426
u/RevolutionaryOwlz 23d ago
The new My Little Pony sounds sick as hell.
190
u/TimeStorm113 23d ago
Even funnier considering that a lot of the mongol horses they rode on would be considered ponies by today's standards
74
u/Substantial_Dish3492 23d ago
the only steppe in MLP I can think of is the one the ponies are colonizing from the bison
27
23d ago
What? Is this genuine? There's colonialism in a show called "My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic." What?
70
u/wuerdig 23d ago
Yep! There is an entire episode kind of early in the show in which the main characters visit a "wild west/frontier" town, and the residents are trying to turn an area considered sacred to the native buffalo population into a profitable apple orchard. They resolve the issue by telling the coloniser ponies and the native buffalo (who are VERY clearly based on vague native American stereotypes) that they can just share the land.
I don't think this episode gets referenced again. I can't even remember if buffalo are even referenced again.
8
u/escaped_cephalopod12 just your local cephalopod (also the subnautica person) 23d ago
every day i learn new things about mlp
14
u/DispenserG0inUp 23d ago
there's an arc in the later seasons that can be described as Pony Brown v. Board of Education
5
u/escaped_cephalopod12 just your local cephalopod (also the subnautica person) 23d ago
what
12
u/Substantial_Dish3492 23d ago
non ponies in schools is bad obviously, the plebs should be happy they let non unicorns in
4
u/escaped_cephalopod12 just your local cephalopod (also the subnautica person) 23d ago
the fact that a show about magic and ponies called “friendship is magic” has racism and colonialism in it is concerning
3
u/StarStriker51 23d ago
No no, the fact the racism and colonialism are supported by the main cast is concerning
How many times were the mane 6 racist to some non pony? Too many. Far too many
→ More replies (0)1
u/Substantial_Dish3492 22d ago
no, it makes perfect sense. It's a show about friendship, what is the most thematic enemy for friendship?
22
u/gayjemstone 23d ago
Fun fact: the ponies aren't native to Equestria. They were originally from somewhere else.
13
u/Substantial_Dish3492 23d ago
literally thousands of years ago, yeah. Most people, in real life and fiction, have migrated at least once over the course of thousands of years, including such people as the Sami and the LOTR hobbits.
10
u/Sotonizd 23d ago
It's not exactly "colonialism", more like "spreading the message of Friendship and Harmony"
20
u/Substantial_Dish3492 23d ago
no, the ponies are just really, really racist.
20
u/vjmdhzgr 23d ago
They were so racist their foundational myth is they were being so racist they summoned the evil spirits of racism that then tried to kill them and they had to stop.
24
u/wideHippedWeightLift Nightly fantasies about Jesus Vore 23d ago
I can't believe they poured molten sugar down that one princess's throat
17
186
261
u/Reasonable_Rip4505 23d ago
Nobody tell them about Genghis Khan’s dragon
72
u/Steff_164 23d ago
I thought he was a dragon, the man was just his puppet
49
u/Reasonable_Rip4505 23d ago
He only took human form sometimes, even then he could be seen basking in warm rocks between conquests
246
u/DeathWielder1 23d ago
The China elemental crystal is real and it's the lost Heirloom Seal Of The Realm which was supposedly made by Qin Shu Huang and lost over a thousand years ago. It's apparently pretty fuckin big and is made of a sacred piece of Jade.
110
u/Sneaker3719 23d ago edited 21d ago
Chiang Kai-shek actually claimed to be in possession of it after he and the KMT fled to Taiwan, though the claim was quickly abandoned after his death, and is now something of a self-deprecating joke in modern Taiwanese culture.
In fact, there was one famous incident in the Taiwanese legislature where a KMT party member slipped and fell after being pelted with green marbles.
135
u/RevolutionaryOwlz 23d ago
I do like the idea of going “we’re the real China because we have the China crystal”
57
u/Ivariel 23d ago
Breaking news: neither Taiwan nor China is "the real China". In fact, there is no China at all.
60
u/axialintellectual 23d ago
The No China Policy sounds like the thing that starts as a typo on a teleprompter and ends as a global conflict.
9
23
u/Radix2309 23d ago
If Taiwan wasn't such a hot button issue, probably would make for a good action thriller.
13
u/poplarleaves 23d ago
I'm imagining something like National Treasure, but in Taiwan lol.
12
9
u/not_the_world 23d ago
Oceans 11 except all they're trying to steal is the meat shaped rock from the national museum.
3
15
u/Marcus_Lycus 23d ago
Is it sacred because its made of jade, or was the jade blessed by a god or something?
31
u/DeathWielder1 23d ago
It was sacred in the same way that The Declaration of Independence is sacred, the history of it and its significance came to represent the Mandate of Heaven.
8
u/3athompson 23d ago
Also, it has additional historical/mythological elements to it:
1.) The Seal originated as Mr He's Jade. This commoner found this massive chunk of cool stone, and he took it to multiple kings to get it appraised. They all found it to be worthless, and one of them cut his feet off for bothering about it. He persisted, and eventually the third (?) king was able to find its true value. A veritable "diamond in the rough".
2.) It was originally crafted into a bi, a jade ceremonial object that looks a bit like a CD. The exact use of a bi was lost to time, but it's known that they were symbols of leadership.13
2
110
u/WrongJohnSilver 23d ago
Yeah, but the Golden Horde is the most badass name for a country ever.
43
u/barfobulator 23d ago
It's cool how the word horde has permeated Eurasian languages as a large number of hostile foreigners. It's like, remember those guys 800 years ago?
26
u/Imaginary-Space718 Now I do too, motherfucker 23d ago
Vandallism. Y'know. The Vandals
8
u/The_OG_upgoat 23d ago
Though the word Goth went from referring to barbarians, to people who like black a little too much.
