#literary inspired webseries

[thecandlewasters]

"Well, I've never heard of the second one" - David Tennant, probably

#much ado about nothing #NMTDaily #NMTD #nothing much to do #maan #muchado #shakespeare #william shakespeare #book club #substack #dracula daily #classic literature #liw #literary inspired webseries #MG #david tennant #catherine tate #jake mcgregor #harriett maire #doctor who

[rationalseries]

21st Century Jane Austen Heroines on YouTube

The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, From Mansfield with Love, Elinor and Marianne Take Barton, Project Dashwood, Emma Approved, The Emma Agenda, Northbound, The Cate Morland Chronicles, Welcome to Sanditon, Rational Creatures

#lizzie bennet #fanny price #Marianne Dashwood #Elinor Dashwood #emma woodhouse #catherine morland #anne elliot #literary inspired webseries #LIWs #jane austen #literary webseries #lbds

[thebirdscomeback]

vlog style LIWs are really the epitome of the whole 'trapped in the narrative' thing. those guys were just trying to make baking videos and room tours but they couldn't escape the plot. continually doomed by the narrative written for them centuries ago and its like maybe now they're telling they're own stories they can change their endings. but nope. stuff just keeps happening.

#literary inspired webseries #nmtd #will never stop thinking about how cool LIWs are as a medium

[blithe-and-bonnyy]

WEB SERIES MEME - five happy moments:

VARIOUS SERIES - NOTHING MUCH TO DO, LOVELY LITTLE LOSERS, PROJECT GREEN GABLES, THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JANE EYRE, THE LIZZIE BENNETT DIARIES

#Nothing much to do #lovely little losers #project green gables #the autobiography of jane eyre #autobiography of jane eyre #the lizzie bennet diaries #gifs #gif #*mine #literary webseries #literary inspired webseries #LIW #web series meme #web series

[overthemoonwithme]

I used to think that it's the most unrealistic thing that these characters don't just watch each others videos until the Plot Demands It until my friends and I stated posting vlogs of our own. Turns out no one actually watches their friends' stuff anyway. Bea didn't have to do that elaborate plot to convince Ursula and Hero to not watch thoss vlogs after all.

#Literary inspired webseries #nothing much to do #Nmtd #Also like I didn't even watch Lydia's videos the first time around so it seems natural ejogh

[misshyperbolemakes]

“Just please don’t say you love me, ‘cause I might not say it back.”

#the misselthwaite archives #misselarch #liw #fanvid #fan edit #mary lennox #declan sower #the secret garden #dickon sowerby #literary inspired webseries #video

[schoolsoutmp3]

My favourite medium of adapting classics has sadly died down almost completely in the past few years, so whenever there's a tumblr post that is like "this is how this character would act today" I just add it to my mental adapatation of that classic in that medium

#liws #literary inspired webseries #i did multiple essays for school about them #i have the structure a Little Men one ready to become a screenplay at any guven moment

[firstelevens]

my beloved @sesamestreep tagged me to do this and I was going to wait to stagger these tag game posts but I'm a profoundly impatient creature, so...that did not happen

If you're seeing this, consider yourself tagged, because this is a fun thing! But just to be specific I'll tag @sylvia-morris @bisamwilson @flapperwitch @bhavvyyy @apatheticjoy @hot2go

#zainab does ask meme things #also in case you want to blacklist for reblogs throughout the week I am tagging this: #why did you follow me poll

[kuwdora]

Okay, a late entry for the January posting meme... January 21 - what's one of your favorite fandom related memories? lyntergalactic

I have so many favorite memories, it’s very hard to pick one….. but it is Festivids Eve so I’m gonna talk about my excitement about this vid exchange. Cause it’s my favorite moment right now because I feel like I’m staying up late with milk and cookies waiting for Santa to arrive. I have so many great memories and VID RECS in this long post.

Festivids started in 2009 as a vid exchange for rare fandoms. Which was great because I think a lot of vidders really needed this so we could celebrate and get exposed to a whole bunch of new small and rare fandoms, unheard of media and literary sources that hadn't been really been vidded before.

