#the fact that they animated the expressions and lip syncing even though this scene is depicted with their faces hidden ingame

[ichigopanhpff]

BNHA Fic: Blink! Ch. 26

Read Ch. 25 | Masterlist

Hark, I live!!!!! While I’m not back full time, I still wanted to post this chapter. Per usual, this is spoiler territory if you don’t read the manga and this will definitely be in the next anime season of BNHA.

With Winter Break in full swing, the U.A. students occupied themselves with their own thing; this was the only time they’d be free before jumping into their internships in the new year. The elevator dinged at the far end of the room, with Bakugou emerging from it in workout gear. He followed the sound of a rhythmic thumping and saw someone in a sweatshirt with the hood pulled over their face giving it to a sandbag with their boxing gloves. Their audible huffing breaths synced with every punch. Ren had her wireless headphones on with music pumping through it loudly. She couldn’t hear the blond boy’s footsteps approaching.

She couldn’t believe what she did in Todoroki’s room.

When the hell did she get that ballsy?!

And why did she even say that?!

Suppressing her urge to groan, it only made her punch the bag harder with a louder grunt that sound more like a growl from her throat.

She’s made her bed; all she could do was lay in it.

Upon feeling the stiffness of the sandbag hitting something solid, she stopped with a confused gaze and peered over to the other side to see a familiar person staring at her with vermilion orbs. His mouth was moving but she heard nothing.

The pink-haired girl held her index finger up and proceeded to pause her music before taking one of her headphones out, immediately apologizing.

“I’ve been callin’ you for the past three minutes.” Bakugou crossed his arms and cocked his head. “Where’s the fire?”

“There’s no fire,” she panted out and proceeded to remove her gloves to grab her water bottle on the floor to drink out of.

“Doesn’t look like it to me, seeing how hard you were goin’ at the bag.”

“Maybe I just felt like punching something really hard. Ever thought about that?” Ren replied with bite and wiped her mouth of excess water and sweat with her sleeve.

Setting the bottle back down, she removed her hood, revealing a sticky, sweaty mat of rose gold locks stuck to her cheeks and forehead. Her face scrunched up with a look of disgust while peeling her locks from her face by clumsily combing her bandaged hands through.

“You look like a drowned rat,” Bakugou snickered watching her.

“This is me on a good day,” she deadpanned and rolled her eyes. “You here to work out or flap your gums?”

“What, I can’t make civil conversation with an upperclassman?” he arrogantly retorted. “We will be at the same internship in a few days.”

Oh, damn. The internship with Endeavor’s agency.

Her, Bakugou, Midoriya and Todoroki.

What if his feelings changed after thinking them through? What if she’s misinterpreting this again like she did with Mirio-senpai’s after the fact?

It was then she mentally yelled at herself for always only thinking things through halfway. The confused boy looked at Ren as her face contorted into an annoyed expression.

“What, my company bugs you that much?” Bakugou questioned with a hint of contempt.

“Don’t flatter yourself,” she quickly snipped and sighed. “Sorry. There’s just… an extremely annoying thought I’m trying to rid myself of.” The girl pursed her lips and let out a hard breath through her nose.

“Listen, I’m not the kinda guy to do this kinda shit, but y’know...” He scratched the back of his head uncomfortably before continuing. “I’ll listen… to your crap… n’ stuff. If you wanna talk,” he muttered and shoved his hands into his sweat pockets.

Ren’s eyes widened with surprise for a moment and slowly softened them with a small smile.

“And here I thought that mouth can only spew out snark,” she teased with a smirk.

He audibly scoffed and turned away, embarrassed having even thrown out that suggestion. The blond boy then felt a tap on his exposed bicep; it was from Ren’s bandaged fist making contact.

“Thanks though,” she said with a lopsided smirk and gathered her belongings before leaving. “I’ll keep that in mind. Have fun working out.”

Ren made her way to the showers to wash away all the sweat she exuded. She changed up her usual workout routine to train for a new fighting style for close range combat. Having Bakugou and Todoroki as her training partners, she’d been making adjustments to her movements to improve the speed of her takedowns. Upper body strength had long been an issue for her, having focused most of them on her legs due to her quirk. Hence, the sandbag coming into play.

Stretching out her arms to the point where she was comfortable, she quickly changed to head over to the 2-A dorms to hang out with Seri and Tomoe before their internships took them away from each other. Seri was going to intern with Mirko, whereas Tomoe was going to be with Edgeshot.

The meeting point was always Tomoe’s room; it was warm, homey and comfortable like a burrow. The two joked her porcupine quirk may have been the influence. Settling in from the wintry cold, Tomoe handed her a cup of freshly made green tea, to which she gratefully accepted.

“So did you talk to Todoroki-kun?” Seri asked and threw a chocolate mushroom biscuit into her mouth.

“So I may have kinda, sorta did a thing that I didn’t quite think through...” Ren spoke quickly in one breath and rubbed her left earlobe.

“Again?” the two simultaneously blurted out with exasperation with quirked eyebrows; she could only flatten her lips into a thin line and glared.

“Y’know, I’m feeling very attacked and sense major hostility right now,” she defensively huffed and crossed her arms. “I dunno if I wanna talk anymore.”

“If you’d stop doing dumb ass things and actually thought your actions through, you wouldn’t be here,” Tomoe harshly pointed out. “So what’d you do, kiss him?”

Ren avoided eye contact as she noisily slurped her tea. The tense silence broke with the collision of limbs on the floor.

“Please tell me it wasn’t on the lips,” Seri quickly said.

“… Cheek.”

“Revenge?” Tomoe asked.

“Something like that. We… halfway confessed to each other?”

“How do you halfway confess something?” Seri asked with a tone of confusion and threw arms hands up in frustration. “That’s like stitching two stories of different genres together without a cut scene for leeway.”

“I guess the fabled ‘unspoken mutual attraction’ does exist,” Tomoe noted and popped a chocolate treat into her mouth.

“I dunno… The timing felt right, I guess,” she shrugged. “We basically decided to figure out our stuff first and talk again when we’re ready to.”

“Wait...” Tomoe paused. “Isn’t your internship with him and his dad?”

“Don’t remind me,” Ren groaned and cupped her forehead into her hand.

“I mean, you already met his mom. Guess it was ‘bout time for his dad,” Seri reasoned half-jokingly.

“Why are you making it sound like I’m meeting the in-laws?”

“Because you put yourself in situations like these that make us think otherwise.”

“You’re not gonna let your feelings get in the way of your internship, right?” Tomoe asked in half-seriousness.

“Of course not!” Ren strongly exclaimed. “It’s all business when I suit up.”

“Just wanna make sure.”

–

Given the strict rules since the U.A. dorms had been implemented, the faculty allowed students to go home for New Year’s Eve to spend with their family with a pro hero escort. Ren was welcomed home with the aromas of her mom’s cooking that immediately signaled her stomach to growl out loud. The annual Kohaku* was playing on TV in the background while Ren spaced out by staring out the living room window, admiring the calm night as she sipped her hot chocolate. Living in the dorms was nice, but there was no replacing the comforts of home.

Her phone chimed to life with a notification on the coffee table to grab her attention back. Setting her mug down gently, she grabbed the device with her hand and immediately grinned.

It was a New Year message from Melissa. As she scanned through the email, several notifications popped off from her group chat with Tomoe and Seri. The poor owl girl was bored to death at home and hid herself away in her room while her parents entertained pompous people at their party. Ren sent an animated emoji of a random panda playing the world’s smallest violin, to which she replied with an Aggretsuko fiery rage screaming one. After a few more exchanges, Seri decided to “show face” for a few more minutes for her parents’ sake.

After dinner, she and her mom watched Downtown’s Annual No Laughing New Year’s special**, a tradition in the Takahiro household. There was nothing like welcoming the new year with laughter by seeing old geezers get their butts slapped in as punishment for laughing at dumb gags done by guest celebrity assassins and themselves. As midnight got closer, Ren started to slowly drift away to sleep; her mom, however, gave up an hour ago and turned in for the night. Had her phone not chirped from several message notifications, she would’ve ended up face planting right on the hard part of the sofa.

She unlocked her screen to see several New Year greetings from Class 1-A, with photo attachments of what they’re watching, eating and doing. Ren promptly replied her message and took a photo of her legs propped up on the coffee table with the TV screen of Matsumoto mid-slap in the background. The moment she set her phone back down, the mobile device chirped to life again.

Her eyes grew wide in surprise.

It was from Todoroki.

She opened up the message reading, “Happy New Year, Ren-senpai. I’ll be in your care again this year. Will you be on the same bus as us tomorrow?”

“His writing’s so formal,” she remarked to herself in astonishment.

She typed out her response to let him know she’ll be riding with her class and already asked ahead of time to be dropped off in front of Endeavor’s office. Before hitting send, she thanked him again for getting her a spot with his dad’s agency.

Todoroki simply answered, “You’re welcome. I look forward to interning and spending more time together.”

How like him.

She couldn’t help but grin ear to ear like a shy schoolgirl, staring at the message. For a moment, she thought to herself maybe this internship will help both of them figure out just what their feelings were for each other after all.

Victoria practically had to shake Ren awake or she’d end up missing her ride. Hastily washing up and changing into her school uniform, her mom presented her with a new red infinity scarf.

“Since you told me you gave yours away to a little kid, I figured I take my needles out and make you one,” the elder Takahiro presented with a beaming grin.

“Thanks mom.” She looked down at the soft accessory with a wide smile and put it on, feeling the maternal warmth envelop her. Was this how Eri felt when she accepted her gift? Ren gave her mom a tight hug before grabbing her belongings to head out.

“Be safe out there, okay?”

“Three of the strongest students from 1-A will be with me along with the number one hero,” she spoke into her mom’s shoulder. “I think I’ll be fine.”

Pulling away from the hug, she gave her mom a peck on the cheek before putting the shoes on.

“Love you, mom. Stay warm!”

Making her way out of her building, the gentle wintry winds of the New Year softly greeted her as she walked to the school shuttle bus waiting at the entrance. Several students from her class were already on it and exchanged new year greetings with one another. Once the bus picked up the last student, they started dropping each one off at their respective internships.

“Kick some butt, Ren-Ren,” Tomoe encouraged.

“Don’t get set on fire now,” Seri teased.

“Try not to hunt the pro hero, Seri,” Ren teased back before exiting the bus with her hero costume and bag in tow. She changed into her costume’s boots on the bus before getting off; they were much warmer to wear than her sneakers. Glancing around, she walked for a bit until she saw the back of three familiar heads. As if sensing her presence, they turned at the same time and did their New Years greetings exchange.

“You made a new scarf?” Todoroki noticed the new accessory adorning her neck.

“A gift from Mama Takahiro,” she beamed happily with pink cheeks and snuggled it into the bottom half of her face. “It’s so warm. I love it.”

“We gonna stand here all day or what?” Bakugou nonchalantly replied and turned around.

“So randomish question...” their upperclassman began. “What are your hero names? I already know Mido-kun’s...”

“Bakugou.”

“Shouto.”

Ren emitted a strange noise from her throat and stopped in her steps.

“Really? That’s what you wanna convey to society?” she flat out said.

“Well, all of my other ideas got rejected, okay?” Bakugou replied defensively.

“What was your reasoning behind using ‘Blink’ then, senpai?” Todoroki asked out of curiosity.

“I want people to think I’ll be there quickly to help,” she firmly stated.

“That’s… actually really good,” Midoriya commended and placed his hand on his chin. “Gives off reassurance, timeliness and trust.”

“When choosing your name, you should think about not only the hero you see yourself as, but how others see you. It’s very superficial, but that’s how society is, sadly. You’ve seen it all over the news with the opinion polls lately,” she lectured. “Also, using something that personal is really high risk. Think of how many people in Japan have your last name, Bakkun; and how many people have your first, Todo-kun. Anyone with a brain can look up your family registry online and do face matching.”

The tall blond boy stood stationary, reflecting on her advice and Best Jeanist’s when he was interning at his agency. He was the type to think things out clearly; never once did he consider using his surname would put his parents in harm’s way.

“Anyway, if you need some help, I’ll be more than happy to brainstorm some ideas over with you two,” she encouraged with a small smile.

The group walked on making small conversation about what they did during their New Years. Getting closer to the entrance of the agency, the group saw a tall and intimidating looking man with spiky red hair with a scar covering the majority of the left side of his face. His piercing turquoise blue eyes looked like he was staring into their souls.

“Welcome to Endeavor Agency,” the tall muscular man greeted with a smile that soon morphed into a scowl. “Was that the kinda welcome you were expecting? I’m in no mood for that.”

Endeavor scanned the four students and suddenly focused on Ren for some reason. Her hazel-green eyes stared straight into his, trying her best not to give into his overwhelming presence. Her hand gripped the handle of her costume case tightly. His gaze then broke from hers and went back to the three boys.

This was the man responsible for all of his son’s loneliness and self-loathing. Part of her wanted to punch his lights out, but the other half of her wanted to see the change in him Todoroki mentioned.

If this is what it’ll take to be a strong hero, she’ll exercise restraint.

“I reluctantly gave permission for this only because Shouto asked,” he harshly deemed. “Even though I wanted him to come alone.”

“But you did give permission, so quit complaining,” the younger Torodoki shot back harshly.

“Sh-Shouto!”

