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emilybeemartin · 10 months

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Ok ok ok ok listen. Because I have anxiety I feel it's my duty to say that this show won't be for everyone. I came to it over quarantine because my husband suggested we read Bernard Cornwell's series together, and I agreed because I liked Hornblower and knew this was the army equivalent and, let's face it, I wanted to see scruffy mid-thirties Sean Bean in uniform.

THE PREMISE:

Richard Sharpe is a lowborn rank-and-file soldier in the 95th Rifles during the Napoleonic Wars who is raised to an officer after saving Sir Arthur Wellesley's life (this all happens differently in the books, but the basic event is the same). Throughout the series, he rises in the ranks thanks to his bravery and heroism/recklessness, but he's always caught between two worlds--trying to be a leader of common men while never being accepted by the rest of the highborn officers.

Let's start with the bad:

CONS:

Look, this is a 90s drama glorifying the British army. So like, there are gonna be issues. Women are mostly romantic side pieces to be wooed and rescued, and there are plenty of subplots, verbiage, and stereotypes that didn't age well. Production values are low for the first few and so you've got battle scenes with like fifteen guys and a horse, which honestly I find endearing. But no episode is more cringey than Sharpe's Gold. Due to legal issues, the script had to be rewritten with none of the original material, and it turned into this bizarro semi-supernatural horror involving Aztec gold (in Spain, yes). It's completely different from all the other episodes, and even Sean Bean didn't like it (he called it a "mish mash," which is true). It's such a weird piece of work that we almost stopped watching the show, but we continued, and we were relieved to find that the rest of the series is markedly better. History Hack podcast does a great dive into why this episode was so whack.

PROS:

I MEAN COME ON

Sean really understood this character--absolute chaos on the battlefield and shy and awkward pretty much everywhere else. He's amazing in battle scenes and he's EPIC at acting wounded. But the scenes I replay over and over are when he's socially out of his depth and gets flustered and sputtery and so Sheffield the captions can't handle it.

Supporting cast:

You'll find a lot of your classic British TV favorites making appearances throughout this series, and the camaraderie among the riflemen is always fun. Obviously this is a dude fest, as stated above, but some of the women are also written and acted really, really well--- Assumpta Serna as Teresa is that winning combination of a love interest/action heroine who doesn't devolve into a damsel in distress, and even passes the Bechdel test on a few occasions. And Diana Perez as Ramona is so badass and enjoyable.

Locations: Aside from a few interior sets, these films are mostly shot outside on location, with practical effects and stunts. There's some gorgeous scenery of the Crimean peninsula standing in for Spain and Portugal, and it's just really fun watching these guys run around rocky escarpments and fields with flares and stage explosives going off around them.

Music: I saw someone tag the opening theme as "electric guitar jumpscare" and they're not wrong. It's wonderfully anachronistic and totally 90s and you'll never get used to it. But far better are the soldiers' songs John Tams threads throughout, as well as his and Muldowney's thematic scores, and you will always, always finish an episode with him singing "Over the Hills and Far Away" stuck in your head.

Filming Lore: There was a LOT that happened during filming. Everything from Paul McGann having to drop out as the lead to misadventures in filming in Crimea just after the collapse of the Soviet Union. History Hack podcast has an awesome series of "filming of" episodes with input from cast, crew, and historians, and Jason Salkey (Rifleman Harris) has a book called "From Crimea With Love" that details the batshit filming adventures. I haven't read it but he references it every six minutes throughout the podcasts.

So: you've been warned, you've been primed. Start with Sharpe's Rifles; it's on Youtube. Watch it and Eagle, maybe jump to Battle or Siege if you're not sure, and then make up your mind.

If this all sounds enjoyable to you, but you wish there were more tall ships, more Paul McGann, more heroic brooding, and even MORE true love cosplaying as masculine camaraderie, you're in luck! Because you should also watch Hornblower!

And then draw fan art of it all! Please,,, I am so lon el y

#sharpe #hornblower #sean bean #paul mcgann #ioan gruffud

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comfortfoodcontent · 2 months

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2024 X-Men #35 cover by Pepe Larraz

2019-2024 - RIP Krakoa Era X-Men

I love this cover. The art is amazing. It marks the end of the Krakoa era X-Men. It's been on my mind a lot lately and I had to get some thoughts out on it. If you know me, if you ever followed me or my comics site or whatever, you know I was a very loud, very big fan of the Krakoa era at the start, basically up until X of Swords and Hickman's decision to leave. It's finally ending.

2019-2024 - RIP Krakoa Era X-Men

But truthfully it may as well be 2019-2019 -RIP Krakoa Era X-Men. It pretty much failed from the start. I loved HoxPox when it dropped. It was, embarrassing to say now, life changing for me. I thought Hickman was a genius and had found a way to reinvigorate the line and render death as a cheap storytelling gimmick useless. A bunch of my faves were being used and ressurected. I was happier than a pig in shit. I joined Twitter and all the insane X-Fans on there. I started a website and a podcast dedicated to comics. Soon the Covid pandemic started. I was terminally online, my brain rot started and grew worse by the day. It was an insane wild ride that started high and died soon thereafter.

It's hard for me to separate my pretentious Comfort Food Comic media brand time with the pretentious Krakoan Era. Both started out so happily, so full of potential and optimism. To run a site or a podcast in these hellish times you must also play the social media game. Constantly be on there, constantly push your product. Being on Twitter during that time and being part of the X-Community, you start to see how much being on social media fucks you up. You constantly feel like you need to have an opinion on everything, and that it actually matters. You need to be a critic to every piece of media, every decision, every little thing someone says or posts. You lose your grasp on reality, the real world, how to function and interact like a normal human being not stuck hidden behind a screen with your dual public twitter profile and private locked one (something I'm glad to say I never stooped to). It brings you attention. It brings you friends. It pushes your product or brand. It gives you validation and the dopamine rush. It's an addicting, disgusting, fake as hell experience. I was fully caught up in it. It didn't help that I was quarantining and barely leaving my house for a few years. It got me through the pandemic but it also left me so much worse than when I started. Much like how the Krakoan Era treated the X-Men franchise.

Why am I talking about social media so much when I started with X-Men? Well, it felt like this era of publishing went hand in hand with what was being put into the comics. Every creator was constantly on Twitter interacting with fans, always seeing what they had to say. Even Hickman was on there. Dude just wanted to post photos from movies and talk about like what Gen X members he liked. He eventually left because insane X-Men fans wanted him to talk about George Floyd and compare real world race issues with some superhero comics and weigh in, OH GOD WHY ISNT HE WEIGHING IN PUBLICALLY??. It was really weird how fans dealt with that one. Vita Ayala, Tini Howard, Leah Williams - constantly interacting with fans, friends with many of them. A pretty cool thing really, but that shit started influencing their comics throwing in characters or scenes specifically to make some X-Men fan they know on Twitter squee real loud. Shatterstar is not your favorite AEW wrestler. We do not need a book of human X-Men fans who pretend to be mutants influenced by dorky X-Men fans online. We do not need longtime villain Apocalypse to become our "Blue Dad". Jordan White should be editing or at the very least reading any old X-Men comics instead of being on Twitter. We don't need to know what the X-Writers do on their Slack, or worse, what X-fans do on their own incestuous Slack. Gerry Duggan, a writer I loved and thought could do no wrong, joined this group and upped his Twitter usage and the brain rot commenced and his work was so influenced by it. I'll never forget when white people started using fuck around and find out on Twitter and then it was in like 3 of his books the next month. My point in this ramble is the books were being influenced by and written for the loudest X-Men fans on Twitter. The art was dead. The books were a product made in that echo chamber for that echo chamber. They got bad real fast because of our society's addiction to social media these days.

Now that the honeymoon phase is over and I've revisited a lot of these books I do still feel HoXPoX was a wonderful series, one of the best X-Men series, masterfully executed and a perfect jumping off point with so much to explore. I also see the usual Hickman faults. The my series starts some time later, not really addressing anything prior to it that all his books share, the insanely detailed long term plans that he nor the comics business machine will actually follow through on after a year or so, and the shadowy superior group of power that exists in all of his comics. The Moira retcon, while brilliant, quickly falls apart when they never develop her further, or deal with the fact Xavier and Magneto went on to have an entire publishing history knowing what amounts to their entire future until the Krakoa Age must be established. That never really worked and was ignored by the creators and fans alike, including me. So it never really worked from the jump.

