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Like a Wheel Ever Turning (In Stars and Time) - TV Tropes

  • ️Tue Oct 15 2024

Warning: By its very nature, this series contains Late-Arrival Spoilers for both START AGAIN START AGAIN START AGAIN: a prologue and In Stars And Time. Please tread carefully.

Loop hadn't expected this. They just wanted the play to END, blind it all. For the endless cycles to stop, to escape the stage — for assistance that never seemed to be coming, or failing that, for this to become somebody else's problem.

...Honestly, they really should have known better.

Like a Wheel Ever Turning is a Fanfiction series by annasofroma inspired by In Stars And Time and its prototype, START AGAIN START AGAIN START AGAIN: a prologue. The series explores an AU wherein somebody other than Siffrin finds themselves trapped in a "Groundhog Day" Loop — namely, the team's Researcher, Odile. As the eldest member of their party, perhaps she was the best choice for such a role... or perhaps not. Regardless, this is what they've got to work with. Both her and Loop, her mysterious guide... who takes a bit to step up to the role. Give them a break; how could they have known she'd be the one taking center stage?!

Entries in the series thus far:

This fanfiction series contains examples of:

  • Achievements in Ignorance:
    • Discussed early on; Odile is outright incredulous at the notion that she might have accidentally trapped herself in a time loop. Loop's efforts to reassure that she's probably not totally to blame do not help.
    • This takes on a much darker tone when it's heavily implied that the only reason Odile's bum knee is still functional is because she'd unknowingly used Wish Craft. Once Isabeau gets a chance to Examine her knee, he's left utterly aghast — and what's worse, it appears her knee might be failing now that she realizes it shouldn't be working at all.
  • Apathetic Citizens: When the shopkeeper at the general store shows No Sympathy towards Odile, Siffrin pointedly reminds them that she has done far more to help and support Mirabelle throughout her quest than said shopkeeper has.
  • Armor-Piercing Question: Downplayed in Act 2: Ad Libbing: upon hearing what Siffrin and Odile have planned for after they've beaten the king, Bonnie eagerly leaps at the idea of tagging along. Mirabelle asks about their sister Pétronille, and Bonnie briefly pauses before shrugging it off and suggesting they can just find Nille first and bring her along.
  • Armor-Piercing Response: When the general shopkeeper starts complaining about Odile collapsing in their store, Siffrin gets them to back off swiftly with a pointed jab about how the woman they're judging has done FAR more to help The Chosen One:

    Shopkeeper: Hey? Is your friend... like, okay?!
    Siffrin: Oh! Yes! Just a dizzy turn! She'll... be fine!
    Shopkeeper: Because it would be very bad if one of the heroes with Mirabelle is sick just before you go fight the king!
    Siffrin: Oh, of course not! If that was the case maybe someone here would end up needing to go to the house and fight the king with us, instead of leaving it all to Mirabelle to sort out!
    Shopkeeper: Oh. Yes. That would — if your friend needs any help, we got fully stocked medicine! Right here, and until then, just... make sure she's okay! And I'll be just over there again, if you need me, that is!

