#I'm not great with backgrounds so please don't judge too harshly

[marshiiicake]

Aphmau: Hey… Em? ….Can you tell me more about…. Irene?

Emmalyn: Hm?

[bakubub]

Best friend rigs the Secret Santa for Bakugo and yourself to get one another...

A/N: Hullo everybody!! This is part 2 (find part one HERE) of this Pinterest Prompt and part 3 will (hopefully) be the final part. I honestly thought this would be a 800 word fic but now we're barreling towards almost 5k all together whoops lol-

Warnings: Just a few swears here and there, SFW, its literally all Bakusquad shenanigans.

Word count: abt 1.5k, ENJOY <3

"Soooooo~ Who d'ya get for the cringle?" Kaminari asks, leaning back on his chair dangerously to look back at me, sitting on the desk behind him. I raise my eyebrows, since I can't just raise the one, and flick my pen expertly in my hand.

"Mr. Aizawa," I answered seriously. "I'm thinking of getting him another sleeping bag. The musty yellow one isn't really his colour."

Looking genuinely confused, Kaminari looks around to see if anyone else overheard our conversation.

I laugh at him, and kick his chair forward, causing him to shriek as he sits squarely on his butt. I look down to see a folded note on my desk, opening to read it as Mr Aizawa tells us to settle down;

Lover boy was TOTALLY just greasing off Kaminari for making you laugh. I think someone's still jealous from the whole sleeping incident...

Catching Mina's eye, I give her an I don't think so look, which she promptly rolls her eyes at. Its been a whole weekend since the 'sleeping incident', where I had woken up with Kaminari's arms wrapped around my waist and his head nestled on my stomach. Accidentally of course. We, along with Bakugo and Kirishima, had fallen asleep on the couch in the common room, talking late last Friday night.

It really wasn't a big deal... Kaminari apologised several times. I got over it, he got over it, and I don't see why Bakugo, whom Mina just loves to call 'lover boy', would even care.

Plus, I have bigger problems. Like what to get said lover boy for the Christmas Cringle we were supposed to be exchanging this Saturday. He's literally impossible to buy for. Well, I could always just buy him a new pair of shorts or something, but since I've had a crush on him since literally the first day of school, it needs to be perfect.

So far I've thought of a cookbook, an apron, a scarf since he's always wearing the brown one, or maybe even a matching beanie; then again his hair has such personality I don't even know if he CAN put a beanie over those suspiciously natural spikes...

"Hellooooo, come on, Aizawa dismissed us," Mina says, nudging my shoulder.

I snap out of my daze and gather my things, following out of the nearly empty classroom.

"Decided on what to get monsieur Hothead yet?" I sigh, already having predicted this question.

"Nope," I say, popping the p as we walk to the dorm rooms. "I'm thinking of maybe getting-"

"Hey girls, wanna meet at the common room at 6 for a rematch of UNO?" Kaminari asks, coming up from behind us and slinging an arm over my and Mina's shoulders like he always does.

"Yeah sure, we're down." Mina answers, pinching him in the side so he lets us out of his grasp. We duck away, laughing and continuing our banter, before I catch Bakugo's gaze.

"You coming too, Bakugo?" I ask, walking up next to him, ignoring my heart trying to escape its cage.

"Coming where?" He grumbles, still looking disgruntled and angry.

"We're playing UNO around 6 today in the common room. Come on, it'll be fun," I say, trying to persuade him into coming, since he never usually participates.

"HELL NO! I don't have time to waste, especially with you extras," He yells at me. I huff, rolling my eyes and continuing to ignore the feeling of my heart beating in my eyeballs, as I grumble, "you never do," and walk back next to Mina, who was now somehow in a water fight with Kirishima, Kaminari and Sero.

Overall certain that I didn't let my nerves peek through while talking to him, I don't register what's happening as Sero grabs Oijiro's water bottle out of his bag, unscrews the lid, then promptly dumps it over my head.

With Mina, Kirishima, Kaminari and even Bakugo gasping in the background, I wiped the water off my face, before realising my mascara had probably smudged all over my cheeks and glared at Sero, who was slowly backing away.

