#I also gotta clarify that I love venomous as a character

[arekayic]

thinking about a spider-man adventure time au…. like there isn’t a specific spider-man universe i’m using (it’s more of an amalgamation of TASM and mostly USM bc they’re my faves) but oh my god i’m going crazy….. details after cut. i do want to clarify that this is NOT a character analysis because im horrible at that, i CANNOT "read between the lines".

like like peter as finn obviously because of him being the mc,, i’m thinking deadpool being jake because (ignoring spideypool cause i don’t really care for it anymore AND dp’s flirting because finn and jake are BROTHERS.) spidey and dp have a similar dynamic as finn and jake also deadpool’s personality really fits jake as a whole. and copycat is lady rainicorn because dp deserves happiness hehe

gwen is totally princess bubblegum,, science girl,,, peter in this totally has a crush on her and everything happens the same as in canon. i'm also thinking felicia as marceline.. black cat the halloween queen hehe :3 she'll still be a vampire though but she's LITERALLY called black cat she's GOTTA be halloween themed.

next up is ice king i guess. i want him to be usm doc ock bc tom kenny lol, but the personality doesn't fit much.. but it'll be hilarious so i'm keeping it.. and since it's usm doc ock i want the gunthers or gunters or whatever to be the spider slayers lmaooo. kaine would the main gunter i suppose.

i kinda want USM miles to be BMO because i love both of them,, and usm miles feels (to me) kinda like a brother to peter and BMO is pretty much considered a brother to finn and jake (i think). NEPTR is random as hell but i kinda want amadeus cho (USM) to be him, probably only as iron spider though.

ok ok now my favorite casting,, HARRY AS FLAME PRINCESS... i'm a parksborn junkie and wow their personalities and relationship match up SO well with finn and flame princess it hurts.. and yeah i know that finn and flame princess break up but UGH they fit so well, so i must deal with it. i just finished watching s4 e1 so i'm FUELED on this right now RAAAAHHHH. i did draw something and i'll post it tomorrow if i remember teehee. this harry is totally based off tasm because i LOVE his design and character and they fit flame princess more than usm harry does. also flame king is norman because that fits GREAT.

i'm also thinking, on the subject of love intrests, mary jane as huntress wizard. now this mj i haven't based off of usm (and tasm doesn't have her) so i don't really have a basis for her. BUT. her and peter are always fated to be together so she of course would be what is finn's final love interest in normal adventure time ( :,) /pos) and i also feel mj's usual design would mix well with huntress wizard's. now i want to clarify i do not remember anything because i haven't watched adventure time in YEARS and my current rewatch is only in season 4.

USM ben reilly would be fern. i don't really need to explain why. *cough* 'clone' of mc *cough*

carnage is lemongrab because of that abhorrent screeching (that phrasing could apply to either of them lol). venom might be his brother but i can't remember him at all lmao so that might change

now now now i think that eddie brock would be peppermint butler (but make peppermint butler smile less) because of his general vibe and story. but i must say, i'm talking about eddie with NO venom. i think as a candy person he would be black licorice so his design could reference venom with his colors.

fast round now, flash should be lsp, prismo could maybe be played by doctor strange (USM!!!), mysterio could be magic man because LOOLLL, martin could be peter's dad in TASM?, billy should be iron man, cinnamon bun COULD be liz allen (cause of harry) but i feel bad doing that to her, abracadaniel could be USM moon knight just for the laughs. i have NO clue who the lich should be,,due to usm lore i want goblin but norman is already flame king soooo... ultimate goblin maybe?

and that is IT for nowww. i will keep posting more about this au under #rk's spider time au, and i will be reblogging this post if i have more info teehee anyways i am insane.. ALSO also most (not all) character relationships are ignored when i pick the roles because that fucks up some stuff (like marcy and simon being close even though felicia and doc ock barely have anything to do with eachother)

[transvoxman]

hold on, isnt it shadowy in the carl episode? its shadowy pretending to be venomous. its not actually venomous. this is heavily implied since we HAVE an episode with ven and ko to compare their interactions to, and he straight up wears shadowys gloves driving home. thats why he was trying to get tko out. "teaming up with shadowy" was more shadowy taking over and locking venomous away (like we saw tko do once or twice to ko)

It IS heavily implied, but I’m not sure what I headcanon personally. For one thing, I don’t trust shadowy figure as far as I can throw him, so when he says that venomous tried to reach an agreement with him, I can’t decide whether venomous really did try to work together with shadowy at first, or if venomous was genuinely trying to get rid of shadowy 100% and shadowy completely took over before venomous could succeed.