Rather than keep the line condensed and maybe just let Hickman write his own story, they expand it out from there involving a bunch of different creators and new ongoings. Plenty of series to explore the ramifications of these retcons, the perceived ethnostate the mutants have established and their abandoning of the coexistent dream the X-Men always fought for, grappling with identity and what it means when death no longer matters, and the conflicts that would arise from having all these villains live with them now. Sadly we instead basically just got Utopia 2.0. Surface level shit where the mutants are on an island surviving that rarely ever went in on all the amazing story ideas we could have explored. But hey certain fans were happy because they could go "Hey Synch is here for a few panels!" or "this horrific out of character gladiator death ceremony is TOTALLY the same thing as my real life transitional phase". Nobody really wanted to question any of this in the comics or in real life. And hey sour grapes aside, we did get some cool stories and some fun character interactions and moments, mostly in the Hickman books. But even from the start, some of it is horrible, more of the same schlock - Fallen Angels a great example, or Hickman's more boring Giant Size issues or his Shi'ar issue, or half of every other title. What should have been being explored or dealt with in the text often went ignored and we got X-Men being superheroes or Otherworld nonsense, which at the time I ate up because I'm such a fan of the old Captain Britain material. Sadly that never really went anywhere either, just making nebulous dimensions that were out there somewhere, don't question it LOOK IT'S JIM JASPERS! ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED! Even things that should have been celebrated like Betsy and Rachel pushing through Gal Pals territory to being together felt largely flat and hollow and forced rather than natural or fun. And that was a common theme as it kept going. Everything felt forced, felt wrong, the writing felt amateurish and simple as it ignored more major issues or reasons to exist. Things just seemed to start happening for no real story reasons. No real further development or exploration. A ton of plots don't make sense as established history and characterization is thrown out the window. Nothing really matters. Rockslide is ruined forever just because. Arrako will never REALLY make sense, Loa and Mercury are psychopathic sex fiends, Pixie of all people is a callous death pervert, Banshee is a Ghost Rider, Warlock's doing something, Colossus joins the Quiet Council and just sits there, Children of the Atom is designated a "red" important book and does nothing of value or import, Moira gets pissy so she turns into a no shades of gray villain robot who skins her soul mate and wears his skin and joins Orchis, mutants are fucking so much and I guess just quickly going to term and they just abandon countless babies in the forest, Anole and a few others are brainless dolts who love the Shadow King, Onslaught is bouncing around, there's an old X-23, Synch is now the best and can recall any power ever magically but never talks to any member of his old team or deals with his death, Inferno as a whole essentially just didn't happen or matter, Sinister isn't Sinister at all he's a clone and there's 3 more of them, Casandra Nova is on a team, Doug knows secrets, Magneto buys a lighthouse, characters are randomly and indiscriminately put into The Pit, Shaw and Selene are maybe the only two villains ever that get examined in a way where maybe they shouldn't be buddy buddy with the X-Men - I need to stop now before I get more angry and depressed but I could go on and on and on. Point is things got bad. Like a ton of this was just bad writing and bad comics. I'm sorry. I get it. I was blinded too. I ignored things. I made my own head canons. I focused on the good stuff.

By the time Hickman actually announces he is leaving, things are already falling apart due to him and Marvel deciding to expand and stretch this shit out instead of just letting him do his shit and end it as a complete story or era. He does Inferno which as I said did nothing and didn't matter. It's good but it's a big ball of nothing. From there the books get worse and worse. Duggan's superhero X-Men book is fluff. Nearly every other series declines more and more. Hellions is a fun dark comedy, but sloppy and lacking that depth and exploration. Al Ewing's work tries hard to reach those Hickman highs and I found myself quite enjoying his work on SWORD and later on X-Men Red but mainly because it all ends up divorced from Krakoa as part of his larger Marvel Cosmic work, with great characterization. I really dig that work and it's common theme is really how off to the side not involved it is.

Later writers, including some real Literal Whos? and pretentious "novel authors" further dilute the line with their less talented work(I like Steve Orlando as a person but I desperately wish he'd try harder to write actual stories instead of being a human youtube video that summarizes obscure 90's comic characters for modern day zoomers). Kieron Gillen, bless him, tries to be the new Hickman and he does have some of the best Krakoa era material, but even he starts failing pretty badly. Sins of Sinister was a clusterfuck of boring nonsense for people who want to seem or sound smart, same goes for this current Dominion plot.

Looking at the art now I'm struck by how none of these characters are TRULY changed from this era, let alone had a lasting or defining story. It's crazy to me we went 5 whole years with this and really what has changed, ESPECIALLY with the current Orchis wrap-up story. X-Men fight some nasty humans who don't like them. We're back to that ALREADY. We aren't getting to the end of the Krakoan Era, we've been in it for quite some time. As I look at this art I see only 3 wholly new characters, which they'll be lucky if they are used after this. One of them is Pogg-Ur Pogg, a perfect example of this era. A big Aligator man, not much thought behind it, that fans LOVED. Sadly, he wasn't actually an alligator man. It was all a fakeout. That was some suit a little boring gremlin wore. A little boring gremlin. Nothing unique, nothing fun. Same old shit you've seen in thousands of comics. That's what the Krakoa Era was. Something that seemed SO DAMN COOL, SO DAMN THOUGHT OUT, but really it didn't have much thought behind it. It was a flashy suit of potential hiding the same old gremlin you've always seen. Even after the eternally online creators saw how popular he got, they didn't change any of this, they just thought we've got it. The suit/gremlin thing is good. It wasn't and they tried to bring it back for further stories but it was so lame at this point it was pathetic. Much like the repeated attempts to salvage and course correct after Hickman.

So here we are at the end. I can't believe I'm actually THANKFUL it is ending. That I actually want to regress and return to the X-Men as superheroes fighting their villains again. I've been rereading old X-books and I crave that big, bold excitement of what truly made the X-Men superhero team work. It's such a bummer and such a failure of execution with so many to blame. What DISGUSTS me so much is already seeing fans eulogize this era as perfection that was cut short by Marvel and not a fun experiment that was botched from the start. I'm with you, I was the biggest believer and supporter at the start. I joined Twitter, I examined every panel, made countless threads of discussion, debated and discussed every little thing with fellow fans. I wanted so much for this to be what it could be. Please, examine it honestly and critically. It's a failure. It's time to pull the plug.

It's ironic to me that I deleted my Twitter this year, the Krakoan age having the same amount of life my Twitter fandom life did. It went from such excitement and fun to soul sucking everyday nonsense. It seems fitting and emblematic of what this age was and turned into. This era, just like Twitter which influenced it so much, is/was a stupid, ugly, brain rotted mess dotted with sparing gold with the unrealized potential for so much more. I for one, welcome it.

Peace Out Krakoa Era, you won't be missed.

#krakoa #krakoa era #x-men #mutants #me #my writing #writing #comics #comic books #marvel #marvel comics #pepe larraz

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verieriberries · 14 days

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the first time the powerpuff girls get sick in the wayne manor, the batfam are confused to find professor utonium decked out in what is basically an armor. they’re kinda thinking the worse like omg since ppg is basically a science experiment gone wrong, what if their genetic makeup makes it so that they are highly contagious when riddled with sickness?

right path about the worry and concern, wrong destination as they find out later when prof comes out of the girls’ room donning a welding mask with burnt marks that look like it was made from a laser and frost growing from his pants.

the worst case scenario ever, the girls lose control of their powers when sick AND they have this weird triplet thing of getting sick simultaneously so. triple the fun

bruce is so surprised at the durability of welding masks and frankly, so is utonium. bruce is also thinking about how much the eventual repairs would be and how to upgrade the manor, or at least the girls’ room, to be able to withstand whatever chaos might unfold.

bruce is also kinda excited cuz the dude made his own bat tech and built the watchtower so he’s kinda taking this as a challenge to see his capabilities of making more stuff more durable and will hold its own.

doesn’t take long for bruce, tim and the other techies to build quarantine suits that are equipped with EVERYTHING (every member of the family has their own suit just in case the dads or alfred weren’t around)

bruce and utonium stay up all night looking over their daughters and making a list of rules and precautions for the next time the girls get sick

#dc comics #dcu #batman #bruce wayne #professor utonium #powerpuff girls #batonium #their ship name is batonium #due to bruce’s tendency for secrecy #the ppg’s room is the most extra and outfitted room ever #just in case one of the girls accidentally shoots a laser out of the window #the tabloids would go crazy #SUPERMAN IN THE WAYNE MANOR???#BRUCE WAYNE CHEATING ON HUSBAND WITH SUPERMAN???

