#idk if anyone needs the mention of them tagged

[hopefulstarfire]

It's been said time and time again but I will keep screaming it from the rooftops; superhero comics, like all other art forms, are political, but ESPECIALLY so. They always have been, they always will be. They stand as a moral compass and ideal to follow, challenging our ideals and how we can strive to do better and become heroes ourselves, yes, but it goes even deeper than that.

Superman made his debut in Action Comics #1, ushering in the Golden Age of comics. He was created by two Jewish young men, one of whom lost his father during an armed robbery at his family store and then created a bullet proof man coming in to save the day. In his second comic ever, he kidnaps the commanders of two armies that are opposing each other (mostly for the sale of munitions, as Clark puts it) and plops them down and says, "Nope, I'm ending this because this is senseless. We're ending this by you two fighting each other so people stop dying senseless deaths." And they don't want to fight or for Superman to mop the floor with them so yeah. In his third, he faces off the corrupt owner of a mine that disregarded his workers safety - which was the fact that there was poisonous gas down there - and denied it ever even happened, even when rescue team members were left unconscious and there was at least one case of hospitalization where a person almost died. So what does Clark do? Lock him and a bunch of his rich buddies in the mines and makes them work their way out, with only 24 hours of oxygen down there and to point out there's not any working safety equipment. And then there's the radio show that eventually turned into a comic about Superman beating the fuck out of Klansmen.

One also has to remembr: Superman is a refugee from a destroyed planet, last of his kind, a literal undocumented alien whose parents probably had to forge his paperwork (and DID in the Smallville series), was raised in a small town by farmers trying to get by, who knew the value in looking out for their community and whose nemesis is a billionaire who in many cases goes into politics. Yeah and people still try to say this man would have voted for Orange Hitler.

That's not the only case of it though. Many of our most beloved superheroes came from Jewish creators because it was work they could get as many people deemed it as "lesser work" and America was also anti-semetic. Or you have the case of Wonder Woman's creator, William Moulton Marston, who was a polyamorous man who loved his wife and their girlfriend very much and was heavily into BDSM (hence why Diana's only weakness originally was bondage) and they were both just as big a part in her creation, even being based off of the both of them. He was a psychologist (and actually invented an early version of a lie detector test, fun fact) that saw a female sexual revolution on the horizon and he was all for it and was trying to show that to others.

And that's not even beginning to go into the goddamn legend that is Jack Kirby. The very first cover of Captain America's stories shows him punching Hitler for God's sake and he's fighting HYDRA, who they make as the Nazi science division. This is also the same man who, when some nazis showed up demanding to see him and show the creator of Captain America "How Nazis really fight", he rolled up his sleeves and marched downstairs ready to annihilate them and they'd already run off with their cowardly tails between their legs.

You could also factor in the gun reform and Batman's anti-gun messaging in the early Comics, to the point he even called people who use them cowards, as well as the shift to him not killing anymore, a political move. Yes he killed in the very first comics but that died down just as quickly. He gunned down some monster men from the bat plane and also hung one by a noose from it and flew around with it, and some kids weren't okay with that, but namely it was parents. So Whitney Ellsworth, the chief editor at the time, marched into Bill and Bob's office and told them no more killing. Batman isn't allowed to use guns, and he's not allowed to kill, nor would any hero, as they had to hold themselves to a higher moral and standard than their villains (something Bill wanted from the start and Bob had rejected, until he saw how much more the comics were selling after that.)

These are just a few examples of the early comic creators. This is just a couple examples of the Golden Age stories and most of them showcased heroes on the home front, fighting to protect that. These stories were also used as a way to promote warbonds and were sent overseas to boost soldier morale and it absolutely did.

The political sphere stuck around after that when that lying bastard Fredric Wertham wrote his book Seduction of the Innocent, claiming comics were corrupting the youth, and was trying to push for censorship. He tried to say Blue Beetle was some Kafka-esque nightmare monster when in fact he was some fucking archaeologist in a regular blue suit. He claimed that Batman and Robin promoted homosexuality, claiming they were in a relationship when that was Bruce's basically adopted child and it's one of the many reasons we comic fans would fight Devin Grayson in a Waffle House parking lot, and altered patients statements to make it seem like that was the case as well as those patients fantasizing about them in a role play scenario between two patients that were apparently in a relationship. But who can say? He manipulated accounts by altering, combining and excluding information as well as chose very targeted demographics.