Bakugou, Midoriya and Ren looked on quietly, not wanting any part of the small family squabble.

“I’ve been thinkin’ about this since the licensing classes...” Bakugou began. “This guy’s a jerk.”

“Shouto!” Endeavor scolded. “Are you actually friends with this boy?!”

“But if this means I get to watch the top hero at work, I’ll put up with it,” the blond boy casually finished.

“I thought I told you to choose your friends carefully!” the Todoroki patriarch directed his scowl at his son, with the other party unfazed with his yelling.

“Thank you for accepting us,” Midoriya strongly greeted. Endeavor’s gaze fell on the small viridian hair colored boy with a neutral gaze. “We’re here to learn, sir!”

The tall man turned on he heels of his shoes and started walking, with the heroes in training following suit.

“’Shouto’s not me...’” Endeavor muttered out within an earshot. “That’s what you said to me.”

“Huh?” Midoriya responded in confusion.

In the blink of an eye, the four saw the tall and muscular man jump over the pedestrian guard rail to rush over to a growing commotion. The flames on his face quickly emerged and firmly declared, “Sorry to burst your bubbles, but Shouto’s the only one I want to train. You wanna learn? Stand back and watch!”

As his eyes darted back, he was shocked to see all four students jump into the fray with him with partial pieces of their costumes already equipped. Bakugou slapped on his right grenade gauntlet and tossed his case behind him with Deku slipping on his right glove. Shouto used his ice quirk to up his mobility, still holding onto his case. Blink managed to put her mask on and activated her T-batons.

“Tell us what we can do!”

“I told you to stand back!” the flame hero reiterated. “And watch!”

Endeavor blasted off at full speed, easily leaving the interns behind.

“Stay behind me and watch?!” Shouto growled out in annoyance.

“We won’t be able to if we can’t keep up with him!” Deku shouted.

The four continued to chase after the moving fireball to the best of their abilities; even Blink was struggling and shocked at how fast he was given his muscular stature.

“Guys!” she shouted and stopped in her steps and caught her breath. The three gradually followed suit and looked back at her in confusion as she kept on staring at Endeavor’s shrinking form.

“What are you doin’?!” Bakugou yelled impatiently.

“Grab onto me.”

The three boys hastily made their way over and placed their hand on her shoulders and left forearm.

“Hold on tight.”

The pink-haired girl exhaled a breath and disappeared from the sight of passerbyers and zipped down the path. While Todoroki already knew how it felt teleporting with her, Bakugou and Deku were at a loss for words.

This feeling of moving at lightning speed while everything was in slow motion frames like a film reel confused their senses. It felt like their eyes were deceiving them as the world around them turned monochromatic. The floating weightlessness of their bodies were horrifying and exhilarating. In a matter of seconds, they closed in on the back of Endeavor who was about to follow the perpetrator through a narrow alleyway.

A sudden flash of light brought them back to real time, the four heard the Flaming Hero shout “Evacuate the area!” to another hero. Gathering their bearings and footing back on solid ground, the interns went around the other way, in hopes of meeting the pro hero halfway through to assist. Making their way down the block, they saw three hoodlums with pipes and knives at the ready to attack Endeavor. They made it just in time to intercept the underlings with their own quirks while Endeavor took care of the ring leader.

However, the fruits of their efforts in playing catch-up was short lived when familiar flying feathers headed at them and grabbed the bad guys instead.

“Oh! You guys must be the interns!” Hawks greeted mid-action as he swooped his way in.

“Hawks?!” Deku and Blink called out.

“Sorry! Looks like I was just one step faster!” the winged hero casually apologized.

“I thought Endeavor might have been in trouble, so here I am.”

“Did I look like I was?” Endeavor shot back, his attention still on the glass manipulating quirk user.

Hawks slowed his flight and eased himself back on the ground. He then casually walked up to the young Todoroki.

“He did, didn’t he Shouto?”

“Wha– Uh, sure,” the bi-coloured haired boy stuttered out in midst of the confusion.

“I told you to let me know ahead of time if you planned on coming here,” the Flame Hero reminded the heroic bird with a tone of annoyance.

“I just happened to be in the neighborhood, is all.”

“Hawks!”

Blink staggered up to him, ready to give him a piece of her mind, feeling the after effects of vertigo and exhaustion from over-teleporting.

“Oh, if it isn’t my favorite former intern,” he turned and greeted with a beaming grin.

“Don’t you use thatcharm on me, you air-headedchicken,” she shot back and pointed a wobbly warning finger and slurred, “And don’tleavemeon read! I’ve been tryingto contact you forweeks!”

Blink staggered back a few steps and held her forehead into her palm, huffing audible breaths to fight the nausea. Her vertigo was worse when she teleported with more than two people compared to overusing Flicker on herself.

“Sorry, sorry,” he apologized with a lighthearted chuckle, sensing how bad her side effect was this time based on the dilation of her pupils.

“That… was meant to sound threatening, by the way,” she enunciated her words to rid herself of her current lazy tongue.

“I figured.”

Hawks walked up to the pink-haired girl and placed his hand on top of her head, knowing how much she hated it. In a short beat, her senses came back to normal. All she could do was stand there and pout with puffed up cheeks.

Todoroki couldn’t help but notice how quickly her demeanor changed from before. She looked like a bashful schoolgirl in front of a crush. He felt a sudden tinge of pain and irritation form inside him; it was the same feeling he had when he saw Bakugou pick up Ren during the Christmas party.

“It’s just...” she let out a light sigh and muttered, “Since Best Jeanist’s disappearance, it’s hardnot to think of the worst when I didn’t hear from you.”

“I didn’t mean for you to worry,” he spoke gently at her with a matching smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “But I’m here now. I’m fine, you see?”

The police arrived moments later to apprehend the villains. The lackeys screamed, “We were only following orders from the Servant of the Stars!” as their defense, while the main villain was demanding to be released. The four interns removed their hero gear and placed it back into their cases.

“That man is the source of darkness!” the bearded villain screamed. “That light he emits shall summon the darkness! And our demise along with it!”

Despite the policemen ignoring the man’s insane pleas, the words seemed to have effected Endeavor. The three boys introduced themselves to Hawks while everything was being wrapped up.

“My name is Midoriya! Pleased to meet you, sir,” the green haired boy greeted.

“Oh, you’re that kid who blew up his own fingers,” Hawks mentioned. “I’ve heard all about you from Tsukuyomi. I wanted to work with you too but...”

“Oh, is Tokoyami continuing his internship with you?”

“He’s working with my sidekicks back in my neck of the woods,” he replied with a slight tone of regret. “I’ve just been so busy lately and… I actually kinda...”

Hawks glanced over at Bakugou cautiously, who was currently glaring daggers at him.

“Feel bad for him,” he finished his thought.

“Just so we’re clear,” Bakugou interrupted the rest of Midoriya’s conversation. “I got there faster than you back there.”

“Hm, I wonder,” Hawks taunted with a light chuckle.

Once the police drove away, Endeavor drew his attention back to the winged hero.

“And what business do you have with me, Hawks?!” he gruffly asked.

“It’s not ‘business’ exactly, but...” He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled something out. “Have you read this book?”

The cover read “Paranormal Liberation Front.”

“Have you heard of it? These guys have really been growing lately and they’re garnering even more attention after that civilian resistance in Deika City!” he promoted. “It’s an old memorandum, but it really foresaw our current state of society pretty well! ‘If only a limited amount of people are allowed to live freely, the consequences will fall on those who weren’t granted that right’ or so it says.”

The five looked at Hawks in confusion. What was he going on about?

“If you don’t have a lot of time, just read the section I bookmarked, okay?”

Paranormal Liberation Front… Why did that title sound so familiar? Ren thought to herself. And why was Hawks so long-winded about it? Her eyes focused on him, trying to read between the lines of what he was trying to relay to the number one hero.

“Destro’s ideals are everything we wanted!” Hawks continued on. “A society where everyone can look out for themselves! It really does fit this age!”

“What are you talking about?” Endeavor asked just as confused as he was from before.

“If we can make that a reality, then we’ll have all the free time in the world, Endeavor!” he firmly stated in seriousness. The Flame Hero’s eyes grew wide, as if he remembered something and stared at him with dubious concern. Hawks’ usual happy-go-lucky expression soon turned solemn and placed the book into Endeavor’s hand.

“Make sure you give it a read, alright?”

“A recommended reading from the number two?!” Midoriya piped up excitedly. “Now I want to read it too! Maybe I’ll learn the secret to his speed...”

“I… don’t think that book has anything to do with his speed, Mido-kun,” Ren dismissed with a nervous look.

The flying hero swiftly turned around, with several books already in his hand, beaming, “You’ll be happy to know I brought extra copies then!”

“He’s so well prepared!” the green haired boy praised.

“Where did he even fit those books in his costume?!” his former intern incredulously let out, pointing to the lack of pockets on his jacket.

“This is the era of the number two!” Hawks threw the books at the four, with them all flawlessly catching them. “It’s not just raw speed; you need to be quick on the uptake! For that, you need the ability to predict what’s in store for the new era for us!”

“You must really love this book if you’re carrying that many...” the younger Todoroki commented.

“He must be doing missionary work!”

“Midoriya gets it,” Hawks confirmed with his usual smile. “I’m recommending this book to everyone I know across the country. At the very least, I truly believe the Liberation ideology will be society’s groundwork from here on out.”

While it seemed like an innocent gesture, the pink-haired girl was suspicious of her former mentor’s words. The things coming out of his mouth made no sense, compared to how he normally is.

Something wasn’t adding up. And it was bothering her.

Immediately sensing Ren’s unease, he felt a small onset of panic rise up in his gut. She was always the type to keep her wits about and this was no exception. He trained her to be this way, after all.

Would she say anything about it now?

No, she’s smarter than that.

If anything, he secretly hoped she can help Endeavor figure out his message if he couldn’t do it himself. The Flaming Hero didn’t strike him as the type of person to figure it out quickly, after all. His glowing brown eyes made contact with Endeavor’s again and reiterated, “Make sure you look over the sections I marked. I especially recommend ‘the second one.’”

Hawks took flight and encouraged all of them to make the most of the internship before disappearing into the sky.

“He’s not that much older than us, but he really has a whole different perspective on things...” Midoriya remarked with admiration, watching him fly away. “He’s only 22, you know.”

“Only six years apart, huh?” the bi-coloured haired boy said.

“Pisses me off...” Bakugou grumbled out.

Endeavor opened the book and casually thumbed through it and muttered, “Yes… indeed.”

*Full name of the show is “Kohaku Uta Gassen.” It’s an annual NYE show where the most popular musicians are separated into red and white teams based on viewer’s votes. Each team’s score are based on their performance, costume, hairstyle, lighting, choreography and makeup.

** The “Gaki no Tsukai” series is ran by the most famous comedians in Japan, Downtown (Matsumoto Hiroshi and Hamada Masatoshi), alongside Cocorico (Tanaka Naoki and Endo Shozo) and Tsukitei Hosei. Their annual NYE is a 24-hour no laughing marathon. You can check them out on Team Gaki.

[nighttimepixels]

Heyhey Night! I have a buncha questions after seeing all your animations and they're just so cool so! I hope this is ok!! Can u animate normally too, or only pixel? Not that that's bad, just wondering! What's ur preferred kinda animation? Do u prefer lipflaps or lipsyncs? What's the hardest part of the animation process?? What's ur favorite?? Any part u don't like? What's a thing people don't see that u put a lotta time into? Do u have a fave animation u've done? Thank u btw for all ur art!!

Oh stars, okay, yeah- I’m happy to answer all these!! I’ll break them up so it’s easier to read X) And awww geez thank you so much for your support, sweet anon! It really makes my day when people say they like anything I’ve made, and stars knows it’s all the more true with the sweet sweet time sink that is animation   (´•̥̥̥\\ヮ\\•̥̥̥` )

I’ll also put this under a cut since it gets a bit long :)

Can u animate normally too, or only pixel?

This one cracks me up a little, don’t worry about it XD I totally can! In fact I enjoy it a lot - and... gods, animation software is a nightmare and a half, to be honest. That’s the biggest hurdle.

I do just straight up love pixel art and the aesthetic I can achieve with it, but I do at times miss ‘normal’ (non pixel?) animation, heh. Especially sound-syncing! I do all my pixel art in Asesprite which imo is the best pixel art program, not to mention made by an actual pixel artist - buuuut it doesn’t have a sound file option. Which makes sense! Er, frankly, most pixel artists wouldn’t... use it to animate like I do? More for games, or for looping gifs? So I can’t complain much, it makes a lot of sense that it’s a low dev priority.

Now, when it comes to other animation programs... I’ve tried a lot. Unfortunately, the ones that are preferable for the feel I like are either way out of budget (stares at TVPaint in the distance) or... well, have too high a learning curve for my single-person workflow, really. (OpenToonz, sigh...) And a lot of the free programs are good for getting a start in animation, but once you get to a certain point you really feel the limitations (whether it’s workflow, sound import, exports, trying to make something more finished than a rough...).

Then... there’s animation programs I just don’t like, and a lot of those are angled towards bone-style animations (nothing wrong with those, they just don’t fit my style? and are too much time investment for a single artist to output more quickly...), or are, well, freakin’ Adobe Animate.

