Okay everyone.
puts on helmet
raises shield
peeks over the top
I'm taking a break from this story.
WAIT.
WAIT WAIT WAIT.
I can hear you. I can hear the torches being lit. I can hear the pitchforks being sharpened. I can hear someone in the back of the comment section typing "DROPPED" in all caps while someone else is writing a twelve-paragraph manifesto about how authors who take breaks are personally responsible for the decline of Western civilization. I can hear all of it, because I am an author on the internet, and authors on the internet develop a sixth sense for the sound of an angry readership the way gazelles develop a sixth sense for the sound of approaching lions.
But I need you to listen. Please. Put down the torch. Set the pitchfork gently against the wall. Sit. Breathe. In through the nose, out through the mouth, just like Superman told the mother at the highway pileup. Good. Excellent. We're all calm. We're all rational adults who understand that authors are human beings and human beings sometimes need to step back from a project to recharge their creative batteries.
Right?
Right?
Okay. Good. Let me explain.
This story—Superman: The Man of Tomorrow—is the most personally important thing I have ever written. It is, in a very real and non-hyperbolic sense, the story I was put on this earth to write. Every chapter has come from a place inside me that I didn't know existed until I started writing, a place where Marcus Cole and Superman and every comic I've ever read and every act of kindness I've ever witnessed and every time I've ever looked at the world and thought it could be better all converge into a single, pulsing, radiant point of creative energy.
And that energy is not infinite.
I know. I know. Superman's energy is infinite. Superman is powered by a yellow sun that will burn for another five billion years and his cells store solar radiation with an efficiency that makes nuclear fusion look like a child's chemistry set. Superman doesn't need breaks. Superman doesn't need to recharge. Superman is Superman.
I am not Superman. I am a person at a keyboard who has been writing this story with an intensity that has resulted in approximately four hours of sleep per night for the past several weeks, a dietary intake consisting primarily of coffee and whatever snack food is within arm's reach of my desk, and a social life that has contracted to the point where my friends have started sending welfare check texts that say things like "are you alive" and "seriously are you alive" and "we're calling the police if you don't respond to this one."
I'm alive. I'm fine. I'm just tired.
And I need a break. A short one. A recharge. A chance to step back from the emotional intensity of writing Superman—genuine Superman, real Superman, the Superman who makes you cry because he carries groceries and sits with lonely people and talks to prisoners about miso soup—and let my creative batteries refill.
The story is not over. The story is not abandoned. The story will continue. I have approximately forty-seven chapters outlined in my head, including the conversation between Superman and All Might on a bench (it's going to destroy you), Goto's parole and his miso soup shop (it's going to destroy you), Izuku's first night as a vigilante (it's going to destroy you), and the four-second fight with All For One (it's going to destroy you for different reasons). All of this is coming. All of it.
But first, I need a break.
And here's where it gets interesting.
THE BREAK IS NOT GOING TO BE A BREAK
Because I cannot stop writing. I have tried. I have tried to close the laptop and walk away and do normal person things like go outside and interact with the sun (the actual sun, not the metaphorical sun that powers Superman's cells) and engage in activities that do not involve fictional characters.
I can't do it. My brain won't let me. My brain is a Superman-shaped factory that produces Superman-related content twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week, and when I try to shut the factory down, the factory ignores me and increases production.
So instead of not writing, I'm going to write something different. Two somethings, actually. Two stories that have been living in the back of my brain for months, growing and developing and demanding to be written with the insistence of a five-year-old tugging on your sleeve going "hey hey hey hey hey" until you give in.
And before you panic—before you assume that these new stories will replace The Man of Tomorrow—let me be very clear:
They will not.
The Man of Tomorrow is my heart. These new stories are my... let's call them my recreational activities. The things I do for fun between sessions of pouring my soul into a story about a man who is kind. These new stories are going to be different from The Man of Tomorrow. Very different. And I need to talk about why, because the "why" is important, and the "why" has to do with something that has been bothering me for a long time.
THE STATE OF SUPERMAN FANFICTION ON WEBNOVEL
Let me talk about Webnovel for a minute.
Webnovel has Superman stories. Not a ton of them—Superman is not the most popular character on the platform, because Webnovel's audience tends to skew toward characters and franchises that lend themselves to certain types of storytelling: power fantasies, system-based progression, harem narratives, the kind of story where the MC starts weak and becomes strong and collects abilities and allies and romantic interests like Pokémon.
