#Slicer FMA

[dairogo]

The arrays to connect souls to armour are really different for the all three suits we know. I'm sure I've read a post about it before, but I couldn't word a search that would make it pop up, so here's at least a small comparison.

Al's seal (picture from Chapter 9):

Al's is really simple. A circle because that's alchemy - the equivalent exchange/orouboros symbol of cycles, of wholeness in the process of change, etc. I think the starry kind of bit indicates a container, and the swirl is the soul being held. I'm making this up, but look at it.

Now let's look at the two Slicer seals.

Slicer's seal (helmet) (picture from chapter 11):

Slicer's seal (body) (picture from chapter 12):

There's the circle, and the star (fewer points this time - a Star of David).

So here's where my brain goes "is this about the Jewish connection to alchemy?" since I know there are connections, particularly the Sephirothic Tree that appears on Ed's door to Truth, "or since circles are special, do triangles mean anything special in alchemy?" and let me tell you: yes.

(First, this search led me to find that combined with the circle, this is more likely to be a reference back to the Seal of Solomon, from which I have now learned the Star of David was derived. The Star of David is more about the Jewish identity and Judaism, whereas the Seal of Solomon is connected to Jewish, Islamic and occultic and alchemic mysticism.)

To paraphrase the relevant parts of this site, a downward pointing triangle with a line through it (which these conjoined triangles give each other) symbolises Earth, considered a symbol for physical sensations/movements; while an upward pointing triangle with a line through it symbolises its opposite, Air, which is considered a symbol for the Holy Spirit and life-giving forces/sources of life such as breath (this source says it's associated with blood).

Slicer's seal is basically "give physicality and life"!

What then does that mean for Al's seal?

With those extra lines, what could the starry bit on Al's seal mean? It looks like Slicer's, plus more. I couldn't find anything on triangles pointing sideways instead of up or down.

If there is an intention behind it - which there so often is with Arakawa's little details, but I don't want to assume she always has to be meaning something when she was publishing chapters monthly, as she wrote them, and didn't get the chance to go back and edit as the story progressed. If, I say, there is an intention behind it, I wonder if it's like an inclusion of the two other triangles. Representing the other two elements (fire and water). They don't have a line through them, but consider this:

Fire represents the 'fiery' emotions (love, passion, compassion, hate, anger). It is considered masculine/male, and symbolises rising energy, aspirations to reach the divine above us.

Helloooo Father, and Roy Mustang.

Water represents intuition. Considered female/feminine. Combines with the Fire triangle to make the Seal of Solomon, which, if significant to alchemy, could be like Ed going "double powerful" by having the fire/water one plus the earth/air one.

But look at that. While Slicer's seals, designed by the military alchemists who were happy experimenting on people, are concerned with connecting motion and life, Al's has that plus Ed's care for his emotions and intuition (feelings and thoughts). Isn't that sweet? ;_; I wonder if it makes any difference.

Maybe there's more than one way to get a job done.

The only difference I can think of is how stable/unstable Al's connection is.

Back to Slicer

So in addition to the circle (alchemy) and the triangles (tethering, restoring), Slicer has the squiggles in the middle (soul?) and those lines on the outside.

I haven't uncovered any symbols that shed light on those, but it puts me in mind of in later chapters, Roy having his legs pinned by the unsuccessful Fuhrer candidates and his hands pinned by swords. Like swords pointing at the soul in the sigil, warning it to stay put.

Then, guys

Barry's seal (picture from chapter 39):

whAT is THIS.

Al gets this quickly formulated love-letter to alchemy begging for human life in all its beauty, Slicer gets a command to be functional, and Barry gets ... a whole new equation.

And we've just seen the mural on the wall under Lab 3, with the sun and the moon and all the alchemical theory to be hinted at later, so you know by now (30 chapters after the first seal) that Arakawa has an idea of what she's doing.

Circle - that's familiar. But with a second circle inside! New, chic, beautiful. Between the two circles there's some fancy writing. Too small to be read (I bet she was getting tired of coming up with new alchemical symbolism to add but it seemed cool, or it was meant to reflect the precision of the alchemist making it).

Something in the middle - it's a bit different. An arrow crossing a boundary, within a squashed rectangle.

Something on the outside - the flourishes on the leftmost side of the extruding bits look not like the head of an arrow, but similar in signifying a direction. Maybe following the same direction the inner arrow is, like to say you poke his soul out from the body and into something else.

