#another day of a macdennis truther | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

good-realtor-bad-realtor-dynamic · 11 months

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First thoughts from just one watch under shitty circumstances with bad internet and worse sound:

RAMBLING FRANK vs RUSSIA THOUGHTS

I was very worried about this episode with how sacred the S5 DENNIS System episode is to us all. Didn't want a Thunder Gun 4 situation on our hands and thankfully they avoided it so hard! I think having the plot with Charlie, Frank, the mums, Uncle Jack and chess really helped out to make it feel more than a direct sequel.

SINNED -> DENNIS -> SINNED -> DENNIS — I'm so impressed with this. How did I, a wholeass Sunny fan, miss this for so long?! Three cheers to whoever came up with that inversion, really! Definitely something that happened in the writer's room and made everyone lose their shit for sure. I wonder who it was, could be Meg or another writer too, given how collaborative they all are!

And can I just say, Dennis the Restaurant Manager... oh how I love you so much! The Waitress is Getting Married is a personal favourite of mine and I wasn't expecting a bit of a redux of that whole situation.

I was so worried about all the "Mac getting a boyfriend and it being Ryan Reynolds" theories and I absolutely wanted none of that. Everyone had speculated it to death and it wouldn't have been fun anymore (not to mention I do not care for RR in my Sunny, I'm sure he's fine, but I don't need his and Rob's PR relationship filtering through into my dickandball show no I don't "find them cute" and I won't elaborate here anymore).

I know we'd guessed that Johnny could've been Dennis catfishing Mac, but it definitely felt like we were doing an Insane Fan Speculation more than anything — and for it to turn out to be correct! And in the best way, because we never could've seen the vibrating anal beads coming!! That's the best kind of "called it but it's still unpredictable".

It really broke my mind, this episode did. And don't even get me started on the Macdennis and queer Dennis of it all! As a longtime believer in Bisexual Dennis, I won so hard! All of us Queer Dennis Truthers won so fucking hard!

[Unpopular Take incoming] This is the first Sunny episode credited to Meg for writing that has felt so wholly "Classic Sunny" and super fuckin hilarious to me. I always appreciated her understanding of the characters and she's always a very solid writer, but this is the first time where I felt myself thinking ok, you she write RCG/Hornsby/Marder-Rosell/Chernins-level of an insane chaotic Sunny episode with multiple belly laughs and not just slightly Community-fied versions of the gang.

The closest her writing has felt like true Sunny to me before this was Dee Day, so I'm glad to see her grow and improve too, and I wonder if the podcast rewatch has helped in that regard! Must also help to have a classic S5 structure to play off in The D.E.N.N.I.S. System! (And ofc writing is collaborative, so well done to RCG and all the writers who pitched ideas and rewrites that ended up shaping this episode!)

I knew Heath Cullens directing meant a good chance of some interesting camerawork (and I've gotta say that even The Gang Inflates had some more dynamic shots than we've been getting in some of the later years and it's got to be the Cullens directing), but I wasn't expecting a whole visual callback to Being Frank! Loved it.

And the editing! The DENNIS System has always been great for cutaway gags and fun little inserts, so I loved seeing that carried out here with the cuts to Mac and Dee fucking up their dates and then finally pulling out the Magic Tissue of Mummy Issues (oh the potential for meta especially with the twins!). The pacing was so good!

Sunny pacing needs to feel like Mac crashing Dee's car into a wall while we are all Charlie watching it in real time and screaming when it's over.

Random strings of words because I'm too excited to be coherent:

Glenn's acting. His faces. His eyes. His range in this episode. Glacting. Juilliard. All the hits. All the big ones.

Mac and Dennis have canonically had sex in two different ways now, and yes, I'm including their sex tape/porn viewing sessions where they both masturbate together

Did Dennis pull out Mac's anal beads when he was asleep?

Vibrating fucking anal beads what the ACTUAL FUCK!

How many people did the gang drug again?

