Delta_Ass

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Review: Star Trek Into Darkness (Spoilers)

By Delta_Ass 0 Comments

The film left me kind of disgusted.

They set out to rape the corpses of past movies in order to bring this one to life, but it all felt empty and hollow. And with a story that featured Khan(!)... it strangely took a left turn into a plotline about a warmongering admiral and Section 31. The story of the Wrath of Khan is simple and effective. This one by comparison was complicated and felt confused about what it was trying to say.

Of course, the most obvious blunders happen early on. John Harrison escapes through a transwarp transport that takes him from Earth all the way to Kronos, the Klingon homeworld. This is horrible. If transports can allow us to travel from one end of the galaxy to the other... why then do we even need starships? The idea of Star Trek is to boldly go where no man has gone before. This involves danger and risk and gallant, dashing captains on sleek starships... not just pressing a button and transporting anywhere you want to. This entire concept of transwarp transport, introduced in JJ Abrams' first Star Trek film, is one I find incredibly distasteful.

How could the Enterprise hang out around in Klingon space without being detected and attacked by Klingon defense ships? Do they have a cloaking device? Actually, it wasn't just Klingon space, they seemed to be orbiting Kronos itself. Kronos, the homeworld of the Klingon empire, is deep in Klingon space and the Enterprise just sits around uncloaked, without any response from the Klingons. They even send a shuttle down, without any worry until the D4 patrol ships attack them when they're skimming right over the harsh landscape. How could this possibly happen? Weren't there any writers in the room to point out how patently insane and illogical this sequence of events was?

Another thing that struck me as weird was how Scotty is somehow jettisoned right off the bat. He won't sign off on the new experimental classified missiles, so he resigns on the spot? That doesn't seem like Scotty to me. Scotty cares about his ship and engines, but he'd know to follow orders concerning a top secret mission. The whole sequence of him being bothered by the missiles and then resigning and leaving the ship seemed incredibly out of character and odd. Of course, we later learn that this was just so the scriptwriters could get him onto the USS Vengeance as an ace in the sleeve.

Then we get to the introduction of Carol Marcus. They couldn't even figure out how her character fit into the story. She boards the Enterprise with the experimental missiles. But we later find out that she wasn't assigned to the Enterprise with the missiles. If she had proper authorization to board, then everything would be fine. But she doesn't have any credentials because Spock stops her. But she's explained to be an experimental weapons technician. So it makes sense that she would be the one assigned to maintain and operate the missiles. But she actually doesn't know anything about the missiles, because she doesn't even really know how to dismantle and open the missile. She and Dr McCoy blunder around on a planet with it. And Admiral Marcus didn't assign her to the Enterprise, because he's completely surprised to see her aboard when he's about to destroy the ship. So what on earth is she doing on the ship?

Khan's blood is somehow now the Genesis effect. In Star Trek III, the Genesis effect revived Spock's dead body. Now, it's the blood of Khan. I don't have to point out that the introduction of Khan's blood as a miraculous serum of Wolverine-like healing factor completely deflated the ending of the movie. But the very existence of it makes no sense. Nowhere in Wrath of Khan are we shown that Khan had any miraculous regrowth properties. The idea of Khan as a Wolverine is simply ridiculous. And yes, I know it's a new timeline. But I don't see how Nero's ship destroying the Kelvin could have possibly altered time to magically cause Khan's blood to act as a super healing factor.

Not to mention that Khan's purpose in the Section 31 plot also makes no sense. They brought him out of cryo-stasis to develop new weapons? The guy's about 200 or 300 years stuck in the past. His intellect is genetically superior, but that hardly makes up for it. In WoK, Spock said that he was intelligent, but not experienced. Well, lacking about 300 years of technological and developmental experience seems like a bad thing. There was no reason Khan should've had knowledge about the USS Vengeance and all her systems and layout.

