#i Shant Spam the tag tho

[sanchoyo]

ok!! entire post about it! I wanted to talk about my headcanons for the tokyo mew mew alien's world! (with some of these being grounded in canon somewhat and some just being 'I think this would be neat' with no basis sjdfhk)

I would LOVE to hear other tmm fan's random alien headcanons/thoughts on any of this (or just anything in general, feel free to rb/reply and add stuff!)

LONG POST under the cut :D

-the aliens were on earth like...200-300 million years ago according to the manga (see @ribbonstrawberrysurprise's great post about that, here!) or if we go off new, gondwana was 600 million..ish. (I think the 300 mil is more reasonable personally)

-according to a quick search, at the moment, nasa thinks the closest planet that might be livable is roughly 14 light-years away. (and okay, the planet the alien's landed on isn't exactly...ideal for living on, but it has an atmosphere they can breathe, and land, even if there are harsh sandstorms. like. it's BAD conditions, but it's ~livable~ technically.) the fastest (manned) spacecraft we've had went 24,791 mph (39,897 kph). which is SUPER FAST but it would still take 378,449 years to travel 14 light years at that speed (unless the website I used to convert this is wrong?)

-and sure, the aliens have repeatedly been said to have been WAY more advanced than humans, so it could've been faster than that! but considering a few points that were brought up in canon... (going off the 2002 anime here!)

-the aliens were in some kind of cryogenic pods for a large portion of their journey, even if it WAS shorter than roughly 378,449 years (and that. is a lot of time) but it specifically says 'long sleep' and yeah man. that IS a long sleep if its even close to that. even half of that would be a lot! But again, the planet isn't IDEAL. and going to another is 'beyond their means'.

so...why is that? for such a long, hard journey, why not keep searching? did they run out of fuel? had they seen worse planets before this one? (colonies of the same alien species on previous worlds left to evolve separately from the main one would be a FUN fanfic concept) did the sandstorms tear up their ships? (in the screenshot of them tunneling, the character shown is using a pickaxe. and hey? a PICKAXE? NOT MUCH MORE ADVANCED THAN EARTH, BUDDY, ARE WE SURE THEYRE THAT FAR AHEAD OF US?! or... did a lot of their tech break?) was this even the intended planet? what if they had scouted one even further out at first but couldn't reach it and had to settle for this one? (this is all me just spitballing, but again, fun fanfic concepts)

-I'm sure even the most advanced cryogenic pods would need some kind of maintenance for such a LONG period of time, not to mention..did the ship have some kind of tech to keep it from hitting stuff, running on course, etc?

-So. I'm headcanoning that a small group of people...did not sleep the entire journey. they were selected to be engineers, pilots, do maintenance, etc for the sake of the entire species. and would have to have kids to take up the mantle, for literally thousands and thousands of years. space-fairing aliens! of course, it would be WEIRD, because they would almost certainly evolve and develop a language, culture, etc separate from their ancestors. who are still alive, waiting to be woken up. I wonder if that's where the flying and teleporting come from, or if that's tech?

-alternative to this is that people took shifts. like, a small group does the tech for as long as they can, then wakes up group 2 and gets put back to sleep, etc. this would be a lot of work and rotating ppl for 300,000+ years would be bonkers. (also would still require training new people regardless doing this so I do like option 1 better)

and here's the Other Thing:

even assuming the journey to the New Planet took 300,000 to 400,000 years? there is still a HUGE gap between that and present day in canon! A gap that is either ~199 million or ~599 million years long. MILLIONS. These were fully sentient, evolved people!

SO THEN.

THIS?? IS CRAZY. the fact that earth was in the people's memories for MILLIONS OF YEARS? How good could their records possibly have BEEN for that to happen??? Was it entirely orally passed down since they specify 'talked about'? And if so, how exaggerated did the stories of it become? (all of these screenshots are from episode 17) My assumption is that this screenshot is, like the others, the aliens ancestors and not the modern aliens, because, assuredly, with MILLIONS OF YEARS you'd think conditions would improve. If not outside of the caves, then within them, right?

