#but i've wasted a Lot of words on subplot

[vergeltvng]

SPOILERS for The Boys Season 4

I'm still processing the final episode but here are some of my random thoughts, in no particular order. It was a wild ride and I enjoyed it for the most part. The season had its lows for sure and I'll never forgive the writers for how they treated Hughie. I'm still fucking mad about everything they did to him after episode 5. I also felt like they wasted a lot of potential with Annie's arc. She's been through a lot after season 3 and I loved the idea of her having an identity crisis but it was just so poorly executed. It all felt messy and as if the writers had no conclusion in mind for both her and Hughie's plotlines. Unfortunately I couldn't find myself caring a lot about Frenchie's and Kimiko's subplots which is sad because I love these two. I was hoping they get to kill that bitch Little Nina and Kimiko getting her revenge on the SLLA. Both could have happened this season before they got separated in the end. Instead we've been put on hold to wait if these plots get resolved at all. Firecracker and Sage were great additions, I loved to hate Firecracker and Sage gives off endboss vibes for me. I still feel like she's gonna betray Homelander in the end. Can't wait for "phase two". A-Train's arc was great, he truly redeemed himself and him showing up at the flat iron to save the others was proof enough for me how serious he was about doing the right thing. I liked all of his scenes with MM, too. I loved Ashley this season, I hope she gains some badass powers and kicks everyone's ass. I've seen some complaints about Homelander being nerfed - are we watching the same show? He is fucking unhinged and more terrifying than ever. He is basically god by the end of the season and can (and will) do whatever the fuck he wants with no one in his way. Someone telling me that's not scary?! He is and always will be one of the best villains in tv history. Poor kid Ryan, he deserved better. How is he ever supposed to feel safe around Homelander and Butcher phrasing it that way was downright evil and manipulative towards the boy because he knew it would make Ryan feel insecure and cornered. Him pushing and killing Grace was in self-defense. His reaction afterwards however is concerning and I guess ambiguous for interpretation on purpose. I still don't get how some people in the fandom could hate on a 12 year old child so much, leave the kid alone.

Where do I start when it comes to Butcher? I have many thoughts and this text is already long but I'll give it a shot anyway. Obviously I'm biased because I love this man and will defend him to the very end. I think his arc was one of the better aspects, he is still one of the best written characters on the show. What I always loved about him was him being truly morally grey and the ambiguity in his words and actions. He cannot be trusted. I don't know if it's me but Karl's performance makes him actually a lot more likeable than he deserves. He is a bad person and I don't think this is negotiable. I have thought about this so many times in made-up scenarios and I stick with my opinion that there's no fixing him and there never was. I have tried to stay away from fandom discourse as much as I could for my own well-being but I don't get how people act surprised and as a result hate over his behavior and decisions. I think most were true to his character and also him killing Neuman made perfect sense and was a well-deserved payoff narratively. Not that I'm not mad at him for doing so! I loved Vicky and she was such an interesting character. But his final words in season 3 were "that bitch has to go" and one of his main goals across the whole season was to get that virus to kill her. He was absolutely clear about it and worked towards this goal on his own terms, not even under the influence of Kessler. Certainly Kessler pushed him to commit some of his atrocities but it matched with what he wanted himself. He drew the line when it came to supe genocide and was conflicted about it initially but one of his core themes is doing whatever it takes and losing his humanity on his chosen path. Since he is highly intelligent he knows very well what's wrong with him what emphasises even more that he actively chooses to do bad things rather than being impulsive and regretful afterwards. I personally loved his turn at the end and I am eager to see his villain arc. What's not to love about evil daddy?! I could go on about some of the dynamics between him and Kessler but I'll do that in another post maybe.

[ananke-xiii]

My ranking of SPN seasons (based only on their PLOT) pt. 1

Okay so I've finally watched all 15 seasons of Supernatural and, I must say, what a journey!

The show has releaved itself to be a pleasant surprise, I've learned a lot thanks to it. I must confess that I had strong prejudices against it and had been avoiding it all these years because I thought it was... well, tbh not worthy.

Of course, since now I am here writing about it, it's useless to say that I was wrong. It's not the perfect show, sometimes it's not even a good show, but for sure it's an enjoyable, interesting and exciting show.

The following ranking is based solely on the plot (and subplot) of each seasons and my personal opinion about it.

