strawbebehmod:

Ok, so everyone has headcanons about ed having to write all his reports and how much that would suck for him because he used to be right handed, but my question is, why would the military still use hand written reports when typewriters were clearly a thing at the time. It makes no sense because hand written reports can be extremely sloppy and you can both write faster and make multiple copies of typed reports using copy paper. It’s probably even mandated, tbh.

So instead think of this: Ed having to learn use a type writer.

We all forget, but ed is a country kid. As smart as he is, there were just things he didn’t have or didn’t need to have. Nobody in risembool probably had a vehicle aside from tractors and farm equipment, the closest thing anyone had to airconditioning was an electric fan, and Winry was probably the only one with a private teliphone for a few miles and that was mostly because her grandma had clients that weren’t from risembool.
In short, ed probably never had the oportunity to use a typewriter. And when he comes to central and is now expected to do all his writing with it, imagine how hilariously frustrating that would be for him:

–he probably doesn’t let Mustang know he’s never used one as to not give him a reason to look down on him (because apparently everyone in the big city knows how to use one except him and al) and tries to figure it out on his own.
–struggling to insert the paper because he doesn’t realise you’re supposed to roll it in.

—Doesn’t figure that out for ten minutes and ends up ripping up so much paper in the process

–types each key one finger at a time because he doesn’t know how to type

–getting hand cramps as a result

–thirty minutes goes by and he on has five lines

–a lot of cursing at Mustang, questioning how he can type so fast

–has to watch his hands and as a result makes a ton of mistakes

–having to start over every time he makes an error because there’s no back space or eraser for ink

–takes him ten minutes to figure out how to go to the next line

–takes him even longer to figure out how to use capital letters

–never figures out how to indent

–gets the caps lock stuck with out realising and goes three paragraphs before realizing it’s in all caps

–not realizing he can use copy paper to make a second copy of his report and having to write an entire second version line for line

–or, him accidentally pressing his hand on a piece of copy paper with his report underneath and ending up with a big black hand print covering his report

–paper jam

–spending literally all night on a report that ends up worse than when he started because he just gave up

–when he begrudgingly explains to roy that he kept having to redo his report due to errors, the man just stares at him in confusion and says, “why didn’t you just white out the word you messed up on, set the type writer back to that point, and rewrite it?”

–Ed stares at him dumbly before flying into a rage about not figuring out how to do that sooner

–Roy having havoc to redraft his report with out the errors because there is no way he’s going to embarrass both himself and Ed by turning in that mess. (Ed both marveling at and being extremely jealous of havoc for being able to get it all done in less than an hour)

–eventually having to begrudgingly accept typing lessons from roy(and all the shinanigans that would ensue from this) because roy was not about to let this happen again, plus training an employee was a perfectly legitimate excuse not to do paper work

–trying to figure out how to lug around the big heavy office one he’d been loaned before figuring out there are smaller, lighter portible ones.

See what I mean? This could be a lot more interesting and funny than the handwriting thing.