punkflower hcs bc i need to see more of them being cute teen boys together.... like, playful and creative and stuff
looong long wall of text under the cut (no nsfw)
♡ miles and hobie definitely exchange art often, even collabing on some punk zines and graffiti pieces occasionally. hobie also makes mixtapes on cassettes and slaps a million stickers on them just for his bf. miles appreciates the kind gesture but reminds hobie that he doesnt have a cassette player. "yet," hobie tells him with a wink :)
♡ miles draws a million little doodles for hobie on scrap paper, post it notes, hobie's gear, hobie himself. ofc hobie loves them all, esp when he gets to go home with his arms and chest covered in stars, cartoons, graffiti, and hearts
♡ miles is a lot more shy about dancing in public than hobie is, but whenever they manage to have any downtime at all hobie will wrap his arms around miles and sway them around. if music is playing anywhere, hobie will bop to it and get miles to join in
♡ hobie's love language? touch. any kind, anytime, anywhere, for any reason. words of affirmation come next
♡ miles' love language? quality time, and he's big on kissing. hobie isnt much of a kisser but loves his sunflower just the same, and does not complain at all when miles places little kisses on his hands, ears or his back
♡ sometimes hobie will be a lil mean to miles just as a flirty thing. just usual teenage boy stuff like kicking miles' sneakers, manspreading to get into his space if they're sitting anywhere together, using his height to bully miles into a corner away from everyone so they can flirt some more, crashing into miles on purpose just to be annoying
♡ anytime they get to go on multiverse missions together they somehow manage to get into the craziest shenanigans. breaking into a zoo to stop a villain from mutating the animals, saving a group of schoolkids on a field trip from a killer robot (?), one time hobie even drove a runaway car to stop it from crashing right into jamaica bay and miles was scarred for life
hobie tries to control the car as he haphazardly swerves it around pedestrians and barely manages to miss a group of elderly people.
miles clings onto his seat for dear life. "HOBIE!! you're gonna kill us man, where'd you get your license from!?" he yells.
hobie scoffs. "license?! i said i could drive, mate, i aint mention nuthin' 'bout no license!"
♡ hobie's universe is set in the 1970's and living in a dystopian police-state means it's too risky to bring back a phone with him, so he's often left out of spiderkid groupchats. miles still tries to keep him up to date on the latest memes and inside jokes though. they also have their own inside jokes too
♡ hobie wouldn't bring a smartphone with him anyways since he's so mistrusting of tech in general. video games, laptops, and "smart" tech mystify him, and smart watches? forget about it. when miles gets one for christmas one time, hobie clowned on his bf so hard the watch was never seen again
♡ that being said, they love exchanging music often so the only piece of technology hobie ever brings back to his dimension is an ancient half-busted ipod (it was probably rio's at one point) filled with music miles managed to download for him that week. spiderman-ing and living as a homeless teen means hobie doesn't get much time to explore genres outside of the UK punk scene and listening to brand new genres is often a trip! hobie finds out he loves drum n bass, grindcore, industrial techno, UK drill, deep house and 90's hip hop
♡ hobie gets miles to make him cool posters for whatever venue he plans on (or doesnt plan lbr) playing at every now and then
♡ rio LOVES hobie. hobie is the perfect gentleman (gentlespider?) around her and often tries to help her around the house when he can. miles... does not enjoy how much his mom favors his partner. jeff is also not so crazy about this smart-mouthed punk
♡ miles and hobie absolutely swap clothing as often as possible, with hobie "borrowing" miles' clothes more often. miles' parents keep commenting on how much of a rockero he looks with all the punk stuff and hobie never returns clothes without having altered them in some way (pins n bits everywhere, a mysterious rip or two here n there, pinned-up sleeves, etc)
♡ miles is absolutely horrible at cooking and feels left out when he sees hobie helping his mom in the kitchen. he desperately tries to learn, but it's a wonder how he hasnt sliced his fingers off yet trying to peel and cut platanos so they can make tostones
♡ for a person who's built like a lamppost, hobie is shockingly graceful with his movements. he always slips around a room like a cat and miles is so jealous of that. long gangly limbs should be a deterrent from moving like That and yet here he is, practically pirouetting around miles for fun
♡ which is a total TRIP when they go out swinging around a city. once the mask is on, every movement hobie makes is chaotic, frantic and unpredictable. spiderpunk and hobie are very different people sometimes
♡ rio often points out hobie's thinness as a typical hispanic mom does ("jóven, pero tu 'ta tan flaco, hobie honey come eat! i have leftovers here!") and miles also agrees that hobie could eat a lil more too. he is always sneaking bits of food into hobie's pockets or bags, saving fries and last slices for his partner. sometimes hobie brings home armfuls of tupperware filled with caribbean food back to his boat
♡ in return, hobie is like a magpie and brings back shiny gifts for them, some handmade stuff too. miles' drawers and nightstand are filled with jewelry, bottles, knickknacks, and other handmade accessories. his walls are filled with collages and zines hobie makes for him and rio bought frames for some of the pieces he makes her
♡ the first person to say "i love you" was miles, but by accident. after realizing it, he was nervous as hell worrying that hobie would clown him to death since he didnt seem like a big romantic. instead, hobie went nuts about it in his own hobie way, writing lyrics about miles' face when he said it, doodling them together more often, teasing miles about it often but lightheartedly. he flaunts miles' love whenever he can
♡ miles has a lethal puppydog face and he KNOWS it! one 🥺 look and hobie immediately folds and gives miles whatever he wants. but not before hemming and hawing about it first, playing up his hesitation just to make miles laugh
♡ speaking of laughter, hobie does Thee Most just to see his bf laugh or smile. he will always goof off in the bg, crack jokes every 2 secs and pretend to get hurt sometimes. hobie is naturally sarcastic and goofs off in general anyways but around miles he dials it up to 200
♡ hobie tries to get miles in on the whole anarchism thing but 1. the texts and manifestos from his dimension are different than miles' and 2. miles is a teen boy. he doesn't know anything about the theory of alienation or effective mutual aid and won't really care at the moment. "mm, you'll learn all 'bout it soon enough, though... eventually," hobie muses
♡ miles is not as big on pet names as hobie is. hobie has like 24984 nicknames for miles but miles mostly sticks to just calling his partner by his name. one day during history class tho a lightbulb moment happens, and when they meet up again miles is excited
"hobie!! guess what, i really got it this time. i have a nickname that i know you're gonna love!"
