#Anarchist Vigilante

[savage-kult-of-gorthaur]

"I DON'T WANT TO SAY V's THE HERO ANY MORE THAN I REALLY WANT TO SAY HE'S THE VILLAIN."

PIC INFO: Spotlight on a print advert for the "V for Vendetta" 10 issue limited series by David Lloyd and Alan Moore, re-published by DC Comics from September 1988 to May 1989. Artwork by David Lloyd.

"I don’t want to say [V]‘s the hero any more than I really want to say he’s the villain. He’s a force. It’s funny with fascism or anarchy, yes, they are the two poles of politics but neither of them are actually, strictly speaking, a political system. Fascism is a kind of weird mystical system and anarchy is an attempt to move beyond the need to be politic, the need to manipulate large masses of people. So I tend to think V is pretty much an allegorical force, an idea given human form. And, obviously I have a lot of sympathy with some of his basic ideas. But I think that killing people is wrong."

-- ALAN MOORE on the ambiguity of the morality of V, and the nature of fascism and anarchism

Source: www.pinterest.com/gustavofigueroa378/v-for-vendetta-2006-dc-vertigo & https://opuszine.us/posts/more-on-v-for-vendetta.

[logansgaar]

So I've seen a couple people now say they're not sure why fans are against Bucky being in the senate or think he must be being forced to somehow, considering we've already seen him as the Secretary of State in What If...? and I wanted to explain why I personally would find it extremely out of character if he's willingly a senator in Thunderbolts*

For the sake of ease I'm going to refer to Earth-82111 Bucky as Secretary Bucky and Earth-19999 Bucky as Primary Bucky.

Based on everything we know about Primary Bucky, I don't see how he'd have any reason to WANT to be there and it feels very contradictory to the path they've set him on ever since Civil War.

It all pretty much comes down to the fact that Secretary Bucky and Primary Bucky have led two entirely different lives since the war, around the time there was a divergence in their lives. Their experiences from around the age of 26 onwards have made them into separate people, despite being technically both Bucky. Sebastian Stan's even said he was surprised by his lines as Secretary Bucky because they're so different from the Bucky he's used to playing.

The point of divergence in their lives is of course the train. Secretary Bucky never fell from the train and lost his arm, he was able to be rescued by Captain Carter, so he didn't go through any of the experiences that Primary Bucky has that would make his character detest the idea of being in government.

Secretary Bucky stayed the light-hearted Bucky we met in early CATFA. He never woke up during a horrific surgery to instal a bionic arm where he'd had his real one torn off in the fall, he never experienced decades of torture, brainwashing, forced assassinations and dehumanization. We can't say for sure how much Secretary Bucky knew about Isaiah Bradley and the men of his squadron, but we do know that Primary Bucky knows about them and withheld that information from Steve, which is huge. Primary Bucky knows which governments and organizations (like SHIELD) are corrupt and in what ways, has stood against the American government both as the Winter Soldier and by his own volition, he was framed for an event that led the world to agree on mandatory registering of a specific demographic of people I wonder where he might've seen that before, and has teammates who were kept on the Raft. He saw his own government, the American government, violate their own citizens the way HYDRA did him; injecting them with unknown substances that irreversibly changed their bodies, then punished Isaiah for doing the same thing they hailed Steve as a hero for, and further violated Isaiah by taking his blood without consent and creating more soldiers from him. Primary Bucky was a victim of HYDRA, the clear bad guys, but Isaiah and his brothers-in-arms were victims of the supposed "good guys", and on that fact alone I cannot see any way Primary Bucky is anything other than disgusted and mistrustful of them, if he doesn't outright hate the government. Primary Bucky has also learned a lot from being friends with Sam, how it wasn't Sam's fault for putting down the shield when the government and the country they're in put him in an extremely difficult and impossible situation out of pure racism, about how their country views heroism and its very white standards for it, and how it's not as simple as it was for Steve or John Walker for Sam to have the shield and be Captain America. He saw the US government make one promise to Steve's memory and then immediately disrespect it.

Secretary Bucky seems happy to serve his country and does so by choice, and like I said, we don't know how much he knows about SHIELD's corruption or what the government he serves did to Isaiah and the men of his squad but it's safe to say the different lived experiences he's gone through make him view his government in a positive light and he's very likely never been a number 1 enemy of the state, while Primary Bucky looks completely miserable having to wear that pin during the entire trailer.

Of course you could argue that Primary Bucky has become a senate as a way to try and change things, but the thing is he also knows better than most what goes on in the shadows and I'd say has a very grim perspective on how realistic his chances would be. He's seen and experienced how futile bureaucracy in their world is for making significant change, and idk it just doesn't feel like Bucky's style considering he chose vigilantism over "proper" processes with dealing with HYDRA remnants and the Flag-Smashers.

