#aurart

what you get in this au is a loop whose propensity to project their own self-hatred onto siffrin because they're still getting used to the idea that siffrin is his own person and not just a reflection you can jeer at with no consequence is dialed up to 11. a loop who doesn't know when to stop with all that envy, bitterness, unresolved anguish and self-destructive tendencies within them, and who starts to realize that they messed up too late to fix anything.

what you get in this au is a siffrin who kept getting constant feedback fueling his own spiraling thoughts about just how bad he is at everything, who kept being told by the only person he could really actually talk to within the loops how he's constantly stumbling helplessly. a siffrin who really starts to believe they're the worst possible person to deal with all this, actually. just useless, useless, useless. no good at all. someone whose party must be tired of him, grossed out by him. wholly inadequate to solve the issue of the time loop, and maybe not even deserving of the resolution.

one night, far into the loops, loop having caught sight of siffrin's lifeless face, usually hidden by their hanging head and big hat, earlier this loop, puts their own fragmented psyche together. there's a pit of guilt actively opening in their stomach because they very suddenly realized that stardust is not and has never been them - but they treated him like he was, like their words would have no effect because they both would think the same about each other. but even if siffrin thinks the same things about himself as loop, that's not the same as hearing it from someone else. someone who you don't even know is the same person.

loop decides, in a panic, that they need to try and fix it, if they even can, starting the moment they see siffrin next loop. beg for forgiveness, or maybe just for an opportunity to redeem themselves, maybe even come clean about who they are, be helpful to the best of their ability, be a point of support from now on, try to fix it, fix it, fix it—

just then, siffrin, having snuck out from the clocktower in the dead of night, approaches the favor free to make a wish. a wish for someone else to figure a way out, someone who isn't as useless, as aimless as him. someone like loop, who always seems to know what's going on and has to explain reality to him like he's a little kid. for someone else to take over and for himself to just disappear. loop sees him pick a leaf from the ground and start mumbling into it.

despite loop's efforts to get down the tree in time to stop siffrin, tear the leaf out of their hand, stifle their words of self-renouncement, they don't make it in time. it is done, the universe realigning to push this new reality into existence. siffrin just smiles sadly at them from the ground they're kneeling on, face wet with tears, and asks loop to make sure the others make it out of the loops they have no idea they're even trapped in.

and then he disappears, as if consumed by a black hole or swallowed up by the shifting shadows, just stardust left behind on top of his hat, resting on the grass. loop is left alone right there, under the tree; looking painfully human again. back to the stage, loop.

loop ends up playing the role of siffrin once more and, knowing how much the party cares about them just from observing them, finally gets out of the loops; but it feels like the biggest loss they've ever gone through because they didn't want this, they didn't realize how far they took it, they want him back, give him back, this wasn't theirs, it was his—