#Its thought to be the largest possible type of star (also its literally them) (the greatest light is constantly leeched off by a darkness-

[autumn-may]

Quasi-star type siblingship

[thedcdunce]

Superboy

“This looks like a job for Superboy!” - Superboy

Real Name: Kon-El

Aliases:

Conner Kent

Carl Grummett

Metropolis Kid

Superman

Gender: Male

Height: 5′ 9″

Weight: 150 lbs (68 kg)

Eyes: Blue

Hair: Black

Race: DNAlien

Powers:

Kryptonian Physiology

Tactile Telekinesis

Weaknesses:

Kryptonian Physiology

Vulnerability to Red Sun Radiation

Yellow Sun Processing

Equipment:

Visor

Universe: New Earth

Base of Operations: 

San Francisco

Smallville

Metropolis

Hawaii

Citizenship: American

Marital Status: Single

Occupation: Student

Education: Smallville High School

First Appearance: Adventures of Superman#500 (June, 1993)

Last Appearance: Teen Titans Vol 3 #100 (October, 2011)

Powers

Kryptonian Physiology: Under the effects of a "yellow" sun, Superboy possesses the same potential powers as an average Kryptonian.

Solar Energy Absorption: Under optimal conditions, this is the main source of Superboy's super powers as they are contingent upon exposure to solar radiation from a yellow sun star system. His biological make up includes a number of organs which lack analogues in humans and whose functions are unknown. It is believed that between one or more of these and his bio-cellular matrix, "yellow" solar energy is stored for later use. This allows for the use of these powers to fade when yellow solar radiation is not available instead of immediate failure.

Heat Vision: Superboy can, as a conscious act, fire beams of intense heat at a target by looking at it. He can vary the heat and area affected.

Super-Hearing: Superboy's hearing is sensitive enough to hear any sound at any volume or pitch. With skill and concentration, he can block out ambient sounds to focus on a specific source or frequency.

Enhanced Vision: Superboy's vision processes the entire electromagnetic spectrum as well as allowing vast control over selective perception and focus.

Electromagnetic Spectrum Vision: Superboy can see well into most of the electromagnetic spectrum. He can see and identify radio and television signals as well as all other broadcast or transmitted frequencies. Using this ability, he can avoid detection by radar or satellite monitoring methods. This also allows him to see the aura generated by living thing.

Telescopic Vision: This is the ability to see something at a great distance, without violating the laws of physics. Though limited, the exact extent of the ability is undetermined. In function, it is similar to the zoom lens on a camera.

X-Ray Vision: This is the ability to see through any volume of matter except lead. Superboy can see things behind a solid, opaque object as if it were not there. He can focus this ability to "peel back" layers of an object, allowing hidden image or inner workings to be observed. The exact type of energy perceived - such as x-rays, cosmic rays, or some other energy invisible to normal humans - is unclear. This ability perceives an ambient energy source though, it does not involve the eye projecting a concentrated, possibly toxic, beam to be reflected back from objects.

Microscopic Vision: This is the ability to see extremely small objects and images down to the atomic level.

Infrared Vision: Superboy can see with better acuity in darkness, and to a degree in total darkness.

Flight: Superboy is able to manipulate graviton particles to defy the forces of gravity and achieve flight. This ranges from hovering to moving in any posture, in any direction.

Invulnerability: Due to the interaction of his dense molecular structure and supercharged bio-electric aura, Superboy is nigh-invulnerable to extreme energy forces. In addition, his extends this protection against toxins and diseases.

Superhuman Stamina: Superboy is able to maintain continuous strenuous physical action for an indefinite period of time. This based on his body converting yellow solar radiation directly to energy, but is limited by physiological and psychological needs to eat, drink, and sleep.

Superhuman Strength: Superboy's strength is augmented by yellow solar radiation interacting with the greater than human density, resilience and biological efficiency of his musculature. His strength is more an act of conscious will on energy fields than actual physical strength. It is this act of conscious will that enables him to perform physical feats that are beyond the mere application force, such as moving a mountain top without said rock crumbling under its own mass.

Superhuman Speed: Superboy is able to move at incredible speed by sheer force of will. This extends to his perceptions and allows for feats such as catching bullets in mid flight as well as covering vast distances in little or no time. This also confers:

Superhuman Agility

Superhuman Reflexes

Super-Breath: Superboy is able to create hurricane force winds by exhaling air from his lungs. He can chill the air as it leaves his lungs to freeze targets. He can also reverse the process to pull large volumes of air or vapor into his lungs.

Tactile Telekinesis: At first, Superboy's only superpower was "tactile telekinesis", a telekinetic force field that surrounded his body as a protective shield allowing him to simulate Superman-level speed, strength, flight and invulnerability. The TK field also let Superboy break free of an opponent's grip by pushing the field outward to force the opponent away. Other creative uses include rendering an opponent immobile by extending the TK field as long as they were both standing on the same ground.

Telekinetic Superhuman Strength: He was able to lift almost anything he could conceive of. He lifted the world's largest yacht and threw a football at Mach 5. Objects lifted with his telekinetic strength did not crumble under their own weight or internal stresses. This was not super strength in the traditional sense, as Superboy had been bound with chains that were surrounded by an energy field which he was unable to escape because he could not directly affect the chains with his power. It was stated he could lift a battleship.

Telekinetic Flight: Superboy was able to fly at high supersonic speeds using a reflexive action of his telekinesis, literally dragging himself through the sky. Concentration was required to maintain great speeds which could reach roughly speeds of Mach 5.

Telekinetic Force-Field: By creating a field around his body Conner was able to resist or reduce injury from non-energy based attacks by causing the object to be deflected from his personal force field. Bullets and shrapnel were easily deflected. This field did not repel gases or energy based attacks as well, though his skill in deflecting energy attacks improved.

Tactile Telekinetic Disassemble: Conner could exert his force into an object to explode or disassemble it. It's assumed that he could conceivably put an object back together, if he understood how the object functioned in the first place. He could also manipulate aggregate solid masses such as volumes of sand or dust in the same way, causing the individual particles to fly apart in an explosive manner to create particle clouds or a forceful attack. Superboy's hands glowed blue when he did this.

Telekinetic Force Blasts: Superboy also learned that he could project bursts of raw energy bolts. He mostly projected the energy from his hands, but his TK field permeated from his entire body. The blasts he emitted had concussive force equivalent to 5,000 pounds of TNT.

Telekinetic Super Hearing: Superboy's TK allows him to hear sounds from far away and through glass.

Weaknesses

Kryptonian Physiology: Under the effects of a "yellow" sun, Superboy possesses the same potential weaknesses as an average Kryptonian.

Vulnerability to Kryptonite

Vulnerability to Magic

Vulnerability to Red Sun Radiation: The damage from the Red Sun seems to be less effective on him than the full Kryptonians.

Yellow Sun Processing: Because Superboy absorbed less solar energy than Superman as an adult, Superboy was unable to process as much yellow sun energy as Superman could; as a result, overexerting his powers could spell his death, as his body would literally begin to feed on itself, unable to absorb solar energy fast enough to restore itself.

Equipment

Visor: Superboy briefly had a visor that allowed him to simulate Superman's vision powers. He lost the visor and it was recovered by the Technician. When he got it back, Superboy destroyed it, rationalizing that he would probably lose it again somehow and then it would put others at risk.

History

Superboy, also known as Kon-El and Conner Kent, was a DNAlien designed to replace Superman after the hero's death touted as Superman's direct clone.

Project 13

Superboy was created by Project Cadmus using Kryptonian DNA, intended as a replacement for Superman who died fighting Doomsday. Artificially aged to his mid-teens and implanted with the equivalent of a high school education, Superboy was set free by the Newsboy Legion before he could be implanted with safeguards to control him. One of the boys gave him a leather jacket before he set out into the city, where he had his first encounter with a villain when he found Sidearm attempting to steal money from an ATM.

Don't Ever Call Me "Superboy"!

The clone's arrival in Metropolis coincided with three others taking up the mantle of "Superman". Two of them, "the Man of Tomorrow" and "the Last Son of Krypton", insisted they were the real Superman resurrected, while "the Man of Steel" made no such claim, nor did the young clone who was open about his origin to Lois Lane, thought he insisted on being called "Superman" not "Superboy"! He became enamored with reporter Tana Moon, who he granted an exclusive live on WGBS, a station under the direction of the unscrupulous Vinnie Edge. Edge arranged for Superboy to go into Suicide Slum where he apprehend a gangster named Steel Hand, and encountered Guardian who gave the cocky kid some friendly advice.

"Superman" loved the limelight and attention from beautiful women, but was blinded by naiveté. His reckless heroics led to the death of a Daily Planet helicopter pilot, for which he was severely reproached for by Steel. Superman's arrogance was knocked down a peg, and he repaid Steel's lesson in humility by saving him from a fire. He was soon approached by Supergirl to work with her at LexCorp. While informally agreeing to Lex Luthor's proposal, the young Superman went back on his word, seduced into an exclusive contract with Rex Leech, effectively persuaded upon meeting his teenage daughter Roxy.

Vinnie Edge, eager to boost ratings, hired an assassin known only as Stinger to attack his Superman on live television. After a destructive battle between the two, Supergirl joined the inexperienced hero's side, forcing Stinger to enact his escape plan of destroying the Hobsneck Bridge. The teen worked together with his female counterpart to rescue as many people as they could from the tragically engineered disaster.

After hearing Coast City had been destroyed, Superman rushed to ground zero where he was duped by the Cyborg Superman into joining him in a mock investigation. The ruse ended in the kid's imprisonment inside Engine City. The Cyborg and his servant, Mongul, used young Superman's image via video feed to trick the Justice League of America into going off world on a wild goose chase. In a surreptitious play for power, Mongul told Superboy Metropolis was their next target for obliteration, hoping it would prompt the captive into escaping and defeat the Cyborg for him. The teen Superman was able to flee back to Metropolis, arriving to find Steel, Luthor, Lois Lane and Supergirl gathered near the harbor. He warned everyone that the Cyborg Superman was responsible and Metropolis was in danger, when a humongous Kryptonian War Suit emerged from the water. The warsuit miraculously housed the real Superman who was still very weakened from his resurrection. While the young clone and Steel were skeptical about his claim, they joined him to attack Engine City, discovering a huge missile capable of wiping out a city inside. The teen clung to the missile as it was launched and managed to alter its course before it reached Metropolis. Despite minor injuries, Superboy returned to the fight in Engine City, saving the life of Steel. With the defeat of the Cyborg, the clone acknowledged that the "man in black" was indeed the one, true Superman. He returned to Metropolis with Supergirl and Steel, where Tana visited him, informing him that she quit her job and was leaving town for good.

Superboy

With the real Superman back in action, his younger clone relinquished the rights to the name and symbol — to the annoyance of Rex Leech — and decided to leave Metropolis; formally accepting the name Superboy. He decided to go on a world tour in order to establish himself as an individual, returning first to Cadmus where he learned he was not in fact a direct clone of Superman, but rather a human clone genetically engineered to look like Superman and mimic his major powers by way of tactile telekinesis. Despite Director Westfield's initial protests, Cadmus agreed to stop trying to bring him back to the Project. Dubbilex was chosen to act as a chaperone, in part because Westfield tried to hide the fact he had sent Payback of the DNAliens against Superboy earlier that day. Superboy packed up his things and returned his apartment to Clark Kent, officially leaving Metropolis behind.

The Hero of Hawaii

After a few weeks of travelling, Superboy and Dubbilex arrived in Hawaii, joined by Rex and Roxy Leech. After a running battle with Sidearm on the beach, Superboy learned that Tana Moon had moved to Hawaii. Superboy decided to stay on the islands, stylizing himself as the "Hero of Hawaii." Island life was not all that laid back, with Superboy soon encountering the former Fury, Knockout, and fighting the insane Scavenger over the mystical Spear of Lona. Superboy fell ill, and after a brief fight with Silver Sword, he collapsed after the battle and was rushed to Metropolis while the Navy took custody of Silver Sword.

Superboy was diagnosed as suffering from the Clone Plague that was ravaging most of the Underworlders and other Cadmus clones. The first of the few survivors, Superboy was successfully cured thanks to Cadmus' efforts and had to help fight off members of Team Luthor when they tried to steal the cure. He then joined Superman and Supergirl, trying to minimise the damage as much as possible while apprehending Lex Luthor, although most of downtown Metropolis was destroyed. Cadmus suffered major damage and Westfield was murdered by Dabney Donovan, but most of the staff and clones survived. Superboy stayed in Metropolis for a while, battling Parasite and getting caught up in a skirmish with an alternate earth.

To his reluctance, Dubbilex was asked to take in Krypto by Bibbo. On his way back to Hawaii, Superboy was forced to make a pit stop in Smallville, where he met Ma and Pa Kent and the Superboy of yet another reality, who was there because of the effects of the time disruption. The two worked together on another threat to their respective worlds. Superboy also learned that the DNA donor was in fact the late Cadmus director, Paul Westfield, as well as a revelation from Carl Packard that Superboy had been the thirteenth attempt by Cadmus to clone Superman. The first had utilized Dr. Teng's "Bizarro" technique, resulting in a Bizarro Superboy that was still being held by the lab. The Bizarro escaped, but died shortly thereafter. When Superboy returned to Hawaii, Tana threw him a birthday party, making Superboy officially one year old.

Back in Hawaii, Superboy battled King Shark, B.E.M., Techno and the Silicon Dragons who became consistent foes. The youthful hero gradually matured after each encounter, culminating when a celebrity look-a-like of him was shot and killed by the Dragons who thought the actor was the real Superboy. He also clashed with Aquaman at Pearl Harbor with the King of the Seas putting the kid in his place with the help of a pod of blue whales.

With help from Dr. Emil Hamilton, Superboy acquired a visor that simulated Superman's x-ray, heat and infra-vision powers while the scientist was on vacation in Hawaii, inadvertently assisting Superboy in defeating Sidearm who had returned. Superboy settled in a new residence with Dubbilex and the Leeches called the Compound, located in a secluded spot near the beach. He stopped the assassin Copperhead who had been hired to collect a debt from Rex.

Superboy and Tana officially became a couple around the time Special Agent Sam Makoa decided to organize a task force to go after the Silicon Dragons, which was none other than Amanda Waller's Suicide Squad. Superboy forced himself onto the team, which consisted of Knockout, Sidearm, King Shark, Captain Boomerang, and Deadshot. Despite the death of Sidearm, the mission successfully destroyed the lair of the Silicon Dragons, even though their leader, Lady Dragon, escaped after engaging with Superboy one-on-one.

Superboy was informed by state official, Mack Harlin, that he would be required by law to attend school. He enrolled at a local high school where me met some new friends, including Hillary Chang, and discovered that he was reaching the end of the implanted knowledge Cadmus had given him. Superboy managed to balance school and friends with his romance with Tana while still fighting criminals like Loose Cannon and Loophole When Roxy unexpectedly left for Las Vegas, Superboy followed her, sensing there was trouble. Roxy was trying to put some things in her past to rest, since she had decided to enroll as a police office in Hawaii. This meant a confrontation with an old boyfriend who had since become Neon. After a brief battle, Neon blew himself up by detonating a gas station, and Superboy and Roxy returned home.

Superboy battled the amnesiac Valor, who was fighting under the name of Champion. Knockout, alive and well, decided to join the fight, and as Valor regained his memory, he remembered he was dying of lead poisoning. While Knockout took care of Ira Gamboli, who had been manipulating Valor, Superboy helped Valor escape to the Phantom Zone to save his life. Superboy also worked with Green Lantern in a rematch with Scavenger and had a first encounter with the horribly mutated Black Manta.

The Alpha Centurion recruited Superboy into the Superman Rescue Squad, after the Man of Steel was kidnapped by an alien Tribunal. Along with Supergirl, the Eradicator and Steel, the Centurion led Superboy to find Superman. On the journey, Superboy confided to the others he did not trust the Centurion — in fact, he believed he was really the Cyborg Superman in disguise. His suspicions were confirmed when the Centurion abandoned them in the midst of a battle just as the Cyborg Superman arrived soon after. The Cyborg easily defeated the entire team and turned them over to the Tribunal. While a prisoner, Superboy was confined to the same cell as the Centurion which not enough to convince him he was not a traitor. Once he escaped to find Centurion fighting Cyborg Superman, he admitted his mistake. The team freed themselves and rallied behind Superman, who confronted the Tribunal head on. The Tribunal conceded fault and exonerates Superman for his "crime".

