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crystal-moon-101 · 3 years

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I wanna hear your take on Benlie and/or Benkai. You don’t have to ship them, just say a few things you could have done to make them smoother and healthier, friendship or romance. You could even have both if you have an idea on a better, cleaner break up story.

Ok, so I’m a Benlie person, 100%, and while I don’t ship Ben and Kai, I definitely think they deserved to be handled better. So I have rewritten how those relationships, along with a few others of Ben’s love life, have gone, and I’ll share it here. Warning, this does get a bit long, and does have some violence at a certain point, but I hope you enjoy my take on it!

So the start of Ben and Julie’s relationship in Alien Force is mostly the same, though I did adjust it that they somewhat knew each other before hand, having seen each other in school, especially since Ben’s soccer practice took place at the same time and same kind of area as the girl’s tennis practice. Ben asks her out, Ship appears and becomes her pet, Julie starts understanding the alien better, sees Ben have 14 moth children, the basic stuff from canon. However, my major changes start during season 3 of Alien Force, the part of the series that took quite the nose dive in terms of character arcs. I still have it that Ben and Julie start to have issues and argue, but in believable ways, and they still clearly love each other. The issues arise when Ben does start to get cocky a little, due to all the praise he’s getting from saving the galaxy from the High-Breed, and his accomplishment surrounding that are huge, since he hasn’t won something like that before. Again, doesn’t help that half the galaxy keeps praising him and treating him like a God, but Ben does still be a hero, and even starts to get anxieties since now he’s starting to deal with bigger issues, more people demanding for him to help their planets around the galaxy, and Ben wants to be that hero for them...but there is only so much he can do. He does love the admiration from everyone, feeling special and all that, but he does start to make him feel different, in and odd way...He’s struggle to connect with his human grounds now, due to constantly turning into aliens and spending time out in space, his relationship with earth just isn’t the same anymore. And even them, aliens around him treat him as something else too, like he’s not human or an alien, he’s something else, and not knowing what makes him nervous. To mask all of these fears, he uses his over-confident nature like a mask, and it does get pretty bad for a month or two until Gwen, Julie and Kevin make him see reason. Meanwhile, Julie is struggling in her own right after the High-Breed war. She was happy to have fought in it to protect her home and people, but after seeing a proper glimpse of the alien worlds outside of earth...she will admit that scares her. She didn’t go off world like when Kevin, Gwen and Ben did, mostly waiting for them on earth and did missions there with them, even lending them Ship when they needed it. While she didn’t judge Ben and was willing to live with idea of aliens after their first date, like adopting Ship, she still have a lot to process about there being alien life. It’s much harder on her than it was for Ben, because he learnt about it when he was young, his entire family knew about it and could support him through it, and even the Omnitrix provided better understandings for him. Julie...she didn’t have any of that. It was just her dad, Ship and her, and while Ship was a good start, he was still just one tiny piece of the outside world around her. She knew she’d have to accept it over time, now that she knew the truth, and especially when earth starts learning that truth too, but at times it felt like she wasn’t allowed to process. She doesn’t blame Ben for it, as he’s so use to it all by now, but there have been many moments where he seems to forget she is very early to this whole alien concept compared to him. She was afraid she couldn’t catch up, and even has moments where she didn’t want to take a step forward, afraid of what she might find. So she started joining less and less missions with Ben, Gwen and Kevin, and while she still hanged out with them, she tried not to get involved with their alien business. She will admit, maybe a part of her wished she didn’t know about alien life at times, to have a life back when things seemed more simple.

So these deep feelings from both Ben and Julie spark arguments, because both are unsure with themselves, thus unsure in relationships with others, especially each other, with Julie thinking she couldn’t keep up with Ben, and Ben thinking he couldn’t slow down for her. And it all eventually led to a point where things had to stop... And unlike Omniverse’s god awful handle of the break up, I instead had it like this. Julie is the one who starts the conversation, having called Ben over to her. She’s honest with him, saying that it’s just not working out, and that they should find different people that work for them. Ben does beg a little at first, saying he’ll try better, but Julie knows that right now they can’t be a happy couple and need space, and Ben eventually agrees, but it still hurts. It hurts more when Gwen and Kevin leave too, and Julie also goes on a tennis tournament in France, so Ben has to deal with the loneliness he feels for a while, even when Rook joins his side. Meanwhile, Julie meets Herve in France, who was taking photographs for sport magazines. The two talk and eventually hit it off, Julie somewhat clinging a little as Herve is very much the down to earth and normal human guy she thought she wanted, someone who wasn’t related to any alien business. She does miss Ben, a part of her not letting go, and while the two agreed to remain friends, they did drift a little over time. They would still voice chat, send some text and Ben would check up on her tournaments when he could, but both of their lives got rather busy and they drifted away for a couple of months, though still dearly missing each other. Ben takes his time to heal, still dealing with all the other problems he’s facing, especially the whole “Am I human, am I alien, am I something else?” and “How much of a hero am I without the watch?”. His friendship with Rook grows pretty well, and he settles somethings with Gwen and Kevin since they moved to university. So most relationships of his are going well, expect for romantic relationships... He struggles to settle and commit to most of them, and mostly dates around for a bit, spending some time with people like Looma, Rook Shar, even Attea on one date. He does eventually settle with Ester for a bit, and the two seem like a good match. Both fun loving, eager for adventure, and enjoy each other’s company. And Ben did try and make it work, he really did, Ester was a great girl and he wanted the best for her but...again, it was hard for them to keep up with each other. Ester is a girl full of energy, and very much wants to do something 24/7, and while she doesn’t fault Ben, she will admit she does get lonely when he spends so much time off on missions she can’t join in, and the two break it off when Ben couldn’t be what she needed. But they are still close friends and hang out pretty often. Again, alone in his love life, Ben felt hopeless in it. Was he cursed to be single for the rest of his life? So when Kai came back into his life, his first proper crush he can remember, he will admit that maybe he jumped into things too quickly. There was no Kenny time traveling nonsense in this version, no fate tying to together, rather just two young teens jumping into a relationship neither ended up wanting. But they stuck with it for a while because they felt like they had to, despite the arguments and bickering. Both were scared to be alone, as Ben couldn’t lose another girlfriend, and Kai realized just how lonely her work made her feel. They didn’t hate each other, they just weren’t in love. It didn’t help that, since Julie returned to Bellwood with Herve, Ben felt jealous at Herve. Which annoyed him, because Herve was actually a really nice person, and gave Julie a lot of love. Really, it was more Ben angry at himself that he couldn’t provide the things Julie needed...And while Julie and Ben did talk and hang out from time to time, Ben was distance often, even when Julie reached out to him. It was just...seeing her so happy, living a normal life, Ben didn’t want to taint that with his presence. It wasn’t until one fateful day that things started to turn around, though the start was pretty bad. It was another day, another fight with Vilgax, who was rampaging through the streets, clashing with Plumbers, Ben and Rook. Julie and Herve had been nearby when it started, and the two decided to help get civilians to safety, splitting up at one point to cover more ground. Julie ran into Rook and Ben, who tried to usher Julie away, but unfortunately Vilgax noticed her, and saw Ben’s panic of worry for Julie to run. It didn’t take long for Vilgax to remember who this young teenage girl was, and decided to use her as hostage against Ben. Seeing his arch nemesis using someone he secretly still loved as hostage, not to mention he had a pretty bad week before hand, Ben just...kind of snapped. He didn’t go easy on Vilgax for once, switching between multiple aliens rapidly to stomp Vilgax into the ground. (Side Note: I have the headcanon that, while Ben can do rapid transformation, if he does so many in a short amount of time, he does get a mild side affect of his emotions being amplified, due to his brain having tumbled around from the quick transformations.) By the time the Plumbers and Rook arrived, the two city blocks had been trashed and Vilgax was burred into the road. Due to the side affect of multi rapid transformations, Ben was protectively holding onto Julie, who had passed out from some injures from Vilgax (Nothing major, but the stress of it did make her lose conscious). They managed to pry Julie away, while Ben was taken away to calm down, needing to give his body and mind for a rest. Julie was taken to a Plumber hospital, and she woke up fairly soon with mild injures that wouldn’t be too much of a hassle to heal over the next few weeks. Many visited her, including Herve, her dad, Gwen and Kevin, along with Ship her stayed by her the entire time. It took a long while for Ben to show up, mostly because he was nervous and felt ashamed by how he acted, but Gwen gave him a good peep talk and convinced him to go. It started off a little awkward, but simple, Ben checking how she was feeling, with her also making sure he was ok too. They catched up a bit, even laughing over some old memories, which eventually lead into a small discussion about their past relationship, both finally properly apologizing for how they acted, even clearly up a few things that were worried over, like Ben admitting that he had been avoiding Julie because he thought it was better for her, and not because he hated her or anything. Buttt, one thing lead to another and well...the two kissed in the heat of the moment, both going in for it, and for a few seconds it was bliss...until they both realized what they were doing, and understanding that one, Julie was still dating Herve, and second, Ben was still dating Kai. Flustered, Ben rushed out of there, with Julie panicking over what they did.

The two keep it a secret, not wanting people to know what happened between them, and when Julie got out of the hospital, they kind of awkwardly avoided each other, needing to think about things. They clearly still held feelings, but they were both dating other people and were scared to mess up with each other again. Cue them somehow almost always bumping into each other, like the gods themselves were trying to make them suffer, and their feelings becoming more and more obvious, but neither making a move of any kind. Ben confides in Kevin, Gwen and Rook, even admitting to his feelings and the kiss to them, and while they give him advice, they know it’s up to him and Julie to sort things out.

But Ben avoids it again, not ready and unsure in himself. He already messed up many relationships before hand, including with Julie, so what if it all went downhill again...And Julie questioned herself, she had been avoiding space and alien life for so long, thinking it would make her happy, but she starts to realize that no...it’s not making her happy, trying to deny something outside of her bubble just wasn’t working anymore, especially with her feelings towards Ben. However, after some long thinking, Ben decides to at least do one thing. So he organizes a get together with Kai at a cafe, needing to talk to her. The two have a sit down and Ben explains that this relationship isn’t working, and that they shouldn’t keep trying to make something that isn’t there to happen. Kai agrees, both feeling some stress loosen from their shoulders, and they still decide to be friends, feeling much more comfortable with a relationship like that, even sharing a nice hot chocolate together at the cafe. And so while Ben goes to deal with the other problem in his love life, Kai may or may not end up catching up with Ester in the process~ While Ben makes plans on what to do next, he and Rook are ended up being called over to a Plumber Prison base, to make plans to move Vilgax finally. Little did they know, Vilgax prepared for this. You see, a part of him already knew he’d be capture again, sent to this base to await movement, so the last time he was here, he built up some allies on the inside, and eventually the outside. He also knew Ben would show up, so he made a plan to make sure the Omnitrix wouldn’t get in the way. After how Ben stomped him into the streets before, Vilgax was looking for some nasty revenge. Not really kill Ben...but something more traumatic. So when Ben and Rook show up, surprise surprise, Vilgax isn’t in his cell. While Rook talks to some of the guards, Ben searches Vilgax’s cell for clues, only for it to suddenly turn on, along with it’s defenses, including an electric shock that surprises Ben, and causes the watch to bug out, unable to be used. Rook check on Ben, but next thing anyone knows, alarms start blaring and almost all cells open, and prisoners start running while. Since Ben’s watch is down, and many people here hate him, Rook wants to keep him safe and tries to escort off the base. But Ben being Ben, he wanted to help, and rushed off to try and help some injured guards here and there, with Rook following. However, some prisoners, who were secretly working under Vilgax, skillfully guide Rook and Ben away from each other, and eventually trap Ben in a lone room, but not by himself. There, Vilgax was waiting for him, and since Ben didn’t have the watch to help, he was screwed. Vilgax knocked him around a few times, though being careful enough to not instantly kill Ben with his strength, before deciding finally to make the hero suffer. (Warning here for those who are squeamish) He does so but taking the tip of one of his claws, and dragging it down Ben’s arms, damaging his nerves. He would have done more, if not for Rook, the guards and some Plumber bursting in and chasing him off, saving Ben before he could bleed out, but the boy did pass out and wouldn’t wake up for a long while. People were, of course, scared...particularly Ben’s friends and family, who visited him everyday, mostly Max and surprisingly Azmuth, who also fixed the watch to help in Ben’s recovery. Gwen and Kevin ended up being the ones to inform Julie what happened, when she noticed Ben wasn’t around, and hearing that Ben almost died...it scared Julie. She didn’t want to lose him, of course, but also the idea that he could have died while they still had issues to fix...she didn’t want it to end like that, for things to be so messy and unclear. So when Herve saw her look down and upset, and getting her to explain what happened to Ben, the two talked. Herve admits that for a while he knew Julie still had feelings for Ben, and could tell that things weren’t so cut and dry between them, especially when he got to met Ben himself. He also admits that maybe Julie and Herve are, in a way, maybe a little too perfect for each other. Their relationship is stagnant at times, with not a lot of growth because never healthy challenges the other. So with no hard feelings whatsoever, Herve says that if Julie wants too, the two can break up but still remain friends, and Julie thanks him, agreeing too and even asking that she hopes he can still be her photographer. And for the next few weeks, Julie visits Ben with some of the others from time to time, hoping he’ll be ok so they can talk... Eventually, Ben wakes up, Azmuth having been there when he did so, and helps to catch the young boy up on what happened. Ben notices that, while his arms have been healing finely enough, his nerves are a little slow in the process, having not fully recovered, shown by him unable to keep his arms and hands steady, constantly shaking when moving them. It scares him, even when Azmuth reassures him that they’ll heal thanks to the watch...Ben just can’t help but feel like if they don’t heal, then he may have to give up the hero business in the end, even if that’s just his fears playing tricks on him. So during his recovery, people come visit him, making sure he’s ok. Until eventually, Julie shows up, wanting to make sure he’s ok, and knowing they had to talk. They couldn’t keep putting it off, especially after something like this, and Ben finally agrees to stop running and to finally clear things out. They discuss a little more about their past relationship, about their insecurities during it, and where they go from here, both mentioning they’ve broken up with Herve and Kai. They talk some more, relaxing in each other’s company, and admit to their feelings, both deep down knowing they want to give it another go. And since they’ve had time apart, learnt from new experiences, they decide that maybe they can try, taking it slow and see where it will go. And the two kiss, and for once in a very long time...it feels right. As said, they take things slow, and after everything that happened in the past few years, things actually go well for them. There are, of course, hiccups there and here, but they’re matured enough to know how to talk things through, and solve problems together. Ben does start to recover more and leave the hospital, and while he nerves aren’t fully healed by them, they will eventually. And while the two go one small dates during his healing, catching up and being blissfully happy with each other, they end up bumping into Kai and Ester, who appear to also be dating now. One thing led to another and the four end up going on double dates fairly often, having fun times together, Ben 100% supporting his two exs dating, seeing how happy they are. Julie, Ester and Kai even like to share cheesy stories of when Ben was their boyfriend, and he loves to play alone with it too. And that, is my take on Ben and Julie’s relationship! 💚💗

#Dear god I didn't mean to make this so long...#But I didn't know how to shorten it #So cheers to those that actually read this whole thing #Hope you enjoy #Ben 10 #ben 10 alien force #ben 10 ultimate alien #ben 10 omniverse #B10 #ben tennyson #julie yamamoto #Kai Green #Ester #Ben 10 Benlie #Benlie #EsterXKai #KaiXEster #Ben 10 Rewrite #My Answers

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magicalgirlfan666 · 3 years

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Alfea's Magical Girl Fairy School (Winx Club Reader Insert)

Chapter 1: First Day & Dormmates

This Winx Club Fanfic was brought to you by DragonStar sponsored by Winxwasmychildhood.org which was made possible by viewers like you enjoy

Fair warning: not everything that's going to go down in this will be from the tv series since I like doing my own thing with fanfics that I write so just so you don't get confused I placed this here as a heads up. Now you know.

