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sepublic · 8 months

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I love Fullmetal Alchemist, but I will admit I was a bit disappointed with how Arakawa handled Sloth the Indolent, who came across as very bare-bones compared to the other Homunculi, and basically just felt like a more muscular Gluttony at times. So for fun, I’ve come up with my own fanon version of Sloth the Indolent, basically an OC at this point; Think an AU where everything about Fullmetal Alchemist is more or less the same, it’s just that Sloth is a different character, which does change a few things here or there… But in the long run, it’s the same.

We have Sloth, who resembles a young woman, younger in both appearance and age than Lust. She’s got a short black dress and platform boots, and always looks bored with her arms crossed; Sloth is basically an edgy goth teenager who’s always complaining about what a pain everything is, expects everyone to hear and cater to her whining and discomfort, and is deeply unenthusiastic most of the time.

She’s a spoiled brat; Sloth wants everything to come easy and be easy, she prefers consistency and simplicity, because thinking and adapting, growing, these are all too troublesome for her. She’s sympathetic to a point, but after a while, she gets frustrating; Sloth is the kind of person who will go through the most convoluted, roundabout method that ends up more frustrating in the long run, to avoid something, rather than just going through the thing and getting it over with.

Appropriately, Sloth doesn’t even do her own work; She relies on her ‘thralls’, various victims she’s implanted a parasite into. The parasite comes from Sloth’s own body, so in a way they’re her own children, yet she makes them exist purely for her own benefit… Like Father, like Daughter. She communicates with these parasites via ultrasonic frequencies, not that Sloth actually realizes this; To her, this command simply works, and she doesn’t have the curiosity nor passion for life to look any further into this, taking that ability for granted.

This does backfire eventually when the Armstrongs and Curtises devise a transmutation circle that disrupts Sloth’s frequencies by emitting its own, thereby preventing her from controlling her thralls; More on that later.

The parasites take control of Sloth’s thralls, forcing them to follow commands; Sloth needn’t control each thrall individually, their brain does the rest of the work in interpreting a command and carrying it out, and relying on the host’s own memories and knowledge so that Sloth doesn’t have to peruse through them herself. There’s a limit to this ability; Probably how many parasites Sloth can have operating at once, and the distance they can operate from Sloth.

When infected with a parasite, right below your brainstem, you aren’t 100% doomed yet; There’s a very slight possibility that with precise surgery (or Scar’s deconstruction), you can remove the parasite and be free. But after a while, the parasite fully acclimates and shuts off your free will, killing a person and the soul; All that’s left behind is a reanimated brain. When outside Sloth’s range, thralls who pass this threshold will simply collapse and remain inert.

This is why Sloth hasn’t infected central command with her parasites to keep them in line; Eventually, she’d have to remain in range 24/7, which would distract from her other responsibilities. Likewise, the figures in central command are supposed to be leaders who regularly make complex decisions and appear in public, which is far too bothersome for Sloth, who prefers the same approach to everything because ingenuity takes too much effort. This means Olivier doesn’t have to worry about Sloth’s parasites when she’s recruited.

Sloth hates doing things on her own and fully abuses her thralls, having them carry her, move her own limbs for her; Ironically, it looks as if she’s being puppeted by her own thralls at times. Because of her Philosopher’s Stone, Sloth’s body doesn’t atrophy from this lack of use, but still. Sloth will work her thralls down to the literal bone, doing only the bare minimum to keep them alive, apathetic as their muscles tear and bones crack.

It is said the human body is capable of much more than people realize; But to achieve that strength would damage the body, hence why it only emerges in times of crisis and high adrenaline. To rely on this power consistently would kill someone… But Sloth doesn’t care, so she wrings every last bit out of her thralls until they’re broken beyond repair; In which case she discards and grabs another victim. At that point, Sloth carefully gauges potential victims to see which one seems the most fit; But some days she’ll just get it over with by infecting the first person she sees. Other times she’ll control the Chimeras lurking beneath Central.

