#this comic kills fascists

[jimmyboltonart]

There is a brilliant "lost" verse for "This land is your land" by Woody Guthrie that I loved so much that I created a comic from it as a tribute. It's really sad how few people know about it, I felt like it needed some love.

[littlefankingdom]

Things I NEED y'all to stop putting in Jason fics:

"Since Red Hood arrived, he cleaned up Crime Alley better than Batman ever has" First of all, this is not even the case in the comics, so y'all are making this up to make Jason's way "the right way". Second of all, if murdering criminals violently worked better, then that's what the cops would be doing, because, new flash, but the gov used to be way more violent, and crimes were worse, and the gov had to lower its violence, because we know it doesn't work and the gov didn't have enough good excuses to continue. If you think they are not waiting for an excuse to violently kill people, you are wrong. So, stop writing that shit, it's borderline fascist propaganda (violence is the only way to keep power/peace, so free real estate for us to kill anyone we label as criminals) You do not need to find excuses for Jason.

"Crime Alley is Jason's territory and the Bats cannot enter it without his permission" Also, not canon, never was. Are you all forgetting that Bruce's parents died in Crime Alley? That's how it got its name. It's where Batman was born. It's where Bruce goes to mourn his parents during patrols. It's an important location for the Batfam as a whole. It's where Dick thinks his siblings are not authorized to fight when Bruce is "dead"/gone because it is insulting Bruce's memory. It's the meeting points the Bats use multiple times. Batman's first night was probably in Crime Alley. Crime Alley is the mission, to make it a better place for its inhabitants is Bruce's goal. He is shown multiple times to be very protective of its people, especially in front of powerful figures (politicians/rich). As much as Bruce loves Jason, he would not give up Crime Alley. Yes, Jason grew up in Crime Alley, but Crime Alley was Bruce's before Jason was even born.

"Crime Alley hates the bats, except for Red Hood" Again, Batman has been protecting the people of Crime Alley since he started. He was the only one who fought for them against the people that hurt them, the cops not giving a fuck about the poor. Like, stop trying to paint Bruce as a rich guy disconnected from the people, that's not who he is and who he ever was (except for some storylines, but like, fuck these storylines). He has not live their struggles, but he has studied it, he cares about it. And, I can understand that not everyone in Gotham and Crime Alley likes Batman, of course. But to make children dislike Robin or NIGHTWING??? Dick's whole thing is how he is always everyone's favorite. He's an acrobat, he is flying with grace in the sky without powers, he is all smile and gentleness with children, no fucking way children don't like him.

"Dick killed the Joker for Jason." No, he killed the Joker in an act of rage and fear when he had Tim and threatened to kill him like the last one. BUT ALSO, and this is really important, DICK WAS HORRIFIED about what he had done. He hated himself and self-isolated, refused to listen to Bruce and Barbara when they tried to comfort him. This is not something he is proud of. Dick wouldn't be like "Yeah, I killed the Joker, but you know Bruce... I don't regret it." He does regret it. Bruce forgave him way faster than Dick forgave himself for killing the Joker. He would not do it again if he could, that's why it only happened once.

"Jason is mad at Bruce for being too late to save him." Nope. In Under The Red Hood, Jason literally tells Bruce he forgives him for not saving him. Jason was NEVER angry at Bruce for not saving him. Jason is mad because he thinks Bruce doesn't care about him. If Tim hadn't taken the Robin's mantle, Jason probably would have gone home, because that's what hurt him the most, the possibility that he was replaced in Bruce's eyes.

"Jason ran away because Bruce believed he killed someone" It was never explicit if Bruce did believe Jason pushed the rapist. But also, no. When Jason ran away, Bruce just benched him as Robin because he saw that Jason was hurting and needed help, and being a vigilante wasn't helping. Pls, read Death In The Family, Bruce was trying his best to support Jason and help him. Jason being violent at times is a sign, for Bruce, that Jason is hurting. He doesn't villanize Jason's actions. Don't be like DC writers and forget that Bruce knows that violence and aggression come from pain.

"The memorial is Bruce's making and Alfred hates it" WRONG, it's the contrary. Alfred made the memorial, Bruce was against it. Please, stop putting all the blame on Bruce and making Alfred perfect. Bruce hates the memorials, he hates his sons being remembered as soldiers. He put up with the memorials because it's Alfred. (I am so tired from y'all blaming Bruce for this one, omg) Also, while we are it, Alfred doesn't put up with Jason's bs. Jason can criticize Bruce, but there's a limit for Alfred.