And about the Vengeance... what was going on with that airlock door? If you've ever seen an airlock, it's usually a small room with two doors. You enter in through one door, close it behind you, and open the other door, which leads out into space. This small room is what locks in the atmosphere of the ship when you open the outer door into vacuum. The USS Vengeance, on the other hand, has an enormous hangar bay with one door that opens directly into vacuum. This is an incredibly unsafe and unwise design feature, because there is basically no airlock to hold in the atmosphere. Scotty had to secure himself with a strap from the wall, while the poor security guard was sucked out into space. Who would design a starship docking port like this?

Spock fucking rings up Old Spock on New Vulcan to find out what's going to happen in the future and who Khan is. Seriously? That just killed all the dramatic tension in the movie and really felt cheap. It also reminded me strongly of that scene in Spaceballs when they play the VHS copy of Spaceballs to figure out what's going to happen next.

I still don't understand what they were thinking with the missiles. Khan's people are in the experimental missiles. He put them there. He designed them and then put them in there. Why did he do this? To protect them? How could you protect your crew by putting them into missiles? Later, Admiral Marcus somehow takes them and tries to get Kirk to shoot them into Kronos to kill Khan. But they're full of Khan's people. Did Marcus not know this? Would the missiles have just crumpled up on the surface of the planet, killing the frozen supermen? Or would they have exploded? They seemed to have no warhead because they were full of frozen supermen. But later, Spock takes the people out and detonates the missiles on the Vengeance, and now they do have warheads. Were the warheads already inside the missiles with the frozen supermen? Is there enough room? Did Marcus not know that there weren't any warheads inside the missiles? If he knew, was this a way of killing Khan's people by shooting them into a planet? If he didn't know, then how did Khan place his people inside the missiles in secret? Was Khan in control of the missiles, or did Marcus have control of the missiles? Marcus took the missiles away from Khan, so how did Khan have a chance to put people inside them? Did he just sneak 72 cryostasis pods into the missile production facility? Were the missiles supposed to land and provide Khan with an army when they were fired into Kronos? And the movie made it look like the Enterprise was orbiting the planet of Kronos. Why didn't they just use normal photon torpedoes? They didn't even need the range of those experimental missiles. The Vengeance also probably had a complement of these experimental missiles. Were Khan's people inside those missiles as well? Did Marcus know that Khan's people were all in the missiles he provided Kirk? If he knew, did he want the Enterprise to just shoot frozen bodies to kill Khan? If he didn't know, then how did Khan know that all 72 missiles for the Enterprise were his crew? How did Marcus single out 72 missiles, precisely the number of Khan's crew, to give to Kirk? Did he have a brain fart? Was he in the know, or did he not know?

The movie has a lot of energy, so it's got that going for it. And I did like how they handled the Prime Directive in the opening sequence. Instead of a long-winded expository dialogue scene explaining the idea of the Prime Directive to new mainstream viewers, we just got a quick shot of this primitive alien civilization drawing the shape of the Enterprise on the sand. This simple scene quickly and effectively gets across the idea of what the Prime Directive is about and why it's a bad thing that Kirk did what he did.

However, the freshness of Abrams' first movie is nowhere to be found here. Instead, we've got the hallowed remains of Meyer's Wrath of Khan draped about, which only served to remind me how great that 1982 movie was, and how sad and pale an imitation this was.

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Just saw Looper

By Delta_Ass 1 Comments

I'm sorry, I just saw this movie and uh.... didn't think it was that great. The first half is pretty good, but the second half and what goes on in it... it was just bewildering, and not in a good way.

SPOILER WARNING: Click here to reveal hidden content.

A Blunderbuss? Why did they use such a strange and bizarre weapon? You can't hit anything further then fifteen yards away? I was puzzling the entire movie why he held onto this dumb weapon.