I practically growl before chasing him, blindly grabbing my own water bottle out of my bag and drenching him, messing up his styled hair which has him shrieking "sorry, I'm so sorry!" and has me cackling in sweet, sweet revenge.

---

"PLUS FOUR?! AGAIN KIRISHIMA! ARE YOU KIDDING ME?!" Mina screeches as she pounds Kirishima's arm from next to him, who is laughing and judging from his reaction, barely feeling her punches. I know from experience, that Mina punches hard. He has to be really tough not to show an inkling of pain.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I just really have to win this one!" He says, shooting a guilty smile Mina's way. Maybe he just doesn't feel pain in general...? I stare at him with suspicion as Mina huffs and she rolls her eyes at him, promptly dropping a four plus for the next person in our circle, who just happened to be me.

"Hey! Not cool, hypocrite." I mutter.

"I had to get my anger out somehow. I'm pretending you're Kirishima. Go on, pick up those cards, you slimy rat," Mina says smugly.

Giving her a confused look at her weird logic, I continued the game, Shoji and Hagakure also having joined in half way.

Just as I'm about to announce UNO, Bakugo stomps through the common room and sits right in between myself and Mina, crossing his legs on the floor and leaning back on his two hands.

"BAKUBRO! YOU CAME!" Kirishima yells excitedly, Kaminari and Sero also whooping and cheering.

"Yeah, yeah, shut up. I finished my work and came to see what you idiots were doing." He says, voice gruff but not screaming for once.

I raise my brows at him, and he scowls and looks the other way, not being able to face me after he so rudely rejected my invitation a few hours ago.

"Oh please, you just couldn't handle the FOMO." I say teasingly, smirking at him without fully turning my face so the others can hear.

Sero stifles a laugh and Kaminari looks confused before the dots connect and he also has his hand clamped around his mouth.

"She has a green 7," is all he says, a sadistic look of satisfaction overtaking his features. It takes a moment for all of us to realise what he just said.

Mina cackles as she changes the colour to red, effectively stopping me from winning the game.

Shooting him a dirty look, I lean over to grab another card, simultaneously elbowing him hard in the shin, which he doesn't even react to.

What is it with these guys and their weirdly high pain tolerance?

Ignoring him now, we continue the game, Kirishima practically slamming his last card on top of the deck. "I WON, I WON, man that was so MANLY," He celebrates as I see Mina rolling her eyes and silently fuming. I begin to shuffle and hand out the cards deliberately skipping Bakugo, which doesn't go unnoticed by him.

"Oi, where are my cards?" He asks, annoyance evident in his tone as Kirishima continues to gloat in the background about how manly his win was and Kaminari complaining about how he never "gets the good cards." When I don't respond, Bakugo steals my cards from in front of me, leaning forward to play with the others.

Snarling, I grab my cards out of his hand, causing him to snarl back, until we're fighting for the 7 cards.

"What are you guys doing, there's a whole ass deck here, you know," Sero says, eyebrows raised and nudging Kirishima.

"These. Ones. Are. MINE." I gasp out, my knee coming around to jab him in his side as his hand pushes me down from my sternum. Oxygen knocked out of my lungs, I gasped for air as I tried to hold the cards out of his reach, my hero training kicking in as I snake my other arm around the back of his neck to hold him in an upside down headlock. Trying to push his forehead onto the ground, I give the cards to Mina, who laughs and takes them, after taking a photo of us.

Having apparently heard the camera click, Bakugo (after struggling a great deal might I smugly add) gets out of my head lock and zones in on Mina. "Delete that photo, Racoon Eyes," He snarls.

"Not in a million years. Awww, look Bakugo are you blushing?" She says, pointing at her phone.

Eyes widening and red creeping up his neck, Bakugo snatches the phone out of her hand and deletes the photo, before getting up and leaving.

"C'mon Bakubro, she's just joking," Kirishima says, following him out.

"Yeah man, you didn't even play a game yet," Sero adds.

"I HAVE STUFF TO DO!" He screams, seemingly going back to his old self.