15. Season 14: Frankly, I don't know what to say about this season, LOL. There is no real plot. We are led to believe that the story will revolve around Dean being possessed by Michael, okay. Basically Michael!Dean from the AU goes to Earth 1 to create an army of monsters (?) but then says bye bye to Dean and leaves (??), but oh wait, no, he re-possesses him (???), and then the army disappears (???) and then he gets trapped in Dean's mind and then he posseses Rowena (???????????). In the mean time, Jack is sick, dies, gets rescued by Castiel who makes a crazy deal with The Empty, then kinda goes crazy and starts killing angels (?????) and then gets killed by God. He also accidentally kills Mary Winchester (???????) in the process. I dont' get it, okay? Maybe it's just me! At any rate, we discover that Michael can possess whoever he wants since he easily changes his vessel without consent multiple times. This fact alone contradicts the whole of season 5 (Dean is the chosen one, the one and only Michael's vessel, hello writers?). Finally, the whole Nick/Lucifer thing. I get it, Mark Pellegrino was GREAT as Lucifer, I loved him, I wanted to see more of him. But his subplot was nonsense and meh. So, yes, the plot was bad. Reeeeeal bad.

14. Season 15: One of the the fun things about Supernatural is, for me, the fact that it doesn't take itself too seriously. Throughout the whole series we have continuous meta incursions and I find that extremely interesting. However, I think that with the final season they went too far. The plot (kiling the manipulative and frankly insufferable God) is stimulating enough until the episode named "The Trap". After that, I felt like the writers didn't know how to fill the remaining episodes until the end and just wasted half of the show on basically nothing really noteworthy. Also, one could totally see that the main worry was not the plot but trying to tie all loose ends off. It was unsuccessful. I would have preferred a well-executed plot rather than a plot that aimed at"filling in" all the gaps of a 15-year-old TV show (read: it's almost impossible, also unnecessary). The final episode was just bad, like really really bad. The plot was resolved by episode 19, so the last episode really felt like something made to end the show forever, kill everyone off and never talk about them anymore. It didn't make any sense at all.

13. Season 7: I didn't hate season 7 per se, but the plot was not great. Like season 15, the season starts off strong with the main event but then it drags itself out until the end. There's no meat in between. The gist is to kill the Leviathans, the subplot is Sam's confronting Lucifer's mental abuse. The most interesting stuff (aka the introduction of the Word of God) happens around the last 3 episodes. This is one of those seasons that are needed to "connect" different points in the myth-arc, however it was not done brilliantly. I felt like Bobby's death was not necessary to the events, it was poorly done for emotional sake. The"Dick jokes" are funny at first, then they are tiresome. After a while I couldn't take the characters seriously, it was all one big dick joke after another, please stop. At the end, we find out that the whole subplot was utterly useless: Castiel shifts the Sam's mental problem from Sam's mind to his, goes crazy in exchange, ultimately to be cured once he's in Purgatory. I'm sorry, what? Also: the Leviathans (the close-to unkillable monsters the heroes have been fighting for the whole series) become just "regular monsters" and that's it. I'm sorry, WHAT?!

12. Season 3: This season contains arguably some of the best episodes of the whole show. The 2007-2008 Writers Guild of America Strike affected the way the plot was planned (I presume) but I think it was for good. As a result, the plot is clean, simple, easy: the heroes need to rescue Deam from the demonic deal he has made. I like when there's a sort of "deadline" in the plot, it keeps things interesing for me. That's it, that's the plot. There's no subplot either. So why this low in the ranking? WELL. The first half of the show made me very uncomfortable. The jokes sounded very, very problematic and I had a very hard time finishing the episodes. Now I know this has nothing to do with the plot, but hey. It made me feel uneasy and the ranking is mine so ranking n. 12 it is!

11. Season 6: I appreciated the writers' attempt with this season. Basically, both the plot and the two main subplots make zero to no sense until the end, when we discover "the truth". As a matter of fact, until episode 19 we don't really understand what's going on. The plot seems to be the hunting of the Alphas and, eventually, of the Mother of them all: Eve. One subplot seems to be a civil war in Heaven, although we are only told about it and never see anything. The other subplots is Sam being soulless + the fact that now he's been hunting with his resurrected grandfather who, in turn, was resurrected by Crowley and now works under him (LOL). For the plot and the first subplot to make sense the missing link is this: Castiel and Crowley have been pulling the strings all along without the heroes' knowing. For the subplot... well, for the subplot (Sam being soulless), too LOL. Cas and Crowley are having an "affair of sorts" and plan to open the door to Purgatory to take souls from there and use them as... energy? Yeaaah. I liked the "whoaa I didn't see it coming" factor. HOWEVER, for it to REALLY make sense one needs to acknowledge Cas and Crowley relationship. Like, seriously, the reason why everything starts to go wrong (and interesting) is because Dean feels "betrayed" by Cas. Which makes zero sense. But I digress. What I want to say is that the turning point of the plot is understated unless you get the "romantic" implications. It's left to the audience to get it but, honestly, I didn't get it at first so I didn't get why the characters were so angry at Cas and why Cas didn't tell Dean about his affair with Crowley. Then when you get it, you get it but anyway the plot is not the best the show has to offer.

