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Stp Voices - Blog Posts
HALLO FELLAS IVE FINALLY FINISHED MY DESIGNS FOR THE VOICES!!!!
well technically I finished them a while ago but i was planning on writing a bunch abt all the design choices I made... but then my brain went kaboom so oh well :3
remaking my designs for tha voices for the 3rd time yayyyy
Princess, Routes and Voice concept,,,
And a lil context via discord:
Can I throw rocks at her? (I like her design, very fun)
Rock is not very effective against steel... (Thank you for the request!)
The Soldier, The Beloved, The Detective, The Missus
Oh, and Hero is here. And LQ-
The Long Quiet one day tripped and fell on his back, but in this particular day, he heard... different noises in his head. Figured that it must be his little friends- eh- voices, he made a study by dropping each voices and apologizing to them later
The results:
Thinking about writing shenanigans with Smitten and Cold
Smitten would write the most sappy and fluffy romance stories with happy endings every time. Cold would say that it’s getting predictable of how the story ends every time.
Smitten gets peeved and told Cold to write a romance story himself. Cold takes the challenge.
Smitten reads what Cold has written and lo and behold it’s the most heart wrenching, most antsy love story with pinning and longing that can never be filled.
Smitten cried reading it. He hated admitting that.
Hear me out.... Skeptunist as two weird people who equally overrationalize social interactions to the point of loosing sense of what any social affection is really about try to act normally with each other's terms. But none of them have normal terms to begin with.
Because they both overcomplicate life to match their expectations. One always suspects secrets and the other awaits for tricks. Both end up acting against the morals, because they believed they were lied to. Like. They're similar in so many ways they wouldn't want to acknowledge.
And it was said before about how skeptic might like opportunist as a puzzle to solve and therefore be able to actually see through his facades. But. I think opportunist might give skeptic very helpful reality check too. He would try to mirror him to get on his side just to be met with devastated look. "Why would you think I thought that? Do I look like I think that? Do I act accordingly?" Skeptic might appear too straightforward and harsh, even though at his core he deeply cares about others, due to him trying to make everything as effective as possible. And he might ignore others feelings if he finds them unreasonable. And he might act wrongly if he sees he's actions as justifiable. And. And I think opportunist can help him notice that. Just by agreeing and reflecting.
Like I think many of their actions can be alike since they both very "goal over the means" type. It's just that skeptic falls into that unconsciously out of misunderstanding people and opportunist does that fully knowingly. So opportunist could help skeptic notice his wrongdoings and skeptic could actually explain why oppy's actions are wrong. Somehow.
I don't know. I don't know. Rotating them in my head.
It's so fun how the Princess and the Dragon acknowledges and plays with game mechanics that are assumed to be non-diegetic, and uses them to add insight to the story/characters.
The title card is a really obvious example, being something that TLQ actually sees and can comment on, and something that the Princess hadn't ever seen. What most would assume is just a framing device for the player is a real element of the world/construct.
I think it emphasizes how the story that the Narrator constructed is only "meant" to be told to TLQ. After all, The Narrator only appears in TLQ's mind, providing elaborate descriptions and attempting to contextualize the events of the game as a heroic task to save the world. Meanwhile the Princess is all alone, with no title cards or exposition, no context for why any of this is happening to her. The story revolves around her, but it doesn't care about her beyond her designated role, as something to be slain and hated. Her perspective is irrelevant to the Narrator's plan, so she doesn't get the fancy presentation or necessary context: she doesn't deserve it.
There's also those long stretches of dialogue where the voices talk to each other in TLQ's mind without progressing the story. They're occasionally acknowledged by the Princess elsewhere (Prisoner, Nightmare) but P&tD makes it very explicit and confirms that time is actively passing during these conversations, with TLQ staring in silence for who knows how long.
