I one time did a campaign in DND where the entire party woke up in a trash heap, memories wiped, when a man in shining white armor approached them. He helped them up, healed them, and helped them escape what was essentially the dump and find their way into the sunlight. He told them of the tale of a wicked king of immense power who bargained for his abilities from a demon, hoping to save his kingdom, and succumbed to the evil after his wife died. The wife had a pearl necklace, and it was the man’s duty to find those pearls, because they held a magic in them that could defeat the king.
This particular NPC was startlingly overpowered at first, right a long the levels of 6 while everyone else was just starting out, and he helped them along in the most dire situations, healing, defeating, and even resurrecting for them. There would be periods where he would be gone, and the party would have to face a crypt full of mummies together, or dive into the deepest parts of the ocean and retrieve these milky white pearls that would give them the ability to help their friend and defeat the wicked king. Slowly, their memories came back to them, and that was a stark comfort for them, but the entire time, there seemed to be a piece missing.
After they retrieved 5 pearls (they broke the 6th one), they journied with the man to the wicked king’s castle, and fought their way through endless ranks of guards, undead, demons, and even a lich, until they made their way to the sacred bed chamber of the king, that they all remembered the story of from before they had awoken in that garbage pile. They opened the doors, only to find it empty, save the usual furniture, marred by scratches and the ancient scrawl of demons. The man in the white armor sighed and walked into the bedroom.
And his armor changed from white to pitch black, and the whole party remembered suddenly. That was the face of the wicked king, the face that smiled at them whenever he healed them, the face that looked stern as they suggested stupids things to find the pearls. Apparently, in lapses of the demon’s control, the king had found a way to set him self up for defeat, by bringing his wive’s pearls along with brave, powerful warriors. Every absence he felt was where he had to return to the demon’s control and become the wicked king again, but he was determined to fight himself, to rid his own evil from the world, to end this curse of immortality and see his loved one again.
I made the party fight the final boss, and they saw the eyes of a friend.
They all cried, and I am no longer allowed to DM for them.
Update: Legolas’ pupils are about 3.5 cm wide each. Now drawing kawaii Legolas on physics assignment.
And they told you science was no fun.
Science!
I’m going to do it. I’m going to hand it in.
Legolas’s pupil size isn’t the problem here, though. 5 leagues is 17.262 miles. The curvature of the Earth means that for a person of average height, the visual horizon is less than three miles away. Even if your vision is telescopic and the atmosphere is perfectly clear, you can’t see around the planet. If they were standing on a hill, it would have to be at LEAST 198 feet above sea level in order to see the horizon at 17.2 miles away, with nothing tall in between. Which, knowing Rohan, isn’t impossible.
But consider: Elven satellite eyeballs.
you mean like
@sidereanuncia it’s back, the post that I can only imagine haunts your nightmares
I shall never find peace.
Also, for what it’s worth, there’s absolutely no reason to believe that the curvature of Middle Earth is the same as that of Earth.
There’s no evidence that Middle Earth curves.
Yeah there is. The Silmarillion states that the world was curved after the fall of Numenor (I believe), preventing access to Valinor. But Elves (among others) can travel the straight path across it.
So middle earth is round, but not for Elves because magic.
So wait, the reason he can see that far is because Elves just have the ability to ignore the curve of the earth? That’s awesome. It also means that no matter how good your optics got, you would always want elf eyes manning the spyglass because they can see arbitrarily far while everybody else is limited by this ‘horizon’ bullshit.
Oh thank God, my poor elf prince has seen too much in this post
Elves are flat-earthers
This post went from amusing to horrifying, to be brought back down to amusing, sprinkled in with some cannon explanation, and then you leave me here in fucking outrage
Okay this is a very half-formed thought and I’m not sure where I’m going with it yet, but the fact that the teen girls we’re meant to root for in so many Teen Girl Stories are the ones who are bad at or uncomfortable with performing femininity probably isn’t a coincidence.
And it’s mostly not because the people who create media about teen girls want to shatter gender roles; it’s more likely because even though femininity is the prescribed way for female-identified people to behave it’s also seen as something largely unpleasant.
Um. I’m going somewhere with this, maybe after I finish my homework. But I want to hang onto this thought.
ex: the proof of Regina George’s redemption is giving up her hyper-femininity in favor of aggressive, masculine-coded sports
ex 2: in High School Musical Gabriella and Taylor have a bonding moment over their nail beds being “history”, contrasting themselves with the more conventionally feminine cheerleaders. Gabriella is hardly butch but her femininity is portrayed in a more soft, natural way to contrast with Sharpay’s louder, more eye-catching and implicitly unpleasant outfits. Sharpay is not the bad guy because she’s girly, but she’s maybe more girly because she’s the bad guy.
Because caring about your appearance is BAD, that’s a character trait that we associate with Bad Characters, and most especially Bad Women Characters. Sharpay and Regina care so much about their looks because they’re shallow, and that means they’ve unpleasant.
All teenage girls are told, one way or another, that they should care about their looks and put effort into being attractive. But in the stories about teen girls, the only ones visibly caring about their looks are the bitches.
