Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Siffrin doesn't remember their past, which is why he doesn't remember that he was always taught to keep a tight hold of their worries. Your worries are your own, their mother told them. Don't give them away to anything else. If you do—

When he wakes up on the boat, he has only the cloak on his back, their hat, and a strange plush creature with a black body and a star for a head. They don't remember anything, and life isn't easy for a teenager suddenly left on their own without a strong command of any language, without money, without any idea what to do. Every night, he hugs the plush creature—now dubbed Loop—close, puts his lips on their head, and whispers their troubles into their body. I'm scared. I'm hungry. I'm thirsty. I don't know where I came from. I don't know where i'm going. Please, someone, anyone, help me.

Nobody does come to help him. But they manage to get by anyway. Their trusty loop gets by with them, too, though the fuzz on its body wears away in places, they get dirty and ripped and sewn and ripped again. But they survive, and Siffrin survives, and every night still, he whispers his troubles into their only friend before going to bed.

They don't notice that the plush's shadow keeps getting larger, larger. He doesn't notice that sometimes when you look at their eyes from the right angle, you can see stars there. They don't notice anything, until it's too late.

(Though that ends up being for the better.)

Siffrin ends up meeting a group of wonderful people. His problems are lighter, even when they don't whisper them away. Some days Loop stays in their pack entirely. He's realized, after all, that most people don't hold on to plush creatures (or 'stuffed animals', apparently) when they're Siffrin's age. And he won't get rid of Loop, of course, but to bring them out, to kiss them, to give away their problems—that's not the adult thing to do, is it?

(In the bag, the stars in Loop's eyes dull.)

Basically: what Siffrin no longer remembers is that the extended giving of worries to some sort of receptacle is a very powerful wishcraft ritual that gives life to a new being. Loop takes a new form, a sort of echo of the stuffed animal and Siffrin combined, and is happy to now be able to help Siffrin and to spend time with Sif again, but Siffrin is scared because they don't understand, and he leaves Loop behind. Loop follows.

Because Loop has been fed with all of Siffrin's pain and suffering for years, they're a darker, sadder version of them, and they don't take well to being left behind. They wonder what made the party so much better than them, who had been with Siffrin for so many years, who had taken all of his worries, and develop a huge grudge against the party and a lot of heartbreak against Siffrin.

When finally, eventually, Loop catches up, Siffrin denies them again, and Loop takes the party. They just take them, they don't do anything to them, but Loop wants Siffrin to know what it feels like to be so thoroughly abandoned. This pisses Siffrin off, and now they're the one chasing after Loop, and the party gets to know Loop. Siffrin wishes to get them back, and it puts Sif in a timeloop where they keep trying to defeat Loop and keep failing, and they don't entirely understand why until he realizes that Loop has been looping alongside Sif the whole time. They made a wish too, and whatever it was, it brought them into the loops as well and they've been just letting Sif fight them.

When Sif finally realizes that, they remember the Loop that's been with him all this time and break down. "Why would you do this?" they ask. "Why would you take them, and why would you let me fight you without saying a single word?"

"You gave me all of your pain," Loop says. "Why wouldn't I hate you?" And when Siffrin is already reeling, they sigh and quietly add, "And you gave me all of your tears. Why wouldn't I want to help you anyway?"

Their wish was always just to help him.
 They reconcile; Sif and Loop have a lot of making up to do, and Loop has to learn life without sacrificing everything for Siffrin. Siffrin, after realizing they really were the one who was responsible for Loop being alive, now feels a lot of guilt for everything he did to them, plus they have to learn to hold onto their worries themselves but still to share with others. But after that's all sorted, Siffrin holds onto Loop each night, kisses their head, and whispers his love for them there instead, and Loop whispers theirs right back. And even though they both still have their own worries, they like the way things are now a lot better.

There is never one exact moment that the being called Loop becomes aware they are alive, no line between being an object and being an entity over which they step. If they concentrate hard enough, they can vaguely remember a child holding them up into the air with joy in his eyes, telling them they're perfect, calling them by their name for the first time.

They can remember for a moment, at least, until the pain becomes too much. But they keep trying anyway, because those memories are the most precious ones they have. Before the child became lost, before the child started filling them up with their worries, before the child stopped smiling.

Everything they do, in the end, is in pursuit of seeing that smile again. They just wish they could see it at least once more.

—But that's not yet. First, there are years and years of being stuffed with pain, being unable to help. Every worry their stardust tells them is felt as if they had experienced it themselves—every hunger pang, every difficult day working far too young, every time they yearn for someone to see them, remember them, love them. It only becomes more intense as Loop's consciousness grows.

I love you, Loop wants to say back, to fill Siffrin with it just as they fill Loop with their troubles. I love you every day. I love you even though you make me feel this pain. I love you, and that is why I do not blame you. But they do not have any mouth to speak, any voice to make themselves heard. All they can do is be there, and absorb the tears from Siffrin's cheeks, and wish, and wish—

They do not know, either, when they know that Siffrin is Crafting them into something that can help them. Perhaps it is something else they have always known. But the power of the Universe flows into them every day, and they look forward eagerly to the day they can hug back Siffrin like he hugs them, and stop any bad thing from ever making their stardust cry again. They wait. They wish.

Perhaps some element of their wish is heard. Someone appears to help Siffrin. It just...isn't them. It's a group of other humans. They befriend Siffrin, they sit close to them and listen to him and do everything Loop has wished they could do and—and that's fine, isn't it? They can keep Siffrin company until Loop can do it themselves. Siffrin seems much happier nowadays, too. They smile sometimes, even if it's not exactly like he used to.

Loop doesn't see it as much, though. Siffrin hasn't hugged them to sleep every night, these days. And that's...fine. Their stardust is very forgetful, after all. He's fighting creatures so often now. They're tired, they're just forgetting, it's not that he doesn't care...

(They want to see him. They wish, they wish, theywishtheywish—)

And then, one day, one beautiful terrible day, Siffrin takes Loop from their pack, caressing gently over their head, hugging them close. "They'll leave me," he whispers. "They'll all leave me, eventually. And I don't know if I can..." They go silent a while, then, "I just wish somebody would stay."

I would. I want to. I'll be there. I wish, Loop thinks.

And when Loop opens their eyes next, it's in a body shaped like their stardust's, dotted with stars like the embroidery on their old body. They like that it looks so much like the body their stardust made for them. They hope Siffrin likes it too. The excitement jitters all the way through to their toes. Perhaps that excitement is their undoing, perhaps if they had just waited for them to wake up—

But they don't. They shake Siffrin awake, practically vibrating. "Stardust," they say, testing out the sound of their voice, beaming at the way it rings out into the tent. "Stardust, stardust—"

Siffrin shoots awake, gasping. He looks around in a frenzy, then sees Loop.

Immediately, he scrabbles back on his hand, questing about by the side of their bedroll. "What are you," he gasps.

"What do you mean?" Loop asks, blinking. "I'm yours. I'm here."

"I didn't know any Sadnesses could talk," Siffrin mumbles to themselves. His hand lands on the dagger he keeps nearby.

They point it at Loop.

Loop doesn't understand, still. "Siffrin...?"

"How do you know my name?!"

"I'm—" Words still come clumsy to their tongue. "I'm—" I'm Loop. You made me. I'm yours, I'm yours, I can help you, I love you—

Siffrin's face distorts, and Loop finally recognizes the emotion there. They're afraid. Of Loop? Yes, of Loop.

He....doesn't.....recognize you.

And just as Loop thinks that, Siffrin strikes, slashing wildly against Loop's chest, right where the star they had carefully sewn on lies.

If Loop were a Sadness, or a human, maybe it would have killed them. As it stands, it just makes Loop's chest ache with a different sort of emotion. 

He doesn't recognize me. They don't know me. Years he's slept beside me, years they've whispered all their secrets to me, and they don't—

Loop doesn't want Siffrin to be scared like this. Stumbling over their new legs, they get away from the horror in Siffrin's eyes when he sees they're unaffected, from the stranger reflected there, from the not-knowing. They bolt out the flap of the tent, ignoring the surprised shouts of the other humans, and go...somewhere. They need to think. They'll come back for Siffrin later, just—just long enough to collect themselves, to figure out how to explain—

But when they come back, Siffrin and the other humans are gone. 

Their stardust. Siffrin. He left them. He...left........they left. He left their Loop behind without...even saying...

It must be a misunderstanding. It must be. Siffrin wouldn't. Even if they didn't recognize Loop, he had just woken up, they were scared, confused. After he thinks about it he'll realize that Loop is Loop. They'll realize Loop is gone and that the new Loop isn't all that different. He'll tell Loop how happy he is that Loop is there and hug them to sleep again. He will. Loop knows it.
They...just have to find Siffrin first. That's all.

Their chest aches, worse than any pain Siffrin had ever given them, but it'll be all right. After all, they're living proof that wishes come true. They wished Siffrin happy, and happiness is Loop with Siffrin.

They set out, and put the pain aside, and start to chase.

(There is one exact moment that the being called Loop knows pain of their own. It will not be the last. They do not have to concentrate very hard at all to remember, clearly, the look in Siffrin's eyes, the desperate swipe of a blade. They will remember it every time they close their eyes for a very long time.

But that also is not yet. The point they realize Siffrin will not listen to them is not yet. The point they steal the humans who will become their own family is not yet. The loops are not yet, their confrontation with Siffrin is not yet, their tears and worries and far, far in the future, their happy ending—

Not yet. For now, Loop puts one foot in front of the other, and keeps their eyes wide open for as long as they can.)

Chapter Text

[in response to a tweet by @banhmigoddess that reads 'I was created in a lab to miss you so much']

This made me think 'Velveteen Loop' and then 'well. not a lab' and then 'ok but—what if.'

You wake up in a lab, to people who do not love you, to people who run tests on you but never touch you in a way that is not clinical. You feel something missing. You feel that it was not meant to be this way. You feel, that—somehow, in another time, in another place—you might have been surrounded by other people, people who might have cupped your face in their hands, or held yours—

Your hands reach out and touch glass.

The longing aches, but it must be wrong, somehow. You never had a life before this. You woke up here. You have always been here. There was never anybody who loved you.

The longing aches. You don't tell them about it. This feeling, false though it may be, is yours. The ghost of hands on you belongs close to your heart. They don't get to have it, too, like they have everything else.

One day, things change. They take you to another room, one with a different set of strange machines, and while they tell you to keep your eyes straight ahead, you look around as much as you can anyway without getting caught. And that is how you see them. A strange creature, with a body similar to yours but with a head made entirely of light—

"Beautiful," you whisper, rapturously, staring far too obviously, and as if they hear you, their eyes open slowly. Their long eyelashes flutter and it's just as lovely. But their gaze is dull until they see you.

They freeze, every muscle seizing up, then they whisper "No," then, louder, "No, no no no—" They fight against the restraints you're so familiar with. the fire in their eyes suits them much better, you decide. As angry as they look, you're not scared of them. You suspect the anger isn't for you. 

But with everything, there's no way they wouldn't have noticed. People swarm around them and you both. You're given an injection of some kind.

Darkness falls.

The next time they take you that way, the windows are tinted, and you're strapped to a table with wheels. It prohibits you from looking, but doesn't stop you from trying. You want to see that light again.

You do, but it takes a while. 

There are many more rounds of tests before you're taken to a large room covered in fake grass, with one-way observation windows all around it. They push you in there from one door, and eventually, from another, somebody else appears, cussing over their shoulder. They stumble in as if unused to their legs, but go very clearly tense when they notice somebody else is present.

"You," you breathe.

"You," they say, with some sort of emotion choking the word into something much darker. Maybe angry. You've gotten pretty good at telling when the researchers will be angry with you, though, and it doesn't feel quite right. You're less certain, though, when they come charging over to you. You don't know how to fight. You just stare at them until they come to a halt—hand raised, but without being clenched into a fist. It's shaking. You sort of want to take it and bring it to your cheek. "You, what—what are you doing here?"

You blink, confused at the question. "What am I...doing? Here?"

"Yes. I—they said—" The sound they make is anguished. "I should never have believed them. Stars. But how did they—"

"'Stars'", you repeat thoughtfully. You like the way it sounds in your mouth even if you don't know the meaning of the word. You beam at them. "Stars!"

They still again, examining you. "Siffrin?"

"Who's that?"

Their lovely eyes are wide and horrified. "Siffrin. What did they do to you?"

You shake your head, patient. "I don't know who Siffrin is. I'm Dézè!" Your real name is much longer, a long string of letters and numbers you'd seen written down on the placard outside your room, but they all call you Dézè when they're speaking to each other casually.

"...Dézè," the person says, eyes starting to go vacant again.

"Yes," you say, pleased to hear it from them. You want them to say it again, maybe while they touch your hand. Maybe while you stand even closer. Maybe while you touch their head and feel whether or not it's as warm as it makes you feel. "And I'm here because, well, I was born here."

Without warning, their knees seem to go weak, and they fall to the ground. Your own eyes widen, and you plop down alongside them, nervously plucking at your gown before giving in to your anxiety (and, admittedly, your wants as well) and cupping their cheek. It's warm, pleasantly so. You want to curl up next to them like a cat.

"Are you all right?"

They don't say anything. They don't push away your hand, either.

"I'm not like them," you whisper confidentially. "If you were worried about that. I was born here, but I'm not..." You look around, then lean in even closer. "I don't like them."

"How....how did...."