[redux-iterum]

Question for you both. Did you the amount of plot you've condensed surprise you? After all, Tigerstar was the cause of a lot of unnecessary fluff, before and after his death. I can't help but wonder how much stuff is going to be cut and rearranged before you reach the lake lol. -Formerly known as Ravenwing anon, now an anon no longer!

LYNX: Yes and no. A lot of excess fluff in Warriors is due to page-filling exercises of hunting and patrolling and (more relevant to TPB) getting into pointless battles. Time that could've been spent developing characters or culture or going into further detail for the plot. I've yet to see the exact numbers on this, but the core series books are 60k-65k words long, with a full arc being roughly 375k words long. A Kindling is 102k words long, Burning Hearts is 93k, and Charred Legacy is shaping up to be roughly 150k words long, and I have no idea how long the final book will be so I'll just lowball it with 100k words. That's probably going to pan out to 445k words in total, longer than the median length of an arc.

I think Warriors' issues are more of a consequence of focus. They have so much to do, but too little time to do it. I unfortunately wasn't able to read Thunder, but at least from what I heard, Frostpaw developed entirely off-page. Closing out her chapter she is learning to relax and opening up her next she's like, "I KNOW ALL," like, something's missing here. An older example: Into the Wild skips two months from Firepaw joining the Clan to meeting Yellowfang for the first time. The story just tells us he's gotten more acquainted with Thunderclan without letting us see it, preventing us from getting to know his Clanmates and their culture more. Why not develop myths of the Legendary Clans? Why not let Firepaw babysit for Frostfur? Why not let the characters breathe?

Reading a Warriors book feels a lot like being at an airport: hurry up and wait. Hurry along the plot, but then suffer another damn hunting scene shut up shut up shut up no one cares about your stupid mouse this is not relevant to the plot nor interesting in any way.

DULLARD: No longer in the void of anonymity! Welcome!

As for the question, we did actually just cut two chapters for being unnecessary fluff. Those chapters took up an entire subplot in canon and wasted some valuable time. I think you'll figure out which subplot that is once chapters start being posted.

I would say that the changes made to remove fluff aren't what surprised me. Rather, it was the stuff we kept. We largely have the same foundations as canon, just simultaneously condensed and expanded upon. In some areas, we did swap stuff out for something we consider more interesting, but it's remarkable how many things still remain. Granted, they're going to be painted in a different color, but they're still there.

[plusultraetc]

Liza's School Briefs 1 Review (1/2)

School Briefs 1 saved me from my reading slump, thank u School Briefs 1.

I actually did read a ton these past few weeks, both long fics I've been chipping away at and my physical TBR, and I feel like reading this book with the intention of writing some kind of review was what finally booted my brain back into book mode (hi alliteration). If I can finish my current read by my next bookstore visit I am picking up the second one so fast !!

It's been a minute since I typed up a full, actual book review, so this might be even more disorganized than my usual word salad. I am reaching back for those bookstagram skills but the arms of memory are not quite long enough 😔 I did stick a lot of page tabs in this book to help me out, because old habits die hard, or they don't die at all, but page tabs are pretty and I'm one of those people who can't write in my books, even the ones I intend to keep. Idk, I just can't do it </3 Also do you know how difficult it was to not stage a full 2020 era bookstagram photo for this post. Do you know.

Overall, I really enjoyed this! It was cute, and the illustrations were so <3 <3 There were definitely some things I could live without (mostly comments from Mineta and Midnight, which are def also present in the main series, but I feel like they were even more over the top in this book?? Like??? I genuinely found myself grimacing at times while reading, it was very uncomfy). Also, Uraraka, Tsu, and Yaoyorozu's sidequest, while incredibly cute, was definitely... ig a 'the girls that get it get it, and the girls that don't don't' moment and I did not get it. Why were we so obsessed with underwear in this book. ANYWAY ON TO THE TABS.

