#pristine speaks

[julijbee]

girlbossing too close to the sun.

[pinkfestivalpeanuttree]

i find it very interesting that hero and cold get the "nice" princess font and opportunist gets the "hostile" princess font

[shroudkeeper]

Though alot of folks are prepping for the drop of the expansion with new glams and plans for what they will do first..

But, if you haven't already, please clean your pcs as well if you are using that, it will thank you ahead of time for Dawntrail! 🎉

[chaotic-archaeologist]

Martha, with all due respect, you do not get to claim the dirt nerd title. That belongs to the archaeologists, and our cousins the geologists/soil sciences.

This is what a REAL dirt nerd looks like

[felikatze]

GUESS WHO GOT ALL ACHIEVEMENTS FOR THE CAGE BECAUSE HE ADORES THE PRISONER AND IS HAVING A TIME OF IT

i need to write this down because MAN i feel so fucking smart for this. i figured the chapter out <3

strong contender for my new favorite chapter just every angle of it is so fucking good.

HUGE FUCKING SPOILERS. FOR THE EVERYTHING. and how to get it!!

first of all i tried to figure out how the fuck you get to the drowned grey compared to the cage and the answer is. preddy simple.

slay her -> the drowned grey leave her head -> the cage

and the two vessels for this one are chain yourself up -> the prisoner take her head outside -> the prisoner's head BUT. THE CAGE ENDINGS. OH MAN.

Because HOW you get to the Cage actually matters a LOT. Once you leave behind the Prisoner's head and accept your "reward", there are two things you can do.

Either you slay yourself, or the Skeptic kills you.

And if you slay yourself, you start the Cage with the Paranoid, but if the Skeptic kills you, you start the Cage with the Cheated instead.

And this matters SOO MUCH IT'S INSANE??? Now I'm wondering if other routes have ridiculous variations on what happens depending on what voices you have!!

Because. If you have the Voice of the Cheated, you can DROP THE BLADE. this changes the rest of the chapter SIGNIFICANTLY and lead to the route that made me cry. it was so sweet. I'm so happy that was my first play of the Cage.

(you also get achievements depending on if you leave with her or DROP HER at the end, which is so fucking mean <3 Man.)

But if you have the Cheated and keep the blade, you'll always get the same ending.

IF YOU HAVE THE PARANOID, HOWEVER....

First of all, you are ENTIRELY LOCKED OUT of both endings to this route for dropping the blade!! You can't see the sweetest cg i've beheld in my life!!

But if you go in, the Paranoid allows you to actually cut the chains!! Which is also a wholly different ending to it! But this only happens if you do actually keep pushing for it and try to slice the chains before the Cage's body gets to you. And you need to keep hacking away at it or else you get the "basic" ending for the chapter.

The way the voices interplay to make this possible is so fucking neat??? Because the Paranoid agrees with the Skeptic that dropping the blade is a bad idea, you have to keep it. But the Cheated fucking Hates the Skeptic for taking his "happy ending" that he wants to stick it to the Skeptic bad enough for you to throw the blade away.

On the other hand, the Skeptic is too, well, skeptical, to fully lean into what actually gives the hero power - control over the narrative. And the Cheated sure isn't going to help, either, because he's screaming his head off. The Paranoid, however, as one who doubts everything, has the most power to shape the environment and convince the Skeptic that the chains can be broken.

Just how the Cheated vs the Paranoid feel about the Skeptic... And how you get both of them makes perfect sense, too. I think that the Voices are always the Hero of the last run - the one who made the choices you did. So by slaying yourself, you agreed with the Skeptic and doubted the Narrator, giving yourself the Paranoid.

But if you agreed with the Narrator and chose to stay in the cabin, the Skeptic does literally cheat you out of your happy end! So you get the Cheated, who hates this fucking game!

Man. Man that's so cool.

ALSO I JUST. LOVE THE THEMATIC FOLLOW UP TO THE PRISONER SO MUCH? One who is so utterly convinced of her own powerlessness.... Again like, it made me CRY that you can just go. Hey. We do have a choice here.

I dropped the knife. See?

And she just. Falls to the floor. She frees herself. It's so. So powerful. And also just [Take your princess.] AAAAAH. YOUR PRINCESS???? YOUR PRINCESS???

In this sequence of events, the Princess and the Hero never really wanted to hurt each other... It just kept happening like this... But their choices just happened to line up, is all! Man, and you get the Cage because the Hero didn't realize he needed to pick up the Prisoner's head. She becomes like this because her gambit failed. Her choice led to the same result - her death. Her choice didn't matter not because of some cosmic fate, but because the Hero didn't understand her. It was a failure of communication!

