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jazthestampede · 1 year

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month 0.

Smaller than a grain of salt.

It started on top of Neji’s raggedy, old, summer camp sleeping bag. All heat and mouths trailing wet kisses down necks, across collarbones, on hips; two pairs of briefs hitting the floor, a raspy, whispered yes, then a slick slide. He still doesn’t know exactly how they got there or when—must have been sometime after doing lines in Naru’s lap in the backyard, encouraging the other boy turn into his slutty alter-ego, and watching him give the new kid in town a lap dance so thorough that he thought he saw one of the town’s resident bottle-blondes shove a twenty or two in the front pocket of those tight-ass shorts Naru loves to wear.

Seventeen days later, his nipples are sore and he’s nauseous when it hits him. They didn’t use a condom. He has no idea when his last cycle was beforehand.

So, what does he do? He makes an emergency run to Konoha. Naru will know what to do.

Naru, does in fact know exactly what to do and say to soothe his frazzled nerves. He doesn’t have a problem slapping the two garish, pink boxes that will tell him if his life is over—one as a pre-test, and the other final—on the counter along with the money, giving the cashier the finger, and rolling his eyes at her as she judges him.

Meanwhile, Gaara’s just trying to ignore the eyes burning twin, bug eyed holes into the back of his head. It’s not working so well. But he’s always been a master of the art of diversion.

“Fuck’s her problem?” He says to Naru once they exit the store.

“Hell if I know,” Naru says, shrugging his shoulder, “her mama can’t stand me, and I guess the apple don’t fall far from the goddamn tree.”

He lets out snort a snort and replies, “That’s so sad. You’re a fuckin’ gem, Naruto Uzumaki.”

Naru gives him his signature million-watt grin, “Ditto, Gaara No-Last-Name.”

It never fails to amuse him how Naru has heard his last name plenty times and still hasn’t figured out that it’s his.

When they get to the car, Gaara opens his mouth and asks, “Wanna go see Kiba for a lil’ bit before I get outta here?”

Naru tilts his head to the side, hand frozen on the door handle, “I thought you came to spend time with me?”

Gaara rubs his neck as he gets into the driver’s seat, “Don’t get me wrong, I did.” He says, tone apologetic, “But I gotta be back before six-thirty ‘cause my mama gotta be somewhere before seven and her car’s in the shop.”

Naru nods and ducks into the passenger’s seat, shutting the door with a quick slam, “Let’s do it.”

“Plus, I gotta go rescue Kankuro, Kiba’s mama look like she eats lil’ punk kids for breakfast.”

Naru laughs, something that never fails to cheer Gaara up. “She ain’t gonna eat him,” Naru says, “that’s Kuromaru’s job.”

Gaara cranks the engine and grins at Naru, “Like hellI’m finna miss that. So, where am I headed?”

“When you get to the end of the lot, make a right, keep straight, and it’s two blocks over. It’s the place with big house, a big sign, and all the dog toys in the yard. Sign says, “Inuzuka Kennels” on it.”

“You got it, boss. Kankuro drove in, and I was sleep most of the way, so I don’t know where the hell I’m goin’.”

***

The car ride is short, maybe five minutes with the midday traffic but Naru fills the car with loud music and a slew of questions. Gaara tunes most of them out with generic answers, because Naru asks him stuff all the time and won’t remember it twenty minutes later. But the boy asks one that cuts through to him.

“You gonna be okay?” He says with a look so soft and sincere it almost makes Gaara want to cry and hurl up the egg salad sandwich he ate before he got here.

Gaara decides to answer him honestly—not that he ever really lies to Naru, “Don’t know.” He says, “Guess I’ll find out soon enough. Naru nods and leaves it at that as he points out where to turn into the driveway.

And if the knot in the pit of Gaara’s stomach somehow loosens then tightens back up, well that’s his own business.

***

Hellcat practically barrels Naru over the second he says his hellos to everyone in the house and waves Gaara inside. Naru hugs his boyfriend back like he hasn’t seen him in years, when really, it’s only been a day or two. Gaara rolls his eyes, He hopes he never gets that lovesick.

Kiba’s mom is a delight, though. She pulls him into a gentle hug when she walks into the kitchen to greet them properly, then offers him a hielito from the refrigerator freezer. As he sits at the small, kitchen table, eyeing the kitschy decorations on the wall and focusing his attention on the can of Money House Blessing air freshener, he almost forgets about the black grocery bag with those two pink boxes inside on the car seat. Almost.

