in-text conversations

my replies and opinions on the media i consume.

[amy--march]

mermaid-on-land:

oh wow anne’s artsy vlogs with roy are so different from her usual artsy vlogs. like the music and the editing and everything is so much darker in saturation or whatever. like this is clearly supposed to be *his* style to show how much he’s influencing her/taking over. and is it just me or are her clothes different as well?

starting with “chatting with phil”, all of her clothing is black and white, or neutral tones. the only pop of color seems to be the pink in “chatting with phil” and on the outfit in “hanging out with roy”.

the contrast is incredibly stark. she says in the description that roy is helping with filming and editing, but he’s basically directing her. her artsy vlogs are never this staged, and even the “empty” shots (very similar to pillow shots) are not quite so static. after watching “hanging out with roy” and “our day at the beach”, check out last season’s “christmas shopping”.

perhaps the saddest part is that she’s not smiling in the two artsy vlogs at all. even the shopping montage in “our day at the beach” doesn’t show her happy or enthused by what she’s looking at. maybe all of that is still happening, but it’s either not being filmed or getting edited out, which is a very significant choice considering what these kind of videos have included in the past.

[galwithalibrarycard]

My two favorite Inseparables are:

1. canonicallyace, because her being there means Beth March is still here and thriving in 2018, and screw canon! 

2. sica_inimis (is that right?) because I’d forgotten how much I loved The Soliloquies of Santiago, and I’m still sad that I’ll never see how Jacob’s evil plan was going to be adapted. What a great modernization of Iago, I’m still impressed tbh. Seeing him on my screen again, even through text, is so fun.

[amy--march]

weathersbywebseriesreviews replied to your post “all for one, two weeks out”

Maybe Anne's only real goal here is to get Dorothy to be VP? She doesn't seem to have much actual faith/support in Portia and maybe Treville broke it off with Anne bc Anne wasn't supportive of her campaign or was trying to get her to bring Dorothy on as her VP and Treville didn't want to?

that reminds me of some rampant speculation i had while in the middle of one of the binge-watches. i thought for a split second that--in the void and subsequent conflict that henry left--dorothy would be built as a new presidential candidate. it has seemed in the episodes that dorothy is more composed, more prepared, more liked by the rest of mst, and a better seller than portia, at any rate.

in addition, i thought treville was trying to bring dorothy on as her vp in the second episode, and then treville’s attacks on dorothy have become a way to get to anne after the break-up. which still lines up with getting dorothy into the vp position, but then becomes a question of which person (anne or treville) gets credit for putting her there. though i can’t imagine why that credit matters so much, even if it’s then used as leverage in a feud between anne and treville.

[racheldoesfandomstuff]

why are these people even friends when we’ve only really ever seen them be kind of terrible to each other

s1: everyone ignores alex’s desire not to be called mom. henry laughs at dorothy being too depressed to get off the couch/is just generally unsupportive of all his friends. henry and dorothy treat alex and then portia really badly and pressure portia to put herself in harm’s way. they all make up, for some reason (because they’re the musketeers and you can’t have 3 musketeers without them).

s2 so far: anne clearly manipulates dorothy and couldn’t give a fuck about connie (forgets she’s there twice and has no clue who monty is). henry and portia go for seriously low blows, constantly. treville wonders why dorothy and she aren’t better friends and then throws her (and connie, for some reason) under the bus at the first opportunity with the room favouritism thing. everyone ignores how uncomfortable dorothy and alex are. also, dorothy really puts connie on the backburner.

[amy--march]

all for one, two weeks out

it’s such a shame that it looks like attention for all for one dropped off in the past two years because despite the emotional anguish of this season’s plot, it has maintained the same quality and also enhanced it at the same time.

although i’ve never been a huge fan of binge releases, i think a six episode batch released once a week is a good amount of content to consume from week to week. the release schedule is shorter so viewers don’t get burned out, and the trajectory of the plot can come into focus a lot faster too.

