#haven't even got to be much of a lurker here lately :(

[good-realtor-bad-realtor-dynamic]

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!

[dogcircle-scans]

I'm really curious to know if you have officially dropped the manga. If so (and even if not obvs), I'd just like to thank you for so many amazing years of awesome translations. This manga may not be very popular in the west but I'm glad you kept bringing it for so many of us

Hey, sorry for just now seeing this even though this question was sent back in late November.

No, we haven't officially dropped the manga, and Idk if any group has picked up the series while I was gone. Emphasis on the "I" because our absence was not a consenting choice made by anyone else in this group. So if anyone harbors any kind of resentment, then do not direct it towards anyone but me. If we ever decide to officially drop the series, I'll make an official announcement on this blog. To be honest, I wasn't really gonna make much hubbub about a comeback and just post a chapter as if no time had passed. But, because I got this question and you were very nice about it. I'll give some insight.

- 🦙

The only reason I'm an active part of this fandom (any fandom now really) despite it being against my lurker nature and excessive anxiety issues is because I was encouraged to do so by a friend. If you know me from Discord, then you probably know that aside from running this blog, I'm leader of the scan group and owner of its server, I'm even an admin for the Natsume fan server which is its own separate thing.

I don't know if that sounds already sounds overwhelming, but just to scare you, I also proofread the scripts so the dialogue sounds natural and act as quality checker for each chapter. This means cleaning/redrawing sections of pages if the CLDR forgot or didn't meet the standard of quality I'm looking for. Similar with typesetting, I'll rearrange the text if I feel it could be done better. I'm also the main SFX person. When it comes to the scan server, outside of running and maintaining it, I also act as mod to make sure people aren't posting anything inappropriate or inoffensive + setting up bots and permissions.

When I was in High School and even during my early years of college, I could manage it cause I had the support and energy for it. Plus, my love for Natsume was scary intense. So when life got hard, I found that working on scans acted as a lifeline.

Then I had a messy fallout with the friend who prompted all of this, and things shifted. It didn't help that things in my personal life got really bad and more or less stayed that way for 2/3 years. And because of the association, and the guilt of falling behind, working on Natsume was no longer a stress-relieving activity. It became the source of my stress. I ran away because I was scared and overwhelmed. It wasn't healthy and it only made things worse, honestly.

But, I've been really hard on myself over this past year, and I finally reached the point of wanting to come back, but the guilt from being a deadbeat was still eating me alive. Then I got really sick at the start of this month, and I'm no lie, I'm still sick... but that gave me a lot of time to think and reevaluate all kinds of things. Because honestly? I miss working on scans and the collaborative aspect that I fell in love with because of Natsume.

And literally just this past Saturday/Sunday night, I sent a message to the group, apologizing for what I did and provided a similar explanation of why I did what I did. I trying it as just an explanation and not an excuse - I hope I was able to do that here too.

I told my group to give me several days before I actually start working on scans again, though, because it'll allow me to catch up with everything and figure out what needs to be done next, and it'll also give me more time to recover.

Thank you once again for being kind and understanding! I really appreciate it 🥹💚

[heretolurkandnothingmore]

⛵️ Five Fandoms, Five Ships ⛵

Get to know the blogger, via five different ships from five different fandoms!

I've been tagged by four beloved mutuals (@willameena @kingdomvel @fem-anakin-skywalker @cottonraincoat). Thank you all, and sorry for lagging behind on tag games lately. This year marks the twelfth anniversary of me reading my first slash fic and getting involved in fandom. Doesn't sound like too long, but that's one half of my existence on this planet. So, the answer will be long. It's tough to choose just five out of what feels like dozens (and is probably more). Let's get to it!

Johnlock (John Watson\Sherlock Holmes, both Sherlock BBC and the original ACD stories) Surprised at this first pick? Me too. I haven't really interacted with the Sherlock fandom in the years since season 4. Even longer, really. But this was the first ship I talked to another human being about, the first flame war I participated in, the first fandom I saw grow and flourish (and then crash and burn). Little Hertie's shipping goggles were just growing in at that point, but there was plenty to see through them! That time between seasons 2 and 3 was magical. I remember being oh so excited about how The Adventure of the Empty House would get adapted to screen - and bitterly, horribly disappointed when it was. Nothing compares in my mind to the rabid times of season 4, either. Not that I believed in any conspiracies, but... Hey. My first long-lost tumblr blog existed pretty much exclusively to let me watch that trainwreck. Still, nowadays, every time I get depressed and morose, there's a Johnlock fic or two saved in my library to cheer me up. And of course, there's still a friend or two in my orbit who came into my life through that shipping group.