You've been able to put bits and pieces together, here and there. "An...experiment? Yes. An experiment. There was...something about a wish, something about...residual energy, um...coded to..." You frown. "A signature, or something. They kept talking about an old story. A clone?"

They whimper to themselves, starting to curl in on themselves.

"I'm sorry. We don't have to talk about it. I don't know who you are, but—but I really want to help, you know?"

They rasp out something that could have been a laugh in another life, something rattling and disconcerting. "To...help."

"Yeah! I don't know why, exactly, but I feel like I want to."

"Why?"

 You just said you don't know why. But you try to put it in words anyway. "It feels like...like ever since I saw you...I've been missing you. No." You correct yourself with a small frown. "Even before. Maybe...ever since I woke up for the first time." You cup their face as gently as you can, smiling as brightly as you can, hoping to be half as bright as them.

"It's like...I want to be with you. To be your friend, to..." To never be separated from them again. To be a part of them. To sit close, even closer, until you merge into one, like you were born to be—

"To help," you repeat yourself, cocking your head at the tears that start to drip from their eyes. "Um...you? What's your name?"

"S—" they start, as if on autopilot, then shake their head. "I guess here they call me Yonn. But I go by, uh, Loop."

"Loop," you say, tasting it. You want to make them happier. You smile at them. "I'm glad to see you again, Loop. Last time I was kind of thrown for a—"

"Hey."

"No, see, the stuff they gave me, it just made me kind of l—"

"Hey."

But they don't look quite as sad, anymore. Just tired. Just...so, so tired. 

You're not really sure what to do with that. You stroke under their eyes with your thumb. You're surprised they haven't come in here yet to separate you. You wonder what their purpose was for bringing you here together. Just to see what would happen, perhaps?

No. You don't care about them. You just care about them. Loop. You bring them a little closer. 

"All of you, you're all the same," they mumble.

"Hm?"

"...Nothing. You don't have to touch me anymore."

You frown, disheartened. "Can I, though?"

You see the first real hint of a smile pull at the corners of their eyes at that. "I guess that part isn't the same. I could never..."

"That's okay," you say, even though you don't understand. "I can! I like touching you."

They look at you like they're trying to find something in you. Someone? Siffrin? Maybe they don't find it. They avert their eyes.

They let you keep touching them.

basically—i came up with this a bit on the fly to vaguely match a lab setting and revised as i went so it's shaky but. this is set during the loops. loop had (has) feelings for siffrin though they were just like little baby denial feelings. something happens, loop gets frustrated with siffrin and decides to see whether looping will make them able to go to the island. they manage to get there, but get flash forwarded by the wish to the island in a much techier future, which isolates them from siffrin's loops but also gets them taken in by the government for wishcraft study. they want siffrin as well but loop tells them they'll stay voluntarily if they don't try to find a way to get him now or in the future. they accept that deal but also siphon off some of loop's wishcraft energy to make another wishcraft siffrin, like the clone, except without any memories and in sif's shape.

(initially i wasn't planning for regular siffrin to be out there still so this is a bit weird but it ended up that way...so i think siffrin will have to get so freaked out by loop being gone that he blubbers to their friends and they end up breaking the loops and going after loop. and then idk even more sifs for isa. sidenote dézè is two in st. lucian creole and yonn is one (or they're some forms of it...i'm too tired to deal with figuring out what the correct word form should be...) i wanted loop to be zero and regular sif to be one but there wasn't a zero in the st. lucian creole dictionary and i didn't want to use haitian creole, it's already inaccurate to be using st. lucian creole instead of antillean creole but only one has a dictionary online SO. weird little thing but there you have it, codependent clingy lab clone sif x loop who just realized they've managed to condemn a third sif to hell, and also this one keeps climbing on them with sif's face and it's making them feel things but they're not sure for which one. messy!

Chapter Text

Mistakes are made every day. Humans are such fallible creatures, after all. Every day, someone fucks up, and every day, other people have to bear the weight of these disasters large and small. 

Similarly, the Universe does not claim responsibility for parallel instances converging. It, by all rights, should not happen. By all rights, every little choice should lead to a branching path that leads instances so far apart they are only vaguely recognizable to what once was. But sometimes, very rarely, two people make the same choices, day after day, mistake after mistake.

Put simply, they fuck up, as humans do, but this time at a cosmic magnitude. That is not the Universe's fault. Its automated processes for resolving the resulting duplicate data is admittedly not exactly elegant, but it gets the job done.

Put even more simply: Siffrin, stop wishing this never happened. Because ultimately, it's your own goddamn fault.

. . .

You know how you can run those programs that find duplicate files—music, documents, photos, whatever—and ask you which one you want to keep? Apparently, the Universe just, like, does that. Which is absolutely, disgustingly, reprehensibly dumb.

Siffrin had heard of it before—not when they were a kid, at least not that they remember, but when they were older and Mirabelle had shoved one of her paranormal romances into their arms. "This is one of my favorites," she had chattered excitedly as they got ready for their shift. "I just love the scene where the clone and the original face off. Who's the real one? Does it even really matter, like, on a philosophical level? It's so exciting!"

"Do they kiss?" Siffrin asks, a knowing smile playing at their lips.

"...That would be spoilers," Mirabelle says, looking away in a way that definitely means, 'Absolutely they kiss but I'm not going to say that when our manager is in the next room and also just in general'. 

They had thought it was funny, back then. Just a fairytale, just something made-up to sell copies of a mediocre book to people who like monsters way too much. It's substantially less funny now that they're living it—the paranormal part, not the romance. 

A doppelganger, Siffrin remembers the book had called them. An exact copy. If it touches you, you disappear, and it takes over living your life. Except for from their perspective, somebody has taken over living Siffrin's life, and shoved Siffrin out from their rightful place.

They watch the other Siffrin laugh at something Isabeau says, blush dusting their cheeks, and look away when they can't stand it anymore. Just a duplicate file. Just junk data. 

Or that's what they have to believe if they want to be okay with knowing that if they touch the other Siffrin, he'll be the one who dies.

They don't know how much the other Siffrin knows. They don't know if the Universe spoke to them the same way it did to them. The other Siffrin doesn't look on edge, but maybe he's just acting. They know best of everybody that they're pretty good at that.

No. They can't be sure. They have to be careful. They'll get close, get the false Siffrin's guard down, and then they'll—take out the trash. They'll make things right again. It'll be fine.
They flip up their hood and leave to prepare.

. . .

Siffrin doesn't know anything other than that he's felt very unsettled lately, like something has shifted a bit to the left. Or like somebody is watching them, maybe? But he can never see anybody, and it wouldn't be the first time their brain got the better of them over nothing.

He tries to set aside the feeling and go on with his life. They're happier now with their new friends than he has been...ever, probably. That they can remember, anyway. And. Yeah, there's a lot he hasn't told them, and yeah, they're all going to be moving away soon, but...that's...fine. They can make new friends.

Probably.

Maybe.

That's what he had been thinking, but they hadn't really been thinking of the guy lounging on the steps next to his apartment, the person with their hood up and a mask on, covering the bottom of their face. Sick, maybe? Or maybe—well, maybe it's not really Siffrin's place to judge, so. He gives a tense smile, dips his head in a nod, and tries not to drop his keys under the person's scrutiny.

"Hey there," the person says, eyes curving slowly, a little too sharp. "I'm new to town."

It takes Siffrin a moment to realize they're talking to him. "Oh? Oh! Uh, welcome?"

"My name is Loop. What's yours?"

This is a degree of social Siffrin will never be able to attain. Flummoxed, he drops his keys, forgets the question while they scrabble for them on the ground, then shrink back at seeing Loop still watching him and finally remember they asked him a question. "Oh. Um. Siffrin?"

The curve of their eyes grows sharper. "Are you sure about that, Siffrin?"

"Yes?! Yes. I'm...yes? Siffrin. Is my name." Or the name he had settled on, anyway.

There's no reason this stranger would hate him. But for a moment, Siffrin thinks he catches a sneer in those eyes, before it smooths out. "Nice to meet you, Sif! Can I call you Sif? It'll make things easier."

Easier how?? Siffrin squeaks, clutching their keys close to his chest. "Uh..."

"I'll see you around," Loop says, and adds a teasing, "Sif," over their shoulder.

They don't go into the apartment building they had been sitting in the front step of. Siffrin might think that were weirder if it weren't for the everything else of it all. There's nothing that wasn't weird about Loop.

But.

They had asked for new friends. Sort of. Maybe.

He looks up at the sky questioningly, as if to ask the Universe if this was the answer to that subconscious wish. 

The Universe doesn't respond. It never does.

"The Universe leads..." Siffrin mutters with a shrug, and unlocks their door.

From around the corner, Loop leans against the wall, shaking minutely. They can do this. They can.

"You can only follow," they mumble, and stand up straight, adjusting their mask. Their eyes harden, then curve into an insincere smile, even though nobody is watching.

Well. Not nobody.

They throw a middle finger up at the sky, then walk off. They'll continue tomorrow.

. . .

Or: Loop cannot, in fact, do it. The more time they spend with Sif as his 'friend' the more they become actual friends. Loop realizes it for sure when Sif finds out that Loop hasn't had anyplace to stay all this time and invites them to stay with him—indefinitely, no questions asked, no matter how suspicious Loop knows they are. 

Could Loop have done that, if it were them?

They're not sure they would have, at any rate. 

And this should be the perfect opportunity to touch Sif, to get rid of them, but...they can't. They just can't. And worse, with even more time passing, their heart starts to beat faster around Siffrin. Which. Like. What the fuck. This is not what was supposed to happen.

Siffrin, meanwhile, is feeling the same thing, even though the friends that are getting ever-closer to leaving them are worried Loop is taking advantage of him. But whenever Siffrin tries to get even a little bit closer—asking about Loop, trying to pat their shoulder—Loop literally lunges away. 'I just don't like touching people', they say, breathing faster. 'It's not you.'

Siffrin knows what that's like. He might even believe it, if it weren't for seeing Loop being perfectly fine with touching Isa and Odile and Bonnie and Mira.

So is it something about Sif? Are they shy? Do they actually hate him? Or is it something relating to all of the mystery surrounding Loop?

(Cue dramatic reveal, Pushing Daisies style 'I can't touch you but I would really like to' stuff, and eventually it's resolved by Sif and Loop becoming such different people that the Universe doesn't care anymore <3 And then they can all kiss hooray...)

Chapter Text

One day when Siffrin wakes up, a day like any other day, someone is sitting by his bedside. Their eyes are curved in a smile. Siffrin had never known before that a smile could look so unhappy.

"You're in my room," Siffrin observes, which is not particularly astute, but in fairness they've just woken up and there's a creature with a star for a head in front of him, so they think they can be forgiven for his first assumption being that they're still asleep.

"Astute," the star-headed creature says, coincidentally an echo of Siffrin's earlier thoughts. "I'm Loop, my pronouns are they/them, and you're going to help me prevent a murder."

Siffrin blinks, and blinks again, and doesn't stop thinking that he's asleep. "Uh."

"Stars," Loop mutters. "Every blinding—look." Their voice goes saccharine sweet again. "I know what you're thinking. Boring things like 'who is this' and 'what are they doing in my room' and 'one of those things doesn't sound like the others'. Do you want to be boring, stardust? Of course not! So set all those little things aside—"

"Home invasion is a little thing?" Siffrin asks, slightly more awake now, and slightly less willing to accept what they are beginning to think might be 'a paranormal creature did some breaking and entering and is now fucking with Siffrin'. Or something. He's still workshopping it.

"—I didn't invade your home, always so dramatic," Loop huffs. "Anyway. My point is, be interesting with me! Help me prevent a murder! I'd say please, I'd beg for you, all dramatic with the soap opera lighting and everything. It would be a blast. Except for the murder prevention thing, it's not optional."

Siffrin does another round of slow, quizzical blinking. "Are you my guardian angel?"

"For fuck's sake," Loop grumbles. "I'm whatever gets you off your ass and ready to prevent a murder."

He should have asked more questions, maybe. Should've thought about whether this was some sort of hallucination or someone lying to him or—something. anything. But honestly? Honestly, this is the most interesting thing that's happened to them in weeks. Months, probably.

"Sure," Siffrin says. "Why not."

Even Loop gives a dubious look at that for just a moment. They're likely just as clear on the million reasons why not. But it drops quickly, replaced by that same smile that isn't a smile. "All right, then! Let's get going. Time is a-wasting!"

Loop takes Siffrin to an amusement park that first day. Apparently nobody else can see Loop's star head, or maybe the world is occupied by many star-headed creatures and Siffrin was just the last one to know, because nobody blinks an eye. They go on the carousel, through the haunted house, on roller coasters; they take pictures together. Siffrin asks if this will prevent the murder.

Loop's expression goes carefully blank for just a moment.

"Maybe," they say. It's all they say. They finish out the Ferris wheel in silence, and Loop drops Siffrin off at home, and in the morning they're at his bedside again saying they've always wanted to see an aquarium.

It goes on like that for a while. every day, Loop takes them to some random location. Libraries, cafés, farmer's markets, scenic mountaintops—there's no rhyme or reason to it, and Siffrin can't tell how this is preventing a murder in any way. Sure, sometimes Loop goes silent for long periods during these excursions, and maybe it's just that they need the environment to think? But even Siffrin thinks that's far-fetched. Even Siffrin, who's ignoring a whole lot because they're depressed and apathetic and because Loop is mysterious and fun and pretty, can't really make himself believe that.