P.S this is a reader insert that means you are the Main Character of the story.

______: First name

(I will be giving you an eye color I hope that you don't mind ^^')

(h/c) Hair color

(Same with skin color again I hope you won't mind)

I will be giving you the last name this time.

_______________________

Finally, I have now come of age to attend Alfea, it was something that I have been looking forward to going. In hopes of improving upon my magical powers and gaining what I need to be a good queen to my people. My Mother and Father also warn me to not only study but to be on look out for any royalty students attending as well so that I may make good relationships with them to help further prosper our kingdom.

But to only seek out royalty anything other than studying and bettering myself is unnecessary thus deserving no further attention, and I had no plans on going against it for nothing else piques my interest.

For I was taught to have nothing else to gain my interest other than my kingdom: Frozonia, if it prospers I prosper. Anything and everything I do is for it and it alone. No desires for myself no wants or needs for myself other than the want and need for a glorious kingdom.

It didn't take long for me to arrive to Alfea, there were a bunch of other girls at the front waiting for Griselda to finishing verifying if rather or not they belonged here. One girl was having a bit of trouble since Griselda was having trouble finding her name on the list and it wasn't til the girl told the older woman how her name was spelled did she finally spot the name and allowed her access.

The red head in front of me appeared to be worried as the two whispered about something, I saw the blonde female rip apart a letter for a reason unknown to me before approaching Griselda.

"Hello Ms. G this is Princess Varanda the princess of Callisto" I glanced to the redhead who was acting funny, I found it odd about how she was acting when being introduced but wrote it off as none of my concern, Griselda argued over the blonde who's name I now learned was Stella, return to Alfea especially after what she did to their science class to which Stella replied on how her parents did pay for some of the school's new stuff.

I was getting a bit annoyed at having to wait for the pair to finish their chit-chat, have preferred that they have this kind of personal chat when she doesn't have to allow access to a bunch of girls waiting to get in but since I have been taught to keep these sort of things in check so I knew not to voice this.

Though I was also taught to offer my honest thoughts and opinions and to be blunt a queen as no time for beating around the bush since I was not asked there was no need. My people though blunt and truthful with what we say, we tend to be a silent and quiet bunch only speaking when spoken too or when necessary.

I didn't deem now necessary, finally, they finished and I was finally next. "Name?"

"_____ Frosthart Princess of planet Crystria" I answered with a stoic face and a voice void of any emotion.

"Ah yes I see your name right here, go right ahead" I wasted no time walking through the gates and into Alfea, soon the head mistress Faragonda showed up and give a big speech before we were allowed to go inside when she finished. I quickly located my room and it appears two of my dormmates where already here.

One was a orange-blonde hair girl with a bob-cut hairstyle and hazel eyes, the other a fair-skinned girl with long, chest length brown hair with neatly brushed bangs above her eyes, while she has a strand or two hang over her shoulders with sea blue eyes. Both girls appeared friendly enough as they greeted me.

"Hi I'm Amaryl and this is my friend Francine" The two offered a kind and friendly smiles as they stuck their hands out for me to shake. I stared for a brief second before accepting their kind gesture.

"So would you happen to be Looma or ______?" Francine asked, before I could respond another voice spoke up. All three of us turned to the entrance of the room where the voice originated from.

Standing there a was brown hair, green eyes girl with her hair styled into a tight bun and two braids in the front. Her eyes shone bright with kindness and excitement. "Hello" She greeted kindly, placing her right hand on her chest. "I'm Looma and it would seem that from now and we will be dormmates"

"Ah so then that would make you _______" Francine said before returning Looma's greetings, as they started to converse I went to my room and used my magic to unpack everything. It wasn't long before Looma walked in still smiling.

"Looks like you already picked your side of the room" She said as she walked over to the other side and did the same as me with her magic as she unpacked I noticed she had a lot more clothes than I so it was safe to assume that she was really into clothing and fashion. She also had a few other things to make her own clothing.

"You weren't there when I told the others but if you ever need any clothing or some specially made feel free to ask all I need are some cool stuff to make them out of or if you want just buy some off me, it's really no trouble since I'm always making more than I really need" She gave an awkward laugh when addressing her lack of self-control on making clothing.

I don't really think that I will be needing any clothing specially made from her or to purchase any off her anytime soon but did make sure to keep note of it just in case. You never know when this knowledge might come in handy.

I nodded to let her know that it was acknowledged, she smiled in returned and started going over to the desk she unpacked and got to designing something that I can only assume was clothing.

I didn't have anything planned so I just sat down on my bed reading as my roommate hummed while drawing which I didn't mind since I would only tune it out once I get adsorbed onto the book. And in no time at all I was soon lost into a land of my own.

That is until a rabbit came out of nowhere and hopped right onto my book and soon a girl's voice shouted out a name that wasn't mine or any of my dormmates.

"Kiko!" She came rushing in and stopped once her blue orbs landed on the gray little bunny who was smiling sheepishly, they soon turned to me as she took notice that he was standing on my book.

"I'm so sorry, I don't know why he went running off like that" She appeared to be genuinely sorry for her rabbit's actions as she stared into my icy blue eyes.

I looked at her for a bit before turning my gaze to her rabbit and picking him up, the moment my hands made contact with his tiny little body he started to shiver but it wouldn't last too long since he would soon be in his master's hands as I handed him over.

"It is fine any damage done I can easily fix but do try to be careful next time" She nodded as she took the little bunny in her hand's as he immediately started to warm up.

"Right it won't" She nodded as I returned to my book. She got the hint that I didn't wish to speak anymore and soon left as I picked up where I unwillingly left off.

I finally reached the end of my book and was left wondering why did the main character make such a choice? Why did they choose to abandon their kingdom for someone else? It didn't make sense, no matter how many times I read books like this I could never figure it out.

Since the day I was born I was told that the kingdom and the people's welfare were to be placed above all else which means doing whatever was necessary to make sure that our kingdom was prospering.

So for her to make such a decision only leads to one thing for me to believe since it was the only thing that made sense, her tutors didn't educate her well enough at all, I just hope that other kingdoms in this story learn from this and never hire that person again.

I sighed as I placed my book onto the stand next to me and soon realizing that it was now night time, I must have missed lunch.... I look over to check on Looma and she was still drawing, I get up to tap her on the shoulder which startled her.

"Oh it's you, sorry you kind of scar-" Her eyes glanced around the room before landing back on me. "Um.. is it night time?" I nodded.

"Darn that means I miss lunch" She pouted before looking to me again. "Why didn't you say anything?" I pointed to my book.

"After finishing my book I was only now made aware" She looked over at my stand(no that's not a jojo reference) before nodding and then smiling.

"I guess that means we are sort of alike only we get far too absorbed in different things" She giggled before yawning. "Well not that it matters now I'm far too tired to eat anyway" She stood from her seat heading over to her bed.

"I'm going to head off to bed, night" She hopped into the bed pulling the sheets over her as I soon deiced to do the same as well.

Closing my eyes I soon drifted to sleep, one that was dreamless as usual for me they normally were anyway. It happens so often that I can't remember if I ever had dreams before or maybe I just simply can't remember them... whatever the case it doesn't really matter all that much anyway.....

___________

Okay so, this has already been posted on my watt pad and quotev, and is how it will be staying, the next parts will be drafts and possible outcomes

#Winx Club #AU #Yuri #Lesbian Romance #Bloom #Bloom x Reader #Diaspro #Diaspro x Reader #Chimera #Chimera x Reader #Reader Insert #fanfic #FanFiction #Chapter 1

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ripjaws · 3 years

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Ben 10 Survey Results!

Huge thank you to everyone who submitted a response, it was really fun looking through them all and I was genuinely surprised by the results of some of the questions.

Hopefully this will work under a read more because it's quite long and I don't want people to have to scroll a hundred years to get past it.

If anyone has any questions or anything please feel free to ask! :)

Thanks again!

General

Q1. How would you describe your gender?

36% - Female 25.3% - Male 24% - Non-binary 8% - Prefer not to say 4% - Agender 2.7% - Genderfluid

Q2. How would you describe your sexuality?

32% - Bisexual 20% - Heterosexual 20 % - Asexual 8% - Lesbian 6.7% - Prefer not to say 5.4% - Pansexual 4% - Gay 1.3% - Demisexual 1.3% - Questioning 1.3% - Polysexual

Q3. Current age

48% - 20-24 39% - 15-19 13.3% - 25-30 1.3% - Older than 30 1.3% - Younger than 15

Q4. Age when you first became interested in Ben 10

86.7% - Younger than 15 9.3% - 15-19 2.7% - 20-24 1.3% - 25-30

Episodes and season

Q1. Which series did you watch first?

88% - Original Series 9.3% - Alien Force 1.3% - Omniverse 1.3% - Reboot

Q2. Rank the series in order of preference

[IMAGE ID: Five separate groups of five vertical bar charts. The individual columns for each group are coloured in the same order and corresponds to what ranking they recieved on that question of the survey. According to the key at the top of the image the order is; blue = 1, red = 2, orange = 3, green = 4 & purple = 5. The Y axis of the graph goes from zero to thirty in intervals of ten.

The first group is labelled ‘Original Series’ and shows that it got twenty votes in blue, seventeen votes in red, sixteen votes in orange, ten votes in green & twelve votes in purple.

The second group is labelled ‘Alien Force’ and shows that it got nine votes in blue, eighteen votes in red, twenty-one votes in orange, twenty-two votes in green & five votes in purple.

The third group is labelled ‘Ultimate Alien’ and shows that it got thirteen votes in blue, ten votes in red, fourteen votes in orange, twenty-two votes in green & sixteen votes in purple.

The fourth group is labelled ‘Omniverse’ and shows that it got eighteen votes in blue, fifteen votes in red, seventeen votes in orange, fifteen votes in green & ten votes in purple.

The fifth and final group is labelled ‘Reboot’ and shows that it got fifteen votes in blue, fifteen votes in red, seven votes in orange, six votes in green & thirty-two votes in purple. END IMAGE ID]

Q3. Favourite season (Original Series)

40% - Season 1 18.7% - Season 2 18.7% - Season 3 17.3% - Season 4 5.3% - Don’t like/Haven’t watched

Most popular episodes were Ken 10 (S4E10) & Kevin 11 (S1E7)

Q4. Favourite season (Alien Force)

52% - Season 2 28% - Season 1 16% - Season 3 4% - Don’t like/Haven’t watched

Most popular episodes were Alone Together (S2E2) & Save the Last Dance (S2E4)

Q5. Favourite Season (Ultimate Alien)

36% - Season 1 25.3% - Season 3 20% - Don’t like/Haven’t watched 18.7% - Season 2

Most popular episodes were Forge of Creation (S1E16) & Duped (S1E2)

Q6. Favourite Season (Omniverse)

18.7% - Don’t like/Haven’t watched 18.7% - Season 2 16% - Season 5 12% - Season 6 10.7% - Season 1 9.3% - Season 8 8% - Season 4 5.3% - Season 3 1.3% - Season 7

Most popular episodes were And Then There Were None (S6E1) & And Then There Was Ben (S6S2)

Q7. Favourite Season (Reboot)

60% - Don’t like/Haven’t watched 17.3% - Season 4 10.7% - Season 3 6.7% - Season 1 5.3% - Season 2

Most popular episodes were Omni-tricked (S1E37) & Innervasion (S2E36)

Q8. Which live action movie did you prefer?

40% - Alien Swarm 22.7% - Race Against time 22.7% - Didn’t like either 14.7% - Haven’t watched either

Characters and aliens

Q1. Favourite main character

45.3% - Ben Tennyson 28% - Kevin Levin 17.3% - Rook Blonko 9.3% - Gwen Tennyson

Some ‘Why’ responses:

Ben -

I know it's a really basic pick but I enjoy Ben alot as a character. Even though I feel like he took an extremely sharp turn into immaturity in the final season of Alien Force onward (from what I've heard it was due to ratings), it still fit well after a bit of time of adjustment. Him being rash and selfish at times while still having a good heart feels...very human. I'm a huge fan of flawed protagonists and Ben is a prime example of such, imo! Plus I hradcanon that he has autism and it's a big comfort for me :)

I love his potential as a character and the way he hands having such power and responsibility thrust upon him. Ben has done so much for the people in his life and the universe, and I absolutely adore him.

I think of him like a kind person who tries his best to the right thing, he's pretty chill and optimist and in my mind he's a chaotic bi and i can relate to that

Kevin -

I like that he's always been an antihero in the original series. And in the reboot I really like the direction the showrunners are taking his character. He has a different backstory, motivations and I'm really enjoying his character development. It's a fresh take on his story and they're treating it with care, which I really appreciate. His Antitrix aliens also have some really incredible designs.

Cool powers, uncommon character in children's media, especially as a primary character often cast in a good light (ex con, high school dropout, masculine, not emotionally mature). His character development is some of the best in the series.

Gods, we could be here forever... Okay, short version- 1) I can relate to him on a mental health level, especially in the OG series we seemed to have similar issues and to handle them in similar ways 2) there's a lot of depth and variance to his character, he's angry and aggressive and dangerous but also a dork, a sweetheart, and very affectionate once he lets his walls down, he loves cars and supernatural romance, violence and magical girls, he'll rescue an aggressive dog for no reason other than it needed help but also he might consider how much he could get for selling you, he's a complex character and he's allowed to be in a way the Tennysons can't because of how firmly they sit in the Hero seat 3) for all of this, we never really know all that much about him and his experiences, at least in comparison to what we know is there- we never learn about his time traveling the galaxy, we haven't heard anything about his time stuck in time, it's only in the reboot we're getting trustworthy information about his background and even then it's rare tidbits- he's ripe for exploring in fic, headcanon, and so-on 4) his powers in the OG series, his status as mutant or alien or both who knows anymore leaves a lot of doors open to play and to look at the world through different angles 5) dude has turned into six different monstrous chimera forms over the course of the franchise and honestly you have to support that sort've shit in media otherwise they might stop

Rook -

Alien catboy with a glorious voice and have you seen those arms??? And he's so polite while also being hilarious when he gets a little rude/snarky and his character development is amazing!!

While I would normally say Ben himself, Rook is his only friend that hasn't tried to kill him. Additionally, he provides Ben with guidance as well as support the Gwen and Kevin are fickle about.

Having an actual alien joining the cast and serving at Ben's foil worked well to me.

Gwen -

Smart, talented, funny, snarky, confident, and super cute. Jock-prep-nerd energy all in one. Deserves the world. Criminally ignored by the majority of the fandom. Knows karate and judo?? College at 16?? Icon.

