#i just feel like odile would be. y'know.

[ravenwolfie97]

i don't remember how i got this thought but i HAD to get it out of me

[in-cis-and-het-collector]

This doesn't even feel like a cishet AU anymore it's just the douchebag timeline

kinda? unsure about this one, so sorry in advance. putting it under spoiler because

ICAH as far as I can tell has always been based around "what if the complex and fleshed out characters of ISAT were replaced with stereotypes?" with everyone getting turned into cishet stereotypes version of themselves except for Bonnie, who was left off to the side because they're Bonnie.

Then the Bonnie versions were released, and shortly after it became "Bonnie ISAT is stuck in ICAH" with Loop having been killed off screen for being too gay. This turned the stereotypes into more of an invasion of the bodysnatchers thing, and painted their reductive goofy existence with the curse of existing as creatures.

Most peoples instinctive reaction to this was "oh dear god I'm going to puke bleargh" which. y'know. fair. But some people started making art n short blurbs in universe, and it became "crabbed-up evil wishcraft has destroyed the world, leaving Bonnie and Loop(?) to try and fix it".

Around this point Siffrins general need for a mask and self loathing started to get mixed into Cisfrins caricature, making it more toxic and bringing a new layer to the general "man would this be fucked up or what?" or it all. So now we have a family who wants to "fix" Bonnie if they find out, wishcraft enforced hetero normative values, and a few different versions out there.

At some point Isabeau became a gymbro, Odile turned into a "loving wife" who would post minion memes, Mirabelle is some flavor of christian priest and probably has been her whole life, and Siffrin is somewhere around frat bro and redneck (i think? unsure) so they all suck in their own special way with Bonnie who needs to try and fix this, Loop who needs to keep Bonnie safe, the ISAT crew watching in despair (with loop remembrance?) and the King is having an aneurysm about being right, which gives him and Bonnie their own special version of the "remember a country that no longer exists that you both want to save but cant" thing that Siffrin usually has.

We're now generally dealing with the question of "what if they are all eggs too afraid of rejection to hatch and they need to all admit their insecurities for ????? to happen" and few other things going on. I really like this bit because you can work in stuff like the ISAT party trying to help, or alternate familyquests, or the Cisabeau x Cisfrin angle, or both Mirabelle and Miracis learning to adapt their view of their religion to accept themselves. very fun, very neat.

They have kinda been douchebags for most of it, so I don't understand that bit and for that I'm sorry, but the fact they suck is part of the fun!

sorry about the ramble, have a good one!

[lucabyte]

i am looking at nohats au 👀 please share more

So! NoHats! I'm going to grab you and use this to ramble. A Lot.

The NoHats AU is @samhainian's it's just that I'm the strange little freak who takes the words said unto me and executes on them. But I can still do a little explainer on what our overall thoughts and vibes are. (And, that we are in fact propping up a little box with some cheese under it here. 🪤 Please (PLEASE) feel free to pick up what we're putting down.)

We're far from the only ones exploring a "what if siffrin fucking died" AU, though the main difference with NoHats is the placement of the death in the timeline. Instead of being 'Mal Du Pays Wins' or 'Act 6 encounter goes horribly wrong', the death is… Just after the (literal) falling action.

(This placement is because Sam is a comic book fan who thus has become used to characters being ripped away at the cruelest times by shitty writers. THANK FUCKING GOD adrienne is not that and isat is delightful yippieee, but, back on topic.)

Giving the party the full understanding of What Happened that you get by putting the death after black hole siffrin, but before the A6 encounter leaves an interesting gap to be filled. See, making Siffrin's death very much not Loop's fault means that… this once again reads (when not read as simply a tragedy...) as the universe doing what it sees fit to fulfull Loop's wish… Thus making Siffrin's death Loop's fault again, but only in their eyes. And only in a way they could express if they were honest about who they were…

And this is where having had excuse to waffle about my general Postcanon Loop thoughts the other day comes in handy, because Sam and I have that as our canon-compliant reading to begin with, NoHats plays off of a lot of the same readings of Loop's character. Namely: Uh Oh Somebody's Lying By Fucking Omission Again. (BECAUSE TO BE FAIR THIS TIME… HOW THE FUCK WOULD YOU HANDLE THAT?)

Now, neither Sam nor I are fanfic writers, so this has been a little bit trapped in our heads and DMs (and my unfinished art but,)

But our thoughts on how NoHats like… Goes.

Siffrin's death is peaceful, but that does not mean the aftermath of it is. I can't imagine the party takes it well, especially after understanding the circumstances of the Loops. (And, of note, in A5 where nobody had the discussion on what to do with each other's bodies should something happen…) But I'd imagine it traumabonds them somewhat (understatement of the century) and now knowing how the rest of the party feels, they resolve to travel together for the forseeable future.

