#ofc donnie left recordings for everyone else

[sibillascribbles08]

Regardless of What Happens

Whaaat it’s 2023 what if I wrote some Bad Future Jasonnie

Gonna just go ahead and give the heads up for implied sexual content and offscreen canon character death. I’m gonna get crunchy with it like I haven’t already with literally every other bad future thing I write.

Even if the conversation ended with another joke from Leo and both of them laughing, dread still hung like a lead weight at the base of Donatello’s chest. It was such a risky plan, a miracle he even convinced Leo to go along with it. Hacking into Kraang tech, even with all his research he knew it could go backwards so fast. He may not be able to over power it.

In less than twenty-four hours he may not be alive anymore.

Dying didn’t entirely scare him. He accepted death a long time ago.

He just hated the idea of what he might leave behind.

He hadn’t discussed the plan with Mikey yet. He’d have to, or Leo would do it for him. He’d already talked about it with April which ended with them screaming at each other. He’d apologize later, but still announce he was going through with it. She may never forgive him. He understood that.

A lot of people might not forgive him if this idea failed. Including Mikey. Including Casey. Including Leo.

Including...

Donatello glanced in the main computer room. Jase sat in there, like he often did, water bottle in hand as he scrolled through recent drone data. The purple dragons had become allies not long after the invasion started, though there was a ton of friction between them for a while. The need to survive eventually came around to friendship, despite how much Donnie would still bicker with them all from time to time. They didn’t do much field work, but their work with the programming and tech was a life saver on many occasions. It kept some of the workload off Donatello and meant they had backups if something happened to him.

And Jase knew Donnie’s tech better than any of them. Not long after becoming friends, Jase quit following at Kendra’s heels and often turned to Donatello instead. Late nights working on tech became so routine that, even on their nights off, they’d often hole up in each others rooms just to talk.

Donatello often denied the feelings that developed from that. After losing Raph, the idea of letting it become anything more terrified him. Because something could happen to Jase, or something could happen to him, and wouldn’t that just make the loss all the more painful.

But then again...

“How long are you just going to stand there staring?”

Donatello straightened up and glanced at Kendra who stood next to the door now. Right, she was also in the computer room. He absolutely hadn’t been paying attention.

“Lost in thought.” He crossed his arms and met her glare before sparing a glance in Jase’s direction. He turned in his chair, eyebrow raised, but then soon got back to work.

Kendra followed his gaze. “Uh huh, one guess to what you’re thinking about.” She flicked him on the nose.

Donatello snapped at her hand. “Oh yeah? And what’s that?”

She gave him a smirk when she rolled her eyes, then turned her head. “Hey Jeremy, wanna go get a snack?”

Jeremy leaned up from his work. “Huh? But we--”

Kendra must have given him a look because he suddenly straightened up. “Oh, yeah, sure, you want us to bring you something Jase?”

Jase just gave them a non-committal hum and kept scrolling.

Kendra’s smirk remained on her face as she stepped past Donatello and then shoved him through the doorway. He clenched his fists, about to try and insult her when the door closed in his face.

What was the big idea?

She couldn’t possibly know could she?

Donatello chose to ignore it for the time being as he walked up behind Jase’s chair, looking over the screen himself. All activity normal, from the look of things. A nice reprieve from how things were less than a week ago. Still, he didn’t trust it to last. Quiet moments like this often meant the Kraang were poking around for a weak point to strike. They’d learned to grow patient when the war lasted more than one Earth year.

Jase finally got to the bottom and turned away from the screen. “You need something, Donnie?”

He opened his mouth, then closed it, trying to search for the words. It seemed like a bad idea to just start with the whole “hey I might be dying tomorrow” topic.

Jase studied his face for a second before standing. Not like it did much. All these years and Jase barely gained another inch while Donatello sprouted up over a foot and a half. Jase didn’t even reach his shoulders now.

“Donnie?” Jase tilted his head. “Everything okay?”

“I...” He ground his teeth together for a second. “No. Not entirely.”

“What’s wrong? The drones aren’t reporting anything worth noting.”

