#it was very fun attempting a turnaround sheet for the first time!

[bearionette]

Character exploration I did with my AU Vanny! Considering making a comic with her :3c

[faeriekit]

Hey gang. So:

1) If I ask a yes or no question about something I’m posting, a. I don’t need two paragraphs about your reasoning as to why you have this opinion, especially if the update it’s about is already posted and isn’t going to change. A “yes, cool” or “nah, not really” will suffice. b. I don’t need four different responses about how much you dislike the direction I’ve taken, and neither do I need to see attempts to rope in other users to have you...actually change their mind? It’s perfectly fine to dislike my writing or one of my writing products. But make your own post about it, please, so I don’t get blasted with six different critiques simultaneously in my notes. This is a boundary I am about to enforce via blocking, because:

2) Writing fanfic is a personal hobby and mode of de-stressing of mine. I’m not a professional writer. I am using tumblr as a mode of publishing, so clearly this isn’t that deep. I have to keep it not-that-deep for personal reasons, because the literal instant that this becomes work, or worse, an actual stressor, my brain shuts down any creative interest and I go back into anhedonia mode. If anhedonia has never been on your symptoms sheet before...it sucks. It really does.

3) I work eleven hour days. I am in my final semester of grad school. I have homework to do nightly. The finals due this month will determine the course of my career. This fic has largely turned my eleven hour days to thirteen-to-fifteen hour days when I include meals. The turnaround on Blister Pack has been incredibly short, considering the daily update pattern. It’s okay to not like raspberry scones or whatever you want this metaphor to be, but if I offer you raspberry scones after spending my only free time baking them and your response is to tell me the mistakes I’ve made in the process, then. Well. I’m certainly not going to consider baking my fun hobby I do with friends anymore.

I’m not going to blame anyone for this. This is not anyone’s fault. Since BP has largely gotten ten times more popular than I ever imagined it would be, I’m ngl, I was largely expecting something to go wrong way earlier than this. This is about how I will proceed in the future and how I hope we can get along in the future. Feel free to read. Feel free to dislike. Feel free to-- idk, make your own post where you get vocal about where my writing goes and why you personally don’t like it. Sure. Just don’t make me see it and...what, expect me to uproot the story? Rewrite it to match your personal view of the media and of the fic? I don’t always know what people’s intention are when they comment this tbh; if I dislike a fic, I just stop reading. 

Anyway, the block button is on the table as far as options go, but I trust the vast majority of you and we clearly haven’t had problems about this previously. Blister Pack is finished in its word doc. I just have to trick my brain into thinking that posting the ending isn’t a threat to my internal wellbeing.

Thank you for reading the little I write, thank you for the well-intentioned comments, even if I couldn’t receive them in the manner you intended; and thank you for sharing your thoughts and interests when you have the energy. I often feel as though writing is very isolating, and though I often get too overwhelmed to respond, I have read every single individual comment that has been sent to me. Comments. Tags. Replies. Everything. You’re the glue that’s been holding my motivation together to finish this for once.

Once Blister Pack is posted, this will be the first fic I have finished since...since I wrote my first fic a decade ago. Fucking Hells. 🥂

[crystalgirl259]

How to Train Your Dragonblood 3: The Dragonblood Alpha Ch2

An indisputable shriek filled the air of the boundless sky over the calm ocean that was empty of boats as a bright red Fire Dragonblood soared across the water, causing waves, and rocketed across the horizon. The image of unbridled freedom. Tucked into his riding position, Jay appeared to be part of Kai. They dipped, rolled, and dived over a sea teeming with whales, dolphins, and a few Water Dragonbloods. They pulled off daring maneuvers with honed refinement, making them seem effortless.

"Yeah!" Jay yelled in adrenaline. They heading skyward, rolled, and tumbled through the ethereal cloud-scapes and joining high-flying Speed Dragonbloods as they soar in a formation. Jay was bound head-to-toe in a snug, dark blue, aerodynamic flight suit. An asymmetrical, functional design of leather and articulated plates. "So what do you think, baby? Wanna give this another shot?" He asked his dragonblood boyfriend.

"You've gotta be kidding!" Kai grumbled in protest.

"Come on Kai! It'll be fine." He reassured and with a click of a lever, he locked the pedals in the flared tailfin position so Kai could fly stably. Jay then unhooked himself from the saddle. "Ready?"

"Fine." Kai snorted unenthusiastically. Suddenly, Jay slid off his back, peeling away from him like a skydiver from a plane, yelling as he plummeted. Kai dove after him. They spiraled through the air, face-to-face. Kai was having fun, despite himself. When he saw the ocean, Jay slipped his forearms through a pair of tucked leather flaps and pulled, unfurling sheets of leather as he extended his arms. They caught the wind, snapping like wings, and sent him gliding.

Kai unfolded his wings, too, catching up with his human boyfriend.

The freedom was palpable. Jay and Kai were, for the moment, the same. Feeling the same rush of adrenaline. Independently together. They plunged past cloud formations, splitting apart then crossing paths again.

"This is amazing!" Jay shouted, overjoyed at these feelings. All of a sudden, a cloud layer washed past, exposing a towering rock formation dead ahead. "No longer amazing! KAI!" He screamed as he tried to steer himself away, to no avail. Kai poured on the speed, trying to catch Jay as he hurtled toward the collision. His locked tail made maneuvering difficult. He was unable to pull up at a steep enough angle. At the last second, Kai blasted the jagged rocks just ahead of them, then wrapped Jay in his wings as they flew through it.

The obliterated peak rained down around them.

Kai emerged through the cloud of debris and hurtled into the trees of a neighboring peak. They tumbled down the uneven terrain, coming to rest on a small plateau. Jay emerged from the cocoon of Kai's wings. He switched his prosthetic riding foot to his walking foot and stowed his leather wings. As Kai transformed into his human form, the sea stack cracked and fell.

"That really came out of nowhere." The brunette grumbled as he rubbed his sore muscles.

"We gotta work on your solo flying there, baby; that locked-up tail makes for some pretty sloppy rescue maneuvers, eh?" Jay chuckled as removed his helmet. He walked to the edge of the cliff, taking in the new land. "Looks like we found another one." He beamed and an annoyed Kai threw a small pebble at Jay's head. Jay looked at him, but Kai frowned and avoided his gaze.

"Oh, what? Do you want an apology? Is that why you're pouting, big baby boo? Well, try this on!" He teased as he hugged him and tried to wrestle with him. Kai's frowns melted to a smile at his boyfriend's attempt to overpower him. Despite growing in muscles and confidence to the last five years, they both knew Jay could never face Kai in hand-to-hand combat, with or without fire powers. All of a sudden, the brunette grabbed Jay's wrists, pinned him to the floor, and started kissing his face and neck.

"What's that you were saying?" Kai smirked.

"You're right! You're right! You win! You win!" Jay shrieked in roars of laughter. Satisfied, Kai got off him and let him get up. After catching his breath and with a big smile on his face, Jay got to his feet and looked around at the new island, and pulled out his map. "Whaddya reckon, baby? Think we might find a few Gravity Dragonbloods in those woods? The odd Light Dragonblood or two in the rocks? Who knows... maybe we'll finally track down another Fire Dragonblood; wouldn't that be something?" He sighed sadly as he stopped drawing on the map and looked out at the new horizon. "So, whaddya say baby? Should we just keep going?"

"When did you get so soppy?" Kai teased at his boyfriend's serious face. Jay rolled his eyes and lightly elbowed the dragonblood.

"Gotta make up for what you lack." He smirked back.

"Hey, I don't lack in anything! Especially where it counts, as you know." He purred seductively as he wrapped his arms around the ginger-haired man's neck before he burst out laughing at Jay's scarlet face. A dragonblood screech caught their attention. They turned just as they saw Cole and Rocky landed on the island. Kai gave Jay a quick kiss on the cheek he ran over excitedly to greet Rocky as Cole went to talk to the other rider.

"'Sup Rock?" The brunette smirked as the Earth Dragonblood sneaked him a cigarette while pulling out his own and he used his fire powers to light them. He had promised Jay he would cut down on his smoking, but it was hard to kick a habit like this.

"Not much, Grant almost set the town on fire with a lava ball... again, and Tes and Bolt are trying to tear each other to shreds." He sighed. He loved Adam and the triplets, but sometimes the kids, who were five now, drove them both mad.

"The offsprings of a Lightning and Earth Dragonblood couple are bound to cause chaos." Kai shrugged with a smirk.

"True, but I better the kids of a human and a Fire Dragonblood would be worse." He counted and Kai almost choked on his cigarette.

"What the fuck dude!"

"Oh come on hothead! Everyone's wondering when you two are gonna tie the knot and then have a little junior running around town." Rocky grinned at the bright crimson blush on Kai's tanned cheeks. Kai felt his temper flare up at this statement. They had talked about having children a few weeks ago, but both decided that they weren't ready for that yet, despite dating for five years now. Sadly, this hadn't sat well with Cliff. As soon as he caught wind of his son and Kai talking about having their own children, he began dropping hints about grandchildren or children, in general, every chance he got.

It didn't matter where or when.

Every morning, noon and night, no matter what activities Cliff caught them doing, like fishing or cooking, he would say how he used to do that with Jay, how he did it with his dad, and how great it would be for Jay to do it with his own child. Eventually, the couple had to sit Cliff down and explain to him that they weren't having children anytime soon. They thought that was the end of it. That is until Cliff decided to drop a bombshell on them this morning.

Without warning, Kai suddenly tackled Rocky to the ground and the dragonbloods started wrestling and chasing each other through the trees.

Their human riders glanced at the two dragonbloods, but shrugged it off and returned to their own conversation.

"Hey Cole, where have you been?" Jay asked as he returned to his map.

"Well, winning races, but what else?" He shrugged. "The real question is where have YOU been?"

"Avoiding my dad."

"Oh, no, what happened now?" He smirked.

"Oh, you're gonna love this." He groaned as he handed the pen to Cole. "I wake up, the sun's shining, crows are singing on the rooftop, I saunter down to breakfast with Kai, thinking all is right with the world and I get: Son, we need to talk." He said, imitating Cliff.

"Not now, Dad, Kai, and I have a whole day of goofing off to get started," Cole replied, imitating Jay, which the ginger didn't look impressed with.

"Okay, first of all, I don't sound like that! What is this character?!" He cried, but the light giggles showed Cole that he wasn't actually offended.

"A truly flattering impersonation." He said as he rolled his eyes. "Anyway he goes: you're the pride of Ninjago, and I couldn't be more proud of you; you're all grown up, and since no chief could ask for a better successor, I've decided-"

"To make you chief! Oh, my Gods!" Cole suddenly gasped as he stood up, doing a complete turnaround in the mood. It was clear, however, that Jay didn't share his eagerness though. "Jay, that's amazing!" He exclaimed and to settle his joy he punched him in the stomach. Jay cried out in surprise and stepped back, holding the injured side as the dorsal fin sprung up.

"You-You're gonna wear out the spring coil, the calibration is very sensitive." He scolded and Cole chuckled as he adjusted his armor. Suddenly they both are thrown down by the still fighting dragonbloods when they pass by them. Cole stood up with a huff from where he landed, kneeling over Jay.

"Yeah... so..." Jay sighed as he accepted the offered hand and pulled himself up as well. "This is what I'm dealing with."

"What did you tell him?"

"I- I didn't, by the time he turned around we were gone." He replied as Cole bent down to pick up the map.

"Well, that's a lot of responsibility, for sure; the map will have to wait for sure and I'll need to fly Kai since you'll be too busy, but I'm sure he understands." The noirette hummed as he walked away, pressing the map in Jay's chest. When he turned around, Jay looked at him so miserably.

"It's not me, Cole." He admitted. "All those speeches and planning and running the village, that's his thing."

"I think you're missing the point." He replied. "I mean... Chief! What an honor, I'd be pretty excited!"

"I... I'm not like you; you know exactly who you are, you've always had, but... I'm still looking." He sighed sadly as he stepped away from the noirette and towards the edge dejected while further behind Rocky and Kai started fighting over a fallen tree trunk. "I know that I'm not my father, and I've never met my mother so… what does that make me?"

"I get where you're coming from," Cole replied. "I might not have been as young as you when I lost my Mom, but when she died Dad and I kinda drifted apart, and as I grew older I felt like I didn't know who I was; my Dad barely talked to me and I felt like my Mom was a stranger to me because we never talked about her." He explained. "But after you and Kai changed everything, Rocky helped me reconnect with Dad and I finally realized who I was.

"It's not the same Cole." He muttered as he flopped down on the ground. Cole came from behind and sat next to him.

"What I'm saying is that what you're searching for isn't out there, Jay." He smiled as he placed his hand on Jay's chest. "It's in here, and maybe you just don't see it yet." He added but Jay ignored him and focused on the sky.

"Maybe... But you know... there is something out there." He muttered as he got up on his knees and watched attentively something off-screen.

"Ugh! Jay..." He groaned as he shook his head. Jay reached blindly with his hand and grasped his chin, turning his face to what he saw and Cole gasped. In the distance, over the cliffs, there was a trail of smoke climbing up into the morning sky...

[hopefulbagelboi]

Reflection

On the Tv series project and what I have so far with my animation for games project.

Oracle Cat: I started off determined, full of ideas and had a game plan, and I believe things would have gone much better if not for mental health issues. However, once I picked myself back up again I was able to continue where I had left off despite not having looked at the material for months.

My animation for this project is not my best and I know it can be better, however I am beyond shelling out passion for this project and I had no intention of improving the animation further. I do think that for this animation I had some of the best linework and backgrounds I had ever done due to the research, tutorials watched and books studied ('Figure Drawing For All It's Worth' has incredibly detailed sections on framing, vanishing points, perspective and much more. 'Setting Up Your Shots' was also a nice visual guide about perspective, framing and camera movements). This time I used much more reference images during my sketching stage, as usually I either forget or am too stubborn to. I think this aided with improving the believability of my backgrounds.

My revised character sheets show great improvement in my skill and understanding of basic artistic concepts such as lighting, shading and line weight. Previously I would never have attempted such 'complex' techniques as I had very low confidence in my drawings.

What could be improved?

Time management for sure, as always it has been my greatest weakness. I did have a work plan, calendar, and all the likes but I have a bad habit of never sticking to, well, habits.

Since I am still puzzling together which work and study methods work best for me I can't make promises about having no time management issues at all next time, though I do believe that by being given second chances (multiple) to complete this project I have inched closer to the answer as to how I can tame my wayward focus (I can now sit and work for 3 hours at a time rather than my previous 20 minutes! Yes it was a struggle!).

Communication with my tutors. Put simply I am terrible at it due to my own stubbornness and reluctance to ask for help. I would disappear for weeks at a time, only skulking back online to submit the current deadline before becoming a whisper on the wind once more. This past week I have gotten my rear back into gear and have been communicating with my tutors almost daily, attending classes and 1-1's and working on feedback. This has helped me overcome roadblocks with me work and has been a considerable benefit to me, all thanks to the patience and kindness of my tutors, I am back on track and will continue to communicate in the future.

Animal Boy:

Another project that I was raring to sink my teeth into but that turned into a dumpster fire due to mental health reasons.

The sharp learning curve for 3D animation didn't scare me off, in fact I was glad I now had no way to avoid learning it, and the first few days of it went well as I gained quite a knack for it.

My tutor, an expert on 3D animation, was very helpful when it came to teaching me shortcuts, skills, tips and tricks for navigating the 3D world and for making my 3D experience as painless as possible. He showed me how to apply textures and gave me a general rundown of what stages I should go through as I work on my animation.

All I can really say is that I believe I would've done much better on this project if it hadn't been for personal mental health issues standing in my way. At the very least I do think I am doing a little better on that front. If I can't take a degree away with me from university I can at the very least take improved mental health back home with me!

What could be improved?

Character sheets are one of my most hated parts of a project (action poses are fun, turnarounds are NOT) and I would draw several versions of a character over and over only to use none of them, all of them ending up in the bin. I was stuck on how to remedy this issue until I was able to use my traditionally drawn sketches as a base for my digitally drawn character sheets. This improved my enjoyment of the dreaded turnaround greatly as it was easier to remove mistakes and sort of 'posh' up a drawing by simply giving it steady looking lines thanks to the magic of many brush strokes and a very fine eraser.

I still take far too long to create any kind of drawing but that is only something that will improve over time the more I draw and the more the movements are committed to muscle memory.