And I think this may be a significant answer to why Barry's array is so different:

As you can see, when Barry's body (whoever is in there, with very little of their mental faculties remaining to them) destroys the array, it kills the both of them.

The one array is tethering both of them.

Its considerable complexity is something Ed would never reach for - he's not looking to kick a soul out of their body - and we don't hear anything about the Slicer Brothers' bodies, so maybe they were disposed of in a regular way - or simply a different one.

Barry tells us a soul can reject a body - or a body a soul - and that's why this man is deteriorating so much. His body is rotting and the soul is incoherent, while the metal containers have kept the armoured souls more stable. The array on Barry's armour is too distant to maintain the body's life, if it is even designed to do such a thing.

Wrapping up

All the arrays are different. Barry's serves a significantly different purpose, with the additional soul to pin down. Al's lacks the external flourishes that could act as tethers. Slicer's is duplicated for the brothers, except for the individualised soul mark in the centre - showing us that they don't all have to be unique in design.

And a lot of the stuff in there is researched and intentional, instead of just slapped together.

The attention to detail even in the variations of symbols meant for the same purpose gives so much to chew on. This is why FMA is such an enduring series.

[hyolks]

ed: yeah hohenheim was. weirdly into animatronics. my options were slim

[carnivill]

ARMOR POWER!!!

[stackslip]

brothers is such a good tune bc by using it the animators manage to make any scene in fma 2003 one of the most poignant things you've ever watched

[emmikay]

Lab 5

Slicer: So, what are you doing here?

Ed: Oh, you know. Just- Sneaking around.

Slicer: Sneaking around?

Ed: Sneaking around.

Slicer: Thwarting the plans?

Ed: …Thwarting the plans?

Slicer: Are you?

Ed: No?

Slicer: Good, because that’d be bad.

Ed: How bad?

Slicer: I’d have to kill you.

Ed: That’s bad.

Slicer: Indeed.

[the-catmans-offical-2]

Never drawing again

[sincerestpumpkins]

FULLMETAL ALCHEMIST - E.20. Soul of the Guardian Aired 20 years ago, 02.21.2004

[lenaeger1524]

Here comes Slicer.

unfortunately he was unlucky enough to have a younger brother like in canon

.

The expression “don’t lose your wings” for a they means that they have turned away from the right path of their life, everyone has their own path. Unfortunately he lost his wings. He connected himself and his life with the abyss, almost losing his humanity like Longarm. But at the last moment he was able to come to his senses and make the right decision.

[they-callme-ami]

Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood being called "Brotherhood" to differentiate it between the 2003 version will never not be funny to me--cause in terms of "brotherhood" fma 2003 is literally all about the bonds of Brotherhood and different familial relationships.

Edward and Alphonse

Rick and Rio

Russell and Fletcher

Scar and His Brother

The Slicer Brothers

Like....I get 2 of these duos are fma 2003 only but even the canonical characters are done much better in terms of showcasing 'brotherhood' in 2003 than 2009.

[norellenilia]

Finally continuing the FMA 03 rewatch I started 3 years ago, I just rewatched episodes 17 to 25, I have many feelings.

So, SOOO many wholesome moments, from Scar telling Al that he saw his real tears, to Ed and Winry remembering that time when Den ate Alphonse' cake slice and poor baby boy cried his heart out, to Al being so nice to Sciezka

Winry is incredible and I can't remember why the hell I used to hate her when I first watched as a teenager, without her the Elrics would've gone nowhere

They're also very ungrateful towards her, but at least Ed makes efforts to be better when she calls him out on his bullshit

That old Ishvalan dude looking after Rick and Leo has his tunic patched with some floral fabric and I find that incredibly funny

Ed is called out so much more in this than in mangahood, and we're clearly meant to think that he is indeed wrong, like in these 9 episodes I rewatched, Winry yells at him several times about him being unfair to her and to Pinako, Al yells at him, Maria yells at him, the Slicer Brothers yell at him about how him calling them humans makes their lives in the armor meaningless etc, and I feel like everytime, I was like "yeah, they got a point" and the show wants us to think that yeah, Ed should apologize to Winry and Al, yeah, the Slicer Bros situation is more complex than Ed thinks it is, he's not always right, in fact he's quite often wrong, and PROVEN wrong throughout the series, or at the very least he is told that his worldview and his experiences are not the only ones that are valid, and all of that is what's making him grow, and it's been a while since I read the manga/watched BH, but from what I remember, Ed is The Hero, therefore He Is Right almost every time, and honestly I prefer 03's version, I find that more interesting

The rain poured so much harder at Hughes' funeral this time around bc since the last time I watched this scene I lost my dad too

Anyway I love this show, can't wait to go past the Dublith section because I've had a lot of rewatches stop after that for some reason??