Angel, can do no wrong, was capable of so much more than the show let her do, potential to be the most powerful member of the team if they'd just let her go a lil feral sometimes :/

She was a good voice of reason most of the time. Her powers were really interesting and overall I think she had a lot of wasted potential having to be sidelined since the series was about Ben ultimately

Q2. Favourite minor characters

40 votes - Paradox

22 votes - Max Tennyson

18 votes - Tetrax

17 votes - Argit

16 votes - Julie Yamamoto

15 votes - Azmuth

12 votes - Ester

10 votes - Looma Red Wind

9 votes - Glitch

9 votes - Kai Green

7 votes - Alan Albright

6 votes - Jimmy Jones

4 votes - Cooper Daniels

3 votes - Eunice

3 votes - Helen Wheels

2 votes - Elena Validus

2 votes - Manny Armstrong

1 vote - Cash Murray

1 vote - Driba

Other votes went to Penny Bennyson, Kenny Tennyson/Spanner, Lucy Mann, Rook Shar, Eddie Grandsmith, Myaxx and Pakmar.

Q3. Ship or Zed

64% - Ship 36% - Zed

Q4. Favourite main antagonist

20% - Albedo 13.3% - Kevin 11 12% - Vilgax 10.7% - Charmcaster 10.7% - Zs’Skayr 9.3% - Malware 5.3% - Forever Knights 5.3% - Eon 4% - Highbreed & DNAliens 4% - Aggregor 1.3% - Servantis & Rooters 1.3% - Khyber 1.3% - Dagon & the Esoterica

Some ‘Why’ responses for top 3:

Albedo -

When I first saw him during the airing of Good Copy, Bad Copy, I was scared that Albedo might be a one-and-done evil clone that doesn't get much development. These fears went away, and I was pleased to find out about his backstory and motives, just a sour soul in an unpleasant situation. Even in Ultimate Alien with his reappearance episode, he tries to work on his own to cope in a horrid human world. He isn't necessarily malicious until Ben gets in his way, he just wants to return to his own body and leave, even stating that he wasn't going to fight Ben anymore while he had temporarily returned to his Galvan form. I know DJW stated in some interview that Albedo could never be redeemed, but I believe there's some hope if he gets help. And I'm a sucker for those redemption arcs :)

Tragic frog man that could have been helped but nobody helped him and he doubled down on his hatred which led to him getting stuck in a cycle of revenge and punishment and it's the tragedy of how much better things could have been for him if someone just helped him that I love so much!!

Kevin 11 -

He’s very dangerous and has a terrifying power to absorb electricity and living DNA to have the same powers of who he absorbed it from and even turn himself into a mutant with all those powers combined leading to destructive power

Kevin was a good antagonist and a good protagonist, although i feel the transition was rushed. Anti-hero kevin in the reboot is great!

Vilgax -

He was always the endgame villian for Ben, despite how many battles they've had, despite countless losses, he always tried to stay one step ahead, and plan everything.

"Speak with care, Psyphon. Your counsel is valuable...not irreplaceable."

Q5. Favourite minor villains

38 votes - Animo 20 votes - Hex 18 votes - Michael Morningstar/Darkstar 14 votes - SixSix 13 votes - Zombozo 9 votes - Vreedle family 9 votes - Vulkanus 8 votes - Rojo 5 votes - Inspector 13 5 votes - Billy Billions 5 votes - Will Harangue 4 votes - Fistrick 4 votes - Nyancy Chan 3 votes - Lord Decibel 3 votes - Simian 3 votes - Subdora 3 votes - Viktor 2 votes - Addwaitya 2 votes - Fistina 2 votes - Kraab 2 votes - Psyphon 2 votes - Steam Smythe 2 votes - Sunder 1 vote - Liam 1 vote - Ssserpent

Other votes went to Maurice & Sydney, Bugg Brothers, Alternate evil Bens, and the Mummy.

Q6. Favourite canon relationship

66.7% - Gwen & Kevin 13.3% - Max Tennyson & Verdona 5.3% - Ben & Kai 4% - Rook & Rayona 1.3% - Julie & Herve 1.3% - Max & Xylene

Q7. Favourite non-canon ship

36% - I don’t have one 30.7% - Ben & Rook 6.7% - Ben & Kevin 4% - Ben & Julie

Other responses included Ben & Rex, Kai & Julie, Looma & Attea, Alan & Cooper, Ben & Looma, Kevin & Manny, Gwen & Cooper, Ben & Ester, Max & Phil, Azmuth & Paradox, Cooper & Elena, Kai & Ester, Ben & Zak Saturday, Ben & Eddie, Ben & Albedo, Ben & Kevin & Gwen, Kenny & Devlin, OC & canon, and Ben & a therapist.

Q8. Favourite alien introduced in the Original Series

18.7% - XLR8 17.3% - Upgrade 13.3% - Ghostfreak 10.7% - Diamondhead 9.3% - Heatblast 8% - Wildmutt 6.7% - Ditto 2.7% - Blitzwolfer 2.7% - Snare-oh 2.7% - Grey Matter 1.3% - Cannonbolt 1.3% - Four Arms

Q9. Least favourite alien introduced in the Original Series

22.7% - Eye Guy 18.7% - Spitter 8% - Articguana 8% - Frankenstrike 6.7% - Upchuck 6.7% - Stinkfly 5.3% - Buzzshock 5.3% - Snare-oh 4% - Four Arms 2.7% - Blitzwolfer 2.7% - Ditto 2.7% - Wildmutt 2.7% - Grey Matter 1.3% - Cannonbolt 1.3% - Diamondhead 1.3% - Ghostfreak

Q10. Favourite alien introduced in Alien Force

46.7% - Big Chill 17.3% - Rath 8% - Goop 6.7% - Lodestar 5.3% - Swampfire 4% - Chromastone 4% - Spidermonkey 2.7% - Alien X 2.7% - Echo Echo 1.3% - Humungousaur 1.3% - Jetray

Q11. Least favourite alien introduced in Alien Force

18.7% - Lodestar 17.3% - Brainstorm 13.3% - Alien X 10.7% - Humungousaur 10.7% - Spidermonkey 8% - Jetray 8% - Chromastone 5.3% - Goop 5.3% - Echo Echo 2.7% - Rath

Q12. Favourite alien introduced in Ultimate Alien

18.7% - Juryrigg 16% - AmpFibian 14.7% - Clockwork 12% - NRG 8% - Armodrillo 8% - Shocksquatch 8% - Terraspin 8% - Water Hazard 2.7% - Chamalien 2.7% - Fasttrack 1.3% - Eatle

Q13. Least favourite alien introduced in Ultimate Alien

30.7% - Fasttrack 18.7% - Eatle 13.3% - Juryrigg 9.3% - Chamalien 8% - Shocksquatch 6.7% - Terraspin 5.3% - Water Hazard 4% - Clockwork 1.3% - AmpFibian 1.3% - Armodrillo 1.3% - NRG

Q14. Favourite Ultimate Form

38.7% - Echo Echo 24% - Big Chill 10.7% - Swampfire 9.3% - Way Big 8% - Wildmutt 6.7% - Spidermonkey 1.3% - Cannonbolt 1.3% - Humungousaur

Q15. Favourite alien introduced in Omniverse

29.3% - Feedback 13.3% - Pesky Dust 12% - Gravattack 9.3% - Ball Weevil 8% - Bullfrag 6.7% - Whampire 5.3% - Bloxx 4% - Atomix 4% - Walkatrout 2.7% - Gutrot 1.3% - Crashhopper 1.3% - Kickin Hawk 1.3% - Toepick 1.3% - The Worst

Q16. Least favourite alien introduced in Omniverse

24% - The Worst 14.7% - Bloxx 12% - Mole-Stache 8% - Bullfrag 6.7% - Astrodactyl 6.7% - Kickin Hawk 5.3% - Atomix 5.3% - Gutrot 4% - Crashhopper 4% - Walkatrout 2.7% - Toepick 1.3% - Ball Weevil

Q17. Favourite alternate Ben timeline

29.3% - No watch Ben 24% - Gwen 10 17.3% - Ben 10,000 8% - Mad Ben 6.7% - Dimension 23 6.7% - Eon 4% - Nega Ben 2.7% - Benzarro 1.3% - Bad Ben

Misc.

Q1. Favourite watch design

37.3% - Original Series 29.3% - Omniverse 17.3% - Alien Force 9.3% - Ultimatrix 6.7% - Reboot

Q2. Favourite alternate watch design

29.3% - Biomnitrix 20% - Gwen 10 18.7% - Negatrix 17.3% - Antitrix 8% - Power Watch 6.7% - Hero Watch

Q3. Favourite planet visited

32% - Anur Transyl 20% - Revonnah 13.3% - Mykdl’dy 10.7% - Galvan Prime 9.3% - Vilgaxia 6.7% - Piscciss 5.3% - Petropia 2.7% - Khoros

Q4. Favourite locations

34 votes - Undertown 23 votes - Ledgerdomain 23 votes - Null Void 22 votes - Bellwood 19 votes - Friedkin University 18 votes - Mr. Smoothy 16 votes - Forge of Creation 15 votes - Los Soledad 7 votes - Burger Shack 7 votes - Plumber Headquarters 4 votes - Incarcecon 2 votes - Mt. Rushmore Plumber base 2 votes - The Perplexahedron 1 vote - Plumber Academy

Q5. Favourite Vehicle

33.3% - Kevin’s car (Original) 25.3% - Rustbucket 18.7% - Proto-TRUK 13.3% - DX Mark 10 5.3% - Kevin’s car (Omniverse) 4% - Glitch

Q6. Favourite Kevin mutation

40% - Original series 20% - Ken 10 future 12% - Ultimate Alien 8% - Omniverse 8% - Alien Force 6.7% - Omniverse flashback 5.3% - Reboot

Q7. Favourite Omniverse redesign

66.7% - Ben 26.6% - Kevin 6.7% - Gwen

Q8. Least favourite Omniverse redesign

76% - Gwen 18.7% - Kevin 5.3% - Ben

Thoughts

(Putting every single response here would make this insanely long so I’ve just put the most detailed/most echoed responses & include all sides of opinions when possible.)

Q1. Thoughts on the Osmosians retcon?

Okay, first up, do you know how much work I had already put into building shit surrounding those fuckers by the time of the retcons? I had been working on this crap since AF season 2! But no, they gotta go ruin that in one fell swoop, thank you, much appreciated. Second up, I wibble on it? Like, working with mutants is fun and interesting and I've done plenty of shit with them as well, but in the end I'm always going to be a pro-Ossys person. Mostly the retcons left more questions than they gave answers (how, if Osmosians never existed, did everybody and their mother know Kevin was an Osmosian? why, if Osmosians never existed, did none of the people not-involved in this whole disaster with Servantis's mindfuckery look at Aggregor being reported as an Osmosian and go 'wtf that's not a thing'? do they really mean to tell me that not only did Kevin never bother to look into his heritage, but neither did research-happy Gwen? or am I expected to believe the Rooters made enough fake information and put it out publicly that they fooled literally everyone? and if they did then why? when it would've done the same thing with less effort if they'd just, let Kevin be a mutant with a Plumber father who died) and I feel like they didn't really give enough to justify them. One of those cases of 'making your work less interesting to make it more 'accurate''. Personally, I forever keep working on Osmosians (where's the line where it just starts becoming your shit, I think I may be heading there) and I love on mutants and I flip between or combine the two as needed for whatever story I want to tell.

While the fake memories plot isn't great I think it's for the best because the original series meant for Kevin to be a mutant while UAF changed it to alien. I like him better as a mutant human. Too much alien connections in UAF.

I could scream for hours. Easily one of the worst decisions they ever made. Omniverse picks and chooses what canon to follow from AFUA + the original run and throws it in without care or concern to what it means for the timeline. Retconning something and keeping the effect it had is just bad writing. Kevin coming to terms with not being human and that’s okay was important to me when I was a kid. Knowing that he’s just been on an unending series of brainwashed nonsense all his life deprives him of his agency. I hate this decision more than several dozen essays could ever convey.

I wasn't mad about it. Mainly because I liked the idea of Kevin being a mutant than an alien. Alien Force really was pushing that aspect even with Gwen. To the point where she called her powers 'not spells' because of her heritage. Stupid that the rooters and fake memories were a thing, but necessary.

I was never a big fan of the Rooters Arc, but this doesn't bother me too much. It makes UA a little weird with Aggragor, but again, it doesn't really bother me, as most of Omniverse didn't explore Kevin (While UA Did), and was mostly about Ben.

Osmosians were such a cool idea, and it would've allowed for more exploration into what Mike Morningstar was as well, but just writing them off as mutates is so boring. As well as it makes Aggregors whole part not really make sense, like who is he then.

While well executed, it was unnecessary. You could have had the same story line where Kevin was used to mutate other kids and still had him an Alien. You could have had it where it was another alien species that used Osmosians to morph other species to theirs; a call back to the DNAliens if you want.

Q2. Thoughts on how the Ultimate Kevin situation was dealt with in UA?

Terrible. They wanted to go far. They wanted to go dark. But they didn't think their viewership could handle it so they dialed it back. I will always be curious to know what they would have written if they didn't have those constraints. Because the final product was a mess of contrasting tone and unsure footing about how far to go with questioning our hero's moral compass. They wanted to push Ben to see what he would do and apparently, we got that he would kill Kevin and maybe Gwen if she got in the way of saving the universe.... but not really because he didn't. And then the gang is happy all back together like none of it ever happened. They wanted to explore dark themes but have it leave no consequences on the characters. Also... it was so ableist and awful and Kevin deserved better than how Ben and Max (and the writers) treated him.

If they did everything the same but the argument was 'we need to capture him and lock him away' instead of 'we need to kill him'? I would be fine. It's the fact that they slipped so quickly into murder, into murder by his 16-yo bestfriend, that gets me. Like, there's apparently no space between 'recklessly risk our safety trying to talk him down' and 'Ol' Yeller his ass' and that just does not sit right with me.

Ben should have looked for alternate solutions before jumping on the "Let's kill Kevin" train. I understand why he did (this took place immediately post-Aggregor so Ben was still traumatized about having lost so many people and because he failed and "let" Kevin get turned into Ultimate Kevin, he felt as though every person Kevin hurt would be on him) but I wish he hadn't.

Pretty good actually. I like Gwen's emotions becoming a hindrance to the job, I like Ben putting on his big boy pants and I like Kevin going up to Aggregor and saying "y'know, I was a big boy villain once and I'm tried of just getting kicked around" (obviously paraphrasing)

Other than the scenario being overplayed, I think Ben was right. Kevin was eventually going to end up killing Gwen and he'd already put others in the hospital. He needed to be stopped.

Ben jumping straight to murder, yikes. Kevin dismissing Gwen to hang out with Ben almost as soon as he turned back to normal, yikes. Otherwise, it was an interesting plotline.

Really bad. Really shows how awful max and the plumbers really are. I mean , the guy saved the universe and now he clearly needs help but all they wanted to do was kill him.

it really felt like Ben just wanted to murder Kevin because he saved the universe that one time and Ben couldn't stand someone else being the hero for once

The worst, Max straight away wanting to put him down makes u wonder how long he's been waiting for that kind of opportunity.

I'm fine with it, maybe they could have spent some time dealing with the consequences of Kevin's actions, possibly even the ramifications it had on Ben and Kevin's friendship, but overall I'm ok with it.