[nibscribs]

So uhhhh I drew a lot of RWBY this year... only two of these are non RWBY and tbh I could have just as easily put something RWBY for June Template

Retrospective under the cut bc it’s LONG 

RETROSPECTIVE January: First piece of the year! I still like this piece and I think it shows how much I improved from the original version of it. Also I just like looking at it bc it's soft content of my rare pair. I do think I made the rose look photorealistic which looks... bad esp with all the other more stylized flowers, and I got lazy with the bleeding hearts by just drawing one set and flipping them. Emerald's hair also could look better. February:  I made this around GNG week, which was a fun, good time, long before the server imploded on itself. I got really lazy with the backgrounds, obviously, but I do like the poses in this one, tho it helped that I based it off of screenshots from Young Justice. I also just really like how Merc looks in this one. March: March wasn't a very prolific month for art, I don't think I produced much besides this and one comic piece for GNG week. I'm not sure why exactly, I can't find any specific reason why I would be unproductive that month. I'm gonna just assume I was drained from work all the time and didn't have the energy to put out good art, and also I was getting into a slump bc all my art was starting to look same-y. This piece isn't very good, but I chose it because I did it without a reference, and at this point that was going out of my comfort zone. It's obviously not super dynamic, but at the very least you can tell I intended there to be motion to it. April: This also wasn't a very prolific month for art, not as bad as March, but for the same reasons. I was also really starting to feel burnout from the RWBY fandom, specifically wasps and conflict within the GNG server. This was also when the Art vs the Artist meme was popular, and I realized I didn't want to do that meme because my art was too similar and boring, which also brought me down a peg. Though I put out a few good chibis in April, I chose my Mercury redesign bc I was really proud of it. I could never get the Emerald redesign to mesh quite right, but I can say I'm really proud of how Mercury's came out. May: May had me bounce out of my art slump and in full force trying to expand my skills! Specifically exploring painting. Although May was about as prolific as April, what I did create I put a lot into. It was difficult to pick between this and my app of Edison, because I'm really proud of both, but in the end I went with this commission of Mercury because I pushed myself to try and use an interesting perspective for the piece instead of my usual stand still and face the camera pose. Because I pushed myself out of my comfort zone, this was one of the best things I made all year, and may be my favorite piece of the year. June: TIME TO STRESS OUT ABOUT CONNECTICON! So if you follow me on twitter, you might have noticed I made a lot of posts at the beginning of the year low key throwing shade at myself for drawing my oc's instead of more "important" art. Well, that important art that I was procrastinating was con merch, and con was the second week of July, so I really had to get my ass in gear to finish merch on time (spoiler, I didn't finish a lot of it on time). This piece and July's piece are both posters I made for Connecticon, and while I like July's much better, that doesn't mean I find this piece bad. I really should have known that no one at con would realize it was a goonies reference tho -_-; I also lost a lot of love for this piece after season 6 of Voltron, which I watched while I was about 60% of the way through this piece, so I had to force myself to finish it. July: I love this piece!!!! Don't get me wrong, I know it has flaws, but look at it! The lines are so crisp, the colors look good, Roman and Merc's expressions are mwuah chefs kiss, and I just love all of them!!! ... except for Neo. I really didn't do her justice in this piece, her hair is too fluffy, her head is way to oversized to the point that she looks like a bobblehead, and her eyes are too close together. Really if you take out Neo's head that whole problem goes away. I also love all the tiny details I put in this one, from emerald's chaps to roman's rose to Neo's lace parasol. You can tell I was way more passionate about this piece than I was about the Voltron piece.  August:  pretty sure this is when I quit my job cashiering, and thank god bc customers suck. If I was going off of sheer popularity, Chibi Pyrrha would have taken this slot no contest, and while I love chibi Pyrrha, I don't think it was the best of the month. I chose this little princess and the pauper au doodle because I tried a year ago to draw these two dancing, and it looked like dog shit. It was flat and ugly. But this has motion to it, and even looking at it now makes me feel warm and happy inside. It's just a good cute drawing of my otp. September: My piece for the RWBY tarot project! I have a lot of mixed emotions about this one. on the one hand, I love how mercury looks, his expression, the lighting, the visceral gore from his legs (ESPECIALLY THE VISCERAL GORE ON HIS LEGS) and the hands of the undead, all look stunning and I don't think I could be more happy with how they turned out. And then we get to the background. The caduceus isn't the worst thing ever, but it's severely lacking in quality compared to the rendering on mercury in front of it, and a lot of it is clearly pixellated from me trying to stretch and squash it just right. And the fire is a hot (no pun intended) mess. It's flat, incoherent, and doesn't lead the eye anywhere. It's a shame too because I wanted to do more with it, but I a) didn't have enough time or patience to figure out what I needed to do to fix it and b) didn't want to go outside of my comfort level, so I gave up and decided to be satisfied with what I had. October: October was another good month for art, I made a turnaround sheet for Moss, painted a full body (and slightly lewd) Rudy, and made a decent attempt at inktober. Ok, so I got like 2 days in, but I improved a lot on inking from last year! Fun fact! this piece was originally going to be fan art of Lindsay Jones, but after I did some thumbnails to figure out a pose, I thought it would suit White Diamond better, and I could also sell it as merch. I love this piece. I think I captured the sinister mood well, and conveyed the story I wanted to without any dialogue (at least the notes on Tumblr make me assume I did a decent job, lotta people really wigged out lol) I really worked hard to get the lighting right on this one, and I think it shows. My absolutely favorite thing about this piece funnily enough, is Amethyst. I think I just did a great job drawing her and I'm proud of myself ok. Stevens bubble and my trouble figuring out how to get WD's leg just right are the only things that I dislike about this piece, but I might go back and fix those. November: IM SO PROUD OF THIS COMMISSION!!!!!! I worked so god damn hard on this chef's kiss poifect,  and it really shows. I started using a new brush at this point, the Ojing series on Clip Studio Paint, which I recommend and have been using a lot since. I've also been using this shading technique since drawing this. I love how it sort of fades out but it's still really crisp. I also love all the little details that give this piece character, like her shoes and the stripes on her jacket. This piece really takes a lot of the stuff I learned over the year and combines it into one piece, and I could not be prouder of it. I have absolutely no problems with this one, though I do find the weapon a bit plain, but it's what the client described. December: AND NOW IT'S CHRISTMAS!!!!! I had been working on this piece since August, going back to it every now and then and getting frustrated. I'm really glad I came back to it and finally finished it, since I love this pair and I put a lot of effort into it back in August. However, I'm also really glad I completely overhauled a lot of it, specifically the flowers. Though I'm not 100% happy with the mums in this one, they look a thousand times better than the mums I had originally sketched back in August, and were part of the reason I had such a hard time finishing this for months. I also thought it would be nice to end the year on the same note it started; with a flower couple. I've definitely learned a lot since January, and I hope to continue growing in 2019! 2019 GOALS!

Work on backgrounds for the love of god

Draw more stuff that isn't RWBY

Perspective

Make more speed paints and post more to youtube in general

[dani-b-usw-3]

Post 4

The ClothCat brief if to create a group of characters that use an ‘imaginative and inventive use of space’. The end goal is to produce a group of up to 6 beings. A few examples they provide is a family, pets, roommates etc. We are expected to provide backgrounds, dynamics and personalities to them that would work well together. The developmental work must be professional as well as the final piece. This means very first sketches, brainstorms, concepts, turnarounds, expression sheets, dynamic poses, world designs, all the way through to quality ‘well polished’ artwork.

 They are asking for any digital media, developmental work and notes. We are expected to finish with an A3 piece innovatively showing the characters, their personalities, backgrounds and location via a poster or action shot. We are also asked to provide mood boards fro the characters to show a more in-depth look of their buildup.

We can interpret the brief however we like, as long as we follow the ‘inventive use of space’ theme.

All images can be portrait or landscape but must be at a resolution of at least A3, 300dpi.

DEADLINES 19 / 10 / 2020 - Live brief launch at USW 02 / 11 / 2020 - 13:00 - Live Blackboard Collaborate brief Q&A with Adam Bailey, Producer and Head of Animation Development at Cloth Cat Animation 30 / 11 / 2020 - First review - character and environment designs review and feedback deadline 11 / 01 / 2021 - Final Review - DELIVERY to Cloth Cat for final feedback

 I’ve decided to start some basic research by collecting images from existing media that will provide me with some inspiration and means to find linking dynamics.

From a visual standpoint. This mood board shows that most groups of characters tend to have height differences. Particularly when involving two characters, or a larger group with different age ranges. The largest differences in height seem to be human/animal relationships, such as Pikachu and Ash from ‘Pokemon’, Tintin and Snowy from ‘The Adventures of Tintin’ and Pery and Dr.Doofenshmirtz from Phineas and Ferb. An exception to this is Tom and Jerry, due to their species difference, as well as Monsters Inc’s Sully and Mike. In most of my examples, colour also plays a part in the dynamic. Clothing is used for most human characters to provide each of the cast their uniqueness, such as Mario being mainly in red and Luigi being mostly green. These are great example colour-wise, as red and green are complementary colours, which may indicate their bond as brothers. Another example of this is the’ Inside Out’ characters. Each of the main characters is coded with their colour to represent an emotion. Only one of the 5 characters shares multiple colours, which is Joy, although she is still mostly yellow to represent happiness. Inside out is also a good example of using multiple shapes to create a group of characters. The shape is used to provide different auras and feelings when creating a character. Circles are mostly used for happy or kind characters, whereas Triangles are used for more sinister or evil characters in a lot of cases. This will be very important to keep in mind for this brief, as we will need to use our imagination to create characters that fit in a space well, and variety within that is very important, as it may seem boring to have the same shape used multiple times.

My first exercise was beginning to experimenting with different shapes. When creating characters, I do not usually do this, as I stick to my comfort zone, so this was a new challenge for me.

I found an exercise online that involves randomly scribbling shapes, and then creating characters using the shape is a base.

I found this exercise quite difficult, as I was attempting to create full bodies characters with basic, single shapes. It allowed me to get creative however, and I ened up creating some interesting figures with the basic shapes that I wouldn’t ordinarily think of. It also made me think more about character silouettes and how they can be important when creating interesting and effective characters.

Once I had this ecercise done, I decided to start thinking about concepts that interested me that would fit in with the brief. I created a mindmap of things I could think of that could be a unique or fun project.

Although I enjoyed a lot of the ideas I generated  throught this, the ones that stuck out to me the most were the concept of phobias or fears and the different layers of hell or the different sins. Seeing as these were quite mature topics, I decided to lean more towards the phobia theme, as I could create that while avoiding more topics that may make others uncomfortable better.

 After deciding on my theme, I created a list of two possible outcomes. Characters that represent phobias, or characters that suffer from said phobias. I made a list of the best phobias that would work with either catagroy to see what ideas I could generate from that.

Looking as some of the possible concepts, I decided that my strength would be monster/animalistic based designs, and that I would enjoy working with the phobias themselves. I though about what I could do to bring a group of phobias together to create a cast of character.  

I though of having these character exsisiting in a separated part of a person’s brain or imagination, as phobias are a psychological condition. I thought about what kind of environment they would live in, and considered the possibility of these phobias living in a caged up city away from the rest of the brain/imagination. I roughly sketched up some basic ideas for what I had in mind. I was thinking along the lines of a ‘bad neighbourhood’, run down city type vibes, as phobias and fears are usually negative and avoided at all costs.

I wanted to make the buildings look gross and unsettling to fit the theme, so I made a sketch of them looking like brain matter. I would likely go with blue, red, pink and black colour themes for the main colour palette, as those colours remond me of creepy atmospheres as well as colours found in the body.

[katherinesisakproduction]

A9 Final Pitch

Wow! After nine weeks, we’re finally at the end of the quarter...so without further ado, here’s a quick summary of the work behind ‘Origin’. 

Theme: Appearances can be decieving/life isn’t always black and white

Logline: When Dennis -a superhero-obsessed boy- is dragged to his dad’s office for a ‘Take Your Child to Work Day’ he comes face-to-face with some titillating family secrets. Could this be the origin story for Voltaic City’s newest crimefighter? 

Link to final animatic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j0V-kj4Sc9Q&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR3npV64LbHoybTt2JF6xB35kJiMK4cPKXZCDfXtOLDYqATOlXm7SUYTqcY

In this version of the animatic, I addressed the notes about establishing (more clearly) the initial setting of the office, as well as changing the design of the desk that Dennis hides behind in order to make it more plausible that Eel Man wouldn’t be able to see him. 

Supplemental Materials: This section ties in well with the characters/world

Dennis: 

To rehiterate, Dennis is a seven-year-old boy who is obsessed with superheroes and comic books. He views his favorite comic book as his ‘guide to life’, believing that the world contained between the pages has the answers to everything. In a way, his attachment to comic books represents the very ‘black-and-white/good-and-evil’ view of the world that people have in their youth, because more traditional comic plotlines (of the past) tend to be very formulaic in that good always triumphs over evil. 

In terms of new material, I reviewed the SCAD Animated Short handbook and developed a rough turnaround sheet and expression page for Dennis. After doing so, when this goes into production, I’m wondering if it might be a good idea to revist the hair design. As much as I enjoy the asymmetrical swoop from the frontal and 3/4 views, since this will be 3D, I’m not entirely certain if it will silhouette well from the sides. 

The expression page for Deninis was a lot of fun to make: since he’s the main character and the type to wear his heart on his sleeve, I got to play with a lot of large facial emotions...His roundness makes him a lot of fun to sketch out. 

Eel Man/The Dad:

Eel Man is the secondary character in the film: he’s a systems analyst for a Tuna Company by day, and a super-their by night. He’s calculating, insecure and has a little bit of an invisibility complex. He began his life of crime after his job cut his benefits and began by selling classified corproate information to rival companies for money. Eventually, he went from hacking/digital theft and branched out into stealing top secret tech that was being developed by other types of companies: his theft of a sonar weapon (mentioned at the end of this short) is his first ‘big’ venture into typical supervillainesque crime which is why it made the news. 

As a mid-level office worker, he feels very stifled and invisible at times. He definitely feels like just another cog in the machine and the noteriety he recieved in the criminal underworld for being a ‘super-theif’ helps stave off his greatest fear, which is going through life forgotten and unimportant. 

Doing the turnaround sheet for him was a little tricky because I’m used to drawing him in poses that allow me to really exagerrate his ‘s-curve’ shape. But since characters are typically kept in a neutral pose for the sheets, it felt a little tricky to ‘straighten him out’, so to speak. 

Unlike his son, Eel Man is a bit of an enigma in the short. He does need to keep a little bit of an ‘air of mystique’ so that it is plausible that Dennis could misinterpret his status of being a villain. Additionally, with the visor, drawing expressions was doubly challenging because it removed two of the main three components that really drive facial expressions (eyes, mouth, eyebrows). I did draw two images of him without the mask to hint at how he emotes around his family.  

To round out the requirements for character in the Animated Short book, here are the action poses I submitted as a part of my pitch package to indicate how the characters will move. To me, I always begin with action poses before I even finalize character designs because it helps me connect character design, movement style and personality together. By drawing out how they behave, it helps me clarify (even to myself) a character’s identity/sense of being. 

Dennis, ever the excitable kid, has very big movements. He puts his entire body into action and is very open with his behavior. I tried to remember how I moved when I was that age and personally, I remember being very impulsive and confident with everything I did: there was no planning or second-guessing, only action.

Eel Man also has exagerrated movements, but in a different way. His ‘s-design’ was chosen to specifically favor poses with strong lines of action: I really wanted to capture the dynamic poses typical to superhero comics, but also soften the seriousness behind the fight scenes by adding a slick, slithery element to his movements. He ‘slips’ and ‘slides’ everywhere. 

The World: Style, Lighting and Color

The short takes place in a corporate office and has two main sets: The cubicle and the lair. The cubicle is a very tight and slightly dreary space, so the colors will be mostly beiges and neutral tones to convey a sense of corprorate drudgery. The lightingin the office (during Act 1) will be fairly even to indicate that this is the ‘mundane world’...The story has not truly taken off at this point. 

The quick color study here is a rough indication of the palette for the transition between sets. It carries over some of the beige/muted orange elements from the office set while the intense blue forshadows the color palette for the lair. This is the still I’m most likely to revist to finesse the color a little more so that it is congruent with the other panels. I’m not entirely sold on the color of the slide and want to explore what a blue-grey might look like...or perhaps a more saturated bronze color. 

In Act 2, when Dennis is looking around the lair and starting to come up with ideas of what this foreign space could possibly be, the color palette changes to a high-pitched, limited palette of blue/blue green. This was heavily inspired by Lou Romano’s color key work on the Incredibles, because the vibrant, limited palette imbues the space with a sense of ‘otherworldliness’, removing it from what both Dennis and the audience associate with our ‘day-to-day’ reality. The lighting is bright and still fairly even because not only do I want the audience to be able to drink in full ‘grandeur’ of the set, but tonally, the emotions of the piece are still largely positive -it’s a moment of discovery. I also want all of the props (such as the giant coin, the costume carousel, the supercomputer etc) to be highly visible. The narrative relies heavily on props to drive the plot (with each component acting as an indicator that the dad is a hero) and its also important to establish props that will come into play during Act 3 when the fight sequence happens. 

In Act 3, however, the lighting changes. As Eel Man (our secret antagonist) enters the set and Dennis gets visual confirmation that his guess was right (sort of), the set darkens a little and the lighting becomes very high contrast to create a visual intensity that foreshadows the conflict. The color palette of the set is still blue, but leaning a little bit away from the turquoise end fo the spectrum.  

These are two production stills for the film. I chose Dennis and Eel Man’s first face-to-face interaction in the film to showcase because their relationship is what lends impact to the revelation off Eel Man’s true identity at the end. I attempted to do a little more color blending to convey a ‘3D’ quality to the image, but I feel like I want to keep working on it because currently, some elements such as Eel Man’s arm and hand could use a little less exposure to the yellow light for higher overall contrast. But overall, it serves its purpose to convey the general lighting in the scene. The scene is illumnated with warm yellow light to be visually misleading, conveying the beginnings of something wonderful and new... 

This is the second production still depicting the big ‘reveal’ when Dennis finds out that his dad is a supervillain. In this scene, he is illuminated by the LED lights of the television that is playing the broadcast that completely turns his worldview upside down. The teal highlights act as a visual calllback back to the palette of the lair,but now, the lighting is darker and far more dramatic to convey the sinister turn of the story. 

Looking ahead, I really want to develop a more concrete color script for this short. What I have now gives a decent indication of color, but I’d like to push the lighting and shading within the style frames to more closely match the quality of light within the production stills. I also feel like at least two more stills (one of the office and one more in the lair during Act 2) would strengthen the color development, giving people a more concrete idea oft the final ‘look’ for the short. However, I did end up prioritizing the fixes to the animatic, as well as the creation of turnaround sheets over a color script at this current time because those items were the ones definitively required by the SCAD Animated Short Handbook.

