#extremely aimless post

[spookygibberish]

I've sort of developed a strange relationship with the concept of "realism" in the things I make.

Something I was very into as like, an eleven year old (im not implying this was immature to be into, just that it was formative for me), was speculative biology specifically for dragons, and now, specifically in the case of dragons I find a lot of attempts to make them biologically plausible fully missing the appeal of dragons at all.

Thinking specifically about the supernatural elements of JoM and where the line is drawn. The dagnyds are made from the remains of godlike entities, and are not entirely earthly animals. They have a supernatural origin. It would be fully justified in giving them magic abilities or making magic an aspect of the setting, but have absolutely zero interest in doing so. It doesn't interest me. I think about shit like healing powers or glowy energy attacks and my reaction is just "what does this even add? Why do I need this? Does this make things more interesting?" And it simply doesn't. Healing is more interesting as a prolonged process, combat is more interesting with teeth and claws and metal and blood. These are options which are more realistic, closer to real life, but the realism isn't what makes them interesting: it's physicality.

When I design a creature for this world, I am not thinking about making it biologically plausible, and yet, I try to design things which look like they could 'move under their own power'. There is a sense of heft and mechanical "soundness" which I value more than realism, but often also aligns with looking 'realistic'.

I would say that it's better to serve a narrative than strive for absolute realism, but I don't actually write stories, although I do have ideas for them occasionally. I guess a version of this which is more relevant and applicable is that i prefer to strive for a particular vibe.

[cutehoons02]

☆:I’m too clingy with you?*.☽

：(::̲̅:̲̅[̲̅:♡:]̲̅:̲̅:̲̅:̲̅) Hyung Line

* synopsis: (reaction) Do you think i'm too clingy with you?

© cutehoons02 all rights reserved 2024.

(English is not my native language)

—REBLOG if you enjoyed

HEESEUNG

Heeseung was the classic representation of the boy in the ambivert version, he was extremely extroverted when he was with his friends especially when he had to talk to his fans but at the same time he liked to be alone playing video games in his room, he slept a lot when he had breaks and spent the evenings in the parks scattered around town playing basketball until late at night. You and Heeseung didn’t get along at first but nobody understood why because you had a lot in common about music, to preferred to go out late at night to feel more comfortable, you both loved to try countless restaurants scattered around Seoul, especially the most hidden ones and being an influencer you loved to be in the center of attention but at the same time you wanted to spend more hours with yourself and contact with nature without fans or events.

Heeseung met you at a Prada event and to her misfortune you were a close friend of T/l Jay’s girlfriend. From the first day he saw you, he didn’t like you because he thought you were like most of the rich influencers, brainless and with the desire to have fame thanks to the name of Enhypen but to his surprise, you had never mentioned the name of enhypen and every time you were with T/l you never brought up the subject. You knew that the boy with the eyes of a cervix didn’t like you from the way he looked at you, from the way he’d roll his eyes when he saw you making countless noises to their colleagues but you didn’t care about his judgment and you loved teasing him when you were close; for Heeseung you were a terrible threat because you were beautiful, you had that shy but sexy yet cheeky girl aura towards him and for the most part you teased him flirting with him.

This thing made him crazy because it was always him who flirted with girls at meets and great or events and never girls tried to hit on him so openly as you did with him, he thought most of the work and never had distractions, especially in girls but slowly he could not think about you and every time you posted an ig story on your profile especially with a guy wanted to throw the phone across the room; since he became jealous and possessive of you, when he hated you from the first moment he saw you?

In the last period he had managed to invent lies especially with Jay, because many times he dated you and his girlfriend and Jay realized that slowly the oldest of the group had begun to behave strangely and no more jokes about you, you also realized that Heeseung didn’t go out when you were there or when you were there he didn’t take care of you or was out of his mind.

When fate wanted to meet two people, they always put on and that night you were walking with your aimless headphones without purpose and to astonished there was Heeseung in a playground almost half an hour from his dorm playing to throw the ball into the basket alone. You always had a thing for sportsmen but Heeseung was always beautiful, especially in the last period: he had slightly long hair with purple shades, wore a shirt where you could see his strong arms, the suit pants that wrapped his long legs, and a baseball cap put back to hold the tufts of hair. You didn’t want to disturb him and you looked slightly from a distance for about ten minutes but then as if you were called by a mental and physical attraction you approached him and civilly greeted him without being brazen with him.

"How come you're playing at midnight past and almost half an hour from your dorm there are no basketball courts near where you live? Heeseung looked at you and he overtook you to throw the ball in the basket and with his dismay did not enter and snort "I wanted to change zone and then later it is better of the night, so i have less chance of finding fans crazy and to be able to relax playing basketball. I don't always have so much time to play basketball and it helps me a lot to relax and concentrate on my thoughts that lately don't make me sleep so easily" he glanced at you before running to reach the ball from the other end of the field and you followed him.

"Why can't you sleep? I just asked you that question because i know you have that super cool event tomorrow with that sports brand that organizes the events downtown with the fans and i know you'll have to wake up early" You tried to take the ball out in a clumsy move but Heeseung had really good reflexes and looked at you badly "God what do you want Y/n? You’re so sticky, you’re nosy you can’t go back to your world made of events every day and have no responsibility? You knew that Heeseung despised you but you didn’t think so much, it wasn’t true that you had no responsibility because most of the profits your agency made were thanks to you, and you were a little tired of being told that you did nothing from morning to night and that you had no responsibility

"I’ll leave you alone, i just wanted to have a civil conversation with you but it seems that every time you try to behave like a normal girl you despise me as if i had a rare disease from which you’d want to stay away."

You hated him with all your heart because every time you saw him, your heart was beating slightly faster, every time you heard a song in the convenience store you recognized his voice and started to smile like a girl at her first crush and maybe it was just that a stupid crush for one of the most famous idols. Little tears were running down your face and you hated yourself too because you had never cried for a boy in your life and he was so stupid that you tried every time to be nice to him if every time he did some silly or eye-lifting thing if you did that ig story in his presence.

"Y/n" you heard your name shouting and running Heeseung followed you on the path that led to a small hill where you could see all of Seoul "God why are you walking so fast? Compared to my legs you’re a gnome but you’re a fast sack" you kept walking without paying any attention and after minutes you felt yourself take an arm and Heeseung made you sit in a chair where there were only you and him, and the lights of the busy city under your feet "Fuck angel, i’m so sorry for how i behaved with you i’ve never behaved like that with anyone and..."

"You don’t need to make up all these excuses Hee, you don’t like me it can happen that two people don’t agree so maybe it’s better if i go home" You tried to get up but his strong hands took your hips and put his legs on you "Is so hard when you’re around Y/n, i acted like an asshole to you just because i like you, in the sense that it’s physically but also. Oh my god i have never declared myself to any girl so i'm blabbing in vain, i like you Y/N, at first i found you annoying and sticky with me because you were always trying to tease me but slowly i started feeling jealous when i saw your ig story with other guys, especially when you were so beautiful and smiling with them,i wanted that smile to be for me and not for those people."

"If this is all a joke Heeseung you’re recording for a stupid challenge i’ll kill you, because i like you too" In the last sentence you said in silence and Heeseung pretended not to hear it. "Angel for me this is not a game but i did not hear what you said last!" You rolled your eyes and put your slave in her chest and started playing with the strings of her sweatshirt "I said I like you too, Lee Heeseung" a soft whistle came out of Heeseung’s lips and you felt his lips give you a kiss in the head and then one in your cheek "I like you too,Y/n."

JAY

Jay had always been careful not to cross the line between an affectionate guy and that sticky one but when he did not see you for weeks because of his work as Idol went crazy and wanted to always have you close so he could touch you, kiss you, suck your body and have it all for yourself. None of the enhypen members expected this obsession of Jay for Y/n because it was not just a physical thing but he loved to see you smile when you cooked together dishes from parts of the world that you had not visited, loved watching you play with his black cat in the living room while he tried to play and compose songs in which you were the protagonist and loved seeing all your successes in the work field and was your first fan.

The enhypen members didn’t expect to see you at their dorm door because they had just returned from a mini tour in America and knowing your character you were quite shy and reserved and didn’t spend so much time in the dorm or Jay’s room, but Heeseung smiled at you and let you in their apartment shared "Jay didn’t tell me that you were coming to visit him" Jay and Heeseung knew each other for eight years had always been sure they could debut together but never would have expected to be part of Enhypen one of the most famous groups in the world of kpop.

"I just wanted to give them a little surprise, we haven’t seen each other for almost a month and then lately he’s been acting strange with me, i don’t understand if i did something or maybe he just got tired of me"

Heeseung was seriously impressed by Y/n’s words, Jay loved her so much but he also noticed that it was a little cold when they mentioned Y/n. They always made a lot of video calls and always bought some gifts for her or her family but on that last trip Jay in the evening had always almost always been with the other members and had made very few video calls from what Heeseung remembered and was strange but did not want to worry Y/n.

"Don't think at all about these things, he loves you so much even one day to marry and have a family with you. If he hasn’t called you so many times on these tours it’s because we were in America, the time zone is shit to absorb and then we were always tired and we practiced a lot also because soon comes out the new album"

Y/n listening to Heeseung’s words made her feel a little better, but he had a really bad feeling and wanted to kick him out right now and talk to the guy from Seattle.

Jay was packing his suitcase and in the background, he sang a song from Oasis one of his favorite bands, and the little hands that he would recognize between hundreds of hands stood before his eyes and a small laugh came out of his mouth, tried to turn around to see the deer-eyed girl but the body of Y/n held him tight.

"Jay, tell me the truth you’re mad at me? Did i do something you didn’t like?, Did i say something wrong about some favorite band of yours that i didn’t even know existed? Did i break some of your knives or something about your guitars?" When you were agitating you blathered a lot and also this thing loved Jay of you and turned to look at you. He wanted to hold you and press his lips into yours but in your head resonated the words that you had joked to Sunoo during a day of skating together.

"Sunoo i thought you or Jake were the most clingy of the group but i think my boyfriend is getting better at both of you, sometimes it’s so clingy that it doesn’t squeeze me so hard i can’t breathe." those words of yours had haunted him for days and he started to break away to give you some space.

"You did nothing wrong Y/n" A puff came out of your lips and you approached to hug him but he went into his walk-in closet your eyes were made clear but you didn’t want to cry at all before him, like a little puppy you followed him in his walk-in closet and to your surprise or perhaps your imagination his arms had become slightly bigger and even his hair had grown a little more and loved when he had silver hair because they did contrast with its honey-colored complexion, you missed him so much that you tried to put a hand on his chest but he carried your hands behind your back and a grin made its way into his gaze.

"Don’t tell me you missed all this Y/n, i thought i heard you say to Sunoo that i was too clingy with you, that i touched you too much, and that sometimes you couldn’t even breathe but at this moment it seems like you want all my attention on yourself but you’ve been a bitch to me because one thing i always told you is that you have to tell me about the things you don’t know like and those you love about me" You never thought that Jay had heard that conversation with Sunoo but you weren’t complaining at all you and he laughed at Jay because they had never seen him take so much for a girl both physically and mentally.

"I wasn’t complaining, in fact..." You tried to go on with the subject but felt Jay’s lips kiss your neck and then lick it off.

"Go ahead Y/n, if you don’t go ahead with the sentence i won’t give you what you want so much but at the same time you complain about having”

"I wasn’t complaining, but at first i was making a little fun of you because" you felt your cardigan unbutton and small bites made you groan, Jay began to kiss you and bite your skin from your navel to yours but the thing that gave you his nerves is that he held your hands tight and did not touch you with a single finger but only with his mouth and his tongue. " continues Y/n", i’m just curious to know what you told your best friend" little moans came out of your mouth and tried to take your hands off Jay’s grip but maybe it was better not to do it pissed.

"I was saying, i was making fun of you because Sunoo with me is a sticky bag but in a friend way, and every time you see me you always seem attracted to me and this thing i love, please Jay."

Jay wasn’t listening to you at all because he was upset about one of the nipples, he brought a hand to your side and with a small push made you lean on his desk and moved his video games.

"Princess, do you seriously dare to ask me for pleasure and make you enjoy but at the same time you’re telling me that you were making fun of me?" You couldn’t make any sense and he walked away from you until we kept talking "I like it when you’re clingy with me also because sometimes i’m clingy with you, i was just afraid that you’d get tired of me because you seldom answered my messages on tour and in 20 days we’ve heard in video call 2 times" you put your lips in the small butterfly/heart birthmark of Jay and kissed her and after a while, you started to suck his neck

"Fuck, y/n you are soaked here. Don’t ever try to say i’m too sticky with you because your body will never lie to me."

SUNGHOON

You and Hoon were the perfect representation of "grumpy x sunshine". Hoon was introverted and he felt comfortable with only a few people instead you loved to make friends with everyone and could talk even with the walls, he liked tranquility instead when there was a click were the first to involve people, he was winter you were summer, he was the moon and you were the sun but these two elements could not live without each other; you two were attracted by your different personalities but you were not yet ready to give yourself.

You and Hoon were not great friends but thanks to T/n the girlfriend of Jake, as well as your best friend, who invited you to countless concerts and dinners in the dormitory of enhypen together; you got along with everyone at first, Hoon had created a kind of wall between him and you, but with the countless outings and dinners that you did together and with your solace that wall slowly began to crumble, you thought you had found a balance with "ice prince" of the group also because it started to sit next to you when you were watching movies together, he was always the first to come and say goodbye when you went to see their concerts and had also bought your favorite cereals to keep them in the kitchen cupboard until one day you heard him talking with Jay.

"Today too must come Y/n to eat out with us at the restaurant? I’m seeing more of her than my family, lately is always clinging to me as if she’s doing it on purpose to get my attention!" When you heard these words coming out of Sunghoon’s mouth the world fell upon you because it was not true that you were always by his side, he was the one who slowly approached you and luckily you started to have feelings for him and stupidly who could not have feelings for him. Over time you found countless excuses not to meet the enhypen especially Sunghoon and this thing did not pass unnoticed by the group but especially by Hoon.

Outside it was raining lightly and you were warm under your blankets and you were enjoying a relaxing evening with yourself, a couple of snacks, and in the background Netflix until you heard the phone ring to your great surprise Sunghoon was calling you, had never called you and had wrong number because it was since weeks that you did not see him. After a few minutes, another call came from Sunghoon and with the heart saying to answer and with the head telling you not to watch it you accepted the call "Y/n, think i’m down at your house but i don’t know what floor you live on and wanted..." You answered the call and rushed with an umbrella in hand out into the street of your apartment and before you was a half-wet Sunghoon with hair and locks falling moist before his eyes.

“What are you doing here, Sunghoon? , it’s 11 p.m. and you’re soaked from head to toe, i wouldn’t want to hear words if you got a fever or a cold because of me you should be at your house" You opened the umbrella and Hoon came to you, and with your astonishment, a hand caressed your face and was extremely hot under your skin and some light shivers crossed your bodies and they were not shivers of cold but shivers of electrified sensations never felt by either. “It would be worth it if you took the fever because of your Y/ n, why you have not come to us no more seems that you are avoiding us as the plague but in particular you are avoiding me, as at this moment you are not looking into my eyes and do not understand the reason, where did the Y/n that i knew until a couple of weeks ago go?" “I’m not avoiding you, lately i've been busy and i realized that i spent a lot of time with you and honestly didn’t want to become too much for you" You didn’t have the rush to tell Sunghoon that you had heard those words and at that moment you just wanted to go back to your room. “Bullshit Y/n, have you been hanging out with Jake, his girlfriend for weeks, and last weekend you even went with Sunoo and Jungwon to your favorite singer’s concert because you don’t write me anymore or come talk to me like before?" You were seriously tired of Sunghoon before he said that you were too clingy with him and then he wanted to see you

"Stop Sunghoon i heard you tell Jay that i was too sticky and you didn’t want me to dinner with you, if you didn’t like me just tell me from the beginning instead the closer you got to me i thought you liked it, but i was wrong" You didn’t want to let him take the rain but you were tired of your feelings for him and tried to leave but a hot grip stopped your pulse and after a few seconds you felt his lips crash into yours, they were slightly rough because of the cold but shivers burst through it and without thinking you dropped your umbrella and stood on tiptoe to draw him closer to you. At that moment it was only you and the boy with the heart of ice but that in the bottom was not so much of ice because he had begun to melt slowly every time you spent time together.

JAKE

Jake loved physical contact with anyone he knew and at the same time loved to receive hugs, cuddles, and body kisses from you. He was always the first to touch you, he was the one to take your hand and put it glued to his inside his jacket pocket so that you do not feel cold, he was the one who hugged you like a koala when you had to go to college and he was the one who fell asleep in your chest or loved to rest his head and his hair that tickled your neck during a break of Netflix & Chill lying on the couch or in your rooms.

You and Jake were lying in bed in your room watching one of your favorite movies, and to your great surprise Jake wasn’t hugging you or like every time you watched a movie he would put his head in your breasts and hold you tight with his big hands, you thought he was just tired and then you started to give him some glances and to your dismay, he seemed only focused on the film and not on you.

After a while, you started to get closer and closer until you put your body next to his and made your legs intertwine in his but even that gesture did not seem to attract his attention of Jake, but his serious expression began to crumble when he felt your hands slightly cold go under his sweatshirt and hug him as he did when you were lying in bed.

"Jakey, Jakey why aren’t you hugging me or what do you know about being near me? We all know you are weak in touching me but especially to hug me when we are lying down or sitting!" You slightly pushed the boy with the Australian accent and a slight laugh came out of your lips when you saw him fix his hair, you knew that he only did it on two occasions when he was embarrassed about something or when he was pissed.

"Maybe you’d rather be hugged by that stupid seal who gave you your enhypen bias and we all know it’s not me, or i'm too clingy with you complaining to your friends."

You couldn’t believe he was jealous of a seal that had won Heeseung while you were all together in an arcade but Jake was also not jealous when he saw you talking to a boy because he knew you loved him and that you were his, but he hated that seal only because he thought he had more time than him to be with you.

"When i have ever complained that you were too clingy with me?" a flash of frustration formed on Jake’s face and after a few seconds he took you by the hips and put his legs over you.