When the Legion of Super-Heroes arrived in the past seeking Valor, Superboy explained what happened and accompanied the Legion to the 30th Century. Valor was freed from the Phantom Zone and cured with an anti-lead serum, taking the name M'Onel. The Legion rewarded Superboy for his assistance by making him an honorary Legionnaire, complete with Flight Ring, before sending him home.

Paired with Knockout

Upon returning to his own time after helping the Legion, Superboy found Knockout waiting for him at the Compound. She wants to join him as a partner to sate her desire for battle in a productive way. Together they fought Killer Frost, the Technician, and Silver Sword. Knockout taught Superboy how to use his powers in new and creative ways, such as extending his TK field to cover another person just by touching them. Superboy regained his visor but destroyed it, reasoning that he would just lose it again.

Superboy and Knockout were attacked by the Female Furies, revealing that Knockout was one of their lost "sisters". An intense battle ensued at Superboy's high school, with Superboy and Knockout — joined by Sam Makoa, Dan Turpin, and a contingent of police officers — being severely outclassed. Thanks to Dubbilex, however, the Furies were driven off, leaving much of the high school in ruins, prompting the state to decide that Superboy should be home schooled. Knockout killed a police officer during the fray and the Special Crimes Unit attempted to arrest her. Superboy refused to believe the evidence, however, and after a confrontation with Snare and the SCU at the Compound, the two briefly went on the run from the law, causing Superboy to break up with Tana. This culminated in a battle on the beach between Supergirl and Knockout. After Sparx helped separate the two women, Supergirl ripped the S-shield off Superboy's costume because of his lawlessness. Still, Superboy persisted that he was in the right and everyone just didn't understand Knockout, but her true colors were revealed during a meeting with Victor Volcanum who had risen an island for himself near Hawaii. Knockout first tried to get Superboy to kill him before she finished him off herself. With that barbaric act, Superboy realized that she did not love him the way he thought he loved her. Superboy apprehended Knockout, in part due to the training she had given him on how to use his powers, bringing her in as the island sunk back beneath the waves. Roxy returned his emblems for his costume now that he had come to his senses.

The Ravers and Rough Times

Sparx invited Superboy to the Event Horizon, an intergalactic rave party exclusively for metas and aliens, hosted by a being called Kindred Marx. His first night there, Superboy met Hero Cruz and got into a fight with Kaliber, for which they were teleported to a distant asteroid where InterC.E.P.T. attempted to place the two of them under arrest, also involving the Darkstars. Superboy and Kaliber were transported back to the event before they could be arrested, and another brawl broke out between some Khunds from the Red Shift gang and Aura, which spilled out onto Earth.

Superboy rekindled his relationship with Tana, just before Roxy revealed that she had always loved him. Despite her heartfelt confession, Superboy did not reciprocate her feelings. Roxy could not dismiss her feelings for Superboy so easily. While helping Dubbilex recovered from an injury, an organization called Agenda sent Amanda Spence to kidnap Superboy. The Agenda used Superboy to create an enhanced clone they referred to as Match, with plans of making an entire army of them. Superboy managed to defeat Match and destroy Agenda's lair, with Spence and the directors all taken into custody.

The Agenda secretly infected Superboy with a virus that began to break down his DNA. It lay dormant for weeks, until a rematch with Copperhead began to manifest symptoms. When S.T.A.R. Labs were unable to cure his condition, Superboy was rushed back to Project Cadmus. Cadmus was only able to slow the condition, not eliminate it. Superman, Supergirl, and Steel did all they could to assist, and though Superman was able to locate Match, the potential donor not interested in helping. Amanda Spence suggested a solution, explaining that she needed a DNA donor to "re-zip" the breakdown of Superboy's genetics. Roxy Leech volunteered for the procedure which was successful, except for a side effect which meant Superboy would never age beyond his sixteen year old appearance. Superboy was crushed at the news, having always dreamed of one day assuming the role of Superman. A heart-to-heart with Superman helped ease the pain a little.

Despite what Superman had to say, Superboy was still troubled by thoughts of never growing up. Nightmares plagued him, even as he has to deal with Mo-O and a married couple who pursued thrills by trying to get their picture taken with superheroes. He discovered a magic atoll where there are some "lost boys" who seemingly never grew up, and despite the temptation to stay, he left them.

Things began to break down upon returning to Hawaii. The Legion of Super-Heroes turned up once more, this time angry that Superboy had given away his flight ring to Roxy. Superboy managed to work things out with them as they fought Silver Sword together. However, his constant flirting and "devil-may-care" attitude had been wearing on Tana who was also uncomfortable with the thought that Superboy would stay a teenager forever. Despite trying to prove how responsible he was by recovering the Spear of Lono, Tana ended their relationship.

Superboy decided to travel again to clear his head. He stopped by Jersey City and ended up asking Natasha Irons on a date. Nat had fun, but told him she's not interested in a relationship because she could tell he was still very much in love with Tana.

With Kyle Rayner's help, Superboy finally brought down Silver Sword who had been serving a being known as, Pele, who he believed to be a Hawaiian goddess. But during the conflict against Pele, she threatened innocent bystanders, and Silver Sword realized she was no benevolent goddess. He turned on her which led to his death. Pele was defeated, but Superboy was feeling anything but heroic. More than ever he felt isolated. After a failed publicity stunt and wavering public opinion in Hawaii and abroad, Superboy disappeared without a trace while flying back to Hawaii, caught in a severe storm.

A New Direction with an Old Team

Superboy awoke with amnesia in the Wild Lands, an island of anthropomorphic animal-men. Superboy quickly regained his memory, but feared he was somehow in the distant future. After passing various challenges, Superboy, along with some other humans stranded on the island, were permitted to leave. Superboy befriended the Wild Men who decide to explore the world at large and leave with Superboy. They quickly discovered they were not in the distant future, but only a few months had passed since Superboy's disappearance. The islands had been created by a precursor to Project Cadmus known as the "Project Moreau" created in the '40s. Superboy did have to contend with the fallout of a coup d'état that spilled out into the world at large, but managed to work it out. Back in Hawaii, Superboy learned that most of his friends were gone and decided there was nothing really left for him.

Superboy rejoined Cadmus and began working as a field agent with Dubbilex and Guardian, after leaving Krypto with his friend Hillary Chang. For their first assignment, they traveled to Paris and battled Agenda once again, specifically Director Alpha. They also encounter Grokk the Living Gargoyle and a supermodel named Hex. They took Grokk back to Project Cadmus, where Superboy met the new Director, Mickey "the Mechanic" Cannon, new military liaison, Col. Winterbourne, and one of the new ace scientists, Serling Roquette. Superboy was at first happy to be back at the Project, but was distraught when Mickey fired the original Newsboy Legion and their clones.

Superboy became a founding member of the team Young Justice along with Robin and Impulse. The team formed after the three boys decided to have a "camp out" in the old JLA Justice Cave, where they encountered Red Tornado. Despite having some persistent troubles, Superboy, Robin, and Impulse became best friends during this time.

Superboy was attracted to Dr. Roquette who was one of the few females at Cadmus, and the only one close to his own age, but she was oblivious at first, harboring a crush for Guardian. Superboy respond when someone stole the Whiz Wagon and entered the Demolition Run, a lethal cross country race involving all manner of high-tech vehicles. The thief turned out to be Roxy, who was desperate for money to help her father. Even with Superboy and Mickey Cannon helping her, the Whiz Wagon was totaled and Fastbak won the race. Superboy realized the man running the race, Mr. Big, fixed the event so Fastbak would win. Rather than letting Mr. Big walk away with millions, he convinced Fastbak to ask for all profits Big might have made off the deal. Big honors the deal, but promises Superboy he won't forget.

Superman invited Superboy to the Fortress of Solitude where Superboy was able to see Krypton via virtual reality, and after Superman explaining how he considered Superboy part of his family, the Man of Steel offered him the Kryptonian name, Kon-El. Superboy tearfully accepted, overjoyed with the simple dignity of having a real name. From Kon-El he adapted "Conner" to use in society.

Superboy was one of the first to explore Hypertime, after a Superboy from an alternate reality arrived at the Watchtower, dying shortly thereafter from injuries. Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman all explained their recent experiences with hypertime and ask Superboy to volunteer for an experiment. During the journey he met his villainous counterpart, Black Zero, from a reality where he had not been freed from Cadmus as a teenager and Superman was never resurrected. Black Zero had become a cruel tyrant in his world before setting out to conquer other worlds he had found via hypertime. He did not understand the resistance he met from the other Superboys and captured them one by one, imprisoning them in his lair. Kon-El led the other alternate versions in an uprising that defeated Black Zero before he returned to his own timeline. During the trip, he deduced that Superman was secretly Clark Kent. Superboy harbored resentment that his closest "relative" had never confided his public identity.

Superboy was ordered to revisit the Wild Lands, escorted by a number of personnel from Cadmus. They landed in Roam and were greeted warmly by King Tuftan. Winterbourne requested to be taken to the area where he was captured, so Tuftan led the way to the Glowing Swamp. There they found Ratsputin there — as well as King Shark. Tuftan and Winterbourne were almost killed when the experimental Blackbird fighter jet was located and used to impale King Shark before it detonated.

They arrived back at Cadmus to find Guardian attacking the staff, believing them to be Nazis. The delusion was driven by a magical gauntlet that had been unearthed. The Demon arrived, drawn by the eldritch aura of Hyssa's Fist. Etrigan explained the dark artifact drew upon the wearers deepest desires, regrets and inner demons to project the wearer's true colors. Superboy managed to subdue the possessed Guardian, but was suspicious about handing the sinister power over to a bona fide demon. Etrigan desired the mystic item for a spell, inciting Superboy to protect the glove by wearing it himself. He neutralizes Etrigan with his enhanced strength which was met with applause from Dabney Donovan. In a moment of clarity, Superboy noticed he was wearing an outfit similar to Black Zero's. Horrified, Superboy used his tactile telekinesis to destroyed the glove on his hand, causing a huge explosion and cave-in. Etrigan saves Donovan while Guardian recovers Superboy who decides to return to Hawaii to tie up some loose ends.

Superboy decided to drop by Smallville to visit the Kents coincidentally at the same time as Clark Kent. Superboy hinted at Clark's secret which was subtly reciprocated, yet Clark was reluctant to voice it completely, not out of distrust, but because he was afraid that eventually Superman and Clark Kent may no longer be distinguishable.

Superboy arrived in Hawaii with Roquette to discover that he was no longer well thought of among the locals now that a new hero, Kana, had risen. Kana, however, cited Superboy as being his inspiration. Superboy caught up with Sam Makoa, Hillary Chang and even visited Knockout in prison. After one last visit to the Compound, Superboy accepted nothing would ever be like it once was and decides to take Krypto with him back to Cadmus.

Still frustrated that had not confronted Superman about his dual identity, Superboy headed to Metropolis where he met with Lois Lane. At Locomotive Park they encountered the Man of Steel battling a four-armed monster, which was put down by the two heroes. Superman tells him that of all the people who wear the S-shield, Kon-El is the one he feels closest to. Superboy was still unable to speak his mind, but after Superman's departure he alluded to his suspicions, to which Lois responded by saying that everyone, even Superman, needs a little privacy.

Upon arriving back at Cadmus, Superboy was quickly knocked out by the Agenda, using Simyan and Mokkari to create an army of clones. Dubbilex had been compromised by a being known as the Gene-Gnome and Superboy was placed in holding by Amanda Spence alongside his fellow allies. Superboy rallies the forces of Cadmus, along with Grokk, Hex and even Krypto, in a desperate struggle to win back the facility. All they could do, however, was temporarily retreat, as the Gene-Gnome could not only can read their minds, but also coordinate the clone armies. As they fled, they came across Gorr, Growler and Howler who had escaped the Agenda's clutches in Alaska where they also rescued Tana Moon. Realizing the Gene-Gnome could not read the minds of non-humans, they planned a counter-attack, leaving Roquette, Tana and Krypto behind. Dubbilex managed to break the Gene-Gnome's control and knock him out as Superboy and allies put the Agenda's army to rout, wrestling control back from Amanda Spence. A holographic message from Director Beta alerted them to a contingency plan in Washington, D.C. While suspecting a trap, Superboy took off to investigate anyway.

A public outcry over Young Justice's actions at Mount Rushmore prompted an assembly of the superhero community at the Capitol. The heroes are all shocked at how Superboy betrayed his comrades to the media until the impostor was exposed as Match when the real Superboy arrived to fight him. As the tension mounted, Director Beta and Klarion the witchboy enacted their plan. Klarion's sorcery reversing the ages of everyone present; the adults reverted to kids while the younger heroes grew to adulthood — all except Superboy, whose ageless genetics kept him at sixteen.

Unable to effect Superboy as it was intended, Klarion's spell began to tear his body apart at a molecular level with confusion. Wonder Girl helped Superboy back to Cadmus only to find Match waiting for them. Director Cannon and Guardian prepared to make another stand against the Agenda clones when Dabney Donovan surprised everyone. Having escaped Simyan and Mokkari, Donovan unleashed a gas containing a virus lethal only to the newly cloned Agenda soldiers. All the evil clones disintegrated as Match escaped with a teleporter. Superboy was taken to the medical bay, Tana at his side, still very much in love with him. Dr. Roquette was able to cure his ageless condition, and by doing so, the spell succeeded in making him a full adult. Superboy embraced Tana with joy, only to have Amanda Spenc activate a device around Tana's which executed her. She gloats about her exacted revenge, causing him the pain she felt at her father's death before teleporting away from the enraged Superboy.

Tragedy and Loss

Superboy was devastated by the death of Tana. He barely had time to mourn when a teenage Superman requested his help to defeat Klarion and reverse the spell. Superman finally divulged his secret identity, asking Superboy to contact Lois to assure her everything is alright. Klarion was eventually defeated and everyone is restored to their natural ages. With his youth restored, Superboy mysteriously lost his powers as well, so Guardian encouraged him to take some time to grieve and experience the world as a "normal" kid. He tried to do just that, but in in the wake of his loss, everything he knew seemed to change at once; Dubbilex took a sabbatical from Cadmus, the Wild Men departed, Hex took Grokk to become a bounty hunter, and Heat Wave was now working for Guardian. Superboy decided he still wanted to continue the good fight, so he turned to the Gadget Guru to help him be Superboy once again.

Still in possession of a Legionnaire flight ring and had special training from Guardian, Superboy was given near indestructible, size altering shield fashioned by Gadget Guru. Superboy had barely begun his new training when he was kidnapped alongside Director Cannon and Gadget Guru by Kossak the Slaver. They managed to rally the other slaves in a successful uprising against their hated master. Kossak fled on a shuttle straight for Earth. Superboy pursued him back to Cadmus where he learned Kossak's true intent of retrieving an escaped slave — one that had fused with Roxy Leech! The alien had solar powers which restored Superboy's strength and powers, allowing the him to take down Kossak. Superboy gifted his new shield to Guardian.

The alien life form bound to Roxy used her body to break free from Cadmus, arriving in nearby Kurtzberg. The newly reformed Titans arrived on the scene to contain the situation, but Superboy placed himself between them and Roxy. When Guardian and Heat Wave arrived, a brief battle broke out, before the heroes managed to compose themselves long enough the alien separated from Roxy and returned to space. Superboy told Roxy how he thought of her as family which she reciprocated before leaving with her father.

After the battle, Guardian discovered that Jim Harper, the man he was cloned from, was related to Roy Harper. Superboy invited Guardian to New York City to introduce him to Roy and Lian Harper at Warriors. While they had their "family" reunion, Superboy subdued Negative G.

Slapstick and War

After being teased by some teenage girls and feeling despondent, Superboy fell into a rut. A talk with Superman gave him perspective and decided to shake things up a bit, starting with a new uniform.

