My favourite hot take is that Simon adapts way better to being a civilian than Johnny does.
Johnny went and left for the army the second he could do so, relentlessly pushed his career and is, most likely, rarely not on base unless he's been told to fuck off or move his arse home (by either his superiors or family).
Simon on the other hand finished school and then took up an apprenticeship before joining the army. Even then he came home, took prolonged leave to help his family out. He spent way more time just living that reality. And even post Roba he was at home for a while before everything went to hell. He might not take a lot of leave since, because he has nothing to come home to, but he still knows to adjust to it.
If they take leave together Ghost settles remarkably well, still keeping an eye open but he's an adult who had time outside the forces to properly adjust to life.
Soap struggles. He gets by with his charm and bright blue eyes, and that's a good thing because he's too explosive, too intense for most normal social interactions.
He's caught somewhere between the 18 year old boy and the hardened SAS soldier and never spent enough time away to really grow into just John MacTavish. Not Sergeant, not Soap, not the FNG. Just him as a person outside of the military.
He navigates this part of his life like its a minefield. Making it through but boy oh boy, it's not looking graceful.
Ghost helps him mellow out in that regard, pointing out the messy weird mechanics of normal civilan life to him. Teaches him to enjoy that and not let his job ruin him. Simon who knows how quickly it can all fall apart can't help to see the beauty in the peace most people get to experience. He'll be damned if he can't share that beauty Johnny. Even if it's always just for a little while.
And because it's Ghost, who never steered him wrong Soap let's himself be led. Allows himself experiences outside of work and his family. And while he might not be eager to admit it, it makes him a better person.
And years down the line when they both made it out, last mission just one too many that was too close for comfort, all of that helps John MacTavish to adjust. Sure he mourns his life in the military, someone like him is bound to, but he's not too worried. He knows how to get by now. And even the days where he feels very out of his depth, he can approach with ease. Because he still has Simon at his side to show him the way forward.
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probably the funniest thing i ever did as a kid was try to convince anyone who'd listen to me infodump about my favorite media that my ocs were actual canon characters in the story and then if they expressed genuine interest in checking it out i'd panic and be like no you Can't and just never speak to them again
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Be Careful What You Wish For
Tucker could make fun of him for not reading comics all he wanted, but Danny really did enjoy reading them. He just didn't have much time to after the Accident, with all of the ghost attacks.
He had the time now, he supposed. There were no ghost attacks anymore, not with Vlad "taking care of them".
He was almost scared to find out what the Fruit Loop meant by that.
Danny sighed, staring up at the bare white ceiling of his bedroom. He missed the stars he'd had stuck to the ceiling of his room back home. Because Vlad's mansion wasn't home, was it? It wasn't ever going to be, no matter what.
Again, he began to think of the heroes he'd always admired, the ones that he had always fantasized about when he was younger, as if they would fly out of the comic books and take him and Jazz away, take them to parents that would actually pay attention to them. Now, Danny would take his parents not paying attention to him over them being dead.
Danny sighed, his eyes slipping closed. He wasn't tired, but he wanted to pretend that he was somewhere warm and safe, anywhere but here.
"Man, I wish superheroes were real... I could really use one right now."
Then came a gentle whisper in his ear, one that promised the safety and warmth he was desperate for. "Your wish is my command, little Prince."
Danny jolted upright, but it was too late. One moment, he was sitting in a bed that wasn't his own, could never be, no matter how hard he tried to pretend it was, and the next, he was sitting in a field, cornstalks swaying gently in the warm breeze.
Where... was he?
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Sometimes I think about Teru And The Narrative and lose my mind. like. I joke that he's the only character who knows he's in an anime and that can be funny, but the truth is that he's so desperate to find a story to fit into because that's the only way his life will Make Sense. No, his parents didn't abandon him; they just had to go somewhere else to keep themselves safe, and he has to be the one dealing with the threats because he's The Protagonist. It doesn't matter that he's a kid; the protagonists of the stories he reads are as young as him and they deal with worse than this all the time! He has to {learn to fight off adult attackers} {hone his powers so he's unbeatable} {violate the Geneva Convention} because that's what protagonists do!
And then he meets Mob.
But instead of the experience making him realize that he isn't in that kind of story, it convinces him that he is, but he isn't the protagonist. Mob is. (And obviously, from our perspective, he's right, but he has the genre wrong. Teru has never seen a story with themes as kind as Mob Psycho's).
So then: he's a side character. He's Mob's rival (complete with intense homoromantic adoration). He redefines his role in the story, but he doesn't redefine the rules that tell him it's okay that he lives alone and is constantly fighting for his life. In fact, he keeps going out to find more ways to get in trouble. He goes to confront the broccoli alone. He makes himself a superhero outfit and starts flying around Seasoning City hoping he could gain some fulfillment from playing superhero. His after-school activity is taking down terrorist splinter groups!
Because if he tries to change the genre or abandon the conceit, tries to live his life as an ordinary middle-schooler, suddenly he doesn't have an excuse anymore. For his parents leaving. For what he needed to do to survive. It stops being fun and becomes horrifying.
In Confession Arc, one of the things that he has to face is that Mob isn't the protagonist of the world any more than Teru himself was. I don't think that he's broken out of his narrative thinking completely (he still calls himself Mob's rival), but it finally shakes some of those foundations when he sets himself and Mob on equal footing for the first time.
So afterwards, maybe he can become the protagonist of his own life. Maybe, finally, he can start making decisions about the story he wants to be in instead of trying to adapt himself to fit the one he thinks someone else has defined for him.
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