#aw hell i cut off his first note. well ive been fighting tumblr to get this video to process for 2 hours im not fixing it <3

[goldiipond]

thinking about ray singing please listen to ray singing

[tigerdrop]

i have a lot of trouble writing benrey in my fics— how did you experiment with his characterization until you were satisfied with it, and what other benny interpretations do u enjoy from other fic writers? i love the way you write him, his dialogue feels so authentic and believable.

AW thank u......it always makes my day to hear something nice about the way i characterize ppl......there were a lot of things i did to try to nail how he talks and thinks. thank u for asking this b/c i have a Lot to say about this subject

the first thing is, obv, watching the series. i have to include this one b/c i feel like quite a few ppl in this fandom.....like.....havent. there is a certain way of characterizing him as an Epic Mischievous Gamer that is, uhhh, very much a fanon thing that ppl see on tumblr and imitate and flanderize all to hell. but, like, im an obsessive little weirdo who will rewatch things over and over again to take notes on characters’ behavior and dialogue and i really gotta recommend just sitting back and listening to how benrey talks.

hes not dropping gamer references constantly. hes not making every single sentence out of his mouth some obnoxious quip. hes slow on the uptake and drops conversations entirely if he doesnt care about them. he has never once said “cringe” before and whenever i see a fic that has him doing it multiple times i feel minutes shaved off of my lifespan. the #1 tip i can give here is to not have benrey talking in fucking 2010s gamer lingo every time he opens his mouth. please

(i feel partially responsible for the spread of this kind of characterization. my first 2 fics have him doing stuff like that every once in awhile. sometimes i debate going back and changing them, but like, benrey saying “poggers” one time aside, i think they hold up pretty good. so i havent. something something historical accuracy)

the more i wrote about him, the more i tried digging into the aspects of his character that i found the most appealing. some people are really into his polite side. i am really into his bullying side. so i would watch the bits where benrey really has his “gordon bullying” mode cranked up to 11 and make note of how he acts, how he talks. trying to replicate it. “benrey saying epic random shit to piss gordon off” is much less his vibe than, like, demeaning gordon, and i feel like the bathroom skit is the ultimate manifestation of this. it is genuinely my favorite bit in the whole series b/c its so ideally representative of their weird-ass dynamic. this fuckin high school bullying LARP in the middle of a public restroom. god in heaven

the less you lean on the crutches of “gamer lingo” and “wacky non-sequitur”, the more it forces you to think about how he behaves. what motivates him. and generally, like, he operates on his own wavelength. he doesnt fully understand everything thats going on around him and selectively chooses what he tunes into. and, most importantly, he just wants to play games, man. benrey likes goofing off with the science crew and playing mind games with gordon. he fails to understand the gravity of his actions a lot of the time b/c hes not human, and hes not operating under the same social guidelines.

(this is the part where people like to speculate exactly what kind of non-human he is, and i think this can be helpful for setting up his motivations! me, personally, i am of the opinion that hes just a video game guy made real. kind of like a live-action cartoon character. so hes operating on video game logic a lot of the time, and doesnt grasp that consequences for actions are different for normal people who cant noclip or respawn. a kind of lack of empathy that manifests in him being capricious, indifferent, detached......purely oriented around “getting his job done” and “chilling” and, naturally, “fucking with gordon freeman“.)

ultimately it boils down to distilling just what i like out of their interactions and trying to Manifest it repeatedly. i go crazy about their actual canon interactions and i want to write things that hit the notes i like: two guys who are mutually kind of obsessed with one another, for better or worse, and engage in a lot of play fighting (and, you know, genuine fighting, too) as a sublimation of it. best frenemies, if you will.

i think that a lot of the problems people have in writing benrey is that they kinda just project whatever attributes they want in a lover onto him. like, man, i like cute shit as much as the next guy, but do you really think that the dude who bullies gordon freeman while hes having a panic attack is gonna tenderly stroke gordons hair and wipe his tears and tell him that everythings gonna be okay? no, dude. even when benrey expresses any kind of concern, he does it in a way that communicates that he doesnt understand the gravity of whats going on and he doesnt “get” why gordons lying on the ground yelling, or why gordons howling in pain after getting his arm cut off. he is not an empathetic guy. hes actually kind of a creep!!! a lil freakjob! the weirdness and the lack of humanity are what make him hot!!!!

and this is what makes it own so hard on the rare occasions he does show empathy! its the same reason why its so cute when gordon stops bitching for 0.5 seconds and tries to be nice! theyre earned moments, not character defaults. and cutesy/lovey-dovey shit with these two is definitely doable, but i would love to see more of it take into account the fact that these are two dudes who fucking suck and who especially suck at being emotionally open with each other.

as far as characterizations that i really like........okay. full disclosure. the biggest reason ive been losing my shit over the catmaid freemind fic is b/c the author is one of the few people who really taps in to what i like about benrey, and what i like about his relationship with gordon. hes teasing. he likes to use his perceived authority to bully people. hes weirdly protective of gordon. but hes also just, like, a chill dude who wants to play video games. and he legit likes gordon and expresses affection for him in some of the most in-character ways ive ever seen

like. deliberately spilling milk on the couch and flatly going like “oops.” b/c he wants gordon to sleep in his room......playing nurse by doing fuck-all apart from giving gordon powerade while hes sick and keeping the volume on his video games low......kicking barmey under the table for making fun of gordon being dogboyed.......it is all exceptionally cute shit and its delightfully in-character. i feel so bad for the author b/c im a frenrey head and i am primarily reading it for those two. but god they do it so well.......im hooked. im obsessed

thank u again for asking this and for the lovely compliment ^q^ i hope this answered your question......i have spent entirely too much of my life thinking about my favorite half life funny guy