#told you Anarchist A would come back in the most hilarious way possible. and so will Sir John Ross bc weirdly i found a bunch for him

[meduseld]

The Smell of Corporate

B683 by Marc-Antoine Barrois

El problema es el capitalismo.

Anarchist A by Toskovat

More Eau de Terror here

[obsidianfr3sk]

The Origins (Chapter 6)

Summary:  Before the Renegades put an end to the Age of Anarchy, they were six kids trying to survive day by day in a city ruled by chaos and desolation. Is there a space for hope and kindness somewhere in Gatlon City? Maybe.

AO3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25123756/chapters/62695558

Tag list: @nodrianbcyes @blueraspberry-official @healing-winston-pratt @plain-jane-mclain @novas-tunnel-of-anxiety @novas-egg-beater @callumtreadwell

Notes at the end of the capter

The world we’re gonna make

Age of Anarchy

Year 10

After going to the comic shop, they walked a mile to reach Joe's Basket. Hugh opened the door and smiled at the man behind the counter. That apparently innocent move gave him an excuse to leave the door open, so an invisible Simon could enter without raising suspicions.

Follow the routine.

He looked at the few products that remained on the shelves. Probably the owner could not afford more merchandise or the suppliers were robbed. Hugh frequently saw cases of trucks carrying food being attacked by gangs or by Anarchists.

“Not that there is much difference between one and the other,” his aunt once said.

(Hugh repeated the same sentence a few days ago, and Simon found it “dangerously hilarious”.)

The man behind the counter was following him with his gaze as if he suspected Hugh was going to steal something. Most countermen did the same when he came in. They took advantage of that mistrust. Simon went to the other end of the store and put everything he could find (that was among the things allowed to steal) into his backpack, while Hugh distracted them.

He felt an invisible hand touch his shoulder. It was his signal to buy something and get the hell out of there. They never ended a robbery without buying something.

Hugh took a chocolate bar and put it on the counter.

“Two dollars.”

He took out the coins he had in his jacket pocket. Eighty cents.

“I don't have enough.” He smiled at him uncomfortably and turned around. “Sorry for the inconvenience”

“How is your aunt?” he asked him.

Hugh was caught off guard by that question.

“She was your aunt, wasn't she? The lady you came with the other time.”

He could hear Simon thinking, “How could you be such an idiot?”

“Yes. She is fine.”

“I'm glad that she's recovered.”

“She hasn't,” he blurted out.

“What do you mean?”

He didn't know why he had said that.

“We don’t know what she has,” he whispered.

“Why are you smiling?” the counterman asked, disturbed.

“Sorry.” Hugh put on a serious face again. “It's a defense mechanism.”

The counterman nodded.

“I understand. No one can afford medical care these days. Not like there's a lot of hospitals left anyways.”

Hugh laughed. Even if they could afford a hospital, he knew his aunt wouldn’t want to go. “Don't worry, honey, I'll be all right. I'm too stubborn to die.”

“Take the chocolate.”

“No, I couldn't.”

“Don't worry, no one's buying them. You are the first customer I've had today.”

“Really? It seems like everyone does their shopping here.”

“Roaches do,” he replied. “They came last night, took a lot, and paid nothing if you know what I mean.”

Hugh knew what he meant.

“Sorry.”

Simon slapped him on the shoulder.

“Take the chocolate,” insisted the man from the counter. “And tell your aunt I say hello.”

Hugh took it. He would definitely tell his aunt. Surely she would be happy to know the counterman had remembered her.

“Our family has always been characterized by our beauty,” she would say, arranging his blonde curls. It was the same line she said every time someone remembered her name or paid her a vague compliment about her appearance. “When you grow up, you will have all the girls behind you.”

Heather Everhart always was talking about what was going to happen when Hugh grew up. When he was little, she told him “I promise that when you grow up, I’ll tell you everything about your parents.” Fortunately, his aunt Heather wasn’t known as someone who didn’t keep her promises, so during his fourteenth birthday, Hugh walked the streets of Gatlon City, holding his aunt's arm, and wondering if she was taking him to a place where the answers about his past were. All those years, his aunt Heather refused to respond to his questions about them.

And now, he may finally know where he came from.

After a long walk, they arrived at the richest neighborhood in Gatlon City. It wasn’t anything like he had imagined. Yeah, it seemed a lot better than where he lived, but most of the houses were completely abandoned. His aunt walked swiftly without even stopping to admire the pretty houses that remained. Hugh forced himself to follow her example and keep going.

They finally stopped in front of the biggest mansion Hugh had ever seen. Its walls were covered by mold and climbing plants, the windows had been shattered, and the doors were stolen.

“What are we doing here?” he asked.

His aunt Heather pointed at the mailbox. Hugh removed the dust that covered it and revealed the name carved on it.

Everhart.

“Sit down, Hugh."

"Here in the sidewalk?"

"Yes. Don't worry about messing your clothes." He hesitated. The sidewalk looked unclean and dusty, and he was wearing his newest pair of jeans. "Come on, honey, it's not like you do your laundry."

He finally did it. Anything to get the answer he wanted.

Heather and Hugh Everhart were the richest and most popular kids at school. They did everything together, not only because they were twins, but they were also best friends.  Their paths divided when they went to college. She majored in theatre and he studied "something to do with politics".  Sometimes he made fun of her for choosing to pursue an art-related career, but she didn't care. Heather loved being a costume designer and was having a lot of work offers from Broadway shows.