I do think that by the time he’s wearing shadowy’s gloves driving home, shadowy’s definitely fully taken over, but there’s so many possibilities for how much venomous was in control up until then.

SO many theories under the cut I’m so sorry for this oncoming wall of text

The most straightforward theory is that shadowy’s been completely in control ever since venomous found out about him in Let’s Get Shadowy -- it would certainly line up with his threat to take over venomous permanently if fink told venomous about him. BUT on the other hand, I feel like it’s one of the less interesting explanations, because it doesn’t give venomous the chance to be confronted with the choice between getting rid of shadowy and pursuing more power.

Then, there’s the possibility that venomous came back at the end of Let’s Get Shadowy, and was genuinely trying to get rid of Shadowy like he promised KO, but for whatever reason (the intense anxiety of knowing how high the stakes are if he fails to get rid of shadowy, the panic of realizing how much he’s upset fink and boxman and so many others while in a form he can’t control or remember, etc) he transformed into shadowy against his will, and THEN shadowy fully took over and didn’t let venomous come back. This one gives venomous the most benefit of the doubt, and like, yeah, I’d love to believe that this is what happened, but I don’t know. Maybe it’s just because we got barely any episodes in season 3 to develop venomous’s character, or just because I love angst too much, but I don’t 100% buy that venomous has grown enough as a person yet to do this. It would’ve just been SO EASY for him to rationalize not completely getting rid of shadowy, like “I’ll just figure out a way to stop myself from transforming against my will, and then I can very carefully learn how to gain control over the power and it’ll be fine”. Like, this man has such poor impulse control, and is so bad at standing his ground in certain cases, y’know? So then there’s the possibility that venomous really did succumb to the temptation to see if he could control shadowy instead of getting rid of him, but as soon as he tried it out, shadowy instantly took over completely, which would mean that shadowy’s in full control from the very beginning of the episode Carl. This Might be the one I think is most likely? But it’s totally fair if everyone disagrees with me here, I’m Here for angst and super flawed characters but I know not everyone is. And finally, there’s the option that I think is the most fun, although I’d need to rewatch the episode before I said anything about whether I think it’s actually likely or not: venomous DID give in to temptation, made an agreement with shadowy, and for a little while, shadowy let him co-pilot, so venomous would let his guard down a little and get some hope that he really COULD have it all. So then, at the beginning of the episode Carl, venomous really is mostly in control. He might’ve lied to K.O. about getting rid of shadowy, but all that matters is that he’s got it under control, right? He could even tell himself that this was even better, because now that he has shadowy under control he can teach K.O. how to get TKO under control! A win-win! Another fun thing about this would be the parallels it has with the episode where KO and TKO co-pilot his body together and it briefly seems like it’s working out fine. But anyway, over the course of the episode, shadowy takes over for brief moments that get more and more frequent, and then by the time venomous realizes that shadowy’s trying to fully take over and never meant to keep his end of their agreement at all, it’s too late, and sometime later in the episode, shadowy’s taken over completely. AND ALSO, all of these theories aside, I’m really conflicted on what the show’s trying to say about whether the dark alter egos are separate people or not, and by extension how much responsibility they should take for what their alter egos have done. On the one hand, there’s this entire heartfelt message about KO realizing that he and TKO are the same person and he has to stop thinking of them as separate people, but on the other hand, TKO repeatedly gets angry at people for calling him KO, so he clearly wants people to respect them as separate people, and I think it’s common decency to respect that! And yeah, the obvious thing to point out here is that TKO and Shadowy Venomous do things that KO and Venomous would Never Do, AND in venomous’s case he doesn’t even REMEMBER what shadowy does while he’s in control, both of which are big points in favor of KO and Venomous not needing to take all that much responsibility for their alter egos’ actions. BUT ON THE OTHER HAND, the entire climax/message of the show being about TKO and KO accepting that they’re the same person is a pretty big point in favor of the completely opposite view. And since I’m so torn here, I think the best thing I can do is set my stance on a middleground--venomous and KO should absolutely not be held COMPLETELY responsible for their alter egos’ actions, but they still need to take SOME amount of responsibility. It would be shitty if people blamed them for causing so much pain and destruction in their turbo forms, BUT it’s still their responsibility to work towards learning how to be in control of their alter egos / emotions so their alter egos can’t hurt people like that again, and I think it would also be a good idea for them to help with damage control when they DO regain control of themselves--like in the episode TKO Rules, KO cleans up after TKO even though it wasn’t exactly HIS fault, he doesn’t just say “I didn’t do this, so it’s not my problem”.

