#(well it's plenty canon here with some headcanon ties tho)

[technodromes]

♡ Give us a homeworld related headcanon for Krang + ♡ aaaand a childhood related headcanon for Shredder?

🧠 In Krang's generic crossover verse, I go mostly with 2012's lore, but I'm mixing some other aspects in as I go. Utrominon is a planet within Dimension X and it is where Kraang Prime resides. Kraang enslaved a great part of his own specimen and renamed them all Kraang, turning them into mindless clones of himself. It is a toxic planet for human beings, and they will need a protective space suit to be there without immediate harm. Only aliens like the Utrom, Triceraton, or Salamandrian can walk on its surface without needing means of protection. It has always been a desolate world with a foggy atmosphere and a lack of lifeforms due to its toxicity. But under Kraang's rule now, it has turned even more dismal. It is in constant war with the Triceraton and other beings due to Kraang's constant attempts of invading other planets and dimensions. In a similar tune to the IDW comics, Utrominon will get destroyed during Krang's absence though. I just haven't decided yet if I do some sort of event for that, where Krang will learn of his home being under severe attack but only manages to save a handful of his kind before the destruction ensues. His new objective will be to find a new home planet for them, no matter the means. And having been stuck on earth for a lot of time, it's the planet he's going to choose for his terraforming project. And that is where I will be adding the IDW verse. His relationship to Shredder there goes downhill very fast and they become bitter enemies. In the crossover verse though, things will take a different, independent turn after that event.

👣 Just like Krang's & the Utrom's lore, Shredder's past is among the many canon inconsistencies throughout the franchise. In the original Mirage comic series, Oroku Saki sought revenge on Hamato Yoshi for the death of his brother, Oroku Nagi. I think it gives his enormous rage more substance than they gave him in the 1987 series, which was supposedly a kids' show, so they didn't want to go with a dark past at that time. So yeah, while in the original verses here he's 'only' out to finish Yoshi once and for all to be the legit leader of the Foot Clan, I go with the Mirage Comic's past in the generic crossover (I love to mix lores here in my own verses of this blog, can you tell). Saki was only 7 when he learned of his older brother's death, which turned into a deep hatred for Yoshi. He was early on consumed by rage and the desire for vengeance, which burned a deep hole into him that would never let him feel any fulfillment until he'd get his revenge. He was a loner, known for his dangerous temper, and other children would avoid him. He's been training and steeling his body for years to come to become a skilled ninja, like his brother had been. Following Yoshi to New York, he became the Foot Clan's branch leader there. To keep himself afloat in the beginning, he became a gifted engineer when he was still a young adult, which soon garnered Krang's interest in him.

[grishaversecommunityyy]

The Grishaverse Ship Survey Results

So! After all of that, we finally have the results! What is the general opinion on the ships in the Grishaverse? Well, that’s for you to read below! It’s actually pretty interesting and, while some parts make sense, there were definitely some parts which... surprised me... Anyway, onto the results!

Everything in this post can be split into:

The Grisha Trilogy

Six Of Crows Duology

The Nikolai Series

Shadow and Bone: TV Series

Most Enjoyed Ships

Least Enjoyed Ships

Crack Ships and Shipping Discourse

Notes from the Survey 

(note from mod emily: i tried to bold all of fritz’ comments, but i might have missed a few! be aware there are two of us analysing here :))

The Grisha Trilogy

The first book series we asked about was, of course, the first chronologically: the Grisha Trilogy. The most popular ship, with 83% voters for this series selecting this, was Genya/David (Fritz was glad to hear that; Yes I am). This is likely due to the lack of alternate romantic interests in the series, which seems to be a major issue for Alina’s ships. It also seems to be one genuinely enjoyed by most fans, in contrast to Darkling/Alina and Mal/Alina (each around 30%) and Nikolai/Alina (just under 20%), for which I have definitely seen plenty of debate. The second and third most popular ships for this series were Tamar/Nadia (55%) and Nikolai/Zoya (47%). Interestingly, Genya/Alina (43%) and Zoya/Alina (30%) ranked surprisingly high, especially considering how few of my friends and associates I hear talking about them. Good for them!

