#I only recently played through all of ISAT and I'm in love with all the parallels between Siffrin and The King

[dragonling348]

Long and mostly abstract ISAT comic below

(have some bonus pages I felt didn't fit the vibe of the comic)

[entryn17]

heyy can I know your thoughts on in stars and time? I like your thoughts on things

ahh, yes, of course!!! spoilers ahead for anyone else that might be reading :3

genuinely saying this - i think it's one of the best games i've had the pleasure of playing recently! it really does the idea of "character stuck in a time loop" justice. one of the things i'm particularly glad about is the pacing especially considering this all technically takes place in like, two locations for (technically) two days for the entire 20-30h of playtime. the dev did phenomenal writing it! the characters are all solid, the worldbuilding is good, the red herrings it pulls also, with the wish/time craft thing. i'm also really, REALLY glad it left some things unanswered at the end.

to elaborate on the pacing, it DOES feel like siffrin is slowly, surely losing their mind throughout all this. i don't think it happens neither too quick nor too slowly and i was immersed throughout! i like how different items have different dialogue and usage depending on when you interact with them at certain points throughout the story, and i thought all of the horror segments were truly unsettling!!

siffrin was a really compelling character and both them and odile really spoke to me because of the way the dev handled their relationships with their respective heritage. i burst into tears when i was playing odile's friendship quest; i hadn't really seen all of those particular thoughts and fears expressed for a while before playing ISAT, and so seeing them written out like this just felt like.. reopening a wound you thought had healed but was actually still pretty raw? and siffrin's desperation to connect, to learn more about where they came from, the hurt that is left unaddressed for so long that it blooms into resentment was just so poignant. odile and siffrin are really, really important to me because of this.

i really love the different small things that get recontextualized when you learn more. like the king asking if siffrin remembers, which i had assumed was about the loops in the beginning! and loop's "you may refer to us with the royal We" and such!! and the missing island too! reached the part where it had been mentioned for the first time in the library and then the game went on for a while to the point i was starting to think "isn't anyone gonna bring up the island that got erased from everyone's memories" and then THEY BROUGHT IT UP. AND IT WAS SO PAINFUL!!! the segment where siffrin tries to say the name got to me so bad!!!

also the little details i'll always die for the little details. the changes in flavor text, menu portraits, inner monologue. it's tiny thing after tiny thing until you pause, look back and realize that you don't even recognize siffrin anymore! like god!!!!!!!!!!!! i'm genuinely really curious how the dev managed to keep track of everything! how many switches and variables they must've used, how many event pages there are, etc.

ANOTHER THING. i think it's so fun how it does a subversion on RPGs as a whole. it's still that at it's core, of course! i'll always enjoy turn-based combat and it freshens it up with the rock/paper/scissors crafts system, and it's incredibly story rich and character driven but it's like.. i guess the RPG conventions that it plays with that i really, really enjoyed. like the whole "mysterious protagonist gathers a party and then goes on a journey to fight the big bad boss" (the big bad is even called The King!!!) except the majority of the journey leading up to that boss already IS over when we start, characters are leveled up and have gathered plenty of usable skills, and they've already have formed dynamics between each other! but we get to learn more about them through the loops! and at some point the king isn't even a threat anymore!!! i REALLY loved that when i realized how unimportant he'd become in the grand scheme of things!!! it was so good!!!!!!!!!!!!!

but yeah in conclusion i feel only moderately strongly about this game. LOL

[higher-noon]

I'm taking this out of the tags because I have a lot to say.

The universe is a dog.

Isat and sasasaap spoilers below the cut, but pls follow me on this!

(Very slight tw for animal death, mentioned once towards the bottom)

I have had pets all my life, and up until very recently I was a dog trainer. While I would certainly not call myself an animal behavioralist, I do know quite a bit about how pups behave and why.

Something a lot of people forget when they get a dog is that no matter how much you love them and they love you back, no matter how well they are trained, at the end of the day they are still going to be a dog. An animal. Something with thoughts and feelings and instincts built to navigate the world in a very specific way. Even a service dog can bite if they feel threatened enough.

And it is not maliciousness that leads a dog to behave the way it does. A dog does not chew your shoes up because they want to take revenge on you for not taking a walk with them, they do it because they are understimulated and overenergetic and you happen to leave your shoes somewhere they can easily access. They like that it smells like you and the fabric is soft on their gums.

But being animal does not bar them from caring. My childhood pup is on video chasing down a black bear because I was playing in the yard and I got a bit too close. The affection you get from your pets is not transactional. They do not snuggle with you and follow you through the house and innitiate play with you and do everything else they do just so you feed them. They still care about you and love you fully and intensely and honestly.

So what does this have to do with the universe?

I ask you this: why would an uncaring universe bend to the will of a wish? Sure, craft exists as a form of pseudo-magic, but wish craft feels very different than the other forms. With most craft, it is a very straightforward transaction. You make a certain gesture and fuel it with a certain amount of energy and you get a standard effect.

This is treated very much as a science, something so fundamental that even children brush over the idea of it as a given. Every person from every country we are made aware of at least has working knowledge of how it functions.

Wish craft is not treated the same way. Only the forgotten island has been shown to understand the workings of it to the degree of getting results. Yet, the wishes of the citizens of Vougarde are still so powerful that the moment the universe is given an outlet through siffrin, his wish is basically hijacked to fulfill that need. Sure, if the king isn't defeated, it would be pretty hard to keep traveling together, but I feel like a much easier solution would be to just... move the party away from Dormont so they have to travel back. It is something we do see happen in the game (after receiving the keyknife), and it would presumably use a lot less energy than timecraft, especially to that extent.

But the universe wants to save the country and the people begging it for help. The exact same way it wants to help Siffrin.

And this is made especially clear when you look at Loop's wish.

They all but beg the universe to take their wish back. They're hurting and tired and panicked and at the end of SASASAAP they're ready to watch the world burn if they didn't have to deal with it anymore.

But the universe still has to help Vougarde. It still wants time to flow in the way it's supposed to work and it still wants to help Loop and it can still do something that isn't laying down to die!

So it will not give Loop an out, but it will give them help. It cannot take the load of their shoulders but it can lighten it by half. It cannot guide here but it can give you someone to follow your guidance instead.

The universe loves Loop so much that it gives them hope...

...even if hope is something they never wanted again.

The universe doesn't let Loop suffer, doesn't let Siffrin suffer, because it is uncaring, because the universe is nothing but care.

But it is a wild, animal care.

The kind of care that a wolf holds as she eats her pups when they won't survive the winter. The care that will survive first and coddle second.

The care that understands when the king lashes out against it, desperate and alone. A care that will not allow itself to be killed under his fists, but will still bend and give him a vision of home while he is being put to rest.

The universe leads in a way that ensures that it will survive, and when we follow it should be with the understanding that it will lead us where we need to be, but that need might not always be ours, the same way it will understand when we fight back.

The universe loves in mercies and bent rules and allowances that should not be made whenever it can get away with them. The universe loves in letting us ask for mercy in the first place, even if it does not always listen.

This is a In Stars and Time headcanon poll, but am curious about choices outside of the fandom