"Didn't you just say that you finished your homework?" Kaminari asks, furrowing his eyebrows.

"SHUT IT, CHARGEBOLT! I DON'T NEED TO EXPLAIN MYSELF TO YOU," he says a tad too harshly, turning slightly to glare at him with bulging eyeballs. Kaminari closes his mouth and shuffles his cards, trying not to set him off again.

"Bakugo-" I start, but when he doesn't turn, I find myself letting him leave.

Staring dejectedly at Mina, she gives me a giddy smile and grabs my phone, going onto her messages and smirking as she shows me the photo he just deleted.

"I sent it to you as soon as I took it. Thank me later," she says, winking, as she gets up to leave, dragging Sero and Kaminari with her.

I look down at the slightly blurry photo, seeing me handing Mina the UNO cards under Bakugo with a desperate expression. He has his hand pressed down on my sternum, straddling my waist and looking down at me, with an unmistakable smile gracing his features. Unless that's just a new way of scowling.

The phone dims and all of a sudden I'm confronted with my own expression on the darkened screen.

A lovesick fool.

That's all I can see.

A/N: Ngl pretty proud of that ending. JUst in case I'm not as slick as I think I am, she meant herself and Bakugo, hehe <3

Notes, interactions and reblogs are highly appreciated <3

Find part 3 HERE

[bicozyes]

ayeeeee thank you SO much!!! all this info is just WOW!!! I was actually delighted to receive such a lengthy response and detailed explanation, and I couldn't be happier knowing my question happened to be about something you're passionate about! I waited until I was in a proper mindset to read it all because this is a little too big brain for me, which is why I'm replying so late, please forgive me for that! 😭🙏

The first thing that caught my eye was the abundance of details, everything was so prettily drawn! Watching Mononoke was a painful experience in a sense because I was straining my eyes to both read the subtitles and appreciate the backgrounds, especially during the Umi Bozu arc. 😅 Nevertheless, I'm so glad I decided to watch it!

Given what you've told me, I believe it's safe to assume that you won't be annoyed if I ask you more questions so I'm going to take your kind offer and ask if you could please expand a bit on something for me. I actually don't understand much about animation or graphic arts so you'll have to forgive me if the question is stupid. Please bear with me. 😭🙏

When you mention camera angles I'm not quite sure what you mean but I'm going to take a guess: could it be that you're referring to the moments where we're shown fast changes between frames and some of them depict the same space but seen from a different point of view? I'm really curious about how perspective can be used to create certain visual effects and help carry the narrative. To be honest, I suspect my fascination with this particular concept comes from watching (and greatly enjoying) the Monogatari series. You've probably watched them or are at least familiar with them, but if by chance you haven't, I strongly recommend it.

Mononoke's animators definitely deserve praise for the way they handled these methods' weak points. There are examples, like the entirety of the newer Berserk seasons (if you haven't watched those... just don't), or the appearance of the colossal titan during the 2nd season of Attack on Titan, that looked horrible, even to my untrained eyes. In the case of Attack on Titan, I don't know what went wrong since WIT is a reputable studio. Or maybe I'm judging them too harshly and being a petty spectator. I still have to watch and get used to CGI dominated anime like Land of the Lustrous; maybe it's just a problem of me not being used to that sort of thing. I mean, sure, it makes movements more floaty and smooth, but I think Berserk proves it shouldn't be overused. 😭 Again, I don't really know how to distinguish it when it's less obvious, but I'm relatively certain there are instances when it's used right and the result looks great.

But back to Mononoke's case, I had no idea that these people were actually pioneering these techniques and using them in such a smart way. I'm glad they got recognition for it. That paper texture trick sounds very galaxy brain!

Again, thank you very much for taking the time to explain this to me, I appreciate it a lot! Also thanks for recommending me more stuff to look into, and telling me where to start! Actually before answering you I watched a few videos on how to animate 3D models.... the concept of using software to make your 3D model move is just so mind-boggling to me, literally magic!

henlo! i have started watching mononoke recently and i find the visuals stunning! in a recent ask you answered you said that it had a "visual style which used a lot of technology that was groundbreaking at the time". may i ask, do you know more about this style they used? if it's easier, i's also appreciate if you can istead tell me where i can read/see more about it. thank you in advance!

