Im not comfortable sharing my personal life on here, but you can call me Bitte or *insert shade of green*. I use any pronouns and you should mix them up! Just being a bit experimental and weird about it :p You get to see me as prototype ig.
I was the editor for @nisse-room 's work `Remorse of an Adventurer`, along with many of her other works through 2022. If you know her and like her stuff, hopefully you'll like mine too :) If you don't, she's great and you should give her stuff a look! (esp. `Love's Gross` on RoyalRoad, one of my favorites by her)
This blog is to promote my writing and answer fanmail, cause I guess I think Im hot shit (my therapist says its good for my confidence). So feel free to ask!
Sometimes trauma does fun stuff like making you worry if you’ll be able to taste the food you’ve always adored without making your stomach hurt from bad memories. But well, at least the other you is having a blast!
Loop finishes the plate embarrassingly fast but Bonnie has everything under control and was already making a new batch. And Siffrin, inspired by Loop’s enthusiasm will successfully try and love the food, to his relief (the added spices help differentiate these fritters from the loops’ ! )
In the days and weeks after defeating the King and breaking out of the loops, Siffrin still struggles with the strong emotions, ingrained habits, and return to normalcy after the traumatic event. As they prepare to travel to Bambouche, and then beyond, he must grapple with the consequences of it and learn to grow from it.
The sun sets on a day that I had convinced myself would never end. As it slowly falls beneath the treeline below, it casts upon the sky an intricate wave of shades that radiates out from it. It has been a long time since I took a moment to appreciate how beautiful it is. A long time since I took a moment to appreciate anything. But, in this moment, I can’t help but feel its fading light warm my face and soul.
I turn back towards my family, all sitting on a picnic blanket Mira found inside the House and brought up to the overlook after our dinner. Odile sits on a pillow Isa snuck up, reading a diary from the House’s library, a half eaten parfait and cup of tea sitting next to her. Bonnie is cleaning the cooking supplies they used to make the parfait, satisfied with their contribution after having been denied the right to cook our victory dinner by the handmaidens we had saved. Isa looked ardently at the view, taking in all it had to offer, often changing places to get a different angle. And Mira, the one who started this journey, who brought us all together, couldn’t drop her earnest smile, sipping on Chamomile tea while looking over all of us similarly to how Isa watched the sun set. Our eyes met. Her eyes softened and head tilted. I couldn’t help but smile back.
There was still much that needed to be processed about today, about the past two days. Even longer for me. But in this moment, we were all just enjoying being together, the feeling of having overcome great difficulty and shared our deep feelings for each other.
“If this isn't nice, I don't know what is,” I whisper to myself, speaking before I know what I'm saying.
“You've said that before,” Odile says without looking up from her book. “It has the rhythm of a saying. Where did it come from?”
I just look at the mortar of the stone brick floor.
“My apologies,” she replies, shutting her book. “I hope I didn't upset the moment you had.” I smile and try to look up at her, but all I end up doing is picking at the bricks.
Odile gets up, then sits down next to me. “It must be hard.”
I nod, eyes watering as my finger runs down the grooves of the mortar. She tentatively touches my back and I flinch. She pulls back, but I lean into it. I want this. I've practiced.
She places her hand on my shoulderblade. “I hope, in time, this finds its proper place.” I wipe away tears, then smile at her.
She smiles back.
Bonnie yawns.
“Seems like someonnne’s getting eepy,” Isa teases.
“I’m not sleepy. I’m not even a little eepy!” Bonnie says, charging at Isa and giving him a furious beating.
“Oh, the beastly Bonbon bombards me with blows,” He says, throwing a hand to his forehead and rolling onto the ground. “Bleh.”
“Yeah!”
“It seems like we should start settling in for the night,” Odile remarks, turning a page in her book.
“The handmaidens will be upset if we’re wandering the halls much later,” Mirabelle states. “We’re already past the normal curfew, but it has been extended because of the festivities.”
“Let’s start cleaning up then,” Isa says from under Bonnie's boot.
“It seems like there’s only three beds in the guest room.” The deja vu makes me wince.
“I better get a whole bed to myself,” Odile says.
Bonnie runs over and tackles Mira in a hug. “I call sleeping with Mira!”
“I guess that means I’m sleeping with Mr. Amazing-Wonderful-Funny-Buff Isabeau,” I say, smiling at him. But Isa flinches back, cheeks blushing, and glancing away. I pull back in turn, looking down.
Why? I say it to him so often. Every loop, he gives that goofy grin he does when indulging my nonsense? Every loop, no matter what I get on the first floor, I would say ‘Yes please, Mr. Amazing-Wonderful-Funny-Buff Isabeau’ and he would give me half a cookie.
