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hpoxfordprogram · 4 months ago

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Running Around Europe

~by Michael Rascher Hectic, stunning, exhausting, and endlessly rewarding. My summer at GT Oxford was marked by incredible experiences that I will treasure for a lifetime. The friends I made, the foods I ate, the places I traveled to, and the views I saw were all spectacular. Despite how draining some days became, I truly wouldn’t trade a single one for anything else in the world.

As a member of the Italy travel group, I started my adventures in Rome where I quickly became immersed in the unimaginable amount of history and culture that it has to offer. Our first event together was a tour of the Vatican that ended in the Sistine Chapel! Truly an awe-inspiring space that encouraged wonder at how Michelangelo was able to skillfully paint such a beautiful fresco on the ceiling of a building over 500 years ago. It was also satisfying to connect bits of trivia I had learned from the pre-departure courses to what I was actually seeing in front of my face. My favorite part was seeing several depictions of scenes from the Biblical book of Genesis, especially The Creation of Adam. I’m thankful that I had some background knowledge from these courses so that I could further appreciate what I was viewing in the Vatican, as well as each of the following museums I visited later on the trip.

One of the best features of traveling with GT Oxford was that I got a free day in almost every city to go wherever I wished. On my free day in Florence, I traveled with a group of my friends to Cinque Terre, a gorgeous collection of five colorful coastal Italian cities. We had a short train layover in Pisa for about 20 minutes, and I was eager to quickly visit the Tower of Pisa but my friends urged me that it was still a mile away from the station. Taking this as a challenge, I grabbed a buddy of mine, hopped off the train as soon as it stopped, sprinted to the Tower, snapped a few pictures, and made it back just in time for our next train! It was well worth the effort to see an iconic piece of Italian architecture.

On my next free day in Milan, I took another trip with my friends to Lake Como which was absolutely spectacular. We spent the day hiking around the lake and swimming in the surroundings of beautiful mountain scenery. I would definitely recommend this as a destination for anyone traveling abroad next summer. The architecture was amazing and the views even more so. I even caught a glimpse of the villa where they filmed the Naboo lake house scenes in Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones, a rewarding pilgrimage for my younger self.

In Vienna, my day trip took me into the Austrian Alps where I hiked in the Rax mountain range, another incredibly rewarding experience.

Now as a distance runner, it’s been a goal of mine for years to run a full marathon. To my amazement, there just so happened to be a festival hosting a race in Belgium on our free day. While the fast pace of travel leading up to our stay in Antwerp left me with only a handful of opportunities for long training runs, I was still determined to compete and finish. So, I took a train with a couple buddies to the small town of Torhout and was immediately shocked at how many people had gathered there in the middle of nowhere to celebrate the Night of Flanders. The town was absolutely bustling and the environment was electric. After embracing the Flemish traditions and enjoying the festivities for a short while, the race began and I was off! Although it became incredibly difficult near the end, I successfully crossed the finish line (in excruciating pain) and completed my very first marathon as my friends cheered me on. Our spur-of-the-moment adventure resulted in one of my most memorable experiences of the entire trip.

Then, after arriving in Mansfield College and settling into my new home for the next six weeks, I was greeted by resident expert tour guide David Gunnell for an HP-exclusive walking tour of Oxford. He was so entertaining and contained a remarkable depth of knowledge surrounding the history of the city with corresponding literature and movie references. The tour was an enjoyable and informative blur that left me filled with wonder at the immense amount of culture contained in and produced by Oxford over the centuries. I developed a further appreciation for the city’s scholarly works in the classroom while learning from my professor in HTS 3032, Modern European Intellectual History. After reading a variety of influential letters and publishings, I can understand how important Oxford – and England as a whole – was in the development of progressive and forward-thinking ideologies. Together, these experiences opened my eyes to a thoughtful, academic world beneath the lovely facades of Oxford architecture.

One of my most memorable experiences in Oxford was visiting other colleges on Open Days, another opportunity I’d highly recommend. As I walked around the city with a friend, we got to tour the Bodleian’s Duke Humfrey’s Library and Christ Church’s dining hall – both incredibly famous Harry Potter filming locations – for free.

Weekends during GT Oxford were another huge highlight of the program. On the first weekend, I took a train to London with a group of friends and we met up with some more friends from the GT Europe program. It was incredible to see so many important landmarks and buildings in such a condensed area. I enjoyed it so much that I’m even going back to London on my last weekend to experience more.

The following week, I traveled to Dublin and Galway City in Ireland to do some hikes and visit the Guinness Storehouse.

Perhaps my favorite weekend was a vacation trip to the Spanish island of Mallorca with a small group of friends. We toured a family-owned orchard and I got to taste the best orange I’ve ever had in my entire life. After spending plenty of time on the beach, we finished the day with some paella. The next day, we had tapas for lunch and then went snorkeling and saw an incredible variety of sea life! The island was beautiful, and even the view out of our Airbnb window was stunning.

Another phenomenal weekend trip took me to Switzerland where I got to hike in the beauty of the Swiss Alps and swim in crystal-clear water. One surprising thing I got to do while staying in Basel was float down the Rhine River directly through the city center. The water was clean enough and the weather was warm enough that there were literally hundreds and hundreds of people gathered for a swim.

Joining study abroad with GT Oxford was one of the best decisions of my entire life and I am so grateful to have made so many new friends and new memories from all of the amazing experiences we shared together.

#gthonors #gojackets #honorsprogram #gthp #gtoxfordprogram #gtoxford2024 #georgiatech

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nautilusopus · 2 years ago

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WOW this post was in my drafts for almost two years and I am realising I never actually finished writing it. So fuck it I guess.

Something that's always bugged me about the end of FFVII that I thought I'd share:

So, during the ending, Meteor arrives and grows like energy tentacles or whatever and starts ripping up the city and burrowing into the Planet and shit. In the process, a lot of the city is completely demolished, and the Shinra logo is ripped clean off the tower:

But then later when Holy shows up and the devastation continues, now on both the Planet's end and Meteor's, the tower remains standing.

This is hardly an oversight -- it's visibly buffeted pretty hard by everything going on, but never at any point gets knocked over. Which is a little weird, right? If they were ever going to blow up their big iconic setpiece, now would be the time. It'd be pretty convenient symbolism, too, given the environmental themes the game's had up until now. Man's hubris or whatever. It'd look really cool and this would be the ideal time to do it, but they instead went out of their way not to.

The tower, now devoid of Shinra's logo, no longer represents Shinra, and is now being used to bring up another point the game has raised at a few points up until now, most notably at Great Glacier.

The tower, built by humanity in defiance of the natural world (a force that is neither inherently good nor evil, but simply worth preserving) around it, remains unfelled by Holy and Meteor. Humanity is a part of the world as much as the rest of it, but still has chosen to set itself apart. This, too, is something not inherently good or evil, and the game argues that this too can be something worth preserving.

I'm reminded somewhat of Princess Mononoke (an EXTREMELY similar work in terms of theme and the way the story resolves incidentally go watch it it's really good Neil Gaiman did the English dub if you liked VII you'll love Princess Mononoke). The conflict is not even inherently "Humans Bad Nature Good". The natural world -- the forests, the spirits -- are all shown as beautiful and worth preserving for their own sake; but at the same time, there is a degree of brutality inherent to it as well. Nature is not always good and nurturing. In contrast, Lady Eboshi (who is vastly more benevolent than Shinra) finds herself in conflict with the forest, all too willing to rip it all down in the name of progress and the distinctly human quality of compassion. Ashitaka himself is later berated by the wolf god Moro for expressing it.

At the end, when (spoilers) Iron Town is destroyed and overtaken by greenery, the only thing that is left are the people, who must choose to live and decide what "living" even means, being inextricably intertwined with the natural world and yet inevitably in conflict with it, and who must learn to balance this conflict with the fact that all life -- be it human or otherwise -- is as precious as it is insignificant in the broad scheme of things.

It's hard not to think of the image of Midgar's ruins completely overgrown 500 years later, and Iron Town covered in plants, taking a step back and thinking about not just their lives, but about what it even means to live and be a part of the world that is as much a part of them as they are of it.

#forfdorfsorf #final fantasy vii #if you say stupid shit in the notes about crisis core or shipping i block you #nobody could behave themselves when i started shitposting about the gold saucer and that's why we can't have nice things

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schleckermaul · 5 months ago

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empatheorem event info!

weapons

sword disguised as a cane! he has it with him constantly, since he now also uses it to navigate

abilities

break is the strongest swordsman of pandora, the faction he used to work for. during his duties, he'd often go out and kill people and/or chains, so he's technically well-practiced. his time in isola has been more peaceful, and he's been getting worse physically throughout, so his stamina isn't what it used to be, but he still has the same amount of strength— just at a greater cost.

telepathic communication with mad hatter 5 times per day for 15 minutes each use

the ability to send medium bursts of mad hatter's power a short distance across his surroundings up to 5 times per day

(emily is alive only around him. with anybody else in his body, she's just a doll)

appearance

albino with one eye. 177.5cm or 5'10"ft. underweight, mostly lean muscle. a contractor's incuse over his chest, which looks like a very faded tattoo (reference here). a scar between his left shoulder and neck, another in the left line of his waist. the scar by his waist was torn and healed a couple of times during events in isola

always wears his carcere underneath his clothes, a necklace filled with blood (reference here). don't break this, if the carcere should ever be broken, his contract with mad hatter would end

emily's always with him, if not on his shoulder, in the bag that's strapped to his coat

mannerisms

break is the archetype for a clown who acts silly to cover up for all of his angst. hiding behind his loosey-goosey attitude, it's all a pretense to keep people from seeing his true motivations and feelings. he’s carefree and mischievous to anybody around him, almost aggravating to be around

him being a clown extends to his body language. he's very loose, lots of flappy hands and poking fingers. likes to hum and singsong, a mocking or teasing note to his default voice

secretly suicidal

addicted to candy (can't keep normal food down)

touchy, but only when he's initiating the touch

wears lots of oversized clothing, really loves long sleeves that cover up his hands. all of his collars are pretty high up, because he's trying to hide the contractor's incuse on his chest

actively dying from the terminal illness that is mad hatter, so he occasionally passes out or throws up blood. he also has chronic pain in his shoulder and hip from the injuries sustained there

he's also entirely blind

memories

too many to count. i'm fine with pretty much anything in the manga, and i can pick something if you give me a vibe! since this isn't technically an interest checker, i won't go into detail here

icons

i'm not done iconing the manga, but i have around ~500 icons i'm happy to share for the purposes of the event!

#death cw #emetophobia cw #suicidal ideation cw #injury cw #& — event : empatheorem .

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iviarellereads · 7 months ago

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The Great Hunt, Chapter 10 - The Hunt Begins

(THIS PROJECT IS SPOILER FREE! No spoilers past the chapter you click on. Curious what I'm doing here? Read this post! For the link index and a primer on The Wheel of Time, read this one! Like what you see? Send me a Ko-Fi.)

(Horn icon) In which that's something beyond evil.

PERSPECTIVE: Rand, as Ingtar sets a fast pace, hoping to catch them up despite the head start. Rand worries about the horses, but says nothing, because it’s Ingtar’s command and Rand is still just a shepherd.(1) At one point though, one of the men, Uno, says Ingtar's going to kill the horses at this rate. It's not until much later in the day that Ingtar sees sense, and they start alternating walked and ridden miles. Mat and Perrin continue to avoid Rand, along with some of the retinue.

The path avoids all settlements. They sometimes see farms or villages in the distance, but never close enough that they'd have seen the Trollocs et al coming or going clearly. Eventually, Ingtar finally calls to make camp for the night after twilight. When Rand takes out his bundles from the pack horses, he shouts so loudly that several men come running, swords out. He's a little embarrassed that it was just because he saw his coats, the supposedly serviceable, low-key ones: both more ornate than the one he's already wearing. Ingtar points out that they are wearable, and Moiraine Sedai saw to Rand's packing personally. Rand thinks he'd almost rather go naked.(2)

Masema is serving the stew, and slops a bit of Rand's meanly. Ingtar is sitting next to Mat and Perrin, so Rand sits near them, glad that his friends don't leave again. He wonders aloud why Masema hates him. Ingtar hesitates, but says that Masema fought against the Aiel for three years once, and he (Ingtar) is glad to take everyone's word that Rand is from the Two Rivers, but Masema can't see past the resemblance to his enemies.(3)

Rand dropped his spoon in the plate with a sigh. “Everybody thinks I’m somebody I am not. I am from the Two Rivers, Ingtar. I grew tabac with—with my father, and tended his sheep. That is what I am. A farmer and shepherd from the Two Rivers.” “He’s from the Two Rivers,” Mat said scornfully. “I grew up with him, though you’d never know it now. You put this Aiel nonsense in his head on top of what’s already there, and the Light knows what we’ll have. An Aiel lord, maybe.” “No,” Loial said, “he has the look. You remember, Rand, I remarked on it once, though I thought it was just because I didn’t know you humans well enough then. Remember? ‘Till shade is gone, till water is gone, into the Shadow with teeth bared, screaming defiance with the last breath, to spit in Sightblinder’s eye on the Last Day.’ You remember, Rand.” Rand stared at his plate. Wrap a shoufa around your head, and you would be the image of an Aielman. That had been Gawyn, brother to Elayne, the Daughter-Heir of Andor. Everybody thinks I’m somebody I’m not.

