keeping it together !!!

So a thing about me is that I love a weird friend group that kind of blurs the lines between romantic and platonic, whether that's because they're always dating in various combinations or because of the vibes.

(I'm toying with an original thing at the moment where the Coffee Bean Gang aren't not an inspiration, and the GwenMJ-focused The Night Gwen Stacy Died "can you call it filing the serial numbers off if it's just metatextually playing with one of the most influential things in Spider-Man comics" original thing is obviously like really heavily about this.) Anyway this makes the Spidey fivesome perfect for me.

One thing I really love about them is that they all have their individual relationships with each other, and then their relationship as a group. Like, they all balance each other out in really fun ways. Harry and Flash gang up on Peter on make him actually go out and do fun things, for example. They're the ones who wrangle him into a suit to go out to the disco, and the ones who make him go see Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Gwen and MJ have their own dynamic outside of the boys, complete with nicknames. ("Bunny" and "tigress" are still very cute, okay.) They also each have their own relationship with Flash and with Harry, and none of them are exactly the same. Peter's role as Communal Husband looks a little different with each of them. They're just such a fun group all tangled up in each other.

And then again there's that aspect of falling apart when they're missing one piece of the puzzle. Gwen's death fractures them all in ways that sometimes takes years to show, both big and small, like Harry's later spiral into the Green Goblin identity that culminates in his death, or in the way MJ says she misses Gwen, too. The way you can feel the weight of Harry and Gwen's absence when Peter and MJ are taking care of Flash while he's in a coma. And I love little moments like recently in All New Venom when MJ and Flash were conspiring on their own. It's important that he's her connection as much as he is Peter's. Like, one thing I love about them is you do get a sense of these individual relationships, and not that they're only tied together because they know Peter.

It's really interesting because there's like so little canon where things go forward with all five of them. Either Gwen is dead or canon forgets Flash is their friend or Gwen is absent or MJ is absent or Harry and Peter are friends before Harry and Gwen are friends. Like, I like seeing different versions and different dynamics, but you don't see enough of all five of them together.

And also they should all kiss. They've all basically already kissed in various combinations but they should do it as a group more than they already did.

Flash Thompson finally

I was avoiding drawing him for so long bc I’m scared of drawing more buff characters lol but I think I nailed it

Headcanons:

1. uses humor to mask his insecurities, his over the top confidence and insults are defense mechanism, he is afraid of being seen as weak, but secretly feels inferior to his peers, he is jealous how successful people are - for example Peter and Ava are probably smartest people at school, Harry insanely rich and popular, MJ works at DBC, so it sometimes feels that everyone is better than him

2. always wanted to be hero deep down, despites being bully he really wishes that he could be like Spiderman, brave, selfless and admired… before becoming agent venom he lowkey thought he could be Spiderman’s sidekick lol

3. has complicated relationship with his parents, mainly with his father, which fuels some of his aggression and need for attention… he spends only little time at his home actually

4. has no idea Peter is spidey but after he’d finds out he’d go through every emotion - betrayed, amazed, furious, then proud… eventually, he’d brag that he always knew (he didn’t)… after that he would become more friendly towards peter and be protective of him… sometimes he would invite him to parties but pretend it was accident like “you are here? whatever, don’t embarrass yourself”

5. he genuinely likes MJ, he actually listens to her when she talks about justice or doing right thing, it lot of times stick with him… also he would try to impress her by bragging about his Spiderman expertise,… she’d be unimpressed

6. him and Harry would be okay around each other, not friends but they wouldn’t mind each others presence, they wouldn’t really talk at school but they often meet randomly at parties so they kinda know things about each other… he is bit jealous of Harry’s wealth and his fancy style in general but not that much he would hate him for it,… they are kinda rivals I would say but it more passive way… also during period of time where Harry would loose venom and before flash getting to it (the time when Harry would distance himself from everyone) he would notice and be bit worried about him

7. even tho he don’t like much Peter and ultimates at time they are new at school, after while he kinda befriends Luke (since they both like sports and gym they would kinda get along),… also when Peter’s words about not bullying others doesn’t work on him Peter sends Luke to scold Flash bc he knows he might actually listen to Luke… Luke would be just like: “man we already talked about this- not cool”

8. on the other hand after sam finds out Peter doesn’t like flash he immediately tries to befriend him, just to piss him off… but- flash sees sam as same loser as peter is, and he would definitely pick up on him too… but later on they would bound over making fun of Peter

9. this might be bit controversial BUT- I think he is totally intimidated by Ava but also thinks she is cool… he’s tried to flirt, tried to hide it with teasing and bragging and failed miserably… after that he just gives her very awkward thumbs up when she walks by

10. this will be no surprise but - he thinks Danny is weird, in his eyes he is loser number 3 to Peter and Sam lol, he would try to pick up on him too, but after he’d be paired up with Danny during P.E. for wrestling, and loosing to him during 5 seconds he would never ever try to make fun of him again

THEY HAVE A CONSTANT METAL IMPROMPTU WEAPON ON THEM AT ALL TIMES

Flash + calling Peter for help