The party track down Loop to deliver the terrible news, since they were clearly Siffrin's friend too, and invite Loop along to travel at least long enough to (let them grieve) get the burial over with. Loop, here, can be helpful in knowing what Siffrin would've wanted where the party would be at a loss. Loop, I think, takes a bit of a lead on the funerary aspects of it all, because, um. (Performing rites on your own body, huh?)

Then, as things are after a death, life just… Kind of has to continue on as normal. The party travel, pick up Nille, and get to know Loop as this mysterious new person. Maybe in this situation they might stay in Bambouche for a while to give Bonnie more stability since. They are probably taking it the worst. It would've come out of absolutely nowhere for everyone in the party obviously but god, for a kid? For A Kid?

It should be stated NoHats is not intended to be grimdark, just y'know. An exploration of grief. This is also why it's got a bit of a lopsided focus on Bonnie vs the rest of the party because hhrrhghghhghghhhghhghhh <- incoherent

Now, a crossroads.

How does the party discover Loop to be Siffrin? How long does it take. How much have the party embraced them as part of the family (especially with something as intense to bond over as this)?

There's the Odile option. Have her put it together and have to bring it up somehow. This could also be done by Isabeau, perhaps. He's smart. (which. God. If anything's the real Isabeau Torment Nexus it's this)

Then there's the other option batted around by Sam and I. The: The Universe Dislikes Duplicates option.

The items in the house that fzzt away when inspected. The Universe doesn't like there to be two of something, at least not when they're acknowledged. But one of something is just fine…?

Which is to say. I'm not a personal proponent of 'Loop getting their body back'. EXCEPT …… except this one time.

There's only one Siffrin now, so they don't need to be obfuscated to exist.

Consider, if you will. Loop swallowing their guilt for long enough to be comfortable. Falling back into old habits. Without another Siffrin around to compete for the niche of, they actually begin to act like Siffrin again. Not intentionally, it's just… The party is as welcoming as they've always been. And the party swears they keep catching glimpses of a face under all the light.

Then, one day, while still not fully human again, the resemblence becomes undeniable. Loop having not even noticed until everyone looks at them like they've seen a ghost.

Has it been months? How long have they kept up this lie? Is it even a lie, to them? They're Loop. But they were, once, Siffrin.

Even after explaining it, does that make it better or worse?

Bonnie cuts through the betrayed, struck-nerve reactions with a sobering "I missed you."

… Anyway !

Yeah so that's the vibe for NoHats. As for LoopLoops? That's more nebulous. I think it can go anywhere really in the NoHats timeline. I err personally toward the "Loop continuously replays the last 10 minutes before Siffrin's death almost immediately after they find out and have to parkour their ass up the House in the most distressing situation possible to try and get them to hold on, just please hold on." (Remember! Siffrin can remember the contents of Loop's loop backs in the A6 fight!)

But there is the possibility that this happens months, or worse years down the road. One last Loop back. Throw it all away for the chance to just get that one thing you didn't know you even wanted but now know you NEED.

Misc:

Okay miscellaneous time.

This is where I admit that I have a bunch of unfinished NoHats art that I haven't gotten around to yet because I feel like a right tool being so obviously Loop-Centric with my fancontent (I AM . . I REALISE I AM NOT DOING MUCH TO BEAT THE ALLEGATIONS.) So like if people want to see that please say because euaghghghhfh <- the nervous.

this is like the most fucked up place to do isaloop fr. anyway.

one of Sam's mid-game observations that I'm just going to share for no particular reason is that Bonnie's hair shares a bunch of shapes with Siffrin's. The flick up at the top, the 3 pronged shape of the fringe… just something to think about.

Without 2 Siffrins around to compare each other to it'd likely be a lot harder to notice Loop's similarities. Doesn't mean that those similarities don't sting more in this context though.

If you do NoHats without LoopLoops. The concept of this all fading into memory years down the line while they just have slightly-glowy but otherwise regular Siffrin hanging out is fucked up to think about. Just like real grief. Augh

6. a peek into the original dms as a treat from us

[therantingsage]

Is there a point where Loop admits\realizes Siffrin's telling the truth? (I feel...oddly passionate about this. Probably to an unhealthy degree...)

I've noticed lmao. Here's how it goes down. idk what part of this is the part you're eager for but (under the cut for various spoilers):

After a certain point, as I've said, Siffrin starts to talk to the Empty Party with the intention of communicating with the one puppeting them. And, thus, starts to have full-on, genuine, repeated conversations with the Change God. Complete with their faces going all weird.