***

“So what’s in the bag, baby bro?” Kankuro asks once they’re on the freeway, leaving humid and hazy Konoha behind and heading into the perpetual dust storm that covers Suna.

See, Gaara might never lie to Naru, but he doesn’t mind lying to his older brother at all. “Remembered I was outta pads. Figured I should grab some before mommy leaves.”

Kankuro sniffs, but doesn’t make a face like he does when Temari mentions needing personals. “I would’ve taken you to get some before we got home.” He says, squinting at the road. “I don’t mind.”

Gaara sucks his teeth, “And have to sit there and watch you suck the life force out of your boyfriend? I’d rather watch paint dry.”

“Jesus, you wound me.” Is the last thing Kankuro says for the rest of the ride, too busy focusing on the road. He even has the radio turned all the way down so he can see better. Gaara snorts, maybe he should mention that Kankuro needs glasses to his mom.

Their house is less than five minutes away from the freeway, tucked into one of those fancy, wannabe gated communities where only half of the houses are built because the construction workers can’t work when the dust storms kick up too badly. Which means they just take the whole summer off, lazy bastards.

Kankuro pulls into the driveway and Gaara grips the plastic bag so hard it might rip. It’s not like his parents can see through it, and he can stash it under his bed until he’s ready for his life to be over…So why is he so nervous?

“How was your trip out, honey?” his mother asks the second they walk in the door and past the living room.

“Good.” He and Kankuro answer in unison, Kankuro heads into the living room and Gaara shoots up the stairs before she can ask anything else.

Two lines. Four, if you count both tests glaring back at him from the bathroom sink.

He’s fucking pregnant.

Nami wraps him up in a hug and he feels himself getting light headed. Fucking pregnant, he thinks, whose gonna take me seriously now?

#schnippets #literary brainfarts #fic: growing wild and free #au: summer!au #series: dog days.

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writing-refs-junkpile · 3 years

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Writer tips: custom shorthand for the win

Normally, I share grammar tips and writing resources on this blog - it is, after all, my Writing Refs Junkpile - but today, I’m stepping outside my literary box. Today, I’m sharing some of my custom shorthand and some advice for creating your own.

Put simply, I developed these symbols (and many others) to make writing notes and scheduling writing sessions faster, easier on my arthritic hands, and a little less obvious to anyone who might find my notes and snoop.

Behold, my scribbles:

Yep, it’s messy. I scanned these from sketch paper. The mess doesn’t matter. If you’ve given that a good look over, you’ll notice that these symbols have a few things in common.

All but two base symbols are written with two strokes or fewer; that’s two times you have to lift your pen from your paper as opposed to however many it takes to form the letters.

Each of these symbols is visually similar to certain mainstream letters, characters, symbols, or objects; this makes it easier to mentally associate symbol with meaning, which makes it easier to scribble them out as easily as writing.

These symbols can be written with several different writing instruments, whether you use a brush-tip, felt-tip, ballpoint, or rollerball pen, or a pencil. (Felt-tip pens, however, seem to win the race when it comes to ease and speed vs legibility.)

Without further ado, I’ll explain each of the various symbols you just saw.

Analyze Stats. Sometimes when I’ve got writer’s block, it can help to do a word, page, and character count and dates of a chapter. If I’m struggling with an unfinished chapter, checking what I have so far can be encouraging. If I’m still staring at a blank page with nothing more than a title, checking the previous chapter can be a nice kick in the pants. As for dates, those are mostly a way of mentally shaming myself into writing.

And etc. This single-stroke symbol is less complicated than it looks – a cursive + trailing into an e. It’s a quick, convenient way of saying “and whatever [said topic or plan] entails/includes” without writing it all out, and an easy way to leave wiggle-room in my plot notes.

Build notes. Single-stroke, based on musical notes and arrows. This tells me I haven’t yet translated the plot events into notes for the next (or current) chapter, and I need to do so before I can sit down and write them out.

Edit From (____ paragraphs/pages) back. This one looks like a doozy, but the first symbol is the only one that really matters. It’s a two-stroke - one, if you bring the bottom up to cross - and it’s based around an attached cursive ef; following are a symbol for and, (optional. I tend to skip it.) a number, and symbols for paragraphs or pages. Put simply, this says go back (chosen number of paragraphs/pages) and edit to end of written portion. Editing forward can be a great way of getting into the zone when you’ve stopped in the middle of a chapter or scene.

