Hello there! Welcome to my other In Stars and Time AU blog, that being my silly ISaT x Batman crossover!!! While the story here is wholly different, there will still be full-game (including optional content) spoilers all around.
Details under the cut!
CW - vague mentions of eye injury and homicide
Quick rundown of what is happening here:
The canon mainly diverges once the Country is forgotten, though this story runs with the idea that the Country was a bad place to begin with, thus The King and Siffrin are far worse off here.
Vaugarde is Gotham City, and as such is horrible to live in - or at least, it turned that way once the King appeared. He, driven by anger as well as sadness, sets up shop in Vaugarde where he instead builds a criminal empire in the country, excarberating its already growing issues with crime, with the intent to make Vaugarde "perfect"...wholly under his control, with all opposition and uncontrolled crime slain.
After gaining dominion, The King creates a new, augmentative Wish Craft which he overpowers himself with - only known as Venimeux - to make himself even mightier. People are still frozen in time, but only if they know too much.
Siffrin meets the party MUCH later on, as a result of both countries being cesspools. He's already teetering between Act 4 and 5 levels of madness by the time he gets to Vaugarde, due to extreme mistreatment, loneliness and suffering. Going to the Favor Tree, they make a wish - to have all the time in the Universe to find a forever friend they can never lose. Thus begins the time loop, and thus, eventually, fails his search. This culminates in his final descent into homicidal villainy, realizing that they are not the Universe's chew toy...they were its Clown.
The loops end when someone, converted to Change, sees them wallowing in agony after being overpowered by one of his attempted victims. Out of compassion, the man would bring them into the House to nurse their wounds, where he gives them a starry eyepatch that he specially designed for them. This man is Isabeau, who believes that there is something good in Siffrin.
However, even if there was, it's too late. They were neck-deep in insanity that they can't help but smile brightly at him. Fleeing the House, they make another wish, dismissing the eyes on him - the wish for eternal life, to stay by their friend's side forever. This allows Siffrin to loop themself back after death, beginning the terror of the clownish antagonist, The Playing One.
Isabeau is also burdened, by his canon past of being bullied. However, looking at what's happening to Vaugarde now, he takes a very direct approach to try and save it: vigilantism. With Madame Odile, Bonnie and Mirabelle by his side, he takes on an identity of his own - the Barrelman.
And yes that's a SASASAAP reference hahaha
The remainder of the AU's current information is in the character biographies:
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Thank you for checking in, and before you ask: Yes, the lore reason is they are stupid.
Part 4
As of now I have written one fanfiction of this AU, but there will be more:
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the
Organization for Transformative Works
