#my hero memories episode 2

[slayfics]

He sit.

[yana125]

A day before the Bang Brave Bang Bravern finale I finally found peace with the one thing that stopped me to completely believe the "Smith is Bravern" theory before it was confirmed:

'If Smith is Bravern, why didn't Smith as Bravern save Isami in episode 2 when he was waterboarded?'

Because if Bravern already lived through everything as Smith he would know about the water boarding and he would've saved Isami.

And the answer was right there.

Bravern didn't save Isami because him as Smith had to be the one to do it.

This was the moment that changed their relationship and gave a solid base to the development of their bond. This part, as cruel as it sounds, had to happen. Because without this happening the two wouldn't have felt that strongly towards each. One wouldn't defeat death itself and travel back in time to save the one he loves. The other wouldn't accept the role of a hero in memory of the one he loves.

In Isami's darkest moment Smith was his knight in shining armor (HAH!) who saved him.

This was the moment Smith became Isami's hero.

Smith said several times that he always wanted to be a hero. And him becoming Bravern is a realization of that dream.

But what he needs to understand is that he doesn't need to become something so extravagant to be a real hero. A hero doesn't need to save the world to be a hero.

A hero can be a person who pulls someone out of a situation they don't believe they can ever escape.

So that's why Bravern didn't save Isami in episode 2 :D

And for the next 24 hours I'll be living on hopium because I really want this to be addressed in the last episode and I want Isami to convince Smith that he was already his hero ಥ‿ಥ

And I now found peace knowing that my problem with the "Smith is Bravern" theory has a narrative importance (◔◡◔)

[weebsinstash]

My yandere Invincible posts have been getting notes recently now that season 2 is starting and there's a specific idea I have in my head for platonic yandere dad Nolan x daughter Reader because of a scene from the first episode, the scene from Mark's past where (small spoiler I guess) Nolan visibly heavily contemplates killing Mark and Debbie (because Mark might not get his powers and, he doesnt want to fail his mission) but quickly stops himself and is clearly ashamed for what he almost did

I keep thinking of a specific scenario. Reader is his second-born daughter who is a couple years younger than Mark and you're his little princess and you're just, outside playing while your parents occasionally peek out at you through the glass door/window to the backyard and, you're like 5 or 6 when things just, suddenly change, it hits you like lightning. Things look differently, they smell different, the sun on your skin feels different, the toys in your hands feel lighter and weirder than before, and when you start to slowly squeeze them, they start to break, but, you're smart and fast enough to stop.

But it's not JUST your body. It's your MIND. Suddenly you're remembering all those cartoons you've ever watched, practically every memory you have, every experience, every fact.

Temporarily, ever so briefly, you start to float, and you easily figure out how to put yourself down.

You're so excited you can't even make a sound-- you've got your powers like Dad!-- and you go to tell your parents, and you see then talking inside. You don't want to interrupt and wait outside patiently, deciding you'll go in when they're done talking even ss you're bouncing in excitement. And, you see everything from Ducktape Man to Mom and Dad talking to that menacing movement your father made, where some animalistic instinct inside of you knew it was HOSTILE and, in just a few moments, you're putting it all together, like either some gullible kid who believes everything in cartoons, or, perhaps, someone who just became a lot, lot smarter: you start hypothesizing that Nolan must be evil and has some hidden ulterior motive. Why would Nolan be so mad at Mark not having powers to the point of violence, murder? Oh, because if Mark didn't have powers, he wouldn't be like dad, he'd be a human? Does dad not like humans? Does dad want to hurt humans? Is there any other reason Dad seems to almost NEED his offspring to be Viltrumites too?

Oh, is Dad a bad alien who wants his children to leave Earth and human culture behind for their roots? And if he doesn't succeed, he'll snap? Is it like in those cartoons where the evil father tries to bring his kid to the darkside and the hero has to fight and defeat them even if it hurts?

The whole theory and coming into your powers is surreal, it's inhuman, but it's the new you, the new Viltrumite you. You burst into tears as you become overwhelmed and stressed at the idea you might have to fight your evil dad, lying to your father, no, Nolan, that you were crying because you broke your toy on accident and he has to shush you as he promises you a new one but your chubby little kid arms aren't squeezing him as tight as they used to

You start keeping secrets. You start watching him all the time, the things he does, the things he says, and the more and more, you become convinced. He never stops treating you as his little angel, and you even notice, he's, for some reason, gentler with you than Mark and, as you grow older, you realize it's because you're a girl and for whatever reason he's falling into the very stereotypical role of, treating both you and Mark very well overall, but, also being more lenient with you, telling Mark he has to be a good brother and protect his baby sister, Nolan always trying to buy you little sweets, but, after you saw what you did, your behavior towards him immediately shifts. You try to act the same to avoid arousing suspicion but you aren't nearly as affectionate and, as you get older, you take advantage of using puberty and needing independence as an excuse to put emotional walls up and distance yourself from him, even as he constantly tries to engage and spend time with you

Your family is worried what's wrong with you when you start calling him Nolan instead of dad, you suddenly don't want to spend time with him, your mom, and even your brother. You start working the second you're legally old enough, but, despite how bright and inquisitive you were as a kid, your grades are. Average. As in, deliberately average. You can never let Nolan know what you are. As you age and hear more and more of his comments where you can tell he's insulting not just anyone in particular, but the entire human race, you steel yourself, because you know, you know this man cannot be your father anymore, and you may even have to kill him. But you're so overly cautious about him and anyone else not finding out that you're limited at training options. You can't just fly anywhere, you can't just practice martial arts against normal humans, but, you find ways to make it work. You work manual labor jobs your father scoffs at, you wait until night and/or you know he's off planet to practice flying in one single field where you can see for miles all around you and see any witnesses or planes coming

You are a daughter with every intention of either abandoning her family and leaving the planet, or killing her father. Once you realized that you were an alien, unlike Mark and unbeknownst to Nolan, you're more like your father than you realize. You become more apathetic to humanity, more nonchalant about where you are in life. Suddenly you don't have to worry about your grades or college or things like that because, well, what good will earth stuff do you in outer space? Maybe you'll pick up some more practical knowledge but, really, the only reason you don't leave the planet once you start getting older is literally just that, one you're still attached to Mark and Debbie, and two, you don't have a flight suit and know your clothes will burn up and. You wanna get out of here but you don't want to be naked in space!!

Like picture this. Mark has just gotten his powers and you're heartbroken because, over the last decade your father started spending significantly more focus on Mark instead of you, inviting him to things he doesn't even mention to you, finally shifting almost his exclusive attention to his son, and, now Mark is "just like dad", already starting to get full of himself because hes stronger and "better", which worries you because, you eventually deduce Nolan is some kind of invader who is having kids to be soldiers. Like imagine sitting at the dinner table and Mark is all "don't worry sis, I bet you're a late bloomer too :) youll get your powers soon" and Nolan pipes in like "yeah and then we can all go out flying together" and you just look him dead in the eyes and don't reply. You're constantly having to temper your anger and keep up your ruse because if you're too openly hostile, he'll figure it out, and you have literally not a single doubt in your mind that he'll kill you for his mission, which is funny because you've actually adapted a lot of the "don't care I'm an alien" mindset that he wanted Mark to have

Nolan has no idea why you clearly hate him, why you fake smiles, why you stopped spending time with him. He still remembers when you were a toddler and you were running around, skinning your knees all the time and picking yourself up with little sniffles like nothing happened because you just wanted to keep running and exploring and playing SO bad. You used to be so bright. He had such high hopes for you. Honestly he always thought you would potentially outmatch Mark and be his strongest child, but. Here you are, a straight C student, working manual labor jobs, completely average, and refusing to bond with him in any way. He can tell you're keeping some sort of secret from him, but whenever he goes to confront you about it, you're... surprisingly scared, but, not as scared as you should be, in the nuanced ways one would shrink away as a child being scolded by their parent. It's almost like... you're holding some sort of grudge against him

I couldn't decide which version I prefer in terms of Reader finally being exposed. Maybe you don't realize Mark is trailing you and he finds out and tells Nolan behind your back under the mistaken impression you recently got your powers and was training in secret to make it a surprise. Or there's some sort of attack or disaster or accident where you're shot by a robber or they attempt to stab you and it just, dents against your skin. Or even, you start disrespecting Debbie because you're frustrated about being an alien that can't die and she let this man into her bed without truly knowing who or what he was and you're resenting her for it and you make a really awful comment and get in an argument with her and in anger she moves to slap you and fractures her hand against your invulnerable face, or you have to catch her wrist so she doesn't hurt herself and Nolan can tell by your reflexes that you're not fully human

I also just like the idea of. You're 18 and you make it very extremely clear you're moving out and your family is like, REFUSING but they technically can't stop you (although the idea of Omniman going full yandere dad and physically locking you up so his baby girl doesn't leave the nest certainly IS a nice thought) and they notice, instead of packing your things, you're donating them, getting rid of them. The day of your move happens and you're standing there with only a backpack and you haven't told them Any details about where you're going or, just, ANYTHING, and Nolan is looking at you like a big sad hound dog "can't I at least drive you 🥺" and you're like " :) no that's OK, I've got my own ride" AND JUST FLYING AWAY. I just think it'd be extremely relatable and hilarious if you keep up the ruse for so many years and you finally blow your cover because you lose your temper or because you've been hurt emotionally. Nolan tries to ground you, "March upstairs right now young lady!" and you're just like "march?" As you start levitating away just to spite him and he's picking his jaw off the floor. Mark sees you acting out one day "You're just jealous because dad likes spending time with me over you and you don't have any powers" and youre so hurt at seeing your big brother who you've been wanting to protect all this time become a pawn of your father that you just start hovering in the air right then and there, "you can have dad. You can have everything. I'm not even staying on this planet anymore"

I dunno, I kinda like the idea of Reader being this kind of, you know, still kind and all that, but a really almost, inhuman figure in the sense that your specific alien genetics or mutation causes you to kind of snap onto Genius Mode and you become sort of this calculating detached figure who pretends to be human and is openly hateful to your entire family because, as you see it, you're on your own and don't need or want them, you're different than them, your mental abilities are different even from Nolan's, and, meanwhile, said superhero is desperate to find out why his little girl hates her Daddy so much. He's still, you know, got that Viltrum in him, but Debbie and Earth has drawn out more of his humanity and he does love you, he does want you in his life, and it HURTS for you to reject him

But then he finds out about your powers and. Suddenly you're just supposed to magically forget how he started pushing you away too as he wants to bond with you again, teach you, train you. He has no idea he's proving your years of theories right as, he is overjoyed at discovering you have powers, like, you very clearly detect the "oh thank GOD you're not ACTUALLY a lowly human" energy oozing off of him and you realize you were right all along, you really were never more than just an extension of this narcissistic man from his freak species of savages, that he came to Earth with ulterior motives and it's dangerous for you to continue to be around him

You can try to pull away from him all you want, but even if he never found out about your powers, Nolan won't ever let you slip through his fingers. He knows how heartless and cruel this galaxy can be, and, if you're really truly such a fragile little eggshell of a human, then, clearly you need your doting dad looking after you until you're a little old lady passing away of old age while he looks exactly the same as the day you were born. But. That's not what's going to happen because even if that scenario came to pass he would quickly see that you aren't aging. There's no way you can fake that.

I just imagine a Reader who hardens herself into a true soldier and starts planning for the day you kill your father. You lure him out one day into a certain area and you jump him with like Homura vs Walpurgisnacht levels of preparation, hurling all sorts of materials and chemicals and objects at him, testing what works yet nothing does, coming at him with all sorts of different attacks and techniques you've had to teach yourself and pick up on your own, but, he's older than you, FAR older, and much more experienced, and he finally has to do something he hates and punches you in the gut so hard it makes you collapse and start throwing up but, he's just. POSITIVELY EUPHORIC. you just tried to kill your own father at like 17, 18, 20 years old and he's standing here "I KNEW IT, I knew you were special! Did you plan all this? Wow! you even tried to pierce my heart! where did you even get explosives from, did you make these?" Like he's THRILLED at the absolute sheer brutality, like, you just tried to KILL HIM kill him and he's like "Awwww I'm so proud 🥰🥰🥰 my little baby girl is a true viltrumite" and now YOU'RE FUCKED because now he loves you more than ever and, he was lowkey becoming massively depressed at the idea of outliving you, losing you, having to see you die, and now he doesn't have to, so. Now he can have both of his kids for rhe next hundreds and thousands of years 🥰 he has so many things he wants to show and teach you, so, now that he's seen how truly capable you are, it's time to start your training, but also, making up for all that lost bonding time you spent pushing dear old dad away ❤️

[ashe-studies]

things i wish the sonic franchise brought back or implement.

.

Dark Sonic

seriously, i love imagining a fight between Dark Sonic and Eggman inspired by Korra vs. Zaheer ( when she was poisoned ). where he loses the cool attitude, the smile, everything, and goes in with full power, charging himself left and right at Eggman. it'd be even more fascinating to still have Dark Sonic lose. not because of his lack of power, not because of lack of skill, even when blinded by rage, but because of Eggman's ingenuity.

a lot of people, to this day, misinterpret Dark Sonic as a murderous, rampaging monster, but that completely misses the purpose of why he exists to begin with. i believe this is a case of people not exactly knowing where he comes from, or just a lot of fans drawing a murderous Sonic and it took the internet by storm one day, but just in case you don't know:

Dark Sonic is from Sonic X, a TV show that is sort of an expansion on Sonic Adventure 2, adding more lore, character arcs, and overall meaning to the game's original plot. Dark Sonic was revealed in the episode "Teasing Time" in s3, and the reason he appeared is because he discovered his friends ( Cosmo and Chris ) were injured and that one of them ( Chris ) was unconscious.

the whole reason this form exists is Sonic's love for his friends essentially fueling his rage. it's like Darkspine Sonic from SATSR, or has similar formula. Dark Sonic isn't inspired by any bloodlust or desire to kill, but rather by burning anger at seeing his friends be put in harm's way.

