#youtube rewind 2016

[kosmicsandshoes]

rewind 2016 ammirite?

[goldenpinof]

Okay I’m feelingn crazy right now. I’m watching YT rewind for the nostalgia and I swear this 2016 one isn’t the one from before. This looks rough and unpolished and has VFX notes?? I remember that dnp’s part had swirling leaves or something (around 1:00 mark)

i have it downloaded since 2020 and in comparison looks fine to me? they have shit flying around them at 0:40. i don't think there was anything else.

side note: i miss old youtube :((

[serendipnpipity]

@nothoughtsonlytrance came up w the idea for a TRON AU where dnp get transported into the grid and it won't leave my head!

Now that I have them as a baseline I might build upon this with the transitions and outfit change I had in mind, but too excited w how this turned out not to share what's been made so far 😇

animation reference: rotating tracking shot of Dan and Phil in YouTube Rewind 2016

[the-rewatch-rewind]

I love Poe Party too much to feel like any words will do it justice, but I keep trying.

Script below the break.

Hello and welcome back to the Rewatch Rewind! My name is Jane, and this is the podcast where I count down my top 40 most frequently rewatched movies of the last 20 years. And today I will be discussing number 13 on my list: Shipwrecked Comedy and American Black Market’s 2016 mystery comedy Edgar Allan Poe’s Murder Mystery Dinner Party, directed by William J Stribling, written by Sean Persaud and Sinéad Persaud, starring Sean Persaud, Sinéad Persaud, Mary Kate Wiles, Sarah Grace Hart, Joey Richter, Lauren Lopez, Ashley Clements, Tom de Trinis, Blake Silver, and a whole bunch of other incredibly talented and underrated actors.

Edgar Allan Poe (Sean Persaud) wishes to impress the beautiful Annabel Lee (Mary Kate Wiles), so he enlists the help of his ghost roommate Lenore (Sinéad Persaud) to throw a murder mystery party for Annabel and a group of famous authors. But then guests start actually being murdered.

So, first of all, I realize that this isn’t technically a movie; it’s an 11-episode webseries available to watch for free on YouTube, which you should absolutely pause this podcast to do if you haven’t seen it yet (link in the show notes). But there is a feature cut that’s about an hour and 45 minutes long, and that’s what I counted as a movie. If I’d kept track of the number of times I watched each episode, I’m sure that even my least-watched episode would easily beat number one on this list. But as for the feature cut, I watched it 12 times in 2017, three times in 2018, four times in 2019, twice in 2020, and three times in 2021. To a certain extent, every movie on the Rewatch Rewind has changed my life in some way, but this one has changed my life to a degree that I would never have believed possible. Every single day of the last seven plus years of my life would have looked different if not for Edgar Allan Poe’s Murder Mystery Dinner Party. All of the guests I have had on this podcast who are not my siblings, I met either directly or indirectly because of this show. So fasten your seatbelts: this episode is going to be a ride.

My journey to Edgar Allan Poe’s Murder Mystery Dinner Party, or Poe Party for short, or Edgar Allan Poe’s Murder Mystery Invite-Only Casual Dinner Party/Gala for Friends Potluck for long, began years before the project itself was even written. In the late 2000s-early 2010s, my sister was relatively plugged into the YouTube scene, at least compared to me, and she first introduced me to a group called Team Starkid around 2009-2010-ish. At the time, they were a bunch of college theater kids who had put together a Harry Potter parody musical and on a whim posted it to YouTube, where it went viral, so they started making and posting other musicals – which they are still doing. I feel like I might still have discovered Poe Party if I hadn’t been a Starkid fan, but that definitely helped. A more crucial step on my road to Poe Party started on April 9, 2012, when my sister posted a link to a new YouTube video on my Facebook wall, with the message, “Fictional vlogs by Lizzie Bennet. (actually Hank Green.) There’s only one so far, but I’m kind of crazily excited for this!” Hank Green, of course, along with his brother John, is basically one of the fathers of YouTube. I don’t think I’d seen a ton of their videos at that point, but I was familiar with and liked them. And of course, I knew Lizzie Bennet was the main character in Pride and Prejudice, a story that I loved very much – more on that in a future episode. So I was also very excited for this new show, called The Lizzie Bennet Diaries, but I could not have imagined the intense emotional journey it would take me on, through two short episodes a week (plus spinoffs) for almost a year. There had never been a TV show that I was more invested in than LBD. I was double majoring in college and working part time, but the main thing I cared about was these modern Pride and Prejudice characters. The show was clearly very low-budget, but I was blown away by the writing and acting. I was particularly impressed by the person playing Lizzie, Ashley Clements, and the person playing Lydia, Mary Kate Wiles. And, like, it wasn’t just me – LBD had a huge following for what it was. Not, like, millions of fans, but hundreds of thousands by the end. As the finale approached, the producers launched a Kickstarter to release the show on DVD and – ostensibly – pay significantly more to the cast and crew who had been incredibly underpaid. If you’re at all interested in hearing more about that, I highly recommend checking out The Look Back Diaries on Ashley Clements’s YouTube channel; she just did a whole deep dive into the show and its aftermath in honor of its 10th anniversary that I found fascinating. But anyway, coincidentally, right around that same time, Starkid also launched their first Kickstarter, since most of them had graduated from college and no longer had access to the same resources but wanted to keep making more musicals. So they were raising money for Twisted, a Wicked-style villain redemption retelling of Aladdin, which sounded interesting. I had never pledged to a Kickstarter before, but I backed both the LBD DVDs and Twisted on the same day: March 25, 2013, according to my emails.

After that, I kept following Starkid and some of the cast members of LBD, but not particularly closely. In early 2014, Mary Kate Wiles was in a webseries called Kissing in the Rain that I think I watched part of at the time, and I thought it was fine, but I wasn’t particularly into it (imagine, me, an aromantic, not particularly into a show about kissing!) and there was a lot of other stuff going on in my life so I honestly can’t remember if I saw all of it when it was first coming out. I definitely couldn’t have told you that it was on a channel called Shipwrecked, or even the name of the actor she was kissing. But in May of 2014, a new Kickstarter launched for a series called Muzzled the Musical, which was going to feature several cast members from LBD as well as Joey Richter from Team Starkid (Lauren Lopez also ended up being in it but I don’t think that was known during the Kickstarter). And I thought, whoa, cool, worlds colliding, and backed it. And promptly all but forgot about it.

