#Damsels Inspiration

[wordswithkittywitch]

I'm trying to describe the "generic white Hollywood guy" in a book where Hollywood doesn't exist.

The junior Englebert Wigglesworth was not a man Sophie would particularly enjoy looking at longer than she had to, not because he was an ugly man. The idea of calling him ugly was absurd. He had very regular features, so regular none of them could be commented on as standing out in any way. The most interesting thing that could be said was that he had cultivated the same close-cropped brown beard most men in their thirties who have been told they were handsome wore. But he had a face of a screaming nothingness, but a screaming nothingness that Sophie was extremely aware of what her expected reaction to him ought to be. She knew in an instant she would not be able to pick him out of a group of other well-groomed, boring men. He was exactly the sort of man who was called handsome without any appeal to any woman Sophie could imagine. And this distressed her, because she was aware of how men who looked like that expected to be treated by women who looked like her, and she wasn’t interested in participating in that particular song and dance. It goes without saying he was also white and clearly rich.

[wordswithkittywitch]

And now, quite against anyone's wishes, a short excerpt from the novel I'm having trouble getting beta-read.

“I always thought I’d make a good pirate.” said Rebecca. Mollie snorted. “How’s that working out for you?” she asked. Rebecca shook her head and sighed. “I guess I forgot a lot of piracy is threatening people and taking their things.” “Birdie, that’s all of piracy.” Mollie said flatly.

I like how there’s a category of careers (cowboy, pirate, spy, princess) that have a very specific historical and political context that they get stripped of for the entertainment of children

[flowerbloom-arts]

Change is a two-way street.

(Is my favoritism towards the Damsel obvious enough, or?)

note: TLQ [aka my sona Bloombird] is a butch sapphic and this is yuri

[shy-raccoon]

The damsel in distress slowly starts getting more and more unstable from the unaddressed trauma of being frequently kidnapped. One day they completely snap and the villains start being found mysteriously murdered with increasing brutality.

[ollyrewind]

jedi knight merlin on a diplomatic mission?

[wordswithkittywitch]

I was just going to reblog this without comment and then I remembered this:

Picrew I made of a character who canonically looks like this:

(left and centre, right was me trying and failing to combine as many Doctors as possible into a single character. It's also fair to note he does wear pince-nez when he's working, but I didn't draw them there. So those glasses didn't come out of nowhere.)

making picrews of ur oc like Look How They Yassified My Boy.......

[writingdevil]

damsel x paranoid please? (if you can)

(OH MY GOD OUR FIRST PRINCESS APPEARANCE! Technically I've written about Nightmare and Razor, but that was just a character study-this is our first request! They'd actually be really funny together, so I hope you enjoy this one!)

Paranoid's face was numb.

He knew that his face was damp with tears that continued to slowly trail down his face, but all Paranoid could feel was the way his head was bursting with pain, and the pins and needles sensation that made his face feel fuzzy and numb at the same time.

He was outside. He wasn't sure when or even why he was outside, but the feeling of the forest wind brushing across his head face was a welcome relief.

A hand carded through his feathers, and Paranoid flinched, before soft sobs escaped him.

He wasn't entirely sure what had happened, but he knew it ended up in a panic attack. One second, everything was pressing down on him, threatening to crush him until his bones snapped. The next, he was sobbing into the silent forest, blindly running forward, hugging himself as he did, although it offered little comfort.

He remembers being too overwhelmed to keep going, crashing to his knees as his body wasn't his to control in that moment.

He remembers everything beginning to blur and consume him, until she appeared. She said something, but Paranoid couldn't hear her. But then she opened her arms out to him, and Paranoid understood that message clear enough.

He threw himself at her, attaching himself around her middle, focusing on the feel of her dress, her voice, her everything that wasn't the mess that Paranoid was, until the worst of the panic attack was over, and now he was left with the numbing aftermath.

His head was in Damsel's lap, his arms loosely around her waist, as she hummed a tune to herself, one hand rubbing his back, and the other preening the feathers on his head.

It was funny-usually he hated other people touching his feathers, but right now, the feeling made him feel boneless in her hold.

At first, when he registered that it was Damsel that he was with, he had the sudden urge to flee and stay away from her. It didn't matter how harmless she looked, or how beautiful her soul was, according to Smitten.

She was still a princess. She was still a threat, and just because she struggled with the ability to take control of her own life, doesn't mean that she couldn't find a way to endanger Paranoid's.

