#forgot what my point was halfway as usual but here are my brain crumbs about the situation

[givehimthemedicine]

🛹🛼

lots of talk about why Mike reacted so negatively to this when he reacted so positively to this:

can we talk about how the Rinkomania reaction started in between those two things? right here:

at mid-season-2, all the times Mike has seen El use force against people have been super justified because there were lives at stake (or at very least, like in the case of tossing Lucas in the junkyard, she thought there were)

then Max wipes out, and goes "ooh it was like a magnet pulled on my board" and instead of taking that the way anyone would - that this annoying girl fell due to lack of skill and is trying to save face with a stupid excuse - INSTANTLY Mike suspects El. El, who's currently dead or lost in another dimension or whatever, must actually be lurking around here with nothing better to do than trip Max.

ok 100% accurate but I'm offended nonetheless

why did he jump to that conclusion?

the last time some inexplicable, physical but nonlethal hijinks befell someone he was talking to, he turned around and saw who was responsible:

so when Max fell, in that same gym btw, of course his brain goes turn around, look at what you seee

this was Mike learning that, oh, El isn't Superman and doesn't reserve her powers only for perfectly morally justified situations, but can in fact lash out about anything that bothers her, like the disturbed child she is.

BUT I don't think he actually processed that at that moment. he wasn't thinking about how Max did absolutely nothing that could be misinterpreted as a threat, and didn't deserve this. at that moment, any thought of justice for Max, or scrutiny of El's motives, was easily and completely drowned out by excitement that El might be there.

so later Mike sees Angela screaming on the ground with El standing over her, and remembers he has already seen El respond to a non-life-threatening situation with a level of force that didn't make sense to him.

plus he has that whole protection thing and I think seeing anyone get hurt is paladin catnip to him (see him rushing to Max's aid two seconds after telling her she's annoying). he has that instinct to support whoever's been knocked down undeservedly - yeah he knows Angela is an asshole, but El's response seems overboard to him, so while he doesn't go as far as rushing to Angela's side, he doesn't rush to El's side either.

he keeps distance between himself and El at the rink and leaves her sitting alone in the most literal demonstration of not wanting to take her side. he seems irritated in the car and downright pissed at the dinner table. I think it's true that he was overwhelmed in the moment and scared not of El but of the situation, but I don't think that's all of it, because then why would he be pissed.

maybe he's seeing patterns and thinking back on how Max didn't deserve that at all, and how neither of these things were very Superman of El and he's a bit disillusioned that she doesn't live up to the flawless superhero moral code he assigns her in his mind.

while the Angela thing seems WAY harsher than the Max thing, can I also say that a lot of that is due to circumstances?

Angela's pouring blood, wailing, an ambulance has to come, there's lots of witnesses. it looks baaaad. Max isn't injured, isn't too bothered, and there are no witnesses or real consequences. shrug. but it easily could've gone down much more like Angela. you can absolutely break a bone or get a concussion from a spill like Max's.

Max isn't hurt, so Mike just leaves the room, and nothing ever comes of it. compare to Mike watching an inevitably-to-be-arrested El sit stewing in the aftermath as dozens of Angela's sympathizers watch her get checked for brain damage by EMTs.

it's little wonder Mike has such a different reaction in the moment, even though El's actions in these two scenes actually isn't totally night and day.

El's force was more deliberately focused on Angela, and I think El did intend to hurt Angela in a way she didn't intend to hurt Max (El yoinked the skateboard rather than bodily targeting Max herself, but her intent was still to make Max fall, and she could have been comparably injured as a result).

like, up til the point of "El gets mad and lashes out" these are similar - the way the aftermath unfolds just happens to take the best and worst possible paths, respectively.

and before you want to point out that the Angela thing was a reaction of anger and the Max was just about puppy love jealousy, no, that was anger. Max is literally the first thing El thinks of when Kali says to think of something that angers her.