10% of everyone magically gets telekinesis? Huh? What? How did this happen? Why did people become mutants? None of this is ever explained. I'm okay with cars getting solar panels stapled onto them in the future, but everybody getting TK is a little harder to buy. This was of course needed for the Rainmaker plotline... which I also wasn't a fan of.

In the future, killing someone is way too difficult because people are tagged. Okay, but apparently kidnapping is a piece of cake and arouses no suspicions? The tags don't work against kidnapping?

This crime syndicate has control over the entire city, to the point where he can send out loud noisy helicopters at all hours? There aren't any police? No local government? Really?

Joe is not a likeable protagonist. This guy has killed hundreds of people, just judging by how many silver bars he's stashed away. Not to mention that he quickly gives up his "best friend" to an incredibly gruesome fate. Then in the future, he runs low on cash and ends up doing hits in China, killing tons more people. This guy is a huge scumbag.

Okay, so he eventually settles down and marries a much younger Chinese woman. Fine, that montage was cool. But we find out he carries a watch with her picture in it, and he's constantly struggling to remember her throughout the story. This is supposed to be the emotional core of the movie, but... it's not executed well at all. I mean, it's like the picture of Sarah Connor that Kyle Reese carries with him in Terminator 1, obviously. Or the picture that Marty carries with him in Back to the Future. That's what Rian Johnson's going for, I bet. But the picture of Sarah Connor actually paid off in the end. Here, I didn't feel like that watch was all that meaningful. Once Young Joe hooks up with Emily Blunt's character, you're expecting a scene where the picture on the watch changes from the Chinese woman to Blunt. Or something. Something should happen with that watch. But we don't get that. I dunno, it felt like a wasted opportunity.

They can control where the time machine teleports people to. We see that Joe's hits always teleport out to an empty cornfield, while Paul Dano's hits teleport out to a parking lot. And Bruce Willis enters the time machine when it's located in China somewhere. So... if they have this much control, why don't they just teleport the victims back to a location a couple miles under the ocean?

Old Joe busts in and wipes out Jeff Daniels and his entire gang. But we never actually see how he breaks out of Kid Blue's cuffs. He just randomly shoots Kid Blue even though he'd been taken captive?

The entire Rainmaker plotline makes up the second half of the movie but it never felt compelling or interesting. Hell, we never even see the Rainmaker in the future, except for a shitty 5 second newsfeed. Why am I supposed to care about this Rainmaker at all? You never see how he affected the future, so you feel nothing. And the whole thing with the kid was like this random Carrie reenactment thrown into the movie. I didn't care about the kid, cause you could clearly see he needed to be killed. Jesus Christ, yelling at Emily Blunt over and over like that? I'm with Bruce Willis, end his life. Of course, the levitation scenes also reminded me of Chronicle, which is a rather unfortunate coincidence, because I cared a lot more about Chronicle's characters then these characters.

Bruce Willis has normal looking lips, I think. So why the hell did Joseph Gordon-Levitt need huge fucking prosthetic lips? That thing on his mouth really distracted me.

And yes, I did wonder about how Emily Blunt knew about loopers.

Why is young Joe learning French? It's to get away and move to France. Okay, but is he doing this to try to escape the mafia men coming to get him in the future? That's understandable, but doesn't he know that this is futile since he'll have closed his loop, thus knowing that he eventually will get caught?

And btw, how do these seemingly dumb mafia guys track down a guy in China after 30 years? Are they all Sherlock Holmes? How can they be so damn good at tracking loopers down? China in the future probably has a population of three billion. These mafia guys found old Joe in that? Really?

And now that I think about it, how does the present criminal syndicate immediately know that a looper has failed to close his loop? In the movie, young Joe hands in his blunderbuss and some of the silver bars. I guess that's meant to show that he did his job. But then... couldn't he just do this without killing the victims? Just take some of their silver and let them go? The body ends up in a furnace, so there's no evidence. Yet right after Paul Dano and young Joe fail their assignments, the crime lord somehow immediately knows that they let their victims go. How?