But-if Paranoid were to push past his fears and worries, he'd say that the real reason was that he didn't want to make Damsel be here and deal with him when she doesn't need to.

Paranoid's had over a million panic attacks, and over half of them he dealt with himself. He didn't like it when other people saw him this way, weak and frazzled. Even though he was on edge most of the time, he could at least keep it together for the sake of the flock.

Except for the times that he couldn't, and he just became something to pity.

He closed his eyes, allowing himself a moment to enjoy the feeling of her fingers against his feathers, waiting for the fuzzy sensation in his face to pass.

He knows he didn't say anything to her, but it still felt like Paranoid was being greedy with her, and that made his stomach turn with discomfort.

Eventually, his sobs subsided, and Paranoid turned to shove his face into her lap to get rid of the last remnants of numbness in his face, and then he was starting to feel more like himself again.

"Oh, it looks like you've stopped crying. Are you feeling better?"

Damsel's hand paused in his feathers, and Paranoid fought the urge to be comforted by how soft and quiet her voice was, not too loud to irritate his headache further, but gentle enough that it made him feel safe.

Paranoid fidgeted with a loose thread on the back of her dress, taking a deep breath in to try and collect his thoughts.

He wasn't sure what to do. He didn't want to outright ignore her when she helped him through his panic attack, but he was afraid that anything he told her would make her just do what would make him happy, and not take herself into account.

He settled for nodding into her lap.

He could practically feel her smile shining down on him, and she continued running her fingers through his feathers and said, "That's good. I don't like seeing others in pain like that. I just want everyone to be happy."

Yep. He's aware of that.

He turned his head back to the side to let the forest air brush against his face, drying his damp cheeks. They stayed in that position for what felt like hours, and if Paranoid let himself relax enough, he knew he would fall asleep.

"I'm sorry," he whispered, his voice weak and on the verge of crumbling. Damsel paused again, and asked, "What do you mean?"

"I'm sorry...for making you deal with me."

"What?" But then Paranoid felt her soft hands cup his face, carefully guiding him to look up at her, and Paranoid couldn't help the sudden flash of warm nerves he felt as he looked up at her, a kind smile on her face, with the light shining down on her hair in just the right way.

Smitten was right. She was breathtaking.

"You were clearly in pain. It didn't feel right to just leave you alone. I wanted to help you."

Paranoid stared into her eyes, trying to find any hint of malice or deceit in them, but there was nothing but worry and love.

He wasn't sure what to do. He didn't want her to leave, but he also didn't want to accidentally make her do something she didn't want.

Paranoid sighed, and Damsel helped wipe away his tears with her thumbs, and he wanted to close his eyes and relax, but then she asked the dreaded question, "Do you want to talk about it? Do you want-"

"No." His answer was immediate.

He genuinely didn't remember what had transpired to lead him into a panic attack, because it honestly could have been so many things, and the last thing he wanted to do was keep thinking about the awful experience, especially when he could instead be focusing on this much nicer one.

He decided to quickly change the subject. "Why were you just in the woods alone?"

Damsel smiled, and it felt like her smile had the power to send his body floating and feeling lighter than ever, as if nothing could go wrong when he was the audience for that smile.

"I wanted to try and go for a walk. Beast says it's a nice way to pass the time." Then her eyebrows furrowed in a way that looked a little silly on such a happy princess. "But I didn't know there were so many different paths, and I couldn't decide which way to go."

Her voice got lower, and she nervously bit her lip before continuing, "I was just stuck there, not knowing what I wanted. But then I heard you!" All of a sudden, her voice was chipper again, as she gave him a bright smile.

"I heard you from afar, and I didn't even think before running towards you-I just made a decision and moved. Isn't that great?" He wordlessly nodded, and he found that he was smiling softly up at her, at her positivity and cheerful yet soft nature. Paranoid felt like he could relax around her.

She brushed her thumbs over his cheeks and asked, "Do you want to get up and go home? You probably want to go back to your flock, don't you?"

Instantly, the anxiety hit him again, and he lowered his head to avoid her gaze.

A big part of him didn't want to move at all. He just wanted to stay in this little bubble that the two of them had created, where Paranoid didn't have to think about the past or the future. He could keep his mind calm and happy, so long as Damsel was here to hold him.

But the more sensible side of him told him that that was ridiculous, and stupid to even consider.

But it was really because he knew he needed to go back to them, to figure out why he had a panic attack in the first place, and-and because he did feel better around his flock.

