#tmae overanalyses

[tmae3114]

So there's this theory I've had bouncing around in my head for *checks notes* about three years now and, well, it does not have nearly the level of evidence I tend to prefer before I make a theory post - it is, in fact, Predominantly Vibes Based - but it has, again, been bouncing around in my head for three years and I refuse to be alone with it any longer

(...also, if I'm right, I wanna be able to go "I KNEW IT" and have a timestamp to point to XD)

OKAY. So. Basically.

I think Alinua might be a twice-born.

Hear me out:

Firstly:

We know that Cloud Elves live pretty much exclusively on the Archipelago Nimbus and are isolationist (Extra Lore: The Three Elder Races - "The Islands have minimal contact or trade with the outside world, [...]" & "These Cloud Elves are unique in many ways, most notably their isolationism [...]" and Page 1.6.12 "I suppose a cloud elf outside of the Archipelago Nimbus is fairly unusual-") but Alinua has been down on the surface since before she can remember

That suggests unusual circumstances. Isolationist people who have minimal contact with the outside world don't just lose a baby in said outside world

Alinua's theory for this is that her birth parents "probably reasonably assumed [she] had the Chimeric Plague and dropped [her] over the edge" (Page 1.6.13) but, crucially, there is no actual evidence of this. It's what she assumes probably happened but she has no memory of the actual events (Page 1.6.23 "I don't even remember it. I've never met my birth parents […]")

Therefore, it is entirely possible that Alinua is wrong about how she ended up not on the Archipelago Nimbus. And I, personally, think it's pretty likely that she's wrong because we know that the Archipelago Nimbus can sometimes be even higher up than the peak of the Throne of the World (this post) and even with it usually being lower down than that, I find it... somewhat doubtful that an infant (toddler, at best) would survive that fall. Not impossible in a fantasy setting but... doubtful.

Secondly:

We know that the Chimeric Plague was Life attempting to connect with a vessel who could be her eyes and give her perspective (Pages 1.20.20 - 1.20.23)

Even before Life finally broke through, Alinua was incredibly unusual for a carrier of the Chimeric Plague. She didn't even find out she was one until she was about ten (Page 1.6.13 "I had a normal life and family for ten years- and then I learned I was a chimera bomb [...]") when most die before they turn five (Page 1.2.10 "I shouldn't have made it past five years old" and Extra Lore: The Chimeric Plague "[...] it is inevitable in every case that the child will lose total control of their magic within the first few years of their life [...]"). She was twice the expected age of a carrier when she found out.

We don't know why Alinua is the successful attempt that finally worked. Not only do we not know, Alinua herself brings it up while talking to Life (Page 1.20.23 "I… don't know if there's anything special about me that kept you from overwhelming me like the others, or if I'm just the lucky one you finally got right."). The question is open: is there something special/unique about Alinua that allowed her to survive where none of the other children did? And if so, what is it?

Thirdly:

So. Carrion crawlers.

We have not actually met any in the story itself yet, only heard Caliban bring them up in the context of an insult (Page 1.12.10 "Twice-born son of a carrion crawler! You had a plan this whole time?!") but fortunately! the Aurora tumblr exists! so we have additional information!

Carrion crawlers eat dead things and sometimes give birth to baby clones of one of their recent meals, which are called twice-born. A twice-born is a healthy infant, identical in every way to how the original would've been as an infant, and age normally for the species they were produced from. Additionally, they have no memories from their source material (so to speak) and develop their own, unique soul, though if they came from a mage, their soul will develop the same channels (this post and this post)

...now, I mentioned at the start that this theory does not have as much evidence as I would like and is mostly Vibes Based, and we have now hit the point where I run out of evidence and switch to vibes. I do not have any evidence which actually points to a connection between any of this.

However, I do still Have Thoughts

We know that Alinua was adopted had a happy (or, at least, "normal") childhood prior to figuring out she was a chimeric carrier (1.6.13, see above) and seemingly doesn't think about her birth family very often. It's entirely possible that she didn't ask questions about where she came from as a child. It's not been brought up yet how her adoptive family found her but, given that she assumes she was thrown off the edge of the Archipelago Nimbus, the possibility that they found a seemingly-abandoned baby just lying around doesn't seem too out there. And if Alinua is a twice-born, yet clearly doesn't know that herself, her family may also not have known that... or may have known and opted to keep it hidden, even from her, given that twice-born are generally considered "deeply unnerving and grotesque" (this post).

As for how Alinua came to be in this theorised scenario, there's two possibilities I've considered.