It's almost impossible to murder someone in the future, but they rather quickly shoot and kill old Joe's Chinese wife. Huh? Why didn't they just kill both of them and leave them in that burning house? Why go to the trouble of sending old Joe back in time? If you have to use time travel, why not send old Joe's wife's body back in time?

In the montage of Joe through the years, we see him killing a whole hell of a lot of people in China. But wait... wasn't it almost impossible to kill people in the future and get away with it? How is he doing this?

They never explained why the Rainmaker was closing all the loops. You might say it was because his mother was killed by a Looper. But this would be incorrect, a Looper did not kill his mother. In the first iteration of the timeline, young Joe kills old Joe and goes off to Shanghai and gets married. Joe never meets Cid. Cid and Sarah live on a farm in peace. So Cid would have no reason to hate loopers. Then we hear that the Rainmaker is now closing all the loops. Why is he doing this?!

6.5/10

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Review: The Expendables 2

By Delta_Ass 0 Comments

Well, The Expendables 2 is certainly an improvement over the first movie, which I thought was pretty damn terrible. The entire concept of this franchise is that it's supposed to harken back to the glorious action flicks of the 80s, and therein lies the problem. Their very existence begs comparison to those testosterone-infused classics, and that's not a battle the Expendables can win. These movies are nowhere near as good or fun or memorable as those 80s flicks. I mean... Terminator, Predator, Die Hard, Rambo... those are incredibly big shoes to fill. And what we get with Expendables 1/2 are incredibly pale imitations.

But I do give credit to Expendables 2 for actually delivering on the premise, which is to gather up all the 80s action stars from that era. Now we've actually got Arnold and Bruce and Stallone and Van Damme fighting together, whereas Expendables 1 seemed content to entertain us with random guys like Terry Crews and Randy Couture, or 90s action stars like Jet Li.

But the action in Expendables 2... it really does feel like quantity over quality. In those 80s movies, there would always be those memorable setpieces where they gave thought to the staging of the action. In Expendables 2... you see a whole lot of random henchmen getting blown away in a sea of bloodspray, but it's not really shot creatively. The most memorable kill is one involving Chuck Norris and an airport metal detector. That was pretty cool, but it's over very quickly, and we don't get enough of that kinda stuff. Even the final showdown between Stallone and Van Damme feels disappointing and half-baked.

The humor in this movie is mainly supposed to come from the banter between these guys, but I just didn't find any of it funny. I guess we're supposed to, but it all fell incredibly flat to me.

And while I don't expect much from the story, it just goes into some weird, bizarre places. Like... are we supposed to feel anything about that village that they rescue? This is a movie where we're supposed to laugh at dumb one-liners and thugs getting their heads blown off by machine guns, but then... all of a sudden, it wants us to give a rat's ass about these female villagers trying to save their children and then rescue their husbands from a mine and... it just comes off as really pathetic and stupid. I sure didn't care about those villagers, because the movie didn't earn that. If you're gonna make a big dumb goofy movie, don't try and throw in that stuff, it's just gonna feel out of place.
 
4/10

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The Dark Knight Rises: My reaction

By Delta_Ass 0 Comments

Just got back. It isn't as good as The Dark Knight to me. But it's a great end to the trilogy. There are incredible moments that made me gasp with surprise and sheer fanboy joy. Hats off to Christopher Nolan. Bane's voice was about 90% intelligible. I guess it should be 100%, but I'm okay with the 90%. 
 

SPOILER WARNING: Click here to reveal hidden content.
I'm still thinking about which movie I like better, Batman Begins or Dark Knight Rises. They're almost opposites of each other, because Batman Begins starts out with an incredibly strong first half and then declines in the second half, while Dark Knight Rises starts out somewhat flat and really gets strong in the second half. 
 
