# Symbols, fan readings, and combined arrays

Research checked 20 September 2026. Contains manga/Brotherhood plot spoilers. This is a source map for a fan simulator, not an official alchemical grammar.

## The useful finding

FMA borrows an existing symbolic vocabulary, but a symbol’s historical name does not establish its exact fictional operation. We found interpretations of individual diagrams, not an authoritative recipe compiler for arbitrary new circles. Treat three things separately: story examples, historical symbols, and invented simulator rules.

## A practical symbol lexicon

| Motif | Identifiable representation | What this supports in a composer |
|---|---|---|
| Fire | Upward triangle, 🜂 | A named historical glyph; not a complete Mustang formula |
| Water | Downward triangle, 🜄 | A named historical glyph; not proof that any downward triangle freezes water |
| Air | Upward triangle crossed by a horizontal bar, 🜁 | Keep the bar when drawing; without it the glyph changes |
| Earth | Downward triangle crossed by a horizontal bar, 🜃 | Keep orientation distinct from air |
| Sulfur | Triangle over a cross, 🜍 | One of the three principles in alchemical imagery |
| Mercury | Crescent above a circle, cross below, ☿ | Distinguish the principle, metal, and planetary sign by context |
| Salt | Circle crossed horizontally, 🜔 | A different glyph from the circle-and-dot sun |
| Sun / gold | Circle with central dot, ☉ | Historical correspondence; not a universal FMA heat command |
| Moon / silver | Crescent, ☽ | Historical correspondence; not a universal FMA cooling command |

Glyph identities: [Unicode alchemical chart](https://www.unicode.org/charts/nameslist/n_1F700.html) and [miscellaneous-symbol chart](https://www.unicode.org/charts/nameslist/n_2600.html). Unicode catalogs symbols; it does not authenticate FMA mechanics. The composer draws these shapes as geometry so missing fonts cannot turn them into empty boxes.

## Three especially useful studies

1. **Bounthavy Suvilay, CÉRÉdI — [Fullmetal Alchemist : quand le manga s’empare de l’alchimie](https://publis-shs.univ-rouen.fr/ceredi/2126.html).** Scholarly analysis, particularly paragraphs 4, 12 and 24. Relates the circle, square and triangle to alchemical imagery, discusses character-specific motifs, and explains the layered-page discovery in Scar’s brother’s notes. Useful for composition and visual meaning; not proof of a universal executable syntax. Its identification of Armstrong’s marks differs from some fan readings, so exact glyph claims need panel-level checking.
2. **Indiana_J_Frog — [Mustang dissection](https://www.reddit.com/r/FullmetalAlchemist/comments/151hdbb/my_attempt_at_dissecting_mustangs_transmutation/) and [human-circle dissection](https://www.reddit.com/r/FullmetalAlchemist/comments/150rsrk/my_attempt_at_dissecting_the_human_transmutation/).** Detailed attempts to infer a spatial grammar. The author explicitly invents a “law of parallels”; containment and symbol placement become control relationships. Useful inspiration for a consistent fan system, but its claims about circulation and orientation must remain attributed hypotheses. Do not turn its “igniting oxygen” language into chemistry: oxygen supports combustion rather than serving as the fuel.
3. **Cross Epoch — [Alchemy Indepth: The Human Transmutation Circle](https://rurushu.wordpress.com/2010/09/02/alchemy-indepth-the-human-transmutation-circle/).** A 2010 fan breakdown of the ornate anime diagram into the three principles and planetary motifs. Useful for identifying visual components. Its comparison of the principles to subatomic particles is an analogy, not science. The post and comment thread contain speculative explanations of failure; adding a missing metal or changing the polygon must not be presented as a canonical recipe for resurrection.

Additional lead: [AssassinoDelleOmbre’s Riza Hawkeye flame-array study](https://www.deviantart.com/assassinodelleombre/art/Riza-Hawkeye-s-Flame-Array-205444756). Search-index excerpts discuss the salamander, zodiac and inscriptions, but direct retrieval failed. Keep this as a reading lead, not a fully verified source. The [Riza reference](https://fma.fandom.com/wiki/Riza_Hawkeye) distinguishes the stored research from Mustang’s working glove array: more ornament is not simply a stronger spell.

