#it would never work as an actual one bc it heavily relies on details you can’t experience in a video game though

[starcrossedandstupid]

does anyone have an fix recs?

I am not normal about OUABH and the Life series rn tbh

[writingmoth]

writing with "vibes" in mind is completely underrated tbh

ive thinking a lot about this bc ive playing a lot of games that use vibes to tell the story/to make gameplay moments stand out. and listen, i know games =\= books, but!!! i think it has merit.

under read more bc it got rambly. its just me wondering aloud about ways to write.

example 1: ffxiv, a fantasy mmorpg that relies HEAVILY on story. it's been out for more than 10 years, so the story is huuuuuuge (i spent like a month and a half just catching up when i started playing two years ago). there are callbacks to the base game in a expansion that came out 9 years after said base game. it makes the whole thing feel like a expertly drawn web of plotlines and characters... except that isn't that case at all. the writers have mentioned multiple times that things that happened in the third expansion (6 years in) weren't planned from the beginning. that is, they just threw paint at the wall back in the base game bc the colors (vibes) looked cool. they just had enough skill to make a painting out of it later.

i guess having a good grasp of your story's themes helps a lot with that, too, now that i think about it. it assures that the colors are at least complimentary when you are slinging them about at the start of the story.

example 2: destiny, which is a completely different game. destiny doesnt use story the same way ffxiv does, though it is important (somewhat)... but lore is where the vibes come in to play for destiny imo. they do so much with so little. still using the painting analogy, it's almost like negative space art - they fill in just enough to give you an idea of the figure but not nearly as much as you would need to discern the details. and still the world feels vast. most of the time you are shooting aliens while wielding space magic, but every weapon, gear, etc has its own lore piece, and whole plotlines/characters that never show up in game or in the main story can be told through them. it's basically just vibes - aesthetic, some character moments, letters/logs, etc. and it works! the world feels lived in, most of the characters are well defined and even though sometimes the main story kinda drags, there is enough to keep you interested.

(it kinda reminds me of how i write description, which i've talked about before, but for the lucky ones who don't follow my rambling nonsense on this blog: i have a lot of trouble visualizing places or people when writing (or reading tbh) so i usually use a lot of atmosphere and emotion to mask the fact that i have no fucking clue what this very important place/person looks like. )

there are cons and pros to this approach. by being so vague and focusing on small bits that seem an ocean apart, the game gives just enough for the player to fill in the blanks themselves. that is good, because then the player is more likely to fill said blanks with stuff they like. it ends up being more of collaborative effort - and i'm sure the writers behind the game use the players' "headcanons" as some sort of thermometer for what/how to write next. so its writers and players feeding off each other's ideas in a way.

buuuuut.... it can also be pretty bad. you risk never committing to a vision or plotline by writing like this. nothing is ever set in stone. retconning, which isn't bad by itself, can happen way too much to be acceptable. if something can end up being anything, what is the point of it existing anyway? why should you care if the spine behind isn't well formed enough to carry the story later?

another danger is that the actual canon and the player's canon can end up being way too different in the end. maybe you meant to write the story this way... but the player filled the blanks just differently enough that "this way" ends up being unsatisfying and wrong.

but the biggest problem, for me, is risking never getting a proper resolution. since so many story moments and worldbuilding elements end up coming from "vibes", you risk relying way too much on the rule of cool.... which sets up a lot of stuff, usually, but never concludes them. that's also my biggest problem with asoiaf, for example - so much of that series is about building up tension, foreshadowing certain battles or encounters or whatever... that the payoff is almost never there (which is only made worse by the loooong time between book releases). it gets to a point that nothing the author comes up with will satisfy what the reader is expecting of the story.

"vibes" (or themes & aesthetics if you will) do a wonderful job of touching a reader's (or player's) strings with imagery, emotion and promise. but whatever comes from it needs to be tied up into an actual storyline (most of the time, at least). ffxiv managed to pull it off with its last two expansions but destiny stumbled a bit with its last one. players were expecting SO much of lightfall after the expansion before it, witch queen, since it managed to nail both vibes and plot. witch queen and the seasons (kind of episodes) after it setup SO much stuff. it promised a lightfall that would be an explosion - a much waited confrontation between the players and the villain, answers given, mysteries solved... and it did nothing of the sort. confusion and anger soon followed.

which is to say... vibes can be very helpful when you pause to interrogate why they interest you so much. why do you like this particular aesthetic, this imagery, this turn of phrase? some elements just pull you in and its fine to go and write a chapter or scene that is basically just you going "wow this is SO cool" even though you have no clear idea why. it's just the vibes it gives. it just presses your right buttons.

... but you will need to wrap them up into something coherent eventually. and for writers i think it's easier - usually "later" just means "once the first draft is done" aka "no one but your trusted betas will ever have to glance at this mess". for live service games like ffxiv or destiny - or even regular rpgs like dragon age or mass effect - it can be very dangerous. writers come and go. turns out that vibes-fuelled story point someone cleared for release 4 years ago doesn't make sense after all! and yeah, hyping up certain characters and plot elements seemed like a great idea for player retention 6 months ago, but what the hell do we do now?

it's too late - the players have already played the thing, they have VERY strong emotions about the thing and they are waiting impatiently for you make the resolution of said thing awesome. and you've got no clue of how to meet said expectations.

(having said all that, i do believe authors can all fall prey to this in non-standalone works too. but we usually have the ability/autonomy to make hard decisions, which video game writers of huge ips like destiny/ffxiv/dragon age/etc usually don't have.)

and of course, using vibes can go very wrong in other ways. you know the negative art destiny does with its worldbuilding/characters? i think books can go way too hard in the opposite direction. i felt this way when reading stuff like acotar, for example. the story wanted to give me certain vibes BADLY, because vibes work!, but i could see right through it (and this is my opinion!) and there was no meat below the all the fanfarre.

sometimes your characters just havent earned the cool/interesting moments.

anyway!! tldr: ive been thinking a lot about just going with the vibes for my wip and i think that's a pretty neat idea actually!! sometimes tending to your darlings can lead to interesting realizations about your story's themes that you otherwise would not notice by being too stuck to rigid plotting and too much rationalization (does it advance the plot? is this scene truly necessary? how is this developing the main character? etc) - but only when you interrogate them enough to find that out and use this newfound knowledge to enhance the story in a revision/another draft.

[cinnaminsvga]

tbf i think the grandma shit started because of my own fault. i think I felt so old compared to everyone that I said i feel like a grandma or something, or even told them to call me grandma in a "just call me grandma" kinda way and it stuck with a few of them haha

you know what, im kind of the opposite, I feel like my writing now is of a worse quality than back then. i think I got too used to writing just for myself so I got lazy and impatient and skipped over adding details and more descriptions and such But for you, I think it would be a good way to see how much you've improved in your personal opinion! Though like I get churro chumps specifically was crack so maybe use something you took more seriously when writing for comparative purposes haha

omg that's me with soonyoung, he's my actual bias even if seungcheol is constantly tackling me and shaking his ass in my face to remind me how much he owns my ass, but anyway, yeah soonyoung is my precious babie. i just want to love and protect him, he's just a poor innocent little soul

also, sorry if these asks are annoying, I never know when to shut up or how to real social cues so feel free to stop responding at any point. i am very aware that I ramble and it's a lot at times

(double also i know this response may seem fast, I just happened to see that you had responded when I came online lol. triple also(I need more vocab) no idea why im still remaining anon when you can probably easily guess my user at this point but im pretending there is a valid reason for clicking anon)

that's interesting to hear you think your writing got worse! well, i can sort of understand that... for me, when i take a break from writing, sometimes it can feel a little difficult to get back into the groove of things... but i get what you mean a little about "writing for yourself." when you have no intention of sharing your work, sometimes specific details aren't necessary when your target audience is, well, yourself.

as for rereading my old stuff... i do actually reread a lot of my stuff, just not the ones from when i was like 16 LOL it's not because i don't wanting to read my "unserious" stories, it's more because i hate cringing at my old stylistic choices. i like to think ive gotten better at adopting writing styles that i think can make my stories flow smoother. but as a teen, i had trouble structuring my stories because i relied heavily on dialogue to move them. which... isn't a very sustainable approach LMAO but yeah churro chumps is still a story i will always cherish, because even after all this time... i do love me some sillay yoongay fanfics :3

i like soonyoung too :D he was my bias prior to seungcheol... it started with jihoon, then soonyoung, then cheol... leading me to accept my fate as a leader line fan lol but tbh ive gotten really into seokmin lately... something about silly guys is getting to me...

and never apologize for rambling :D i ramble a lot too!! im president of yap city, as they say... i was always the kid who got moved around the classroom bc i would NOT shut up, no matter who i got paired up with... oh woe is the mouth that yaps... anyway thanks for sending these in!! its nice to talking to ya anytime!!

[cantfoolajoker]

You mentioned that Shinjiro's heavily implied to be apart of strega’s experiment and was wondering if you can elaborate more on that? It sounds really interesting

so pretty much this builds upon using evidence across different medias, namely the manga and spin off side novels, as well as taking things from the basic game.

(undercut bc this hit ~1.2k words oops)

first part is understanding what an artificial persona user is, which is what takaya, jin, and chidori all are -- artificial persona users are people who, through other means, were forced to awaken their personas. this concept exists in p2 and p3 (with special mention to sho who is technically one but had a different manifestation of the issue entirely), but p3 is what i am going to be focusing on since the info about them comes out of strega and mitsuru’s mouths in particular. 

according to strega in game and mitsuru’s explanation of the experiments, artificial persona users were forced to awaken their personas unnaturally which disrupts the balance between user and persona. remembering that personas and shadows are fundamentally the same thing in the world’s rules, this means rather than having a tamed persona under control, artificial users have essentially out of control shadows that just happen to take the forms of personas. the persona of an artificial user, because it is untamed, will attempt to usurper control from the user and murder them in the process in order to possess them, which mitsuru says will cause the user to become entirely in body a shadow -- this is why most of the people from strega’s experiment are dead.

so, with that out of the way, lets examine the times this happens in actual game. we see it happen with chidori, who we know this is natural to have happen because she is an artificial user and she was apart of those experiments. there is, however, a second person who also has this occur to them: shinjiro with castor! he even explains it to akihiko in the same terms during their conversation that castor wants to kill him and this is why shinjiro takes persona suppressants.  “but shinjiro has an evoker!” so does all of strega! using an evoker essentially channels the persona in a healthy manner and allows for a controlled appearance of them, which is why strega uses them except for the final fight where takaya will hold his head and forcefully summon his without an aid, which we know is possible for the p3 cast as a whole due to how the dark hour works in relation to real life (which is explained/stated in p4 arena). this would explain why shinjiro has an evoker and why castor is under control during these segments, since it also applies to other members of strega too.

getting onto smaller details, there is very heavy bias that at least chidori and jin, and even ikutsuki, consider shinjiro apart of strega as a group rather than sees. chidori is shown to trust shinjiro and jin asserts to akihiko in the manga during the moonlight bridge fight that akihiko “will never know shinjiro like we do”, which is a taunt to infuriate akihiko after shinjiro’s death. this is, at first glance, a very weird taunt to say if you only consider the meetings every time you see in the game and subsequent retold media. there isn’t really a way to interpret this other than strega knows what its like to have an artificial persona, which adds to this that shinjiro must be considered one too. this could also be interpreted further as the bond of trauma because of the experiments, since jin is telling akihiko that his relationship with shinjiro and shinjiro’s relationship with strega is not the same and strega must be closer to shinjiro due to some undisclosed reason. there isn’t much further comment on this in the fight because again, it’s a taunt and it does its job since akihiko is pissed off at jin for saying this and attempts to punch him without further comment.

on top of that, you ever notice how ikutsuki.... doesn’t really care about shinjiro at all? for being one of the founding members of sees, even when shinjiro comes back ikutsuki doesn’t care and focuses on akihiko and mitsuru. this is only added on when considering shinjiro goes to strega for persona suppressors -- suppressors which ikutsuki hand makes and engineered to be deadly to the people who needed to take them. there is an argument to be had the reason why ikutsuki doesn’t care about shinjiro is because he knew he was dead from the beginning for needing to take the suppressors. it’s also why ikutsuki knowingly lets all of strega do whatever they want -- they’re all going to die in the end because of ikutsuki’s suppressors, which again, were hand made by him and very likely were specifically made with the death of the people taking them in mind, especially considering that the death of sees was a command built into aigis ikutsuki had control over.

back to strega though, there is actually a spin off novel about strega! it’s called shadow cry, which features strega and a book specific character named izumi. izumi is also an artificial persona user who was deemed dead by kirijo group’s books because he went mia. funny enough, there’s actually a cameo from another well known persona character in this book despite it being focused on strega. who is that character? none other than shinjiro aragaki, who shows up and saves jin’s life when he’s suddenly attacked by a shadow and refuses to tell jin why he saved him. so this book about artificial persona users has shinjiro appear, who is heavily connected to strega already, and who demonstrates all the above mentioned traits of an artificial persona user, and he refuses to answer for why he let jin live when he very well could have let jin die and no one would have known he did this? you could argue on one hand that its shinjiro being an incredibly kind person -- which, as canon shows, he is -- but why did it have to be shinjiro who saved him? couldn’t it have been anyone from sees? none of them would’ve let jin die either. why is it so important its shinjiro who saved jin? why is it important that a spin off book had to make this connection clear?

i propose it’s important because shinjiro was also in the experiments, like izumi. izumi proves the number count of living people from the experiments was wrong, so who is to say shinjiro is not also an artificial persona user and was apart of those exact same experiments? it would slot in perfectly and explain a lot of his character and how he functions, especially with why he relies so heavily on strega and doesn’t have the heart to turn his back on them. there is also the added bonus of realizing that within the trio dynamics, strega is comparable to ikutsuki, mitsuru, and akihiko (akihiko and jin are even both the only noted left handed characters in p3 to boot!), and this leaves a shinjiro sized hole in both groups to complete them.... by none other than shinjiro himself in both cases.

obviously, because shinjiro never outright says anything about any of this, you can take it with a grain of salt, but shinjiro as a character is fair to acknowledge he wasn’t meant to be given serious attention due to his status as a fridge character for ken and akihiko’s development. this is what makes it all the more weird that there is such specific detail in this whole dynamic he has with strega and the concept of artificial persona users that fits him in perfectly.