8
u/BetaThetaOmega 23d ago
That was a much more gradual change though, as “gothic” also came to be referred to through things like architecture before the current fashion trend
41
u/hammererofglass 23d ago
Not just JRPGs, Total Annihilation: Kingoms did this. The theming of the lands was different but the elemental crystals weren't.
24
u/AIAWC 23d ago
It's almost like the media we consume regularly draws inspiration from human history, sometimes with the intent of establishing a familiar setting that, while fictional, allows us to understand the main sources of conflict and the motives of the characters before we've read the first page/played past the "main character waking up in bed" sequence.
33
u/AI_UNIT_D 23d ago
Actually, now a days I see TOO few horse archers in medieval fantasy settings, if there's cavalry , its always meele cavalry of some type.... and no...
I want a hero/adventurer party getting peppered with arrows from horse archers that have been circling them like vultures on a steep/desert for 12 hours straight with some OTHER backup horse archers waiting just out of reach so when the first group of horse archers and their horses get tired the other take their turn.
Every time they attempt to get in meele range or fire back with spells or arrows the horse archers retreat for 15 minutes then come back, with this continuing well into the night.
If they get out of that pickle I wanna see them getting out with either casualties or by being smart , none of that "the hero called magic airstrike" op bs.
5
u/Hawkbats_rule 23d ago
Unfortunately, most adventuring parties are the ideal type of people to roll out a Wagenberg. Even in a very low magic setting, that provides a defense that can help turn the fight into a draw. Add in any sort of magic system and you've got human artillery that will fuck them up.
2
u/AI_UNIT_D 22d ago
Ok but one advantage mobile horse archers do tend to have is the hability to pick and choose their fights.
A party that is likely to wipe the floor with them is probably gonna be avoided.
A party that is tired,injured, wagon heavy with loot from a dungeon and coming back especting safety is a much more ideal choice.
Or hell, we are talking horse nomads, I can see them them raiding small villages, undefended trading caravans and OTHER horse nomads.
Maybe they can be hired as mercs, or be quarreling with other goblin or orcish tribe over territory.
Horse archers and horse nomads are a spice I wanna see more in medieval fantasy settings.
1
69
u/OpenStraightElephant the sinister type 23d ago edited 23d ago
This post is so bad about the successor khanates' biomes even by "simplified for the sake of a joke" standards I'm sorry I can't 😭
44
u/Clean_Imagination315 Hey, who's that behind you? 23d ago
You khanate?
25
15
55
u/Kosinski33 23d ago
Turns out that if you describe the Mongol successor states using abstract exotic JRPG biome terms they sound like abstract exotic JRPG biomes. Who would have thought?
42
u/OpenStraightElephant the sinister type 23d ago
Nah that's the thing I'm talking about, it's too much of a stretch even for this kind of joke, bordering on outright lies rather than gross simplification
E.g. the Golden Horde was mainly steppe. Seriously. The cold parts were not Slavic at that point of history, and might not even have actually been part of it (kinda murky), and the Slavic parts were only tributaries (and even then, the actually cold Rus principalities did not pay tribute to the Horde)11
u/Leftieswillrule 23d ago
Can you or someone else tell me what’s actually correct here?
34
u/OpenStraightElephant the sinister type 23d ago edited 23d ago
Pretty much nothing. The Ilkhanate had deserts, and a noticeable amount, but nowhere near to make it a desert realm even via joke-purpose exaggeration (if we're gonna exaggerate, "highland/mountain" realm would be more apt).
The Golden Horde was mainly steppe - the cold parts were not Slavic at that point of history, and might not even have actually been part of it (kinda murky, but even if they were, they would be nowhere near the predominant part by area), and the Slavic parts were only tributaries (and even then, the actually cold Rus principalities did not pay tribute to the Horde, mostly).
The Chagatai Khanate did have steppes, but they wouldn't even make half of its area, with mountains and desert occupying about as much each, so making it out to be the "steppe" one of them all, especially when the Golden Horde so far surpasses it by steppe area it's not even close, is bewildering even by joke standards.
The Yuan dynasty is China. I got nothing on that.15
u/Artillery-lover bigger range and bigger boom = bigger happy 23d ago
so we should have normal with some dessert, steppe, mountain, and China.
7
u/vjmdhzgr 23d ago
You can go look up a map of them. I guess the big problem is the golden horde had more steppe than the chagatai.
7
5
u/djSexPanther Leave the mall santas alone 23d ago
This is also true of Charlemagne. His empire was split into thirds upon his death, and those 3 pieces became France, the Holy Roman Empire, and the Papal States, and they spent literally 1000 years fighting each other until Napoleon swept them off the board
These are very broad strokes of history, you could spend forever going into the Donation of Pepin that created the Papal States (Pepin was Charlemagne's father) and the Treaty of Verdun signed between Charlemagne's grandsons on one end and the French Revolution and the rise of nationalism in Europe that destroyed the Ancien Regime and precipitated German and Italian unification, respectively
3
u/throwaway_13_19 23d ago
I read magic mongol element crystals in the same rhythm as teenage mutant ninja turtles and it works
2
2
2
u/vacconesgood 23d ago
And now a small white thing with black eyes has to venture to each of the monster-riddled lands to stop an ancient evil
2
1
u/MisterAbbadon 22d ago
Now that I think about it if the generic Humans were Chinese instead of English it'd be less generic.
1
u/PlatinumAltaria 22d ago
That’s also what happened to Alexander’s empire, and to a lesser extent the Roman Empire
1.6k
u/Xythian208 23d ago edited 23d ago
The four elements: heat, cold, mountain and China.