When Hugh Everhart became mayor of Gatlon City, the power he now had started to change him, and his views about the prodigies did too. He started a campaign against them, even going as far as to start segregating public spaces and reinforcing the rule against prodigies attending to the same school as non-prodigies.

“It was a rule that already existed, but no one took it as seriously, and some school districts turned a blind eye when they discovered a child was a prodigy,” his aunt explained.

Then, Hugh asked about his mother.

“Oh, Anna was a friend of mine. She played the main role and was the most beautiful woman in the room. I introduced her to your father during the first Broadway productions I worked on. I will always regret that night,” she said. “They felt in love pretty quickly, got married the next year, and then you arrived.” Her smile disappeared. “Anna hadn’t been honest with your dad though.”

“Did she cheat on him?”

“No! No, no, no. Something worse. She didn’t tell him she was a prodigy until you were born.”

Hugh was starting to know how the story was going to end. He wanted her to stop, but at the same time, he wanted to know the truth, even if it hurt him.

So he let her finish.

“Your dad was pissed. He didn’t want anything to do with you, so he forced Anna to let you on my porch. The only thing she told me was she wanted you to be named after your father. Two days later, she died.”

“Did he kill her?”

Suddenly, his aunt stood up, took him by the arm, and started to get away from the house as fast as possible.

“Someone’s watching us,” she whispered.

Hugh looked at one of the houses. In its garden, a young woman was watching them go. They made eye contact, and she smiled. Her hair was curly and her skin was dark and soft. Hugh tried to smile back, but his aunt didn’t let him.

“Don’t look at her." She waited until they were out of the neighborhood to keep talking. “Look, I don’t know if he killed her," she mumbled. "They said it was suicide, and Anna had some problems, but your father and I never spoke again after that.”

Hugh didn’t like to think about his parents now. But it didn't matter, his family was perfect just the way it was. He, his aunt... and Simon.

Simon's dad had just left for work when they arrived. His sister was sitting in the living room, mesmerized by the old television they had. Mr. Westwood had managed to fix an old DVD player and Sophie was delighted with the cartoons she was now able to watch. They had kept the TV at low volume though. That way, the neighbors wouldn’t found out that they had a TV and wanted to break in.

“I'm here, Sophie,” Simon announced.

Sophie turned to see them. Hugh greeted her and she greeted him back. Then, he followed Simon into the basement.

“You shouldn't have stayed that long,” Simon said, dropping his backpack on the floor.

“It would have been more suspicious if it seemed like I was in a hurry to leave, don't you think?” he answered.

“We won’t go back there,” said Simon. “You’ll be recognized again.”

“You're right. I'm too handsome to be forgotten.”

“Nice. I think I'll keep your share of the loot just for that comment.”

“What do we have today?”

Five cans of beans, two of vegetables, one loaf of old bread, and three small boxes of pear juice.

When he first met Simon, Hugh was shocked to hear him say, “Now that I'm a prodigy, I'll be able to steal better.” First, he laughed, thinking it was a joke, but Simon remained serious.

Shortly afterward, his aunt's hand-made carpet business started to lose clients. All the money they could get was used to pay the bills. Hugh had never been so hungry in his life, so he asked Simon if he could help him get food.

“I could,” he replied with a shrug, "but you wouldn't like the way I get food, and I don't have any other idea."

“I will love any idea you have.”

Even if it means stealing.

“You will call the police if I tell you.”

“What police?” Hugh asked.

That the first time he heard Simon’s laugh. It was as wonderful as the first time he saw him smile.

“It's Sophie's birthday tomorrow, so I want the juice boxes,” Simon said. “It’ll be my gift”

Hugh did not answer. He still had his mind on Joe's Basket.

The store was empty because the Roaches were there. He imagined the terror the man behind the counter must have felt. Had a gun been pointed at his head? Did they hit him? Did they hurt him in any way? Did they threaten his family?

How long would it take to realize that things were missing from the shelves? Some never did, but once a lady noticed a bag of flour was missing as soon as they left her store. She grabbed Hugh's arm and demanded that he return what he had stolen from her. Luckily, Simon was carrying everything, and no one could see him. After several screams and threats, Hugh managed to convince the lady that he had taken nothing and let him go.

The man at the counter had no idea what he was doing when he gave him that free chocolate bar. He was giving his merchandise to a thief. Surely he would feel betrayed. He had had an act of kindness with someone, and that was how they paid him?

“Well, you can keep one box of pear juice,” said Simon, holding it out to him, “and a half loaf of bread. I would prefer that you keep all the vegetables. Sophie makes a big fuss when it's the only thing to eat.”

Hugh got out of his thoughts and took the chocolate out of his pocket.

“Here. It's for you."

Simon did not hesitate to accept it. He broke it in half and gave him the largest piece. It was a great sacrifice on his part because Simon loved everything that had chocolate. It was difficult to get, but every time Hugh saw it in a store, he bought a bar for Simon, and every time, Simon share it with him.

He wiped away the remnants of candy on his pants before taking the new Wonder Man number out of the paper bag. He sat down on one of the old cushions in the corner of the basement and began to read it.

