Fabulous Friday

[cornerofmadness]

okay no it wasn't. it was quite the ordinary but at least I feel better, just tired from a week long ordeal with this crap.

Soul stole my lighter again. He also apparently worked Roy into a frenzy. When I came home Roy darted under my bed (which he has never done). I shooed him out. He tried to get back in. I wouldn't let him. he ran around in the living room then went into the litter box and let go Hoover Dam into the box (so I just have to know what he thought he was going to do in my bedroom) Roy then stayed with me the rest of teh evening, running only if Soul reappeared.

caffeinified got me a mystery gift (virtual) THANK YOU.

Speaking of thank yous thanks to evil_little_dog & bob_fish for helping me beta my latest short story. More about that and my latest writing tribulation here


I've been thinking about something in FMA. Winry's skills. There are various takes on this and I'm not entirely sure what Arakawa truly intended for her in one respect. We see WInry ONLY doing the making of automail end of things. That is fairly limited. It could be that's the only place her skill lie.

On the other hand, her grandmother obviously does both surgery and making of the automail, a little more well rounded. Winry did assist her grandmother in the O.R. so it's possible she will learn surgery later.

And acutally that makes the most sense to me. That this is a two stage apprenticeship. THe pulling of wire and banging metal into shape might be easier for a young apprentice. Getting into blood, the race of the heart as a patient begins to crash, hearing their screams takes a bit more sophistication. I can see her finishing up with Garfiel and then learning surgery when she's in her 20's (surgery is the pinnacle of a doctor's craft NOW, turn of the century it was the other way around so who knows).

I'm not sure I'm entirely happy with Winry doing just the automail and requiring a surgeon to help her (though I have written it that way in the past, usually with Al as surgeon). I would rather see her being more like Pinako, doing it all. I have a feeling that automailers vary. Some who only do the surgery, having less skill in mechanics, some who only do the metal working (I see Garfiel in that role) and others, like Pinako who do both. THoughts?




between the church and my place is this abandoned house. when i'm not driving (You can't pull off) i'm going back since the sign in the tree says 500$ reward. it's battered and faded but i do want to know what it's for

Comments

[marynachaotica.livejournal.com]

Poor old house....it needs someone to love it!

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

at this point it needs to fall down. it's beyond the saving

[marynachaotica.livejournal.com]

The poor thing could still be saved, but it will take some substantial money to do so.

[wildrider.livejournal.com]

Yep, that's the kind of thing I love. Battered old abandoned building -- what was your life like?

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

exactly. There was obviously a porch on this. It's midway up a hill deserted even now. the house is probably close to 100. it's shit farm land so why was this here? You can't see it in this picture but the house extends a ways hidden by the tree)

[evil-little-dog.livejournal.com]

Do I know that house?

I would love Winry learning the surgery part of automail as well. I think that would be a great idea.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

nope, i never went up there til this july. not sure why i was so incurious.

i think it's something to consider since i really think Pinako could do it and would like to see her grand daughter really filling her shoes

[nefelokokkygia.livejournal.com]

oooh, we have lots of old/abandoned houses in my area, I would love to be able to go through them and just see what they're like inside and out

now that you mention it, I've never really thought about winry doing more than making the automail; perhaps this is something that'll be explored in the new chronicle/book/thing arakawa is releasing sometime in the future?

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

we do too. this one is definitely NOT safe to do more than look at from the outside.

hmmm i don't know about this

[bob_fish.livejournal.com]

I had to think this one (automail surgery) for poor Brosch. Here are my musings - bear in mind that they come from someone who iz not a doctor! Not that Arakawa is either, ha.

I decided a big centre for automail like Rush Valley would very likely have specialist surgeons - especially if you consider major operations like the fitting of a port. In an isolated spot like Resembool, you would have to be a good generalist (just as if you're a GP in the Australian outback, you'll be dealing with emergency and even some surgical stuff) and do the lot as Pinako does. We could also imagine that a mechanic acting as surgeon, craftswoman, and PT might have been more common in the earlier days of automail!

However, that said, it makes sense to me that all automail mechanics would have to be able to assist in surgery, and that doing so would be part of their training. We see that little Winry's in the room through the blood, screaming and so on during Ed's surgery. Pinako has a badass approach to parenting and apprenticeship, for sure. That she'd have to acquire enough knowledge to be able to assist makes sense to me in a medical context. Not sure how quickly docs specialise in the States, but Dr H had to do a year (added together) of rotations in various surgical departments as part of the two year general internship we have for all docs, which in the second year included quite heavy (to me) stuffs like being the second surgeon on hip replacements. Gore and hardware tools.

As to how far Winry goes with the surgical route, it partly depends where you have her working later in life, Resembool or Rush Valley. Obviously if she takes over Rockbell Automail she'd have to be able to take the lead in surgeries. If you have her pursue her career in RV (my preferred option for her - she's a genius after all, she should get to transform her field the way Ed and Al do theirs!) then she doesn't have to specialise, although you can still have her assisting at surgeries. But she could choose to pursue a double speciality and train up in surgery too. I kind of like that idea. She seems like the type to take a holistic approach and who'd also feel her crafting and patient care would be improved by a full involvement at every stage of the process.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

boy you're up early/late and coherent too :-)

I think you make several very good points. Surely in the cities, it would be easier to get away with not knowing everything and specializing in one aspect of the automail process. Resembool surely wouldn't allow for that. You would have to know it all most likely

Here, it depends on what your speciality is going to be in terms of how many years you do after graduation. (mine was 2). I rotated through everything even through stuff by law i couldn't practice on my own just to see how it works.

