#a working class hero

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"MAN ARRAIGNED FOR THEFT FROM TRAMCAR," Montreal Star. July 10, 1934. Page 3. ---- Balancing Old Debt, He Tells Police ---- The Montreal Tramways Company owes Gaston Plouffe, 4322 Papineau avenue, 75 cents. At least, that is what he told police when he was arrested yesterday on the charge of having stolen 75 cents from the money bowl of a tramcar yesterday. He pleaded not guilty to the charge before Judge Couture this morning and was remanded for enquete.

Police claim that Plouffe, who is 19 years of age, was standing in a car last evening when a passenger entered and tendered a $1, bill for his tickets. The conductor put the 75 cents change in the bowl and Plouffe took it and jumped from the car, it is stated. Almost immediately he was arrested by detectives in a radio car, who had heard the cry of "Stop thief!"

When asked by Sergeant Detective Greenberg what his idea was in stealing 75 cents, Plouffe is alleged to have said, "The company has owed me 75 cents for a long time. Some time ago I gave a conductor a $1 bill for tickets and he did not give me any change. I've had to wait till this evening before I could collect it."

[egoschwank]

al things considered — when i post my masterpiece #1229

first posted in facebook october 21, 2023

carl gaertner -- "the pie wagon" (ca. 1926)

"in this painting, the artist focused attention on the laborers who spend their lunch break milling around a horse-drawn bakery wagon in the shadows of the hulking factories" … the cleveland museum of art

"as soon as you're born, they make you feel small by giving you no time instead of it all till the pain is so big you feel nothing at all a working class hero is something to be a working class hero is something to be" … john lennon

"our winters are very long here, very long and very monotonous. but we don't complain about it downstairs, we're shielded against the winter. oh, spring does come eventually, and summer, and they last for a while, but now, looking back, spring and summer seem too short, as if they were not much more than a couple of days, and even on those days, no matter how lovely the day, it still snows occasionally" … franz kafka

"little darlin', it's been a long, cold, lonely winter little darlin', it feels like years since it's been here here comes the sun, doo-doo-doo-doo here comes the sun, and i say it's alright" … george harrison

"and here comes the pie wagon! if you want any pie, well, just follow me" … al janik

[firesmokeandashes]

Mha "could've been canon" quotes/scenarios

Fake Deku: *walks into the common room and over to Katsuki*

Fake Deku: "Hey Bakugou! Want to go spa-"

Half of class 1 a: *suddenly jumps the fake deku*

Fake Deku: "Wait! What are you guys doing! Get off me!"

Ochako: "Cut the bullshit, we know you're not Deku"

Fake Deku: *detransforms into some random villain*

Villain: "But how? I haven't done anything out of the ordinary!"

Todoroki: "Midoriya never calls Bakugou, Bakugou"

Tenya: "In fact we're not entirely sure he knows how to say Bakugo's real name"

Katsuki: Besides, danger sense would have alerted Izuku before everyone jumped you and gotten out of the way. So really you're just stupid"

Jirou: "Wait, sense this guy isn't Deku-"

Momo: "Where's the real one!?"

●●●●●●●

Meanwhile at the villain's hideout:

Izuku: "So you see, you can be whatever you want to be, you don't have to be a villain"

Villain 1: *sniffling* "That's so deep man"

Villain 2: *crying* "No one's ever told us that before! Thank you!"

Villain 3: *sobbing uncontrollably* "Thank you so much! Im gonna turn my whole life around now, I promise!"

Villain 4: *sitting in a corner contemplating their life choices and having a mental crisis*

Izuku: *slightly flustered* "There's really no need to thank me! You guys should have been told all this from the beginning!"

All four villains: *thinking* 'And he's humble too!'

●●●●●●●

Back at UA:

Aizawa: "So you mean to tell me he's been missing for FIVE HOURS!?"

Katsuki: *frustrated sigh* Yeah"

Aizawa: *insert groan of dissapointed and frustration*

Aizawa's phone: *rings*

Aizawa: "What!?"

Villain 1: "Um, is this Erasurehead?"

Aizawa: "Yes, what do want? I'm in the middle of important business!"

Villain 1: "Well, you see, we have one of your students, Midoriya, and we want to know where we should drop him off at?"

