#inspired by jacknjellify tweet

[prismations]

I forgot to post this on here

Happy late Pride Month!

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I meant to say this immediately after the BFB finale, but here goes.

In the credits roll, Michael and Cary talked to the viewer as a sign-off to BFB. And the first time after I watched that, it really served to show me what BFB was ultimately about fulfilling.

[Image Description: a snapshot of the credits scene in BFB 30. On the right are the “recommended characters”. On the bottom-left is the subscribe notification to Jacknjellify, channel icon included. And in the top-left is Cary and Michael Huang.]

The episode wasn’t just meant to bring the best possible ending to a great series—although it was. It was about fulfilling the dreams of those two 7th-grade children who created the show in the first place.

[Image Description: a tweet by Cary Huang on his Twitter. It describes how the Huang twins had brainstormed the idea for BFDI on a trip home from Hawaii, and in the tweet is a holiday photo with the Huang twins from back then.]

Even though it had been a team that created BFB—animated it, voiced the characters, wrote the story—where was the team in the credits sequence? They weren’t here. It was just Michael and Cary, talking directly to you.

They had come this far. They all had. Eleven years of history; many people in the crew who worked on BFDI had actually grown up with it when they were younger. But most of all, it was Michael and Cary who grew up with it most.

Jacknjellify was their channel. A channel which hosted a massively influential show, yes, a show which was managed by dozens of people inspired by what Michael and Cary had done.

But at the end of the day, the crew just handed over the reins to the Huang twins and let them say their credits lines however they wanted to say them. This was their moment.

And as a sidenote, I think the example that best illustrates just how personal the Jacknjellify channel is to the Huang twins is this YouTube comment I discovered recently, from 9 years ago.

[Image Description: a YouTube comment by Jacknjellify. It reads, “STUPID GRUDGES, HOW DO THEY WORK?” The channel is verified, the comment is from 9 years ago, the comment has one thousand likes and 174 comments.]

This comment is on the first remaining video on the AnimationEpic channel, which hosts the first-ever object show created after BFDI called “Inanimate Insanity”.

The video isn’t too important—just that a hacker deleted all of the oldest Inanimate Insanity videos from the channel. The comment isn’t too important either—just a reaction to how frustrating this must be for AnimationEpic.

But I want you to notice just how unremarkable this all seems. Nowadays, the standards must be a lot higher for something said by the official Jacknjellify channel. But back then, it was just another channel.

Cary has his own channel (carykh), and Michael has his own channel (fernozzle), but for them to to use this channel instead shows just how similar it once was to any of the others. Cary and Michael just wanted to talk to Adam Katz—it didn’t matter how.

So now that you understand how Jacknjellify really was their channel, you can understand how BFDI really was their show.

BFDI never had a good ending—the characters lost Dream Island. BFDIA never even had an ending. Only in BFB were they able to finally to put a close to this book. And it was beautiful.

[Image Description: the ending scene of BFB 30, where Leafy and Firey sail off into the sunset. The words “the end” in the BFB font are in the foreground.]

You can see how it can be to Cary and Michael like fulfilling your dreams from when you first embarked on your journey.