  • Ask a Stupid Question...: When Mirabelle asks why Odile had a grudge against Camille, Odile sardonically asks "Do you want the 'truth' or the truth-truth?" Confused, Mirabelle hesitantly answers "The... truth-truth?", not quite grasping that Odile was none-too-subtly hinting that she didn't WANT to be that honest.
  • Bad Liar: Odile regards herself as such, describing herself as a terrible liar who cannot act to save her life.
  • Be Careful What You Wish For:
    • In their desperation for something to save them from their hellish circumstances, Loop wished that somebody would help them out... or, failing that, for everything to become somebody else's problem. Seems the Universe decided that meant throwing Odile into a fresh cycle. Whoopsie-doodle~
    • After the King is defeated for the first time, Loop berates themselves for being blindingly angry at the fact it only took thirty-six loops for Odile to make that much progress. As they acknowledge themselves, they wanted help, yet are outraged and bitterly jealous of her successes.
    • Loop's Irrational Hatred of Odile reaches the point that they have intrusive thoughts about deliberately harming her. At the climax of Act 2: Ad Libbing, Odile reveals that she's fully aware of Loop's hatred, even offering them the chance to kill her themselves in order to reset and start the next loop.
  • Berserk Button: Odile unwittingly stomps on two of these when she first meets Loop: first by greeting them as "friend", and then by suggesting they're some kind of god or guardian deity. In return, Loop enrages her with their mockery and treating her like an ignorant child.
  • Body Horror: The inner workings of Odile's bum knee are... not pretty. Most of her kneecap is missing; the bones, cartilage and tendons have been fused together and calcified into a makeshift replacement, and her nerves have been tangled and twisted around in order to make the whole thing functional enough to support her.
  • Broken Pedestal: Played With via Loop; at first, they regard Odile as being incredibly brilliant, seeing them as the smartest member of the party and fully capable of figuring out how to break the cycle, even without anyone acting as her guide. The amount she figures out on her own without Loop only reinforces this belief... and Loop's insecurities. Over time, however, Loop starts realizing that Odile is far from infallible and fully capable of doing utterly bizarre and even stupid things... which Loop finds both aggravating and amusing.
  • Commonality Connection: Given a rather dark twist during Act 2: Downstage Turn (of the Play) when Odile muses that she understands all too well why Loop seems to utterly despise her. After all, she suspects she wouldn't be any better if their roles were reversed — especially since she recognizes how prickly, defensive and utterly petty SHE could get back when she was younger.
  • Conditioned to Accept Horror:
    • Zig-Zagged with Loop; while they were all too familiar with the horrors of the endless cycle they were trapped in, that didn't stop them from crossing the Despair Event Horizon. They also aren't prepared for the loops not instantly resetting after Siffrin dies, or for how Odile chooses to cope with their circumstances.
    • In Act 2: Ad Libbing, Siffrin clearly doesn't understand why the others are so horrified when they learn why he's eaten squirrel meat before, or at any other aspects of their childhood.
    • Played for Drama near the end of Act 2: Ad Libbing when Loop realizes that their loops generally involved their own demise, Odile regularly witnesses Siffrin dying without it instantly ending the current loop. What's worse, this may have factored into how the loop where the team suffered a Total Party Wipe at the King's hands didn't end immediately after she fell in battle, as she didn't die and was forced to witness Siffrin, Mirabelle and Isabeau being killed.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Odile, especially when dealing with Loop:

    Odile: I can't imagine why I'd look offended as you continue to actively try and offend me.

  • Death Glare:
    • Loop favors Odile with one when she swiftly divines based off a few sentences that Loop died permanently while caught in a time loop of their own creation.

      Loop: I really do loathe your quick mind sometimes.

    • Odile returns the favor slightly thereafter when Loop mocks her determination to keep the rest of the party alive.
  • Did You Think I Can't Feel?: Odile effectively calls Loop out on this after learning that they opted not to warn her about what the King was capable of, noting that her "guide" basically condemned her to not only suffering a terrible demise, but forcing her to watch as the others were killed.

    Odile: I'll... manage with these memories, yet for all I will, I'd still have preferred if I didn't have to. Aha–! Gems, the one thing I can be deeply grateful for is that Boniface ran.