Aizawa: "...."

Aizawa: "What do mean 'drop him off at'"?

Villain 1: Well, he kind of gave us a talk about how we don't need to be villains and now we all feel bad about the stuff we did and want to give him back to you"

Aizawa: *sighs tiredly while dragging his hand down his face*

Aizawa: "Meet me at the abandoned choclate factory over on 15th street"

Villain 1: "Okay! Yeah, we can do that and I just want to say how sorry we are for kidnapping him! We're fully expecting to be arrested when we get there, so don't worry about us putting up a fight"

Aizawa: *sighs tiredly and hangs up*

Katsuki who listened to the whole conversation on speaker phone: "So he did it again?"

Aizawa: "Yup."

Katsuki: "And now you have to call the police and do more paperwork than you want to?"

Aizawa: "Yup."

Katsuki: "Want me to go with you to pick him up or..."

Aizawa: "Yes, lord knows he's gonna need someone to talk to on the way back and I cannot deal with him right now."

Katsuki: "So... what do we do with this guy?"

Katsuki: *jabs finger towards the shapeshifing villain who is tied and gagged with sero's tape snd spewing muffled curses at them*

Aizawa:"Hand him over to campus security and let them take care of him"

Katsuki: *nods and drags the screaming villain out the door with him*

Aizawa: "Im getting too old for this"

●●●●●

Later at the abandoned Chocolate Factory:

Aizawa, Katsuki, and a handful of cops walk into the Factory:

Izuku: *jumping up and down while waving his hand*

Cops: *rush over to arrest the villains*

Izuku: "Sensei! Kacchan!! Over here!"

Katsuki: "We know, idiot! We aren't blind!"

Villain 1 being arrested: *whispering* That's 'Kacchan'? I thought he'd be nicer"

Villains 2-4 also being arrested: *nod in agreement*

Izuku: *bounds over to Aizawa and Katsuki*

Izuku: "Sensei! Kacchan! You're not going to believe the day I've had!"

Izuku: *begins rambling*

Aizawa looks tiredly at Katsuki: "You take care of him, I have a big enough headache as it is"

Katsuki: *nods and turns back to listen to Izuku's rant and scold him for being reckless and getting in trouble again*

■■■■■■■

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 203

Another Hydra prompt! Because I am enjoying the designs I’ve made lol. And perhaps it’s a bit inspired by @radiance1 ‘s different dragon prompts too. 

So they’ve succeeded! They’ve managed to combine their powers- with a bit of shapeshifting helped along by so many ghost allies- and become a giant duck-you dragon! Well, originally they were going to do something else, but they couldn’t agree on an animal, so dragon it was! 

And how mighty they are! They’re giant, absolutely massive- dwarfing the couple of skyscrapers still in Amity. Damages via ghost attacks and general sparring made it where people really didn’t want to rebuild those types of buildings. 

But anyway, dragon! Them! They’re absolutely stunning! And did they mention powerful? Because boy oh boy, are they powerful. The GIW’s guns do practically nothing against their combined might, and barriers shatter before them! 

The uh, issue is that they erm… can’t turn back. Which is fine, they’ve all sort of outlived most of their generation- thank you possessions and ecto-contamination, it’s just a tiny bit of an adjustment. But really it’s not too bad, and someone needs to stop the GIW from trying to poke their heads into Amity. Like it’s been a solid couple of generations, it’s time to stop, thanks. 

Actually they’ve been a bit quiet. Meh, that surely isn’t a problem. Probably. Honestly they’re all going to use the opportunity to sprawl out where the school yard once was, their favorite place to sun their scales. Huh. Usually more people are around now that they think about it- or really, as Paulina points out, sharpening her fangs on one of the rocks. 

…

How long had they been sleeping, because it couldn’t have been that long. One of them was always awake, they slept in shifts after all! Yet there are things missing now as they patrol the skies, both Wes and Tucker pointing out specific buildings that the others didn’t particularly notice usually that now lay empty. 

Hm. 

Oh. That is a… strong barrier there. A really strong barrier actually. Pfft, they can take it! They’ve shredded every barrier together before- Ow. 

…

Okay this might be a bit of a problem. Shit. 

