#why is there even a correct answer

[uncanny-tranny]

The leftism/anticapitalism leaving people's bodies the zeptosecond you imply that disabled people who aren't "productive" still matter in society and need to be treated like intrinsic equals who have a place in this world:

[stromblessed]

pretty much all analysis naming Mel any kind of "flawed" character, villain, or as problematic in any way, is terrible analysis. which is a phenomenon that goes against all my instincts but it is so real all the energy and interest I possess leaves my body every time

the thing is, Mel is a hero, Mel's intentions in season 1 are not as pure as the driven snow, Mel benefited from class divide pre-canon and during canon, yet Mel would have benefited from war and colonialism pre-canon only for her to reject it, she is both noticeably "nice" to all the protagonists in season 2 and removed from most of the plot, she is so many things because of her story and because of her writers and (unfortunately) because of the fandom -

and these "nuanced" analyses of her flaws and negative impact on the narrative are worthless

i can't even explain it. i get one sentence in and it immediately sucks. doesn't matter how true or technically correct the words are. i would rather read my linear algebra textbook and make a fandom for eigenvectors than engage with any level of Mel "criticism" no matter how mild. it could be one sentence in an otherwise long and carefully thought-out essay and i will quit that thing faster than my anxiety medication makes me fall asleep

the fandom or the writers can call Mel a manipulator, a liar, a capitalist, a billionaire, a seductress, "benefiting from zaun just like all the privileged characters", "kind of mean that one time, she should've been more polite" - whatever anyone can dream up - as many times as they want, and it won't be anything the entire fandom hasn't seen approximately 1,000 times since 2021. and it won't be anything every person who consumes any kind of media hasn't seen approximately 10,000 times since we each took our first breath in this world - when that media has women in it

why push this same analysis over and over again. what do you get out of this. does it make everybody feel smart to point out the obvious without bothering to go even one level deeper. do you think it makes her character more interesting to equate well-recognized surface-level negative tropes with negative morality, even when all of those tropes are either actively subverted or massively outweighed by her true role in the story? (it doesn't.) no amount of pointing at and highlighting and underlining Mel's morality or lack thereof will make her any less of an interesting character worth loving and engaging with, and she is probably the most interesting character in the entire show even considering season 2. it won't make the other characters around her "better" by comparison either. nor will it make competing ships more compelling or more justified

[bogos-bint3d]

random thought bc i was making alphyne sims LOL, do you think undyne would ever want to have children? how do you think she’d be as a parent?

While I personally don't quite have a "definite yes" or "definite no" answer for this I personally think that, yeah, possibly! I think it's a question with a lot of layers to it, "is it something the character would want?" "Is it something the character should do?" "How much thought would the character put into it all beforehand?" "How long would the character wait before making that choice?" And first of all I think I should talk about fandom culture's view on kids in general. Why? Because I'm obsessed with validating my opinions like this

It's been said many times by many people now how there are a lot of times where fans end up writing completely out of character for the purpose of placing characters into positions of stereotypical familial structures- ESPECIALLY forcing women into the roles of motherhood where it doesnt fit or make sense for them to the point where I don't think I can really add anything substantial or important to the topic. The pros have very much said what needs to be said.

HOWEVER. I ALSO LIKE TO HAVE FUN WITH FUCKING CHARACTERS. I LIKE TO EXPLORE DIFFERENT TOPICS AND SITUATIONS WITH THEM. I WANT PEOPLE TO BE ABLE TO SHAMELESSLY ENJOY THEIR RIGHT TO INTERPRET CHARACTERS WHERE THEY THINK NESCECARY. WHERE THEY THINK FUCKING FUN!!!

So with that said, while demeaning female characters to singular sad and one dimensionsional traits of "Mother" is very clearly to me Not A Good Thing, people should stop acting like it's a fucking sin to imagine the possibility of a character having a child while still retaining all their accurate attributes, because it is a very possible thing that can be and IS done!!!!!

What are my thoughts on Undyne with all this?

Hehhaahehehaa....... strap in.

Where do I BEGIN. How about the inspirations behind the character of undyne herself.

Ok so see this wonderful lass here. That's a sculpture by Chauncey Ives of the mythical water spirit, Undine. Thinking about it, you all probably know this anyway because I do fairly often reblog Undine themed stuff too. Because I'm just like this. But how about the interesting stuff?

