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muffinlance · 17 days

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Read "Suki, Alone". Liked it in general. But can they please, please hire someone who knows both the show's actual events and how to follow through on a character arc? Because guys. Guys. That comic is not implying about Suki what they meant it to be implying, and all because of literally one line.

So like. From a writer's standpoint:

What they meant to do: show Suki as a community-oriented person who cares for her people, and believes in everyone succeeding together.

As opposed to (spoilers): the thief girl they set her up in contrast with, who's pretty upfront and consistent on primarily looking out for herself. She betrays Suki for one (1) corn chip to improve her own life at the prison, no surprise.

But the problem is: they give Suki an inspirational line to the effect of "we're all working together and we'll all break out together"

You know

The thing she does not do in the show

So if both the show and this comic are canon, then instead of setting up a compare/contrast with the thief girl, they've just set up a comparison. One were Suki is arguably worse, because she's been leading a significant number of prisoners on with her "we'll all fight and win our freedom together!" business, only to straight up cut them out of the escape loop and abandon them, whereas the thief is only leading Suki on in the sense that Suki keeps telling her what it's morally correct to think and confuses snide replies with agreement

My dudes. My fellow writers. You people actually being paid for this. There were so many ways to fix those awful implications against our girl's character, the simplest of which would be to not include that line. Or they could have, you know, made it canon compliant with what actually happens in the show, so that this comic doesn't set Suki up as a betrayer instead of a community builder. Like... just send all her good prison buddies off to other prisons in the wake of the warden finding out they're colluding. Have it timed to be right before the next new prisoners arrive, thus setting it immediately before the Boiling Rock episodes, so Suki didn't have anyone left in the prison she'd want to take with her on a breakout. For bonus points, include a page or two of her and her Kyoshi warriors opening up the cell of one of her prison friends post-war, thus implying she's tracking down and actually fulfilling her promises. Maybe even show her doing the same with thief girl, who was established as being imprisoned on false charges anyway, and also showing that Suki is A) the bigger person, and B) willing to acknowledge her own role in mistakes (because I cannot emphasize enough how much thief girl was not hiding her own priorities, and it was Suki who approached HER with all this, not the girl ever doing anything special to weasel her way in) (this would also open up an opportunity for paralleling Suki's earlier in-comic mistake of not listening to one of her friend's very valid thoughts and feeling, which lead to the girl leaving their island alone pre-canon; a "seeing people as they are, not what you want them to be" moment)

Anyway yeah enjoyable enough for a quick read but another one for the "this can't be canon or the characters are So Much Worse than they were in the actual show" pile

At least Aang didn't promise to murder anyone in this one

#I also have minor critiques like #Why are all the guards drawn as short and noodly-armed as Sokka pretending to be a guard #Why are the guards the only ones allowed to have funny lines #Did anyone consider using a lack of dialogue in some panels to establish mood and let the visuals speak for themselves (no they did not)#Why is Azula villain monologuing for so long at the start #She does like her villain lines but in the show they're short #And generally aimed at fresh opponents #Not last week's old news #I kept wondering why Azula was even there instead of generic lackeys especially since she had to have been dealing with the conquest of #Ba Sing Se around then. big This Could Have Been An Email vibes #Also as a gardener #HOW FAST WERE THOSE PRISON PLANTS GOING TO SEED AND WHERE CAN I GET SOME #Apparently they needed minimal (almost no?) light and tiny cracks of space and were nutritious and tasted good raw and grew so fast they #Could substantially affect the diets of multiple prisoners within a short time span?#I WANT THEM IN MY INDOOR SETUP ASAP #Screw lettuce I want Suki's Magic Beans #avatar the last airbender #atla #Suki #There continue to be no comics in Ba Sing Se but this was a better attempt than some #Suki Alone

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jondoe279 · 3 months

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atp i genuinely doooon’t care if the old guard two is the worst thing put to film i just want to see the best character of all time (andromache the scythian) and her loser henchmen and everyone’s favorite girl nile freeman again