I'd say it's in character for the Bucky of Earth-82111 to go into politics and end up where he is, he led a completely different life that was never shaped the same way as Bucky from Earth-19999. It feels extremely out of character for Bucky from Earth-19999 to go into politics, echoes of each other or not, their initial 26 years of shared life experiences wouldn't overrule the catastrophic changes 19999's experiences would make to his mind set and opinions because people's loyalties and thoughts change depending on what information they have. Primary Bucky knows and has seen things Senate Bucky has not, so his opinion has been changed and updated from where they were at 26.

80 years is a long time for a lot of deeply impactful things to diverge them further away from each other, even if they all echo one another, regardless of how identical the first quarter was. That's just my opinion.

[alagaesia-headcanons]

Looking back on my old Morzan aus, I maintain that Morzan having a redemption arc is a very fun and interesting concept because it provides a way to explore his original intentions through their transformation down the line, and I like considering the different impacts he could have had on Murtagh's life. I also stand by my decision to pair him with Brom each time because they make for the funniest couple imaginable. But I may need to go back to the idea, because I never got around to bringing it to its natural conclusion of Morzan/Selena/Brom: Alagaesia's most unhinged polycule.

Brom should have not just one, but two newly reformed ex evil henchmen lovers who he has to keep on leashes like excitable dogs because they're doing their best, but they're still way too quick to jump to murder as a potential solution to every problem they run into. And yet Morzan and Selena are also the ones to rein in Brom's absurdly convoluted and paranoid plans because their new moral compass has never once realized that part of the reason he's always going through it is because he causes himself twice as many problems as he solves. They'd be such an incredible mess, I need them together.

I just want to turn IC into a comedy about Morzan, Selena, and Brom attempting to dismantle the empire and assassinate the king without literally burning everything down in the process, while trying to raise their kids to be at least marginally less insane than them.

[uroborosymphony]

Seeing that this lifestyle of what she considers her calling, when would she consider her goals reached? Aka what would be the ideal endgame for her? How does this change as she spirals?

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐑𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐃𝐄𝐕𝐄𝐋𝐎𝐏𝐌𝐄𝐍𝐓 𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇 𝐐𝐔𝐈𝐍𝐍 (𝟒/𝟓).

The cruel fate of Quinn's head turning against her is how she originally is a down to earth, realistic woman who will sink into psychosis and delusion - it will therefore twist her goals from something small scaled to unreachably mad. In all her cold realism, when her head hasn't dived yet, she doesn't have an ideal endgame. She does realize that the world has been corrupted for as long as humanity has existed and therefore, her goals are small and built day by day. She wishes to do as much good as she can within her reach. The first crowd she wanted to help were the young girls at the foster house who grew up in bad conditions just like she did, Quinn wanted to fight for their safety and emancipation, for them to escape from these unsafe environments they were abandonned in and to get enough money to sustain themselves, to do good in school, to get an education, a job, to escape poberty. The first time Quinn steals from the rich is when waitressing, in her early 20s in order to pay for her bills while attending medical school - that money goes to the girls. It changes when she meets Taiyang, together they manage to steal money on greater scales, greater amounts, and comes the wish to redistribute not only to just the girls but to more people in the neighborhood. The more they go, the more she sinks into the underground scene and the more she adults up and realizes : she sees how far the rich can go - how deep the corruption can be in politics - how bigger the monster actually is. That's what her psychotic inner demons will feed on.

Psychosis refers to a collection of symptoms that affect the mind, where there has been some loss of contact with reality. During an episode of psychosis, a person's thoughts and perceptions are disrupted and they may have difficulty recognizing what is real and what is not.

Will then draw in her mind a deformed version of this reality, she will believe she can go furthur and reverse the game, out of anger and hunger. It gives her a certain greed for power, thinking if she manages to gain power on the scene, she can gain the proper weight to fight the rich and the corrupted. She wants to punish and exterminate. For that, it's connections, it's taking the head of the Black Fang gang with Taiyang, it's studying the scene in all its aspects and corners. It links with the wish to show the rich they aren't untouchable that anything they possess can be burn to the ground. Going furthur, she would want to make an example of chosen targets, such as Assemblyman Kang, to warn that they are coming. As a next step, she could start mouvements of resistance, not just with the gang but with people in the dark who would join her cause and sabotage the rich under her command - we're thinking Anonymous, we're thinking the Riddler. Her endgame then becomes utopic, delusional : to take town the established order, to give the power back to the people. How far will she go/can she go? It can all be tamed down, cut down by Taiyang, by the other vigilantes, by the authorities, or even herself before she becomes a loose cannon.

[shougancid-archive]

bnha au mari is my favourite mari only because it’s proof of this very ‘act first, don’t think too much about it’ mentality that will eventually get her stupid self into trouble

[weiszklee]

I don't even think the reasoning goes all that deep. It's just that civil liberties are pretty unintuitive, so anyone who rejects the current order is prone to rejecting them as well. Leftists got one thing right, which is to focus on equality. But some of us sadly seem to stop thinking beyond that.

