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2:43 AM
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Q: Why couldn't the dwarves beat/kill the Balrog? #2

AllureFollow-up question to Why couldn't the dwarves beat/kill the Balrog? From the answers to that question, the dwarves apparently couldn't kill the Balrog because the Balrog is very powerful, so powerful that by the Third Age very few people could actually beat it one-on-one. But that's one-on-one. ...

 
3:09 AM
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Q: Manga about girl's love that trying to save the other girl with new ability acquired timeloop

iforgotthenameThere is old yuri manga about some fmc that try to save the other girl that love robot from cruel experiment but always fail because fate says so, so the fmc using her timeloop ability (modified phone inside palm) to save this girl by any means. SPOILER: in the end she become the universe/god to ...

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Q: Comic story where woman becomes God

ComicqueryI had a comic from probably the early 90’s that I have no idea how to track down. It was a short story where a woman created a computer program with virtual creatures who ended up worshipping her like a god. Eventually they stopped believing in her and she disintegrated. It didn’t have anything t...

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Q: Did the makers of Universal Soldier (1992) pay anything to Buffy Saint-Marie, who wrote the song "Universal Soldier"?

BuzzIn 1992, TriStar Pictures released the movie Universal Soldier, about cyborgs created from the bodies of soldiers killed during the Vietnam War. This is a follow-up to my earlier question here, making this only the second question about this film franchise. Although the metaphor of the "universa...

 
 
5 hours later…
8:13 AM
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Q: What does "Smith will suffice" mean in this scene?

Maro MIn The Matrix Reloaded (2003), Smith plunges his hand into Bane's chest: What does "Smith will suffice" mean in this scene?

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Q: Manga with rat/mice people

belannI'm looking for a light novel/manga where there appeared rat/mice/mouse people in one of the chapters. They were cute, small and weak. The only thing I remember is that they were preparing for a battle in one of the scenes and while they didn't have a big role, that scene stuck with me (in fact, ...

 
 
1 hour later…
9:29 AM
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Q: Connections to The Dark Tower in Carrie, Misery, The Tommyknockers and in The Green Mile

trejderBoth English Wikipedia article and it's Polish counter-part lists following of Stephen King's books as supposedly have any connection to The Dark Tower serie: Carrie Misery The Tommyknockers and The Green Mile Based on the following sources: Dark Tower references in other works of Stephen King...

 
 
2 hours later…
11:36 AM
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Q: Need help id tv show

Missouri SasquatchLooking for the name of a short sci-fi program where people lived in a small community under the watchful eye of the government, everyone has everything they could ever want, however, a man and woman find out the truth that everything is fake. I remember the last scene of their friends living roo...

 
what's the criteria for an obit in meta? Jim Brown recently passed (Mars Attacks)
 
Do you mean the posts?
 
12:02 PM
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Q: A chase scene on Europa

SirphI am writing a sci-fi horror story set on Europa. In this scene, an alien that can withstand Europa's atmosphere chases after a group of astronauts wearing thin space suits. For the first half of the chase, the astronauts escape in a sort of dune buggy, and then they are on foot as the alien chas...

 
 
2 hours later…
1:43 PM
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Q: Looking for a SF novel about a machine killing inhabitants because of not recognizing them (data lost after magnetic storm)

ivan7I'm looking for a Science Fiction novel I red in the early 2000's In a dystopian city emptied of its inhabitants, a stranger arrives. He discusses with a resident then is eliminated by a police machine which controls everyone. Then a magnetic storm occurs and the machine forgets all its data. She...

 
2:09 PM
I'm considering putting together a question about a common (to my mind) isekai trope where cuisine (usually Japanese) is so revolutionary that it's extremely valuable. I've even seen at least one reference to an isekai protaognist assuming they can coast by on this, only to find that some prior summoned hero already introduced Japanese cuisine. Do people think this is viable if I can provide a few examples? I'm more curious about the why this is a trope.
 
 
2 hours later…
3:55 PM
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Q: Did we change the voting button formatting?