Dark Sonic is made from the strong desire to protect his friends.

2. An Actual Arc For Shadow

you guys might be confused, especially if you consider some of my previous posts, but lemme explain.

for a long time, it's never felt like Shadow has actually recovered from his trauma, atone for his actions ( yes, i understand he saved Earth ), or live life really at all. it doesn't help that, to this day, SEGA continues to make Shadow relive the past.

i don't consider the movies to be a part of the problem, as Shadow being introduced to the plot was basically a given, and you can't introduce him in your own take without his general backstory ( unless you're Boom or Prime, i guess ). i believe the movie will be doing taking some creative liberties to his story, as they did so with Sonic, Tails, and Knuckles, and i see no reason that they should stop.

the reason why i have an issue with this is because it's an ongoing issue within the games, specifically. Shadow the Hedgehog ( 2005 ) was a disservice to his setup and the 'first arc' ( considering he's still alive after the fans demanded his return ) to his story.

aside from it just giving 'early 2010s deviantart edge', it's just so...

childishly handled.

for one, you're immediately given a Hero or Dark route, like in SA2, which i feel completely misses the point of SA2's true ending. Shadow has redeemed himself ( or began to ), so to give him complete reign to just become an antagonist all over again defeats the whole purpose of a redemption.

it's like what Prime did with Dread, giving him an already established redemption arc ( sort of ), but then corrupting him again for no real reason other than just because.

another issue i have is Shadow's amnesia and attitude in general within the game. technically speaking, yes, it does make sense for him to suffer memory and // or physical issues from his fall from space, but to completely wipe out every single thing he did just to give him the opportunity to relearn his past, do some fucked up shit, do some less fucked up shit, then throw away everything in the past, Maria and her wish included, is...

amazingly obtuse, for lack of a better word.

again, while it's technically not out of bounds, i feel like giving Shadow complete and total amnesia just disrespects SA2's vision and execution of the story. it's redundant, it's lazy, and overall just really damn frustrating to watch.

Shadow deserves to have a story that allows him to heal from his trauma, discover who he is, and respecting Maria's wish along the way. a lot of people seem to think it's either he forgets about his past ( or buries it ) or full-on dedicates his entire life and doesn't bother picking up a life lesson or two, but it doesn't have to be that way.

Shadow can heal, grow, and change. SEGA just won't let him.

3. The Echidna Tribe & Knuckles' Story

Knuckles is one of my favorite characters in the entire franchise as a whole, but his character and story is sorely dismissed. while Shadow has the issue of repetition, Knuckles suffers from being dropped on the head multiple times and played for a joke ( i think Frontiers is one of the more recent games that didn't do this, but i might be wrong ).

one of the reasons why i love Knuckles is how straightforward, yet reluctant he was about finding out his past. at the end of Sonic Adventure 1, he says something to the extent of:

"maybe i'm better off not knowing the meaning behind all of this. because i feel something terrible will happen if i do."

he is content being ignorant for the sake of his own peace of mind.

but in SA2, he's more or less forced to start facing his fear and learn more about the past. unfortunately, though, we don't actually get to see much after this game, because the tribe is almost entirely forgotten. instead, it's brought up in comics that are more or less canon ( i think ), but not fully aligning with the games. i think it's safe to say the comics are their own canon?

like with Shadow, i would've loved to see an actual conclusion on this arc of Knuckles' story. to see more of the tribe in the past, of their wrongdoings, character moments, more of Tikal or Chaos or the little Chao, and how it all ties together.

but instead, we have lots of media repeatedly insulting Knuckles' intelligence, ignoring his tribe and // or his job entirely ( i guess they forget the Master Emerald is portable? ), and just generally dumbing him down to be a hotheaded moron that apparently doesn't care about being the Guardian!

Knuckles is one of the most relatable characters in this series for me, as there's a lot of things i would rather not know and stay ignorant to, but have to face head on in order to fully move past it and grow to be better.

he was completely isolated on Angel Island for so long, yet people still make fun of him to this day for being manipulated by Eggman in SA1 ( even though he didn't even fully believe Eggman, it was just a precaution, but who cares about the details- ). he's not just a hothead, he's strong, he's kind, he's pretty blunt and, honestly, really fucking adorable, i love this echidna.

look at him, just standing there. i love him.

anyway, Knuckles deserves a proper story surrounding his tribe, his identity as the Guardian of Angel Island, his relationships, and to have a satisfying conclusion. or, at the very least, more games or media in general not dumbing him down to an angry hothead with nothing better to do but to yell and ignore his responsibilities.

3. Sonic

"what're you talking about, ashe? sonic's meant to be a flat character! what could be wrong with him?"

yeah, but after frontiers, i want more mentally ill sonic that needs to be concerned for by his friends, okay, that's all i want-

4. Storybook Era

now, now, i know a lot of people don't like the storybook games because of their shoddy gameplay and all that, but i genuinely love these games, their flaws included.

i do believe satbk has a better story than satsr, but i still have an attachment to the latter game, so suck it.

it'd be really nice to see a storybook game with switch, xbox, ps, or similar controls. as the era has Sonic diving into different worlds, maybe a world like Alice and Wonderland could be an interesting game. several elements to work with, locations turning into creative levels or even hub worlds. this is sort of a long shot dream that will probably never exist, but i wanna see an adventure-style storybook game one day.

i'll probably die before that idea is even considered, but it's a fun thought and that's all that matters at the end of the day.

there's no real big reason as to why these matter or anything, as i don't believe you need a storybook in order to send off the messages these games try to give, but they're just really charming to me and i love to see how this type of game could be implemented into video games today, with all the new engines and whatnot.

5. Teams

oof, okay, um-

there's a few games that have teams in them, and i guess you can count sonic forces as one of those games, so i should be more specific here.

i like SA1's flexibility with the roulette-like system, where you could play as any character you wished, but i also like SA2's team system, where they all had a close-knit role within the story from a similar perspective ( hero vs. dark ).

SA1 served multiple perspectives, all giving you pieces of the same puzzle that you have to figure out as you go. by the final story, all of the characters ( except Big, but idc, i love him ) have their character arcs and it's with their changes that the story is fully complete.

SA2 served the entirety of two perspectives and merged them together for the final story, heroes and villains having to work together to fight off the greater evil at hand.

overall, i want more games having the characters work together, having different details // information or even moral differences ( it depends on which system they go with, though ) on the situation at large, but maybe still having to come together.

whether or not they use official teams, i want the sonic franchise to bring back using other characters as necessary plot points with their own individual arcs.

it may not be needed, per say, as there's still a few games that work and don't have either of these systems, but i really miss the adventure games and wish for more of their elements to be implemented in future games.

6. CHAO!!!

BRING THESE LITTLE CREATURES BACK, GODDAMN, WHY ONLY TWO GAMES?!

.

anyway, that's all i can currently think of. i think these would serve either character or charm to the franchise, but maybe you have some other ideas of what the games could give! maybe proper returns of characters, other forgotten stories, or even new ideas!

lemme know what you think.

[runawaycarouselhorse]

Our pure-hearted, all-loving hero... he can be a little brat (especially back in OS/early in his journey, when he was much more of a hot-blooded boy hero), but his heart's worth its weight in solid gold and he grows into such a kind, patient character with strong ideals, which is why Hero of Ideals suits him best (even the movie manga opted to adapt that version of the movie, rather than the one where Ash is Hero of Truth, and expanded on it!)

[I hope you have "long post" and "image heavy" muted if you need to, because this post's a doozy and given tumblr, if my blog's ever deleted, posts with read mores will be rendered inaccessible forever, so I don't like to make them!]

A lot of people complained about how young Ash looked in BW! (and complained even more about Sun & Moon's very divisive art style... and we wound up seeing great growth for his love of a whole region, and achieved a goal integral to achieving his dreams), but from the first episode of BW!, my first impression was of how mature and calm Ash is with Iris and Trip in regards to their initially abrasive and varingly aloof personalities.

Iris was friendlier and more excitable, more childlike, but Ash took her barbs in stride and patiently waited for her to open up about her dreams (she keeps it secret in the first episode, using that cute, childish word "naisho" instead of saying it's a secret "himitsu"--the same childish word she uses when asked about what Kairyuu/Dragonite told her in their reunion episode) and background (we don't know she ran away from the academy or what her hometown was like until season 2!)

The way Ash handled Tory (who was a traumatized, younger child--and Ash wanted to fight him at first, before understanding him!), Lucario (also traumatized, insulted Ash and Pikachu's bond--Ash fought him and fell off a hill, wrestling with him, before he saw Lucario's memory of being "abandoned" and broke down in tears, apologizing for what he said when he didn't know anything...), Chimchar (a traumatized Pokemon, Ash was patient, kind, and loving to him, even when he lashed out while out of control due to Blaze, which he previously could only use to save his life...), etc., is very different from how he handled Iris (who was bullied subtly by being completely ostracized, no one would sit or eat or play with her at the academy, she was so depressed, she stopped eating--this is canon and not lingered on, but she plainly says it and that her dorm mother making her food that would remind her of home, just berries skewered on a stick, "saved her") and even Trip.

(By the way, Ash apologizing to Lucario, in tears of regret over what he said to Lucario when he didn't understand him is when I first started to truly love and respect Ash's character and growth! Before that, I really was only a big fan of the TRio.)

By contrast to those rockier beginnings with other kids, Ash was patient and encouraging with Trip, even while Trip purposefully kept him and everyone else (even his Pokemon who loved him, as Alder said...) at bay and rejected all his attempts at friendship, before he got the answers he needed from Alder and slowly stopped shutting others out. He had every right to lash out at Trip for making fun of him, but kept trying to befriend him and showed interest in his journey and growth.

(Trip was also his youngest main rival at that point, even if he is a very book-smart child prodigy type who was an excellent battler from the start, he still fell apart in front of unexpected, unorthodox techniques like Bell/Bianca and Satoshi/Ash's out-of-the-box strategies.)

Naturally, there's also his very patient and encouraging bond with Lillie, who also had her trauma-induced fear of Pokemon (much like Tory!) and dissociative amnesia, the early loss of her father in infancy, and the distance between her and her mother (too wrapped-up in work and her obsession with Ultra Beasts to notice her own child's trauma and falling behind her peers...) to overcome, but the focus of this post is BW! I already write a lot about Lillie, she's another favourite of mine. <3

It's worth noting, too, that Pikachu was Ash's first "problem Pokemon"... even if it's usually the Fire types who are traumatized, Pikachu has abandonment issues like Chimchar and Tepig did. Pikachu famously hates being inside a pokeball and Ash always repesects this boundary and becomes very, very upset in XY when he believed Pikachu was forced into a pokeball... the pokeball factory episode was, otherwise, a very light-hearted episode, but Pikachu's boundaries and possible trauma is taken seriously.

This scene mirrors a similar breakdown Alain has when he finds out all he's done, under the impression he was protecting his loved ones, was aiding Lysandre's genocidal plans... both smash their fists into hard surfaces, blaming themselves for failing to protect loved ones.

In a very early Kanto episode, Sparks Fly for Magnemite, we learn Pikachu has abandonment issues so bad, he doesn't want to be separated from Ash for even an overnight stay in the Pokemon Center. It seems Pikachu (fortunately) quickly become much more secure in his bond with Ash and no longer fears being separated for medical treatment, but this is very, very sad and telling!

Although we never delve very deeply into that for most of the series... (an early magazine scan has Ookido-hakase/Professor Oak theorize Pikachu's previous trainer abandoned it), we were finally given some answers late in series!

In the AU movie, Pikachu says* his reason for not going into the pokeball: "It's because I always want to be with you." ;O;

... unless this is a dream or hallucination, given Ash is on the verge of unconsciousness when it happens--but if we really want to believe it happened, maybe his latent Aura post-cognition abailities kicked in and he understood Pikachu's feelings, like when Victini slept in his lap, crying, and Ash saw Victini's dream of his past.

As for the main series canon, in the first episode of Pocket Monsters 2019 (Pokemon Journeys), we learn Ash's Pikachu was a lone, possibly orphaned, Pichu, who was briefly raised by a Kangaskhan, carried in her pouch with her child, until he grew too heavy and quietly left at night (without saying goodbye) to live by his own strength, evolving into Pikachu as he did so.

If Lusamine not taking Lillie's (because they're irrational or not logical) feelings seriously gave her a complex where she always needed to claim her stances are "logical" even when they're based in emotion... I wonder what it tells us that "child prodigy" Trip defaulting to blaming his loss to Alder on him doing something wrong or being inherently lacking ("What did I do wrong? What do I lack?"), because he doesn't ever consider a simple difference in experience is all it is... that Alder's many years of wisdom and Pokemon training give him an advantage over rookie trainer Trip, who's shown to be averse to being called a "child" (Iris ropes him into battling Ash twice by calling him a kid), because he always has to prove he's an adult. He thinks there's something inherently "lacking" in him or "wrong" about his method if he doesn't achieve.

