Hi

Tiktok user thehypegoblin faces the camera wearing a dark elf cleric cosplay. A robotic voice reads the text on the screen: "If your tits had a headphone jack what would they play?" She shoves an aux cord into her cleavage. From under the corset comes the audio "Suffocation! No breathing!" from Last Resort. She shrugs, nods, and makes a yep, that seems right face.

Cut to user casespotleson facing the camera looking inquisitive. He shoves an aux cord under his shirt collar. From under the shirt comes the audio "But you didn't have to cut me off" from Somebody That I Used to Know. He retorts, "Yes I did. Stop whining."

So, as it’s roughly explained, the state alchemist program is a kind of “recruit potential human sacrifices” mechanism, with a side-order of “brute strength for the army”. But basically, the state alchemist title is mostly about being a researcher–given people like Shou Tucker exist, and given that the only requirement to stay a state alchemist is to submit a yearly report of your research that says “look I’m still being a useful scientist”.

So far, so far this is sensible, yeah? Father and the delightful children from down the lane are running a recruitment program for potential human sacrifices. So sure–butter them up! Give them lots of money, get them buddy-buddy with the government, and give them endless resources for research. It’s be pretty easy to trick a state alchemist in that position to open the portal if Sugar DaddyBradley is nudging them to do it.

And I’m still willing to go with this logic for the whole “draft the state alchemists into war” move. They make it pretty clear that was something of a last-ditch effort. And the blood transmutation circle around Amestris was an absolute necessity for Father’s plan. So the risk of a few state alchemists dying or resigning from your Potential Sacrifice Pool is worth it for the completion of the circle.

Now. To get to my fucking thought. 

Edward fucking Elric. This fucking fight-me 12 year old troglodyte shows up to the exam and performs circle-less transmutation in front of mother fucking Bradley, demonstrating to one of the seven Actual Fucking Homunculi that he’d already opened the portal. Ed was literally prepped as a human sacrifice before he showed up to Central. A fully set human sacrifice showed up at the homunculi’s door, said “hey look what I can do!”, proved he’d opened the mother fucking portal already, and said “hey yeah hire me”. Human sacrifice, free shipping, no assembly required, handcuffs not included!

They could have just tossed Ed into a shoebox and kept him there until the Promised Day. They wouldn’t even need to make up an excuse he attacked the f u  c k i n g president. That’s fucking treason babey. He’s 12, he’s an orphan, he’s from a rural town in buttfuck nowhere, he’s literally the easiest person alive to disappear. They could have arrested him for assassination crimes, kept him in gay baby jail, and just popped him out for the Promised Day

What do they do instead?! “Oh lmao this kid’s great. Let’s give him infinite money, no supervision, no governmental responsibilities, access to all our secret resources, and toss him on a train to who-the-fuck-knows-where-land”

They fucking did that

And like? They then had the audacity to be concerned when Edward “Fight Me” Elric almost got himself killed about 293 times. Just an endless game of “I thought u were watching him” from one homunculus to another when Ed fucking absconds half-way across the globe to go entice some other hostile entity into murdering him to death. That’s the whole series. Every arc is Ed baiting death while the homunculi are in the background like “:/ wish he wouldn’t do that”

This only gets worse when you consider they later learned Al opened the portal too because really?? These two stab-happy globe-trotting public menaces are 40% of your final evil plan for godhood. 40%. Almost half. You couldn’t fucking set aside a cardboard box to keep these idiots in?

Father didn’t baby-gate Ed because humans are like ants to him and he had no concept of how thoroughly Ed and co. could fuck his shit up

Father and the Hot Topic Brigade didn’t lock Ed up because they recognized the unbridled chaotic 12-year-old energy compressed into such a small vessel and they understood no jail cell on earth would reliably hold this thing

Fuhrer Eye Patch saw Edward “Catch these Hands” Elric and thought oh. He’s gonna cause problems.

But. You can’t look me in the eyes and tell me that Brad the Pissed Off didn’t also anticipate Roy “Don’t Mind Me Just a Manwhore Passing Through” Mustang causing problems at some point.

The solution? Give Elric to Mustang. The Human Blowtorch is going to spend so much time chasing and corraling the 6th grader who can turn his arm into a sword at will that it will be impossible for him to cause problems for CopyofHohenheim.exe.

paramedic: hi, I'm Allan

me: you told me. and your colleague is Jim, and the man who found me is Peter. guess my short-term memory is okay

me: well my feet are still freezing but it's okay, I know you need to focus on getting my core temperature up first

Me: No, worse. I'm replicating the titles of video games but it's the fonts that they're in

My wife: What does that mean

Me: This