Hi there! I'm going to preface this answer by saying that I studied Computer Graphics Technology and Animation in college so I may use terms that are common in the industry but are otherwise gibberish for everybody else so please don't be afraid to ask me to clarify (◠‿・)—☆ Continuing under the cut cause this is A Lot

Fortunately, there's THIS video on youtube, I suspect ripped from the Japanese DVD (which I would absolutely kill for, it looks incredible) which, tho it doesn't say anything, shows the process they used.

Basically what it's showing they did is use a combination of CG and traditional animation techniques. So most of the backgrounds were created in a program like Autodesk Maya or Google Sketchup (I don't know what actual software they used) and then supplemented with traditionally drawn details (still probably using a drawing program like Photoshop but). You can see the bg characters were rendered in sort of the same way with 3D modeled stand-ins that would have either been drawn over in earlier episodes (like the hotel patrons in Zashiki Warashi) or just given a flat toon render (as in the second Bakeneko arc) with main characters being given a rigged stand-in that could be posed and then animated over traditionally.

This gave them a lot of freedom to go absolutely nuts on the details and camera angles, which is why everything is so opulent, they didn't have to draw every change in the frame by hand, and how they were able to do things like have a million scales come out of Kusu's box or have a wall of floating paper fuda charms that open their eyes in a wave.

The downside of these techniques tho is that they look very unnatural in comparison to traditional animation. For example, if you've ever seen The Dragon Prince (or any anime produced by Netflix actually), it's animated with 3D models that have a 2D toon render put over them and the difference compared to something like... Idk Bleach (do people watch Bleach anymore?) is pretty obvious. Which isn't to say crappy traditional animation doesn't exist or is any better (Bleach still fits into this category pretty frequently) but it's hard to bridge that gap if you want to make a show that looks really good.

Which is why I suspect you see that neat paper texture over everything. It makes everything look like an ukiyo-e print AND hides that weird uncanny valley thing going on with the 3D elements. Win-win! I suspect that's also why there's that weird... Idk how to describe it but it's the thing that happens when Mao and her family are walking down the hall to send her to get married.

To be fair, this came out around the same time as Finding Nemo. It's not like they were creating something totally new (as far as I can tell) but what was impressive was that this sort of animation was unusual to see coming out of such a small studio. The tech needed to make it was (still is) very costly so they were investing a lot of money into a very expensive experiment.

Personally the neat thing about Mononoke is that the animators used what was available to them and instead of being restricted by the stylistic limitations, found a way to work around them. There's a lot I could say about having a clear artistic vision and using your tools creatively but that's something else (*﹏*;)

The irony of it is that you'd be hard pressed to find a show that doesn't use these techniques now. Toon renders, 3D modeled vehicles, sets and characters, CGI special effects. They've all become the industry standard since the technology has advanced because they can streamline the process when you want to produce a show quickly. In the case of a studio like Netflix it also means you can create a set of stock character models that you can dress up as necessary for production and focus your resources on set design and other unique elements.

Personally I'm not a fan of it as a practice now. It means everything looks the same across the board and takes the soul out of the creative process, turning animation into a factory assembly line. It's not like it's something new in the industry, cheap shortcuts have always been a part of the process but idk. There's a difference between Mononoke and Pretty Magical Girl Show #57 and my eyes and heart know the difference.

But yeah, that's more or less what's going on behind the scenes of Mononoke. If you're curious about learning more, check out a few guides about 3D modeling and animation and programs like Maya, Sketchup, Z-Brush and compositing programs like Adobe After Effects or Sony Vegas. Keep in mind, these are by no means the only programs that do these types of things out there, I know there's quite a few good quality free ones available if you're interested in doing something similar yourself. I've just not been involved in the biz for a while so I'm not super up to date on what's out there. There's tons of awesome indy animators out there (I'm a big fan of WorthiKids) who are more than happy to talk about their process and tools so give them a look too. Safe travels and good luck with your research!