this post was submitted on 23 Oct 2025
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Chapotraphouse

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[–] Llituro@hexbear.net 78 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

this sounds like horrible slop, but i will grant that the u.s. military finding out about what is effectively an eldritch horror, a godlike manifestation of fear itself, and thinking "yeah we can make this a weapon to fight communists," is a historically coherent response.

[–] HamManBad@hexbear.net 23 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Yeah this is some raiders of the lost ark shit, I hope IT ends up melting their faces off

[–] came_apart_at_Kmart@hexbear.net 8 points 3 months ago

yeah, that's my read too. us military discovers existential horror and some shit wizard up the chain's first thought is "how do we deploy this against our ideological rivals?" holds up.

ive found a lot of horror stories have this kind of commentary on nuclear weapon development and leveraging of nuclear holocaust.... like the unspeakable abomination isn't the scary part, the scary part is there really are faceless people in leadership roles who would knowingly, deliberately unleash it on the world to climb even higher.

[–] LangleyDominos@hexbear.net 47 points 3 months ago (2 children)

They're trying to Stranger Things it.

[–] KuroXppi@hexbear.net 23 points 3 months ago (1 children)

The Soviets did the trail of tears

[–] SpookyBogMonster@lemmy.ml 7 points 3 months ago

Libs unironically believe this about every ethnic group that was internally displaced in the USSR during WW2

[–] SevenSkalls@hexbear.net 7 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Except in Stranger Things the Russians are actually the bad guys. There's the potential Pennywise turns on the people trying to control it, the US military, because that's usually how horror works.

Or course they could still fuck it up, too.

[–] SpookyBogMonster@lemmy.ml 8 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, in the later seasons. But the villain in the first season is in the US government. Stranger Things was always slop. But Season 1 was at least well made, not rabidly anti-communist, slop.

Now it's just a parody of itself. Grossly anti-communist and orientalist, tonally inconsistent, and just plain bad. That show's production has dragged on for so long, that the kids are all adults, now, and we're multiple nostalgia cycles away from giving a shit about the 80s anymore.

[–] SevenSkalls@hexbear.net 4 points 3 months ago

Oh right. It's been so long since I saw the first season I forgot about that lol.

[–] joaomarrom@hexbear.net 44 points 3 months ago (4 children)

I don't know, this sucks but it doesn't suck much more than

spoilers for the book and CW for awful shita group of preteens having group sex inside a sewer pipe

[–] comrade_pibb@hexbear.net 37 points 3 months ago

not a good look for sewer guys

[–] SorosFootSoldier@hexbear.net 34 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Yeah once I found out that King, as man in his what 30's, wrote a child orgy in one of his books I noped the fuck out. It's no wonder why The Shining (movie) Kubrick didn't want anything to really do with King.

[–] Llituro@hexbear.net 26 points 3 months ago

don't worry, i'm sure he conveniently doesn't remember writing that part because of all the cocaine he was doing

[–] vegeta1@hexbear.net 24 points 3 months ago

You know what......... Yeah this isn't topping that thats-why-im-confused

[–] TheEgoBot@lemmygrad.ml 7 points 3 months ago

And a whole part of Wizard & Glass I gotta skip when rereading dark tower, fuck king 🙄

[–] Awoo@hexbear.net 33 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Pennywise often transforms into the very things his victims fear most—since the monster feeds on fright

The US government captures Pennywise and sends him to Russia but the first person Pennywise meets is Gorbachev so he becomes Stalin and Russia goes communist again with Pennywise in charge and continues to take on the form of Stalin when the collective west shits itself.

[–] SevenSkalls@hexbear.net 17 points 3 months ago (1 children)
[–] Awoo@hexbear.net 27 points 3 months ago

Immortal Stalin thanks to Pennywise until the global revolution is completed at which point Pennywise becomes Henry Kissinger. The communists lock him in an airtight box and sink it to the bottom of the ocean like a cursed Jumanji board game.

[–] buckykat@hexbear.net 33 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

The awful slop that is prestige TV and the awful slop that is Stephen King books, combined.

[–] comrade_pibb@hexbear.net 21 points 3 months ago

they got poop all over the shit!

[–] HarryLime@hexbear.net 16 points 3 months ago (4 children)

Come on, the book is a million times better than this. This is beyond idiotic.

[–] buckykat@hexbear.net 20 points 3 months ago (2 children)

I have never read it because the two Stephen King books I have read, The Shining and The Green Mile, are two of the worst books I have ever read and I refuse to read any more from the author who could produce such garbage.

[–] Lussy@hexbear.net 16 points 3 months ago (1 children)
[–] buckykat@hexbear.net 22 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Fueled by cocaine and problematic racial tropes

[–] Nakoichi@hexbear.net 8 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I still do love The Stand and Dark Tower

[–] joaomarrom@hexbear.net 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

The Stand is probably the only book of his that I actually really like, even though it has plenty of problems of its own

[–] Nakoichi@hexbear.net 2 points 3 months ago

Definitely has the whole magical negro trope he is so fond of but I feel it's still one of his less problematic works.

