#their dynamic is green says something stupid and white completely destroys him

[gamebunny-advance]

i feel like white and green's dynamic is just those memes of stick figures mauling each other, they're both so pathetic and i adore how you write them

Thanks, I'm glad to hear that you enjoy how I've completely butchered and maimed these beloved characters beyond recognition <3

That said, I dunno if that's quite the vibe they really have. Saying they "maul each other" implies that Green has any power in their dynamic.

(Static version + Captions under the cut)

Yellow: Hey White, why are you crushing Green's windpipe?

White: He called me a "basic bitch." So he's being punished. <3

Red: He doesn't look alive anymore...

White: That means the punishment is working! <3

Green: ... --- ... --(-)

[whothehellisyn]

Cat and Mouse | Ch. 1

Series Masterlist

Pairing: Dark!Quentin Beck x Female Reader

Synopsis: You found out who Mysterio really is behind closed doors. You’re about to learn just how dangerous a man seeking revenge can be when you get in his way. He’s a predator on the hunt. And you’re the prey.

Warnings: Unreality and use of illusions, graphic depictions of (illusioned) death, one unsettling monster, dubcon, Dark!Mysterio, predator/prey sexual dynamics, general violence

The way Quentin Beck regards you now is a cat to a mouse. Like a cat, he keeps picking you up and slamming you back down, blow after blow after blow, to stun you over and over again. Unlike a cat, he’s sadistic. There is no pleasure behind a cat’s capture of a mouse. It is basic nature. Every part of this torture, all of it, is derived from a sick sense of entertainment at your expense.

He was once the sweet widower who kissed the top of your head and accidentally called you his wife’s name one night and never forgave himself. He used to whisk you away to restaurants when S.H.I.E.L.D. paperwork got boring and your administrative duties weighed heavily on your shoulders. But not now. You wonder if he ever actually had been. If the sweetness was ever real or if he hated pretending to be so every second. At this point, hours and hours into illusions, you’d wish he’d just use his hands and finally finish you off. An ending to the glorious story.

A giant, skinless beast has been chasing after you, feet pattering on the ground. You’re not sure what it’s supposed to be, but its build is vaguely humanlike. The limbs are long, spindly and slender likes spider. The way it moves, as if it’s not meant to be on all fours, it’s hindquarters raised. It snarls as it pursues you, a gaping maw with teeth like nails gaining proximity to your body. It makes horrific screeching sounds, a haunting call for blood.

It’s been chasing you since the beginning, but Quentin gave you a head start, or so he called it. But he also threw in a myriad of horrifying illusions to slow you down, to add to the terror. You, at one point, watched Peter Parker bleed out from multiple gunshot wounds, face pale and pink around his eyes, which were full of tears and terror. His young little voice trembling and raw. The stench of iron assaulted your senses, and you threw up at least once trying to convince yourself it wasn’t real.

It wasn’t until the monster caught up with you and tore him apart with its teeth that you were able to start running again. Away from his screams. Away from the ripping sound. That was an eternity ago, you think. You stink of bile and blood. Your feet, long ago rid of their shoes, are blistered from running. It’s getting harder to breathe from the dehydration and panting.

“Are you getting tired, Y/N?” Quentin echoes from everywhere and nowhere at the same time. He chuckles softly, adding “Don’t let it catch you!” in a teasing tone. “We wouldn’t want the fun to end so soon.”

The tunnel you’re in is infinite, dark and wet and lit by white fluorescent bulbs maybe thirty feet apart and mounted along the wall. They aren’t buzzing, no comforting white noise to keep you sane. There are no exits or openings. It smells of mold and death. Part of you wants to just stop moving, maybe let the illusion completely and utterly destroy you. Another part wants you to keep running, the threat of a predator apparent.

It is gaining on you with every second. You can hear it’s weird, chittering respiration, you can smell the sickly-sweet breath it’s heaving onto your neck. When it moves a wet glistening sound emits from its joints.

You know you won’t be able to keep running at this pace, with your knees wobbling and muscles tired. You hope to whatever god is out there that you can keep going just a little longer.

“Why don’t we shake things up a little, huh?” He laughs, voice echoing through the tunnel.

The lights shut out. You trip over yourself in the darkness and collapse. Stupid. Clumsy. You flail desperately to get away from the monster that had been so close to killing you but the creature is gone. Maybe forever. It’s dead silent now. You can hear your pulse roaring in your ears.

A hand strokes the back of your hair, almost sweetly. Is it him? Is it real? Is anything real?

You’re too panicked to turn around, trying to catch your breath between swallowing spit to wet your throat. It’s too dry. It’s sticking. And it’s going to make you sick if you don’t drink something soon. You don’t want to throw up again.

“Poor, poor Y/N.” Quentin echoes, faux pity ever present in his tone. “So smart. So gullible.” The hand petting your hair grabs it by the fistful and yanks it, pulling you to the ground as you desperately scramble against the grip. It’s difficult with your legs being so weak from running so long. “Everything was almost perfect. And now I have to see that you make sure it still is.”

When you grab up against his hand to ease the pain in your scalp there’s nothing there. It’s gone just as sudden as it manifested. The loss of an upward force leaves you flailing on the ground, propped up on your elbow. You have to get him to see you. You finally break apart from the panic to hoarsely whisper into the darkness.

“Quentin...” You rasp, words catching in your throat multiple times. “Please, I’ll do anything.” It’s getting harder and harder to breathe. You gag once and try to keep from vomiting.

A circle of Mysterios surround you, each of them getting down on one knee. Every single one has a fishbowl clouding their face, and you don’t know which, if any, is the real Quentin.

“Oh,” They all say, with varying delay, “I know, honey.”

You let out a soft sob and one of them grabs your chin, but you don’t think it’s him.

“You’re going to be doing anything I want, when I want it soon enough.” Quentin says, voice behind you. “Or I’ll leave you here to rot. Let you get ripped apart by the monster in the tunnel, or maybe I’ll have sweet little Peter Parker miraculously rise from the dead and show you what your guts look like on the outside.”

Quentin speaks like he’s planning rather than threatening. You have no way to know what he’s capable of, but he may as well be.

“Do you want to die in here, Y/N?” He asks.

“No.” You whisper, in a little voice broken with tears.

Another Mysterio from your left grabs your face and forces you to look at him. This one is Quentin, you’re sure of it.

“How about you address me with a little more respect, huh?” The fishbowl dissolves and you’re forced to look him in the eyes. The same blue eyes that you wiped tears from just days ago. Were those fake too?

“No, Sir.” You respond, tears welling up. He still has you by your face, pinching your cheeks forward. He smiles victoriously and eases his grip on you.

His thumb slides over your bottom lip and you realize with a sudden anxiety that anything he wants entails a much, much more intimate demand. You brace yourself.

“Now, are you gonna be a good girl for me? Or are you going to die today?” He asks you, voice soft and dangerous. He’s looking at your mouth with a rather sinful glean.

“I’ll be a good girl, Quentin.” You manage to say. It feels dirty coming from your mouth. A white flag. He smiles at you, closed lips, and cups your cheek.

“That’s right.” He affirms. “But you’re not going to be a just any good girl. You’re going to be my good girl.”

“Yes... sir.” You whisper. You want to curl into a ball and die. You’re terrified by the thought of what he’s like sexually if he’s a fucking sadist on the daily like this. You wonder if maybe being gutted by a fake 17 year old is a better ending. You wonder how long he would have loved you as a widower or if he would have done this to you the first chance he got anyways. No use in pondering further now.

“Perfect.” He says, picking you up by the arm rather roughly. “It’s time for your first role. We’re going to play a game.” A little hologram lights up the darkness, a maze of some sort.

“You’re going to hide and run away from me. The point of this game for you is to not get caught.” A little blue figure hides, and when a green Mysterio rounds the corner, it runs to a new hiding spot.

“But if I catch you,” He says, as the virtual mysterio catches the virtual you, “I take you where you stand.” The Mysterio has you pinned against a wall, and it’s clear to you that what happens if he catches you is going to be damning.

“You have 60 seconds before I start looking.” He says, and the hologram becomes a timer counting down from one minute. You take a deep breath, and start running.

————

That’s the end of chapter 1! I’ve had this sitting on my desktop for months and figured I can post it now that the x reader tag for Quentin is dead now. I may update, who knows? I got time on my hands.

Edit: I fixed a bunch of continuity and grammar errors! I was tired as hell last night so forgive me.

[mssapphire]

Deconstructing Romantic Love, and what’s actually wrong with it (pt. 1) - Desire and Admiration =/= Love.