A lot of strange, confusing, and rather upsetting things happened in 2015 that I don’t really want to get too deep into here, but I will say that in hindsight most of them had to do with a combination of amatonormativity and heteronormativity, and I started feeling pretty bad about myself. Before then I had managed to convince myself that I was too young to seriously fall in love anyway, but suddenly I was 25 years old and had never had any interest in dating anyone, and I felt like there was definitely something wrong with me. I didn’t exactly want to change, since I liked not dating, but I had always thought that that would just automatically change when I got older, and facing the fact that it wasn’t changing meant facing the fact that I didn’t know what the point of my life was. I liked my job but I didn’t want it to be my sole purpose. I loved movies, but that didn’t feel like it mattered. All my life I had taken in the message that finding a spouse and creating a family was what made the struggle of life worth it, and I felt lazy for not even trying to pursue that. I remember hearing at some point in my late teens that if you didn’t find your significant other in college, you needed to look online, but I didn’t even know what I would be looking for. And I truly don’t know where this line of thinking would have ended up if it had gone on much longer uninterrupted – I may have discovered my identity a bit sooner, or I may have ended up hurting someone by trying to pursue a relationship I ultimately didn’t want, or I may have just continued to spiral – but what actually happened was I got an email in late October that that random fantasy musical series I had backed on Kickstarter a year and a half earlier was being released on YouTube.

So I watched Muzzled, and it was very fun and silly, but the main thing I got out of it was, man I miss the Lizzie Bennet Diaries. So I finally opened that DVD set I’d gotten from the Kickstarter, and I binge-watched the whole show (I didn’t count it as a movie because there’s no feature cut, and also it is very long). And then I re-watched the whole thing with the DVD-exclusive commentary. And then I thought, I wonder what this cast has been up to lately, so I started searching for them on YouTube. And that’s when I learned that Mary Kate Wiles had been posting two videos per week on her channel for years, and I had been missing it. As I got caught up on her videos, I learned that I had just missed a Kickstarter for a musical she was going to be in called Spies are Forever, made by the Tin Can Brothers, which were a group of people who were also involved with Starkid, and that she seemed to be getting ready for a new Kickstarter with a group called Shipwrecked Comedy, the same people who had made that kissing show. They had also made a show called A Tell Tale Vlog about Edgar Allan Poe and the valley girl ghost Lenore who was haunting him, in which Poe had been played by Sean Persaud (the guy from Kissing in the Rain, who was apparently dating Mary Kate in real life) and his sister Sinéad (who was in the second half of Kissing in the Rain, which I definitely hadn’t watched before). Mary Kate had made a brief appearance in A Tell Tale Vlog as Annabel Lee, and this new show was going to be related to that, but bigger. I was so intrigued by this new project that I started supporting Mary Kate on Patreon to ensure that I didn’t miss any updates about it.

The Poe Party Kickstarter launched on February 2, 2016. By then, I had watched and enjoyed everything on Shipwrecked’s YouTube channel, but that Kickstarter video was my favorite thing they had made. I initially pledged the same amount that I had given to the Lizzie Bennet DVDs, thinking that would be my final pledge, but I ended up giving almost six times that much by the end of the campaign. Every $5,000 they raised, they revealed a new character and cast member with a poster, and each reveal made me more excited. Joey Richter was playing Ernest Hemingway?! Ashley Clements was playing Charlotte Brontë?! Lauren Lopez, who frequently played male characters, was playing George Eliot, a woman with a male pen name?! They got Jim O’Heir from Parks & Rec?! And then, as if the reveals weren’t enough, they had weekly 4-hour livestreams that I found incredibly entertaining. It had become clear that Shipwrecked Comedy now consisted of four people: Sean, Sinéad, Mary Kate, and Sarah Grace Hart, who had played Emily Dickinson in a stand-alone video and would be reprising that role in Poe Party. Various other cast members showed up in the streams with the Core Four, and I distinctly remember thinking, if these people are this entertaining to watch when they’re just hanging out, this show is going to be so amazing! In the second livestream of the campaign, they started writing people’s names on papers to stick on the wall if they pledged or raised their pledge during the streams, which was an excellent incentive, but I would have kept raising mine anyway, because I was desperate for this show to get made. Apart from a few weird troll messages, the stream chat was full of lovely conversations between people who seemed like my kindred spirits. I had never felt more at home in a community. And I had never been more excited than when the Kickstarter exceeded its goal.

And I’m telling you all of this because I need you to understand how astronomically high my hopes and expectations for Poe Party were. Some of the movies I’ve talked about so far ended up in my top 40 partly because I had fairly low expectations going into them and was pleasantly surprised, but that was absolutely not the case here. I had seen excellent work from several of the people involved before, and they seemed particularly dedicated to this project, and I knew they were going to make something incredible. I also desperately needed something in my life to go really well, and this seemed like it might be it, although I knew it wasn’t fair to put that kind of pressure on these independent filmmakers. I tried to temper my expectations, reminding myself that they had only raised a little over $72,000, and Kickstarter was going to take a chunk of that, and some of it had to go to perk fulfillment, so they weren’t going to have nearly enough to make anything super fancy. They released some prologue videos that were very fun but also very small, and I tried to tell myself that the actual show was also going to be small. And I kept reminding myself how long Muzzled had taken to come out, and that I was probably going to have to wait a while for Poe Party too, so I needed to chill. But then in late July – only four and a half months after the Kickstarter had ended – Shipwrecked released a trailer for Poe Party, which said it was starting in less than a month, and there was no tempering my expectations after that. The trailer looked fabulous. It was witty and clever and dramatic and intriguing, the music was perfection, and, shockingly, it looked like an actual studio movie. Not like a super high-budget one, but like they had at least a million dollars. Certainly way more than $60k. My already-ridiculously-high expectations soared to new heights. Part of me was sure I was setting myself up for disappointment, but I couldn’t help it.

And then it was August 22 and the first episode (Chapter 1: The Bells) dropped and it was so much better than I was hoping for. First of all, the look set the tone perfectly. The lighting was exquisite, and the location – incidentally the same house where Muzzled was filmed – was perfect. And then there was the writing. One thing the Persauds had mentioned during the Kickstarter was that they were inspired by the movie Clue, which will be featured in a future episode of this podcast, so I was expecting similar vibes to that, but I was not expecting there to be so many direct references to Clue. All of them made me extremely happy. It felt like the show was made specifically for me. It was like Clue, but even better. I already loved every single character and knew I would be sad to see some of them get murdered. It was also very clear from even just that first episode that this was going to fall into the “everybody was having way too much fun” category of film that I love. But while most movies like that tend to have pretty weak stories and just overall mediocre scripts, and the cast having fun makes up for that, Poe Party was different. The writing was fantastic, AND the acting was perfect, AND it looked gorgeous, AND everybody was having fun. Again, I tried not to have unrealistic expectations, I tried to tell myself that not every episode could be quite the banger that the first one was, but I was still incredibly excited for the rest of the show. And I was not at all disappointed. Somehow it just kept getting better. The running joke about everyone forgetting Emily Dickinson was there or who she was just kept getting funnier. Ditto the joke about George Eliot thinking she needed to convince everyone she was a man when everyone was clearly fine with her being a woman. I remember at one point, when around three or four chapters were out, Mary Kate tweeted that they were working on editing her favorite part of the show, and I thought, surely it doesn’t get better than what I’ve seen already. But it turned out she was talking about chapter 8, and yes, it absolutely was better. The constables, Jim and Jimmy – played by Jim O’Heir and Jimmy Wong – and everyone else trying to fool them, are so delightful to watch. Even though chapter 8 features probably the second saddest death in the series, it’s overall the funniest episode. This show touches an incredibly wide range of emotions and moods, especially considering it takes place in one house over one night.