Q3. Thoughts on the Plumbers

Plumbers ain't shit. Individuals can be acceptable or not but the organization as a whole has too much power, not enough oversight, utilizes child labor, uses a deathtrap of a hellscape dimension as a penal colony, has been shown onscreen sentencing people to imprisonment in said dimension without a trial, and I'm sorry the fact that a Plumber official could walk into a base with his team, assault several members of staff, attempt to kidnap a boy, admit to having and planning to continue to run illegal experiments on him and others, admit to having altered the memories of other Plumber officials, all in front of the entire base, and nothing was done until he tried to kill the golden child Ben 10 and failed, got his ass kicked by one of his victims, and in a place where presumably there were security cameras? And that the response was, again, to sentence him and his team without trial, take all the evidence, and peace out without so much as looking at nonetheless apologizing to his victims? Yeah, that don't fly. Doesn't sound like an organization that has it's shit together. Either the Plumbers don't have their shit together or the higher ups were in on it until it became something that could actually damage their reputation, and either way I Do Not Approve.

They're pretty cool. I know everyone's talking about how Plumbers are space cops and therefore absolutely corrupt and bad but this is a fictional universe in which corruption in organized forces isn't a necessity. Plumbers don't function the same way real cops do, they don't follow they same chain of command, they don't have the same motivations and they definitely don't have the same biases. Plumbers perform an essential function in the Ben 10 universe, which is to capture and contain aliens who aim to hurt anyone (or those who Ben defeats).

My knowledge of the Plumbers' unfortunately doesn't go beyond UA. They're not my favorite thing ever. Some of my least favorite episodes were the ones where the Plumbers or Plumbers' kids are involved, except for the episode "Everybody Talks About the Weather". The way Alan is introduced is really cool and very X Files-esque, and it ties into the DNAlien plot very well. But throughout the series I stopped caring about the Plumbers in general and I think that concept was given too much attention.

They don't do what they're meant to. They act like heros yet I don't think I've ever seen them do anything heroic. The DNAliens situation, the aggregor situation, dagon etc etc. Where were they??? Why did they leave the fate of the universe in the hands of a 16 year-old boy? Ben has the omnitrix sure , but he's still just one guy, how much can he fight? They showed up every once in a while but that's it. They were useless.

Of course the Plumbers have their problems, but looking at most characters we've met that were plumbers seem to be pretty good people. Max, Patelliday and Rook (and even Kevin, technically) are great examples of Plumbers, Servantis being a bad example of one.

Honestly liked it when it was disbanded. It’s cool they introduced Rook but like there’s so much wrong with how they run most things. My favorite version of the plumbers was tbh the first live action movie. Where it was just a bunch of old people watching out for Ben cause they actually cared about the people they protected (in this case Ben).

Q4. Thoughts on Grandpa Max

(The responses to this one were way more divided than I thought they would be omg)

He said Kevin was a mad dog that needed to put down. He's terrible. Military. Secretive. Kept his kids out of the loop and probably told the grandkids not to tell them about a huge and extremely dangerous part of their lives. Thus creating a gap between them and their parents that didn't need to be there. Child endangerment. Other than that....? He's important to Ben and Gwen so I tolerate him and he had some good life lessons to share. Also legendary adult figure in a kids cartoon who had relationships with multiple aliens.

He’s incredible, he worked in the Air Force, was going to be one of the first people on the moon (But he refused because he joined the Plumbers) had children with an Energy Being, he has a few grandchildren, and not to mention knows how to still kick butt despite him being in his 60s and was there to help Ben grow

He’s a complicated old man. Love him to bits in the original run and I love him in AF! He’s a utilitarian doing what needs to be done and suffering the consequences when need be. He does what he thinks is going to lead to the best possible outcome for the most people in any situation.

Needs to get knocked off his pedestal more often, both in and out of canon. He's got good traits, they're very nice, but there's other shit that gets glossed over, ignored, brushed aside, too easily forgiven, and just. They really needed a character who served double duty being a counterforce to him. Somebody to go 'wtf is wrong with you?' or 'yeah, no'. Ideally this would've been Patilidae, but no. We couldn't be so lucky.

Conflicted. Was he grooming Ben for plumber work, or just trying to support him in a situation he knew would be dangerous? It’s not made very clear...

I think he's got some sort of narcissistic personality disorder. I just can't forgive him for making Ben carry the burden of the Omnitrix at the age of 10 without ever explaining anything, and for not letting Ben and Gwen know he was alive after the Null Void grenade incident in AF. He clearly could have, if Helen could reach Gwen so easily. I think he views Ben more as an asset than a grandson at this point and that's really sad.

I love him! The progression from family hero to questionable old man felt kinda natural, like learning about a family member as you grow older and realizing they aren't perfect

He's awesome. He was a good role model for Ben and he was very supportive to both his grandkids. I hate that they made him mute in Omniverse and changed his design so drastically. I loved Max in every season from the original till Ultimate Alien. After that, he was pretty much just a prop.

Q5. And finally, give me your most controversial Ben 10 opinion!

It seems to be the worst thing to say that Ben isn't perfect and that Kai isn't demonic. And it's pretty standard for the women of color characters in every fandom to get the most hate so to me all the hate towards Kai when her personality is so close to Ben's AND she's also more hated than the ex-villain and the actual villains that tried to kill Ben multiple times just seems- hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm. But really, and really I've needed to say this for a long time but I'm afraid of being strangled. Some fans will denounce incest/pedo shippers and people that interact with them and then reblog from a proud Bwen shipper with no self-awareness. Please I have the tags blacklisted are you safe to interact with and you just don't know? Or you're just saying you hate Bwen shippers to give yourself an out for reblogging their content????? Or are you all closeted incest shippers trying to maintain a public image???? I'm at my limit.

I do not think the reboot should have existed tbh :,D I know that it has a ton of fans and all due respect to them, but from what I've seen of it I don't think it was worth tossing away four interconnected series' worth of development and starting from scratch to end up with what we have now. I would be fine with it existing if we got an Omniverse continuation alongside it, but CN screwed OV over by the decisions they made near the end of it's run. So it's probably impossible it would return, even moreso because of the reboot already airing, and it would probably confuse younger audiences that don't know about Omniverse if two Ben 10's were running separately. I just really miss Omniverse, it had more potential and the reboot placed the final nail in for it to ever return.

The Ben 10 reboot is fun and meant more for kids rather than the ones watching for nostalgia. I didn’t like how Gwevin were sidelined and downplayed to make Ben look better. Sometimes it felt like Gwen was a bit naggy towards the two of them. I didn’t like how the fact that she was the only female lead how she had sometimes act like a parent or that they put Gwen and Kevin together just because. Their relationship felt forced and awkward a lot of the time. Omniverse’s designs while controversial were fun and unique but I didn’t like what they did with Gwevin, especially Gwen.

Kevin is totally smart enough to figure out an Omnitrix with the blueprints in front of him, we see him do amazing shit with technology- including the Omnitrix- in the OG series, people just don't notice he's as brilliant as Gwen because the show never made it as big a point that he and Ben were so very smart like it did with her before the reboot, so now they're being forced to acknowledge that Kevin might have two braincells to rub together and they're pushing against the supposed 'change'.

idk if it's controversial but there should've been way more episodes of just gwen & kevin & rook without ben or ben having a very minor role in the episode. just more time for those three to shine and show off how capable they are without ben always having to come in to save the day at the end

Gwen and Kevin aren't good friends to Ben. I mean they were initially, but once he got famous and they didn't, they stopped putting more than a half-assed effort to help him. They also don't really consider his feelings nor really care about the toll heroing takes on him.

The Reboot has the best jokes in the entire franchise and I don't why people give it so much crap.

Kai Green is an abuser and I refuse to find anything redeemable about her character. "Worthy to wield Excalibur," my entire ass. And Ben and Julie's breakup was good for them both, as people, and just as much her fault as it was his.

Ben 10 is an incredibly flawed show and people need to stop getting butt hurt when the blatant misogyny, and copoganda in the show get pointed out or when any even minority critiques Ben's character.

Ben is the worst character in Ben 10 and the whole franchise would be better off without him.

Azmuth is fine for the most part and malware was not exactly the most understanding person

I think Ben should've stayed single. Every episode where romance (or the girl Ben was dating) was the focus of the episode was pretty boring to me, personally.

Ben's parents were right to try to stop him from being a hero, so were Gwen's.

Ultimate alien force season 2 and 3 were amazing.( not comparing the OS since obviously that's the best, or omniverse since I haven't watched all the episodes of that)

Pierce deserved to die for being a boring character. I just wish his death had actual consequences.

The reboot is a genuine improvement over the original continuity in MANY ways!

Oh geez, um, Kai was a good character, just her and ben were obviously toxic. Not everyone needs to like Ben and she isn't an abuser, they just don't get along and that's fine but by God, why did the writers have to force them in a relationship? That's all I could really think of on the spot. Oh! And that the first two season of AF were a watered down version of Ben and the plot focused more on Gwen and Kevin than it did Ben. He felt like a side character and I'm not mad about that, but I don't understand why people praise that characterization of ben when I remember more about gwen and Kevin then Ben. Dude, I've been watching the show for the past week and I can name more about kevin and gwen because they're memorable.

Azmuth's hot af, but y'all aren't ready for that conversation...

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If you’ve made it this far then thank you!

Again huge thank you to everyone who submitted a response and if you have any questions/comments please feel free to leave them in the replies/send me an ask/dm/whatever ^^

#ben 10 #ben 10 alien force #ben 10 ultimate alien #ben 10 omniverse #ben tennyson #b10 #gwen tennyson #kevin levin #rook blonko #WE DID IT LADS #looking back there were SO many questions i couldve added like more directly fandom related ones but ehhhhh live and learn i guess #it was fun to do anyway :3

45 notes · View notes

gritsandbrits · 4 years

Note

We already know how you feel about Kai.

So let's talk about Ben's other Love Interests.

What's your opinion on Julie, Eunice, Ester, and Elena?

(Only adding Girls who Ben has shown mutual romantic interest in so girls like Attea, Looma, and Nyancy Chan don't count)

Eunice: Literally no use for her character except for it being a parody of those oddly specific stories where Ben gets with an OC with a strange connection to the Omnnitrix & looks like Gwen. 👀 👀

Julie: Imma be honest here I feel like she only came around to remind us that Ben had a girlfriend and at the rate AF was going with its "EVERYTHING IS ALIENS" schtick I half expected her to be revealed to be an alien or hybrid. But overall she was nice and didn't deserve all the hate she got. I'm also glad she got another boyfriend thus a much more healthier relationship than she had with Ben. I do wish OV followed her up some more, maybe have her become an independent superhero due to being inspired by her ex and not wanting to abandon that life entirely.

Ester: Now I hear some arguments about Ester not being a good girlfriend for Ben but honestly? They had way better chemistry than BenKai & her skill set & design was interesting. Really wished they did more with her on the show than just passing her off to Antonio but hey at least she got in a good drama-free relationship too. And even with her rivalry with Kai she was still able to comfort her when she was sad.

Elena: This is the one character who I will always sympathize with because what UA did with her was uncalled for. Stan Berkowitz wrote that dumb episode where she became a yandere, complete with the UA designers whitewashing her and changing her personality in the final product. She went from a biker scientist who went rouge to clear her family name to a generic science lab lady whose only goal is to snog a guy 'cause apparently moral grayness doesn't exist in the b10 world anymore. At least OV gave her interesting design back and had a book dedicated to her getting help somewhat. Overall she was done the dirtiest simply used as a tool to make all the other girls (Julie & Kai especially) look better.

#ben 10 #gb asks #honest opinion #honest opinions #love interests #eunice #julie yamamoto #ester kraaho #elena validus

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cat-scarr · 6 years

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I come to this blog when I am faced with a shit ton on Ben negativity. It honestly pisses me off when people trash Ben’s character, only look at the worst of his character, completely ignore all of his good traits, and act like he is at fault. It’s like “I get it. You like Kevin. Can you shut up now?”

You know, now that you mention Kevin…he does have a lot of defenders, doesn’t he?

I’m going to be honest because I’ve never really gone into this, but when I first got into Ben 10 I actually kinda hated Kevin. As of recently I understand his character a lot more so I can respect him as Ben’s friend and team mate but…why is so much of the stuff he’s done so excusable??

Maybe it’s because of the “villain” reputation he’s had from before, but even after Ben helps him reform his life and gives him a second chance he still pulls some of this crap and nobody says a thing about it like it’s okay because “it’s a joke” or it’s supposed to be funny to make a fool out of Ben.

Why is Ben always expected to be so perfect ALL THE DAMN TIME?!! When Ben makes a mistake he is pretty much ALWAYS called out for it. Why is that? Because of his label as “hero”?? Did you forget he’s also a human??

And I freaking hate when people act like Ben is so weak as a human.

Listen.

I know every one of Ben’s male “partners” have been drawn taller and bigger than him or whatever…but NONE of them are stronger than him.

And by that I don’t mean his alien powers.

Since the beginning of AF, Kevin has been hesitant to ask Gwen out or even admit that he’s into her. But the moment Ben has the courage to ask Julie out, even when he clearly has much more to lose (his alien hero secret), the way Kevin reacts to this is extremely uncalled for. He allegedly punched a hole in the back door to get into Ben’s house, then after clearly making it seem like he was on to something while agreeing to give Ben and his date a ride, broke the doorknob to his room when he left.

AND THEN while actually driving Ben and Julie to the pier, he embarrassed and teased him for no good reason.

LIKE GIVE ME A GOOD REASON AS TO WHY BEN DESERVES THIS

I feel like the reason behind Kevin’s actions was out of an almost revenge or jealousy, since he doesn’t have the guts to be mature and be upfront about how he feels towards Gwen so he just acts like a dick.

And later in UA, with the whole Kevin being uncontrollably evil situation, where EVERYBODY seems to think that Ben wants to kill Kevin. Which, by the way, is obviously not true. Ben did not want to kill Kevin. I’d say that the reason he brought that up so much was because he knew that if it came to that point, he would have to be the one to have the responsibility to actually do it. No one else, but Ben because he is the most powerful. I’d say that he was actually the most affected by the whole thing. Gwen was super emotional about it because duh, he’s her boyfriend. But Ben blamed himself. And he thought ahead. What if they can’t cure him? What if all the chances they’ve given him to reform weren’t enough? Would it ever be enough? Would he just keep falling back on bad habits and lose himself again and again? What if the only way to end this was to end his life once and for all, no matter how much he didn’t want to do it?

He must have been so relieved that it didn’t have to come to that.

AND THEN after all that they’ve been through…the Looma situation in OV came to be. Not only did Kevin completely betray Ben’s trust and loyalty, but it was just a really shitty thing to do to the guy who kinda SAVED YOUR LIFE AND HELPED YOU BECOME A BETTER PERSON. He never once mentioned anything about what would happen after Ben would inevitably defeat Looma, and just had him believe that all would be better if he just did what Kevin said. He literally used him to get her off his back because he knew that Ben would be much more capable of dealing with Looma then he would be.

IS BEN ONLY THERE TO CLEAN UP YOUR MESS ALL THE TIME??!!

