thinking abouttr cannibaliziing rcg

i want to gnaw on glenn’s femur so bad….

podcast episode for sweet dee's dating a retarded person is so amusing to watch with them clumsily talking around the slur .. that episode is honestly one i really like. it's a weird reason but as an Autist that's disabled in many other ways, it's such a clear depiction of how ableism works that it's kind of reassuring how plainly it's defined in a show. especially for the time it was made in. plus dennis' line about "retard strength" is the funniest shit, but also all the stuff with the gang trying to do music.. and my profile picture.

the scene where lil kev is literally just having a good time watching whatever cartoons and eating popcorn, dee is reacting to him simply being himself and her ableist discomfort is making every aspect of his 'behaviour' seem Wrong or off-putting. the episode still makes me feel gross and i don't care what rcg say their intentions were, but still: accurate depiction of a person being ableist in a common scenario where there is no question as to whether they're being an ableist shithead.

the way most fans talk about the episode is so annoying like "so was kevin actually retarded?!" then people saying he probably had some kind of learning disability but wasn't *actually* stupid, and got stuck with people thinking he was. it's just like. what is real stupidity, then? intellectual disabilities? there isn't some vague existence of Stupidity that exists in a vacuum apart from ableism. if "stupidity" or being "retarded" (not in the outdated medical sense) is a real thing out there, why should it be shameful or a moral failing or make someone a lesser person? why does it matter?

and all of the fans who boast about this being their favourite episode because gasp it has a Bad Word in the title!! they sound like children who've just learned a swear word and are whispering it to each other. it's such an immature way to live, surely you have better things to do than fixate on being allowed to say slurs. they act like it's a groundbreakingly defiant thing to have this as your favourite episode. the way they talk about any aspect of it has such a provocative tone like they want people to fight them about it. they will face literally no resistance. and they quote parts of the episode, unprompted, where the characters say the slur just so they can get excited about free speech and evil censorship. yknow, rcg already don't think they have much of anything to apologise for, and yet these fans are like "they're such cowards! in my opinion, they should be saying MORE slurs every episode! what happened to edgy offensive humour?" idk they grew up i guess

HI I FORGTO TO POST THIS UM ANWA S i am thinking about the besties (six mono rk and rcg obviously) and i wanted to write down a little. a little thing abt their relationships idk what to call this i am just thinking (this is all my personal thoughts btw u dont have to agree with anything i say but feel free 2 give some of ur own input :] )

OK SO this is sort of long(?) so haha 

starting with six; six’s closest buddy is (obviously) mono; they’re basically inseperable and may as well be attached at the side at this point. if you see one and not the other then Run because the other is behind you probably /j because six has never felt as though she has a safe space, she often considers mono her home, whether she realises it or not, and mono feels a similar way they go to each other for help and can communicate sometimes without words, theyre both happy to tolerate each other and theres clearly a bond between them you could see from a mile away. they rarely get seriously upset with each other and when they do they find a comfortable way to work it out. six would probably kill for mono, and he’d gladly die for her in return, even when none of them outright admit it. mono is one of the only people six actually talks to, and the only person allowed to touch her. on top of just being great friends that do truly care for each other in their own ways, they’re also an amazing duo that are great alone but are close to unstoppable together; they both have their own strengths that almost perfectly balance each other out, even when their differences sometimes get in the way, and theres really no situation they cant get out of as a team

next in line is rcg (i will refer 2 her as sandy to make this easier and because i think that is a cute name for her); sandy is like six’s older sister (tbh she is everyones older sister) and theyre both on pretty good terms with each other, shes pretty comfortable with sandy and trusts her a decent amount, if mono isnt around six wont hesitate to come to sandy for help and sandy will happily oblige :] six doesnt say it much but she appreciates that sandy is there to help and puts up with sixs sometimes unruly behavior and overall shenanigans, while sandys glad she can be a sort of guardian figure for six (and most of the other kids) and she finds the trust that the two of them are carefully forming is a great reward (six let her braid parts of her hair once and sandy was so honored, it has never happened again but sandy is determined that it will) last but not least is six’s relationship with rk; they don’t get along the best, and it probably would take a while to get them to really interact, and they definitely like to bicker or poke fun at each other from across the room but eventually, overall they tend to really just stay out of each others business. this proves 2 be hard sometimes though as they are kind of now in the same friend group (playable characters gang!!!!! *partying face emoji*) 

