by Burbie52, HSM team writer

Most of us grew up on fairytale stories. There are a lot of different kinds of these stories, many of which were written more for adults as cautionary tales than for children. They have themes that encompass life and death situations, all manner of monsters and the like. Most of the famous ones were written by the Brothers Grimm, who adapted many of Europe’s folk tales into literary form. Red Riding Hood, Cinderella, and Rapunzel are examples of these.

One of the recurrent themes in many of these fairy tales and children’s stories has been the use of small people: Alice in Wonderland, Gulliver’s Travels, Tom Thumb, and Thumbelina come to mind. There are also the legends of the “wee folk” in places all over the world, from Hawaii’s menehunes to Ireland’s leprechauns. It seems that there is a universal appeal to this idea, one that has been around for centuries. Movies galore have been made about these “little people”, including such classics as Walt Disney’s “Darby O’Gill and the Little People,” which was one of Sean Connery’s first films.

We have had an influx of fairytale costumes in Home as well as a few ornaments — pictures in particular, in recent times — but nothing prepared us for what Sony popped into their Originals store in one of the updates a while back without any fanfare: the Shrinking Potion! Sony has largely taken a backseat where new development is concerned in Home the past year or more, so when they do produce something as interesting as this I think it deserves some attention.

I know that there are a lot of things in Home to have fun with. We’ve had a huge infusion of locomotion items in the past several months since they became available, but of all of the ones in Home so far,  I’ve had more fun with this one in the past few weeks than any I can recall. I like the dancing LMO items just fine, but watching yourself run around as you speed past your friends’ ankles is just too funny.

I can see a hundred ideas for machinima coming out of this one small locomotion device. Remakes of Alice or Gulliver are ripe for the taking, especially combined with a few of the other wonderful LMOs and poses that have come out recently. I truly see a 1950’s style movie with the giant insect LMO’s chasing a crowd of shrunk people around the new VEEMEE Diner.

All of this, made possible by a small addition Sony added to our abilities.

I hope this is a trend and they decide to give us giants as well, though the ceiling limits might have to play into that one. With this shrinking ability around, everyone and everything in Home becomes a giant anyway. I can’t wait to hold a little-people flashmob; maybe we will throw in a few big insects as well just for fun.

The only drawback to this LMO is the fact that since it’s a locomotion, you can’t do anything else like dance. I wonder if they could create full-body costumes like leprechauns, or even just a set of regular clothing to use with the ability to use our own heads instead of a pre-made one, and still make us small like this. That would be a fantastic new way to use this idea; I would love to see a whole slew of leprechauns dancing a jig come come next St. Patty’s Day.

Alice took a wrong turn

The applications for this type of locomotion in Home are endless. Machinima makers would delight in any new ways of using our avatars to make the wonderful films they are creating in Home. The ability to stay as ourselves but be small or extra large would be a great one, even if the clothing options were standardized.

I don’t know why we find this ability to be small such an interesting one, but its place in literature and myth has given us many stories and entertained people for generations. Perhaps it is all about seeing the world from a different perspective that we find so fascinating. The Shrink Potion offered here doesn’t really change your perspective, though; you see yourself as a smaller version in the same distant perspective you see your normal avatar.

So relive a bit of your childhood by becoming one of the “little people” in Home. You will find the potion in Sony Originals, and for $1.49 it is one of the best buys in Home right now — not to mention a heck of a lot of fun.

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