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secondhand-snow · 9 months ago

Text

a body of impulses

chapter 4: staining the future

lukas matsson x f!roy reader (succession)

★chapter 3★

wc: 8.6k+

warnings: super dysfunctional family, roman roy as his own warning, mention of phone sex, manipulation, praise, no use of y/n

summary: The fall back to the real world after your time spent with Lukas hits you hard. But your family hits you harder, and they hit to kill.

author's note: snow writes a fic without graphic smut?!? insanity. please consider liking, commenting, or reblogging if you enjoyed!

Logan’s birthday is… Logan’s birthday. The day is always celebratory, and always ends in trouble. Chaos tends to be inevitable when your family is together, like two comets on a collision course, helpless to stop the impending crash. Even intimate get-togethers are no exception. You were fully prepared for this, readying your mediating skills and considering any possible issues that could come up at the event. Until, your siblings inform you that they will not be attending. On one hand, it’s a shock. Missing something as important as your father’s birthday because of a fight seems unreasonable, especially when you were so sure you would see them in person again. On the other hand, the lack of their presences could avoid the conflict you were expecting. Either way, your focus shifted from getting ready to stop blow out fights to preparing to answer nosy questions on the whereabouts of your family.

It was nice to talk to your siblings after weeks of no contact. The discussions you had were usually meager, straight and to the point. But all the same, it gave you some sense of normalcy in your vastly changing life. That and the less you spoke to them, the less you had to lie to them about what you were up to. Between Lukas and work, it felt like you could barely get out a sentence without potentially compromising an immense secret. You’d gotten uncomfortably close to disclosing your relationship a couple times, both with Roman, both due to your increasingly frequent trips to Sweden. Luckily, you’d been trained enough in keeping the peace to brush over the details of your life and get him to talk about himself, the suspicion leaving his mind almost instantly.

In addition to rekindling your relationship with your siblings, a strange sort of friendship was beginning to form between yourself and Tom. You were the only two in the immediate family that hadn’t jumped ship yet, well, besides Greg. Since he wasn’t really speaking to Shiv, and Roman and Kendall would rather die than see his face, you were the only one Tom could go to for a genuine conversation. Unless he wanted to talk to Gerri, Karl or Frank, but Tom preferred speaking to someone who wasn’t at least 20 years older than himself. Because of this, the two of you began bonding in a way you hadn’t had the chance to before. When Roman wasn’t making crass jokes over your shoulder, influencing your opinion with his humor, Tom wasn’t actually that bad.

He was more down to Earth than your siblings. He had grown up rich, but not your kind of rich, and it gave him a sort of level headedness that you didn’t see often. His jokes were pretty funny, and his midwest accent gave his speech a natural formality that was strangely captivating. You liked talking to Tom, you even began to see him as a friend during the months after the GoJo deal began. Not only was he sociable, he was actually good at what he did. You’d always thought that he got his position through his relationship with Shiv, though when you began working with him on the GoJo deal you saw that his work ethic had a genuine quality to it. He could be a little brutal at times and looked out for himself before others, but who wasn’t in this business. By the time Logan’s party came up you found yourself honestly enjoying his company.

When you arrive at Logan’s penthouse, the party has already begun. There’s a good crowd of people mingling, mostly executives from Waystar’s corporate world and old business associates of your Dad’s. You’re happy to see Colin, who you greet with a friendly smile, and annoyed to see Kerry, who you give a tight lipped grin. Your dad is at least somewhat happy to see you, giving you the rare hug in welcome.

Buying gifts for a man that has everything is incredibly difficult, and after the watch situation from last year, you were even more terrified of Logan’s reaction to your present. You had settled on purchasing him a Navy medal of honor from WWI to add to his collection and wrapped it weeks in advance, trying to push the worry from your mind for as long as possible. As he opens the present now, his reception is better than you hoped for. Your dad offers you a small thanks and notes that he will add it to one of his display cases later. Internally you doubt that he will, but at least he was kind to you publicly. With another quick hug and a promise to see him again in a bit, you enter the throng of people once more and begin looking for a drink.

It’s really only natural that you gravitate to Tom, joining his side with a glass of champagne as soon as you spot him in the mass of suits. He cracks a few jokes, makes a few comments on work, but mostly you just stand together and look engaged in conversation, successfully deterring any onlookers from bothering you to ask prying questions. You make frequent trips to the bathroom. Not to actually use the toilet, but to answer your messages from Lukas. It was too much of a chance to open his texts around others at the party, since so many of them knew him well. He knows your at Logan’s birthday, he even considered attending himself before getting too busy with work. His goofy texts brighten up the otherwise dull day, giving you something to look forward to and keeping you awake amongst the bland chatting you’re obligated to engage in.

It’s after one of these trips to the bathroom that the first sign of discord begins to creep into the party. It starts with Cousin Greg, who’s chattering incessantly in Tom’s ear as you approach the pair.

“-I’m kidding, I really do like her.” You seamlessly attach yourself to the conversation as you join them, keeping pace as you begin to walk from room to room.

“Like who? The blonde teeny bopper you brought?”

“Yeah!”

“What, did you meet her on Raya or something?” You get a small laugh from Tom at that, the three of you pausing your stroll for a moment.

“She’s used all the display towels in the bathroom and now they’re sopping wet, she’s gabbling about herself and posting on social media.” Greg scoffs a bit at Tom’s critique, looking around to be sure the blonde was nowhere nearby. “She’s asking people personal questions- and she’s wolfing all the canapes like a famished warthog!”

“People are overreacting, okay? She brought a normal kind of handbag!”

“Greg, the massive purse is one thing. Posting pictures of the inside of my father’s house on Instagram is actually incredibly invasive. She’s basically a security risk at this point.”

“You are a laughing stock of polite society.” As Tom chimes in, the unmistakable face of Greg’s date begins to approach you, a look of concern on her face. Tom whispers as he finishes his comment. “You’ll never go to the opera again.”

“Maybe- we should go?” The woman’s voice has a twinge of vocal fry, her hand holding her phone protectively close to her body.

“Oh are you okay? What, uh, what happened?” Greg stoops from his normal towering stance to direct his quiet tone towards his date.

“Nothing! I just asked Logan for a selfie.”

“You asked my dad for a selfie?” You can’t help the small laugh of disbelief that leaves your mouth at her confession.

“Yeah- oh! You’re- uh…” The woman is at least socially conscious enough to realize her mistake in not addressing you, an awkward smile coming to her face as she continues. “I said ‘Congrats on the big deal.’ I was like, ‘Ker-ching, am I right?’ I was being funny!”

“...That is hilarious.”

It’s a little while later when things start to get worse. Logan had disappeared with Colin a couple of hours ago, and was now ignoring calls as his executives tried to contact him. Additionally, Kerry had come to you and asked you to talk to your siblings, to get them to text or call Dad for his birthday. You gave her the same strained response you’d had to repeat so many times in the past few months, “My siblings are capable of making their own decisions.” Despite this, you did text them to let them know of Kerry’s request. They left the message on read. It’s you who’s finally able to get through to Logan, letting him know that there was some trouble with the Pierce deal. He arrived back at the penthouse only a bit after you contacted him, immediately stopping the party and kicking out the crowd.

And so, on a day that was supposed to be calm, work-free, and relaxing, you ended up gathered in Logan’s home office with the tension rising rapidly. It’s concerning how quickly the group is able to find out that it’s your siblings who are the rival bidders. It’s more concerning how upset Logan is when he finds out. He swears. More than usual. He yells at both you and Tom, telling the pair of you to call Shiv and tell her to get her own idea. To your credit, you do call her, but you go straight to voicemail.

You’re helpless in the situation, in a sort of trance of dissociation as chaos unfolds around you. You barely even perk up during Logan’s “roasting” rampage, refusing to cause a spectacle for your dad’s amusement. Unfortunately, Greg doesn’t have the same foresight as you. What snaps you out of the haze is when Tom finally gets through to your sister. The two of you huddle around his iPhone in the corner of the room, trying to maintain some sense of privacy as speakerphone causes your conversation to echo around the office.

“Hey, Shiv” Tom’s is clearly stressed, an unnatural lilt in his voice as he speaks.

“Hi?”

“Hey. Tom!” So Kendall’s with her.

“Fuck you, man mountain!” And the voice of Roman solidifies your siblings' involvement in buying Pierce. An inaudible sigh leaves your mouth as the worst is confirmed.

“Hey, look, so… we were just wondering if we’re not being- uh, played a little here. Since this is all indicative.”

“Okay, well, what did he go up to?” Shiv’s tone is simultaneously annoyed and eager.

“Well, we can’t tell you that.”

“He didn't go to nine, did he?”

“Well, we were just wondering, you know, all things being equal, the asset does have a price. And it would be- it would be crazy to add an emotional… uh, premium here.” Tom is beginning to scramble, his demeanor becoming frantic as he searches for some kind of tactic to convince your siblings. “So, should we be looking for a back door on this?”

“What's Dad's ceiling?” Shiv asks the question like she already knows the answer. You wonder if she really does.

“Well, what's your ceiling?”

“Why don't you go first, Tommy? Build that trust, brah!” Kendall’s tone is surprisingly happy, like he’s high either on coke or on the thrill of bidding.

“Well, his ceiling is-- is... Uh, well, I... Your dad is just–”

“It’s higher than yours, I can guarantee that.” You cut in for the first time, saving Tom from his own bumbling.

“Oh hi baby sister! Decided to join the rebellion yet?” Roman stretches out the nickname, whining in a way he knows you hate, trying to rile you up to their level.

“Do you even have the financing for this? Or are you pooling together all your lunch money just to piss off Dad?” Maybe it’s the fact that you’re over the phone, maybe it’s how stressed out this situation has you, but you find yourself bolder than normal. For once, you’re going head to head with your sibling’s wit without backing down.

“We’re not doing this just to piss off Dad.” Shiv deadpans, interjecting before Roman can get another word in.

“Right because you have such a genuine interest in a left leaning, family based news conglomerate that’s a direct competitor to ATN.” Your normally soft and regulated tone has a sharp edge to it, cutting through your family’s bullshit like butter. “What happened to the media company you were starting, you seemed so excited about that? The hundred, or something?”

“It’s still news and media, it's just- just starting from nothing versus, like, starting from an already established network.” Kendall speaks next, you can hear his chair vaguely creaking as he sits forward to direct his voice into the phone.

“Well it’s not worth it, what you’d gain from buying Pierce is nothing compared to the damage you’d do from fucking this deal. You know that.” You take a breath before finishing your piece, voice softer as you attempt to appeal to your family’s empathy. “Right now, you can still come back from this. Things… aren’t too broken, yet. We can fix them. If you go through with this, I don’t know if that will still be true.”

There’s a long pause before Shiv speaks again. “Our ceiling is 12.”

“Fuck off!” Tom can’t contain his shock at the statement. You tilt your head back, shaking it in disbelief with your eyes on the ceiling. “Yeah, well, our’s too. Okay?”

“Okay!”

There’s a familiar beep as the call ends. You don’t look at anyone’s faces as you reclaim your seat on the couch. You barely speak for the rest of the night. You don’t flinch when your siblings win Pierce, don’t look up when your dad screams at them through the phone, don’t say goodbye to anyone as you leave. Your resolve only crumbles in private.

That night, you call Lukas. He answers on the first ring, smiling into the camera as you greet him on Facetime. You can’t say much about the business that went down today, but he knows you well enough to fill in the blanks. Lukas has listened to you vent about your family so much, and everytime he consoles you like nobody else. He remembers past issues, connects them, brings them up to understand the context better. He frowns when you cry, he tries to make you laugh when you’re mad. He’s single handedly crushing your apprehensions on the relationship one night at a time.

You feel refreshed in the morning, maybe you cried all the angst out of your bloodstream. There’s already a text from your boyfriend making sure you're okay, asking you to text him updates about your day. It’s one of the rare occasions that you won’t be in the office. Instead you’ll be at Connor’s wedding rehearsal, doing just as much work, only with your family instead of the company. Inside, you’re dreading the event. It’s awful, just 24 hours ago you were excited to see your siblings in person. You’d been prepared to hug and smile and laugh. Now, you weren’t sure if they’d even come. And worse, you had no clue how they’d react to your presence if they did attend.

Nevertheless, you persist. You treat the rehearsal like a work event you really don’t want to go to, practicing fake smiles in the mirror as you do your makeup, donning your best cocktail dress, and pushing through the anxiety rushing in your veins. The actual rehearsal is mostly uneventful, your siblings missing from attendance. Of course, it’s incredibly awkward. Willa clearly did not want to be there, tears welling in her eyes every five seconds. Connor absolutely knew this, trying to make up for it with overt public displays of affection. At one point you swear she’s gonna call it off. Instead, she runs off to the bathroom with her bridesmaids for half an hour before returning like nothing was wrong. By the time it’s over and Willa is rushing out the door, you’ve settled into a round table at the restaurant with Connor. You’re expecting to be consoling him for the rest of the night.

It’s just your luck that your family arrives less than five minutes later.

“Finally!” Connor’s sudden interruption in your small talk makes your head whip around, your eyes landing on the trio approaching you. You set down your champagne glass a little too hard, and plaster a polite smile on your face as they near.

“Found him!” Roman is the first to approach his demeanor casual as always, eyes skipping over you to focus on Connor sitting to your right.

“Hey, hey.”

“Hey.”

“Here you are, we missed you.” You keep your voice gentle as you address them, letting Kendall give you a small pat on your shoulder in welcome.

“Hello sir, hugsie?” Rome stoops to plant a semi-authentic hug on Connor, gazing over his shoulder to give you a small look of endearment. A silent show of forgiveness you’ve gotten used to.“We’re so sorry man.”

“Yeah, dad screwed us.” Shiv reaches over you to hug your brother. She gives you a tight lipped smile to acknowledge your presence. “Hey, bro.”

