#im not as obsessively thinking about loop as i am siffrin but i also have yet to play Start Again which i will soon-ish

[gosteon]

Loop. I like them, I'll get better at drawing them at some point, for now have this.

[lucabyte]

hello

is this how your peopls work. i am obsessed with your comics and the panel layout and the way they react to eachother and sdgafkhgfdhsagfha s i very desperately need to have a grasp on how you see them in their dynamic and interacting and i feel like i don't know as much about how isabeau and loop be interacting but i am so so so so SO curious as to how that goes and how they feel about eachother pre-"i'm a former siffrin" and post-"ok you know who i am"

oh hell yeah a diagram we love a diagram

but yeah i'd say you've gotten my interpretation of the dynamic down pretty solid??

in general i think my instinct with loop-isabeau interactions is a lot tamer/calmer than others ive seen, my reasoning for why being hmm... i think i can note my core 'things im keeping in mind from the text' here

isabeau's line in act 6 remarking that loop seemed 'shy'. for all of loop's bravado @ siffrin (and thus the player's pov), they are still siffrin, so while it can be easy to percieve them as this loud bombastic personality-- there is this textual reminder that them acting this way is probably due in part to being up against siffrin, someone who won't speak unless spoken to (and thus loop takes the initiative, and is also presumably reveling a bit in making them uncomfortable and annoyed, inkeeping with their self-hatred and self-flaggellation) this to me reads as a reminder that they'd probably retreat into their shell hard when presented with other people- the party included. so even if i can see them trying to undermine their relationships with others, i think it's probably more on the insidious 'insulting siffrin to make the party protective of them' side, because that also feeds into 'proving' that the party only cares about one siffrin and that loop can be replaced. meanwhile isabeau has shown that, even with a vicious jealous streak, he can mostly keep a lid on it. he's the most emotionally intelligent of the group, and would probably be able to suss out loop's self-harm-via-getting-people-pissed-off-at-them gambit relatively simply given how obvious it is. also isabeau is not immune to insecurity-- and would probably let loop take some precidence over their relationship with siffrin because 'well i cant compete with the guy who actually went through All Of The Timeloop With Them.' because like... damn how are you supposed to do that. loop understands their pain better than isa ever could, and it would show in their fucked up unspoken understanding of each other (because how is Isa to know thats because theyre the same guy, and not just because the timeloop traumabonded the fuckers baddddly. which it also did.).

timeloop stressful as fuck. absolutely has both of them on tenterhooks the whole time. we visibly see how it affects siffrin (despondance & mania & aggression), and we see SAPfrin be very. very very despondant. so it would seem to me that loop is basically in a perpetual state of mania, given how sif's internal monologue begins to resemble their way of speaking (with the tee hees and such) when they are clearly broaching into manic states. one can assume that if you take loop out of the Torment Nexus, while they probably wouldn't faire well, all of the tension and pressure that's holding them up would collapse, likely putting them more depressive again by default? Of note, whenever i write loop's dialogue (which im told i do well? i will be honest i kind of feel like that's far too high praise.) i initially write it as very blunt and pissed off-- and will afterwards go back in and Maybe change wording to be more 'silly', but mostly i just add tildes~, italics, exclamation points and laughter to the pissed off dialogue without changing the actual content of it?

loop likes their friends! They are fucked up in the head about it (badly!!!) but they like their friends! They still care a lot, and can barely even hide it a little bit with their aloofness in game. it feels redundant to even try pointing out where they slip up because its everywhereee. They de-person their Actors because theyre the same lines over and over and over, but you see in SAP alone how any break from the script makes them overwhelmed with emotion, and how devastated they are if that deviation occurs a second time and becomes predictable (dying to the king after triggering the requisites for the true end, forcing you to go through it again). BUT!! You take their friends out of the timeloop and let them be New Unpredictable People again? I genuinely find it hard to believe mx siffrin "i love my friends so much id explode the world about it" nolastname would be able to see that and just go "nope im emotionally disconnected i can keep being a bitch to these guys forever". like no theyre gonna slip into being at least neutral no matter what. even if it's in a quiet depressive state when the mania wears off.

