"What if I fade?"
Soap lifts his head from his journal, looking up at Roach who is eerily floating near the ceiling. The slow movements almost make him look like he's in water. Kind of ironic given the way he died.
"What do you mean?" he asks, confused.
"What if I move on, what if I disappear," Roach elaborates, refusing to meet his eye. "Not everyone is a ghost, right? We'd be overly crowded. The fact that we're not also means that not every ghost stays."
Soap forces his dry throat to swallow. He honestly didn't want to think about that. He still needs Roach, he probably always will, but he hasn't even told him that he - he takes a deep breath in to calm himself.
"I don't know how it works," he admits quietly, bouncing his leg absent-mindedly. "You're probably right, like most of the time. Even if I really want you to be wrong about that."
Roach finally looks towards him.
"Maybe I should move on," Roach whispers. "It's not healthy, Johnny. You have no idea the things I want, what I wish for, that I'll never get."
Soap doesn't stand up, just keeps staring into Roach's eyes.
"I think I might have an idea, actually," he whispers back. Roach flounders for a moment. Soap really wishes he didn't get that wrong. He's pretty sure Roach meant that he can't have Ghost, and he himself can't have Roach. So... It's pretty similar.
"I've been feeling less like myself recently," Roach insists, deciding to ignore that comment for now. "I find myself wishing one of you would die so I wouldn't be alone. I never thought like that before, I fear that I may have stayed too long, that I'm starting to lose myself."
And he looks scared. It's written on his features so clearly and it breaks Soap's heart.
"You're not alone," he swears. "I'm here with you, and I'll make sure you stay you, however I can."
Roach looks at him, examining his face, looking for... something. Whatever it is, he seems to have found it because he exhales through his nose like a very soft laugh and averts his eyes, almost... blushing? It's a bit hard to tell from the distance and his left cheek being covered in burns while his right is covered in freckles, but he's pretty sure his ears are red.
"You can't look at me like that, Johnny," he says almost coyly. "I can't do anything about it, it's not fair."
Soap's face is burning and his eyes are wide. Was he too obvious? Did Roach understand or is he joking?
They probably look stupid, both of them redder than a fire truck, avoiding the other's eyes, regretting their words. Or at least he supposes that it's what's happening, because he's sure not looking up.
"If it makes you feel better," Roach finally says, sounding like he's smiling, "you were right for once : I am right most of the time. Judging by your reaction, you did indeed have no idea what I want."
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I cannot get over this absolute banger of a front cover.
First we have Odasaku front and center, and then there's Dazai - split between side A and side B - right above him. There's a clear, jarring difference with Beast!Dazai's dead eyes, bruised skin, while almost drowning in bandages, compared to Main!Dazai's mischievous grin.
Their worlds are such vast contrasts to each other, and yet Odasaku remains unchaging in both, especially in appearance. Same old striped-shirt, beige-coat wearing Oda.
And then there's the cards. Someone made a really good tweet about the meaning of every card (here's the link) but basically, Beast!Dazai has cards that symbolise commitment and death - which greatly connects with the fact his main goal in the Beast world is making Odasaku stay alive, a plan that probably started way before he was fifteen - while Main!Dazai has cards that express genuine self, freedom, acceptance, and personal growth. Development that we see in the main story, nearly growing alongside him sometimes.
Now if that isn't a knife to the gut, I don't know what is.
Oh wait. I do.
The future of the Beast world. The frames that have Dazai and Oda's confrontation, where everything came crashing down until the jaw-dropping finale in Beast. I absolutely hate how I'm still not mentally, emotionally, of even physically recovered from this scene.
How can I when Oda described Dazai as a child about to cry 😭
Anyways, my parting words is that I wanna imagine the burnt page in Oda's hand signifies that because of Beast!Dazai's intervention, he "burnt a page" about the good relationship they could have had. For him to survive, Dazai made himself be the enemy in the Beast world and made something of a good world that still feels emptier than the original one.
🥲✌️
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Just finished watching Wendigoon's video about Hisashi Ouchi and had a terrible, awful, no-good DP prompt idea come into my head. Come suffer with me.
So the Fentons constantly threaten to tear ghosts apart "molecule by molecule" right? What if they managed to make an anti-ghost weapon that made good on that threat? One that tore apart ghostly DNA or ectoplasm, and just straight-up turned any ghost hit by it into green goop, melted within seconds like Danny's clones?
So I imagine that at some point after destroying a couple of ghosts with this new weapon, Jack and Maddie finally manage to corner Phantom somehow. Terrified, Danny is left with no choice but to try to explain who and what he is, hoping to all the Ancients that it will be enough to stop them from hurting him.
Unfortunately for him, the Fentons don't really listen at first and shoot him point blank.
Danny puts his arms up to protect himself and closes his eyes, trembling in abject fear, imagining himself melting away into a pile of goop right in front of his parents. He desperately hopes it's quick and painless. He waits for the end.
...and waits
... and waits
The Fentons and Danny both feel shocked, but Danny eventually laughs (a bit hysterically) and continues explaining his accident, intensely relieved that his half-human nature had protected him from this weapon.
Once he explains everything, the Fentons apologize with tears in their eyes for how they had treated him. They accept him for who he is, and promise to do their best to learn more about ghosts' true natures. They decide to use their inventions in an actually scientific, ethical way, to learn more about this culture and people. Danny and Jazz are both ecstatic. Everything seems perfect. Sure, Danny might have thrown up and passed out the minute they got home from that little talk, and sure, his skin turned a bit red and painful where he got hit, but that was the extent of it, right? His human half purged the effects of the weapon from his body, no harm no foul.
But they all forget that while Danny's DNA is half human, it is also half ghostly in nature, and the weapon just tore through those parts of him like bullets through paper.
A week later, Danny's skin starts to feel like it's burning
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