Etc, Etc, Etc. Four-stroke, built around three connected cursive e’s with periods underneath to remind me it’s short for etc. Basically, this symbol is a way of sassing myself from my notes, a reminder to not sweat the small details until I’m in front of the computer, and sometimes, it’s a way of connecting two pieces of a scene or dialogue together without writing out all the little nitpicky stuff between.

Find grammar. Two-stroke, built with the top of a ? and a g for the bottom half. Put simply, this means find proper grammar, spelling, punctuation, or terminology for the noted sentence or phrase. Had a brainfart while writing notes? Scribble this guy with what you think is correct, then you have a reminder to look it up and (if necessary) correct it later.

Flourish / Polish. Two single-stroke symbols, one loosely based on a stylized cursive f, and the other a cursive p which trails into a tail like a piece of scrollwork; both are needlessly fancy to further hint at their meaning. The first – flourish – means the noted section is as bland as oatmeal and reads like a vacuum cleaner manual; jazz it up with details, action, and color. The second – polish – means the noted chapter is complete; read through to see if it needs anything before editing. And speaking of editing…

Check spelling, grammar, punctuation, and edit. This single-stroke stands for a lot of words, but the appearance is simple: a checkmark that trails into an s.

Go from notes. Single-stroke, based around a g which trails into an arrow; since scanning this page, I realized that I wrote these up slightly wrong, so I have provided a badly-drawn correction to the left. (MS Paint. Gotta love it.) This symbol tells me I’ve already written up an outline for the next scene or chapter, I need to start writing from that outline, and I need to stop whining about it. As for when I don’t have notes…

Maybe start with ____________. Four-stroke, and one of the simplest: an ellipsis followed by a simple arrow pointing to the right. This is for when I don’t have an outline to work from, when I don’t have a solid (or even halfway solid) plan for the next writing session, and planning research sessions. What follows this symbol is an idea of what to try starting with...for instance, the first symbol. Analyzing my previous chapter stats is a good way to bully myself into getting the rough draft started.

Paragraphs/Pages. I’ll admit, I don’t use the first one very often. The first -paragraphs - is two-stroke, built like a combination of the mainstream symbol ¶ and a capital P; pages is a single-stroke combination of capital P and lowercase s. Lastly…

Research. Single-stroke, and a combination of an arrow (like a cursor) with a wrapping tail like an @. This means I need to do some manner of research for the next bit of writing, and is often followed by the topic I need to research.

To sum all that up:

Booyah. So much said, and so little written!

This custom shorthand has helped with my note-taking already, and I’m still designing new symbols to cut even more words down to quick wrist-wiggles. Now, you have everything you need to create your own, for whatever purposes you may have. Just remember the basics - be stingy with your strokes, choose lines, curves, and angles you find easy and comfortable to write, and use visual similarity to remind yourself of each symbol’s meaning when you see it.

Good luck, and remember to share the love with your writer and student friends!

#writing advice #studying #writing #shorthand #writers on tumblr #this stuff works

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dstevensartgallery · 6 years

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Dave’s Brain Farts; At the 'Costa' My Sanity

Hello internet, and welcome to another one of Dave's Brainfarts. This is where I talk about all things comics, games, toys, movies, and general nerdery.

Considering the subject of my last few rants on here, it should be abundantly clear by now that I really do not like the literary works of Mike Costa.

I'd never even heard of the guy up until 2009, when it was announced that he would be the lead writer on the new Transformers ongoing series, after the 'All Hail Megatron' series. All I knew about him, going into Transformers 2009, was that he had previously worked on IDW's G.I. Joe series, which had gotten pretty positive feedback.

And boy was Transformers 2009 a let down, lemme tell ya...

The series was dead on arrival, though most of the initial flack was targeted towards Don Figueroa, who had done the art for the series, Costa was just as much to blame for many of TF 2009's problems. Most of the complaints towards Don were about his design choice for the Transformers, mainly that he had taken on an aesthetic closer to the Michael Bay movies. They weren't bad designs, but I think what ticked fans off about them were mostly the facial designs of the characters, and the fact that this was shortly after the release of Transformers; Revenge of the Fallen, which was still leaving a bad taste in people's mouths.