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kivaember · 3 months

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re: drabbles: i would be interested to see any kind of take on what life in the PCA is like; the EKDROMOI and HC/LC-HM duos in particular always seemed like funny Just Guys Being Dudes dynamics

OH I LOVE IDEAS LIKE THESE... i ended up just going on a ramble dear god... uh i hope you enjoy! a bit of worldbuilding for PCA and RLF (with a surprise Flatwell mention!)

Thanks for the prompt!

When Erik had been handed his posting for Rubicon-3 (or "ISB2262" as most within the UEG knew it), his first dismayed thought had been: i've hit a dead-end in my career.

See, the PCA were not viewed favourably within the UEG's pilot corps for a multitude of reasons, ranging from their infamous reputation as "space cops" to the fact that their direct chain of command was an actual, literal AI called The System, and whom many within the PCA spoke of as if she was their divine god that had descended from heaven itself to guide them.

Also, there were no glorious battles with the PCA, no chances for winning spoils of war during inter-corporate conflicts or achieving swift promotions by looking good at the right moment. All you did in the PCA was sit on some quarantined rock - normally out in the middle of bumfuck nowhere - and weren't allowed to take souviners or salvage anything profitable from the surface. It was basically guard duty but for years.

At least with guard duty on solar colonies you had some form of civilisation to visit. On Rubicon-3? Civilisation had been razed into nothing but ashes after that catastrophic industrial accident almost fifty years ago, and the remanents were just a ragtag group of stubborn colonists who refused to relocate because this is our home! Nevermind that their home was basically a hole in the ground full of contaminated soil.

Needless to say, Erik's expectations had been low when he reported to the PCA's main base on Rubicon-3. The planet had looked ugly when he came in, the atmosphere riddled with enough chunked up asteroids to make navigating the mess an absolute nightmare for the autopilot and what little surface he glimpsed looking grey and lifeless. The oceans looked good, at least, but Erik didn't have gills, and he doubted he'd be spending any time on their blasted-out beach resorts.

His expectations had been this: he'll sit in whatever passed as their guard room watching the live feed from their defence satellites, bored out of his mind except for moments of fleeting excitement when some wildcat miner came barrelling towards the planet in delusional hopes of striking it big with a Coral deposit. The nights would be long, the days even longer, and he'll be cold, miserable and wondering when he'd be posted out so his career could start again.

Instead, reality had been this: piloting the most advanced MT he'd ever sat in, wielding the most powerful weapons he'd ever laid hands on... yet trapped in an endless struggle against ye olde BASHO ACs on a near regular basis like he was in Hell and this was the ordeal he was condemned to endure for the rest of his afterlife.

The Rubiconian Liberation Front. Erik had heard of them back on Earth when he was in the UEG's main pilot corps, but no one had thought them as any serious threat. Just a group of colonists who had hijacked a construction MT or two and occasionally threw rocks through the PCA's figurative windows. They weren't a real threat. They were just civilians with guns. They'd be scared off easily just by shooting a few warning shots their way.

Wrong.

They were like rabid racoons that refused to leave the PCA's dumpsters. Almost every night, Erik and his squad would be crashed out when the perimetres alarms would trip, and almost every night he'd be chasing after RLF ACs and MTs running off with whatever the hell they could carry. Telephone poles. Copper wires. Vehicles like jeeps or vans. One of them had ran off with a fucking HVAC system once and to date Erik was still baffled about that.

But that wasn't the worst part. The worst part was him.

Middle fucking Flatwell.

The RLF leadership was a bit strange, but every PCA pilot knew of Flatwell. He was a Gen Three and had been part of the Rubiconian militia as a qualified, albeit green, AC pilot when the Fires had hit Rubicon. Guy was likely pushing seventy and still piloted rings around the PCA like he was bioengineered in some fucking lab somewhere to be the bane of their existence.

The System - their chain of command, their AI - knew everything it could dig up about Flatwell. His AC schematics, his habits, his history, his fighting profile and even including some interesting yet bizarre factoids like 'has a legitimate Earth citizenship due to successful seduction of a high-ranking Arquebus executive' and 'suspected illicit affair with an intelligence officer within Arquebus HQ', which meant not only was Flatwell a demon in the AC, he was a demon under the sheets too, forbidden knowledge that Erik could've gone without knowing.

But forbidden knowledge or not, the simple fact was: Flatwell was a damn good pilot, and most of the PCA pilots were just average.

In high-tech MTs and using even higher tech weaponry, sure, but still average. But, when Erik had been new to the post, had been dazzled by these amazing MTs and beautiful plasma weapons, he'd charged headfirst into a fight against Flatwell without hesitation, ignoring The System's soft bleat for him to use caution.

Needless to say, Erik had totalled that shiny MT and ended up ejecting before even a full thirty seconds had passed. Guy was fast.

Fortunately, however, the PCA were a lot more forgiving when it came to totalled MTs. Back in the UEG that would've come straight out of Erik's paycheck, as all repair bills did (he was still paying off his previous repairs... just thirty more years and he'd be debt free!) - but the PCA had brushed it off. Turned out they had a pretty sweet fabrication system and could churn out MTs in the hundreds within hours. Where they got the raw materials for that, Erik wasn't so sure... but the PCA were a branch of the UEG, so it was probably legitimate and not at all illegal or suspicious.

(One of the first rules you learn in the PCA: do not think too deeply about how it functions for legal reasons)

But, while the posting was leagues more exciting than he had initially believed, and incredibly more dangerous, his initial dismayed thought still held true: it was a career killer, because here was another, hidden rule he hadn't known until his boots were firmly on Rubicon-3 and his transporter was flying away from the planet:

Once you're on Rubicon-3, you die on Rubicon-3. No transfers, to retiring, no early-release. The PCA's mission was lifelong and no amount of bellyaching or protesting wold change that. Erik had been sprinted through the five stages of grief before he accepted his grim fate.

Maybe he had died on the way here, he had thought. Maybe this was his punishment for contributing directly to the voracious war machine that was the UEG... how many unionised workers had he killed over the years? How many colonies had he visited to stomp down on burgeoning independent movements so corporations didn't lose a source of revenue? How many had he stomped down on, just for his own continued comfort within the callous galaxy that humanity had made for itself?

Rubicon. It really made you think about these things. Erik slowly began to understand why the PCA's relationship with the RLF was how it was. Yeah, they crashed out every night, and yeah, sometimes Flatwell was there waiting for them, but most times...

Erik would crash out with his squad and only chase the thieving RLF a few miles before breaking off pursuit. He told himself there was no point. What they stole could easily be replaced within a few days. It wasn't as if they were stealing weapons or whatever. If they wanted a fucking HVAC system or a bunch of telecommunication wiring that badly, then they could have it. No skin of Erik's nose, and the PCA didn't bill him for failure to retrieve stolen goods.

He didn't sympathise with them, and the RLF certainly didn't sympathise with the PCA. They killed a lot of each other over the years Erik had been posted here, and Flatwell was particularly merciless. But.

They were both stuck on this planet, either willfully or not. They were both on Rubicon-3 for the long haul, and one way or another, they were gonna share the same fate: they were going to die here, eventually.

They were never going to leave this razed shithole.

#armored core #armored core 6 #fanfic #middle flatwell #some worldbuilding stuff with pca and rubicon #thank you for the prompt!#it was very fun :)

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constellaj · 3 months

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One question about your Multiverse AU that I've always been dying to ask and have now gotten the courage to do so: How did the Geoff and Alejandro who got to become Vaquero meet and then subsequently fuse?

I'm also happy with just any tidbits about Vaquero because he seems like an incredibly interesting character.

Oh man that is one of my favorite stories !!! As always, pieced together with the help of @crystalfloe :)

So our multiverse has a pseudo-government, not necessarily in the collecting taxes sense, but in a very strict "detaining people with highly volatile personalities or magic powers" sense. So strict that you can be detained for something you did in a past life-- and you will be!

This is what happened to Geoff. Dude has no idea what he's in for, but one day he's shipped from a dinky little temporary holding cell into the massive, main DIDU complex (Dangerous Immortal Detention Unit).