Sloth is a manipulator, unwilling to do her own dirty work, and griping about having to do Father’s. And she’s often looking for a way out of her tasks, such as by getting one of her siblings, usually Gluttony, to do things; But Gluttony often requires oversight from Lust, who will then call Sloth out and lecture her. Sloth is deeply unpleasant and unreliable to work with, as a partner will have to do everything just to get her to do more than the bare minimum of her job, and sometimes she doesn’t even do that; Father had to resort to many threats of violence, and even then had to make some concessions before Sloth finally agreed to her tasks. Sloth makes sure to wring out as much as she can out of others in a manner almost greedy, to minimize her own work and offerings.

Sloth is irreverent and apathetic; She doesn’t care for the drama of her siblings. She doesn’t care for them at all, period; Too much effort. Nor does Sloth care for Father, she only goes along with him because defying Father is more effort than it’s worth in her eyes (or eye, one of them is covered by a red node). When Greed defected, he extended the offer to Sloth, hoping she’d reciprocate after picking up on her dissatisfaction… But Sloth decided that having to deal with Father’s forces going after her was much too stressful.

Besides, for all of Father’s faults, he nevertheless gave Sloth security and resources, as well as consistency; Without Father, Sloth would have to figure life out for herself, which would be such a burden. It’s simpler and safer under Father, no risks for Sloth! For that reason, Sloth feels some need to defend Father, if only because he’s a bastion of resources and security such as additional souls and the like, which secures her own comfort. It should also be noted that even without Father pushing her, Sloth would still choose to rely on and enslave others, so keep that in mind.

When Greed returned, the Homunculi were all gathered together… And Sloth legitimately did not care about Greed’s return, nor his impending execution. The whole time she just stood there unenthusiastically, using her thralls as a chair, before snapping at one point that they should just get it over with, and questioning why she even needed to be there, which earned a lecture from Pride, who insisted Sloth be more grateful for the dignity of serving Father. When Greed died, the other Homunculi felt various emotions, mixed feelings such as resentment, but Sloth felt nothing and was simply glad it was wrapping up.

For Sloth, only the ends/destination matters, not the journey nor means. It’s all about shortcuts and results for her. Comfort is her only goal in this world, because it’s the only thing that grants her reprieve from the inherent suffering and misery that is life. A part of her might, deep down, desire death and thus be suicidal… But that would also be too much of a pain, too difficult to go through with. Or is living more of an effort? To ponder is a pain in and of itself… An object in motion stays at motion, or in rest stays at rest, Sloth has a stubborn, unbudging inertia at times.

Sloth’s function in Father’s system is simple; Carve his nationwide transmutation circle into the earth. But Sloth isn’t really doing it, it’s her thralls, whom she supervises as they bleed and wear themselves away as much as they wear away at the bedrock. Sloth meanwhile, comfortably sits a distance away, relying on earmuffs to deafen the noise (usually a thrall’s hands over her ears) as she lays back, minding her own business as other thralls pamper her.

Sloth is just thinking, maybe having a drink, because Sloth enjoys the worldly pleasures to some degree; It’s all about comfort and relaxation to her. She’s a spoiled daddy’s girl who felt entitled to being accommodated by everyone, and because of her parasites, Sloth was able to get Father to assign her –with insistence- the seemingly arduous, yet simple, task of mining, while offloading all other tasks to her siblings. To Sloth, this is the easiest and most leisurely job. She's the underachieving sibling who operates in the perfect, comfortable middle ground between the leader who's responsible for figuring things out, and the worker who does all of the grunt labor.

Sloth loathes stress, and she loathes unexpected assignments that distract her from her role as manager; Not for love of the job itself, but because it’s simple and easy and consistent, and she never has to expect anything else nor respond to change. Sloth is impatient and grumpy during these other missions, seeing them as a breach of contract, the compromise Father painstakingly got out of Sloth in order to utilize any of her contributions. Sloth wishes to get things out of the way as quickly as possible, or else she will procrastinate and put it off to the last second, with no in-between. With how stressed out she is, Sloth doesn’t care too much about the sentiment behind her mission, instead preferring to accomplish only the literal definition of her orders, and never go any further because that’s unnecessary work.

