#fighter sasasa

[naswoop]

After about a million drafts and over two years, this is finally done!

A couple things-- this animatic is very specific to the prologue, and I first started drafting it before In Stars and Time (the sequel/full game) was even announced, so there are some things that are noticeably different if you're coming from ISaT (the party's marching order, I didn't know what Sif's first death was at the time, Sif not knowing everyone's names...). This animatic is also suuuuuper Siffrin-centric. I love everyone else so much but this one's about the good ol' ~Time Loop Edginess~.

Maybe one day I'll actually make this into a proper video, but that day is not today. I just wanted to get this done before ISaT came out (and I've managed to do that! Yay me!!).

This was honestly such a delight to work on and I learned so much about digital art in the process (I finally found the "turn off anti-aliasing" button! Yay!). Please please please go check out @insertdisc5's games, they're so good!! I'm really looking forward to when In Stars and Time comes out!!

Here's a link to Sundial on YouTube.

[luckylarvae]

RED GIANT, CHAPTER ONE

Heya, so this is an ISAT loop fanfic I’ve been thinking about writing for a while, called “Red Giant”. Heavy spoiler warning for In Stars and Time by the way as well as SASASA. For context this story takes place at the end of SASASA. This is my first time really writing in literature format, and my first fanfic thing as a whole, so it's going to be really rough at first but I hope as this progresses I get to improve. Hope this is at least mildly entertaining! Let’s just see how this goes, and constructive criticism is greatly appreciated.

“This is our chance! Our chance to end everything once and for all!!” 

  Mirabelle stands in front of the king, mid battle and looks back at you. Finally something changed, something changed!!! You move out of the way as fast as you can, as Mirabelle powers you up. After all these constant, never changing loops you can finally be free, finally escape this eternal purgatory you’ve found yourself in and finally end everything! After having to suffer through this hell, of playing an actor who dies onstage over and over and over again, there's finally an end in sight, just, one, more, attack!!  You raise your arm up, you summon all the craft energy you have, every single little bit of strength you have, and throw it at the king, and a bright flash of white completely overwhelmes the room. 

When you open your eyes, the room is no longer surrounded by stands of hair, no longer dark with the presence of the king. It is white, clean, empty. Your party and you stand in shock for a moment. Did you really do it? After all this time?

“Did… did we do it?”

“...He’s gone.. We did it?”

“Sif, we did it! He’s gone! The King is gone!!! Hahahaha!!!”

Isabeau and the others smile at you. Isabeau, your friend, your comedy partner… your

“But…”

Before you can say something, Bonnie blurts and and shouts

“Holy CRAB THAT WAS SCARY!!! WE DID IT? WE DID IT!!!!”

The little sibling of the group, the one who kept you all going…

Odile perks up and says “Haha… hahahahahaha!!! Oh, it was close for a second there!!!!”

The women who understands you the best, observant to a fault

“Oh, Oh, what a relief…!”

The Savior of Vaugarde, the reason you are all here…

“Sif, Sif, Siffrin!!!” It’s over! We won!!!”

“... We won…?”

The fighter, no no Isabeau continues to beam “We won, Sif!!!!! The country’s okay, everything’s gonna be okay now!!!”

We, won?

We, WON???????

You won, you won you won you won you won!!!! Tears start to well up from your eyes and you you wipe them away.

Mirabelle looks at you and says “Oh Siffrin… It’ll be okay Siffrin. We prevailed. We’ll all be able to go back home!”

Isabeau looks at Mirabeele and responds: “I can’t wait to tell my old job friends that I’ve helped save the country!”

Bonnie jumps and says “I gotta go back home and see if my sister’s okay!!”

Odile sighs “Finally, I’ll be able to go back to my research.”

It’s over, it’s finally over. Finally, the adventure is over. Mirabelle can go back to her house of change, finally Bonnie can reunite with their sister, finally Isabeau can pursue his dreams of being a fashion designer, finally Odile can continue her research. Finally, you can go… home? You can go… home. 

Home

You start to taste sugar on your tongue

Mirabells puts her hands together in gratitude “ See Siffrin? We’ll all be fine now. There’s nothing to worry about anymo–”

You vision shakes for a bit. You can feel your heart being tugged. No, no, nononono NO!!! NOT NOW!

You feel and your entire being gets thrusted back. You see you and your party rapidly repeat the actions you had just done. You see yourself launching your craft energy at the king, your friends look at you as you get the key, first try, You see yourself, walking into the castle, and then-

You find yourself with your vision black, body… sprawled out? You wake up, in the middle of a field. The shades of the grass in an almost circular pattern, with trees shaped the same. You feel the wind pass by over you, something you have not felt in a long, long time.

A familiar voice cries out to you 

“Ah, Siffrin!!! Huh? Siffrin, were you… were you… TAKING A NAP????!???!”

“I.. I supposed thats… Yes you’re right! I should follow your lead on this one! We’d better get some sleep while we can! Since tomorrow…”

Your heart sinks to the bottom of your chest, fear and terror gripping every single muscle of your body.