Loop is watching as much of what Siffrin's going through as they can. The first few times the party acts weird, they brush it off as 'not my party not my circus not my monkeys etc' and just decides "not like they WOULD act like who I want them to be." But. But. There's only so many times you can watch Odile's facial features disappear, only so long you can stare at a Bonnie with Too Many Eyes before....y'know. They'd be stupid to keep insisting to themself that Siffrin's making stuff up to mess with them.

But the thing is....Loop is stubborn. Loop, character-wise, would NEVER go up to Siffrin twiddling their fingers going "sowwy, i was a big meanie and you were right and i was wrong and i'd love to talk to your friends actually". Loop just wouldn't do that.

By the time they realize they were wrong, by the time they realize they'd been that callous, and the party had been there to witness it...they figure rekindling, trying to make amends, trying to make up for it, none of that would...work. To them it would be a lost cause. To them it would be pitiful. They've already fallen so far. They've already proven themself a quitter.

They refuse to let Siffrin ever see them again.

And when Siffrin forces them to talk, despite their avoidance...they're breaking apart drastically. They barely have enough face to even support one eye.

........on that note I'm actually considering having the secret fight happen before the post-game. But I haven't plotted out the motivations for it yet so I'll figure out the how's and why's later.

[impinged]

@crystalknuckle: ‘ hooray for your lightning-quick mind!! ’ / the house with a clock in its walls.

"Right. Last I checked, you were still winning..." You tilt your glass, gesturing to his trivia sheet. The fact that he's several drinks in and still nailing these questions bites at your competitive side. Not that you ever had a chance at winning. Your sieve for a brain could never hold that much knowledge. Still, you've nailed a few yourself here and there, so the fight is there!

But this last one was different.

Even while the headiness was sickeningly overwhelming, you knew the answer in a heartbeat. You sobered up instantly. Isa didn't even get a chance. Isa didn't even know, chuckling his way to another swig of his drink while you nearly jumped out of your seat to answer. Knowing. In that moment, it felt like you knew everything.

The moment's passed though. You're back to the drunken fuzziness and dull ache of your head instead. As it should be, probably. You already know you'll forget this come the morning.

Truthfully, you've already forgotten the question itself. You just know you got it right, that feeling, that brief stint of powerful understanding. Something about the stars, space, or something of the sort. Your desperation for validation must have impressed him, if he's going to cheer you on for it. You can humor him and revel in it a bit, if only because there's still the lingering satisfaction.

"Y'know who'd really win though..." You lean back in your chair with a huff, the tiredness sweeping over you. "Mira. With the amount of classes she took in the House, I bet she knows everything..." A gloved finger swirls around the edge of your glass as you begin to daydream. It'd be fun to do something like this together with her and Odile too. The three of you being drunk might dampen her well-deserved victory, but you would at least enjoy cheering her on.

"I bet she could beat you at this easy..." You rest your head on the table with a smile, snickering as you shift to look up at your company. "I'm no match though. That was just a lucky guess..."

[vampiromano]

okay uhhhh all my thoughts are scrambled so this is just kind of midnless yapping. about. stuff

1. okay so the king is. yeah idk why I trusted him when I should've logically understood that the guy has absolutely no idea about the previous convos we had. it does make me wonder whether I could've changed his mind by asking EVERYTHING and gifting him th flower all over again but. I doubt it. why would he change if this is all he has y'know. and if his literal god sorta told him he was doing what he had to.i dunno he's very interesting and I'm actually looking forward to the next fight

2. also looking forward to my next chat with loop. gotta wonder what they'll have to say about the guy who was so desperate to be understood thry Wished to get another self to talk to. I'm not sure it's gonna be the chat that gets me to The Reveal Of Loop's Identity as Siffrin2 or whatever BUT it's certainly heading that way if it isn't.

or maybe not! they're fun like that.

3. colours!!!!!!!!! nothing more to add just Colours.

ACTUALLY definitely something to add. did the same thing that happen to colours happen to the island????? is that it???????? will it be explained????? i really doubt it'll be explained. alas.

4. How Does Loop Feel About Their Home Country No Longer Existing. do they feel like Siffrin? or are they avoiding it the way Siffrin was for a while? are they detached bc now it's technically not theirs (assuming they're Alternate Siffrin and not Future Siffrin, bc I don't think Future Siffrin would make that much sense? okay maybe. some sense but. idkkkkk)? LOOP I NEED TO LOOK INSIDE YOUR BRAIN

5. Isabeau is soooo perceptive I luv him. my aversion to the crush has gotten slightly better the more Siffrin is reciprocating it and the less I'm thinking of Siffrin as Guy I'm Playing As (the more I think of them as A Character and not An Avatar, is what I mean). so I'm growing to appreciate him a lot more he's my fave guy. truly so cool. I get him. if nobody got me I know my man isabeau got me. he's my best friwnd.

