Lost Letters From a Soldier on an Unknown Battlefield
Abstract: Roy attempts a human transmutation after a year and a half of Ed’s disappearance, eventually deciding that if he’s dead, he may as well bring him back, even if he’s a cursed homunculus, he could be here. Maybe it’s the memories being erased by Dante that caused the disconnect between the memories and the homunculi themselves? Either way, he gets sent to the other side of the gate with Ed because he attempted to bring back a living man instead of a dead one, causing the gate to connect the two consequentially, just like Ed’s transfer over was a consequence. He sees him in the distance a few times but… that can’t be the same Ed. The Edward he knew never looked like that, he always had some fire to him. He never looked this… defeated before. There’s just no way that could be his Ed. So he avoids him and continues believing he’s dead and this is just a counterpart (despite it being pretty clear that he isn’t) because it's easier than accepting he’s alive and so broken, writing an assortment of letters to send back to those he loves, the main one being the seemingly passed-on Edward Elric.
FINALLY uploading this massive fic I've been planning for months as a sort of fix-it/rewrite to CoS -> made with massive editing/drafting help by @cheesybagels07
I have plans to update it regularly if anyone wants to see what I have in store for it. Updates will be posted to ao3 or on this blog following the lost letters tag.
TWO IMPORTANT NOTES: Combining characterization bits from both 03 AND Mangahood, because 03 Roy kinda sucks and we need that sweet sweet dad Roy juice & while its an 03 fic and contains massive 03 spoilers, exposition has been added to the prologue so it should be able to be read and enjoyed if you have only read mangahood.
read here!!!
shout out to @caffeinatedsunbear & @persephone-the-third for letting me bounce ideas off you so long and anyone else not mentioned
With Yusuke, I wanted to emulate Rokuro Saitos artstyle due to it just generally being how I see his more "casual" style, rather than a high effort portrait or a full on illustration. Just something he'd do while doodling for fun.
I specifically used these photos as reference, I didn't exactly get the artstyle down, however I think I got close enough. I specifically wanted it to be inspired by the manga due to his own influences from madarame, who clearly values traditional japanese styles over Yusukes own more abstract art style. I think he'd be pretty well trained in a variety of styles, including manga style art.
The annotations are mainly the type of thing you'd see when an artist is presenting/critiquing their own art, and I think yusuke would constantly be striving to improve his craft through notes of his own, mainly because he's not a hobbyist but a full time artist.
Now, Akechi's might be a little controversial but I think his artstyle would be rather western influenced due to his own interest in superheroes, and more specifically how Robin Hood and Hereward both take heavy influence from American comics.
I used these portraits specifically as reference, and I feel like the bold linework in particular would stand out. Akechi grew up on japanese manga and anime, however I feel like with the use of the internet/piracy translation sites he'd be able to actually access Western comics, and hence copy the artstyle from said comics.
In terms of why Akechi is a good artist, he's canonically rather dextrous in both hands, can wield a gun with pinpoint precision, made his own briefcase logo and has been shown in the tactica opening to spray paint the phantom thieves. I don't think it's far off to say he could've developed a hobbyist interest in art, specifically to make his own characters/draw canon characters he actually likes!
In terms of why they drew eachother specifically like that, Akechi was trying to capture that cooler/collected side of Yusuke, and he also didn't want to put too much emphasis on a particular expression of his. He's mainly capturing what he looks like, rather than how he expresses himself. And, of course, Yusukes was influenced by the anthology where he couldn't bring himself to draw Akechi happy. I think he'd be quite pleased to draw third semester Akechi in his natural form: a fiery ball of rage.
As for their doodles of themselves, I should've drawn yusuke more chibi but that's on me, and the closed eyes expression kinda reminds me of a fox. For akechi, it was just a small doodle in a non manga style, and his expression is neutral because he doesn't really see himself as anything but neutral. (He calls himself calm, and he regularly expressed little to no emotions late base game, after the mask dropped.)
But yeah, basically it :)
Plus some bonus doodles for if you stuck around ;)
Rendering their faces has already used up all of my energy. So I gave up on rendering the other parts and cut them off. Maybe I’ll redraw this concept someday… maybe.
areudirty
jbbartram-illu
kianamaiart
snowghoul
yousharknotpass
blakekathryn
