Ok I haven’t seen this misconception a lot, but just enough to make me wanna do a post on it. I’m specifically referring to the “Ben threw Kevin in the Null Void” take.
(I probably shouldn’t be trying to enter discourse this early in my career but honestly I doubt it’s that controversial so I’ll be fine.)
Ben very much in fact did not throw Kevin into the Null Void (at least when they were kids; clearly something along those lines happened with them when they were adults in the og future timeline.) Max is the one who put Vilgax and Kevin into the Null Void, not Ben.
To make it clear that I’m not just expecting ppl to go along with some made up headcanon, here’s some screenshots from the og episode that show what I mean.
We see him take out the Null Void projector to get rid of Vilgax and Kevin. Only Max and Gwen are even in this scene since Ben’s in the middle of a fight
Now we get Max actually firing the projector, thus sending Vilgax and Kevin into the Void. Ben isn’t here yet, but gets dragged in by Vilgax almost immediately after:
And then Gwen has to go in to rescue him. They get cornered, Ben has to give up the Omnitrix to save her, Gwen secretly holds onto it, etc. Then we get one last confrontation with Kevin before the portal closes.
Kevin’s blocking the portal so that Ben and Gwen will have to go through him to escape. If I’m remembering correctly, Kevin has XLR8’s superspeed. He’s also closer to the portal than Ben and Gwen. If he wanted to go through in this moment, they probably wouldn’t be able to stop him (he’d still have to deal with Max, but I’m not trying to argue about Max, I’m trying to argue about Ben). Kevin pretty clearly prioritizes getting revenge on Ben over getting out.
The closest thing to Ben trapping Kevin in the Null Void is him managing to maneuver past Kevin and get to the portal first before it closes, resulting in Kevin getting stranded in the Void.
I wouldn’t call this Ben trapping Kevin in the void though since. 1. He’s not the one who put Kevin there in the first place (that was Max). 2. Kevin had an opportunity to escape and chose trying to kill Ben over his own freedom (I’m not saying “grrrr Kevin evil,” just that Ben cannot be responsible for actions that are not his. And 3. Ben’s own priorities were clearly escaping (and not getting murdered by Kevin) rather than specifically to keep Kevin in the Null Void (cause yeah, it’s highly possible that the superpowered Kevin would be able to kill the currently powerless Ben if he had stayed.)
(Kevin does have mental issues, I understand that, but I don’t think the 10 year-old Ben would be able to help the 11 year-old Kevin healthily resolve his issues in the short period of time that the portal was open for. He’s not a licensed therapist, and even if he was, that kind of mental healing is a lengthy process.)
So, after having established that Ben did not in fact trap Kevin in the Null Void, why is this even an argument? It directly contradicts what actually happens on-screen. Well, I may be heading into speculation territory, but there is an instance of a canon character outright saying that this is what Ben did. And who might this be?
Oh right, that guy. The evil scumbag who wasn’t even there for the event in question (and has an obvious motive for trying to frame everything as Ben’s fault: he wants Kevin to get rid of Ben). I’ve gotta say, if Servantis is the reason why this misconception exists, that really goes to show how good he is at (memory) manipulation. He’s even capable of getting real-life fans to misremember events according to his biases.
Alright, that’s the end of this little diatribe of mine. If anyone has any comments (or even requests for future analyses) please let me know in the comments (or shoot an ask or send a reblog if that’s what you prefer).
I like the thing they did in Omniverse where you had reoccurring characters of the same species of aliens Ben didn't use very much in that series. You had Patelliday for Ripjaws, Psychobos/Servantis for Brainstorm, Malware for Upgrade, Swift for Jetray and Subdora for Chamalien. It would of been cool of we got Sphoeroid and Citrakayah characters for Spitter and Fasttrack since they didn't appear at all.
A Random Pokémon Horizons: Mega Voltage/Amethio Theory
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Alright, so I meant to post this a while back, but real life kinda got in the way and this was left to rot in my drafts. Anyway, I suppose there’s no time like the present.
After having put some thought into it and discussing it with @spruguloo, I’ve come up with a potential theory regarding Amethio’s status during & after the time-skip:
What if Amethio has spent all this time in hiding with his father, lying low to get stronger as well as trying to find a means to eventually strike back against Spinel and the other Explorers?
Like, yeah, I get there isn’t much to substantiate this idea, but consider the state Servantis/Crave was in after the Laqua Incident. Not all that long ago your estranged son came to you looking for answers and you turn him away, not to mention one of your own company’s scientists rolls up to critique your parenting, and not long after said estranged son supposedly dies in an accident the aforementioned scientist was present, who then rolls back up claiming he’s the new head of the company after your boss/father in law also died in the same incident under mysterious circumstances.
Laid out like that it would make a lot of sense that Servantis/Crave would probably step down from the company and begin looking for Amethio. Granted, there really hasn’t been any word on whether or not Servantis/Crave did step down or is still at Exceed, but it’s still something to consider even with the tension between father and son.
Honestly, another part of my line of thought is that I can’t imagine Friede and Amethio having the fortune of encountering one another after getting separated from their respective groups as well as a desire to just see more family drama as the two struggle to see eye to eye even as they navigate having to work under the Explorers’ radar.
I’m probably way off base and for all I know Amethio could be locked up with 5/6 Heroes or living a peaceful life in Alola and finally getting to relax after coming down with a case of amnesia. Whatever the case, I thought I’d share this theory before the upcoming episode which looks to be setting up Zirc and Onia teaming up with the RVTs as they search for their lost leaders.
As always, if anyone has any thoughts on or ways to build on this feel free to share.
Osmosian government member 2: He kidnapped and absorbed five individuals from different species on the andromeda galaxy
Ogm1: Ok we can probably handle this, we just need to think-
Ogm2: He did it with the intention to absorb a celestial sapien newborn, which he would have accomplished had it not been for Ben Tennyson and company
Ogm1:
Ogm1: So what you're saying is we're just doomed
Ogm2: Yeah I think no PR stunt in the universe is gonna save us from this one
Osmosian government member 3: We need to think of something tho, otherwise we'll get... You know... ERASED FROM REALITY BY CELESTIAL SAPIENS!
Ogm1: They change things all the time, we would NOT be a problem
Ogm2: Wait...
Ogm2: One of the people accompanying Tennyson was Devin Levin's son, he was actually the one who stopped Aggregor
Ogm1: One of us helping stop a different of us from absorbing a baby of their species is not gonna be enough to convince them to spare us
Ogm2: No, listen... As a child he was imprisoned in the nullvoid, I have sources that say he was experimented on by a plumber there named Servantis, who used him to become half cerebrocrustacean
Ogm2: A very influential plumber at that!
Ogm1: And how come this is not public information?
Ogm2: Servantis altered the child's memories...
Ogm1 and 3:
Ogm3: Are you trying to suggest that we-
Ogm2: We get Servantis to gaslight the universe into thinking we were a myth, a fake memory created by him to cover his own tracks, we even have him convince them Devin was a fake memory too, we just gotta get him to cooperate, be it by blackmail or a juicy, juicy bribe
Ogm1: That has gotta be one of the dumbest ideas I've ever heard in my entire life, there is absolutely no way that'll wo-
Over a year later, post rooter's arc
Ogm1: How?!
Ogm2: You're welcome
Ogm3: What so do they think every last plumber file involving Devin was faked? Does Kevin think he left a guy to die for nothing?
