#stp writing

[tai-janai]

Reunite

Something has gone wrong.

Path 1 - Control

(Chapter Select)

Voice of the Hero:

... Hey?

Voice of the Hero:

Are you alright? Are you... Are we alive?

Voice of the Hero:

Why is everything so quiet? ... Is this the cabin?

This is, indeed, a cabin that you are in. Which one, where, and when is all a little unclear.

Voice of the Hero:

He isn't here... Do you think the Princess is? This isn't like it's supposed to be... I... I think.

You look around. Usually things have to be explained, or else they aren't quite there. But you've been here before, haven't you?

There is an empty doorframe, and a table turned on its side. Something sits on the floor beside it; the echo of something you know is supposed to be there.

Voice of the Hero:

The blade... Right? We're supposed to... Slay... Uhh...

You were made to do something here. Maybe it's already been done. Maybe you were meant to do nothing.

Your body tenses in fear, struck with a sudden wave of anxiety.

Voice of the Hero:

Hey, hey, I can feel that. Don't think that way, it's already stressful enough without the negativity. Surely we're here for a reason... Why else would we be here?

With the voice's pull, you reach for the echo on the floor. It feels like nothing in your hand, but it makes your nerves respond like you're holding something.

Voice of the Hero:

It's something, at least.

Your attention turns to the doorway that leads to the basement. The back of your neck tingles with a strange sensation, like the opposite of the feeling of being watched.

Without a word, you feel the Voice urging you forward, supporting you along the way. Amongst the anxiety, you feel a wave of gratitude, knowing you aren't quite alone.

Voice of the Hero:

Whatever's next is down there, right?

"I'm scared."

Voice of the Hero:

... I'm not going to lie, that's a bit unlike you, but I feel like everything's going to be okay. I think we're supposed to do this.

You gaze into the empty doorframe. It seems like only darkness lies beyond it, but after a moment of your eyes adjusting, vague outlines of stairs flicker in the corners of your view. They aren't there if you focus on them, always showing themselves just beyond your vision.

You step down onto the first stair. Your body responds like it has stepped on something, but your feet don't feel it. After a few seconds, they go numb, as if they can't keep up. You continue forward.

There are strings that give the impression of walls around you; blood-red lines of muscular tissue draped along invisible walls in uneven sprawls. Cobwebs in unseen corners made up of thin threads of skin.

As you descend, the sound of a heartbeat drifts upon your ears, along with the sound of breathing, and a deep gurgle.

Voice of the Hero:

Ok... This is gross. But I'm pretty sure this is all new. ... Is it weird I don't hate it?

"It isn't the worst," you answer the Voice.

Voice of the Hero:

Right? This doesn't feel like it's as bad as it could be. I... can't think of any other time we've done this, though...

The sounds of the heartbeat and breathing grow faster. Whosever they are, heard you.

Voice of the Hero:

D-did we scare them? It? I know we brought the thing thats supposed to be a knife, but that was more for our safety than anything.

You stumble as you reach the bottom of the "stairs," unable to discern the "floor" from them. A Being comes into view.

A single, wide eye stares at you. Two mouths, one under the eye and one on the chest, wince as you are seen. A third mouth on the Being's stomach whispers indiscernibly. There are wisps of protrusions that flutter atop the Being's head as if there were wind in this freakishly still room. There are six arms, not connected by any joints to the main "body," four of which are gripping individual bloody organs. The last two are tangled in a mess of red string, pulling it taught and loosening it absentmindedly, but anxiously. You notice its body is embedded in the floor; everything from the "waist" down is unseen, like the creature was unceremoniously stabbed into the ground.

Around the creature's neck is a familiar sight; A thick chain that attaches to a fleshy wall opposite to the entrance.

It leads you to take in the surrounding room. There are more red strings of muscular tissue hanging across the walls and ceiling, getting more concentrated on the further end. Your feet return from numbness as they feel a solid ground beneath them, the texture reminding you of cold skin. The air is oppressive, but strangely, not uncomfortable.

Voice of the Hero:

What is that thing?

As if it heard the Voice, the Being's eye widens.

You take a step forward.

NO!

The Being's mouths speak over each other. Its arms pull closer to itself, terrified.

Strings from the ceiling fall across your body, like a poor rope trap. They are damp to the touch, and make your skin crawl. It does nothing to physically stop you, but you choose to not get any closer.