So, I don’t know exactly where I stand on literally anything I’ve written here, but the bottom line is, I think it’s more complicated than shadowy taking over venomous against venomous’s best efforts to get rid of him, and I’m conflicted on whether I absolve venomous of ALL blame for what shadowy does. I tend to lean towards whatever I think is the most interesting to explore in my headcanons, which Also tends to be the least charitable interpretation, BUT I realize that this show’s tone can often lean towards being more lighthearted, so what I think is most interesting to explore has no relation to how likely it is to be true.

So yeah, personally I THINK I lean towards venomous being in control for part of the episode, and even if he’s not in control for any of it I think it’s a little too straightforward to say that he’s 0% at fault for anything shadowy does. But that’s completely just my edgy headcanon/theory lol

[mst3kproject]

The Ship of Monsters

Check me out, I’m being topical!  I had another review almost finished for today, but when I saw the news I knew I had to set that aside and find a movie about life on Venus.  This one is a ridiculous Mexican film starring Lorena Velazquez from Samson vs the Vampire Women (looking only slightly less like Cher) and one of those amazing cardboard robots you only get in the very worst of late 50’s and early 60’s sci-fi.

An atomic war on the planet Venus has killed off all the males, so an expedition is sent out in search of replacements, consisting of a native Venusian named Gamma, her Uranian navigator Beta, and their robot Tor.  After promising the Empress that they will bring back only the most manly of men, they wander the solar system a while collecting creatures with penises before an engine problem forces them to land on Earth.  The first human they meet there is Laureano Gomez, a singing cowboy with a well-earned reputation for telling tall tales.  One might assume one could predict the rest of the movie from there… but then Beta turns on Gamma and reveals that her true mission all along was to conquer a planet to feed the vampires of Uranus!

I gotta say��� I did not see that coming.

The Ship of Monsters is supposed to be a comedy.  It’s seldom funny when it’s trying to be, although it mercifully avoids being the kind of desperately unfunny a lot of bad comedies are… possibly this is because it’s in Spanish, and by the time I’ve realized something is stupid there’s another subtitle to distract me. The jokes, such as they are, are pretty standard.  Tor the robot was created by an alien race, who were aware of Earth but never bothered exploring it because they thought the inhabitants weren’t very intelligent.  Laureano is in the habit of telling ridiculous stories to his drinking buddies, so of course when he claims the Earth is being invaded by space monsters they don’t believe him.  That sort of thing.  The movie is much funnier when it’s just showing us absurd situations, but to nobody’s surprise, The Ship of Monsters is at its funniest when it’s trying to be serious.

This hilarity comes in many forms, covering just about all the possible bases for a dirt-cheap 1960 sci-fi film.  We have spaceship sets made of cardboard, covered with buttons that don’t actually press and levers conveniently placed so people can bump into them during fight scenes.  We have Tor, with his tin can body that’s always a little dinged up but never in the same places, giving us clues as to what order the scenes might have been shot in.  He also has wiggly spring antennae and makes a little whirring noise every time he moves. We have space babes in silver bathing suits and glittery high heels.  Vampire-Beta, sporting plastic fangs that look like they came from the bottom of a cereal box, could be the female counterpart to the guy from Dracula vs Frankenstein, and the puppet used to represent her in flight is nearly as bad as the one from The Devil Bat.

The ‘monsters’ of the title are a bulging-brained Martian prince, a scaly cyclops, a spidery creature with venomous fangs, and the mobile skeleton of what appears to be a *damn worwelf (he tells us that his race has Evolved Beyond Flesh... apparently not Beyond Bones, though).  The costumes are all terrible, particularly the warwulf puppet, whose backbone extends into his mouth and who has to be carried around with his feet dangling in any shot that’s not a close-up.  It’s nice, though, that a little imagination went into them, and somebody gave a bit of thought to the idea that a monstrous appearance is relative.  The Martian tells Beta that he admires her ambition and might even marry her if she weren’t so ugly by his planet’s standards.