I... gods, I do not like Animate (formerly Flash). And I made a whole 2 minute+ animation in it a couple years ago! (It’s very rough and bad and doesn’t make sense, pfff, not gonna link it XD) It’s... clunky, and vector oriented, and freaking lines don’t go where I want them too, and it tries to predict too much?? It’s hard to put to words, gah. For me, my animation style would be much more... raster oriented. Flow, hand drawn inbetweens, yaddayadda. Animate’s great for... plenty of things, but not for that kind of animation. There are far better animators than I who make it work with freakin’ aplomb though! So really, it’s just my taste, haha.

.... Er, that got long! I’ll cut off more rambling about animation software and tl;dr boil it down to “I love animating period, but turnaround is something I have to keep in mind as a freelancer, as well as budget, and my current focus is pixel animations for a number of reasons.” X)

What's ur preferred kinda animation?

I’m not exactly sure what this one means! Between pixel and non-pixel? Er, they both have their pros and cons, so I couldn’t say! But if I have to break down my current animations into categories, I’d say I have cutscenes, loop environments, and the broad game-like animations...

The first would be something like this animation feat. teasing Edge, the second would be something like this one with skesgo’s Starlan and Cinnamon, and the third is... everything else! From headsprite loops to ‘small’ characters running and so on.

Honestly, they’re all a lot of fun for different reasons! Cutscenes are generally the most challenging, but they give me the chance to push my limits and try and pull off something cool, whether I’m having to conserve frames (to keep the cost of a commission down) or whether I’m going more all out (which is a pricey commission, or a fun personal project, lol).

Loop environments are their own challenge - it may not look like it, but I put a lot of thought into how to make them look as natural as possible! From timing of talking characters, to where to place a blink, to exactly how many frames it’ll take to ‘soften’ a motion (so people aren’t just snapping between major poses) and so on - it takes... a lot of time to animate even simple scenes well, so I do a lot of mental math on how I can keep things affordable when someone approaches me for a commission. And frankly, I totally undercharge;; but I do my best!

Game-like animations are just fun. They range, they’re silly, to intense (I’ve animated fight animations before for game concepts), to indulgent, and beyond! Headsprites are always a delight, especially if I get to push the expression X) and I love tiny things (I mean... I am a pixel artist...) so getting to make lil tiny babs even just walking can be fun - and also, a lot more time consuming than you might thing, esp if you wanna make it smooth, like this lil Frisk I did last month or so:

Do u prefer lipflaps or lipsyncs?

oTL

B... both??

Okay, lipsyncing basically is very time consuming. AND, I freakin’ love it. I love puzzles, and when it boils down to it, that’s what super fun & expressive lip syncing is (some Ghibli animations are the heckin’ best for this)...

and, I’m a pixel artist, without sound-syncing capabilities in her main art program oTL Yeah, I can export frames and line them up and check but... gods, it’s so time consuming. I’ve tried it out of desperation - but for even five seconds of sound (sayyyyy a lil Vine...) that’s hours upon hours of transferring back and forth just to check.

So even though I love lipsyncs, they’re too time-consuming (and ergo, if I’m being commissioned, often too expensive) to do often! Someday I’d like to get back to doing them more often, but for now, practically I stick to/’prefer’, in the loosest terms, to do lipflaps. For the layman, this is that ‘two frame’ (maybe three) open-closed style of animating mouths- however, I’m working on ways to keep that style, but make it more expressive! It depends on the project - and in commissions, I’ll pretty much always prioritize giving the client a little more body animation than mouth animation, unless it’d really fit what they’ve requested.

What's the hardest part of the animation process??

.... damn, this is a tough one! Sometimes I’d say it’s the initial concept work - but it depends on what I have to work with. Sometimes that parts a breeze - and honestly freeing, bc I can take the time to try and push what I’ll do with it!

Roughing is one of my favorite parts, tbh. It can be tricky, sure, but getting to go from keyframes to in-betweens & smears to adding the flairs of secondary motion (think hair swishing, or coats flaring, etc) is so exciting and satisfying.

From there it’s all refining, and tweaking...

Hm. Honestly, the hardest is probably the initial cleanup and lining. It’s cool to see it come together, but it feels so much slower, and it can drag - and then you find bits that actually don’t translate well from the rough stage, so you have to go back and rework, and oof it can just drag in this phase, heh. Plus, I’m always tempted to add more frames, but it’s not always realistic - I’m a perfectionist, to say the least, so I’m constantly having to leash myself back so I don’t turn a project into a half-a-year undertaking, pff.

What's ur favorite??

Probably gave myself away talking about the roughing stage X) It’s just loose and fun and free! But seeing it all come together is also damn satisfying too, so that’s not to say I don’t like the refining portions either...

Outside of that, I also really like the beginning of the color stage! .... Before having to translate shadows/highlights to each and every frame *shudders*. That gets tedious, but it’s so critical! Anyways, though, I heckin’ love colors. I always have a rough palette in mind at the start of the process, but I go ham and play with it as a little break and a true test when I get to actual slap together a full frame with full color, highlights/shadows included! It’s exciting, like a preview of the finished product, basically :D

Any part u don't like?

Heh, by the time I get to shadows/highlights, I tend to be getting impatient, I suppose. It’s not that I don’t like it - I definitely highly value it, and if it was the only thing I was working on in an animation that’d be different, but as a one-woman team I’m just raring to be done at that point; it’s very nearly the last thing I do, after all, so it’s a struggle to focus. X)

I suppose one that always gets me is more complicated backgrounds. It’s a work in progress, as I’m getting better and finding the fun in them for sure! But I’m still not where I want to be in translating ‘background concept’ to ‘finished background’ - it feels more stiff than my animations, I guess. So it’s a frustrating part... but hey, it’s part of it! And learning to embrace the challenge is a big help.

... I just always have to make sure I have a big cup of coffee and a good jam playlist going when I sit down to do ‘em, in the meantime.(=▿= ||||)

What's a thing people don't see that u put a lotta time into?

Definitely the coloring. This goes for both backgrounds and the animated characters themselves. It’s... never as simple as it looks? It’s time consuming, and while some parts of frames can be copy-pasted, I also put subtle work into the animations that mean that some pixels are off so it ends up being marginally faster to just recolor, but then there’s shadows, and working in pixels means that if I miss one then there’s a flickering pixel mid-animation, and sometimes there’s an unconnected line and then you bucket fill the whole damn thing, and gods know I’ve got colored lines so I have to be exacting with keeping the same ratios highlighted vs darker in shifting frames...

*deep breath*

... Yeah, basically the coloring is super time consuming. And balancing bg coloring with animated elements in the image itself is a whole extra challenge on top of that. For 99% of my animations, I can damn near guarantee I’ve spent at least twice as much time coloring it as I have animating it.

Do u have a fave animation u've done?

*looks at my goblin hoard of animations in horror like I’ve been asked to choose a favorite child*

... Stars above, I can’t choose! I love them all, and at this point a good portion of them are commissions- it wouldn’t feel right to choose!

*...carefully covers the hoard’s metaphorical ears*

... also, that said, I can admit a soft spot for any of them that involve humor. I tend to get to do extremely expressive faces and action there, even if I have to ration the frames, so it turns out really fun X)

And though rough and I’ve definitely done stuff I’m more proud of, I still crack up at this one I did a while back of the nonsense ‘ass’ joke between Red & Stretch... their faces were too much fun XD I’ve gotten waybetter since then though, Big Oof, I see so many things I can fix; might go back and redo it someday.

Honestly, though, I just freakin’ love animating! They all have their ups and downs andI always put a lot of love into them and find a way to have fun with it and try to push any emotion/theme (when applicable). I like to think it shows, but idk, that’s something I have to leave up to you guys X)

[spaztronautwriter]

Purge Night: Chapter 8

A/N: I know I said that this was going to be the last chapter, but I am a liar. Seriously, don't ever believe me when I guesstimate number of chapters. I hope you enjoy this though and I will try my hardest not to take another year to update.

Chapters: One | Two | Three | Four | Five | Six | Seven | Eight

Read on AO3

###

“I don’t wanna be that person,” Felicity said as they rounded the corner of yet another nondescript brick building, “but are we there yet?”

They’d been walking for hours. Literally. Hours. She wasn’t even being hyperbolic. They'd walked clear across the city. Her wounded leg was killing her and she didn't want to even think about the blisters she was sure to find on her feet the moment she had a chance to take her shoes off. Instead she concentrated on putting one foot ahead of the other and keeping up with Oliver. He’d said they were getting close to Verdant twenty minutes ago, but everything looked the same as it had on every other block they’d past for the last half hour, so if they were she couldn’t tell. Nothing screamed nightclub to her.

They hadn’t even seen another human in nearly an hour. They heard them from time to time, gunshots or shouting in the distance, but they hadn’t seen anyone. Felicity was grateful and even Oliver seemed to be letting his guard down a little as they came closer and closer to the safety Verdant provided. His eyes still darted in all directions before they made a move, but he’d long since slung his bow over his shoulder.

“We’re close,” he repeated, stopping to glance at the street signs, and she leaned back against the brick building, shifting her weight from foot to foot to try to take the pressure off. It wasn't working. Oliver looked to the right, taking in their surroundings, before nodding ahead of them. “Just two more blocks, I think.”

The unmistakable squeak of wheels turning broke the quiet and they both paused. Oliver raised one finger to his lips, the other hand bringing up his bow. He stepped forward, placing himself in front of her, just as a woman wearing a pig mask pushed a shopping cart out into the middle of the street half a block down.

Her hair was in a knot on the top of her head, brown strands sticking out in all directions. Wispy curls surrounded the pink mask, creating a glowing halo under the street lamps. The shopping cart was full of liquor bottles and guns. She pushed it across the intersection, humming to herself, the mask amplifying and distorting the sound. It, mingled with the squeaking wheels of the cart, created an unsettling soundtrack to the otherwise silent scene.

Felicity watched from around Oliver’s huge bicep as the woman continued around a corner, totally oblivious to the fact she wasn’t alone. Either that or she just didn’t care. Oliver lowered his bow slightly, recognizing that the woman wasn’t a threat. At least, not to them. After another minute he turned back to Felicity, but the sudden rumble of engines cut him off before he could speak. She watched, eyes wide, as three black SUVs hurdled down the road in their direction.

A strong arm banded across her midsection, tugging her back around the building, just as the SUV’s got close enough to see her. Her whole body was pressed against the wall, her back to Oliver's chest, as the vehicles passed, moving so quickly Felicity could feel the suddenly displaced air woosh around them. Oliver's heart beat rapidly against her back, in sync with her own, as they watched the vehicles make a sharp right at the next intersection. The same direction they were heading.

Towards Verdant.

“Oliver…”

She felt a rush of warm air brush across her cheek as he exhaled before pulling back. His voice tinged with the same panic that had begun pumping through her veins.

“If that was Malcolm we don't have much time. He’ll force his way into the club and after that it's only a matter of time until he realizes there's a bunker.” He looked at her, meeting her eyes directly as he said, “We have to run.”

Felicity nodded, putting her weight on her good leg and trying to block out the ache in her feet. She could run two blocks. She’d survived a psychotic clown, a deranged billionaire’s coup, a rocket launcher attack, and being hunted like an animal for sport. She could run two blocks.

Oliver took her hand and started forward, down the same street the SUV’s had taken, at a much faster pace than Felicity was entirely comfortable with. But she could do this. She had to do this.

“If we cut through the alley, we’ll be able to sneak in through the back parking lot,” Oliver huffed, pointing to a gap between buildings. Felicity didn’t know whether to feel vindicated that their journey had managed to wear Oliver out almost as much as it had worn her out, or to worry because the last thing they needed right now was for Oliver to lose focus because he was tired.

As they entered the alley—strewn with garbage, blood, and debris that she really didn’t want to think about—Felicity could see the chain link fence surrounding Verdant’s parking lot in between the buildings up ahead. She really wasn’t sure she’d be able to scale it with her leg, but she was sure as hell ready to try. She’d do just about anything for some semblance of safety after the past few hours.

They were almost to the end of the alley when Oliver stopped dead in his tracks so suddenly that Felicity looked up at him to see what was wrong. He was looking down at his feet and she followed his gaze. That’s when she saw the cable, pulled taut by his shoe. Before she could even process words like tripwire or booby trap, a metallic hiss sliced the air, along with a very large axe.

It arched through the alley, close enough that Felicity swore she could feel the cold steel on her nose. In reality they had a handful of inches separating them from the axe, but the blood stains on the blade reminded her that they were lucky.

A peal of hysterical laughter rang out from above, and Felicity glanced up towards the rooftops, but couldn't make anyone out. Instead of going for his bow like she thought he would, Oliver gripped her hand tighter, eyes still following the pendulum swing of the axe.

“On three,” he said. “One, two, three!”

He jumped forward over the cable and past the axe, tugging Felicity with him and to the mouth of the alley. The disembodied laughter followed after them, but one voice rang out over it.

“Good luck,” it said, and the carefree amusement in that voice made Felicity's stomach turn.

How could anyone play games like that with human lives? Somehow, with all she'd been through tonight, this was the thing that went too far. Men sitting on rooftops, waiting to see how many people fell into their trap. Just for the hell of it. A mental image of the men sword fighting outside her apartment came to mind, followed by Slade and Isabel stalking through the darkness of the arena. Malcolm Merlyn plunging a knife into Robert Queen’s chest. What the hell was wrong with people?