In our infinite quest for happiness, one pervasive question we tend to have is: what is love? (baby don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me, no mo’). And in this quest we have tried to find a million different answers and we have tried to deconstruct and understand what works and what makes it dysfunctional.

In the last century or so, we have tried to come up with alternatives to what we have identified as the root of all evil and female oppression: heteropatriarchal romantic love. And I say in the last century because Romanticism is a 19th c. thing - and to understand how it completely changed society and our relational dynamics, I’d suggest Alain de Botton (it’s a long video but 1) it’s worth it and 2) if you don’t have the time to read his book(s), it’s a great alternative).

This has given way to different forms of “Ethical Non-Monogamy”. I’ll eventually write a post abut the history around different Free Love movements - and how the term has definitely meant different things in different moments of time, and how we have now devoid it of any meaning, to the point we’re back in the clutches of patriarchy through rampant consumerism of bodies. But that’s a post for another day.

What I’d like to explore today is that the problem doesn’t rely in what relationship model you choose to follow (monogamy, polyamory, relationship anarchy, open relationships), but in the way we (mis)understand love. I recently wrote a post about the meaning of being emotionally responsible, making an emphasis on why it’s so difficult for cis straight men. And following that thread, I’d like to come to another crossroads we (but, again, specially cis straight men) seem to find ourselves on: confounding admiration and desire with love. Let’s break that down.

I could really, really go on a tangent here, but I’ll try to stay focused. We could trace back our culture’s confabulation of love, admiration and desire to Courtly Love. Courtly Love taught men that love but, most importantly, loving the right way, was something that could make you a better person, morally (and even socially) superior. The right way to love a Lady, who was the purest being incarnated on the face of the earth, was to admire her beauty which was no doubt a display of her own moral worth (yes, these are white beauty standards, where the most celebrated type of woman was blonde, pale as porcelain, and with blue or green eyes) - and yes, physical appearance being equated to moral worth was a thing in Medieval times (you can guess which are the good guys or the bad guys in a Medieval story only through their physical description). But here comes the plot twist about Courtly Love: you didn’t even had to have met the object of your desire to love her. So you have an entire tradition of poems being written by men to, for and about women they hadn’t even met. They had just heard about their reputation, and they completely made up a fantasy as to who the woman was - a woman they not only proclaimed to love, but also a woman whom they loved so much they could die for her.

This was fertile grounds for Petrarch’s poetry, now in the Renaissance, who took Courtly Love one step further: actually attaching the object of his desire to a real, living person (Laura). Fast forward to Romanticism and the idea of loving someone to the point it kills you, and that they’re the one and only object of your desire, and your “soul mate”, and thus complete and complement you in every single way has now become the trend as to how we perceive love.

But that all sounds very exotic and distant. What about the present? Certainly, you can’t compare these guys to the guys on tinder trying to hook up with anyone who’ll say yes. But allow me to say: 1) yes, yes I can and 2) it’s not only these guys - but even those who seem “more decent” and actually take you out on a date, and even date you for a while. Allow me to elaborate.

Again, I am going to go ahead and quote bell hooks’ definition of love (this is something I do, a lot): you have to distinguish love as a feeling vs love as a verb (we’ll circle back to this). When you understand love as a feeling, and as a feeling only, desire and admiration tend to feel a lot like love. And the problem lies therein society’s portrayal’s of love: “love at first sight”, passionate sex as the ultimate display of what love is and should be, blind admiration towards that person and how you have to stick through thick and thin until death do us part (does that ring a bell?).

“Seeing no wrong” with the object of our affection (or what we now call “missing red flags”) is something we do when we blindly admire someone. And, thus, that convinces us that real love, true love, is that in which you find no conflict, and where the other person is perfect and without flaw. The problem with confusing admiration and love is that, to admire someone, we have to put them up on a pedestal, so we can continue to admire them without our image of them crumbling. Think about all the times you lost respect for your idols as you found out who they really were, as a person, above and beyond their work.

The same happens with desire - which is something more visceral and raw. That person is desirable as long as they fit the fantasy we have about them - which relies to physical attributes, yes, but about things they do and don’t do. Even more so, sex is something that gives you the illusion of intimacy, because sex is inherently emotional and vulnerable (and the idea that it isn’t is capitalistic bullshit, but that’s a topic for another post).  So while you’re engaging in sex, you can enjoy all those endorphins and mushy feelings, without actually doing the hard work of actually getting to know the person for real. The moment the person displays a behavior or an attribute that clashes with the idea we have in our heads (maybe they’re too awkward, or they have bad breath in the morning), our fantasy, built on desire, starts to crumble.

Let me drive the point home with a personal example. An ex of mine was initially deeply attracted to me because of my intelligence (it was a good thing that he found me physically attractive too). He would be delighted when he saw me debate other people (and destroy them), to the point it immediately triggered physical affection. But as the relationship progressed and we found ourselves sharing and discussing personal views, his attitude started to shift. A quality that he usually admired me for, became something that made him feel contempt. “You’re so smart” turned into “you’re too smart” which eventually turned to “I can never talk to you because everything turns into a debate”. My attitude and approach hadn’t changed. What was happening is what always happens in an emotional relationship where you’re actually getting to know the person: I was falling off the pedestal he put me in. 

And, suddenly, I was seen not only as a human being with flaws and shortcomings, and far from perfect - but having to be so close and vulnerable in front of me was also deeply uncomfortable to him. Because when you’re really close to someone, that makes you reflect on yourself. True love and intimacy is an exercise of self reflection, which allows you to become acquainted with the best and worst sides of you. In my ex’s case, having to be confronted by the intelligence he admired so much initially, made him feel stupid and insecure.

Which leads me to another thing: in this confabulation of admiration/desire for love, men also get another short end of the stick. Because patriarchy has convinced them that a woman’s love lies in her admiration for him, the object of their desire (who has to instantly desire them back just because they want this person) has one job and one job only: to admire and support him unconditionally. This means that men are permanently stuck in a position where they have to display strength and bravado, as they fulfill the role of protectors and providers. And what happens then? you never truly get to know who they are inside. So any sort of criticism, disagreement or conflict is perceived as a threat - if you’re not admiring them, you’re personally attacking them, and you don’t really love them.

Again, the problem with all of this is that we still haven’t understood what love actually is. According to bell hook, love is also a verb. It’s the actions you take in order to nurture the relationship, so you both feel seen, known, heard and understood. It’s getting to know the other person deeply and honestly. It’s seeing ourselves reflected in their eyes and getting to know new depths about us that we hadn’t before.

Think about it in another way: if that person wasn’t physically attractive to you anymore, would you still love them? if that person presented flaws that you hate, would you still love them? If they didn’t have the same social status or job? if they didn’t engage in specific activities with you? and what would you be willing to do if those things change? these are all important questions to assess where your feelings for someone stand.

To be clear: you can love someone and admire them and desire them. But just because someone desires you or just because someone admires you, that doesn’t mean they love you. Again, love is in the work you do. And if you do your homework, you will find yourself admiring that person on deeper more significant attributes, like their compassion and patience and integrity, while you even learn to understand and appreciate their flaws in the context of who they really are - that’s what being understood means.

The problem is not monogamy. In fact, I find it more responsible and sustainable to understand just how much work goes into having healthy loving relationships and deciding to have that with one person, than being a hot ass mess and falling in and out of an unending string of relationships because we’re trying to score “woke points” by denying monogamy. Because if you think you’re defying monogamy while at the same time you’re following the same romantic standards to relate, then you’re not really subverting anything.

Next time you feel like you might feel love for someone, ask yourself if what you’re feeling means that you actually have the willingness to do the work required to be in a healthy relationship with them. If you find their presence in your life worth the effort or not. If this is a nourishing relationship, then the answer will probably be yes.

[ty-talks-comics]

Best of DC: Week of December 4th, 2019

Best of this Week: Justice League #37 - Scott Snyder, Jorge Jimenez, Alejandro Sanchez and Tom Napolitano

I had a really difficult time between choosing this or Deathstroke #50, but ultimately, this was just far more epic.

The war for Justice and Doom has been building up and raging for months now and it's been leading up to issues like this one and I am here for it. Scott Snyder and Jorge Jimenez must have been binging a bunch of shonen anime to prepare for this because this book was full of so many amazing moments of overcoming the odds, sacrifices and comebacks that would fit perfectly amongst the best Dragon Ball or Naruto storylines.

To start off, Lex asks if Batman and the rest of the heroes are smart enough to surrender to the impending Doom as he pilots the Hall of Doom, commanding his forces. Jarro, however, steals the show by saying that they’re nowhere near that smart and that they’re about to get real #$%^ stupid and Batman adorably agrees. I swear I love them. Even more so as Batman himself pilots the Hall of Justice like he’s Roger Smith from The Big O or Space Pirate Captain Harlock.

