#charlie mac's asks

[chrliekclly]

I need to see Charlie in one of Dennis sweaters or Mac’s shirt or something

this one rly got away from me

[specialtysacrifice]

Mac hugs the gang

[charmac]

Opinions on Charlie woobification? Also, do you think the fandom woobifies Dennis (too much)?

A few people have sent me asks about my thoughts on Dennis being woobified in the fandom and I’ve failed to answer them (sorry). Not for lack of interest on the subject, it’s just hard to answer. I think, though, answering this Charlie question in the same ask might make it easier to explain my thoughts on this.

When we talk about the fandom we’re generally talking about the people here, a couple hundred people on Twitter, maybe some Instagram stans(?) and tend to ignore the million (1,000,000)+ people on the subReddit and the huge chunk of people on Facebook and casual Twitter who are constantly, continually pushing a narrative that these characters have no depth, and thus their characterisation is what we see on the surface and nothing more. I think the one time it’s probably important not to ignore those people as fans of the show is when it comes to woobification.

Because at a surface level, the people who are consuming this show as a comedy and making posts that exhibit their takes/opinions on these characters to the majority of people portray the characters very simply: Charlie is an idiot and the best member of the Gang, in every sense of the word, and Dennis is a mere representation of toxic masculinity to a psychopathic degree. And those opinions are the loud majority.

So any discussion in our minority section of the fandom that woobifies Charlie or Dennis operates within and on top of the general narrative of the public perception (“face value”) of the characters. Woobification of Charlie, then, almost always further infantilises the majority of his traits to contribute to the idea that he’s not a bad guy and doesn’t deserve the position he’s in in life, while woobification of Dennis mostly works to counteract the idea that he’s a cold-blooded psychopath.

In a way, I think you have to woobify Dennis to a degree in order to properly understand his character (and Glenn makes that clear). Do some people take it too far? When it gets into the realm of genuinely somehow believing he’s not a bad person, absolutely, but in over a decade of Sunnyblr posts, I think I’ve seen that conclusion once, maybe twice. I really don’t think any post that’s diving into how Dennis' actions reflect his insecurities and trauma is ever speaking ignorant of the rest of his character, and that normally seems clear to the majority of people because rarely, if ever, does a dive into Dennis woobification cause fans to understand the character worse than they understood him at face value.

Whereas, with Charlie, you constantly do see this. Posts and threads and fights between fans arguing up and down that Charlie is better than the rest of them: he’s the smartest, actually, he means to do good, he shouldn’t be lumped in with the rest of them as sexual predators... People in this fandom genuinely argue that you are a *better person* if you’re a Charlie stan, that Charlie ships are softer, more moral, than toxic Dennis ships. The result of Charlie woobification seems to often make people less media literate about the character (and the show as a whole if we’re being real) than they would be if they just watched at face value.

They’re all morally despicable characters.

TL;DR: Due to the face value perceptions of the characters, woobification is an almost necessary tool for better exploring and understanding Dennis under his surface, while it really only exacerbates an annoying surface-level understanding of Charlie

[dennisboobs]

7x10 // How Mac Got Fat

↳ Charlie & Dennis + getting high together

[pick1e-party]

the gayest scene in always sunny is when mac and dennis are shooting the gun in the basement

[got-the-cool-shoeshine]

in the second level you can choose whether to give them a ladder or hammers to hit each other with

[dummydino]

were u the one who did redesigns of the character models from the sunny mobile game?? cuz those were so good i would actually play the game if they looked like that lmao

omfg yeah if these were the ones u saw:

if it was these though i'd be surprised, i posted them on twitter so long ago lol

(sorry for the shitty photos these are all i could find at the moment :p)

[opens-up-4-nobody]

could u maybe draw charmac.. [bats my cute eyelashes at u]

:-P

[sunscall]

yeah mac and charlie would push each other into an active volcano to save themselves but ultimately if they both had to die they'd do it together

[psymachine]

i think it'd go like this lmao

whole version

[prolibytherium]

Dee & Mac's dynamic is still probably my favorite. I love how they straight up just dislike each other in a (relatively) uncomplicated way and have the weakest bond BY FAR and barely give a shit about each other, but still have this intense level of casual intimacy purely by virtue of decades stuck in the same group codependency pentagon. They're like in-laws.