Honourable mentions:

Alina/Sun (no doubt inspired by that crack fic I wrote a while back) (Still havent read that out of fear)

Alina alone (a common concept among those surveyed, though most mentioned it later)

Zoya/Genya or Alina/Zoya/Genya

Six Of Crows Duology

This series was a little less divided, I would say. Predictably, Kaz/Inej came out on top with a whopping 96% of voters (:relieved:), with Wylan/Jesper next (90%) and Nina/Matthias just after (83%). None of the others really came close, despite Nina/Inej gathering 35% of the votes and Colm/Aditi at 25% (yeah, I’m not sure why that was so popular on AO3 either, but nobody really has objections so I assume that’s why it amassed so many votes). As Six of Crows is decidedly less divisive about ships and doesn’t have such controversial ships (more on that later), it seems the fandom agrees with canon pairings and the votes are... pretty unanimous.

Honourable Mentions:

Jesper/Wylan/Kuwei

Polycrows (platonic or romantic)

Kaz/Inej/Nina

Whoever didn’t read the instruction about this being for only the book series and put Jesper/Milo. I will never escape. 

The Nikolai Series

This one is a little harder for me because I actually haven’t read this... so over to Fritz for analysis! But first, the stats. At 85%, the most popular ship is Genya/David, followed by Zoya/Nikolai at 77%. Tamar/Nadia and Nina/Hanne draw at 61.5% and Nina/Matthias has 56% voters onboard. There’s no real honourable mentions for this one, sadly. Hello Fritz here! Read the books and very glad to see Genya/David as the top ship as it damn well should. Although still a bit surprising since its more of a side-arc of the two and only ties in with the importance of the story at a specific chapter that I feel like I don’t need to elaborate about, if you read Rule of Wolves. (I believe the popularity of the ship also sky-rocketed due to ROW) Following of course Zoya/Nikolai, the high ranking makes sense, it is the main ship and lets be honest they deserve it <3

I think the only really surprising thing about this is the high votes for Nina/Matthias since [SPOILERS CROOKED KINGDOM] he’s dead so I feel like people should move on from that. Nina/“Hanne” having not as high a ranking as I would’ve thought, but with Matthias still being in the frame I guess we shouldn’t be surprised either.

Shadow and Bone: TV Series

This one is really interesting, with the exclusive show watchers now taking part! We have 89% voting for Kaz/Inej, 76% for David/Genya, 71% for Matthias/Nina, 67% for Ivan/Fedyor (that’s a thing???-->Yeah they had a few somewhat sweet interactions in the background-->nvm i watched it you’re right fritz) and 62% for Mal/Alina. What’s really surprising is how high Malina is compared to Darklina, with Darkling/Alina at 36%. Who knows, maybe Fritz’ analysis can shed some light on this?

Yes yes Fritz to the rescue: First of all we have to see their interactions a little different from what we already knew of them by the end of episode 8. I still think it is a surprising number, since the Darkling in the show isn’t as nasty as he was in the books BUT over all his actions are now seen on TV. We all thought the deer antlers were a necklace amirite? Well no apparently not, the darkling used the worst kind of small science to fit Alinas collarbone to the bone and out comes a gruesome sight: a reason why many people might have started thinking: Wow what a disgusting person he is. And on the Malina “ship”: Mal finally has personality!! jkjk :eyes: Mals and Alinas friendship has been portrayed way better in the show and I believe that the people noticed more chemistry between them especially by the end of season 1. So I’m still a little surprised Darklina has such a low ranking (what with him being all sweet and cuddly in the middle of the show) but it makes sense and the Malina ship as well. Their vibes are just *chefs kiss* and thats coming from someone who didnt even like any of these “ships” <3

Loving the quotation marks for the word ‘ships’, Fritz. Over to the honourable mentions!

Honourable Mentions:

Jesper and Milo (isn’t milo a goat? guys, why?)

Nadia/Marie (huh that didn’t appear anywhere else)

One person had several - Kaz/Inej/Jesper, Dubrov/Mikhael, Dubrov/Mikhael/Mal - and yeah, you can really see the show differences in these mentions right? (whose dubrov...and whose mikhael...)