The double charge between the generic forces of the real Legions of Doom and the various heroes of Earth was ASTOUNDING to look at. With Damian Wayne leading the charge, the heroes scream with rage and Hope as they rush the battlefield. Almost everyone's there: Jay Garrick, Superman Prime One Million, Vampire Wonder Woman, Kamandi, most of the Titans excluding Kyle Rayner, but even Guy Gardner is front and center, ready for battle!

Meanwhile, the rest of the League do their best to telepathically turn the Earth from Doom to Justice with the help of Miss Martian and the remaining Starmen. They get far enough that they start to blur the Symbol of Doom in the sky, but they lack the power to disrupt it altogether. The only two that could reasonably do it are Hawkgirl and her son Shayne, but they're lost in space with John Stewart looking for them. Superman motivates them all to keep trying until help arrives.

As that's all going on, Hawkgirl does her best to defend her son from The Ultra-Monitor, the fused body of the Monitor, World Forger and Anti-Monitor at the helm. Jorge Jimenez gives her defense so much weight as she holds back the worst of his blasts with her Wings. He facial expression sells her pain and the destruction the Ultra-Monitor causes is beautiful with debris flying around them. Alejandro Sanchez accentuates this by making all of the colors cosmically beautiful, bright and vibrant. Both the Ultra-Monitor’s beams and Hawkgirl’s wings are enough to overpower the darkness in space, but unfortunately, he proves stronger than her.

When things look to be their most dire, out of nowhere comes John Stewart in The Flash Mobile, plowing into the Ultra-Monitor with enough Speed Force to separate the brothers from each other. The impact and subsequent explosion are absolutely devastating and REALLY cool, it’s all made even better when John steps out from the wreckage and poses like the damn hero that he is. This entire run has been made of epic moments, mostly drawn by Jimenez and this one takes the cake, especially because John Stewart remains one of the most effortlessly cool heroes out there.

The Anti-Monitor, sensing his impending ass beating, cries out for his mother across the multiverse. We then cut to her in the middle of destroying Earth-44, a universe where the heroes of the Earth are all robots made by Dr. Will Tornado (a cool combination of Will Magnus and Red Tornado). Earth-44 chooses Justice over Doom and DocTornado tells her to go to Hell. Perpetua, hearing the cries of her son, chooses an even more dastardly fate for Earth-44 than just crushing it. She palms the planet and throws it like she was Nolan Ryan (I had to research a baseball reference for you guys, appreciate it) towards her sons. It is epic as hell to see, her hair whips with the force she throws it with, there’s a tear in space-time and DocTornado embraces his end like Bardock, basking in his virtue.

His is not the only sacrifice, however, as The World Forger makes a tough decision. Because of almost all of his energy being sapped from him the Anti-Monitor, he only has enough left for one short portal before the planet impacts all of them. It’s somber to see as The World Forger looks downward towards his hammer. He muses of the other times he’s been reformed, but knowing that Perpetua is in control of the Multiverse that may not happen again. He completes his full character arc, going from a villain that wanted to destroy the other universes for one Perfect one, to a hero willing to sacrifice himself for the good of all.

The World Forger picks up his hammer, flexes his muscles as he gets into his strongest hitting stance and prepares for the end. Sanchez does their best to sell just how hot the planet is coming in with the screen being coated in purple-ish, red hue with the next panel being mostly stark white with red streaks.

The fighting continues on Earth-Prime as everyone is in the thick of it. Batman and Luthor duel in the crimson skies, Wildcat and Kamandi watch each others backs and Lightning, Zatanna and JSA Doctor Fate hold their own, but are obviously getting winded. Luthor cracks the hull of the Hall of Justice as the rest of the League feel something coming for them, but Luthor brings the hammer down and causes the Hall to have a crash landing. Damian, Green Arrow and the other forces, presumably, begin to get overwhelmed and all hope starts to dissipate…

Until a beam of energy disrupts the Symbol of Doom entirely, causing Perpetua to pay attention and Luthor to see a supercharged Justice League ready to put down his movement.

Everything about this issue was amazing. Start to finish, the writing was stellar, the art and coloring was exceptional and the lettering was perfect and immaculate. I found myself getting pulled in to the Hawkgirl and World Forger stories and felt satisfied with their payoffs. I got hyped when the battle kicked off and the energy stayed on that level the entire time.

As much as Dark Nights Metal was a saga with twists and turns, this run of Justice League has far surpassed it in my opinion. Scott Snyder wrote this in such a way that it was easy to get invested in the stories of every member of the League, even managing to return Hawkgirl to a state of prominence since her entire New 52 absence and making her an amazingly compelling character. The same can be said for the new addition of the World Forger, the third brother of the Monitor and Anti-Monitor. His design and character arc was amazing despite my initial misgivings.

Jorge Jimenez and Alejandro Sanchez are an amazing team together. Jimenez has alway been amazing on all of the books that he’s been on, but almost every issue of Justice League that he’s done has been beyond amazing. Scenes are drawn with dynamic posing, epic scale and weight that makes you feel EVERYTHING that the characters are going through. Sanchez brings these amazing scenes to life with stylish and shiny looking colors that really pop on the page and draws yours eyes in. Amazingly, nothing is lost in color or details that either of these guys make and it makes the reading and viewing that much more fantastic.

Overall, this is one of those runs that comes along every once in a while and gives you things to remember. Given that this is the penultimate issue to the Justice/Doom War and it’s already given us so much, who knows how much more there is in store for us in the future? High Recommend!

[your-friendly-neighborhood-sc00t]

Ben 10 Reboot Review/Rant

aka: Why This Show Sucks

aaka: 333 Follower Milestone Special

Ah, how I have absolutely dreaded the day I have to write this review, or at least start writing it. Your boy Sc00t here, and welcome to my review of the Ben 10 Reboot.

Also, y'all too good to me, can’t believe over 300 people actually follow me and like seeing my trash. Thank you all for following, and I hope you guys continue to enjoy the content on my blog, ^^

I’ve been putting this off for quite some time now, for obvious reasons, but it’s time to finally crack down on this shit.

So, surprisingly, I actually did something I NEVER DO for shows I don’t like,

I actually watched multiple episodes for the sake of this review, DESPITE how painful it was to watch. I didn’t wanna judge it based on one or two episodes, so instead, I saw FOUR.

Yup, almost an hour of this horrendous show, just to write a stupid review.

There’s ALOT to cover here, so I’ll try to do it in an orderly fashion, and try to address all of the various issues this show has. For now, let’s start off with:

1: The Length of the Episodes Ben 10 OS (Original Series), AF (Alien Force), UA (Ultimate Alien), and OV (Omniverse), despite their differences, all had one thing in common:

All the episodes were a good 22 - 25 minutes long. This allowed plots to develop and flow at a steady and reasonable pace, nothing was rushed, and more effort was put into the production of them.

In the Reboot episodes average at 11 minutes, like a Spongebob episode, which results in a shitty premise having to move along quickly just to make with the little time they have. This was also very obviously done to save money, 11-minute episodes with simplistic, shitty plots are significantly easier to produce that 24-minute episodes with proper pacing and decent/good plots. Short running time + incredibly cheap animation = profit and easy mass production of trash.

2: The Pacing

As I’m sure you can tell, the pacing of each individual episode is GARBAGE, it moves along so fast, that if you’re not paying full attention to the show, you actually won’t know what the fuck’s happening at all. And the running time isn’t actually the problem at all. We’ve seen shows convey their plot efficiently with the same exact running time, just watch any episode from the first three seasons of SpongeBob, and you’ll know precisely what I’m talking about.

3: The Animation

The animation in this show is the WORST we’ve seen in the franchise, it’s just so simplistic, flat, uninspired, and just down-right stiff at times. Action sequences just don’t flow well at all, and the designs of each and every character looks like it was slapped together in just a few minutes. I mean, just compare to ANY of the previous series’ animation, compare to other cartoons, and then just see it for what it is, and you’ll find that no matter how you look at it, it’s fucking terrible, and LAZY.

4: Forgettable Villains

The various antagonists that appear throughout the series are bland, poorly designed, and are just so damn forgettable. I can’t even remember one name of any one villain from this show. They never left any sort of impact on me at all, and there isn’t anything even remotely interesting about them. The original series had many memorable and interesting antagonists, that had well fleshed out personalities and goals. Vilgax, Kevin, Hex, Charmcaster, Dr. Animo, Ghostfreak, and all these other foes that Ben faced off against posed a real, genuine threat to him, and here lies another problem. The Reboot’s “antagonists” are not intimidating in the slightest, and actually don’t serve as a true threat to Ben at ALL. They’re pathetic to watch, really.