[bisexualhobi]

hii, could you please expand on what you mean when you say no one in bts is a good singer? this is not a malicious ask i swear, i am just genuinely curious and would like to learn something new bc i have no knowledge on music theory or singing techniques etc, and you seem like you know your stuff, ya know? also if you want to ignore this ask so that you don't get butthurt kpoppies in your inbox, i understand lmao

hey! don’t worry i don’t mind, and sure! i hope you also know that i’m not being malicious either by saying that bts aren’t that good at singing. me saying they don’t have a particularly good technique =/= slandering them or saying they’re shitty. some groups are known for their dancing, others for their singing, others for rapping and so on and so forth. bts were originally formed to be a group heavily focused on rap, so when they recruited the members they were looking for rapping and dancing skills more so than vocal skills. none of the vocal line members had previous serious singing training, so it’d make sense that they weren’t as naturally gifted/or even taught proper skills. 

also i wanna add i’m not an expert in vocal coaching by any means but i do have some background in music theory since i studied that for two years. bts vocal line can carry a tune. definitely. and they also manage to sing live while doing a lot of complicated and demanding choreography. that is already an achievement in of itself! but having a voice timbre that sounds nice to your ears doesn’t equate a good singing technique. i really like taehyung and jimin’s timbre, for example, but the four of them struggle a lot when it comes to developing proper tonality, stability, agility, etc.

the main weakness with their vocal line is the lack of breath support and projection. jimin, jungkook, and jin have no ability to control diaphragmatic breathing, which is the proper way to breathe when you sing. their voice is placed in their throat, so it comes out too weak and sometimes nasal. you know how a lot of ppl say jungkook has a very breathy tone when singing? that’s the breathing. some people might actually prefer that style and it is still very friendly to the ear because of jungkook’s natural timbre, but it’s a bad technique.

taehyung is a baritone so there is very little material to take from because big hit never writes songs for his supported range, so i can’t make a great assessment of his breathing, but it’s still the most stable in vocal line. he still struggles with projection (precisely because there is so little for him to work with and practice within his range) but he is unable to sustain a proper head voice.

they’re all also very weak in projection, which means to throw your voice forward. so after a certain volume level they all sound strained and can go off pitch. you can see this in live performances where after a certain “high pitched” moment you can clearly hear strain as they struggle to meet the level of projection required. (a good example of this is epiphany’s famous high note. jin has a good voice for someone who had no previous singing background 9 years ago, but that note is strained because it goes above his supported range and his capability for projection).

lastly, they have mediocre agility. this means how quickly and effortlessly a singer can do riffs, switch between voices (head or chest), or do runs. the only vl member that can do runs properly is taehyung. jungkook too, when they’re breathy or falsetto parts. not one of them can do proper riffs on the spot. the vocal line should in theory be able to harmonize seamlessly and follow a riff live, but bts barely “improvise” vocally in live performances. this is because their agility is underdeveloped. you know how in glee or pitch perfect the ensemble is able to follow a melody and create “a cappella” sounding parts? that’s riffing. bts’ vl can’t riff on the spot and their songs don’t focus on ad libs or runs precisely because they are not able to pull it off.

i previously answered an ask that goes more into detail. it’s not only about bts but that’s because that ask was about exo too. it has some sources from a vocal coach run blog that analyzes kpop singers’ strengths and weaknesses. anyway, this got way too long. again. sorry. but this is basically what i think and it’s the reason bts have no live albums, no musical appearances, and rely heavily on edm style songs where there is autotune present. and with all this, bts is still my ult group and i still enjoy their voices and their songs a lot! you can criticize something while still loving it. weird, i know

[ladyloveandjustice]

Winter 2020 Anime Overview: Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun

Ok, so let’s get this out of the way first, 1. I adore this story so much and 2. Toilet Bound Hanako-kun has a horrible, horrible English title that is not actually at all representative of the story’s content and I have no idea what happened when it came to the team choosing that name. To the average English-speaking viewer/reader, this name 100% implies gross stuff and bathroom humor, and there is none in this show. 

A Japanese reader on the other hand, would be more likely to recognize the name Jibaku Shounen Hanako-kun as a spin on the classic ghost story “Hanako-san of the Toilet” only A BOY THIS TIME WHHHHA?” Basically, the story goes that a girl named Hanako in a red skirt haunts girls’ bathrooms in Japanese schools and if you knock on the third stall and call “Hanako-san” three times, she’ll appear. She might grant you a wish or pull you into Hell or something else, it varies.

(Her Wikipedia image, aww.)

Anyway, I dunno why the English title didn’t at least go with “Toilet Ghost Hanako-kun” or something that would have gotten the premise across even a  little better (HE NOT TECHNICALLY BOUND BY THE TOILET EVEN, HE CAN GO ANYWHERE IN THE SCHOOL GROUNDS THE BATHROOM IS JUST HIS HOME BASE), but our boy Hanako haunting the girl’s bathroom only leads to broad jokes about our heroine being tasked with cleaning the bathroom and “dude you really shouldn’t be in here” comments, it’s pretty incidental. 

Now that THAT’S out of the way, let’s talk about my LOVE FOR THIS STORY

Hanako-kun tells the story of a “regular” high school girl named Nene Yashiro, the mischievous and mysterious school ghost she befriends, and all the other weird monsters, exorcists, spirits and curses they encounter. It’s got a gorgeous, colorful bold aesthetic and art style that combines gothic and cute! It has a great mix of humor, intrigue, angst and fantasy action. basically if you love ghosts, monsters, Japanese mythology and legends, supernatural-human relationships, supernaturally fueled angst and drama, stories about trying to fix an unfair system the world has set up, wistful romance, a good shoujo manga with a Lot of Feelings (yes this is a shonen technically I’ll explain that later), weirdo dorks becoming friends AND MUCH MORE...this story will have something that will resonate with you. It’s got a lot going on, and it’s a ton of fun.

Hanako-kun is really one of those surprising stories that fits right into a hole in my story-loving heart I didn’t realize was still there, or that I’d actually been carrying since childhood. I love ghosts, see, and have since I was a kid!!! I knew this, but I kinda forgot how intensely I love them until this show reminded me again??? That’s because regular ghost stories/mysteries/whatever- I like them, but they don’t quite do it for me in the way more character-driven ones exploring the nature of being a ghost and humans and ghosts trying understand each other etc do. Stuff that really gets into the tragedy AND the fun fantasy aspect of ghosts, and plays the long game with it- and Hanako-kun scratches that itch perfectly.

Getting a little bit deeper into the premise of Hanako-kun, Nene is a very brave and sweet but not-all-that-bright girl (or, to put it more bluntly, she’s an idiot in the best way) who has a lot of romantic fantasies and insecurities and is VERY focused on them. After hearing a rumor at school that “Hanako-san of the bathroom” will grant wishes, she wishes to be able to confess to her crush and finds out its actually a weird ghost boy her age named Hanako haunting the bathroom! A lot of things happen, and she ends up cursed and bound to Hanako-kun, but also ends up slowly forming a friendship. 

Turns out Hanako is the ghost in charge of the “seven mysteries/wonders” aka seven powerful supernatural entities that haunt this school (he’s number seven). These apparitions only supposed to terrorize students a LITTLE, because apparitions need to have rumors spread about them to remain in the human world.

(‘HAVE YOU HEARD?’ Oh hey shadow girls from Utena see you’ve moved to a new school.)

The rumors also generally dictate how powerful and dangerous the apparitions actually are- but SOMETHING MYSTERIOUS is changing the rumors around the school and making the apparitions go berserk and actually harm humans. So Hanako needs a human assistant to change the rumors and help him calm and seal the apparitions! That’s where Nene comes in.

Hanako himself is a very fun character- he’s very chaotic and revels in his whole “ gremlin ghost” persona, and is upfront about being a bit of an asshole. BUT he also makes his kindness, often good intentions and the fact he’ll have his friends back when it counts obvious from the beginning. B U T! He’s also got darkness and hidden depths to explore, and a lot of his persona is affected and masks deeper issues! 

Our ghost boy is genuinely A TAD unstable deep down (as in he straight up has several untreated PTSD symptoms and that’s as disastrous as you’d expect) and packing some serious tragic backstory, as you might expect from a kid who died young and carries around a butcher’s knife, and it’s gonna come back to bite him and and all who care about him hard. 

 Especially when an overly enthusiastic exorcist named Kou Minamoto shows up! Kou is another one who’s very dumb and very good, a wannabe-shonen-protag with a heart of gold and strong sensitive, domestic side. He rounds out our main trio. Also he gets a tragic, emotionally intense relationship with yet another ghost boy that sings to my heart.

(Yes Hanako’s helping Nene to do the thing)

You may be able to tell, this story has INTENSE good-shoujo vibes despite technically being a shonen in a way that I love- it’s story very driven by big emotions, a variety of fucked up and tragically complex relationships, teen hormones running wild, etc, and it’s just delicious. 

Nene is the normal-person-audience-surrogate-girl in a way that is more common for a shoujo protag, and the way her emotional connections to everyone, her sweeping romantic fantasies and her interiority are consistently in focus when she’s there- yeah, she’s definitely a plucky shoujo protag, 100%. And I’m all about that!!!

 One thing I especially appreciate (though this comes across more strongly in the manga than the anime thanks to the anime rearranging things) is when Nene finds out about Hanako’s Heavy Baggage, she actually takes some time to herself to consider whether she can handle dealing with someone with these intense issues as a kid who’s never encountered stuff like this before- it’s not assumed by the story that the Sweet Girl is Obligated to help the Tragic Boy. I go into more detail about this part in this part here, but it’s that kind of attention to Nene’s needs that makes her role in the story work. Hanako and Nene and everyone’s struggles to get the hang of and properly navigate honest communication and mutual support in relationships are often really great and real-feeling

The story has a lot more things I love packed in to it- a dorky-but-still-deeply-unsettling villain gang who’s screwed up interactions are just as fun as our protagonists, yokai, A CURSED LIBRARY, some great ladies in addition to Nene, meditations on the nature of life, death, themes about fighting nihilism, and so on...I could seriously go on forever. It’s good stuff, and there’s lots of good weird supernaturals to meet.

The story’s also got tons of intrigue! The overarching plot and Hanako’s Mysterious Past is still in the process of unfolding, but it’s been great drama every step of the way! As mentioned before, the story also really relies on funny character dynamics, interaction and development to carry the whole thing and balance the drama.

The anime itself does have some pacing issues bc they crammed a lot into the first season and rearranged some stuff- an entire two chapter arc was skipped and was unlikely to be covered in the anime and some parts are noticeably rushed. I still really like the anime and it’s a solid adaptation. I love how much of the manga’s detailed aesthetic it managed to keep as well as the amazing voice acting and it made a few small but important additions. But there are some notable bumps- of course this just led me to go binge the manga (up to volume 12 is legally available digitally) and BOY DO I NOW LOVE THIS STORY EVEN MORE. 

Now obviously, just because it is Exactly My Shit in a lot of ways doesn’t mean Hanako-kun is the much quested for “unproblematic fave”, there’s several caveats you should probs be aware of- its shoujo vibes also mean some classic shoujo ~Problematic tropes~ and a couple shounen ones. 

THE LIST:

-Just as a general content overview thing: if this wasn’t clear the show deals heavily with death, body horror and other horror aspects. There’s heavily implied suicide and abuse and so on- as mentioned, the main character is traumatized and shows a lot of symptoms of PTSD, and Nene has to struggle to navigate her relationship with him because of this, as does Kou.

-Hanako himself has the whole ~loveable pervert~ and ~slightly possessive shoujo bad boy~ schtick going as part of his mischevious persona. In the anime so far, he never actually gropes or comments on not-in-his-naughty-mags-people’s breasts or anything of that level thankfully, but he’s very flirty, clingy, will loudly bring up porn, fond of the ol’ *says something that purposefully sounds sexually possessive* HAHAHA U THOUGHT I MEANT SOMETHING DIRTY RIGHT LOL ACTUALLY I DIDN’T.”

(My unnecessary ‘this part is kinda interesting!’ ramble: Nene always lists “sexual harassment” among Hanako’s flaws (she loves listing them), but doesn’t get visibly uncomfortable with his flirtiness or seem to mind it most times, which at least makes the whole thing more tolerable for me.

(since she doesn’t seem to mind that part and its clear he does it bc of actual affection for her, it’s actually p. cute how huggy he is.)

 The one time it does cross the line and genuinely upset her, it’s treated seriously, Hanako is genuinely regretful and apologizes. That’s one of my fave moments in the story and the way it’s handled is well done.