Superman doesn't fit neatly into that template. Superman starts strong. Superman starts at the top. Superman doesn't progress—he doesn't level up, he doesn't unlock new abilities, he doesn't go through a training arc where he gradually becomes powerful enough to defeat the villain who kicked his ass in chapter one. Superman is Superman from page one.
This makes him a challenging character for the Webnovel format. And the stories that do feature Superman on the platform tend to address this challenge in one of two ways:
Option A: Nerf him. Make him weaker. Give him limitations. Invent kryptonite-equivalent weaknesses. Put him in situations where his power is insufficient, where he struggles, where he has to "grow" and "improve" to overcome challenges. Make him, in other words, not Superman.
Option B: Embrace the power fantasy. Let him be as strong as he is. Let him steamroll every opponent. Let every fight be a one-sided demolition. Let the story be about how awesome it is to be the strongest thing in the room, in the city, on the planet, in the universe. Let the MC flex, and flex, and flex some more.
I have no problem with Option B.
I need to be very clear about this because I don't want anyone to misunderstand what I'm about to say. I have no problem with power fantasy stories. None. Zero. I have read power fantasy stories. I have enjoyed power fantasy stories. I have stayed up until three in the morning reading stories where an overpowered MC walks into a room and everyone's jaw drops and the villain says "impossible!" and the MC smirks and says something cool and then punches the villain into the next zip code. These stories are fun. They are entertaining. They scratch an itch that every human being has—the itch to imagine being powerful, being untouchable, being the person who walks into the room and changes everything just by being there.
We have all imagined being Superman. Every single one of us. We have all stood in the shower or lain in bed or stared out a window and imagined what it would be like to fly, to be invulnerable, to be strong enough to do anything. That fantasy is universal. That fantasy is human. And stories that indulge that fantasy are valid and worthwhile and I will fight anyone who says otherwise.
BUT.
And this is a big but. This is a but the size of a planet. This is a but so large that it has its own gravitational field and several small moons orbiting it.
These stories—the power fantasy Superman stories on Webnovel—don't get Superman.
They get the power. They get the flying and the strength and the invulnerability and the heat vision and the "kneel before me, puny mortal" energy. They get the what of Superman—what he can do, how strong he is, how nothing can hurt him.
They don't get the who.
They don't get the man who carries groceries. They don't get the man who talks to prisoners about miso soup. They don't get the man who kneels on a sidewalk to talk to a lost child at eye level. They don't get the man who takes off his shoes when he enters someone's home. They don't get the man who sits in a pharmacy and helps a scared young man fill out a government assistance form instead of punching him through a wall.
They get Superman the power set. They don't get Superman the person.
And that's fine! Again—no hate. If you're reading those stories and enjoying them, great. Keep reading. Keep enjoying. The power fantasy is a legitimate genre and Superman is a legitimate character for that genre because he is, objectively, one of the most powerful characters in fiction.
But I want to do something different.
I want to write power fantasy stories where Superman is still Superman. Where he is absurdly, ridiculously, comically overpowered AND ALSO genuinely, fundamentally, irreducibly good. Where the power fantasy is not about the power. Where the power is the vehicle and the goodness is the destination. Where the MC walks into a room and everyone's jaw drops not because he's the strongest thing in the room but because he's the kindest thing in the room, and the strength is just the cherry on top of a sundae made entirely of compassion and decency.
I want to write power fantasy stories that make you feel something.
Not just "wow, that was awesome" (although I want that too). I want "wow, that was awesome AND it made me want to be a better person." I want the reader to close the chapter and sit there for a minute and think about the old man who needs help crossing the street and the neighbor who could use some groceries carried and the friend who hasn't been called in too long.
I want to write Superman stories that are about Superman.
And I have two.
STORY #1: THE IMPOSSIBLE MAN (Dragon Ball)
Okay. Let me tell you about Pre-Crisis Superman.
If you know, you know. If you don't know, buckle up, because this is going to be a wild ride.
