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benisbeaaaaans · 3 days ago

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Venomous Rant PART 2 BABY!

Hoooo boy, weren't expecting this were you? Unless... Unless you saw my post from earlier about uh, about a video that might be cause for a rant. In which case...hi.

ANYWAY time to talk about Venomous' parenting, with the help of notes I took on a video titled "The WORST Dad in Cartoon History" And unlike them, who avoided details about him in order to keep things in more sequential order, I will be bringing up spoilers as needed. Alright let's get into this. (Cob, Kaydin might be right...maybe I should just make a video about him wheeze)

Now to get something out of the way, god I hate clickbait titles like this. My autistic ass will think you're genuinely trying to call him the absolute worst when that clearly isn't the case.

I also can tell they don't fully understand him from the get go, because despite calling him their favorite, they seem to miss some rather obvious character details, such as his calm and cold demeanor being- his actual personality.

They even mess up his backstory which I didn't think was possible to the extent they did. I'll get this out of the way as quickly as I can, because it's important to some things that will get brought up later, especially if you didn't see my first rant, and even if you did some of this is new info from further analyzing this show like a psycho. (Shoutout my Boyfriend @benisbeaaaaans for tolerating my insanity)

Laserblast's issues were not just as general as low self esteem and power hunger, it's heavily implied that he had severe imposter syndrome about his powers and his place in the team. Aside from his helmet, his powers limited him to a support hero, and the way his death was treated outside of P.O.I.N.T implies that he was beloved not for his actions and heroism, but for his looks. Even the newspapers describing his death state "Hot hero will be missed" And while yes he is objectively one of the most attractive characters in the show, vanity is never a point of contention for him. He cared about how people saw him as a hero, and being seen as a pretty face rather than an actual valued part of the team can hurt anyone's mental health. Especially people with issues already.

Also, hearing Carol say he wasn't strong enough to survive the blast did not flip a switch from hero to villain in him immediately. That's not how people work. Even people with issues like Laser had. It DID cause him to go into hiding, because he knew at least he thought he knew, how she'd react, and that it would be even harder to do anything about his new disability if he went back to P.O.I.N.T. It's very likely he had a sort of lie planned for when he returned if he succeeded. But as far as he knew, he didn't. And so despite his failures, he found villain's not only cherishing his work, but practically worshipping him over it. And that, turned him to super villainy.

But getting into their actual points, Fink is addressed first. (For some reason they have this very odd need to call out how Fink is not related to him while K.O is, despite that not being really relevant to parenting? It's weird imo) They believe Venomous' parenting style for Fink while not as awful as they see it with K.O is still awful and seriously damaging. And i simply can't agree.

We'll start with the part I took the screenshot for this rant from, All in the Villainy, struggling to find a way to get their children to get along, Venomous comes up with the punishment to... get them presents. This is not a healthy way to punish your children and proves that Venomous simply caves to his daughter at a moments notice. ...Well except-

Something their video didn't mention is that this isn't the first thing they tried to help Darrell and Fink bond, even in this episode. Matching with the theme of the "Voxy Bunch" opening, the idea of making kids share a bedroom to get along is very sitcom tropey, but usually works out in the end. However this isn't a sitcom and things...don't go well.

And to give them credit, he does disagree with Boxman's punishment idea only to offer presents. It's honestly a great showing of his softer spot for things he finds cute (a detail I'd like to thank @theromanticscrooge for pointing out) But I also think why he cares so much about Fink in particular goes beyond that.

This episode is the first time we see baby Fink, and also assumedly around the time Venomous first found her, and she's small, weak and powerless in a sewer.

Remind you of anyone?

Now honestly you could use this comparison as why he adopted her in the first place. Hell for all I know, it might be the canon reason. I don't stalk Ian on twitter for all those little questions that got asked after the cancelation.