 This incident that he’s honestly pretty socially clueless as kid who died young and a lot of his bravado is to cover that up and keep people at a distance- this is a trope into itself that can use unpacking but I do at least appreciate that this is a considered character trait that’s part of his whole messed up package rather than something that thrown in there Just to Be a Fanservice Trope. (Especially since the manga confirms he never acted particularly pervy while alive, further cementing this is an affected persona). 

-There’s a running gag around Nene’s insecurity over her thick ‘daikon shaped’ ankles and boys treating her badly for it. 

One one hand, her body image issues are relatable, on the other, it feels cruel and annoying just how much the show finds ways to bring it up and humiliate her over and over again.

(My unnecessary “this is part is kinda interesting” ramble:The one thing i did realize that despite bringing it up constantly, we at least have no “i’m going to do this to lose weight” or “go on a diet” rhetoric,like this is just part of Nene’s body type and she knows she can’t change it? Which is kinda interesting. And I’ve spotted what might be foreshadowing something plot relevant’s going to happen with her ankles (I DON’T KNOW HOW, BUT GOD I PUT NOTHING PAST THIS STORY) so uh yeah??? either way it’s not good tho)

-”Obsessive and twisted love” is a running theme in this story, and while it’s generally acknowledged as unhealthy, it can be played for comedy in a way that could make viewers/readers uncomfortable. There’s a couple characters who’s entire thing so far is “obsessively in love with this one person” (and the one only focused on in the manga so far is one of the least interesting characters tbh ugh)

-The antagonist of the show is a member of a main character’s family, and the manner he acts towards pretty much everyone, including (and really especially) his family member,  verges on seductive. This is presented as deliberately unsettling and treated as a marker of how unstable and scary he is- and though the backstory between them hasn’t been fully delved into, it’s pretty much all but confirmed he abused this family member physically and emotionally.

-The story has like, A LOT of queer subtext and pretty-heavy queer coding for one character especially, but the few times queerness blatantly comes up in the story, it’s played as a joke in the “haha that’d be kinda weird” way (aside from the rando boys who have a crush on Teru, handled pretty neutrally). It’s not as malicious as a lot of animanga can get (ONE MANGA INCIDENT ASIDE), but it’s something to Be Aware Of, and it makes it clear we’re unlikely to see subtext rise to text and makes some moments feel baity.

-And probably more I might have missed! The manga also has Some Shit in addition all the Good Shit that hasn’t been adapted yet, an early arc has Hanako crossing a serious line etc. 

BUT despite how messy it is, I think it’s clear I have a lot of love for this story. In fact, I wouldn’t trade away a good chunk of its messiness (DEFINITELY SOME JUST NOT ALL), it kinda works for the characters and works in the “this story really feed my inner teen” way. Some of the trashy parts are exactly My Trash, basically. 

So, I knew I’d ramble on for a while when I talked about his show, but if you’ve read this far, thanks, and I hope that means you’re gonna check out and maybe enjoy this story, bc i need more people to join me in Hanako Hell.

[ibblescribbles-archive]

Got any tips on figure drawing and anatomy?

tbh, i don’t really know if i have much to offer in terms of anatomy tips?? i get asked this a looot and i never know what to say bc its hard for me to explain, or know what would be helpful,, really all i can give advice on is honing your observational drawing skills and using references! i think drawing from life can be one of the most helpful/important skills for illustrative artists. that doesnt mean you have to sit still for hours drawing a still life or figure (though tbh figure/gesture drawings are a great option for learning anatomy) but making sure you’re referencing from real objects/people, or looking at how other artists stylize certain attributes can be a huge help! with anatomy specifically, its good to actually understand how the human body is put together, and how muscles/bone structure affect the outside shape of the body. You can break down the body into simple shapes, sure, and that’s a great start! but for the more detailed curves and bumps, if you don’t know *why* they exist, its hard to draw them correctly! if that makes any sense?? for example, i see a lot of beginners draw bumps on the sides of the wrist when drawing hands, but sometimes it may look awkwardly placed or wrong because they’re only mimicking what they’ve seen other artists do, and not thinking about the actual wrist bone that causes that bump. same for the collar bone, lots of people learn to stylize it as a line but have you looked at the actual shape of one before? do you know why we draw it curved in or how high in the chest it is? that being said, its not like i consciously think about that every time i draw, and i’m no expert on muscular or skeletal anatomy by any means slfdlmfs,, this may all seem obvious to some, but i think in general its important to consider and understand how the body is put together, even just on a subconscious level! you don’t have to learn all the muscles in the human body and a lot of this stuff is picked up from just drawing or observing real people, which again is probably the best form of practice. don’t be afraid to use references, especially of yourself if you can! I am constantly referencing my own body, by taking pictures of myself in the mirror or of my hands and then stitching those together to form the pose i want to make. using online models can help too, you just don’t want to rely too heavily on referencing them as a lot of times their features can be kinda wonky lol im sorry this advice basically boils down to “practice more and draw from life”! i could try giving specific tips but im not great at making tutorials or explaining my process, and i’m more of a visual/kinetic learner myself, so actually drawing and studying other artists’ works is what helps me best! if you don’t care to draw from life, that’s perfectly fine and understandable, there’s no one right way to do art and its okay to find observational drawing tedious and boring! you can still use observational skills on already stylized art and reference how other artists stylize things to learn, just be careful about heavily referencing and such ^^; i hope i helped a little bit and good luck w/ your art!

[springday-aus]

Tech Kid!AU with Chan

—

Group: Seventeen

Member: Dino / Lee Chan

Genre: fluff, romance

part of the Odd Summer Jobs!AU ⤗ introduction of the Summer Boys!

check out the others on the au masterlist!

Type: Bulletpoint AU 

Word Count: 1.6k 

so Chan works around his neighborhood as a tech kid

he usually helps the older people, like grandparents or other adults with empty nests

you know, people without a younger generation to rely on

because of that, he doesn’t really do anything that’s necessarily… hard

most of the time he literally just turns the computer on and off

others are just updates on, like, phones or something

(Chan’s mom literally makes him do that shit all the time, which is what made him be the “tech kid” of the summer boys)

because of this job tho, he’s got a rep as their adopted grandson throughout his neighborhood

it’s really sweet

so there are other things he does, but they’re fairly easy

he gets called to help set up new laptops or desktops or something like that

sometimes parents call him to help their children set up like gaming laptops

but, like, they already know what they’re doing and he gets paid just for reading some manual instructions lol

most of the time it usually ends up with him spending like two hours teaching them how to use the mouse and type on the keyboard and all that other stuff

the other summer boys feel really bad for him because sometimes the customers get super infuriating

not in the sense that they’re rude or anything

it’s more of like, who doesn’t know how to use a fucking laptop mouse?

(but also, like, Mark struggles with technology all the time and whenever Chan points this out, the boys are like Mark who?) 

the thing is tho is that Chan actually has a lot of patience and he thinks it’s super funny whenever these people struggle against technology

the amount of times he’s been called over to Soonyoung’s place is insane, but Chan thinks it’s super funny whenever he’s practically slamming his hands onto the keyboard

Soonyoung: “so if I click this…”

Chan: “hyung, you don’t have to click the left and right side of the computer mouse”

Soonyoung: “thEN WHAT ARE THEY FOR CHAN”

Chan: “I should really raise my hourly wage”

Soonyoung: “I’m just trying to make a presentation for this class why am I struggling so much” T^T

but yeah, his job isn’t necessarily hard

on some rare occasions it’ll be like programming or something but

he also knows how to do basic coding so

(he thanks his university’s stupid acadmic requirements for that)

and if not, there’s google

so he meets you because you needed some help with your laptop

it’s very old and you are very reluctant to to buy a new one

why?

because you have the mind of a 90 year old

which means you got the hang of this laptop and don’t know how to use other ones

so when a friend gives you an old laptop bc you won’t just buy a new one…………..

things get complicated quickly

because, first of all, the laptop is one of those fancy ass 2 in 1 laptops

and you didn’t even know that

…………. until you opened it to clean it and it started malfunctioning

not really malfunctioning, but more of…….. weird

anyways

your friend knew you were going to need some help, so your friend recommended calling Chan to help you set it up

You: “you want me to pay a guy to help me with something I can google on my phone?”

“try to google it on your new laptop then” :)

“fuck you” 

so you get his number from your friend and shoot him a text

a couple of minutes later, he sent a response and you arrange a time together, also providing your address and all the other details

when he comes, it’s a bit awkward but it’s okay

you didn’t really expect him to be this young

but it’s fine

he goes in and makes small talk as he opens your laptop and such

he mentions his university, his major and club activities

and you talk a bit about yourself too

like your summer plans

the things you’re doing and what you’re prepping up for

once he gets your laptop open and started, he turns to you

Chan: “so what’s the problem?”

You: “..... there’s not exactly a problem, it’s more of a complication”

Chan: “complication?”

You: “I don’t… exactly know how to use it”

Chan: “why did you get this laptop then?”

You: “I didn’t really get it… it was more of a gift”

he raises an eyebrow, but he doesn’t say anything else

although there is a hint of a smirk

You: “could you just… help me figure this out?”

You: “I just don’t know the functions and stuff and I really don’t want to break it”

Chan: “okay, okay, give me a bit of time to mess with it and I’ll teach you”

so he messes around the laptop to figure out its functions and such

you’re on the side, just chatting with him as he does his thing

you both bond

it’s like that for a hot bit

but then he passes the laptop to you

Chan: “your turn” :)

You: oh shit

this is when the fun really begins

and by fun, I mean insanity

it was just two hours of you struggling

Chan: “so, there’s a stylus pen included for the touch function”

You: “ooooo, where?”

Chan: “it’s on the right side”

You: “I don’t see anything”

Chan: “you have to press the right side”

You: “press?? the right side???”

Chan: “(Y/N), not literally, there’s a part you have to—oh my God”

your brain cells were struggling to work with the technology

lowkey he was laughing real hard on the inside and failing to contain it

he lost it tho when you were trying to flip the screen into tablet mode and screamed because you thought you broke it for a hot sec

you know he was laughing at you but he looked pretty cute doing it

You: “laugh all you want, but when you’re suffering like this, I’ll be there”

Chan: “trust me, you aren’t as bad as some of my friends”

You: “I doubt it”

Chan: “you haven’t met Mark”

Chan: “I’m pretty sure he still has an ipod somewhere”

You: “..... really?”

so eventually he does have to leave

it took a while but you got there eventually

he also invites you out

Chan: “I feel like you would get along with my friends, would you like to join us for a movie night?”

(you didn’t notice him looking at you from how you were looking at him)

You: “yeah, sure, sounds fun”

and hence your first unofficial date

it was fun

the other boys easily let you in and they were real easy going

you all got along and had a lot of fun as time went by

Mark: “the ending was all interconnected”

Renjun: “you know that’s called a wrap up… you know… as a point of the movie”

and then when it was all over, Chan walked you home

Hansol: “oooooo”

Jaemin: “cute”

(he advised you to ignore them, but the redness of his ears shows how he didn’t even listen to his own advice lmao)

the walk home was a bit short, yet the conversation just kept going

and I don’t mean just the walk, you two kept in touch through texting

so that also meant spending more time together

hanging out

and getting to know one another

it’s cute bc some of the time is spent trying to teach you how to use your technology

Chan: “was this a seduction tactic to provide you with free services?”

You: “100% Channie”

he came over once with some of his video games and the two of you had a blast

(even though it took awhile for you to understand the controls)

at some point he was real close when he was trying to move your fingers along the controls……………….

hm, yes

you highkey just kept staring at his face rather than the controls and you were just………..heavily distracted

anyways

you actually come with him to some of his jobs

his usuals (i.e. the elders) think it’s super cute

“you brought your partner with you!!! hi!!!!”

they gave you cookies and you were sold: you were never going to leave

well, you did bc Chan dragged you out

while he works tho, you kind of just admire him from the side

you do feel kind of bad for him whenever he has to work with people who are just as bad with technology as... well, you 

but he always reassures you

Chan: “this is good because you can see what you look like”

You: “...... I can always leave”

Chan: “not with all these cookies you can’t”

You: “goDDAMN IT”

that’s the summary of your relationship lmao

he’s the tech kid and you just…… struggle

but it’s okay

you have him :)

you know what’s cute tho??

bc he like knows how to code and shit

he knows all these cute little things to do for your laptop

(he highkey got inspiration from watching Strong Woman Dong Bong Soon to make your wallpaper into his face with animated heart emojis)

by cute things, I mainly mean messages rather than actual things

he’s not great with his words

he’s trying and it’s cute but like his actions show his affections and you eat that shit up

another thing tho

while he doesn’t say anything about physical affection

he really likes it

one time, you grabbed his hand to show him something at a shopping window

and he just kept looking at it bc he couldn’t look at you

but he also didn’t pull away

after that tho, you did amp up the skinship and he’s just…….. sigh

it’s great

you’re both having fun with each other like a couple of cuties running through a flower field

[kinktae]

How dare you bitchin!jungkook ?! HOW DARE YOU ?!

very NOT spoiler free bitchin’ 8 asks under the cut

Y/N SUPPORT GROUP

deliciouslydisturbed365 said: I just read chapter 8 and holy fuck I’m nauseous. Poor Y/N 😭

queen-emon said: What the literal FUCK man, I just read Bitchin 08 and like im so broken. I never ever consider Y/n and I to be the same person but this time I felt like we were the same person both getting our hearts crushed by the man we loved so dearly. I AM NOT OKAY WHAT THE HELL DID YOU DO TO ME! THIS IS SO NOT GROOVY :(

Anonymous said: Me🤝y/n Repressing our emotions

madjammil said: I am legit crying. Poor y/n! I cannot believe Jungkook slept with Kiri! My heart is broken. I thought these two were finally getting together and he goes and does this dumb shit! Smh. Aside from that, your writing was amazing as always! I love this series so much!