If a Nice Girl ™ wants to make an effort to look good she better have an excuse, like prom or a date or finding out she’s a princess.
Princess Diaries makes such a good point about this, actually. Mia is supposed to be attractive, because she’s the protagonist, but she also can’t do it herself, because that will make her look like just another Vapid Teen Girl. So she gets a makeover handed to her. Pretty is something that Just Happens to nice girls, because if you work at it you’re a bitch.
(Not to mention pretty isn’t compatible with frizzy hair or glasses.)
God, fucking Harry Potter isn’t exempt from this. Hermione gets contrasted with Lavender and it’s so obvious that Lavender is Wrong, because she’s goofy and sentimental and clingy and girly girly girly, in sharp contrast with Hermione “I only do my hair for the Yule Ball, I’ve got shit to do” Granger over here. And that’s not shitting on Hermione! It’s just clear that there’s a very particular sort of teenage girl we’re supposed to like in HP and she doesn’t care about Girl Things.
Even Sky High, the greatest teen movie of all time, falls into this. The women on the good guys’ side are Layla – soft femme, a little tomboyish, has strong opinions – and Magenta – vaguely punkish, v snarky – neither of whom do feminity “right”.
On the bad side there’s Penny, who’s a LITERAL evil cheerleader hivemind, and Gwen, who’s both the most popular girl in school and the actual super villain behind everything. These things are not coincidences.
Tbh as a parent I didn’t realise the baggage about this I carried until my kid got into MLP and I watched it with them and encountered the character of Rarity
She’s a character who is extremely feminine but her positive character trait is generosity she wants everyone she encounters to look as good as they can because she knows looking your best can make you feel good and she wants to share it
And for the first time I saw fashion and make up and all that stuff as self expression and artistry and something that, like almost all things, can be good or bad depending on the person
and I was and am really fucking ashamed that it took a fucking children’s cartoon about magical ponies to help me recognise that
This trope needs to die.
Give me more characters who are stereotypically girly and kind and generous and soft and strong and REAL
“[Katniss]
is supposed to be attractive, because she’s the protagonist, but she
also can’t do it herself, because that will make her look like just
another Vapid Teen Girl. So she gets a makeover handed to her. Pretty is
something that Just Happens to nice girls ”
wonder how many other teenage girl protagonist we can swap that name for
This takes on another dimension for gay female characters. Because we have to be feminine enough to be attractive to male viewers, but more masculine than the straight girls because That’s Just How Lesbians Are™. Which tends to mean that 80% of real lesbians feel underrepresented.
When some gems fuse they increase in limbs, eyes, and/or mouths.
Maybe when fusing the physical form represents if they also fused their mind, body and soul.
Limbs can be body. They have their own want to control their actions. Giving them their limbs to control.
Mind is their eyes. They have their own vision and thoughts.
Soul or heart can be their mouths. Their want to express their inner being.
Garnet is fused in body and soul. Their actions and desires are one. Only their mind is seperate. They veiw the world differently.
Malachite is only fused at heart. Theyre body and mind is still seperate. They want to control their actions seperatly and have their own mental vision.
Rainbow Quartz is fused in all but mind. They dont have the same view or mentality.
Opal is fused in all but body. They may stabalize in mind and soul, but still want to have some control of their actions.
Alexandrite isnt fully fused in mind body or soul. Her inner desire to express her heart screams out at times. The gems personalities are too powerful to completely fuse on demand.
Smokey Quartz is mostly fused mind body and soul but a part of one of them still wants some control of their actions.
Stevonie is fused completely mind, body and soul. To me they are a perfect fusion. They have the same vision, desire, and drive. They are beautifully balanced so they form a completely balanced fusion.
To me this is a great explanation of why gems have extremely different fusion forms. There are probabpy many out there and we might even get an explanation from the creators. Right now this explanation is my favorite.
@monpian (IDK why I can’t tag you) has just informed me that Sonic the Hedgehog is literally canonically an alien and the games refuse to explain that
SO
AT THE END OF SONIC 3
Y’all know this big mural, yeah? the prophecy predicting the end of it?
ok so buckle the fuckle in cuz this is about to get messy
BEFORE I GET STARTED, THOUGH, bear in mind that this is all based on the chronological release of the games. What I’m tackling here only makes sense up to the SEGA split between Japan and the US, where the development of the series became less cohesive and started going in two different directions. In other words: a lot of this was retconned.
SO, JAPAN
Japan REALLY loves its DBZ. We all already know Super Sonic is basically a big Super Saiyan joke, right? 7 Dragon balls, 7 chaos emeralds, going blond and sparkly and superpowered? All on the same page? Ok, good, good
We also all know that the Echidna civilization is basically a parody of Atlantis, right? Okay? Knuckles is the last “Atlantean?” aight cool excellent SO
IN SONIC ADVENTURE TWO
we learn that Gerald Robotnik was trying to create the ultimate lifeform. now, you gentlepeople reading this are likely familiar with the English version of the game, which leaves a lot unexplained – what was the Biolizard, exactly, in relation to Shadow? Was the Biolizard really the ultimate life form? Was Shadow? If they’re both attempts to create the same thing, why do they look so vastly different?
