#that's how many unique interactions between the 63 canonically sapient beings in the watch there are

[whatudottu]

#ooo all around an interesting topic#especially when you consider just how many sapient species there are out there and so just how many factors can come into play#like anon threw out specific ideas but the whole galaxy is a mess of potential combinations and resulting relationship and social dynamics#i've done minor poking at this sort of thing before but not a lot and it'd been a good while#but it is just a major thing with so many nooks and crannies and twists and turns depending on who all is involved#between both how the near infinite number of potential pairings are viewed socially how they do or don't work on a biological scale#and importantly just the cultural differences at play so far as courting#i've said before for how popular will-they-won't-they is#the fact different species would likely have wildly different methods of showing interest or even that they're an option doesn't come up mu#just a lot there to work with that doesn't much ~ via @kariachi

I saw this and wanted to reply so bad but I didn't have access to a computer to share these tags properly until now!

There are so many different sapient beings (enough to fill up millions of DNA samples in the Omnitrix and STILL have more left to record) and none of them are human, there can be so many different social expectations and perceptions on the basis of species alone that it quickly becomes a frenzy when you narrow down to specific cultures all the way to the individual- it's so cool to just graze the top of that several million multilayer cake with little sprinkles of dynamic discussions to just make the world feel so much larger than words on a page, it's one of my favourite things about Ben 10 where - despite the show not doing anything with it - there's just enough substance to make it so deliciously complicated!

Plus, before the Amalgam Kids retcon, there was already the question of 'how do human/[alien] hybrids work' within the Plumbers alone- since there's so many different interacting species in Ben 10 you can have probable cause to make a list of what species can and cannot 'biologically interact' so to speak, or if you believe that Ben 10 should've been more willing to embrace concepts such as mutations and magical influence (*cough cough*mutants and magic au*cough cough*), then maybe they're created literally in spite of traditional sciences (if the study of magic is a science in of itself, plus however mutants come to be mutants).

It's just- so COOL!

Honestly I’d love to see the Ben 10 fandom go more in-depth as to what the galactic audience’s thoughts regarding interspecies relationships and what dynamics formed between different species are like. Is dating To'kustars or Galvans when you’re not a To’kustar or Galvan frowned upon due to the severe height difference involved? Are there debates on whether it’s ethical to date a Vulpimancer or not? Is a Galvan dating a Galvanic Mechamorphs seen as a power imbalance? What would a romantic relationship between a Petrosapien and a Tetramand be like, or a queerplatonic one between an Ectonurite and a Lepidopterran be like, or even a platonic/familial one between a Kineceleran and a Pyronite?

Heheh, I really like thinking about the interplanetary community and it’s dynamics throughout the cosmos in the Ben 10 series, because I dunno it’s like rife with potential for worldbuilding and I guess political drama? Because apparently I like fictional political drama? I guess when it’s fictional it doesn’t affect anyone so it can be played around with in interesting ways.

Got some talking points down below hehe-

I have like SO MANY headcanons about how the interplanetary community treats vulpimancers, though to be fair I have like an unrefined list of notes about the chronology of Vulpin politics and ideologies that I haven’t neatened up yet, and one of those headcanons is the difficulties they face trying to prove themselves just as sapient as the other species; amongst all the bullshit that does bring, interspecies relationships are also affected by that bias. And the fact that you bring up the implied dynamic between creator (the galvan) and creation (galvanic mechamorphs) is interesting too because also, you can kinda also have debates about ‘is it ethical to date the first generation of a species’ especially in comparison to galvans who seem to have quite long lives, ‘is it ethical for a long living species to date a species by all means younger in their entirety than they are’ type questions-

It also isn’t just like the general interplanetary community though it’s also just the differing planetary communities (with their differing nations etc etc until we get to the individual) that also butt heads with each other- an ectonurite’s family really REALLY pushing for them to ‘get together’ with their queerplatonic lepidopterran partner before they have to host a funeral one day vs the lepidopterran having to explain to their hive that they’re happy with their ectonurite partner especially without the pressure of it being romantic there’s so many others that can and do *coughs into hand* ‘contribute’ to the hive population! Or or! The kineceleran not giving two shits about their pyronite sibling from another… pibling? Ah whatever- being so frickin’ slow because they can both bond over sports vs the pyronite wanting to share one of their thrill seeking traditions from back home with a race in their stunt car against their kineceleran cuz’ own personal wheels!

Lowkey I kinda made at least a concept for a tetramand/petrosapien couple which I based on a pseudo sumo wrestling match I saw at school once where one of the participants was slammed into the ground but they quickly switched their positions to roll the person on top so fast the crowd thought THEY were the one to win and not the person they flipped who won first- I mean! In my sphere of headcanons about petrosapiens and Petropia is that they barely got much chance to interact with the universe at large (being cracked open by the fulmini before Plumber intervention set them off plus doing something similar but… a little MORE to what they did on Revonnah) and so modern interplanetary discussions about any petrosapien relationship is ‘i thought they were extinct?’ and especially with tetramands intense courtship it may even skip straight to ‘oh they might as well be extinct’. Not exactly pleasant to hear, compounded by the rare potential someone happens to know - to put it in gross terms - a ‘suitable mate’ with the opposite sex of the petrosapien they’re pestering. At that point you’d better hope it wasn’t the tetramand/petrosapien pair because if the petrosapien doesn’t stab you over the offence, the tetramand would put you in your place, as legally able to as they’d can just to piss them off :P

Do you think if a galvan and a to’kustar were dating it’d be considered a ‘long distance relationship’ :P?