You could even go an extra step forward, and say that a third reason he has such a bleeding heart for his daughter is the fact that she doesn't see their relationship as a parental one. She's adopted, and with the type of villainy her father does, I wouldn't be surprised if she sees their relationship as more transactional than anything else. (They use this idea as evidence that Fink is abused, but you really can't expect a child to immediately accept her adoptive parent as that, especially given Venomous' line of work. Like a lot of real kids, she's defensive about those overly personal terms just in case it doesn't work out and she loses him. And we didn't get enough episodes to know if this ever changes)

But alright, even if he's got a soft spot for her, that doesn't make gift giving a proper form of parenting. But in this case specifically, there's more to it. These gifts are just another bonding exercise, and one that worked on PV himself. Every time he's fed up with Boxman's actions, attacking the plaza reminds him of what's more important, the fun of destroying heroes. So it's not surprising he uses that same method to encourage his daughter and step son. And it works! Hell, after the merge is when we start to see bot combinations where they don't spend most of the time attacking each other, because it's way more fun to fight the heroes than each other!

Now, they do also discuss PV's gift giving as a parenting tactic in K.O. vs Fink, but it's a very... surface level understanding of why she's upset and the sadness of that whole situation.

It's important to mention that Shadowy Figure has become a slowly more consistent and persistent issue in the story by now. And in this episode especially we see him lurking around the sewers basically the entire episode, and we see the toll this takes on PV, as he starts the episode rather normal looking, reading something off his phone as he listens to his daughter rant about how much she hates K.O, to the end where he's practically laying across his desk, sweating and a visible mess.

Due to being shot by a love beam, and well, her general attachment to her father, she wants to spend time with him and asked him to bake her a cupcake. Now obviously they can't just have fink say she knows why her father is so drained and weak suddenly, but that doesn't change the fact that she definitely does know where this change comes from. (She even calls back to it in Let's get Shadowy) and like a lot of little kids, instead of just wanting to let it sit, she tries to offer her own solution. We can just bake it together! And like me with a migraine, he gets a bit snappy. (If you want to make this sadder, the whole "I'll call you if I need you" before she slumps off could definitely link to that fear of being in a transactional relationship, rather than a familial one.) But we see her go into her room which is now flooded with gifts from PV, she ignores every one, and crashes into her bed. Now, if this was the only context we had for their relationship, I'd totally agree, PV is terrible for ignoring his daughter and trying to make up for it by just giving her dozens of presents. But, this isn't the only context we have. And everything else we have shows that this is very much not the norm.

In "villain's night in" (One of my favorite Fink and Venomous episodes honestly) She goes on about what her and Venomous' relationship is like, grinning proudly as she goes on about how much her boss loves her and all the things they do together. And her gifts from the time seem to be a lot more personal and aimed towards her likes, like the movies she enjoys like lord of the loot.

After his meeting in "Boxman Crashes" she asks to drive the car for him, which means not only did he teach her to drive, something he clearly has an enjoyment of himself, but likely has a special setup that allows her to do so (Or maybe it's something similar to what Carol had to deal with with K.O, where she'd climb on him enough while he drove that he just decided to teach her to steer while he handles the rest) It's also in this scene where we learn he has he learning piano, which like other details show an active involvement in her life. He encourages creative hobbies like any other parent, attends her concerts even when it's just the Boxmore family and hell, and doesn't typically push her away. We also know all the gifts in that room are new because well, almost everything from their old lair was blown up. So... what gives with this scene?

Well Fink and I's arch nemesis that's what. Shadowy figure. Like I've said before, Shadowy has become more of an issue and more active. Even when he's not manipulating K.O. He's running his own work as a glorb dealer and assisting antiheroes like foxtail. Which means against his will, Venomous has been very active, and much less stable as himself. He doesn't know why he's become so much weaker in his day to day, all he does know is how it's impacting his ability to spend time with his daughter. And he's clearly trying to make up for this failure on his end with gifts. But while his presents used to be something special, something for her to be proud of and show off to her new step siblings, now all she can see is a reminder that she is slowly losing her father to this stranger. Sure by not telling him, Shadowy technically still let's him come back, but is it even worth it if the man that remains is a shell of the man he once was?

Now for the...less sad and more, annoying misunderstanding of relationships when it comes to his kids. K.O

This is something I had to explain to Kaydin when writing my- sorta OC for OK K.O as well, because it seems like people don't really get it at first, like, seriously most people don't seem to get this aspect of the show.

