#ISaT Act 5 Spoilers

[nu-reality]

The Solstice arrives!

And Chrimbo with it, and with that, the ISAT Gift Exchange! Something a certain bee dragged me into quickly after it was openned and something I quietly entered and then went radio silent for a month while working on ideas... And like always, I got experimental and weird with it. And with the week of gifting commenced, here is mine for @siliconforbrains !!

Merry Chromblibininy

EDIT BECAUSE I FORGOT ONE OF THE TAGS AAAA

[bee4078]

new isat art dropped!

[rose-petal123]

I asked my friends for color palettes to draw with cuz I LOVE doing that and. Decided to do a redraw of that act 5 art. isat cyberpunk au blast

[kazehita]

They're alone.

Happy ISAT aniverserary!! This was my piece for @ourtimeinthestars zine!

[coffeewolfart]

(You see a vision of the unending present.)

Got inspired by @tawnysoup's drawing of what the Bigfrin boss fight looks like from the party's POV, and I thought "what if Siffrin had a special attack like the King lol". So here you go! This would probably show up when Siffrin tries to loop back.

[scribblekinqq]

Your Wish Is..!!!

hi i saw these two act 5 resolution drawings and i wanted to see them put together so… yeah

anyways please go play “in stars and time” from @insertdisc5 cuz it was genuinely such a wonderful game - especially if you stream it with friends who can do silly voices (like making isabeau southern!)

[tiredhams]

A broken wish

Act 5, alias the best worst act ever

Bonnie and Isabeau are holding onto poor Siffrin, poor fella

[poorlydrawninstarsandtime]

an extremely normal heart to heart between two very mentally stable fellas.

[ids in alt]

[unstopable8000]

This was how Act 5 went, right?

[bogkeep]

so bury me as it pleases you, lover

at sea, or deep within the catacomb

[fanart for in stars and time]

[crispinkiss]

he isn't jealous as much as he's confused really

also please appreciate the mibble

and this gay star

[tac-bat]

isat server was curious what some inverted scenes (and loop) looked like, so I delivered. Really cool to see the entire mood change for these

[lucabyte]

you dream of devouring your friends whole

[marstheluminary]

two sides of the same coin

[memory0fself]

(the figure opens its mouth...)

[iluvylalevu]

A (Hopefully Coherent) Ramble About What Mal Du Pays Represents

So this might be a little over the place cuz I don’t really do analysis, but the battle with Mal Du Pays has really stuck with me, hear me out (and take this doodle)

So as we know, Mal Du Pays is essentially the embodiment of Siffrin’s self-hatred and intrusive thoughts, but what I find interesting is that it also represents the part of Siffrin that suffers because of it. Mal Du Pays is basically the embodiment of self-destructing thoughts; It spends the battle emotionally torturing Siffrin, but it also spends the battle silently screaming and crying.

And the name meaning “homesickness” is also a detail I find fascinating because most of the things Mal Du Pays says have little to do with the forgotten country, with the exception being Odile’s remarks about the lack of a home equating to a lack of identity. Homesickness is characterized by longing; yearning for the warmth and familiarity of home while being away from it, yet most of what Mal Du Pays says has to do with the party. To Siffrin, his party is home. While it pains them greatly that their country and entire childhood are gone, the thought of losing his new family terrifies and pains him more. He spent so long belonging nowhere, they’re terrified of losing the one place he feels like he belongs to now. He wants to be with them really badly, to the point he was subconsciously willing to hold them hostage.

Siffrin is a person made for loving. He loves strongly and wants to be loved back, but paradoxically this is also the reason he hates himself. They think it’s selfish to want that love back, they think their happiness shouldn’t come first or even come second, it shouldn’t be important at all; it’s their family who is lovable, it’s them who deserve happiness, not him, because he isn't like them, he's a nobody who belongs nowhere. Siffrin is a person who loves strongly but doesn’t lend that love to himself.

Unfortunately, this self-hatred also manifests in paranoia. Because they think themself unworthy of love they also project this onto their friends, thinking they’ll hate him if he reveals the “real” him, that they’ll turn heel as soon as they can because he’s so deplorable.

The party, in reality, loves Siffrin, but that love gets filtered through Siffrin’s self-hatred and comes back out as a mess of self-imposed conditions, “they’ll hate me if I do this” “They’ll hate me if I say that”, none of which is true, but they wholeheartedly believe it is, and it hurts him

Mal Du Pays also being unable to be harmed by Siffrin is something I feel is so important. Beating this part of himself into submission is essentially what he’s been trying to do the whole game and it doesn’t work, you can’t beat yourself up and expect that to make you feel better. Mal Du Pays, as aggressive as it is, isn’t a battle that needs to be won it’s a wound that needs to be healed