Fun reminder to all leftists especially, but really literally every single person who advocates for mob violence or tries to excuse atrocities committed by mobs: if you wouldn't support the state taking the same actions as a legal punishment after due process, then you shouldn't support a mob enacting that same punishment without due process.

Either the death penalty is wrong or it isn't. Either rape is wrong or it isn't. Either torture is wrong or it isn't. Either terrorism is wrong or it isn't. Either cruel and unusual punishment is wrong or it isn't.

Your pet cause does not get an exemption.

[thefreethoughtprojectcom]

In true Free Thought Project fashion, our interview with Jeff Berwick concludes on a hopeful note as he shared his vision of personal transformation as a catalyst for societal change, embodying the ethos of being the change we wish to see in the world.

Listen To More: https://thefreethoughtproject.com/podcast/podcast-jeff-berwick-surviving-epstein-island-category-5-storms-being-shipwrecked-at-sea

#TheFreeThoughtProjectPodcast

[neo-nomatrix]

(My) Nuisance

Hobie brown x reader

word count: 964

find the rest of the mini series here

synopsis: You thought you hated Hobie, but for some reason you’re starting to like him just as much as you like Spiderman.

a/n: (maybe too much) british slang used

You hate your next door neighbor. No, no you loathe your next door neighbor. You think he is the worst person to possibly exist. His stupid flat decorations, his loud punk-rock music blasting at unruly hours, the way he would come back to his flat at 4 am stomping his boots yelling with his friends about their latest anarchist protest. But you hate nothing more than the way he looks at you.

Everytime you try yelling at him he opens his door with the cheekiest grin on his face. While you’re standing there fuming he’s leaning against the door panel looking you up and down. The worst part is how much he tries to smooth talk you.

“I already told you how annoying your music is, no one wants to hear that at 3 am alright? Some of us have work in the morning,” you complain, smoke practically coming out of your ears.

“Oh c’mon love it’s not that bad. Don’t have to be such a tosser ‘bout it. It messes up that pretty face of yours,” he says.

“Are you daft? You’re the one keeping everyone up at night with your dumb guitar,” you roll your eyes.

“It’s not that big a deal sweetheart. Y’know i'm starting to think you’re making up rubbish just so you can talk to me more. I’ll admit it’s pretty cute but you could just ask me out,” he leans closer to your flushed face.

“I don’t fancy you if that’s what you mean,” you scoff.

“Not saying that. I’m saying if you wanna snog me so bad you could just say so,” he shrugs.

You could burst out laughing. Kiss him? That’s fucking hilarious.

“You’re joking right? i’d rather die.”

“I don’t believe in comedy, love,” he says.

“Of course you don’t,” you mumble as you storm off back to your door.

You’ve decided he is the worst person ever. He doesn’t deserve your efforts and time.

You set your keys down and fall into bed as you hear amp feedback and the sounds of Hobie strumming his guitar. You can’t help but roll your eyes. How could someone be so incompetent?

You reach your hand over to where the bed and the wall meet to grab your Spiderman plush. You hate to admit it because it’s kind of dumb but you’ve always loved spiderman. Ever since you were a little kid you collected posters, figures, pins, and merchandise having to do with the superhero. Even now, your walls are decorated in spiderman posters, you own spiderman clothing, and even printed your keys to have a blue and red spider web on them.

There was something so nostalgic to the vigilante and his style that you had to adorn your room with touches of blue and red. You thought spiderman was the embodiment of “cool.” From his suit to the way he acted around criminals to the electric guitar on his back. Sure, a guitar was the main thing you hated about Hobie but Spiderman did it better. He made it work in the way Hobie dreams of.

You wake up to the loudest knock on your front door you’ve ever heard. You immediately know it’s him. You try to ignore the blaring pounding coming from your door but it keeps going. You force yourself to get up and answer the door. You hope you can open it, yell at him, then go back to bed.

To your dismay the second you open the door Hobie places his hand on the top of the wood, stopping you from moving it anywhere else.

“What do you want this early?” you groan.

“It’s like 9 am, love. But anyway-” He cuts himself off before finishing his sentence. You’re too groggy to notice that he’s staring inside of your flat. His eyes search the walls and decor in front of him.

“So, I take it you like Spiderman?” He laughs.

“That’s none of your business,” you sigh, crossing your arms.

He pushes his way inside of your flat, moving around like he’s looking for buried treasure. He picks up memorabilia and smiles at them. He holds up a Spider-Punk figurine and turns towards you.

“Spider-Punk huh?”

“Don’t touch my stuff! You know this is technically breaking and entering,” you scold him, taking the figure out of his hand.