"spill," hobie says as he throws an arm over miles' shoulders.
"so you always call me sunflower all the time, right? and your name is ho... bee. get it? so i was thinkin' i'm gonna call you 'honey bee' now. y'know, you're not the only one who's got corny ass nicknames! it's good, right?"
hobie has to fight not to grin like a jackass
♡ hobie's sleep schedule is atrocious so whenever miles can manage it, he tries to wrestle his partner into any bed and tucks him in. hobie is touched that his sunflower cares so much about him ♡
♡ miles almost never gets permission to sleep over other friends' houses but on the rare occasions he does, he leaps into portals and goes to visit hobie in his dimension. his fave part of New London is hobie's boat, bc they set up a big hammock for them to lay in, feeling the sway of the boat and letting it lull them to sleep. not to mention that the boat itself is totally badass, and hobie more often than not encourages miles to cover it in graffiti
♡ hobie lowkey (but highkey) loves when miles gets a little bossy, forceful or stern. he loves ribbing miles about it (the "ill do it, but not cuz you told me to" line in mumbattan was a total joke from hobie btw LOL) and saying corny shit in response to a demand, but he loves seeing miles being confident and calling the shots every once in a while. it makes him proud
♡ if they can, miles and hobie try to gather up as much food as they can and take it over to the F.E.A.S.T. that's in hobie's dimension. miles meets hobie's "family" there and gets to know the community, which feels so much more tight-knit and welcoming than Visions. once miles gets over the major jarring differences between his world and hobie's, he finds he LOVES New London
♡ miles and hobie teach each other slang from their countries and time periods, you can't change my mind. miles walks around saying shit like "bloody 'ell" and "septic" all the time. the one time hobie said "deadass" completely unironically, all of the spiderkids DIED laughing
♡ miles learns that EVERY spider is a total dweeb in some way shape or form. even hobie! hobie's awkwardness comes out when theyre in big groups of people. hobie is oddly comfy with performing in front of crowds but when he's invited to parties and tries mingling, it's so... sooo awkward. miles secretly rejoices when he finds out hobie's weakness
♡ i'm an adhd hobie truther and i hc that miles buys hobie the weirdest fidget toys he can get his hands on. along with his switchblade, jewelry, and whatever he stole that day, hobie carries various different fidget toys in his vest to keep boredom at bay
♡ hobie definitely writes songs for miles but takes a very very very long time to actually admit it. miles finally finds out when one of hobie's songwriting notebooks falls open when hanging out in his boat, and hobie comes clean about it. with miles' encouragement tho, hobie makes the decision to add some of those songs into the usual setlist his band performs
♡ if miles ever has time, he tries to attend whatever gig hobie and his band has going on. he loves to see hobie perform on stage, his energy and stage presence is always electrifying
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the thing about the joker
is that - well, even canonically, he’s not actually “insane.” in the most canonical version of his backstory (bc there are many conflicting incarnations, but this one is the touchstone for a lot of later canon), he was part of a street gang before falling into a vat of Nondescript Toxic Waste that damaged his melanin production and That’s It. he supposedly “lost his mind” after seeing his reflection, which is absurd on many levels. no. he’s not “insane.” what he is, is an angry white boy.
the thing about the joker is that he exults in his own uncontainability. He laughs, because all of gotham - all the world - is built to be his playground. the only lunatic thing about him is the lunacy of ~Society~, to borrow from the joker’s own playbook; the lunacy of the joker lies in the world that grants him power: in the inheritance of loss: in white privilege, and what it means for everyone else.