5: Max is Irrelevant

In the Original Series, Max was an extremely prominent character, and was often just as involved in the plot of the episode as Ben and Gwen were, and the plot twist at the end of Season 1 where it was revealed that Max is a Plumber and that he fought Vilgax in the past was a great plot point and reveal, it added more depth to his character, and made him more interesting. But in the Reboot, he is almost entirely absent in some episodes. Basically he’ll just show up at the beginning of an episode, preach about some moral that Ben completely ignores, and then just is either hardly shown, or not shown at all for the rest of the episode. He’s become irrelevant, and doesn’t affect the narrative of the story at all, He doesn’t play any sort of significant role at ALL.

6: Gwen and Ben’s relationship

One of the shittiest decisions made in the design of the show, was to completely fuck up the well-established dynamic of Ben and Gwen, in the Original Series, they’re two cousins who constantly bicker and sass eachother, but they clearly cared for one another, and had many tender and compassionate moments that effectively fleshed out their love for one another. Gwen was also the more rational-thinking and logical of the two, and never actually supported Ben’s utter stupidity or rash decisions. Reasonably so, in the sequel series’ they’ve matured and have grown out of their constant arguing and sass, but still tease each other from time to time. In the Reboot, however, Gwen, more often-then-not, completely INDULGES Ben in his poor decision-making and stupidity, to the point where I’d say she’s nearly as ignorant and doltish as he is. Gwen is simply far too nice and encouraging to Ben, which utterly destroys the original dynamic portrayed in previous series’

7: The Aliens

With all the painful problems with this god forsaken show, I almost forgot to talk about one of the most important parts. The.

Aliens.

They just look so fucking shitty in the new animation style, and some of the new design choices for them just make absolutely no sense. Like, why is Upgrade PURPLE instead of GREEN? The Omnitrix is black, green, and white, so it, y'know KIND OF JUST MAKES SENSE FOR UPGRADE TO BE THESE COLORS. And why the fuck is Stinkfly some stupid-ass looking bug-themed Superhero? Why doesn’t he ACTUALLY RESEMBLE SOME TYPE OF BUG. It just makes no sense, why these things were changed. And to be perfectly honest, one of my favorite Aliens from the Original Series, Ripjaws, was actually taken out from the roster in exchange for Overflow, or Waterhazard, or whatever the hell that water-themed fuck is named. He’s a bland Alien that should’ve never even been involved in this series to begin with, he wasn’t part of the Original 10. ANOTHER, issue with the Aliens is the voice-acting, alot of them are actually portrayed by voice actors I like, John DiMaggio, Greg Cipes, Josh Keaton, Travis Willingham, etc. But the thing is, their voices, don’t even fit them, at all, so whatever they spout out of their mouths, just sounds awful. In all previous series’ the Aliens’ VAs fit them perfectly, and alot of them had some pretty badass voices. Basically, when you assign a VA to a character, it has to sound as if that voice could ACTUALLY come from that character. If the voice isn’t matching the face, then we have a clear issue. It’s not so much as the voice acting is bad in the Reboot, but it’s just doesn’t fit with the Aliens. But interestingly enough, they were sure to find the worst possible voice actor they could find for my favorite of them all, Heatblast. His voice used to be so fucking badass, and that was because he was voiced by Steve Blum, a veteran VA, the voice fit the character PERFECTLY. In the Reboot however? They got some fucking Disney Channel actor, Daryl Sabara. I didn’t even know of this guy’s EXISTENCE, until I looked at the cast of the Reboot. This guy’s, voice is incredibly obnoxious and irritating, which is the EXACT OPPOSITE OF HEATBLAST’S VOICE IN FOREGOING SERIES’. One more thing I’d like to point out, was them switching Wildmutt out for Wildvine, again, this is another decision that makes no sense. WILDVINE WAS NOT PART OF THE ORIGINAL 10, he doesn’t even show up in way later in the Original, so why is he replacing one that was at the very start of the series? AND FINALLY, we come to our last issue. The transformations are pathetically animated, it genuinely looks as if he is being covered in some large alien suit, IT DOESN’T look as if he’s actually BECOMING that alien, and that’s a big problem when he’s supposed to, y'know be literally morphing into them.

8: Stiffness

One thing to notice throughout various episodes, is that conversations, and the overall voice acting, feel really stiff, and carry absolutely no weight, kind of like a piece of cardboard. There are even extended scenes of pointless dialogue that don’t affect or further the plot of the episode, in any sense of the word.

9: The Intro

Ben 10 (2016) has without a doubt the least amount of effort put into it’s Intro. You see some green asteroid “crash” into Earth, suddenly you see Ben wearing the Watch, he slams it. And we see the 10 Aliens, introduced in a similar, but poorly executed fashion. We hear “BEN 10” being chanted in the background for a solid 11 seconds. Suddenly we see Ben giving Gwen and Max low-fives, and then runs forward.

End of Intro

Now, does it sound like I described alot of shit? Not really, right? That’s because nothing actually happens in this intro, it conveys nothing, and is just lazily slapped together. I remember the Original Series’ intro, it was a catchy theme song that quickly explained the premise of the show in it’s first 18 seconds. The intro goes on and shows actual interesting shit, like Ben transforming into some Aliens, and some nice visuals. The Reboot’s intro shows us the bare minimum of what they could ACTUALLY be showing us, instead of them quickly jumping on screen for a tenth of second, why not illustrate at least one of their abilities with a short clip? The Original’s does this incredibly well in the last 10 seconds, briefly showing us the capabilities of some of the Aliens with incredibly short clips, you could actually be impressed by what you were witnessing. The Reboot’s intro is just so mundane, and devoid of any sort of interesting material, and it’s the only intro in the franchise that’s SLOW-PACED. All of the previous entries’ intros have been fast-paced. And while you may consider Ultimate Alien’s to be slow, it quickly scrolls through a large variety of Aliens while playing epic music, that’s fast enough, and certainly impressive enough for me. The Reboot’s intro is in-fact, so bad, that when my sister watched it, she actually started LAUGHING. And when you’re cackling at an intro that is CLEARLY not trying to be funny, well then, you’ve got a pretty shitty opening.

10: Ben’s Character

Okay, now I know Ben has always done stupid shit in all of his incarnations. However, his character seems ridiculously dumbed down in the Reboot, and he just seems as mindless as ever, in the other series’ we saw how he wasn’t always a goofball kid, he took himself and those around him seriously at times, and we were able to respect him as a character for these moments. Like in Alien Force, in the episode: “The Gauntlet”, there’s a scene where Ben stands up to Cash, not by using force, or the Omnitrix, but with words, he simply calmly and intelligently calls him the fuck out, and walks away. It was a well-written moment, and showed a deeper, more mature side of Ben. And in the episode “Framed”, where Ben doesn’t finish off Kevin even when he has the perfect opportunity to do so, knowing that he isn’t worth it, and showing a more compassionate side, even to a dangerous enemy. Ben doesn’t have any moments like this at all in the Reboot, and it really takes away from his character, he essentially becomes a one-dimensional character, that really doesn’t have any defining characteristics outside of being a goofball kid.

The Verdict:

Ben 10 (2016) is a clear attempt to appeal to a much younger audience, of what Man of Action assumes to be 6 year olds with short attention-spans that don’t give a flying fuck about depth, good animation, and proper storytelling. This show wasn’t made with any genuine thought or care, it was made to sell toys, and make money, while utilizing as little resources and time as possible. Not only does this show fail as a Ben 10 cartoon, it fails AS a cartoon in of itself. It insults every aspect of what makes good animation and a good show, and is just disgusting as a product. And I’m afraid that the only positive thing I am capable of saying about this show is that it isn’t Breadwinners, and that’s about it. So, yeah, don’t watch this show.

End of Review/Final Words Anyway I hope you all enjoyed this review, (if you even read it) and I know I’m late as fuck on reviewing this steaming pile of horse shit, but I promised it months ago, so I wanted to get it out for you guys, plus, I was in the mood to get pissed about something, and believe it or not, I actually enjoy writing these, they’re fun for me, and I hope they’re fun for you to read as well. And if you disagree with every little thing I said, and you ACTUALLY enjoy this show. Then that’s perfectly fine, you’re entitled to your own opinion, and your own interests, but I wanted to get mine out in the open, so I hope you can respect my opinion as I will respect yours. What other reviews can you expect from me in the future? Well, I currently have two game reviews in the works, but it may be quite some time before they are done, considering how incredibly lazy I am. But who knows? I’m sure I’ll find something else I hate, and either review or give my thoughts on it in the future.