I want to make it clear that I would still love Poe Party even if I’d stumbled upon it years after it came out, and even if I didn’t recognize any of the actors. The show is excellent enough to stand on its own. But being part of it from the Kickstarter, being familiar with some of the actors, and being online as it was coming out, certainly enhanced my enjoyment of it. Shipwrecked had a weekly “competition” of sorts where they would give a vague prompt and people would make fan art or write fan fiction and post it on social media (#PoePartyFTW), and each of the four members of Shipwrecked would pick their favorite to re-post. I wrote a fic after each of the episodes, and several of them got chosen by Shipwrecked, and I hadn’t felt that good about myself in years. I loved the show so much that I couldn’t confine it just into weekly fics; I was shouting about it on every social media platform. I also started weekly speculation Tumblr posts, using Clue references as my guide, many of which led me astray – I was convinced there must be a secret passage between the kitchen and the study that didn’t turn out to exist – but I did figure out part of the solution relatively early on. While the mystery aspect of Clue is ultimately nonsense if you think about it too hard, Poe Party actually tracks. And if you’ve listened this far and you still haven’t seen Poe Party, please go watch it now, because I’m going to start getting into story specifics and spoilers, and I think everybody should get to see it once without knowing what’s coming. (I’m also going to spoil some of Clue, so you could go watch that too if you want, although I don’t feel like Clue spoilers matter that much.)

In her episode of A Tell Tale Vlog, Annabel mentioned that she had started seeing a banker named Eddie, and then in the Poe Party Kickstarter video, she asked Edgar if she could bring Eddie as her plus one to his party. So Eddie (played by Ryan W. Garcia) shows up late to the party with Annabel, and then becomes the first murder victim. EXCEPT, spoiler alert: he’s actually NOT DEAD, and is, in fact, one of the murderers. And from the very first episode, I recognized Eddie’s similarities to Mr. Boddy in Clue, who is also not dead when you first think he is, and I was therefore suspicious of him from the get-go. But I was still very much open to any possibility (or so I thought) because the Persauds had done an excellent job of making everyone at least somewhat fishy. But there was one thing I was not prepared for, and that was the end of chapter 9. Because it absolutely never occurred to me that Poe’s beautiful Annabel Lee would die, and I’m honestly still kind of devastated about it, even understanding why it had to happen, and at the time I was almost inconsolable. Mary Kate Wiles had led me to this brilliant show, in which she played the kindest, most likable character, only to be brutally murdered? Some fans at the time had thought Annabel might be the killer, which I never did, and honestly I would have been kind of angry if she had been because we need to have more genuinely nice characters in things. I was upset that she died, but I would have been more so if she’d turned evil. (Not that I have anything against MK playing villains – I’m all for it, under the right circumstances. And thankfully the Persauds know when the right circumstances are.) And like, okay, I know I complain about too much romance in stories, but Annabel’s “It was always you” as she died in Edgar’s arms – that got me. Annabel had been planning to marry Eddie because he was more respectable than the unhinged poet she actually loved, and I think that that whole trying to fake the life you think you’re supposed to have thing spoke to me. I had been so tempted to try that, and this was almost as clear of a message as the constables’ “Don’t Do Murder”: Don’t Fake Romance.

At that point, I was pretty much convinced that Eddie must have had something to do with this; why would anyone else kill Annabel? Also, chapter 9 reveals that Annabel wrote the invite list, and I thought it made sense that Eddie, her boyfriend, could have told her whom to include, especially since it had already been established that most of the guests had some connection to Eddie. The prompt for that week’s Poe Party FTW competition was “Confession,” so I decided to try something different from the short stories I’d been submitting, and I re-wrote the poem “Annabel Lee” from Eddie’s perspective as if he was the murderer. And I know this episode is already longer than most of my solo episodes and I have a lot more to say, but I’m still proud of this poem (even though it’s not completely accurate, since it turned out that Eddie didn’t kill everybody), so I need to share it with you:

It was many and many a month ago,

           In her cottage by the sea,

That I first read the words that Edgar wrote

           For my girlfriend Annabel Lee;

And he said that she lived with no other thought

           Than to love and be loved by he.

“He’s just my friend and I’m just his friend,”

           She quickly explained to me;

But we loved with a love which was worse than love –

           I and my Annabel Lee –

With a love that was founded on secrets and lies,

           Fueled by jealousy.

And this was the reason that, later on,

           Faced with opportunity,

I took advantage of an offer made

           To innocent Annabel Lee;

For when Lenore asked whom to invite

           To that cad’s dinner party,

Annabel deferred to my input

           Which I gave most willingly.

All authors, not half so worthy as bankers,

           Who had e’er quarreled with me –

Yes! – they were the ones (no one would know;

           I’d met them all secretly)

That Edgar would invite to his house that night,

           At the behest of “his” Annabel Lee.

For our love it was weaker by far than the love

           Of vengeance I carried in me –

           Of justice toward those who’d wronged me –

And neither the psychics who bring back the dead,

           Nor the cops fresh from Academy,

Can hinder my murderous plan; no one can!

           No, not even my Annabel Lee.

As I watch them point fingers I find my gaze lingers

           On the beautiful Annabel Lee;

When they mention invites, she suspects, knows she’s right,

           Out the door runs my Annabel Lee;

Can’t let her get away: who knows what she might say?

So I kill her – I kill her – my eleventh kill today.

           Instead of revealing me,

           Her last breath says it was always he.

So yeah. I was deep into this. But then nobody in Shipwrecked chose it that week, and I thought, okay, maybe it wasn’t that good, or, maybe my theory is laughably far off the mark. Maybe Eddie’s too obvious. Maybe he really is dead. Then in chapter 10, Charlotte Brontë confessed, and revealed that her sister Anne had been there the whole time helping, and at that point I was pretty sure Eddie was also involved again. We clearly saw that Annabel’s killer was wearing pants, unlike either Brontë sister. And then it was Halloween and the finale finally arrived, and I was right about Eddie, but I was still completely unprepared for how awesome that final chapter would be. I think there was still a small part of me that didn’t believe it was possible for the end to live up to the buildup of the first ten incredible chapters. But it absolutely did. The finale was everything – everything, I say – that I wanted it to be and much more. The evil slow clap. The revolving villain trio of creepy neck touching. The flashbacks. The fights. The pet rock’s revenge. The literary references. And of course, the surprise reveal of Jane Austen, played by Laura Spencer, who had also played Jane Bennet in the Lizzie Bennet Diaries. The episodes were posted at 9 am on Mondays, when I was at work, so I couldn’t watch them right when they dropped, but after the first one I couldn’t wait until I got home either. My work’s wifi blocked YouTube, and I had an extremely limited data plan at the time, so on my lunch break I would walk to the McDonald’s down the street and watch the new episode using their wifi. And when the camera panned to Jane Austen, it was all I could do not to yell “OH MY GOSH IT’S LAURA SPENCER!” in that McDonald’s. I definitely audibly gasped, but I don’t think anyone noticed. The thing is, I would have still been blown away by the finale without that extra surprise. But that’s what Shipwrecked does. They make things that can appeal to a wide audience, and then they sprinkle in some extra treats for people who have been following them for a while. Of course, LBD was not a Shipwrecked project, but finding Shipwrecked through LBD is a fairly common path. And I’m still so impressed with how well they kept Laura as Jane Austen a secret. As a Kickstarter perk, I’d had a video chat with the Core Four that summer, and I’d mentioned that Jane Austen was my favorite author, and I was disappointed that she wasn’t going to be in Poe Party, and they were just like, “Yeah, we thought about including her, but we figured she would be too similar to Charlotte Brontë,” and betrayed not a SINGLE HINT that she was, in fact, in the show. Which is another thing Shipwrecked does: make a very specific, deliberate plan about what to reveal when, and stick to it.