despite this theres still quite a few things they can bond over, and theyre both pretty comfortable in the sort of “frenemy” spot. most of the time they really dont mind situations where they have to team up together and just get along for a while, even if they still bully each other throughout  nowwww time for mono!!!!!!!!!!!  right away six is his best friend, like i said before theyre basically the same person except for the fact that theyre sort of total opposites he just adores her, thinks she is the absolute coolest and is always willing to give her his undivided attention. will obviously tell her off when needed but he’s always gentle and patient with her, and is always on her side, and six lets him know in her own way that she appreciates him greatly he loves to drag her into his activities and make sure shes included like i said before hes always patient with her, and makes sure she’s comfortable, for example when he goes to hug her (or just touch her at all) he’ll wait for a sign from her saying its okay; and if she’d rather be left alone he just sits with her and waits, ready for whenever she needs him for basically anything, and six always does the same for him

next is rcg/sandy!!!! like basically everyone else, he sees her sort of as an older sister, and appreciates her helping out with six’s shenanigans and being there for six when he isnt able to, even for a little bit. they actually make a pretty good team as well, and have tons in common. both of them love trying out new things and usually make plans together, and sandys happy to let him talk whenever he wants; whether he’s ranting, infodumping, or just bored and looking to strike up conversation, shes there to chat with!! also he loves her hugs because she always picks him up and spins him around  and again rk!!!! the two of them arent very close but still pretty friendly with each other and always manage to find things to talk about whenever theyre together, mono is always ecstatic to learn more about the nomes and rk happily shares his knowledge mono is also always trying to find ways to bring rk and six closer together, but always respects their boundaries, and rk appreciates it all tons now for sandy/rcg *evilly rubs my paws together*  starting with rk! dead buddies ahaha anyways like ive pointed out multiple times rcg sees the others as siblings, and rk is no exception! the two of them spend tons of time together, playing games usually with their nome friends!! sandy often drags him into doing things with her especially when shes trying out something new shes always happy to be there for him whenever he gets nervous about something (which. kinda happens a lot) and rk is there to comfort her in return when needed they share things with each other a lot, whether its information or physical objects or literally anything, they always feel the need to share it with the other  now six!! sandy is absolutely stoked to have a younger sister and six enjoys having an older sister as well sandy is always there for six whenever she needs something, and is working hard to gain her trust; she always gets excited whenever six wants to do something together, which in turn often makes six feel appreciated   i@dont even know what else to put here she just?? takes care of her very well ! she loves to tease six but always makes sure not to go over the line (kinda applies 2 everyone else aswell) mono!!! sandy adores his attitude and loves chatting with him, theres always something new to talk abt with him! they also have an unspoken “must protect six” code n chat about her a lot (all good things obviously)  even if they dont hang out too much she always has fun hangin out w him or getting together to plan stuff !!  i probably shouldve formatted this better bc ivre kind of already written rks relationship with everyone else but here we go anyways

rk and sandy!! rk is probably closest to her (and the nomes ofc) and just overall spends a lot of time around her, no matter what he’s doing he loves crafts, and sandy is always glad to join in making things, sometimes they make stuff for eachother  they also help out the nomes a lot together!! they make lil shelters/forts for them, sometimes for fun out of pillows and blankets and other times theyre more stable things, or, more often, they help clean out holes in the walls to make them liveable now mono!! rk loves to share his knowledge of the nomes with him, and they bond over other things too; for example both of them are interested in bugs :] actually they both adore most animals and rk is sure to let mono know whenever he finds a cool creature! rk also appreciates that mono tries to help six and rk become a little closer, as usually his schemes are harmless, whether they work or not  aaaand six! like i said before theyre not the best of friends and poke fun at eachother a lot, but when they need to team up they’ll somewhat tolerate each other. as much as he wants to, rk finds it hard to forgive six for yknow. eating him. six refuses to be very open about her side of the story, or atleast parts, which makes it a little harder, but theyre working on it and eventually they can atleast tolerate each other on top of that though, theyre also sort of opposites; rk thinks six is just mean and unruly, meanwhile six thinks rk is too soft and somewhat of a doormat  but again. overall they learn to put up with each other (barely)

i see what you’re saying about dennis coming off more as a closeted character. with the last bullet point, i was referring to the break up commentary where they refer to dennis as gay & interview where they said the characters are (ambiguously) gay despite only mac being out. not saying 100% that it’s baiting, that’s just where my mind went when i was reading the post. it’s definitely difficult to tow that line, and hard as an audience when we don’t know what the creators have planned.

