#favorites are oppy and hunted. who is surprised

[tai-janai]

The cold-blooded backstabber, and the opportunistic slayer

the crestfallen prey, and the burdened devotee

the nosy detective, and the indecisive discordian

the distrusting lover, and the soft-hearted cacophany

the terrified ferocity, and the determined warden

and a few itty bitty women

[hello-universe-lovers]

SHENANIGANS: Where Mai gives headcanons to the Voices in your Head ™️ based purely off vibes.

(Fun fact: I typed this so many times autocorrect fills in the sentence now)

This episode: The Voices in game night!!

(Note: sad to say as it is, I am NOT a gamer, so I won't go into what video games they'd like. It's exclusively tabletop games. Someone who actually plays games regularly can do that one)

Voice of the HERO: expert at board games, decent poker face, and a lil competitive, Hero is the picturesque partner to play with. She won't be too difficult to play against...HOWEVER, she fumbles hard at games where it's about wordplay, for lack of better words (Scrabbles is an example). She takes way too long to think!!

Voice of the SMITTEN: He'd rather play something more classical like chess, but km group game night, he'd go with whatever they decide. Games where it's about skill are what he loves!! Jenga? That Tower will not fall! Scrabble? Sorry Hero :). Charade? Hohoho, you're making this too easy!! He lowkey likes to flex, but that's for another time.

Voice of the SKEPTIC: DO NOT PLAY MAFIA WITH SKEPTIC!! MOTHERFUCKER SCARES THE SHIT OUT OF EVERYONE! (OPPORTUNIST included) seriously, it's like once the threat of reality breaking is lifted and the games are tied to logic, it's like he's a noir detective reading every player and predicting what they do. Deduction games are obviously his favorite, with chess and other such board games a close second.

Voice of the PARANOID: the funny thing about her is that they are anxious like...ALL THE TIME. and he knows how to use it to her advantage. No one knows if she is suspicious or innocent. Skeptic and Paranoid are always tied when playing chess, because both are always watching and adapting. The fact that these are social games not tied to life or death also helps.

Voice of the COLD: he's not playing the same game twice. Unless you get him REALLY high, he won't sit at a game with the same rules. However, he LOVES giving commentary, nudging specific players, not picking favorites and intentionally resulting in either clutch plays or very "WTF?!" Moments

Voice of the CHEATED: She'd flip the board, but never the table. Mainly because her back would protest if she tried. The frequent loser of the group. Sure, there's a win now and then, but unless the game is about making a combination of words sound ridiculous (Cards against humanity, Joking Hazard, etc...), she loses 99% of the time. Luckily, Broken is thereto comfort her. But still, cold comfort for her.

Voice of the BROKEN: She tries to put in effort to play, and while surprisingly good, she doesn't join often due to low energy. She'd sit in her wheelchair, sipping a drink and making commentary like a sports commentator (not as loud, though). She and Cold have a weird sorta respect going on so he plays along. Always the one to stop Cheated from sulking.

Voice of the STUBBORN: He's not good at a lot of traditional board games like Monopoly, Snakes and Ladders, and etc...but he LOVES card games. Mainly bc Oppy teaches him how to play those, he's a riot at those. He won't flip the table if he loses...oh, who am I kidding, of course he does!! But more often than not, he wins the night, and everyone is still surprised!!

Voice of the OPPORTUNIST: after one too many accusations of cheating (Cheated...), he'd make himself as small a role as possible. His room is where they play the games, and he watches over them to make sure no foul play is happening. Card games are his speciality, obviously, and his poker face is as immaculate as his acting. Though good luck getting him to play, since he'd rather enjoy his little "referee" role. When he does, though, it always comes down to Stubborn, himself and Skeptic. You might as well go to bed, because they won't be finish until morning.

Voice of the HUNTED: like Cold, he just doesn't like games. He'd sit through and play games in you need a specific number of players, but he'd decline. And he won't pay attention unless shit gets loud. He's the designated "jailer" for any temperamental players, and his corner is the time-out corner.