One thing I kept reading from all the reviews was that this was the darkest of the three films. And I have to agree, it was immediately evident upon exiting the theater that this was about as bleak and dark and dirty as you could push a superhero movie. We all instinctively knew it was going to be the polar opposite of The Avengers this summer, and they really do sit at completely opposite ends of the spectrum. One of the early scenes where I really felt this was: 
 
SPOILER WARNING: Click here to reveal hidden content.


This is probably the last time we're ever going to see a mainstream superhero movie this dark.

8.5/10
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Review: The Amazing Spider-Man

By Delta_Ass 0 Comments

This movie was... not that amazing.

And I gotta say, James Horner's score was truly horrific. Just completely out of place for most scenes. It's pretty much one heroic/inspirational motif that just gets used over and over and over again, when it just doesn't really fit at all. Elfman's score for Raimi's movies wasn't the most memorable thing ever, but it's way better then what Horner gave us.

What happened to that evil Indian guy? How did Gwen Stacy come up with that antidote for the Lizard's serum? Did she just use a magical antidote machine? And how would a girl in high school become a head intern at a huge science division anyways? Isn't that something you'd give to a graduate student? Am I wrong here?

Why didn't Aunt May ever ask more questions about his mysterious injuries? They show her finding out, but then just drop it. At the end of the movie, he's shown with huge slashes across his face, but Aunt May doesn't care because he brought her organic eggs? Really? That's it?

You think they're going to explain how he makes the webshooters in this movie, but we just get a quick ten second montage? That's it? If you're going to explain the damn things, actually go ahead and show us, don't just handwave it away with a montage that's over in a split second.

The entire movie has this strange schizophrenic shift between tones. Sometimes it's a nice romantic story between two teens, then it goes darker with a gritty realism that's reminiscent of Nolan's Batman Begins, and then... you see an entire SWAT team get turned into mutant lizards, and it becomes completely ridiculous and silly. I can't take it seriously when the movie has a bunch of poorly done CGI shots of SWAT operatives turning into lizardmen, sorry. It doesn't work together as a cohesive whole. They even manage to sneak in a bit of horror with a giant mutant rat eating the remains of another.

Of course, you've also got the cheesy scene where all the construction workers turn their cranes to form a path for Spider-Man. First of all... it's just cheesy and ham-fisted. Took me completely out of the movie. But worse is the fact that... it doesn't even make any sense. Why would Spider-Man need a bunch of cranes to form a path to the OsCorp building? There's already a huge row of skyscrapers for him to swing across to get to the OsCorp building. The cranes weren't necessary at all!

Curt Connors is supposed to be this sympathetic villain reminiscent of Doc Ock from Spider-Man 2, but I never really felt that much sympathy for him. He just seemed like an evil douche most of the time. Doesn't help that they cast a guy with a snobbish British accent. That's not exactly endearing the audience to the man.

Uncle Ben gets angry at Peter for not taking Aunt May home. Now at first... I could see that yeah, that's a bad thing. But then... I thought about it and it didn't make a lick of sense. Did Peter Parker own a car? He doesn't, does he? He mostly just uses the subway and then skateboards around. So... how the fuck was he supposed to take Aunt May home? Was his skateboard big enough to fit both of them? What was Peter supposed to do?

And finally... that voicemail that Uncle Ben sent. The one that Peter finally listens to at the end of the movie. This was just dumb. Nobody in their right mind sends a voicemail like that. It was this big momentous speech and Uncle Ben asks Peter to be his hero? Really? But nobody gives a speech like that in a random voicemail. Just bad, bad writing.

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I got Catfish'd.

By Delta_Ass 5 Comments

Alright, here comes the whole sad sordid tale:

So I just found out that this girl I met online, who I'd been in love with for 11 years, was actually a huge lie. I met her way back when I was in high school, when I was just 16 (I'm 27 now). Back in those days, there was a game called FreeSpace 2. It was a wonderful space sim. One of the greatest video games of all time. I was frequenting the FS2 forums and noticed a girl there named Denise. Didn't think much of it, except that it was surprising that a girl would actually be into space sims. Well, whatever.