As another example of that, the Poe Party Kickstarter had reached a stretch goal to produce an epilogue. I had completely forgotten about that, but other backers remembered and started asking about it after the finale. Shipwrecked was pretty cagey with their answers, but then directed us to a mysterious Twitter account that was dropping strange clues. I watched as the Shipwrecked fan Facebook group decoded them and ultimately unlocked the epilogue a day before it was released publicly. The epilogue is not included in the feature cut, and now I don’t really think of it as part of the show. Chapter 11 ends so perfectly – Poe stares at the floor as the heartbeat grows louder, a floorboard creaks, fade to black: chef’s kiss. But at the time I was feeling so many overwhelming feels about this show that I desperately needed that epilogue. I was so utterly relieved to see Annabel and HG thriving as ghosts. And I was so thrilled to be surrounded by such a great fandom, who all worked together and helped each other to solve the puzzles – it was a beautiful weekend. And it was also the last weekend before Donald Trump was elected president of the United States and I had to face the fact that the country was more broken and divided than I’d wanted to believe, which definitely adds to my nostalgia for that epilogue adventure.

The show may have ended, and the world may have been falling apart faster than usual, but I could not have gotten Poe Party out of my head even if I’d wanted to, which I didn’t. For over a decade I’d been searching for something that felt like a classic movie, but with some modern sensibilities, and these independent filmmakers had made exactly what I was looking for, zillions of times better than I’d imagined it. That clever, witty dialogue, perfectly delivered by quirky characters, almost felt like it came from a 1930s screwball comedy. But it also felt fresh and new and different from anything I’d seen before. It had so many similarities to Clue – in fact, I taught myself how to make gifs, or [other pronunciation] gifs, in order to highlight specific parallels between Poe Party and Clue – and yet remained unique. Where Clue was mostly just comedy, Poe Party was comedy, tragedy, romance, and intrigue, and absolutely nailed all of those. (Sadly no ravens, though, they didn’t have the budget for that.) Anyway, the series held up shockingly well upon rewatch, and I could not get enough of it. And despite the socially anxious part of my brain that remains convinced that everyone always is annoyed with me, that I have nothing worthwhile to say, that I should just shut up and stop bothering others with my existence – people seemed to like what I was posting about Poe Party. Other fans would engage me in conversation, and I started making internet friends for the first time. And, shockingly, the members of Shipwrecked seemed to genuinely appreciate what I was saying as well. After the finale had aired, Mary Kate reblogged my Annabel Lee poem on Tumblr and said, “I legitimately thought this was brilliant, and only didn’t choose it that week because of spoilers. Every single fic Jane wrote for this ftw has been wonderful, and I have so enjoyed them all, but this was above and beyond.” And maybe it sounds like I’m just boasting at this point, but the reason I’m sharing this is because a year earlier I had felt like a failure of a human who had no place in the world, and now this incredible actress/producer I greatly admired, who had just made my new favorite show, was saying that I had enhanced her experience of releasing it. People were liking and appreciating me, just for being myself and enthusiastically enjoying a movie. And I no longer felt like I was supposed to change who I was.

In early 2017, I got the rest of my Kickstarter perks, including behind-the-scenes goodies that featured not one but two fabulous commentaries. I love them both, but the second one is particularly chaotic in the best way. Ashley Clements and Ryan W Garcia, true to the villainous characters they played in the show, keep derailing the conversation and it’s incredibly amusing. The commentaries are over the feature cut, so many if not most of the views that I counted were with one of the commentaries. And I also bought the feature cut without commentary so I could show it to other people and still count it on my list. Now I tend to watch it episodically because I want the Shipwrecked YouTube channel to get more views for the algorithm, although I’m not sure that actually helps. But anyway, the feature cut and commentaries and other bonus features are still available to rent or buy on shipwrecked.vhx.tv, which I will also link in the show notes, if you’re interested.

Also in 2017, the first episode of Poe Party was shown at a festival near me, so I got to meet the Core Four members of Shipwrecked and some fans in person. That was very exciting, but I was also extremely nervous, although I didn’t need to be. The Shipwrecked people were so lovely and actually wanted to talk to me and the other fans who were there. And then I got to see Poe Party win some awards, which was awesome. And then a few months later, Shipwrecked launched another Kickstarter, and I pledged even more to it than I had to Poe Party even though the goal was lower, and then they kept making more stuff and I kept supporting it, and also continued to love everything they made (yes, even the Fart Feud with the Tin Can Brothers). I continued to support Mary Kate on Patreon, and I also started supporting other cast members on Patreon, like Whitney Avalon who had played Mary Shelley and does a lot of her own stuff on YouTube, and of course Ashley Clements, as I’ve mentioned previously, and as soon as Shipwrecked finally got their own Patreon, I was all in at the top tier. And, like, I don’t want to go on about this too much, because I do truly believe that I would love their work even if I’d never interacted with them, but I don’t know that I’d be quite the die-hard, take-all-my-money-to-make-more-things Shipwrecked fan that I am, if I hadn’t had so many wonderful interactions with the members of Shipwrecked over the years. I didn’t set out to become friends with them, but I kind of have – although I still feel a little weird and presumptuous to claim that. I feel like this will sound to some people like an out-of-control parasocial relationship, but like, it’s not that, because they do know me. Other people in my life have referred to Shipwrecked as “the people you pay to be your friends,” but it’s not that either: I give them money so they can keep making things, and we also happened to hit it off as friends – which again feels like a presumptuous label, but I can’t come up with a more accurate word. They make what they love and I love what they make, so it’s not that surprising that we’d get along. And for similar reasons, it’s not surprising that I’ve made so many very close friendships with other Shipwrecked fans. Our love for these projects brought us together, and then turned out to be far from the only thing we have in common.

