A week ago, my friends and I wrote an open letter to Bernie Su and Pemberley Digital. It was a group effort and based on what we had been discussing about the PD fandom. 

Conveniently (or unfortunately, depends on your perspective) we posted this on the same day the pissed off part of the fandom had its peak. Which, of course, resulted in a lot of drama. But that's not what I want to talk about.

After I posted it, I expected to get some hate (god knows I did) and that no one would back us up, even if they agreed to what we were saying. Au contraire, my friends. A lot of people liked, reblogged, commented on it, sent me nice thoughts on my ask, discussed it in a fandom facebook group, all of this stuff. Which was, of course, very lovely, but it also gave me hope. 

People I'd never met in the fandom (maybe because we've all been not nearly vocal enough and waited too long to talk about what we wanted?) came out in support of our letter and I'm really happy about it because fandom friends give us nice fandom spaces. And yay for healthy and entertaining fandom spaces.

So thanks, to all of you, for sharing and spreading your PD (and mostly, EA) love. It's been fun, guys. 

I decided to make a bingo card to Emma Approved as well. This one plans to recognize all the quirky, adorable and funny things about this awesome series.

(Thanks to my fellow brazilian pemberlings who helped with ideas for the spots)

YES. I'm tracking it too as of now. 

Lizzie Bennet Diaries

Lizzie & Charlotte - have media education/jobs so they have a reason to make LBD

Collins - works in media so it can be logical to offer a job to Lizzie/Charlotte 

Jane - works in fashion because *some* character had to have Lookbook (although seriously if they ever transmedia'd a character's Github account I would actually die)

Lydia - not employed? makes money from vlogs, which she needs a reason to make

--> None of the Bennet sisters can have well-paying STEM jobs because that would defeat the whole "their house is going to be foreclosed on and their mother wants them to marry money" premise

Maria - job in media so we can find out more about Collins and Collins

Catherine de Burgh - works in media because she has to be Collins's patron

Darcy - works in media because we need an excuse for Lizzie to go to Pemberley 

Gigi - works in media because we need an excuse for Lizzie to meet her at Pemberley and needs an excuse to do Domino so there's videos of this part

Unconstrained Characters: 

Fitz - job not mentioned? 

Caroline - job not mentioned? 

Bing - med student, needs to have prestigious job so that Mrs Bennet will want her daughters to meet him

Update: Mary - I think she's in college but I don't think they mention what she studies

Update: Mrs Bennet - not mentioned

Update: Mr Bennet - not mentioned, likes trains?

Unconstrained character STEM job count: 1 out of a bunch of not-mentioned jobs

Once you make the decision to make Lizzie create vlogs as part of her thesis project, all of the media jobs that other characters have are necessary for plot reasons. Sure, I guess Caroline and/or Fitz could have had STEM jobs (and I do think Caroline's job should have been specified), but that's about it.

Welcome to Sanditon

Gigi, Darcy - see above

Mayor Tom - needs to have some job that will make him represent Sanditon

Ed - works for Mayor so that we have a reason to meet him

Clara - runs local business, important for town scenery development, also needs to have reason for recipe videos (I guess she could have done another type of demo vid though?) 

Griff & Beau - need to be in same business so they're in competition, small-business owners for the same reason as Clara

Sidney Parker - vaguely media, to give him a tie to Pemberley/Emma

Missy - swimmer, gives her a reason to go to a resort town? 

twitter characters - do they even have jobs?

I just really don't see how Sanditon would have worked with the town engineer or scientist or something? Maybe town doctor, but Bing was already a med student. And I don't see why a town doctor would have opposed "New Sanditon". The whole plot was about small local businesses vs the town hall, so all the characters' jobs came from there. 

Emma Approved

Emma - if you're going to modernize it to be about Emma matchmaking and meddling in people's lives, a lifestyle company makes sense (of course one could have made other design decisions but let's assume we buy this one) 

Knightley - Emma's business partner because we want to see him and Emma interact a lot around her meddling in people's lives

Harriet - assistant to Emma mirrors the mentorship role and power imbalance in the original

Annie Taylor, Mr Weston - I dunno? If Annie was formerly Emma's assistant or housekeeper that would explain her job?

Emma Approved is a lot earlier stages, but a lot of the jobs are already constrained here by the need to have all the characters at the same workplace interacting.

(On the other hand, does Emma Approved need more characters of colour? yes. no excuses.)

It’s not weird and I’ve been told that before more or less. I normally don’t like to publish things like this because it feels braggy and weird and then I overthink the whole thing. But I am going to because I want to take this opportunity to say, “Hi. I love you all. Have you flossed recently?” 

This is entertainment, not a belief system. I'm reading this phrase several times a day, and it's absolutely grating. It comes off as sanctimonious and bossy.

Some people (like me) enjoy the show. Some people aren't liking it so much yet, but are sticking it out because they like the novel. Some people are ambivalent but sticking it out because they loved LBD. Some people are hating it and giving up.

No one has to have faith.

Enjoy it or not. Watch it or not.

So, I was never super invested in this show, though I certainly liked many of the characters and was happy to see how their little stories played out. It was good to see a little bit of growth from a few characters, but it was especially nice to watch Gigi learn from the residents of Sanditon.

Naturally, many of us were thrilled to see her conversation with Darcy, in which we could see a good, healthy interaction between the two of them. Gigi has learned to be herself, to be a "grown-up", without being afraid of making him angry and without trying desperately to live up to (her perception of) his expectations.

But what I especially liked was that they ended the story the way the book ends--unfinished. We don't know what she's going to do for a job, as they surprised us by having her turn down the offer we had guessed the mayor would make. We don't know what will happen, precisely, between her and Sidney, even if we have some solid basis for shipping them. We only know that she has an interesting, if uncertain, future ahead of her, even though our window on her future is closing. 

And I love that, because it goes back to the full immersion thing. We haven't left our real world to immerse ourselves in hers by reading/watching a fictional account. She is instead embedded in our world, living in parallel to us. In real life, there is always more story than can be told. We can believe that Gigi is real, that she's moved to a real California town called Sanditon (even if, for some reason, it doesn't show up on Google maps), and that her story is continuing on without us. The Domino beta test is over, so she won't be broadcasting her life or the lives of those around her anymore, but that doesn't mean she ceases to exist.