#melonposting

[smile-files]

it's endlessly fascinating how steve cobs talks about the show just like walkie talkie. he sees all this potential in it as a concept, all the ways it would be better without mephone in the picture, while neglecting the fact that it only exists in any capacity because of mephone. he's treating ii as an abstract entity, even though it's really something mephone created by hand

[yoshikunes]

Harmony Melons 😭❤️❤️❤️

OC belongs to @xenogiri

[ksodirty]

[staypuff]

melon man. he spotty like seeds.

[soda-peep]

I got a little silly, here’s a irl basil watermelon fusion

[i-hate-smile-files]

Sometimes I wonder how @smile-files feels knowing that they're living proof that God does make mistakes

[30-th-century-man]

new tag

thinkung about cantaloupe rn th e tasty flesh

[smile-files]

i am in awe of their tism

[smile-files]

eddie...

[smile-files]

this is terrifying??? what the hell??????

[smile-files]

something interesting i realized while on the vessel-making screen in the deltarune introduction is that it's physically impossible to make kris: there is no hair that perfectly matches theirs (none have the cowlick or the right jagged shape on the bottom), and there is no sweater that perfectly matches theirs (none have a single stripe). this is fascinating, as it perhaps suggest that, if we (the player) had a choice, we *wouldn't* make kris. they aren't something we want, or are even capable of wanting, rather something we're stuck with.

and i suppose the fact that they can't be *created* as a vessel is telling, because we didn't create kris -- they weren't made for us, they're not a player avatar. they're a pre-existing person we just happen to gain possession of.

we weren't made for each other; they don't want us, and we don't seem to want them either (if the inability to choose to create someone like them says anything); funny, then, that in a way we're "soulmates"...

(both pictures are from the deltarune wiki!)

[smile-files]

i'm trying to do some speculative biology stuff on how dragons could exist: provided i'm thinking of the typical hexapod/six-limbed dragon (four legs and two wings), however, i have to contrive reasons for how the extra set of limbs would arise on a quadruped, and how they'd function (wyvern dragons are much easier to envision, as they're just scarier pterodactyls); i'm also curious as to how dragons would behave given their anatomy. assorted thoughts below...

for one thing, i instantly imagined dragons evolving from dinosairs. i was thinking of some sort of conjoined/parasitic twin mutation common to the dragon species which would add the extra wings, but that idea rested on one twin having the wing-limbs to contribute to the wingless dominant twin, which apparently would be impossible as all conjoined twins are identical (which is pretty obvious now that i think about it). i should still keep the conjoined twins idea in my back pocket, though, so there could be hydras!

maybe the extra limbs would just be a product of polymelia, specifically notomelia... as it is, though, i'm wondering how the mutant extra limbs would evolve into wings fast enough that the mutation could even persist in the population: the presence of the extra limbs would likely be a hinderance for as long as they aren't actively beneficial, after all. maybe i can look into how pterodactyl and archaeopteryx wings evolved to get a sense of how that occurred: for them, too, any evolutionary stage at the midpoint between leg and wing would likely have not been specialized enough in either direction to be helpful, so the transition must've been quick/direct and therefore a product of a single large mutation with subsequent refinements. for dragons, i could imagine two stages, with a simpler, smaller wing evolving in a quick first pass -- giving the animal more air time when leaping -- and a second stage of the wings enlarging to provide the capacity for real flight. (either way i'd imagine that dragons, like birds and mammals, would initially be very small and only evolve to their maximum size after the extinction of the dinosaurs.) i'd have to look more into the occurrence of notomelia and what causes it (does it even occur in reptiles/dinosaurs?), to see how realistic it would be for it to occur commonly within a species and produce fully-functioning limbs.

i'm picturing dragons as carnivorous, meaning they'd likely evolve from theropods: this would make sense, given theropods' hollow bones, as well as their evolutionary proximity to birds. with that in mind, having the wings as an extra set of limbs would be especially beneficial, as all four of the animal's legs could be maintained: the hindlegs for running, and the forelegs for grasping (these would necessarily not be tiny like a t-rex's). also, the idea of feathered dragons is a very fun one: imagine the vivid colors and patterns they could have!