Because of this, Sloth might sometimes fail to see something all the way through, such as assassinating someone; If it seems they’re dead, no need to look further, she’s done and can finally relax! All she’s looking forward to is getting a task over, never the task itself. She won’t derive enjoyment from the task, she refuses. And because of her paradoxical aversion to effort, Sloth doesn’t give it her all and thus gives opportunities for the protagonists to survive; They don’t know just how easily she could and should’ve killed them by now, if it weren’t for Sloth’s laziness. She’s deeply frustrating to supervise, for both Pride and Father, for these realizations.

A part of Sloth did ponder what would happen after the Promised Day; Because that would be an end to her job, right? And she didn’t like the idea of losing that secure routine, so sometimes she stalled, calculating when to get it done by the last second before the eclipse. But she ultimately realized that even as God, Father would still need others, and would still use Sloth; So long as she blindly trusted in him, Sloth would be taken care of, more or less. Sloth did, to some capacity, see the folly in Father’s efforts and goals, though she wasn’t much better herself. She was similarly perceptive in deconstructing herself and her siblings, but never bothered to do anything with this self-awareness; Sloth was fully conscious of her demons yet indulged them anyway.

Sloth is actually incredibly strong; In fact, she’s physically the fastest and strongest of the Homunculi, and the most gifted in terms of academia and intelligence. Not that Sloth ever makes use of these abilities; She’d much prefer to rely on her thralls. Remember what I said about Sloth being the kind of person to rely on methods so roundabout they prove more troublesome than just doing the thing? That’s Sloth. She hates having to move and use her own body so much that she’d rather use her thralls, which are far less effective, and thus less efficient in accomplishing tasks.

So Sloth is her worst enemy; If she just mustered in the effort for a bit, she really could get it over with… But she hates applying effort, and thus just makes herself more miserable and for longer in the end. But there does come a point where Sloth has to rely on her own strength…

During the Promised Day, Olivier leads her rebellion, and is targeted by Father for her treachery. He sends Sloth to kill Olivier, but Sloth accidentally murders a member of high command, not that she nor Father care, of course. With Alex and other reinforcements showing up, Sloth is suddenly forced to apply more and more effort than she’s ever used in her entire life;

Suddenly Sloth is pushing herself to her limits. She welcomes her new siblings, the lesser Homunculi, by proceeding to immediately exploit them with her parasites. Sloth uses more thralls than she ever has at once to form an amalgam around her to defend and attack with, stretching out the tendrils from within her body. But with the Curtises, this shell is chipped away at, and eventually the protagonists disrupt Sloth’s high frequency signal to control her parasites with.

Without her army, Sloth should be handicapped, and she’s certainly stunned at this happening, and what is required of her next… But now the heroes see what Sloth has truly been hiding (and wasting), when she’s forced to stand on her own legs and fight with her own fists. Sloth is incredibly fast and powerful, and enraged at the protagonists for stressing her out this much. Normally she wouldn’t take it personally, that just causes pointless stress, getting invested into things like winning or losing interferes with personal peace.

But even Sloth has limits, even Sloth begins to look forward to winning, and starts caring about being vindictive and making people suffer as she has. Sloth’s body gets bigger as her muscles bulge and reach their true potential, turning her into a hulking brute resembling her canon counterpart; But eventually she takes too much damage. Normally, Sloth procrastinates and is very slow on regenerating damage to herself, since it’s bothersome; Sometimes she’ll leave wounds because her body still functions, only the results matter so if the job can still be done, who cares, right? Pride does and he lectures her about maintaining a respectable appearance worthy of a Homunculus, but whatever.