One of the dialogue options being "You have a choice. You're choosing violence right now." like gragrrh. I love love love this theme of agency and how it plays into Narrative and how the ENTIRE GAME plays with the trope of The Hero and The Princess and The Dragon.

This to me feels like the "True" ending of the chapter (I am a big sap) but i also see the destructive beauty of the blade endings!

In the basic version of it, both the Hero and the Princess are once again slaves to the same cycle... Utterly relinquishing their agency via just literally letting go of their own bodies... Headless bodies operating on autopilot without a single thought. Very clear imagery! But, at the end, the two dead bodies are interlinked, as if embracing... Even in this route, the Hero and the Princess didn't want to hurt each other. It just keeps happening this way...

Ah, and the broken chains ending is so good too! This is the second ending where the Princess' head escapes the cage, because the cycle was broken. But instead of through communication, it was broken through even greater violence than that which began it. And she is shown - she had a choice. And she wasted it. So the Hero is making his. And his choice, after what she chose to do to him, to threaten his life without reason, was to defend himself and kill her. She is free, now, all too late.

The meanest fucking ending is the one where you don't take the blade but just drop her head at the end. True fucking contrarian momence. The Cheated said hey fuck everybody. Narrator wins. Go big or go home. THIS ONE IS SO. CRUEL. It's like. Putting her right back in the Cage. Or: there is a world outside the Cage. it is worse than the one within it. Her calling the Hero cold when that's what she always says about the night air.... You are cold, Hero. Just like the world.

TLDR!!! I LOVE YOU CAGE!!!! I LOVE YOU PRISONER!!!! I SPENT 2HRS JUST PLAYING THIS CHAPTER OVER N OVER TO GET ALL VARIATIONS OF IT!!!

[mercuriallily]

118 hours in Slay the Princess and I'm STILL finding new stuff

I don't know how many other people have discovered this one so I'm putting it under the cut lol

I was going into Chapter 1 planning on getting Beast. I went down without the knife, went back upstairs to get it, closed the door when I returned to the basement, talked to her, and chose to wait. I continued to wait when given the option again and eventually fell asleep. And then I woke up to her eating me????

It was pretty neat though

[ofdreamsanddoodles]

i think protocol has had a fair amount of statements about fucking over people to get rich, but saved copy was in a bit more of a metaphorical sense than "i made people role the dice that gives bad fortunes so good things can happen to me." like, the rich darien had to make a trade off for his wealth. he had some natural advantages over the other darien in terms of being brought up in a wealthy family but the reason he's rich & darien isn't is because he chose a sacrifice. he decided his wealth was worth more to him than his father's life, and the thing that allows the other darien to take over his life is because... he chose the same. he saw his double at the bottom of a staircase with a head wound and simply shut the door behind him. he didn't even kill the guy himself; he chose to let inaction kill him instead so his hands didn't get dirty.

and in return, he has all the money he could want

[cfrog]

Sage and The Sages Slay the Princess au. Is that anything.

Would they be voices or princesses. Or both. Voices fit better but princesses would be easier to draw. Who's the Narrator in this scenario, Azzy? Whatever im drawing Sage as a fucked up bird tomorrow.

[herearedragons]

I'm doing it. I'm getting Slay The Princess

[innocent-angel3]

I’M 18

I’M AN ADULT NOW

[assortedvillainvault]

@blacktabbygames you own my SOUL right now.

I just. I just wow. As an aspiring game dev Jesus Christ.

I meant to play all the way through five princesses as usual and had to actually log off after 3 - Damsels epilogue has destroyed me. I loved every second of it, but still. What the hell.

Smitten remains my favourite voice by far, but holy hell that was dark twist I never would have expected. A+. I'm trying not to spoil anything here but holy the last part with the narrator?!

I wish I'd gone damsels route last, that ending is perfect for the final confrontation. I'm still crying.

Play the game, lads. The pristine cut version is a nigh religious experience.

Fuck.

[pinkfestivalpeanuttree]

i am LIVING for cold sassing at opportunist in the harsh spectre princess and dragon route, as well as the princess sassing at us.

[felixvanhuss]

Ough the new Damsel route sure did make me cry

[oncamelliastreet]

midnights is the best taylor album argue with the wall

[dozydawn]

tragic to me that “rarity” & “pristine” aren’t more common as virtue-type names.

they don’t even have listings on nameberry, only a couple forum posts where they’re shut down & told they would work better as middle names.

in 2021 there were just 7 girls named pristine & 10 named rarity. source. they’d have only a 1-2% chance of ever encountering someone else with that name in their lifetimes. rare indeed!