Act 5 Enjoyer

isat sideblog! || Siffrin kinnie || adult || xey/they/he || welcome to my special interest || NOT spoiler free || Main blog

[siffrinsfrozendreams]

Welcome to my In Stars and Time sideblog!

SPOILERS AHEAD!

i usually tag spoilers but i make no guarantees so this is your warning

Call me Siffrin or Siffhunt! (nicknames ok) I use xey/they/he but am also fine with anything EXCEPT she/it! I am an adult, and also neurodivergent

I mainly reblog art, but will also post the occasional rant/analysis and maybe some art of my own (this game has resparked my desire to draw). Also, fanfics!!

AO3 here!

Like/reblog spam is ok!!

Original posts are tagged with #Siffhunt speaks

Active in the official ISAT Discord as "Hunt (OG Act 5 Enjoyer) 🐺🪽". talk to me!!!

This game is my new special interest. Anyone is free to dm/@ me about this game at any time, even if we've never interacted before. i would LOVE to talk about this game

[insertdisc5]

I’ve been made aware that some people have flagged an issue with the ISAT merch from certain vendors where characters are showing up with lighter coloring than they have in the game.

First, I want to thank everyone for their patience while I spoke with the vendors (in this case, The Yetee) directly. I wanted to have all the information before I made a more direct statement, and I think it’s important to make this clear; I hear you, I appreciate this being raised, and I will be working with the Yetee to ensure the next round of restocks for all affected items don’t have this issue again, as well as any vendors I work with going forward. 

Also, I want to make it clear that as a POC myself, I would not tolerate white washing of my characters! I have been very vocal and direct working with everyone around ISAT from merch to marketing and beyond in ensuring the cast is depicted properly. These are not white characters, and even in the impacted merch, that is abundantly clear. Further, as you can see, it’s something that is consistent across other aspects of the same impacted characters’ design, such as Mirabelle’s cloak. This isn’t isolated to skin tones.

To give a bit more detail on why the pieces of merch look lighter, it is due to the printing process. When producing printed goods, whether that's on paper, acrylics, or vinyl, the colors you see on screen are not always exactly the same as what gets printed out— if you've ever fiddled with RGB vs CMYK colors in an art program like Photoshop, you already have an idea of how finicky this can sometimes be, even with grayscale tones. This is why Pantones and set color guides are important when producing merchandise. Moving forward, The Yetee and I intend on reevaluating our ISAT color guides to ensure that characters' appearances are appearing physically closer to what you can see in-game.

I appreciate that people care so much about these characters and how they’re depicted. I want to stress that I would never move forward with anything (merch, marketing asset, whatever) that I felt was deliberately misrepresenting anything I made, or the characters in them.

Lastly, we appreciate The Yetee being so receptive and immediately proactive in wanting to fix this as soon as we reached out, and going forward we'll be more mindful with any additional merch partners to help ensure color accuracy/matching to official artwork. Thank you as always for your patience and understanding!!!

[siffrinsfrozendreams]

hey why did you block the-bitter-ocean on literally every platform when xe politely pointed out this issue to you (an issue that has been ongoing for MONTHS, btw)? Literally nothing in their posts were hateful or anything but you still blocked them and are now trying to just gloss over that fact? Can you please address this?

I feel like if you have an issue with him calling it whitewashing, then you should try to have an actual conversation with him about it. Talking about your POV and having a conversation feels a LOT more productive than blocking and ignoring and denying it entirely. I understand you very likely have good intentions, that you don't want to be promoting merch that whitewashes characters, but ignoring the issue and then blocking the person who forces you to address it is NOT the way to go about this. Ignoring things like this is NEVER a good thing, not for the fandom OR yourself.

[the-bitter-ocean]

Pro tip: blocking a black person for saying “hey your merch is getting whitewashed and I wish you weren’t vague regarding this because other people in the notes are genuinely getting confused and making light of the situation because of said wording” is not helping your case. Hello? How is that holding yourself accountable. In what way.

