The Melting Pot Complex

Chapter Sixty-Five ~ Virgil

{Possible trigger warnings: swearing, minor threats

If I miss something, I apologize and please let me know}

Virgil sat down at his desk, picking up the stylus he hadn't used in months. He was feeling a lot of emotions about this new video he was working on, and most of them were good for once.

When he'd been in high school, he started playing with animation. It had taken a few years, but he'd gotten pretty good at it. Then once he started YouTube he'd put it on the back burner.

A few weeks before, Patton had asked if he still drew. Virgil admitted that no, he didn't so much anymore.

"I'm just more focused on my videos right now, Pat."

"Well why don't you make a video with animation?"

It kicked the gears into movement in Virgil's head. There were plenty of animated videos online, and they were usually pretty well received.

Not a bad idea.

He turned his favorite calming playlist on, and began to sketch. The way he usually did his animation was to block out frames first, parts of the scene that would have similar images on them. Basic shapes, then some more detail. Nothing too complicated, he needed to be able to replicate it over and over.

Pausing after about twenty minutes, Virgil opened the website where Logan uploaded their podcast every week. He clicked on their podcast from the week he'd done his face reveal.

"Hey Virge- oh sorry, didn't realize you were working."

Virgil spun around to look at Patton standing in the doorway. "Hey, will you watch this for me real quick?"

Patton perked up and walked over. "What is it?"

"Remember how you said I should do an animated video? I'm doing it with that one argument from the podcast when I did my face reveal." Virgil pulled up his setup and played the video.

Patton's eyes slowly widened as he watched the frames tick by. Virgil hadn't put any transitions in yet, and the characters he'd drawn were still basic and didn't have faces yet, but he had a good half of the video blocked out already.

"Virgil, I forgot how good you are at this! It looks great already."

"Well I've just got the basics put in right now." Virgil shrugged. "Still a long way to go."

"You always say that, but you are good at what you do." Patton teased, ruffling his hair.

He smiled. "Whatever, Pat. Were you coming in to check on me or was there something else?"

"Oh!" Patton waved his hands around. "Roman wants to order takeout for dinner, and he wanted to know what you wanted so he could, in his words, 'screw it up to make the emo mad' or something. I told him off."

"Tell him to commit die." Virgil shrugged, snorting.

"I HEARD THAT!" Roman's voice echoed down the hallway.

"GOOD!" Virgil leaned back in his chair, thinking. "He's getting Chinese?"

Patton nodded. "That was the plan."

"I could go for some sesame chicken." Virgil glanced at his video. "I need to get some more of this done before I eat, but it'll be another twenty minutes if he orders it right now, right?"

"Right! Sesame chicken it is. Don't overwork yourself." Patton kissed the top of his head, making Virgil roll his eyes. "I'll come get you when the food gets here."

"Thanks Dad." Virgil joked, smiling.

Patton wandered out of the room and Virgil went back to his animating.

Sketch. Check. Sketch. Check. Sketch. He'd forgotten how much he enjoyed the uniformity of drawing the same characters over and over. Some people didn't enjoy it, but it greatly appealed to Virgil's need for things to be similar, familiar.

He got to a particularly verbal part of the argument, where Roman had started dramatically complaining about having just edited a video to remove Virgil's face that was going to go up the next day. Virgil drew a zoomed in version of the beauty YouTuber, each few frames getting more dramatic until he ended the rant with a shot of Roman draped over a fainting couch in a red evening gown.

He put his pen down and played through the sequence, snickering to himself. Cueing up the audio, he played it again to make sure it all matched up.

"Perfect."

Getting out his phone, Virgil recorded the little sequence. Roman with a hand on his chest, head tilted back dramatically. Next shift, the back of Roman's hand now on his head. Then a dramatic pose with a glass of wine in one hand. Pearls materializing on his ears and at his neck. And then the shot of him draped over furniture like a widow in a 1940s murder mystery.

He sent it to the apartment's groupchat with the caption 'When Logan won't answer Roman's texts' and waited.

"HAILSTORM!"

Virgil leapt up and locked his bedroom door, snickering as Roman slammed against it in the hallway.

"Let me in you beanpole f*ck!"

"Nah? What kinda idiot do you think I am?"

"I don't care if you're half a foot taller than me I'm gonna kick your a**!"

"To be fair, sweetheart, he's not wrong." Logan commented from the hallway. Virgil cackled with laughter as Roman made an indignant noise.

"You're going to have to climb from your window to the damn balcony again because as soon as you come out here I'm beating your a** back into the collarbone brace!" Roman pounded on the door.

Patton must have joined them in the hallway, because Virgil heard him to tell Roman to calm down.

"Paaaaaat, he's trying to beat me up!" He whined through the door.

Patton began to chastise Roman again and Virgil muffled his laughter to listen in.

Roman finally huffed from outside. "What is that even for? Why are you animating me?"

"It's my next video, the argument from the podcast when you were complaining about blurring me out in a video that was going up right after my face reveal."

"Oh yeah! I did so much extra work for that, d*ckhead."

"I know." Virgil snorted, getting up and unlocking the door to peek out of it. "That's why I'm animating your dramatic a** complaining about it."

Roman shoved against the door, trying to get him, but Virgil planted his feet and held strong. He could see Logan and Patton hiding laughter.

"You're the worst, Molan."

"I know." Virgil winked. "Now go away and let me know when the food gets here. I wanna get a couple more frames done."

{hello friends I only have a basic idea of how animation works}