But it was the reason the Comics Code Authority got created, and they ushered in strict guidelines about what could be published under the code and it was why there's such a big difference in the Silver Age: there was a boot on their neck to sanitize everything down to appease guidelines that were only there because some asshole used falsified evidence as a scare tactic. Eventually it would start to get dismantled. Stan Lee had been a big forerunner in that area actually; he'd been commissioned by the FDC to create a Spiderman comic warning about the dangers of drug use, and the CCA wouldn't let him publish it because they did not ever want depictions of drugs. So he took it to the head editor, explained the situation and got it approved to be published without the CCA stamp on it. Eventually, they'd stop using it all together, followed by Archie, and, while DC had been publishing Comics without their approval for a while, switched to their own rating system in about 2011 and that killed it dead all together.

It doesn't. Stop. There. It never has and it never will. Look at stories like Civil War, which was a response to the Patriot Act, for example. The Absolute Universe for DC really seems to be touching base with there as well, between Blue Collar Batman going up against billionaire Joker, or refugee Clark trying to find the good in the world and what's worth fighting for in a corrupt system and Diana "Understand that any effort to fashion me into yet another arm of your military-industrial complex will simply not be tolerated" Prince. One of Spidermans biggest enemies is always going to be the insurance companies trying to fuck over Aunt May. The X-Men are always going to be representative of the oppressed, acting as representation for civil rights across the board and Magneto's literally a holocaust survivor. I could into detail about the fucked up intricacies and very dystopian nature about a hotline where people got to vote on if a 15 year old sidekick was brutally murdered by his adoptive father's greatest enemy, all because the writers at the time didn't like him or his existence, and even tried to have him killed off by stuffing his name into a suggestion box about having a character battling AIDS as a response to the AIDS crisis or completely doing a 180 in his character in the last two comics before said vote to kill or save storyline just to justify killing him - or making him look older so it'd feel less shocking. And some people voted just because they thought it would get his brother, who was in college and was in one of DC's most popular titles with a new identity and everything, to come back and be the Boy Wonder again.

There's a superhero for everyone. There are people you can see yourselves in all the time in comics and they are inherently political. Never let others diminish that or the work that has been put in to keeping them going to keep inspiring others. Comics aren't perfect. Superheroes aren't always going to be written by the best writers. But they've persisted all this time, despite the odds stacked against them.

And we will too.

[kissingarthurclaus]

Well waking up to a tornado alert at 5:30am is...not the way I imagined I'd start my anniversary tbh 😅😅😅

[nabaath-areng]

I have way too many alts that I keep to myself (which is why I generally refrain from posting them), but I'm going to ignore that habit for a moment just because I'm feeling particularly insane about this guy.

[milolunde]

We all know Timmy is Wanda’s mama’s boy but we need to keep in mind he’s still Cosmo’s kid too and that Cosmo would love him just as vehemently as Wanda

[quibbs126]

Oh yeah so I had this idea earlier when I was thinking about Beast Wars, only reason I didn’t post it earlier was because I got dragged out to dinner

Anyways, so basically I had this thought of a Transformers series where basically the Autobots and Decepticons crash land on Earth, and due to them having no clue where they are and no current way of getting back home, they decide to work together, at least for the time being

So like, the main group of protagonists would consist of both Autobots and Decepticons

But also it wouldn’t be the entirety of both groups working together, as members on both sides refuse to work with the other for one reason or another and instead decide to do their own thing, being their own separate parties that probably cause trouble from time to time. But every member here has their own reasons why they are or aren’t fine with teaming up, and why they’re on one side or the other

I kind of don’t want Optimus and Megatron there, probably because I was thinking of Beast Wars which doesn’t have them, and also because I want to see this alliance come from characters other than them. But at the same time I feel like they kind of have to be there. My current solution is that the two were on a different part of the ship that came off during the crash landing, and in current day (assuming they all were unconscious for a bit like g1 or Animated) the two are missing, which might be a reason for the two groups to team up. Their goals are to: find fuel, find everyone that might have gone missing, find a way to contact/get back to Cybertron, and find their leaders

I’m not entirely sure what’s going on with Optimus and Megatron here yet, just that they’d probably be absent until like, maybe the end of the season or something

