#[ shrug

[ottopilot-sfw]

This is why in Japan, KFC is a tradition on Christmas Eve, the holiday for lovers.

[slimmestslime]

veeery miniscule wimblet doobles

[doctorwyvern]

and i get so doggone lonesome

[noxious-muck]

The Goat Game (and the lamb is there too)

[skeletood]

ohhh the things they would have said to each other :(

[purple-ravaged]

hands off parenting :]

[gemsalive]

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

[calnoc]

the reason why hockey players have to wear helmets with visors is to prevent them from making out

[astrozure]

i'll give you everything i have

[ahllohehn]

I FOUND IT I FOUND IT I FOUND IT YOU REACHED 1K!!!!/nf

Okay, okay- congratulations

cw // suggestive idk (cus what did you expect from 'making out') , kissing , hermitshipping

i was gonna add more but im busy and im terrible at drawing men kissing apparently (got embarrassed and took most of the drawing process trying to walk it off)

[proxolagist]

something shitty for fun

[words-of-wrath]

I know this has been said over and over a thousand times. But, people, please take care of your tops/doms.

There's a reason a trans service top is such a hot commodity, a reason we don't see a lot of them.

In my experience, which is transfem, we are seen as predatory. But it goes deeper still than that for just about any top and dom.

See, when subs express their desires it's often at their own expense. "Please rape me, choke me, drown me, etc."

But a dom expresses their desire at someone else's expense. "I want to rape you, I want to choke you, I want to drown you, I want to cut you, etc."

Its easy to blow off a sub expressing desire at their expense in a kink space. But I feel like it's harder for people who don't understand these types of kinks to be comfortable around us.

Which usually leads to exclusion.

You can be discomforted with me as a service top with a snuff kink, but excluding me is actionable and not okay for a healthy environment.

And subs, bottoms, doms and tops need aftercare to. I get that we are doing horrid things to you and you need to be taken care of afterward, but holy hell you need to check in with us as the ones doing these things at your expense. We love you! That's why we do this, but please take care of us to.

Often I see subs and bottoms expecting all the attention and care and giving none of it back.

Please be kind to your tops and doms, especially when they have very hard kinks such as a myself.

🖤🖤🖤

[tibbycaps]

O_O -_-

[doctorfunk]

[lockedtombmemes]

sometimes i think about how profoundly harrow would hate all of us

[fruit-of-the-kaisarion]

Listen up, you motherfuckers.