So he sighed, and nodded, and then started to shakily get to his feet, which was when he realised that he hadn't recovered as much as he thought he had. Damsel helped him stand by bracing her hands on his forearms, and Paranoid tried not to rely on her too much as he stood, knees still shaky and his legs feeling lifeless.

He just stood there, hugging himself protectively, as the warmth of Damsel's body left him, and he was just left with his own stupid, rattling worries.

But then Damsel was next to him, giving him such a patient smile, and she gestured out towards the woods. "Are you ready to go?"

But he wasn't so sure that he was, or that he even could, because he knew that he would have to face the aftermath of his panic attack, and deal with all the worried faces of his flock that made him feel awful for making them feel that way, when the reason he freaked out was probably not even something worth worrying over.

But then Damsel stood closer to him, grabbing his attention, as she held out her hand for him. "C'mon," she softly said, "we'll go there together."

He looked down at her hand, then back up at her face that held only patience and care.

His heart fluttered.

Slowly, he reached his hand out, but instead of taking her hand, he wrapped his fingers around her wrist, and she blinked in confusion at him, going, "Oh, what's wrong?" and he opened his mouth to embarrassingly explain, when her face lit up in realisation.

"Oh, wait! Do you want to feel my pulse? Does that make you feel better?" His face heated up as he ducked his head in embarrassment, but still nodded, not trusting his voice in this moment.

There was a moment of silence, where Paranoid was sure Damsel was second guessing her choices already, when he heard her speak up again.

"H-Heart...lungs...liver? Am I doing it right?"

His head shot up, and there was now a pink hue on her cheeks as she giggled and said, "That's the thing you say to calm yourself down, isn't it? That's what makes you happy."

He winced at her wording, but couldn't help but feel touched at her decision to help him feel more comfortable, when he's asked nothing of her thus far. He stared down at her hand, and nodded, and she sighed in relief, thankful that she was doing it right, and she moved her other hand to place over his hand that was around her wrist, right over his pulse.

They locked eyes, and Paranoid desperately hoped she couldn't already feel how fast his heart was beating.

Damsel took a step forward as she began tentatively, "Heart. Lungs. Liver-uh-"

"Nerves," he quickly finished, taking a step forward as well, and she flashed him a grateful smile as they started to slowly walk, fingertips over pulses, and saying his chant over and over again-but Paranoid knew that it wasn't the chant keeping him safe and calm in that moment.

[starry-teacup]

saw something about the damsel being fake and her love for you is entirely scripted and for some inexplicable reason this made me mad even though I am the firmest advocator of what said person said with a sea of friends who say she does love you. so.

Yes, the damsel was molded to love you. Yes, it was scripted. It wasn't actually real. And the Deconstructed Damsel is there to prove that. It's a commentary on the creator's part- they're pointing out the one dimensionality of your classic fairy tale princess, how she isn't a real person and we're romanticizing poorly sketched out plot devices.

However.

While the Deconstructed Damsel is an illustration of how our actions shaping the princess can invalidate her traits and identity when viewed from the right angle, that doesn't only apply to the damsel. Sure, it was given to her to make a point about the kinds of stories they're drawing themes from, for contrast and stuff, but our actions mold every single princess, not just her.

We molded the Witch to hate us. We molded the Adversary to fight us. We molded the Prisoner to distrust us. And we molded the Damsel to love us. It's part of what makes chapter three so interesting- we let our creation out in the wild, and then the environment and the choices she makes helps us to fill in the finer details, as well. It's why I personally believe the Thorn is the only one capable of loving you- we didn't make her to love us. We just made her to experience complexity, like all the other chapter threes, except this one involved compassion.

Yeah. The Damsel is a computer program we encrypted with affection. But if we're gonna be real about that sort of thing, we also have to look into our beloved Tower's domination, our Stranger's mystery, our Spectre's grief.

None of it was ever real. Just a choice we made and a role she played.

[wordswithkittywitch]

I can't believe how much detail you put in the loom! I also think I should be more careful about describing someone as having more freckles than skin and then asking someone to draw that.

2. @wordswithkittywitch asked for one of the characters from her orignal steampunk novel. This is Nellie, a mill girl of Newcomen.

[rosurie]

PC Piercings and Tattoos

bonus piercings [+ body practice for Tamayo ♡]

I was able to pull this together while working on another short comic [it's about Yunie, Rhett, Damsel and Noé btw ( ￣ﾉ∇￣)]. trying to get a lot of my reference type posts done [for my own sake cause my memory is dog shit].

also realized i don't think I've never drawn Damsel's septum ring and honestly that's mostly because I frequently forget about my own septum ring- and also because I don't often draw noses. but she does have one!

