*cracking up*

echan has been rewatching Blacklist, and we're in the middle of parts with a great deal of who the fuck is biologically related to whom and DOES IT EVEN MATTER. (that's very specific and all, I know.)

and something about how Red told Alexander Kirk that Liz grew up in his house, sometimes he was there, sometimes he wasn't, etc etc, made me wonder if the thing with Red and Mama Rostova and Alexander Kirk was something like Alchemy and Other Lies, and then I went down the rabbit hole of

Blacklist, with Alicia Hughes as Liz Keen; Roy Mustang, a disgraced figure who's been in hiding since assassinating the monarch comes out of the woodwork to be a creepy mentor at Alicia when she grows up to take the State Alchemy Exam. Disclaims being her father, and then out of completely different woodwork comes a homunculus in the form of Maes Hughes. He needs her blood to alchemically sustain him! Except it turns out she's not actually his daughter so her blood won't work! Shock! How can it be true!

Then I started contemplating Liz's husband Tom Keen, and who would fit into the role of as a child, kidnapped and molded into a criminal-soldier, worked for Roy, who secretly planted him on Alicia to keep her safe--and I'm like oh god, it's practically one of Elrics. Right down to more parent shenanigans, surprise Mom isn't dead she's an evil vampire mercenary.

and i'm just
dying so so much
like
i can't even, I'm not even sure WHICH Elric brother you could force into the mold personality-wise,

meanwhile I'm also imagining Riza Hawkeye as the influential woman high in secret operations who has, of course, had backroom dealings with Roy Mustang, but doesn't admit to knowing him. Not since he became a traitor, of course. I mean, Roy also needs a Mr. Kaplan, but *hands*

also echan brought my attention to a minor character, a dude named Baz who Reddington installs in the apartment next to Liz's to be her bodyguard, played by an actor with the unlikely name of Bazzel Baz. My gut feeling here is Armstrong *sparkle*