Pre-Crisis Superman—also known as Silver Age Superman, also known as Earth-One Superman, also known as "the Superman from the 1960s and 70s when comic book writers were apparently consuming substances that are illegal in most jurisdictions"—is, without question, the most absurdly, incomprehensibly, reality-breakingly overpowered version of Superman that has ever existed. And I include in that comparison every version of Superman across every medium, including Cosmic Armor Superman, Strange Visitor Superman, and that one time Superman Prime sat inside the sun for 15,000 years.
Pre-Crisis Superman is broken.
I don't mean broken as in "flawed." I mean broken as in "the writers broke the character by giving him so many abilities and making him so powerful that the laws of physics filed a restraining order and the concept of narrative tension formally requested a transfer to a different franchise."
Let me give you some examples. These are real. These are actual, published, canonical feats from DC Comics Silver Age Superman stories. I am not making any of these up. I could not make these up. No human being could make these up. Only the Silver Age could make these up, because the Silver Age was a beautiful, unhinged, gloriously insane era of comic book storytelling that operated on the principle of "wouldn't it be cool if Superman could do [literally anything]" and then answered that question with "yes, yes it would, let's put it in the comic."
Pre-Crisis Superman can:
Sneeze and destroy a solar system. This happened. He sneezed. A solar system ceased to exist. Because of a sneeze.
Fly faster than infinity. Not faster than light. Faster than infinity. The writers wrote the words "faster than infinity" and the editors said "sure, that makes sense" and published it, and I have never been more grateful for anything in my life.
Shoot miniature versions of himself out of his fingers. Mini-Supermen. From his fingers. They were tiny and they had all his powers and they helped him fight crime. This was a real story. It was published by a real company. Adults were paid real money to create it.
Tow entire chains of planets through space using a giant chain. Not one planet. Chains of planets. Like he was towing a string of barges down a river, except the river was the void of space and the barges were celestial bodies.
Vibrate through time. Not travel through time using a machine or a wormhole or any scientifically plausible (or even scientifically implausible) mechanism. He vibrated. He vibrated so hard that he went to a different century. I love this. I love everything about this.
Break the barrier of the multiverse and accidentally fly into Heaven. The actual, literal, capital-H Heaven. Where he met God. And the Spectre—the literal embodiment of God's vengeance, one of the most powerful beings in DC Comics—showed up and was essentially like, "Dude. Please. You just broke everything. Go back." And Superman went back, not because the Spectre could make him, but because Superman is polite and when someone says "please" he listens.
Survive inside a sun. Not near a sun. INSIDE a sun. He flew into a star and hung out there like it was a hot tub. A hot tub that was ten million degrees and powered by nuclear fusion. He was fine.
Juggle planets. For fun. Because why not.
Now.
Imagine that Superman—THAT Superman, the one who sneezes away solar systems and vibrates through time and shoots Mini-Mes out of his fingers—in the Dragon Ball universe.
In the Dragon Ball universe.
I want you to really think about this. I want you to sit with it. I want you to let the full, glorious, terrifying implications wash over you like a wave of pure, unfiltered, weapons-grade absurdity.
Frieza, the galactic emperor who destroyed Planet Vegeta with a finger, who rules through terror and genocide, who considers himself the most powerful being in the universe—meets a man who can sneeze away solar systems.
Cell, the perfect organism, the ultimate biological weapon, who has the combined power of every fighter in the Dragon Ball universe—meets a man who has flown faster than infinity.
Majin Buu, the ancient, primordial force of destruction, who has ended civilizations and consumed entire populations—meets a man who once juggled planets for fun.
Beerus, the God of Destruction, whose sneeze can destroy planets and whose power dwarfs mortal comprehension—meets a man who accidentally broke into Heaven and had to be asked nicely to leave by the literal embodiment of God's wrath.
I am not going to pretend that these fights will be fair. I am not going to pretend that there will be tension or suspense or any question about the outcome. Pre-Crisis Superman versus anyone in Dragon Ball is not a fight. It is a comedy. It is the funniest thing that has ever happened to the Dragon Ball universe, and the Dragon Ball universe is a franchise that includes a character named Mr. Satan, so the bar for comedy is already pretty high.
But here's the thing—here's the thing that makes this story a Superman story and not just a power fantasy:
He will still be Superman.
Pre-Crisis Superman was absurd. His powers were absurd. His feats were absurd. But he was still Superman. He still helped people. He still saved cats from trees (sometimes by shooting mini-Supermen out of his fingers to do it, but the cat got saved, and that's what matters). He was still kind, still gentle, still the guy who would stop in the middle of a cosmic adventure to help a kid with his homework.