Lex Luthor, recently elected President of the United States, appointed Amanda Waller Secretary of Meta-Human Affairs and tasked her to keep an eye on Project Cadmus. After some more training with Guardian, Superboy and Roquette headed to Los Angeles per Waller's orders to size up a situation involving alien activity. Superboy met up with Lobo there and dealt with an alien named Scizmore that fed off of rage. Superboy had to deal with some rage issues himself when he encountered a relentless gang war and released his powers in an incredible burst that destroyed nearly every gun in L.A.

Exhausted from a recent adventure with Batman and Batgirl, Superboy asked Guardian to go to Detroit to fight Shrapnel in his place. Superboy headed to a Florida bayou where he encountered Gorgeous Gilly and was nearly forced to marry her. Fleeing Gilly's clutches, he returned to Cadmus to learn that Guardian was killed in the battle with Shrapnel.

Superboy arranged a team to take down Shrapnel and was contacted by Deadman during the battle who told him that the soul of Guardian could not move on. Guardian's life force persisted as a re-cloned infant as part of a plot to create a whole army of clones based on him. The D.N.Angels were sent to recover the baby, but Superboy fought them off at a supermarket and hid the baby in a friend's house. The next day, he found out that Project Cadmus was shut down by order of the President. The site was empty save for Young Justice who insisted Superboy give them some answers.

After straightening things out with his teammates, Superboy was summoned to Metropolis by Lois Lane to join Supergirl and Steel in Pokolistan. The team met up with Superman and battled Faora, Ignition, and Kancer until the General arrived to sucker punch Superman hard enough to break his jaw, forcing the team quickly retreated.

Superboy learned that President Luthor had plans involving Strange Visitor who was held at LexCorp Towers. Catching up with Roquette, Heat Wave and the prepubescent Guardian, Superboy led the team on to extract Strange Visitor from a machine, but she angrily chided them that she was not a prisoner, but had came willingly. Talia Head, now the head of LexCorp, entered to tell them they had violated U.S. law by stealing government property. General Good arrived with the D.N.Angels to placed them under military arrest.

Superboy and the others were taken prisoner on a huge spaceship in orbit. General Good explained that he planned to create an entire army of clones based on Guardian to be used as soldiers in an upcoming war. Superboy escaped to battles the D.N.Angels and a now cybernetically enhanced Amanda Spence, until the Angels had a crisis of conscience and defected. Spence who boasted she no longer needed to eat or breathe was ejected into space by Superboy. He freed the almost adult Guardian who decided to destroy the other clones. The victory is short-lived as everyone noticed Apokolips in Earth's orbit accompanied by a vast armada. General Rock arrived to place Good under arrest and told Superboy to consider himself drafted.

Superboy's involvement in the war began by aiding injured heroes before Young Justice was recruited by President Luthor. Superboy led them on a special assignment to Apokolips where the team was captured by Granny Goodness. The young heroes eventually made it back to Earth as one of the last groups to be accounted for. The war deeply impacted Superboy, having witnessed much death and destruction, as well as the scarring to some of his closest friends. Superboy sought rest at the Kent's, but was troubled by nightmares for some time.

End of an Era

With Cadmus shut down and Wonder Girl insisting he leave Young Justice HQ, Superboy relocated to Metropolis becoming the "super" at a tenement building called Calvin Gardens where a local gang called the Run Riot Boys kept harassing the neighborhood. He also met a young woman named Trixie.

Superboy threw a housewarming party which Wonder Girl attended to find Superboy enamored with Trixie, not realizing her boyfriend, Wipeout, led the Run Riot Gang. Wipeout ordered one of the new members, Cooper, to kill Superboy. Cooper befriended Conner, initially intending to betray him, but could not go through with it when the gang attacked the building. Scavenger also resurfaced but Superboy convinced him to call a truce. Superboy agreed to meet with him at the Ace o' Clubs, but a fight with the Run Riot Gang made him stand Scavenger up and actually involved the tenement block being destroyed in a battle. Superman took Kon-El stay with his parents in Smallville, which he did for some time.

Superboy-Prime

When Young Justice dissolved, Superboy was inducted into the Teen Titans, but began to doubt himself and his abilities after learning that Lex Luthor, not Paul Westfield, was the original donor of his DNA. He retreated back to the Kent farm for longer period of time. Superboy-Prime reappeared on Earth who incited a fight with Kon-El. Superboy was greatly outmatched until he called in some allies who pulled Superboy-Prime into the Speed Force, but not without casualties. Superboy was injured and needed to be taken in for medical treatment. Conner was forced to battle Superboy-Prime again after returning even more powerful with a power-suit. To stop the madman's plan to create a new multiverse, Conner smashed Prime into his own diabolical tower to destroy it. Superboy-Prime survived the assault, but Conner was tragically killed beneath the collapse rubble. Conner was buried in Metropolis beneath a statue commemorating his sacrifice, next to the graves of Kal-L and Lois Kent. A Cult of Conner formed hoping for his return as Superman once did.

Superboy was reanimated in the 30th Century by the Legion of Super-Heroes. Brainiac 5 used the Kryptonian technology that reanimated Superman after he was killed by Doomsday, combined with a lock of Lex Luthor's hair to restore his life in order to help them defeat Superboy-Prime and his new Legion of Super-Villains. Conner later returned to the 21st century along with his friend Impulse.

The Return of Superboy

Returning to live with Martha Kent, who was overjoyed to take the young boy in after her husband's passing, Conner enrolled at Smallville High School and began keeping a journal of everything Superman had done as a costumed hero with checklist titled, What Did Superman Do? He and Bart rejoined the Teen Titans, and Conner symbolized the team being "stacked" again by destroying his memorial statue outside of Titans Tower West.

After visiting Lex Luthor's childhood home in Smallville, Superman arrived to speak with Conner about his desire to understand his "other father". Superman told Conner not to worry about Luthor, taking the burden of the megalomaniac upon himself. Conner returned home and created a similar checklist in his notebook entitled, What Does Lex Luthor Do? Conner checked off, "lies to Superman."

In his attempt to confront his shared legacy, he accepted a date with Wonder Girl. Conflicted between opening his heart to his girlfriend, and deliberately lying to avoid delicate subjects, Conner ultimately chose to share his fears and desires with Cassie; a desire to find himself by exploring both his legacies to define his true self. Cassie was touched, and despite her initial doubts, was compelled to admit her brief bond with Tim Drake. Conner quickly forgave her, considering he was dead at the time.

Blackest Night

The former Guardian, Scar, aligned herself with Nekron and foresaw that Conner would be a servant of the dead.

While visiting the grave of Jonathan Kent, Conner, Clark and Martha were targeted by the Black Lantern Superman and Lois of Earth-Two. While Superman battles Kal-L, Conner encounters the resurrected Psycho-Pirate who manipulated him into attacking Superman. However, Conner managed to come to his senses when Kal-L was on the verge of ripping out Superman's heart. Using his tactile telekinesis, Conner pushed Kal-L away from Superman. Conner quickly removed Psycho-Pirate's Medusa Mask and used its emotional control to attract the black rings from their hosts, reducing them to lifeless corpses once more.

Superboy, along with the few available members of the Teen Titans and Justice League, arrived at Coast City to battle Nekron. Despite being resurrected, Conner's experience with death made him susceptible to the black rings which transformed him into a Black Lantern. He and Superman were used to confront Lex Luthor, who been deputized as an Orange Lantern. The Black Lantern Superboy tried to break the hold of Nekron's influence when he was faced with Wonder Girl, managing to temporarily gain free will, summoning Krypto and explaining his dilemma to Cassie.

The battle moved to the Fortress of Solitude, where Conner's original body was in the rebirth matrix. The ring, confused and confronted with unexpected resistance from Conner, left its host to attach itself to his corpse, but Superboy awoke his super-breath ability to freeze the ring, which Cassie hurled into space.

New Krypton

Conner worked with Mon-El when he filling in for Superman on New Krypton. Together they joined a secret 21st Century incarnation of Legion of Super-Heroes. They traveled to New Krypton to help defeat Brainiac without destroying the bottle cities that would one day join the United Planets and were the future homes of the members of the Legion of Super-Heroes.

War of the Supermen

Superboy, Guardian, Steel, Nightwing, Flamebird and Krypto joined forces to expose and stop General Lane's plans to wipe out the Kryptonians. Conner saved the JLA and Supergirl from Non and Ursa, imprisoning them in the Phantom Zone. Soon after, he and Krypto backed Superman against Zod and his soldiers, but Zod injured Krypto causing Conner to abandon the fight to save his dog. He left the Phantom Zone Projector to Superman, who used it to imprisoned Zod and himself in the Phantom Zone. Superman was later freed by Nightwing.

Titans and Smallville

Static was kidnapped while visiting his hometown of Dakota City, and the Teen Titans headed there to rescue him. Frustrated by the lack of progress the team was having, Beast Boy phoned Cyborg for help. The Justice League member angrily told Beast Boy to handle his own problems, but later rethought his position and contacted Conner and Bart about returning to the Titans. In Dakota, Holocaust easily defeated the Titans until Conner, Bart, and Cyborg arrived to reinforce them. Conner desperately tried to defeat the villain, but Holocaust proved powerful enough to not only absorb almost all of Conner's attacks, but also injure the Kryptonian with his own. Conner and Bart distracted Holocaust long enough for the other Titans to escape, and eventually the combined might of the entire team was able to stop him. On the trip back to San Francisco, Conner wanted to know if Cassie was ignoring him. The two briefly tried to make their relationship work, but Conner decided to leave her.

Conner continued living in Smallville, where her explained to his friend Simon Valentine that if Superboy and Simon were to remain friends, Conner couldn't be seen with him. Conner avoided Lori Luthor, because her family ties, but she eventually discovered his identity after an attack by the Prime Hunters. Conner was also attacked by Parasite and Poison Ivy who wrecked the town, so Conner and Bart conceived an exhibition race between themselves to raise funds. Conner later become a founding member the Supermen of America.

Convergence

Before Zero Hour, Conner's Metropolis was taken by Brainiac and Telos, and placed under a dome, losing his powers for a year. When his powers returned, he fought the Superman, Flash and Red Robin of Earth-22. During the fight, he accidentally injured Lois Lane and threw the fight in recompense.

Fun Facts

Originally, Superboy had no name besides "Superboy". Later, Superman gave him the Kryptonian name "Kon-El", to show that he considered him family. He adopted the secret identity of "Conner Kent", posing as a younger cousin of Clark.

Superboy was also known as Experiment 13 and Project: Superman.

Conner was in love and in a relationship with Wonder Girl. He previously dated Tana Moon.

Conner was best friends with Red Robin and Kid Flash II.

Conner and Supergirl had a close friendship. Kara even considered Conner her "cousin" just as much as Kal-El.

[popwasabi]

“Crazy Rich Asians” Review: Support This Movie So I Can Stop Being Angry

Directed by Jon M. Chu

Starring: Constance Wu, Henry Golding, Michelle Yeoh, Gemma Chan, Awkwafina

 “Crazy Rich Asians” might be the first film I’ve ever been nervous about seeing.

It wasn’t that I didn’t trust that director Jon M. Chu would properly represent Asian Americans in a way most Hollywood films don’t but I found myself worried not about whether I would like the movie but whether others would. You see, in the theater full of mostly Asian people I saw it with there was a row of five middle-aged white people right in front of me and my mind immediately went to the gutter thinking “will these people laugh at anything that isn’t a stereotype in this movie?”

(White people be all like: “Why do Asians all look the same?”)

Obviously that’s an unfair assumption to make but Hollywood makes it for them all the time. Rarely producing films that give being Asian any nuance or depth beyond being smart, martial arts masters or more infuriatingly submissive enablers of a white protagonist over their own stories.

A part of me didn’t care about enjoying it so long as it made an impression on Hollywood and larger film-going audiences; I needed this film to succeed because it could mean so much more for representation and inclusion down the line.

Luckily, from what it looks like, the film is trending well and in the end managed to warm my cold dead heart with its whimsical rom-com charm, even if parts of it devolved into the predictable.

Based on the bestselling book by Kevin Kwan, “Crazy Rich Asians” follows the story of Rachel Chu as she and her boyfriend Nicholas Young travel to visit his family in Singapore for his brother’s wedding. Unbeknownst to her, Nick hasn’t been completely forthcoming about his family’s lifestyle and as it turns out he is part of the richest family in Southeast Asia. Now Rachel finds herself in a battle to establish herself in front of his matriarchal mother and prove to her that she’s worth it to Nick.

In writing this review over the last few days it’s been very hard to convey how I’ve felt about this film without going on an angry tangent about Asian representation as a whole in popular cinema. It’s pretty much impossible for me not to talk about it so I’m going to try to talk about this as briefly as possible before I get into the film itself and where it stands personally for me.

(Me trying to avoid writing 10,000 words of pent up rage over the first couple drafts..)

There have definitely been better movies to come out, even in recent years, about the Asian/Asian American experience in the west and more than a few starring all Asian casts, writers and directors. Last year’s, much smaller film, “Gook” for instance gets much more personal about race and the ugliness of society.Even as far as comedies go “Seoul Searching” (which is on Netflix) is a funnier more relatable take on the issues and themes raised in this movie.

(Also, if you didn’t know already, Justin Chon is a GREAT actor and needs to be in more movies. Or at least directing them.)

But as many in the media have pointed out already, this is historic in that it’s the first MAJOR film of this kind since “Joy Luck Club” and to finally have a film featuring this type of cast, director and story with big corporate backing is huge for representation whether you find the film underwhelming or not.

Over the last couple years, whitewashing has become a more recognized topical issue in Hollywood than ever before as Asian American audiences are speaking up more loudly about problematic casting and writing choices that Hollywood and apologists find all kinds of excuses for. Despite plenty of evidence to support otherwise that “bankable” stars don’t guarantee box office draws and that Asian Americans are the largest movie-going demographic per-capita in the country, Hollywood still will place relatively unknown white actors in lead roles on huge box office productions (look at the history of Hollywood trying to make Armie Hammer a thing) while simultaneously telling people like myself that people who look like me can’t be mainstream draws.

If for nothing else, cast more Asian Americans because it’s the right thing to do. The representation and inclusion is waaay overdue and if I have to hear “Just make your own movie” or “People from (insert Asian country here) don’t care” one more God damn time I will tear my fucking hair out! Kevin Kwan had to FIGHT to keep the role of Rachel Chu in this movie Asian and Asians from the mainland and Asians in America, or more broadly in the West, don’t have the same lived in experiences. Not even close!

(Me failing often to maintain my decorum in polite company when these topics are brought up...)

One of the weirdest and most shocking revelations I had coming out of this film is that it was one of the only films I could recall seeing an Asian couple engaging with each other romantically in a Hollywood film for more than five minutes at a time ever. That’s. Fucking. Nuts!

I hope that with the commercial and critical success of this movie what’s left of the skeptics will come around finally (especially the ones in Hollywood) and stop with the dismissiveness. They probably won’t but hey maybe it’ll shut them up for a while at least…

(It gets me through this shit...)

Anyways, now that I’m (mostly) done ranting, as far as the movie goes this is a solid date-night romantic comedy that I’m sure everyone regardless of background can enjoy.

“Crazy Rich Asians” is fairly predictable, albeit with some minor twists, but it still manages to tell a story we’re all pretty familiar with in a unique and often dazzling way.

The first thing that pops out immediately about this film is its visuals as the movie displays a wide array of hues and colors that make the cinematography and the literal richness of the plot truly pop. Its visual eye-candy in the best way, even if it comes across as shallow at times, and if nothing else will keep your eyes glued to the screen as the films moves through its lush scenery.

The soundtrack also helps highlight this between the pop songs and Cantonese renditions of them and director Jon Chu does a great job of splicing it all in together with this group of characters and making their performances even brighter through it.

