#that one loop theory

[egophiliac]

So,I read silver's relaxation vigente and now I'm sad for the poor boy. If lilia broke up silver's curse why is it acting so strongly on him?

to be fair, the chronological placement of his birthday story just doesn't make any sense in general. like, it can only really take place during his second year, since Ace and Malleus are both there...yet we have seen pretty definitively what Silver was doing on the evening before/morning of his 18th birthday, and it was very much NOT his history homework. this myth?

jk jk I think it's just one of those card stories that's meant to be more...perpendicular to canon, if that makes sense? 😅 like a lot of them aren't really supposed to fit into a specific point in the timeline; instead all the characters and relationships tend to be somewhere vaguely post-episode 1 (occasionally with a bonus post-6 Ortho) except Yuu is already friends with everyone and nobody is surprised to hear them call Malleus Tsunotarou.

mostly they can get away with it, but it starts getting a bit weird with the cards that are supposed to be set at specific times. :T for those I think you gotta just kind of suspend your disbelief and take 'em as, like...little what-if AUs, or something like that! it's not exactly not canon, but more like. this is Silver's birthday if none of the narrative development happened and so his curse is still in effect, or something. 🤷 uhhhh basically Twst's timeline is an eldritch thing that cannot be perceived by mortal eyes, to try will lead to nothing but suffering, down this path dwells only madness.

that said I do 100% accept the presented canon that Silver's roommate is in eternal torment. this is the real victim of Twst right here.

[aashidoodles]

[hanafubukki]

Would you love me if you knew?

Thinking about time loop theory and all the yuus, thinking about how you are all the yuus.

But instead of forgetting every lifetime, you remember every single time loop, no matter who you are.

Once you were yuuken, then yuuka, then yuuta, then yuuya, etc (even the game Yuu)

And every timeline you remember, you try so hard to end it but you can’t. No matter what you do, the ending is always the same.

Back to the beginning. Something always going wrong and you and many others dead.

People would think you’d have given up by now? But you haven’t.

Not only because you wanted to escape the time loop, but because no matter who you were, no matter how you changed, they always loved you. They chose you.

Every single time.

You also wanted to save them.

It didn’t matter how, when, or where.

You would save them.

You’ll do whatever it takes to free everyone from this cursed fate.

Because no matter however long it’s been, they are yours and you are theirs.

[lobie-the-cartoonist]

The Duke and the Duchess 🌹

[alfheimr]

asking the age old question of "what if i put law in a time loop 🤔"

[lucabyte]

I dunno if you’ve seen what’s in the isat artbook yet but there’s a mention in there of id5’s support of she/her Loop which made me think of that great post you made a while ago on Loop gender!!! Just thought I’d let ya know since that post was absolutely foundational to my personal Loop thoughts lol!

ok goofs aside lol hi. first of all: really funny that more than one of you thought of me for this. my powers. and second of all: okay ill actually give my thoughts.

alright so for the uninitiated (THIS POST) (+bonus link to it with extra additions i like) is what these two anons are talking about. It's about 8k words on my like, puzzled-out hard textual read of what i think is up with Siffrin/Loop's gender.

So, re: the artbook content (READMORE ON ACCOUNT OF ME GETTING LONGWINDED AGAIN)

The relevant passages here are pages 113, 38 and 39 (with a sidebar i want to bring up on 89).

I'm going to crop it down to only what is necessary to get to my point because adrienne doesn't want big chunks or full pages posting, so here's my little collage.

113: The page is primarily about finding ways to disguise Loop's true identity, and that's what most of the visuals on the page are about. The note I've cropped [Loop using she/her...] is on the most siffrin looking of these images, just being them sans cloak, eyepatch and hat.

This, to me, reads like the intent at the time was what eventually evolved into Loop's "Royal We" joke misdirect and their they/them only status. Consideration of, 'would just showing off a character nigh identical to sif but with "opposite" pronouns be enough to throw people off the trail?' that I would imagine evolved into just dropping the he/him, since that's more than enough to do so when you also change their appearence to be more ethereal.

*But* ArtbookCommentary!Adrienne is the one saying "She/her Loop is an incredible idea." owing to some level of affinity toward the concept in retrospect. Lends it some creator-branded 'cool points', which aren't worth *much* in terms of Quality of Textual Evidence, but certainly lends it points against being a *bad* read.

