#patchwork prodigy

[josephkravis]

SploitGPT: The Hilarious Heavyweight of Hack Protection

SploitGPT, #kravis

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[tinydeskwriter]

Lando NorrisxWolff!reader

words: 2825

requested: no

A/n: This is going to be a multi-chapters, most of the chapters won't be social midia or something. It is going to 'follow' the 2023 F1 season. Reader is Toto's eldest child by a fictitious ex- first wife. I just watched Break Point, with is another sport Netflix docuseries from the same producing company that makes DST, and since then I have this idea of a prodigy tennis player reader.

next part»

GQ 10 things Y/n Wolff can’t live without

“Hi GQ, I am Y/n Wolff and here are my essentials.” The young woman opens her arms looking at the objects displayed on the table, before looking up and smiling to the camera.

# Sugar

“My trainer may not agree. My coaches may not agree. My performance coach may not agree. My parents definitely don’t agree.” She points out, “But I need sugar.” The young woman brings to the centre of the table a small pile of sweets, a tall cup of caffeinated drink and a can of Red Bull, “I live of sugar and… sugary things…”

“My day starts with this lovely peppermint iced mocha sweetened with vanilla sugar… a ton of vanilla sugar.” Y/n laughs taking a sip of her drink “I am weirdly obsessed with mint and chocolate combinations…” She comments looking at the camera, “I drink perhaps two or three of those per day,” The young woman then places her hand over the top of the Red Bull can, most people who follow her already know that she is an athlete sponsored by Red Bull, “sugar-free Red Bull, which ironically is sweeter than the regular one.” She puts her hand on the pile of chocolates, “Milk-chocolate, I am not going to lie and say that I eat the healthy stuff, I don’t, I have the taste buds of a child,” the tennis player smiles mischievously at the camera, “right now I am really into this Finnish chocolate, Geisha and the blue Fazer, daddy always keep those in his offices for me.” She wrinkles her nose a little, giving the camera a lovely—childish—smile.

“Aero Mint bar, Chocolate Orange, Maltesers, Bounty, Kinder, truffles…I'm honestly starting to wonder how we managed to get through customs.” She laughs looking at her entourage behind the cameras. “This is like… a fraction of what I usually travel with, this is more like what I have in my bag for the day.”

#Photos

Y/n played a little with a golden square object in her hand.

“I travel a lot, I am on the road from January to November playing at tournaments around the world, so I can’t always be surrounded or in touch with the people that I love,” she says in a slightly more serious tone, taking the golden case in her hands and pressing the button to open, showing pile of polaroid photos, “those are mini Polaroids, so I can bring them with me wherever I go, I keep them inside this vintage cigarette case that belonged to my maternal grandmother, she was a absolute rockstar and I miss her very much.”  The camera takes a close-up on the golden case with rope motif and small colourful stones. “As I don’t smoke, I had to find another use for it.”

The first photo she shows is five adults together, smiling around a table, in what appears to be a ski resort.

“I have a very patchwork family, and somehow the adults in my life made it work…which I am very grateful for, not everyone is lucky to have so many amazing parents…so here I have my mum and my two other mothers, Stephanie and Susie, papa and my other father, Phillippe,” the second photo is her with a boy not much younger than her, two teenage girls and a small child in front of a Christmas tree, “my siblings, I have four, I am the eldest whatever way you go, huge flex,” the photo is followed by one of a pyjama party with several girls in matching pyjamas, and another of the tennis player with a blonde in front of the Eiffel Tower, “My gurls! This is my best friend, she is also my PA… so amazing to have someone I trust so much with me all the time…” a golden cocker spaniel with a crystal necklace, silk bows in its ears and a Gucci sweater appears on the screen, “this is Éclair Wolff, my emotional support dog aka my child, she actually goes with me mostly everywhere, but sometimes I leave her with my mum so she won’t be stressed by the long flights.”

She points to the next three photos, the first has the Mercedes drivers in Tommy Hilfinger, posing for the photo. “Lew and Georgie, the adopted older brothers I never asked for, but I love them.” The second photo has three other familiar faces making faces at the camera, “C2, my Ferrari boys, feat Pear, there is something wholesome about good looking men looking so silly, I love those guys and I love this picture, it is very on brand with them.”  The tennis player smiles at the camera. “Sharls, Carlitos and Pear are three of the nicest guys I have ever met, it is truly a blessing be able to call them friends and having them in my life.”

McLaren driver Lando Norris, in his third or fourth season, apparently not even realizing he was having his photo taken, it's a spontaneous photo, the soft sunlight highlighting the driver's profile as he smiles.

“Because of karting, I’ve known Lando since I was a head taller than him, he was my first crush…he was so shy, so adorable, so babygirl coded.” Y/n blushed a little as she shows the photo.

“I think most of the current grid is in here…oh, look, it’s Lance! Friends from life, from tennis…” She quickly changes showing another photo. “I think I easily have about sixty photos here..."

#Camera

“I don’t have a specific camera I like more than the others, but as a rule, I prefer vintage cameras just for the beauty of the final result, I inherited a few, I bought a few, I usually develop the photos when I'm at home for longer periods of time, edit the videos, digitalize a few…” She points to the cameras in front of her, a Bolex, a Digital Bolex, a very iconic Rolleiflex and a Super 8, “It is a very nostalgic experience to just go through a year worth of memories…” She says resting her face in her hand, “I have a hundred boxes with pictures and film rolls.”

“I love going through old pictures with my mom and Cass, my younger sister, from when we were babies, my parents in the 90’s, my mom when she was young, the wonderful life my grandparents lived, and is such a lovely moment to share with my mom.” Y/n has a soft smile on her lips. “One day, when I have my own kids, I want to have those moments with them, and not just scrolling through a phone or an iPad.”

#Journals

“I keep journals since I was a child, I get a new one every year,” She holds up the leather hardcover notebook, a deep indigo blue, a little worn around the edges, “after I turned thirteen years old, I started to get it in this specific shade of blue, with my initials in gold,” The girl opens the journal, leafing through it briefly, “I am never going to write an auto-biography, it’s kind of a little bit too egocentric to my taste,” She knocks it closed, but keeps it up, looking at the camera as she speaks , “but if someone ever write about me, fifty years from now… the facts will be straight, at least from my point of view… but even if no one ever writes about me… when I am old and grey and memory starts to fail me, I will be able to come back to the thoughts of twenty years old me…”

There is a moment of silence.

“That was kind of dark.” Y/n laughs to break the tension.

#Art Supplies

“I love to draw and paint, it eases the anxieties of life,” The tennis player shows the large sketchbook, a small aluminium case with the watercolours, and the rolling leather case with pencils and brushes, “I always bring a watercolour travel kit with my sketchbook wherever I go.”

She displays for the internet some of the landscapes she painted during her travels around the world.

#Hoodies

“I like to be comfortable after a match,” she spreads her arms across the perfectly folded hoodies on the table, “and nothing is more comfortable than a hoodie, feels a little bit like home.”

“I have my collection of hoodies with Adidas, they always provide me with new cool colours to try out and see if I want to add to the next collection,” Y/n opens sage green hoodie, running her hand over her initials and the Adidas logo. “Enchanté by Dani Ric, I have a bunch of those, Daniel is always kind enough to drop them at my house in Monaco, VIP treatment baby.” She points to the white hoodie. “Quadrant hoodies, Lando’s merch, ridiculously comfy, I would really like them in pastel colours or dusty rose… just putting out to the universe…” Y/n smiles and winks at the camera. “Valtteri, MV1… those all came with me for the US Open.”

#Skincare

“This is part of my daily routine.” The girl opens the toiletry bag, taking out the products inside, “I am always in different countries and different hotel rooms, so is nice to have this little sense of routine.”

She lines the pearlescent bottles with opaque round lids on top of the table.

“I launched Muse when I was seventeen years old, it is my skincare brand, and it is very me. I wanted it to be un-complicated and complete,” The young woman explains passionately looking at the camera, “skin is the body’s largest organ, and it is not only your face.” It affects the hair on your face, tucking it behind your ear before going back to the product bottles. “The line goes from body wash to suncream to night-time routine.”  