16% actually voted for Inej/Alina which is wild to me because of book context (they did have chemistry in the show tho :cowboi_smirk:)

Another person with several! We have Nina/Inej, Genya/Alina, Zoya/Alina, Zoya/Genya/Alina. Very sapphic. Good for you.

Kaz/Jesper and Nina/Inej all in one

That’s a lot of honour and mentions but it’s so interesting to me and I think you should see too

Most Enjoyed Ships

The most enjoyed ship was Kaz/Inej. This had unparalleled support, being at 35%. Jesper/Wylan, which was next on the list (23.5%) and Nina/Matthias (18%) were also pretty popular. Most of the others were quite low, though interestingly Mal/Alina only had 1 vote (plus one for the show version). Overall, the SoC ships were a lot more popular in this section, which makes sense - this part is really about your favourite ship, and those were more unanimous in the last sections.

Least Enjoyed Ships

Most people said Darkling/Alina, which got 47% of the NOTP votes. A lot more people disliked Darkling/Alina than liked Kaz/Inej. Make of that what you will, but I take it as a somewhat general agreement among many of you guys. Mal/Alina was also strongly disliked at 22%, but around a half or more of these were clarified to be about the book version of the ship specifically. They really must’ve upgraded in the show! Jesper/Kuwei and any other Darkling ships were also voted by a few, but all of these pale in comparison to the anti-Darklina votes. Shoutout to the person who said Apparat/Anyone. I agree, though it’s not something I thought of before seeing this response. Also one person said they didn’t like the poly ships, which I hope meant just the ones mentioned earlier and not all poly relationships in general... Another shoutout to whoever said Kaz/Heleen, because why did I have to read that. A fun question, all in all!

Crack Ships and Shipping Discourse

I love talking about crack ships, so let’s start with that! This time, I really don’t want to have to count and list because... well, let me show you:

I think that sums up the sheer variety, to be honest. Then again, it would be rude not to mention that the most popular were Jesper/Milo, Darkling/Nikolai and Alina/Sun. (If you’re still confused about that last one, I take full responsibility.)

YES KAZ/KRUGE I SUPPORT!!!

Honourable mention to this:

which was a lot to take in, and:

Now for the discourse. Yep, the part you probably came for. 

Actually... maybe you didn’t? Looking at all of these responses, I see a lot of people genuinely don’t care about ship wars and so on, and often enjoyed the books regardless of the romances involved. Quite a few disapproved of the ongoing (though small) wars between Darklina and Malina, and others had a similar line of thinking, saying we should maybe stop focusing so much on it. You guys are right. I know this is a ship survey, and the conclusions should not include that shipping isn’t as important as we make it (Yes it should), but... that’s where it’s at.

And then again, a lot of you guys expressed disapproval for Darkling/Alina, discussing how it is often one-sided and manipulative and overall unhealthy, so I could be completely off with that last one. Some people mentioned that they ship this but as a slightly different version that the one given to us, recognising the flaws of the canon ship.

Someone said they headcanon Tolya as aroace (OMG YES!!). We need more aroace characters, so thank you for that headcanon :) We also have a few gay ships mentioned here, and one person telling us they love Malina. Yes, you’re right - it’s pretty unpopular, it turns out. Someone else said Alina should’ve been single, and I agree, actually!

One person rickrolled me here. Thankfully, Youtube’s ads saved me. *wipes forehead*

I leave you all with this, in the end:

Notes from the Survey

Statistics Stuff:

The top ships were taken from AO3, so some ships may be more focused on in other books and may not provide accurate statistics for an earlier series.

The main circles this was sent around may have had bias as most people are from the same discord server, which has debated these topics in the past. Hence certain ships may have lower-than-average results. In future, this could be improved upon by sending this to other servers and areas of the fandom.

Personal bias may be present in the analysis, though I have tried to minimise this in the more formal sections.

Observations and Notes from Me:

You guys really don’t like Darklina. Or you love it. Usually one or the other. Wow.