6. fuck okay where was i. anyway everyone's reacting differently the more time passes and I think it's bc Siffrin is having such an astronomically bad fucking time it's transcending time. i feel like if I were in a room with them I'd just DIE I'd just say fuck this stupid baka life and drop to the ground and never move again from how rancid their vibes are. Siffrin is having the worst time anyone's ever had and I feel so sorry for him I hope I can at the very least lead him well enough he'll TALK to ANYONE(other than loop) about ANYTHING or else.

(I feel like talking to Loop is not very helpful bc Loop is just THEM but WORSE. like they already had their worst life. I don't think much good can come from talking to the version of yourself that DEFINITELY had it bad as well and seemingly BECAME A FUCKING STAR about it. idk. I'm rambling. I need to know more about Loop I need to help them also. I hope they get a happy ending with my Bones.)

7. Odile my best friend Odile is ALSO being very perceptive but she's kinda scary about it. either way I hope god do I HOPE she'll be the first to figure the loops out. or SOMETHING. bc I need Siffrin to talk to her about them I need to know what she THINKS.

8. irks me that nobody ever mentions that Siffrin poses for the picture!!! they're literally smiling!!!! every time!!!!! anyone say anything please!!!!!

9. Siffrin cut himself on glass. I was surprised! not sure it's quite self harm yet bc it didn't seem intentional BUT I have a feeling we're heading down that route!!! which is interesting!!!!!! they're certainly very self loathing and quite safe of Proper Death. idk. need to keep playing I guess.

10. Messi❤️

11. anyway yeah that's it I've got a lot of thoughts I hope someone found them mildly amusing at least!!!!

[lilietsblog]

it has occured to me that i should preserve this from the discord chat it happened in

inciting incident:

"So if you click through to this set of images about ORV you will find that a shocking number of them also apply to ISAT [...]" - @luvbloggingandreblogging

(long long response sequence from me under the cut) (all appropriate content warnings apply for what there is to discuss in isat) (spoilers also obviously)

Yeah we're at the point where it's more interesting to point out which ones DON'T apply to Siffrin

The "unwanted in childhood". Siffrin's trauma is Very Specific snd Not That One. The "man forced to be a myth": Siffrin avoids certain social situations but we never see them perceive the kind of pressure Mira does except on her, and the only audience he performs for is himself and his loves ones.

Does not in fact have a suitcase. That's the exact thing the opposite of which the story is about.

Loyalty doesn't actually outweigh morals for any of them except specifically Odile my beloved who just doesn't strike me as having many of the latter. Explaining to Bonbon that Siffrin would do the same thing again and again because they're a kid is the one thing the loops never change. Siffrin would do that for anyone their age, personal loyalty never enters the chat.

The soulmates thing just doesn't apply, to me. There's nothing specific about the way the party fits together, Siffrin just grabbed on with both hands and refused to let go and would have whoever they were (short of, y'know, very bad). If anything the way their issues are decidedly not complementary is a big part of the story. Mirabelle's Cis Angst has literally nothing to do with anyone else in the party, for example, Siffrin is just very good at Being There For People. Like they don't force each other to grow by sheer dint of who they are or anything, or yknow the story would never have happened. The only person who got Siffrin thru the horrors was literally another version of himself and while I am very pro clonefucking "sharing a soul as in you're the same person" is a different genre of connection than soulmates.

Divorced in a polycule homophobic doing a bit is also not Siffrin. It's more of an Odile genre of thing, though not the one happening on-screen right now. Siffrin actually has remarkably defined relationships with the rest of the party, and while there are obviously fics that ship him with every other adult, it's still just a very different vibe. Isabeau/Siffrin has immense sweet puppy love vibes, and sloop while fitting this premise generally is far too specific in What's Going On There.

Also this one is actually a very interesting question but I would argue that "let me be used" is also not Siffrin!!! Yes he would get hurt over and over again for others' sake, but it holds no inherent appeal to him. (Siffrin's actions that are actually specifically self-harm bring no benefit to anyone and aren't meant to.) Siffrin is always doing things for himself, and very aware of it. His spiraling is not in the direction of "just let me serve you", it's "that nice and kind thing I just did was actually mean and selfish because it made me feel better and if I want to be a good person I should self-isolate". Which is the exact opposite. Siffrin wants to be wanted, to be loved, very specifically, being needed is not something he shows any interest in. (Beyond the basic "it's not great if I'm so bad at my job that everyone will die", and even that one takes a few repetitions to get to him)

Let's see other parts too >:3

Part 1 actually applies remarkably little. Siffrin very specifically doesn't like or intend to go dangerous places ever again, and to the degree that they had to this time, they were very much the one following someone else there (who also was very much forced to)

Loop has some Unwilling Narrator vibes, I suppose, though unlike Chara Undertale they don't actually do a lot of narrating. You can kinda get through most of the story without talking to them ever, there's like one or two forced dialogs I think.

