#his weakness.... comically shaped supplements...

[annwyfn]

-Gives him dinosaur shaped vitamins-  / @lampguided​

Eyes light up as the colourful little things are all but shoved at him, shapes much like the strange creatures he had once read about in books that had been long, long before his time. Some almost looked like dragons though he knows them not to be so, knows them for what they are as he received them with honeyed laugh as he turned them upon his palm.

“You know, had Merlin had these when I was younger I might have been more inclined to take medicines.” They looked far more appealing, at the very least. “I’ll be certain to put them to proper use.”

[mellifluousoctopus]

I decided to make a character analysis post about my observations of the tv show and what i know about the comics. I’ve bolded my main points.

abuse TW, canon incest mentioned

On Diego

Diego is often mischaracterized as gruff, insensitive, resentful of all his family, abrasive and rude. Especially towards Vanya. But in reality he’s big softie, although a less emotional one than Luther. Diego hides his feelings and   vents them in other ways.  No matter how visibly present they are, his has a disdain for his emotions. Maybe because they are so present. He feels very strongly. (anger and love being a very easily seen example) Reginald is cold and calculating and emotion is a blindness on the battle field as well as a liability to be manipulated by Reginald and by others. Diego hates his emotions not only to appear competent in his fathers eyes but to also hide from Reginald’s wrath. No doubt that boxing and vigilantism are whats keeping him from going insane.  

He will try to deny it but his father’s teachings have big bearing of who he is now. The duty of the strong to protect the weak, vigilantism, striving to to hone and train your powers and body so that you are useful a better hero. These are ideals that Diego has taken from his upbringing and we see him live by even so much as to abandon all reason and try to save a doomed man at the price of the timeline. This devotion to the teachings of his father despite Diego’s resent of him, is an ironic circle of his father’s manipulation that birth his hero complex. 

He does everything that Reginald instilled in them with the same subconscious motive. He is in confliction with his own emotions and his own motivation. Diego’s strive to be something in his fathers eyes as compared to Luther, who was seemingly given extra attention and praise. As Vanya wrote in her book, they were all starved for attention, but Diego was in such close proximity to Luther, that the extra weight attention that Luther had was in stark contrast to Reginald’s neglect. This explains both his obsession with the numbering system and his connection with Grace. In an attempt to be noticed by his father and to prove himself upon comparison to Number One. Diego pushed himself harder and harder towards more and and more impossible standards of what he thought would achieve his father’s love. But Reginald has no love and Diego broke. He began to resent Reginald and what he believed was a rank system. Before the dinner we find that Diego still believes that number is associated with rank. He appoints them as Team Zero, because the number one/number two bullshit would divide them in the face of Reginald. There is no proof that any of the others believed in the rank system.( Luther obvious believes that he is the leader, but in no way does he use his false authority as a palanquin over the other others.) 

Grace supplemented Diego the attention that he lacked from his father. To all the children she was fair, gentle, calm, and understanding. She was a guiding hand and beacon of love in a cold and isolating household. To Diego she was salvation. A chance at be given love and support that he so obviously was missing. Grace probably spent more time with Diego. Both from the boy’s own choosing and from the duties given to her by Reginald, A cold, commandeering, traditionalist. Diego’s stuttered was stamped out of him out of him by all means. While corrections and punishment would come at anytime, Diego’s real speech therapy most likely given out by Grace, who is the only governess the children the remember and is seen reciting tips to him when he struggled. This extra attention validated Diego and strengthened his connection with Grace. This connection opened his eyes a bit faster to Reginald’s narcissism. Grace is Diego’s mother, she is the only thing in his life that provides unconditional love. He has seen her beyond Reginald’s programming. Seen her think and feel. Shes a person him. A person that Reginald mistreats as severely as he does the children. He treats her like an object despite her humanity and she is oblivious to Reginald’s abuse of her and the others. It makes him hate Reginald even more. Grace’s treatment is confirmation of Reginald’s. He wants to save her, but until he can he will hate Reginald for her.

As I’ve said before Luther, Diego, and Allison were the golden trio, the jocks, the children which Reginald placed most of his attention as they were the first 3 and therefore the three most manipulable. Like Luther, Diego’s emotions and his powers (which require Reginald’s shaping to be a more than average threat) earned him the title of second useful. 

