AI montage pairs Spain's Gabriel Rufián and Vito Quiles as Heartstopper characters

A user has spread an AI-generated montage depicting Gabriel Rufián and Vito Quiles as characters from the Heartstopper comic. The post, made as a joke, has gone viral because of how unlikely the pairing is.

## What the montage shows

The image circulating turns **Gabriel Rufián**, spokesperson for ERC in Spain's Congress, and **Vito Quiles**, known for his social media activity, into two characters with the aesthetic of **Heartstopper**, the comic by Alice Oseman. The result imitates the sweet, colorful style of the series, far removed from the usual tone of Spanish political confrontation. The post sharing it presents it as a joke: "I did not see a Heartstopper with Vito Quiles and Gabriel Rufián coming," says the text accompanying the image.

## The boom in AI for faking scenes

The trendy tool makes it possible to generate images that look real but are not. This montage is not a photograph: it is a digital recreation. The problem is not the joke itself, but that this kind of content circulates without a label and anyone can take it as genuine. Politics has become full of these pieces: familiar faces in impossible situations, shared for fun or to mislead. In this case, the message itself laughs at the practice: "We are going too far with AI."

## Why it matters even as a joke

Two figures so far apart ideologically appearing together in a romantic panel is funny precisely because of the contrast. But it also shows how far synthetic imagery has seeped into political conversation without filters. There is no deliberate deception here, just a visual gag. Still, it is worth remembering that not everything that looks like a screenshot or a drawing was made by a person. Next time, the montage might not be a joke.