Danny DeVito with a vibrating asshole comedy acting 12/10 he's an international treasure for a reason

Dee stealing people's phones she's so stupid and bad at men. Never change Dee.

Uncle Jack though, pls change plz, I'm an IASIP loving degenerate so I laughed in horror at his creepiness ofc as I have since 1x7 but fucking hell man, can he be in his jail era already! Poor Charlie!

Hey, Charlie's got new America's just as we were promised on the pod

Oh I should make a post about everything we saw in this episode and that episode of the pod where they gave us all those hints, especially Meg talking about struggling with this cold open — added to the never-ending list of drafts and posts that will hopefully one day make it onto the blog yeah I'm lying to myself now

Parental issues everywhere this season, especially with the mums. Reynolds kids, I can't wait to lovingly put you under my microscope. Once I've rewatched this episode with good sound.

Also just in general, the SINNED system just says SO much about our babygirl's psychology, does it not? Why did so much of it sound like self-insert speeches, like he's been doing this to Mac or smt? Don't even talk to me about The Gang Chokes!

What does r/iasip have to say about— no, I'm in my happy place, I'm not even gonna go there.

Mrs Mac and Mrs Kelly watching TV together like that, they really are lesbian life partners.

Dennis blue shirt with top-stick between those buttons, my beloved. I am looking, respectfully.

And can we talk about the "opening the ketchup bottle" scene? We have to take about that scene! Dennis... he's ruining me... need to gnaw on him and suck on his fingers wait I'm browning out...

Sidenote: I love whenever the show references news stories which were super fucking big at a very specific time in a very specific niche, especially with my whole family being so chess-obsessed. The cheating scandals and anal bead… never thought I'd see a Sunny crossover but can't say I'm not loving the shit out of it!

#there will be more Thoughts when i get to watch the ep without buffering and with good sound so i can actually hear #also on the previous episodes which I've somehow rewatched 3-4 times already in between all the Hectic Life Stuff happening this month #can't wait to see all the new sunny posts going around since the season began airing when I finally get the time. is this delusion.#haven't even got to be much of a lurker here lately :(#frank vs russia #dennis reynolds #iasip s16 #macdennis #iasip #the dennis system #megan ganz #heath cullens #rcg+#sur #sur rambles

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gubler-garbage · 2 years

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I really appreciate your thoughts on that subject!! I was curious about what you meant by somewhat toxic shipping culture, if you're comfortable talking about it? It surprised me but I feel like it makes some sense tbh!

okay so i wanna preface this by saying I have never been deeply involved in the shipping aspect of sunny fandom, I am very much an outsider looking in so take this with a grain of salt. I also want to say this isn't a call out or whatever like its fuckin tumblr shipping its really not that deep, do you, your not hurting anyone.

Having said all of that I personally feel like the fandom that has developed around sunny on tumblr and specifically the growth of macdennis as a ship has distorted the way some fans view the show and interpret its content and the creators. I think this specifically applies to macdennis truthers, like I don't want to burst anyones bubble here but this idea that the creators have this sort of longcon and overarching narrative to the show and its characters is very strange to me. I'm not saying macdennis is impossible or even that I wouldn't like it to happen I just think that when you start ascribing such weight to small and somewhat incidental comments from the creators and moments from the show it starts to distort what is really being said and and creates such a narrow view of the show that what the creators are really trying to say is wilfully ignored for the sake of shipping wish fulfilment. In my opinion, a prime example of this is the way the fandom has interpreted "time's up for the gang". It's really strange to me that such an emphasis has been placed on charlie's rape accusation against Dee, to the point where the ship has been vilified and blacklisted by many (a completely valid and fair response, that isn't my complaint at all and if shipping them makes you uncomfortable that is more than understandable), but when dennis monologues about how mac's continued advances towards him make him uncomfortable the fandom has somewhat decided this was an instant of Megan Ganz "going rogue" or have opted to ignore it entirely. Its this sort of view of the writing process that i really have an issue with. Personally I feel it has given the fandom license to decide what is and isnt canon based entirely around whos name is in the lead writing credit which has somewhat served as a shield for rcg for some of the more questionable or gross moments, especially in later seasons. I have seen people blame Megan Ganz entirely and solely for the blackface in "Dee Day" as if as head writers, producers, creators and actors rcg did not approve and possibly even suggest this addition to the episode.

