#not flying under the radar

[phantomrose96]

Thinking about Edward Elric as the Amestrian Military's specialest little unfireable boy

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.

The auditor sleeps with one eye open from then on out.

#fma #fullmetal alchemist #fullmetal alchemist: brotherhood #fma:b #literally anything about the dynamic between edward and the amestrian government is so so so funny to me #im begging you to come pick up your alchemist he keeps committing treason #Roy: absolute perfect ass-kisser and career-man playing the part 24/7 to disguise his treasonous ambitions and still #not flying under the radar #Edward on his public Twitter: bored. might tear down the Amestrian government for fun.

[aeternamente]

I mean I know autistic!Lila is totally just my headcannon and I'm just projecting, but there's something about Jaysohn being called "the neurodivergent one" and people don't notice that the very smart girl who takes things very literally could also be neurodivergent...

#burrow's end #lila #burrow's end spoilers #to be clear i'm not claiming any foul play or anything #mostly just projection #and thinking about how autism can fly under the radar #specifically with smart girls

[sergle]

As a natural redhead myself, I would love it if more people dyed their hair a natural looking red. People are so fucking weird and creepy about red hair and I think if more people had red hair they wouldn't be so weird about it. I dye my hair fun colors partially because I got sick of creepy people hitting on me for being a ginger and partially because my family is like crazy possessive about red hair.

OKAY INCH RESTING!!! this tracks completely, bc ever since I started dyeing my hair the more Believable version of red I get many, many, MANY comments about it

#I'm sure when it happens your whole life a good chunk of them will be creepy #it makes sense though ik those genetics are very rare. people really do Point And Notice #sergle answers #not necessarily always compliments. just comments #I'm flying under the radar with a fierceness bc I also dye my brows. a little something I like to call: committing to the bit

[kadextra]

hehe I knew it was intentional :]

Bad’s been saying stuff like “what do you call it?” “what’s the name of that again?” “what’s the word…?” SUPER SUPER often in casual conversation over the past few days, to the most basic stuff ever. just a bit ago he forgot the cookies and said “I feel like I’ve been forgetting a lot more stuff lately…” then he was talking about who’s the parent of leo and forgot foolish’s name.

it’s getting worse it’s just casually happening now o_o

#qsmp #liveblogging #qsmp badboyhalo #him saying this stuff was flying under the radar for me a bit #because it’s just SO SUBTLE #but it clicked after that

[flowercrowngods]

a study in grief, because barb was mike’s friend, too — and steve knows

🤍 also on ao3

November never feels right in Hawkins anymore, and it’s especially bad for the Byers and the Wheelers, with Will‘s Upside Down-iversary and Barb’s death day — except she doesn’t just get a day, she gets a whole week. From the day she went missing to the day that is written on her tomb stone, the day of the lie, the day that will always remind them of the shit they got mixed up with.

The week, really. To some extent Steve feels like this week of grief belongs to all of them, not just Barb — because something died inside all of them, something that sounds and looks and feels a lot like childhood and innocence that could never be restored.

Not like he could — or would — ever say that out loud and burden himself with anymore guilt when it comes to Barb. She should have her week. Fuck, she should have had a life. A lifetime lived, not a lifetime mourned.

God, how she should have lived.

He never even knew her, not really, other than snide and sassy remarks that he would have loved sometimes to acknowledge with a grin or a laugh or even a good natured shove if things had been different. He never even knew her, learned more about her posthumously through Nancy’s and Karen’s and the Hollands’ stories and pictures. And something about getting to know someone rather intimately once they’re dead just never sits right. It haunts you in a way you wouldn’t be haunted had you known them properly.

It’s a different kind of grief, the one that cannot be expressed without the danger of insensitivity. So Steve keeps his mouth shut and visits her grave. Her empty, empty grave. And he listens and he waits and he hugs and he thinks.

He murmurs, sometimes, when nobody’s listening, that he doesn’t swim anymore. That he hasn’t been in the pool in one, two, three years now, and that it’ll turn into four, five, six years. He whispers, sometimes, when nobody’s listening, that he’s made a stone for her in his garden, written on it with black sharpie and trembling hand.

In memory of Barb. 8 Nov 1983

Tells her that it feels dumb, and that he’s sorry, but he can’t remove it because that would feel worse, and that he’s so, so sorry. Because she doesn’t even like him. And he’s kinda come to love her. And because everything about that is wrong, and that she shouldn’t have to be bound to someone she doesn’t like just because she doesn’t have the chance to leave anymore now; because she’s already left, and—

He’s so, so sorry.

