Time loops and private hells of our own making
Some personal thoughts about “In Stars And Time”
Date written: 2024.04.29
(The following essay contains spoilers. You have been warned.)
I was inspired to write this essay after encountering a certain post on Tumblr. The phenomenon described in it is not simply something I could relate to, but also something that reminded me of my experience with playing the game In Stars And Time – and that somehow, it is the only piece of media that has ever spoken to me in such a personal way.
One thing a lot of people don’t know about rabbits (and probably many more types of prey animals, but I’m going to focus on rabbits specifically) is that they are instinctively wired to hide their pain at all costs. While a dog will whine and lick its hurt paw, a rabbit in the same situation will behave exactly the way it always has, relying on the hurt paw to keep jumping around for as long as possible, never letting it be known that something is wrong – that is, until things escalate to such a serious point that it’s impossible to continue hiding the pain, but by that point it might be too late to help. This is why domestic rabbits often drop dead quite suddenly, without many prior signs, only for the owner to find out the problem had been there for months or even years, but since it had been happening internally and the rabbit DOES NOT, WILL NOT show pain, the owner simply… couldn’t have known. Can you blame them? How many people can afford to have their pets go through very expensive but thorough medical check ups every few months or so, even when nothing seems wrong?
How many friends have the strength to keep asking, “Are you okay, are you really really okay” every other week, only to be met with a “I’m ok! (lie)”, and despite that keep pushing, just in case one day the stubborn idiot will give up and share their troubles with them?
Theoretically, humans are not prey animals. They should not, normally, possess the instinct to hide their suffering just to make sure a predator doesn’t notice and take advantage of it; they should be able and willing to rely on the support from the rest of their pack, as that is our designated evolutionary survival method. And yet it’s so easy to destroy that natural inclination of ours to seek community and help; it’s so easy to make us not unlike that mortally wounded rabbit, suffering for what feels like eternity in complete silence, lacking any belief that help will come from our allies, but at the same time fully convinced that there is a predator waiting just around the corner ready to strike the final blow the moment it senses a trace of weakness.
I suppose I want to say that I understand every single emotion Siffrin has felt throughout the game. I also want to say that his stubborn silence was unbearably frustrating. I also want to say that I’ve done the same thing in the past, and for longer than they did, and the frustration I have felt towards them was not borne out of my inability to empathize, but specifically because I saw myself reflected in all of their actions.
The entirety of act 5 was like the most nightmarish fever dream I could possibly have. My heart was pounding. I felt hot all over. I needed to get it over with, I needed to proceed to the final act as soon as possible, I needed to find some release, any kind of release— because it was me. I was unable to detach myself from Siffrin anymore. He was me, everything he was doing was something I have done before and I sure as hell have the capability and potential to do again – and I wanted to scream at him to stop but at the same time I was just as helpless. They were breaking and I was breaking; they were spiraling and I was spiraling. When he was mistreating everyone else I cringed not because of some detached moral judgement of his behaviour, but specifically because that is also how I have treated my friends in the past; when he listened in on someone calling him “potentially untrustworthy”, I also felt like at that point the only logical solution was to simply leave them all behind and go beat the King alone. Because that’s what I would have done. That’s what I have done many times, metaphorically, and sometimes I was saved despite my prior behaviour, and sometimes I was not. (The real world is not a beautiful tale in which everything gets a satisfactory ending.)
Look, this isn’t the moment in which I say “I am literally Siffrin fr #lol”. This is the moment in which I say I have never, I repeat, never in my life been able to connect with a piece of media in such a personal, raw way. Never. Playing ISAT wasn’t like being slapped (“haha I got so called out by this game!”), no, I was shook to my very core. This game triggered the worst parts of my being and proceeded to give them release. I was uncomfortable and I was shaking, but I was seen. I was back in the hell of my own making despite not having made this hell at all. I was experiencing shrimp coloured emotions. Because, look – that’s the very point, yes? For the suffering not to be perceived by anyone but myself?
So obviously, when a game actually manages to make me feel seen, not partly, not almost entirely… but fully, completely, seen at my very worst and yet understood – well, obviously that’s gonna kind of reprogram the entirety of my brain, yes? Or not even reprogram, but rather do it the old-fashioned kind of way: keep kicking the malfunctioning PC until it magically fixes itself through the power of pure violence and determination alone.
I could talk for hours. I could talk about how completely irrational it is to be asked the same question over and over again and to stubbornly keep replying “I’m okay lol!!” (and yet how painfully difficult it is not to do that, for whatever reason). I could talk about how it feels to be alienated by the very fact of lacking memories or experiences, about the missing island North of Vaugarde, about how it feels to have no home nor friends to recall while everyone else does. (You’re always the outsider.) I could talk about how it is to have never been touched and to have others assume you simply hate being touched, rather than that you’ve been deprived of it all your life and you actually need it but you’ve never learned how to handle it. I could—
So many things. So many goddamn things, big and small, that add up to a whole picture. I say, “I am inherently broken”, and ISAT kicks me in the stomach and goes, “Yeah probably. But one thing you’re not is alone or unique in your brokenness”, and it’s the kindest and most healing thing I’ve ever been told.
To be seen for the ugly parts. To be allowed to indulge all of that ugliness, to re-experience it, to be given a chance to go through all of the most destructive and fucked up parts of my psyche yet again. To be understood – despite having a tendency to forget what I am, to barely understand my own feelings, to still be understood by something other than myself.
I am grateful.
(Actually, my favourite ISAT character isn’t even Siffrin. It’s Odile.)
Written by: Len 🗡️