He's supposed to go to some "rehab" program while he's here. A program that just so happens to be run by Alejandro!

Alejandro is a little more experienced when it comes to dealing with the multiverse; some might say too experienced. He's got a kind of terrifying powerset, and kind of hates his job as a therapist, but it pays well- and he really, really needs the cash.

See, Alejandro is a "pairhunter." Two immortals can "pair" with one another (almost always on accident) when their auras intertwine, giving them a powerful combined boost in magic. If this relationship is severed, however, the results can be unstable and catastrophic for the people who've paired. Oftentimes, without the support of their pair's original aura, their physical and mental forms break down until they're nothing but a conglomerate of goo wandering the multiversal plane, looking for their lost pair-- a creature known as a Pairhunter.

While it's unclear the circumstances that led to this Alejandro becoming one, we know his former pair was a Geoff-- probably an asshole, Aftermath-hosting one.

Pairhunters are almost always quarantined by the DIDU. Alejandro's employers don't know he is one, because he's found a temporary work around-- buying suspicious pills on the black market! Some lovely lady out there is extracting aura from a bunch of imprisoned Geoffs and condensing it into capsule form, which helps our little Al stave off total deterioration.

Geoff pills don't come cheap, though, which is why he has this job in the first place. Unfortunately, he leaves Geoff himself unattended in his office. More unfortunately, while rooting around for contraband (to bring back to the boys, bro!), Geoff finds and accidentally absorbs his medication.

Geoff has no reason to know it, but his power this lifetime is energy absorption. Pills made entirely of formless aura seep into your skin *quick,* especially if that aura is *yours.* He has no idea what just happened or even what those pills were.

What he *does* know is how panicked Alejandro is when he gets back. Total 180° from his usually suave, if disinterested, behavior-- talking about how he's going to lose his job and his mind. Geoff might be in jail, but that doesn't mean he's an asshole, so he does what you learn to do after a lifetime of prison; he grabs Alejandro and hides from the staff.

In a cramped little broom closet he sees something he hasn't before; a man breaking apart into abstract form, dripping onto the ground. Without the stabilization of those pills, Alejandro's basically done for. Confused and offput by this needlessly charming man in tears, Geoff does what a Geoff does best. He hugs the dude.

Turns out, when a being *made* of uncompressed energy and a being that *absorbs* uncompressed energy collide, they fuse.

Vaquero's first appearance is brief, but it changes the stakes. Even just those few seconds fused stabilized Alejandro better than a lifetime of pills. (Hugging your boyfriend is not a substitute for taking your antidepressants. This is fiction. go take your meds man). The two make a pact; Alejandro stops trying to mold Geoff into the ideal 'reformed prisoner,' and Geoff doesn't tell any guards what's happening. They continue their therapy sessions, of course, as scheduled, but those very quickly become nothing but the opportunity for Vaquero to form again.

And, naturally, over time they develop feelings for each other. Classic gay shit.

Unfortunately, every part of this plan is illegal, down to the act of fusion itself. Through a series of stupid mistakes and cocky attitudes, one guard (pseudoname Helix) develops his suspicions. Alejandro is pressured and interrogated. Worse, Geoff gets planned to move to deep solitary, with no hopes of ever seeing Alejandro again.

Who's ready for a good old fashioned prison break?

With Geoff's prison buds and Alejandro's knowledge of the complex, Vaquero manages to make it out into the central city-Hub of the multiverse. He loses Helix in a mostly condemned back alleyway, hiding in an abandoned building.

Once the lights come on, he realizes this place is perfect size for an illicit bar.

And so opens Club Vaquero, an underground and entirely secretive operation that hides the misfits and criminals of the wider multiverse. Run by a man you've never seen before, not at any Bridgette beach parties or Carlos soccer meets-- a man unlike anything you've seen in the multiverse before, a man with no parallel versions.

Let's just hope Helix doesn't hear about this place.

#my apologies for letting this sit a while before answering!!#i hope you like the read :)#multiverse au #total drama #geoff td #alejandro td #ask

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thescribblings · 2 months

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So i was gonna finish the background but I'm really bad at them soooo-

Avoiding background responsibilities is my specialty (i did like making the sky tho, vv nice)

But here's a drawing i did of the boy

This is based on how leo met leonardo in my personal fic,(it's a private fic but i will summarize it here) the context behind this is;

Leo went on a late october walk and stumbled upon.. wait for it.. leonardo!

Who is covered in his own blood and probably suffering hypothermia.

Before leonardo found his younger self he had been injured by a krang hound in a last ditch effort at saving the world, aka sending casey back in time

After casey went through the portal, dear ole leonardo was yanked backwards into a portal by mikey's chains, narrowly avoiding the krang laser that would have otherwise ended his existance, instead plunging him head first into dalecarlia reservoir.

It was the middle of the night, the moon high in the sky, and his prosthetic was damaged, dead weight on his shoulder as he tried to swim. (Did i mention his pants are a type of chainmail? Oops, they weigh like 20 pounds, my bad leo)

He panicked, almost drowned when the emergency release for his prostetic jammed, yadda yadda, he got it off, it broke apart at the joints, he crawled on land, had an impromptu nap half submerged in water, mid october, (still bleeding out btw) woke up when the sun was rising, found a frog sitting on his plastron..

Had an emo moment where he realised he was now an orphan AND an only child (that's rough buddy)

Then dove back in to retrieve the pieces of his arm (by the power of me, the prosthetic hand held onto his sword even when it broke, so he got that back too! Yay :D)

He broke into and raided the nearest hospital (sibley memorial) and managed to get a tetanus shot and cauterize his wound, then stuck around in the shadows to warm up before wandering for literal days, like, it took him five straight days to get from here to leo

Anyways, they meet, leo calls casey, leo looks away from the seven foot feral turtle a few dozen feet ahead of him (bad move dude) said seven foot feral turtle charges leo and picks him up mid sprint, basically a kidnapping

Eventually casey picks up, leonardo lets leo go, (my boy is exclusively making turtle noises rn lol) they get home, treat his wounds and omg he starts using words here

They quarantine him, cause this man is fucking radioactive (to the point that he now has a tail that his younger self very much does not)

And guess what! My boy has hidden markings that glow bright blue around radioactive objects .^. He's like a living geiger counter lmao

Here's a pic without the background

Anyway, I've had to restrain myself from making this too long, meet my boy! I haven't thought of a creative name for him yet, so i usually just call him leonardo, nardo, or Blue. I'll let ya'll know if i come up w something, tho

Have nice day

#rottmnt #save rottmnt #art #third season #my art #rottmnt future leo #future leo #leonardo hamato #my au #sffl(wg)

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lionlena · 1 year

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Why I think Fireflies are DUMB and Marlene is cruel

I re-watched episode 9 and this scene caught my attention

Okay, I know Marlene said the patrol didn't know them, but their behavior is still stupid to me. They didn't know it was Joel... Yes, that JOEL (damn dangerous dude). What did they see? The girl and probably her dad in the open space and yet they decided to waste the stun grenade launcher.

I'm assuming this isn't something you can buy on ebay in post-apocalyptic times. So? What should they do? They have the upper hand, they're obscured, they've got guns, and these two can't see them. In addition, Joel is not holding a gun in his hands, but has it slung over his shoulder. It would be enough to fire a warning shot in the air and shout: "Stop! You are surrounded! Put your hands up! Tell me who you are and what you are looking for!"

Is it really that hard? I'm under the impression that it is because fireflies are untrained and unorganized. I saw a similar situation in episode 7. Seriously, didn't any of the fireflies (with more than two brain cells) say, "Hey, this young girl with no experience is supposed to guard the warehouse by herself? Maybe someone older and more experienced should be with her? You know, so she doesn't do anything stupid. Like she don't go to quarantine zone and go get friend? I'm just saying"

I know FEDRA is evil anyway, but the fireflies will never defeat them. Why? Because FEDRA has a structure, a hierarchy and they are organized.

And now Marlene... She is surprised that Joel made it to their base. “We lost half our crew crossing the country. I had five men whose only job was to protect me. I still nearly died. How did you do that?"