“Oh look at you, the rebel alliance. How is it out in those hills? Supply lines okay? Got enough to eat?” Connor alters his voice a bit, putting on a front of normalcy for his family, even if he knows you can see right through it. Your siblings are still leaning on the table, standing noncommittally as you stay seated with your eldest brother. “This is how it is, huh? Us and Dad on one side, you guys on the other?”

Roman doesn’t answer, disregards his comment in favor of asking a competing question. “You… okay man? We saw Willa on the way in.”

“Yeah, I think it’s all fine.” Connor’s resolve slips as he responds, voice lowering to a level thick with anxiety and gloominess.

“Well…” You give a sideways glance at him before moving your gaze to the rest of your family. “When Willa stood up to do her speech, she said ‘I can’t do this.’ And then she ran to the bathroom and stayed there for forty minutes with her friends.”

There’s a universal cringe that spreads across the table at that information.

“Oh no, no, no. That’s not-” Roman takes a seat, slouches back in his chair as he tries to assure Connor with some rambling. “That’s totally fine, don’t worry about that. Just… toss her another ten grand. -Or a snowmobile and some teeth whitening vouchers.”

“Any luck, Sylvia?” Connor directs his message to a blonde, tanned woman holding a glass of red wine in one hand and her phone in the other. She shakes her head. “That’s Willa’s mom.” He adds under his breath before getting up to go speak with her in the corner.

“It's… fine Con.” Roman’s volume dwindles as your brother walks out of earshot. You scoot back in your chair a bit, craning your neck to look over at Connor while your siblings continue speaking.

“This is so fucking weird.”

“Okay so- do we regroup at my place?” Shiv lowers her voice as she speaks, almost like she’s telling a secret.

“Shiv. He’s, Come on- he’s lookin’ a little rough. Don’t you think?” Rome angles a thumb to your oldest brother. His voice is thick with sympathy, a rare display of emotion from him.

“Well, sure.” Shiv’s still standing, tapping her foot impatiently as her words speed up. “I’m sorry that Dad fucked us, and I’m sorry that we’re late, but we do need to decide fast… so…”

“Wait, decide on what?” Your head turns back to the group at the table, eyes settling on your sister in front of you. “And- you’re leaving? Seriously? You just got here, you can’t spend an hour with your brother? He’s clearly going through a lot!”

“Yeah, we should stay.” Kendall chimes in, giving you a small nod of agreement. “And- I mean, I think we know, right?”

“Do we, though? They made some pretty compelling arguments”

“Sandi’s a greedy little bitch. She’s got her hand up the ass of the carcass of her dad, and Stewy’s just along for the ride. It’s a- fuck it! It’s a packet of horseshit!” Roman’s speech gives you more insight into what it is they’re actually debating. There’s a thousand different reasons your siblings could be talking to Sandi and Stewy, but with your family it’s never just innocent conversation. And with Shiv’s comment about deciding fast… whatever they’re up to, it has to be affecting something in the near future.

“Okay. What if I want to talk it through?” Your sister stresses the word I, like she is the ultimate driving force in this decision. Which, to be fair, she seems to be.

“Talk what through? What’s going on- what are you three up to now?” Your head shakes slightly as you ask the question, already preparing for the worst. There’s a slight pause as your siblings look at each other, which you use to take another sip of champagne.

“Okay, still incommunicado.” Connor’s presence breaks the rising tension, and stops one of your siblings from having to answer you. “I just really hope she’s okay. So, what do you say? A little bit of karaoke?”

“Would it be possible to do anything other than that in the entire universe?”

“No, let’s do it! Come on, just this one time.” You give Connor a little shoulder nudge as he sits back next to you, encouraging his idea with a smile.

“Yeah, she’s partying, I can party.” There’s an air of both hopefulness and desperation around your brother.

“I mean, we can go drink, right? Little bachelor party for POTUS- SCROTUS?” It’s honestly a bit of a shock to you that Roman is so quick to comply. Then again, maybe he just doesn’t want to talk to Shiv about whatever scheme she's involving them in this time.

“Well I mean… we three kind of-” Shiv tries to step in, giving her best impression of someone regretful to decline such a kind invitation.

“Oh sure, everybody’s busy.”

“Come on. Let’s give him a drink, sis.” With Kendall’s agreement, your sister is outvoted. Connor claps in excitement. “Let’s give him a drink.”

“Yeah! But- but not your usual… stupid places. Uh… somewhere fun- and real! Away from the fancy dance.” Connor stands to tower above the table, talking with his hands as he outlines his plan for the night. “A real bar with chicks. And… guys who work with their hands and grease and sweat from their hands, and have blood in their hair.”

“I don’t like these guys. They sound like a medical experiment gone wrong.” Roman’s arms are crossed, his eyes narrowed in fake suspicion as Con takes a long drink of his red wine.

“Yeah… I don’t think we have that kind of place just engraved in our memories. Might have to Google this one.” You stand to join your brother, grabbing your clutch as your other siblings rise with you. Shiv is a bit reluctant, not moving until you all begin leaving the restaurant, then hurrying to catch up with you. So you quickly find yourself on the cold streets of NYC, walking (because Connor insisted) to the nearest dive bar you can find in a three block radius.

The bar is like something out of a movie. Like something from another planet. It’s all wood paneling and dark lighting and sticky counters. There’s old TVs mounted to the walls playing baseball and a glowing red exit sign over the door as you step in. The soundtrack is muted classic rock with the clinking of beer glasses over a constant chatter of patrons.

“Ah! America… I missed you.” Connor is immediately out of his depth, blue suit clashing horribly with the plaid flannels of the other customers.

“This is charming.” You shoot Roman a smile at his attempt of optimism, he brushes you off with an eye roll as you follow your oldest brother to the bar.

“Okay, what’s everybody having?” Ken’s straight to business, you wouldn’t expect anything less out of him. “What do you want?”

“Uh- do you think they know how to make a vodka tonic?”

“They can make a vodka tonic, Rome. You’ll just have to settle for Smirnoff” You give him an eyeroll of your own. It’s moments like these you feel so much more normal than your siblings, despite the fact that you’ve had such similar upbringings.

“House red? Do I dare?” Shiv’s comment gets a genuine laugh out of you, and a string of both ‘yes’s’ and ‘no’s’ from you and Roman. She chuckles before deciding, “That- just a club soda with a sealed lid. Nothing from that… tainted nozzle.”

“Con, what do you want?”

“I’ll just have whatever a regular Joe would have. Uh, Belgian Weissbier? Not Hoegaarden, ideally.” Connor’s distracted by his phone, looking down at it while speaking instead of answering Kendall’s question.

“How do you feel about Miller Light?” You get a small scoff from Shiv at that, but Con’s already too engrossed in his iPhone to pay you any mind. You drift over to Ken as he starts ordering the drinks. The background noise is loud enough that you can’t quite hear as Shiv pulls out her phone and begins speaking to Roman. It’s only a second before he moves away from her, but you catch the vague mentionings of Waystar and Sandi before the conversation is interrupted.

“Hey, can I get a, um- vodka tonic, I’ll have a bitters and soda…” Kendall orders for the group, listing out Shiv and Connor’s orders before turning to you for your drink.

“A Cosmo?” You pitch in, receiving a nod from the bartender in confirmation. You turn back to the trio of your other siblings, catching Con in the middle of a sentence.

“-Anyway I am reassured. She’s definitely not on her way to Cuba. Well, her phone isn’t.” You move closer to peak over his shoulder, seeing a little dot on a map lighting up his phone screen. “Yeah, she stopped movin’. Guess she found a spot she likes.”

“Sure…on another man’s dick.” You, Connor and Kendall look at Rome with the same exasperated expression as he speaks. “On a much bigger, nicer, harder, younger dick is all I’m saying.”

“Rome, that’s not-” Your tone is breathy with annoyance before your brother cuts you off.

“Can we not? Because you know, I’m feeling… I’m having certain anxieties, huh?” Roman mutters a string of disingenuous apologies as Connor talks over him. “I mean, I wanna have a good time!”

“Okay, all right. Let’s have fun. We can monitor her dot together.” Kendall’s nonchalance makes you cover your mouth to mute a giggle that you know would’ve ticked Con off. “Let’s- let’s get it up on the big screen.

“Why so long…” Connor points to his screen with two fingers. He reminds you of Logan trying to figure out new electronics when he doesn’t have an assistant nearby to do it for him. “Her dot is at an aquarium supply retailer. That doesn’t look safe- is that a drug thing?”

“No.” Looking behind Con’s back, you see Roman mouth ‘I love him’ across the way at you. You respond with blowing a little kiss in his direction.

“You sure?”

“I am sure.”

“It is. It’s a drug thing.” Roman moves in, working his magic to aggravate Connor in a way only a younger brother can.

“Now she’s at a dry cleaners?” Connor runs a hand through his hair.

“She’s probably getting her panties clean. Mussed 'em up a bit.” They’re too preoccupied with bickering to notice as Kendall waves to your drinks and departs the bar on a phone call.

You sigh as the two boys continue clashing, moving over to grab your drink from its spot on the bar. The drink is good enough. The vodka’s not very smooth and the orange peel looks like it was cut by a 5th grader, but it’s better than you expected from the shabby chic destination. When you start to hear Roman mention cum, you decide to break into the conversation.

“Hey guys. Drinks. Look.” You speak slowly, making big hand gestures like you’re talking to toddlers. It gets a scoff from Roman, but breaks up the tension enough for Connor to come over and grab his (definitely not Belgian, probably not even wheat based) beer. Shiv joins you too to grab her club soda. “How do we feel about food?”

“I could eat.” Connor is still pretty engrossed in his phone, but looks away for a few moments to sip from his glass. For what it’s worth, he doesn’t complain about the taste.

“Shall we grab some menus?” Rome strolls over to grab his tonic, making his way to the nearest table.

“Here? Isn’t that guaranteeing food poisoning?” Shiv crosses her arms, holding her position at the bar as she glares at your brother.

“Come on Shivvy, we’re being average citizens. Remember?” You bite your lower lip in a smile, following Rome to sit at the table. Con comes with you, not even bothering to look up from his device as he just moves with the crowd. She’s out ruled, once again, and gives in to join you three. It’s only a few seconds later than Kendall joins you again, an indistinguishable look on his face.

“Hey, what’s up? What did I miss?” His tone doesn’t give anything away, the same monotone, muttered pitch that you’re used to.

“We’re… eating! Right here!” Kendall sits in the free chair next to Roman as the younger man points animatedly to the menu in front of him. “Billy Ray Cyrus’s Kentucky Fried Shit Shack.”

“Roman, they’re gonna spit in your food if they hear you say that.” You shake your head, a small smile on your face as you turn your attention to your own laminated menu.

“Well, they seem to have some hearty fare.” Connor follows your lead, looking over the meal options himself.

“What was that shit?” You’re glad Roman asks before you do. The question is on your mind too, but it sounds less suspicious coming from your brother.

“Uh- Stewy…”

“Oh great, what the fuck now? What?”

“Well actually guys, can i- can i show you something?” Ken pulls out his phone, screen illuminating his face in the dark lighting of the bar.

“Yeah…” Shiv leans over to peek at Kendall’s phone while Roman tries to tune out the action happening before him. Instead of giving Ken the attention he’s asking for, Rome’s eyes scan the menu before he begins his interruption.

“Ooo, wings! I wonder from which particular creature they snip these wings.” He shifts the cadence of his voice, making his tone all whimsical and silly. “Perhaps a mammal…”

It’s um… on the comparables. It’s- it’s actually pretty fucking intriguing.” The information Kendall gives leaves a puzzled look on your face.

“Wait… why are you looking at the market comparables for Waystar?” You set down your menu as you make eye contact with Ken, narrowing your gaze slightly. “I thought you three were done with the company, completely into your Pierce-thing now.”

“Well, it just makes you think.” Shiv pitches in, your eyes shifting to her, brows still furrowed in question. “Maybe Dad isn’t on it like he used to be… he’s getting pushed around-”

“Fuck, she’s in the East River.” Connor’s outburst makes you whip around in his direction. You feel like a bobble head trying to even out our attention between your siblings. “She in the fucking- wait, no. She’s on the bridge, she’s headed to uh- Williamsberg.”

“Con, I love you, but there’s other shit going on.” You keep your tone gentle with him, a reassuring but slightly strained smile on your face.

“Not to be dicks but- can we do a little breakout chat? Just the three of us?” Shiv is already moving in her seat by the time the question is out of her mouth. Her eagerness makes you crinkle your nose in agitation. “We won’t be long, like, two minutes max.”

“Hey, fuck it. Why don’t we fold them in?” Rome scratches his nose and raises his shoulders in indifference as he addresses your sister.

“Well, they’re not on the board so…”

“Yeah but they have sizable shares, so if the deal-” Roman makes a cutting sound low in his throat, “-they lose their payouts.”

“Excuse me?” Connor’s focus is finally on the group instead of his phone, his hand now holding the beer glass he’d previously forgotten.

“Oh yeah, so, Shiv wants us to get mixed up in some sort of drug deal that will fuck the vote tomorrow.” And all your suspicions are unfortunately confirmed.

“You wanna fuck the deal?!” You can’t keep the shock from your voice.

“Um, no. A small delay, we all want the deal.”

“And, look- I think I agree.” Kendall’s admission just surprises you more, causing you to shake your head lightly in disbelief.

“Oh, what the fuck now?”

“So, what? You think Waystar’s worth more than what Luk- or, Matsson’s paying, and you want to drive the price up?” Shiv and Ken nod in confirmation. “That’s so fucking stupid, he’ll walk if you try to force him to that!”

“Yeah, you’re gonna force Dad to grovel?” Connor steps in again, his expression mirroring yours. “Oh man, how long will a renegotiation take?”