Doubting this is truly you is fully Siffrin brainworms, nobody else thinks that

Find you in every lifetime doesn't apply, see above my point abt soulmates.

Siffrin doesn't think they're being authentic, if anything their problem is the opposite: they feel like they're acting even when they're very much Acting On Their Character Traits (And their perception of themselves is mostly Entirely Absent, due to the horrors)

"Reader keeps character in a time loop" is certainly something you can read into ISAT if you really want to, but even adrienne themselves has said that every time you finish the game you Save A Siffrin, you just generate a new one for replays :)

The doomed/haunted/mourned thing is specifically the opposite of what is happening because the entire inciting incident is that there is No narrative. It's about forgetting and being forgotten. If the King could have told a story about what had happened that anyone could have heard, Vaugarde would have been fine in the first place There is in fact a story in-universe, but it's the one about Mirabelle, starring as Lord Josephandre. Siffrin gets antimemetic horror instead, and even the audience never actually gets to learn what happened, and what few pieces of their own history Siffrin gets to recall during the events are immediately forgotten, and the general facts Siffrin manages to retain, their party never hears about in the golden ending (the only possible one). Even the King doesn't get the dignity of being taken seriously as an antagonist, for all that he's obviously Siffrin's foil. However long it takes you to beat him, you'll most definitely take longer than that trying to break out of the loop around him. The personal confrontation with him is every time about how much the party doesn't care about his reasons, problems and emotions, and just wants him to disappear. The one time Siffrin attempts to do otherwise, the King rejects the offered hand, but even what he tries to do - scare Siffrin out of continuing to fight him - splashes uselessly against the monolith of the loops. Even the title he claims isn't taken seriously in Vaugarde, or particularly unseriously, or in any way whatsoever. It's just his chosen name, to them, and means nothing. There are newspaper articles about his fashion sense, and the super important symbol he puts on everywhere isn't even noticed. It's just a weird losenge. The King's story is an un-story, told by no-one in-universe, interesting to no-one in-universe, and the game has no interest in focusing on it either. It's highly likely that the King's wish coming true in the last loop was crucial to the overall resolution, but it's never mentioned, brought up or addressed in any way whatsoever!!! Loop has narrative vibes to them. But they're not an omniscient narrator - they know the mechanics, but about the things that actually matter to the story they don't know jack about shit. They're not a dramatic twist character - they're not very subtle, and you get a chance to guess their deal correctly very early on, at the start of Act 3. Obviously they matter to the audience emotionally, but you don't actually get the explicit confirmation of what's up with them and dramatic confrontation unless you do a very specific sequence of actions of the type that otherwise never affect the story whatsoever. They're a secret boss, but the ending sequence literally doesn't change depending on whether you have the encounter or not!!! The ending of the encounter itself doesn't depend on who wins the fight!!! If you've spent long enough in the loops they're pathetically easy to beat and it takes careful engineering & choreography to lose!!!! And in the end we don't even get an actual answer for what happens to them as they LITERALLY DISSOLVE INTO THIN AIR IN FRONT OF OUR EYES!!!! Loop doesn't get SHIT from the narrative!!! I said before that ISAT isn't claustrophobic, and I stand by it. It's agoraphobic instead. The Universe is vast and indifferent, and you drift unmoored from time and space, unknown and unremembered even by yourself/the audience unless you keep Memory of Self equipped every time you loop. (You have the chance to find out that the God of Change actually is audience you have, and they're the one tether of the events to reality, which is hella thematic)

Anyway, "anything you need as long as you don't leave" is also not Siffrin and not anyone else in the story either. If ANY of them were willing to take ANY SORT OF ACTION WHATSOEVER towards staying together, the story would have never happened.

"Why won't you stop dying" is straight up funny because NO-ONE KNOWS SIFFRIN IS DOING THAT. Except Loop, and to them it's how Siffrin stays. When he breaks out of the torment nexus, Loop loses him!!!

Part 2 is un-Siffrin too.