I feel like I’m talking way too much about my own personal experiences, I’m so sorry if this is boring. Back to Poe Party itself. I’ve hinted at it already, but I need to emphasize again both how incredible the script is, and how amazingly the cast brought it to life. The story was so well thought out: every scene, every character, every moment was there for a reason. Like, I thought George Eliot disguising herself as a man was just a nod to female authors having to use male pen names, but then that turned into an important clue that led to the Brontës. Yes, you can poke plenty of holes in Poe Party if you want to – not all of the characters based on real people were actually alive at the same time, some of the technology is anachronistic, etc – but none of that stuff really matters. It’s clearly meant to be silly and fun, so you don’t really need to know what year it is. But the fact that they managed to write something silly and fun that didn’t completely devolve into absolute nonsense is so incredibly impressive. Sean and Sinéad wrote an absolutely brilliant script, and then they assembled the perfect cast for it. Every actor is on the exact same page about what this project is, and they each know exactly how their character fits in. Even when they’re in the background, everyone is giving 100%. I want to especially shout out Joey Richter, since Ernest Hemingway is drinking all night, and Joey did a tremendous job of tracking how drunk he was supposed to be. By the finale he’s having to slap himself to stay awake in the background, and it’s hilarious. Everyone else is also a delight to watch, and I feel like I’m still noticing little background moments I hadn’t clocked before. There aren’t very many close-ups, which I think was mainly because they didn’t have the budget for the time it would take to shoot them, but it works perfectly because a lot of the funny moments become even funnier when you can see multiple characters’ reactions at once. If you’re watching the background acting closely enough, you may notice a few instances of people almost breaking, but personally I just choose to interpret that as the characters finding it difficult to keep it together when other characters around them are being silly, and who can blame them? I appreciate that the writers and director trusted the cast enough to let them play around and improvise, because some great ad-libbed lines ended up in the final cut, and many more went into the best blooper reel ever, which is 24 minutes long and I love every second of it. There are some moments from the bloopers that I find myself saying sometimes when I’m watching the actual show – Ashley’s “Don’t be mean to me!” is probably the one I quote the most.

There is definitely romance in Poe Party – the whole reason for the party is because Edgar is in love with Annabel. Lenore and HG Wells develop feelings for each other over the course of the evening…until he dies. And several other characters flirt with each other. But none of the romances end well, and throughout the story, there is a lot of emphasis on friendship, and acquaintanceship, and other types of relationship. And that’s a running theme in most of Shipwrecked’s projects. There hasn’t been a kiss in any of them since Kissing in the Rain. Of course, much of the Poe Party fandom was, and is, into shipping characters with each other – for any listeners who may not be terminally online, shipping characters means that you want them to be in a romantic relationship with each other. I joined in somewhat, mostly because I felt like I was supposed to, but I couldn’t have articulated that at the time. And, as I mentioned earlier, I was particularly fascinated by the Eddie/Annabel dynamic, but I was only able to fully comprehend how much I needed the “don’t fake romance” message in hindsight. This show and its fandom made me feel less alone and adrift, but I still didn’t figure out I was aroace for a few more years. Although it was friends I made in the Shipwrecked fan community who first really helped me understand and accept that part of my identity, so I can still say that Poe Party was an important step on that journey.

I want to say so much more about this utterly brilliant show – I don’t feel like I’ve even come close to doing it justice here – but there truly are no words to adequately express my love for it. It still holds up nearly 7 years later, but Shipwrecked has come a long way since then. When their most recent webseries, Headless: A Sleepy Hollow Story, was about to come out, they said it made Poe Party look like it had been done by a bunch of kindergarteners, and I was upset at the Poe Party slander, but once I watched that series, I understood what they meant. Headless is so far above and beyond, but unfortunately it came out too recently to make it into my top 40. Currently they’re releasing an audio narrative called The Case of the Greater Gatsby, which should be on the same platform you’re listening to this on. That is a sequel to their short film The Case of the Gilded Lily, which I will be discussing in a future episode. I really hope that someday Shipwrecked gets the level of recognition they deserve – their fandom is still relatively small, although we are mighty and devoted. At the very least, I hope that the current strikes will help enable them to make a living from writing and acting.

Thank you for listening to me discuss another of my most frequently rewatched movies, or at least attempt to. Following this will be a two-way tie of movies I watched 25 times, both of which feature Cary Grant, my favorite leading man apart from Sean Persaud. As always, I will leave you with a quote from the next movie: ���Hi! Mellow greetings, ukie-dukie!”

[applejuiceyjuice-art]

how do you think youtube would look around 2016-ish (the semi pop of scene / scemo media) would he stay the same money hungry guy he is or would he have something to cringe back at ???

idk abt scene becoming popular but the emover hair era makes me think like 2011/2012, n thats the time period i designed for. he was still the outgoing funny guy, but his ego wasn’t through the roof yet and he wasn’t really money hungry either. he liked video games, movies, hoverboarding, pranks, skits, and had more of the vibe of a college student making random videos out of camcorder. he was also a brony. i think it would be funny if he did windows movie maker editing at some point. maybe he tried to do some shitty tutorials by typing on notepad. the tutorial king over here.

he had the varsity jacket, the emo hair, dc shoes, party glasses, sagging pants lol… i dont have the design on me rn but its probably subject to change cuz its kinda bad.

2015/2016 was a dark time for youtube (the site). there was a cultural shift, beginning to lean hard on drama channels and gamergate shit, it just became more hostile. then the introduction of breadtube to counteract that grew into the evolution of longform content which now dominates the site today. comedy and shortform videos eventually no longer did well on the algorithm, but video essays did.

so id say 2016 is where his shift into the ceo thing happened. like google decided he needed to be more professional (a lot of sites around this time were doing this too). at first he hated the whole suit thing, but twitch liked it n that started to boost his ego. he decided to embrace the new look, but doing it his way, which was a sloppier version of what he wears now basically. he grew into it as he got more into the corporate role.

the last nail in the coffin was whenever youtube became more corporatized feeling or whatever with the updates, like removing visible dislikes, though id say the official cut off is 2019 when they stopped doing youtube rewinds. this all sorta coincides with his relationship drama, at first going great and then falling apart around 2019.

[moon-stu-dios]

REWIND is a 9-member girl group under Moon Studios, consisting of Rosy, Clara, Mae, Emiko, Danbi, Julie, Dolly, Meizhen, and Emma. They originally debuted on October 21st, 2016 under SM Entertainment, as the 4th sub-unit of the former co-ed group NCT. The group officially departed from the agency, and NCT as a whole, on May 22nd, 2023, following the expiration of their contract, and re-signed under Moon Studios.

Fandom Name | -

Official Fan Colour | -

REWIND Official Accounts |

Instagram | @ ms_rewind

Twitter | @ ms_rewind

Facebook | REWIND

Youtube | MS.REWIND

Official Website | rewind.mstudios

REWIND Members Profile |

Stage Name | Rosy (로지)

Birth Name | Rosy Moon

Korean Name | Moon Ri Na (문리나)

Position | Leader, Main Dancer, Sub Vocalist, Producer

Birthday | June 9, 1996

Zodiac Sign | Gemini

Chinese Zodiac Sign | Rat

Nationality | Korean-Australian

Height | 168.4cm (5'5")

Weight | 57kg (125lbs)

Blood Type | O

MBTI | INFJ-T, Advocate

Rosy Facts |

Born in Sydney, Australia

She has an older sister (Melissa) and a younger sister (Daisy).

