#s.sif.odile

[beneathsilverstars]

loop plushie real...?

[beneathsilverstars]

imagine being the friend whose default response to observing unusual behavior is to come up with nearly-fantastical conspiracy theories, and then one day you successfully figure out that one of your pals is in a timeloop. i’d be riding that high for— well. for about twenty seconds in this case

[beneathsilverstars]

thinkign about odile with fangies,,

au where odile is a vampire and siffrin "donates blood" for money (classic occupation for someone lonely and hopeless) and siffrin says something funny while woozily recovering and odile did NOT expect that from him and laughs and siffrin is like. oh fuck yes i'm getting a good grade in being vampire food.

it's not even a purposeful dumb joke he's just a little out of it and saying things. which odile usually gets annoyed when people go all no-filter and say things to her that she is not interested in hearing or god forbid having to respond to. but siffrin is just being cute and earnest and still not too chatty!

and then siffrin is like I MADE HER LSUGH I HAVE TO KEEP BEING FUNNY and his actual attempts at jokes are so weak that they wrap back around to being entertaining. odiles like mhm im sure there was a joke in there somewhere maybe try again in twenty minutes.

they're going through an agency at first, but odile gets annoyed at how large of a cut the agency takes, but it's easier and safer than trying to arrange something with a stranger independently. but she really likes siffrin so after a couple times she's like. no pressure but if you'd rather get paid a little more we could just continue doing this informally. and siffrin is like YES PLEASE bc they really need the money and they like odile too!

but then siffrin starts donating too much blood bc he's still going through the agency as often as allowed And going to odile independently. it's pretty obvious pretty quickly though, and as soon as she catches on odile lectures them and says she won't keep doing this if siffrin won't take care of themself, and siffrin gets all sad (<- hates to be rejected) and is like oh.. ok.. guess i'll leave... and odile is like oh my god no you still have to drink your orange juice first and you should not have even driven HERE in the first place. *i* will drive you home. which has siffrin all ?? bc wow mixed messages (<- has never been cared about before). but odile finds out that siffrin lives in the shittiest apartment ever and is always this close away from getting evicted and long story short siffrin ends up moving in with odile.

odile is like. well. this is kind of a problematic setup but definitely better than the alternative.

[beneathsilverstars]

whew, finally have time to get back to my art trades!! this sifdile is for @eternal-love-song, i decided to draw something inspired by one of their fics ^^

[beneathsilverstars]

writing any kind of sifdile meet cute is so hard bc siffrin is shy and odile is anti-social. these bitches would NOT start chatting in a coffee shop. in one of my aus i had to hit siffrin with a car in front of odile so they'd be forced to spend the next several hours together as she took them to the hospital

[beneathsilverstars]

A traveler and a researcher meet at a Vaugardian inn. Siffrin has never been the type to get close to strangers, but maybe that can change. When in Vaugarde, right?

Rating: Mature No Archive Warnings Apply Category: Other Relationship: Odile/Siffrin Additional Tags: Pre-Canon, Pre-pre-canon in fact, What if we talked about anthropology and our elbows touched and we were both strangers here 🫣😍, Touch-Starved Siffrin (In Stars and Time), Touch-Starved, And I do mean absolutely starving for it, One Night Stands, Except not really. Except technically yes? Except technically no., Ace character pushing their own boundaries, Communication, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Overstimulation, Unprotected hand-holding 😳 Words: 7,896 Chapters: 1/4

[beneathsilverstars]

[beneathsilverstars]

trying_something_new_by_beneathsilverstars.jpg

[beneathsilverstars]

i have nothing else to do with that au... i just want siffrin to jingle merrily around the court and piss everyone off. and then make out with odile

[beneathsilverstars]

anyway the lore in my mind palace is that siffrin has a big meaningless crush on odile - they get flustered by how much they like her, but it's not something they'd think about as a romantic potential, it's just normal social nerves and clingy impulses but sweeter.

and then post-canon loop is like . i need to crawl inside someone and die like a bug, but it can't be siffrin bc he'd get all emo about it and it can't be isabeau bc absolutely not and it can't be mira bc i can't do that to her. but luckily that leaves one person. who i've always rly liked but siffrin would never consider an option. and she also won't cry all over me. odile can i sleep on the floor in your bedroom and bring you trinkets like a cat brings home dead birds

[beneathsilverstars]

what's the best image in ISAT and why is it

[beneathsilverstars]

Trying Something New

by BeneathSilverStars

A traveler and a researcher meet at a Vaugardian inn. Siffrin has never been the type to get close to strangers, but maybe that can change. When in Vaugarde, right?