my biggest deviation from frequently observed fandom things here i think: i think loop doesn't actually believe that ISAT!Party are 'replacements'. they rarely if ever word a sentiment like this. this is something the fandom goes for because the horror of being replaced wholesale probably WOULD make it easier to cope if you considered those people to Not Be Your Real Friends. But loops WHOLE act 6 spiel? 'THEY WERE MINE FIRST. I LOVED THEM'? (paraphrased) they obviously desperately want to be with them again, and know they're the same people. The Fighter/Defender discrepancy clue is mostly metatext here-- since Loop never acknowledges the defender title-- just calling ISAT!Isa Fighter-- because they are the same guy. Your Fighter. They even call them Fighter in the "You got memory of X, your Fighter will now..." dialogues! Which are practically system dialogues! So. they see these isabeaus as the same. And while I would not put it past them to come up with the "they are different, my party is Dead" thing to Cope... I do think it is a delusion, plain and simple, and that I think any post-knowing-the-truth party would probably shut down weird rituals ive seen the fandom propose (often in a cute way??? it makes me feel insane?? like the concept of loop 'memorialising' their 'dead' family is not cute its nuts. they are being nuts. its like actively feeding into an extremely maladaptive coping mechanism. sorry this is like a massive sidebar but like. Yes i do think this is something loop might do if left unchecked. but it should not be presented as sane or rational? it outright undermines the themes of the game to treat the concept of 'Loop's party' being 'dead' as 'True'?? There's like several points in the game where Loop and Siffrin express that things that happened in the loops Still Happened even if the party dont recall it-- which is why their actions-- being cruel or doing 'experiments' still hold weight and can be Wrong. That it's tragic that the party will never remember but that their forgetting is NOT a pass to do whatever with no consequnce (experiment, bad touch, etc). It follows that by Nixing all of "loop's party", treating them as seperate, in some way implies loop's memories are Lesser and what they did "doesn't matter as much", which is antithetical on account of being contradictory to however you take the stated theme. PLUS... The game and Paratext are clear that there is One Timeline. SAP is in the same contiguous space as ISAT-- it is effectively just that on the loop between SAP and ISAT that we the audience dont see-- loop ate that star and when the loop restarted there were two of them. for all intents and purposes one can intuit that Loop 0 of isat and SAPfrin's first loop are legitimately identical from sif's POV, as Loop does not reveal themselves until Loop 1. BUT YEAH GIANT SIDEBAR OVER. THIS WHOLE READ OF THE TEXT INFORMS MY THOUGHTS RE: ISALOOP AND RELATED CONCEPTS VERY GREATLY)

jesus christ i wrote a lot in the above um. sorry. i dont know if its intelligable. uh. good luck?

im also on team 'orrery book and sif's thoughts about it belie a real deep-seated brainworm' re: their response to a Cautionary Tale About How You Will Inevitably Kill Your Double seemingly being "Nah, we'd be besties."... like. i do think it is. funny. and not particularly Unbased. Given how they are. For siffrin and loop to specifically be compelled by how they are the same guy. And i think that there's a lot to be mined from 'Both of them are convinced that the party knowing who loop is would fuck up everything badly, so they're going to great lengths to conseal this' played in tandem with '... they are like. very much explicitly doing things together that are directly related to a feeling of shared ownership over siffrin's body and form & the fact they are The Same Guy'. like it is a hysterical setup to me and i think is only added to when you have to put Isabeau in the middle of this polycule also. With the few exceptions of times ive drawn stuff specifically hinging on characters Knowing Who Loop Is (which is like. all bonnie-centric stuff so far? i think?), i take a lot of care to try and make their exchanges Vague as if they are worried about being overheard or saying something that's too much of a smoking gun. But also it's really god damn funny to think about how concerning some of those things could sound the vaguer you make them. Remember that above all i live and die by The Bit. (... as do they.) ie basically because im powered by The Bit thats why i focus more on the sloop side because its like. actively Funnier and more drama filled. or at least presents oppertunities for such. i feel like on isabeaus side here its kinda frequently like

