re: that HEFTY siffrin sweep on id5’s isat favourite blorbos poll — this might sound silly but i do actually think it’s kinda fascinating that isat, as a game so inseparably steeped in (for lack of a better way to describe it) queer fandom culture, managed to so completely sidestep the common Fandom Phenomenon that i suspect was behind the poll in the first place by creating a main character that is also overwhelmingly the fan favourite character for once.
obviously there are any number of factors we could point at to explain the extent to which siffrin nomiddlenames nolastnames manages to grab people and absolutely not let go, but personally i think one of the most interesting ones to consider is the one specific to the medium — that is, how siffrin subverts the “silent blank slate video game protagonist” archetype in such a way that happens to be primo brainrot breeding grounds.
like, when a video game dev makes a silent protagonist it’s usually a bid to maximize immersion by closing the aesthetic distance between player and character as much as possible, right? which is especially true of rpg video games — players find connection in the generic, as that is what gives you the freedom of motion to insert yourself into the story in whatever unique shape suits you best. you are your character and your character is you.
(as ever, post ran long. yall know the drill. tossin in a quick header pic before thoughts on blank slates & blorboification continue under the cut)
and then you’ve got siffrin, who is expressly pointed out to be the taciturn type; who when initially giving the player exposition about their journey so far doesn’t seem to hint at a life or history or even really any motivations outside the journey; whose every thought and action is narrated in second person so as to keep tracing and re-tracing the connection between him and you.
even their design — all darkless and shapeless, bundled up in that big cloak, as if an invitation for you to fill it in with whatever lets you relate to them most! at this point they are their own character for sure, but they also have enough very clear parallels going on with the silent protagonist archetype to feel more than accidental.
of course, as you keep playing you start to recognize that his blankness is much, much more than just a grab at immersion; his apparent lack of backstory, itself a fundamental piece of backstory. this is where he flips dramatically in the player’s perception from “generic vessel for story delivery” to “thoroughly multidimensional character trapped within endless torment nexus custom-built to target and exacerbate all his very specific worst traits rooted in very specific traumas”.
yknow, the good stuff !
but by then you have also been playing enough to be feeling the effects of the thing isat’s design does best of all. i’m talkin bout that ludonarrative lockstep baby. every piece of isat’s gameplay is designed to make you feel what siffrin is feeling — you understand by now that he is not a stand-in for you, but all the same you share in his frustration, his grief, his rare moments of joy and the subsequent heart-in-your-shoes devastation when that joy is inevitably poisoned — and through it all, the desperate grasping for anything new — all as if they were every bit your own.
so in this way the connection is maintained, even if you were someone for whom siffrin’s particular traits & struggles might not otherwise cause you relate to them at all if you had encountered them elsewhere, in a setting where you weren’t actively controlling them as a player. siffrin still gets to carry all the “just like me fr” impact of the blank slate protagonist in the tropes he embodies and in the game mechanics’ design, while totally free to evolve completely into his own character and keep you relating to closely them all the same. now toss back in the fact that said traits & struggles very much ARE of a flavour that a great many people Would Tend To Relate To and just like that you’ve got a perfect storm cookin.
too individual and compellingly written to be an empty vessel for plot delivery. too closely connected with the player’s emotional state to be a story observed impassively from the outside. he has 92 mental illnesses and for the low low price of free u can give him yours to carry too. nobody is doin it like him. congratulations on your well-deserved nose sniffrin nomiddlenames nolastnames <3
huh? hwhuh? you didnt perform your role convincingly enough on your way up through the house before talking to your researcher at the end, you say? call that the mortifying odile of being known
yknow the new anxiety pins dropping has me thinking all over again about how interesting it is, in a very Storytelling Fairytale Logic sort of way, that anxiety seemed to lose all its power both over the narrative and over the metaspace of the tpoh fan community (ie as a scary theory-generating entity) the moment it gave away its name
they won’t let you reach out to hover a hand forever just shy of your companion’s shoulders, all the while oblivious to how screamingly desperate they really are for a touch that will never come anymore. because of Joke
@moipale's new postcanon loop oneshot tidelocked is really, really good. however sometimes to write really really good fic you need to take a break to write really really dumb scenes
tidelocked is 14.8k of loop's postcanon persistence in someone else's home, in someone else's life, in a fifth bedroom by the seaside -- and true to faedemon form, every last word of it is utterly, utterly devastating from beginning to gut-wrenching end.
if you've read tidelocked you will know full well all the ways this illustration doesn't actually make sense as a faithful recreation of the scene it would have been from, but hey! it's a goof. we're calling it bonus content. if you haven't read the fic, know that i am strongly urging you to go read the fic so you can point and laugh at the inaccuracies with the rest of us. i promise you will not regret it
was really entertained by the idea of odile swearing like some kind of ka buan captain haddock so. isat x tintin fake panel redraw inspired by @openphrase123’s addition to this silly post GO
(btw: per original post, url’s officially Changed now! @/starsalive -> @gemsalive 💫💎)
okay i have no idea where on the scale of Hot Take to Restating The Obvious this falls, but i remain entirely convinced that bonnie has never actually hated puns.
of course it’s a fun trait to play up for comedic effect sometimes, but the moment i saw them let out that unguarded little laugh at siffrin’s goof at the third floor door before catching themself and remembering to correct back into The Rage (TM) the possibility that said rage could be genuine pretty much instantly wiped itself from my mind. like ohh okay that is a preteen doing the classic preteen thing of overperforming an opposite reaction to hide how much they truly care, got it 👍