“to prove a point.” those were the joker’s exact words, when he shot and paralyzed Barbara Gordon. she asked why: he laughed. “to prove a point.”
because that’s all he ever does. he hurts people because he can. and because all the power in the world can’t save him from getting hurt - and isn’t that just peachy?
because the thing about the joker is that he can get hurt. he has been hurt. but he has so much more capacity to harm than to be harmed. he is immortal. he and he alone will never have to face the consequences of the hurt that he inflicts on other people.
so then: why not hurt them? misery loves company, after all.
the joker is the embodiment and end result of our own social system: the madness of the exception: the laughter of the white man: the imprecation to smile, as he kills you.
(no one ever says it, i find, but it’s still true: barbara deserves to kill him.)
and who, then, is the batman? if the joker is the yin to his yang? if they’re two sides of one irredeemable coin, if they represent the “balance” of an unjustifiable system - who is he if not another white man?
because he is. Bruce Wayne is a white boy born into unspeakable privilege and forced to endure suffering anyway; who copes with his suffering by taking it out on others; who copes with his suffering, not by taking advantage of the world as it is, but by attempting to reshape it. to make it in his own image - as if it isn’t already his, as if claiming it further will crush out the pain.
the batman is the benevolent oppressor to the joker’s malevolent one. he changes nothing, in the end. two privileged white boys with their own respective navel-gazing grudges - where, after all, lies the difference between benevolence and malevolence?
because they are not “chaos” and “order.” not really. They are laissez-faire laughter and law. Joker exults in the disease of the system, Batman seeks to treat its symptoms, but neither of them will ever change anything about the root cause. because they may have suffered the faults of this system, but they still benefit so much more from it as it exists. Uphold it or break it, neither of them wants to change the law.
but the law is only as good as the people it’s made to protect. and who does that law protect, really?
waylon jones is, in one issue, explicitly depicted as Black. between that and his skin disorder, there has never once been room for his character to be any more than a monster: king croc is, always, a character to be violated and brutalized, over and over and over and still - always - written as the villain. (he tried so hard to scrape out a place for himself, so many times, in so many incarnations, and each and every time he finds himself relegated once more to the sewers. he will never be anyone’s king. there is no place under the sun for people like him.)
victor fries only ever wanted to save his wife, and a capitalist mogul decided a few extra numbers on his eight-digit paycheck were more important than the people whose lives depended on that money. fries’ body was damaged to disability by that choice, left without the resources to find a cure for his wife, and he robbed banks because there was no other option available to him. we seem to have forgotten, or maybe never really understood, why that matters. why a desperate man trying to save his life and that of his loved ones under the crushing gears of capitalism is a villain, and the one who stops him is our hero. why, under the law batman upholds, a bank vault and a CEO’s hoard is worth more than a life.
poison ivy just wants to live, too. wants a life not defined by the devastation of her body, of the beings that exist as extensions of her, a life where green and growing things are not commodities to be plowed up and poisoned and destroyed for the sake of another man’s profit. these are villains; they are written as such. these are their motives.
who does batman fight for, really? who is our hero, this emblem of our law?
is he our hero? ours, the broken and bleeding members of the world he claims to protect?
who does the law protect, except him - him, and the joker?
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One of the things I think of a lot with regards to John is—why didn't he have any friends in his real life?
None of the beta kids ever seem to mention having irl friends that they miss in the aftermath of the apocalypse. And yeah, they've got a lot of other stuff going on, and it's not really in the narrative's nature to bring up people not somehow involved with sburb, but on a watsonian level, if any of them had other friends that died in sburb's aftermath, you'd think they'd say something about that grief at some point.
It's relatively easy to explain away the other beta kids' friendlessness. Jade lives alone on an island, Dave is Dave (raised in an extremely weird way that does not make him well-suited for regular life), and Rose's mom is strange and rich enough that Rose probably goes to some shitty private school or has an online tutor or something.
But John is such a public school-type kid through and through. He's just some guy. But the more I think about him, the more I'm thinking about why he must not have any friends. He canonically spends most of his time online.
He's into (poorly) coding, shitty movies, online games, and magic tricks, none of which are a particular recipe for popularity—especially not as a twelve year old in 2009. He also has a peanut allergy.
Unfortunately, that's also probably a social strike against him. Schools are historically really bad at dealing with kids with severe allergies. There's decent odds John was eating alone and isolated at an "allergy table."
Overall, he's kind of made for being a run of the mill social outcast. He's not Dave levels of weird, and he might not be horribly bullied, but he absolutely strikes me as the few to no friends sort in a really painfully mundane way. He's just some dweeb. He's painfully sincere and enthusiastic most of the time, yet clearly has some self-hatred issues deep down that he doesn't like to think about.
He likes unpopular things and lives his life online. And pre sburb, at least his online life seems happy! He has good friends! But I can't help but wonder what his hours not at his computer screen were like. It's hard being twelve years old and goofy and awkward and friendless.
All those deeply repressed internalized thoughts about how lame he is have to come from somewhere, y'know?
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