All of that is canon, but if you further analyze his character, Trip has a superiority complex, which is very often a defense mechanism to mask feelings of inferiority. He canonically places a lot of worth in the image he projects and constantly puts down others. Add that to being a child prodigy and his preoccupation with proving he's an adult (but doesn't bat an eyelid at someone calling him "unjust" for his violent methods in the Venipede episode, like he's already accepted being a terrible person, because he thinks striving for peace like idealistic Ash is "naive"--Trip has a very cynical view of adults, yet thinks of himself as such...)

Trip only cares to be seen as strong and mature, not good (he's not even surprised to be called bad, he's already accepted it, he doesn't care), and if he fails, he blames his lack of knowledge or his inherent nature as lacking.

Because his self-worth is in being a genius and being better than the rest, so he seeks outside validation, namely Alder's, who Trip behaves so jealously about, Alder canonically compares him to a fickle-hearted woman (well, he messes up the phrase 'Onna-gokoro to haru no sora.' "A woman's heart is as fickle as the sky of spring" because he was hitting on Junsa-san/Officer Jenny earlier, so he says "fickle as Junsa-san"... Freudian slip. ^^;;;;)

Trip, when asked what he was battling for, what he wanted to prove... he said it was to prove his strength to Alder.

That's all he wanted! To prove his strength and be acknowledged by his hero. Alder even asks him if he likes him. Adeku frankly asks it in the Japanese version, but the dub dances around with "do you have any admiration for a man such as myself"--which Trip doesn't answer verbally, although he really doesn't have to, because the scene makes it clear and is a lens that clarifies all his past behaviour.

That's all Trip wants: love and acknowledgement. Which he believed he could only get by becoming stronger, smarter, and more mature as fast as possible, likely taking Alder's to be some stronger and grow up quickly too literally, as head animator Iwane said, Shootie was just "a little too grown-up."

It takes a long, long time for Trip to unlearn prioritizing battles over anything else and to embrace childhood (which hey, is one of the main themes of BW!), because it's a precious time which we can never return to... so, Alder's current idealogy is to enjoy life, make friends, love Pokemon, and not dwell on the past. Ash's approach to being a Pokemon Champion and Master is the same.

Alder's introductory episode made it very clear he and Ash are very, very similar characters... and we see this again in Journeys, in the kind of advice Champion Ash gives younger kids. Ash and Alder have a similar wisdom they'd like to impart, I know, it's funny calling Ash wise, but he has high emotional intelligence and is incredibly wise in that respect for his age... it took Alder many, many long years to arrive at the same conclusion Ash reached.

Ash's Japanese name, Satoshi, means "Wisdom." (Another cute detail: Ash's little brother, Lei, whose Hawaiian name means a "Garland of Flowers-- in Japanese, would be pronounced as Rei, which also means "Wisdom." Lei likely has a name chosen to have meaning in both Hawaiian and Japanese. ^^)

Bonus shout-out to Ash, Iris, and Cilan all protecting Keldeo until he finds the courage to face his fears, correct his mistakes, and save his friends...

Ash is a very good friend, AG, DP, and BW! are all part of his development into the kinder character he became today. Some people might miss how rude he was to his friends in OS, but he can still playfully dish it out, he's just calmer and more sure of himself, so less likely to sweat the small stuff and recognizes when someone, whether Pokemon or trainer, just needs time and patience.

[dedenneblogs]

HEARTBREAK HIGH S2 ANALYSIS PART 1 (buckle up this is going to be a doozy)

so... it's out (the trailer).

my excitement cannot be expressed...

BUTT! today, i will be doing my iconic mouse analysis of this trailer (this is actually the first time im doing something like this so it's not rlly iconic BUTT it will be soon) with the most comprehensive inspection i can using under 2 minutes of video as a basis....

with that said lets

BEGIN!

the heartbreak highers are back for another "cursed" term....

so glad to see the trio back in action. like. actually so happy. MIGHT explode from excitement... as always, their outfits slaylay.

the boyfriends... friends? boys? BUGS??? found out on hh s2!

these goons are back... gayer then ever,,, seriously. when will these two have an episode long make out 'sesh? unlikely, to much dismay....spoiler alert...you'll see....

MISSY!!!!! and sasha, i guess

SPOILER ALERT AGAINNNN missy looks like she'll be more prominent in this season so...WIN!!!!

also why is she mewing who is rizzing up

and new on the the chopping block-- Rowan Callaghan!

we'll get to rowan when we get to rowan

in other (more important) news-- SHE'S HEALING! HARPER IS HEALING!!!

i... *sobs* i she's growing her hair out oh my GAW...... she's getting better...she... there's a lower chance she'll cock-block amerie (oh but she'll get cock [spoiler-- again!])

butt let's not celebrate just yet-- it's still "everyone hates amerie" up in this joint, smellas

may as well... shot them. huh. well. pop off, i suppose... (amerie asserts her right to bear arms-- truly patriotic coming from an aussie!)

...touché coming from the (still) most hated student in heartly who only adds salt to the wound by... using the pink 'ildo from s1 as a mic... chat... she's lost it.

(unrelated but in the background-- MISSY AND MALAKAI!!! they were building up a relationship between them in s1 and how she and her brother (i think? 'memory's fuzzy) helped him heal from the shit he had to go through in s1 and even better connect him with his aboriginal roots. i hope to see more of these two interact come april 11th and i binge the whole season)

ALSO also ANOTHER new character-- Zoe Clarke!

we will ALSo get to zoe when we get to zoe

anywho-- cue: AMERIE'S ONLINE HARASSMENT ARC! becuz every show needs one...unfortunately. Give a cold welcome to Bird Psycho, heartbreak highers (we will get to bird psycho when we get to bird psycho)

(who ever is doing this shit is a bitch but either way: "you dont get to be the hero" shut your goofy ass up)

oh that's gore. that's core of my comfort character.

ok so maybe this bird psycho cuck isnt fucking around because clearly he's gotten to our girl ams :(

(dw they uh...take her out for ice cream. after this. proabably.)

moving foward-- STAND BACK I SAID STAND BACK WEIRD GIRL QUINNI

oughh im gonna be sick. of course. OF COURSE SHE WOULD GO FULL SHERLOCK HOLMES TO HELP HER BESTIE.

yeah anyways with this in mind she'd totally try and crack the fnaf lore wouldn't she. wouldn't she.

she's slay she's girlboss but at the end of the day she's a weirdo

anywho nuff of my rambling there--

ominous of you to say zoe

BUT ENOUGH OF HER CA$$HHHHHHHHHHHH

ca$h omg eshay eshay eshay pspspspsp,,,

i am so happy to see him (spoiler alert for 2 secs throughout the whole trailer) but anywho remeber? remeber right he's in prison. but seems to be doing okay... (maybe for the best heartly drama is really coming to a boiling point)

<3

and-- oh. uh... chicken dumbell... okay... pop off, missy...

when i said i wanted more missy i didnt expect this

spider seems to be into tho maybe what ??1/1/111.1/?!??!/1/1/1

missy x spider was NOT on my bingo card

WHEN MISSY SAID SHE WAS STARTING TO LIKE WHITE BOYS I DIDNT THINK SHE MEANT THIS.

BUUTTTttttt-- i. am. down. for. it... somehow. frankly, spider needs someone to put him in his place and low and behold, missy seems to be the student to do so..........

hey. if they're both happy with their...chicken dumbells, i am too.

amerie dont be alarmed but there's a white boy to your right

in other news this love triangle scares the diarrhea out of me

look at them. they're the perfect couple (malakai x amerie 4life) and rowan is--

well he's a nice boy but cmon

LOOK AGAIN IM DOWN FOR THEM TO BE HAPPY BUTT when it comes in between THE BEST SHIP IN THE SHOW (looks at amerie x spider shippers with affectionate disdain) i draw the line.

but who knows? rowan seems nice enough, and if he's able to make amerie happy, let them have each other! <3

also knowing malakai's track record i wouldn't put it past him to get freaky with rowan too (threesome attempt 2??? actually no wait thats a horrible idea NEVERMIND [gets s1 ep4 flashbacks])

also also "classic love triangle" scene gives major "erm...well this is akward!" vibes from ams (we stan cringey amerie in this household tho)

and well. shart. max limit of 30 photos. oh well-- ill make a second part! tune in for the update heartbreak highers :3

[starlight-bread-blog]

Why Lokius Should Have Been Canon

This is a sort of combo of two metas that didn't quite get point my across. Some parts will be copied directly, but there's a lot of original content. I will discuss the ship between Loki and Mobius, their place in the show, and the MCU at large. My focus for this meta won't be parallels or motifs, because these things border on well-written friendships. But there will be some of that.

Romance in the MCU

There are a lot of straight couples in the MCU. (Almost) Every main hero is in some heterosexual relationship, Loki included.

(That's not all, not remotely).

But in the LGBTQ+ department... uh.. I think it was mentioned that Valkyrie had a girlfriend... uh... America Chavez had a pride pin... and Loki:

One line. Queer experiences are never a focal point of a show/movie the same way heterosexual experiences are. And that needs to change.

Romance In the Show

Wrong, toxic, or unsuccessfu romantic love is a recurring theme in the show.

Sylki

Sylki was an icky relationship right off the bat. They are the same person. I can't find the post at the moment, but someone has pointed out in their post that them being the same person is referenced in every episode in season 1 (edit: here it is), which is when the romance took place. This made their romance uncomfortable for many viewers.

(Some consider Sylki a toxic relationship, but for this post, the topic is too large to handle with the nuance I'd like to handle it with).

When he's drunk, Loki compares love to a dagger, stating that it hurts you, but when you try to find strength in it, it's not real.

Which is exactly what happens. Sylvie pushes Loki into a portal and they never get back together.

The Love Triangle

In 02×03, Ravonna Renslayer is infatuated with Victor Timely, but he leaves her behind and betrays her when Miss Minutes told him to. One episode later, we discover that they were indeed an item, and established the TVA together. He Who Remains deleted her memories and they never rekindle their love.

Later in the episode, is the best example of "wrong" romance in the show. Miss Minutes, the AI clock, confesses her love to Viktor Timely. He, obviously, freaks out and shuts her off. Nothing ever comes of this.

Brad and Dox

This one is small, but a big indication to romance being a theme. In 02×01, we're shown this:

The gap in the age of the actors is uncomfortable, and a character in universe has this reaction to it. It is never mentioned again.

So what does all of this leave us with? Not much. None of this properly ties to the finale, or anything really. If I were to write the show I would cut a lot of this out, since it serves no purpose. But it does make you keep romance and its shortcomings in mind. The writers want it to be there, in the back of your head.

Loki and Mobius

Finally! I got to talk about them. The two people in question. First things first, who are they, together? They became really supportive, close friends.

Fans even drew parallels to Chaos & Order, which is a very important theme in Loki. But I'm not here to unpack them. These things don't necessarily make them in love. So what does make them in love? I'll present you my evidence, and you ask yourself,

Would it be valid to suggest romantic implications if a man and a women are:

1) Extremely thouchy with each other.

2) Riding on a tandem bike together.

3) Willing to suffer a fate worst than death for another.

4) Falling on each other after that^

5) Literally the Interrupted Declaration of Love trope. (Ex)

6) Being framed in a circle.

7) Waiting & giving permission to attack.

8) Fixing themselvs before seeing the other.

Of course yes. Maybe you think some of these are a strech, but ultimately, people would point out romantic connotations across the board. And I'm here, pointing them out right now. Some scenes between Loki and Mobius have romantic implications.

Conclusion

Loki is a queer protagonist in the MCU, a universe that lacks representation of queer experiences. His show constantlty reminded us of romance, sometimes for seemigly no reason. In the second season, they wrote him and his best friend with romantic implications. And then, nothing. It should not have been nothing. Lokius should have been canon.

[elizabethnightingale4]

Thoughts on Episode 6:

-WHERE WAS MY NICO/BIANCA DI ANGELO REFERENCE?!

-“When did you turn into an old married couple?”

-WE DIDNT EVEN SEE THE ZEBRA FOR MORE THAN .2 SECONDS!!!!

-I feel so emotional over Hermes because he really probably feels so terrible over Luke :,(

-honestly I’m okay with the new casino song tbh

-loved everyone’s various time period clothes/cars

-um the time shooting forward and our heroes missing the deadline kind of pisses me off tbh not gonna lie

-I kind of wish the casino looked more like it was described in the book… I feel like the movie pulled off the lotus casino better than the show :(

-(I know I know blasphemy)

-this was the episode I was most excited for and tbh I think it’s the worst so far.. like it was my favorite part of the books too and this episode was just so fucking boring dude…

-Percy still doesn’t know he can talk to horses? I thought he learned that with the Zebra?

-WISE GIRL!!!!?!!????!!!!

-I’m happy Grover finally seems interested in Pan

-I don’t really like that the kids KNOW literally everything like they are supposed to be 12 YEARS OLD with ADHD let them fucking stumble around a little bit more wtf

-why did Hermes waste their time? Is he siding with Luke?

-“I’m multitalented” fuck yes you are Annabeth

-everything where Grover’s memory is gone is prime character.

-not really how I thought Nerieds would look but I love her

-not Percy honking the horn so fucking late that was the funniest shit ever

[writeronartblock]

Listing fucked up shit that happened in BoBoiBoy, purely from memory (so details maybe fuzzy or I'm over-exaggerating):

1. At the start of the series, he literally got his powers at the age of like, 10. HE'S A BABY

2. The Second Tiers manifestations:

2.A. Halilintar got manifested after being seperated from the other elements and getting tortured via balloon poppings.

2.A.1. The fact that Adudu practically brainwashed him into joining his side after the fact.

2.A.2. Additionally, the fact that the massive drawback to BoBoiBoy's elemental split is the fact that he slowly loses his memories and gets amnesia? Fucked. Up.