Nobody wants him dead!!! Not the narrative (the narrative very much wants him un-dead which is both relief and its own kind of horror), not himself (they give up very briefly against Mal du Pays, ONCE, which is remarkable given the length of the whole sequence and torment nexus-ness of it all), not Loop (they pretend to but fail at it so bad), not even the King who would rather they join him. Siffrin's death is a fully neutral event that matches no-one's interests, and in context that's its own genre of depressing. Shoutout to the rock and to the plantain peel.

Siffrin needs put 0 effort to surviving. The loops just happen. Maybe if Siffrin had had to work for it at least a little, they'd feel mildly less trapped and useless.

Loop WANTS to play the tragic hero, but they don't even recognize their own actual contributions to the narrative! On the list of people who know Siffrin (any Siffrin) he himself is number last. Even the King manages to score higher somehow. (It's the antimemetic horror)

If anyone in the story at any point recognized that there's something to fix about any other person involved, the story would have been very different.

"Ceaseless flow of events" would be a pretty big relief if it were actually happening!!!! (There's time loop as in "too many things are happening and I cannot control them all no matter how many times I try" and there's time loop as in "I know this play by heart, these characters are puppets in my hands, and nothing that changes does so on its own")

Siffrin is not remarkable, not noticed, and the one god we talk to is too entertained by his flailing to be mad at the problems he's accidentally caused. He nearly ends the world, and everyone hugs him and tells him that was kinda cute.

Sloop is not true love. It's true seesawing between self-hatred and self-compassion, which is in an entirely different realm of things that happen.

Again the anount of drama in they're worsties they're besties is what Siffrin WISHES were happening. It would have solved like half of their problems

All doomed by the narrative is Loop real, gotta admit that

Love did in fact save everyone and there were 0 (zero) forces against it. That's the irony of it all.

Do you guys like me is Siffrin real, again shoutout to nailing it exactly

Favorite little cosmic joke is Loop and we all adore them for it. Actually I have a new postgame headcanon. Loop shows up a week later covered in weird ichor visibly uninjured: "yeah I went to have a word with the Change God. Tore their limbs off their body, poked our their eyes and gnawed their head off their neck. I'm sure they'll be fine teehee!"

Enteric coating on his ibuprofen: if only Loop actually realized they were doing this

Break the gayass cycle is confession quest

Twink with the sharpest collarbone is Isa's POV. He fails to act fast

Trying to be normal is BOTH Loop. Siffrin isn't aware he's trying he thinks he just IS normal and it's people asking why he's covered in blood who are being weird.

Act like a normal functional human being is, yeah. Not in-universe. But so real.

[...]

Ooo ooo part 4

"Just a blade that people use" in Siffrin's pov he is of no use to anyone whatsoever so yea not

No fourth wall breaks in isat! In Siffrin's little mental breakdown he IS the narrator and he WISHES the characters broke the fourth wall and got angry with him about it

"That protagonist super definitely dead!" - the Change God to themselves hopping excitedly, completely sincerely invested even though it's the tenth time Siffrin has died to the boulder.

Self-sacrifice... yea. Shoutout to Dave Strider

I can fix him (great burden) is sloop

Predicted the whole plot is a punchline setup to Sif revealing they predicted nothing, this is just the tenth time in a row

Stunned and overwhelmed is, yea. This is why there are so many postgame fics.

Tragedy is Loop mood

Foreshadowing. Yeag. Bonniequest (stupid rotten adults edition

Horrified by past is everyones favorite postgame trope but I secretly think Siffrin would be fully aware and avert it as best they can (being worried about feels bad) (their problems do still need to be pried out of them with a crowbar) Like yes sweet innocent Siffrin is an obvious take but while Siffrin is in fact very sweet he is not at all innocent in the sense of unaware. It's one of the most compelling things about them to me: they're immediately genre savvy about time loops, they're at least somewhat aware of mental health and self-care (touch therapy arc my beloved) (we never do learn what happened there do we), they're decently self-aware and willing to open up about it in the right context (friendquests <3) Siffrin is an adult, it just doesn't help.

Wrt characters who tear themselves apart for a goal, it is VERY compelling to me how Siffrin is willing to do Whatever It Takes for a goal that isn't his at all and he isn't going to actually get anything he wants out of completing it. It's only in Act 5, burning up with fever and torn to shreds by Mal Du Pays, that Siffrin finally falls apart about it. It's only in the last loop of Act 4, terrified of hope and exhausted by struggle, that you get the option to say no, not yet, let's stall a little. The entire time before this Siffrin is fully devoted to breaking the loops and giving everyone their happy ending, even after Loop forces them to confront how they don't see a happy ending for themselves at all. It devastates Siffrin that defeating the King doesn't break the loops, cracks their facade for the first time since the time they died for the first time. Siffrin wants the victory so so badly even though it's going to take everything from him. Just... yeah.