what's also crazy: in new, the FASHION HASN'T CHANGED IN A FEW MILLION YEARS? even if you brought the same plants/animals you're getting your material for clothing from (which, sure, reasonable to assume the people weren't the only thing on the ships if they were going to be in space THAT long... and someone might also have to take care of plants/animals on the ship. possibly dinosaurs still exist, on the new planet. lol) fashion is something that generally should change. esp depending on the environment. the fashion in the 2000s anime had them dressed greco-roman...ish in the ancient flashbacks then totally different in present day, but in new the ancient aliens fashion? VERY much resembles the current trio's fashion (actually, the ancient fashion had MORE frills and colors. see Madeline's fit) and in new they have the same cloak things from the ancient alien flashbacks, with the newer clothes under

so. fashion being the same (or if anything, getting more boring compared to the ancients? depressing lol. this is what happens when you're too survival focused to worry about anything beyond function, but even then, the shoulder puffs have GOT to be for fashion-only. right. objectively funny that that seems to be the fashion-ish thing we got. unless everyone's clothes look so similar because it's some kind of uniform? (I have made a longer post speculating abt clothes+ genetics with aliens)

-anyway based solely on the fact I think this is a weird choice, and the fact they still even REMEMBER EARTH AT ALL AFTER MILLIONS OF YEARS, I'm choosing to believe they were in space for MUCH longer than 300-400,000 years. maybe even a few million. after all, why would they choose that one? even our current tech (behind theirs!) can scope out potentially nice, livable planets that are much more ideal than the one they ended up on! I think they were shooting for one much, much further away and had to land on one out of some kind of emergency (hence not scouting for another one or just packing up and leaving like they did with earth!)

-the wild thing is, in tmmnew, the ships IMMEDIATELY START UP AND START HOVERING WHEN DEEP BLUE OPENS THE PORTAL TO EARTH. they were READY TO GO. meaning they're functional, at least in new! maybe fuel is the issue so they did require the portal in new? (there was no portal in og anime or the manga as far as I can remember. kind of a shame the ancient aliens didn't have deep blue and had to take a 'long sleep' on their ships instead of just portalling to New Planet. when...did he come around, exactly? he...isn't actually only as old as masaya is, is he? thoughts for another post, lol)

-it kind of does beg the question: how did the pastry trio and Gateau get to Earth so fast? did the aliens devolve light-speed travel? I guess they must've been doing something in those caves for that long 🤷‍♂️ and I do think this is the case (again, the long sleep, to me, implies they didn't have this travel when going to the planet!) but the fact the aliens do visit the mews after healing their world with mew aqua also implies it's very fast-travel now, at least.

(HOWEVER. I think a fun fanfic au concept would be that they put the pastry trio into cryosleep for the long journey there and back. like, that would mean they were technically born a few thousands of years ago assuming they don't have lightspeed travel...and that by the time they reach their planet to fix it with the mew aqua, thousands upon thousands of years would pass again. that would be some GOOD angst potential. again, disproved by canon bc the aliens reunite with the mews, but fun as an AU!)

(I guess we aren't going to ask WHY they sent three young kids/teens to Earth? I actually hope they might have been intended to be scouts rather than the adults telling three kids to go Get Earth Back and maybe just decided to take it themselves, because their plans always came across as childish and short-sighted. Like...you're going to further pollute the earth...and poison the air ...where you want to LIVE? GREAT PLAN! could also have been deep blue being a jerk, since they seem to answer to him. like he hates humans so much he'll kill everything. no one gets earth in that case tho. so it's still very weird. (new does somewhat retcon this, he at least seems to care SOMEWHAT in new, more than the original, but...Still, Dude, his tmmn continent plan would also cause mass chaos and make the earth UNLIVABLE it is unbelievably bad as a plan and makes him look a bit. erm. well. maybe he could use magic to fix it. who knows. someone write an 'aliens win' au explaining how his plan does NOT cause mass destruction/extinction events. lol) very weird and food for thought on why that could be!

Anyway. That's my thoughts about the weird ship to planet and back time. Headcanons about the alien's new world and architecture incoming.

As much as I love the og anime, the architecture of new's ancient aliens is SO cute. (and the dinos casually everywhere <3)

I think it would be fun if this type of architecture was brought back to the alien's world post-canon when they can leave the caves more! or even...incorporate it INTO the cave faces! We at least know there ARE mountains (going off new!)

This is pretty close to what I think the alien's world looks like, we seem it as a red ball in New, so red soil maybe? And...not huge oceans like Earth, but some bodies of water. The rain shadow from the mountains where the caves are would cause deserts to form around the area, and the sandstorms. (I imagine the aliens would want to get a home around a body of water the same way any living thing needs to, but also the most insulated they could be, so that area where a river snakes up but there's a semi-circle of mountains shielding them from the worst of the sandstorms from the north would be a real sweetspot. + caves are usually nice and warm and damp, so good for growing stuff+ underwater reserves of freshwater! :D) we do see them (in og anime) digging into the SIDE of an area for a hole, so I think it would be fun if the cities were built RIGHT into the mountains.