So yes—Goku will fight him. Goku will lose. Every strong character in Dragon Ball will fight him. Every strong character in Dragon Ball will lose. This is not a question. This is not a debate. Pre-Crisis Superman is so far beyond anything in Dragon Ball that the comparison is not unfair—it is mathematically incoherent. It's like asking who would win in a fight between a grizzly bear and the concept of infinity. The question doesn't parse.
But in between the fights—in between the Frieza fight (three panels, tops) and the Cell fight (two panels, he doesn't even try) and the Buu fight (one panel, he literally yawns)—Superman will be Superman. He'll help Bulma fix a car. He'll teach Gohan about kindness. He'll sit with Vegeta and have a conversation about pride and what it costs. He'll make Chi-Chi laugh. He'll find Krillin's missing shoe.
And yes, I know—some of you are screaming at your screens right now. Some of you are saying "But Goku is universal! But Beerus can destroy universes! But [insert scaling argument here]!"
And to those people I say: Pre-Crisis Superman broke into Heaven. He broke into the place where God lives. And the only reason he left is because someone asked him politely.
Your scaling argument is invalid. Your power level calculations are irrelevant. Pre-Crisis Superman does not operate on power levels. Pre-Crisis Superman operates on vibes, and the vibes are "I can do literally anything, and I choose to be nice about it."
That's the story. Superman in Dragon Ball. The most powerful Superman in the most power-focused universe. It's going to be glorious. It's going to be hilarious. And in between the moments where Superman casually tanks a Kamehameha with his pinky finger, it's going to be kind, because Superman is always kind, even when he can juggle planets and sneeze away solar systems.
Especially when he can juggle planets and sneeze away solar systems.
No, I am not ashamed.
Yes, I am excited.
MOVING ON.
STORY #2: THE KINGDOM (Marvel)
Now let me tell you about Kingdom Come Superman in the Marvel Universe, and let me start by saying something that is going to upset some people:
Kingdom Come Superman is broken.
I know. I KNOW. I said earlier—in my previous author's note, the one about Kingdom Come and All-Star Superman—that Kingdom Come is not about power scaling. And it's not. Kingdom Come is about the meaning of heroism and the corruption of power and the tension between idealism and pragmatism and the question of what happens when heroes stop being heroes. It is a story about ideas, painted in Alex Ross's luminous, heartbreaking gouache, and its value has nothing to do with how strong Superman is or how hard he can punch.
All of that is true.
It is ALSO true that Kingdom Come Superman is, from a pure power-scaling perspective, absolutely disgusting.
Let me explain.
Kingdom Come Superman is an older, more experienced, more mature version of Superman. He has been absorbing solar radiation for decades longer than mainstream Superman. He has been through more, survived more, endured more. His body has been soaking in yellow sun energy for so long that he is, essentially, a walking solar battery that has been charging for an extra twenty or thirty years.
And his feats reflect this.
In Kingdom Come itself, he tanks a nuclear bomb. Not a small tactical nuke. A full-yield nuclear weapon, detonated directly on him, at ground zero. He survives. He is hurt—Kingdom Come is one of the few stories where Superman is shown to be genuinely injured—but he survives a nuclear detonation at point-blank range. And then he gets up and keeps going.
But that's Kingdom Come the story, where the power scaling is deliberately understated because the story isn't about the power.
In the crossovers—in the stories where Kingdom Come Superman appears in other contexts, where the writers are free to cut loose with his capabilities—the numbers get stupid.
In Justice Society of America, Kingdom Come Superman crosses dimensions under his own power. Not with a machine. Not with magic. With his body. He is so powerful that he can breach the barriers between parallel universes through sheer physical force.
In various crossover events, he demonstrates speed, strength, and durability feats that place him significantly above mainstream Superman—who is already one of the most powerful characters in DC Comics. Kingdom Come Superman is essentially Post-Crisis Superman with an extra few decades of solar charging, which makes him, by conservative estimation, several orders of magnitude more powerful than the version of Superman that most people think of when they think of Superman.
He is an older, wiser, more powerful version of the most iconic superhero in history. He has the wisdom of age, the power of decades of solar absorption, and the moral clarity of a man who lost his way and found it again.