HE’S SO LOYAL

AND RELIABLE

AND ALL HE GETS IS SHIT FOR IT

AND I AM NOT OKAY WITH THAT

#lol sorry this turned into a rant but you opened a can of worms #and I'm very ready to defend Ben at all costs #ben tennyson #kevin levin #ben 10 alien force #ben 10 ultimate alien #ben 10 omniverse #ben 10 #glad you agree with my points in previous posts!!! thank u for letting me hear that ;3 #essay files

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emperorsfoot · 7 years

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I have mixed feelings about Omniverse. There were some things I liked about the series and some things I really, really did not like. Overall, I have to say that my opinion of the series is split 30/70 with the 70% being negative. So, for the most part, I didn't like it. But first let me discuss the things I DID like.

We got a stable Plumbers Headquarters in Bellwood and more regular Plumbers characters.

The Plumbers always stuck me sort of as the Green Lantern Corps., and just like with the Lanterns, the Corps. Comics are way better than the Green Lantern comics. Why? Because its about the whole Corps. The whole organization, not just a circle jerk for Hal Jordan (or whoever the Lantern for sector 2814 happens to be at the time). And that was what was nice about expanding the cast of Plumbers. We got to see a whole Corps of Plumbers, not just third-tier 'Plumbers Helpers' or single-episode cameos to remind us that other Plumbers existed. We had regular characters with names and backstories -many of whom weren't even from Earth. It was a good attempt at world building, and in a show that is constantly claiming to be about “experiencing what its like to be another species” or “learning how differences make us strong”, that's something that's very important. Because, as we all know (should know) UNLIKE Green Lantern Corps. (Blackest Night story arc) the Earth isn't actually the center of the universe. (Neither is Ben for that matter, although you wouldn't know it from watching the series.)

Gwen goes to collage and she and Kevin get away from Ben for a while.

For pretty much all their lives, both Gwen and Kevin's lives have revolved around Ben Mother-Fucking Tennyson. Gwen because they were raised more like siblings than cousins, she was pulled into all his absurd alien adventures -literally- from the moment they started, Ben is incapable of doing anything without her and when she does get out, he pulls her back in again -remember, it was Ben that went to Gwen at the beginning of Alien Force. If he hand't asked her for help, she might not have been a main character in the second series. And Kevin became obsessed with Ben when he was only eleven years old. When he was still in his formative years. Over the course of Alien Force and Ultimate Alien that obsession and thirst for revenge morphed and shifted into an uncomfortably dependent friendship. Seriously. Ben is Kevin's ONLY male friend Kevin has that's an actual friend, not a 'business partner' or 'tech-buddy'. Its good that Gwen went to collage and Kevin followed her, so that they could both get some time away from Ben to grow as individuals. Sure, we the audience didn't get to see any of that individual growth and development because the series was too busy being a circle-jerk for Ben. But then, I've come to expect that from this franchise.

Prince Looma and Tetramand marital practices (“Many Happy Returns”)

Same as with the additional Plumbers characters, this was a good way to add some easy world building. They took an existing alien species that the viewers are very familiar with and gave us a glimpse of their culture. It was mostly played for laughs, but I think it was one of the better episodes (and not just because it was also a mostly Kevin-centric episode). In one episode alone, we learn how Tetramand ask for/arrange their matches, engagement ceremony, length and traditions, how engagements are broken off, and even a little bit about the marriage ceremony itself. To someone who knows how to pay attention it was like a cascade of culture building, world building, and general information that expanded the world of Ben 10.

Rook -Kevin and Gwen in one person.

When they took Gwen and Kevin away, they had to replace them somehow, because -as the franchise has consistently proven- while the whole thing might be one giant Ben-wank, Ben Tennyson is also utterly and completely incapable of doing anything on his own. He needs a sidekick -usually one who's smarter and more skilled (read: more useful) than Ben himself, and doesn't mind playing second fiddle to the spotlight hogging, ego-driven, narcissist Hero of the Universe. Rook does that wonderfully while also making sarcastic quips that go over Ben's (and his fans in fandom's heads). Also, adding another species -and more importantly, showing us his home planet, family, and how his people live- was more great world building.

Basically, what I liked about Omniverse was all the wold building they tried to do.

Now, the things I didn't like...

I'll start small and shallow:

The dramatic change in artwork.

Where do I begin? First and foremost its inconsistent with the rest of the franchise up to that point. Ben 10 TOS, Alien Force, and Ultimate Alien were all drawn/animated in the same style. Something similar to the Young Justice cartoon style, proportionate bodies with realistic facial features (realistic for a cartoon). That style worked for an adventure series. It was good. But then Omniverse rolls around and suddenly everyone's got giant eyes that take up half their faces, but they're not cute anime eyes, they're weird cat-like eyes. Their body proportions are all weird so that some characters are 60% legs, or their arms are so long their hands are at their knees. Max doesn't have facial expressions anymore, Ben looks like he's ten years old again, Kevin's chin is so long they have to give him a giraffe neck to compensate... All of the familiar characters look mutated and gross. I almost wanna say Omniverse was the worst artwork decision they could have made for the franchise, but then, I've seen the new reboot and that one's even worse.

The whole series is just one big Ben circle-jerk.

Remember all those new Plumbers characters I was so happy about? We can't have a single episode about them that doesn't involve Ben. Either Ben having to rescue then while Grandpa Max vomits a small novella of exposition, or Ben trying to investigate their past for X, Y, Z reason, or them driving around Bellwood while Ben has seemingly endless battles around them that inevitably block their path, or Ben tagging along while they visit their home planet. There is no way to develop a single new character in the show without Ben having to be involved in some way. Look. I get it. The franchise is called “Ben 10”, so obviously its about Ben. But ya know what? Avatar is also called “Avatar” and they manage to have multiple episodes about other characters that don't even involve the Avatar at all. Believe it or not, it is possible to make Wester cartoons with a wide cast of characters, AND develop said characters without the title character having to stick his nose in every time someone farts.

They somehow made Ben 10 a harem anime.

Now, I like a good harem as much as the next sexually repressed and asocial nerd. Goodness knows Martian Successor Nadeshico has a permanent spot on my list of Top Ten Anime I Recommend to Everyone. But is just seemed kinda weird... Ultimate Alien ended with Ben and Julie seeming really solid. Then at the beginning of Omniverse, they're not even together anymore. Now, Word of God is that Kenny's mother is Kai, so obviously Ben and Julie couldn't be together forever. At some point they had to break up and Ben had to get with Kai. But Omniverse did not handle the inevitable facts of canon well. There was no real mention of reasons why Ben and Julie were no longer together when they seemed so solid at the send of the previous series, then, all of a sudden, Ben had a million and one women wanting to bone him. Looma, Ester, Lucy, (even his cousin Sonny in one episode and that was creepy), and yes, still Julie and Kai. And, like most protagonists in harem anime, Ben does absolutely nothing to deserve all this adulation from the distaff gender. Its very frustrating.

Kai Green -I like the IDEA of Kai, but I actually hate the CHARACTER Kai.

I really like the idea of Kai. I really do. I like a strong, independent, female, well educated, Native American character. To often in fiction Native characters are portrayed as “magical” in some way. Either as sages or spiritual guides, shapeshifters, mediums, or healers. Its very rare to find a Native American characters who's just a normal, down-to-Earth person with hopes and dreams, anxieties and fears, plans and aspirations, etc. Kai is none of the cliché tropes that Native characters are pigeon-holed into. This is best illustrated by an exchange of dialogue between her and Ben when he comments on her hand-to-hand combat skills and asks if its some “ancient Navajo” fighting technique, and she scoffs at him and says she took after school classes at the mall -like any normal teenager would! Kai is a real person, she's not just a conglomeration of stereotypes and tropes. I really like the idea of Kai. I really do. That being said... THE WRITERS SEEMED TO HAVE DONE EVERYTHING IN THIER POWER TO MAKE KAI UTTERLY AND COMPLETELY UNLIKABLE! (Yes, I did have to shout that in all caps.) I like the idea of Kai, but Kai herself is condescending, and an intellectual snob. I don't like Ben, but there's one episode where he's at a museum (seeing an exhibit that Kai put on) and he makes a comment along the lines of “I didn't know aliens had old stuff!” and Kai responds to him like he's the dumbest piece of shit to ever crawl out of the public school system -and she does this in front of a crowd of his peers and strangers. Lets step out of the cartoon for a moment and look at it with some perspective. How would you feel if you've part of a tour group and someone in the group (you may or may not know) asks a silly question. What would you think if the tour guide responded with something like “How far up your ass did you have to stick your head to find that question, dumbass?” You'd think they were a terrible tour guide and should be fired, right? That's what Kai did to Ben. And that wasn't even the first time she showed a clear disrespect for Ben either. In the original series, she says she only like Ben when he was Benwolf (later renamed Blitzwolfer in Omniverse) because she wanted a “pet dog” that she could “train”. That's kinda understandable and excusable because she was ten at the time and kids are amoral assholes who don't know any better. But Omniverse is six years later, Kai is sixteen and she hasn't improved with age, she's become more of a bitch. I really don't understand why the show insisted on shoving them together and insisting that they both love each other and are happy together in the future. When we see her in the future, she's always with Ben 10,000 but she's still making disparaging comments about him or his arch enemies and Ben just smiles and cuddles and kisses her.

Kevin. Everything Omniverse did to, and took away from Kevin.

This should be a post unto itself. Anyone who reads my fan fictions will know that Kevin is my favorite character. So, of course the thing I'm gonna feel most strongly about is going to have something to do with Kevin Ethan Levin. So, sit down prepare yourself for a wall-o-text.

Osmosian. Look, I get that in the original series the PLAN was for Kevin to be a mutant and NOT an alien. But then Alien Force and Ultimate Alien changed that. They established that Osmosians were aliens. They established this so solidly that Omnivers' attempts to ret-con Kevin back to being a mutant makes no sense. Take a moment to seriously think about just how large that conspiracy has to be in order for “Osmosian” the alien species to really be a mutated Earthling. Max, Kevin's, and Kevin's mother's memories were altered, Aggregor is an experiment to replicate Kevin's powers, Ragnarok was really a Rooters agent, the Osmos System is an uninhabited system that Servantis altered the records of in order to supply a “home planet” for his fake species. And all of this was done without the Magistrata or any other high-level Plumbers stumbling across the conspiracy or finding out. Its just so far fetched. Its to much of a stretch for it to be a legitimate explanation -and yet, its canon. What it is, is absurd. This is not good story telling.

It makes the world smaller. Remember way up at the top of this post when I was listing the things I liked about Omniverse and most of it was me just gushing over the world building? Well, the Rooters story arc and subsequent ret-cons are the exact opposite of that. Its not 'wolf building' its 'world shrinking'. By making Kevin a mutant Earthling instead of an alien-human hybrid, they robbed the Ben 10 universe of a planet, a species, and possibly a culture to explore. If they really wanted to make Kevin a villain again so much, they could have had a story arc ret-conning Devin instead. Make Devin an Osmosian double agent who was supposed to infiltrate the Plumbers because Osmosians could be aggressive and warlike aliens (seeing how Kevin's so naturally obsessed with revenge, and Aggregor was determined to attain the power of a god, I think that's a plausible assumption). But, Devin accidentally fell in love with an Earthling -Kevin's mother- and quit his mission. The story arch could have been Devin's old war-buddies coming to enlist Kevin to finish the mission his father couldn't. Kevin might go along with them as a way to get to know what kind of man his father really was. They could play it the same way they did in the Rooters story arc and have him just pretending to join the baddies in order infiltrate them and help Ben defeat them and save Earth. Or they could make him OD on energy and go crazy and become a legit villain again. Either way, keep Osmosians as aliens would have been a better story than making them mutant Earthlings AND it would have been another great opportunity for more world building.

Ret-conning Kevin's backstory was cruel. Kevin has almost no positive male role-models. Thing about it. Think about his life. When Kevin was young, his male role-model was his step-father, an average human with nothing special or noteworthy about him EXCEPT THAT HE WAS TERRFIED OF HIS STEP-SON. Think about that. Kevin's first male role-model was afraid of him. How positive an influence could Harvey have been if he was scared shitless of an eleven-year-old child? Then Kevin was trapped in the Null Void and sent to prison where he met Kwarrel. Now, Kwarrel was shown to be a fairly decent guy. But lets also keep in mind that he is in an maximum security prison within the Null Void, so he must have done something pretty bad to be sentenced there. Also, keep in mind that we only got to see a few short flashbacks of Kwarrel and they were all through Kevin's point of view -usually of Kwarrel mentoring him. But we also know that Kwarrel was “top dog” in the prison. The only way to stay that was in jail is to rule through strength and intimidation. We saw Kwarrel being all nobel and empathetic, but that doesn't mean he wasn't also sometimes aggressive, violent, or even cruel to the other inmates. Omniverse gave Kevin NOTHER super-shitty role-model in Proctor Servantis. Amoral, self-serving, uses children as experiments and puppets, fucks with people's minds, and devotes his entire life to destroying one single human boy. The only truly positive male role-models Kevin has in his life are Max Tennyson and the memory of Devin Levin -except Omniverse made it so that Devin never actually existed. That was just downright cruel.

So, that's what I think about Omniverse.

#ben 10 omniverse #kevin levin #Plumbers #world building #Osmosians #Ben tennyson #Kai Green #native american representation in media #navajo #rooters #proctor servantis #weapon xi #ben 10 #alien force #ultimate alien

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kariachi · 4 years

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Okay, because my brain has given me More for the ‘Eva is a thing and also was Chosen’ reboot au from yesterday but not any actual words, so

Put on the top in big bold letters ‘Kevin’s Quest to Have a Fucking Mom’

The portals were all shut when he was under one so he does not remember shit about this woman- all he’s had to go on for years is the one picture that was still up in the house and whatever shit his father spat out, which was rarely positive about anything

And then lo! A Gar! Someone who Knew and Liked his mom! And who has pictures of her in the wild! And who immediately clocked him for his mother’s child despite everyone thinking he was a girl when the portals closed because he is so much like her and that is such a good thing!

Child needs to take a day to process all that on top of learning that she’s most likely alive just stuck in another dimension

It’s a lot to take in and he’s very small

But once he does process shit it is Kevin Questing Hours

If the portals could be closed the portals can be opened and his mom can come back and from what he’s hearing that will only be a positive

This he will do

Gar: “We, a group of adults several of whom have held prestigious positions, have been trying to get the portals open for nearly 11 years, a young child is not going to be able to do it any time soon.” Kevin: *patented Jones ‘Is that a challenge’ expression*

He spends the next few days they’re on Khoros getting his collective shit together and runs off just before he, the Tennysons, and Azmuth are due to leave

Honestly Gar expected this to happen as soon as the words fell out of his mouth. What he didn’t expect was

Ben and Gwen run off with him. He may wear on their nerves but they do care about him and they want him to have his mom back and yes they will gladly run away from home to make that happen

Looma also runs off with him, because Adventure, and the two of them have gotten along pretty well so far, and also Eva is Gar’s War-Sister and so technically this is a Family matter

The adults Panic

Four rogue children, what crimes will they commit?

Five rogue children, once they come across Argit

Who does not approve of this whole mess, by the by. 1) His own experiences with his mother are more like Kevin’s with his father so he really doesn’t see the appeal of the whole mess, 2) Looma is royalty they could’ve set up shop in her palace and been set for life, 3) shit sounds dangerous and he is not about that life, 4) “Have you seen that watch of yours? We could make a killing, settle down someplace safe and secure for the rest of our lives, lap of luxury!”