At the end, naturally, this alien invasion is defeated by Laureano, his twelve-year-old brother, and a cardboard robot, while Gamma just stands around and screams.  With a movie like this I expect nothing less.  The denouement contains my favourite intentional joke in the whole thing, in which Gamma stays on Earth with her True Love, and Tor the robot takes his, the Jukebox, back to Venus with him!  Tom Servo would have given a speech to congratulate the happy couple, and I can just see him breaking down into happy tears before he got five lines in.

(The wirwalf skeleton is not present at the climactic fight, by the way… no explanation is offered, and I strongly suspect that they broke the puppet trying.  I rather enjoy this omission, because it lets me imagine him getting lost or maybe buried by an enterprising dog, and finally finding his way back to the landing site only to learn that they’ve left without him.)

I called Laureano a cowboy but he only has one cow.  Her name is Lolobrijida and she is the very first time I have ever seen a movie spur a hero into action by killing his cow.  She gets a proper Teenagers from Outer Space death, with her skeleton left behind propped up by metal struts like a dinosaur in a museum!

I also called him a singing cowboy, which he is – there are several songs, including one in which he tries to explain to Gamma and Beta what ‘love’ means.  The songs have pleasant but forgettable Mexican pop melodies, and none of the lyrics make a whole lot of sense.  Being translated over-literally from Spanish probably didn’t do them any favours (my own Spanish tops out at yo no tengo dinero), but I still can’t imagine that the What Is Love song clarified anything.

Laureano himself comes across as kind of a fool, but he’s not actually a full-on idiot, which is quite important.  If he were the kind of one-dimensional ‘comedic nitwit’ embodied in characters like Dropo, or the janitor from Reptilicus, he’d be insufferable.  Laureano is no genius, but he’s got personality traits besides being stupid – he cares deeply for his little brother Chuy and for his animals, and he doesn’t treat Gamma and Beta’s appearance as two women for the price of one.  Very quickly he decides that Gamma is the one he loves, and he sticks to that, doing his best to let Beta down gently even when she offers to make him a king.  He’s also smart enough to trick Beta into dancing with him so he can steal the device she uses to control the rocket and Tor, and to listen to Gamma when she tells him about the various monsters’ weaknesses.

Gamma and Beta, on the other hand, don’t have a lot to them besides the basic fact that Gamma is the Nice One and Beta is Evil. Gamma starts out in the story with a strong sense of duty, and it’s a bit disappointing to see her abandon that because of Tru Luv.  I would have liked the ending better if she’d taken Laureano home with her so that the two of them could be the Adam and Eve of the new Venusian race.  Meanwhile, Beta shows no sign of any loyalty except to herself and her own ambition.  Her original mission, to secure Earth as a blood supply for the Uranians, falls by the wayside as she decides she’s going to conquer and rule the planet herself.

So The Ship of Monsters isn’t exactly a feminist manifesto, but neither is it complete misogynistic garbage like Project Moon Base.  The whole premise, after all, rests on a planet of women being able to develop space travel all on their own!  This is a fairly surprising plot point, because in many ‘planet of women’ movies like Fire Maidens of Outer Space or Cat Women of the Moon, the ladies need the virile Earth Men to come to them.

There’s also a little bit of actual science peeking out of the cracks.  The moment for launch of the rocket from Venus is determined by when ‘the elliptical orbits coincide’.  Launch timing is, indeed, a delicate art depending very much on what’s orbiting where. There’s also the moment when, trying to land on Earth, Gamma and Beta worry that the friction, combined with our oxygen-rich atmosphere, will set their ship on fire.  This stuff is pretty impressive coming from a time when the moon landing was still nearly a decade away.  There are even a couple of scenes in zero gravity that honestly aren’t totally terrible.  I mean, I’ve seen better, but I’ve also seen much, much worse.

There’s also one weirdly prescient moment when Laureano, telling one of his silly stories in the pub, describes being surrounded by dinosaurs – only to get a laugh a moment later when he mentions that they had beautiful plumage.  I’m not sure whether this is meant to be a joke in that Laureano is exaggerating an actual encounter with an angry bird into something more fearsome (I think we’re to assume that the whole story is totally made up), or whether it’s just supposed to be funny that Laureano thinks dinosaurs had feathers instead of scales.  Either way, it’s the equivalent of the moon Fornax in Menace from Outer Space being so reminiscent of Io.  There’s no way the writers could have known that, but it’s interesting nonetheless.