This is what I said regarding Adrienne’s response to her merch getting whitewashed:

This is because of different people in the notes making jokes, and assuming it to not be as serious or not specifically about whitewashing. I wanted to help clarify and was not meant to be hateful. Adrienne’s response was to block me and only me so that my post wouldn’t show up at all in the notes for other people. I wonder why that is:

This is not a cool response to have to someone politely asking you to not whitewash your black cast.

[the-bitter-ocean]

ISAT yetee merchandise has an ongoing issue with the visibly darker skinned characters of color getting lightened / whitewashed. (IMAGES AND EXPLANATION UNDER THE CUT)

I’m going to preface this with I’m giving both @insertdisc5 and the company yetee the benefit of the doubt because I am doubtful that this is with intentional malice, but it is a growing concern because this is a pattern that has been repeated multiple times across different products offered. Given how the (largely white) fandom space that’s curated online tends to ignore (at best) or perpetuate it directly at worst these harmful instances of characters getting their features erased … the last thing I expected was it happening in a official setting that was in *theory* looked over by the dev directly and approved. Given how the game writing makes the effort to represent the different characters and their culture in a way that felt respectful it felt, hurtful to say the least.

Many people in the fandom including myself have made posts directly commentating on this issue (that happens in fanart very commonly but now also in official merch), as well as emailed yetee and were essentially given the default (sorry, we can’t help at this time) regarding the products coming out lighter. In contrast the poster ( which is on the very same post as the whitewashed keychains and released at the exact same time as a bundle) the timing of it getting fixed for anatomical errors with the hands was handled the next day. When looking at the post I could see that there were plenty of tags, rbs and comments talking of the merch drop that happened on February 9-10 were people expressing their feelings regarding not wanting the characters to be whitewashed. Zero response.

The following photos given I’ve changed to pure grayscale solely so we can gage the values without getting distracted by red or blue tint from the photos. It goes as follows:

Now this isn’t to say that every single instance of isat merch of the characters were all lightened. Some of them like metal pins of the entire group are on model:

And even with the case of the poster or the notecard that came with the mirror photo, the skintones while not completely accurate are at least clear that both Bonnie and mirabelle werent lightened at all and are darker than their canon in game sprites. I’d rather have the characters be a tad darker than average than lightened or having features removed:

It’s clear that rather than the artist themselves of the merch doing the whitewashing, it’s due to whatever printer yetee has making the skintones far lighter than it should and that’s a problem. It’s misrepresenting the characters as well as the artists who worked hard to actually be on model to begin with. To me the solution is if you know the printer will print values lighter, you need to make the scans darker in post before delivery to compensate. Actually do multiple tests in person to check for consistency and quality instead of just rely on the display photo and hoping for the best.

I want everyone in this community ( especially those of color like myself) to feel represented and safe in the fandom space we’re in. I know some people have expressed fear of criticizing anything related to the game, because they didn’t want to come across as mean spirited or ruining the vibes or afraid of being on the receiving backlash/ hate from people when expressing anything less then 100% positive of a popular creator of work, but I didn’t want this to just get buried and forgotten or go unaddressed. If it’s not talked about and given the chance to fix it properly, we all just end up making the same mistakes over and over, become complacent and then slowly the environment of the space isn’t welcoming as it used to be. Again, to be clear this isn’t meant to be hate for hates sake or bad faith criticism. I say this with nothing but love as a fan for this games story, characters and all the lovely folks I’ve met while playing.

[hazelnuthelperexpansionpack]

Lost children

[catfrin]

[ JUST ATTACK ]

[solanumflare]

on the topic of the King--

he is a complex but fucked up guy who does horrible things and justifies it internally with nonsense logic built upon his beliefs and sucky past-- that type of character is usually people's Favorite Guy.

examples:

light yagami death note

every persona villain

akechi p5

dazai bsd

fyodor bsd

akutagawa bsd

I could list more bsd characters but I will not

jax tadc

luka alien stage

arguably, thistle dunmeshi

william afton (is that his name??)