And there’s another reason to this; Because Sloth’s ‘body’ isn’t actually her body. What everyone thought was her body is actually just another host, one synced to Sloth’s true form and Philosopher’s Stone, which is how she’s able to regenerate it. Previous incidents would chip away at Sloth’s host to reveal something inside, just a brief glimpse and hint to her true nature.

Sloth’s host is destroyed, and she’s forced to unveil her true self; A flying insectoid monstrosity, the queen of the parasitic hive she’s relied upon all this time! Sloth is even faster and stronger in this form, but luckily, more soldiers show up to aid the protagonists in defeating her.

Sloth is seething, and mentally unraveling; She can’t remember the last time she had to buzz her own wings. She can’t even recall ever struggling this much; Everything usually came so easy to her because of talent, now it’s not enough and she needs hard work?! Since it’s been forever since she relied on her own natural strength and speed, Sloth hasn’t bothered to hone her talent with actual skill; As a result, she’s a bit clumsy in her rushes, which provides openings for the heroes to survive and maneuver.

Still, Sloth begins to get the hang of things, and despite herself, finds herself more and more dedicated to killing Olivier; At this point, it’s no longer about just getting the job done so Father won’t hound her for it. It’s no longer about what comes after; Right now, Sloth is going to kill that damn stubborn general, whatever it takes!!!

Sloth’s unprecedented rage unlocks an ability she herself didn’t even know she had; She spew energy beams from her own Philosopher’s Stone, which does devastating damage in how they can slice and burn through anything. This burns up souls fast, but at this point all Sloth cares about is this one goal of killing Olivier and everyone, she just wants to win and in a way is more alive in the lead up to her death than in her entire life otherwise.

That’s the thing about Sloth; She CAN care. And she isn’t as objective as she thinks, obviously. She is subject to irrational emotions that interfere with her supposed efficiency that gets it over with for maximum relaxation at minimum effort. Her quiet life has always been fundamentally undermined by Sloth herself, it’s why she chose to remain a servant to Father and suffer that way, than find true peace by working for it. For someone who thinks only the results matter, surely putting in the effort for self-actualization is worth it, versus the eternal suffering in the long run of not growing.

Maybe Sloth comes to realize this in her final moments… Or not, because she’s so pissed that eventually, after constantly failing, she just rage quits. Screaming and screeching, Sloth decides she’s going to kill Olivier, no matter what; And is similarly so frustrated and tired and done with life, raving and ranting, that she gives up. No more! She’s done with this, she’s not gonna do it anymore! You know how some people will rage quit by turning off the console, even thrashing it in a moment of passion?

Sloth opts to self-destruct by concentrating her remaining energy and souls, all of her mass, into one singularity point that burns with the light of a thousand suns; And then detonates. It’s a devastating explosion that our protagonists somehow survive, but it does wipe out a good chunk of the army. And to think what Father later pulls off as God is even worse…!

The final battle against Sloth is one of the most arduous and difficult ones, out of the other conflicts with her siblings; Sloth puts up the biggest fight, she has more souls than the rest due to saving on energy by making thralls do the work for her across centuries. And now all she’s saved up, she uses up and wastes. If only Sloth weren’t so slothful, she might’ve made good use of her potential and changed the world for the better… Or done anything with that potential. Or at least NOT used it to harm others.

But Sloth barely utilized her efficacy, and as a result, indirectly contributed to Father’s failure by not giving it her all much more than she did. This was of course something Pride observed and suspected, and resented Sloth for, believing her Philosopher’s Stone would be so much better used by him! If only he’d gotten to absorb her instead of Gluttony… Oh well. Sloth finally gives up on life and earns the sweet release of death she was searching for, the eternal rest, by simply concentrating all of her effort and power into one moment. Now Sloth has achieved her consistent, everlasting, unchangeable, rest.

#Fullmetal Alchemist #Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood #Sloth the Indolent #fma #fmab #seven deadly sins #homunculus #homunculi #fanon #au #oc #ocs #my ocs

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