Rating: Mature, No Archive Warnings Apply Relationship: Odile/Siffrin Additional Tags: Pre-Canon, Pre-pre-canon in fact, What if we talked about anthropology and our elbows touched and we were both strangers here 🫣😍, Touch-Starved Siffrin (In Stars and Time), Touch-Starved, And I do mean absolutely starving for it, One Night Stands, Except not really. Except technically yes? Except technically no., Ace character pushing their own boundaries, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Overstimulation, Unprotected hand-holding 😳, Dom/sub vibes, Communication, Despite Siffrin's best efforts Words: 25,093 Chapters: 4/4 Read on Ao3 here

It's finally finished! Thank you to everyone who has read, recommended, commented on, talked to me about, or otherwise enjoyed this fic. I loved writing it and I'm so glad I get to share it with other people who love it too!

[beneathsilverstars]

writing this sifdile fic is soo funny. out here deleting a paragraph about siffrin leaning against odile's side like woah we haven't made it to THAT base yet let's save that for like half an hour from now

[beneathsilverstars]

my favorite flavor of sifdile personally is sasasap sifdile for a variety of reasons that exist solely in my mind but also because I need to get my doomed yuri fix somehow

see i love a good sap!frin/dile, but to me it's a type of loopdile... it just hasn't been cooked yet so it has its own unique doomed yuri flavor profile, but it's the base of the whole loopdile recipe! gotta steal a few bites while the oven preheats for sure

there's some good interactions in sasasap! and i feel like her aloof practicality would get more and more appealing the longer sap!frin is stuck in the loops, as opposed to the others' energetic determination that he knows won't pan out, yknow.

i went looking back at sasasap so here's some choice interactions ^^

[beneathsilverstars]

whenever i think about canon-compliant loopdile i put a lot of consideration into the juxtaposition with isafrin and exactly why loop chose not to be part of that, or at least to not be committed in the same way, and how this affects the party dynamics as a whole

but whenever i think about canon-compliant sifdile i'm just like damn isabeau confess faster next time i guess

[beneathsilverstars]

Author Commentary - Trying Something New chapter 1

Note: These commentaries each contain spoilers for the entire fic! I recommend reading the whole fic before you start these.

Odile wasn’t really annoyed at the eavesdropping, she just likes to make people uncomfortable. And then Siffrin’s reaction was so cuuuute�� She’s been making an effort to be social here in Vaugarde anyway because otherwise what’s the point of being there, but she just HAD to keep talking to this cute little thing in particular. And then they had a super useful outside perspective on Vaugarde too?? Double W.

Ngl, the whole "trying something new" framing was totally unplanned, I was just bullshitting conversation topics and then as soon as I wrote the rando dancer saying Those Lines i was like oh. Siffrin is gonna internalize this so hard. Siffrins love internalizing random pieces of advice or offhand comments, it's their favorite hobby.

Here's my worldbuilding about Vaugardian vs Ka Buan gender etiquette. <3

Siffrin is very reluctant to outright disagree with Odile lest he offend her — and because he generally assumes that if his idea of the facts is different from someone else’s, he’s probably the one who’s wrong — but arguing is Odile’s love language, lmao. Nothing like a good academic debate to bring you a better understanding of both the other person and yourself, in addition to whatever you learn about the actual topic. Even if someone is totally wrong, you learn about what misinfo is being circulated and why people believe it! Also maybe she thinks arguing is hot. So what.

Odile tilts Siffrin’s hat back up because the only thing cuter than a shy person trying to hide is them trying unsuccessfully to hide. All the same moe but you get to actually see it.

Odile reacts (ever so slightly) negatively to Siffrin's guess that she's researching manners because he's pretty close to the mark. She did plenty of reading about Vaugardian culture and history and language before she left Ka Bue, she knows the facts, but manners is one of those things that's hard to truly understand if you haven't lived with it. Hell, she doesn't even always get Ka Buan manners, and she grew up with them! So Siffrin's guess is a reminder that it's probably definitely too late at this point for Odile to ever find Vaugardian social norms intuitive, no matter how much she researches. (She's not like upset at Siffrin though, lol, just a little sad for a moment.)