2.B. Angin got upgraded to Taufan by getting DRUGGED via potion(?) enhanced cookies. Bro literally got into an acid trip and almost destroyed his town as he's promoting those cookies

2.C. Gempa manifested after having watched all of his friends NEARLY DIE and feeling helpless about the situation because he wasn't strong enough. DUDE–

3. The fact that Fire manifested as a STRESS COPING MECHANISM. OMG

4. Getting back to the getting drugged part, yeah, remember that episode when the gang got zapped by an emotion amplifier ray gun? It pretty much works the same way as the potion thing that happened Taufan

5. ONTO THE MOVIE, OH MY GOD THE MOVIE

5.A. Honestly, because of that, if there ever was like, a subplot, where Ochobot asks BoBoiBoy to take a rest and he refuses because of his crippling hero complex. I would get 'Nam flashbacks

6. To be honest I don't remember much about the movie actually, though I do vaguely remember that he got blasted into space and nearly froze to death? Or was that BBB Galaxy? Or both?

7. Fuck, wasn't he forced to fight Fang because of Kaizo and nearly died in the series finale?

8. For BBBG S1, I don't actually remember much aside from the season finale

9. Oh, but that timeloop episode got me tripped up like crazy. That is my NIGHTMARE scenario

10. And fuck, don't get me started on episode 14. Watching Hali show up again after so long was like watching an angel descend from heaven.

11. But the fact that he was flickering from his normal form to Hali in blinks and flashes, seeing him pushing himself to his absolute limit felt heartbreaking

12. Onto, BBB Movie 2

13. AAAAHHHHHH, THEY GOT SUCKED AWAY

14. BRO, WHEN I SAW SOLAR DISINTEGRATING INTO DUST I GOT SO WORRIED. LIKE WHAT WOULD HAPPEN TO THE REST OF THEM, HE'S PART OF BOBOIBOY HIMSELF, WHAT DO YOU MEAN HE'S NOW GONE????

15. Near death counter gets added several times here, like it isn't high enough already

And this is where I'll stop, since I haven't started on BBB Galaxy S2 yet (the comics or the now animated BBB Sori)

[mollish-art]

What is Generation Loss: Unperson?

Unperson is a Generation Loss AU written, illustrated, and narrated by yours truly!

The story begins as canon-adjacent to Generation 1 (the first chapter, Savior's Stigmata, is technically a prologue, in that it takes place during the events of episode three of The Social Experiments). In chapters 2 and onwards, the cast of TSE begin an adventure anew.

Showfall Media has revolutionized the field of interactive entertainment. In Hetch's Social Experiments, this entertainment took the form of three consecutive livestreams, which the audience could actively participate in and, ultimately, decide the fate of the Hero [i.e. Generation 1 of Generation Loss]. Now, Showfall Media is proud to bring you entertainment through an even more immersive medium: video games.

Anathema Annihilation is Showfall's most innovative use of "Phantoptics" technology to date: a video game where one's choices really matter and actively impact the world we live in.

Charlie awakens in a new environment and with a new purpose as the face of the beta tester's Hero avatar. Elsewhere, Ranboo has been revived, reprogrammed, and repurposed with a new face of his own: a biomechanical, bestial antagonist known as "The Devourer".

The player character - the Hero (who we know to be Charlie) - joins forces with a helpful non-player Companion (Sneeg) to eliminate a wide range of enemies - known as "Anathemas" - across multiple levels, each culminating with a fight against a powerful boss: an "Abomination".

Depending on the player's Variant choice, the theme (and therefore appearance and ability mechanics) of the Anathemas, as well as the Hero and Companion classses, changes.

Regardless of the player's Variant choice, however, the Abominations always remain the same: previous cast members who have been previously rejected by an audience and have been revived and repurposed as biomechanical monstrosities.

As the Hero and Companion progress through the levels of Anathema Annihilation, their minds become increasingly plagued by questions concerning their memories, free will, and grasp of reality. But they are not the only ones cursed with introspection; the Devouerer, too, clings desperately on to whatever shreds of humanity it still possesses, and seeks, above all else, to avenge its friends.

...

Now that you have a brief synopsis of the world and premise of Unperson, if you are so inclined, you can read the available chapters here or check out the in-universe website I created for it!

On the website, you can find additional lore, concept art, links to all currently available chapters (as well as audiobook adaptations of all of them, narrated by the author), themed playlists, and a fanworks feature page (showcasing some of the fanart and cosplay that you guys have made for this story)!

I am always open to Tumblr asks if you have any further questions!

Please note that Unperson is currently on a bit of a hiatus, however, as I am in graduate school and must focus on my academics before working on this AU. It will be completed - I promise you that! I have plans for the rest of the story, as well as more art and such on the way. Patience is key ;)

Here are the currently available chapters:

That's all for now, folks! Remember to check out the official website as well as my Unperson Youtube Playlist, which contains speedpaints for all of the chapter art as well as the audiobook adaptation!

Lastly, if you'd like to keep up to date on this project or share your feedback, follow or post on the #UnpersonGL tag!

[snapscube]

What dub has been the longest production so far? What about the shortest?

I don't have exact numbers on hand so this could be incorrect but the longest production was Until Dawn Parts 1 & 2 I think. For quite a few reasons. It came after a pretty major unintentional hiatus and after a lot of turbulence within the larger group so scheduling was kinda the last thing on anyone's mind for a bit. Then at the same time I was also going through a lot of different dub ideas that ended up being nonstarters, including the eventually shelved Psychonauts dub, so a lot of time was spent in the conceptual phase. Then the cherry on top of all that being I decided to produce the dub in two completely separate parts with their own standalone production processes, as opposed to something like the Spider-Man dub which was meant to be one single part at the beginning and was mostly produced simultaneously but had to be split in the recording and post production phase due to technical difficulties and my own impatience during the early SRTF days.

As for shortest production, part of me wants to say it was actually the SA2 dubs. I've mentioned this before but the success of the SA2 dub was MAJORLY unprecedented. It was basically started as an internal test pilot that I wasn't sure was going to see the light of day but then, yknow, that happened so I was like yeah there's no way we're not releasing this as the first episode. I put a lot of work into the sound effects placement and overall editing as I usually do, but the speed of production on it was unique cause it was all so fresh and I became very hyperfocused when I did start to gain momentum in the edit, so post production was finished in like... a couple nights I think?? Though there was a gap between the Hero and Dark story releases.

Again, this could be inaccurate cause my memory is shit but that's the best I got for ya right now haha.

[wildglitch]

What if Zombies!Spidey x DCU LETS GOOOOOOOOO-

O K-

So, This is the (Probably not the last, don't worry) post with ideas for my What If Zombies!Peter In the DCU AU. This is the post that (Finally) Focuses on the DC side of things. This post Is also going to be mainly focused on Peter and what he's up to cause he's the focus of this AU, but I’m probably gonna make another post with info on the other heroes, so If your interested in that, don't worry cause I am thinking about them (Bucky & Loki = Brainwashed bros)

Its also part 1 of Idk since this post kinda got away from me with its length (oops)

Anyways, without further adieu, let's start :D 

-So! starting this off with something fun and not that serious that I just found out. this should have probably gone in the first post but I didn't know this until now so here, a +1 info on “facts about the zombie apocalypse” tm. 

Ok, so at this point you know I like to play around with the timeline right? Ok so, I’m researching the dates and events things take place in right? Turns out, the snap happened in either May or June, and one source even said that it happened on May 31. Now, with this in mind and the fact that I said the apocalypse lasted between 7-8 months, what happens if you subtract 8 months from May? You get October. And if you add the date to it? Guys…I accidentally made it that the zombie apocalypse starts on Halloween! That's just insane!

The official timeline now is 8 months of the zombie apocalypse, no more no less, sorry, I don't make the rules :^ (omg I made Antman & the Wasp a halloween movie lmao. It fits)

-Alright so, Peter, Head Scott/w the cloke and T’challa are on a plane on their way to Wakanda when all of a sudden, well, how many of you seen the Young Justice Episode s1e19 Misplaced? (Btw have I talked about how much I love Billy batson? I will one of these days ok, and that's a threat) well anyways

Airplane squad: *”peacefully” traumatized on a plane to Wakanda

Airplane squad: *the people on the plane fucking fazes out of reality leaving him alone to fly the plane*

Peter: *Panik*

Peter: *feels a pull wanting to take him but fighting it off as he tries to fly a fucking plane*

Peter: *also fades out of reality but much later the other and is now falling to certain doom in the middle of the ocean*

Peter: “Oh What the F-”

Ya that-

I mixed aspects of the snap and scene from misplaced as their way of splitting up. And, they did split up. A high speed plane plus the time it took them to disappear firmly separates Peter from the rest of the heros. And thus the adventure commences

-unlike Billy who can fly, Peter falls head first at top speeds and a thousand meters high into the ocean.  This can happen a few different ways

1) Peter is stranded, and is found by Young Justice or any superhero team that was passing through the ocean and thinks “Oh shoot, that's a child”. And this is how he ends up with the league. This one is kinda fast and there wouldn't be any identity reveal since at this point this Peter has no concept of such a thing. But a good way to work around this is memory loss. Not really my cup of tea but I can very much see this happening considering how hard he hit his head

2) …So Peter fucking dies-

Listen! I somehow started off with my 2 most opposite extremes of ideas, but hear me out. The fall? It kills him. But lets say that some cult or the league of assassins or some shit find his body, realize he’s a “meta” and decide “Yeah, this is a good revival candidate” And they revive the poor sucker. He is held captive HYDRA style and they try to turn him into a weapon. Obviously, he escapes, set free onto the world with a few months of trauma and a stolen one way ticket anywhere. And that anywhere just so happens to be Gotham. I’ll let your mind take it from there

3) This is the last version of events I’m gonna mention and I think this one is the one I'm sticking with, purely for the comedic potential I can see coming out of this. So Peter fought back the spell right? Well unlike the snap where he was fighting a force of nature were he would not have won, Peter was fighting Loki off, which,

Yeah, so since Loki had to focus on getting that idiot spider child to cooperate, he loses track of everyone else, and all of a sudden, the fuzzy mental image he had of everyone dissipates, and Peters becomes the full focus. This lets him save the kid from the crash, but he now doesn't know where all of the others are, including his brother, and now he can't really get to any of them.

Peter: Fighting off that staticy feeling that's trying to take him

Loki: *Genuinely struggling to get this non magic kid to corporate with him*

Loki: Damnit CHILD! I'm trying to save your worthless life!

Peter: *Legit almost wins and gets left by himself in the zombieland* 

Loki: …What did they feed you?

-Peter is saved with a spell that's basically the bubble from steven universe but Loki style. He can breathe just fine, but he can't get out or call for hell. He spends many Hours like this.

-Ok so, Loki is a god. We have established this, I keep mentioning it (sorry) he himself brings this up multiple times. What is something gods tend to have sometimes? Avatars, people who act out their will on Earth. You see where I'm going with this? Since Peter is the only mortal from his world he has access to, and because he is stuck on the watchtower, he decides to make a deal with Peter to make him his Avatar and have him look for the others (Thor). Peter, after having most of the situation explained to him, accepts his offer, with a few conditions here and there that prevent Loki from taking full advantage of him. But at the end of the day, they are both desperate and accept the others' offers and conditions with little fuss.

-Deals and conditions for the avatar contract between Peter and Loki

Loki’s Mission: Find the other mortals and spread chaos as his agent Loki’s Offer: Slight magical aid, “ability boost”, Protection from other magical entities, Godly guide and knowledge and Loki wont force Peter into doing anything too grotesque Loki’s conditions for Peter: He will be able to access anything Peter is seeing and be able to take control of any situation if he sees it fit, he must go on the missions he sends him on, And if the situation ever truly demands it, he will listen to everything Loki tells him to do Peter’s Mission: Finding his friends and finding a cure to his world in this new one as Loki’s Agent. He must also make good impressions on other Magical being in this world as to not shame the god he’s representing Peter Offer: His loyalty and tentative trust, he won't argue too much and will do his absolut best to find Thor. he will Listen to Loki and do what he says Peter’s Conditions for Loki: Will become his Avatar as long as he gets to keep being a hero and doesn't have to hurt or kill people. He will only do a mission once a month, and he will not advertise the Avatar bit. Peter gets free will, He can refuse to do something as long as he isn't demanded of it.

With this, a hand shake, and some blood, The deal is made in the bubble in the middle of the ocean.

-Peter is now Loki’s Avatar, Moonknight style, Yay! They don't really like each other that much due to circumstance but it's fineeeeeee. I did this because 1) I thought of a scenario that didn't really make sense unless Peter was somehow talking to him 2) It’s a little nod to the fact most of the fics have the snapped souls with Peter on his adventure. I thought that this way he can still have his voice in his head , it's not that crowded because it's only one voice, and it's not that Intrusive because Loki isn't going to be with Peter 24/7 only when he needs him, he's using some of his powers, or when he can sense distress or danger coming from Peter- Other than that he's stuck at the watchtower trying to plan his next moves. And 3) Cause the thought came to me and i thought it was fucking Holirouse.

-With Some trickery, Peter sneaks onto a boat and spends his time hidden under the deck pretending and hides like a corner spider the whole trip

-Peter in his, Hasn't been around actual living breathing humans for such a long time, self, breaks down and cries at the docks. Coincidentally, The bats are doing a drug bust there and a wearhouse not 10 feet away from him blows up. 

-Peter in his typical fashion, Puts on his mask and runs into the building looking for survivors.

