#propagandaaaaaaaa

i read this as him entering a romantic relationship, and not enjoying it but not really understanding why, after all this is what he’s meant to want, so he subconsciously disconnects from it

and the scene after this one is a scene of him at a party feeling left out among the people around him who are flirting and coupling up and stuff

also a lot of his outfits are on the orange-yellow-white-light blue-dark blue color range which is the aroace flag

thanks for the propaganda!!

So I know most of the characters from the poll. I watched PHM 5 times and read the book. I’m almost done with Platform Decay and have watched the Murderbot series twice. I’ve written fanfic for them both. I also have a good amount of knowledge of Saiki K and he is one of my favorite characters. I know these characters.

However Mirabelle is a character who is explicitly written as aro/ace, with the main event in the story, her “friendship quest” that lets you in on her backstory is about her dealing with being aro/ace especially considering that she is in a religion that requires her to change, one that kinda requires for her to date. And she struggles against this, not because she’s upset that she can’t feel attraction but more because she feels like she is forced to feel attraction, she is upset because she is happy where she is. She is happy to be single. And you get to see the relief on her face when you (Siffrin, who is ace) says that she’s not alone.

And on the flip side, what happens when you fail to comfort her.

Now major spoilers for ISAT please go watch a stream or play it, it’s like $20

See, In Stars in Time is a timeloop game (who would’ve thunk it) and it mostly deals with Siffrin’s deteriorating mental state as he keeps going through more and more time loops. During the end game they do the friendship quest again (bc there’s a buff with each friendship quest completed specifically for the character you had the event with) now Siffrin is in a BAD state of mind, and is trying to complete these quest asap. In doing so it creates the most upsetting versions of these events. With Siffrin basically saying that Mirabelle is gonna die alone and should just accept it.

Mirabelle is still in the mindset that a lot of people have: that they need to date in order to not be alone. And this approach is too blunt to be helpful. Literally Mirabelle slaps Siffrin for this.

And it hurts. It’s a painful scene to witness. However ISAT is maybe the first piece of media that has ever shown anyone struggle with their aspecness with any accuracy. And while I know there are many people who never struggled against it I know that there have been moments where I have.