The Ship of Monsters is very cheap and very dumb, but it’s good fun for those of us who like crummy old alien invasion movies, and I recommend it to anybody in that demographic.  As for actual life on Venus… I feel like a lot of the people getting excited are too young to remember when Bill Clinton told the world that we had totally found life on Mars.  Humans have been discovering life on other planets for about two hundred years and every single one of those ‘discoveries’ has turned out to be either a mistake or an outright lie.  We have plenty enough to panic about this year without a Venusian invasion.

[gloves94]

The Munter [Paul McCartney] 2

Warnings: None Pairings: Paul McCartney/OC Summary: Sage O'Shea is a hardworking woman of the 1960's. A strange combination of brains and- well- Let's just say she is not your average beauty. Au contraire she's a Munter. John bets Paul that he wouldn't dare date such a monstrous woman. Despite his best judgement Paul agrees and takes John on his daring bet. Will Paul be able to see Sage's true beauty? What's going to happen when poor Sage finds out about their nasty bet? Whether the results are pretty or not- one thing I can say is love works in mysterious ways. *Comments and reviews are appreciated.* *Character development*

My fanfiction: M A S T E R L I S T

2. The Band's Munter

Tuesday, November 5th, 1963 Sage's Prespective

And just like that- that's how I began working for Brian Epstein and The Beatles. I returned home right past six. The sky had already darkened, and the autumn chill had settled on London. I could feel a cold chill beginning to consumer my body. Being soaked by the muddy water and the bitter wind were no help. I walked inside and removed my favorite knitted gloves and hat. If I could put money on it I would bet they brought me good luck today!

"Mum, I'm home," I called out as I closed the old door behind and began removing my shoes. I hate wearing shoes indoors.

"Good lord Sagey, get out of those clothes before you catch a cold!" Mother greeted and removed my wet coat and scarf with her one good arm.

"How did it go dear?" she asked kindly.

"I got the job," I breathed in disbelief beaming as I did. Mom clapped eagerly and kissed both my cheeks.

"Oh! Bless! That is great news! We will be able to pay the rent soon then," she sighed in relief. I simply nodded agreeing. After searching for so long- I finally had something.

"Sage? Did any of those men try pulling a quick one on you? I don't want you getting cozy with any of those scoundrels." Mom's face turned stern, both of her eyebrows furrowed as she saw past me.

Just like Brian, mom is a direct person. She's not the kind to engage in funny business. Her lower lip was permanently stuck in a frown and her eyes are fixed in perpetual mean glare.

"Ugh and their haircuts, dreadful," she added in disgust at the thought of the trendy bowl haircuts that the Beatles wore.

"Mum, you gotta stop sayin' that. You know that I'm not pretty-" I almost whispered the last part and shoulder's slouching as I walked into the kitchen to prepare myself an evening cup of tea.

"You want to be a pretty girl?" Mother's voice trembled as it escalated in tone. I knew this would happen. I braced myself getting ready for the lecture I had heard a thousand times before. "I was a pretty darlin' back when I was your age and look what that got me," she said darkly. "Your no good father saw a 'pretty lil thing'and after the damage was done he jumped ship back to America. So think again," mom frowned with a demeaning look. "And don't you dareforget what happened the last timeyou felt like playin coy." Every word that came out of her was like an knife digging into my skin. I stood still, leaning on the kitchen counter, avoiding my mother's dark gaze. "Look at me," she hissed. "Sage! Look at me. Now!" She spat with venom in her voice. I turned to look at her. The woman who used to be a beauty queen was now plump holding a lame arm which had cost her a career of 20+ years as a seamstress. Mom and I share the same bushy brown hair, which she keeps short. However, her eyes are dark brown, almost black while mine are colored. "I know what is best for you, so don't be goin' around repeating my mistakes and yours!" She pointed angrily. Perhaps, mother knew best. She had raised me all by herself as a bastard child, then again, in those days she certainly wasn't the only one.

xxx

Wednesday, November 6th, 1963

It was Wednesday. I found myself sitting in Brian Epstein's office lobby. I attempted to keep my hands preoccupied as I knitted a small hat for a toddler. I had been waiting for quite some time now. Was this Mr. Epstein's norm?

"Sage! We've been waiting for you for quite a while!" Brian suddenly appeared. He stopped dead in his tracks and looked at the tiny hat that I was holding with that appeared to be concern. "I-uh, for my Godson," I clarified that I was not expecting. Brian flashed me what looked like a judgmental look. What? There was nothing wrong with knitting!