“It’s not them it’s...” His arms tightened across his chest. He really didn’t know where to begin with this. “I finally got Leo to approve of a desperate plan of mine.”

Jase’s eyes went wide, only to narrow a second later. “What kind of desperate plan?”

He ground his teeth again, unable to meet his gaze. “I’m going to try and hack into Kraang tech.”

“What?” Jase snapped, trying to stand on his toes just to get closer. “Donnie, I know you’re joking. We talked about that dozens of times before. Even if it’s possible the risk is--”

“I know what the risk is.” Donatello snapped. “But look at us, Jase. Ever since Casey--Cassandra dropped our numbers keep dwindling. All our plans are coming up empty. People who were once our allies keep getting turned on us. If I can make this work it could change everything.”

“And if it doesn’t work?” Jase’s voice cracked and he finally grabbed Donatello’s coat in order to pull him down. “What happens to you then? You also just become one of their pawns? They could--”

“I’m aware.” Donatello took in a shaky breath. “That’s why Leo’s going to be there. So if I fail he can--”

“Are you serious!?”

“Jase--”

“No. No.” Jase shoved him back. “I’m not letting you do this.”

God damn it, this was going about as well as his talk with April did. “Jase, we’re running out of options.”

“That doesn’t mean we should jump straight to something like this. I want you to look me in the eye and tell me the statistics of you getting out of this alive.”

Donatello tried to turn his gaze, but he couldn’t hold it. Rather than focusing on Jase’s eyes--so dark brown they were almost black--it kept moving to his messy hair, or the scar on his ear, or the thin line of stubble that made it clear he hadn’t bothered shaving in a few days.

“Donnie.” Jase insisted.

Donatello took a deep breath and forced his eyes to focus. “About seventeen percent.”

“That’s nothing. You can’t be serious. I’m not letting you do this until you can at least get that number higher.”

“We don’t have time for that.”

“You’re just giving up, aren’t you?” Jase’s voice crack again. “That’s what this is.”

Air got caught in Donatello’s throat before he could deny that.

“I’m not stupid, Donnie. I’ve picked out the things you’ve said over all those late night conversations. You’ve thought this war was pointless for years. That if--”

“If it lasted more than a year, we had no chance of winning. I know.” Donatello snapped back. “But I kept going, didn’t I? If I wanted to give up I would have years ago but I didn’t because...”

Because Raph. Because Mikey. Because Leo. Because April. Because Cassandra and now Casey. Because...

Gods, he knew why they were all so upset with this idea. He knew why they kept trying to convince him otherwise. How could he possibly explain to them that he wasn’t scared of dying if it gave them all the chance to turn this whole thing around. The only thing he was scared of was...

He reached out and held Jase’s faced in his hands, so suddenly that his friend’s sharp anger gave way to shock.

“Jase, I’m so sorry.” His breaths felt so unsteady, like he’d forgotten how to do it, like there just wasn’t enough oxygen in the air.

“For what?” Jase bit his lip to keep his voice from stuttering. “For being an idiot?”

“Yes.” The word barely left his lips when he exhaled. Then he pulled Jase into a kiss.

His friend went rigid under his grip, and he thought, briefly, that maybe this had been a very stupid idea.

Then arms were being thrown around his neck and Jase kissed him back, hard. The sudden tug almost had Donatello stumbling forward, so he responded by moving his hands and lifting Jase off the ground.

The motion forced them apart, but only for the length of a breath. Now looking down at him, Jase kissed him again, somehow even harder than the first time. Teeth and lips pinched together. Jase’s hands couldn’t seem to find a place to settle as they ran over Donatello’s cheeks to the back of his head, constantly bumping into his goggles. He was about to toss the damn things to the side. Not close enough. Somehow they weren’t close enough.

He tugged that thought back. A sliver of logic managed to slip through the haze that rapidly took over his brain. He pulled away from this kiss, and Jase started to follow him before he must have also regained his senses.

His cheeks, already bright red, somehow got darker as the color spread to the tips of his ears.

“Oh my god.” Jase’s hands moved to Donatello’s shoulders. “What am I doing?”

Donatello couldn’t help but smirk. “I thought that was obvious.”