#Travel Pillow

“If I mess up my neck and shoulder, I am f***ed, my match is over and possibly the tournament.” She holds up a medium-sized pillow to the camera, the pillowcase light pink silk with red buttonholes around the edges and her initials in the corner. “So, this baby goes with me everywhere, it is a memory foam pillow with a silk pillowcase. Best sleep, best hair.”

#Sport Gear

“I generalized here, sport gear, I travel heavy, always,” she points to the array of equipment on the table, “this is my racket, I go to each tournament with around ten of those, just in case I wreak one on the ground,” Y/n passes her hand over the racket, “those are custom Yonex Ezone 98, they made it in Mountbatten pink with some cool pattern and my initials,” she smiles as she pulls the helmet close to her chest, “my helmet, also custom Mountbatten pink, with my initials in rose, I love to try new karting tracks, most people don’t know I used to race karts when I was younger, won a couple of trophies, went as far as F3 before I choose to go pro with tennis, car racing is a huge thing in my family…my dad used to race, my stepmom was a driver, my little brother probably going to be a F1 driver,” she recounts with a smile, “I joked once with my dad that we are at a window that if I have a kid in the next year or two, in twenty years we can have a Wolff’s drivers line-up for Mercedes.” The young woman smirks to the camera. “My dad almost passed out, and now I am not allowed to date until I am thirty.”

#Headphones

“Those are custom made for me, again, they are Mountbatten pink and rose with my logo, super comfortable on the ears, I usually have problems with headphones due to the piercings and earrings, but these didn't give me any problems, they fit well, and I can spend the whole day wearing them." She takes the gadget out of the case, showing the details. “It's not wireless, because I always forget to charge it, so it has a wire, they made this lovely, thick cord that is durable and super resistant,” Y/n wraps the rope around her fingers, “it is noise cancelling and it is always with me before every match as an essential part of my pre-match rituals.”

“The right music kind of puts you in the right mood, I usually go with Eminem in 80% of my matches, I feel like it unleashes my inner fighter, these are matches where I'm not really worried about my opponent, it is just raw and a little bit thoughtless, I just play,” she comments, “when I know that my opponent is going to be hard on the mind games, which is not an uncommon move in tennis, I tend to listen to calmer and more melancholic music, piano, it keeps me in a more peaceful zone, I don’t get pumped up and full of adrenaline, my game tends to be far more calculated…”

 #

“That’s it. Those were my ten essentials,” the young woman smiles, “thank you, GQ, for allowing me to share my essentials, much appreciated, and thank you guys for taking the time to watch it! Much love and see you next time!” The athlete says, blowing a kiss and winking to the camera as the credits shows up.

__________________________________________

2,109,963 views   Aug 29, 2022

978 Comments

 userone

i was todays yrs old when i found out that tennis superstar Y/n Wolff is the eldest child of THE Toto Wolff

            user1

            From what little she talks about her dad here, u just get the vibes that Merce boss Toto is a softie girl dad, he keeps her favourite candy in his offices and forbids her to date until she’s thirty, this is so sweet

haterone

a billionaire’s nepo baby, talking about her millionaire friends and her unrelatable lifestyle and things

usertwo

Y/n’s hair is probably the healthiest hair i ever seen i need her hair routine

userthree

I am so obsessed with her career! I want to see her continue to succeed and be one of the biggest tennis players of all times. She deserves it. Such a talented, humble kid.

userfour

i loved hearing her talk about her family and friends!!! it is so crazy that she is close friends with a bunch of F1 drivers.

            hatertwo

            Not so crazy since she’s literally a f1 nepo baby, her daddy is part owner of Mercedes.

userfive

She's like that one super popular chick in school who's actually a total sweetheart.

usersix

I totally relate to her being a sweet tooth

@userseven

I love that she was not talking to the camera. She was actually talking to the people there behind the scenes

usereight

i love how a lot of these items are usually a stereotype of being pretentious—a vintage cartier cigarette case, a film camera, a leather bound custom hermes journal, art supplies--but she talks about all of them with such genuine interest and attachment that it doesnt seem pretentious at all

usereighteen

U r the one name dropping the brands she uses…

usernine

Her nicknames for Charles Leclerc, Carlos Sainz Jr and Pierre Gasly… I died dead…

            user9

            The fact that she’s gushing about lando and being so sweet about her childhood crush on him oml

            user10

            Omg it is so cuuute!!! Like, she had a crush on little Lando and not McLaren glow up Lando Norris

            user11

            I used to be so conflicted shipping her with the drivers, because she dates that tennis player, but her insta has a bunch of her and Charles and her and Pierre and her and Lance and it is so cute and kind of gives such soft vibes, those boys look half in love with her in most pictures, also ...the chemistry. but seeing the way she talks about Lando… they r my new diehard ship…

userten  

Are we going to ignore that she confessed that Lando Norizz was her first crush???

            user1

            They would be so cute together… and they ate both single now… at the same time… we can dream…

            user12

            i went ten steps further and in my head, they are already getting married and having cute future Mercedes world drivers’ champions…

user13

 Can we already dream of Lando at Mercedes???

usereleven

Ok… but didn’t Lando once commented like, very briefly, in a McLaren video, that he used to have a crush on a girl that used to go karting with him??? The girl who wore red ribbons in her hair… do you guys know who uses red ribbons in heir hair since she was an actual baby?? Y/n! There is a pic in her insta of her in a karting track with her dad, and she has red bows in her hair…

            user11

            Not gonna lie… It would be kinda of cute if they actually had a mutual childhood crush and then eventually end up together as adults…

next part»

[zibahyi]

⊹ VERSE POST. placed under a cut to avoid spoilers. if you haven't reached act three or are aware of the events going on there, i suggest skipping this one!

shams was born to a family belonging to the writers faction in the real world, around the time the warring between the two factions had already existed for years. the azaris used to be an ancient lineage of narrative weavers, a family cursed (or blessed) with the ability to alter reality by rewriting its story. they did not create from nothing until much later— instead, they edit existence like a manuscript, changing events, people and even history itself with the stroke of their pen. the ability died out ages ago due to other members of the faction taking advantage of it and as such, they primarily focused on the art of creation by writing. but how exactly did their ability work? there used to be a hereditary artifact, a pen that writes in blood - ink, capable of altering events, but only if the change "fits the narrative." small edits (changing a name, erasing a memory) are easy, but large ones (preventing a death, rewriting a war) require sacrifices.

compared to the canvases of the painters, written stories are interconnected with each other, forming one realm that they call the pale verses. each world is a labyrinth of stanzas, metaphors given physical form and allegories that twist reality. time loops, meanings shift and the only way to survive is to write oneself into the narrative or be erased by the world's hunger for new stanzas. not many reach the hub of said world, but it is a vast, labyrinthine library where every story is its own world. each written work manifests as its own self - contained universe, obeying the rules of its narrative. the more a story is read, remembered or revised in the real world, the stronger its world becomes. when a story is abandoned, burned or lost, its world begins to dissolve.

this was one of the focal points between the writers in the faction. not only have they been warring with the painters, but for more control, books would be hidden and even burned to diminish a family's power. and because the azaris were the only known writers who could rewrite the events of a story, it had soon began to affect them. soon, the greed and fear of her family had taken over, each person fighting to be the strongest narrative weaver. reality, strained by their manipulations, began to reject their changes. people they had erased in the worlds flickered back as half - formed ghosts, events they altered twisted into paradoxes and entire bloodlines collapsed under the weight of their revisions. this had caused issues in the real world as well. the more a writer rewrites a story, the more they stop existing in the real world. and thus, almost all of the weavers disappeared, except for a select few who had seemed to make the right choice.

around the time she had begun to be a prodigy in the art of writing, she finds said artifact. upon touching it, it triggers an event that leaves her trapped in a poem about the history of the writers. this is where everything changes. the world she had entered was like no other she had seen before, a reality the hub would call the devouring stranza. the poem is alive and it is a parasitic text, a living entity that consumes stories, memories and souls to sustain itself. it was originally a eulogy, written by the last weaver as their bloodline collapsed. intended to be a monument to lost history, it instead became a recursive curse— a poem that rewrote itself with every word read, growing more ravenous with each iteration. as they removed each other from existence, the poem absorbed their forgotten remnants, becoming a patchwork of missing memories.