Why Animation? 

My answer to this question can be found in my description of both the characters and the world. When it came to development, I was favoriting very stylized and exaggerated designs. The character’s shape based design language to inform their acting, as well as the saturated yet limited color palette for the hero world should work in tandem to create a visual universe that far removed from anything that the viewers can easily associate with our ‘day-to-day’ reality (i.e. live-acton). The stylization and exaggeration, which can only be accomplished via animation, serves to make Dennis’s conclusiion that his dad MUST be a hero more believable to the audience by lowering the suspension of disbelief: if the audience doesn’t have a comparison point to explain the unfamiliar space, it excuses Dennis’s runaway imagination. 

Although this story could be done in live action, it would change the tone of the story to something a little more corny (similar to Disney’s live-action film Sky High). Even though I personally enjoy campy superhero stuff, in this case, it would tonally undermine the theme that ‘life isn’t always black and white’, which I would like to avoid. 

Final Notes and What Comes Next: 

Taking this pitch from start to finish was a really interesting endeavor, especially in seeing how the concept evolved over time. I’m a large fan of DC comics, so getting to play around with some of my favorite tropes was a definite plus with this story. I know I personally enjoy hero origin stories a lot...I think the stories people come up with to explain what could drive a person into acts of superhuman heroism/villainy are pretty interesting because they reflect the things that majorly impact people’s lives (loss of family, social injustice etc, etc). 

In a way, Origin, for me is as much of a coming-of-age tale as it is a superhero story. Dennis’s discovery at the end, that his dad was not the man he thought he was is an amplified version of how at a certain age, you realize that your parents are not necessarily these godly, untouchable super-humans who can magically solve all of your problems. Awknowledging that life isn’t always easy is a, difficult, yet essential, part of growing up and I wanted to touch on that in my film. 

But-with that being said- I’m finally going to reveal what I think would happen after the title card! Originally, I had thought of this idea as a pitch for a television show and I think that after the revelation, Dennis would agree to be Eel Man’s sidekick so that he could try and discover WHY his dad would become a villain. I think he would actively try to sabotage his dad’s villainous escapades, because he’s still a good-hearted character, but I think his loyalty to his dad would lead him to agree to be his sidekick so that he could try to better understand his father. I think that if it were further developed into a series, that you could have a lot of fun coming up with various ‘heroes-of-the-week’ that Eel Man and Urchin Boy could encounter...So in a way, this short could double as a good ‘hook’ for a pilot. 

In terms of moving forward with the production of the short, I’m really looking forward to seeing what my future teammates will bring to the production. The thing I enjoy the most about being an animation student at SCAD is being able to discuss and develop ideas wth other people who also love stories and storytelling. Everyone has such a different and unique way of viewing the world, that even being a small part of their stories during the feedback process makes me happy. 

In the end, this was rewarding experience because it reminded me that storytelling is about finding common ground with other people.

Well...Onwards and upwards, I guess! 

[karninari]

in one ear, out the other

Bakugou Katsuki/Kaminari Denki

Notes: Bakugou/Kaminari – adventure; “let’s get matching piercings!” 

also on ao3

Upon entering the gas and market, Bakugou asks Kaminari the same question he'd used back in the car, "You do know that you can use your phone to take us there, right?"

At his side, Kaminari is disentangling a thick pamphlet in his hands, spreading fold after fold of the map he'd bought from a city back. He pauses to roll his eyes, the action just barely visible through his shades, "Where's the fun in that, Bakugou? Don't you want to experience asking around for directions and getting lost in an unfamiliar city?"

Usually it was just Kaminari that came down to take care of unnecessary stuff like this while Bakugou filled up the tank, but the needle has budged little since their stop in the last town, so he'd been ushered out of the truck and into this pasty white shop filled to its brim with junk food.

And not only that, but he's forced to stand in line while Kaminari browses the greasy shelves, enduring the unwavering stare of the young girl standing beside her father who makes casual conversation with the employee, popping bubbles as she cranes her neck to look over her shoulder at him. A few minutes pass before they finish their purchases and step out of the way, and Bakugou drops the glare on his face that had appeared fascinating on someone three times smaller than him, grumbling to no one, "Not when I'm the one paying for gas."

He doesn't bother initiating pleasantries. That's what he has Kaminari for, who returns in time to greet the tired cashier that sits up in her seat at the polite smile Kaminari flashes her, "Excuse me, do you happen to know where this place is?"

Holding the map up over the counter, Kaminari points to a secret destination, one that Bakugou couldn't catch a glimpse of before it had been lifted out of sight. It was meant to be a surprise, although he had a sneaking suspicion it was another tattoo and piercing shop for another of the latter to add to the collection decorating Kaminari's ear, and by default, Bakugou's as well.

Bakugou absentmindedly plays with the huggy on his lobe, wondering if the metal was starting to get worn from the constant rubbing, unlike Kaminari's persistence, which hasn't faded in the slightest since day one.

He misses the whole conversation conducted in hushed tones, but finds little need to catch every detail like someone who was owner to a wandering mind.

With a quick thank you to the cashier, Kaminari folds up the country map they had absolutely no need for, excitement radiating from him, "C'mon, I know the way!"

Speak of the devil. Dropping his hand, Bakugou pushes off the counter, shoving the glass door open and activating the electronic bell that signals their exit, "Then let's fucking get this over with so we can get back on the road. This place is already becoming an eye sore."

They've been on the road for a few weeks, stopping every night or so for some well-earned rest, interchanging the peaceful nights with late night driving, exploring the country by car to their heart's content. There was no real destinationーsometimes they found themselves in the same city more than once, but never in the exact place as the time before. This aimless traveling was sure to put a hefty dent in their pockets, or in other words, their parent's pockets, but nothing screamed ditching responsibilities like taking a road trip one odd summer between college semesters.

Thinking about coming back was not the kind of thoughts Bakugou liked to have in the middle of night, staring aimlessly at the ceiling until his vision blurred and faded to near darkness, only to come into fruition once he blinked again. It was nearly morning, but the world really did go out of its way to mess with him, reminding him that he still had a career to pursue and a life of his own to create. By all means, it isn't the most daunting task he's encountered, one that Bakugou can do in his sleep, but a vacation is called a vacation for a reason, and sleep should already be a given.

Releasing a sigh that does little to ease his strung shoulders, Bakugou tugs the sheets up until they're all he can see and closes his eyes, tempted to call for the dreams to come and stop evading him like a coward.

This creepy, not quite realistic motel, with its neon lights and faded wallpaper, was really giving Bakugou the chills, but perhaps that was due to the air conditioner that wouldn't turn off no matter how hard Kaminari had tried to turn down the temp that was blasting cold air through the paper thin coverings and keeping Bakugou from settling in comfortably.

With a groan, Bakugou abandons all care and rolls over the imaginary line his mind had created to divide the space on the bed, moving away from his side to the naturally warmer portion that Kaminari takes up, sound asleep and snoring ever since his head had hit the pillow.

Kaminari doesn't shift or wake as the bed dips and creaks with Bakugou, nor when he draws the sheets closer. Bakugou doesn't go as far as taking up the empty space left on Kaminari's pillow, scooting his closer so their pillows overlap crookedly. The last thing he wanted was to make the mistake of sleeping too close and getting drool in his hair again. His neck is slightly elevated, but he can worry about the soreness tomorrow. A few hours of uneventful sleep was all Bakugou was asking for.

Thankfully, it welcomes Bakugou with open arms, greeting him warmly and syncing his breathing with the soft eupnea filling the room.

With the aimless exploring comes the occasional visit to tourist traps. Exploring the Golden Pavilion's gold-leafed floors is peaceful, the sight of the outer gardens and ponds a welcoming turnaround to the dazzling sights of the city. Kaminari almost doesn't want the walkthrough to end, wholly enjoying the muted chatter of touring families, but it doesn't hurt to spare a few minutes away from preserved nature when he sees children of those same families gather around one of the smaller, older attractions here.

He tugs on Bakugou's arm, who'd been busy admiring at the scenery. This location had actually come up in a conversation the other day, suggested by Bakugou himself. But one look at what Kaminari excitedly points out to him has Bakugou cracking the thoughtful gaze he's wearing to pull a face and shake his head, "No way."

Kaminari gives him a grin, nodding insistently, "Come on, Bakugou, everybody who comes here has to toss some coins in for good luck! That's what I read online, anyways."

Even with the untimely confession of admitting to doing "research" for the first place that Bakugou has had a desire to visit since the start of the trip, the frown on Bakugou curls further downward, the unflattering yet cute wrinkling of his nose beginning to form as he says blandly, "I bet it was from a stupid traveling blog."

There's nowhere to go but forward, so Bakugou doesn't offer up much resistance when Kaminari pulls him off the path and towards the age old display of stone carvings that has garnered up its own crowd in the looming shadow of one of Japan's most popular buildings. The kids present here look to be aiming at the senescent, cracked bowls filled with change, a tough target for any young child who couldn't see much past the wooden railing.  

Kaminari bounces on the balls of his feet, digging around in his pockets for a couple coins as Bakugou voices his distaste, "This is child's play."

It may very well be, but Kaminari is rusty and misses the first few throws. Miffed, Kaminari offers Bakugou to try, covering up his terrible aim to ask, "Then why not take a chance, Mr. I'm-too-cool-for-luck?"

Scowling, Bakugou snatches the coin from his fingers, looking down at the round piece for a moment. Kaminari expects to have it returned back with a half-assed excuse pinned to it, but in a stroke of luck, ironically enough, Bakugou accepts the challenge.

To no surprise, Kaminari hears the clink of stone and metal as Bakugou takes little more than a moment to draw his arm back and flick his wrist, successfully making it into the central bowls on his first try. Kaminari has to give him props for that one, clapping to the chorus of ooh's and wow's from the kids that had paused to watch, handing Bakugou another coin, "Now try throwing for me. I have bad hand-eye coordination."

Bakugou rolls his eyes as the coin is pressed into his palm, "No duh, I was in the same physical ed class as you back in high school, you were fu-" He appears to pause and bite his tongue before turning back to the stone arrangement, "-really terrible at basketball."

Pleased at Bakugou's attempt to smother his usual brashness for the sake of the children that are within earshot, Kaminari agrees, sitting his elbows on the fence as he stares at the way Bakugou scrunches his eyebrows in concentration, "I was, wasn't I? Probably because I was always watching you."

That causes Bakugou to miss by a mile, bouncing their last piece of spare change off one of the stone facets, but Kaminari is sure that, being a loyal believer of naive superstition, he's been granted enough luck to last a week when he's met with Bakugou's furiously flustered expression.

"What?" He asks, feeling the smile on his face grow obnoxiously wide, and a beat passes before he's being dragged away from the display.

"We're leaving. I wanted to come here to see the sights, not throw away money."

Spying a tea shop further down the path, Bakugou was sure going to eat those words once he tried out the tea they served here, even as a man of simple taste for tea. Mentioning the color riding high on Bakugou's cheeks would only backfire on Kaminari, so he lets Bakugou off easy this time, shifting his arm until they're properly linked together and Bakugou has no way of getting out without making a scene, "Lead the way, then."

They had just parked the truck for a minute to take a breather, but commotion to the left has Bakugou shutting his hardcover, a sharp clap of paper against cardboard to seek what's wrong: that catches Kaminari's attention as he's tugging a shirt the rest of the way over his head, one with an all too familiar skull printed to the front, "Is.... that my shirt?"

Combing the static from his hair, Kaminari checks the mirror for any flyaways before sitting back in the driver's seat, hands crossed atop the wheel, "Yeah, all mine are dirty." He smiles crookedly, and, in every sense of the word, cutely, "What, do I look bad in it?"

On the contrary, it fits him quite well for a tank top that Bakugou can hardly move in without the worry of stretching the seams.

He parts the pages again, going back to reading, "Just don't get it caught in the wrong laundry load when you wash it."

"You got it!" Kaminari gives him a quick salute before adding, "Oh, and I hope you don't mind me wearing your sweats either. You know, I don't I'll ever get over how small your waist is-"

Bakugou cuts him off with a wave of his hand, shooing away any further blathering before they could get carried away with it, "Alright, enough about me. Focus on driving."

Kaminari dutifully starts the engine, "Yes sir!"

Bakugou is still thinking about the clothes Kaminari had borrowed when they're a few miles down the road. Sorting through the mental inventory of his suitcase, Bakugou recalls having only one clean pair of sweats left that he kept for emergencies, which unmistakably falls into the same category as being the one he favors most over the rest.

His gut feeling proves right when he sees the district red string of elastic keeping the sweats snugly on Kaminari's hips. Kaminari had made mention of the size of Bakugou's waist, but neglects to remember that he always buys bottoms that are a few sizes too big.

Bakugou averts his eyes before he could judge his staring as too long for almost looking directly at someone's crotch. If not for the implications behind removing another person's clothes in a space as tight as this, Bakugou would've gone and yanked his favorite pair of sweats off Kaminari right then and there. Instead, he settles for crossing his arms and brooding over the odd satisfaction that's beginning to settle in from seeing Kaminari wear his clothes.

Doing laundry no longer sounded like a task of high priority anymore.

"I still can't figure out how the fuck you dragged me into getting piercings with you every goddamn time," Bakugou admits to Kaminari as he's laying back in the operating seat of a tattoo and piercing shop.

No matter what town they visited, scarce population and establishments or not, Kaminari would scour for a place to get a new ear piercing or two before the ones from last time have fully healed. If not for Bakugou's persistence in refusing to risk infection or whatever kinds of conditions came with "being an idiot and not following standard safety precaution," who knows what they could've contracted.

In all fairness, this is only the second shop they've stopped by after Bakugou said fuck it to waiting any longer than a six week period. They could be potentially playing with fire by extending the healing period in adding more piercings so close to the others, but here Bakugou was, sitting in the same seat that Kaminari had taken up earlier, so there was no point in turning back now. They were both strangely resistant to pain too, as it turned out, which is always a plus.

"I can be quite convincing," Kaminari reminds him, "and didn't you say once that getting piercings are badass?"

Bakugou doesn't look quite as threatening, wearing pink clips to pull back his hair and expose his ear, "Not when I'm matching with you!"

"Then what would you call this?" Kaminari asks, curious of what Bakugou thought of this rare but mutual arrangement that's begun to form in the few months they've been traveling. Sure, there were breaks when they came back home, but that only lasted a week or so before they were back on the road, hitting the three week mark today.

"It feels really..." Bakugou pauses as though to search for what to say, but any further prying from Kaminari is cut short as the body piercer rolls up in his chair, wiping the skin to be punctured with a wet swab, and holds the instrument steady so it hovers over Bakugou's ear.

Like the first time, Kaminari extends a hand to be taken, an odd happening for Bakugou who normally shies away from physical contact. But he was human like everyone else, and a little comfort never hurts where it's needed.

He can't quite piece together what word Bakugou would've used before falling quiet, but Kaminari can think of one word that encompasses this tradition as Bakugou squeezes his hand through the sudden sharp sting of the piercing gun forcing the adornment to pierce his skin. Bakugou doesn't blink once through the pain that fades like cool water on fire, pulsing yet bearable, but he does release the breath he's holding, scarlet eyes on him, and Kaminari can't find it in him to look away.

It feels almost... intimate.

The weather is never at its best, even during the summer. They've had their fair share of summer rain and gloom interlaced with the dry spells of nothing but sun, sun, and more sun. These days were filled with little activity and plenty of time to catch up on sleep, like Kaminari was doing, using Bakugou's arm, the most inconvenient replacement for a pillow, to cushion  his head from the hard armrest.

Exiting the highway, Bakugou watches the wall of fog seemingly move with the position of the truck, an illusionary sight that he almost falls for with his lack of sleep. Once he makes it to the stoplight, Bakugou uses those precious seconds to close his eyes shut, forgetting the last time he's gotten a rest.

It wasn't really anyone's fault; he could've merely woken up Kaminari to take over for the night, but the point of this whole trip was to escape the rush, hustle and bustle of duties like arriving at a location at a designated time, when there was no real deadline to be late for here. Bakugou had felt like driving until he couldn't anymore, and now seemed to be the right time to retire from that task.

He remembers the directions his phone had given him before it had died, and makes a right before pulling into the motel parking lot, recognizing the glowing sign that he'd spotted from the highway, flickering sporadically like it was signaling him over through morse code.

Bakugou can hardly make out what time it is, as displayed by the old, rickety clock tower belonging to the motel, but instead of bundling up and toughing out the chance cloudy storm to pay for a room, Bakugou flicks the windshield wipers off and puts the truck into park as best he can with a person on his arm, and makes himself comfortable in the worn seat of his truck.

With the final seconds of caressing warmth from the heater before it clicks off with the keys now removed, and his arm extended in an awkward but not unwelcome position for Kaminari to lay on, Bakugou sinks into his jacket, eyelids heavy and beginning to burn from long hours of staring down a road that stretched no further than a car ahead in every direction.

Guess it was another night in the car. Not that Bakugou was complaining, soon to wake up a few hours later with his head laying against Kaminari's, soreness the last thing on his mind.

Morning comes, and the predicted pain turns out to be quite different than expected.

Seeing red through his shut eyelids, Kaminari sighs and shoves his face into Bakugou's shoulder, turning away from the blinding rays of the sun from its place above the buildings, the thick fog of yesterday a thing of the past. Bakugou is still asleep, a weight on Kaminari's head as they use each other as pillows in the upright positions they've maintained throughout the night. But as much as Kaminari wants to watch Bakugou as he rests, he really should wake him up.

It takes a few prods to Bakugou's side to get him groggy and grumbling about being awake, but he doesn't move far before Kaminari feels a tug on the shell of his ear.