Oliver’s expression was stony, but he just pulled her along faster, possibly afraid these men wouldn't be satisfied with someone escaping their alley of doom. They spilled out onto the street, ducking behind a destroyed car. It was missing a windshield and the right side had been all but demolished, but it was enough to give them cover as they took in their surroundings.

She could see Verdant now, its bordering fence backed up to the buildings across the street. Oliver leaned forward, head swiveling left then right, making sure the coast was clear. He readied his bow, glancing back at the rooftops behind them. She followed his gaze, but didn't see anything.

“I don’t think they’re coming after us,” she whispered. “Just a bunch of cowardly psychos.”

“Fuck,” he muttered under his breath. She looked back to see guilt in his eyes. “I didn’t see it. There was blood… but I still didn’t see it.”

“The tripwire?” she asked, laying a hand on his bicep. “I didn't see it either.”

“No,” he said, shaking her off. “I should have seen it.”

“Your tired, injured,” she whispered. “We’ve been fighting for our lives for like six hours. We’ve barely eaten or had anything to drink.” She reached up, cupping his cheeks and forcing him to meet her eye. “We need a break. We need to get into that bunker.”

“What if…” he said quietly, trailing off as more laughter trickled down from the rooftops.

His gaze snapped back up, as focused as she’d seen him all night. He squeezed her hand once before gesturing for her to run. Keeping low, he guided her further down the street and into the space between buildings, paying careful attention to his footing. Luckily there were no traps this time. A loud gunshot rang out, followed by the sounds of a machine gun. It wasn't close, but Felicity still flinched, her hand seeking the hem of his T-shirt to hold onto as they moved closer to the fence surrounding Verdant. It was taller than she’d have liked it to be, especially since the alley was empty of any kind of dumpster or boxes to climb on.

They approached cautiously, keeping low to survey the area without giving away their position. Malcolm’s convoy was already parked near the club’s entrance. One of the men barked orders, while the others pulled equipment from the backs of the SUVs. There were hard cases that she assumed contained weapons, and what looked like a police battering ram only… larger. Much larger. She couldn’t see the front of the building, but she assumed they were planning to bust down the door.

“Shit! We’ve got to get in there before they do,” Oliver said, quickly glancing around before looking back at her. “I’m going to give you a boost. Swing your legs over the top and then wait for me to climb over and catch you.”

She hesitated, but only for half a second before she gathered what little energy she had in her body. Safety—relative safety, at least—was just feet away now. One more burst and they’d be safer then they’d been all night. You know, as long as she was able to get the computer up and running. And if Malcolm’s goons didn’t massacre them all first.

Oliver must have guessed at her train of thought because he said, “I’ve seen how good you are with electronics. Those people in there, my sister and friends… They need us—they need you—in there to protect them. Right now you’re probably our greatest asset against Malcolm.”

Something bloomed in her chest at his confidence, even as fear coursed through her. She nodded and he crouched close to the fence, bracing his hands on his knee to help give her a boost up. She tried to be as quiet as possible as she maneuvered her bad leg over the fence. It rattled more than she’d have liked, but no one started shooting at her, so it must have been okay. Once he was sure she was alright, Oliver hopped the fence easily, then grabbed onto her hips, and helped settle her to the ground.

“There’s a fire escape around back we might be able to use.” He was fixated on the men near the front of the building, but started moving towards the back, pushing her along ahead of him. Felicity followed his lead, keeping low to the ground to avoid any unwanted attention.

The parking lot was barren and empty, except for a large green dumpster near the back of the building. Felicity blew out a sigh of relief once they were close enough to take cover behind it. Malcolm’s men hadn’t spotted them as they rounded the corner of the building, and no one was waiting for them around back. Felicity sent up a silent thank you to whoever was listening for their good luck.

The fire escape was nothing more than a narrow zigzagging staircase that led to a door about twenty feet off the ground. At the top, Felicity took in the steel door and the protective barriers covering the windows before turning back to Oliver.

“Please tell me you actually have a way in? Like keys… or a crowbar?”

Shooting her a sheepish smile, he started pounding on the door. It was quick series of raps followed by a slower set. He repeated that pattern a couple of times while Felicity just stared at him with an open mouth.

“Your plan was to just bang on the door and hope someone lets us in?” she hissed, not wanting to draw any attention their way.

“I had keys,” he said defensively. “But those guys that grabbed us took them before they brought us to the arena. John’s inside, I know he is. He’ll hear us.”

“And what if he assumes it’s Malcolm’s goons trying to break the door down?”

“That’s why the SOS,” he said, banging out another set of raps on the door. Quick, slow, quick.

Felicity didn’t know much Morse code, but she did remember learning how to tap out SOS as a kid. She had to say, she was slightly impressed that Oliver knew it. She hadn’t remembered until he mentioned it.

Gravel crunched below them and she glanced down to see two men dressed in black military gear round the corner of Verdant. Oliver, having the reflexes of a superhero, pulled an arrow from his quiver, notched it, and managed to push Felicity behind him all in one motion.

She wasn’t sure if they’d heard the banging or if one of them made a noise, but the men looked right at them.

“Hey!” one of them shouted as the other said, “We’ve got two around back.”

Oliver let an arrow fly just as they were raising their guns. It lodged in one of the men’s shoulders and he fell back, his gun shooting off several rounds as he hit the asphalt. Oliver shot at the other man, but he darted back behind the corner and the arrow thunked as it harmlessly embedded itself in the wall.

Felicity could hear shouts and footsteps growing closer and knew it was only a matter of time before they were overwhelmed by Malcolm’s men. The man below edged out from around the corner just enough to fire an uncoordinated spray of bullets into the staircase. The sound of the bullets hitting metal and ricocheting had Felicity ducking and covering her head. Oliver launched another arrow, this one clipping the gun and sending it careening out of the man’s hands just as the door beside them creaked open. Felicity barely had time to turn her head before John Diggle was pulling her inside the building.

“Oliver, let’s go!” he said as more men made it to the bottom of the stairs.

He ducked inside and Dig slammed the door behind him, drowning out the shouts of the men who were undoubtedly racing up the fire escape, trying to get inside. Dig set the manual locks in place and then turned to look them over. Felicity leaned back against the wall beside the door, breathing deeply and just trying not to cry in relief. Oliver, meanwhile, was taking in his surroundings. Looking for the others or just making sure none of the other entrances were compromised, she didn’t know, but she did know he could have at least had the decency to look affected by almost being turned to Swiss cheese just now.

“Thea and the others?” he asked, turning back to Dig.

“They’re downstairs,” he said, and she watched as a little of the tension left Oliver’s shoulders. “I was up here waiting in case you guys showed up.” Dig’s eyes skated over the—several—injuries they’d both collected over their hours apart from the rest of the group. “You two alright?”

“Felicity needs first aid,” Oliver said, eyes still sweeping the room. “But it’ll have to wait until she gets a chance to look at the computers.”

Dig looked over at her, a considering expression on his face. “You can really get them working?”

She shrugged. “There’s only one way to find out.”

“It won’t take them long to make it inside,” Oliver cautioned. “Not with the equipment they’re setting up out there.”

Dig nodded, gesturing for them to follow him.

The empty nightclub was surreal in the darkness, but Felicity barely had time to think about it—about how there should be patrons here tonight, drinking and dancing instead of murdering each other outside—before Dig and Oliver led her down a set of stairs and towards the bar on the main floor. Felicity had a brief urge to grab the closest bottle and try to drink this awful night away, but then Oliver took her hand in his, intertwining their fingers, and she looked over to see him shooting her a small smile.

“We made it,” he whispered, and she smiled back.

Dig led them down a short hallway to another steel door. This one was thicker than the one outside. Nearly two feet wide to keep out anyone trying to get in. The sight was a welcome one and she squeezed Oliver’s hand tight as they descended a flight of stairs into the safety of the basement below, the heavy door clicking shut behind them.

They’d barely made it halfway down the stairs before Thea cried, “Ollie!”

Felicity smiled at the sight of the girl looking just as she had before they’d been separated. Oliver hurried to meet her at the bottom of the staircase where she threw her arms around his neck. He hugged her close, murmuring something while the girl nodded.

Deciding to give them some privacy, Felicity took the moment to look around. The bunker was essentially just a basement, but there were cots were pushed into neat rows along the walls. Tommy and Laurel sat on one, Roy on another. Aside from Tommy, they all looked as healthy as they had when they’d been separated.

As she reached the bottom of the stairs, Thea pulled back from her brother to wrap her arms around Felicity’s shoulders. “I’m so glad you’re okay!”

Felicity hugged her back. “I’m glad you’re okay, too.” When Thea pulled away she looked over towards Laurel and the others. “I’m glad you’re all okay.”

“Are you okay?” Thea asked, crossing her arms over her chest as she took in their bloodied bandages.

“Little worse for the wear,” Oliver said, reaching out to give his sister’s shoulder a comforting squeeze. “But we’ll be okay.”

“Yeah, least we’re not out there anymore,” Felicity said, motioning up towards the door, where Malcolm’s men were undoubtedly trying to break into the nightclub.

“Not sure in here’s any better. Not with him out there,” Tommy said. His gaze fell and he heaved a shaky breath. “I always knew my father was a bastard. It seems I grossly overestimated him.”

Laurel wrapped her arm tightly around his waist, careful to avoid his injury, which looked pretty bad from where Felicity was standing. His shirt was soaked through with blood and his skin had taken on a gray pallor, but he had gauze wrapped around his shoulder so she assumed someone had tried to fix him up a little.

Felicity agreed that being trapped in a basement while a mad man tried to break in wasn’t the best of circumstances to find yourself in on Purge night, but with the way Tommy looked, she was certain he wouldn’t survive another five minutes outside, let alone another four hours until dawn. The bunker was where he needed to be and they would be safe down there. The question was, would they be safe enough to make it till morning?

“Here,” Oliver said, placing a hand on her shoulder. “The computer’s over here.”

A rudimentary but functioning med station had been set up by the stairs and across from it was a desk with a computer. Not exactly a state of the art system, but it was nothing to scoff at. And if it powered the door locks and whatever else Oliver had installed, then it would do. She sat at the desk, cracked her knuckles, and got to work.

“There’s a program on the desktop…” Oliver started to explain, but Felicity was already ten steps ahead of him.

She spent the next two minutes figuring out why their system hadn’t worked in the first place—a mix of incorrect settings and a poor user interface—and the next fifteen after that making sure everything was working correctly. The electronic locks clicked on first, both in the bunker and upstairs in Verdant. Next was the ventilation system—very important in case Malcolm tried to smoke them out or poison them. Oliver and Dig had done a good job on this place. Nearly nothing could get through. Not without time and lot of brute force.

She clicked over into the security cameras, watching as the screen filled with twelve small video panels. Each one showed a different image. The four on top were of outside, including the front entrance. The four in the middle were of inside the club, and the four on the bottom showed all of the exits. More of them then she would have liked showed Malcolm’s men, working to find their way inside.

“How long?”

Felicity jumped, her hand shooting out to cover her heart, before she looked up to see Oliver staring past her at the camera feeds.

“Until they make it inside?” he clarified. “How long would you say?”

“Uh…” Felicity thought about it. “Honestly, I’d be surprised if they’re not in within twenty minutes. But down here…? You did a pretty good job of this. It could take them days.”

“They have electronics,” he said gesturing to the top right camera where a man was unloading computer equipment from the back of one of the SUVs.

“If they’re going to try to hack their way in they’re in for a rude awakening,” she said, leaning back in her chair and watching the cameras. “That’s the least of our problems.”

If it were just her versus another hacker, she’d be confident they wouldn’t get in. The bunker’s system had been air-gapped, running on an internal network with no access to the internet. Malcolm’s guy might be able to circumvent the outside locks, but he’d never touch the system itself. It was the small army Malcolm had working for him that gave Felicity pause. She could stave off a digital attack, but a physical one?

Oliver must have noticed the tension in her voice, because he leaned in, his hand falling to her shoulder. “We’ll be okay,” he said, voice soft and overly confident.

She hoped he was right.

