two-thirds-of-a-kind

[two-thirds-of-a-kind]

maybe this time🔥🔥🔥

[two-thirds-of-a-kind]

Tiny thing

[two-thirds-of-a-kind]

[insert poetic title here]

fun fact: this did not start out as isat fanart

(rambling in tags)

[two-thirds-of-a-kind]

and you're back here again.

there's no escaping this.

you're never going to be free.

not like that was what you wanted anyway.

you never want to leave them after all!

you never want to leave them! you never want to leave them! you never want to leave them! you never want to leave them! you never want to leave them! you never want to leave them! you never want to leave them! you never want to leave them! you never want to leave them! you never want to leave them!

Y O U N E V E R W A N T T O L E A V E T H E M

crying. you're crying. you've looped back several times now. you can't stop it. the instant you see mira show up the blinding sugary smell comes back.

you feel like throwing up. you have to stop. you won't. you need to stop. you can't.

you wish to stop crying. you hear the Universe laugh. you know it isn't that easy. now pull yourself together.

the Universe demands an encore.

[two-thirds-of-a-kind]

Free serotonin! Look at the enby!

[two-thirds-of-a-kind]

i wonder if the king didn't actually wish to freeze vaugarde in time, but rather to remember the island, his country.

i know he says that freezing the country was his wish and goal, but i think there's a parallel between him and siffrin in that they both kinda gaslight themselves into remembering their wish as something different. (siffrin wishing for his family to never leave him / the journey to never end but instead believing their wish to be what the player picks at the beginning of the game ((even if it is also a genuinely felt wish)))

siffrin genuinely wishes that his family will never leave him, but also recognizes that that kinda wish is embarrassing and unrealistic, and so he settles on something more realistic and grounded in what he knows is possible. however, this second wish, still heartfelt, is also less desired, and with wishcraft being what it is, it grants siffrin's true heartfelt wish: to never have to end his journey.

we don't know much about the king. we don't know if he made an unintentional wish akin to siffrin's, or if he believed that the forced amnesia could be overcome by wishcraft. either way, by the events of the game, he seems to have adopted the belief that his wish was to freeze vaugarde in time: to perfectly capture a perfect memory of a perfect country forever. i propose though that the king's true wish (even if he doesn't believe so himself) was simply to remember his homeland. everytime you manage to defeat him after all, he disappears with the phrase "not when i still can't remember its name" rather than something about vaugarde no longer being frozen or the picture being incomplete. however, the universe still recognizes the wish for no one to be able to remember the island, creating a bit of a stand-off that gets rectified at the end: mirabelle casting a reflect and freezing the king, rendering him not quite living and so a valid exception for the wish relating to the island. this allows the universe to fulfill both wishes despite them being fundamentally contradictory

[two-thirds-of-a-kind]

As the flash hits your eye, you feel something crashing into you from all directions. Below you is obvious, Bonbon situated themself to bump into you while the picture was taken. You look to your right, and Mirabelle’s cheek is pressed up to yours. On your left, Isabeau’s sheepishly hugged you to his side. There’s a hand in your hair, too, and it feels like Madame Odile. [...] “We need a souvenir of this trip,” Mirabelle adds. She rushes to the ground to pick up the picture and snort-laughs as she looks at it. “Oh no, Siffrin looks like we’re holding him hostage!” — Curtain Call, Chapter 9, by @openphrase123 (Link in the replies)

2024 October 22nd

Fanfic fanart fanfic fanart!! When I read the "hostage" line, it invoked such a clear image in my head of Siffrin tensed up like a startled prey animal that it got added to my list of things to maybe draw immediately.

Dooon't think about the words 'left' and 'right' in that quote too hard. I know how to read I prommy. :) (I did Not process those words and lost the coin flip in the composition phase...)

Close-up and ramblings about the cans of worms I unleashed upon myself under the cut

Time taken on this was [head in hands] 48 hours and 37 minutes.... That bloated number has two culprits:

1) I got a new tablet! My old one was 10 years old. Its plastic was melting and the electronics had ghosts in 'em, so it needed the sweet release of retirement. However, I had just gotten to the line art phase when the switch happened. Clumsily getting used to the new one during the most precise phase of the process did devastating things to my perfectionism.

2) I made a GRAVE mistake with how I chose to color this. I wanted to keep the grayscale layers for accuracy instead of just slapping a B&W filter over the colored version, so all the colors come from gradient maps, color balance layers, overlay layers, and raster layers clipped to other layers. Listen. I'm used to working with lots of layers. I like keeping things separate so I can edit them more easily. But this is the worst layer system I have ever created. Going from color to B&W requires toggling exactly 20 layers & folders on or off. There are 87 visible layers total. This file lags when you edit it. I've never wanted CSP v1.13 to have layer comps more in my life.

Not helping matters was Isabeau. I said he was the easiest to draw in my last post, but he took that as a challenge, apparently. It's a simple fist-on-hip pose, why was that so hard!?! His face gave me grief too.

Odile's lil' wave got added at the end of the line art phase. I've never added to a sketch that late in the game before, but I felt bad about how little screen area she got, haha. Girl, I tried, but this composition was not kind to you.