Be glad I didn’t talk about any of the cursed ships in this. The things I have seen... (:cowboi_eyes:)

I thought more people would rickroll me, ngl.

What Surprised You Guys:

Kaz/Inej/Jesper

A few of you guys saw some of those cursed ships, and that surprised you. Well, me too!

Nikolai ships being in the TV Show section at all, what with his character not being in the show (yeah what was up with that huh tztz)

Inej/Alina

The existence of The Severed Moon

Darkling/Nikolai(/Alina)

How fun the quiz was :D

Things You Sent Me:

Bee Movie copypasta

“Nobody expects The Spanish Inquisition!”, except via an AO3 link

A fun fact about enzymes! I liked this one

Fic recs for Feriku and Sarai (esp for Wylan/Jesper shippers)

Another rickroll

Nice compliments :) aww you guys

I asked everyone for some kind of placeholder name and never used it. Sorry! But hey, anonymity, right?

Closing Statements

If you got this far (I feel like ive been sitting here for hours), thanks for reading! This was fun to do and I hope you enjoyed all of this too! The survey is still open for anyone who hasn’t done it but wants to. If I get a huge amount of new responses, I might update this post! But for now, adios!

-mod emily (and mod fritz)

[akkivee]

don’t expect any cohesion out of this outta this by here’s my thoughts and speculations on the hypmic guidebook image. i’m sorry. it’s stupidly long. 

alright so at first glance, you kinda gotta panic a little because holy cow, very few of the teams are actually together?? bb and mtr are the only two (2) groups actually in close proximity with each other while mtc and fp are all over the place. which is weird since we just got through fp at least reconfirming that they are each other’s true posse and definitely should not be separated right???

big brained twitter users tho came through and it clicked that everyone is separated because their agendas/goals are vastly different from each other, not because of their weak bonds with each other. so lets take a look at where everyone stands with each other

let’s start with the buster bros!!! it comes as a surprise to no one, but the bros are still together since jiro and saburo are largely following after their big bro. i do have a point to mention about saburo, but that’ll come later.

so on to mtc!! save for probably fp, their group has the widest separation. but given each of their goals, it makes plenty of sense. samatoki wants to bring his sister home. juto wants to bring about the end of drugs. rio hasn’t made any grand movements, but he is keeping an eye out on chuohku. different goals, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t one as a team.

fp!! you could feasibly make the bermuda triangle with how far apart they are! fp’s goals, as of now, do align since they are truly together to prevent ramuda from, y’know, dying, but their individual agendas are separate. in a sense. i’ll try to expand on this in a bit.

next is mtr!! much like bb, they are together as jakurai leads them towards his goal and hifumi and doppo follow out of their desire to support him.

and next we have dh!! their placement pretty much follows what went down in their debut drama track, sasara and rosho have been brought together (by rei) and are determined to make it work as they partner up with rei, whose goals are widely unknown, pretty sus and definitely not aligned with sasara and rosho. and to speculate a little about sasara and his placement somewhat behind the rest of the leaders, i think that it’s because sasara has no clear goal as to why he’s participating in the rap battles outside of wanting to be with rosho. he is right where he wants to be, with rosho and doesn’t have any current goals aside from staying with him. at least, none that we know of.

which brings me to bat. and kuukou specifically. but notice, none of the bat members are together as well, and like so, their individual goals are pretty different from each other. hitoya is here to beat jakurai for once in his life, jyushi has a strong desire to overcome himself and to be a stronger person, and kuukou has barely left any room for jesus between him and ichiro because kuukou, similar to sasara, is here for ichiro. this is my personal headcanon, but i do believe that kuukou actually remembers that ramuda was the one who hypnotised him into breaking things off with ichiro. neither one have forgotten the other (e.g. ichiro naming his new team after his duo with kuukou, kuukou at the end of the bat debt drama track saying “wait for me, ichiro...!”) so i do think how close kuukou and ichiro are reflects their mutual desire to be together as a team again. 