###

Tagging: @pottercastleminds @falonmarie82 @adiwriting @hope-for-olicity @almondblossomme @bekaoperetta (if anyone would like to be tagged or untagged let me know ;)

[thefanficemporium]

Babel

Title: Babel

Author: thefanficemporium

One Shot

Rating: K+

Warnings: Mild Coarse Language 

Summary: The reader has been hearing her soulmate's voice for years. Her only problem? They don't speak the same language. Soulmate AU! (Reader x Byun Baekhyun)

Word Count: 2751

Your name: submit What is this? // <![CDATA[ function replaceAll(find, replace, str) { return str.replace(new RegExp(find, 'g'), replace); } function myHandler() { var input = document.getElementById("inputTxt").value; document.body.innerHTML = replaceAll('Y/N', document.getElementById("inputTxt").value, document.body.innerHTML); } // ]]>

Your best friend's name: submit What is this? // <![CDATA[ function replaceAll(find, replace, str) { return str.replace(new RegExp(find, 'g'), replace); } function myHandler2() { var input = document.getElementById("inputTxt2").value; document.body.innerHTML = replaceAll('B/F/N', document.getElementById("inputTxt2").value, document.body.innerHTML); } // ]]>

~~~~~~

Happiness bubbled up inside of your heart as the mischievous voice of your soulmate resounded throughout your mind. The rise and fall of his laughter brought a smile to your face as you listened to him ramble on about something that was obviously funny. You loved how mirthful his voice was and how it always seemed to raise your spirits when he tried to reach out to you, but there was one obstacle that you were currently facing.

You both spoke different languages.

There were hardly any similar words between your languages, which made communication between the two of you impossible. Even more frustrating, you couldn’t identify the language that he was speaking in and you were pretty sure he was clueless about your own language. Nonetheless, it wasn’t odd for this kind of pairing to happen where two soulmates spoke different languages.

In fact, many people were known to speak more than one language: their native languages and that of their soulmate’s. According to the experience of others, once soulmates met and were in range of each other, they acquired each other’s languages permanently. As someone had once put it, it was like syncing two devices so that both objects had the same files and programs. The only other downside to this situation was that soulmates couldn’t acquire languages that were learned after meeting one another.

Another ability that all soulmates had was being able to determine whether their soulmate was trying to communicate with them or was speaking to someone else, regardless of whether or not they understood each other’s languages. Depending on the personality of soulmates, some closed their mental links when speaking to other people, therefore soulmates didn’t have to distinguish as to who the speech was being directed to. On the other hand, some might leave their mental links open when having a conversation with anyone besides their soulmate, therefore distinguishing the direction of speech took place.

All of these abilities only made you wonder when you would meet your own soulmate. The first time you heard his voice was around the age of thirteen. Everyone heard their soulmate’s voices for the first time at different ages, so no one was surprised when you had heard yours so young. Since you had known his voice for a long time, you were deeply familiar with all the qualities of his voice and speech.

For example, your soulmate’s speech patterns were animated and loud as he pronounced unfamiliar words in his own unique way. You were sure that many might have found his voice to be slightly annoying, but for some reason, you found it endearing. Possibly because he always sounded cheerful and in his element, wherever he might be. Laughter always seem to follow behind, but it was mostly mischievous as if he was up to no good. However, there was one thing you absolutely adored about his voice: his singing.

When he sung, it echoed so clearly throughout your brain, that occasionally, you had to stop what you were doing and just listen. Some days, it was playful and random as if he was always carrying a tune in his heart. Other times, it was hypnotic and filled with such raw passion, you were left awestruck by such talent and love for music. You often thought about how he should become a professional singer because he had the ability to go far.

The thing that made you the happiest though was when his singing was directed at you. It was always softer, as if he was feeling bashful compared to his usually excitable behavior, but you didn’t complain. Once he had finished his songs for you, he would talk to you calmingly, as if he was trying to convey his thoughts and feelings to you. Although, you didn’t understand a single word he was saying, joy always settled deep down into your bones because he was trying to connect with you. You hoped he felt just as happy as when you tried to talk to him.

You tried your best to express yourself to him, but you never had anything interesting to say, not that it really mattered. Regardless, your voice seemed to settle him. His side of the mental link would become silent, signaling to you that he was listening attentively to each of your words. Even though you couldn’t understand each other and in a sense, barely knew each other, there was a feeling of closeness between the two of you and it filled you both with contentment. You had each other and that was all that mattered.

Unbeknownst to both of you, things would start taking a turn for the better.

~~~~~~

It all began when your best friend B/F/N invited you to her apartment to binge-watch some shows. She enjoyed watching all kinds of dramas, whether it was Spanish novelas, American soap operas, African soaps operas, etc. As of recently, she had grown more interested in Korean dramas. Once you both had settled down on her couch with some candy in hand, she began to play her recently bought DVD.

The show started off normal, with some background music and scene cuts of various places in a bustling city. Eventually, the scene had transitioned to a beautiful woman who you assumed would be the main character. She was sitting in a posh-looking coffee shop, sipping her coffee daintily as she typed something on her phone. Suddenly, another fashionable young woman made her way over to the main character, causing her to get up and greet her friend cheerfully.

Yes, there wasn’t anything inherently strange about this particular scene. That was until both women become engaged in a lively conversation, that caused your jaw to hang in shock. When your friend questioned your weird behavior, you responded by screaming excitedly, causing her to drop her candy in fright. Trying to calm yourself down, you explained to your best friend that you now knew what your soulmate’s native tongue was.

It was Korean.

From that day on, you tried your best to find Korean language learning books so that you could actually say something to your soulmate. Your words would now have some meaning to him, even though you knew in your heart he appreciated the language that naturally flowed from your mouth and mind. For the first time in your life, you were going to make some kind of a breakthrough, even if it was minor.

Korean was pretty hard for you to grasp, but it didn’t stop you from trying. Memorizing the alphabets of their language was simple, but pronouncing vocabulary and understanding grammar rules was quite difficult. Each time you practiced the language, you purposely closed the mental link between you and your soulmate because you didn’t want him to hear you butchering his beautiful language. At the same time, you wanted to surprise him.

Once you had gotten some of the basics down, you felt it was time to reach out to him in his language. Taking a seat on your bed, you took a deep breath as you tried to prep yourself mentally. Feeling that you were ready, you opened the link between you and your soulmate and tuned into a conversation that he was having with someone. There were a few words that you could pick up, but you still had trouble making sense of what he was talking about. Nonetheless, you did not back down and proceeded to say hello and introduced yourself in his language.

You noticed how quickly your soulmate quieted down, stopping immediately in the middle of his conversation with whoever he was speaking to. A couple seconds of silence went by, causing you to grow increasingly nervous until you heard a joyful giggle that made you flustered. A smile made its way to your lips when your felt his excitement radiate towards to you. He began to speak much softer as well as slowly as if he knew you still didn’t have a grasp on his language. He was trying to make you feel comfortable.

From what little you knew, you noticed that he was introducing himself to you as well. You believed he said his name was Baekhyun or something like Bacon. You knew for sure it wasn’t the latter, so you settled for the first name. He went on to say his age, which made you realize that you weren’t that far apart in years. Lastly, he said something like “It was nice to meet you” which made you say something similar in return.

It went quiet after that, as if you both were dwelling silently on your how well your first conversation had gone, even if it was short. Breaking the silence, Baekhyun began to sing your name playfully as if he just couldn’t keep your name out of his mouth. Your name was paired with some other unidentifiable words, but you knew they were words of affection.

