#i think it’s metaphorically idk

[sgt-tombstone]

Contrary to popular belief, when Soap joined the 141, he didn't attach himself obnoxious and irrevocably to his glowering lieutenant. There was no baby duckling moment, no imprinting from the sociable sergeant, no following Ghost around like a lost puppy

For his first few weeks on base, he was bright and loud in the way of the new kid on the block trying to make friends however he could, but he gravitated mostly towards Gaz, a man equal to him in rank, passion, and mischievousness. He sought out Ghost with the same enthusiasm that he sought out latrine duty or paperwork; a part of everyday military life that's easier to accept and move on than fight against. He didn't go out of his way to avoid Ghost, but he also didn't actively try to gain his attention either

Contrary to popular belief, it was Ghost who attached himself to Soap, not the other way around

Ghost has always stuck to the shadows, taken advantage of the brightness of others to stay hidden, to fly under the radar until he erupts with deadly force, and no one was brighter than Johnny. When Soap walked into a room, no one had the wherewithal to even think to check for anyone behind him; he stole the attention of everyone he came in contact with. He was a blaze of energy and charm and excitement, and Ghost shamelessly used it to his advantage, placing himself behind Johnny like he was deploying a decoy flare, knowing that he could rely on the shadow that Soap never failed to cast with his intensity. It wasn't a fear thing, either; Ghost never cowered in Soap's shadow. At worst, he lurked. At best, prowled. He did what he did best, assisted by an oblivious, brilliant sergeant

And when Soap caught on... Price never knew peace again, because Soap turned the glow up tenfold, intentionally creating pockets of shadow for his lieutenant to hide in, the two of them working in tandem until they didn't even have to speak, until they could move around each other with alarming, exceptional ease

Around base, Ghost took advantage of it for fun, or to get out of paperwork, or to avoid social interaction; he could trust his sergeant to distract anyone from anything for long enough that Ghost could slip away entirely unnoticed, with everyone around them none the wiser

In the field, though... They had never been a more deadly duo. There was risk involved, of course, because intentionally drawing attention to yourself in a firefight is less than ideal, but they trusted each other implicitly. Whenever Soap kicked up dust, Ghost took cover in it, hiding in plain sight, secure in the knowledge that the combination of Soap's diversion and his own trigger finger kept them completely safe. No one ever saw Ghost, not when they were too caught up in the pandemonium that was Johnny MacTavish, and then it was too late, because Ghost had already taken them out

And when Soap turned that wildness on Ghost himself, well... Simon could admit that he used his sergeant's influence to his advantage, but he'd never claim to be entirely immune to it himself...

[rottmnt-residuum]

“No mind to think. No will to break. No voice to cry suffering.”

for those of you curious about how donnie is doing

[fluentisonus]

(typing this as I walk to work so this is not articulate but) thinking a lot abt how les mis w javert sort of. hm. questions? problematizes? the Idea of dogs & the domestication of dogs (metaphorically ofc) like it sort of looks past the 'man's best friend' angle entirely & makes you think things like. kind of fucked up of humans [the social order] to domesticate the wolf [person outside of society for whatever reason] expressly to turn against & cause harm to other wolves in order to keep them out [away from respectable society] & keep themselves safe but never truly consider it an equal [it'll always just be a dog]. kind of fucked up that the dog finds enjoyment & life's purpose in this

[tiny-breadcrumbs]

Ripple

[vaguely-concerned]

thinking about not only the specific people lucanis pulls in to represent the 'locks' in his psyche, but the storytelling that happens in the structure/order of them. the underlying ideas are presented something like:

the lucanis who went into the ossuary never came back out again; he died down there (the boy caterina raised is gone forever) -> you're putting yourself in danger doing this (by being close to me), you should leave because I can't bear it if you get hurt because of me -> it doesn't matter even if we do try this, it won't work anyway (again because of me) ('you know what he's like, you can open the door but he won't walk through it' :'( oofie doofie) -> what if the real secret is that there was never anything but the monster in here from the beginning. you should leave, there was never anything here worth saving in the first place. (implicitly: what if I deserved what happened, all along.)

it runs pretty cleanly from outward-oriented attachment anxiety ('caterina won't even want me back like this, she won't recognize me (the same way I no longer recognize myself)) and gradually deeper inwards until we reach self-image and self worth. or you know, the harrowing basic lack of it lol.

