Noir: “Can You Take That Down? This Is Very Inappropriate.”

A closer look at the newsprint guitar I made for my Spider-Punk cosplay! This was really fun to research and put together, and I hope you folks like it too :)

realized I forgot to make this post oops....

How to involve yourself in offline political activism without being on the ground at a protest

featuring advice beyond "call your representatives"

for a lot of people, and especially for disabled people, being on the ground at a protest is risky, difficult, or downright impossible. this discourages a lot of people from getting involved in offline political activism because they don't know where else to go and what else to do. activism-and especially direct action-require a whole lot more than just bodies on the ground.

[US centric but may apply elsewhere] Involve yourself in jail support. when your comrades get arrested they need support upon getting out [and sometimes with getting out, depending on your state]. organize or participate in getting support to those people. show up for the arrestees in your community.

victims of police brutality and their families need support! sign up for or organize meal trains to keep people fed while they/their family recover from traumatic experiences. work to fundraise to pay rent while people are out of jobs.

get involved in the community-focused side of the activism. get involved in free markets, unhoused outreach & solidarity, free meals, etc. it's community, not charity.

graffiti, y'all, graffiti. make stencils if you need to be fast, wheatpaste, sticker bomb, these are all important parts of sending a message. graffiti artists are valuable and you can become one!

if you can't do graffiti (or you can but want to do more) create materials so other people can do graffiti. create and print flyers for wheatpasting, design & print stickers, create stencils.

protests and actions often require materials that need to be bought, created, or assembled. getting involved in any part of this process is hugely helpful.

Car support- if you are capable of driving and/or own a car you can get involved in car support for marches and other actions. many actions require car support to protest activists, whether that be by blocking traffic for a march or participating in holding a roundabout while barricades are set up

Be the extraction plan- also requires driving and/or a car. when people leave actions they need a way out. sometimes they need a fast way out. sometimes they need help driving home because they have a chemical weapon in their eyes. being on standby to pick people up is a hugely important role in activism.

Not all direct action looks like a protest or march

the relevant direct action in your area is going to depend on where you live so unfortunately I cannot give you specific recommendations but I can tell you that you are capable of participating in direct action. direct action looks like so much and does not have to be a rally or march or other protest. you can find a way to participate that accommodates you.

I am definitely forgetting a lot so additions are welcome

This is probably what was in the surveillance reports Osborn’s HQ had on Hobie and the Spider-Band lol

Hi! I’m SpideyPunx, and I’m an anarchist, punk, and new-ish cosplayer. Spider-Punk is my first ever cosplay, and it’s almost entirely DIY!

Here’s my Spider-Punk playlist:

I’m also on Instagram: @spideypunx

Pride sure looks different these days

“Well, clearly you didn’t climb high enough.”

“Is that a challenge?”

“Noooooo!”

trick or treat 💥

HOW DID I MISS THIS WTF

Hi! I'm SpideyPunx (or just "Punx") and I started cosplaying in 2024. Basically, my interest in punk rock and Marvel comics had been entirely separate things before Across the Spider-Verse came out, and now I simply will not shut up about Hobie Brown. I'm also an anarchist and an activist, and I try to find ways to pay homage to left-wing protests and movements, both historical and modern-day, in my Spider-Punk cosplay.

He/they please, both in and out of cosplay—unless you want to she/her or neopronoun my version of Hobie in a fun gay way 😂

All photo credits and other cosplayers’ accounts are tagged in my Instagram posts where possible.

Non-cosplay posts: @spideypunxposts

RP blog: @ask-spideypunx

Instagram | TikTok | Bluesky | Discord server

Some leftist resources I recommend checking out:

The Slingshot Collective's Radical Contact List (worldwide list of local leftist organizations!)

Your local Democratic Socialists of America chapter

Your local Jewish Voice for Peace chapter

National Students for Justice in Palestine if you're a college student

Your local Food Not Bombs chapter

Crimethinc

It’s Going Down

Your local anarchist book fair

Video transcript (or at least this was the blurb I wrote for it, so there may be some minor differences):

[replying to a comment saying “Did you make the guitar that’s so cool what?! Could you do a video showing that off because I actually love that so much :0 /nf”] “Yeah, sure, I’d love to! In Across the Spider-Verse, Spider-Punk’s design cycles through a bunch of different color palettes and textures. One of those is newsprint. In the movie, the newspaper clippings seem to be random, there’s even coupons and stuff. But I thought it would be fitting to use clippings from articles about protests and other political news, to sort of pay homage to Hobie’s politics.

So we’ve got everything from the Freedom Riders, the AIDS crisis, the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, the Stonewall Riots, Stop Cop City, the Me Too movement, Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire, the Kent State shooting, the killing of Freddie Gray, and so on.

The neck of the guitar is made from photos from those news articles, including the Gaza solidarity encampments, the 2020 Black Lives Matter protests—that’s the Minneapolis precinct burning, and the 2017 Women’s March.

The guitar strap in checkered black-and-white has meaning as well, the pattern is known as “two-tone” in ska, the music genre, and it symbolizes racial unity, black and white together.

You can turn the tuners and flip the switch, it’s fun to fidget with!

The stickers and their placement is all based on the official character art, and those I got from this post by Jake Panian, who worked on Spider-Punk’s design for Across the Spider-Verse.

And I did the same thing for the spikes on his mask. UnitedHealthcare CEO getting shot… Yeah, this was a really fun project, and I’m really proud of it, and I’m excited to show it off!”

A closer look at the newsprint guitar I made for my Spider-Punk cosplay! This was really fun to research and put together, and I hope you folks like it too :)