-The bats, not knowing what happened, see’s this costume stranger helping the thugs get away and immediately clocks him as a villain. Opps

-They fight, misunderstandings happen and now, The friendly neighborhood Spider-Man Is on the front page as gothams hottest new Rogue. Well shit

-Peter being the smart guy he is, squats at an unoccupied apartment and claims it as his. Then Loki shows up after weeks of radio silence, takes one look at the place and says, hell nah, and fixes the place up with magic making the place more than livable. With some (probably magical) persuasion, the guy renting out the place actually puts him on the lease with 50 bucks of monthly rent. Does Peter feel guilty…well? Gotta roll with the punches man. Plus, this place looks nice, ignoring his 20 something neighbor that has enough blood on him to turn his white hair dye red that had sent his spider sense. This is fine.

-With some help from the voice in his head and walking through dark alleys at night, he finds a guy that works for immigration and was selling sketchy (But legit) identities. Not really trusting the guy but in desperate need and ID for the lease he was about to sign, He coughs up all the savings he had, took a Photo, and Ben P. Riley was born. He said he didn't trust the guy.

-Peter has decided to go by an alias for a few reasons, like not knowing if there was already another Peter Parker in this reality and not really wanting to risk it or the plain fact that he didn't really trust anyone in this new reality with it  (Loki and his magical guidance, he has firmly decided to never give out his name so freely ever again). His name is one of the last things from his past life that he can call his own, And if his “Villainous” identity was revealed as Peter Parker, he didn't know if he could handle it. The most simple reason was that he just missed his family and wanted something in this new life he was making for himself to remind himself of them. Ofcourse, he still added that P in there middle so as to not completely erase himself.

-Peter spends a full month just trying to get used to living in a society again, This causes some problems and misunderstandings.

-After many series of misunderstandings and mishaps, everyone thinking he's evil, Peter decides, YK what's, If I can't beat them, join them. Peter starts going out as the “Villain Spider-Man” doing sketchy shit (normal teenage shit) and causing a commotion in Gotham. Peter counts this as his act of mischief and Loki agrees when he sees the kid sell his own photos to the newspaper. Peter isn't actually doing anything evil, it's just his presence that brings fear. The fact that the bats have caught him breaking into multiple high security facilities doesn't really help his case

-Peter spends his months looking through files and files of info searching for the others, but has just about no luck on anything.

-Peter, forced by a mission, goes undercover in Gotham prep to follow one of Loki’s leads. He doesn't really know what he's doing here, but this Tim guy is pretty nice

-Cause of the amazing pictures he keeps selling to the paper, the company hires him full time as their photographer for special events and even lets him write a few articles when they see the notes he puts next to his pictures that provide contexts and stuff like that. This job opens Peter to search to a whole new horizon.

-With Peter's new job, hes sent to many different cities which introduces him to many different people

-He meets Jimmy Olson on a trip to Metropolis and hits it off pretty well with the older man. Jimmy introduces him to his friends and coworkers Lois and Clark, both of whom are just a delegate. Though that Clark guy as not stopped setting of his spider sense since he met him

-The next place he went to was a city called Fawcett, where he was sent to help with a story with one of the local reporters who was apparently his age.

Boss guy: Ben, meet Billy. You two will be working together on the report for this years summer festival

The two sniff each other out as godly “employees” and exchange numbers. And thus, a friendship was born as Billy decided to keep an eye out for any other reality travelers, and Peter is put as one of his emergency contacts to help him get out of shit since he was “technically 20 according to his ID”

Peter: *Looks at Billy*

Billy: *Looks at ‘Ben’*

*Insert that one Spider-Man meme*

-Peter is also sent to Gothams sister city Bludhaven. Peter,ends up meeting a weird police officer that keeps expecting him to take pictures of the guy. But he's nice enough and bought him a hotdog and a cinnamon roll(even though he now thinks he's allergic to them), so the weird outweighs the good.

-On his trip to Bludhaven, Peter decides to go out as spider-man. Not to cause trouble, but to go sightseeing and swinging without the interference of a bat. He ends up sitting upside down on an old building (like that one Atsv scene)  working on some leads he has when all of a sudden, Nightwing appeared right behind him dangling off the side of the building like a mad man giving him a heart attack. Nightwing is about to confront the spider after his sneak attack was caught, but before he does, Peter holds out the cinnamon roll towards the vigilante as a peace offering rushing out the words “Please don't hit me!” and Nightwing just stares. He stares long and hard looking between the treat and the Spider mask. Peter was about to run from them when Nightwing sort of just…sits. Or sits at the best of his abilities with no gravity defying powers. He actually does a pretty good job at it. Nightwing takes to offering with a nod and the 2 just sort of sit there in silence. It's awkward and weird, and quiet but for some reason he doesn't feel as uncomfortable as he thinks he should. Even less when he feels the ringing of his spider senses slowly die down as the minutes pass until it's just a constant hum at the back of his head

-They don't talk after that but from here is a turning point as to how the Bat clan view the spider.

More? Nay I say! (There will be a part 2 to this specific post, but it has gotten too long and I need to go to bed. So hopefully this will do for now :^) Plus this feels like agood stoping point since I feel like that ending would mark the ending to an arc

Please let me know what you think of this AU. I love seeing other people's ideas and thoughts. It fuels me lo

And make sure to keep an eye out for Part 2 of this post.

Later

[slymewizard]

IF ANY OF YALL HAVENT WATCHED ADVENTURE TIME OR STOPPED PARTWAY THROUGH AND WANNA BINGE IT BEFORE FIONNA AND CAKE ENDS NEXT WEEK HERES A LIST OF EPISODES THAT ARE IMPORTANT TO THE PLOT! (And a few that are just good to watch in general) (Adventure Time lore is dense and filled with references to previous episodes so theres a lot to cover even cutting out unimportant ones. Start as soon as possible so you guys can finish in time for thursday)

Season 1: The Enchiridion, Ricardio, My Two Favorite People, Evicted, What is Life, Ocean of Fear, Freak City, Henchman, Finn Meets His Hero

(9 episodes)

Season 2: It Came From the Nightosphere, The Real You, Death In Bloom, Susan Strong, Go With Me, The Limit, Mortal Folly, Mortal Recoil

(8 episodes)

Season 3: Memory of a Memory, Too Young, Wizard Battle, Fionna and Cake, What Was Missing, The Creeps, Beautopia, Holly Jolly Secrets (parts 1 and 2), Dad’s Dungeon, Incendium

(11 episodes)

Season 4: Hot to the Touch, Return to the Nightosphere, Daddys Little Monster, In Your Footsteps, Sons of Mars, Burning Low, Lady and Peebles, You Made Me, I Remember You, The Lich

(10 episodes)

Season 5: Finn the Human, Jake the Dog, Jake the Dad, All Your Fault, Bad Little Boy, Simon and Marcy, Puhoy, Be More, Sky Witch, Frost and Fire, Too Old, Earth and Water, The Vault, Play Date, The Pit, Apple Wedding, Blade of Grass, Rattleballs, Betty, Lemonhope (Parts 1 and 2), Billys Bucket List

(22 episodes)

Season 6: Wake Up, Escape From the Citadel, The Tower, Breezy, Something Big, Joshua and Margaret Investigations, Is That You, The Cooler, Evergreen, Astral Plane, Gold Stars, The Visitor, The Mountain, Dark Purple, Jermaine, You Forgot Your Floaties, Orgalorg, On The Lam, Hot Diggity Doom, The Comet

(20 episodes)

Season 7: Bonnie and Neddy, Varmints, Mama Said, Stakes (Parts 1-8), The More You Moe the Moe You Know, Kings Ransom, Crossover, The Hall of Egress, Flute Spell

(16 episodes)

Season 8: Broke His Crown, I Am A Sword, Bun Bun, Normal Man, Elemental, The Music Hole, Preboot, Reboot, Two Swords, Do No Harm, Jelly Beans Have Power, Islands (Parts 1-8 except maybe 2)

(18 episodes)

Season 9: Orb, Elements (Parts 1-8), Abstract, Ketchup, Fionna and Cake and Fionna, Whispers, Three Buckets

(14 episodes)

Season 10: The Wild Hunt, Bonnibel Bubblegum, Seventeen, The First Investigation, Jake the Starchild, Temple of Mars, Gumbaldia, Come Along With Me

(8 episodes)

(136 episodes total, 143 episodes skipped, approximately 25 hours and 40 minutes total)

None of Distant Lands is SUPER necessary but I recommend watching all of them.

REBLOG THIS SO MORE PEOPLE SEE IT THE MORE PEOPLE WHO WATCH THIS THE MORE LIKELY WE ARE TO SEE ADVENTURE TIME GET MORE ATTENTION FROM HBOMAX!!!

ANYWAY ENOUGH READING GO GO GO!!!

[child-of-the-sky-people]

hi Ali! im looking for a new narrative podcast to get into, what's your current rec list? :)

Oh god it’s so long 😂

Horror:

Human Error - this one is mine so of course I’m recommending it 😂 it’s about a found family of survivors going on a road trip during a zombie apocalypse 12 years after the world ended!

We’re Alive - also zombie horror and was the show that got me into audio dramas! It’s very long and looks overwhelming but I promise it’s good!

Darkest Night - anthology horror where you find out how people died but each case is actually related and there is a bigger mystery and this show lives in my head rent free lol

The Waystation - found footage style show about a group of people on a space station that all died (the story is trying to piece together what happened). It’s along the same lines as The White Vault

DERELICT - a research group are studying a door at the bottom of the ocean, and then shit goes sideways. I binged this series super fact and I need season 2 immediately lol

The Eleventh Hour episode called The City of Statues - I made this! It’s about a group of survivors trying to make it out of a city filled with statues trying to hunt them down 👀

Someone Dies in this Elevator - mix of horror and thriller I think. It’s an anthology series where every episode someone dies in an elevator 👀 I composed for a few episodes and it’s v fun 🤩

Thriller

The Liberty Podcast - made by the same folks behind The White Vault and VAST Horizon. It’s an anthology series of stories taking place within and surrounding a tower where a civilization lives. Some episodes might lean more towards horror but I personally consider it more thriller

The Walk - made by the same folks behind zombies run! In this show you the listener are the main character, an individual making their way across Scotland with a package they were mistakenly delivered. I love this show so much omg

Primordial Deep - scientists are finding extinct dinosaurs alive and well under the ocean and they’re trying to figure out what the fuck is going on. I fucking love this show omg

Spines - woman wakes up in the middle of a cult ritual with no memories and is trying to figure out who she is and where she came from. Also there are powers!

Mirrors - same person behind Spines! Three women from three different centuries (who are all related to each other) discover they can communicate with each other through ghost like figures. It has a bigger mystery and the ending made me cry it was so good

InCo - a woman finds a prince from a world that shouldn’t exist floating in space. This show is a delight and is a micro series and I love the humor within it so much omg

Where the Stars Fell - the Antichrist is roommates with their guardian angel and they’re trying to stop the rapture

DUST - anthology series about science fiction and technology! Season 3 is definitely my favorite as it is one story but the entire show as a whole is very good

Feel Good/Light Hearted Shows

Unseen - this show lives in my head rent free and I ache for it to be real. It’s about magic existing in the real world and is an anthology! It’s made by the same folks behind Wolf 359

Joy to the World - holiday series I helped produce! It’s about an astronaut named Joy talking with different people on Earth about the holidays! It’s an anthology and v warm and I highly recommend it as a holiday series

Sidequesting - a person who is totally not the hero is avoiding the main plot and going on a bunch of side quests! It’s charming and lovely and made by the wonderful Tal

Back Again, Back Again - a woman is retelling her stories of his magical world she was transported into and about the prophecy she became involved in

If none of these are your jam lmk and I can suggest some more! If you tell me what you like to listen to/what kinds of stories you enjoy I can make a more personalized list

[cartoonrankings]

10 Cartoons With The Best Racial Diversity

Diversity is important in cartoons, and while racial diversity has been done well a lot for a while, I am happy to say that it is continuing to be done more and executed in a better fashion as time goes on! Today, I will be discussing what are, in my opinion, the 10 cartoons with the best racial diversity.

10. OK KO! Let’s be Heroes

Kicking off the list with a series that was also featured in my list counting down the cartoons with the best LGBTQ representation! OK KO! Let’s be Heroes had many awesome instances of racial representation throughout as well. A good portion of characters all have different races, which is amazing to see! While many shows do have different races between characters, one thing that separated OK KO! Let’s be Heroes from the rest was one episode called “No More Pow Cards”, in which KO’s friend Dendy feels that she will never be a hero due to the fact that her turtle race has been viewed as monsters. Due to this, these cards that KO and Dendy collect do not represent Dendy’s race. However, instead of just letting that happen, KO and Dendy confront the CEO. When seeing Dendy, the CEO sees that some of the Kappa are heroic, and due to this, he finally allows Kappa cards to be made. This episode was one of the main standouts to me, but aside from that, the series does stand strong in the field of representation!

OK KO! Let’s Be Heroes was a Cartoon Network series that ran from 2017 to 2019 for a total of 3 seasons and 112 episodes. The series was about Kaio Kincaid, also known as K.O. who hopes to become the world’s greatest hero. While hoping to accomplish this, he works at a store known as Gar’s Hero Supply and Bodega, which sells a variety of items, whether that be food, or even hero supplies. He works alongside two other employees known as Radicles and Enid. Oftentimes, the trio have to fight off Boxmore, a store that sells items to supervillains. OK KO: Let’s Be Heroes! is an amazing series with a unique artstyle, interesting characters and a great concept! It is definitely an amazing series that is racially diverse, and just a good series in general!  You can watch OK KO! Let’s be Heroes on HBO Max or Hulu!