  • Driven to Suicide: Odile decides very early on that this is a good way to reset after reaching a dead end. Loop strongly disagrees, which is how they wind up contacting her in the first place.
  • Eye Twitch: Loop's eye twitches when Odile declares that her primary goal is ensuring that all of her allies survive through the loops, regardless of what that takes.
  • Family of Choice: Serves as a major theme; the party has grown into one over the course of their travels, even if they don't all openly and verbally acknowledge this.
  • Foil: Much is made and mined from the myriad differences and similarities between Odile and Loop. For instance:
    • Loop treated their loops like a play, including a script that they needed to follow perfectly even as they grew sick of the repetition. Odile's approach is much more experimental in nature, and she's not afraid of going "off-book" or deviating from what came before — after all, it didn't work before, did it?
    • Loop tried keeping the others Locked Out of the Loop, completely unaware that they were looping. Odile is much more willing to inform others of what she's going through; after all, if that turns out to be a mistake, she can simply jump back to before she brought them in on it and try another approach.
    • Both care deeply about the rest of the party, but are emotionally constipated in different ways due to their respective Dark and Troubled Pasts. One of the many reasons why their partnership is so fraught with tension is that Loop mocks Odile whenever she's "too obvious" with how much she cares about her Family of Choice.
    • Odile and Loop have very different views on the matter of using Tears to trigger a reset. Loop considers this much less painful and traumatic than taking matters directly into their own hands, while Odile finds being frozen in time to be a Fate Worse than Death, despite the brevity.
  • The Gadfly: Loop frequently teases and taunts Odile, making fun of her and laughing at her expense. They even use Memories to aid their mockery, which doesn't exactly help their partnership start going any smoother...
  • Go Out with a Smile: At one point in Act 2: Corpse (Centre Stage), Odile observes that Siffrin bled out so quickly that he barely had enough time to smile before succumbing to his injury.
  • Green-Eyed Monster:
    • Envy is one of Loop's Fatal Flaws, something they're acutely aware of even if they'd rather not confront or unpack this. This fuels problems like their presumption that Odile is much better equipped to handle the stresses of looping than they were, especially when she not only figures out certain aspects of how the loops work much faster than they did, but puts together clues and figures out things that they completely failed to consider, such as realizing that the Head Housemaiden's ability to protect Mirabelle means she's familiar with Time Craft.
    • Isabeau occasionally shows signs of getting jealous of Odile in certain loops, specifically whenever they notice how she seems especially close to Siffrin. Odile picks up on this growing tension in Act 2: Ad Libbing, but doesn't realize the cause.
  • "Groundhog Day" Loop: Odile finds herself trapped in one, much to her surprise. And Loop's as well.
  • Handshake Substitute: One of the first things that throws Loop off is Siffrin trying to coax Odile into a fist bump during dinner, as they don't recall anything remotely close to that.
  • Healing Magic Is the Hardest: Difficult enough that Odile had considerable trouble learning how to heal, resorting to a form of Body Craft that utterly horrifies Mirabelle once she explains that she's transforming flesh into scar tissue rather than trying to coax it back to its original form. Justified in that Healing and Body Craft are entirely different things, and she had no legal means of learning either in Ka Bue.
  • How Do I Shot Web?: Downplayed; a voice in Loop's head informs them of how to use new skills as they unlock them... but doesn't offer any more guidance than what you'd expect from a very bare-bones tutorial.
  • Hypocrite: Loop treats Odile's insistence on ensuring the whole party makes it through the loops alive as Skewed Priorities. Yet when she considers continuing a loop without Siffrin to see how much more information she can gather before looping back, Loop furiously demands to know what she thinks she's doing.
  • I Hate Past Me: Odile doesn't exactly look back kindly upon her youth, regarding herself as having been a rather unpleasant individual to deal with. It hardly helps that many of Loop's nastier tendencies remind her far too much of how she acted when she was younger.
  • Insistent Terminology: Loop likes to mock how Odile tends to refer to the rest of the party as her associates or allies rather than friends.
  • The Insomniac: As the loops wear on, Odile stops sleeping, which naturally takes its toll on her judgement...
  • Ironic Hell: Loop outright refers to their current circumstances as such early in Enter Loop, Stage Left, long before they grasp what's really happening. They even try to find some comfort in the irony before berating themselves for searching for a silver lining.
  • Irrational Hatred: Loop struggles with this towards Odile, as they hate-hate-HATE how the Researcher appears to be better equipped to dealing with the loops than they were. They repeatedly acknowledge in their internal monologues how they desperately wanted to have somebody capable of breaking the loops on their side, yet DEEPLY resent all of the progress Odile makes.
  • Mathematician's Answer: When Isabeau discovers just what's going on with Odile's bad knee, he asks "How much does it hurt to walk on?" Odile tersely replies "Yes."
  • Meatgrinder Surgery: Played for Drama; Odile's bad knee is the direct result of Body Craft being outright forbidden in Ka Bue. In Act 2: Downstage Turn (of the Play), Isabeau Examines her knee and is left questioning how she's able to function at all with the condition it's in.
  • Mirthless Laughter:
    • Loop is prone to laughing at the irony of their circumstances, teetering on Laughing Mad at times. Such as when they briefly believe that nobody in the party is aware of the "Groundhog Day" Loop and that they might just be trapped in an endless, inescapable cycle, no longer capable of influencing the play or changing the outcome.
    • Odile occasionally indulges in this as well, as seen in Act 2: Ad Libbing following the loop where the party defeats the King for the first time. Upon seeing Siffrin, she idly wonders how long it will take him to die this time, then finds herself laughing over how she was able to confirm her theory that Euphrasie knows about Time Craft, noting that she's got nothing but time to research and figure things out.
  • Mood Whiplash: The first chapter of Act 2: Ad Libbing takes a sharp turn when Bonnie breaks out the snacks and offers Siffrin pineapple, triggering a fatal allergic reaction.
  • My God, What Have I Done?: Loop repeatedly berates themselves for giving up on their loops, seemingly sacrificing the world as they knew it in the process.
  • No Listening Skills: One of the reasons why Loop takes so long to realize what's going on in Enter Loop, Stage Left is that they keep zoning out during conversations, assuming that they don't need to pay attention because they've heard it all countless times before.