After a moment, the Being beckons,

...You.

You say nothing, because it wasn't calling for you.

Voice of the Hero:

... Me?

Suddenly, the strings that fell on you pull taught, dragging you forward, only a few feet from the Being. With less distance, its size is evident as you are only as tall as the Being's chest. You can now hear the third mouth's whispering clearer as it chants a familiar series of organs. Why does it feel like you could chant along with it?

The two other mouths speak together.

Why are you trapped in there? Are you okay? I'll get you out.

Voice of the Hero:

What?

A blinding wave of pain races through you. All you see is white for a moment. It's as if you were struck by lightning.

The creature does as it promised.

When the pain subsides, your vision returns, and you see... you. The other you looks back.

The Hero:

Uh...

With the two of you separated, the Being uses the strings to pull you away. The two of you instinctively reach for each other.

"What..." You begin to ask, the word falling out of your mouth. You fear the answer to anything you could ask. The wet threads strain against your skin. You could cut them with the echo, but you aren't positive that struggling is the best idea.

The Hero:

Why did you do that?

The Other turns to the Being, scared and confused.

You were stuck to him. He is not like us.

He glances back at you.

The Hero:

But... That's me!

You fight uselessly against the tightening strings, reaching again for what once was you. You can no longer move your arms to cut yourself free. The Other grasps at the air in return, going to step forward, but stumbling. It may be you, but it was never in control of a body like this.

It's safe now, I have things under control. He had that knife.

The Hero:

W-we were going to help you. Free you, I think...

The single eye of the creature blinked. It looked down at itself: First, the chain around its neck. Then at where his body was embedded in the floor. The movement is slight, but its grip on the organs in its hands tightens. For a moment, there is only the sound of the heartbeat. Even the chanting stops.

It resumes as the Being replies,

I can't leave. Even if this chain could come off. I have to be here.

In a moment of gentleness, after a pause, the other you fully turns to the creature, placing a reassuring hand on the ones tangled in red nerves. The strings that bind you loosen minutely.

The two mouths that spoke are now just the one as the chest falls silent.

Everything is finally safe. He is there, and we are here.

The Hero:

Did he hurt you?

The Being cannot respond. It doesn't remember. It looks at you, and then it looks through you. Then its eye falls to the bloody strings in two of its hands.

I can't remember a time when I wasn't here, holding these. Keeping everything alive.

The Hero:

Do you want to leave?

No.

The Hero:

Do you think you should?

The creature is quiet again. Some strings enveloping you tighten, while others loosen.

It asks the other a question in a whisper, with something edging on excitement,

What is out there?

The Hero:

I'm not sure. Wouldn't it be nice to know?

It's as if the Being shrinks, now comparable in size to the Other. There is still fear, but there is excitement. Not only is it not alone, but it is promised freedom.

The Hero:

Will you let him let you out?

The single eye squints as it turns to look at you. It says to the Other, the chest-mouth joining in again,

Can't you do it instead?

The Other almost laughs.

The Hero:

I'm not the decisions-guy.

One by one, the vines of meat fall off of you. You take cautious steps towards the Being, the fear lessening, now that it is the same size as you.

You feel dangerous, the mouth on its chest tells you.

"I'm sorry," You tell it, and you are.

The Hero:

He's telling the truth, he's an awful liar.

Hold on, the Being stops you, holding out a hand that gripped a pinkish lump of muscle matter. You stop in your tracks.

Hold these for me, it says to the Other. The four hands holding the organs travel to him, dropping them into his outstretched arms as he grimaces. It sounds wet.

The Hero:

Uhhh yep. Yep, got 'em. Guh.

With four out of six of its hands free, the Being pushes against the ground, using them to lift itself out.

There is the sound of a struggle, then the skin-like texture of whatever the ground was made of, tears. It is loud and gruesome. The Being is fully disconnected from it, and there is no lower half of its body. Its severed midsection floats above the ground, only mildly reacting to what seemed incredibly painful. The loose skin floats in a ghostly manner. Where he was connected to the floor is now uncovered, revealing a shadowy, foggy cloud. You and the Other gawk at the display.

With a shaking sigh, its hands glide back to the other, and take the quivering organs from his arms. The chanting is barely a mumble. You refocus.

Okay, do what you need to do.