## How complex arrays actually help the design

- **Paired arrays — Kimblee.** Two complementary palm designs combine on contact. Build two independently inspectable components with a visible alignment step. The existing simulator has a source-based drawing study; the new composer’s paired layout is only inspired by the relationship, not a copy of the tattoos. [Character reference](https://fma.fandom.com/wiki/Solf_J._Kimblee).
- **Complementary stages — Scar.** Destruction and reconstruction are distinct capabilities in his arm designs. This supports a staged visual sequence: identify matter, separate it, reconstruct it. It does not establish that rotating a glyph reverses every process. [Manga/Brotherhood reference](https://fma.fandom.com/wiki/Scar/Manga).
- **Distributed arrays — May Chang.** A pentagram and spatial markers support remote work in alkahestry. This suggests a network of nodes, not just more rings. Do not merge the Western four-element scheme with the five phases of Chinese thought into a single supposedly canonical system. [Alkahestry reference](https://fma.fandom.com/wiki/Alkahestry).
- **Layered research — reverse circle.** Scar’s brother combines traditions; the notes reveal geometry through superposition and reversal. A layer inspector is a good interaction analogy. It is not evidence that any two circle images become a functional hybrid when overlaid. This mechanism is distinct from Hohenheim’s countermeasure. [Scar’s brother](https://fma.fandom.com/wiki/Scar%27s_brother), plus Suvilay paragraph 24.

These story summaries currently rely on secondary references. Exact lettering, point placement and adaptation differences still require direct manga/anime comparison. The 2003 Grand Arcanum belongs to a separate continuity.

## A rule set for making new circles here

1. Write an intended transformation and name the starting matter. A drawing alone does not supply either.
2. Choose an arrangement: concentric layers, complementary pair, or satellites connected to a center.
3. Choose symbols with identified names. Keep their labels and source notes attached.
4. Choose a structural polygon separately from the symbols. Three, four, five or eight vertices are design parameters here, not proven power levels.
5. Inspect each layer independently. Rotation affects the structural layer; elemental glyph orientation stays readable.
6. Preview a circulation sequence. Export the geometry with its settings and a clear experimental designation.

The freehand page offers steps 2–6 as optional reference guides alongside chalk, shape tools, erasing, undo and stroke exports. Guide settings never replace the user’s drawing. It does not infer physical outcomes from arbitrary glyph combinations, validate human transmutation, or feed invented designs into the canonical-reference recognizer. Its energy routes and timings are original animation choices.

## Animation direction

Keep drawn geometry live in the browser. Use Blender for matter with depth: fractured stone assembling, crystals growing, and material-specific surfaces. Preserve ground markings, matter, and discharge as separate collections and render layers. This allows one source scene to produce a transparent composite or isolated passes without baking the interaction into a movie. The first original study is a stone reconstruction, not a purported canonical circle or physics simulation.

## Editable combinations (September 20)

The composer now has a separate editable array alongside the original freehand ink. It supports up to 16 circles, one to nine symbols per circle, one to four rings, independently rotated polygons, nested layouts, and up to 120 unique pairwise links. These limits bound rendering cost; they are not lore.

Blend links union the symbols of a connected group. Disconnected groups remain independent. Relay links preserve each group's ingredients and stagger activation by 0.65 seconds per dependency; a branch waits for its latest predecessor. Relay cycles and relays inside a blended group are rejected because this implementation requires a starting point. Overlap by itself does not create a link. Rings and polygons change the drawing, not the elemental recipe.

All 15 nonempty subsets of fire, water, air and earth have an experimental outcome. The paired outcomes are steam, flame jet, molten stone, mist, wet clay and sand vortex. Triples produce steam jet, quenched stone, molten fragments or sediment vortex; all four produce a storm. Sun increases intensity, moon pulses, mercury introduces orbiting motion, salt contains the effect, and sulfur adds sparks. These mappings are original playground rules, not claims made by Arakawa or the fan studies above.

Fire and stone reuse the actual local Blender frame sequences. Other combinations use live WebGL procedural materials: layered vapor, spiral currents and irregular mineral cells. The editor does not generate a new Blender scene or simulate chemistry for each combination. Freehand strokes are preserved and animated as ink; they are not automatically parsed into elemental recipes. SVG exports include both the ink and array geometry; JSON also retains the editable circle and link data. Arrays are saved locally separately from freehand strokes.