Obikin (Obi-Wan Kenobi\Anakin Skywalker, Star Wars) I mean, of course. We're in the Obikin Central here) I've loved Star Wars ever since being shown The Phantom Menace at age 10 at a sanatorium for kids with back problems. The back problems persist to this day, but at least I got something out of it)) At some next re-watch, years later, I went to check what people were writing on AO3 - might be the first fandom I braved in English instead of my native language. There was plenty to find, of course, and I went about my usual process of reading lots of fic, saving the best for later and then moving on to the next obsession. How'd I come to be here, then? Simple. Last year, I went for a visit to my hometown, and promptly got sick. And I mean delirious with fever. So the next few days I had plenty of time to re-watch the prequels, and for the first time get acquainted with Clone Wars 2003 and TCW. That burned a hole straight through my heart, of course, and I started drawing fanart for the first time in my life. Maybe it was finally time to let go of the fear that governed my quiet lurker's existence on the internet ever since an unfortunate incident involving a fic translation and boning skeletons? I suppose it was. Ever since I've been filling a newfound personal-life-related insomnia with drawing fanart, and, on occasion, writing. So here I am, and here all of you are. The SW fandom has been the most welcoming space full of the most brilliant people, and I'm honored every day by being allowed into it.

William Carter/Wilson P. Higgsbury (Don't Starve) This is a rarepair of all rarepairs, possibly only with some timey-wimey fic logic and a slither of faith. The reason I'm putting it on the list is simple - this ship was included in the one big fan project I've finished and am still proud of: a translation (from my native language) of a 14-Chapter fic. This one. No story before or since has gripped my imagination quite so strongly, and the desire to share it with the English-speaking world propelled me through sleepless nights and many hours of editing. It follows, in a way, an amnesiac's journey to regaining his memories, as well as a man's journey to madness, all rolled up into one unreliable narration. Oh, and pre-slash of the kind that gets you stealthily and then never lets go. It's here to represent what I think the best parts of shipping are to me: a creative drive that burns like nothing else, and a way to connect to other people's outlook on the world.

Illya Kuryakin/Napoleon Solo (The Man From U.N.C.L.E. - the 2015 movie) Even stranger picks on the list tonight! This movie, let me tell you, it took my breath away. Watched in in cinema with a friend, then dragged another friend to see it again, joined social media groups, went to a shippers' meetup, had a crush on a girl there, turns out she was already dating someone - let's just say, it was the whole nine yards. An emotional rollercoaster. I wake up sometimes having dreamed of a world where things are different - for example, the movie had several sequels, there was no reason to permanently move from my hometown, I'm out there at more shipper's meetups having infatuations, life's beautiful... Well. At least I have re-watches of this movie, and good fics to read about this ship.

Honorable mentions (Couldn't pick just one, sorry) Now, there could be many honorable mentions for ships I've loved and love to this day. - Ones like Aziraphale/Crowley, Merthur and Spirk, that illicit obsession every time I touch upon their respective fandoms (Good Omens, Merlin and Star Trek). Maybe one day I'll have the bravery to put out the snippets I've written about them. All three have made me cry, and burn with fury, and smile like nothing else. - Or ones like Rinch (hello there Person of Interest people! I'm not sure any of you read this far), which were and still are like flame to the heart, but I've been asked for five, and that story is not yet finished for me.

There are yet others I have no time to mention, too rare or too controversial. But maybe there will be time someday. After all, it's been twelve years - here's to twelve more!

[gendervapor14]

oh fuck i hit 400k words. !! ??