"I-I'm sorry I was told to wait," I explained rising to my feet. "By whom?" He retorted with a confused look cocking an eyebrow up in intrigue. "By..." It took me a moment to remember the face of the security guard who had told me to wait in the lobby. I had seen him the other day flirting with the incarnation of Satan. "Isabel.." I growled out clutching my bag tightly. Of course she sat on her desk blatantly flirting with one of Beatles, I didn't care much which one it was. Ugh. She had had me again. I let out a frustrated sigh and followed Mr. Epstein into his office. I could see that blonde succubus sitting on a large desk right outside of the office like a spider prepping to sink her fangs into an unexpecting prey. Brian's secretary sat on a desk opposite side of hers.

"I'm sorry to be the one to tell you this, but since you got here lateit seems like Isabel will be sitting in the front desk." Brian sighed and clicked his tongue. He didn't sound too disappointed by this. I turned and that vile woman winked in my direction. I returned the gesture with what I assumed was my best Magda O'Shea glare. ‘Bitch...’ I almost gritted my teeth. "So where am I to work?" I asked concerned. Brian was silent for a moment. "Follow me," he said and I did as instructed finally entering his office. I glared at the blonde that was sitting on the entrance desk and stuck my tongue out at her childishly. She returned the gesture with a smug mocking smile. Something gave me the feeling that she had done this intentionally. I was so centered on glaring at Isabel that I didn't notice the back of someone's foot that was sticking out. Before I knew it I saw the room blur by as I clumsily stumbled face front and hit the tile floor with a loud thud my glasses flew off my face somewhere. Still on the ground I turned to see Paul McCartney leaning over Isabel's desk flirting with her. His expression was hard to read. It almost looked as if I had ruined one of his punchlines. Isabel made no effort to hide her loud laughter, Brian leaned over to offer me his hand and just then two of the other band mates walked in.

'Great!' I thought sarcastically. 'How embarrassing!' I stretched out my hand and frantically turned to look for my eye glasses. It was then that a loud crack caught my attention.

That could only mean… Still kneeling I turned to see Brian reaching for the glasses underneath his shoe. "Oh sorry about that," he said, his voice sounding out smoother than I had expected. Wait- That wasn't Brian's voice. Paul apologized sincerely and stretched out his hand to hand me my glasses which had been shattered. I took the glasses as fast as I could and slipped them back up the bridge of my nose coyly. I tried my best to avert my eyes from his. There was something about Paul that made me terribly nervous. I still couldn't put my finger on what it was. Maybe it was his sleepy eyes? Feeling my ears burning I turned away letting out an incoherent peep and almost ran after Brian as he FINALLY walked inside of his office.

xxx

Paul cleared his throat feeling awkward at the encounter, he mumbled something about getting some tea and hurriedly left the room. Isabel didn't seem to care. It was then that George and Ringo approached her desk and simultaneously greeted her. Both had bedroom eyes and looked at her with the same lustful gaze that John and Paul gave her.

"Hi George," Isabel said batting her eyelashes at him. "Pingo," she said more seriously pursuing her lips.

George was about to retort when he was interrupted by Ringo.

"You know to call me Ringo, why do you pretend you don't?" Ringo snapped, his eyes zoning into Isabel Murdock's brown ones.

"It just won't stick," she said shrugging him off with an impolite smile. "If it won't stick, then call me Richard. Like my mother," he said grumpily before following George inside of Brian's office.

xxx

I was speechless.

Working a crappy desk was bad. But working in a crappy desk inside of a supply closet? That had to be illegal somewhere. "I know it's small... We had to clean up and take a lot of boxes out, but I think it's an improvement. Don't you think?" Brian asked while leaning on her chair, in that instant the chair collapsed. This had got to be a joke!

He smiled nervously and scurried off to find a replacement chair. I shook my head and stood around the desk placing a few of my belongings on the crappy desk and proceeded to attempt to fix my poor broken glasses. They were completely cracked down the middle and would slide down my face. Some of the glass in them was also shattered like spiderwebs. With no alternative I simply taped them. xxx Asked John as he finally arrived to Brian's office. He was dressed casually and removed his coat plopping himself down on a dull green sofa chair.

"Went to get a chair or something," George muttered absent mindedly as he ate a chocolate bar.

"Yeah? The git must be running off," said John licking his lips bored. "Got me into a lot of trouble with Cyn for sneaking off the other night," he said shaking his head.

