#and kenji has the same VA as hiro hamada so that's cool :)

[smile-files]

okay okay i just finished watching camp cretaceous and i gotta talk about ben. like as a character is he just so funny

ben starts out polite and shy and sweet and afraid of literally everything. like all the other campers have no idea why in god's name he's here (which is completely fair, as he doesn't seem to want to be here either) - but then he befriends an ankylosaurus, which he names bumpy blongy scimbly scromplo. and then he gets taken by a pterodactyl :)

i think one of the strangest things to me is how you have apocalypse shows like this and of the main cast only one will realistically react to almost being killed. like ben almost gets killed by a carnotaur after being separated from the group and the second he finds cover he just instantly starts crying and like. finally. the fact that i should consider that cathartic is ridiculous lmao

no but seriously it's so funny he's gone for a whole season i think and the second he comes back we get an episode about every new trauma he's unlocked. now he's paranoid and jaded and really disconnected from his friends (and people generally)... this boy fears death. this boy will poke death in the eyes. this boy's first best friend is a dinosaur. this boy will commit arson in self defense. this boy thinks everything threatens him and so will continuously commit arson unprompted. this boy has just screamed for the first time ever and is now startled by how loud he was. trauma catharsis boy! get beaten up by the narrative and then beat up the narrative in revenge! let's go!!

it's been a while so i don't remember how this was addressed right after he rejoined the other campers but anyway his friends are so shocked and so concerned and ben's like shut up i need to blow something up or i'm gonna have a panic attack. y'know eventually he eases back into the group and gets to be an absolute dork again but he's always trauma catharsis boy from here on out. even if he gets barely any screentime later on lol </3

um but yeah it's sad how in the later seasons (especially the last) we don't get much ben-centric stuff... like there was the thing about him not wanting to leave bumpy on the island but besides that it's mostly ben being a dork who knows way too much about explosives.

it's hilarious, ben is like... gay with no gaydar (in a general sense). i'm skipping ahead a bit but yeah when yaz comes out to him - not to say that cishet people can't understand or sympathize with queer experiences altogether but idk his response is so earnest and thought-out that it just seems to me that this boy is queer in some way himself (trans icon? trans icon). and then it's really funny because in the season before ben completely missed a social cue (autistic icon? autistic icon) and thought that yaz was into him when she was just trying to third wheel for someone else. like ben do you even know what flirting is? are you sure?

y'know actually ben is scared of everything for the whole series, it's just that now he chooses fight over flight. if you cover his eyes to play "guess who" he'll shriek, and immediately turn around and stab you. ben surprise party incident 5 dead 13 injured. that's really funny to me because it's taking the timid -> brave pipeline to the logical extreme: still terrified, but now with weapons lol

ben is so funny. my beautiful, disturbed, beautiful boy (to quote darius). my guy who starts a battle whenever he makes eye contact with someone. my scrawny kid with a giant dinosaur. my will byers kinnie. my boy who's better at combat than conversation. ben really carried camp cretaceous and you better admit it