But I'm not here to talk about Don Figueroa, I'm here to talk about the guy who's name I made into a terrible pun in the title.

Apart from the art, the other failing point of Transformers 2009, or as it was known at the time, Transformers Ongoing, was the writing, the complete lack of direction, lack of character, and lack of effort.

Let's summarize the events of Ongoing;

Arc 1; Humans are hunting down the Autobots after the events of All Hail Megatron. Ironhide is killed by humans. Hot Rod is being angsty. Optimus is being a whiny bitch and steps down as Leader. Bumblebee is made Autobot leader. The humans and autobots form an alliance.

Arc 2; The Autobots go to war with North Korea... no, seriously.

Oh, and there's a one shot where Spike murders a Decepticon.

Arc 3; Americans are mad that the Autobots are working with humans and use knockoff mind controlling Megatron guns to try and kill them.

Arc 4; Autobots leave earth to fight Galvatron on Cybertron.

Considering I could summarize most of those arcs in one sentence tells you just how much depth there was in them. Out of the 30 or so issues that went into Ongoing, only TWO ever got more than 3 stars, these two issues are considered the best of the series and are character studies of Optimus Prime and Megatron, which brings up both of their personal histories in the IDW G1 continuity, except Mike Costa did not write these issues, James Roberts did.

From what I was able to gleam from Costa's run of Transformers, I found his writing to be really lacking, he had an inability to properly portray characters or even give people character, the story kept flip flopping all over the place. Things just happened without explanation, Optimus quitting over the death of Ironhide was one such dumb move, Hot Rod partnering with Swindle was another dumb move, and then there was the whole 'International Incident' arc (the aforementioned Autobots vs North Korea story).

His writing is lazy, his characters bland, he tries to set up big plot twists that always fall flat, his stories are riddled with inconsistencies and plot holes, and that's not even the worst of it.

I can tolerate bad writing, most of the time, but what really set me off about Mike Costa was the fallout after Ongoing.

With how badly received the series was by fans, how did Costa respond to the fact that people didn't like his Transformers comic?

By blaming the readers, and blaming the source material.

I can't find the interview in its entirety, but the summarize, Costa first blamed Transformers fans by basically saying, 'they don't know what they want'. He also followed up by saying he didn't know how to make a series about giant robots who turn into cars and trucks interesting or realistic.

Um, Mike, I don't know if you've noticed this but... YOU ARE A WRITER! IT IS YOUR JOB TO MAKE THE STORY INTERESTING!

If you didn't think you could do it, why did you even do it at all?

Suffice it to say, while I'm willing to, sometimes, tolerate bad writing, I have no tolerance for a writer who cannot own up to their shortcomings, or accept the fact that people don't like their work, and I have no tolerance for a writer who will act like a whiny little pissant who blames his shortcomings on his audience and the source material.

So why am I talking about Costa again, despite having no respect for the guy or anything he writes?

That is because, not only did he write the single most hated Transformers series of the 2000's, he had to go and get his filthy mitts on Venom as well.

Now, like most kids of the 90's, my initial exposure to Venom was through the Spider-man TV series. I knew who Venom was, but I was never really into him at the time, he was just a dark Spider-man, I didn't even know who Eddie Brock was, and to be honest, I didn't care, Eddie didn't interest me, the Venom symbiote did.

I wouldn't learn more about Eddie and Venom until the cinematic trainwreck that was Sam Raimi's Spider-man 3. And all I got from that movie was that Eddie was just a scumbag reporter, who got his comeuppance for being a scumbag reporter, and couldn't accept the fact that he was a scumbag and wanted revenge on Spidey for ruining his life because he's a scumbag.

I actually wouldn't get into Venom comics until I was in college, when I picked up on the Agent Venom run of the comics, usually referred to as 'Venom Volume 2'. I orignally got into this series because I had been reading X-23 comics, which had been cancelled, but I had heard through the internet that Laura would be making an appearance in Venom (this was coming up on the Circle of Four crossover featuring Agent Venom, X-23, Red Hulk, and Ghost Rider). I didn't want to just pick up some issues without first, maybe, getting a taste of this new Venom run, because I wanted to see what made Flash Thompson different from Eddie Brock.

And to be honest, I liked Flash more as Venom than I did Eddie. I could identify with Flash, I could sympathize with Flash. Rick Remender and later Cullen Bunn told a very compelling story for the former high school bully turned super soldier.