You want a general size reference? :P

[kiisaes]

after the rain 🌂 (little mari au fan art for @zipsunz :>)

[vertigoartgore]

1987's Hellblazer Vol.1 #1 cover by cover artist Dave McKean.

Fun Fact : "The original title for this series was Hellraiser, but it was changed prior to publication so as to not be confused with the 1988 Clive Barker horror film, Hellraiser."

[schgtbp]

[stingrachelmha]

He needs someone he’s ONE HUNDRED PERCENT SURE knows

Forgot I’ve made a ton of these silly comics. Coming soon is a lot more of these

[ohohoho-nyohohoho]

ppl who make wangxian into proletariat class heroes and jc into some jeff bezos funny as hell fr.....tho not as funny as the ppl making jgy into the jeff bezos. girl what are you talking about

[bisclavret]

like many who have suffered at the hands of bbc merlin before me, i recently indulged in a thought experiment in which i outlined my own version of seasons 3-5 that stay thematically and tonally in line with the show (except they're less fucking stupid). but then i quickly realized that focusing on details is pointless: all you need is to solve the one Big Problem the show has, and the rest will follow. the problem in question? ✨morgana✨

i like the first two seasons. s1 achieves what it sets out to do and has fun while doing it, and s2, while flawed, sets up a ton of potential that the following seasons unfortunately squander, beginning with the insidious season 3. you can only distract me with cute knights and goblins and fart jokes for so long before i start seeing through you, evil, evil season of television.

my hypothesis is that if the writers had crafted s3 morgana into anything more sympathetic than a violent half-alive poltergeist that can never be reasoned with because she's suddenly terminally off her rocker, everything would've fallen into place. a sympathetic morgana would've made real, valid arguments against uther (and arthur) that wouldn't just be the ramblings of a woman possessed. her betrayal of arthur would have stemmed from her feeling increasingly morally superior to him because of his complacency in the face of their father's tyranny. under morgause's guidance she would stop believing that arthur is capable of change, and the whole point would be that she might actually be right. arthur would have to actively try and prove her wrong, instead of getting praised for doing the bare minimum because the bar is on the floor.

furthermore, morgana's prophetic dream about arthur and gwen becoming king and queen and her decision to prevent this however she can is a direct parallel to merlin learning about that same prophecy and making it happen by any means necessary. merlin's desires about his and arthur's futures are subtextually fueled by gay love and devotion, so why couldn't morgana's be? why couldn't she properly express her bitterness that arthur gets to be with gwen in a way she can't "took gwen away" from her, instead of suddenly declaring that gwen is nothing more than a servant, after two seasons of demonstrating again and again that she loves, values, and respects gwen more than anyone else in that godforsaken castle?

following this, an angry and emotionally volatile but still sensible morgana asking gwen to stay by her side during the coup of the castle in the s3 finale and gwen going behind her back to help arthur and the knights would've hurt like a bitch. double-sided betrayal! gwen having a real plot! the proper beginnings of a toxic yuri that would shape a generation!

then there's the utter hubris of having morgana shoot arrows at the same civilians she worried herself sick over for 2 seasons — even morgan, her medieval counterpart that was rooted in every sexist trope in existence, doesn't just go around killing senselessly but instead has (often petty!) personal vendettas against gwen, arthur, and the knights. morgana had every right to be sick of the pretensions around chivalry in camelot (she was always quick to mock it, even in s1), and to lash out at the knights and soldiers after years of feeling powerless in a castle full of armed men that blindly followed her oppressor. the show conveniently forgets that morgana was victimized as a woman as well as a sorcerer those first 2 seasons.

but like i said, this is not just about morgana. allowing her to remain a real and multifaceted character even as she betrays everyone in pursuit of her ambitions would've given the rest of the core four more interesting conflict to work with: merlin because he would have to experience real consequences to his actions, arthur because he would watch his sister go against his father (and his knights, and his birthright) and experience some actual internal dilemmas about it, and gwen because she would be forced to choose between morgana and arthur without the pretense that it's an obvious or easy choice for her to make.

even morgause and gaius would come off more interesting as mentors: neither one inherently evil or inherently good, both jaded by events that happened before our protagonists were even born, both heavily influencing morgana and merlin into fulfilling roles that they think are appropriate, but that morgana and merlin may not have chosen for themselves had they not been under their care.