Rosy is a former YG Entertainment trainee (2009-2014)

Rosy was scouted by a member of staff from YG Entertainment when she was free styling with a group of buskers, whilst visiting her family in Seoul in 2009.

She trained for seven years.

She has a circle-shaped birthmark on her left ankle.

Her younger sister is partially deaf, so Rosy and her family learnt Australian Sign Language.

Rosy is short-sighted.

She's been taking ballet classes since the age of six.

Rosy has a scar above her left eyebrow, from where she had to get stitches after tripping and hitting her head on a concrete wall at the age of six.

At the start of 2023, Rosy established her own independent entertainment agency, Moon Studios.

Stage Name | Clara (클라라)

Birth Name | Choi Bong Cha (최봉차)

Position | Main Vocalist, Lead Dancer

Birthday | November 15, 1994

Zodiac Sign | Scorpio

Chinese Zodiac Sign | Dog

Nationality | Korean

Height | 164.7cm (5'4")

Weight | 55kg (121lbs)

Blood Type | B

MBTI | ISFJ-A, Defender

Clara Facts |

Born in Daegu, South Korea.

She has a younger sister (Bongsoo)

Clara is a former FNC Entertainment trainee (2008-2011).

She trained for five years.

She loves collecting vintage pieces, and sews a lot of the clothes she wears.

She has an oval-shaped birthmark on the back of her right shoulder.

Clara has a PHD in psychology from the University of California, Los Angeles.

Her left wrist is slightly weaker than her right, due to her falling out of a tree as a child and breaking it.

Clara was the original leader of Rewind, but stepped down as she felt Rosy was better suited to the role.

She is best friends with Blackpink's Jisoo.

Stage Name | Mae (매)

Birth Name | Lin Mingxia (林明霞)

Korean Name | Lin Min Soo (린민수)

Position | Lead Rapper, Sub Vocalist, Face of the Group

Birthday | January 17, 1996

Zodiac Sign | Capricorn

Chinese Zodiac Sign | Pig

Nationality | Chinese

Height | 170.6cm (5'6")

Weight | 54kg (120lbs)

Blood Type | AB

MBTI | ESFJ-A, Consul

Mae Facts |

Born in Guangdong, China.

She is an only child.

She trained for three years.

Mae graduated in 2020 from the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts, where she majored in vocal studies.

She is ambidextrous.

Mae starred in the remake of Chinese drama Meteor Garden in 2018, as the supporting role of Jiang Xiao You.

She also starred in the Chinese web series Legend of Awakening in 2020, as the role of Qin Sang.

Mae is double-jointed.

Stage Name | Emiko (에미코)

Birth Name | Kobayashi Emiko (小林恵美子)

Position | Lead Rapper, Sub Vocalist, Visual

Birthday | April 3, 1998

Zodiac Sign | Aries

Chinese Zodiac Sign | Tiger

Nationality | Japanese

Height | 168.7cm (5'5")

Weight | 56kg (123lbs)

Blood Type | AB

MBTI | ENFP-T, Campaigner

Emiko Facts |

Born in Kyoto, Japan.

She has a younger brother (Kaiyo).

She trained for four years.

Emiko was diagnosed with ADHD at the age of five.

Her cousin, Ryuji, is a member of the Korean co-ed band Setsunai. He debuted in 2017 under the stage name Ryu.

Her younger cousin, Risa, is a member of the Japanese kawaii-metal band Babymetal. She debuted in 2011 under the stage name Risametal.

Her younger cousin, Akemi, is a member of the Korean girl group Deity. She debuted in 2020 under the stage name Kemi.

Emiko's grandmother was the one who signed her up for the global SM auditions back in 2012.

She graduated from the School of Performing Arts Seoul (SOPA) in 2016.

She loves to bake and cook. She's known as Rewind's designated chef.

Stage Name | Danbi (단비)

Birth Name | Song Dan Bi (송단비)

Position | Main Dancer, Lead Vocalist, Centre

Birthday | September 30, 1999

Zodiac Sign | Libra

Chinese Zodiac Sign | Rabbit

Nationality | Korean

Height | 173.7cm (5'7")

Weight | 54kg (121lbs)

Blood Type | A

MBTI | ISTJ-A, Logistician

Danbi Facts |

Born in Cheongju, Chungbuk, South Korea.

She has two younger brothers (Dansoo and Danbin).

Danbi is a former Fantasia Entertainment trainee (2010-2015).

She trained for five years and five months.

Danbi and Astro's Moonbin were childhood best friends. She is very close with the boys of Astro, as well as Moonbin's younger sister Moon Sua (Billlie).

Has been in many kdramas, including Who Are You: School 2015, with BTOB's Yook Sungjae; and Bring It On, Ghost, with 2PM'S Ok Taecyeon.

Her mother was a principal with the Korea National Ballet Company, and she enrolled Danbi in ballet lessons at the age of four.

Danbi acted in Astro's 2015 web-drama To Be Continued, where she played the lead role of Jung Ah Win.

Her younger brother, Danbin, is a member of the boy group Enhypen. He debuted in 2020 under the stage name Dabin.

Danbi often takes sleeping pills, as she struggles getting to sleep.

Stage Name | Julie (줄리)

Birth Name | Juliette Leclair

Korean Name | Park Soo Jin (박수진)

Position | Lead Vocalist, Sub Rapper, Visual

Birthday | October 11, 2000

Zodiac Sign | Libra

Chinese Zodiac Sign | Dragon

Nationality | Korean-French

Height | 159cm (5'3")

Weight | 45kg (99lbs)

Blood Type | AB

MBTI | INTJ-T, Architect

Julie Facts |

Born in Bordeaux, France.

She has two older sisters (Esme and Genevieve), three older brothers (Frederic, Henri, and Theodore), and a younger sister (Madeleine).

She trained for 10 months.

Julie got scouted at an NCT127 fan sign that she attended with her brother Theo, who is a huge NCTzen.

She studied fashion design at ESMOD and graduated in 2022. Has said that she wants to go back and get her "Creative Director" Diploma when she has the time.

She is highly allergic to bee stings.

Julie starred as Kang Sun Min in the drama Midnight Cafe, alongside former group member Doyoung.

She has a birthmark on her nose.

Julie was diagnosed with epilepsy at the age of two.

She loves making her own jewellery; After debuting in Rewind, Julie made matching necklaces for each of the girls in their representative colours.

Stage Name | Dolly (돌리)

Birth Name | Okamoto Hoshi (岡本ほし)

Position | Lead Dancer, Sub Vocalist

Birthday | July 5, 2001

Zodiac Sign | Cancer

Chinese Zodiac Sign | Snake

Nationality | Japanese

Height | 161cm (5'3")

Weight | 48kg (106lbs)

Blood Type | A

MBTI | ISFP-A, Adventurer

Dolly Facts |

Born in Tokyo, Japan.

She is an only child.

She trained for three years in total, two years under up-front agency and a year under SM Entertainment.

Dolly is a former idol under Hello! Project as an 11th generation member of the Kpop group Morning Musume. She debuted with the group in 2012, at the age of 11.