another nifty thing i noticed was that there’s a divide amongst the cast, split straight down the middle. you can see it with how gentaro/jyushi, doppo/saburo, samatoki/ichiro, are back to back. and on each side, you have one person posed unlike the rest of them; on the right you rei in the back facing away from everyone. on the left, ramuda sitting on the ground. so, i propose that this divide shows who has goals against chuohku, and those who, while not on their side, are entrenched in chuohku’s plans.

ramuda, as we know, has the biggest chip on his shoulder when it comes to chuohku. they kinda found a replacement for him in his enemy jakurai, discarded him, left him die, that sort of thing. if anyone wants to see chuohku burn, it’s him. anybody on his side of the picture has goals against chuohku. 

ichiro intends to ‘break the wall,’ to topple the chuohku regime and his brothers are right by his side with kuukou there with him as his partner, as previously mentioned. again, we don’t know yet of sasara’s goals outside of being with rosho, but in ‘ahh, osaka dreamin’ night,’ rei’s verse states, “teacher, comedian, doctor, lawyer- Those who are being looked up to as pros are all swindlers,” so there is something going on, not only with sasara, but also with rosho. jyushi is kinda unknown, though ramuda expressed quite a bit of annoyance dealing with him at the end of the bat debut drama track. rio is out here with prior knowledge about plot points such as the hypnosis canceller, in cahoots with former military and hacking into chuohku databases all with an illegal gun strapped to his back. like some of these homies wish they had the balls and the initiative. 

as for the right side, rei is the definition of an anti hero. he’s not on anybody’s side, he working with whoever has the power to get his goal done. and that’s on par with anybody on his side of this picture; everybody here is balls deep in chuohku shenanigans, whether they want to be or not.

samatoki’s whole schtick is to free his sister from chuohku. as we’ve seen in the finale of the tdd manga, samatoki will willing go along with whatever and burn any and all bridges if that means his sister is safe. jakurai is likely on this side due to chuohku doing their damnest to get jakurai within their grasp so they can harness the true hyponsis mic’s full potential using jakurai’s healing ability. and where jakurai goes, doppo and hifumi would be loathe to leave him alone. juto maybe be a cop, but it’s implied he is a high ranking one given his change in outfits from tdd canon to present time (from a cop uniform to a crisp suit.) he’s high enough on the ladder for ichijiku, japan’s #2 big boss lady, to know of his work and to be summoned to aid nemu, another high ranking chuohku officer, in an arrest. hitoya, dice, and gentaro are all vague in connection. hitoya, however, is again part of rei’s callout verse as mentioned earlier, so he may be a swindler in the sense of not unwilling to work with chuohku to further his goals (defeating jakurai) and maybe making some hard cash. gentaro is shady as hell; he seems to be connected to a group called plunderer, which chuohku has control over. as for dice, hypmic likes dropping hints that he’s related to otome.

i mentioned i had an observation about saburo, and without getting too into character analysis (ichiro/rei/saburo similarities as people), it’s interesting to note saburo is on the border of this divide and the closest to rei, which could be a play into where we left saburo, questioning ichiro, after the events of helter skelter.

last general observation! with all the speculation i just dropped, the majority of characters that tie directly to chuohku are hanging in the back. we have rei, gentaro, juto, dice, and rio. i thought it was a neat detail, but it struck me as weird that ramuda was way in the front when he’s probably the most direct result of chuohku existing. but... it’s not like the leaders aren’t tied directly into chuohku. they were chosen by chuohku to be center stage in battles meant to appease the general populace into focusing their aggression on each other.

so looking at the pic again, i noticed a kind of... border??

the ones with obvious connections made a circle. i say obvious and included hitoya and rosho into this because of rei’s verse that i mentioned before. so i’m wondering... does jyushi have some stakes involved in chuohku?? he is a little further into the middle than gentaro, but he’s in line with juto?? this may be a case of over analyzing, but i did point out ramuda’s strange comment about jyushi being annoying to deal with which could randomly come back at any point in the story. or not lol. anyway i’m done, thanks for coming to my ted talk it was as long as an actual ted talk