Simon gazed at him with curiosity. Hugh noticed it but said nothing. He knew that Simon had no interest in the plot of The Fantastic Adventures of Wonder Man. He preferred The Scarlet Enchantress and the Phantom Feline, and read nothing but that, although they no longer produced any more numbers. Its creator had been killed after drawing the Scarlet Enchantress attacking Ace Anarchy with an energy hit.

Simon sighed and rubbed his eyes.

“Why are you so quiet?” he asked.

“I'm not.”

“Does it have something to do with the Roaches?”

He adjusted his glasses. They were already starting to cause excruciating headaches. Hugh really needed new ones.

“I do not like it either.”

“I know,” said Hugh. “I've never thought otherwise.”

“Well, you have a very curious way of showing it.”

Hugh opened one of the pear juices and raised his eyebrows.

“There is something you don't know about me, Westwood.”

“What thing, Everhart?” he asked with a frown.

He left the juice on one side and the comic book on the other. Then, he went to the shelf where they kept a box full of the comics they bought. Hugh took out the blue mask of Wonder Man his aunt made for him and put it on with a mysterious air, cautious so that Simon did not see him doing it.

“Hugh—”

“I'm not Hugh... I'm Wonder Man!” he exclaimed turning around. “And your kingdom of chaos is over!”

Simon was startled, but he immediately started to laugh and took his black Phantom Feline mask from the box. He put it on awkwardly as he climbed onto the table and picked up a red cloth to use as a cape.

“I would like to see you try it, Wonder Man,” Simon purred mysteriously covering his face with the cape. “But you will have to catch me first.”

Hugh created handcuffs with his powers and Simon vanished.

Silence invaded the room. He had to be very aware of each sound. Even the slightest movement could give away Simon's position and make Hugh the winner of the fight for Gatlon City that was unfolding inside their heads.

Hugh was the one who came up with the game. It all started because they argued over who would win in a fight: Wonder Man or the Phantom Feline. Simon was convinced that the Phantom Feline would end Wonder Man in a matter of seconds, because “Wonder Man was too stupid to find Phantom Feline when he turned invisible.” Hugh replied that the Wonder Man was extremely intelligent and that the Phantom Cat was no match for him.

“And I will prove it to you.”

Since then, they put on their masks and pretended to be Wonder Man and Phantom Feline whenever one of them was sad or upset. Like when Hugh's aunt was in bed for three days and her fever did not go down, or when Simon's father lost one of his many jobs and refused to speak to his children.

“Don't you think you're a little old to play like that?” Mr. Westwood asked them.

“Not at all,” they replied at the same time.

Hugh heard a rustle to his left. He turned, and before he could react, the handcuffs were snatched from his hand and he was thrown onto the cushions in the corner.

Simon put him the handcuffs and place his foot on Hugh’s chest.

“And the Phantom Feline takes control of Gatlon City in record time!” he exclaimed with an evil laugh.

“I will end with you, villain!” Hugh growled.

Simon took his razor out of his pocket and placed it just above the heart.

“Any last words?”

Hugh looked at him with determination. “Long live to justice.”

Simon nodded and stabbed him. The razor blade fell at the same time that Hugh played dead.

“Evil has triumphed. It always does,” Simon whispered, staring into the distance dramatically.

Hugh turned to look at the back cover of the comic book he'd left on the floor.

He was nothing like him. Wonder Man was stronger, taller, and did not wear glasses that were not from his graduation. He had dark skin and brown eyes, hiding his identity behind a blue mask and a tight uniform. On the back cover, he stood on a pile of villains defeated by him, his chin up and a silver spear nailed to Ace Anarchy's iconic gold helmet.

His blood went to his feet.

“Simon—“

“I saw it too,” he replied. He knelt and removed the handcuffs. “Now you will no longer find out what happened to Wonder Man at the end of the story.”

Hugh kept staring at that image. The spear. The helmet.

And he smiled.

“In the end, he beats Ace Anarchy.”

“Hugh, accept it. There will be no end,” said Simon, shaking his head. “He will never beat Ace Anarchy.”

“Maybe he doesn't,” Hugh muttered. “But what if we did?”

The End.

Now, you may be all like “wut obsi tf is this the end???” I mean, the end of this fic?? yeah. but the end of this the obsiverse??? i don’t think so bitch. this month i’ll be posting the first chapter of a new fic, Rise of the Renegades, which is going to be a continuation of The Origins. It’ll be all about the first year of the guys as the Renegades, how they formed, their fisrt missions, and maybe their first encounter with Ace:))) don’t wanna give spoiler tho. 

I hope you support the continution as much as you supported this fic. Seriously all the comments and tags mean a lot to me. I’m not use to sharing my writing, at least not outside school work, so it's great to know that people all over the world like what I do. Los adoro <3 Keep it weird.

Also all the chapter titles were from the song A Million Dreams it was one of the main inspirations for this work

[rhubarbplants]

Lucy green and Max Everhart

Max sat in the hospital as non prodigies rushed around him. Well sat was a stretch. It was more along the lines of between propped up against a slope of pillows while being tied down to the mattress. The nurses were adamant that even if he was nearly fully recovered he wasn’t allowed to move from the bed for the next few days. So the beeping machines had become background noise and the rushing surgeons had become mundane. But in some ways this had been one of the best times of his life. He had been put in a room with some other kids around his age, and while most of them had mild injuries, they were all non prodigies. He had talked with them, a few that could walk had even come over to give him a hug. One of his best friends was Lucy. She had a chronic lung disease and no prodigy could help her. She stayed in the room with max. She wasn’t allowed outside, something Max could defeat relate to. She and Max had bonded the very first day. He had told her all about what had happened by the sky bridge. How a Renegade had hurt him and an Anarchist had saved him. Today he decided he would tell her about his theories about Nightmare. He was contemplating how he would do this when the doctors rolled her back in to the kids room. Max noticed that Lucy had a new breathing tube, a green one this time.