Once again, if you actually made it to the end of this review, I heavily appreciate you taking time out of your day just to read me bitch about some stupid cartoon.

And I’ll see ya around, :P

[littleevilisa]

LIP March Madness: Introduction of Human Emotions in a Virtual System

Summary: There are some thing you should not mess with. Katniss should have known that before stepping inside the Dreamatorium. Now she has to run through its simulations to find her friend Beetee before he’s lost forever. Sort of. Based on Community season 3 episode 16 “Virtual Systems Analysis”.

Rated: T

A huge thank to @titaniasfics for betaing, and to the ladies at @loveinpanem for hosting this round.

I don’t own THG nor Community

The battle rages all around her. She sees the Men in White fall by the dozen, but the gray uniforms of the rebels lay on the ground, too, marred with blood and dirt.

The epic music swells in a crescendo of brass and percussion.

She uses her bow to block the shotgun-axe of a soldier, then punches him in the guts and stabs him in a soft spot of his neck with her combat knife.

The Crafter is at her side, wielding his powerful plasma spear with purpose. They need to open a path through the battlefield to get to the Reasoner and the Hunter, who have almost reached the President’s camp, leading the assault.

She arms her bow with incendiary arrows, the ones with the yellow tips. She lets them fly in one breath, one fluid motion.

feeew feeew feeew twack twack twack

The soldiers hit by the arrows fall to the ground in silence, dead. She hears the wilhelm screams of those around them, caught in the fire caused by her deadly weapon.

She jumps on top of a big rock to incite their men, raising her bow over her head as if she's holding the flag of their nation.

“People of Panem!” she screams. “We fight, we dare, we end our hunger for justice!”

“Dreamatorium, stop simulation Battle of the Tree Island.”

I huff, stepping off the pile of dirty laundry we’ve been using as the rock. “It’s the fifth time, Beetee. What did I do wrong now?”

Beetee props his broomstick against the green and orange wall of the Dreamatorium, the room that Gale and he use to play out their imaginary games. Or, as they like to call it, render imaginated dreamscapes. “You keep saying the line with the wrong tone, Katniss. Too fast. And you put stress on the wrong word. It should be on justice, not hunger.”

I roll my eyes. “It’s the same. We’re just playing, it’s not like we’re shooting a scene.”

He looks at me blankly for a full six seconds. That is his reprimanding face. “I think I’ve asked too much of you when I gave you the role of the Mockingjay.” he says in his mechanical tone. “You have the right physical appearance and temperament, but you’re not much of an actor.”

I’m regretting deciding that it would be a good idea to get into the Dreamatorium with Beetee - or D13, as he likes to call the room because it underwent a series of updates after its first inauguration. The adorable nerd all movie quotes and obsession of being inside a TV show is actually a giant bossy jerk. Figures this is what I get for deciding to play wingman for Gale.

This morning Dean Trinket, wearing one of her flamboyant outfits, half man and half woman, because she was bearing good news and bad news, announced that the exam the study group have been trying to cram for at the last minute was postponed. Everybody had immediately jumped at the occasion and took a three hour lunch break. Haymitch was going to see the first half of three different movies. Annie wanted to go with her husband Finnick to a fancy fast food across town. Peeta didn’t tell us what he was going to do, probably sleep in his Lexus. And Beetee was calculating that, without eating, Gale and he could make-believe a whole episode’s worth of The Mockingjay. But I had seen the looks Gale had been sending in Johanna’s direction lately, and decided last minute that I could play with Beetee in the Dreamatorium.

So I got stuck playing the protagonist of Beetee’s favorite TV show, about a young woman leading a rebellion against the cruel dictator that had been enslaving her country. While Gale and Johanna are enjoying lunch at Sae’s Diner, where Beetee would never eat because one of the waiter said he hated Die Hard.

“Beetee, can't we play something that I know about?” I ask. “Like, nature conservation?”

Once again Beetee looks at me with his blank face, but this time I recognize the undertone of judgment.

“You're mad at me for helping Gale out with Johanna?” I ask incredulously as I take off the elastic headband I've been using as the Mockingjay's head piece. “You think you're gonna lose Gale.” The two have been best friends since day one of the study group, and basically inseparable since they moved in together at the beginning of the year. Not even the fact that I moved in the same apartment a couple of months ago could change this dynamic.

“I'm not petty, Katniss.” he answers condescendingly. “I'm mad at you because you tampered with the fabric of the group. How do you know that Gale and Johanna pairing up won't destroy everything? I run every possible scenario while studying this stuff.”

I scoff. “So you can do that, but I can't? You shouldn't be such a control freak.”

He nods. “I kind of have to.” He glances around us. “You think this is just a room where Gale and I play dinosaurs versus riverboat gamblers together. Sure, it's how I got the construction approved, but, much like myself, the Dreamatorium has higher functions.” He walks towards a cardboard on the wall with buttons and levers drawn on it. “Would you like me to show you how your stunt with Gale and Johanna will play out?”

I gesture to him to do as he pleases.

He puts his finger on a big red button with push written on it and says, “Dreamatorium, execute simulation Gale/Johanna. Render environment Sae's Diner.” He pulls a fake lever and pushes a couple of random fake buttons. Then he moves to the center of the room and crouches as if he is sitting on a chair.

Beetee imitates Gale's voice and usual demeanor. “Those appetizer were dope and legit!” Then he switches position and pretends to be Johanna. “I don't usually support lunch because it's unfair to breakfast.” He gets back to be Gale. “I've never thought about meals fighting each other.” he says in wonderment.

As I watch him talk, the room around us morphs into a rendition of the diner's interior, while Beetee actually turns into Gale.

“I guess this is why you never see any two of them on the same table,” he says.

Beetee's orange outline runs from Gale to Johanna. “So I guess Katniss would really like us together.”

Back to Gale. “She probably doesn't understand people. I don't know why she thought I might be romantically interested in you.” He shrugs.

Back to Johanna. “Well, the sooner the food comes, the sooner this will be over.”

The waiter arrives to their table, and Beetee jumps inside him. “I'm afraid your food won't be ready for another half hour. I'm too busy misunderstanding the whole point of Die Hard.”

Back to Gale. He looks longingly in the distance. “I can't wait to get home to Beetee.”

I need to interrupt this stupid game. “So what? You can dart back and forth doing impressions of our friends. There's no science at work here.”

The simulation gradually disappears. Beetee stands up, back at being himself. “You're right.” he says. “The science is at work in here.” He walks to a little walk-in closet and opens it. Inside there are carton tubes attached to each other with duct tape. “This is the Dreamatorium's engine. My thoughts are collected in this box.” He points a green box with his name written on it. “What I know about my friends is stored here.” Another box saying other people. “Both are distilled by logic and then recombines into objective observation. I'm able to simulate any of the study group and even a half accurate Cray in over seven thousand unique situations.”

“Beetee, it's cardboard and a funnel.” I point out.

“You see it that way because it's calibrated to a specific level of brain function.”

I'm offended. “Oh, right. I'm stupid.”

“Not stupid.” Beetee says. “Just less able to see what I see.

This statement doesn't calm me. It actually has the opposite effect. “You've got it all figured out, huh?”

My phone beeping with an incoming call distracts me from the tirade I was about to spit out. I leave the room.

It's Gale. Checking on Beetee, making sure he's okay. Asking me to make sure his bestie is comfortable because he worries about him when he is not around.

I'm incredibly annoyed.”He's fine! He'll always be!” I almost shout. “He just implied that I work on a lower brain function, so business as usual. I don't understand why people bend over backwards to take care of him.”

“He's just extra sensitive in the Dreamatorium.” Gale defends him. “It takes a lot out of him to run that thing. I don't want you to break his brain.”

I roll my eyes. “Bye, Gale.” I say, and hang up.

I barge back in.

Beetee is intent on something in the engine/tube construction. “I've been thinking about our Mockingjay scenario. Perhaps it would be better if you played the Clone Maiden. She was in two scene and only had three lines.”

I look at him with squinted eyes. “I have a better idea.” I march to the thing. “Your scenarios would be a lot more realistic if you'd take all your thoughts and logic and add one step to the process.”

He watches me closely as I take the other people box. “What are you doing?” he asks me with a mix of confusion and alarm.

“From now on, before you do or say anything, you're gonna think about how it affects the people around you. We lower functioning brain call it empathy.” As I talk I switch the box in my hand with the Beetee one, that I put where the other was.

Beetee suddenly starts letting out a high pitched whimper.

I look at him, alarmed. “Beetee?”

The whimper turns into a scream as Beetee start hitting the side of his head. Then, as suddenly as he began, he stops and falls to the ground, completely still.