My assumptions are that Marlene may have assumed Ellie was already dead. How long has it been since she last saw her? Four months? Half a year? She couldn't be 100% sure that Joel wouldn't abandon Ellie. Don't get me wrong. I love Joel. I love what a great father he is to Ellie, but Marlene didn't know that. To her, Joel was a smuggler who was supposed to smuggle Ellie in exchange for a reward. Any other smuggler would have decided after a week that all the hard work wasn't worth it. So what am I aiming for? I don't think Marlene was prepared for Ellie's arrival. The fireflies and the doctors weren't prepared either. The entire laboratory facilities were probably not prepared (assuming there were any at all some laboratory). And yet Marlene decided to kill Ellie. She didn't want to spend even one day with her friend's daughter. Why? Because she is cruel and blindly believes in something that has no logical or scientific basis. She stubbornly wants to save a world that no longer exists and that will never exist again.

And she's also cruel to Joel. She says, "I owe you a favor. We all are." And yet she denies him the most basic thing, which is goodbye. Anyone who, like me, has lost a loved one without being able to say goodbye to them knows how painful it is.

And she's also cruel to Anna. She promised her that she would take care of the baby, and what she did... 1/ She gave Ellie to FEDRA 2/ She gave Ellie to Joel Again, I love Joel, but to Marlene Joel is a cruel, brutal, heartless smuggler. 3/ She gave Ellie to a doctor who shouldn't even be called a doctor (Hippocratic Oath says something to someone? "Primum non nocere") Probably this doctor could have been blind, deaf, and paralyzed in his right arm, and Marlene would have agreed to the operation anyway.

She says: Our doctor thinks... Thinks? what the fuck? He should be sure. IN 100%. Because if it's true and Ellie is the only chance to create a cure, then you can't assume anything... YOU HAVE TO BE SURE OF IT

But the peak of her cruelty for me are these words: I do understand. I am the only one who understands...

How dare you? How fucking dare you say that! You don't understand anything!!! You didn't lose your baby. For twenty years you haven't had the same nightmare that one day became true again. You don't know what it's like to be a parent again. You don't know what Ellie's been through. You didn't see her fear, her tears, her laughter. You weren't with her the first time she drove the car, the first time she slept in the woods, the first time she saw a giraffe.

you know nothing jon snow

Ok, and back to fireflies and their stupidity again.

If Ellie was so important. Why was the operating room so poorly protected? At least three soldiers should stand by the doctor and not move even when they hears shots.

But again they showed their disorganization. Why? Perhaps the biggest mistake is not having the right leader. Imagine if someone like Joel was their leader. Someone who always expects the worst. Someone who thinks first and then acts.

That's why fireflies are stupid to me. Because first they act (throw a grenade, carry out an operation... they hand over the children to a smuggler) and only then... wait... No, they don't think. They only act.

And what do they get in return? Angry Joel in killer mode :D So seriously. It wasn't even Joel's fault. The fireflies asked for it.

#the last of us #tlou hbo #Joel Miller #Ellie Williams #joel and ellie #marlene #fireflies #team joel #joel is the sweetest person in the world #by the time #until the stupidity and cruelty of the others puts him into angry dad mode #my analysis #Pedro Pascal #bella ramsey

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meirimerens · 1 year

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khan after finding out notkin is sick and so he probably is as well bc they hold hands in the death house but he cant admit that to anyone: fuck—uhhhh i have to leave the polyhedron for. reasons. please stop pestering me.

(to a doghead) fuuuuck dude no i have to leave. yeah no i have to... quarantine myself... no it's purely out of precautions. no it's just that someone... um... sneezed and/or coughed in my vicinity when i was — yeah no i was downstairs for likeee not long. no yeah they were um they were pretty close. listen we didn't do it on purpo—i mean i didn't approach them on purpose. i did not know them of course not. they just—listen i know they're sick. and since we were ho—i mean since i was near them it's purely to make sure everyone stay safe. um. yeah so basically.

#the doghead. saw them hold hands at the house of death/girl what were you doing at the house of death... etc #incomprehensible notkhan lore #the-celestial-bitch #anonymous #unrelated & khan lore to me i think he was raised to not say Fuck and sometimes he still catches himself. like he says it #and then has the reflex of tensing like DIDN'T MEAN THAT #but he did he did mean that. he wants to be big and tough. he_likes_to_be_tall.jpg

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yuukei-yikes · 9 months

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Just ate mold n i was like “OH YEAH YUUKEI YIKES I LOVE THAT GUY”

also i was thinking about harutaka. Plauged with visions as i am. And i had this moment like “WAIT !!!” Bc who the HELL is cooking in that house ???

takane. Cannot cook. And i know like haruka SEEMS like he could cook but like. Hes an artist + hospital. Idk dude i wanna know your thoughts on it

you ate WHAT. ARE YOU ALRIGHT. is the mold eating related to you thinking of me. its just...the first bit of this ask disconcerted me so much.

also my very studied smart correct answer to ur harutaka inquiry that will definitely go insane about domestic harutaka in general: takane can't cook, haruka learns.

youd be right haruka cant cook but he LEARNS. haruka and kido bonding sitcom episode is real to me.

yeah haruka could learn from ayano who he's closer to but I'm delusional abt haruka asking kido, seeing it as a way to approach them and become closer. i think haruka has his little adventure arc where he gets close to everyone in the dan with little bonding moments... kido likes haruka bc he's very chill and it makes them a bit emo about konoha, but spending that time with him allows them to separate the two more properly in their head... konoha was in the kitchen a lot with them, following them around and asking when food was gonna be ready or getting to snack on anything kido was cutting. haruka is more active, asks questions and seems so interested. but he's also asking for little samples like konoha used too hehe.. neither is better than the other it's just different yet similar people. kido is happy to hang out with haruka :3

sorry. that aside. back to harutaka. yeah i think haruka can cook. but he DEFINITELY learns!!! he definitely had no clue how to. he mentions having a live in helper to make meals and chores lmaoooo this guy is the worst i wonder if he's ever done a dish in his life. takane thinking haruka is flawless then moves in with him and Realises and she's like 😐oh my god. (this is an exaggeration takane does Not think haruka is perfect anyways moving on)

ofc takane is very messy too but like from the little bit we got from her grandma (1. GET UP ALREADY UR GONNA BE LATE. 2. STOP WASTING TIME ON VIDEOGAMES. 3. what do u want for lunch :3) i think takane is... spoiled or just ig standard? idk what to call it. i mean in the sense she probably got a lot of her stuff done by the adult in her life. but unlike haruka who has a dismissive father who pays someone to keep the house together LOL, takane has her actual caretaker and i think miss grandma sounds like the kind who's a little strict and would keep takane very aware of chores and was strict enough to make her do at least some. so takane's actually got a lot more tools/skills/conscience for living alone than haruka. like she will do the dishes while haruka unconsciously waits for them to magically do themselves

haruka in general isnt super familiar with Domestic Life because he grew up basically alone, with a stranger doing all the chores and also spent a lot of time at the hospital (sorry for linking a 2014 pre novel 6 fanfiction dot net fanfic but THISSS fanfic❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ about haruka's feelings on what Home is... is still very dear to me)

Haruka and takane moving in together they are WINGING IT but they have fun. they're like No rules🔥🔥🔥we eat pizza everyday. they eat a lot of takeout and instant food even if haruka can cook bc takane is a picky eater and haruka doesn't always have the energy to cook. haruka and takane work from home according to me myself and i, and their Time Of The Day management is awful. their life is quarantine life. they never... properly organize meals. haruka will always remember lunch and dinner but maybe he wont be in the mood to be like omg maybe i can whip up something quick :3 *starts cutting onions* nah. he's making an everything sandwich and going back to drawing!!!! i also think kido tends to make food for everyone. haruka is one of the only dan members who actually gives kido their tupperwares back without a miss because haruka is very thankful/excited for kido to bring food (notorious tupperware thiefs are kano and shintaro)

anyways. domestic harutaka. theyre the worst. like i know haruka going boywife mode for takane is funny but i dont think he does that immediately. he's got pics to draw dammit. i feel like they live in this small ass apartment and they have never made their bed in their whole life. and if they have futon mattresses they are just never picked up and constantly in the way👍 haruka definitely catches up and discovers vacuuming and putting away the dishes when they're dry but it takes him a second. listen its tough being in ur 20s when last week you were dead and you didnt think youd live to see adulthood!!!! but the bliss of a domestic life with ur s/o gives haruka the power to step up. i believe in him.