"Loop," he finally says. "How is this preventing a murder? Whose murder are we even preventing?"

Loop stares at Siffrin a long time before sighing. "Yours."

Then—perhaps they're trying to throw the murderer off their scent? No, no, it still doesn't make sense. "You're not reporting the murderer to the defenders or anything? I know one even, maybe he could—"

Their face twists up into something so vicious Siffrin jerks back from them on reflex. "They can't help. He...can't help. I promise, stardust. I've tried all that before. This is the only thing I haven't...I...I'm out of ideas, frankly."

It feels like a peek behind the curtain, just for a moment, to see that Loop isn't always confident and mysterious. maybe Siffrin should have asked more questions, and perhaps he should be angry that Loop has been doing all this without having a plan. But there's something sort of nice about knowing Loop doesn't know it all. Something human. It makes Siffrin want to hug away that despair in their eyes.

They don't, though. Siffrin just chews on his lip, then asks, "Does it have to be these specific places?"

"No."

"Then I want to go here tomorrow."

It's Loop's turn to blink dumbly, but then there's a small flash of something like a real smile in their eyes, albeit a surprised one. "Oh. Well—sure. Anything for you."

They say things like that all the time. Exaggerations. It's the first time Siffrin has believed it even a little. He kind of likes it. Sure, Siffrin might not deserve someone doing all this for him, and sure, he's still very confused, but...it just warms his heart a little, is all. Loop cares. For some reason, Loop cares.

Siffrin doesn't hug them, but they do give a glancing pat on Loop's shoulder. Loop looks even more shocked now, and they stare at their shoulder too long after. Their eyes soften slightly.

Siffrin and Loop alternate picking places after that. Siffrin's places are hardly interesting—arcades, parks, sometimes just a movie at home—but Loop seems to relax into it now that the pressure isn't just on them. They joke around a lot more now; their humor is so biting as to be nearly caustic, but they're also very funny. Siffrin finds that he likes being around them. He finds himself forgetting that Loop is there to save him and not because they like being around him.

Which—that would be fine. It would, except for Siffrin starts to think too much about Loop's teasing little smiles, the way they rest their head on Siffrin's shoulder, the way they freeze up when somebody else brushes against them in public but melt when Siffrin puts his hand loosely on their hip. He starts to feel special even though he knows he's not.

And one morning when Siffrin is too sleepy to think and too happy at seeing Loop first thing when they wake up to not want to touch them, he ruins it all.

Siffrin leans close, sleep-warm and smiling, to try to kiss Loop's cheek.

Loop jerks back, eyes wide and haunted and disgusted.

Siffrin wakes up.

He claps his hands over his mouth, dread dawning on him. "I'm—I'm so sorry. I wasn't even—I was up late last night, uh, I was just—"

"Still sleeping, huh?"

It's an out. Siffrin should take it. and he would, if it weren't for the glimmer of self-hatred, the ah-of-course-it's-not-me that Siffrin knows all too well. "I mean, I wouldn't have done it if I weren't sleepy," he hedges, then presses on like pulling teeth, "But not because I wouldn't want to."

They stare at one another.

Loop starts laughing, and laughing, laughing laughing. It's not a nice laugh. "Oh! Of course! Of course that's what does it! No blinding wonder! I just hadn't tried love!"

Siffrin starts to blush, confused and humiliated. "I mean—love is a little—"

"Isn't that always what does it? It's always blinding love in the stories! And of course, it could only be me. Nobody else could ever love me!"

"Loop, what do you—"

"But look! Now I'm saved! Good for me. good for you. we're saved. we're free. I can go now."

Their voice is hoarse. Siffrin doesn't understand.

"Hey. Hey, Siffrin. Ask me who the murderer is."

He had almost forgotten. They had wanted to forget. "What does that have to do with—"

"Ask."

Maybe he should have asked more questions from the start. Maybe then none of this would have ever have happened. Maybe he wouldn't have had to had heard what Loop says next from someone he had deluded himself into believing cared for him.

"It's you, Siffrin." That same sharp eye-smile is back. "It's you and it's me. One month from the time I met you, we decide living is too boring, too sad, too lonely. We decide to stop."

"To...stop? We? Loop—"

"Listen," Loop hisses. "We decide to stop living. And we do. And I'm sent back to that day, and I meet you. And I don't do anything, and one month—"

"Loop."

"—You decide that too, and I'm sent back to that day. And eventually I figure—it must be up to me to stop it. rRght? I must have to stop myself from—"

Siffrin is starting to get the picture. He wishes this was a dream. They wish they hadn't woken up to see Loop back then. He wishes Loop would stop looking like they were about to cry. "Stop, Loop."

"—So I try and I try and I try everything and still, every time. Every time! And I mean. Obviously. If I couldn't stop me from doing it to myself how could I ever dream of stopping you? And so I give up. and I figure. Maybe at least for once I can have some fun."

Amusement parks. Aquariums. Libraries, cafés. Siffrin feels sick.

"But it works! It's been months since then! And all because you love me. Isn't that funny, stardust? You don't dread waking up as much anymore, and it's because you want to kiss me. Isn't that fucking funny?"

It's not.

Siffrin wants to cry as much as Loop looks like they're about to.

There are a lot of things Siffrin could say here. 'So it was all a lie,' maybe, like in the stories. Except for Loop didn't lie. Stretched the truth, sure, but—the part about Loop caring for them. That was always just Siffrin making up stuff in his head. It's on Siffrin that he didn't ask more questions. It's on Siffrin that he went with Loop that first day. It's on Siffrin that he caught feelings for an alternate version of himself, one who clearly hates him. That's not a question he needs to ask; it's obvious. He doesn't need to humiliate himself even further.

"You can go, Loop," he says instead, awake and nauseous and hating himself too. "You don't need to stick around me anymore. I'll be fine."

He will be, or fine enough. How could he not be knowing that if he's not, Loop will wake up again hating them even more?

Loop falters. "Stardust—"

"You can go."

Siffrin doesn't want them to. But they don't want to feel the dagger in their heart every time they see Loop, every time they're faced with the crushing weight of all of his hopes and dreams that they had built up so carefully and had fallen all at once. And even if Loop hates him, even if he hates himself, he doesn't want Loop to have to feel forced to stay around someone who's caused them so much pain.

"S-Siffrin. I. didn't...mean."

They don't explain what it is they didn't mean.

They go, just like Siffrin asked them to.

Siffrin doesn't go out as much anymore after that. but sometimes, when they need groceries or something, he sees a flash of light out of the corner of his eye. when they look it's never Loop. Not that he wants it to be, but—

Well. No.

They do want it to be. He just knows that he shouldn't. Pathetic really.

But the more weeks pass, the more flashes of light they see, the more Siffrin thinks it might actually be Loop. Trying to make sure he's not doing anything maybe? So they go over to one of the flashes and—

There's Loop, hiding behind a corner and looking more than a little cowed.

"I said I wouldn't do anything and I won't."

"No! That's not it. I mean—good, but—"

"You don't have to torture yourself like this."

"It's not torture," Loop blurts out, then hugs themselves. "It never was. I had fun."

Siffrin looks at them a long while.

"I did. Honest. I expected to hate being around you more than I did. And maybe I always thought I should, and maybe that's why I...I don't know. it felt unfair, to like it so much, given the circumstances. I hated myself a little for liking being with you, but I never hated you."

They're lying. Siffrin's hands shake.

"And not being around you, that—hasn't made me happier. and it's made me think about that morning, and...I think...I wish I hadn't pushed you away."

The silence stretches deep between them. Loop starts to look uncomfortable, and only even more uncomfortable when Siffrin says, "I don't love you."

"Oh. Um. Well."

"So it's not the power of love, or whatever you were saying. You got me out of my room, showed me new places, new people. Isn't that a better reason?"

"...Yeah. Of course. I was just..."

"And I'm not better. I'm better, but I'm not..." Siffrin falls silent. "You didn't magically fix me. That's all I'm saying. But it was nice to have somebody I thought cared about me."

"I did," Loop says. "I...do."

"And I do too. Still."

Obviously. They had never stopped.

Slowly, hesitantly, not making eye contact, Loop sticks out their hand to hold. Slowly, watching them, Siffrin takes it.

And it's not love. It will be, and they'll make up for kisses lost and hugs not given and questions left unasked. It's not a fix either. Things are still hard, and they will keep being hard for a while yet.

But they'll have somebody to hold their hand through it all.

Chapter Text

truman show sloops au in which sif and loop were both on the truman show but each one on a different country’s adaptation. but the script was the same so they were given p much identical memories, its just loops show ran for longer—and was cancelled sooner. everybody preferred siffrin’s variant for whatever reason and loop’s was quietly taken off air and loop without any warning or time to accommodate was thrown out into the real world that they hadn’t even known was there.

siffrin’s show however ends with a bang, with sif finding out about the show like in the movie, and him escaping rather than being released. he gets to take control over his life in a way loop never got to. loop hates him for it.

until him and loop are thrown together directly—whether it be another show, as consultants on something, whatever else, and they have to learn to get along. (on sif’s end they’re happy to find somebody else who knows what they’ve gone through! except he meets them and they’re snide and he’s like ;A; oh. and on loop’s once they actually start interacting theyre eventually like. god damn it even i get why everybody else likes them so much. esp bc it throws into such stark relief why they were abandoned. just not good enough!)

thinking some more about this au. i feel like this should be a...lol god this won't make any sense for anybody not up on their early 2000s ya but running out of time by margaret peterson haddix situation? or. what's a perhaps broader reference. what was that one movie. the village? where the truman show situation is set in the past (with some slightly anachronistic things, like anxiety meds) but overall slightly further back like in isatverse. but when loop & sif get out they realize it's actually modern day and they have to adjust to the fact that the rest of the world isn't even close to what they thought they knew. there have been advantages the outside world has been enjoying all this time that they didnt get to have just because the producers wanted it to be a period show for whatever reason. (perhaps this is even set in our world and their entire culture--their religion, their vocabulary--is manufactured...? idk it'd depend on whether this would be a no craft au or not. maybe the show could reenact craft to a certain extent through practical effects or, with wishcraft, making something happen but idk)


i also think that losing the island and forgetting it was just a scripted part of the show--there never was a real island, sif's family was always actors, they used some kind of neurochemical or psychological means to make it hard to remember. to the producers they were just creating interesting conflict but to sif and loop they've been aching over something that was never real in the first place. they could meet the actors that raised them at any time if they wanted, but the actors--while fond of them--don't see sif and loop as their kids. it was just a job, after all.


i think the party would have to be people they met outside for sif and loop to feel any legitimate closeness to them, plus i don't think most of them would be chill with perpetuating this 
unless loop's didnt do anything but sif's group actually subtly nudged them towards the truth as much as they could without getting removed from their roles and so then you have loop facing Versions of people they knew (but ones who still cared more about siffrin than them, cared enough to tell them the truth) but who know siffrin and not them, as familiar as loop is to them as another siffrin which would make an interesting starting point.

bc loop would be so so very jaded, feel so so very alone. nobody ever reached out a helping hand to them. and to the party, there's nothing they could really have done about it--they weren't in the country where loop's show was filming--so they would feel pity for them, of course, but like. how do you respond to that bitterness. you feel bad but you are not the ones who didn't do anything for them. and they know that, so they don't want to feel bitter towards you, but wouldn't it be hard to keep some of that from coloring the way you feel anyway? especially when they're so alike to the ones who never came for you--subtly different but still so similar. different faces, like viewing the ones you knew through a camera filter, but similar mannerisms. they reach out to you just like how yours did, but you're supposed to believe that this time they're being sincere. but they're not sincere to you, but to The Other One.


if this is all the case i think maybe the big difference is mostly that in sif's country there was a resistance movement that went from petitioning to active rebellion by getting cast in the show. and in loop's country it never got that far, maybe just like...culturally? so it's less an issue of it being loop who wasn't good enough to be saved, but of course it feels like that. loop wasn't smart enough to realize, loop wasn't good enough to evoke sympathy from others. unlike loop's canon situation where they grow jaded over a long period of looping for this loop it'd really crash in on them all at once and like. of course itd get worse, right, as they were introduced to the internet and could read everything that was said about them, people speculating on their lives like it was nothing more than a play, because to them it was. having to face paparazzi whenever they went out like people still wanted nothing more from them than to keep up with the show.