YARA BULLY JK PETITIONERS

Anonymous said: omg i can’t believe jungkook is rly going to get his dickie chopped off 😍😍😍 deserve! can’t wait until yara finds out

Anonymous said: Ignore jk, y/n!!! Gosh she deserve so much better than a fboi who only cares about how he feels physically!! Ahole to the max and I need her to slap him! Yara can join along the slapping game!! But srsly he needs to learn his words alone can’t mend this and I hope y/n doesn’t give in so easily cuz he deserves cold shoulders from her for a very long time and don’t just rely on charms to get his way. Ik he was trouble from the start 😔 y/n dear don’t worry you deserve better

casualxexistence said: So 👉👈 um like is there like ANy chance that we get to see our baby yara’s reaction to this 🥺🥺🥺👼 bc um well I would kinda love to see her hand both jk and kiri there asses bc they aren’t gonna hAVE ANY AFTER SHE FINISHES WITH THEM RIP

Anonymous said: dude, what if y/n hooks up with tae and starts beef between jk and him while yara bitch slaps kiri….. dude bitchin’ has such good drama theories wtf literally anything is possible at this point

Anonymous said: if yara doesn’t punch kook can I punch him? Not as the oc I meant like me BECAUSE WHAT THE FUCK

forvever-ddaeng said: I keep rereading this last part like it’s somehow gonna change or it won’t make me sad the more I read it but it’s having the opposite effect and now I want Yara to beat Jungkook’s ass smh

Anonymous said: WTFFFFFFF YARA GONNA HUNT DOWN AND KICK JUNGKOOK ASS FOR HURTING HER BABY

JUNGKOOK ANTIS:

Anonymous said: what the fuck is wrong with bitchin’!jungkook does he think with his dick i wanna kick his ass

Anonymous said: why jungkook would do something like that if he likes y/n? i would be so mad at him too like… isn’t that kind of cheating? he didn’t say if he was back together with his ex but he slept with her so that must mean something, she probably thinks it means something. he was really stupid 

omgtaehyungsmullett said: i know jungkook fucking with me, dammit 😡

Anonymous said: I DONT UNDERSTAND WHY WOULD JUNGKOOK DO THAT WHY

ausjeons said: Jungkook what the fuck!!! I could slap you silly after reading part 8 😪😩

Anonymous said: Team make jk suffer for awhile and then be able to patch things up with the oc 🤝

Anonymous said: I read ch8 last night and this weighed heavily on my mind all day like why is jk such a hoe? Like how could he just sleep with Kiri just like that. I think these children are very confuzzled with their feelings. After he slept with Kiri, did he rush to y/n bc he knew this was the end of their “relationship”? One last passionate banger goodbye 😟 my 💔 broken heart

Anonymous said: I ain’t even sad. I’m full on rage mode. WHO TF GAVE JK THE AUDACITY , THE ABSOLUTE BRAWN TO STICK HIS DICK IN KIRI AND THEN , NOT EVEN A FULL DAY LATER ( cuz yk that would be farrr too gracious ) WITHOUT A WARNING , WITHOUT A FRICKING GOOD MORNING EVEN , GOES TO FUCK OC AND THINKS THAT’S OKAY???? Good to know OC and whatever his relationship was with her was worth less than a nut😒

Anonymous said: i’m actually sad… like wow. i really expected him to go back, i really did. but even though i knew it’d happen, it still hurt, y’know? i think that made it worse; knowing that he’d go back to her in the end… shit’s fucked up, really. great job writing it. i could literally feel the emotion from this one.

Anonymous said: Bitchin ch 8…..oh wow the smut was so nice and fluffy but wtf JJK messed up big time. Honestly I don’t think he deserves oc after this. She deserves someone who isn’t so unsure of his feelings that it takes getting back together with and sleeping with someone else to realise it. If he really liked her, he wouldn’t have slept with Kiri.

Anonymous said: “ArE YOu MAd?” Srsly what brand of clown juice is Bitchin JJK drinking?

Anonymous said: TAE AND Y/N HOES BRO ENTER THE NEW SHIP FUCK JK

cchristinnaa said: Jk really did yn like a pocket pussy huh

Anonymous said: HOW COULD JUNGKOOK OH MY GOOODDDDDDDDDDD literally men aint SHIT….. the part where y/n said you got what you wanted from me🥺🥺🥺🥺 I FELT THAT ugh i love the angst

Anonymous said: Hope jk dieS from jealousy next ch. And regrets it skdhdhd :( jk. Hope they get their sht 2gether soon or im gon 😷😖😭

diortae said: me: *explaining to bitchin 8 jk why he’s a dick for calling Y/N his “pretty girl” immediately after fucking her raw the morning after he slept with his ex* 

jk: well, you know what they say. hindsight is 20/20 

me: KINDA SEEMS LIKE REGULAR SIGHT SHOULD HAVE CAUGHT THAT ONE

Anonymous said: JUNGKOOK IS ABOUT TO MEET THESE FISTS UP CLOSE THATS ON GOD THAT DUMBASS LIMP DICK BITCH REALLY FUCKED UP

Anonymous said: I HATE JJK HES AN ASS FOR GG DOWN ON 2WOMEN HE CAN JUS F HIMSELF RN

Anonymous said: JUNGKOOK IS GONNA GET HIS ASS BEATEN UGHSHHSKDHXJSJ MOTHERFUCKER WHAT? WHAT??? THIS BITCH IS A RIDE OR DIE AND UR GOING AFTER FAKEASS KIRI REALLY? FOR REAL I THOUGHT UOU WERE BETTER THAN THIS BUT NO ALL MEN DO IS LIE LIE LIE

Anonymous said: the way i closed the tumblr app when i saw jungkook saying “kiri came over last night”

Anonymous said: alright we beating jk’s ass @ noon 😤

Anonymous said: WHY WOULD JUNGKOOK DO THAT TO OC LIKE WHAT I AGREE WITH OC HE USED HER AND THAT MAKES ME 😡😡😡😡😡

Anonymous said: BITCHIN PART 8 WTFGGGG MY HEART Do be Hurting . i’m going to beat jungkook up !!!!

betysotelo18 said: It’s been a few minutes since I read part 8 and I can’t stop thinking about what could happen next… the meanwhile F U jeon Jungkook, you did wrong

Anonymous said: NOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!! I CANT 😭 WHAT SHOULD I DO WITH THIS CHAPTER HUUUU JUNGKOOK WTFF BRO…….. my heart is breaking for them. Why can’t they just date already wkxbdbbdjdjdjdjdjdj this is onky misunderstanding right? and thankyou for the new chapter sis hihuhihih💕💕

Anonymous said: im shocked i dunno who i hate more rn you or jungkook. my heart is literally SHATTERED he better fix this or else im traveling to the 80s just to kick his ass 😭🤬

Anonymous said: never want to punch jungkook in the face like i wanna do right now

Anonymous said: JUNGKOOK WHAT THE FUUUUUUUUCK 🤬 for the love of god rose why do u did that to me i wanna die

Anonymous said: ROSE WTF WAS THAT MAN !!! my heart it hurts and like wtf jungpuke!! Why would he do that to reader !! why would he sleep with kiri and then sleep with reader ?!? Like go siekkeksjdjejjejdbehhe i wish i can put in reaction pictures in here

CUTIE PIES

Anonymous said: Omggg thank you so so much for this chapter, for the whole fic. Thank you for sharing it with us. You are a great writter. Seriously! I just love how every chapter is so intense. Not only the smut is amazing but every detail, every action, the whole plot, all of the dialogues. I actually cried at the end I love how I can really feel everything. All the emotions. Ah and they’re so cute!!! But why was JK so weak? Even if that’s what you wanted since the beginning… I thought- BOY WTF??? :’( But seriously this is the type of thing I love, I am WEAK for this. The slow burn, the oblivious idiots that love each other but keep suffering thing. And you write it so well. Your mind!!! Your talent!!! I love it. Thank you, for real ♥♥♥ I’m antecipating the next chapter, but already sad that it’s almost ending :((( I’m gonna miss this a lot. Anyways, take your time, baby. And have a nice day! ♥♥♥ (Sorry for bad english btw)

tinievmin said: ROSE. IM IN PAIN. I FELT THE BREAKUP BETWEEN YN AND JUNGKOOK. IM SO SADDD. But not related to the plot, your writing is ART. You always make it flow so well aND WOW!!! I don’t have enough words to express how much I love your works

AND FINALLY, AN INTELLECTUAL

Anonymous said: kiri is a bitch i said what i said

[fwns]

First time crying because of a pokemon game

Literally no one:

Me: I’m gonna write about pokemon shield because it’s a great game and i love it

Man the last time i got to review something was probably 7 years ago during high school english class. I am by no mean a writer, yet again a game reviewer. This is just my honest take on the game bc it saddens me to see that a lot of people are shitting on the game especially with the dexit, short game, lack of action and the paid DLCs just announced. I‘ve been playing pokemon for 10 years or so (my first game was saphire) and despite the flaws this game has, i truly enjoy it.

1.) First of all. dude u gotta appreciate the visuals of the game!! LOOK AT THOSE!!

The screenshots above are from some of my favourite areas in the game. The concept of wild area is really cool and it makes the pokemon journey more realistic like the ones we used to see in the anime or how we imagined it. That it would take days to reach a city and u need to set up a camp whenever you need to rest or fill your belly. Also getting chased by strong wild pokemon in the wild area really got my blood pumping lmao

2.) THE SOUNDTRACKS. THE FRIGGIN. MUSIC. I’m such an aficionado for great music whether it’s an album, movie scores, and even games like these. Seriously the gym leader battle theme is an absolute banger (especially the crowds’ chants!!). Like it makes my 12 yo character more fired up to kick a grown up’s ass in front of a packed stadium and live tv.  The last time i was this excited to kick a gym leader’s butt was when i was battling winona years ago bc my dumb ass haven’t quite figured out the concept of type advantages.

^more appreciation for the gym leader battle theme. From all the shits this game has received, i haven’t seen a single complaint about the music so explain this, science side.

3.) I love how in this game some of the NPCs have actual character like our rival hop, leon, piers, marnie and bede too. BUT ESPECIALLY OUR RIVAL HOP. SERIOUSLY HOP IS BEST BOI AND ONLY DESERVES THE BEST 😭😭😭. Hop is (i assume) childhood friend/neighbour who happens to be the little brother of the current champion leon. Now this may seem like a usual pokemon protag - rival trope, being the protag is a nobody who just stepped into the world of pokemon trainer and the rival being someone related to someone important in the region (like how green/blue, barry, and hau was). Being a champion’s little brother is quite a big deal for hop but hop isn’t the snarky arrogant rival like green was. Instead he’s just a happy kid who dreams of surpassing his brother and want to form a healthy rivalry/friendship with you (he’s kinda a mix of barry and hau imo). Throughout your journey, hop helps you with the ropes and just generally be there as a friend...a real good friend.

And just like the previous games, as the story progresses you get to battle hop quite frequently and in order to advance further in the game (and keep those pocket money to buy varsity jackets) you gotta beat him over and over again. The thing is, unlike some other rivals who were like ‘wow ur so strong! k i need to train more bye’ hop actually TALKS TO YOU. Sure he did acknowledge our strength, but after he would talk to you abt other things like the next city/gym leader or even abt his life atm. I really appreciate the developers for making details like this bc through the dialogues you can actually see the depth of the characters and it makes you actually think. Like for example from my battles and dialogues with hop, i can see that he’s quite pressured bc of his background as the champion’s brother and people have high expectations of him, yet he keeps on losing to you (his rival). There is even one point in the game in which hop fell through a downward spiral bc he keeps on losing to you (the protag) and another NPC rival. You can ACTUALLY FEEL the stirring of emotions through the battles with hop and the dialogues bc at one point he even said something like ‘i don’t wanna drag leon’s name through the mud bc i’m too weak’ and i was like NOOOOO WHO HURT YOU 😭😭😭😭 (but then i realized it was partly me oh god i’m so sorry hop). Never in all my experience playing pokemon game that i feel bad about beating a rival, i do hope in future games they would let the rival beat us....well probably during an offscreen battle :p

Also, for the longest time we finally have our champion doing actual champion duties (?) like protecting the region from catastrophe. Like i understand that this is probably where the ‘lack of action’ comes from because let’s face it, team yell isn’t actually a threat to you or the region, and whenever a ‘real threat’ comes up, leon would beat you to take care of it first. Tbh there are moments when i was like ‘damn leon let me in on the fun too!’ but then again i realized there are actual adults in this game with their actual jobs (champion, researchers, gym leaders) who can actually do their job without relying on a 12 yo to do everything for them which is pretty realistic if you think about it

but don’t worry, in the end we’ll get to play a big part in saving the region too :))

4.) THE GYM LEADERS AND GYM BATTLE IN THIS GAME ARE JUST *chef kiss* the developers really put all their effort in this. Although i admit some of the gym challenges are kinda ‘lazy’ like just pummel through these gym trainers before facing the leader (especially on the last gym???really????). But the battles against the leaders are never boring.

WE FINALLY GOT A DARK TYPE GYM LEADER WOOTTT!! Plus he’s that one dude from the pop punk band that we love during our middle school years.