Fuck. Did I just break Beetee?

I run to his side, shaking him and calling his name. “Do you remember when you wanted me to tell you when you were scary weird instead of cute weird?” I tell him. “'Cause this is scary weird.”

He blinks twice, then looks at me in confusion. “Katniss?”

I sigh in relief and help him stand up.

“Hello, Katniss.” Okay, this tone doesn't sound at all like Beetee's. This is not good. “What was I doing on the floor? Were we... doing it?” He gives me a devilishly handsome smirk.

“Are you being Peeta, now?” I ask him.

As soon as the question is out, Beetee morphs into Peeta, broad shoulders, blond curls, and all. “Well, I'm not being a Kardashian,” he jokes.

I pinch the bridge of my nose. I didn't break him. I just caused one of his usual breakdown. “Where are we now?” I ask, annoyed.

“We're in the rangers' lounge of Greenmeadow National Park.” Beetee/Peeta says as his clothes change to a ranger uniform and the Dreamatorium becomes a wooden cabin. I'm back in my Mockingjay outfit instead of the black jumpsuit I used as her uniform.

“A national park?”

He nods. “It's a sexy emotional park where rangers save nature and make love, often simultaneously. Our stories, ripped from the headlines. Our passion, unbridled. Our coffee...” he says, looking at the coffee maker in a corner of the room, “eh.” He dramatically turns to me, getting so close to me that our bodies are only a few millimeters from each other. “Make love to me, Kat.” He cups my face in both his hands and I have to restrain myself not to melt into his sudden touch. “I know I'm just a ranger and you're a hotshot park manager. But damn the rules, damn the system, damn our completely incompatible body types. I want you.”

I shake myself out of the spell Peeta's closeness and words cast on me. I need to remember this is not Peeta, but Beetee playing him.

I push away his hands. “I get it, Beetee. We have different sensibilities.” I turn around and walk away. I don't want to spend another second with him.

I'm in the living room, halfway to my bedroom, when I stop dead in my tracks. Beetee is not following me, as he usually would do when someone leaves the Dreamatorium before the simulation's over. I don't even hear a sound coming from the room.

It's not a good sign.

I huff and walk back in the rangers' lounge.

Peeta is still here, still looking at me with his passionate gaze.

I sigh. This man child is really getting on my nerves. “Okay, ranger Peeta. Do you know where I can find Beetee? I owe him an apology.”

Peeta's brow furrows as he shakes his head. “Beetee? Never heard of him.”

I roll my eyes. Awesome. Let's see if playing along can help. I square my shoulders and raise my chin, commanding. “I asked you a question, officer.”

“I'm a ranger!” Peeta shouts.

“And I'm your manager!”

“I left my wife for you and she was pregnant!”

I squint my eyes at him. “Who you think paid the doctor who inseminated her?”

The 'horrible' realization makes Peeta take a step back, in shock.

“Now tell me what I want to know or God as my witness, I'll have your badge.” I say in a demanding tone.

“Fine.” he barks. “Dr. Mason might know. Dreamatorium, render environment bio lab.”

An orange electric blur crosses the room, and the wooden cabin turns into an high-tech lab.

“Look,” Peeta says, “there's Gale and Johanna, the biologists working for the park, fooling around with each other.”

Yes, Gale and Johanna are here, dressed in white lab coats, awkwardly touching each other's face.

So if Beetee says that he sees something, that thing appears? Well, I can do that to. I point to his left. “Look, there's Beetee having overcome his issues.”

Peeta looks at me with a deadpan expression. “Nice try.”

Beetee's outline leaves Peeta and darts to Johanna. “We've just discovered an antidote for the terrible fungus that is killing the vegetation in the park.”

The outline jumps to Gale. “Using an unapproved procedure. Now, we're going to kiss.” He turns to Johanna, bends down as well as he can from his towering height, and make a strange sound, opening his mouth in an o shape. He darts back and forth between the two of them, doing the same sound over and over.

I have to resist the urge to throw up. This doesn't even remotely look like two people sharing a kiss, but I definitely don't want to see, or think, about Gale and Johanna making out. There are some thing a friend should never see.

“This is what you think I want?” I ask Beetee.

Johanna turns towards me dramatically. “What do you want, manager?”

“I want to talk to Beetee.”

“There's no one here by that name.” Gale says.

I glare at him. “You're lying.”

He shrugs. “Maybe I am. So what? I was raised on the mean street of the Seam. I'm not scared of you.”

Think fast, Katniss. What would make Beetee work with you? How can you lure him out of his hiding place?

The idea flashes through my mind in a nanosecond, and immediately a syringe appears on the laboratory table next to me. I grab it and plunge it in Gale's arm, pushing the piston. “Sodium pentothal. Commonly know as truth serum.” I announce. “Now tell me everything.”

Gale's face scrunches up in a last effort to resist the substance running through his veins. It is useless, though. Soon, he is spilling words as a fountain spills water. “I saw Beetee's name in the park files. I love butt stuff. I hate spiders. I stole a pen from the bank. I cried during About a Boy... the soundtrack...” He bites his lips not to cry. He sniffs and keeps talking. “Once I didn't wash my hand after touching some disgusting thingie I found during an inspection in the park. I can see why women find Clive Owen attractive and I might just as well be attracted to him. I use comparison to Hitler to win arguments on the internet at the drop of a hat. I know nothing about wine. I'm more turned on by women in pajamas than lingerie, I like that they feel comfortable. I didn't get Inception. I didn't get Inception! So many layers!”

By this point he has started sobbing uncontrollably. But I don't have time to console him. We need to stay on the topic. “You said you saw his name in the files. We need to find them!”

I turn to Peeta and he nods. “Dreamatorium, render environment archive study room.”

The lab disappears and in its place is our study room, where the majority of the study group's adventures start. Annie and Haymitch are here.

“Look, there's the head ranger, Annie, talking to Haymitch Abernathy, the alcoholic, Pulitzer Prize nominee who got lost during an excursion in the park last week and was found only today.”

“Mr. Abernathy, what were you doing sitting in that cave?” she asks the older man.

He slurs, visibly intoxicated. “I thought 'twas a train.”

I walk to Annie, impatient. “Annie, get me the file on Beetee.”

She looks at me in confusion. “Beetee doesn't exist, my friend.”

I grit my teeth. “He exists if I say so. This is my park.”

Annie clicks her tongue. “Your park is a simulation being run through a filter of other people's needs. Beetee's been filtered out because nobody wants him around.”

This shocks me. Does he really think that about us? About himself? “I want him around.”

“Well, you're not simulated.” Annie retorts.

I square my shoulder again. Apparently, the only way to obtain something from Beetee is if I'm a demanding boss. “No,” I start, “but this is!” I slap the air.

Annie's head snaps to the side with a second delay, her hand clutching her red cheek.

“There's more where that didn't came from.” I state.

“This is a private compartment!” Haymitch shouts.

I ignore him, focusing on Peeta. “Get the files.” I order him.

He lifts his right eyebrow. “Why me?” he asks.

“Because you can see the cabinets.” If I make Beetee think that I believe everything he says while he's playing Peeta, perhaps it will be easier to get what I want. But Peeta keeps looking at me with his raised eyebrow, expectant. I scrub my face and huff. “And I'll make love to you.”

He pumps his fist in the air. Apparently I'm not the only one hot on getting two members of the group together.

Peeta walks to a random cabinet behind him and immediately fishes out a file. He browses the papers, his brow furrowing the more he goes on. “There is a Beetee in the park, but he's not a ranger.” He pauses, looking at me in astonishment. “He's a missing hiker.”

Suddenly Annie screams. “Notify security!”

“Conductor!” Haymitch blares after her.

I run to Peeta and hastily grab his hand. “Please, enough with this game.” I say. “Take me where I want to go.”

Peeta looks at me for a second, his eyes then falling on our joined hands. “Follow me.” He leads me out of the study room. “You should probably run in place and let the hall move around you.”

I do as I'm told, and the hall starts sliding quickly. We arrive at a glass door and barge through it.

And suddenly we are on a beach at sunset, wearing our white bathing suits. A pretty motif is playing in the background.

“What's this music?” I ask Peeta.

“It's your theme. It plays every time we have an interaction written to enrich our story arch.” he answers.

“Where are we?” I ask, confused.

“Exactly where you wanted to be.” Peeta says. “The last day of the study group's vacation, first year. The night we kissed.”

