#roach's journal

[whateverdraws1008]

roach's journal, complete

[ohgeesoap]

Soap's journal entries concerning dogs. Typed out under the cut in case they're difficult to read.

Consider me a cat man now.

We overcame ultranationalists, chopper crashes, danger close with gunships, but a goddamn dog is what'll get me into an infirmary? Rabies, ridiculous. What a waste of time. Obviously can't tell Price or Gaz. Nikolai seems capable of keeping a secret. Probably keeps vials of vaccine vaulted with manifest intel, secretive bastard.

--

And no, I haven't exactly been on my booster shots. Think Nikolai said every two years but didn't think I'd be back in Russia so bloody soon. So yeah, was happy to follow Price and Roach over the net. Not just because it meant I was far from the mutts, but because I got to listen to the two of them working together like we once did. There was the same option: take out the target or let them him pass. Nice to hear Price taking Roach under his wing. Know the effect it can have.

[southernroach]

my thoughts on roach having a journal:

i think it’s a tattered thing that’s bursting at the seams. to me, roach is the kind of person who uses something to the point where it’s unrecognizable.

so for his journal, the bundle of pages is near completely separate from the cracked leather binding. and he doesn’t know how to fix it so he just wraps a rubber band over it twice over and tosses it in his bag. whenever he runs out of paper, he just stuffs more at the end. the pages in the beginning are yellowed from the dirt while the ends are usually a crisp white.

there’s an egregious use of post-its. either things that he remembers after the initial entry, doodles, or him wanting to provide smaller details that don’t really apply to the writings but still feels worthy of remembering. he likes to look at it from the side and see the vibrant pinks, greens, and yellows of the post-its throughout the journal.

he tried at first to keep it neat but he just gets too into the writing and suddenly his words are tipping downwards, out of line. his pencil has ripped through many pages because his emotions can get overwhelming, slaps a post-it right over that too. the ink always changes entry to entry and is slightly smudged.

unlike soap’s journal that’s filled with drawings, roach tapes things that he’s found into it. he likes how physical it is, likes running his fingers over the textures till the item softens and slightly loses form. when that happens, he tapes a big strip of transparent tape over it.

he just doesn’t really trust himself to catch all the details and that’s something so intensely important to him, so he’d rather steal a piece of that reality and keep it close.

[asterias-corner]

The last things ghost could remember, was the cracked goggles burning in the flames, soulless eyes staring right back at him- and then waking up in the infirmary. 

Sometimes he could see him, on the floor, choking on the gasoline seeping through his mask. An already deceased body burned to nothing. He doesn’t get much sleep those nights. 

The scars never help, the faint burns on his skin, an everlasting reminder of the soldier lost that day, one of not many words, yet so expressive. Sometimes ghost would hear a crackle of flames, yet no fire to be found. Memories haunting, or maybe someone haunting. 

The radio clicks on, a tune echoes through the halls. His favorite. Always heard through his headphones, and sometimes, you could even see him, Gary, sitting on the floor, listening, humming, gone with a click as the song finished. 

The disfigured apparition standing in the doorway of his room, Gary’s room. Disappearing with the blink of an eye, a phantom, a figure never to be forgotten. 

‘ ‘ I’ll never smile again. Until i smile at you. ‘ ‘

[powdarrkeg01]

Gijinka compilation ft. Yuri

[boxofthings]

I constantly think about how 09 Soap must've felt losing Roach on a mission he didn't accompany him on.

His journal entries made it clear that he cared about Roach, talking about wanting to break him in and feeling more comfortable with mentoring Roach than Price was when mentoring Soap.

Not to mention how he spoke about how he saw himself in Roach, noting how he was "raw, skilled and loyal to a fault" (and this was after one mission together) and wrote down how Roach was a quick learner, good at the snowmobile and at C4 detonation (this guy was totally pining)

the 09 timeline in general is SO angsty, the tone overall was just sm grittier and you could feel the stakes of every mission. So just think about all the close calls Roach has gotten himself in, dude got his name for a reason and Soap had to experience first hand on multiple occasions why that is (so just think about how terrified he constantly is, having to watch someone you care about get hurt so often and just barely escape death)

Might be misremembering things but I'm pretty sure on every mission we go on, Roach is always accompanied by Soap, which makes it all the more gutwrenching that the one time they're split up is the moment where Roach's life is taken. Devastating :')

I always think about the radio calls right after Loose Ends, where Soap keeps yelling for Roach and Ghost to answer, only to stop once Price yells that they're dead. He must've been so desperate to hear at least one of them confirm that they were alive, only to be met with silence.