“It’s a play.” Shiv moves her hands in front of her like she’s trying to smooth the air between you, trying to brush the tension away from the five of you. “More money is more money, and that’s all there is to it.”

“I just- I can’t” You stand from your seat, moving to squeeze behind Connor’s chair. “I need a break, just give me a minute.”

“What, you running to Daddy?” Shiv calls from behind you. You flip her off.

It’s not too difficult to find the bathroom in the restaurant, luckily it’s an individual stall with a lock on the entrance door. As soon as the latch comes down, you take a deep breath and let your back rest against the white tiled wall behind you. A hand comes up to brush hair out of your face, you fold your arms across your chest with a sigh. Reasonably, you should call your Dad. You should tell him about their scheming like a good daughter, let him deal with your traitorous siblings in any way he sees fit. But as you reach for your phone, your fingers end up dialing a different number.

“Have you been talking to my siblings?”

“A few of them, yeah.” Lukas answers your Facetime on the first ring, your phone showing an image of him sitting back in an armchair, donning a white tank top.

“Like, recently?”

“I just called Kendall a few minutes ago.”

“Fucking- I knew it.” Your jaw clenches involuntarily. If you were still a child, you’d be stomping your foot in anger.

“What’s going on? Are you okay?” Lukas’s face tenses a bit, his eyebrows coming up to form lines on his forehead as he questions you.

“Whatever you said, it’s convinced Kendall to fuck the board vote tomorrow.”

“Oh, really?” Despite the inquiry in his voice, he doesn’t seem surprised at the fact.

“They want more money from you, these market price comparables have influenced at least two of them, probably even more board members” Your filter for business information has been blown to pieces, at this point you’re letting whatever you want fly from your mouth. You’ll probably regret it in the morning.

“I figured.”

“Are you really gonna walk if they try to negotiate for more?” You can’t help the pitiful, almost whiny sound at the end of your question.

“Hey, it’s okay, I have it figured out. The deal will be fine regardless of what happens, I promise you.” Lukas’s tone takes on that nurturing tint he uses when you get flustered around him. You know that if you were there in person, he’d be pulling you into his lap to stroke your hair. “This has got you all worked up, huh?”

“I just- I feel so torn lately.” The sharp edge to your voice begins fading as he starts to coax the anger out of your system. “I just want everything to work out and everyone to be happy. And that’s really fucking hard when the people you love are all at eachother’s throats.”

“I know, you shouldn’t have to go through that. You’re just so caring, sometimes you can’t look out for yourself.”

“I really miss you.” Your voice breaks a bit at the confession, fingers coming up to dab at the few tears that have gathered in your waterline. These moments with Lukas are like nights. Nights where the sky is dark and covered in clouds, and every once in a while the moon will peak through the haze and illuminate the entire world below. Somehow, just a minute with Lukas will brighten your entire demeanor, and will change you for the better.

“I miss you.” There’s a sad sort of smile on his face when he continues. “You have to take care of yourself when I’m not there. Don’t get overly involved with this shit, you know it’s ultimately out of your hands.”

“I- it’s like there’s so much going on I don’t even know about. And I’m just over here worried about how everyone feels.”You wrinkle your nose at the mention of feelings. Lukas gives a small chuckle at that, you wiping your tears with a newfound smile. “You should’ve seen me, I got so pissed when they said they were gonna fuck you over.”

“Aw you defended me?” He makes a little pouty face, putting out his lower lip with his best puppy dog eyes to make you laugh. “I love it when you’re feisty, turns me on.”

“Can I come up?”

“Absolutely, just tell me when. We have our company retreat soon, so before or after that I’ll carve out some time for you.”

“Oh gee thanks, cutting out time from your busy schedule to be with your girlfriend.” Lukas gives a fake frown at that, your smile grows wider in response. “I’ll talk to you soon.”

You hang up the call with a wave before tucking your phone back into your bag. Going to the janky mirror bolted to the wall, you fix any smeared eye makeup after splashing a little cool water on your face to calm down. Your head feels clearer after that conversation, your emotions more regulated and understanding a little deeper of the issue at hand. It’s strange how just a few minutes away from your family can change your mood so severely. Making your way back down the wood paneled wall of the bar, you join the silhouettes of your siblings back at the table.

“-I wanted to get married tomorrow. I wanted to spend tonight with my family and tomorrow with my dad and I wanted to get my fucking money out.” Connor’s arms are crossed as you back down next to him, shooting a concerned look to your other siblings. “If I were you I wouldn’t have fucking come back.” He gives you a shake of his head and a glare from the corner of his eye.

“What even was that about? Were… were you telling Dad?” Kendall raises his eyebrows as he addresses your presence again.

“No, I wasn’t. That’s your own shit, I don’t wanna be involved.” He nods, but still has a look of suspicion in his eyes. “Sometimes you guys just give me migraines. But anyway, can we do anything else, Con?”

“...I would like to sing one fucking song at karaoke, because I’ve see it in the movies, and nobody ever wants to go.” There’s a short pause before Connor speaks, but he seems happy enough to switch the subject. Shiv smiles in the background of your view, Roman puts his head down on the sticky surface of the table. You put an arm around the back of Connor’s chair and smile at him during the lull in conversation.

“You wanna do karaoke?” He nods. “Let’s do it, Mr. Bachelor. You only live once.” His face lights up at your optimism, Kendall looks at your other siblings in apprehension.

“Can we do literally anything else?” Rome’s voice is muffled from its position, and Shiv puts a hand on his back in consolation.

“Come on, one song on the night before his wedding. Toughen up, Rome.” Ken deciding to support the idea makes it 3 to 2, Connor wins.

And so, with a substantial amount of whining from Roman, your party makes its way to a new location. This time, Connor allows you to get chauffeured by his driver, sparing you from the cold New York air. The karaoke bar is all modern white surfaces and bright pink lighting. The partygoers range from business men just getting off work to bachelorette parties dressed in animal prints. Luckily, the venue has a private room available at short notice and the five of you are quickly escorted there by a polite usher.

“So, what happens now?” Connor walks to the center of the room, not waiting for the door to be fully closed before eagerly exploring the new space.

“Uh, well… someone has to humiliate themselves in the shame palace.” Shiv holds up an inflatable saxophone toy with a smirk while your brother joins Con on the couch.

“It’s not humiliation, Siobhan. It’s supposed to be fun, remember?” You move to a wall holding a mounted flatscreen and two wireless microphones, beginning to fiddle with the electronic there.

“Think they have "Desperado" by The Eagles?”

“I would imagine they do. Longest night of my life.” Roman is still looking around with his hands on his hips, surveying the room with a grimace on his face

“Oh, shit. She's gone dark- why has she gone dark?” Connor is once again transfixed on his phone, a panicked expression coming across his features as he rambles. “I mean… is this it? Is she going off with some buck and they're gonna…you know?”

“Hey, take it easy. Kendall moves the thick book of songs that Connor had been flipping through over to himself, trying to calm him with his causal tone. “Maybe-maybe her phone just died.”

“Yeah. Have you ever considered that she might not be right for you? This could be good. Yeah?” Shiv is still perched by the tub of comical accessories, saxophone now abandoned as she leans with her hand placed on the counter. “You'll meet someone else.”

“Connor?” There’s a pause in Kendall’s speech, a soft look in his eyes when he continues. “You're not doing better than Willa.”

“I would agree. Do not let Willa go.”

“Romulus.” Ken’s begun to pour the provided champagne, holding a glass out to his younger brother carefully. When you see the drinks begin flowing, you make your way over to your brothers, leaving your attempt at understanding the karaoke technology begin. A chime on Connor’s phone grabs his attention again, a low sigh leaving his mouth before he speaks.

“So… Dad’s on his way.”

“What?”

“He wants us to meet him down at the car when he gets here.” Connors admission makes even you puzzled, looking around at your siblings in confusion.

“What the fսck?” Shiv opens her arms, clearly in a similar state of discomposure.

“How does he know we're here? How do you know he’s coming?” Kendall’s voice takes on a bit of an angry edge as he looks at you. “Did you tell him? Is that what that little ‘break’ was about earlier?”

“No, I wouldn’t do that!” You’re quick to defend yourself, crossing your arms over your chest as some kind of protection, some kind of armor.

“Fuck, you totally did. You’re lying!” Shiv sounds shrill behind you, her accusatory tone making you draw your eyebrows together in annoyance.

“Well, no. I told him… that it’s the night of a thousand wobbles over here and he needs to talk to you.” Connor finally steps in, taking the heat off you.

“Why the fuck would you do that?” You turn back to your oldest brother, arms coming out in an expression of absolute bafflement.

“My life isn’t filled with secrets like some people. I share things, and I want my father to be at my wedding.” Shiv moves to the back to the couch, leaning over it with two hands bracing herself.

“You mean you want the money?”

“Well no- Siobhan, that was not my primary consideration.”

“I mean, what do we do? Do we- do we leave? I mean…” Roman’s moved a hand to his mouth, chewing at his fingernails in anxiety. It’s always startling to you, how quickly he can turn subservient at the mention of your father. “Will he come in? He’s not coming in, right?”

“I am totally down to leave.” You move closer to Roman’s side in support. “I don't want to be around you-” your finger points at Connor in objection “if you pull insane shit like this!”

“This doesn’t even affect you, why are you so upset?” Shiv’s eyes narrow in a glare at you, still suspicious from your current connection to Logan.

“Because it’s evil and manipulative and- fucking conniving!”

“You know what? Just be water, my friend.” Kendall is surprisingly calm in the situation. You wonder if he’s high.

“‘Just be wat-’ Wow, thanks man.” Roman turns to you. “What happens if I kill a Buddist? Do I get reincarnated as a fucking Buddhist?”

“I hope not.” You sigh, grabbing the champagne from your brother's hand and swallow it in one gulp. “Fuck it, I’m really just gonna leave. I don’t think I can take any more of this shit tonight.”

“Honestly I would too, you don’t need to be a part of this.” Roman runs a hand through his hair as he begins pacing across the room.

“I don’t know whether to be offended or not…” You move to reach across the island table grabbing the mostly full bottle of champagne from its resting place. “I’ll just deal with Dad on my own. I’d rather not experience his wrath in front of other people. And looking at Connor makes me want to vomit right now”

“Fair enough.” Kendall is still calm, leaning back on the couch as he addresses you with an expression so neutral that it makes you want to roll your eyes.

“Do you wanna come with?” You make eye contact with Roman, eyebrows raising in question.

“... I dunno-”

“If you wanna run away you can. Just send him another little text later, ‘Sorry I missed you Daddy, take care!’” Shiv makes her voice all whiny when she quotes your brother. She’s clearly trying to aggravate him, get him to stay even if it’s not the best idea. You silently pray that Roman’s strong enough to resist her.

“Fine, I’ll fuckin- stay. Let Dad strangle all of us together, mass homicide.” But he’s not. He gives in to Shiv too easily, makes you frown in empathy.

“Well, I’ll see you tomorrow then. Text me later okay? I worry about you guys.” As you turn to leave, you add one thing over your shoulder with a little grin. “Don’t… don’t let him push you around. As much as I disagree with you, you have to make your own choices. Even if they’re wrong.”

On the way home you finish the bottle, staring out the backseat window of the SUV as the bright lights of NYC whizz past you. When you enter your apartment, you only pause to set down the empty drink and kick off your heels before flopping back onto your bed. Your chest is a little giggly and your brain is a little fuzzy from the alcohol. So of course you decide it’s the perfect time to call your boyfriend.

“Hiii!” You speak as soon as he answers, drawing out the word with a cheeky smile on your face. You’ve rolled onto your stomach by now, supporting yourself with your elbows as you gaze lovingly down at the image of Lukas in your phone.

“Oh, you’re drunk. And sexy.” You laugh at that, it’s always surprising how quickly Lukas can read you. To be fair, you do look really hot. Your cheeks are flushed, your hair is messy, and your mascara is smudged beneath your eyes. It reminds Lukas of how you look after he’s fucked you really well.

“Yeah…I drank a bottle of champagne. By myself.”

“Things went that bad?” His eyebrows furrow a bit as he questions you, clearly worried about your wellbeing.

“Kinda? It was actually Connor’s fault this time though.” You roll onto your back with a sigh, hair splaying out behind you in a halo. You hold your screen above your head, giving Lukas a little peak at the cleavage coming out of your shirt.

“Really? What happened?” His eyes dart to the sliver of your skin, but come back up to your eyes as he awaits your response.

“He, like, went to our dad about the shit Shiv and Rome and Ken are up to. The vote stuff I told you about.”

“And Logan was mad?”

“I assume so? I kinda left before he got there… it was just too much.” Your lips come together in a frown. “I dunno, maybe I shoulda stayed.”

“No, no, you did good. Looking out for yourself like I told you to.” Lukas gives a smile that you can’t help but mirror. He knows how his praise gets you.

“Maybe, we’ll see what happens. With him it’s like night or day. He’ll either love that I didn’t agree with them or hate that I didn’t rat them out to him.”

“Well, I’m proud of you. Regardless of what he says.” His tongue darts out to wet his lower lip, eyes traveling back down to your cleavage.

“Thank you.” You pause for a second just looking at him before you continue. “If I wasn’t so drunk I’d have Facetime sex with you right now.”

“I can tell. Your pupils are so big your eyes look black.” Playfully, you roll your eyes in response. “Call me in the morning, I’ll take care of you then.”

“Okayyy, and I’ll see you soon right? Come up before your retreat thing?”

“Of course. I’ll talk to you in the morning, go get some sleep.”

You do end up getting some sleep that night, following your boyfriend's wishes. But you also energetically masturbate to his past dick pics to tire yourself out. When you tell him that in the morning, he audibly groans at the fact that he missed watching you.