now, it exists as the only true record of the azaris and one that feeds on their descendants. but what was the actual structure of the poem? the poem has no true beginning or end. it loops eternally, with each stanza referencing its own consumption. key lines shift upon rereading, ensuring no two interpretations are the same. the poem cannot exist if the weavers are truly gone. thus, it preserves the last weaver (shams), not out of mercy, but to sustain itself. if she dies without passing on her power, the stanza will unravel, but so will every reality the weavers ever altered. and it is during her time there that she learns of this.

throughout her journey, she walked through different locations that helped her learn the reality of this world. the inkwell catacombs, a place that held the corpses of weavers who tried to escape their fate, or the artifact's birthplace, a glacial tundra where the first quill was dipped, were the first two she had to encounter. the last location, however, was the one that opened her eyes. the ghost press, they called it, a monstrous, broken printing press in a dead city, tended to by ink - golems made of discarded drafts. if she can stop the press, she might stop the poem’s hold on her. but the press is guarded by something that wears a weaver’s skin. in the end, there were only two solutions to escape the world she had found herself in: either complete the text and dissolve into the stranza or rewrite herself out of the narrative. which is exactly what happened.

she's back to reality now, but things seem to be different. the attack against the dessendre family had now occurred and things were much more drastic than before. shams' physical health has also weakened and for her to find a cure, she must travel into different artworks, whether created by a writer or painter, and find something that will sustain her or else she will be consumed by ink. she channels her energy into these worlds, while keeping her physical body in the real world, and helps resolve the issues with her own ability. she appears as a normal human, but if one were to look closely, her reflection flickers, sometimes showing a verse where her face should be. when shams is inside artworks, time moves differently for her. the scenes in front of her shift to depict past or future iterations of the events or it replays in different ways to show many versions of what is yet to happen (or maybe never will happen). she also cannot rewrite events unless she uses the blood of the source creating these worlds.

and this is how she gets involved with lumière and the continent. her latest journey, she had entered a few years after the fracture, making sure she acclimates herself with the continent. her initial reason for coming, however, was not for the cure, but because of the war happening in the real world. she simply had to act before things worsened and to her, the start was with the very same corruption that her faction had started. while clea created the nevrons to lock away all of aline's chroma, shams will seek out expeditions to help them get closer, which she had done in the past. the expedition will be able to find her in multiple locations, the first one being the ancient sanctuary. she will leave little clues for the expedition to find her, but if that does not seem to work, she will seek them out herself, which will be in old lumière. she is also familiar with most inhabitants of the continent, particularly being fond of the gestrals and the grandis.

she makes no decisions when she is with expedition 33, only being there for support, whether that is a party member or as a camp inhabitant. her loyalty remains with finding a way to end the war, something she values even more than finding a cure. if maelle's ending has been chosen, she will leave the canvas. in the same vein, if verso's ending has been chosen, she will do the same. she won't particularly tell the full truth at once because of how deep it is and how it is not her story to tell, but if they were to ask the right questions, she will give the right answers.

when she returns to the real world, she moves forward with the fight between the writers and the painters. when it comes to her cure, there is no proper solution that would be viewed as a good ending. she could retrieve the inkwell of the first weaver, but his blood carries his madness and hunger, so she would risk becoming a new devouring stanza herself. she could find a counterpart to the quill that unwrites instead of writes, but if she were to unwrite herself, it would unmake her past actions, collapsing events she’s influenced. she could force the entity that eats forgotten stories to consume the stanza, but that would mean herself with it. either way, the ending for her will either be being erased from existence, becoming a monstrosity or dying. in the end, she disappears either way. it only depends on which option she prefers. and any journey she could take will only delay the inevitable.

⊹ LITTLE NOTES:

her appearance shifts during her time in the canvas. the way her illness shows itself when she is inside an artwork is making it seem like it is a magical illness. in each artwork, the way it manifests is different. while she is on the continent, her face has golden marks that shift depending on her energy levels. see here for an example of how it might look.

the way changing events would work is different in stories and in paintings. because of the fact that there are truly no written words in canvases, the said reality will need a payment in return, which she usually does so herself by giving her own blood.

[littjara-mirrorlake]

That one-shot of Elesh Norn's backstory was just one piece of the many, many Phyrexian praetor origin headcanons I have, and I definitely will write those in the future as well.

Besides Elesh Norn, who was born of the white sun in a magic wellspring and taken in by a high priest, none of the praetors really came from anywhere special.

Sheoldred was born to one of the first compleated Mirrans in a society where status is limited by the purity of one's Phyrexian bloodline. Doomed from birth to a suboptimal compleation and a life toiling away under covetous lords, she seized her fate in her own hands. The power of her words and her mastery of information would become her greatest asset, and she would spend her life proving to others--and herself--her worthiness to stand among and above her fellow Phyrexians.

Urabrask was just another faceless form in the teeming masses of Phyrexians created for industry, long before the Furnace Layer was even built. He moved silently through his training with the other newts in his cohort, shaping metal and reciting hymns, wondering if anyone else could see the hole they burned in his heart.

Jin-Gitaxias was a young prodigy, born with innate telepathic powers that lay dormant in his mind. In his newthood he grew obsessed with designing his own optimized, compleated form, and secured a place on one of the budding Progress Engine's research teams. It was there he would be offered an opportunity to kickstart his career, joining an effort to create the optimized predatory organism--the Vorinclex Project.

In time, these five would come together from their patchwork of backgrounds, and their fates would grow inseparable from one another.

[put-me-on-a-hitlist]

🪽 — what is your s/o from? (made-up, media, book, movie etc…) and why did you feel drawn to them?

💄 — what are petnames you have for eachother?

🥂 — how did you two met and how did you relationship progress?

>:3

YAYAYAYAYA THANK YOUUUUU

Anyways :3

🪽: Touya and Keigo are both from My Hero Academia. I was first drawn to Touya when I first started the series about four years ago. I was mostly drawn to him because 1. Looks cool as fuck and hot as fuck 2. Dark and mysterious and 3. His backstory??? His character??? I have a thing for villains who are lowk justified in becoming villains and he certainly is. Then for Keigo, it’s actually kind of shameful. The first time I was into the series, I actually hated his guts. I feel so bad about it but I mean the reason why is kind of justified. At the time I only focused on the fact that he betrayed the league and then killed one of my favorite characters and not his past, the reason why he did those things, etc. So yeah I one point I hated my husband which is just terrible. The second time around that I really got into it again, that’s when I started feeling drawn to him. Mostly because of his carefree demeanor that is literally just a cover and how smart and skilled he is. Then it was about a year ago when I started being really down bad for the both of them and then created the DR. After that it was just BABAM and now they are like my everything to the point I’m scripting out all of my previous s/o’s because I’m not even attracted to them anymore <3

💄: We don’t really use pet names a lot before we lose contact and after everything is revealed because our names were very important to us for various reasons. But we did have some and we use them occasionally. For Keigo there’s pretty bird, birdie, and other bird names like that. And Kei I’m not sure if that counts since it’s just shortening his name but whatever. And Moon occasionally. Touya doesn’t really have a lot but when he’s still mostly going by Dabi there’s Hot stuff and patchwork but that’s more of a insulty-ish one when we’re messing and almost everyone in the league calls him that too. And there’s Star as well. Then for me, I went by Sun almost my entire childhood and it was just a preferred name. After the war, there’s very few people I let use that name because then I had switched to going by Taiyō. Sun became like a secret, very intimate name reserved for my immediate family and Touya and Keigo. Other than that I don’t really have any pet names scripted. They may use some but I’m not sure we’ll see :)