The first is that an adult life mage cloud elf was outside the Archipelago Nimbus for Some Reason, died somewhere where there are carrion crawlers, and things went from there.

The second, much sadder, possibility is that the "Chimeric Plague carrier baby thrown off the edge of the flying islands" possibility did happen... the baby in question just wasn't Alinua because the fall was, in fact, not a survivable one. And then, just as a twice-born will inherit being-a-mage, Alinua inherited having the Chimeric Plague.

And, in either of these cases, something about being twice-born subsequently protected Alinua from being overwhelmed by Life.

[tmae3114]

.....do you ever just lose, like, an hour to something you started doing on a whim and then at the end all you can do is go “well, I guess I’ve got the results of that now”?

bc..... yeah. yeah.

So, here’s Tomix’s height relative to himself at each of the three ages we have side views for

Assuming that the “the time skip between Books 2 & 3 was five years” information is still correct, we know that, from left to right, there’s an eight year age difference followed by a five year age difference, for a total of thirteen years’ difference between baby Tomix on the left and Book 3 Tomix on the right

Here’s the same thing again with guidelines for clarity

He definitely had a growth spurt between Book 1 and Book 3, so he was almost definitely still a teenager in Book 1. Most teenagers reach their adult height at around 15/16 but it’s entirely possible to keep growing until you’re 18 or even, in rarer cases, until your early twenties. Tomix is probably in his late teens in Book 1 (which was already a pretty safe guess just from visuals and behaviour) and a bit of a late bloomer re: height.

AND, A THING I DISCOVERED BY ACCIDENT WHILE DOING THIS BECAUSE I HAD TO DO COMPARISONS TO GET THE RELATIVE HEIGHTS RIGHT FOR HIS DIFFERENT AGES, HERE’S HIS HEIGHT RELATIVE TO THE HERO IN BOOKS 1 AND 3

The Hero came out of the ice to discover that Tomix is now slightly taller than them and this is the best thing I’ve learned all day

[tmae3114]

The DragonFable Book Three Timeline

So I had a Thought and then Did A Thing and

okay, well, first, shout out to Riadne and Izaac for having a baby because that enabled me to do some absolutely ridiculous and very self-indulgent maths re: the Book 3 Timeline

tl;dr, it’s possible that Book 3, from beginning to present, has taken place over approximately three and a half years.

(Heads up, we’re working with a lot of approximates, guesstimates, and averages here)

-

Okay, so, we know that as of The Last Chapter: Tomix, Riadne was pregnant.

We know she wasn’t visible yet both from her artwork and also from the reactions to Tomix pulling out the “I’m sure [Izaac]’ll be a great father” line - Riadne wasn’t surprised but Izaac was.

So we can determine that Riadne knew, or at least suspected, but Izaac didn’t know, so, let’s apply Occam’s Razor and say that that’s because she recognised the symptoms she was having but wasn’t sure yet and wasn’t showing.

Pregnancy typically starts to show around the three month mark, so that puts Riadne at less than three months pregnant.

We have no way of knowing how Tomix knew that she was pregnant, especially since Izaac didn’t know, which is a bit frustrating. It makes it difficult to accurately pin down how far along Riadne actually is to get ourselves a number to work with.

Therfore, for the sake of giving ourselves a number to actually work with, let’s say that Riadne was two months pregnant during The Last Chapter: Tomix.

As of Just Chillin’, Riadne has given birth and we get to meet baby Tomix Stellini. There’s not much we can extrapolate from meeting him, other than that he’s been born, because his eyes are closed and he’s sleeping. He does have a full head of hair but there’s no way for us to tell whether that’s newborn hair, which typically starts falling out at about two months, or permanent hair, which typically finishes growing in at around six months. But given that this is the first time that the hero is meeting him, let’s be generous with assuming they keep in touch with their friends, and tentatively place baby Tomix at one month old.

Pregnancy for a human woman lasts, on average, about nine months.

So, if Riadne was approximately two months pregnant as of The Last Chapter: Tomix and her baby is about one month old as of Just Chillin’, we can determine that there were about eight months between the two quests.

Now, if we take the full timeline and extrapolate that timespan across it...

(you’re probably going to want to click for full size for these ones, maybe even a new tab)

This gives us five whole blocks of (approx.) eight months and one which-

-I would say is just over a quarter, which we’re going to round down, which would be approximately two months.

So, five and a quarter lots of eight months.

That gives us an overall total of forty two months for the Book 3 timeline.

Simplified, that’s three and a half years!