I already added the two videos that have appeared so far to the existing LBD videos spreadsheet. I think maybe it would make sense to give AoJE its own tab (“worksheet”), though, so its videos don’t get lost in the LDB stuff.

Lately I’ve added a “type” column, with videos being categorized as:

• show – actual LBD and spinoff episodes.
• event – interviews, hangouts, or special videos that feature out-of-character appearances by cast or crew.
• fan – everything else; mostly fan videos.

I put the AoJE videos in as type “fan”, though that doesn’t really feel right. But “show” would potentially confuse people into thinking it’s actually produced by the LBD team. So I think a separate worksheet is probably the best approach.

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/47548598121.

It’s almost like having a Monday episode to look forward to.

Almost. :-)

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/47204895265.

leslielikesthings:

Anybody who follows my Tumblr knows the overwhelming love that I have for The Lizzie Bennet Diaries. This is not a surprise. But those who have been paying attention also know that there are some elements of the series that didn’t always work for me. I have commented on them, though in the last couple of weeks I haven’t been focusing on them. Instead I’ve been swept up in a wave of emotion about the series ending and the wonderful romantic conclusion. Now that those waves are subsiding I’m starting to think more comprehensively and critically about the series as a whole. Those elements that didn’t work for me – I had put a pin in most of them, waiting to see how they concluded before I decided whether or not they worked in the end. Now that we presumably have all the information we’re ever going to have, I think I’m ready to draw some conclusions. 

Some criticism follows under the cut, and it gets long. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again – even when I don’t agree with every creative decision that was made, I still really admire what the team did with this series as a whole. I may have sometimes found things to be imperfect or even problematic, but for me that doesn’t take away from any of the overall love that I have for the end product. The experience that I’ve had with this series over the past several months has been wonderful.

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I agree with the large majority of this.

I’m still wrestling somewhat what how I feel about the Lizzie/Lydia conflict and the Lydia/Wickham abuse subplot. That had a different tone from much of the rest of the show, obviously. Whether or not that different tone was a problem is a judgement call. The people who made a mini-career out of hating on it made some good points. But I also think there was more going on than just good choices vs. bad choices from a storytelling standpoint.

I’m suspicious of my emotional reactions to that part of the story. Part of what I had a problem with from the time of Lizzie and Lydia’s big fight was a sense that my expectations for these characters and their relationship were being thwarted. I disliked what was happening partly because it upended things I’d come to really enjoy about what came before. I also had a sense that I was being hit over the head repeatedly with aspects of the story that came off as kind of melodramatic. I resented feeling like Lydia was being woobified, and like the characters were descending into a weird dysfunctional box from which they should have been able to extract themselves more easily than they did.

I was unhappy with what was happening, but on some level I was supposed to be unhappy with it. I didn’t like feeling that way, especially given the thimbleful-of-wine pace of the realtime storytelling, and maybe that made me want to subconsciously find fault with the creators of the show. But I don’t think that’s really fair.

One thing I’ve thought about is how easy it is to lob criticism at someone else’s creative work, versus how hard it is to actually create something worthwhile. LBD was good in so many ways that it’s easy to forget that it wasn’t really the same sort of thing as a television series or movie. The resources they were working with were minuscule compared to mainstream entertainment. In some ways LBD had more in common with amateur theater and fanfiction than it did with commercial entertainment. Whether it was amazing or awful really depends on what standard you measure it against. And it blows me away how much they were able to accomplish while basically bootstrapping a whole new approach to fictional storytelling.

I appreciate that there were people who hated aspects of the show enough to go into hyper-articulate detail about it. At a certain point, though, I made a conscious decision to push that criticism away and just enjoy the show. I unfollowed several people, and only went back to see what they’d been saying once in a while when I felt up to it. Yes, the things they were identifying as problems kind of were problems, at least some of the time (though at other times I got a sense of Lizzie-sees-only-what-she-wants-to-see). But many of the problems, at least in my mind, weren’t so much the moral failings and glaring stupidity that the haters saw, but were merely the result of well-intentioned people without a lot of experience doing the best they could to lay down tracks in front of a moving train heading through uncharted terrain.

I really loved this show. Which isn’t the same thing as saying it was perfect. Shows are made by people, and people aren’t perfect. But sometimes people and the things they create are worthy of love anyway.

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/46807067317.

I finally got around to finishing the interview with Ashley and Mary Kate on Whatstrending from the other day, and at one point they asked Ashley for a future adaptation she’d like to work on, and she mentioned The Forgotten Garden by Kate Morton. And I hadn’t heard of it before, so I googled it, and the first hit that came up was for the audiobook version on Amazon. So I clicked through, and read this:

The Forgotten Garden [Audiobook, MP3 Audio, Unabridged] [MP3 CD] Kate Morton (Author), Caroline Lee (Reader)

Caroline Lee

Caroline Lee

So, we finally have our answer to what Caroline does for a living.

