Okay but the weirdest thing about the whole "Brotherhood is better you should skip 03" discourse that's become commonplace now, it sort of forgets the world Brotherhood came out in and why you should watch the original Fullmetal Alchemist.
When Brotherhood came out, the original Fullmetal Alchemist was one of the most beloved and most watched animes of all time. Brotherhood assumes you the audience have already seen it because of course you have, everyone has seen it, so it skips important information and speeds the story up because it doesn't want to bore you with things you already know. Have you ever wondered "hey why does the first episode of Brotherhood kind of suck, and why am I being introduced to like 50 new characters, and why are they acting like I know what the hell an alchemist is?" It's because Brotherhood thinks you've seen 03.
The first 7 or so episodes of Brotherhood constitute dozens of chapters in the manga, and the first 25 or so episodes of the original Fullmetal Alchemist. The Nina Tucker episode in Brotherhood, in FMA 03 takes up nearly three episodes. Yoki gets a backstory in 03 and it's genuinely one of the best episodes and taken directly from the manga and Brotherhood glosses over it because: duh, you've already seen it.
And so if you skip the original you miss out on dozens of really great character building episodes like Ed and Al meeting Hughes for the first time and getting to spend a whole episode helping him free a train from terrorists, or Ed and Roy having a duel that expands on the relationship they have, or episodes where the brothers just help out random people in towns before the major story gets going.
The original also paces itself quite a bit better than Brotherhood and is more in line with the mangas storytelling. In the manga we don't find out about The Gate until nearly two dozen chapters in, and the same goes for the original anime. Like, that's a twist reveal in those stories, and it's weird that the most watched series is the one where they tell you all about The Gate in the first two episodes because they assume you've already seen the original show.
What's more, people don't know that Hiromu Arakawa helped write for the anime while she was still in the middle of writing the manga, and as a result was inspired to write scenes in Brotherhood that the anime did first. That scene of Edward getting impaled by a falling beam? Directly inspired by a similar scene in the original anime. There's a lot of little instances of that and they're great when you can recognize parallels and things in Brotherhood that are direct references to the original anime, but people don't notice any of that anymore.
Because the original anime is just an automatic skip these days, and it's a bummer because people don't realize what a giant it was back before Brotherhood was released. They treat it as *bad,* not realizing it was one of the most beloved anime of its time and the problems people take issue with have a lot more to do with personal taste than any kind of actual flaw in the writing. Brotherhood was never meant to dethrone it, and the original anime was always supposed to be part of the viewing experience which is why those first few episodes of Brotherhood are so fast paced.
So like, please stop telling people Fullmetal Alchemist 2003 is a skip, or it's bad, or you don't need it because Brotherhood is better. Regardless if you think Brotherhood is better or not, the original wrote Brotherhood's check. It was huge, it was beloved, and Brotherhood is *banking* on the knowledge you've seen all of it and loved it. And trust me when I say there is so much to love about the original series. It's still my favorite branch of the FMA franchise, and it's worth your time, I promise you.
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The thing about Monster that I'm currently obsessed with: the way Odysseus humanizes his enemies as he dehumanizes himself. He correctly describes the motivations of the Cyclops, Circe, and even Poseidon which takes a level of understanding that people struggle with under the best circumstances. But then in the same verse he describes himself from the view of the Trojans. ("Does a soldier use a wooden horse to kill sleeping soldiers because he is vile?")
and of course the whole song is "Monster". If Odysseus can't stop seeing his enemies as people (seeing his own son in the Trojan infant), if that is what is killing his men and if there is no future where he makes it home as the person he is, then of course he has no choice but to stop being a person.
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Tim, [pointing his staff at the human traffickers]: YOU ARE OUTGUNNED
Jason, [hyping him up]: WHAT?
Tim: OUTMANNED!
Jason: WHAT?!
Tim: OUTNUMBERED OUTPLANNED
Jason: PAY YOUR FUCKING TAXES!
Tim: PUT YOUR GUNS DOWN ON MY COMMAND
Jason: HAND EM OVER!!
Tim: THIS IS HAMILTON MY RIGHT HAND MAN!
Jason, [getting his guns out]: PWO PWO PWO PWO PWO-
Goons: *shaking* what the FUCK are Batman feeding his partners--
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Non Shrike AU content yet again but idea where Danny takes on being a superhero more or less out of Amity Park once he's slightly older. Danny continues to go by Phantom. He's a sudden unknown with a rogue gallery who seems to follow him no matter how quickly he travels from city to city. The destruction that follows him is hard to notice and as a result the Justice League attempts to intervene but it's leaving them questioning who exactly this new hero (or foe) is. He is able to go toe to toe with some of the veteran League members until he usually realizes he can't exactly win against them (experience vs. raw power doesn't always work in his favor) and runs away. The League is trying to get a grasp on his powers and abilities and in the end, since he doesn't seem fond of actually interacting with the League, Danny is deemed a threat. It's especially concerning when some members spy him lingering on the edges of Earth's atmosphere star gazing.
Danny views the situation differently, he's trying to contain ghosts appearing from an influx of natural ghost portals throughout the country while juggling being a freshman in university. His goal is get them under controlled as quick as possible, no time for banter, no time to interact with the local heros. He has a job to do. However when the Justice League starts coming after him he believes they realize he's a ghost/part ghost and trying to detain him under the ecto acts. He's terrified and views them as a threat so of course he's going to fight them if they try to get to close.
Danny is eventually captured by Superman after a rogue battle in Metropolis that was extremely difficult so having Superman come in directly after was a losing battle from the start. He's taken to the Watch Tower and given cuffs and a collar that blocks/dampens meta abilities and it manages to actually work on Danny. He refuses to cooperate with any members who try to question him since it's pointless to fight against them now that he's captured. Danny views himself steps away from being fully dead as he believes the Justice League will hand him over to the Men in White once they're finished with him.
Non colored version under readmore:
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