what would their monetary situation be like i wonder...would the show have kept a salary for them being involved or would that even be on their mind when they were cancelled? would they consider having to pay for the world around loop and for the cost of raising him in some incredibly perverse way as being loop's salary for appearance? they never got to decide any of that. perhaps if they had any knowledge of how to get ahold of lawyers or if they wanted to go on talk show after talk show to get people feeling bad for them they could try to sue the company that produced it. but mostly they just lick their wounds in private as much as possible until they realize they truly have no idea how to live in this new world. the modern world has no need for rogues doing odd jobs. they don't have a modern education. the only thing they can sell is themselves, despite it being the last thing in the world they want


which is probably why they end up working with sif, which means sif is getting them at their absolute lowest point and is part of why they're in such a horrendous mood when they meet. this is a final humiliation like no other, for them. i sort of think maybe the thing putting them together is, like...siffrin is hurting too but he wants to make sure nothing like this ever happens again so they start working on something like a documentary of some kind to encourage legislation against anything like this in the future? and he wants loop to be a part of it as well to show the impact it's had on both of them but for loop who just wants frankly to disappear from the eye of the public forever it's like. just one last hit targeted precisely against themselves. to have to work with their better version, to have to sell themselves to the eyes of the people who failed them, to have to be viewed with sympathy everywhere they go, to have to remember everything they've been trying for so long to forget. but they have no choice really, because they're running on fumes by that point
  

i also think that loop changes their name and pronouns as, like...an act of silent protest. i'm not the person you saw on that screen anymore. i am barely even a person anymore. this is what you made me into, don't you see? not a person, but an object. i'm not sure where loop as a name would come from but i think it would be both utilitarian (avoiding being recognized as much as possible; i also think they would wear a mask outside most of the time) and trying to escape from a persona that was created for them by others
and im also thinking like. of how much of a fucking betrayal it would be for two such intensely private and non-communicative people to realize that their every move, every part of their life, had been on display. there is nothing other than their thoughts anymore that is their own. every time they cried in their room, the cameras showed it. the struggles they had to recover after losing their eye--a struggle manufactured entirely by the production team--everything they never wanted anyone to see everyone saw. any random person on the street could stop them and pat their shoulder and tell them how much they cried when they saw the lost look on siffrin's face as they looked towards the island that was once their home. hell everybody remembers the past that they can't remember. they could watch the old episodes but it would still hurt to do so. there are discussion forums about what they were thinking at any given time. and somehow most people still don't realize how fucked up any of this is. they have fans that get pissed off when loop isn't nice to them, like the lab rat owes their captors adulation for keeping such good records about how well they navigate the maze


both sif and loop but especially loop (sif has the party at least) would have SUCH big trust issues after this. how can they know that somebody isn't just getting close to them because this was their favorite show growing up, or because they want an exposé about how they're living after the show is over? if people tell them how they always thought the show was barbaric and dystopian do they actually think so or are they just saying as much, and does that mean they're just talking to sif/loop because they feel sorry for them? and that's part of why sif and loop end up drawing so close in the first place. they'll have a very dependent relationship at first because. who else could know what this was like, who else can they trust beyond all else. i know you don't just pity me because this was your life too. i know you're not just trying to get close to me for fame because we know that's the last thing the other wants. sure you might want to be close to me for selfish reasons but i know you know that if you're being selfish in this i am too. i know you know everything about me but it's not because you saw it but because you lived it.

there's still guilt there (sif feels guilt for being The One Who Got Out bc he can very well imagine how he would be in loop's situation), loop for being so bitter when none of this is actually sif's fault and they're just the most convenient target) and a whole host of other complicated emotions so they'd hurt each other a whole bunch but they'd also be very very close

Chapter Text

sss-class revival hunter au in which sif makes their way to a book floor and finds loop, from a beloved fairytale about a star who falls to earth, who remembers each and every time the story has been read and every time they get a happy ending and then have it ripped from them. (sort of like the great good thing.) they end up destroying the fairytale each time rather than let it end happily when they know it won’t last. they figure out pretty soon exactly why sif is there, and hate him for having the ability to leave and wanting to bring them to yet another false happy ending. but they find out about sif’s ability to loop and end up relating to him and eventually falling in love

"I can barely remember where my glasses are some days, and they're right on my nose!" the old lady sitting next to Loop prattles on. Loop doesn't pretend to listen; they have the lines memorized, but even if they didn't, it doesn't exactly matter.

"Do you ever get tired, saying the same thing over and over again?" Loop asks conversationally, examining their fingers.

"Why, the other day, I walked out of my house in my—"

"Pajamas," Loop mutters. They don't know why they bother. Perhaps just for something to do. They've tried every permutation of 'something to do' there is, by now, so it's not exactly new, but just sitting around is still more boring. "You wish—"

"That I had a better memory!"

"No," Loop says, and stands, and throws over their shoulder, "You really, really don't."

The old lady will find her wish granted regardless. She'll remember the star she told about her day. She'll tell everyone around town. They'll all come to Loop, one by one, and make their wishes—their own personal star—and Loop will grant them whether they want them to or not. It will spiral out of control, until they're relying on wishes for everything. Why cook a meal when you can wish for one instead? Why bother working at all when you can wish it into existence?

But then they'll realize how unhappy they've become, and they'll all rush to find the star again. 'I wish to be happy,' they'll think of saying—only to find the little star, worn-out and fading. They had used too much power. How sad! How tragic! And the townspeople will realize how foolish and greedy they've been, and they'll apologize to the little star, and give back all of their wishes. Instead, they'll treat the fallen star as a friend and build them a home to live in. And so, the fallen star and the townspeople will live happily ever after.

That's how it'll go. That's how it has gone, millions of times. People read this story, and Loop lives it just as written, no matter how hard they try. No matter how many times they destroy this world before it ends, they wake up once more falling from the sky, reliving the worst decision they had ever made again and again and again.

They remember why they had fallen. They remember everything. Stars are the bearers of memory, after all. They remember everything, and use their infinite wisdom to decide whether a wish should be granted. Loop was a young star, and thought they couldn't make that decision without living with humans up close. A foolish, sentimental decision written by a foolish, sentimental author. But even that author probably hadn't imagined that this ridiculous setting would lead to Loop remembering every instance of the story's reading. They probably hadn't imagined the characters as alive at all.

It's fine. Loop doesn't think of themselves as alive very often anymore in the first place.

It's fine. Loop can only do what they can do.

It's fine. Loop will destroy the world again, and it will die for a second, and at least for one second, they won't have to pretend that happiness or endings are something they are permitted to experience.

The pointy-hatted one and his friends are a surprise, but only briefly. They try so hard to kiss up to Loop—getting angry at the townspeople, telling them to stop wishing—that Loop might have been swayed if they were much, much, much younger.

They are not.

It's vaguely intriguing, though. Loop listens in on a conversation and gathers the gist of things quickly enough. They're from some alternate plane—the one the readers come from, perhaps?—and they've been tasked by some 'tower administrator' with bringing this storybook to a satisfactory ending. They're trying to figure out what causes the Craft explosion. Loop wonders idly how they'll look when they find out it's the silly little star that's done it.

Confused, is the answer. Confused, shocked, betrayed. It's not very interesting. Except for one—the pointy-hatted one just looks resigned as the world catches fire around them, and he raises his dagger to his neck—

Loop is sitting next to the old woman.

This. This is new. This is interesting.

...

Siffrin didn't really expect to learn much on the first run, but that was particularly unproductive. At least he knows now it's the star, but he has no idea why. They zone out from the conversation going over things they've already seen and already know won't pan out, trying to think of a way to bring things up in a way that will lead to as few questions as possible, and then—

"Why, hello! Are you fine people new to town?" the star asks, eyes curved into a very fake smile. Everybody else in the party gets into business mode, ready to interrogate the NPC, but Siffrin knows this didn't happen last time. And Siffrin knows last time the star didn't spare more than a passing disinterested glance his way.

Now—

Now, they're looking straight at him, at nobody but him. They wink when they notice Siffrin staring. And they brush past Siffrin when the conversation is done, and murmur, "Do you remember?"

Slowly, Siffrin nods.

Their eyes fill with stars, bright and gorgeous and sincere for the first time as the smile in their eyes gentles. "Good," they say.

—At that point, Siffrin doesn't know of what will come. They don't know all they will face in order to reach a happy ending, and he doesn't know that they'll fall in love with the mysterious, smiling creature in front of them.

But he does remember something. Siffrin has forgotten most of their childhood, every memory just out of reach of straining hands, but now, they look at Loop and remember sitting on a beach staring up at the sky, a deep voice asking amused, "You really like looking at the stars, huh, [         ]?"

"Yeah! Because they're super pretty! I'd look at them all the time if I could."

Siffrin remembers this, and thinks, I'd still look at the stars all the time, if I could.

"Let's talk, stardust," Loop says.

The memory is lost once more to the fog, leaving only a fleeting feeling of happiness in its wake—but that passes soon enough too, and then there's just the mission, and the star standing in the way of leading all of Siffrin's friends to safety.

"Yeah. Sure."

He'll give anything to make sure his friends are okay. As things go, talking with a mysterious, pretty star who blew up the world isn't much.

Chapter Text

it's been said before by others but without the sloops so if you'll permit me to shove that in rq: stranger than fiction au. siffrin, whose pen name is loop, writes a story about a little rogue in a time loop, a self insert of themselves, but perhaps a little bit more lovable. just a little bit more competent. siffrin begins to hear a voice narrating his life and finds it not only revealing that he is in a time loop and will die repeatedly as a result but that it knows a lot more about them than they'd like--their fear, their avoidance, their feelings for isabeau. and most pertinently to him right now, the voice says they know how siffrin can get out of the time loop. he tries to find them and eventually does with the help of...probably odile in this case right? it could also be euphie or a human version of the change god idk...anyway sif finds loop.

he does not, however, find the happy ending he hoped he would there.

loop does not know how to get out of the time loop. they said they did because they knew the story needed it, eventually, but they've been suffering from writer's block because--they can't free themselves from their own problems, how can they be hypocritical enough to think they have all the answers for someone else? they had started writing hoping they would find those answers. they never expected they would only cause more problems for someone else.

so now siffrin is lost without any knowledge of what to do next, not to mention trying to deal with the knowledge they're a fictional construct and that everything in his life was never his own decision but something written for him. (their feelings for isabeau, are they real if they were written to love him? are his friends really his friends if they were told to care for him?) loop is suffused by guilt over wrecking an innocent person's life--someone who's just as sweet and sad as they had written him to be, mind you, which doesn't make them feel any better.

so loop has to come up with an ending. siffrin offers, out of principle more than anything else, to stay with them and help them brainstorm. which honestly just makes loop feel worse (nothing like watching your oc die repeatedly in front of you because you had thought it worked as an apt metaphor for your own emotional pain!) but they are also too guilty to say no, so they end up staying together for a while.

and--siffrin sees beyond the creator who put him in this situation to the person in pain beneath, and beyond that to the whip-smart, clever, funny person that loop has been and can be. loop sees how willing siffrin is to help despite their own terrible circumstances and his wry wit and his hope that things will change in the face of constant defeat, though his smile does still grow more fake with every passing day. which is their fault, of course. (and how egotistical is it anyway to think positively about siffrin when he was based partly off of themselves? surely all of the good in him is embellishment and all of the bad is loop's fault.) but they also see him break down when he can't take it anymore, and lash out when he's hurt, and while it hurts them , it also makes them feel understood in a way little else has.

they learn each other, and their feelings shift steadily alongside it. but can loop ever release themselves from their guilt, and can siffrin ever forgive the person who ruined their life for entertainment? (yes. obv) (but angst first) (probably sif finds out that the initial draft was going to have sif's story end in tragedy and that doesn't go over well. probably loop self-destructs more than a little and calls siffrin nothing more than a character they created at some point and that goes over even worse. loop ends up giving siffrin his happy ending through the power of communication and ends up learning a bit to communicate themselves when they ask if siffrin would be willing to stay even after the story ends. and they do uvu )

potential variation: the story itself is not a timeloop but every time loop backspaces or rewrites a section time rewinds or is rewritten. maybe deaths come in that way as every time loop frustratedly deletes the document and then restores it from the recyling bin, or maybe before finding out about sif they just get angry and write 'and then everyone died' or something before exiting out of the document for the day. which means the more loop doubts themselves and their writing, the more siffrin has to suffer as a result. all they have to do in the end is find an ending they're satisfied with, but with sif looking over their shoulder nothing seems good enough for them or him. how can there be an ending that feels well-earned if the character themselves is narrating it?

it's not like either of them really know what they want out of life--and what they feel they do want, they think they can't have. (their memories back--loop can't give those to siffrin, because it's based on their own memory loss, and they don't know what fills that hole. love? siffrin is already struggling enough with feeling like none of the relationships in his life are real. emotional connection? a million dollars? how do they write an ending that makes siffrin feel happy and not like it was just thrown at them to get rid of him? and why do they write an ending when what they want is for siffrin to stay? hell they have no way of even knowing if sif will still exist after the story ends. and there's another potential point of conflict, if sif found out loop was putting it off because they were afraid, when he's been afraid all this time of being in a situation where he has zero control, where if loop has a bad day all of his 'friends'--if indeed they are that--can forget everything he said to them. even if they also want to stay, they don't want it more than they want their life to be their own)

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the wish is ambiguous, and merely hissed into a leaf like they're biting the words out, shaking the entire time. it shouldn't be enough to get the universe's attention, normally. but this is the construct it made. their voice rings louder than the others.

"i want to disappear," they say. "or no. just so you can't twist this around too, let me make this clear: i want to blinding die. and, while you're at it." their laugh is ugly, despairing, hollow. "how about you make siffrin's life as awful as mine?"

there's a wish they don't say, but the universe hears it.

later. that one can come later. it has other things to do now.

it doesn't happen all at once. siffrin doesn't wake up one day and not recognize their friends anymore. it's a gradual sort of thing, creeping, like water dripping into a boat through the smallest of holes--slow, slow, slow.

but even droplets of water can sink a ship eventually.

it starts with them looking at him, sometimes. they don't even notice at first, and when he does, they just think they're imagining something. but it becomes clearer with time. when siffrin makes a mistake, slips up or doesn't hit quick enough or zones out, there's an expression that flashes over his family's face.

disgust, they realize eventually. but it's too late by then. it was always too late.

it escalates from there--a huff every now and again, a roll of their eyes, a sneer they can't quite hold back. and from there, they're always scowling. and from there, siffrin finally asks what he did.