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/46761731930.

leslielikesthings:

I AM JUST SO HAPPY YOU GUYS! and drunk…

You know what I really liked about the epilogue? The people in the background. For once, the LBD characters weren’t in a post-apocalyptic landscape where no one else exists.

I’m assuming those aren’t extras or friends of the show. They’re all pretty distant and hard to make out, which makes me think this might have been shot guerrilla-style without releases.

Whether or not those people were in on it, I love that in this, the show’s final moments, the visible in-universe population pretty much doubled. I like to think that those were real people at a real bar, who just happened to be there at the same time the Bennet/Darcy/Lu celebration was crashed by an adorable and slightly ridiculous gentleman just in from Winnipeg.

I like to think that I could have been at that bar. I like to think that I could have glanced over at just the right moment to see an energetic younger sister throw her double-jointed arms wide and photobomb her beloved big sis and big sis’s rich mancake boyfriend. That I would have seen her flash that Lydia smile, a smile that promises many future pig-piles.

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/46654661584.

Lizzie Bennet Diaries videos spreadsheet:

In the interest of making it more useful, I’ve started adding more videos to the Lizzie Bennet Diaries spreadsheet I maintain. If you have a favorite fan video, interview, or clip from a public appearance that you think should be added, please forward me the link and I’ll put it in there. Basically anything on YouTube or Vimeo (or any other video-hosting site I can link to) that’s LBD-specific is fair game.

There’s one video I’d really like to find: Ashley mentioned it in an interview she did a few months ago, and I corresponded with her about it afterwards, but neither she nor I have been able to find it. It’s a video someone shot at Vidcon that just happened to catch the moment when Ashley was walking into the room where the cast signing event was happening, and she was agog at the line, and someone told her that it was actually the line for LBD.

She remembers seeing the video at one point. If you know where it is, please let me know. Or any other videos that you think an obsessive fan might want to watch. Thanks!

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/46634953551.

icecreamramblings:

Having just recently gotten into Austen (I’ve only read P&P, Persuasion, half of Emma, and Sandition), I don’t have a huge amount of knowledge about many of Austen’s works. Still, I do think that Persuasion would be an ideal candidate for a vlog-style adaptation in the spirit of the Lizzie Bennet Diaries.

This got obscenely long, so it’s under the cut.

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This mostly makes sense to me. I don’t necessarily agree with the people I’ve seen saying that Clueless precludes Pemberley Digital adapting Emma; Clueless came out 18 years ago, which at least in my mind is plenty long enough for another adaptation to be done. There were only 10 years between the BBC miniseries and the Joe Wright adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, after all, and those were necessarily a lot closer together as straight period adaptations than 200-years-later updates of Emma would be.

But I love Persuasion, and really like the way this post outlines how it could be updated. A reality series rather than a vlog sounds more expensive to produce, but not necessarily too expensive; a reality show would still be cheaper than conventional TV, and would solve a whole list of problems that Bernie Su & Co. spent the last year wrestling with. (Just how many times can someone pop by unexpectedly and sit down next to Lizzie just as she’s recording her vlog?)

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/46509959754.

theashleyclements:

I get so many wonderful messages telling me what The Lizzie Bennet Diaries has meant to people. They often include telling me that they’ve been going through a hard thing – a big change in their lives, a loved one’s illness, depression – and that The LBD has been a source of comfort and happiness; that these characters have become their friends. These notes often include something like “I know that sounds silly…”

I just want to say that does not sound silly. That is why storytelling and art have been a part of human tradition for as long as we have records of humans. I absolutely have shows, movies, plays, and books in my life that are my friends, that got me through terrible times, that taught me about myself and my relationships to the people and world around me.

We need stories. Stories are important. There is nothing silly or dumb about relating to them and feeling attached to them. They help us see ourselves and others in new ways. They help us feel our feelings. They make us laugh when we feel low. They help us realize dreams and conquer fears. They give us a fuller understanding of the world.

We should never diminish the power of fictional stories. Do not apologize for being moved by movies, TV shows, theater, art, books, or even a webseries that puts out 5 minute episodes twice a week. Jump into them whole-heartedly and let them transform you. Let them be your friends. Why not? They want to be yours.

I am honored, more than I can ever express, to have been a part of something that has affected people’s lives, because I understand what that means. I am deeply, deeply touched that our show has become what it is, and that it’s made people feel things that have impacted them. It hasn’t been perfect, but nothing is, and the journey we’ve all taken together has been one I’ll never forget. 