there are still a lot of story threads to keep up with, and i haven’t had the opportunity to delve into the transmedia again. not only is there the main story of dorothy and company, but there’s still the inseparables chat, and the ongoing plot of the episode description writers. i really enjoy this strong encouragement of the audience’s attention to all parts of the experience, especially when the online medium can really making the viewing experience a really tremendous experience. it can be a little tiring to keep up with though, and i miss the days when the inseparables chat log from an episode would get transcribed and uploaded. it has also been two years since a4o’s first season though. not everything can come back.

i’ve had a sneaking suspicion that something about the conflict between anne and treville is very off. the hacking of portia’s campaign could have been done by henry, but that wasn’t actually made clear (they did work on the same campaign for a time, after all). also, notice how when both presidential campaign parties talk to each other, treville’s twitter account is never directly referenced. dorothy and portia just say the actions being done are disrespectful, which is true, but definitely not specific. every other major plot point seems well telegraphed enough though. dorothy and connie will experience a rift, which monty will then fill (as much as i like monty, she has a very clear goal for what she wants out of her life right now). anne will be exposed at some point for her emotional manipulation of dorothy (whether this is to intentionally hurt dorothy or not). somehow, all of these disparate conflicts connect, i’m just at a loss to explain how.

[njpwdaily]

Dave Doyle

If LGBT people can identify with our story, if they think ‘the Golden Lovers are my team,’ I’m good with that. It’s the story of two wrestlers who shared dreams on their way up, who became fast friends, who are now reuniting at the top of their game.

[mitchtheficus]

“I think it’s important to show in the 21st century that if you’re gay, lesbian, trans, whatever, that you should feel just as welcome to be a wrestling fan as anyone else. You’re welcome in the space,” Omega said. “I do get some stupid messages on Twitter from homophobic people and they’re usually WWE fans, which kind of drives things home. In WWE, a gay person is usually portrayed like some sort of comedy act to be mocked and laughed at. The world’s not like that anymore. Everyone should feel welcome to the show.”

[namajague]

So, I love this article, and the above quote actually made me tear up a little, because I’ve never pretended to be cool and why should I start now, but one part of it is bugging me?

“While Omega says the LGBT aspect of the team won’t be emphasized in its current iteration“

This is a paraphrase by the interviewer, and I really wish I knew what Kenny actually said, because what does he mean it ‘won’t be emphasized’, it is too late for that. (Also, what does he mean ‘LGBT aspect’, only two of those letters can reasonably apply here.)

Like, maybe he means it won’t be ridiculous yaoi-bait this time, and if that’s the case, good, but… if he means they won’t be emphasizing that they’re gay, he should tell Cody. Because Cody is doing his darnedest to make sure everyone knows that Kenny and Ibushi are a couple, and if that’s not something they’re ‘emphasizing’, then I really want to know what they think is happening.

I’m just genuinely confused, and potentially upset depending on what’s meant here.

[amy--march]

the whole article, but especially that one line about the “lgbt aspect” not being emphasized, really smacked of omega (or the article writer, or both) trying to downplay said aspect to the wrestling mainstream. “lgbt” here is being used as a catchall imo. ”queer” can be a catchall, but omega or the writer may not have (understandably) wanted to use that term. all of this is expected behavior for a company looking toward usa expansion and entering usa wrestling’s mainstream. it’s disappointing and annoying, but expected.

as for the storyline itself, it’s not looking like the yaoi-bait from the ddt days, or that they’re going to emphasize that the golden lovers are gay (in omega’s case, bi). rather, it looks like they’re normalizing the relationship and not calling attention to the fact that they are a same-sex couple. they’ll do their best to make sure everyone understands that they are unambiguously a couple, which cody has been doing so far (even if by means that i don’t fully agree with). but any sort of phobia about their relationship isn’t motivating conflict in this story, and it seems like this extends to avoiding terms like “boyfriend” or any explicit marking of either omega or ibushi’s sexuality (although again, omega has all but explicitly said he’s bi).

it’s great that phobia isn’t factoring into this story at all, but not addressing its presence in this space may not be the best move either. we definitely need stories that normalize homosexuality (see the way he looks for a great example where being gay isn’t a motivator of conflict), but there’s a long history of wrestling as a space where the only forms of expression possible were through the predatory gay trope or layers of ambiguity. without unpacking and condemning that history, this storyline will never do enough for those who need it, and too much for those who do not.

of course, it might well have been too much for one storyline to tackle. but even so, not addressing the phobia means it will still exist, and you’ll still get people who deny that the storyline has any lgbt aspects (see this post about this article).  