(Personally I don't think all of the voice dialogue is necessarily in real time, if only because some Princesses wouldn't have had the patience for it. Like if you had really stood still for that long, the Beast would've definitely eaten you... she's not waiting for you to finish thinking lol)
This one I think is more for humour, but it also draws attention to how much of the inner conversation the Princess is missing in normal chapters, when the voices aren't actively speaking to her through TLQ's body. Where we're having vibrant debates or key information revealed by the Narrator, she just sees a silent, staring figure. Speaking of the Narrator, He's completely absent from the Princess' POV, either because He doesn't want to speak to her or is somehow unable to (He does say in Tower that she's not supposed to be able to interact with Him...) Again, the story was not made to be told to her, so she isn't given His context, and because the player is usually so immersed in TLQ's perspective, they probably wouldn't realize just how much she's missing until they see things from her perspective.
One other example: if you choose to [Say nothing] immediately after you excise yourself, the Princess reacts to it:
I just find this so hilarious tbh, and the fact that she repeats back those exact words implies that she literally senses the text written in brackets. If you do it once you're back in the basement, she says this:
I wonder if it's the same for the Narrator/voices... do they also “feel” your actions while you’re choosing them? Do they hear you say (Lie) before you lie? When Skeptic said "Wink" out loud did he actually choose a dialogue option with [Wink] in brackets?? Ok that last one's a joke but there's lots of potential here
I just think it's cool because the average player wouldn't think twice about any of these things, because they seem like simple stylistic/game design choices. In a game where all player input is through dialogue options, the square brackets are an immediately understandable way to convey action, as opposed to plain text. In a game structured around repeating loops, it makes sense to make those loops distinguishable for players by separating each loop with a title card, and the chapter naming convention works as a nod to the fairytale storybook aesthetics the game draws from.
But by placing you into the Princess's head and acknowledging those design choices as diegetic elements that change depending on your perspective, it forces you to reevaluate your experiences: the things you didn't think were really "part of the game" and the experiences you didn't realize weren't universal. It exposes your hidden privileges, the luxuries and structural supports you have compared to the Princess that you don't even notice because you've never experienced the alternative.
It might make you realize how the way you perceive and conceptualize the world might be very different from how others conceptualize it (Tony's recent ask about the multicoloured glass in HEA could also play into this in a fascinating way, with the mismatch in perception between TLQ and the Narrator's script). It's all just very cool for a game that's based on perception.
It also makes me wonder... what other elements of this game are diegetic that we just haven't paid attention to?
Well, I think that the captions are probably also diegetic. TLQ occasionally refers to the voices by their complete titles despite them not ever referring to each other by those titles, instead opting for descriptors like "jumpy one" or "the worst one" or "rage boy" or "chilly little freak" lol. For a direct comparison, Paranoid exclusively calls Smitten "the lovesick one" or some variant in HEA, but TLQ refers to him by his full name using quotation marks, as if he's quoting something he's read:
The voices don't seem aware that these titles exist, while TLQ does, despite them sharing a mind. Also, when the Princess shares a body/mind with you, she never uses their titles either. In the Spectre/Princess and the Dragon, she calls Hero "the nice one", Cold "the quiet one" or "cold little freak", and the Narrator "the bossy one" or "that murder-happy know-it-all". Spectre describes the voices as shards of broken glass on the floor, so she likely perceives them completely differently to how we/TLQ see them.
Even The Narrator isn't aware of His title. If you call Him that in the mirror conversation, He says "'The Narrator'. I suppose that's my job, isn't it?", reacting to the title as if it's His first time hearing about it. There's also this question from the fourth Shifty encounter:
It seems like the titles are presented specifically for The Long Quiet/decider, and that they somehow reflect how TLQ perceives the voices/Narrator, since TLQ takes credit for "calling him" that. If the captions were specifically shown to TLQ in the same way that the title cards are, it'd explain how he has this information without it ever being verbally told to him, and why the Princess doesn't know their titles even when she's sharing your body.
But besides the captions, I think it could be fun to interpret the game as if most, if not all of its game mechanics exist in-universe. The choice menu, the music, the cursors, the save/load icons, saving/loading in general, the title screen, the Clown Princess living in the walls (game files), you name it. Let’s peel away these game mechanics cell by cell! Let's see what meaning we can find together, let's see what we're made of!
Do you think Oppy would ever style his hair differently,like a braid or a bun?