Diego was the third wheel among the 3. When he first began training Diego was most likely like Luther. Eager to learn, eager to help, however he was most likely motivated by fitting his father’s expectation. Later on trying to exceed his fathers expectations in order to compete with Luther. Luther was his rubric, but as it become more and more frustrating to become equal to him in his father’s eyes as well as more and more apparent that Grace was tool rather than a person Diego began to hate Reginald. Luther refused to see their father’s cruelty and Diego began questioning authority as result of this blindness. He saw Allison in a similar light. At this point she was self absorbed denier according to Diego and both Luther and Allison’s relationship (they were not subtle) reduced them to moon-eyed freaks. further fueling Diego’s self isolation and defiance.

Saving Klaus is saving people. To Diego, Klaus is a civilian that should not be. They are a victim much like Grace and their(Diego and Klaus’) siblings are to Reginald, but they have the ability to do more. Klaus is representive of Diego’s frustration with the inabilty to respond to the academy’s greater purpose.

Diego shed tears on his missing brother, but there were few good memories behind it. Five is a self assured asshole, he’s pretentious and spends little time with the siblings (except maybe with Vanya). He’s also able get to dads attention with little effort which Diego wants. His powers allow him shortcuts too. Diego was bound to be jealous and feel slighted. Diego does not instigate competition with Five because Five does not bathe in the attention nor acknowledge it. Diego also thinks the attention is less of something he compete with as such attention comes from the meeting of minds.

Ben was a great friend. They had quiet and limited friendship, though  as there was a rift between their motivations. As much as both hated how they were used by Reginald, Diego focused on Reginald and his experiments rather than the powers and crime fighting (which was where Ben directed his ire) but they had great times.As we know Ben and Diego played at least one prank on Allison as children however it is implied that this was a common occurrence. These pranks could have been a form of rebellion or simple play by them that didn’t involve their powers or Reginald. I’ve chosen to believe that Ben was actually a large part of these pranks creating them and doing a lot of heavy work with them, and that Diego was the enabler, willing to help, and coming up with wackier and wackier ideas. Luther, Allison, and Five were the likely targets because they were the ones that refused to have fun on their own time, or chose to eat out of Reginald’s palm.

A lot of people think that Diego hates Vanya, for some reason. He doesn’t. He loves her. She’s his (little) sister. She sweet and timid. And she’s an innocent and a bystander to the teams greater responsibility to the innocent. When Hazel and Cha-Cha broke in, Diego is mad at Vanya for being there. Not because she’s there but because she is unable to protect herself. She has no training and she is at very very dangerous site. She is still his (little) sister and he still is obsessed with protecting the innocent. The reason people think he hates her is he feels betrayed by her.  He is short and sharp, but that’s his defense. It keeps her away and keeps him from showing any other emotions. To him, she first banked on their trauma. Not only is this grossly upsetting and violating. Having all your scars presented in a public sphere is wrong especially without your consent, especially when you refuse to be vulnerable. The book is also dramatic from Diego’s point of view. Diego shuts down any extra emotion that isn’t rage. In his mind Vanya should have dealt with it and kept dirty laundry unaired or at least have been direct in her grievances, especially since she had nothing to complain about. He (and the others) believed that Vanya had it the easiest. She has no training, she was not put in the ways of violence, he believes she was never subjected to experiment. She is ordinary. She has no greater responsibility. She should be fine. His distrust is granted and validated in the second season. Born of further betrayal and fear. Vanya has gone against Diego’s raison d‘etre, she has also wiped out entirety of earth and after years of underestimating her. Shock and distrust, (but not despise) are bound to arise.

[eldritchsquared]

How much phenethylamine does the Symbiote need to stay healthy?

Let me set the scene for you: It’s 4 am on a Friday, late October. I’m sitting in my Homestuck pajamas (derse dreamer, for all the fans), drinking hot chocolate, and reading Venom: The Hunger. During the series, it is revealed that the reason Venom had a brain craving was because they need the neurotransmitter phenethylamine (often referred to as PEA or phenylethylamine), which is also commonly found in chocolate. So flipping through the pages, I had to wonder: exactly how much phenethylamine is needed for Mr. Symbiote to be happy and healthy?