Ingtar says Aiel only recognize themselves, gleemen, peddlers, and their enemies. They changed that for Cairhien 500 years ago, for no reason anyone else can tell, but after the Aiel War 20-odd years ago, he doesn't think they ever will again. Loial says they're willing to let the Tuatha'an into their Wastes, and they trade with Ogier sometimes, for sung wood, but they're a hard people. Ingtar wishes he had some men half as hard as any Aiel. Mat wonders if that's a joke.

“Aiel are hard,” Ingtar said. “Man and woman, hard. I’ve fought them, and I know. They will run fifty miles, and fight a battle at the end of it. They’re death walking, with any weapon or none. Except a sword. They will not touch a sword, for some reason. Or ride a horse, not that they need to. If you have a sword, and the Aielman has his bare hands, it is an even fight. If you’re good. They herd cattle and goats where you or I would die of thirst before the day was done. They dig their villages into huge rock spires out in the Waste. They’ve been there since the Breaking, near enough. Artur Hawkwing tried to dig them out and was bloodied, the only major defeats he ever suffered. By day the air in the Aiel Waste shimmers with heat, and by night it freezes. And an Aiel will give you that blue-eyed stare and tell you there is no place on earth he would rather be. He won’t be lying, either. If they ever tried to come out, we would be hard-pressed to stop them.(4) The Aiel War lasted three years, and that was only four out of thirteen clans.”

Mat mutters that grey eyes from his mother don't make him Aiel, but Rand remembers Moiraine's story about his birth, and as he settles in for sleep, he repeats that he won't be used.

The next morning they continue before dawn, until they come on an abandoned camp. Hurin says there was worse than murder done here, and they turned northeast. An hour's ride later, Hurin says they turned south again, and another murder. The next day continues the same, slowly gaining ground based on the tracks and remains, but more direction changes, and more murders. After Ingtar says they won’t lose time burying Darkfriends, the subject doesn’t come up, even when they believe the victims are Shienaran.

Eventually, they come upon the River Erinin, a few hours past breaking camp. Long past time to have found the Trolloc camp and first direction changes, from the pattern of the last several days, but instead they come to a quiet village near a river much smaller than the stories made it out to be.(5)

Perrin says the village smells wrong, getting him a look from Hurin.(6) But he's right: there's no one left here. Uno sees a woman in a white dress in a window, and runs for the house, but it's empty after all.(7) Hurin says there was no murder here, but violence of a sort he's never smelled before, and something across the river.

Ingtar sends two men to retrieve the ferry, sitting on the far bank, and to scout for any ambush. They come back unable to put words to what they saw, but there's no ambush, for certain. Rand et al are in the first group to cross the ferry, though Mat still sneers at Rand's coat. Perrin remarks that this is how they left home, on Taren Ferry, and says it will be worse this time. Both Rand and Mat are curious why he'd say this. Perrin just says he can smell it.

Fifty paces from the ferry, they find the bodies, strung up to a tree. The two faces are intact, Changu and Nidao, the guards Rand met the first time Egwene brought him to see Fain. They've been skinned alive. Rand seeks the Void, but feels more sick inside it.(8) Some men start digging graves, and Loial explains Shienaran burial rites: no clothes, no shroud, no coffin, just plain burial. Someone might say a particular ritual phrase over the graves, but that's unlikely here: these must have been the men who killed the guards and let the Trollocs into the Keep.

However, before they leave, Ingtar does say the words over the two unmarked graves. Nobody comments, but he looks at every man in turn before saying that they saved Lord Agelmar at Tarwin's Gap.(9) Then off they ride.

They come upon an old, abandoned manor house, and there's some discussion of countries that once were, but are no longer. Loial talks about how many cities and countries fail, sometimes because the population dwindles, sometimes trade stops, and sometimes crops fail too many years in a row. Ingtar says yes, and what city will not fail tomorrow, or the next day? Humankind is being swept away. How long until there's nothing left but the borderlands, and how long until not even that? The whole group is shocked into silence, and rides on.(10)

They come upon another village some time later that day, abandoned too. All the villages here have a grudge against Shienarans, because Shienar can’t or won’t spare soldiers to defend them against human brigands, when the Blight is right there. The men prepare for a fight as they near.

Some of the men go to check the houses for occupants, and Rand approaches a door, but stops short, then chides himself for being afraid of an empty door. Inside is a tidy room, flies buzzing around the food laid out on the table, even a roast, cold in its own congealed grease. He blinks, and sees a vision of a smiling family, serving themselves from the food, when it was fresh. Suddenly, one of the girls screams, pointing at the road. The door bursts open and...

Rand blinks again, and they're gone, the flies sounding louder. Blink again, and the vision starts over from the beginning. Over and over. Between the visions, the room starts to feel very, very cold to him, but he can't move, until suddenly he starts to feel warm and breaks free of it, tearing at unseen cobwebs holding him.(11)

He hears Mat yell that there's nothing in the house he looked in, and Rand resolves not to enter another house in the village. There's a commotion in the main square, and when he approaches, it's not more people murdered... not exactly. A Myrddraal, a Fade, has been murdered and near crucified on the biggest door in the village.

“Who,” Mat began, and had to stop to swallow. “Who could do this to a Fade?” His voice squeaked at the end. “I don’t know,” Ingtar said. “I do not know.”(12) He looked around, examining faces, or perhaps counting to be sure everyone was there. “And I do not think we will learn anything here. We ride. Mount! Hurin, find the trail out of this place.” “Yes, my Lord. Yes. With pleasure. That way, my Lord. They’re still heading south.” They rode away leaving the dead Myrddraal where it hung, the wind stirring its black cloak. Hurin was first beyond the wall, not waiting on Ingtar for a change, but Rand came close behind him.

=====

(1) Is he still just that? Was he ever just a shepherd? (2) As much as Rand, rightly and fairly, doesn't want to be manipulated into doing something against his will, we've known since the first page that he was the Dragon, and if he's going to fulfill all these prophecies, better to look a lord than a beggar, to look the way people will expect the Dragon to look and be more willing to accept him in the role even as they may despise what he means for the world. (3) Especially when Aiel looks seem so distinctive. There were a few folk in Caemlyn who had paler skin and lighter hair, like the Trakands, but the implication is that's pretty rare in the wider world. No wonder he's been treated very oddly by the Shienarans since his arrival there, and no wonder Moiraine's been fighting so hard to build him up a reputation as a lordling so he couldn't possibly be an Aielman. (4) Gee, I wonder if that'll become relevant again. (5) The narration (Rand) attributes this to it being far from its source. Do you think Robert Jordan knew how rivers work? That they're fed all along and tend to get bigger the further they travel, biggest as they approach their lake or ocean endpoint. Rand probably wouldn't know that, whether RJ did or not. (6) Given everything, it's possible Perrin just smelled the decay or some such, from a greater distance. Who knows what wolves smell? (7) A mysterious woman in a white dress? Keep a pin in that for now. (8) Now THAT'S odd. What about the flame and void might make Rand feel sick, or is it just too much for even that trick to work? (9) After leaving so many behind, he takes the time for this? Just because we recognize their names, or does he finally feel guilty over leaving the others? (10) This guy seems real pessimistic suddenly. But, look at Shienar. They watched Malkier fall to the Blight well within living memory. Who wouldn't be a bit pessimistic about humanity's chances as the signs ramp up for the final confrontation? And when faced with this much death and betrayal and just everything? (11) Rand's visions in the house are creepy as hell, and the cold kinda makes me wonder if this is Power at play, or something else… perhaps the same kind of "strange thing" that Lan refers to happening close to the Blight, when Rand gets caught by the wind during their practice fight in chapter 1. But, the Dark One is stirring in his prison, his influence on the world growing. Who's to say what effect that might have? (12) Who could do this to a Fade? What could be WORSE than a Fade? Why do all my sentences now end in question marks?

#wheel of time #wot #the wheel of time #twot #tgh #the great hunt #wot horn icon #rand al'thor #lord ingtar shinowa #uno nomesta #hurin (wot)#perrin aybara #mat cauthon #masema dagar #ragan (wot)#loial

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eurovision-revisited · 1 year ago

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Birmingham 1998 Wrap Up

It's here! Modern Eurovision. Televoting! Voting drama! Fans in the audience! Dry ice and pyro! Vamping for two minutes on live TV while the winner gets changed! What a show, what a production. Even though the UK had already hit full snark when it came to Eurovision (as demonstrated by Ulrika), the BBC can still pull out all the stops when it comes to staging the event. Lots of lights, flags, intriguing postcards and an almost perfectly run show despite the anticipated technical meltdown. Bravo.

Italy had chosen a really interesting year to pull out of Eurovision - perhaps wisely waiting another 13 years to let all the changes settle down. The national finals are all over the place, but generally not of bad quality. It's a chance to try out new things and try to find a new formula. By the end of Eurovision 1998 what the formula might be is even more unclear, other than whatever Ireland had been doing in the mid 1990s - that wasn't it. In the end a brave internal selection won and gave Eurovision perhaps its most iconic winner up to that point.

It's the last time with an orchestra - much to the sadness of many. Showing the way things were going seven countries didn't use the orchestra at all in 1998, with two of those sending conductors anyway! There were some heated disputes behind the scenes with some delegations threatening last minute withdrawals, but these were ironed out. On the night you couldn't see the chaos that had been going on with the exception of Dana International's div-a-ttitude prior to receiving the trophy.

It's the first time with the on-screen watermark through each performance for the benefit of televoters across Europe. Who's performing? It's there on screen, even if you missed the postcard and title card at the start. Plus a full recap in performance order before the interval.

Was it a classic in terms of the songs? Well no. That's to be expected during a time of great upheaval. There's still the temptation to stick to what is know rather than take risks. And for those that did take risks, well they didn't always come off. The 2022 ESC Radio/songfestival.be had only six 1998 songs in the top 500 and none of those are in the top 100. One of those (Eu Cred) appears to be have made it into the top 500 as part of a campaign. It previously had only been 1305th. The glory years of the 1990s were past now and the brave new world of popularity and commercialisation were ahead.

The big question was could Israel, the IBA and Jerusalem build on the promising start provided in Birmingham. Where is this whole thing going..?

#esc #esc 1998 #eurovision #eurovision song contest #birmingham #birmingham 1998

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juniperhillpatient · 2 years ago

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The Western Air Temple Re-watch

This section of Book 3 is possibly my favorite section of the show because we get to see Zuko as a good guy interacting with the Gaang, which sparks so much joy for me. I'm just gonna be bitter about just one thing really quick - the reason Smellberee & Longshot (some of the most interesting side characters the Gaang has interacted with) aren't there is 100% because if they were the show would have no choice but to acknowledge Jet's death. So like, fuck the writers for that one. Ok, (most of) the rest of what I have to say is positive actually!

I'm gonna say that Aang's determination to distract himself & go play with the other kids is TOTALLY understandable & it makes so much sense with his trauma around trying to learn fire-bending & the pressure he's under - he's still just a kid, of course, he's gonna wanna run & play - BUT it still gets on my nerves, personally. Just because like...Ugh, Katara ALWAYS has to be the responsible one pushing Aang to do what's right & it's really not fair to her.

Zuko's redemption arc & decision to join the Gaang continues to be impressive & it absolutely deserves to be held up as a strong example of a redemption arc & just a beautifully well-written character arc. I already made a separate post about how emo I am about Zuko in this episode but like.....I fucking love Zuko ok, he is just very special to me.

I thought that Zuko rehearsing his little speech to join the Gaang to a frog was so adorable & he says he's not good at impersonations but you know, I think he's pretty decent at them. Also, it's cute that he still says "what would Azula do?" to himself here. Even though they're enemies again, I think he still admires his sister a lot (& definitely continues to put her on an unrealistic pedestal of untouchable perfection, but that's its own rabbit hole, right now we're just talking about a cute funny moment.)

[id: Zuko smiling & holding up a hand in greeting. end id]

Yeah, tbh, my next couple of re-watch posts are.... probably mostly just going to be me gushing about how much I love Zuko, okay lol

Toph getting her feet burned was pretty sad, but I don't think either Toph or Zuko was to blame here, it was just a well-written misunderstanding/interaction, & Toph was still honest with the Gaang that it was an accident even though she had to drag herself back to camp which - oof. I loved how fast Toph was to advocate for Zuko. I think that this has to do with her not being around when he was the Big Bad but I think it's more than that. I feel like Toph is a very pragmatic & realistic character. She knows that Zuko is being honest, she knows that Aang needs a fire-bending teacher. To her, it's obvious what the solution is regardless of past hurt.

Sokka just cracked me up in this episode & his awkward interactions with Zuko were funny. Zukka rights I suppose.

Katara's scene with Zuko at the end was SO good. Katara does not fuck around at all, & her continued mistrust of Zuko is obviously 100% understandable. I also love that for Katara, this is very personal. She trusted Zuko & he betrayed HER. This isn't just about being military enemies, Katara feels personally wronged by Zuko - & she has every right to. I just loved that scene between them. And... if I was ever going to say Zutara rights, this little era of the show is when I'd say it. It's one of those "ok it's still not my thing but I get y'all" things lol - like ok, the tension of betrayal & hesitance about the new trust thing is kinda fun. For me personally, it's just as fun as the tension between 2 platonic (soon-to-be) friends though.

Anyway, this was a delightful episode & I'm very excited Zuko is now part of the Gaang - even if he has a ways to go to gain their trust! Excellent episode 10/10.

