fuckyeahcharmcaster

[fuckyeahcharmcaster]

Magic themed Charmaster (Ben 10) moodboard please!

Charmcaster (Ben 10)

[fuckyeahcharmcaster]

dunno what to post on tumblr anymore, i keep forgetting about it lol

[fuckyeahcharmcaster]

Charmcaster: But Your KUR!!! You have the power to level this world! Rule over it with an iron fist! Many a sorcerer has dreamed of having your power and you've never bothered to TRY fully tapping into it?!

Zak Saturday: I mean, sure! Power is power, but have you ever used a laser pointer on a sphinx? Hours of entertainment! You can't enjoy that bit if you're forced to run the world! And I know you haven't experienced joy in like, ages! That's why you've got such a stick up your crazy...

Charmcaster: *enraged screaming*

Juniper Lee and Ben 10: *Infultrating the Forever Knights facility*

Juniper Lee: Found them!

Ben 10: Sounds like she's really warming up to him!

Juniper Lee: *open the door to see Charmcaster strangling Zak*

Ben 10 to Juniper Lee: Always figured he'd get killed by a girl, I just figured it'd be you.

[fuckyeahcharmcaster]

charmcaster

[fuckyeahcharmcaster]

It's sad because Hope should be a more complex character than Heather, but can't be because of just how poorly the three "Classic" shows (OS, UAF and OV) link together.

Was thinking back on this old post and have a bold declaration to make:

Don't get me wrong; the OS incarnation of Charmcaster is and always will be my personal favorite. But if I'm being asked to consider Charmcaster from OS, UAF and OV as a single "Classic continuity" Charmcaster, then I'm sorry - Heather from the Reboot is superior.

Beyond all of the wild changes in personality, appearance and motivation that Classic Charmcaster undergoes, when you get down to it her narrative at the time stands as one where she's left hanging in limbo morally and mentally-speaking (though mercifully no longer physically; that's one thing OV did right), all while we are left with the facts that she is a genocide survivor who then temporarily committed genocide* and who ends up imprisoned while the original and worse genocider is still on the loose, a victim of child abuse who ends up imprisoned while her abuser gets off scot-free as a "redeemed" man, and someone who was defined by hard work to become as magically powerful as she is being upstaged by someone who was just born "made of magic" and defeated by a sleight-of-hand stage trick.

While this might work if played for tragedy, only the genocide part was - and it wasn't written well enough to work as a tragedy (for one thing, the motive for the genocide only comes out at the time it happens, and is said to be her life's mission when there was zero hints toward that before). Everything else is played comedically or brushed aside altogether. Obviously her story wasn't meant to be over since there were plans for a Gwen spin-off where she could have a proper redemption arc, plus it was confirmed she finds some stability married to Hobble of the Plumbers in the Omniverse Future timeline, but none of that is on screen, which means that the last we see of her is as a contestant in a random cosmic gameshow.

Reboot Charmcaster is not only consistent and coherent in her character progression, but she is perfectly balanced as a tragicomic figure. She's a victim of abuse whose abuser is punished but whose self-loathing and insecurities that abuse accelerated causes her to make bad decisions and become more like her abuser without realizing it, seeking to kill her rival because whom she really wishes to kill is her "weak" past self. This is sad and framed as such, but at the same time she is so overdramatic and try-hard in her villainous edginess, her inner dorkiness so frequently manifesting, all while being so snarky and childishly vain to compensate and so frustrated when things don't go her way that you can't help but laugh as well, and it doesn't feel out of place to do so because she isn't an orphaned, mentally ill survivor of genocide - she's a kid. Like Kevin 11 and Billy Billions, comedy comes naturally.

Pour one out for Darkstar; he was right all along: "Heather" works much better than "Hope".

*Unless OV retconned that whole incident out of existence - it's really unclear.

[fuckyeahcharmcaster]

The Ink Tank's Ledgerdomain-related videos.

Glad he sees potential in that place, anyway. ;-_-

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Voices

was on a regular ben10 kick and rewatching this episode in particular and i come across this scene

Plot reasons aside,

I think it would have been quite interesting of a concept if Kevin would have been able to hear his then presumed deceased father as well

Think about it, it would make the scene even more tense, presumably having Ben be the one to try to stop and convince Kevin to snap out of it

And such a moment would have allowed some later bonding between her and Kevin about how similar they are. With some time

Hell, Kev later on in the series even admits that he gets her loss sense of purpose in life and seems to feel sorry for her

Gwen: She lived her whole life chasing after one thing. Now that thing is gone and she's just... empty. How do you fill that void? Kevin: It ain't easy, trust me.

there could have been so much to explore over that

[fuckyeahcharmcaster]

Diversity Win! This Ben 10 Scene Passes The Bechdel Test!

[fuckyeahcharmcaster]

his swagless mental breakdowns this, his homoerotic patterns of grief that. what about HER grief-stricken moments of extremely poor decisionmaking? what about HER incredibly alarming isolation and trauma-driven life choices?!?!?!