In a few years it will hit the others that he was ‘we’ing Kevin and talking about settling down within 24 hours of their meeting and suddenly stop shocking them that he came along with the group anyway

“Damn, you really were just assigned gay at birth weren’t you?” “Fuck off, Tennyson.”

We’re going with Adventure-brand stuff here so they are looking for 1) that deck of cards that opens the portal, and 2) wherever the fuck they use those cards on this side of it

Given they have a whole galaxy to search through this may be A Bit Much for five children

They’re not even sure the damn cards are on their side of the portal, it’s just an assumption everyone is making based on the concept that if they were in the Digital World Eva would’ve used them to get back by now

Through all this the kids have to deal with evading attempts to find them and bring them home because the adults- especially the Chosen adults- are extremely concerned about the rogue children situation and only get more so as time goes on

They also have to deal with actually, ya know, surviving as five currently-homeless kids wandering the galaxy and trying to stay under the radar (Kevin and Argit? very good at this. the Tennysons and Looma? not so much)

And Heroism breaks, which don’t help the ‘stay under the radar’ thing any

Oh, and the people who don’t want the portals to be reopened because the people in power (including Azmuth) figured out how to shut them for a reason

That reason being ‘digimon are powerful and dangerous and can come through portals’ despite that being a rare occurrence and the whole thing overall being a very stupid idea

Again, Adventure-brand shit. Shit goes sideways in the Digital World? It has very real and potentially very nasty effects on the Real World. Laws of nature going wibbly, dimensional barriers fraying, shit like that. The reason the portals exist is so that Chosen can go and fix these problems before everything in both worlds collapses

Basically the only reason the galaxy is still standing is because they got lucky and trapped one singular Chosen in there who happened to be the one most capable of surviving this bullshit

Eva and MetalPhantomon have been singlehandedly handling every major threat to the Digital World this entire time, despite the fact that they should have an entire team working with them, and honestly deserve fucking medals by now and a retirement that would make Argit green with envy

So yeah, there’s Shit Going Down with five children at the center of it all

BTW, Kevin’s arm is still broken and the closest things they have to medical care are Gwen’s basic first aid skills and Argit being a born-but-untrained necromancer

And this shit lasts long enough, eventually that cast is going to have to come off

Will his arm heal properly? Who the fuck knows, fingers crossed

The kids do manage to find shit, of course they do

Please picture Kevin, Ben, and Looma dealing with a bunch of fuckers who don’t want the portal opened while Gwen is on the phone with Gar because turns out they have no idea how to activate the portal and Argit is actively working on getting the damn thing open

The portal opens

The fighting stops

Because Eva ain’t stupid, she knows if she can’t find the cards then they’re in the Real World, and she knows where the portal opens out, and every minute she hasn’t been defending the Digital World she has been there waiting

She and MetalPhantomon look like they’ve been to hell and back (technically...) when they step out of that portal but damnit they step out pretty much as soon as it opens

People who are willing to fight children are generally not willing to fight a MetalPhantomon, especially not when he can still digivolve further, so yeah there’s no combat after that though there is a lot of people shitting themselves

‘This woman is going to kill us’ they think, but no, they are saved by the sheer fact that Eva recognizes her kid (not as shocking when you consider how many kids with the right color scheme and her eyes are going to be running around opening portals to the Digital World despite having to fight a load of people to do so) and that overrides everything

It has been at least 11 years, she is the crest of Reliability, this is the first time she’s seeing her baby in forever, after the stress has worn her down enough that the only hope left to her is that maybe she’ll get to see them again, there is nothing in the world but Kevin for days

Does she even notice her daughter is not during the time? I don’t know, pretty sure it doesn’t matter to her, she has her baby back

Eventually she’s going to find out all the shit that’s gone down since the portals closed and there’s going to be trouble but we close with a nice happy ending

The kids’ determination has saved the Real and Digital Worlds, allowing the balance to be restored and maintained and laying bare exactly what people were responsible for this mess in the first place so they can be dealt with, and-

Kevin has a family again, through his mother, her kin, the digimon, the Chosen- old and new- and from now on his life is going to be so much more stable and full of love

#no words just this mess #yes the 'last hope':'crest of hope' parallel is there

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kariachi · 4 years

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Some Kwarrel/Gar fic! Because they deserve it.

He hated to admit it, but Kwarrel might, possibly, have been getting old. In theory.

It was, of course, impossible to tell precisely how old he really was (this he swore), but there were signs. The greying of his hair. The thinning of it. Some added weight that probably shouldn’t have been there. Aching joints. Blurs to his vision. He could swear things didn’t taste like they used to. And all those he could make excuses for, after all prison wasn’t exactly a nice place and he was living a more luxurious life on a new planet now. Point being they were all things that could be explained away.

He’d finally gotten to see another member of his species that day and had immediately been ‘Grandfather’d. ‘Grandfather’d and all but waited on.

Nice enough young man, but Kwarrel had still wanted to hit him.

“Is there somebody I need to kill for making you sulk like this?” He didn’t bother to open his eyes, just sinking deeper into the warm bath he very much deserved thank you. Besides, he could tell where Gar was by the sound of his voice, and the movement of air as he settled on the edge of the tub.

“I’m getting old,” he said. There was no answer, and after a moment he allowed on eye to crack just enough to make out Gar looking at him like he was an idiot. Given Kwarrel was normally the sensible one of their relationship, it was somewhat new.

“Beloved,” he said, slowly, “you’re sixty-four-”

“Allegedly.” The look got worse.

“Sixty-four. ‘Getting’ is well past done.” Kwarrel glowered at him.

“I will take the children and leave.” Gar smirked back.

“The children are grown, Looma is Warlord, and Kevin is married, forgive me if I’m not concerned.”

“If I asked nicely Looma would abandon the throne, and I’d hardly even have to ask Kevin, he and Argit would leave just because I was.” Somehow this did not seem to make Gar any more worried about the matter.

“After all the time they spent getting us together? Never. You’d have mutiny.” With a halfhearted scowl- it was impossible to actually be mad with Gar- Kwarrel sent a splash of water his way. On instinct, really, and he was going to regret it once he thought about it, but for now he was more interested in how smug his partner looked.

“I can deserve much better than you, you know,” he said, as if it wasn’t the biggest, fattest lie.

“True,” Gar answered, again as if it wasn’t the biggest, fattest lie, and stood back up. “But you’re an old fart,” he said, beginning to shuck what little clothing he had on, “so you’ll never get it. Now shove over, some of us actually are in their ‘getting’ years.”

Resisting the childish urge to stick his tongue out- it’d practically be an invitation anyway- Kwarrel did.

After all, if he had to get old, the least the forward passage of time owed him was a handsome young thing to cuddle up with.

#fanfic #kwarrel #warlord gar red wind #warlord of my heart #kwarrel: i think i'm getting old #rest of the family: *hides the nursing home brochures*

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kariachi · 5 years

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Okay, I don’t think I ever posted this and don’t know why- some Gar-pov fic in one of my digimon aus, set immediately after Kevin goes to challenge Looma.

The name was different, and time had of course made many changes, but that didn’t stop Gar from beaming with familiarity as he walked out to meet the children. Who knew how many Levins there were in the galaxy, but he had seen Eva at this age, had seen Arnie and Carlos, and so there was no way he wasn’t going to recognize his old friend’s eldest.

“So,” he said, looking down at the young hybrid and his Erinaen companion- and wasn’t that the farthest thing from shocking, “you were hoping to challenge my daughter.”

“Yes sir.” The look was respectful, a little intimidated- though Gar couldn’t tell you whether it was honest intimidation or not- but overall it was calm and serious. He’d said the child was going to end up like her, hadn’t he.

“Well, come in so we can talk properly.” The children froze as he turned and headed back inside, waving off the guards. There would be no looming over Eva’s child, not in his capital. Quickly small footsteps came after him.

“You know,” he said offhandedly as they headed towards his main den, “legally Looma can’t marry anyone who can’t sire her children.” The tempo of their footfalls changed, slowed and became more careful. It was concerning. Honestly, Gar didn’t know what he was doing besides his best here, but he wanted to make sure they were all on the same page. “I recognize the Jones features,” he explained. “Your mother and I were friends until you were about yay big.”

That didn’t seem to help. In fact, when he held the door open for them the children seemed even more uncomfortable. Gar called down the hall for one of the servants to please bring some food, and to have his daughter sent down, before shutting the door behind himself. The boys were settled into a single large chair on about the other side of the room, chirping at each other in some strange combination of Erinaen and Osmosian. Both were eyeing the room like it might bite and if it did they’d take the chance to steal its fillings.

“Really, Kevin,” the warlord continued on, making sure to take a seat a fair distance from them, avoiding crowding the children, “I’m amazed you’re here without her. Or at least your father or siblings.” Kevin made a quiet noise in his throat and the Erinaen began to fiddle with his hair comfortingly.

“Dad’s dead, nine years now.” Oh. Oh.

“I’m sorry. That’s, a great loss for the galaxy.” Devin was dead. Devin. The man who’d cooed over Looma like she was his own despite hardly knowing the Red Winds. Who’d always been so pleasant and friendly and kind.

“It’s fine. Been long enough to deal.” Gar really hoped Looma wouldn’t end up ever looking like that when she thought about her mother. Neither of them were near over her, but Kevin just looked defeated even after so long. It certainly didn’t help his ever-growing worry.

“And your mother?” Kevin went quiet, though his friend continued his soothing efforts.

“It’s complicated,” he finally said. “Let’s just go with ‘my being a freak wasn’t making anybody happy’.”

The statement confused Gar. How complicated could things involving her be for him to have ended up here, all but alone, trying to marry Looma? And what did he mean a ‘freak’? Was this about his no longer being Eden? Eva had been happy to have a daughter yes, but mostly she’d been happy one of her children survived, and Gar struggled even to picture-

“That doesn’t sound like the Eva I know,” he said, quickly continuing when Kevin tensed, “but it has been over ten years since we last spoke. You weren’t even one.” He certainly hoped he was misunderstanding the situation. He’d known Eva since the two of them had been younger than the children were and never had she seemed to him the type to take issue with this sort’ve thing. But if she was… Well, clearly if she was she wasn’t the woman he thought he knew, and certainly didn’t deserve to be a parent.

“Father?” Immediately Gar’s mood lightened, even as he noted that she still wasn’t knocking.

“Come on in,” he said, smiling and mouthing a ‘thank you’ to the platter-laden servant to followed after her. “Take a seat, darling, there’s some guests I’d like you to meet.” Looma settled onto the couch between his and the children’s seats like a proper lady, or at least a mostly proper lady, exchanging curious gazes with the boys. It was almost galling, seeing this Ossy chick manage to be heavier than his daughter.

“Looma, this is Kevin, his family is old allies to ours. Kevin, my daughter Looma.” He leaned back as the two shook hands. “Haven’t had you in the same room since you were still in diapers.”

“Uh, hi? This is Argit.”

“Hi.”

“Hi.” Looma leaned back in an almost perfect mimic of Gar. “Okay, you’re an Erinaen, so I’m guessing you’re Osmosian?” Snorting, Argit almost doubled over as Kevin threw his arms up in disbelief.

“How do people always fucking guess?!”

“You take a bit too much after your father.” A bit of warmth fluttered in Gar’s chest as he spoke. It felt right, having the children there together. He couldn’t have articulated why- though he was certain it had to do with those night terrors Looma had had after the Gates all closed- but he liked it. “If you boys would like, you’re free to stay here as long as you wish.” Even if Looma hadn’t been chuckling at the way their eyes went wide, even if Kevin hadn’t been the son of one of his best friends, he wouldn’t have been able to cast them out. Ever. Not with how skinny Argit looked, and how sad Kevin seemed beneath it all.

The boys slowly nodded and he beamed down at them.

“You kids reconnect then,” he said as he rose to his feet, “and I’ll go make sure you two have rooms ready after dinner.”

‘Then, tomorrow, I can see about finally getting back in touch with Ms Jones…’

#fanfic #warlord gar red wind #warlord of my heart #featuring trans kev and future-chosen fucking everybody and gar being a Good Parent #ben 10 #fuck it i'm tagging it we need more gar fic #take heed people and give me more red wind fics and art that aren't fucking horny!

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kariachi · 5 years

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Okay, because I’m proud of what I’ve got so far and don’t know when or if it’ll get finished- have 3400 words of WIP.

Kevin is getting married off, they’re still working on the ‘to whom’ portion.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It all began, as these things do, with dinner at his mother’s. Nothing special, just Kevin, his mother, his girl, which really, he supposed, was why this was when things started getting serious.

“So,” his mother had said, midway through the meal, “I’ve been thinking that we should try for Looma.” It hadn’t come out of nowhere- fuck, his last birthday had included the line ‘there’s applications by the door, if you want to marry him get yours back to me by the end of the week’- but still Kevin paused in his eating, going so far as to set down his fork. Gwen paused at his side, eyes narrowing.

“Mom, I’d have to fight Looma to get her. And win.”

“You could win easy.” She, meanwhile, had not stopped eating and took a moment to finish a bite of stew before turning to Gwen. “You’d like her, she’s a good kid, competitive.”

“Looma is intense to say the least,” Kevin countered, “with a short fuse and strong ego.” His mother shrugged.

“Okay, she’d learn to like her.” Glancing Gwen’s way, Kevin rolled his eyes and groaned in the traditional ‘mothers, can’t live with ‘em, invested too much money to kill ‘em’ manner. Gwen just looked confused, face scrunched like she thought someone was up to something. Which was probably true, but that had nothing to do with the conversation at hand.

“Can I just clarify,” she asked, glancing between them, “what are we talking about?”

“Marriage candidates, Gwendolyn, keep up.”

“Mom, be nice.” One of the greatest remaining issues of his life, somehow his family liked Gwen less than Gwen’s mother liked him- and he’d set her son up with Argit! As if to prove this fact, his mother rolled her eyes much like he just had.

“Alright. We’re discussing who Kevin’s marrying.” And attention back to Kevin. “Looma’s a catch, even Luka and your cousins agree.” Kevin huffed.

“What if we don’t want to move to Khoros? You know she’d expect it.”

“It’s a great planet, wonderful food.”

“Lots of sand.”

“Rich culture.”

“Also giant spiders.”

“Stop! Stop.” Hands held between the two, palms outward, Gwen looked between them, eyes still narrowed and lips set in a frown. Eventually her gaze settled on Kevin’s mother. “What am I, chopped liver?” There was an opening there, and Kevin glared at his mother before she could take advantage of it. She continued on like she’d never planned to.

“You didn’t get an application in,” she said simply. “If Kevin wants to marry you it’ll have to be on his own time. Meanwhile, we’re getting him some good spouses.” Now Gwen was the one huffing.

“You can’t really have expected me to fill that out, it was over Christmas, and my birthday right after!” And foot, mouth, the snowball of disapproval ever grew. Kevin’s face fell into his hands as his mother finally set her spoon down with a glower.

