The Mysterious Moth-Boy: City Lights

The Mysterious Moth-Boy: City Lights is a story written by H.P. Lovecock and illustrated by Sly Sketcher. It ran in Issue 86 at https://www.shousetsubangbang.com/mirror/the-mysterious-moth-boy-city-lights/.

Summary

The city stretches out before me, a living thing; the low rumble of countless vehicles, the soft inhale of rooftop HVACs, or the gentle susurrus of the twilit crowds alight by LCD rainbows far below. In 16K resolution the city shimmers with the vastness of a nebula, painting the overcast summer skies in dark, roiling purples and greens, the colour of a fresh bruise.

“I like this monologue,” Ajit says, snickering into my ear.

I huff, “You’re supposed to follow hailing protocols!”

“Oh, sorry. Archmage to Moth-Boy.”

“Acknowledged,” I mutter, steamed by his teasing.

A high-tech, hyper-perceptive caped crusader in the guise of a moth takes to the skies above a teeming metropolis in pursuit of a comely cat burglar... but cats like to play with their food, and when the moth nears the flame he may get burned.

Author's Notes

CW: brief discussion of police violence, violence against PoC

Oftentimes I'll put on a MCU movie as I'm getting ready for bed--I don't know why but I find noisy dumb action movies relaxing--so I've had superheros on the brain. My favourite, no contest, is the Tom Holland Spider-Man movies, I think they're the perfect balance of hilarious, adorable, emotional and action-packed--AND NED. That being said, I struggle with a lot of the MCU movies, how they often feel so ungrounded in place, just snapping from scene to scene, action sequence to action sequence, lots of nice big, shiny set pieces but there's nothing to hold onto. And the dialogue can really stink. Again, one of the reasons why I love the Spider-Man movies, they feel like a slight antidote to the other MCU blockbusters.

When I saw the "Concrete Jungle" theme I knew I wanted to do a superhero story, specifically a Spider-Man stand-in protagonist. I've had a D&D character I've wanted to play for awhile, Arachno-Lad; I originally conceptualized him in Ravnica when they released the Guildmaster's Guide, a boy who was bitten by a cursed spider and escaped Simic experimentation to operate as a costumed, outcast Selesnya agent. 5e, of course, Simic hybrid ported over into whatever multiverse he's in so he gets permanent spider climbing, boots of jumping and springing, maybe some sort of wrist-mounted version of the spider staff, rogue with the arcane trickster subclass, either a Waterdhavian folk hero if we're talking Forgotten Realms, or else just the folk hero background in any other.

I considered doing a high-fantasy Spider-Man story, or else just really doubling down on the Spider-Man stand-in with Arachno-Lad in a modern city with tech instead of magic, but as much as I want to play him in D&D it didn't feel quite right, so I was tossing around ideas for another arachnid- or insect-themed hero. That's when Megan Ellison's illustrations of "Mothman's little brother" came across my Twitter feed (I still squee every time I look at it). That's when it clicked: Moth-Boy

I could go on and on about all of the influences. The noble cat burglar's always been my kink a la Black Cat from the Spider-Man universe (a lover's been playing the PS4 Spider-Man game, I watch and help out with the hard parts), Chat Noir from Miraculous: Tales of Ladybug & Cat Noir (just fuck me up), Ajit's obviously inspired by "guy-in-the-chair" Ned, but I love the idea of a handsome, slutty, beefy, bisexual boy-next-door Sikh guy and I got to do a lot of reading around Sikhism and sexuality, which was a joy, and also one of my absolute favourite songs as a thematic inspiration.

Finally, on a serious note, the central conflict was inspired by the police shooting death of Sammy Yatim in Toronto--the unnamed setting of Moth-Boy, though any Torontonian would recognize the Don Valley Parkway, Rosedale, city hall, etc. We've obviously, disgustingly, never had any shortage of police shooting deaths of black, brown and indigenous people in Canada (and globally...), but the extrajudicial execution of Sammy Yatim in 2013 was the first time the wrongness of it all really stuck in my mind, and it's never left. Multiple police officers, nine bullets, one teen boy in distress with nothing more than a knife. A tweet came across my dash the other day talking about how Spider-Man from the PS4 game is a police-loving bootlicker, which is hard to argue against when you think about it. Police are definitely romanticized in superhero stories, so this was my attempt to challenge that a bit. I saw another tweet the other day about how the job of the police isn't to kill people even when they've done something wrong, let alone when they're completely and utterly innocent or just a person in mental distress. I don't understand how all our lives can move on when a 17-year-old-boy is violently dead for absolutely no reason. I can't even put into words what the senselessness of it does to me.

Anyways, I believe very strongly in never separating my politics from my smut, so consider Moth-Boy my anti-police, love/hate letter to Toronto. With cute boys getting nasty.

I've also had a lot of people I share it with ask me if I'm going to continue Moth-Boy's story. All I'll say is I adore Ajit, I want to give him a storyline. Also the Empyre Marvel storyline is giving me lots of ideas. Tyrannical space boyfriend, anyone?

External Links

This story is also available on Archive of Our Own (AO3).