[fuckyeahcharmcaster]

day 14 of @augustofwhump : dehumanization | darkness | alone

Charmcaster stepped through the dungeon door, clenching her jaw so tightly that Ben hoped it would snap her teeth. She stalked right up to him, bypassing all of the torture instruments that were lovingly maintained, and sank her fist into Ben's gut.

He let out a quiet wheeze as the air was forced from his lungs. Before Ben could even attempt to suck in air, Charmcaster's fist connected with the meat of his cheek. Ben's head snapped back against the brick wall he was chained to, leaving him dizzy and his ears ringing.

It must have been a bad day — Charmcaster only used her bare hands when she had some aggression to work out.

Charmcaster knotted her fingers roughly in his hair, her nails digging into the scabs on his scalp from the last beating. She viciously slammed Ben's head into the wall, again and again. Ben had learned quickly that going limp and letting it happen would minimize the damage, so that was what he did.

He didn't fight back or even tense up as his skull made contact with the wall over and over. His blood, hot and sticky, quickly matted his hair and ran down the back of Ben's neck. It soaked his letterman jacket, already stained and soiled and ruined after months of this treatment.

By the time Charmcaster finally stopped, Ben's vision was blurry and he felt like he had been beaten right out of his body. He was floating somewhere far away, high above the clouds and then higher still.

He was yanked back down to Earth by Charmcaster punching him in the face.

Read the rest on AO3.

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[fuckyeahcharmcaster]

For the ship thing if you're still doing it could I ask your opinion on Ben and Charmcaster as a couple? I know plenty of people ship gwen and charmcaster but I've always preferred ben and Charminster personally

I honestly never understood Ben/Charmcaster.

Well, no. I guess I understand that fandom circa 2005 was not necessarily open to homosexuality. Ben/Charmcaster became a popular ship in the early days of the fandom because it was either that or ship Ben with Gwen.

But I really don't see it. I don't think that Ben and Charmcaster have much chemistry together at all. Gwen and Charmcaster have that whole rivals-to-lovers thing going on, but I honestly don't think that Charmcaster even really registers Ben as being There™

The only time she really cared about him was in the OG when she briefly wanted the Omnitrix for an episode, and then immediately gave up on that.

Charmcaster just has something so much more personal with Gwen.

It's cool that you see something between them that I don't, though! Feel free to reblog with your own thoughts if you want :)

[fuckyeahcharmcaster]

1 - Idk, I felt the episode was slut-shaming her for that. Like it was portraying her as a damaged girl with daddy issues who is desperate for a man in her life so she "gives it away" easily. It's legitimately disgusting and part of why that episode is so definitively bad.

2 - Darkstar was either 16 or 17 then. 16 is the most common age of consent in the US. So as icky and ill-advised as the romance was, it's most likely that nothing illegal was happening.

3 - Yeah, kinda hard for viewers to take her killing people seriously when we don't see any but the main trio on-screen, and then the main trio and the offscreen people all end up like:

The Highbreed committed permanent genocide and we were still expected to feel sorry for them, so it's a weird Ben 10 sequel writer trend.

The Ben 10 writers are soooo unserious when it comes to writing relationships. They always make the woman perfect and flawless, and the man the bad guy if the couple fights as well as putting the burden of "proving" the relationship means something onto him, as well.

Like, the episode where Charmcaster and Darkstar hooked up is one of the most obvious examples of this. Darkstar is shown to be the undisputed bad guy in the relationship, for using Charmcaster for power, even though:

1) She is the one rushing into a two-day relationship with a teenager,

2) Charmcaster is a whole-ass adult, she's 22!

and 3) Charmcaster has killed people, why the fuck are you trying to make me feel bad for her because she got played by the minor she was desperate enough to throw herself at??

[fuckyeahcharmcaster]

Okak.

My first grunge poster design, just practicing a bit.

[fuckyeahcharmcaster]

Darkstar should've been there instead of Aggregor, but of course canon says we can't have nice things between him and Charmcaster...

The Negative Trio [Slight redesign]

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I don't know if anyone ever has done this, but i would love to see edits of UAF and OV Charmcaster with her original series skin tone, I would do this myself ; but I'm not great at editing!

[fuckyeahcharmcaster]

HELLO! ^_^

Charmcaster 4 life, no matter how writers may botch her.

@fuckyeahcharmcaster

HELLO FELLOW CHARMCASTER FAN !!!!

[fuckyeahcharmcaster]

It does not help that it's followed by this:

Attacking her in of itself isn't the problem, since that'd be covered by self-defense. It's that he takes clear pleasure in doing it and boasting about how he still holds power over her. And it's in this moment that he has the gall to basically say "Now come on, be a good girl and be a family with me again". While showing he really has not changed as much as he claims to. Any well-written continuation would have him regress back into evil: the signs are clearly there.

I would do this, too, if my abuser tried to hug me .

HUGS DO NOT GET RID OF ABUSE .

BECOMING A BETTER PERSON DOES NOT GET RID OF ABUSE .

ABUSE DOES NOT JUST GO AWAY JUST BECAUSE AN ABUSER FEELS SORRY .