Giving Isa, Odile, and Siffrin skin colors felt cursed. Well... "color" is maybe a stretch for Sif. The pallor from being affection-jumpscared isn't helping. In the dev's nose reveal post, they said that Siffrin isn't white but is white-passing, so BOOM albinism headcanon. Like c'mon, they wear a big hat and have most of their skin covered because the sun is a deadly laser when you have little to no melanin and idk if sunblock exists in-universe. Heck, maybe most Islanders have it, their whole religion is about the night sky so maybe they're nocturnal. This makes perfect sense. :)

[two-thirds-of-a-kind]

ISATOBER DAY 16: SPOTLIGHT

You look to the sky.

Stars; hundreds, thousands, millions of spotlights. All. On. You.

The Universe is watching. Waiting for its guidance is pointless. There's no entertainment to be had in helping you after all. You better give it something to remember then.

Don't forget to bow.

[two-thirds-of-a-kind]

ISATOBER DAY 12: SPIRALLING

You can feel it starting again.

The mania and despair the comes when you're out of leads, when you're out of hope. You know dozens of loops will pass before you can stomach the thought of consciously doing any more.

You know that this is only going to get worse. Everytime you think you can't get any lower, any more deprived of hope; the spiral continues downwards. Another lead is snuffed, another tug on your blinding stomach.

you can't take this anymore you need to get out get out get out get out please

[two-thirds-of-a-kind]

i... genuinely can't think of anything for supernova not without it feeling monstrously shoehorned

imma skip today :p

[two-thirds-of-a-kind]

ISATOBER DAY 9: MEMORY

The memory of it will always haunt you.

You'll always be haunted by the specter of your lost homeland. The island north of Vaugarde.

It's name? Gone. It's faith? Gone. It's people? Gone.

A few scattered survivors with the vague outline of a memory are all that's left.

No one will ever remember it. Not as long as the Universe wills it. No one will ever remember you. After all, your past is so inextricably intertwined with that it'll devour you whole as well. Erase you from your family's memory alongside any trace of your home.

You can't let them go home. You can't let them forget you.

please please please please please

this is all you need

[two-thirds-of-a-kind]

ISATOBER DAY 8: LONGING

Isa's confession. You know how this will end. How this will always end. You don't even bother asking the others to wait for him to "finish." Whoever interrupts first gets to interrupt first. Bonnie, Mira, Odile... Isa when seeing your expression.

You know he can't help it. Falling for you. You can loop in time! You know the perfect interaction! The perfect joke, pun, everything.

You've made him want you. And you don't think you can ever stop making him long for you.

You're disgusting.

You nothing but lie to him. Make yourself seem way better than you ever would without being able to loop like this.

You will never deserve him.

[two-thirds-of-a-kind]

ISATOBER DAY 7: GLASS

cw: self-harm

You enter the stall.

Stars.

You've been so numb these last couple of loops. You bury your face in your hands and sit down. Breathing shakily, you rub your thighs through your pants and flinch as you feel a sting. Ah, right, the piece of glass. You pull it out of your pocket and stare at it as the light glints off of it. Absently, you take one of your gloves off and pinch the shard between your thumb and forefinger, inhaling sharply as small dark beads begin to form.

You sigh and look up as you feel a slight tingle behind your eye. Pain. It's something. Finally. The sadnesses can do almost nothing to you, but at least you're able to make yourself feel something again. You take the other glove off and prod at the back of your hand. You feel the tear start to roll down your cheek as you watch the lightless stars form on your skin. You try to find constellations in them but your mind slides right over them as it always does.

Pressing a palm against your eye to stifle any more tears, you wait for the punctures to stop bleeding.

Back to the stage. Back to the numbing cold.

[two-thirds-of-a-kind]

isafrin measurements comic based off this post of mine; bc someone asked, and I am a lady of my word (sometimes) <3

[two-thirds-of-a-kind]

ISATOBER DAY 6: BLACK HOLE/COLLAPSE

As you watch him run off again for the dozenth time, you can't help but wonder how long it will take before he surrenders under the weight as well. How long it will take until they collapse inward and bring the entirety of their timeline to a crashing halt; bringing everything they know and love, everything they've forgotten and hate unto themself in a lightless hole of their grief and suffering.

You were stuck for thousands of loops before you even managed to defeat the King. You had nothing though. No one to confide in. No helpful guide to light the way. You didn't even get to see the blinding sun until you did!

There's no way you can let him suffer less than you have. Not until he reaches the same pits of despair as you have that you can stop playing with the joke that the Universe gifted you when you made that wish.

[two-thirds-of-a-kind]

ISATOBER DAY 6: BLACK HOLE/COLLAPSE

As you watch him run off again for the dozenth time, you can't help but wonder how long it will take before he surrenders under the weight as well. How long it will take until they collapse inward and bring the entirety of their timeline to a crashing halt; bringing everything they know and love, everything they've forgotten and hate unto themself in a lightless hole of their grief and suffering.

You were stuck for thousands of loops before you even managed to defeat the King. You had nothing though. No one to confide in. No helpful guide to light the way. You didn't even get to see the blinding sun until you did!

There's no way you can let him suffer less than you have. Not until he reaches the same pits of despair as you have that you can stop playing with the joke that the Universe gifted you when you made that wish.

[two-thirds-of-a-kind]

Human Loop human Loop human Loop

I love drawing their hair….