[–] valium_aggelein@hexbear.net 14 points 3 months ago (2 children)

I loved him as a kid but reading his stuff as an adult is not easy... I remember thinking Pet Sematary was so fucking good and scary when I was around 10. But I just read it again last week and it does not hold up much at all. He’s just a straight up bad writer. Like I felt second hand embarrassment from his writing style at points. Funny how many point to his essay on writing as a good reference for someone trying to learn how to be an author. I think he sometimes comes up with good story ideas and that can be enough to sit through and finish the occasional one but it is 100% slop as the writing itself has zero artistic merit but he thinks he has the chops to go on for 500+ pages. I actually do kinda enjoy the shining from an entertainment perspective and it’s so far the only one I’ve liked that I’ve revisited as an adult but it’s still wicked far from an impressive piece of writing.

[–] Krem@hexbear.net 12 points 3 months ago

problematic shit aside, his writing just feels like he has no filter telling him whether a sentence is necessary or not. like he will first hint at something then immediately clarify it plainly. or he will "show, not tell. then tell anyway" about a character, something that was already mentioned in dialogue.

"Hapton Home, Maine, population 320. Only a few families still live here, ever since that fateful day. Yep, it's a small town alright. And a terrible thing happened here. Bobby Bingus still remembers that day in the 50s when he came home from school to see his mother at the house where he and his mother lived.

"Hi mom! Sure is nice to be a young boomer in the 50s. Feels like only good things will come to me and my friends, young kids the same age as me, ya know." said Bobby, hopeful about life and feeling young and full of life, even though things might not go the way he hoped.

"redacted-1 redacted-2 " said his mom.

[–] wolfinthewoods@hexbear.net 1 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

I read On Writing just recently and thought it was a very helpful and cogent book on the writing process, it gave me a lot of valuable insights for my own writing. I had to square how insightful the book was with the fact that it's King writing it, who's writing I've never cared for much. It has been awhile (decades) since I read any of his stuff, but I suspect that much written in On Writing is advice he probably doesn't strictly follow writing his own books. Still a good book nonetheless. King is an odd duck, that's for sure.

[–] valium_aggelein@hexbear.net 1 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Hm I should definitely revisit it then. It’s totally possible for me to imagine a situation where he is able to write well on the writing process and provide good info while himself not being a writer I’d really give much credit. Stranger things have happened haha

[–] wolfinthewoods@hexbear.net 1 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Haha, yeah, it was surpising at how good of a book it was. I plan on rereading it sometime again, which I almost never reread books so that says something at least.

[–] purpleworm@hexbear.net 8 points 3 months ago (1 children)

The book has something way worse, as another comment noted. This is at least pretty funny.

[–] HarryLime@hexbear.net 8 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I might get yelled at for this, but as weird as it is, I don't actually think the ending of the book is that bad in the context of the story.

[–] purpleworm@hexbear.net 7 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Conceptually, it's kind of gross and bad but the real issue is how it is written, the detail given and the type of detail and characterization, especially the end.

[–] joaomarrom@hexbear.net 3 points 3 months ago

I mean, it could have been just their first kiss, for god's sake

[–] Coca_Cola_but_Commie@hexbear.net 5 points 3 months ago

I’m mixed on King. On the one hand, I think that among the group of authors who are megabestsellers, whose books stock every airport bookstore in the country, he’s the best of the best. I think he’s an above average talent who’s spent a lifetime churning out mediocre novels, with a few really good ones under his belt. But he could be two or three times the writer he is if he would only do some drafting and revision.

And I don’t have any particular problem with that scene in IT. Sure, it’s gross and weird but IT is a novel that’s deliberately gross and weird. Much of the first half of the novel is an escalating series of scenes of child murder, interspersed with scenes of spousal abuse and racial violence. The book is written like a deliberate psychic assault on the reader. So I really don’t see the scene as King going “look at these sexy children.”

Though I will say that the mystification and magical Bagger Vance-ing of native people seems in line with what I got out of that bit in IT about the shaman dream magic ritual.

[–] Assian_Candor@hexbear.net 26 points 3 months ago

Awesome glad to know it sucks so I dont even have to waste a minute on it

[–] Coca_Cola_but_Commie@hexbear.net 16 points 3 months ago

Great bit to take Stephen King’s incredibly unsubtle metaphor for child abuse and turn it into what sounds like marvel-brained slop. There’s no way AI wasn’t generating the scripts for this one.

[–] FourteenEyes@hexbear.net 14 points 3 months ago

It will remain true to the book though (they will include a child gangbang stuff )

[–] Bonescape@hexbear.net 13 points 3 months ago

if a monster who feeds on fear would go anywhere, itd go to israel ofcourse, those zionists are so easily frightened, all IT has to do is look remotely arab and theyd shit their pants. I can already picture Pennywise in a paraglider over Tel Aviv, IT'd be so satiated by all the fearfull zionists, the semen extraction brigade would be so busy they won't know where to extract first

[–] tricerotops@hexbear.net 12 points 3 months ago

what in tarnation

[–] mr_sunburn@hexbear.net 11 points 3 months ago

I scan read "Pennywize" as "Paddington" and that increased my confusion dramatically.

[–] CloutAtlas@hexbear.net 10 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Derry

My brain automatically corrects this to Doire, but it turns out it's not the one in Ireland.

[–] miz@hexbear.net 4 points 3 months ago

Jimmy Doire

[–] SerLava@hexbear.net 8 points 3 months ago

a ha ha ha ha ha ha NO WAY DUDE

[–] bennieandthez@lemmygrad.ml 2 points 3 months ago

leave politics outta my slop horror series 😤🤬