And then he leaves. He’s always the first to leave, with Karen’s hand on his shoulder, squeezing as if in thanks or in need for someone to hold her for mourning the girl she’s come to love as a daughter. Steve smiles at her, a sad grimace though it is, and gently squeezes Karen’s hand. Because Karen’s grief is real, and she must feel so much worse.

If he were any younger and had met fewer monsters, had gotten fewer head injuries and near-death experiences, Steve would wonder if worse was even possible. But now he knows. And he squeezes.

In his car, blinking away tears and clawing away the itch under his skin, Steve realises and notices and remembers that only one who never comes is Mike.

So he drives, almost aimlessly; trying not to think of sorries, of empty caskets and lies and NDAs, of murmured comments in the hallways and eyes rolled behind thick glasses and the occasional smile reserved only for Nancy. Trying not to be haunted by could have beens and would have beens and should have beens, and instead remind himself that they weren’t friends. She wasn’t to him what he knows about her now.

He has no right to feel this hollow.

But there’s someone, he knows, who does. Someone who won’t let himself grief, because he was never told how to. Because he was never told it was okay to mourn your older sister’s best friend who practically lived at your house on the weekends for years. Someone who grew up with her, someone who looked up to her, because Barb was a nerd and she was cool!

And that someone can be found sitting on the curb by his house, ripping out strands of grass and littering the street in green blades and clumps. Ted would freak out if the man was capable of one single emotion.

Steve parks the car a good few feet away and walks over — slowly, so it’ll look casual enough to not make Mike suspicious.

“Steve?” the boy says, grimacing up him, squinting against the horrible grey of the sky that is both gloomy and blinding today. “What do you want?”

Steve holds his eyes for a minute, mustering his posture, his chronically horrible posture and the good amount of lawn that’s already fallen victim to his needing an outlet of… whatever he’s feeling.

He nods at the curb, the side where the lawn is still intact. “Mind if I sit?”

“Why?”

“‘Cause I wanna?”

After a while, Mike shrugs. “Not like I can stop you from doing anything ever, so.”

“That’s the smartest thing you’ve said all year, man,” Steve says, unable to suppress his grin, and Mike groans beside him, rolling his eyes in a long-suffering way.

There’s something subdued about him, though, something muted. Suppressed.

And he remembers how three years ago Mike went through the end of the world several times. Will disappeared. Will died. Barb disappeared. Barb died. Will came back, but changed, and Mike couldn’t reach him anymore. Not like before. And then El. There and gone. And Mike, among everyone’s grief and trauma with a hefty dose of his own. Steve remembers, right after, doors slamming and Nancy crying, yelling at her little brother that he’s not allowed to be sad, how can he be sad, when his best friend came back! How dare you, Michael, shut up!

Steve’s never seen Nancy like that — and didn’t, after. It was just that one time, but he’s sure that it wasn’t easy in the Wheeler house for a while. Still isn’t, maybe, with how emotionally stunted Nancy has become, guarded and cold and quiet, dangerous, while Mike turned… loud. Prickly. Like a gaping wound, the blood still seeping from it not in a lethal way but steady nonetheless, and ever so painful, because it was told it’s not a wound at all.

He remembers, too, sitting with Mike afterwards as Nancy sent him away, told him to leave, she’d call tonight but she couldn’t right now. He remembers the twelve year-old boy with a frown on his face and angry, sad, confused tears in his eyes.

“She was my friend, too!”

“Yeah?”

Mike nodded, curling in on himself where they sat on the bottom of the stairs. “I knew her! I shared my pizza with her and we watched movies together and she talked to me about Dungeons and Dragons and about how I could join her campaign, maybe, if she ever gets around to be the dm, and— and she knows things! Knew, I mean. We’d do our homework, the three of us, and Barb would help me when Nance wouldn’t and— She was my friend. She liked books but hates the Catcher in the Rye because Caulfield annoys her, and I don’t know what that means but I know that! I know because…”

“Because she’s your friend,” Steve finished for him, realisation and a new understanding for their dynamic dawning on him. And it’s an awful, awful understanding that makes him feel gaping and hollow in a visceral way.

Mike nodded and sniffled, wiping his face on his sleeve that came away wet and snotty, and somehow that sound never made it out of Steve’s head, and he can hear it even now, three years later as they’re sitting on the curb.

And he’s gaping once more.

“Went to see Barb today,” he says, an offering that hangs between them, a truth for Mike to ignore or build on.

There are not many times Steve’s ever looked at someone and thought they withered, but Mike does. Right now, he does. His face falls, his shoulders slump, and he frowns because anything else would lead to tears and an emotional breakdown he’s been holding off for three years now.