tldr; rinkomania is just a nightmare remix of the gym scene to Mike

#tfw you find out your gf is in fact just some girl with massive psychological issues and not superman (sad trombone) #forgot what my point was halfway as usual but here are my brain crumbs about the situation #analysis #mine #eleven #mike wheeler #like. haven't we all done something wrong that was nbd just because nobody got hurt and nobody saw it #but if it had gone down differently it could have been an extremely big deal #imagine: Max falls breaks her arm screams teachers run in Mike has to stay with her til medics arrive a small crowd gathers #El feels bad and homerbushes.gifs outta there. the hand Max tries to shake hers with later has a cast on it #also rinko is so funny because Mike thought til 1 minute ago that El and Angela were besties #so he sees her bash her face in and is like 'girl your friendmaking skills are so questionable but ig it works for you. max misses you btw'

[swarmkeepers]

riz & gorgug for #5! ✨

5. heard you tell the same story multiple times but doesn’t point it out to you when you excitedly bring it up to them again + riz & gorgug (prompts linked here)

(starting immediately post-fhsy, and a little more angsty than the other prompt fills so far because it deals with some of the aftermath of spring break. sometimes friendship is late nights and brownie recipes and old stories.)

There are forty minutes left until Elmville when Riz digs his claws into the headrest of the passenger’s seat and clambers over the seat backs to sit shotgun in the Hangvan. 

Everyone else is asleep, or as Riz suspects in Tracker’s case as she stays oddly still as a human pillow for Kristen in the backseat, at least pretending to. But Riz is quest-restless even though they’re heading home, and Gorgug’s awake because he’s driving, and both of their darkvision light up the street ahead for them. 

Gorgug doesn’t look surprised when Riz lands in the seat next to him. Of course. Because his whole party knows that Riz doesn’t sleep, or at least has to be told to, or has to know that there are hit points to be regenerated and a fight to be alert for the next day. 

Streetlights speed by and Gorgug brings the van to a smooth stop at a light, accelerating smoothly up afterwards to not jostle anyone in the backseat. He’s practiced, easy, calm. Meanwhile, Riz’s thoughts are a messy turbulent maelstrom. He can’t sleep, and after everything in the Nightmare Forest if he never saw a bed again it’d be too soon. But, forget sleep, his brain isn’t even letting him relax right now, and Riz is struggling to figure out the questions that are on the tip of his tongue. His fingers itch for a ball of red string, trying to figure out why he wanted to be up here with the passenger seat and the windshield and Gorgug.

“What’s being a barbarian like?” he asks quietly, and Gorgug doesn’t exactly startle but does tip his head to the side curiously. 

“Can I ask why?” 

“I’m—angry,” Riz says, surprising himself, but it feels true enough. “I killed Kalina, but she said she was with me my whole life. And I hate that.” He wants to hiss, to bare his teeth and make the hair on the back of his neck stand up, but it’s not Gorgug he’s mad at. “Sometimes I wonder if I should use that to. Hit things.” 

“Okay,” Gorgug says. 

“And you—you know about that. About being angry, and not being. As comfortable. Or at least you’ve said stuff like that.” Riz picks at his long fingernails, pretending to be nonchalant and not looking up to see if Gorgug’s insight is better than his shitty attempt at deception. 

“Tell me about why you wanted to be a rogue?” Gorgug asks instead, and Riz understands it’s not really a question. He trusts Gorgug. He thinks about it. 

“Um, my mom was always a detective, I guess. And my dad was a spy, but I guess I didn’t know that.” Riz spends a lot of his time thinking. He’s realizing he doesn’t spend a lot of time thinking about himself. Maybe he needs to make a new conspiracy board. “Uh. I guess the first time I ever saw Penny sneak attack someone was really cool, I definitely knew I wanted to do that.”