Starting off strong with Todoroki's Sick Burns (no pun intended). He really tried to come for Sero's 'Funniest Bakugou Takes' crown in this book. Todoroki's subplot was actually my favorite thing about this story--more on that in a moment.

Also, this made me so 🥺 He fit in so well with 1-A from the start that it's easy to forget Midoriya was decently unpopular in middle school. The palpable social anxiety in this line is so real.

Can we talk about the Todorokis... (actively dissolving into a puddle of tears) can we please talk about the Todorokis... Rei tries so hard in this book. FUYUMI tries so hard. Their storyline was such a tender thread running through what was otherwise an incredibly goofy book. There were some aspects of like, Todoroki Family Life(TM) that I had never given much thought to? Like how Todoroki's poor social skills among his own age group had probably impacted his (and Fuyumi's) life pre-UA, the responses of other characters like Midoriya, Iida, and Aizawa to what they respectively know about his situation, etc. It was just. Really ough. Augh. Alack, if you will.

TODOROKI STAND UP COMEDY TOUR. I live for Shouto & Fuyumi & Natsuo interactions, my skin is clear and my crops are watered. Shouto & Fuyumi were so precious in this.

I talked about this scene already, but omg how I loved the entire staff room chapter. I've always found the UA faculty as a concept deeply entertaining (what do you MEAN the superheroes are teachers. 'Sorry, I can't hang out after school. I have to study for a test in Batman's class.') and this chapter was just. So silly. I love them.

Really quick, do you think they ever get tired of being so everything to me? Aizawa spends this entire scene rolling his eyes at the other teachers' bs-ing and wasting time, deliberately not getting involved, but of course Mic still manages to drag him into it. Just couldn't help yourself could you.

AIZAWA STAND UP COMEDY TOUR.

[demetriandelibinaryboyfriends]

WAIT UR THE ‘demitri and eli take a gay little road trip to find miguel’ GUY?? I LOVE THAT FIC OMG

YES HI I'm That Guy!!! That's my fic!!! Thank you for still noticing and reading it!!! <3 <3 <3

TBH it hasn't been getting a lot of comments or interaction lately, so I wasn't sure if people were still following it or really thinking about it much D: I definitely am going to continue and I have pretty solid plans up through about Chapter 13, but I got caught up in good old Adult Things (got a car part stolen and had to speedrun finding a job, and by some insane miracle I landed a good one???) and had to sorta get my life together for a while. I was also pretty bummed and discouraged that the Elimetri fandom kinda fizzed out after S5, and the hype that was there after S3 and S4 seems few and far between these days </3 And when someone DOES show up and get hyped about my boys, it always seems like they get bored after like 2 weeks and vanish into the ether again D: I feel like an immortal roaming the ruins of a once great and thriving civilization akjsalksufhdulrh

BUT ALL THAT TO SAY this is really encouraging <3 <3 Love that people are still invested, and now that my life has stabilized a bit, I may actually get Chapter 7 done ^^; The canon Mexico plotline was the most underwhelming thing I've ever seen in my entire life (and Season 5 as a whole and I just...did not really Vibe for a lot of reasons), and it's frustrating because like!!! Why would you introduce this grand epic quest for Miguel to find his dad and learn about his Dark Past™️ and then have it be over in 5 minutes and reveal nothing interesting whatsoever about Hector!!! Like if the point was to have Johnny prove he could be a good father figure to Miguel after all and to cause conflict between Miguel and Sam, then there were like...ways to do that without yeeting Miguel to another country with no ultimate character development or narrative payoff :/

And they really expect me to believe Miguel and Robby sat in petty stony silence the whole several-hour drive home and didn't even try to talk through ANY of their issues??? Didn't have ANY road trip bonding whatsoever??? WHAT A FUCKING WASTE. LAME.

ANYWAYS. I know a lot of people were against the Mexico subplot from the jump (mainly because of the potential problematic directions the show could go with it I think), but I might have been in the minority in being excited for it and thinking it had a lot of potential to see a world outside the Valley. Potential which it...did not fill at all. Like at least show us what sketch-ass shit Hector actually DOES!!! My god!!! Also not Robby being like "I wanna make things right with Miguel!!!" and then...clearly not doing that. Like considering their apartment brawl later was the first time Robby has shown onscreen remorse for what he did to Miguel, Robby didn't even apologize in the car ride on the way back??? Or speak a single word to Miguel about the whole, like...Paralysis Incident??? For all Miguel knows, Robby was tagging along just for kicks ajhdsukhfuyh

The whole thing is a mess tbh. I blame rushed production for S5. Deadass thank god for the writer's strike??? Maybe with more time for the writers to actually do their jobs, S6 will give its plotlines some room to breathe.