Each year there’s a guest-the-vidder post, and @bingeling has been great about organizing live watches on discord. Sometimes I miss a few vids here and there during the initial weekend of go-live because it’s SO MANY VIDS, but then I always catch people’s recs or vid posts in the following weeks.

It’s just a joy to keep finding new things that I never realized I wanted and needed in my life because there’s so many interesting media and books out there to make vids for and people’s imaginations and technical skills continue to blow my mind.

Way back in 2009 when I signed up for the very first exchange I got assigned to Sol-se and matched up on the source/fandom that I had introduced her to: Little Mosque on the Prairie. We literally spent weeks months and years talking about Little Mosque on the Prairie, being a fandom of two. AO3 was in its early days yet so there wasn’t even any fic, okay. So when I got matched up, made the vid, the guest the vidder post happened and everyone guessed it was me. Everyone likes to claim that they made all the vids so I said that I indeed did make it, of course I did. Yet I was still able to cast doubt in Sol-se’s mind about whether or not I had made it because?? Who knew, maybe there was someone else who happened to get into the show and make an awesome vid for it. It was very fun hypothesizing with her in DMs about who could have made the vid if it wasn’t in fact me. It all comes back to love.

The first vid I made for Festivids in 2009: All For Swinging You Around.

Little Mosque on the Prairie. Ensemble. LOVE. Y’all I had bought Little Mosque DVDs through the CBC website back in the day and was still learning how to rip things. Aspect ratios. Scan lines. It was a TIME I do not miss. Though I do still have the DVDs and probably could rip them better now.

My other favorite memories from festivids is (aside from all of the vids) are the vids made for ME over the years!

2009 When You’re Strange by colls, a Sanctuary vid featuring music by Echo and the Bunnyman. A++ song choice and Amanda Tapping’s face will always inspire me. Sanctuary did so much with so little and this is such a great vid for a fantastic lil’ genre Canadian show.

2012 Meant to Fly by e-transitions. This is a Modern Family vid focusing on Manny, Gloria and Jay who were my favorite of the extended family on that show. Manny in particular is my favorite! This is Nicki Minaj’s Starships and it’s super sweet and endearing look at family coming together and reaching new heights together. And shenanigans. All of my favorites things.

2013 Fame by chaila (also on tumblr here). This is a vid for the show Transparent and focuses on Maura. Do you know what it’s like to get a gift from someene whose fanworks you have loved and admired for years?? I was so blown away by the cover chaila found for this vid. Mree’s vocals are so evocative and still has this powerful determination in the vocals. It’s really, incredibly moving. I was so lucky to receive a gift like this.

2015 Simple Machine by sol-se. This is for a 2014 webseries called Caper which I can’t even remember how I found. I think I was on an Amy Berg kick and was trying to watch everything she’s written for. The vid focuses on Penny who is an inventor who created a super suit and of course a white dude came along and tried to take credit for all of her inventions and hero’ing, so that’s what this vid follows. The show was incredibly dorky and sweet. Superhero fanfic, low-budget staffed with people who were able to call in a lot of favors for cameos along the way. The show also has Beth Riesfgraf and Harry Shrum, too! Along with a few others.

And of course Solvi delighted in being able to make me a vid for ANOTHER SHOW where we were a fandom of two. :D the vid is great and I have a strong affinity for Guster’s music because I listened to so many of sdwolfpup’s vids with that music when I first started vidding.

2019 I GOT SIX VIDS in 2019. I pretty much cried when go-live happened because??? How??? I guess I just had really appealing requests that year. So let me tell you about them.

Little Lion Leo by turquoisetumult. This is for the AMC version of Humans which is a parallel present/scifi show based on the Swedish version of the show Äkta människor. I had actually vidded Leo for the Swedish version but I really really adored Colin Morgan’s portrayal of Leo Elster. Mumford and Sons is such a mainstay in vidding circles and for good reason: the musicality is so gripping and the vocals area always so intense and lovely. That means it’s perfect for Leo and his angst and pain. THE BLOOD! The feelings. Trying to survive with his synth family in a world that wants to end them.