The original myth, created by Paracelsus, an alchemist and philosopher born in the 1400s, I believe comes from his work "A Book on Nymphs, Sylphs, Pygmies, and Salamanders, And Kindered Spirits". I think that's what it was called. I'm too tired to talk fully about it specifically and we need to get to the point so have a video of some guy reading it here

Yay :]

It's pretty much what it says. Paracelsus essentially believed that elemental beings (whom he had adapted and reimagined from ancient or traditional at the time sources) were simply part of the strangeness of God's natural creation and should be studied, as part of appreciation of the Bible etc. And we know ALL ABOUTTTTT utdr and its biblical links/imagery. But back to undine :]

Paracelsus named his takes on the classic concept of elementals: gnomes for earth (YES HE INVENTED THE WORD GNOME!!!!!), sylphs for air (yeah he also invented the word sylph), salamanders for fire (he didn't invent that :[), and of COURSE! UNDINES FOR WATER! He believed undines to be fairly similar to humans, a significant difference being the lack of a soul. Which surely means nothing when talking about Souls Are Important the Video Game. And anyways according to him they were apparently fairly capable of getting a soul through love. Wikipedia also says that Paracelsus says that a child from this love will too have a soul which is nice

Blablabla Wikipedia says undines are like fucking desperate to get a husband or whatever but dudeeeee she can do whatever she fucking wantssssss. I think she can and should be enjoying her life with alphys rather than it being a thing just for a living soul or whatever. They're just happy, no mythology attached

Onto the most iconic interpretation of the myth, 1811s Undine by Friedrich De La Motte Fouque. When you think of the tale of Undine it's almost always that it's this specific story you pull from. Apart from another one I'll briefly touch on later (please hope it's brief). In it, Undine is a woman adopted by a fisherman, who was taken in by the fisherman after his own child died. Hmmmmm wow hmm sort of like how asgore took in undyne after his children died HM BACK ON TOPIC. Personality-wise, Undine is described by Wikipedia (because I don't have the book) as "erratic", and "capricious", which Google dictionary describes as "given to sudden and unaccountable changes of mood or behaviour", which again sounds quite similar to the Undyne we all know and love.

It mentions that when married to Huldbrand (the main guy in the book he's not important tho) she is "kind and gentle" and yeah imo the writing with this IS kinda shit HOWEVER I think if were simply using this as inspiration for undyne I can definitely imagine her *eventually* becoming a calmer and more thoughtful person with A: the presence of someone like alphys to mutually love and understand her for her and B: the absence of having to worry about a war to fight and always sort of being on edge and just being. Like that. And again this would all be a *progressive experience*, rather than in the book where undine literally switches up over night. I do like to consider character and stuff

There's this line from the Wikipedia summary which jumpscared me

I 0% believe this has any significance to deltarune whatsoever however it was so funny out of context I had to add it

Another completely unrelated thing here but there's a fucking guy called "Kuhleborn" and I just. Can homestuck leave me alone. FOR FIVE MINUTES.

Sorry back to cherry picking the story to fit undyne.

Ok so truthfully I don't find anything else from that specific story that I find particularly helpful to undyne, the rest of it's kinda just useless to my point. Re-establishing the fact here that I skipped over a most of the actual significant parts of the story because I specificly want to talk about how I see it parallel to undyne. But that's it really. I just especially wanted to mention this adaptation of the story as it is pretty much the most iconic interpretation of the myth.

That is, interpretations that specifically refer to its source by name. Because by far the most well known media to draw influence from the myth of undine is the iconic Hans Christian Andersen fairytale, "The Little Mermaid". I don't have much to say on how the little mermaid does take much inspiration from undine, other than the way andersen himself interpreted the story. Simply, the fact that Hans Christian Andersen, a man who based this story off of his own feelings at the inability for another man to reciprocate feelings of romance for him, and resonated with the story of undine so much that it was a source of inspiration for the little mermaid itself is so crazy to me. Like. Here is a queer man who read the tale of Undine and understood it so much he wrote his own story inspired by it and made it tie in with his own experiences of homosexuality! Like that's so crazy to me! Because it just makes the undertale character of undyne being sapphic so much better to me! It took the sad story of gay tragedy and took it and made it a story of gay joy!!!!!!! We are all so happys forever!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok ummmm. I got carried away because we are steering very far away from what this post was originally about. Umm. Point is. Original story was of queer sadness but undertale is now of queer joy + the story of queer joy being based on story where being with this person who you really love and being truly and properly bonded in an undeniable and magical way is enough to give you a soul that will live forever. I think that's somewhere near the point I'm trying to make but at the same time it's not quite the point I was trying to make. And this is absolutely just one interpretation of one relationship and this is by no means in any way supposed to be the end all be all of what ANY relationship should be. I really don't think this is what the definition of love is. However for these characters I feel it can be a huge aspect of it for them

NOW FINALLY MOVING ON TO THE ACTUAL CHARACTER FROM UNDERTALE THANK FUCKING GOODNESS!!!!!