Oh, I almost forgot about iconic behavior points. Zuko gets +100 for his little impressions. Toph gets +100 for crawling on her goddamn hands back to camp & STILL advocating for Zuko. Zuko gets another +500 for helping defeat the assassin that he hired, I thought that made a lot of narrative sense & was the perfect dramatic way for him to prove himself. Katara gets +500 for her speech to Zuko at the end.

#atla re watch #the western air temple #atla book 3

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encyclopika · 2 years ago

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Animal Crossing Fish - Explained #229

Brought to you by a marine biologist on our last foray into freshwater...

CLICK HERE FOR THE FISH EXPLAINED MASTERPOST!

We're starting to come up to the actual end of this series for the foreseeable future. Since Pocket Camp continues to put on Fishing Tourneys and Goals Events that feature imaginary fish to fit their themes instead of actual species, I'm slowly running out of things to write about. So, today will be our very last freshwater fish - the Redtail Catfish.

The Redtail appeared in AC Pocket Camp for the February 2021 Catfish Goals event along with its cousin the Tiger Catfish, which we've covered. I must say, the icon for this one is spot on!

We have covered catfish before, as they are pretty prominent throughout the AC series. (If you want to check them out -> 1, 2, 3). There's a good reason for that. Siluriformes, the Order catfishes belong to, is one of the most diverse fish lineages. With thousands of species in both fresh and saltwater environments, they have a very wide distribution on every continent and ocean besides Antarctica and the Southern Ocean. Catfish are most recognizable by their extra long barbels (the "whiskers") which they use to feel and smell throughout their environments, which can have low visibility, as well as compensate for most species' poor eyesight to begin with. However, not all catfish have barbels like this and are instead scientifically categorized by features within the skull and swim bladder. Either way, you know a cat when you see one. Catfish boast perhaps the widest range in size, too - from tiny, parasitic species to massive giants that have sparked legends in the areas they are native. Though the Redtail Catfish (Phractocephalus hemioliopterus) isn't massive enough to have garnered legends, it is still one of the largest catfish out there, topping almost 6 feet (2 meters), though 3 feet (1 m) is more common, as an adult.

By George Chernilevsky - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=97291562

Catfish are voracious eaters and will snack on anything they can get their mouths around. They are typically bottom-dwelling fish but many species are known to swim throughout the water column looking for prey. Sometimes that prey may even include humans if given the opportunity and at the right size. Redtails themselves were one species blamed for hundreds of deaths during the Sobrel Santos II accident on the Amazon River in the '80's, in which 500 people went into the water and only 178 were rescued. Redtails, as well as other large catfish species in the area are thought to have dragged people underwater. These are not lazy fish by any means. They are powerful swimmers and deserve our respect.

Despite their huge size, experienced home aquarists attempt to house this fish in their homes. Because Redtails get so big and they have no problem eating anything in front of them, they require at a 1500 gallon tank all to themselves. If you need an idea of how big that tank is - a grown man could snorkel in one.

And there you have it. Fascinating stuff, no?

#redtail catfish #catfish #fish #animal crossing #animal crossing pocket camp #freshwater #animals #science in video games #animal crossing fish explained

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checkthreetimes · 1 year ago

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𝗦𝗻𝗶𝘁𝗰𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗗𝗼𝗲𝘀𝗻'𝘁 𝗠𝗮𝘁𝘁𝗲𝗿—𝗚𝘂𝗻𝗻𝗮'𝘀 𝗖𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗯𝗮𝗰𝗸

Gunna is back! The Atlanta rapper, who was locked up for a year after being caught up in a gang case with Young Thug and other YSL members, has bounced back with his new album "A Gift & A Curse" and his smash hit "Fukumean". On Saturday, September 9, he rocked the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York, where he sold out the venue and delivered a fiery show. But how did Gunna overcome the snitching allegations that almost ended his career? And does snitching still matter in hip-hop?

Gunna, whose real name is Sergio Kitchens, was one of the 28 people charged in May for allegedly being part of a criminal street gang that committed crimes of violence, theft, and drug trafficking. He faced one count of conspiring to violate the RICO Act, which could have landed him in prison for 5 years. However, he cut a deal with the prosecutors, in which he entered an Alford plea, meaning he didn't admit guilt but acknowledged that the evidence against him was strong enough to convict him. He got five years with one year served, which was reduced to time served and suspended for four years, subject to conditions such as 500 hours of community service.

His plea deal sparked rumors that he had ratted out his fellow YSL members, especially Young Thug, who is facing eight charges in the same case. Gunna denied these rumors and said he had not snitched on anyone or agreed to testify for or against anyone in the case. He also said he wanted nothing to do with the trial process. His lawyers also stated that Gunna was innocent and that the indictment falsely portrayed his music as part of a criminal conspiracy.

Despite the controversy, Gunna's fans remained loyal and supportive of him. They loved his new album, which debuted at number three on the Billboard 200. They also streamed his single "Fukumean", which became the most streamed song of the summer.

So how did Gunna manage to stay relevant after the allegations? Well, snitching is not as taboo as it used to be in hip-hop. In recent years, several rappers have been accused of snitching or cooperating with law enforcement, such as Tekashi 6ix9ine, who testified against his former gang members in exchange for a reduced sentence. But it doesn't stop there—1090 Jake (who ironically is facing snitching allegations himself now) has done a good job of desensitizing fans to snitching in hip-hop, having exposed Boston Richey, Finesse2Tymes and Quality Control CEO Pierre “P” Thomas, among others. Fortunately, none of them faced career ending detriment.

It all boils down to the music—and Gunna's music is too good to ignore. His melodic flow and catchy hooks can't be duplicated. He has also established himself as a fashion icon and a trendsetter. His music appeals to a wide range of listeners who appreciate his talent and charisma.

Seeing Gunna excel after the turmoil is something special for his fans but it does pose a few questions. Will he continue to be successful or is this hype temporary? How will his success affect the rap game in general for those given the snitch label? Based on his current performance and popularity, it seems likely that Gunna will continue to be successful in the rap industry. He has proven himself as a versatile and prolific artist who can create hit songs and albums. He has also built a loyal fan base who supports him regardless of his legal troubles—Gunna's success may inspire other rappers who are facing similar situations to pursue their musical careers and overcome the stigma of snitching. The way he navigated challenges the rap game to rethink its attitude and approach to snitching and its overall impact on hip-hop culture.

#gunna #barclays #snitching

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outside-lookingin · 1 year ago

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The end of tumblr

Back in 2018, tumblr got caught with their pants down and bums exposed when it made the news, the BIG NEWS one of their blogs posted child porn. All the higher up execs and staff panicked, risk of losing their place on every platform avail, they banned nudity and pornography from this site in an attempt they were ‘doing something’ about it. Tumblr has always been a place where anything goes. Well, ALMOST anything. Despite tumblr’s community guidelines we all agreed to, blogs were breaking rules daily and if you trotted off into the dark side of tumblr, you found hideous things. Scary things. You found things you’ve never seen before or wanted to see. To this day some images have stuck with me. Some images so unbelievably gruesome and disturbing, I wish I could forget. Some blogs that posted certain nonsense were deleted. Or a post was simply removed. Then some blogs weren’t and by some magic twist of fate slipped under the radar basically forever and got away with murder. Then some other blogs were deleted with no warning or no good reason.

Then a light at the end of the tunnel? As of this year, tumblr has reinstated nudity. This unfortunately has not saved their site. The good blogs that left after the great ‘females presenting nipples ban of 2018’ didn’t come back. The posters that post haven’t been posting as much. It’s been too little too late. Oh, now you’re sorry?! Four years later?!! Nice. The blogs that were labeled ‘explicit’ stayed explicit and weren’t given the option to be rebirthed to have a site again. If you’re an explicit blog, you’re dead to tumblr. You don’t even exist.

I’m sorry to say after all that tumblr has done to try to save their site, they are hanging on by a very short thread. In an attempt to regal feelings of old, this site gets goofy, but in the most pretentious way. As a feeling of a stale corn flake that no longer serves it’s purpose. We had the click for frogs thing for no reason which was stupid. Or an old windows 95 desktop blocking half of the damn page. To keep it all hip and cute for the kiddies, now we have a tumblr store selling random, useless and stupid items. What? Nonsense. And as a cherry on the shit sundae, there is now tumblr live. What in the hell is tumblr live? Well, it is nothing more then a bunch of random and i mean RANDOM yo-yo’s who have no idea what tumblr is or who don’t even like tumblr who are streaming for no good reason whatsoever. Oh, so that’s what that is. And every week after you snooze the annoying banner of icons of the most hipster jerks you’ve ever seen in your life, tumblr live turns on again for you and it appears like some horrible thing. So you go back in your settings and have to turn it off again. You have to turn it off every week so you don’t have to look at the most horrible thing you’ve ever seen in your life: Other people. Ewwwwwwwww. What? We don’t want to see other people. We want to see what we like to see. Which is whatever we want why we’re here! Art! Old time hollywood! Movie gifs! Other shit! What the fuck does live streaming nobodys have to do with tumblr! You know how tumblr’s Q&A is basically Q&A with people you’ve never even heard of in your entire life? Same thing except much worse.

Even after all these changes, additions and ‘improvements’, would you believe that child porn blogs still exist on this site? You’re kidding? Nope, I am not. You might be asking yourself, how do you know such things? Well, I happened to have followed the wrong blog which I no longer follow which reblogged garbage. I also became aware of another blog I followed that also posted and reblogged garbage and from there saw who they reblogged garbage from and so forth and so forth. Tumblr cannot possibly handle this. Or can they? How many blogs are on this damn thing anyways? Well, after an extensive google search which was literally 3 seconds, over 500 millions blogs exist on tumblr. But how many REAL blogs is that? 500 million blogs nearing 600 million? This counts blank blogs, spam blogs and blogs that haven’t posted for ten or more years. So now how many blogs does that leave? Would you say 100 million or less actual users?

I still can’t help but feel tho with so much to oversea, there is still a right way and a wrong to handle this. What would be hard about having a special ‘team’ separate from the regular tumblr team to seep out the garbage? SO, you’re just going to keep letting pedophiles post trash?

After me reporting dozens of these blogs and even an e-mail to the CEO, these blogs are being erased one little bit at a time and some not at all? Why would tumblr have time to get rid of trash when they have to worry about designing stupid stickers or cashing in so hipsters can buy 20 checkmarks that mean NOTHING. Tumblr’s priorities are in the wrong place. You need a solid foundation first before you go off bullshitting and fucking around. And to make a functional foundation you need A: Having a functional site. B: Have it run fast. C: Fix your damn bugs. D: Make sure you’re not having a whole host of the wrong blogs. And ‘speaking’ of the wrong blogs, for a site that doesn’t allow porn there sure is a lot of it I come across. Not only porn gifs from random blogs, but full on porn blogs that reblog nothing but porn. Well, imagine that. I remember the welcome back e-mail from CEO Matt Mullenweg, who told us that now we can not think of nipples as a bad thing anymore, but allowing porn on a blog site basically doesn’t work. It SEEMS to be working pretty good for some peeps? Tumblr can’t seem to weed out it’s own troth of minions violating it’s community guidelines. How do you fix this? We don’t need a tumblr filter again. We remember what a disaster that was. Liars. You would appeal a post that had nothing to do with adult content at all and a promise it would be reviewed by a real human, only to receive an e-mail a half a second later informing you your post IS adult content and will not be restored. BOY, those tumblr staff real humans sure are quick, aren’t they? But why regal the things of old. The point is, this site is dying and not as exciting as it used to be.

Some blogs that suffered a cruel fate or having their blog labeled explicit or deleted and started a new blog found they were being targeted on the new blog and still being punished by having their archive wiped out or random posts disappear. What is that about?

Knowing there is a whole community of sick blogs that got tumblr in trouble in the first place and that got us punished means nothing has changed other then a four year gap where nakedidity (it’s a word) meant your ass. The fact that it took as long as it did for word to get out this site has blogs that post illegal crap is incredible it took that long. And now at this point we find that there are still illegal posts that a four year hiatus on tits did NOTHING.

#tumblr #bullshit #matt mullenweg #staff #rant

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onemustalwaysbecarefulofbooks · 2 years ago

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Why I Dislike the Entire Baby Related Plot line in ACOSF and Find It Utterly Ridiculous

This is probably old news to most people but I realized recently that I never truly ranted about this and I’d like to take the opportunity to. I love a lot of things about Sarah J Maas’s work, but this is not one of them. Hardcore Feysand and SJM stans should probably stay away, I highly doubt you’ll like what I have to say.

Point #1: Feyre’s totally abrupt mind change/desire to be pregnant as an immortal fae at 22 after knowing her 500 year old husband for a year and SJM’s attempt to explain/justify it is a blatant example Author Self-Insert

I feel like I should start off by saying that, in almost every single case, I am a total and complete sucker for anything baby related in literature. This is definitely not everyone’s cup of tea, but I am the kind of person who loves to see the stereotypical happy ending between characters, featuring marriage and babies. Some people like to keep things open ended, some people just don’t feel that every relationship needs to end in such a way, some people find it cliche. . .but I am definitely not one of those people! Despite it being admittedly corny/cliche, I normally eat that shit up. I have always been a very maternal person and one of my favorite tropes is when a beloved couple has a baby in a story. I am usually totally open to seeing it take place.