[evilhorse]

Get in. We’re killing the fascists.

(X-Men #32)

[victusinveritas]

[samasmith23]

No… NNNOOOOOO!!!!!! NOT AGAIN!!! This can’t be happening again! He is NOT my president! He’s NOT!

Sincerely, to everyone who voted for the Orange Bastard, I’ll let Joseph Gordon Levitt from The Dark Knight Rises speak for me:

“YOU IDIOTS! YOU SONS OF B*TCHES! YOU’RE KILLING US!”

[matoitech]

the issue with the 'harris cares about you personally and your life would be better w her as president' argument is that it just doesnt work for me bcuz ive seen absolutely zero evidence that harris/the democratic campaign cares abt any issues related to me personally or issues i care about. shes not a fucking candidate for me bcuz the dems rn treat being asked policy like its a silly stupid question u only care abt if ur a republican, Obvoiusly theyre better bcuz theyre Serious politicians unlike trump. obviously if she was the most supportive to me personally campaigner ever i would still not vote for her b4 the democratics in power who have the ability to do it Right Now without even needing to be voted in for it put a fucking arms embargo on israel and actually end the genocide. participating in a massive public genocide is not a Tiny Issue

[azol-otl]

Fucking Christ DC really can't fucking handle not sucking Dick Grayson's cock 24/7 can they? He can't be a fucking villain without them bending over backwards to exonerate him in the fucking story or try to play him as sympathetic like fucking christ. And if they don't then they just make him overpowered as hell like dc you guys don't even treat BRUCE with kiddie gloves as much as you do Dick.

[unnamed-atlas]

Finally finished sweet tooth s3. Having incredibly mixed feelings

[artbyblastweave]

A few years ago, there was a thread on r/asksciencefiction where someone was fishing for a superhero story with an inverted Omni-Man dynamic, or a setting where Homelander's initial presentation is played straight- a setting where the Superman figure actually is the paragon of morality he's initially presented as, but no other superhero is- a situation where you've got one really competent true-blue hero standing head-and-shoulders in power above what's otherwise a complete nest of vipers.

Someone in the thread floated My Hero Academia; while I haven't read it, my understanding is that that's not really an accurate read of what's going on with Stain's neurosis about All-Might being the only "real hero," that the point of that arc is that Stain's got an insane and unreasonable standard and that taking an endorsement deal, while bad, isn't actually grounds for execution. My own contribution to the thread was Gail Simone's Welcome to Tranquility, where a major part of the backstory involved the faux Justice-League's Superman analogue having a little accident because he's the only one who thought they were morally obligated to go public with the secret life-extending macguffin that the rest of the team is using to enforce comic-book time on themselves and their loved ones; while only a couple members of the team are directly in on it, the rest are conveniently incurious. And Jupiter's Legacy gets tantalizingly close to this- The Utopian, a well-meaning stick-in-the-mud, ultimately gets blindsided and couped by his scheming brother who creates a superhero junta staffed by a Kingdom-Come-style glut of third-gen superheroes, who are framed as fundamentally self-interested because only came onto the scene after most of the situations you legitimately need a superhero to handle have been neutralized. (The rub, of course, is that the comic is also highly critical of the Utopian's intellectually incurious self-righteously 'apolitical' approach to superheroism- if for no other reason than that it left him in a position to get blindsided by a coup!) While Jupiter's Legacy gets the closest, all three of these are only loosely orbiting around the spirit of the original idea, and there's something really interesting there- particularly if the Superman figure isn't hopelessly naive in the same way as Utopian. Because first of all, if you're Metaman or Amazingman or whatever brand-name alias the writer goes with, and you really earnestly mean it, and you put together a team of all the other most powerful heroes on earth in order to pool your resources, and then with dawning horror you gradually begin to realize that everyone in the room besides yourself is a fascist or a con artist or abuser or any other variant of a kid with a magnifying glass eyeing that anthill called Earth- What the hell is your next move?