“How does it feel?” Max asked as she was rolled up next to him.

“Better,” she said cheerfully “It will never be normal, but they are getting good at faking normal. It’s much better than the last one.”

“Is there really no way to fix it?” Max asked

“There is,” Lucy said “This is the fix. The doctors are working on it, but there’s no quick fix, there never is, so things keep getting better and better until it’s fixed.”

“Yeah, I guess that's right, I actually think, it’s true for other things too.” Said Max

“Like what?” Lucy inquired. Turning on to her side so that she could get a better look at Max. She adjusted her breathing tube so that it wasn’t crushed. When she realized Max was waiting for her to get settled she gestured for him to continue.

“I mean with the Renegades, they started creating a better world, but it’s definitely not perfect yet, if it was, there wouldn’t be any villains, and like you said there is never a quick fix, no matter what.”

“True,” Lucy said, nodding, and staring off into space, as if questioning the universe. “But are you sure there wouldn’t be villains in the best world we could manage. Because no matter what perfect worlds are myths.” Lucy said.

“True, but I think Nightmare wouldn’t be a villain, in the best possible world.”

“Why not?” Lucy asked.

“Well, I think I know who she is and she’s a really nice person.” Whispered Max.

“Who is she?” Lucy replied, also lowering her voice.

“You know the person who killed the detonator, right?”

“Yeah, my mom showed me her fight against gargoyle, she pretty cool.”

“Well, I’m pretty sure that she’s Nightmare.”

“What?” Said Lucy her voice raised a fraction of a percent. “Aren’t you going to tell someone?”

“I don’t think so, because I think Nova is going to be the right thing.” Max said confidently. Then she and Max proceeded to talk about other stuff, stuff that had nothing to do with betrayals or superheroes. About half an hour later, Adrian and the team, minus Danna, arrived, well sort of. They stood behind a glass wall, like they always did. Lucy and Max were rolled up to the window, as Max’s cot rolled over a wire, his hand flew to his stomach, he didn’t feel the pain when he lay still but the jolt brought back the memory of the pain in full force.

“Hey guys.” Adrian said with a wave, he wore a sad smile but he seemed happy enough. “You must be Lucy, Max talks about you alot.”

“How are patrolls going?” Max asked

“Pretty well” said Ruby, “nothing interesting though, no Nightmare sightings.”

“Speaking of Nightmare, how are you feeling little bud?” Oscar asked

“Fine.” Max said

“Sure… you totally didn’t flinch as they pulled you over here.” Adrian said knowingly.

“Alright alright, I’m mostly fine.” Max amended. He looked over at Nova who so far hadn’t said anything and was looking very guilty, one more piece of evidence for his case.

“I’m really sorry about what happened.” Nova said.

“Relax it’s not your fault.” Said Adrian. Nova muttered something but no one heard it, Max had a feeling he knew what she said though.

“Just because you were there the first time I got hurt doesn’t mean you always have to be there.” Max said

“Well we have to go now,” Ruby said looking at her watch. Adrian started to protest giving a pitying look to Max.

“No it’s fine, if you have to go you have to go.” Max said. They all turned to leave, but right before, Lucy called out.

“Nova can I talk to you for a minute?” Max turned to her, with a look he hoped said Really? Now? Nova looked confused too and a little nervous.

“What’s it like?” Lucy asked

“You mean being a Renegade? Well its-” Nova started.

“No” Lucy said lowering her voice to a whisper. “I mean being an Anarchist.”

Nova looked absolutely taken aback, she look of shock and fear on here face was so extreme it was almost hilarious.

“I’m… I’m not a…” Nova stuttered “how did you find out?” She whispered meekly.

“I told her” Max said “I saw your face the night Gennissa stabbed you. And saw all the other signs everyone else keeps missing. The way you fail epically in disguising your hate for the renegades, the way, your never there at the same time Nightmare is. The way the puppeteer knew you were alive even though he shouldn’t have known. And Adrian told me about Danna’s ‘fainting’ and the kiss. You haven’t been subtle Nova.”

“Yes I have!” Nova protested.

“You’ve kissed Adrian?” Asked Lucy.

“Yes, but back to more pressing matters, is it really that obvious?”

“Well to me yes, but I mean I didn’t know for sure until I saw your face.” Max said. Nova breathed a sigh of relief,

“Max, are you going to tell Ad- anyone?”

“I don’t think so, you’re a good person Nova.” Max said “and I think you should tell Adrian yourself.”

“Tell Adrian?!” Nova asked “absolutely not, he would hate me he would leave me and I would be completely alone.”

“He might just surprise you.” Said Max.

“Maybe, Max, we’ll see.” She smiled and made for the exit, right before she left both she and Max turned to face each other and at the same time said

“Thank you.”

