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I don't know poo poo about writing, but Benny's stories are loving boring. Which is weird, because when he writes about his daily life I'm really entertained.
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Mar 22, 2014 23:19
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natetimm posted:The Mexican thing is Benny trying to inject his own personal culture into everything, but his experiences and life in general are so disconnected from what a "typical" Latino or Mexican or whatever would be experiencing it's ridiculous. Benny is a fat, spoiled white kid who happens to have Mexican ancestry, not a cultural touchstone of what it means to be Mexican in today's US. He has almost nothing to contribute perspective-wise from his cultural heritage because his entire life revolves around about the most vanilla type of media you can get your hands on. Benny is George Zimmerman
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Mar 23, 2014 00:25
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Aqua Bear posted:... when he writes about his daily life I'm really entertained. Yes!But he doesn't do anything!
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Mar 23, 2014 01:51
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Yad Rock posted:Benny is George Zimmerman and we are all trayvon martin
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Mar 23, 2014 02:33
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WerewolfBarMitzvah posted:and we are all trayvon martin That should be his next writing prompt for the Thunderdome.
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Mar 23, 2014 02:47
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Ms. Happiness posted:That should be his next writing prompt for the Thunderdome. No, it should be "How To Sign Up For Healthcare At the ACA site: An Instructional"
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Mar 23, 2014 02:51
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DopeGhoti posted:No, it should be "How To Sign Up For Healthcare At the ACA site: An Instructional" Would it be counted as fanfic if you guys did a big group of stories about an unemployed manchild who didn't get healthcare and X happened (doesn't have to mention Benny)?
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Mar 23, 2014 04:32
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Scapegoat posted:Would it be counted as fanfic if you guys did a big group of stories about an unemployed manchild who didn't get healthcare and X happened (doesn't have to mention Benny)? This thread sucks when it gets creepy.
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Mar 23, 2014 04:41
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Benny, if you post here I will draw your OC. Oh wait, wrong sad sack.
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Mar 23, 2014 08:48
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Tiny Brontosaurus posted:This thread Because it shows that anyone can be a superstar with an overly fixated fanbase. Yay!
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Mar 23, 2014 08:50
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Lolie posted:What happened with last week's Target interview, Benny? What are you talking about? The interview is tomorrow.
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Mar 23, 2014 13:26
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Perhaps Benny is in jail for trying to buy crack from a cop while applying for the drug kingpin job. This would be a good thing since it would show initiative and give him an opportunity to meet new and interesting people.
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Mar 23, 2014 13:49
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Quantum Finger posted:Perhaps Benny is in jail for trying to buy crack from a cop while applying for the drug kingpin job. This would be a good thing since it would show initiative and give him an opportunity to meet new and interesting people. No jail can hold el Serpiente, man! Check breaking news for a desperate shopping cart chase across the Nevada border.
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Mar 23, 2014 14:05
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Guys I don't think he is coming back to this thread.
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Mar 23, 2014 15:36
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flavor effigy posted:Guys I don't think he is coming back to this thread. Maybe he got the job and is too busy 
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Mar 23, 2014 16:31
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Pope Corky the IX posted:What are you talking about? The interview is tomorrow. Close, it's actually tomorrow.
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Mar 23, 2014 16:49
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Why would he leave all of a sudden? It's not like everyone has been especially cruel lately? Hell, I came back after 4 separate posts about my terrible mother..
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Mar 23, 2014 16:52
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Pillowpants posted:Why would he leave all of a sudden? It's not like everyone has been especially cruel lately? Hell, I came back after 4 separate posts about my terrible mother.. I assume it has to do with everyone finding out about the adult baby fetish.
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Mar 23, 2014 17:57
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Benny not posting here for sympathy is the smartest thing he's done in a year.
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Mar 23, 2014 18:04
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crabrock posted:Benny not posting here for sympathy is the smartest thing he's done in a year.