He puts his hands in his pockets and just smirks at you. That stupid smirk, displaying half of his teeth and perfectly showing his lip ring.

“What do you want from me, Hobie?” you question after placing the figure back on its stand.

“Jus- Just wanted to apologize for last night,” he starts.

“You mean this morning? We talked at 1 am, remember?” You say, passive aggressively.

“Right, whatever. You’re… You’re right,” he exhaled, “I shouldn’t be blasting my music that early. It’s inconsiderate and rude to the people in my vicinity,” he breathes.

In the time you’ve known him you don’t think you’ve ever heard him say sorry. You’re taken aback, did he really apologize? And did he sound genuinely sorry?

“Oh, oh uhm thanks,” you sat, still skeptical a camera crew would come out laughing saying this whole thing was a prank.

“I wanted to see if you maybe wanted to come to my show tonight? We could get dinner after or whatever you want,” He scratches the back of his neck, he’s nervous.

“I’d like that, I guess,” you reluctantly say.

“Wicked. Uhm, i’ll be leaving then. Sorry again,” he says. Shooting finger guns at you and making his way out the door.

You smile, maybe, just maybe, Hobies getting to you. As he’s leaving you could swear you see some blue and red material with spikes on it slipping out of his pocket.

[do-you-ship-this-comic-ship]

propaganda:

The chemistry. the banter. Being a hacker and bisexual are too coolest things in 1995. The way years later Tim created an entire vr suit/world for Lonnie when he was fully paralyzed so they could team up to defeat DC's darkweb the Ünternet.

(second propaganda is very long so it goes beneath a read more)

Lonnie is the first vigilante peer Tim interacted with and a major part of Tim's first solo detective case before becoming Robin - their histories are connected inside and outside of the comics, as Lonnie was the third Robin that never was and Tim is the third Robin that was. Tim maintains the myth of the Bat and Lonnie works to render the need for it obsolete (despite admiring Batman to a degree) which makes for interesting contrast. Tim's been at least somewhat interested in talking to and understanding Lonnie since their first interaction despite their couple of clashes, offering to discuss Anarchist politics with him, and Lonnie is someone often misunderstood by the wider vigilante community. Their banter is fun when they're up against each other, and Tim arrives at the conclusion that they'd make a good team the second time they meet. Tim makes a few comments here and there about how Lonnie's motivations are right and how his heart's in the right place, proving a sympathy with his cause even if it chafes against Batman's. Later on, Tim saves Lonnie's life when he's about to die after getting trapped attached to a blimp set to explode. Tim saves Lonnie's life again when Lonnie's kidnapped by Ulysses Armstrong at the end of his Robin solo, beforehand starting to correspond with Lonnie to try to track him down and rescue him and then actually rescuing him with Ulysses makes Tim choose between apprehending him and saving Lonnie. Tim in Red Robin shows signs of liking Lonnie, teaming up with him, being very concerned about his well being, even calling him his "best friend" a few times, even if sarcastically. Lonnie uses the fact that Tim understands him and how he operates to convince Tim to let him deal with the Unternet. Tim defends Lonnie's character. There's a lot of potential for the two of them any way you slice it (because there is some rivalry, annoyance, mistrust present), but I think they're people who are both similar enough to each other and different enough from each other in ways that would challenge each other to reflect on aspects of themselves, and there's nothing Tim loves more than someone who challenges him. Lonnie's painfully lonely and often needs others to drag him back down from the clouds when his well-intentioned schemes get out of hand as well as thoughts that he's the only one who can actually save the world, and Tim tends to connect or connect well with others, working well with a team. Lonnie is someone who has big, alternative ideas about society and how to deal with societal issues and has the drive to get things done, which I think would be good for Tim who is so averse to becoming like Batman, and they make nice conversation partners. There's more I could say but this is already getting so long. TL;DR timlonnie sweep forever.

[artbyblastweave]

🔥 government-sanctioned superheroes

So for a long time, in many spaces in which I was in, the reflexive intellectual contrarian position on superheroes as a broad concept- often framed in liberal terms, liberal in an American context, because this was frequently regarding the Superhuman Registration Act from Marvel specifically- was that superheroes are unaccountable, and if they were real the correct, or at least inevitable thing would be some form of nationalization or licensing system. After all, these people are untrained irregulars, appointed by no one and answerable to no one except whoever's powerful enough to bring them down in a fight- would we really want them running around with no oversight from our good friend The Government? Who watches the Watchmen?

And, you know, a lot of these premises are basically correct. But about four years ago, as a very ancillary point to, uh, everything else going on at the time, it was quietly cemented for me that there had always been a version of this argument being made from a position of ridiculously unwarranted faith in proceduralism, in the goodwill of the government and law enforcement in particular. Versions of this argument being made by people who've never had a bad encounter with the cops. Maybe it's not the worst thing in the world that Spider-Man usually isn't on speaking terms with the NYPD, actually! Maybe you very much don't want him to be!

