#also im watching it again and the amount if dirty jokes that i didnt understand as a child

[where-did-my-sanity-go]

This is really random. But, everyone says the Simpsons predicts the future but HAVE YOU WATCHED ALL HAIL KING JULIAN!? SO MANY THINGS THAT ARE TRUE AND REAL TODAY! Yes

[tigerdrop]

Cringe is dead, talk to me about the funny half-life men and their relationship

okay here is my essay. it is titled These Guys Actually Like Each Other, and Gordon Freeman Is Just Kind Of A Dick*

(disclaimer: these are just my 2 cents. dont take me too seriously! im just some guy online who has watched this shit too many times.)

first things first. these guys actually like each other. this is a key aspect of their relationship. benrey, obviously and textually, digs gordon freeman - you dont flirt that heavily with guys you arent into, and so much of what he says and does is geared around making gordon crack up. thats pretty gay.

but the counterpart to this is that gordon freemans pretty fucking gay for benrey, too. you may say, “oh, but word of god says its not requited!” and to you i will say: bull shit. gordon is uniquely obsessed with benrey compared to all the other characters. if gordon didnt like the fucking guy, he wouldnt giggle with him and share in-jokes with him and bring him up every 5 seconds when benreys not around. thats concern, bro. thats worry. thats real shit

but i cant blame people for thinking that gordon freeman genuinely doesnt like benrey. benreys partially responsible for some of the worst things that have happened to him, the Arm Thing among them. and gordons very insistent afterward that he doesnt like benrey. he even goes so far as to try to kill benrey a couple times. to this, i must argue that gordon freeman is just kind of a dick.

lets talk facts here. canon. Lore. from the moment we hop into gordons shoes, we can see that he is a jerk to every npc on his way into black mesa. this is his default: a dude who just runs his mouth and says rude shit. he calls tommy a freak within 5 minutes of meeting him. he infantilizes the guy and barely considers him a real scientist. he doubts that bubby is a real name for like no fuckin reason. in “real life”, this is because its funny, and wayne is trying to make a funny half-life stream. in a textual sense, this is because gordon “hlvrai” freeman is a dick. this is the way he acts, consistently, throughout the series.

(brief aside: this is why the whole “gordon is a nice guy and a great dad” characterization baffles me. the way he actually acts in canon is, in short, bitchy and lacking in self-awareness. and i love that for him, i really do. it makes the moments where he just tries to be a nice guy stand out. but thats the thing: his intermittent moments of decency and kindness are not the whole of his personality! this dude kind of sucks most of the time!)

the way that gordons general asshole attitude extends to benrey is complicated. in fairness, benrey makes it his job to annoy the shit out of gordon as much as possible, and that warrants a negative attitude, but gordons pretty paranoid and ends up blaming benrey for nearly everything that happens to him, regardless of if its warranted. this is a pattern he exhibits both before and after the Arm Thing. its a little bit of a dick move! especially considering that, prior to the whole “betrayal” subplot (which was not exactly planned very far in advance), benrey is no more malicious or annoying than anybody else gordons having to travel with.

(okay, this is kind of a subjective evaluation, but still. my point stands that benrey is not any more of a hindrance to his progress than anybody else in the science crew, and neither is he particularly more violent or murderous. hell, gordon freeman has probably killed more guys than benrey. benrey just tends to get.......special treatment.)

all that said, i am still convinced that gordon really fucking likes benrey. please consider with me the following: it would be remarkably easy for gordon to just ignore him and do what he has to do, but he doesnt. he could stop engaging. he could stop thinking about benrey. he could stop bringing benrey up to the rest of the crew every time benrey leaves to do his own thing for awhile. but he doesnt. and, again, yeah, the extra-textual reason for this is “two guys are doing an improv comedy thing and bouncing off of scorpy is kind of the point”, but within the text it reads to me as gordon not being about to get the dude off his mind.

and this is in addition to all the times we see gordon being genuinely nice and receptive toward benrey! its in the little things: laughing the hardest and longest at benreys jokes. only ever reciprocating that stupid underwater “BBBBB” thing with benrey. trying to catch benrey when he falls, despite his insistence moments earlier that benrey should hop in the wack ass crystal generator and get hypermurdered. fondly remarking that benreys sweet voice sounds beautiful. his sort of flustered responses to most of benreys overt flirting. none of this is the way normal people react to a guy they hate. this is all fuckin gay to me, man.

its this combination of the outward insistence that gordon hates benrey with his inner eagerness to be around him and think about him and engage with him that gives off strong “repression” vibes, to me. for whatever reason - pride, embarrassment, resentment - gordon maintains a front of hating the guy and wanting to kill him for a lot of the series, but it doesnt gel with the way he fucking giggles and plays along half the time that benrey starts fucking with him. its a game, and that game is one of the only ways gordon knows to manifest affection for him.