There was no trust in yourself, but it was placed in you. Any doubt in your mind clears. You know you can break the chains. You reach for them.

The creature's eye closes, and there is a flurry of feathers, closing in on it, and blinding you. You recoil. There is the sound of chains clinking. They have fallen to the ground. The feathers disperse, and the new figure of the Being is shaped.

It is something shaped like you. Similar to the Other, but altered. It has feathers that are thin from stress, and it has scales that have been picked at and scabbed from habit. It is familiar.

With two eyes now, it blinks at you, testing the waters of what they are now.

The Paranoid:

Oh. That's nice.

The Hero:

No more chains.

The Other smiles warmly, and the new one finds his own.

The Paranoid:

Okay. Sigh. I think I'm sick of being here. Let's... Let's go.

They pass you on unsteady legs, and you follow them to the foot of the stairs. They feel right, but you don't.

"Do you know anything about this?"

The new one stops and looks at you, and their eyebrows furrow.

The Paranoid:

I thought you would. You came to me, after all. I was just stuck in this basement for eternity.

The Hero:

Who put you here?

The new one winces, growing tense at the questioning.

The Paranoid:

You. Him. Something... Like him. I told you, it's been an eternity. I don't know anything. It's just been heart, lungs, liver, nerves, don't die, stay alive, everything's okay now, for as long as I can remember.

He grows more frustrated and afraid, visibly shaking. The Other attempts to soothe him.

The Hero:

Okay, okay, that's fine... Ah...

"I think we have to go."

The Paranoid:

That's what I was trying to do.

The Hero:

No, I... I know what you mean.

The Paranoid:

You're going to leave?

There is a stressed silence. What you have to do becomes clear. The new one doesn't want to be alone again. You hold the echo in your hand.

The Hero:

I'll do it. I'm... I'm not with you anymore, and, I don't want to mess anything up.

The Paranoid:

Sorry for that.

You extend the blade, hilt-first, and the Other takes it. He steps closer. There is barely a breath taken amongst you. You know you have to go.

The Paranoid:

Um. Thank you for freeing me.

He tries to smile for you. The Other gets a good hold on the blade - somehow, now, it seems more physical - and brings it into your heart. He winces, empathetic pain wetting his eyes.

This isn't the end, but the beginning. You will help others. You got him out, but there is more to do.

The Paranoid:

I hope you find what you need to.

Is this what you were brought here for?

You find that ironic as everything goes dark.

[starry-teacup]

recently been thinking about a post I saw pointing out that the primary theme of the nightmare is neglect. she's been left alone down there and told she's a monster and can do nothing but internalize that.

but anyways it's interesting how the two ways to get the moment of clarity are by either running or staying with her.

In running, you come face to face with the damage you have done, and in rejection or denial of your culpability you turn tail and refuse to reap what you sown. It makes her lash out and you are swallowed by her pain for refusing to acknowledge it or your responsibility in it as you reinforce once again that she is a thing to be escaped from.

In staying, however, you recognize what you have done. You see that you hurt her, and seek to remedy it by remaining down here to keep her company- but in your attempt to heal her, you miscalculate just exactly how great her suffering was, and in thinking that it was a thing that you could fix or even bear, you unknowingly dove into the depths with her. You thought her sadness was a shallow creek, and jumped into an ocean of her loneliness and drowned in it.

Either way, you are mocked for your misunderstanding of what it means to be abandoned and to ache as the princess does, and you are forced to realize the entirety of your transgressions the hard way.

rip hero

[saffitaffi]

Cold villains. Elegant, refined, maybe, with disinterested eyes and icy composure. Their breath makes a shiver run down your spine, their freezing fingers following the curve of your neck. The coldness is almost, IS inhuman. A ghost of the past come to haunt you for eternity. A vampire, come to steal the life from your veins and the vigor from your step. A victim of scientific experiment gone horribly, horribly wrong.

Vs

Hot villains. Temperamental, wild, feral, full of barely contained desires and unquenchable rage. Their eyes spark and burn and blaze with all the things they want to do. Are they made of fire, or are they just full of energy? Sweaty and passionate and involved. They would never sit from the sidelines. Their very touch leaves blackened ash in the wake. They are so very angry, and will not back down, even if it might be wiser to.

Which do you prefer?