[chrliekclly]

I think alotta ppl forget that dennis canonically is the best at drawing of the gang nd just focus on charlie being the artist of the gang, nd idk maybe i just wanted to slip that into ur mind

Like i have this funny scenario in my head where charlie challenges dennis to a drawing competition nd dennis draws a near realistic portrait of charlie while charlie vaguely scribbles out dennis but the rest of the gang is just like 'omg charlie i didnt know u cud draw'

art is subjective

[sorrelpaws]

ok well they’re kinda weird. in my opinion

[charmac]

is there any season that you'd say does the best (or worst) at character development for the gang? personally, i've always thought that season 1 did wonders in helping the audience understand the gang's individual characters (minus frank) right away, but i'm interested in your opinion on the topic

Season 10 absolutely, 100%. It’s my favourite season of Sunny (and one of my favourite seasons of television ever), especially for the fact that it does so much insane character work in its span of ten episodes.

I don’t want to discount seasons before it, there’s an insane amount of foundational work that should be mentioned, but Season 10 being a milestone they never thought they would reach really sticks out as a major turn in the idea that the Gang don’t “develop” as characters by making the Gang face their own devolution. I've written about how Misses the Boat touches on this on the Paddy's Pub Blog, but Season 10 really as a whole just turns a lot more inward to the characters.

Charlie Work rotates around one of the Gang's schemes while having quite literally nothing to do with the scheme at all and everything to do with Charlie's character. This is the perfect example as to how the whole season operates, pushing the characters ahead of the plots, the schemes are just background work to revolve around. (Really, this is how the show operates a chunk of the time, but Season 10 is really really telling you that.)

It's hard to talk about each individual character without spiralling and trying to hit every S10 episode for everyone, but in brief summary: Frank unearths his own childhood trauma and starts to understand he's running out of time here; Dennis is diagnosed and his mask starts slipping more and more as he's forced to face (and attempt to disregard) how he is seen by outsiders; Mac is no longer able to front to himself that he's into women and he destroys his relationship with his father one step further; Charlie really sees he's viewed as less-than by Mac and Dennis and grows much more persistent to (dis)prove Frank is his father; Dee is shown as an even more 'successful' predator than Dennis, though just as pathetic at each turn.

All of this is not only built off what their characters were, but really are the very central parts of their characters that they clearly keep in mind as we push into the later seasons. (Arguably every character is still grappling with these core issues except Mac.)

(Briefly on worst season for character development, I think 13 is kind of the obvious choice. While there are some things I think they did well and are built on later (i.e. Bathroom Problem), episodes like The Gang Wins the Big Game are a prime example of how Sunny does not work well when the whole basis of an episode has nothing to do with the characters and everything to do with the plot. There was really negative character work done there, imo.)

I think it's funny you mention Season 1 for character development, because while I think it’s so so insanely essential to watch (and understand) as a foundation for the show and who the characters become, those versions of the characters are pretty distant from the Gang to me. Season 1 reads very much as Rob’s original idea: these are the worst versions of themselves; characters, but still a little too clearly RCG. Season 2 took those guys and built on them to create actual characters outside of themselves as terrible people, but I don't see the Gang as fully formed individuals until ~S4 (which I think RCG have mostly (?) admitted as much on TASP, lol)

Obviously every season contributes a lot to the characters as we know them, and some do a lot more for certain characters than others, so these are just my personal opinions... But I will argue for the rest of time that Season 10 is that bitch (and the best example of who the characters are).

[dennisboobs]

i'm seeing videos on tiktok about the crossover (which yeah my first mistake is being on tiktok) but it's making me feel crazy when people keep saying "dennis should not be allowed in a school" specifically implying that he's a threat to children any more than the rest of the gang who have a worse track record

Bad Dad but a dad nonetheless

[ask-charliekelly]

would you kiss mac for a block of cheese?

I kiss Mac all the time but I'll definetly do it if there's cheese involved. Y'know, maybe I should start a cheese for kiss system. Does that make me a cheese prostitute?