Do you just call the whole thing off? Can you trust that they'll actually go home if you call the whole thing off? I mean you've put the idea in their heads, are you sure that they aren't going to, like, start the Crime Syndicate in your absence? Do you stick around to try and enact containment, see if getting all of these people on a team makes them easier to keep on a leash? But that's functionally going to make you their enabler pretty quickly, right? Overlooking "should you kill them-" can you kill them? You're stronger than any individual one of them- are you stronger than all of them? The first time one of them really crosses a line in a way you can't ignore- will that be a one-on-one fight? Are they the kind of people capable of putting two-and-two together and pre-emptively ganging up on you if you push back too hard? Do you just start trying to get them killed, or keep them at each other's throats so they can't coordinate anything really nasty? Can you squeeze any positive moral utility out of them, or is that just a way to justify not doing the hard work of taking them down? There've been works where the conceit is to question the default assumption that Superman in specific would be a good person, and there've been works where the conceit is to question the default assumption that superheroes in general would be good people. Something to be done, I think, with questioning the default assumption that everyone Superman becomes professionally close to would be good, and to explore how he'd handle it if they weren't.

[but-a-humble-goon]

I think the Daleks are one of the best representations of fascist ideology and the failing thereof. Mainly in that they're really pathetic more than anything. They're sad little creatures locked safely away from the world inside their shells and desensitised to everything but hate. They could never build a real culture of their own yet they are utterly and dogmatically convinced of their own superiority. They are an entire civilisation built solely to destroy and categorically incapable of anything else (literally. Their design is comically inefficient). The single smartest Dalek who ever lived ran the numbers and came to the inescapable conclusion that their species is doomed to failure and the only way for them to survive is to rethink their ways... so they killed him.

[raymurata]

Bellara's main choice and DAV's implicit (or accidental) stance on book burning

Okay, so. Prefacing this with -- I enjoyed the game. I'd even play it again. That being said, one of its biggest flaws is trying to deliver something so morally sanitized it shies away from giving its characters (aside from Solas) and plotlines (aside from Solas's) real nuance. And in the same breath, they end up sending messages that I doubt they intended to send.

Bellara's main decision is particularly annoying to me.

First, I find her arc to be lacking -- She starts the game grieving her brother and blaming herself for his death despite not being responsible for it, then she finds Cyrian again only to grieve him again, so she's back to the start, only this time she has had the guilt removed from her because Cyrian tells her what she needs to hear, and the blame is placed on a big bad evil. Fair, fine.

But I don't like the cinematography of that scene at all. There was plenty of time for Rook and Bellara to react between Anaris grabbing Cyrian's foot and throwing him at the wall. People in Thedas have survived way worse injuries, too, and Bellara literally has healing at her disposal. Why doesn't she even try? His death is clearly plot-driven but it doesn't take her arc forward all that much? But again, that's fine. Not too bad.

But then the choice I have to make for her is whether or not to keep the archive, why? At no point in the game (please correct me if I'm wrong and missed canon information that contradicts me. That would make me way less angry!!!) do they tell us that it was Bellara using the Archive that summoned Anaris, or that it could summon him at will. As far as my interpretation goes, the Archive is, as its name says, the equivalent to a library curated by a comically self-aggrandizing jerk. At no point do we hear it share any actually dangerous lore either, do we? No blueprints for nuclear weapons...

So why does the game choose this wording:

Now, unless the Archive has powers we are unaware of, what this is saying is basically "burn the ancient elven library (it will be safe)" or "don't burn the ancient elven library (it will be dangerous)" and, for a game that is so irritatingly set on giving you only 2024-morality-board-approved goodTM and unproblematic companions and allies... Why does it tell me that burning books is the safe option, ESPECIALLY given that these books are priceless historical artefacts from a marginalized and subjugated ethinic group who have long lost their history to genocide? Like, wut?? Even if the Archive were in fact a dangerous weapon, the game shows us through the Veil Jumpers' vault that they have trained capable scholars and developed (or are developing, with Bellara spearheading it) safe tools to study and keep these artefacts. How condescending is it to tell them that they won't be able to safekeep this one? How pointless? (and her cutest armor AND best skill are locked behind that choice? outrageous lmao.)

And what pisses me off is that they had everything set up already, they just had to deliver it differently. If they told us explicitly that the archive is Anaris' phylactery and that keeping it would mean allowing Anaris to eventually come back? THEN we'd have a real danger. NOW there is a non-fascist risk to maintaining knowledge.

