#and together they form executive dysfunction

[a-queer-little-wombat]

Reblog if you, too, can't tell if you're just neurotypical or actually a mostly non-traumatized-as-a-child, successfully masking autistic and/or inattentive ADHDer. Especially if maybe it's just that you're finally traumatized or overloaded or unsupported enough as an adult to fall apart?

We really do live in a society lads

[darklight-owl]

Post furry yuri when they least expect it

[monster-effer]

Let Him Be Your Guide - Sylus x reader

Summary: Head canon involving what kind of partner Sylus would be with a headempty!reader. Content/Warnings: MDNI, reader is not MC, f!reader and Sylus are dating, fluff, smut, fingering (587 wc) A/N: I randomly started thinking about Sylus dating a reader that doesn’t want to think too much, a reader who always has to be “on” in their daily life and wants to be “off” in their downtime. The reader may have a stressful career, or they may struggle with anxiety, executive dysfunction, or depression, which mentally exhausts them. I hope y’all enjoy, let me know what you think <3

In my opinion, Sylus would be the perfect partner for a headempty!reader because he would make them feel secure and taken care of. No one would dare fuck with the fearsome Onychinus leader. And even if they try, he will swiftly make them regret it with his evol. So by extension, no one will fuck with you either.

If you want to go shopping, Sylus will take you on his motorcycle. He would make sure that you are dressed head to toe in riding gear that he ordered custom made. All you need to do is to hold onto his tapered waist and enjoy the warmth radiating from his body.

Sylus will choose which stores you visit on your shopping trip. He will cradle your hand in his own as he guides you to your destinations. He will handle interacting with the store employees, ask them any questions you may have, and give his opinion on the clothes, shoes, and accessories you show interest in. And of course, he will pay for anything you decide you want. When you are tired of being out in public, he will have your purchases whisked away to his home by Luke and Kieran and drive you back on his motorcycle.

Sylus’ care does not stop when you’re alone together. If you’re feeling needy, Sylus will cater to your every whim. He is always eager to pleasure you because it is yet another opportunity to provide for you and it turns him on.

One of Sylus’ favorite ways to make you see stars is by finger fucking you. And your sole responsibility is to lay back on his bed and let him have his way with you. He warms you up by stroking your mound through your underwear until you soak them. He loves to work you up before slipping your underwear to the side and sinking his fingers deep inside of you while using his thumb to rub hard circles on your clit.

Sylus never tires of feeling your juicy pussy quake around his long, slender fingers. He savors every gasp of pleasure that leaves your mouth. His eyes are glued to your form as he watches you try to jerk away from the overwhelming pressure building within your core.

Sylus also can’t help but whisper sweet praise into your ear as he brings you to your breaking point multiple times over. Nothing is more rewarding to him than leaving you boneless and in a daze.

Sylus never forgets aftercare. He peppers your flushed face with kisses before walking to his bathroom to run you a warm bath. The cupboard in his bathroom is always stocked with your favorite bubble bath scents and pounds of Epsom salt to release any tension left in your muscles.

While you are soaking in the tub Sylus has his personal chef prepare a meal you will enjoy together. No input is needed from you because Sylus is knowledgeable on what type of meals you enjoy the most. The attention he pays to your preferences, wants and needs leave you feeling loved and cherished. You never have to be “on” or lift a finger when you’re with him. You can let yourself be the attendee and not the planner, and for that, you are eternally grateful.

In my opinion, Sylus would be the perfect partner for a reader who wants someone else to take the reins, for a reader that struggles with anxiety, executive dysfunction, or depression.

Perhaps…he would be perfect for someone like you?

[literary-illuminati]

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.

[toons-and-doom]

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-)

[mollysunder]

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.

[funishment-time]

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

[sciderman]

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.

[welp-back-on-my-bs]

Possible Tokyo Debunker Morgan ships because idk what the fuck would be best

Luca x Morgan:

- People pleaser couple

- forgin couple

- Luca trying to find a demon, while Morgan does their best to help with their own

Jin x Morgan:

- you know my fucking type. Jin is my fucking type. And I hate it lol

- not really public relationship unless it's like, REALLY grand (or Jin leaves his fucking room)

- cuddles and mental illness tm

- so much angst potential

Leo x Morgan x Sho:

- it kinda has to be a throuple? I kinda like that idea

- so many fucking bets.

- Alan. Please. Separate.