🥂: I’ll do the first time around and then the second time around as well. The first time I met Keigo, we met at a small park when we were five or so. We became best friends almost immediately. About a year later give or take was when we both got picked up by the hero public safety commission and were put in the heroic prodigy program. Then about a month later was when we met Touya when he also joined the program. I had already known of Touya before because our parents were friends and before I had even been born I was set to marry him so I knew who he was I just hadn’t met him. After that we were inseparable and best friends until we were thirteen or so and we started dating. We had no fucking idea what we were doing and we were just winging it. Then the second time around I ran into Dabi (Touya) at a train station when I tripped and he caught me (cheesy? Idgaf). We met a couple more times at a club and when I broke into his house to befriend him (funny story might make a post about it if I haven’t already) and we just hit it off. Neither of us knew how to be friends like normally or how to go about making friends and we were kind of each others first friends after being separated for years. We didn’t know who each other were but we were still drawn to each other. About a week after we met he moved in with me cause his apartment burnt down. Then there were nine months of flirting, non secretive eye fucking, tension, and denial before we finally figured out who each other were. For Keigo, I found his ID in a store and before I was trying to stay away from him because contacting him put us both at risk. But I couldn’t help myself anymore and thought I would just be friends for a little while so we were friends and then I introduced Dabi to him not knowing he was also trying to stay away from him and we were just a little friend circle for awhile. Me and Dabi kind of had the mutual understanding that we were both pining hard for Keigo but neither of us knew why because neither of us knew who the other was. We only knew who Keigo was and he didn’t know who we were. Anyways. We just play that little game for about five or six months(?) before me and Dabi have to say goodbye when we join the league cause hero and villain doesn’t really mix the best. That was hard as fuck but we did. Then about a month after the training camp and Kamino I go back to Keigo and then me and Touya figure out who each other are and we both go back to Keigo. At that point Keigo knows we’re with a villain organization and shit and thinks we’re just using him but doesn’t really mind and it’s just complicated. We do that for awhile until the reveal and he realizes and then we get to be together normally post war which is so nice and I love it. Okay wow that was a lot. Sorry I just love love love talking about our relationship and how stuff goes down ahahaha woops😅

[the-melodymuse]

Glastonbury 2025

Glastonbury 2025 Summary:

Dates & Location: June 25–29, 2025, at Worthy Farm, Somerset, England.

Headliners: The 1975, Neil Young, Rod Stewart, Olivia Rodrigo (Pyramid Stage); Loyle Carner, Charli XCX, The Prodigy (Other Stage).

Notable Acts: Doechii, Gracie Abrams, Noah Kahan, Wolf Alice, Busta Rhymes, Rizzle Kicks, Fabio & Grooverider with Outlook Orchestra, Nadine Shah, Glass Beams, Ca7riel & Paco Amoroso, Jalen Ngonda, Ichiko Aoba, Horsegirl, John Glacier, and Geordie Greep.

Total Performances: Over 3,000 across all stages.

Special Features:

56 “TBA” slots hinting at secret sets, including one before Alanis Morrissette on the Pyramid Stage.

A band named “Patchwork” is scheduled, speculated to be pop trio Haim.

Opening night (June 25) features a theatre and circus show, followed by fireworks.

Lorde’s Possible Return: Releasing her album Virgin on June 27, with speculation she may make a surprise appearance.

Fallow Year: Glastonbury will take a break in 2026 to allow the land to recover, as per its tradition every four years.

Full lineup and set times are available on Glastonbury’s official website.

Source: Billboard

[ottpopfic]

Will has a dream

He's standing at the bottom of a staircase in a dark condo, somewhere he's never been. It's a strange place, spools of thread on pegs along the crown molding. Each string is threaded through multiple eye hooks on the ceiling. It reminds Will of cable management in the engineering department when he was in college. They all trail in one direction down a thin cluttered hall

Will follows the strings, and then in turn the sound at the end. There is a lighted room off of the hall, in the place of what should be the dining room. Inside is Katie Fiodoir. She's sitting at a huge antique loom, the spools strung along the ceiling and feeding into the reeds.

She's not alone though, there's something with her. It looks to be part of the loom, or made from it, some person-shaped amalgamation of fibercraft and thread. Its connected to what the girl is weaving, both getting pulled into the tapestry and drawing from it. And its whispering to the kid, hands on her shoulders as she works.

Its not the only whisper, each time Katie runs the shuttle through the fibers Will can hear voices. Some of them are passive and overlapping, talking together along with the entity. Others are scared and pleading, like all they have left to beg for help is their voice into a void.

“Katie?” he calls out, concerned for his ward. The kid doesn't react, but the thing above her does

Its face is so human for something entirely sewn. It's the most detailed fiber work he's ever witnessed, and he's helped train multiple weaving prodigies. Its not just one kind of craft, felting and embroidery and patchwork and beading. Complex needlework and lace, all blended together into the face of a woman. She looks a lot like Katie, but the nose gives it away that they are not the same person

“We did not call you” it spits at Will, its voice coming both from it and all of the ones in the loom

“No, you didn't” Will confirms, taking a step closer to his charge hopeing to try and snap her out of her trance. The closer he gets to the kid the less she looks like she's made out of people and the more she looks like she is a part of the wood she's manipulating “Katie?” he tries to call out again

“Leave” the fiber thing demands, and then he's being forced out

He doesn't go the way he came, or through the front doorof the building. Will is flying back like a Force Push, up through dirt and rotting wood until he's shooting out of a swollen hollow of a tree. The cravace unnatural in its shape, like someone bloated only one part of the plant like a cancer.

He keeps going for a moment too, until he crashes among the trees. It takes a second to reorient himself, but when he looks up he recognizes the abandoned rope swing in the large poplar tree he landed under.

He's in the Camp Half-Blood woods, and there is screaming coming from the sick tree and he's pretty sure he hears his new charge’s voice in the mix

Will springs awake, the smell of coffee explaining the colds sheets next to him. He peels the sweat-damp blanket off of himself and stumbles out of their room to find his husband

Nico is in the kitchen in nothing but his boxers and soft sleep shirt. His back is to Will, long hair free from his ponytail hiding his face. When Will staggers in Nico turns half a degree, and Will can see that he's holding the house walkie-talkie in his hand

“Kay’ he just walked in I'll tell him” Nico says into the little radio before setting it back on the charger on the counter and meeting Wills's eyes

“Katie Fiodior is missing”

[sungsilver]

verse; modern.

musician | composer | mystic sound vibes, inspo | eivør, enya, sarah mclachlan, mazzy star, agnes obel her style is rooted in classical structure, but it drifts. often laced with old-world folk traditions, ambient elements, or choral echoes, critics try to categorize her but fail. she doesn't write hits, she writes hauntings.

celebrían  was  called  a  prodigy  before  she  could  properly  spell  it.  she  was  born  to  a  lineage  steeped  in  elegance  and  exceptional  accomplishments;  academically,  politically,  and  artistically.  she  was  the  kind  of  child  who  listened  before  she  spoke,  and  when  she  finally  did,  it  was  often  in  music.  by  the  age  of  three,  she  could  pluck  the  melody  from  lullabies  and  play  them  on  the  piano  by  ear.  at  five,  she  was  playing  vivaldi  on  a  second-hand  violin  and  by  eight,  she  was  composing.  she  added  guitar  and  voice  not  long  after,  her  vocal  range  balancing  somewhere  between  folk  storytelling  and  operatic  purity.  her  sound  was  hauntingly  timeless,  like  someone  who  remembered  music  from  another  life.

a  child  with  a  host  of  imaginary  friends,  who  were  not  so  imaginary.  she  did  not  speak  about  them  all  aloud,  a  conscious  choice  even  as  a  girl  to  save  her  family  from  the  additional  unease.  but  it  was  something  she  brought  into  music,  the  unfinished  melodies  of  the  dead,  influence  from  the  great  divide.

she  was  famous  in  certain  circles  before  she  knew  what  fame  was.  not  a  household  name  entirely,  not  at  first.  a  whispered  one  known  in  conservatories,  niche  forums,  and  among  those  who  swore  they’d  never  heard  anything  quite  like  her.  she  performed  in  candlelit  chapels  and  cathedrals,  museums  and  the  eventual  spark  of  grand  halls.  she  would  travel  the  world,  meet  presidents  and  royalty,  and  perform  on  the  most  coveted  stages,  conduct  orchestral  arrangements  and  programs.  celebrían  would  compose  her  own  albums  from  start  to  finish.

at  fourteen,  after  years  of  endless  touring  and  recording,  and  the  slow  erasure  of  childhood,  she  quietly  burned  out.  a  collapse  on  stage  in  vienna,  a  series  of  strange  interviews  from  a  child  many  considered  beyond  her  years  and  odd  to  begin  with.  she  kept  performing  anyway,  didn’t  know  how  to  stop  because  the  music  wasn’t  something  she  did,  it  was  where  she  existed.

