lololol

-_-

汉字: Chinese writing, (lit: script of the Han)

汉语: chinese language, (lit: language of the Han)

汉服: traditional clothes, (lit: Han costume)

汉: Han ethnic group, which makes up 99% of china's population

好汉: hero/brave person, (lit: a good Han)

State alchemists can be fired for underperforming. We know this up front from the likes of Shou Tucker. And this makes a ton of sense from the homunculi's standpoint since the state alchemists are sacrifice candidates, and the homunculi would want to cull the weakest candidates and focus only on cultivating the strongest ones who stand the best chance of opening the portal.

........Then there's Edward. Who's already opened the portal.

There's no need to cultivate him. No gamble taken on whether he's good enough to open the portal. He passed the final test already. Graduated 4 semesters early.

And as such, has a free pass to do Absolute Fuck All.

And I'm imagining how funny this is from like an outside perspective.

Some newish state alchemist who'd only ever read up on the stories of Edward Elric, ready and excited to start their career of being paid handsomely with endless freedom to research and travel and do anything they want in the pursuit of science... surprised and confused to find themselves put on probation their first month for things like "ignoring orders." Which is, as best they had thought, a famous Edward Elric pastime.

Roy showing a slight bit of stress about his yearly state alchemist report, and Ed just snorting and rolling his eyes at Roy because every year HE just hastily does his on the train ride over (canon in the manga, a travesty it was left out of the anime) and it gets rubber stamped. Ed not realizing that other alchemists' reports get genuinely scrutinized and torn apart while Ed is free to turn in whatever absolute bullshit he thinks of 36 hours ahead of time. One year his report was about whether alchemy could be done via dance (conclusion: no it can't) and no one cared. Roy WANTS to tell Ed there's some kind of unknown favoritism around Ed making him literally bullet-proof but Roy has no way to phrase this that doesn't sound like he's just in denial and mad at how good Ed's train-reports are.

Guy from the Internal Amestrian Affairs sector who's responsible for auditing other internal military personel for any suspicious activity hitting about 1 million red flags for Edward Elric, issuing a STRONG and URGENT recommendation to suspend the alchemist pending further investigation into things like "literal bunk-buddies with two members of the Xingese royalty (enemy nation)" and "spent $10,000,000 of his stipend on a librarian to make her re-copy (what he seemed to interpret as?) military records in some extremely transparent effort to unearth state secrets (it was a recipe book but he was literally asking her about state secrets)" and "literally has never once obeyed an order, ever, not even once in his career, and is on public record having said 'I do not care about the goals and protections of the Amestrian Military. I am in fact only pursuing my own interests several of which are diametrically opposed to the safety and well-being of the governing body of Amestris'"

The issued recommendation is intercepted before it even reaches its intended desk. President Bradley himself has taken issue with it and denies it before a single set of eyes has seen it. The President's veto stamp is a terrifying hammer, used rarely, and it is now sitting on the auditor's desk.

And that made me so fucking sad when I thought about it a little and, yeah, makes sense that at least a significant amount of people nowadays associate "control over my character's appearance" and "looking good in-game" to "microtransaction", because that's the state of the industry in plenty of its wings. You unlock or sometimes even pay for colors, individually, you pay for looks, on scheduled releases of microtransactions. Fucking hell, I'm used to that being the exception, they are used to it being the rule. That's the bitter part.

The sweet part was seeing them glow with the intensity of a supernova 3 hours into the game when they got a bunch more parts and then spent the next 6 hours just playing with colors, patterns, the incredibly robust emblem maker, and bringing to life their ideal, coolest, sweetest rig of an Armored Core.

sources: unknown // unknown // maplepecanpastry on tumblr // ashmanathletics on tiktok // i saw the tv glow (2024) // pray for me by kendrick lamar // unknown // what are you waiting for? by derald cannon jr. // unknown // unknown // drunk drivers/killer whales by car seat headrest // polekingrasputin on instagram

queer-inclusive but still misogynist

don't have to be from the US, do have to act like you are

ostensibly welcoming to everybody, mysteriously white as hell

terrified of the idea that sex could be enjoyable for anyone

absolutely incapable of structural critique, everything is individual moral choices

enforcement through public humiliation and isolation accountability :)

fear of infiltration by a corrupting outside influence - asserting a right to privacy or failing to publicly demonstrate moral in-group status is treated as a confession

YESSS EXACTLY. like I'm always late to the party. The fandom is either very advanced already, or much past its prime so it straight up dead... Crying at my invader Zim era. Might as well be friends with zombies because of how dead it was.

so first of all lets get the obvious out of the way, which is that this mostly comes from me thinking that KSE secretly having crazy game in his private life, being unexpectedly sexually experienced, and being mostly committed to hiding this from his coworkers at both daydream and the dmb for reasons he probably wouldnt want to examine too closely, is cool and hot. i just think that rocks. like hes got 99 identity issues but being very sexually active is not one of them. hes confident about his pull and doesnt particularly associate the sex itself with any shame. its the stuff surrounding the sex that gets weird

with that in mind, there are a couple things in the text that i think make this a supportable, not too left-field interpretation/headcanon/fun imagining or whatever. as i said earlier, its a solution to his contradictory attitudes vis a vis human connection, wherein he simultaneously craves and is terrified of being known, and of intimacy generally by extension. if we imagine for a second that hes just the type of person who is able, at will, to compartmentalise sexual intimacy and emotional intimacy into two neat boxes with little overlap, then having one night stands solves his need for comfort through physical proximity while letting him keep his preferred distance from his need for emotional connection, something he would rather eat glass than look in the eye

secondly, i can imagine he would frequently stay the night after the sex as a direct 1:1 replacement for the cartoons or other sleep aids. weird and tasty. fun to imagine him not even being particularly horny some nights but knowing he has this and that important thing coming up hmmm time to hit the bar i guess. that usually works ← guy who thinks getting laid isnt especially unusual or impressive tee hee

another reason all of this is fun is because at both his daydream and dmb workplaces, he has personas that, while very different from each other, both dont especially lend themselves to this casual hookup guy image. at daydream hes (apparently) aloof, confident, and focused on his work, which he is very good at → this image tends to discourage much thinking about his private life in general, and whatever people DO think about his private life tends to either end up being a) lives quietly by himself or b) some long term partner he prefers not to discuss at work. on the other hand, his dmb persona is that of a nervous wet cat → still very competent, undeniably, but in a way that suggests he channels everything into his work and as such his private life is neglected and he must be inexperienced in most things to do with relationships. lol no! your cool, intimidating supervisor/the rookie you want to hand feed soup fucks like a machine! lets all realise we shouldnt think about that for too long for....reasons.....together!

imagine BSH like ugh hes gone again tonight....probably doing weird shady shit and murdering street cats.... well thats definitely one way to describe what hes doing lol. if only you knew

ok thats all i got for now. this kind of did turn into an essay oopie....

OKAY SO I'VE READ THIS SUPER DUPER INTERESTING ESSAY AND PERSPECTIVE AND I THINK IT'S VERY COOL AND YOU GUYS SHOULD READ IT TOO

I HAVE SO MANY THINGS TO SAY ABOUT IT BUT IT'LL LEAVE IT FOR NEW TIME WHEN I HAVE A BETTER HOLD OF MY THOUGHTS + ADVANCE MORE IN THE FIC...

I'll probably come back to this ask too...

But this was literally SO good I had to share it with you guys... Everyone pls applaud anon...

OMG GUYS LOOK!!! DAY 21!!! MO4 MONTH!!!!! HARRY POTTER AU!!!! WOW!!!!