In the end, Logan isn’t mad at you. He’s not pleased either. But, being indifferent is better than you expected. Atleast, that’s what you tell yourself. He invites you with the core executive crew to come to Sweden for a sudden meeting with Matsson, and of course you accept. It means you’ll miss Connor’s wedding, but you honestly don’t want to see him right now anyways. Plus, it means you get to see Lukas sooner than expected. Ken ended up texting you a brief recap of what happened after you left last night. When you read it in the morning it makes you glad that you weren’t there.

It almost feels like yesterday was a dream. Like life is all back to normal now and things will carry on just as they always have. The deal will go through, Logan will be happy leading ATN, your siblings will be happy with Pierce, or whatever they end up working with. And you will live happily ever after with Lukas, ideally on Mars, or in outer space, or some other place that alienates you from all physical contact with your family.

At least some of that ends up happening.

#ao3 #fanfic #fanfiction #succession #succession fanfic #alexander skarsgard #lukas matsson #lukas matsson x reader #lukas matsson x you #lukas matsson x oc #lukas matsson x ofc #lukas matsson fic #lukas matsson fanfic #lukas matsson imagine #snow's fics #a body of impulses

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literary-illuminati · 1 month ago

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2024 Book Review #56 – Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin

At the start of the year, I set out to try and read more proper literature. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow was not a book I had ever heard of, or by an author I knew anything at all about. But it was on my local bookstore's and local library’s staff pick lists, and has a bunch of awards, and I think showed up on some list of Goodreads recommendations. So 9 months later I finally worked down the list to it and went in totally unprepared and with zero expectations or preconceptions.

The book’s well-written and well-executed, but I can’t say it really worked for me. Or properly, it absolutely was working for the first two thirds or so, but by the end just felt like it lost a lot of the touches that had made it interesting and was just drowning in its own sentimentality.

The book follows Sam and Sadie, two Californian wunderkunds growing up in Los Angelos in the 1980s. They meet in a children’s hospital, where Sam is being treated for a foot the was nearly shattered in a car crash and Sadie is visiting her elder sister as she’s treated for cancer. The two of them instantly begin bonding over playing Super Mario Brothers and begin a friendship and a creative partnership that will - as they grow up and found an artistically and commercially successful video game studio in the late 90s – define the shape of both of their lives, no matter how turbulent and conflicted it at points becomes.

For reasons that probably boil down to the audiobooks my mother played on road trips as a child, I’ve always had a fondness for books that track the broad sweep of a life or lives, zooming out and stretching across the years and decades. So I actually digested this a decent bit more easily than I do a lot of modern litfic that I’ve tried. For the first few hundred pages, it all even holds together very well, bouncing around the timeline and providing childhood episodes and context as it's relevant and making the central relationships compelling and emotionally plausible. Unfortunately a couple of experiments in form (one worked for me, one really didn’t) eat up a lot of page count in the final act, and entirely kill the sense of flow and structure. Not at all helped by the narrative voice losing a lot of its charm and the story growing wholly predictable (and a bit saccharine) in the closing pages.

I say ‘central relationships’ and not ‘relationship’ because describing the book as being about the relationship between Sam and Sadie is just, basically false advertising? Marx – Sam’s college roommate, later Sadie’s boyfriend, the business manager of their video game studio - is for most of the book at least as important a character as the two leads. He’s a much less interesting character – entirely too much of a natural saint, compared to how very flawed and petty Sam and Sadie are both allowed to be – but he’s a key part of the dynamic and most of the book is properly about different permutations of the trio bouncing off of each other. No other character gets a tenth of the focus and exploration of those three, and are really more props for narrative and to incite development than anything else.

The book has (until the end, anyway) a strong narrative voice that I really enjoyed, but which also may have caused me to set my expectations entirely wrong for what the book was actually planning. The only way I can really describe it is that the book reads like one of those New Yorker longreads that are trying very hard to convince you they’re not just rubbernecking some fascinatingly dysfunctional relationships and personal drama among some semi-notable creative figures. Your Bad Art Friends and similar. Deeply opinionated and gossipy, but making a show of seeming detached and objective, always making asides written from the perspective of the modern day and quoting interviews from years later about events as they occur in the narrative. As someone who is a slightly guilty fan of exactly those kind of longreads, it did make for a very fun reading experience.

But it also made me get my hopes up. Which is to say, the early chapters make quite a few references to how latter in life Sam and Sadie wouldn’t be on speaking terms, and how ‘something’ happened at Unfair Games in 2005. I was looking forward to something some messy and newsworthy interpersonal drama of the kind that doesn’t leave either of them (or anyone) looking good. The falling out does occur, but in a way that’s mostly just piles of misunderstandings and a stubborn refusal to communicate from both of them. The company always stays ostensibly together, and things never get much worse than quietly cherished bitterness and a refusal to speak. Which feels very emotionally believable, as incredibly frustrating as it is. The dramatic rupture that happens in 2005, well-

The book’s use of violence always feels slightly unreal. It intrudes on the narrative in ways that, like, they are things that happen, but feel so exaggerated and on-the-nose they took me out of the reading experience, at least a bit. A woman jumps off her balcony to her death and happens to land right in front of a young Sam. His mother stops her car on an LA highway to avoid hitting a dog, and he asks her something that keeps her talking and not moving for the crucial moment before an SUV slams into them, killing her and permanently damaging his foot. And the great end-of-second-act rupture that occurs in 2005 is a pair of homophobic gunmen storming into their office and shooting Marx because their cozy MMO lets gay people get married. Any one would have been fine, but combined they make the illusion of violence as random and capricious wear a bit thin and the writerly artifice underneath a bit too clear, at least for me.

As far as period pieces go – the story isn’t nostalgia bait, but it isn’t not nostalgia bait, either? It’s a few years before my time, so I suppose I just don’t appreciate it properly – the experience of growing up in and living through the late ‘80s through 2000s is one the book cares deeply about replicating. It generally does an excellent job making things feel of-the-moment, if occasionally by having the narrative draw pretty heavy-handed comparisons to what would be different in the present. The aesthetics (fashion, public art and marketing, fads and consumer trends) are all there, and the characters experience them like people to whom they’re novel and trendy. (Personally I could have done with a bit less effort spent describing every single outfit, but if I had memories of what people actually looked like wearing them I might appreciate it more.) It does similar things with LA and (to a far lesser extent) Boston – every other place the book touches on feels vague and a bit unreal, but LA is rendered with a real sense of place and love for the city and it’s little eccentricities.

The area where the book is absolutely nostalgia-bait is video games, and the whole heroic era of rapid changes and improvements to the medium where new boundaries were being crossed every year and a handful of sufficiently talented and dedicated first-time devs could create something genuinely revolutionary. The book even manages the neat trick of making almost every fake game the protagonists create a) plausible for the era and technology and b) actually seem like something I would want to play (less so the Pioneerville MMO created in the final act, as with many things). But I do genuinely want to play Master of Revels quite badly.

The book does share a common failing with what feels like almost every period piece, where by complete coincidence the major characters all conveniently happen to be on the Right Side of History for every really major (that is, from the perspective of the present, character-defining) political issues. This is made a bit more irritating by the fact that despite all being quite radical on the issue of e.g. gay marriage (or just not being even slightly homophobic) from the vantage of the early Bush administration, none of Sadie, Sam or Marx ever even conceive of it as being political.

The book doesn’t conceive of itself as really having politics at all – but again, in the way of a New York Magazine feature where having certain sets of liberal convictions is just a matter of personal decency and morality. A certain unexpressed but present sexual conservativism, a view of class where Sam’s grandparents owning and running a successful restaurant counts as being from the wrong side of the tracks, hyper-conscious of race but without much to really say about it. You’re all familiar with the style, I’m sure.

Anyway yeah, not a bad book by any means, but one that lasted long enough and ended weakly enough to expend any real passion or affection I’d built up for it.

#book review #tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow #gabrielle zevin #literature

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toons-and-doom · 4 months ago

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Sprouts twisted form better be terrifying or I quit/j

GLISTEN, imagine his face was shattered and some ichor was leaking out, and if bro could speak he could be slightly heard PANICKING about his appearance and if you get close he’ll yell at your ass saying “DON’T LOOK AT ME” or smth like that. Tryna cover his face and all that.

EXACTLY. I wonder what lil bro is gonna be like.

Hold up Drabble time.

This is most definitely ooc but in my defense glisten isn’t even out yet and he’s not in the right frame of mind (ie, twisted). Also sorry if the writing sucks ass I’m writing because executive dysfunction when it comes to drawing.

Drabble ramble time

Hideous. He was hideous. He needed to fix himself.

Glisten knew that all to well.

A bit of his face falls onto the floor, and he has to bite back a wail. Please don’t break again- not again please- He quickly picks up the fallen peice, reattaching it to his face. He’s momentarily relived when the fragment stays where it’s supposed to. (…he’s pretty sure that’s where that part is supposed to go… he’s been having a hard time thinking clearly…).

The ichor is all that’s keeping his face together now. It flows freely now, dripping down his face and chest onto the floor bellow. Disgusting. It left a faint trail as he wanders out of the kitchen to a sitting area, not daring venture deeper into the kitchen. Glisten was thankful he couldn’t vomit.

He didn’t want to face his other companion(?) in this nightmare he’s found himself in. Razzle and Dazzle, or rather, what was left of them. They were ruined, monstrous. Just like him. They were quite literally half of what they used to be. But there was harmony in their appearance. The two halves made a whole. There was still some beauty in their peaceful face. He HATED that they were so ugly yet so perfect.

He catches a glimpse of himself in the reflection of a machine (…he doesn’t remember why there was so many lying around. Somewhere in his dulled mind he could remember they were important, their purpose was far beyond him now).

Oh god.

It’s worse than he thought.

If he were trying to be optimistic he could say he looked like a Picasso painting. A Picasso painting which was thrown in oil and was recreated from memory a cheap copy of the work of art. Features all wrong and misshapen… some completely gone OHGODHOWWASHEGOINGTOFIXTHIS??? ISHEGOINGTOFALLAPART-?!

He immediately turns his head away from the thing staring back at him through his reflection. He just needed to wake up. That’s all. This was all just some sick joke of a dream and he’ll wake up soon! (…the dull ache in his mind, and the ichor occasionally choking him tell him otherwise).

Of course that’s when he hears the elevator doors closing. They aren’t alone anymore.

oh god their going to look at HIM. They’re going to JUDGE him- they’re gonna think he’s a MONSTER.

He could already hear one coming his way.

His hands shoot up to cover his face. His ichor stained hands which will definitely make the state of his face worse. He chokes back sobs. He prays they will just leave.him.alone.

The footsteps stop. A voice. He can recognize it as a poppy’s.

‘ … hey? Are you alright? ‘

Is she blind??? Does he look fine??? Or is she just stupid- why are poppy’s like this?? He wishes he could just…. He doesn’t know-

… poppys did always have such nice bows… such pristine condition despite the situations they rope themselves into… and glisten needed to replace his bow anyways…. And their teeth? Their straight. Glisten would need to replace his all to sharp teeth soon… the best things about poppys are their eyes… so wide and perfectly round… glisten needed to replace a eye anyways- he doubts it will mind.

….The footsteps resume, much slower than glisten hoped. He moves one finger to see the poppy. It was reaching its hand out towards him, perhaps to reassure him. That was fine. All it needed to do was get a little closer…

He removed one hand from his face, partially exposing him to the poppy. He sinks the claws of the aforementioned hand into the ‘skin’ of the poppy… it didn’t really need its skin anyways, right?.

… it looks horrified. It sees him.

Instinct takes over. This poppy needed to die before it could run off and warn the others- before they can all see him- maybe if gets to them- he could use all their wasted bits to fix himself!

…. That sounds… nice.

(I’m not sure how to close this rip-)

#dandys world #dandy’s world #dandy’s world glisten #dandys world glisten

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mollysunder · 1 year ago

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How Viktor and Ekko are Stuck in the Wrong Genre for Zaun

I've been meaning to say this for a while but Viktor as the Machine Herald and Ekko as characters are out of place in Zaun. I don't necessarily mean their motivations don't fit Zaun, I mean the execution of their character concepts don't fit Zaun's genre.

What's that supposed to mean? It means that one of the key differences that sets Zaun and Piltover apart is that Zaun takes on the biopunk genre, while Piltover occupies the steampunk genre. While the two concepts have some room for interchangeability, steampunk relies purely on machinery while biopunk is very clearly defined by a focus on the advancement of biological, biochemical, genetic experimentation. It's the reason why the early roster of Zaun's champions are mutants, plus the guy who made them mutants. We can even see that Arcane's writers decided to integrate more champions better into the genre by officially turning Jinx into a Shimmer mutant, enhanced strength and all.

Champions like the Machine Herald fit awkwardly into Zaun because his character utilizes elements that better fit Piltover. The Machine Herald advocates that for humans to transition their flesh into machine augments as a means to erase human flaws caused by the dysfunction of biology. That's all well and good, Zaun can take in another mad scientist but the way he brings his ideology to Zaun is incompatible with the way Zaun operates.

Viktor asks the people of Zaun to change but they already change themselves (with augmentations) through chemtech! In Zaun, chemtech is their accessible alternative to hextech that anyone can use to not just power their machines, but their bodies as well. The process of change in Zaun is a dual experience for flesh and metal to become more similar in function together rather than abandon one mode for the other. Shimmer in Arcane is a new extension of what chemtech is capable for Zaun's biopunk horizons. Meanwhile Viktor's Glorious Evolution doesn't incorporate any of these key aspects of Zaun society, which more closely embodies the steampunk aesthetic and ideology of Piltover. It's no surprise the only other champions that experiment with transhumanism with pure machinery, Orianna and Camille, are both from Piltover.