"Angel i know sometimes i can be too clingy towards you and maybe even protective but if something you don’t like just tell me and we can discuss it together, i didn’t want to listen to your call with your friends but i heard you were talking about guys and i was also flattered by certain things that you said about me like the one in which you boasted where i learned some sentences alone of your language and that i managed to speak Spanish in a bar, but then i heard that i was too clingy towards you and i felt stupid because all the members told me that i was always clingy to you when i saw you." You shook hands with Jake’s and for a moment it seemed to see a Jake hurt because of you but it wasn’t exactly like that

"Did you stay until the end of my call with my friends? because i admit that i said you are very sticky with me but that is an aspect of our relationship that i love because we both know that at first, i was shy towards you but also slightly cold with physical contact. You have helped me a lot to open up both in character and also in physical fact because now i embrace my friends and family much more" Jake’s cheeks turned slightly red and he squeezed you to himself and a light kiss leaned into your forehead and then in your hair.

"I’m foolish not to have listened to your conversation because i am delighted that i helped you with my ways to open yourself up to people and make you feel more comfortable with people, i love you Y/n but now can i go back to hugging you and holding you to me?" a light laugh came out of your mouths.

"Of course, you can embrace me and always be yourself with me because i fell in love with you for the person you are with your strengths and weaknesses".

[unnatural-happenings]

Of Capes & Billionaires

Took a break from staring at my Persona drafts again to write this instead lol. Would be the first part to this if I decide that finishing the future drafts is worth the time spent away from the Persona fic (ie if I enjoy it)

Fandoms: Batfam x Reader x Avengers

Characters: Damian and Loki. Some of the Batfam and Avengers are here too, but the focus is mostly on them

Notes: Reader is They/Them, Loki is here because I want him to be, Reader is a kid of Bruce Wayne, While this isn't a neglectful!Batfam fic the relationship is still tense atm, for Marvel I try to stick to MCU personalities but a little bit of comic or cartoon quirks might make it in

┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈✁━━━━━━━━━━━

Living with Bruce Wayne has always been frustrating. The rules, the expectations, the press, galas, and vigilante nonsense makes for an extremely stressful environment. Adding family drama on top of all that is a surefire way to make you slip away at the nearest convenience.

Your second home with the Avengers is more carefree—less brooding, way less pretending, and always welcomes you back with open arms… and maybe a drink or two. They're your safe haven, and you'd love nothing more to keep it that way.

Unfortunately, your family has never been good at letting secrets stay secrets.

┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈✁━━━━━━━━━━━

Damian could not believe this farce you're playing is still ongoing. You continue to vex him even in your absence and make his evening worse.

It had been a long day. School was as dull as usual, the teachers not teaching anything new and his classmates completely vapid, he'd taken care of every one of his pets, already got Grayson to spar with him, the rest of his brothers have vanished, and patrols wouldn't start for another hour.

He was as free as can be and it left him annoyed beyond measure. His go to option for filling up dead time wasn't available—to his complete ire—so he spent time in his room trying to draw while Alfred the cat curled up next to him. Though he could barely focus on what he was actually putting to paper, as his mind kept drifting to the one person responsible for his current lack of activity.

Stewing within his head and staring at a sheet of paper filled with mindless doodles is when his phone buzzes next to him. It's in a familiar rhythm that has him instantly pick it up to check the notification.

Fury is the only acceptable word for what Damian's currently feeling.

His sketchbook is haphazardly thrown onto the bed as he gets up—annoying Alfred—and makes a beeline for the door. He storms through the manor, every step fueled by a deep, aimless frustration as he throws open one of the many entrances to the Batcave.

Everyone's already arrived before him—or it's better to say they were all already there, and all strewn about the place. Though he cares little for their positions when Drake is the only one that can provide any answers.

Damian's eyes dart to the Batcomputer to see what you just posted to your social on one of the bigger screens, and Drake typing away on another. It was a picture of you standing on the snowy peak of mountain—drinking hot chocolate, along with some blonde guy that definitely didn't deserve to stand in your presence.

"Drake."

"I know, I know, I'm already on it."

He stands there and watches as Drake goes through file after file, checking as much surveillance footage as possible and putting the unknown's face through every registry he could think of. By the end, everything comes back negative and he slides downwards in his seat with a groan.

Todd puts down the gun he was cleaning, obviously barely paying attention to what was happening on the screen having resigned himself to lack any expectations.

"Let me guess, nothing again."

Drake runs a hand over his eyes and Damian scoffs when he notices his leg start bouncing, "He still shows no results and they're no longer in that location anymore. This was posted long after they already left… Again."

He can't believe what he's hearing. To have gone this long without finding a single clue leaves Damian doubting Drake's skill altogether.

"I thought you were supposed to be the computer genius of the family. How come you still haven't found a clue as to where our sibling is located?"

Drake lets out a sharp exhale, "We've been through this ten over times now and every search has ended the same. They post the pictures when they're already out of the area, they have location tags and their GPS turned off, despite clearly being all over the world their profile always signs in from Sydney Australia, their email isn't real, they're using a highly encrypted device even Oracle is struggling to deal with, every purchase they make is either in cash or using another persons card, and somehow, not once have they been caught on camera by any surveillance."

He goes on to mutter under his breath, too low for Damian to make out any words, but it further irritates him anyway.

"Are you positive you're even trying? It's not like they're not some elusive figure."

Drake spins in the chair to directly face Damian, his extreme irritation made know at his prodding, "I wouldn't even slack during an investigation for Kite Man, to think I'd do so for any member of our family is insulting. I want to find them as much as you do. It's also necessary to learn how they've been able to avoid detection for so long—"

"Well it sounds like you're only searching because they hurt your ego."

"Are you hearing yourself—"

"Enough."

Their father calls out from the side. He doesn't do anything else other than stand their and stare, but it's enough to instantly silence both of them and keep them from continuing. He gestures with his head towards the screen, and Drake rolls his eyes before spinning back around.

From behind the bat, Jason speaks out while cleaning one of his firearms, "So what? Either he continuously wipes every database in the world, or he doesn't exist?"

Grayson also finally decides to join in with a comment of his own, "Could he be photoshopped at all?"

He walks closer to the screen to get a better look at the man you're posing with in the picture. Cain follows behind him, carefully studying the photo as well, but not adding anything to the conversation as of yet.

Drake sits up in his seat, his anger fading into exhaustion with another sigh, "No." He starts another scan of the blonde's face through a meta/mutant database, "Both options are seemingly impossible, considering they go everywhere together with no evidence of photo tampering. One moment they're on the beaches of Denmark and the next they're skiing in Canada!" He mutters under his breath, "Not to mention they didn't even take enough money to go on all these flights. I have no idea where they're getting the funds for this."

He slumps over again when the results turn up negative, just like every other.

Todd strolls over like he has no care for the outcome, but it only takes looking at his face to see how this is affecting him. His jaw tense as he glares directly at the light-haired man, no doubt trying to burn his appearance into his memory. Damian has also done this himself. but truly, he doesn't think Todd's earned the right to be as mad as he is at your disappearing act, and it makes his own blood boil even more.

"Tch. We wouldn't be going through such troubles in the first place if they took their phone with them. We should not be learning about their location through second hand sources."

That was merely meant to be a statement regarding the inconvenience of their search despite being family, but Todd felt the need to add to it and make it more personal.

"We wouldn't be trying to find them at all if they didn't run off without saying anything, then start hangin' out with a guy we can't track."

"They wouldn't have even left if you all didn't—"

"Are we really doing this now?"

This time, their father doesn't interfere as Damian starts another argument, merely grunt in disapproval. Cain takes one last look at the picture and leaves Grayson's side—who in particular is wondering if he should step in to stop the increasingly violent fight—to walk up to Bruce.

He acknowledges her with a nod and she gets right to he inquiry, "… What about Superman?"

Cain's interjection causes Damian to put a pause on reaching for the nearest batarang to fling past Grayson at Todd. He needs to hear if the Super family has any word on your whereabouts. They should, but if for some reason they know nothing or refuse to help, it shouldn't be to hard to get information out of Jon.

"He refuses to tell me anything, and has made a conscious effort to not report any potential leads to their location in Justice League systems."

Drake turns towards everyone again in the chair, "Conner hasn't said anything either."

Grayson's in the middle of picking up batarangs lying about the cave and putting them in his inner jacket pockets, "They don't want to be found that bad huh…" When he's collected all that he can see he steps in front of Todd—ignoring the hard look he's getting from him, "At least they seem to be doing okay for now."

Todd rolls his eyes and makes his way over to his bike, "Why are we even trying this hard to find them in the first place?"

Damian turns his attention back to Todd with a glare, baffled by the idiocy and his seemingly short-term memory loss. Before he could remind him again that this whole situation is partly his fault, Drake replies

"You were on B's side weren't you? You know why."

Todd looks back towards the group, and for a moment Damian could see how tired he actually was. His shoulders slouched and the bags under his eyes became more prominent, though the frustration at the world—or maybe just towards their father, is still clearly evident.

"I really don't anymore." And just like that he was back to acting indifferent about everything. He hops on his motorcycle and starts the engine, then digs through his bag for his helmet, "Goin' on patrol. Anyone joinin'?"

Already in her suit, Cain is quick to jump on the back of his bike. She accepts the spare helmet Todd hands her without question and swiftly locks it in place as he revs the engine.

Father steps forward, his tone stern as he watches them prepare to leave, "It's not—"

"It's already dark out. Don't start this again, we're still dealing with the consequences of the last one." Jason snaps back. With that, they take off out of the cave without another word.

Grayson leans over Drake to scroll through the rest of your pictures. Multiple of the recent pictures include the very same man that none of them are able to put an identity to. Drake and Damian also scanning each photo they go through, hoping for anything to make sense about the mystery man. In every picture you're happy and don't seem worried about him at all. None of your expressions seem fake either, if only a little exaggerated in some. You act like you've known this guy for years, so why hasn't anyone heard of him before?

Drake runs a hand over his face a d huffs out his next words, "This guy bothers me."

Grayson leans his arm on Drake's shoulder, ignoring his attempts to swat him off, "I know right? He's blonde, that just spells trouble."

"… That's not what I meant at all."

Damian tunes out the chatter from the peanut gallery and turns to his father to inform him on his plans, "I will ask Jon if Kent has informed him of anything, or if they know where they are already."

Drake snorts and lets out a quick 'good luck with that'. Damian has to fight the urge to turn around and insult him for even daring to laugh at his attempts. At least he was still doing something, unlike some of the others.

Then he thinks back on the argument that got you to leave unannounced in the first place and he changes his mind. Half of this family isn't good enough to go searching for you anyway. He's sure if you spotted them, you'd make sure you're never found again. All this over something so idiotic.

Whatever. Once he finds you he'll make sure something so asinine won't happen again, so you won't have to feel like you need to escape again. He'll beat it into everyone's head over and over to never look down on you again if it meant you'd tell him what's going on.

Maybe he should deal with that unknown with you as well. Whoever he is, he's way beneath you, and you shouldn't be giving your time to him at all. What would make you stoop so low as to hangout with random civilians over your own family?

┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈✁━━━━━━━━━━━

"I swear to God if you throw that blue shell—"

"Too late."

You can do nothing but curse as your position is threatened. All you have is a green shell with a single coin in your back pocket, with no item boxes nearby to try for a boombox. Within seconds you're screaming as the blue shell reaches you and blows you into oblivion. You watch the entire race pass you while waiting for your kart to stop spinning out, ignoring the cheering from the God of Thunder and the victory lap the archer is currently doing around the room. By the time you can drive forward you have no hope of catching up to the front of the pack with no items and no coins, and come in 7th place. You fall off the couch to kneel on the floor, muttering about how you've disgraced your entire linage.

Natasha nudges your back foot from her position on the couch. She doesn't look up from the book she's reading, but obviously is addressing you with her next words.

"You still won the grand prix. Clint isn't even close, and Thor wasn't really competition to begin with."

You shake your head and lean back onto your knees, "You don't understand Nat. Every loss is a severe scar on my record. A stain. Something to be held over my head for years to come. I need to make up for this failure by setting the new world record on the track I've let best me in a moment of weakness."

That's when she looks up from the book she's reading, her brow quirked, not even trying to hide her amusement at your misfortune, "Aren't you already the world record holder?"

"It's obviously not good enough."

"You only lost because of a blue shell."

Suddenly you're being lifted off the floor. Extremely muscular arms wrap around your middle and pull you into a toned chest. Along with the deep laughter coming from the man behind you, and noticing the missing God of Thunder on the couch, you're easily able to identify Thor's the one to pick you up.

"You did splendid! You're mastery has indeed improved since we last versed one another, as have mine! Though Barton…"

Both of you bring your attention back to the archer to see he's still doing victory laps around the room.

"'Twas but a cheap trick. I assure you his proficiency is far below yours."

"A cheap trick means nothing. I still lost, and to him."

Thor only responds with more laughter.

Clint finally stops his self congratulatory dance to… correct your very wrong opinion of him, "Hey, that was not cheap! I worked hard to drive that Blue Shell to the front of the race!"

You wiggle until Thor puts you down, not wanting to argue held in his arms, "You're bagging tactics are cheap and lame!"

"Bagging requires skill—Wait you were bagging our last race! Why are you getting mad at me!?"

Suddenly a book slams closed, cutting off your oncoming rebuttal and drawing everyone's attention to the corner of the room. Another god sits in the corner, his displeasure made evident through the scowl resting on his face and the closed book on his lap. He stands with a level of grace only a spoon fed, self righteous royal could attain, causing you to grumble under your breath—assuming he's only acting this extra because he either wants something, or is planning something.

He shoots you a glare before addressing everyone in the room, his voice underlined with irritation, "You lot are trying my patience with your incessant howling. Attempting to put up with this noise any longer may cause severe damage to my own sanity."

You're heart sinks a little as he makes his way to leave, but on his way past he grabs the back of your clothes and drags you with him without a second thought.

"H-HEY! LOKI WAIT! THE GAME!"

The others do nothing to help you, all used to you acting as the mischief maker's shadow, whether willing or not. You make sure to flip them off before you turn the corner, seeing Natasha shrug and go back to her own book and Thor wave with one of the largest smiles you've seen on him. Clint only laughs at your predicament, so you mentally note to make him your target the next time you play a party game.

Once you're far enough away and Loki has slid his hand from the back of your clothes to your wrist do you speak up.

"You could just ask me to walk with you y'know?"

"So you wouldn't have thrown yourself to further rot away by the hands of that game to accomplish some arbitrary award that grants you nothing but bragging rights?"

"… No?"

"Don't lie to me."

You don't respond, and it's silent as you let Loki take you to wherever he's going. Soon enough you find yourself in front of your bedroom, Loki letting go of you and easily phasing through the door. With a roll of your eyes and complaints under your breath you follow after him.

He's already taken a seat on the egg chair you have next to the bookshelf and opened his book. You huff before looking around for things to do. There isn't much in the room, you never stayed long enough to bother personalizing it, but you do spot the Gamecube Tony bought for you as a joke. He was getting tired of you not doing anything, so he got that and a shelf full of games—said he was buying you a personality.

"Do not tell me you're still going to play that aggravating racing game?"

You continue to set up the console as you reply to him, "It's only aggravating when I'm playing with Clint, and is the one thing I have over Tim, so I gotta make sure I stay better then him." You look over to him and see he's still got his head in his book, "And you're reading! what else do you want me to do!"

Loki ignores most of what you said, only focusing on one thing, "If you are that keen on thinking about your family through every action then why are you still here? I thought you hated them."

"I just need time away." You sigh as you're thoughts drift a little more to the rest of your family, "That house is suffocating, but that doesn't mean I love them less. They're just being annoying."

A laugh escapes you when you think about how annoyed some of them must be right now due to your recent stunt, "That, and it's really funny being petty."

Loki let's it go as he chuckles himself, "Speaking of being petty, where's our next photoshoot? I'm sure they enjoyed seeing our last in the mountains."

You laugh more freely now as you bring your attention back to the game, pushing aside the more troublesome thoughts, "I heard Tony owns a private beach house. I'm sure he wouldn't mind us dropping by for a couple pictures."

[pluckyredhead]

Recently I came across your post about how we know little we know about what Jon's life looks like outside of him being Superman and could not have agreed with you more. I was wondering if you had any thoughts/wishes about where you'd like to see Jon as far as school/career choices?

So since writing that post I have discovered that DC has a digital-only comic where Jon interns at the Daily Planet, which I am going to assume is not in continuity since typically the webcomics aren't...?

Anyway my answer to your question is: not that. (No shade on the comic itself, I've only read one issue so far.)

DC has completely neglected Jon's life outside of being a superhero/having a boring relationship, and that's because none of their current comics really leave space for life outside of all the punching, but what they've unintentionally done is created a Jon who feels really...aimless. Vague. He has no ambition. He has no interests except being Good Bisexual Representation. (Compare him to Damian, who is passionate about both animals and medicine and also has, like, specific video games and hobbies he enjoys.) He got leveled up to Superman when Clark left the planet, but then Clark came back and so now he's just kind of...this extra pointless Superman who is younger than the only remaining Superboy.

So I would love for them to steer into that. Give me a Jon who doesn't know what he wants! Give me a Jon who doesn't even know how to start thinking about what he wants! Hell, give me a Jon who has no purpose and is maybe a little bit depressed about it!

Jon is surrounded by tremendously driven people. Both of his parents are extremely ambitious, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalists. His boyfriend is a college student (maybe? still?) and a journalist/influencer and also somehow head of communications for Steelworks despite being an undergrad (???) and ALSO on the Secret Six. His best friend is now younger than him but considering a career in medicine and also actually has to, like, train to fight crime, a thing Jon has never done for even one single second.

Meanwhile, in this past week's Superman Unlimited, Jon told his parents that his only long-term plan was "being a superhero" and then whined when they asked him to walk the dog because he literally wasn't doing anything else.

So make that a deliberate character flaw! Make that something Jon needs to confront and grow from! I mean, this is a guy with a fifth-grade education (admittedly not his fault) who dropped out of college before he even made it inside a building, has no job and no intention of getting one, and clearly doesn't spend his copious free time with his younger siblings (remember them?) or helping his parents around the house. He doesn't know what he wants, and he doesn't even know that he doesn't know it, and he's kind of being a little turd about it.