SO YES, long story short, I wanna do this plot thread some justice and also have my OTP be gay as shit the whole time <3 And give Miguel the epically dangerous adventure of self-discovery he deserves while ultimately still showing him he is very loved and does not need his shitty biological dad!!! God bless!!!

Thank you again for sliding into my inbox about this fic, I am always looking for motivation to keep going with it :D

(For anyone who doesn't know, the first 6 chapters of the fic in question are posted on my AO3, SummerPhlox!)

[time-to-write-and-suffer]

IF writers write one single book/game that's good first before you plan a series of barely coherent fanfic tropes mashed together instead of an overarching plot challenge <3

I like series personally. I mean not wayhaven length long series but I like duologies and trilogies. I feel like it gives the romance more depth and time to be fleshed out whereas in some stand alone IFs I've read the romance was barely developed before it actually happened, but at the same time the story I tend to like more in the standalone because sometimes in multiple book series it can be dragged out. But Wayhaven is on another level of dragging out, I think it would have done well with being 3 or 4 books long. Idk what other plot will be able to make it seven. I think it would have also made for a solid duology if the story was better paced and the characters and story beats were better written though. One of my main issues with some IF finished or unfinished is the way the romance is written, idk how to explain but a lot of them and how they develop I'm not the biggest fan of or either that or some of the romance options feel 1 dimensional and the mc has no sense of agency whatsoever. On the other hand there are some ifs I've also really enjoyed so I guess it depends. I would love to know more about your opinions on this topic. I think it's a really interesting point and I enjoy reading your thoughts on different topics.

Thank you, that's very sweet of you to say! ^^ And enables me to do more self-important rambling. Although I would love to hear more about why some romances work for you and others don't, since I'm maybe gonna try my hand at writing an IF eventually.

Ok, back to the thing.

Honestly my main issue isn't that there's series, it's that it's often pretty blatant that they're a series solely for the sake of being a series? And not because the author actually has enough material to justify having multiple releases. You feel me?

So like, yeah! If you're using the extra time to develop characters and plot and flesh out the world, if there's a clear progression of events and things are evolving and happening, then obviously write a series! But if you just go "Oh I have all these fun ideas but there's NO way they'll fit into one or two books, it simply MUST be a trilogy/quadrilogy/pentalogy etc etc" without even planning shit out? It's like ... Ok you have a lot of ideas but did you ... do anything with them? Do you have a plan of where you're going? A lot of the time I see announcements of "This will be a trilogy/series!" before the first book is even finished so like ... How do you know. And then you get to the second book and you realize, oh, you didn't know. You just made that up.

And you can say that "Omg Eff, you don't KNOW how these authors operate, maybe they did plan and figure stuff out and your standards are just different and snobby and rude!" and maybe you'd be correct. But I've now read several multiple-book series where you could remove entire chapters, subplots, and yes, one entire BOOK, without changing the status quo or disrupting any character development at all, by just tightening up the writing and shuffling events into previous or next books. I've also read books that were firsts in a series and came away thinking "Okay? Um? Where is this going, exactly? What's the overarching plot? Why should I keep playing this?"

When it gets to that point, I just feel like ... What are you doing, ya know? How are you outlining this shit that things are just randomly happening for no reason. Subplots dropped entirely without a word. Character development stagnating because you've planned all their progression for a different book so in this one they can't do anything to evolve at all. Why is this a series if you're wasting so much time faffing about in one spot until you've stamped the earth into a flat circle.

Also, if you'll allow me to get pretentious for a moment, as a Gamer who's studying Gaming for my Gaming Degree, I feel that the medium of IFs isn't as close to books as people believe just because it's primarily a written medium. You can have plenty of books where people faff about doing fuck-all. Those are generally not good books, but it's excused because of the medium. The author has complete authority over the progression, and the reader is along for the ride, their only choice is whether they engage or not.

However, with IFs, because you've added player interaction into the mix, the things that you put in front of the player need to be justified, need to be worth interacting with. You've already sacrificed a portion of your authority for the sake of player empowerment, so you need to give the player something to DO with the authority you've given them. If you have entire sections of a game where the player becomes too aware of how little their actions matter, how little thought you've put into what you're presenting, how the only thing they're able to change is the replies to a character's words, it becomes less of someone enjoying reading a story and more of a chore to click through the pointless options and watching your character do fuck-all to change any outcomes.