you get the gist. if the show followed its own setup, morgana's mistakes wouldn't lie in cheap and senseless acts of violence but in alienating the people she loves because she is too hurt and jaded to trust them. meanwhile, everybody else would feel guilt over "failing" her and yet they would be too caught up in their own (sometimes flawed!) beliefs of right and wrong to truly see her point of view.

arthur would convince himself it was sorcery that corrupted her. merlin would know that isn't true but he wouldn't be able to argue without confessing everything, which is the defining conflict between him and morgana and it's cheapened when she's just an evil witch caricature and merlin is framed as inherently virtuous in contrast. gwen, too, would become a more active participant in her own life by choosing arthur over morgana and choosing to rule camelot with him instead of just waiting politely to see where things go.

and, of course, uther's downfall and death would be quick, final, and completely earned — when and why did the show even decide he of all people was the sympathetic villain, anyway?

lastly, and perhaps controversially, i think morgana should've learned merlin's true identity by season 4. her being the first of the main characters to find out makes perfect sense considering their shared history and their interconnected and mirrored arcs. even the show seems to agree, considering she does find out a little before arthur. but the narrative itself tried pointing flashing neon arrows towards this way earlier — there is a whole entire episode in s4 where merlin being emrys is repeatedly spelled out for morgana and she still isn't allowed to see it. that episode makes her look like the stupidest person to ever live, which is pretty funny im not gonna lie, but also another frustrating thing in the endless string of frustrating things that make up this show.

morgana learning that merlin has magic would've transformed the source of merlin's anxiety from a crippling fear of being outed someday to the crippling fear of knowing she could out him at any moment. this would make him want to beat her to the punch (perhaps he'd consider killing her for a minute and decide against it because she isn't a cartoonishly insane evil person in my version of events) and maybe he would even feel some tentative excitement at the idea of coming clean, now that it seems inevitable. after all, he always intended to tell arthur eventually! and i think gaius would have to admit outright that he does not want merlin to tell arthur he has magic because he, gaius, simply cannot risk such a gamble. it would be so interesting to see gaius and merlin clash and disagree once it becomes obvious that it's not merlin that isn't ready for the reveal, it's gaius. delicious!

with morgana's knowledge looming, things would inevitably spiral into a magic reveal by the end of season 4. i picture this season as an absolute mess of miscommunication between everyone at camelot, which is, y'know, canon. growing increasingly cunning and vengeful, morgana would use this tension to her advantage, destabilizing the court from the outside while she creates alliances with other sorcerers outside of camelot (instead of living alone in a hovel for no reason — morgana le fay i'm sorry i'm so sorry they gave you agravaine instead of your all-female entourage oh my god).

and here's where the events would change beyond recognition (aka here's where the meta becomes the fanfic i refuse to write). picture it with me: a militia of sorcerers infiltrates camelot and arthur and gwen have to set aside their differences (assuming gwen kissing lancelot and arthur overreacting happens, which it should) for the good of the kingdom as well as for love. picture high priestess morgana in her element, side by side with a bunch of misfit sorcerers that aren't so easily vilified, chopping down camelot's soldiers and knights and assuredly making their way to the newly-minted king.

then, just as it starts to seem that all hope is lost, in swoops merlin (the actual merlin, not his old fart disguise) on dragonback (kilgharrah hates morgana so much i know his sexist ass would stoop to anything to stop her)!!! imagine merlin showing off the extent of his powers in front of everyone and preventing the sorcerers from getting any further, declaring loud and clear that camelot is protected by him, by emrys. imagine that display of power alone being enough to send everyone home.

imagine the loyalties clearly drawn: merlin on arthur's side, morgana on the sorcerers'. imagine arthur, feeling confused and betrayed by everyone at this point, banishing merlin despite everything he's done for him in the angstiest, most emotionally dysregulated scene the show had ever put to screen. imagine merlin starting season 5 free at last but very lonesome, an embittered dragonlord like his father. imagine the absolute mess camelot would become without him, even with gwen — now queen guinevere — there to pick up the slack. imagine arthur actually earning merlin back, finally growing into his role as king as he does so. imagine the reunion.