#its not even funny anymore WHERE IS ANDY AND NORIKO!!!!!!!!!!! it was supposed to be the year of dyke drama 😞😞😞😞😞😞#like given the way they structured the first movie the second would have to be almost wholly original and differ a lot from the comic #like andy cant go thru the shit noriko puts her thru so im guessing the script would switch her out with nile getting tossed in the ocean #but that doesnt really work with norikos comic characterization (trying to get andy to see her point by making her go thru what noriko did #isnt something quynh will gaf about if andy isnt one of the immortals. andys become thr ‘vermin’ noriko hates!!!)#and given the end of the movie everyones chill with copley so joe and nickys whole subplot cant exist anymore…. idk maybe theyll switch out #copley with moose?? idc as long as we get their stupid car conversation tbh makes me laugh #honestly given the changes that would have to be made they probably just made a stupid movie and don’t want to release it. but I DONT CAREEE #its not exactly like the first one was that good i still mute it in preparation for every cringe needle drop like its a lame movie but its #genuineeeeee fun like i seriously do not care netflix give me my movie!!!#the old guard

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youssefguedira · 26 days

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i dont know when ill get around to writing the larger fic this is part of but you know brain worms have this

Nicky offers to pick him up at the airport like it’s nothing, like it hasn’t been almost ten years since they saw each other, because he knows Joe hates planes and won’t want to try and navigate the two trains and two buses it’ll take to actually reach their hometown after the flight. And Joe doesn’t even try to protest, just texts him Thank you before he gets on the plane and then tries not to think about it for the entire flight. He fails.

When he arrives he’s exhausted, because it never really gets easier no matter how many times he does it. Moves through the airport like a zombie, operating mostly on muscle memory. He hasn’t been here in a long time. Still knows it well enough to navigate without really thinking about it.

His suitcase is one of the last to come through on the carousel, but it does come through, and then he’s walking to arrivals with his heart in his throat.

Nicky’s hanging back from the crowd, hands in his pockets. His hair is a little longer now, and at some point in the last decade he’s gotten his ears pierced, which Joe didn’t know. He’s wearing a dark green sweater and blue jeans. When he catches sight of Joe he smiles, small and restrained, straightens slightly.

“Hey,” he says as Joe gets closer, voice soft.

Joe has to swallow. “Hey,” he says hoarsely.

And he doesn’t even need to say anything else, because Nicky pulls him into a hug before Joe even has to ask, and Joe buries his face in Nicky’s neck and tries to breathe around the sob catching in his throat. One of Nicky’s hands comes up to cup the back of Joe’s neck, his thumb moving back and forth gently, and Joe is fragile enough that that gesture alone almost undoes him.

Nicky pulls back first. Smiles at Joe. “You look good,” he says.

Joe has to swallow before he trusts himself to speak. “You too.”

They linger just a moment longer, Nicky’s hand still on the back of Joe’s neck. Ten years ago, Joe would’ve kissed him; now there’s a gap neither of them quite know how to fill.

Finally, Nicky steps back fully, and Joe feels the loss of contact sharply. “We should go,” Nicky says. Joe nods, and follows him out of the terminal.

The car Nicky heads for is the same battered old thing he’s been driving since he got his licence. Joe wonders to himself how the car is even still going, and the look Nicky gives him tells him he knows exactly what Joe’s thinking.

It does something funny to Joe’s heart. He looks away, and gets in the car.

“I brought you something to eat,” Nicky says before he starts the car, reaching for the bag by Joe’s feet.

“You didn’t have to–” Joe begins, but Nicky cuts him off with a knowing almost-smile.

“You hate plane food,” Nicky says, “and it’s almost two, and the other option would be whatever we can find on the way. I thought you might prefer this to service station food.”

It makes Joe want to cry a little. “Nicky,” he says, and can’t manage anything else.

Nicky seems to understand. He pulls out what he had been looking for - a silver thermos, and a fork - and hands it to Joe. The contents are still warm when Joe opens it: pasta, warm and comforting.

“Good?” Nicky asks, watching him.

Joe nods. “Good.”

“Okay.” Nicky looks at him for a beat longer, then turns away and starts the car.

There’s a moment of delay before the CD player starts up, but when it does, Joe knows it from the opening note: he bought Nicky this CD from a thrift store the summer before he left for university, when they’d taken off for two weeks, just them and the car and the road. And there’s no chance that Nicky’s kept it in his car for ten years, but as they leave the airport and turn onto the motorway it makes it feel like they’ve done this a thousand times before, even though Nicky never picked him up from the airport when he came home, only met him at the station once or twice.