big ol genramble below ♥️

wow!! it's super weird seeing it recorded like this. hasn't even been a year of posting! i've been writing fanfic and reading fanfic for YEARS (started around 2016?) but i didn't get out of my lurker seat and make an account until sepetember of 2022 i believe. i started writing 01746 in late july when i had a MASSIVE chunk of free time, which is where over half of this word count came from. and there are a few random oneshots i posted that i actually wrote back in like. april of 2022 or something random like that. so yes, it isn't like i sat down in september, fresh into the fandom, fresh into writing fanfic or writing in general, and threw up 400k. i'm absolutely insane actually so this shit just kinda happened. i'll probably miss 500k because i don't check my stats much so i'm getting all the internal celebration out now, lmao

nothing will stop me from writing, but i have to thank everyone who encouraged me to continue immensely. sure, i've got a lot of wacky ideas of my own, but if it weren't for my buddies here on tumblr, ao3, and the villain server, i don't think over half these fics would even exist. and i think my writing quality has improved as well!! ya'll give me so much encouragement and validation, it is insane. i absolutely did not expect to find so many friends and likeminded people who genuinely enjoy my stories (and my original character??) and continue to support me throughout all my niche phases. (and god knows what niche phases are next...)

that being said. i have SO MANY wips lying around. some days i just sit there in an unproductive slump because i'm so worried i'll never be able to finish all the projects in my head. 400k is baffling to me because everything on my ao3 dash feels like the very tip of the iceberg. we haven't even scratched the surface of the stories i wanna get out there. not even close.

well. anyway. one last thanks to everyone who's supported me in any way!! you are all so so lovely. i'm not gonna tag everyone because. god. that'd be like. almost everyone i follow! XD

stay frosty out there ♥♥♥

this where i'm at mentally. reflecting upon everything.

[sinceileftyoublog]

Robert Finley Interview: Something to Laugh About

BY JORDAN MAINZER

The most stunning and heartbreaking song on blues singer Robert Finley's latest album Black Bayou (Easy Eye Sound), is made up. On album closer "Alligator Bait", the narrator--at first talking rather than singing--describes trudging through the swamp, his grandfather having just purchased for him a pair of hip boots. Backed by Kenny Brown's spindly guitars, Eric Deaton's slinky bass, and Jeffrey Clemens' slow-burning, stomping drums, Finley's gruff voice tells the story of this character wading around, waiting for something to happen. He accidentally steps on an alligator's back, thinking it's a log; his grandfather shoots the gator after it reacts. Matter-of-fact, Finley states, darkly humorous, "A lotta kids got ate like that." But on the second half of the song, he sings, wailing like a bluesman who had his heart broken. Only this time, he's taken aback by familial betrayal, realizing his grandfather had only bought him the hip boots and told him to enter the swamp in order to use him as alligator bait. When the narrator goes home to tell his father, his father laughs and brushes him aside, confessing that the same thing happened to him when he was a kid. Most of us face a mini existential crisis when we learn our parents aren't perfect. The narrator of "Alligator Bait", on the other hand, has just learned of his own dispensability.

When I spoke to Finley over the phone a few days before Black Bayou was released in late October, he confessed, "'Alligator Bait' was supposed to be cheerful. I didn't want to make him look like a mean old grandpa. It's just something to laugh about," before pausing and adding, "Maybe it'll make some kids stay away from the creek." Indeed, seven years into his improbable comeback, Finley views his role as a singer and entertainer as twofold: meeting the audience at the heart while simultaneously giving them advice, telling them the barebones truth when other authority figures won't. On Black Bayou, he reckons with ideas of homesickness and loneliness, lust and love, selflessness and salvation. Buoyed by longtime collaborator Dan Auerbach of The Black Keys, Finley wrote all of the songs in the studio, and his familiarity with his supporting cast of musicians resulted in songs that were both efficiently recorded and emotionally acute. Brown's guitar winces with longing on "Livin' Out A Suitcase" as Finley's tired of traveling. On "Waste Of Time", a song that sees Finley taking pride in rural living even if it means missing out on opportunities provided by cities, the buzz-saw guitars and Clemens' clattering percussion yield a perfect maximalism to go along with Finley's claims that, yes, there's still a lot to digest right outside your doorstep. "There are so many guys down here with super talent," Finely said. "They haven't been exposed to the right places."

In fact, Finley's daughter and grandaughter, Christy Johnson and LaQuindrelyn McMahon, offer a prototype. Like many musicians and singers in rural Louisiana, Johnson had long been singing at church, specifically in the youth choir before she started traveling with her father, joining him on his 2019 America's Got Talent stint and eventually recording background vocals on 2021's autobiographical Sharecropper's Son. And Finley insisted to Auerbach on McMahon singing backup on Black Bayou, though she's also in her own band, according to Finley. After all, there's not much of a difference between blues and gospel music. As Finley puts it, it's just "Oh, baby!" versus "Oh, lord!"

