Summary:
After becoming the hero of the galaxy, Ben believed he could have a good life—or at least a family life. But no, sometimes it isn’t evil that takes away the life of your partner; it is destiny itself that had already planned such misfortune. The death of his wife was what made Ben miserable, and his family, unable to blame him, only found ways to justify it. And when he couldn’t raise his son because they shared the same face, Gwen and Kevin took care of Kenneth. They didn’t complain to Ben, they didn’t blame him; they simply respected the facts. They raised Kenneth as their own, as their son, and as Devlin’s brother. Now, after fifteen years of the same routine, it is Kenneth’s turn to spend the winter holidays with Ben, and they must learn to live together.
The story contains some mature content, referring to serious topics such as emotional detachment, not accepting fatherhood, depression, past traumas, physical injuries, internal conflicts, and more!
(This is freaking long, but I even included my prettiest drawings, please take the time to read it)
About Kenneth:
Kenneth is a good kid, of course he is. His greatest effort in life is not to be a burden to those around him, so he tries to be as independent as possible.
He was raised by Gwen and Kevin, who did a great job with his upbringing. To be honest, they always introduced him as their son; they never made any distinction between him and Devlin.
His relationship with Ben is dry. They don’t share a father–son bond, they can live without interacting, and above all, they have this strange mix of hatred and affection. Curiously, they resemble each other far beyond physical appearance: they share the same facial expressions, the same ways of reacting to certain events (which is curious, considering Kenneth was raised entirely by Gwen), and sometimes even the same battle movements.
And here comes the part I like the most: Kenneth could be considered a clone of Ben!
Kenneth’s mother was half-alien, so her human body lacked DNA. When carrying Kenneth, he ended up being almost an exact copy of Ben.
As for Kenneth, his clothing style is quite reserved, mostly because he doesn’t like to show too much skin. He also imitates whatever haircut Gwen decides to get!
This Kenneth is not a replacement for the canonical Kenny; both come from different dimensions. The difference is that in this AU, Ben did not marry Kai but had another wife instead.
Kenneth showing off his muscles and the scars on his arms from Ben’s training!
(Though I should update this drawing to show that he has other wounds on his back from the villains themselves, still, thanks to this drawing you can see the intensity with which Ben trains him to survive.)
About Devlin:
Anything you’d call a disaster, he is—but he makes up for it by being a good student. In fact, he’s a model student despite his somewhat messy look.
Devlin gives Gwen plenty of gray hairs. He’s a sweetheart, charming, and has excellent charisma, but having inherited his mother’s anodite traits and his interest in magic, let’s just say he tends to get into situations he shouldn’t—dragging Kenneth along so the punishment will be lighter.
Devlin, raised with love by both parents, never felt jealous of Kenneth. To him, his brother is his life. Devlin cannot live without him. They are deeply attached to each other, and the love they share is mutual.
For Devlin, Kenneth is and will always be his brother.
Devlin has two tattoos on his body, one on his back and one on his arm. Both were designed by Kenneth.
Would Gwen let him get tattoos at such a young age? Considering her son would do it anyway, Gwen preferred to take him herself to a clean studio with people who did good work—so yes. But Devlin has to pay for his own tattoos, which, given their size and complexity, are not cheap at all.
There’s a drawing of Devlin I never finished, but you can see his back tattoo there, which is already fully designed.
Curiously, Devlin has also been injured a few times by the villains of this world, but his body heals without leaving scars.
About Kevin and Gwen:
Notice how everyone in the family photo is looking at Kenneth—I’M CRYING. I love this sketch. And yes, in this picture Devlin had shorter hair.
The parents of the year: they had one child and already adopted another. They truly worked hard to be good parents, and honestly, they’ve been well rewarded because both of their sons love and adore them like crazy.
Even though there’s no clear distinction between the kids and both are treated equally, it’s true that Kevin and Gwen had to learn to be more affectionate for Kenneth, so their displays of love are always expressed through physical affection.
Kevin ruffles their hair, strokes their cheeks, pats them on the back, or rests his arms on his sons’ shoulders. Gwen, on the other hand, is sweeter—kisses on the cheek, lots of hugs, constant gestures of caressing or fixing their hair.
About Ben (I don’t have drawings of him alone, but what better than seeing him with Julie, right?)
(A short piece about Gwen and Kevin accepting Kenneth as their son.)
Ben is incapable of letting go of the past, and the years as a hero weighed down on him, ruining many things in his life. He was actually handling it well, but after losing his wife—and convincing himself it was his fault—he found himself unable to raise Kenneth.
He tried to take care of him for a month, but when he couldn’t anymore, he brought Kenneth to the only people in the world he knew would care for him as if he were their own.
Ben truly cannot feel anything for Kenneth, and vice versa. They are very detached from one another. For Ben, the only thing he can teach Kenneth is how to survive, because he doesn’t know how to be a father, and his son doesn’t know how to be a son.
Ben knows he was—and is—a bad father.