“We’ll have to fight against the king!”

…

You fall into a haze.

You had done it

Everything was perfect

YOU HAD DONE IT

You defeated the king, you cried in front of your friends, YOU SAVED VAUGARDE-

But it wasn’t enough

It was never enough was it?

You were never supposed to get out

You are forever trapped in, in a hell of your making.

With these puppets

With you, as the eternal actor

You can’t take it anymore.

Pain throbs through your body, it almost feels as your guts are spilling out, something you’ve felt countless times at the hands of the king

But you only find yourself crying instead.

You don’t want to do this anymore, no more loops, PLEASE FOR WHATEVER GOD YOU’VE FORGOTTON’S SAKE, FOR THE UNIVERSE’S SAKE YOU CAN’T TAKE IT ANYMORE!!!!

You give up.

 And just lie there.

 Mirabelle leaves you behind.

 Time pases.

 It is the next day. They try to get you to move, their fake fingers and ther fake pleads and their FAKE tears.

 They leave you alone, and go to die in the fight against the king.

You feel nothing.

A few loops go by

No more, no more no more no morenomorenomore

At the start of the new loop, you look at the wish tree. This damn tree. You plead in front of it. You don’t care anymore, you don't care for this superficial life with these superficial friends. You plead, crying, god, not anymore!! 

LET IT BE OVER, LET ME OUT!! PLEASE, UNIVERSE, SAVE ME, HELP ME!!!! Someone… Anyone, help me!!! PLEASE!!!!!!

And the universe answered.

You watch as a leaf falls down, and glows ever brighter. It morphs from a leaf, to a flame, to a bright shining star. It falls down growing bigger and bigger until it falls down into your hands. It feels… warm… welcoming.

You feel… safe

For the first time in a while. As you look down on it, you feel one command in your head

Eat

And you do.

You feel warm in your chest. 

What happened? You aren’t exactly sure, but maybe things will be… different? You aren’t really sure why you did that, you probably shouldn’t eat random star things that float down in front of you. You sigh, and start to talk away from the tree. You start to walk away and–

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!

It feels as though you’ve been directly stabbed by a red hot dagger, splicing apart your body. You look down, and see that in place of your normal cloak is a giant, glowing star-shaped hole. Your cloak begins to burn into ash, and you collapse into the ground. The pain is unbearable, you fall onto the ground, clutching your chest in pain. You look at your skin, and what should be your regular light shade of skin, is a black abyss with tiny glints of light within.

Your “friends” rush towards you, as they probably heard from all the screaming you’ve done when this started. The Housemaiden shakes your shoulders,

“SIFFRIN, WHAT’S WRONG?!?!? WHAT’S HAPPENING TO YOU, OH CHANGE-”

Before you can respond, A blinding pain strikes out from within your skull, You thoughts cloud, you can’t quite process what is happening. This is most definitely the worst headache you’ve ever experienced, it feels almost as your head is about to burst.

And then it does.

You find yourself in a black void. You don’t know where you are. You feel... Different. The structure of your body has... Changed? You look down upon yourself, and instead of the body you’re oh so familiar with, it's wrong. You build, the shade you are, the giant star on your chest. Something has gone wrong. Your head feels weightless, and as you reach towards your head,       you can’t really exactly feel where your face begins and ends.

But worst of all, something else changed. Something far worse, something terrible. Something far more important.

You can feel that your personality has been permanently changed.

[auncyen]

what are your thoughts on loop and siffrin’s hangout in the tree? it always seemed excessively cruel imo, just to prove that sif dying wasn’t the only way to loop. i feel like there were other ways, so i guess i can’t understand completely understand why they would do it.

had loop not pointed out the party dying or had the party managed to beat the king w/o sif, do you think sif would have still looped? Or at the very least managed to make it to the next day?

Anon. are you my loop. afheiohfe LMFAO I'm just. amused by the question because yeah tbh I don't really like the Loop hangout either. I get critical under the cut, so this is only getting a spoilers tag.

I think Siffrin was going to loop then. They probably would have realized what the flash was, or even just realized that the time of day means either the party's made it to the King or things have already ended badly for them, and now they're down a fighter. Siffrin does try to cling to hope at times so I can see him trying to persuade himself that Mirabelle would know the shield, she'd know to shield even if he didn't warn her right??? so maybe they didn't instantly die! but again, they're down a fighter. Even if they win the fight, surely they'd hate him for abandoning them in the final hour. I think he'd give himself a panic attack out of worry and guilt and shame and loop. Loop just hurried it up, probably because they were already hating themself (which, this sure makes it rich for them to try to point out to Siffrin later in act 5 that he's being an ass for saying mean things to the party LOL).