Joe finishes the pasta and tucks the thermos back in the bag. “Thank you,” he says, and it comes out a lot quieter than he means it to.

Nicky glances at him. “We’re still a few hours away, if you want to try and sleep. I will wake you when we’re almost there.”

Joe might protest under other circumstances, but the flight was long, and he doesn’t sleep well on planes anyway. So he takes off his scarf and folds it into a makeshift pillow before leaning back and closing his eyes. Nicky drums his fingers on the steering wheel in time with the beat, hums along with the tune, and Joe lets the sound of his voice and the tapping of the rain on the window wrap around him like a blanket, carrying him off to sleep.

----------

Joe wakes to Nicky shaking his shoulder gently. “We’ll be there soon,” he’s saying. The rain has stopped; the radio is on, now, chattering in the way in the background. They’ve left the motorway behind for a much narrower road. Joe has to blink a few times before he catches sight of a sign and realises what Nicky means.

He sits up. The position he’d been sleeping in hadn’t been great for his back or his neck, and he’ll probably regret it soon, but he’d slept a lot better than he might’ve expected.

Being back always makes the rest of his life feel like a dream, like he’d never left at all. When the sign for their town passes Joe sits up, panic coiling in his stomach. He’s had days to prepare himself and still isn’t ready.

“Wait,” he says when they turn a corner two streets away from Joe’s parents’ house, “Nicky. Wait.”

“What?” Nicky asks. He doesn’t stop, but he does slow down.

“I can’t– I can’t do this.”

Now Nicky does stop, pulling into a lay-by. “What is it?”

“I don’t know, I just. Not yet. I need time.”

Nicky looks at him for a long moment. “When are they expecting you?”

“I didn’t give an exact time. Just sometime this afternoon.” He’d told his sister Nicky was coming to get him over the phone; she hadn’t said anything, but the silence had been enough.

Nicky doesn’t say anything, but he’s got the look on his face that means he’s thinking.

“I’ll be okay by myself,” Joe says then. “If you need to work.”

Nicky shakes his head. “I have today off.” And then, before Joe can really think about that, he turns the car around and heads back the way they came. This time, he recognises the path Nicky’s taking almost immediately, turning away from the area Joe’s parents live in and towards the outskirts of town, where it starts to become mostly farmland.

“I can park the car by my uncle’s house,” Nicky says, glancing at Joe. “Then we can go from there.”

Joe doesn’t need to ask where; they’ve walked the same route so many times he could probably do it in his sleep.

The sheep are out in the fields by Nicky’s uncle’s house, but he doesn’t see any of the lambs yet, though they must be coming soon. Nicky’s uncle let Joe try and help with lambing once, up until the point where Joe saw what exactly that entailed, and immediately lost his nerve. But he’d still let him help Nicky feed them every year.

There’s a little paved yard outside the farmhouse, where Nicky parks the car before grabbing the bag that had been by Joe’s feet. “I’m going to drop these off,” Nicky says. “You can come in, if you want?”

Nicky’s aunt and uncle have always been kind to Joe, but they will inevitably ask about his father, and Joe cannot quite bring himself to talk about that, not yet.

“I’ll wait,” Joe says.

It’s a few minutes before Nicky reappears, this time without the bag, but carrying a different thermos. He smiles apologetically as he jogs over. “I didn’t mean to make you wait long,” Nicky says. “But you know how they are.”

All Joe can do is nod. Nicky sets off down the path towards the woods that border the farm and Joe falls into step beside him. They don’t talk much on the way there, but they don’t need to: the silence is comfortable enough.

It’ll be spring soon. It’s cold but not cold enough to be uncomfortable, and the snowdrops are in full bloom, bright shards of white in the grass. The rain has stopped, but the smell of it still hangs in the air. They must’ve spent hours walking this path, enough that Joe doesn’t really need to look to know exactly where Nicky’s going.

This part of the river is just secluded enough that he can’t hear cars passing by anymore. The bench by the path is still there, though at some point they’ve built a shelter over it, which probably leaks but has kept it dry even after the rain. Nicky makes for it immediately.

If he looked at the back of the third slat from the left he’d find their names carved into the wood, side by side. Joe very deliberately doesn’t look.