To be clear: I'm not saying Jon needs to be career focused or have some kind of high-powered job. I can easily see him being a very laidback person who only works to pay the bills and finds fulfillment elsewhere. But he's not finding fulfillment anywhere right now, unless it's with Jay, and putting all your emotional eggs in the basket of your first boyfriend who is very busy living a life that doesn't revolve around you is...uh, a bad plan.

Also...if you're living with your parents, and you aren't doing anything else...walk the fucking dog. Come on.

Honestly, I'd love for him to go back to school. Again: he has a fifth-grade education, and he's only like 17. Truly I don't know why his parents are asking him about a job when he has a secret identity again and could just...enroll. And college would be a great place for him to try a lot of things and figure out what he's actually interested in.

In terms of what that winds up being, I have no preference except Not Journalism. I think Jon going into the same career as both of his parents and also his boyfriend is just more of the same problem he already has, and also very creatively lazy.

But yeah, it's less that I want Jon doing anything in particular and more that I want him to start exploring what he could do. Let him figure out who he is!

[yyprompts]

PLEASE make a list of 100 rare words. PLEASE. 🥹

Usually I'd say no, but I'll do it this once...

I'll make a list of 50 and post another 50 tomorrow, then link the other one back here. 🤍

50 Rare Words in English Language.

.Luminiferous (adj.) - Creating, transmitting light.

Ailurophobia (n.) - An irrational fear of cats.

Heliolatry (n.) - Religious worship or reverence of the sun.

Selcouth (adj.) - Strange, rare, and marvelous simultaneously.

Unipara (n.) - A woman who gave birth to one child.

Snowball (v.) - To increase quickly in size, intensity, or importance.

Assail (v.) - To attack someone violently, heavily criticize someone.

Accountrement (n.) - Items of dress, equipment, or other items used, worn, or held for a particular activity.

Atelier (n.) - A workshop or studio, usually one utilized by an artist or designer.

Coruscate (v.) - Giving off or projecting light in bright flashes or rays.

Empyrean (adj.) - Relating to heaven or the sky.

Sumptuous (adj.) - Very rich, luxurious, or detailed in a way that appears expensive.

Desolation (n.) - A complete state of emptiness or destruction

Pastiche (v.) To imitate the style of another artist or piece of art.

Laconic (adj.) - A person, speech, or writing style that utilizes little words.

Snuggery (n.) - A cozy place such as a bedroom or den.

Vagrant (n.) - A bird straying or forced off it's usual migratory route.

Imperil (v.) - To put at risk or endanger.

Cabotage (n.) - The transportation of goods or passengers between two areas within the same nation.

Penitentiary (n.) - A prison intended for people convicted of serious offenses.

Imago (n.) - The unconscious idealized mental image of someone, usually a parent, which influences the person carrying it.

Hallux (n.) - Your big toe.

Ragamuffin (n.) - A person, usually a child, in ragged or unclean clothing.

Xanthopsia (n.) - A color vision deficiency causing predominantly yellow vision because of the yellowing of the optical media of the eye.

Derecho (n.) - A line of intense, widespread, rapid windstorms or thunderstorms that travels a great distance and is primarily characterized by it's damaging winds.

Nemophilist (n.) - A lover of the forest.

Woolgathering (n.) - Indulgence in aimless thoughts or dreamy imagining.

Patella (n.) - Synonym for kneecap.

Polydipsia (n.) - Excessive thirst.

Ligature (n.) - Any material tied around a blood vessel to prevent further bleeding.

Natter (v.) - To talk casually, usually about unimportant things.

Henpeck (v.) - A woman continuously criticizes and orders her husband/male partner around.

Sedulous (adj.) - A person or action that shows dedication and/or deligence.

Ultracareful (adj.) - Extremely careful.

Crapulence (n.) - A terrible sick feeling someone gets after drinking too much, or a stomachache from overeating.

Trigger-happy (adj.) - Ready to react violently, especially by shooting, to any provocation.

Rutilant (adj.) - Glowing or glittering with red or gold light.

White-hot (adj.) - Hot enough to radiate white light and heat.

Hodiernal (adj.) - Of this day, relating to the present day

Mondegreen (n.) - The mishearing or misinterpretation of a phrase that gives it new meaning.

Yclept (adj.) - By the name of, having the name of.

Farrago (n.) - A confusing mixture.

Turophile (n.) - A lover of cheese.

Glabella (n.) - The part of the forehead above and between the eyebrows.

Zetetic (adj.) - Proceeding by inquiry, investigating.

Corrugate (v.) - Contract or cause to contract into wrinkles or folds.

Striate (v.) - To mark with long, thin parallel streaks (striae).

Variegated (adj.) - Displaying different colors, especially in patches or streaks.

Splodge (n.) - A large blob or smear of something, synonym for splotch.

Nacre (n.) - Synonym for mother-of-pearl, a smooth irredescent substance forming on the inside of mollusks.

[hollowed-theory-hall]

Love the posts on Harry’s mischaracterisation!! It’s soo soothing to come across Harry appreciation!

How infuriating is it that everything he does, particularly his successful defeat of Voldemort, hinges on Hermione’s guidance. Fic writers out here writing smack like without her, the trio would’ve been lost and aimless. Or how Hermione’s spell repertoire kept Harry alive throughout school. Uhm, ex-bloody-cuse me? And then some fics go to the extremes of even making Harry a pliable weakling who can’t think for himself or make him apologise for coming off as self-righteous and prejudiced against the racist party? 🙄

Honestly, it’s seems less like terrible reading comprehension and more of extreme bias for their fav character, who is definitely so not Harry, and some blatant dislike of him instead. You never see the titular character so severely undervalued and made fun of in other series smh.

Thank you so much! 😊

Harry is my favorite and I can't get how people can dislike him so much after reading the books.

Now, I don't want to put down Hermione. Her spell repertoire and tendency to plan ahead did save their lives multiple times. Ron, also, had his share of clever heroic moments and he got to save the trio's lives too. And so did Harry. All three of them are smart, talented, and capable wizards in their own right. Like, the entire Golden Trio are not average and it's shown to be so repeatedly.

But, Harry is special. He is the main character and the chosen one for a reason. While Ron and Hermione are smart and talented, they don't have Harry's sheer magical talent that's on par with characters like Voldemort and Dumbledore.

Honestly, I find the weak-willed passive Harry more offensive than the unintelligent or magically inept one. Harry is so smart, but one of the most defining aspects of his character is his iron will and strength of character. It's a big aspect of what makes him special. what makes him the main hero. I mean, there's a reason he can naturally resist the Imperius. Harry James Potter is so strong. He goes through so much and is such a good person anyway. He's willing to stand up and keep fighting against impossible odds, and honestly, book!Harry is an inspirational character. There's a lot you can learn from him and aspire to (not everything, but his resilience is truly something to behold).

That being said, I don't think this is unique to Harry Potter (Ron bashing which often mischaracterizes him, for example) or the HP fandom as a whole.

I used to be a huge Percy Jackson fan (I kinda hate everything past the Last Olympian, HOO was not to my liking at all, but I digress). And from what I remember in fics and the PJO fandom when I was there (I think it's worse now, from the bits I see on occasion), it had just as much of a problem as the Harry Potter fandom does. Fanon often portrayed Percy as stupid, or this kind of sunshine character, when he really isn't. Fans complained back when House of Hades came out that Percy was OOC for chocking a goddess with her own blood, and I was sitting there, like, this is the guy that turned his abusive stepdad to stone with Medusa's head when he was 12 — are we really talking about the same character?

Percy in the first 5 books was clever, witty, genuinely funny, but also really bitter. He had loads of spite in him but he also genuinely cared about people and was incredibly loyal to his loved ones. The fandom, just turned him into a happy-go-lucky funny guy who can't get out of a paper bag without Annabeth (the smart love interest). And it infuriated me there too because I liked canon Percy.

I was also, a huge Gravity Falls fan (still am, actually, even if I'm not as hyper-fixated as I was in 2015). When I was in high school, I was in the Gravity Falls cipher-breaking trenches. I was analyzing that show frame by frame and spoiled all the plot twists to my irl friends because I saw the clues (such as predicting who's the author and the stan twins situation after s1 ep19). I actually predicted a good chunk of what's written in the Book of Bill that came out this year with the Bill Cipher psychological analysis I wrote when I was 15. (I feel so vindicated about that. I sent a bunch of quotes from the book to those same irl friends who thought I was overthinking Bill and the finale captioned: "I told you so").

Point is, the main characters of Gravity Falls (Dipper and Mabel) got so mischaracterized by fandom and fics back in the day.

Dipper was often pigeonholed as a goody-two-shoes awkward smart-guy nerd and fans complained he was OOC when he acted more vindictive in season 2, when, in fact, Dipper was always vindictive and could hold a mean grudge. (Dipper Pines, s1 ep8: "Revenge is underrated, that felt awesome!"). Dipper isn't a typical smart-guy character, yes, he's nerdy and clever and socially awkward, but he's also incredibly brave and determined. Honestly, Dipper's determination is his most defining trait, not his intelligence or intellect (which is sometimes more preformative, s2 ep7: "Sometimes I use big words and I don't actually know what they mean, I mean, I'm supposed to be the smart guy"), but I digress.

Mabel was the fandom's punching back around the finale of season 2 and the fandom treated her like a selfish horrible person for acting like a twelve-year-old girl who loves her brother. They made her out to be some kind of awful monstrous person when Mabel is one of the sweetest characters in media ever. She makes mistakes, she is a little selfish at times, but she truly cares about being a good person, about doing good and making people's lives better. Hell her worst confession was her feeling guilty about not loving all her stuffed animals equally and the fandom still called her evil. She also owns up to her mistakes, which is more than many people can say.

So, really, this disdain for the main characters and mischaracterization of them isn't new or unique to the HP fandom. I think it's been part of literature analysis since human literature existed if I'm being honest. It just feels worse now because everyone with an opinion has an internet connection and social media amplifies a lot of bad takes (but also a lot of good takes!). But, yeah, this is a prevalent fandom thing, but it isn't just the HP fandom.

As I said many times before, write and read whatever fanon content you feel like, have fun, but canon exists, and sometimes, canon is better.

[sunshades]

i always wished the animation in heathcliff's ego changed after c6.. i feel like bodysack has always been about his own self hatred and how he views himself as less than human, so when he's able to move past and grow from his trauma, this view of himself as less than human changes. i know that changing the art + animations would have been a hassle so i'm not that mad about it but it would have been neat

YEAHHHH. i mentioned it in a post before, but i do love the ambiguity of the bodysack and the feelings it connects to, that it's both about his warped sense of self and about the guilt over having consciously or subconsciously hurt the people he loves. in the end it all goes back to a feeling of displacement, of never being Right or Good Enough. it goes back to:

the base E.G.Os are a bit varied in what they represent because of well the sinners' stories being different, but since heathcliff's story has him facing his own self-hatred, it gives off a very different feeling from the others... snagharpoon for example is about ishmael's fight against ahab which goes back and forth between being righteous and being misguided, la sangre shows don quixote's dreamer side which becomes a positive after c7, land of illusion represents the flowing water that contrasts stagnation and even after the canto the negative implications feel so minimal you gotta squint to see them (boring. but i digress)- all very easy to translate to an uplifting interpretation with only a voiceline change!

on the other hand with bodysack... the voicelines are of course extremely expressive: the wrath and aggression at first, desperation and horror during the canto, then determination and resilience afterwards. but bodysack is different in that the "weapon" appears physically And as a metaphor in his canto, and therefore always carries a stronger meaning than many of the others. we're shown very thoroughly how the concept connects to heathcliff's life in various ways, all the anguish and shame tied to it... so that stays as relevant as the feelings of the voicelines, even when his focus should've shifted, so it leaves you a bit conflicted seeing it again. But. in a way. even if it ended up in a weird spot in the practical point of the long term visuals i am happy the narrative itself went that far, in text and implications and gameplay content.

i do think that as we go on with the cantos it won't be heathcliff alone- there's no way in hell looking at suddenly one day will ever remind u of anything but how horrible what happened to gregor was, no matter what voiceline update he ends up having, and forest for the flames is... well, just look at it. if they're supposed to reflect the sinner's emotions and subconscious i think by the end it'd be nice to have at least these three get an update reflecting the growth they'll have experienced in the story.

until then, it is still nice if we're taking those powers/manifestations as more of like. the things each sinner has taken in consideration about themselves, kind of. so for heathcliff rather than just Hes Moved On itd be, he remembers the way people treated him and how he thought of himself, and that it's something he doesn't want to stand for any longer... bodysack as acknowledging both the fucked up things that were done to him (the time at the heights) and that he did to others (the aimless violence in the syndicate years), and drawing power from it, with the awareness he's grown from it and now fights for a purpose.

particularly i feel like remembering that it relates to the time with the rabbits helps soften the imagery, as he starts it off with the Yeah killing remorselessly, but then it also signals a lot of positive things for him- the first time being in a place where he felt accepted, the first time he truly took control of his own life and like. thinking about how it was a syndicate with a culture centered on friendship and loyalty and that didn't really take advantage of people, and about how during that time he made friends and kept writing home out of consideration for catherine, then you can see it as an important moment for his personal growth and in his ability to express himself. so the same E.G.O can be a bit of a mixed bodybag [THE CROWD BOOS ME OUT OF THE POST]

[empty-movement]

May I ask what scanners / equipment / software you're using in the utena art book project? I'm an artist and half the reason I rarely do traditional art is because I'm never happy with the artwork after it's scanned in. But the level of detail even in the blacks of Utena's uniform were all captured so beautifully! And even the very light colors are showing up so well! I'd love to know how you manage!

You know what's really fun? This used to be something you put in your site information section, the software and tools used! Not something that's as normal anymore, but let's give it a go, sorry it's long because I don't know what's new information and what's not! Herein: VANNA'S 'THIS IS AS SPECIFIC AS MY BREAK IS LONG' GUIDE/AIMLESS UNEDITED RAMBLE ABOUT SCANNING IMAGES

Scanning: Modern scanners, by and large, are shit for this. The audience for scanning has narrowed to business and work from home applications that favor text OCR, speed, and efficiency over archiving and scanning of photos and other such visual media. It makes sense--there was a time when scanning your family photographs and such was a popular expected use of a scanner, but these days, the presumption is anything like that is already digital--what would you need the scanner to do that for? The scanner I used for this project is the same one I have been using for *checks notes* a decade now. I use an Epson Perfection V500. Because it is explicitly intended to be a photo scanner, it does threebthings that at this point, you will pay a niche user premium for in a scanner: extremely high DPI (dots per inch), extremely wide color range, and true lossless raws (BMP/TIFF.) I scan low quality print media at 600dpi, high quality print media at 1200 dpi, and this artbook I scanned at 2400 dpi. This is obscene and results in files that are entire GB in size, but for my purposes and my approach, the largest, clearest, rawest copy of whatever I'm scanning is my goal. I don't rely on the scanner to do any post-processing. (At these sizes, the post-processing capacity of the scanner is rendered moot, anyway.) I will replace this scanner when it breaks by buying another identical one if I can find it. I have dropped, disassembled to clean, and abused this thing for a decade and I can't believe it still tolerates my shit. The trade off? Only a couple of my computers will run the ancient capture software right. LMAO. I spent a good week investigating scanners because of the insane Newtype project on my backburner, and the quality available to me now in a scanner is so depleted without spending over a thousand on one, that I'd probably just spin up a computer with Windows 7 on it just to use this one. That's how much of a difference the decade has made in what scanners do and why. (Enshittification attacks! Yes, there are multiple consumer computer products that have actually declined in quality over the last decade.)

Post-processing: Photoshop. Sorry. I have been using Photoshop for literally decades now, it's the demon I know. While CSP is absolutely probably the better piece of software for most uses (art,) Photoshop is...well it's in the name. In all likelihood though, CSP can do all these things, and is a better product to give money to. I just don't know how. NOTENOTENOTE: Anywhere I discuss descreening and print moire I am specifically talking about how to clean up *printed media.* If you are scanning your own painting, this will not be a problem, but everything else about this advice will stand! The first thing you do with a 2400 dpi scan of Utena and Anthy hugging? Well, you open it in Photoshop, which you may or may not have paid for. Then you use a third party developer's plug-in to Descreen the image. I use Sattva. Now this may or may not be what you want in archiving!!! If fidelity to the original scan is the point, you may pass on this part--you are trying to preserve the print screen, moire, half-tones, and other ways print media tricks the eye. If you're me, this tool helps translate the raw scan of the printed dots on the page into the smooth color image you see in person. From there, the vast majority of your efforts will boil down to the following Photoshop tools: Levels/Curves, Color Balance, and Selective Color. Dust and Scratches, Median, Blur, and Remove Noise will also be close friends of the printed page to digital format archiver. Once you're happy with the broad strokes, you can start cropping and sizing it down to something reasonable. If you are dealing with lots of images with the same needs, like when I've scanned doujinshi pages, you can often streamline a lot of this using Photoshop Actions.

My blacks and whites are coming out so vivid this time because I do all color post-processing in Photoshop after the fact, after a descreen tool has been used to translate the dot matrix colors to solids they're intended to portray--in my experience trying to color correct for dark and light colors is a hot mess until that process is done, because Photoshop sees the full range of the dots on the image and the colors they comprise, instead of actually blending them into their intended shades. I don't correct the levels until I've descreened to some extent.

As you can see, the print pattern contains the information of the original painting, but if you try to correct the blacks and whites, you'll get a janky mess. *Then* you change the Levels:

If you've ever edited audio, then dealing with photo Levels and Curves will be familiar to you! A well cut and cleaned piece of audio will not cut off the highs and lows, but also will make sure it uses the full range available to it. Modern scanners are trying to do this all for you, so they blow out the colors and increase the brightness and contrast significantly, because solid blacks and solid whites are often the entire thing you're aiming for--document scanning, basically. This is like when audio is made so loud details at the high and low get cut off. Boo.

What I get instead is as much detail as possible, but also at a volume that needs correcting:

Cutting off the unused color ranges (in this case it's all dark), you get the best chance of capturing the original black and white range:

In some cases, I edit beyond this--for doujinshi scans, I aim for solid blacks and whites, because I need the file sizes to be normal and can't spend gigs of space on dust. For accuracy though, this is where I'd generally stop.