(remember “oh my god, hes got a knife!”? that was the gayest shit i ever seen in my life. tittering like a schoolgirl while benrey chases him around like “im gonna get you haha”. insanity.)

the cool thing about repression is that you can have it manifest in a lot of ways! and this is where things like “headcanons” and “my own personal affection for repressed bisexual men” come in. a lot of how i characterize their relationship is an extrapolation of a lot of things like gordons canonical insecurity issues/anxiety, gordons whole anti-bootboy thing screaming “internet wokeboy who means well but probably has a lot of repressed baggage” to me, etc.

how do you get massive amounts of sexual repression out of what you see in canon, you might ask? well. if wayne would stop having gordon talking about being jerked off by the suit, or talking about chugging a 40-gal drum of potion and having to hold his piss, or worrying about being eaten by benrey the moment he sees benrey at setscale 10, maybe i would have a higher opinion of gordon “hlvrai” freeman and whatever latent psychosexual issues hes got going on. but here we are

i havent even touched yet upon how benrey feels about gordon. this one is helpfully made a little more plain by the fact that benrey very much wants to suck his dick in canon. (i dont even have to go into details. we all know.) but IMO the best part about this ship isnt just that they dig each other, but how. benrey gets overtly flirtatious in the second half of the series, but IMO his preferred method of flirting is just fucking with gordon: chasing him with knives, shoving him around in a bathroom, trying to get scans of his feet. but all in like a slapstick, giggly, fun-and-games sense, you know? at least when it works.

a lot of the time, though, it doesnt work out that way. he clearly just likes doing it whether or not gordon responds positively. which is, you know, Weird. not very nice. but also in line with the way everybody else treats gordon freeman. gordons kind of the universes chew toy in any given universe, and the same holds true here. hes kind of helpless......subjected to 4 demons attempting to make his life as difficult as possible. in a way its cathartic.

sorry. i got sidetracked. anyway, benrey very much likes to mess with him and unnerve him and demean him and i will be perfectly frank with you: that is hot. i have problems and illnesses and one of them is that i am a masochist who goes crazy for that kind of thing. calling gordon a “dirty lil boy” and telling him to “look at the mess [he] made” is some straight up kink scene shit.

i like to imagine that a lot of this behavior isnt caused just by the guy who played him wanting to be funny and antagonistic, but by benrey as a character not really understanding what constitutes “pushing a joke too far”. hes not human, and whatever he is doesnt have a very normative way of understanding the world around him, full of people who actually get hurt for real and die for real. benrey expresses what seems to be genuine surprise and distress after the Arm Thing, as if he didnt know that his actions would have serious consequences. and it doesnt seem to fully sink in afterward, either.

it reads a lot to me like hes used to video game rules and treating people around him like NPCs. if they get hurt, its no big deal, because its not real. he likes jamming random buttons on gordons interface and seeing what comes out. its probably a lot of fun for him, the same way that seeing a streamer or a youtuber suffer for our amusement is fun. its like, you know, in my opinion, gordons very cute when hes frazzled. hes also cute when hes laughing. pushing gordons buttons has a 50/50 chance of either of these things. and this is how he ultimately flirts with gordon: by pulling his pigtails.

but at the same time, benrey does legit care about gordon and knows some boundaries. benreys the one most often shooting at enemies to protect gordon, and he spent most of the last act trying to convince gordon to turn around and not fight him because they were friends (best friends, to be specific). he just lacks a lot of the emotional intelligence it would take to express the feeling of “he digs gordon and likes seeing his face get all red and sweaty regardless of the cause”. and gordon lacks the emotional intelligence it would take to express the fact that he doesnt know if he likes or hates benrey and hes scared as hell that its the former

because, lets be real. unironic benrey-liking is a sign of problems disorder. just look at all these words ive written about it.