Nicky sits down. Nods to the space beside him. When Joe joins him, he holds out the thermos.

“Tea,” Nicky says. “If you want.”

How many times have they done exactly this, over the years? In summer, they’d wade into the river; in winter, Joe always wanted to try skating on it, but the ice was never quite thick enough. Every time Nicky got into a fight with his father, every time Joe couldn’t bear to be in the house one second longer, they’d come here.

Joe gives into memory and rests his head on Nicky’s shoulder. Nicky brings one arm up to hold him close, hand on Joe’s upper arm.

Joe closes his eyes, listens to the birds, listens to Nicky’s breathing.

Nicky says, “When is the funeral?”

“Thursday,” Joe says. He doesn’t want to think about this, doesn’t want to think about the last conversation he had with his father, doesn’t want to imagine walking into his parents’ house and finding him gone. Of all people, Nicky will understand. It’s what brought them together when they were younger: being the only two students in their class who spoke English as a second language, and difficult fathers.

Silence falls between them, and Nicky doesn’t let him go, and Joe’s missed him, more than he really knew. He’d tried to stay in touch, and they had, for the most part, but it’s not the same as having Nicky beside him again.

Joe doesn’t think there’s anyone in this world who knows him the way Nicky does.

He doesn’t know why he says it, but they haven’t talked about it, and it feels like something they should, if only so Joe can lay this all to rest.

Joe opens his eyes. “You, uh. You seeing anyone?”

Nicky doesn’t pull away, but Joe feels the way he goes still, tense. Slowly, softly, he says, “I don’t think this is the right time, Joe.”

“Is there ever a right time?” Joe asks, half-joking.

Nicky doesn’t laugh.

Joe clears his throat. “I’m not. So.”

Nicky exhales slowly, like he’s steadying himself. His thumb moves back and forth, back and forth where it’s resting on Joe’s arm, catching on the fabric of his coat. “Me neither.”

Joe’s not sure if that’s better or worse than if Nicky had said he’d found someone. If he had, perhaps Joe could put to rest the little part of him that will always be in love with Nicky. Not get rid of it entirely, but fold it away in a little corner of his heart and leave it there. This, though – this is possibility he doesn’t know what to do with.

“How long are you here?” Nicky asks quietly, moving his hand up to run his fingers through Joe’s hair, like he used to whenever Joe needed something to keep him grounded.

“I got two weeks off work,” Joe says. “After that I don’t know.”

Two weeks feels monumentally long and yet vanishingly short at the same time. And after?

They don’t talk about much after that. Small talk, more than anything else: Nicky’s still living in the same apartment, still working the same job, but Joe knows he loves it from the tone of his voice when he talks about the shelves he built for his most recent client, how he’s starting to make more of his own stuff, how his boss has been talking about retiring and leaving the whole business to Nicky. Joe could listen to him talk about it for hours. Maybe he does.

It settles the frantic thing that had woken in his chest when they crossed the town line, and eventually, Joe says, “I think I’m ready.”

Nicky turns his head inwards and kisses the top of Joe’s head. Lingers there for a moment. It isn’t anything; it doesn’t have to be anything.

“Okay,” Nicky says. “Okay.”

The walk back to the farm is largely silent, just as the walk there had been, passing the thermos of tea back and forth between them. They get back in the car, and Nicky drives them back to Joe’s parents’ house.

Nicky pulls up on the curb outside the house. “Call me, if you need anything. Or just– call me.”

“I will,” Joe promises. He has two weeks; he’s not going to waste them. They haven’t been in the same timezone in a long, long time.

Nicky smiles, small and hopeful, and there’s nothing really to say, after that.

Joe gets out of the car, and prepares to face his family.

#neon writes #the old guard #kaysanova #the setting and language of this one is deliberately deeply vague i don't know where it is the point is the Vibe #i call this one someone took le otto montagne 2022 a bit too personally! this is the first 'section' of this fic #there's a second part after a little time jump (not more than a year) which is what i like to call the past lives segment of this fic #anyway. enjoy #userlyde #userlinax #OH ALSO. the song is amore che vieni amore che vai #not for thematic reasons it's just the first track of ostinata e contraria #and its funny to me

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lasymit · 30 days

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Toh Axe AU Masterpost

Short summury: Caleb is alive, he has become the emperor, and Philip is his right hand, the Black Guard. They have a terrible relationship, somewhere between slavery and domestic violence. But Philip has a son, Hunter, and almost adopted daughter - Luz, and they are going to save him.