“I don’t care.” His voice is pressed, his face halfway buried behind his shoulders as he throws a handful of grass at Steve.

“Mike,” he says, sounding frail even to his own ears. Tender. “She was your friend.”

“I don’t care!” Mike repeats, his voice even worse. Maybe his lungs are withering, too, maybe the air grows rotten with each lie he tells to protect himself from feeling everything he’s been keeping at bay for three years. Maybe denial has an expiration date.

Steve watches. Waits. It’s what he does, the second week of November.

And then, after a few lungfuls of air that looked like they were fighting him for it, hidden in his arms and away from Steve’s gaze, Mike’s voice breaks.

“They don’t care.”

They. Steve knows. Remembers rather helplessly. Still he asks, “Who’s they?”

Another breath, but this time it sounds like a gasp. Like a sob. “Mom. Nance. They don’t— They don’t care! I don’t get to be sad, I don’t get to see her, I don’t get to think of her without Nancy telling me it’s unfair that I do, without mom giving me that… that fucking look! I don’t get to feel, because I’m a boy and because my best friend didn’t die and that just— that feels like an unfair bottom line, but they don’t care!”

Steve wants to cry with him, because he’s right. It’s not fair. None of it.

Mike hides his sobs in his arms, pulling the hood of his sweater further over his face, like he’s scared to find that the world will start caring when he’s at his lowest.

“And, yknow what’s the worst? I hate that you know. I hate that you’re the only one who knows, and I hate that you’re here, and I just… I hate it.”

“Sorry,” Steve offers after a while.

“Shut up,” Mike says. “You shouldn’t know. They should! Why doesn’t Nancy see? Why won’t she let me? Why doesn’t she know?!”

“I don’t know,” Steve offers, a whispered half-truth, because he does know. Because everything Mike feels, Nancy feels, too. But she also feels guilt and a hole in her heart and her life and her future. She feels the lack of teenage innocence because it was ripped from her, stolen and dragged to another dimension before it was brutally executed.

He can’t tell Mike that, though; not right now. Because it’s not a competition, and it’s not an honest question but a desperate, hurting one.

“Talk to her,” he says at last, quietly, when the sobs have calmed down and Mike has gone endlessly still beside him. “Tell her everything you told me. That she was your friend, too, and that you miss her, and that you feel like you can’t and shouldn’t, and how that makes everything worse. Tell her she’s not the only one who lost Barb. I think she’ll listen now.”

At last, Mike looks up, his face still largely covered by the hood, but Steve can see the tear tracks and he can see the wariness. But also hope. Or yearning, a longing for the version of reality Steve’s just opened up to his mind.

“Why do you think that?”

“Because she’s your sister. Because it’s been three years. And because Barb was your friend, too.”

Another tear, two, three, four, before Mike sniffles again. A wet sound that takes Steve back to three years ago, when they were sitting together and he was watching what was still the beginning of Mike Wheeler breaking over loss and trauma he was never allowed to work through.

“Okay.” A sad little sound. It makes Steve smile, because if he doesn’t smile right now, he’ll cry and scream at the world, burn it down and tear it apart so it won’t hurt Mike anymore.

“Good,” he says at last. “Do you wanna—“

“Can we go to the cemetery?” Mike interrupts him.

Steve inclines his head. “Right now?”

A shrug. He waits. Watches and waits and thinks. Allowing him to find his footing.

“Tomorrow?”

He smiles, warmth and pride blooming inside him, slowly stitching together the gaping wound and allowing him to breathe.

“Sure. Absolutely.”

“Cool.”

“Cool.”

Rather abruptly, then, after a beat of pause, Mike gets up and kicks at Steve’s foot.

“Get up, asshole.”

Steve sputters, taken aback by the whiplash and the sudden change in mood and energy, but he does as he’s told. The minute he stands, he finds himself with an armful of a fifteen year-old, holding on like his life depends on it.

“Thank you.” It’s mumbled into his sweater, sounding wet again, but Steve doesn’t care about that as he wraps his arms around Mike’s shoulders and holds him, too, deciding he won’t be the first to let go.

“Anytime, dickhead, you know that.”

Mike snorts, and it’s better than the sniffle, and it makes Steve smile into the hug.