Then I started frequenting another website called DropShip Command. For those of you not in the know, DropShip Command is a website devoted to BattleTech and MechWarrior games. And anybody who knows me knows that I love BattleTech. Just look at my avatar pic. I am super into BattleTech. And so I was browsing the DSC forums and noticed her there as well. Well, this was interesting. Two websites about games that I really love, and she shows up in both of em. Well, maybe I should be a friendly guy and say hi. So I add her to ICQ (Yes, back in those days, we used trusty old ICQ for IMing) and struck up a conversation. It went pretty well... she was just getting into MechWarrior games and wasn't all that knowledgeable about the BattleTech universe. I thought that was great, since I was very knowledgeable about it. It's almost a life passion for me. Why not take her under my wing and uh... that was that start of a great friendship. Mind you, I wasn't looking for any sort of romance at this point in time. I mean, I was 16... I didn't even believe in a long-distance relationship, nevermind an online relationship. That was just really weird and foreign to my mindset.

But gradually, as we kept talking... just found myself attracted because we had a lot of interests in common. And we would talk a lot. Well, she said that she was 12 years older then me, and owned a bar. That was a pretty big age difference. But by the time I fell for her, it didn't matter. And then uh, she sent me a pic of her:

http://www.stephaniebeaton.com/images/galleryphotos/pubbw5.jpg

I didn't ask for a pic, but she just sent it. Apparently, it was from a photoshoot. It looked pretty professional. She looked really hot in the picture. Let's face it, she was a hot redhead.

Like, I wasn't planning on falling for her. But we just started talking, every night, and gradually it happened. She was into everything I was, so it seemed like it was perfect. Of course, looking back... it seems way too good to be true. It seems really hard to believe that a hot girl like that would really be into first person shooters, real time strategy games, space sims, MOO3, Star Trek, Star Wars, BattleTech, Dungeons and Dragons, Star Fleet Battles, BioWare RPGs, etc. That seems like absurd make-believe, thinking back on it. But at the time, I guess I was naive and gullible and I just thought I'd hit the jackpot. I mean, I was only 16.

And I never changed my feelings, even after 11 years. I really thought she was my best friend. I remember, we'd stay up and talk till 4am, really late into the next day. It led to me being sleep deprived, cause I'd go to class and fall asleep. Just drool right on my desk in class. But I didn't care, cause I loved spending time with her. It was worth it to me, so I didn't care that I was getting sleep deprived and my grades suffered.

And I never really sought out any girlfriend in high school and college.  Cause I thought I'd found the perfect girl, even though it was only online. Like, I have very particular interests. I like Star Trek, and BattleTech, and Tom Clancy squad-based shooters, and space sims, and uh... it's very hard to find a girl who shares those exact same interests out in the real world. It really isn't very common.

And now I'm sure you guys are asking me why I'm such a dumbass for not trying to get more concrete evidence like info on her address, talking to her on the phone, etc. Proof that she was really who she said she was. All very reasonable questions, I agree. Well, it's pretty simple. See, she told me that she'd once given out her address to an online friend to meet up. And that turned out to be a horrible mistake as she had to fend off this person she met online from trying to rape her. So... I mean, what can you really say to that? After a girl tells you a story like that, you kinda don't really have anything to work with. Of course that explains why she'd want to protect her privacy and stay secretive. I wasn't going to pry and try to get her info, it'd just make me feel like an insensitive douche. So that's why she never gave out her address, or her phone number or anything. It was a good tight alibi, I have to admit.

But even though I was in love with her, she said she didn't feel the same way. And that hurt, but I still wanted to talk to her. At this point, she'd basically become the best friend I'd ever had. So it hurt, but I just pretended to get over her. Even though I hadn't. My feelings never changed in that time. She was the world to me. I just kept that torch for her in my heart.