Unknowingly to them from the inside of Brian's storage closet an ear pressed against the wall listening carefully. The person debated whether she should leave the room or not.

"Serves you right for being a wanker," Ringo grumbled as he kept busy by playing with his many rings.

"Well aren't you in a charming mood this morning, eh?" Lennon said sarcastically. Ringo simply rolled his blue eyes insecurity overcoming him. "Lads can I ask you an honest question?"

"Only if you want a dishonest answer," grinned George between bites.

It took Ringo a couple of moment of bracing himself before he could bring himself to ask.

"Am I... Am I ugly?" He said slowly.

John and George exchanged a look before bursting out in fits of loud laughter

"Does it matter?" John said still laughing "You're a Beatle, birds will flock to you regardless of your mop, mug or trabs. Makes me regret hitching off so early," John comment before pretending to busy himself as he doodled on a random notepad from Brian's desk.

"Let's just say there's a reason why you're the funny Beatle," George said with a teasing grin. His large stained with the chocolate he was eating.

"Ya, take it from the handsome muppet ova there," John quipped returning to his usual obnoxious tone.

"It's just that, there's this one bird," Ringo began. The thought of Isabel's sly full lips made him tense up.

"She won't even bother remembering my name."

"She likes you," John said in a funny high-pitched schoolboy voice as he continued his drawing. "Probably being a tease, ya know?" He resumed normally. "Like-"

It was then that Paul walked into the office room, he removed his scarf and coat and plopped himself in a sofa near the door. The others greeted him.

"As I was saying-" Lennon continued. Adding the final touches to his artistic masterpiece.

"I'd be worried Rings- if you looked like this!" He showed off his drawing proudly.

"What is that?" George asked cocking his head in an attempt to decipher what the hell John's drawing was supposed to be.

"It's that Munter that Brian hired. I swear I've seen prettier blokes in drag," he gagged as he looked at the drawing.

The hideous drawing consisted in a dark deformed scribble with massive glasses that fell off the sides of the face followed by hair sticking out in all directions. In all honesty it looked like nothing but a random scribble.

"Exactly!" Ringo exclaimed as a brick of realization hit him. "What if I I'm the munter of the band?"

George rolled his eyes and told him to shut up growing annoyed of Ringo's insecure whining.

"It's the nose isn't it?" He retorted sadly as he touched his face.

"Your beak is fine," John rolled his eyes dramatically.

"That monster on the other hand? It has to be born again, just to look barely decent," John snorted cruelly.

George couldn't help but chuckle and shake his head. John was just too much sometimes. Ringo sulked and Paul remained quiet his hand pressed to his mouth in a pensive matter.

"Eh? What's up with you Macca?" John asked as he noticed his uncharacteristic behavior.

Unknowingly to the men un the room, in the door opposite to them Sage leaned against her desk a hand brought to her mouth in horror as she attempted to quiet down her gasp. She couldn't believe what she had just heard... She knew she was ugly, as previously stated it was something that people would not allow her to forget; however, for John to be such a pig...

She had no idea just how cruel he could be. For a moment her insecurities consumed her, and she wondered if that was just the way that everyone was to her behind her back. She wiped off the fat tears that were beginning to stream down her face and she took in some deep breaths.

It was then that Brian stepped inside of the storage closet and handed her the unbroken chair he had promised her.

"Fellas, this will be Sage's new office," Brian announced.

It was at the tip of her tongue. It was about to slip. Five characters, four letters, two precious words. It was as easy as that: I quit.

When the four men met her eyes and saw her red cheeks and agape mouth, they knew that she had heard them. Her brows were in a frown and her eyes were the same as her glasses. Broken.

Without another word she scurried out of the office. "Think she heard us?" George said swiftly as he finished his chocolate bar. It seemed as if his voice was clouded with the slightest concern. John rolled his eyes and crumpled his drawing tossing it at him like a ball. Paul still remained pensive with his hand covering his mouth. Ringo was too busy sulking. Outside Isabel couldn't resist taunting Sage.

"Gone so soon?" She purred as she sat looking pretty with an empty desk.

Sage stopped in her tracks and couldn't help but to smirk at Isabel.

"I hope you enjoy your taunting Isabel, because when the times comes to balance accounts and work with taxes. Maybe I'll still be ugly, but I know you'll definitely be fired," Sage smiled shrugging her shoulders before walking a little taller.

xxx First:  Chapter 1

Prev: Chapter 1 Next: Chapter 3

[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?