User Profile

Character: Edward “Ed” Elric, the former FullMetal Alchemist
Series: FullMetal Alchemist
Version: Post-series, pre-movie
Age: 17
Gender: Male
Sexuality: Gay

Appearance: Edward has been “built” since he was about twelve years old and this is due to his intense training with Izumi Curtis who taught he and his brother that they must train their bodies in order to train their minds. He works out daily, not really to keep up his appearance, but because he truly believes in his old teacher’s “Train the body, train the mind” philosophy.

The second most significant part of his appearance, if you look hard enough, are his missing right arm and left leg. While he had automail back in his own world (a metal, mechanical prosthetic attached to the nerves That uses the electronic impulses to allow the patient to move the artificial limb as if it were the real limb that they lost), there is nothing like that on our side of the Gate and, so, his estranged father built him several facsimiles that work just as well they simply even less natural looking. To hide this, however, Edward sees a prosthetics worker when necessary to have a rubber skin-like glove fitted over the metal limbs. They’re a couple of a shades lighter than his normal skin, but this isn’t very noticeable and both limbs generally pass for real.

The final most significant aspect of Edward’s appearance is his height. While he’s grown several inches since his shorter days in Amestris (at 4’11” he was almost constantly mistaken as younger and picked on for his height), at 5’4” he still doesn’t tower over people the way he fantasized when he was younger. And he’s very sensitive about this.

All that’s left are the basics: He has golden-yellow eyes and long blonde hair that he’s taken to tying back in a ponytail since he came to Germany as opposed to the braid he wore throughout his teenage years in Amestris. His basic dress is typical of a young man of the 1920’s -- brown dress slacks, a white button-down dress shirt, arm garters, and a matching brown vest. He also adds a pair of gloves to that, mostly out of habit since his reason for wearing them when he was younger was to cover up his automail hand.

Personality: While Edward had been known for his rash behavior and short temper when he was younger, he has calmed down some. He still reacts violently if he thinks you’ve implied that he’s short and he still tends towards quick, on-the-spot decisions, but he’s matured a bit after everything he’s been through. The one thing that will never change is his determination -- he’s gone from trying to make his mother happy with his little brother, trying to bring her back from the dead, looking for a way to restore his brother’s body , and now he’s searching for a way to get back to his world to be reunited with his brother and the friends that he left behind.

He won’t stop until he’s found that way because he truly believes that it exists. Even though many people have tried to tell him otherwise, he believes that the law of Equivalent Exchange applies to everything and, if he works hard he will achieve his goal. His determination isn’t the only thing that will help him succeed, however, it’s also his intelligence. He has been hailed as a genius (along with his brother) since childhood, showing extreme talent in alchemy as well as investigative situations including criminal cases or decoding encrypted notes. This, and the fact that he considers himself first and foremost a scientist, are the reasons that he tends to think of things logically and that help him crack cases or solve problems that others may not have even realized was a problem.

It is, perhaps, his logical thinking, however, that has caused him to start believing that his life in Germany is, possibly, just a dream. After all, there can be no other logical explanation as for why he keeps seeing the faces of his friends and relatives but them having completely different personalities as well as not know who he is.

Generally, Edward appears to be a fairly happy and confident individual and, while this is true of him to an extent, he also hides (not very well most of the time) a darker side. This is the side that feels responsible for almost every bad thing that’s happened to the people he cares about; that can’t let go of the terrible things he’s seen in his life; and that knows that he’s capable of killing if he has to. However, he has a very strong moral compass that leads him to help others however he can, even if it means putting himself at risk

Abilities/Weaponry: Edward has had some training in hand-to-hand fighting that he’s kept up with since he was eleven years old. Through his intelligence and well-developed ability for quick analyzation , he is generally able to effectively improvise in confrontations. This is enhanced by his more than impressive alchemic skills and makes him a force to be reckoned with in most circumstances. Edward also has an intense determination that’s seen him through to his goals more than once, whether or not the end result was actually what he’d wanted it to be.

Weaknesses: While Edward’s combat abilities are extensive and impressive, he is far from perfect. His rashness and tendency to jump into situations without thinking them through first tend to get him into trouble and he seems to come out of fights as the loser almost as often as he does the winner. Since traveling through the Gate, his abilities have also been compromised as his ability to perform alchemy the way he's used to was taken away from him.

The makeshift automail prosthetics also serve as limitations as the weight, straps, metal design, and general pain that goes along with the attachment process put a strain on Edward physically. He also has a hard time keeping the limbs in one piece -- most often the arm -- which prompted his father (who built the prosthetics) to leave him with plenty of spares.

He has also been through several instances of mental and emotional trauma throughout his childhood and teenage years that have left their scars. Edward’s been used and abused by many people in his lifetime as well as having to keep a very important secret for five years, which has led to him being generally distrustful of people. There are also visual triggers that remind him of the traumatic moments in his life that send him into a panic, on top of the nightmares he still has on occasion about those same events.

Finally, there is also a sense of detachment he feels towards the world he’s in since it isn’t his own.

History: Edward grew up in a small farming town with his parents, Trisha and Hohenheim, and his younger brother, Alphonse. Hohenheim left without a word about a year after Alphonse was born, leaving behind everything as well as some money for them to get by. Trisha never touched the money and instead took care of both of her sons on her own until she died of the plague when Edward was ten. He and Alphonse had taught themselves alchemy from their father’s notes and texts and, in those notes they saw mention of the practice of human transmutation which, in theory, could bring a person back to life. The brothers decided to find themselves a teacher to reteach them alchemy so that they could become stronger and resurrect their mother.

After six months of training, they returned home and attempted the forbidden transmutation only to be caught in a rebound which took Alphonse’s body and Edward’s left leg. Upon seeing the mass of misshapen body parts that was the result of the transmutation and that his little brother was gone, Edward gave his right arm in order to attach his soul to a suit of armor.

After a suggestion from the Roy Mustang, who Edward would work for, he used the money his father had left to replace his missing limbs with automail (an advanced mechanical prosthetic that allows the patient to use the metal limbs as if they were their real ones) and joined the military, passing the State Alchemist exam at the historical age of twelve. For the next five years, he and Alphonse searched all over the country for leads to finding the Philosopher’s Stone -- an alchemic amplifier that allows the user to perform transmutations while ignoring the law of Equivalent Exchange (“To gain anything, you must give something of equal value in return”). But, the deeper they searched, the more they realized that the mystery surrounding it was more than just a few alchemists over the course of history trying to find the Stone.

In fact, it was a conspiracy involving Hohenheim, his lover, Dante, and a group of homunculi, many of which they’d created themselves. After defeating the homunculus, Sloth, who had been created during Edward and Alphonse’s failed attempt at human transmutation, Edward went after Dante, who had already sent Hohenheim through the Gate that separates our own world from theirs. After a battle against Dante, and then Envy (the homunculus of his older half-brother, son of Hohenheim and Dante), Edward was killed, only to find himself brought back to life through Alphonse’s and the Philosopher’s Stone that had been created inside of him.

Realizing that Alphonse had sacrificed himself for Edward, he, in turn, sacrificed himself, giving up his body to, hopefully, return Alphonse to his own. Instead of dying, however, as he’d expected to, he found himself on the other side of the Gate in Germany and without the use of his alchemy. He lived for a time with his father, trying to find a way back to his own world and he eventually heard of a group of researchers studying rocketry. Deciding that that may be the way to find his way home and see if he’d been successful in saving Alphonse, he headed off to Munich in the hopes of apprenticing himself to one of the rocket scientists.

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