Fanfic "Where the war axe is buried":

Original text

English translation

Early access to unpublished chapters and some sneak peeks on my Boosty

Arts:

Lore posts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Comics: 1 (1,5), 2

Arts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12

Memes: 1

AUs (yes, AUs on AU, I know, we are productive): 1, 2

Playlist

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magnetoapologist · 3 months

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these covers EAT. play everlong by foo fighters

#who's up eroticizing their homo.#the old guard force multiplied #spends all day hyperfixating instead of doing research and then accidentally saves these in the folder where i was saving articles #BREATHE OUT SO I CAN BREATHE YOU IN HOLD YOU IN AND I WONDER WHEN I SING ALONG WITH YOUUUU IF EVERYTHING COULD EVER FEEL THIS REAL FOREVERR #THE ONLY THING I'LL EVER ASK OF YOU YOU GOT TO PROMISE NOT TO STOP WHEN I SAY WHEN #the old guard #andy/noriko #joenicky #a naive melody we sing anyway

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delusionalmultifandomwriter · 4 months

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Being on The Clone Wars Tumblr for the first time ever.

First of all, Codywan is slay!

But since when do we simp over Fox!? I thought in 2014 we all simultaniously agreed that we hate him because he shot Fives?! Da fuck!

Disclaimer: I do not mean to attack anyone with this post, i am sure you have your reasons. Please enlighten me.

#clone wars #codywan #commander fox #arc trooper fives #clone trooper fives #fives my boi #when did this happen?!#that episode traumatized me at the ripe age off 9 and i never watched it again #that was 9 years ago #like the episode where ahsoka leaves the jedi order #i legit never watched it again #season 6 episode 4 #yall are better people than me for forgiving him #maybe he is hardworking and carrying for the Coruscant Guards but he shot Fives?!#why do you make him so sweet #he is a monster?! (he made me cry when i was 9 years old and probably still would now and i cant get over it)#no shame to your hcs!

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fernacular · 11 months

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It’s a bit weird that you keep seeing people talking about various characters “adopting” Miles when he very clearly has parents who love and care for him already

He doesn’t need a new dad he very much has a dad

It’s actually a pretty important part of the story that he has a dad who he loves and loves him

#ramblings #This is about Miles Morales from into-across the spider-verse #but it happens with a lot of characters #where fans are so anamored with found family that they forget some people have perfectly fine born-into families #And something else i've noticed is the characters that fans most often like to say get adopted by other characters tend to be poc #Like I just saw a post that said Nile from The Old Guard would get 'adopted' by another character like #she's a grown ass woman with living parents dude

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non-un-topo · 1 year

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#tog #the old guard #kaysanova #siggy draws #hopefully this will show up in the tags this time!#what's this? another scribbly jn piece where all you see is nicky's owl-eye? why yes it is #no idea what this bg is #they are in the backseat of a getaway car i guess! and nicky is keeping watch while joe cleans up #i have been s t r u g g l i n g with marwan's bearded face but this angle is comfortable enough

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ournextdoorneighbor · 9 months

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music theme w the guard 🎸

#the old guard #andromache the scythian #yusuf al kaysani #nile freeman #nicolo di genova #immortal husbands #dont look at the guitars too closely. im not a musician #idk where this energy came from but im not complaining!!!!!!

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jattendschaton · 1 year

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You ever read the way someone writes a character and think 'oh yeah, you definitely wrote for x fandom before this' and then one step further do you ever go back and get reinvested in a previous hyperfixation and realize you are writing your current blorbos in a distinctly fandom x-ish way?? Do I even have new blorbos or all they all just slight variations of the same bitch

#bean talks #directly inspired by rereading a previous hyperfixation from middle school #that i didnt even write fanfic for but i reread that first book well enough to recite it #and now i'm like. oh wow. i am writing adrien agreste in such a distinctly previous fixation way...#i didnt even remember this old blorbo was so similar to him ???#and now i'm like. do other people read my writing and think 'oh yeah you were definitely influenced by internet craze of 2009'#because appARENTLY they'd be right and i didnt even realize it #i kinda love that though. our previous interests all bring us to where we are today. even if it was cringe or whatever i dont care #our creativity is all wrapped up in everything we've ever loved and hated and experienced and thought about #and i like that even if it catches me off guard. nothing ever really leaves you because it's shaped the way you think about the world