The cast is the true strength of the film, of course, featuring multiple well-known Asian actors and actresses as well as a few newcomers, who I hope breakout in Hollywood through this film. Constance Wu is delightful, sassy and strong-willed as Rachel Chu and helps shed the stereotype of the meek and submissive Asian women in this story by standing up for herself and not hinging her existence on a man, even one she loves. On the other side of things Henry Golding looks every bit like a star in the making and is charming as Nick Young (even if he is a bit of a Gary Stu character) while also smashing stereotypes about asexuality and unattractiveness in Asian men himself. The two of them have great chemistry onscreen and make a very believable romantic couple and it’s hard, even for an eternal cynic like me, to not be like “Awwwww true wuuuuuv” while watching their romance play out.

(*sniff* It’s so extra yet it’s so beautiful ;_;... *sobs at the extra-ness of the romance*)

There’s a hilarious cast of characters who support Wu and Golding alongside them as well. The always enjoyable Awkwafina plays up her role as the funny best friend very well, the Daily Show’s Ronny Chiang gets in some nice quips and Ken Jeong plays the perverted weirdo perfectly.

The indomitable Michele Yeoh does a great job as the menacing matriarch Eleanor Young but manages to keep it from getting too cliché as the writing adds some nice shades of grey to the character. Her love, even if misguided, is well acted alongside Golding and the two make for an interesting mother/son dynamic that I’m sure plenty will be able to relate to.

The real surprise star, and honestly the most interesting part of the story, actually comes from English actress Gemma Chan who plays Nick’s cousin Astrid. The sub plot involving Astrid and her husband sets up a unique and powerful message about the give and take in relationships and its reflection upon femininity and masculinity. Chan puts in a short but nonetheless thoughtful and sincere performance here and I look forward to seeing more of her in the sequel and hopefully other major film productions.

(That look you give when someone tells you a film starring a dozen or so Asian actors and actresses can’t be a huge box office success)

The film doesn’t have many profound things to say otherwise, it’s again a fairly by the numbers rom-com with a heavy dosage of opulence porn and not to mention some problematic elements, but the one message I hope white audiences take from this film, other than everything I mentioned earlier *gets back on soapbox*, comes from Rachel’s mother at the very beginning of the film.

In the lead up to Nick and Rachel’s big Singapore trip Rachel’s mother warns her about what people of the mainland will think of her when they see her. She states that she may look Chinese and speak Cantonese but, pointing to her heart, they see her as American.

This speaks to a lot of what growing up in this country feels like sometimes for us Asian Americans. That despite many of us being three or four generations deep now in this country we’re seen as foreigners and people from “our country” see us the same way. It’s a deep struggle for our identities and the perpetual foreigner syndrome is a real issue for many of us. Yes, as adults it’s easier for us to shake these insults and micro aggressions but that doesn’t mean it’s still not fucking annoying. Hopefully when white film-goers see this scene they begin to understand that we are as much Americans as anyone else and that seemingly harmless but nonetheless insulting comments like “no, where are you really from” need to be done away with.

(”Where are you from?”---->”Oh I’m from LA.”----> “No, I mean where are you from?”---> “Uhhh California?”----> “No where are you really from?”----> “The United States?...”----> “No where are you REALLY from?”--->*me^*)

I won’t stand here and tell you that Asian Americans have had it worse in this country than other minorities but stereotypes and poor cultural representation, or lack thereof, does contribute to a wide array of issues for us and hopefully this film helps hammer away those regressive viewpoints.

TL;DR “Crazy Rich Asians” is a good date movie and, if nothing else, support this movie so I can go on less rants about Hollywood shitting on Asian Americans.

It may be, at least on the surface, a pretty straight forward romantic comedy but its little nuances and unique commentary on this demographic of people (Even if it talks about a small section of it) makes it a film worth supporting.

Hopefully in the future this film will feel pretty ordinary as representation and inclusion become more accessible things for not just Asian Americans but for people of all backgrounds but until then this is a nice, waaaay past-due, coming out party for Asians across this country and abroad.

 VERDICT:

4 out of 5

*Me awaiting the inevitable “Well actually...” comments that’ll come from this review*

[elizabethrobertajones]

I'm not saying you agree with that TLJ article since you tagged it 'mh', but I'm very worried but this latest trend 'Your opinion is wrong because of internalized ___'. Some movies just suck? Like, I hated Ghostbusters 2 because it was bad. I was perfectly okay with having four women as main characters, but that can't be your whole idea for a movie.

I do think that article is interesting, and trying to describe what is basically a wider cultural phenomenon. I’m sure on case by case basis you could rarely boil it down to just a few specific factors and “diagnose” someone except for really obvious lifelong character types who would be in the most obvious demographic. 

Star Wars *already* got a bunch of sexist and racist backlash before TFA, so it’s already in the bracket of movies which got thrown together as the collection of SJWs are ruining our childhood movies like Mad Max, Ghostbusters, etc, so it’s also definitely not like this is a wild stab in the dark that it has pre-existing tension, although in this case the reaction is still really split. But I can see why it’s easy to examine it this way and analyse where it might make people uncomfortable, and wonder to what degree people are prepared to let go of Leading White Man formula for mega blockbusters. 

Something like Wonder Woman, people know what they’re getting into when they see it in the sense that the franchise is completely built around there being a female character in the lead role. So that stands quite alone. And it’s not like there haven’t been action movies with female leads in the past either, but the re-casting in the case of Ghostbusters, or just development of interesting female characters who aren’t beholden to a cookie cutter template/romance arc within a supposedly male-dominated franchise (Furiosa, especially) and changing up old franchises to have more diverse cast (Star Wars) or just completely flip the “male is the default” idea like Ghostbusters and Oceans 8, are deliberately challenging and in some cases - the last 2 especially - are pretty much thumbing the nose to the idea of all-male casts being unremarkable and default. Whether the movies are *good* or not (I thought Ghostbusters was about on the level of, say, a Ghostbusters movie for quality and humour, so okay basically :P) they’re culturally significant at a time when it seems both bizarre and horrifically slow and backwards that we *still* don’t have *even just getting male and female representation right, never mind race and sexuality and disability representation* (I mean for that last point - in some ways these films are already going to be regressive by the time other progressive steps are made, for example Charlize Theron wearing a green screen glove to delete her arm, instead of just hiring an actress with half an arm which is the immediately less-expensive and fiddly route to get the aesthetic…)

But idk, it’s not even like Star Wars was either perfect or extremely progressive, it just managed *not* to have 2-3 white male leads + some other people in the background, and to allow the non white male people to have such a stake in the story they could mess up and make decisions that affected the fate of the galaxy - often negatively, as this is the ESB slot of the trilogy aka where everything is supposed to go in the toilet. There was a lot they could have done better and I’m still annoyed that Maz and Phasma both got pitifully tiny roles but were basically included despite the set up of the movie being extremely restrictive to much exploration and with probably the longest time limit they thought they could allow themselves and still sound like there were any tension in the chase… 

I think it’s definitely always worth exploring whether social issues are having an impact on the reception of a film, though, because it’s a way of addressing the issues in our society, which we *know* exist, and when a film is openly critical of our society, and then people are critical back at it, guessing there may be a nervous backlash from people it made uncomfortable for too-close-to-home reasons makes sense. The critique offered by Kylo Ren to edgy white masculinity is really interesting, and I think it’s probably not hard to imagine SOME people especially who fit the profile are reacting against him, or glorifying him anyway unironically while disliking large amounts of the rest of the movie. 

One of the points that article made as well was that other generic or bad films do much better with audience reaction - in fact some truly terrible films do really well as they’re marketed to a niche audience, and that audience gobbles them up and we get the inverse, of critically panned but audience ratings pretty high.

I mean, I’m assuming if you follow me you’re a Supernatural fan and so we’re all here to gobble up the melodramatic pretty boys :P

So, idk, I think in some ways the picking apart of the film and emphasising its flaws is happening in a strange social climate, where in some ways the discomfort about the film not catering with the most “easy” empathy of a white male main character & with flawed but interesting characters in the other roles particularly prone to being criticised in society for existing anyway and that the SW revival has already had one film threatened boycott over because of Finn being a black stormtrooper on his reveal, and I doubt that feeling has just magically gone away… There comes a point where I wonder how much is basically film review concern trolling when it comes to criticising his and Rose’s arc, or the film in general. 

And how much of the film’s real flaws, plotholes etc if they existed in an easier version of the film with all 4 Chrises in the major roles would take months or years to get properly dissected by the internet while it’s basically as soon as you go back online after the movie someone’s complaining about why Canto Bight even existed.

I mean my “Hm” was “this is interesting and I think it definitely could apply to the wider cultural reaction to the movies” while obviously on a personal level if people have certain standards for films (my dad hates basically *everything* so I don’t think his reaction to TFA was categorically racist or sexist, just that he would be inclined to think pretty much anything JJ Abrams makes is garbage and whoops I never should have naively made him watch the first episode of Fringe with me :P) then if any of these movies are things you can tell would have rubbed you up the wrong way anyway, e.g. you didn’t like the original Ghostbusters that much/have found it far cringey-er on adult rewatches etc then you are absolutely allowed to have a reaction to it on a personal level which is not a sign of the sickness of our society :P 

But I think even if you don’t like the new SW film, it’s worth putting aside your critiques of it for a moment to think about this article and the wider reaction - not to make you guilted into enjoying the film, but because it’s worth at least pondering the wider social issues the film’s already definitely caught up in since like, before TFA came out, so we can’t deny that there’s at least some portion of the audience, whether the loud but small group of assholes who utterly invisibly boycotted TFA, or the wider percentage of the population who’ll be consciously or unconsciously turned off by the cast and the power given to their characters in the story, and the possibly even wider percentage who may still struggle to empathise with female characters because Hollywood has so systematically underrepresented like, what can alternately be the literal largest demographic on the planet, and presented just plain old cis women as characters whose inner lives are valuable and decisions should be respected. 

I mean since I came out the movie I’ve been swinging back and forth on “should Holdo have just told Poe her plan or was the point that this man of a much lower station is getting all up in her business demanding to know and questioning her, and I assume that was intentional so I should agree with Holdo but would this have looked just as bad if a male admiral showed up doing the same thing and they accidentally undermine her by it being a bad decision in general, or is the point that if it had been a male admiral Poe would have shut up and not let an insurrection, but I mean it’s *Poe* and I love him and I totally understand and he was made out to be more sympathetic until *after* the twist so did they WANT us to be critical of Holdo or am I just falling into a trap of not giving female characters the same room to fuck up as male characters -” and that’s BEFORE I get onto the internet and read this debate for weeks, just my confusion about this arc and what it was saying and if it was meant to say one thing or the other or if it’s a bit of bad writing (but not something so bad it would ruin the film to the point of only 50% enthusiasm like Rotten Tomatoes is giving it - like, 93% or something :P) or if it’s doing exactly what it’s supposed to by making my brain cogs go and making me feel I need to write like, a dozen female admiralty into things to allow Holdo a cultural sisterhood of good bad and ugly admirals to be her own person in instead of the only female admiral to ever stick in my head like this :P So idk. 

Hm. Basically. 

[shadowedgarden]

From the Hunters, Among the Hunted

Chapter 3: Let the Fun Begin!

Warning: dead person at for short time near end, in case that is of concern to any.

Ch. 1: Welcome, Please Try not to Die || Ch. 2: The Desolate City

An objective is quite a helpful and welcome distraction.  After a brief scan to make sure you know what direction to head, noting quickly that you are already fairly close, you start off.  The next two rooms are filled with shadows due to the room above.  As your eyes adapt to the darkness, a vaguely irritated smile appears on your face.  You wonder if it would kill them to make less puzzles and traps that require falling.  Probably.  The exit is blocked by spikes, another common choice it seems, with six patches of falling ground spaced through the room.  You swiftly approach the closest on your right, wanting to get it over with.  The drop is not actually as far as you thought it would be, and you are beginning to adapt to these traps.  That doesn’t mean bracing helps all that much yet.  In the room below you find a faded old strip of scarlet fabric that was gorgeous when it was new.  It is used to tie back hair.  The wind must have blown it down here, the stone protecting it from too much wear.

You tie it into a bow and put it in your hair.  

Monsters won’t hit you as hard if you’re cute.  Pity the same cannot be said of humans.  

You climb up the shaft, a bit slower than with earlier ones due to having to navigate by feel alone; this time trying the pitfall to the left when you emerge.  You forget to brace, lungs getting their breath knocked out of them.  As you push yourself up, you wince.  You definitely gained at least a bruise from this.  You start feeling around for a switch, eventually finding it on the wall near the shaft, at around your head height.  You pull it, hearing the tell tale grinding of spikes retreating into the floor, and crawl back out and leave the room.  Luckily the spike barrier in the next doorway is also down, because you can’t see well enough to do anything other than bumble blindly around in there.  That does mean, though, that you have no idea what the three signs mean when they say “If you can see this”.  It takes you a bit of messing around and having your heart skip from the surprise drops for you to figure out the north sign will actually assist you, rather than drop you with no warning.  After that you figure the next such rooms out with ease.  You carefully step over a tangle of vines, glancing down the path towards the house, and, figuring you have a bit of time until Toriel arrives, step over another such tangle and move to a lookout that was previously obscured from your vision.  Making sure you stay well clear of the edge, you look up.  

The crumbling ruins of this once great city spreads before you, many times larger than you could have imagined.  Compared to this the village is tiny.  You can just see the ocean sparkling on the far side of the mountain, the forest cutting off the city just before it reaches the water and covering the mountain with a thick green coat.  Snow drifts off the top on a wind that doesn’t reach you, shimmering as it dissipates into its carrier.  Down in the ruins there is a scattering of camp-fires from the hunters.  Most tend to attack during the day, but once in awhile a squad will get drunk and start wandering around during the night.  Filthy creatures.  Some of the buildings have crumbled, while some others are relatively untouched, and vines seem to be the primary inhabitants now.  There are a dozen more areas that have fallen into the same type of almost-haunted seeming clearing like you saw earlier.  The once strong barricades and towering walls that had once protected the city are hardly recognizable now, where they are still standing at all that is.  In the distance and scattered among the forest are a few stray towns and farms, as well as one or two on the coast, all of which are also abandoned and overgrown, barely a single structure of which is visible from here.  Anything near the edge of the ruins is completely overgrown, to the point where you can hardly even tell where the city used to end.  Overshadowing the crumbling remains is the overgrown wreckage of a castle.  Even from here it is possible to see the flowers overflowing out of the courtyards, as well as the vines that consume all that still stands.  In one of the spires that has only partially collapsed, dozens of bed-frames sit exposed to the elements, the vines just starting to obscure them from view.  The vines had trapped some of the rubble, and as you watch a piece comes loose and tumbles to the ground.  Everything of value was ransacked a long time ago.  Near the base of the castle resides a circle of light from a human camp.  You glance down, checking the distance to the edge again.  Its steepness unnerves you, and this is not exactly the most inconspicuous of places to stand.  A stick stares back at you- not literally, calm down-, nearly touching your feet, positioned almost as though trying to remind you of Toriel’s house.  You pick it up and head back, shuffling through the leaves, and enter the front yard.  You hear her footsteps moments before she rounds the large tree directly in front of you.

“There you are, my child!  I was beginning to worry you had gotten lost.”  Toriel beams, then mutters too herself, slightly to quietly for you to catch.  At a volume clearly meant for you to hear she adds,

“Please, come inside.”

She turns to head in, a little bit of dust falling off her clothes as she does so.  For some reason that seems a bit more tragic than you think it should.  She looks slightly more tired than when you last saw her, regardless of the cheerfulness she has plastered on.  You follow, pausing at another Save star just before you enter.  You emerge into a hallway, with stairs that disappear down to the left on the other side of the room, and doorways to either side of you.  Through the left you can see a large table and through the right, more hallway.  A bookcase and flowers are to either side of the stairway.

She takes your hand and leads you down the right hall, stopping at the first door.

“You must be exhausted, so go right ahead and get some rest, it will take me a few days to arrange anything anyway.  I will leave you to get comfortable, if you need anything just call.  You can stay here until I can arrange for someone to pick you up, this is no place for a child.  Your room is this way.”  

You enter the room without bothering to see where she goes.  Against the right wall is his bed, with a toy-box at it’s foot and a wardrobe beside it.  The only other things to adorn the room are a drawing of a golden flower on the wall, a seemingly broken light source in the far left corner, and a single fabric doll on the bed.  Once you sit down on the bed, exhaustion washes over you.  You have never slept in this nice of a bed before.  It overrides your hunger, and you drop your backpack beside the bed, instantly drifting into an uneventful slumber.