God i wish i had a big brother like piers, not only he’s one of the most challenging gym leader in our journey but he also helps us not just once but twice. At one point he throws an impromptu concert to cause a riot for us to be able to get through a heavily guarded area

gOD i love that chaotic energy 👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻

Last but not least...man...MY BEST BOI RAIHAN!!! JUST BEST GYM LEADER, DRAGON TAMER (lol sorry lance), A GENIUS, 100% WILL TREAT YOU RIGHT, JUST 👌🏻👌🏻👌🏻💦💦💦 💕 💕 💕💯💯💯 

just thank you gamefreak for creating him 😭😭😭😭👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻👏🏻 

OH AND GYM BATTLE UTILIZING WEATHER EFFECTS??? that’s some solid strategy there. I’m not a really strategic pokemon trainer, so i usually just pummel through every opponent lmao so when i saw this man controlling dragons and the weather i just 😮

AND THE FRIGGIN SELFIE GAWD 😭😭😭😭 LIKE WHO THOUGHT SNAPPING A SELFIE IN THE MIDDLE OF A SANDSTORM HOLDING A GIANT ASS POKEBALL IS A GOOD IDEA??? BUT THIS MAN SOMEHOW MAKES IT WORK. Also pls give me that camera bc the quality is bomb.

Well this turns out to be longer than i expected but i really just pour out how i feel about this game. It’s true that it’s not perfect and there are some aspects that can be done better, but as a long time fan of pokemon I REALLY ENJOY THIS GAME. I can see that the developers really work hard for this game to be able to cater to both old and new fans, and we all know that it’s impossible to please everyone. And for those of you who begs to differ or have different opinion about this game it’s perfectly fine and i’m not hoping to change anyone’s opinion. But PLEASE STOP HARASSING THE DEVELOPERS AND NEW FANS ESPECIALLY YOUNGER ONES! because we all know people who shames others’ interest are the worst kind of people :))) And if you have the time and money i suggest you give this game a try.  Well that’s all i gotta say, have a good day/night everyone!!

[forlorned]

finally i’m getting ‘round to barbie’s bio!! she’s a charming native that loves this town more than she hates it, but only by a small margin. she’s the secretary to the mayor, but her father was a disciple so she’s... neutral on the club. wolves, tho? gross. her mom is also a little infamous around town for partying too much, even into her fifties, sort of like lorelai from gilmore girls if she was chaotic and a former biker groupie. anyways, here’s her details:

content warnings: death, implied bipolar disorder

born october 20th, 1988 in charming, california. her mother, also named barbara goodwin, was new to the town when she met ty. she didn’t plan on staying long, accepting a temporary job to fill in as a substitute teacher that was on maternity leave, but it was love at first sight for the two of them. she didn’t know he was a biker until two weeks into their relationship, a fact that ty kept from her. she was only twenty three when she moved to charming, ty a bit older, but she decided to forgive him for lying. by that time, she was madly in love with him... or at least she thought so. the relationship didn’t last as long as her pregnancy. they were constantly on and off, fighting daily, and when barbie was born, barb decided ty would have nothing to do with his daughter. (that didn’t last very long.)

barbie grew up with her father wandering in and out of her life, sometimes living with her and her mom, sometimes not seeing him for months, depending on what was going on with the club at any particular time. it was mostly just her and her mother, and barb only being in her mid 20s when barbie was born, quickly felt like she was losing her youth. she would party regularly, leaving barbie with the elderly neighbor, usually at the clubhouse when she liked ty and la luna’s when she didn’t. for the most part, it was just barb and little barb (as she was known the devil’s disciples and most locals), and they grew up more like sisters than mother and daughter. her mother was her best friend, except when she wasn’t.

barbie was only thirteen when her father died, though it had been a good year since the last time she saw him, during a time when relations between the devil’s disciples and wicked wolves were especially violent. dying in a violent shootout, the president at the time told her that he died whispering barbie’s name, but she finds that hard to believe. of course she was devastated that her father had died, but it felt more like the death of an uncle or distant cousin than one half of the couple that brought her to life.

things were a little different after her father’s death. her mother was still a part-time party girl, relying on her daughter as her only confidant, but she got a little more paranoid. she wasn’t worried about the club, or the gang, so much, it was just the world in general. one moment, big barb was carefree, the next she was obsessively checking the windows were still locked. barbie never grew up with a very rosy view of the disciple’s, but it was confusing how her mother could go from loving them deeply to hating them even more over the course of a day. it wasn’t an easy time to live in charming, but barbie grew to fear everyone, not just gang violence.

it was only a few short years before she got to high school after her dad died, and barbie mostly kept to herself. she was embarrassed over her mother’s public antics, scared of being hurt, and was one of the few black girls in school; all a recipe for an introverted, shy teenager. though she had loose ties to the disciples through her father, she was a chronic good girl, and that carried throughout her college years. she saw what alcohol did to her mother, knew how her father died, she wanted to stay as far away from the seedy underbelly of charming as she possibly could.

not too far, though. she stayed at home during her college education, commuting to fresno for school. desperately she wanted to leave charming, but she feared what would happen to her mother if no one was around to rein her in. completing a bachelor’s degree in communications at fresno pacific university, a major she chose simply because it could lead to many different careers, she found herself unemployed back in her mother’s house after graduation.

barbie landed in the mayor’s office by accident—not literally, but she was searching job listings in the fresno/charming area and came across one for a file clerk at the charming mayor’s office. hired after one interview, she really only intended to be there until she found something better, but slowly she started getting promoted until she was finally in the actual office. working as the mayor’s secretary for the past five years, barbie is incredibly content with her job. for now, at least, she’s absolutely fine where she is. (secretly, she hopes to be the mayor one day. not now, but maybe one day.)

before she had a vaguely cordial relationship with the disciples, and disapproved of the wolves, but since working in the mayor’s office, she’s grown to heavily dislike both. she wants charming to be a nice place to live, but it wasn’t ever that nice to begin with, was it? as far as either crew or gang knows, she’s neutral.

has a very bubbly personality, but it’s mostly just a front. she feels like she can never be angry because her mother relied on her so much as a child and it’s carried over into adulthood. also has major trust issues because of her relationship with her parents, grew up thinking that anyone that was talking to her just wanted something from her. doesn’t have a lot of friends, or at least she doesn’t have a lot of close friends. mostly hangs out with coworkers or fellow i-don’t-want-to-talk-about-my-trauma-ever-so-let’s-talk-about-real-housewives-of-nyc people.

moved into her own apartment, but frequently goes to her mother’s house to check on her/have dinner. and by frequently i mean like six times a week. doesn’t drink more than a glass of wine if she is going to drink, so most people think she’s really boring (she kinda is lol, but we love her).

you either know her as barbie or little barb, never just barb (please call me barbie, barb is my mom’s name. yes she named me after herself.) or barbara. sometimes will answer to babs.

kiiiiind of judgmental, oops. doesn’t think crew or gang members are inherently bad people but it’s more like ooh no baby what is you doing.jpg sort of thing. distrusting but incredibly lonely, whomp whomp. a big fan of passive aggressive smiles. kinda... fake, but in like an innocent way.

wanted stuffs:

childhood friends: barbie grew up in charming, so if ur muse is a lifelong local, they probably know barbie! she’s very shy but super nice, kinda kept to herself growing up, but very ride-or-die until you do something she thinks is Wrong and Amoral.

a best friend: c’mon. this girl needs a bestie, a least one person for her to feel close to and share her real emotions with. except a lot of stopping by ur place of work to go out to lunch and random gifts because Gifts Are Her Love Language.

exes: though barbie is super like... not forthcoming with her emotions, she’s very bubbly and like come the fuck on, she’s a smoke show. i’m imagining someone that really liked her but found her forced cheery attitude annoying and she refused to meaningfully commit because she was scared of the feelings.

childhood enemy: someone that didn’t like barbie growing up, for any reason (except racism obviously lmao). they could’ve been a fellow club brat or maybe they just thought she was weak bc she was so quiet and shy when they were kids. who knows! i just like antagonistic relationships!

a roommate: she moved out of her mom’s house years ago and has a good government job but she still needs help to pay the rent!! ideally they could be really good friends or maybe they were strangers that have to learn to live together and they’re constantly getting annoyed with each other for like, leaving the bathroom fan on or something. i figure this connection would be with another woman, but it doesn’t have to be!

a surrogate little sister (or bro, or sibling): barbie grew up an only child, but she’s got lots of Big Sister Energy. i’m thinking this will be a connection for someone younger that’s in need of some sisterly guidance, or perhaps a fellow club brat that’s more integrated into the crew/grew up to join and barbie’s like i don’t approve of your choices but i’m here 4 u.

um honestly i could go on forever but i don’t want this to be super long, so message me on here or discord (wanda’s loving boy#1003) if you want to plot!! :)

[plush-anon]

scooby doo guess who? not much really review

currently taking advantage of boomerang’s scoobiversary freebies to watch scooby doo guess who

my impression so far? the animation is weeeeeeeiiiiird. some scenes i would swear to gods on being straight up traced from older hanna barbera scooby shows, like a la 70s era - some scooby shots have that same perspective, angle, etc that you only saw used in the HB Scoobies, which is just strange to see in a modern production - even the WNSD? crew never had scooby faces this close to past animations

shots of the gang also experience this. A lot of the distance shots of them could honestly be taken from the 70s, given the lack of details in their faces, the strange framing proportions - only with cleaner line work and brighter colors (which oddly enough make it look WORSE)

also some of the facial animations in the close-ups just look... off. like the words don’t quite fit their face? In fact, a lot of the character design feels really, REALLY off, and I have no idea how to articulate it.

actually wait, I think I have it - it’s the linework. Some of the lines are really clearly defined in thick black while the rest is either the same color/sliver off-color as the main drawing or really thin - and it keeps changing from shot to shot. It’s literally like someone keeps tracing different old shots of the gang and the pen used changes with each new picture. on the one hand, it makes it look a LOT more like a cleaned-up Hanna Barbera cartoon. but on the other hand? yikes. At least Be Cool SD had their own designs and were consistent. this is just... awkward to watch, imo.

even the backgrounds feel like they’re trying to recapture the HB designs - the ones which were kinda painted looking in some shots, a little rough? but with the colors (both background and animated pieces) and linework being as vivid and clear as they are in some scenes, the clash is really apparent when the characters are on screen (also the characters are doing the HB thing where they will just... randomly teleport from one action to a different one and different positions).

combined with reused sound effects from the old shows (the Sherlock Holmes one reused the laughing sound effects from the green phantoms) was Warner Bros literally trying to re-make the Hanna Barbera stuff - down to almost traced-looking art and animation? it doesn’t work as well tho, bc the animation is pretty smooth - again, oddly a point against it, bc of how much it clashes. 

the Hanna Barbera stuff worked bc everything kinda fit each other - the character animation, the backgrounds, the color pallettes, everything felt like it was part of the same design. here, it feels like a trace and repaint that is jarringly different, as we see on display in the show’s opening. they capture the design elements, ramp up the neon and very bright vivid colors, and clean up the linework to something that mimics HB Scooby, but feels off because of the cleaned up quality.

As far as the humor? It’s honestly very hit and miss. Some stuff lands, some stuff feels like I’ve seen it in other things (monster designs from other shows, primarily WNSD? so far; running gags that were lifted straight from 70s era episodes and not in an homage kinda way, but ‘literally exact same gag but with different monster’, like the Wanda Sykes ep using the werewolf barber gag) - it’s very, VERY mishmash, and I can’t tell if they wanted to straight up remake the New Scooby Doo Movies (they did the guest stars) but with prettier colors and better animation, or if they were just THAT lazy in making this (which is also a possibility - they’re working on the new SCOOB movie, but still want Scooby in the public eye, so producing a quick show like this would not be too far off for WB, if they wanna bring back older ideas of Scooby)

It’s actually pretty jarring at times to see the gang pull out modern tech (ESPECIALLY in the Funky Phantom ep) - bc they rely so much on the HB style and formula for this particular show, it’s exceedingly out of place to see smart phones and tablets. WNSD, SDMI, BCSD, and even PNSD evade this by having their own unique animation style, way of approaching humor, etc, so they can update and still feel relatively smooth about it. this tho? since they do pull so heavily on HB for style and animation and setting, modern stuff really is strange to pull up. 

honestly, this all reminds me of that one Bat-Mite driven episode of Batman: Brave & the Bold crossing over with Scooby Doo. That one had more updated animation and smoother backgrounds, but still looked near identical to the original NSDM show, and matched it for tone. Kinda wondering what the game here was, but eh, who knows. 

(although I am VERY PEEVED at Daphne’s design - everyone else seems okay proportions-wise, but she sometimes has a waist the samE SIZE AS FRED’S WRIST, and hips twice the size of her head. I just... what even, WB). 

Credit where credit is due tho, the gang at least feels like a group of friends, and work well together as expected with the older shows. They also show that they care about each other, and do go to help each other if a plan goes wrong with Shag & Scoob in bait mode, or if someone gets knocked over/hurt. they don’t interact much on a personal level outside of mysteries, but they have the same dynamic from the 70s, so that’s good (again in the Wanda Sykes episode, Scooby affirms how much he loves Shaggy as his human, the gang worry about each other getting hurt or leap after to help each other out - it’s sweet)

The guest stars have also been kinda hit or miss - personal faves so far are Sherlock Holmes and Wanda Sykes. The funky Phantom ep was kind of obnoxious, and the others have been pretty forgettable so far, with the Ricky Gervais one being just... awkward. So very, very... VERY awkward. 