[kariachi]

Yes!! It is the some of the coolest shit!! The cultural dynamics, the social, the individual dynamics, it's all so much possibility! There's a near infinite amount of possibilities! I mean-

#there are 63 canonically sapient creatures that ben can transform into alone#to have one interaction between each other (including themselves since they'd also have their own interactions) each#that'd be 63^63 potential interactions which frankly results in a number that may need a few tags (or maybe be flagged as a spam tag)#228273036346967044979900512337165522400819024722490933829954793073267717315004135590642802687246850771579138342847#okay it was one tag i stand corrected#that's how many unique interactions between the 63 canonically sapient beings in the watch there are#or maybe not nanomech? since he's an omnitrix invention? so maybe switch him with ben himself so you can have all your human/[alien] dreams#imagine the possibilities presented when you introduce millions of other different species#and the further potential possibilities when you factor in culture and just being an individual with their own opinion#that's a lot of possibilities that one couldn't even begin to list everything#and idk i thinkk it's really neat to think about :P

Yes of course I'm keeping your tags why would I not? But that fucking number- I had to throw that number into an online generator.

That is two-hundred twenty-eight sextrigintillion and some odd potential combinations just with species Ben canonically has access to.

That is so many options! That is so much potential! And each and every one is an opening for worldbuilding! (and you know how I feel about worldbuilding) Each and every one of those is the potential for added setting depth, to explore characters and cultures and just-

Like you said- it's so fucking cool!!

Honestly I’d love to see the Ben 10 fandom go more in-depth as to what the galactic audience’s thoughts regarding interspecies relationships and what dynamics formed between different species are like. Is dating To'kustars or Galvans when you’re not a To’kustar or Galvan frowned upon due to the severe height difference involved? Are there debates on whether it’s ethical to date a Vulpimancer or not? Is a Galvan dating a Galvanic Mechamorphs seen as a power imbalance? What would a romantic relationship between a Petrosapien and a Tetramand be like, or a queerplatonic one between an Ectonurite and a Lepidopterran be like, or even a platonic/familial one between a Kineceleran and a Pyronite?

Heheh, I really like thinking about the interplanetary community and it’s dynamics throughout the cosmos in the Ben 10 series, because I dunno it’s like rife with potential for worldbuilding and I guess political drama? Because apparently I like fictional political drama? I guess when it’s fictional it doesn’t affect anyone so it can be played around with in interesting ways.

Got some talking points down below hehe-

I have like SO MANY headcanons about how the interplanetary community treats vulpimancers, though to be fair I have like an unrefined list of notes about the chronology of Vulpin politics and ideologies that I haven’t neatened up yet, and one of those headcanons is the difficulties they face trying to prove themselves just as sapient as the other species; amongst all the bullshit that does bring, interspecies relationships are also affected by that bias. And the fact that you bring up the implied dynamic between creator (the galvan) and creation (galvanic mechamorphs) is interesting too because also, you can kinda also have debates about ‘is it ethical to date the first generation of a species’ especially in comparison to galvans who seem to have quite long lives, ‘is it ethical for a long living species to date a species by all means younger in their entirety than they are’ type questions-

It also isn’t just like the general interplanetary community though it’s also just the differing planetary communities (with their differing nations etc etc until we get to the individual) that also butt heads with each other- an ectonurite’s family really REALLY pushing for them to ‘get together’ with their queerplatonic lepidopterran partner before they have to host a funeral one day vs the lepidopterran having to explain to their hive that they’re happy with their ectonurite partner especially without the pressure of it being romantic there’s so many others that can and do *coughs into hand* ‘contribute’ to the hive population! Or or! The kineceleran not giving two shits about their pyronite sibling from another… pibling? Ah whatever- being so frickin’ slow because they can both bond over sports vs the pyronite wanting to share one of their thrill seeking traditions from back home with a race in their stunt car against their kineceleran cuz’ own personal wheels!

Lowkey I kinda made at least a concept for a tetramand/petrosapien couple which I based on a pseudo sumo wrestling match I saw at school once where one of the participants was slammed into the ground but they quickly switched their positions to roll the person on top so fast the crowd thought THEY were the one to win and not the person they flipped who won first- I mean! In my sphere of headcanons about petrosapiens and Petropia is that they barely got much chance to interact with the universe at large (being cracked open by the fulmini before Plumber intervention set them off plus doing something similar but… a little MORE to what they did on Revonnah) and so modern interplanetary discussions about any petrosapien relationship is ‘i thought they were extinct?’ and especially with tetramands intense courtship it may even skip straight to ‘oh they might as well be extinct’. Not exactly pleasant to hear, compounded by the rare potential someone happens to know - to put it in gross terms - a ‘suitable mate’ with the opposite sex of the petrosapien they’re pestering. At that point you’d better hope it wasn’t the tetramand/petrosapien pair because if the petrosapien doesn’t stab you over the offence, the tetramand would put you in your place, as legally able to as they’d can just to piss them off :P

Do you think if a galvan and a to’kustar were dating it’d be considered a ‘long distance relationship’ :P?