OH im also delusional they move with takane's grandma after a few years because um um um *runs away* im delusional!! takane mentions living in a house so that lady is in a house all by herselffff????? i feel so bad for her takane please go back to ur grandma. i think post str when takane reunites with grandma she totally moves back home but kind of immediately moves out again to move in with haruka and grandma's like oh💔

i i think i think i think um um ithink in their mid twenties they move with her cuz grandma is old and takane wants to take care of her.... teeheee. by then haruka's fine with cooking and both are ok with house chores but they probably still get spoiled a bit by grandma once they move in 🙏🙏🙏 that lady loves haruka i know so. sorry btw i got so off topic. i saw the chance to talk domestic harutaka and ran with it. also if youve followed me for a while u know i have a delusional fankid i totally think grandma is living at home too if/when they have a kid. sorry im making myself emo *punches wall* baby konoha.whoa im going so off topic sorry im so normal

sorry for my very delusional reply that was abt everything and nothing at once. also dont eat mold

#ask tag #harutaka #headcanons

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byrhop · 2 years

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What I think stranger things characters’ sexualities and mindset would be if they lived in 2022

ofc this is valid for the 80s’ just not expressed

just to mention this is my opinion, they are fictional characters and if something isn’t canon already, everyone is allowed to have a headcanon

lets start with the one and only:

Will Byers

he would be THRIVING, living his best life, comfortably and openly being gay. Will is one of those ppl who understood that he is not attracted to the opposite gender from a very early age. Joyce would be supportive and Jonathan even more, and he probably wouldn’t even need a big coming out because it’s just a normal thing in his household and everyone is just kinda aware already. i think he would be fully out to his friends and family already in like middle school. now im sad he deserves this so damn much.

Robin Buckley

similar like will, she would be open about her sexuality very early on, but i feel like she’d go full lesbian during that 2020 era when everyone just started hopping on the imma let ppl know im gay and i don’t give a shit trend. she’d cut her own hair and make bangs during quarantine. in 2022 she would just be fully open with everyone about being a lesbian and that would be known from the very beginning of getting to know new ppl, you either accept me or i don’t want anything to do with u vibe.

Mike Wheeler

it’s always hard for me to decide if i think mike is gay or bi. after a lot of thinking i would maybe go with bisexual but with a high preference for men. i feel like mike would have a typical case of: i had a crush on a girl in middle school but now i came to high school and am crushing on a boy, but am i just doing this for attention, im not sure, but i do like him but what if i don’t -> very confused, tons of gay quizzes… but then he’d have a heart to heart moment with will and fall madly in love with him and will would help him understand his sexuality better and then he would fully accept himself and be happy.

Eddie Munson

okay i would say this legend is pan, but eddie gives me the vibe of someone who just doesn’t care about labels. his attitude is like “whatever happens happens, we’ll see where the future leads me” he just doesn’t think or stress about it. he would definitely hang out with the gays and shit on the painfully straight and boring ppl.

Lucas and Dustin

in my opinion they are both straight. i know there are quite a few ppl who are going to disagree with me, especially about lucas and that’s okay. idk for me i just don’t get the feeling and i feel like internet sometimes forgets this these days but being straight is also okay and if dustin and lucas are straight, they are definitely big allies. you say anything against lgbtq+ near them and u are dead.

Max Mayfield

literal bisexual icon. i feel like she would be the protector of the rest of the gays of the group. she isn’t scared of expressing her sexuality and if anyone tries to say anything bad about her or her friends, she’ll scare them shitless and they would never dare to say anything bad ever again. she always had more of a masculine vibe but can fully pull of fem is she feels like it. basically not much different than in the show just she kisses girls. she doesn’t go around pointing out that she’s bisexual but she doesn’t hide it, she’ll just randomly mention it in a convo one day and make sure that a person knows that there is no option to not be accepting.

Steve Harrington

he def started questioning his sexuality in his 20s. in high school he was one of the straight boys but as he grew up and changed friends he started realizing that liking guys was a possibility and he wouldn’t get judged for it. when he started thinking about it and exploring he realized he liked guys as well. bestie hooked up with a few dudes and is totally chill about it. i feel like he also wouldn’t really care about labels, but i would say bisexual.

Eleven Hopper

honesty i’m not sure. i feel like after all these years we still know very little about el, and so does she. i think first she needs to find herself, things that she loves and finding out her sexuality is part of that journey. in the end she’ll be happy and comfortable with her sexuality. can i see her dating a girl? totally.

Nancy Wheeler

similar like her brother, i think she’s a bisexual with a preference for men. She totally had a girlfriend at one point and u can’t tell me otherwise. that’s it, idk what else to say.

Jonathan Byers

bestie is straight, but goes to pride every year as an ally to support his brother.

#mike wheeler #will byers #byler #stranger things #eleven #nancy wheeler #dustin henderson #lucas sinclair #eddie munson #steve harrington #robin buckley #jonathan byers #max mayfield #lgbtq characters #lgbtq

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tennessoui · 2 years

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your profilic library of aus is merely a challenge to my ingenuity. thus, i want you to write:

obi-wan as a hot santa.

anakin as a hot santa, obi-wan is his hot elf

one of them is stuck in a vent and this is how they first meet somehow

time-loop but it's a different char pov like mace or ahsoka or cody whose cosmic challenge to escape the loop is to somehow stop obikin from fucking for an entire day

vampires but force energy vampires, no biting it's more subtle somehow, a disease that is spread through the Force and infected Jedi have to be quarantined indefinitely

modern au where anakin has dyed his hair black

more of knocking on the wrong door au.

omg my dude these are all so valid and i also love them all but i need you to understand i read them all like a list of facets of the same au i was like ok ok obi-wan is a sexy santa but then he gets a demotion to sexy elf because anakin came onto the scene (which is basically the plot of the phantom menace, really)

but they recognize each other because they met when they were both sexy santas hired for the same office christmas party and anakin got stuck because he was trying to use the vent like a chimney to pop in but his shoulders too damn wide

and obviously this is mortifying but there's still so much sexual chemistry between them that they have to sleep with each other every day, hence the time loop.

it was the energy vampires that sorta clued me in that these were separate aus tho tbh

thank you for the wild ride

#asks #ask game #also more of knocking on the wrong door au....noted noted noted

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xieyaohuan · 1 year

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Thank you for tagging me @deliciouskeys

Tagging people up here because of the cut :p

As always, feel free to just ignore this! @luckypunbot @lara60 @sweetrabbitteamx @whatevermonkey @galsinspace

Three ships: Homewell, Butchlander, Aerwin. I ship Homelander with almost everyone, but Butcher and Madelyn are competing for the top spot. Aerys and Tywin still have a place in my heart.

First ship: Cleopatra/Caesar. I shipped them hard back when I was 10-12 and had a big fat crush on Cleopatra. If historical ships don't count, then Aragorn/Legolas, which set me up for a lifelong journey of blond/brunet hot dude ships lol

Last song: Stromae, L'enfer - @deliciouskeys, this may not be the perfect exception to your rule that all HL songs are sung by females, but the ending (where he yells at himself) is currently inspiring me to write a homelander/mirrorlander conversation based on this song.

youtube

Last movie: Crimson Peak, I think? Haven't watched a lot of movies lately because I spend all my time reading and writing fic basically.

Currently reading: Charlotte Beradt, The Third Reich of Dreams. I bought it after I stopped remembering my dreams between Feb and May 2020. (I usually remember my dreams, and the silence/zero memories in the morning for months on end was really freaking me out.) The book is mostly just the dreams, definitely one of the more fascinating reads I've picked up.

Currently watching: Nothing to be honest, but I recently watched Our Flags Mean Death on a plane ride from hell, hooray for gay pirates!

Currently consuming: Also nothing, but am about to head out for brunch and cocktails with a friend, and then drinks with my bestie afterwards - self-quarantine is officially over, I didn't get covid, yay! 🎉

Currently craving (nsfw, tmi and gross, so it goes below the cut lol)

Ahem. So I can't have sex at the moment (don't ask, it's a dumb reason, fml), not even with myself, but I'm still manic-level horny, and it's making me CRANKY AF, like this is not a normal level of cranky. Yeah, tmi, I know, I'm sorry. But that's the honest answer to that question lol.

