[Route App]

[father_of_the_year]

Player
Name: Aces
Personal Journal: acesdelta
E-mail: aces.delta@me.com
AIM/Plurk/Etc.: AcesDelta on Plurk
Timezone: Mountain Time (Canada)
Current Characters in Route: None

Character
Name: Maes Hughes
Series: Fullmetal Alchemist (2003 Anime)
Timeline: Post-Death/Post Episode 25
Canon Resource Links:

Maes' wiki page with a direct link to the 2003 anime section!


Personality:

I should probably start out by saying that, first and foremost, Maes is an intelligence agent. He tends to have two very different aspects to his person, depending on the circumstances you're dealing with him in.

On the surface, you have a loving and enthusiastic family man, who dotes upon his daughter and wife quite a bit, and will happily and exuberantly tell you many stories that are both either true, partially true, or made up entirely on the spot about the happenings and mishaps in their daily lives. He is extremely sociable and easy to get along with, if you can get past what a complete dork and/or idiot he may be acting the part of. This surface persona is as much a part of who Maes is as anything else, but it tends to be a distilled focus on the good/positive aspects of his life and the things that make him happy, rather than the focus on the darker aspects of his job within the military.

The other aspect is what happens when that act of obfuscating stupidity suddenly and abruptly DROPS. You suddenly find yourself dealing with a highly competent, trained soldier. It's essentially "mission mode", more or less. While his talkative babble can certainly serve to put someone at ease, and make them forget almost entirely that they're dealing with a military man...As soon as that act drops, it's an indication that things are REALLY SERIOUS. In fact, you only see him drop the fluffy act a few times over the course of the series, and all of them are pretty much times where it is an extremely serious situation.

Maes really is a warm and caring fatherly figure in general. For all that he is seen visibly gushing over his wife and young daughter, he has also provided helpful guidance and advice to Winry Rockbell, and to the Elric brothers. He is also almost like a brother to Roy Mustang, who is his best friend that he's sworn to support. He also playfully asks when Roy is getting married at multiple times in the series/playfully insisting that Roy needs to hurry and get a wife.

The entire obfuscating stupidity act really does work as a means of trying to get people's guards down. He was always a warm, cheerful and caring person, it's just that over the course of what was probably a matter of training for his position and years of practice, it's become something that he can and will happily play to his advantage. After all, intelligence is easily gathered when people think that you are an incompetent who is easily distracted by simply alluding to their wife or child.

It is also a matter of circumstance, as stated above, as to how thick he'll lay the act on. With Roy, Winry or the Elrics, it's mostly turned down unless he's in a crowded messhall or in a public place, or something of that nature. There's cheerful and pleasant, and then there's the over-the-top/laying it on THICK. Laying it on thick tends to happen more in public places than anything else, and can be a matter of heads-or-tails as to if he'd try to lay it on thick with the Homunculi(he did try in the test drive threads, but with mixed results) or drop the act entirely.

His main motivations in dealing with people are a number of things, actually. For one, it's the obvious "see if you can learn any useful information". For two, he actually THRIVES on social interaction - he's extroverted enough that he would actually fare poorly if he DIDN'T have people to interact with, even if that interaction was just him making dorky obfuscating stupidity gushing posts to the network occasionally and nobody taking him seriously as a result(Which, by the way, he would). So, really, Maes just plain NEEDS people. Which suits his line of work just fine, when you think about it, given how much of it would involve needing to regularly talk to people.

Strengths/Weaknesses:

Extremely altruistic and self-sacrificing, Maes is extremely good at covering just how impacted he is by certain events - while this could be a strength in its own right, it can also prove to be a pretty impressive weakness as well. After all, he's not really someone who wants to burden other people with his issues and doesn't really want to make people worry about him, so the ability to make a pretty good outward face even at the worst of times is a pretty good way to go about that - even if it REALLY isn't healthy. It's a little impressive that he hasn't somehow managed to lose faith in humanity, even though he's seen some pretty terrible things.

He is very practical-minded, and generally pretty good about deciding what course of action is most appropriate for whatever circumstances he happens to find himself in. It's like how he might ease up on the act if the excessive friendliness is actually managing to achieve no progress/or seems to be actually doing the opposite of what it's intended to do.

Given that he is a combat-trained soldier, even though he does tend to be doing desk duty a decent percentage of the time, he is shown in-series to be EXTREMELY good with impact knives - managing to have sharp reflexes and very good aim with them. He is also incredibly resourceful, which likely comes as no surprise between his training and his line of work.

As stated above, he's very good at acting completely disarmingly cheerful, oblivious and a little air-headed. It's a talent that tends to mean getting people's guards down, for better or for worse. He's got a talent for being very charming/endearing/growing on people. Given that he is a natural father with VERY strong paternal instincts, he's also got a pretty good talent for calming upset kids down and that sort of thing.

