#reply rb

[alfea]

every pokemon is someone's favourite and i'm determined to find a person for every pokemon so please reblog this and tell me what your number one favourite pokemon of all time is

[gemsalive]

@openphrase123 clutchin it with the additions once again

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

[titanofthedepths]

Yes you’re not fatphobic but are you capable of talking about fat people in a positive manner without saying somft/round/rotund/squishy/tumby/chumby/any other variation of the sort. Are you capable of talking about us in a positive manner without it being about beauty or attractiveness. Are you able to talk about fat people in general without being dehumanizing or infantilizing. Can you treat fat people with respect.

[rakkiinoko]

[sparklings-husband]

hi self shippers. would you get along with prev's f/o(s)? what would your interactions be like?

(can be for any type of f/o, not only romantic)

[gorelesbian]

what do you avoid in horror? i don't watch horror with real animal death like nekromantik or cannibal holocaust

[tamelee]

Gotcha! The Anime certainly gets a bit... wonky at times. Can't blame them, but I do agree regarding the difference. Maybe because Naruto in the Anime at times looks a bit too... smooth? I've also noticed that they tend to make Naruto's head a lot bigger esp in Part 1 and his hair less raggedy. They love to censor, but it's a bit much to censor Naruto's beauty ><

Naruto looks better in your drawings than he does in canon lol. Sasuke looks good both ways tho.

Ah I appreciate it <3 but Kishi's Naruto drawings are honestly in a league of its own 🧡🧡🧡 He's so beautiful it hurts ;-;✨

Some of my favs!!:

no but I have 300 more in my fav Naruto folder- *-*☀️

[sak-supernatural]

Ok hear me out on this. I was watching TikToks and I nearly threw my phone across the room when this thought popped into my head. You know how juvenile birds (swans/chickens/ducks/and I presume fucking flamingos as well) have fluffy feathers until they shed those and their full adult feathers come in. What if that’s what’s happening to Vessel? He’s grown now 🥹 his fluffy downy feathers gone, replaced by sleek beautiful black feathers!

[alfea]

nomad put out a new code for 15% off 10gb+ esims btw

[sydmarch]

I'm curious what other people think about (spoilers for the substance) there being a shared continuity between elisabeth & sue / them having shared memories of each other's time? i had initially been interpreting it as yes there's some kind of continuity between them but it's fuzzy & they don't share 100% of memories or anything but then the bit where elisabeth is watching sue's interview on the tv made me think maybe I was wrong bcus they seemed much more separate in that moment than I'd been taking them as.

& my partner had assumed the whole time they had totally separate continuities & there weren't any memories shared between the two which does make sense with that interview scene & also the waking up and seeming surprised by the bottles / food scraps.

I find it hard to imagine tho that elisabeth would want to continue doing it after the first time if she didn't retain or experience anything from being sue? or it's just even more sad of a mindset than how sad I was already imagining it to be since she'd basically just not exist anymore at that point considering she doesn't seem to do much with her time as herself. anyways yeah I'm curious what other people thought about this topic

[gemsalive]

next time please think before you post

siffrin shitposting... siffposting, even

[22mzk03]

Doodles of the other gurls

[saetiate]

i would like to ask which interactions on tumblr make you feel the most loved <3

(if you'd like, you can also add what you might be most likely to respond to, or your preferences in order, or whether what makes you feel most loved and what you prefer to receive is different)

[weirdrtvscomments]

THE MIRA WHIPPET SAGA I'M FUCKING SHITTING

i hate saying it but i think this is the stupidest thing i have ever seen. i can't believe this is real.

[gemsalive]

@openphrase123 hi yeah that's exactly it. like no it's not an actual dislike for the joke it's just bonnie being as real a kid as any kid has ever been

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 👍

[freshydip]

“i love complicated female characters” you motherfuckers apparently can’t even handle fucking TORIEL UNDERTALE

i'm seriously baffled by the wave of hate i'm seeing directed at toriel and misogyny is the root cause i keep coming back to. she's an adult woman. an adult woman can go on a date with someone she doesn't know and it doesn't make her a bad person, we all agree on that right? so why does that suddenly become some unforgiveable sin when the adult woman is a mother? it's because in a patriarchal society being a mother supersedes all other aspects of a woman's life and the title is used to further police their behavior! and if you think "well a mom just shouldn't be acting like that" then you are part of the problem!

toriel is not being horribly neglectful by forgetting to tell kris she canceled choir practice. forgetting is not a sin, and she has no reason to think kris is not having a great day. they've got a friend, which she's shown to be overjoyed about, and she knows they're going to be spending the day with that new friend, in a town where the crime is effectively non-existent. did we all just forget all of her previous displays of care and affection? do we all think that toriel getting drunk on a weekend night with a short king completely removes all of that? yes, kris is obviously shown to be unhappy when they stumble onto the scene. most children would be icked out by seeing their parent drunkenly dancing with a new squeeze! we have no reason to believe that toriel regularly gets drunk, no reason to believe she drinks regularly at all, but people are jumping the gun and calling her an alcoholic like it's a fact. but even if this does turn out to be the case, that still doesn't mean she's a terrible mother or a terrible person! she has been repeatedly shown to be sweet and kind and if you think this scene renders all of that inert, if you really think this female character not being a perfect mother and having her own pitfalls makes her deserving of scorn, take a step back and think about why you think that, and if you'd think the same if this were asgore.

you all are so unforgiving to women it's unreal.