"what did you do?" odile says with a derisive snort. "that's a good question. what did you do, siffrin? you can't even remember to buy eggs when we need them."

"yeah, and i really wanted an omelette, too," bonnie mutters.

"i'm...i'm sorry..."

"look, it's okay, siffrin!" mirabelle says with a smile that rings slightly false. "we don't really expect anything from you."

isa's eyes don't light up when he beams at siffrin like they used to, once. "yeah, don't worry. we don't like you for what you can do for us!"

it doesn't sound like a compliment.

siffrin thinks maybe it's just a bad day. and they do apologize later, saying they don't know what came over them, but--there start to be more bad days, after that. and it's always siffrin's fault, so. they shouldn't really complain. he should just do better.

time keeps passing. there are a lot of bad days now, and it sort of starts to feel like they *can't* do better? because they're not good enough, because he's a failure, but also...maybe a little bit because they won't let him...? like there's nothing siffrin can do that would satisfy them. they're his family, he loves them, he shouldn't be thinking like this about them, but...

it's slow. it's very slow. maybe that's the worst part of it. it's slow, so they believe it. it's slow, so he starts to forget what it was like when there were good days, too.

the universe takes in a lot of information, so it knows that seeing their friends die isn't enough. it can do that, and perhaps it will, but before then, the way to make this siffrin's life unbearable is to take away what he cares about most. and right now that is not their friends. it is their friends' love for him.

(it knows, too, that the others protest. it knows that they see what it is making them say and that they hate it. but when siffrin learns that--well, that too is a way to make things worse for him, isn't it?

and not just them. also, for siffrin. the other one. they're very clever. they catch on quickly.

they realize that they've destroyed their friends once more over a petty wish, and the agony they feel over that realization--why, it's just what they wished for.

the universe will make them both hurt. and then, it will let its construct rest.

maybe something could be done about it, if the two of them talked about it. but that isn't really their specialty, now is it, and even if it was, the construct wished to disappear. and disappear they did! they will get all of their wishes, and they will be satisfied.)

siffrin hears someone crying, sometimes.

but it could just be the echoes of his own.

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so i was thinking of other fairytales i could turn into sloopis and the first thing that came to mind was little mermaid. i was like 'there's not enough characters' but i was INCORRECT so here we go

ok so. siffrin is a mermaid who has been swimming around the ocean without a pod for as long as he can remember. they go to the surface sometimes even though common wisdom says they shouldn't to watch the humans out of sheer curiosity. he becomes intrigued by one sailing crew that seems almost like a family, and starts to watch them when he sees their boat out on the water. but one day they're caught in an unexpected storm, and the ship wrecks. painstakingly, siffrin hauls all of them onto a larger piece of the wreckage even though a piece of it surges and scratches his eye and tows them back to shore. they hum as they work, voice rusty from disuse but still lovely, and the sound of it sticks in isabeau's half-conscious mind. when isa, odile, mira, and bonnie wake up, they wonder who saved them, but siffrin--at a safe distance away--swims away as soon as he's certain they're safe.

sif doesn't see the boat anymore. they get increasingly curious and lonely and get too close to the shore, and see isa taking walks along the beach, sitting at the shoreline and looking out at the ocean. he wonders what the man is thinking--is he missing being out on the boat? is he scared of the water now? is he wondering who saved him? they imagine conversations with the man, with the rest of the group. he imagines being able to walk alongside them.

they wish, they wish--

and when he does, another mermaid with a head like the lights in the sky appears. they call themselves loop, and they say with blank eyes that they can help. they say they can give siffrin legs.

siffrin's good eye widens. can they really, he asks?

the mist from loop's eyes lifts, and suddenly they look very sad. they can, they say. but if they do, every step will be like the prick of a dagger against their feet. it will only last for so long, unless the group recognizes them, and they say that will never happen. he will love them and he will lose them and then he will die, and--

siffrin cuts them off there. 'they'll know me,' they say, suddenly strangely confident. all they have to do is say it, after all. right? 'they will.'

loop closes their eyes.

there is a sudden, blinding pain in siffrin's head, and when he wakes up, they are on the beach, and a man is running towards him with a yell, beckoning some others behind him, and they do not know they are siffrin. he does not know anything at all. they look out at the ocean, dazed. his head hurts.

when they try to ask where they are and what's going on, the man's eyebrows merely crease, and he shakes his head. they can understand a few words of the man's speech here and there, but the words feel clumsy on their tongue. "head," he tries, pointing. "no."

the man confers with the people behind him. they talk for a long while before he finally wipes the distressed expression from his face to smile.

"isabeau," he says, and points to himself. "isabeau."

"isabeau," they echo, and the man's smile widens, softens. it's beautiful.

the one who was siffrin once is taken to a castle by the sea. and if this were a kinder fairytale, that might be the end of it--he might learn the language, and something would jog their memory, and at some point just in time he would be able to know what was happening and confess to their friends, and there would be a happy ending. and there will be one.

but there will be many other endings first, none of them happy.

loop couldn't say it, at the time. the universe prevented it. they could not say that when siffrin died and returned to sea foam, time would reverse to that same moment. they could not tell siffrin that their family would be worth it but they would never, ever know. they could not say that they knew this because they had gone through the same thing thousands of times.

they could only become the villain in their own story. cruel, when they just wished for help, but they suppose this is an answer of sorts in its own.

the universe will not help them.

they look to the castle, swim as close as possible, and transform their own legs. with daggers piercing their feet with every step, they prepare to play the villain once more.

(basically: siffrin loops, they forget everything including why they are there. loop tries a number of things for a while, trying to teach siffrin the language, trying to tell sif the truth, trying to tell everyone else the truth, and nothing works. finally loop decides to try to be the villain again and leaves the ocean to pretend to be the one who saved everyone. at the last moment this jogs sif's memory and they think they've been fooled. he despairs, says something nasty to everyone and runs away, and they all have to chase after sif who's become a giant sea monster. but when it's all resolved sif tells them the truth and all is well and isa can finally tell sif he's always thought he was super cute,, but sif meets loop again, still thinking loop is the villain. they fight and something makes sif remember all of the loops before--he remembers the clumsy, strange, sweet person that tried so desperately to help them. and him recognizing loop breaks the curse/wish on them too. and now they can all be together happy ending sif and loop and isa all get together yayyyy)

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Prince and the pauper au except 'i make it weird'. ok. so.

Siffrin is a prince. Every day feels like the same—they have no freedom, and certainly not the freedom to choose his own romantic partner. Not even if, especially if, it's their very accomplished knight captain Isabeau. All he can do is follow the orders of their adoptive parent, the king, who adopted him many years ago for having the same hair color as his dead son. All they can do is act out their scripted part in this play.

The king informs him that he will be sold off into a rushed marriage one month hence to avert a war. They will never have Isabeau, he will never have his freedom. They consider running away or protesting, but what good would it do? He gives up.

Until.

A bedraggled commoner wearing their face fights their way into the wedding venue. they have their teeth clenched and bared.

"That is not the prince," the impostor hisses. "I am your monarch."

The impostor is taken to the dungeon for questioning. Siffrin is hurried to another room for safety. the wedding is postponed. Siffrin gets another evening of respite. but he can't get the desperate, maligned look on their double's face out of his head. What if the king's child never died at all, but was somehow removed from the castle and raised never knowing their true lineage until now? Perhaps—just perhaps, if that were the case—Siffrin could step down quietly and this child could take the place in this political marriage. It's a silly idea, frankly. But Siffrin only has silly ideas left.

They sneak into the dungeon and talk to the prisoner.

What he hears there is even more fantastical. The prisoner says that they really were the prince first, but they were so desperate to get out of this marriage they had done the forbidden: they used craft to wish their way out.

But that craft is forbidden for a reason. Instead of calling off the marriage, they had woken up one month earlier in a dirty hovel, being called by a different name: Loop.

Loop had thought at first that the castle would be besides itself looking for them, but they didn't hear anything like that. Instead, they heard only news of the upcoming wedding, once more. And, when they checked the place they used to escape to in the back gardens, they had seen someone there who looked just like them.

"I think," Loop says, leaning closer to the bars, "That maybe, there used to be you and me. Me, the prince, and you, the pauper. And the wish took the path of least resistance, and switched you and me. You see?"

Siffrin, frankly, does not see. It seems like a bit of a leap to him. But another strange idea hits them: if he agrees, then perhaps they really can switch places. And then Loop can still take their place in the marriage, and he can have his freedom, perhaps even court Isabeau.

"I see," Siffrin says, and leans closer himself. "Well then. All that's left is to make things right."

Siffrin holds out their hand to shake.

Loop, looking a little bit wrong-footed at Siffrin's easy acknowledgement but perhaps just desperate enough themselves to go along with it, holds out theirs.

Their skin touches—

And their memory unwraps.

It had been a long time ago now that Loop had made that wish. and it had been a long time ago now that nothing had happened save for Loop impulsively declaring that they would not marry the foreign king. and a long time, plus a few hours, that the nation's army had used the pretense of the wedding to slaughter many of Vaugarde's citizens and suppress the rest. In their final moments, they had wished the disastrous events of that day had never happened.

Wish Craft had answered both of them in one. It rewound time and removed Loop from the situation. but Loop, who was now in a bad situation, and Siffrin, freshly in the same bad situation Loop had been trying to escape from the start, had both fucked up simultaneously:

Siffrin wished to escape, again. Loop wished to undo their wish.

The universe did not like that.

Its solution: at the point the original wish was made, Siffrin escapes (into the pauper's body) and Loop undoes the wish (and goes back into the prince's body). And then, hours later, the loop restarts all over again, with Siffrin back in the prince's body and Loop in the pauper's. It is massively fucking inconvenient for everybody, and since they only have a few hours of dream-being in the other's body every now and then and these few hours at the end, it's difficult to collaborate.

They've learned to manage as best they can, though. Loop grins, unlocking the door that now holds Siffrin and throwing themselves at him.

"Stardust," they murmur. "It's been a long month."

"It really has," he says, sighing.

They steal a few moments to themselves to revel in the presence of the person they are always forgetting they're missing. Just a few, just a little bit before they have to take advantage of the time they have. just a little bit before they forget again that they have no idea if the other will last whenever this situation ends, before they forget that they might only have these loops to thank for even these short moments in each other's arms.

They disengage almost simultaneously. Neither of them acknowledge what just happened. But they sit close and hold hands on the cold slab of a bed in a colder dungeon, discussing what they've learned this month and what they'll try the next to solve things. It's all they can do, if they want to untangle this tangled web of wishes they've found themselves in.

...Whether they actually want to...well, they can deal with that a month from now, and one month more, and another after that.


(Anyway incredibly convoluted, overly so, but tl;dr: prince & the pauper + kimi no na wa + timeloops)

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i like this idea bc of like. the possibility of the universe straight-up not distinguishing between them with loop's wish right

and so it's just like 'idk man sif becomes loop loop was sif what's the difference' while there's the angst of loop for some reason said their words to sif. sif went wide-eyed and just looked really suspicious afterwards. but they're not sif's soulmate, obviously, bc they're the same person, so--it's a different person who said the same thing, or bc this is a different timeline, sif's words are different-- and meanwhile sif is like what the fuck. surely not. like i'm not discriminating but this person is clearly suspicious as hell and they know so much about me they must just be fucking with me

like a year later one of them sighs about never being able to find their soulmate and isa is like oh. uh. i mean i thought you were each others soulmate? and they both look SO fucking offended at the concept. 'no. they said my word but--'

'i did? oh. huh. i did. well you didn't say mine so'

'what's yours anyway'

'hello stranger'

'oh. same'

and isa is just watching this sideshow circus like. So. so--just consider. you're, like, the same person right-- and then they both whirl on him like IT'S NOT THE SAME HOW COULD YOU EVEN and isa has to give it up ANYWAY

after they've been bonded for five years one of them is like haha so. this is like--SO embarrassing, uh--i was just thinking--i mean it's stupid honestly, and probably not right, right?'

and loop is like yuh-huh, definitely

and sif is like you weren't supposed to agree with me actually

and loop is like well maybe i'll stop agreeing with you when you tell me what you're being stupid about, but you have to get to the blinding point first stardust

and sif pinches their arm and loop kicks his shin and they glare at each other before laughing a little bit because this happens a dozen times every day

and sif is like. ok. so. right. uhhh i mean so dumb. but. i've been thinking--just like every now and then, not a lot or anything--but wouldn't it be so funny if, like, you know how you wished for help and the universe sent you to help me--tone down the murder eyes that's not the funny part--well what if the universe sorta saw us as the same. i'd have become you without you, you were me. right. and--and just what if--what if that meant we had, like, the same...... (points at their soulmark awkwardly)

and loop is like. silent a very long time. before barking out a strangled sort of laugh and being like you know what that is pretty stupid

and sif rolls his eyes and he's hurt but they don't say it

and then loop says really quietly, i've wondered the same thing sometimes. and now sif is the silent one, and even after all these years, silence still makes anxiety brain say 'i've done something wrong', and loop is about to make a joke and change the subject even though sif brought it up in the first place

but sif says, so, do you think...?

and loop is like. well. it's not like we have any way of knowing, really. but... (they look to the side, cutting off, eyebrows wrinkled in a frown.)

"but?"

"people get their soulmates wrong all the time, right? we could...say...i don't know. i'm the one being stupid now."

and sif purses his lips and says softly, "but we could, though."


maybe not out loud. not yet. but maybe the way they look at their soulmarks from then on is a bit less bitter, and maybe then they look at the other and smile hesitantly, and the other doesn't look away right away. and maybe that's still better, until they work up the courage to introduce each other as their soulmate, and until they stop pretending they don't believe it.

