Men and Monsters: Syndication. by Perfectly Insane

Have any of you watched the Blacklist? I would highly recommend doing so as I find it to be very well written and acted. I bring this up because this story very much reminds me of that series. I say this because this story is about the leader of a criminal organization and I couldn’t help but keep imagining Raymond Reddington showing up and just messing everyone's day. So, now that Pinkie has been successfully indoctrinated to be the new leader of the criminal underbelly introduced in the first story. But unlike the first story, Pinkie doesn’t need to just deal with a series of morally-bankrupt sods, no, she needs to deal with something far more horrifying, friends that ask the hell she’s been for the last three months, truly the most awful torture one can know.

As for what I liked, probably the thing I enjoyed the most about the story had to be the characters. All of them were far more fleshed out and felt like actual people compared to the last installment of this series. A particular character of interest I would say was The Whispers (aka. The ghost council, aka. sadistic spook squad, aka. actually Discord before the B.S. reformation when he was cool.) as they are, no joke, just a nonphysical Discord after their initial introduction (even more so than the actual Discord). Overall, I was extremely pleased with the fact that characters were relatable and seemed to have more to them than the first story led me to believe. 

But, the thing I was the happiest about and relieved to see was THE SUE-INING IS GONE! ALL HAIL THE FACT THAT THE MAIN CHARACTER IS NOT UNKILLABLE AND CAN GET BODIED BY OTHERS! No, seriously, you have no idea how happy I was to read that. After how the last story ended I was dreading how this one was going to pan out, and needed to convince myself to keep reading near the beginning because of how the last story had made me feel. But once I saw her get the piss beaten out of her in a fair fight, I immediately warmed up to the story. Now you may not understand why this is so important to me and why this one thing was almost enough to make me not want to keep reading so let me explain. I prefer to read/play/watch character studies more than any other form of a story. For those that don't know, a character study is a story where the main focus in on what makes a character tick and why they do as they do. The thing I have found with more powerful characters is that unless the author is willing to delve into the characters faults or place them in scenarios where they can reveal their humanity, they tend to become rather one-note. So I was not only relieved but incredibly happy to see that the overpowered-ness of Pinkie was not only removed, but she becomes a lot more human as the story progresses, showing the little quirks that make her interesting and three dimensional.

Finally, an aspect of the story that I found praiseworthy was the pacing. This story is about The Syndicate, mostly, and it really wants you to know just what this thing is. By the time you finish the chapters that have been posted, you get a sense of the strengths, weaknesses, capabilities, and the general power of the organization. I find worldbuilding and character development to be some of the best parts of a story. So seeing it here made my heart warm and fuzzy.

On to what was not so bueno. So one question permeated my thoughts while reading this. Why, of all the things, would Pinkie actually work with the people that tortured her and go from “I killed my dad, my objective in life is complete” to “welp, might as well start working for the mafia since they brought me out of that coma”? Seriously, she was abused to the highest order by Mr. ‘Torture makes my lower bits tingle’ and her first decision after killing the reason for all her suffering and learning she is both nigh unkillable and the leader of a criminal syndicate is not to utterly undermine the organization? A reason that she really couldn't go down that route even if she wanted to is given early on, but for me, it just raised the question as to why it happened as there was no reason for such an event to occur. Additionally, there just seems to be a general lack of consistency. Not in regards to what is written (that does exist though in regards to applejack in the warehouse in chapter 5), but more in relation to actions. The spooky ghost counsel wants the Illuminati to succeed and increase its power, but they did nothing to stop or hinder Pinkie from signing their death warrant. Generally, everything to do with the sith ghost council makes no sense when you are trying to understand what the hell their goal is and why they be acting the way they be. Finally, the writing, oh, the writing. Again, the author keeps putting the dialog and the ‘X said’ in separate paragraphs. Granted, this stops in the latter few chapters, likely because their editor fixed that, but it still exists in the first few, and this irks me. Additionally, there are some missing words, odd phrasing, and duplicate words that appear every so often. It isn’t to an excessive level but is enough that I started to pick up on it.

