You're right, of course! I find that the flaws of the FMA manga and anime make great fodder for stories. It's excellent sometimes, a little unrefined other times, but that gives us a firm foundation and some nice raw potential to work with. I love it! (And Arakawa has certainly created some pretty damn nice groundwork, which is more than what I can say for my other main fandom, which is just a whole lot of potential but very little substance. All smoke and mirrors, I say.) Typically, the harsher and more detailed my criticism, the more I like what I'm talking about; I wouldn't spend so much time thinking about it otherwise.

The things that I love which I consider perfect are also things that I am content to love for what they are, and I don't end up seeking out the fandom, or coming up with my own alternate story ideas, or even getting really deep into shipping... a good story simply satisfies me, and although I will read truly good stories over and over again and consider myself a fan, I don't need anything more than that to make me happy.

I'm mostly the same way with the things I truly like. I try not to mess with the things I love, but for a bit of a different reason - not necessarily because the canon satisfies me, but because I'm afraid to taint it with my touch. Dumb way of thinking, right? (People say to write what you love and all that good stuff . . .) It's why I don't actually write about the characters/pairings I like all that often. I'm just afraid of messing them up and having people draw the "wrong" conclusions about that character/pairing from the portrayal in a story, and then I'd feel absolutely horrible. Ideal world in my head, but once it gets down on paper, it's absolute dreck, and people will think what they will. So the only thing I can do to keep people from making these "wrong" assumptions is to . . . not write the story! Hah. My logic fails me even now, sometimes.

We'll have to disagree on the "no ending" side, but I'm showing my bias. Open endings fascinate me. Also, I'm actually not overly concerned with what happens in the canon after the initial set-up. I'll bitch about it or praise it sometimes, but - you know, it's fandom and there will always be stories. I think the best phrase I can use to describe it is "time out of mind", if that makes sense. It's there, and I'm glad it exists, but I don't care for it beyond a certain point in its existence. This would explain why the ending of Shamballa doesn't piss me off as much as it should. Open-ended and I don't particularly care! Hurrah, it's a win-win situation for me.

And yes, this has been an interesting discussion! I normally don't come out of my shell because I'm afraid of wank (and this secret inspires all sorts of wank), but I'm glad I decided to chime in, because you've raised some interesting points. Your initial comment about people often mistaking a badass character for a well-written character is a good one, and it's one of the things that I've been trying to articulate for a while but just haven't been able to. (I might also go so far as to say people do mistake badassery for strength, in the complete sense of the word. A badass character isn't even necessarily strong as a person or well-written as a character.) In any case, I feel that much of what's going on with Riza is that Arakawa isn't entirely sure whether she wants to make Riza a character or a plot device, so she's stuck her in some horrible limbo between the two extremes, and it rubs some people the wrong way.