But one concept that did come to mind is that whoever found them basically decided to stitch the two of them together using each’s body parts into one powerful robot (probably not knowing what they really are), and so the two are pretty much fused together into one, with them having to deal with this, assuming they still have a mind anymore. And also with this concept, this Frankenstein of them is specifically not one or the other with the other’s body parts, it’s both of them in there, through whatever magic means. Or neither if we just want the body horror and the new team having to put them down. Or I suppose you could have instead their minds/sparks being fused into an entirely new being. Didn’t really think about that concept until right now. But yeah, might not be the concept I stick with, but it is the one in my head right now

Edit: all I know is that I don’t think I want it to just be “they decide to work together”, because while I’m down for a solo Optimus and Megatron team-up side plot, the rest of the group is already doing the team-up, so it’d be treading the same ground. I want to do something different with them, and fusing them together into one being certainly is that. Throws a wrench into the whole war thing too

And yeah, I just wanted to share this concept because I thought it was neat. I would try to develop it more, but I have literally no clue who would be on either side, because the only characters I think about are Optimus and Megatron, and I also don’t really want Starscream and probably Bumblebee here either

[stiffyck]

Marvel rivals has opened my eyes to so many ships tbh but I have a home cooked one I haven't seen yet.

Adam Warlock x Steven Grant

Hear me out okay-

(Going with mcu Steven cuz i like him a bit more than comics Steven and also we don't really know anything about him in rivals yet I think, so-)

The team had a long and difficult mission. The strategists are patching up their allies.

Adam is currently tending to Marc's wounds. Dude starts to sorta dissociate half way through- it was a long day and the mission wasn't easy.

Enter Steven! I honestly think he'd get along well with Adam. I also think Adam would find him nice and fun to talk to. They'd be incredibly awkward at the start, at least Steven, but I feel like they'd become friends pretty fast.

Also I like the idea of it like. Becoming a thing- after missions, Steven and Adam just chatting.

Anyway that is all.

[cathalbravecog]

A very self indulgent drawing of Misty I've been working on for a few weeks... On and off. But now it's here! :]

[storywestistrash]

i am actually so tired of the way westerners treat eastern europeans

[necrotic-nephilim]

do you ship helena bertinelli with anyone? if yes, then which characters and why? what's your favorite helena ship? do you have any helena rarepairs? (i know you've talked about helena/steph and you're so right about it, it's a very interesting ship)

!!!! i have so many ships for my best girl ever yes oh my god thank you for asking.

my top pairing is probably Vic Sage/the Question. Vic is the basic answer, but man. i love them so much. no couple has matched each other's freak like that have. Justice League Unlimited is a great adaptation of Helena in general, but it also did a great adaptation of Helena and Vic's relationship. how he just dedicates himself to helping her with no expected return, but also wants to make sure she doesn't go too far in a hunt for vengeance that never ends for her. i think a lot of characters often want to change Helena or expect things out of her for their own needs, like the Batfam and the BoP. but Vic is one of the few people who just wants her to be better for her own good. when he tries to stop her from killing it's not because of his morals, it's because he doesn't want this crusade to consume her. and i just. man i think about them a lot. Helena rlly likes weird little men who give themselves wholly to her.

Zinda Blake/Lady Blackhawk is also a top ship for me. tbh i just like Zinda. but i do love how Helena and Zinda interact, being the more rough and tumble members of the BoP. they're both outsiders, in different ways. Helena is an outsider of the Batfam and Zinda is literally from a different time and an outsider to the current world. their friendship is so genuine and i think if Babs and Dinah can have. whatever homoerotic nonsense going on during BoP, then Zinda and Helena deserve some homoerotic nonsense too. as a treat.

if we're willing to count New-52 Helena, then i enjoy Helena/Dick/Tiger. i think Helena and Dick being a past relationship is really important in pre-Flashpoint for Helena's development, though i don't ship them as a serious couple beyond a fling. but in the New-52, i think this throuple be fun. Helena and Tiger respect each other as two very driven, no-nonsense agents and then well. they both clearly have some kind of thing for Dick. so it's fun finding the balance of how they could all work together romantically.