- fucking menaces to society

- sweet x bitter x spicy

Towa x Haru x Morgan:

- yeah, you can't exactly separate Towa and Haru, let's be honest

- you need to understand. They could get an anomaly farm together. It would be so cute.

- fluffyisr ship to ever fluff

- or yandere ship, because yes.

- Ren literally is their adopted son (he has no choice)

Taiga x Romeo x Morgan:

- monogamy isn't really a choice, it can be, but lets be honest here

- two cursed into forgetting shit and one who loves these two idiots and dosent know why

- they are the fucking Mafia, and you should be terrified.

- Romeo fucking complaining about everything while Taiga eats a like bird happily

- Romeo angrily reminds his loves of what they forgotten, Taiga just going "you're you M", and Morgan calmly reminding Taiga of the people he forgot

- high energy x low energy x no energy

Taiga x Morgan:

- Aceflux couple. Like. Taiga would literally be aceflux and maybe even the romantic version

- Taiga casually shooting people or causeing some sort of pain to people to find Morgan (they are forced out of shapeshifting when hurt) for whatever reason

- nap dates

- Romeo regretting every decision leading up to this

Romeo x Morgan:

- Morgan absolutely calls him Fico to tease him

- much more fucked up yandere shit

- he actually debates with himself whether or not he should slowly mold Morgan into his perfect partner. But he decides against it because it would erase what he fell for, instead he tries to bring out what they may have forgotten

- these two fucking spoil eachother, they love it

Haku x Morgan:

- cute little low key couple

- he out of everyone is one of the people who has seen them in their most normal state. No pretending, no masking, even in their base form

- has the most patience for what they go through and happily helps them when needed

- they, in turn, help him with his work and just let him vent whenever he needs

- they both see spirits

Subaru x Morgan:

- I heard we are gonna want to kill his dad, so that's fine. It's normal. He is a child actor, so we may want to already

- if Sho extends his food pallte, Morgan extends his sweets pallte. And he would do the same for them

- tea and cuddles

- hurt comfort kind of couple

Ed x Morgan:

- executive dysfunction

- cuddles and YouTube

- Morgan does also clean up (they feel bad for Rui)

- support from the side and support on the feild

Rui x Morgan:

- Rui absolutely feels bad that he can't give them the affection he wishes he could

- Morgan, has a number of workarounds for him

- stealing eachothers clothes and trading plushies are good for some of that physical affection

- Morgan would honestly feel very safe with him and would stay in Obscuary, trusting him and the boys there (their demons wouldn't be too protective there either)

Morgan x Yuri:

- insane psychologist x insane scientist. A match made in hell

- Morgan absolutely drags Yuri away from his work to give him five fucking minutes (more like an hour) off

- Mortcraken Psychologist, even though they are in Hotarubi

Morgan x Jiro x Yuri:

- so, we have insane x insane x what?

- breaks and self care are mandatory for them. Put in place by Morgan ofc and has the two switch off. Yuri also has made a schedule for Morgan to stick to with breaks scheduled and special interest time too

- they make eachother function better actually, it terrifies everyone else

[hustledimension]

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."

[xenon-demon]

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

[aeide-thea]

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!

[mysticsparklewings]

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~

[dustedmagazine]

Listed: R.E. Seraphin

Whether kicking out raucous, throaty garage jams with Impediments a decade ago, or exploring power-poppier terrain with Talkies and more recently under his own initials, Ray Seraphin tells his stories in the radiance just above the fuzz. Sung low and hoarse, his lyrics blink in and out of reality, propelled by the instruments’ lively buzz and echo. Ruptured by an explosive guitar lead here or punctuated by a tidy, melodic bass riff there, this music doesn’t sit still. It’s familiar but captivating, a potent rock and roll fusion of lo-fi attitude and sweeping hit-record moves. Alex Johnson called his latest release, Fool’s Mate, “dynamic and buoyant… a bright, powerful album with lurid desperation creeping in from the edges.”

Here are 10 of Seraphin’s formative records, books, and movies:

Outrageous Cherry — Out There in the Dark

When I was 17, my bandmate’s partner loaned this CD to me and I held onto it for a number of years before she was able to pry it back. I loved the pairing of Matthew Smith’s arch wordplay and Larry Ray’s mercurial guitar work. They are one of the classic vocalist-guitarist duos to me — up there with Bowie-Ronson, Ferry-Manzanera, Rollins-Ginn. All of their albums are great. Not to sound trite but they really should be better known!