[tyrantisterror]

How I’d Ruin It: Batman

(thanks to The Lego Batman Movie for making my brain keep coming back to this, and also for making such awesome goddamn toys for my retail therapy needs)

While I write my own stories nowadays, the old fanfic writer in me resurfaces every now and then in the form of idle thoughts about how I’d handle certain stories I love.  Sometimes these musings lead me to one horrible conclusion: that no matter how much I may love the story in question, I’d be absolutely fuck awful at writing it.  This is because the scope of things I’m interested in writing is significantly smaller than the scope of things I’m interested in reading/watching - my muse is a pickier eater than I am.

Still, no matter how awful and off message my bastardized mental versions of these stories may be, they keep popping up now and then, demanding to manifest as stories are wont to do.  So today I’m going to exorcise one of them by summarizing it to you.

Today, my wonderful readers, I’m going to tell you how I’d utterly fuck up at writing Batman.

I’m a conditional Batman fan, because there’s a lot of Batman media out there and a lot of it is shit - and also there’s so much of it by volume that even reading/watching only the good Batman stuff would take more time than I can spare.  So when I say I love Batman, know that I mean, like, mostly the 90′s animated series and scattered arcs like The Long Halloween that can stand alone, and The Dark Knight, and the Adam West show, and Holy Musical B@man, and some other random Batman stuff.  I only know/like some Batman, but the amount of Batman I like is still, like, a lot of Batman.  Jesus Christ there’s so much fucking Batman dudes.

But I have some problems with Batman, two of which are relevant to this post because they’re also kind of necessary to its appeal.  The first is one that is almost justifiable, although it will undoubtedly sound preposterous to most people: why does Batman have to be so dark?

Don’t get me wrong - I’m a horror fan, so obviously I’m not completely averse to darkness in my fiction.  A big part of Batman’s appeal to me comes from how it’s rooted in Gothic Horror tropes.  It’s a comic about a dude who dresses up as a Dracula to fight monster men in a city that’s literally called Gotham, so darkness has to be part of the story.

But jeeeeeesus christ Batman is needlessly dark sometimes.  Does a bat themed super hero really need to be fighting a guy who carves tally marks into his skin for every person he’s murdered?  Is the Joker really more interesting when he’s killing everyone he sees than when he committed clown themed heists?  Isn’t being a crocodile man enough intrigue for Killer Croc, or does he need to be a creepy cannibal too?  Does every villain need to be a murderer?

While the Adam West Batman show is so campy that I can only tolerate it in small doses, it nonetheless makes me pine for a brighter take on the character/series.  It’s kind of nice to have bright colors and jokes and a Batman who doesn’t whine about how sad he is, and villains who are more into making elaborate puzzles and traps instead of finding new ways to mutilate their victims.  I’d love to see it blended with the complex psychology of the darker Batmans - but more on that after we get to problem number 2.

Which is, of course, Batman himself.

Batman can be an interesting character.  In the best Batman stories, I certainly do love him.  But, to be totally honest with you, even at his best, Batman is never the main draw to me in a Batman story.  He’s like the bun of a hot dog - it’d be weird to have one without him, and a lot of the more interesting ingredients would sort of fall apart without him holding everything together, and you’d have a great big sticky mess on your hands, but... I mean, if I’m honest, he’s not the part of this I’m looking forward to experiencing.  Batman isn’t the meat of the meal to me - no, that role goes instead to his villains.

Goddammit those villains are great! Joker, Two Face, Harley Quinn, Catwoman, Poison Ivy, Mr. Freeze, the Riddler, even the obscure ones like Killer Croc and Clayface, and even the shitty ones like Calendar Man - I just fuckin’ love almost every single one of ‘em, and they’re the reason I keep thinking about how I’d love to just... just utterly ruin Batman.

But when I start thinking of the story I want to tell with those villains, inevitably I remember that, oh hey, I need to have something for Batman to do because, y’know, it’s called Batman for a reason, and my muse just wants nothing to do with that.  And that’s why the wheels always fall off.

Well, that and I have a billion other stories to write, but still.

So here’s how I’d ruin Batman in a brief pitch: My Batman story would star the villains, almost none of whom are murderers, in a version of Gotham where Bruce Wayne died with his parents, and thus has no Batman.

You’d have a Gotham City much like the one in Year One (I hate to reference a Frank Miller comic but it’s easily the most well known framework for where I’m starting here), ruled by a mix of slightly exaggerated gangsters and corrupt businessmen - more outlandish in their evil than the real thing but not quite on supervillain level.  The villains would all retain their origins for the most part, but without a Batman to draw their focus they sort of turn on each other.  It sort of splits into two factions: the Freaks, who are victims/products of the corruption inherent to the city, and the Crimelords, who are the few members of the old/mundane criminal element that adapt to the superpower boom and transition from normal gangsters to supervillains.

The resulting conflict would be the story of a bunch of broken people trying to destroy the system that made them, and the horrible remnants of the old crime world desperately trying to return things to how they are - anarchists vs. tyrants.

Now that we’ve got the basic plot/conflict down, let’s go to what I always focus on first when writing a story: the characters.  We’ll begin with our protagonists...

The Freaks

The Joker - obviously the leader of the bunch, the Joker is probably one of the characters I would bastardize/alter the most.  Nowadays it’s set pretty firmly in stone that the Joker has to be, like, the most evil man in existence.  He’s gotta kill people on a whim, physically abuse his girlfriend, cut off his own face and wear it like a mask, and just generally be a real fuckin’ creep.  But does he have to be that evil?