[wordswithkittywitch]

Inktober 26 - Camera

Here we see Sabina from Edge, after her death, trying her very best to get photographed. When I was working on it, I realised that it looked like Silas was annoyed she was so close to the camera. But, in the story, Silas can't see Sabina and doesn't believe in ghosts, so he's probably saying something about how the camera's not going to pick up anything.

I referenced this old photograph and @adorkastock, here.

[salty-an-disco]

whatever. go, my pixies

[deconstructthesoup]

Some STP Human Headcanons (Vessels)

-I mentioned this in my last Slay the Princess post, but Prisoner loves to dance. As soon as she's free to walk and move around, she learns how to dance as a way to a) feel like she's in control of her body again, and b) fully explore the freedom she's now offered. The day she learns swing dances is the first day that any of the others have seen her smile.

-Witch has about twenty different kinds of carnivorous plants in her house, and all of them have names. She likes talking to them, because plants don't say that you're dragging on when you complain about your day, or tell you that your outfit looks awful when you're trying something new, or tell you that you're a massive dork when you gush about your favorite graphic novel series.

-Oh, yeah, Witch is a comics/graphic novel nerd. She's a big fan of Alison Bechdel, Vera Brosgol, ND Stevenson, and Elaine Lee, and she loooooooooves Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy. She reads DC comics for them and them alone.

-As a way to express some individuality while they're still figuring out what their personality is---and if they even have a cohesive one---Stranger dresses in incredibly elaborate outfits, and the style changes rapidly from day to day. They can go from dressing like a Southern Belle (complete with a parasol) to dressing like a Victorian swashbuckling thief (complete with a cane and masquerade mask) to dressing like they're heading to a 1980's roller rink (surprisingly, they make the skates work) on any given day, and all of the girls place bets on whatever they're going to wear next. Nobody has won.

-It's a terrible pun, but I'm ridiculously attached to the idea of Razor being a metalhead---and if not a metalhead exactly, then a major fan of any and all punk rock music released in the Riot Grrl era. She owns every single Bikini Kill album, every single Raincoats album, and will neither confirm nor deny having a Joan Jett body pillow. If she can sing-scream along to it, she'll listen to it.

-Adversary is the most kickass roller derby player you have ever seen in your life. She's got face-paint, she's got stickers on her helmet, she's got scuffed shoulder and knee pads from bodying the girls on the other team... she's fucking awesome. Razor shows up to every single game with a hand-painted sign for her.

-Damsel is obsessed with video games like Stardew Valley, Animal Crossing, the Sims---basically, anything that's cute and low-stakes, she'll play. She absolutely has a set of pink cat-ear headphones that Witch bought for her. (Prisoner has matching blue ones, but she never wears them.)

-Nightmare is a theater kid. She recites Shakespearean monologues at the drop of a hat, devours occult-themed musicals like her life depends on it, and has a flawless soprano voice that will actually give you chills. Her rendition of "The Ballad of Jane Doe" at a voice recital made several people cry. She relishes in their tears.

-Prisoner and Spectre both love books, but while it's more of an academic thing for Prisoner (she likes history and math, because it's just facts), Spectre is a total fiction reader. Mostly classics like Jane Austen and Agatha Christie, but she's also got a bit of a guilty pleasure for well-written romance novels, and she loves The Locked Tomb series. Even if the Alecto stuff hits a bit too close to home.

-Stranger is really into arts and crafts, to the point where they've pretty much learned everything from crotcheting to making clay earrings. Almost all of their creations end up being gifted to one of the girls, and they're all very much treasured and appreciated.

-Tower has a difficult time really connecting with most of the girls, since she's still trying to get herself to come down from her superiority complex, but she has figured out that they will always like her as long as she brings her credit card with her. No matter the setting, Tower is fucking loaded, and even the more masc girls like Adversary are willing to go on a shopping spree.

-That being said, I think Tower gets along the best with Nightmare, because they're both absolutely self-assured, barely care about other people (except their best girls, of course), and are both intimidating in their own ways. They're absolutely the kind of best friends who bitch about people while doing each other's nails.

-Witch and Spectre both do witchcraft for funzies, but Witch is more about the plants and herbalism, while Spectre's all about the Oujia boards and tarot cards. They're kind of in a two-person coven together---you gotta find something to bond over, and what better way to connect than your shared interest in magic?