#stranger things #steve harrington #mike wheeler #steve & mike #barb holland #character study #stranger things fanfic #wow look at me writing a steve mike without background steddie or byler!! growth #dio words #this one will fly under the radar probably but it’s so important to me that mike gets his place in grieving barb too #it’s 1:12am don’t even look at me

[ennyxy]

Did another belated thingie, tho I made it super silly this time xD I picked throne for day 2 and this one's bg is very simplified and sketchy but still took a bit. I'll include what drove me to do this under the cut, as well as just a couple hyper thoughts on WAD xD Also ye am reuploading this real fast cuz I'm a dummy, good thing I had a draft saved.

Oh also I totally forgot about the crack on King's skull when I posted this to Twitter but too late haha.

This just made me think of s1 ep12 I couldn't help

ANYWAY I watched the finale and like, I loved it,and I may have been spoiled by the fandom cuz I felt a lack of moments between the kiddos and just Collector in the time-skip (he's there in spirit but still), n like many I'll just headcanon that Colly came back after a lil or they at least visit lots and eventually he'll settle there and he and King are besties n the usual, and like did you see that lil star sticker-bandaid thing King had where the crack on his skull is? Ye that was totes from Colly for sure you can't change my mind. Lemme dream I need these two to cope rn :") I feel like my life's been overtaken wish there were more fics to read

I rambled sorry ewhdfberv I'm just trying to comprehend stuff cuz I loved all the Collector screentime and development and stuff but so much of my brain's been dedicated to the kiddos lately that I think I've been spoiled by all the fan content

#the owl house #toh #king clawthorne #the collector #platinum bones week 2023 #platinum bones #toh king #toh collector #toh fanart #artists on tumblr #my art #this is just a lil bit of a shitpost in a way considering my idea xD #had fun tho so #hope this doesn't fly too much under the radar tumblr can be hard to be seen on sometimes and i'm so late #i'll be drawing more of these two tho the brainrot is too real

[petit-papillion]

I hope he can keep this stat for the rest of the season, preferably with most of those top 4's on the podium.

#he seems to be flying under the radar this season #but he's out there collecting decent points every race #charles leclerc #cl stats #f1 stats #chinese gp 2024

[ninunque]

Reflecting my mood

#me #oh hello #didn’t see you there #flying under tumblrs radar

[yourfatherjustinmcelroy]

Me? Doing a YCH from 2019? Yes. Yes I am.

I know I don’t really post art here but I didn’t know where else to post my extremely late addition to @galoogamelady’s GTA YCH. So this is my silly billy OC named Knockoff (called this colloquially because they keep starting scam cults, a joke about a knockoff prophet).

Anyway here, I expect no response from this, I really am not an art blog lmao, I just like funny little guy

#Galoo’s YCH #galoogamelady #Buttons #Sybil ‘Knockoff’ Lauriate #I’m so mid at rendering hooooly shit #my oc #GTA Online #YCH #he’s so babygirl #Knockoff is like #a disloyal con artist who pretends to be inept to fly under the radar #a bit of a coward who feigns bravery and acts as an informant who gathers intel for various crews as a side gig #but mostly just keeps starting ill fated sex cults to get laid /j

[wawataka]

love headcanon. ing. characters with the most useless shit ever. teru took ballet from ages 8-12. reigen is ambidextrous. ritsu needs to regulate his blood sugar levels. sho would attempt to create his own languages and alphabets*. despite being an avid milk drinker mob has broken a bone. tome was a leash kid

#*to have a form of communication that would fly under his dads radar. although at the time he didn’t really know or trust anyone to use it #that one’s less fun huh. hm #anyway #i probably have more tbh #just can’t list them at the top of my head #mob psycho 100 #mp100 #reigen arataka #shigeo kageyama #ritsu kageyama #teruki hanazawa #shou suzuki #tome kurata

[swordtit]

ortega you are so smart and yet so fucking stupid. "are you sure?"

#speaking #what the FUCK are you talking about ortega skfjdhfhf #this is tatsuya (non canon) i knew i was flying right under ortegas sus radar and wanted to drop that bomb #ive never had a step THIS under the radar from him though that was funny #fallen hero

[insanelyadd]

You're either redditors or robots.

Solve this captcha or die by my blade.

#reddit migration #tumblr bots #wonder if the bot making freaks are using the influx of new reddit people to get their bots to fly under the radar #here be my thoughts #silly

[greenerteacups]

was conducting my bi-weekly reread of lionheart (as one does when in need of a pick me up) when i noticed a note in the preface about how the original title of lionheart was initially “all their words for glory”. glory was a huge theme in book 1, considering the whole sorting hat vs draco debacle, but i was also just wondering if there was a story behind what prompted the title change?