"Bakugou, wait a sec," Kaminari holds his shoulder still, unable to move his head without feeling pain. Bringing his fingers to his ear that had also been pressed up against Bakugou prior to waking up, he searches for what's keeping him there, and finds a stud earring in his ear that's entangled in the loose threads of Bakugou's shirt, "Ow, I think I'm stuck."

Running a hand over his face, Bakugou remarks gruffly, "Are you fucking kidding me?"

Kaminari clears his throat to speak, just now becoming aware of how close they were planted together, "Y-Yeah, this is a first."

"I'll do it." Bakugou bats away Kaminari's fumbling fingers so he can do it himself. Kaminari tilts his head, letting Bakugou work away the knots that had caught on his piercings, wincing every now and again when the metal dug into his skin in a certain direction, which was few and far between under Bakugou's attention and careful touch.

"There." Once releasing the final knot, Kaminari straightens his neck to alleviate the slight ache that had been developing in his crevical muscles. With Kaminari free, Bakugou snaps the useless thread sticking up from the brand new hole on his shirt before tossing it away, "Stupid fucking loose ends, high quality t-shirt my ass."

Kaminari rubs at his ear, only to have Bakugou stop him with a hand, "Don't touch it, idiot."

He lifts his hand up from irritated area of his ear, "Then what else are we gonna do to soothe the pain?" Kaminari tries to recall the instructions for cleaning a piercing, "Well, I have some hydrogen peroxide in my bag, and I think a few cotton balls-" He doesn't catch Bakugou taking matter into his own hands and leaning in until he feels the press of lips on his ear as he's rambling. Kaminari's words crumble and die, the heat rushing to his face and the awareness of Bakugou kissing his ear better cranking up to full sensitivity.  

Bakugou pulls away after a few long seconds of wordless silence, and the place where he'd touched burns hot when Kaminari ghosts his fingers over it. He reattaches his jaw from where it'd fallen slack from shock, working it back into place as he finds the brain power to talk again, "... Or that could work too."

Bakugou is strangely silent when he reaches for Kaminari's backpack sitting in the back seat, grabbing the bottle of antiseptic and package of cotton swabs. Kaminari stiffens at the cold press of cleaning alcohol on his ear when a soaked swab is applied to the inflamed area, but Bakugou takes it as him tensing from the pain, and somehow his touches becomes more gentle. This is certainly a first in being under Bakugou's care without fuss or protest.

"Wanna kiss me somewhere other than my ear?" Kaminari punctuates it with a stuttering laugh, heart lodged in his throat.

"In your dreams," Bakugou speaks with usual snappiness, but he doesn't look at Kaminari once as he puts away the stuff and tosses the bag off to the side, the only hint Kaminari gets of Bakugou being embarrassed about uncharacteristic show of affection.

Being kissed by Bakugou is certainly a common occurrence in Kaminari's dreams, so that was already checked off long ago, not that Bakugou needed to know... just yet.

Biting his lip, Kaminari covers his burning ear, the pain forgotten with Bakugou's unorthodox remedy.

He can tell that Bakugou is getting annoyed with his antsy fidgeting, arms propped on the windowsill of the door and knuckles digging into his temples, but the anxiety-inducing motion doesn't last for much longer once they roll up into town and Kaminari spots the closest store that he's sure to hold a bathroom.

"Hey, can we stop here?" Kaminari pipes up, tapping on the glass window to point out the store where he could find sweet release in relieving his bladder.

Bakugou jerks his head around, hissing out the word in a reflection of his own annoyance, "Why?"

"I have to pee." He's straightforward about it, smiling diffidently as Bakugou sighs in response. There was no doubt that Kaminari was wearing Bakugou's patience dangerously thin with his words alone.

"I just asked you an hour ago if you needed to use the restroom. In the last town."

"I didn't have to go at the time."

"I'm dealing with a fucking child," Kaminari hears Bakugou says to himself, or perhaps directly to him. It certainly sounded better in Kaminari's head, but he doesn't have to think up a better excuse when Bakugou pulls over to the curb, "Fine, but make it quick."

Bakugou at the beginning this trip would've just kept driving or thrown a bigger fit before letting Kaminari off, but he's begun to stomach his complaints and let the minor inconveniences go, which Kaminari is eternally grateful for, and almost prideful about. His change in attitude wasn't just an individual effort.

"Thanks!" He'd kiss Bakugou right now out of gratitude, but his bladder would sooner explode before he could gather the courage to make such a bold move. Maybe later. For now, Kaminari unbuckles his seatbelt and runs out, albeit awkwardly with the sensitivity of each step. He can already hear Bakugou making a sarcastic mention of it when he returns, but lately, they've started to sound more like teasing and less condescending as the days have passed.

Having such odd, unreliable traveling schedules has really fucked up their sleeping and eating schedules, as Bakugou feels a rumble come from his insides and leave him with a strange sense of emptiness in the pit of his stomach. They're not far from the hotel, the place they've been staying at for the past few days to get their bearings on visiting a brand new prefecture, but in a moment of weakness and intense craving for food, Bakugou enters the shopping center a block away from the establishment.

Lightly sleeping at the time before Bakugou stops the car, Kaminari shield his eyes against the inner car lights that brighten to life, blinking them open to see better, or worse, in the drastic visibility change, "What time is it?"

"Ass crack in the morning. Hell if I know," Bakugou answers, not bothering to check. He feels the truck rock with Kaminari's stretching as he extends his arms to the high roof, "You coming or not?"

As he shuts off the light, he can make out Kaminari rubbing his eyes, "I thought we were going to the hotel?"

"I'm hungry, so I thought I might as well but some groceries. It'll only take a few minutes. You can stand up on your own two feet, can't you?" Bakugou asks, mostly out of sarcasm, which Kaminari doesn't catch in his somnolent state.

"Hm, I guess..." Kaminari shrugs, speech slurred from sleep. He doesn't have to join Bakugou, but despite that, has decided to do so anyways.

Bakugou gets out, shutting his door only to hear a suspiciously loud thud from the other side of the vehicle. Peeking over, he finds the car door swinging out wide and no Kaminari, but hears him groan out, "... Ow."

Perhaps this wasn't such a good idea to let Kaminari, who's been out like a light for most of the day, to be up and about.

Before Bakugou can call him, Kaminari picks himself up off what Bakugou can assume to be the floor, having forgotten in that moment that leaning on a door as he opened it would end with him falling out of the truck. He brushes himself off before prying his eyes open and flashing him a weak thumbs up, "I-I'm okay."

On the way in, Bakugou hovers behind Kaminari in case he's half as clumsy as he was getting out of the truck. Not that it wasn't funny to see Kaminari try to function while delirious with sleep, but a chipped tooth or broken nose could put a damper to the night or early morning or whatever hour of the day it was. He does lose sight of Kaminari when they enter the automatic sliding doors and asks him to grab a cart, but true to their plan, Kaminari comes over after a handful of slow-crawling minutes Bakugou spent weighing ramen versus yakisoba.

What Bakugou comes face to face with when he greets Kaminari really shouldn't have been as surprising as he makes it sound, "Why the fuck are you in the cart?"

Kaminari laces his fingers on his stomach, shifting his weight so his legs dangle from either side of the cart, "You've forced me awake, it's only right that you push me around in return."

Bakugou waves the noodle package in his hands as he speaks, "I didn't- Does everything I say just go in one ear, and out the other?"

"Just the stuff I don't wanna do." Closing his eyes, Kaminari waves him away like a king dealing dealing with flippant matters and a fickle audience, "Now onward, mush."

Bakugou checks the aisle they're in, seeing an employee at the other end that can care less about a grown adult crammed into one of their carts. They're both ready to turn in, so Bakugou lets Kaminari's lethargy slide for tonight. All he wanted was some noodles, and for convenience, stopping by for a snack was a better alternative to purchasing the overpriced ones courtesy of the hotel establishment looking to slip a few more dollars from their occupants.

"Whatever, just don't drop anything." Bakugou dumps the groceries onto Kaminari's lap, not caring if they spilled over. He pushes the cart, intending to stop by the snack aisle. They were running low on Kaminari's favorite candy, if Bakugou was recalling their stock correctly. He was already dozing in the cart, somehow finding a comfortable position in the metal bars and hard angles.

Bakugou purposely runs the cart into a pole on the way to the next aisle, jolting Kaminari awake for the sweet taste of petty satisfaction when he jerks up in a daze, and so he can ask him which one exactly is his favorite, but that's the only time. Kaminari doesn't need to know that Bakugou helps him out of the cart and buckles him into his seat once he's got everything they needed.

"How much money you got on you?" Leaving their hotel room for the day, Bakugou hands Kaminari the spare key, "As you know, this town only accepts cash."

Patting down his pockets for his wallet, Kaminari counts the bills inside, "Mm, not much."

"We are not living off gas station food for another week because you blew all your money on fucking souvenirs in the middle of fucking nowhere," Bakugou says, actually shuddering at the memory, like all the steel had left his spine.

"That was fun!" Kaminari begs to differ, putting away his wallet, but he goes back on his word in the next moment, thinking hard on it, "... Okay, yeah, maybe I did feel sick and throw up a little, but-" He stops to muffle a laugh as he remembers how Bakugou had groaned and griped about the stomachache he had from consuming more candy in one day than he'd ever eaten in his whole life.

That tourist trap from a few weeks back in the middle of nowhere had been a money pit, according to Bakugou. He was probably right, but Kaminari was pretty sure they still had the bag of knick knacks and goodies somewhere in the back, only granted the privilege to stay in their possession because he refused to let Bakugou toss them out. That meant they at least had some retaining value apart from "glorified trash".

Bakugou shoots him a glare, daring him to bring it up again as he gets into the truck, "I'm going to the nearest atm and we're gonna eat at a real restaurant, goddammit." Like any other place they've stayed in for an extended period of time, Bakugou has already memorized the layout of the streets they've frequented. For a Kaminari swears he has a photographic memory sometimes, which could be how he passes all their midterms with little studying.

He stops, forgetting Bakugou's impressive show of memory for a second to ask, "Wait, you're paying?"

"Who else is going to?" Bakugou questions back, as though it was obvious that he be the one to cover for the bill whenever they eat out at restaurants, like he always does.

"I could do it," Kaminari suggests as a last ditch effort. He did feel a little bad that Bakugou was always the one paying.

"I obviously have better taste in food, so don't bother." Well, Bakugou wasn't wrong about that. Kaminari snorts at the stubborn purse of Bakugou's lips as he backs out of their parking spot, allowing a minute to pass before he brings forth a compromise, "You can cover dessert, if you'd like. Your choice."

Kaminari looks at him incredulously, "Really? Anything?"

Bakugou glances over at him, choosing his words carefully, "Just... nothing I'm gonna get a damn heart attack from."

That still left a vast range of selections to choose from. Kaminari wholeheartedly agrees, grinning broadly, "Okay!"

Bakugou knows not to expect decisions to always come that easy. A perfect example of what their arguments normally tends to stem from is when he changes the radio station, but no sooner than when his finger leaves the buttons does Kaminari switch it back over.

Bakugou's eyes twitches. Being the driver, Kaminari has easy access to the wheel's system controls, including the secondary controls for the radioーand he's set on letting the song play out in its 10-minute entirety of indecipherable vocals and head-throbbing screeches of a guitar.

They glare at each other over the armrest. Bakugou meets Kaminari's stubborn line of a frown by flashing the barest hint of teeth, digging his elbow into the rubber and using his slight height advantage in the truck to tell Kaminari, "I'm not playing around. Get rid of this shit, or I'll gladly do it for you."

Kaminari glowers back with just as much heat, "You are not changing the station! This is my favorite song!"

A song that has been overplayed one too many times. It was as though the DJs seemingly used nothing but the same playlist every afternoon when they were stuck in traffic, appeasing Kaminari's peculiar tastes and sure to drive Bakugou crazy. "Keep talking, and this is the last song you're ever gonna fucking hear!"

"Ew, it's way too hot to be almost nighttime," Kaminari complains with a whine, peeling away the collar of his shirt from his skin. He's already unbuttoned the top buttons of his shirt, using one of the old magazines Bakugou kept stored in the back to cool himself down. Spending the day in a car with heat wave temperatures is one of many downsides to a road trip. "Can you turn on the AC, Bakugou?"

While Kaminari voices his complaints, Bakugou prefers to keep his to himself, sure to go crazy if they filled every minute of every day with protest. "You're hot?"

"Appearance-wise, yes. I'm glad you think so," Kaminari replies cockily, laughing into his hand when Bakugou feel his cheeks burn with the heat of the car and something else, "But yeah, I'm nearly drenched in sweat. We should be good regarding the engine, right?"

On the dash, the needle for the coolant temperature sensor twitches midway up the scale, but nowhere near the red line, meaning that the engine wasn't going to be overheating anytime soon.

Bakugou is all too aware of the sweat plastering his shirt to his back, and the mucky heat as he draws in a breath, so he grunts in agreement, turning the air conditioning system on. It takes a minute or two of bated silence before they feel the effects, and share a sigh of bliss.

Kaminari puts down his makeshift fan, bringing his face close to the vents, "Ahh, thanks."

The next hour passes with little interruption, Bakugou watching the forest scenery shift into one of the sea, and Kaminari alternating between leaning over his crossed legs to enjoy the refreshing air and asking if they were at their destination yet, incapable of understanding that posing the question every five minutes wasn't going to make time pass any quicker.  

Reclining back into his chair once the heat becomes tolerable in the small space of the truck, Kaminari fixes his sunglasses back over his eyes as the sun reflects off the side mirror, still peeking out through the hills at their backs. It's impossible to distinguish between the blond of Kaminari's hair, and the orange light aglow on his skin as he quietly watches the sunset.

That thought drags Bakugou's gaze back to the road and away from the peaceful expression Kaminari wears, blaming the heavy thumping of his heart on the looming cliff that lingers mere feet from the truck's wheels. He has no fear of heights, but following his better judgement, Bakugou leaves it at that, knowing that lingering in his thoughts would only complicate his already convoluted feelings that he'd hoped to escape.

They set up camp in an empty yet modest campground, no less then a few hundred feet from the dirt road where the truck sits parked for the night, in a small cluster of trees where the outskirts crest into a small hill that overlook the beach. The ocean is obscured by this hill, but the larger waves that come with the rise of the moon are an indication that a little fun in the water was only a two-minute trek away.

Sitting together on the blanket Bakugou had thrown out from the trunk in their unpacking for the night came to be of some use with the discovery of a hidden box of beer that Kaminari didn't know was tucked into the furthest corner. According to Bakugou, he'd bought it a few stops back on that late foggy night in search of groceries, nearly a lifetime ago by traveling standards. It was only fair that they'd make use of the alcohol in the easiest matter possibleーby drinking it.

Kaminari finds his distracted thoughts yielded by Bakugou speaking, "My turn?"

Taking his eyes off the sea, Kaminari smiles at Bakugou in a challenge. He takes it, putting a bit of thought into his next words, probably concerned about how he was losing a game for the first time in his drinking years. "Alright. Never have I ever cried my way out of a speeding ticket."

"Three games, and you still haven't learned, Bakugou." Kaminari shakes his head, lifting the can to his lips and tasting the sharp, Tandy character of the beer. He's certainly had better drinks than this. "Can I replace the crying with flirting and call it a done deal?"

"You actually did that?" Bakugou raises an eyebrow, a hint of disbelief in his tone before the surprise melts away, "Shit, of course you would. Since you're so set on drinking for pleasure instead of following the rules of a game you suggested, be my guest. Don't expect me to pick your drunk ass off the floor later."

"I'll be fine." Setting the can to the side, Kaminari leans forward on his elbows, "Okay, okay, I got one for you, Bakugou. Never have I ever invited someone to join me in a crazy countrywide road trip."

Bakugou pauses with the can already halfway to his lips. Most of the things Kaminari says are strangely specific instances that hit a bullseye with Bakugou, so he's just begun to take a drink with every new round. Being friends with Bakuhou since high school has given Kaminari quite a lot of insight into Bakugou's exciting life.

"That's a low blow." But Bakugou downs the rest of his drink anyway like he'd done with the last two. Even with Kaminari purposefully taking more sips than needed, he rightfully assumes. his place as victor for the third time in a row.

Kaminari cracks up when he crushes it against his forehead after emptying it to its last drop, the weak metal no match to Bakugou's sheer strength.

"I feel like it's super late to ask this question," Kaminari starts, waiting for Bakugou to toss away his old can for a new one, "but why'd you ask me to come with you? On this trip, I mean."

It was something he's been meaning to ask Bakugou for a while, dating back as far as that first week of aimless driving and arguing over who would pay for gas, all while wondering if this was a good decision, and not a bust that would get old in a day. Kaminari hardly remembers the stress of being stuck alone in the same breathing space as Bakugou day in and day out. Nowadays, it was all second nature, being together, but it took a great deal of learning to find a kind of harmony in their travels.

Bakugou pops the tab, careful of the foaming bubbles that stir up from being jostled around back, "Why, you want me to take you home and leave you there for real?"

"It's quite the opposite, actually. As a matter of fact, I like being here, but I was just curious. You aren't the type to suddenly up and decide to partake in a road trip for the whole summer." It may come as a universal assumption to most that Bakugou is impulsive, but he doesn't always base his actions on a lack of rhyme or reason. Not the important ones that take up a few months of a person's life, anyway.

"Who doesn't wanna take a break from college?" Bakugou says in a blatant dodge of what Kaminari was expecting to hear.

"It's only been a few years," Kaminari notes. He also notes how Bakugou begins to bristle at that.