This run of Venom also introduced one of my favorite Marvel characters, Andrea 'Andi' Benton, aka Mania.

Things kinda went south for Flash though after the series was cancelled after 40 plus issues. He was a minor character in the Marvel NOW run of Thunderbolts, before leaving the team, and then was picked up by Brian Michael Bendis and added to the cast of Guardians of the Galaxy... where Flash was completely under utilized, got an upgrade when Bendis retconned the Planet of the Symbiotes story, and turned Flash and Venom into an 'agent of the cosmos'. This started Flash's next solo series, which unfortunately only lasted 13 issues, Venom Space Knight.

While there were some things I liked about Space Knight, it really wasn't as good as Venom volume 2, plus it really did feel like Robbie Thompson, the writer of Space Knight, wasn't able to do a whole lot with the character while Bendis had more control over him in Guardians... despite not using him at all half the time. Bendis had basically written Thompson into a corner.

Space Knight did see the return of Flash's sidekick Mania near the end of the serie, however, she would only return for the finale before the series ended with Flash returning to Earth, and Agent Venom and Mania swinging off into the night declaring 'Long Live Venom, Long Live Mania'.

This is where Costa went and ruined everything, as he always does.

When Marvel announced there would be a new Venom series in 2016 with a new host for the symbiote, me and other Flash fans were skeptical. After an ending like Space Knights, which had Flash and the Venom symbiote as partners and friends, and the declaration of 'Long Live Venom', why were we getting a story where the two would separate? What was going to change in Flash's relationship with Venom that would make Venom choose a new host? The incentive into Venom volume 3, was that this was an all new bad Venom, there would be 'no more Lethal Protector', and 'no more Agent of the Cosmos'. Despite it being announced that the host would not be Flash Thompson, or Eddie Brock, all incentive covers used the Eddie Brock design of Venom.

Translation; Costa was saying ‘My Venom is better than yours’.

So I picked up the first issue, wondering just what could have caused Flash and Venom to separate, and... we didn't get an explanation, at the start of the series, Venom is already separated from Flash, having inexplicably devolved into a Gollum like gremlin thing and attacking a hobo.

Weak...

The book then introduced the new host for Venom, Lee Price.

Lee Price is, without a doubt, one of the most hated Venom hosts since Mac Gargan, his character is non-existent, his design looks like it was ripped from a Final Fantasy game, and the big selling point about him is that he can 'mentally overpower a symbiote'. How does he do this? By physically abusing the Venom symbiote and beating it with a chair. And what was Lee's big plans for the Venom symbiote? Use it to take over Black Cat's criminal empire, but try not to go too big and risk getting the attention of groups like the Avengers.

To say initial reactions to Lee Price and Mike Costa's first few issues were negative would be an understatement. These issues were reviled.

Costa did manage to do one thing with Lee Price though, he managed to get Eddie Brock fans and Flash Thompson fans to stop fighting each other and unite over how terrible of a character Lee Price is.

We see Lee Price's character is once again a mixture of Costa's lack or originality and laziness. Lee is like Flash Thompson in that he is a former soldier and war amputee (Flash Thompson having lost his legs in Iraq while Lee Price lost all the fingers on one of his hands), Lee is like Mac Gargan in that he is a criminal (because he couldn't get disability benefits for MISSING HIS FINGERS), and his Venom form is basically just a ripoff of Eddie Brock, except it's pointier and, for whatever reason, has bright white knuckles.

The extent of Lee's character, is that he's edgey, and that's it.

Well, that's not it entirely. During the crossover event, Venom Inc, a psych profile of Lee was posted on Marvel's website, which does further detail Lee's backstory and character and mentality.

Except you wouldn't get ANY of this just from reading Mike Costa's run of HIS OWN CHARACTER, because Costa has proven inept at character writing.

Should be noted the psych profile of Lee Price wasn't even written by Costa either.

Weak...

Venom, at its core, is a character driven narrative, it is about the relationship and struggles between the host and the symbiote, and if you cannot get readers to identify with the characters, or get the readers interested in the character, then that narrative falls flat.

In the span of six issues, Costa manages to destroy any development the symbiote had over the course of Venom volume 2, degrading it into a gollum like creature because Lee is able to 'corrupt' it. Despite Venom trying to maintain Flash's heroic influences, Lee is apparently able to mentally overpower the symbiote's influence, and any time the symbiote resists him, he abuses it.