By the time you awaken the sun has set again, and the delicious aroma of fresh baked pie has drifted tentatively through the room.  Groggily, you remember that you forgot to eat before you fell asleep, your stomach deciding that stabbing you is an appropriate reminder.  How nice of it.  You slowly roll over to grab a snack from your pack, and see that Toriel has left you a slice of pie a safe distance from the bed.  That explains the aroma.  You drop your feet onto the floor and pick up the snail pie.  …It’s an acquired taste.  You slip it into your pack anyway, just in case you need it later; then pull out food more to your tastes, and sling your bag over your shoulder, ready to explore.  Before you leave, you check the wardrobe, finding only a bunch of striped sweaters, and merely glance at all the cool toys in the toy box before deeming them uninteresting.  

You drift to the next room over, opening the door to find a bed against the corner opposite you, a desk between it and the door, and a wardrobe and bookshelf in the far corner.  Aside from a yellow flower and some broken crayons atop the bookshelf, and a diary and some pens on her desk, the room lacks anything smaller than a chair.  The bed is one of the largest ones you’ve seen.  You open the diary, which doesn’t look like it’s written in frequently, to a random page.  It seems to be an old one.

“If I were a dog, what breed of dog would I be?    A Momeranian!”

Jokes like this must be how she stays sane now.  You close the book and leave.  There is nothing more to look at here. 

As the only other door in this hall is broken, you head over to the other side of the house.  The doorway you saw earlier opens into the dining room, which doubles as a living-room.  To the right sits a fireplace, with a gentle fire burning in it, a bookshelf filled with worn books sitting to its right, and to its left a reading chair and a doorway to what can be assumed as the kitchen.  The place has a distinct sturdy feel, the damage being minimal with an essentials only attitude.  Toriel is asleep in the chair, with a book in her lap.  You plan to let her sleep, as she must need the rest, however, her phone doesn’t seem to agree with you, and she is up near instantaneously.  As she heads for the door she sees you, directing you towards the books and saying she will be back soon.  You spend the next several hours exploring the little left of the house you hadn’t seen, eventually settling down to read.  

You end up back at the spot overlooking the ruins, sitting cross-legged a few meters from the edge.  Throughout the night,  Toriel has yet to return for any interval longer than forty minutes, during which grabbing some shut-eye seemed to be her immediate priority; voluntary or not.  She just left again, in fact.  A monster candy rolls around in your mouth, slowly filling it with its distinctly non-licorice taste.  It’s the only monster food you’ve found so far that doesn’t just dissolve into a burst of flavour and energy upon entering your mouth, but only if you focus on making sure it doesn’t.  You had found a bowl full of them on Toriel’s table earlier and took a handful with you.  You finally discovered the real reasons why the village wanted the monsters dead, thanks to the books, and your mind mulls it over from time to time.  Fear, greed, and power have forever been the easiest way to get into a fight.   A yawn interrupts your thoughts just as the sun starts to lighten the horizon.  You should probably get some sleep.  You wander back to your room, eyes fluttering a little, and crawl into bed, drifting gently into familiar darkness once more.

A child walks through the forest, only a slight limp remaining of their twisted ankle.  It’s a quiet morning, the sun yet to lighten the horizon.  They know exactly how to avoid the guards and enter unnoticed. After all, they’ve been observing the area for a week or so just for this trip.  They soften their footsteps as they approach, pulling their hood up and obscuring them-self.  The people wore this sort of thing all the time in colder weather, and the child went unnoticed as they slipped through the village towards their house, hardly a soul even conscious.  When they reached the house, they slipped through the window of their younger sister’s room.  Their sister, however, was absent.  They swiftly located her diary, she hadn’t changed its hiding spot while they were away, and looked at the last entry for some sort of hint as to where she might be.  The writing was abnormally smudged, as though she had been writing in a great hurry.  From what was decipherable, it seemed their sister had overheard some guards mention seeing them with the monsters.  That had been the last piece of evidence needed to convince her that the village leader was evil, and she had been planning the kill for a few weeks.  She put it into action the morning prior.

A dread crept over the child as they realized this.  Their sister was too young.  She was the last shred of hope they had for humanity.  They slipped back out, heading towards the leader of the idiots’ residence.  When the house came into view, they stopped short.  They didn’t want to believe their eyes.  Pinned outside of the house by stakes through her shoulders, hung their sister, covered in dried blood.  In life, she had been the most beautiful person the child had every known, both inside and out.   Now she had been reduced to a desecrated, mangled, and shredded sack of flesh and bones.  She was hanging out in the open as a warning to any others that might be thinking about trying to kill the family.  She had been dead for several hours.  On the ground beside her lay the red ribbon the child had given her.  They approached, shaking, tied the strip of fabric around their arm, and took their sister down gently.  They piled her fallen pieces back into her corpse and carried her slightly stiff body into the woods for a proper funeral.  The only thing the child could see was red.

You awake to Toriel entering the room.  She sounds haggard.

“Oh good, you are awake.  Please gather your things and meet me by the door downstairs as soon as you can.”

She disappears from the doorway, presumably to wait for you at the door.  You pull a sheet off the bed, shoving it into your pack, and tie the ribbon into your hair, pretending you never had the dream, and head to the door with a piece of dried meat in your mouth.  The sun has set again.  You pause at the top of the stairs, looking back at the rest of the house.  You would not mind staying, you think, and the realization fills you with determination, a Save star at the bottom of the stairs channelling and amplifying the feeling.  Toriel is pretty nice too, almost to the point of making you wish she were your mom.  You soon turn the last corner, coming to a stop before Toriel and a large, solid, door.  Apparently, the humans appeared to be getting abnormally close to the house last night, and she suspects that the little safety it had might be compromised.  The best plan of action would be if you left, while she stays behind.

After all, she is here for a reason.  

“Take this,” she says, holding out a slip of paper.  “Show it to the first person you meet, they will bring you to Asgore.”  You refuse, stating that you will stay with her, and if she wants you to leave she must come too.  

“My child, please, he will take good care of you.”

Again you refuse.  You are being foolish.  She stands there for a moment, her face an expressionless mask, mulling over her options.  The distance between the two of you closes almost instantaneously, her arm brushing your shoulder as you skitter to the side.  You will not be that easy to catch, both of you know that.  She sighs, and a ping echoes around the hall as she pulls forth your soul.  This really does not seem debatable.  

“This is your last chance to leave on your own.  Please little one, stop being so stubborn,” she implores you one final time.  Immovable in your decision, you shake your head.  No.

Flames dance across Toriel's fingertips, growing into fireballs that she sends flying towards the child’s soul.  Warning shots.  Their focus sharpens, fingers twitching as they will their soul to dodge.  They notice a slight difference with how it responds.  They test a theory, surprise lighting up their eyes as the precision their fingers grant is realized.  The flames stop, giving the child a chance to leave, and they flick their soul over to ACT.  The CHECK reads:

*TORIEL  80 ATK  80 DEF *Knows best.

Their soul returns to the box, flames falling like rain.  Not ready for anything more than the warning, a fireball smashes into the child’s soul.  A wave of worry, lifetimes of loneliness, and sparks of hope crash down on them, stunning them for a few seconds and placing strain on the soul’s connection.  They recover, soul blinking back, just as Toriel ends her attack.  Yet the child stays.  The flames return, oscillating, trapping their soul against the wall, the damage washing over them again.  Still they refuse to run.  They ACT, choosing to TALK; if she is so lonely, why force them to leave?  She ignores them.  The fireballs comes in arcs, the child managing to dodge them all for the first time.  The cycle repeats for the next few turns: dodge, talk fruitlessly, dodge and still get hit, and after a few minutes give up on verbal protest.  Eventually, when the soul’s connection to the body was feeble, the flames subside, and she opens her mouth to try diplomacy one last time.  Before she can speak, a shout echoes down the hall, originating from a pair of humans.  Toriel whirls around, seizing the child’s arm and launching them out, the others having distracted them.

“I will catch up to you if I can.  Go.”  A hollow BOOM resounds through the tunnel as the door slams shut.

The tunnel is pitch dark, other than the torch on the wall.  It is impossible to tell how far it runs at this point.  You pick up the torch, then look back at the door.  The only thing you can do for Toriel now is hope.  The ground shifts softly behind you, and you turn to face it.

“Just cause you fooled her, don’t think you’ve fooled me.  I know what you are.”  It’s Flowey.  He looks about as grim as a flower can get.  "I’m watching you, soul-thief,“ he spits out.

His visit is decidedly ended as he disappears back into the earth, leaving you to climb up the tunnel by yourself.  Have fun with the hike.

[airoasis]

Questions No One Knows the Answers to (Full Version)

New Post has been published on https://hititem.kr/questions-no-one-knows-the-answers-to-full-version-2/

Questions No One Knows the Answers to (Full Version)

On a typical day at college, unending hours are spent learning the solutions to questions, but correct now, we will do the opposite. We’ll center of attention on questions the place you cannot study the answers due to the fact they’re unknown. I used to puzzle about a lot of things as a boy, for instance: What would it not suppose wish to be a dog? Do fish believe affliction? How about bugs? Was the big Bang just an accident? And is there a God? And if that is so, how are we so sure that it’s a He and no longer a She? Why accomplish that many harmless people and animals suffer horrible things? Is there really a plan for my existence? Is the long run yet to be written, or is it already written and we just are not able to see it? But then, do i have free will? I imply, who am I anyway? Am I only a organic desktop? But then, why am I aware? What’s attention? Will robots emerge as mindful someday? I imply, I type of assumed that some day i might be informed the solutions to all these questions.Any person must recognize, correct? Bet what? No person is aware of. Most of those questions puzzle me extra now than ever. However diving into them is unique considering the fact that it takes you to the brink of skills, and also you certainly not know what you’ll to find there. So, two questions that no person on the planet is aware of the answer to. (track) regularly after I’m on an extended airplane flight, I gaze out at all these mountains and deserts and take a look at to get my head round how monstrous our Earth is.And then I bear in mind that there is an object we see everyday that would actually match a million Earths inside it: the sun. It appears impossibly enormous. But in the first-rate scheme of matters, it is a pinprick, one of about four hundred billion stars within the Milky method galaxy, which you will discover on a clear night as a light white mist stretched throughout the sky. And it gets worse. There are might be a hundred billion galaxies detectable by using our telescopes. So if every star used to be the scale of a single grain of sand, simply the Milky method has adequate stars to fill a 30-foot by means of 30-foot stretch of seashore three feet deep with sand.And the whole Earth doesn’t have adequate beaches to represent the celebrities within the total universe. This type of seashore would continue for literally enormous quantities of hundreds of thousands of miles. Holy Stephen Hawking, that is a lot of stars. But he and other physicists now feel in a reality that is unimaginably higher nonetheless. I imply, first of all, the one hundred billion galaxies inside variety of our telescopes are probably a minuscule fraction of the total. House itself is increasing at an accelerating p.C.. The vast majority of the galaxies are setting apart from us so rapid that light from them could in no way reach us. Nonetheless, our bodily reality here on earth is intimately linked to those far-off, invisible galaxies. We can consider of them as part of our universe. They make up a single, enormous edifice obeying the same physical laws and all produced from the identical forms of atoms, electrons, protons, quarks, neutrinos, that make up you and me.Nonetheless, contemporary theories in physics, including one known as string idea, are actually telling us there would be countless different universes built on different varieties of particles, with distinctive residences, obeying specific legal guidelines. Most of these universes might under no circumstances help existence, and would flash in and out of existence in a nanosecond. But nevertheless, mixed, they make up a vast multiverse of possible universes in as much as eleven dimensions, presenting wonders past our wildest creativeness. The leading variation of string thought predicts a multiverse made from 10 to the five hundred universes. That’s a one adopted by 500 zeros, a number so gigantic that if every atom in our observable universe had its own universe, and all the atoms in all those universes each had their possess universe, and also you repeated that for two more cycles, you’d nonetheless be at a tiny fraction of the complete, particularly, one trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillionth. (Laughter) however even that number is minuscule compared to an extra number: infinity. Some physicists consider the distance-time continuum is literally infinite and that it includes an infinite number of so-called pocket universes with varying residences.How’s your mind doing? Quantum idea provides a whole new wrinkle. I imply, the speculation’s been verified actual past all doubt, however deciphering it’s baffling, and some physicists believe which you can only un-baffle it if you imagine that colossal numbers of parallel universes are being spawned each second, and lots of of these universes would truely be very like the arena we’re in, would include multiple copies of you. In one such universe, you’d graduate with honors and marry the character of your dreams, and in one more, now not a lot. Good, there are nonetheless some scientists who would say, hogwash. The one meaningful answer to the question of how many universes there are is one. Just one universe. And a few philosophers and mystics could argue that even our own universe is an illusion. So, as you will find, right now there is no contract on this question, now not even close. All we all know is the answer is someplace between zero and infinity. Well, i assume we know one thing more. This can be a lovely cool time to be studying physics. We simply maybe present process the largest paradigm shift in abilities that humanity has ever visible. (song) someplace in the market in that colossal universe there must undoubtedly be countless other planets teeming with life.But why do not we see any evidence of it? Well, this is the noted question asked by Enrico Fermi in 1950: where is each person? Conspiracy theorists declare that UFOs are journeying all the time and the experiences are just being included up, however honestly, they don’t seem to be very convincing. But that leaves a real riddle. In the past yr, the Kepler area observatory has found 1000s of planets simply around regional stars. And in case you extrapolate that knowledge, it appears like there might be half a thousand billion planets just in our own galaxy. If anyone in 10,000 has stipulations that would aid a form of existence, that’s still 50 million viable existence-harboring planets right here within the Milky method. So here’s the riddle: our Earth failed to kind until about 9 billion years after the massive Bang.Numerous other planets in our galaxy will have to have formed earlier, and given existence a danger to get underway billions, or without doubt many hundreds of thousands of years earlier than happened on this planet. If only a few of them had spawned smart existence and started growing technologies, these applied sciences would have had millions of years to grow in complexity and vigor. On this planet, we now have obvious how dramatically science can accelerate in simply one hundred years. In thousands of years, an sensible alien civilization would readily have spread out across the galaxy, possibly growing big power-harvesting artifacts or fleets of colonizing spaceships or glorious artistic endeavors that fill the night sky. At the very least, you’d think they’d be revealing their presence, intentionally or otherwise, by way of electromagnetic alerts of 1 style or one more. And but we see no convincing proof of any of it. Why? Good, there are countless feasible solutions, some of them relatively dark. Possibly a single, superintelligent civilization has certainly taken over the galaxy and has imposed strict radio silence considering the fact that it can be paranoid of any talents competitors. It can be simply sitting there competent to obliterate some thing that becomes a hazard.Or probably they’re now not that wise, or maybe the evolution of an intelligence able of constructing sophisticated science is a long way rarer than we’ve got assumed. In any case, it is handiest occurred as soon as on the planet in 4 billion years. Probably even that used to be highly fortunate. Maybe we are the primary such civilization in our galaxy. Or, might be civilization contains with it the seeds of its own destruction by way of the lack of ability to control the technologies it creates. But there are countless more hopeful solutions. For a begin, we’re no longer watching that tough, and we’re spending a pitiful sum of money on it. Handiest a tiny fraction of the celebrities in our galaxy have rather been checked out intently for signs of intriguing signals. And maybe we’re no longer looking the correct manner. Possibly as civilizations increase, they swiftly detect communique technologies some distance extra refined and useful than electromagnetic waves. Perhaps all the action takes location inside the mysterious just lately discovered darkish topic, or darkish power, that appear to account for most of the universe’s mass.Or, possibly we’re watching on the fallacious scale. Possibly smart civilizations come to realize that lifestyles is finally simply problematic patterns of information interacting with each and every different in a gorgeous manner, and that that may occur more effectively at a small scale. So, simply as on this planet, clunky stereo techniques have contracted to beautiful, tiny iPods, possibly clever lifestyles itself, with the intention to curb its footprint on the atmosphere, has turned itself microscopic. So the sunlight procedure maybe teeming with aliens, and we’re just now not noticing them. Perhaps the very ideas in our heads are a type of alien existence. Well, k, that is a crazy inspiration. The aliens made me say it. However it’s cool that recommendations do appear to have a existence all of their possess and that they outlive their creators. Probably organic lifestyles is only a passing segment. Well, inside the subsequent 15 years, we might begin seeing actual spectroscopic understanding from promising neighborhood planets so one can expose simply how existence-friendly they probably.And in the meantime, SETI, the seek for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, is now releasing its data to the general public in order that hundreds of thousands of citizen scientists, might be together with you, can convey the vigor of the gang to become a member of the search. And here on earth, effective experiments are being accomplished to try to create lifestyles from scratch, life that might be very specific from the DNA varieties we all know. All of this will help us fully grasp whether the universe is teeming with life or whether or not, indeed, it’s simply us.Either answer, in its possess way, is awe-inspiring, in view that even though we are on my own, the truth that we feel and dream and ask these questions would but end up one of the vital principal info about the universe. And i’ve one other piece of fine information for you. The search for abilities and working out not ever gets stupid. It would not. It’s genuinely the opposite. The extra you realize, the extra amazing the arena seems. And it is the crazy potentialities, the unanswered questions, that pull us ahead.So stay curious. .