[amy--march]

a return and revamp

hey everyone, it’s been a long seven months away from this blog. i’m making a return to posting again, and this time, i won’t disappear for months at a time. usually, i try not to make promises so as to not break them later, but enough is enough. i’ve had some really big blows dealt to my mental health over these past months that have left me creatively stunted and starved. i cut back on the web shows i watch (i’m only actively watching project green gables, as it is the only one on my radar that has been a consistent joy to watch). it was only with the hindsight of these months that i have realized that i went through a very severe fandom burn-out, compounded by my mental health issues. i’ve never successfully returned to a fandom i’ve been burned out on, but i love and miss writing about all of the things i used to write about. i’m by no means done questioning my stances on these topics, and i’m not done writing about them.

so it’s time for a revamp.

in order to keep the blog running, and for the sake of my own well-being in continuing to discuss the topics i love to discuss, i’m opening up the topics i discuss to everything i’m interested in writing about, not just web shows. some of you may know that i like bringing in aspects of other forms of media to enrich discussions, like films and podcasts. when i was writing more actively, i limited doing this so the focus could solely be on web shows. i’ve always understood, however, that my views are informed by the media i consume, and i don’t just consume one form, i consume many forms.

i’m always going to prefer investigating and questioning storytelling that exists at intersections, and/or pushes at boundaries within a form. this can involve the types of stories told (see the golden lovers storyline in wrestling, a post is coming on some recent criticism the story has received (read the first link before the second for full context)) and how the story is told (v-lit, transmedia storytelling). i’m still going to investigate the social issues underpinning the stories i consume, and the fandom/creator power dynamics that can show themselves. that’s always been at the core of this blog, and i endeavor to keep delivering on that.

i welcome you all to interact, turn me on to stories i might be interested in, pester me to publish something if i’ve gone without publishing for a week. there are many of you i have interacted with in the past, such as @ai-firestarter, @theboymayor, @theoniongirl, @thegreatsapphicvein, @flutish, @chelsaat, @accioinvisibilitycloak  and many, many more from emma approved to lolilo and on. i apologize deeply for not being able to keep in touch over the past seven months with you all, and i apologize for the notifications i just pinged with those mentions (if you feel it wasn’t relevant to you, let me know and i’ll remove it).

above all, thank you so much. your feedback and thoughts have helped me articulate my own opinions, and constantly question what i know and what i learn. i’m going to continue to do that.

[maybeolives]

Queer Rosamond Vincy

@megwinter made a Billie and Rosamond gifset and put these tags: #if rosy does end up being a lesbian this’ll be a really interesting convo abt compulsory heterosexuality #because i bet a lot of people just think with her brother being so out and open #it like wouldn’t be an issue for her #but it just doesn’t work like that

And it got a me thinking a lot of thoughts about queer Rosamond Vincy. 

First, I super agree that Fred being gay wouldn’t make it any easier for Rosy to come out. I think in many ways it might even be harder. Fred is so open about being gay. He has always known that he was attracted to men. And he probably never expressed doubt or confusion (and especially not to Rosy as their sibling relationship doesn’t seem the confiding type). Rosy doesn’t have any of that sureness or confidence. Questioning her sexuality might be harder because she sees Fred and thinks of course she doesn’t like girls. If she did, surely she would be certain of it. And then she dismisses any feelings she’s unsure of. 

Also, Fred’s perpetual assumption of her heterosexuality might have pushed her even further into denial. He constantly proclaims phrases and sentiments like “Heterosexual Disaster” aimed at her. I imagine that Rosy would feel uncomfortable contradicting his words unless she was certain she wasn’t straight. Fred clearly thinks she’s straight. And so she might take his gay authority more seriously than any doubts she herself has. 