ahh i see what you mean! i wasn’t thinking about that. for me, the trouble with asking if dennis counts as baiting or not comes in that….rcg only started taking that sort of thing seriously a few years ago, which resets the clock. before the s11 backlash, there was no way they would ever change their stagnation manifesto to let a character come out. you could make an argument for s1-11 (tho in a minute i’ll explain why i don’t agree), but even though saying that stuff was messed up, they say and do the things they do because they’re having fun with the characters but still trying to keep them in character. so even though they/we know theyre gay, it’s difficult to get characters like that to come out. a lot of their characterization comes from delusion and refusal to grow/change. also, once they started taking the gay stuff seriously, dennis started acting less and less “coded” (though i don’t think it really counts as coding because a lot of it is just–glenn, who’s bi irl). we only link it to gayness because of earlier seasons, before the clock reset. but without seasons like 5 and 8 as a background, i’m not sure we’d argue that dennis is gay quite so loudly because season 14 wouldn’t seem so strange if we didn’t know that he’d said things like “beautiful lips” to mac before.

the other trouble is that not all homoeroticism is baiting, even if nothing comes of it. trying to get gay viewers without alienating straight ones is the crux of it–having their cake and eating it too. mac and dennis were acting some type of way, but rcg never taunted us on twitter that they’d do something about it only to have them say homophobic shit onscreen to let us know they didn’t mean it (mac did say homophobic shit onscreen, but this wasn’t the reason why). i don’t really think it’s always sunny in philadelphia was trying to imply lgbt characters for woke points or to trick people into watching. when they did add lgbt character(s), it was out of genuine love/care for us (mac, i would argue nb charlie here, reparations to carmen, etc), and when they were playing will they/won’t they with mac’s closet door, it was because they thought it was funny–still a problem, but not baiting the way the term’s meant.

i guess it depends on if you believe rob, but he’s always said that before s11, he “didn’t know we were that kind of show.” he wasn’t trying to fuck with us by doing that stuff, he just didn’t realize that we were getting hopeful and he was hurting us as a result. as soon as he realized that, he made a change & mac came out – because he knew it was important to us.

intent a big factor of baiting, not just what happens onscreen. so even though sunny does have aspects that seem like it, i wouldn’t classify any of it as baiting. even if dennis never comes out, it would suck, and they did say shit to imply otherwise, but i don’t think they did any of that to try and scam us out of our time/money/attention while secretly sleeping with straight viewers too. they’ve always said they don’t give a shit about straight people. sometimes things are shitty, but that doesn’t always equal bait. the bait is necessary–baiting us into watching in the hopes that we’ll get something that tptb know they aren’t going to give, often just to backhand us right afterwards (stuff like characters saying “haha, could you imagine!”). the closest thing that would qualify is probably megan ganz saying that stuff about “shipping this duo for 14 years” on the bed pic from tggr, but even that doesn’t rly qualify because macdennis can’t be baiting, no matter what and for all time, since mac is canonically gay

IASIP Episodes Ranked: #110 of 144 - Charlie’s Home Alone

dir. Kat Coiro, written by Adam Weinstock & Andy Jones, aired October 24th, 2018, Season 13 Episode 8

summary: when the gang heads to the superbowl and cricket steals the greenman suit, charlie is left behind at the bar and sets up traps to fight off intruders. turns out he was just being paranoid and he ends up being the victim of his own plan, making himself and the bar a total bloody, paint and piss filled mess!

abby’s favourite line: ‘here, eat this asparagus’ -the waitress

luce’s favourite line: ‘[about a trap] i forgot about that one! why would anybody do that to anybody??’ -charlie

positives:

the direct inspiration and comparisons to the original home alone movie are spot on! lexi made this post showing just that 

and it’s especially in character for charlie to be in the position of an anxious, yet determined and frankly Feral child 

this episode actually ties in with a lot of previous charlie Lore - the feeling one with the rats (he’s LITERALLY trapped like a rat!!!!!!), the succumbing inevitably to killing the rats anyways, drinking/being covered in green paint, rituals, green man... the list goes on

side note but WHERE did charlie get a bear trap. like when as a janitor is he going to need that??

since rcg had to make a certain number of episodes without glenn, having an episode focused entirely on and with only charlie in was a really good idea

this episode also highlights charlie’s ocd, most likely passed down from his mom, with all his rituals he absolutely needs to go through with in order for the eagles to win. this is the main thing driving him the whole twenty minutes, even when his leg is literally bleeding out he stops at nothing to fulfill what he believes needs to be done

it’s quite interesting to see how smart charlie actually is..i mean yes he’s illiterate and pretty dumb like the rest of the gang, but he’s also intelligent enough to set up all those intricate traps, that requires a lot of thinking about how someone will move around the bar, what their blind spots are, how quick someone’s reaction time is, etc. however he’s also stupid enough to get stuck in his own frickin traps sooo i guess this mostly shows, also backed up by him once writing and constructing an entire musical and that time when the health inspector visited the bar, that when he puts his mind and energy towards something, however difficult it may be, he can really pull it off

additionally it’s quite sweet to see how much charlie feels the need to protect the bar. there’s constant, mostly subtle, reminders throughout the show that paddy’s is their home, their safe space, and the threat of taking that away genuinely affects them

not to go on a tangent but that reflects on the rest of the gang as well, they can get really into their schemes and even succeed at them, especially if it’s emotionally motivated. 