And I want to put him in the Marvel Universe.
Think about this. Really think about it.
Kingdom Come Superman—the Superman who has been through it, who has seen heroes fall and the world burn and has come out the other side with his principles intact—in the Marvel Universe. A universe where heroes fight each other as often as they fight villains. A universe where the Avengers have civil wars. Where the X-Men are persecuted. Where Spider-Man can't catch a break. Where the government creates Sentinels to hunt mutants and passes registration acts to control superheroes and the moral landscape is a perpetual gray zone where "right" and "wrong" are negotiable and the only constant is that things are complicated.
Kingdom Come Superman doesn't do complicated. Kingdom Come Superman does right.
And the Marvel Universe is going to have absolutely no idea what to do with him.
Tony Stark is going to try to understand him in terms of technology and strategy and self-interest, and Kingdom Come Superman is going to look at him with those experienced, tired, kind eyes and say: "Tony. Stop building armor. Start building bridges."
Steve Rogers is going to see a kindred spirit—a man out of time, a man whose values are rooted in an older, simpler understanding of heroism—and Kingdom Come Superman is going to see Steve and feel, for the first time in a long time, like he's not alone.
Thor is going to recognize a god—not a God, but a god in the way that the Norse understood gods: a being of immense power who has chosen to use that power in service of those weaker than himself. Thor is going to look at Kingdom Come Superman and see what Asgardian ideals look like when they're actually practiced instead of just talked about over mead.
Wolverine is going to try to fight him. Because Wolverine tries to fight everyone. And Kingdom Come Superman is going to let Wolverine hit him—once, twice, as many times as Logan needs—and then he's going to put his hand on Wolverine's shoulder and say, in that deep, weary, impossibly gentle voice: "Are you done? Because I think you need to talk, and I'm a good listener."
And the villains—oh, the villains.
Thanos, the Mad Titan, who collects Infinity Stones and worships Death and believes that the universe requires culling—meets a man who has seen the worst of humanity and the worst of heroism and has chosen, despite everything, to believe that life is worth preserving. All life. Every life.
Doctor Doom, who rules Latveria with an iron fist and believes that his intellect and his will entitle him to dominion over the Earth—meets a man who could conquer the world before breakfast and instead spends his mornings carrying flour at a bakery.
Magneto, who has been shaped by humanity's cruelty into a weapon of retribution and separatism—meets a man who is literally not human, who is the ultimate outsider, the ultimate alien, and who has chosen not retribution but compassion.
Kingdom Come Superman in the Marvel Universe is not just a power fantasy (although it will absolutely also be a power fantasy, because Kingdom Come Superman tanked a nuke and if you think I'm not going to write the scene where the Hulk punches him and Kingdom Come Superman just stands there looking mildly concerned about the Hulk's emotional state, you don't know me at all).
It's a story about what happens when the most experienced, most powerful, most morally grounded version of Superman walks into a universe that has never seen anything like him. A universe that is cynical in a way that DC usually isn't—cynical about heroism, cynical about power, cynical about the possibility of anyone being genuinely, uncomplicatedly good.
And Kingdom Come Superman is going to look at that cynicism and respond with the only thing he has ever responded to cynicism with:
Kindness.
Patient, persistent, unshakable, immovable kindness.
The kind that breaks through walls that fists can't.
The kind that makes the Hulk stop punching and start talking.
The kind that makes Doctor Doom, for one brief, terrifying moment, wonder if he's wrong.
SO HERE'S THE PLAN
I'm going to write both of these stories simultaneously. Because I am apparently incapable of doing one thing at a time and also incapable of not writing and also incapable of writing anything that doesn't involve Superman.
I am a Superman-writing machine. I have accepted this. I have made peace with it. My therapist says it's fine as long as I'm eating and sleeping, and I am doing at least one of those things most days.
Story #1—The Impossible Man (Pre-Crisis Superman in Dragon Ball)—will be the comedy. The absurdist masterpiece. The story where Superman sneezes and accidentally destroys Frieza's entire fleet and then apologizes profusely because Superman is polite. The story where Goku asks Superman to fight him at full power and Superman says "I don't think that's a good idea" and Goku says "PLEASE" and Superman says "okay" and taps Goku on the forehead with one finger and Goku wakes up on King Kai's planet. The story where Vegeta's pride is dismantled not by superior strength (although the strength IS superior, hilariously, incomprehensibly superior) but by Superman sitting with him on the steps of Capsule Corp and talking to him about fatherhood.