and ofc. it's a crime to mention Helena ships and not mention Renee Montoya/the Question. every time they interact it's really fucking gay. it's so gay that Kate Kane, Renee's own ex, assumed Helena and Renee were gay. i cannot be convinced against this ship. i genuinely think this ship should be canon. i mean. DC did tease us with this moment from an alternate universe and it's lived rent for me since. fucking criminal for us to only get one panel of what we could have if DC let Helena be a fruit in the main universe. being in love with Helena Bertinelli should be a right of passage for the Question mantle, i personally believe. if you asked me like. genuinely who i want to see Helena date in the current comics, Renee is my top pick. (i would say Vic but he's fucking dead and the New-52 butchered him so rip my mans-)

lois lane (2019) #10

besides those ships, just about every ship for Helena probably falls into the category of rarepair. like you said i've talked about my love for Helena/Steph before bc god. i think it should be a thing more people ship. once i finish the fic i'm writing about them i will convince others to like it.

i also think Helena/Cass could be fun. in a *lot* of ways Helena and Cass are narrative parallels to each other. Helena was a victim of her family being murdered at about the same age Cass was forced to be a murderer. Helena grows up to believe in lethal justice because of this, and Cass grows up to be staunchly against it. Cass' Batgirl suit was made *by* Helena. they both want to be protectors of the most vulnerable people. they balance each other out in a lot of ways and i think they should kiss about it.

also probably a rarepair, i think Helena/Lady Shiva is fun. their fight during Birds of Prey (2010) had... questionable moments for Helena's characterization, but i do love so much that Helena knocks Shiva off her feet and gains a deep respect from Shiva. like. Shiva gives her a nickname and shows her admiration. i would like to see fanfic where Shiva continues to be weirdly admirable of Helena and bothering her non-stop. they could be a fun fucked up toxic yuri moment. this is just. so gay to me.

birds of prey (2010) #6

my most rare Helena pair would probably be Helena Wayne, actually. but specifically Helena Wayne of JSA (2022). ever since, for some reason, it was made canon that the current Helena Wayne was named after Helena Bertinelli and took the name Huntress to honor her i *cannot* stop thinking about them meeting. because in-universe it makes *no* fucking sense for Bruce to name his kid after *Helena Bertinelli*, someone he's regularly at odds with and doesn't like. it's clearly an awkward explanation to try to make the whole two Huntress situation make sense. (it's almost as bad as Helena Wayne in the New-52 using Helena Bertinelli as an alias.) but because it's such an odd choice, i do think it could be fun for Helena Wayne, when she's back in time to see Bruce, to find Helena Bertinelli to get to know the woman she was named after and Helena Bertinelli just being. baffled by the idea of *Batman* naming his kid after her. it could be a fun fucked up moment.

my other super rarepair is Kara Zor-L/Power Girl. they had like. one meaningful interaction of JSA Classified and it's been PLAGUING me. something about when Power Girl doesn't remember her past and she's seeking a friend, she instinctively goes to find Huntress? but it's wrong bc this isn't *her* Huntress and neither of them understand why Power Girl would seek Helena out? god it's so good. i'm always a big fan of ships where one person in the ship is *so* obviously using the other person as a replacement for someone they lost and they both know it. it's such a doomed angsty thing where you could play with Helena actually really liking Kara, but knowing that she's just a replacement for Kara's Helena Wayne. good fucked up shit man.

and lastly: i really ship her with Dawn Granger/Dove. there's no canon basis for this, they didn't have a ton of interactions even when they were both on the BoP. but there's a very kind innocence to Dawn that contrasts Helena's violence really well. and i do love a ship with a corruption kink vibe to it. let Helena corrupt Dawn. i could write such fucked up porn about these two.

[wildflowercryptid]

something that's been weighing on my mind ever since learning about the situation with ezra / toonimal is seeing how these predators will take the active hostility that is frequently directed towards minors in online spaces to their advantage and use it to prey on vulnerable children. i think that we as adults in online fandom should probably come together and maybe rethink the language / manner we go about interacting with kids bc clearly the way things are rn is causing active harm.

like obviously, if you're an adult and aren't comfortable with minors interacting with you or your content, you should be allowed to set that boundary and should be vocal about it, ( especially if the content you create isn't safe for them to consume. ) but i don't think talking to them like they're a blight on all that is good and holy is the way to go about it. maybe just saying you're an 18 plus account will suffice, you don't have to tell them to fuck off.

[the-red-hoodlum]

never not gonna think about the time Catboy (an irl) said a song had ‘my slur’ in it bc he knew it was censored on the radio.. I knew exactly which one he meant but equally I can think of like 3(/4?) other ones that are applicable-

[alullinchaos]

less than thirty minutes in, i have managed to break the website

(the "here" the text is referring to is that strip of darker color that it is definitely not centered on)

[roseatedramon]

can’t run or hide

[theres-whump-in-that-nebula]

Perverse intrusive thoughts manifesting themselves in dreams is the actual worst.

