#evlfae

              ❝   you're not a   voice    ,    you're just a ringing in my ear  .  ❞

             ❝   i'm out    for blood    to claim what's    MINE   !    ❞

it   had   been   years   of   letters   &   discussions   back   &   forth   but   she   was   sure   that   this   was   the   right   thing.   a   union   between   the   isle   &   auradon,   it   would   unite   them.   hopefully,   everyone   could   see   that   &   she   had   offered   to   do   it.   to   marry   would   be   the   easy   part   but   to   build   a   relationship   from   letters,   that   would   be   the   hard   part.   the   bridge   had   been   build   up   again   &   steps   lead   her   further   &   further   to   the   isle,   stomach   fluttering   as   she   left   the   safety   of   her   kingdom   behind   her.   ❛   hi   ❜   she   whispered   softly,   a   smile   pulling   at   the   corner   of   the   lips   at   the   sight   of   the   purple-haired   girl,   gently   placing   her   hand   on   her   side   of   the   dome,   taking   a   soft   breath.   ❛   are  you  ready  for  this  ?   ❜

     ❝   i gave you  every piece  of me  ,    no wonder it's MISSING !   . .   i don't know how to be so close to someone  so distant  .  ❞

my feelings on ben and mal are vast and wide but i think they come down to their very basics to a thing of i like their dynamic , but i don’t like or agree with the way they ( the movies ) built it or made them. i don’t like what it says for ben’s character , i don’t like the way it played out in his treatment towards people , and i have had it as a ship and loved it but only if it formed differently !! i’m going to take this movie by movie for ease !!

descendants one : a huge thing about ben and mal is that it’s built from a spell. it’s built from a lie , from a manipulation regardless of the fact mal felt it was what she had to do and she did try to sort of .. make it better so to speak when she could. on the flip side ( canon wise , because it’s not a thing in my divergences ) ben should’ve told her the second he came out of the spell after the lake. i do think it’s very accurate that ben assumed it was because she liked him and audrey was in the way versus that she had bad intentions. that’s always made a lot of sense to me. i don’t like to say ben is naive because i think it frames what really is just wholehearted kindness in a bad light , but he does choose to think people do the best they can and have good hearts and good intentions.

descendants two : i’ll be going over the canon stuff because re : my main verse they simply do not date post the first movie. i think a huge … necessity to talk about and a thing many people who don’t vibe with ben disagree with here is that a huge point of the conflict in d2 regarding mal and ben and how they solve it is this: mal thought that ben wanted something from her that he didn’t. thats’s okay, it happens, but what we see at the end of the movie via the gift he had for her is that ben didn’t want or ask her to be anyone she wasn’t. mal put those expectations on herself ( and like, she’s young and she’s been through a lot, no shade to her ) and ben didn’t… know, because he can’t read minds, that mal wasn’t making all these changes because she wanted to but because she felt like she had to. 

ben couldn’t know that because she did not tell him. to ben, i think it just appeared as though she was in auradon longer, she was switching it up, she was making changes and obviously he knew that but change isn’t always a bad thing especially if from our point of view it’s out of the person themselves’ desire to change. of course he supported that, but he couldn’t know that to her it might’ve come off like oh so this is the way he wants me to be. i think another big thing i highlight is that ben wasn’t mad at mal because she was having a hard time or because the stuff was fake, really. he wasn’t even mad about the magic usage, we’ve seen that unless it’s harmful magic he straight up doesn’t care. he was mad she was lying to him when he thought they were doing things at a team, which is fair, and also circles back to the fact this relationship was built off … a lie. 

even in my default stuff ben does still go after her when she goes to the isle. ben cares, he’s always cared about her, she’s someone very close to his heart and he does ! feel guilt over the way the lunch interaction went down and how he reacted to it. i think here it was important for mal to realize (here meaning the movie) that she didn’t have to be someone else to belong in auradon. i think ben wanted her to know that, but didn’t know it was something she was struggling with so much. ben believes in auradon and one of the reasons he believes in it is because he believes it can and should be a place where people have that freedom to exist as themselves. there was never any reason he would’ve wanted her to be exempt from that. 

descendants three : oh buddy. okay ! i think this movie damaged mal and ben’s relationship a lot regardless of how their relationship is at the time of it going on. again , re divergence , a lot about d3 isn’t in my portrayal but i do think … ben has a really hard time understanding where mal is coming from in her ideas in d3 ( he feels the same about his parents ) and that’s not something he usually struggles with. 

he’s very good at being understanding, and it’s not often he looks at someone or something and has genuinely no idea … why they’re doing what they’re doing , let alone someone he does love. and he does love mal, i think that’s important in my stuff. he’s not in love with her but she’s close and important to him. i think it hurt mal to be so sure the way to go was something she knew would hurt ben. and it did hurt him .. but i think in some ways it was ... probably unlikely that they hadn’t disagreed on how to go about things ruling wise before that, because they’re such different people.

i’m sure I could say more ... in general. they’re very interesting characters and i don’t think they were ever supposed to be similar. that’s not to say they would never work, because i, again think with a different approach to them they could’ve been good but they’re not supposed to be the same people. they represent different things. i think it’s fun that their names are very clear reps for malevolence vs. benevolence ! and i think ... that’s kind of what comes to mind right now !

tl;dr : their dynamic isn’t bad and could’ve been good but the build up was ... bad for them both !!