Yeah! Glory was a huge theme in Book 1 — to a similar but slightly lesser extent in subsequent books because there's not usually all that much glory to be had in middle school, even if you are trying to save your idiot friend from dying, at least as Draco understands it — but it crops back up in the last two books in a major, major way, and it was those two books (basically, the ending of the fic) I was thinking of when I named the fic. But it kept itching at me for some reason, because I didn't like the length, or the syntax, or the mouthfeel or something, and more than anything it just felt... wrong. Like, it wasn't a bad title, but it wasn't the title, you know? It wasn't right. I kept toying with alternatives, like "Glory" or "Words for Glory," or other song excerpts, but nothing satisfied.

Then one day, I was brushing my teeth and thinking about the fic — as you do — and the word "lionheart" dropped into my brain. Just out of the blue nowhere. It's like the muse kicked up her sexy-ass leg and pitched a fastball straight into my brain.

I changed the fic name the next day, and it's been that way ever since.

#greenteacup asks #lionheart #also not to let this fly under the radar: BIWEEKLY? #there are two possibilities here and both of them are insane: 1. 500k words every two weeks (nuts. fucking nuts. you are fearsome to me) #2. 500k words twice every week (I am lighting prayer candles to you in hopes of winning your favor; you are God and/or the Devil) #either way! very flattering!

[butwhatifidothis]

Things that the Completely Innocent Edelstan Server have done that warrants absolutely no self-reflection:

Calling a woman "nominally bi" for liking mlm ships over wlw ones in one specific fandom:

Calling someone a pedo and alt-right:

Calling an open asexual woman a homophobic Christian who hates lesbians:

Saying literally anyone who "shows disrespect" towards Dorothea, a fictional woman who isn't real, must hate women:

Imagining "AU's" of horrific real-life events for a gotcha for fandom arguments, while accusing "Mooners" of being Holocaust deniers:

Calling a (hypothetical) black woman wrong for preferring Dimitri over Edelgard, because Dimitri is "representative of deities worshipped by white supremacists" - I say hypothetical black woman because the woman in question isn't black. Also blatantly admitting to trying to stalk someone to find out their race and gender:

Insisting that a female user is actually some other male redditor pretending to be a woman:

Accusing a user of being an incestual necrophiliac:

Saying that Rhea fans overlook her being a groomer:

Casually joking about killing a real, breathing woman:

And remember, if anyone tries to say that maybe the server should back off and stop doing stuff like this?

The server has done nothing wrong. Everyone else started everything. So there is no reason for them to be civil towards the people they have spread such rancid accusations about, for months, if not years. Revealing what they've been saying in their discord about people is wrong, because everything they've said in the discord was fair to say - they shouldn't know what's said about them. And what was said about them wasn't why they responded to the discord; it's all because they hate Edelgard, and no other reason.

Like I said before: completely hinged behavior, nothing to see here i promise

#edelgard discourse #just to be safe #mind this definitely isn't everything either this is just some stuff that happened within this year (barring one exception) #like it goes without saying that no one should harass these people - nothing justifies harassment #but I feel at this point the shit they've been saying has been flying under the radar for WAY too long now

[mattodore]

good morning 😁

#these fly under the radar so i don’t even think i’ll need to delete them 🫶 #once again tapping the 18+ in my description #river dipping #theodore doe #matthias evanoff #a burning house to live in #echthroi #ts4 #ts4 edit #nsft #<- …well you can’t even really tell but duh #old screenshots obviously i just ran my psds through them and added blush on matthias’s ears and face #mattodore in their thirties… really makes you think #i gotta get back to updating all of their sims ik all of theo’s ages are up to date but matthias’s younger versions def need updated #would also be nice to revisit their parents #ik i want to redo theo’s parents entirely like i look back at them and just don’t see theo at all #and with theo i want it to be very clear he’s their son #vs. with matthias he’s the spitting image of his mother while his father looks like a stranger #…anyway. #jdgshvdnfbf tags completely unrelated to the post 😭 uhhh #amazed that this animation didn’t have any clipping #…i really don’t have anything else to say just thought this would be fun to share #i think i’m gonna get back in cas in a bit! most likely to actually do what i’m talking about in these tags and update their younger sims #and rework their parents #maybe i’ll finally redo that mattodore post i made with them and their parents… that really old one um…. #god idek when it was from. it was after matthias’s birthday edits so late april early may last year? #the one where it’s like i could’ve wiped the blood off your face? or something to that effect #hm #i would probably have to edit the poses

[tm86]

get redrawn idiot

#i super doubt this will fly under the radar #sid #dirtbugs #my eyes r burning so bad good night