The Gwike- and it pains and shocks me to say this as much as it does y’all to read it- was real and enjoyable in one of my dreams last night.
Well, I say Gwike, the pining was real. Namely Gwen’s pining. Mike and Kevin may also have been pining but I woke up before I could get enough time on Mike’s end to get plot and pining like I did with Gwen, and I didn’t get a shot with Kevin at all.
But yeah, there was a good amount of Gwen pining over Mike and a bit of her pining over Kevin (because go big or go home, I suppose, she clearly has a type and that type is “cannibal”) it was surprisingly good, most likely because she very openly acknowledged both their positive and negative traits, along with how they’re both fucked up, and then, here’s the big part
She acknowledged her own positive and negative traits alongside those of her family, and
Lamented that she had a lot of stuff to grow out of and unlearn before she could make a move on either boy because her bullshit would not do anyone any favors in the long-term mixed with theirs.
There was pining! There was self awareness! There was the understanding of ones own need to grow as a person! I’m sad I don’t remember details or I would write this fucking fic!
I’m also sad I didn’t get dropped into the plot early enough to have more of a clue what was going on there. Is like I got dropped into the early-middle of a half save-the-world half Mike-redemption fic, where he’s not not a bad guy yet but he’s stepping up to the plate. Doesn’t help that it was very clearly an AU so I had no context for half of what was going on plotwise. Like if someone showed you the first 20 minutes of The Twin Towers and asked you to summarize LotR.
I think there was some degree of royalty on Mike’s end though? It felt like his side of the plot involved him struggling with his own shit while having to step up to that sort’ve very public leadership role, and lending the power that came with it in support of the Tennysons for the sake of, well, save-the-world shit. There was also family drama there? Like, he wasn’t so much taking a throne as acting as the voice of it and there was a relative in the background watching him like a fucking hawk for any slip-ups?
Basically Gwen had drama and growth and pining, Mike had drama and growth and possibly pining I didn’t get the chance to find out, and who the fuck knows what was going on with Kevin I didn’t even see him nonetheless get his pov.
But yeah, that was all a thing and I’m sad because I liked this Gwen, and this Mike was going in good directions, and finally some quality fucking shipping shit from Ben 10, and just.
If you’re anyone who isn’t me, feel free to use this as inspiration for anything as long as it involves Gwen being self-aware and admitting that she’s got bullshittery to unlearn and outgrow.