9. The Hollow

Now, we move onto another show that I feel is quite underrated! The Hollow was a series which had a diverse main cast, all having a different race. Furthermore, the characters all feel normal, and they do not act differently based on their race, making them all feel more human. Having almost every main character different worked very well for me because it just felt that the series had the goal of showing people that different groups can get along well regardless of race. This series was one that was made in Canada, and in Canada, diverse groups like the one in The Hollow is very common.

The Hollow was a series running from 2018 to 2020 for a total of 2 seasons and 20 episodes. The series takes place in a strange world, where three teenagers named Adam, Mira and Kai all wake up. The three do not have any memories, and all they have at the time they wake up are each other. Due to this, the three work together to explore this new world, and to find their way back to their home (wherever their home is). However, they soon find that this world is not all that they think it is. The Hollow was a great series to me. Alongside its highlights, I loved the worldbuilding present in the series. Furthermore, the darker colors really stood out to me! It really matches with the feel of the show! It was definitely a fun series, and I do wish Netflix treated it better! You can watch The Hollow on Netflix!

8. The Loud House

Now, the Loud House is definitely another series that has to be mentioned if talking about diversity! The series has a lot of diversity among the different characters, from the Loud’s being a family with a Scottish Heritage, Lincoln’s best friend being African-American, and another family somewhat close to the Loud’s, the Santiago’s are Mexican! Furthermore, the series is a great representation of how different families can be as they have different struggles that they face, and different circumstances overall. The Loud House may have a bit of a negative reputation these days, but diversity is one thing it did well!

The Loud House is a series that is currently running on Nickelodeon. It has been a Nickelodeon hit series since 2016, and it has so far had 6 seasons consisting of 156 episodes. The series revolves around the Loud family, a family of 10 sisters and one single brother. The show is mostly focused on the brother, Lincoln, with some episodes focusing on certain sisters. The sisters, from oldest to youngest are Lori, Leni, Luna, Luan, Lynn, Lucy, Lana, Lola and Lily. Each of them have their own unique quirk, whether that be being good at a sport (Lynn), being a great musician (Luna), or even being filthy (Lana). The family often go through different sorts of adventures, some of which being adventures that most everyday families go through, with others being a bit more quirky than your average real life family. While the series is mostly episodic, there is some change as the series goes on, but none of these changes are huge. The Loud House has a lot to love! I love how there are so many characters, but all have unique quirks to set them apart, I love the comic book art style and I love the wholesomeness it has! While it is not as good as it was when it first aired, The Loud House is still pretty great to me! You can watch The Loud House on Netflix!

7. The Ghost and Molly McGee

I’m sure someone expected a Disney show in here somewhere seeing how I am obsessed with Disney, and I had to have The Ghost and Molly McGee in here somewhere! Now, this series was a standout to me because it includes a bi-racial main character who is half Irish and half Thai. The series is great at representing what our current society looks like - a mix of all sorts of races and religions. In fact, there was a whole episode where Molly was confused on her heritage, and was trying to find out where she truly belongs. Furthermore, while this is not direct, the ghost and Molly’s friendship symbolizes inclusiveness to me. The reason for this is because the two are clearly different in terms of their backgrounds, but once they meet, Molly is excited to have a friend, which shows kids that having friends that are not similar to you doesn’t have to be scary, and it can even be exhilarating!

The Ghost and Molly McGee is a series which aired first in 2021 on Disney, and is still airing! The series is about a 13 year old girl named Molly, who alongside her family moves to a rusty old house. Little did they know that this house has been inhabited by a ghost. Now, unlike most teenage girls, Molly wants to be his friend. He puts a curse on Molly, but that only brings them closer together! While he does not like Molly at first, he slowly opens up to her as well, and they eventually become good friends! Now, there is a lot to love about The Ghost and Molly Mcgee! Firstly, I love the designs and the brighter colors the show has. Furthermore, I love how vibrant the characters are! While The Ghost and Molly Mcgee is one of my less preferred shows from Disney’s more recent hits, I still have lots of love for it and hope it succeeds! You can watch The Ghost and Molly McGee on Disney +!

6. Amphibia

Now, I had to include this somewhere as it definitely has great representation for a variety of different races! The three main friend group consists of three girls, all of a different race - one of which being Thai, one being German and one being Taiwanese. Outside of the three main girls, many of the human characters are also represented through different races, which can be seen with the girl's classmates or even their principal. Amphibia has definitely done well with the representation, and they have shown how a normal society is with different races of people interacting with others, and not just sticking to one race in the series, like some do.

Amphibia is a series running from 2019 to 2022 on Disney, and has had a total of 3 seasons and 58 episodes through its runtime. The series revolves around Anne Boonchuy, a middle schooler, who steals a box with her friends Sasha and Marcy. However, they were in for a bit of a surprise. The box was actually a magic box, and once they stole it, they were transported to a new world, which is known as Amphibia. Amphibia differs from their regular world because it is full of frogs. When waking up in this new land, Anne realizes that she has been separated from her friends. Now, she must go on a quest to not only get back home, but to find them along the way to take them with her. She is originally found by a frog named Sprig, who came with the purpose of hunting her. However, after he finds her, they become good friends, and Anne moves in with them temporarily. However, along with meeting new friends like Sprig, she also runs into quite a few obstacles. Now, Amphibia is truly one of my favorite shows! I love everything from the characters to the humor to just the concept of middle school students getting sent to a frog world! It is definitely a great show, and I am glad to have found it! You can watch Amphibia on Disney Plus!

5. 6Teen

6Teen was another Canadian series that accurately captured Canada’s feel. In Canada, we have such a diverse range of people, and we get to see so many people mix around and mingle. In 6Teen, we have a mixture of different races among the main six characters, and we have the different background characters all from different ethnic groups. Seeing this accurately represented in a TV series was great, and it made me connect with the different characters.

6Teen was a series which ran from 2004 to 2010 for a total of 4 seasons and 93 episodes. It is about 6 teens who are 6teen! The teenagers go by the names of Wyatt, Jude, Jen, Caitlin, Jonesy and Nikki. They all just go through typical teenager situations that we all have been through, with some definitely being more insane than others! These situations are all that I am sure that we can relate to, whether that be the pressure of making money, the pressure of school, the pressure to impress a crush, you name it! Now, 6Teen is definitely a loveable series! Some of the standout attributes for me are the raunchy humor that was not overdone, the relatability and the development of certain characters (especially Caitlin). 6Teen is definitely an amazing series, and the diversity was a highlight! You can watch 6Teen on the YouTube channel Retro Rerun or on Tubi!

4. Detentionaire

I previously mentioned an underrated show, but now, we will be talking about what I think is the most underrated show! Detentionaire is a pretty unique show when it comes to diversity. The show takes place in a high school, and the different cliques that the school has is similar to cliques you would find in real life. Furthermore, the school has a bunch of different races and ethnicities mixing along. While many of the different characters in these cliques seem like stereotypes in the first few episodes, the series illustrates how while someone may seem shallow from surface level, they have much more to them. While the series is mainly focused on the main character, some background characters get shine on them, and we learn much more about them than we thought they had. Detentionaire did a great job at illustrating that all sorts of people are more than what we think they are, and that all people do go through different circumstances.

Detentionaire revolves around a highschooler named Lee, who on his first day of school, gets framed for a huge prank, and gets a year of detention for this. With some help from his friends, he goes on a quest to clear his name by investigating different students and cliques. However, early on, he realizes that whatever is going on is more than the prank. Instead, he finds out that the prank was just a small set piece that connects to this huge government level conspiracy. He is not the only person who has a connection to this conspiracy - his parents do as well! Due to his connection, he realizes that the whole world may be at stake unless he does something. Now, Detentionaire is so great that I do not know where to start - firstly, I would say that the characters all feel like what you would see at an actual high school, and as they open up, it makes them all feel very real. Furthermore, I love the plot progression - the show really starts with a prank in episode one, and by the final episode, he is trying to stop an ancient pyramid from opening up as an ancient species is inside, waiting to take over Earth. Finally, the mystery itself was a pleasure to watch as it had so much depth to it, and each answered question would open up many new questions! Detentionaire is one of my favorite shows, and I could go on forever talking about how amazing it is! You can watch Detentionaire on the YouTube channel Retro Rerun, or on Tubi!

3. Glitch Techs

Now that we already have a Nickelodeon show down, I might as well add another one to the list! Glitch Techs was another series that had great diversity! The series had two main characters, with one being a Mexican American, and the other one being a Japanese-American. The Glitch Techs (which is the name of the group as a whole) has a lot of members of different races, whether that be Zahra, who is an Arab-American girl that actually wears a hijab, or the Leader, Mitch, who is a Black British male. Now, I brought up these two in particular because they really stood out to me. I do not usually see characters represent their religion by wearing hijabs in animated TV shows, so it was amazing to see! Furthermore, I have watched lots of cartoons, and it’s rare for me to see a black character leading a group, which I always found sad as they are underrepresented! Seeing this in Glitch Techs made me really happy!

Glitch Techs is about two teenagers named Hector and Miko. The two often work together to stop “glitches”, which are video game characters that leave the game and try causing havoc on their world. Now, there is a lot to love about Glitch Techs, whether that be the concept alone, the vibrant and as I mentioned earlier, diverse characters, or the amazing designs that the series uses! Glitch Techs is an amazing series, and it truly deserved better from Nickelodeon! I hope that one day, it gets the continuation it deserves! You can watch Glitch Techs on Netflix!

2. Dead End: Paranormal Park

Now, I recently started Dead End: Paranormal Park, and I have to say that in the field of representation, it is spectacular! The series has a variety of characters of different races. For instance, the main character Barney is white, while his best friend/co-worker Norma is Pakistani. Through the series, there are many other characters coming from different races such as his boyfriend Logan, who is Vietnamese. Another thing that makes the diversity powerful to me is that each of the characters are being played by a person who is the same race as that character, which, to me, is going above and beyond to contribute to a diverse environment. Many shows do not do this, but Dead End: Paranormal Park stood out for this.

Dead End: Paranormal Park is a Netflix original that originally aired early this year for a season of 10 episodes, with plans for a second season to come out soon. Dead End: Paranormal Park revolves around Barney and Norma who were recently hired at a new theme park that is actually haunted. However, aside from being actually haunted, there is actually some big lore that is being built upon. From the first scene itself, we see Pauline Phoenix, the actress who the park is based off, get killed. This indicates what there is to come! Dead End: Paranormal Park is one of the more recent shows I have checked out, and there is so much greatness the show offers! I love the representation, the color choices they use and the horror elements (I will be rewatching it this Halloween! Dead End: Paranormal Park is a great show with awesome representation, and it is probably my favorite series that came out this year! You can watch Dead End: Paranormal Park on Netflix!

1. Craig of the Creek

I have seen many shows, but in terms of racial diversity, Craig of the Creek is outstanding! The series has had so much when it comes to racial diversity as we get introduced to so many characters of different ethnic groups. For instance, we have the main character, who is African American, but outside of that, we have Indian characters, East Asian characters, you name it! The characters are not only all there and have an important role, but these characters also all embrace their different ethnicities, and the specific cultures that the characters have are mentioned in the series! For instance, one of the Indian characters Raj, had a short dedicated to him and his grandma, where the main character Craig was trying to learn more about their culture. Acts like these go a long way as they encourage children to embrace their culture and to not be ashamed of it. Craig of the Creek also showed how so many different people can become great friends regardless of the ethnicity they are from. The main cast of characters are all so diverse, and instead of running from that diversity, they all embrace it and continue to spend time with each other.

Craig of the Creek is a series that is currently running. It started in 2017, and through its time, it has had a total of 3 seasons with 120 episodes. The series was about a young adventurous boy named Craig, who often goes on different sorts of adventures at this creek he lives near. He is accompanied by his friends Kelsey and JP. The adventures vary from episode to episode. Sometimes, they are more nature-esque in the creek, and sometimes they are more technical. Whatever they are upto though, is always entertaining to see. Now, with me, I love the character designs (with JP being my favorite), I love the characters who bring these designs to life, and I love the wholesome feeling that I get when watching it as it definitely has some touching moments. I am almost caught up with Craig of the Creek, and I have to say I definitely love it from what I have seen! You can watch Craig of the Creek on HBO Max!

So these were the 10 cartoons with the best racial diversity in my opinion! Which ones did you agree with? Disagree with? Would you change anything? And follow me for more cartoon-related blogs!

[wingsoverlagos]

The Evolving Story of Kim Bennett, Pt. 1: Before Lewisohn

0. Mark Lewisohn’s Star Witness 1. An Introduction and Primer 2. The Evolving Story of Kim Bennett, Pt. 1: Before Lewisohn >You Are Here< 3. The Classic™ Contract Story, and Why Lewisohn Distrusts It 4. The Evolving Story of Kim Bennett, Pt. 2: Tune In 5. Lewisohn’s Other Sources 6. Lewisohn’s Portrayal of Kim Bennett & George Martin

After two posts and as many months of build-up, it’s finally time to look at Kim Bennett’s presence in Beatles history before Mark Lewisohn’s Tune In. As a refresher, Kim Bennett was a music plugger involved in a brief chapter of the Beatles' story, who Lewisohn draws on as a crucial witness to ~debunk the myth~ of how the Beatles’ first landed their recording contract with Parlophone. I’ve previously shown an example of Kim Bennett’s presence in Beatledom here, in an issue of Beatles Book Monthly, just a few pages before the name of a young Mark Lewisohn. I’ve also discussed some of the ways Lewisohn slants a story when he’s set on overturning a classic narrative – you can find that here.

