#spawnrider

FIRST OF ALL. I just want to say thank you so much because this is definitely one of my favourite ships of all time and I’m glad I’m able to make other people love it in the same way i do CRIES. but second of all let me get into the brain rot yapping (sorry for the dump ahead)

johnny and al at their core are two very different individuals, but at the same time also very similar. I think because of those similarities, particularly their deals with the devil which were both made in same nature (love), they offer each other an emotional vulnerability that they couldn’t receive from anyone else, because no one could truly understand what they’ve been except each other. al’s deal got him turned into a hellspawn. johnny’s deal got him turned into a ghost rider — and at the end of the day, it was both their bleeding hearts that put them in these positions in the first place.

and building off from their similarities, most of their similarities as people *actually* come from their negative traits. both al and johnny are very stubborn, they both have anger issues, and they both tend to run away from their problems or try and deal with them by avoiding them entirely or coping through unhealthy means — which i *also* think would turn them into hypocrites. they’re the type of people to call out that same behaviour in others while denying it in themselves, and while I definitely think their relationship would start with a lot of conflict, I think them being similar also gives them the chance to grow from each other. to come to terms with the parts of themselves that they don’t want to in the company of someone who wouldn’t judge them for it the same way an outsider would.

two negatives make a positive, or whatever they say in maths. and I think something similar can be applied to al and johnny. they can avoid their problems and negative behaviours around other people, but they can’t avoid it around each other, and I think that forces them to confront it through one another. and I think the realisation of how similar they are too would help give them that grounds for relatability.

i think for both of them, johnny is the person that helps ground al’s struggle with retaining his humanity while al is the person that helps johnny come to terms with the darkness (the ghost rider) inside him. no matter the hardships johnny goes through, his bleeding heart and overwhelming care for other people is something that sticks with him. al *does* care for people, we’ve seen it in the comics and spawn animated show — but he struggles with expressing it as easily as johnny does, and often loses himself in the rage and power that comes with being a hellspawn.

johnny despises the ghost rider. he tries to bury it deep inside him and hide it from the world while clinging to the specs of what remains in his normal life, but al doesn’t have that same luxury. unlike johnny, he can’t physically *hide* what he is from the world, which helps him come to terms with his reality and power far faster than johnny does. johnny doesn’t have to hide what he is around al. al already *knows* what being a monster is like. there’s nothing about the ghost rider that could scare him, or frighten him away — and I think that sense of *security* of being able to be himself around al would be something johnny would cling to like a lifeline, because he doesn’t have that anywhere else.

and I think al being able to come to terms with his reality as hard as he does would be something in al that johnny wants in himself and frightens him at the same time. he’s afraid of accepting the ghost rider because of how destructive and "evil" if is, but i also think being able to accept it slowly overtime would help johnny get to the same point where his morality gets to steer more control over the ghost rider *and* zarathos. because zarathos feeds off of johnny’s fear, his hatred and self loathing. if he loses that, then he doesn’t have that same negativity fuelling his power and hold over johnny anymore.

i think at the end of it all, johnny and al’s overall dynamic would start with a lot of negativity and conflict, but overtime, when they’re able to learn more about each other and their shared circumstances, they’d slowly bleed into a more raw, messy, vulnerable and emotional dynamic that would also help them learn even more about themselves. they’re a light and darkness that keeps each other stable and allows them to accept both of those things within themselves, because neither can exist without the other.

the world might be an awful place, but as long as they have each other, it makes it just a little less bad and worth fighting for. :)