"I know that!" He hardly raises his voice before it falls back to normal. He scratches his head out of habit, but mostly frustration, "It's like I said, sometimes you just gotta get away for a while to, I don't know, find yourself or whatever inspirational crap you're time these days. Not that I have trouble with that. I'm right here."

Coming from Bakugou, those last three words sound like a reminder to himself more than anything, the type of mantra Kaminari would say when he'd find himself in a rough patch and in need of a little self-assurance. "Of course you are," Kaminari says softly, "I can see you crystal clear."

The frown lines etched into Bakugou's face fade, and he's back to playing with the drink in his hands, spilling a bit on his fingers with the constant swirling of its contents, "As for why I dragged you out here with me..." He has little more to offer than a brief shrug of his shoulders, "Who knows. I just thought it'd be... fun for us to do. Together. We never hung out a lot because of school, so..."

All this time, Kaminari had thought it was out of convenience. Kirishima was booked the whole summer with sports camp, and everybody but Kaminari had plans for the extended vacation between semesters. Being one of his three roommates, he was the only one free when Bakugou emerged from his bedroom one morning and asked him if he wanted to take a drive, luggage full of clothes dragging behind him. No simple drive involved needing a change of clothes.

To think that Bakugou had beat around the bush for so long that he couldn't find the right time to ask until everybody had left campus for the summer and Kaminari was eating away his sorrows with cereal that same day.

With the sun no longer in sight, the solar-powered lantern at their feet blinks to life. Kaminari watches the faux fire dance along Bakugou's features, and finds himself nodding along with his words. It's a very Bakugou answer, but one that Kaminari can understand. Not quite as many obstacles block Kaminari like they do with Bakugou, who aims as high as the sun, where everybody can see him, far out of reach but close enough to look up admire.

Bakugou and a star are almost one and the same. The only difference is that Kaminari can see and touch him in the entirety of his fiery presence.

Kaminari sips his drink, biting the brim of the aluminum can nervously. He never would've thought that Bakugou and love would go so well together until this very moment.

Silence falls with the night, and the telltale signs of buzzing insect life has Kaminari sighing in relief that he'd put on bug spray before all this. He uncurls his legs at the tell-tale urge to get up and stretch, maybe even take a piss before heading into the tent for some sleep, but Bakugou hasn't moved, still nursing his beer in his hands and watching for the stars that have begun to light up the night sky, so neither will he.

By now, his eyes have adjusted to the dark and the sparse lighting of the lantern, so much so that he's able to see Bakugou's lips move when he speaks.

"You ever heard of you can turn your ashes into a firework after you die?" An odd question to pop at a time like this, but from previous examples, Kaminari has heard worse. "Go out with a bang or some badass shit like that."

"Sounds like a lifelong dream you'd have on your wish list," Kaminari admits, imagining what a firework with Bakugou's face would look like. Comical, at the very least. But also nice, a sight that Kaminari wouldn't mind seeing if not for the whole dying part. He laughs a little at that, going back to drinking his bitter beer.

Bakugou has to snort at that. "A dream for when I'm dead, yeah." A carefree one, given the scale of goals and aspirations he possesses, but a dream nonetheless.

Kaminari splays his hands on the down blanket, planting it between them. Bakugou feels their shoulders brush, and peers at him as he stares up at the sky.

"You'd make a pretty firework. All orange and yellow, the kind that would go off with a deafening boom and light up the sky." Kaminari lifts a hand and extends his fingers out, making the motion and sound of an explosion for imagery effect before smiling. "That'd surely turn more than a few heads."

"Maybe a dash of red added into it, for your eyes." Kaminari's head finds its way to Bakugou's bare shoulder, nothing to catch him and keep him close but Bakugou's arm, which twitches at the idea as Kaminari stares up at him like he's kin to the luminous moon above, "Real bright... and beautiful." The look Kaminari gives him isn't unfamiliar, but the raw intensity of it spurs Bakugou to act for the first time.

Bakugou blindly puts down his can, not caring if it makes a mess of the blanket, and catches Kaminari's wrist, thin enough that he can easily wrap his index and thumb around it with no problem. He listens for the hitch of breath, feels the thundering of Kaminari's heartbeat in the vessels of his wrist as he accepts the gentle guidance into his lap, knees knocking before they settle with purpose on either side of him.

"Is... this okay?" A question Bakugou should've asked before everything else, but one that's needless once Kaminari nods fervently for him to continue.

Only after Bakugou lets go do those same hands creep up his chest, and Bakugou should regret wearing something thin, feeling the sweat on his brow and gathering in his palms, Kaminari's touch burning through his shirt like a brand, but instead, he leans into the heat threatening to consume him, resting his hands atop Kaminari's hips. The weight of Kaminari on top of him is a physical one, but Bakugou's heart is lighter than it's felt in days, the strange sense of dread that's been crawling all over his skin now lifting away.

But while the inner pent up turmoil disappears, the outer, more obvious problems come riding up with a vengeance. In hopes of alleviating the heat gathering in his cheeks from the intimacy of mere touch, Bakugou tries looking away, but his eyes don't stray far, falling on the red, tender skin of Kaminari's pierced ear, yet to house a new set of studs from their last visit. It doesn't help Bakugou's current state of sanity that he has matching holes along the helix of his own ear, like there was meant to be an underlying meaning behind sharing something so visible for everyone to see.

As each day passes, Bakugou is starting to think that maybe there is an explanation under all the layers they've kept these emotions trapped in; ones that he's never acknowledged until now.

He feels goosebumps rise on his arms as Kaminari curls his fingers around the side of his neck, thumb pressing into the skin below his ear, and Bakugou has always been sensitive about being touched, but there's something about Kaminari doing it, who relies as heavily on skinship as he does on his words, that makes this whole situation feel natural and right.

Bakugou is well aware that if he had really wanted to, he could've made a sharp turn back to home on that first day and ended it right there and then. No exploring, no quiet, bonding moments, no them. But having Kaminari agree to join him; the kind of guy that ran on a ride or die mentality for anyone he cared aboutーBakugou didn't know how dedicated Kaminari was, not just to this trip, but to being his company along the way.

Past the point of admiring, Kaminari quietly asks, in by far the smallest voice Bakugou has heard in juxtaposition to his deafening actions, "Can I kiss you?"

He's leaning as he asks, urging him on to answer. Bakugou answers in the same breath that Kaminari sighs against his lips, "Fuck yeah."

And Bakugou will own up to the fact that he rather likes the idea of them together, in any way possible.

He can stand the taste of alcohol this time, already looking forward to when he can kiss Kaminari tomorrow, with the spirits faded from his tongue but imprinted into Bakugou's memory as he kisses him again and again, as much as he wants. Maybe the next time will be when they're no longer under the moon with a view of the ocean, but those aren't what Bakugou wants to focus on, much more interested in how Kaminari breathes heavy on his lips. In a laugh or a sigh he doesn't know, for they sound the same as music to Bakugou's ears.

"You're drunk," Bakugou's voice comes out hoarse, and his throat is parched, but cheap beer isn't going to quench this kind of thirst with Kaminari sitting in his lap.

"So are you," Kaminari nudges back, "Doesn't change the fact that I really, really like you. A lot."

"I... like you too." There's nothing to it now that they've taken the leap. Confessing almost seems unnecessary after the physical display of emotions that Bakugou just experienced. Still, it's nice to hear the words themselves.  

"Next time buy some choice alcohol for me, will you?" Kaminari asks kindly, laying his head and giving him those puppy eyes that he's perfected, learned from the best. And by the best, he means Kirishima.

Bakugou laughs from the back of his throat, perhaps one of the loudest he's ever let out, "You fucking leech."

"I do my part on this trip." Kaminari says with a teasing lilt, pleased with himself as he pats Bakugou's cheek, "Which now includes this." Bakugou doesn't get another coherent word out that night once Kaminari connects their lips again.

The crashing of waves wakes Kaminari from his light sleep.

He rubs from the sleep from his eyes, yawning. It's silent in the car, because Bakugou never likes driving with music in the morning, but he doesn't mind Kaminari rolling down the window and letting nature's music in.

His ears flood with the sounds of water below as they drive along. The desire to keep up conversation had long since died away before he'd turned in, letting Bakugou take over driving duties.

Following this oceanside road through Maizuru, they were bound to reach another multitude of campgrounds soon, where they had plans to spend the whole day, Bakugou's handy camping equipment packed away in the truck and still in good condition from yesterday's usage.

Maybe it was just him, but the ocean smelled the same no matter where they ended up. The time of the year and the weather conditions surely must have some effect, but beyond the traditional salty yet fresh smell of the sea, Kaminari isn't picky about it at all

He sits back down, hair unpleasantly ruffled from the strong ocean wind, which he reaches up to fix. Out of the corner of his eye, Kaminari can see Bakugou staring at him, but when he asks him what's up, Bakugou just shrugs and pays back attention to the windy road he seamlessly navigates through with one hand on the wheel.

This is a breezy ride compared to that one trip to the mountains where Kaminari had ended up stalling the car for overheating the engine from the climb. Bakugou has yet to forgive Kaminari, but thankfully he's granted him the privilege of driving againーon flat highways, that is.

They pass through a city by the beach, and like Kaminari had predicted, a familiar shop wedged between a flower shop and restaurant catches his eye.

"Hey, Katsuki." Bakugou twitches at the name. It's going to be a while before he gets used to being addressed as so. "Mind if we make a stop? I'm sure you'll recognize it once we see it."

The narrowing of Bakugou's eyes tells Kaminari that he already knows which place he's talking about.

Stepping into the tattoo and piercing shopping yet again fills Bakugou with a sense of déjà vu of a moment long time passed. It very well could've happened in another life, rather than two months ago, with how much has changed between him and Kaminari, who holds his hand tighter, leading him to one wall to take a look.

"Let's get matching piercings!"

"Again? I have enough damn holes in my ears to play connect the dots," Bakugou admonishes, but makes no move to drag them out and avoid another two-for-one piercing special, curious of what new stuff they have in store from last time.

"I just noticed. If you follow it, it's almost like a heart," At his side, Kaminari wonders aloud, tracing the shape of his ear, from helix to lobe, as he looks into one of the handheld mirrors on display.

"Then where's the other half?" Bakugou asks absently, eyes roving the selection.

Kaminari laughs under his breath, as though the answer is already obvious. Kaminari, with his finger sitting in the loop of his earring, long, untrimmed hair falling into his face from the slow-crawling weeks they've been on the road for the summer, escaping college and responsibilities after a late night whim of a requestーone of many decisions that Bakugou doesn't regret in the slightest.

"Maybe with you," Kaminari says softly, glancing over as he hides a smile with the back of his hand.

Bakugou gives him a good, long look, fighting off the rising blush from the honesty, "... Let's get your damn piercing, then."

Kaminari actually freezes, smile falling out of surprise, the hope coming back into his voice, "Really?"

He jerks in a nod, leaving the wall to inquire about a walk-in appointment, "Yes, now come on." It doesn't take long for his hand to be grabbed and thank you's to fall on his ear. Kaminari's sappy revelation certainly made zero sense, but perhaps a dash of impossibility is what Bakugou needs in life.  

It's already bright enough in the back of the shop to be met with the brilliance of Kaminari's smile once a new temporary stud finds its way through his skin, so Bakugou blocks it out by shoving a mirror into his face, holding a cotton ball to the newest addition to his own ear, which is a familiar ache by now. It's certainly one he can associate with the fluttering of sickeningly sweet butterflies in his belly when Kaminari brushes away his fingers to take the cotton from his fingers and aid in soothing the stinging pain.

This may well be their last visit here, with the coming signs of fall that can only mean the start of the semester and classes. Still, Bakugou has just enough time to spare to kiss Kaminari before they have to head over to the front and payーand as long as he can make time for moments like this, Bakugou is sure that he'll be an unstoppable force to the not-so-immovable object that is the world.

[davidbaker1095-blog]

2 Minute Survival Game: Week 2 Review

Hi Everyone! Welcome to the second installment of my weekly project reviews on the 2 Minute Survival Game project. This week I got up to some production style work earlier on before setting up the project and version control and getting to work.

As I said in the content I shared at the time, production is the area that I want to build my career on and so it was exciting to get down to work in that area. I feel like that enthusiasm is something that would set my solo project methodologies apart from the a lot of my peers' work. I get the general impression that a lot of people consider the planning, measuring and documentation of production as simply work, and optional work at that. I can see where they are coming from in that, for many, the fun of the project is making a thing and really exercising one's creativity. Production can often be seen as getting in the way of that because it forces you to step back and think about how you will complete the project in a timely, and in commercial projects, cost effective, manner. Especially in the case of non-commercial, passion driven work, why shouldn't you just get stuck in and enjoy the creative process? Well, I would argue that, through investing in production related tasks, you would probably save time in the long run through much more efficient project work and on top of this you would have much more assured understandings and realistic expectations of the project. These benefits are exponentially greater the larger the development team is.

For me this week, my main production related efforts focused on creating the project's feature list and setting up some project management software. The feature list is really important because it forces you to nut out every little thing that will go into the project, as you currently see it, right at the start. The feature list can change overtime, sometimes drastically as big design decisions are made, so you don't have to worry about feeling locked in by this process either. If your feature list includes time estimates, you will also be able to get an understanding of how long the project will take, and how big of an investment it needs to be. If the results aren’t acceptable, it is the perfect time to iterate on the design and potentially increase your manpower and financial resources before you waste the resources you have developing prematurely on a doomed project. While, in my case, the estimated timeline of the Two Minute Survival Game is much longer than I initially planned to take on, I accepted this and now go forward with accurate expectations that I have bought into. Attaining that buy-in is a big step in getting the project up and running well. It's especially important in team environments because the last thing you want is a key team member dropping out later on because the thing is too big and too much work and they never really bought into that. You want all of your team members on the same wave length and the results of production work will help with this.

So, after the feature list, I set up of the project management software. I've heard people say that they think maintaining project management software just adds more work than it’s worth in a project. It's an interesting topic because project management software can usually be set up in a variety of ways and It is becoming increasingly evident to me that you need to set up your project management software in a way that is synergistic with your team and development culture. That means it has to line up with your team's workflows, it has to be intuitive to the team and it has to efficiently provide information to team members that actually helps them. If the system isn't helpful, is frustrating or simply requires time from the team that they are not willing to invest in it then they simply won't use it. If they do use it at that point, it will negatively detract from their experience of the project. In my case, I have translate my feature list into my Hack 'n' Plan project. In Hack 'n' Plan I have been listing tasks I need to do to deliver features, as well as my story point estimates for each task. Summing up these estimates allows me to adjust my original estimate for the feature and observe how that affects the project timeline. After completing the tasks I listed, I went back and logged the actual amount of work completed.

After the project management work was out of the way it was time to get down to business with some development. Naturally, there was some overhead with this too in the form of setting up the unity project and setting up a version control system. Version control is one of those things that is really important to know and use as a software developer but also has a fairly steep learning curve. For me at least it took a long time, and lots of forced practice, to get to where I am with Git because the whole system is quite different from anything else I have worked with and so it was harder for me to understand it intuitively. It's certainly useful though, as I said before, it is great to learn about version control because it is very important for teams. It is also great if your computer blows up.

One advantage I didn't think about which was brought up later was that Git stores a new version of your project in a server every time you commit and push. It's like making a new file every time you save. This is great because, if you ever break your project at any point for whatever reason, you can go back to a point in time where it was safe.

I'm still having problems with my .gitignore file but I asked one of my programming acquaintances about it and they gave me some very helpful advice which I will try to implement next time I interact with my version control system. The problem seems to have mostly come around from a lack of understanding of how the .gitignore works. It's all part of the learning process though and I am excited to get to know how to use it properly.

As for development on the game itself, this week mainly held a focus on implementing some of the fundamental content. This included setting up the grid based environment and placing an instance of the player object on that grid. The grid based environment system was easier to implement than I had expected. Simply watching a first party unity tutorial and utilising the principles outlined was enough. Once this was done, putting in the code to get a player object onto the grid was also fairly straight forward. The thing that took the biggest investment from me this sprint was putting in the front, back, left and right idle animations for the player.  I wanted to implement these things in the spirit of delivering whole features in a sprint rather than part features. Here, the feature was the player instance on the grid. In my mind, the feature wasn't going to be completely until the code, art and sound was implemented. In this case there was no sound associated with the feature so it was just the code and art.

I have a programming and production focused background, and have been looking forward engaging in my less experienced game development disciplines. I understand that, usually, the first step for creating character art is to create some concept art and turnarounds using the information given in the character designs as well as any writing that might help flesh out who the character is supposed to be. I feel like this is a great way to deliver more believable, appropriate, character art. Saying that, I ended up totally skipping this step this time. In hindsight It could have helped me go through the process of defining what a character looks like better beforehand so I may try it next time.

In this case, I got caught up on the fact that I had no idea how I would implement the character art. I know a lot of people use Photoshop to make their animations before importing them into unity. Apart from that I didn't actually know much about what I was going to be doing. I also don't have access to Photoshop because I'm not willing to pay for it, or pirate it. My free  trial of creative cloud was used up last year as well. In the past I had used Gimp for some basic image editing but I didn't know whether you could create pixel art or animations in Gimp.

Internet tutorials came to the rescue again however and I soon knew how to create pixel art sprite sheets in Gimp as well as slice those sprite sheets, create the animations and hook up the animations in Unity. The last of those processes, hooking up the animations, was something I have experience in, in the 3D context, from my Bees Won't Exist work last year. After learning those things, I got so excited that I jumped straight into gimp and started messing around with the pixel art while totally forgetting the concept art/turnaround stage.