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whollyjoly · 13 days

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for some reason i can't explain i know saint peter won't call my name

nothing that lives, lives forever - an immortal soldier!alton more au

(1.1k of snippets from my old guard(ish) au where alton more is old, too old, and has been living and fighting far longer than anyone should. full description/other thoughts at the bottom. tw: blood, violence, mentions of death)

Alton clicked the lighter closed, running a thumb over the silver case. The night was warm, sticky in a way that he never could get used to. He sucked in a breath from the cheap cigarette, letting his head fall back against the rough side of the barracks.

It was quiet. Typically, there would be no end to the commotion coming from the small building, one of many that littered Camp Toccoa. The wall of sound was ever-present, no matter if it was shouting or laughing or snoring. But whatever the cause, there was always noise.

No matter if it was a blanket of noise he knew well, unchanging except for the language and the scenery. Soldiers are soldiers, and some things are a constant. It could almost be comforting, if it didn’t also mean that the need for soldiers was a constant as well.

However, tonight was a Saturday, and it was one of the few weekends that Sobel had allowed Easy the use of their weekend passes. Almost every man in the company had jumped at the chance to get off base, to travel home if they could and spend time with loved ones. The ones with farther-flung hometowns had spirited off to Atlanta, happy to spend their time drinking and dancing and fucking instead of slogging through another run, three miles up, three miles down.

Normally, Alton would have joined them in their carousing - it was easier to pass the time with the effortless camaraderie built during a training camp than bored and alone.

But today had been a bad day. The sound of swords and the shift of sand beneath his feet followed him out of his nightmares, the humid summer of Georgia morphing itself into the baking, dry heat of the desert.

His shouts must have been real, because when a hand came to shake him out of his dream, the first face he saw was not that of a grouchy NCO, but of a blood-caked Saracen, eyes alight with righteous fury.

Alton didn’t think. He had grabbed the knife from under his pillow, an old thing that had been sharpened more times than he could begin to count, and was on the man in less than a breath, pressing the blade into the side of his neck. The familiar thrum of blood beat against his fingertips, the grit of sand scratched his gums. He knew what he had to do, had done it a thousand times, a thousand thousand times, what was a little more bloodshed spilled across his feet-

Alton had blinked, and came to himself in a rush.

Instead of an unnamed Saracen, the ashen face of Johnny Martin stared up at him, eyes wide behind the knife.

Alton drew back his hand, retreating almost as quick as he had lunged earlier. He mumbled a quick curse and apology as he stepped out of arm’s reach from the man. It wasn’t until Martin’s eyes widened even farther that Alton realized his tongue was slipping out Arabic of all things.

Usually, Alton was better about remembering himself, who he was almost as important as where he was. But for whatever reason, his demons had decided to catch up with him that night.

After a quick smile and some quip about the Krauts in his dreams, he managed to wave an only-slightly-mollified Martin off. The shorter man apparently hadn’t forgotten it though, if his watchful eyes during chow that morning were anything to go by.

Alton was just glad that no one else was awake to see it, at least. That was the last thing he needed.

And so, instead of joining in on a weekend of broads and booze, Alton found himself waving away the invitation by an eager Smokey and bemused Alley. When the horde made their way out of the barracks, fantasizing in bawdy terms about their planned misadventures, he felt like he could breathe easy.

Fucking finally.

Alton took another drag from the cigarette. He watched the smoke curl, up and up until it faded into nothing amongst the darkening sky.

The lighter was a welcome weight in his hand, grounding him to this time, this life.

The design was worn by now, details barely visible after a half century of worrying. It still managed to amaze him, sometimes, what people could do with the smallest of canvases. Alton didn’t feel the same wonder however, wasn’t as mesmerized by the beauty man could create as he once was.

But in the quiet moments, he could still appreciate the time some French craftsman took to transform a hunk of metal into a small token carried around by a dead man.