For scanning artwork, the major factor here that may be fucking up your game? Yep. The scanner. Modern scanners are like cheap microphones that blow out the audio, when what you want is the ancient microphone that captures your cat farting in the next room over. While you can compensate A LOT in Photoshop and bring out blacks and whites that scanners fuck up, at the end of the day, what's probably stopping you up is that you want to use your scanner for something scanners are no longer designed to do well. If you aren't crazy like me and likely to get a vintage scanner for this purpose, keep in mind that what you are looking for is specifically *a photo scanner.* These are the ones designed to capture the most range, and at the highest DPI. It will be a flatbed. Don't waste your time with anything else.

Hot tip: if you aren't scanning often, look into your local library or photo processing store. They will have access to modern scanners that specialize in the same priorities I've listed here, and many will scan to your specifications (high dpi, lossless.)

Ahem. I hope that helps, and or was interesting to someone!!!

[iluminated-goat]

I’d like to thank my friend @mirrorworldangel for inspiring me to finish this piece by their ficlet (go check out their posts NOW, they're awesome). I got inspired by Lady Tanith and Rykard from Elden Ring in this one (i fucking love them dude), and this is possibly the most dubious piece i’ve posted. So please, be careful and attentive of the tags please.

TW: child/sacrificial/arranged marriage, extremely big age gap (considering one of them’s a god and the other is a 12 y.o., so BE WARNED), religious themes, a bit of implied body horror/dehumanization too as a treat

Stanford who practically had his name ripped off the family after he moved and made a deal with an entity. Instead of making a deal with the god (which is essentially Bill or anyone else), man FUSED himself with it, becoming a mockery of nature and a twisted god of knowledge and greed (not in a “riches” way, more like an “i will do everything and anything to get what i want/reach my objectives” kind of greed). From the “blessings” he gave to the people of the town, they started seeing him as a higher being and worshipping him.

The years go by and no one talks about Stanford, his name being forgotten or unknown. After trimillennial years, Stanley is born. Things go the same for him, called stupid or seen as a disappointment (especially now, considering he’s an only child). So, being a kid without a stable support system and without friends, he mostly spends his time outside, going on pretend adventures with his friend/possum Shanklin and ignoring his feelings (this totally won’t have any consequences in the foreseeable future, none at all).

Stanford on the other side of the country felt a literal change on the force. While Stanley’s living his “best life”, man’s obsessing over the newfound feeling - so many years being glued to one place (even by his own will), he felt excited at the prospect of something new after god-knows how many years. He sends out some of his followers to see what was the cause of it, if he should be worried or not about this “change”, which is essentially how he finds out about Stanley.

Stanford’s morals were already… questionable. But after he fused with Bill???? Brother those things got even more twisted or are straight-out thrown out of the window depending on the situation. He’s curious about the brat - even more with the feelings that came. Just by the way his followers described him made him feel complete! As if some puzzle piece was missing all along, he thought it was fulfilled once he achieved godhood, but it was far better than it.

He wanted the boy.

He’s the God of Knowledge, a spiritual being that took physical form among mortals, with a group that would put their necks on the line for him. No mortal force could deny him anything.

When Filbrick and Caryn are visited by the cultists, Filbrick is exhilarated at the thought of one of the Old Gods blessing them with riches, so much he’s almost shoving Stan out the door instantly. Caryn, on the other hand, was inconsolable. The mere image of her baby being sacrificed to a mockery of nature made her want to cry. Stan doesn’t really understand, his mother isn’t looking at him and his father is just telling him not to mess anything up.

On the day of his “bringing”, his mother is helping him with his clothes. She looks thin, face sunken and eyes aimless as she fixes the red veil on his head. He’s wearing things that are more expensive than all the things in his house combined. An intricate golden border weaved on the red material, so big that it fell on his shoulders. A simple white and red gown with patterns embroidered on its short-puffed sleeves, rings and golden bracelets sitting heavy on his skinny arms. He smirks when he sees his reflection on the old vanity, he looks like a noble. He looks rich.

He asks his mom if his friend will like him. Caryn wants to cry.

Stan can’t help but feel giddy at all the attention he’s receiving. These people don’t even know him but they’re praising him, saying how amazing he is, how he’ll soon be loved by all, that his name will be known across the lands to the seas and to the skies. He feels sad his parents stayed behind for the ceremony, but they tell him that they’ll join after it. They eagerly push him towards the temple, leading him to the altar as he watches people cheer, laugh and celebrate his mere existence.

And there, he meets his “friend”.

His smile falls, a shiver runs down his spine. The people guiding him are oblivious to his turmoil, happily pushing him closer to the… creature. It might have a humanoid figure and be completely covered in multiple robes, but he’s not dumb enough to not recognize danger. What gets his attention is the six fingered hand slipping out one of the sleeves, taking his (tiny in comparison to the gigantic limb) hand in his. He was almost surprised at the gentleness of the action. It slips a ring on his fingers, saying something about eternal loyalty, branding him its “Lady”.

The entire church erupts in joyful screams at his hesitant nod.

It’s… actually really boring after the ceremony. They change his clothes to another gown and paint something in his forehead, guiding him to a more fancy building. They practically maneuver him to sit on the plushy chair, excitedly telling him about his position as the Proprietor and Consort. He’s like a psychic! 

The first week was awesome, seeing so many people walk the entire guest hallway just to talk with him and receive his visions and sermons made him feel so cool (if he could he would shove it on Crampelter’s face)! He could just say some nonsense and they’d eat it straight from his hands! And then the second week came, and the third, and he was so so bored. The only thing he did was sit there and say random bullshit. And the big guy of the cult didn’t even look for him once, and where are his cool powers??? 

Tired of the repetitive routine and being ignored, he leaves the manor and goes to the temple. He doesn’t give a shit if he’s interrupting the ninetieth sermon of the day or whatever, he pulls the guy’s robes and demands his attention. Yeah, the giant six handprint on the veil covering its face creeps him out, but the part of him who’s pissed yells louder. He’s smug at the astonished silence that comes from it (until it grabbed him like a kitten and raised him from the ground).

Their only ever real interaction happened some time after that.

 “Stanley was certain his friend was an ass.

The thing barely spoke to him - and he’s been there for weeks -, for some reason it’s obsessed with watching him from the shadows of his manor (he stopped giving attention to it once he realized it wouldn’t answer him), and depending on the angle you were looking at it, it seemed to have more limbs than normal moving under its robes. And after his little “interruption”, it seemed to take fun in tormenting him, using his fear of heights to suddenly lift him from the ground and carry him around the town. Seriously, what’s its deal?

So, with the will and the authority of a High Consort (whatever that means) and Proprietor of the Manor, he decided to look for answers!

He decided the best place to look was straight from the source of it all, the Temple. He decided to enter it - more like break in - after the evening, where the last praying hour would happen and it would be closed for the rest of the day. The people didn’t want to anger their “Lord” after this time.

Stan blew a raspberry, almost tripping on the flounce of his gown. Bunch of bull, his honest opinion.

Besides! This was the coolest hour! With no one around, the place looked like one of the scenes from the books with illustrations he stole once! He didn’t even see the Inquisitor wandering around.  The guy creeped him out (something something Fiddlesticks? Fliplick? Bleh, something like that), with that iron mask and that scythe, murmuring under his breath on his best days. Yeah, he preferred he kept his loyalty to his so-called Lord or whatever.

One thing he quickly came to realize was how unnecessarily long the hallways were. Not even his manor was that exaggerated. Multiple antique and fading paintings hung on the walls, ripped curtains and dusty shelves, surprisingly well-taken wooden and marble statues - some missing some limbs from the passage of time. He didn’t open a single door, in fear that it would suddenly appear and blow his cover.

His head snapped at the end of the corridor, the sound of sloshing and splashing coming from behind one of the doors. He covered his mouth, muffling his giggles. Jogging towards the door, he realized there was a bit of light coming from the slightly opened crack. Stan’s luck couldn’t have been better!

Slowly propping his hands on the wood, he smirked as pressed his face closer to the crack, excited at what he would discover. Maybe, he could even gossip about it to the others once they check his manor!

He regretted it almost immediately.

An eye stared back at him, but he’s pretty sure that wasn’t its face. Ripped muscles and hands sprouting from the wrong places, bones protruding the skin as if they were healed wrong or didn’t know where to go to make it fit, human legs hanging limply from the animalistic torso, organs he couldn’t even name falling and making a wet sound whenever it hit the skin, limbs pulsing and jerking as if they had lives of their own. He’s pretty sure he saw what looked like wings, randomly placed and varying in size.

Stan wanted to throw up. He needed to leave. Now.

Stan tried to push himself away, to get away and go back to his manor, to leave this town. In his haste, his foot got trapped on the length of his dress. His heart hammered as he fell face first on the floor, body slamming and rolling the door’s bottom stairs.

He moaned in pain, softly rubbing his forehead. That hurt. Who puts stairs behind a door?!

He froze as a shadow fell upon him, covering the entirety of the floor. He didn’t want to turn around. He really didn’t want to turn around. Well, he didn’t even turn, it decided to pluck him right out of the floor, holding him tightly in its hold. His body shook violently, as he was brought face-to-face to it - the worms roaming around its face falling on the floor with a firm “thud”.

Stan wanted to throw up.

It stared at him expectantly, he could see some simmering anger and curiosity in its eye (or what he thought was an eye), its body now hastily covered with its robes. Shit. Shit. What does he do?! What does he say?! Technically, it is his fault for breaking into its temple. And now he messed up by seeing it in its private quarters. Appeal to it? How?? Pray to him? He doesn’t know what to say! Make an excuse? It's the head of the town, it knows everything! 

“I- I-” Stan stammered as a hand came closer to him. “I- Umm- I really like- your wings!”

The hand stopped. Stan cheered internally.

“Y-Yeah! Your wings! They’re- they’re pretty cool!” Stan yelled. “I like their colors! Ummmm… blue looks good on you!”

It stared in silence. Until, tentatively, it brought him closer to its robes, a wing spreading out from underneath it. Crooked, some parts missing feathers and exposing raw skin. One thing he didn’t lie about was the colors. They… they actually looked kind of cool.

He was lightly shaken from the hand holding him, the creature now adjusting its hold so he could have his arms free. He looked at his hands, then at the wing who was now on arm's length.

Did- did it want him to pet it?

Hesitantly, Stan ran his fingers through the feathers. It was… soft. Really soft, nice to the touch too. He took care to not prod the exposed skin. He heard some chirps coming from behind him, becoming broader with his petting.

That- actually wasn’t so bad.”

Apparently, that’s all it took for the guy to get his head out of his ass. You know, simple things like actually talking to him, learning his name (the dude’s a behemoth and his name is Stanford), going on dinner dates, casually committing heresy, attempting to drag him out of the temple whenever the preaching goes on for too long. 

Stanley skittishly gets closer to the man, giving him (shy) backhanded compliments and giving him some of his sketches. Stanford seems fond of carrying him around in his many hands, letting him nap in his hold whenever he got tired of the manor - which moved to Stan spending most of his time sitting on Stanford’s shoulders. It’s months after when he’s putting more effort in his drawings and sermons, wearing the clothing gifts Stanford made for him; Stan moving into the temple and sharing a bed with the god, one of his hands covering his entire body that he realizes “omg i’m a follower just like these losers”.

[beifong-brainrot]

The more I think about it, the more I think Bolin could easily embody that "human treated as a weapon/tool, who also believes that of themselves" tropes.

Like, it is not a stretch to say that Bolin has been "used" at least three times by antagonists of the show. By Kuvira, for his unique bending abilities and his good reputation, by Varrick for his looks, charisma and popularitu and by Eska for physical labour and her... um... you know I think I'll need to make another long post about Eska's weirdly intense attachment to Bolin.

In these relationships there is an onbious pattern, Bolin letting a more assertive/experienced person take the lead and order him around. Even when he's hurt or humiliated or frightened, he keeps his head down and does what is required of him until some big event (usually only vagely related to his current predicament ) allows him to "break free".

But without a decisive push, Bolin often appears unable or extremely unwilling to disobey the people he views as currently 'in control of him'. Often he's manipulated or pushed into something he's uncomfortable with, or explicity doesn't want to do, even hurting those he cares about.

Sometimes I wonder if even Bolin subconsciously sees himself as just a tool for others to wield and command. That it's easier to let others take charge than to think for himself, than to deal with the responsibility of governing himself. A responsibility he was never taught to handle.

This, as most analysis of Bolin ties back to his traumatic childhood and his codependent relationship with Mako.

Bolin grew up following Mako's lead. He never got to peel off from Mako, never got to slowly build up his independence, as children in more stable environments do. Because seperation from his brother would usually mean danger.

Hell, Mako often acts like a strict parent, since he had to step up to the role. However, often Mako tends to disregard Bolin's own agency and preferences in favour of Bolin's physical safety. Which isn't a bad thing, and Mako was doing as best he could, however this does obviously lead to Bolin being a little stunted in the decisionmaking department.

Bolin lacks agency, as a person. He relies on others leading him. One of the reasons him and Korra get along so well. She's headstrong and decisive and can easily direct him. This is probably why he also gravitated to Kuvira after Korra became incapacitated. He even explained to Mako that "Kuvira is basically just like Korra".

Bolin likes to be given a purpose and that purpose is given to hin by other people. You can see how lost he is when left to his own devices. I mean, Mako left him alone for like 2 days in B2 and Bolin immediately glued himself to Varrick like an abandoned baby koala. And the only times he was able to stand up to Mako, someone who often guides him, is when Bolin is, let's say, "wielded" by someone else (Varrick or Kuvira respectively). It's also fucking painful that whenever Bolin does branch off from Mako, he's always slapped back down, because the person who lead him "astray" turned out to be a villain.

Especially between seasons, and post B4 when team Avatar isn't together, isn't actively driven to do something, Bolin gets lost.

He's aimless in times of peace. He bounces from career to career, unable to focus on anything, because he's so used to tob being directed to fight, to literally survive. It's also important to note that he started training under Toza when he was like 13, no wonder all he can do is combat.

This, coupled with his lavabending being one of Bolin's most prominent skills (also note that lavabending is the only discipline of earthbending we've seen that can't easily be translated into building or art. Lavabending is pure destruction, at least in the form we're shown.).

Korra has her Avatar status, wisdom gained through adversity and her determination. Asami has her company, her ingenuity and drive. Mako has his detective work, and deductive skills. Bolin's just a good fighter and occasionally lifting the mood.

How is he meant to exist in times of peace?

Even though he is clearly uncomfortable with conflict.

Does Bolin have any interests? Things he likes to do other than eat? Other than perform and contort himself for other people to like him?

I thought the mind control plot from Rote could've started an arc of Bolin realising he can be more than a pawn or a tool, but alas, the comic was dissapointing on many fronts, including this one.

I know Bolin is supposed to be the imamture comic relief character, but he's very compelling and multifaceted to me. He has a lot of potential to be a groundbreaking character, however it doesn't seem like the creators are going that way. So um. That sucks.

Also this whole thought process came to me from listening to She was a bird, I was an arrow and thinking of weilin so that's the context of this analysis lol.

I'm gonna need to clear these thoughts up after a while, but hey, enjoy the silly Bolin rambles

[rowanisawriter]

Kinda an insane ask so feel free to ignore this...can I get like a rundown on all the Fahad lore

👉👈

FAHAD LORE TIME

some basics

30 by the start of the game

determined, proud, impulsive, quick to anger

roamed the anderfels with his clan

was sent on a proving mission for the clan that should’ve been 2 weeks in the wilderness but he extended to 4 weeks because he’s stubborn and wanted to be impressive

returned to find his clan obliterated by blight

joined the wardens to get revenge and frequently butted heads with authority

recruited by varric after being sent away from the wardens for breaking one too many rules

extremely careless when fighting. fights like he wants to die 😍

relevant fic

the whole fahad series is all body, all blood but there are 4 core fics i think sketch out his character best. in order:

psychopomp —this is where fahad’s backstory comes out, the night before weisshaupt where he fully expects to go die

known places — during the lucanis mission “inner demons” fahad goes through lucanis’s mind. in this fic that takes place immediately after, fahad takes lucanis through his mind

future proof — lucanis and fahad are thinking about the future when neither of them expected to still be alive

afterlife — post game, fahad is aimless in treviso after the end of the world

romance

fahad’s canon romance is lucanis, i like their death wish/death dealer vibe, both of them are very focused and duty bound and repressed, both of them open up to each other against all instinct to stay closed, all my fics about fahad are also about lucanis and basically exploring their growth through the lens of the other

comm art of fahad

cute scene of him and lucanis

tarot card

scene from a fic

bruised and bloody

[hell-drabbles]

Curious about Companion and Asmodeus, I may or may not forget some posts regarding Asmodeus to the Companion so bear with me, I'm really wondering how Companion put up with Asmodeus who has the weird effect to y'know, make everyone around him "excited", and I wondered how it would affect Companion.

Both Companion before and after being angelified(if I spell it right :'3)

Aside from Companion being avoidant to procreation stuff, I feel like they could hold their ground from Asmodeus constant horniness. I, too, want to hit Companion in more than a way.. But no doubt Lucifer would have my head... I think it's worth the risk though hhehehehhhehehhehehhhehehe

Anyways, have a nice day. February already suck ass for me; mountains of projects left and right brah

Hmm I would imagine that the Companion isn't immune to Asmodeus's pheromone thingy, but the difference here is that while the Companion is "excited," it's a very aimless type of excitement. You know, in the same way you can be extremely hungry, but no appetite to satisfy it, so you're just opening and closing the fridge hoping for something to pop up and get your attention.

And, well, aimless horniess leads to frustration, and frustration leads to anger. So they attack. It also doesn't help that this type of horniess is very unnatural and the Companion knows it. But at least they have anger to ground them into reality. They survive out of spite and isn't that a fun sight to see.

But yeah, I think it would be fun to have it where the Companion does know Asmodeus prior to the events, but absolutely did not know he was a devil. Just thought he was a weirdo that keeps coming into the night clubs and bars. Get along with him all things considered, if only to have a different relationship with a devil king that isn't high caution, anger or frustration. One of the few people that can wrangle him to behave. I'm one of those people that actually doesn't believe in the whole "you can only have one true love," thing. I know people love the thought of the devils loving you and only you, and that Solomon was more a platonic love, but that's just boring to me. People can fall in love again, and people can have multiple true loves.