It took me a few hours and a few attempts to make a humanoid silhouette I was happy with but after that I was really rolling. Most of the choices as to what the character would look like were made in quick succession as I filled out that silhouette with colour. Eventually it ended up being a pretty ordinary looking guy with a white T-Shirt and Jeans. I decided to run with this as I thought it would work well with what I have in mind for the game's beginning aesthetic. It took me a while to figure out how the characters eyes would look and I perhaps went into too much detail with them because, in game, you can't really see the detail as the character is too small. There was a funny moment when I ended up drawing huge eyes on the character and he looked totally shocked. I may end up using something like that in the game. Maybe his eyes get super wide when something scary happens. It would be subtle and temporary but I feel like it could make a good polish feature and make the character seem more believable.

Once I had figured out the idle starting frame, I put some thought into how the idle animation would actually work. I've ended up just moving his head up and down one pixel every frame and had him blink every fourth cycle. Later on, when I was creating the animation, I ended up making the animation cycle at one frame per second so it looks like he is breathing. After that, the rest was just pushing through similar sprite sheets one by one for the back, left and right side versions. I probably could have just made one side version and flipped it in unity but I figured it was just extra practice with GIMP at this point.

To allow the player to see all sides of the character at this point, I decided it was worth putting in basic controls which change the characters direction of facing in code. This code will be expanded next week for the player movement feature. With all of that work done, I now have an animated player who can start on any point in the grid and will turn on command. Turning seems a little less snappy than I would like but hopefully that can be fixed with tweaking later.

That's it for this week! Looking forwards to next sprint, I will be implementing player movement, including animations and sound. The sound part should be interesting as it is also new to me. I will also be working on some wall and floor art so, by this time next week, I should have an animated player character walking around a room with no windows or doors. That may not sound too exciting but I feel like it's a case of slowly but surely bringing things together.

[kwankwokunit1]

Week 7, 8 & 9 - Turnaround Sheet

During the first week of this mini project, we were given ideas of concepts that we will need to base our character on. I was given Ninja, zips and buttons as my concepts of character.

I begun the project by further researching on the topic of Ninja, seeing what the ‘traditional’ clothing they wore during that era reminded me of the modern pants that people wore that were similar to those pants. I’ve also researched on the different types of weapons that they may use or carry, sketching out ideas as I was researching. I wanted the clothing of the character to link closely to the old era as much as I can, looking up at kimono patterns that I could use for the clothing as well as looking at templates of a kimono.

Here are the ideas that I came up with along with the research:

At the beginning, I wasn’t sure what I wanted to draw or how the character to be so I begin to note down the possible ideas that I could use on paper first. The more research and reference I have taken, I begun to see how I wanted the character to look and so I begun to sketch out my idea on a separate page. This task was more difficult that I was expecting as I thought I knew what or how I wanted the character to look but without any research it would be more difficult to draft out my idea.

This is the initial idea for my character, using the kimono and pants as I tried to make it as close to the era as possible. Creating other details such as the mask, weapons, katana casing and hair pin that would link to the concept of buttons and zips. However, the concepts are as clear as I hoped to be becuase I was only focusing on the idea of ‘Japanese’ clothing and ninja rather than the concept that I was given. Nevertheless, I think the character turned out good but it could’ve been better if I followed the concept more closely.

For the clothing, I’ve created a template for them as I wanted to show them in more details. The kimono has one long sleeve whilst the other is a short sleeve, I wanted to create that fantasy look therefore I decide to change some of the elements from the clothing. The right template is of the inner suit of the character, it is inspired by the traditional ‘miko’ uniform from Japan. Since the occupation of the character is an assassin I’ve changed some element of the clothing to make it easier to move around in.

With our initial sketch of our character done, we moved onto creating our turnaround sheet for the character. We first talked about the basic of a turnaround sheet as it is a illustration that shows different angle of the character, the details that may not be visible in one angle may be visible at another. Therefore it is important that we use guidelines to help us to draw those details in the same place without it being out of place:

This is the final turnaround sheet that I’ve completed for my character, by using the guidelines I have managed to keep everything in the same place as the character turns. The part that I found it difficult was drawing the side profile of the character, especially the head area that I found the most difficult in. Overall, I think the turnaround sheet turned out better than I was expecting and I am very pleased with how it turned out at the end.

During the final weeks, we begun to scan in our turnaround sheet so that we can render it in Photoshop. We went through some techniques in which we can render our character and which tool would work best, I’ve first applied a dark background under the scanned in turnaround sheet so that I can see the colours when I am rendering the character. We then erase the white background from the turnaround sheet before working on it, pressing shift + ctrl + alt +2 to select all the white parts of the layer with the marquee tool. Right click on the layer and select inverse, move over to the layer mask tool to apply a layer on top. So whenever we erase something there’s always a way for us to retrieve what we erase.

I’ve first coloured my character with the base colours before working on the details such as shadow and lighting so that I can build it up with different layers.

Overall, I think the rendering process was not as hard as I was expecting. There are some difficult parts such as selecting the right tone of colour when I am trying to render it and those small details that need to be coloured in, the process of making the pattern for the kimono was the most difficult part as I need to figure out which way the circles goes too create the similar texture that I have drawn on paper. 

Nevertheless, I think this helps me understand the process of rendering better and it was fun to do so. In the future I would hope to be able to add more details such as the shadow because I was lacking the time to do so and was not sure how to create that perfect shades, I would like to attempt rendering with a graphic tablet next time to see the difference. 

[hey-i-wrote-a-story]

Chapter 24 A Safe Harbor

           Melissa McCall was accustomed to long days. So much so that it was a treat, if not a blessing, when they day actually ended after she clocked out at the hospital. Trained as an RN, Melissa often found herself at ground zero, or at the very least the frenzied triage, when supernatural disaster visited the town. Impossible ailments, hallways littered with the casually slain, spontaneous on-site smack-downs between monsters and demons, Melissa had seen it all. Given the incredible turnaround at the Beacon Hills Hospital due to death and dismemberment, it was remarkable how well they were able to keep the place staffed. Luckily, they had a phenomenal employee health plan.

           Today was a rare gift. The only thing that happened in the hospital were ordinary hospital things. Cuts, bruises, a stroke, one traffic accident, two births, an initial treatment for maturity onset diabetes, and a burst appendix. That was it. The newbies did a lot of frantic running around, but Melissa sailed through it all with quiet aplomb. Compared to giant werewolves blended from smaller werewolves, demon-possessed teenagers, and sword-wielding ghouls that could disappear in a puff of smoke, today was cake.

           Melissa was a beautiful woman with dark hair that flowed past her shoulders in natural waves. Her appearance was that of someone much younger than her 40-odd years. It would make sense that having a werewolf for a son, that son hanging around a variety of supernatural friends, the result of which often bringing her under random onslaught from those out to get him would take its toll. Strangely enough, Melissa was almost invigorated by frequently finding herself in the eye of the hurricane. That most likely had something to do with being so proud of her son. The mawkish boy with difficulty breathing whom she adored had grown into a noble and courageous young man whom she cherished. Apparently, love had a way of holding back the wrinkles.

           That made a humdrum day no less sweet, and coming home to a quiet house felt like something of a reward for making it through the day without otherworldly upset. The lights were on, which told her that Scott was already home. He most likely had his ubiquitous best friend Stiles in tow. Melissa thought that this might be a good night to shoo away the charming if oft irritating Stiles and have a nice Mother/Son night in. Perhaps a pizza, or Chinese, and a movie rental. Nothing of the horror genre. Screwball comedy, maybe. Melissa opened the door to find her son Scott standing there and as expected, his friend Stiles nearby. Unexpectedly, there were three other kids whom Melissa had never seen before. Judging from Scott’s expression, and most certainly those of the three kids’, Melissa’s quiet night had just imploded.

           “Mom, we could use some help”, Scott said.

           Melissa sighed. Not even a hello. She let her purse drop onto a nearby counter and braced herself. “Fill me in.”

             In short order, Melissa had been brought up to speed, told the whole story (the abridged version) and was now in her official Mom hostess mode. “So that thing, whatever it was you don’t even know, could come back at any time? Crash through the roof, maybe?”

           “It’s a distinct possibility”, Stiles said.

           “Scott, honey”, Melissa said, “go over to the spice cupboard and get the usual. We do the whole warding thing and get these kids settled. Did anyone bother treating them for shock? For any trauma at all?”

           Scott realized they had been remiss in that department. “Oh. No. Should we have done that?”

           Melissa shooed her son over to the kitchen and set to work getting the kids settled in. Scott opened up the spice cupboard, ignoring the lemon pepper, seasoning salt, and minced garlic, and retrieved the bottles of mountain ash and the canister of salt. There had been enough incidents at the house that they were always prepared as best they could be. Scott was practiced enough to set up a ward around the house in under 20 minutes.

           “Got it”, Scott said, holding up the warding ingredients.

           Kaitlyn stood by Melissa, the girl’s arms already full of bundles of sheets and blankets. “Kate”, Melissa started, then said, “Is it Kate or Kaitlyn? Which do you prefer?”

           “Kaitlyn’s good.”

           “Kaitlyn, go up those stairs and take the second door on your left. You can sleep in Isaac’s—in the guest room. I’ll be up to check on you in a minute.” Kaitlyn just stared for a moment. She was so unaccustomed to being treated this way. As a guest, and a welcome one at that. Mrs. McCall was acting toward them as if they were cousins who’d shown up unexpectedly. Kindness had become a very foreign thing to Kaitlyn and her friends. She was a bit thrown by it. “Was there something else?”, Melissa asked, breaking Kaitlyn from her daze.

           “No, no. Just…thank-you.”

           “You’ve very welcome. Off you go.”

           Scott stepped closer. “I’m sorry to drop all this on you, mom. Lydia said she had more room at her place, but I thought it’d be better if I was around. I couldn’t leave them in Derek’s loft because then we couldn’t keep an eye on them, so I—“

           Melissa rested a gentle hand on her son’s cheek. “It’s alright, honey. You did good.” She surveyed the room, thought about the upstairs accommodations. There was her room, Scott’s bedroom, the guest room, and the bathroom. “We’re going to be a bit crowded down here”, she thought, looking to Aadesh and Freddie. “Someone may have to sleep on the floor. Unless we still have that air mattress—“

           “Freddie can stay with me”, Stiles said. Scott looked over at his best friend, who’d been sitting on the arm of the couch where the shaken redhead sat slumped. Stiles had been resting one hand upon the boy’s shoulder in a show of support.

           Freddie looked up at his hero. “Really?”

           Scott asked, “Are you sure? Will you be okay?”

           “We have the town sheriff right there with us and Malia’s probably gonna crash there. We’ll be fine.” He patted Freddie on the shoulder and stood up. “We also should be going. Let’s get you home before you drop over from exhaustion.” Stiles looked to Melissa and pointed at Freddie as he got to his feet. He okay to go? Melissa nodded.

           “What he needs now is rest. You all do.”

           Aadesh stood up as well. “Can I go with you?”

           That got Melissa’s attention. “You’re staying here, aren’t you?”

           “Yes. Yes, that was the plan, but I’d like to…just say goodnight. Or, goodbye. You know, in case anything happens…” he found himself at a loss for the words he did not want to say, but Melissa knew what he meant.

           “Scott, you can lock up as soon as you get back.”

           Stiles escorted Freddie to the door, but Aadesh went up to Melissa before joining them. “Mrs. McCall, I just want to say how much I appreciate you letting us stay here…and-and what an honor it is to finally meet you.” He reached out and shook her hand warmly. “Seriously, you’re…you’re just really awesome, is all.”

           “I’m glad to have you”, she said back. “And you can call me Melissa.”

           Aadesh’s eyes widened. “Whoa…can I?”

           Scott guided the boy to one side, offering his mother a lopsided grin. Neither of them were prepared for this kind of hero worship. “If you want, I can stay behind and Stiles can take both of them, then run Aadesh back. Then you and Kaitlyn wouldn’t have to be alone.”

           “I’ll be fine”, Melissa said. “Trust me. This isn’t the first time I’ve housed a wayward youth. It’s a bonus that none of them have powers this time out.”

           Scott opened his mouth to say something about Kaitlyn, but then decided better of it. He could fill her in on that part later.

           “Go on. It’ll be fun to be treated like a celebrity in my own home.”

           Scott leaned in and gave his mom a quick peck on the cheek. “Love you, mom.”

           “Love you too, kiddo. Now scoot.”

              At the Stilinski home, Stiles brought out bedding from the linen closet to set Freddie up on the downstairs couch. Freddie watched intently as Stiles piled up the sheets and blankets.

           “I’m sleeping down here?”, Freddie asked, sounding disappointed.

           “Yeah. Don’t worry, it looks lumpy but it’s actually pretty comfortable.”

           “I thought I’d be bunking with you. I mean, in your room.”

           Stiles looked at him for a moment, and then said, “No” drawn out in a way that made the word sound like it had three syllables.

           Scott entered with a small duffel bag slung over his shoulder and Aadesh not far behind. Stiles saw Scott’s tagalong and raised an eyebrow. “Who. It’s just Freddie who’s staying here, right? I thought Aadesh was with you.”

           The Indian lad nodded. “I came just to ride with Scott.” Then, quickly added, “And I didn’t feel like hanging around the house while the two ladies got ready for bed and stuff.”

           Scott handed the duffel to Freddie. “Is this the one you asked for?”

           Freddie took it gratefully. “Yeah, that’s my stuff. Thanks for bringing it in.”

           As Freddie rooted around his worn and well-patched duffel bag in search of something that could be used for pajamas, the other three boys stood there, feeling ill at ease. Aadesh was clearly still reeling from the events on the highway and radiated waves of tension and anxiety. Freddie’s uncharacteristic lack of chatter wasn’t helping matters, either. Not sure what to do, Scott attempted to break the silence.

“So you guys”, Scott said, indicating them both wave of his finger, “met in a halfway house?”

           “Yeah”, Aadesh said with a certain trace of venom in his voice. His expression darkened. When he spoke again, it was with the tone of someone who had been routinely looked down upon, seen as a thug, and one who had just lost one of his dearest friends. “Is that a problem? Is there somewhere more suitable we should have met?”

           “No, no”, Scott said quickly, not wanting to put either of them back on the defensive. “I’m not judging. I’d never think--I was only trying to verify the, um, the circumstances—“

           Freddie came to his rescue by interrupting. “Where did you two meet?”

           Scott and Stiles answered in unison. “Sandbox.”

           That one word, so unexpected and absurd, diffused the situation and dispelled the tension. Everyone exhaled almost in unison from relief, but no one could bring himself to laugh. “I’m sorry, man”, Aadesh said.

           “It’s nothing”, Scott shrugged. “You’ve had a hell of a day. I wish I could say I have no idea what you’re going through, but I do.”

           Aadesh looked back at his hero with gratitude for that. “It’s just…I’m used to people seeing me as less than…well, as less. And I couldn’t handle it if you…because you’re someone I look up to, that—“

           “Let’s get back to the house”, Scott suggested. “We both need to sleep.”

           Aadesh nodded and allowed himself to be led outside. Scott looked back at Stiles who returned his gaze and the silent message that went with it. Some night, huh?

           Freddie yanked a beat-up pillow from his duffel. “There it is. I can’t sleep without this.” Freddie lay back on the couch and stuck the barely contained cluster of fabric and polyfill behind his head. “Gotta have my own pillow.”

           Stiles offered a weak smile. “Same with me.” With nothing more to say or do, Stiles made his way toward the stairs and his bedroom.

           “Stiles?”

           Stiles stopped but did not turn around. “Yeah?”

           “I’m really sorry about what I said at the clinic. I didn’t mean any of it. I was just all wrought up and—“

           “I’m sorry I almost punched you in the face”, Stiles countered.

           After a moment’s pause, Freddie asked, “We good?”

           “Yeah”, he answered. “We’re good.”

           Stiles went up to bed, knowing that with everything involved in this whole grim situation, there wasn’t any part of it that was good.

[johnmauldin]

A Leading Expert On China Lays Down 9 Major Trends That Now Drive The Chinese Economy

Leland Miller is a leading expert on China’s financial system and a good friend of mine.

They regularly interview (if memory serves correctly) about 2000 large Chinese companies in every sector to get a good idea of what is actually happening in the Chinese economy.

There is nothing else like their work, and anybody who is investing large sums or who just does business in China gladly pays the six-figure price to get access to their data and research.

Even this quarterly brief that I attach is embargoed, and I am generally not allowed to send it on. Leland made an exception this time (after consulting with his partners), and I thank them for that.

China: Q2 Early Look Brief Second Quarter 2017

By Leland Miller and the staff at China Beige Book

Executive Overview

So far, 2017 has played out as a best-case scenario for China’s economy. The remarkable absence of both domestic (more foolish financial policies) and foreign (Trump tariffs) shocks has created the stable environment corporates need to outperform most expectations, including ours.

This fortuitous run continued for at least one more quarter. China Beige Book’s new Q2 results show an economy that improved again, compared to both last quarter and a year ago, with retail and services each bouncing back from underwhelming Q1 performances. Manufacturing’s rally has now surpassed the one-year mark. Commodities surprised to the upside, despite significant price volatility in April. All this outmatched a slowdown in property and enabled hiring to improve almost across the board.

Three developments are worth extra emphasis. Any worries the leader­ship had about the labor market prior to the Party Congress have likely evaporated, with hiring improving on an already solid Q1—both nationally and in all the major sectors. Claims of fading Chinese manufacturing turn out to have been premature, and new orders say at least another quarter of solid expansion is coming. And, while it’s only one quarter, it was all accomplished despite the initial signs of deleveraging—interest rates spiked and borrowing edged down. Facing the challenge of a very poor start to 2016, the Party has turned the economy back in the right direction, with time to spare.