However, in ACOMAF, when Feyre expressed to Rhysand that she wanted to wait a while before having any children, I found myself (for once) in total and complete agreement with her. It made total sense to me based on Feyre’s character and her experiences up to that point. Feyre has spent most of her life being responsible for, and caring for others. She expresses in ACOTAR that she never really spent time doing anything for herself out of enjoyment. She also has just gone through an extremely traumatic experience that she is still very much in the process of healing from. She had been dealing with major PTSD throughout the entire story that manifested itself physically, mentally, and emotionally. Not only that, but my goodness!!! Feyre is 19 years old!!!!! 19 is a young age to have a child at in a human lifetime. In the lifespan of an immortal fae, which she now is, she is a god damn infant. She literally has the rest of eternity to procreate. Despite my love for characters having babies, I totally respected and understood her decision and thought it made perfect sense.

All of this was stated in ACOMAF and was made abundantly clear. And then. . .SJM gets pregnant and now all the sudden, Feyre wants to get pregnant!!!!

Look, I get it. I really do. SJM, as a first time mom, was caught up in the wonder of pregnancy and wanted Feysand, her favorite couple, to experience it also. Like sure, fine. Reasonably understandable. And Feyre is no less of a “feminist icon” for chosing to be a mother. I just find it funny that she had just had Feyre lay out extremely valid and logical reasons as to why she did NOT want to get pregnant for a while and then dramatically changes her tune in such a short time frame. Just a few months later, Feyre WANTS a baby! Like, come on. At least admit you changed Feyre’s mind because of your own pregnancy!! It really doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see the similarities in the timeline. ACOFAS, where Feyre announces her wish to have a child, came out in May 2018 and Sarah’s baby was born a month later, in June. Like, this CLEARLY influenced her dramatic change of heart. And like!!!! Just say that!!! Just admit it!! It’s pretty understandable!!!

If this was what Sarah wanted based on what was happening in her own life, based on what she had already written, it would have made way more sense to me for Feysand to get pregnant on accident. It’s been stated many times that Fae children are rare and difficult to conceive. Fae women only have two periods a year, and many couples try for years to have children without any success. Not really sure why SJM couldn’t make Feysand get caught up in a moment and bang without any contraception (as they did all throughout Ch 55 of ACOMAF), not REALLY worrying about it because pregnancies are so rare, and then be surprised by an unexpected pregnancy. This would make the Illyrian wings plot line make more sense as well (which I’ll get to a minute--essentially, if Feysand were TRYING to conceive a child, why would they knowingly have unprotected sex while Feyre was in Illyrian form????) I think a surprise pregnancy they weren’t expecting would make a lot more sense given the context of everything that had already been set up.

But instead of doing this, SJM decides to cook up a reason for Feyre to give us as to why she has suddenly and dramatically changed her stance on something so major in such a short amount of time.

The weaver only stared toward the tapestry. “I thought we’d have a thousand more years together.” She began to coax the loom back into movement. “In the three hundred years we were wed, we never had the chance to have children. . .I don’t even have a piece of him in that way. He’s gone and I am not. Void was born of that feeling.”

I didn’t know what to say as her words settled in. As she continued working.

It could have been me.

It could have been Rhys.

These months, the what-ifs had haunted me. All of the what-ifs that we’d so narrowly escaped. And this holiday tomorrow, this chance to celebrate being together, living. . .

The impossible depth of blackness before me, the unlikely defiance of Hope shining through it, whispered the truth before I knew it. Before I knew what I wanted to give Rhys.

The weaver’s husband had not come home. But mine had.

I have two responses to all of this:

This does not come across as a healthy rational reason for wanting a child. It’s honestly kind of concerning. Feyre just finished telling us in ACOMAF that she wanted time to live her life and be her own person for a while before having children. Having her completely change her mind after a conversation with someone who had lost their husband in the war before having children honestly seems like a product of unresolved PTSD. You should not decide to have a child out of fear of your spouse dying and you being left with no part of them. Like if you make the permanent and life altering decision to bring a child into the world over a conversation like this, maybe you’re still dealing with some trauma regarding his “death”?? The whole thing honestly comes across as pretty codependent to me. “Damn, now that I think about it, we’ve had some really close calls. We could have died at any time. We shouldn’t waste any more time! I don’t want to be left without a piece of him!”

Which brings me to #2. . .

2. LOL Feyre honey, this will never be a problem for you, remember???? You shouldn’t waste a second of your time even worrying about those feelings. If Rhys dies (AGAIN, he’s only alive now thanks to Tamlin, but we’ll just ignore that), you’ll be seconds behind him!!

Point #2: Rhys and Feyre have no business bringing children into this world after making their magically sworn oath that if one dies, the other will as well.

I can not even begin to express how irresponsible and thoughtless I find Rhys and Feyre to be for making a magically binding pact that if one of them dies, the other will as well. My mouth honestly hung open as I read that part of the end of ACOWAR. It was presented in that moment as something romantic and to me, it was horrifying. I would never ever EVER want my significant other to cease living if something happened to me. I can not imagine making a willing agreement to set this in motion. Everything else in this series regarding codependency was CHILD’S PLAY compared to this!

What doubled my rage and fury over this situation was the fact that Feysand made it and then went, “Hey, you know what would be a great idea?! Let’s have a baby!” Like. . .you fucking fools. No matter what angle you look at this situation at, it’s horrific. Let’s say the baby wasn’t in the picture. They are still the leaders of the largest Court in Prythian. Their lives do not belong to only themselves. They are responsible for thousands of people. Feyre doesn’t REALLY hold any magical political power, but Rhys has just doubled his chance of dying, therefore leaving the Night Court open and vulnerable to whoever the magic of the High Lord’s power would then choose. Now let’s say that the two of them are not in positions of power, but are just two random citizens of Prythian. The repercussions of their decision would not be on as grand of a scale, but they would still be completely guilty of making an extremely irresponsible and selfish decision regarding the care and safety of the children that they CHOOSE to have. The fact that they made this bond and then CHOSE to have a child is disgusting to me. So. . .you two are okay with doubling your child’s chances of becoming an orphan? If their mother dies, they automatically have no father? If their father dies, they automatically have no mother? The selfishness in this act is unbelievable to me. When they finally have their “Oh shit” moment in ACOSF when Feyre’s life is in danger from the delivery, Rhys says, “We never thought it would turn out this way”. Like really????? You didn’t???? You live in a violent warring society, have tons of political enemies, and are the mOsT PoWeRfUl beings in all of Prythian. You put a god damn shield around your wife so no one could even SMELL her during her pregnancy because you claim you have so many enemies. AND your species is known to have risky complicated births!!! And, like always, Feyre and Rhys aren’t really made to have to acknowledge any real accountability over their choices. Amren calls them out for like a minute and then we move on, with our only concern being, “How can we save them?????” while not REALLY stopping to address or examine the fact that they did this TO THEMSELVES.

Wow, I really went off on a tangent!!! I have been wanting to rant about that pact for a while. My whole point was, Feyre’s reasoning for deciding she DID want to have a baby after all fell totally flat for me. You’ll never have to worry about living without Rhys. You’ll die when he does. I honestly think an accidental pregnancy would have made way more sense, especially regarding my NEXT point!

Point #3: Nyx having wings was ALWAYS a possibility and this is something Rhys and Feyre should have planned and prepared accordingly for. SJM’s attempt to remove all accountability from them in the dangerous situation they found themselves in is absurd (yet not unexpected).

I remember, plain as day, reading ACOSF for the first time and finding out that everyone in the IC was so distraught over Feyre’s pregnancy. We pretty much immediately find out that their reason for their distress is that the baby apparently has wings. I’m sitting here like Yeah????? Like. . .of course it does????? Didn’t we all know that would happen???

Raise your hand if you always assumed and expected that Feysand’s baby would have wings.

Like. . .is there really anyone out there who didn’t? I’m pretty sure every single fanfic and/or fanart I saw of their future child included wings. Rhys says that one of his favorite childhood memories was jumping out his bedroom window with his mother and flying around Velaris. His wings are largely featured in many parts of the story. We know his sister canonically had wings as well (the ones that were pinned to the wall like some kind of trophy by Tamlin’s father, along with Rhys’s mother’s wings). He’s a “Bat Boy”. He doesn’t have shape shifting abilities like Feyre, his wings are a PART of him and clearly a part of his sister as well. No one granted him the ability to form them, he was born with it. Yes, he can make them appear and disappear at will, but they are there due to his family’s DNA, through his Illyrian mother. I ALWAYS assumed their baby would have wings!

But according to what Rhys tells us in ACOSF, it’s actually because of Feyre that the baby has wings.

“Feyre was in an Illyrian form when he was conceived.”

“That can make a difference? I thought she only made the wings--nothing else.”

“She shape-shifts. She transforms her entire self into the form she takes. When she grants herself wings, she essentially alters her body at its most intrinsic level. So she was fully Illyrian that night.”

I honestly just kind of have to laugh at this. What source of information is telling them that this is the reason the baby has wings???? Is this speculation or is this medical fact?? Rhysand has wings as part of his genetic makeup from his Illyrian mother. The baby is just as likely to have inherited these wings from him. How do they KNOW that these wings are there because of Feyre’s form when the baby was conceived?? How do they KNOW she’s transforming her “entire self”?? Is there some kind of genetic testing in Velaris now?? How do they know the difference between what she looks like and what she IS??? You’re telling me this healer Madja just totally dismissed the possibility entirely? “Well, it couldn’t possibly be that the baby developed wings due to his Illyrian father and grandmother. It’s definitely because his fae mother altered her complete genetic makeup by giving herself a pair of Illyrian wings during sex”.

Okay, so according to this logic. . .if Feyre transformed herself into Amren, had sex with Rhys and conceived a baby, then transformed back into herself, she would essentially become a surrogate mother for the child she was carrying. The baby would be Rhys and Amren’s biological child, and would carry no DNA from Feyre. Is that really what SJM is claiming?

I’m sorry, I’m not buying this one bit. Feyre’s ability was SHAPE-SHIFTING. Altering her physical appearance. Not literally BECOMING them and taking on their freaking DNA!!! Spoilers from Empire of Storms: Remember how there was an entire plot of how Lysandra, a shape-shifter, agreed to transform herself into and live her life as Aelin? Who would need to provide heirs for Terrasen? And how it was deemed that she would need Aedion, Aelin’s cousin who greatly resembled her, to father these children, so it would be believable that they were Aelin’s children? It was established that Lysandra was Aelin in appearance only, her physically looking like her wouldn't actually mean anything as far as DNA goes. They would need Aedion, who actually DOES share some DNA and family resemblance to Aelin, to achieve this. This was a huge deal in ToG and a major part of Aedion and Lysandra’s story/relationship. I know you could make the argument that they are technically two different series, therefore the rules of the magic system could be different, and I would acknowledge that. But it still seems weird to me to make “shape-shifting” mean something so completely different in two series that have a ton of commonalities in their magic systems.

Another reason it seems so implausible to me is that in ACOWAR, Azriel had to specifically TEACH Feyre how to form her Illyrian wings:

“The frame needs to be a bit thicker,” Azriel offered as a weight began to drag down my back. “Strengthen the muscles leading to it.”

I obeyed, my magic listening in turn. He provided more feedback, where to add and where to ease up, where to smooth and where to toughen. In this scene, Feyre is clearly not “becoming” an Illyrian. She is molding and shaping wings onto the back of her body. If Azriel needs to help her make physical adjustments to their appearance, I have a really hard time swallowing that she’s supposed to be “transforming her entire self” and “altering her body at its most intrinsic level”. No, I really just think this is SJM’s half-baked way of making something happen simply because she needs it to happen for the story she wants to tell. It just seems very very weird to me that Feyre would be the reason Feysand’s baby has wings, with nothing to do with Rhys involved at all. It goes against pretty much everything I assumed about them and their relationship this entire time and it just doesn’t seem believable to me.

I think that entire reasoning and weird and really stretching things, but whatever. Let’s just go with it. SJM says it is so, so it is. My point in pointing all of this out is to call back to what I said earlier: If SJM wanted to really go with this angle, that Feyre and Rhys getting it on while she was in Illyrian form was the reason the baby had wings, I think it would have made much greater sense in the context of this story to have Feyre just get pregnant by accident. Feyre had already established that she didn’t want to have children for a while. Create a scenario where the two of them get caught up in a sexy moment and have some kinky Illyrian sex without using or taking any form of birth control (as they do in Ch 55 of ACOMAF, minus the Illyrian part). Then oops!!! Feyre’s pregnant. It’s not a total devastation to either of them, because they knew they wanted to have children eventually, and fae children are rare and considered a blessing, so they just figure it was fate. THEN they can be totally upset and shocked when they realize the consequence of what happened between them. Obviously, they would have never had full on Illyrian sex if they were TRYING to conceive a baby, right?? Feyre obviously had no clue but Rhys would have definitely put a stop to it.

As soon as I read the part where Rhys explains why Feyre having a child with wings is dangerous and deadly, the very first question that immediately exploded into my mind was, “If that’s the case, why the hell are these two having unprotected sex, TRYING to get pregnant, while she is in Illyrian form????” If you’re taking your birth control herbs or whatever and you just want to have some kinky Illyrian wing sex, fine!!! Great!!! But like. . .hello!! What are we doing having unprotected “Build a house with a nursery, Feyre” sex in this state?? I didn’t understand why no one was asking that question. Like, did they not put themselves in this situation???

And honestly. . .forget everything to do with Feyre. No matter how “small” the chance, the possibility of them conceiving a winged child always existed, due to Rhys’s Illyrian heritage. Wouldn't you think that once they knew they were going to start trying for a child, whether they knew how Feyre’s powers worked or not, if there was even the SLIGHTEST chance the baby could inherit wings, Rhys would inform her that she needed to conceive and then STAY in Illyrian form for her safety?? As I pointed out earlier, it doesn’t make sense to say there’s no chance at all the baby could inherit wings from Rhys. You’d think Rhysand, who loves and adores Feyre above all other things, would have ensured from the moment they began trying to conceive that there was not even the slightest chance this could be an issue for her.

