as I think introducing a kind of tenderness that we understandably want Roy to have towards kid Ed but really doesn’t match his canonical approach to mentoring Ed.

So I looked on the other side of the fence and found that, in my opinion, royed shippers were engaging in the royed dynamic in much more nuanced, layered ways then parental, platonic royed enjoyers were.

(NO hate to parental Roy, it’s just not my thing)

Also. The majority of royed shippers are interested in near the end of canon to post canon settings where Ed is an adult. Some aren’t and I truly do not care what people do with fictional barbie dolls (fantasy and play is not incriminating and never should be) but it’s a bit of a misrepresentation to flatten all royed shippers and all royed content/fic/art as underage when that’s just statistically not very true. Especially Royed in 2025.

that’s how he is about all his people, and he is aware that Ed is underage so anything really bad happening to him is more fucked up than it happening to adults, even if he handles it better than most adults would.

Kidnapper: We have your son.

Roy: I don’t have children.

Kidnapper: We have the short angry blonde in the red coat.

Kidnapper: *near tears* I’m…I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have taken the kid. Please, please take him back!

Roy: Hmmm judging by your tone, you know exactly what kind of person he is. I’m not sure I want to take him back. At least, not for free. Equivalent Exchange and all that.

Kidnapper: You’re counter ransoming me?! You can’t do that!

Roy: You’re clearly not in the mood to negotiate. I’m gonna hang up right now and give you a little time to be in a calmer state of mind, okay? Okay.

Kidnapper: No wait plea-