"careful -- they'll know we're not right," spite says in one of their first scenes... but clearly, some very deep part of lucanis has feared or suspected for much longer than that that there's something inherently not right at the core of him, way before any demon entered the picture. and the voice he gives those lines to is the person who should know him better than anyone in the world, who he has loved more than anyone in the world -- and who deliberately chose to hurt him so horrifically anyway. 'It's better if I'm just a monster and deserved what happened than it is to allow for the idea that the brother I love doesn't really exist and maybe never did'. it's better if he's fundamentally flawed in some way that needed fixing to help him survive, and that's why caterina chose to hurt him again and again -- out of love. (this one I think he might have a very sad wakeup call on one day if he ever ends up with the responsibility and care of a child of his own in some way and realizes just how alien the idea of ever intentionally hurting them for any reason is to him. oh buddy. also interesting that he keeps caterina as the outermost lock -- there IS a distance he keeps there that he hasn't with illario. he doesn't resent her 'anymore' he says, but he also keeps her carefully further away from his deepest self.)

as far as I could tell the only note in the mind prison that's fully hidden and needs to be uncovered is the sad painful helpless stupid little truth that even after all this, even knowing what happened... he still loves his brother. is there anything illario could ever do that would make lucanis completely stop loving him, do you think? sometimes the trouble with unconditional love is that it is, well. unconditional, even when some terms and conditions probably would have been in order haha.

that's the pattern you see there again and again; he would rather destroy and abandon and imprison himself at every turn than let go of love, even when it's just scraps, even when there's only ever enough of it to hurt him. it's only when rook shows up and as it were takes his hand and walks along with him that he can entertain the idea of changing the story of what walking out the door might mean in the end.

[bluegiragi]

sometimes ghost just needs to block out everything that isn't johnny.

[ratsiclesss]

like one night ago i watched the new one piece episode and felt so old crazy men yaoi pilled that i deliriously drew this idk if it's really worth posting so i might delete later

[idkaguyorsomething]

a support group for people with “unconventional” daemons. jeff with his flounder he has to carry everywhere in a huge tank. lois with her poison dart frog everyone is afraid to touch. sam with their elephant that’s the reason they can never go higher than two stories in most buildings.

[faithblob-says-things]

Dp x Dc prompt 2

Danny gets punted into the Dc universe somehow and loses his memories along the way. Team Phantom and maybe some of his rouge gallery are currently scrambling to find him.

Meanwhile Ma and Pa Kent are very happy to have another son that fell from the sky.

[bugcatcherkit]

Was digging through the minori file in the mob psycho section of my brain

[justsomebean]

Something about I saw the tv glow and revolutionary girl utena both using coffins/graves as a literary device drives me crazy. Like your in the coffin. your in the grave. Everyone knows somehow. You could leave. but also you can’t. and your dying. Your friend has come a long way back to where it all started to get you. But you still can’t. And now your both changed. but you are still also the same as you always were. And you are still apologizing in the end.

[tapestryundone]

constantly thinking abt the long quiet and the shifting mound and their relationship w humanity. because the two are very much not mortal and even in the what happens next ending its very ambiguous if they ever WILL be or Can be. but even still they have both felt what its like to be mortal

i feel like its vague if the entity the two used to be even percieved its own existence. the way the narrator talks about it makes it seem like the two only existed conceptually and as a result lacked a complete sense of identity, and didnt need to, and wouldnt want to. but in the same way a thought cannot be unthought, the narrator gave them a glimpse into what it felt like to be mortal and the two can never un-know it, even if it wasnt exactly the same

the long quiet in particular seems especially tied to humanity and in some aspects seems to want to BE human (which feels so potent given how decidedly Not human he is). the game tends to imply that every option you get is a thought he DOES have, and in the spaces between, the choices dont seem as influenced by a given voice, which highlights even more how much he feels conflicted on his own nature that he gets Multiple options to express discomfort with himself being a god

it just gets to me how one of the options during the fight is literally "appeal to your shared humanity". because even if the two are gods, their separation and reshaping has given them humanity that they can never un-feel. for how much the shifting mound grieves what she once was, she cannot will her humanity away. shes mourning what the two of them once was and is desperate to have it back at any cost, even though they can never be together how they once were.

even if the long quiet goes with her, theyre still apart and lack balance, because the two once just Were and werent two parts. they werent both halves, they werent two concepts, they were just one concept that happened to, by human eyes, consist of two halves. and the narrators insertion of humanity into the mix in order to separate them, separating them into concepts that humans understood, manually put into existence a struggle for equilibrium where that balance had simply Existed

but theyve already perceived what felt like reality and can never un-see it. they were separated and Need the other to feel whole and for reality to BE whole but the moment that either of them realized their own free will, the moment the two fully came to feel like people, they could never be together the same way once again

im struggling to come up with a metaphor that isnt silly but its like if you took a piece of fabric and cut it in two and made them both into shirts. youve added a piece of humanity into them and doing so cost its original form. to take them apart and try to put them back together would never get you the original, whole piece of fabric back, because theyve been completely changed by their own unique destruction and reconstruction

they were separated in a way that gave them humanity that they have such conflicting feelings on. both seem to have a deep love of humanity but vastly different ideas on what humanity needs to thrive, because its in their natures