The only conclusion I can come to is that SJM would say that Rhys and Feyre weren’t aware that Feyre’s powers worked that way. Because all the other alternatives involve him or them looking pretty fucking irresponsible, which we all know is NOT ALLOWED UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. No, there is no criticism allowed whatsoever. It’s not their fault!!! They didn’t have sex under unsafe life threatening conditions while TRYING to get pregnant!!!! Rhys didn’t not inform Feyre about the dangers of fae delivering winged babies or take steps to prevent it from happening!!! It’s not Rhys’s fault the baby has wings, even though he carries that genetic makeup in the actual genetic makeup he was born with and carries with him at all times!!! It’s because of some of Feyre’s strange gifted magic and they didn’t even know about it!!!!

Okay. . .so we’re back to where we were before. If we didn’t know about it then, how do we know about it NOW? What led you to believe that the baby has wings because of Feyre’s weird powers, when you had no idea before?? If they didn’t know her power worked this way, wouldn't they assume the wings were from Rhysand?? But instead, we’ve got Rhys telling us it’s because of the form Feyre was in. How did you find this out and why did you just find it out now??????

Ugh, we could go in circles forever. I realize I’m probably thinking way too much into this. SJM clearly just needed a scenario to exist where Feyre was pregnant with a winged baby that endangered her life and since it goes against her very nature to make her and Rhys do anything bad whatsoever, this is what she came up with. However, it goes against MY very nature to just blindly accept it and move on!

Point #4: The fact that there were no alternatives to saving Feyre and the baby’s lives is not believable in the slightest.

I feel like I should point out the admitted absurdity of what I’m saying by calling a specific detail in this series “not believable”. We’re talking about a fantasy series where an immortal fae is pregnant with a baby with large bat-like wings. Obviously, NONE of it is objectively “believable”. When I use language like that, I’m referring to how it is not believable within the context of the world and magic system SJM has created.

So when Cassian first hears about Feyre’s predicament, one of the first things he asks Rhys is a pretty logical question: Why doesn’t Feyre shift BACK into Illyrian form, so she DOES have the pelvis and birth canal and all that other fun stuff that will allow her to deliver the baby safely? This is Rhys’s response:

“Madja has put a ban on any more shape-shifting. She says that to alter Feyre’s body in any way right now could put the baby at risk. On the chance that it could be bad for the baby, Feyre is forbidden to so much as change the color of her hair until after the birth.”

I’m sorry, this is dumb to me. The baby is ALREADY at risk!!! The situation is basically presented and described as a death sentence to both him and Feyre. It’s told to us over and over that hardly any babies and mothers ever survive these circumstances. It’s why Rhys is freaking out so badly. It seems to me like this is a chance worth taking. They’re using language like “it COULD be bad for the baby” and “there’s a CHANCE it could put it at risk”. They don’t KNOW what would happen, because no one has ever been in Feyre’s position with the unique powers she has. If Feyre can make specific small changes to her body, like the color of her hair, why couldn’t she just make a small specific change to her uterus, without shifting her entire body into some other form? Yes, there is a “chance” it could harm the baby, but how does it look like things are going for the baby on their own???? To me, it seems like the odds are “98% chance you’ll both die” and “Unknown odds about what will happen”. I feel like I know which one I’d go with!!

This is extra infuriating, because this decision, about what Feyre does to her body when her life is at risk, is something she UNQUESTIONABLY should have been a part of deciding. Feyre could have thought that taking a chance on the unknown was worth it, rather than resigning both her and her child to what essentially would be (and did end up being!!!) a death sentence. We’ll never know what she would have decided however, since Rhysand robbed her of making this choice or even contributing her input when he decided to withhold all of this information from her.

“You might be my mate,” he said, “but you remain your own person. You decide your fate – your choices. Not me. You chose yesterday. You choose every day. Forever.”

File this away under: “Reasons I Despise Rhysand”. #No one likes a hypocrite.

Moving on. . .that’s a rant for another day.

The other option that is presented as a safe alternative is delivering the baby through cesarean section. This is shot down by Cassian, who tells us this:

“Any attempts in the past to cut the child out of the mother’s womb have been. . .” he shuddered. “No mother has ever survived. So we won’t even try that route.”

And when the moment actually comes, as Feyre is literally bleeding out and both her and the baby are dying we get this from Madja:

“There is nothing we can do,” Madja said. “Cutting the babe out of her will kill her.”

“Cutting it out?” Nesta demanded, earning a sharp glare from Rhys.

Madja ignored her tone. “An incision along her abdomen, even one carefully made, is an enormous risk. It’s never been successful. And even with Feyre’s healing abilities, the blood loss has weakened her.”

I’m sorry, I have to laugh at this. This is the most blatant case of Convenient Story Telling I have ever seen. I understand that this is a high fantasy world where no technology exists. People use lanterns and ride horses and use herbs to heal things. However, C-Section births have been happening successfully for hundreds of years, far before the time of modern medicine. The first recorded case where both the mother and child survived was in Switzerland in 1500. The first one to occur in the United States happened in 1794. Obviously these procedures did not occur without serious risk before modern medicine, but they DID happen successfully. And you mean to tell me that in a fantasy world where extremely powerful magic exists, we couldn’t make one happen???

It just seems so contrived to me. No normal rules of medicine or healing have EVER had anything to do with this series. Let’s just cite a couple of examples:

Lucien has his eyeball clawed out by Amarantha and was given a magical metal eye replacement, crafted by Nuan, the alchemist from the Dawn Court.

Feyre has her arm shattered by the Middengard Wyrm, has tendons and bone hanging out of it, festering with infection, and Rhysand heals it to perfection with his bare hands.

Tamlin gets stabbed through the heart by Feyre, has a gaping chest wound that pours blood all over the floor, but is healed enough to attack and kill Amarantha the moment the curse is broken.

Cassian somehow knows what lactic acid is

Madja can perform magical ultrasounds where she can tell the baby’s gender and general shape/size/presence of wings.

Nesta recalls how in the battle against Hybern, Cassian had “been gutted and Azriel had held his entrails in with his bare hands”.

We are existing in a world where BOTH of this baby’s parents have literally DIED and been brought back to life!!!!!

If this is a world where all of those things can happen, it seems ridiculous to me that a successful cesarean birth is impossible and would result in certain death for both Feyre and the baby. Clearly this society has the healing capability to save someone who’s guts are literally hanging out of their body (Cassian) and yet we’re supposed to believe a c-section is completely impossible? And not only that. . .we are dealing with a magic system that literally brings people back to life. Feyre AND Rhys were both killed at certain points in this story and restored to full life through magic. I’m not saying the exact method used on them could be applied here, I’m just saying. . .it seems unrealistic that there couldn’t be SOME sort of magical solution to someone bleeding out from a c-section. It’s just a case of very convenient story telling, which is something that has always bugged me in stories.

Point #5: The climax of what was supposed to be Nesta and Cassian’s story felt centered around and overshadowed by Feysand.

I guess at this point, I shouldn’t really be surprised. But I still couldn’t help the sense of disappointment I felt over all the drama at the end of this book being all about the Feysand baby. Nesta had just gone through the fucking Blood Rite, something no female had EVER survived or even participated in in the thousand year history of the Illyrians. Not only did she survive, she came damn near close to winning/completing it (admittedly unrealistic, considering she had been training a few months and was up against insanely powerful Illyrian warriors who had been training literally decades, but whatever. . .that’s how a lot of fantasy stories roll). I felt like we didn’t even get a moment to sit with that and really reflect on it before we’re whisked away to Feyre’s delivery room, and all of that drama ensues. It felt like we didn’t have a true emotional moment about anything to do with the Rite before it was abruptly cut off, leaving me with a disjointed feeling.

I understand that this moment was supposed to serve as a big important healing moment between Nesta and Feyre. I understand that that was an important part of Nesta’s story. I’m all for some sisterly love and it was certainly satisfying to see Rhys go on his knees in gratitude before her. I just personally wouldn't have chosen THIS moment to be the climax and The Big Ending of the entire book. And maybe my feelings on this wouldn't be as strong if I didn’t already know that SJM is unnaturally obsessed with Feysand. That made it harder to swallow. Whether this is rational or not (and I acknowledge that of all the points I made, this might be the one that isn’t entirely), it felt like SJM just featuring her faves again.

This ended up being WAY longer and more rambly than I had planned on, but once I got started, I just couldn’t stop! I’ve been bottling this all up for over a year now and it clearly needed to be let out. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again: I have respect for Sarah as an author but I will never not critique something I feel is poorly executed, as long as I can back it up with logic and facts from the text. I feel like I’ve done a pretty fair job of doing that.

In conclusion: Rhys and Feyre are not fit to be parents at this point in their lives based on their own choices they have made, nor does it really make sense for them to even WANT to be at the moment. The situation they found themselves in was entirely preventable and SJM’s excuse and explanation for it was convoluted. I don’t find it to be believable in the slightest that there was no other possible way to safely deliver the baby and save Feyre, based on the word that SJM herself created. And Nesta ended up feeling like a supporting character in the dramatic finale of her own story. I wish she would have gotten her full moment in the spotlight without any involvement from SJM’s blatant favorites. Nesta really deserved better.

#acosf #acosf critical #sjm critical #anti feysand #anti rhysand #pro nesta #nesta archeron #acotar critical

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ectonurites · 4 years ago

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idk how to quote tags on mobile where is the conner kent essay i NEED it

ALRIGHT OKAY! here’s 5k+ words plus panels & screenshots of me comparing and contrasting the two drastically different versions of Superboy (comics vs young justice cartoon) and going over what makes them such distinctly separate characters. someday i’ll refine this a bit more its kinda just a word dump that’s been living in my brain that i wanted to actually articulate after i read through Reign of the Supermen but here we go:

Pretty frequently I see the question “Why is Superboy so different in the Young Justice cartoon?” float around in DC circles. I think there are two main approaches to answering this:

Why did the writers of the cartoon decide to create a very different version of Superboy?

What factors make this Superboy so different from the comic version?

For the first approach the answer is relatively straight-forward, from the start Young Justice as a cartoon was never meant to be a direct adaptation of the comics. They just used the title and a few elements so they could create their own approach to the DC universe with a focus on younger heroes. For example, Artemis Crock in their show is also COMPLETELY different from her comic counterpart, Zatanna is aged way down to be a member of the teen team, and Kaldur’ahm was created for this show (and integrated into the comics as Jackson Hyde). They were always trying to do different things than the main comics universe, so them making a different version of Conner also makes sense. Their approach to him is also very clearly influenced more by how he appeared in the Teen Titans comic run that was still coming out as Young Justice started airing (his design, and some other elements we’ll discuss along the way), as opposed to his original version from the 90′s/the Young Justice comic.

So the basic “why” is that from the start they wanted to create something unique to their universe, which they definitely did accomplish.

The much more interesting subject to dive into, though, is looking at the differences in Superboy’s story that contribute to him becoming such a different person.

The drastic changes made to the following factors are what I view as the main source of his differences in personality/outlook/characterization:

The conditions and history of the world at the time he is introduced

The circumstances around him being introduced/leaving Cadmus

The reaction Clark has to him and how their relationship starts

The people he first interacted with & became close to, and how he interacts with the world

The timing of him finding out about his connection to Luthor

The State of the Worlds

In the comics, Superboy is first introduced in Adventures of Superman #500 by iconically saying “Don’t ever call me Superboy!”

during a 1993 event called “Reign of the Supermen”, a follow up to the 1992 event “The Death of Superman”. Based on the title of the 1992 event, I think you can, uh, guess what one major difference in the setting here was vs. the state of the world at the time he was introduced in the cartoon. Obviously Clark didn’t stay dead forever, but Superboy first comes onto the scene as a young clone of Superman who insists he is the new Superman (one of the four characters trying to do so during the event). This is in the main DC universe in the early 90’s, which means that heroes in general, including teen heroes, aren’t a new thing! Not only has the Justice League been around for a while but so has the Teen Titans. Once Clark is alive again, Superboy goes off on his own to establish himself as an individual teen hero.

So how is that different in the cartoon?

In the cartoon, Superboy is first introduced in the pilot episodes “Independence Day” and “Fireworks”

on the 4th of July in (what most people consider to be) 2010. This was supposed to be the day that Robin (Dick Grayson), Speedy (Roy Harper), Kid Flash (Wally West), and Aqualad (Kaldur’ahm) would get to see the true Justice League HQ at the Hall of Justice, which... doesn’t go exactly as planned.

In this world, superheroes are a newer thing, this is something that the creators have talked about before. At this point, while there is an established Justice League, there are no known teams of teen superheroes. Just the fact that as of season one Dick Grayson is still Robin is a pretty good indicator that this world is early in it’s time with a Batman. Now, the sidekicks aren’t a secret, as they appear very publicly in this first episode, but they are almost always seen acting with their mentors at this point. Again, there is no Teen Titans in this setting, and there never has been.

So when they do form the first teen hero team? It is kept covert-ops. They do not publicize that they act as a superhero team, and the members who weren’t already publicly known heroes (mainly Miss Martian and Superboy) end up being pretty… unknown to a lot of the world outside the hero/villain community! Again their existence is not strictly kept a secret, but they keep the fact that there’s a team of minors who are heroes going on independent missions VERY under the radar on purpose. Thus, those who aren’t going around doing super public hero activities just don’t have nearly as much of a presence.

