Shadow Dream Girl - A Bennet the Sage Psychological Horror Tale

[Complicity]

Bennett is doing a thing.

It's like, you know, this book was a choose your own adventure kinda game.
Or like, you know, a ching chong visual novel kinda hentai.
But, you know, instead of choosing between waifu A route and waifu B route, you know, the player doesn't choose.
Because, you know, he's a faggot like the writer, you know.
And so he reloads the old save state in chapter 4, you know.
It's so deep, you know.
Deep faggotry, man.

[RedLine]

Bennett is doing a thing.

I hear it's amazing when the famous purple stuffed worm in flap-jaw space with the tuning fork does a raw blink on Hara-Kiri Rock. I need scissors! 61!

[VoiceOfReasonPast]

Bennett is doing a thing.

You know, if he wanted to emphasizes the "Every day feels the same" attitude he could've a paragraph or two that repeated in each chapter.

And di Not-Spoony ever think about writing shit down? He's in an almost-Memento situation, but he does nothing to keep his train of though straight.

[Kugelfisch]

Why would he when that's a concept that is introduced just now?
That's really the biggest problem besides the tedious prose. Too much time wasted. It didn't need, nor should have had all that Clerks shit. Not the Brian's, not the dipshit nerd talk at length.

You're not Kevin Smith two decades ago. You don't have to make do with a tiny budget to film a movie. You're writing a novel! You can have and make everything you want! Locations, effects, characters, you name it.

I know pibbs skipped a lot of shit for us, yet I have the feeling that Bennet didn't explore the narcolepsy shit enough. He didn't build up the skewed perception of reality of Noah enough. All the faggot talk and Clerks shit made him instead just sound like a regular 20-something sadbrain faggot working retail.

Besides, why does this take place in current times? There are no video stores around today. Have it take place in early 2000 instead. I have a feeling he only put it today because he wanted to mention movies that came out between then and now. That's a bad reason.

[pibbs]

I know pibbs skipped a lot of shit for us, yet I have the feeling that Bennet didn't explore the narcolepsy shit enough.

No he didn't. I'm not exaggerating when I say most of this book so far is just the anxiety ridden inner monolog of Ian. I have quoted every instance of his narcolepsy but omitted the volumes of Ian thinking about it.

It's a fucking slog to get through. I try to quote snippets of the pages and pages of that so yall can get an idea of the awful prose.

[Kugelfisch]

Just as I though. He just had to get his geek talk in there, readers be damned.

[VoiceOfReasonPast]

He's a bit like Ernest Cline in that regard, except less autistic.

[pibbs]

The DHI Autistic Book Club

Shadow Dream Girl
by Bennet “The Sage” White
Chapter 11: The Plot Stupidens
protected by Fair Use, bitch

Ian's mind cracked open, spilling memories that flowed and crashed as cascades escaping a broken dam. The burning DVD in his hand, the failed night out with The Brians, the night club, the dancers, the heat, Lisa.
I'm still here, Ian.
Spinning around toward the voice, Ian found only a vague, reddish blur that vaporized into nothingness the instant that his eyes were able to focus.

Skipping many paragraphs.

Where am I? Am I dreaming? Am I dead? Dear God, what the fuck is happening to me?!

A paragraph of that shit.
And this shit...

...the only thing he could think to do as his brain assaulted him with existential preponderances.

For the third time (Ian is on the bus this time) he spots that same homeless man. I only mention it, because this may be important later? And we are on this dude for a few pages.

Neck and shoulder still crooked and unnaturally joined, arm crumpled and folded into a vestigial limb, hip jutting to one side and back bulging forward; to look at him was to empathically share the ungodly amount of pain he no doubt experienced every waking second.

They wave at one another.

Literally, this chapter is just more of the same. Long passages of prose to just describe Ian's incessant whining in his own head. The homeless man sparks a thesis on society and class.

They were cast-offs and hermits, islands unto themselves, clinging onto the vain hope that some life-raft would come along and rescue them. And even knowing that there were others out there, other Ians sitting with splayed out legs in the sand and staring out with tear-stained eyes and cotton-stuffed brains...

Hey, remember how two chapters ago it left off with a flaming zombie whore? Can we get back to that please?

Please?

But of course, like an IN would, Ian makes the plight of the homeless about himself. He bathes in self-pity as, like the bum, he is an outcast of society too, you see?
However he will now become proactive and get himself out of whatever is happening to him.

There are only three explanations about what's happening to me. Either I'm dead, I'm dreaming, or I'm crazy. Neither possibility sounds pleasant, and I don't think I can rule out any one or all of them.

A page of follow up to this reasoning.

What in the world is happening to me? And just who the fuck is Lisa?

So he remembers Lisa, but no thoughts on her ghoulish form.

Ian gets to his apoartment, and takes a shower. PLEASE don't let there be pages of him cleaning himself, BENNETT!

There's a couple of pages of him taking a shower.

Even as his teeth chattered as castanets, Ian felt a sense of comfort. There was something about how the cold grounded him, made him feel anchored to the world, and that gave him a sense of place in life. The cold brought him out of whatever hot-blooded panic he could be in, and took him to where he needed to be; outside of his own head.

He towels off, and he looks in the mirror.

You were always ugly.
Ian snapped to attention, but knew instantly that it was useless to try and look for where that voice came from.

Now he's going to shave. A page of this.

Let me just skim through this boring dreck.
Vows to get in shape.
Scrutinizes his face.
Sits naked on his bed. Thanks for that, Bennet, you fag.