[salty-an-disco]

This is the story of a man named– wait… you’re not Stanley! And this isn’t–

Hmmm. Well, this is awkward. Wouldn’t you know about a man named Stanley? Works in an office, likes to push buttons– No?

Oh, well, while this isn’t my usual script, it does seem that there is a story to be found here. Isn’t that nice? Oh, and would you look at that– It seems like you’re the hero of it! How fun!

OK, let’s see–

You’re on a path in the woods. And at the ending of that path is a cabin. And in the basement of that cabin is a princess.

You’re here to slay her. If you don’t, it’ll be the end of the world.

Oooohh, concise, but immediately intriguing. With a nice twist of expected roles. I like it!

[bubblybloob]

Do you ever think, in the aftermath of the “what comes next” ending, the Princess sort of relapses from her the whole part of a goddess thing? Here Quiet doesn’t experience it because he never awakened in that ending, but she did, that kind of power has an effect on people, even based women.

[mushroompoisoning]

au where the stanely parable narrator and the slay the princess narrator have swapped places, and are very confused but still trying very hard to adapt to their new situation

[fireflysummers]

Heroes, Gods, and the Invisible Narrator

Slay the Princess as a Framework for the Cyclical Reproduction of Colonialist Narratives in Data Science & Technology

An Essay by FireflySummers

All images are captioned.

Content Warnings: Body Horror, Discussion of Racism and Colonialism

Spoilers for Slay the Princess (2023) by @abby-howard and Black Tabby Games.

If you enjoy this article, consider reading my guide to arguing against the use of AI image generators or the academic article it's based on.

Introduction: The Hero and the Princess

You're on a path in the woods, and at the end of that path is a cabin. And in the basement of that cabin is a Princess. You're here to slay her. If you don't, it will be the end of the world.

Slay the Princess is a 2023 indie horror game by Abby Howard and published through Black Tabby Games, with voice talent by Jonathan Sims (yes, that one) and Nichole Goodnight.

The game starts with you dropped without context in the middle of the woods. But that’s alright. The Narrator is here to guide you. You are the hero, you have your weapon, and you have a monster to slay.

From there, it's the player's choice exactly how to proceed--whether that be listening to the voice of the narrator, or attempting to subvert him. You can kill her as instructed, or sit and chat, or even free her from her chains.

It doesn't matter.

Regardless of whether you are successful in your goal, you will inevitably (and often quite violently) die.

And then...

You are once again on a path in the woods.

The cycle repeats itself, the narrator seemingly none the wiser. But the woods are different, and so is the cabin. You're different, and worse... so is she.

Based on your actions in the previous loop, the princess has... changed. Distorted.

Had you attempted a daring rescue, she is now a damsel--sweet and submissive and already fallen in love with you.

Had you previously betrayed her, she has warped into something malicious and sinister, ready to repay your kindness in full.

But once again, it doesn't matter.

Because the no matter what you choose, no matter how the world around you contorts under the weight of repeated loops, it will always be you and the princess.

Why? Because that’s how the story goes.

So says the narrator.

So now that we've got that out of the way, let's talk about data.

Chapter I: Echoes and Shattered Mirrors

The problem with "data" is that we don't really think too much about it anymore. Or, at least, we think about it in the same abstract way we think about "a billion people." It's gotten so big, so seemingly impersonal that it's easy to forget that contemporary concept of "data" in the west is a phenomenon only a couple centuries old [1].

This modern conception of the word describes the ways that we translate the world into words and numbers that can then be categorized and analyzed. As such, data has a lot of practical uses, whether that be putting a rover on mars or tracking the outbreak of a viral contagion. However, this functionality makes it all too easy to overlook the fact that data itself is not neutral. It is gathered by people, sorted into categories designed by people, and interpreted by people. At every step, there are people involved, such that contemporary technology is embedded with systemic injustices, and not always by accident.

The reproduction of systems of oppression are most obvious from the margins. In his 2019 article As If, Ramon Amaro describes the Aspire Mirror (2016): a speculative design project by by Joy Buolamwini that contended with the fact that the standard facial recognition algorithm library had been trained almost exclusively on white faces. The simplest solution was to artificially lighten darker skin-tones for the algorithm to recognize, which Amaro uses to illustrate the way that technology is developed with an assumption of whiteness [2].

This observation applies across other intersections as well, such as trans identity [3], which has been colloquially dubbed "The Misgendering Machine" [4] for its insistence on classifying people into a strict gender binary based only on physical appearance.