That said, given that his paternal instincts are as strong as they are, it means that he'd have a ridiculously hard time walking away from a child in distress or something of that nature. Even in the case of Envy, who looks to be about the age of a teenager, despite the fact that Envy HAD killed him, he would still likely look at a wounded Envy as "This is a kid. I need to get this kid to a hospital to get taken care of." rather than an opportunity for vigilante justice. As I'm sure you can imagine, this could easily be an exploitable weakness.

His greatest fears? Well, that would probably mean losing everything. It's not the money that matters to Maes the most, but the people. He did already lose his wife and daughter, considering that he did die and all, and that was probably the worst possible thing that could've happened to him/his very worst fear. But, aside from that which has passed? I'd say that his biggest fear after his death would probably be finding out that his beloved daughter has grown to hate him for not being there as she grew up/not forgiving him for the fact that he was dead. Seriously, she was and is the center of his whole world.

As an interesting side-note, Maes actually says outright in the anime that he doesn't understand alchemy. Even though he's best friends with an alchemist, and works alongside alchemists in the military, he just can't wrap his mind around alchemy. It's just really, ultimately, not his thing. In spite of not understanding alchemy or how it works, however, he has osmosed enough information here and there to know when things are likely REALLY BAD IDEAS, or outright taboos, or things that are probably going to cause some serious amounts of backlash(that might even kill someone).

Pokémon Information
Affiliation: Breeder
Starter: Mawile
Password: Spring Rolls
Samples
First Person Sample:

[The camera flicks on at an unusual angle, with the camera being clearly shoved in the face of a cheerful Mawile. A man's voice can be heard, presumably from behind the camera.]

Look at this little cutie! Isn't she absolutely adorable?!

[The camera shakes around a bit as the man is clearly moving it around to get a better angle or something.]

Look at her precious eyes! And that cute little smile!

[The man is finally visible on the camera, which is being held at an unusual angle again as Maes cuddles and rubs his face against the pokemon's cheek. The Mawile seems to be entirely thrilled with this amount of doting and attention.]

She's such a little cutie! I have no idea what's going on here, but she's just TOO PRECIOUS! Her name is Elise and I'm going to get her a cute little dress and some bows and ISN'T SHE THE SWEETEST THING?! I could just coddle her all day! And aaaaaa that smile is just heart-meltingly adorable! LOOK AT THAT SMILE!

[The video shakes again as Maes is clearly trying to bring the camera around to show the Mawile being adorable, and seems to've been accidentally dropped before it fades to black.]

Third Person Sample:

The Lieutenant Colonel glanced around the unfamiliar surroundings he'd suddenly found himself in. He was rather unsure about all of this, really, even though his outward appearance and composure would suggest quite the opposite.

His first Pokémon, a little Mawile, was happily running in circles at his feet. Upon noticing that her trainer seems to have something on his mind, she stopped, approached him slowly, and tentatively tugged on his pantleg to snap him out of his thoughts. Maes startled slightly, and looked down to see a ruby pair of eyes looking up at him with concern. A warm smile crossed his face.

"It's alright, Elise. Everything's going to be just fine. Don't worry, okay?" he reassured her with a pleasant and calm tone, before reaching down and scooping up the doll-like pokémon in his arms, coddling her and rocking her gently.

He did have to admit that she was cute, even with that intimidating maw attached to the back of her head. In spite of that, however, she was clearly happy and docile enough that the large jaws weren't about to be used against him anytime soon.

Her diminutive form and soft doll-like face did make him think of his beloved infant daughter back home, the one that he was not likely to ever see again given certain...very obvious complications. That, however, was a thought that he couldn't afford to dwell upon right now - not with so very much else that needs to be looked into and investigated.

After all, finding what he was expected to do here might be a good idea.

The guides that he had been given seemed to suggest that these little creatures are intended for combat. ...Like the chimeras the Amestrian military was trying to make use of? On the other hand, if they were like chimeras, that brought about the inevitable question of how intelligent they actually were.

"Do you actually enjoy fighting?" he asked the Mawile, after a few moments of thoughtful silence.

"Ma?" her eyes almost seemed to light up at the idea.

Maes couldn't help but smile at that, and patted her on the head. Looks like he's got himself some kind of little aspiring warrior on his hands - one who happened to be cute as a button.

Far as he was concerned, though, Elise was practically a child to him. She did sort of look the part, and she certainly seemed to act it.

"We should see about getting you some clothes and accessories, though. Maybe some toys, too."

The little steel-type cheered and seemed utterly thrilled with this prospect, like a child that was just told that they were going to be going to a candy store.

A stomach growl was heard and the Mawile stopped and looked up at her trainer.

Maes smiled sheepishly.

"...I suppose we'll also have to get some food too, huh?"

And with that, the duo set off to go shopping and to acquire food.