The moment I wrote the hand touch over dinner I was like wait. He's eating food that you touch with your hands, the gloves should be off. And then with horror I remembered the sasasap images of Siffrin holding food with their gloves fully on. Welp! It works out well for my fic, at least!

By the first time their hands brush and Siffrin flinches away, one of his primary character traits in Odile's mind is "easily flustered". She's been idly wondering whether he's self-conscious in general, still embarrassed about eavesdropping, and/or flustered by Odile's attention in particular. So when Siffrin startles at her touch... followed by looking at his hand, then Odile's hand/mouth... then blushes and hides... and doesn't move himself or his plate any farther away afterwards... that's a big ol tally in the "he's attracted to me" column. It fits neatly enough as a clue in her current mystery that it doesn't occur to her to consider entirely unrelated explanations!

At this point the true answer to her mystery is that being called out but then drawn into conversation threw them off balance, and being appreciated as a source of information kept them there. They're used to people making use of their survival skills, strength and agility, and willingness to work hard, not their knowledge?? They don't know things???

As soon as Siffrin mentions that he has to camp because he can't afford a room at the inn, Odile considers inviting him to hers. But it would be weird to do that after 10 minutes of conversation, and honestly she doesn't generally enjoy sharing living spaces, so for now it's just an option on the shelf. (Well, two options — inviting him as a friendly favor, and inviting him for a one night stand.) But now that the thought is in her mind, and she has evidence that he's attracted to her... this is where she really starts flirting.

Here's my worldbuilding about Vaugardian inn price vs quality, and how they compete with free lodging at Houses or random people's houses. Odile is a private person who likes her space and would obviously prefer a room to herself. Siffrin likes small chats with strangers fine, it's interesting and fun and a good source of information, but the longer the convo goes on, the more likely they'll ask him questions about himself that he doesn't know the answer to, or he'll say something wrong that he's gonna regret until he forgets it, or he won't say enough and it'll get weird. He doesn't wanna be stuck in someone's house for the rest of the night after making a social mistake! And he doesn't like relying on charity, he never feels like his attempts to be helpful in return are enough, he's just being awkward and annoying... and he likes to be safely self-sufficient. So although he has stayed in people's houses before, and Houses more often than that, he prefers inns or camping when possible.

Odile could've finished her own soup, but she's feeding them like they're a stray kitty cat. They're cute when they're happily devouring a little treat, okay... plus if they can't afford a room out of the rain maybe they can't always afford enough food either... :(

Odile declined the drinks in case she decided to go for option two and proposition Siffrin. If he got himself one or two drinks (and didn't turn out a total lightweight), she wouldn't consider him incapable of consent, but she's not gonna liquor up the obviously-younger-and-less-experienced person she's flirting with. u^u

She's obsessed with their hat she thinks it's so charming. Their little turtle shell... the ribbon on top of the present....... Touching it is weirdly intimate bc it's on their head, but it's ostensibly way less forward than like brushing a lock of hair behind someone's ear, but it has the same vibes, yknow?

Odile has been walking such a particular line flirting with him... Just enough to have an effect, but not so much to scare him off... Partially she's paying attention but partially she's getting lucky and partially they just mesh well as people. :3 Here's some of the reasons for her success:

The conversation topic is allaying a lot of their insecurities, through sheer luck of her whole goal right now being to learn about a topic that Siffrin actually knows quite a bit about. They're still skeptical that they're actually being helpful, but they don't feel totally stupid and full of holes — even when they run into a topic that they don't know, hey, Odile doesn't either.

Her subtle touches are juuust the right amount to keep him desperate for more without overwhelming him. Odile is mostly doing it for funsies tbh, like, what's the smallest thing I can do that'll still fluster him, god he's cute. But it's working! If she'd started out with touching (or conversation) that was more obviously flirty, he would've been viewing the whole conversation through the lens of "oh, she just wants to fuck me" or maybe "she made up a fantasy of me in her head that she has a crush on and it blinded her to how awful I am", and thus he would've reacted to everything totally differently. But she's being subtle enough and escalating slowly enough that by the time he realizes she's flirting, he's already hooked.

When she compliments/touches/flusters them, she moves on immediately, before they feel too awkward. They don't have time to pick it apart and find something to freak out or self-deprecate about, and they aren't left flailing trying to figure out how to respond (which has a high chance of them defaulting to Okay i'm done with this interaction now actually). Odile is doing this because it's fun catching them off guard, and if she dwells too long it'll stop working. And she is purposefully being nice because they're shy, too.