That said, I think there are certainly risks of swinging too far in the other direction here, beetlejuicing into the conversation a particularly annoying kind of cape fan who treats superheroes as leftist, anarchist or at least antiauthoritarian by default- they aren't, you have to work to characterize them that way, and it's often extremely visible that you're doing that work. As you may have been able to tell from some of my recent bitter doomposting, my own stance has ultimately settled at a glum median "I hope they bite each other's dicks off" kind of position. I think it's possible to do a cape thing that's meaningfully anti-state or anti-police in the way people badly want them to be, but as always you're now left holding the bag of trying to explain how your grassroots outside-the-system vigilante culture isn't going to degenerate into cops 2, the sequel to cops. It requires actual thought! It's likely on some level what that story would be about.

[brokensenseofhumor]

OOOOOOH

VIGILANTE YEAHHHHHHHH

MY BOY BEAT THE VILLAIN ALLEGATIONS LETS GOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[punkeropercyjackson]

Reasons Stephanie Brown is black

Grew up alienated from other kids despite always being kind and openly friendly for no other reason they thought she was 'weird' even though she was never malicious

Unconventional,strong,bold yet soft femininity that gets mistaken for masculinity

Ex-kid genius with street cred beyond her years who was constantly talked down to by adults and treated as stupid

Hates authority and loves the people

Became a vigilante out of a very strong sense of community and a thirst to give privileged abusers their downfall so they couldn't get away with it

But genuinely understands the crime system and dosen't fall for dehumanization propaganda and fights for universal rights over moral purity

Punk but actually,a traumatized no filter mouth running post hardcore music jamming chunky boots bully beating energy drinks and bad for you food chugging underground shows/parties sneaking out to diy doing eco-friendly anarchist and not an Avril Lavigne white girl that only hangs around guys and other white girls and is sad and mopping and objectifies and infantalizes herself nonstop and rolls her eyes at intersectionality and politics talk

Usually has straight hair but her hair is huge as Robin(silk press/natural)

Prioritizes kids of color in her big sis adoptions/team mom-ing i.e Nell,Damian,Tiffany and Maps

Mama's girl with motherly trauma but a big grip onto what made her mom that way and they work things out with her mom genuinely improving as soon as she can

Cycle breaker

Gamer girl,Hot Girl,Dorkgirl,It Girl

Is more like Kory than she is to any white DC blonde

Tim,certified black woman lover,was in love with her and she had him down horrendous but the feeling was mutual because black women love Tim Drake back

Cass and hers' connection over mutually similar yet fundamentally different in a complimentary way backgrounds they started their best friendship over and turned into butch4femme roommates-girlfriends

Also uses 'Sister' as slang for female friend

Visual pun with coming from a neighbourhood that heavily resembles a hood and wearing an attached hood in all her homemade Spoiler costumes

1/2 of the only Batkids Jason never beefed with,the other being Duke and Stephanie and Duke goof around and take on the man like classic black siblings together and Jason and her exchange motivational and reassuring words to eachother on the anger they feel towards the world for hurting them so hard so young and Duke has the same anger within him Jason that also comforts him over and has his back whenever his place in the Batfam is denied so they're the Black Robins Squad

Her name just sounds like Girl Hobie Brown

I'm a black woman who's exactly like Stephanie Brown

So Stephanie Brown is a black woman.👾👧🏿Confirmed👩🏿‍🦱🪀

[despairots]

miles 42 and miles 1610 are twins and fight over reader and try to impress her and stuff

━━━━━━━━ talk about first impressions.

earth1610! miles morales x gn! reader x earth42! miles morales. fluff and warning, there’s some suggestive comments from grown adults. i started this yesterday but im posting once/twice a day until i burn myself out from writing and deleting requests. reader is like peni parker. ignore the description, my brain was idk.

please remember that in my last oneshot, earth 1610 miles will be spiderman and earth 42 miles will be the prowler, the two are vigilantes, keep that in mind. also you’re an anarchist lolsies!!1!1! the spanish translation might not be accurate. leaving this on a cliffhanger too LMFAO. you’re always an anarchist in these oneshots.

where the morales twins can’t help but fall for the technology nerd who can do a lot of things, trying to impress you and gift you stuff in public, and with you, obviously being a talented person, you apparently have a lot of admirers, especially weird, old, strange adults.

you sighed in embarrassment at the two morales twins trying one up eachother with giving gifts to you or impressing you. some people would call you lucky, some would be jealous of you.

being fought over the two most attractive guys in brooklyn vision who may look the same but act like polar opposites is a nightmare.

the two may be extremely smart and artistic but they for sure, had different personalities.