“Oh, I’m sorry, is my son not worth wasting two hours of your precious holiday time-”

~~~

“I cannot believe your mother, and you just went along with it!” This was the struggle he faced when it came to spending time with Gwen and his relatives together- in the end, he had to deal with all of them.

“Babe, I’ve been expecting my family to be involved in my love life my entire life. If anything the fact they’re looking to get me multiple spouses this young says a lot about my desirability. At my age Kay had like five offers. And she included you in the conversation! Forward progress!” Kevin flashed a grin that was met with nothing but pure scowl.

“And you were going to discuss this with me, when?” Wait, stop, what? Huh? Kevin’s face scrunched in confusion.

“I have? Multiple times?” Gwen continued to scowl. “When we started dating I told you my family was going to arrange at least one marriage for me and you’d have to share, you were cool. I told you when they started getting offers, you were cool. You were there while three of my siblings got married off, you were cool. My family passed out marriage applications at my last birthday. You were cool. Excuse me for assuming, you know, you were cool. We need to hash out details, but that wasn’t really a priority until now and I don’t know if you’ve noticed but we’re busy people.” The scowl remained, but she stopped aiming it directly at the side of his head. Instead she leaned back in her seat and turned it out the passenger window.

“I wasn’t even on her damn list.” It took effort for Kevin not to sigh, something he was half sure would get him killed.

“You can’t be surprised,” he said, “my family doesn’t like you and you didn’t fill out an application.” The scowl deepened and came for him again.

“It was due over Christmas!” This time he didn’t even bother trying to hide the groan.

“Gwen, please, you just finished arguing with my mother over this.”

“It’s true! I was set up to fail!”

“G. Babe.” He was this close. “I swear to Zak, if you try to have this argument again I will drop you off at Feli’s. She will gladly spend the next three hours telling you how big a fuck-up you are and how you don’t deserve me.”

“Kevin…”

“She’ll gloat.” Gwen scowled at him for another long minute, then turned back to the window.

“Have I mentioned how much of a bitch she is?”

“Nearly as often as she says that about you.”

~~~

“So, your ma made a very nice offer-”

“Oh fuck.” Kevin groaned, going limp under his car. “Don’t tell Gwen.”

“Aw, but Earthboy, I was hoping to rent a billboard and everything. ‘Kevin Ethan Levin-Jones’s mother offered him to me’ in big bold print. Was down to choosing the color.”

“Do not,” he repeated, sticking a pointing finger out in Argit’s direction, “tell Gwen. She’s already in enough of a mood about this whole thing. Surprised I haven’t heard from Ben yet.”

“Give them time.” Kevin returned to his tinkering with another groan.

“What’d you say? When she offered?”

“I told her I was flattered- I mean look at you- but I’d have to talk to Ken about it before I made a decision.”

“Okay,” Kevin said, nodding, “that makes sense. Things going good with him?”

“Great.” He couldn’t see it, but he could hear and practically feel the smile on his old friend’s face. “He might say yes you know. Feels guilty about it ‘cause you’re dating his sister but he does think you’re a nice piece.” Chuckling, Kevin shook his head.

“Of course he does. Fuck that’d make it worse- not only does my family like you more than her, but her brother gets a chance at a hunk of me via you?”

“Well in your family’s defense, I don’t like Red either.”

“Yeah, because you’re incompatible brands of asshole.”

“Come on, Kev, you can’t blame them. If nothing else this is the girl whose immediate reaction to Feli was passive-aggressive implications of attempted boyfriend snatching.” Fuck, if there was a moment he never wanted to remember.

“You don’t know pain until you’re trying to get a word in edgewise for introductions, and your girlfriend is unwittingly accusing your sister of incest, and your sister is just letting her dig her own grave.” He heaved a short, tired laugh. “You shoulda been there though, the look on Gwen’s face when I finally got to tell her who she was talking to- Priceless.” Argit chuckled.

“Oh I know, Feli has described it to me in detail. She’s described it to a lot of us in detail. I think she’s gonna get a painting done of it, hang it above her mantle.” That, sounded like something just about any of his sisters would do, and a few of his brothers. Kevin silently vowed to keep an eye out for such things.

“Just, give me a heads up when you two come to a decision, before you talk to anyone.”

“Sure thing, Kev.”

~~~

Alan appeared to be having some sort’ve crisis, laying on his couch, staring up at the ceiling. He’d been like this since before Kevin’d showed up, looking forward to an afternoon with his niblings, and the only sign he’d moved in the hours since was the half a sandwich he knew nobody else had made for him. In true younger sibling fashion his brothers and sister didn’t seem to much notice, just rolling their eyes when they saw he was still there and dispersing through the house.

Kevin was so proud.

“Alright, Shortstack,” he asked, leaning over the back of the couch, “what’s eating you?” It took a moment for Alan to respond.

“I’m next.”

“Next?”

“Once you’re married off.” Ah. Okay. That explained that. Kevin purred at him.

“You’ve got time you know. Not like wedding bells are ringing tomorrow.”

“Yeah, it’s just…” Alan sighed. “The future. It looms. College and marriage and kids-” Finally he moved, hauling himself up on his elbows just enough to have to crane his neck to look Kevin in the eye “-do I even want kids?” Kevin shrugged.

“Do you?”

“I don’t even know right now.” And there he went, collapsing back down. “Guess I should figure that out.”

“Don’t rush yourself. Like I said, you’ve got time.” What had been a soft smile turned toothy. “Don’t think Cooper’s figured that out either.” Alan looked at him, lips tugging into a smile.

“You guys are going to try to get Cooper for me? He’s not exactly…” He gave a little half shrug, which Kevin mirrored.

“Oh we’re gonna have much higher standards for everyone else, trust me, but the kid’s going places, he gets on with the family, and the two of you have been practically melting every time you’re around each other for over a year.”

“What can I say,” Alan said, smile morphing into a grin, “he lights a fire in me.”

“Boooo.” Kevin gave the pun a solid two thumbs down, followed by a quick exchange of raspberries. Puns or no, it was always nice to see one of his niblings smiling. “At least make puns based on each other, damn.” Alan blew another raspberry and shook his head.

“How are you not freaking out?”

“Honestly, Shortstack,” Kevin answered with a shrug, “I think I might just be numb to change at this point.”

~~~

He wasn’t really. Numb to change. He just had a million different ways to distract himself from the potential negatives of a situation, especially when the situation was like this, where he knew those negatives were unlikely to come to pass. After all, his family loved him, was maybe a little too overprotective if he was honest, and even if they did mess up and get him somebody awful, he’d have other spouses to turn to and also eviscerating would probably happen.

His mom was really good at eviscerating.

She was where he got it from.

But one’s brain never listened to logic if it could try to panic, especially not if you were mentally ill, so distractions it was. Such as, for instance, baking, his favorite form of cooking for it’s more exacting, technical requirements. Today he had Manny keeping him company while he worked. Ostensibly he was there to taste test things, make sure they weren’t poisoned, which Kevin had warned him was a bad move because he had various breads and pastries with long proofing times planned, but he’d insisted.

In the end Kevin had made a batch of maple blondies for him to munch on, something Manny was doing with gusto while watching him force bagel dough to submit to his will.

“‘ey ‘ev?”

“I know it’s good, dude, but swallow before you choke.” He couldn’t see the man sat behind him, but he heard him swallow and blow a raspberry at him before continuing.

“How’s the marriage arranging going?” And there went plans of distractions.

“It goes. Why, what’s up?”

“Nothing much, just, heard there was some drama going on.”

“What? No. There’s some Tennyson Drama trying to horn in on Levin Drama territory, but I have five older sisters hovering, there will be drama only over their dead bodies.” Manny chuckled.

“Thank fuck, was worried for a minute there. I, uh, may have filled out an application, so...” He didn’t stop kneading, not immediately, but Kevin turned that information over in his head. Manny had filled out an application. Manny, who had known him since they were babies and so really should’ve known better, had applied for a position as his husband. His girlfriend had not.

Kevin half-collapsed over the counter, shoulders shaking as he struggled not to laugh.

“Hey!” He was glowering at him when Kevin turned to look at him, and the Ossy raised his hands in surrender.

“Not laughing at you, promise!” he said. “Wasn’t expecting you to be the only person I know of who put in an application.” Though in thinking about it he certainly wasn’t against the idea. He just, hadn’t known there was any interest there. And his siblings and parents liked him, especial Val, so maybe he was in with a shot…

Manny shrugged.

“You’re smart, you cook, and sometimes, if you squint, you’re almost cute. Figured I may as well give it a shot.” He bit into another blondie, pointedly chewing and swallowing before he continued. “Who else is on the list?”

“Don’t know.” Kevin shrugged as he spoke and returned to his work. “Right now I know of three people who’ve been options, including you, and to hear some of my family speak it’s a long list. Family’ll pick out who they think are the top candidates, then I’ll get to say which ones I like the sound of, and then they’ll see about making final choices and getting things arranged based on that. Unless of course you’re Argit or Looma, at which point you apparently just get handed me on a plate.”

“Argit’s my competition? I’m a shoe-in.”

“Argit and Princess Looma.”

“…well fuck.” Grinning toothily, Kevin looked over his shoulder at him.

“Luckily, you’re almost cute too, that’s gonna earn you some points.”

Manny proceeded to drown himself in the blondies.

~~~

“Alright, all your options, ready to go!” To say Kevin was nervous, sitting there watching Luka reenter the kitchen with a stack of files, would’ve been a serious understatement.

Today of all days he was keenly aware of where he was- in a home he’d seen more of, when his father was alive, then he’d seen his mother’s, talking to a man who’d had more a role in his early raising than anyone related by blood. Luka was his father’s longest standing spouse, the only one who had followed him to Earth, and it was no secret that half his siblings had been given the information on their potential spouses right where he sat now. Right where things felt most like home. At an old, old table stained, scorched, scratched by the use of every child from his eldest brother to his youngest nephew, files were placed down by the same clawed hand that carded through so many’s hair.

Kevin tamped down his nerves to exchange a smile with him.

There were a lot of files. Some traitor part of his brain said it wasn’t that many, but he shut it down before it could give him a number. It was more than four, it was too damn many.

“I take it I’m popular,” he half-asked half-nervously chuckled, fidgeting with them. Luka took a seat next to him, tail resting supportively against his leg.

“Well, you know a God, you hang out with a Hero, your father was a High Prince and a Hero, you’re a Hero and also one of the most powerful members of our species even at your young age. So, yeah.” He nodded. “You could say you’re a little popular. We narrowed it down to the best prospects and the ones we thought you’d enjoy the most.”

“Huh.” Kevin nodded back. Letting out a breath he hadn’t known he’d been holding, he began to sort through the pile.

“Remember, you don’t need to make a decision today. Take some time, weigh your options.”

“I know…” He did not recognize the majority of these people, though he supposed that was to be expected. Despite not having his attention, Luka carried on in the calm tone of someone who had been through this ten times counting his own experience in Kevin’s shoes.

“We haven’t heard back from Argit, so we’ve kept him in there just in case. And that one, Prince Hunter Alba Rhon, very well bred, supposedly has a great sense of humor, loves to read.” More nodding from Kevin.

“Looma and Manny are still in, huh?” Luka chuckled, not unkindly, and leaned back in his chair.

“He doesn’t have much to his name, but he’s a good kid from some good families, and he’d complement you well. Looma, well she’s just you with a shorter fuse, more limbs, and an inheritance.” Taking a moment to blow a raspberry at his, fuck what number was it at this point? at his not-first-father, Kevin set Looma’s file off to the side. Whether that was his keep or discard pile he didn’t know yet.

“I really don’t want to move to Khoros. All my stuff is here.” With a fond look, Luka ruffled his hair.

“We don’t want you to move to Khoros either, but Eva will do what she can to get you the kingdom she thinks you deserve. Plus, your father is proof enough that long distance marriages can work.”

“Dad was a fucking miracle.”

“Language.” Kevin opened his mouth- “Don’t you dare.” -and closed it again. He took and released another deep breath.

“How am I supposed to do this, anyway,” he asked. The pile of files felt… daunting.

“Listen, Little Monster-” Kevin rolled his eyes at the old nickname, it’d bothered him for a while, but he’d mellowed back into it. “-don’t worry about anything to do with their clans, breeding, connections. That’s for the rest of us to worry about. All you have to do, is read the files and pick the ones you think you would get along best with.” The look Luka got was suspicious, but he smiled on.

“That’s it?”

“That’s it.”

There were too damn many files there. Kevin had time, but he didn’t feel like he did and there were too damn many files there. For a third time, he sighed, and moved Argit and Manny’s files onto Looma’s.

“Alright, where should I start?”

~~~

He’d gone through the files. It’d taken him five thousand years (two weeks) but he’d done it.

“Managed to cut the list down by seventy-four percent!” Helen raised a brow at him, then looked back at the stack of files on his desk. Kevin could see her doing the math in her head.

“You had twenty-three options?” Her tone was incredulous, like she couldn’t believe her math. Kevin didn’t blame her.

“Yeah. But! I have it down to six now!”

“Damn.” In a flash Helen had stood up, grabbed the files, and returned to her spot on his bed. “How many are you supposed to narrow it down to?” With a shrug, Kevin flopped onto his back.

“There’s not really a set number. One to three to start with, maybe? And I should probably run them by Gwen.”

“I think,” Helen said, “she would toss all of them.” It was a good bet. “She feeling any better about all this?”

“I, really don’t think so? She keeps changing the topic when I bring it up, but she’s been moodier than normal. And I haven’t heard anything from Ben about it.” That was the scary part. He’d expected Ben to call him and bitch him out on his cousin’s behalf weeks ago, but no. Things had been, not really normal but there’d been less ‘you’re being an asshole’ then he normally got when Gwen was upset about something involving him.

He’d have to ask Argit if Ken talked to them.

Either way, Helen did not look enthused by his answer.

“Yeah, that can’t be a good sign.” Kevin tossed her a shaky grin.

“Cross your fingers for me?”

“Gladly.”

#fanfic

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cat-scarr · 7 years

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Defending Ben Tennyson (Part 2) - Ben’s “Harem”

(the above image does not include the entire “harem”)

Something I hear a lot about this concept is the belief that this is “Ben’s fault”. He is considered unfaithful, a player, and in turn this is why his failed relationships have been blamed on him only.

I’d like to argue that this is in fact not true.

In the beginning of the series, 10 year old Ben Tennyson found the omnitrix and decided out of the goodness of his heart that maybe…he could use this power to help people. As I mentioned in my last essay (Defending Ben 10 part 1), Ben is not a perfect person. Of course he has character traits that are considered to be “flaws”. But that’s okay, it makes him realistic and human. What matters to me at least is that these flaws are not the core of his character, and that most of them are explained as an effect of another aspect of his life. For example, cockiness to cover up fears.

The core of his character is the selfless, sweet boy who only wanted to help anyone who needs help.

“It’s in my interest to help anybody who needs it” (Ben, to Reiny - Ben 10 : Alien Force episode “Alone Together”)

… and also (understandably so) had dreams of being a cool superhero.

After he took off the watch, he had the opportunity of returning to a normal life. A life where he would have privacy, be allowed to be himself with minimal judgement, and where he and those who he loved would be safe. But he chose to continue. And the driving force behind this decision was because he wanted to save his Grampa. Out of the goodness of his heart.

After his secret was revealed to the world, his already difficult life had just gotten that much harder. His selfless and pure intentions had unfair consequences. No more privacy, forced to grow up quickly, no time for things like soccer or even high school and struggles with being accepted by his peers. On top of all this, his relationship with his girlfriend Julie suffered terribly. Which he tried to the best of his ability to keep, but it’s hard to understand what your boyfriend is going through when your life is so drastically different I guess.