[batterymonster2021]

Questions No One Knows the Answers to (Full Version)

New Post has been published on https://hititem.kr/questions-no-one-knows-the-answers-to-full-version-2/

Questions No One Knows the Answers to (Full Version)

On a typical day at college, unending hours are spent learning the solutions to questions, but correct now, we will do the opposite. We’ll center of attention on questions the place you cannot study the answers due to the fact they’re unknown. I used to puzzle about a lot of things as a boy, for instance: What would it not suppose wish to be a dog? Do fish believe affliction? How about bugs? Was the big Bang just an accident? And is there a God? And if that is so, how are we so sure that it’s a He and no longer a She? Why accomplish that many harmless people and animals suffer horrible things? Is there really a plan for my existence? Is the long run yet to be written, or is it already written and we just are not able to see it? But then, do i have free will? I imply, who am I anyway? Am I only a organic desktop? But then, why am I aware? What’s attention? Will robots emerge as mindful someday? I imply, I type of assumed that some day i might be informed the solutions to all these questions.Any person must recognize, correct? Bet what? No person is aware of. Most of those questions puzzle me extra now than ever. However diving into them is unique considering the fact that it takes you to the brink of skills, and also you certainly not know what you’ll to find there. So, two questions that no person on the planet is aware of the answer to. (track) regularly after I’m on an extended airplane flight, I gaze out at all these mountains and deserts and take a look at to get my head round how monstrous our Earth is.And then I bear in mind that there is an object we see everyday that would actually match a million Earths inside it: the sun. It appears impossibly enormous. But in the first-rate scheme of matters, it is a pinprick, one of about four hundred billion stars within the Milky method galaxy, which you will discover on a clear night as a light white mist stretched throughout the sky. And it gets worse. There are might be a hundred billion galaxies detectable by using our telescopes. So if every star used to be the scale of a single grain of sand, simply the Milky method has adequate stars to fill a 30-foot by means of 30-foot stretch of seashore three feet deep with sand.And the whole Earth doesn’t have adequate beaches to represent the celebrities within the total universe. This type of seashore would continue for literally enormous quantities of hundreds of thousands of miles. Holy Stephen Hawking, that is a lot of stars. But he and other physicists now feel in a reality that is unimaginably higher nonetheless. I imply, first of all, the one hundred billion galaxies inside variety of our telescopes are probably a minuscule fraction of the total. House itself is increasing at an accelerating p.C.. The vast majority of the galaxies are setting apart from us so rapid that light from them could in no way reach us. Nonetheless, our bodily reality here on earth is intimately linked to those far-off, invisible galaxies. We can consider of them as part of our universe. They make up a single, enormous edifice obeying the same physical laws and all produced from the identical forms of atoms, electrons, protons, quarks, neutrinos, that make up you and me.Nonetheless, contemporary theories in physics, including one known as string idea, are actually telling us there would be countless different universes built on different varieties of particles, with distinctive residences, obeying specific legal guidelines. Most of these universes might under no circumstances help existence, and would flash in and out of existence in a nanosecond. But nevertheless, mixed, they make up a vast multiverse of possible universes in as much as eleven dimensions, presenting wonders past our wildest creativeness. The leading variation of string thought predicts a multiverse made from 10 to the five hundred universes. That’s a one adopted by 500 zeros, a number so gigantic that if every atom in our observable universe had its own universe, and all the atoms in all those universes each had their possess universe, and also you repeated that for two more cycles, you’d nonetheless be at a tiny fraction of the complete, particularly, one trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillion trillionth. (Laughter) however even that number is minuscule compared to an extra number: infinity. Some physicists consider the distance-time continuum is literally infinite and that it includes an infinite number of so-called pocket universes with varying residences.How’s your mind doing? Quantum idea provides a whole new wrinkle. I imply, the speculation’s been verified actual past all doubt, however deciphering it’s baffling, and some physicists believe which you can only un-baffle it if you imagine that colossal numbers of parallel universes are being spawned each second, and lots of of these universes would truely be very like the arena we’re in, would include multiple copies of you. In one such universe, you’d graduate with honors and marry the character of your dreams, and in one more, now not a lot. Good, there are nonetheless some scientists who would say, hogwash. The one meaningful answer to the question of how many universes there are is one. Just one universe. And a few philosophers and mystics could argue that even our own universe is an illusion. So, as you will find, right now there is no contract on this question, now not even close. All we all know is the answer is someplace between zero and infinity. Well, i assume we know one thing more. This can be a lovely cool time to be studying physics. We simply maybe present process the largest paradigm shift in abilities that humanity has ever visible. (song) someplace in the market in that colossal universe there must undoubtedly be countless other planets teeming with life.But why do not we see any evidence of it? Well, this is the noted question asked by Enrico Fermi in 1950: where is each person? Conspiracy theorists declare that UFOs are journeying all the time and the experiences are just being included up, however honestly, they don’t seem to be very convincing. But that leaves a real riddle. In the past yr, the Kepler area observatory has found 1000s of planets simply around regional stars. And in case you extrapolate that knowledge, it appears like there might be half a thousand billion planets just in our own galaxy. If anyone in 10,000 has stipulations that would aid a form of existence, that’s still 50 million viable existence-harboring planets right here within the Milky method. So here’s the riddle: our Earth failed to kind until about 9 billion years after the massive Bang.Numerous other planets in our galaxy will have to have formed earlier, and given existence a danger to get underway billions, or without doubt many hundreds of thousands of years earlier than happened on this planet. If only a few of them had spawned smart existence and started growing technologies, these applied sciences would have had millions of years to grow in complexity and vigor. On this planet, we now have obvious how dramatically science can accelerate in simply one hundred years. In thousands of years, an sensible alien civilization would readily have spread out across the galaxy, possibly growing big power-harvesting artifacts or fleets of colonizing spaceships or glorious artistic endeavors that fill the night sky. At the very least, you’d think they’d be revealing their presence, intentionally or otherwise, by way of electromagnetic alerts of 1 style or one more. And but we see no convincing proof of any of it. Why? Good, there are countless feasible solutions, some of them relatively dark. Possibly a single, superintelligent civilization has certainly taken over the galaxy and has imposed strict radio silence considering the fact that it can be paranoid of any talents competitors. It can be simply sitting there competent to obliterate some thing that becomes a hazard.Or probably they’re now not that wise, or maybe the evolution of an intelligence able of constructing sophisticated science is a long way rarer than we’ve got assumed. In any case, it is handiest occurred as soon as on the planet in 4 billion years. Probably even that used to be highly fortunate. Maybe we are the primary such civilization in our galaxy. Or, might be civilization contains with it the seeds of its own destruction by way of the lack of ability to control the technologies it creates. But there are countless more hopeful solutions. For a begin, we’re no longer watching that tough, and we’re spending a pitiful sum of money on it. Handiest a tiny fraction of the celebrities in our galaxy have rather been checked out intently for signs of intriguing signals. And maybe we’re no longer looking the correct manner. Possibly as civilizations increase, they swiftly detect communique technologies some distance extra refined and useful than electromagnetic waves. Perhaps all the action takes location inside the mysterious just lately discovered darkish topic, or darkish power, that appear to account for most of the universe’s mass.Or, possibly we’re watching on the fallacious scale. Possibly smart civilizations come to realize that lifestyles is finally simply problematic patterns of information interacting with each and every different in a gorgeous manner, and that that may occur more effectively at a small scale. So, simply as on this planet, clunky stereo techniques have contracted to beautiful, tiny iPods, possibly clever lifestyles itself, with the intention to curb its footprint on the atmosphere, has turned itself microscopic. So the sunlight procedure maybe teeming with aliens, and we’re just now not noticing them. Perhaps the very ideas in our heads are a type of alien existence. Well, k, that is a crazy inspiration. The aliens made me say it. However it’s cool that recommendations do appear to have a existence all of their possess and that they outlive their creators. Probably organic lifestyles is only a passing segment. Well, inside the subsequent 15 years, we might begin seeing actual spectroscopic understanding from promising neighborhood planets so one can expose simply how existence-friendly they probably.And in the meantime, SETI, the seek for Extraterrestrial Intelligence, is now releasing its data to the general public in order that hundreds of thousands of citizen scientists, might be together with you, can convey the vigor of the gang to become a member of the search. And here on earth, effective experiments are being accomplished to try to create lifestyles from scratch, life that might be very specific from the DNA varieties we all know. All of this will help us fully grasp whether the universe is teeming with life or whether or not, indeed, it’s simply us.Either answer, in its possess way, is awe-inspiring, in view that even though we are on my own, the truth that we feel and dream and ask these questions would but end up one of the vital principal info about the universe. And i’ve one other piece of fine information for you. The search for abilities and working out not ever gets stupid. It would not. It’s genuinely the opposite. The extra you realize, the extra amazing the arena seems. And it is the crazy potentialities, the unanswered questions, that pull us ahead.So stay curious. .

[noprepracing]

  Humble, kind, and funny are just a few words to describe Mike Murillo. The old saying that things are bigger in Texas is not taken lightly, especially when it comes to his personality and heart. Mike is currently the 2018 Street Outlaws – No Prep Kings (NPK) and Dirty South No Prep (DSNP) champion, The 2018 champion is a self-proclaimed late bloomer to the racing world. He starts around the age of 21 or 22 years old when he used to drive a late 70’s Trans AM (Bandit style being his favorite). During Mike’s early days of street racing in Texas, he repeatedly gets beaten by the current Mustangs of the time. After the Trans Am was rear-ended and totaled, he decided, “if you can’t beat em, join em.” In 1991, he bought a Mustang, but not just any Mustang, a convertible—the heaviest of them all. Small projects on this car snowballed and turned into a performance avalanche. After upgrading his friend’s cars, his popularity grew to the point that he started his own business. Unfortunately, a lack of permits forced the premature closure of his first endeavor. But even code violations can’t hold this guy down. With a positive attitude, Mike made lemonade. He went legit and started his own business officially. With his business established, news spread fast of what he could do. This ultimately leads to a phone call from Justin “Big Chief” Shearer and Shawn Ellington from the Discovery Channel Street Outlaws, asking for his input on turbos and boost control for their cars. “I went out there and I started tuning cars and from there I met the rest of the gang,” explained Mike. After months of commuting, coupled with real-life responsibilities, he had to say goodbye to Street Outlaws, for now. He added “I had a business back home that I needed to tend to. I couldn’t be [in OKC] fulltime. I have children and a wife.” Shortly thereafter he buddied up with Ken Herring, and began a show on MAVTV called House of Grudge. Although he only filmed 6 episodes, he was unaware of the rift it would cause between him and Discovery. The final nail in the coffin of Mike’s departure from Street Outlaws was the NHRA. When the largest drag racing sanctioning body threatened to revoke his license he was forced to leave street racing. Knowing he had time to race prior to receiving this letter, Mike made the most out of what time he had. He filmed Cash Days and an episode of Street Outlaws in season 5. At the time, racing at NHRA-sanctioned tracks was part of his livelihood and he could not risk losing his license or not being able to not step on NHRA property. Nothing can stop Mike from pursuing his dreams. He was forced to make some tough decisions, and with no cameras or television crews, he began winning pretty much everything and anything you can imagine. In 2012 he decided to retire, but in 2013 he was offered the chance to drive a pro-mod. Todd Moyer gave him the opportunity to tune and drive their second team car. “Here I am driving the pro-mod in PDRA (Professional Drag Racers Association), and I am competing and racing with the baddest mf’ers in the world.” The burnout box was another turning point for Murillo; he looked up and saw no one in the stands, where barely 100 people were spectating. It was then at Houston Motorsports Track where he was testing and tuning the pro-mod, and of course, nothing ever goes to schedule. He and his crew ran into the evening schedule at the track for their normal tuning night and grudge night. Mike could barely get his car out of the spot. There were so many people there, crowds were cheering and the time clocks weren’t showing any numbers. This type of racing was a foreign concept to him, thus began the introduction to No Time racing. It was the beginning of a beautiful relationship. In 2016 Murillo met his soon-to-be best friend, Scott Taylor. Scott had Mike as the headliner and appearance guest during the filming of House of Grudge. Because of the success of this track day, Mike and Scott decided to have a baby, and name it Dirty South No Prep, which has just finished its third season. Shortly after, No Prep Kings was started and Mike began to race his way to a spot in Bowling Green KY. With much success, he has been able to sell his business and begin racing full time. Mike has a laundry list of championships under his belt, he was able to win his 11, 12, 13th championships in 2012 NMRA (National Mustang Racers Association) and NMCA (National Muscle Car Association). The first major crash he has ever been was December of 2015, where he hit the guardrail and flipped his car 3 times, after that he was on a losing streak for about 2 years straight. Mike became complacent, which is not his normal way; he lost his drive for winning and improving. That all changed when he was smacked with honesty from the mouth of a babe, his son William. William was 6 years old and made a joke about his dad not being good anymore, and even though little William just thought he was being a silly little boy, he did not realize the gut check he gave his father. At that moment Mike knew it was time to get his passion back. William has since sweetly apologized to daddy as best he could, but that was ignition to light the fire under Mike’s butt that he needed. Since then he has won the championship of No Prep Kings and Dirty South No Prep. Let’s talk about Lafawnduh for a minute. Now if you don’t know who she is, she is Mike’s mistress, his car. She came about after Mike’s crash in 2015 where he rolled and destroyed the front end. Dennis from DMC Race Cars in Massachusetts gave Murillo a call, they took the car to him, put up a Facebook post looking for a donor body for her. “Lafawnduh of today is the Frankenstein of the old car,” Mike explains. How did this name come about you ask? She’s got a lot of junk in her trunk, literally just like Napoleon Dynamite’s Lafawnduh. He had this genius idea to attempt to put the two turbos in her trunk. After 5 fires from trying to make this innovative idea work, he decided to take them out and put them back where they belong. Lafawnduh has been good to Mike giving him 6 championships, and the previous Star car gave him 10. Lafawnduh also dons a star as well on her hood, keeping with his Texan pride. Amongst his 16 total championships, Murillo also holds 97 or 98 national event wins. When asked which he prefers between street racing and drag racing on the strip, he prefers to race the strip mostly for safety reasons. Mike has received a bit of grief for his opinion on the matter, but “I never claimed that I was” when others confronted him about being “real street”. To him No Prep is more difficult going down the street; the road at has groves, rather than a flat track with no rubber down on it. “A dream come true”, “it’s the first time in my life I can be responsible AND go race for a living,” Mike tells us about his current racing situation. He hopes to ride this No Prep wave for as long as it lasts. He was here before the No Prep wave hit, and this is not what made his name in the racing community. If this wave ever dies out (which he hopes it does not) he plans of going back to normal racing and working on cars again. Mike is blessed with a supportive family who goes to as many races as they possibly can. Both his sons are into cars and racing, the youngest driving a junior dragster, and the oldest learning the ropes for drag strip racing and dropping all his dimes into his own Mustang. His daughters go to most local races when they can to support their dad. As for his fans, Mike is thrilled with all types he has accrued over the years; he has the diehard Mustang fans, and his television fans. All of which he is incredibly thankful for, and hopes to build up from here. Excited for the release of season 2 of No Prep Kings, he promises not to have this newer fame change him. Mike is a true racer, a goof with no shame to his game, a personality that cannot be beaten, and an infectious laugh that causes full-on belly laughs and tears. Let me tell you, Mike Murillo is one of the friendliest down to earth guys with the utmost respect for his fellow racers. If you ever get a chance to see him race, make sure you stop by his pit, shake his hand, buy a shirt, and ask him about his 50th birthday. I promise you will not be disappointed.