#tag meme #about me #thank you!#i love tag games :)#always feel free to tag me #Youtube

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nonbayanary · 1 year

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ok consider this, my bros: hirusena neighbors AU

———

sena lives with his parents, and with his calico cat pitt

hiruma lives with cerberus, and his bros musashi and kurita

the maou trio split the household expenses (electricity, water, groceries) among themselves

the kobayakawas just live across from the maou trio.

sena earns the minimum wage at his job, and his parents give him shit for earning so little

sena trained pitt so that she eats outside on the front porch, since his parents don’t want her making a mess inside the house.

everyday at 5 in the morning, sena goes out to the front yard to feed pitt some breakfast (a mix of wet and dry cat food), and then sena waters the plants while he waits for pitt to finish eating.

hiruma, meanwhile, leaves the house at 5 in the morning to commute to work.

so sometimes, sena and hiruma come across each other. sena awkwardly waves whenever their eyes meet.

hiruma’s greetings, however, vary according to his mood. sometimes, he just grunts. sometimes, he inclines his head. sometimes, he nods in solemn greeting. sometimes, he just raises his brows, in the bare minimum effort of acknowledgement.

at nighttime, they come across each other too. when sena’s walking home from work, he reaches his home at about 7 or 8 in the evening.

at that time of the night, hiruma��s already gotten home long before sena. and whenever sena passes by, hiruma’s either playing with cerberus, or tapping away on his laptop.

again, sena awkwardly waves to hiruma when he’s caught watching them. and again, hiruma’s greetings vary.

and so, it becomes a routine for them to encounter each other.

sena knows hiruma as the “grumpy dog dude.”

and hiruma knows sena as the “cat chibi.”

before long, they become comfy with each other, from a distance.

they don’t talk, but there’s a strange sort of intimacy in always encountering each other, always knowing that the other is present in the background while they go on with their lives.

———

basically, sena’s parents, kobayakawa shuuma and mihae, are verbally and emotionally abusive

if times were normal, sena would almost always be out of the house to escape from his parents temporarily. either that, or he’d only be home when he knows his parents aren’t there.

but since covid-19 struck (yes, covid exists in this AU), sena’s been quarantined at home with his parents. and their abuse is even harsher now, because they’re all stuck in the house 24/7.

sena takes solace in the presence of his pet cat, pitt. she’s a one-year-old calico cat, and sena practically considers her as his daughter.

sena talks to his closest friend, mamori, about pitt.

mamori is working abroad in the united states, but she makes sure to videocall sena every other day.

mamori is like the older sister sena never had, and she knows how abusive his parents are. it’s why she checks up on him often.

once, in a late-night call, sena realizes something.

sena, hushed: nee-san, ohmygod... i’m a cat dad now!

mamori, agreeing: awww that’s so cute! my otouto is a DILF now!

sena, facepalming: ugh, nee-san!

(”otouto” means “younger brother” in Japanese)

since the neighborhood is pretty crowded, the street separating the two houses is pretty narrow.

which means the closer neighbors can hear when the kobayakawas are screaming at their son, or when hiruma’s cackling and making a loud ruckus with cerberus.

sena doesn’t really try to socialize with his more gossipy neighbors anymore. it humiliates him, knowing they can hear when his parents yell at him.

he knows, because sometimes, when he passes by a group of elderly neighbors, their voices drop to a whisper as they steal glances at him. a few times, he’s even heard snatches of their conversation.

“that’s the kobayakawa’s son, isn’t he?”

“that’s the guy. i heard his mother calling him a ‘pathetic excuse for a son,’ the other night. you heard that, right?”

“aiya, the whole damn street could hear it. of course i did!”

after sena hears that, he becomes more reserved than ever. when he passes by his neighbors, he keeps his head down, and his mouth shut.

as the civilians are confined to their homes for a longer period of time due to covid, sena's mental health gets worse.

when he tells mamori, her worries worsen. in her alarm, her childhood nickname for sena slips out.

mamori: oh sen-sen, you need a break. ummm okay, let me think of something... OH! I KNOW! why don’t you come visit me?

sena: what?

mamori: apply for a U.S. tourist visa! come visit me here in the states! i’ll sponsor your trip and everything! you really deserve a break, hon. i’ll help you fill out the online application form, and i’ll even help you practice for the U.S. embassy’s interview! you got this, sena!

at first, sena has his doubts. he doesn’t think he’ll be granted a visa. but mamori manages to convince him. (aka, she gently and lovingly pulverizes sena’s self-destructive intrusive thoughts.) and after two weeks of discussion, sena finally agrees.

it’s a good thing, having something else to focus on. it means that he can internally escape from his parents’ bullshit, since his mind is working on the visa applications.

mamori now calls sena every night. sena shares his screen in videocalls when he’s filling out his online application form. and afterwards, mamori pretends to interview sena.

———

despite all the help sena’s getting, it doesn’t mean he isn’t nervous about all this too. applying for a tourist visa is one of the big changes in his life, and the unknown scares him.

however, he doesn’t share this with his mamori-neesan, though. she’s been so excited since they started his applications, and he doesn’t want to rain on her parade.

since sena started his visa applications, he’s been a lot more anxious as of late. at first, he couldn’t understand why it was getting hard to breathe sometimes. he’s always had anxiety—how could he not, with how his parents treat him?

but his chest would hurt out of nowhere, and his head would spin.

it’s been happening for weeks now, and sena starts wondering what the hell is happening to him, until one night, it gets real bad.

that’s the night when sena finally tells his parents that he’s applying for a U.S. tourist visa.

the whole night explodes into screams filled with profanities, and the whole neighborhood can hear the shit going down. to sena, his parent’s voices are fucking deafening.

sena wilts, and he can feel himself shaking beneath the weight of his parents’ words.

“Do you think they’d be stupid enough to give you a visa, huh?! You’re broke as shit! Do you own any properties? NO! You can’t even afford a fucking plane ticket, because your shitass job doesn’t pay you enough!”

sena doesn’t even know whether to laugh or to cry anymore. he’s present, but at the same time, he’s not present. he feels like his world has shifted a bit, like he’s not in control of his body at the moment.

if sena’s body were a car, then he’d usually be at the driver’s seat. but right this moment, in the midst of all the screaming, sena feels as if he’s at the backseat, piloting his body from a distance.

sena idly wonders, “is this how it feels to dissociate? hmmm, i feel a little numb. this is pretty rad. i wish i could do this on command.”

and yet, sena can still distantly feel the fear choking his throat, the quivering of his shoulders. his hands fist at his sides, so his parents don’t see his fingers shake.

even as the screaming continues for ten minutes, sena desperately clings to memories of his nee-san in their videocalls. his nee-san, practically feral with excitement. his nee-san, laughing when she finds out that eating at an american diner is on sena’s bucket list. his nee-san, putting him back together again when he breaks down after a fight with his parents.

“i just want to try applying,” sena repeats to his parents, again and again. “it won’t hurt to try.”

it feels like sena’s said this ten times already. he isn’t great when it comes to arguing back, so he can only stick with these two sentences.

it’s as if his brain is frozen. already, it feels like his memories of the past few minutes are slipping away from him. what did his parents say again?

and yet, sena knows that even if he forgets the words, the visuals of this scene will be seared into his mind forever. his parents on the couch, the golden light of the living room, the flashing screen of the television, the trembling in sena’s own body. these things he will not forget.

finally, after what feels like an eternity, the tirade ends. sena’s father screams, “GET OUT OF MY SIGHT! JUST GET THE FUCK OUT!”

so sena goes. his body moves, and he gradually comes out of his dissociative state to feel the bite of the cold, metal lawn chair against his skin.