Gorgug makes a soft hm? noise that asks Riz to keep talking. “Because I was little and Penny’s little too, and we were at the mall and some asshole catcalled her? And oh, man, you should have seen her, Penny was probably an Aguefort freshman then? But she told me to hide behind this vending machine and—”

--

They’re all the way home, with the Mordred Manor crew taking their stuff out of the trunk while Gorgug and Riz keep talking. Riz finished his story hurriedly as they pulled into the driveway, ending with Penny teaching Riz to make brownie bars at Strongtower after the sneak attack incident and being so cool and badass and nonchalant about making that guy’s nose gush with blood. He’s talking fast and gesturing big like he doesn’t usually, caught up in a story that he can tell well and that he hadn’t thought of in a while. Him and his rogue friends are tiny badasses. 

“That was a good story,” Gorgug says. “Rogues seem pretty cool.” 

Riz grins, all his fangs out and happy in the driveway of the manor. “Thanks, dude.” 

“I think you can be angry and not a barbarian,” Gorgug says, gently. 

And “Okay,” Riz says, gentled. 

--

It’s the tail end of one of Fabian’s all-out summertime ragers. The Bad Kids are in a big cuddle pile that barely fits on the picnic blanket on the lawn of Seacaster Manor, and Gorgug’s at the very bottom. Riz is tipsy on half a beer (goblin metabolisms are not good and it’s not his fault) and he thinks Gorgug looks a little lonely, lying on his stomach and tapping at his crystal with all the wind knocked out of him from everyone lying on top. He scrambles down the pile of friend-bodies and sits on the grass by Gorgug. Riz racks his brain for something good to say. He doesn’t want Gorgug to be lonely, not when Riz is going to be up all night and Riz is usually the lonely one.

“Di’ I ever tell you about the first time I saw someone get sneak attacked,” Riz says, words big and bubbly and coming out too fast. He doesn’t care, he’s buzzed and happy and Gorgug looks like he could use a good story.

“I don’t remember, tell me,” Gorgug says, putting his crystal down face down so its glow goes dark. 

“Oh man, you’re going to love this story. It was, like, me ‘n Penny at the mall, and there was this real asshole of a dude, and I didn’t know Penny went to Aguefort but she took out this knife? And it was like she flew at him—”

At some point in the story Gorgug falls asleep, and Riz is more pleased than annoyed. He looks cozy. And not lonely. 

--

“What’s this, The Ball?” Fabian asks when Riz takes a fantasy tupperware of brownie bars out of his briefcase and puts it on the the table in the cafeteria.

“They’re sneak attack brownies,” Riz says. 

It evidently does not clear up any of Fabian’s questions. 

“Penny—Penny Luckstone?—they’re her recipe, she taught me how to make them the same day I ever saw her sneak attack a dude,” he explains. “She like, jumped out from behind one of those fake potted plants at the mall and slashed him so bad with a dagger and then she didn’t even get sneak attack on it but she also socked him in the nose and it was like the coolest thing I’d ever seen. And then she just went home and washed the blood off her fist and then we made brownies.” He puts a hand on his chest. “And I’ll never forget it.” 

“Okay, The Ball,” Fabian says, but he takes a brownie. 

Next to him, Gorgug’s already halfway into his second, nodding happily and energetically so his hair flops in front of his face. “I love that story!” he says. He’s all leaned in, listening to Riz’s story.

Riz lights up—he’s no Fabian, with expensive magical gifts, and he’s no Gorgug either with little artificed trinkets and sweeping big gestures. But he’d remembered the story and remembered the brownies and wanted to make some, and he’s just glad his friends like them as much as he does.

“Because the secret ingredient is sour cream,” Riz confides. Fabian fake-sputters, sending tiny brownie crumbs everywhere, and Gorgug swats at him. 

“You were eating it just fine before!” Gorgug says indignantly. “Respect the brownie, dude!”

“You’re right, Gorgug,” Fabian sighs. He takes another bite. “They’re not bad, The Ball.” 

--

Riz only dimly registers footsteps pounding up the stairs and also a greataxe brute forcing its way through the booby traps at his office door. His crystal is abandoned on the floor next to him, the last text he sent to Gorgug still on the screen. It’d been “Having a bad time. At my office. Can you come help? Thanks, Riz” and it’d been typed out with shaky fingers as his breaths started coming too fast, the way it does whenever he lets himself be alone in his own office for too long. Riz hates it but he needs help. He forgot the period on that text and it’s been staring at him for the past few minutes. 

