#slay the Princess voices

[the-bite-of-87-lol]

The voice of the broken is my absolute favorite, I love him he sounds broken they did great I love my men broken and (un)fixable

[v3nuskae]

Little birdy with clothes :3

[swanpyart]

Some designs for the Voices! Since the Long Quiet is a bird man, here's a bunch of bird men

[pebbleisgay]

OKAY SO THE PRISTINE CUT.

happily ever after, right?

i... think i *have* to @blacktabbygames because i've been going insane taking notes on one of the new routes and i hope this is entertaining to quite the incredible dev team.

now I have been going insane for the better part of an hour theorizing and taking notes going through Epilogue: Happily Ever After. so if you haven't done that route and don't want spoilers, please evacuate the post. go on and scroll right down.

Epilogue: Happily Ever After

We open the route by throwing off the narrator by being in a room with only one door, only one exit. Note that it has windows, this will come in handy later.

It is followed by walking *up* the stairs.. which is contrary to any other route. Not even the Tower- named literally after a tower! Follows that. It's always "If she really lived here, slaying her would be doing her a favor." but we can't say that. because we're emerging into a better, fancier place.

We head up the stairs and enter.. a dining room. Sitting at it is the princess, with the dagger around her neck and the narrator suggesting that it would be so easy to kill her, just like that. But for the sake of this, let's say you followed what I did and decided talking to this.. interesting Princess was a better option. Notable pieces of the room are the tapestries and the torches, which too, will come in later.

But the most notable part of this room is that we can see a shadow looming over her. A few seconds before, the voices had commented on how odd it is that they're missing Smitten- and yet, here he is. But we can't hear him.

Which brings me to the point I want to make here,

Epilogue: Happily Ever After is a role-swapped route.

From here on, The Princess refers to whoever is imprisoned. The Savior refers to whoever is leading them to escape. The Narrator refers to whoever is speaking only to the Savior. Long Quiet, Shifting Mound, and The Echo will be called by their names.

We enter the route in a room with only one door, and a window (or like, 8.) These are the traits of the basement that the princess is locked in. Even in routes such as the Razor where the basement isn't really even truly that, the basement has a view of the outside- just a little bit of its light peeking into the cell. Only one room in the story has one door, and it's the basement. Even the Path in the Woods has a second option, if you're chasing the Stranger princess.

Leaving this room leads us *up* the stairs, as if we were leaving the basement. The Echo can't make his classic "doing her a favor" joke because this time around, the Long Quiet is the one escaping the basement. To further this point, the Shifting Mound is the one who calls out to us from the top of the stairs.

Now the dining room is FULL of points that guide us towards this conclusion, but the first one I noticed is that the room has the traits of the cabin's main room. It has a door in, a way out (obscured by the mirror / narrator / some form of the Long Quiet,) it has the Pristine Blade on a Table, and it has accessories on the walls that fit the theme of the route. As the Shifting Mound this time around is a queen, she has banners and torches and large stone walls.

And not only is the Shifting Mound wielding the pristine blade, but she has a figure looming over her, "controlling" her without being able to control her emotions or how she feels about this place, and describing the place itself. We know this figure is Smitten, but we can't hear him. The Shifting Mound this time has even taken up the Savior's mentality, a timeloop mentality, saying "It'll be perfect if we just do it again," and understanding the narrative's drive and what she's "... supposed to have ever wanted."

So if we're the Princess, and the Shifting Mound is the Savior.. And the Narrator is with *us*.. then one of us has to be with the Savior.

Voice of the Smitten, in the Epilogue: Happily Ever After takes the place of the Narrator.

As you continue your way through a conversation with the Shifting Mound during this route, it's Smitten's perception and dictating of what the environment in the room is like that controls what happens. I mean, the Shifting Mound even goes to directly say, "The Voice that whispers sweet nothings in my ear. I think he made this place for us." Which is the Narrator's entire purpose. External to the chapters themselves is the roles they play in the story, and right now, Smitten is playing the Narrator. Which unfortunately makes him a controlling asshole.

As we whittle through options of dialogue and in fact, options of what to do, from the Shifting Mound's perspective, they can't be repeated. Just the same as the way the Long Quiet experiences when traversing the different routes, options that have already been taken are greyed out. This is why the food "decays", as there's no new result from eating the exact same food. Similarly, the game that the Shifting Mound suggests to stall- questions and options that intend to stall, a very Savior strategy to understand her situation better- decays through its options until she downright says that she has no more ideas.

Funnily enough, through this same sequence we as the Long Quiet experience a very.. Princess experience. Based on the way the Shifting Mound perceives what is said in Chapter 2, we wind up with a different Voice, a different Quality. In my playthrough we wound up buddied with the Opportunist and he took up the deceiving and dangerous qualities, similar to the ways that in Chapters 1 and 2 the perception of the Princess changes her personality and qualities. Trying to get up to leave the table results in us being held down by the shadow, although it's not the same hands that loom over the Shifting Mound. Infact, we're held in place, shackled even, by the wrist. We can't get up and leave until the Savior offers it to us. "That's just how it works here," informs the Shifting Mound. After all, with the Narrator not being on our end, it just seems to be that way.

When she finally offers for us to leave, after we've drained every dialogue option and extinguished every torch, the Shifting Mound is the one who insists we leave. Who puts the possibility of freedom into this world. In a truly Savior moment, she remarks, "We can't sit here forever. That part of us is over." She drives the need for us to leave. And in the process, the Echo realizes that we need to leave, too.

