my headcanon is at least One member in the van der linde gang isn't going by their real name
cus ykn how most joined by attempting to steal from dutch or hosea or whatever
there had to be one that didn't trust the gang At All and told them a fake name and after they realised tha gang could be trusted, they were already wayyy too far in deep to suddenly go like "oh by the way i'm actually (name) aha awkwarrrrd ,,,,"
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soap's whole deal being sniper and demolitions gets me going bc on the surface they sound so different but when you get into it, you realise it's bc soap's smart
sniping is all math; calculating distances and wind interference and bullet drop. something i think people overlook is he was listed as a sniper first so it can be implied that he's better at it than demolitions. he does more sniping in both campaigns than demolitions work; in capture or kill, ghost specifically calls on him to take down the aq snipers
and demolitions is math with a hit of chemistry; knowing what mixes with what, knowing how much to use, recognising environmental factors and adjusting accordingly. it's not just about the boom; so much work goes into contained/ planned explosions. especially when having enough power for a breacher charge and not bringing down the whole building is the difference between mission success and failure
the chemical bombs he makes in alone can't just be any old cleaners, they have to have the correct reaction to each other; he just knew off the top of his head what would mix with what to create what reaction. he would also potentially have to recognise them by sight/smell bc they would’ve been written in spanish
soap would also have to know architecture; recognising structural integrity and weak points so he knows exactly where to plant a charge to bring it down and how it'll come down
he has an incredible soldier's mind people just forget that bc he's sociable which itself is a skill
we know he tends to buck against orders he doesn't agree with like when he pushes back against ghost in capture or kill and shepherd when he tells them to release hassan
he gets closer to people and sees if he can trust them and that's when he follows them without question. really think about how he talks to alejandro and rudy; he asks about their home and alejandro's family and rudy's relationship with him. those aren't questions you ask a stranger after a few hours of knowing them. that's not even touching on his relationship with ghost
he also deliberately brings people of higher ranks down to his level; talking informally with ghost and giving him a shoulder punch, addressing alejandro (a colonel!!) by his first name and rudy by his nickname despite literally just meeting them. he personalises all of them and it’s in direct opposition to the reason most characters do that; it’s not due to insubordination or lack of respect, the more he respects and trusts someone, the more casual he is with them
he digs into people; he wants to know what makes them tick and that determines if he can one, trust them and two, follow their orders. once he decides that, he's the ultimate soldier; he bleeds loyalty which makes him vicious when that loyalty is taken for granted
he isn't naive or bubbly or insecure; he's an incredibly smart and aware soldier. he's aggressive and bloodthirsty and loyal and intuitive and i love him so much
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devoured midnight mass and now i can't stop thinking about a Price-Priest au for some reason, but like:
he's a good leader. a pillar. but you keep making him question his faith, his morality. he clenches the rosary so tight in his fist whenever you come into the confessional that it leaves permanent marks on his palms. fresh wounds on his back from self-flagellation. hides in the confessional for days, muttering miserere to himself, acts of contrition. he's fully convinced you were put on this earth to tempt him. lead him into damnation.
you become his ultimate Test. he has to save you. has to. but you keep driving him mad until he breaks. bends you over the pulpit and fucks you in a house of god, consumed by his own downfall. all wicked, bastardised religion. the grievous weight of lust crushing him until he's broken in your hands. now a wrecked, wretched man in search of absolution that he decides can only be given to him by you. thinking along the lines of corrupted salvation. that slow crawl to unhinged, obsessive devotion. madness, honestly.
he's a zealot; you're the sanctuary that will save him. no matter what. after all, god made you just for him.
(except that god has fangs and eats flesh.)
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Complaining abt Suicide Squad yet again but the fact that they have Waller exposing the alien community to space racist attacks and talking abt how she got to her position through deceit and being a terrible person and stuff is just. Ahsfiwueh JUST SAY YOU DONT KNOW WALLER.