-If I'm not just making Beast into a cat, I'm making Beast into a preteen, because just making her a human adult just doesn't... fit her. Besides, it's way more easy---and more fun---to imagine her as that low-key feral kid who's always digging for worms during recess, always gets into fights with bullies and winds up covered in Band-Aids as a result, always wears the same ratty cat-ear beanie every day, and hisses at people who annoy her. She has weird-little-girl energy, I dunno what to tell you. (She still tags along on hangouts when there's no alcohol involved, though---she's either Witch's little sister or her daughter, and Witch is very keen on making sure she's included.)

-Damsel bakes. Every time one or more of the girls comes over, she has something in the oven, something sitting on the kitchen table cooling, and something that's in the middle of being frosted. She likes doing it because while it is something that she largely does for others, it's also something that gives her a sense of pride, and she also just has a lot of fun with it. Even when she has to clean up, she's humming a song from a Barbie movie under her breath. Probably from Princess & The Pauper (the best one, fight me).

-Adversary used to play the violin when she was a kid, but she got bored of it quick, and she switched over to the bass as soon as she could. Spectre is very good at playing the cello---she even does recitals!---and Witch... well, she played the French horn in high school. During marching band. It was the only extracurricular where she could have free reign to be as annoying as possible to the people who said that she had to have one for college credit. (Oh, also, Razor plays electric guitar. She's a really good singer, but she's an even better growler.)

And... I think that's all I got for now.

[bubblybloob]

I have a sort of reverse damsel route floating about in my head. It basically follows you majorly fucking up in chapter 1, or maybe instead of simply resisting the narrator you sacrifice yourself before the princess gets the chance to kill you, leading into chapter 2.

Here the princess is trying to gallantly save you despite being the prisoner? You find her in the basement and she immediately breaks free, you turn to leave and all of a sudden Indiana jones temple bullshit is behind you.

As things play along it is revealed that she is laser focused on your safety, uncomfortably so, a lot like how Damsel was revealed to be basically less than a person with her only wanting to make you happy. She essentially thinks you’re going to die without her, and doesn’t trust you with your own life, maybe she also thinks you’re a tad incompetent (to be fair, was the protagonist really ever that competent?).

I think a whole trap idea is interesting, something different than other routes in the game. I also simply like the idea of an Indiana Jones style dungeon with booby traps and boulders rolling down at you along one ramp like path trying to crush you.

If you listen to her and do what she says and let her do all the work, you both escape and she gets taken to the Long Quiet by the hands. If you don’t, maybe by questioning her strange attitude or by trying to navigate the traps without her help, you eventually die and end up in Chapter 3.

Not entirely sure what she’d be like, usually chapter 3 is a more severe, unnerving version of what you just saw (unless it’s a path like wraith or wild where you can get there from multiple different princesses), so maybe she’s even worse than before and is more apparently strange in action and word.

Perhaps she thinks if she just keeps you with her and don’t leave or move or do anything, you’ll never be in danger again, or she traverses even deadlier traps with you, except overcomes them with absolute bullshit with a rather unbothered, wide grin, like she didn’t just casually punch a massive rolling boulder through the damn ceiling.

Not sure what this princess would be called, maybe The Savior or The Champion or something along those lines.

As for a new voice…? I’m really unsure. If you kill yourself to keep the narrator from stabbing the princess, you’d probably get a sacrificial sort of voice, which already kind of exists if you mix the Smitten and the Broken together. Any ideas for this would be welcomed. I’ll be coming up with a design for the princess while I think on this.

Edit: I mostly finalized this idea here

[starryluminary]

I had an idea that wouldn’t leave my head and I wanted to see if I could execute it. I think I managed

[toadletthethird]

"ask around and find out" playthrough ideas aka the worst routes to use your detective skills in

1. Get shackled with prisoner

2. Damsel -> Deconstructed

3. Get the witch by investigating the arm without closing the door -> get the wild by fighting her and then rethinking -> wounded wild OR think too much while being devoured by beast -> wounded wild

4. Try to speak with adversary -> fury

5. Razor -> No way out

Other honourable mentions:

No exit with cage (but I decided to choose the OG askaround ending with prisoner) and stay with your nightmare -> moment of clarity

Upd: Oh and @/mrpristineblade added EOTN in reblogs - also a great one for asking too much!! plus there's literally skeptic in it. So. It totally should be here too.