Well yes, yes he does, it’s what makes him iconic and is basically his defining trait, and without it most of the stories told with the character wouldn’t be possible.  The idea that he’s the villain who gives other villains nightmares is what makes him stand out.  If you lessen the depths of his depravity, you’d ruin Batman.

but does he haaaaaaaaaave to?

Imagine if you will a young, down on his luck commedian named Jack Napier who, in an attempt to provide for his wife, accidentally gets involved with the mob.  They make him dress up as a (fictional) crime boss called the Red Hood for a caper - he has to act the part to get the police off the scent of the real bosses.  Little does he know that he’s a patsy, set up to not only mislead the police but to buy time for the crooks’ escape by getting into a firefight.  He’s shot and falls into some chemicals, gets bleached, and wakes up with a new, much more unhinged state of mind.  Like the normal Joker, he finds the magnitude of his tragedy to hilariously absurd.  Also like the normal Joker, he decides to become an agent of entropy in hopes of dismantling the city that made him a monster.

Unlike the normal Joker, however, the focus of his wrath isn’t a paragon of morality and justice, but rather the corrupt and powerful rulers of Gotham.  He becomes the arch enemy of mobsters, crooked cops, and politicians - people the normal version of the Joker also antagonizes, of course, but not to this level.  Since his nemeses are different, this Joker never defines himself as a force of evil and corruption.  Instead he humiliates - this Joker punches up and brings those in power down a peg.

The “joke” theme because important here, as the Joker ends up creating a lot of schemes designed to ridicule and embarrass his victims as much as destroy them.  It’s not enough to just shoot the corrupt politician - he needs to kill their ego and their sense of power.  This Joker would much rather scare the shit out of his victim with a convoluted and frankly stupid “death” trap than just shoot them - and he’d be perfectly content just splatting them in the face with a vaudevillian pie instead of actually killing them at the end.

He wouldn’t be an out and out hero - he doesn’t go out of his way to save people or anything - but he’d also be a far cry from the “killing dozens of people a day for the sake of proving he’s evil” Joker we get nowadays.

He also wouldn’t be aware of the fact that other people don’t necessarily get the joke - not in the malicious “BWAHAHA I’M EVIL AND I’M KILLING YOU WITH LAUGHING GAS IT’S FUNNY TO ME BECAUSE I’M EVIL” way, but in the “Look, I know you’re technically in peril here but you have to admit it’s objectively ridiculous that you’re being dangled above a tank full of piranhas, right?  I mean, is it even true that they eat people, or is that a myth?  This whole thing’s pretty surreal right?” sort of way.

Harley Quinn - Harley is my favorite Batman character when she’s written well, but sadly she’s normally written absolutely horribly so I’m kind of happy to just fuckin’ ruin this story for her sake.  Part of her problem is that the core concept for her character is “psychiatrist is seduced by patient, subjected to psychological and physical abuse by him, and because of said abuse becomes a supervillain.”  I mean, a lot of Batman villains also have the “horrible psychological problems make people evil” thing going on which is, y’know, horribly unfortunate, but I feel like Harley’s hit harder than most.

But since the Joker isn’t nearly as much of a bastard in this story, maybe Harley can get out with a nicer origin as well?

This version of Harley isn’t the Joker’s victim so much as a collaborator - maybe the Robin to his Batman?  They’re kindred spirits in their love of whimsy and their distaste for how the city is run - Harley in particular has a focus on the corrupt nature of the mental health facility she works at (I mean, Arkham’s not particularly good at its purpose even in the normal Batman universe).  Like Robin, Harley softens the Joker’s war on Gotham’s criminal underworld a bit - she drags him into a more compassionate viewpoint.  Unlike Robin, she’s not a subordinate/ward - while Harley plays on the Joker’s clown motiff, she doesn’t follow his schemes without question, and always argues for a different way of doing things when the Joker’s plans get too mean-spirited.  They’re actual partners in crime, as opposed to the victim/abuser dynamic they had in past fiction.

I realize this is the kind of alteration to canon - y’know, making the main villain sympathetic and a canonically abusive relationship into a healthy romanticized one - that makes people use the word “fanfic” as a pejorative, but, well, I did say this is how I’d ruin Batman.

Catwoman - while the Joker is obviously going to be the leader of the bunch, Catwoman would be the deuteragonist, both because she’s just as iconic and also because she’s probably the closest thing to Batman in this world, and it is still ultimately a world designed to work around a Batman-ish character.  Born poor, Catwoman pickpockets her way into wealth, specifically targeting the most corrupt of the wealthy.  Unlike most of the other Freaks, she has the option of living a normal life, but is ultimately compelled to keep robbing from the rich and giving to the poor (and also herself - look, she has a lot of cats to feed).  Catwoman grounds the Freaks in reality and helps them understand the rules of the system they’re trying to break - and, with her status as an up and coming socialite, is able to give them valuable intel on some of their targets.

Mr. Freeze - honestly you could just transplant the Batman: The Animated Series take on him right into here, because it’s kind of baffling he was considered a villain in the first place.  It takes literally no effort to make him a heroic figure - you just have to remove the more-traditionally-heroic Batman to make him shine.  Mr. Freeze isn’t as daffy and volatile as the Joker, but is every bit as determined to bring Gotham crashing down and to make the corrupt pay for their cruelty toward people like him.  He’s also hilariously serious, providing a stoic counterpoint to the more flamboyant personalities of the other villains.