yknow ? (oh god my formatting is broken now) . i DO very much think it can become like. niceys. of course. i think they can just be normal fucking throuple eventually (though if i'm going that goddamn far into the future u may as well partycule the fuckers 2 me. by the time theyve solved whatever the fuck you call pre-reveal isiloops i think odile has gotten involved at the very least. but this is why i mostly keep myself to the realm of 'the mostly immediate post-game conflict' stuff since i think all these characters leave off the end of the game with such solid springboards for arcs set up (clearly intentionally) that the infinite realm of possibilities opens up too wide for me to be comfortable with.) anyway i keep thinking about the tragicomedy of isabeau finally finding an "in" to nurture a friendly bond with loop by comisserating and steeling themselves for changing again even though it feels like a betrayal of their previous actions/beliefs and how fucking funny the idea of 'loop reveal but theyre like 2 weeks into using she/they' is. just like you get all the way through the horrors of 'oh jesus christ the timeloop was even worse than we thought it was' but now '.. d. do you still . what pronouns do you want?' is tacked onto the end. Sorry did you hear something . must've been the wind. anyway . this ask is a fucking mess i hope its readable like at all . can you tell ive been brainscramblied for six weeks

TL;DR:

yeaghj you got it. its not like im doing anything revolutionary im just trying to stick as close as i can do what i percieve the characterisation is in canon & thus generally dont tie down any of my fanwork to specific post-canon-plot-concepts. its all just nebulous extrapolation set 'pretty close to the end of the game because i think these characters are going to grow and change extremely rapidly once the game is over given how they're all intentionally poised for character arcs when the game ends'. but also you should put isabeau in the worst social bind of all time with two of the most mentally unwell BPD OCD havers youve ever seen and let him try to figure out the balance of 'be gentle' and 'treat them like the almost-30-year-old adult they literally are' while he also balances his own set of entire life changes it'll be fine he'll be fine (someone should probably check on him)

[openphrase123]

hihihi i just finished chapter 15 of curtain call and ITS SO GOOD!!!!! im obsessed with your worldbuilding and writing and characterizations and its all so good!!!!!!! i too also wish we could've canonically had some more of the emotional catharsis by having these confrontations and problems dealt with directly. the way siffrin gets angry too in this fic???? mmm chefs kiss love it love it so much.

anyway!! i know there's the next big fic you're working on as well as intuile for long term projects, but i was wondering if curtain call was going to become a series after the epilogue? ik we haven't gotten it yet so that could answer my question but i was just curious!! bc i feel like there is sooo much to explore with the way you've set the characters up and the types of convos they've had and promises they've made.

ty for your time and i hope you had a good day/night!! enjoy your week off this fic and i hope the personal project goes well :)

hold on before i get into this. apropos of nothing i'm obsessed with your url

i KNOW like. listen. i love isat so much. i wish some fights got a little meaner or bled into the last loop. but i know that's not what it was trying to do so i don't fault it for it. but i did write a bunch of fanfiction about it instead lsadjflasdkjfas

curtain call is not going to be a series! i only got so much juice in me for a project and there's other fic stuff that's drawing me more... curtain call was so fun and i enjoyed it but it was the first isat fic i started writing so i was still getting in the swing of writing for it! i honestly thought it would be the only isat fic i would go write and then i fell down the rabbit hole really hard. oops.

however i'm not super precious about the worldbuilding in cc (even if i thought through it very hard!) so if anyone wants to steal parts of that for their fics i'm chill with that. when it comes to fanfiction i subscribe wholly to the "two cakes" train of thought

anyway thank you for reading! i know it might be sad to see curtain call go but trust me when i say. in like 6 months it's not going to be my best isat fic, i think i have better ideas in the can :)

however if you liked how the name worldbuilding in curtain call works you would definitely enjoy the video game i'm developing - [i am hooked off stage before i can finish and am gingerly placed in front of my computer so i can go back to researching godot data storage]

[llilyrose]

isolated frames + artist's notes below cut!!!

((for the people who want the photos and the nerds who like behind the scenes stuff))) ((((i am nerds))))

pssst...... . theyrge free to use with credit... spreadd my influence

thumbnail

oooh the troubles. im not logged in to my youtube account on mobile, which is where i made everything, so i had to upload the video to the google drive and download it from there onto my pc.

the thumbnail was the first thing i made for this project!!! you'll see the signature twohats coins in the middle (also seen in the achievement) with the little rings coming out and the starbelt above it.

the rings + starbelt combo represent the universe (who i also interpreted here if you're curious). the starbelt is a passive symbol and the rings are an active influence. you'll notice them throughout the different frames in the rest of the animatic.