Minor fun fact: Shaggy confirmed to have read Sherlock Holmes mysteries enough to know which piece of dialogue Sherlock quotes is from which story. it’s great :D

that episode also remains the best bc it contains the line ‘YES, remember: Sherlock Holmes posted your bail!’ which he actually did. the gang gets arrested, and Sherlock Holmes bails them out. 

overall, it’s not a terrible showing for Scooby Doo - in fact some of the classic gags play out pretty well (the running back and forth gag, disguise tricks, etc). it’s just kind of meh bc of how oddly put together it is. 

I’m working on watching more before the freebie time limit expires, so I’ll post a little bit more when I do.  

[elephart-hi]

Might I just add !!!!!!

As an animation major and a person who aspires to be a story artist and even more than that DREAMS of directing on-screen adaptations for YA books (SERIOUSLY THIS IS ALL I THINK ABOUT 24/7 THIS IS MY PASSION AND WHAT I ASPIRE TO DO) I have thought long and excruciatingly hard on this topic. Especially since I’m also a Holly Black fanatic.

So here it is this is a 10 min elevator pich I’ve been saving for when I miraculously bump into Holly black one day

I have come to a conclusion to what I believe to be the single BEST outcome for what an on-screen adaptation of The Folk of the Air could be… if there HAD to be one

and bare with me bc not everyone might agree with this opinion but I will try my hardest to sell it to you rn bc I promise there is so much about it that makes sense not just for this series but in my opinion most ya fantasy novels

An 2D Animated anime-inspired YA/Adult Fantasy TV-series

OKAY DONT GIVE UP ON ME YET JUST HEAR ME OUT IT WILL BE WORTH IT just bc it’s animated don’t start thinking kid show scroll to the end for examples

First imma address some of the things that are already mentioned in this post and

then I’m going to adress why it won’t work in live action

then I’m going to sell it to you for why this animation style is THE BEST POSSIBLE OUTCOME in terms of not just style but in target audience for the series

I’m not saying it’s perfect but out of all the other options I think this one will do the series THE MOST Justice.

First of all let’s talk about the character design

Like nonnie said in the ask MOST of the characters AREN’T HUMAN AND MORE OFTEN HAVE ANIMAL FEATURES!!!!!

Plus!!! It’s explicitly stated MULTIPLE TIMES in the books that fairy’s and humans have different body structures. Tayrn and Jude have their mortal curves which set them even further apart from the folk than just their ears and their non animal features.

These destict differences are in character design are potentially very crucial elements to the Visual story telling for this series.

A very big part of Judes journey is feeling alienated and different from the folk. In a visual medium we don’t have the option of hearing Jude’s thoughts and narration like we did in the book so we NEED to rely on visuals to be able to convey these differences to the audience so that they don’t have to be told outright that Jude and Taryn are outcasts. They need to actually SEE IT.

If you tried to do this in live-action like nonnie said It’s….. how do I say this kindly… ITS GOING TO SUCK.

Either you will need to spend a ton of money on CGI (which NEVER turns out well for television) Or you will be a ton of prosthetics and makeup that will take hours to apply and take off which will be a pain for the actors and for the crew to deal with especially with fight scenes if the actors are sweating a ton…. which will be happening since this is a story about knights, spys, sword fights, blood and such things

Either way the outcome of this will be meh. Especially for a TV-show budget and time schedule. It just won’t work out in a way that will be appealing to new fans and will only break the hearts of old fans who have to watch the characters they love and have very detailed mental images of, get watered down into some cheap replica.

And just like OP said this is ESPECIALLY the case since it’s a popular book series and tv studios love to cut corners!!!!

Sure if it was a movie series maybe u could get away with it a combo of prosthetics and cgi but I worry that it would be so heavily reliant upon those things that these alterations would be more of an eyesore and a distraction than details that seamlessly blend into the characters. Unless it’s done very well, it’s going to be noticeably fake which is bad bc it takes the audience out of the story and puts them back on their couch thinking lol those effects suck. WE DONT WANT THAT! this RUINS the film bc those little details willl cheapen the story(!!) bc everyone will be distracted by the effects rather than paying attention to the plot like they are supposed to

plus movies have even less time to focus on the plot and will probably resort to the romance sub plot which non of us want to see. GIVE US THE SWORDS AND THE SPYS AND THE BETRAYAL AND THE COMPLICATED FATHER DAUGHTER RELATIONSHIP!!!!! There isn’t enough time in 2 hrs to fit all this amazing stuff in. These are the intricate details that make the book series so darn good!!! a movie cant give us this but a tv series can! We can build up these intricate details over the course of multiple episodes and draw them out in a way that leaves the audience wanting to know more bc we have more time to do so.

( for example we can leave little hints about cardans abuse and his true nature through out the first few episodes. We can have him flinching from his back pain in the background while the main focus of the scene is on Jude and taryn talking during class or have a scene where Jude and Madoc are talking but off camera u can catch the tail end of vivi talking to someone saying how cardans nice to be around if u get him alone or something. Then the audience sees that one Cardan isn’t all that he is made out to be and they get to see that Judes idea of him is actually very biased. These aren’t the best examples bc I just came up with them off the top of my head but hopefully u get the gist. There are many ways to sneak in little details that will make viewer want to go back and rewatch the episodes again to see what they had initially missed)

So now that we know that a movie won’t do justice we are going to solely focusing on a TV adaption since it’s the best platform for giving us all of these things.

Now back to character design.

Like I previously said humans and fairies have different body structures and the unfortunate truth is FAIRIES ARENT REAL if it’s live action you will need to use a human with a human body to play the role of a fairy. All of a sudden that potentially very crucial storytelling device is gone. Now it’s human Jude and Tayrn sitting in class with OTHER humans who have pointy ears and cheap Prosthetics so they look somthing like faries RATHER than 2 humans sitting amongst a completely different species

it’s a no from me.

And this isn’t to mention the fact that no one will be beautiful enough to play a live action Cardan bc he is LITTERALLLY beautiful in a way humans aren’t and therefor there is no mortal man alive who could do him justice

HERE IS WHY ANIMATION IS THE BEST OPTION FOR THIS STORY

First I encourage you to look up the 12 principles of animation if u so feel like it to try and glean a better understanding of the all the intricacies that I’m about to go into.

Secondly I would like to share with you my favorite quote- “a good drawing will always be a good drawing, but cgi will look dates in 5 years”

We are talking about ancient fae here. We want their story to be as timeless as them and to not look like crap as soon as new software comes for cgi

NOW LETS GET INTO IT

in animation you get to control basically everything from gravity, to color, to scenery, to character design— ALL OF IT

In character design for animation you won’t have to worry about LITTERALLY any of the issues we just mentioned in live action. Madoc is green? Okay draw him that way. Oak has horns? Draw it! Cardans tail? DRAW IT! Fairy and humans have different body structures? SPECIFICALLY DESIGN THE FAIRY AND HUMAN CHARACTERS IN A WAY THAT SHOWS THAT!

Further more on of my favorite principles of animation is exaggeration! One of my teachers likes to say CRANK IT TO A TEN so that’s what we will do

Humans and fairy’s are a different species from different world that exist in the same universe???

Perfect! Then humans will be animated in a way that make them seem to carry more weight than the fairies (yes you literally can do this bc in animation u are in control of the physics!) Human steps will seem very heavy and fairy’s will look like are they are practically weightless (cough Judes foot prints making her look like the only person in a land of ghosts). More than that lets give mortals less quash and stretch and fairy’s more of it, let’s really sell the idea that fairy’s are more likely to bounce back from something while humans are fragile and will break.

Humans will also have a desaturated color pallet while the fairies will have very saturated one.

More than that so will their 2 worlds. fairy land will have rich colors while the mortal world will have muted tones. This will not only sell the idea that they are different worlds but it will sell to the audience why Jude doesn’t want to leave fairy despite all her hardship there. The mortal world litterally dulls in comparison to fairy.

Oh yeah speaking of worlds… in live-action you would have to spend a ton of money to travel to different locations and ship crew, cast and equipment there, plus in live action we are limited to the confines of what is real here on earth. In animation you can make anything your heart desires with out having to leave your desk.

This brings me to another point. Jude in the undersea????? There is absolutely no way that live action will do that well. NONE there is not a single chance a on a tvshow budget that that will look good and it will CHEAPEN THE STORY AND TAKE THE AUDIENCE OUT OF JUDES EMOTIONALLY CAPTURE AND PUT THEM BACK ON THEIR COUCH CRINGING AT THE ATTEMPT OF MAKING THE CARACTERS LOOK UNDER WATER!!!

Animation however… the animatiors and background artists will eat that shit UP. And it will blend seamlessly into the rest of the story and the audience will remain in the undersea with Jude and her gruesome time as a prisoner

Now let’s go a bit further. Words hold weight in fairy so it’s only fitting that the only casting we would have to do is for a voice casting. But in live-action we will need to look for someone who has the appearance of the character, can act like the character and has the voice of the character too. If ur lucky u can probably get 2 out of 3. if we use animation we can solely look for someone who has the perfect sound for the characters. The character acting and character design will all be handled by the artist. PLUS we can have a muscular Jude who knows how to sword fight without having to put a young woman on a restrictive diet and work out regimen and send her to sword training ( while also hoping she has a twin) we just need to draw Jude that way.

The only limitations to the characters and the world they are in will be that’s of the artists (while we are here go sign a petition for #needealforanimation so these artists get just compensation and workable hours) we can have impossible architecture and and stunning clothing with out having to have any of it in real life

Now let’s get into audience!!

2D Animated anime-inspired YA/Adult Fantasy TV-series is already a kind of a Niche genre. It’s not main stream or Hollywood so this narrows the audience down quite a bit. Plus a lot of characters in these types of shows are already really morally gray and not easily digestible just like YA fantasy book characters are! Plus animated tv show fandom meets book fandom!!!! YES PLS

Here is an example for y’all to envision up what TFOTA in this genre might look like

Just look at Castlevania! SOO many grey and morally crooked characters. Like u wanna talk about toxic wait till u meet lenore and hector their relationship (if u can call it that) is pretty darn twisted. If people can deal with that they can deal with Cardan and Jude who are WAYYYY better than that in my opinion. Plus if we sell the show from the stand point that Jude is going on a villain arc by taking over fairy and that Cardan is an evil wicked person who she is enslaving then people will be like yeah well they are lowkey villains and villains doing bad things. then we can show them going on a journey of healing from their past them figuring out how to not turn into the men who raised them. Then I think there will be much less of an issue on people ranting about Cardan and Jude being toxic. Plus it’s just not as common in this genre from what I’ve seen. So u can enjoy the show in peace

ALSO JUST LOOK AT HOW GORGEOUS THIS SHOW IS AND IMAGINE SOMTHING LIKE IT FOR TFOTA

Plus If ur looking for a good show to watch or want to dip into this genre, this one is completely finished and HAS SERIOUS PLOT LINES and DARK CHARACTERS AND A TON OF ACTION and is a Netflix original that is based off a video game series (yup it’s an adaptation!!!)

I fully encourage u to envision Jude and the ghost training in the woods right here^^^

Truely I think that If there is to be an on screen adaptation for TFOTA that this genre is the best option for it thank you for your time and for reading!

and op I’m sorry for hijacking this post!!!!!!

I love Holly and i love the folk of the air series but if a movie or TV series( I would prefer a TV show so that it can expand more maybe like game of thrones) but girl I am scared if it does become a TV show or movie series. Madoc is green, oaks horns, doesn't balekin have animals legs???, CARDANS TAIL!! idk how they are gonna make it appealing to a new audience and do it well cause the last thing I want is a cats situation. Like Holly get your coin but god don't ruin the series for me. Cause idk if I will be able to separate it from the books tbh.

this is my exact fear for ANY book-film adaptation set in a fantasy world. unless you have some pretty deep pockets for first class cgi, it's going to look questionable at best– ridiculous at worst.

not to mention, film makers these days are not concerned about curating a magical world to fit the fandom's wildest hopes and dreams. they're here to make money. off of us. which they know they can do regardless of how much effort they put into it, if a series (like tfota) already has a sizeable following. so they're going to cut corners and take the easy way out. and i'm not interested in consuming content where the creators sacrifice artistry for cutting corners in order to make bank.

i speak more about my thoughts on a film adaptation in this post, but yeah. i in no way blame Holly for taking the deal she was offered (cos honestly, as a writer, that's the dream), but it would be a kindness, imo, if we never got a film adaptation.

[mxscnx-blog]

           hiiiiii, my name’s adri ! from the gmt+8 which i like to call narnia . i’m trying to type this up quickly bc i was supposed to hop into the shower, then i remembered that we’re doing intros, so i’m leaving this post and am open for plotting 25/8 ! i’m really looking forward to writing with each and every one of you tbh. so please feel free to shoot me a message for plotting or to just chat and get to know each other. i do not bite ! . . . unless you’re into that ;) *coughs* anyWAY

          i can’t rlly say it was easy for me to even consider joining this group ?? mainly bc i haven’t been in group rps lately, and alSO i’m quite aware of how underused my fc is but tbfh i’ve had mason for 2 years or maybe even more ?? i see him differently in my head from his fc ( like baby-faced bradley cutie ) but i also couldn’t think of anyone else to play him, so i rlly hope i could do justice to broaden your imagination ! and he’s originally an indie muse that i love, mainly inspired by adam wilde from if i stay. but i thought i could attempt to give him a home here. so pls excuse me while i geek abt my son . . .