That being said, I feel like Asmodeus and Lucifer are in a similar circle, in that they're not interested in participating in dick measuring contests that the other younger kings tend to do. Not really territorial or impatient. They feel wiser, simply put, and I would like to add him to the small little harem I'm creating for the Companion. Because that's always fun.

I would imagine that out of all the devils, Asmodeus would probably be the devil the Companion would go to for getting out all of their sadistic desires. Cutting him up, over-stimulation that will begin hurting, fucking him into unconsciousness, you know the like. All devils can keep up, being devils but I would imagine nobody else would be as enthusiastic as him since he doesn't give a shit if they're related to Solomon or not.

Hedonistic devil that becomes more tame when the Companion commands it. A clear longing in Asmondeus's eyes, his voice becoming more quiet so as to impart words for only the Companion's ears. Someone as narcissistic as him actually holds high respect towards the Companion, enough to tone down the dramatics if need be. Real high faith in the Companion, so much so it makes Asmodeus laughs anytime anyone doubts their ability to thrive. Oh you silly small minded devils.

Either way, this terrifies every devil involved. Weird behavior from Asmodeus cannot be good.

Now, after the whole angelification event... I would imagine there's a new sharpness to Asmodeus and Lucifer, at least in the way they speak and act. It's not outright, certainly, but there's a clear disappointment every time they're called for a devil king meeting. Very delicious tension.

And as for how the Angelified Companion reacts to that aura of his... If not lucid, they'd probably try to eat Asmodeus on sight. They have a hair trigger aggression so any extreme bodily reaction tends to bring that out. It's also pretty dangerous when the Companion is lucid, because if they're experiencing too much all at once, then Asmodeus's aura will cause them to mentally shut themselves away, and it's back to that state of not lucid they go. He makes for an amazing lure actually, so he has his uses.

Though, Asmodeus being Asmodeus, he obviously cannot resist the fantasy of rolling in the hay with the Angelified Companion. He's a monster fucker and I cannot be convinced otherwise.

Ironically, I don't think Lucifer would take your head for wanting to tap the Companion. He's the embodiment of pride and he has this extreme self assuredness to him. As in, you don't even register as a threat to him, because he's just that confident that no other person can take the Companion away. Do as you please, he'd probably say.

But yeah, Companion can stand their ground very well. Probably one of the things that excites Asmodeus because who doesn't like the chase?

[mariacallous]

The Brazilian Supreme Court, a wide, low, glass-faced building with swooping colonnades, sits near the national legislature and the Presidential palace, on a vast paved expanse known as the Three Powers Plaza. It is as public a place as you can find in Brasília. Still, few people seemed to notice when, on November 13th, a middle-aged man dressed like the Joker parked near the court, walked a few paces away, and set off an improvised explosive device inside his car, igniting a fireball that rose above the pavement. He made his way to the front of the court, where a sculpture of blindfolded Justice sits holding a sword across her lap. The man reached into a backpack, removed a cloth, and threw it at the statue, apparently intending to set it on fire. Then, as security guards approached, he hurled two more bombs at the building and opened his jacket to show that he was wearing a suicide vest. While the guards looked on, he lay down in front of Justice and triggered another explosion, which thundered across the plaza, killing the man but leaving the statue unharmed.

The bomber was Francisco Wanderley Luiz, a fifty-nine-year-old locksmith from a small city in southern Brazil. When a police search team located the apartment where he had been staying, they sent in a remote-controlled robot first—a wise precaution, as it turned out. Wanderley had rigged a cabinet with another explosive device, which blew up when the robot approached.

In the febrile political atmosphere of Brazil, Wanderley’s public suicide inevitably had partisan implications. Investigators found that he had once run unsuccessfully for city council, as a member of the party dominated by the right-wing former President Jair Bolsonaro. For several years, Bolsonaro had engaged in a ferocious feud with the Supreme Court—and particularly with Alexandre de Moraes, a pugnacious jurist who is sometimes described as the second most powerful man in Brazil. After Bolsonaro took office, in 2019, de Moraes led an ever-expanding series of investigations into him and his family. As Bolsonaro’s supporters formed “digital militias” that flooded the internet with disinformation—claiming that political opponents were pedophiles, spreading blatant lies about their policies, inventing conspiracies—de Moraes fought to force them offline. Granted special powers by the judiciary, he suspended accounts belonging to legislators, business magnates, and political commentators for posts that he described as harmful to Brazilian democracy. His detractors called him a tyrant and an authoritarian, claiming that he was violating their rights.

In the fall of 2022, Bolsonaro ran for reëlection against Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, a political veteran who has been the mainstay of the Brazilian left for decades. Bolsonaro insisted throughout the campaign, without evidence, that security flaws in voting machines made it possible to steal the election. At one point, he warned, “If need be, we will go to war.” After Lula took office, a mob of some four thousand Bolsonaro supporters gathered in the same plaza where Wanderley later blew himself up. In a spasm of rage, they trashed the Supreme Court, the legislature, and the Presidential palace—an uncanny reprise of the assault on the U.S. Capitol two years before.

Bolsonaro denied any involvement, and his supporters protested that he wasn’t even in Brazil at the time. But, to investigators, even his absence from Lula’s inauguration, the week before, seemed suspicious. Rather than observing the custom of handing the sash of office to the new President, Bolsonaro had flown to Florida, where he remained for three seemingly aimless months, meandering through Orlando malls and taking selfies with Brazilian expats.

Eventually, Bolsonaro returned to Brazil, and in June, 2023, he was found guilty of “abuse of political power” and the “improper use of communication channels” to sow distrust in the electoral system—not jailable offenses, but ones that barred him from office for eight years. His followers complained that he was the victim of a “lawfare” campaign, and Elon Musk took up the cause. On X, Musk repeatedly attacked de Moraes, referring to him as an “evil dictator cosplaying as a judge,” and calling for his impeachment. At rallies, Bolsonaro’s supporters waved banners with Musk’s image and chanted, “Thank you, Elon!”

After Wanderley carried out his suicide attack, de Moraes described it as yet another manifestation of the virulent rhetoric that had permeated the Brazilian internet. “It grew under the guise of a criminal use of freedom of speech to offend, threaten, coerce,” he said. The chief of the federal police, Andrei Passos Rodrigues, made it clear that he agreed. “Even if the visible action is individual, there is never just one person behind that action,” he said. “It’s always a group, or ideas of a group, or extremism, radicalism.” Both suggested that Brazil was engaged in a war over who held the power to determine political reality. On one side were de Moraes and his allies. On the other was an international coalition of right-wing influencers, including Bolsonaro, Musk, and, increasingly, President Donald Trump.

De Moraes rarely speaks to journalists, but he agreed to meet with me to talk about what he calls “the new extremist digital populism.” The first interview took place six weeks before Wanderley’s attack, in de Moraes’s office—an airy space with a wall of windows that look out toward Lake Paranoá. Since the spring, he had been clashing with Musk over social-media accounts that de Moraes said spread hate speech and malicious propaganda. When de Moraes called for their removal, X refused. When he imposed fines, they went unpaid, and eventually he froze bank accounts belonging to X and Starlink, Musk’s satellite network. In August, de Moraes increased the financial penalties and implemented a nationwide ban on X. Musk briefly circumvented the ban through Starlink, which provides internet service to many Brazilians, but he was evidently rattled. His representatives soon assented to de Moraes’s orders, including taking down the offending accounts and paying the fines. De Moraes collected five million dollars and lifted the ban. Still, he knew that the battle with Big Tech was not over.

In his view, the fight over the internet began a decade and a half ago. “The far right noticed, during the Arab Spring, that social media could mobilize people without intermediaries,” he said. “At first, algorithms were refined for economic purposes, to captivate consumers. Then people realized how easy it was to redirect this toward political power.” He cast social media as a defining force of our time. “If Goebbels were alive and had access to X, we would be doomed,” he said. “The Nazis would have conquered the world.”

De Moraes told me that Brazil offered a significant testing ground for efforts to assert political power through the internet. Brazilians are particularly active online—they are among the world’s heaviest users of X and WhatsApp. And, unlike in other countries, the judiciary runs elections. “The far right wants to seize power—not by saying they oppose democracy, because that wouldn’t gain public support, but by claiming that democratic institutions are rigged,” de Moraes said. “It’s a highly structured, highly intelligent populism. Unfortunately, in Brazil and in the U.S., we haven’t yet learned how to fight back.”

Brazilians often refer to de Moraes as Xandão, or Big Alex, but he is not especially tall. He is, however, conspicuously fit; he runs, lifts weights, and spars with a Muay Thai partner several times a week. At fifty-six, he has a shaved head and a face that seems made for cross-examination, with a heavy brow, sharp cheekbones, and a jutting chin. He stares without appearing to care whether he’s being rude.

In our first meeting, de Moraes recalled that Musk had described him as “a cross between Voldemort and a Sith”—that is, between the bald “Harry Potter” villain and a bald “Star Wars” villain. “He mixed the two and said that’s me,” de Moraes told me, and laughed. “To be honest, I find it amusing.” He did seem offended, however, by Musk’s refusal to obey his orders: “Like all other companies, this one must comply with Brazilian law. The one who escalated the disobedience was the company under the direct command of its largest shareholder. And at that moment Musk became personally responsible as well.”

In conversation, de Moraes often veers between jokes and brusque legal assertions. He grew up in São Paulo, in a middle-class family; his father was a businessman and his mother was a professor. As a young man, he attended law school at the University of São Paulo—a training ground for the Brazilian political class which, over the centuries, has educated a third of the country’s Presidents. De Moraes was ambitious, and he rose quickly. By his late twenties, he had become a prosecutor and written a best-selling book on constitutional law. In his thirties and forties, he held a series of government postings in São Paulo, as the city’s secretary of transportation and as the state’s secretary of justice and eventually its head of public security—essentially, the police commissioner. At the time, no one would have accused him of left-wing sympathies. He was a law-and-order advocate who professed zero tolerance for crime. “The most developed countries are those where people respect the law—where people know that if they break the law there will be consequences,” he told me. He commanded a vast force of more than a hundred thousand officers, and sometimes sent in uniformed men and armored vehicles to disperse protests.

Then as now, de Moraes tended to shrug off criticism. “To be honest, I’ve always been controversial,” he told me. Yet there are moments in his career that seem questionable even to his supporters. One was his leap to national politics. In 2016, President Dilma Rousseff, a protégée of Lula’s, was impeached by a group of right-wing legislators who included Bolsonaro. Vice-President Michel Temer took over, but his tenure was shadowed by a potential scandal: a blackmailer had hacked his wife’s phone and threatened to release compromising photographs of her. The story was made for the tabloids—Temer was seventy-five years old, and his wife, a former beauty queen, was thirty-two. When Temer explained his predicament, de Moraes quickly assembled a team of investigators to track down the blackmailer and arrest him. As if in gratitude, Temer named him Brazil’s minister of justice.

In office, de Moraes had a performative flair that did little to calm his detractors. Video from the time shows him striding through a field of illegal marijuana, slashing down the plants with a machete. “When I became minister of justice, the entire left called me a coup plotter,” he told me, with a shrug. “They hated me. Now the far right hates me.” A popular social-media meme plays on the change in his public image. It shows the footage of him hacking through the field of pot—but in reverse, so that his machete seems to make plants spring up from the ground.

De Moraes had been the justice minister for less than a year when a vacancy opened on the Supreme Court, and Temer made him a justice. The court has eleven members, each serving until the age of seventy-five, and they wield extraordinary power. “When it comes to the extent of authority of the Supreme Court, we have no clear limits,” Felipe Recondo, a Brazilian journalist who has written several books on the court, told me. “They argue everything of importance, from taxes to racial issues to abortion.” Unlike in the U.S., many consequential cases go directly to the court, without needing to pass through appeals. De Moraes expected to attract controversy again; perhaps he even welcomed it. But, he said, “neither my colleagues nor I could have predicted that Brazilian democracy would be at risk. It reached a level that was unimaginable.”

Before Bolsonaro entered the 2018 Presidential election, few political observers took him seriously. After retiring from the Army, having risen no higher than captain, he had spent decades in the legislature, where he was distinguished mostly by his vitriol. He once described a female political opponent as too ugly to rape. Another time, he said that he would rather have a dead son than a gay one. Perhaps most alarming, he was openly nostalgic for the brutal military dictatorship that ruled Brazil from 1964 to 1985.

That regime began with a coup that ousted the left-wing President João Goulart. It was backed by the Lyndon Johnson Administration, during a grim era of U.S. support for Latin American dictatorships that purported to fight Communism. Brazil’s was particularly zealous. In twenty-one years, tens of thousands of citizens were detained and tortured, more than two hundred were killed, and another two hundred or so were disappeared.

In March, a panel was convened at the University of São Paulo’s law school to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of Brazil’s restoration of democracy. (De Moraes teaches a weekly course at the school, which occupies a neoclassical edifice in the city’s dilapidated downtown.) There were a half-dozen speakers, nearly all women, including a historian and two law professors. As an audience of about five hundred listened intently, they recalled their own youthful efforts to restore democracy and insisted on the importance of preserving it.

Cármen Lúcia Antunes Rocha, the country’s only female Supreme Court justice, linked the fight against the regime with the current conflict over social media. “To be free is to be unshackled, to move beyond the conditions of oppression that marked our past,” she said. “Instead of machines being subject to humans, humans are becoming subject to machines, and this brings new forms of tyranny. We are at risk of being chained by algorithms—by systems that know very well whom they serve.”

The final speaker was Marcelo Rubens Paiva, a prominent writer whose father was among the regime’s victims. In 1971, Rubens Paiva, a forty-one-year-old civil engineer and politician, was abducted from his home in Rio de Janeiro and tortured to death, leaving his family bereft. Marcelo, one of his five children, recounted the story in his memoir “I’m Still Here,” which inspired this year’s Academy Award winner for Best International Feature.

The men who abducted Paiva were indicted by federal prosecutors in 2014—but they have been protected by an amnesty law, passed as the regime was coming to an end, which has effectively kept the country from reckoning with the savagery of military rule. When Paiva spoke against the amnesty at the event, he received a standing ovation. “It’s the law that my mother fought for decades to overturn—not for revenge, but for justice,” he said. “And to this day we are still fighting for the truth.”

Part of what shocked people about Bolsonaro’s candidacy was that he didn’t just refuse to disavow the military regime; he called for it to return and finish remaking Brazilian society. “If a few innocent people die, that’s all right,” he said. The reverence for Paiva seemed to bother him particularly. When a statue was erected in Paiva’s memory, Bolsonaro spat on it—the kind of provocation that would eventually make him a star on social media.

Bolsonaro’s biggest advantage in the 2018 election, other than his gift for trolling, was that Lula was unable to run: he had been imprisoned on corruption charges, which were later reversed. Bolsonaro won by a wide margin, and took office promising to be a “defender of freedom.” Two of his sons also won seats in the legislature. But there were questions from the start about how online disinformation had skewed the results.

In the run-up to the election, the Brazilian internet was filled with an incredible volume of false and inflammatory claims. People passed around images purporting to show boxes of illicit ballots on a truck bed, or a left-wing politician posing with Fidel Castro. An analysis by Agência Lupa, a prominent Brazilian fact-checking organization, found that only four of the fifty most shared images were legitimate. Many of the most outrageous falsehoods were aimed at Bolsonaro’s opponent, Fernando Haddad. One meme showed a check for millions of dollars, ostensibly paid to Haddad by a criminal gang. Another, particularly widespread one claimed that he was distributing penis-shaped baby bottles in elementary schools, as part of a “gay kit.” A study published later found that almost eighty-four per cent of Bolsonaro voters believed it.

Those who called attention to disinformation became targets. Agência Lupa recorded as many as fifty-six thousand threats a month. Among the bolsonaristas’ greatest antagonists was Patrícia Campos Mello, a reporter at Brazil’s foremost newspaper, Folha de São Paulo. Campos Mello, now fifty-one years old, has spent decades covering major events in Brazil and around the world, including the wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and Syria. When I got in touch to ask about her reporting on Bolsonaro, she responded from a frontline bivouac in eastern Ukraine.

During Bolsonaro’s campaign, the Brazilian press began reporting on how a group of his close advisers, including his son Carlos, established what they called the “hate cabinet,” which generated online propaganda and disseminated it through a network of supporters and bots. (Carlos and other associates have denied this.) Campos Mello broke a series of stories about businessmen who were financing a torrent of WhatsApp messages that denigrated Haddad. “They were hiring marketing agencies that offered assembly lines of disinformation,” she told me. “They had dozens of people inside rooms, sending thousands of messages to databases of voters they bought on the gray market.”

Campos Mello secured overwhelming evidence of how the firms operated, including photos, messages, and testimony from former employees. When the stories were published, she told me, “the Bolsonaro trolls went nuts.” They spread claims that she had been fined by the Supreme Court for spreading false information, that the story had been paid for by Lula’s party, and that she was a Communist. Strangers called her phone, shouting insults and warning that they would attack her. “Then they started sending messages threatening my son, who was six at the time,” she recalled. “People yelled at me in the street, hacked my phone.”

She cancelled public appearances, and the newspaper hired her a bodyguard. But she published more stories, showing how Bolsonaro’s social-media operation had gained access to voter databases and hired foreign agencies to promote falsehoods online. Bolsonaro sued for defamation. The suit failed, but the campaign of intimidation only grew more intense.

In February, 2020, Campos Mello had just returned from covering Bolsonaro’s visit with the Indian Prime Minister when the Brazilian legislature convened a hearing about disinformation in the electoral campaign. At the hearing, one of her sources testified—but with representation from a lawyer with ties to the far-right party of Bolsonaro’s Vice-President. To her astonishment, the source claimed that she had offered sex in exchange for information. His testimony also included pictures of the social-media operation, which inadvertently confirmed her reporting, but that fact was quickly overshadowed. Soon after the hearing, Bolsonaro’s son Eduardo gave a speech from the floor of the legislature, accusing her of seducing sources to entrap his father.

“It was the end of the world,” Campos Mello said. Bolsonaro supporters in the legislature and on the internet called her a whore. The worst invective was fuelled by an influencer named Allan dos Santos, she said: “He posted porn stuff about me, tagged me, and called on his supporters to make memes.” Trolls created fake pornographic images of her, and some threatened rape. A few days after the hearing, Bolsonaro told a group of supporters that Campos Mello “wanted to get the scoop at any price.” In Portuguese, the word for “scoop” also means “anus.” After that, the memes and rape threats began referring to anal sex.