I prefer moving WInry to the city too, more Central than RV mostly because i dislike deserts. it's a thing.

[a2zmom.livejournal.com]

So Soul has been tormenting Roy? Ha.

That is one sad looking house.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

soul has been tormenting everyone

isn't it though?

[a-big-apple.livejournal.com]

I'm with bob_fish on the Resembool country automailer vs Rush Valley or big city automailer, and I like to think that Winry would want to be fully involved in every step of her patients' automail, including the surgery, but just hasn't gotten to that part of her training yet in the series. She's clearly got a strong stomach, if she was assisting in Ed's surgery as a little girl, and I imagine Pinako's been grooming her to take over the family business all along. Plus with her parents being doctors, it seems logical to me that Winry would want to learn both sides of the process.

That said, it makes me wonder if there would be some kind of stigma attached to an automail mechanic who also does the surgery in a big city, where there are probably hospitals that have surgeons and departments specially dedicated to automail port installation.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

it is a very interesting question isn't it. Being a former surgeon, i know that i wanted to be able to do EVERYTHING for my patients that I could.

What could easily happen in the city is they work together as a limb salvage team (this is what I used to do) so Winry is there for part of the surgery and maybe a vascular/neuro specialist does the delicate work.

[havocmangawip.livejournal.com]

I love the discussions on whether or not Winry would eventually perform the surgery side of automail. Fascinating. I love deep nerding discussions.

I'm really glad Roy didn't pee in room. Naughty cats, they sound like a lot of fun.

That house is so lonely. I wonder what its story is?

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

I love deep nerding too (provided we're all well behaved which hey, here we are)

they're something else these cats

i do not know. i'll ask the landlord and see if he does

[lyrangalia]

I really like bob_fish's explanation of city vs country automailers and how Winry would pursue it.

And just from an engineering sort of standpoint, I kind of see Pinako raising Winry as a systems sort of girl in that she knows how all the parts work in conjunction with each other. She wouldn't have the sort of specialization or experience to make a certain part the Very Best It Could Be, but she would have to be a jack of all trades (in the same way Pinako was).

I think Rush Valley might actually reinforce that desire to be a jack of all trades for her, to see that in a place like that it's not necessary to know everything, but if she was going to keep up with Ed, to follow him everywhere, she wasn't going to be able to be like everyone else to send their patients to three different doctors/automail specialists.

And I am tired so I may make no sense.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

no you make sense and yes I could definitely see Winry becoming and remaining a jack of all trades

[seatbeltdrivein.livejournal.com]

I've always thought Winry was both a surgeon and a mechanic. It seemed pretty implied, based on her experiences with Pinako. And in the filler episode in brotherhood, when they're in Rush Valley and she helps deliver the baby, Ed makes some comments about Winry's medical knowledge being somewhat the equivalent of their alchemical knowledge, I think? Can't remember exactly, but yeah.

I'm glad you're finally feeling better? But.. why the hell is Soul stealing your lighter? 0_0

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

I've always thought so too but not all of fandom agrees (then again what does all of fandom agree on?). But you make good points here.

Either Soul is a magpie or a budding arsonist

[enemytosleep]

I like her doing her own surgery, though yes, being a teen I can't see her doing more than apprenticing and assisting at this point (full surgeon later). My brain is all hurty today.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

exactly. being a teen would be a tad unrealistic (barring a few super brains out there). So you learn the stuff that would kill first then you train for surgery, works for me

your poor brain

[ishte.livejournal.com]

I seem to be with the consensus on this. My!Winry is definitely a JOAT of Automail. She was assisting with Ed's installation when he and she were 11. It makes sense that in a rural community that would be the norm, where in a big city it might not be. I don't see Winry changing from that initial attitude though, even though My!Winry does end up living in the city rather than staying in Rizenbool

I definitely agree that early on she would only assist and would have concentrated mostly on the metal working and the construction and design aspects of the limbs themselves. That much is obvious, in that she is often shown to have been the one who built Ed's limbs from start to finish, even to the point where Pinako wouldn't want to make adjustments because it's not her work.

Later I do see Winry going on to get the other side of her training so that she can also be the one who does the port installation from start to finish. In Chasing the Trail, that's pretty much the training that she just completed, though of course her education will never stop, she's now a full surgeon, and also able to prescribe medicines to her patients as needed without having to ask a medical doctor to write them for her. It just figures that her first official scrip written with her own signature would end up being for Ed.

I love the old house. So sad when they get abandoned like that and just fall to ruin. Funny, my house will be 100 in a year, but since it's been cared for and loved, it's really still in good shape. I hope that I can buy a house in this neighborhood sometime in the next few years. Just buy it outright and put the kind of love into making it a home.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

yeah I can definitely see that about Winry.

Yeah my grandmother's house is 100 and same deal, there is someone taking care of it. Hell the one I can see out my bedroom window fell to ruin immediately. good luck with maybe getting a chance to buy one in the future