Villains and heroes in this world, are not just like the typical antagonist and protagonist in other shows/worlds. The correlation I like to use is, it's more like a job. Just about everyone in the world is either a hero or villain on some level. Doesn't matter if you're on this world, or planet X, or somewhere in between. That's why everyone (now that Kappas are allowed) can have a pow card. Because well, everyone has a special something that they can use to be a hero or a villain. People without powers are treated much like those with disabilities (Like Greyman after his accident)

With that being said, I think it's extremely stupid that people expected Venomous to be a saint towards his son.

"Oh but the K.O. Trap-" Yes yes, torturing your kid mentally isn't cool. And I'd agree more, if it was JUST K.O. he targeted. But it's not. It's never K.O. he target's alone. Sure he made a second round of goo clones for his son, but his son is also the strongest hero at Gar's, and making your enemy too shocked to attack you can only do better to protect yourself in a fight. The video brought up Boxman's attacks on the plaza as a comparison which, I find kind of funny because the show itself talks about how Boxman's villainy is treated more like a joke than ANY other villain's. PV is a SUPERvillain. When he's involved in fights against the bodegamen, theres's a chance they'll actually lose because he's stronger. And I'm going to be fully honest when I ask this, what did they want him to do otherwise? Would people have preferred Venomous to only attack Rad and Enid and just- give K.O a pat on the head every time they met? Wouldn't that be way more suspicious than, I dunno, treating your hero son like any other hero?

This is going to be a weird comparison, but he's there as a very similar lesson to Chameleon Senior. (Stay with me here, I BEG)

Chameleon Jr is hero aligned, and we can assume his father is the same from how close they are, and yet Chameleon Jr. is a rude bully of a kid, and his father picks fights with other parents over basically nothing. Good aligned people, who do less than good things. PV is an villain aligned man, capable of some of the most evil things K.O.'s ever seen (Minus the planet eating Cosmas did really-) and yet despite it all, he's capable of good. He tries to do good for both of his kids. (And yes, he did ACTUALLY try to get rid of Shadowy, but that's basically what my whole last rant was about so we won't go much into that again. Seriously the only reason people believe that he didn't is because Shadowy said so, and WHY WOULD YOU TRUST SHADOWY ON THAT?!) He does his best to bond with K.O. despite still being evil. Because what K.O. is too young to really understand, (But these reviewers shouldn't be) is that not everyone is meant to be a hero. The stress of being a big hero made Laserblast seriously depressed and tired of the life he had. So did big name villainy. Sometimes people in this world are destined to fight a few heroes, getting blown up, and run with the constant back and fourth of classic evil because that's what's most fun for them.

And honestly? I think the fact that in "Carl" K.O believes he was wrong about Venomous and that he was only being manipulated and TKO took over only to ACTUALLY get used and manipulated by Shadowy, only makes me believe further that Venomous did try and actually get rid of him for his kids.

And sure, while everything that happened with Shadowy hasn't made K.O and his father's relationship better, it's also silly to me how the video acts like K.O hates him after simply because we don't see them hanging out together after it.

I mean, even after making his wish and meeting with the president of the universe, he asks what happened to them, and when he sees them laughing and destroying together, do you know what this kid says? "Good for them!" Because K.O. understands what happened after a lot more than most people will. And seeing that just like himself, even after literally coughing out Shadowy, he takes responsibility for the damages. And while they might never see eye to eye alignment wise, they still have a lot in common.

Is PV meant to be the perfect dad? Obviously not. Part of the arc he never fully got to complete due to the series' cancelation is the downside of healing while raising kids. But saying he's this awful abusive man to his kids is erasing all that he is, and all that he has done.

Maybe that's part of the reason I enjoy drawing him and writing what could've been so much. Seeing a person trying to heal so badly get cut off right as he truly starts to is devastating, and knowing that that arc never fully got to be explored means that some people will never fully understand this character is even worse. I love this old man and his family. And I hope some day, despite the odds of how media works in this shitty capitalist world, he gets his wedding, and his family gets the fully fleshed out ending they all deserve.

#ok ko lets be heroes #ok ko let's be heroes #ok ko professor venomous #ok ko #professor venomous #fink ok ko #ko ok ko #autism #autistic rant #I love my autistic boyfriend #hiiiiii pookie

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