Oh undyne. With some of the implications in game that she lost her family, I very much imagine her being cautious with this sort of situation. Would she be able to handle is for example? Would she know what to do. Given its something she might not even have real first hand experience of, is it something she would even want to risk forcing upon another person? I think she struggles so much with responsibility as it is. She wants nothing more than to protect people and cheesus if she had a kid of her own you know she would be doing every single thing in her power to make sure that kid never has to face what she did. Undyne says at one point in game (if you kill her in neutral i believe) she never told alphys the way she felt because if/when she died in battle, she wouldn't want alphys to deal with that. And again, she really would not want to have a kid if she worries that one day that kid would have to worry about someone they truly care about not being with them anymore

So *would* she want them? I don't really think it would be an overwhelming innate desire or anything like that, but really not against it. Sged need a lot of time beforehand first. Some time to live her life to the fullest, time to make sure it's something she can handle without guilt, time to make sure it's something that does bring her joy. And then yeah, 6 or 7 years minimum I can see it happening. And I think it would be nice

"Now let's talk about susie, can we talk about susie? Please stun (and other readers) I've been dying to talk with you about susie all post, okay?" /ref

I don't really have anything to add I just think alphyne should adopt susie. In every timeline. Undertale deltarune I just think ok. Because she doesn't have a good home life to the point where she's like just Not Safe and hm young couple with no children in her area? Undyne would want to help her soooo bad because she understands just what it feels like to be young and alone not really cared for and she would NEED to fix it. That's defo how it is for undertale at LEAST. Idk entirely with dr if it'd be exactly like that cause we don't know what undynes got going down in dr yet.. but even so that's nothing to stop them

Anways yeah I think you mightve been waiting just a wee bit long for the answer to this ask I uhh.....m.....mmmm. yeah man I... yeah. I really do genuinely hope you enjoyed his tho cause uts currently quarter to 2 in the morning and I'm going on a train & to the aquarium tmrw so my ass CANNOT be waking up at 11 am again. Shits fucked. But when I tell you when I'm locked in on an undyne topic I AM LOCKED IN. IT TOOK A WHILE BUT I FINALLY DID IT. MORE THAN HALF OF THIS WAS WRITTEN WITH NO BREAKS OF CHECKS BUT THATS THE BEAUTY!!!!!! FLY MY SCARAB!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[blueskittlesart]

sometimes i forget im not as open about how crazy i am on instagram and post a (rhetorical) question about loz and then i get to be pissed off for the entire rest of the day by people dming me answers that are literally incorrect

[jesncin]

whenever people talk about who John Constantine would take in as an apprentice and they bring up characters like Jason Todd or Xanthe Zhou because they've been re-animated from the dead or whatever I think these are foolish options. As an anti-legacy character, Johnstantine is supposed to lose his friends and loved ones so these non-committal nerds are out of the question. But you know who actually commits to the bit? Of being dead? And would be a perfect Johnstantine companion???

yeah that's right. He's so good at being dead that he was dead before he was even born. Which is to say he was never born. Goldie's not even an apprentice he just hangs out and haunts the guy. This is the only correct answer.

[ganondoodle]

I fully understand the pain you feel with TLOZ now. I mean, I understood it before, but after Arcane becoming League's canon, after watching the second season, I feel so broken and conflicted and like I spent time loving something just for it to amount to nothing.

reliving my totk nightmares just a few months after finally being able to cope with that

[adastra-rising]

Which miraculous ladybug character would work a minimum wage daycare job with screaming toddlers (asking for a friend)

[thegreatyin]

okay. so.

cards on the table: ive had a huge question about a major part of SMEN for quite some time now and all the research ive done whilst trying to solve said question has been pretty much futile.

so.

i'm asking it to tumblr dot com instead.

major spoilers for seeking mr eaten's name, as mentioned. yes i'm asking this for exactly the reason you think i'm asking this.

what is st gawain's,,, Deal? like, what does it look like? how does it function? is it a dullahan situation or do we just go full body horror with it? exactly how literal (and visible) is "you chop off your head and get hollowed out to become a candle"?

i've seen the text. i know what the storylet says. ive just always struggled to picture, like,,,, what it looks like from the outside. whether or not you're essentially just a wax recreation of yourself. if you even still breathe and sleep after That Whole Thing. if you even bleed anymore.

i know these are all questions i can come up with answers for myself. and i can and will and that is a threat. but also i'm open to decapitation-themed suggestions.