Really, Finley feels his songs could essentially soundtrack various milestones or important events in life. He made sweet doo wop outlier "Lucky Day" for others. "It's a wedding song. It's for people celebrating their 50th anniversary," he said. "It's one of those songs you can use in different situations." In contrast, he describes "Susie Q"-esque lurker "What Goes Around Comes Around" as "basically scripture," even as he sings lines like, "I got my whiskey and my woman / I ain't worried about a thing." Living the way you want and keeping to yourself can be a holy exercise, too. "They're the true facts. No sugarcoating," Finley said, adding, "Something the preacher ain't gonna say. They'd kick him out the church!"

The line between Finley's performance as authentic versus an act is not one he's really ultimately concerned with, as the very fact that he's gotten here is surreal. "I'm living my childhood dream at my age," he said. "I get a chance to express myself. To be able to go back and look at myself on film to see how I've made a fool of myself." Multiple times throughout our conversation, he referred to himself as in total service of the audience, wanting to make them laugh, wanting to make their lives easier, even if he needs to paint himself as a sinner or dunce in order to do so. Still, he has his head on his shoulders. "There's a difference between acting a fool and being a fool," Finley said. "One means you're a really good actor because you can act crazy, and the other says, 'You're fucking crazy for real.'" Find me a preacher who'd admit that!

[magpiefngrl]

Fandom Wishes 2022

Thank you @etalice for tagging me! I'm going to call them Wishes too, since my main goal for the year is to lessen the stress of setting goals and signing up for stuff and biting more than I can chew etc etc

I've given some thought to my intentions for the year, life and writing-wise, but here I'm going to focus only on my fannish ones:

Read more, esp longer fics. I’ve said before that I read very little fanfic in 2021; not only that, but rarely did I start anything over 3-4k. Lately, however, I've been in a real mood for lengthier works. I've been tearing through 20-30k fics and am looking forward to the longer ones. There's a lot of fic to catch up on, and although I've got a book TBR list as long as my arm, I'd like to make time to include fanfic in my monthly reading. read a few

Enjoy fandom when I can. I struggled to phrase this but what I mean is this: in the past year or two, I've distanced myself from fandom, which was beneficial for many reasons, but also because it gave me the clarity to examine what I want out of such a community. It can be easy to feel pressured by a need to do more: more reading/writing/interactions/events/fests/commenting/reblogging etc. I'm fully-employed now, unlike before, my circumstances have changed drastically, so all I have time for is to lurk. I look at art, I read some fic, occasionally I might rec something. It's not a lot, but this is all I have time for and this is what makes me happy, so, for the foreseeable future, lurker it is. done

That being said, I do want to finish one fanfic WIP. Which I wanted to do last year too but ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. I've got a fair few WIPs and of course I'd like to finish all of them but, at the very least, I want to get one done and posted. Just one, dear fandom gods, please. DONE!

Something that occurred to me now and it's not quite fandom-related is this: many years ago, back when I first joined GYWO, I used to post a writing review at the end of the month (how much I'd written, which WIPs I worked on etc). I stopped doing it when I got into a long writing block, but I feel ready to go back to it again. Or maybe something like the Six Sentence Sunday, which was quite motivating in the summer, even though it felt like speaking into the void. Sometimes I avoid sharing lines because the snippet I have is so terrible and I feel embarrassed, but I think it might be a good idea to work through the shame of sharing less-than-good writing. So, I guess, my last intention is to come up with a way to reflect on my writing for the month or share bits of it, as a way to track my progress. still working on that one

Hmmm...who to tag? I think everyone has done it by now. Let's see if @coriesocks @trixietricoter @aibidil and @sixappleseeds feel like doing it? Also, if you haven't been tagged but wish you had: here's me tagging you!

Happy 2022!

[serinesaccade]

hey are you ok? you haven't been active in a long time and I got worried

i am now here in a blaze of slightly blinding light, responding to my much overdue inbox messages from you kind incredible souls

i am okay! thank you for checking in! i do occasionally disappear from the internets because I hate internet-ing from my phone rather than a proper laptop and because I would categorize myself as a natural “lurker.” i feel very awkward appearing after absences and even when people are nothing but kind I’m like “well I didn’t respond to their message within 12 hours so I’m Late and cannot respond for another 5 months and also must Disappear from the Public Square so they do not see me cavorting whilst not responding to their message. GOODBYE”

i am sorry for the absence and any concern generated! i very much appreciate you!! have a lovely week