FMA -- Leading the Blind II: Blindsided

[tierfal]

Title: Leading the Blind
Chapter: 2. Blindsided
Fandom: Fullmetal Alchemist
Pairing: Roy/Ed, with bonus Havoc/Rebecca, Hawkeye/Awesome, and Al/Cats
Rating: R
Word Count: 3,490
Warnings: language, MAJOR spoilers for Brotherhood, blind jokes are not very PC are they, eventual explicit sex
Summary: Roy adjusts to a life of legal blindness, and Edward

Comments

[bob_fish]

Oh my! I love the sexual-tension laden alchemy lesson (perhaps unsurprisingly), and I love Ed struggling and flailing over his attraction and how it's slowly but inevitably overpowering the part of his brain that thinks this is a terrible idea. And I love Roy working it out first, and then being doubtful and vulnerable. I have such a thing for Roy's moments of vulnerability, especially when he's not woobified so those moments come in contrast to all his charisma and smarts and competence.

I also like how he's noticeably starting to adjust and how his new skills are actually pretty impressive already. Roy does pretty well blindfold on the Promised Day (how I love that scene where Riza is just pointing him around like a gun), so.

Oh, and I am on tenterhooks to see these two crazy kids work it out. :3

OH, AND the Havoc/Rebecca. I love how shameless they are and that there is TMI within five seconds.

[tierfal]

I noted to someone recently that I should really just tag EVERYTHING on this comm with "genre: UST"; the first time I tried it, I was hooked. XD

especially when he's not woobified so those moments come in contrast to all his charisma and smarts and competence.
I am a bit of a sucker for the whole strong-front-breaking-down trope, and… Roy really lends himself. I am terribly pleased you liked this iteration. ♥

Somehow it just felt right to play it in this fic that he's figured out how much weakness he's obligated to show, and he refuses to cede another inch. In my head, the first time-skipped portion (which I think I wishy-washily set at a week or two, in typical "what's a timeline" fashion XD) consisted almost entirely of him moving around his house practicing all of the little tasks with Riza standing by giving commentary. /more than you could ever possibly have needed to know, but-!

I haven't the faintest idea why I don't write them more often, because they are fabulous. :D

[bob_fish]

UST is addictive!

Roy does really lend himself to that sort of thing. I really like that description - he's figured out how much weakness he's obligated to show, and he refuses to cede another inch - because that really fits the way I see him both canonically and in terms of how I try to write him. He's stubborn and tough in some ways and he has his shit together, so faced with something like this he would so have a short interlude of OH SHIT THIS SUCKS, then set his jaw, crack his knuckles and get to work (like about fifty FMA characters before him after they've received a disabling injury XD). But Roy's idealism, which is keeps him going in some ways and seems to have a sort of core that doesn't succumb to realism or experience, gives him this edge of vulnerability. And more to the point, despite his job, he's not really hardened to losing people he loves or seeing them hurt and he has quite intense, unfiltered reactions to even the threat of that happening. Sky_dark once commented that if someone (in my head of course it would be

[tierfal]

*flails everywhere* 8D

a short interlude of OH SHIT THIS SUCKS, then set his jaw, crack his knuckles and get to work
Yes!! I really love the idea that he'd kick his own ass out of the Self-Pity Zone before Riza even got a chance.

(like about fifty FMA characters before him after they've received a disabling injury XD)
I would be here for the rest of my life if I tried to list all of the reasons I love FMA and all of the ways it inspires me, but this is a big one. ♥

Roy's idealism… gives him this edge of vulnerability. And more to the point, despite his job, he's not really hardened to losing people he loves or seeing them hurt and he has quite intense, unfiltered reactions to even the threat of that happening
DYING because this is so spot-on, yes, all of it, ahhhhhh. I think that's part of why Roy will not leave me alone, period, these days - characters who seem contradictory until you figure them out are a drug for me, and it's the playing-tough ones that get me the most. (If you're familiar with Death Note, just, Mello, omg,

[bob_fish]

Lots of nodding to this! I think Riza would be a pretty crucial source of support (they take turns to keep the other one going <3) but what makes Roy bona fide heroic, is, just like Ed, that if you strip away his friends and comrades and partners in crime and family, and his power, he's still Roy and he's still in the game. (Did you ever see Buffy? Do you remember the Season 2 ender?). And of course Arakawa does that to both of them, and to Al, and Hawkeye, and Havoc, and Ran Fan, and Ling, and they all come out fighting. I LOVE THEM ALL SO.

Roy is so much fun because he's such a complicated and lovable dude - he's suave and he's a dork, he's a plotter and manipulator and he's ridiculously sincere, he's an idealist and a pragmatist. And totally sexy. The Lust fight is just amazeballs, it's possibly everything you could want in one sequence.

[tierfal]

if you strip away his friends and comrades and partners in crime and family, and his power, he's still Roy and he's still in the game
With a character, for me, this is one of the things that distinguishes "hot" from "sexy". And Roy is damn sexy. I mean, UNF, a destructively brilliant mind always always always running is just… I think, more than anything, more even than the fact that Mello wears nothing but leather I MEAN REALLY hahaha, that was why I gave Death Note such a vast part of my writing-ly/fandommy life. And that's a lot of why FMA absolutely blew me away; genius characters being geniuses… *keyboard mashing glee*

Sadly I only got around to watching one episode of Buffy a while back. :< And my mom wouldn't let me watch it when it was first on the air because it was past my bedtime

*clutches all of them* x3

YES. GAH. EVERYTHING. *flails around and falls over* I could watch that scene on repeat pretty much forever, hahaha. XD