Powerful Metamorphers - Solution
Written by Joanna Sands, Jacqui Fashimpaur, Margaret Sands, and Patrick Xia
Answer: RHINOPLASTY
This puzzle consists of 5 memes with a red border, 4 memes with a blue border, and 8 memes with a yellow border separated from a borderless meme of a red hand, a blue hand, and a yellow hand stacked on top of each other.
As we inspect each meme, we can suspect that each references Power Rangers. Additionally, there is some text transformation performed on the words in the memes. The Power Rangers theme of the puzzle can be additionally confirmed by looking at its title, Powerful Metamorphers or the source of the final meme. We can find that each references a specific season of Power Rangers (of which there are 27 so far). Some memes clue specific episodes, but several clue themes that all episodes within a season have in common.
| Meme | Season | Season Number | Extracted Letter | Reference |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rick Roll | Power Rangers Lost Galaxy | 7 | G | The "other song" that is Rickrolled is the instrumental of the Lost Galaxy Theme Song |
| Gossip Girl | Power Rangers Super Megaforce | 21 | U | One of the groups of villains in this season is called The Armada. The Armada is big. |
| Boardroom Suggestion | Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (1) | 1 | A | The first episode of the original Power Rangers begins with Rita Repulsa being freed from her dumpster prison. One of the rangers tasked with defending the earth is Kimberly, a gymnast |
| They're the Same Picture | Power Rangers Samurai | 18 | R | The morpher for this season, the Samuraizer, looks like a cellphone but is used as a calligraphy brush. There are 5 of each to match the number of Samuraizers. |
| Three-headed Dragon | Power Rangers Zeo | 4 | D | Each dragon head references a villian in the season: Mean Screen, Mace Face, and Leaky Faucet |
| Surprised Pikachu | Power Rangers Super Dino Charge | 23 | W | As seen in this video, the chef is reprimanded for not including cinnamon in the cookie which surprised the villain. |
| Car and Exit Ramp | Power Rangers Time Force | 9 | I | Jen, the Pink Time Force Ranger, is originally engaged to Alex. However, when Alex dies and she goes back in time to save him she falls in love with Wesley, Alex's ancestor. |
| panik kalm panik | Power Rangers Megaforce | 20 | T | In the episode Staying on Track, Metal Alice, a villain in the season, stops a train then starts it again with a bomb on the tracks. |
| Increasingly Verbose | Power Rangers Lightspeed Rescue | 8 | H | This meme starts with a simplified version of "The signal is calling; Our planet is falling", a line from the theme song, and then becomes increasingly verbose. |
| Strong Doge Weak Doge | Power Rangers Jungle Fury | 16 | P | In this season, the rangers use their Solar Morphers to morph and become stronger. |
| Gru’s Plan | Power Rangers Turbo | 5 | E | In Beware the Third Wish, the first wish is used to give Elgar hair. |
| Among Us | Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (3) | 3 | C | For most of the season, Kat is put under a spell by Rita Repulsa which forces her to befriend the rangers and spy on them. This spell also allowed her to transform into a cat. |
| __ isn't real; it can't hurt you | Power Rangers Ninja Storm | 11 | K | In this season, one of the characters' father is transformed into this CGI guinea pig. |
| I'm You But Stronger + I made this meme | Power Rangers Super Samurai | 19 | S | The inner meme, Something Fishy, references how this season stole the title and plot of its episode "Something Fishy" from the original season of Power Rangers. The outer meme clues the connection of Samurai and Super Samurai to help with the seasons break in. |
| Simpsons Cereal Fire (no canonical name) | Power Rangers Megaforce | 20 | T | One of the groups of villains of this season, the Toxic Mutants, were made by mixing the ingredients mentioned in the meme. |
| Epic Handshake | Power Rangers Turbo | 5 | E | Justin, the Blue Turbo Ranger, is a child prodigy. In the same season, Blue Senturion is an intergalactic space robot. |
| Bernie Sanders | Power Rangers Samurai | 18 | R | In There Go The Brides, the rangers hold multiple weddings in order lure a villain that kidnaps brides. |
By taking the season numbers, which are all below 26, and converting them to letters we are given the phrase “GUARD WITH PECKSTER" which clues RHINOBLASTER, a fellow villain who assists Peckster in guarding the captured rangers during "The Wedding”.
This is when we use the text transformations. The text on each meme has been transformed based on the color of its border. For each red bordered meme, every time the letter ‘b’ appears it is replaced with a ‘p’. For each blue bordered meme, every time the letter ‘e’ appears it is replaced with a ‘y’. For each yellow bordered meme, the last letter of each word is removed. As hinted by the hand stacking meme, we need to apply all three of our transformations to RHINOBLASTER. We convert the B to P, the E to Y, and remove the last letter to find our answer, RHINOPLASTY.
Author's Notes
During testsolving, we naturally made memes about the puzzle. Here, we would like to share some of them.
Originally, this puzzle required solvers to find and confirm the Power Rangers theme purely from the meme content rather than using the name and hand stacking meme. Without those, these memes are vaguely reminiscent of other pop culture references, like Star Trek, Star Wars, Animorphs, Powerpuff Girls, Lord of the Rings, etc.
In addition to the official fandom Wiki for Power Rangers, fans have created a fanon Wiki. Our testsolvers also landed there a few times, and matched our memes to fan-made Power Rangers seasons or characters.