His brain is whirring too fast—Shadow Cat, Kalina’s eyes in his own eyes, Baron in his mirror in his own office, darkness and danger and Fabian in churning waters, he died in that forest and so did Adaine and so could any of his friends, bullets dodged and bullets fired and it’s too much, too much. His breaths are coming too fast but also not fast enough. Riz feels suffocated. 

He’s wedged himself into his own briefcase of holding, the sides squeezing his arms in a way that’s grounding and comforting when nobody else is here in his office to help.

But Gorgug is. Gorgug is here to help now. He skids to a stop in front of Riz and sits on the floor and Riz only dimly registers it out of the corner of his eye where his head is curled into his chest trying to make himself small, make himself safe. 

“Riz, can I touch you?”

Riz does his best to nod and Gorgug just wraps long lanky boy arms around his torso, gently lifting Riz out of his own briefcase and settling him in Gorgug’s lap as they sit on the floor of the office. He doesn’t let go, just squeezes tighter. It’s so much help, and also— “Can you. Talk? Anything— Anything’s fine,” Riz says. 

“Um. Sure, Riz. I guess I can. I could list a recipe? My parents have been trying to teach me to cook more, for when we go to college in a couple of years. I’m sorry, I’m not like Adaine, I don’t have lots of interesting things memorized,” Gorgug says, apologetic. Riz wants to be able to tell him not to be, but he’s a little preoccupied trying to make his brain tell his lungs to breathe.

“Uh, so these are called sneak attack brownies?” Gorgug says hesitantly. Riz realizes what he’s doing and tries to laugh, the giggle interrupting the choked breath he was trying to take.

“They’re called sneak attack brownies because they’re my badass friend’s recipe. And he learned it from his badass friend. Um, I don’t know this super well, actually, but I really should by now and I’m just going to keep talking and if it’s wrong then I guess it’s wrong? I know that you need chocolate for a brownie. And eggs and sugar. You told me the secret ingredient is sour cream.”

Riz nods, thudding his head into Gorgug’s chest a little. He takes a deep breath. Gorgug’s hoodie is soft. And he’s a good listener.

“Right, uh. After sour cream. Flour. And butter?”

“The butter’s— the butter’s unsalted,” Riz manages to eke out, voice small and quiet and mostly talking to his own knees. 

“Got you. Unsalted butter,” Gorgug agrees, easy as anything. 

“Penny said— Penny said that dude she punched’s tears were salty enough, that’s how I remember it,” Riz tells him.

“Tell me more?” Gorgug asks, and he waits patiently as Riz lets his brain just focus on a recipe, an easy recipe and a badass story. It helps, to be given something focused to do. And Riz is just so, so glad he has friends who will give that to him, will listen over and over again when Riz needs to talk. 

And Gorgug waits. And Riz tells him. 

from the prompt list linked here! i’m closing prompts from this particular list simply because i have so many excellent ones to get through

#i love these soft bois and i hope you do too! #this got. truly so long i am so sorry #the green team. the nerd boys. the people with proficiency with guns. #they're GOOD FRIENDS gorgug is a GOOD LISTENER riz makes BADASS BROWNIES #food #fantasy high #sophomore year #gorgug thistlespring #riz gukgak #sola said #sola ficced #sola prompted #nonbinarywithaknife #sola answered #yes i know they don't get home to mordred at night but poetic license okay #also 'gorgug and riz in riz's office at night' and 'gorgug and riz in gorgug's van at night' feel like tropes for these two by now #and i'm here for it

[dracusfyre]

Venom prompts you say??? If you’re up for it, there seems to be a serious lack of angsty fics. Maybe some Eddie with depression and Venom not quite getting it, or maybe Venom totally gets it and Eddie feels well taken care of and loved.

BOTH!

The aggravating thing about having a symbiote is that on baddays, Eddie thought dully, you can’t just fake it until you’re alone again.