Section 1: Mark Lewisohn on Kim Bennett

Part of the appeal of Mark Lewisohn’s Beatles-signing scoop is Kim Bennett’s oft-stated absence from the Beatles narrative. Lewisohn found and memorialized a man who had been marginalized from the Beatles’ story, a hero integral to their success who was erased from history due to his inconvenience to the legacy of a certain acclaimed producer. Not only has Lewisohn turned a classic narrative upside down, he’s righted the wrong done to Kim Bennett by the powers that be--or so he would have us believe. The importance of Bennett’s testimony and his exclusivity to Tune In is a crucial element of Lewisohn’s myth-building around himself and his work. Let’s take a look at a few examples:

In a 2014 interview with Dierdre Kelly, Lewisohn calls his revised version of the Beatles’ recording contract “probably one of the biggest things in the book.” As for how he came to that version of events, Lewisohn says, “It all fell into place when I met a man called Kim Bennett…without whose incredibly tenacious efforts—and he was never named in any book—we would never have heard of the Beatles. He literally was the story’s hero and he tells us a very different story.” [Emphasis mine]

From Allan Kozinn’s 2013 interview with Lewisohn, we get the following exchange:

Kozinn describes Bennett as “someone who had never been interviewed,” and Lewisohn not only doesn’t correct him, he furthers that idea by saying Bennett “had been trying for years to get people to listen to his story…and nobody wanted to know.”

As a final example, we’ll return to the episode of Nothing Is Real (season 7, ep. 7) that I excerpted in my first post on Bennett.

A partial transcript [emphasis mine]:

“I approached him, and he was so happy that I got in touch with him because he knew the true story of how the Beatles came to be signed to EMI and he knew that it was his efforts that had made the difference, and without him, it wouldn’t have happened. The Beatles possibly may never have happened without Kim Bennett, and he’d been trying to tell people for years, and people didn’t want to know.”

“He was a very frustrated man because no one had ever paid him the attention that he felt was his due.”

“…and if I hadn’t of got to him when we did, we wouldn’t know him, and we would always have that bizarre gap of how they got signed by someone who never met them.”

Again and again, Lewisohn tells us that Kim Bennett had been trying desperately for years to gain recognition for his action, and everyone ignored him--everyone but Mark Lewisohn. This is decidedly untrue. He has been mentioned in multiple Beatles publications by major names in Beatles history, which you can find in Section 3. But first!

Section 2: Biographical & Background Info

Here he is, the man of the hour, Kim Bennett - and I bet you thought that was the Barry Sisters! On the left, we see Kim Bennett's floating head from his days as a singer, and on the right, we see him fraternizing with Russ Conway circa 1967 - Bennett is in profile on the right. I've dug up some biographical information on the enigmatic Kim Bennett, and I wanted to share it here along with a little context about music publishing to make the accounts shared in the next section make mroe sense. If you're confident in your early-1960s music industry knowledge and know who Kim Bennett and Sid Colman are, scroll right along to Section 3.

I've cited Lewisohn a few times in this section when other sources weren't available. Every time I cite him, I put a quarter in the "Risky Citations" jar - once I've filled it a few hundred times, I'll take it to CoinStar and use the money to buy a copy of Fifty Years Adrift.

The Parlophone Contract Story is a story with many bit parts, most of whom won't appear until my next post--there will even be a figure! I'll assume you know the Beatles, Brian Epstein, and George Martin, the man who would become the Beatles' main producer. In the parlance of the times, George Martin was the A&R man (artistes and repertoire) of EMI's Parlophone label. As the A&R man at Parlophone, George M. has the head of the label, with duties including scouting artists, matching his stable of artists with songs, and overseeing the recording process.

Alongside record labels like Parlophone, Columbia, and HMV, EMI had other companies under its corporate umbrella. One of these companies was the music publisher, Ardmore & Beechwood (A&B).

Music publishers manage song copyrights; they make money by marketing and disseminating those songs. In the early 20th century, the big moneymaker for music publishers was sheet music sales. By the 1950s and 60s a sea change was in progress as record sales grew and eventually eclipsed the sale of sheet music. Just as the medium through which songs were sold changed, so did the way in which music publishers sold those songs: originally, song pluggers from publishing companies would pitch their songs to orchestras, brass bands, and dance halls, seeking out groups who performed live music, so that their audiences would go out and buy sheet music of the songs they’d heard (Southall & Perry 2006, p.ix-xii). With the rise of records, song pluggers would pitch their songs directly to A&R men; they would visit the A&R men in their office and sing the songs they had on offer, accompanying themselves on the piano while they did (Martin & Hornsby 1979, p.48). They could then market those records to sell their songs. If a song was recorded by multiple artists, as was often the case, the song publisher benefited regardless of which version of a song played. This set their interests slightly apart from record producers, who only benefited if their version of a song sold.

Let's illustrate with a Lennon-McCartney original: the music publisher for Lennon-McCartney's music, Northern Songs, would profit from both the Rolling Stones version of 'I Wanna Be Your Man' and the Beatles version, but the record companies would only benefit from the version they released - the Stones version meant money in Decca's pocket, while the Beatles version benefited EMI.

(I'm sure their are some additional business/contract complexities that come into play, but I believe the general principle is correct)

EMI Music Publishing would one day be a Big Fucking Deal, but when the Beatles joined in 1962, it didn't exist yet. Publishing was a minor interest for the company, and they had only a small publishing presence in the form of A&B, which opened in 1958 (Martland 1997, p.262). A&B was set up to handle the publishing interests of  two American companies, Ardmore Music Corp. and Beechwood Music Corp., both of which were owned by Capitol Records (Cash Box 1958 Jul 26, p.34). Capitol Records had been purchased by EMI in 1955 (Southall 2009, p.25), and A&B was set up a few years later to handle their catalogue in the U.K., while also providing and option to publish through EMI for any interested songwriters. This was done at the behest of EMI Chairman Sir Joseph Lockwood (Southall 2006, p.9-10).

From its genesis, veteran music publisher Sid Colman (1905-65) served as general manager of Ardmore & Beechwood (Cash Box 1958 Jul 26, p.34). He would serve in this role until his untimely death in April 1965 (Cash Box 1965 Apr 24, p.47). You will encounter multiple spellings of his name, but Lewisohn assures us that Sid Colman (rather than Syd Coleman) is correct (2013, p.856). Kim Bennett served as his assistant and music plugger.

Born Thomas Whippey (1931-2004) (Lewisohn 2013), he became a Decca recording artist in 1954 under the name Kim Bennett. He recorded six singles, none of which charted. I haven’t found any of his work online, but for an idea of the type of music he released, here are other versions of two songs he put out: ‘Softly, Softly’ by Ruby Murray and ‘The Kentuckian Song’ by Eddy Arnold. He maintained a day job as an office worker until 1955, then briefly worked as a musician full time. He worked a season at Butlin’s (not the same location as Ringo), played some clubs, and toured with the Ambrose orchestra, but his career as a singer had petered out by late 1956. As Don Wicks puts it “[h]e was a victim of the growing rock and roll industry no longer interested in a soft pleasant vocal style.” (Wicks 1996 pt.1)

He resumed work at a toy warehouse, (Wicks 1996 pt.1) but later took a job in music publishing with B. Feldman & Co. Ltd. (Cash Box 1967 Jul 22 p.65). He began work with Ardmore & Beechwood no sooner than August 1958. He was still with Ardmore & Beechwood as of June 1965 (Cash Box 1965 Jun 5 p.55). By July 1967, he had moved to South Africa, where he ran a newly launched publishing company, Francis Day (S.A.) (Pty), which was established to manage copyrights of B. Feldman & Co. Ltd., Francis Day & Hunter, and Robbins (Cash Box 1967 Jul 22 p.65).

According to Lewisohn, Bennett spent his later years in Shropshire in “quite humble circumstances (Nothing Is Real, Season 7 Ep. 7, 29:30). He was interviewed by Lewisohn on July 27-28, 2003 (Lewisohn 2013 p.869). He died in 2004.

While biographical information on Bennett between 1967 and 2003 is slim (perhaps nonexistent), his role in the Beatles story received several mentions in print in those intervening decades.

Section 3: Kim Bennett in Beatles History

As I highlighted in my first post in this series, Kim Bennett was quoted in Beatles Book Monthly Issue 70, but that isn't his earliest appearance in the Beatles lore - he first appears in an earlier issue of BBM, issue 13, published in Augst 1964, p.22-3. He's mentioned by BBC DJ Ted King in relation to his work plugging 'Love Me Do'.

To summarize: Kim Bennett went to lunch with Ted King and pitched “Love Me Do” to him. King wasn’t fond of the record, but Bennett’s enthusiasm convinced King to play it on “Twelve O’Clock Spin.”

Our next Bennett sighting (and the first to use Bennett as a source) is the aforementioned BBM Issue 70, p.8, published May 1969.

This is part of a piece titled “When did you Switch On?” whose author is unattributed. Whoever they are spoke to Kim Bennett directly. Here’s what we can gather from this piece:

Kim Bennett was Sid Colman’s assistant

Colman “had quite a job to persuade George Martin to see the Beatles”

Bennett, presumably, was in the room when Colman “first heard the Beatles’ tapes”, since Bennett is able to relate what Sid Colman said on the matter

Colman decided to call Martin because he did not have a similar-sounding pop group, while the other EMI A&R men did

Bennett next crops up in several of Bill Harry's books, starting in 1982. Bill Harry is the founder of Mersey Beat and was an art school chum of John and Stu's; he's written a number of reference books about the Beatles, including The Beatles Encyclopedia, The John Lennon Encyclopedia, and The Book of Beatle Lists, among many others. Four of his books mention Bennett. The information in these books seems to be pulled from the two BBM articles highlighted above - with the possible exception of the last one. The books where Bennett is mentioned include:

The Beatles Who’s Who (1982): An encyclopedia of Beatle people. Bennett does not get his own entry, but he is mentioned in the entry on Sid Colman (p.84). Bennett is said to be Colman’s assistant, and his involvement in “Love Me Do” promotions is noted without detail.

The Ultimate Beatles Encyclopedia (1992): Bennett now gets his own entry (p.84-5). Again, this appears to draw from the Beatles Book articles. More detail is included here than in The Beatles Who’s Who. Bennett is mentioned again in Sid Colman’s entry (p.168). There’s a reference to Colman and Bennett liking the demos for “Love of the Loved” and “Hello Little Girl”, which is not mentioned in BBM above. However, these songs were referenced in relation to Sid Colman in The Beatles Who’s Who, so I think Bennett is just lumped in with Colman here.

Also in the Colman entry, Harry points out two conflicting accounts of the promotion of “Love Me Do.” George Martin wrote in his memoir that Ardmore & Beechwood did “virtually nothing” to promote the song, but Ted King, in BBM Issue 13, said it was Kim Bennett who got him to play the song on “Twelve O’Clock Spin.” This apparent contradiction will be discussed in detail when we deal with Tune In’s version of events, but for now, I’ll say this: it can be true that Kim Bennett did his best to promote 'Love Me Do' and acheived limited success while still falling short of the expectations of George Martin (and, crucially, Brian Epstein).

The Encyclopedia of Beatles People (1997): Bennett has a brief entry (p.45) and is mentioned in Sid Colman’s entry (p.92-93.) The Sid Colman entry includes this quote from Sir Joseph Lockwood about the Beatles’ publishing rights “I don’t blame Sid Coleman [sic], because he published the first two songs without a contract. He wasn’t getting any support from either the record producers or the solicitors.” This quote appears in Ray Coleman’s The Man Who Made The Beatles (1989), seemingly from an interview conducted by Coleman while researching that book.

The Ultimate Beatles Encyclopedia (Revised & Updated, 2001): The entry for Kim Bennett includes the entirety of the entry in the 1992 version with an additional two paragraphs (p.135-6). These paragraphs are emotionally charged and add information not available in the two articles from BBM. After detailing Bennett's involvement in 'Love Me Do' promo, Bill Harry writes,

“It’s ironic that the two people who were so enthusiastic about the Beatles and helped to get them with EMI in the first place were to have George Martin shut the door in their face by suggesting to Brian Epstein that he see Dick James about being their publisher. For one thing, it was Coleman [sic] who, after talking to Brian realized that the only A&R man at EMI who hadn’t rejected the Beatles was George Martin. Apparently, Coleman had a hard job persuading Martin to see Epstein. Even then, Martin wasn’t initially impressed by their sound. He only agreed to a test session at EMI’s No. 3 studio four weeks later, then another three months elapsed before the release of their first single. EMI and Martin weren’t even confident enough to give the Beatles a plug rating. Artists such as Cliff Richard received an ‘A’ plug on EMI’s Radio Luxembourg shows. The lowest was ‘B2’. The Beatles weren’t even given this low plug, EMI gave ‘Love Me Do’ a nil rating. “So Bennett had a hard job pushing the record without EMI using their clout. As a result, Epstein refused Ardmore & Beechwood the future Beatles publishing. Had he done so, the Beatles might have retained the rights to their own songs, and Coleman might have received some acknowledgment for having placed the Beatles into his hands in the first place.”

It’s hard to say whether or not additional information from Kim Bennett made it into this article. Much of this could be pulled from other sources and presented through a negative lens stemming from Dick James’ involvement in the Northern Songs debacle. There are, however, two elements here that are consistent with Bennett’s later accounts that might suggest that he spoke with Bill Harry: (1) the phrasing that George Martin “shut the door” in the face of A&B, rather than Brian Epstein actively seeking out a different publisher and going to George for advice, and (2) the blame placed on George Martin for the Beatles low plug rating. Both new elements, and both inconsistent with certain other versions of events.