Luz had spied the lighter one weekend, and laughed at him for using something so old-fashioned. Alton just shrugged, not caring to admit that he was still getting used to having a light at his fingertips. It wasn’t all that long ago when he was still lighting a pipe with a flintlock pistol, and not so long before that when he would carry around a flint and steel.

Time was passing all the more quickly these days, technologies changing and advancing, and everyone was obsessed with needing things to be quicker, cheaper, simpler. Alton scoffed. He could hardly find it in him to care.

He glanced down at the lighter in his hand, shifting it back and forth in a practiced motion and watched as the light skittered across the sides.

It had shown flowers, once. A veritable garden of carnations, daffodils, and lilies of the valley, with leaves spilling across the front panel onto the back. They represent good fortune, he was told. Good fortune, luck, and hope.

When the merchant described it to him, eyes ablaze with a passion known only to those with wares to sell, Alton didn’t try to hide the snort that escaped his throat.

Fortune and Luck had abandoned him long ago, and hadn’t returned since waking up in a battlefield abandoned by all but the dead, sword in his chest and blood in his mouth.

And what the fuck was Alton supposed to do with hope?

It was the quote on the back that had caught his eye, all those years ago in a street market in Reims. The beveled edges had faded with time, the familiar letters Alton traced were more memory by now than any physical mark. Une vie honorable est une vie éternelle.

An honorable life is an eternal life.

Alton couldn’t help but stare at the message, both then and now. He hated that goddamn word. Immortal. Unending. Eternal.

They were such flowery words, used by people who craved what they couldn’t have, what they shouldn’t. The romanticized idea of the everlasting, the fountain of youth, the gift of life! Alton was sick of it.

This wasn’t life. He was a fucking dead man walking. And he sure as hell didn’t do anything honorable to deserve it.

months ago, while thinking about the absolute insanity of the almost...cavalier? attitude we see alton more have over the course of the series, an idea hit my brain: what if there was a reason nothing seemed to phase him - not panzers, not being a breath away from a car wreck, not bastogne, not speirs? what if this wasn't his first war? that thought spiraled me into a minor insanity that is this: my immortal soldier!alton more au, loosely inspired by the movie the old guard (2020). the idea is that, once upon a time, there was a soldier in a land many centuries ago. one day, he died in battle. and then, he woke up. and then he died. and then he woke up. over, and over. drawn to countless battles, conflicts, and wars, each one etching itself into the core of his soul. a never-ending cycle...until one sweltering summer, where he found himself at a training camp at the foot of a mountain. anyways. at some point, i plan on writing this as a full story, but that is admittedly a long ways away. however, in celebration of alton more's birthday today, i wanted to post my favorite scene that i've written for this au! it's set sometime at the beginning of the story, in the early days of camp toccoa. mostly, it's just a character study of this version of alton more. hope you enjoyed! and of course - happy birthday alton more!

(song insp.)

taglist: @sweetxvanixlla @coco-bean-1218 @bucky32557038ww2 @georgieluz @samwinchesterslostshoe @xxluckystrike @next-autopsy @ronald-speirs @land-sh @ronsparky @panzershrike-pretz @theredrenard @kyellin

#happy alton more day!#holy shit im actually posting this...i've been sitting on it for MONTHS #but YEAH its just...the gothic romanticism about the physical embodiment of war and soldiers and the concept of death you know??#what it means to feel and to live and to connect to those around you when it all feels so fleeting #fleeting not just due to the nature of war but also the nature of immortality #or something #...look i have a lot of thoughts about this story okay #it kills me #its also known in my brain as the “how immortal soldier!alton more made friends” story #because literally thats it thats the plot #OH WAIT did i forget to mention that speirs is also an immortal soldier in this story??#oh yeah thats the best fucking bit - they met like centuries and centuries ago on the wrong ends of one of the various punic wars #(where speirs was known back then as...wait for it...TERTIUS)#its good goddamn shit okay #also explains why alton is so fucking unflinching towards speirs at any given point and why they were so petty about the photo albums #ANYWAYS if anyone wants to hear more about this!! come stop on by!!!#also yes the title is a reference to the old guard #as is the reference to the siege of jerusalem which is where joe and nicky met #immortal soldier!alton more #alton more #easy company #band of brothers fic #mine #band of brothers #bofb #hbowar #em's moodboards #em writes #jesus christ i guess that's a tag now #alright here we go out into the void

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