Her confusion could also illustrate how the experiences of gay men diverge from the experiences of lesbian women. Although many experiences are shared, the patriarchal state of society affects how women view themselves and their interactions with other women. For most of her life, Rosy might have viewed other women as competition instead of as potential love interests (personal experience here. internalized misogyny, real fun). She might not only have to accept her interest in women, but she might have to completely shift her worldview of women and their roles in society.

I personally lean more towards thinking she’s a lesbian. (I think it would explain more of the way her relationship with Lydgate plays out). But Fred’s insistence about her heterosexuality could also be detrimental to the possibility that she’s bi/pan. In this case, her interest in Lydgate might convince her that she is straight. And she could ignore any other possibility. 

I think Rosy’s denial might also just stem from her wish to conform. She might not want to be queer. As other people have mentioned, Rosy seems to aspire to a certain image. She wants to appear perfectly normal, beautiful, feminine, etc. Also, she has such an idealized version of love. She wants romance like that from the movies. She thinks the handsome, rich doctor and the beautiful woman make the perfect couple. Thus, she has set out to acquire such a relationship. She probably gains comfort and stability from her plan. And any deviation from it is scary and confusing.   

Pretty much, I’m all for queer Rosamond Vincy and her working through internalized homophobia and compulsory heterosexuality. 

[projectgreengables]

Attention All Editors!

We’re looking for a new editor to join the production crew of Project Green Gables as we take on the challenge that is the third (and final) season. Your location doesn’t matter as you would be working with a script and filmed footage, and since the show is rather simple production-wise, we don’t expect a great deal of experience.

What we are looking for is someone reliable and able to edit episodes sometimes with a tight schedule (as in a week prior to publishing in some cases). Please also note that, as much as we would love to pay you for your work, at the moment the whole crew works on a voluntary basis. We are however able to cover expenses (such as editing programme fees etc).

If you’re interested, please send us a brief introduction of yourself and your prior editing work to [email protected] and we’d be happy to chat more about the specifics of the job! Cheers!

~PGG crew

[projectgreengables]

Big News Folks!

The first episode of season 3 will air next Tuesday and the second one on Friday! The usual schedule of weekly episodes on Fridays will commence from then on. We’ve worked really hard on the final season and simply can’t wait to show it to you all! ~PGG team

[maybeolives]

Hey! This is thesuds (I haven't really figured out the whole sideblog as main blog thing). Why are you not a fan of Oliver and Jill as a couple? Feel free to answer privately or publicly. Just interested in hearing your thoughts!

Cool, cool. I love talking about fictional characters. So. First of all, I’m not exactly against the idea of them as a couple. I’m more neutral. (and full disclosure, I am much more invested in the friendships between Paulie, Jill, and Rose than any of the romantic relationships). I guess my problem mostly lies with Oliver as a character. He’s had less characterization and I still feel that he functions in the series as mostly a love interest for Jill. He did have some great development when he was a dick to Jill and then started growing and fixing his mistakes with Jill and his older issues with Orlando. (Also, my issues with the character have nothing to do with the actor. I think he does a tremendous job). I’ve just never felt all that invested in his character, probably because he is given less screen time and he is set up in opposition to characters who are so much more developed. I also find myself comparing Jill and Oliver to Rose and Orlando. Rose and Orlando are fully formed main characters with lots of screen time and much of their own perspective in the series. I find them compelling in their own rights and then can appreciate how their relationship changes and shapes their stories. 

I think I should also mention how in my mind Adam and Paulie function differently than Jill and Oliver. I love Adam and I love Adam and Paulie as a couple. Adam is a minor character like Oliver, but the way he is positioned in the story is more straightforward. Adam is a good and flawed guy, and he and Paulie have some issues to work out, but they have a healthy relationship. Oliver, though, is hard to understand as the show plays out. At first he seems like a kind of boring but nice guy, then he breaks Jill’s heart and is a complete douchebag. Only later do we find out what’s going on in his head. It’s like emotional whiplash. Mostly, I find it hard to forgive so quickly how he treated Jill. We get some explanation for his actions, but what he did was still a shit thing. I care about Jill so much and I’m still angry about the way he treated her. I guess I feel that Jill and Oliver didn’t have a very strong base to their relationship (romantic or otherwise) and so I think it feels too quick that they got together.

