An Explanation

I Don't Feel Like Dancing

I Don't Feel Like Dancing by Scissor Sisters
There really isn't too much to explain here. If you know Tin Can at all, you'll understand what this means.

I made this letter first, it seemed the most obvious and easiest to make at the time. Being the first one, it lacks the depth, effort and ambiguity I put into later ones. It still confused her for a long enough period though.

At least the dancing people at the bottom provided some entertainment. I posted the image used on Facebook in the evidence and Swarley recognised them as soon as he saw them.

The final line is disjointed and colourful because the last time Tin Can pestered us to dance, we caved.

What a Man!

Six Feet Under The Stars by All Time Low mixed line by line with Umbrella by Rihanna/All Time Low (Cover)
Having heard Ice's outpouring of love for All Time Low earlier in the month, this was the best choice for lyrics to go into the letter. I was going to mix together the lyrics line by line and leave it at that.

Later in the day I had doubts as to whether the lyrics in the letter were too obvious. If she worked out the patter and what was on the page, then receiving the other half would be expected, boring and frankly quite lame. This is where the comic at the bottom came in.

Ice said something to the effect of "Who knows that I really like comic books?" I certainly didn't, it was just a happy coincidence. The statement by the bear (who I may or may not talk about later) about Alex has to do with the lead singer of All Time Low. I just picked his name out of the four in the hope that if Ice didn't understand then that would provide an additional clue. The comic's purpose was a study of Cookie's gender ambiguity. The punchline would have had something to do with Cookie being a man contrary to the views of the bear.

Instead I got distracted by a picture of beautiful Boris while trying to come up with a suitable punchline. As soon as I saw that picture I knew my work with this letter was done.

Digital Dreams

Digital Love by Daft Punk with a minor appearance by Something is Not Right With Me by Cold War Kids
Ernie was wondering what the connection of this song to her was. Like Tin Can's, it was more of a song where the lyrics have to do with the person than it being a song they listen to. I did this letter last and it took me the longest to find a song that would connect to Ernie somehow. This may be the least obvious one.

Ernie came out of her room one day and exclaimed that she had a crazy psycho dream. Unfortunately I don't remember the details exactly, but what I remember is that someone had murdered someone in 1CD. I remember her saying Sanjeev, but this may not be true. This is why Sanjeev is on her poster, about to be pummeled by "the dude from Assassin's Creed."

Swarley was delighted to point out that I had made a mistake on it and had crossed out some of the lyrics. That was intentional, nobody want's to see Sanjeev get pummeled do they?

Having just Sanjeev on the letter wasn't interesting enough so I felt the need to add more stuff on. Unfortunately it's now apparent that they are very tacked on and unresearched features. The girl in the bottom corner does have red hair, but that wasn't why I picked her. Ernie is a part of several Facebook groups that proclaim their love for the Cold War Kids, for example "I JUST WANT TO PLAY TAMBOURINE WITH THE COLD WAR KIDS ONE OR TWO TIMES." The smiley face (which has been wrongly interpreted as an angry face (must brush up on mouse drawing skills)) was to represent how happy she was. The eyes behind her were a reference to the film clip for the Cold War Kids song. As I said, fairly unresearched: the last post in the Facebook group is almost a year old now.

The brain in the middle on top of the scream was referring to the book about brains that Ernie was reading out to us earlier in the session. Uncle Sam is the most unresearched part of the letter. Originally it was going to be a dude pointing at the reader, then it evolved into a disembodied Win Butler pointing at the reader, then it turned into its final incarnation, Uncle Sam with his catchphrase "I less than three you!"

In Communist Russia...

Anatomies by Meanwhile, Back In Communist Russia...
This one fit together the best in the end. I was originally looking for a reference to Swarley's left wing ideals. I didn't know he used to be called Comrade back in the day. That was just a coincidence.

I had nothing to go with except sending him a Soviet Flag. That was until I looked at his last.fm page. What a wonderful thing last.fm is! I saw the words Communist Russia and everything fell into place.

I too spent what felt like an eternity looking for the lyrics to this damn song. Why is it that no one has it? Anyway, I resorted to carefully typing out what I could interpret from the song which is why some of it may not actually be there and why I gave up halfway through a sentence. Finally, yes, Emily is a reference to the singer. It could have been easily confused with Rumble though (with that Happy Hat though, this would be understandable).