Finally, Campos Mello decided to sue Bolsonaro and a group of his supporters, including Eduardo and dos Santos. She also published recordings of the interviews with her source, to demonstrate that there was no sex involved. Meanwhile, Lula’s Workers’ Party filed a suit, based on her reporting, that argued that Bolsonaro’s online manipulations disqualified his candidacy. The case eventually landed before de Moraes and his fellow-justices, who ruled unanimously against overturning the election—though de Moraes warned that such tactics could be disqualifying in the future. “Justice is blind, but it is not foolish,” he said.

Over time, Campos Mello was largely vindicated. WhatsApp acknowledged the irregular use of its platform during the election and promised to take legal action against the marketing agencies involved. New laws were passed to prohibit mass messaging on behalf of candidates. And all the men Campos Mello accused of slandering her were found guilty. “So far, Allan dos Santos lost the lawsuit, and owes me money, but he is currently hiding in the U.S.,” she told me. “Eduardo Bolsonaro lost in several courts and is now appealing to the Supreme Court, saying that he has parliamentary immunity. But immunity to suggest that journalists are basically whores?”

The right to free speech is guaranteed by Brazilian law, but it is less absolute than in the United States. As de Moraes notes, the country’s constitution, ratified in 1988 after a history of coups and the recent military dictatorship, was designed in part to “resist anti-democratic movements.” Racist speech is forbidden. So are “crimes against the democratic rule of law” (such as spreading falsehoods about the electoral system) and “crimes against honor” (such as claiming that your opponents are raping children).

Among the messages spread by Bolsonaro’s “hate cabinet” were insistent accusations that the Supreme Court was illegitimate. Before long, threats began circulating online about kidnapping or killing justices. Ordinarily, the prosecutor general’s office would investigate such threats, but it apparently never did. So the Supreme Court, invoking a statute that empowered it to investigate any “violation of criminal law within the premises of the Court,” opened its own inquiry—essentially becoming victim, prosecutor, and judge. De Moraes was put in charge of the effort. He was experienced in police work, and, unlike most of the other justices, he was adept at political maneuvering. As Recondo pointed out, he was also unusually tenacious. “If you give him a mission, he’ll pursue it to the end,” he said. “And, for him, this case was like blood in front of a shark.”

Bolsonaro was already surrounded by scandal. His son Flávio had been found to be paying a salary to the wife and the mother of a fugitive policeman who was wanted for running a murder-for-hire operation. There were questions about the family’s real-estate holdings, which included some fifty properties around Rio—purchased, implausibly, on Bolsonaro’s government salary. De Moraes began to investigate, and, Recondo said, he never really stopped: “Bolsonaro kept committing crimes, and so Xandão kept leading new investigations.”

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Bolsonaro dismissed the danger, even as the country endured one of the highest death tolls in the world. When the health ministry stopped publishing daily statistics on the spread of the disease, de Moraes ordered it to begin releasing the data within forty-eight hours. Eventually, demonstrators began to gather outside the Supreme Court, angry about the investigations into Bolsonaro and about pandemic restrictions. Bolsonaro sometimes made appearances. On one occasion, he rode into the crowd on a horse, giving a jaunty thumbs-up; on another, he buzzed overhead in a military helicopter, waving from the window. Protesters insisted that they were fighting for freedom, which frustrated de Moraes. “The far right has successfully manipulated these words to make people believe that they are the true defenders of democracy,” he told me. “It’s an impressive feat of brainwashing.”

At times, though, de Moraes’s investigations strained the limits of his authority. He blocked more than a hundred social-media accounts without providing explanations to the platform. After he banned X, he imposed a fine of almost nine thousand dollars a day on anyone who accessed the platform through a V.P.N.

In one controversial case, eight businessmen were griping about the government in a WhatsApp group, and one of them wrote, “I prefer a coup to the return of the Workers’ Party.” De Moraes had their homes searched and their bank accounts frozen. (Two of the men are still under investigation, but the cases against the other six have been abandoned, for lack of evidence.) Rafael Mafei, a professor at the University of São Paulo’s law school, said that the decision was “on the razor’s edge of legality.” Yet the justices had reason for concern. One official told the Times that extremists had been found to be talking about assaulting justices, tracking their movements, and examining a floor plan of a judicial building.

The court that de Moraes had joined was not particularly liberal. The justices had resisted taking up the decriminalization of abortion, which is largely illegal in Brazil. They had ruled both for and against Lula in cases concerning corruption allegations and his eligibility for office. But during the Bolsonaro years the justices came together in support of de Moraes. “The court has always been like a weathervane—flexible, adaptable, basically a reflection of most of Brazilian society,” Recondo said. “The Supreme Court was eleven islands. Bolsonaro united them.”

In June, 2022, Brazil’s judiciary elected de Moraes to lead the Superior Electoral Court, which oversees the country’s general elections. At his inauguration—held in a formally decorated chamber, with several Presidential candidates present—he set out guidelines for the campaign. His speech contained an unmistakable warning for Bolsonaro. “Freedom of speech is not freedom to destroy democracy,” he said. “Freedom of speech is not freedom to spread hatred and prejudice. Freedom of speech does not allow the spreading of hate speech and ideas contrary to the constitutional order.” Bolsonaro, who had sat apart from the other candidates, frowned furiously. When de Moraes praised the integrity of the electoral system, he pointedly refused to applaud.

Bolsonaro’s efforts to discredit the election had already found allies abroad. His son Eduardo had travelled to the United States, where the businessman and Trump ally Mike Lindell helped him stage a presentation about electoral fraud in Brazil. Steve Bannon amplified the accusations. De Moraes told me that the right wing used similar tactics in both countries: “In the U.S., Trump accused mail-in voting of being fraudulent. In Brazil, Bolsonaro accused electronic voting machines of being fraudulent.” (De Moraes likes to joke that, if Brazilians voted by sending smoke signals, the right would claim that the Electoral Court was blowing the smoke off track.) “It’s not about the voting method,” he said. “It’s about declaring the system rigged, to justify seizing power to ‘fix democracy.’ ”

To an alarming extent, Bolsonaro’s campaign worked. Reports of disinformation on the internet increased more than sixteen thousand per cent from the previous election. Three-quarters of Bolsonaro supporters told pollsters that the results of the vote could not be trusted. De Moraes scrambled to respond. The Electoral Court expanded his authority to shut down online attacks on the integrity of the election. He and his fellow-jurists issued dozens of decisions, restricting political propaganda, disqualifying candidates who misrepresented themselves, and deploying federal agents to insure safety on election day. When highway police stopped buses carrying voters from leftist strongholds to polling places, he ordered them to desist.

On election night, de Moraes went on television to announce that Lula had won. To demonstrate unity, he had assembled senior officials from around the country to stand with him. He told an elated crowd, “I hope from this election onward the attacks on the electoral system will finally stop—the delusional speeches, the fraudulent news.”

Yet many Brazilians remained anxious. In an interview with me at the time, Lula expressed concern that Bolsonaro’s efforts to retain the Presidency had powerful supporters. I had recently visited an Army garrison outside São Paulo where hundreds of loyalists, many of them wearing the yellow and green of the Brazilian flag, thronged the entrance, praying, banging drums, and demanding that the military intervene to keep Lula from office. Similar protests were taking place at garrisons across Brazil, and it seemed obvious that they had at least the passive acquiescence of the armed forces. “We need to find out who is financing them,” Lula told me, “because this is not spontaneous.”

Bolsonaro’s allies rejected warnings that the protests would turn violent. His son Flávio, borrowing a tactic from the right wing’s response to the January 6th attacks, told a Brazilian newspaper that in the U.S. “people followed the problems in the electoral system, were outraged, and did what they did. There was no command from President Trump, and there will be no command from President Bolsonaro.” But de Moraes knew that Bolsonaro was determined not to give up. “We suspected that something might happen during the inauguration—especially because, just a few days earlier, there had been a bomb attempt at the Brasília airport,” he told me. “And on December 12th, after the certification of the election results, rioters stormed the federal-police headquarters. So we were prepared to insure that nothing would happen on inauguration day.” After the ceremony passed without incident, the security forces felt that the threat was over, he said. “But a week later it happened—the January 8th attack.”

During the riots, vandals breached the Supreme Court building, broke open a cabinet containing de Moraes’s robe, and carried the door into the crowd as a trophy. De Moraes seemed personally affronted. “These people are not civilized,” he said in a speech later. “Just look what they did.” He began issuing arrest warrants within hours of the attack; more than a thousand people were eventually detained. “The biggest risk was the possibility of a domino effect,” he told me. “Would military police forces in other states—some of which supported Bolsonaro—also rise up? Would certain governors support the coup attempt?” He went on, “I had to act immediately, in the middle of the night.” To neutralize officials whom he suspected of aiding the uprising, he suspended the governor of the Federal District and ordered the arrest of the district’s secretary of security and the commander of its military police. (The case against the governor has been shelved; the two other men deny wrongdoing.) “This sent a clear message to the entire country,” de Moraes said. “We will not tolerate chaos in Brazil.”

Elon Musk, without apparent irony, has accused de Moraes of being an unelected autocrat. “How did Alexandre de Moraes become the dictator of Brazil?” he tweeted. “He has Lula on a leash.” More thoughtful critics note that de Moraes leads far more inquiries than any other justice, and that many are kept sealed, making them difficult to assess. Certainly, some of the inquiries into Bolsonaro are for trivial offenses. One accused him of illegally pawning luxury watches given to him by Middle Eastern governments.

Recondo said that de Moraes had benefitted from Brazilians’ affinity for tough guys: “We revere caudillos—strongmen who make decisions that go beyond the limits of the law.” Yet he believed that de Moraes’s campaign against disinformation was neither personal nor ideological. “Xandão really believes in the importance of the case, and moreover he is supported by his fellow-justices.” The risk was in creating unaccountable authority. “I personally can’t say whether it’s a good thing that one man has so much power,” he told me. “Because in the end we don’t really know who de Moraes is and what he might do.”

Some Brazilians argue that the concerns about social media should be addressed through legislation rather than litigation. “I do not believe this discussion should be taking place in the Supreme Court,” the congresswoman Tabata Amaral told me. “It should be taking place in Congress, where the public can discuss and debate the issues.”

Amaral, who is thirty-one, has been in the legislature for six years. After studying government and astrophysics at Harvard, she joined a center-left party and built a reputation as an advocate for public education. She achieved early prominence for a hearing in which she questioned Bolsonaro’s hapless education minister—a six-minute interrogation so embarrassing that he was fired soon afterward.

Together with another legislator, Amaral spent several years promoting legislation to hold social-media companies responsible for fake news and hate speech. But, each time they presented the bill, the tech platforms came after them, she told me. Spotify and Instagram spread critical messages, and YouTube displayed an “urgent alert,” warning content creators that the bill would harm them. Google took out full-page newspaper ads and put a link on its home page, just below the search bar, claiming that the legislation “could increase confusion about what is true or false in Brazil.” Eventually, the bill was pulled, and now Amaral and her allies were focussed on smaller initiatives. They had recently succeeded in restricting cellphones in schools, a modest step toward reducing social media’s power over children.

Part of the problem is that, in the Brazilian legislature, corruption and criminality are so endemic as to be inextricable from the job of governance. Amaral lamented that the failures of Congress had left the Supreme Court to intervene. “There is something fundamental about the democratic process,” she said. But she acknowledged that, without the court’s actions, Brazil’s democracy would be at much greater risk.

In some ways, Brazil has stronger legal guardrails than the United States. “If you are convicted of a criminal offense, you cannot run for political office,” Amaral said. “Trump would not have been reëlected here.” But, even though Bolsonaro was forbidden to seek reëlection, he could still do a lot of damage. He had already wrested a significant constituency from Brazil’s traditional conservatives. “Now you have to go to the extreme right if you want to be a bolsonarista,” she said. Amaral opposes expanding abortion rights, so the left doesn’t always see her as a natural ally, but her views on social media make her a target of the right. She has been called “Xandão with a skirt,” and her opponent in the most recent election launched social-media attacks blaming Amaral for her own father’s suicide. “The reality is that, as with Trump, if Bolsonaro is against you, you’re fucked,” she said.

Amaral’s co-sponsor on the Fake News Law, as it became known, was Alessandro Vieira, a fifty-year-old former state police chief from the rural northeast. Vieira, elected as an anti-corruption crusader, had supported Bolsonaro in 2018. After witnessing his social-media abuses, though, he began working on the bill. In the 2022 election, he supported Lula.

Vieira told me that the goal of legislation should be to hold platforms accountable, not to penalize users. “There’s not a single comma in the text of the law criminalizing freedom of expression,” he said. But he’d found the bill impossible to pass. Brazil had devised a framework of internet law “in a more romantic era, when people still thought of the internet as a neutral, democratic space,” he said. “Now the vast majority of Congress is afraid of Big Tech’s retaliation. Imagine running for office with the algorithm working against you!” In his view, the court’s efforts to control social media were an uncomfortable necessity. “This ongoing inquiry is authoritarian, and authoritarian tools should always be fought,” he said. Yet, for now, “it’s the only possible solution.”

The issue was a global one, he added: “I think all countries will face it, and none of them are prepared—except maybe dictatorships like China or Russia, which have their own information ecosystems.” Democracies would be more vulnerable. Gesturing at his phone, he said, “The venom of communication from this little device makes part of the population applaud it and agree.”

After the January 8th attack on the Brazilian capital, Bolsonaro ridiculed the idea that the riots represented a coup attempt. The protesters, he said, were nothing more than “little old women with Brazilian flags and Bibles under their arms.” Later, investigators found that several of his close associates had documents outlining schemes to forcibly keep him in office.

I asked de Moraes how close democracy had come to falling in Brazil. “There was definitely a risk,” he replied. “And there still is.” He noted that military officers were involved, along with senior commanders of the military police who guard the capital. All were now facing prosecution. “The strategy was to occupy government buildings—not necessarily to destroy them,” he said. “But you can’t control a mob. Their real goal was to enter the buildings, refuse to leave, and create a crisis so severe that the Army would be forced to intervene. Once the military arrived, they would request support for a coup. But the plan failed. Even though some military leaders supported the coup, the armed forces as an institution realized that no other power would side with them.”

When I asked de Moraes if he believed that Bolsonaro had masterminded the uprising, he dodged the question, saying that the investigation was in the hands of the federal police, which is independent from the Supreme Court. “Since I may have to rule on this case, I can’t comment,” he told me. Weeks later, the findings became public, in an eight-hundred-and-eighty-four-page report that cited Bolsonaro as a direct participant in a coup plot. The objective was not just to take over the government; there was also an operation, code-named Green and Yellow Dagger, to kill Lula and his running mate and to “neutralize” de Moraes. So far, five men, including police and military officers and a close Bolsonaro confidant, have been arrested. (They have all denied wrongdoing.)

The plotters coördinated through a Signal chat, called World Cup 2022, in which each identified himself as a national team: Austria, Germany, Ghana. They tracked de Moraes’s movements for weeks—during which, he told me, he attended a ceremony with Lula and travelled to São Paulo for a birthday lunch with his family. On December 15th, after he returned to Brasília, a group of heavily armed assailants surrounded his house, planning to kill or kidnap him, discard their phones, and escape. At the last minute, though, a message went out to the chat group, calling off the strike. (“Abort . . . Austria.”) De Moraes surmised that they had failed to secure support from the military; the day before, a proposal to annul the election and announce a state of siege had circulated among the leaders of the armed forces, but several had refused to sign on. De Moraes suggested that his life had been saved by connections in the armed forces, forged during his time as justice minister. “I joke with my security team that I couldn’t die,” he told me. “The hero of the movie has to continue.”

After Bolsonaro became a suspect in a coup plot, authorities seized his passport, to prevent him from leaving the country. But he and his allies hoped to get help from abroad. When Trump won reëlection, last November, Bolsonaro told the Wall Street Journal, “Trump is back, and it’s a sign we’ll be back, too.” Before Trump’s Inauguration, video circulated of Bolsonaro seeing off his wife at the airport and explaining morosely that she would attend in his place.

Trump has made few public statements about the situation in Brazil, but there are hints that he shares Bolsonaro’s frustrations with being censured for lying on social media. On January 20th, the White House released a statement complaining that the Biden Administration had “trampled free speech rights by censoring Americans’ speech on online platforms . . . under the guise of combatting ‘misinformation,’ ‘disinformation,’ and ‘malinformation.’ ”

On February 19th, Trump Media filed suit against de Moraes in the U.S., accusing him of censorship for ordering the social-media platform Rumble to remove the account of Allan dos Santos, the Bolsonaro supporter who helped lead the campaign against Campos Mello. (The Brazilian government has unsuccessfully sought to have dos Santos extradited from the U.S.) De Moraes described the lawsuit as “completely baseless,” adding, “Just as I cannot, here in Brazil, issue a ruling that mandates something in the United States, no judge there can declare that my order in Brazil is invalid. But it’s a political maneuver, which ended up getting press coverage.”

Later that month, the Georgia congressman Rich McCormick released a statement that aligned Bolsonaro with Trump and Musk. “The indictment of former President Jair Bolsonaro is not about justice—it is about eliminating political competition through judicial lawfare, just as President Trump was targeted before making the greatest political comeback in history,” he wrote. McCormick also argued that, by placing limits on Musk’s business in Brazil, de Moraes was violating Americans’ rights to free speech: “The United States cannot allow foreign judges to dictate what Americans can say, read, or publish.” He called for Trump and Congress to take action, writing, “Moraes and his enablers must face real consequences, including Magnitsky sanctions, immediate visa bans, and economic penalties.”

Other Republicans soon convened a hearing, in which the C.E.O. of Rumble and other speakers were invited to discuss a “crisis of democracy, freedom, and rule of law” in Brazil. Representative Chris Smith, of New Jersey, accused Lula and de Moraes of “the political abuse of legal procedures to persecute political opposition,” adding, “Friends don’t let friends commit human-rights abuses.” During the testimony, Bolsonaro’s son Eduardo led a rowdy contingent of Brazilian sympathizers in the audience.