But I always wanted more. I guess in the back of my mind, I did feel like Gatsby. I did dream that one day, I might stand at the end of a pier and glimpse the green light at the end of her dock. Call me a romantic or a fool, but that was a glorious dream. So last night... I thought about that picture of her that she gave me. And I got curious and decided to try a google image search with the image. And it turned out that the picture was one on www.stephaniebeaton.com. That particular picture was actually of a straight-to-video horror movie actress named Stephanie Beaton who lived in Los Angeles, CA. Well, that really threw me, because I knew from talking to her for 11 years that she just owned two bars. And I'd also figured out on my own from random conversations that she lived somewhere in Washington state. So this was all starting to seem like bullshit. I was seriously shocked. I thought after 11 years, I could trust this person.

And so... I went to confront her and this... tragedy unfolded in the chatlog below. I know, I know, everyone hates reading chatlogs. Well, it's really the best way to present this horrible trainwreck:

Delta Assault: Denise, I need to talk to you about something. This is actually serious.

Denise: That... is a lot of messages. Okay. What's up? :)

Delta Assault: Well, it wouldn't be so many if you actually checked your ICQ. Remember when you sent me that pic of yourself? Ya know, the one you said was from a photoshoot?

Denise: Mmhmm?

Delta Assault: http://www.stephaniebeaton.com

That look familiar to you?

I'm honestly not sure what to think right now. Was all of it a lie?

Denise: She looks somewhat like how I used to. She's thinner, or was there. It was wrong. I thought better of it immediately after the picture was out there, but then I couldn't take it back. I'm sorry.

Delta Assault: I dunno. I dunno what to believe. Are you even female? Have I been talking to a guy for these 11 years? That would really fuck me up.

Denise: Would you believe what I told you anyhow? Please believe I never meant you any harm. We weren't cybering. I refused all offers of gifts or anything like that. It was a mistake. A big, long, terrible mistake that I've been trapped in for a long time now. Please, please believe me on that. I've mantained the charade of that picture, that moment of vanity, out of *penance.* I've known for a while that you'd be hurt if things were revealed to be otherwise.

Delta Assault: That other picture of you being tickled wasn't actually you either, right?

Denise: No. Same woman.

Delta Assault: So... are you a guy? Cause the more I think about it, the more the idea of a girl who plays D&D, SFB, and BattleTech starts to seem like some kind of fantasy. I just want to know what the truth is.

Denise: *sigh* Okay, entire truth, then. I am male. I am also ten years younger than I have pretended. This means that I was fourteen years old when I started. Please remember the stupidity of that age range when you consider whether malice was intended. I'll tell you all about the psychology of it if you care; again, no malice. Please believe that. I don't know if that helps any; I know I have done actual harm, and there's nothing I can do to make that up, but I will try. She was my fantasy as much as anything, and being her has trapped me for more than half my life now.

Delta Assault: Oh my god.

Denise: She was a carefully-constructed ideal. You weren't interested in me, you were interested in her. That she wasn't really behind a keyboard somewhere doesn't reflect on you. It's all on me. I've done a terrible thing. I'm sorry you had to find it out. She would have stayed well off in the background; she's off all the forums now. There are no new people being met. I'm determined not to hurt anyone else this way.

Delta Assault: Are you gay or something? Is that why you did it?

