#zone headcanons

I’ve seen people of different races, body types, ages, styles and so much more.

The Zones say fuck you to gender roles and stereotypes, and they’re all accepting. You’re a straight guy and you love pink and purple? Fuck yeah! You’re nonbinary but you’re feminine? Awesome! You’re a masculine girl? Hell yeah! You use multiple pronouns? Cool, what are they? Don’t wanna misgender you! You use pronouns ze/hir or ze/zir pronouns? Woah dude, that’s so cool! Sorry if I get them wrong, my friend. You’re socially awkward and you’ve never had a gang before? It’s okay, bro! Won’t do anything you aren’t okay with, don’t want you to be uncomfortable. You’re a gay guy, but you’re not feminine at all? Honey, that’s fine with me, you’re not expected to be anything here. You’ve got some PTSD from the city? Tell me your triggers, my guy. Guys have long hair, girls have short. You can have a mohawk for all I care, your hair is awesome to me. Bright clothes and wacky hair are just a ‘fuck you’ to how monochromatic BLI is.

If you’re homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, xenophobic (or any of the others), the desert if after you. We don’t throw around slurs like faggot unless everyone there is comfortable with language like it.

All you gotta do is be able to fight, and it’s cool with everyone here. And, if you can’t, there’s plenty of time to practice.

Definitely not as clean as they should be

Needles and ink are hard to come by, especially because needles are usually copped by druggies before artists can get to them

Tattoos aren’t usually gotten as a trend or for fun but as a reminder or in memory of someone

They almost always carry huge meaning

Jet got one to remind him of his father, who abandoned him and his mother in Bat City to gallivant through the desert

At first it sparked pain in his heart every time he looked at it but now it gives him courage to make his own, different path

It’s really risky to get tattooed out in the desert because everything is so unsanitary, but there are a couple of parlors that still use ink guns and equipment and can do a decent job with minimal chance of infection

The infections can get pretty nasty

The first, is that masks are meant to protect the living. While living under constant surveillance, it is perhaps only natural to find solace in the impression of anonymity provided by face coverings such as masks, helmets, and bandanas, and even more cynical types who claim their purpose is to obfuscate what little presence BL/i does nurture amidst the harsh desert winds— however, these are nothing more than outsiders' views on matters that had not previously concerned them. The truth is, in fact, much simpler: masks are talismans, and bargaining chips of the dead— they prove there once was someone who cherished them and whom they in turn swore to protect. No one can return from the dead without renouncing some part of themselves, and when dealing with something as strongly entwined with one's identity as a mask, it is one last chance for forgiveness or retribution.

The second most common misconception amongst newcomers, is that all information shared voluntarily is shared without ill intent. It is undeniable that skill and information are what constitute power both sides of the wall, and that the latter is often freely shared amongst those willing to stand their ground against Better Living as a form of leverage, but unlike the City which has had its bare bones exposed, ground down, and then rebuilt inside-out in the crater of something far larger than any atomic bomb, the Zones are alive. Alive in a way which goes far beyond the roads spreading like veins and arteries beneath fallow land. Alive in a way which alludes even the conscious component of a place brimming with the unknown and unexplainable where the line between one's perception and physical reality is drawn thin. Alive in a way that is cold and uncaring, and which if exposed would be enough to drive even the most devout believers and cynical scholars mad. It is truth which makes the sharpest blade, afterall.