Have I even met a Lisa? I don't remember ever meeting one, at least. But I can't count on my memory. Her voice seems kind of familiar, though. And her face, I think I've seen it before, too. Maybe she isn't someone I know, but rather, some kind of person I used to know. An idea of a person. Maybe? I just don't know.

He looks around at the things in his apartment and describes them – like the fucking microwave.
He looks at an old chair, and wonders if he it had always only been him here.
He rummages through his crap in his closet. Old sneakers, some old billth ina shoebox. He frets over why he can't remember if he had always been alone.
He throws the box across the room and curls up, still naked, into a ball on the floor and cries.

It was a mistake. A mistake to love you.
Ian wanted to scream at the voice, to leave him alone and let him get on with his miserable life, or just put him out of his misery and kill him, but a twinge to the voice caused him to reconsider. Did the voice love him at one point? And why did the voice seem off, like it was inebriated?
I'm so sick of your bullshit, and I'm sick of trying to take care of you! You worthless little boy!
It was almost too much for Ian to look behind him from where he thought the voice was coming from, but as the insults continued, the voice began sounding more and more desperate...

He snorted a trail of snot back into his nose while the voice persisted.
I swear to God, we are through! I don't ever want to see you, or your sorry ass ever again! You made me waste my li- The voice suddenly stopped.

He picks the strewn shit from the shoebox up off the floor and a picture falls out of the pile of papers.
In it, is Ian, happy. That's so strange to him.

As his fingers met the corner of the keepsake, he suddenly became aware of the fact that a part had been burnt off, leaving only a stained and frayed edge. Underneath the burnt edge, taking up nearly half of the photo, was the remnants of a shoulder and chest of a woman. She had been wearing a fitted t-shirt, the light being too weak to properly identify the color. It was strong enough, however, to make out her thin and altogether plain looking figure, wrapping itself around Ian's shoulders and holding him close. At one point, she must have been looking at the camera when the photo was taken, but whatever her face might have looked like, it had long since been lost to time and flame. Lisa?

The twist everyone saw coming.
He takes some pills and goes to bed.
End of chapter.

We are 65% through this dumb shit.

[pibbs]

The DHI Autistic Book Club

Shadow Dream Girl
by Bennet “The Sage” White
Chapter 12: Nothing
protected by Fair Use, bitch

Back at the video rental shop. It's Tuesday. See, it repeats?
Ian is foggy and stares at the clock for an hour. Stan is annoyed.

Hey remember that scene in “Deadpool” where dude tells Deadpool he looks like a testicle?

“Have you any idea what you look like right now?” Stan probably knew that Ian had a mirror at home, but rhetoric was his second language, “You look like a drawing Tim Burton gave up halfway on. You look like five pounds of shit in a fifty-pound bag. Fuck, you look like Kurt Cobain today.”

Bennett, you fucking hack.
Words, words, more words.
Ian didn't sleep well.
Store stuff.
He looks and feels like a living skeleton. SYMBOLISM!!!
He stacks DVDs when blood falls from his brow and then the store bursts into flames.
This... dream or whatever is broken when one of the Brians asks if he's all right.
They rent Forbidden Zone. Ian is grumpy at the Brians.
Who fucking cares about any of this?Ian flings the rental and it hits a Brian between the eyes.

”Why the fuck did you do that to my friend? My Best friend! He didn't do anything to you. Fuck, none of us have ever done anything to you! And you have done nothing but be mean to us, call us names, and be rude! Why?! Why are you like this, Ian?”

The Brians leave swearing to never come back. The hurt Brain has to be supported by the other out the door as he sobs.
Sobs.
Sobs that can be heard outside with the door closed.
Fuck's sake.
Pain shoots across Ian's shameful face.
Stan rebukes him.
Calls Ian a petulant child. He's the worst part of this job. He makes the best job Stan could ever ask for barely tolerable, and he hates Ian.
Ian expresses he always feels like shit, wants to die, words, words, words.
They discuss hell. No, really.

”Do people in Hell know if they're in Hell?”

Stan tells him to bring that noise to his shrink.
He wouldn't understand.
Then your friends or family.
I'm allll alone, Stan.
AAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!
Stan invites him over for a beer.
But muh medication, no booze, Stan. NO BOOZE! NO BOOZE!!!
Come over anyway idiot.
End of chapter.

[VoiceOfReasonPast]

Where am I? Am I dreaming? Am I dead? Dear God, what the fuck is happening to me?!

This would've been the first time he could actually tell that he was dreaming, so I suspect his eyes are just fucked.

For the third time (Ian is on the bus this time) he spots that same homeless man. I only mention it, because this may be important later? And we are on this dude for a few pages.

Could be another dumb detail.
Could be that the homeless man is one of the observers of the experiment, though I doubt this story actually involves gang stalking.

Hey, remember how two chapters ago it left off with a flaming zombie whore? Can we get back to that please?

Oh, we can't have too much excitement in the book. Gotta space that out a bit.

The twist everyone saw coming.

This one chapter is really "subtle" about it, with intricate details that you really have to read between the lines to piece together.

I swear to God, we are through! I don't ever want to see you, or your sorry ass ever again! You made me waste my li- The voice suddenly stopped.

SpoilerShow

They had an argument.
He smacked her over the head with a bottle of whisky (because of course he also forgot that he was an alcoholic, thus his currently unrealistic urge to stay sober).
He then had the bright idea to start a fire to burn the evidence.
Turns out she wasn't actually dead and burnt alive.