Or what if the only reason Cyrian is back is because Anaris brought him back? What if Cyrian's life is therefore tied to Anaris', and you had to choose between letting Anaris live (perhaps that results in him getting imprisoned in the Archive, tampering with the information in it and destroying its historical value forever, plus Anaris might one day figure out a way out) or killing Anaris for good even knowing that Cyrian will also die again if you do (but then the Dalish get to keep the archive and all the knowledge in it, and Cyrian's sacrifice is not in vain)? Or maybe... The Archive is a spirit, isn't it? Drive home the fact that being tied to that device was a cruel thing Anaris did to it, and keeping it there is just as cruel, even if it would mean giving the elves access to information. Make the wording "free the archive" really mean something here, and the player really think that the knowledge will be lost. Then maybe have it that, if she frees it, it gives her information freely and with its own interpretation of that knowledge, and THEN it leaves (so it's not forever but there is a reward for being compassionate). And if she keeps the spirit in the device, then it is always rude and it gives her information curated by Anaris' point of view, but it is available to all upcoming generations. It'd be real nice and nuanced to pit her compassion against her drive for knowledge. If this were DAO or DA2, you wouldn't make the choice FOR HER. You'd make the choice yourself because you are the leader, and if you chose to keep the spirit, you'd garner lots of negative points with Bellara (and with Emmrich) because, let's be honest, she is written as inherently more compassionate than driven, and she'd resent you making an oppressing choice even if it is well-meaning and good for her people (just like Alistair resents you killing Isolde even if he understands it was a difficult choice).

I just... So many ways it could have been an actually weighted choice, or that it could have affected your relationship with Bellara (and other companions) as Bioware RPGs were wont to do. They had a good set up, but the landing was absolutely bonkers.

[mckitterick]

Your icon looks like a box of hot pockets, have a good day

LOL - I suspect Tank Girl would approve

that's her, from my favorite frame in the comics:

"I can't let things be this way. We can be wonderful. We can be magnificent. We can turn this shit around."

it's angry punk but optimistic and hopeful, set in a dystopian wasteland that's also beautiful. she's pissed off at the people who killed the world, but also believes we can be better and change things for the better

and it's not idle hope: she's wearing a flak vest full of military gear and pulling on her boots to go kick some fascist capitalist ass

[littlefankingdom]

With what has happened in the last week, I need to speak about something that has been on my mind for a while: Bruce Wayne would NOT own a tesla.

Not only because he would HATE Musk (rich ass man not doing shit to actually help people + act like he is smart as hell when he isn't + racist facist), but also because tesla cars aren't safe and this man would not own a car that could blow up on him. There's enough danger in Gotham without a car that can turns on him.

[caligvlasaqvarivm]

Why The Ending Sucks

Ok I figured it out. Hear me out:

The entire comic has a running theme best summed up as "who is controlling the narrative, and why are we listening to them?"

Hussie plays a caricaturized version of himself that he describes as "buffoonish" and "oafish". Caricature!Hussie is well-meaning, but a dumb idiot who's incredibly biased in favor of certain characters and in disfavor of others (the most obvious example being his "love" of Vriska, but there's also the way he constantly disparages Eridan). As a result, you have to be VERY SKEPTICAL and VERY CAREFUL when approaching Homestuck's narration, because even when the "best" narrator is at the helm, he's not 100% trustworthy and incapable of giving the readers an unbiased view of the story.

I say "best" because, importantly, Hussie isn't the story's only narrator. He and Doc Scratch explicitly fight over control of the story - Doc Scratch, the child abusing predator who engineered Alternia's fascist murder society, whose shaping of its history is explicitly described by character!Hussie as "fanfic". He is then killed by Lord English, who is described by Hussie as embodying the "toxically masculine" and by extension, the patriarchy, and Caliborn explicitly takes control of the story. John even grapples with Caliborn's version of events, calling out how sexist and misogynistic and shitty it is.

So if we're keeping score: control over the narrative is LITERALLY wrested away from Hussie (who was already struggling to be unbiased) by fascists, abusers, and the patriarchy. It's stressed multiple times that Caliborn/LE are responsible for literally everything that ever happens; the reason the Game Over timeline ends the way that it does is because the alpha timeline is, in essence, the narrative LE is telling: the forces of fascism get to claim the new universe, thereby propogating itself, while friendship dies and all hope is lost.