"I'll follow you into hell / don't go where I can't follow" Isabeau darling have you tried saying it out loud. Oh wait yeah you did and it didn't work. RIP you.

"Writer falls in love" is exactly an element absent from ISAT. Loop fucking wishes a writer out there would fall in love with them [this is not a commentary on adrienne, this is about the in-universe forces and perception of them]

"Unflappable character" is very much Siffrin but they don't have much of a mask wrt people in danger and haven't since the eye incident. (Odile is Odile. Trickster deity is not the same as unflappable)

Loop we both know neither you nor Siffrin could ever kill each other even if you're the only ones whom both of you would let do it

Love in this story is. Certainly the only thing we have left of the island.

Unreliable narrators. Yeah. Siffrin is always and forever a theatre kid.

[odilestpierre]

"I miss Paris." Odile admitted, and it came out much easier than she expected. While it'd been beyond comprehension in terms of their living standards, there was something about her home, the city where she felt most like herself. She'd been born there, and for that, it would always have a piece of her. That place? It called to her like a siren. They'd come from money, her and Laurent, and sometimes she wondered if they were to go to Paris, he would've been saved from his current nightmare...she'd go anywhere so she didn't have to bury the only person she'd ever truly cared for in her life. Down to her core. "I hope you get to go back and visit soon, I feel sometimes it's always good to remember where we came from," even if for her, there was only that of wealth and family traditions.

Ones that had exiled him from her life. He was on her mind a lot.

Following immediately after, she took bac the vodka and barely grimaced. "Giordana, I've heard of. Good fighter, but nice enough. Just don't push her, I'm not sure if she's the kind...to, y'know...snap." and with the types of people they'd grown up around, she knew exactly what she meant. "I got Giorgio, actually, Giordana's friend, I believe? They work together, if I'm not mistaken."

"I've been here four years and I still miss the sun. London is my home now, but it'd be nice if it was about 30% less depressing."

Yvonne knocked back some of the vodka, letting her eyes drift shut for a moment as the burn subsided into warmth. Just as quickly she forced them back open before she fell asleep where she was sitting....again.

"I got Giordana. I don't know her or anything about her, but it could always be worse." Another drink. "What about you?"

[missingn000]

y'know I notice about the swan motifs that both Maki and Yuuta share not only to symbolize Ugly Duckling tale, but also that another meaning for their shared swan motifs could also reference the Swan Lake of both Odette(White Swan) and Odile(Black Swan). I might be reading into this too much, but it feels like that Maki would be the Odile to Yuuta's Odette. In that Yuuta would be favored by jjk society (due to his OP potential), but is also cursed by factors outside his control (Rika, hit and run) and lethally bounded by love of sorts (binding vow with Getou). Just like how Odette is loved by audience as a protagonist of her story, and also cursed (by evil sorcerer for literally no reason) and bounded by love of sorts (permanently a swan if the love of her life died). While Maki is like Odile in that she (unintentionally) committed duplicity to be Toji's child (just like how Odile is sent to trick the prince by impersonating Odette), is more of an outcast in jjk society due to no cursed energy (just like how Odile is a villain and not liked by audience), AND statistically black swans are more rare than white swans (like how those with Heavenly Restrictions AND no cursed energy are really rare and hard to come by).

Again, I might be reading into this, but I just can not help but think that this is intentional parallel! If so, that's amazing!

whoa, i love this amazing parallel you've drawn!! this one is unintentional, since i'm unfamiliar with the plot of swan lake, but it works so perfectly and i'm so flattered you analyzed their dynamic this closely!! thank you so much for sharing this with me, it's so unbelievably cool

[darlingkisses01]

some cool ideas going on over here! i'll think i'll put my ramblings and feedback under a cut cus i get the feeling this is gonna be long (massive spoilers for the entireties of both isat and ii ahead for anyone else reading this thread. lol)

so one thing i wanna focus on in building upon my ideas is how to fit isat's plot into the premise of mephone having gotten into the fantasy genre instead of reality shows and subconsciously generating this whole fantasy world upon the island when he escaped from meeple. i REALLY wanna make this work cus "mephone gets into something other than reality shows and ii becomes something completely different" is a concept that has a lot of AU potential and i like it

i wasn't sure if i was even gonna include the change belief in this AU???? but you bring up putting mephone or the shimmers into this role and it's got me thinking. i'll sit on this some more

you bring up cobs as the king, and that's something that i've been considering, but i've also been considering mephone as the king, specifically in the context of him getting worse instead of better and clinging onto his escapism. in order to have something similar to the forgotten country, i've been considering a scenario where there was this whole story played out by the original season 1 cast from start to finish, but cobs was frustrated with the quality of this first version of "the show" and forcibly corrupts the data of everything related to the first season and factory resets the season 1 cast via melife.