miles morales is smart and passionate, committed to others before himself. he has a lot of love for science and art, which he got from his mother, making inventions since he was younger.

the two are both suckers for music, mixing beats as a hobby with their uncle aaron when they were younger.

miles is sociable around crowds, as even when he struggled to fit in after moving to brooklyn vision, would often start conversations with those he came across on the street.

though many of his acts are selfless, mikes is partly driven by low self-confidence in his own abilities, feeling smaller than he is.

since becoming spiderman, miles is extremely eager to help others. this is as much to his credit as it is to his detriment, as he will often put himself in grave, life-threatening danger, in his quest to protect his friends and those he cares about.

myles morales, on the other hand, may also be smart but he’s closed off only being carefree with you and his twin brother. he also has a lot of love for art, spray painting with his brother.

myles isn’t one to talk, again, he’s closed off and usually upholds a stoic persona, opposed to his brother who doesn’t have a problem showing how passionate and cheerful he is.

with him being the prowler, and technically being labeled as ‘spidermans rival’, ignoring that the prowler is his own being. he had a strong morality of protecting his family and you after his father had died.

to which leads him also going into life-threatening dangers.

“[name], do you have any idea how lucky you? like, i would die to be in your spot!” you rolled your eyes at that sentence, “then do it.” your snark reply made a few people in the hallway snicker.

now back to you, [name] [lastname], the robot-technology-hacking loving nerd that grew with the morales twins and them fighting over you, it’s not something that’s lucky.

that constantly one-upped eachother to gain your attention, to the point they wouldn’t HESITATE to embarrass eachother in front of you along with literally fighting who got the best present for you.

it didn’t help since you liked both of them, i mean, how couldn’t you not like them? they were literally labeled ‘most attractive boys alive’ and their personality didn’t help, why do you think you fell deeply in love?

“i got the best gift-“

“i did!”

your bestfriend, gwen stacy, sneaked her arm around you, “i obviously did.” she gave you a smug looked as you sighed in your hands with embarrassment, remembering the time you two accidentally kissed (more like pecked eachother on the lip).

you two vowed to never talk about that again but since that was two years ago, you guys are all 15 by the way, which you guys were 13 by the time she stole your first kiss.

the morales twins didn’t like that, uhh, next!

“ahora no es el momento, gwen.” you muttered, expressing massive stress from the two and the welcomed gwen, “i — uh, failed spanish.” you made a ‘that’s-the-point-‘ look.

“siempre suenas bien hablando en español.” myles commented, shooing gwen’s arm off your shoulder and throwing his arm over yours instead.

“get apagado de [nombre], myles.” miles rolled his eyes and scoffed at his twin, “at least i get an a+ in spanish.” miles gasped at the comment with offence.

“this is why you’re failing science, estúpido!”

“estoy siendo peleado por gemelos estúpidos.” you pinched the bridge of your nose before sneaking out between the twins quarrel, heading over to foam party.

did i mention that you won awards and was on the news for making a working robot suit and finding out how to time travel?

mutters and comments were heard in the coffee shop, irritating your already bad headache. ‘i hate society.’ you rubbed your temples, before ordering your drink and waited.

apparently those minutes of waiting, you got… weird, suggestive comments from grown adults. your face scrunched up every time they said something about you.

“that shirt really compliments your curves.”

you’re were just 15.

“you’ll find a person just like me.”

they were in their late 30s.

“how ‘bout instead of wasting your pretty little time in this coffee shop, you come to my place.”

you just wanted your coffee.

“can i get your number?”

stop.

“you’re really sexy.”

stop it.

they tried grabbing your hand.

“i’ll treat you better.”

stop it. they tried kissing your hand before someone clocked them in the face, “aren’t you an adult, man?” miles’ voice was heard beside your ear as he tried comforting you.

myles rubbed his knuckles with a grossed look on his face. they saw that they were harassing you as you tried to move away from them, worst thing yet, nobody tried to do anything.

they saw what was happening but didn’t help, god they really hated adults.

“acércate a ellos, y será mucho peor que un puñetazo en la cara.” they ran off, myles grabbed your order as the three of you left. it was quiet, too quiet for your looking.

“i could’ve handled that y’know—“ miles handed you a box, opening it to which showed a necklace with a charm that was your hacker logo. you could feel the myles’ eye twitched.

“remember i got [name] a car—“

“shut the hell up, man!”

[name] after the morales twins keep giving them money and gifts.

[suuuupernovaaa]

When Hobie Brown finally tells you who he truly is, he does so reluctantly.

You’ve kind of backed him into a corner, but it’s not really your fault. After months of him disappearing, forgetting to answer texts, missing important dates, being absolutely exhausted for no real reason, you figure there’s only one explanation that makes sense.

Another woman.

When you confront him, you do it gently. There’s no yelling, no accusations, just a quiet question and two misty eyes as you look everywhere in the room except at your boyfriend.