Voice of the CONTRARIAN: I know I said the "no video game" rule, but look at Connie. Do you think this woman would settle for basic ahh games? She is busting out the Wii or a DDR mat and everyone is dancing or doing doing silly poses Or if she's banned from that, she'd join Cold in disrupting the game or suggest "interesting" new rules. She's frequently in the time-out corner after the "Uno" incident.

BONUS: the Princesses.

As Belle, Spectre and Thorn are frequent visitors to the Voice house, they often bring back games to play. If you'd think they have quiet and peaceful game nights...have you met them?!

They'd always bring back the game, the next morning, probably with a bruise or 2 (expect for Spectre).

[everestgale]

Can I just say, thank you so much for writing up all of this, I really, really appreciate it!!! I like knowing what kinds of things people notice, how you interpret my designs, etc. Very fun to read and very informative!!!

I have a strong urge to ramble about some of your comments + these design in general, but I know it's going to be quite boring. So, uh, if anyone wants to see me ramble like crazy, it's under the cut lol

It makes me so, so happy that Hero's pointy "feathers" were recognizable enough as a crown/helmet! I may or may not have stolen drawn inspiration for that from Corviknight (the Pokemon)

No real notes on Stubborn, he's honestly been surprisingly easy to redesign!

Broken's little "shackle" under the shawl are actually just a mark for bright red feathers in the final design because my Broken is based on a Luzon bleeding-heart :]

Also no real notes on Cold, except for the fact that I gave him emo bangs when I first designed him months ago, and I stand by that decision.

I love my final design for Paranoid (it's the second one I've finished, after Hero!), but his silhouette has honestly been kind of a mess to draw for some reason. I really hope that, in the final design, he will be more easily recognizable. And gloves! When I realized it both nicely fits with my vision of Paranoid as a medic/healer and mirrors Nightmare, I knew I had to give them to him :] Of course I talk about Paranoid the most, who's surprised!

Skeptic's shackle in the final design is actually getting replaced with a much smaller one (I was drawing Skeptic right before I started writing this), so that hopefully it's not as on the nose!

Smitten has just been really difficult to design, for some reason. No real notes, except to briefly complain about how he keeps changing every time I work on him :[

The debris in Opportunist's feathers was a very last-minute decision, but I'm very happy with it, it mirrors Witch quite nicely, and also establishes that Oppy can hide small objects (like stolen jewelry or playing cards) in his feathers.

Hunted should hopefully be much easier to identify with his final design - I didn't draw it in his silhouette, but he's wearing the same bandages Beast does!

Fun fact: my favorite thing about designing Cheated is to see how much of his design I can draw with straight lines alone :]

No real comments on Contrarian, except for the fact that I love him and he's iconic <3

Also, I wanted to reply to the tags!!

I absolutely adore this kind of analysis! Thought to be honest, only about half of these were intentional lol

Starting from Skeptic, I actually started thinking more about their poses and which direction they face: like putting Skeptic & Smitten away from each other like you mentioned, Opportunist & Cheated facing forward (for different reasons), etc. But the first half of the voices didn't really have specific reasons for why they are facing which way.

It is very interesting how Stubborn-Broken & Cold-Paranoid pairs worked out though!

Those are, indeed, some silly birds.

I'm finally giving my voices a proper redesign! These are currently just silhouettes (for figuring out their shapes & just checking out how they look next to each other), and the full designs are still WIP, but I'm actually quite happy with how these are turning out! My favorite part was trying to connect each voice with their respective Princess design-wise in subtle (or not) ways :]

If this image is too small, I have it split into two halves under the cut! There, I also put which voice is which. If you don't mind, please let me know if you could recognize them! I'd really appreciate that kind of feedback :]

[Find my Slay the Princess art here] [Princess art] [TLQ art] [Voices art]

Image 1 (left-to-right): Hero, Stubborn, Broken, Cold, Paranoid, Skeptic

Image 2 (left-to-right): Smitten, Opportunist, Hunted, Cheated, Contrarian

Yes, my Opportunist is a tiny gremlin. I am not sorry about that :]

P.S. He's not actually abnormally short. He just looks tiny compared to the rest of my voices - Smitten next to him is 7 ft or ~213 cm tall. Opportunist is 5'2'' or ~157 cm :]