“oh,” sena thinks. “i’m on the front porch?”

well, it’s as good a choice as any. despite the dissociation, he remembers coming out here, at least. it’s far enough from his parents that he doesn’t hear them anymore.

sena blinks, and comes back to himself as pitt the cat jumps into his lap. the surprising warmth of the cat is enough to pin him to this plane of reality.

but suddenly, sena becomes aware of the building discomfort in his chest. uhhh okay, that’s not good. his breaths come in short gasps. his ribcage curls into itself, crushing him.

sena can’t breathe. he can’t breathe. his limbs are tingling, and his lips are too. is the ground tilting a little? that’s weird.

sena splays onto the lawn chair, uncaring whether his neighbors see him or not. he can’t fucking breathe, and he could give less of a shit about what other people say right now.

sena’s heartbeat is raging in his ears, and his body feels warm. too warm. the night is cold, so why is he sweating like hell?

his breaths come out loud and short, and his chest really fucking hurts now. tears stream down his face, and belatedly, he thinks that if the neighbors see, then at least his parents don’t.

sena is too focused on his own turbulent state to notice that while all of this has been happening, apparently, someone’s been watching him.

hiruma’s been on the front porch of his home this whole time, trying to hack into a company’s security systems.

he’s covered by some of the garden’s trees and bushes, so not even people passing by can see him.

hiruma’s got some beer bottles beside him on a bench. one bottle is open and three-quarter filled, while the three other bottles are still sealed.

they’re all bottles of Smirnoff Mule, a mix of ginger beer and vodka. he’s always wanted to try some. hiruma had brought them home earlier, thinking musashi and kurita would be home.

however, since both kurita and musashi texted him that they’d be home late, hiruma had said, “fuck it, i’m drinking these motherfuckers myself.”

anyways, back to the present

for awhile now, hiruma’s been wearing headphones. the goddamn neighbors, the kobayakawas, are at it again, screaming their heads off.

hiruma heard some snippets here and there from their yells. words like “visa,” and “piece of shit,” and “shitass job.” by that point, hiruma, growling in annoyance, had stuffed some headphones on.

now, however, movement at the front porch of the kobayakawa household catches hiruma’s eye.

feeling a little pissed off at all the noise, hiruma thinks, “oh, it’s finally over? damn these noisy motherfuckers—”

hiruma’s thoughts come to a screeching halt when he sees the guy he’s labelled as “cat chibi” on the kobayakawa’s front porch.

it’s strange. cat chibi doesn’t usually come out at this time of the night. and even rarer is the guy seen sprawled on a lawn chair.

hiruma peers at the guy, wondering what the hell is going on. the cat chibi’s chest is heaving, and he’s breathing faster than normal. the fucker seems as if he’s trying to gulp in air, but even as he breathes and breathes, it never seems to be enough.

and then, tears start to fall on the guy’s face.

and it clicks in hiruma’s mind. “oh... shit. fucker’s having a panic attack.”

“shit,” hiruma thinks. “oh, shit. oh, fuck.”

for all the gossip hiruma’s heard about the kobayakawas and how they treat their son, he’s never actually seen cat chibi guy crying.

hiruma’s always wondered how cat chibi could stomach his parents treating him like shit. whenever hiruma saw sena, there had always been a bone-deep exhaustion in his eyes.

it’s as if sena’s weary of the world. a cross between a youngster and an ancient, exhausted being, who has seen all the darkness of the world, and is tired of existing.

and yet, hiruma’s still seen the guy smile on multiple occassions, especially whenever it concerns his cat.

hiruma’s always admired how sena could smile even in his shitty circumstances. it’s like seeing a seedling grow in the cracks between concrete.

but now, hiruma finally sees sena break. he finally sees sena’s flimsy mask cracking, revealing all the wailing despair behind it.

and now that hiruma’s seeing it, he can’t ignore it. so he thinks fast.

hiruma looks around, searching for any sort of distraction. he sees his laptop, cerberus sleeping on the grass, the beer bottles—

THE BEER BOTTLES!

hiruma’s got an idea.

he takes on of the sealed bottles in his hand, then stands at the gate, watching sena. then, he softly clinks the beer bottle against the gate’s metal.

clink. hiruma touches the bottle to the gate after every four seconds, to mimic the technique of box-breathing.

clink. then silence. clink. silence again. clink.

it takes sena a minute or two to notice the new sound. unconsciously, he starts breathing slower in tune with the sound.

clink.

sena, not knowing what the box-breathing technique is, just breathes in for four seconds, then breathes out after four counts.

but it’s enough.

clink. clink. clink. clink.

a little while later, sena is breathing a little easier, even if his chest is still clenching.

clink.

sena’s head turns, finally searching for the source of the noise. the sound is strange, soft but heavy. as if it’s glass against metal or something.

clink.

sena turns this way and that, wiping the tears from his eyes. “hey pitt,” he calls to his cat, his own voice a little ragged. “you hear that?”

clink.

sena notices how pitt is strangely still, peering at something outside of the gate. sena turns his head too and his eyes meet—

“oh,” sena thinks. “it’s grumpy dog dude.”

clink.

the grumpy dog dude is leaning casually against the gate, his side profile barely lit in the dim garden lights.

clink. the bottle touches the gate again, and sena finally understands what the sound is, and where it’s coming from.

inwardly, sena reluctantly admits to himself that grumpy dog dude actually kinda does look cool.

sena startles when grumpy dog dude turns to look at him, their eyes meeting. automatically, sena’s hand raises in another awkward wave. he inwardly facepalms at his own cringey movement, but his thoughts screech to a halt.

because the grumpy dog dude, hiruma, is not following the script.

usually hiruma would grunt, or nod his head, or raise his eyebrows, or something else, but now—

hiruma’s beckoning sena with a finger. and with every beckoning movement, the bottle touches the gate.

clink. clink. clink.

sena’s eyes widen. he looks around, but there’s no one else hiruma could be speaking to.

sena points to himself, his voice barely a whisper. “do you mean... me?”

he knows hiruma can’t hear him. sena barely heard himself.

but maybe hiruma can read lips or something, because he nods.

sena can’t help gaping. this is definitely a change in routine. they’ve never talked before. they’ve never spent time together before.

clink. clink. hiruma catches sena’s attention again, then waggles the bottle in his fingers. he nods his head in a beckoning gesture, as if to say, “come drink with me.”

sena, a little mystified, nods uncertainly. the invitation is a little strange, but grumpy dog dude doesn’t seem like a bad guy.

sena pushes his home’s gate open, and startles when pitt darts out into the street, and jumps between the bars of hiruma’s gate into the garden

sena, remembering hiruma has a fucking dog, barely locks his own home’s gate before he’s bolting to the house across.

but as sena nears hiruma’s house, he’s even more shocked because—

pitt is curling up next to cerberus, nuzzling her head against his fur. cerberus—who looks scary as fuck, by the way—just cracks an eye open, then goes back to sleep.

sena pauses in confusion, just before the neighbor’s gate. he turns, and finds hiruma’s already opened the gate, and is looking right at him.

“um...” sena says, quite intelligently. “...hi?”

“come on, fucking chibi,” hiruma says, jerking his chin towards their pets.

"chibi?” sena repeats, ducking his head as he walks in. he mutters, “i’m not that short.”

hiruma snorts. “try telling me that when you’ve grown taller.” he closes the gate, then suddenly throws the beer bottle in the air.

hiruma grins. “catch.”

sena squawks, and almost doesn’t catch it in time. “holy shit, dude!” the bottle slips in his hands, and sena’s surprised at the weight of it. he clutches it against his chest, finally securing it. he sighs in relief.

hiruma throws his head back and cackles. “didn’t take you for a swearing kinda guy.”

“what?” sena snorts out a laugh. “i didn’t take you for some lunatic who throws bottles at strangers.”

“not strangers,” hiruma’s eyes crinkle as jerks his chin to the garden, beckoning sena to follow him. “not anymore, at least.”

sena trails after hiruma, a little smile adorning his face. “thanks for having me here. i’m kobakayawa sena. it’s nice to finally speak to you.”

hiruma waves it away. “bah, formalities! fuck that shit! how about this then—” he cracks a smile. “you can learn my name when you finish a bottle.”

a laugh bubbles out of sena. “what?”

hiruma leads sena to the hidden benches in between the garden trees and bushes. he jerks his chin to the remaining beer bottles on the bench. “two bottles, precisely. if you finish the first, you get my surname. if you finish the second, you get my first name, chibi.”

eyes wide and unsure, sena asks, “is it... is it okay with you that i have some?”

hiruma’s first instinct is to give a mean retort and to roll his eyes. but then he remembers what a fucking shit day sena just had. he can even see the faint tear tracks running down sena’s face in the dim garden lights.

so hiruma cuts the guy some slack.

“it’s on the house,” hiruma says instead, with the ghost of a fanged smile. he plops down on the bench, and hands another sealed bottle to sena.

sena takes a seat beside hiruma as he clutches his own two bottles. hiruma, meanwhile, claims the last two bottles left. a sealed one and his own previously-opened bottle.

hiruma takes a swig, and continues, “that is, if you can finish two measly beer bottles.”

that startles a laugh out of sena. “if?” he echoes.

“if,” hiruma agrees with a smirk. “what’s the matter, chibi? are you fucking chicken?”

sena’s bright grin could rival the moon. “aw, what? oh man, it is on!”

———

(yes, y’all can definitely use this prompt!!! /srs)

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