Even in Beijing, though, there is no free lunch. Companies across the economy understand that 2017 needs to be a strong year economically and are storing problems away for the future. Literally—inventories hit their highest levels in the history of CBB data, both nationally and in every sector. The same companies who report solid results on most indicators also continue to show cash flow in the red—corporate health has not yet responded to better growth. And property continues to make investors nervous. As we predicted last quarter, the sector as a whole weakened noticeably despite a major turnaround in residential construction.

The credit market is also a source of heartburn. Firms did not report higher borrowing costs in Q1, but they certainly did so in Q2. Either firms expect the spike to be temporary or they are bearing up under the strain temporarily for political reasons. Either way, China has not yet even begun to face the pain from deleveraging, so the commitment to do so remains very much in question. It remains true that either rates have to come plunging back down, as the NDRC recently called for, or the present level of corporate activity is headed for a cliff. Today’s feast may have been bought with tomorrow’s lunch money. But for now, we toast the solid quarter.

Key Themes

Goldilocks Still Skipping Along.

For the economy, this may be as good as it gets for a while, but right now it’s pretty good. Policy support, no foreign shocks, no one wanting to rock the boat ahead of the Party Congress. The economy a year ago was much weaker than commonly thought, so merely on-year gains wouldn’t be impressive. But the economy a quarter ago was fairly active and this quarter is more so, on multiple dimensions. Revenue growth accelerated (though see inventories). Sales price gains eased fears of deflation harming growth. Most important, hiring strengthened again. This might be politically influenced, and thus temporary, but it already constitutes a political success. Moreover, with the labor force shrinking, a drop-off from the current hiring pace wouldn’t be a concern. On the whole, the second quarter is a very nice baseline for Beijing to be working from.

Why Rebalance When You Can Have Both?

The second quarter saw minimal progress in moving away from manufacturing toward services leadership in the economy. This was an excellent failure, however, since services performed well and manufacturing almost as well. Manufacturing tapered but extended its powerful rally since the first half of 2016. Revenue, hiring, and new orders were all higher on-quarter and sharply higher on-year. Still, services outperformed manufacturing in revenue and profits. Hiring in services has been uneven, but Q2 was solid.

Commodities Surprises to the Upside.

Defying early signs of a slowdown, our biggest Q2 surprise was another robust performance in commodities. Make no mistake, the warning signs look like Times Square: the second quarter saw huge across-the-board jumps in inventory, sliding sales price growth in three of four sub-sectors, and rising input costs. Yet, more firms again saw rising sales prices than input cost hikes, sales volumes accelerated, and cash flow moved from red to black, bolstering balance sheets.

Away from Markets’ Gaze, Aluminum Shines.

Commodities’ unsung hero: aluminum. CBB data show aluminum firms wildly outperforming the current market narrative, seeing broad Q2 gains in revenues, profits, volumes, output, and new orders, as well as cash flow, which jumped into the black for the first time in our survey’s history. The why is less clear than the what, but one obvious possibility is aluminum is the latest recipient of some of China’s excess liquidity. The #moneyball may have struck again.

Property Slows Off its Q1 Peak.

As we forecast last quarter, the property sector weakened, growth slowing in three of five sub-sectors. Transportation construction drove the deterioration with commercial realty and construction piling on. The extent of the pain may have been masked by better results on the residential side. Overall revenues and profits plunged in Tier 1 cities, with the slowdown concentrated primarily in the Beijing and Shanghai regions. Hiring stagnated, while cash flow worsened across the board. It is the credit picture, however, that looks most daunting. Borrowing completely cratered outside of residential construction, as rejections jumped and shadow banks suddenly refused (or were ordered not) to backstop the sector. Reflecting this disfavor, the relatively few property firms that were able to issue bonds this quarter paid through the nose—the highest yields ever seen in the CBB survey.

Inventory Levels Notch All-Time High.

The single most worrisome development is the level of inventories, which hit an all-time CBB high nationwide in the second quarter. The three sectors tracked—manufacturing, retail, and commodities—also each saw all-time highs. Inventories can stay elevated in China’s mixed economy for far longer than market economies, but they still represent either more waste and debt or a painful hangover that will drag down future growth.

No Fun in Shanghai.

Two high-profile regions marked a comeback after several quarters of lackluster performance. Guangdong turned in the strongest revenue and profit result while Beijing posted the largest on-quarter improvement in each. Shanghai missed the dragon boat, turning in the lowest growth figures nationwide. Inland provinces at least matched Q1, with the Center in particular reporting faster revenue growth. Even with its stellar results, though, Guangdong probably isn’t celebrating too loudly: companies in the region are China’s most sophisticated in terms of accounting practices and they report the country’s worst deterioration in cash flow.

The Right Kind of Inflation.

Unlike cash flow, the inflation picture has tilted away from stress toward health. The main reason is retail, which had the largest gains of any major sector in revenue, profits, and hiring. The hiring contributed to the strength economy-wide that pushed up wage payments by firms. In light of stated goals of reducing inequality and boosting consumption, this is a clearly positive development. Another element of good inflation is directly connected to retail: sales price increases continued in Q2, a sharp contrast to the weakness in 2014–2015. Retail results show people are still buying despite rising prices. Higher input costs are harder to explain but were concentrated mostly in property. Input cost inflation was mild in retail and services and nearly invisible in manufacturing.

Borrowers Comforted by “Party Congress Put.”

China’s attempt at deleveraging has been discussed to no end, but its implications are not well understood. In Q1, corporate reporting to CBB showed credit tightening was limited to interbank markets. In Q2, it hit firms: bond yields and rates at shadow banks touched the highest levels in the history of our survey, and bank rates their highest since 2014. So why did borrowing not collapse, denting the broader economy? One reason is what we call the “Party Congress Put.” While borrowing did see a mild drop for the third straight quarter, companies’ six-month revenue expectations remain robust in every sector save property. Companies assume deleveraging is transient, likely because they are skeptical the Party will allow economic pain in 2017. It will not be until 2018 when we find out whether deleveraging is genuine—because it won’t be until 2018 that it will actually hurt.

Get Varying Expert Opinions in One Publication with John Mauldin’s Outside the Box

Every week, celebrated economic commentator John Mauldin highlights a well-researched, controversial essay from a fellow economic expert. Whether you find them inspiring, upsetting, or outrageous… they’ll all make you think Outside the Box. Get the newsletter free in your inbox every Wednesday.

[everettwilkinson]

More Signs The Dollar Is Weakening…

Good day… And a Tub Thumpin’ Thursday to you! I’m going to leave the Tub Thumpin’ to you today, as I’m having infusion confusion this morning. Hopefully by noon, it wears off, but right now, my head feels like it weighs 50 lbs. and is full of fog… But that won’t stop me, no sirree Bob! The FOMC Meeting Minutes were what I expected them to be, and we’ve got a couple of doves flying today… This and more for this Tub Thumpin’ Thursday for you today! The Allman Brothers greet me this morning with their song: Dreams… Which I can sheepishly say that I was having some strange ones last night!

Well, the currencies fought back against the dollar’s attempted move higher yesterday, and by the end of the day, things were as they were the previous day… The euro was trading over 1.12, the Aussie dollar (A$ ) was back to 75-cents, Gold headed back toward $ 1,260, and the 10-year Treasury yield dropped back to 2.25%… And what was the cause of this turnaround Wednesday? The Fed’s FOMC Meeting Minutes… Once again they proved to be disappointing to the markets. Instead of giving the markets clues on “how” their balance sheet would be unwound, they instead gave them the “when”, but even the “when” was a little sketchy, but the markets seem to have figured out that the Fed will tell them all they need to know at the June meeting…

Hmmm, of course had the markets just listened to me they would have been able to go about their business today without stopping everything to hear what the Fed has to say in their minutes… For I said, right here in this letter, that the Fed would wait until June when they hiked rates again, to give any clues on their unwinding of the economy an opportunity to sneak through the alley with Sally. Really to diffuse the effects of the unwinding…. Right now, it looks like, to me that is, that the Fed will give the skinny on the “Great Unwind” or GW, in June, and defer the start of the unwinding until Sept or October.. Even though the Fed continues, as a group that is, to believe that the slowdown in the first quarter was just “transitory”, they want to wait-n-see before they commit to the GW!

So… there you have it! All wrapped up in a nutshell, what happened, and why, and what I think about it! What else do you need to start your day? Have a Great day…

Gotcha! Hey! even in my fogged brain status, I can have some fun! Well, overnight, the euro held its gains above 1.12, but the A$ fell back below 75-cents once again, as the fallout of the Moodys ratings cut of China’s debt came back to haunt the A$ … The euro-lites of Norway and Sweden are seeing their respective currencies (krone and krona) on the rally tracks, with the Norwegian krone leading the way, as the krone is in a good situation right now, that I explained the other day, regarding how the krone was getting love from the its status as a Petrol Currency, and in addition, the love is coming from being a euro-lite, with the euro on the rally tracks..

I don’t know if you noticed yesterday or not, but in the currency roundup, the S. African rand had moved below the 13 handle… And it moved further into the 12 handle yesterday and last night… The rand is a European Priced currency, which means as the number goes down, the more value to returns VS the dollar, as it takes less of the currency to equal a dollar. I’ve always said that the rand was too volatile for my blood, and that I wouldn’t touch it with “your ten foot pole”. But, I would always say that when the rand was good it was very good, and when it was bad it was very bad… And for the longest time now, the rand has NOT been very good… But I feel a rallying rand is an indication that the dollar is weakening, for if the rand is allowed to rally VS the dollar, then the dollar is weaker! Gov’t corruption, strikes, and interest rates that should be higher to attract foreign investment, have been the bugaboos for the rand, but as I said, if the rand is allowed to rally VS the dollar, as it is right now, then it could be a very good indicator that the dollar is weakening…

And there has been some confusion lately relating to the two pricing conventions used in currencies… The American Style: is simply as the price goes up, the value is increased… the euro, the A$ , kiwi, and sterling are the main American Style priced currencies. For readers who requested it many years ago, I also convert the loonie and franc to American priced currencies.. But if you called the trade desk they would quote you in European Style for these two currencies.

European priced currencies take in all the other currencies… So, don’t be confused!

The Bank of Canada (BOC) met yesterday, as scheduled, and as I thought, they left rates unchanged at 0.50%… I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again, Canada has a housing bubble in Toronto and Vancouver, they are in dire need of rate hikes to stop the bubbles from growing larger. But the Gov. of the BOC , Poloz, is not going to hike rates until he absolutely needs to, because he’s a “trade guy”, and “trade guys” always want a cheaper currency to facilitate, trade… And rate hikes would not give him a “cheaper currency”… I’ve always like Canada because of the stable banking system, plethora of raw materials that other countries will always want, and a steady Gov’t… There are some cracks in the Gov’t’s foundation right now, and the BOC is losing their grip on the economy… I’m so ticked that this has been allowed to go on in Canada this long! The Canadian dollar/ loonie though is resilient, and because of those raw materials it is underpinned, as long as the raw materials are priced right!

The OPEC meeting and NON-OPEC Oil Producing countries, meetings begin today in Vienna, Austria.. I’ve already told you a couple of times now that these meetings could very well, show the unification of extending the Oil production cuts, and in addition, I wouldn’t be surprised to see additional cuts announced! If that would happen, the price of Oil would be underpinned for sure, at least short-term… And with a stronger Oil Price, the Petrol Currencies should really be receiving some love!

I’m sitting here this morning thinking that Gold Traders read the Pfennig yesterday, and decided to listen to me, and began to mark up the Gold price… (Hey! don’t laugh! It could happen, right? Oh, come on Chuck, if that happened, you wouldn’t be sitting here in your basement at 0-dark 30 writing the Pfennig. Instead you would be celebrated as the sage of the Mississippi!) So, back on earth and reality, Gold added $ 7.90 yesterday, to close at $ 1,258.60, and is up another $ 3.90 in the early morning trading today!

Hey! remember when I featured a FWIW section story about how Arizona lawmakers had sent a bill to the Gov. for signing, that would eliminate the capital gains tax on Gold & Silver that was bought at the mint… Remember the reasoning? It was the same as exchanging one nickel and two dimes for a quarter! Well, bust my buttons! The Arizona Gov. signed the bill and it’s now a law in Arizona! WOW! Now, if we can get other states to follow, eh? Talk about a way to get physical Gold & Silver to overtake the paper trades! Think about that for a minute… Municipal Bonds are usually exempt of taxes in the state it’s issued in, and some even have Federal tax exemptions. And they’ve always been popular… But if Gold & Silver doesn’t have capital gains taxes they could become as popular with the moms and pops I’m just saying…

The price of Oil slipped back below $ 51 in the past 24 hours, but only to $ 50.95, so still trading within’ spittin’ distance of $ 51… So much weight has been put on the Oil meetings today, that the risk here is that they disappoint, and that would spring the trap door on the price of Oil… Just something to think about, given the history of the OPEC meetings, a disappointing meeting is not out of the question! But, I’m betting a Krispy Kreme to a dollar that the Oil producing countries don’t disappoint today…

The U.S. Data Cupboard today has only the Trade Balance (read deficit) for April today. The usual Tub Thumpin’ Thursday fare of the Weekly Initial Jobless Claims is always there on Thursdays, so that too will print, but the more important print is the Trade Balance.. The dollar was a bit weaker in April, and so I think we’ll see the Trade Deficit back off the $ 64.8 Billion print from March…

Yesterday’s Data Cupboard had the April Existing Home Sales in addition to the FOMC Meeting Minutes, and like I said yesterday would happen, Existing Home Sales dropped from 5.7 Million per year, to 5.6 Million per year… So, we saw both New Home Sales and Existing Home Sales drop in April… Hmmm, isn’t springtime one of the best times to be home shopping? I’m just throwing that out there..

Well, I’ve beaten around the bush enough the last two days regarding the Trump Budget, so I might as well bite the bullet and get to talking about it… So, here goes my attempt to make some sense from it…

Well, the Trump Budget was presented to the masses on Tuesday… I was shocked to see actual cuts to spending programs, and he says that if we stay the course with his cuts, that the U.S. would have a balanced budget by 2027… It’s been a long time since the Republican Party could even get those words out of their collective mouths… However, by the time the lawmakers on both sides of the aisle get their hands on this, the final Budget won’t look anything like the one Trump presented to them on Tuesday… I find this process to be good, but the results awful…

One thing in the budget that I did have to laugh about, well, I guess it wasn’t funny ha-ha, but , well, I’ll let you decide… The Budget makes the assumption that the U.S. economy will grow at 3% per year for the next 10 years… Hmmm… Does he know that the U.S. hasn’t achieved 3% annual growth since 2005? And that this assumption of growth would mean that the U.S. economy expanded for 222 months, consecutively… Economist are saying that this current expansion, what little this is, has become long in the tooth (since 2009)… So, I found this “assumption” to be a bit funny, in that it’s never going to happen!

The markets have shrugged off the Budget, because they know that it will come out of the lawmakers’ gauntlet with a completely different look… So, why react now, when the final product will determine their reaction? Remember the games the lawmakers tried to play a few years ago, when we had a debt ceiling debacle here in the U.S. and they came up with a plan to “cut spending over 10 years, of planned increases?” So, they planned to spend money in the future, but then decided to not spend it, or at least so much, and they call that a “cut in spending” I shake my head in disgust.. .

To recap… The FOMC Meeting Minutes were disappointing to the markets yesterday, and the dollar’s rally was cut off at the knees. From there, the currencies and metals took over and have held the conn through the overnight and morning sessions… Gold regained its mojo and rallied yesterday, and again so far this morning. The BOC left rates unchanged, which was no surprise to Chuck, who bangs on BOC Gov. Poloz, and points out the resiliency of the loonie, given all the hits that Canada is taking on these days. Chuck also points to the S. African rand as a good indicator that the dollar is getting weaker, as the rand has been allowed to rally…

For What It’s Worth… Thanks to Ed Steer who highlighted this article on Barrons in his daily letter this morning (www.edsteergoldandsilver.com ) And it’s about the Markit PMI reports yesterday that I’ve explained the markets don’t pay too much attention to, but maybe they should? You can read the article here: http://www.barrons.com/articles/markits-u-s-flash-pmi-still-looks-somewhat-underwhelming-1495549467?utm_medium=email&sslid=M7G0NDc0NDMxNzexAAA&sseid=MzM1NDAwsDA2AwA&jobid=238a56db-d950-4376-aa94-037384c6d5bb

Or, here’s your snippet: “Growth of US business activity gained a little momentum for a second successive month in May, but the upturn still looks somewhat underwhelming…

May saw an encouraging upturn in service sector growth to the fastest so far this year, buoyed by rising domestic demand. Manufacturers, on the other hand, reported the smallest rise in production since last September amid lackluster export sales.

Peter Boockvar of The Lindsey Group had this to say…

We will certainly see a Q2 economic rebound with only the degree in question. The Atlanta Fed estimate has a 4 handle which if the case would lead to around a 2.5% first half run rate if Q1 is revised up to .9% as expected. Historically though according to Markit, a 53.9 composite index in their model equates to a 1.5% annualized rate of growth.”