When you write a book where characters faff about, that's your choice as the author. You have absolute authority and can decide when the faffing stops.

But when you write a game, you need to engage the player, you can't faff about forever. The story does not exist without them. The things you put in need to be there for a reason, because someone, by definition, by design, will be on the other end poking and prodding at it, and if you put in shit that doesn't need to be there, then you're wasting your own effort and also the player's time.

Idk. Does that make sense?

I also disagree that single-book romances tend to be worse, IMO they usually work better for me because they're actually planned and structured as stories, as the rest of the books. If you need to rely on word counts in the millions to tell a romance, that's not great, methinks. IFs also give you plenty of time and word count for romances, as well. Like, a 100k fantasy romance is on the longer end for a book, but an IF with a 100k word count would be considered on the shorter end, so readers are plenty ready for much longer word counts and it's even a selling point, usually.

So there's really no reason to justify having multiple books to write a good romance. An IF has no material reason to fit standard tradpub guidelines, so if you need bigger word counts, it's like, go wild. One counterargument would be that IFs romance routes are generally shorter than romance books, because all that WC doesn't actually go to the individual romances but is split up between regular plot, variations and other routes, but again, there's nothing really stopping you from writing as much as you want.

There's also the problem of most IFs having a lot of romance options, but they all tend to be different people with different romance timelines, so stretching out every romance to a slow-burn in different ways just for the sake of giving every route something to hook the player in each book becomes kinda tedious and transparent eventually. So I think multiple-book romances aren't a guarantee to be better than single-book romances (not that you were claiming this, I'm just out on a mind journey rn, apologies).

Anyway, that last bit got a bit off-topic and I'm already seeing some holes in my argument that I don't wanna think about lest this post becomes infinite, but, uh ... There ya go! :')

In the end, I think it's not about what's better, but about structuring, and having a vision, and not wasting my gotdam time and attention and money just because someone couldn't write a proper outline or self-edit. Single-book IFs have just been better at showing restraint and artistic vision in my experience, hence why I generally side-eye any upcoming IF or demo that advertises itself as the first in a series.

Cuz I just don't trust like that anymore.

[kevinsreviewcatalogue]

Review: The Funhouse (1981)

The Funhouse (1981)

Rated R

<Originally posted at https://kevinsreviewcatalogue.blogspot.com/2023/10/review-funhouse-1981.html>

Score: 2 out of 5

Where classic slashers from the genre's golden age are concerned, The Funhouse stands out as a serious disappointment. It had Tobe Hooper returning to the slasher genre seven years after The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, it boasted a carnival setting that promised some thrills and chills, and the killers were legitimately compelling in ways you don't normally get from slasher villains, so the parts were there for a great movie. What went wrong? A lot, if I'm being honest, but the biggest problems start with the characters and the pacing, which are both terminal. Throughout the film, I was constantly annoyed by the group of four teenage friends who served as this movie's focal point, and waiting for them to finally get killed. I'll give the film points for trying to develop its main characters and present a portrait of backwoods, trailer-trash Americana on the skids in the form of the sleazy carnival they go to, but when the people you're supposed to be rooting for are either loathsome or one-dimensional in such a manner that the Eight Deadly Words ("I don't care what happens to these people") have kicked in about twenty minutes into the film, all of that goes to waste. Both of the guys are sleazy horndogs, the "hot" girl of the group is a vapid airhead, and the heroine is one of the flattest, most boring, and most useless final girls I've ever seen in a horror movie, somebody who survives almost by pure luck with how many stupid mistakes she makes during the last act as she tries to fight the killer.

Having such a terrible cast made it that much more insufferable how the film stretched the obligatory twenty minutes of first-act character development into roughly half the movie. Until the main characters enter the titular funhouse, there are barely any horror elements in this film barring a fake-out opening parodying Psycho, and the first kill happens around the 45-minute mark. This meant that half the movie was spent watching these jackasses run around a carnival acting like jackasses and doing nothing to endear themselves to me, all while I was constantly checking the runtime wondering when they were finally gonna get hacked to pieces. What's more, there's an entire subplot involving the heroine's little brother that contributes absolutely nothing, feeling like it was there solely to pad the runtime without any payoff. The kid is briefly in danger at one point, but any tension fizzles out soon after as that is quickly resolved. The intent of the subplot felt like it was to give the protagonists hope for a rescue only to snatch it away, but again, I cared nothing about their fate, and consequently wound up more interested in the kid's own peril instead, a subplot that ultimately didn't go anywhere. In a film with better-written protagonists, spending that much time developing them so we come to care more about their deaths would've been a laudable creative decision. Here, however, it meant that the film simply dragged.

