Was that question to me? If so, well, I guess Red could have just been put in his place as their Kanto teams are similar, but it's mainly because the St. Anne did actually crash in the anime. And one of the themes of the story I had planned is sort of the backwardsness of it - like how he got bulbasaur, charmander and squirtle. And, obviously, the order in which he got the badges and met the gym leaders. My story also had like a time-skip thrown in there which moved along some of the evolutions and stuff like that - I even planned on Ash growing some chest pubes, maybe even a ball fro.

 

So, plot that came about from my anger at the lack of good Fullmetal Alchemist fanfiction. You know, the kind that isn't fluffy and dripping with the undertones of the author taking the main character's place. And isn't EdxRoy.

Anyway, onto the plot bunny! Starts with canon:

In Resembool, the Elric brother's have returned from their training under the alchemist known as Izumi to find that their mother has fallen ill from a recent outbreak. Knowing that the illness is fatal, they send out letters to their father's various contact's, hoping to get him to come home to visit their mother and his wife before she dies.

Hohenheim never shows up. As the boys go about caring for their mother the days pass by until they turn to weeks ad their mother finally dies. Filled with grief and the desire to see their mother once more, they delve into the forbidden alchemy of human transmutation.

A week later, it becomes evident that the younger brother has contracted the same illness that killed their mother. Now greatly panicking, the elder brother, Edward, delves into his texts hoping to find a way to save his brother, while at the same time also trying to sketch all the details on human transmutation and taking care of his now bedridden brother.

After two weeks, Alphonse has also died and Edward is alone. After wallowing in despair for a couple of days, he renews his research into reviving his mother and now dead brother once more, with a greater fervor than he had in the beginning.

At the same time, one of the letters that had been sent out previously, to Hohenheim's contacts, has intrigued one Roy Mustang. Setting out for Resembool to meet the promising young alchemist's that had sent the letter, he arrives to find Edward in the middle of his research.

Knowing that nothing good will come of it, he tries to convince Ed to give up. Roy extracts a promise from him to give up and relieved, but till cautious that the boy may still try he decides to stay in Resembool a few extra days.

Thinking his time to actually attempt the transmutation is closing, he goes about setting it up immediately after Mustang has left to find accommodation for his stay in Resembool.

However, not having as much time as he would have had his brother not fallen ill, and without his assistance, combined with the rush of having t get it done before the Lieutenant Colonel checked back in, the circle was not as good as it could have been. Only having enough time for one circle instead of two, one for his mother and for his brother, he decides to try and revive them both at the same time.

Activating the circle, he finds himself in front of The Truth. Willing to sacrifice anything for his family back, he gives up his arm and his leg.


TL;DR, Alphonse dies, Ed tries to bring back both Al and his mother, still losing his arm and leg.

I figure a lot of changes would come from this, most prominent being Ed's personality and ambition. He'd probably be a lot darker than he was in canon, and he probably wouldn't have the same reason's to go after the Philosopher's Stone, seeing as there's no Al who need's to get his body back.

I included the whole Mustang getting there earlier thing, because he didn't show up early. Ed was behind schedule, as he was occupied with taking care of his brother, who most likely also assisted with all the research in canon. Of course, Ed's natural talent for alchemy and his even greater enthusiasm for the subject were the only things that got him as close to on schedule as he was.

There'd probably be a whole bunch of other changes, of course, but I want to leave some of those thought's for later.

 

Okay, but then what is Ed's goal? Would he even listen to Mustang's post-trauma pep-talk about becoming a State Alchemist? Would he even want to go back to Alchemy after all the pain it has brought him?

You're making changes, interesting ones, but none of them are hinting at what the plot will be. That is what I need to know.

 

Does Ed particularly need a goal? The only thing I could think of is to continue trying to find a way to revive his family. There's also the fact that he's still just a kid. A mature one, yes, but still. At this point, Ed has lost the two most important people in his life, and really, Alchemy is almost all he has left besides Pinako and Winry. He'd probably be going about aimlessly for a bit before he gets it together. When he finally does, and goes through the normal stages of grief, and decides to get on with his life. It wouldn't be to much of a leap to say that Resembool would have too many depressing memories for him, so once he can move again and is accustomed to the Automail, he'd most likely leave.

And really, why does he need a grand goal? Yes there's the motivation aspect, but can't his goal be something a tad simpler, like learning as much as he can? Hell, I was thinking that maybe because of his brief delve into looking for a way to save his brother, he might become interested in Alkahestry and travel to Xing for a couple of years. Would make for good set up to meet Ling and Lan Fan, or May Chang early.

