Chino

Character reference art generated with AI.

Aliases: none Status: Main

Chino is one half of the duo the universe is named after: a Filipino stoner (“I’m Filipino, ese,” as he corrects Homeboy after an ex’s parents dismiss him as the “Mexican of Asia”) sharing a broke, weed-less apartment with his best friend. His default state is collapsed on the couch in boxers and a tank top, nursing a fresh heartbreak and staring through a blank TV like it’s personally wronged him. Hand him a problem, though, and the schemer wakes up: he turns Homeboy’s throwaway party idea into the actual mooch-off-your-friends operation in The Last Blunt and talks them past a classified-area engineer with a Jedi hand-wave in Night School. He draws VA money. His goes to “food… and weed,” which puts military service somewhere in his past, a past he and Homeboy half-remember through tall tales about a Marine sniper unit. The ornate stash box in the kitchen cabinet was his grandfather’s, a war trophy taken off a Japanese officer in World War II; per Lucy, the same box has been changing hands since a Pharaoh kept his Blue Lotus in it.

Voice & running gags

Chino’s voice is dry, deadpan, profane: the permanent “ese” to Homeboy’s chaos. His romantic life runs on a loop: dumped by Sarah Yazzie the guerita (twice, by his own count), dumped by Destiny the morenita for being an “ambitious pothead,” dumped by a “little Asian rucita” whose parents found him insufficiently Asian, and finally parted from Lucy on a curb after her brothers are murdered. He is almost never between girlfriends for long, and almost never happy with the current one either. He still shows up for the next one with total sincerity.