I’ve written about it before (like here, last October) so I won’t repeat what I wrote then. But Ashley was the reason LBD succeeded. Obviously there were many other elements that contributed. It was a team effort, and the team was more than the sum of its parts. But Ashley’s ability to carry the show was the single most important factor.

Watching the seahorse Q&A with her and Daniel, it was remarkable to me how she rattled of references to episodes by number. She wasn’t showing off; she was just giving a window into how she thinks. And the slightly scary fact is that she has a complete catalog of all 100 episodes of the main show (and probably a working knowledge of the spinoffs) in her head at all times.

Think about that. Think about her ability to memorize 50 pages of script in a couple of days, such that she arrived on set each month ready to shoot eight or ten episodes flawlessly. Think about how, when she does interviews, she speaks off the cuff in well-formed thoughts and complete sentences.

Or read this post I’m reblogging here.

What Ashley has is special. Actors aren’t known for their intelligence, though the stereotype of “dumb actors” is unfair. But Ashley’s obviously a genius. And I don’t mean that in the gushing Tumblr sense; I mean it literally. (Gah! Literally literally, not Tumblr literally.) And she isn’t just intelligent. She has drive and perseverance. She sets high goals, then puts in the work required to reach them. It’s a rare combination.

Ashley could have succeeded at anything she chose to do. That she chose to create stories and share them with an audience is an awesome gift, one that every LBD fan should be grateful for. I know I am.

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/46339305383.

[x]

FYI, I’ve added this and the previous semi-official hangouts-on-air done by the Seahorsey types to my LBD episode spreadsheet. So if you’re looking for them, you can find them there.

Of course, if that’s all you’re looking for, you can find them a lot more easily on the LBDSeahorses page on YouTube.

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/46207162193.

Mi nombre es Lizzie Bennet – Ep. 1 (Los diarios de Lizzie Bennet 01) Español.

Saw this from Hank’s tweet. It really is ridiculously awesome. I’m tempted to add it to the spreadsheet, but I don’t know; that’s 100 additional rows.

But I’m tempted. It’s awfully cool.

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/46091159678.

So, YouTube paused while it scrolled up more of Q&A 10 at 1080p, and this happened.

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/46079993409.

neither-saint-nor-sinner:

Caroline, unrequited.

requested by someone who hates me anonymous (umm this is way bigger and more maudlin that what you asked for; see the Read More)

I wish we could have seen more interaction between Caroline and the characters who drive her actions. I mean, I had to use cast pictures for this because the source material gives me so little to work with, but whatever. I could whine about not enough Caroline for a really long time, and no one wants to see that. This isn’t her story anyway.

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Caroline Lee spinoff series.

Freed from Austen, freed from carrying the “pretty little wilderness” scene, freed from the conventionality of a jealous-of-Darcy motivation, she could actually live as a character.

I can’t stop wondering about Caroline x Lizzie. It was there beneath the surface in every scene they did together. Every time Lizzie looked away and Caroline looked at her, it was there. And as Ren discussed here, there was an honesty when Caroline talked about her family. Something other than her usual misdirection was going on in those moments.

There was a lot more to her character than we ever saw on-screen. And in a way it’s kind of a gift that so few of her details were filled in, because now we can fill them in right. Not via fanfic, but via an actual spinoff YouTube series of her own.

There is a version of the future in which the quantum superpositions resolve in favor of this becoming an actual thing. I hope I get to live in that future. Because it’s going to be an awesome one.

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/46037516127.

In hindsight they left these clues for us a couple of weeks ago. Did anyone not otherwise in-the-know figure it out?

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/46019079082.

Hey LBD folks: Check out what’s on the Kickstarter page for the Lizzie Bennet Diaries DVDs:

It’s going to take us some time to put together another full-on series after wrapping up The Lizzie Bennet Diaries. But we have no intention of leaving you hanging. So here’s what’s coming up.

You’ve seen the Pemberley Digital press release that announced a search for a partner community. And maybe you’ve even read Gigi’s SXSW interview where she hinted that the search was related to her upcoming move. 

Today, we can tell you that the search is over. A partner community has been selected, and Gigi is going to take you there.

Welcome to Sanditon.

Based on one of Jane Austen’s unfinished novels,Welcome To Sanditon will be a full interactive experience that takes you to the beach town of Sanditon, California as it attempts to revitalize itself into a modern resort destination. 

Through Gigi’s videos, you’ll meet the residents of Sanditon as she brings the beta version of Domino to reveal the drama in their lives.  But we’re not stopping there.  