With Ekko his motivations are once again very Zaun oriented, but the means by which he uses to help other is very out of place for Zaun. I'm specifically talking about his weapons. None of Ekko's weapons incorporate chemtech into them, in fact his signature power as a champion, time travel, is largely divorced from Zaun. Ekko's Z-Drive is powered by a shattered hex crystal which serves to power his other time based abilities. Even Ekko's melee weapon is a clock hand from Piltover, making his color scheme powered by hextech blue clash with Zaun's chemtech green. At least in Arcane they've given him chemtech in the form of his hoverboard.

It's just do odd that these two characters defined by their explicit desire to help Zaun are also given traits that alienate them from the region.

#arcane #viktor arcane #viktor lol #machine herald #the machine herald #ekko lol ekko arcane #league of legends #lol meta #arcane meta #I'm not asking for viktor or ekko to be turned into mutants btw #tho it does feel like that's what happening to viktor in arcane #zaun

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funishment-time · 6 months ago

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can i get Kazuichi for the ask game?

kazoo itchy

Sexuality Headcanon: kazuichi is quite possibly the Franchise's Greatest Bisexual. he loves hot chicks, truly. he also doesn't realize that giving your bro a little Speedo is extremely homosexual. in a perfect world, he'd be about equal on men and women; for most of the franchise in general, even if he realized the extent of his Speedo Disease, he'd think he likes women more. think being the key word. and we all know how good our boy is at Thinking

Gender Headcanon: oh, this one is TOUGH. no matter what, i can tell you, he's not Cis in my mind. not whatsoever. he has too many "do you ever just think about being a Girl?" "fucking no. no one knows what you're talking about Soda" moments canonically. dude wants the maid outfit. dude wants a dress. whether or not that's All The Time is up to him, and would depend on the Timeline anyway.

however

almost paradoxically, i also dabble in the idea that he's a transguy. that's a Fun One too.

nonetheless, not a Cis Guy. at all

A ship I have with said character: i don't hate him with Gundham, Nekomaru, or Hajime. i have also jokingly shipped him with Akane for the ha ha funni after reading it as a throwaway line in a fic once. but mostly i don't ship him too hard with anyone as, to me, he has a lot of Soul-Searching to do before he settles down.

A BROTP I have with said character: i love that he becomes a big brother to Jataro in Summer Camp. i also love the idea of him, Chihiro, and Miu making the most dysfunctional Engineering Family(?) on earth. i could watch a whole Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken! type anime with them. three types of autism uranium fusing together to create Nuclear Autism. Spikechun you can have that one

A NOTP I have with said character: not a fan of him with Sonia in any way, shape, or form even if he gets his act together. not even as part of a throuple or poly sitch. sorry Kazoo

A random headcanon: he loves playing with Legos and K'nex sets. also, less wholesome, a lot of DR1's executions are his work.

General Opinion over said character: 🔧/10 used to dislike him, now consider him one of my favorite failsons. Please Be Worse

#“wow i never knew Chiaki had such Huge Jugs” in Dan Game Grumps' Kazuichi voice is an integral part of my identity #danganronpa #kazuichi soda #would love to take a lot more of these for Pride! any character

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sciderman · 8 months ago

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how does one befriend a sciderman u seem really cool and interesting to talk to :]

bless you anon! bless you bless you!! i'm always looking for friends, it's kind of why i do what i do! i know a lot of people are afraid to talk to me, (stinks) but i love talking to people about spider-man. that's why i'm here and why i live and breathe

unfortunately i'm chronically bad with DMs - they fire me up with such an inexplicable anxiety that makes me freeze up. i can't explain it and i wish i was better at it, but DMs are awful for me. i think maybe because it takes me so much time to form a reply and they wind up piling up because of it, and seeing all those messages makes me want to cry and hide underneath my bed. so please no DMs! it's the executive dysfunction.

i'm much much more comfortable in social spaces because i feel less cornered there - i've always functioned better as part of a group because it feels like less pressure on me to know what to say (as much as i love writing dialogue, i'm really very nervous in conversation when i don't know people well enough). in more open spaces i can vibe and just contribute when it feels comfy to do so.

so if you'd like me to get to know you better and to get to know me better then please don't be shy to interact with me more in my replies here on tumblr or on twitter! or i have a discord server that i've met such a great deal of wonderful people through - some i've even wound up meeting in person (insane), and we're bffs for lyfe now! tied our dicks together and everything. i love the gay people in my phone.

#sci speaks #please be my frieeend!! i'm a silly goofy little human who craves friendship.#but just friendship. (sorry)#sometimes people come to me wanting more than that and it scares me. please be gentle with me.#i love that people get starstruck about me. makes me feel cool and loved but also makes me feel weird.#i'd love you guys to talk to me like i'm normal. just a funny spider-man nerd. i don't feel any sort of cool in real life so #why should i be cool on the internet. no it doesn't make sense.#im a loser. like you.#(affectionate)

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xenon-demon · 2 years ago

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hiya!!! just wanted to say i LOVED your kas!steve post so much it makes me squeal with delight no joke

any chance you can drop some details about steve's new appearance/abilities 👀 because i would love to hear more!!! (⁠ﾉ⁠◕⁠ヮ⁠◕⁠)⁠ﾉ⁠*⁠.⁠✧

Hi thank you SO much!!! <3 I have so many THOUGHTS about Kas!Steve constantly and am always keen to talk about it! (if I defeat my crippling executive dysfunction issues long enough to post more I can tag you in it if you'd like 👀👀)

Kas!Steve's whole deal is that Vecna revived him to act as his "ultimate weapon", particularly against the bunch of meddling kids who already interfered with his plans once. He's not worried about the government or any of the scientists ruining his plans, he's worried about Eleven and her allies. He knows damn well the Party & co are going to have a much harder time defeating one of their own, or at least something that looks like one of their own, than an assortment of inhuman beasts. Plus, having a second in command who is intelligent is an asset to Vecna (and Steve, while not academically gifted, is really good at tactics/strategical thinking).

This got wayyyyy longer than I thought it would so I'm chucking this under a readmore, I have "can't shut the fuck up" disease and it's terminal.

BASICALLY I wanted Kas!Steve to be at least a little different from the classic fandom depictions of Kas!Eddie, just for flavour - so to start with Steve absolutely Does Not have wings. Regarding his appearance, the main stuff is:

prehensile, multiple tails like the demobats do - Steve has 5 tails, with one (the central one) being slightly longer and thicker than the rest while the rest sort of loosely weave together around it at rest. They can be controlled independently, but it's quite difficult to do so and Steve is absolutely not at that point yet. It's like - if he went "I want to grab that object with my tails" they would all wrap around it to grab it securely like a human hand would, but it would take a looooooot of practice and experience with this new form to go "I want to hold a different object in each tail at the same time" (and even then it'd be tricky as fuck/take a lot of concentration).

FANGS. So all of Steve's teeth are now sharper and pointed, like the democreatures tend to have, but in addition to that boy's got MAD fangs. His top canines actually jut out from under his top lip and visibly dig into his bottom one, Steve has to relearn how to hold his face when his mouth is shut to hide them. His bottom canines are also larger and pointier than the rest of his teeth, but less egregiously than his top ones. Plus he has claws too, where his finger/toenails have essentially expanded and hardened so instead of just being a "cap" on top of the digit, his fingers and toes blend from skin to keratin and end in a hardened, sharp point. It is actually possibly to file/trim them without hurting him though, with appropriate tools (since they're harder than human nails).

Steve's eyes have vertical pupils now (like cats), since he's got what essentially amounts to DnD darkvision. They also glow gold when Steve's craving blood. Or craving... other things. (I'm talking about being horny his eyes glow gold when he's horny. In Steve's defense, bloodlust and regular lust are kinda intertwined when you're a vampire.)

His skin is also just that bit tougher than it used to be, Steve no longer gets scrapes or cuts as easily.

He does still eat food in addition to blood, he's just carnivorous now - lots of meat (can be cooked but tbh raw is better) and animals products like eggs and dairy. He doesn't digest plant products properly anymore and will throw up if he eats too much of it. As for human blood... he doesn't NEED it to survive, but he craves it, and it gives him a boost to his abilities when he's drank some recently (in that what I've described is him at Full Power™, and if it's been a while since he's had blood it's progressively harder and harder to do those same things). He also just Looks Sick if it's been a whie since he's drank blood. Also when he's out of the Upside Down (especially if, say, he was no longer connected to the hivemind) if he doesn't drink human blood on a regular basis he WILL go feral and revert to a much more animalistic state of mind.

Now the fun stuff, aka his powers:

Superhuman strength, pretty much no one would be able to beat him in a one-on-one, hand-to-hand fight. Bring a weapon, ideally a gun. He also has better stamina than a regular human would and tires much less easily.

Heightened senses - he can see in the dark better than humans ever could and his sense of smell is heightened (particularly smelling blood, human blood in particular). His hearing is actually not that much better than a normal human's, but very high pitched or "artificial" sounding noises grate on him in a way they never used to (e.g. Curse The Fucking Fluorescent Lightbulb Buzz).

He's connected to the hivemind like all UD creatures are, but unfortunately that means he's connected to Vecna. Vecna has a very strong connection to him, given that it was through Vecna's powers that he was revived, and he can plunge Steve into a hallucination whenever he pleases just like with the curse victims. This is how he communicates Steve over long distances.

Steve also has vampiric thrall/mind control abilities, but he can only really pull it off when he's freshly loaded up on blood. It also works best for simple instructions - he could exert simple, one-word-command type control over almost anyone, but complicated multi-step instructions or more abstract things (e.g. being encouraged to forget about something or instructed to not answer certain questions going forwards, indefinitely) would only really work on someone Steve has an extended, close relationship with. It works through eye contact - the gold eye glow also happens when Steve's using these abilities. But shhhhhh I'm sure Eddie's going to be totally fine, everything is chill he'll be fiiiiine ;)

God this is WAY LONGER THAN I THOUGHT IT WOULD BE I'M SO SORRY. I hope you enjoy the lore drop!! <3 Let me know if there's anything else you want to know about because I could talk about this AU all day, I'm obsessed with it

#charlie.mp3 #charlie writes things #kas!steve au #steve harrington #steve harrington au #stranger things au #stranger things fanfiction #(when you come back it’s) gravity #i also reserve the right to add to/change these details if i think of something better lmao #but as of right now this is all pretty solid in my head as to what's going on with steve #minus a couple details for spoiler reasons ;)#gravity (kas!steve au)

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hustledimension · 4 months ago

Text

The Production of The Road to El Dorado

From here. Warning, fairly long

PAVING THE ROAD TO EL DORADO

No one can say for certain whether El Dorado is pure invention or a myth borne of the truth, but the legend of this lost city of gold has endured for over 500 years. Now DreamWorks Pictures takes audiences on a musical adventure to this fabled land, with the unlikeliest of guides—a pair of hapless miscreants named Tulio and Miguel.

Executive producer Jeffrey Katzenberg reveals that the central characters of Tulio and Miguel have their roots in the scene-stealing sidekicks found in virtually every animated favorite. "Having made these movies for a number of years now, I’ve always thought it would be a great idea to take what would ordinarily be the secondary characters—the dysfunctional losers, the comic relief—and send them off on some big adventure of their own."

"The flawed, but funny supporting characters are often the most interesting," director Don Paul concurs. "A main objective of this film was to break the mold of the typical heroic leading men with two scoundrels, who are anything but typical heroes."

The filmmakers add that the inspiration for Tulio and Miguel could also be found in the classic Hope & Crosby road movies and other popular buddy films over the years.

"The buddy relationship is the very heart of the story," says producer Bonne Radford. "They need each other because they’re both pretty inept. They’re opposites—Tulio is the schemer and Miguel is the dreamer. Their camaraderie adds to the adventure; you almost don’t need to know where they’re going or what they’re after, because the fun is in the journey."

The fun was also in recording the journey, owing mostly to Kevin Kline and Kenneth Branagh, the award-winning actors who gave voice to Tulio and Miguel respectively.

Producer Brooke Breton notes, "We brought them together to record, which is unusual in animation, and it was a delight. They had such a great time, and their energy and creativity elevated each other’s performances."

"Kevin and Kenneth are such great talents and each have an incredible sense of humor: Ken is very dry and witty; and Kevin is a natural comedian. They had such terrific chemistry, and it was marvelous to put them together and see what happened. We were able to incorporate a lot of their personalities in their characters, because, like Tulio and Miguel, they are something of an odd couple," Katzenberg says.

Kenneth Branagh remarks, "Tulio and Miguel are a great combination and it was fun to play that relationship opposite Kevin. Miguel is a romantic, who adores adventure and excitement. He’s a good foil for Tulio, who, by contrast, is much more of a cynic."

"Miguel is the idealist, and Tulio is the more earth-bound realist, so together they form one entire half-wit," Kevin Kline quips. "Tulio is always finding himself in these terrible life and death predicaments—often because of Miguel—but I think he really loves wheedling his way out of them. He’s an actor in a way; life for him is a giant improvisation."

That improvisational quality was perfect for each actor’s approach to his role. "Kenneth could go to the mike and immediately give me 15 separate interpretations of a single line. He’s amazing," director Eric "Bibo" Bergeron notes. "Any nuance we could possibly have needed was in the performance he delivered. For his part, Kevin would constantly try variations on his lines and came up with some wonderful gems. In some cases, we ended up using his ad libs, which are some of the funniest lines in the film."

"Everyone agreed our dialogue should have a more spontaneous feel, so Kevin and I had a lot of fun bantering and throwing lines back and forth," Branagh recalls. "In theory, that off-the-cuff quality might be harder to achieve in an animated movie where the process is so technical, but one of the most impressive things about this production was that the technical aspects didn’t eliminate imagination and invention from the process."