    Loop's Internal Narration: You have zoning out and disassociating down to an art form. The medals you’d win would be SO many, if they gave out medals for being a jack-arse who ignored their friends. Like... so many medals. Maybe you HAVE won medals for this, but just didn’t notice because you are that good at zoning out!

  • No Sympathy: The shopkeeper complains about Odile abruptly collapsing while browsing their shop, saying it'd be really bad if one the heroes decided to get sick right before going to face the king.
  • Not Helping Your Case: Loop insists that they're there to serve as Odile's guide, but offers precious little in the way of direct guidance. On top of legitimately forgetting to mention certain things, they're deliberately withholding other information and spend a lot of time teasing and trolling her, including giving her teammates equippable memories referencing embarrassing incidents. Suffice to say, this does a blindingly poor job of convincing Odile that they're trustworthy.
  • Oh, Crap!: Loop starts panicking midway through Act 2: Ad Libbing when they realize they might have inadvertently provided Odile with all the information she needed to piece together their former identity.
  • Once Done, Never Forgotten:
    • Upon realizing that Odile witnessed at least part of their threatening a squirrel who'd been annoying them, Loop internally laments that of course it had to be seen by the one person who'd be able to remember it, and will likely NEVER let them live it down. Later, they return the favor by giving Siffrin a 'Memory of Squirrels' in order to randomly remind Odile of one of her own embarrassing moments.
    • Loop does this again during Act 2: Downstage Turn (of the Play), via Isabeau getting a 'Memory of Spice' to raise his tolerance levels enough to eat curry.
  • Point of Divergence: The world of Like a Wheel Ever Turning naturally differs from the one Loop was familiar with, something that naturally throws them off.
    • A minor difference that nevertheless alerts Loop to the idea that things might be drastically altered from what he recalls is Siffrin trying to fist bump Odile while the rest of the party is sharing a Group Hug.
    • The first chapter of Act 2: Ad Libbing reveals a huge one: shortly before the loops began, Siffrin mentioned to Odile that he didn't have any plans after they beat the king, and the two decided to travel together.
  • Poor Communication Kills:
    • Generally speaking, this is one of the biggest problems with the protagonists' partnership: Odile sees Loop as a guide who knows significantly more than they're sharing, and believes they're intentionally withholding practically everything they know and drip-feeding her not nearly enough information because they take pleasure in her pain, or find her plight amusing, or simply don't care about her and her friends. The truth of the matter is naturally much more complicated, but Loop does themselves no favors by playing The Gadfly.
    • Odile and Loop's first meeting is rife with it, as both parties swiftly manage to piss each other off by hitting each others' Berserk Buttons, mostly unwittingly and unintentionally. Mostly.
    • In Act 2: Corpse (Centre Stage), Odile was not aware that she wouldn't necessarily have to return all the way back to Dormont at the start of each loop, and could use Save Points instead. And once Loop informs her of this, she promptly kills herself to loop back.
    • Strikes again in Act 2: Ad Libbing when Loop doesn't think to warn Odile about Siffrin's severe pineapple allergy until it's too late to avoid triggering it.
    • Loop's dismissive attitude towards Odile's frustration at Isabeau's inability to tell Siffrin how he feels while staying at the clocktower convinces her that he'd consider her real reason for getting so upset to be just as petty and pointless. Namely the fact that she's suffering from insomnia.
    • Discussed near the end of Act 2: Ad Libbing after Odile learns that Loop was fully aware of what the King was capable of, but didn't see fit to warn her. Or, as she puts it, "didn't want to warn me."
    • The first chapter of Act 2: Downstage Turn (of the Play) reveals that Odile believes that Loop forced her to witness the results of the others challenging the King without her as part of a cruel object lesson, punishing her for lowering her guard and letting herself be vulnerable in front of them.