Think about Hornet's Nest from his perspective, watching Roach fall behind and being so close to catching him but not quite being quick enough. Soap was probably terrified at the thought of having to leave Roach behind and having to watch him run for his life while guiding him from the safety of the carrier. The pure, unadulterated fear and anger afterwards must've been so potent. I'm imagining the hug afterwards, but also the yelling, probably just him calling Roach an idiot and just how many times are you going to miss a jump before it kills you??

His heart must've dropped the moment he realized Shepherd had turned against them, and Roach was heading directly to him with the DSM, miles away from Soap's location. He wasn't even able to say goodbye. And reading his journal entry right before they go after Shepherd makes me unwell lol

Anyways yeah :') no one talks about 09 soaproach enough. They make me so upset it's insane.

[fixfoxnox]

I FINALLY GOT MY GRUBBY LITTLE HANDS ON SOAP'S JOURNAL!!!

Oh boy oh boy oh boy, guys there is so much in this bad boy that NO ONE has mentioned!! The SoapRoach content in here is off the walls!! Why is all I ever see the like 2 moments Soap mentioned Ghost??? There so much Roach and Price and Gaz content here, so here are some random bits from Soap's journal:

MW:

Embarrassed that Price helped him up and caught him from the plane during Crew Expendable mission

Mentions needing to buy Price "a bottle" as a gift afterward

Upset he missed the first shot on the helicopter during Hunted, says it was "inexcusable, especially considering SAM'S shoot themselves"

Put into the infirmary by a dog bite, too embarrassed to tell Gaz or Price (only Nikolai knows)

Call's Price's mustache both a "dick-tickler" and "Price's precious whiskers"

Blames himself for Gaz, Griggs, and Price's deaths (he believes Price died on the high way) and tries to come up with other ways they could have moved through that would have let the men live

Get's stuck/angry over the image of Zhakaev's blood mixing with Gaz's on the bridge

Nik brought women to see him while he was recovering in Russia

Begins mentioning his struggles with pain killers like morphine and alcohol

He becomes almost obsessive with cleaning and caring for Price's pistol as a way to distract himself from becoming addicted

Tries horse racing and betting to cope, but eventually turns to smoking

MW2:

Soap is the one who sought out the formation of TF141, Shepherd merely backed the idea

Describes Roach as "Raw, skilled, loyal to a fault" (implied he and Ghost are absolutes for the team)

On the other end, Ghost gets a simple "what the hell kind of name is Ghost" and no other information akdndjdhjdhd

Roach has the highest score on the rifle test, a whole 18 points over Ghost

Ghost beats Roach on PFT, but only by 3 points

"Have been looking forward to breaking Roach in" during Kazakhstan

"Feel even more comfortable with him than Price must have with me" omg

Roach has a journal that Soap spots him writing in, he wonders what he's writing

Adds to the end wondering if Roach is "wondering what villa claras taste like" which is clearly a reference to Soap's own admiration of Price and wondering if Roach feels the same as that, but boy oh boy Soap was that a gay way to put it ajdjfjdbhd

Makarov weighs 184 pounds and is 5'11 I'm wheezing what a little wet rat of a man I love him

Mentions the death of Meat, so far one of the only deaths he hasn't blamed himself for

Mentions needing to trust Roach and his instinct more, essentially tells himself to cool it with the constant reminders and stuff

Plans to put Roach on circuits and crossfit because he wasn't fast enough lmao

Says he would have crashed the plane before leaving Roach on the rooftops in Brazil 🥺

Blames himself for Roach almost not making the jump to the plane

Says that Ghost "knows something about interrogation"

Mentions that the team didn't bat an eye to him torturing Rojas for information, Soap draws a comparison between himself torturing Rojas to Price torturing Al Asad.

He specifically has Roach handle the C4 after seeing how well he did with it during Kazakhstan

"Ghost hacked at a snails pace" LMAO REAL

"Funny thing watching Roach get taken down by Price" listen sir, give your boyfriend a break please

Very excited and cathartic for him to give Price his pistol back

Says that Price returning and taking over command was the "best demotion imaginable" 🥺

Was just happy following Price and Roach because he "got to listen to the two of them working together like we once did"

Says it was nice to see Price taking Roach under his wing

"For all that coaching, Roach did a shit job with the bodies" listen here sir...thats not a mechanic in the game give the boy a break akdndjjdhd

Knew that Price was up to some bullshit as soon as his comms went off

Kill shepherd: "For Ghost. Roach" 😭 throwing myself from a cliff

"Loyalty doesn't operate on a sliding scale. It's a safety. On or off."

MW3:

Nikolai and Yuri go way back, potentially from Nik's time as an ultranationalist?

Nik rescuing Soap again and Soap saying he owes him a pallet of Imperia for it akdjjdjd

"Knife would healing too slowly for tastes" baby....

