#that poll got me thinking

[atuats-sidechick]

Atuat? Brat

Kuruk? I can see it, brat.

Junsik? I'm guessing brat too... why not?

Tagaka? Brat 100% (yes, I ship them, your honor)

Hei-Ran is a brat tamer. That's it, that's the post.

[fagdyke-fckry]

Apparently my entire immediate family was born on either Sundays or Tuesdays. This is a very useless fact, and I’m not sure why I looked it up or why I’m telling you, but here we are.

[lesbianjudasiscariot]

mutuals come over i'm setting up a picnic ♥️🧺

[clingyduoapologist]

Apparently not knowing the last time you cried is a beige flag and y’know sure I’ll accept that as part of my problematic résumé

[thegleampt2fromtheglowpt22001]

strongly desire thee ability 2 clone myself 1. just so I cld make out w myself ov course but 2. so dommes cld go Too Far with me n I cld watch

[nymphoutofwater]

And why? Cultural norms? Personal schedule? “Cause I’m always late to everything”?

Bonus points: Region and/or ethnicity?

[defectivegembrain]

Like. Autism doesn't come with an automatic love of hearing anyone infodump about anything they love. In fact sometimes it comes with the opposite. Sometimes restricted interests are in fact restrictive enough to make anything else boring. Sometimes it's just hard to process that much speech. Doesn't mean we get to be unkind about it either but yeah. This fantasy people push of autistics having endless energy and appreciation for each other's special interests is just not realistic.

[hinamie]

surprise it's yuri!!!in 2024

[flocklings]

I just think there are a lot of fun themes to be explored with altered reality in horror. Like it takes an unreliable narrator into a tragic space because of course the rules and fabric of the universe aren’t changing. Of course it’s your mental state wavering. And if your mind goes, do you go with it? What—if anything—remains?

[yanderespamton78]

Edit since a lot of people seem confused - your "real" name is the name that you want to be referred to in real life. It doesn't have to be your legal name. So if you're trans and you have a different name to whats on your birth certificate, even if not many people call you by the name, it still counts as your real name.

Edit 2 : Holy shit guys please stop reblogging this post my poor inbox im getting like 20 notifs an hour asjfhkajshdkh /lh /srs

[roseworth]

(if u add a + just vote for whichever one you add it to <3)

[ranticore]

placeholder guy and his indistinct mandolin(?)

[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

[anemonet]

rain world if it was hot

[crystallizsch]

DID SOMEONE SAY FILIPINO TWST (no one did it's just me 😔)

below the cut is stock photos of what is a trike/tricycle in the philippines (what they’re riding on) if you're unfamiliar!! and also some rambling about my heartshackle trio ;;;

i referenced the one on the left, there's usually supposed to be a screen where ace is popping out (and also i think deuce would prefer riding the one on the right where it's an actual motorcycle and not just a bike)

i like to think that the trio found this tricycle trashed and broken somewhere and they tried to fixed it up so they could all take a ride on it

ace and deuce kinda fought who’ll be the first to ride it and deuce only won because they all agreed deuce was the one who actually knew (for the most part) how to fix the thing

++++ some more concepts/hcs between them in this au(???) 😳

all three of them are childhood friends who grew up in the same neighborhood and went to the same elementary school. unfortunately in high school they ended up in different schools, but they all still remained close friends 🥹

grim exists but as a regular cat who “belongs” to yuuna (yuuna was just grim’s favorite out of the three). technically he’s just a neighborhood stray, yuuna can’t really keep him as a pet at home (and neither can ace/deuce) but somehow grim keeps finding the heartshackle trio whenever they’re all together. and so grim just became part of the group.

yuuna has a physical album of photos dedicated to all the times they go to jollibee. they take a photo with the jollibee statue every single time they all go there.

[gia-d]

Four has been looking for that headband for HALF AN HOUR--