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siffrin could swear there’s a monster under their bed. he hears rustling at night, at first, and then bumps, and then their bed starts to shake. other strange things keep happening, too—sometimes his shadow seems a bit too large, and spikes around the edges. sometimes it shifts strangely. once, they wake up with handprints around their neck.

he feels stupid when he finally talks to the darkness at night. they ask if there’s something there, and get no response. he asks if he’s done anything to anger the thing they’re still not entirely certain is there, and doesn’t get a response then either. but he keeps trying. what other option is there? they haven’t been able to sleep well for weeks.

it’s weeks again after, of trying to talk to nothing, conversation devolved into talking about his day and their feelings just for want of saying something, that he finally gets a response.

“why do you keep talking to me, shadow?”

siffrin isn’t entirely certain, at first, whether they’ve actually heard something or if it’s just the sleep deprivation. he blinks down at his floor.

“i don’t really have anything to say to you, you know.”

“oh.” sif considers that. if they were less tired right now, maybe he would be scared. as it stands, they’re just sleepy. he nestles into his pillow, yawning. “s’okay. but do you mind me saying stuff?”

there’s a long pause, long enough that sif is nearly asleep by the time it comes. whatever-it-is sighs. “do whatever you want, shadow. i certainly can’t stop you.”

it sounds defeated. sif is barely awake, but they drop their hand over the edge of his bed and vaguely pets at the air there. “ok. g’night. love you.” then, they pass out.

the being snorts despite themselves. they had forgotten what it was like to be something so carefree that they might accidentally confess to their tormentor. if this were anybody else, they would think it’s funny.

but. well. it’s it.

so mostly, they just want it dead. one of these days they’ll work up the courage to do just that.

anyway. basically: once upon a time, there was somebody named siffrin who attracted the attention of a shadow demon, mal du pays, who tormented them until they desperately wished to be free. instead of freeing them, loop swapped places with the shadow demon, who appears to have forgotten all its memories. loop wants to destroy it, but can’t bring themselves to do anything more than petty harassment.

or: once upon a time, there was somebody who named siffrin, who attracted the attention of a shadow demon, loop. he starts talking with them. it becomes a regular sort of thing. siffrin doesn’t know why loop still hates them so much.

or: once upon a time, there was a shadow demon named mal du pays. somehow, its target took its place and has started haunting a version of themselves that never met mal du pays, and appears to presently be under some variety of misunderstanding. it is very interested to see what happens next, but ‘interesting’ will only last it so long before it needs to feed. that other siffrin should be a viable target, right?

moments include: sif and loop holding hands over the bed, loop hugging siffrin and it’s only visible as a spiky head in sif’s shadow but sif can feel it all the same, eventually the misunderstanding is resolved and they kiss yayyy

...

i think this should be a sifloop au. a loop who instead of being made to glow so brightly even they cannot ignore the way their existence has been fundamentally changed is relegated to the shadows--someone nobody can even really see, anymore. they whisper to siffrin from the darkness under the favor tree and siffrin is afraid.


it takes some time for siffrin to speak to them, afraid as he is of darkness. they remind siffrin of being in between loops. (they remind themselves of that, too, and come to wonder why they ever thought the universe might be merciful, to them of all people. perhaps to anyone.) eventually, though, siffrin comes to trust them--the whisper at the back of their head, the darkness between. looping almost feels comforting, floating in the nothingness and imagining loop somewhere there watching them. when siffrin confesses that they've been having a hard time sleeping, loop joins them in the clocktower from under their bed (even though it means they have to see them--even though it means they have to be back here again--) just to hold siffrin's hand until he smiles and falls into a dreamless sleep.



when siffrin wins, it is a very bright day. there is sunshine everywhere. there is no place for loop. another cosmic joke: they once dreamed of being in the sun, and are now incapable of it. they somewhat expect siffrin to not think of them anymore, after that. why would he, when they've fought their way to the sunshine loop always wanted so? but instead, they run to the favor tree, to the shadow. "i was worried you wouldn't be here," he says, panting slightly, and beaming so brightly it almost hurts. loop hates them. they hate that he can stand in the light. they hate that they can smile like that. they hate that he came for them. (they'd have hated it more, if he didn't.)


anyway they end up traveling together. sif always carries an umbrella and doesn't explain why for a while. he just smiles, still as bright, at the shadow at their feet and say--he likes being in the dark.


(,,,, LITERALLY just realized i already wrote something based off this EXACT SAME PICTURE hahahaha but that was like. not in canonverse. WHOOPS)

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i think since i watched goblin i havent been in a single fandom i havent made a goblin au for so uhhh isat goblin au (very loosely): sif who doesn't loop, but who is killed early, unjustly, and then resurrected by the power of his family members' wishes. and for whatever reason he is cursed with immortality. 900 years later, they're in the modern day just barely getting by, and then he sees his family members one after the other. but for once they're not seeing things that aren't there: everyone has been reincarnated, but they don't remember him
. angst angst happy ending

so a long while back now in isatcord i mentioned a goblin-inspired au and i am adjusting it now. ummm so au in which siffrin had a group of good friends who they loved dearly, but who they could never express their feelings to and they ended up parting. they wished that they could see them again, and thought it hadn't worked. at least, that is, until they stopped aging, and never started again. in order to keep people from being suspicious, they traveled from place to place, interacted the bare minimum and only ever settled down as long as they thought they could get away with without people starting to ask why their face never changed. and then, a thousand-odd years later: they see them. their friends, all with the same faces. they've been reincarnated.

their family has been reincarnated, and they don't remember them. all the hope they had is dashed again: the wish is still broken. siffrin has met them again, but they haven't met them.

and worse still: somebody who looks very much like siffrin, somebody who even bears the same name, is friends with them, and they all love him. and this other sif keeps looking at them, keeps seeing them when nobody else does, and siffrin can't tell why until sif points at their chest.

"you have a star buried there," they say, as if siffrin doesn't know, as though they weren't the only one who's ever been able to see it. "do you need help getting that out?"

so for the first time in centuries, siffrin (who introduces themselves as loop on a whim) has the chance to be free. but they also have to decide if they really want to be free or if they want to try coming to know these new versions of their friends, and this strange person who looks so similar to them

the trouble is that the reason the wish hasn’t been fulfilled yet is because they don’t see these versions as their family. if they do, the wish will end and loop too will meet their natural end.

IT WOULD HAVE A HAPPY ENDING. sort of. ok i guess more of a bittersweet one. uhhh so idk if you're familiar with goblin but i won't do it exactly like that but...ok so. loop comes to see these people maybe not exactly as their old family but at least as family, right? and in doing so, they vanish, and the world is rewritten around them to change what is seen as massively overstaying their welcome, bending the laws of the universe to their will (even if it wasn't their intention). everybody forgets about them once more. they feel like they lost something for a time, but they can't think of what.

but sif, who is no stranger to forgetting (not island exactly but amnesia) and who can't stand the feeling of it keeps rubbing at it, like aggravating an old bruise, trying desperately to figure out what it is that should be here but isn't. the family has a wish in their hearts--just like siffrin once did, they wish to see them again, whoever 'them' is. but they don't know rituals. sif subconsciously does, and late one night, exhausted and teary and struggling, he asks the universe to stop taking away the things they love. loop doesn't come back. but sif's memory does--all of those memories of loving and being loved. and that has to be enough for him. sif's family still gets this sad, far-off look in their eyes every now and then, but they stop mentioning it. time passes--ten years, a hundred, more. somebody who looks very much like siffrin grows up loved and cherished, and never forgets. close to them are people who look very much like the family siffrin once had. now and then, they look around in crowds, like they're searching for something. twenty-seven years later precisely, they find what they're looking for. once-siffrin is the one to break apart from the group first, stopping midsentence and running in a different direction to a figure in the distance who's just standing and staring. they end up meeting halfway.

by the time they finish hugging, everyone else has caught up, surrounding the figure in a big swarm, passing them between them all for hugs and questions, on the verge of too much, almost enough to make somebody's heart (the place a star lived, once) burst. "welcome home," once-siffrin says, beaming so hard his cheeks hurt. the star in their own heart won't leave for a long, long time; it's a long life they'll all live. after all, they love their life like this too, and the universe won't take that away until they're content.

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in reference to this set of doodles by artilite

idk if it was your intention for the one in the top left but i am STILL thinking of 'they fought and they're so pissed at each other that they can't even stand to look at each other but also they can't stand to be that far apart not touching for that long either so sif takes a hold of loop's tail'
loop with a prehensile tail (or maybe like, a shadow sparky thing) that has a mind of its own and so they're pretending to be mad but the tail is winding around sif's wrist and pulling him closer, stroking over their pulse point happily


when your mouth says 'i can't even look at you right now' but your strange shadow appendage listens contented to the heartbeat of your other half and as if to whisper 'i'm so glad you're alive, i'm so glad you're here, i'm so glad you're with me, please never leave'. and sif can't stay mad for all that long in the face of that.

he sighs, absentmindedly running along the shadow with his thumb, and his hands speak the 'i miss you already, even like this' they can't say out loud quite yet. from his periphery he sees loop relax a little. it's moments like this they remember they were the same, once--that they're always just a little worried the other will have had enough one of these days.

loop's tail pulls them a little closer, insistent. "you can ignore it," loop murmurs.

"i'm not going to," siffrin says, flopping on his back.

loop pauses a moment, then does the same. their heads almost brush even though they're still not making eye contact. "you really scared me, you know," loop finally says. their voice is a little rough. "i know you can handle yourself, but...it's just..."

"i know." loop shouldn't have said the things they said, but siffrin knows where it came from. "i should have..." thought, should have stood down, should have cared a little less about himself and more about--

"no. no, i, uh. i mean. i get it."

of course they do. siffrin exhales quietly, bringing the tail still wrapped around their wrist to their cheek and nuzzling against it. "...i know. i'm sorry."

loop's tail excitedly quivers at the contact. the fragment of a star on the end rubs against siffrin's skin, leaving behind static in its wake. siffrin makes a face when it dips into his mouth accidentally, though it's a little too affectionate to look properly irritated.


"i'm never going to get used to that blinding thing," loop grumbles, even as they reach a hand up to pat around siffrin's head until they reach his own hand, clasping onto it tightly when they find it. "it's so embarrassing."

"i don't know," siffrin says. "i sort of like it."

"sure you do. you're not the one who has to deal with it."

loop doesn't apologize, or say anything else. they just lie there quietly together, hands intertwined, tail still looped carefully around siffrin's wrist. and yeah, sometimes the tail is sort of troublesome, but. siffrin presses a small, almost imperceptible kiss to the place it rests over his pulse. the star pulses delightedly, glowing alongside loop's head. in fairness, siffrin hadn't really wanted loop to go in the first place either. so...maybe it's for the best there's at least one thing here that can be honest.

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thinkin about. ghost loop au. (ghoop au even.) in which siffrin moves into a new apartment in a new city, and everything is actually going pretty well. he's been adopted into a new friend group. their boss kind of sucks and really likes just sort of looming over him and asking them weird questions but he's dealing with it. they might even?? be flirting a little bit with one of their friends??? (which is new, but kind of nice?) it feels like he has a place here and they're not used to that but he likes it. there's just one thing.

siffrin is pretty sure there's a ghost in the apartment. and they're pretty sure they're not imagining it. and, uh, he's pretty sure the ghost sort of hates him? a little bit? because they seem to be trying really hard to get him to leave.

or: siffrin moved into a new apartment in a new city. everything seemed to be going pretty well. they made friends, their work wasn't terrible, they were flirting with somebody they realize now they really liked. they thought they had a place here.

and then they died, and they have *no* idea why. and instead of moving on or whatever, they ended up a ghost in their old apartment--back on the first day they moved in.

they're not sure how this works, but they think--well, maybe, if they get this siffrin to leave, it'll break continuity and then they won't be dead. they try it.

they try it, and siffrin dies.

they go back to the beginning.

nothing they can do makes siffrin leave, they find after a while. so they switch tacks.

'hey, stardust,' they say, floating above siffrin on his first sleepless night in his new bed. 'you ever heard of a time loop?'

after siffrin's usual freaking out routine, they try to explain. they do not tell siffrin who they are. they just say they want to help. and from then on, they do. they talk with him, they try to figure out what happened together. and a very strange and very unfortunate thing happens:

they become far, far too fond of their stardust. and that means it becomes far, far too difficult to be okay with the possibility of this siffrin dying. meanwhile, siffrin is wondering what it means that he has a perfectly reasonable romantic candidate right a few doors down and still wants to know what it's like to hold the hand of the nebulous star-speckled outline in their room who tells them that they want to save him. but the thing is, they also told siffrin at first that they would leave once he was safe.

and is siffrin really okay with that? is it really what he wants?

there's not much time left. loop still don't know what happens to siffrin. siffrin still doesn't know what's *really* going on.

but they're both going to find out, one way or another.

or something like that :P

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isa: i wish i could kiss whoever let me have two siffrins

universe:

universe:

universe, manifesting in eldritch form, absolutely bemused: i've fielded some strange wishes in my day but i'll admit this one threw me for a

loop: LET ME AT 'EM

highly toxic isa x universe x loop x sif ot4


oh yeah no it was def toxic before LOLLL but sloops could become real by sheer force of how much they want to punt the universe into the universe

bonding momence

universe, allowing its ass to be kicked, slightly amused by these two little ants' attempt: are you feeling any better now loop and sif, powering up two levels via irritation:

honestly it could be a fun dynamic...the universe that doesn't understand why it's so hated when it was only fulfilling their wishes, and thinks it feels love for them because it feels love for everything in the way one might love a row of ants marching on the pavement. and sif and loop who feel betrayed knowing how little they are known and actually loved, but who still remember loving the universe, being taught to love the universe, to respect it--but what in this is worthy of respect? having to reforge their opinions of another, to untangle the twisted mess of adulation and anger, distance and indifference.

the universe has observed everything but never quite so close . the love isabeau feels for the others...it is interesting, is it not? the strength of it, the conviction. it wants to understand it--and then it wants. and in this, it stumbles and falls for the first time, it makes mistakes, and oh, what joy it is to fail --but also, how terrible it is, to see the look on their faces when it does, when it says something too callous. when it does not understand.