Over the course of UA and OV, Ben has acquired quite the large group of love interests, or in other words, harem. I am aware that part of this was for comedic purposes…but realistically (and as a girl with a crush on him herself) I can see why most of these girls like him. Lots of them are superficial and power hungry, and/or see Ben + his powers as an object that they wish to possess. He’s useful to them. There are some of them that actually like him because he’s cute, but I like to think that most of these women realize the point I made earlier.

The core of his character is the selfless, sweet boy who only wanted to help anyone who needs help.

At least this is why I like him…that and he’s cute.

Here’s another thing that I think is important to point out. It has been stated multiple times, to the point where people believe he doesn’t want any romantic relationships at all, that Ben is oblivious to romance. Sometimes, he can’t even take a hint that a girl likes him. He does not actively seek out new relationships with women anyway and would much rather play his favourite video games than deal with crazy girlfriends. Let the boy play Sumo Slammers, I say. Though occasionally he may find a girl attractive, but usually he doesn’t go out of his way to pursue her. His job as an intergalactic superhero allows him to meet lots of new people and aliens…some of which are women, and a lot of which are crazy women.

It’s inevitable that there will be a lot of women in his life. That doesn’t mean he likes all of them romantically. In fact, Ben does not even encourage this harem. A few episodes that stick out to me in terms of Ben + his harem are the OV episodes “Many Happy Returns”, “Rules of Engagement”, “Catfight” and “The Most Dangerous Game Show”.

In “Many Happy Returns” when Gwen and Kevin return with unwanted and unexpected trouble on Kevin’s part, Ben tries to help his friend even though Kevin probably deserves the consequences of what he did. In the end, Ben gets stuck with being engaged to Looma. This scenario is continued in “Rules of Engagement” (without Gwen / Kevin). Ben’s ex girlfriend Julie returns, as well as Looma. And of course, even after Julie presents her new boyfriend to Ben, she sees Looma as another reason why she should break up with Ben even she doesn’t know the whole story. It’s not like Ben is showing any actual affection towards Looma anyway, so why does she act like all the women in his life are after him because of his own influence?

In “Catfight” after Ben is freed from being transformed against his will into what either girl wanted him to be instead of what he is, he says this to stop their fighting :

“Listen to yourselves. You’ve both defeated me at some point or other. Neither of you need some trophy guy hanging on your arm. You’re both strong, capable leaders on your own. And it’s high time your four-armed and froggy followers respectively, well, respected that.”

I respect him for saying this, instead of just beating them both up needlessly.

In “The Most Dangerous Game Show” Ben did not encourage the girls to fight over him, yet they still did because I know for a fact that most of them see how valuable he is. Whether they admit to liking him or not.

This is Ben at the beginning of this episode :

He doesn’t look very happy about this. He even had to tell the girls to stop fighting each other and start fighting together. Because he’s saved the world so many times he knows what it’s like to have to compromise with people you may not like in order to achieve a mutual goal.

This is why I believe that Ben’s harem is not his fault and that he should not be the only one to blame for his girl problems. It’s the girls who formed his harem that are to blame, not him. He’s just gotten so much shit for this that sometimes I wonder who people are talking about when they insult and criticize him because the words they use don’t describe Benjamin Kirby Tennyson. He’s written so out of character in harem fanfics and such that I just couldn’t help but take a step back and recognize who he really is and try to explain it to the unkind internet.

I want to protect / defend him…just like he does for everyone else.

#i spent 4 hours typing this #that's how dedicated i am #plz if u read this and you're still not convinced don't leave hate comments okay #plz just consider this #ben tennyson #ben 10 #benjamin kirby tennyson #ben 10 omniverse #ben 10 alien force #ben 10 ultimate alien #essay files

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kariachi · 7 years

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So @mellenabrave and I were discussing a youtuber au this morning, then spent the afternoon discussing a fostercare au, so I ended up sorta melding the two into tonight’s fic.

Kevin Levin shows off his family.

“Hey everybody!” Kevin’s grin seemed to fill his face, to fill the screen, a flash of bone in a sea of metal and scars. “I know a lot of you have been wondering how the fuck I know so many youtubers who are into such different things, so I decided today I’m doing something special. Since everyone’s here for my older brother’s birthday, you all get to meet the family!” He rose from his seat, leaning into the camera.

“This is gonna be great.”

“First up, the three lowest grade disasters in my life- about half my sisters.”

“What the fuck Kevin?”

“Seriously?”

“I’m calling lowest grade disaster.” Kevin was still grinning when he came back into view, swinging an arm around the reptilian alien.

“And that’s why you’re my favorite.” He gave her a kiss on the temple before turning back to the camera, the other two girls rolling their eyes bemusedly in the background. “This is Helen, along with Shar and someone you may recognize- MagicCat250, or as we know her, Hey You.” A stuffed cat flew across the room and collided with his head.

“Kevin Ethan-!”

“Okay, okay, my other lovely younger sister, Gwen. Better?”

“Much.” Sighing, Kevin shook his head.

“Just, say hello to the internet people girls.”

“Hello, Internet People.”

“Hi guys.”

“Hello.”

“And here we see the Heroboy-”

“Holy fuck Kevin get out of here!”

“Taking a shit.”

“Out!!” Kevin burst into laughter as a roll of toilet paper flew passed his head, stumbling backwards out of the bathroom. When he swung the camera back up is was full of a blue a white furred face, trying very hard not to smile.

“Also my older brother Blonko, who you may recognize from his cooking channel, Tastes of Home.” Blonko shook his head, waving at the camera.

“Hello, Kevin’s viewers.” He looked around the camera. “Why are you accosting Ben in the bathroom?”

“For views.”

“Of course.” With a sigh, he shook his head again. “Please show the rest of our family with their clothes on.”

“I make no promises.”

“And here she is, the radiant, the powerful, the glorious-”

“This is the sort’ve introduction I could get used to.” The camera zoomed in in the brown-skinned woman’s face as she smirked.

“My older sister, Charm. Perfection. Best big sister.”

“Only big sister.”

“Still.” He turned the camera back on himself. “She doesn’t have a youtube channel, she deserves a youtube channel-” and the camera focused back on her- “leave a Like if you want to see her face on youtube regularly.” Charm rolled her eyes.

“Okay,” she said, leaning towards the camera, “I’m done.”

The screen went black.

“Sorry about that,” Kevin said as video and sound returned. He was in a new room now, one with couches and a flatscreen tv. “I forgot to mention that Charm is also the worst sister ever born. But there are better things now! Look!” The camera’s focus was turned to the center of the room, where a preteen and two small children, all similar in appearance to Blonko and Shar, were putting together a puzzle. “Smalls!”

“Hi Kevin,” the preteen said, waving. The children perked up. In a heartbeat they were on one of the couches, crowding around the camera.

“Are you making a video?”

“Can we be in it?!” The was a very small gasp from the larger one.

“Can we?!” In the background, Kevin and the preteen were laughing.

“You already are,” Kevin said. The smallest suddenly rose up and disappeared from view, camera circling the couch until it turned to show Kevin sitting on the floor beside the preteen. The youngest was placed in his lap and the older one darted passed the camera to nestle into their sister’s. “These are the youngest, everybody. This is Shim-” he nudged her shoulder with his own as best he could. He was over twice her size- “and these are the nameless brats.”

“Revonnahganders,” Shim noted, “choose their own names. They are still too young.”

“Much too young.” The kids were visibly trembling with excitement, much to the older two’s amusement. “You gonna say hi to the internet people?”

“Hi!”

“Hi!!”

“We’re doing puzzles!” The look Kevin gave them was pure fondness. He grinned at the camera again.

“Congratulations,” he said, “you guys get to watch us do a puzzle.”

“Wasn’t that the most fun you’ve all had in forever? I’m sure it was.” The camera was making its way down a hall, the walls covered in framed photos and children’s drawings. Some projects from earlier videos could be seen hanging on display. “But it’s time to move on to bigger, better things, things like food and the birthday boy-”

“There you are! Going around harassing everyone else with a camera.” Thankfully the new voice sounded amused, even as the ground went away. Kevin laughed and turned the camera back towards him.

A tetramand girl was holding him up by the back of his shirt, smiling and waving for the camera as he stretched to try to put his arm around her shoulders.

“Princess Looma Red Wind, everyone, of the Red Wind Kingdom. Another of my younger sisters.”

“Not quite.”

“Close enough.” There was more bemused headshaking, something that seemed to be a common thread among Kevin’s family so far.

“You’re impossible.”

“Impossibly awesome.” Looma moved the camera to focus on her face.

“I am so, so sorry for him.”

“Rude.”

“Scratch what I said before, Looma is the worst sister ever. I have a lot of those. Now I still haven’t been able to track down the birthday boy, but I found the next best thing.” Kevin and camera rounded a corner and strode into a massive dining room. “More youtubers!”

“Goddamnit Levin!” A familiar face turned away from the camera with a familiar scowl. The other three just smiled and rolled their eyes.

“You may recognize Manny-” the focus went to a tetramand boy nearly a foot shorter than Looma- “and Alan-” an even younger black boy whose fingers blazed when he waved- “from their budding webshow, which you will all watch if you haven’t already because I’m linking it like five times.”

“Hey, Kev’s fans.”

“Adoring public.” Barely contained chuckles could be heard in the background.

“And I’ve done collabs with this one.” The camera refocused, this time on a chubby, blond white boy about Alan’s age. “Cooper, also known as TechLord, who still owes me twenty bucks for that cinnamon challenge bet.” Cooper blew him a raspberry, but smiled for the camera nonetheless.

“Hey guys, nice to be on the channel again, shame it isn’t kicking Kevin’s butt.” This time the raspberry came from behind the camera.

“Little shit.” Kevin turned the camera to the last person in the room. “Then, of course, we have somebody I know you all recognize-” he circled the blond to get a shot of his face, but he turned away- “the star of Fright Night-” more circling, more turning- “Sparkles, my beloved brother-” now he was flipping off the camera as he avoided it- “the biggest little shit in this house- Come on Mike, say hello.”

“Bite me.” How he wasn’t dizzy at this point… How either of them weren’t… Manny, Alan, and Cooper came into view with each rotation, fists against their mouths as they fought back laughter.

“Your fans love you, Mike, love them back.”

“No.”

“You callous bastard.”

“Go away, Kevin.” Finally, the turning stopped, Mike still facing away from the camera.

“Alright, you asshole,” Kevin said, scowl audible, “I hope your fans abandon you to an early grave.”

“Eat a dick.”

“Gladly.”

The other boys collapsed in their laughter.

The camera was looking into a bedroom with two beds. A redheaded young man similar to Gwen was sitting on one of them, strumming a bass. Beside him was a hispanic boy with quills and a skunk stripe, watching along.

“I don’t want to disturb them,” Kevin whispered, “because they’re awesome and busy, but here’s my oldest brother, Ken, and third oldest brother, Pierce. Don’t worry, Ken’s gonna be in a video soon, you’ll meet him properly then. Pierce is gonna be in one too, but that’s a little ways off. You guys’ll love them.”

“Date, April 19th, 2009. Place, my family home. I still haven’t located the birthday boy. I’m not giving up though! I will find him before the day is out. But first, I’ve come across more family for you all to see.” Turning the camera from himself, Kevin pointed it out the window facing the backyard. There were two large aliens in it.

“I’d like you all to meet my dad-” the camera zoomed in on the shorter of the two, large and green with a scar across his eye and a stump where there had clearly once been a tail- “and my stepdad.” Shifting to the right, the massive tetramand came into full view, complete with his scars, eyepatch, and missing arm. “He’s Looma’s dad. Warlord Gar Red Wind. They only just started really dating but, damnit they’re a match.” The camera zoomed back out, just enough to get them both in frame. They were chatting about something, sharing brief, easy touches as they did.

“These two are-” the breath hitched in Kevin’s throat. “They’re the only parents I’ve had in my life that were worth bothering with. That were worth anything.” He took and released a deep breath.

“We’re all fucked up here, in some way or another,” he said. “Dad, he found me when I was at my worst. During my worst downward spiral, when I was in the worst headspace, when I wasn’t worth shit. But he, he took me under his wing. He helped me. If it weren’t for him, I can’t promise I’d be alive right now. I can’t promise a lot of us would be alive without him. He’s the greatest dad anyone could ever ask for.”

“And Gar- We met Gar and Looma a few years ago, when Dad took us to his auto show after Ken, Blonko, and I begged. He’s always been good to us, even though some of us have histories that really should have had him refusing to allow us in his presence, nonetheless letting us hang out with his daughter. Treating us like family from the word go. Shelling out the money for this place so we could have more space. We were so crowded before, I mean we still are but we were so fucking crowded you would not believe- And not even for some underhanded reason, just because he loves kids and even then he liked my dad. He just, he wanted us happy.”

“They’re the best dads ever.” There was a halfhearted chuckle as Kevin turned the camera back on himself, wiping at wet brown eyes. “Fuck, I’m rambling.” He grinned at the camera again. “I’m just, gonna take a few minutes, okay? Then I’m gonna finally track down my fucking brother. Promise.”

“This mother fucker took me three hours to find in a nine thousand square foot house!” The rodent-like alien on screen smirked, setting the large black shirt he’d been mending on his lap.

“Not my fault you couldn’t find your own ass with both hands and a map.”

“You are no longer allowed to talk to Mike. What are you even doing in here?” The other boy looked around the room, which was full of children’s toys, and shrugged.

“I wanted some quiet.”

“Well, too bad.” Turning the camera as he went, Kevin dropped down beside his brother on the small bed. “This is the guy, everyone,” he said with a grin, “the birthday boy himself, sixteen as of today. How does it feel?”

“A lot like last year’s birthday, but with less cake.”

“There will be cake, Alan promised.”

“Well then a lot like last year.” Smiling, Kevin threw an arm around his narrow shoulders and pulled him in close. He rolled his eyes as Kevin did so, but relaxed into his side all the same.

“Seriously guys,” Kevin said into the camera, “all else being equal Argit here is my favorite sibling. Best brother, best friend, and the guy who’s drug me out of more death spirals than I’d care to admit on film. Which is why I chose today to make this video, why I’m uploading it today, because this guy as wonderful and I need for every single comment on this to be wishing him a happy birthday. Every. Single. One.” Argit’s ears were lowered and he looked blatantly embarrassed as his elbowed Kevin’s die. It had no effect.

“If that’s the sorta sappy-ass video this is,” he said, “then I got shit to say too.” He resettled himself on the bed and looked into the camera. “On behalf of our family, I gotta thank you guys for subscribing to Kev’s channel. He’s been through a lot of shit and knowing you guys like him, that you guys look forward to his videos, has been really good for him. You guys give him the confidence boost he needs and a reason to keep getting up in the morning. So, yeah, thanks for being here for him. We all really appreciate it.”

“Okay,” Kevin said, pale face going pink, “between that and the stuff with Dad I think that’s enough sap for one day.” He grinned at the camera, shifting around to rest his head on Argit’s. “That’s my family, guys, I hope you loved them as much as I do. Thanks for watching, be sure to check the links in the description below for everybody’s channels, remember to Like to help me get Charm a channel and to wish Argit a happy birthday in the comments section.”

“Have a good night, everybody.”

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