Who's in control of the narrative, and why are we listening to them?

There are other minor examples of this, too: Aranea is an exposition fairy, and she's biased as fuck and wrong ALL THE TIME about her own teammates. Karkat's explanations and rationalizations are constantly tinged with his own self-loathing and self-blame. Sollux and Meulin are both prophets as per their Mage class, but are both so bogged down by their own emotional issues that the futures they pick out are actively harmful. So on and so on. At nearly every turn, you have to interrogate who's telling the story, what their motivations are, and what they're overlooking or deliberately obfuscating.

So given that this theme is so prevalent, and so thoroughly weighted toward "well, actually, maybe you shouldn't take narration at face value and should interrogate it and come to your own conclusions," it would be Really Weird for the story to go "actually, you can totally trust the narrative now because everyone gets a happy ending".

So, I know that it makes me sound like a conspiracy theorist, but here's my genuine take on Homestuck's ending:

The ending is shitty on purpose because the viewer is intended to take it as a dare to refute the narration and make something better.

Why are we letting character!Hussie tell the story? He's a biased idiot. Why are we letting the various avatars of LE and Caliborn tell the story? They're fascist, misogynistic, predatory assholes.

And - because Homestuck is a story about life - why are we letting idiots, assholes, abusers, and creeps dictate the story of real life? The world is full of forces that would try to take control of the story and make everyone else play along, represented in microcosm within the text of Homestuck. We cannot let those forces win.

So please go out and do something kind and hopeful and loving in the world today. Thanks for reading.

[ihopesocomic]

The people who say Mufasa "stole" Sarabi from Taka......ohhhh that's not-

How about we stop treating love interests(especially women) as objects someone owns. No one can "steal" someone's crush. That crush is a person with their own feelings who fell in love with someone else. You can be sad your crush likes someone else, that's valid. But to get angry at someone, lash out, and try to KILL PEOPLE over someone not choosing you and falling in love with someone else as if they OWE you their love is something a villain would do

Yknow

Like Taka

Who is a villain

I can't stand people who say Mufasa stole Taka's girl as if Sarabi isn't her own person who fell in love with someone she liked

Sorry for the rant >_<

You good. It's incredibly frustrating because. We're still having conversations like these? Lol did we see the same movie? They had bad chemistry, and I hazard a guess it was intentional.

This is still reflected in so many animal comics too, the women are there to be a goal of some sort. A mate, a mother, or dead, or all of the above. And then people turn around and try to say critics of sexist tropes are being anti-woman somehow, as if sexist tropes aren't sexist? Bad faith arguments trying to say that criticizing sexist tropes means that you are inherently against women being love interests or mothers or dead in any sort of media when the real criticism comes from how it's done. Give me a break. We all live in the same reality, sexism still bad. Always has been.

And for those who want to say that it was stupid for Taka to go fascist after a woman doesn't return his affections, or in many cases aren't even aware of said affections (if said affections are even real and not simply infatuation). I would like to turn your attention to all fascists. The basis of fascism is sexual insecurity. Taka going murder mode after he learns he is not entitled to a woman is not a stretch of the imagination LOL (the real stretch of the imagination would be that Scar would ever be interested in a woman)

Sorry I also ranted. lol - Cat

[maxwellatoms]

The #1 inspiration for General Skarr was Starscream. I mean... what kind of commander keeps a lieutenant who keeps trying to kill them under permanent employ? Keep your enemies close, I guess...

I get a lot of questions about Herr Star from Preacher. I still haven't read the comics, and the show came out long after I was done on B&M. There IS some DNA from Bullwinkle's Fearless Leader.

Other than that, he was just designed to be a sort of generic fascist who was always so embroiled in his own machinations that he couldn't possibly succeed.

My casting director Kris Zimmerman Salter was the one who came to me with Armin Shimerman. And since I loved him as Quark on Deep Space Nine and could see an analog between Quark and Skarr, he seemed like a natural fit.

Armin is an actor's actor, and even though I think he sometimes felt out of his element in the booth, it was so fun to watch him step in and just absolutely chew scenery. The Evil Con Carne ensemble records were generally a blast.

Skarr did get a blip of a redemption arc in Underfist, but if it had continued he would have continued to ride the line as the most anti of the team's antiheroes.