in terms of size, we tend to picture dragons as very large -- however, i'd have to keep in mind that the larger the animal, the harder it will be to maintain lift and fly efficiently, especially if the animal in question has more than four limbs to carry in addition to its body. there have been some genuinely huge flying reptiles and birds in existence, such as quetzalcoatlus northropi (~35 ft wingspan, 440-550 lbs weight) and pelagornis sandersi (~20 ft wingspan, 48-44 lbs weight) -- and these awesome animals were able to fly, despite being so massive! there are several factors that would contribute to this, including the giant wingspan and hollow bones. because of the weight of the extra limbs, i doubt a hexapod dragon could grow quite as massive as quetzalcoatlus and still be able to fly well, though i still think it would be possible for them to be very large; it's worth mentioning, too, that having four legs to power liftoff would make it more viable for a dragon to take to the skies at all.

in myth, dragons often breathe fire; i don't think i could manage to find a reasonable biological means of that evolving, though perhaps dragons could evolve to spit venom, which would be a more realistic means of delivering a ranged, burning attack. in flight, the dragon could take down its prey by targeting it with venom, then quickly snatch it up with its forelegs to eat without ever alighting. sounds evolutionarily beneficial to me: very efficient, and very awesome.

tying into the trope of a greedy dragon's hoard, perhaps dragons are especially keen to shiny objects, which they can see from afar: with this mid-flight grasping maneuver, they'd snatch them up to add to a bowerbird-like nest decorated with "treasure". to connect more with myth, dragons are often associated with weather, storms in particular; perhaps dragons migrate at high altitudes during rainy seasons, creating that correlation.

it should be noted, too, that the reality in which i'm picturing these dragons is one in which humans also exist. these humans, witnessing the behaviors of these awe-inspiring creatures, would tell stories about them: they breathe fire (they spit venom), and they abduct children (they snatch up their prey in their claws), and they steal treasure from kings (they take shiny things for their nests), and they control the weather (they migrate during the rainy season). perhaps humans aren't their main prey source, causing dragons to be a fear but not a genuine threat to humans (like how we view sharks); or perhaps dragons indeed regularly eat humans, meaning humans have to live out of sight of them. in the latter case, considering how dragons are highly effective predators, they might drive humans towards extinction!

i hope you enjoyed my spec-bio ramble on the evolution, physiology, and behavior of dragons! it's very fun to think about :)

[smile-files]

nickel and balloon stuff from spring on the breakfast!!! i'm keeping in mind that in the previous episode, both of them were under the impression that their friendship wasn't real...

in a way, ii3 balloon is a lot like late ii3 cabby. of course, balloon did something indisputably immoral (manipulate and exploit others), and cabby only did something thought to be immoral (keep and use files about her fellow contestants) -- but both did something wrong and had to subsequently undergo a disproportionate amount of abuse and malignment for it, ending up with them being apologetic and submissive to avoid any chance of being framed as bad again. the biggest difference is that cabby has internalized the guilt others have attributed to her, while balloon largely hasn't -- he understands the concept of rolling with the punches for the sake of keeping good connections, but he doesn't believe he deserves it.

nickel brushes off ii2 a LOT this episode. to rid himself of his guilt regarding that time, he necessarily has to delegitimize the hatred he felt towards balloon then, thus also ridding balloon of his guilt. he expresses this all vaguely, choosing to remember ii2 fondly and saying off-hand that its baggage should be laughed off -- implying that balloon has been forgiven. reasonably, balloon is happy that nickel seems to actually believe he's changed for the better, so initially this makes him happy.

of course, though, it becomes clear that nickel just wants to shove his own actions under the rug, and balloon reasonably gets pissed off. nickel treated balloon and suitcase like complete garbage in ii2, and balloon clearly hasn't forgotten that.

"it keeps things easy." it keeps things easy to roll with the punches, to endure nickel's abuse and accept his sudden friendship. note, also, that nickel is still placing the blame on balloon: he's saying that balloon didn't want to "make things better", as if nickel and balloon ever having a rift was entirely balloon's fault, and his problem to fix.

and as we can see, nickel still hasn't fully forgiven balloon for ii1. as i've discussed before, nickel seems to secretly feel incredible guilt about how he treated balloon in ii2 (which is why he goes to such lengths to repress the whole memory of it) -- but that guilt is about the way in which he expressed his disdain and distrust of balloon, not those opinions themselves, nor the motivations for them. this is all very interesting, then -- if he still believes balloon can't change from his old, bad self, why did nickel start being friends with him at all?