Funny thing, he had a braid in his beta design! I'm thinking of bringing that back, maybe swapping between the ponytail and a braid just for fun. Anyways, here's some alternate hairstyles across different routes:
Found my fav STP route recently. Dragon my beloved. Your horrifying beak mouth was an impossible-to-refuse lip syncing challenge 💖
Shoutouts to @blacktabbygames for making such a cool game!
voice of the cold and voice of the hunted designs
A battle between Oppy and Cheated would be really interesting tbh
Both of them have many tricks behind their back and would know how the counter each other
Oppy would have to be more creative with his trickery cause Cheated knows that he’s always up to something
Cheated would get his arse beat but god damn it can he counter well and be extremely durable
Slays you violently. Um. Art jumpscare I still know how to draw
I've been thinking about Slay The Princess for a concerning amount of time. I'm taking it out on you guys now :]
Oh voice designs are mostly mine? Paranoid's mask, Broken's stitches, and Contrarian's everything were inspired by several other designs I've seen around, but the rest is me. Smitten is a bleeding heart dove and the rest are just bird adjacent things
working on some new stp designs because i am so unhappy with the ones i had before (i swear this is the last time guys i promise) but i had an epiphany today. candle broken. guys are you hearing me. i have no idea if this has been done and i really hope it hasnt but yeah. this is just a sketch rn so in the next few days or so i'll probably have a proper thing for this guy. but yeah. candle broken!
Wrote a thing for the voices, based on this
The Paranoid let out an indignant noise when he was unceremoniously dropped into the Hunted’s nest for the second time that day.
“How was the bathroom?” The Broken allowed a rare smile to crack onto his face.
“Oh fuck off.” The Paranoid huffed, ears flicking in irritation.
The Hunted had come to the less than logical conclusion that because The Paranoid had plucked most of his wings’ feathers, and because The Broken had no wings to begin with, that the chill of the winter air would kill them. So he took it upon himself to kidnap them, lock them both in his room, and force them to sit in his nest of blankets and pillow.
“How long?” “Until spring.”
Yeah, fuck that.
The Paranoid had already made an escape attempt, by asking if he could use the restroom. He had hoped that he could hide the rest of the day until The Hunted got it all out of his system.
Unfortunately, while reading a book to pass the time, The Paranoid heard quite the commotion happening elsewhere in the living room that he couldn’t see. Eventually, a frazzled looking avian overturned the couch he was hiding behind. The Hunted let out a quick sigh of relief before throwing The Paranoid over his shoulder, like one would a sack of potatoes.
They passed the Opportunist on their way back, who was in awe of the apparent wreckage the Hunted had caused in his mad search. The Paranoid gave him a pleading look, but just as the Opportunist opened his mouth the Hunted sharply turned with a scalding glare. He’d never before seen the Opportunist shut himself up quite so quickly.
“Don’t do that again.” The Hunted said in that clipped way he often did.
“Why should I even bother? The others will catch on and won’t let it continue.” The Paranoid replied, flopping forward, face falling into a pillow. “All you’re really doing is delaying the inevitable, they’ll get us out of here eventually.”
“They can try, I won’t let them.” The Hunted clicked, nestling between the two.
The Paranoid looked up, a disbelieving look on his face. “There are nine of them and one of you! What do you mean you ‘won’t let them’?”
The Hunted gave a small shrug as he spread his wings to cover the two prisoners. “You’ll see, if it comes down to it.”
The Paranoid tried to ignore the shiver that traveled up his spine.
“You should just accept it, we’re not getting out of this, not anytime soon at least. May as well enjoy it.” Broken suggested, snuggling deeper into the sea of blankets.
“I don’t see why you’re so okay with this.” The Paranoid returned.
“Well,” The Broken started, “it’s warm, it’s comfortable, we’re cared for, what more could one want?”
“A choice?”
“Choices hurt us.”
“Choices freed us.”
The Hunted flapped his wings, earning sounds of startle from the two flightless avians. “No arguing about the past. Go to sleep.”
“Is this some lousy attempt to get us to hibernate? Birds don’t do that.” The Paranoid pointed out.
The Hunted’s bigger, much healthier wing pressed down onto him, it was warm and its touch was strangely comforting despite its messy feel from the Hunted’s recent treasure hunt. “Some do, on special occasion.”
“Does this count as ‘special occasion’?”