"Physically, it is more confining, but your imagination can really go wild," Kline agrees. "You can close your eyes and envision this magnificent city of gold, unlike live action, where there is some semblance of a set around you. In that way, animation is more freeing; you can take larger creative leaps."

Physical limitations were not an issue for the animation artists responsible for the visual manifestation of Tulio and Miguel on the screen. One of today’s leading animators, James Baxter, the senior supervising animator for Tulio, and supervising animator William Salazar led a team of 17 animators in bringing Tulio visually to life. Baxter observes, "We wanted a degree of caricature, so we took a broader, more comedic approach. Having someone as versatile as Kevin Kline to work with was a joy. His performance is so full of life, and it’s great when you have that kind of foundation on which to build your animation. We were able to be a lot more expressive and flamboyant."

"It’s actually easy to capture the outlines of the character when you have a voice talent like Kenneth Branagh," says Dave Brewster, the senior supervising animator for Miguel, who collaborated with supervising animators Serguei Kouchnerov and Bob Scott, and a team of 13 in animating Miguel’s every move. "His performance really influenced where we went with the character—facial expressions, attitudes…it’s all in the voice."

Kline offers, "I can see where the animators dovetailed certain expressions or gestures into the character, but I never feel like I’m watching myself when I’m watching Tulio. It’s great because he has a life of his own…he’s just sort of borrowed my voice."

"It amazes me how animators are able to form this marriage between what they have imagined and what they get when they hear and see you," Branagh states. "The miracle of making all that come together in an original creation is quite something."

Arriving in El Dorado, Tulio and Miguel add a new facet to their partnership in the form of a beautiful native named Chel. If Tulio and Miguel are not your typical heroes, then it follows that Chel is a departure from the usual animated heroine. "She’s remarkable, because in many ways, she’s a contemporary woman," Radford states. "She has tremendous strength, and is every bit as clever and devious as the men. She plays their game at least as well as they do…if not better."

"The combination of Chel with Tulio and Miguel makes for a very interesting trio," says Breton. "She adds an edge and an energy that counterbalances them, and eventually becomes a wedge between them."

Rosie Perez brings her distinctive vocalization to the role of the woman who is more than a match for the two con men. "Chel has Miguel and Tulio’s number the first time she lays eyes on them," Perez laughs. "I love her; she’s smart and sexy, does all the planning—and looks great doing it. She loves life, but she’s frustrated with her own life; she thinks El Dorado is her trap, representing all her limitations, but that’s not so. When she finds what she wants, the world just opens up to her."

Bergeron says, "Rosie has a such a spark. She was always in a great mood, laughing and having fun. She’s so full of life and has an attitude that added so much to Chel. We took Rodolphe Guenoden, the supervising animator for Chel, to New York for a recording session, and he noticed the way she moves. She’s always sort of dancing—there’s a little ‘groove’ to her even when she’s just talking—and he was able to incorporate that into his animation."

"What Rodolphe did with her facial expressions and her movements was right on the money," Perez declares. "He really brought out her charm. But," she smiles, "she’s much more toned than I am. I would never be confident enough to run around in a little outfit like that."

The actress also appreciated the depiction of Chel as a woman indigenous to the Latin culture. "I think the filmmakers have done a wonderful job in being sensitive to the portrayal of Chel and other characters as Latinos," Perez attests. "What they did was deal with her human side first before dealing with her outward appearance, and that’s so important. They approached the culture with a lot of respect. I think the Latin community is going to be very happy with this one, and it’s about time."

Another very respected member of the Hispanic acting community plays a lead role in "The Road to El Dorado." Edward James Olmos provides the voice of the Chief, and notes, "I love that the film and the cast have so much cultural diversity. It’s quite a combination, from Hispanic Americans to Europeans."

While he bears no physical resemblance to the imposingly large figure of the character, Olmos’ voice conveys the strength, wisdom and benevolence of a great leader. "The Chief is the voice of the people," Radford says. "He’s wise and loving and rules in a very gentle way. He’s not passive—he wields great power—but his wisdom shines through."

"He’s also a very smart man. You realize he’s been on to Tulio and Miguel from the beginning," Bergeron offers. "That blend of goodness and wisdom was something Edward could communicate with just his voice. He was the first person we thought of because we knew he could capture the warmth, the love and the authority of the Chief brilliantly…and he did."

"This is my first animated film," Olmos says, "and the fun I had was phenomenal. It was exciting to build a character completely with just your voice. It’s liberating, rather than confining, because you have to really feel what the character is doing. Then the animators come in and have to develop the expressions from just your voice. It’s exciting to watch it come together."

Frans Vischer, the supervising animator on the Chief, states, "Edward James Olmos gave this wonderful touch to his performance where he could say one thing, but you’d know he meant something completely different. His voice is low and calming and has an all-knowing quality, which is exactly what we wanted in the Chief."

In keeping with these attributes, Vischer and his team of animators also gave the Chief a physical grace disproportionate with his massive size. "When you see him standing there, you expect him to be a big klutz, but instead he moves with great dignity and elegance. We played with the contradictions of the character: when you first see him, you might have a preconceived notion that he’s big and dumb, but you soon discover that he is very perceptive, not to mention very graceful."

In stark contrast to the Chief is his nemesis, the High Priest Tzekel-Kan. Armand Assante, the voice of Tzekel-Kan, relates, "He’s vying for the Chief’s power, and believes when Tulio and Miguel show up on the scene that they’re his key to taking over the kingdom. His mistake."

"One of the best things about Armand’s performance is that he made Tzekel-Kan a multi-faceted character, as opposed to a one-dimensional villain," Don Paul says. "He gave him great strength and intensity, but was also able to bring a wry sort of comedic sensibility to the role."

"Tzekel-Kan is evil, but he enjoys what he is doing so much, that it makes him a lot more interesting and fun to watch," Radford agrees.

"I love doing villains, because they’re always the most fun," says Kathy Zielinski, supervising animator for Tzekel-Kan. "Armand gave us the kind of villain you love to hate. He was so great to watch record because he is so active and dynamic, even in front of a microphone. He gave us a lot of inspiration, and we put many of his actions into the character animation."

Assante recalls, "The sessions were fascinating for me because we were able to experiment and give a great deal of attention to the script. It’s a painstakingly slow process, but well worth it. One almost wishes that the amount of detail given to animation could be found in the live-action world."

In recording the dialogue for all the characters in "The Road to El Dorado," a lot of attention was paid to creating the kind of fast-paced, overlapping dialogue that is typically more common to live action films. Paul expounds, "We kept overlapping dialogue from one character to another, which is not traditional in animation, but we really wanted to give the banter between the characters a tighter rhythm. It boosted the energy and gave a unique style to the film."

One major member of the ensemble, however, never speaks: Altivo, the loyal war horse who joins Miguel and Tulio on their journey to El Dorado. Kristof Serrand, the supervising animator for Altivo, notes, "It’s all pantomime, which comes across in animation fairly well. I tried not to make him too cartoony; most of the time he moves like a real horse. But there are also shots of him doing things like climbing stairs, and there’s no way a horse can do that."

THE MUSICAL ROAD

Legendary recording artist Elton John serves as the musical narrative voice of "The Road to El Dorado," propelling the story via six original songs heard in the film, written by John and Tim Rice.

Katzenberg offers, "We wanted the songs sung by Elton to be the heart and soul of the movie—not only helping to tell the story, but revealing what’s happening beneath the surface."

Hans Zimmer composed the score, marking his first collaboration with John and Rice since their Oscar-winning triumph "The Lion King." Joining the team for this film is composer John Powell, who worked with Zimmer on the score.

"Having Elton, Tim and Hans together again on a movie is a dream for me," states Katzenberg, another "Lion King" alumnus. "To get to work with these guys is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, so I feel extremely lucky that it’s happened to me twice."

"The reason I loved doing ‘The Lion King’ and wanted to be a part of this film is the rapport I have with Jeffrey Katzenberg," Elton John says. "He’s inspirational; he makes me feel a part of the team, not just in terms of the music, but the film as a whole. He’s always willing to listen to what I think about the movie. Of course, then I have to let him say what he thinks about the music," John laughs.

"I wanted to do another animated film," he continues. "Of course, I’m lucky. I write the melodies, so compared to Tim, I have the easy job. Animation is a long process—the story evolves, the jokes change, the songs switch scenes…and through all that, Tim is rewriting lyrics. But it was just delightful to work with Jeffrey, Tim and Hans again. We have tremendous respect for one another, so it was truly a team effort."

The first song heard in the movie is the opening theme "El Dorado," which accompanies the vividly colorful creation of the mythical city. "It needed to be a majestical, up-tempo song to really catch your attention at the start of the film," says John. "Lyrically, it tells the story of how El Dorado was formed as a glorious gift from the gods, which visually matches the incredible opening of the movie done by the animators."

Before we can explore El Dorado, however, we first meet up with Tulio and Miguel in 16th-century Spain, where they are caught cheating in a dice game, putting the story in motion. The settings of the story in Spain and El Dorado had a strong influence on the songs by Elton John and Tim Rice, as well as the musical score compositions created by Hans Zimmer and John Powell.

"The music has to have an essence of the culture," John says. "All the songs in the movie are melodically linked because of their Latin roots."

"An interesting element of the music is that we have Spanish, Latin American and South American music intersecting in a harmonious way," Zimmer adds. "I love those musical styles, so it was great to do a little ‘knitting’ between them. At the same time, it’s not an anthropological study; it’s a fun movie, so we used several instruments that didn’t even exist in those days. It’s a bit of a cheat, but that’s the idea: to find the culture and then try to cross its borders for a broad audience."

Zimmer also broke tradition by not using a full orchestra for much of the scoring. The characters’ individual themes are performed by small ensembles to achieve an intimate sound, as heard in Chel’s theme, aptly titled "Cheldorado." Gifted guitarist Heitor Pereira from Brazil, a former member of the rock group Simply Red, plays all the acoustic and Spanish guitar compositions in the film.

In addition, Zimmer relates, "I saw this unbelievable group called Triology perform in Cologne. They have a sound like nobody else, and I knew they’d be perfect for this film. The hard part was telling Jeffrey that, instead of an orchestra, I wanted to use this avante garde string trio I had found in Germany. My thinking was, ‘yes, we’re the team from ‘The Lion King,’ but now let’s see who we can bring into this team and really make it different.’ I think it worked out really well."

Getting Tulio and Miguel from Spain to El Dorado leads to the song "The Trail We Blaze." Lyricist Tim Rice offers, "‘The Trail We Blaze’ is the film’s road song. It’s two guys going to conquer the world, full of ambition and dreams. They haven’t yet been disillusioned by anything."

The two friends come to what appears to be a dead end, when they meet Chel, a beautiful native girl who is as determined to get away from El Dorado as they are to get in. Though hardly a willing guide, Chel is the reason Tulio and Miguel finally arrive in the magnificent city of gold. When the High Priest, Tzekel-Kan, declares them to be gods, Tulio and Miguel realize that being the fulfillment of prophecy could be very profitable. Kevin Kline and Kenneth Branagh perform "It’s Tough to Be a God," the only song in the film not sung by Elton John.

Branagh remarks, "We both like to sing, and it was an incredible treat as an actor to be able to sing music by Elton John and the extremely witty lyrics of Tim Rice, and then to work with the brilliant Hans Zimmer in the studio. That sort of opportunity rarely comes along, so it was great fun to come into the recording studio and have a chance to play."

"We had great times with Kevin and Kenneth jamming in the studio," Zimmer recalls. "I had to ignore the directors and producers looking over my shoulder and let zaniness prevail. That was the atmosphere I was trying to create, and it worked perfectly with the type of song it is."

"It’s first and foremost a comic number," Rice says. "It’s meant to be funny, but at the same time, it’s illustrating the strange position that our two heroes have gotten themselves into."

During their time in El Dorado, Tulio and Miguel find themselves enticed by the charms of the city—but not the same charms. Tulio is falling in love with the seductive Chel, while Miguel is beguiled by El Dorado and its people. The song "Without Question" accompanies a montage sequence in which Miguel explores the city, becoming more and more captivated by its treasures, having nothing to do with gold.

"It was originally written as a love song between Tulio and Chel," John reveals, "but it also came to represent Miguel falling in love with the place."

Paul says, "Because of that song, you really feel and understand that moment when Miguel is not seeing the city through a con man’s eyes anymore."

Being drawn in different directions eventually pulls Tulio and Miguel apart, putting a break in their friendship they may not be able to bridge. The song "Friends Never Say Goodbye" is about these two best friends facing separate futures for the first time. "They have had an almighty row, and now are going their separate ways," Rice notes. "But we’re hoping they will patch things up, so the title is somewhat optimistic."

"They have both found what they were looking for in life," says Bergeron. "But they discover the one thing they have to sacrifice in order to realize their respective dreams is their friendship, which ultimately means the most to them. So in the end, the story is about how lucky we are to have that true friend we can depend on, not just when things are great, but when the chips are down."

The final song heard in "The Road to El Dorado" is "Someday Out of the Blue (Theme From El Dorado)," which plays over the film’s end credits. The song, with music by Elton John and Patrick Leonard and lyrics by Tim Rice, will be the first single from the album Elton John’s The Road to El Dorado. The album’s release is scheduled for March 14, and the single will be available in stores on April 4.

DIGITIZING EL DORADO

The animators took the blending of traditional and computer animation to a new level in "The Road to El Dorado." To help achieve that symbiosis, traditional and computer animators worked side-by-side, rather than being split into separate departments, which, as Don Paul says, "generates mutual respect and an energy that brings everyone’s best work forward."

In the past, background paintings would be completed before being scanned into the computer. For "The Road to El Dorado," some traditional artists used state-of-the-art 2-D digital painting software for a process digital supervisor Dan Philips called "tradigital." He explains, "They took preliminary rough base paintings, scanned them in and did the rest of the painting digitally. This allowed them not only to make revisions faster, but they could also take different pieces of the background and reassemble them for an entirely new background."