at  seventeen,  she  was  attacked  while  waiting  for  a  train  in  berlin.  celebrían  enjoyed  freedoms  where  she  could,  she  had  never  been  scared  before.  a  girl  who  follows  the  darkness  with  light  stitched  into  her  bones.  she  had  been  carrying  her  violin,  not  long  after  meeting  with  some  local  musicians.  not  late,  not  early.  excerpts  from  the  lost  tape  of  interviews  are  as  follows:

❛  it  wasn’t  a  shadow,  or  a  feeling,  or  a  metaphor,  it  was  a  man.  he  followed  me  from  the  concert  hall,  and  i  wasn't  aware.  i  carried  melodies  in  my  head,  drumming  up  my  next  piece  of  music  so  i  never  really  noticed  anyone.  i  smiled  at  him  politely,  just  like  i  was  taught  to.  ❜  [  she  shifts  in  her  seat,  pausing  as  if  pulling  the  moment  from  thin  air.  ]

❛  i  felt  the  air  change  before  he  grabbed  me.  i  remember  the  bricks  were  wet,  i  remember  the  smell  of  oil  and  copper  and  i  remember  thinking:  i'm  not  here  anymore.  ❜

[  celebrian  adjusts  her  floor-length  skirt  over  a  pair  of  well-loved  burnt  sienna  coloured  doc  martins.  a  patchwork  of  celestial  art,  a  melodic  jingle  from  the  stack  of  silver  bracelets  on  her  wrist.  it  hardly  begins  to  describe  her  otherworldly  presence.  ]

❛  the  police  said  it  was  a  random  act.  no  motive  or  suspect  or  charges,  but  it  wasn't  random.  it's  the  kind  of  thing  that  happens  to  girls  like  me  around  the  world.  they're  all  light  and  cruel  people  want  to  crush  it.  but  i  didn't  let  him  and  while  i  left  a  part  of  myself  behind  that  night  i  found  something  else.  something  that  sings  with  me  when  i'm  alone  and  it's  louder  than  him.  ❜

she  disappeared  from  the  spotlight  for  six  years.  and  in  that  time,  celebrían  would  earn  a  degree  in  botany  for  the  sake  of  something  new  to  learn.  the  music  never  stopped,  it  just  changed.  upon  her  return,  celebrían  would  compose  from  her  home  studio  and  self-release.  she  began  to  tour  again,  making  venues  out  of  cathedrals  and  gothic  architectural  wonders.  it  became  easier  to  access  through  social  media  and  connecting  across  the  world.  never  attempting  to  be  understood  because  she's  trying  to  remember  what  most  people  forgot.

album  list  :

thread  between  bells  (  released,  age  11  )  a  surprisingly  mature  debut  blending  classical  piano  with  eerie  folk  melodies.  critics  called  it  beautifully  unsettling  and  otherworldly.

veilsong  (  released,  age  13,  platinum  after  three  weeks  )  a  hybrid  of  folk,  chamber  pop,  and  ghostly  choral  vocals.  recorded  in  a  former  monastery,  rumours  persist  of  voices  in  the  mix  that  weren’t  hers.

black  river  hymn  (  released,  age  15  )  a  folk  melody  unravelling.  multi-layered  harmony  that  degrades  into  static,  detuned  upright  piano,  analog  tape  loops,  whispering  violins,  field  recordings  (wind  through  reeds,  footsteps,  breath).

a  body  for  the  sky  (  released,  age  24  )  the  return;  not  triumphant  but  true.  ambient,  acoustic,  voice-as-instrument,  pulling  experimental  folk  elements  and  returning  to  her  roots  of  classical  inspiration.  spiritual,  haunting,  and  oddly  comforting.

additional  notes.

celebrían  lives  in  a  converted  chapel,  friends  say  the  house  smells  like  cedar  and  warmth  and  something  sweet.  she  grows  her  own  herbs,  refuses  all  smart  technology,  and  writes  music  longhand.  her  studio  is  filled  with  antique  instruments,  some  of  which  she  claims  “play  themselves  when  the  hour  is  right.”  she  is  eccentric  to  some  but  beyond  measure,  she  is  full  of  heart  and  feeling.  gentle-natured,  kind,  empathetic.  a  hug  from  her  feels  like  you've  found  the  home  you've  been  searching  for  your  entire  life.

despite  her  retreat  from  public  life,  celebrían’s  work  has  gained  a  cult  following,  especially  among  young  musicians,  witches,  spiritual  seekers,  and  many  others  who  say  her  music  'feels  like  listening  to  something  older  than  words.'

[absolute-immunities]

increasingly convinced that Morton Horwitz is a moron

it’s really irritating to hear someone is banging on about context and language and history and then gets them all wrong

for example:

Take the concept higher law—When Thomas Jefferson invoked the ‘self-evident ... truth’ of an ‘inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ in the American Declaration of Independence, he sought to weave together at least four different historical strands or layers of meaning: first, the seventeenth century Whig fundamental law tradition derived either from immemorial custom or from an ancient constitution existing before the Norman invasion; second, Thomistic natural law, whose content consisted primarily of specifying a person's social duties in an organic community; third, the seventeenth century social contractarian conception of natural rights existing in a state of nature and exercised by atomistic individuals against the State; forth, a conception of rights in which Newtonian scientific laws were gradually transformed into Kantian moral laws.

beyond the dubious proposition that Jefferson was trying to “weave together” any “strands or layers” of meaning, most of this is unfounded

“Thomistic natural law” was simply not present in Anglo-American imagination, much less its discourse

the language of the Declaration, and the discourse of which it was a part, was in the key of public law, the law of nations, of the publicists Vattel, Wolff, Pufendorf, and Grotius

these publicists, men of Protestant education and Protestant service—Vattel, of Basel, Geneva, and Saxon service; Wolff, of Leipzig, Jena, and Prussian service; Pufendorf, of Leipzig, Jena, and Swedish service; Grotius, of Leiden and Dutch service—could not, by any stretch of the imagination, be called “Thomistic”

Pufendorf, whose survey of the history of the field in The Law of Nature and Nations (Basil Kennett trans., 5th ed. 1749) (1672) has full chapters on the Chaldeans, Thales, and Anaxagoras and Archelaus, treats of the scholastics, and the whole Roman middle ages, with a single dismissive aside at the end of his chapter on the Neoplatonists, short enough to excerpt here in full:

Aristotle had hitherto but very few Followers: He was scarce known in the Western Parts of the World, till towards the Beginning of the sixth Century. The celebrated Boëtius, by translating some of that Philosopher’s Writings, laid the Foundations of that prodigious, and truly despotic Authority, which the Peripatetic Philosophy became afterwards possessed of; and which, even to this Day, in many Places, it ftill maintains. The Arabians, in the eleventh Century, grew fond of it, and introduc’d it into Spain. From thence sprung the Scholastic Philosophy; which spread itself all over Europe, and, with its barbarous Cant, became even more prejudicial to Religion, and Morality, than to the speculative Sciences. The Ethics of the Schoolmen, is a Piece of Patchwork; a confus’d Collection, without any Order, or fix’d Principles; a Medley of divers Thoughts, and Sentences out of Aristotle, Civil and Canon Law, Scripture, and the Fathers. Both good and bad lie there intermix’d, and confus’d; but so, as that there is much more of the latter, than the former. The Casuists of the succeeding Centuries, made it their sole Business to excel their Predecessors, in vain Subtilties; nay, what is worse, in monstrous, and abominable Errors; as all the World knows. But let us pass by these unhappy Times, that we may, at length, come to that Age, wherein the Science of Morality was, if I may so say, rais’d again from the Dead.