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Mar 23, 2014 18:09
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Uncle Salty posted:I agree with this. I do want to hear about the library bookstore volunteer position, though. On the 17th, he was awaiting a call from the library volunteer coordinator person about getting his fingerprints done. Wonder what will happen tomorrow! Nothing. Nothing will happen tomorrow.
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Mar 23, 2014 19:08
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Benny the Snake posted:
So Benny, rethought this yet?
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Mar 23, 2014 19:27
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Also, I'm about 85% sure that you're not supposed to put a book back where you think it's supposed to be, if you see one lying around at the library. The actual, paid, trained/educated library staffers keep track of how many times a book is moved/touch/displaced, not just how many times someone checks it out. I don't remember the reason that this matters, but library staffers collect data on this. This is probably why you often see "Please don't re-shelve books" signs posted in the stacks.
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Mar 23, 2014 19:41
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I worked in a bookstore for a while and the worst thing was when people would try to reshelve books, and do it wrong. If you leave it on a table, a staff member will find it and put it in the right place. If you stick it on the wrong shelf, there's no goddamn chance of ever finding it again. Not until the next time someone has time to re-alphabetize the shelves. Don't put things in the wrong places on bookshelves you fucks. Also Benny, get healthcare
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Mar 23, 2014 20:01
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Arbitrary Coin posted:I was looking at the beginning of the thread when people were still optimistic and sympathetic, trying to figure out when things changed and found this. Cliffnotes summary of Benny's statements about lying in this thread are a few pages back. http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3531379&pagenumber=117&perpage=40#post427001358
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Mar 23, 2014 21:13
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Dear Benny, Wow. Please get Healthcare. Yours, Fingerling.
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Mar 23, 2014 22:19
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Benny gives it his all. (Or at least his some. His maybe.)
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Mar 23, 2014 23:45
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hmmm no latinos, I'm not convinced he wrote this
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Mar 24, 2014 00:07
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The good news: No stereotypical Mexicans! No random killing of family! The bad news: The structure was grating, especially the "Yours, Jason," "Yours, Lydia" stuff. I felt nothing for any of the characters. There was not much in the way of detail, and nobody said anything interesting. It was a love/relationship story written by somebody who's never been in love or a relationship, and it showed. Benny: Read "The Gum Thief" by Douglas Coupland. Like all Coupland, it has it's tin ear dialogue moments. However, it's an excellent epistolary novel. By the end, you actually care about the characters and what happens to them. I didn't get that here.
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Mar 24, 2014 00:18
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It's hard to put my finger on what bothers me about this story (other than awkward prose). Maybe it just seems so predictable - you know exactly what's going to happen by the first couple of exchanges. Short-tempered guy turns out to be abusive rear end in a top hat, check. Water tensions on Mars turns into greater conflict that dude gets caught up in, check. One of the two realizes the other is their soulmate all along, check. There's no wrench in the gears to make the story go somewhere interesting - it's just a straight trajectory with straight characters telling their own story in a straight and shallow way. The characters should be much more introspective and thoughtful and detailed about what's going on, considering what they're supposed to mean to each other. But, at least it isn't about Mexicans killing each other! Unless Jason was killed by a Mexican off-camera...
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Mar 24, 2014 00:23
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blackmet posted:The good news: No stereotypical Mexicans! No random killing of family! Thanks for making a lot of the comments I wanted to make: I'm in this round so I don't feel comfortable criticizing people until my own story's up. (I need to finish neurotically making edits and just post it.) EDIT: That goes for Fugue too. I'll throw at least one comment in -- if his characters wanted something (instead of just waiting for things to happen to them) I think it would help. I also think this is pretty fundamental advice that he should have picked up in school.