This is going to crush you.

“Someone else?” Hobie asks, raising his voice, leaning across the kitchen table to reach out for you.

You lean away, and wait for him to speak again.

“I’d rather be shot dead. Have my toenails pulled off one by one. You are the only one,” he insists, and your lip begins to quiver.

“Then where do you go all the time, Hobie? You’re hiding something from me and if you can’t tell me what…”

Your voice begins to shake, so you close your mouth. Hobie’s face falls into his hands, and he lets out a frustrated groan.

When he looks back up at you, you’re using all your mental and emotional energy to keep the tears from falling.

“I’m…” he pauses for an unbearable length of time, staring at you with pleading eyes, but you stay silent. “I’m Spider-Punk.”

The words reach your ears, but your brain can barely process them.

Your Hobie Brown, is Spider-Punk? The vigilante, anarchist, famous, superhero?

“I’ve wanted to tell you but, love, no one knows. No one but me. My identity being a secret, it keeps me and anyone I love safe. I can prove it.”

You reach out, running your hand across the table towards him, and his hand eagerly rushes out to meet yours.

In truth, the news is shocking and also… not shocking. Hobie is many things, but he is not a liar. And you knew, deep down, he wasn’t a cheater either.

It makes sense, and being honest with yourself, you’re surprised you didn’t figure it out before. Hobie is Spider-Punk. Your Hobie. Your Spider-Punk.

You stand up and seat yourself in his lap, wrapping your arms around his shoulders. You pull his face to your chest, his wicks brushing your cheeks. You breathe together, slowly in and out, and he holds you tightly.

“I’m really glad you’re not cheating on me.”

The sentence breaks the tension and you look down at your boyfriend. A wide smile is spread across is face, and yours.

“No one compares, love.”

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Margaret Killjoy’s “The Sapling Cage”

TODAY (Sept 24), I'll be speaking IN PERSON at the BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY!

The Sapling Cage is the first book in Margaret Killjoy's new "Daughters of the Empty Throne" trilogy: it's a queer coming-of-age tale in the mode of epic fantasy, and it's very good:

https://firestorm.coop/products/21646-the-sapling-cage.html

Lorel wants to be a witch, but that's the very last of the adventurous trades to be strictly gender-segregated. Boys and girls alike run away to be knights, brigands and sailors, but only girls can become a witch. Indeed, Lorel's best friend, Lane, is promised to the witches, having been born to a witch herself.

Lane doesn't want to be a witch. She wants to be a knight. So she and Lorel swap places, so when the crones come to their little hamlet to collect the girl who was promised to her, it's Lorel who steps forward, wearing the black dress Lane's mother left behind. None of the townsfolk rate Lorel out to the witches, and just like that, she is on the march with the coven, a whelp – the lowest ranking inductee, aspiring to "apprentice" and then, "witch."

What follows is, in some ways, a very expertly executed coming-of-age story. Lane is getting trained up with the coven, among a new cohort of whelps of varying degrees of friendliness and hostility. The world is a richly realized fantasy landscape of monsters and giants, magic and political intrigue.

Lorel has signed up for witching just as the land is turning against witches, thanks to a political plot by a scheming duchess who has scapegoated the witches as part of a plan to annex all the surrounding duchies, re-establishing the long-disintegrated kingdom with herself on the throne. To make things worse (for the witches, if not the duchess), there's a plague of monsters on the land, and the forests are blighted with a magical curse that turns trees to unmelting ice. This all softens up the peasantfolk for anti-witch pogroms.

So Lorel has to learn witching, even as her coven is fighting both monsters and the duchess's knights and the vigilante yokels who've been stirred up with anti-witch xenophobia.

This is a good, sturdy, serviceable plot, and in Killjoy's hands, it is expertly handled. There are lots of reversals and double-crosses, brilliant fight scenes, all the things you could want in an epic fantasy. And of course, it's a coming of age, with Lorel seeing the world and discovering who she is and brushing away the comforting half-truths and lies her elders have cocooned her in.

That's where the fact that Lorel is trans comes in. Lorel is figuring out what that means, but she's also very worried about discovery. After all, she's entered the company of witches, the last all-female cohort in the land, and these are powerful women – what's more, they're anarchists, leaderless and fractious. Who knows what happens if Lorel gets discovered.

So you've got this incredibly well-turned fantasy/coming-of-age story going on, and Killjoy figures out how to work in this gender stuff not just as a way of doing "representation" or "queer joy" or any other value that's orthogonal to the literary merits of this as an adventure tale. Nor does she simply integrate trans-ness as an unremarkable fact of life, another kind of statement (indeed, there's plenty of queer characters in this story who are matter-of-fact in this manner).