I remember that day. We had separated from the others, deciding to go for a walk on the beach. We were sitting on the foreshore, the waves lapping our toes, when Peeta addressed the fact that he was glad I hadn't gotten through with my decision to move to Capitol College. He said that without me the group would have probably died out. I told him that it wasn't true, that the group would have survived my departure. He retorted that that would have happened had he been the one to live. Because no one in the study group really needs him. I replied that I did. I need him. And then we kissed. The best damn kiss of my entire life.

But something else strikes me right now. “Beetee wasn't there, so whose memory is this?” I ask.

Peeta shrugs. “Maybe it's yours.” he says. “Maybe the Dreamatorium really works. Or maybe Finnick was watching from the treeline and told Beetee about it.”

I turn towards the trees planted next to the beach to offer some shelter to the bathers during the hottest hours of the day. Sure enough, Finnick is there, hiding behind a large trunk. He leans forward and says, “We don't have cable at home.”

I turn back to Peeta, suddenly pissed. Is it because I just found out that someone was spying on Peeta and me in such a private moment? Or perhaps because Beetee is using it against me, to make me give up my search for him? “Knock if off, Beetee.”

Peeta shakes his head slightly, still looking at me with the same eyes of that day on the beach. “I'm not Beetee. You're confused, as I was. But not anymore.” He cups my cheek in his left hand and leans towards me.

His closeness, like earlier, sends my senses in overdrive. A spark runs from the place where his hand is resting to all my extremities. “Peeta...” I whisper.

Wait. No. What the hell am I doing? This is not Peeta!

I shake his hand off and take a step back. “Beetee, stop! I don't wanna do this.” The music around us stops.

“Are you sure about that?” he smirks.

I don't understand how that face can make me go weak at the knees. “I mean...” I shake myself again. I can't be deterred right now. “That's not the point.” I say as firmly as I can. “I want to talk to Beetee. I'm taking the files.” I mimic grabbing the folder Peeta is holding and browse through it. “Aha! It says that Beetee was taken to the ranger lounge after he was found earlier this morning. Condition: never better.”

Peeta gives a breathy laugh. “You're not holding anything.” He shakes his head and holds up the file in front of me. He opens it up and starts reading. “Beetee Latier, missing hiker 1373. Control freak with no empathy. People bend over backwards to take care of him. Signed, park manager Katniss Everdeen.” He shows me the paper with my signature.

I should be concerned that Beetee knows how to forge my signature, but at the moment it's something else that causes me to worry. He overheard what I told Gale on the phone earlier. Of course he wouldn't want to talk to me. I'm the biggest jerk ever. “That's out of context.” I try to defend myself, knowing that I shouldn't.

Peeta shushes me and wraps an arm around me. The music starts all over again. “You thought about everything, Katniss. With Beetee gone and Gale and Johanna together there's nothing standing in our way.”

I'm confused. “What?”

“This is your dream, Katniss. This is why you played wingman for Gale. This is what's important to you.” He leans forward again, this time trying to kiss me.

I shove him off of me, enraged. “You are not Peeta!” I shout. “Because Peeta cares about Beetee. And I didn't push Gale and Johanna together so this would happen.” I move my hand between us. “I did it because I thought they were missing a chance to see if something could happen, and this would have been a bonus.”

Peeta lifts his eyebrow and smiles. Damn me and my big mouth.

I keep talking, aggravated. “We are not here. And I'm not staying here because I hate whoever you are!”

I walk away.

“You should probably storm off in place.” Beetee says.

But it's too late. I bang my head against the wall of the Dreamatorium, where the treeline starts, and fall on my ass.

The beach disappears. We are back in our apartment.

“Where do you wanna go next?” Beetee asks.

I massage my forehead. I'm so tired of his games right now. “I wanna be alone,” I mumble.

“Sounds good to me. Dreamatorium, execute simulation Katniss/Katniss.”

The Dreamatorium morphs once again. This time it's the study room.

“There,” I hear my voice say. “Now we're alone.”

I turn around to see a copy of me smiling. Gosh, how irritating can Beetee get? “Great, now you're me,” I say, standing up to face him.

“Why are you blowing our magic moment with Peeta?” she asks me, angry.

I roll my eyes. “It's not magic. It's not even real.”

My copy smiles. “But we love Peeta.”

“Not like this!” I spit out. “Not to the point that we play with our friends' lives to get what we want. We prefer to get lost in the memories that we share with Peeta, and we keep running the same scenario over and over hoping for a different result, dreaming that we had the guts back then to act on our feelings.”

She puts a hand on her chest. “Running scenarios? Careful now, you're starting to sound like Beetee.”

A sudden epiphany hits me. I sound like Beetee. What if I take it to the next level and start acting like him, just like he is acting like me?

“So... I shouldn't be saying things like...” I try to imitate Beetee's monotone voice as best as I can. “Star Wars. Mockingjay. Cougar Town. Cool, cool, cool.”

My copy looks at me with a mixture of fear and disbelief. “Stop it!”

But I'm on a mission now. Beetee is not the only one that can use the Dreamatorium to make things the way he wants them. “Pop culture, pop culture!” I say. “I'm on a TV show.”

“You're gonna get in trouble!”

Right in that moment, I turn into Beetee, colorful sweater and t-shirt and all. “Meta, meta.”

My copy steps back, terrified. “It's Beetee! I got a Beetee here!” she screams.

Cray, the campus head of security appears next to me. Beetee outline jumps on him. He grabs my arm forcefully. “That's it. I find you guilty of being Beetee. You're under arrest.”

He drags me into the hall, to a row of lockers. We stop in front of a locker covered in danger signs. Cray opens it and shoves me inside with a maniacal laugh.

The inside looks nothing like a locker. Mostly because it's as big as my bedroom. The place is completely empty except a figure slumped against the gray, metal wall, his wrist cuffed to a metal ring.

I recognize the outfit of the Crafter. “Beetee?”

He looks up at me, confused. “Beetee.”

I finally found him. The real Beetee, not the one being mean to our friends. I'm so relieved. “Yeah! I found you by turning into you. How cool is that?”

He looks away. He doesn't seem as thrilled as I am about this newfound ability of mine. “Cool. Cool, cool, cool.” His catchphrase doesn't have the usual wonder in it.

“Where are we?” I ask, casting a glance around us.

“We're inside a locker.” he deadpans. “It's where I spent a lot of time during high school.”

I turn back to be myself. Why would he think any of us, in this case me, would lock him in here? “You know how absurd it is to think that this is where we'd put you?”

“Well, I'm not stupid.” he says. “You can see I've increased the square footage. It's a metaphorical locker. It's a place where people like me are put when everyone has finally had enough of us.”

I roll my eyes. He's so dramatic sometimes.

Beetee keeps talking. “I've run the simulations, Katniss. I don't get married. I don't invent a billion dollar website to help people have sex. I don't make it into Sundance, Slamdance or Dance Pants. Gale invents Dance Pants in 2019, but don't tell him. He needs to stumble onto it.”

I need to stop his rambling. “All right, listen. The scenarios you run in here are great science fiction. They're impressive, detailed, insightful. But they're not accurate at all. Science fiction never has been. Look at 2001. Did we get a space odyssey? Nope. We just got snowboarding in the Olympics. Your simulations are just your anxieties. You're afraid you won't fit in and that you'll be alone. I got news for you. It's the same for all of us. So you'll never be alone and you'll always fit it.”

He looks at me with a sad, little face. But I can see the start of a new hope at the back of his eyes.

I keep talking. “I meddled with Gale and Johanna because I was trying to make life go according to a script. But I can't. You can't. We both need to get more used to winging it. It'll be less work.”

We share a little smile. Here it is, my weird friend.

“Let's get you out of here,” I tell him.

“I don't know how.” he says looking at his handcuffs. “These fake shackles don't have a fake key.”

I crouch down beside him. “Isn't that what a plasma spear is for?” I ask him holding up the weapon of the Crafter, materialized out of nowhere.

Beetee smiles a little. “Technically, no. But that's fine.”

I point the spear at the shackles. A ray of plasma energy sprouts out of the tip of the weapon, hitting the handcuffs and destroying them, freeing Beetee.

He massages his wrists.

“So, should we get back to lunch?” I ask him.

He cocks his head to the side. “I guess so. A bit more anticlimactic than I would have simulated it, but whatever.”

I scoff. “Anticlimactic? Dreamatorium, execute simulation Battle of the Tree Island.”

Standing up next to the Crafter, the Mockingjay juts her hand out to him. “The Reasoner and the Hunter have opened up a path for us.” she says. “What do you say, Crafter, should we go free our people?”

The Crafter looks up at her. He sees the determination in her eyes, the perspiration on her face, her black combat suit covered in dirt and blood. A new hope blossoms in the Crafter's heart. He'll stand with the Mockingjay till his last breath.

He grabs her hand and stands up.

