#xing thoughts

Oh the things you catch when you obsessively search for references. 

We all know that life wasn’t rosy for Xing’s many royal half-siblings, who are all pitted against each other over who gets to succeed the throne. But it speaks volumes that even though Ling’s goal is to impress his father the Emperor enough to gain his favor, Ling very flatly states that he and his father have never even spoken with each other. It makes me wonder if the Emperor interacted with any of his (43) children at all. And if so, which ones and why them? And what do the other siblings feel about their familial situation? I think it’s interesting that Ling takes this fact very nonchalantly; he doesn’t seem pleased about it, but also doesn’t appear to have any strong feelings about it either. For him, it is what it is. In that way, it could be said he’s more like Al than Ed with regard to absentee fathers. Or he could just be hiding his feelings which would also be in character at this point since it seems he’s avoiding saying unnecessary information. (side note but Ling’s “you guys are imagining all kinds of things about my life aren’t you” -  WELL YEAH LING IT’S KIND OF HARD NOT TO WHEN THE INFORMATION THE PROVIDED ABOUT YOU AND YOUR COUNTRY IS SO SCANT. We fans are instead forced to come up with our own speculation.)

Like I get it. Fullmetal Alchemist was always meant to be Ed (and Al’s) story. That’s why its called ‘fullmetal alchemist’. That’s why the story is so heavily concentrated on their struggles, and ended when they met their goals (got their bodies back).  But come on Ling is the hero of another story that’s SCREAMING to be told. The 12th son of the emperor of an enormous country with an extremely uncomfortable political situation, striving to inherit the throne and be a good leader to his people. You can’t tell me that isn’t its own story right there. Even Mei could be framed as the hero/ine and the story would still work very well.  In fact, Ling & co seriously feel like they come from another manga or something, which just happened to have this enormous crossover event when they stepped into Amestris. It feels like there should be a companion/parallel story out there.... and there isn’t. 

Considering the time period, I suddenly wondered if Xing uses something like the traditional age counting system that was used in various parts of East Asia, where a person’s age is 1 at birth rather than 0. This system was once used in China and Japan before westernization, and is still used today in Korea and Vietnam. ....which would make Ling actually 14 instead of 15 by western age counting during the series, and would add even more insult to injury for Ed’s pride once he found out. And Greed would be even more appalled, THIS BODY BELONGS TO AN INFANT!!!    in this system there was also the concept of a universal birthday where everyone’s age changed at the turn of the New Year, so then it would be possible for Ling to be 13 by western age counting if his actual birthdate were closer to the end of the year, but that’s probably pushing the envelope way too far so if I stick with this idea I’m probably gonna ignore that bit.

JESUS CHRIST THESE KIDS NEED A BREAK.

Hello. I just wanted to say that its really lonely here. I want to make friends, maybe some friends with benefits but really just friends. Every time someone reblogs those things that are like 'come and talk to me' and I try to do just that... its like they're all aimed at other people. I guess I'm not good enough, and I'm not saying this for attention. I'm just really lonely and I'm kinda upset about it.. {sighs} I don't even know.. don't mind me.