FIC: WIP: Older, Wiser 6/6 PG-13 Gen

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Thanks so much for giving this a second look-through, Chris - you caught a great number of things that were bugging me and which I couldn't put my finger on. Thanks so much!! ((The Hive thing made me cringe especially)). Fixing for final draft.

Fifth chapter will be out soon.

[OriginalDean Venture]

Fifth chapter will be out soon.

Excellent! I'm looking forward to it! I take it the plot is nearing a climax, and, well, I'm just very keen to see what happens to Dean.

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Thanks, Chris!!

Yep, we've got a few chapters left before the series is gonna be finished off - I think it'll be done in around three to four more chapters.

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And here's the fifth chapter!

[OriginalDean Venture]

OK, I've been meaning to read the new chapter for ages, but first I had to finish my thesis, then I had a big backlog of other fics. So I'm enjoying getting to read it now!

The opening is just excellent. Everyone is still in character, particularly Molotov, but you also write a great Triana.

The banter between 21 and 24 is hilarious and true to the show. Shame it's now retconned by the show itself. No matter, this is fanfiction, after all.

“Woah, no one said anything about death,” complained The Monarch. “I just got this suit back from the cleaners!”

Hilarious line. (A minor nitpick, though: I think you could have "exclaimed" or something: "complained" just doesn't sound quite right to me, especially since you used that word a few lines earlier.)

Myra is perfectly creepy. I really feel for Dean.

The chapter ending is good and dramatic (if a bit well-worn, but then, that's par for the show).

Please, write more. I have to find out how this ends! Very suspenseful, and all the cast is in character.

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Thanks so much for R&R-ing, Chris!

Hee, I know S3 Retconned anything involving 21 + 24 being alive in the past - This fic is now DEFINATELY AU for anything after S2 - changed the disclaimer to indicate that.

Thanks so much for enjoying - I'll be finishing this one off around February

[OriginalDean Venture]

Review of the last chapter posted here. EDIT: Please disregard, it is now posted further down this thread as well.

At last, the conclusion to this! I'm quite excited. Venture Brothers fanfics are so far between (hint, hint). Particularly good ones, such as this.

showing Dean a long, jagged scar that marred the once-shadowed left side of the man’s face.

This works, but I think a slightly less cumbersome description would be something like "showing Dean a long, jagged scar that marred the side of the man's face previously in the shadow", or similar. "Once-shadowed" as an adjective seems a bit too, well, inert. (Bear in mind, this is a minor nitpick.)

The dialogue between Dean and the guy is very good, and Dean feels very much in character here. Seriously, I can see [an older version of] him saying his lines. The descriptions are as excellent as I expect from you, too.

Typo: after the paragraph ending with "He glared down at Dean.", there is an open quote mark.

Typo: "Lucreita".

Some sort of lost line:

“W-what do you want from me?” Dean wondered, wishing that he could wipe away

seems like it should be followed by something, but instead there's a new line of dialogue.

Count VonEvil! Nice. Also nice "rocks fall, everybody dies" reference.

I've been worried that the storyline is a bit too similar to "Misery" (that said, the show itself has had fairly close parodies of various works), but the guy wanting the bad guys to win is a nice twist.

Typo: "three burly man".

Wow, what an evil plan! Excellent idea.

His minions scattered, gasping and complaining about the chill of the water

Nice detail!

Myra’s head swiveled toward Dean, in a way that reminded him of a wind-up robot his father had bought him when he was three. A vague memory of an explosion, of a shudder of sparks, made him shake.

Another excellent description.

Myra looked down at little Jonas and Abby, her eyes as blank as a porcelain doll’s.

Also perfect.

"inside of the cage" should be "inside the cage".

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Dean randomly hitting the keys is another great idea. Pity it didn't work...

Brock offered, then he noticed the two children desperately treading water by his knees, Abigail treading water with her arm around her brother’s neck.

Maybe you shouldn't have "treading water" twice so closely together. I'd change it to something like "Abigail struggling with her arm" etc.

Typo: "he used his free hand to free the rest of." is obviously an incomplete sentence.

I like Dr. Orpheus trying to cast a spell.

"Someone had pressure-treated the glass, he realized, as he braced his feet against the glass" You don't need the second comma.