“Yes.”
“We have a house.”
“Go to sleep.”
“An insulated, warm house.”
“Go to sleep.”
The Paranoid let out a defeated sigh, it was pointless arguing with their instinct, because instinct had a funny habit of steamrolling all in its path. He wiggled his lower half into the forest of blankets and pillows; if he was going to be stuck here then he was going to at least try to relax. He laid his heavy head on his crossed arms, just as the Broken brought a pillow to his chest.
“Maybe choices did make things better, in the end, but right now you might benefit from not thinking too hard.” The Broken softly proposed.
“Yeah yeah.” Was his response.
—
The Hunted sat up, as slowly as he could as to not disturb the two he’d placed under his care.
He saw the Broken giving in easily, but he didn’t anticipate he’d be able to get the Paranoid to sleep, not with his jumpy nature, that presented itself even within his dreams.
They both needed preening, he thought. The Broken never took care of himself properly, always ignoring layers of dirt stuck under plumage, and bent, broken feathers that likely stuck into him like needles. The Paranoid didn’t fair much better with the depressing state he’d rendered his wings to, the feathers had been plucked so thoroughly that flying was an impossibility.
The Hunted ran his clawed fingers through both of their feathers, cooing when they both let out pleased, sleepy hums.
“Hey, what’s going on-“ The Hunted whipped his head around so fast that one might think he snapped his neck. He gave the Opportunist, who had just casually walked into his den without permission, a chilling stare. A rattle started up in his throat, promising death.
“Whoa! Holy- calm down!” The Opportunist shouted, holding his hands up in surrender.
“Leave.” The Hunted growled.
“Don’t have to ask me twice! I was just worried, you know? With the whole-“
“Go.”
“Yes, right, going now, doing that, as we speak.”
The Hunted didn’t calm even as the door clicked shut, only allowing his feathers to relax after clawed footsteps faded away.
He could blockade the door later, right now he had some preening to do.
Realest game credit ever
Also a lot of people Talk about Cheated and Oppy, but to me It doesn't really seem like Cheated dislikes Oppy more than any of the voices do. In thorn he doesn't seem to despise Oppy any more than Hero and when anyone talks about him they say he's annoying at best. Like no one can even be genuinely angry at him because he so obviously bad at what he does that he isn't even a threat.
we don't talk enough about our voices beef headcanons. c'mon, no way these guys always get along, have you seen their interactions?
Cheated and Oppy absolutely despise each other. Cheated is too much of a righteous little prick, and worries a lot about fairness for someone who is willing to stab others in the back if she suspects any foul play, and Opportunist is Opportunist.
Contra is sure most of the other hates them, and makes no effort in really changing that or even giving others much grace when they're the ones who start annoying him.
Stubborn cannot fucking stand Skeptic. he's all just yap yap yap, and no action! Why do others listen to him and not Opportunist, if they all love a big talk so much?
You know what I think would be an interesting duo? Cold and Contrarian.
Think about it: They're basically different ends of the same spectrum. Neither are inclined to do what the Narrator said. Neither care about the consequences of your actions. Neither of them take the situation seriously. Neither of them get along with the other voices. The only difference is that Cold does it out of apathy, while Contrarian does in the name of resistance.
I wish we could've had a chapter where it's just them, because the dynamic would be great, and the Narrator would be driven up the wall.
If I may add a little, from what we see on MOC broken seems yo DESPISE cold. He's all about suffering and listening to the pain and then this guy comes and tells him to just "get over It" and "snuff out your heart"???
Which I think would make for an interesting conversation when any of the two find out that the other was the only one capable of empathizing with Fury. Cold would probably be intrigued by the fact that Broken could whitstand the torture while Broken would find It hard to belive that cold is even capable of empathizing.
we don't talk enough about our voices beef headcanons. c'mon, no way these guys always get along, have you seen their interactions?
Cheated and Oppy absolutely despise each other. Cheated is too much of a righteous little prick, and worries a lot about fairness for someone who is willing to stab others in the back if she suspects any foul play, and Opportunist is Opportunist.
Contra is sure most of the other hates them, and makes no effort in really changing that or even giving others much grace when they're the ones who start annoying him.
