metalogs | OPEN + CLOSED | Causing Problems in May

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OPEN + CLOSED | Causing Problems in May

Who: Eddie and Venom

frenchkkissed + You !
What: Meeting, greeting, eating... the usual.
When: All throughout May
Where: Central City + Little Love
Content Warnings: Monster body horror

👅 I. I have a heart ( I swear, I do )

There's no discernible rhyme or reason for it. No clear-cut explanation. It's just that anyone who looks even remotely uncanny, or maybe not even that much, might get a man jogging up to them, black, inky tentacles whipping wildly from his back, with a half-finished smoothie in his hand and the other half coating the front of his hoodie.

"Hey! Hey, you got a minute?"

You know, maybe you're better off not engaging with this one.

👅 II. But just not, baby, when it comes to you

Screams of terror are heard in the dead of night as some guy is being dangled upside-down above the eager, wide-stretched mouth of a tar monster. Venom's tongue drags along the face of the poor man scrambling to break free, leaving him wet and dripping with drool — which only has him screaming more frantically.

So... heroing is going about as expected.

"JAYWALKING?! THE CROSSWALK IS RIGHT THERE.
THIS IS THE LAZIEST OF CRIMES.
YOU... ARE LAZY. A LAZY, LAZY BAD MAN."

"I'm lazy! I'm sorry, I'm lazy! So, so, so, so lazy! Let me go and I'll never jaywalk again!"

"HMNNN....
BUT YOU ARE A BAD GUY.
BAD GUYS CAN BE EATEN!"

Venom's jaw opens wider, and beneath the sounds of mounting horror, Eddie can be heard from within.

"We said we'd let you out more if — IF — you wouldn't go sicko mode on randoms, man. This right here? Totally fucking sicko mode."

"BUT EDDIE, HE IS EVIL."

Before the ensuing debate on morality and good and evil in the eyes of the law can begin, it seems as if the jaywalker is slipping from Venom's grasp, steadily falling out of the shoe Venom is holding him up by. Any attempts at making this known via, you know, screaming is lost in the conversation. Words like deontology and unitarianism and evil are being thrown around between Eddie and Venom, and it seems like the victim/bad guy is being sidelined.

A better hero might need to intervene, here.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Jason was jumping rooftops and swinging from one building to another as part of his nightly patrol and survey of Central City. That's when heard a man screaming and immediately went to investigate. From a rooftop, Jason could see the poor guy dangling upside down by a tar monster. He was about to jump in and intervene when he heard the... tar monster's conversation? Apparently there are more people than Jason can see.

Upon seeing the victim slipping, Jason fires his grappling gun and swings to grab him while the monster and... whoever else are distracted.

Just their luck. Venom can't even get a bite to eat without someone interrupting. He hadn't even gotten to the good guy monologue...

With the approaching person swinging fast towards them — Spider-Man, maybe — Venom decides that they can continue this debate later and takes off. Instead of leaving the jaywalker be, he tosses him over his shoulder before breaking off into an all-fours sprint. He doesn't want to start a fight with a hero fellow hero. Heroes are good, and therefore cannot be eaten.

"WE HAVE THIS BATTLE UNDER CONTROL.
LEAVE US BE, SPIDEY.
PERHAPS SAVE A CAT FROM A TREE!"

Yeah, we might have a hostage situation on our hands now.

Edited 2022-05-17 02:38 (UTC)

Oh goddamnit. Well that escalated quick. Jason's now in pursuit of the tar monster and the poor jaywalker. He's making good use his grappling gun to keep up. Also, did the tar monster just call him Spidey? Jason has been called a lot of things over the years but that's new.

"Last I checked, cops don't even ticket jaywalkers! So drop the dinner!"

In Venom's defense, the guy currently chasing them is dressed all in red and swinging through the air by what could be a series of interconnected webs. Venom isn't looking closely enough to tell, too busy attempting escape.

"LAWS ARE FICKLE. MEANINGLESS.
WHAT DICTATES OUR WORLD IS GOOD AND... EVIL."

Venom stops short, suddenly enough to leave Eddie and the hostage's heads spinning.

"WHICH ARE YOU?"

Jason stops dead in his tracks when the tar monster stops. Now it's his turn to get into a morality discussion? Tonight's just full of surprises.

"Funny question. Can't really answer that because it's subjective."

It's tempting to just shoot the tar monster right there and then but it's still a hostage situation. Jason can't risk using any of his weapons yet. Maybe the sudden philosophy discussion will distract the monster enough that Jason will find an opening.

"That's what I've been saying, man," Comes that voice from inside again. It's a little echo-y, but entirely clear. "What's evil to one person is totally fine to someone else. There's no, like, blanket answer."

"I CAN EAT THIS MAN.
AND YOU CANNOT TELL ME IT IS WRONG.
BECAUSE WRONGNESS IS... SUBJECTIVE..."

"No, dude, that's not it, either."

The jaywalker, in case anyone forgot about him, screeches again, but it's not as intense as before. He might have been sort of into this conversation if it wasn't his life on the line.

"ENOUGH WITH THIS!
WE EAT BAD GUYS, EDDIE!
WE KNOW BAD.