You can support Mike Murillo and Team Eat Race Die by purchasing awesome track swag at his store if unable to make it to the track

EAT RACE DIE PRODUCTIONS STORE

The post Mike Murillo – a king driven by the support of his kingdom and the words of a prince appeared first on No Prep Racing NoPrep.com.

[sjohnson24]

Legends of the Zodiac

The history of astrology dates back thousands of years to recorded data contributed by the Babylonian peoples. This comes from a time when astronomy and astrology were so closely linked that they were considered one in the same. From there, it spread like wild fire through Greek culture and then exploded into various others worldwide.

The zodiac in Greek means, ‘circle of animals’ and represents 12 symbols, associated with the cycle of dates, planets and seasons. The signs are then divided up by elements, stars and then multiplied by personal adaptations. There are certain ones that we are compatible with and those which are more prone to be in opposition to us, in turn reminding us that we may become stronger.

Astrologers do not use the times we see day to day. They use what is known as side reel time to measure the Earth and all that which is alive within the circumference of celestial timing. From this, we can map out our horoscopes for guidance and inspiration in order to better draw our destinies!

Below, I am going to do a short overview of each sign of the zodiac and from which constellations they were given eternal life. Remember that although we consider our sun signs, as explained later in this article, to be most dominant, there are more aspects to us than we realize. One can find the answers that they seek by simply typing in “free astrology birth chart” into google. 

Pisces– Sign 12 representing water. Symbolized by a pair of fish! February 19- March 20. The rulers are Neptune and Jupiter. Pisces is focused on spiritual aspect and the journey there. They can feel the emotions of others and oftentimes express their selves in an emotional manner! Jupiter symbolizes the king of the Gods and Neptune is of the sea!

Pisces oftentimes feels misunderstood. Their empathic ways define their lives and those around them as well. Pisces will tend to want to go with the flow instead of trying to change things around! They do not want to cause any upheaval as they are greatly in touch with the energies that abound!

The two fish in the stars represents Venus and Cupid. They are the Goddess of love and beauty and her son, who is the symbol for passion and desire. It also has a galaxy inside with known planets! The Piscids is the meteor shower that comes from this direction. Aquarius– Sign 11 representing water. Water represents the collective unconscious universe. The symbol for Aquarius is an overflowing urn. January 21- February 19. It is an air sign, fixed and ruled by Uranus, traditionally by Saturn. The constellation Aquarius is powerfully persuasive emotionally. Some trademarks of the energy can be described as masculine, positive and extroverted. They express themselves with reason and moderation, being too shy at times as well. They are independent and do not follow the crowd. Many are gifted in the arts.

One legend that is particularly attributed to Aquarius is the story of Ganymede. He was an attractive prince of Troy. He was so good looking that Zeus decided to take notice of him. He took the form of an Eagle, the king of the skies and took him into the Heavens. Eagle conveys the messages of the spirit. Eagle also represents the need for honesty and truthful principles. At this entrance, Hera became shocked and demanded that he be returned for he rivaled the youthful beauty of her daughter. But, instead he was glorified in the stars above us for his masculine beauty represented the divine emotion at its strongest peak!

The constellation is the tenth largest in the sky. This number represents a completed course in cosmic time. It is a symbol of harmony. It is the number used frequently in ranking something, with ten being the best that you would want to achieve! It means to focus and stay determined! Do not stray from the path! It is the pair, 0 and 1 together. Capricorn– Sign 10 representing Earth. December 22- January 19. This sign’s energy is one of discipline, structure and maturity. The animal for this sign is the mountain goat. Foundation and skill join elements in order to support the ambition of this sign. The ruling planet is Saturn. 

Saturn is Cronus, known as the “Father of Time.” This eludes to Capricorn also being seen as the “Father of the Zodiac.” They are known to be paternalistic and like to set out guidelines, rules and dreams to accomplish. Saturn stays in each sign for about two and a half years and is very strong over Capricorn.

Capricornus, is the sky’s legendary myth. It is known as a goat-fish creature. It is connected with the moment that the Gods sought out safety in Egypt. This is because of a fearful enemy known as Typhon. Even the other Gods had to transform in order to be saved. Unfortunately, by the time that he reached Bacchus or Pan (many interpretations differ…) he was only able to change halfway into a goat and was so stuck in that form forever embedded into the cosmos.

Sagittarius– Sign 9 signifying the element fire with Jupiter overlooking. The symbol is the archer, the arrow and the centaur. Nov 22- Dec 22. Sagittarius is independent, strong and righteous. Jupiter is known as the lucky planet.

Sagittarius is known to be the truth tellers. They are naturally truthful, sometimes lacking necessary empathy for others. Also known as ones who love adventure, travel and change, there is no holding back those lone wolves. They have a burning energy that cannot be contained so easily. 

In the sky, Sagittarius is the archer centaur who is pulling back a bow. Legend goes that it stands in place for Crotus, who is the son of Pan, who also invented archery. He was close to the nine muses and so was respected and honored. Because of this he was placed into the stars. His arrow reaches out into the heart of Scorpio.

Scorpio– Sign 8 representing the scorpion. Oct 23- Nov 22. Scorpion represents passion, control, death and sex. It can also symbolize isolation as well, seeing as it is a solitary creature. Because of its fast and quick nature, it is known as a sharp cutting-edge sword energy. Mars and Pluto oversee this sign. 

Scorpio is strongly linked to Orion in astronomy mythology. It is also closely connected with the sun. They express themselves in clever, calculated and seductive ways. This tells the tale of someone who is in total control of their destiny. Many are great at picking themselves up and protecting their energy passionately!

Mars is the God of war. Pluto speaks for the underworld. It is this collaboration that brings about otherworldly dreams. This combination creates an occult, supernatural and sexual undertone. If you want something done, Scorpios are highly motivated. In ancient times, the scales of the Libra constellation were actually noted as the claws of the Scorpius.

The Scorpius was thought to be, in mythology, a true creature, thrown into the sky because Orion wanted to hunt every animal and Athena protected them. Because he was bragging to Artemis and Leto at the time about the competition, they sent a Scorpion against him and it did cause death and Zeus wanted to let the world see the lesson in vanity and senseless passions, so he made the legend for all to know.

Libra– Sign 7 is the scales. September 23- Oct 23. Libra is protected by the planet Venus and is considered an air sign. It is the one sign that is attracted to partnerships. The worst feeling for a Libra is that of being alone. A Libra will strive for beauty, harmony and equality. They are known as the most indecisive ones! 

In relationships, a Libra desires to completely give their body and soul. This means that they enjoy constant touching and reassurance. A Libra wants peace and balance because with that comes the riches and comforts that life has got to offer. They will always strive to make a home life. 

Libra in Latin literally translates to mean weighing scales. The legend states that Libra represents the seasons changing and also the difference between day and night. Libra in the stars holds a planetary system within it’s confines. It is known as the legendary love sign!

Music, nature, libraries and shopping malls are all things that a Libra enjoys. They are the only inanimate object in the Zodiac, thus in turn they can develop a great love of expensive and material things! 

Virgo– Sign 6. The virgin. Aug 23- Sep 23. An Earth sign ruled by Mercury. Virgo is a very organized energy. They like to be in control in life, especially also in relationships. They like to know the details of every situation in order to trust better. The Virgo is a beautiful strategizer.

They can seem distant at times but, this is only when they withdraw inwards. Mercury rules over communication and so at times can prove overanalytical in terms of home life and family. They do have a hard time listening to complaints and request only positive energy in their wake!

The Virgin constellation is the largest out of all of the zodiac in the sky. In the universe, it is second, only under Hydra. The appearance of this star structure is a reminder of fertility and agriculture! Dike is the inspiration behind the symbology. She is the Greek goddess of Justice.

Leo– Sign 5. The Lion. July 23- August 23. A fire sign ruled by the Sun. Leo loves being the center of attention! They enjoy being center stage and in the spotlight! First impressions are very important to them. They are creative, passionate and generous!

The lion oftentimes symbolizes royalty. They have a dignified and pragmatic approach to life. Leo is known as strong and powerful. They have a lust for life that can oftentimes be dampened by any insecurities. Leo likes to feel the best way possible and supported in order to move forward confidently.

In the sky, Leo represents the Nemean lion that Hercules had to kill as one of his tasks of retribution. It was the first goal that he had to accomplish. This is because the pelt was used as a means of protection and armor, due to it’s cosmic strength and resilience.  Cancer– Sign 4. The crab. June 21- July 22. A water sign ruled by the moon. Cancer is deeply loyal, imaginative and persuasive. It is also a deeply emotional energy which can have a hard time dealing with criticism and unasked for advice by close persons. 

They seem to slightly change with each moon phase. Cancer can have a hard time dealing with emotions and its best to use something beautiful for self-expression in art. All of cancer’s motives are emotion based and can lead to a life of self-centeredness and manipulation sometimes. 

Cancer is the Latin name for crab. It is the dimmest of the Zodiac constellations. This lies in sync with how water dims fire and makes a lot of sense! The legend alludes to that of Hercules! This task was one that he was given in order to tame a giant crab. It was sent by Hera, because he had killed his whole family in an insane rage and he was trying to prove himself. She let it loose while he was battling the Hydra to make things even more difficult but, he endured! 

Gemini– Sign 3. The Twins. May 21- June 20. Air signs ruled over by Mercury. Gemini often display a duality in their being. This is consistent with their desire to connect to all aspects of the mental subconscious of ourselves and also with the cosmic universal consciousness. 

Gemini dislike being alone and will often become depressed if put in this position. They are highly intellectual and get along well with other airy signs. Within this magic is love. Gemini are very good at nurturing relationships to their full potentials and displaying affections!

In the stars, Gemini’s story is glorious. It is named for the twins in Greek mythology, Castor and Pollux. The legend goes that they had the same mother (Leda) but separate fathers. Castor’s father is Leda’s husband, Tyndarus the king of Sparta. Their other sister is Helen of Troy! Apparently only Pollux was immortal and so Castor died in a war they were fighting on behalf of their people. Zeus knew how to remedy the situation and made Castor eternal by placing her in the sky. Taurus– Sign 2. Recognized as the bull. Apr. 20 – May 21.Venus is the guide of this one. Earth is the element of habitation. This energy is always seeking the rewards of a situation. They do crave the finer things of life and look for good things materialistically.

That being said, Taurus is also known as the stubborn one. Getting so caught up with the moment that they often loose sight of the bigger picture and just go full speed ahead forward. On the other end of the spectrum, they are also very reliable.

The constellation celebrates Zeus, who turned himself into a beautiful white bull to capture the attention of a Phoenician princess named Europa. They fell in love and gave birth to the famous king Minos of Crete. The sign rises and sets with the sun and is lost in the sun’s glory during the solstice in June. In November you can expect a meteor shower from this point! Aries– Sign 1 representing the ram. March 21- April 19. Aries greatest lesson is relying on their intuition. Mars stands for Aries power. This makes it a fire sign. It comes through in the personality where Aries takes charge in a forcible way. They dislike compromising as they view it as a form of submission. Aries likes to have their way most of the time!

Aries is a constellation in the Northern Hemisphere. The myth that is most often identified with it is the Greek legend of King Athamus of Boetia and his second wife, Ino who was extremely jealous and resentful of his children, especially Phrixus. So, she devised a plan where she destroyed the corn crops and paid an oracle to falsify information and say that one of his sons has to be sacrificed in order to escape starving to death. So, Phrixus and his sister were to be the ones to go. Zeus heard of this horrible evil woman and decided to send a golden ram and got them out of harms way. Unfortunately, the sister perished but Phrixus was saved and sent to Colchis. He in turn sacrifices the ram back to Zeus and gives it’s golden fleece to King Aeetes. The fleece was eventually stolen.

Aries energy tells us to trust our instincts and be brave in executing our dreams and desire. They are always focused towards action and adventure. Aries ponders the mysteries that lie within each person and circumstance, even when there is really no deeper meaning, they will find one. People with strong Aries energy feel best in leadership positions. They are ambitious and goal oriented. Sometimes they can get caught up in one way of doing things and not be too keen to change. Legends of the Zodiac Astrology is meant to heal us, help us and give us strength to move forward. We can take what we learn and shape ourselves to it but, also listen to the inner sense inside of us which gives us individuality and unique views as well. Astrology is said to predict major events but, because of the vague advice we sometimes receive in general, it would benefit us more to seek a professional or more knowledge in the subject to get the best we can from this situation.

Many cultures have adapted different versions of the zodiac and this is all good because we are all in different positions of the universe. There are definitely infinite secrets which the cosmos holds close that we may never truly understand but, we can come close in order to find comfort in our cosmic consciousness as one whole together. 

Be on your best path, take that one which your dreams show you and always as your first step, take the world around you as a stepping stone to shift into multiple dimensions and realities, all waiting to be manifested by you! You have the power and the universe is our guide. Blessings.\\Deanna

By Deanna Jaxine Stinson, HPI’s Esoteric Detective Halo Paranormal Investigations Sacramento Paranormal Help www.facebook.com/HaloParanormalInvestigations/

[andrea-cristina-travel-blog]