I just rewatched the vid and I immediately want to rewatch the show now, omg. Gemma Chan was extraordinary in the show and the show had a fantastic approach to discussing the the ethics and actual legal standing of artificial humans that I hadn’t other shows touch upon that well.

Raising Hell by bingeling which is a vid for the movie Ready or Not which was one of my favorite movies from 2019. Samara Weaving and that wedding dress getting progressively more fucked up throughout the film as she fucks up the that shitty family?? Kill the bad rich people, those fuckers.Beautiful. Cathartic. This is on top of the well-known fact that I fucking love Kesha’s music (I’ve vidded Kesha 9 times since 2010). Bingeling’s editing here is punchy as hell and this SONG!!!!!!! It makes me crack the fuck up, especially with the lyrics at 1:49. It’s perfect. My heart. My heart. Kesha! Everyone is trying to murder her and she murders them instead. Badass woman with a wedding dress, bandolier and sneakers.

Pity Party by winterevanesce. This is also for Ready or Not. Phenomenal song choice. I have no idea who the artist is and never heard of her before but that doesn’t matter. This song was made for this vid. The editing on this vid is orgasmic. I literally am slack-jawed each time I watch this vid. I cannot emphasize that enough. I love it when people know exactly what I want and need in my vidding soul.

The Middle by turquoisetumult. This is a Fleabag vid! Featuring Fleabag and Fleabag/Priest. It’s a poignant cover of the song, too! It’s so sweet and makes me ache so much for Fleabag because heyooo, shit is hard, esp when you tend to fuck things up along the way. I love how this vid makes want her to do better and have better things in her life. That hope! So good.

When We Fall Asleep, Where Do We Go? By starlady. Star Trek Discovery, Mirror Philippa and Michael. This is to Billie Eilish’s song “Bury a Friend” which I had never heard before but it is dark. It is sexy. The tone of the song and the synth-y beats and clicks drive me up the wall with the editing in the vid. Philippa’s sinister competence. That confidence. Starlady and I go way, way back and of course she could make me something that hits ALL OF MY FUCKING BUTTONS. I have long been vocal about how much I love Star Trek and women. And villain women and anti-heroes. Hhhhhnngh. Dark sexy vid of my Empress.

You Should See Me in a Crown, by AurumCalendula. Star Trek Discovery, Mirror Philippa. TO BILLIE EILISH. Because Billie Eilish's music screams Philippa! lmao. Everybody knows exactly what my fucking type is and I AM HERE FOR IT FOREVER. This vid features more of the Mirrorverse episodes and Philippa and HHHHNNGHHHHH. I am so loved by being seen because y’all know me so well. Aurum’s editing always has me glued to the screen. I am also here for Philippa’s face, oh my god. NOTE: Click on the dropbox link in the end notes to stream it. Aurum’s got all their videos private while dealing with some copyright strikes on their account (ugh YouTube).

Those are just the vids made for me. There are many more vids that I have recced for festivids over the years and so much more to come!

The 2023 Festivids Collection currently has 137 fanvids and 111 fandoms right now. A bounty!! Barbie vid! Bottoms1 Cycling RPF?! Vids for books! Hong Kong action films! Janelle Monae and musicals. And more omg.

Festivids. Featuring lots of great fannish memories and great vids. Highly recommend. It's also been a great way for people getting into vidding to make their first vid, too! I love this exchange.

#i haven't participated since 2019 because i have absolutely only wanted to vid the witcher netflix and games the last few years lol #i still have 3 witcher vids planned for the upcoming year and probably more after that. also need to revisit vidding the games #January posting meme #january posting meme 2024 #festivids #vids #fanvids #vidding #viddingdora #squeedora #fan vids #vid rec

[flutishly]

LBD rewatch, full show summary

Rewatches will never fully recreate the experience of the first time around, for good and for bad. Sometimes, a rewatch strips away some of the joy from a well executed plot twist. Sometimes, it adds entirely new dimensions that could not possibly have been noticed on the first pass. Sometimes the art itself has “changed” in the interim, due to cultural or technical development. No matter what, the viewing experience will be different.