Role in Volume 01

• Uncle Rob’s Time Portal: Opens the volume face-down in heartbreak over Sarah, allegedly caught with another man. Volunteers for Uncle Rob’s untested beer-can time portal, jumps back to yesterday morning, steals his own stash and leaves himself the IOU note that started the whole mess. At King Taco he spots Chad, the “other man,” and learns he’s gay and was delivering Sarah a birthday present. Crashes Sarah’s birthday, reconciles in the bedroom, throws a party where he meets his own day-earlier duplicate’s chaos, and rides the dying portal home with a bag of seeds and stems.
• Uncle Rob and the Aliens: Abducted off the street mid-argument, strapped face-down on an alien gurney negotiating whose culo gets probed first. An alien crewmember (“Aye Papi”) gets him through a thought-locked door; alien weed lets him hear Homeboy’s thoughts, which he experiences as a sentence. Closes the night still stuck on the one detail that matters: “What do you mean he?”
• The Last Blunt: Nine dollars and ninety-nine cents, one penny short of a dime bag. Architects the fake BYOB party scheme, runs the beer heists (one case clean, four cases busted at “Scavengers!”), finds Homeboy mid-makeout with Mary Jane (“I told you to score some Mary Jane, not score with Mary Jane”), and closes the night’s haul, Jimi’s weed (wallet returned, pistol disarmed, powder untouched: “dope is for dopes”) plus the bush couple’s public-sex tax, by stocking the toilet-tank stash like contraband gold.
• Nature Sucks: Dumped again (“Again?!”). With twenty crumpled dollars he takes a shortcut through the Ominous Forest, delivers a public-health seminar on Zika zombies, and finds a harvest-ready weed field where he teaches a Sasquatch to inhale and names him Chuy on the spot. Stares down rednecks at gunpoint (“that’s Mr. Sasquatch to you, puto”), war-paints up for a rescue that turns out unnecessary, and plays the one card that cracks Mr. Dealer: “Chuy killed a shit ton of racist rednecks to get us here.”
• The Cursed Joint of Bayankala: Declines the cursed joint on the grounds he’d rather not find out if he turns into a “pinche cucaracha.” Plays tour guide to Homegirl’s first day as a woman: tacos, the King Taco run-in with Destiny, Mary Jane’s crash course. He dispenses exactly the advice you’d expect from Chino at Chris’s party. Ends the night kissing Mary Jane and sealing a Devil’s Triangle three-way high-five.
• Mary Jane’s Four Dimensional Adventure: Insists on a twenty-to-thirty-minute training montage (with stretching) before smoking interdimensional weed, installs Chuy as coach, and comes home to an invisible Mary Jane. Presides over six hours of fourth-dimensional Monopoly, orders Uncle Rob to sit the fuck down when he tries to leave, and closes the night around the demonic pipe with one mystery unsolved.
• Mrs. Dealer and the Edibles Factory: Broke and dateless with Lucy waiting. Gets hired by Mrs. Dealer over her husband’s objections, takes the kitchen station, and gets caught by Greg mid-passion with Trixie in the custodian’s closet (“Just five more minutes!”). De-escalates a feral Homeboy with a fistful of edibles, survives HR with a packing-and-shipping reassignment, and ends the night on the couch between Mary Jane and Lucy laying down the house rule: no swapping.
• There Can Be Only One: Delivery boy who finds a headless corpse and an ancient sword in an alley. Wakes Uncle Rob at midnight, helps drag the “body” across town, digs a grave in the Ominous Forest, and talks the resurrected Killian into a mansion deal. Closes the night eating the undelivered edibles on Killian’s couch.
• Lucy’s Box: His betrayal over Homeboy giving Lucy his key lasts exactly until she sits on his lap. Asks the theological question (does killing a Free Angel send her to Hell?), puts a boot into Dos Santos during the escape, and physically pulls a sobbing Lucy off the beaten hunter in the Ominous Forest. She ends it on the curb; he confirms it to Homeboy flatly.
• Count Dragula: Still hung up on Lucy, scrolling her photos under a Mexican Tiger blanket. Works Homeboy’s delivery list with Mary Jane, meets a vampire in an alley (“Blah, blah… I’m here to suck your blood… dude”), and finds Homeboy roped to a bed eating grapes with his feet. The night ends in a victory blunt, and Tara leads him to the bedroom.
• Big Trouble in Chinatown: Follows Thomas into an underground Kumité, gets shackled to a concrete wall by General Pain, and breaks the siege by starting a room-wide vomit chain, letting nature happen in front of everyone. Ends the night in a pink robe and bunny slippers.
• El Cucuy and the Nightmares: Armed with Uncle Rob’s PTSDream and a nose for trouble, talks his way backstage at The Colosseum, and when the crowd’s weed turns out laced with LSD, makes the call: dose the band instead of the crowd. Watches Lux Intima burn the horror out of the sky, gets kissed full on the mouth by Alice, and gets named MVP by El Cucuy himself.
• Night School: Asleep through Astrophysics and Cosmology, perfect score anyway (“Passive Osmotic Learning”). Vapes Uncle Rob’s Jedi Mind Trick in the Vandenberg latrine, Jedi-mind-tricks a classified-area engineer (“We do belong here”), gets launched into orbit by accident, and ends the volume being pampered by Amazonians in a day spa. To be continued….