In Philip Norman's revised Shout! (2003), there is unambiguous evidence of Kim Bennett's participation.

In the original 1981 release, Sid Colman and A&B are mentioned, but not Bennett; in the revised edition, not only is Kim Bennett present, but the information surrounding him is clearly more than the familiar, regurgitated tale found in Beatles Book Monthly.

Norman doesn’t give citations, so I can’t say conclusively how he got this new information. There may be an interview with Kim Bennett published somewhere that I haven’t come across, though I’m inclined to believe either Norman or one of his research assistants spoke to Kim Bennett directly. The phrase “According to Bennett” appears a few times in Shout! (2003), which reads as if the information is coming directly from the horse’s mouth, so to speak.

Since the revised edition was published in the same year as Lewisohn’s interview with Kim Bennett, I considered that Lewisohn might have shared his information with Norman, and Norman may have rushed an edit. I looked for the exact publication date for the revised edition of Shout!—it was weirdly hard to find—and that put to bed any ideas of Norman cribbing off of Lewisohn’s notes: Pan Macmillan Australia gives the release date as January 9, 2003, several months before Lewisohn interviewed Bennett.

The Contract Story, as presented in the revised Shout! starts in the usual way: Brian gets an acetate made from the Beatles’ demo tape, the technician likes it and puts Brian in touch with Sid Colman, who works for A&B upstairs. Colman is interested in publishing the original Lennon-McCartney numbers. Then Kim Bennett enters the picture (Norman 2003, p.164-5):

Bennett likes the disc, too, and suggests they record the Beatles independently in the for-hire studio below their Oxford Street office. Colman takes Bennett’s idea to Len Wood, managing director at EMI, but it goes against protocol, and Wood won’t allow it. Only then does Colman put Brian in touch with George Martin. Colman and Brian have a “gentlemen’s agreement” that A&B will get the Lennon-McCartney publishing rights if they get a contract with George M.

It’s a short passage, but there are already a few problems here. First, the timeline doesn’t make sense. Most early accounts have Brian’s meeting with George M. occurring the day after Sid Colman hears the tapes (see A Cellarful of Noise, The Beatles (1968), and All You Need Is Ears). The largest gap is given by Lewisohn’s Chronicle (p.53-55), in which Epstein is said to have met Colman “around February 8” (a Thursday), with the Epstein-Martin meeting occurring on Tuesday, February 13. The Epstein-Martin meeting date seems to be pulled from George Martin’s date book (he has a meeting with a “Bernard Epstein” on that date), but I’m unsure what brought Lewisohn to the February 8 conclusion. Based on other information in the Chronicle, my best guess is either a meeting between Colman and Martin on February 9th, or a letter sent to Decca by Epstein on February 10th stating he had secured a recording contract. Whether or not he had met with Colman, Epstein certainly hadn’t secured a recording contract on that date – it was purely bluster, a kiss-off to Decca.

Regardless, even if Epstein met Colman on February 8th rather than February 12th, that’s a narrow window of time for Bennett’s story to occur. Rather than trying to place the group with an A&R man at EMI, Colman does nothing until his assistant suggests they record the Beatles themselves. This is unorthodox. A large part of the job of music publishers, as I’ve said above, is to pitch songs to A&R men to get them recorded. In this case, they’d be pitching a group along with the songs, but it seems strange that they wouldn’t try to work their contacts at all before making the jump to DIY. Still, let’s assume that happens. Colman takes the idea to Len Wood. Len Wood’s office at the time was probably at EMI House in Manchester Square, which isn’t far from A&B’s Oxford Street location, so assuming Len Wood had an open schedule, and Colman felt a high enough degree of urgency to immediately take Bennett’s idea to the managing director, I suppose it’s possible that Colman took Bennett’s idea to Wood, was immediately shut down, and then called Epstein back in to set up a meeting with George Martin if we assume Epstein’s first meeting with Colman happened on the 8th rather than the 11th. Still, it seems odd to me that these events wouldn’t turn up in Epstein’s account – getting shut down by the managing director of EMI Records is sort of a big deal, and would add to the drama of the everyone-rejected-them-but-George-Martin-story.

The other big issue here is that this version of events contradicts Bennett’s account from 1969. Rather than simply overhearing Colman’s conversation with Epstein and subsequent persuasion of George Martin, Bennett now has a more active, central role. He’s not driving the story, but he now gives a version of events in which he’s one of the Beatles’ earliest champions. I don’t think it’s unfair to consider that Bennett’s increased involvement in the story might indicate an interest in being more than a footnote in Beatles’ history.

Bennett is mentioned again during the promotions of ‘Love Me Do’ (p.182-3):

Bennett secures some airtime on Two-Way Family Favourites by “repeatedly nagging a radio producer friend.” This is not the same radio show mentioned in Beatles Book Monthly Issue 13 (above), but it’s in keeping with Bennett’s role as a plugger—and that’s where Bennett’s involvement ends in Shout! (2003). There’s one more tantalizing mention of Brian’s “gentlemen’s agreement” with Colman, which he breaks due to his dissatisfaction with A&B, turning to George Martin for publishing advice.

There you have it: Kim Bennett’s evolving story pre-Tune In. It starts as a bit of extra detail that fits inside the greater framework of the Beatles’ Contract Saga, and, after thirty years, morphs into something that contradicts Bennett’s earlier version and the many other accounts of the same events. Things will get even stickier once we get to Tune In. But first...

Section 4: Why Does It Matter?

I can think of three explanations for why Lewisohn pitched Bennett as an unheard witness when he had, in fact, gone on the record before, and none of these explanations helps the credibility of the story.

Explanation 1: Neither Lewisohn nor Bennett knew about Bennett’s previous statements on the matter. This would be extremely damning for Bennett’s reliability, as it would mean he had forgotten both his 1960s statement to Beatles Book Monthly (plausible) as well as the interview that led to the information included in Shout! (concerning). This scenario also requires Lewisohn to be unaware of the above Bennett appearances, which doesn’t reflect well on his abilities as a researcher. If you find someone who you think has never been on record, you might want to at least look him up in the glossary of books by major Beatle authors.

Explanation 2: Bennett knew; Lewisohn didn’t. Perhaps Kim Bennett either neglected to inform Lewisohn of his past interviews, or outright lied to him on the matter. Lewisohn says that Bennett is “known for a dogged persistency” (Lewisohn 2013, p.571), has said that Bennett “just picks something up and he will not let it go,” (Let It Roll 2020, ~25:50), that he is “very insistent about things” and by the time Lewisohn interviewed him, “was a very frustrated man because no one had ever paid him the attention that he felt was his due.” (Nothing Is Real S7Ep7) Could this tenacity and feeling of entitlement to a part of the Beatles’ legacy have led Bennett to present himself as a bigger scoop than he really was? Might he have sold Lewisohn a tale of exclusivity and, perhaps, a version of the Contract Story more salacious and headline-grabbing than the truth?

Again, this explanation also hinges on the idea that Lewisohn was in the dark about Bennett’s prior interview(s), which is a huge oversight, but not as damning as explanation 3.

Explanation 3: Lewisohn knew and lied. Whether Bennett told Lewisohn outright that he had been interviewed in the past or if Lewisohn came upon that information in his research, Lewisohn chose to portray his interview with Bennett as exclusive. Perhaps this was purely to make his “scoop” seem juicier. Perhaps he was reluctant to give Philip Norman credit for finding Bennett first – there seems to be no love lost between Lewisohn and his former employer. Or perhaps Lewisohn knew that Bennett’s prior accounts made the story told in Tune In less credible. The early anecdote related in BBM already conflicted with the revised version in Shout! – if Bennett’s account, as related in Tune In, presented further inconsistencies, it would undermine Lewisohn’s major finding.

I’ll close with a segment from one of the better Lewisohn interviews I’ve heard. It’s from Ken Michaels’ radio show ‘Every Little Thing’, conducted in ~2013, and it’s one of the rare instances where an interviewer gives Lewisohn any pushback or asks follow-up questions regarding some of his more explosive claims. It’s an uncomfortable listen – Ken Michaels even appeared in the comments of this YouTube channel to counter claims that he has beef with Lewisohn– but satisfying to hear some meaningful questions when so many people are content to simply deify Lewisohn. Here's the relevant exchange:

KM: Aren’t there also problems with certain people that you’ve interviewed that have played some part in Beatle history that want to really elevate their status?

ML: Oh yeah, oh yeah, and it’s up to authors to ensure that they don’t get what they want. And there are unfortunately too many authors who just very happily take the stuff they’re given without challenging it. You’ve got to challenge all these things. And unless something completely fits into the framework of the story, you can’t use it.

Next time, on Days of Our Lies: the Classic Version of the Contract Story, and why Mark Lewisohn is so intent on debunking it. After that, we’ll finally look at the Contract Story as portrayed in Tune In.

Sources:

Cockcroft S, Carty J. 2023 Feb 14 [conducted 2023 Jan]. Nothing Is Real – Season 7 Episode 7 – Mark Lewisohn Returns [podcast, season 7, episode 7]. Nothing Is Real. 1:17:15. Available from: https://open.spotify.com/episode/5mtbNIreAY0Car6VASuZGV?si=b1e322e001a347e3

Coleman R. 1989. The Man Who Made the Beatles: An Intimate Biography of Brian Epstein. New York (NY): McGraw-Hill Publishing Company. 400p. Accessed online 2024 Mar 19. Available from: https://archive.org/details/manwhomadebeatle00cole/mode/2up

Kelly D. 2014 Jul 30. Setting the Record Straight: Interview with Beatles biographer Mark Lewisohn. Critics at Large. Accessed 2024 Mar 4. Available online: https://www.criticsatlarge.ca/2014/07/setting-record-straight-interview-with.html

Kozinn A. 2013 Dec 27. Tune In, and Turn On the Reading Light. ArtsBeat: New York Times Blog [accessed 2024 Feb 6]. Available from: https://archive.nytimes.com/artsbeat.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/12/27/tune-in-and-turn-on-the-reading-light/?_r=0

Lewisohn M. 1992. The Complete Beatles Chronicle. New York(NY): Barnes & Noble Books. 365p. Accessed online 2024 Mar 14. Available from: https://archive.org/details/completebeatlesc0000lewi/mode/2up

Lewisohn M. 2013. 1st U.S. Edition. The Beatles: All These Years Vol. 1: Tune In. New York (NY): Crown Archetype. 932p.

Lichtman I [editor]. 1965 Apr 24. Great Britain. Cash Box XXVI(40); International Section p.45. Accessed online 2024 Mar 18. Available from: https://archive.org/details/cashbox26unse_31/page/44/mode/2up

Lichtman I [editor]. 1965 Jun 5. Great Britain. Cash Box Vol.XXVI(46); International Section p.55. Accessed online 2024 Mar 13. Available from: https://archive.org/details/cashbox26unse_37/mode/2up

Lichtman I [editor]. 1965 Jul 24. Great Britain. Cash Box Vol. XXVI(53); International Section p.53. Accessed online 2024 Mar 13. Available from: https://archive.org/details/cashbox27unse/mode/2up

Lichtman I [editor]. 1967 Jul 22. Overlooking South Africa. Cash Box Vol.XXVIII(52); International Section p.65. Accessed online 2024 Mar 13. Available from: https://archive.org/details/cashbox28unse_50/mode/2up

Martin G, Hornsby J. 1979. All You Need is Ears. New York (NY): St. Martin’s Griffin. 293p.

Martland P. 1997. Since Records Began: EMI: The first 100 years. London: B.T. Batsford Ltd. 359p. Accessed online 2024 Mar 17. Available from: https://archive.org/details/sincerecordsbega0000mart/mode/2up

Michaels K. 2013. Mark Lewisohn interview [radio broadcast episode]. The Beatles – Every Little Thing. Originally aired on XM Radio. 1:53:18. Available from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjAUtngSoKc

Parnes S [editor]. 1958 Jul 26. Ardmore & Beechwood Open London Office. Cash Box Vol. XIX(45); p.34. Accessed online 2024 Mar 18. Available from: https://archive.org/details/cashbox19unse_43/page/34/mode/2up

Southall B, Perry R. 2006. Northern Songs: The True Story of The Beatles Song Publishing Empire. London: Omnibus Press. 218p. Accessed online 2024 Mar 13. Available from: https://archive.org/details/northernsongstru0000sout/mode/2up

*Wicks D. 1998. Updated 2012. The Ballad Years: From the Bombs to the Beatles: a Directory and Discography of British Popular Music-makers from 1945-1960. Accessed online 2024 Mar. Available from: https://archive.org/details/theballadyears/Book%20Contents/

Wilcox N. 2020 Apr 27. How The Beatles Got Signed [podcast, season 7]. Let It Roll. 57:21. Available from: https://dcs.megaphone.fm/PAN2878353172.mp3?key=5204cb23c38410bae94e208461239e2d&request_event_id=e800ecea-9c5e-40f2-90e3-dad820306501

Images from The Ballad Years and Cash Box 1967 Jul 22

*The Ballad Years by Don Wicks was originally published circa 1998 (by a company called In Tune International, of all things!) There is some great contextual info included at the Internet Archive link; to condense it here, after the original print run of the book, Don Wick continued to update the book, primarily to reflect the death of artists. He distributed these via Microsoft Word Document, and the 2012 version of these documents was uploaded to the Internet Archive. I believe that is the reason for “The Barry Sisters” being plastered across Kim Bennett’s face – the pages including artists’ pictures have very wonky formatting.