Anyways literally the 3rd mission of the Squad ever (and the first framed as smth Waller picked and not orders from above) was the Squad discrediting and stopping a rogue vigilante who was only arresting POC and funneling white people into white supremacy groups (of which he was the most prominent member) in SUICIDE SQUAD #4. and it's explicitly framed as this mission being personal for Waller that she's hiding from the government bc its illegal like. Guys. Please why are we having her incite (space bc comics) racist attacks now
Also the whole "Amanda got her position through deceit and being a terrible person" NO. she KEPT her position through being shitty and playing complicated political games!!! She wasn't always that way like there is a difference and it is IMPORTANT ppl PLEASEEEE. In Secret Origins #14 we learn Amanda's backstory and she used to be a normal, caring person! Like even after she entered into working in government and politics she wasn't automatically morally bankrupt like please people. She was originally given control of the Squad by Reagan (*sigh* 80s comics...) to distract and get rid of her because she was so successful at pushing progressive social policy in Congress. Acting like she's this static pillar of evil is such a waste of her character and so fucking uninteresting and disrespectful to her arc it drives me MAD.
Like I am NOT saying Waller is all sunshine and rainbows, she fucking SUCKS (said w love <3) but like there's a human being there. It's a progression, she has a character arc like please, DC, please!!! They've fucked up Waller so bad and made her so opaque and uninteresting she can't even be the protagonist of her own story for fucks sake!
Like I don't know how many times I have to scream it until DC hears me or remembers but WALLER IS THE MAIN CHARACTER OF SUICIDE SQUAD. ITS HER BOOK. yet right now she's a cutout to be used as the villain wherever the writers please. Even in her book we get none of her perspective really displayed, no exploration of her thoughts with any kind of understanding of the role she traditionally has played and was made to play in the story.
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university/college AU where simon and tommy are actually identical twins—which they’ve used to their advantage plenty, usually for course purposes, and miraculously no one ever catches on.
so, in harbouring a huge crush for one john mactavish, but being way too shy to go up to him and ask him out, simon thinks to use his more charismatic and charming brother to help him out.
tommy is super reluctant because it means deceiving john, and surely that won’t end well, but simon manages to convince him eventually, and so tommy sets out to at least score a date with john on his brother’s behalf.
which is done quite easily, actually (thankfully). tommy tells simon the time and place, and wishes him luck—except then simon chickens out at the last second and tommy has to go in his place, because no one is just going to stand john up.
unbeknownst to tommy, john actually figures out relatively quickly into the date that it’s not actually simon that’s seated across from him. their first conversation about setting up the date had been so brief that john didn’t have the time to figure anything out—but now he plays along, just to be polite, until they reach the end of the date.
john awkwardly tells tommy that it’s been great, but he’s not actually into him, but rather simon. he thinks that this had been a ploy in order to set tommy up with john, but then tommy is exhaling the biggest sigh of relief saying, oh thank god, simon was just too nervous to ask you out himself. tommy goes on to explain the whole situation, and thankfully john is very understanding, and together they hatch a plan to actually get simon and john on a date—without the risk of simon backing out again.
it works, of course—john asking simon out is hardly something to be ignored—and they get together officially after that, a very happy relationship in spite of the slight mess of a start.
from then on, simon and tommy keep the whole trading places thing to a very bare minimum.
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Thinking about the symbolic weight of smoking in the TLT universe that comes to the fore in The Unwanted Guest -- the way it moves through from person to person: Pyrrha smoked, and Augustine wanted to impress her in all her stone cold fox MILF James Bond glory (and tbf who wouldn't) so he started too. and even though as far as he knows she's been gone for a myriad and is never coming back, he keeps the habit. Ianthe sees something in the hollowed-out Faberge eggshell of Augustine that resonates with her, all that gilded eloquent emptiness and disdain through the ages, so she picked it up from him to try to emulate it. She picked it up so hard that Palamedes -- the exact spiritual antithesis of the 'smoking! on a space station! what a powermove' ennui Ianthe so admired -- spontaneously unnerded enough to even known how to, simply from a sort of contact contamination of the soul.
G1deon and Augustine sharing a jittery smoke after their near-Harrow experience during soup night, and it's the closest thing to any real sense of brotherhood that remains between them. Pyrrha going ten thousand years dying both literally and for a smoke (and then Camilla sold her fucking cigarettes (for a third of what they were worth, probably Pyrrha's own good, and also more importantly grocery money). what an entirely haunted time to be alive etc.). Augustine and Mercy trading a cigarette back and forth in the middle of their collusion over the love and murder of god.
An act of small and measured self-destruction in the name of something a little bit like connection when you're stuck somewhere in yourself where love itself dares not or cannot tread (ritualized, transmissible)..........
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