The worst part is, there were moments when a much better film was peeking through here, moments that were themselves connected to its characters -- specifically, the killers. The clown with the axe on the poster never shows up in the film, but fortunately, we do get a pair of very interesting villains, a father-and-son duo who run the titular carnival dark ride. The son is a malformed, mentally disabled freak whose father employs him as a worker on the ride while wearing a mask to cover up his hideous face, and who has a habit of killing locals in the towns the carnival travels through, with the father covering up the murders and growing increasingly frustrated having to raise him. These two could've made for the villain-protagonists of a much better movie, one about the two of them traveling with the carnival and working with all the other colorful characters who are part of it (who are all far more interesting than our actual main characters from what we see of them), all while a trail of corpses follows them with each new town they visit. Rick Baker's effects work made for a very scary-looking monster, while Kevin Conway was by far the best actor in the movie as the killer's undeniably evil yet multilayered father.

The Bottom Line

Rob Zombie should remake this movie. No, seriously. His sensibilities line up perfectly with the mood this film was trying to go for, and he'd likely avoid a lot of its worst pitfalls. As it stands, though, Hell Fest is a better version of this movie, which just has too many problems with its boring characters and sluggish pacing for me to recommend it to anyone other than the most diehard '80s slasher aficionados.

[raetttriestowrite]

The plot is dodging all attempts to write it. You can have an absurd amount of subplot and random sideways development instead.

[monkey-network]

Good Stuff: Invincible

Don't like throwing this word around, but is it wrong to say that this series is fresh? Refreshing to see a superhero series, a good one, that isn't DC or Marvel for once. Invincible is a series that seemed like no big deal at first, but this season alone has just hit differently with me in the best way. Keep in mind that I have never read Invincible, kinda wasn't aware of it for most my life, but this actually convinced me and more because this series is ballin'. Why and how is both simple and not.

If there is any downside to this, it's the romance.

Now I like Amber, apparently has the most change in character here than in the comics, but it feels too apparent that they're trying to set up Mark and Eve. Even when I can't hate the characters involved, not even Rex Splode, nothing about what's happening really had me as invested. Hell, I'm more concerned with Mark doing good for himself than I am with him trying to be in a relationship, and they did me no favors. But that is just a teaspoon to this pitcher of what I wanna say is an actual extraordinary show.

One thing that stands out the most to me about this series upon everything else is how despite being brutal and gory at times, it never feels like they overdo things. People die, but it's played straight and you're more surprised, and relieved, for whoever makes it. It does have the unfortunate downside that regular citizens basically don't have a say in getting stuck in the crossfire, no precautions or a sense that they care about the random attacks that can kill them easily. Maybe I'm just thinking of what One Punch Man does with its world, but in the least it gives our big bad of this season a nuanced point. Plus it feels natural, like the brutality and blood comes from someone putting up a genuine fight, or in Omni-Man's case show how effortlessly powerful he can be, as oppose to giving us gore/blood for shock value or to take the piss out of everything. Invincible gets his shit kicked in multiple times, but that makes his fights, and potential wins, feel more earned. Mark doesn't become the best super immediately, and you grasp that he's sincere when push comes to shove, willing to fight for his life and others. Same goes with the others, minimal as they are in appearance this season.

It's especially what makes Omni-Man such a well-faceted bastard

Another thing, and this what impressed me the most, is that it's the first cartoon I've ever known that has 40 minute episodes and they feel rewarding. From the action to the conversations, it never felt like they were wasting time. They certainly set up things for another time, but it overall allows every subplot thread to get enough of a spotlight while entertaining you well with the focal point of an episode. They allow things to slow down, but give you plenty popping off moments to make every episode move well. One could say this has some...

Overall, Invincible is a sincere superhero series. Its up there with Megamind and Kick-Ass as a show that's as much a subversive series as it is one that revels in its identity. It has its serious moments, its brutal moments, but matter-of-factly enjoys the colorful costumes, the differing powers and aliens, the soundtrack that tells us exactly what it’s doing, and the campy nature of it all. The passion in the execution is front and center; it never felt like it wanted to play you for being invested.