She's quite confident at this point that he wants her to fuck him so bad it makes him look stupid. He's so reactive to her touches and even just her proximity, and hanging off of her every word, and dies of happiness every time she listens to and appreciates his contributions to the conversation! No, sorry... He's just touch-starved, and genuine-affection-starved too... He might have a tiny bit of a crush but tbh probably not even that. The feeling was friendship, but he had never experienced it before............

The thing is. He's just so good at assuming people don't like him or think he's useless or annoying or have figured out that he's fundamentally subhuman. Use the wrong tone one time and he's like ohh fuck they hate me I need to leave right now to save them the hassle of kicking me out. So he never trusts people enough to accept their friendship and offer his </3. But! Odile, who we know is usually a prime candidate for saying something offhand that sends Siffrin spiraling, is being much more careful than normal because A. she's flirting B. with a stranger.

You're right, Siffrin. She is imagining your natural darkless hair so hard right now and she wants to see the roots SO bad. She is undressing you (taking your hat off) with her mind.

She puts her arm around their shoulders on the couch specifically because it's so cliché. As I said, she's playing "what's the smallest thing I can do that'll still fluster them." Same thing with the "I don't bite, unless you want me to" line. She's just having fun with it 😌

Siffrin's responding thoughts, "Unless he wanted her to? Which. Obviously he didn’t. Except, he was starting to think that maybe he could see the appeal, of being so so close, of being—" would be completed with something along the lines of "being touched so directly/intimately/deeply (non-sexual)" or "being connected," or like, "being something someone is hungry for," "being aggressively kept like a dog keeps her favorite toy, safe in her teeth so she's the only thing that can tear it apart, and she will tear it apart sooner or later," "being devoured". yknow? See, at this point he's too hooked to run at her more overt flirtations. :3

Yes Siffrin you actually have been physically close to people who genuinely wanted to be close to you (rather than because of convenience, violence, or politeness). But you either didn't realize/believe that and didn't want to impose, or they went a little too fast, and either way you extricated yourself asap. So this is the longest you've been this close to someone.

Just like I hadn't planned the Change-y themes, I hadn't planned the Universe-y themes. But it's not surprising, I do love how easily "the universe leads, we can only follow" lends itself to dom/sub vibes, lmao. And the contrast is interesting... the new philosophy that he only just learned about and is trying to apply vs the old philosophy that he doesn't even consciously remember but it's engrained so deeply that he keeps defaulting back to it. Honestly, it's probably affecting him more strongly than it would if he did remember it properly! He's over-applying it because he doesn't know the context it belongs to, just that it feels right.

Special interest activated! Odile is very charmed by their enthusiasm for plays, it's nice to see them being confident and excited vs the way they had to be coaxed past their insecure hesitance into talking so much about cultures.

Do NOT ask me about the plays Siffrin mentioned. That was way harder to make up than any of the cultural stuff :') ... The Many Lives of C. is basically about someone who gets reincarnated / completely reinvents themself, with each iteration of the play being one of their literal or figurative lives... Actually, now that I think about it, it's kind of like a time loop, huh. I should bring this play up in a post-canon fic at some point, heheh. But anyway. It explores a lot of what-ifs, and how much of a difference different changes can make, but also what things stay the same regardless. It doesn't always have even the same general plot/genre (especially when you look at its possibly centuries-long history), but there tends to be, like, trends, like one theater has a new idea and other people see and decide to explore their own takes on the theme. So summaries can turn out quite different, but they all exist in conversation with each other. Like fanfiction, lol, when people fanon and roleswap and crossover and AU to the point of what should be complete unrecognizability, and yet you can still just tell what context it's part of. Okay I guess I had a little bit to say about that play, but don't ask me about the other one.

I decided on 4/13 that Poteria "doing relationships pretty different from most other countries around here" is homestuck quadrants, sorry. (joking) (unless?) (no that's a joke) (unless???) (no) ...Wait actually I do have an idea. It would be cute if it was something where "life partner you form a family unit with" was considered a totally separate thing from "romantic and/or sexual partner"... So usually any couple from foreign media gets sorted into either life partners or fun partners and references to the other aspect get erased/changed.

And that brings us to the end of the chapter... Playing with Siffrin was fun, but that's enough of that; Odile's ready to either go to bed or switch games. <3

Commentary: Chapter 2