[softgrungeprophet]

it’s that time again. time for me to be annoyed/frustrated at the comics that came in the 20-teens that simultaneously responded directly to the 2000s, followed in the 2000s’ continuation, but completely glossed over and ignored the very serious topics that were brought up. and then we get the fucking 2018 run which does NEITHER and just seeks to make it worse for shock value without being even remotely thoughtful about anything it does! wow.

we could have had some really interesting growth for eddie and the symbiote’s relationship by honestly addressing things like eddie’s illness, hypocrisy as anti-venom, his status as a victim of abuse, and so on...

of course i know if i say “eddie is a victim” people will get hissy but like.... i’m not saying he’s an innocent blameless baby who was manipulated into being the weirdo he is... i’m just saying... he’s a victim of abuse. he’s been taken advantage of a lot. almost any help he’s received has required some kind of reciprocation.

he’s a shithead and he went off the deep-end after new ways to die because remender’s version of eddie fucking sucks, he’s smug and weird and violent, and also he’s been neglected and tortured and abused and experimented on and he needs therapy and blah blah blah

he’s also not some fuckin accidental drunk driver who was hit into thinking he’s innocent. that’s so fucking--jeez. everything about these retcons donny has been doing miss the point even more than the comics he says he loves so much. it’s wild. like i don’t like new ways to die OR new ways to live, remender’s run was okay but i hated the way he wrote eddie, marvel knights spider-man just sucks in general, the hunger 03 also sucks, but like they do feed into each other in a way that.... sort of makes sense....

i just wish there was a way any of the comics would have said, “hey look there are some ways in which eddie is a victim but there are also some ways in which he needs to take responsibility for his actions”

but that kind of nuanced take is impossible for the way these comics are put out and canceled and retconned and so on forever.. it’s so ... ugh.....

the hunger 03 sucks... it also influenced over a decades’ worth of Venom comics including costa’s in its own weird way.... and i just wish we could simultaneously be like, Yes the symbiote is not inherently evil or corrupting but Also it did abuse Eddie, and Yes Eddie has been treated poorly for a great deal of his life and Also is a motherfucker who needs to be held responsible for his actions.

Is this hypocritical to be like, “can we address the 2000s” while also saying “2018 run is not valid”

in my defense even the shitty 2000s were like a continuity and didn’t try to fully retcon every single aspect of venom lore that ever existed (tho it sure did plenty of retconning....) whereas the current run... is doing exactly that....

of course this goddamn run will probably also influence the following comics unless the next writers retcon the retcons or like, ignore it and it gets put into its own earth or something. idk. like no one really counts dark origin right? and that works cause it also had a negligible influence on the rest of the comics. but like, the bad hunger had a very lasting impact on the comics. so i guess we just hope that donny cates, despite currently selling super well, does not actually influence any of the comics that come after?

i don’t fuckin know. i just think it kind of sucks that like “eddie was abused” is something that gets used as either a “lol no that never happened and if you talk about it you hate the symbiote” or else an excuse to demonize the symbiote even after its own character growth arcs in the apparently supremely unpopular gotg and space knight stuff... lol

maybe if every fucking series from 2013 to 2016 (minus costa which is honestly more 2017) didn’t get canned we could have gotten more. like honestly, 2016′s Carnage--for all its flaws--seemed like it had something to say about Eddie as a character, about his flaws and so on, and I gotta wonder where that was going. It flat out says “Venom didn’t make Eddie Brock a bastard” so like? But then at the same time all of the symbiotes in that series were completely silent so? I don’t even know.

Cullen Bunn was clearly going somewhere too but I have no idea where other than “symbiote is alive but has trouble communicating” and “eddie is coming down from his murder spree as he realizes flash thompson is in fact helping people as agent venom”

the two fit together in a very strangely complementary way. sometimes i gotta wonder about a universe in which those two comics in particular ran concurrently to address venom, flash, toxin, and eddie’s many issues. but toxin’s probably gone... though in my heart they are with jubulile and her mom in south africa, learning what it’s like to be part of a loving family...

man. the resigned “Okay.” at the end of twav...... twav good imo.

anyway

i don’t even know what the point of this is. i’m all over the place in this post. it’s frustrating that donny has made it kinda impossible to bring up eddie’s victimhood without like... qualifying it to the ends of the earth to clarify that you don’t think he’s some kind of pure cinnamon roll who’s been dreadfully manipulated for 12 years....