That is stupid, Venomannounced.  Why would humans evolve somethingso stupid? That had been Venom’s response when  Eddie had explained the reason why he didn’twant to get out of bed, why he didn’t feel like eating, and now, why he didn’twant to get off the couch.

Okay, Eddie reflected, maybe it wasn’t the most aggravating thing.   “I don’t know, Vee,” he sighed.  “It just…happens sometimes.  Your brain just goes ‘fthbbt’ and makes youfeel bad.”

Stupid, Venom repeated, and Eddie had to agree.  I’m bored.

“Why don’t you watch TV or something?”  Eddie reached for the remote and turned on anature documentary; Venom liked learning about the wildlife in his newlyadopted planet.  He felt a mutter in hishead that was Venom’s reluctant agreement, and then he was free to bury hisface in the couch cushions and disassociate while Venom formed opinions aboutsharks versus dolphins.

                                    —————

You’re not sad, Venom ventured later, in a way that was bothquestion and statement.

“No, I’m not sad,” Eddie agreed.  He was staring into the refrigerator butthere was nothing to eat that didn’t require cooking; he’d gotten ambitious atthe grocery store last time, determined to show Venom the wide variety of foodand flavors that were available, but now he wished he’d stuck to frozen pizzaand tater tots.  “I’m just…down.  Tired. Gray, if that makes sense.”

Venom pondered that, curling idly around Eddie’s torso. I canfix-?

“No!” Eddie said hurriedly. The last time Venom had tried to “fix” Eddie using his own biochemistryhad resulted in a three day hangover. “I’ll be fine. I just need…”  God,what did he need?  He used to think hewas lonely, angry at the direction his life had taken, stressed out from beingbroke, but now he was none of those things but here it was again, that funkthat made everything seem not worth the effort.

We need food, Venom said after a while, rearing a little headto examine the fridge too.  Iwill get it.

Usually Eddie didn’t like Venom to drive their body, notwhen they were doing normal everyday stuff, but the idea of sitting back andletting someone else do everything had undeniable appeal. “Ok,” Eddiesaid.  “Regular human food. I mean, foodhumans eat, not – not humans as food.”

As Venom took over, he rolled Eddie’s eyes since his owneyes didn’t have orbs or sockets as such. “I know,” he said in his gravelly voice, and then they wereoff.  For the most part, Eddie keptquiet, letting Venom do the work; he had to remind him to pay, direct him onwhich card to use, and then asked him to at least find some privacy before hewolfed down the food like a starving animal while wearing Eddie’s face, but overallVenom did well pretending to be a real boy.

“Thanks, Vee,” Eddie said when they were back in theirapartment.  It was nice to be full, evenif he hadn’t really been hungry in the first place.  

Are you happy, now?

Eddie blew out a breath as he lay down on the couch. “I’mafraid it doesn’t really work like that, bud,” he said, rubbing his eyes.  “But you did good. I appreciate it.”  A small head came up to butt against Eddie’scheek, making him smile.  He turned on“Wildest Animal Chases” for Venom and dozed. That night, he even managed toshower, though halfway through he got tired of standing and ended up laying inthe tub while the water rained down on him. But it was progress.

“Dammit, I need to clean this place up,” Eddie mumbled lateras he fell face down into bed, wrinkling his nose at the smell of the sheets.“And do something about that food in the fridge before it goes bad.”  He sighed and scrubbed a hand over hisface.  “Maybe I’ll feel like doing ittomorrow.”

Venom didn’t respond to that.  It never really understood the significanceof “clean,” though it was important to Eddie, and it couldn’t tell thedifference when Eddie said food had “gone bad” though he did know it meant thatthe food was going to be thrown away instead of eaten.   But it could tell that the thoughts were makingEddie upset so despite Eddie’s words from earlier, Venom gently nudged him intosleep, massaging the pineal gland to secrete more melatonin.  When his brain waves had slowed to an averageof two hertz, Venom took over their body, cradling his brain gently so themovement didn’t wake him up.