FuzzyBootsRecently, I was looking at a question, and these are the voting buttons: I have a page, opened earlier today, which shows different formatting. Was there an intentional change?

 
4:08 PM
posted on May 30, 2023 by Zach Weinersmith

Click here to go see the bonus panel!Hovertext: Go ahead. Remember that moment. Today's News: Remember 20 years ago I started a comic about butts and stuff and now I got a book listed alongside Kip Thorne's? Truly, we're in a weird branch of the multiverse.

 
 
2 hours later…
5:57 PM
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Q: Why (out of universe) did the red and gold uniform colours in Star Trek swap?

ThePopMachineIt is well-known by most people with even a cursory knowledge of Star Trek that in the TOS era: Gold uniforms are worn the Command division Red uniforms are worn by Operations, Engineering, and Security whereas in the TNG era there colours are swapped. For example, the iconic characters of Kirk...

 
 
3 hours later…
8:27 PM
@FuzzyBoots Well, a large proportion of isekai stories, at least in Japanese manga and anime, are predicated on the protagonist just being better than everyone else in the world into which they are thrust, since they are in large part power fantasies, whether by virtue of some "cheat system," knowledge of modern technology, or in these cases, the virtues of Japanese cuisine.
 
@Adamant It just seems oddly specific, that and the food porn of "We're going to make this dish and explain every ingredient and step in loving detail". :-D Maybe a lot of hungry mangaka?
 
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Q: In Return of the King has there been any explanation for the role of the third eagle?

A.SteerThe below image is a screenshot of an Instagram Reel that uses a clip of Pedro Pascal to react to a clip of the eagles arriving at Mount Doom at the end of the Return of the King. The image has a caption of "When you're happy that Frodo and Sam get saved, but then you remember why the 3rd eagle i...

 
I think it is part power fantasy, part an assertion of the superiority of Japan, much like the popular subgenre of adventure fiction some decades past in the US in which square-jawed European heroes found themselves in untamed wilderness and dominated it, like Tarzan.
@FuzzyBoots Well, a lot has also been written about how Japan has a pretty strong competitive eating subculture.
But yes, I am sure the vicarious pleasure element enters into play as well. Like mukbangs, ASMR, or indeed actual pornography.
I think fiction about food might generally do better in Japan (like Drops of God, which is not isekai). So perhaps those kinds of precedents make food-based isekai more marketable.
@Fuzzyboots - English-language literature definitely has that thread of power fantasy/national superiority isekai as well: basically the Chronicles of Narnia has protagonists summoned to a magical land by a god, given cheats in the form of equipment, and declared worthy to rule basically by virtue of being from their own world. Sound familiar?
 
Indeed. The food aspect just seemed a bit weird, like the Narnia kids showing up and introducing Spotted Dick to the Narnians and building a commercial empire. As it is, they showed up and the Witch already had Turkish Delight...
 
But it is intriguing that the other two most famous isekai stories in English, The Wizard of Oz and particularly Alice in Wonderland, focus on comparatively weak and ordinary protagonists trying desperately to get home. The story of exile, more than of heroism or even colonialism.
 
8:40 PM
Although, invoking British cuisine as a powerhouse... :-D
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's court is an outlier because it's more time travel fantasy.
In works where the protagonist explicitly has access to Japanese cuisine (I can think of at least three where that's the protagonist's main power), I can see some parallels to how the spice trade, or the coffee trade, worked IRL...
 
@FuzzyBoots Oh, the British superiority in The Chronicles of Narnia is all there, just not in the food. The protagonists are explicitly suited to rule Narnia by virtue of being human, but implicitly, their (White) Britishness matters rather a lot as well.
 
9:01 PM
@FuzzyBoots That is an interesting idea.
 
 
2 hours later…
11:27 PM
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Q: Manhwa where female lead has to touch male lead

skskalaA while back I began reading a manhwa that I do not remember well but I do believe it took place in a fantasy historical setting and the male lead had dark hair and the female lead had lighter hair and she was some type of guide who would touch him so that the build up of mana he had didn't drive...

 

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