Eduardo, who spent the night of Trump’s election at Mar-a-Lago, cheering along with the crowd, has increasingly presented himself as an adjunct of the Administration. Last month, he announced that he would take a leave of absence from his congressional seat to move to the U.S., so that he can urge Trump to intervene on his father’s behalf.

He already has an ally in Musk, who has stirred up the Brazilian right by claiming that it is suffering some of the most severe censorship in the world, at the hands of “an outright criminal of the worst kind.” Last April, Jair Bolsonaro held a rally on the beach at Copacabana, where an enormous crowd gathered to applaud his calls for “free expression.” Bolsonaro urged his supporters to give Musk a special ovation. “He’s a man who’s had the courage to show—already with some evidence, and more will surely come—where our democracy is heading and how much freedom we’ve lost,” he said. Later, when an X user asked archly why there had been no such rallies for de Moraes, Musk replied, “Because he is against the will of the people and, therefore, democracy.”

In the days after Wanderley blew himself up outside the Supreme Court, Lula began receiving foreign dignitaries at the G-20 summit, in Rio. At an event that week, the First Lady, Janja Lula da Silva, spoke about the imperative of fighting misinformation. When her speech was interrupted by the sound of a ship’s horn from a nearby harbor, she cracked, “I think it’s Elon Musk. I’m not afraid of you.” Then she added, in English, “Fuck you, Elon Musk.”

Janja’s comment caused a brief media sensation, and Musk responded, on X, “They will lose the next election.” But little else came of it, at least publicly. While Trump aimed threats and ultimatums at Mexico, Canada, and Panama, he was quiet about Brazil. In mid-March, the new Administration levied tariffs on steel, a major Brazilian export, but the announcement was made without commentary.

Still, when I saw Lula the morning after the tariffs took effect, he suggested that a showdown was coming. “There’s something in the air that worries me, which is the weakening of the democratic system,” he said. “In Europe, half of the twenty-seven countries already have right-wing authoritarian regimes. In Latin America, we see that anti-democratic, anti-institutional movements are also growing, and half of society is in favor of this.”

He suggested that the internet made it nearly impossible to govern. “I don’t think that in any country in the world we still have a sophisticated way to insure sovereignty,” he said. “The nation-state is very weakened, and it’s not just Brazil. It’s the U.S., China, everyone.” In a previous era, he said, “authoritarianism meant closing Congress, shutting down the judiciary, or putting troops in the streets. Now someone can speak to two hundred and thirteen million Brazilians without ever having been to Brazil.” When I mentioned that Musk’s Starlink satellite system was being used extensively by illegal gold miners who are devastating the Brazilian Amazon, Lula nodded grimly. “I visited the region and saw the predominance of Musk’s antennas,” he said. “We will not let someone who hates our administration, who hates democracy and our justice system, take control of the information of a country and a region like the Amazon.” Slapping the table, he said, “No company, no matter how powerful it is, will put our democracy at risk.”

Lula said that Brazil was working with the U.N. Secretary-General to devise a proposal for an international treaty on regulating social media. Less promisingly, he said that Brazil would raise the issue at a summit this July for the BRICS nations, with representatives attending from China, India, South Africa, Russia, and Indonesia—countries that have largely addressed their problems with online discourse by criminalizing dissent.

In March, I met de Moraes again at his office. He seemed more relaxed than he had five months before. By then, the prosecutor general had charged Bolsonaro and thirty-three others with fomenting a coup. (Bolsonaro denies the charges, claiming political persecution.) “The responsibility of each person now has to be determined in court, because this is when they will present their defense,” de Moraes said. “But the entire narrative of political persecution, the claim of personal enmity, all of that has collapsed, because it wasn’t just the federal police that accused them—the prosecutor general himself decided to press charges.”

I asked whether there was a scenario in which Bolsonaro could regain power. “It’s possible that Bolsonaro will be acquitted in the criminal case, because the trial is only just beginning,” de Moraes said. “But he has two convictions from the Superior Electoral Court for ineligibility. So there’s no possibility of his return—because both cases have already been appealed and are now in the Supreme Court. Only the Supreme Court could reverse them, and I don’t see the slightest possibility of that happening.” De Moraes acknowledged that Bolsonaro’s wife or one of his sons could run for President, with his endorsement. But, he said, “none of them—whether his children or his wife—have the same relationships with the armed forces that he had.”

In the coming months, the court will issue a momentous ruling on internet regulation. Under current laws, digital platforms are liable for users’ content only if they have ignored a court order to remove it. The court now has to decide whether they can be held liable before such an order is issued—obliging internet companies to carry out exhaustive policing of their users.

De Moraes cast such regulations as a means of taking back control. Social media is “now the greatest power of all,” he said. “Not only does it influence people, but it generates the most advertising revenue in the world, giving it the financial strength to influence elections.” He compared tech corporations to the East India Company, the colonial-age trading firm that dominated many of the countries where it operated. “They want to create a new East India Company to control the world,” he said. “They don’t want to respect any country’s jurisdiction, because, in reality, they seek to be immune to nations.”

De Moraes’s most stringent actions have only inflamed Bolsonaro’s followers. In the streets, it has become common to hear complaints that free speech is dead and that the Supreme Court has dictatorial power. Oliver Stuenkel, a prominent political scientist in São Paulo, largely supports the court’s actions, but says that its assertiveness carries risks. “Brazil ended up being the poster child for how you protect democracy over the past few years,” he said. “The challenge is how to insure that the court goes back to normal, because I think it’s not healthy for any democracy to have the Supreme Court be a key political actor all the time.”

But de Moraes does not regard the crisis as over. “I believe President Trump’s recent actions will push governments to realize that if they don’t act now to control social media it will be too late,” he said. European leaders were already considering stricter rules. In August, French officials arrested the founder of Telegram, for allowing his platform to host criminal endeavors that ranged from drug trafficking to terrorism. (Telegram denies wrongdoing.) De Moraes noted that he had suspended Telegram three years ago, after it repeatedly flouted court orders. More recently, he suspended Rumble, for failing to maintain a legal representative in Brazil. “People are going to start saying I’m persecuting everyone now,” he joked. “At this rate, I’ll be accused of persecuting Trump, too.” He seemed unconcerned by the prospect of pressure from the U.S. “They can file lawsuits, they can have Trump speak,” he said. “If they send an aircraft carrier, then we’ll see. If the aircraft carrier doesn’t reach Lake Paranoá, it won’t influence the ruling here in Brazil.”

As we finished talking, de Moraes walked me out past a display of a few prized objects. They included a jersey from his beloved Corinthians soccer team and two wooden effigies of Afro-Brazilian deities. He explained that they were Xangô and Exu—“law and order,” he said. Wait, I said. Isn’t Xangô a war god? De Moraes just smiled and ushered me through the door.

[imogenkol]

— SHE’D DO ANYTHING FOR ME

pairing: Imogen Kol (oc) x Bix Caleen rating: Mature words: 3.3k warnings: possessive behavior, codependency, fight and make up summary: tfw when your ex finds your taste in women extremely questionable

notes: this is another older-ish one that I feel compelled to post on its own.

Everything felt so... calm and peaceful. In the same way the sky looks before a storm. Imogen should be fleeing for her life or at the very least preparing herself for the inevitable destruction. But she didn't — she couldn't. 

All she managed was to lie in bed beside the woman she fought so hard not to love. The warmth of her body half draped over Imogen's after a night of passion. It was such a simple thing, to have her beloved's head rest against her chest and feel their breaths as one, yet she could not recall ever feeling so content.

Destruction might just be worth it.

Bix trailed her fingertips along her bare collarbone which caused Imogen to smile. Her own caress lightly traveled up and down the mechanic's spine in aimless patterns. It even felt extraordinary to touch her just for the sake of it.

"I'm starting to believe you actually like waking up next to me," Bix said in a lighthearted tone.

"I have always desired this," Imogen admitted softly, tilting her head enough to nuzzle against hers.

"Meaning you've always been afraid of this."

Imogen tensed. The hard-wired urge to pull away and fiercely deny such an accusation threatened to overcome her, but there was no sense in refuting the truth any longer. Not from Bix. Gradually, the bounty hunter willed her muscles to ease. She wondered how long it would take to train these instincts out of her. "If we... truly commit to one another –"

Bix's fingers suddenly twitched into a fist against Imogen's skin. "If?"

"No," Imogen quickly corrected herself. "No more ifs. What I mean to say is... Well, I have a lot to learn."

"So do I. So does everyone," Bix stated matter-of-factly. She leaned up on her elbow and met the other woman's apprehensive expression. "You're here. You're trying. That's all that really matters to me."

A strand of dark hair dangled over the mechanic's cheek. Imogen reached out and delicately tucked it behind her ear. She took in the unobscured beauty of her beloved for a few prolonged beats, her thumb tracing some of those features that left her in awe.

"I am quite certain there is one thing in this galaxy that I would not be able to bear," Imogen muttered under her breath – almost to herself.

Bix moistened her lips as she inched closer. "And what's that?"

A rhythmic knock on the door interrupted their conversation. Along with a gruff voice that called out "Bix? It's me."

Imogen hoped her glare would burn right through the durasteel to strike Cassian down.

"Hang on!" Bix called back. With an exasperated sigh, she slumped down and hid her face in the crook of Imogen's neck for a beat before she forced herself up. At the sight of the bounty hunter's less than pleased expression, Bix said "Don't start anything. I’m not in the mood to deal with either of your shit today."

"He still draws breath, does he not? That is the extent of my manners," Imogen replied curtly as Bix hastily dressed herself. She, too, summoned a great effort to follow her out of bed and do the same. "Unless he wishes to apologize for aiming a blaster at my heart."

"You held your lightsaber at his throat."

"He drew on me first."

Bix rolled her eyes, though Imogen caught the upturn at the corner of her mouth before she turned towards the door. "Come in."

The both of them hadn't quite finished dressing. Cassian entered as Bix fastened the waistband of her pants at the same moment Imogen pulled a shirt over her head. He halted mid-step, his gaze shifting between the two women as if a complicated equation did not add up. Though, the scene before him must have been fairly obvious.

"What is it, Cass?" Bix impatiently urged.

"I just... wanted to talk to you." Cassian's answer came out distracted. His eyes lingered on the bounty hunter.

Imogen looked to Bix expectantly and received a nod. A part of her had hoped that she would have been allowed to remain in the room, but she understood why Bix dismissed her. Without another word, Imogen collected her coat in one hand and intended to make her exit when an impulse emerged. She would not have Cassian misinterpret anything here, not if she had any say in it.

In a few strides, Imogen went to Bix and pulled her in by the back of her neck. While their lips met with intention, it was no less soft or passionate than the kisses they shared in private. Imogen indulged in a few strokes and had to fight not to get lost in the sensations, nearly forgetting the witness she intended to show for.

Once Imogen pulled away, she gave Bix a parting caress and said "I will come find you later."

The mechanic had a knowing glint in her eye, but she nodded again. "Alright."

Cassian had not moved and the nature of his continued gaze turned from dumbfounded to outright suspicion. Imogen glared right back at him as she made her way towards the door. He stood far enough into the room that she could have easily maneuvered around him, but she instead shoved her shoulder into his as she walked past. Just to make sure her point came across clearly.

Cassian let it happen and she exited the room with an air of confidence. 

Despite having been dismissed, Imogen’s curiosity compelled her to linger just outside the door. Cassian could be there to simply check up on his friend, or he could be there to stir up tension. Either way, Imogen didn’t trust his judgment or his motives and prepared to intervene if she must. 

She leaned against the wall next to the door and shut her eyes to focus her hearing as best as she could past the thick durasteel wall. Through the Force, she could pinpoint each of their positions and the vibration of their voices became clear in her ears. 

“I didn’t realize you two were back to your original arrangement,” Cassian said. 

“We’re not,” Bix replied curtly. 

“No? Then what was all that about?”

“We’re trying something different.” 

Cassian scoffed. “Different. With her?” 

“Yeah. With her,” Bix asserted and Imogen sensed that she placed her hands on her hips as irritation began to swell in the mechanic’s chest. 

“Alright then.” 

“Look, did you just come in here to rag on my personal life choices or was there actually a point to this conversation?” 

“I’m not ragging,” he insisted, shrugging his shoulders defensively. “I just – I don’t get it.” 

“Well, you sound pretty judgmental. Which is rich coming from you, Cass.” 

“At least I haven’t slept with an Imperial Inquisitor.” 

“She’d do anything for me.”

Cassian did not try to hide his disdain. “Where have I heard that before?”

“Imogen is not Timm,” Bix snapped.

Under normal circumstances, Imogen would never allow anyone to come to her defense. All that mattered was that she had enough power to stand up for herself. And yet… she realized that no one ever has spoken up for her in any capacity. The utter conviction in Bix’s statement filled her with an unexpected swell of pride. 

“No,” Cassian agreed patronizingly. “Timm never waved a red laser sword in anyone’s face.”

The jab only seemed to antagonize the mechanic more. “What is your problem?”

The two of them struggled to keep their tones leveled, but as tensions grew, so did their volume. Even in an enclosed space, their disagreement would certainly be heard by anyone that walked by. Imogen didn’t even have to hold her focus through the Force to hear them clearly any longer. Cassian must not have cared because he knew many others held the same prejudices against Imogen that he did. Bix clearly had no issue voicing her opposite opinion. 

Imogen loved her for it. 

“I don’t know, I just,” he stammered over his argument once again and sighed. “I think there are better options out there –”

“What, like you?”

“Come on, you know that isn’t what I’m trying to say.”

“Then what are you trying to say? Explain it to me.”

Imogen’s patience for eavesdropping wore thin and the discomfort she sensed in Bix only made her own anger rise. The bounty hunter pushed away from the wall and took an assertive step towards the room, fully intending to assure Cassian of her permanence at Bix’s side, but his next words made her hesitate. 

“I’m worried for you, being with someone like that,” he said earnestly

There was a pause. Bix did not abandon her stern tone, but Imogen heard it soften ever so slightly as she responded. “She won’t do anything that I don’t ask her to do.”

“Maybe that’s what I’m worried about.”

“Oh, so you’re afraid of me now, too?”

“I’m afraid of how she’ll change you.”

Another tense beat of silence passed between the two of them. Imogen absorbed Cassian’s words and they left a bitter taste on her mouth. He sounded like Cal, making it seem as if darkness only corrupted. Darkness could bring strength. Darkness could bring power. Imogen would not change Bix, Bix would change herself into whatever she needed to be. That is what Cassian truly feared, whether he realized it or not.

“I’ve already changed. And Imogen had nothing to do with it. So do us both a favor and mind your fucking business from now on,” Bix said firmly.

The mechanical door suddenly slid open and Bix came into view as she stormed away from the conversation, coming up short once she spotted Imogen. Her eyes widened slightly and she quickly glanced behind her, but Cassian hadn’t made his retreat from the room yet. 

“Are you alright?” Imogen asked. The urge to confront Cassian herself remained, though she doubted any of her intentions towards him would improve his reservations about her.

Bix continued to briskly walk away, reaching out for Imogen’s waist to usher them along — or more likely move her as far away from Cassian as they could get in order to avoid a possible blood feud. “How much of that did you hear?”

“All of it,” Imogen casually admitted. 

“Don’t let it get to you, alright?” Bix rubbed her hand up and down Imogen’s back. Whether her intentions were to pacify herself or the dangerous woman next to her, it was difficult to say. Imogen still accepted her touch. 

“While he made a fool of himself… some of his concerns are not entirely unfounded,” she said slowly.  

Bix shot her a deeply confused look. “Are you saying you care what Cassian thinks?”

“No,” Imogen replied with a scoff. “I simply mean that he harbors the same judgments everyone else holds against me. I have accepted them long ago and so should you, lest that scowl overstays its welcome.” 

The mechanic shook her head bitterly, ignoring Imogen’s attempt to lighten her mood. “They just don’t know you.”

“And they never will. Not like you do.” 

“Maybe that’s the problem,” Bix pointed out as she came to a stop in a secluded corner of the hallway. “All he sees is the Inquisitor.”

Imogen tried not to roll her eyes. “I have nothing to prove to him or anyone else. Why should I waste my time with such an endeavor? Especially when they are not wrong.”

“They are wrong.”

“No, they aren’t. Not about me. Not about us.” Imogen placed her hands on Bix’s arms. Her caress had a sort of melancholy that lingered in the small smile across her lips. “I do not believe I am the best option for you, but I will be yours for as long as you’ll have me.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Bix asked incredulously and shook off her touch. 

Imogen felt a tightness at the back of her throat. She moistened her lips and swallowed with difficulty, her voice hollow. “Have you considered that your feelings for me might be influenced by gratitude? By the simple fact that I got to you first on Ferrix? Would it not be Cassian’s embrace you’d wish to fall into every night had it been him?” 

It deeply pained Imogen to voice an insecurity that she had failed to bury. The way Bix had looked at her differently since Ferrix filled Imogen with a warmth that she had never experienced before, but she could not shake the whisper at the back of her mind that gradually became another scream in the cacophony. A part of her did not care if it was true, she would be grateful to have Bix in any capacity. But the much larger part that truly loved her felt she needed to hear those words.

An intense and furious expression twisted Bix’s features as her body stiffened. She fixed Imogen with such a hard look that the bounty hunter nearly took a step back. 

“Fuck you,” Bix said with a shocking amount of venom. Imogen realized her grave mistake, then, and it felt like a harsh slap to the face. “And fuck what you’re insinuating.” 

“Bix–”

“And I’ll tell you why you’re wrong,” she continued fiercely and took an assertive step towards Imogen, entering her space. It wasn’t until that moment that Imogen noticed she had, in fact, backed away. “What I feel for you was there before all of this. So, despite what you might think of me, I won’t just fall for the first fucking person who comes to my rescue!”

Imogen’s gaze became downcast in shame before she responded softly “Forgive me. I misspoke.”

“You sure did,” Bix snarled bitterly. She turned to walk away and Imogen felt conflicted on whether or not she should follow. 

She refrained from pursuit, but she couldn’t help calling out after her. “You know I don’t truly think that.” 

Bix hesitated. Some of the tension dispersed from her shoulders as she released a weary sigh and glanced back. “You still don’t believe that I can love you for you. I thought we were past this, Imogen.” 

“I do not doubt you.”

“Some part of you does.”

“Maybe… But I swear not to give voice to those thoughts ever again.” She dared a step towards the mechanic.