  • Protagonist-Centered Morality: Referenced in Act 2: Downstage Turn (of the Play), as Odile observes that not only do stories featuring Time Craft tend to be prone to exaggeration, they operate under the presumption that whoever's driving the story is obviously "the hero", and that everything they do is automatically justified as a result. She decries this as stories being told half-heartedly, skimming over any unpleasant details that don't fit the simplistic narrative being woven.
  • Remembered Too Late: Loop occasionally forgets to inform Odile of potentially critical information until after it would have come in handy.
  • Right for the Wrong Reasons: Odile swiftly realizes that Loop is withholding a lot of information from her, and correctly surmises that they resent having to help her. However, she thinks this stems from a sense of superiority, and that they're taking a sadistic pleasure in toying with her because she's an "outsider" and not the one they expected to be stuck in the time loop.
  • Role Swap AU: The premise boils down to "What if Odile was the one looping instead of Siffrin?"
  • Saying Too Much: Loop is very prone to doing this, especially when agitated. Such as when they accidentally reveal that they've been to Ka Bue while ranting about how Body Craft is illegal there.
  • Scary Shiny Glasses: Notably Averted during the climax of Act 2: Ad Libbing: Odile's eyes are NOT hidden in this fashion by the light cast from the King's first attack, allowing Loop to see just how dull and dark they look as she explains that she's grateful that she's the only party member with Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory.
  • Seeing Through Another's Eyes: Thanks to the Memory of ETERNITY, Loop can look through the eyes of others while covering their own right eye. The main requirement seems to be that those they sight-jack must be physically close to one of the party members, if not a party member themselves.
  • Skewed Priorities:
    • Played With; while Loop implies that they think Odile prioritizing the survival of her teammates over breaking the loops is foolish, they actually share said priorities, and get VERY upset when they mistakenly believe she's changed her mind.
    • In the wake of the pineapple incident, Odile wants to call out Loop on failing to disclose another bit of critical information before it was too late, while Loop is more distracted by the revelation that she and Siffrin had already decided to keep traveling together before the loops began.
    • During her first conversation with Euphrasie, Odile gets extremely upset by how they hyperfixate on her status as "a stranger," snapping at them to stop calling her that even while mentally acknowledging that's the wrong detail to focus upon. Or at least irrelevant to what she's trying to learn from them.
  • Take a Third Option: During the final chapter of Act 2: Ad Libbing, Odile offers Loop the opportunity to kill her themselves in order to trigger the reset, since they've repeatedly objected to her killing herself, yet seem to despise her existence. Instead, Loop opts to kill themselves right in front of her.
  • Taking the Bullet:
    • An attempt to Avert this leads to Odile dying during the mock tutorial.
    • Further deconstructed in Act 2: Corpse (Centre Stage), as Siffrin's first death therein is the result of this.
  • Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Boy howdy, do Odile and Loop ever qualify. Both have the same goals, but very different ideas about where her priorities should lie, and their myriad communication issues (and other issues) only complicate matters further.
  • Tempting Fate:
    • Enter Loop, Stage Left ends with Odile hopeful that the party might at least make it all the way to the end of the house's right wing before someone dies again. Come the next story in the series, and the very first line reveals Siffrin's already died again.
    • Act 2: Corpse (Centre Stage) has Odile noting that Siffrin's likely to make dying a habit if she doesn't find some way of nipping that in the bud. Her prediction swiftly proves accurate.
  • To the Pain: Loop gives one such speech to a squirrel who's managed to thoroughly piss them off:

    Loop: — and after skinning you and slitting your belly to remove your guts, I will see the rest of your stringy meat cut into tiny pieces and added to the stew with whatever scraggly herbs are in this cursed bit of woods, to slow cook you over the painfully long hours until you begin to be vaguely edible — AND THEN I MIGHT NOT EVEN EAT YOU! I don’t know if I CAN eat you! I am a STAR! BUT THAT WILL NOT STOP ME BUTCHERING AND PUTTING YOU IN A STEW ANYWAY!!!

  • Token Adult: While most of the party in in their twenties (aside from Bonnie), Odile is the oldest member, being in her forties.
  • Trickster Mentor: Odile views Loop as one, mixed with heavy elements of Sink-or-Swim Mentor given the amount of times they fail to pass important or even vital information to her. Naturally, this results in the concept being Deconstructed; in her eyes, Loop is constantly mocking her for all the things she doesn't know, acting as though she should be perfectly capable of figuring them out herself and like she's stupid for not being aware already.

    Odile: –please, Loop!!! Just ONCE would – why do you always make me cry, beg, and bleed before even giving me the slightest hint–?!

  • Verbal Backspace: Loop barely prevents themselves from proposing that Odile address them with the Royal "We", awkwardly correcting themselves to "they/them". Odile compares it to someone driving a cart right over a cliff.
  • Wham Line: Chapter 4 of Act 2: Ad Libbing has the moment where Euphrasie realizes that Odile is looping and asks "How are you? You are – you shouldn't be the one–?!", effectively confirming Odile's theory that the Head Housemaiden knows far more than she's let on.
  • What the Hell, Hero?:
    • Bonnie is furious with Odile when she suggests that they need to leave Siffrin's body behind in Act 2: Corpse (Centre Stage). Loop isn't any happier about the concept, though for different reasons.
    • In Act 2: Ad Libbing, Odile calls Loop out for failing to warn her about Siffrin's severe pineapple allergy, coldly observing that "I think I might have just acquired a little of that 'emotional damage' thing you were going on about earlier."
    • Near the end of the same story, she also rebukes Loop after learning they knew about the King's special attack and didn't see any reason to warn her:

      Odile: I... you... really did know The King would... bring us to our knees in a single attack?
      Loop: Why wouldn't he?
      Odile: You knew and... didn't... want to warn me.
      Loop: Didn't think I needed to warn you the king was dangerous – and... if I had known how to make him less dangerous... I would have shared that.
      Odile: ...even if there was nothing you could think to say prepare me to die less violently – HA! Was there truly NOTHING you could have thought to say to warn me about how brutally they'd be – you knew I'd have to do that and... didn't care–? YES, I know you think I should be able to compartmentalise, but I can't- [cuts herself off with a choke]