Nikolai providing him with antibiotics and pain medication 😬 Soap describes them as "providing inspiration" which does not sound good

Mentions how the ultranationalists have become more violent then they were under Zhakaev

Soap lost friends during the terrorist attack in London

Final thoughts:

Omg my husband

He struggles a lot a lot with guilt from very early on

Put a shit ton of pressure on himself and blames himself for anything that goes wrong. Especially blames himself for the deaths of other characters.

Seems to have had a struggle/struggles with coping with that guilt. It appears to have manifested a bit in struggles with pain killers and alcohol that he manages through almost compulsively taking care of Price's pistol.

Attempts to cope through horse racing (and gambling?) But what ends up working is smoking.

Definitely had a lot of care for his team, particularly Roach seemed to get a lot of his attention.

Much closer to Nikolai then I think people realize. Nik saves his life numerous times and the two work together even with Price not around. Definitely helps to fill in some gaps on why Nik sticks around at the end of mw2

Looks up to Price so very much. Like stars in his eyes this man can do no wrong type of thing.

[marshvlovestv]

Video Games I Experienced 1/23/25-3/2/25

I forgot I was doing this Tumblr game journal thing! This is an old list, to the point where I already finished another list of twenty after this (which I'll be posting very soon). But these are all of the games I experienced between the end of January and the start of March (or most of them - one rule I made for myself is that the same game can't feature on two lists in a row, so even though I played, for example, Hades II during this time, it has been omitted because it was on the previous list).

35mm (watched: Laila Dyer): Aww, the game is Not Good :( Laila identified a lot of admirable ambition in it that didn't work out.

Am I Nima (played demo): I feel a bit like this was the meme game of Next Fest (is that what it means when ManlyBadassHero does a Let's Play?) but I'm so hyped for more.

Best Served Cold (played demo): I have a feeling that I'm going to be bad at the game when it comes out, being so open-ended in its investigation mechanics and all, but I want to play it.

Blueberry (played demo): I applaud any effort to talk about mental health using the medium of video games, but unfortunately I found the "depression meter" methodology too reductive.

Centum (played demo): This game is out and I super want to play the whole thing but I may need to be in a correct headspace for it.

Darkest Dungeon (played): After failing to even finish the game on easy mode, I went into this playthrough thinking I could do regular difficulty with all the DLC stacked on top of it. I'm party wiping every time.

Elroy and the Aliens (played demo): I liked the part where you could name your own adventure game. Also the rest of it.

Ezrebeth (played demo): The more space that gets between me and this demo the less interested I am in experiencing the whole game.

Growbot (played): Very weird, very cute. An absolute delight. I think my brother should play this game.

Journey of a Roach (watched: ZenBear): Zen really liked to say the R-slur at the beginning of her channel. I never realized this.

LAst Week (watched: GSDBoxer): Very bad in every way but it's kind of silly and fun to watch GSD frustrated out of his mind.

Little Kitty, Big City (played): Perfectly formulated to make a cat lover like me obsessed.

Little Problems (played demo): I feel like other people are going to be really nasty in their criticism of this game (by referencing lost cats in the Alps, as mean people are fond of doing). I didn't like it but I just thought it was a little too hand-holdy! I applaud them for doing a cute take on a dark game.

Lost Records: Bloom & Rage (played): I immersed myself in this game in a way unlike I had been able to for a long while. Enchanting.

Quarantine Circular (watched: Laila Dyer): Definitely an interesting game, might be worth a play for myself... IF it weren't for the fact that they shamed Let's Players.

Quest for Glory II: Trial by Fire (watched: Kikoskia): We're in the Middle East... why are you white...

Soma Spirits: Rebalance (played): I think the Soma games are a perfect distillation of what can make an RPGmaker game work well.

Stray (watched: Welonz): Cat isn't as cute as in Little Kitty, Big City, but this game also has cute robots

Unpacking (watched: PlayFrame): Carrie Floyd is unfortunately a little too neurotic to the point where, parasociality be damned, I don't think we could be friends anyway.

Viviette (watched: adricarra): I was totally lost as to what the story was, as unfortunately always happens when I watch unfamiliar games in Spanish.

[wordstome]

thinking about the “for Johnny” MW3 gun tonight

[whateverdraws1008]

roach expressing himself

[sixsophical]

There's a cockroach on the desk eating some leftover food that hasn't been cleaned up yet. It seems to be eating with their most front legs like a... mantis? Huh!

Ford had cleaned out his bag a few days ago, dumping everything out on a desk so he could take stock of what materials he brought with him to this strange and fascinating place. In the process he had dropped the rest of Mabel's lemon squares she had given to him before he left on the desk top and forgotten to clean it up.