No, that’s not right. I got lazy, I rushed at the end. I didn’t talk to any of them, just moved right from snack time to the main area of the second floor.
He tentatively reaches out. “Sif?” No, that’s not right either. I went to the tower alone. We never had that interaction before, because I did it alone. Stupid, stupid, STUPID! So, when did I say it to him? Why does he… oh.
Mirabelle screams.
My thoughts go fuzzy, mind numb and head pounding in pain. I shake my head and blink, trying to regain myself. Everything is so loud now, what happened? Isa is on top of me, face full of emotion. Fear, sadness, anger all twisted together in watery eyes. He’s saying something, but through it all I can’t hear him. So I smile.
“Nothing’s wrong, Isa.”
He recoils, his eyes full of horror, but his grip around my arms grows tighter. To the side, I can see Bonnie, scared, holding a knife close to their chest. My dagger. Why do-
“Siffrin, why?” I finally hear. “Why did you pull your dagger out?”
Oh. My eyes go wide, then close tightly.
That’s why. I didn’t even think about it. I just… I try to wipe the tears welling up in my eyes away, but Isa just presses into my arms harder.
“Why did you do it, Siffrin!?” The hair on the back of my head grows wet, as tears fall onto my cheeks.
“I- I-” I struggle through the tears, through the years of walls that I’d built. Through the shame, the fear, the terror of what I’d done and what I now needed to do. I opened my eye and looked into the blur that was Isa’s face and I said, “I wanted t-to loop.”
Mirabelle’s gasp sucked the air out of the room and Isa covered his mouth with his hands. Free, I was finally able to wipe the tears from my eyes. I could see again. See the shock and horror on Isa. See Bonnie desperately looking back and forth for an answer to what happened, still clutching the dagger, my dagger, close to their chest like it was a comfort. Like it was a stuffed toy. Like it would protect them.
Like I failed to.
And I felt. Felt so strongly. The overwhelming emotions of what I’d done, what I’d revealed. The hands that lifted my head from the hard, wet stone and placed something soft on it. The consciousness slipping away as my vision faded.
I reach up to grasp Isa’s arm and say, “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to.” But I don’t know how far I got.
Would the Looping party have any crashouts/Memory of Sadness moments?
And how would Loop react to it all? Would love to see a comic of that!
Not to the degree that siffrin does, I don't think. Four people looping together instead of one alone means they can share in their frustrations/worries instead of letting them simmer until it boils over. Though I definitely do think there would be moments where they slip. I think Mirabelle and Bonnie in particular would have a tough time.
Mirabelle is reexperiencing her destroyed home time and time again, perhaps wondering if this is her punishment for lying about being chosen... Begging the head housemaiden to please just talk to her, please come back, please tell her what to do, she's not enough on her own. She never should've had this role. Growing more and more angry with the king, at being forced to witness what he's done to her home again and again, never able to truly save any of her friends...
And Bonnie, being unable to fully understand the loops would find siffrin forgetting everything over and over to be really upsetting...plus the helplessness that comes with them being a child who isn't allowed to really help in the same way the adults are. Nobody lets them do anything and it's not fair!!! And also they wanna go home and see their sister but they can't cause they're stuck and they don't even know if she's okay... What if they're stuck forever and never get to see her again! I think they would need a lot of comfort from the adults while also trying to prove that they're strong and brave and not scared so nobody has to worry.
I think odile might end up getting snippy with siffrin quite a bit in later loops - yes, she knows it's not his fault that he doesn't remember, but it's still frustrating to have to work around them every time. Maybe they could just leave him behind... It would be easier that way. Siffrin doesn't take any of that well at all, but at least they don't remember in the next loop.
Isabeau is trying to stay positive for everyone... It's wearing at him, though.
That being said, if anyone is going to full on crash out, I doubt it would be any of the four of them... We might see the aftermath of that soon enough...
I feel like one interesting difference is how in this version, the party wouldn't necessarily feel like they can open up as much. I think part of why Siffrin was willing to open up after being so closed off is how much time they had, effectively alone, and that any mistake they made (forgeting something, misphrasing, not noticing hurt) could be fixed on the next loop. Like it never even happened :) But with everyone except Siffrin looping, Siffrin is the only one who they could make mistakes with. The only one who they could open up to and know it won't matter if it goes poorly.
ie. Siffrin unwillingly becomes the parties (v confused) therapist.
Y'all know the drill around here. New blorbo to squish around means a new commission and @winsbuckart did an absolutely phenomenal job on everyone's favorite ancient relic
