for a second, you did the bad thing and bargained about it.
if it meant that you would never be numb like this again, what would you give up?
maybe it's the childhood stuff or the religious trauma or how your dad doesn't believe in medication, but this is how you are, right. you need to have a counterbalance. suffering has to have its own reward. there needs to be a point to it. and if you're happy - if you could just be happy, and the world could actually fill in enough space that the edges of your spirit actually meet the horizon of your body - you would need to pay for it.
your passions? that one seems fair, but how could you actually be happy without them. well, you'd never be numb again, so maybe you'd be able to find joy in the small things like you used to. gleeful, you'd make coffee and breakfast into an artform. you'd find a way to make it make sense, somehow. you'd move on. it'd be different, but it would be doable.
your lover? your friends? this would be hard. you owe so much to your community. still, you could maybe make yourself a small home in the woods. you could live a quiet life, one devoid of friendship - but also without this horrible grey mist. a life like bigfoot, then. you'd figure out how to make the most of it.
your hair. your teeth. all of it.
sometimes you are jealous of mental illness as it appears in media: a big stroke of a meltdown, a firestorm that resolves prettily in therapy. it is flashing lights and thin teenagers. you've absolutely had breakdowns that stole the show - but life after resolved into a pixel art of things you managed to piece together afterwards, not a tapestry of a heart made suddenly-beautiful. that people could pick up blades as if they weigh nothing, that the way it all appears is as a cry for help, not a slow backsliding.
you have to stop the thought: i'd give up everything.
but also - be real. you'd never give up your dog. nor your best friend. nor the way you feel walking while through deep fog. you'd never give up the last bonfire of summer, the reckless laughter of halloween. so you do still love things.
maybe that's the problem: you know it should be easier. you have everything you could possibly want. so how come you are still trapped? still yearning?
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Echo, baby, this is why we love you
Probably my favorite line in the finale, it's so simple but so powerful coming from him. Honestly kinda amazing that we got such a nice full-circle wrap up to his cross-series arc (especially after he was sidelined all season)
I was sad about not seeing as much of him when he left the Batch in season 2 of course, but I could never be mad because it was a choice that just made so much sense for his character. Seeing him fighting alongside Rex, rescuing Howzer, freeing all the clones in Tantiss, it’s just so clearly where he belongs. He’s been through so much and he’ll never stop fighting for his brothers
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Has Ben's habit of casual flirting caused any problems for him or the team?
Probably not as much as his casual flexing with Omnitrix tbh xD Which is basically flirting for this guy!
Though admittingly HoM Ben is not as flirty as it might seem at first. As he grew up, it became, as you said, a habit - more of a part of his heroic/public persona that he developed after becoming a hero celebrity across the (alien part of) universe.
It tends to make people (especially those who know him by his reputation first) feel easier around him and/or underestimate him if he is just some silly guy who flirts. (I mean he is silly guy who casually flirts, but he is also just a dude and so much more, as we all know.)
There were a few instances when it brought trouble, but also sometimes it helped them out too. But, let's just say that HoMies tend to look out for Ben not to say something unfortunate whenever he tends to be too friendly.
Actually there is another casual flirter in their friend group that brings almost as much trouble as Ben - it's Jake! Some of his casually flirty/overly friendly behaviour can be attributed to him becoming an American Dragon in his early teens (he really enjoyed his newfound cool dragon powers and popularity amongst magical folk), and some of it is just his personality (his behaviour was incredibly cringy at times when he was younger, but as he matured, it changed into something a little bit more charming).
When those two are on a mission together, others have to work overtime to keep an eye on them.
Which is ironic, because I 100% headcanon almost all of the HoMies masters of accidental rizz: they make people like them just by being themselves lol.
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