tysm for the kind words!
the ending is def underbaked, but idk how much i want to commit to expanding upon it :c
there are indeed 2 ways to kill the PC in the first instance, but the one at the bar was supposed to be a red herring that doesn't "fit" into the intended loop. just something to create a little bit of extra challenge. but i was adjusting the overall scheduling pretty close to the deadline to create more "breathing room" and have less hectic instance switching, and i guess i didn't actually check if that made what you described possible. that's actually really cool to me that you found that, so again thank you so much :D