“passing by these unhappy Times,” which, for the author, included the full millennium after the death of Boethius, Pufendorf renews the narrative with Francis Bacon

if that was how the Continentals treated the scholastics—and Vattel and Wolff do not even condescend to mention the scholastics, though Grotius, writing in the infancy of his field and under the protection of a Catholic prince, allows them a handful of cordial notes—still less could the English be thought “Thomistic”

Blackstone, educated in the civil law, who littered his Commentaries with references to Roman and canon law, to Domat and the decretals, to the Institutes, the Novels, and the Codex, and who made some few sparing references to Montesquieu and Locke, made, across the whole of his Commentaries, his vast survey of the public and private laws of England, which begins with the natural rights of man, precisely zero references to Thomas, and zero to the Thomists

they simply did not matter

despite the Thomists’ insistence on writing the revered Thomas into our history and insinuating him into our thought, this is a dialogue in which Thomas did not take part, and a discourse in which Thomism has no place

the “seventeenth century social contractarian conception” is presumably a gesture at that mainstay of the American syllabus, Locke, who was an irrelevance in public law

the “contractarian conception” is, again, more properly grounded in the eighteenth-century publicists, in Vattel and Pufendorf

here Horwitz’s suggestions are, again, totally inapt,

but I’ve tired myself out confirming that the public and natural law background to this public and natural law text bears no marks of “Thomistic natural law,”

so, rather than make any further analytic or conceptual arguments, or address the balance of the misconceptions and crude errors that Horwitz has knit together here,

I’m just going to gesture towards the text and say “get a load of this guy”

[lichenbu]

Dreamer AU

This is a homestuck au I’ve had kicking for a while. Basically, the Scratch ruins the disk as it moves BACKWARDS, and suddenly we’re back to the trolls’ session, except—

There’s someone on Prospit. On Derse, too. Figures of soft skin and patchwork clothes who don’t have any name and have the royals’ ear.

SW, a figure on Prospit who giggles with the queen:

So-Called Watcher (by Vriska)

Serendipitous Woman (by the citizens of Prospit)

BH, a prodigious fighter who supports the White King on the battlefield:

Benevolent Helper (by Kanaya)

Blue Hero (by the white soldiers)

TK, someone who has a minor following on Derse and talks of overthrowing the government:

Tenacious Kid (by Terezi and Nepeta)

Traveler Kindhearted (by his followers)

LS, a mysterious person trapped in a tower on Derse who makes her voice heard through dreams and prophecies:

Laughing Seamstress (by Eridan)

Lady Sun (by those who receive her dreams)

I have a LOT of ideas about this au. I call it the Dreamer AU and I’ll answer any questions/respond to any ideas, I just can’t promise they always make sense.

[lidoshka]

Loyal Dogs

With all the conflict and tension between Amestris and Aerugo, it was inevitable that a war would break loose. Mustang, though, had always thought that he would be able to keep his young prodigy away from such a nightmarish ordeal.

+

ah! I dont' think I've ever postd this here?! well it's October now so I'm posting it!

A while ago I made fanart (here and here) for this fantastic story! I love several things about it, from the fact Ed’s intelligence and alchemical prowess is more evident when compared to the other soldiers, to the fact Ed has to wear a uniform, to the amazingly scary scenes the author creates!

Oh! And it has a sequel too!

A dog Half Feral

Adrenaline seeped into his veins. A patchwork of memories drifted before his eyes: a village under threat, a frantic meeting, and a decision - his decision - that he would distract the oncoming enemy to buy Mustang and the others time to escape.

Goodnes, I hope they update soon!

ଘ(੭*ˊᵕˋ)੭* ੈ♡‧₊˚

[thetalamhclisteach]

What goes bump in the night? Who’s riled and ready for a fright? Why it’s these three mischievous young knaves of course, Dhorpor, Mharghy and Carcass Kid. This tricky trio is comprised of orphans who were brought into the halls of the great Eolasug of Drynyra for their particular proficiencies as promising prodigies of the scientific disposition.

Dhorpor! A rough one he is, but judging from how well he ended up taking rending his skull open to prod at his chronic brain trauma and consequently stitching it all back together this bald bespectacled kid is a tough nut to crack. Found among the filth of a sty rife with lardy beasts of burden by the outer parts of the municipality, his abilities of dissection and amputation surely came from his tendency towards cruelty and sadistic behaviour. Rather than the mud-rollers of the past, he helps the good cullahs of the halls with surgery and even excels quite well in his extraction of tumors and painful growths. Many a limb and many an organ have been skimmed and skewered under his blade to the express agony of many patients, of course a small price to pay in the way of the alleviation of dismay and the prospect of making it to the next wretched day. A playful loud mouth and energetic assistant, this boy might only be a few articles on anatomy and years in the plague-ridden city from becoming a true butcher of men.

Mharghy! The lanky cranky teen of one eye may appear to only bear half of her vision about her, however her wicked wits and careless creativity are never to be seen as anything half-minded or half-handed. A terrible team of infections took about her body in the midst of her adolescence, leaving her with a wary wavy spine and a socket of her skull compromised. Rather than seeking the dubious treatments of the looming quarters of the city, she took needle and thread upon herself to mend her own wounds. Such a determined dedication to the work of seasoned skin stitching translated into her task of bringing patchworked patients back together. Reconnecting innards and reconciling internals is no simple deed, a grizzly process which ought to leave one standing with most of (if not more) of their limbs and organs. A snarky sardonic cynic of the surgical sort, this girl can’t hold in a hardy laugh at the woes of others, even if it means her glass eye popping out.

…Carcass Kid? A relatively recent arrival from a lonely land in the heart of Talukod, this strange and stiff… kid reportedly was one among a band of travelers who involved themselves in niche mysteries. Their putrid presence seems to submerge and stifle the high spirits of any chamber they happen to stalk as some who have come into contact with this corpse-like character would come to claim. Their face is often obscured by the damp hood which adorns their noggin at all times, beyond a twisted black thicket of hair lies there a face both youthful and terribly skeletal, a ghastly pale visage of calm yet unsettling emotion. They rarely can be heard speaking as their voice remains soft and whispery, however this does not appear to trouble their companions Dhorpor and Mharghy. The particular proficiency of this unusual youngster is quite certainly difficult for most to get a grim grasp on, as they seem to know death on a level which few in these halls of progress can conceive. Some have spread rumors that the wise citizen scientist Prydlyn Pyrmarbh has taken to conferring with this young mystic concerning pseudoscience and snake oils, possibly spurred on by a rising internal distrust and only made stronger through a prejudice against those from partially-integrated border communities. As far as can be parsed from what brief interactions have been made with this poorly understood child they seem to especially enjoy the company of their companions, be that in strenuous study or simply wandering the sullen sickly streets of Drynyra bearing with them some of the last remaining jolly juvenile joy around.

[bronzetomatoes]

Do you have any BNHA fic recs?

Absolutely!! Not all of these are lesser known ones I was talking about, but I hold them all in high esteem

So my current number 1 is Bury Them Deep by Bellsastuff; yknow how you sometimes click on an author's profile and get shocked by the Men's Hockey RPF? Well this time it did not at all surprise me to see that. College hockey AU with an incredibly in depth look on what being raised as a prodigy does to people, especially those who grew up poor. And the main character? Shouji Mezou.

Patchwork by bishounen_curious is very interesting in that I loved it and have it bookmarked but I can't read it again bc I'd throw up. It's crushing in the everyday way, like this is something that very well could happen to any of us and just be seen as part of life. Mind the "broken promises" tag

I live and breathe anything written by anubis_2701, but if you're going to read Widowmaker or Nightcrawlers (both of which I adore) then PLEASE. PLEASE READ THE TAGS. The warnings are not kidding they get gory they get dark. Japan v. Shigaraki might be my favourite fic in the world atp

fame is what it is by monado is about Todoroki's relationship with being in the public eye. Very well done

entr'acte by upsidedownknight, an evening at momojirou's apartment where they have a conversation about how much Momo is taking on. It's fairly short, about 2k words, but it says all that it needs to say, yknow?

old game (new rules) by carolinaa - one of the tags says "being a lesbian in middle school is TRAUMATIZING and kyouka's working through it" and its 28k words of that. I haven't read it in a long time but she's sitting in my bookmarks waiting til I'm up for it again

Reddit, AITA? by nocturnalgf. Idk man it's fucking silly I enjoy it, I've read it like 4 times

how my poor heart aches by dinomight; Ochako knows something is wrong, but the guys don't get it. Fic about the fear of being a woman, especially in the public eye

Hope that holds you over for while! Please enjoy :)

[im-very-punsexual]

@patchwork-of-a-prodigy

thinking about the people who vanished without a trace. The mutual who reblogged something as usual and never came back online. The friend on discord who just disappeared, and when you go to check on them their account is deleted and theres no other way to contact them

I look out of my window and hope you are okay, I wish you well and Im sorry I didn't get to say goodbye.