Story #2—The Kingdom (Kingdom Come Superman in Marvel)—will be the drama. The philosophical exploration. The story where an older, wiser, slightly sadder Superman walks into a universe that has given up on the idea of uncomplicated heroism and shows them what it looks like. The story where Steve Rogers finally meets someone who understands him—not as a soldier, not as a leader, not as a symbol, but as a good man who is tired. The story where Tony Stark confronts the possibility that his armor has always been a cage. The story where the X-Men, who have been told their entire lives that they are feared and hated, meet a man who is more alien than any mutant and who has never, not once, not for a single moment, believed that being different is a reason to be treated as less.
Both stories will have fights. Both stories will have power fantasy elements. Both stories will feature Superman being so absurdly, overwhelmingly, laughably overpowered that the "fights" are less "fights" and more "demonstrations of the gap between Superman and everyone else."
But both stories will also have heart. Both stories will have the thing that makes Superman Superman—the kindness, the compassion, the relentless, stubborn, beautiful insistence on being good in a world that makes it hard.
Because that's what I do. That's what I write. That's the only story I know how to tell.
Superman being Superman.
In every universe. In every context. Against every opponent and beside every ally and in front of every person who needs help.
Superman being Superman.
A FINAL WORD
The Man of Tomorrow will return. I promise. Superman-style promise, which means it's the most reliable kind of promise there is.
The break will be a few weeks. Maybe a month. During that time, the first chapters of both The Impossible Man and The Kingdom will go up, and you are welcome—encouraged, begged, implored—to read them and tell me what you think.
And when I come back to The Man of Tomorrow, I'm going to come back refreshed and recharged and ready to write the most important chapters of the story: Superman meeting All Might on a bench. Goto opening his ramen shop. Izuku's first night in the suit with the open hand symbol. Bakugo learning to use his explosions to help instead of hurt. Hawks making a choice. Endeavor making a bigger choice.
And the four-second fight with All For One.
It's all coming. Every word. Every chapter. Every moment.
I just need to go juggle some planets first.
Thank you for reading. Thank you for caring. Thank you for being here.
And remember:
You can't fly. You can't freeze things with your breath. You can't shrug off tank rounds or see through walls or hear heartbeats from miles away.
But you can be kind. You can help. You can look at the person next to you and see them—really see them—and choose to care.
You can be Superman.
Not the power.
The person.
#BeSuperman
See you soon.
— The Author
P.S. — If anyone in the comments tries to scale Pre-Crisis Superman against Ultra Instinct Goku using "multiplier calcs" and "dimensional tiering," I want you to know that Pre-Crisis Superman once flew into Heaven and the Spectre had to ask him to leave. Your tier list is irrelevant. Your multipliers are meaningless. He broke into God's house. He wins. He always wins. Not because he's the strongest. Because the writers in the 1960s were apparently competing to see who could give him the most ridiculous feat, and they ALL won, and now we live in a world where Superman can sneeze away solar systems, and I am going to exploit this with zero shame and maximum joy.
P.P.S. — I am fully aware that some Dragon Ball fans are going to be upset. I love you. I respect you. Goku is a fantastic character. But Pre-Crisis Superman shot mini-Supermen out of his fingers. You cannot beat the mini finger Supermen. Nobody can beat the mini finger Supermen. The mini finger Supermen are the ultimate trump card. I don't make the rules. The Silver Age made the rules, and the rules are: Superman can do literally anything, forever, because comics in the 1960s were beautiful chaos.
P.P.P.S. — If you haven't read Kingdom Come, what are you doing? Alex Ross PAINTED it. Every page. In GOUACHE. It looks like the Sistine Chapel had a baby with a comic book. Go read it. Then come back and tell me I'm wrong about Kingdom Come Superman being broken. You can't. Because I'm not. That man tanked a nuke. A NUKE. And then he got up. And then he kept going. Because he's Superman, and Superman doesn't stay down, and Kingdom Come Superman has been getting back up for longer than any other Superman, and that means he gets up harder.
Okay I'm done. For real this time. Probably. Maybe. We'll see.
flies into the sun to recharge
— The Author (for real this time) (probably)