Throughout my reading of Venom: The Hunger in class, the Symbiote goes around eating brains for the specific purpose of getting the phenethylamine they need. It’s a bit difficult to tell exactly how many brains are eaten, as the story follows Eddie Brock, the best and most popular host for the Venom Symbiote, instead of the Symbiote themself. The only way to figure out how many brains are eaten is to go off of Mr. Brock’s glimpses of where the Symbiote is, which may not capture the whole story.

If we do go off of Eddie Brock’s glimpses of his Symbiote, we see them eat 15 people (one was PEA deficient - I factored that in), and drained another of their phenethylamine. In total, the human consumption added up to 19.3632 ml of phenethylamine - basically nothing. However, in the third issue, Eddie brings the Symbiote what appears to be a 16 oz. container of pure PEA. This gives them a massive boost - in fact, the boost is so massive that they are completely sated. It takes 474.5392 grams before the Symbiote isn’t hungry anymore.

But what’s the best way to get the phenethylamine they need? At the end of Venom: The Hunger, Mr. Brock states that chocolate might be a good substitute for brains. In the final issue, Venom eats what appears to be a standard heart-shaped chocolate box. But proportionally, it looks larger than your standard Valentine's Day gift. If we remember that Venom is canonically 7’ 6” tall and Eddie Brock is 5’ 9”, every object that looks normal-sized in comparison to Venom is actually 30% larger than normal. The closest to the measurements of Venom’s box is an arrangement I found on Li-Lac Chocolates for $95. (How Eddie afforded this, I’m not sure. He’s literally living in the sewers.) This chocolate box has 63 pieces - 29 dark chocolate, 29 milk chocolate, 3 unknown pieces of wrapped, heart-shaped chocolate, and assumably 2 pieces covered by the aforementioned heart-shaped chocolates.

Chocolate normally has little phenethylamine - each cacao bean has 0.7% PEA, but you’re not eating pure cacao beans. Milk chocolate has about 10% cacao, while dark chocolate is about 70% cacao. Running all the numbers very quickly, that would mean that milk chocolate is .07% phenethylamine, and dark chocolate is .49% phenethylamine. That’s less than one percent - so you won’t get any significant amount of phenethylamine from chocolate.

If we remember the chocolate box has (assumably) 30 dark and 30 milk, and that each piece weighs roughly one ounce, then you would have 460 grams of phenethylamine - which is a lot. It’s almost enough to sate the Symbiote completely.

But is chocolate the best source outside of supplements? Sources say otherwise. Livestrong.com says that peanuts may be a good substitute. A human body normally has about 96 mg of phenethylamine, or roughly the same amount one and a half peanuts have. If you ever needed any evidence that the human body is super weak, there’s the proof in clear print: peanuts are superior. 

So if you do the math, peanuts have 19100% more phenethylamine than milk chocolate, and 2700% more than dark chocolate. Not only would this be one of the best food sources, but peanuts are easy to buy, a lot cheaper than chocolate, and most importantly, it’s not suspicious. In order to get that 475 grams needed, though, you would need a staggering 13,732 peanuts - hopefully not all at once.

So what’s the ideal meal plan for somebody with a Symbiote? Well, we don’t have a set timeframe in the comics for how long Eddie Brock’s symbiote went without being fed properly, and I don’t personally know anyone who has a Symbiote, so it’s difficult to get an exact measure. However, if we go off the comics, we can guess. 

Getting to the point that they did took time - time that isn’t easily measured due to the way comics work. However, it’s safe to assume that the Symbiote had not been completely cut off from all nutrients, and that the health decline happened over time. If they were to get their needed amount of phenethylamine, say, gradually every two weeks, then it’s safe to assume that the starvation-driven state we see in Venom: The Hunger never would have happened.

So every day, you would need 34 grams of phenethylamine, which equates to 1,717 pieces of milk chocolate, 354 humans, 246 pieces of dark chocolate, or one peanut. 

Yes, you read that correctly. A singular peanut a day. I didn’t take the news very well - in fact, I’m still recovering from the sheer hilarity of the fact that Eddie Brock, investigative journalist, never thought about peanuts as a source of phenethylamine.