So to summarize:

In the comics, Superboy is immediately put in a spotlight (he befriends a reporter and is all over tv and literally trademarks the name Superman) becoming known to the world and establishes himself as a solo acting hero YEARS before joining any teams.

In the cartoon, Superboy is kept relatively out of the spotlight, immediately becomes part of a covert-ops team and doesn’t act solo very often. The well known teen heroes in this setting are sidekicks working under a mentor, and Superboy does not actually act as a sidekick.

What does this mean for Superboy?

Superboy in the comics gets to, right away, act on his own and get a taste of what being Superman is like. In the cartoon, he’s brought into the world at a time where there already is a Superman. I think back to this bit from the therapy episode, where he says:

“See, from the moment I first opened my eyes in that Cadmus pod, there’s been one thing I’ve wanted, and feared. To know what it is to be Superman.”

Comics Superboy started out getting to do that! He immediately got a shot at filling that role, and he then makes the choice to relinquish it back to the original once he’s alive again. He (begrudgingly at first) understood that it wasn’t yet his time to be Superman, and knows he’ll someday fill those shoes for real- but in the meantime being Superboy is gonna be his own thing and he’ll embrace it and make it work.

Cartoon Superboy is left in a shadow, not ever truly knowing what it’s like to fill those shoes (except in a doomsday scenario training exercise gone awry that he then just feels intense guilt over). This leaves him a lot more frustrated and lost, and I think is a major contributor to how angry this version of Superboy is compared to his much more ‘chill go with the flow’ attitude in the comics.

Cadmus

In the comics, in that same issue he’s introduced, we find out that Superboy broke out of his cloning tube prematurely and left Cadmus with the assistance of the second Newsboy Legion, who also gave him his first leather jacket, before the programming that would allow Cadmus to control him was implemented.

He quickly gets up to speed with the situation, that Clark is dead. So he comes on the scene starting to save people and saying he is Superman, or at least the clone of the original one. A major thing that does influence his character here is the fact that… this is the 90’s. He is designed around the idea of what is ‘cool’ back in 1993. (look, even his original character design sheets call him cool)

So right off the bat he’s got a stereotypical ‘cool teen guy in that era’ personality, which is often played for comedy to add a little lightness to some of the dark things happening during this event.

Anyways, he has left Cadmus, he’s acting on his own, and he starts realizing that his powers aren’t exactly the same as Superman’s over the course of the Reign of the Supermen story.

After the main conflict is settled and Clark is fully alive and acting as Superman again, the two of them end up going back to Cadmus to find out what the exact deal is with him. I’ll go into this more in a later point, but they find out he’s not exactly a clone of Superman (or Lex- him being actually involved as a DNA donor is a retcon that happened a decade later). They agree to let someone from Cadmus (Dubbilex- the grey guy with the horns in this pic) leave Metropolis with him, as he sets out on a press tour to establish himself as Superboy now that he relinquished the trademark on the Superman name back to Clark.

Let’s pause and look at how this is different in the cartoon.

In the cartoon, when the trio of Robin, Kid Flash, and Aqualad decide to prove themselves to their mentors they run off on their own to attend to a fire at Project Cadmus when the Justice League got called off to do something else. Upon arriving, they accidentally uncover some weird things about Cadmus, like the crazy amount of sublevels, the creatures roaming around, and the fact that it’s not on the main power grids. They eventually find Superboy, still in his cloning tube. They break him out, but then get captured themselves.

When they are then put into tubes by Cadmus personnel, they manage to convince Superboy to help free them by promising him things like getting to meet Superman, and see the moon. The group of four now working together manages to escape from the building and it topples down, where they are then greeted by the Justice League who are Not Happy.

Superman flies away shortly after, and the group of kids explain to their remaining mentors that sure, they disobeyed orders, but they accomplished something good here, and they are going to keep doing it, whether the League likes it or not. The compromise is the formation of The Team, to be covert-ops while the Justice League acts publicly, and the boys are joined by Miss Martian.

So to summarize:

In the comics, Superboy leaves Cadmus pretty independently (with some assistance) to go act on his own as a hero immediately. He returns to Cadmus later for more information, and they reveal truths to him about his existence. After he knows his truth, he goes off to continue establishing himself as a solo hero but lets Cadmus still supervise what he’s doing through Dubbilex.

In the cartoon, Superboy is rescued from Cadmus by Robin, Kid Flash, and Aqualad, without knowing pretty much anything about himself besides the fact that he is a clone of Superman, and is immediately put on the covert ops team.

What it means for Superboy:

Comic Superboy goes to act on his own, even after he admits he’s not the real Superman anymore. Yes he’s not 100% alone in terms of ‘he’s got people (Rex, Roxy, Dubbilex, Tana) around him’, but as a hero he’s a solo act and ends up taking residence in Hawaii. In the cartoon, by joining a team right away, he’s taking on a very different style of being a hero, especially because the team itself is covert-ops. Rather than regularly saving the day all on his own much like Superman, which can help comic Superboy feel like he’s still living up to the name more, cartoon Superboy is working under the radar in a group setting, while still wanting to desperately fill those Superman shoes.

He is overconfident in his abilities and wants to be the hero he was created to be, so him being put into this very different type of superhero situation is another major contributor to the frustration/anger. Even later on when comics Superboy is part of forming the Young Justice team, they were never a secret covert-ops team, they were always publicly known. (hell, a reporter is the one who gave them the team name Young Justice because he’d misheard Bart)

Superboy & Superman

In the comics, as we have established, Clark was dead at the time Superboy first came on the hero scene. Clark comes back to life, during a little bit of a lull in the middle of the huge conflict. He immediately accepts that Superboy is one of four who came forward to try to replace him, and one of the only two (Superboy & Steel) who genuinely only had good intentions in doing so. Clark, Steel, Supergirl, Hal Jordan, and Superboy then all work together in the big battle against the Cyborg Superman.

Once things are settled, Clark is curious about him, and where he came from and his origin, so they end up going to Cadmus together with Guardian and learning more about him, as I previously mentioned. Once it is established that Superboy is in fact a metahuman clone who was created to mimic Superman, but is not actually a clone of him, Superman still accepts him and thinks he’s earned his right to continue using the ’S’ shield and have the name of Superboy.

They part ways so Superboy can go on his press tour, but in general they have pretty positive interactions where they mutually respect each other! Not too much later in the comics even (I forget exaaactly when this happens but it’s definitely before the 1998 Young justice comic), Superman is the first one to give Superboy a real name, “Kon-El”, something he is so happy about he literally cries.

How is this different in the cartoon?

When the boys first escaped, and Superboy first meets the Justice League, Clark is standoffish. Other members of the league need to nudge him over to go actually talk to Superboy, and it’s not much of a conversation before he flies off and away, leaving Superboy frustrated and alone.

This… turns into the standard for almost the entire first season. Other characters constantly telling Clark that he needs to reach out and be support for the boy (like in this iconic diner scene with Bruce and Clark), but Clark consistently being too freaked out by the fact that someone made a clone of him without his knowledge to properly accept Conner. While this does over time get better, this being the immediate reaction when Superboy is brand new in the world definitely… has an impact!

He is rejected by the person he idolizes, and feels neglected and abandoned, and definitely kinda overcompensates with ego to try to make up for it.

So:

In the comics, Superman and Superboy work together from the start, not falling into a hero/sidekick situation but rather acknowledging each other as individual heroes with respect for one another. They grow to see each other as family much faster, and little tension between them. A crucial difference in situations, though, is that at the time these versions first meet Superboy is not actually a clone of Superman.

In the cartoon, Superman at first avoids Superboy, and does not offer guidance or mentorship or anything the boy needs. It is clear that he wants to work with Superman and be like him, since it was what he was created to do. It takes a lot of time for Clark to accept Conner in this setting, and there is a lot of tension for the first several months Conner exists. (they seem to settle this towards the end of season 1/during the gap between season 2, but it still has it’s impact on who Conner is early in his life)

What does this mean?

I feel like this is another major factor that contributes to Conner being so angry all the time in the cartoon, he feels immediately rejected by the person he’s supposed to be someday, rather than accepted by him. Again, very different from how comics Superboy got a chance to be Superman, and a chance to then work with the real deal as equals.

Friendships, Relationships and Identity

When Superboy is freed by the second Newsboy Legion, it’s primarily out of a ‘we’re clones who are stuck here, but you need to be out there, you’re what Metropolis needs right now!’ kind of idea. The first person he actually becomes close to is a reporter named Tana Moon.

Tana and Superboy’s relationship is… bad once it actually becomes romantic due to their huge age difference (she’s around 23, he is for all intents and purposes 16), but during the Reign of the Supermen where they’re still just friends for the most part, it’s not as bad. Tana becomes the GBS correspondent who focuses on everything Superboy (at this time still insisting he is the new Superman) is doing as a hero, and they become close friends.

GBS then also brings in Rex Leech (and his daughter Roxy) to be his agent, to promote Superboy and manage things for him. Rex is exploitative as hell, but Roxy does become another really important person to Superboy. These characters along with Dubbilex are his main supporting cast at the start of his solo comic when he’s in Hawaii.

In this whole era, Superboy is pretty much a celebrity. He’s cool, he’s a superhero, and I think it’s very notable he does not have a secret Identity. For a decent chunk of time, he is always just ‘Superboy’ (until, as I mentioned earlier, Clark gives him the name Kon-El. Even so, he doesn’t adopt a regular secret identity [Conner Kent, although he actually used a different one, Carl Grummett, before that!] until he begins living with the Kents in the early 2000s). By the time he joins any teams, Kon is pretty damn confident in who he is as a hero and has a relatively good grasp on who he is in general, if anything he’s a little too confident.

Young Justice was created in the aftermath of World Without Grown Ups when the trio of Superboy, Robin (Tim Drake) and Impulse (Bart Allen) had teamed up. After they saved the day they realized they worked well together and formed their team, utilizing the old Justice League base in Mount Justice. They were eventually joined by more members, especially relevant here is Wonder Girl (Cassie Sandsmark) who Kon later dates for a portion of the Teen Titans run that these four are in after Young Justice ends.

The four of them become close, and when Kon dies during Infinite Crisis it rips a hole in everything they had established growing up together over the past several years (Cassie joins a cult dedicated to bringing him back, Tim tries to clone a new Kon, Bart got aged up and took on the mantle of the Flash, etc) and Bart’s death that followed similarly shook the remaining Cassie and Tim. This group eventually does get to reunite, with Kon and Bart coming back during Final Crisis, solidifying how even things like death don’t keep them apart for long. It’s hard to look at the comic book versions of these four characters and imagine how they would be without their connections to each other... until you look at the YJ cartoon and see a world where they’re not even all part of the same generation, let alone a friend group.

Now in the cartoon…

The first people Conner primarily interacts with are Dick, Wally, Kaldur, and M’gann, along with the League members who interact with The Team pretty regularly, Red Tornado, Batman, and Black Canary. He’s shown to be friends with the other memebers of the team and get along with them relatively well, but in general he’s not much of a social person.

Much like in the comics, Superboy is considered very attractive, and immediately upon their meeting, M’gann is interested in him. Very, very interested in him.

At first it definitely does seem more just like an innocent crush, but it’s later revealed to be a little more… concerning than that. As in ‘Megan subtlety influencing Superboy to become her dream boyfriend based on a TV show she likes’ concerning. Like… she literally gives him the name ‘Conner’ after the TV show character that was the boyfriend of the character she bases her human self and entire identity on. The two date and once that becomes a thing, a lot of their plot lines in the following seasons revolve around the ups and downs of their relationship.

In general in this show, Superboy doesn’t really get much of a chance to establish himself on his own terms. Within months of him leaving his cloning pod, he and M’gann start going to high school with secret identities, so he’s already having to hide who he truly is to blend in with other people, before he even knows who he truly is.

So to compare:

In the comics, Superboy gets to figure out who he is as Superman’s Clone/Superboy very publicly, has multiple love interests and a celebrity status, and over time becomes part of a tight-knit group of friends. He doesn’t use a regular secret identity for the first several years he’s active.

In the cartoon, Superboy has one love interest with a very large impact on him, not nearly as much focus is given to his other friendships, and he immediately adopts a secret identity meaning he needs to hide who he is from the start.

What it means:

These factors play a big difference in his attitude, particularly highlighting how extroverted his comic version is and how introverted his cartoon version is. Comic Superboy never really needed to hide who he was until years into his career, vs being told to do so early on in his life. When you get used to needing to hide things so early, that can definitely lead to being more private/disconnected from others. Also somewhat related- in the comics, when Kon is given knowledge in his cloning tube, more pop culture got included. He mentions knowing Star Wars without having seen it, and references a ton of TV and Movies, vs the cartoon version of him that seems to have been given a lot of history of the world but not the current fun stuff. It’s the difference between knowing what’s going on in the world and what’s popular, vs only knowing the past and what’s fundamental. Not knowing pop culture like this can also really contribute to feeling alienated and lead to introversion. (I just... I think about how in the comics Kon’s favorite TV show is Wendy The Werewolf Stalker, in the cartoon Conner just... watches white noise static)

Also, having a completely different set of friends with different personalities has a big effect, people are always gonna be influenced by the people they’re close to to some extent. Bumping Conner up to Dick’s generation of heroes instead of Tim’s not only gives him completely different friends, but it also puts him in this position of being one of the ‘Original Team Members’. By this I mean, a member of the first iteration of the only teen team, one of the people that younger heroes coming onto the scene and joining the team in later seasons see as an experienced and older team member to look up to (despite the fact that cartoon Conner is permanently 16- they never fixed that for him like in the comics). That just creates a different dynamic entirely, because in the comics even when the Tim/Kon/Cassie/Bart group are more experienced on their team late in the Teen Titans run, they are still always going to have heroes like Dick Grayson, Donna Troy, Wally West etc as the older generation of ‘original teen heroes’ who came before them.