This also applies to the scene in "Mac and Dennis Manhunters" in which Mac says to Dennis that he has sexually assaulted him but that moment has never been treated with the same gravity as in "time's up" because it's from an older episode I presume. which is another narrative I've seen regarding rcg in that they have at some point had a magical leftist transformation that absolves them of criticism for early season content for the sake of retconning non macden compliant content.

This last one kind of applies to the whole fandom to a certain degree but I've just most prominently seen it with macden ship discourse is the propensity to villainise rob, glenn or charlie in order to boost up another, and generally the one being boosted will be the one saying or doing something macden related. Specifically with people attempting to claim that the lack of macden content in season 13-14 was entirely due to the absence of glenn in the writers room, which for one isnt even true and presents a fundamental misunderstanding of how a show is even written to begin with. But outside of any of that it creates a narrative that while one of them may be saying something backwards or ignorant, the silence of the others indicates their disagreement. It's an overall propensity to take anything vague or silent from them as an invitation to insert personal perspective which isn't present in the work itself. This to me is really clear in the fact that the fandom's opinion on any of them can be traced back pretty directly to the amount they post on social media. Rob who has generally the largest presence gets the most flack, Glenn then comes in second and Charlie's basically non existence has kept him out of alot of fandom discourse purely because his silence allows for people to presume his perspective or opinion. I'm not saying they don't deserve the flack they get but the idea that Rob is a disgusting person for buying an nft and whatever else while glenn is some sort of angel is based purely on the sort of parasocial bonds that form when people spend so much time being hyper invested in a piece of media. We don't know these people, they're just a bunch of rich, white, old guys who make a show we like. I personally don't really understand the surprise of people realising they aren't some sort of radical leftist collective, to me there's no point where they have ever given that sort of indication except in the fan interpretations of miniscule interactions and statements they've made that are just vague enough to support their argument.

Rcg have somewhat accidentally managed to do the same magic trick as their show, in remaining vague enough in their statements and generally silent in online discourse people have been able to ascribe their own beliefs to them and project personalities onto them that don't actually exist.

This post is already so long and I haven't really touched on the other side of this coin which is the complete separation of art from the artist, attempting to discredit rcg and the rest of the writing team from the show and attempting to love the show, while completely demonising the creators. I understand where these sorts of fans are coming from but I think it's really dismissive of the genuine nuance that sunny presents as a really complex program in terms of its place in pop culture. It also feels like an attempt to continue watching the show without having to deconstruct any of its harmful aspects because you can just blanket dismiss the creators as awful people. I also see a pretty severe double standard with this sort of stuff where people will call out sunny but only if its shipping related, like that merch drop with the "i love you like mac loves dennis" tee and people trying to call out fx for queerbaiting, like first of all thats straight up stupid, like im sorry i can't even be diplomatic on that, its the dumbest shit i've ever heard, touch grass. But when it comes to discussing problematic aspects of the show that first of all, actually exist and also don't involve anything to do with macden or even lgbt issues its crickets because its pretty clear y'all dont care about genuinely harmful content, you just care about your ship. Not to sound like an apologist but i do genuinely think that the show has had alot of interesting things to say and generally speaking has never attempted to be actively hurtful, although their execution leaves alot to be desired at times. I think to a certain degree sunny tumblr is in a similar place to sunny reddit but in the opposite direction, wanting the show to be something it never was in the first place.

#i actually apologise for this #this got too long its like actually embarrasing #iasip #ask #please dont be mad at me

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