#siffrin is there too but literally just a hand so i'm not tagging them

[skyistheground]

apprehensive about sharing but i made a fic

[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.