For popular media - and more specifically popular media with involved fandoms - a huge factor can be the post-show narrative. Any good fan will know that a show doesn’t have to be currently airing in order to have an active fandom (Star Trek, anyone?), but there is immense weight to how a longform story that has grown and changed over time is perceived by its longterm fandom. Some shows have huge followings while they’re airing and then basically disappear from the cultural consciousness soon after they finish, often due to burning bridges with their own fanbase or having endings that don’t live up to their earlier seasons (Game of Thrones, How I Met Your Mother), some shows simply fizzle out and nobody remembers that they still exist (I loved Call the Midwife, but I’m about four seasons behind and it very much no longer has the active fandom it had a decade ago...), and then there are the shows that keep chugging along, maintaining their own moderate success and cultural appeal even years after completion (The Office, a show I expected would not have a lasting impact, remains confidently present).

What’s this to say about the Lizzie Bennet Diaries, though?

When it began airing, LBD felt like a minor media earthquake. The show leaned into its vlog-style presentation, integrated different social media platforms as an active part of its storytelling (”transmedia”), bounced between different accounts without minding if someone suddenly missed a part of the story (but trusting their ex-world media to do the job, and also trusting the viewer to find what needed to be found), and doing so in a way that felt shockingly believable. There’s a reason that LBD sparked the imaginations of so many different young creators across the world, who wanted to emulate this sort of storytelling. LBD set the stage.

A common narrative that’s emerged in the years since LBD ended is one that admires how it set that stage, but then adds a caveat about its implementation. Hardcore fans of what became known as “literary inspired webseries” (LIWs) will often point out that LBD was a “flawed” show, obviously not their favorite, “not very good” in retrospect, and so on. I’ve seen countless posts and tags to this extent and have even on occasion caught myself thinking that too. Of course I liked LBD, I would tell myself, but I didn’t love it the way that I went on to love other shows. As time passed and the LBD-specific fandom quieted down, I accepted this narrative as truth.

And this is where a unique benefit of rewatches comes into play: Rewatches can set the record straight.

The Lizzie Bennet Diaries is, ultimately, still not my favorite webseries. It’s still not what I would call the “best” literary webseries I’ve seen, either. It doesn’t have the best transmedia. It isn’t the best adaptation of a webseries I’ve seen, nor the best adaptation of the original work itself. (Some might argue that it’s not even the best modernized adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, but here I find myself disagreeing somewhat; I’ll elaborate on that some other time.) Lizzie Bennet Diaries was, in a way, eclipsed in my mind by some of the series that came after it.

All that being said, it’s also a very good series. And it’s not a stretch to say that I loved this rewatch.

I’ve gone through some of the show’s features and flaws in my previous posts (parts 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5), but a recurring theme from my recap posts was that a lot of things that I remembered being bad simply weren’t there. I remembered Lydia’s transformation into her Wickham arc being abrupt, but it wasn’t; her loneliness and sense of not fitting in start extremely early on. I remembered Lizzie as being presented much more kindly/positively than what she actually is, in part because of her growth during the series and attempt to be less judgemental (which is all explicitly laid out in the text!). I remembered the show feeling slow, but it wasn’t. I remembered the parts that were/weren’t on camera feeling like MASSIVE stretches, but they’re mostly discussed in-text. I remembered feeling like there was a clumsiness in the show actually feeling real and fresh, especially compared to shows that came afterward, in terms of acting.

A lot of these stem from two main issues: 1) the last part of the show is a lot less well paced than the beginning, and 2) there are acting inconsistencies with the medium. The first of these is something similar to what I described earlier in terms of the end of the show being weaker than the beginning. The second is a problem that recurs across the vast majority of webseries that I’ve watched, but I think I remembered it being worse for LBD is because of how good the good parts are. 