i think a large part of it is his projection onto balloon. nickel sees himself in balloon: someone who screwed up big-time and isn't able to become a better person after that (according to nickel). we tend to gravitate to people similar to us, after all. i wouldn't be surprised if nickel was also trying to overcompensate for his hostility towards balloon in ii2 by being very friendly with him in ii3, thereby helping him forget that he was ever hostile to him at all.

the most fascinating thing to me about balloon and nickel's relationship is how impersonal it is for balloon. he seems to value what nickel's affection represents rather than nickel himself -- and it represents that he's been forgiven. anyone who saw balloon and nickel's conflict in ii2, which was a product of balloon's nastiness in ii1 and nickel's subsequent inability to forgive that nastiness, would likely come to accept balloon and forgive him themselves if they then saw nickel being friendly with him -- because nickel is the epitome of the ii contestants' anger at him, and nickel of all people (seemingly) forgiving him would imply that he's really changed. the relationship is almost entirely a symbol in that regard. i don't think balloon has much residual guilt about is actions in ii1 -- he feels like he's adequately addressed them and changed -- but nickel having a positive relationship would be helpful in affirming that stance and proving to himself that he really has changed.

i wouldn't say it's cruel of balloon to keep this relationship going on under that pretense, but it is backhanded, and it helps explain why he was ever willing to accept nickel's friendliness unchallenged. he wanted his crimes to finally be laid to rest once and for all, and keeping nickel on good terms with him would let that happen. people would finally shut up about it. up until now, nickel wasn't explicitly denying his past cruelty towards balloon anyway, so balloon would be able to ignore that he neglected to ever bring it up; now, though, nickel is denying not only what he did to balloon but also to suitcase, which balloon is not able to tolerate. now that he's confronted nickel about that though, nickel snaps back with his condemnation of what balloon did in ii1, thereby uprooting the social stasis balloon had been able to maintain precisely because nickel refused to bring anything up before. in a way, then, balloon is purposefully shoving the past under the rug, just like nickel is.

we can't forget, though, that nickel has his own complex about fearing that he's incapable of change and incapable of forming positive, genuine relationships with people. balloon is essentially revealing that, in a way, he wasn't really friends with nickel -- at least not in the way nickel wished and fooled himself into thinking they were. if balloon truly were friends with nickel like that, then that would mean that balloon had forgiven him for his cruelty in ii2, and perhaps that he really has changed... but no. balloon hasn't forgiven him. why should he? nickel never apologized -- and given how he never apologized, it's impossible that he could've changed anyway: nickel doesn't want to apologize because that means addressing his guilt and allowing himself to feel it. he wants the forgiveness to be handed to him on a silver platter, without him having to do all of the painful work, and he's incredibly upset when it isn't. he wants to not be a bad person, but in order to do that, he has to feel like one, and he really doesn't want to. he hates who he was and doesn't want to associate with it at all.

(note how it's the suitcase robot who says "you can say sorry" when nickel says that nothing can be done about making things better...)

there's clearly an immeasurable amount of resentment these two have been harboring for each other throughout this season, which they'd only been hiding for the sake of fooling themselves into thinking they've changed (nickel) or thinking that others think they've changed (balloon). and now that they've let themselves explode with anger, partly related to the lies they'd been telling themselves falling apart, they yell at each other and balloon drops nickel down a hole!

ah, balloon and nickel's relationship... it's bizarre, it's toxic, it's convoluted, it's shady, and it's incredibly sad. i'm glad i'm revisiting ii3, especially this episode -- i used to be utterly baffled by nickel's writing, particularly in spring on the breakfast, but now it makes complete sense to me. also, i used to think balloon was entirely the victim in this relationship, while now i know that he has his own faults and own baggage in that regard. it's weird -- they hate each other, but at the same time they're dying to be liked by one another. god i love these freaks...

[smile-files]

object show dashboard simulator

2 notes

🛒shop-png Follow

i swear to cart if one more object tries to use me to buy their groceries i will explode

✂️ i-beat-paper Follow

um well maybe if you stop hanging out in the grocery store 24/7 folks won't use you like you're a regular shopping cart???