[I am impressed/disappointed in the author’s attention to detail in chapter five. Impressed because a subsonic round fired out of suppressed rifle {kudos on calling it a suppressor and not a silencer} will have a muzzle velocity of a little over 1050 ft/sec while the speed of sound is about 1125 ft/sec given that this is happening in August in New York City so the air temperature is about 20 C. Unfortunately, this is where I was disappointed (and buckle up, because I calculated an approximate timing and distance for sniping). While the bullet is going slower than sound, so it is ‘possible’ to hear the bullet before impact, the speeds are fast enough that even with enhanced physiology, you can’t do crap. Assuming a bullet is a 300 Black Out Subsonic and has a muzzle velocity of 1050 ft/sec, it will travel about 1000 feet in one second. Based on my calculations, Pinkie would have next to no time between hearing the report of the shot and it hitting her (<0.12 sec) if she was within 1000 feet. At 2000 feet, she would have about 0.3 seconds between these two points. For context, Brooklyn Bridge is about 2000 feet. (You also don't fire subsonic past about 2000 feet as ballistics starts working against you at this point.)]
[Furthermore, a desert eagle, most likely chambered in .357 magnum based on the fact it had a suppressor, would have had an exit wound in the opponent, and those of you who know your ballistics know that an exit wound is not a pretty picture, especially if the round is not hardened to prevent expansion]
{Just so you know, it took me a little over an hour to track down the proper ballistics and calculate the timing of the bullet’s impact compared to the report. That is how dedicated I am to evaluating realism.}

Final Scores;

Writing; 7/10, The Issues were still there from the last stories writing. Granted, they went away eventually and there do tend to be fewer mistakes in later chapters, but they still exist.

Pacing; 9/10, How the story progresses is quite nice. There is a good deal of time spent fleshing out the characters and the general motivations of everyone that gives the reader a general idea of how things are going to pan out. The problem being that several scenes, the ‘leave me alone because I prefer not to have a killer following me, thanks’ scene being the prime example, are just sort of there and don't add all too much. While that scene was used to introduce key characters, it would have been better for the story if that section didn’t bring the story to a grinding halt just so we could be introduced to a few characters and not get to really sit down and get a feel for how they operated. 

Characters; 10/10, This was a far cry from the first story, here, the characters feel like they have been fully realized and the overall complexity and depth of them is at a level I really like to see in a story.

Worldbuilding; 9/10, We get to know just why people be as they be, how they got there, and a sense of how this world works and the rules that need to be followed. The only issue being, how is the not Illuminati in control of so much, how have they maintained this control, and why, with an organization so big and with so little oversight over individuals, has it NOT imploded from internal struggles or people growing consciences.

Atmosphere; 8/10, Now, this has a really good atmosphere. You constantly get the feeling that the world is conspiring to make sure that everything plays out poorly for people, that every out and way to avoid the worst parts of things are taken away. The issue for me is that the tone is just so bizarre. As I said earlier, The Whispers are actually Discord, and this combined with this story’s Discord, Pinkie’s gallows humor, and a generally lighthearted tone make me confused as to what this story wants to be. We get a chapter with brutal combat where people are almost killed followed by a chapter the makes Nickelodeon and Cartoon Network references. I understand the need to lighten the mood to make the dark scenes have more impact, but when the tone constantly shifts from lighthearted gaffs to serious concepts so suddenly, there is a bit of a problem. I would recommend picking a tone, be it lighthearted or serious, and start sticking to it more. This doesn’t mean to entirely remove one or the other, but to limit the use of the opposite and make sure we don't go from “oh Discord, you silly guy” to “oh sweet Jesus, my life was awsome before joining the mafia and the mafia likely killed someone I cared about, now I’m the big sad.” in literally the same chapter and within the span of 3k words.

Total score; 43/50 or 8.6/10, This story was a very enjoyable read and significantly improves on the first. The characters were solid, the idea was interesting, and overall, the pay things play out makes for a decent read from one chapter to the next.

I am very happy and satisfied with this review. I am very passionate about my Men and Monsters series, and have a lot planned for it. I do believe my writing has significantly improved since the first installment, and will continue to do so. Tone is an issue I struggle with, but I do intend to work on it more. Things that haven't been explained or weren't explained very well are usually for a reason, and I intend to go into further detail to explaining them later, and explain why they weren't that looked into previously.

Lastly, I'm very surprised that you put so much time and effort into seeing how realistic the shooting was. To think you willingly sat down and did math for an hour just to see how realistic one scene is, is actually quite admirable. I immensely appreciate that.

Thank you for doing this review.