About six issues in, we had the 150th issue of Venom, which celebrated the return of Eddie Brock as the host for Venom, having beaten Lee Price and taken the symbiote from him.

That's when I noticed a change in the Venom fandom, because up to this point, everyone hated the Costa run so far, no one liked Lee Price, they wanted him gone, and now, finally, that wish had been granted, and now Eddie was back in the suit. Basically, Costa had managed to gain the support of Eddie Brock fans in one issue.

To be honest, Eddie coming back and bonding with the symbiote again made little to no sense to me. I had done research on Eddie's comic history, since all I knew about him was from Spider-man 3, and the few bit appearances he had during Venom volume 2. But from what I had gathered, after separating with Venom the first time, Eddie hated symbiote, fanatically hated them. When he became Anti-Venom, and had the ability to 'cure' super powers, this only bolstered his hatred for symbiotes and that he was the cure for them. He fought Flash Thompson once during the Spider-Island event and almost killed him, before Flash fought back by making the Venom symbiote latch onto Eddie, and how did Eddie respond to this?

By screaming "NO! NOT AGAIN!"

Eddie would later return in volume 2 when he decides to go on an anti-symbiote crusade, where he goes around hunting down other symbiote hosts and murdering them, until he's captured by crime master and forcefully bonded to the Toxin symbiote.

Once again, he hated the experience.

Eddie would soon become an Agent Venom knockoff in the Carnage comics where he would wind up killing the Toxin symbiote, except not really, kinda, I don't even know what happened there. But, to put it plainly, Eddie pretty much has hated every symbiote bonding experience since Anti-Venom.

So to have Eddie randomly come back and bond with Venom again, makes absolutely no sense, even more so the fact that this time, instead of treating the need for the symbiote like a drug addiction, as most writers have done in the past, Costa has Eddie and Venom as lovers...ew...

You do remember the parts where he called Venom a demon, tried to destroy the symbiote as Anti-Venom, and went on a symbiote murdering crusade right? Did Costa even read or research any of Eddie's previous canon before deciding to do this, because I really don't think he did.

So, anyway, in Venom 150, we got a bunch of short stories, one written by Costa showing Eddie in his first outing in his old suit, where he kills a guy, and assaults a priest because the Venom symbiote doesn't like him. And then Flash fans finally get an explanation about how Flash separated from the Venom symbiote. To add insult to injury, it's written by Robbie Thompson, the writer of Venom Space Knight, who is, once again, written into a corner, this time by Costa.

Considering Thompson had tried to end Space Knight on a high note, this short comic is a slap in the face.

Flash Thompson and Andi Benton are out one night, taking on a street gang. Following this scuffle, the two decide to have pizza on a rooftop.

Andi leaves and Flash decides to stick around a bit longer, and is jumped by a 'rogue government agent' (that's the only description I could find) named 'Agent X'.

X uses a sonic weapon to blow the Venom symbiote off of Flash, and suddenly, despite this happening to the pair numerous times throughout Flash's tenure with the symbiote, this time is apparently the straw that broke the camels back for the symbiote, and it runs away.

This leads directly into the events of issue 1 where the Venom symbiote is attacking some random hobo before latching onto Lee.

When I initially ranted about this on twitter, people were quick to defend Costa by saying I should be mad at Thompson for being the one who wrote the short, but really, it was only done because Thompson had to tie it into Costa's narrative. So, yeah, this one is Costa's fault.

The story is forced, and it is the dumbest explanation for why Flash and Venom separated after how things ended in Space Knight, and is completely disrespectful to everything the two had been through over the course of Flash's tenure as Agent Venom. It is disrespectful to the work Bunn and Remender put into him, and it's disrespectful to Thompson by forcing him to write this story after the work he put into Space Knight.

There is no other way for Flash Thompson fans to take this except as a slap in the face.

So now Eddie Brock is Venom once more, and Eddie's fans are now, after regarding this series with so much scorn, now consider Eddie's return as the wonder cure that somehow miraculously made this series a lot better. Hate to tell you guys, but anything times 0 is still 0.

Costa follows up Eddie's return with the 'Land Before Crime' story arc, which as Eddie teaming up with Stegron, under ground, because reasons, also, Lee Price is let out of prison on good behavior... despite having murdered two inmates and that being brought up at his bail hearing.