Bix held up a hand to stop her. “Look, first it was Cassian and now it’s you, just… give me some time, okay?”

Imogen hated Cassian. And she wasn’t particularly fond of herself at the moment, either. She conceded. “Of course.”

As she watched Bix walk away, Imogen felt the invisible tether between them tighten. Disbelief filled the pit of embarrassment in her gut as she tried to make sense of what just happened. She knew better. Imogen knew better and still she plucked out the most absurd thought from the back of her mind and spoke it out loud like a witless scoundrel. If her utter foolishness is what finally made the tether snap, she would never forgive herself.

Hours passed and Imogen kept herself scarce until evening approached and she could sequester herself to the comfort of her own ship. Though, The Huntress felt far colder and emptier than it ever has before.

Imogen ate a quick supper and prepared for bed early. As she settled into the cot, silence sounded more unbearable than a cacophony of tangled voices. The longer she stewed in the memory of her own foolish words, the more Imogen felt like she could hear the shouting of those imaginary voices at the back of her mind. Some sounded like her own voice. Others sounded like her Master. They sounded like Vader. They sounded like Cal. 

They sounded like Bix. 

After a while — or an eternity — Imogen groaned and sat up in the cot, swinging her legs over the side and contemplating numerous methods to get her brain to shut off. All felt fruitless. 

Then she sensed a familiar presence approach, making her spine perk up like an alert animal. 

The entrance to The Huntress whooshed open and Bix trudged in, looking as exhausted and dejected as Imogen felt. The bounty hunter couldn’t deny the immediate feeling of serenity at the sight of her lover, but she still gripped the edge of the cot and half expected another round of disciplining. 

The mechanic came to a stop before her and crossed her arms, appearing less stern than earlier, but Imogen still noted the twitch of her jaw. They simply breathed in the tense air for a few long beats until she finally spoke. 

“You didn’t come to bed.” Bix tried to hide it, but she sounded hurt.

“You asked for time,” Imogen replied pointedly. 

The mechanic sighed as she stared down at the floor and shook her head. “I didn’t mean the whole night, I’m sorry.”

“You should not apologize.” 

“I want to,” Bix insisted as she stepped closer to the cot. Her fingers twitched in a subtle fidget at her sides. “What you said earlier –” 

“Was careless.” 

“Yeah,” she said with a nod. “Yeah, it was. But I know you didn’t mean it that way. I’ve been thinking about it and you’re not entirely wrong. Well, you are when it comes to Cassian, but about gratitude...” Bix’s shoulders lifted as she took in a deep breath, her gaze shifting over the interior of the ship that she knew as well as her own home back on Ferrix. “I’ve always wanted to be near you, but after everything you’ve done for me, it feels less like a want and more like a need. I don’t know, but I start to lose my mind a little bit when you’re gone. Even with how upset I was earlier, a part of me still hoped you’d come after me.”

Imogen took a quiet moment to contemplate the confession. She understood Bix’s words because she had seen the evidence. All that she missed was the true extent of her suspicion. But before Imogen allowed her emotions to settle, she offered one single question. 

“Does that bother you?”

“No,” Bix answered confidently and closed the distance between them. She reached out and took a strand of Imogen’s hair between her fingers. “Does it bother you?”

It should, her thoughts responded immediately without voicing it. Imogen recognized this attachment had grown to an intensity Bix did not have full control over. She recognized it because it was the same attachment she had within herself. As if Bix were a vital organ her body would not survive without.

Could Imogen’s devotion still be pure in that case? Did it matter? It certainly did not feel like it did when her beloved gazed down at her with a mixture of adoration and concern. 

“No,” Imogen said and accepted that for all it could possibly mean.

A small smile of relief brightened the mechanic’s features. “Good,” she said. Bix placed her hands on Imogen’s shoulders and pulled herself down onto the bounty hunter’s lap. “Because I’m done arguing with people about loving you.”

Imogen’s arms automatically wrapped around Bix’s waist to keep her close. She grew weary of the discourse as well, but she did not wish to see Bix angry with those she held dear – no matter how much Imogen detested them. “They argue because they care.”

“I know.” Bix leaned in until their foreheads touched, her hands coming up to rest against Imogen’s cheeks. “But they should see how you make me feel.”

Imogen felt her face flush with a warm grin at that. “You were right earlier.” 

“About what?”

Their lips brushed together. Chaste at first. More of an innocent expression of her fondness. Then Imogen tightened her grip around the woman in her embrace as she deepened the kiss. Many emotions were conveyed in the cadence she led. Her kiss was possessive as she lightly nipped at Bix’s lower lip. It was passionate as the tip of her tongue greeted hers. It was desperate as short breaths escaped their lungs and tickled their skin. It was everything. 

Imogen finally pulled back, but only the smallest amount to utter her answer. “I would do anything for you.”

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[soaringsummerbird]

sry im a random person but I really like that youre pointing out that kaname is quite bratty LMAO I feel like people too often reduce him down to being an innocent boy when hes actually quite vain and self-absorbed, to the point where most people HATED him in the first few parts of Obbligato. although I am genuinely curious to hear more about your take on him and Oremeru's relationship, as I always viewed it as mostly opposite (Oremeru keeping Kaname at arms length even though Kaname quickly became dependent on Oremeru, then Kaname became comatose and Oremeru became almost selfishly devoted to fulfill Kaname's dreams and be a better brother)

if ur a random person, then so am I! Which is to say — thank you for your ask.

I'm happy to ramble about Himeru and Kaname some more. I did focus a lot on Kaname's negative traits in the previous post, but ur definitely right that he is also extremely lonely and becomes dependent on Himeru as well for support

I believe this dependence was mutual. I like to think Himeru was bad at reciprocating Kaname's affection because he literally didn't know how to. He has never had the love of a family member before, so he doesn't know how to express love back. but he definitely cared. Right from the beginning, he felt empathy for his little brother. From just a letter, he saw the possibility of someone he could have a real and meaningful connection with.

Between them, I tend to pity Himeru more. His life (such as it was) was uprooted to go to ReiMei to coach Kaname, who he barely knew. He was living outside and surviving off scraps to aid this rude guy who should really just pick a different career path. But Himeru was so lonely and so aimless that he was happy to do it. Enough to make Kaname's dreams his dream too, and eventually, to dedicate his entire life to those dreams.

Himeru is difficult to analyze because he's more of a concept than a character. The master manipulator who can impersonate anyone — turned perfection obsessed idol. I love the idea on paper, since I find the concept of a stage persona compelling. If Himeru truly is a master of deception, then why wouldn't he be able to trick crowds of teenage fans? He should be good at the job. A lot of enstars characters present facades to conceal their true feelings, but Himeru is all facade. His entire identity is a lie, and every word he speaks has to be dissected for his true intent.

I wish he was in a different story telling medium rather than being juggled between different authors through incongruous stories that are released months apart. He would be a more effective character under one writer who could provide a consistent character arc of emotional growth.

I think that's the only natural progression for his character concept, to show the gradual cracks of humanity in the mask of the perfect idol. Which is also why I like to call the character who is currently performing as HiMERU 'Himeru', rather than the fandom assigned Oremeru. He's the one with the talent, he's the one who is finding success for the stage name. It is rightfully his name, even if it was originally Kaname's dream.

Himeru was nothing before he adopted his brother's stage persona — a ghost who could only borrow others' faces. But now he is something. He has become Himeru. He has friends and a purpose and a unit he loves even if he's too emotionally stunted to admit it. I want him to claim the name for himself so that he has a name. I want him to love the name Himeru, because that's the name his friends call him.

And if Kaname is ever allowed to wake up (doubtful. damn live service games can't conclude story lines😡) then I want him to graciously step aside. Perhaps after a stint of emotional growth from him, but ideally, he would come to the conclusion that HiMERU rightfully belongs to Himeru.

[kooldewd123]

Back in August, we had the anniversary of Ash’s famous Kalos League loss. It's a battle you see talked about time and time again. It's often held up by fans as the one big stain on XY, a disgraceful way for the writers to end Ash’s Kalos journey.

I beg to differ.

I want to offer a different perspective on this loss, because I don't really agree with most of the criticisms levied against it. I don't think it portrays Ash in a negative light, or goes against his development, or anything like that. In fact, I think it’s quite the opposite. I planned to make a post talking about why I feel the loss fits Ash’s character arc back when I started seeing posts commemorating its anniversary, but I had so much to say about Ash’s characterization in this series that it took me until now to write it all down (also i procrastinated).

First of all, I want to address one of the most common critiques of the loss, since it leads nicely into the main point I want to make. This take essentially boils down to "XY had an Ash that was stronger than ever before. Losing goes against that." It's not a wrong reading of the series per se, but it does feel a bit… reductive to me. Yes, XY is about Ash getting stronger. But so are DP, SM, BW, and all the others. Ash becoming stronger over the course of the series is just something we can expect by default. A good Ash story needs to do something else on top of that, and XY especially needed to find an extra angle to his character since he starts the series already near the top of his game. It's actually a similar situation to DP: he came into that series fresh off his victories in the Battle Frontier, and so rather than simply coasting with a story about how strong he is, the writers brought in Paul to challenge him not just in battle, but in terms of philosophy as well.

So with all that said, what is Ash's story in XY actually about, then? Well, the comparison is often made that Ash is the "Brock" of the XY gang, and it's not an unfounded one. He's the most experienced member of the group, as well as the most well put together. The others look to him for leadership, guidance, and inspiration even more than Ash ever did for Brock. More than in any other series, XY Ash is defined by the way he interacts with his friends, and the reverse is also true for them. Let's take a detour and try to quickly run down their character arcs so you can really see what I mean:

Serena starts the series aimless. She’s discontent with her life, wanting something more. Recognizing Ash on TV and remembering his words to "never give up" is what gives her the push to finally take the first steps of her own story. However, those first steps are all she takes. She wants to get away from her mother, but is once again adrift as soon as she meets Ash. She bounces from activity to activity for a while, only deciding to become a Performer after meeting Shauna and having the sudden realization that she doesn't have a long-term goal like Ash. Wanting to be as determined as Ash is, she finally has something to actively work for and even confronts her mother with her newfound passion. She thinks of Ash to give her strength as she starts her first Showcase, and after she messes up, she remembers his advice to "never give up" and continues onward, even incorporating a ribbon she had received from Ash into her outfit to signify her resolve. Ash is at the center of every stage of Serena's journey. Nearly everything she does can be somehow traced back to Ash in one way or another.

That's all well and good, but it's just one example, and Serena's a bit of an extreme case, anyway. For more evidence, let's look at Clemont. The first time he meets Ash, Ash gets thrown out of Prism Tower, immediately brushes himself off and challenges Clemont to a battle, fights off a group of Pokemon thieves (which is apparently a regular occurrence for him), goes after a rampaging Garchomp with his bare hands, and ends the day off by jumping off the top of the fucking Prism Tower with literally zero hesitation. Following that buck wild first impression, Clemont harbors an immense amount of both admiration and intellectual curiosity for Ash. He constantly praises Ash for his unique battle style, and wants to study it so he can become an even better Gym Leader. He begins taking cues from Ash's style as early as his confrontation with Clembot, as he has to think of unorthodox ways to outsmart the robot programmed to act like him. Following this battle, he and Ash agree to have their Gym battle once Ash has obtained his fourth badge. Ash becomes Clemont's goalpost: having seen what Ash is capable of, he wants to be a Gym Leader worthy of fighting him. And when we finally reach this battle, he proves that he has absolutely succeeded, incorporating everything he's learned from Ash and more into their climactic showdown. 

While Ash’s companions in other series generally have stories that run parallel to his, XY stands out by placing Ash right at the center of both Serena and Clemont’s personal journeys. Ash permeates XY in a deeper way than any series before or since. This might be a weird thing to say, but XY isn't really about Ash per se. It's about the idea of Ash. To Serena, Ash is the representation of all the personal qualities she desires, yet lacks. To Clemont, Ash is a new way of battling, something that can help him improve his own abilities even further. So then, what is Ash… to Ash?

I know I just set that up as a big question, but the answer’s actually fairly simple. It's pretty clear that Ash recognizes the effect he has on his friends, and so he leans into it for their benefit. He's constantly trying to improve both himself and Clemont for their eventual battle, and is incredibly encouraging towards Serena every time she takes another step towards her goal (in fact, Serena is possibly the female companion that Ash is least sassy towards, although he’s also just less sassy than usual in this series anyway). Even with his Pokemon, this trait shines through. Froakie was a trouble child for every Trainer that Sycamore had given it to before, yet it respects Ash nearly instantly after seeing him in action. Ash’s encouragement and support is what gives Goomy the strength to grow and take back its home. He acts more parental towards Noibat than any baby Pokemon he had before, but also steps back enough to let Hawlucha take the lead raising it since he sees how strongly the two of them bond.

So here in XY we have a strong, self-assured, mature Ash who takes on a leadership role among the main cast. It’s an Ash that truly feels like he’s been through years of journeys and growth. But if he starts out the series so well-developed, where can his character arc take him?

Enter Sawyer. Not long after Ash has his battle with Clemont, he’s introduced to Sawyer, a rookie Trainer who had lost to Clemont shortly before. On the surface, this doesn’t immediately seem like the makings of a particularly compelling rivalry: an experienced veteran Ash versus a novice with only a single Gym badge to his name. Ash is undeniably the superior one in this dynamic. But once the two of them begin interacting, it becomes immediately clear how much heart there is to their relationship. Ash, ever the older brother figure, sees how much potential Sawyer has and wants to watch him unlock it. Sawyer, the analytical battler, takes notes from Ash’s battles and studies him in a manner not unlike Clemont to learn how to improve himself. Sawyer’s notes pay off in a big way, as he improves at an astronomical pace, winning four more badges in the time it takes Ash to earn just one, and even reaching his eighth before Ash does. Ash and Sawyer have one last battle before Ash heads to win his eight Gym badge, but for the first time, Sawyer manages to surpass and beat Ash. Although he’s glad to have won, his victory shakes both of them. Although they don’t say it directly, they can tell that something’s wrong. Sawyer decides to follow Ash to Snowbelle City to watch him beat Wulfric, but again, Ash loses. Between these two losses, as well as his struggle to master the Bond phenomenon, Ash begins to spiral, and it’s the first time we truly see him grapple with self-doubt in this series. Sawyer looks up to Ash, yet he had failed to live up to Sawyer’s vision of him. And if he’s failed Sawyer, who else has he failed? His companions? His Pokemon? With the image of himself as a mentor and an inspiration thrown into jeopardy, he begins to act uncharacteristically, running off into the woods alone and lashing out at Serena when she tries to help him. After cooling off a bit, he helps some Spewpa trapped in a tree and is saved by Greninja when the branch breaks. One of the Spewpa is blown off a nearby cliff, and when Ash and Greninja both jump into action to save it, they perfect the Ash-Greninja form for the very first time. The entire experience causes Ash to realize that the image of himself as someone everyone could count on had been weighing down on him much more heavily than he had thought. Because of it, he had been placing too much responsibility on himself. He needed to master the Bond phenomenon to become stronger for his team. He needed to beat Wulfric to prove himself to Sawyer. But in the end, he couldn’t do it alone, and ultimately ended up caving under the pressure without even realizing it. It’s only with the help of his friends and Pokemon that he’ll be able to move forward and actually accomplish what he’s set out to do. With that in mind, he’s finally able to reach synchronicity with Greninja, beat Wulfric, and make his way to the Kalos League.

In the semifinals, Ash finally comes face-to-face with Sawyer once again. As the two of them clash, Sawyer recognizes Ash once again. The cloud that had covered him in Snowbelle is gone, and the two of them can have a proper battle. Sawyer can truly show Ash just how far he’s come (and maybe even surpass him for real), and Ash can prove that he won’t falter again. That he really is the person everyone thinks he is. And with Ash-Greninja’s final Water Shuriken, Ash does just that. This battle, not the finals match against Alain, is the conclusion of Ash’s arc in XY. The Trainer that everyone looks up buckling under the weight of those expectations, and yet still managing to prove them right by coming out the other side stronger. I feel it can often get sadly overlooked in favor of the finals, but it’s a satisfying way to encapsulate what XY Ash is all about.

So what’s the deal with the finals, then? Why go through all of this just to have him lose in the end? Doesn’t that undermine the whole message? Well, no, actually. In a vacuum, it might seem that way, but I feel that removing it from the context surrounding it (as you often see in discourse about it) is doing it a disservice. The most important thing about the finals match is that it isn’t really Ash’s battle in the way the semifinals were. Ash’s arc is finished. This is Alain’s battle. Alain’s arc throughout the series effectively boils down to the idea that he wants to gain power in order to protect the people he cares about, first to defend Professor Sycamore’s research, and later to heal Chespie. He’s drawn to the Kalos League by the promise of many strong opponents to train himself against, Ash chief among them. This relentless drive for power, while good-intentioned, leads him to work for Lysandre, blinded to his true motivations. Alain’s victory in the Kalos League is the tipping point of his arc. He’s won the League, proving himself to be among the strongest Trainers in the entire region. And yet, at his moment of victory, when he’s achieved the strength he desired, Team Flare attacks, threatening the entire region. Key to Team Flare’s plans are Z2, whom Alain had helped capture, and the Mega Evolution energy he had helped them study. I often see people upset about Ash’s League loss trying to spin it into a story about Ash learning that winning isn’t everything, but it’s actually the opposite. Alain is the one learning that winning isn’t everything. In his quest for power, he had inadvertently brought danger to the very people he was trying to protect, with Sycamore and Chespie both being directly in Lysandre’s crosshairs.

And all of this eventually leads us to a scene where Lysandre, Alain, and Ash are on Prism Tower together. Alain is paralyzed by his emotions, distraught at what he had unwittingly brought about. Lysandre imprisons Ash and tries to force him to work for him like Alain had, but Ash refuses and breaks free using the Bond phenomenon. And for one final time, we see Ash inspiring people to be better. Seeing Ash act without hesitation, never for a second even considering forsaking his morals and working with Lysandre the way he did, Alain snaps out of his stupor and finally confronts Lysandre. Alain may be the stronger Trainer, but Ash is the better Trainer. Captured, outmatched, and weary from the League, Ash still chose to fight. Win or lose, Ash is still the best, like no one ever was.