Traveling Freestyle On The Open Roads Of America

I love decadent resorts. And if you know me, I feel the same about lavish cruises … In fact, I daresay they can be run-of-the-mill and I’ll STILL find ample reasons to like them. To me, travel is one of the greatest gifts of life. Something as simple as changing one’s geography, view and perspective can sow the seeds of learning and change. Essentially, to travel is to grow. And there are just so many different experiences and approaches to travel, there is really just no good reason to stop. Ever. And while there are few substitutes for the replenish and calm one gets from a week or two of doing nothing but pampering oneself, dining and letting troubles melt away into a sea of infinite calm (the kind of experience one might have at a four or five-star tropical escape) … there are other ways to recharge, revitalize and renew. One of those ways, we call, “Travel al Dente.” TAD can be done creatively. It can be a spur of the moment road trip. It could be pursued in tents. It can be enjoyed in odd urban sites or in areas so remote that they’ll confuse your GPS. Or you can even approach it without GPS (Though, it probably doesn’t hurt to have some tech available in case of emergency.) The goal here is to have an experience that brings you closer to the world around you. One that calms you, not because you are cosseted in lavish surroundings, but because it allows you to let go of your regular daily rigors and monotony by forcing you to be completely engaged in something else entirely. Look, nobody here is going to compare the quality of one vacation escape or engagement type to another or lend an arbitrary value judgement based on personal preference. In fact, I love each type of escape in its own way. I just see many (including myself), often because of limited time or know how, doing more of the resort or cruisy thing, and overlooking the joyous sensory overload of an experience al dente. Think about it this way. When one literally cooks al dente, the food is a bit firmer and much of the time, finds their meal requires a bit more effort to chew. But, the food itself is also enhanced. It is even MORE nutritious. The colors are brighter and ultimately, al dente food better for your body and mind. I am NOT advocating giving up pizza. Cook the heck out of it and I’m in. It’s just that I am just not writing about great pizza today. Rather, I am writing about a preparation style that requires the experience itself to be a bit less boiled down. Today, I am sitting at my desk at one of the largest travel companies in the world. We put together amazing trips and travel opportunities across the globe. We do it for individuals, members, companies – in fact, you wouldn’t believe how much of the travel that goes on in the world is touched by us in some form or fashion. Virtually everybody who works with me here loves people, loves vacations and probably with no exceptions, we love new ideas about taking trips. That, is today. I should tell you, however, that less than two weeks ago, I was in a late model Toyota Tacoma, one taillight out, driven by a guy named James. I had met James just three minutes earlier. He lives in a Fleetwood Bounder RV in Torrey, Utah. His Tacoma tires were kicking up the local red dust from the soil as he, for no reason other than his sense of humanity and good humor, was running me into the next town to a gas station that carried transmission fluid. Yep, my RV, a Fleetwood Southwind Storm was having transmission problems. Maybe a drink of some new fluid would get me going – at least far enough to get to a town with an actual repair shop (not one with a broken, hand-painted sign fastened onto a post by a guy named Mike who wasn’t “too keen on helping out until Tuesday or so.” See, hand-painted sign repairman Mike was, “into some other things right now.” I am not going to lie, I was stressed. My wife was there stranded; my four kids were there stranded. No cabs. No busses. No train station. Nada. Our RV was cracked down in a place that was so off-the-grid that the middle of nowhere was a few miles closer to civilization than were we. What’s more. When I did put in the transmission fluid – it didn’t work. Like Ren and Stimpy, we were MAROONED!!! (And I know most of you will likely miss that reference, but hey, it doesn’t mean it wasn’t a good one. Besides, in the days of Google, you can look anything up – hint, hint.) Okay, I am not going to belabor the RV crackdown. It was on the last leg of a truly amazing journey and in part, it was my fault. Why it happened or even that it happened is not critically important. What is important is that I learned and won’t be so foolish again … and that my kids learned that every problem has a solution if you keep your wits and stay positive. But even this realization is NOT WHY I am writing this little blog story. Nope. What its really about is … Heartbeat. It’s about the unmistakable, strong heartbeat I felt throughout our al dente journey. It was swimming in Glacier National Park’s Lake McDonald. I am telling you, it is a magical place. The lake water is so clear you can open your eyes underwater and seemingly see forever. We were also about 80 yards from some bighorn sheep, too. There was no zoo. They could have horned us, or rammed us, or whatever it is they do with those attached shofars of theirs.  We saw Billie Goats munching on wildflowers and my elder daughter (age 15) was singled out for an intense one-on-one conversation by a yellow-bellied marmot (No shame in this guy’s game. Not sure what it was, but he had a very important message to relay to her). The moment was epically hysterical. Did you know that in July in Montana there’s sunlight until after 11pm? I didn’t either. I mean, I knew the days were long in Alaska in the summer and that their winter’s days were notoriously dark … but there’s just things you get from al dente travel that mean so much. There we were. The campsite in Glacier. A much appreciated success after missing out on a site the night before because we were newbies and got hornswoggled by campsite reserving technique pros (another lesson). My son Aiden (age 14) was doing his “Ahhhnold” impersonation by campfire. It was well after ten o’clock – at night. Still light out, mind yout. We were laughing hysterically – our nine-year-old daughter was out of her mind – the clear result of doubling down on double stuffed s’mores amplified by a prodigious lack of sleep (those long days get you amped, I tell you). Admittedly, we also knew that we were likely annoying the group of strapping young University of Kansas guys camping nearby who, much to the liking of my fifteen-year-old daughter, seemed to be obsessed with changing their t-shirts 5-6 times a day. (Your guess is as good as mine.) Nevertheless, Aiden was on point. He was even lacing in four-letter words to enhance his act. All fair game under the towering pines of Glacier in the glow of campfire embers and bellies full of stick-broiled hot dogs, marshmallows, chocolate and grahams. Some other notable sights, moments, and thoughts from our journey (and these are mine though some may have been discussed with my wife and kids.) And that’s the thing, I am sure we ALL have our own list – with only instances of overlap. With no further ado … here are a few of my al dente highlights, for you: I know about the reputation for Washington cherries. But, if you were to have tree picked cherries from the orchards surrounding Flathead Lake, you too would immediately purchase the t-shirt. Norman MacLean was right. Missoula, Montana is everything he said it was. And to stand on the banks of the Blackfoot River with your family – no words spoken, watching and listening to the waters ripple over the rocks. You could feel the words of his classic American novel swirl all about you, “I am haunted by waters.” Kaleb, my twelve-year-old answered his mother after coming back to the RV from a rural Idaho gas station bathroom. “Yeah, Mom, the bathroom was fine. There was just this weird hole in the stall wall.” Whitefish, Montana is one of the most perfect towns on planet Earth. Period. One morning I awakened to the sounds of a river coursing beside our RV, we sat parked at a random pull-off I chose of the remote two-lane blacktop. I was still in the foothills on the way out of the mountains, but I could see a sun-kissed farmhouse in the distance with a tree that summoned recollections of Redd’s from Shawshank Redemption. My daughter blowing dandelion wisps into the air with a backdrop akin to a Riccola commercial. About 30 percent of the cars north of Utah are Subaru Outbacks. Another 15 percent are Forresters by the same maker. (I now want one too.) If cows and bulls ever unionized and staged a coup d’état, we’d all be screwed. Is it possible that there are more mosquitos NEAR cities? When traveling, do whatever is necessary to avoid major expressways. They are miserable, life denying crap flats. Use backroads whenever possible. The time you think you will make up by taking an expressway is simply not worth it … Ever. Allow yourself flexibility. Sometimes there are places along the way that are worth softening your al dente pledge for – even if just for the night. Always allow the room for something special. There is beauty everywhere. Sometimes, it is better to ride through it, or stay in the heart of it (than it is to fly over it or cruise past it.) Some wild bunnies are less afraid of people than others. My daughter made an actual friend that followed her around. I think it had something to do with her access to a particularly delicious leaf variety that Jade could grab from some low hanging branches that even said rabbit’s bunny “hops” couldn’t quite help her get to. Mountain goats’ ability to scale sheer rock is beyond explanation. There is a road named Going to the Sun Road. The moment you are on it, whether driving or riding, you realize that it was not a clever name, rather, a perfect one. There is a very real satisfaction to driving, maintaining the safety, cooking all the meals and overseeing the set-up and breakdown of a roving gypsy family trickster for the family. It just gives one the feeling of being complete. We call our rig Stomy. Music is only slightly less important that oxygen when you’re on the road. Some cheap advice to our readers: Travel al dente can be done locally or over great distance. Start small. Start big. It is all up to you. Throw caution to the wind, but do take time to be prepared. Go places that you picked randomly. Plan ahead. This is YOUR trip. If you have kids, take them. (And then remember/write down the places you’d like to revisit without them;) Don’t wait. Start planning some travel al dente immediately. You don’t need an RV. You can take your car or SUV. You can take a train and ride it to some off the beaten path places. You can take a bus somewhere. Go see what’s in between, above, below and around. Fill your cup with life. Share moments with those you love and tell your stories to those you cherish who were unable to join. Engage the world around you. Get in. Get on. Roll your sleeves up. Treat yourself to a little dirt under your fingernails. Make it a point … to be brave. P.S. If you’d like to know more about RVing or why/how we did what we did. Just check out or Insta @TheRVingRosenthals – See you there, road warriors! The post Traveling Freestyle On The Open Roads Of America appeared first on Must Do Travels.

https://www.mustdotravels.com/traveling-freestyle-open-roads-america/

[thebewisepodcast]

Eight Other Worlds In Our Solar System Might Have Life Beyond Earth

"If I had to describe myself to an alien I'd say I was bigger than the average human, enjoy a drink or two with a good meal and have a bigger head than most. 

 I'd also say I'm really handsome  -  especially if they were a female alien."

Dwayne Johnson

In all the known Universe, to the best that we've examined it, 'only' our home planet, Earth, contains confirmed signs of life. 

 But the raw ingredients required for life appear everywhere, from the interiors of asteroids to interstellar gas clouds to protoplanetary nebulae to the exploded remnants of supernovae. 

 The chemical combinations associated with the building blocks of life, and even complex, organic molecules are found literally everywhere we look in space.

 But we might not have to venture so far to actually encounter life at all, as eight worlds beyond Earth all offer unique possibilities for the presence of organic, biological activity.

   Signatures of organic, life-giving molecules

are found all over the cosmos, 

including in the largest, nearby star-forming region: 

the Orion Nebula. 

Image credit: ESA, HEXOS and the HIFI consortium; E. Bergin.  

It's true that here's a big gulf between "organic molecules" and what we consider today to be a living organism. 

 Although there are a huge host of interesting possibilities for what's out there, we've so far found nothing else on another world that we'd consider to be "alive," nor have we found 'remnants of past life' on any worlds.

 But the Solar System is a great place to start, because it's so close and accessible! 

 While nothing is for certain, we have a number of intriguing possibilities for where the first signs of life beyond Earth might be found.

 In order of what we consider most likely to least likely, here are the top eight!

 1.) Europa

 Jupiter's second of its four large moons, Europa might at first seem like it's too far from the Sun to be a good candidate for life.

 But Europa has two special things going for it: 

a ton of water  -  more water than is present on all of Earth

some internal heating due to the tidal forces of Jupiter

Beneath a surface of ice, Europa has an enormous ocean of liquid water, and the heating of its insides due to Jupiter's gravity may create a situation very analogous to the life-giving hydrothermal vents on the Earth's ocean floor. 

 It's not likely to be life like we see on the surface of Earth, but life that can survive, reproduce and evolve is life any way you slice it.

   Europa, 

one of the solar system's largest moons, orbits Jupiter. 

Beneath its frozen, icy surface, 

a liquid water of ocean is heated

by tidal forces from Jupiter. 

Image credit: NASA, JPL-Caltech, SETI Institute

Cynthia Phillips, Marty Valenti.  

 2.) Enceladus

 Saturn's icy moon is smaller and has far less water than Europa, but it announces its liquid ocean (beneath a surface of solid ice) uniquely: 

by spewing 300-mile plumes of water into space! 

These geysers let us know for certain that there's liquid water, and in tandem with the other elements and molecules necessary for life, such as methane, ammonia and carbon dioxide, there just might be life beneath the oceans of this world, too. 

 Europa has more heat, more water and hence  -  we think  -  a greater chance, but don't count Enceladus out, since it has a thinner ice surface and erupts far more spectacularly, meaning that we could find life with an orbiting mission, rather than having to drill down beneath the surface!

   One of the most intriguing  -  and least resource-intensive  -  ideas

for searching for life in Enceladus' ocean

is to fly a probe through the geyser-like eruption, 

collecting samples and analyzing them for organics.

Image credit: NASA / Cassini-Huygens mission

Imaging Science Subsystem.  

  3.) Mars

 The 'red' planet was once clearly very, very Earth-like. 

 For perhaps the first billion years of the Solar System, water flowed freely across the martian surface, carving rivers, accumulating in lakes and oceans, and leaving remnant evidence that shows us, today, where they were once located. 

 Features associated with a watery past, like hematite spherules (often associated with life on Earth), are common. In addition, the Curiosity rover has found an active, underground and variable source of methane, a possible signature of life today. 

 And now that we know liquid water appears on the martian surface, albeit in a very salty environment, the door is definitely open.

Is there life?

Was there life at one point, but no longer? 

Mars remains a tantalizing possibility...

   The flow of a dried-up riverbed

is an unmistakable signature of

a water-rich past on Mars. 

Image credit: ESA/DLR/FU Berlin (G. Neukum).  

4.) Titan

 Enceladus might offer the greatest possibility for Earth-like life in the Saturnian system, but perhaps life takes on a different form from the water-based biology here on Earth? 

 With a thicker atmosphere than our own planet, the second-largest moon in our Solar System, Titan, was found to have liquid methane on its surface: 

oceans, rivers and even waterfalls! 

Could life make use of methane on another world the same way it makes use of water on Earth? 

 If the answer to that is yes, there just might be living organisms on Titan today.

   The surface of Titan, beneath the clouds, 

was found to contain methane lakes, rivers and waterfalls. 

Could it also be home to some type of life? 

Image credit: ESA, NASA, JPL, University of Arizona;

panorama by Rene Pascal.  

5.) Venus

 Venus is hell, literally.

 At a constant surface temperature of some 900 degrees Fahrenheit, no human-made lander has ever survived more than a couple of hours while touched down on our nearest neighboring planet. 

 But the reason Venus is so hot is because of it's thick, carbon-dioxide rich atmosphere laden with heat-trapping clouds of sulphuric acid.

 This renders the surface of Venus thoroughly inhospitable, but the surface isn't the only place to look for life. In fact, speculation is rampant that perhaps something interesting is happening some 60 miles up! 

 Above the cloud-tops of Venus, the environment is surprisingly Earth-like: 

similar temperatures, pressures, and less corrosive material. 

It's conceivable that with its own unique chemical history, that environment is filled with carbon-based airborne life, something that a mission to Venus' upper atmosphere could easily sniff out.

   The surface of Venus, 

from the only spacecraft to ever successfully

land and transmit data from that world. 

Image credit: Venera landers / USSR.  

6.) Triton

 You might not have heard much of Neptune's largest moon Triton, but it's remarkable and unique among all the worlds of the solar system.

 It has "black smoker" volcanoes, it rotates and revolves the wrong way, and it originated from the Kuiper belt. 

 Larger and more massive than both Pluto and Eris, it was once the king of all Kuiper belt objects, and now, in orbit around our Solar System's final planet, we recognize that it's covered in many life-giving materials, including nitrogen, oxygen, frozen water and methane ices. 

 Could some form of primitive life exist at these energy interfaces?

 It's certainly worth a look!

   The Voyager 2 spacecraft

took this color photo of Neptune's moon Triton

on Aug. 24 1989, at a range of 330,000 miles. 

The image was made from pictures

taken through the green, violet and ultraviolet filters. 

Image credit: NASA / JPL.  

7.) Ceres

 It might sound crazy to think of the possibility that life might exist on an asteroid. 

 Yet when asteroids fall to Earth, we find not just the 20 amino acids essential to life, but nearly 100 others:

the building blocks are all there! 

Could the largest asteroid of them all, the one with those bizarre, salt-deposit "white spots" on the bottom of its brightest craters, actually house some form of life? 

 Although the answer is "probably not," it's conceivable that it was actually collisions with asteroids and Kuiper belt objects that brought either the raw ingredients for life or pre-existing, primitive life to Earth. 

 What we consider, today, to be active biology, might have begun before Earth ever formed. If so, the signatures might be embedded within a world like Ceres, which is the best candidate for life in the asteroid belt. 

 We just have to look to find out. And finally…

   This global map

shows the surface of Ceres in enhanced color, 

encompassing infrared wavelengths

beyond human visual range. 

Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/UCLA/MPS/DLR/IDA.  

8.) Pluto

 Who would've expected that history's outermost world  -  at a temperature just 100 degrees Fahrenheit above absolute zero  -  would be a candidate for life? 

 And yet, Pluto has an atmosphere, it has remarkable, changing surface features, it has the same ices that Triton has, and objects just like it may be responsible for bringing much of what looks like Earth's atmosphere and oceans to our planet.

 Could it have brought life as well? 

 New Horizons will bring us hints, but to find out for certain, we'll need a landing mission.

   Pluto's atmosphere,

 as imaged by New Horizons

 when it flew into the distant world's eclipse shadow. 

Image credit: NASA / JHUAPL / New Horizons / LORRI.

We always think of ourselves as 'alone' (sic...) in both the solar system and in the greater Universe, and yet that may be more a function of us looking for things exactly like us than of us actually being alone.

   The "holy cow" mosaic of the Mars Phoenix mission,

with revealed water-ice clearly visible underneath the lander's legs. 

In order to learn the maximum amount possible

about the presence or absence of life on a world, 

you absolutely must touch down

and look, explicitly, for the surefire signatures. 

Image credit: NASA / JPL / University of Arizona

Max Planck Institute / Spaceflight

Marco Di Lorenzo, Kenneth Kremer

Phoenix Lander.

  If we go and investigate, we might not only find life in unexpected, thought-to-be-inhospitable places, we might wind up finding life that looks very little like the life we currently understand...

 Our logic, our intuition and our inklings can only get us so far. If we want to know, we have to go and look. 

 Every time we've done exactly that, the Universe has had a wonderful way of surprising us...