With all that said, I like them as a couple fine. My thoughts are basically that Jill and Oliver have gotten through some really hard stuff, and Oliver is trying and growing as a person. So I’m happy for the character development. And having just watched “Jill and Oliver React,” I see how cute they can be. I still am reluctant to accept Oliver as “good enough” for Jill. But in general, I’ve been trying to dissuade myself from the concept of “good enough.” Oliver makes Jill happy, like really happy, and I just want Jill to be happy (she deserves the world). I can accept them as a cute couple even if I still feel some ambivalence towards Oliver. 

Sorry for the long rant. I just have lots of feelings and thoughts about the characters. Hope I answered your question lol. Thanks for the ask! 

[maybeolives]

Hey! I saw you said you shipped Jill and rose in the better strangers? Out of curiosity, why?

Yeah, so this was mostly at the beginning of the webseries, but also still throughout. And yeah Rose and Orlando are cute, and I can admit that Jill and Oliver are also pretty cute. But I would have been totally on board with Jill and Rose dating. A lot of the reasons come down to how I personally view romantic relationships. For one, I’m a huge fan of the trope of roommates falling for each other so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. 

Also, I think that friendship is a very important base for romantic relationships, and Jill and Rose have such a strong bond of friendship. I also feel that the relationships they end up in don’t quite have the friendship aspects that I love. I especially feel this way about Jill and Oliver. I have some issues with Oliver as a character and their relationship as a whole, as I have discussed previously. I personally don’t think they ever were really friends. It seemed like from the moment of their meeting, they were both interested in each other, which colored their every interaction. Probably, I’m dissatisfied with the beginning of their relationship because of my own personal experience; I can’t imagine falling for someone without having a firmly established friendship already. But that’s just me.

I think Rose and Orlando have a much stronger friendship aspect to their relationship. But I’m still slightly wary about Orlando’s infatuation with Rosalind. He does grow and abandon his original ideal of love. But also Rose has some weird motives at the beginning of their friendship. I do think they eventually reach very genuine friendship. But I also feel that so many of their interactions seem charged in a weird way because of all these unresolved and confusing issues. 

Also, Rose and Jill were maybe my two favorite characters, so I would love any excuse to learn more about who they are and how their dynamic works and can change. They already experienced some changes in dynamic when they were fighting and acting passive aggressive. But I think adding romantic feelings would have just shed a different light on their relationship. I would have been fascinated by watching them try to figure out a new relationship and try to learn to express themselves in new ways. And all the reasons they are such good friends I think could be reasons for why they would work really well as a couple. 

All in all, I still ADORE them as friends. And I think friendship is soo important. My favorite relationship is the friendship between Rose, Jill, and Paulie. So I’m grateful for the way their platonic friendship plays out

But also, tho, I’m all about that gay shit.

[toomanyfeelings5]

me: fred says that lydgate and rosamund are a “heterosexual disaster” and he couldn’t be more right, honestly what a #relatable line, iconic, i’m loving it

also me: sees a female character who fully immerses herself in romcom fantasies, is all about appearance and being as performative as possible, wants to fit into a specific mold, wants to be seen as perfect, “my standards aren’t that high, fred, it just takes a really extraordinary guy to live up to them,”

also me: ~closeted lesbian rosamund 2kforever~

[amy--march]

expressions & gestures

there’s something interesting in the way characters act in mmts. 

i don’t know if it’s interesting in a good way or a bad way, and all i have to back up my thoughts are my own observations and not any experience working in film, but it should be out there all the same.

sometimes, the characters are more exaggerated at certain moments, and not in the way i’m used to seeing exaggeration. i’m referring to moments like jamie’s stuttering and looks through “science projects” and the shoulder touch in “john waule”, among a couple of others. there are some things that are intentionally exaggerated, like the flirting between rosy and lydgate in their episodes, especially “origin story”. otherwise, i thought it was just a quirk of the early episodes, but when it carried on past “blindsided” (episode 10), that’s when i started giving it more thought.