Why does Shadow look so much like Sonic?
We learn that Gerald Robotnik managed to create Shadow using a bit of alien DNA and splicing it into his creation. Shadow was the result. So… again, if he’s part alien, why does he look so much like Sonic?
It’s implied that Gerald came across some strange things in his search for the secret to immortality. Because the Chaos Emeralds are, starting with Sonic 3 and continuing through the rest of the series from then on, not just a gimmick but an actual central plot element, we know that any lore to do with them is also central. It is, then, a reasonable inference that Gerald came across the ancient Echidna murals from Sonic 3 and Sonic Adventure, depicting grand battles with horrific beasts and, in the case of Sonic 3, a hero using the power of the emeralds to fight back.
There are two possibilities for the Sonic 3 mural: either it’s a prophecy, or it’s a historical record of a battle that happened long ago, in a “history is doomed to repeat itself” sense. Either way, this begs the question of “why did the echidnas know about Sonic? Why did they know he could turn super like that?”
Either Sonic himself was around back then, another of Sonic’s kind was around back then, or they simply made a prediction based on what they knew. However you take it, they had to have known of Sonic.
Now, let’s head back to the present again. Sonic is one-of-a-kind in this series – at this point, we’ve met another hedgehog, but Amy isn’t anything like Sonic. She’s got that hammer and boatloads of determination, but she’s hardly superpowered. Sonic is the only character with a true inherent superpower: the power of speed. He also arguably achieves the most powerful super-form of all the characters, in that like the others, he is invincible, but his speed still far outmatches all the others’. He is also capable of achieving multiple super states, even at this early point in the series (Hyper Sonic).
Shadow is the only other character who’s shown to rival Sonic’s specific skills… and he is only able to exist by way of having been created with alien DNA. Even then, however, Shadow is only able to perform Chaos Control with real Chaos Emeralds, as is reasonable. Sonic, however, can perform it even with a fake emerald – using the far lesser energy it contains. He doesn’t even practice – it comes naturally to him.
See where I’m going with this?
The only way to even get close to Sonic’s capabilities, as portrayed by the mural on Sonic 3… was to use alien DNA. These abilities were not naturally-occurring on Earth, at least to Gerald’s knowledge.
How did Gerald get that idea? Why, from the same place where he initially got the inspiration to make Shadow after the Biolizard experiment failed – the same place he got the idea to model Shadow after a hedgehog. The Sonic 3 Echidna mural – which, based on Gerald’s appearance, he might have mistaken to depict somebody of his visage giving the Chaos Emeralds to somebody of a hedgehog’s appearance. I mean, look at it. Without context, it’s an easy mistake to make.
In the Japanese version of SA2, Shadow specifically realizes, and vocalizes, that Sonic is, in fact, the true ultimate life form. This doesn’t happen in the English version. The JP voice acting in the ending of the game also has Sonic realizing, musing to himself, about how Shadow was created to be the “ultimate life form”… in a way that pretty clearly shows he’s wondering what that means for him.
Now, look at all this again with the lens of understanding that, like a lot of Japanese media at the time, it was using the same kind of story tropes as DBZ. Super-advanced alien race comes to a planet, bestows its knowledge upon that planet’s people; those lucky people get to enjoy advanced alien knowledge and technology as a result. Eventually these people die out, leaving one guardian (often one who doesn’t fully understand his own past) to protect their secrets.
Echidnas, with Knuckles as the sole heir, who doesn’t even know enough to recognize his ancestors’ savior/benefactor from the prophetic murals.
The sole member of the super-advanced alien race gets separated from his ancestors, possibly as the last of his kind. He grows up, unaware of what he really is, and makes friends with the local inhabitants.
Not Goku or Superman. Sonic.
Shadow doesn’t look like Sonic in spite of the alien DNA spliced into him. He looks like Sonic BECAUSE of it.
Sonic is the creature Shadow was created to imitate. Shadow was specifically designed to imitate Sonic, and the only way to achieve this was to use alien DNA. Going backwards from here, this also means that the Chaos Emeralds, which seem to be conducive to Sonic’s natural talents, might not have originated from the echidnas – no, they might have originated from the being they engraved in their murals as some kind of protective deity. Knuckles hasn’t just ben protecting the secrets of the echidnas all these years – he’s been protecting the secrets of Sonic’s origins.
And neither Sonic nor Knuckles realizes it. The only one to canonically realize what’s going on is Shadow, who came to the conclusion that Sonic was, in fact, the ultimate life form.
And then Shadow died, and was intended to stay dead, until the USA branch of SEGA made him his own game.
Meaning he was meant to die with Sonic’s secret… and Sonic would never learn who and what he really is.
TD;DR: THE ANALOGY BETWEEN SONIC AND GOKU GOES A HELLUVA LOT DEEPER THAN JUST A ONE-OFF SUPER SAIYAN JOKE, MY DUDES. SONIC IS LITERALLY GOKU, SHADOW IS LITERALLY THIS STORY’S VERSION OF VEGETA, AND KNUCKLES IS FUCKING KRILLIN
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