...it wants for them not to look that way anymore.

and meanwhile isa is kind of pissed at it at first, but then slowly charmed by it bumbling its way into personhood. sif and loop bond over their pain at it being so close (and yet so far, always so far--something they shouldn't mind, because they hate it, but also--) and slowly come to forgive it and themselves in the process

maybe the wish here is a small, sobbed out 'i wish i could stop hating you'. siffrin, maybe, in a moment of weakness. he just wants to go back to when looking at the stars didn't fill him with that lightless oily rage. (at it? ...at themselves? maybe both.) and he barely did a ritual, it shouldn't have mattered really, but the universe was curious. how could it go about fulfilling this wish? it could wipe siffrin's memory of their hatred. it could steal his feelings.

...but maybe it would be interesting to go about it a different way. it loves siffrin as it loves everyone. perhaps it could try talking to them instead. (and now siffrin is forced to confront that his weakness has brought calamity on them once again. and if one day he isn't angry anymore--is that because they aren't or because of the wish? can he ever know? can they ever really trust it?)

i think eventually it wouldn't be but at first it'd be like. they wouldn't like the answers they'd get. eventually it might be reassuring to know, but at first, knowing the universe cares as much as it can but that's not really much would be offputting i think. and then it doesn't leave because it's like. i haven't fulfilled your wish yet :// and how can they stop hating it like this when now he hates it more?


but yes it would be fun....
i'm not gonna write it but i am rotating it a little now

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thinking of sif surrounded always by the sun and the moon, both shining so brightly they hurt his eyes but unable to tear their gaze away all the same. thinking of siffrin staring at loop until the afterimage of them is left when he shuts his eyes, and loop noticing and huffing--fond, embarrassed, even now--and thumbing at siffrin's eyes to close them. siffrin, like always, pushes his face into their hands and relaxes like they've just been waiting for loop's touch to set down all of their burdens. (strange, still, that loop can do that for anyone, much less a siffrin--but, well, their siffrin is special, so.) and loop takes the opportunity while siffrin's eyes are closed to stare at their stardust, who shines so much more than them.

"are you looking at me?" siffrin asks, quiet and a little amused and a lot affectionate.

"no. why, stardust, what's there to look at?"

and the answer is: everything, everything, always. maybe someday they'll even admit it. but with the way siffrin's eyes crinkle up at the corners, they suspect he hears the lie anyway, or perhaps just the beating of the star in their chest.

"nothing," siffrin murmurs, and steps a little closer. "keep not looking at anything with me?"

and siffrin looks at the outline of loop on their eyelids, and loop looks at the silhouette they know better than life, and that continues until isabeau sneaks up on them both and squeezes them both in a hug, lifting them a little and beaming brightly enough they both have to look away.

it's not the first time isabeau has seen this sort of thing, and he knows them both too well by now. so he'll say, nodding sagely, "you're both right. i do have the most gorgeous partners in the world."

they shove him simultaneously, still alike sometimes at times like this. isabeau laughs.

they fall asleep later, all tangled together, and see one another in their dreams--all the world's light captured forever in their eyes and in their arms.

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so i was thinking about past aus i've written and i did a cyrano de bergerac au for one of my ships once a long time ago and i was like hm. that doesn't fit isiloop exactly. but i can MAKE it fit them and so i present to you: Cyrano De Bergerac (But Worse)

isabeau gets a hold of loop's cringe and highly private poetry-diary. he has not opened it, he's just teasing a little, but loop thinks he's read it (and therefore knows all about his feelings for isabeau and confused feelings for sif) and worse, somehow, gets the impression that isabeau has requested their help to write love letters to sif. which frankly is cruel of him, they think! at least a little! but--well. it's for isa, and it's probably the closest loop will ever be able to get to expressing their feelings to siffrin in a way that won't disgust sif.

they concede.

from isabeau's perspective, loop has out of nowhere declared they will be writing love letters to siffrin. good for them he supposes, though he's not really sure why they say it like spitting out nails. he supposes their relationship has always been kind of funny like that! but he's happy for them. it'll be good for both of them. (he's content to cheer them on from the sidelines. maybe--well. maybe someday. but.

yeah. for now, content.

he'll push aside the sting. neither of them were ever his, after all.)

meanwhile: siffrin starts to receive some incredibly overwraught (and, frankly, a little bit awkward) love letters. they are not signed because loop assumed siffrin would know who was sending them--isa is the only one who would, right? siffrin does not know. siffrin is very confused. they rule out odile and mira and bonnie, obviously. he does not rule out the change god causing mischief or maybe a very persistent hallucination. but--probably isa or loop. right? which one?

(and. why does their heart sink when he thinks about it *only* being one?)

it is predicated on such a shaky set of misunderstandings that it would have to be a short fic. but it would also be funny.

Chapter Text

was thinking the other day about fairy tales that i could turn sloops after doing prince and the pauper and east of the sun west of the moon and: swan lake.

more particularly, loop who turns into a star creature by day and returns to their human form at night, and siffrin who is usually locked up but sometimes sees a star sparkling in the lake during the day and hopes to see it closer. he escapes from his oppressive caretaker the king at night and comes across someone who looks like them.

siffrin is forced to confront that they were made to look like loop's real form because the king wants to trick prince isabeau, and that his father is the reason loop is confined here. loop is forced to confront that the person who stole their face isn't evil, even though it would be easier to think of it like that.

at the ball, the king presents siffrin to prince isabeau. they dance. he's certainly very charming, but also now siffrin knows what the king can do if he rebels. they don't even know if they existed before this, if his memories of living alone in the woods are real or constructed just like their body. but when loop bursts into the ballroom and the king mockingly says that the prince must choose which one is the real siffrin, that only true love can show the way, it doesn't matter to siffrin anymore.

they kiss loop on the cheek, fully prepared to accept that this means their demise. loop knows exactly what this means for him, and kisses him back, crying for a love that would never be. but instead, love shows something unexpected: they're both the real siffrin just in different ways! and they all gang up on the king and take him down and siffrin stays and so does loop yayyy


isabeau is like um so like. does this mean. i sort of thought this sort of story usually ended with the prince and the--i mean i'm not saying i expect anything obviously not but um so are you two like, uh, exclusive or,


i think isa and loop were probably actually something like childhood friends (wherein isa had an unrequited crush) but loop forgot their childhood so they don't remember. sif doesn't know isa, he just knows that they're supposed to marry him and the king has often told him how wonderful prince isabeau is. and they're like oh. ok sure i guess that's how it is? i guess everybody wants to get married to a prince like in the stories, right? but when he actually gets to know isa more he's not like, some faceless Noble Gentleman, he's actually kind of a dork and he snorts when he laughs and he has such a bright smile and he looks so happy when siffrin tries joking back. but it's actually kind of rocky after because isa thought siffrin was his siffrin/now-loop. loop doesn't remember him and is, frankly, somewhat apathetic about him at first

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it would suck if sif got a confession in the loops though

if i wanted to write REAL angst i'd write that you know

the way sif would stop believing it, or start thinking he was goading isa into it. stopping isa from saying anything. still wanting to hear it despite everything. the way their face would freeze when isa finally said it for the last time in act 6

(the loops are over. they're over. he's not--the wording was different, see? just a little, but--but enough, right? you can't smell sugar it's fine--) and isa's smile fading a little as he sees how sif doesn't look happy but terrified

"how often did i tell you that?" isa asks, voice soft, and more pained than siffrin would like.

(you'll always do this to him. you'll always cause him pain like this.) "...every single time," siffrin says.

they're so quiet he worries for a moment that isa can't hear him. they hope he can't.

isa squeezes siffrin's hand, slow, like dealing with a spooked animal. he doesn't say anything. siffrin has ruined it (always always always always has always will). they fold in on themselves more with every moment of silence, until isabeau huffs irritably. "that's just like me, to take the wind out of my sails, huh? i can't believe i've had to compete with me!"

siffrin pauses, attempts a smile. it's maybe more of a grimace.

"well. it doesn't matter. because i'll definitely win! i'll love you the most of all those isabeaus. and i'll find a different way to tell you that every day, so you never have to think of all those doofuses who couldn't even get creative enough to change it up." he pauses and flushes dark. "i mean...if you wanted that. i also, like, don't have to...?"

siffrin chews on their lip. it sounds terrifying. it sounds wonderful. their skin is sweaty and it could be nerves or nerves. "you can try," they finally offer.

isabeau lights up like the sun. "trying! i'm good at trying! i'm GREAT at trying! and--also, i can stop trying if you ever want, too, okay? whatever you want. always whatever you want, promise."

which, really, that sounds more like 'i love you, siffrin' than he has in a very long time. "i'll try too," siffrin says. and maybe that sounds like 'i love you isabeau', or close enough to it, because isabeau's smile softens, gentles, wraps around siffrin like a hug. their cold sweat isn't quite as cold.

"okay," isabeau says. "then let's try together."

they do, and do, and fail, and do, and they love each other.

Chapter Text

bachelorette au. mira forces herself to go on because she has to find love SOMEHOW, right?

isiloop have varying reasons for going on. isa is actually looking for love, sif fills out the application as moral support and they are both surprised sif gets in, especially because isa has had a crush on them for years, loop is sif's coworker slash rival who gets suddenly, strangely angry at the idea of sif going on the show and getting married to some random person who doesn't even KNOW him or CARE about him, at least if it were isa it would be understandable because he's very sweet and caring and handsome but some random person? no loop simply won't allow it. this is what good rivals do, sabotage their rivals' chances at a love life (with someone else
)

they all become friends with mira who is very relieved to have these people who aren't actually trying to romance her, they just sort of want to hang out. which is why they end up getting to the final three. it's when they have to face the thought of one of them going home that the angst really kicks up. and also mira has to face the idea in general that she's supposed to choose one of them, maybe even kiss one of them. production has already been getting after her. she has to stand up for herself, and isiloop have to work out their feelings

loop keeps talking directly to the audience
, like through the camera. they are not supposed to. 
they're supposed to be being catty to somebody else on screen but they have zero interest in anybody other than sif and isa and everybody else is kiiiinda scared of them? so the producer is like 'how about you say one of those mean things like the things you say to us to, idk, jeff' and jeff is like 'noooo i'm good actually...'

and loop is like 'here how about instead.' (looking directly at the camera, cheerily) what's up you fucks, enjoying watching this scripted bullshit again this week? they just told me to fight with somebody but fuck that, frankly. it's much more fun to talk to you. been eating well? i can't eat at all, fun fact about me--

and like at first they put it in there to make people vote loop off but then people loved them even more. their numbers went wild. they didn't put it in the next episode and loop tweeted 'the big brethren in editing are CENSORING ME' and the ensuing tweetstorm was an absolute clusterfuck so they reluctantly let loop do whatever they want

Chapter Text

it's been a hot-ass minute since i've done a tiny lil au writeup here so: uh this started as a vaguely princess tutu-inspired au but it's not really that anymore

sif as duck, sorta, loop as fakir, sorta, isabeau as mytho.

or, basically: a star falls in love, and a star falls.

loop is not anyone. they have no memory, and they're not very talented, and they don't really have any friends. all they know is that they love isabeau, a kind man who only smiles around siffrin. they're probably in love. which would be very cute if so! loop just wants isabeau to be happy. if he's happy, it's fine.

isabeau does not seem happy.

when they wish for isabeau's happiness, they are given a magical amulet that grants them control over time. anything that might make isabeau unhappy, they reverse time until things go well. but every time they do so, they glow a little brighter. at first, it's not even really noticeable, but soon, people start to look at loop a little strange.

isabeau still does not seem happy.

and siffrin seems to have noticed that things aren't adding up, somehow. once he puts together it's loop doing it, they work together, trying to make isabeau happy. surely, if he never faces any bad things, it'll happen. surely, they're only imagining that his smile fades as loop's glow grows.

people used to not look at loop at all. now, they can't look at them, and isabeau has stopped smiling entirely. 

i haven't entirely worked out the rest but isabeau knows about the loops and wants out, because the only thing more torturous than having to live with your unhappiness is never being able to escape from it at all as you make other people suffer on your behalf. it ends with loop as a little star bobbing in the air above a small house waiting for sif to write a new story

Chapter Text

loop would absolutely have even worse trauma after, like. always wondering whether theyre remembering everything or whether something got looped back and they just don't know about it. always smelling for sugar, always staring at sif trying to see if they notice anything off with him. begging them to please please tell them if they're looping, they won't be mad, they just need to know, they just need to remember

within the loops: it takes loop a while to notice, at first. because sure, it smells of sugar, but they knew it would, right? they know what's going on. they know everything. they know they're here to help, and they're going to do that, because there's no other option.

siffrin is cautiously optimistic.

siffrin frowns when they meet them for the first time.

siffrin is angry at them.

