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.
102 notes
·
View notes
Shark Genitals & World Building
So, I've seen this Q&A a few times now and it really got me thinking about Fish-man biology.
Now, to be clear, I think it's pretty clear Oda isn't being entirely serious. When you look at how he designs his characters he goes for whatever is fun. He's not doing extensive research on whatever aquatic species he slaps on his fish-men or Merfolk characters. This is why for a lot of them, if you look up what they are mixed with they rarely share much if anything with the animal he's picked.
Saying a character has two dicks is funny, so Hody has two dicks--that's all.
But taking the answer more seriously the idea that at least some (because they do vary so widely from fish-person to fish-person) have changed genitals because of their added fish anatomy is interesting from a world-building perspective.
As someone who has a special interest in animal biology and has watched a lot of documentaries I can say that fish have really diverse breeding strategies. So, I guess, if Hody can have two dicks because he's a shark, I wonder if this could be true for any other fish-people and merfolk.
We see that at least some fish-people do have children the same way regular humans do, but to my knowledge we don't see any pregnant mermaids. Given how much larger Neptune is then his wife, and how massive Shirahoshi is, I think it makes sense that perhaps like many fish, Otohime laid eggs that were fertilized separately (this is actually how goldfish mate).
It could be possible that the way mermaids or even fish-women have children depends on the father. If they are not compatible in size they can reproduce Ovuliparity (the way I imagine Otohime did), or if they are of similar size they either go the more human route or, after copulation they lay fertilized eggs (like the skate cases often called mermaid purses you find washed up on the beach).
There's also something to be said for the variations fish have with gender. Some fish are capable of changing gender. It's more common that female fish become male (protandry), usually the largest of a group replacing the dominate male in the group. This happens mostly with coral reef fish like wrasses, groupers and parrot-fish.
Meanwhile, anemone fish, like clown fish change from male to female. When the one female dies the remaining male will become female, while an outside male will become that new female's mate.
Then there are Black Helmet fish which are both simultaneously and take turns releasing eggs and sperm when they spawn.
So, if fish-people and merfolk had similarly diverse genders and ways of reproducing I think that'd just be really neat. It could also lead to some fun misunderstandings between fish-people, merfolk and humans.
Of course, I don't think Oda ever put that much thought into it. He just does whatever he finds fun character design wise. I mean, it's not like Arlong has barrels like Sawsharks do, and Jinbe looks nothing like a whale shark. On top of that the story isn't really focused on that type of world building. Nor do I think he could really showcase something that deals so much with sex--even if it is fish sex.
Still, makes for some really great head-canons.
46 notes
·
View notes
I know there are many bad takes about Gale on this site, but the worst takes I’ve seen on another social media site in another language are much more abhorrent than anything here tbh, the recent one I’ve seen even gets some popularity among his “fans”... They were basically saying it’s Mystra who make him the humble man he is now, without her influence on him he would be as egotistical as in his god ending, and more than a hundred of reblogs are all thanking Mystra for “training her lapdog so well” for them🤢
Did we even play the same game? Isn’t his god ending a direct result of Mystra making him think he will never be enough as he is, and he can only find his self-worth through gaining more power? Didn’t Tara say he’s not himself anymore and she would no longer be his companion in his god ending, she knew him long before Mystra made him her chosen, he was powerful enough before his relationship with Mystra, if he’s anything like god!Gale at the time wouldn’t Tara just leave him? I’d imagine he would have been more confident and had a more stable self-image if Mystra had never contacted him, therefore he didn’t even need the Gale of Waterdeep persona. He would always have been Gale Dekarios in that timeline. And people glorifying Mystra’s grooming and abuse towards him and unironically calling him “her lapdog” is just... I have no words. But what do you expect from an online space that’s infested with terfs and radfems? They just won’t recognize or acknowledge any abuse from women towards men...
4 notes
·
View notes
going absolutely fucking feral. fuck?
I’ve been getting a lot of TERF posts rec’ed to me through the #feminism tag lately. And they’re most often only tagged something like #feminism or #woman, so filters aren’t catching them. And it’s all just… anti-woman and anti-feminist take after take. Like. How have they hijacked the narrative and monopolized the meaning of feminism to be something so reactionary and reductive? They genuinely believe takes like, “women should be forced to abort children” are feminist. BFFR. They just hate other women having bodily autonomy.
I saw one just now where someone was like, “I was daydreaming about men just disappearing”— like being raptured— “and then realized that all women don’t know how to do male jobs and got angry” (and they did say ALL). They then went on to talk about how no women knows how to operate machinery because women have been prevented from EVOLVING to do the same things men do because men forced women to EVOLVE to serve them. Evolved. They were like, “all men could just… build a wood bridge but we women are kept from that knowledge. We have no teachers.”
Further fucking proof that these misogynistic asshats do not build community with black, brown, indigenous, poor, rural, or working class women. They live in a theoretical fantasy world daydreaming about men disappearing and “female separatism” rather than offering real fucking solutions. They live in a world where every last woman has the same lived experience as them. They assume all women are oppressed in the same way. They ignore intersectionality to purposefully minimize ableist, racist, classist, heterosexist, and cissexist structures so that everything is organizable into a simple and universal M > F dynamic. This way, in their chronically white movement, they, the white woman, is always oppressed and never responsible for the marginalization of others.
Oh. And the OP had the label “fascist” in her username. They’re self aware now, but at what cost?
Trans Exclusionary Radical Fascism, everyone:
The patriarchy is inevitable. Change is impossible. We are never escaping this hell hole.
Some other “gems” I saw, TW for racism, misogyny, ableism, and abuse:
The amount of Arabophobia, Islamophobia, racism, misogyny, and ableism I see in the #feminism tag every day is truly sickening. Like 1/4 of the posts anymore seem to be from white radfems sexualizing Arab, Asian, and Black women (while denigrating and singling out typically Arab, Asian, and Black personal-care and beauty practices) while another good 1/4 of the posts seem to be anti-queer. And then some 50% are porn bots with #sissy kinks. The tag has been trashed by bigots and bots, and I’m surprised that Staff hasn’t marked it mature content yet for the sheer level of porn bots using the tag. Oh, wait. I do know why. It’s because Staff employs JKR stans who would rather label #transfemme as mature content than combat the porn bots.
3 notes
·
View notes