Jase managed a glare as he lightly smacked the side of his goggles. “Don’t be such a smart ass, Von Ryan. What are you doing? What are we doing?”

“Well, I was kissing you.” Donatello dropped his grip just a bit so the pair of them were at eye level. “Because, I confess, I’ve wanted to for a few years now even if I tried to pretend I didn’t.”

Jase breathed out a laugh. “Huh, I guess we really are doing the same thing.” He leaned close, peppering kisses from the corner of Donatello’s mouth up his cheek. “I just always figured I wasn’t... That you were so far out of my league...”

Donatello snorted and turned his head to meet his lips. “So smart but so stupid sometimes. Out of your league? Really?”

“Shut up and just look at yourself.” Jase kept kissing him. “The most brilliant mind of our time, strong, tall, gorgeous--”

“Oh?” Donatello raised an eyebrow. “You think so?” 

“Don’t sound so smug.” Jase shot him a glare before his hand ran up Donatello’s neck and then rested on his cheek. His thumb pressed against the corner of the turtle’s mouth before tugging his lip down. “But yes.”

Oh. Oh. That finally made a lot more sense. “Wait, is that why you kept staring at my mouth whenever I grinned at you?”

“What can I say? I like ‘em sharp.”

“You’re such a freak.”

“Takes one to know one.”

Donatello tried to lean in for another kiss, but Jase’s hand held him back.

“But jokes and flirting aside,” his tone shifted. “This better not be some stupid confession made because you know you aren’t making it out of this stupid scheme of yours.” 

“Um... not entirely?” He tried to smile. “I just... I denied it for so long because after losing Raph it felt like... Like if I let myself have this I’d just be asking for it to get ripped away from me.”

“So you decided to do that to me instead.”

The impact of those words hit him so hard he almost dropped Jase on the floor. The lead weight in his chest dropped to his stomach. “I...”

“You’re such a bastard.” Jase mumbled as he kissed Donatello again. “Such a bastard and I love you. I don’t want to lose you.” His voice cracked again. A sob briefly escaped before he took a deep breath to tug all of it back in. “And I also hate myself for not saying anything sooner. I hate myself for not even being friends sooner. I hate that it took the world ending for us to become friends. I hate...” Another shaky breath. “I hate thinking that if this never happened, if the world was peaceful, would we still hate each other? Would we still be enemies? I don’t... I don’t know what world I’d prefer to live in if that’s the case.”

Donatello studied Jase’s face, once again his mind screaming that they weren’t close enough.

“I want us both to survive this.” Jase pressed their foreheads and their noses together. “I want us to win and try to get back to some kind of normal life again. I want the two of us to... I want...”

Another firm kiss, and this time when Donatello returned it, Jase moaned. Nails lightly scrapped against the back of Donatello’s neck, making him shiver. Jase parted his lips and Donatello followed suit.

Not close enough. Not close enough.

Jase barely moved away when he stopped, breath brushing past Donatello’s cheek when he spoke. “Your room or mine?”

The haze in his brain returned ten fold, but that sliver of logic fought to stay on the surface. “Are you sure about that? We--”

Jase’s hands practically slapped against his cheeks before he smooshed Donatello’s face. “I know I’m not going to stop you from doing this stupid, idiotic, reckless idea of yours. And if this really is some stupid, last minute, desperate confession then let me have this. Your room or mine.”

He said that last sentence so forcefully that the sliver of logic finally vanished in the haze. Donatello barely kept himself from pinning Jase to the nearby desk. “Yours.”

---------------------

Donatello must have dozed off. Not too surprising, considering the past few sleepless nights due to the stress and well... what just happened.

Jase lay curled up under his arm, pressed against his chest, not quite asleep but definitely not all awake either.

Donatello didn’t want to move. He really didn’t want to move. He at least allowed himself another few quiet seconds, pressing his nose to Jase’s forehead.

But then he rolled over, looking for wherever he placed his gauntlet on the nearby desk to check the time.