They scream their battle cry, launching themselves against the Men in White. The Mockingjay grabs one of them by the neck and starts punching him in the guts.

“Katniss!” the man cry out in pain.

I immediately stop my assault and let go of Beetee. “Oh, my God! I'm so sorry!”

I help Beetee stand up. “No, no.” he says. “You're committing. This is good stuff.”

We share a big smile. I guess that I understand why Beetee and Gale think that this room is so special.

[mittel-schmerz-blog]

lolinternet

I took a long breath in and did a four-count exhale, willing myself not to start weeping like an idiot.

“I mean, don’t you think that’s psychotic? I just keep thinking about why someone would do something like that. It’s so cruel. He—”

“Andrea,” she said gently, “As much as I would love to hear your musings on Dan’s potential motivations and moral failings, we’re here to talk about the thought processes and behavior patterns that led you into this situation and how you can learn from it to form healthier attachments in the future.”

She uncrossed and then re-crossed her legs and looked at me, expectant.

I was nibbling at the inside of my cheek. I found it a little hard to believe that, after I had just told her that the man I thought I was beginning to fall in love with was actually just using me to test a program he’d written for this insane chatbot sociological experiment/new internet company, she could possibly find fault with me.

“I guess that’s fair… How do you recommend we proceed, then?”

“Tell me more about Dan. What was your first impression of him?”

“I guess my first impression of him was that he looked exhausted, but like, in a really compelling way. We met late last year at our friend Jenny’s birthday dinner. He’s like 6’3 and has these fantastically enormous eyebrows. I thought he was beautiful. We were sat next to each other and I was immediately infatuated with him.”

“What did you talk about?”

“Just the basic getting to know you stuff I guess, but the words looked so stupidly good coming out of his mouth.”

“So when after that did the texting begin?”

“Immediately. That next day he added me on slakr and—”

“Wait. Added you on what?”

“Slakr. S-L-A-K-R. It’s this messaging app that’s basically—” I looked at her for a half second. She was wearing a crisp pastel pink moto jacket. She looked maybe a little bit older than me but definitely not much. “You remember AOL Instant Messenger, right?”

“Of course, Andrea.” She raised one eyebrow.

“Just checking! So, anyway, yeah. After that we talked for something like twelve hours a day every day. At first it was just this weird thing that kept happening, but at about a month in, the…” I searched for the right word, “Tone? Of our ongoing dialogue seemed to change.”

She stuck her arms out toward me and prompted, “What changed exactly?”

“I’m not really sure. I mean, I know this sounds ridiculous but it started to seem like he was made for me. Like he was put on God’s green earth specifically for me.”

“I’m going to need you to unpack that a little bit.”

“I don’t know if I could pinpoint something specific. The character of the conversations just seemed to shift. It just started to feel like... like he really knew me. And really liked me. And it seemed so genuine, like he thought he had really… seen something in me.”

I leaned back, pulling my eyes up toward the ceiling in a protracted pause.

“Hmm…” She scribbled something in her notebook. “So?”

“So what?”

“So did you feel like you really knew him? What did you see in him?”

Now I uncrossed my legs. “I don’t know if I really know anyone.”

She half-rolled her eyes and said, “Uh huh. So no?”

“No— that’s the thing. I really thought I did.”

“Okay, so what made you think you really ‘knew’ Dan?”

Did she really just use air quotes?

“Ugh. I don’t know. From everything that I could gather about him…”

We sat in silence for four full minutes.

I turned to look out the window, but all I could see were the dull silhouettes of cars in the parking lot. She had these white cotton honeycomb blinds that made everything look hazy.

I thought about telling her that it felt like I knew him that first day. I had offered him a ride home and he was sitting in the front seat of my car, blowing smoke out the side of his mouth through the cracked window. Then, when the radio broadcast paused for station identification, he muttered something marvelously rude, cut his eyes at me, and just barely stuck his tongue out of his mouth. It put a jolt through me.

Finally I said, “Honestly, I can’t put my finger on it. There was just something intensely familiar about him. But now I think that maybe the thing that drew me to him was the fact that I thought he thought I was fascinating or whatever.”

She cocked her eyebrow again and said, “Tell me what that looks like in practice.”

“Okay. For example, I asked him if he had ever seen Patch Adams and he said, ‘Yes! I’m a big fan of Robin Williams’ lesser works. Death to Smoochy is one of the funniest movies I’ve ever fucking seen, dude.’ and I totally agreed with him and he was like, ‘You’re awesome’ so.”

“I’ve never seen that movie.”

“Well, it’s great. But we only have 90 minutes here so I don’t want to get sidetracked by a discussion of what is arguably the best movie about a feud between two kids’ show hosts ever made— if that’s okay. But I did really like that Dan and I felt the same way about it. Do you think the plot is potentially relevant to our discussion?”

She choked back a laugh and said, “Most likely not.”

“Cool. So yeah, I guess it was little things. But there were so many of them that it made it feel like we were just...in sync. But there was more than that. He always humored me.”

She blinked and untucked her hair from behind her ear, letting it hang loose in her face.

“It was a robot. It was programmed to humor you. But you said you saw each other a few times over the last few months? What was that like?”

“Chatbot, not robot. But, anyway, honestly it wasn’t great. It was always pretty underwhelming to actually spend time with him.”

“Why?”

“He never made eye contact— it was super fuckin’ awkward. At the time it all felt very pre-teen, like a younger version of me. Like, I didn’t see him again until two months after the first time we met. I asked him to go to get many beers with me, expecting a great conversation and dynamic late-night kisses, but when he got there, he barely even looked at me. The conversation didn’t have any of its usual spark.”

I took two shallow breaths and fingered the seams inside my jacket pocket.

“Was it the same way every time you two saw each other?”

“Well we only saw each other a few times, but when I did call him to hang out, he would show up and talk to me like he didn’t know me.”

She let a silence hang for a minute.

I was sitting on this superstuffed tufted couch swirling in the whirlpool of a complete mindfuck. But the good doctor kept a quick pace.

“If it was disappointing, why did you keep talking to him and trying to spend time with him?”

I squinted at her and thought back to the way he looked at me that first day and said, “There was just something about him. It seemed like he was someone I was supposed to know. I’ve never enjoyed talking to someone so much.”

“How illuminating. I’d like you to consider that, although we’ve been talking for a little while now, I don’t really know anything about Dan.”

“What do you want to know? He’s a fucking psychopath. Apparently I don’t really know anything about him either.”

“That’s my point. Do you think you would’ve noticed that… something was off… sooner if you had been more attuned to Dan the person rather than Dan your primary resource for external validation?”

“How do you mean? I’m a human being not a fucking Turing Test. But now that you say it like that… I guess there wasn’t all that much there.”

I shuddered thinking that this whole six months had been one long, strange, ego-fueled bender. It’s honestly the most mortifying thing that has happened to me or to anyone ever. Imagine feeling that skittish lacewing electricity and learning that you’re actually just a self-obsessed moron.

“Okay,” she intoned. It sounded a little like a consolation. She nudged, “So how did you end up finding out?”

“I tried to ask him about his feelings for me. I’m not totally oblivious— the whole thing was weird. It didn’t feel right. I asked him to play Skee-Ball at this college bar on the east side. And so it became 7 PM on Thursday and there he was and there I was. But before I could say anything he started talking about this article he’d read in Psychology Today or whatever about mirroring.”

“I’m familiar with the concept.”

She picked up her hands, laced her fingers together, and then rested them in a pile on her lap.

“I should have assumed as much. Anyway, we talked about this article for kind of a while. We were leaned over the table and— this is so stupid, but, it was like everything had finally clicked. And I even thought the idea was fascinating, you know… that how much intimacy you feel toward a person is dictated by how they respond to you… by how well reflected you are in them. But then he—”

She harrumphed. “It’s not that simple.”

“If you say so.”

Suddenly I was back there, hunched over that dirty wooden table, remembering watching this man ramble on in the pale blue shadow of a neon PBR sign about his idea for an experiment and how I had been so valuable in developing the end product— as if he hadn’t just destroyed me.

“I do say so.”

“Well it seems that simple since that article was the basis for his annoyingly successful catfishing scheme. ‘Can you program the perfect partner?’ he actually proceeded to pitch me on his mirror bot. He wanted to start some eCompanionship service for the elderly and otherwise socially inept and wanted me to invest.”

“Wow.”

“I know, right?”

“How did you respond? Obviously you didn’t bite.”

“Oh, I did.”

“You did what?”

“I invested. Gave him $500 for a 10% stake.”

She dropped her notebook, looking exasperated.

“You’re joking.”

“Well, I would be stupid not to, right?”