And like that, your feelings for Baekhyun blossomed even more.

~~~~~~

A month had passed since your brief conversation with your soulmate. You had gotten a little better with Korean, but you still weren’t as fluent as you had hoped to be. You knew learning a language took some time, but you were so anxious to get to know Baekhyun. During this time, he was able to figure out what your native language was thanks to more exchanges. Occasionally, Baekhyun would try to talk to you in your own language, sometimes fumbling over the unfamiliar words which would leave him chuckling shyly. Nonetheless, these little conversations had helped you both to grow closer.

You both wanted to meet one another, knowing fully well that speaking to each other would go much smoother and that it would be a permanent fix to your small dilemma. Unfortunately, both of you were a little busy with your jobs since they were very demanding. You knew that he traveled a lot, but you weren’t quite sure as to what he did for a living. Still, you would remain patient and ask him once you both had the chance to meet and get to know each other better.  

Deciding that it would be best for you to take your mind off your current predicament, you and your best friend B/F/N decided to go out with an old college friend for a night of bowling. Apparently, he had some clients of his that just arrived in town and invited them out as well. It was always nice to meet new people, so it didn’t faze you one bit. After you and your best friend had finished getting ready, you both hopped into your car and drove to the address that your friend had given you.

Arriving at the place, you and your best friend was slightly alarmed by how upscale the outside of the building was. You didn’t even know there was such a thing as a fancy bowling alley. The fanciest it ever got was some celebrity owning one in their multi-million-dollar home. Although you knew that your old college buddy was working in the music industry, it still bewildered you as to how he got to hang out in such fancy places.

Soon enough, the two you met up with your friend in front of the building and went inside. After your friend spoke with someone at the front desk inside the building, the three of you were escorted to a large, private bowling room complete with expensive leather couches, a karaoke machine, and a fully stocked bar with a bartender waiting to serve.

Mentioning that his clients were going to arrive in a few minutes, he left the room, not before playfully warning your best friend not to get piss-drunk since he was trying to make a good impression. You giggled as your friend stuck out her tongue, ordering a shot of something that would only get her slightly buzzed. You knew she wouldn’t be that reckless with guests around.

While you both waited for you friend to return, you sat on the couch and decided to open your mental link to your soulmate to see what he was up to. As usual, Baekhyun was busy chatting with someone which made you smile slightly. That man was such a social butterfly. It was as if he thrived on conversation for some type of sustenance. If he wasn’t talking to anyone, he made sure he was talking to you.

As you listened carefully, trying to see if you could recognize some words or phrases, you began frowning when unfamiliar words or even large sets of sentences began to make sense. Thinking you had gone crazy for a second, you shook your head and decided to focus on his words once more. Things sounded normal again as you struggled to understand him, but again, his words became crystal clear.

On the verge of panic, you realized that every word that he using made absolute sense to you. You were actually processing the Korean language and if you could understand what Baekhyun was saying…

The door opened, revealing your friend and the clients who he had invited over. You were surprised to see so many people fill into the room and honestly, most of them were goddamn gorgeous. Regardless, your mind was buzzing with so many thoughts about what just happened, you failed to notice your two friends calling you over to be introduced. Even worse, you didn’t see how one the client’s gawked at you in astonishment.  

Before your best friend could come over and shake you out of your thoughts, you heard the voice that you had been hearing for years and it wasn’t the usual echoing in your head.

“Y/N?”

You turned your head to the direction of the voice and saw the man that you waited to see for years, taking a step towards you. Everyone looked between the two of you in confusion, gradually causing some to realize what was happening. It was a normal occurrence for many soulmates to meet in mysterious ways, as if the universe was trying push two lovers towards each other.  

You felt tears well up in your eyes as you struggled to say something or anything to him, but all you could do was choke out his name as you began to sob. All this time, you’ve been trying to find a way to talk to him, but once he was in front of you, you were as silent as could be.

“Baekhyun…”

Quickly making his way over to you, Baekhyun pulled you into his tight embrace as he rubbed your back soothingly. You clutched onto him as an indescribable happiness gripped your soul. You had finally found him and all you could do was cry like a baby.

Placing his hands on either side of your face, you looked up at him only to find him smiling softly at you. He was quiet, wiping your tears away with his thumbs as his dark brown eyes took in all of your features. You were a little calmer, tears flowing occasionally as you admired him as well.

It was entirely surreal, just standing there with Baekhyun as if the two of you couldn’t take your eyes off each other. It was like the two of you were in a trance, completely consumed with one another as languages, thoughts, and feelings melded together into one abstract entity. You didn’t know how to describe the moment. It wasn’t like a jigsaw puzzle that finally received its last piece, thus making it complete. It was like a computer being upgraded with better hardware and parts. As if you were a more improved version of yourself, if you could phrase it that way.

“You’re even cuter than I had imagined,” Baekhyun said softly in his language, as he gave you a dazzling smile.

“You can say the same about yourself,” you responded in your own native tongue, returning the sentiment.

“Can someone explain what just happened?” one of Baekhyun’s friends whined, trying to process the weird situation.

“He’s my soulmate,” you announced loudly in Korean, as you faced his friends excitedly.

“What? What are you guys saying?” your best friend asked, puzzled by your newly acquired language.

“We’re soulmates,” Baekhyun replied to your best friend in your language.

You and Baekhyun snickered as your friends struggled with the language barrier, mumbling about how trippy this whole situation was.

Luckily for you and Baekhyun, language was no longer an issue in this relationship.

[salted-barbed-wire]

All Yours

(A/N) So request fulfilling is not something I do very well. I’ll take them from time to time but I’m really bad with dead lines. I try but things always end up happening. Anyway, @thebadchic asked me to write this. Hope you like it!

Warnings: Cursing, smut, choking, jealousy Word Count: At least two  Summary: When Finn Balor finds Samoa Joe flirting with his girlfriend after her match, he takes it upon himself to make sure everyone in the locker room knows who she belongs to.

Tag list: @i-kneel-for-king-loki @straight-outta-the-asylum @ridingmoxley@paradoxical-opheliac @ambrosegirlforever @wrestlingnoob @m-a-t-91@livingthestrongstyle @lip-sync @princess3733 @nickysmum1909@ambrose-asylum-ft-mitch @shieldlovereve @jubaleelovehate@xstylesxclashx @the-geekgoddes @stardustmoonlightflower @lovelikelove @ashleycv88 @cesaros-smile @irish-newzealand-idian-dutch @alexispoo

Master List Plug (yes, I know. It desperately needs updated)

Nia Jax was by no means an easy opponent. Not just because of her size difference, but because of her raw strength. You defended yourself against every blow, every toss across the ring; pushing yourself to get back up each time you hit the mat. It wasn’t enough though. Your left leg wrapped around Nia’s arm and your shoulders were pressed into the canvas. The bell rang and everything hurt.

Jax’s music played over the sound system resulting in a mixture of boos and cheers throughout the stadium. John Cone leaned down to be able to talk to you.

“You okay, kid?” He asked, “Anything hurt?”

You kept the painful look on your face, “Nothing more than usual.” You muttered away from the cameras.

—–

The walk backstage was harder to do than you thought. Your back was pretty much shot and the way you were walking had you thinking about your boyfriend. A smile played on your lips, remembering the first time you and he had a “shag” as he called it. You hadn’t been able to walk the next morning.

The difference between this and then was there was no glow vibrating around your body from his hands all over you. The smile on your face wasn’t from the things he had done to you. Instead, it was a defiant one, kept there only to hide the pain you were in.

You kept walking back to your dressing room, cringing every step of the way. The cool, hard material of the wall helped you stay upright and was good for support.

“As soon as I get into the shower I’ll feel twenty times better.” You grumbled to yourself.

“You need help.” A dark, low voice came from behind you.

You turned quickly to see Samoa Joe standing behind you, looking you up and down. He had a grim looking sideways smirk and his arms were crossed over his chest.

“I-I’m sorry?” You asked confused. Joe had never said two words to you. To be fair, he never said anything to anyone. The only one he really seemed to talk to was your boyfriend.

“You need help.” He repeated.

“Oh. No thanks, Joe. I’m fine.” You tried to politely smile and turn to be on your way.

There was movement you noticed out of the corner of your eye and suddenly Joe had moved in front of your path.

“I didn’t ask.” He was simple and short with his words. Joe put his hand firmly on the wall in front of your face, blocking you completely. “I’m going to help you to your locker room.”

You swallowed hard, unsure of what to do other than allow the man to do what he wanted.

Joe leaned down and swooped his arms underneath you, holding you bridal style in his arms. You flung your own around his neck responsively in fear he may drop you. But he didn’t. Samoa Joe carried you effortlessly to the door that had your name stuck to it. He never seemed to be out of breath, never struggled with your weight. He was strong and a part of you couldn’t help but notice the heat radiate off his body.

The Samoan sat you on your feet gently in front of the door. The way his eyes lingered hungrily along your waist as his head became level with yours had you blushing.

“Um. Thanks Joe. I think can.. um.. handle it from here until Finn is done.

The sound of your boyfriend, Finn Balor’s, name caused something to flash across Joe’s eyes. The smirk on his mouth was replaced by a small grimace.

“That’s right.” He grumbled. “You’re Balor’s girl now aren’t you?” Joe’s hand reached up to your face, it was quite large compared to your head but it was gentle as he let it softly slide against your cheek.

You inched away before it could go any lower, “Yes.” You said clearing your throat, “I’m with Finn.”

You watched his expression turn into almost a repulsive snarl, “Such a waste. I could take care of you better than he ever could. Never let a boy take care of a woman, always let a man do it.”

The small of your back was pressed against the wall as the Samoan backed you up against it. Making you feel smaller by the second.

“Joe, I think I’ll be okay from here. I promise. I’ll just wait for Finn. Thank you for helping me.”

There was a glimmer of amusement as he leaned in closer to you. “You think you can get rid of me that easily?”

He was so close to you and your heart was racing in your chest. You felt like a small animal staring down the jaws of the beast. Samoa Joe wasn’t actually going to do anything you didn’t want him to? Right?

“Joe!” A thick accented voice shouted from behind him. A shaky sigh of relief escaped your lips as Joe turned to see your Finn standing with his arms crossed glaring a hole into the Destroyer’s head.

“Finn!” Joe’s voice didn’t stray from its calm, cool tone. “We’ve been looking for you.”

Finn’s eyes darted to your face, then back to Joe’s. “Is that so, mate?”

“It is.” You could hear the smirk in his voice, “(Y/n) was just having trouble getting back to her dressing room. I helped her down here and figured I’d wait with her until you got here.”

Finn was wearing his wrestling trunks and black Balor Club jacket. Combined with the stance he was in, he looked ready to fight. “I’m here now, brotha. I think I can take it over now.”

Samoa Joe took a step towards him, “Are you sure you can, Balor?”

There was a soft growl that was barely audible to you that echoed from Finn’s throat. “I am a man, Joe. I think I can handle taking care of my woman.”

The tension in the hallway was so thick. There was going to be a fight and you knew it. You had to do something.

Taking two painful sideways steps around Joe, you made your way to Finn, “Babe, can you help me into my dressing room?” You reached out for his arm and pulled him out of his state down with Joe. His blue eyes were still alight with anger. “Babe? Please?” You begged.

Finn’s eyes turned to you and you could see the demon behind them, they softened only for a moment when his gaze met yours. There was a huff of breath that came from Balor as he settled himself down enough to get his shoulder under your arm, guiding you into the room.

“You two lovebirds have a good evening.” Joe half growled as we passed by him.

You allowed your body to fall into an arm chair in the middle of the room, the whole scene outside did not help how sore you were from your match. In fact, it only made you more exhausted.

There was a loud slam behind you that would normally cause you to jump out of your skin. Right now, all you could do was just slouch down into the chair and take off your boots. Keeping an eye on Finn’s tense form, you worked on the laces.

Finn’s knuckles were white, his shoulders were slightly raised, he whirled around to turn away from the door and began pacing around your dressing room. His movements reminded you of a caged tiger.

“Finn?” You asked, a little nervously. “Are you okay?”

He turned and looked at you with a strained look on his face, “Do I look okay?” He leaned against the back of a table with arms crossed in front of his bare chest.

You stood go to him, “What’s wrong? Please tell me. Did I do something?” Your hand brushed against his face.

His hand gripped your wrist, “You’re mine.” He said fiercely.

“I am.”

Finn’s mouth collided with yours. His tongue pried yours apart and you couldn’t stop the moan that you let out.

“Mine.” He whispered against your lips.

Finn’s hand tangled in your hair, his other pulled your hips against him. You could feel something hard pushing against your hip bone.

“Mine.” He growled a little louder as he pulled your locks, forcing your head to fall back. It gave him access to your neck which he quickly peppered with kisses.

“Your’s.” You moaned back.

This only brought another growl from your demon who’s light, feather kisses turned into nips against your flesh. He turned and pushed you down onto the table. Biting his lip, his fingertips reached out for you, lightly running one hand over your exposed skin.

“I’m going to make sure everyone knows who’s you are.” He locked eyes with you, “They’re going to hear you scream my name and no one will ever forget who you belong to.”

Heat rushed to your face, and a wetness pooled between your legs. He’s not being serious, is he? We can’t do this here. Before you could protest, Finn reached for the top half of your ring gear, ripping it off over your head roughly. His fingers hooked on to the trunks and pulled them down past your ankles.

A shiver went down your spine from the cold surface of the table. Finn’s palm rubbed over the bulge in his trunks.

“Fuck, love. You’re so beautiful.” He moaned, his eyes still wandering your naked body. Finn let the leather jacket fall off his shoulders. His finger pressed against your folds, circling over your clit. “So delicious looking.”

“Want a taste?” You tried to tease.

Finn let out another low growl and dropped to his knees, placing both hands on your inner thighs. He pushed them apart. You squirmed at the warmth of his breath.

“Don’t squirm, love.” He chided, kissing the sides of your thighs. “And you better be loud, or else.”

“But Finn..” you were worried what anyone else would say to the sounds of you screaming his name.

But before you could finish your sentence his tongue quickly flicked against your clit. A soft whimper escaped you as the speed of his tongue quickened. He devoured you, pressing his mouth harder into you. Your legs wrapped around his head and a familiar coil began to fill your insides. Finn suckled your swollen bud, then slid two fingers into your heat.

“Oh my god! Finn! I’m so close!” You whined softly.

Finn stopped licking your cunt and stilled his fingers, “You can be louder than that.” He growled.

You bit your lip, “I don’t want anyone to hear. Please? Please don’t stop.”

“I want them to hear! They need to hear!”

You whimpered, head beginning to swim with the need to orgasm. Your hips wiggled trying to get closer to his tongue.

“Finn, I need you.” You pleaded with the man.

Finn allowed a small, half smile to appear on his face, “You need me to what?”

You bit your lip again, this was torture. “I need you to let me come! Please, Finn?”

Finn stood, pushing his trunks down his hips. He thick member sprung free, “And just how would you like me to make you come?”

You scooted towards the end of the table, attempting to get close to him, “Fuck me, please. Finn, please?” You begged him.

Finn lined himself up against your entrance, “Are you going to do as your told?” He asked sliding his length along your folds to tease you.

You groaned, “Yes!” You moaned loudly, “I’ll be good and loud for you, Finn. Please, just fuck me already!”

There was a low chuckle from his chest and he slammed himself into your heat. You could’ve nearly came right then, but you knew the pleasure had just begun. Finn remained standing, holding your hips as he drilled into you. The position allowed for him to plow deeper and deeper, hitting all the right spots. The sound of your skin slapping was only covered by the moans coming from you. They were getting louder with each thrust.

“God, fuck yes!” Finn hissed, wrapping a leg over his shoulder for more leverage. “Be loud for me, love. Who do you belong to?” His free hand played with your nipple, twisting and pinching while your breasts bounced along with his rhythm.

Your vision was beginning to blur, “Finn.” You whimpered.

His hand moved from your breast to your throat, “You’re not loud enough, love. Fucking scream it!”