🛒shop-png Follow

dude i work at the grocery store. go outside and cut some grass

46 notes

🧩 fuzzypuzzle Follow

this week was soooo fun!!!

sunday: sat in a field

monday: sat in a field

tuesday: smiled at a bug

wednesday: sat in a field

thursday: sat in a field

friday: died :P

saturday: sat in a field

i hope all of you had a good week too <33

🪀 yay-for-yo-yo Follow

OMY same!!!! but i smiled at 2 bugs, not 1.

soooo happy to see you happy, puzzle piece!!!!!! :D

🪵 logrot23 Follow

hey sorry is this a mutuals only thing? or can i also talk about my week

🧩 fuzzypuzzle Follow

oh no worries, go ahead!!! :)

🪵 logrot23 Follow

i killed 17 people

21 notes

🍰 cake-at-stake Follow

lol you bfdi lovers WISH you had my url

🔥 fireyfan1 Follow

UGH

137 notes

❄️ fragile-snowflake Follow

what the flake is wrong with you people making thirst posts about fan. you know he's on here right?? he can see that

🥨 pretzelboy2008 Follow

who said i don't want him to see it? ;)

❄️ fragile-snowflake Follow

i will eat you

2,395 notes

🧍‍♂️theguy9348 Follow

Hey guys, I hope you're ready for my face reveal...

What do you think? I hope I don't look too ugly...

⚙️ machines-in-love Follow

EWWWW what's this thing doing on the object website???? for cog's sake, sending this guy to the TLC right now

💀 flamingskull Follow

haha op isn't it so funny that i'm a sentient version of your bones

202 notes

☢️ rad-positivity Follow

friends, remember that it's always okay to ask for a hug when you need one. you are valid and you are seen <3

🪥 toothteller Follow

okay maybe for me but if anyone gave you a hug they'd die. you're literally a biohazard

☢️ rad-positivity Follow

there's always recovery centers :) i'm just prioritizing my mental health <3

🪥 toothteller Follow

what is wrong with you? can we make out?

97 notes

🪭 inanimateinsanityfan Follow

now i know what it feels like to have... obsessive fans...

for totally unrelated reasons i won't be active on this blog for an unspecified amount of time :D

🌡fantubeshipper4life Follow

omga i bet it's cuz he's getting married!!!!!

🪭 inanimateinsanityfan Follow

kill yourself

5,873 notes

🧲 pozitive Follow

is it just me, or am i always drawn to pessimists?

[other positive charges DNI. i will block you]

13 notes

🍀 ii3clover Follow

tee hee :)

9,865 notes

🙂 smile-files Follow

💧bfb-teardrop Follow

:) ?

🙂 smile-files Follow

oh my goodness

[smile-files]

i almost forgot i was right in the middle of the ii3 finale???? more analysis with context from ii16. this is a long one!!

how springy talks about spring-bot like an itty bitty baby is reminiscent of how cobs infantilizes mephone and how bot themselves is also kind of infantilized... there's a point here about how having consciously created someone makes them feel like less of a person and more of an object in relation to you, with less human agency. you're the parent, and they're your child. the dual definition of "child" as both offspring and youth really plays a part here. even if your creation is mature, they'll always be a child to you, if you know what i mean.

interestingly, springy singles spring-bot out from the other spring-toys. as we know now, there is something more "real" about bot than the other contestants in that they weren't created by mephone, in that they are consciously aware of their creation and purpose and can thus choose their own path in that context. springy has fixated on bot ever since they first interacted; does springy somehow know they're the one exception?

and speaking of exceptions, bot is one of the only two nonbinary characters on the show, and given how they only came out as such right when the only other one was eliminated (paintbrush), they went on to feel really alone in that for a while; this is tied into the symbol that is bot being, well, a robot, which they are also alone in. bot had a whole speech to n/a about how both of them are "the only one of their kind" in a sense, and how there should be more of them, but for now they can find solace in the other people who'll support them anyway.

but springy is artificially making more of bot's kind, more robots artificially aware of being robots, more symbolically queer people. springy is terribly misunderstanding what makes bot special: they weren't programmed to be nonbinary, or programmed to be self-aware, or programmed to behave like someone aware of the fact that they were programmed... no, that's something bot did themselves. bot could've chosen to live forever under the guise of bow, under the guise of their "purpose"; but who bot is as a person, everything springy fixates on and fetishizes and wants to recreate, is everything bot wasn't created to be.

"i wish this was a mask!" ...bot realized they were being forced to wear the "mask" of bow, being forced to fulfill a "purpose", and was able to choose who they were because of that realization. but springy is denying that his purpose is any different from who he is: it isn't a mask he puts on. according to him, springy is indistinguishable from his purpose. springy idolizes bot's self-discovery, but doesn't believe in the agency behind it - and so springy wants to artificially recreate it without any agency involved...