{ the virtuoso }

POSITIVE TRAITS: charismatic, experimental, eloquent, self-indulgent, peaceable, gregarious, venturesome

NEGATIVE TRAITS: brazen, fickle, flirtatious, skeptic, reticent, subjective, pessimistic

HISTORY:

triggers: prostitution, violence

his mother laura hart was a literal nobody who sold her soul for a living ( prostitution ). and it wasn’t until a drunk hookup that she dealt with an unexpected pregnancy alone *gives me a fantine vibe from les miserables*

she never would’ve thought that she’d give birth to a child prodigy-- which was all that she ever had. a charming baby boy that managed to climb up the piano seat and play the keys as if that was his purpose of living ( during a family gathering )

and while she came from a very unfortunate background, she could only assume that he got his genes from his father’s side ( while she didn’t have a single clue about who he even was )

laura gave little mason all the love he deserved. she went through several jobs just to provide for her child, making sure that he would always play the piano

as he grew older, mason never failed to amaze her mother even more. his passion for music was intense at such a young age, that he also situated himself with other musical instruments: such as the guitar/bass/ukulele, drums, violin, and the flute

when he was eleven, she met robert downey, a mysterious man in the working class, and they fell in love. but it took a while for mason to adjust since his mother was the most important person in the world for him. and it didn’t help that they eventually had household arguments, just like every other couple. but there was no denying that their relationship was toxic, and mason clearly acknowledged that

mason would defend her with every chance he gets. it came to a point where robert stabbed him with a kitchen knife, that had him sent to the er and almost took his life. luckily he survived the critical injury, though the scar had remained below his right collarbone

love can really work in the strangest ways, because even after almost murdering her son, laura still gave robert a second chance. but the scar haunted him forever, and it was no surprise that mason, too, had been holding a grudge. though robert was no longer violent, proving that even the worst people can change for love

but mason never had a consistent relationship with his “father figure”. if they weren’t at each other’s throats, they were being civil for the sake of his mother, or perhaps pretending to like each other. he was always skeptic of robert that he never knew what it would be like to actually be taken care of by him

due to the rollercoaster of events between his mother and his so-called father, mason refused to believe that love ever existed ( with the only exception of the unconditional love for his mother ). he has extremely pessimistic views about anything else about love, and as he grew into his teenage years, he was gaining trust issues and refused to commit or open his heart to anyone

but !!! robert and laura got married when he was around 13 ?? and their household has been blessed with his five younger siblings: mikayla ( 2 ), katie ( 3 ), toby ( 4 ), ashley ( 5 ), and stanley ( 6 )

he’s tried to be the best big brother ever that he almost has no love left for anyone outside his family. tho the tension with robert was still there ( it never leaves )

his entire life revolves around his family ( most importantly his mother and his siblings ), music, manipulation, and avoiding his feelings as much as possible. he loves to compose music as much as he loves to write songs. music is a very powerful thing to him

flash forward to the days he was absolutely driven with classical music and piano recitals, until society had eaten him up and influenced him with rock concerts and also, might have acquired a talent of singing along the way

PERSONALITY:

he’s honestly a smooth talker, maNIPULATIVE af and absolutely laid-back. he causes conflict due to his arrogance and close-mindedness but also knows how to swerve away from it ??

he can do anything and still be charming. it’s like he always has a stick up his ass ?? but in a way that he always knows how to present himself without seeming too embarrassing nor afraid

kind of a paradox bc he’s very competitive and determined but he also reacts like it’s no big deal to him and like everything seems so effortless ?? ( but rlly it’s not )

if he doesn’t like you enough, he can be very blunt and straightforward. but his primary virtue is patience, and believe me he has a ton of it

he can literally flirt with anyone or anything that moves and knows the right words and actions to make someone feel like they’re the only person in the world to him

99% of the time he’s geeking about music and gets along best with those who are as musically-inclined or as enthusiastic with music as he does

he’s the life of the party. hates sports. hates theories. very practical. only graduated high school bc he doesn’t rlly believe college would do him any good. ESTP af. organized mess.

along the way of partying too hard and bottling all his feelings, he greatly relies on alcohol and sleeping around with people ( he’s pansexual btw )

he’s a crowd favorite and rlly knows how to put on a great show

he knows his priorities and is absolutely independent. as much as possible, he tends to have no strings attached

he has a long way to go regarding character development . . .

pls help

WANTED CONNECTIONS: details will vary bc my brain is always cooking up a storm

childhood sweetheart/skinny love *someone messaged me abt this but like it hasn’t been finalized*

current best friend

flirtationship ;)

cute friends ( fluffy platonic fun ! )

ultimate rivals

fake dating for publicity

friends w benefits

enemies w benefits ??

others ! tbh i’ll still set up his connections page

but if u have something in mind PLS let me know thank u xo

*breathes heavily* plslslslslslsls plot with me i’ll love u down so hard ok

THANK U SM FOR READING. I AM V EXCITED OKAY 

[kristablogs]

With the US-Canada border closed, wildlife tourism is hurting

There likely won’t be any trips in the Yukon like this one for American hunters in 2020. (Sloane Brown/YETI/)

This story originally featured on Outdoor Life.

For many of us here in the US, an annual hunting or fishing trip to Canada is a longstanding tradition. And Canadians, particularly those in the more remote western provinces, depend on American tourism dollars to bolster local economies. But the US-Canada border has been closed since March and will remain so until at least July 21. There is also a 14-day quarantine rule in place that will stay in effect until Aug. 31. That means anyone who does come into the country must self-isolate for two weeks. In most cases, Canadian citizens are also not permitted to drive or fly from province-to-province without quarantine.

A recent poll showed 81 percent of Canadians don’t want the border to open to Americans, mainly due to the uncertainty surrounding COVID-19 surges in the US. That’s bad news for outfitters in Canada. Of course, the safety of both countries takes precedence over the financial hit the hunting and fishing industry will endure. But an unfortunate outcome of the pandemic is that some guiding businesses won’t make it through.

It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but when the US is seeing spikes in positive COVID-19 tests, it’s difficult for Canada to open its border and safely allow Americans into the country, though it is possible once the US makes it through this second surge. Iceland has broken through as a shining example, hosting international travelers since June by using a rigorous testing program, saving its tourism industry from financial peril. There have been pleas made by Canadian Travel and Tourism, which generates $74 billion and employs 1.8 million people, to allow healthy Americans into Canada, as US citizens make up two-thirds of international tourists in Canada. But so far Prime Minster Justin Trudeau hasn’t budged.

There is no public plan or procedure in place for opening the border, only a projected date that keeps getting moved back, which has been a serious frustration for outfitters. It has left them in limbo, unsure if their outfits will continue to tread water with pre-COIVID profits, or ultimately drown. Alberta’s Professional Outfitters Society reported guides in the province have lost $68 million in revenue since the pandemic began in March. Two thousand people are also jobless due to the lack of clients.

To find out how outfitters across Canada are coping with the border closure, I talked to four Canadian guides. We wanted to know how they are navigating these strange and difficult times, and if they expect their businesses to survive the pandemic.

Sheep hunting on hold

B.C. guide Rachel Ahtila with a harvested Dall Sheep. (Rachel Ahtila/)

In British Columbia, 32-year-old Rachel Ahtila waits anxiously for the border to open. She guides sheep and other big game with Dustin Roe at Backcountry BC and Beyond in B.C. as well as the Yukon and Northwest Territories. There is considerable cost in operating outfits in such places. The overhead is massive. You have to cut trails and ready camps, feed and maintain 60 head of horses, purchase food to sustain an entire roster of clients and staff for up to four months, and charter planes to get everyone there. Plus there is the cost of fuel, trucks and trailers, and the biggest expense—paying back the note on the hunting area/lease you’re in.

“Yes, we need a season,” Ahtila says. “There is so much infrastructure beyond just a hunt that we are supporting, and we are all suffering in the unknown. We want to be in the mountains doing what we love, giving our clients the best experience we can, but we also need to be able to cover a business’ year-round costs. There are thousands of people in Canada that rely on the hunting industry as a source of income.”

A major hurdle in B.C. for guides is the phased re-opening plan. Right now, the province is in Phase 3 of 4. The US-Canada border would re-open in Phase 4 but for that to occur, one of three things has to happen: a vaccine, community immunity, or broad and/or successful treatments. The first two aren’t likely to happen until 2021 at the earliest, and the third has a long way to go on the US side of the border. It will certainly help business if Ahtila can get more Canadian hunters in the mountains, but that’s also up in the air at this point because of last-minute rescheduling and logistics. Some Canadian airlines are either shut down or flying at limited capacities, and travel between many of the provinces is limited.

“Some of it just doesn’t make sense with the allowed protests but mitigated gatherings [in the US],” Ahtila says. “I actually flew from Canada to Arkansas to show that this can be done safely amid COVID-19. I wore a mask, brought hand sanitizer … I think it can be done if we take precautions. Otherwise, our industry is going to take a major hit … More than it already has.”

Once the border is open, that will present another set of obstacles for outfitters. There will likely be testing procedures and other restrictions placed on international travelers. It’s near impossible to prepare for because the Canadian government hasn’t been forthcoming with a structured agenda to re-open the border. They continue to extend the closure month-by-month with little or no notice before announcing the potential re-opening dates. And the recent climb in US COVID-19 cases—and Trudeau’s refusal to visit the White House in early July—doesn’t bode well for open travel in the immediate future.

“It’s going to be hard to get our clients to hunting camps because there are so many unknowns with the continuing border closure,” Ahtila says. “We also have a considerable amount of gear ready to go if we get a green light, but we are planning to work with a reduced staff for the time being. It’s not going to be easy for anyone in the tourism industry.”

Spring guiding in Alberta a bust

Steve Overguard and a client with an Alberta moose. (Alberta Adventures/)

Steve and Debbie Overguard have been operating Alberta Adventures for nearly four decades, guiding clients for moose, bear, wolves, deer, cougar, and fishing. Ninety percent of their business comes from US patrons, and Steve Overguard estimates that since the border closure, their business has taken a $140,000 hit. They hosted a few Canada residents for fishing trips at their cabin in the northern part of the province, near the Northwest Territories border, but had no spring bear hunting clients. If the border doesn’t open by September, keeping the guide service going will be tough.

“I suppose if it doesn’t open by then, I’ll just have to eat fish,” Overguard says. “All our supplies and fuel for our camp have to be trucked in on the ice roads in winter, so I pay for that all up front. Since no one knew this [pandemic] was coming it’s just sitting there waiting, not being used.”

Alberta had already been hit hard by the sharp decline of the oil and gas industry in recent years, and tourism became one of the provinces main sources of revenue. Many laid-off oil field workers turned to guiding for income. But that has ground to a halt and the job market has shrunk considerably due to the pandemic. It’s become tough to find any kind of work throughout the province, and with no detailed plan to open the border, it has outfitters and guides worrying when (or if) they will be able to return to the woods. There are some governmental stimulus packages available to business owners, but Overguard said it’s essentially a loan he must pay back.

“We don’t want a second wave of COVID-19,” Overguard says, “but I think there are ways to control it. The federal government just doesn’t seem that interested in helping us right now. I could take $40,000 in stimulus, but with the border closed, I can’t host clients, so I’m not sure if I can pay it back.”

Overguard is willing to follow tight restrictions and leap over any hurdles to get clients in camp. He thinks there are ways to safely bring hunters into the country and has been working to find solutions, though most of those ideas have fallen on deaf ears.

“I’ll turn a 10-day trip into a two-week trip so hunters can adhere to the quarantine restrictions,” Oveguard says. “I’ll stand outside the plane with a thermometer and take their temperature. It might cost me more money, but at least we can exist.”

Waterfowl season looking bleak

Guide Luke Sherders isn’t optimistic the U.S.-Canada border will open this waterfowl season. (Joe Genzel/)

Luke Scherders runs Wingfeather Outfitters, guiding clients for waterfowl and turkeys in Ontario. Years ago, when Scherders started the business, he recalled his dad half-joking about how he would make a living if all the ducks contracted bird flu one season and died.

“I told him that would never happen, and it didn’t,” says Scherders, “but COVID has done just as much damage to my business as that would have.”

His spring turkey clientele was down by more than 50 percent and he estimates losing between $30,000 and $50,000 in profits. It would have been more if not for so many Ontario hunters honoring their reservations. Scherders isn’t optimistic about the border opening for waterfowl season, which starts in September across much of Canada. He says most Canadians he talks to think the border will remain closed, maybe through the end of the year. There’s too much risk in allowing Americans to cross the border.

Scherders only runs six to ten hunters a day (two groups maximum), and has a few other businesses to keep him financially sound, so if there isn’t a duck season this year, presumably he can pick it back up in 2021 because he doesn’t have a huge operation. He does see potential problems for larger outfitters, particularly ones that rely heavily on summer clients, like fishing camps.

“There’s a major fishing outfitter I know that typically runs 15 guides every day all summer long,” Scherders says. “He’s had three clients total this summer. You go from running 15 trips a day to a total of three clients, it’s gonna hurt.”

Large Canadian waterfowl operations are in jeopardy of folding too if the border doesn’t open, especially in the western provinces where very few residents use a guide. Many Americans guide or freelance in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, and with the window closing rapidly on Canadian seasons, Scherders, who routinely hunts the US, expects to see American outfitters benefit financially from the border closure.

“If you have private access or guide in the States, this could be a year to charge a premium, because so many hunters are likely not coming to Canada,” Schereders says. “I’ve already heard about American outfitters who typically come up here, setting up shop in North Dakota [and other states] to recoup some of the money they would have made in Canada. It could get interesting when the season opens in the States.”