watching a lot of webshows and consuming other forms of media has resulted in a lot of training to understand a certain sensibility and approach to how expressions and gestures match to certain emotions. that sort of training enables further creation of media that follows those sensibilities, and in fandom, the evidence on which to base analyses of various types. what it often means is that there are enough looks, or touches, or the way words are said between two characters that it is very clear to the viewers that there is the possibility of something there (romantic or otherwise), but vague enough that the characters themselves are clueless about the other’s inner motivations. this can be subverted to some extent if the characters are genre savvy, but they usually aren’t, and don’t seem to be in this particular case.

perhaps the exaggeration confounds me because there are so many budding romantic relationships in mmts. even now, i have an easier time understanding why lydgate wouldn’t notice rosy’s flirting has motivations toward dating compared to dot not seeing jamie’s similar motivations. there’s a fine line between a fundamental character flaw and a different stylistic sensibility. and normally a relationship like fred and max’s would not confuse me either, but they have some of the most exaggerated moments with each other and other characters, and fred has dropped several obvious hints about his feelings. it makes sense that neither of them would have stopped to question their actions, but their actions telegraph their feelings so strongly that it begs to be questioned, yet that does not seem to be the case.

i’m not sure how much this feeds into the themes of the source. if it’s not, i’m not sure why i’ve picked up on it and where it might be coming from. if anyone else has, or understands what concepts i’m looking at, please add your thoughts.

[arthurrex]

they’re not even dating yet…. fred YOU NEED TO CHILL WITH THAT HEADER 

[amy--march]

actually, what i was thinking was that they are dating now (hence the header), but since the videos are of footage from months back, they weren’t dating at that time.

it’s possible that’s not the case, but i figured that since the transmedia and the events of each video no longer match in real time, that the transmedia would minimally foreshadow (but not give away) plot points to come in these characters’ futures.

[flutish]

I feel like my webseries life has had a slight resurgence, what with there currently being three shows I’m super into, and even though I can’t really meta about them at this time (because… reasons), I’m just thrilled that there are still these awesome webseries and shows in 2017, even if it’s a shame that my favorite ones don’t have as wide a following as I’d like.

[flutish]

Bwahahaha, what a lie. As if I’m ever capable of not talking or sharing my opinion even when no one cares.

Okay, so like: PGG. Is still fantastic. Seriously. What I love about this show is that it’s still sticking to the old school model of slow and steady. I’ve said this a million times, but PGG is one of the best webseries because it takes an episodic story (Anne of Green Gables and sequels) and adapts it emotionally. By which I mean, this is a show that is unafraid to say “hey, okay, this chapter makes no sense in 2017! Let’s modernize it!” but they do that without sacrificing the emotional impact. Which is phenomenal. The show is full of fillers, because… hey, that’s what life is like. Anne’s vlog channel feels most like a real-world vlog, because sometimes she just rants about things that feel plot-irrelevant, sometimes she talks about people who don’t show up on camera, sometimes she skips episodes, sometimes she goes outside… The show is flexible in the very best of ways, and I continue to find it almost personally insulting that the wider AoGG or GGF fandoms never got on this train. Especially now that most of the episodes have captions, there is literally no excuse to pass up on this great show. Do it. Watch it.

Then there’s Away From It All, which is fascinating in how it’s taken the traditional “oh my god, why is this online?!” webseries problem and done away with it in an extremely elegant manner. Seriously. How did it take so long to just create a show in which every video/transmedia is labeled as whatever level of privacy it has? Yes, the downside is that immersion is a little bit more difficult, but the combination of Liddy’s public vlogs (which are also often very real-vlog-y and have their own style and rhythm) with the private videos and transmedia makes for a great viewing experience, without much of the discomfort associated with other shows for “okay, but… this shouldn’t have been posted”. Which is awesome.

