#tactility

Most of the times, it’s the classic “demonic possession” type where they end up being bros, where one character is the host and one character is some otherworldly being possessing them, but for the most part the host body doesn’t undergo any significant changes and the possession is metaphysical instead of physical - Greed and Ling from FMA is the prime example I can think of. For the most part, it’s just Ling’s body that Greed can augment it with his Ultimate Shield, but there’s nothing beyond that. Their communication is on some abstract level of the mind/spirit/soul/whatever, but as far as I’m aware, there’s no feeling of someone else being there. Another example of this is the Yeerk’s in Animorphs, where they take over the brain - a weird experience for sure - but after that it’s just the host and the controller, nothing more.

With Venom and the other symbiotes, from what I understand, it’s much different than that. The symbiotes don’t just bond on a metaphysical level with their hosts - like Greedling - or with just part of the host’s body - like with the Yeerks - but instead bond very physically with the entirety of the host’s body. The host and symbiote can therefore share thoughts and sensory input so that one is entirely aware of what the other can feel, see, hear, etc, etc. Of course, this isn’t unusual in sharing a body fiction, but what makes it unusual in Venom is the physical nature of the symbiotes themselves.

The symbiotes are sometimes described as “goo”, which is simultaneously accurate yet wholly inadequate an explanation of how they work. They’re amorphous and can form many different extensions of themselves, some shaped and some just tendrils of symbiote that can move things. From my understanding, the host can feel what the symbiote feels through such extensions that reach outside the host’s body. Otherwise, how would any of the hosts be able to work in conjunction with the symbiote when they’re being Venom or Riot or Sleeper or whoever if they couldn’t see through the symbiote’s eyes or feel what they feel or hear what they hear? Also, in Venom: First Host, we see one host interface with a ship through little tendrils of a symbiote (one that they’re mentally controlling yikes) which leads me to believe that - at least in that canon - the host can sense through the symbiote’s senses.

Which is just absolutely wild to me. Imagine, being host to this goo alien that you’re probably at least somewhat aware of being basically a part of your body because you can feel it in you - but more so, being able to feel though the symbiote’s senses in whatever physical form outside your body the symbiote takes. That’s gotta be weird. Some kind of physical ESP of feeling something through an alien that’s bonded with your nervous system. Like, probably something you can definitely feel, but not fully. And, of course, the fact that the symbiote is amorphous means that it’s a sensory experience that is impossible to experience as a non-host human (okay, ignoring any Mutants or whatnot in the various Marvel universes). It’s likely an especially weird experience to feel the symbiote moving through or across skin, since the host and the symbiote would be feeling both sensations at once, one through primary senses and one through secondary senses.

It also makes things like Eddie and the symbiote holding hands (multiple times in the comics) very interesting to contemplate, since it stands to reason that they both can feel the others’ hand through their own hand, but also feel their hand through the senses of the other. To some extent. I don’t know how much control there would be moderating the sharing of senses. Probably some, since I know it’s possible to “lock” the symbiote out of “higher brain functions” (Venom: 2016) and also to pretty much completely mentally dominate it (Venom: First Host). But I don’t know how much Eddie and the symbiote would do that and at this point this is too much speculation.

This isn’t to mention all of the other physical things that would come with being host to a symbiote. There’s the rapid changes in mass and volume, which are accompanied by changes in balance that come from such rapid changes, as well as issues of balance when the symbiote is stretching itself out in one direction really far. Plus there are changes in height and strength and speed which affect things, something that Eddie and Ann talked about in the movie. That’s gotta feel physically weird. And there are the parts, in the comics at least, of relying on the other’s metabolism, which in some canon means less eating and less sleeping, or at least different habits for the two. I’m also just gonna throw in there the rapid healing that’s possible through the intervention of the symbiote, which must feel very, very strange.