[presidentpoppy]

fma doodles with my friend !!!

[shocotate]

FMA MOBILE

Number 48 CV: Dai Matsumoto (older brother) / Kenji Nojima (younger brother) (ナンバー48 CV: (兄) 松本大 / (弟) 野島健児)

Number 66 CV: Hideyuki Umezu (ナンバー66 CV: 梅津秀行)

[toxiccaves]

Sorry to bother you, but a while back I was digging through your Iron Leaguer tag and saw you'd ripped some models from Super Robot Wars Neo. Were those ever offered for public download, or are they private? No trouble if they are, was just wondering!

It's no bother! I don't think I posted them, but here's a drive link to the WIP blender files! They're not done at all and I think the textures need to be re assigned (They have the texture maps though) and magnum isn't exactly rigged but he at least has bones. Essentially these are just the files as they are after ripping.. If anyone else wants to work on them, please do :'y

at the very least, we can stare at them or rotate them. please enjoy uwu

[the-catmans-offical-2]

Chimera Ed au thoughts:

- Ed's disguise (to not be seen as a chimera) might be comprised of the left over pieces of 48/the slicer brothers ; Because I think they would weigh on Ed's conscious like Nina and so he uses the remains of their armor to carry around like reminders (like his pocket watch!)

- Ed's automail arm is too big for him due to Winry only understanding how to make the design for humans and hasn't advanced to animals (I think Pinako did Den's automail, and she knows how important Ed's automail is to Winry due to it being her first design and all. Plus Ed would probably want some semblance of normalcy.)

- Ed isn't agressive in his chimera state, more skittish and protective of himself in a sense. He is reduced to a prey animal mindset, this can't be forgotten. So he sees humans as threats, front facing eyes and all are common traits of predatory animals, and is commonly skittish of them. Ed is also more dull in terms of emotion unless you count high feeling emotions (fear is a common one but overstimulation, sadness, and happiness are all there too.) Dull in the sense of he experiences less complex emotions, this is part of the reason why he won't be allowed to be shipped with other characters. In other words, his aggression is more fear than sass.

- Like Nina was thought to be, Ed is in constant pain; His bones aren't right and they feel wrong in his body, as does his organs, tongue, and certain nerves. So his senses in terms of touch is heightened and diluted in certain areas. His hips, left collarbone, left shoulder bone, and right femur are all fucked up due to having the ports still attached to his body during the transmutation. He walks funny, and speaking of walking he both can walk like a quadped and a biped; Both cause him some level of pain though, especially walking like a biped.

- While Ed has the appearance of an armadillo, he still has humanic or ape like attributes in term of bone structure and whatnot; I don't know how to better explain currently.

- Ed's eyes are still faintly golden, but they still have white cataracts like Nina's eyes. So his sight isn't that good; But his taste, smell, and somewhat hearing are what he has to go off of for the most part.

- Since Havoc is the one to find him, Ed sticks close to Havoc (As well as Al of course but Al causes him to get confused sometimes, he can't sense him that well if that makes sense.) but that being said, Havoc's cigarette smell makes him feel sick.

- Al, although he knows it's wrong, treats Ed more like a cat at first. Because he's a little kid, what do you expect the 13 or so year old to do?

- Greed, much like FMA 03 Greed, hears about Ed and tries to find him to have him join him; Not only to get him out of sight of the homunculi looking for him, but also to just have another team Greed (Devil's Nest) member.

- Ed has speech issues, and therefore typically is silent not only out of pride but also because he thinks he can be badass by just being quiet during fights. He learns certain, one handed signs; Mostly cussing, I wonder who taught him that.

That's it, that's all I got so far.

I'm working on Ed's ref sheet currently, I don't know when it'll be done but hopefully soon. As well as the comic.

I will be writing it out on AO3, I know I will, and once I do I'll be posting that here too.

Soon, I promise.

[sincerestpumpkins]

03 vs Brotherhood: The Fifth Laboratory (The Homunculi)