Poison Ivy - Poison Ivy’s motivation has been “protect the environment, plants specifically”, which is pretty noble to be honest - it’s just that her methods are unnecessarily homicidal.  So, y’know, maybe tone that down a bit?  Less “mind controlling innocent people and murdering them for money to build a plant park” and more “using convenient giant animate plants to halt construction that threatens local parks” sort of schemes.  She’d basically be an environmental sciences themed vigilante - Captain Planet with an aggressive streak.

I know it’s more traditional to pair her with Harley Quinn, but I’d kinda like to try setting her up with Catwoman instead - both of them has this history of being femme fatales/evil seducers of men, so it’d be kind of fun to have a story where they just have none of that at all.  Though pairing her with Harley and making the Harley/Joker relationship purely platonic is an interesting dynamic too...

Killer Croc - he’s a great big crocodile man who lives in the sewers because no one above ground accepts him, on account of him being a big crocodile man and all.  Despite his fearsome appearance and prodigious strength, he’s a pretty swell guy - the gentle bruiser of the group.

Two-Face - like Mr. Freeze, you really don’t have to alter much to make him a good guy.  Just keep Two-Face pointed at mobsters and he works as a hero pretty well.

The Riddler - In this world, the Riddler begins as a cop who, while clever, isn’t corrupt enough to excel in the police department.  His superiors assign him to the Freak case in hopes of getting rid of him (preferably in a fatal sort of way), but that plan succeeds in the worst way, as he ends up defecting to their side.  The Riddler helps the Freaks make their schemes truly bizarre and unpredictable, and helps them get to the bottom of who is truly running Gotham City.  He’s also a smug prick about it, because smugness is key to his character.

Clayface - a star of Gotham’s theater scene, Basil Karlo is convinced to try an experiment age-defying makeup which turns him into a giant shape changing mud man.  He becomes the group’s master of disguise and also ups their general theatricality, and can back up Croc as the muscle in a pinch.

The Crimelords

Penguin - a petty thug with delusions of grandeur, Penguin wants to rise to the ranks of the social elite and goes to great lengths to seem more educated and “classy” than he is.  While he is never accepted by the rich people he idolizes, he continues to do their dirty work in hopes of getting their approval.  He is cunning in a way, though, and rises to prominence throughout the story as one of the few criminals who can keep up with the increasingly eccentric Freaks - probably because he’s basically one of them despite his protests.

Scarecrow - a corrupt psychologist at Arkham Asylum who helps the mafia by providing insanity defenses for mobsters and driving key witnesses insane, Scarecrow’s obsession with fear would spiral out of control throughout the story.  Eventually he’d switch sides to the Freaks when he gets too weird for the oldschool criminals to tolerate, although he’d never be well liked by either side.

Firefly - a particularly skilled arsonist for the Maroni crime family.  Not much more than that.

Deathstroke - the greatest assassin employed by the Falcone crime family, Deathstroke takes himself very seriously, which is to his detriment considering the pack of ridiculous monster men he’s facing in this story.  He has a bitter rivalry with...

Deadshot - the greatest assassin employed by the Maroni crime family.  Deadshot doesn’t take his work very seriously at all and is prone to sarcasm and flippancy.  He kind of loves the fact that the freaks are causing so much ridiculous trouble for his employers, but that doesn’t mean he won’t kill them for a paycheck.

Bane - a mercenary hired by the crime families to take down the Freaks.  Bane eventually switches sides; he may be a bad guy, but he also cares about the downtrodden having grown up in a city not unlike Gotham itself.

Calendar Man - the youngest son of the mafia boss Carmine Falcone, Alberto Falcone is inspired by the theatricality of the Freaks and becomes a holiday themed serial killer, targeting enemies of his father’s business in a misguided attempt to earn his approval.

Black Mask - As the different crime families slowly dwindle in number over the course of the story, Roland Sionis, an underboss for the Maroni family, eventually rises in the ranks (due to his superiors dying) and unites what remains of the mafia under his iron fist.  Deciding to fight fire with fire, he crafts a grim alter ego for himself in hopes of striking fear into the Freaks.  It doesn’t work because he’s just not theatrical enough to pull it off, but he does manage to be a thorn in their side for a while.

Hugo Strange - the chief psychologist of Arkham Asylum, Hugo Strange is an awful, awful man.  He’s also an incredibly intelligent one, master minding many of the problems the Freaks encounter.  He’s not the root of Gotham’s problems, though, as he ultimately serves...

Ra’s Al Ghul - an ancient sorceror who has made and destroyed countless societies in his many centuries of scheming, Ra’s Al Ghul made Gotham City into a nexus of misery and cruelty in hopes of awakening a world ruining entity - i.e. basically he’s trying to bring about Gozer the Destroyer.  ‘Cause why not bring in a bit of Lovecraftian terror to a setting that has a madhouse that makes monster people that’s literally called Arkham Asylum?

And that’s it.  That’s how I’d ruin Batman.

I’ll probably repurpose some of these ideas into other stories like I do with most of my fanfic ideas, but man, this sure is shitty as a Batman story, huh?