Either Costa really doesn't understand how things work, where he's intentionally making things hard for Lee Price to motivate him towards a life of crime by making him not qualify for disability benefits.

(I looked this up, in some cases, missing fingers would not qualify you for disability benefits if you were working a job where missing your fingers wouldn't impede your ability to do your job, i.e. working as a school teacher or any job that doesn't require the use of your hands. But considering Lee would have been medically discharged from the military, and likely would only be able to qualify for work in labor intensive fields, jobs that would require the use of his hands, he SHOULD qualify for disability benefits.)

But then Costa also makes things unnaturally favorable for Price, such as being released from Prison, despite flimsy reasoning from his lawyer, and the fact that Lee murdered two inmates while in prison, which SHOULD have torpedoed any chance he had at freedom.

I didn't talk much about Costa's 'land before crime' story, because there really wasn't much to it.

Anyway, Lee's release would culminate in Venom's big crossover with Dan Slott's amazing Spider-man, Venom Inc.

I've ranted about Venom Inc enough times for everyone to know why I hate the story so much, so I'll just sum it up as best I can without ranting too much about it.

Lee Price and a gang of thugs ambush Mania in Philadelphia, Lee stuns her while he has his gang set her on fire with flamethrowers and they steal the Mania symbiote from her and leave her in the hospital.

Flash Thompson learns about this and tries to enlist Spider-man's help in order to track down the Venom symbiote and eventually recover the Mania symbiote. This leads into a confrontation with Eddie Brock at Alchemax, where a piece of the Venom symbiote falls into a vat of a cure made by Alchemax in order to calm the symbiote's violent tendencies. During the scuffle, the 'cure' is dumped on Flash and creates a new Anti-Venom suit, reminiscent of Flash's Agent Venom costume, but with the colors inverted.

Meanwhile, Lee Price has renamed himself 'Maniac', once again showing Costa's complete lack of originality, and is spitting up pieces of the Mania symbiote onto people to mind control them and make them his 'Made Men'. His first move is to take over Black Cat's gang.

Agent Anti-Venom and Spidey build a 'symbiote detector' and track down Price, only to get their asses handed to them by the Made Men. You know, despite Flash now being a walking anti-symbiote weapon, he gets beaten pretty easily.

Spider-man is brainwashed by Lee, who now plans to use the Mania symbiote to take over the entire New York criminal underworld by possessing the 'Five Families'. This completely flies in the face of the whole 'trying not to draw attention to himself' ploy he was doing back at the start of the series.

Andi returns, using powers from her Hellmark (a brand she received back in Venom volume 2), and joins up with Flash to rescue Spider-man. They free Spidey and team up with Venom and Black Cat to weaponize the Anti-Venom and take down Lee.

They succeed, but for whatever reason (Slott and Costa don't even try to come up with one), Price is defeated, but keeps the Mania symbiote.

Venom Inc is riddled with inconsistencies, poor character writing, a bad plot, and a back handed ending. The characters are either written as incompetent or one dimensional, all to try and make Lee look more intimidating by comparison, and Lee completely fails as a villain.

While both Alpha and Omega issues are handled by both Costa and Slott, Slott handled the Spider-man tie ins while Costa handled the Venom tie ins. Costa's two issues were both just 22 page fight scenes, with the results all happening off panel. If Slott had plots set up in the Spider-man issues, Costa would undo them in his stories in the laziest ways possible.

The comic is, once again, a slap in the face, this time, to Mania's fans, who had to suffer through the first issue by watching Andi, a teenaged girl, getting set on fire by a group of men, and then she is absent up until the fourth issue. After all the effort of trying to reclaim her symbiote from Lee, Andi winds up not getting her symbiote back, and Dan Slott and Costa don't even try to come up with an explanation as to why.

Dan Slott is known for treating side characters like throw away trash, usually in order to build up Spider-man, or whoever the lead is, so it's not surprising he'd pull a stunt like this. Costa, on the other hand, gets to keep his uninteresting OC around at the expense of a much better character.

But I digress.

We now get to the final arc of the 2016 Venom run, 'The Nativity', which was advertised that the Venom symbiote has been hiding something from Eddie, something that could 'completely shatter Eddie's trust in the symbiote'!

And what is this secret?

The symbiote's pregnant again.