[princekirijo]

Since you've been talking about Riku quite a bit lately I was just wondering - are there any of your mutuals' ocs that you think he would get along well with?

Alright I've been putting this off for like. Two months now because I've been really nervous about it (a good nervous) but fuck it I'm just gonna get this done!!!

OK so the short answer is yes. I'll be 100% honest whenever a mutual posts about their OC I am IMMEDIATELY thinking about how they'd vibe with Riku. I can't help it I think about him 24/7 and to be honest I think it's actually a fun exercise that helps build up characters to imagine how he'd get on with other people.

The longer answer is tough because I don't want to ramble on too long and also I feel. silly. enough so I'm gonna just limit it to a few of my mutuals OCs. Readmore cause this got kinda long but also let me say that you should absolutely check out all the OCs I mentioned because they're so cool and well thought out and just amazing :]

So the first one is Nico (latenitewaffles) OC Katsuro Sanada who has been spinning around in my head ever since Nico introduced him. He's such a cool guy and I get excited whenever Nico posts about him!! Katsuro is an Akishinji kid so obviously with Riku being a Yukamitsu kid, these two would have grown up together. I think they'd balance each other pretty well!! From what I know of Katsuro he's a pretty chilled low energy dude, which honestly Riku needs because that boy is like a comet. Full of energy fr fr. I feel like Riku would have also had a much better time as a kid because he would have had someone very close to his age as a friend. There would be a period of time where the two would be in Kosei together and unfortunately I feel like they wouldn't spend much time together because Riku would have shut himself off from everyone while he was dealing with Hatanaka's bullshit and at the same time Katsuro had all the stuff with Nakada going on too. They'd def make it up to each other afterwards though :] Also Riku 🤝 Katsuro -> having weird ass dreams involving moons and coffins and green skies.

The second one I'm picking I'm cheating a little and picking two of Rui's (wildcard-rumi) OCs Tobei and Aki! If you wanna read more about them I'd highly recommend Rui's fic its so so good. I know there's more OCs in their Persona group but these would be the two I know most about. I think Riku would vibe with them pretty well too!! I know Tobei dislikes being pitied for his illness and I think Riku would kinda get that. He'd have to stop himself from checking in on him every two minutes because he just really cares about his friends but I think Riku would definitely encourage him to try new things, although maybe his high energy might overwhelm Tobei a bit... As for Aki well Riku would honestly vibe with him so much, he'd probably beg Aki to get him to teach him skateboard tricks... only for him to fail spectacularly because he was way too over enthusiastic about it. Also I found it kinda funny there's a place in the fic called Riku Park which is connected to the Labyrinth (which is the Shadow world of Rui's fic) and I think Riku would constantly refer to it as his park and would probably try and convince people he bought it. Just to see the look on their faces 💀

The third one then I'm picking is Asuka Misty (misty-wisp) OC! Another OC I've been rotating in my brain since Misty dropped this fic with her. Initially I think Asuka would be weary of Riku. Cause like Asuka is a very anxious person (for good reason too girl's going through it) and Riku is well. Riku "is anyone gonna rush head first into this dangerous situation" then doesn't wait for an answer Kirijo. However, I think because Asuka is really good at reading people, she'd probably be one of the few people to pick up on the fact that Riku's ego is just a front for how insecure in himself he actually is and eventually I think they'd be good friends :] Also I'm pretty sure Asuka gets on very well with Ann and well Riku gets on extremely well with Ann so the three of them would vibe well with Ann acting as kinda the middle ground between the two.

OK I think that's like. The main ones I can think of where I know enough about the OC to talk about the potential Riku dynamic. A few honorable mentions would be (yusuke-of-valla) Alto's OC Ryuko, both her and Riku are theatre kid nerds and would probably sing + gush about Musicals together, Gabe (elijah-terry) OC Yuuha again they both love dancing so they'd vibe with that and also they have a black mask AU and thats all I can think of for now. I know there's other OCs I'm missing so I'm really sorry about that >.< But this was a really fun ask to think out thank you anon :] and I hope I did all my mutuals' OCs justice....

[bejeweledmp3]

welp