...but in trying to do so, springy is undermining that self-discovery entirely. they clearly desire the ability to defy purpose, but they simultaneously submit to it, and thereby see purpose as a worthy means to an end: just as test tube and fan imposed the purpose of "being bow" on bot, springy is imposing the purpose of "being bot" on spring-bot.

springy is still caught up in the idea of "purpose", even if he thinks that idea is bad, something especially apparent when he begs for approval of having fulfilled his purpose of being helpful and making others smile.

springy, following their interaction with cabby about spring-bot, realizes they can be more than just their purpose; however, as the spring-toys were made while springy was still following his original purpose, and were thus made to take down mephone, they still obey walkie talkie in doing so.

in this episode, walkie talkie and springy talk a lot about their own "purpose", what they were "built" to do. there are a lot of implications that these two were also created by mephone, though definitely not consciously; they're more so projections of some of his inner desires, like having the show continue indefinitely or having it be lucrative (and treating the contestants like "toys" in a sense).

springy takes pride in being more than just his purpose; walkie talkie, meanwhile, takes pride in still having her purpose and still fulfilling it.

as walkie is antagonistic toward mephone, he immediately assumes she's working for steve cobs -- which is strikingly similar to his accusation of toilet working for cobs. toilet wasn't antagonistic, no, but he was incredibly annoying to mephone; and we know from the ii14 ending scene, and with the current context, that toilet was made by mephone (as he was attacked by mephone x and presumably deleted). walkie, too, was made by mephone; we get this thru-line here of mephone despising people who bother him, people who are really extensions of himself... people who want to defy what they were made for, but have difficulty doing that...

really, we don't know how much mephone knows now; he knows that, to some extent, these people's purposes revolve around him, but i'm not sure if he'd be fully clued into the fact that he made them. in any event, this is all a troubling revelation to him.

weirdly, while the other spring-toys deactivate when walkie talkie is turned off, the toy version of bot doesn't. well, given how spring-bot was programmed to defy programming, one would expect that it wouldn't "obey" being stopped. it's funny: effectively, spring-bot is more obedient to purpose/programming than the other spring-toys, because of its unnuanced defiance.

who is springy saying this to? spring-bot... or himself? he's sacrificing himself to save mephone, truly defying his purpose of being self-serving; he's ultimately choosing who he wants to be. we don't see spring-bot for the rest of the episode, so it's unclear what happens with it.

interestingly, though springy was created by mephone, mephone had to make a melife icon for them: springy didn't automatically have one. perhaps mephone technically has the capacity to regenerate anyone he creates, but he only naturally has the option to do so for his contestants? cuz reasonably, they'd be the ones dying over and over in his challenges?

at the same time, though, didn't dough turn into a ghost because he died before mephone created a melife icon for him? my theory is the following: if a person mephone creates dies before having a melife icon, mephone has a short window of time to create their icon and regenerate them before it's too late, at which point they'd die permanently and turn into a ghost.

balloon seems surprised that mephone's able to recover a non-contestant; as it is, now that mephone knows he can do so (on account of what walkie said), he does do so.

mephone comparing himself to cobs!! his seasons as his creations!!! something something that cool "we both reached for the gun" ii amv. you know.

i love how ambiguous his wording is here. "responsible [...] for these guys" could mean anything from mephone being in charge of their safety and happiness to being the reason they exist. and he's saying he's "responsible" for more than just his contestants, and that he "can help them, too"; does "them" refer to his contestants, or to whatever it is he's referring to aside from his contestants? is that folks like walkie talkie, springy, toilet, etc? those non-contestants he made and whom he knows revolve around him, even if he doesn't know directly that he created them? so many double-meanings here.

...

i've been able to understand the unvitational committee a lot more this time around, especially walkie talkie and springy; knowing their motivations and "purpose" in the context of ii16 makes it a lot more meaningful. the ii3 finale overall was pretty well-written i believe! not my favorite part of the season, but it wrapped it up pretty well, i think.

i must apologize to ii3! i used to be so negative about it all... but it's actually pretty darn good. very flawed in a lot of ways, certainly, and those flaws make me very mad (the way the show treated bot and cabby in particular), but the season overall is enjoyable and fascinating, and it fits into the lore very well :) love you ii3!!

[smile-files]

it's funny how meta this episode gets, treating ii not only as a show but as an animated show that could be produced via the animation machine. and regarding this quote, it's also true with what we know now -- mephone is that "revolutionary technology" negating his show's need for real writers or contestants