all this and more could've been not just possible but inevitable if morgana was allowed to remain a complex character that is neither inherently good nor inherently evil: it was undeniably the biased and one-note treatment of morgana's downfall by the writers that set the precedent for literally everything else that happened after merlin chose to poison her. the show wouldn't have even had to jeopardize its tone or the monster-of-the-week vibe, all it would've had to do is admit that even the "good guys" are capable of mistakes and what makes them good is the ability to feel remorse and change for the better. (as opposed to uther, who was miles beyond redemption since way before the pilot and deserved to lose everything and die alone. OBVIOUSLY???)

in a world where morgana remains multifaceted and sympathetic, mordred would get a better arc as well, so if we really wanted to, we could still end on the same tragic note that the show ended on. with so much harm inflicted onto so many innocent people by the pendragons for so long (including mordred and the many druids and sorcerers that raised him), it could realistically end up being a little too late for anything more than one shining glimpse of king arthur and the sorcerer merlin's short-lived golden age before fate catches up to them. glimpsing that reality just to immediately lose it would've been far more satisfying and far more tragic than whatever the writers thought they were doing with all that pointless carrot-dangling.

and finally, an ending in line with morgana's new and improved arc. in this version, rather than bleeding out on the forest floor alone, she would channel the morgan le fay we know from the legends: sobered up by the reality of her brother dying, she would use her high priestess status (and perhaps also her pendragon status) to be granted passage over to avalon alongside arthur on the boat — a one-way ride — just to make sure he gets there safely. this is her penance for the harm she has caused, the same way arthur's penance is to die and leave the true ruler of camelot (gwen) behind to achieve everything he was too slow and indecisive to build while he still had time.

merlin's penance, then, would be to stay behind and watch them cross over without him, waiting and waiting and waiting until they come back or until he can finally join them. which is a bit fucking harsh if i'm honest, so i'd at least make it slightly more faithful to the legends by having him return as an old man and letting him take a long nap under a tree by the shore, his body slowly enveloped by vines like the cobwebbed fisher king in 3x08, never fully sure if he's dreaming or if there really are strange shapes fading in and out of the fog over the lake. still tragic, but nevertheless a little more open-ended and whimsical than [TRUCK NOISES] THE END!

[pjs-everyday]

uuuuuhhh, I asked aizawa to pick me up after work and came out a bit late… do you think he’s mad at me? 😖👉👈

[crimson-and-clover-1717]

I’ve read a few takes which view Izzy through a Marxist lens and paint him as a working class* hero. The premise being that this proletarian warrior is unfairly usurped in the affections of Ed by some upper class, monied, artsy type; and to not root for the grassroots character makes you somehow a bourgeois prick.

Izzy is never in Ed’s affections romantically. Ever. So the premise falls at the first hurdle.

But for the sake of argument…

If you’re truly going to view the show as a Marxist allegory, in which an individual overcomes horrendous class obstacles, then that character is Ed Teach.

Ed rises from extreme poverty to become the most successful and infamous pirate in history. It’s a rags-to-riches story.

The takes I’ve read on this completely ignore the fact that Ed is also ‘working class’. And the only conclusion I can reach is that Ed is ‘the wrong kind of working class’. Because what these interpretations do is separate the idea of the working classes into a ‘deserving’, romanticised, white, ‘salt-of-the-earth’ type, and non-deserving groups not worthy of recognition, usually representing people of colour.

And so we’re back to race. The Marxist lens as I’ve seen it applied here defines the white working class man as having had his toy stolen by the white bourgeois man. Ed is a just an object. And when Ed’s handed back rightfully to Izzy by the British Crown as payment, he is literally chattel returned to the correct owner.

A large part of the show is Ed’s fightback against an ownership narrative in order to claim his identity for himself. That to be with Stede is his choice; and Stede’s initial obliviousness is an extremely important part of that narrative. The agency has to lie with Ed first, and the writers clearly understand this. Else we might be setting up a power struggle over ‘who owns the brown man’.

Stede never lays claim to Ed because there is no claim to lay. He instinctively and intuitively falls into a reciprocal friendship with Ed, which eventually grows into an equal love and natural affection. Stede always sees Ed’s personhood. And it’s really important that Stede views Ed, at the very least, as an equal in terms of human worth. Societally they are not equal due to white patriarchy; however, Stede’s giving up of his wealth, his bourgeois status, is another step towards a truer equality between the two.