The first issue leads no where, it just serves as a remind that Venom Inc. happened, with a confrontation with Jessica Drew that has Venom temporarily bond with her to explain all this.

Eddie is then captured by Mac Gargan, the Scorpion, in order for Scorpion to take the new symbiote once Venom spawns it. But Eddie escapes and runs to Alchemax so Venom can, erm, gives birth...

When it appears the new spawn is a 'still born', Scorpion gives up and leaves. And the series ends with Eddie and Venom leaving the new spawn, which is actually not a still born, in the hands of Alchemax. Because a shady company that used to be run by Oscorp is clearly trustworthy.

Suffice it to say, that this does not 'completely shatter' Eddie's trust in the symbiote, and if it did, it comes off more as this secret only sort of inconveniencing Eddie, as opposed to shattering his trust in it.

With Donny Cates taking over as of this month's new Venom series, Cates has managed to do a better job writing a 'Eddie's trust in the symbiote has been shattered' story in ONE ISSUE, than Costa did in an entire arc.

With Cates at the helm, and having mentioned in a livestream that 'Mania will have a role' in this story, as well as the fact that this will host a cast of supporting Venom characters both new and old, I have higher hopes for this series more than I did for Costa's run.

So, that's the entire 2016 Venom run in as much of a nutshell as I could put it. It is, in all honesty, the weakest run of Venom I have ever read, it had a lousy start, became riddled with inconsistencies as things went on, and just became bland and uninteresting.

And yet, Eddie Brock fans ate it up. It may just be because I'm a Flash Thompson fan more so than an Eddie fan, but, you have to realize that this just was not a good run.

Costa's writing did not change from the start, the story did not magically improve just because Eddie became the new host of Venom again, having Eddie back in the lead role but regressing him back to his 90's persona is not groundbreaking or new or original. I would hope that readers would see this, but it seems Costa, and Eddie Brock fans are so mired in blind fanboyism that they can't see or understand this.

Bringing Eddie back was somehow this band-aid that would fix everything that Costa had managed to destroy with Lee, that bringing Eddie back fixed everything that was wrong with the book. But it didn’t, the only reason Eddie fans suddenly liked Costa and everything about this book suddenly was simply because he brought THEIR Venom back, he didn’t improve anything about Eddie, didn’t change anything, he regressed him back to the 90′s, which has become a trend at Marvel, since they seem to have it out for their legacy characters right now. Having Eddie back did not change anything, didn’t improve the story, did not fix any of the problems present.

The story is inconsistent, Lee's motivations keep changing and he never stayed on point, his character is non-existent, and failed as both a lead character and antagonist.

Flash Thompson's separation from the symbiote is one of the most forced and insulting aspects of the story.

Catering to everyone's 90's nostalgia boner by making Eddie like he was in Lethal Protector, trying to be an anti-hero but having trouble with the symbiote's violent tendencies, is lazy, it's been done, give us something new.

Giving Mania, her fans, and Cullen Bunn the biggest 'eff you' ever in order to bring Lee Price back into the game is lame and insulting. You depowered a hero in order to make a villain look better and it failed miserably, because Lee did absolutely nothing while in possession of the Mania symbiote and had others doing his dirty work for him.

And I refuse to call Andi's symbiote the 'Maniac' symbiote, it is not Lee Price's symbiote, it does not belong to him, it belongs to Andi and she should get it back.

As stated before, Venom is a character driven narrative, but if the the characters aren't interesting, and the reader can't identify with the character, then the narrative fails. And considering this run started out with Lee Price, and then shifted to Eddie Brock, and neither of them came off as interesting or relatable, this means Costa failed to write a character driven narrative not once, but twice.

His writing is lazy, inconsistent, tries to build interest on shock value alone and fails, tries to throw plot twists at you that fall flat. If the whole 'Eddie's trust in the symbiote is put to the test' thing was supposed to affect Eddie, it really didn't come off as such. A lot of stuff in the books just 'happens' with no explanation or build up, it comes off as Costa just saying 'it happened because I said so, deal with it'.

I just... really did not like this series, and I refused to buy any more issues with Costa's name on them, I simply chose to hate read them in the comic store, or read online scans. I'm looking forward to the Cates run of Venom, because Cates has managed to build more interest in one issue than Costa did in the entire 2016 run, and I'm interested in how Cates is going to continue with this new 'Rex' arc.

Costa's series deserves to be thrown onto the ash heap and forgotten.

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