In The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, you got to interact with the story.  InWelcomeTo Sanditon, we’re taking things one step further —  you’ll get a chance to be a part of the story. 

We’re busy putting the town together now, and will reveal more details soon. 

Welcome to Sanditon will launch in early May 2013. 

I did not see that coming. But it sounds fairly awesome.

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/46003742481.

This is kind of adorable.

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/45992849423.

ornamentedbeing:

br0-harry:

valeria2067:

[x]

I didn’t bust into tears or anything.

I love how the Sherlock fandom is basically the Lizzie Bennet Diaries fandom x 1,000: Long stretches with nothing but anticipatory excitement about the next episode leading to hyperventilated analysis of the smallest crumbs.

Now please excuse me. I need to breath into a paper bag.

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/45683517729.

neither-saint-nor-sinner:

if you didn’t see this coming…

I like how Lizzie backs away as she stands up.

If there’s a Streamy next year for Best Torso Acting in a Webseries, the other nominees may as well stay home.

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/45682156743.

thankyoulbd:

A wholehearted thanks to: Hank Green, Bernie Su, Jennie Powell, Kate Rorick, Rachel Kiley and Margaret Dunlap. This goes to all of you behind the scenes people who take care of the things that a lot of us actually notice and on some level appreciate. It’s not glamorous or easy, but you are the ones that make this meta world work, and I thank you all sincerely. Having the concept, drive, courage, and creativity to make this thing happen is extraordinary and truly awesome.

I’m familiar with most of you, but if I miss anyone, sincerest apologies (transmedia/design/makeup etc. – justyouwait).

So please, carry out your life plans of splendiferousness and maintain awesomeness.

–midnightofthesoul

Actually, you left out one of the most important people, at least in terms of a lot of the cool little details on-set: Katie Moest. Woo! orangepenguino production design eff tee dubs!

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/45281082293.

erinwert:

So we had today what I can only presume is probably the last episode featuring any of Lydia’s storyline. If we look at the book, after Lydia (and Wickham) visit and Lydia lets slip that Darcy was at their wedding, she goes off with her new husband, and really isn’t mentioned much again. She has served her purpose in the larger story, in the story Austen is writing, which is the story of Darcy and Lizzie.

Therefore, it seems fair to conclude that as far as Lizzie’s vlogs are concerned, we’ve “wrapped” Lydia’s storyline.

Except the thing is, I don’t feel wrapped?

I feel wrapped from a Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice perspective, in that I don’t think it makes sense to have more focus on Lydia on Lizzie’s vlogs, because they are LIZZIE’S VLOGS. This is Lizzie’s story, and we definitely do not have time to linger on giving Lydia anymore closure when clearly we NEED THESE SIX EPISODES to bring us DIZZIE. I mean, you guys, we have six episodes for Dizzie. I just can’t.

But The Lizzie Bennet Diaries as a whole is more than Lizzie’s vlogs. They’ve given me characters I care about, that I want to see more from.

Today I saw that Lydia is starting to heal maybe a touch? She is at least starting the process of being more open, and she’s getting therapy, all really great, awesome things. I’m excited for her. But she still hesitates at George’s name. I still don’t know what she’s really feeling. I still don’t know that she is going to be okay. I need to know that she is going to be okay.

They’ve made me care about Lydia as a character outside of her role in the main story, Lizzie’s story. I feel like it’s only fair, if you’re going to make me care about a character, that you wrap up the story.

I could see someone arguing that Lydia wouldn’t want to vlog right now, because she’s processing, she’s hurt, she was burned by her vlogs… but that’s the thing. She needs to reclaim her vlogs. They ended with George getting the last word (through Lydia). With George winning.

That’s not right, that’s not fair. And I feel like it makes much more sense that Lydia would want to reclaim her channel as her own. Either that, or delete the entire thing (which obviously will not work for playback necessity). Which means that Lydia needs to get to have the last word.

Lydia has used her vlogs time and again as a sounding board, as a way to process her feelings, as a way to reach out to people when she wasn’t reaching out to her sister. Yes, she’s reaching for her sisters now, but I think she would still reach for her channel. She’s clearly still reaching out to be on Lizzie’s vlogs, why wouldn’t she also reach out for herself, and for her own viewers, which she’s recognized before as being meaningful to her.

Personally, I could see her vlogs very much being a part of her therapy. Something that she might choose to do to help her reclaim her life, and to be more open and honest with the people who love her, etc.

Lydia needs to have her voice restored. George stole it. And abused it without her permission. We’ve seen her heartbroken on Lizzie’s vlogs, we’ve seen her start to heal on Lizzie’s vlogs, but that’s still all Lizzie’s vlogs. She won’t be healing if the last thing she allows to be on her channel is her profession of love to George.