Chuck again… this crack in the armor of U.S. Manufacturing comes at an interesting time, given all the disappointing data… And like I said, maybe the markets should be paying more attention to this data…

Currencies today 5/25/17… American Style: A$ .7470, kiwi .7023, C$ .7440, euro 1.1220, sterling 1.2063, Swiss $ .9729, … European Style: rand 12.88, krone 8.385, SEK 8.6749, forint 274.50, zloty 3.7258, koruna 23.5620, RUB 56.35, yen 111.90, sing 1.3849, HKD 7.7915, INR 64.58, China 6.8903, peso 18.41, BRL 3.2677, Dollar Index 97.15, Oil $ 50.95, 10-year 2.26%, Silver $ 17.15, Platinum $ 947.40, Palladium $ 765.82, Gold, $ 1,259.50, and SGE Gold… $ 1,256.93

That’s it for today… Well, my beloved Cardinals saw their bats arrive from St. Louis, and they hit the ball last night, winning in L.A. Good pitching will beat good hitting, that’s an old adage my dad taught me about the game years ago… I remember telling him that if that’s the case, then it’s better to have a good pitching and hitting team! He called me a genius, which at the time I thought was a compliment… HA! Stopped by the office yesterday afternoon after my infusion and lunch with Frank. It was great to see a couple of the people there. I really wanted to just get in and out without anyone seeing me, as I was not presentable, given my 3 hour adventure at the infusion center! Well, I need to get this out of here, so I can get the response, and then send it off to you. Then I can go back to sleep! But not too long, as I have a visit with the heart doc this morning! Steely Dan takes us to the finish line today with their song Kid Charlemagne… And with that, I’ll send you on your way to having a Tub Thumpin’ Thursday! Do some Tub Tumpin’ for me, will you? And Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler Managing Director EverBank Global Markets Creator / Editor of: A Pfennig For Your Thoughts 1-800-926-4922

http://www.everbank.com

The post More Signs The Dollar Is Weakening… appeared first on Daily Pfennig.

Daily Pfennig

from CapitalistHQ.com https://capitalisthq.com/more-signs-the-dollar-is-weakening/

[hopefulbagelboi]

Poem Adaptation Update

Mark suggested ideas for producing the required style that I was having trouble with. One of them was cut out animation (via stop motion) that included printing out drawn character from Photoshop and simply hand animating them. The other option was also cut out style but in 2D software (so making the character designs in Photoshop, importing them into ToonBoom, adding pegs to the various body parts and animating those pegs). The second option would save me plenty of time on animating the characters and it would also look pretty good considering I don’t have to re-draw as many frames. The first option also saves me in the sense that I won’t have to draw anything other than the characters and a few key poses.

In short, the less I draw the better the final production will be.

Found issues with each idea: Stop motion: - Lighting the stop motion set will be difficult, - Camera set up at the given angle.

2D Cut out: - Computer power, animating on a laptop will be difficult though there are no other available options during the holidays.

I attempted to follow closely to the style of one of the reference images, adding similar patterns or creating my own. The body looks ok, if not a little tacky, but the head I can’t seem to get right. It looks completely out of place and I’m not sure how to fix it.

On a more positive note, the back leg looks better than any previous attempt I’ve ever made so maybe I’m getting better at those.

With my complete inability to draw anything decent looking I am concerned about how I’m going to get this animation completed. My plan is to study wolves form all angles and take some tutorials on drawing them, that way stylising them should be a lot easier.

Though I’m almost certain I won’t actually get that plan done, I’ll most likely mope around over the holidays and then feel bad about it when I’m submitting sub-par work as usual.

Suggested changes for the wolf design: Longer legs Thicker neck Smaller head/ less round Eyes (V Look into Balto model sheets V)

(^ A few examples from the film ‘Balto’. The turnaround boards help me to understand how they built the characters and how they measured proportions. Can clearly see longer legs and much thicker necks to give them a distinct dog/ wolf appearance.)

Reflection: The entire poem went to crap because of my lack of skill for even the simplest things. I found that, despite having reference images, turnaround boards and the like I was completely incapable of drawing a wolf - let alone a patterned one. I kept trying, over and over, for weeks but in the end I gave up and decided to go with an ok-ish drawing and rig it.

(^Look at this god awful thing, I clearly cannot draw)

(^ Even with guide lines I can’t do it)

I rigged an entire wolf model in ToonBoom after my tutor had shown me how, but when I actually tried to animate it it didn’t work at all. The joints bend awkwardly and animating it was more effort than it was worth, so I scrapped the entire thing. It had taken a long time to rig and I now only had a few weeks left to finish this project, I knew I wouldn’t be able to draw anything nice to look at and animate it in that time.

(^ As is clear here I got the rig working, just not very well)

My solution, since I was so done with failing to draw and knowing I would never be able to make it look nice anyway, was to scribble my way through this. By this point I had lost all motivation, I was doing terribly even when trying my best, so why try?

(^ This is my scribbled wolf head. You can’t tell because even when I’m scribbling I still can’t draw well)

Overall I’m beyond disappointed with how my poem animation turned out. I wanted to have a lot of fun with it but yet again my lack of skills held me back. Even after practising drawing dogs and wolves for ages I still couldn’t do it.

One thing I will take from this is that I should stop drawing, because after over a year of practise it’s clear I’m not any better.

[everettwilkinson]

More Signs The Dollar Is Weakening…

Good day… And a Tub Thumpin’ Thursday to you! I’m going to leave the Tub Thumpin’ to you today, as I’m having infusion confusion this morning. Hopefully by noon, it wears off, but right now, my head feels like it weighs 50 lbs. and is full of fog… But that won’t stop me, no sirree Bob! The FOMC Meeting Minutes were what I expected them to be, and we’ve got a couple of doves flying today… This and more for this Tub Thumpin’ Thursday for you today! The Allman Brothers greet me this morning with their song: Dreams… Which I can sheepishly say that I was having some strange ones last night!

Well, the currencies fought back against the dollar’s attempted move higher yesterday, and by the end of the day, things were as they were the previous day… The euro was trading over 1.12, the Aussie dollar (A$ ) was back to 75-cents, Gold headed back toward $ 1,260, and the 10-year Treasury yield dropped back to 2.25%… And what was the cause of this turnaround Wednesday? The Fed’s FOMC Meeting Minutes… Once again they proved to be disappointing to the markets. Instead of giving the markets clues on “how” their balance sheet would be unwound, they instead gave them the “when”, but even the “when” was a little sketchy, but the markets seem to have figured out that the Fed will tell them all they need to know at the June meeting…

Hmmm, of course had the markets just listened to me they would have been able to go about their business today without stopping everything to hear what the Fed has to say in their minutes… For I said, right here in this letter, that the Fed would wait until June when they hiked rates again, to give any clues on their unwinding of the economy an opportunity to sneak through the alley with Sally. Really to diffuse the effects of the unwinding…. Right now, it looks like, to me that is, that the Fed will give the skinny on the “Great Unwind” or GW, in June, and defer the start of the unwinding until Sept or October.. Even though the Fed continues, as a group that is, to believe that the slowdown in the first quarter was just “transitory”, they want to wait-n-see before they commit to the GW!

So… there you have it! All wrapped up in a nutshell, what happened, and why, and what I think about it! What else do you need to start your day? Have a Great day…

Gotcha! Hey! even in my fogged brain status, I can have some fun! Well, overnight, the euro held its gains above 1.12, but the A$ fell back below 75-cents once again, as the fallout of the Moodys ratings cut of China’s debt came back to haunt the A$ … The euro-lites of Norway and Sweden are seeing their respective currencies (krone and krona) on the rally tracks, with the Norwegian krone leading the way, as the krone is in a good situation right now, that I explained the other day, regarding how the krone was getting love from the its status as a Petrol Currency, and in addition, the love is coming from being a euro-lite, with the euro on the rally tracks..

I don’t know if you noticed yesterday or not, but in the currency roundup, the S. African rand had moved below the 13 handle… And it moved further into the 12 handle yesterday and last night… The rand is a European Priced currency, which means as the number goes down, the more value to returns VS the dollar, as it takes less of the currency to equal a dollar. I’ve always said that the rand was too volatile for my blood, and that I wouldn’t touch it with “your ten foot pole”. But, I would always say that when the rand was good it was very good, and when it was bad it was very bad… And for the longest time now, the rand has NOT been very good… But I feel a rallying rand is an indication that the dollar is weakening, for if the rand is allowed to rally VS the dollar, then the dollar is weaker! Gov’t corruption, strikes, and interest rates that should be higher to attract foreign investment, have been the bugaboos for the rand, but as I said, if the rand is allowed to rally VS the dollar, as it is right now, then it could be a very good indicator that the dollar is weakening…

And there has been some confusion lately relating to the two pricing conventions used in currencies… The American Style: is simply as the price goes up, the value is increased… the euro, the A$ , kiwi, and sterling are the main American Style priced currencies. For readers who requested it many years ago, I also convert the loonie and franc to American priced currencies.. But if you called the trade desk they would quote you in European Style for these two currencies.

European priced currencies take in all the other currencies… So, don’t be confused!

The Bank of Canada (BOC) met yesterday, as scheduled, and as I thought, they left rates unchanged at 0.50%… I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again, Canada has a housing bubble in Toronto and Vancouver, they are in dire need of rate hikes to stop the bubbles from growing larger. But the Gov. of the BOC , Poloz, is not going to hike rates until he absolutely needs to, because he’s a “trade guy”, and “trade guys” always want a cheaper currency to facilitate, trade… And rate hikes would not give him a “cheaper currency”… I’ve always like Canada because of the stable banking system, plethora of raw materials that other countries will always want, and a steady Gov’t… There are some cracks in the Gov’t’s foundation right now, and the BOC is losing their grip on the economy… I’m so ticked that this has been allowed to go on in Canada this long! The Canadian dollar/ loonie though is resilient, and because of those raw materials it is underpinned, as long as the raw materials are priced right!

The OPEC meeting and NON-OPEC Oil Producing countries, meetings begin today in Vienna, Austria.. I’ve already told you a couple of times now that these meetings could very well, show the unification of extending the Oil production cuts, and in addition, I wouldn’t be surprised to see additional cuts announced! If that would happen, the price of Oil would be underpinned for sure, at least short-term… And with a stronger Oil Price, the Petrol Currencies should really be receiving some love!

I’m sitting here this morning thinking that Gold Traders read the Pfennig yesterday, and decided to listen to me, and began to mark up the Gold price… (Hey! don’t laugh! It could happen, right? Oh, come on Chuck, if that happened, you wouldn’t be sitting here in your basement at 0-dark 30 writing the Pfennig. Instead you would be celebrated as the sage of the Mississippi!) So, back on earth and reality, Gold added $ 7.90 yesterday, to close at $ 1,258.60, and is up another $ 3.90 in the early morning trading today!

Hey! remember when I featured a FWIW section story about how Arizona lawmakers had sent a bill to the Gov. for signing, that would eliminate the capital gains tax on Gold & Silver that was bought at the mint… Remember the reasoning? It was the same as exchanging one nickel and two dimes for a quarter! Well, bust my buttons! The Arizona Gov. signed the bill and it’s now a law in Arizona! WOW! Now, if we can get other states to follow, eh? Talk about a way to get physical Gold & Silver to overtake the paper trades! Think about that for a minute… Municipal Bonds are usually exempt of taxes in the state it’s issued in, and some even have Federal tax exemptions. And they’ve always been popular… But if Gold & Silver doesn’t have capital gains taxes they could become as popular with the moms and pops I’m just saying…

The price of Oil slipped back below $ 51 in the past 24 hours, but only to $ 50.95, so still trading within’ spittin’ distance of $ 51… So much weight has been put on the Oil meetings today, that the risk here is that they disappoint, and that would spring the trap door on the price of Oil… Just something to think about, given the history of the OPEC meetings, a disappointing meeting is not out of the question! But, I’m betting a Krispy Kreme to a dollar that the Oil producing countries don’t disappoint today…

The U.S. Data Cupboard today has only the Trade Balance (read deficit) for April today. The usual Tub Thumpin’ Thursday fare of the Weekly Initial Jobless Claims is always there on Thursdays, so that too will print, but the more important print is the Trade Balance.. The dollar was a bit weaker in April, and so I think we’ll see the Trade Deficit back off the $ 64.8 Billion print from March…

Yesterday’s Data Cupboard had the April Existing Home Sales in addition to the FOMC Meeting Minutes, and like I said yesterday would happen, Existing Home Sales dropped from 5.7 Million per year, to 5.6 Million per year… So, we saw both New Home Sales and Existing Home Sales drop in April… Hmmm, isn’t springtime one of the best times to be home shopping? I’m just throwing that out there..

Well, I’ve beaten around the bush enough the last two days regarding the Trump Budget, so I might as well bite the bullet and get to talking about it… So, here goes my attempt to make some sense from it…

Well, the Trump Budget was presented to the masses on Tuesday… I was shocked to see actual cuts to spending programs, and he says that if we stay the course with his cuts, that the U.S. would have a balanced budget by 2027… It’s been a long time since the Republican Party could even get those words out of their collective mouths… However, by the time the lawmakers on both sides of the aisle get their hands on this, the final Budget won’t look anything like the one Trump presented to them on Tuesday… I find this process to be good, but the results awful…

One thing in the budget that I did have to laugh about, well, I guess it wasn’t funny ha-ha, but , well, I’ll let you decide… The Budget makes the assumption that the U.S. economy will grow at 3% per year for the next 10 years… Hmmm… Does he know that the U.S. hasn’t achieved 3% annual growth since 2005? And that this assumption of growth would mean that the U.S. economy expanded for 222 months, consecutively… Economist are saying that this current expansion, what little this is, has become long in the tooth (since 2009)… So, I found this “assumption” to be a bit funny, in that it’s never going to happen!

The markets have shrugged off the Budget, because they know that it will come out of the lawmakers’ gauntlet with a completely different look… So, why react now, when the final product will determine their reaction? Remember the games the lawmakers tried to play a few years ago, when we had a debt ceiling debacle here in the U.S. and they came up with a plan to “cut spending over 10 years, of planned increases?” So, they planned to spend money in the future, but then decided to not spend it, or at least so much, and they call that a “cut in spending” I shake my head in disgust.. .

To recap… The FOMC Meeting Minutes were disappointing to the markets yesterday, and the dollar’s rally was cut off at the knees. From there, the currencies and metals took over and have held the conn through the overnight and morning sessions… Gold regained its mojo and rallied yesterday, and again so far this morning. The BOC left rates unchanged, which was no surprise to Chuck, who bangs on BOC Gov. Poloz, and points out the resiliency of the loonie, given all the hits that Canada is taking on these days. Chuck also points to the S. African rand as a good indicator that the dollar is getting weaker, as the rand has been allowed to rally…

For What It’s Worth… Thanks to Ed Steer who highlighted this article on Barrons in his daily letter this morning (www.edsteergoldandsilver.com ) And it’s about the Markit PMI reports yesterday that I’ve explained the markets don’t pay too much attention to, but maybe they should? You can read the article here: http://www.barrons.com/articles/markits-u-s-flash-pmi-still-looks-somewhat-underwhelming-1495549467?utm_medium=email&sslid=M7G0NDc0NDMxNzexAAA&sseid=MzM1NDAwsDA2AwA&jobid=238a56db-d950-4376-aa94-037384c6d5bb

Or, here’s your snippet: “Growth of US business activity gained a little momentum for a second successive month in May, but the upturn still looks somewhat underwhelming…

May saw an encouraging upturn in service sector growth to the fastest so far this year, buoyed by rising domestic demand. Manufacturers, on the other hand, reported the smallest rise in production since last September amid lackluster export sales.

Peter Boockvar of The Lindsey Group had this to say…

We will certainly see a Q2 economic rebound with only the degree in question. The Atlanta Fed estimate has a 4 handle which if the case would lead to around a 2.5% first half run rate if Q1 is revised up to .9% as expected. Historically though according to Markit, a 53.9 composite index in their model equates to a 1.5% annualized rate of growth.”

Chuck again… this crack in the armor of U.S. Manufacturing comes at an interesting time, given all the disappointing data… And like I said, maybe the markets should be paying more attention to this data…

Currencies today 5/25/17… American Style: A$ .7470, kiwi .7023, C$ .7440, euro 1.1220, sterling 1.2063, Swiss $ .9729, … European Style: rand 12.88, krone 8.385, SEK 8.6749, forint 274.50, zloty 3.7258, koruna 23.5620, RUB 56.35, yen 111.90, sing 1.3849, HKD 7.7915, INR 64.58, China 6.8903, peso 18.41, BRL 3.2677, Dollar Index 97.15, Oil $ 50.95, 10-year 2.26%, Silver $ 17.15, Platinum $ 947.40, Palladium $ 765.82, Gold, $ 1,259.50, and SGE Gold… $ 1,256.93

That’s it for today… Well, my beloved Cardinals saw their bats arrive from St. Louis, and they hit the ball last night, winning in L.A. Good pitching will beat good hitting, that’s an old adage my dad taught me about the game years ago… I remember telling him that if that’s the case, then it’s better to have a good pitching and hitting team! He called me a genius, which at the time I thought was a compliment… HA! Stopped by the office yesterday afternoon after my infusion and lunch with Frank. It was great to see a couple of the people there. I really wanted to just get in and out without anyone seeing me, as I was not presentable, given my 3 hour adventure at the infusion center! Well, I need to get this out of here, so I can get the response, and then send it off to you. Then I can go back to sleep! But not too long, as I have a visit with the heart doc this morning! Steely Dan takes us to the finish line today with their song Kid Charlemagne… And with that, I’ll send you on your way to having a Tub Thumpin’ Thursday! Do some Tub Tumpin’ for me, will you? And Be Good To Yourself!

Chuck Butler Managing Director EverBank Global Markets Creator / Editor of: A Pfennig For Your Thoughts 1-800-926-4922

http://www.everbank.com

The post More Signs The Dollar Is Weakening… appeared first on Daily Pfennig.

Daily Pfennig

from CapitalistHQ.com http://capitalisthq.com/more-signs-the-dollar-is-weakening/