We climb the stairs with our queen. She leads us up them (Savior actionssss) and if you didn't know any better, you could even think that this is an image of heading up stairs. With the light at the end of the stairs and the shadows in our direction, it's not a far call. We see her back as she opens the door.

Importantly, when we reach the top of the staircase, it's her choice of whether we leave or not. Again, Savior things. And if we were the princess in the Damsel route, the narrator would've been quiet for the Savior thing right about now. Should you head outside together, caring for each other and arriving at the end of the route, we still follow what she'd like to do.

So we dance under the stars. Typically the Shifting Mound would have enveloped the vessel by now- like in the Eye of the Needle or the Damsel (original) where the happy ending is cut juuuust short.

Once again, as the Princess of the route we've seen the route in the progression that one usually does. Basement -> Stairs -> Cabin -> Outside. But as the Princess, the Long Quiet no longer decides where the route ends. If you've taken the options to be her companion at this point, you get to dance under the stars with the Shifting Mound, just as she wanted. Only when she considers the route done, when the dance is complete, does the Shifting Mound take away its vessel. Shifty waits for us to get our dance in. :)

Now if you've read all the way through this- holy shit, really???? Wow. I'm honored. But if you have then surely you've gotta be asking this question, too.

What triggered the role-swap?

My running theory is that when we make the choice and perceive the princess and world in a way where the solution is to wait forever, the roles shift then. The minute we take a dialogue option indicating that we could want to stay in the cabin forever, Smitten becomes controlling of the narrative and the Shifting Mound becomes self-determining and the Long Quiet becomes reactionary.

I think the role swap happens in Chapter 2.

...buuut I don't really have much about that! It would break my heart to hurt the Damsel like that again just to pull two or three direct quotes, so if you've got input or something to suggest pleaaaaaase let me know! Or really, just anything! I've been going insane about this for several hours.

thank you!

ps, here's a bonus doodle for making it this far. savior shifting mound and long quiet princess <3

[kurtdotkelly]

why is oppys head so long

why cant you be more like your brother

ALSO!!! . tlq got minimum 4 wings. and we got them ribbon tails!

[vickozone]

🐦‍⬛🔪👑

very rough draft of all of The Voices. their designs will eventually change somewhat.

I’m allowed to draw them as humans, right?

[clodsire-the-random-creature]

Yayyyy paranoid!

[ivydbomb]

Slay the princess how I love you so.

[beartitled]

I need to see the aftermath of Smitten using a blow dryer on Hunted. Fluffy Hunted. Please and thank you

He flüffy

[jelliclesumeccz]

Slay the princess voices p2

[theferralchild]

The Long Quiet

I had so much fun redesigning how I think the Long Quiet and the Hero would look!

[fuck-john-calvin]

so everything in slay the princess is explained to us right. by the end we generally get why everything is so weird. Except for the voices. They never tell us why there are freaking voices in the head talking to us.

but I have a theory.

The Long Quiet is permanence itself. LQ can't change, it would be antithetical. It's against his nature, just like the princess can't stay the same for long. So every time his decisions indicate he's changing, that he might be a different version of the person who woke up on a path in the woods...

He splinters.

This way, while he can listen to the shards, he can't be different. It's always the same person, just taking a different person's advice. The voices themselves don't change either, they're consistent- it's why their names are definitional. Voice of the skeptic, voice of the opportunist- because that's all they are. And they embody that concept, and they cannot be anything else, and if they ever start to be, they break into still smaller pieces.

It's why every time we die we get a new voice. A new voice to represent the new choices we've made, the new person we've been, except because that's not possible, we just 'stack up' instead.

I don't actually know if it works out perfectly but I'm pretty proud of it

[v3nuskae]

One concept I thought would be fun is that the voices (+ narrator) could show up through the TLQ's shadow when they're talking.

So, imagine this...

[swanpyart]

To me, the Voice of the Cold doesn’t strike me as “emotionless and completely logical all of the time,” because a lot of his advice that he gives the Player is GENUINELY illogical or just plain bad decision making: Cold often pushes the Player to make decisions based on impulsive judgements and snap decision-making. The other Voices all call Opportunist flaky and mock how he plays both sides, but Cold often does the same thing, except, instead of trying to appeal to the strongest person in the room to gather any power like Opportunist, Cold is motivated solely by what he thinks would be the most entertaining option, regardless of whether you live, die or suffer. Opportunist tries to at least appear to be a team player, while Cold doesn’t even bother.

In the Spectre Route, Cold’s first suggestions are VERY antagonistic, like trying to kill her a second time, or even just breaking her bones to see if she’ll disappear. But when the Spectre brings up the idea of possessing you, he’s IMMEDIATELY on board just because he wants to see the Narrator and the Spectre interact.

To me, Cold doesn’t feel like logic. He feels like a representation of impulsive thoughts, how he sort of just gives into whatever idea he becomes enamored by from a detached viewpoint of mild curiosity. Whenever he makes a suggestion, it’s interesting to the Player but ultimately detrimental to the Long Quiet’s wellbeing. Listening to Cold gets you more interesting results in the Routes, but also leads you into situations like the Greys, the Wraith, and the Spectre, which are all Routes that inevitably put the Long Quiet into distressing situations.

I feel like if he had his own body he’d be a very detached, disinterested person who only shows interest when something fascinates him, at which point he will ruthlessly try it out even if the consequences are negative for himself or others.

Did I mention he’s one of my favorites? I just love his character lol

[misterbrick42]

Heart. Lungs. Liver. Nerves.

[kurtdotkelly]

So who was gonna talk about her glowup? (I'm so attached to her because shes the first ((and last thing)) I got UGHH stranger beloved)