So I read this as like, while on it's own, not much more than conjecture when it comes to supporting the idea of transfemme loop-- I think as another arrow in the overall quiver it strengthens that idea that Siffrin is sticking by their he/hims as a like... side effect of how he was born/raised and sees change as something they can't do. It's less a point in support, and more a point *against* it being wrong. (It's like how in science you try to falsify things in order to prove them, y'know? Evidence *against* it being false is different to evidence *for* it being true, but it's almost better that way, sometimes??) Speaks to the idea that Loop would see those pronouns as a Disguise in some way, which to me, when paired with pages 38-39 and the dress* gives the implication that femininity is an untapped well for them. That it's new, and not something they'd do without a plausibly deniable excuse. Which continues to feed into my readings of Siffrin being amab and uncomfortable with change, even if (especially if) they want it in some way. It kind of has to be forced onto them to allow them to try it, because then it's not their choice, now is it?

*The dress is absolutely in reference to the prologue line, isn't it? it being grafted to their skin unlike the other considerations for clothes shown on the page too, aligns with this idea of Loop's body being informed by their wants/feelings about themselves in some way (distinctly inhuman, no need to eat, no need to smile anymore, yet still blind). But where canon!loop has no gendered traits to hold them down anymore, dress!loop would be more of a giveaway of their desires to at least express *some* femininity. (See: my prior essay for further thoughts on how i think that manifests, and my thoughts on it being a somewhat doylist read of the game's themes that i stand by)

(god buddy. you get deeper into the timeloop and it makes you . forget everything . about fucking everything . but the want that bubbles to the surface harder is this? loop. christ im repeating myself again go read my previously linked essay if you arent these two anons i go into way more detail.)

BUT YEAH. yeah.

I think it's a stretch to say things that aren't literally in game, and are still at most discarded exploration of character really count as Evidence for in-game reads, as they are paratext at best-- But. buttttttt buttttttt they do offer a good insight into the intent with which some things were most likely approached. like i say, it's not evidence /for/ my theory, just evidence /against/ me being on the wrong track. But yes i do feel pretty vindicated that this aligns so well with my amab nb siffrin/transfem loop trutherism. Which makes sense, given that the Whole Point of that read was to try and sleuth out the authorial intent, rather than anything else.

Like, i was following a framework in specific of (posts wikipedia screenshot for 'authorial intent')

as opposed to the equally valid Reader-Response framework (under which death of the author also falls)

which is why in that thing i stress so hard that i'm trying to abstain from my own bias (whether or not i succeed? idk. i do break my own rule for a second when pointing out how hard siffrin's fear of change resembles transfem repression in specific as i relate it to my friends and wider observations). but yeah. it was very nice that the artbook aligned so nicely since pairing my readings against the author's own literal words was always going to be the Ultimate Test™ for an authorial-intent based reading.

... oh ! and the sidebar i said i'd have.

Page 89:

get forcibly changed idiot. fucking themes lol (this was also vindicating as a 'loop stays as a star' truther which is something i tie into my themes of gender/sif not accepting change until its forced upon them. but it's not the mostest relevant to the convo without that context. but whee!)

[albino-parakeet]

Guess who finally got Wi-Fi again!!! Now I can make videos yay! Anyways this is based on Heidi’s stream when we were talking about Ben sleeping outside.

Song used: Andromeda by Weyes Blood

It was gonna be the whole song... but that song is 4 minutes long lol.

hope the sound mixing is okay.

[chirpsythismorning]

I’m gonna be honest, I’ve been preparing myself for byler endgame. However, I have not been preparing myself for fans’ reaction to the downfall of milkvan. Like just thinking about it makes me sick. It is going to be absolute chaos.

[mediaforanya]

free as a bird ! 🤎

[kuragesoda]

yumeno kanata gentaro

+ bonus process gif under the cut!!

[callmegaith]

P A R A D O X

Stills:

Honestly its so motivating to me to see how much I improved in 5 years 😭😭😭😭I hope if u see this U KEEP GOING! U GOT THIS, ARTIST! U GOT THIS!

[dapper-nahrwhale]

I love it when time loops acknowledge the audience like it's a play like "hey you! Watching this! Are you happy now! Is this what you wanted! This!!!! You're watching this and doing nothing and you're still here watching this!" It's so good

[the-bitter-ocean]

It’s still very wild to me that the nickname “2hats/two hats” + “A6SE” (act 6 secret encounter” was something I coined early on and just got used by everyone by pure happen stance.

[chrisrin]

in stars and time is ruining my life what do you mean i'm at 28 hours played and still don't seem to be near done yet when the average person on howlongtobeat finishes the main story in 19 hours, and with side quests in 26 hours.

what do you mean i've stayed up until 4am the past 3 nights playing. what.

[clownkillsyou]

looking back at the madness combat fixation after leaving is so fucking embarrassing what do you mean i was acting that way about things that look like this

[rathockey]

time loop issues? try these shirts

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