She graduated from Morning Musume in 2018, alongside fellow member Ogata Haruna, to move to South Korea with her parents.

She's been a fan of classical music from a very young age, and can play the piano, the violin, and the harp.

Dolly has admitted that she used to get bullied by her classmates for having two mums.

Dolly graduated from the Toho Gakuen School of Music in 2021.

She has a scrapbook of candid polaroids of her members, friends, and family, including the Morning Musume and NCT members.

Stage Name | Meizhen (메이젠)

Birth Name | Tang Meizhen (唐美珍)

Korean Name | Tang Mi Jun (탕미준)

Position | Main Vocalist, Lead Dancer

Birthday | November 20, 2001

Zodiac Sign | Scorpio

Chinese Zodiac Sign | Snake

Nationality | Chinese

Height | 161.5cm (5'3")

Weight | 52kg (114lbs)

Blood Type | AB

MBTI | ENFP-A, Campaigner

Meizhen Facts |

Born in Shanghai, People's Republic of China.

She has a younger sister (Meixiu).

She trained for three years.

Meizhen never really wanted to be an idol; it was her parents who signed her up for the SM auditions in 2013.

During pre-debut, she was so close to leaving SM and moving back home, but Renjun joined the company and convinced her to stay after becoming close friends.

Her natural hair is actually pretty curly, however the stylists have a habit of straightening it.

Meizhen graduated from Shanghai Ocean University in 2023.

Her parents met at Shanghai Ocean University and , after graduating, opened up their own marine rehabilitation centre together.

Even though her parents worked primarily with marine animals, Meizhen grew up in a house full of all types of animals, including snakes and tarantulas.

Meizhen has a collection of stamps from all over the world, and purchases more every time they go on tour.

Stage Name | Emma (엠마)

Birth Name | Kang Eun Jeong (강은정)

English Name | Emma King

Position | Main Rapper, Lead Vocalist, Maknae

Birthday | August 7, 2003

Zodiac Sign | Leo

Chinese Zodiac Sign | Goat

Nationality | Korean-British

Height | 158.5cm (5'2")

Weight | 49kg (107lbs)

Blood Type | O

MBTI | INFJ-T, Advocate

Emma Facts |

Born in Greenwich, England, but grew up in Kingston-Upon-Thames, England.

She has six older brothers (Caleb, Sammy, Lewis, Calum, Finley, and Max), and two older sisters (Susie and Mia).

She trained for three years.

She graduated from the School of Performing Arts Seoul (SOPA) in 2021.

Emma was put up for adoption at birth as her biological mother was unable to take care of her. She was adopted by Ellen and David King at the age of two.

Emma is highly allergic to seafood.

She has a large circle-shaped birthmark on her upper left thigh.

Her older brothers, Calum and Finley, were the ones to introduce her to Cpop and Kpop.

Emma joined the Mickey Mouse Club in 2015 as a 'Mouseketeer', along with a few other SM rookies.

Apart from English and Korean, Emma can speak a lot of other languages fairly fluently, including Mandarin, Cantonese, Tagalog, Japanese, and Thai. She's currently learning French, Spanish, and German.

[komodocomics]

making my own Tumblr year thing

My cats are probably gonna brawl into 2024 lalala

Thinking bout five nights at freddy's

The god damn aroace chicken run image is for sure my top post ever can someone explain why its such a hit

I need to see my Oc komodo mauled by a tractor on a farm for 2024

FUUUUUUUCK 2014 WILL BE TEN YEARS AHO FUUUCK IM GONNA DIE OF OLD AGE AT THE RIP AGE OF THREE MONTHS AND TWO DAYS

what was popular this year cause I've been living under a rock last time I knew what was popular was 2014 and then the 2019 YouTube rewind can someone hold my hand and tell me

I NEED TO MAKE MORE YAOI AND FURRY ART FUUUUUUCK

can someone show me lizards like anything lizard related I need this always and forever

My Tumblr recommendations ruined cause the fnaf wave o 2023

WHO IS BAD BUNNY WHY IS THIS PERSON POPULAR I LEGIT DONT KNOW WHO THIS IS

What the fuck is doctor who about is it good

The door creaks gently as I go to tuck in my three or more fursuits and kiss their fuzzy foam or paper mache heads goodnight

Im gonna schedule this for lik 9 or some shit so I can hide in my polar bear den under the ice as humans go ballistic cause a ball dropped or some shit

New things that happened this year: I did artfight went insane for a month,my blog reproduced via asexually and made three sideblogs Dan Phil and Sam (look at pinned post for the links) ,digital art,fnaf insanity which I still have to draw fnaf movie art but I had fnaf artblock, gmanweatherreport drew bara komodo after requesting I draw bara komodo,I need more things to get obsessed over that isnt half life or fnaf pretty much,

Does anybody know of a video game which was a survival game and u had to collect food and water maybe medicine, it had snow but Idk if it was a weather changing game, I watched this lady on YouTube I think 2016 era and she found this house that looked like hers and too the right of the front entrance was a dog house like her house and a field was also on the right side and something howled I can't remember if there was a monster or just false jumpscares like howling or something falls off a shelf stuff. The path to the house was a dirt road I think but covered in snow more like slush snow tho almost gone and trees were lined up on both sides of the road. Can anyone find that cause I have tried and have not found it. One of my must find games cause I remember it well and thought it was cool. Oh and I think it was like top of the line Xbox 360 graphics style

[firefliesindisguise]

Can’t We Just Leave the Monster Alive by txt is like being slapped by youtube rewind 2016

[spreens]

for me i think one of the strangest personal experiences with finding hispanic ccs has not only been the whole world of fun and exciting stuff behind the language barrier- as expected- but also the whole host of stuff that i'm already familiar with has been recontextualised. like i just found out luzu and rubius were in youtube rewind 2016 and it's so bizzare to kind of. slot things together like those people were always in the youtube scene and i just didn't see them. idk i don't think i'm wording it well. but it's weird /pos

[allaroundnerd]

Codetober Day #11

11. What's something you've worked on that you're most proud of?

One of the coolest things I remember working on was actually a team project back in school. Rewind to 2016 and I was doing the capstone team project for my degree. It was around this time that Pokemon Go was about to come out. Given that everyone on the team, myself included, are huge nerds, we based our project on this. What it was meant to do was allow users to submit information regarding where they caught certain Pokemon, how many they saw, level (we didn't know this wasn't relevant), and so on. The app hadn't come out yet, so we were largely guessing, but we actually managed to get it working. Others would be able to look at the map and see where certain Pokemon were spawning along with a rough estimate of how many people were there for trading purposes. We did the project and the thought occurred to put it on ice until the game came out and we'd know what we could do with it, but alas we lost contact. It was pretty cool and there's actually a (really bad) YouTube video of me explaining how it worked in it's earlier iterations. Maybe it could have become something huge, but I'm content to let it be a memory of one of my favorite projects that I've ever worked on.

