#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.

[littlefankingdom]

AU where Anarky became a batkid like he was supposed to be:

Bruce: Why can you not be like Lonnie, and hunt billionaires that don't pay their taxes and exploit people?!

Jason: *came back way too recently* Who the fuck is Lonnie?!

Lonnie: Me.

Jason: THERE'S MORE OF THEM?!

[emdashbitch]

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.

[thekimspoblog]

Don't get me wrong, the relationship between Glinda and Elphaba IS the point of the story.

But I'm just saying. If "Wicked: For Good" doesn't utilize at least five minutes of its expanded runtime to show Elphaba doing more revolutionary work than we got to directly witness in the play, I'm going to be disappointed.

[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

[phykoha]

Tottmnt Casey Jones 💀

Finally... my boy...

I'm letting him stay a vigilante because he's just not Casey Jones without it. He's just a Dumb Teen running around stopping petty crime... He's got that Punk Sense of Justice™️, yknow?

But he's also SO silly goofy and I love him so much,,,

Gonna ramble a bit about him below the cut </3

Born and raised in Brooklyn NYC, he goes to the same school the turtles do. He gets grades juuust good enough to be able to play on the hockey team fhdsf

He lives alone with his mom in a bit of a bad part of town... His mom is such a sweetheart, and part of the reason Casey started his vigilantism was because of her. He kept seeing her and other good people getting used, hurt, and brushed off by the actual authorities...

He's SUCH a punk,,, Punk as in 'punk ass kid' and also Punk as in the subculture fhdjf opposes authority, budding anarchist, but So soft at heart. One of those cool kids that are Cool because they act like a delinquent but are also just so nice and stand up for people.

The turtles see him and are like 'oh man.. a real life Bad Kid.. he's so cool.. and kinda scary' all while Casey thinks THEY'RE cool. Real-life mutants? Who saved the world from OTHER real-life mutants?? That's cool as heck.

[punkeropercyjackson]

Miles:Most gender ambigious black kid ever.Nobody knows if they're transmasc,transfem,transneutral or a secret fourth thing,not even them.Pronouns switcher and gender hoarder and the scary transgendered that indentifies as a cat cis people warned you about.Starting out solarpunk and packs a mean electropunch

Percy:Og 90s/2000s punk transfem.Grew up extra hard under the cisheteropatriarchy on double mode but didn't let that stop her from transitioning and feels a spiritual connection to I Was A Teenage Anarchist by Against Me!.Makes custom toys of brands for anti-capitalism,thinks indie games and stop motion are peak and a blue locs queen

Jason:Losercore transfag.That freaky edgelord guy who's really pretentious about gothic lit and wears corpse paint as a regular day fit and is built like a truck and has a toxic relathionship with his white gringo dad and a tendency of zero shame and eats like shit.Fucked off out of Gotham to be best friends with Miles and t4t date Percy as nomadic vigilantes

[brokensenseofhumor]

OOOOOOH

VIGILANTE YEAHHHHHHHH

MY BOY BEAT THE VILLAIN ALLEGATIONS LETS GOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[littlefankingdom]

After some research, I learned that the creator of Lonnie Machin created him to be the next Robin after Jason's death, but Tim Drake was created and stole the job later. This explains the comparaison between Lonnie and Jason, and probably also why he is called a vigilante and Bruce likes the kid so much. Anyway, this is just feeding the "Bruce should take Lonnie under his wing and make him another one of his kids" want I have developed playing Batman Arkham: Origins. That's what his creator wanted, for his revolutionary baby to have Batman mentors him (so they can destroy capitalism) If DC weren't coward they would give to Bruce his anarchist kid and make Lonnie a batkid!

~ Detective Comics (1937)

Anarky and Lonnie Machin's beginning! I was a bit worried, because I don't really trust an usamerican media to be objective about anarchism, but actually Bruce is shown to agree with Anarky's cause! He agrees with him, but not with using violence as punishment. Bruce, once again, uses the power trinity to explain why he is against killing.

Bruce calling Anarky "a vigilante", just like the murderer of that ceo in Future State, once again shows that Bruce doesn’t see people as criminals if they are in the eyes of the law or break his moral code. If someone is trying to take over the drug cartels (Red Hood in Under The Red Hood), that's a criminal. If someone is killing ceos because they are pos (Anarky here), that's a vigilante. Also, again, they show how Bruce is NOT a capitalist. He openly criticizes a new bank opening instead of social housings. He says he admires the kid, he defends him as "just trying to do the right thing".

Bruce panicking because he hit a kid is everything I want about him. Yeah, Batman should be horrified at the idea of hitting a kid! But also, Lonnie reminding him of Jason, and like, is there a kid out there that doesn't remind him of his late son? Really, this man is like "A kid... My son was a kid... *starts to cry*". And the fact that he got pranked by Lonnie? Just great.

[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.”

[drdemonprince]

do you think someone who kills their rapist is just as bad or worse than the rapist themself?