I LOVE looking at real examples of this, btw. It's happened plenty of times and still IS a thing

Cappadocia, Turkey

Ajanta and Ellora Caves, India, and Ronda, Spain

Azenhas Do Mar, Portugal, and Santorini, Greece (the look of Santorini is really reminiscent of the alien's town in tmmn's flashback, isn't it? the shape of the buildings, and colors, at least!)

-In the flashback we also see a lot of greenery growing RIGHT ON HOMES/BUILDINGS. which is SO cool and reminds me of solarpunk type illustrations/vibes. It's obvious they as a society highly value nature, so being as much as a part of it as possible and incorporating it into their homes? very cute. It would be fun if post mew aqua fixing/stabilizing the sandstorms (I don't think it would actually entirely stop them, but make them predictable, and make the ground more fertile? maybe?) the houses were built into the mountains/caves still but had greenery ALLL over them + big bubble windows/domes like the screenshots from new. but still very much a Part of the world and still utilizing the caves

-on the note of utilizing the caves? CAVE ANIMALS. if they WERE ON THIS PLANET FOR MILLIONS OF YEARS, AND DID BRING THE DINOS WITH THEM? THE DINOS WOULD EVOLVE IN CAVES WITH THE ALIENS, RIGHT??? you know how WEIRD cave animals can get? you're turning dinosaurs into troglobites!! (okay, maybe not true troglobites, maybe they took the dinos out of the caves, too. I assume the aliens also had to leave the caves when they were able, because most things Need Some Vitamin D. I know theyre all sooooo vitamin deficient those first few years of adjusting to cave dwelling tho...not even touching on the psychological effects that would have.

- on that note, the aliens themselves probably should've had some weird evolution over the time period of MILLIONS OF YEARS IN CAVES but I'll save that for artists who like to Redesign Things

📢 no, really. the noble olm would like a word with you all now. tmm artists who do redesigns, make the aliens way weirder! (joke, draw them however u want ofc, but also, I WOULD like to see this lol.

...do we think them having slit eyes is recent evolution as a result of being in the caves, actually? ancient aliens:

HAD ROUNDED PUPILS, AT LEAST IN NEW.

and then the other aliens in new:

Not ALWAYS drawn as slits actually, but mostly always more slender/drawn wildly different from the mews' eyes or the ancient alien's eyes. even the bg characters!

-but in the og anime, it's a bit harder to tell. in 90% of the shots we get of the ancient aliens, they have such dark eyes its hard to tell if their pupils are slit or not!

I know if I'm being realistic this is just saving the animators time, but everyone having brown eyes is like. right. okay. sure.

but there is this one singular child who is the only one we get a good look at having blue eyes and rounded pupils. so. rounded in ancient times in the og anime too!

(and yes I KNOW some people speculate this is baby masaya, which I don't agree with, because 1. this seemed to be a part of the ancient alien flashbacks. 2. he's been said to be an artificial HUMAN so the alien ears would make..not a lot of sense (did they CROP HIS EARS LIKE A DOG IN THAT CASE??!) 3. only has blue eyes in the manga/as deep blue, and a totally different shade at that. this is..dark blue eyes. maybe closer to the blue knight's shade, but even then, these almost still look Too Dark. UNLESS we think maybe they packed him up on a spaceship and sent him to earth as a baby and it took a really really really really really long time for him to get there and he changed his hair part which usually does not happen in anime. lol?? nothing against that headcanon but do not agree with it in general)

(also on the subject of it, the blue knight sometimes has slit eyes and sometimes doesnt in both anime, more often does NOT. I will say I think this is probably just because masaya also has regular rounded pupils like a human would. deep blue has slit eyes in the og anime, but is animated as having slit OR rounded pupils even when masaya's NOT in control in tmmn which is. an Interesting Choice possibly unintentional..?...in the original anime, iirc he mostly only had the slit eyes!)

-so yeah, it would be a reasonable assumption to say maybe the alien's pupils in both og anime and new used to be rounded in ancient times but got Slit to deal with Cave Stuff. Long winded way to say they did probably do SOME evolving. not to mention the fact NONE of the aliens in the flashbacks in new or og anime could fly or teleport...whether you want to think that's tech or some new built in ability, or if the trio is genetically altered like the mews are...up to headcanons! just like all of this. :D

There are only 30 pics allowed in one post, and I had More thoughts, but I'm splitting this into two posts. Expect one More...Directly after this one (SORRY I PROMISE AFTER THAT I WON'T SPAM THE TAG AHKSDFJ)

thank u for reading it you made it this far!

[lovphobic]

i shant spam u guys from break. tho i have gone thru the tag. so.