#[ she is maes hughes

[riza-hawks-eye]

Still thinking about how Maes Hughes loved Gracia so much he justified her cheating in a completely made-up scenario.

[metamatronic]

God I wonder how the Elric's are gonna feel about Hughes being back and. Shit. Who's gonna tell his wife!? It's been two years! He has so many photos to catch up on...

roy “hughes retired to his farm up north” mustang did not, in fact, alert the elrics before the fake news story went public.

bonus doodles below:

also i’m trying not to get emotional over the fact that while missing 2-3 years of most relationships is negligible in the grand scheme of things, 2-3 years away from raising a toddler is huge. Fortunately (?) for Maes, he got back before Elicia could really understand the concept of death, but he still probably missed a lot of milestones. :,(

[rizaposting]

been thinking a lot about my royai kid ideas lately but i don't think a lot of people will like them because i don't name the kid after maes lol

[gipsyjr]

I got a Tumblr account just to post this lol.

Father-Daughter bonding time! (don't know whether to cry or laugh in this situation). Grown up Elicia joining the military like her father. I love the Hughes family so much.

[blatherin-blatherskite]

One of the biggest faults of the brotherhood is better than FMA:03 argument is I can't find ANY Hughes merch despite him being , imo, a major character.

[coockie8]

ok but now i cant stop thinking about something happening to gracia after hughes died and roy getting saddled with this kid hes had like 4 conversations with max 😂😂😂😂

Roy, upon receiving a now deeply traumatized, orphaned 4-year-old he's only met like 5 times in his life, during all of which she was a little scared of him:

[candilee-joestar]

.

[elysiumheartrp]

Some sketchbook stuff I found while going through my phone

[waffliesinyoface]

i got to chapter 2 in AWL and my daughter is SO cute??? shes adorable and i am going to buy her ALL of the toys and show her to everyone in town, constantly

[psych3-delic]

Some RoyEd + kid sketch.

Her name is Mae, after Maes Hughes. Diane Mae Mustang-Elric on paper, but she prefer Mae. Roy wonders if it’s a blessing or a curse that Hohenheim’s gene is so dominant, the kid hardly resembles him, but bares the trademark Elric golden hair and eyes. Oh well, he’d take consolation that the sharpness of her eyes takes after him more than Ed’s.

Fuhrer Mustang tries as hard as he can to spend time with his family, but being the head of a State (especially a recently unstable one) is demanding. Ed is not all too happy about it. He has had enough experience with an absence father.

(Roy is around 42-45 here and Ed’s 27ish; only because I think that’s the earliest Roy could take office)

[riza-hawks-eye]

The ova Yet Another Man's Battlefield explores why Mustang can never settle down and get married like Maes Hughes.

He asks Hughes, "Can you really hold the woman you love with blood-stained hands?" And it's not just a manifestation of his guilt. There's truth to the fact that Mustang is not a good person. Mustang is terrifying. And people are right to be afraid of him.

The same thing applies to Riza, only Riza has the horrible bonus of having the Alchemical equivalent to nuclear launch codes on her back. Sure, Roy may have burned off the most important information of her Father's research, but the tattoo still lingers, and there will still be questions from the people who see it. And Riza can't give them answers that won't lead back to the numerous deaths she is responsible for.

It's no wonder then, that neither of these two characters are ever canonically romantically linked to anyone else.

Neither Riza nor Roy even really meaningfully touched anyone else until Episode 59. When the Gold-Toothed Doctor has Riza's throat slit.

It takes a near-death experience for Roy to hold the woman he loves, and for Riza to finally let herself be held.

But in a strange sense, it finally lets Roy hold the woman he loves with blood-stained hands.