He lightly squeezed your throat with each thrust, helping him to pull himself harder in to you. Your hips were already sore from the roughness of him. All the pain on heightened the pleasure. You could feel the edge coming closer and closer as he slammed into you. Suddenly, stars filled your vision as he reached around your thigh to roll circles over your clit.

“Finn!” You screamed. The sound was deafening in the small dressing room and you knew anyone close by would’ve heard. You didn’t care at all anymore, “I’m all yours, Finn!” You sang loudly.

“Yes, (Y/n)!” He growled. Finn gave two more rough, sloppy thrusts and unloaded himself into you.  “All mine.” He continued to moan and flopped down onto your chests.

You both lay there breathing heavily. There was blood pounding in your ears as you came down from your climax. Finn’s heart was racing, you could feel it as he laid there, chest pressed against your ribs.

Knock, knock.

“Go away!” Finn yelled at the door.

You giggled, “It’s probably someone coming by to make sure we keep it down.”

“Fuck them.” Finn looked up at you with a smirk. “They better hope they aren’t staying in the same hotel as us then.”

[alexanderessexmediaroles]

Day 5 - Media Roles - Where’s my Story at? and LAIKA

Based on the presentation that we did on Wednesday, I thought I would continue my research and have a closer look at the story-telling aspect of my chosen roles in regard to my future research as well as look into how those roles operate in those companies that I have chosen to look into much closer in detail. Even though I’ve already had a good grasp of what these companies were about before our presentation, I thought I do some extensive research to the roles I’m most interested in and hopefully will make it more decisive which medium I would like to go into between 3D or Stop-Motion. Whilst I will look at this objective of story-telling, I will also take an interest in the process that these roles are done in the industry and how those elements will fall back on the theme.

Stop-Motion 

For the stop-motion aspect of the project, I chose to further look into both the puppet design and puppet animation in both LAIKA and Tippet and how it might relate back to our group theme of story-telling as well as my interest in these roles.

LAIKA 

As mentioned before, LAIKA is an Orgon based stop-motion company that utilises both Stop-motion animation as well as visual effects to help create their films as best as possible with the art form as before LAIKA was a thing, there hadn’t been any stop-motion companies that used visual effects as support for their films before due to saving them a lot of time. However having said that, that’s not to say that LAIKA uses visual effects to cut corners as they more so see it as a tool rather than a way of telling the story as almost everything you see in any of their films is all hand-crafted from scratch keeping true to the art form. And even if something is done through visual effects, they take inspiration from constructing a set or puppet and have that scanned into the software which the VFX team can use as a reference to implement it into the film. For the film ‘Missing Link’, they scanned physical model landscapes of an icey mountainous terrain to provide a foundation/template for the scene which was added onto the animation after the scene had been hand-animated. The reason I’m talking a lot about VFX at the moment is because of how much it interests me as whilst we don’t cover it in the course, there’s something about the technicality and it’s potential that really intrigues me as an animator/modeler in stop-motion to help make it that more special. The video below demonstrates what you can do with visual effects in a stop-motion environment as I found it to be really inspiring to watch:

Realizing the Potential for Stop Motion Animation with LAIKA's VFX team

Going back to the chosen roles I’ve chosen to look at (Animator and Puppet-Maker), LAIKA is very open to talking about how they do things for their films as there are lots of resources to interviews, demonstrations as well as articles going into the very nitty-gritty info to how it’s done. The way that LAIKA animators used to animate originally was through using two people at once to animate a scene at the same time however, this proved to be unproductive at the time as both aniamtors found it to be quite tricky to work together as they would work at different speeds as well as remenbering details that the other person might have not known, not to mention how one would have to wait for the other to finish articuling before taking a frame. Nowadays, it’s just one animator animating a scene at a time which makes things less complicated all together for the person that has to animate the scene. However this dosen’t speed up the process as it in fact actually makes the scene a lot more relaxed for the animator to animate in almost like they have their own playground to mess around in hence why it would take much longer than normal. In the video ‘One Frame of Animatioon’ below, it shows how much is moved and tweaked to achive one frame of animation in the ‘Coraline’. Because fo the video, it’s made me appreciate animating as a stop-motion animator a lot more by the amount of care and pressure that goes into the scene like it and makes it really understanding to how they achivee about 3 seconds of animation per week on a scene like this one.

LAIKA | Coraline | One Frame of Animation

Another video that I found that showed what it was like to animate as a stop-motion animator at LAIKA was an academy award featureete showing what a typical day is like as an animator. From the video, it was really intresting to see how much of what we’re already doing at university is just the same as if you were to work in a big comapnay as they take visual refrences of themeslves to get an idea of how not only the character will move, but also what kind of rig they’ll need, the clothes for the character or any adjustments need to be done to that character. All of this was really cool to see as so much of what professionals are doing in the industry is things I’m doing now which felt really inspiring with my development in anaimation as well as what I can do to be better.

Credited As: Stop Motion Animator

https://www.theverge.com/2016/8/18/12500814/laika-studios-behind-the-scenes-kubo-and-the-two-strings-video

https://nofilmschool.com/2016/01/day-life-laika-studios-animator

Having disccussed about the role of a stop-motion anaiamtor at LAIKA, I looked into the role of Puppet-Making where I learnt a lot more than I previosuly knew beforehand. An example of this is how it came to the lip sync of the puppet as the animation done at LAIKA is something called ‘Placement Animation’ which is removing pannels of the face for each of the frames to make it seem like the puppet is talking without the need of special effects for the puppet to talk their dialogue. To make these face pannels for the dialogue, they use a 3D printer to make each face plate showing the basic expressions as well as the most common mouth movements that the character is going to express. This is waht LAIKA had been doing with their faceplates orginally as they created about 20,000 for Coralaine but now with their newest film ‘Missing Link’ instead of the regular predicted faces plates, they 3D-printed every slight bit of movement of the face as it’s own plate to achive the smoothest animation possaible for every scene in the film which in total was 106,000 plates. Whislt this isn’t necessairly directly linked towards the Puppet Making Role and more so rigging, I feel it sets a president to how much dedication and care that is taken place into all the work that goes into these puppets. Not only that, it shows how each department are all problem slovers to the craft as with the case with the face plates to a Puppet Maker, they would have to make sure that the puppet is able to have their faces detached and removed from the character as simple as possiable without it interfearing with the design of the puppet or it’s clothing. In a way, both a puppet maker and a rigger for a stop-motion production have simillar roles as they both have to find ways to make the animtors jobs a whole lot easier when it comes to animating as well as making the scene looking good which has kind of open my mindset that becuase they’re so simillar, it woulden’t matter too much if you were to specilise in one role as there’s similarities in roles that you might of not relaised which your capable of doing. Because of this, I plan to look into rigging in stop-motion as well as looking at it further in a CG envoirment.  

Going back to the Model-making and Puppet-making, I watched these videos below going through how LAIKA created their puppets for both ‘Paranorman’ and ‘Kubo and the Two Strings’ which I mostly knew about beforehand (since I’m a really big fan of their work) but there were a couple of techniques that I was unaware of like how they constructed the hair and texture of their puppets. With characters like ‘Monkey’ from ‘Kubo and the two strings’, they were trying to figure out how to create realastic hair onto the puppet that would fit into the art style as well as being able to animate at the same time. The soloution to this was to combine silicon and wire together to give it a short and soft looking texture as well as being posable at the same time. Despite being very strenous to attach all the different pieces of silcon hair upon the puppet (as well as spares in case any break), the pay off is worth it in the end as it presents a really rugged but animal-like character as well as being easy for the animators to move as well due to the material being soft but retaining it’s shape. I like this development a lot as it further shows their problem-solving skills as a puppet maker and how this dicovery was used in the next film ‘Missing Link’ to create Susan’s furry body.  

Monkey - Kubo and the Two Strings

Susan - Missing Link

In the video below, it shows the challenges and process of creating the characters in ‘Paranorman’ as it was such a large step up compared to what the puppet makers did for ‘Coraline’ due to how exgagerated the character designs were. Becuase of this, the puppet makers experimented a lot with creating the puppets as for the character ‘Niel’, they wanted to find a way to animate his belly in addtion to his body giving a lot more personality to the character. This is where they experiment using a guitar tunning device to allow them to adjust how far out and in the belly is animated. This to me was really cool to see by using stuff lying around to solve a problem almost like what Phill Tippet does from collecting a bunch of random materils along his life which he feels will be proved useful later. One of the biggest challenges was both creating the larger scale models that were very square in their body or the creation of the hair for every character. The larger character designs were tricky at first due to their enormous size and becuase they were so dense, they would often topple over unless a rig was attached to it which even still made the puppets collapse. Fortunatly, the way they got around this problem was through making the materials lighter to allow the wider puppets to have more freedom in the air as well as still showing their weight in their performance. 

For the hair of the characters, they use a combination of real and synthetic hair and also plant fibre’s to make a ruggard but relastic look to the hair as with ‘Niel’s’ hair, they take a couple of orange hair, plant strands and wire and then curl it up into a ball which is then super glueed onto the the characters head creating one chucnk of curly hiar for the character. Like with the silcon texture on ‘Monkey’, this allows the hair to keep it’s shape. For ‘Norman’s’ hair, it worked a little differently as they use goat hair hair and wire together which was then dyed with brown hair dye to create his look. However because his hair was going to be a lot more animated compared to the rest of the characters in the film, they had to maticiously fill in each strand of ‘Norman’s’ head in which the porcess usually takes a week for them to do for one puppet since there’s so many hairs hiding in Norman’s head. Whislt this also sounds really tedious, it makes it all the better seeing it in action which is mainly why I’ve been intrested in the puppet-making role as no matter how small the detail is, it’s so satasifying to see all the parts flow together to complete the character.    

One last bit to mention that I really liked in the video was their disscusion on costume design as it referred back to our group theme of story-telling in anaimation as the costume designers would deliberately make Norman’s clothes worn and ragged to show how much he’s used those choes for walking. Whislt this is so minor to see and talk about, I feel it all adds up in the end of expressign the type of character Norman is portrayed in the film as a shy and distant child at the begining of the film and fits into the undead aesthetic. 

LAIKA | ParaNorman | Building Characters

LAIKA | Kubo and the Two Strings | Crafting an Epic https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5DFV_FkOb4

The very final thing that I researched on about LAIKA for this lengthy blog post  was this video going through how the characters are rigged in ‘ParaNorman’ and how some of the scenes were made using rigs. One of the rigs that really intrestred me was the zombies scene where thye burst out of their graves from the ground. I found it to be really fascinating by how wire is cleverly hidden away in some of the broken debries as well as the use of using multiple different rigging wires like the use of a back rig for the zombie as he’s crawling out of the ground and another rig in front of him that are the little droplets of spit and not that the zombies give off when they’re moaning out loud. One of my favourite pieces of rigging they used in the scnene were these floor tiles where there are holes made up of plasticine in them as they’re meant to repersent the zombies clawing their way out of the grave and leaving these nasty marks behind. Whislt stop-motion rigging wasn’t one of my chosen roles to look at for the project, I might plan to futher research into it as I really enjoyed how the rigging process operates and how it has some simillarities to both puppet making and also animating as well if I was to pursue with stop-motion even further.

LAIKA | ParaNorman | Rigging the Game

To conclude, I’m really happy with the extensive research I’ve done on LAIKA as I feel I’ve got a good grasp to how the company operates and functions together to create their jaw-dropping and beautiful stop-motion films. Whilst there were some areas I could of talked a bit further into, I feel like I may of done a bit too much research for one day meaning I may return back to LAIKA if there’s anything specfic that needs looking at again. However, it was really reassuring to see the way they function was really simillar to how we are learning at university as I feel a lot more confident with the ondsutry than I was before. On a final note, one of the reasons I love LAIKA so much is that they always deterimed to overcome any obstacle that’s thrown their way as their philsophy is ‘Never allow the technology dictate what we do’ which is something I would want to stand by when it comes to my work too.

Extra Sources and Media:

https://www.theverge.com/2016/8/18/12500814/laika-studios-behind-the-scenes-kubo-and-the-two-strings-video

https://www.wired.com/2014/09/travis-knight-stop-motion-boxtrolls/

https://www.screendaily.com/features/how-laika-made-ambitious-stop-motion-animation-missing-link/5145578.article

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4AVJvafgNo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y5DFV_FkOb4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plXmbLAUTRg

Notes I did when researching:

[glenngaylord]

GAY PRIDE – My Review of THE LION KING (3 ½ Stars)

[Excerpted from https://thequeerreview.com/ ]

Ready for a hot take? I don’t always love animated films. Give me the crappy cut-out look of South Park or the gloriously fluid old school Looney Tunes shorts, but otherwise, I sometimes feel like my eyes are bleeding.  I don’t mean to take anything away from the incredibly talented artisans who have brought so much joy and wonder to the world.  It’s an eyeball thing.  Speaking of which, I also don’t like the eyeballs on Disney characters. They’re so big and round and sweet. I think I know one person in the world with eyes like that and everyone calls him Aladdin, but it’s not really a compliment.  Everyone else I know squints and looks dead inside. Maybe I need new friends, or maybe I’m just cranky.  

All of this is to say that despite the cries that Hollywood operates at a bankrupt creative standstill, that cash grabs represent the new normal filled with remakes and reboots, and that cynical decisions only occur on days that end in “Y”, I don’t necessarily hate that Disney has decided to churn out “live action” versions of their classic animated films.  As much as I loved the original 1994 The Lion King,  a CGI, photorealistic update sounded like something I could watch without experiencing a cavalcade of onion tears.  I may be alone with this strange affliction of mine, but audiences have sure turned up to see something they’ve pretty much seen before.  

I enjoyed director Jon Favreau’s update on The Jungle Book, but my expectations were truly low for this one.  Using Hamlet as its template, the original film beautifully told the tale of Simba, a young lion who when banished from his pride by his evil Uncle Scar, goes on a journey to discover the importance of standing firm for those you love and realizing your destiny.  The Elton John/Tim Rice songs, while sappy as hell at times, could not be more memorable, and who can resist that commanding drum beat and cut to the title card at the very end of “The Circle Of Life”?  When that baboon holds Simba up to his adoring animal kingdom, it’s one of the greatest cinematic moments of all time.  

Yet there I sat, expecting the worst. Had I hated the film I was going to title my review, ”The Circle Of Lifelessness”.  I expected a pointless remake with expressionless creatures moving their lips to dialogue, but what I experienced instead, while problematic in terms of pacing issues and one particularly not great vocal performance, truly entertained and delighted me. The Lion King 2.0: No More Tears (Enough Is Enough) not only provided me with a more palatable way to view the same story, but it updated it just enough to make it a little more relevant and a whole lot gayer.