...siffrin won't meet their eyes.

siffrin apologizes under their breath and runs away.

and it's that that makes loop wonder what could cause that. they think of when they'd break and apologize to their team members. they think of what siffrin could have to apologize for when they've just met. they smell sugar so strongly they're choking on it.

.......motherfucker.

and when sif comes back, still not meeting their eyes, they scream at him for taking away their memories, they scream at them for stealing them here and then taking the one thing they had left, they cry, they try to kill him. they can't do it.

...siffrin is curious, but they want their help. good! that will make things easier. hopefully, it'll work out this time. they're here to help, after all. that's the only thing they can do.

Chapter Text

idk why and i'm not gonna do anything with it but this post made me think of. psychopomp loop. loop forced by the universe to face their own death by making them be the one to take siffrin's soul back to the beginning, picking him up in their arms and seeing every drop of blood spilled, every tear their friends shed over them, cradling them close and feeling as he loses body heat. they're so light, loop finds. he's so fragile. and they also find that it's very hard to stay mad at someone when you've carried their soul so close. maybe siffrin should be mad at them, honestly, for not leaving it there. they still act the same (they have a lot of practice in that), and they don't tell him, but they end up feeling way closer to sif than he does to them.

and later on, much later, siffrin will ask loop why they never hold him to sleep, why they insist on always being held, and loop won't know how to say that the one time they tried it the other way they nearly stopped breathing from the familiar feeling in their arms, that they woke up biting off a scream from nightmares of waking to find siffrin dead, but this time in a way they can't fix, can't hold, can only mourn like all of their friends once did. "aw, don't you like holding me?" loop will ask, batting their eyes. "don't you worry your pretty little head about it, stardust. i just like your arms around me, is all!"

they'll blush and drop the subject—at least until later, when siffrin gets hurt for the first time in a while and loop has to carry him home, crying and hyperventilating the whole way. isabeau and siffrin will sit them down then and insist on an answer, and they'll get one, and siffrin will hug loop tightly and say thank you, i'm sorry and loop will hug them back. and having siffrin in their arms won't be quite as bad for the first time.

Chapter Text

Jujutsu Kaisen - Sif / Loop

hmmmm... siffrin in a yuuji situation in which he gets possessed by a curse except for loop is just a curse made up from the despair of people who have forgotten and been forgotten? like not malevolent, just Fuckin' Bummed Out (but not gonna show it)
imagine. ok my wheels are turning. a loop whose cursed technique is to make people forget. they fight by making people just fucking forget why they were fighting in the first place, to make curses forget the emotions that lead to their formation in the first place... and both of them have literally no option but to make people become what they themselves fear and hate most. and it's to help people, but--seeing people with lost expressions on their faces, and the fear as they ask who they are and what they were doing as they start to disappear.... also for additional angst maybe the longer sif stays possessed the more they forget. and so they have to resolve that somehow. loops gotta get out and become their own person (curse) instead of clinging onto somebody else something something metaphor NOW THEY CAN KISS YAYYY

Princess Sonora and the Long Sleep  - Isa / Sif

there's an adaptation of sleeping beauty by gail carson levine (the person who wrote ella enchanted) that's like. the person who becomes sleeping beauty is blessed with being super smart, but she ends up sort of alienating everybody around her because of this because they all think she's a smart-aleck. until 100 years later when she's woken up it's by somebody who has nothing but questions and is so happy to have met somebody with all the answers. therefore:

isabeau blessed with smarts by a fairy's blessing, sif who wakes him up, but has questions specifically about their country, and isa has the answers not only because he's super smart but because he fell asleep before the country was yote from consciousness. the problem is twofold: it still hurts to think and talk about, but isa wants to be useful so badly. and siffrin starts to fall for isa, but he's terrified it's because they're dependent on isa to give him information. is it love or codependency? and will the forces that destroyed the island in the first place let them live undisturbed when they realize there's somebody who not only knows everything about the island before but is smart enough to put together what happened. dun dun dun there an au

Kiss Delivery - Sif / Loop / Isa

looking thoughtfully at the classic pza fic (you know, 'please deliver this kiss for me’) and thinking. there's gotta be a way to make that loopsidaisies right. loop who has been so removed from the world they can walk in time and do so between postcanon isa and canon sif. isa asks loop to deliver hugs to sif, knowing how much affection they're lacking in the midst of the loops. loop begrudgingly accepts, but the more they take hugs from isa and give them to siffrin, the worse they feel about not having any of those hugs for themselves. postcanon siffrin comes back, now having received all of isabeau's love but more to the point all of loop's, and kisses them in front of isa. and loop is like wh--but--isa? huh? what? and siffrin is like :/// isa as seduction techniques go this was. like. really fucked up and bad of you actually. just tell loop you want to make out with them instead of making them feel unwanted. and isa hadn't realized he wasn't being obvious (he sort of was, but like, it's loop) and they all hug and cuddle and kiss and it's a happy ending

Sadness Loop - Sif / Loop / Isa

actually that would also be a good au. loop who got time rewound right on the cusp of becoming a sadness (this isn't a thing in canon but. waves hand. it's for the sake of au it's fine)--before losing all sense of friend and foe but after the physical transformation. call 'em gloop
loop who's even more physically removed from being human, who melts when they lose hold of their emotions, who timefreezes siffrin when they're angry. loop, who has to deal with becoming something that has destroyed them time and time again, who has the power to do something they hated, who knows that there's no turning back because they are truly not siffrin anymore and they never can be. they're a monster. ((and siffrin, who comes to love them anyway, and isabeau, who thinks they're really cute...especially how they turn to a literal puddle on the ground when they blush...he wants to cover them in kisses))

Fandom - Sif / Loop

silly fandom au in which some author keeps releasing chapters of a fic that are almost identical to siffrin's just before siffrin releases theirs. the first time is perhaps coincidence, but the second and third and fourth times have everyone accusing siffrin of plagiarism. prior to this point he had never felt so much like there was no way forward, but now--they loop back. and they get a dm from the other author, saying, 'now that i've made my point, stardust, i think we need to talk ^ ^' anyway it's enemies 2 lovers obv because sif is like 'ok why did you need to do that to me. you couldn't just have said hey you're in a time loop?' and loop is like 'oh my god how could i never have thought of that. so smart so intelligent stardust. jk i tried that first obviously, you thought i was full of shit' but they still have to work together to solve [indeterminate modern day issue?]

Glitch Loop - Sif / Loop/ Isa

hmmmhm.... loop as the junk data left behind when a video game was poorly rebooted/rewritten. loop who the game doesn't even really realize exists, much less that they were siffrin once. loop who the game would get rid of if it could. loop who keeps existing out of spite and isn't sure whether they hate siffrin for being blissfully ignorant of the bones he rests upon every day or just wish they could be him. and a siffrin and isabeau who make loop feel seen, secure again, who give them a place and a purpose. loop glitching out in lieu of blushing when siffrin kisses them, who groans and hides in their knees when they return to a coherent form while isabeau laughs and cradles them close, siffrin curling up on loop's shoulder to hide his smirk. loop knows it's there. loop is okay with that, though, with--this. with how things turned out, strange as it is, wrong as it's supposed to be.

Maybe Happy Ending - Sif / Loop

listening to the maybe happy ending soundtrack on repeat rn and so i gotta au it. loop and sif as the same kind of robot but sif is the newer fancier (but less sturdy) version. both have been retired after their factory shut down. slowly, as parts become harder and harder to find, they are having to deal with the knowledge that eventually they won't be able to fix themselves at some point. while sif waits for his inevitable shutdown, loop blocks the outside world out after being separated from their family, only to have the outside world forcefully come to him in the form of sif asking to borrow their charger because his is broken
(personality-wise loop is probably a better fit for claire and sif for oliver, but loop should be an older model so i'd just tweak things ig)

Pushing Daisies - Sif / Loop / Isa

hm let's see...isabeau is the piemaker, sif died and was revived, and loop is an alternate self who was never revived and after many many years of wandering the world without being able to interact with anybody for some reason was pulled into this timeline as a ghost. isabeau can 'touch' them but they can't physically touch bc loop is incorporeal ;P
i think probably none of them even try for a long time. isabeau can't, and sif never touches anybody until they work out some of their shit. but perhaps...at some point loop reaches out and then realizes that sif can touch them a little bit....half in the grave
(additional angst: loop saw all of their family die without ever being able to interact with them)

East by Edith Pattou - Sif / Loop

this truly is half-baked but. thinking of sifloop east au--siffrin who finds himself in the home of someone who is a person with the head of a star during the day and asks only that siffrin sleep in their bed at night without trying to look at them. and siffrin's curiosity gets the best of him, and they look and see someone wearing their own face. he gasps and loop wakes up and is taken to a frozen land far away ruled by a cruel king, and siffrin has to go after them

Chapter Text

Wrong Wish - Gen

cws: psych horror, mind control

i thought of a few different flavors of one premise, namely: siffrin wishes for his family to love them rather than wishing to stay with them.
- flavor 1: they already love siffrin. the wishcraft throws up its hands and is like i mean fuck. i guess i give you some extra time so you get to realize it? except for now siffrin thinks 1) every time they show him they love them, it is because they have been forced to do so, and 2) he has been timelooped as punishment for their hubris
- flavor 2: same as above, except for siffrin assumes since nothing happens, the wish craft has judged this request too impossible to make happen. not even the power of the universe could make them love you, siffrin.
- flavor 3: psych horror edition. they already love siffrin. wish craft figures that siffrin must just need it to be more obvious, + more time to realize it. everybody becomes over the top affectionate. siffrin doesn't realize he wished for this and is incredibly happy. but--slowly, as the loops happen, they start to realize it's a little...much? not too much for him, not like that, but that even when they're in dire moments of peril, everyone is still lavishing them with affection, and. they wouldn't do that, right? not when it was so important, right? and the more the shine of it wears off, the more siffrin pays close attention, and realizes that their smiles pull down at the corners when they touch him, that their eyes look panicked, that their movements are stiff and awkward, like they're being puppeted. like they're being made to. like they're being made to like they're being-- made to

and with sudden horror, they realize that this isn't their friends doing this. that when he's rude to them, their mouths don't quite move up with the sound coming out of their mouths, like it's lagging. that they have trapped their family in every way possible because that was the only way he could be loved, was by force

Platonic Soulmates - Gen
soulmate au—all platonic soulmates; isa is in sif’s language so they can’t read it
if one were to think that maybe looping creates branching timelines: for each loop, sif obtains new bonding marks. each loop, a new star for each member of their family, stars and stars and stars until their skin is consumed by it, and they have to stop touching their family so that those stars don't light up under their clothes and give everything away. and then they become a star, they truly are eaten up by it and they try to think of their skin as being a representation of that--of giving everything for those they loved--but they also miss the times they'd glow and it meant that the Universe knew they were loved in return, and not because the Universe told them it was all they were good for.

and then. one day. loop forgets themselves and touches sif, trying to comfort them, because stars do they know what it's like trying to avoid touch, and they've seen the stars creeping up on siffrin's neck too, like little freckles. and then siffrin starts to glow, and the stars within loop's skin light up like they contain a galaxy inside them, and loop realizes that their bonds lived within them all along. but. well. nice to know! but it won't do siffrin any good. it won't help. all loop can do is help. the universe helpfully takes control of the power they wield and rewinds.


something something when your skin is both a mark of how much you've been loved and a graveyard for all those you've left behind

Another (2012) - Gen
so since we were talking about higurashi in spoileriest it made me think of another horror show. and i literally mean 'another', horror show. lol if anybody isnt familiar with another (the horror anime) spoilers for that + death ment, horror, ghost ment cw but while i could never write this myself...siffrin coming back to the rural place they once lived but can't remember only to find that there's somebody with his face in their town, but nobody else sees them. it doesn't help that they're always acting very mysterious. eventually he realizes that loop is real but being ostracized by the rest of the town as part of a ritual trying to take away the bad luck caused by an extra dead soul being drawn to the town who nobody can remember is dead...and then people start dying, and siffrin and loop have to figure out why. and siffrin has to figure out why loop doesn't seem to be surprised by any of this

Promare - Gen (mostly. if you don't know i ship lio/galo lol)
promare-inspired au in which the mysterious star-shaped-flame-headed loop, leader of the mad burnish, is revealed in a moment in which siffrin nearly dies and loop retracts the flames to save him, to be a siffrin who went back in time. they're fighting against the evil king--they never knew he was evil and he destroyed the world, but when they went back in time, nobody believed them except for a select few burnish. they've been fighting against siffrin and the rest of the fire force, but only to try to get them to realize that the king is evil before it's too late to save the world from him. 

Death Parade - Gen
loop as decim, siffrin as the assistant, or chiyuki rather. siffrin waking up one day in a strange bar told to assist loop as they run games with peoples' souls on the line. there's no windows to the outside, no explanations other than the one he was first provided. loop is hiding something. siffrin can only go day by day (?) as they slowly unravel the reason why he is in this unchanging place 

Time Travel - Gen
time travel au—sif who is thrown back in time and meets loop. loop is sif who was thrown back even further and made immortal. they find a way back to the present day but sif has to convince loop to come with them when it’s already been thousands of years since they lived in the modern time with their friends