Yeesh, it’d almost been two hours since he and Jase first started talking back in the main computer room. He couldn’t waste too much time laying around. He had to prep some things before tomorrow. He had to talk to Mikey, and April, and--

Jase shifted behind him. Then two arms wrapped around his stomach as his friend--boyfriend--pressed up against his shell.

“You’re not leaving, are you?” Jase mumbled.

“Not yet.” Donatello left the gauntlet next to the pillow as his hand rested on Jase’s wrist. “But I can’t stay here all afternoon.”

Jase tightened his grip. “Will I see you again tonight?”

Donatello wiggled himself loose, just enough to roll back over. “Most likely.”

“Good.” Jase kissed him on the collar, then the throat. “I’m not done with you yet.”

Donatello smirked. “Hm, dare I ask what that means.”

“Use your imagination.” Jase trailed a few more kisses, but slowed to a stop. “You are going to try, right? To stay alive, I mean.”

“Of course I am. But you know me. I have to be realistic. No matter how hard I try it may not...”

He didn’t finish the thought, couldn’t. Instead he reached up to hold Jase’s face, making sure his boyfriend was looking at him. “Regardless of what happens, I love you. No matter where I end up, I love you. One way or another, I’ll see you again. And one way or another, I’ll be sure to leave you a part of me you can carry with you.” He sealed that promise with a quick kiss.

Jase looked at him, almost star struck, before it fell back to his usual smirk. “Wow, where did you find that sappy piece of dialogue?”

“Oh shush.” Donatello smiled back at him as he tugged the pillow down over Jase’s head. Not a very comfy one, full of old clothes they’d scavenged for, but better than rocks.

A beep from his gauntlet had to ruin the moment. He rolled over to check it again, knew it was an incoming call from the noise. Leo.

Donatello forced himself to sit up and snapped the gauntlet back on his wrist before answering it. “Yes, Leo?”

“Donnie, where are you? I’ve been looking all over the base for you. Main computer room says you’re still in here.”

“I am.” He wiped his eyes. “I’m in Jason’s quarters.”

His brother’s silence made him realize what he just said. His palm slapped against his forehead.

“Wait. Is that why Kendra is insisting I owe her ten dollars?”

“Huh?” Donatello shouted into the gauntlet and saw Jase trying to hide himself under the covers. “What are you talking about?”

“Oh my god, oh my god, no. I swore up and down you two would never--”

“You had a bet?”

“Dude, half the family does. I should get your own recordings and show you just how you two constantly stare at each other. Like, fifty times I swore I was going to vomit.”

“Okay, where are you?” Donatello tossed the covers off his legs and started to scramble for his clothes. “I’m coming to kick your ass right now.”

“Hang on, I have to give Kendra ten dollars before you do.”

“Nardo!”

-------------------

Jason didn’t know what he expected.

It was late a night when he saw Donnie again. He looked lost, then frustrated, then lost all over again. Evidently talking about the plan with the others didn’t go over too well. Part of Jason hoped that would discourage Donnie from trying it.

It didn’t.

So Jason clung to him like it was the last night on Earth, like if his lips left his, he would suffocate. Words were whispered back and forth, so quietly, but he remembered every one of them.

“I’m so sorry for doing this to you.” Donnie mumbled at one point. “I’m still not sure what’s worse. Telling you now at the risk of leaving, or you never knowing at all.”

At the time, he didn’t have an answer to that.

He didn’t think too hard afterwards, drifting off to sleep, because he assumed he’d see Donnie one more time in the morning.

But when he woke up, his arm reached out to find nothing. He groaned and sat up, opening his eyes to still find nothing. Just crumpled sheets and something round and grey sitting next to the pillow.

Jason fumbled for his glasses and put them on. Damn lenses that would never be clean again. They couldn’t spend the resources making fancy new ones.

He could see the object more clearly now. A simple speaker with one button on it. Donnie often used them to leave messages when bases had to be abandoned, leaving coded messages for other resistance members to follow.

But why was it here?

Jason swallowed before giving into his curiosity and hitting play.

“Regardless of what happens, I love you.” The words from yesterday afternoon played back to him. “No matter where I end up, I love you. One way or another, I’ll see you again. And one way or another, I’ll be sure to leave you a part of me you can carry with you.”

