david, commission. 2019

-had to undergo very painful surgery to get automail

-had to relearn how to write because of his prosthesis (there’s a post going around showing he had to switch hands etc) and his handwriting is likely a lot worse due to that. This means automail isn’t super good for delicate work, unsurprising, considering what it’s made of. 

-experiences phantom limb pain and therefore other associated stuff (this was only really shown in the manga)

-cannot go anywhere too cold without changing his automail or he’ll get really bad frost bite and it will stop working

-cannot go anywhere too hot, period, because the metal attached and under his skin will overheat and he will be badly burned

-Reattachment is painful, but needs to be done frequently if he breaks or outgrows his automail

- it’s HEAVY so much so that the strain has the potential to cause stress on his body, enough that it’s even theorized as possibly stunting his growth.

-it requires regular maintenance or it will break down, as shown when he forgets to do that and it…breaks down

-when it does need to be repaired, it takes time to do that, during which Ed uses regular prosthetics (that usually don’t quite fit him).

-costs a lot of money (not a problem for Ed due to high state alchemist salary/having mechanics as surrogate family, but explicitly noted to being the reason why most people in the fmaverse stick to regular prosthetics along with the painful surgery)

So Ed can’t actually do everything perfectly and experiences a lot of extra hassle, problems and pain people without automail don’t have to deal with!  And any advantages he does have are more suited to fighting than day to day life (being able to incorporate weapons/fake out people who want to blow up his arm). 

Do you know the definition of the word disabled. Have you ever looked up what a disability is.

Glasses.

And yet they are ubiquitous. Glasses are relatively inexpensive, and there are opticals everywhere.

No one pities or tries to suggest that myopic or presbiopic people don’t actually need their glasses. No one says they should “toughen up” or “try yoga” to fix their vision. People with glasses aren’t asked “what happened” to them by strangers on the street.

Needing prescription glasses is the gold standard of how all disabilities should be treated.

“My sister was a tiny child then, and she was drinking her milk, and all of a sudden I saw that she was God and the milk was God. I mean, all she was doing was pouring God into God, if you know what I mean”.

- Nine Stories by J D Salinger

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But if you let yourself complain, if you let yourself swear terribly and creatively, and you stare down at the bruised vegetables like they’ve personally disappointed you, and you make yourself smile because this is really just so, so stupid, you feel a little better. There’s a power to acknowledging that something sucks and making yourself feel better anyways. There’s a power to going “and THEN my bag broke, and it’s like—seriously? my day was bad enough” and doing it with a smile.