Ralph Bakshi — Wizards

When I was fired from my first job at Arinell’s Pizza, the manager gave me a 1/2 pint of Ancient Age, a CD copy of Butthole Surfers’ Independent Worm Saloon, and a VHS copy of Wizards as my severance package. He proceeded to drink the whiskey with me (at 9am) but, mercifully, stopped short of insisting we watch Wizards together. The film is lifted into classic status by Bakshi’s signature crude and wild animation style despite a fairly ho-hum future-fantasy plot. Still visually arresting.

John Barth — The End of the Road

I was an English literature major in college and, because I fancied myself a Serious Person, I read a lot of books I didn’t understand in my extracurricular time. I’ve read a few of John Barth’s more celebrated, metaphysical works but this early, "realistic" story is the one that stuck with me. There’s a bleakness and ugliness to the book that feels really transgressive — albeit not in an edgy, cornball way. Plus, as someone who probably suffers from some form of executive dysfunction, I somewhat relate to the protagonist Jake’s crisis of self.

The Real Kids — Outta Place

Over the years, my music has largely been referred to as power pop. I chafe against the term a little bit but can't say I’m entirely allergic to it. The Real Kids likely represent my first real interest in the genre. Their self-titled album is their best, most complete work; however, I more frequently listen to their New Rose-era.

Flamin’ Groovies — “Whiskey Woman”

Growing up, the Flamin’ Groovies were the consummate rock group. They represented band-ness to me in a way few others did. In my mind, it’s The Replacements, NRBQ, The Faces, maybe Cheap Trick, and the Flamin’ Groovies. Their early records have this cartoonish, shambolic post-Stones vibe I love — the Roy Loney effect. That said, I was drawn to this somewhat atypical ballad sung by their guitarist, Cyril Jordan. I think this is the song that made me realize you could end a song with something other than a double chorus.

Tommy James — “Ball and Chain”

My record collection did and does consist almost entirely of dollar bin records. I bought this record on a whim at a garage sale and became enamored of James’ weird, Christian bubblegum world. The fuzz guitar (maybe played by Tommy himself?) on this song is absolutely psychotic. Big fan.

Kirsty MacColl — “They Don't Know”

I discovered Stiff Records through a CD box set my mom owned. Initially, I was lured by the rockin’ entries in their catalog: Nick Lowe, Wreckless Eric, Larry Wallis, The Damned, et al. I also adored Rachel Sweet and Kirsty MacColl, though. A perfect song that contains the most affecting use of the word "baby" in the history of pop music.

Thee Headcoatees — Girlsville

I vaguely remember being stoned at a friend’s house when I was 16 and getting introduced to this Headcoatees album. I nicked a riff for one of my first songs, "Pig Out," which I licensed to a vegan pork rind company 10 years later. To this day, I don’t know what song I ripped off and it may not have even been by Thee Headcoatees. But Thee Headcoatees are cool, so here you go!

Flannery O’Connor — Wise Blood

I attribute my interest in American fiction writing to Flannery O’Connor. The atmosphere in her stories is so suffocating and anxiety-inducing — in a good way. I think reading this was the first time I understood the emotional impact great writing can have. I have a slight preference for her short stories now but, keeping in the spirit of this list, Wise Blood was my first, most enduring exposure to her work.

Zero Boys — Vicious Circle

I grew up in Berkeley, home of the Gilman St. Project, and I think a lot of my peers in high school expected me to be into hardcore. The Zero Boys are probably the one the clicked with me the most. They were melodic and seemed still tethered to rock n’ roll. Could be because they cited The Dictators as an influence. I was wearing a Vicious Circle t-shirt the first time I was dumped but I don't hold that against them.

[flowerandthesongstress]

Recently someone told me that it must be ‘so hard [writing stories in a secondary language]’ and I burst into tears. Of gratitude. 

Not that I don’t value compliments and assurances, but sometimes all I want is for someone to understand and acknowledge how hard it is. 