No, Killjoy uses the special complications of coming-of-age while transitioning to heighten the stakes and thus fuel the suspense of the novel. In addition to all the normal merits of diverse characters, Killjoy is using gender issues to crank up the story, winding it up to a breakneck pace that makes the pages practically fly past.

Thematically, there's a bunch of chewy stuff Killjoy does with the way that magic transforms bodies, making monsters out of witches who push their powers too hard. The story has all these changing bodies – children coming of age, Lorel coming out as transfemme, the transformation of magic-users into monsters. It's just another layer of depth that supports a zippy, run-and-gun quest tale.

I've followed Killjoy's work for more than a decade, ever since her days publishing the seminal zine Steampunk (motto: "Love the machine, hate the factory"):

https://firestorm.coop/products/2624-steampunk-magazine.html

Years later, I had the pleasure of instructing her at the Clarion West workshop. She's published regularly all that time, and this is by far her most commercial – and, I think her best! – novel (to date).

Today, Tor Books publishes SPILL, a new, free LITTLE BROTHER novella about oil pipelines and indigenous landback!

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/09/24/daughters-of-the-empty-throne/#witchy/a>

[incorrectbatfam]

I h3ad cannon athat all the batfam members have had/are still in their emo/goth phases.

Example:

Bruce dressed as a bat and punches criminals at night (I also head cannon that he listens to the rolling stones and MCR)

Anyways thoughts?

Also what were the other batfam members emo/goth phases like?

Dick: He was hella neurotic in his late Robin/early Nightwing days. That plus his mullet and guitar tells me he probably tried to live out of a used van he bought for $700 after a fight with Bruce only to come home a week later when someone knocked on his window.

Jason: He's the theater/classic lit goth. When he was younger he would read by the glow of a candelabra even though the lights work perfectly fine. Post-resurrection, he graduates to the biker anarchist who has no problem launching a molotov at a CEO's mansion.

Tim: He's from the 90s. He's sitting in that Y2K grunge-emo-punk gray area where his playlist is a mix of the Clash, Nirvana, and Green Day. He's coloring his hair with Kool-Aid, playing with makeup, ripping his own clothes, and talking about new songs on AOL.

Damian: He's aiming for dark academia, but that's hard to pull off if you know what American schools look like. He annotates the margins of his books with notes he thinks are insightful but are actually just basic observations. Also he listens to Imagine Dragons.

Duke: This kid isn't emo or goth, he is a punk through and through. Sassing the cops? Jumping off a bridge? Leading a ragtag vigilante team? If he wanted to, I bet he can pull off a leather jacket with some homemade spikes while blasting Bad Brains and Death.

Cullen: Canonically, he watches anime and Supernatural, and I've made a lot of Tumblr references with him. He's definitely your quintessential 2010s emo nerd—Black Parade, fandoms, the whole shabang. He also definitely followed Dan and Phil.

Stephanie: She strikes me as the early 2000s pop-punker—think MySpace and Avril Lavigne. She probably had a Not Like Other Girls phase that she quickly grew out of. I can see her cutting posters out of magazines and sneaking her MP3 under an oversized hoodie.

Cassandra: She canonically listens to Killswitch Engage, so I like to imagine what she was like as a baby metalhead. Maybe she thrifted a Pantera shirt and chopped her hair with safety scissors. And at concerts she's absolutely up front when the wall of death happens.

Barbara: I think she dabbled in a little bit of everything without ever outwardly expressing it. Her playlist is all over the board, from softer rock to screamo. She also experimented with makeup a little, like black lipstick, and is more involved in the activism side of things.

Harper: She's definitely industrial punk with a huge emphasis on the DIY aspect of the subculture. She strings soda tabs into chains, turns old screws into boot spikes, and even learned to give herself tattoos. She also absolutely has a drawer full of patch pants.

Carrie: She's a TikTok e-girl, leaning into the pinks and purples along with black and white. She turns fishnet leggings into gloves and has a bunch of animal ear headbands. She also listens to Melanie Martinez and Tame Impala regardless of if they count as alternative.

Kate: Queer people play a huge role in the punk scene and vice versa. I can absolutely see Kate jamming out to an early Pansy Division track or searching places like Bandcamp to support smaller indie artists. Also she has a jacket that says "Nazi punks fuck off."

Alfred: Before punk and its subgenres, Alfred was canonically a delinquent and in that day, delinquency meant gelled-up hair and moving like Elvis. The hair didn't work out for him, but he was able to catch one of the first shows Buddy Holly played in London.

Selina: Alt cultures are based on not having much and working with what you got. Selina would use the five-finger discount at big-box stores and save her money to support small businesses. She also went around listening to free local rock shows on Fridays.

Bruce: He listened to the Rolling Stones before, but his first real intro to the scene was a handmade zine he found on the floor at school. From there, he explored more underground artists and took up journaling as a way to vent his feelings. And then: Batman.