half the characters in milgram

joshua twewy

uzuki + kariya twewy

actually every reaper

every mechanism

every tma character

omori

virtually every homestuck character

the list goes on and on and on and

SO. I really want to know. why is the king not on this list of problematic faves. why is he not "my evil blorbo i will think about 24/7." why is he just plain and simple hated. Is the ISAT fandom just not made of people who like this type of character? Is it for some other reason?? the king is one of my Favorite Guys In All Of Fiction. My Irredeemable Problematic Blorbo (trademark symbol.) My Fucked Up Little Guy. I Love Him. so when I ask, hey, why don't you like the king, it's me trying to actually figure it out-- because I come from fandom spaces where characters who do awful things and are terrible and horrible due to some fucked up past are the ones everyone loves. just wanted to clarify that. I really want to get perspective.

the reason I ask to hear arguments that aren't laundry-listing his actions in-game is because I want to see if there is another argument. so I can understand your perspective and why that is what you think.

I think I come across as approaching this from bad faith. I'm not. I really am sorry I sound that way. I want to know what people who aren't me are thinking, and understand the larger fandom that isn't me and my few king enjoyer friends.

[solanumflare]

isat fandom: tell me why you hate The King / think he's evil / want him to suffer / want him to die. I genuinely want to know. please don't just answer "he killed bonnie / he killed mira / he froze a country in time"-- i want to know beyond that. (I personally see flaws in those arguments: if the King is evil solely for killing party members, the party probably isn't great because they kill him without hesitation every time you need to get to Euphrasie. If the King is evil solely for freezing Vaugarde, then siffrin isn't exactly not evil seeing as he was completely willing to stay in the loops forever, which is fundamentally very, very similar. etc. I want to hear about your dislike or hatred of the king without it being a "citing the horrible things he's done." what makes him deserve death and torture?)

[siffrinsfrozendreams]

Hello, I'm a ghost haunting you, as the ghost haunting you, I'll give you some advice to get rid of me STARS DAMN IT, KEEP WRITING THE "BACK IN THE BLINDING BUILDING AGAIN!!!" FANFIC, IT'S BEEN MONTHS WITHOUT AN UPDATE OR EVEN A SIGN OF LIFE, ACTUALLY SCRAP THAT, UPDATE YOUR FANFICS??? ARE YOU GOING UNDER THE AO3 AUTHOR CURSE OR WHY THE HECK HAVE YOU NOT SHOWN SIGN OF LIFE IN AO3 FOR MONTHS?????????????

Hey so this is actually extremely not okay. I've seen all the comments you've left on that fic, as well as this. I've purposefully ignored them. This is not an okay way to ask for more of a fic you like, or for anything, really.

Fic authors do not get paid for the work they do. They are under no contract or obligation to write them at all, or continue works. Trust me, I understand how upsetting it is to get attached to an abandoned work, but that does not make it okay to HARASS the author for more work.

You do NOT know what reasons the author has for not continuing fics, and constantly begging them for more by leaving many comments saying "hey update this work! hey keep writing this! hey author why havent you updated this fic!!!" does NOT help. it does NOT motivate the author to keep writing or continue their fic.

You do NOT know why an author has dropped a work, or put a work on hiatus. It could be as simple as "lost interest", or there could be personal life things getting in the way, stopping them from writing a fic they desperately want to continue. it is unfair to them to comment multiple times on their fic asking them for more, and does not make them feel any better about their reason for dropping it.

Will i continue writing the fic? have i dropped it permanently? why did i stop writing it or put it on pause? i am not obligated to tell you, and you have not made me want to tell you, either.

Maybe i will continue it. maybe i wont. maybe itll be a while before i continue it. I'm not going to tell you. I'm glad you enjoyed it, but do remember there is a real life person who writes the fics you read and that you should show them respect, instead of harassing them for more.

[yora-whatevs]

You feel a tug on your stomach.

[pillowspace]

[paintscroll]

Happy Pride, I can't stop thinking about Isabeau

[appleciderjulie]

something about the audience and two cakes or whatever

[startagainaprologue]

wanted to draw meeble with glasses again.. circular edition

bonus

[loukinglass]

He IS weak to rock attacks, after all.

[valictini]

I didn’t know it was Odile’s birthday and drew these on a whim… well, happy birthday Odile!!!

(Love the idea of her completely destroying someone while using a dainty-looking fan.)

[featheredspectre]

Mal likes food, its just that shrimple

anyways im disappearing for that joke now /silly