#the cold stp

[pyxehastoomanyinterests]

(i know it’s “heart, lungs, liver, nerves”, i just drew that after i first ever saw it and i. forgor)

some rough doodles for stp!! new hyperfixation, i love Doomed Yuri The Game:]

[sop-soap]

I couldn’t pick a normal character to be my silly little blorbo this time around it has to be the disembodied voice representing apathy

[ace-robot-has-matcha]

Okay so I saw @0xeyedaisy’s designs for the Voices and since I already did a hero/player design I thought I could make the others, why not. Um I did take some influence from their designs but I tried to give them my own spin. My favorite of these are probably the Broken, the Hunted, and the Skeptic

Btw I think all the designs I’ve seen for the bird guy are awesome

[anniflamma]

I made some quick doodles of the rest of the voices! Just wanted an excuse to draw Opportunist again… and I added Smitten, based on his shadow and his smile from the Happily Ever After route.

[pristineblade]

The way that we get to see what some of the voices Look like is making me feel insane

[bubblybloob]

I find it very funny that supposedly every time our voices bicker and argue, the princess is just left there, totally unaware.

She seemingly acknowledges this too! After a while of back and forth in our mind, she’ll pipe up because she’s noticed we’ve gotten lost in our thoughts. She must think we have trouble with zoning out. She’s not necessarily wrong, I guess.

[aquapede]

the voices in some god's head

[artibirdi]

[itsonlypolite]

Replayed the Drowned Grey Route recently and it always makes me laugh a bit at how long we stand in the pouring rain for that route

[toon-topaz]

Finally finished an animation I've spent around 2 months on

[coldranger]

A simple cold cabin.

[dr-awkkward]

Slay the Princess text posts, part 15 (in celebration of the Pristine Cut's release!)

[part 14] [part 16]

[sop-soap]

Bringing the Cold into the Fury route genuinely fucks me up

In the end, both of them just want to feel something. Anything.

They have such an interesting dynamic. The tormentor and the one voice who will never break. The pieces that remain after desecration, after losing the ability to feel.

And if you kill her??? He finally feels something??? Literally Fuck Off !! He found somebody like him!!! He sympathized with someone!!!!! For the first time!!!!!!!

'I felt that too, a little. Isn't that something' just shoot me atp

[bridge-arsonist]

Why The Voice Of The Cold Hates The Narrator

Replaying the Nightmare -> Wraith route and I'm realizing...

Jesus fucking christ, The Cold hates the narrator. Honestly, I think he might just give Smitten or Contrarian a run for their money.

He:

Doubts every word the narrator speaks

Insults the narrator whenever he gets the chance

Actively suggests killing the narrator, even stating that the princess could help do that

Not only suggests killing the narrator, but also suggests that—no—actually, death is too good for the guy. They should lock the narrator in a void just like the fake good ending. Mind you, this route doesn't even have the narrator do that!

Mocks the narrator when he finally gives up on trying to make you slay the princess

Seems happy that the narrator is gone, saying he had a feeling The Wraith could deal with him

I'm pretty sure Cold over here'd rather be playing Slay The Narrator.

Really though, upon further reflection, The Cold's hatred for The Narrator is also prevalent in The Spectre, where one of the few things he actually seems to have a firm stance on is "We should kill the Narrator". In the Greys, though he's arguably at his most nihilistic, he still seems to oppose the Narrator. He joins the Skeptic in his suspicions, and though he mostly just seems to be having a time provoking Smitten during the Burned Grey, he still does take the occasional second to spite the Narrator.

And honestly, come to think about it, it makes sense. After all, the Cold manifests not necessarily from slaying the Princess, but more specifically, from killing yourself. But not just from killing yourself, slaying yourself in The Tower at the hands of the Broken doesn't manifest him, but specifically by killing yourself to spite the narrator. I mean, other than Empty Cup and Moment of Clarity (Where we don't actually know how he manifested due to the timeskips), each iteration of Cold's manifestation checks out.

Spectre: You slay her, get the good ending, but then decide "fuck this and fuck your contruct", and stab yourself even as the narrator repeatedly urges you not to.

Burned Grey: You kill the Damsel, and in a fit of rage against both you and the narrator, the Smitten kills you, even as the narrator urges him not to. (Funnily enough, this means that, despite the Smitten's line of "you killed her, and so I killed you", it was the opposite, and the Smitten manifested the Cold)

Drowned Grey: You kill the Prisoner, and, just like in the Spectre's route, you kill yourself even as the Narrator urges you not to. If you refuse to kill yourself, Skeptic does it for you, seeming apologetic towards you, but definitely not towards The Narrator.

Wraith: You kill yourself as the Narrator urges you not to, and Paranoid also spends this route doubting the Narrator.

These routes involve various levels of emotion for the Princess, ranging from "My love! Still gonna kill you though" to "So scary! Still gonna kill you though", and an overall perception of the Princess as a corpse. But the Narrator? In all of the routes leading up to Cold's manifestation, the Narrator is met with hostility, usually leading to you killing yourself out of a mix of spite and suspicion.

So Cold's manifestation has two constants:

Some level of apathy towards the Princess, regardless of your previous interactions with her. Whether she's your perfect damsel or your worst nightmare, you don't care. You stab her.

Disregard for your own safety. You're just going to stab yourself, cool. It's better than this hell. Sometimes it's another voice fulfilling this requirement for you, like Smitten in the Damsel, or Skeptic in Prisoner depending on whether or not you willingly die.

Distaste towards the narrator. A conclusion that the Narrator is untrustworthy and distinctly not on your side. No matter how you manifest the Cold, it is clear that you do not like this pesky raven one bit. The Nightmater -> Wraith route shows this through Paranoid's constant suspicion of the Narrator. This distaste frequently, thought not always, occurs due to the Narrator attempting to force you to live out your life in the void, though it can also occur due to the Narrator attempting to make you live a life without the one thing you cherish (Damsel route).

Apathy towards most things, but one thing's for certain: You don't trust that Narrator guy. He tried to make you live out a crappy, boring life for eternity.

Cold's attitude makes sense when you look at how he was created. Just like Smitten was made by deciding the princess was an immediately trustworthy damsel in need of rescuing from the pesky narrator, or that the witch is a gorgeous woman whom you can save by giving your blade in spite of the narrator's wishes—Cold is made through deciding that neither your nor the princess's safety particularly matters, but fuck that narrator guy. He sucks. As apathetic as the Cold likes to act, he reacts to Smitten's threats and the Princess's murder attempts with "interesting", and reacts to the Narrator's explanation of the timeline with "we should kill him".

So, my point?

Well, I think that—not only does the Cold hate the Narrator—but hating the Narrator is part of him as a voice. He's cold, apathetic, and he hates the Narrator. It's been baked into his very being through the choices that you make. The princess doesn't matter, your physical well-being doesn't matter, but know that the Narrator is an untrustworthy little prick.

TLDR: Replaying Wraith made me realize that the Cold probably hates the Narrator very very much, and he does so because it is baked into his very being because of the choices you made to manifest him. You go, king. Let your inner hater run free.

[lovelylittlewordsmith]

I don't think we can heart lungs liver nerves our way out of this one boys

[dobodleaday]

08.01.24 A Shadowed Silence