#finishit

What exactly makes Finish It! so wonderful?

There are so many reasons!

The Yule brothers are both hilarious, and the book they're reading at any one time is the fuel for goofs and riffs. They're both excellent improvisers and they have such a fantastic rapport. This is the funniest podcast I know.

They also clearly love each other a whole lot. Whenever there's some competition or disagreement between them, it takes very little time for them to end up switching sides and advocating for each other because neither wants to see the other lose. They do the podcast because it gives them an excuse to spend time together. The brotherly love fills the entire show, and it gives the final product such a friendly, lovely vibe.

The show has the best music. Every episode includes at least a few bits of music. They call them "jangles" (originally from the joke that they're not good enough to be actual "jingles"). Sometimes they use music loops, but sometimes they record all the music themselves. You can check out the show's soundcloud, which isn't updated very often but still has some good representations.

The fandom is small but mighty. The show's discord is a great time. We're all friendly and accepting and kind. We've written our own interactive fiction pieces before, as a group. We do "Fantasy Finish It" for each book (where we make predictions about a book before they've started reading it; the books are completely unpredictable and wild).

The show's premise allows for constant creativity. After they finished the first book (Cave of Time), one of the brothers (Matt) developed a piece of fanfic for it, in the form of an audio drama that played at the end of episodes until it was finished. It was so well written, and it did such a good job of exploring characters and plotlines that hadn't gotten satisfying ends in the book. They're made multiple musicals, where the entire episode is a musical in which they go through their reads and also weave a full plot. The first one was a rock opera inspired by the book, Space Vampire, and it is so, so good. You could start by listening to that episode, if your interest is piqued.

There are traditions and holidays. Every episode, they read the first line of the book in its entirety. Before they finish the book, they write a "first sentence song" with it. After they finish the book, the other brother adds a verse to a "We Didn't Start the Fire" parody that covers all the book's protagonist's deaths (and goes a bit faster and a bit higher in pitch each verse, because why not). Every episode, one brother will interrupt the others' read to tell some thematically-appropriate "fun" fact that the interrupted brother pretends to hate. Whenever they both accidentally do the same read in a week, they have to punish themselves with a "sad pizza party." On certain holidays, they read holiday-specific books--and that's the only time they read those books in a year.

I'm not doing a good job explaining how and why Finish It is so good. Just... It is, okay? It is. Honest.

If you want to start listening, you have some options:

Start at the very beginning. This is what I did (although, I started listening when they were still in the first book). I think it's wonderful because you get to hear all origins of the running jokes and traditions.

Start with the most recent episode. You won't know why they have sad pizza parties. You won't know why every episode ends with one brother saying "Make sure to keep your business drier than yourself." This will increase the absurdity, certainly.

Start with the first episode covering a particular book. Here's a list of some of the starting points (and a few other key episodes).

Join the discord, and ask for suggestions based on your likes or interests.