And this is where Julie comes in. She always knew how to bring Ben back down to earth and stop him from believing he was the center of the world. She was never afraid to tell him the truth, even if it hurt him.
She is a fundamental part of the fanfic!
A little more about Julie: she’s a former professional tennis player who is now a famous makeup model, considered one of the most beautiful women alive!
About Ken/Kenny:
(An excerpt from the fanfic where we see Julie being Julie)
In this AU, Kenny belongs to another reality into which Kenneth accidentally falls. This is a way of showing a parallel between the two boys.
My boy has an incredible relationship with his father. He adores him, and they adore each other mutually. Because of this, Kenneth feels a terrible jealousy that is obvious from afar. Yet Kenneth also finds the kind of family affection or dynamic Kenny has with his father somewhat strange: they always use words of affirmation, emotional validation, and tenderness when interacting.
Kenny is a hero alongside his father, so he is also bewildered to learn that there’s a version of himself who doesn’t share that dynamic!
Kenny plays an important role in the story because he creates the contrast between a child raised with affection and care, while Kenneth is the child raised for survival—in one world where things are more relaxed, and in another where chaos is the natural state.
Unfortunately, he only appears in a few chapters of the fanfic, but that doesn’t change the fact that Kenny is his father’s beloved baby, and the one who has the best life.
And if not, I have this:
Well, that’s all. Did I manage to convince you to read the fanfic?
I have two fanfics pending, so I can't write a Hex x Paradox fanfic, but I have written A LOT OF POETRY about these two. SO EAT THIS
DON'T ASK ME WHY I SHIP THEM OR I'LL HAVE TO WRITE THE NEW BIBLE
"Perhaps my fascination is born of your gift for despising me in every universe. You cling to the belief that I am an aberration sprung from the mundane, a mistake among atoms; and yet, your hands betray your judgment, reaching for my skin out of pure instinct. You touch me without knowing my name in this ‘now,’ ignoring that in the tomorrow that awaits you—but will never accompany you—I am the beginning and the end of all your things.
I inhabit you in every second, while my steps tear through the fabric of foreign chronologies. You, in turn, inhabit my absence. You look at me with that vibrant hatred that sets my blood aflame, and I find myself provoking your fury, only so that the fire you feel for me may be as voracious as the one that consumes me for you.
If I am a paradox, you are the most sublime cataclysm my eyes have ever beheld. And I pray that, if I still preserve a fragment of soul, fate condemns it to remain trapped in a nebula, eternally fused with yours."
---
"Quizás mi fascinación nace de tu don para aborrecerme en cada universo. Te aferras a la creencia de que soy una aberración nacida de lo mundano, un error entre los átomos; y, sin embargo, tus manos traicionan tu juicio y buscan mi piel por puro instinto. Me tocas sin conocer mi nombre en este 'ahora', ignorando que en el mañana que te aguarda pero que jamás te acompañará, yo soy el principio y el fin de todas tus cosas.
Te habito en cada segundo, mientras mis pasos desgarran el tejido de cronologías ajenas. Tú, en cambio, habitas mi ausencia. Me miras con ese odio vibrante que incendia mi sangre, y me descubro provocando tu furia, solo para que el fuego que sientes por mí sea tan voraz como el que me consume por ti.
Si soy una paradoja, tú eres el cataclismo más sublime que mis ojos han contemplado. Y ruego que, si todavía conservo un fragmento de alma, el destino la condene a quedar atrapada en una nebulosa, fundida eternamente con la tuya."
So, this have been circling my mind for a while now and I even told a friend about it (thx Flake for buying my crazy ideias) but want to know what y'all will think.
Ok, hear me out: Everything is already kind of fucked up - Kevin is a criminal again and Gwen is drowning herself in magical reseachs - but they are still seeing each other behind everyone's back because, come on, the most famous criminal in the universe and the hero of the universe's right hand togheter might not be the best couple for media.
Back to the point, imagine that they are still seeing each other and then BOOM Gwen is pregnant. With Kevin's child. She don't want anybody to find out, so she spends the whole pregnancy at the Legerdomain because its the only place she knows nobody is going to look for her.
She tells Kevin - because he's the father and maybe only bacause of that - and Verdona - because she needs to know everyting about how pragnancy works for anodites. The whole 9 months are like a big exiperiment to descover how the child can come out having genes that are predatory to each other and many other stuff.
When Devlin is born, they realize they are more fucked than they thought because the boy is a carbon copy of the father with the mother's green emerald eyes. After some talk and really bad decisions, they decide that Kevin is going to raise the boy once he's old enough to not depend of Gwen (breastfeed and things that might come with anodite x osmosian genes) anymore. When the time is come, Gwen uses a glamour to chance Devlin's eye color so nobody can make the math - what would explain his blue eyes in the classic.
Kevin raise him in the Null Void because there he's respected and feared and this can be protection for Devlin, but after some years Kevin gets mad - maybe power overdose, maybe an genetic osmosian condition -, which lead us to the classic events.