Using the exposure tool, developed by DreamWorks and Silicon Graphics Inc. and first utilized on "The Prince of Egypt," the layout department, led by Lorenzo E. Martinez and Damon O’Beirne, was able to achieve 3-D camera moves on 3-D sets that were combined with 2-D paintings.

There was also a leap forward in 3-D animation crowd scenes in "The Road to El Dorado." Paul explains, "Normally, your main and middle-ground characters are traditionally animated, and only the background characters are computer generated. In this film, we have brought CG characters center stage, which is something I’m really proud of. We were very meticulous in modeling them so they would appear identical to the traditionally animated characters, and not look like they exist in different formats. The facial expressions and the performances of the CG characters are so much better than was done in the past. These are all stepping stones to bringing 3-D character animation to the forefront."

Another tool that was employed for the film was Elastic Reality® Warp (ER® Warp), which has been used primarily in live action for morphing sequences. In animation, it permits the artists to warp images to give the illusion of subtle movement without re-animating frame by frame. There are myriad examples of ER® Warp throughout "The Road to El Dorado": leaves bounce as Miguel hacks his way through the jungle; the sail of Cortes’ ship bends in the wind; Tulio’s back flinches as a leech is pulled from it; and many more.

In the animated world, water is one element that has consistently posed challenges because, by its very nature, water involves a tremendous amount of movement at different speeds and in different directions simultaneously. One of the most daunting sequences in "The Road to El Dorado" involved Tulio, Miguel and Altivo going overboard into the ocean directly in the path of Cortes’ galleon. By applying gradient light and shadow to 2-D water, sequence lead Jeff Howard was able to create depth and scale in the ocean as it swelled and ebbed.

Big bodies of water, however, are not necessarily the most difficult to animate. In fact, the tiniest splashes have often been the most testing. For this film, Doug Ikeler, the sequence lead in a scene called Crashing the Gate, developed a new system called Spryticle, which enabled him to obtain the most detailed splashes of water possible.

The Spryticle process begins with a 3-D particle system, which is like little dots in virtual space. Spryticle then turns each dot into a 2-D card, called a sprite, on which are images, in this case a series of hand-drawn splashes. Using the computer, the animator can apply forces such as gravity or wind to move them around.

"The beauty of Spryticle is that it gives us a way of multiplying hand-drawn animation a thousand-fold," Ikeler asserts. "Even though the computer is replicating them, each one is still hand-drawn animation with its own unique attributes."

FINDING EL DORADO

For the filmmakers, the journey to El Dorado began with two research trips to the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. The trips were led by the film’s historical advisor Dr. John Pohl, an archaeologist with the Fowler Museum of Cultural History at UCLA, and a recognized authority on American Indian civilizations. With a joint doctorate in archaeology and film production, Dr. Pohl was eminently qualified to guide the filmmakers in their quest to be faithful to the Indian civilizations of what is today Mexico and Central America—the most prevalent of which were the Mayans.

Radford recalls, "Going to the Yucatan was extremely significant to the foundation of the story and the script. It was very informative to soak up the culture, to see how those civilizations existed and experience what it was like to physically be in those places. From an art direction standpoint, the colors in the foliage and even the animals are almost magical. It was a challenge to get it all on the screen because there’s so much beauty in even the smallest details. It was important to us to be faithful to all the research that was done, and I think it’s paid off."

Christian Schellewald, the film’s production designer, remembers, "Standing on top of a pyramid in the middle of a rainforest, you see this eternal jungle, this enormous green ocean. It was breathtaking. That’s something you can’t see in pictures, and can’t understand unless you’ve seen it for yourself. That’s why we went."

"A great deal of research went into this film, but we had to keep in mind that it’s set in a mythological place. A lot of the design was inspired by the Mayan civilization and other cultures, but it’s not meant to be an exact reflection of any one culture," Paul comments.

"This is a fantasy," producer Brooke Breton agrees. "We applied what we learned of the civilization and the surroundings and took it to a surreal realm, weaving in the fantasy elements to achieve a look that is really original."

The design of the film did not only apply to the backdrop. Schellewald and art directors Raymond Zibach, Paul Lasaine and Wendell Luebbe subtly utilized color to gauge the emotional life of the main characters. Red and black were used to accentuate danger and fear, as in the jaguar sequence when Tulio and Miguel are running for their lives from Tzekel-Kan’s incarnation of evil. Lighter, brighter colors were incorporated for happier sequences. The challenge came in blending conflicting emotional cues for the two main characters, especially during scenes when they had very different moods.

To accentuate the brilliant colors of El Dorado, the design team established a striking contrast between it and Spain. In Spain, the colors are much more muted, with almost no foliage to shade buildings that are sun-bleached and rough-hewn. Arriving in El Dorado, the palette explodes with vivid colors and bold graphic shapes.

Bergeron expounds, "We wanted Spain to be almost monochromatic. Then, as Tulio and Miguel find their way through the jungle, we integrated more color as the characters discover a new world. Finally, when they come to El Dorado, we see every color of the rainbow."

Katzenberg concludes, "One of the most important things for me in making an animated movie is to take the audience someplace they’ve never been before. The inspiration for this story is a magnificent culture of which only the tip of the iceberg still exists. It’s a world that once was…but maybe if we could find that waterfall and make our way through it, we’d find that El Dorado is still there and waiting for us."

#the road to el dorado #dreamworks #animation production #trivia #animation

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aeide-thea · 1 year ago

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i keep, like, rolling my eyes at my own gender pretensions, like, 'okay, if in practice all this is about is, like, pronouns and unfeminine clothing and wrinkling my nose at having tits &c &c but not actually pursuing not having them—'

[at this point i do need to cut in to observe that like. in practice there's nothing i'm actually pursuing, so like. either you could conclude there's nothing that matters to me, in which case there's probably something deeper going on with my psyche because people do in fact generally care about things, or you could conclude that whether i'm taking action on something doesn't actually tell you whether it matters to me, because there's probably something deeper going on with my psyche (i mean, adhd/executive dysfunction, but also). but like. not really fair to be like 'well if any of this were true or meaningful you'd have moved on it and it would be more externally visible,' for the reasons i just laid out and others besides! however i do say that to myself on the reg nonetheless because. something deeper &c.]

'—then why turn up my nose at unfeminine women's clothing, which in general is likelier to be cut for my height (if not necessarily for my shoulders or current waist-hip ratio), if the real point is just to be utilitarian about things?' and having said this to myself, very sternly and very sensibly, i go off to windowshop women's clothing, and maybe even try a piece or two of it on if i'm looking in person, at which point my whole sensible dialogue with myself is instantly punctured by the inexplicable but inescapable reality that: i can't bear it!! i just Can't. it's just deeply Wrong for me in a way that i can't wholly articulate but also can't abide, even as i feel totally baffled and self-mocking about the fact that i can't.

this of course doesn't translate into arriving at, or even entirely knowing, what it is i do want to be or look like! most of the time i don't feel happily or successfully Represented by the various non-outfits i throw together! and it's not clear to me that trying to go more full-on masc would be an improvement necessarily, because i strongly suspect i'd then just feel like a gender failure in the other direction—very possible that no presentation strategy exists that would get me out of that feeling, and that i just have to accept i've got, like, dysphoria tinnitus. also i kind of feel like this is a problem i was supposed to have sorted in the previous decade of my life so i could be moving on to the next set of Properly Adult Problems—

[much 2 unpack and discard there but. the unendorsed feeling remains.]

—and yet i'm still stuck in the mud here in identityville spinning my wheels with no signs of meaningful progress! but. please god-i-don't-believe-in can we at least get the constant 'well if you aren't gonna Commit you might as well just subside back into Basically Female for All Practical Purposes like a good little girl' feeling to fuck all the way off for good or at least for a solid while, because like, even if it doesn't feel sufficiently ~justified~ to my cisnormatively-conditioned psyche, the clear, empirical takeaway from any number of experiments in the past few years is that continuing to try and conceptualize women's clothing as a possibility for me is a form of self-harm, even if it's thoroughly unfeminine and/or totally cool in the abstract!

#yes i have made basically-this-same-post before and will again #yes probably if i had like. an irl queertrans community i would not be stuck in this particular rut #but i don't so! here we are.#i promise you that however bored you are of hearing me rotate the same concepts i am MORE bored of doing it.#yes i desperately need to incorporate concepts like 'do it scared‚' 'inertia is also a choice‚' &c into my workflow but like. do WHAT scare #anyway.#the psyche #what is gender we just don't know #blegh.

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mysticsparklewings · 7 months ago

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Mystic's Museletter - Long Time, No Type!

This blog entry was originally posted to Ko-fi and DeviantArt and may also be read in full in either of those places.

Hey there Sparklers; It's been a while, hasn't it? 😅

So I suppose I should start with an apology, because I am sincerely sorry that it's been almost a year now since I was doing my regular "Monthly Museletter/Round-Up" Posts [on dA & Ko-fi, doing them here on Tumblr is entirely new], and it's also been a few months now since I was posting art...really at all, let alone regularly.

And because of that, if it wasn't already obvious, this isn't even going to be quite like my former "regular" long-form posts. It's going to be long, which itself isn't unusual, but because of how much there is to cover, I'm going to try and divide this all up into mostly self-contained sections, and have a list of those sections (marked by headers of the same title) beneath this paragraph so you can jump/scroll around and read "the interesting bits" at your leisure:

Overview of Where I've Been

DeviantArt's Changes

Other Things I've Been Doing - Part 1: Ohuhu Again! - Part 2: Social Sites & Dolls - Part 3: Everything Else

Peeks At Actual Art Things I've Done

Wrap Up

Overview of Where I've Been

So what happened? Well, the Monthly blog posts were just a victim of my executive dysfunction—I got in my head about how long they usually take to put together and when I'd miss one or put it off too long, naturally that would mean the next one would take even longer to catch up and it just spiraled downward from there.

Clearly, if I want to continue with those going forward, I need to make some changes to how they work so I can actually do them. At the moment though I don't have any concrete plans, but I have some general ideas that relate more to the next section.

Okay, but what about Artwork? I was on a pretty good roll there, especially with Winx Art, and then...Crickets.

This one I can't even fully explain myself. At first, I know I was largely bogged down by the fact that I just kept missing self-imposed deadlines to have certain pieces finished by, and my motivation to post art was majorly crippled by some Changes DeviantArt Made, but I feel like those two reasons alone don't cover everything.

My personal life has also been a bit of a roller coaster these past few months, but that is somewhat "normal" for me, so I don't feel right blaming it on that, either.

My best guess is those things combined with my usual Post-Inktober Funk™ and made a kind of "Seasonal Burnout," sort of like Seasonal Depression (as is fairly common for a lot of people to experience around the holidays and winter months). I've had plenty of creative ideas and was even able to do some other creative things I'll touch on more in a bit, but the motivation to actually draw was just...not there.

The other reason I chalk this up as "Seasonal" is because as the weather has finally, slowly started to warm up, I have noticed some internal changes with myself...Nothing major has happened yet, but I feel more squarely pointed back in a "Drawing Direction," if that makes any sense.

I think the last piece of the puzzle to get me at least sort of back on track is related to those Changes I mentioned DeviantArt made. So let's talk a bit about that...

DeviantArt's Changes

Towards the end of October—Naturally, my busiest month!—All of a sudden, I could no longer edit Deviation descriptions directly in Sta.sh, which I'm sure some of you Sparklers are familiar with.

This matters because I found writing & editing descriptions in Sta.sh much more convenient than typing them directly on the Submission Page. Mostly for formatting reasons, but also as a hangover from many years ago when I lost a a few descriptions that were written only on the Submission Page, which didn't (doesn't?) auto-save consistently like Sta.sh did.

So. That wasn't good, but I figured out that I could still edit existing Text documents that I had in Sta.sh, so I took to writing the descriptions in an old one of those and would copy & paste it into the final Art description later. But eventually, that method stopped working too. (I think around mid-November, but I'm not 100% sure.)

As of right now, you cannot edit any text of any kind in Sta.sh anymore. You either handle it directly (on the Submission Page for Artwork, or using dA's on-site text editor for written work), or you don't bother.

Now, I'll wholeheartedly agree that on paper this doesn't sound like a big deal. And it really probably shouldn't be. But nevertheless, to cut an overly long explanation short: It is/was for me. It felt like one of the last few threads tying me here, to DeviantArt, snapped.

Again, to cut an overly long explanation short, emotionally, that really hurt. I have more or less been mourning the loss of the DeviantArt I first joined back in 2011 as a result. 😞

And to cut one more explanation short: I've been thinking for a while now that it might be in my best interest to start up a more proper dedicated blog for my long art descriptions, and this blow to the way I write said descriptions on dA really solidifies that. I still have to figure out exactly where said blog will be—possibly here on Tumblr* which is why I'm posting this here now—but I have pretty much made up my mind that it does need to exist, one way or another.

(*I'd stick it over on Ko-fi, but as it currently stands Ko-fi doesn't have great organization or archive functions for older blog posts; If it's not recent it's difficult to find, and that just won't work with the blog-ish flow I know I'd need, among other small issues with Ko-fi's formatting.)

With all that said...I don't really want to say there's still a bit of light at the end of the tunnel for dA because that doesn't really feel accurate, but that's the closest expression I have.

Very recently, DeviantArt announced a new overhaul coming to the Submission Page, and while I have extremely mixed feelings about it (because I strongly suspect this is exactly why Sta.sh has been crippled)...I don't hate it. There are things I like about it, I'm mainly just bitter and fearful about Sta.sh's future.

But I also haven't fully put this "Studio" thing to the test yet—That requires actually submitting art. So, perhaps there is yet more hope than I think...