I write with several dictionaries open. More often than not, I ponder over short phrases for hours not because I don’t know how to express a thing, but because I don’t know how to translate a thing. It’s there, in my head, expressed and formed, and yet I struggle to write it down. I know thousands of idioms and proverbs, they’re always at the ready, but there’s a stretch of time between remembering one and actually using it; time spent on forums, reading up, asking, in order to make sure that there’s a corresponding one in English that does not have any other nuances or hidden meanings. I hear that something is a dead metaphor in English — yet it’s a combination of new and exciting words to me. Oops. I like a word and start using it extensively — then accidentally learn that it’s a no-no or, for instance, a filler word. Oops! I had been writing for years before switching languages, I had a style already formed and cemented. I had the cultural context and an audience. Favorite expressions, jokes, mannerisms, etc. And then ... Then I had to start all over. Items gone, levels gone; look at this dork in the starting zone, with a wooden sword and a flimsy chain shirt pulled off a dead paladin, and being pummeled by a kobold. 

Paired with my brokey brain (who the heck promoted dysfunction to executive?!) it’s hard. Aside from a few initial lessons, I had no teachers but the internet. 

I often see praises directed at people who do this, praises in the vein of ‘whenever I see a fanfic preceded by words ‘sorry not my native language’ I know that it’s gonna be superb’. Again, it’s not that there’s anything wrong with compliments, it’s just— I always feel an urge to inquire of the native speaker who offers this compliment: you do understand why, though, right? And why they’re apologizing, why that faux-warning is there? Because of perpetual doubt; it’s nearly impossible to assess yourself in a secondary language. Because of fear and shame; ‘they will notice each bump, and I notice none’ and ‘they all probably speak it so much better than I do’. And because of perfectionism; brought on, in part and sometimes subconsciously, by what could be called the immigrant effect — ‘my otherness means that I have to work twice as hard’. Compliments are awesome. Assuring a person that they have nothing to be worried about? Awesome. 

Saying ‘holy forking shirtballs, that must be hard as heck’, though? God tier validation. Makes a person feel so heard and seen.

Of course I’m not complaining; it was my own choice. Moreover, choosing English over a ‘native’ 🤮 language that was forcibly imposed on me and has nothing to do with my ethnicity, culture, and upbringing, was an act of defiance on my part. Whatever anyone would say, however anyone would mock me for ‘trading an imperialist for an imperialist’ (not my words), I’m proud of myself for doing this. It’s like healing from an abusive relationship, step by tiny step (but healing is hard). I will always choose to see the positive side of English, to only perceive it as a unifying factor that brings people together. What Esperanto should have been. Kaj jes, jes, kompreneble I would have wanted Esperanto to win instead 😁but the world doesn’t work like that, alas. 

Either way, no, please don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. Just saying that it’s really really friggin’ hard, and it’s very very very nice to have the hard acknowledged. 

And hey, you. Yes, you, the person writing in a secondary language. I understand how you feel. I know how hard it is. I understand your fear and pain and doubt. You’re awesome and you’re a fighter. 

[mad-scientist-showdown]

I'm very tempted to make a bracket blog, but I'm new to this sort of thing. Has anyone written like, a step by step guide, or an explanation about how to set up a bracket/submissions form? I like doing things when I have an instruction list to follow.

Hmm. I wouldn’t really know how to answer. I just had this idea I really wanted to do, so I simply made a google form (you need a google account. Then just look up google form and it should be intuitive from there. This is the first time I make a google form as well but I didn’t have any problem), put it in a main post about the competition, in which you explain what the competition is about, some base rules about it, and basically everything you need to know about it. If you can’t think of how to do all that, you can simply copy what other contests have done! Their main post, rules, the firm’s questions, etc. I don’t know anyone who has made a guide but you can go through different blogs in @competition-list’s masterlist and copy how they did it! There’s plenty to take inspiration from.

Also try to put yourself in the shoes of someone who’s seeing this post/blog and experiencing the competition on the other side, and think: what information you would like to know, what would make the experience better, what tags could be useful to easily find the polls etc.

Lots of people also tag other competitions in their main post in the hope of them reblogging their post to get the word out; you can also ask a big competition blog directly, and they should have no problem with promoting your contest.

If you’re unfamiliar with tournaments, first look at a brackets and understand how they work, and why they typically have 8, 16, 32, 64 etc. competitors. A base tendency for characters’ place on the bracket is to put more popular characters (/characters with the most votes) together and less popular characters (/characters with fewer votes) together, to make it more fair and balanced. But you don’t have to think to hard about it either, and some people also decide the seeding randomly.

Don’t ask me about spreadsheets or how to tally the votes tho bc I am probably worse than you at that.

I understand well executive dysfunction and being blocked when you don’t know HOW to start something and wanting a step by step explanation so if you want more help/guidance about something in particular, you’re free to message me:)