Scherders has been taking deposits from clients (as many other outfitters have), but his guess is that he will be holding onto those checks and rolling them into next year. It’s nice to have some cash on hand now, but it also means that he will only make half of what he could have in 2021, because the deposit covers the first half of the total payment. He also breeds labs, and still has four pups he can’t get to US hunters due to the border closure.

“I can’t run 24 hunters through my camp a day,” says Scherders. “We just don’t have the bird numbers to do that. So, there’s no way I can make that money back quickly.”

Yukon under shutdown

Jessie Young congratulates Tatum Monod after taking a Yukon caribou. (Sloane Borwn/YETI/)

Midnight Sun Outfitters has been operated by Jessie Young’s family for nearly four decades. Her father started the business in B.C. Young and her brother now run the guide service in the Yukon, hunting sheep, caribou, moose, bear, and wolves. They also host a fishing camp, which will open to Canadian residents this summer, and wilderness tours, which are on the schedule as well.

Young may also guide a few Canadian hunting clients, but she’s resigned to the fact that her American clientele is not going to be in camp this year. Since Midnight Sun is an established outfitter (and she has a full-time job in Alberta as a registered nurse) they will make it through the pandemic and be open for business when the border restrictions are lifted. But she said other outfitters were not so lucky, and went out of business.

“I have to say that the communication from TIA (Tourism Industry Association) Yukon has been phenomenal during this time,” Young says. “They were very open about what the plan was, and so we had a better idea than most on what our season was going to look like and were able to prepare better for it.”

The Yukon border opened to Canadians July 1, which will make it possible to guide a small amount of clients and make a bit of money (there are quarantine restrictions for residents from provinces other than B.C., the Northwest Territories, and Nunavut). Before July, the entire Yukon was shutdown. There was no outside travel allowed. You had to be a Yukon resident in order to enter, and agents were patrolling the border heavily to enforce that mandate. The Yukon is a hub for international travel and tourism—there are many direct flights from Europe into Whitehorse—and officials were concerned the robust tourism that existed before COVID shutdowns might have caused cases to spike even after restrictions were put into place.

Young is looking at the upsides of the phased reopening. Her outfit will be in the Yukon this summer hosting small groups only, but the entire season could have been lost. They will also take this season to focus on the management of the species in their concession (the territory they hunt).

“We are basically making nothing this year, and it’s a wash,” Young says. “But I am feeling pretty resilient. I know outfitters that are way worse off, and we are lucky to have the clientele that we do. We are making the best of it.”

[scootoaster]

With the US-Canada border closed, wildlife tourism is hurting

There likely won’t be any trips in the Yukon like this one for American hunters in 2020. (Sloane Brown/YETI/)

This story originally featured on Outdoor Life.

For many of us here in the US, an annual hunting or fishing trip to Canada is a longstanding tradition. And Canadians, particularly those in the more remote western provinces, depend on American tourism dollars to bolster local economies. But the US-Canada border has been closed since March and will remain so until at least July 21. There is also a 14-day quarantine rule in place that will stay in effect until Aug. 31. That means anyone who does come into the country must self-isolate for two weeks. In most cases, Canadian citizens are also not permitted to drive or fly from province-to-province without quarantine.

A recent poll showed 81 percent of Canadians don’t want the border to open to Americans, mainly due to the uncertainty surrounding COVID-19 surges in the US. That’s bad news for outfitters in Canada. Of course, the safety of both countries takes precedence over the financial hit the hunting and fishing industry will endure. But an unfortunate outcome of the pandemic is that some guiding businesses won’t make it through.

It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but when the US is seeing spikes in positive COVID-19 tests, it’s difficult for Canada to open its border and safely allow Americans into the country, though it is possible once the US makes it through this second surge. Iceland has broken through as a shining example, hosting international travelers since June by using a rigorous testing program, saving its tourism industry from financial peril. There have been pleas made by Canadian Travel and Tourism, which generates $74 billion and employs 1.8 million people, to allow healthy Americans into Canada, as US citizens make up two-thirds of international tourists in Canada. But so far Prime Minster Justin Trudeau hasn’t budged.

There is no public plan or procedure in place for opening the border, only a projected date that keeps getting moved back, which has been a serious frustration for outfitters. It has left them in limbo, unsure if their outfits will continue to tread water with pre-COIVID profits, or ultimately drown. Alberta’s Professional Outfitters Society reported guides in the province have lost $68 million in revenue since the pandemic began in March. Two thousand people are also jobless due to the lack of clients.

To find out how outfitters across Canada are coping with the border closure, I talked to four Canadian guides. We wanted to know how they are navigating these strange and difficult times, and if they expect their businesses to survive the pandemic.

Sheep hunting on hold

B.C. guide Rachel Ahtila with a harvested Dall Sheep. (Rachel Ahtila/)

In British Columbia, 32-year-old Rachel Ahtila waits anxiously for the border to open. She guides sheep and other big game with Dustin Roe at Backcountry BC and Beyond in B.C. as well as the Yukon and Northwest Territories. There is considerable cost in operating outfits in such places. The overhead is massive. You have to cut trails and ready camps, feed and maintain 60 head of horses, purchase food to sustain an entire roster of clients and staff for up to four months, and charter planes to get everyone there. Plus there is the cost of fuel, trucks and trailers, and the biggest expense—paying back the note on the hunting area/lease you’re in.

“Yes, we need a season,” Ahtila says. “There is so much infrastructure beyond just a hunt that we are supporting, and we are all suffering in the unknown. We want to be in the mountains doing what we love, giving our clients the best experience we can, but we also need to be able to cover a business’ year-round costs. There are thousands of people in Canada that rely on the hunting industry as a source of income.”

A major hurdle in B.C. for guides is the phased re-opening plan. Right now, the province is in Phase 3 of 4. The US-Canada border would re-open in Phase 4 but for that to occur, one of three things has to happen: a vaccine, community immunity, or broad and/or successful treatments. The first two aren’t likely to happen until 2021 at the earliest, and the third has a long way to go on the US side of the border. It will certainly help business if Ahtila can get more Canadian hunters in the mountains, but that’s also up in the air at this point because of last-minute rescheduling and logistics. Some Canadian airlines are either shut down or flying at limited capacities, and travel between many of the provinces is limited.

“Some of it just doesn’t make sense with the allowed protests but mitigated gatherings [in the US],” Ahtila says. “I actually flew from Canada to Arkansas to show that this can be done safely amid COVID-19. I wore a mask, brought hand sanitizer … I think it can be done if we take precautions. Otherwise, our industry is going to take a major hit … More than it already has.”

Once the border is open, that will present another set of obstacles for outfitters. There will likely be testing procedures and other restrictions placed on international travelers. It’s near impossible to prepare for because the Canadian government hasn’t been forthcoming with a structured agenda to re-open the border. They continue to extend the closure month-by-month with little or no notice before announcing the potential re-opening dates. And the recent climb in US COVID-19 cases—and Trudeau’s refusal to visit the White House in early July—doesn’t bode well for open travel in the immediate future.

“It’s going to be hard to get our clients to hunting camps because there are so many unknowns with the continuing border closure,” Ahtila says. “We also have a considerable amount of gear ready to go if we get a green light, but we are planning to work with a reduced staff for the time being. It’s not going to be easy for anyone in the tourism industry.”

Spring guiding in Alberta a bust

Steve Overguard and a client with an Alberta moose. (Alberta Adventures/)

Steve and Debbie Overguard have been operating Alberta Adventures for nearly four decades, guiding clients for moose, bear, wolves, deer, cougar, and fishing. Ninety percent of their business comes from US patrons, and Steve Overguard estimates that since the border closure, their business has taken a $140,000 hit. They hosted a few Canada residents for fishing trips at their cabin in the northern part of the province, near the Northwest Territories border, but had no spring bear hunting clients. If the border doesn’t open by September, keeping the guide service going will be tough.

“I suppose if it doesn’t open by then, I’ll just have to eat fish,” Overguard says. “All our supplies and fuel for our camp have to be trucked in on the ice roads in winter, so I pay for that all up front. Since no one knew this [pandemic] was coming it’s just sitting there waiting, not being used.”

Alberta had already been hit hard by the sharp decline of the oil and gas industry in recent years, and tourism became one of the provinces main sources of revenue. Many laid-off oil field workers turned to guiding for income. But that has ground to a halt and the job market has shrunk considerably due to the pandemic. It’s become tough to find any kind of work throughout the province, and with no detailed plan to open the border, it has outfitters and guides worrying when (or if) they will be able to return to the woods. There are some governmental stimulus packages available to business owners, but Overguard said it’s essentially a loan he must pay back.

“We don’t want a second wave of COVID-19,” Overguard says, “but I think there are ways to control it. The federal government just doesn’t seem that interested in helping us right now. I could take $40,000 in stimulus, but with the border closed, I can’t host clients, so I’m not sure if I can pay it back.”

Overguard is willing to follow tight restrictions and leap over any hurdles to get clients in camp. He thinks there are ways to safely bring hunters into the country and has been working to find solutions, though most of those ideas have fallen on deaf ears.

“I’ll turn a 10-day trip into a two-week trip so hunters can adhere to the quarantine restrictions,” Oveguard says. “I’ll stand outside the plane with a thermometer and take their temperature. It might cost me more money, but at least we can exist.”

Waterfowl season looking bleak

Guide Luke Sherders isn’t optimistic the U.S.-Canada border will open this waterfowl season. (Joe Genzel/)

Luke Scherders runs Wingfeather Outfitters, guiding clients for waterfowl and turkeys in Ontario. Years ago, when Scherders started the business, he recalled his dad half-joking about how he would make a living if all the ducks contracted bird flu one season and died.

“I told him that would never happen, and it didn’t,” says Scherders, “but COVID has done just as much damage to my business as that would have.”

His spring turkey clientele was down by more than 50 percent and he estimates losing between $30,000 and $50,000 in profits. It would have been more if not for so many Ontario hunters honoring their reservations. Scherders isn’t optimistic about the border opening for waterfowl season, which starts in September across much of Canada. He says most Canadians he talks to think the border will remain closed, maybe through the end of the year. There’s too much risk in allowing Americans to cross the border.

Scherders only runs six to ten hunters a day (two groups maximum), and has a few other businesses to keep him financially sound, so if there isn’t a duck season this year, presumably he can pick it back up in 2021 because he doesn’t have a huge operation. He does see potential problems for larger outfitters, particularly ones that rely heavily on summer clients, like fishing camps.

“There’s a major fishing outfitter I know that typically runs 15 guides every day all summer long,” Scherders says. “He’s had three clients total this summer. You go from running 15 trips a day to a total of three clients, it’s gonna hurt.”

Large Canadian waterfowl operations are in jeopardy of folding too if the border doesn’t open, especially in the western provinces where very few residents use a guide. Many Americans guide or freelance in Alberta, Saskatchewan, and Manitoba, and with the window closing rapidly on Canadian seasons, Scherders, who routinely hunts the US, expects to see American outfitters benefit financially from the border closure.

“If you have private access or guide in the States, this could be a year to charge a premium, because so many hunters are likely not coming to Canada,” Schereders says. “I’ve already heard about American outfitters who typically come up here, setting up shop in North Dakota [and other states] to recoup some of the money they would have made in Canada. It could get interesting when the season opens in the States.”

Scherders has been taking deposits from clients (as many other outfitters have), but his guess is that he will be holding onto those checks and rolling them into next year. It’s nice to have some cash on hand now, but it also means that he will only make half of what he could have in 2021, because the deposit covers the first half of the total payment. He also breeds labs, and still has four pups he can’t get to US hunters due to the border closure.

“I can’t run 24 hunters through my camp a day,” says Scherders. “We just don’t have the bird numbers to do that. So, there’s no way I can make that money back quickly.”

Yukon under shutdown

Jessie Young congratulates Tatum Monod after taking a Yukon caribou. (Sloane Borwn/YETI/)

Midnight Sun Outfitters has been operated by Jessie Young’s family for nearly four decades. Her father started the business in B.C. Young and her brother now run the guide service in the Yukon, hunting sheep, caribou, moose, bear, and wolves. They also host a fishing camp, which will open to Canadian residents this summer, and wilderness tours, which are on the schedule as well.

Young may also guide a few Canadian hunting clients, but she’s resigned to the fact that her American clientele is not going to be in camp this year. Since Midnight Sun is an established outfitter (and she has a full-time job in Alberta as a registered nurse) they will make it through the pandemic and be open for business when the border restrictions are lifted. But she said other outfitters were not so lucky, and went out of business.

“I have to say that the communication from TIA (Tourism Industry Association) Yukon has been phenomenal during this time,” Young says. “They were very open about what the plan was, and so we had a better idea than most on what our season was going to look like and were able to prepare better for it.”

The Yukon border opened to Canadians July 1, which will make it possible to guide a small amount of clients and make a bit of money (there are quarantine restrictions for residents from provinces other than B.C., the Northwest Territories, and Nunavut). Before July, the entire Yukon was shutdown. There was no outside travel allowed. You had to be a Yukon resident in order to enter, and agents were patrolling the border heavily to enforce that mandate. The Yukon is a hub for international travel and tourism—there are many direct flights from Europe into Whitehorse—and officials were concerned the robust tourism that existed before COVID shutdowns might have caused cases to spike even after restrictions were put into place.

Young is looking at the upsides of the phased reopening. Her outfit will be in the Yukon this summer hosting small groups only, but the entire season could have been lost. They will also take this season to focus on the management of the species in their concession (the territory they hunt).

“We are basically making nothing this year, and it’s a wash,” Young says. “But I am feeling pretty resilient. I know outfitters that are way worse off, and we are lucky to have the clientele that we do. We are making the best of it.”