Also, while I am talking mostly about in-universe reasoning here, I do wanna bring up one slightly more meta reason that might also have contributed to them choosing to go for a more ‘introverted brooding hero’ characterization with him: the fact that their version of Wally already filled the ‘flirty jokey’ archetype original Comics Kon fits into. Having two characters like that in the show from the start would definitely get... overwhelming. And at the time this show was first airing, in the comics, he was relatively devoted to Cassie and not nearly as flirty anymore anyways.

Lex Luthor / Details of Cloning

In the comics, as I have already mentioned and will now actually explain, when Superboy was first introduced he was not the clone of Superman and Lex Luthor as we know him to be today. Kon was a metahuman clone, made with the DNA of Paul Westfield who worked at Cadmus, that they genetically altered to look like Superman, and gave powers based on the energy aura they discovered to exist around Clark’s dead body. This telekinetic field gave Kon the distinct powers he had for his first decade of existence: His Tactile Telekinesis (often referred to by him as TTK)

Lex Luthor was originally not directly involved in his creation, but he was aware that it was going on as is revealed during the Reign of the Supermen arc. Kon’s TTK allowed him to mimic Superman’s flight and strength, but not all of his powers. TTK also gave him powers Superman DOESN’T have, such as his ability to dismantle machinery or mold materials he is touching into different shapes. (The reason this is called Tactile Telekinesis is because there needs to be a tactile element, he needs to be touching the things)

It is not until 2003, a decade after Superboy was created, that writer Geoff Johns in his Teen Titans run decided to alter Superboy’s origin. He established that Lex Luthor had been the real human DNA donor and that Superman’s Kryptonian DNA was actually used in the cloning process. Around this time, Conner also begins to exhibit more of the typical Kryptonian powers, like Clark did around this age.

This information is at first only known by Conner and Tim, because the email had actually been sent to Tim directly. The two keep it a secret as Conner was not ready to tell the rest of the team, because he fears the implications it has, and is afraid of becoming evil or being rejected. This revelation about Lex being one of his ‘parents’ DNA-wise coming years into his hero career changes a lot of things for Conner, and makes him begin to question who he is. Unfortunately, Lex does at one point take control of Conner and force him to break Tim’s arm and attack Cassie directly (as well as the rest of the team, but these two specifically are what Conner expresses the most guilt over after the fact). This era of Conner in the comics is where he’s definitely closest to his cartoon counterpart, because he’s very troubled and dealing with a lot of heavy stuff regarding himself as a person. Yet there’s still traces of who he has always been in there. I mean, if you’re only familiar with cartoon Conner, can you really imagine his final words as he’s dying after saving the world being “Isn’t it cool?”

Now, looking at the cartoon…

Conner finds out about his connection to Lex in November, only a few months after having existed outside of a cloning tube. He finds it out on his own, from Lex speaking to him directly, after Conner went back to investigate the remains of Cadmus and ended up having a fight with Match (another clone who is able to pass for Conner’s duplicate who they… their version of Match is another thing they drastically changed from the comic version but as we’ve established that’s something they like to do so I’m not gonna dwell on it).

In the cartoon, Conner’s powerset is, from the start, different from both Superman and comic Superboy. Here he has heightened senses and strength and the ability to leap really far, but he lacks actual flight and some of the other standard Kryptonian powers, and has no TTK. The cartoon explains these gaps in his powers as being due to his half human DNA, and they introduce these patches that are able to suppress his human DNA and give him temporary access to full powers. Lex uses these patches as a way to manipulate him. Much like in the comics, Lex has a code word programmed into Conner that effects him, although it isn’t quite used for the same amount of ‘total mind control’, and he doesn’t get fully brainwashed and turn against the team or anything. Instead, the code word (here “Red Sun” rather than “Aut vincere, aut mori” [Translated as “to conquer or die" / "victory or death”]) just leaves him stuck in a hypnotic trance.

So:

In the comics, Kon finds out after years of believing he was a metahuman clone who was given powers to mimic Superman, that he is actually a clone of Lex Luthor and Superman, which alters his entire perspective on himself! This causes him to become a lot more unsure and anxious about who he is, in stark contrast with how confident he was before. There are still traces of his old self within him, but this is a development in his character that influences him moving forward, making him a bit more serious but still at his core the same person he used to be.

In the cartoon, Conner finds out after months of thinking he was a clone of just Superman, that he has half human DNA and the donor was Lex Luthor. While he always had confidence in his abilities, he was still somewhat lost as a person in knowing who he really was outside of things other people have assigned to him (teammate, boyfriend, superhero, etc), and finding out this information about himself just adds to the uncertainty and frustration.

What it means:

Having this struggle be something Conner has to deal with so early in his existence is one of the most fundamental changes in my opinion. Finding out that Lex Luthor is one of your clone parents is something that will alter your entire perception of yourself and who you are! In the comics, Conner had already been confident in who he was so it shakes his world in a really big way, but in the cartoon he still didn’t know who he really was so it just adds to further confusion.

I think that even with the more serious characterization Kon starts getting in the 2003 Teen TItans run, his history and past as the fun cool 90′s Metropolis Kid isn’t entirely forgotten, it’s still a part of who he is/was. Sure, maybe he’s sometimes even embarrassed by how he used to be, but it’s not treated as though it didn’t happen. All of his history comes together to create the character and who he is by the time he wears just a T shirt as a costume.

By skipping over the fun era of his life and jumping right into who he was when he started facing these huge changes, it creates such a completely different set of challenges for him and that contributes directly to how he’s characterized.

Putting it all together

The ultimate point I am trying to reach in all of this is that, beyond just ‘they made a writing choice to make him different’ the environment that Superboy was brought into and the events that took place right when he came into the world greatly influenced the type of character he would become. Every time an adaptation is made of something like comics, there are going to be changes and alterations to fit the world the creators want to make. Sometimes these changes are minor and don’t actually change who a character is (an example for the YJ cartoon’s universe itself: In the tie-in comics [issue 6] it’s established in this universe that the Flying Graysons weren’t just Dick and his parents, but other family members were active parts of it too. One was an uncle also named Richard, who actually survived the fall that killed the rest of his family but was left paralyzed and thus unable to care for him. This uncle already used the nickname ‘Rick’ which is likely why Dick ended up using ‘Dick’ as a name in a modern setting even though it has fallen out of popularity as a nickname because uh, connotations. This is something that is mostly unique to their world and helps to explain some things, but it’s not like tragically losing a few more family members changed their version of Dick and his backstory that drastically. At his core, he still has many similarities to his comic self) but they’re still changes, and that’s okay. Superboy, though, is such an extreme case where they made so many changes that at his core he really does become a completely separate character. Sure he has the name and design, but I was able to write five thousand words about differences here and am struggling to come up with more similarities beyond that.

I think there still could be specks of the original Superboy buried inside cartoon Conner, and that maybe he could have been more like his original version under other circumstances. Looking at these differences and where they come from is, I think, a cool way to begin to understand what elements contribute to who each version of Conner Kent really is. I think it’s clear from how I wrote this that I prefer the comic version, but there are definitely things that are fun to look at and think about with both.

if u read all of this UH thanks for listenin to me ramble! sorry if this is incomprehensibe!

#rainbowroadimpulse #sam writes #conner kent #superboy

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lovee-infected · 4 years ago

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hi! could i see your insights about ace? i saw a anon say from another blog that kinda has unrealistic expectations in a relationship and it kinda stuck with me. i mean in his ghost marriage he already knows the things he wants in a partner but he didn't show guilt about dumping his girlfriend, even. i think if you date him because he sees these quality in you and as the relationship last, he'll dump you if you get boring to him lol

I never thought that I'd say this but, wow, I'm impressed. I've been really curious about Ace since I get to see a variety of different content with different representations of his personality, so I decided to stick with his canon stories and lines. This analysis was so much fun to write and I'd assure you all that not only Ace but rather all of the first year characters are WAY more than they seem to be! Many just decide to ignore them and pass away, calling them good boys or precious stupid beanies at first.

Speaking of Ace, we've all seen how trending he's been recently. Many theories, thoughts and new arguments exist through the fandom as many want to get to know this boy better.

Theories like "Ace's betrayal theory" as well have been mentioned a lot lately, some agree and some disagree. While we aren't going to talk about that theory or any other theories in this analysis, I'd like to take time to talk about the reasons why those theories might seem appealing and accurate. In other words, we're going to talk about where they are coming from!

1) Ace is incredibly smart and brave

It's true that characters like Jade or Azul's remarkable genius often stands out as it's clearly visible through their presence in the game, from iconic decisions to stunning strategies. But what we need to realize is how characters like Ace can be just as inspiring while their true intelligence is often shallowed by extras and giving them much of a dumb picture in the game.

To begin with, let us note that Ace's brother himself was one of the considerably strong magicians in Heartslabyul's history and even his presence through the magicshift is still remarkable even though years has passed. As the second child of the family, Ace's change to achieve success is even higher than his brother's as he already has a role model he really looks up to, so in that point Ace isn't one to underestimate. But, let me point that his relationship with his brother also contains lots of jealousy and sometimes negativity. His brother was one to always trick Ace and he continues to do so even nowadays! Ace on the other hand doesn't enjoy being pissed off over and over even as he's used to it. Well, we can say that it's another reason for him to train his hardest and become a greater magician than his brother therefore he won't be the bully material of the Trappola household anymore.

Regardless of how effective his brother might've been on him, Ace himself has shown plenty of strong hints that reveal not only his high IQ but also EQ:

He can solve math problems in second, which is a rather important feature to note because the way you deal with math can directly effect the way you deal with life. Not saying that one has to be great at math to be great at something else but it's rather about the perspective and ability of logical thinking that it gives to one. I'd say that this effect is quite visible if you take a look at the way he speaks in serious situations; he's got much of an analytical brain. Let's not forget that Cater as well confirmed that he's much of a skill stealer, is pretty good at remembering things and is a quick thinker! These are go on to show how much of an underestimated genius he is.

Whenever something goes wrong, Ace would be the first one to notice it even if it's a silly matter. And it always begins with a seemingly childish argument, but ends incrucial matters that not a single soul had noticed before! Just take a look at chapter one, what would've happened if Ace hadn't spoken up? He was just one of the hundreds of students having to be severely punished under Riddle's strict rules and he surely wasn't the first one to go through this. Him taking the urge to fight Riddle sounded stupid and naïve at first, many even told him off because he was just acting like a pissed off child. But as he continued to argue and oppose toward Riddle's way as a leader, even Trey realized how he's been keeping his eye shut on all this problems for so long. The way Ace stood against Trey was iconic, he confidently defended his point not by his personal demands and feelings but with facts and logical comments on why Trey's way of threatening Riddle is wrong. He did the same thing again at he ghost marriage, just think of it! Not a single soul ever cared to tell the bride about true love but Ace was there, and he was the one and only to do this after more than 500 years of the bride's existence! This Ace, this serious and mature face of Ace is something that can surely fascinate anyone. His bravery, the way he puts all that strength through words, hisextremely logical point of view and his enthusiasm to solve the problems no matter how unimportant they seem to be is indeed appreciatble. Seriously though, what would've happened to Riddle is Ace wasn't there? When Ace firstly begun to oppose to him, everyone thought that is was just a childish argument. They had no idea how severe and destructive Riddle's temper issues were and how harmful they were down inside.

2) He's one of the dumbest characters in the whole game

You know what? He is dumb. Yes he's incredibly smart but this isn't going to change the fact that he is dumb as hell, so I'm never going to argue when someone's nagging on how much of an idiot he is. But most importantly, we need to know what's making him so dumb:

His presence through the stories has proved that Ace is eventually pretty good at detecting the main source of problems both on the mental and physical side. He was the first to realize Riddle's issues, Trey's huge mistake with Riddle, Ghost bride's unawareness and Epel's gloomy and sad aura in chapter 4. Ace's also one to easily tell whether what someone is doing is wrong or not, he can see through people and bring their mistakes to their attention. The problem is... he can't be quite the same with himself. That's what makes him awfully dumb.

Back in chapter one, he did have a point about Riddle's way of leadership being so unfair and messed up, but when he decided to challenge Riddle and even take his place as the dorm leader he was a total idiot who didn't how weak and unpractical his own magic was, he was being too dramatic. When he talked about his ex girlfriend, he just talked about how she held him back from doing what he wanted and was too uncool to spend time with, but he didn't mention a single thing about himself doing anything wrong in that relationship. He often fails to realize that he's got his own incompleteness and lacks just like anyone else, or prefers to put an blind eye to them most of the time (not all of the time)

Ace sets the perfect goals, but chooses the wrong path to achieve them. He needs to realize that just like everyone else, he can be sometimes wrong. He should take his time to get to know himself better; his abilities, his attitude, his faults and his mistakes and learn to be more patient and logical in order to achieve his goals. He's still young an inexperienced, by learning to put that brilliance of him into the perfect use he'd be able to become the great magician he wishes to be, and I'd say that in case that he continues to grow stronger and smarter, he'll have a high chance of being hesrtslabyul's next dorm leader!