I know it sounds crazy but, damn, so is this series and maybe this is cannon in some universe.
Just to add, let's consider the idea that this Kevin and this Ben truly hate each other; they have a deep-seated animosity. Therefore, Ben would never have accepted or supported Gwen with that pregnancy. Let's be honest, his cousin, the most powerful witch of all, the new Bezel, with the criminal who almost killed him as a child multiple times and who threatened her and Max's lives on other occasions? No, he really wouldn't accept that.
And let's remember that in the classic Ben 10 series, they don't have this reunion stage in adolescence, which implicitly suggests that Kevin and Ben have been enemies for two or three decades.
Besides all that, this Gwen also prioritized her university studies, her life as a sorceress, and Ben, because in the episode "Ken 10," we see how Gwen is always there for Ben, even when they were dimensions apart. It doesn't seem crazy to me that she would have wanted to hide it, knowing how much Ben would disapprove, and that she would have a fight with her cousin with whom she shares her entire life as if they were twins.
I need you to understand how humiliating this is right now.
I always found the jokes about Ben being addicted to Four Arms or Humungousaur funny. VERY FUNNY.
But now I’m playing this Ben 10 game with a bunch of aliens, I realized that ME, SOMEONE WHO'S BEEN GAMING FOR YEARS, can't play with any other character than Four Arms
I'VE BECOME DEPENDENT ON THIS DAMN ALIEN, I CANT LAND COMBOS WITHOUT HIM, AND IM BASICALLY DEAD IF I DON'T USE HIM
Veles I’ve been trying to find your @ so I can tag you but I had no luck so far, but anyway this was their idea so big thank you for that!! This was so fun to make and i enjoy tormenting the generator Rex fandom 😛
I needed to be happy with a little Zukka being a couple of idiots who are separated but still like each other
Modern AU!
Context:
Sokka was framed and ended up behind bars.
Aang, desperate and with no other options, resorted to his last resort: asking Zuko for help.
Zuko wasn't just Aang's best friend; he had also been Sokka's boyfriend years before. Although he remained in contact with the rest of the group, he and Sokka hadn't seen each other for a long time—to be specific, since their breakup.
HERE YOU HAVE TO IMAGINE A PURELY LATINA TELENOVELA SONG PLAYING AT FULL VOLUME, OK???
THE SONG THAT'S BEEN ON MY MIND AND I KNOW WOULD BE PLAYING AT THAT MOMENT
Y si tengo que escoger
Me quedo, me quedo contigo
Y si yo vuelvo a San Juan
Yo bailo, yo bailo contigo
Y si te tengo que olvidar
Tú sabe' que no va a pasar
Y si te vuelvo a ver
Me quedo, me quedo
Me quedo, me quedo contigo
English:
And if I have to choose
I’ll stay, I’ll stay with you
And if I go back to San Juan
I’ll dance, I’ll dance with you
And if I had to forget you
You know that it won’t ever happen
And if I see you again
I’ll stay, I’ll stay
I’ll stay, I’ll stay with you
My bestie paid me to give her TTA crumbs with the precious canon babies being friends (with 21 years), so here's some content of that. It's funny that after everything that happens in the fanfic, the four of them are friends. 😭
I was forced to draw them in those poses, I did it for a Maruchan, a Coca-Cola and five bucks, don't judge me.
Ken (depressed with angry issues white boy) and Devlin from TTA, my fanfic.
And MY CANONICAL PRETTY BOYS
Devlin and Kenny ✨
Yes, Kenny doesn't have the Omnitrix, but my patience wasn't enough to try to draw it
Interestingly, I love that Kenny is much shorter than Ken, because Ken inherited Ben's monstrous height (which was obvious because he's a carbon copy of his old man). Here I didn't correctly draw the height difference between them, but I already liked how the drawing turned out.
Kenny is my little vanilla candy because he was raised not to kill but to arrest villains, and Ken was raised to kill.
Cool Devlin thinks Devlin is an idiot (he is)
Fucking ass white boy thats why your dad dont love u
I have more to draw, but my phone can't handle it anymore. Needs a break
Interestingly, in this AU Devlin is an Anodite and a sorcerer. But Evelyn did not inherit any alien qualities from either of her parents. She is human, and to make matters worse, she has no magic spark, so she cannot be a sorceress.
Gwen is quite overprotective of Evelyn. She feels she must be because Evelyn is only human and fragile.
Regarding what Kevin said, yes, Evelyn has auditory hallucinations, that's why she talks to inanimate objects and in part thinks they're alive. I didn't set any specific conditions for Eve, and no, she doesn't have schizophrenia but Kevin is rude and tends to make those kinds of comments. Eve finds them funny because she has the same kind of humor as her dad.
Gwen is a loving mother; she truly loved having her children. And Kevin is also a good father; he loves his children very much, and he's really more about acts of service than words, but both children have his ass humor