[canchewread]

Author’s note: this post also appeared on Facebook, I’m just re-posting it here because a certain percentage of my readers simply do not ever use Facebook for completely understandable ideological reasons. Furthermore, since Zuck has essentially pre-warned me that he might take my page down at any time because of its anti-fascist and anarchist content, I feel safer backing it up here. Of course, given that the subject matter I’m exploring today is online censorship, if it should turn out that both my Facebook and my Tumblr gets nuked from orbit, we’ll lose this journal - but at least we’ll know I’m right about the censorship part.

Please excuse the odd reference to “this Facebook page” and by way of apology feel free to appropriate the excellent quote from A.J. Liebling above as you so desire; you can just copy past the black background over my logo easy enough.

A Brief Note About Social Media and Censorship

Alright, and stop me if you heard this one before, but I am once again being censored on social media; in this case, Twitter. Given that I’ve had my Twitter account outright banned seven times, my website is actively being de-ranked by Google along with pretty much every other left wing site online, and Facebook has reserved the right to delete my page at any time because of its anarchist and antifascist content; this should come as a surprise to precisely no one.

Still, in light of the fact that my account currently has less than three hundred followers, I am a little perplexed at the heavy-handed, and somewhat obvious application of algorithmic censorship being employed here. Having seen screenshots from multiple other users, I can now confirm that my tweets are not being shown to all of even my tiny number of followers, and often don’t show up on the screen even if you’re looking directly at my profile, until several hours after they’re posted; I’ve seen a range from about two hours, to twelve hours.

This is complicated by the fact that some of my followers, particularly those who have roughly the same number of followers as I do, and like or otherwise interact with a lot of my tweets, do in fact see them posted on the timeline as per normal. The end result is an insidious, hard to notice type of censorship that drastically reduces the number of people who see or engage with my posts, without shutting the tap off completely and making it easy for me to tell my post-reach is being suppressed. Which again is pretty hilarious when you realize this has been going on for five months now and as a result I’ve managed to accrue a mere 269 followers; from more than 4,400 when I was last axed from the platform with no reason given.

As for why this is happening, I’m not rightly sure I can say, but I’ve been around on Twitter long enough at this point to have acquired a pretty good sense of how algorithmic censorship works and I can say with some certainly that things have changed for the worse in the post-January 6th world. It’s entirely possible that my anti-capitalist and pro-liberation content is making Jack nervous in light of the ways we’re now learning social media was (and is being) used to organize a fascist cult in America.

Alternately, it must be noted that we are now seeing a tremendous amount of evidence that various social media platforms appear to be actively censoring content on behalf of sovereign states that have the power to negative impact their profit lines; most notably in regards to criticism of Narendra Modi’s handling of the Covid crisis in India, and Israel’s ongoing apartheid and genocide of Palestinians. In fact just the other day on CBC I heard an analyst acknowledge that social media companies are actively looking to “turn down the temperature” on “controversial issues” online; which sounds like an admission that this type of censorship is happening to me, but your mileage may vary.

Given however that I’ve spent a lot of time recently tweeting about not only ethnic cleansing in Palestine, but also the historical and ongoing genocide of Indigenous peoples in Canada, it does seem entirely possible that I’ve been put on a list somewhere of people whose volume needs to be “turned down” a little bit; which would in fact be an apt description of what I’ve seen happening with my Twitter account. Or it really just might be that Twitter hates me and my class war nonsense, on a personal level; assuming I acknowledge the shocking regularity in which I’ve been forced to restart just after climbing past four thousand followers, I really can’t rule it out.

In terms of what I can really do about any of this, the simple truth is that I really don’t have a whole lot of options to work with here. In the grand scheme of things I kind of gave up on Twitter after being banned without notice or explanation on Christmas day, and the only reason I signed back up was to get access to a news feed again – hence the name of my account “SheReadsNews.” 

Unfortunately however, the stranglehold of online censorship being slowly integrated across much of the internet means that I really can’t afford to just surrender a platform as popular as Twitter; not if I want people to read my work. I don’t want to beg for favestars, but I’ve been told by some regular followers that aggressively favoriting all my tweets for a few days somehow put them into the same silo/timeline as I was; as always however your mileage may vary.

The upshot here is that I mentioned in a recent update journal, I’m going out of my way to use a wider variety of social media sites already, so the end result is just going to be that I tweet less and post elsewhere more; like for example this short update talking about my ongoing battle with censorship that’s being featured here and on my Facebook page today. Of course, since Facebook is also still censoring my content and suppressing my reach it’s really not going to be as simple as switching my Twitter posting over to any one website.

In fact, with Google suppressing my search rankings, and both Twitter and Facebook suppressing the reach of my posts, the only reliable places I can suggest you find my work at all times are on Mastodon and by signing up for email updates on my website at ninaillingworth.com. Although I do maintain a sort of fan/promotional account run by someone who is not me (which you can find here) I can’t guarantee that person’s content won’t eventually be suppressed as well, so now more than ever if you want to read the content I’m producing you’re going to have to “like and subscribe” all across social media.

My apologies, but the ruling classes clearly aren’t interested in making it easy to learn about class war from some transplanted hoodrat hiding out in Canada; same as it ever was, I guess.

- nina illingworth

Independent writer, critic and analyst with a left focus. Please help me fight corporate censorship by sharing my articles with your friends online!

You can find my work at ninaillingworth.com, Can’t You Read, Media Madness and my Patreon Blog

Updates available on Instagram, Mastodon and Facebook. Podcast at “No Fugazi” on Soundcloud.

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“It’s ok Willie; swing heil, swing heil…”