#start again: a prologue spoilers

[vive-le-roi-au]

Prologue

(This post contains both images and text.)

(You’d been looping back to just the third floor for… you don’t know how many loops. Hundreds?)

(Maybe that was the problem. You didn’t do it all in one go. You just have to do it all, from start to finish, and kill the King.)

(From the top.)

(…Again.)

(You went back. Again.)

(Maybe you took too long. Just need to go faster.)

(…No. Still not enough.)

(It feels good though. Killing the one who killed you, thousands of times. It’s cathartic.)

(You’re even strong enough that you don’t need the Housemaid—MIRABELLE. HER NAME IS MIRABELLE, MIRABELLE, MIRABELLE!!!)

(…You don’t need Mirabelle’s help anymore.)

(…)

(You wouldn’t mind doing this a few more times.)

(…)

(Back to the stage, Siffrin.)

(…)

(…)

(…)

(It’s just another part of the loops now.)

(Go through the House. Kill the King. Talk to the Head Housemaiden. Something’s broken, failing, rotting. Loop back to Dormont.)

(The worst part?)

(Murdering the King has stopped bringing you joy.)

(It used to make you smile, seeing him crumble, blood spilling from his mouth, pooling on the ground.)

(Sometimes, you reduce his body to dust, cutting it up more and more and more until there’s nothing left. You’ve killed him slowly, draining him of his strength and bleeding him from a million places all over, watching the light slowly leave his eyes.)

(And you can’t even enjoy it anymore.)

(…)

(So why are you still here?)

(Whose fault is it that you’re trapped here?)

[woodswolf]

So I played In Stars and Time and turns out it's a really good game! Honestly my instant GOTY and it's not even close. People who are me will see a story about time-loop-rot and go "is anyone gonna go insane over this" and not wait for an answer.

This ended up being just as much if not more so a START AGAIN: a prologue video (not to mention the comics) than an In Stars and Time video, mostly because of… well, my favorite character is Loop, and this video (or really this song in general) is about them more than anything else. So you know I had to get a bit meta with it :D

The song is "Next of Kin" by Lucy Dacus. The album it comes from is really really really good PLEASE listen to it.

This took somewhere in the range of 40-50 hours of work overall, a fair amount of which was actually image editing. I have no idea what font the new game+ comic used, but I decided that I liked it so much that I would manually recreate it and use it for all of the comic sequences. After a while of doing that I felt like a 12th century monk alone in a monastery transcribing the bible. Not recommended, but it sure was an interesting experience!

[chaos-canary]

A small 230 word long post I made about Loop because I noticed A Thing™

Warning: major spoilers for both In Stars And Time (Optional 6th Act conversation) and Start Again: A Prologue

So, I've been thinking about Loop, and you know, how they're Siffrin from Start Again.

One particular detail that stood out in isat is this:

"The King... I could never beat him, did you know that? No matter how hard I tried, the King always defeated me."

Now, for anyone who's not familiar, Start Again has 4 endings. The one in particular I'm mentioning is the True Ending.

During the game, Siffrin has been looping for a long time, and at the point we start the game, has completely forgotten their friends names.

The only time they remember everyone's names, is during the True Ending.

The reason why this is notable is because the only time Siffrin beats The King, is also during the True Ending.

So, Loop never experienced the True Ending, and never remembered their friends names.

Well, didn't remember their names during the loops...

Because we have this line:

"Hah, can you believe, I forgot their names, for a time?"

Notice the past tense (also, there's a line where they say everyone's names, but I forgot to take a picture of it).

So either, A: Loop relearned everyone's name during the time between Start Again and isat.

Or B: Loop only relearned everyone's name after being sent to isat Siffrin's world. (world, timeline, universe? I don't know what word fits.)

And if B is the case, that opens up a whole new possibility for Loop angst.

So, I hope you enjoyed my rambling! And I hope this interests someone!

[yonch]

EVERYONE'S FAVORITE COSMIC JOKE

[pillowspace]

(Unreality:) Hey, has anyone here ever played that co-op game In Stars and Prologue? I need some help. My partner recently got a bug in which they've been stuck on the third floor and neither of us know how to get rid of it. I also think this game wasn't really built well for co-op because the rest of the party seems to only be able to process one Siffrin at a time, even when it's really obvious there's two? Which? Is weird because it's a two player game, why didn't the developer bother to account for two Siffrins???

[ashleys-doodle-corner]

Oops, all Loops and Siffrin!Loops! Great for a balanced diet!

(these are all transparent, so feel free to use them for whatever. i'm letting them run out into the wild)

[mizzle-moths]

what if i just (explodes)

"what if they died because you tried to get a better ending" i actually really dont like it here i really dont. GOD.

[tealgoat]

I think something is wrong with my copy of start again??

[gierosajie]

Just a silly fella

[electrozeistyking]

START AGAIN IN STARS AND TIME.

yes

>no

[hysterical-random-things]

Picture taken moments before disaster

[strcnglerfigs]

i gave up on my wish, and destroyed myself.

[the-amazing-hat-trick]

Surrounded by stars

You've forgotten them all.

Greyscale version

[solace-of-solitude]

I originally had more planned for this piece but I’m content with how this turned out

[pillowspace]

You could tell them about the loops. If you wanted. It wouldn't be cruel. Death doesn't hang over your heads anymore. // They already know something's wrong with you anyway. On the day it all ended, you had sobbed until you lost your voice. You haven't spoken a single word since, denying them of an explanation. // It... wouldn't be cruel. It...

...The way they look at you. They look at you as if they think they still recognize you. // Would that go away? Would it make you a liar to let them think you never stopped being you? // Hey, Sif! Come see what [...]

Sometimes I think about what it would've been like if defeating the King really had been the solution for SASASAP Siffrin. Thousands of loops, and suddenly the hammer of success coming down out of nowhere without anyone even having to know what you went through.

[ashleys-doodle-corner]

you're a terrible friend, s̸̛̳̿i̸̭̣͚̿̆f̵̢͙͔͋̌f̵̨̯̮̃r̷͖̱͂͘͜͝i̶̡̓͑̌n̸̢̉͠ loop. terrible, terrible, terrible.

(aka i have grown tired of siffrin!loop and now give you loop!siffrin)