Stubborn cannot fucking stand Skeptic. he's all just yap yap yap, and no action! Why do others listen to him and not Opportunist, if they all love a big talk so much?
Apotheosis laught > Heart Lungs Liver Nerves
Ideas/ characteristics I like about the voices desing
If the title wasn't clear enough I wanna write about some of the desing elements that I've seen for the voices + ones that I came up with and think they would be cool
GENERAL :
I really like the idea of giving every voice their respective princesses' crown, not only because it fits pretty well most of them but also because it makes it easy to instantly recognize which voice are you looking at. This idea comes from @pixiefeatherkw3
PARA:
I like it when people give him very spiky feathers becuse it makes him look like he has goosebumps and gives him a very "jumpy" look. I also think it would be a really cool Idea to draw para with eyes on his wings (to clarify i've seen people draw hunted with eye-like marks on his wings but here I'm talking about seeing functioning eyes) mainly because of two reasons
He is often shown as very observant and vigilant so having a lot of eyes that he can wrap around him to see in a 360º angle makes a lot of sense to me.
It would be a paralel with nightmare
(i will be expanding more on this post on the future)
I would like to point out that as cold says in the fury he also will never make you do anything. And in the princess and the dragon he also expreses that he prefered having you around to mediate
Thinking about how much Hero loves LQT
He is the only voice that never tries to take control (I dont remeber if Hunted ever tries either but regardless) and even if he doesnt agree with your choices he backs you up no matter what
The only time he intervines is if the other voices arent respecting your decisions (Skeptic and Para stopping you from throwing the blade in the cage and Hero trying to fight them, trying to stop Broken and Smitten from killing you) or if you are not there (In the princess and the dragon he intervines in Opportunist plan)
And even if you are cruel to the voices when you reach the mirror and taunt them with their deaths, Hero will still help you reach shiftys heart and back you up in any decision you make even if he is still mad at you
Hero really fucking loves TLQ no matter what and that makes me so sad :((
I also don't understand what the f*ck he means by "They always do in the end"
Hiiii these Tower/Cold parallels haunt me!!
You can tell Tower she's meant to destroy the world, and she's like, "Yeah, absolutely, you're so right." And in Tower Fury, the Princess calls you nothing, and Cold is like "no, wait, that's true." It's just so !!!!!
Cold and Tower are not allowed to meet. Otherwise, they'd immediately figure out their exact divine natures XD
I'm also thinking about Cold's "Boohoo, it's just a body." And Apotheosis going."Your victory remains in the physical world while I am beyond." (Not direct qoutes)
My first thought was that Cold is like TLQ version of Wild, bc she's the most Shifty-y and he's the most LQ-y but he's also very Tower/Apotheosis adjacent; and while this may not be the version of Fury he felt something with, shes still Fury, and he said Fury was like him and felt something when we stabbed her.
I love how every character is a foil and mirror of at least 3 different characters. It makes analyzing them so much fun
I think they're silly. I'm rotating them in my brain together
Bonus points:
Princess gets stabbed by nothing after being forcefully removed from godhood. I wounder what exactly she understood. I think she realized that you're equal and opposite here (or in short, you're her partner god), but that's just me. The "But... I'm going to be okay, right?" I think it might bc she knows this isn't actually over, that she's not over, and maybe bc she recognizes the nothing around her as you
Also, "They always do in the end." The FUCK do you mean by that Cold????
did someone say… CONTRARIAN REDRAW?!
Crickets…
…no? Alright I’ll take my leave 😔
Another thing that should happen but does not happen regarding the skeptic is getting to the cage after trapping yourself with the prisoner. Like, I can't be the only one who thinks that the action that gives you the achievment "THE PRISION OF THE MIND become your own jailer" should lead to THE CAGE right?
maybe if you want to keep the possibility of getting the old ending you can either keep hope that something will happen (old ending) think that there must be some sort of pattern or trick that you aren't seeing (cage paranoid) or maybe get all depressed (cage broken).
MORE SKEPTICK CONTENT BABYYYY!!!
(for those Who don:t know the game got an update and now skeptick is with you in HEA instead of paranoid, wich makes sense considering the whole "love melted into skepticism" thing )