If you want my thoughts. This isn't in the ISAT tag because the hangout is one of the low points of the game for me. It was the "oh, we're just doing shock value now" bit of my first playthrough. I didn't think it made sense then just because how does the party get to the King anyway (even if they can still beat/avoid all the sadnesses without Siffrin and avoid the rock trap/find all the keys because they're like. being more cautious with them gone, they only have a 1/6 chance of correctly choosing the right path on both floors 2 & 3 unless Loop is actively guiding them. Which is an idea I've seen people uncomfortable with, but Loop is purposefully setting them up to die anyway????), and how does Siffrin not realize sooner "hey wait this is going too long what's going to happen to my friends" and panic over that sooner, and nothing in the rest of the game really changed my thoughts on that. Considering Isabeau is right in Loop's potential sight YEAH I FEEL LIKE THEY COULD HAVE COME UP WITH DIFFERENT WAYS OF PROVING IT.

Also iiirc, in my first playthrough I'd already done the Bonnie sidequest of them freaking out at Siffrin and making them loop by this time. I get that the Bonnie sidequest is optional but like. That sure doesn't help with making this hangout feel like cheap shock value.

I think. What I would have liked better. Is if maybe Loop had been trying to do something else and they accidentally established this. Example:

Loop tells Siffrin from the very start they can tell their friends about this and brings the matter up again at act 3 start. Even though it didn't free them from the loops it DID make that one loop better for them when their friends knew something was wrong (they didn't die horribly, for one), so I think they're thinking if Stardust lets everyone in on the full truth, and sooner, maybe they can help somehow!!! Maybe Odile can solve it!!!! 'Why are us two idiots trying to solve this alone!!!' Loop's thinking, and Loop just really, really wants to get out of the loops. So like. imagine a ISAT sus run being a little more similar to a SASASA sus run and Loop specifically baiting them to do that, maybe by suggesting that since they always loop when talking to the Head Housemaiden the loop ends at a certain TIME, this is TIME craft stardust, hurry it up and maybe you'll see something useful besides the roof hm???

What Loop is hoping for: Stardust gets the nice little bit of his family comforting him and getting them to open up a little, they get to hurt themself watching it through them, Stardust realizes 'hey I should talk to my friends' and actually starts telling them about the time loop at the start so they can all work through the information together, they just needed more brain cells on the problem so THEY FIGURE OUT THE GD TIME LOOPS AND LOOP GETS TO BE FREE.

What actually happens: *looks at how the sus run goes in ISAT* also since this is already altering what a sus run requires and how it turns out you could also have Mirabelle on edge and unintentionally taking it out on Siffrin, or Isabeau being horrified if Siffrin finally confesses about the time loops under pressure from Odile and Siffrin assumes Isabeau's disgusted about him hiding this (and not realizing like. Isabeau is actually horrified that his friend's been dying? and trying to handle that alone??? SIF), basically like just make it accidentally turn into a train wreck of a scene for a takeaway of "huh. Siffrin loops back from being upset, too." And then Siffrin is further convinced opening up = always bad and just gets more and more set in I AM NOT BLINDING TELLING THEM.

[fermented-writers-block]

On a slightly related note, now I can’t help but laugh at the thought of Loop and Siffrin accidentally confusing the hell out of each other over the topic of the rest of the party. Loop’s SASASA descriptions of the Housemaiden, the Fighter, the Researcher, and the Kid could potentially lead to Siffrin wildly misinterpreting who to look for. And on the flipside, the modern contexts Mirabelle, Odile, Isabeau, and Bonnie may have been transplanted into could be different or unfamiliar enough that Loop doesn’t initially realize modern Siffrin’s met their modern party for a while lol.

Also, I’m curious what kind of scenario you had envisioned for a modern AU of ISAT. A lot of the time when I’ve seen modern AUs of other series, they’ve been closer to Coffee Shop AUs where the narrative threat is considerably lower and smaller stakes, and usually in a much more mundane form. That led me to picturing modern Siffrin as less of an adventuring traveler, and more like a mundane person doing 9-5s in the effective looping of a job. Even in a modern world with horrors and threats, that would not necessarily be a kind of position that’d put him close to any sort of fighting or apocalypse preventing.

I keep thinking about how funny it'd be if Loop and Siffrin were from entirely different universes. Like if one was from a modern AU where craft technically exists but has been forgotten over the years, and the other one's just from... In Stars and Time. Regardless of whether it's Loop or Siffrin from the modern AU, I can just imagine Loop trying so hard to act as if they have any idea what Siffrin's talking about at all times

[naswoop]

BIRF!!

Sometimes you need someone to model your clothing ideas

[naswoop]

You were doing that smile you do when you're not actually happy

[naswoop]

I keep playing around in Start Again and I have been Rewarded with ~fun~ dialogue

[naswoop]

Deja Vu--

[naswoop]

The Fighter is an absolute bean (plus three random other quotes)

[naswoop]

Siffrin: I just wanted to end the fights quicker--

Bonus:

[naswoop]

A genuine smile!!!

[naswoop]

Emotional! Support!

[naswoop]

I just have a lot of miscellaneous doodles everywhere

[naswoop]

I was gonna draw Siffrin taking a nap but then it turned into a group hug