I hope we meet again someday but until then. Stay safe. Stay alive. Be well.

[sequentialscholars]

Since 2021, “Marvel’s Voices: Pride” and “DC Pride” have platformed LGBTQ+ stories by LGBTQ+ creators. While these yearly specials can function as a form of visibility activism, their negotiation of corporate IP can be complicated, affecting which types of queerness are celebrated. 1/14 #PrideMonth

Sometimes, this negotiation involves highlighting neglected LGBTQ+ milestones. For instance, Marvel’s 2021 Pride special opens with writer/artist Luciano Vecchio retelling the queer history of Marvel, starting with 1992’s Alpha Flight #106, in which the superhero Northstar announced he was gay. 2/14

The narration, spoken by the superhero Prodigy, describes this comic as “an activist statement, bringing awareness, starting discussions, and inspiring others.” While Prodigy might feel this way about his friend Northstar, as a recounting of corporate history, this isn’t quite accurate. 3/14

Scholar Gareth Schott observes that following Alpha Flight #106, “Northstar’s sexuality was subsequently suppressed in an attempt to comply with social attitudes and responses to the disclosure.” The character largely disappeared from the pages of Marvel comics for most of the next decade. 4/14

Indeed, Northstar would not have his first boyfriend until 2009, the same year Marvel featured its first on-panel kiss between two named male characters, Rictor & Shatterstar. As such, Prodigy’s history elides a 17-year period in which Marvel offered almost no canonical queer representation. 5/14

Marvel also courted controversy with indecision about which characters to feature in their first Pride special, issuing one cover with Loki & a second without. In response, critic & writer Zoe Tunnell noted Marvel seemed hesitant to celebrate the queerness of characters appearing in the MCU. 6/14

In contrast, DC Pride has often promoted the LGBTQ+ characters starring in TV properties and spotlighted LGBTQ+ versions of higher-profile characters. For instance, DC’s 2022 Pride Month special opens with a story called “Super Pride” starring the Jon Kent version of Superman, who is bisexual. 7/14

“Super Pride” is a rumination on the power of symbols. In the story, Jon Kent’s boyfriend Jay Nakamura gifts him a Superman cape lined with a patchwork of Pride flags, including the standard Gilbert Baker rainbow as well as the bisexual, asexual, transgender, and lesbian flags (among others). 8/14

On the one hand, this is a powerful message of inclusion. The story ends with Superman, the world's first & most famous superhero, leading a Pride parade thinking, “For me, the S signifies everything I hope to live up to. Today, here, right now, I want it to mean that I see you. That I am you.” 9/14

On the other hand, similar to the Northstar example, this celebration of the present inclusiveness of Superman (and DC and Warner Bros. and Discover Inc.) does not address past histories of exclusion. Corporate IP gets to benefit from association with Pride without confronting its own past. 10/14

It is also notable how often the Pride specials celebrate long term, monogamous couples and/or the urgent quest for monogamy. Many relationships could be described as “homonormative,” featuring characters who are gay, bisexual, or lesbian but nonetheless inhabit broadly normative gender roles. 11/14

However, there are many notable exceptions. For instance, while Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy are a monogamous couple in Dani Fernandez & Zoe Thorogood’s story “The Hunt” from DC’s 2022 special, the couple’s flirtatious interplay emphasizes their capacity for playful gender and sexual deviance. 12/14

Within their celebrations, Marvel & DC’s Pride specials compel us to ask: Can queerness remain revolutionary when it serves corporate interests? Or perhaps, amid growing anti-LGBTQ+ backlash, corporate support is more valuable than ever. These questions are open-ended and ever-evolving. 13/14

But even when corporate IP is not as revolutionary as some fans might wish, the LGBTQ+ creators who write, draw, and edit Marvel & DC’s the Pride Month specials have certainly helped make an historically exclusionary genre more inclusive than it’s ever been. Battles rage on, but so do heroes. 14/14

[nicklloydnow]

“Luce’s book leaves many impressions, but chief among them is that the United States no longer produces many grand strategists like Brzezinski or Kissinger. Some of this may be due to the uniqueness of their generation, which matured in the wake of World War II’s destruction and produced thinkers fixated on problems of world order. But perhaps more has to do with the requirements of success in U.S. foreign policymaking nowadays. The leviathan of the modern-day national security state and even the National Security Council itself—which has grown from a few dozen in Brzezinski’s time to hundreds today—increasingly demands as much operational expertise as strategic depth. At a time of immense global transition, this geostrategist deficit is unfortunate; as Kissinger wrote on the news of his rival’s passing in 2017, “The world is an emptier place without Zbig pushing the limits of his insights.”

(…)

As the Iron Curtain descended over Poland and the rest of Eastern Europe, Brzezinski channeled his prodigious talents toward studying his adversary. He learned Russian and earned a PhD from Harvard in 1953 in the nascent field of Sovietology. Zbig’s 1960 book, The Soviet Bloc: Unity and Conflict, based off of his master’s thesis, was both prescient and enduring: He argued that the Soviet Bloc’s centrifugal nationalities, and even the USSR’s own national patchwork (from Balts to Ukrainians), created an Achilles’ heel that would ultimately be its undoing. In response to claims—popular during the Cold War—that Moscow had successfully created a sense of pan-Soviet citizenship, Brzezinski would often retort: “So do they speak Soviet?”

As a professor at Harvard and then Columbia, Brzezinski’s energies increasingly turned toward Washington. During a brief tour at the State Department during Lyndon B. Johnson’s administration, he advocated for peaceful engagement with Eastern Europe to pull it apart from Moscow. But it was Brzezinski’s turn as national security advisor that put him in the cockpit of U.S. foreign policy. Zbig’s chief rival within the Carter administration, Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, favored stabilizing relations with the USSR, whereas Brzezinski saw detente as a one-sided bargain. In the internal struggle for influence, he ate Vance for lunch, decisively winning Carter’s ear. Part of this was due to Brzezinski’s proximity in the White House, but Zbig was also a wellspring of new ideas and entertaining company. Once, when Carter asked for a capsule history of the USSR, Brzezinski responded that, under Lenin, it “had been like a revival meeting; under Stalin it was like a prison; under Khrushchev it was a circus; and under Brezhnev it resembled a United States Post Office.”

Brzezinski used his influence to bury the knife into a faltering detente. Building on Nixon and Kissinger’s opening to China, Carter fully normalized relations with Beijing in 1979. This was all Zbig: He established a deeply trusting relationship with the diminutive Deng Xiaoping based on mutual antipathy toward Moscow. At a dinner at Brzezinski’s home in Virgina to help seal the deal, they giddily toasted to U.S.-China friendship with Leonid Brezhnev’s favorite vodka. Kissinger had argued that the opening to China created an elegant “strategic triangle” that would bring the United States closer to both Moscow and Beijing. Brzezinski instead operationalized U.S.-China relations against the USSR. With China’s help, the Carter administration aided the Afghan resistance when the USSR invaded on Christmas Day 1979, sinking the Soviet Union into an enduring quagmire that accelerated its demise.

Brzezinski also encouraged Carter’s advocacy for human rights as a way to put the Soviets on the ideological defensive, to the howls of those at State who wanted to preserve a working relationship with Moscow. In this pursuit Brzezinski found a fortuitous partner in fellow Pole Pope John Paul II, a critical historical relationship recalled vividly by Luce, who includes touching correspondences between the strategist and pope.

(…)

Brzezinski was also unduly paranoid about a Soviet hand behind events in Iran. In Kai Bird’s magisterial biography of Carter, The Outlier, Brzezinski is depicted as a reckless superhawk, with a tendency toward “geostrategic gobbledygook” (as Strobe Talbott once put it in Time) and seeing a Soviet shadow around every corner. There’s a grain of truth to this caricature. Zbig was the author of the 1980 Carter Doctrine, which promised that the United States would block any attempt to control the Persian Gulf by an “outside force” (read: Moscow). In retrospect, the threat of Soviet expansion into the region was wildly overblown, as the USSR sputtered into terminal decline.