So here are some of those good parts: Ashley Clements’ Lizzie is absolutely brilliant. I feel like she’s rarely remembered for being tremendously well-acted, I think because it’s sort of assumed to be an easy role, while someone like Mary Kate Wiles garnered obvious (mostly justified) admiration for the more obvious work she did as Lydia. Meanwhile, Laura Spencer and Julia Cho are also both excellent in their respective roles as Jane and Charlotte, rounding out the main cast in a way that feels almost unbelievably good. Of the lead four, I actually continue to have the most nitpicks with small things in Lydia’s acting (which could also be about directing), but these also feel unimportant in the grand scheme of how her story played out so richly. It seems trivial to say it now, more than a decade since LBD first aired, but the active choice to make Lydia a second lead character is inspired, even if I’m still a little uncomfortable with how some of her story played out. And none of this would have worked without good acting and writing, especially in how Lizzie builds and presents her story.

The acting inconsistencies mostly occur in the side characters and much of that is also down to the show’s insistence on having people show up on camera when they frankly didn’t need to. Having Fitz be a random friend who shows up on camera with Lizzie was fun because he wasn’t a plot-central character, he was just sort of... there. His appearances feel casual. (It’s helps that he’s one of the characters who is clearly most comfortable being filmed.) But I cringed just a little bit every time Bing appeared onscreen, and Gigi too for the most part. It’s not necessarily poor acting, to be clear, but it’s inconsistent with their environment and it makes it harder to buy into the “real”ness of those videos. Darcy, at least, carries his obvious discomfort with being on camera like an absolute burden (which is entirely believable), but this didn’t help alleviate my sense that Lizzie should not have been uploading those videos.

The fact that the ending is weaker than the entire run of the show is a more serious issue, I think, and certainly helped contribute to my sense of the show being less well-paced than it actually was. One of the things I’m grateful for, at least, is that “The End” is an episode that centers around Lizzie, Charlotte, and Lydia. Part of what didn’t work for me with LBD’s end was the fact that it felt like the show forgot that it wasn’t actually a romance, but more Lizzie’s becoming and growth process, with Lydia, Jane, and Charlotte as crucial linchpins during this process. Darcy is an obvious presence in the story, but the Lizzie Bennet Diaries as a show isn’t about Lizzie and Darcy getting together, just like Pride and Prejudice isn’t a romance novel. The problem with ending LBD within a couple of episodes of Lizzie and Darcy getting together is that it makes it seem like that was the whole point of the story.

But on this point, there’s also a reminder of the fact that for the most part, Lizzie Bennet Diaries is a good adaptation. I’d remembered feeling like it was old-fashioned because of things like the Jane/Bing subplot and how Lizzie and Darcy spoke with each other (...stiffly), but the majority of the show does a really nice job of loosening up Pride and Prejudice to match the modern day. The way that many of the romantic gestures end up tied to jobs is a nice nod to the fact that modern women have aspirations and goals that aren’t just about bagging a rich husband (coughcough). I also still really admire that the show decided to fully humanize Lydia, without stripping away the weight of what happens to her. Except instead of it being a burden on others and All About Lizzie, it’s actually a story about the ways in which a young woman’s value can be easily erased and recognizing that event as the abuse that it is. I still don’t love all the ways in which that arc plays out, but the fact that it exists? Excellent.

This rewatch was the obvious choice to start my Great Webseries Rewatch and it earns its stripes; even more than a decade later, the Lizzie Bennet Diaries is a mostly well-made, well-written, and well-acted show. It also has the distinct honor of being a show that had genuine widespread appeal, garnering attention beyond a small fanbase of loyal viewers. LBD set the stage, performed, and earned its standing ovation. The fact that others came up onto that stage afterward and performed their own wonderful art should not take away from its achievements.

#The Great Webseries Rewatch #series analyses #lizzie bennet diaries #lbd #webseries #essays #Longer thoughts

[monstrous-femme]

Hi! Just stopping by to provide some distraction/fulfill my curiosity: What other tv shows did/do you watch? And did you write for any of them?