3) He legit wants to be the "Ace"

This part's more of an attempt to do a name analyis and see how much it's been effective on Ace's personality. It actually makes a lot of snese since the word "Ace" itself has several meanings, and he used these different terms quite a few times in his personal stories. This point would also be explained in part (4) so for now, let's take a look at direct name definitions:

First of, remember what what an Ace is in a card game? "A playing card with a simple spot on it, ranked as the highest card in its suit" This goes on to tell us a lot, it's telling us what an Ace is. A loner yet the most powerful one of its own, just like how Ace wants to be.

Wanting to be an actuall Ace is definitely one of the things that sometimes makes Ace sound so jerky and he's aware of it! If you give it a closer look, you'll see that Ace doesn't really treat his friends like friends, especially with Deuce and Grim. He's often insulting or challenging them, and even during his birthday SSR when MC asked him about what he thinks of each of other first years (Who are basically his closest friends) he mainly criticized them and all, not a single word was said about things he likes about them and he didn't even call any of them his friend!

Well that's much of a jerky attitude to have toward people whom you spend almost all of your time with, especially your best of time.

He to play the role of the bad guy, the type to hang out with everyone without feeling any attached to them as even friends. Seems like our boy is trying to be a loner, a true Ace of cards and hearts. And he doesn't mind his friends calling him a bastard or jerk because of this. It's even confirmed that he's more of the popular guy type therefore he's mainly used to having people around!

On the other hand, he's trying his best to achieve success no matter what the obstacles are. It's true that he often messes up and fails, but we cannot say that he isn't trying. He almost lost his head for real during his SSR story where Riddle's favorite hedgehogs were lost because of Ace's impatience, but at last with the help of monsieur Rook and his own ability to imitate Rook's mole language skills Ace saved his neck one more time, and ended his story with a dramatic "Of course, I always Ace it!"

4) Ace does care, but pretends that he does not

In contrast to the fact that he wants to sound tricky,manipulative and mean, or how he's denying his friends' true worth to him like stated in part (3), Ace is probably one of the most caring and supportive characters in the game. Not saying that he's just as bright as someone like Kalim, but his way of seeing through people and wishing them to be better, wealthier and happier than they already are is surely something. This fact is often ignored because, well...everyone's too busy calling him either dumb or sus/ jk!

Just imagine having a friend or at least, a classmate you know like Ace. How's he supposed to be? He'd realize it when someone's bullying/bothering/ or intentionally harming you, and he isn't going to be silent about it. If you see that you're permanently sad, angry, rude or loud then again he'd speak up, he isn't going to just pull up with anyone's unhealthy habit like nothing's happened. He's got much of a big brain as well so you should expect him to say a bunch of helpful and meaningful stuff when he's using that brain, mainly in serious situations. He may not be a permanently mutual to have around, but when the troubles arrive, know that having Ace around is always an advantage.

To top it off, he's even shown sympathy toward people whom he seemed to like the least at first like Riddle; he wishes Riddle to be happier, to smile more, to be more open about his emotions with other students. At some point he even admits that he looks up to him, he used to overestimate his powers and challenged Riddle, but during the ghost marriage he said that he knows how powerful and strong Riddle is, therefore he should work his hardest to study and train to become strong just like him! He already seems to be more cheerful and bright when MC is talking to him, but when it comes to Grim and Deuce...it gets quite complicated. What we see the most is often Ace insulting them or saying that he's going to kick their asses, but they're also his closest friends all though he refuses to admit to it.

Just wait for Deuce or Grim to get in a serious danger or pain, and see how much of a protective one Ace can be! He isn't going to remain silent when one is in danger, but he's surely going to deny all that effort and affection he gave into action afterwards. When Ace can feel this cautious and understanding toward Riddle, someone who isn't even a friend of his then imagine how supportive and caring he would be toward his close friends like Deuce, MC and Grim!

In his ghost marriage as well, his words and the way he spoke of the meaning of true love left everyone, even Crowley, impressed (Crowley even said that he's fallen in love with this side of Ace's personality), but refused to admit that he was speaking of his true feelings after the ceremony. Someone like Grim is too bold to recognize how much of a different person Ace can be inside, so he claimed that Ace was just rambling nonsense without thinking of what he was saying back then, and Ace agreed with him! This is a continuation to part (3) where we talked about how he wants to be a loner, he doesn't want anyone to see how caring and sometimes, emotional he can be inside! Poor boy is quite shy showing his true feelings we can tell~

5) Ace can be quite tricky and manipulative

This part will also explain some of the main reasons behind famous theories like "Ace's betrayal theory", and I wanted to have a certain part to talk about this point specifically because it's been quite trending through the whole fandom, and many are wondering why theorizers are considering his betrayal a possibility, so here we go!

As said, one of the main factors the makes Ace seem suspicious would be his incredible intelligence. The fact that he can actually be that smart all the time but isn't openly showing his talents and abilities can be quite questionable, more details regarding his intelligence and most likely high IQ and EQ were discussed in part (1)!

Enough with intelligence, let's focus on his personality! This is mainly what this part is talking about, his trickiness. Just like his father and older brother, Ace is pretty good with magic tricks. Small and fun tricks are a convenient yet easy ways to inspire others and Ace doesn't mind showing the crowd what he's got up in sleeve when possible. But the thing is...this isn't just about fancy tricks.

This ability can be expanded into any other field such as mental terms and enable him to indirectly control and play with one's mind. That's more of a possibility though! He hasn't yet shown any signs of being any manipulative but, well, we can't say that it's beyond his abilities. Ace himself can be quite sarcastic and mean at the time, he doesn't seem to mind slightly tricking his friends either. Nothing about him seems to be serious, but the possibilities remain still.

The way he learnt those tricks as well is mentionable; no one ever teached himm any of those tricks, he learnt them through being repeatedly tricked, and learning to copy and redo what he saw. Both Rook and Cater so far have confirmed that Ace's ability to learn so quickly and learn and redo techniques just by watching them is fantastic.

His genius and ability to learn and memorize everything that he needs to learn pretty fast, along side his tricky and sometimes personality can make Ace quite dangerous. If someone like him decides to choose such a remarkable talent for evil purposes, that's surely going to be bad news. That's much and less of what makes Ace's betrayal theory make sense although there're still fans who find it quite questionable. I'm not a supporter of this theory myself as I hadn't seen any signs of Ace having any bad intentions so far, but I do get where the theorizers are coming from and that makes sense. Ace has been trying to put on much of a mean and lowkey evil face on through the story and no one can really say what's exactly going on in that brain. We'll that about this uncertainty in part (7)!

6) His past relationship was...uh

For now, Ace is the only character who is confirmed to have experience in love and relationships, and this was a rather effective factor since many have been talking about Ace's past relationship afterwards. The thing is...Ace did talk about how his girlfriend held him back from having fun and living the life he wanted to live. Well there's actually a lot we should say about this one so I'm not gonna rush to the end, let's think about all of the aspects of this situation logically:

First of, the relationship itself. I'd say that it was a wrong attempt for them to date each other in the first place because obviously, Ace and his girlfriend weren't made for each other. They were total opposites in interests and they couldn't even have fun together. If Ace chose to go on a wild roller coater ride, the girl would've freaked out and when she chose a small, childish ride that she liked Ace instead didn't enjoy it at all. It's surely an issue when you and your partner can't even watch a movie which both of you can enjoy together since their tastes were totally different, just jow was this relationship going to last? Ace wasn't happy, and if he was going to do what made him happy the girl in return would've been sad. They were two different people of two different points, dating at this point was nothing but a mistake.

On the other hand, Ace as well is guilty. First off, she shouldn't have dated the girl in the first place if he was aware of how different her tastes were. Second, from what he said he never showed any signs of dissatisfaction when he had to give up on what he liked to listen to what the girl friend liked. The girl friend obviously told him that she was scared of a horror movie, but Ace just kept his mouth shut and felt awfully annoyed as he watched a romance movie with her while he didn't like it at all. If he'd at least told her girlfriend about this, she wouldn't have felt as injured and cheated when Ace broke up with her. Ace shouldn't have bottled it up, he deserved to enjoy the relationship just as much as the girl did. He shouldn't have expected things to get any better if he wasn't going to solve anything about it in the first place. If he'd talked about his personal desires and favorites as well, and had his uncomfortableness with most of the girl's choices discussed before hand, there could've been a chance of them coming into a conclusion and even not breaking up! The girl could've tried to be braver for him, and Ace could've agreed to be softer because of her. There would've been a HUGE difference if they'd talked about it logically.

Also, keep this in mind that the girl had no idea about Ace's uncomfortableness which was low key naïve of her (It's not cool when you don't even realize that your boyfriend doesn't like something) but this also made him awfully unprepared for a break up! Ace should've st least talked about his feelings and how he was unable to continue that relationship with her instead of just dropping her out of nowhere. That would've also decreased the chance of having to deal with the girl's friends after wards!

Finally, let's say that this relationship was wrong in too many aspects. They weren't each other's type, and we can't really blame Ace for dropping someone whom he couldn't be happy with. The main of being in a relationship is spending time with someone whom you can enjoy your time with. He as well was guilty because he can't just drop the girl like he just didn't care and had gotten tired of her while he had his own reasons for dropping her, he should've let the girl know that it wasn't necessarily her fault, it was about Ace not being able to relate to her tastes and habits.

Also, let's be honest. Not much is expected when a 15 year old is dating. Being in a relationship is an awfully sensitive and important choice and someone like Ace hasn't reached that level of maturity to be ready to date someone, let alone doing it at his 15s! Honestly... they should've learnt a lot before dating each other because it isn't a silly thing. Dating like this is nothing but playing around for a while for fun, it's a childish game of spending some time together until they break up.

For now, Ace is finds love quite silly and meaningless so we can clearly see that his past relationship has pissed him off. Well Ace needs to realize that his relationship with his ex wasn't a serious one, so it's normal for it to seem unimportant and silly. He needs to learn a lot without dating someone again, such as knowing how crucial it is to make sure that his hobbies would match his partners, to make sure tjat they get along, and simply, he needs to find his own type! Not all people are made for each other, and he isn't supposed to fall for anyone with any possible personality that pops up on his way.

Also, I'd say that he still needs to focus on studying instead of dating. He needs to reach the required level of maturity to be ready to start a healthy and successful relationship again. Also, he might end up being totally different from what we've seen about him being in a relationship do far when he grows up! Idealistics do change a lot olin teenagehood.

7) We need to talk about our first years a lot more!!!

This point isn't just about him, but rather all of the first years! If I were to rate the most ignored and shallowed personalities of twst, the first years should've gone on the top of this list. Even when we're speaking of the mischaracterized characters of the game, many consider Ace and Deuce to be the least mischaracterized while they happen to be the most mischaracterized as no one evencares to see through them and feel like we aren't mischaracterizing them just because we're ignoring them! Come on guys, Ace's design and personality is a lot more complicated and harder to read than characters like Vil and even Leona!

Out of all first years Sebek was the only one to get some proper shout outs so far but why isn't anyone talking about Ace and Deuce the way they deserve to be talked about? Their presence through the game is even more important than the dorm leaders as they are the closest characters to MC, and their personality design is just incredible, no just because of how perfectly detailed it is, but also because of giving them this unpredictability and incompleteness which totally matches their age!

Studies have shown that judging one's personality based on how they're doing at the age of 16 or younger is prettyhard and impossible, and it's a totally serious fact. At the age of 16, human's personality is under severe effects and changes until reaching it's final-developed shape. That's accurate toward almost all of the first years except Jack since he seems to have more of a mature personality.

NRC's first years are really complicated, especially a character like Ace. That why I said that we can't yet tell if he's a good guy or not, because at this level of life he can choose to be anything. He can be good, he can be bad, he can be neutral. That's why he's showing too much of opposite actions at the moment. One second he's being the biggest idiot in the whole world, the other second he's planning like a 50 year old genius. One second he's being protective over his friends, the other second he sighs and tells MC how annoying they are.

That's why Ace is hard to read, we can't tell what his true feelings are until he reaches the required mental stability to be judged as a mature and complete personality. 18 year olds like Vil have already reached that level of maturity and completeness, finding their unique magics as well is another sign of it. But our first years still need to learn and experience until they find their real selves, to see who they are.

This is one of the most adorable facts about their design because they really gave him this young and wild and incomplete nature to show that they're still young! This is quite incredible how careful Yana was to remember that they all needed some this childishness in their design, their designs are just as accurate and realistic as a real 16 year old's! They still need to learn, and that's why they're the closest ones to MC.

MC needs to learn and get to see more and more of this world, and so do the first years! They're just as unexperienced and new to this world, and they can relate to MC better than anyone else can!

So please, from now on, let's remember to talk about not only Ace, but also all of the first years more often. Ace and Deuce's designs especially are the most detailed and beautiful ones if you take time to know them better. Remember that after the 7 dorm leaders, Ace and Deuce's roles as the protagonist's closest allies are the most crucial in the game, so let's not just decide to ignore all these creative features and pass by them without thinking how much they can mean.

Woah, this one was quite harder to write than I'd expected! There are way too many things to say about him which made me have to summarize this into just this 7 parts for now. Ace is surely and odd yet interesting one to study, even more interesting than usually famous characters like Leona and Azul, which is partly because of how unpredictable he is!

#Twst #twisted wonderland #ace trappola #Ace trappola x reader #Character analysis #twst x reader

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