[nebula-lad]

I had a friend who was deaf in middle school. He couldn’t hear anything without hearing aids, and had to have an interpreter and a microphone for anyone who didn’t know how to sign. In certain classes like history, we watched a lot of YouTube videos as a class to take notes. The teacher forgot about him a lot, so would have to be reminded during every video halfway through to turn on subtitles, and we would have to rewind and start from the beginning. But this was in 2016-2017, so subtitles in YouTube weren’t that good, and my friend’s interpreter would have to stand at the front of the class and sign anyway. The poor subtitles would distract everyone else from their work, too.

Good subtitles aren’t just for deaf or hard-of-hearing people. They’re for people who get distracted easily to focus better and for interpreters to get a break from using their hands all day long. Subtitles are for everyone. And production companies need to learn that.

I, a hearing person who likes subtitles just as a preference, shouldn't have to read a subtitle that's obvious nonsense, go back a couple seconds, and listen again in order to figure out what's going on. An accessibility feature should not be the most half-assed part of a professionally made production. Scripted media has absolutely no excuse for not having subtitles or having subtitles that aren't perfectly verbatim. Professional captioning services should be ashamed of the shoddy work that they put out. Captions should be treated as a part of the production, just like filming, editing, audio balancing, etc - and anything that releases with missing or bad captions should be seen as unfinished

[danielt1985]

I remember watching the 2016 YouTube Rewind & seeing that small rewind button PewDiePie held & always wanting to own it. It'd make a cool desk decor piece.

[billconrad]

In the Mood to Write

    In previous articles, I discussed the source of my story ideas but have not addressed getting them out of my bonkers mind. While my methods are typical of most authors, there are some nuances. A big part of the process requires me to be in the right mood. To fully explain this concept, I need to rewind the clock back to the beginning of my writing adventure.

    During a fun period of unemployment, I had a lot of time. I spent most days thinking up business ideas and trying to turn them into reality. It was not going well, and I decided to try the highly profitable publishing world. So, on 3/12/2016 at 4:29 PM, I leaped into pure profit.

    At first, I treated the writing process like a job and wrote for precisely six hours every day. (This was all my meager brain could tolerate.) The words flowed because I already had the plot of my first book in my head. Yet, a few months into the process, I noticed a pattern. At times, my writing was not excellent. Understanding that writing is not like engineering, driven by math, economics, components, and specifications took time. It is a creative process driven by lofty ideas that do not fit into neat boxes. Eventually, I understood I needed the right mindset to write well. But how did I know I was in this mindset?

    My process begins with firmly deciding, “Now is the time to write.” Then, I start testing the water by reading 1-2 pages before my last paragraph. At this stage, I do not do any editing. When I am confident that I am comfortable with the spirit of what I have created (usually one page in), I will make some edits. If I encounter any resistance, I stop. What is resistance? It feels like a physical barrier, different from the negative anticipation of going to the dentist, perhaps like being hungry when no food is available.

    This lesson has been painful. I have done significant damage by writing or self-editing in the wrong mindset. One bad paragraph can lead the story in the wrong direction, taking months of self-editing to clean up the mess. Why? I forced myself to write or edit in a bad mood.

    At this point in the editing process, my mood should be between neutral and enjoyable. Let me define neutral. Imagine watching a movie like Star Wars. You have seen this movie over ten times and enjoyed it. Remember that scene where Chewbacca was playing chess with R2D2? Watching that scene is not a surprise; your mood is to look at the characters and interact with detachment or fondly remember that scene. This is precisely how it feels when I edit. I know the material, and when I encounter something messed up, I fix it without negative emotions. There is no mental stress or apprehension when I uncover a big problem.

   When I get to the last paragraph, I begin writing. The words should flow without stress, and my mood should switch to enjoyment. It is great to put one’s thoughts into words. And again, if there is any resistance, I stop.

   However, it is not necessary to stop writing altogether. I tested the waters. Sometimes, I will switch to a different document or edit a different section. The important part is not to push through a mental block.

    Writing is different from non-creative activities. For example, I do not need to be in the mood to pull weeds. I push through the negative emotion and begin a mindless, unpleasant task.

    If I still cannot get into the mood to write, I find a distraction can help. YouTube videos provide a quick distraction. Another tip is to consume a single glass of red wine for over an hour. I have tried all other forms of libation and found they only hinder writing.

    How do I know I am in the mood? Simple. I appreciate the moment. Writing is fun, exciting, challenging, and rewarding. The non-creative part of my mind is off, and I have become a magical author. This person has the freedom to create an imaginary world. I put myself into the story as the character. What are they thinking? Why did they do that? How should they react? What would upset them? As I self-edit, I concentrate on sentence structure and logic. I also think about the big picture and how each sentence relates to the story.

    What about professional writers? Honestly, I have no idea how somebody could spend eight hours in front of a keyboard of fiction writing every day. If I tried, the results would be an angry mash-up of misspellings. So, my hat is off to those professional writers.  

    Writing is a privilege, and I am lucky to have the drive, talent, and means to enjoy this activity. I look forward to doing it, yet it is something I cannot always get into—a true enigma.

    You’re the best -Bill

    April 21, 2024

    Hey book lovers, I published four. Please check them out:

    Interviewing Immortality. A dramatic first-person psychological thriller that weaves a tale of intrigue, suspense, and self-confrontation.

    Pushed to the Edge of Survival. A drama, romance, and science fiction story about two unlikely people surviving a shipwreck and living with the consequences.

    Cable Ties. A slow-burn political thriller that reflects the realities of modern intelligence, law enforcement, department cooperation, and international politics.

    Saving Immortality. Continuing in the first-person psychological thriller genre, James Kimble searches for his former captor to answer his life’s questions.

    These books are available in soft-cover on Amazon and eBook format everywhere.

[nsfwhiphop]

Incoming Text for Ariana Grande: Hey, Ariana! I will confess something but you have to promise that you won't be mad at me.

Well, here is my story, where do I begin? I have to confess that I didn't know about your song titled "Side To Side", I didn't know this song existed before, I discovered this song a few minutes ago and I can't stop pressing the rewind button, this song is so good in my ears, the reggae beat, plus your voice and the lyrics, the vibe is so enticing, very enticing, it got me dancing at home, vibin' to this dope song. So, now you know, I feel like someone who doesn't keep up with your music, it was released 7 years ago in 2016, and I just discovered the song today 23rd March 2024, talk about Back to the Future, right? I love your music Ariana, you have a unique voice, keep up the good work. I also like your song "Bed" with Nicki Minaj, and also the one with Jessie J "Bang, Bang". I listen to your music from time to time, it's good vibes songs. Love you, Ariana! Big hug for you!

Here is the music video for the song "Side To Side" on youtube:

[fallingforfictionalmen]

I shit you not the other day I was watching the youtube rewinds again and randomly I was like “did they get the button?? like they had such a huge part in 2016” AND THEN THIS SHOWS UP AND THE BUTTON IS THERE WOW

OH MY GOD

[nightwillow18]

I did not intend to find this clip but I did. Now you all have to witness it.

“As soon as I turn over its just nipples!”