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"the calculator will make / the same mistakes"

The bottom portion is the beginning of the game where Siffrin makes a wish at the favor tree. It's meant to represent both Frin and Loop; The lyrics are referencing the fact that Siffrin made the same mistake Loop did long before them, starting the cycle over again. Something something because they're the same person and the calculator will never change without outside input.

the top portion transitions to the Loop hangout!!! i wanted to be smart about using the favor tree's leaves as a transition sequence and thought I'd tackle one going from light to dark. I used the Loop Hangout sequence here because I wanted a good excuse to use it in the next line of lyrics, but also because transitioning from one siffrin to siffrin and loop would be poetic and get across the message about their branching paths.

Originally it was going to be a sequence showing loop vs. siffrin's deaths against the king but i wanted something more seamless. the starbelt is there to look pretty and also because i think the King's time freeze turns everything to night for religious reason.

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"yeah i see it in / its face"

i had to turn the contrast up for these shots! i didn't like how undramatic the originals looked in the context of the animation.

here's what they looked like before:

they didn't really match the intensity of the mood i was going for. surely you understand my dilemma

siffrin's pose went through quite a lot of change but i landed on something i liked. again, the star belt is there just to create some sort of detail that framed the characters as the main focus while making sure the canvas didn't come out super boring/empty

while drawing loop's eyes here i took some idea from marshall's ghostlight loop eyeshape because i was kinda OBSESSED with drawing those type of eyes and they're shaped like Me so i had to. help.

"i see it in its face" siffrin is hiding from the truth but loop figured it out a while ago. he's holding out hope and they're trying to get something, anything through to him. this was perfect for the loop hangout gwagh

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"hold on tight to this time this place"

sasasaap siffrin my friend C:

the animatic shifts between loop and siffrin povs after abt every 2 lines. i got this idea because i had sasasaap siffrin in mind for "hold on tight... everything you know" and had mal du pays in mind for "you were born... that is where".

This is Loop after beating the King in the true ending. happy with all their friends. "hold on tight to this time this place" -> hold on to the memories of your friends, to the happy moments you spend with them, because they will be ripped away over and over until you'll never be able to get them back.

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"everything you know / will be erased"

tying into the last line, this is loop after making their wish. there's no going back anymore. everything they know will vanish, their party won't be theirs anymore, their memories along with themself won't even EXIST anymore. everything will be erased, and that's why they have to hold on to those past memories. separate this timeline from their own. (what a shame that we know this timeline is the only timeline that exists... still holding out hope, are you, loop?)

the star belts and rings are back and this time very much so intented to be referencing the universe. i alao just think star belts are good in space settings, and wanted to mimic the opening sequence of the game

lighting gets harsher in the second photo on purpose (the star's closer to their body, of course it would light them brighter)

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"you were born inside your head"

bounce to siffrin's perspective

MAL DU PAYS EDITS OF THE PARTY MY FRIEND. I LOVE MAL DU PAYS DEARLY (see the art/poem i made if you don't believe me coward)!!

mira was tweaked from the edit i did of lélu, ocean's miraloops au version of mal du pays, and the rest of the party try to immitate that style. in the future I'll go back in and make them fully animated sprites for our collective leisure.

this scene is meant to be mal du pays immitating the party. "you were born inside your head" -> you're not a real person without your memories, all the memories you have technically don't even exist in the first place, + your home isn't real anymore either. it's also about mal du pays itself, born from within siffrin's mind and existing only within the memories of his time in the loops.

the extra lighting + details were meant to add atmosphere to the existing piece, like the "oooooo" and the soft track backing the sung lyrics. i was playing around with animating these and making them into sprites before finishing the pmv but i knew that if i did that i would abandon the project altogether probably and/or set it back by a long while. so instead we're waiting for me to do that after the fact.

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"that is where you'll be when you are dead"

the end of the mal du pays fight scene!!!!!! i need better names for these shots heeeeelp me.

specifically the part where siffrin's giving up. mal du pays has done its job and is finally putting it and siffrin to rest; sif just wants a moment of peace, just wants some kind of clarity, but in the end he accepts that he won't get any further than he already has and that all his issues are things he has to live with.

he will stay inside this prison of his own making until he gives up or otherwise can't move forward. he just wants out.