Though if you can come up with a good goal for him, say so. Really, it's just a plot idea, fr anyone to use. I may write it, I may not.

 

If Roy hadn't come along and dangled the possibility of State Alchemist in front of Ed's face (and all the opportunities at research that could get his brother his bod back) then he would have remained an unresponsive vegetable. By changing it so that Al dies then there goes Ed's motivation to continue studying. He needs to have a tangible goal of some kind, otherwise he's going to end up wandering around doing nothing. Him getting interested in Alkahstery is good since it does give him a goal, and provides a way to come to peace with Al's death and Ed's failure to bring his mother and brother back to life.

 

Hrmm, maybe his goal could be to reform Amestris's medical practices? better health care and all that, so what happened to his family doesn't happen to anyone else? Of course, I have no idea how high in Amestris's chain of command he'd have to be to make those changes, or even if he'd have to join a prominent hospital or the military to get there.

Though it'd give a good excuse to get him to join the military if it's the latter.

 

A Study in Death - Sherlock Holmes / Death Note
London, 1881. Several people have died in the most bizarre ways. All of them carved an unknown symbol on their left cheek before dying of a heart attack. Another thing that connects these people is their considerable wealth. It has been found however that nothing was stolen from them. Detective Sherlock Holmes becomes interested in the case, aiming to solve it. But when he discovers a secret that is potentially world-changing, what will he do?

 

So Death Note in the late 19th century where the killer hates the rich rather than the morally corupt then?

Or am I missing something?

 

So I've been listening to the Mistborn series audiobooks while at work and this not so little plot bunny seized me.

The premise is basically that Vin was never recruited by Kelsier at the start of the series.

Spoiler

Vin never used allomancy in front of Marsh before the series started. He never informed Dockson about her and she was never recruited by Kelsier. A few months later Vin comes back to the hideout to find Camen and the rest of the crew dead, slaughtered by the Inquisitors.

She survives on the streets for a while and learns about her allomantic powers the hard way. She masters them and, by the end of the year, becomes one of the most well known and ruthless Skaa thieves in the Luthadel Underground, though she doesn't flaunt her Mistborn abilities.

At this point there are several ways the story could go. My favourite is that she is found by Straff Venture, who learns about her through the Obligator grapevine (as the Inquisitors are becoming more and more obvious in their searching), at which point she meets Zane and begins training to become a Mistborn with an insane foil to Kelsier.

Another option would be to have Vin join in Kelsier's rebellion through the more mundane means, without it becoming obvious that she's a Mistborn at first (after all, all of Kelsier's recruitment meetings were hidden by Smokers). Not as interesting though, as there's too much room for a canon rehash after that point.

 

Basically yeah.

 

What if Hakate Sakumo ( I think that's Kakashi's father's name) was murdered by Danzo instead of commited suicide? I say Danzo because really, who the fuck else would do that besides maybe Orochimaru. Obviously once Kakashi finds out shit would hit the fan, and there would be all kinds of far-reaching implications. But I just want to see Kakashi open up a can of whoopass and kill the shit out of Danzo and Root. Nobody ever writes an angry rampaging Kakashi, and that just breaks my heart.

 

Because Sakumo died when Kakashi was six and if Danzo (which he wouldn't be there in the first place) or Root was caught in action, they don't have the moral compunction that would let Kakashi live either.

 

I think that magglez meant for it to be a kakashi finding out later kind of thing, and Danzo wouldn't unnecessarily kill off kakashi, since he has no reason to. Quite the opposite really, a young promising ninja who loses their father would be good pickings for Root. It seems like a decent enough story to me.

Sakumo fights through his self-deprecation and lives until Kakashi is already on Minato's team. Kakashi resents him for his failure and for being ostracized as the child of the failed white fang.

Danzo assassinates Sakumo, but Kakashi is at Minato's house. You would need motivation for the assassination. Danzo would lose respect for Sakumo because he made a "weak" choice but he wouldn't deny his village the power of the white fang over it--that just isn't pragmatic. Sakumo is killed, perhaps drunk and a shadow of his former self, since shitty root killing the white fang doesn't really play. Hiruzen finds out but can't bring himself to kill danzo because danzo has some stupid semi-logical explanation for his actions that hiruzen can use and clings to, because Danzo uses his eye thing to persuade him and Hiruzen has a history with this kind of soft-heartedness towards allies. He sweeps it under the rug and then canon continues normally for a bit.