Other Things I've Been Doing

To that end, you're probably wondering about those "other creative things" I've been able to do I mentioned earlier, and also if there is any "proper" artwork to show for these past couple of months.

I'll go ahead and spoil that yes, even though there isn't much of it, I do have some "proper" artwork things I can show you, but I think (as this section title implies) it'll be better to address those other creative things I've been doing first.

Part 1: Ohuhu Again!

Probably the most interesting to you Sparklers will be the revelation that I'm in very early stages of working on a kind of "Buying Guide" for the Ohuhu Honolulu Markers.

I'm sure some of you Sparklers are familiar with my Ohuhu Chart and the unofficial "ongoing saga" of keeping that thing up-to-date. Some newer Sparkles may also have originally heard of the chart and/or me from the Ohuhu SubReddit, because I've spent quite a bit of time over there helping people figure out the best way to get all 363 of the Honolulu colors...since unfortunately, Ohuhu has made that process kind of confusing. 😅

Very similar to my chart sorting out confusion over how many colors there are in the first place, I want to make some kind of fixed resource I can point people to that would hopefully help clear up a lot of that said confusion.

I don't want to get to specific on the details of the "final" guide at this point since it is so early; Rather I want to just tell you Sparklers the actual work I've been doing to make it happen, and that all boils down primarily to three things:

Collecting and Organizing some text-based information (mostly in the form of Spreadsheets), and I was already doing a fair bit of this before I decided to even attempt making a Buying Guide

Fixing up my marker storage. I keep my Honolulus in their original bags for space-related reasons, but I've been meaning to make dividers for the bags to make everything more stable, and Spare-Cartoonist6276's Honeycomb method was the final push to do that I needed to actually do it. The only real downside has been that it just takes a while to construct each honeycomb section (and I'm not even bothering with the pretty color-matching cardstock). Fortunately, at time of writing I only have 2 sections left to go out of the original 11!

Swatching & Attempting to sort every color in a "Proper" Color Order. This is also something I've been meaning to try anyway and how useful it would be became pretty undeniable as I started thinking about how this Buying Guide is going to work. I'm in Stage 1 for this process—As I finish a honeycomb section, I swatch the markers in that section, so when the honeycombs are done, the swatches for colors I actually own will also be done. This is also different from my usual swatching because I made very basic little cards with holes punched in them so hopefully comparing colors and physically arranging them is as easy as possible. This swatching has been a long time coming though and is also taking a little bit longer because...I don't actually own every Honolulu color! I'm missing about 35, all of which belong to the "Pesky 43" that only come in certain sets. And with other expenses and trying to save up for a new website (yep, that Ko‑fi Goal is still active, folks!), I just haven't been able to justify dropping $130+ on yet more markers to fix that problem.

However, after some poking around and discussion in the wider Ohuhu Community, a Reddit User by the name of JayZedHorse very kindly reached out and offered to send me physical swatches of the missing colors! They are en route to me as I type!

There are still many small ways in which this isn't a completely perfect solution, but it is still a very solid step in the right direction and I am eagerly counting down the days until I have those swatches in hand!

So at the moment I have the small goal of being finished with the Honeycombs and my own swatches before the swatches JayZed sent me arrive; That way I should be able to jump pretty straight into the comparisons and start on color arrangement. But, fortunately, even if I can't be finished with the honeycombs by then, it won't be the end of the world. Both things will get done either way, it'll just take a little longer.

But that is about all I have to say about this Buying Guide that I think you Sparklers would be interested in, for now, so on to the next subject...

Part 2: Social Sites & Dolls

I'll start by saying there are two Social Media sites I've been semi-active on and so people that either follow me in those places or frequent the same communities I do will probably already have a few ideas of the other ways I've been flexing my creative muscles lately. [...And Members of the Sparklers' Club Discord Server will also have seen a fair bit of the same posted directly in there!]

As I sort of mentioned with the Ohuhu section above, I've been spending quite a bit of time on Reddit. It's not my favorite place on the internet, but I do like that I've been able to have long-ish form discussions about things over there that I would be pretty hard-pressed to cleanly fit inside of art posts. That's where most of my writing muscles have been getting their exercise.

The other one, and probably a little more interesting to you Sparklers, is BlueSky, one of the half a dozen "Twitter Replacements" that's been floating around.

To be fair, there were points where I thought either Mastodon or Threads were going to be my "Twitter Replacement" of choice, but ultimately neither ended up sticking with me and I'm not really sure why. It's possible the same will eventually be true for BlueSky as well, but so far even without fresh art to post it's been jiving decently enough with me.

I've mostly been posting Doll Photos over there; Literally the month after I lost the will to keep up with the monthly blog posts entirely, my interest in Fashion Dolls was finally renewed after a probably 5-6 year hiatus with one Karla Choupette.

I'll spare you Sparklers the nitty-gritty details (especially since I think I may be able to delve into them more appropriately in the future 😉), but suffice to say after falling in love with Karla and Monster High finally producing dolls I actually like again that I've been having a bit of a "Doll Love Renaissance" and I have taken probably a gross and shocking amount of photos of small plastic ladies over the course of the last year.

I don't know what it is about BlueSky that's made me genuinely want to share over there—It certainly isn't a massive following or massive amounts of engagement—but there is something, and it's pretty nice when previously I had to really talk myself into sharing anything that wasn't directly art-related over on Twitter.

Aside from just letting you Sparklers know I'm active on BlueSky at all, this is also relevant because I've taken to fairly regularly making things for the dolls—Mostly tiny crochet clothes, but a few other accessories too, like a belt I recently made to cover up uneven stitching on one doll's dress. And sometimes I re-paint details on certain dolls as well, but nothing super dramatic like some Doll Customizers do!

I would eventually like to compile photos of all (or at least most) of the things I've made for the dolls and maybe actually post them at least over on Ko-fi, and maybe here on DeviantArt too, since I am pretty proud of a lot of them and I think they'd be mildly interesting to my audience. But there are no concrete plans for that at the moment, just wishful thinking.

One related thing I do have slightly more concrete plans for though is the release of a Crochet Pattern—I got a little tired of the lack of pants options for the Rainbow High dolls, especially non-skinny ones, so I did some research and muddled together a pattern for some fitted bell-bottoms. I think the pattern itself is pretty much ready-to-go for sharing, but I did want to make one last test pair of the pants first (this will be the third pair in total) just to make sure one of my yarn recommendations works as well as I think it will.

The pattern will 100% be posted in the Ko‑fi Shop when the time comes, I'm just not completely sure if I'll be attempting to post it (or example photos at least) to DeviantArt as well, but...probably. We'll see!

Part 3: Everything Else

There is one more "not proper art" thing I've been slowly chipping away at that I think you Sparklers will find interesting.

...To be fair, there are some other much smaller things that I've shared with the Sparklers' Club on Discord that would also fit in this category, but they're not as interesting and would normally be saved for the "From the Archives" section in a Monthly Round-Up, so I'd feel out of place discussing them here.

Anyway. I've started the maybe-minorly-insane project of maintaining a Wiki for my Winx Club OCs: "The Mystix Dimension."

I've been keeping a running Google Doc with information about said OCs over the past couple of years as I've been doing major redevelopment on them, but I was getting tired of the limited ways to organize everything in that format.

After a lot of research that ultimately ended up going nowhere, I opted for the format I know best. I spent quite a bit of time making pages for my most-used Winx OCs on the Winx Fanon Wiki back in the day, but in the present I wanted the freedom to mess with the Wiki's code to both make it look more like the "official" Winx Club Wiki and also tailor it more to my own specific needs.

The "Mystix Wiki" is still very Under Construction with a lot of stuff missing, but it is slowly but surely getting there and most of the "bones" are in place.

So if you Sparklers are curious about my Winx OCs specifically, you can pop over there and have a look around—Of the information there, there's already a nice sampling that's pretty different from what long-time Sparklers may remember of my OCs from the earlier DeviantArt days when I was posting about them super regularly. 😉

A side effect of the Wiki that I semi-expected though is that it has made me realize how little I've actually drawn of my OCs even though they've been pretty consistently on the back of my mind for months. So I think pretty soon there are going to be more new Winx drawings in the works as I continue to fill out the Wiki. 😆

And speaking of drawings in the works...

Peeks At Actual Art Things I've Done

Now, as I mentioned at the beginning of this post, I definitely don't have a lot in the way of Work-In-Progress (WIP) Drawings, but I do have some that I started on before this unintentional hiatus. While I'd normally save some or even most of the WIPs for a Monthly Round-Up instead, given the circumstances I think it only makes sense to go ahead and share them with you Sparklers here and now.

We'll start with a few that should be recognizable as "updates" from the WIP Palooza that I posted back in August:

Firstly, and this will most likely be the next finished piece I actually post, I did finally polish off that sketch of Karla Choupette in the Winx Club art style. (And this is what I meant earlier when I mentioned I might be able to elaborate on my Doll Renaissance feelings later—The description for this piece would be a good place to do that!)

...I'm not showing the completely finished version here because I would like there to be some surprise when it goes public, and also even after all this time I'm still not 100% on the background I chose. So it could still change before the final post.

But Karla herself I'm happy with. I have no idea if I'll ever draw any more Rainbow/Shadow High characters in the Winx Style, but the door is open if I decide I want to.

Next we have...heh, My Winxsona in the Fan Transformation Formalix, better known as "Winxsona Winter Week 7". Incredibly, unbelievably late for "Winxsona Winter" at this point. But nevertheless, I started on the final two pieces for the series and I do want to finish them!

This one isn't fully finished like Karla, but it isn't too far off. It mainly needs shading and a background...And if I had no clue what to do for a background for Karla, then I have like -5 clues what to do for this one. 😅 I'll figure something out, though!

Likewise, I also have the "finished" sketch for "Winxsona WInter Week 8," or: My Winxsona in the Fan Transformation Dimentix.

Mystic Stars and Above on my Ko-fi already saw this WIP back in July, but this is much further along than you Sparklers saw in the WIP Palooza; At that time I had the concept sketch for the outfit and the wings done, and the pose, but I hadn't drawn the outfit on the pose yet.

The Dimentix wings are also ready for coloring (and the Mystic Stars & Above saw this one already too), but they won't be colored until after I get the flat colors down for the outfit/main image so I have a better idea of what colors should go where:

Again, no clue for the background on the finished Dimentix piece, but push-come-to-shove, I can skip a proper background and just recreate the..."wallpaper" effects that were used for the original Dimentix images made by FlorainBloom back in the day.

That leaves us with the two final WIPs I have to share, but for my Winx-loving Sparklers, I think they'll be the most exciting...

Yes, over a year later, I'm picking up the "series" that technically began with Light that Burns the Sky! 😁

Originally, I wasn't sure "Dark Enchantix" (or, my preferred name that I way overthought: "Incantix") would even be a series, but the response to Bloom and Stella was so positive [the Time Lapse has over 20,000 views on YouTube!!] and I did enjoy the concept so much...Yeah, it only feels right to give the rest of the Winx the same treatment. 😄

As you can see, I've managed to come pretty far. Tecna and Flora have most of their shading done, so next for them is getting their wings in order, then the background (and I plan to use basically the same background that Bloom and Stella got for everyone, so that shouldn't take too much work). And Layla and Musa are pretty far along too...However, I have gone back and forth a bit on Layla's blues and Musa's golds/yellows.

Once again, I'll spare you the nitty-gritty for now, but was one of the challenges for my "Incantix Vision" from the beginning and is the smaller part of why these two drawings have been delayed so much. [...Y'know aside from the other things we talked about at the beginning of this journal.]

The other thing is that I lost my mojo for these two pieces specifically because I had hoped I'd get them finished by the end of the year to submit to a Winx Club fan project, and clearly that didn't happen. (I did go ahead and submit Bloom & Stella since they were finished, though!)

However, that fan project recently re-opened submissions through the end of May this year, so naturally I'm feeling a bit of an itch to see if I get can them both finished by then, even if it's just the still images and the Time Lapses (which only make sense to make since the first one did so well) have to wait a bit longer.

...Considering it's nearly the end of April now and I'd like to get at least 1-2 other things posted before I jump back into Incantix, and all the other circumstances, I obviously have my doubts about whether or not that will happen. But, who knows, maybe telling you Sparklers about it at this stage will be the extra encouragement I need.

At the very least, you Sparklers now know those finished pieces are coming eventually even if it isn't in May, and that was the main point in sharing the WIPs anyhow.

Wrap Up

So. Now you Sparklers know where the heck I've been and some of what I've been up to in my time away.

I really didn't mean to more or less up and disappear and I am not happy that I have so little to show for my absence...But there's no time machine to go back and un-do it all, so for better or worse it is what it is.

I am, however, writing this blog post in the hopes that it'll be the "permission" I need to give myself to at least attempt to get back into an art posting rhythm.

As I touched on in the previous section, I do have a vague plan for my next finished piece to post, but it felt kind of wrong to just randomly go back to posting art like the past 4-5 months didn't happen with no explanation, especially over on Ko-fi. So here we are.

And...Beyond that, I really don't know how to end this. It feels a bit cheap to leave on my previous usual blog post send-off when this one is so different in nature...But I also don't consider myself as very good at ending these things in the first place. 😅

I should say though before I go—I really, sincerely do appreciate you Sparklers that have stuck by me in one way or another while I went radio silent. Every like, comment, whatever—I've still seen them all while I was away, and those are the little things that keep bringing me back when I do hit rough patches like this. Knowing that at the end of the day the art things I do matter to someone out there. It means more than I can put into words. So thank you, Sparklers, for just being there.

Hopefully, it won't be too much longer before I can share some new things with you Sparklers to make it really worth your while. But, until then, as always...

Take Care and Sparkle On ✨

~Mystic~

#update #ko fi #ko fi support #ko fi post #blog post #where have i been #xxmysticwingsxx #MysticSparkleWings

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