Jason stared at the speaker in his hand.

Is this what he meant when he said that?

Suddenly an uneasy feeling twisted in his stomach.

He scrambled out of bed and put on his uniform. With everything ready he sprinted out of his quarters and towards the main computer room. No one else was inside yet, too early perhaps? He hadn’t even looked at the time. He wouldn’t. Vitals. He needed to check vitals. His palm swiped across the screen until it showed the correct list.

One of them was flatlined.

One of them was--

He hit the play button.

“Regardless of what happens, I love you.”

He hit it again.

“Regardless of what happens, I love you.”

Jason swallowed back the lump in his throat and forced his gaze to move over to the name next to the unwavering thread of life.

Again.

“Regardless of what happens, I love you.”

“Regardless of what happens--”

What happened?

Jason took off again. Leonardo. He had to find Leonardo if he was in the base. He’d know exactly what happened, right?

Did Jason even want an answer to that?

Most of the cave tunnels remained empty. Sometimes he passed by some rooms where people lingered, but none of them called after him.

He kept moving. Heading for the med bay. That’d be a logical place to look, right? He saw the doorway to it, saw April standing inside with her back turned. He opened his mouth to call out to her when his chest struck something metal. He would have fallen back if the culprit hadn’t caught him.

His hands rested on Leonardo’s prosthetic before he glanced at the turtle. His eyes were red, cheeks damp, but his expression was firm.

“Leo.” Jason tried to catch his breath. “What-- What happened? Where is he?”

Leonardo flinched, but his gaze only faltered for a second. “Jase trust me you don’t...” He swallowed. “You don’t want to go in there right now.”

“What happened?” He demanded as he pulled free. “What--” Only now with this distance did he get a good look at Leo’s sword. The red mask on the hilt was now perfectly complimented by the deep red stains that still lined the blade.

He felt so numb. Static formed in his palm where the recording pressed against it and slowly traveled up to his shoulder. This couldn’t be real. Maybe he was just having a nightmare. Any minute now he’d wake up in the real world and Donnie would still be right next to him, whispering a proper goodbye before he headed out on this doomed mission.

“Did he even try?” Jason choked the words out.

Leonardo grit his teeth, clearly struggling to speak for a second. “He gave it everything he had. It just wasn’t... enough.”

And what could he even say to that? The devastation was plain on Leo’s face. It’d probably be plain on April’s as well, and Mikey’s and even young Casey. Jase knew he wasn’t the only one being crushed by this, he never was when other reports of lost members came flooding in after a mission. He never was when he and his team watched those flat lines crop up one by one. In some ways this one should hardly be any different but the pins and needles in his arm hurt.

“Jase?” Leonardo took a step toward him. “Jase, I’m sorry--”

Why was he apologizing? This wasn’t his fault. It was Donatello’s stupid, stupid plan.

“Look, you should--”

As soon as the turtle reached out, Jason flinched backwards. His hand tensed around the device, causing him to hit the play button once more.

“Regardless of what happens, I love you.”

Leonardo’s eyes went wide.

“No matter where I end up, I love you.”

“Jase... where did you--”

“One way or another, I’ll see you again.”

Leo’s shoulders went tense before his left hand covered his face, clearly trying to hide his tears.

“And one way or another.”

Jason took off in the opposite direction. He couldn’t be doing this to Leo, shouldn’t be. The recording already wrenched his own heart in two, just what was it doing to Donatello’s twin?

“I’ll be sure to leave you a part of me you can carry with you.”

Jason kept going, all the way back to his quarters where he slammed to the door shut before sliding down onto the floor.

He hit the button again.

“Regardless of what happens, I love you.”

He double tapped this time, rewind.

“I love you.”

Again.

“I love you.”

I love you. I love you. I love you.

Jason failed to hold back his sob this time, loud enough that it drowned out the rest of the recording as it played from his hand. 

“I’m still not sure what’s worse. Telling you now at the risk of leaving, or you never knowing at all.”

Jason still didn’t have an answer to that. Was one truly worse than the other?

Or did they just hurt in different ways.

Again.

“Regardless of what happens, I love you.”

[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?