Let's see so I watch a fair amount of tv but here's some I've had the most brainrot about

-The Magicians, which I ran two femslash weeks for and is obviously v well represented on my ao3

-Riverdale, which I do not write bc would you write fanfiction of the Mona Lisa? Can you even improve on such perfection?

-I used to love Once Upon a Time and Red Beauty week was the first femslash week I participated in and also red Beauty was the first femslash ship I ever wrote

-BTVS but I don't write it

-A lot of my fanfiction is from literary inspired webseries, which I got into in a big way like 2015-17 (and made some v good friends I still talk to! Like @galwithalibrarycard who even flew out for my wedding)

-My fave shows that came out last year were Severance and Kevin Can Fuck Himself and I highly recommend them

-i also like all of the Mike Flanagan shows

-Gotta bring up Bojack Horseman too bc it's so good and such an interesting exploration of trauma and what we owe to those we've harmed and whether we can ever be forgiven, and also Quinton Tarantino is a spider named Quinton Tarantulino. Also bc I always see stoner boys talking about this show but fun fact it's actually for traumatized women I think. Also I think it made be a Sisyphian narrative and I'm obsessed w those rn

-Others, probably

[thecandlewasters]

Missing early tumblr? Craving that Dracula Daily mineral? Perhaps obsessed with a certain enemies-to-lovers Shakespeare play?

Look no further, NMTD(Taylor's Version) is here!

Set in a New Zealand High School, told by teenage vloggers at the height of superwholock. It’s Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing for the nostalgic and curious.

A cheeky lil celebration of 10 Years of NMTD

Thee 2014 transmedia experience; with videos, tweets, insta and tumblr posts direct from the characters to your email inbox.

Emails arriving from 24 March - 5 November 2024.

https://thecandlewasters.substack.com/

#much ado about nothing #nothing much to do #nmtd #the candle wasters #maan #much ado #shakespeare #william shakespeare #a show by tumblrinas for tumblrinas #superwholock #literary inspired webseries #dracula daily #whale weekly #book club #liw #webseries #vlogging #classic literature #classic lit #benedick #enemies to lovers #MG #Youtube

[rationalseries]

Did you hear? The whole of Rational Creatures is now released and ready to binge for free on YouTube!

Whether you're interested in a modern twist on Jane Austen's Persuasion or simply looking for a soft, HEA series full of queer people to get you through a long winter night, we think you'll like it.

The whole series takes just under 2 hours to watch (Less than most movies!) and was written and directed by an all-female creative team.

#rational creatures #jane austen #lgbtq film #literary inspired webseries #lbds #indiefilm #austen adaptations #fire island

[thebirdscomeback]

just posted the first chapter of a LoLiLo canon-divergent fic about how things might have gone differently during BALTHDAY. would love for you to read!

#nmtd #lolilo #nothing much to do #lovely little losers #literary inspired webseries

[blithe-and-bonnyy]

WEB SERIES MEME - seven female characters:

VARIOUS SERIES - LOVELY LITTLE LOSERS, GREEN GABLES FABLES, THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF JANE EYRE, THE LIZZIE BENNETT DIARIES, NOTHING MUCH TO DO, PUBLIC HISTORY, PROJECT GREEN GABLES

#lovely little losers #Green Gables Fables #public history #project green gables #the lizzie bennet diaries #Nothing much to do #the autobiography of jane eyre #*mine #gifs #gif #literary inspired webseries #literary webseries #i love all of these characters

[verisimlitude]

hey just wanted to let you know I love your title "in search of moving castles' i think it goes really well with your blog theme ;))

is your username a reference to something as well?

Hi! Thank you, I'm glad you noticed and mentioned the title! It was from this post about Hayao Miyazaki, whose films I love, and I liked the way op captioned it. So much that I use it as tag on the blog as well :D

The username is an ode to a well-loved literary-inspired webseries (it was a thing wayy back when I actively started using tumblr) called The Lizzie Bennet Diaries and you should definitely check it out. That word was significant in one the episodes, I forgot which one, but it seemed cool enough for a url XD

#mutuals asks #that forgotten love language