Clearly, he thought, he wouldn't be dealing with pesky things such as ants or bugs because hey, peculiar magical Offices in pocket dimensions separated from the real world don't get bug problems, right?

And yet here he is, proven wrong.

The first thing he does when he sees the little roach is pick up a book with the intention to smash it. But the next thought is far more kinder.

"What on Earth is a roach doing here?" He marvels out loud as he slowly drops his book again, a thick encyclopedia about architecture.

Ford grabs for his journal and his magnifying glass and hovers over the seemingly normal and innocuous roach, to further study them.

[southernroach]

thinking of roach's coping mechanisms and i kinda think that he would have a log of all of his scars. maybe in his journal, written along the edges as if they were afterthoughts to his actual entries.

the first couple entries are clinical. they list:

the body part

the general weapon type (gun, knife, rope, whatever)

if he got revenge

all the usual stuff that he would find important

just enough to document them, in case they fade or to use as a story for later. every time he dots a period, it's with a warped sense of pride.

and then one day he gets a scar from someone protecting him. they had pushed roach out of the way a second after someone screams about a sniper through their comms and takes a bullet. roach ends up falling onto his own knife and gets sliced for it but that’s nothing compared to his savior.

when he goes to write the entry, it’s noticeably shakier, scribbled over and smudged like he couldn’t decide what to write and then got far too frustrated for what should be gratitude.

he’s seen people die but it’s never been for him. he makes sure that guy’s name is clear, makes sure the ink dries before allowing his hands to touch the page.

then another one happens. an enemy tosses a cooked grenade. they have a split second to react and the guy upfront turns around, looks him in the eye, and slams his palms into roach’s chest.

roach crashes to the ground, barely notices that he got hit with a nasty piece of debris until he’s crouched behind a wall and realizes that what’s dripping down his body is too hot, too thick, to be sweat. and another entry appears.

the scar, the location, his savior’s name. how it felt to look someone in the eye moments before death, knowing again that it was for him. another messy entry, cut only by the pristine printing of those names.

he’s lucky he doesn’t have to write one for every close call but even those have lost that naive arrogance from before.

the more it happens, the more he survives and other don’t, the less it becomes about the scars.

[boimlerkisser]

TW bug mention

Uggh I just saw a cute clip from some nature special about a type of beetle from Costa Rica and the way the narrator talks about it IS SO CUTE HE SOUNDS SO ENAMORED WITH THIS LITTLE BUG AND TBH...utoniumcore 🥺🥺👉👈

[asterias-corner]

Whumptober day 2:

trust issues

‘ ‘ you got away with the crime while the knife’s in my back ‘ ‘ 

Shepherds betrayal. 

CW: canon character death

────✦────

Everything hurt, blood seeping through his gear, and clothes, but he had to get the intel to shepherd, he had to. 

Ghost. Ghost was there, there to catch him when he fell, together they made it to shepherd, handing it off.

“Good, that’s one less loose end.” 

The last thing he said to him, as he felt searing pain, and watching ghost fall with him. No one was there to catch either of them when they fell. 

It was different when it was a teammate dragging you, because they wanted you to get to safety, when it was an enemy, it was like getting dragged to hell, and ghost was right beside him, dead. He wished he could’ve seen his face one last time, his eyes too, but they’d be lifeless. Why was he still conscious? He should’ve been dead. 

He choked on gasoline, the liquid burning his lungs and throat, seeping into his mask, and the hot, burning pain slowly tore through his gear, clothes, until it reached his already ruined skin, burning away at his body, and he couldn’t scream, couldn’t writhe in agony. Soap screamed his name through the comms still working, crackling flames the only response, shepherd had betrayed them.

────✦────

A/N: i Lowkey didn’t know what to do with this prompt 😣 but i decided to add my lil sprinkle of my perspective onto roach’s death, so yeah!! (Ghost x roach if you squint)

[leftoversludge]

argggghhhhhhhuuuhhhhhhhggghhhh

[junkmailmusubi]

Day 4 - Beffica Winklesnoot

writing today bc i got too frustrated w/ figuring out the art. yaaaahooo. slow art process moment.

"On my journey to the settlement at the center of this island, I found another one of the survivors, a strange girl by the name of Beffica. She didn't seem the social type considering her location¹ and general demeanor². I usually understand Grumps of this sort, but she still had an...unsettling air about her. I couldn't exactly pin down the feeling, it was just wrong. I also could've sworn I had seen a pair of wings in her looming shadow."

¹ By the looks of it, Beffica has secluded herself in a cave in the woods.

² Beffica seemed uncharacteristically calm in my presence and refused to talk much.