The morality question here is just not super interesting to me so much as questions are about how societies should function and who gets the right to decide who lives and dies. like worse or better according to whom? God? and as an anarchist I don't generally think that we should have the right to decide what happens to another person's life pretty much ever. I don't think as a general rule it is good for individuals to act as vigilantes. but I have felt really happy with my rapists have died and I can sure respect the desire to bring that into existence and to prevent future victims from experiencing abuse especially when somebody is a repeated and unrepentant violator of other people to an extreme degree. I think Id probably start with beating their ass and casting curse magic to hopefully end their life without having to sully your own hands doing it, that ended up kind of working for me.

[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>

[ao3-top-batfam-ships-bracket]

Tim Drake/Lonnie Machin

The boy who was Robin, and the boy who could’ve been. Enemies to reluctant allies to friends to lovers.

I know I’m going through the list of ships and submitting propaganda for any ships I can stomach, but. But. I actually ship this one, and you guys should too!

Lonnie Machin aka Anarky aka MoneySpider is a teenage supervillain with a very strong ideology of, well…anarchy.

Tim obviously disagrees with him on an ideological level, but is also perfectly down for spending time with him, and doesn’t think that Lonnie is ultimately a bad guy—just misguided.

Their characters are natural foils. Both are young boys with a similar “well I’ll just do it myself” attitude who took it upon themselves to help their city. They’re unhinged in very similar ways—kids who decided to take on the world with some martial arts and computer skills, and they match each other’s freak very well. And while Tim becomes Robin, Lonnie was actually almost going to be Robin.

But at the same time, Tim is a symbol of the establishment—the 90s PSA boy extraordinaire—and works as inside-the-law as it gets for vigilantes. In fact, Tim became Robin to maintain the way things were, carrying on the mantle of Robin and keeping Batman sane. Meanwhile, Lonnie Machin is literally an anarchist, he invented his own mantle, and he became Anarky to shake things up instead of maintain them.

Lonnie and Tim are allies on multiple occasions—and even when they’re fighting, they’re kinda nice to each other. Like—

You can’t tell me this isn’t flirting.

Both Tim and Lonnie have their mantles usurped, and Red Robin and MoneySpider end up working together while MoneySpider is in a kind of coma.

“Most importantly.” I mean, okay, Tim prioritizes human life, but I think he definitely cares about Lonnie. And the two are working together entirely of their own volition for quite a while in Red Robin.

And then in Rebirth, there’s an arc where Lonnie is dating Steph while Tim is “dead,” and I feel like this really gives “our ex died so let’s get together vibes” in the same way that the Tim/Cassie relationship did.

There are so many ways this relationship could go. Maybe they date against their consciences while they’re still Robin and Anarky. Maybe once Lonnie recovers from what Ulysses did to him, their newfound friendship blossoms into romance. Or maybe they never date, but they keep meeting as enemies who see the good in each other and desperately try to connect despite their fighting.

Anyway, this ship is amazing, and I wish more people wrote fics for it.

.

[tempestuous-tempest]

Romancing Hobart Brown: (Headcanons)

Hobart "Hobie" Brown. Some Punk-Rock anarchist who plays guitar and likes to play as the vigilante of sorts "Spider-Punk". He's soooo cool. How did you even manage to snag him? Well, that's a good question. One I'm not answering.

Responds to "Hobie", "Hobes", "Hobe", "Bee", and "Bee-bee".

Gets home from doing a job or playing with the band and most of the time just wants to chill out, maybe smoke a joint, and cuddle you.

It's a 50:50 chance that he'll fall asleep. Which he can do just about anywhere and you will be trapped until either he wakes up and decides to let go or you wake him up.

On the subject of sleeping, he likes to spread out and will take up the entire bed, including your side. And while you're trying to push him over to his side he'll either A; whine and complain if he's semi-awake, or B; Pretend to be asleep still and refuse to "wake up and move".

Continuing once more with this sleeping theme, he is a light sleeper and will wake up to even the slightest noise or touch so it's kind of difficult to escape his grasp when you shift and wake him up and he tightens his grip on you. How do you deal with this?

Turns out Bee-bee over here is very ticklish and will always move away and/or let go when you tickle him.

Physical affection is his thing. Especially the small things like a hand on the shoulder or instead of holding hands, you two have your index fingers locked together. He likes having you close and knowing you're there with him.

Lets you borrow his clothes, especially to wear out and it drives him nuts to be able to see how adorable you look in his clothes. And if you're small and his shirts or jackets are just the right amount of too big, this man will have the biggest grin on his face.

Let's you play with his hair and even sometimes style it differently, however it's mostly a rare treat for if you were absolutely sad and he wanted to cheer you up. Other times you will have to beg on your hands and knees while saying "pretty please with sugar on top" and giving him puppy dog eyes. And just maybe, he will give in. Maybe.

Expect teasing until you feel like your heart wll explode. He's very playful and likes to see you get all flustered by his words alone. Well, technically, he'll probably have that trademark smirk on his face or even a sly grin which also contributes in it's own way.

Sometimes, he'll hand-make you something out of random parts he "found" as a gift. They aren't always perfect but they mean a lot to you and him.

This is it for this list, might make a part two. I'm also open for asks about how else I perceive him romantically or otherwise.