[sakasakiii]

not really a modern au but more like a weird future timeline thing where beach hermit maglor Hibernates™ all through the 2nd and 3rd ages & misses the last boats to Valinor.... thus resulting in him skulking about history until he ends up living among modern day humans haha?? the kicker is that he one day finds an abandoned baby thats all-too-suspiciously like a certain dead brother and becomes a single dad-younger brother-adopted guardian person...

i wrote a few pages of this back in 2022 but never really thought abt it further after i started posting less frequently hahaha.... heres just some feel good domestic sketches of this AU bc i miss drawing modern clothes 🤭 i have sooo many thoughts about it that i couldnt fit into these doodles !! its quite a lot of yapping so feel free to skip past the cut haha

assorted au thoughts:

i planned for maglor to eventually find all 6 of his brothers one by one through the power of Accidental Child Acquisition ✨ example: he'd spot a kid lurking around some woods near his home and eventually realise said wild child living amongst stray dogs is a bit too similar to celegorm

i just couldnt fit in the time to draw that this round... maybe next time!

though he's raising reincarnated-Maedhros, i think it makes more sense for him to give him a modern name and not explicitly call him Nelyo/Maitimo/Russandol just bc he'd not want to get his own hopes up or shove said identity onto the kid

(the occasional 'hey Nelyo' does slip out by accident from time to time however)

i think as Mae-the-kid grows up he will in time start to remember bits and pieces of his original identity? with the nicer familial things (like valinor, his brothers, feanor and nerdanel) first, and then the darker things (kinslayings, angband, war) once he's grown up that Maglor will struggle explaining or even helping him through

i promise this is a wholesome au 😭

side characters include a high-strung but good guy policeman named Officer Borden who's very suspicious of Maglor bc of all the random kids he keeps adopting.... and his younger brother Farren, who happens to be Maglor's scholarly coworker

as well as Maglor's next door neighbour Morgan, a witch-woman married to some guy named Hugh... she's got 3 kids who visit from time to time but from what Maglor's heard, the oldest son is followed by misfortune and has supposedly never met his youngest sister...?

credit to Ted Nasmith and Cartoon Network for some assets used in the doodles :D

[sassydefendorflower]

I’m glad Maes Hughes died.

He’s a fan favorite character and I enjoy him a lot too, but I think fundamentally he’s a character who has to die. His role in the narrative is to haunt it.

I might be even more of a weirdo because I enjoy his manga characterization over his Brotherhood or ‘03 portrayal, but I love the idea of Hughes being someone the Elric brothers barely know - someone we, the audience, barely see.

Until he dies.

Because suddenly he’s everywhere. He was Roy’s friend and Armstrong’s superior officer and Winry’s acquaintance and Elicia’s father - and he was the soldier both Ed and Al knew, but didn’t actually know, that got killed because of them anyway.

In the manga Winry stays at Hughes’ place, but Ed and Al enter his house for the first time after they found out he died. For them, it’s not about losing a friend (though I am sure they liked him just fine) because that story is already Roy’s - for them it’s about realizing that this plot they’ve involved themselves in kills people that aren’t actually directly involved at all to begin with. It makes sense for their allies and friends and loved-ones to be targeted by the antagonists - but a soldier who mostly joined in because he was at the right (or wrong) place at the right (wrong) time? That’s not supposed to happen. And that’s what makes Hughes’ death so hard on them.

(and poor Elicia - abandoned children without their fathers were always a weakness of Ed’s)

But Roy? Yeah... he suffers. From the moment of Hughes’ dead on, Roy is haunted by it. By him. His best friend follows him everywhere. We see it in the way Roy only involves himself in the plot because Hughes figured something out and Roy is desperate for answers. He hunts down the homunculi to save this country, sure, but mostly so he can burn his best friend’s murderer to the ground. When Riza talks about winning against the Führer and their military dictatorship, she talks about all of them, not a hint of revenge coloring her vision - but Roy? It is telling that it isn’t a greater ideal that makes him torture Envy, but the agony of his best friend’s death.

The thing that almost breaks Roy is Maes.

No.

It’s Maes’ memory haunting the narrative.

And isn’t that beautiful?

The tragedy of it all, the horror, and the realization that Roy Mustang never really recovered from the War, that his friends are the only think keeping him in one piece, the fact that Roy Mustang is a Hero and a Monster and a fallible human capable of love.

Maes Hughes has to die to remind all of us of what Roy Mustang is capable of: love, loyalty, devotion.... and the slaughter and torture of numerous people.