(side note: siffrin's hat is all curled up! it's a small detail i noticed on one of id5's reference sheets, where siffrin"s hat curls up in certain moments only. i thought I'd include it here.

those reference sheets helped me with drawing a lot of her characters! for example, siffrin's gloves and hair came from a siftuation and hair example sheet respectively. i saw the phrase "komaeda hair" and could not help myself. i am a wavy/curly hair fiend)

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"you are just a boy / you are no man"

we're cutting back to the loop wish pov; here's them actually eating the star!!!!

the first image is my favorite out of the whollllleeee pmv. the lighting before they take a bite. HELP me.

ignoring the gendered words used in the lyrics, I'm trying to paint loop as sympathetic here. they didn't deserve ANYTHING they went through, the absolute torture they got wringed in!! they never had a MOMENT to stop, to breathe, to process what they went through, to deal with any of it in a healthy way. on the inside they're still a person, still a siffrin, someone distinct with thoughts and feelings.

the lighting kinda sucked to figure out but at the same time i had a lot of fun with it??? i didn't want to draw siffrin's hat but i realized after making the "everything you know" images that loop doesn't even have their hat in the prologue. heeeelppp me. i didn't wanna go back in and change it because i spent a lot of time on it there so it stayed.

yeahh these are my favorites. i already said that. but still. the dramatic lighting was fun! i colored from dark to light which isn't usually how i shade things but it made sense in my head here.

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"and nobody you know will / understand"

these lyrics are meant to be taken VERY literally. literally nobody they know (or used to know) understands them. nobody knows who they are, who they used to be, the constant inner battle they're fighting.

their family doesn't know them anymore. their family is scared when they first meet, even!!! they've spent all these loops trying to hide from themself and everyone they know so obviously they would be so so so uncomfortable "meeting" everyone again, acting like they don't know them.

THE BACKGROUNDS SUCKED. OH MY LORD. IT WAS SO BAD. HELP ME. THANK YOU MY LEAF BRUSH AND MY PEN BRUSH (FADE) YOU ARE SAVIORS I WOULDN'T HAVE MADE THESE WITHOUT YOU. I don't know how to make backgrounds anything other than lineless.,, lines in backgrounds take attention away from characters if you're not careful and that's the exact OPPOSITE of what i wanted to do!! i had to leave space for text also. these shots were composition hell. help me. help me. save me.

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"you are just a boy / you are no man"

"and nobody you know will / understand"

direct continuation of the last sif part with them drifting in a mind void after the mal du pays fight

because i feel like the awakening happened a little more gradually than it did in-game? they'd fully given up by that point and the reason he woke up wasn't because of the loud noise around him, but because their party was trying to break through the mdp haze. likely mirabelle healed the timefreeze-like state he was in to get him to wake up

this scene is SUPER metaphorical!!!!! the lighting made it a bit difficult, and the lack of any source media to base it off of didn't help, but i made do.

it took me forever to think of what i was gonna put here. for the whole pmv i had some sort of idea of what i wanted to make for each scene (barring this scene and the last loop scene) but this one ESPECIALLY i was clueless about. i asked around and got some good ideas (thanks dasner!!!) but knew i wanted to do something with siffrin and figured that i should do a continuation after the mdp fight.

it worked out in the end because the last frame made both of the "paths" in the pmv coincide while also just looking pretty.... winning I'm winning !!!!!

when i first posted it these were my least favorite scenes but I'm really warming up to them. they're just so pretty. wow i really made those huh. i really made them. that was me. boggles my mind.

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so uh yeah that's it. not much to say after all that!!!

I'm very very proud of how this turned out, and I'm really really happy you guys seem to like it too :)

i was gonna show you guys the storyboards for funsies but I've already inserted 28/30 possible embeds onto this post!!! ouchies!! owzers!!! sorry!!!!! I'll have to remake this pmv using the storyboards. give me 10 seconds.

(I'll link it here when i post it)

[trips and drops this] oh god oh ngo not my isat pmv ive been working in for rhe past three days no no nobon