I feel like I’m not making any sense!!! Words are hard.

I feel like I’ve kinda been avoiding writing about the symbiote though in part because it’s hard for me to balance that many characters and in part because of Donny’s stupid bullshit, which is dumb as fuck but I guess that’s what he wanted huh!!!! Need to read Lethal Protector to cleanse my palate but it’s taking forever to get it from the library because they only have one copy.

ugh

The symbiote is not an evil creature like he wants everyone to think... goddammit.... but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t carefully address both its and Eddie’s mistakes without fabricating new different mistakes to obscure the previous ones. Or whatever. Fuckin I don’t know lol the entirety of the continuity is just a bunch of bullshit. 80s-90s continuity largely separate from 2000-20...15ish continuity largely separate AGAIN from the 2016 continuity yet also directly tied to it, against completely separated from the 2018 continuity which is off saying “fuck you” to literally every venom writer to ever exist since Eddie’s conception, ironically including the guy who wrote the cursed hunger

What am I trying to say! I don’t know! i feel like a broken record. There’s a lot of empty space between Agent Venom and 2016 that was never filled! also between 2016 and 2018 lmfao.

Donny “everything went wrong and I’m not going to explain how other than ‘God’ and ‘Eddie lost his job cause screaming symbiote’“ Cates really pullin some shit. what do you mean eddie tends to work toward solving his own problems EVEN WHILE DYING. waid’s mini-story in NWTD showed that eddie, despite being sad and sick and exhausted was still like.... eddie, stubbornly searching out his own solutions and getting angry. ofc i’m not sure how well it succeeded at parts. the comics in those days were still pretty steeped in the weird symbiote hallucinations that it was never clear if they were meant to be caused by the symbiote or just eddie’s sick brain. like the Last Temptation. I have a love-hate relationship with those two issues... I think they’re pretty well-done but also something about them just rubs me the wrong way. 

Anyway back to Cates: it’s not like there wasn’t space for a spiral after FH or anything. You could have really dug into Eddie and the symbiote’s insecurities wrt family and parenting. but nah. let’s just make it so there’s a SECRET CHILD, and oh the pre-established sibling? we could have dug into her and made her a real character. but no, she doesn’t exist, women are either fake or dead or violated.

asshole.

but again like..... the 03 hunger, cursed and bad... like... it’s still workable. you can work with the corrupting forces, the addiction metaphor (on the SYMBIOTE’S part, with adrenaline) and the intense codependency, and still have them move on and into a healthier-by-comparison relationship.

but cates’ run is like... much harder to recover from if it has as lasting of an effect, because it leaves no part untouched, and goes beyond “normal” abuse into really weird unforgiveable territory... like the canon of that comic is the canon in which everything has been completely changed into something unrecognizable.

i joke about my AUs being unrecognizable because, visually at least, they WOULD be unrecognizable for most Venom fans, but the comics inform them as characters a lot in the stories i write in those AUs, from the 96 good hunger, to the 03 bad hunger, to space knight to venom inc, and so on. But donny cates really is out here essentially reverse-engineering retcons to justify his characterizations.

barely related: the way eddie was raised and the way he coped by overachieving and so on and so forth makes me think he would have--despite presumably gaining a great deal of confidence in college once out of his father’s home--been really vulnerable to being taken advantage of by like, other students or teachers, but idk how exactly to articulate what i mean like... uh... not even that he WAS taken advantage of but that his need for validation would have left him open to it... i guess??

that’s got pretty much nothing to do with this post though but kinda ties into what i’ve said before about how i think eddie was a withdrawn and isolated adolescent who only opened up in college. why i disagree with donny’s retcon for that reason in addition to other reasons--the way he’d been shown to be bullied as a kid in previous comics, as well as the lack of history of alcoholism, the clarification in lethal protector that carl wasn’t physical, so on and so forth.

again that’s not related to this post really... and it’s like, a good 50% headcanon, but it makes sense in my head as something that fits his history?? i guess?