Meanwhile, Izzy views Ed as a valuable asset to be utilised for a certain masculine glory and riches. Izzy might not be bourgeois, but his worldview is certainly bent that way. He will willingly and violently take possession of another human being as an interpretation of owning the means of production - that isn’t exactly proletarian. It’s participatory enslavement and a bourgeois act.

We know nothing of Izzy’s past. We can presume he’s from a working class background because Occam’s razor would suggest as much. But we are never explicitly shown Izzy’s class in the way we are Ed’s, because Izzy’s class isn’t overly important to the story unless it serves the narrative of Ed and Stede. It has no independent meaning. He’s an antagonist. And let’s face it: he cosies up to Chauncey and the British establishment pretty easily when it suits him.

If you must apply a Marxist lens to this story, your working class hero is Ed. And if not, why not?

*I’m using ‘working class’ as a Marxist term. I realise in 1717, it was not widely used

Ed Teach, finally co-owning property and a potential business. It’s not a fairytale ending entirely, but it is an important practical ending to a lifelong journey from nothing. And Ed might never have to go hungry again.

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 181

“Hey. Hey Tuck. Tucker. Tuck look. Look.” 

Tucker looked over the edge of the screen lazily, the half interested words on his tongue dying as he let out a wheeze of laughter. “Oh my Ancient Sands, dude, how did you manage that?” 

Danny had, for the last near year, been trying to mix shapeshifting, thank you Amorpho, with duplication. Something he’d apparently succeeded in today, if the massive fuck-you hydra standing before him was any indication. The very pleased looking, well did it count as a hydra if it had wings too? 

“You need to show Sam. Oh my Sands we need to show Val too. And Wes. You did it dude!” He floated up to look at Danny, who did a little twirl to show off. He shook his head, flecks of gold and sand falling from his hair as he laughed. 

“Do you think,” Danny lost it in laughter as several other heads echoed his words, from whichever the main him was. “Holy ancients that’s great- do, do you think we can make a dragon club? Hydras are totally dragons right? Do you think we could pull a Tiamat?” 

He landed on a head, taking a selfie to add to the groupchat labeled Preparations. “Dude, we should, but let me send this to the others first… But I am so down.” 

They can, in fact apparently, pull a Tiamat- with a little help from Princess Dora, practice in front of Frostbite in case something goes wrong, and some advice from Pandora on controlling extra limbs. Honestly, who is going to want to mess with Amity when there’s a giant dragon? And hey, maybe they can break the barrier now! 

The heads for those wondering who I was thinking of for each lol And perhaps what they might all get ((1) Kwan, Pressurized Water) ((2) Wes, Sonic Blast) ((3) Sam, Poison Gas) ((4) Star, Plasma) ((5) Danny, Ice Breath) ((6) Paulina, Acid) ((7) Tucker, Electricity) ((8) Valerie, Fire Breath) ((9) Dash, Pressurized Wind)

[sonik-kun]

"Jiang Cheng is classist"

Okay, and? That's hardly the biggest crime in a book where there are *checks notes*

Murderers, war criminals, rapists and corpse desecrators to name a few..

Not to mention, most of the main cast were elitists anyway and/or did nothing to help the lower classes (yes, even our main couple had some form of privileges over the lower classes and did little to help them in terms of social reform.)

Arguably, the only person who did help and consider the average joe was Jin Guangyao. Beyond his watchtower scheme he set up, the rest of the cultivation world couldn't give a fiddler's fuck about the poor.

Could be because it's a cultivator's primary duty to protect the cultivation world from imminent threat as opposed to wholesale, social reform? But eh, I could be wrong.

Either way, my point remains. Using Jiang Cheng's "classism" as an "ooh gotcha" is just silly to me when our hero's end game is with a rich dude, being fucked raw and spoiled rotten all day, every day. Hardly the actions of a working class hero, but meh. Valid of him tbh. Lmao.

[luuxxart]

leaks from the anime post bnha 430……. #REAL #NOTFAKE

[langernameohnebedeutung]

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