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Mar 24, 2014 00:23
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Hmmm, I didn't hate this. I don't like either Jason or Lydia. The two characters are either reciting the farm and war bulletin or talking about a boyfriend. The aspects of the story were clear, though. The pacing was good, for a beginning to a story. I would read a bit more, I think. Benny will get good feedback from the real writers in Thunderdome, because it isn't offensively horrible. Uncle Salty fucked around with this message at 00:40 on Mar 24, 2014 |
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Mar 24, 2014 00:38
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blackmet posted:
It jars for me because these communications are so brief. As a reader, I assume that they're brief for a reason (technological limits, expense, etc), so the structure seems at odds with the communication method. I also don't think the characters have "a life of their own". In real life, people have different vocabularies, different syntax, different words they use often. Those differences are usually extremely noticeable when people are expressing themselves in writing but I really don't think Lydia and Jason have "voices" which are distinct enough (and separate enough from Benny's own voice). I could see where Benny was trying to go with this, though, and he did fairly well at introducing key information in the first couple of sentences. Lydia isn't a credible character to me, but I think it takes work for any writer to master the challenge of developing characters whose life experiences are different from their own (in this case, a female character).
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Mar 24, 2014 01:38
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The problem is that it's extremely unimaginative and filled with clunky exposition. Why wouldn't Lydia already know that Mars isn't terraformed? It's also not a conversation, so why would you "Forget to say he's a Marine"? Why wouldn't you just go back and edit your letter? Why does Lydia suddenly love Sean - there's no emotional growth, but then all of a sudden she misses him so much?
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Mar 24, 2014 01:39
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Seven Hundred Bee posted:The problem is that it's extremely unimaginative and filled with clunky exposition. Why wouldn't Lydia already know that Mars isn't terraformed? It's also not a conversation, so why would you "Forget to say he's a Marine"? Why wouldn't you just go back and edit your letter? Why does Lydia suddenly love Sean - there's no emotional growth, but then all of a sudden she misses him so much? This is kind of what I mean about Benny not getting inside the head of his characters. A real person would go back and edit (in a verbal conversation you might add the "forgot to say he was a marine" thing). Their communications are evidently infrequent, so each one needs to bring important new information. Lydia doesn't express any deepening emotional concern for Jason's welfare throughout their exchanges, which makes her "I love you" stuff at the end far less credible. Girl gets treated badly by guy and realises she loved someone else only after he's likely dead - it sounds like something a "nice guy" would write. Also, Lydia says at one point that she doesn't know how Jason got to Mars, but in the last letter she says "I wish you never boarded that shuttle for Mars." Jason doesn't clarify how he got to Mars in between those exchanges, so it's a continuity error. There's also nothing in the exchanges until the last one which suggests anything beyond a friendship so "I think about those long summer days we spent together laying on the grass watching the clouds fly by" seems almost out of place (when did they do this - as kids, as adults). Nothing in the prior exchanges suggests that Lydia is someone who has been "left behind" and is trying to get on with her life while missing Jason. Nor is there any suggestion that Jason misses Lydia in the exchanges. The emotions he expresses are about the situation in which he finds himself on Mars. Lolie fucked around with this message at 02:28 on Mar 24, 2014 |
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Mar 24, 2014 02:26
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Benny hasn't posted in his own thread for a week. This makes me sad.
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Mar 24, 2014 13:05
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I'm fairly sure it's because he already has healthcare and doesn't want to see a therapist.
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Mar 24, 2014 14:12
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cname posted:I'm fairly sure it's because he already has healthcare and doesn't want to see a therapist. Would his parents plan definitely cover therapy?
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Mar 24, 2014 14:34
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Scapegoat posted:Would his parents plan definitely cover therapy? It doesn't matter. Therapy only works if you, y'know, give a poo poo about improving your situation and make an honest effort. I can't imagine Benny doing much else except nodding his head and wondering when he can go home.
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Mar 24, 2014 14:38
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Dex posted:It doesn't matter. Therapy only works if you, y'know, give a poo poo about improving your situation and make an honest effort. I can't imagine Benny doing much else except nodding his head and wondering when he can go home. Pretty much this + I'm sure it costs some miniscule amount of money that Benny can't/won't come up with. IE: If something he really wanted was the same price as the co-pay, he would likely find a way to get it.
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Mar 24, 2014 15:33
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