BECAUSE WE ARE HEROES."

Jason hasn't been in Central City long but tonight's certainly one of the weirdest nights he's had so far. Looks like he has to keep talking.

"Might wanna listen to your buddy there. Eddie's right," Jason says loudly and calmly. "There are different degrees of bad and good. Believe me, life doesn't work in black and white terms. Instead, there's a lot more gray."

Wow, this is frustrating. Venom just wants to eat a guy and maybe catch a movie after, and now he's got two sticks-in-the-mud who seem hellbent on denying his good time. He growls and takes two heavy steps closer to Spider-Man-Not-Spider-Man. For this, he's even willing to put the hostage down. On unsure feet, he falls to the ground before getting hit wits about him and booking it. Smart guy. Venom doesn't seem to mourn the loss.

"WE NEED BRAINS TO SURVIVE. HUMAN BRAINS." He leans in close to Jason, tongue threatening to taste his scent in the air.

"IS MY SURVIVAL NOT IMPERATIVE TO YOU?
IS IT EVIL TO WISH TO LIVE A LIFE FULL OF MARIO KART AND TELEVISION PREMIERES?"

"Oh, man, way to trauma-dump or the guy, buddy... Buddy, pal. Don't know what your name is, sorry. But... But He's being dramatic."

With the hostage now free and wisely booking it, Jason firmly looks up at the tar monster. It's one less factor to worry about now. He's not intimidated. He's faced worse. If the creature smells Jason, he might catch a faint mixed scent of motor oil, gun oil, and gunshot residue.

"Name's Red Hood, Eddie," Jason replies casually. "Don't know what the living situation is for you two but it sounds like it's time to go on a diet. Besides, you can have that shit you just said without eating jaywalkers."

"Yeah, man, that's the thing." Eddie's voice grows more solid as Venom shrinks down until he's fully absorbed by Eddie, leaving not trace of the monster left behind. Not immediately.

"We kind of can't."

Jason remains on guard in case the tar monster pops out again.

"Well I'm not gonna whine if you help yourself to murderers," he says in the same casual tone. "Gotta draw the line somewhere though."

"...You know where we can find some murderers? Just, like, offhand?"

"BAD GUYS?"

That's certainly got both of their attentions.

"Wish I did. I'm still new around here and still learning the ropes to this city. How have you two been surviving?"

"THIS IS A WASTE OF TIME! WE COULD BE EATING BAD GUYS AS WE SPEAK!"

Sorry, Hood. You lost one.

"Low-fat brain alternatives. Not quite the real thing, but good enough to keep us from. You know."

He's not entirely sure how that process goes. He's never gotten close to brain-based starvation, and he isn't looking forward to it, either.

Jason nods. Eddie seems to have a better moral code at least.

"Right. And Smiley wants the legitimate stuff instead. If you guys eat human brains, does anything special happen or is it just like a normal meal?"

"Nothing out of the ordinary. Surprisingly. Outside of the... murder... it's just, you know. Like that feeling you get after eating a nice Arby's roast beef sandwich with a side of curly fries? We feel like that. Content..."

He takes a second to look at Red Hood, then look about the alleyway as a whole.

"You know, you're being weirdly chill about attempted murder. You a vigilante cop here to take us in, or something?"

Jason barks out a laugh.

"Haven't been cop-friendly in long time and not gonna change that anytime soon," he replies.

He then looks back at Eddie, still deciding what to make of him.

"But even I got standards. Doesn't sound like this wasn't the first attempt to have takeout."

"Rome wasn't built in a day... if it helps, we haven't eaten anyone since we arrived here. That counts for something, right?"

Please tell him that counts for something.

Jason does believe that Eddie's not as homicidal as the tar monster. But what happened just now was a close call.

"How tight of a leash you got on Smiley? Can't have him making a snack out of jaywalkers and litterers."

"LITTERERS? THOSE WHO LITTER ARE ALSO BAD GUYS."

Eddie is going up to bat for you, here, V. Don't make him regret it.

"Quiet, bud... We're good, man. He's good. Not gonna go rampaging through a town anytime soon. Sometimes you see a tasty snack and want to eat it. Sometimes we see a tasty... person... bad analogy. You know what I mean. No one's going to get hurt."

Jason looks at Eddie, still considering his options.

"You're new to being a vigilante?"

"...Define vigilante."

In Hood's own words, because eating people falls out of the scope of what Red Hood considers okay vigilantism.

"Beating the shit out of criminals without approval from any law enforcement," Jason says bluntly.

There really isn't a polite way to describe it as far as Jason's concerned.

"Not new to it, no. Just, you know, still getting used to... the limits, I guess?"

Which is pretty true.

"Before now, I think I caught baddies a different way. I'm a writer. Before I had the power to just fucking eat people, I'd just write scathing exposes and cancel people who needed cancelling. Like Elon Musk. Fuck that guy."

"So mild-mannered reporter by day, brain-eating black slime monster by night?" Jason said while still keeping a surprisingly calm tone given they're talking about murder and vigilantism.

It's a twist on a familiar origin story. Jason will give that much.

II

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