First step: clean.  ToEddie, clean meant all trash was in the trash can, and trash was empty food andbeverage containers.   Dishes were to bewashed, so Venom did the best it could based on a dim memory of seeing Eddie doit.  It brushed crumbs from the counteronto the floor, but then when it stepped on the crumbs in Eddie’s bare feet itrealized that was an unpleasant sensation so it carefully brushed the crumbsinto a pile and put them in the trash.  Cleaning the clothes, Venom knew, meant going somewhere and doing somearcane ritual with a machine, but trying to read Eddie’s memories for how to dothat risked waking him up so Venom dismissed the idea.

So, second step: food. Venom examined the food from the refrigerator that had made Eddie soupset earlier, taking out something green and leafy and nibbling it.  It made a face at the taste.  No wonder Eddie didn’t like it.  Venom knew from experience that humans neededto denature many meat proteins before they could digest them, so perhaps theseplants needed their molecules similarly broken down before eating.  Venom cast Eddie’s eyes around the kitchenand remembered the oven, a contained heat generator used to process food.   There were no instructions on the machine,so it turned the dial to halfway and started piling the food from therefrigerator into the oven.   While itwas in the fridge it found leftovers from when they had dinner with Anne andDan, with only a little bit of green fuzz on one part.  After a moment of hesitation, Venom pickedoff the green part and threw it away, feeling virtuous (“mold is bad, Venom, it means the food has gonebad,” Eddie had said, without explaining why this fungus was bad but the fungusthey ate in bread and cheese all the time was ok), and ate the rest while thefood cooked.

When the food was visibly affected by the heat from the oven– bits were turning brown, which meant that they were probably cooked enoughfor Eddie’s digestive system, Venom took them out and turned the oven off,forgetting at first to protect Eddie’s hands from the hot food.   The unexpected sharp stab of pain madeEddie’s brain waves speed up, so Venom quickly and guiltily healed the burnsbefore grabbing a towel to retrieve the food.

Then it surveyed the apartment with satisfaction.  It was clean and food was cooked.  In the morning maybe Eddie would stop feelingthat evolutionarily stupid emotion he called “depressed.”  Climbing back into bed, Venom let its ownbrain waves slow to match Eddies and went to sleep as well.

                                      —————

The next morning, after stumbling to the bathroom to pissand wash his face, Eddie wandered into the kitchen for something to rinse thetaste of “forgot to brush my teeth last night” out of his mouth and came to asudden halt.

“What’s all this?” He asked, blinking at his kitchen.  The trash was full to the point of almostoverflowing, the dishes were stacked messily next to the sink, still drippingwet, and there was a pile of half-cooked fruit and vegetables on top of theoven.

I cooked and cleaned, Venom said proudly, but Eddie could feela thin thread of uncertainty under the words.  He blinked a few more times, then felt apressure in his chest, his throat got tight, and he squeezed his eyes againstthe sudden threat of tears.  He swayedagainst the counter and pressed a hand to his sternum.  

Sad?! Why are you sad?! Venom said with alarm.

“I’m not, I’m not sad,” Eddie said quickly, wiping tears offonto his sleeve.  “I’m happy, these arehappy tears.”

Venom made a head to study Eddie, somehow conveying dubiousnesswithout eyebrows or lips or anything but giant eyes and teeth.  “Happy tears?” it repeated.

“Yeah, Vee.” Eddie cupped his hands around Venom’s head,fingers gently rubbing its slick, slightly sticky – skin? Surface?  “I’m happy because we’re a team.  Not just to stop bad guys, but all the time.”

“Always a team, of course,” Venom said as if Eddie was dumb forjust realizing it now.

“So thank you for cooking and cleaning.  I really appreciate it.”

Good. Venom retreatedinto Eddie’s skin.  Now you can eat and get dressedand go outside.

“Sure, eat, yeah…” Eddie said, eyeing the unappetizing pileof food that Venom had tried to cook during the night.  “You know what, let’s eat combine eating andoutside and have crepes.”

#venom #venom movie #symbrock #eddie brock #flash fic