Before the sound/sand invasion, he finds out what Danzo did and Hiruzen admits to knowing about it after being confronted. It's a mirror of his own situation. He found out that Rin had betrayed Konoha and her comrades and he in turn did his duty, killed his heart and then her. The fourth found out that his teammate betrayed his allies and konoha, and lets it happen without lifting a finger. Then he finds out that Danzo and Hiruzen are both "worse than trash" for their own betrayal of a loyal ninja. How can he trust a konoha led by a hokage whose own will of fire is a lie? Goes rogue, kills danzo and hiruzen in epic fight scenes, and that's really as far as I thought that through.

 

Had an idea for a Naruto fic where Naruto is actually abducted/ taken by another village. The fic itself would cover Sarutobi, Danzo and the other two as they try to either recover Naruto or eliminate him. Eventually they'd reach the point where they're looking at taking another Biju to replace Naruto all the while trying to work out who took Naruto and hide the fact that Konoha is missing their Jinchurki and has reletively little ability to stop one of the other villages attacking with their own.

So thoughts?

 

Well that's bullshit, he's barely even Chuunin material by the time he makes it to the age of 13. And considering the fact that he would be (assumably) taken when he is only a small child...

Curious idea overall though.

 

I always understood it as the potential threat more than anything else. Naruto isn't a deterrent. the deterrent is Konoha working him into a rage, Kyuubi taking over and Konoha then pointing him at who ever is attacking, cue slaughter.
And just because Konoha never turned him into a pesudo-Itachi/ 5 year old killer doesn't mean everyone else won't either. or you know they could extract the Kyuubi and stick it in one of their own kids. Naruto himself isn't worth shit in the grand scheme of things but the Kyuubi is key to maintaining the peace/ceasefire/whatever the villages have going on.

 

That was never an option that any Konoha ninja that isn't Danzou thought was an option. In general, Konoha gives 0 fucks about using Kurama as a weapon, quite possibly they give negative fucks about using Kurama as a weapon. Neither Kushina nor Mito were ever shown to use Kurama's chakra or in any way be trained as a weapon. Konoha has so many S-class (aka Village Buster) ninja that the other villages need to make jinchukiri in order to stay competitive on a global scale. You do remember that they were all gifts by Hashirama to stabilize international politics, right?

Next day edit: Kakashi had no idea he could access the power of Kurama on the bridge and wave. In fact when it first happened he was worried that Kurama was escaping.

Here is a short list of Konoha's "deterrents" at various points of the manga:

Hashirama (who is a complete bawse)-> Tobirama (he did stuff....) ->Sarutobi (The Professor/God of Shinobi) -> Sakumo (who was better than all three of the sannin in their prime) -> the actual sannin (minus Orochimaru, then minus Tsunade) -> Minato (Flee on sight ring any bells?) ->Itachi (sharigan hax, was actually lolyal the whole time) -> Danzou (post-Uchiha massacre) -> Tsunade (again) -> Naruto.

It is hard to find a time where Konoha was able to field less than 2 S-class ninja. The only other nation to even have this number of loyal, S-class ninja is Kumo relatively recently (given that they have A and B). We aren't sure how the Swordsmen of the Mist worked, but most of them seem to have gone rogue, so i'm not counting them. Otherwise, powerful ninja are so rare that Iwa needed to sub-contract out to Akatsuki because they had none except their aging 'kage.

Kurama cannot be extracted from Naruto, and even if you could, you can have half a Kurama, since Minato has the other half in the stomach of the death god.


TL: DR Jinchukiri are what the other villages do so they can sleep at night. Konoha can field either 2 or 3 ninja capable of bringing a village to their knees single-handedly at a time. They are so great that the Daimyo of an entire country thought they were better than his own resident village.

 

At some point Konoha had like 6 S rank ninja as in Sarutobi, Sukamo, Sanin(3), Minato

When Naruto becomes Genin there is only 1 S rank in the village (Sarutobi). Which shows how much the Konoha was weakaned.

 

I'd argue that they had at least 3. I think Danzou may have been S rank, depending on whether or not he had the sharingan arm at that time. They also have Gai, who can achieve S rank through use of the gates.

 

They might qualify for an S rank, but it doesn't matter. This whole disscussion is about the intimidation factor of having S-ranked ninjas. The other villages don't know that Danzo has a whole arm with transplanted Sharingans, or that Gai is actually a fucking monster (btw, I think that the threat of an S rank is that they can ruin a village alone, and still walk away pretty much unscathed, so I'm not sure how much Gai counts).

Point is, Konoha has only one known S-rank, and he is past his prime, so it could easily be seen as a sign of weakness.