Also, "work loosed" should be "work loose".

Typo: "you though" should be "you thought".

The Monarch is in character!

The interaction between Brock and Molotov is great. You always write Molotov so well. The Monarch's line at the end of the scene is hilarious.

Having sent Abigail and little Jonas to safer ground outside through the grating, and the arms of 21 and 24,

I'd change it to something like "Having sent Abigail and little Jonas to safer ground outside, and the arms of 21 and 24, through the grating".

The dialogue between Brock and

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Abe

is pretty great. It's rather infodumpy, but I'm guessing it's parodying villains providing infodumps while fighting the good guys.

Typo: "BY THE MY WAISTBAND!". Though it kind of made me laugh.

You have two blank lines after the line where Abe shouts in capital letters.

but his expression showed utter incredulity as he seemed to realize that this lunatic was his brother.

Perfect.

Typo: "rouge's gallery" should be "rogue's".

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A spume of red poured from his mouth, dripped out of his mouth, as he fell forward in a twisted heap to the rug.

OK, it isn't clear from this paragraph who it is. Fix that.

I like the ending to the battle.

staring at he and Mol.

Should be "him".

I like everything about the following scene.

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21 and 24 dealing with fans, Brock and Molotov, Dean's awesome in-characterness, and the Orpheuses. Triana turning out to have magic might seem a bit over-the-top, but it doesn't take the limelight from the main characters and just generally adds to the happy ending. I like the thought of her having magic, anyway. I like Dean's "Bewitched" reference.

Love the ending.

An organic tilting of her lips followed.

Beautiful.

Again, you have two blank lines after that line, though.

OK, I'll probably have to read through this again before I give more general comments, but you know I enjoyed it. It's an exciting story, everyone is in character, and the revelation of the villain is cool and fits in well with the style of the show. The writing is great, and... it feels like Venture Brothers!

If I have a complaint, it's that there are *a lot* of characters in it, and many of them don't really seem to affect the plot. Rocket Venture is probably the biggest problem: he doesn't seem to say or do anything at all. From a purely economical perspective, you could possibly do this story with just Dean and his family, Brock and Molotov; the Monarch and his gang and JJ's family don't seem to add that much, from what I recall. But that would be quite a radical cut (I'm not saying you should do it), and those characters are nice to read about, even if they aren't central to the story.

I don't have any other complaints than that, though I think you changed the name of the antagonist in between chapters. (Of course, you might already have noticed and fixed this.)

Thank you very much for writing this, and I look forward to a finalised version. Very, very good work, and a worthy fanfic for this show.

EDIT: A couple more things I've thought about: the story seems to end up focusing more on Brock (with the antagonist's identity, and the ending), whereas it started out more focused on Dean. Also, I think the climactic scene with the word processor should be longer, since tension is really at a high point there: we should be feeling Dean's agony and that any possible screw-up could spell the doom of his friends. Perhaps show us a bit of what he's writing, as well. Remember, "Misery" got a lot of its power from Paul's annoying false starts at writing. And as a writer, you know how tough it is to try to write to any kind of deadline.

On the other hand, within hindsight, I don't think Rocket, the Monarch, and the other characters need to go: they are needed for

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the purpose of being hostages

, after all. We just need a bit less focus on them: with a large cast like this, we need to remember who are the main characters (in this case Dean, the bad guys, and, in the rescue party, Brock, Triana, and Mol).

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Thanks so much for the R&R, Chris, I'll have full thoughts on everything tomorrow.

I'm having a problem attaching anything to VI, as soon as Graham patches it up I'll have the full version of the chapter posted directly here.

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Here we go - thanks, Graham

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Thanks so much for tech beta, Chris It means so much to me.

Yeah, I sort of realized that the Impossibles and The Monarch became extreneous as I wrote them. I had intended to have a whole subplot for them but that got cut because the story had foccused in so strongly on Brock and Mol (which wasn't my original intent when I began the piece - it was supposed to be split between Dean and Brock, with more Monarch and Impossible/Ventures than made it into the draft).

Thank you for pointing out the weak points - I'll try to sharpen this up when I get out the final draft (which should be in December). Your concerns are very much my concerns in this.