Denise: *pained little laugh* That's the thing of it, I'm not! More explanation to follow. In actuality, I have the sort of personality that completely fades into the background. I have a sister ten years older than I am; she's talkative, and the age-difference meant that I couldn't really compete in dinnertime conversation. I spent all my time after school cooped up in an office with a computer, and I was still fading away online. I decided to try an experiment. I would play my game at the time (it was Subspace, if you're curious) with a handle that suggested I was female. Being as I was fourteen, I went with the tremendously-subtle "A Sexy Whip Vixen." Even with the charade being that ham-handed.... I was right. Everyone was a LOT nicer to the imaginary female-me. It was utterly addictive, this business of being liked. It was a long time before she started to sort of take over my mind. There've been times I've seriously worried about my sanity (I know you have some choice remarks of your own on that subject, believe me, it's nothing I've not lashed myself with). When *I* found the lady from the picture who'd had such an impact on me, it broke me in much the same way you're feeling now. The world was unreal, all of a sudden, because she was a real person, I wasn't her. I disappeared for a while at that time. I went on vacation with my parents. Told them I'd met a girl who'd lied to me, misused someone else's picture --got to hear what they'd say about someone who'd do that. But overall, it helped me get my head back together. I vowed that from there on, Denise would start a slow pullback from forums, ICQ chats... let existing friendships drift apart as ordinary human relationships do. I've tried to pull back and away with as little harm to my victims as humanly possible. Please believe that if you believe nothing else.

Delta Assault: Keeping the charade up for 11 years is impressive. Impressively psychotic. I'm uh, I'm really glad I didn't cyber with you, ever. That's a big relief now.

Denise: I know. To both of those.

Delta Assault: I'd be even more scarred right now if we had.

Denise: I have wronged you, and I'm sorry for that. I will never be able to make that right. Was I further wrong to try to slip away quietly? I'd really hoped to spare you the impact of all of this.

Delta Assault: I'd rather you told me the truth. Like... right around when I said I was in love with you? That would've been a good time to spill the beans. Instead of stringing me along and talking to me about how the Mass Effect 3 ending sucked and all that bullshit? The Mass Effect 3 ending is awesome compared to this ending. Do you know how fucked up I've been because of you?

Denise: LOTS of people say that to women without meaning it at all, you know. That's one thing I've learned in half-being one all this time. It tears me up inside every time someone seems attached --I don't know if that's any consolation to you at all. I have some idea what I've done to you, yes. Please... I was fourteen. A damaged child, when I started. I tried to go with the path of the least pain; I'm very sorry if I made a mistake in choosing.

Delta Assault: Have you told the truth to anybody else you've fooled in this web of deception? Cause I think you should.

Denise: You're the first to find her. I take it from how you're speaking that you're in favor of the full reveal? ...Which you just answered. There are people who stand to be hurt very, very badly by that revelation. I know it would seem like justice to you right now, because I've caused you pain. You want the truth to shine through and for the nasty hideous liar to wither away in its light. But I tell you that there are people who depend on this mirage as a friend. Ripping it from them... would be inflicting the pain you're feeling now. There's a good chance they never have to feel that. That's what I hope for. It's a fishhook. It hurts to put it in. I did that in ignorance, an idiot youth. But it will cause real damage to rip it out. Or that's been the theory these past years. (That does not mean I consider them my "catches" or prizes or any other nonsensical nastiness. The analogy serves only as a description of the harm inflicted. My victims are real people to me. This haunts me terribly.)

Delta Assault: I actually saw the movie Catfish. Thought it was really good. Never thought I was living it.

Denise: I'm afraid I haven't seen it.

Delta Assault: Okay. Well, I don't think I want to talk to you ever again. I've wasted enough of my life on you.

Denise: I understand. Will you be telling others, or will you leave me to my penance? She only exists now in the hope that others won't be hurt. She eats my time, my life, so that I might not inflict this on others.

Delta Assault: I don't really talk to anybody from that time, so no, I guess I can't.

Denise: But you think maybe you should. If you ever find yourself in a position to, or where you feel it would be justice to do so... remember this pain I've caused you and please believe that I'm trying to spare others. I am living in a well-deserved hell. I made it for myself. I don't want anyone else to suffer. I'm very sorry that you had to. 
I wish you the best life you could have from here on out, and luck in finding a real one. They exist. Ask them for pictures, and for voice; pictures are hard, and voice is impractical to fake.

Delta Assault: Uh huh. Go fuck yourself.

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