negatives:

this episode is so ridiculously violent! it actually hurts to watch especially as somebody who enjoys charlie’s character because the level of gore is absolutely unprecedented

additionally we all had extremely high hopes for this two-parter and charlie’s home alone, especially in comparison with other charlie-centric episodes like charlie work, just does not hold up

this is an episode that doesn’t include dennis and in my opinion the episodes that glenn wasn’t available for really struggle without him! really the absence of different members of the gang are the main reason this two-parter wasn’t as good as we expected

tldr: despite the gaping hole of the absence of the rest of the gang, this episode is a rather intense yet entertaining look into what would happen is charlie was left alone at the bar, and helps us further understand how the things that mean the most to him - paddy’s, the eagles - drive him to push forward through literally anything.

IASIP multiples of 5?

5. BROTP?

Charlie and Dennis. When you line up the gang on any kind of spectrum, Charlie and Dennis are always on opposite ends; Dennis cares the most about fitting in and Charlie cares the least, Dennis is “the smartest” and Charlie is “the dumbest,” Dennis is the cleanest and Charlie is the dirtiest, Dennis is the most sexual and Charlie is the least sexual, etc. This makes it really fun when they team up. I love it when they arrive at the same conclusions, albeit through very different routes.

10. Favorite crack ship?

Dennis & Dee/crack cocaine

15. Least favorite thing about the show?

Truly hate that Jack Kelly molested Charlie, because I love that actor and the character is really funny otherwise. (Him screaming “NOBODY LOOK!” in “McPoyle vs. Ponderosa” is one of my top non-gang moments in the whole show but I feel weird about it because of his character.) Also Glenn Howerton looks/acts like my ex bf sometimes and it freaks me out. And also, while I loved a lot of individual episodes of s13, I feel like as a whole it was lacking cohesion with itself and with all the seasons that came before it, and in some ways fell prey to things that RCG have explicitly criticized in the past.

20. Best BDE Dee moment?

In “Charlie and Dee Find Love” when Mac asks her to break open, like, a crab leg or lobster tail or something? I don’t know, I don’t eat shellfish, but Dee breaks it open no problem, and it’s not really mentioned or acknowledged but like…She Did That.  

25. Favorite promo shoot?

Okay I know it’s not technically a “shoot” but I wasn’t sure which was my favorite so I started looking for them and I found this one and I think this on for Season 3 parodying the “Hi, I’m a Mac”/“And I’m a PC” commercials is my favorite because it essentially predicts the ending of “The Gang Makes Paddy’s Great Again” and I’m not kidding:

30. Underrated episode

Okay, I know it’s a weird episode, but I really do appreciate “The Gang Hits the Slopes” because it is honestly a rock-solid, very niche parody! I mean, I still cover my eyes during Charlie’s sex scene, and I cover my ears during Dennis’s “you will be clean” speech, but the episode is solid, the colors are fun as hell, and for some reason the way the guy (fuck what’s his name, i know it’s the name of their editor) yells “I DIDN’T CUM IN YOUR BURRITO! I WOULDN’T DO THAT TO YOU!” just fucking kills me every time. 

35. Favorite IASIP-related show/movie/project (for example The Mick, Pacrim, Santa Clarita Diet, etc)?

Does “Danny DeVito’s general existence” count as an IASIP-related project?

In all seriousness, I haven’t actually seen a lot of the main cast’s other work. I did watch Santa Clarita Diet but there was too much vomiting in the first few episodes and I am severely emetophobic and I couldn’t handle the rest. Unfortunate, because I did really like the parts that didn’t involve vomit. I watched The Mindy Project before I watched Sunny, and Glenn and Rob both have guest roles on that show, but I didn’t really know who they were at the time other than “Are those the guys from It’s Always Sunny?” Let’s see…the guys that play Mr. Guigino (that’s what I call the Waiter) and Jack Kelly were both in an episode of Better Call Saul last season, and I love that show. What else? Matilda was one of my fave movies growing up.  

40: If you could throw a bowl of cold spaghetti at any IASIP character (without any consequences), who would you choose?

This is a trick, because the question is worded like I have a choice, when there is only one answer and that answer is Dennis Goddamn Reynolds. Never has there been a human being who deserves a face-full of tepid sloppy pasta.

Send me IASIP asks!