The fall of the Iron Curtain nine years later fulfilled Brzezinski’s boyhood and professional dreams. Brzezinski had predicted the impending collapse of communism only months earlier, arguing forcefully in his 1989 book, The Grand Failure, that Gorbachev’s reform efforts were doomed. “[It’s] hard to imagine an individual more vindicated by the actual course of historical events” than Brzezinski, wrote Francis Fukuyama. The Soviet Union then dissolved into its constituent nationalities, just as Zbig foresaw in his master’s thesis four decades earlier.

Luce astutely notes that Brzezinski was optimistic about U.S. capabilities during the Cold War yet turned cynical about the ability of the United States to shoulder the mantle of global leadership afterward. Zbig regretted George H. W. Bush’s inability to flesh out a vision for a “new world order” beyond sloganeering and criticized Bill Clinton’s administration for failing to make permanent peace between Israel and Palestine. To his immense credit, Brzezinski was an immediate and trenchant critic of George W. Bush’s Iraq War and dismissed the Global War on Terror as an “quasi-theological” absurdity.

On Russia, which Zbig knew so well, he was characteristically prophetic. Brzezinski predicted that the post-Soviet Russian Federation would soon be captured by revanchism, and advocated for an eastward expansion of NATO to consolidate the West’s gains. In this prophecy, Brzezinski trained his focus on the centrality of Ukraine. He wrote in 1994 that “without Ukraine, Russia ceases to be an empire, but with Ukraine suborned and then subordinated, Russia automatically becomes an empire.” How right he proved to be.

What makes a good strategic thinker? Historical perspective, an ability to intuit political will, and a synthesis of disciplines—from military affairs to human psychology. Brzezinski brilliantly exhibited all of these qualities. His theories pulled together diverse strands of politics, ideology, and societal development, all communicated in an incisive though academic style, epitomized in titles such as Between Two Ages: America’s Role in the Technetronic Era, his 1970 book.

An often underappreciated trait of a good strategist is originality of thought, which Zbig protectively nurtured. Brzezinski wouldn’t be caught dead purveying Washington groupthink; he intentionally refrained from reading opinion essays on subjects on which he was writing or giving a major speech, to avoid unwelcome influence. As his research assistant, I compiled weekly briefs of international newspapers so that he could better inhabit and understand foreign points of view.

Also essential is intellectual fearlessness, which often comes with sharp elbows. Brzezinski could be quite charming, and his commitment to his family over the Georgetown social circuit set him apart from many of his peers. But his hawk-like facial features betrayed his sense of mission and no-nonsense approach to things. He cunningly outflanked his rivals at the State Department and elsewhere—and even reveled in it: He once boasted to me about a book on the Carter years in which his portrayal “made Machiavelli look like a boy scout.”

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The requirements of leadership in U.S. foreign policy have fundamentally changed from Brzezinski’s heyday and make Zbig-like geostrategists more elusive than ever. Brzezinski ran his NSC like a college seminar: 20 or so staffers, each covering a different region, seated around a single table. But today’s national security bureaucracy is so massive, so complex, that deep geostrategic thinking is nice-to-have but insufficient. To handle the sheer flow of material and address cross-cutting economic and national security challenges requires a skillset and attitude that would have been alien to Brzezinski. Gone, too, are the international relations scholar-celebrities—academies, more atomized and specialized than ever, don’t produce them, and the public doesn’t value them as its attention turns inward.

Toward the end of his life, Brzezinski constantly lamented Americans’ ignorance of foreign affairs. He thickened his speeches with anecdotes about how, for example, a third of U.S. high schoolers couldn’t identify the Pacific Ocean on a map. In this way, Brzezinski followed a grand tradition of international relations thinkers like George Kennan who griped about the materialism and superficiality of the U.S. public, to the point of sounding fuddy-duddy. But as the United States now retreats from old alliances and finds itself captured by nativism and populism, perhaps, on this score, Brzezinski was prophetic yet again.”

“But the administration’s broader approach to the region is nothing new. Every U.S. president over more than a quarter century has accommodated Moscow, with consistently bad outcomes. Call it “Russia first”: over three decades and six presidential administrations, Washington has sought to normalize or improve relations with Moscow, accommodating the Kremlin at the expense of other former Soviet states. Time and again, this policy of engagement effectively rewarded Russian revanchism. A series of “resets” with Moscow failed to produce long-term stability and encouraged Russia’s mounting aggression.

Today, Russian President Vladimir Putin has little incentive to negotiate in good faith or to reciprocate any de-escalatory measures taken by Ukraine, as Washington has repeatedly shown itself willing to cater to Moscow’s preferences. Even at the height of the Biden administration’s mobilization of political and military support for Ukraine, a low point in U.S.-Russian relations, Washington opted to pursue a policy of “escalation management,” needlessly holding back material assistance to Ukraine for fear of provoking Russia.

The early actions of the second Trump administration signal not a departure from the norm but an overt and enthusiastic embrace of the “Russia first” tradition. Instead of enhancing U.S. security through stronger alliances and more balanced burden sharing with European partners, the administration is banking that another reset will succeed where previous ones failed. Ignoring the lessons of history, Trump hopes to navigate U.S.-Russian relations and secure international stability by selectively yielding to Putin’s interests in Europe. That approach didn’t work for previous administrations, and it won’t work now.

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By the mid-2000s, Russia’s resurgence, facilitated in part by surging commodity prices, signaled a more aggressive posture toward its neighbors. Moscow stepped up its economic coercion, political meddling, and military aggression to stymie its neighbors’ progress toward democracy and European integration. In 2004, the Kremlin intervened in Ukraine’s presidential election, backing the corrupt prime minister, Viktor Yanukovych. After Yanukovych was declared the winner amid credible reports of fraud and voter intimidation, Ukraine erupted in a series of mass protests that came to be known as the Orange Revolution. A rerun of the election resulted in the victory of the pro-Western candidate, Viktor Yushchenko. Four years later, Russia invaded Georgia, where it still occupies the regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and exerts influence over Tbilisi, the capital.

The Obama administration’s 2009 reset with Moscow, just months after Russia’s invasion of Georgia, is a striking example of this pattern of accommodation. The reset was meant to mollify Putin and deter further aggression by creating new avenues for economic and security cooperation. Obama’s efforts delivered one significant practical result: a new nuclear arms control accord called the New START treaty. But they did little to stifle Russia’s revanchism. Throughout his presidency, Obama privileged de-escalation and engagement over confrontation. This approach only emboldened the Kremlin and gave Putin a sense of impunity. Even after Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, the Obama administration declined to impose significant sanctions on Moscow or supply military support to Ukraine.

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When President Joe Biden took office in 2021, he made clear that he saw Russia as an adversary but delivered only minimal material support to Ukraine. In the fall of that year in early 2022, as Russia built up its forces along its border with Ukraine, Biden made public U.S. intelligence that revealed Putin’s intention to invade. But he declined to increase the number of U.S. troops stationed in Europe or to arm Ukraine with advanced weapons systems, such as ATACMS missiles, HIMARS rockets, tanks, and artillery—steps that might have changed Putin’s mind.

After Russia launched its full-scale invasion, Biden denounced Putin as a “butcher” who “cannot remain in power” and pledged to defend “every inch” of NATO territory if the war escalated. But the rhetorical flourishes did not translate into practical policies when they were most needed. For too long, the administration accepted Russian rhetoric regarding “red lines” and took Putin’s nuclear threats at face value. By trickling in aid, placing restrictions on the operating range of U.S.-supplied weapons, and designating certain strategic targets as off-limits, the administration allowed the Russian military to gain its footing and move assets out of harm’s way. By the time Biden finally agreed to send Kyiv advanced weapons systems, it was too little, too late.

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But some members of Trump’s national security team know that a weak Ukraine is not in the United States’ interest. A Ukrainian defeat would generate considerable political turmoil in Kyiv and undermine a durable peace in the region. Additionally, it would raise the prospect of Russian aggression against NATO’s Baltic flank. By securing Ukraine’s strategic position in negotiations, the United States can achieve a significant diplomatic victory, end the conflict, and deter future Russian aggression—all of which would serve U.S. interests in Europe.”