with something like this, the technicalities of how the loops would even be occurring would be related to melife, and so anyone who isn't connected to melife would be unaffected by the loops. i think the favor tree wish affecting melife would work somewhat similarly to the "melife neural network" and taco/knife body swap episode concepts. the major problem i have with this setup is how the hell the party can beat cobs or mephone within separate loops. another problem is how the shimmers factor into all of this. i'll also have to sit on this some more.

ok now to character assignments. in my version of the AU taco takes siffrin's role this is something i will not budge on. i am hyperfixating on both of these characters and they are very similar characters in many ways. this is my reasoning. but i do like the idea of microphone taking siffrin's place, and i can already see some similarities in their characters and arcs, with feeling out of place within their respective teams and insecurities stemming from that. with taco as siffrin, i imagine she learns about everyone having been artificially generated and season 1 having been wiped and despairs over not having had much of a life before the journey and not being able to remember the life she did have in season 1. but then she learns a little about her having Done Some Shit in season 1 (learning this from cobs or mephone is likely) and then she's like y'know what. Y'know what. maybe it's better this way maybe it's better that i've been given this second, third, forty-seventh, umpteenth chance. "another chance, perhaps?" i know what you are. i can very easily see her having that similar struggle to siffrin of being torn between wanting to leave the loop (it gets dull and repetitive and boring and nothing can grow or change at all and i can't even catch a break) and wanting to stay in the loop (my friends are here with me. even if i mess up, i can just reset. i like knowing what happens next. i like having another chance. and i can always remember.) also the theatre motif that siffrin always uses also fits taco a lot I KNOW WHAT YOU ARE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

i haven't considered the other characters all that much but i've briefly thought of suitcase as mirabelle, microphone as isabeau, test tube or cabby as odile, and lightbulb as bonnie. i wanted the party to mainly consist of contestants who didn't debut in season 1 just so that taco feels more isolated in her despair of not being able to remember it. lol. lmao

suitcase feels like the obvious choice for mirabelle, with her strong belief in others changing for the better, refusing to leave anyone behind, such and such. i did also consider marshmallow as mirabelle just cus i find it funny how marsh is known as the "sweet one" but is actually rather cynical, but i don't think this has as much of a solid foundation as suitcase as mirabelle.

mic as isabeau just felt automatic as a result of Tacomic Moment, but also i feel that mic's whole arc of not feeling confident in her own voice and over time coming to find and listen to herself has some parallel with isabeau trying to become the person that he feels that he needs to be. something something. maybe there's someone who may fit this role better but idk

test tube or cabby as odile "the researcher" lol lmao. i think this one speaks for itself. may have to come back to this later to form more detailed thoughts but you already know what's up

lightbulb as bonnie because she makes a wicked good cookie pizza and i can very easily see her also having insecurity of not being able to provide much for the team and others "having" to get hurt for her sake. she's very clumsy and shatters herself easily so i can see the rest of the party delegating her to Snack Duty or whatever else that would not require her to be on the front lines lest she get hurt. i don't see anyone in ii as a child, not even bot (i see the popular fan interpretation is to see them as like 13 years old, but i think they're a young adult at least) so i think a bonnie role assignment would work better on the basis of "who probably shouldn't be directly in combat" and "who would function a lot better traveling in a group than traveling alone" and such and such.

i didn't even think about euphrasie but yeah i think candle works as euphrasie

loop........... is a difficult one. i don't know how feasible it would be to work in "another version of taco" or any of the contestants into the setup i've got with melife, but if i do, i think this alternate version of taco (which i'll nickname "hardshell") would probably fall back on her season 1 persona while still being pretty sassy and rude with taco, kind of like how taco was in the taco show lololol. i've also considered mepad as loop, with mepad acting much nicer with taco than loop does with siffrin. or maybe mephone takes loop's place <- just thought of this now. if cobs is the king then mephone as loop would be interesting.......... another idea that i'll have to sit on. if bow still dies in season 1 then bow as loop is also a contender.

ok that's all the thoughts i have so far. yippee. this took a whole hour to write holy shit

thinking about isat x ii au. i wanna put taco in the time loop so bad

i probably won't elaborate on this much, this is just a thought exercise i have rattling around in my head for funsies cus i think taco and siffrin are very similar characters in some ways and i'd like to build on that idea. it is very funny to try and think of ways to adapt ii characters to isat roles + see if i can tie in melife to this whole thing as well