The Adventures: Volume 02

• Date Night: Sarah returns out of nowhere and throws herself at Chino on the couch; he pumps the brakes and proposes a double date instead. He spends the night fending off her relentless advances at King Taco and mini-golf, grows convinced with Homeboy that she is not his Sarah (alien impregnation theory), and ends the night drenched in blue gore when Sarah explodes inside the mini-golf castle.
• El Duende: Receives a Duende as a gift from El Cucuy and names him Loki after the collar tag rewrites itself. Brings Loki to Uncle Rob for training; Loki snaps his fingers and turns Uncle Rob into a dog. Tries to establish himself as pack leader per Cesar Millan’s advice, but Chuy walks off with Loki, whose tag rewrites to RAWR.
• Uncle Rob and the Edibles Factory: Put in charge of the dispensary with Homeboy while the Dealers vacation in Argentina. Perfects a “welcome customer” routine, stays oblivious to Uncle Rob’s factory war behind the back door, helps Uncle Rob up after Greg’s Kush Monsters toss him into the street, and earns a “good job, boys” from Mr. Dealer on his return.
• Mr. Bitches and the Emporium of Sex: Delivers to Mr. Bitches’ Emporium of Sex and pockets a job offer as an “associate of pleasure.” Spots Sarah Yazzie in the Palace of Pleasure menu, stages “Operation Sarah” with a gang of Mexicans, knocks her out with a vape pen, and carries her out in a fireman’s carry, convinced she is not there of her own free will.
• Uncle Hank and the Naked Pod People: Deprograms a Sarah who remembers nothing, tracks down Uncle Hank, and infiltrates the Emporium with Killian, Mary Jane, and Sarah as cover. Finds the real Sarah suspended in a stasis pod, frees her, and leads the naked pod people out while slap-boxing Mr. Bitches.
• The Joint of Azathoth: Smokes Uncle Rob’s “Azathoth OG” joint with Homeboy and swaps bodies with him. Agonizes over Sarah’s visit while wearing Homeboy’s body, proposes an orgy as the solution, gets overruled by Sarah’s rules, and swaps back after re-smoking the joint’s remnant.
• Tequila Homegirl: Watches Mary Jane arrive with Homegirl and deduces tequila triggers the change. Plays armchair scientist about their positions, passes out during the makeover montage, and texts advice while Homegirl’s date with Chris goes sideways.
• The Man of Iga: Spots the “ninja” at King Taco, grabs paintball gear from the Gremlin’s trunk, and fights the Man of Iga at the park. Joins the dock assault on General Pain’s cargo ship, fires a paintball down the demon’s throat, and hits the deck when the Man of Iga’s sword detonates him.
• Of Rednecks and Vampires: Answers the door with a paintball gun, joins Uncle Hank’s vampire hunt planning, and gets captured with the recon team. Bonds with Nagan over The Walking Dead, negotiates the peace, and talks Uncle Hank into apologizing to the coven.
• The Return of Dos Santos: Gets the “Dos Santos is back” news from Lucy, gets knocked out in the caravan explosion, and wakes in the hospital with a concussion. Apologizes to Sarah for never telling her he dated the Devil.
• Mr. Dealer and the Intergalactic Authority: Abducted by the Intergalactic Authority while waiting on deliveries; celebrates that the charge is drug distribution, not Amazon child support. Signs for a distributor’s license, watches Mr. Dealer’s interrogation, and refuses to leave him behind, tricking Mr. Dealer into cooperating by suggesting Mrs. Dealer was taken to the incinerators.
• Lucy Ex Machina: Goes along to the Jiggly Room, gets a private-dance offer that Sarah hijacks for herself, and gets drugged and caged with the crew. Watches Lucy destroy Mr. Bitches’ sexbot lineup with Killian’s sword.
• The Emperor of the Universe: Plays Monopoly at the barbecue, races to the Ominous Forest when Sarah and Mary Jane are taken, and confronts the Emperor of the Universe on the red carpet. Catches the Desert Eagle Sarah yanks from Mr. Bitches and watches Uncle Rob befriend the Emperor and fly off with him.

Relationships

Homeboy is the constant: roommate, co-conspirator, the man whose keylessness structures Chino’s entire domestic life. Chino talks the schemes down or, more often, gets swept along and starts improving them. Uncle Rob is drinking buddy and weed connection (honorific only, not literally their uncle), treated with exasperated deference. Mary Jane drifts between friend, genius, and makeout partner without ceremony. Mr. Dealer and Mrs. Dealer supply the habit, then employ them. Chuy the Sasquatch joins the household in story 4 and stays. Romantically: Sarah Yazzie, Destiny, the unnamed rucita, Lucy (the longest, ending on-screen), Alice, Cindy. Plus one instantaneous, doomed crush on Lieutenant Mitchell.

Notes

• The demonic red-black pipe and the ornate stash box show up in story after story; Lucy’s box is their twin, and the note (“We owe you one stash of weed. Signed, Chino and Homeboy”) is their signature.
• “Orale,” “ese,” “no seas guey,” “chale”: his Spanish is fluent and constant, Homeboy’s enthusiastic and approximate.

Reference Art

Character reference art generated with AI.

Military Chronicles

Record not yet declassified.

Space Adventures

Record not yet declassified.