[crossdressingdeath]

I genuinely do enjoy the Minrathous vs Treviso choice overall, it's an excellent gut punch, but I won't lie. I'm a little annoyed that if you save Treviso you basically don't get to see the major Shadow Dragons for the rest of the game (including Mae and Dorian!) and the Viper gets blighted and you don't get to pick the archon and there aren't enough quests to max out the Shadow Dragons' strength without serious grinding (so it's way easier for them to die in the endgame) and meanwhile the only significant exclusive consequences to saving Minrathous that I'm aware of (meaning not counting losing the main faction shop or the relevant companion getting hardened or the strength loss from losing the city, since that stuff happens with both) are... you can't romance Lucanis (which not everyone is trying to do anyway) and Jacobus dies (which sucks but I don't even know if it counts as "exclusive" given Hector and Lorelei die if you sacrifice Minrathous). This choice seems just a little biased, is all I'm saying! If they were going to do that I would've liked literally any warning of how unbalanced the consequences would be, especially given Minrathous at least has soldiers so if either side was going to have it worse I'd expect it to be Treviso!

[carlyraejepsans]

for real WHERE does the idea that [utdr humans] are nongendered so that "you can project on them" come from. their literal character arcs are about NOT being a blank slate to be filled in by the audience

i think i understand the assumption on some level for undertale, because there is a very intentional effort to make you identify with the "player character" in order to make your choices feel like your own (the beating heart of undertale's metanarrative lies in giving you an alternative path to violence against its enemies after all, and whether you're still willing to persue it for your own selfish reasons. YOUR agency is crucial).

of course, the cardinal plot twist of the main ending sweeps the rug from under your feet on that in every way, and frisk's individuality becomes, in turn, a tool to further UT's OTHER main theme: completionism as a form of diegetic violence within the story. replaying the game would steal frisk's life and happy ending from them for our own perverse sentimentality, emotionally forcing our hand away from the reset button.

i think their neutrality absolutely aids in that immersion. but also, there's this weird attitude by (mostly) cis fans where it being functional within the story makes it... somehow "editable" and "up to the player" as well? which is gross and shows their ass on how they approach gender neutrality in general lol.

but also like. there's plenty of neutral, non PCharacters in undertale and deltarune. even when undertale was just an earthbound fangame and the player immersion metanarrative was completely absent, toby still described frisk as a "young, androgynous person". sometimes characters are just neutral by design. it's not that hard to understand lol.

anyone who makes this argument for kris deltarune is braindead. nothing else to say about it.

[m0e-ru]

did everybody remember when atlus finally restored the attendant social link in the steam port and how stupid it actually was

[asgardian--angels]

things I wish I could relive for the first time again:

that magical window where you finish a new piece of media, having watched/read it all by yourself with no fandom contact whatsoever, and you are just so happy about it, and full of interesting theories and takeaways, and just in love with it as a gorgeous piece of art.

because I swear to god as soon as you join the fandom for anything, you're bombarded with how you're supposed to view characters and their arcs, how you're supposed to morally and ethically judge the plot and the ways it apparently failed to present the right message, and if you don't you'll either be shunned for not sharing the popular headcanons or you'll be harassed for not criticizing the source material enough.

like how is it that the fans of a piece of media are also the ones being the most negative about it? If I like a show or a movie or a book, well, I liked it. That's kind of the point. I'm actually not here to tear it apart and talk about how it didn't live up to standards other people had! I enjoyed it for what it was, and forcing myself to find negative things to say about it doesn't actually bring me more enjoyment of it or reap any benefit to me. Fandom's a double-edged sword; you want to join a community to share your love for a piece of art, and the price you pay for a modicum of joy is a mountain of negativity. that's one main reason that I never engage with fandom until I'm completely done with a show, because if I was plugged into all of that commentary and discourse during the process, I'd be completely colored by how I'm expected to interpret everything this piece of art is presenting to me without being able to even form my own opinions.

[worstloki]

Fortesa Latifi, We Were Young

[gaym3bo1]

this is an incredibly far fetched ask but

does ANYONE have a link/the dvd/an old recording/ANYTHING of the documentary:

"Marlene" (1984); director: Maximilian Schell

???? i'm so incredibly frustrated right now it's NOWHERE and i don't even know WHY

[astralleywright]

the assumption that Imogen (and previously Ashton) never recieved any assistance from the gods because they didn't pray "correctly" is interesting to me. is there some specific procedure for acceptable prayer in Exandria? if you don't do it right is it like texting the wrong number and the Gods just don't get the message? or are they just putting cries for help that don't follow their formatting and content guidelines at the bottom of the pile lmao

[maliciousalice]