OH GEEZE TL;DR AHEAD I'll answer the second question in a separate reply
IT'S BEEN INTERESTING. Envy seems to have been the only homunculus (besides Greed) in the 2003 anime that didn't really want to become human. He disdained them, is very attached to his superpowers, and in the series one of his main personal goals is to outlast humanity, not become part of it. Not to mention, he's been a homunculus for almost four hundred years and didn't get hungry, tired, cold, sick, and all his injuries healed instantly. He had next to no actual survival skills when he showed up and was a huge baby about everything, and if it wasn't for some helpful people he probably would have died whited out in the woods before he got to Violet like an idiot.
So needless to say, he was very unhappy with being human when he showed up. He didn't want to adapt at all, he just wanted to be a homunculus again. But since that wasn't an option, he started having to adapt anyway. One thing he did concede to doing early on was to start training so that he wouldn't feel so weak.
By now, Envy and his Route-humanity are pretty much on permanent 'It's Complicated' status. His attitude about it has improved a lot, and he's much more able to deal with hunger/cold//hurt/etc. He's actually acquainted/good friends with with a fair number of humans now, and has been learning how to humanity from them. He still misses his powers a hell of a lot, especially his power to transform because it was as natural as breathing for him to change looks whenever he wanted and now he's stuck in the one body, even if it is his favorite. He will also take any opportunity to simulate the experience of, say, being able to jump super high or run super fast. He's good about eating when he needs to, but sleeping is a different story. He was able to sleep as a homunculus, but preferred not to for a variety of reasons that included terrible nightmares. He still gets insomnia, and if he's having nightmares frequently he's got the bad habit of just deciding not to sleep for days at a time until he finally collapses in some weird place.
The big thing about being human that makes it so complicated to him even as he gets used to it is the idea of having a soul and emotions. It's my headcanon, and heavily implied canon, that Dante was either bullshitting or mistaken about homunculi not having souls/emotions. But the thing is that Envy believed it completely, and he was incredibly set in his view of What a Homunculus Is. Then he gets to Johto, and all of a sudden he has to face up to the emotions that he can't deny having because he's human and therefore must have a soul to feel them with. He was able to write it off as just part of being human and of course he can feel stuff that he couldn't before, but then he got canon-updated and kept his memories of Johto while he was home. Since he'd started allowing himself to be feeling emotions, he could recognize them, and they didn't go away just because he was a homunculus again. This threw a lot of his worldview into question (in addition to what he was already questioning on account of making human friends), and now he's not really sure what he is. His old definition of a homunculus as something entirely seperate from humanity doesn't fit anymore, but he's still resistant to the idea of considering himself as fully human even in Johto. Being a homunculus is such a huge part of his personal identity that he's been getting all kinds of lost and turned around about it. tl;dr emotions are giving him an identity crisis.
That said, he's also getting steadily more used to having emotions and has been accepting them more easily as time goes on. At some point he's going to have to face up to this looming identity thing, but for now he's happy to keep ignoring it like he does his other problems.
no subject
IT'S BEEN INTERESTING. Envy seems to have been the only homunculus (besides Greed) in the 2003 anime that didn't really want to become human. He disdained them, is very attached to his superpowers, and in the series one of his main personal goals is to outlast humanity, not become part of it. Not to mention, he's been a homunculus for almost four hundred years and didn't get hungry, tired, cold, sick, and all his injuries healed instantly. He had next to no actual survival skills when he showed up and was a huge baby about everything, and if it wasn't for some helpful people he probably would have
diedwhited out in the woods before he got to Violet like an idiot.So needless to say, he was very unhappy with being human when he showed up. He didn't want to adapt at all, he just wanted to be a homunculus again. But since that wasn't an option, he started having to adapt anyway. One thing he did concede to doing early on was to start training so that he wouldn't feel so weak.
By now, Envy and his Route-humanity are pretty much on permanent 'It's Complicated' status. His attitude about it has improved a lot, and he's much more able to deal with hunger/cold//hurt/etc. He's actually acquainted/good friends with with a fair number of humans now, and has been learning how to humanity from them. He still misses his powers a hell of a lot, especially his power to transform because it was as natural as breathing for him to change looks whenever he wanted and now he's stuck in the one body, even if it is his favorite. He will also take any opportunity to simulate the experience of, say, being able to jump super high or run super fast. He's good about eating when he needs to, but sleeping is a different story. He was able to sleep as a homunculus, but preferred not to for a variety of reasons that included terrible nightmares. He still gets insomnia, and if he's having nightmares frequently he's got the bad habit of just deciding not to sleep for days at a time until he finally collapses in some weird place.
The big thing about being human that makes it so complicated to him even as he gets used to it is the idea of having a soul and emotions. It's my headcanon, and heavily implied canon, that Dante was either bullshitting or mistaken about homunculi not having souls/emotions. But the thing is that Envy believed it completely, and he was incredibly set in his view of What a Homunculus Is. Then he gets to Johto, and all of a sudden he has to face up to the emotions that he can't deny having because he's human and therefore must have a soul to feel them with. He was able to write it off as just part of being human and of course he can feel stuff that he couldn't before, but then he got canon-updated and kept his memories of Johto while he was home. Since he'd started allowing himself to be feeling emotions, he could recognize them, and they didn't go away just because he was a homunculus again. This threw a lot of his worldview into question (in addition to what he was already questioning on account of making human friends), and now he's not really sure what he is. His old definition of a homunculus as something entirely seperate from humanity doesn't fit anymore, but he's still resistant to the idea of considering himself as fully human even in Johto. Being a homunculus is such a huge part of his personal identity that he's been getting all kinds of lost and turned around about it. tl;dr emotions are giving him an identity crisis.
That said, he's also getting steadily more used to having emotions and has been accepting them more easily as time goes on. At some point he's going to have to face up to this looming identity thing, but for now he's happy to keep ignoring it like he does his other problems.