It doesn’t feel true to Lydia’s character if she never vlogs again.

(FWIW, I also want a better conclusion of Jane’s story, and depending on how they end Charlotte, that, too. I care about our four main girls greatly. It’s just that Lydia has already shown herself to speak for herself on her channel and there’s a venue to give her more of a separate ending, because she has a separate story. I would love to hear more from Jane, but we never got to see any of Jane when she was off in LA by herself, because Jane doesn’t like making her life super super public. If, for instance, Jane had kept a blog during the series, I would expect some sort of closing blog from her to close things up. As it is, we have Jane’s lookbook, and personally I would LOVE to see one last look featuring her and Bing together.)

I’ve been holding back on the lobbying for more Lydia videos, not because I wouldn’t want to see them, but just because I’m focused on the main storyline at this point, and kind of winding down my LBD obsession generally. And I missed this when Erin posted it originally. But looking at it now, I think she makes a really good case.

I think it’s out of character for Lydia to have left her videos where she did. She would want to update her vlog because in-universe, she feels a connection with her viewers. She probably feels responsible for the many young women who watched her earlier interactions with Wickham. She would feel obligated to set the record straight for the benefit of those viewers, wouldn’t she?

Maybe she’s not there yet in terms of the counseling she’s receiving, and her processing of her feelings about the whole thing. But in terms of the in-universe narrative, I think it really is a logic issue, and a storytelling issue, if the Lydia channel is left where it is currently without some loose ends being tidied up.

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/44908636430.

lulabo:

lulabo:

This is not precise nor necessarily 100% accurate, but if you look at the table of contents of P&P (rather than using chapter numbers based on volume, just straight through top to bottom) to the playlist of Lizzie’s videos, this is about where it all lines up. Obviously the order of things has been switched around in certain places and things have come up that don’t appear in the novel.

Interesting to note: Netherfield is 8 episodes to 5 chapters; Hunsford/Collins & Collins is about 15 episodes to 11 chapters; Pemberley is about 9ish episodes to about 5ish chapters. So while the spread is about right, time-spent-wise to episodes, that doesn’t mean we can’t still long for Pemberley, no?

I was curious how this would break down in the last few weeks, and we have six (SIX) episodes left to get through Lizzie telling the CdeB stand in, or the WORLD, that she won’t promise to stay away from Darcy, Darcy declaring his love, Darcy and Lizzie talking about their past fuck ups and how stupid they are for each other, and a happy ending. THAT IS A LOT. 

It’s interesting to see that in the early goings they hewed pretty closely to Austen’s timeline in a lot of ways and in this last quarter of the story, it’s not as easy to map to the novel. 

Thanks for doing this.

I think they’ve pretty much got to go flat out to get there in six episodes. We know the next episode features Lizzie!Mrs_Bennet, but beyond that it’s up in the air. I have to think we’re going to get “shades of Pemberley” somehow or other, because it’s such a classic scene. I’m not sure about the Collins letter, though I think there’s a good chance of that being included, too.

It will surprise me if there isn’t a Caroline episode in there somewhere. People have speculated before about her being the stand-in for Lady Catherine delivering the “shades of Pemberley” speech. I know that’s problematic in the eyes of some Caroline fans, but it kind of makes sense to me that they’d do it that way. I think I remember some vague hinting from Bernie Su from a while ago that made me think this was a likely scenario.

I think they owe us a goodbye with Charlotte, even if it’s not in Austen. Maybe Charlotte could convey Ricky’s concerns, rather than having those concerns come via a letter to Mr. Bennet?

So let’s say “shades of Pemberley” is one episode, and a Charlotte goodbye plus Ricky letter is another. Darcy resolution is one, and telling the family (though I guess “the family” is pretty much just Lydia, or maybe Charlotte, at this point, in terms of Lizzie discussing Darcy-love with someone on-camera) is another. And maybe one episode as a denouement/final goodbye to the audience from Lizzie.

Which leaves me with one extra episode to assign. I guess I’ll make the final Darcy resolution span two episodes, then.

So, summing up, my current guesses (which will probably be my last chance to demonstrate how bad I am at this; sigh):

• Ep. 95: Shades of Pemberley with Caroline
• Ep. 96: Charlotte conveying Ricky’s gossip
• Ep. 97: Darcy resolution begins
• Ep. 98: Darcy resolution ends
• Ep. 99: Lizzie tells Lydia (and Charlotte?); mom & dad reactions via costume theater
• Ep. 100: Final goodbye and wrapping up

Reposted from http://lies.tumblr.com/post/44884143548.