can you imagine? this bizarrely powerful, non-human entity that can shrug off gunfire and grow to the size of a building has decided that youre his new plaything. benreys the bored guy booting up skyrim and fucking around in the console, and gordons the hapless favorite follower that hes taken a liking to. its a really fun dynamic IMO

after all this, its safe to say my title is a little misleading. the asterisk stands for * and So Is Benrey, Actually. they are both kind of awful dudes who thrive off of teasing each other and they deserve each other. and i am crazy about it. thank u for coming to my TED talk

[heuristicallyinclined]

MallekWeek2020 Day 1 Writing Prompt

Day 1: What happened after Mallek's Friendsim route

(AO3)

If someone told you you would be spending your evening on the less dirty side of a couch belonging to a guy who genuinely thought you were a robot when he met you, you probably would have absolutely believed it. Honestly, you might have felt some relief knowing you would get a break from the usual life-threatening antics. Things might have started out weird, but chilling on someone’s couch was a nice change of pace. Even if there is a giant snake staring at you from across the room, seemingly unblinking. Can snakes blink? Do alien snakes blink? You don’t think this one does at least. You hope Mallek comes back soon.

The two of you had gone for a dip in some sewer water, willingly and otherwise, and had come back up to his apartment to get cleaned up. He offered to let you shower first since he did push you. You let him know you weren’t holding a grudge or anything, but he insisted. You did get a much needed change of clothes out of it though, so that was nice. You offered to see yourself out after your shower, not wanting to overstay your welcome, but he said it was cool. You are now wondering if he was just saying that to be polite. You mean, other people haven’t had much of a problem telling you to fuck off, but you think you are really feeling a friendship from him and you don’t want to risk it losing it because you can’t take a hint. You guess it is too late now, since while you were weighing your option, he enters the room.

Mallek plops down next to you on the couch and you look up at him and give him a friendly smile. You thank him again for being cool about the whole robot and palmhusk in the water thing, but he stops you.

“dude; its cool; you already apologized; were good;”

You relax a bit more at the reaffirmation. People have done worse for less and he felt bad enough to make it up to you. Maybe you are just waiting for the other shoe to drop?

“anyways; im hungry and am getting delivery; what do you want;”

Wait you’re getting fed? Oh he doesn’t have to do that and you don’t have anything to chip in right now an-

“i didnt really expect you to have money; im buying;”

You don’t have to do that, you’re good, you even ate today!

He shoots you a look of concern. Maybe you saying it like that was less than reassuring that you’re “good.”

“im not just going to eat in front of you; come on; plus my original plans fell through;”

You’re about to ask what when he nudges you with an easygoing smile. Oh, he was probably hoping to mess with a robot.

“here; what sounds good to you; i pulled up grubhub;”

What.

“oh yeah you = alien; you can get food off of it; here;”

He shows you his palmhusk and you scoot closer to see the screen. What the actual fuck. How is this a universal constant? Like you know they have a kind of bug theme going on and slap the word grub on things in ways you don’t really get. This still is a lot for you though. He is explaining it to you and you stop him. You fill him in. He chuckles and seems to be amused by this.

“that = weird dude; how about the food;”

Nope, the food is still eluding you. Some stuff seems to have Earthen equivalents and just have bugs or grubs on them or something. Others you have no idea what to make of. He can get whatever he thinks is good and you’re cool with getting whatever he is gets. He puts an order in.

“sure; but grubs = the best part;”

You disagree.

He laughs, “dibs on yours then;”

They’re all his.

You smile at him and it feels easy to do. You ask what you two are doing until then.

“how about a movie; = you cool with that”

Sure!

Okay, you are actually really pumped about this. A movie night with some delivery? That sounds like a really fun night. This is something actually you want to do, instead of just getting through to try to be his friend. You tell him to choose whatever, you haven’t seen anything other than a few romcoms anyways. Plus, him asking you to choose between two movies would take him ten minutes just to get through the titles. He chuckles at this and starts flipping through titles.

“do you like action movies;”

Yeah.

“how about bad ones;”

Like a really cheesy movie?

“yeah;”

Sounds fun. But you haven’t seen a lot of Alternian media, so whatever he picks is going to inform your opinion of his species. No pressure.