in order to get one to kill the other the narrator let the long quiet interpret the both of them as mortal. and for a being of perception and an god thats being lied to, this became part of their limited view of the world, on top of all the other reasons that the two gained humanity. the long quiet couldnt be told what to do if he didnt have the ability to potentially act on the narrators desires, and the shifting mound could never die if the long quiet didnt believe her to be capable of death

the narrator gave the two humanity and the shifting mound is very reasonably distressed by this. because the two of them never asked for this but they cant undo it. it is her OWN subtle desire for things to be the same as they used to be, her own piece of that stagnation that also led to her experiencing humanity, that makes her so adamant during the fight. she misses the long quiet and wants to undo a change that cannot be undone in search of a constant state of being that was taken from her

and the long quiet felt so closely tied to mortality, both its existence and absence, that no matter what, he wants to aid humanity. but hes been lied to and denied autonomy to the point where he doesnt know what that entails. but he wants to be a part of it. he was given fake mortality and cant seem to figure out how he feels

the shifting mound is set in how she feels it best to aid in the existence of life. she is stagnant in her feelings because its all that feels right to her. the long quiet is ever-shifting in how he feels it best to aid in the existence of life. he is changing in his feelings because its all that feels right to him

getting to the heart of the shifting mound allows them a moment to discuss it as the closest they can get to mortals. the two care about their impact on life and what it means to be alive and what better way for the two of them to truly decide what they want to do about it, outside of the conflict thats been forced between them, than as the mortals they never were?

[loosethreadsofyoursoul]

how did tristan’s metaphor about combining two things he loves turn into an i don’t want to share speech. babygirl you were so close

[vaguely-concerned]

it probably says something either sad or deeply unfortunate about me as a person, but I'm darkly amused to see some people react to the reveal of the ultimate permeability of souls in tlt as a triumphant thing -- the "you can't take 'loved' away!!!" side of it all -- when my first reaction was such an immediate wave of 'oh, oh so this is why this series is horror, I truly understand now' distress haha. ngl the final confirmation of the self not being inviolable in the deepest way freaks me the fuck out far more than any moment of body horror in the series has managed. (these two elements are of course the two sides of one thematic coin; it's about the horror of our bodies and minds and selves not being inviolable things, and about the effect of violence on them on so many different levels. violence psychological and interpersonal, physical, subtextually sexual, emotional, medical, political, a whole unlovely smörgåsbord of indignity and violation a person can be exposed to, and on a broader scale the spectrum of violence colonialism wields). The world and other people being capable of leaving indelible marks on us for good or ill through their presence in our lives is of course a pretty self-evident demonstrable truth in the real world, but somehow having it be proven metaphysically just uh. Fucks me up! 

It also drives home to me just how perfectly Muir has captured the dilemma at the heart of human connection and intimacy: the fact that the thing that gives us life and meaning is also capable of harming us so deeply. the same thing that can be so beautiful — even in a bittersweet, violently transformative form like with the creation of Paul — when done mutually and consensually and compassionately, is the same process that means someone like John can touch someone else's soul and 'after he's put his fingers on something, you'll never find anyone else's fingerprints on it; too much noise'. I think the text itself — the whole series, because to me this is what it is ultimately about, this tension between individuation/self vs. love/connection/enmeshment — is far more ambivalent in its treatment of it than saying it’s inherently a good thing or inherently a bad thing. The only thing it says for sure is that it is always a thing, that thinking you’re ever getting away from it is the height of futility, and that through being alive (or even through being dead lol) it is something you have to engage with in some way no matter what. Contact with other people is deeply necessary — without it we sicken and die. it can be the most beautiful and meaningful thing in a human life, and the most unspeakably horrific. All of these people are searching for some way to be whole, whether in total self-contained sufficiency on their own or in melding with someone else as their ‘other half’, and stumbling around in the dark they reach for each other and score deep wounds into the thing they’re trying to touch even when they don’t mean to. Taken to horrific extremes with the form of lyctorhood John guided his disciples to when they were ‘children — playing in the reflections of stars in a pool of water, thinking it was space’, because while people hurt each other all the time with differing levels of intentionality behind it, what John did was deliberate. It weaponizes the misapprehension of what closeness must be and destroys everyone involved in the process… and all because it leaves John the one sun their ruined lives have left to orbit around, because that’s the closest thing his soul will allow to connection. He doesn’t understand that to truly touch something you have to truly let it touch you back, and then wonders why he’s never satisfied.   

‘The horrors of love’ has been memed to death, I know, but… yeah. That is what it is, isn’t it.

[sweetmilkbread]

'Walter White Is An Abuser' (Wired, 2013)

[iwasbored777]

I wanna know what's going on in the heads of everyone who watched Deadpool & Wolverine and think that the movie wasn't gay. Did you even watch the right movie?