Ok, if you’re one of those millions of moms who don’t have a gay child, or don’t know anyone with a gay child, or you’re just a closed-minded, out of touch gorgon, you need to calm down.  The new film isn’t outwardly gay, but much like placing Paul Lynde dead center on Hollywood Squares or Charles Nelson Reilly in the top right tier on Match Game, The Lion King has traded in a perfectly wonderful and gay Nathan Lane as Timon the Meerkat for the truly hilarious, scene-stealing and equally gay Billy Eichner.  It’s the equivalent of going from Will & Grace’s Jack to Bianca Del Rio of Rupaul’s Drag Race fame.  The quips feel way more 2019 -more biting, nihilistic, dystopian, the world is ending, in a Years And Years is so dead-on kind of way!  And yes, even though Timon and his BFF warthog friend Pumbaa (a perfect Seth Rogen) aren’t technically a ‘shipworthy couple we would call Timbaa, make no mistake, Timon is a gay homosexual and Eichner gives one of the best vocal performances I’ve heard in ages.  Evidently, he improvised many of his lines, including my favorite as he arrives at a Pride Rock which has been left barren by Scar and his pack of hyenas, “Talk about a fixer-upper. I think you went heavy on the carcass.” I think Queer Eye’s Bobby Berk should start taking notes!  All of this is to say that Eichner elevates what could have been the draggy second act of the film and sends it into the comedy stratosphere.  

The pacing, at times, does suffer.  Without the benefit of jaunty animation, watching animals traversing the savanna gets a little cumbersome, and the facial expressions of the characters don’t carry emotions in the same way.  I actually preferred the new version.  I had no problems deciphering their feelings, and, in fact, I found their edgier looks a better match for our current mood.  It’s as if the animals, no longer living in a pre-9/11, pre-Trump world, know we humans have messed everything up and they’re deadly serious and seriously pissed off.  Welcome to The Lion King 2.0: The Larry David Version!  

As for the performances, Eichner and Rogen aside, we also get a strong turn from John Oliver as Zazu, the flittering hornbill.  Chiwetel Ejiofor, while no Jeremy Irons, makes Scar a terrifying Iago, although his famous, “You have no idea” moment doesn’t work as well here since the original was a callback to Irons’ unforgettable line in his Oscar winning Reversal Of Fortune.  James Earl Jones returns as Mufasa, because nobody can ever replace him.  Do you hear me, Morgan Freeman?  Nobody!  Not even you! And you’re the Voice of God!  Beyonce acquits herself quite well as Nala, as does Shahadi Wright Joseph as the younger version.  Young Simba couldn’t be more adorable and heart-melting.  Try not to go “Awww” when he attempts his first roar. JD MCrary exudes utter cuteness here, especially during his number, “I Just Can’t Wait To Be King”, but then, unfortunately the movie flatlines when Donald Glover takes over as his grown-up counterpart.   He sounds half asleep and fairly bland in the big duet, “Can You Feel The Love Tonight” or whenever reciting lines.  I’m suspecting it’s an actor’s choice to internalize the guilt and shame Simba experienced as a toddler and turn into a self-serious, lumbering bore, but it’s not enough to sink a film with such fantastic moments as “Hakuna Matata” or the on-the-beat stomping we revel in during “The Lion Sleeps Tonight”.  

Technically, the photorealism may resemble a National Geographic special, but with better lip-syncing, yet I did find myself missing the darker qualities of the glowing-eyed hyenas and the elephant graveyard from the original.  The wildebeest stampede looks real, which somehow isn’t half as scary as a hand-drawn interpretation.  We get more daylight in the new film, making me yearn for the inky blacks of animation.  In either version, however, we enter quasi-religious Aslan territory when Simba speaks to his dead father in the clouds.  That kind of corniness doesn’t quite land the way it did in the early 90s.

Despite its flaws, it’s a stirring, impressive film.  It may not have the most urgent reason for existing in that it pretty much trades in one kind of beauty for another, but Billy Eichner is worth the price of admission alone.  Timon may ping on the same old gay best friend character tropes we’ve known for so long, but it’s still a fresh take.  He may yell a lot, but he infuses it with kindness and some genuine affection for his big, dopey friend Pumbaa.  We could all use a little more Billy in our lives right now.

[republicofygam]

Belladonna of Sadness: Half Asleep Musings

TRIGGER WARNING: RAPE AND SEXUAL VIOLENCE Yes. A Trigger Warning. One does not discuss this "anime" without providing some idea of what you are in for. Quite frankly, I wouldn't trust posts about it that don't provide such a warning. https://youtu.be/2WkcLMapo_Y Once upon a time, (for it does feel like a fairy tale) two peasants named Jeanne and Jean lived happily in a village, overseen by the Baron of the land. The day they seek his permission to marry should be a joyous turning point in their lives. Alas, they cannot afford to pay the lords, and they decide to take what they please from Jeanne, and viciously rape and assault her. Traumatised and betrayed, Jeanne turns to the promises of a strange, erotic spirit who offers great wealth and fortune in exchange for her consent. Initially, this places the couple in a high position, and things almost turn out well. But the lords recognise her actions as Witchcraft, for it goes against the holy tradition. Being a tale of tragedy, sexual exploitation, female empowerment and the corruption of religion, Belladonna of Sadness was like no other animated film of its time. (With exception for Yellow Submarine, to which it briefly pays tribute.) Even now, with the anime industry embracing its style, gratuitous fanservice and abundance of strong, female characters, no series will, or should, dare resemble this interesting specimen. I mean that in no negative terms; just do not expect anything like conventional anime from Mushi Production's swan song. For one, Kuni Fukai's distinctive art direction. Comprised of still watercolour illustrations, with actual animated movement kept to the bare minimum. Considering the studio's diminishing budget, and the fact that they couldn't afford to survive the film's failure at the box office, the style of the film is wonderfully inventive. Liberated from lip syncing, the actors can express each line without fear of timing, while the artwork expresses their lines on the simplest terms. And when there IS movement, it often manifests in elaborate, surreal sequences, including one utterly insane orgy scene near the end. All the same, there is a haunting, nightmarish tone to the whole film. Even if it doesn't upset you, it will not be a pleasant watch. Yes, this is the most erotic, and disturbing, film I have watched in my time. Nudity is common, eroticism is abound, and the horror and trauma of rape is not left to the imagination. Frightening imagery gives you a perfect idea of how it feels, along with how Jeanne influences others as she slowly awakens to her true power over the people. The progressive rock score by Masahiko Satoh is marvellous and combining every emotional beat of the story into one consistent, stylish and memorable stew. Jeanne is the true hero of the story. Even in the 70s, Eiichi Yamamoto took influence from Jules Michelet's nonfiction novel La Sorciere (I think that's how it's spelt) to spin her tale of ravaging, revenge and rebellion. Though she submits to the spirit in exchange for power, she is infinitely braver and more resourceful than her petty husband Jean. When the village turns on her and brandishes her a witch, she escapes. She loses everything, but she escapes. Admittedly, it does bother me that she gains her power by allowing herself to be exploited by the spirit. Perhaps that dilutes the intended strength she acquires from the wisp. This is a film about the struggles between organised religion and free minds. The more powerful and free Jeanne grows, the more the clergy grow to resent and fear her. In their branding her a witch to be exiled, they create a powerful, fearsome enemy who can wipe them out if she feels like it. Unfortunately, she is still human, and her desire for revenge may consume whatever advantage she has over them. But even if she succumbs to her vices, she inspires a legacy. For this film's eroticism, haunting imagery and challenging story, we are given a tale of the Woman. She who needlessly suffers at the hands of brutes. She who has the power of ten men. She who will continue to fight for us, regardless of her ordeals. Jeanne will sin, but she will inspire a revolution among the villagers. She will challenge the stigmas in her society. To be honest, I'd love to speak to a feminist about how this film made her feel. Different opinions will certainly befit the story's themes. But, for obvious reasons, I cannot recommend this to everyone. Consider yourselves warned.

[ana-motion-nua-ba2a]

25/01/2019

As things turned out, the internship I signed up for got unexpectedly cancelled. I still ended up missing the final narrative strategies lecture, but I do have a pretty solid idea for a story already, so I don’t think it should affect my work too much. 

For the brief time I was in London, I managed to get some writing exercises completed, including a dialogue ‘deleted scene’ to establish the dynamic of my script’s two main characters. I didn’t want to be going into my script blind, having very little idea of how the two women would interact, so I imagined them as formerly close friends to establish a quicker connection - since economy of time is all-important in a short film. 

Unfortunately, I missed my character bestiary tutorial due to problems with insomnia, but I managed to talk with Jon later in the week anyway. Now that I know two characters aren’t required for the film, I feel a bit freer to take full advantage of my background photos; Jon pointed out the range of bright colour in them as something to make good use of, and it’s definitely something to factor in when I think about composition. I need to get some style frames/storyboarding done this weekend - because I wasn’t originally planning to do any drawing this week, as I didn’t take my laptop to London, I’m a little shaken up in terms of my work schedule, and hadn’t gotten around to any of that yet. 

The silver lining to my internship being cancelled, though, is that it gives me more time to work on my bestiary puppet. I still have to sculpt the torso and one of the legs, but I’m really quite pleased with how it’s turning out. The huge blocks of foam I glued on it at the start of the week were a bit intimidating, but they’ve since shaped up nicely. I had a bit of a panic on the day I actually left for London - feeling rushed, and being more worried about getting something put together, I’d started out using things I had to hand, like fabric glue. Barry was very understanding telling me that I needed something with more flexibility, but I think being told that I’d used the wrong method right before I was due to be making things for an actual studio would always have set off my anxiety. I’ve since stocked up on the necessary supplies, though, and improved my puppet. 

It was also really helpful to get a refresher on sound recording, and an introduction to foley - I’m glad that the cancellation at least meant I could attend that. I was really worried about my coordination, when it came to my turn for creating sound effects - but I suppose that’s what editing’s for, and it was interesting how even the bits that were slightly off still seemed fairly effective. I think when you spend so much time working on an individual-frame basis, it’s easy to forget how quick scenes actually are, and how little, comparatively, an audience will actually pick up. 

That said, I’ve found more and more that on the lip sync project, it’s the tiny details the audience might not even pick up that interest me. I put together a bit of an unconventional dope sheet (the traditional format reminds me too much of paperwork forms, which I always struggle to get my head round), to get a handle on what mouth shapes I’d need, and I found it strangely fun to ‘translate’ the accent of the speaker into phonetics, rather than what I’d be expecting to hear in ‘proper’ pronunciation. 

The idea of going back to 3D has been making me a bit nervous, as it’s been so long, but on the Wednesday I just sort of made myself go in and at least get the two Max rigs lying down, even if I did nothing else. I did, in fact, end up doing nothing else, as - whether down to my inexperience or a limitation in the rig - I couldn’t find a way to move the whole thing as one object. That resulted in a lot of gradual pushing, pulling, and rotating, to get them both in the right positions, but I do now have a composition I was happy to start animating with earlier today. I’m starting small, with the mouth shapes, and working my way outwards, so that I can copy shapes across and worry about less repetitive gestures later. 

I also talked with Kris a little about the body language of my speaking character - he pointed out that the vague, staring-at-the-ceiling expression they’d ended up with while I made them talk worked well in its own right, and suggested having them tuck an arm behind their head and only gesture with one hand. I really like that idea - I did feel like my animatic was a little too busy, and I think having less movement from the speaker will direct more attention to the expressions and actions of the second character, and their fury at being kept awake. It’s also a nice, simple solution to the problem of keeping the speaker mostly in their personal, rather than social space - my previous attempts at getting that across feel a bit overwrought, now. 

[kisaakiya]

My Opinion on the She-Ra reboot

So finally watched the She-Ra reboot and my only complaint is how unoriginal their names are. But this is a reboot and the fact that the original She-ra is supposed to be a female counterpart to He-man so what do I expect?

The story has an ok pacing in my opinion, some parts of the episode do bore me a little like a few filler moments but the action scenes are pretty cool and I like the story and plot.

The animation though isn’t as smooth as other shows I used to watch and I may like the art style but it isn’t really expressive. Their emotions are sort of plain in my opinion and their lip sync’s a lil off.

But I do love the character designs and story so why am I complaining.

It’s visually eh to me, I do love their backgrounds and effects when She-Ra transforms.

But this isn’t a review, this is an opinion so don’t hate me on this huhu

Also I didn’t watch the original cuz I wasn’t even born when it aired huhu

[joy-yyang]

Animated Shot PLANNING

Going into the second part of the assessment I was mostly nervous about doing lipsyncs because I had not ever done it before even in 2D. I found the provided reference the most helpful when approaching the task but also found some additional ideas to get a better idea. 

These websites were also helpful in regards to lip-sync in animation:

http://minyos.its.rmit.edu.au/aim/a_notes/anim_lipsync.html

https://www.pluralsight.com/blog/film-games/proven-tips-animating-believable-lip-sync

We were also provided with character introduction sheets and these also helped throughout the process of positioning and animating them with certain emotions. 

I began brainstorming what kind of position I could put Lucy in, I wanted to put it in a way that would successfully show her innocent interest. Ideally I thought of crossed legs because that is a very childlike pose in my head but I couldn't really position the rig well and her arms were harder to animate.

I drew some below (mind the drawing skills):

I eventually went with the last one as i thought it was close to my original idea but wouldn't cause me much hassle. i also thought it showed comfortableness which was important as it was in her own room and with her grandma. She would lean forward with her arms to hold her weight in front of her. 

I then went on to create a short storyboard just so I had a clear idea of what i was going to do and how to position the camera. 

I did not make an animatic just because I felt that, because it was so short, my storyboard summed it up pretty nicely but I did reference the one given to us on blackboard just so I could see what kind of shots and emotions were showed.

Once I had imported everything into one project, I got rid of what I didn’t need in the room and began to position the characters for their first movements. I was able to clearly position Lucy as I had planned her to be in a position that was pretty open and spread out. The grandma I had a bit more struggle with because of the shape of her rig, especially the legs were harder to position but luckily they don’t move much throughout the clip so I wasn’t too concerned if they were overlapping the bed. 

I put them in their beginning positions before I moved their lips just to make sure that it was able to be seen as their starting position was a foundation for what they would be like for the rest of the scene. 

This was the starting position.

I really like how Lucy’s position came out with the rig, I was originally concerned that I wouldn’t be able to imitate 2D to 3D well but I felt that it showed Lucy ‘s age and interest quite well.

I then began animating Lucy first because she had more movements and expressiveness. The rig was pretty easy to locate around and therefore I didn't have too much trouble doing so. This was the first bits of movement I did:

I was pretty happy with the outcome but the part where she gets shocked by her Grandma, is a bit too jerky and the arms end in an awkward position. So I will be smoothing out that action and doing a more natural arm position.

I then began doing Lucy’s lipsync with the help of the images I had found earlier and was at first a bit troubled by the fact that I was key framing but couldn't really see the final product until i had done all of it. In the end, it did turn out pretty well and matched the audio quite smoothly.

I’m pretty happy with how Lucy turned out, she shows genuine interest and curiosity. The part where she moves back is a bit too abrupt still which I failed to ease into. I did however change the arms to a more comfortable position that smoothly transitions as she ponders. 

I then began doing the grandma and I found her body to be a bit harder to function with as it was rounder and had more parts to avoid especially with the arm movement. I positioned her comfortably at first and while I had originally planned to animate her arms while scaring Lucy, I found I wanted her to look a bit more calm throughout it. I was pretty relieved that I wouldn't have the camera on the grandma mostly throughout the clip as I had more difficulty with her rig. 

When i went onto animating her lips though, I found myself to be more comfortable as i had already just done some with Lucy. Plus her lines were simpler and shorter which made for a quicker job. Her movements turned out less smoother than Lucy’s and a bit jerky at times which is somethings that I couldn't really adjust well when animating her. ��(refer to Grandma video in separate thread)

I completed mine in greyscale as I had issues with the mental ray function with my home computer. Thankfully, it still turned out smooth and you can see the direction of the eyes for each character. 

I have included a full version of Lucy, Grandma and the full side view just so the whole animation of each character can be seen throughout. 

ALL FULL VIDEOS WILL BE POSTED IN SEPARATE THREAD ABOVE. Including FINAL Animation.