You hope he gets that this is a joke. Joking has felt easy to do with him so far and you want to keep doing it. You would hate to ruin it by saying the wrong thing and having him tell you to get out. By the way he is laughing though, he seems to appreciate it.

He grins at you, “okay; then this is going to be accurate as hell; enjoy;”

You’re ready for it.

Except you aren’t because there is a knock on the door. Mallek starts to get up, but you tell him you can at least grab it for him since he ordered it. You bound up to the door and open it with a delivery guy reading off the order for you to confirm. You realize you don’t know what Mallek ordered and the delivery guy looks up when you don’t answer. You also then realize he wasn’t expecting to see an alien answering a highblood’s door, based off of how he was looking at you. To his credit, he doesn’t drop the food. You just just grab it and thank him, basically slamming the door in his face with mild panic. You turn around and Mallek is there. You two look at each other and he doubles over. His laughter is contagious and soon you are too. You eventually collect yourself.

You feel bad, you know the poor guy doesn’t get paid enough for that.

“hes fine; does everyone do that when they see you;”

Depends on if they’re looking for a robot or not.

He chuckles and shakes his head. You settle back onto the couch with him with some plates and pop the box open. You see what looks like a very creative interpretation of pizza covered in mostly plants. And grubs. Cool. You grab a slice and start picking them off. It tastes good, not what you were expecting, but not bad. You grab another slice.

“how = it;”

You let him know you like it.

“enough to try it with grubs;”

Absolutely not.

He grabs one of the ones you picked off of your plate and into his mouth, “suit yourself;”

The two of you get back to watching the movie and you get comfortable. It has so many explosions and unrealistic combat scenes. Which you feel you now have the authority to judge based off what you’ve seen with Skyyla, Remele, Konyyl, Azdaja, and wow actually this is a concerning amount of violence you’ve seen. Hope that doesn’t have any long term consequences.

The acting is also just so bad. Like you know very little about quadrants, but based off of that and how prickly trolls can be, this is forced as hell. They have no chemistry in a love or hate way. God Polypa would be having a field day with this one. The characters are just. A lot. Some douchey main, secondary buddy dude, the veteran, romantic lead. There are so many cliches and you are having fun hating it, wait, did you just accidentally understand kissmesitude? Because of this shitty movie? Damn it.

There is one hacker character who does tech stuff for the leads. He uses a bunch of technical sounding jargon that you suspect means nothing based off of how Mallek is rolling his eyes. You don’t feel too bad interrupting the riveting dialogue.

So did any of that mean anything?

“fuck no; none of that made sense;”

You continue watching it, curling up fully on the couch now. More explosions and fight scenes. You wonder if humans and trolls have more in common than you originally thought just because of how you share so many tropes, just spun a bit differently. The hacker character utters, “I’m in,” and you can’t help it and smirk.

That’s you.

“that = me; you = right;”

This is easy and you like it, Just dumb side commentary during dumb movies.

Seriously, have you ever hacked anything and said “I’m in”?

“no;” he pauses and smiles at you, “but i have thought it;”

You wouldn’t be a real information specialist if you didn’t.

You grab another slice and immediately put the grubs on Mallek’s plate. The hero saves the day and triumphs doing some backflips off of a burning building. The buddy makes a joke that falls flat. The two kiss. Everyone is happy and the credits roll.

You look over at Mallek, sprawled out on the couch, legs on top of yours. He seems to always keep up a cool demeanor, but this is probably the first time you’ve seen him be genuinely relaxed. You wish you could be that relaxed, you were having fun, you really were, but the movie was over now and you didn’t know where that left you. As reluctant as you are to break the silence, you do.

So the movie is done now, do you want me to help clean up before I go?

“it = getting late; do you want to go;”

You hope you aren’t reading too far into this but you think he maybe doesn’t want you to leave yet.

You were down to watch another one if he was.

“Sweet; i =”

You were actually having a lot of fun.

He raises an eyebrow at you when you make this admission.

“Actually;”

Wait, by that you me-

“im just messing with you; yeah; i havent had a movie day with friends in a while; it = nice;”

He said friend! You were beaming at him. He returned the look albeit more tiredly.

“= you ready for the next one;”

You nodded and he pressed play.