His ghost is haunting the narrative - and for that I love him.

[nerdyspacepirate]

what's my roman empire?Maes Hughes never got to see his little girl grow up. The man who loved his daughter and wife so much. The man who cherished his family until his death. And Elicia Hughes probably won't remember her father. That little girl will see pictures of him and know that he's her father. But she won't remember what it's like to be carried on his shoulders or the feeling of his scratchy beard against her cheek. People will tell her that she was his pride and joy, but she won't truly know. Maes Hughes will never see his daughter graduate, will not intimidate her future partner (cause c'mon he would have loved to), will not walk her down the aisle and will never be an annoying grandfather doting on his daughters children.

[physalian]

Yet another 5 Character Types The World Needs More Of

Continuing on the list of “tropes the world needs more of”

1. The optimist in denial

This is a character who probably didn’t have the best life growing up, so determined to look on the bright side to escape their objectively crap situation that they’re in denial, not just being annoyingly optimistic. They’re frustrating cases to all the people who care about them because they won’t admit anything is wrong, holding onto a life or reality that doesn’t exist, or perhaps never did, as it’s all they have left.

Example: Todoroki Fuyumi

2. The “peaceful” pacifist

As opposed to harmless, the distinction is important. Demons run when a good man goes to war. This is a character who took themselves off the game board because they know they’d win in a landslide. This is a warrior who left the battlefield because they are the weapon of mass destruction. This is also the character who is determined to be good, even if it gets them killed. I don’t care if there’s already plenty of them, this is good shit and I want more.

Example: Too many and yet not enough

3. The likable autistic

Neurodivergence in media is often the butt of the joke. You like these characters in spite of their “quirks” or you find them incredibly annoying because their “quirks” are their entire personality. Usual representations are arrogant and anti-social narcissists who lack compassion. Shockingly, autism is a spectrum, and a very far cry from sociopathy. No one trait should define an entire character, and that includes neurodivergence.

Nothing specific to do this time, more what not to do. Make them people first, yeah? A person with autism. Not autistic person. There’s a difference.

Example: Spencer Reid (Criminal Minds)

4. Husbands who love their wives

Wow this feels like a low bar. These men who adore their wives, who wouldn’t dare think the phrase “ball and chain”. If he likes his wife, he’s probably a good man altogether. I feel like media is stepping away from the misogynistic kinds of protagonists (assuming their wives weren’t fridged) but I’m talking men who are their wives fiercest defender (socially) and biggest cheerleader.

Example: Gomez Adams, Maes Hughes

5. Unmanicured Female Heroes and Love Interests

Slapping barbie dolls who look gorgeous and can do no wrong aren’t anyone’s favorite character. Let her hair be a little frizzy, let her not wear makeup, give her jeans and a t-shirt and flat. Let her be a little lazy and self-indulgent. A little cluttered and messy without joking about how she’s “letting herself go”.

Let her have some biases, some arbitrary hills to die on. Not every female character but usually characters like this are the jealous villains or the girl who gets dumped for someone prettier.

Example: Toph Beifong, Princess Fiona

—

Oh look I wrote some of these in ENNS haha what a coincidence

Check it out if you'd like~

[sepulchralblues]

Mae tells Sol about how desires can cloud your judgement and ep6 is such a visual reminder of that for Sol.

After Khofar, Sol is so busy drowning in his own guilt and the latent emotions of what happened in Brendok all those years ago that it takes him so long to see through Mae-disguised-as-Osha. It’s such a piercing difference from the whole ‘Jedi need to remain distant from emotional attachments’ that it really shows you why.

Sol needs Osha to be safe, he needs the one good thing that came out of Brendok sixteen years ago to remain with him, to show him that he didn’t truly fail, that even if he presents himself before the Hugh Council with the truth there is still salvation for him in the form of Osha.

But then Osha isn’t Osha anymore, she’s Mae and suddenly Sol can’t find that salvation anymore.

Gonna need another post to contrast this to how Qimir was instantly able to recognise Osha while unconscious because he doesn’t look for what he wants he simply sees what already is