#deconstructed damsel

[honeyfizzly]

A pliant heart

[dr-awkkward]

Slay the Princess text posts, part 20!

[part 19] [part 21]

[pyxehastoomanyinterests]

some more slay the princess!! or, for the 3rd drawing’s case, slay the prince(that one post about transmasc damsel got to me)

[chaotic-cheese-blog]

Princesses be upon ye!

Happy valentine's day to anyone who celebrates it, whether it be alone, with friends or even fucked up princesses 💕

[modeus-the-misanthrope]

🌟

Deconstructed damsel

I know you love giving her complexity under the surface. But I still think Deconstructed Damsel is basically a cardboard cutout with a speaker taped to her back that just plays her saying, "I just wanna make you happy." In terms of her sentience. Actual no thoughts, head is empty.

[mild-mirror]

deconstructed damsel just isn’t the same without the pencil smudge over her eye

[vickozone]

drew two of my favorite princesses. <3 love these guys.

[demonkinguwu]

Stp doodles :p

[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.

[honeyfizzly]

I think the horror of deconstructed damsel comes from the realization you loved someone you never truly knew. The crash of the idolization when you realize you've just been projecting an ideal onto someone who could never be that and coming to terms with that. We turned the princess into a helpless damsel and robbed her off her personhood, then destroyed her by trying to find a person where there was none anymore.

[namelessexistence]

I don't disagree at all. I remember when I played the damsel routes for the first time. At that point, I had already chosen to stay with Nightmare and saw the Prisoner cutting her own head, but the Deconstructed Damsel disturbed more than anything else in the game.

Plus, by the way the Shifting Mound talk about her, I wouldn't say she's very found of the Damsel. I mean, "she served her purpose" sounds so cold when compared to the way the Mound talk about the other vessels. I don't think the Mound dislikes the Damsel, I think she's still grateful for a new vessel, a new perspective, I just think the Damsel is probably not her favorite vessel.

Despite of that, the Deconstructed Damsel dialogue in the end of the game, specially compared to the regular Damsel dialogue, makes me think the horror of the Deconstructed Damsel is more than just exposing the truth about the Damsel.

When the Shifting Mound uses the Damsel voice to speak to you, she says the line "consumed by true belief, there was nothing that could hold us back". The damsel route represents idealization, blind devotion. And that's not healthy, but I still get the feeling that the game kinda... Compliments the player for staying loyal to that form of love. The Smitten wants a princess to save, but he'll still see her as that beautiful princess, the loveliest being in the world, even if she doesnt act accordingly. He's endlessly devoted. Even in the Moment of Clarity, he'll still see her as a beautiful goddess, even if he cannot deny her cruelty. His love is unhealthy and you could say it's shallow, but it's unconditional. He doesnt expect anything from her in return to keep it.

The Deconstructed Damsel is what happens if you idealize her at first, but is not able to show the same devotion. The Smitten still loves the Deconstructed Damsel, but you no longer listen to him. What she says in the final battle is that "love melted into skepticism, and you pulled back layer after layer after layer until all you were left with was the knowledge you did not know me."

The Smitten didnt truly know her when he declared his undying love, but, as I said, he proved to be willing to love her, no matter who she turned out to be. You were not. You wanted the princess to save, the delicated damsel, but you could not accept her. We, the player, either doubted her, or found ourselves unsatisfied with that idealized princess. We could not hold onto that devotion, we could not avoid the skepticism. We molded her into what we wanted and then got frustrated that she wasnt something different.

The Deconstructed Damsel is not just exposing the blind idealization of the Damsel route. She's a shattered Illusion, because we could not believe her like the Smitten believed. We could not keep that same devotion when her behaviour didnt match our expectations.

Sorry If my response was messy, I'm writing on my phone. But I hope my toughts were somewhat coherent

Thinking about the deconstructed damsel again

Do you think the Long Quiet remembers her? Every princess carried their own special violence, their canvas of scars and open bleeding wounds and snapping biting jaws when he got too close, but she was different. Less. He made her less. Empty.

How must the mound regard her? If their hurt and hurting brought texture to her soul, what of a vessel worn thin and smooth? Did it make her less as well, in their own way?

I wonder if he thinks of her sometimes. All the ways they've hurt and betrayed and slaughtered one another, I wonder if she's the one he regrets. Bloodshed and passion are second nature, but there's a different sort of violence to stripping back all her bumps and edges into a smooth finish.

There's a cruelty in grinding her away until there's only a hollow damsel. In coring her out so thoroughly that he's alone again.

Brush a claw along her cheek, it crumbles away into graphite.

[itsonlypolite]

What is your favorite vessel/princess?

It's so hard to choose, I love them all!! But when I first read this, two vessels popped in my head right away because they feel like they're straight out of my nightmares: The (Deconstructed) Damsel and the Drowned Grey

The metaphors! The visuals!! The horrifying tragedy of it all!!! <333

[misersdream]

Slay the Prince - Happily Ever After

[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.

[dr-awkkward]

Slay the Princess text posts, part 18

[part 17] [part 19]

[anethiawoods]

playing slay the princess as intended (watching your friend stream it and then roleplaying as improvised ocs for each of ur runs)