If season 2 onward carries the same energy and heart as the first, I'll gladly call this one of the greatest shows of the 2020s. Invincible just does a lot right, simple as it is, and I can see why the comic was popular at the time. Even when, from what I've read, they make some liberal changes to the story and characters it's a well-executed adaptation. I love that Kirkman himself is a head of this series which tells me that it's truly getting the direction it needs. There can be moments hard to stomach but Invincible is a series that knows what it wanted to do and did it more than well.

5 Out Of 5. A Superb Series for the Newly Novel Hero

[bettsfic]

Ok so I've got this issue and wanted to see what you might think. I truly and seriously love not only yr voice and fiction but I love your take on writing in general. Here's the issue. What do you do when you hit that part you don't want to write? Not meaning here like emotionally difficult or tense just like in between. Something happened, something else is coming and there's just this - empty spot. When is it acceptable to just "skip that part"?

this took me a while to consider because my gut instinct is to say, “don’t write anything you don’t want to write.”

but then i started thinking of all these caveats, because there are so many different reasons for not wanting to write something, and if you’re asking whether you should skip it, it’s probably because you shouldn’t.

what you’re specifically talking about is like the long haul between two major plot points. generally in longer works, this is where you’d thread back whatever subplot you’d established. but sometimes fanfic doesn’t have subplots, and shorter works definitely wouldn’t have them.

so rather than writing everything that happens between A and B in scene, which might drag down the plot and slow your pacing, try switching up the structure. here are some ideas:

a montage

this is what i had to do for EoE, because it came down to the Falling In Love part, which in movies is almost always told in montage. i rewrote this paragraph about a dozen times, but here’s what it ended up looking like:

He would not fuck Albus Potter. He would not.

Even though he made it a habit to kneel by Draco’s chair after Griselda had gone to bed, his head resting on Draco’s thigh, Draco playing with his hair while reading through case files. Even though he bit his bottom lip whenever Draco made the mistake of looking at him too long. Even though he came to Draco with questions from his textbooks, asking for clarification on some obscure topic he happened to know quite a lot about, and listened intently until they both realized, stunned, that hours had passed. Even though Draco found evidence every time he left the Manor that Albus had gone into his bedroom. Even though Draco could smell him on his sheets at night, or just the illusion of it, taunting him, making him imagine what kind of awful things he’d done to himself in his bed. Even though a blizzard overtook the grounds and they went outside for a walk but proceeded to chuck snowballs at one another, tumbling into a wrestling match that Draco too easily won. Even though he pinned Albus in a valley of soft snow, gloved fingers intertwined in his own, flakes in their eyelashes and faces ruddy red and numb with cold. Even though he asked over cocoa later that evening, his legs across Draco’s lap, “You have the plea written. What are we waiting for?” to which Draco wanted to say, I can’t risk losing you, but actually said, “My caseload is too heavy right now.”

what i was aiming for here was one paragraph that would show the passage of time through specific images, which is still veering closer to show over tell. rather than “and then THIS happened” i slotted it within some internal monologue.

vignettes

somewhat same idea as above, but a little longer. a vignette is a short, self-contained image, like a snapshot. imagine the passage of time as flipping through a series of pictures, and each vignette is a description of a picture. no movement. just one single image that encapsulates the scene you’re trying to write without writing the entire scene.

a frame

which is to say, move out of chronological order. go directly from A to B, but once you’ve set the scene for B, backtrack and describe in reflection what happened between the two points. 

for example, if i’m skipping ahead a year between scenes to, say, a major battle, i might go straight from entering boot camp (which i don’t want to describe) to the battle. once there, the character is in the trenches, clutching his rifle, debris falling all around him -- he’s in the thick of conflict, so i can take my time now and weave in whatever i need to.

then i go back and describe, in summary, his experience in boot camp and how he got to where he is. this way, i don’t need to waste words on elaborating too much on boot camp when what happened there might not be relevant to the plot.

zoom out

i think learning how to zoom in and out on a scene is integral to understanding pacing. when you get to a part you don’t want to write, practice zooming out. pass five years in a paragraph. zoom back in and spend a page on just one day. toss a lifetime in a single sentence.

conversely, zoom in on a scene until your writing becomes so textured it feels like a painting. describe every detail of everything you can see in your mind. 

do not zoom in so far you get trapped in a character’s head -- this exercise is for imagery, detail, and action, not internal monologue. 

once you master the lens with which you write and how closely or distantly it perceives the action of your story, it’s a lot easier to grasp pacing and gives you more tools to deal with scenes you’re not sure how to tackle. 

thanks so much for the great question! hope this helps!

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