And obviously now my heart and soul have been kidnapped by Middlemarch, because… If you didn’t know that Middlemarch is probably my favorite book of all times (or at least, the best book I’ve ever read… maybe Harry Potter or Fangirl or The Golden Compass are more “favorite” favorites, I dunno, don’t ask me these sorts of questions), fine, but now you do. And let me just say… I have a lot of thoughts on how Middlemarch can be adapted (namely, I’m growing to believe that it is best split into three different stories in a connected universe, with overlapping beginnings and endings, but that is a post for another time), but 5 episodes into Middlemarch: The Series, and I am all here for it. The most important character for me is Dorothea (as much as I adore Will Ladislaw, he is easier to play with as a character), and so far she is great, she is the right level of serious, her eyes sparkle at the right moments, and I feel it. Middlemarch is a story that needs to be felt and so far, the webseries has got it.

Okay. That’s my rant for now. Those are the three shows giving me nice feelings right now. Feel free to recommend the other shows I should be watching, that might inspire such excited emotions on my part. :)

[amy--march]

if anything, i’m wishing pgg would post more, because it has managed to stay as good as it was in its early episodes. its transmedia is still really good, though similarly scant and infrequent. the focus of their work is clearly on their videos more than their transmedia, so this is understandable, but it would help make up for the once-a-week posting schedule. i still don’t know how the episodes remain so interesting, and i wish they had the viewership to show for their efforts.

to be fair to other shows that have a similar solution to the “why is this online” problem, they usually haven’t needed to do that sort of labeling because the entire filming style would change to indicate what was online and what wasn’t. but afita similarly nails each episode it puts out, with an eye to adaptation that is reminiscent of how pgg has been adapting aogg. 

this includes the most recent tribute to bath episode, which includes tweets from the past couple of days. one of my favorite parts of the twitter side of transmedia is that liddy will freely communicate with other webseries’ characters, such as fred from mmts, annie from nlts (go back far enough and you can find liddy’s livetweet of cmk and nlts), and emma from the emma agenda (emma even recorded and uploaded a video to twitter for the tribute). this has the most impact if you also follow those shows, but it makes for a very active twitter presence.

mmts continues to be great. i’m really surprised by what i’m assuming are subversions to typical tropes within rosamund and lydgate’s characters, though these might be in the source material. in addition, there are more characters than usual in the sciences, and philosophy is not covered that often in these shows, which is a welcome change after series after series of characters in writing or english majors. (in fact, a lot of the new batch of shows this year have characters with more of a bent toward stem than non-stem.) despite the entire show taking place months in the past, the way time flows between episodes is still a slight challenge and hard to grasp in the moment of viewing the episode. none of the transmedia can match up with the episodes since everything already happened, which is a shame since it could really deepen dot’s presence on twitter (fred’s presence is very similar to liddy’s at this point, so changing the way time matches between the videos and transmedia would have little effect). but it has similarly hooked me the way afita did when i started watching, and if it turns out as good as afita, that’s another good show to keep looking forward to this year.

[literaryinspiredwebserieslove]

The Literary-Inspired Webseries Awards Have Some Issues

Now, I’ve been reviewing a lot of series that are up for the LIWAs this year, and I encourage everyone to go nominate and vote for all of these amazing and talented people, because they deserve credit for their work.

However, I have a lot of issues with the awards themselves, and I know that other people share them (often to the point of refusing to participate).

The main issue is the categories themselves. Costume and set design are combined into one award. There’s no music award, no directing award, no cinematography award. Then there’s the gender issue. The genre is progressive enough about gender these days that we should be able to have labels other than “actor” and “actress,” right? As it currently stands, it’s basically impossible to nominate nonbinary or genderfluid actors playing nonbinary or genderfluid characters in any category other than “best chemistry.”

Then there’s the issue of the voting. I like the idea of audience nominations, and even of audience voting, but there’s a clear bias in favor of series with larger fandoms. I don’t want to see one series win eighty percent of the awards again this year, and it’s hard to know how to prevent that and make the voting process fairer while still also keeping it democratic. 

To highlight the problems a little, let’s look at how many people are actually watching what:

Bright Summer Night was the most-viewed webseries of last year, with an average of 7-8,000 views per episode, sometimes many more (this is still way below The Candle Wasters other series, which is in itself an interesting phenomenon).

The New Adventures of Peter and Wendy Season Three, while not eligible for these LIWAs, is the other massive view winner, with similar numbers (so far nothing surpassing about 9,000 views, but it’s still happening in real time and it’s been a while since Season Two).

The Cate Morland Chronicles, one of the best series this year, appears to still have a viewership of fewer than 1500 people, despite being made by the creators of Lily Evans and the Eleventh hour. Nothing Like The Sun has very similar numbers.

The Adventures of Serena Berg, although the owner of a very active fandom, actually has very few viewers – about 200 individuals.

Project Green Gables, another fan favorite that deserves many awards, is currently averaging about 800 views per episode.

Twelfth Grade (or whatever) is a few months old now, so many episodes have massive numbers of views, but the number of individual viewers seems similar to those of The Cate Morland Chronicles and Nothing Like The Sun – around 1600.

Away From It All is being hailed as one of the best literary webseries ever, but it still only gets about 800 views per episode.

(Also, just realized I should mention Poe Party, which has about 40,000 views per episode but seems to belong to a different part of the internet despite clearly being an LIW and starring a lot of the cast of The Lizzie Bennet Diaries.)

Why are the numbers so wildly different? Bright Summer Night and The New Adventures of Peter and Wendy have name recognition and budgets, which helps, and that’s where a lot of their views come from. The New Peter Wendy fandom is actually considerably less active than those for a lot of the smaller webseries because so many people from outside of the community are making up the viewers. 

The Candle Wasters still dominate LIW fandom world, but BSN hasn’t gotten much fan attention, and it’s really hard to know how to nominate the actors when there are so many point-of-view characters and when some characters and actors don’t conform to the gender binary.

A lot of people don’t enjoy watching in real time, and so they’ll wait until a whole series is finished and then binge it. This is likely happening with Project Green Gables right now. The views will likely go up massively after the end of the season, just as they did after Nothing Like The Sun finished. The Emma Agenda will likely have a similar viewer situation.

There’s also the question of simply getting caught up – I only discovered The Adventures of Serena Berg three weeks ago, and then I spent several days binging before I could be caught up. 

The third reason I think contributes to low viewership on good series is unfamiliarity with the source text. I haven’t watched Away From It All or Middlemarch, the Series yet because I haven’t read the books they’re based on, even though I know I’ll love both series when I do watch them. I suspect a lot of other people are doing the same thing with those two series, and possibly also with The Adventures of Serena Berg.

So what’s the solution? We can’t say that everyone who watches LIWs has to watch all of them, but perhaps voting in the LIWAs should be done by people who have seen all of the nominees, in order to ensure that voting happens on the basis of quality and not popularity. At this point in time, I’m not sure that’s possible – and I’m not sure it ever will be with the community as it stands now.

[amy--march]

the entire question of how the liwas should be conducted rests primarily on one question: is it a popularity contest/fandom metric (like teen choice) or an awards show akin to the academy awards? i realize this post approaches the liwas from the assumption that it is trying to be more like the academy awards (although a lot of the mainstream awards shows don’t fully reflect the quality of work produced in a given year), but it does involve much more regulation and work than something like the teen choice awards has. i raised this question after last year’s liwas, but i’ve raised it here again, since nothing seems to have changed.

tnaopaw’s fandom activity is actually concentrated on twitter, in the form of twitter-based transmedia akin to what pemberley digital tried to do during welcome to sanditon’s run. the community there is small relative to the show’s viewership, but it is very active, and the official accounts match this enthusiasm.

i’m not sure how much familiarity with the source text contributes to low viewership. i haven’t read the source text for a majority of the nominees, yet i have still watched and enjoyed a lot of them. then again, that’s if you equate familiarity with having read the source text; if this is just about knowing of the author or the plot in a general sense, then yes, it does contribute. however, this really only seems to come into play for (1) almost any liw not based on shakespeare, austen, or western classic literature authors of the 18th and 19th centuries, and (2) liws based on the lives of certain western classic literature authors (with poe party being an exception).

despite these factors, if the liwas is able to figure out what type of award it is trying to give, the question of the categories actually becomes a lot simpler. yes, they still need to accommodate for actors who identify outside of the gender binary, but the rest of the categories can be taken in part from similar award shows, like teen choice. this post also has some suggestions related to categories and voting that could better regulate the liwas.