This has also popped up in my own research, brought to my attention by the artist @b4kuch1n who has spoken at length with me about the connection between their Vietnamese heritage and the clothing they design in their illustrative work [5]. They call out AI image generators for reinforcing colonialism by stripping art with significant personal and cultural meaning of their context and history, using them to produce a poor facsimile to sell to the highest bidder.

All this describes an iterative cycle which defines normalcy through a white, western lens, with a limited range of acceptable diversity. Within this cycle, AI feeds on data gathered under colonialist ideology, then producing an artifact that reinforces existing systemic bias. When this data is, in turn, once again fed to the machine, that bias becomes all the more severe, and the range of acceptability narrower [2, 6].

Luciana Parisi and Denise Ferreira da Silva touch on a similar point in their article Black Feminist Tools, Critique, and Techno-poethics but on a much broader scale. They call up the Greek myth of Prometheus, who was punished by the gods for his hubris for stealing fire to give to humanity. Parisi and Ferreira da Silva point to how this, and other parts of the “Western Cosmology” map to humanity’s relationship with technology [7].

However, while this story seems to celebrate the technological advancement of humanity, there are darker colonialist undertones. It frames the world in terms of the gods and man, the oppressor and the oppressed; but it provides no other way of being. So instead the story repeats itself, with so-called progress an inextricable part of these two classes of being. This doesn’t bode well for visions of the future, then–because surely, eventually, the oppressed will one day be the machines [7, 8].

It’s… depressing. But it’s only really true, if you assume that that’s the only way the story could go.

“Stories don't care who takes part in them. All that matters is that the story gets told, that the story repeats. Or, if you prefer to think of it like this: stories are a parasitical life form, warping lives in the service only of the story itself.” ― Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad

Chapter II: The Invisible Narrator

So why does the narrator get to call the shots on how a story might go? Who even are they? What do they want? How much power do they actually have?

With the exception of first person writing, a lot of the time the narrator is invisible. This is different from an unreliable narrator. With an unreliable narrator, at some point the audience becomes aware of their presence in order for the story to function as intended. An invisible narrator is never meant to be seen.

In Slay the Princess, the narrator would very much like to be invisible. Instead, he has been dragged out into the light, because you (and the inner voices you pick up along the way), are starting to argue with him. And he doesn’t like it.

Despite his claims that the princess will lie and cheat in order to escape, as the game progresses it’s clear that the narrator is every bit as manipulative–if not moreso, because he actually knows what’s going on. And, if the player tries to diverge from the path that he’s set before them, the correct path, then it rapidly becomes clear that he, at least to start, has the power to force that correct path.

While this is very much a narrative device, the act of calling attention to the narrator is important beyond that context. 

The Hero’s Journey is the true monomyth, something to which all stories can be reduced. It doesn’t matter that the author, Joseph Campbell, was a raging misogynist whose framework flattened cultures and stories to fit a western lens [9, 10]. It was used in Star Wars, so clearly it’s a universal framework.

The metaverse will soon replace the real world and crypto is the future of currency! Never mind that the organizations pushing it are suspiciously pyramid shaped. Get on board or be left behind.

Generative AI is pushed as the next big thing. The harms it inflicts on creatives and the harmful stereotypes it perpetuates are just bugs in the system. Never mind that the evangelists for this technology speak over the concerns of marginalized people [5]. That’s a skill issue, you gotta keep up.

Computers will eventually, likely soon, advance so far as to replace humans altogether. The robot uprising is on the horizon [8]. 

Who perpetuates these stories? What do they have to gain?

Why is the only story for the future replications of unjust systems of power? Why must the hero always slay the monster?

Because so says the narrator. And so long as they are invisible, it is simple to assume that this is simply the way things are.

Chapter III: The End...?

This is the part where Slay the Princess starts feeling like a stretch, but I’ve already killed the horse so I might as well beat it until the end too.

Because what is the end result here?

According to the game… collapse. A recursive story whose biases narrow the scope of each iteration ultimately collapses in on itself. The princess becomes so sharp that she is nothing but blades to eviscerate you. The princess becomes so perfect a damsel that she is a caricature of the trope. The story whittles itself away to nothing. And then the cycle begins anew.

There’s no climactic final battle with the narrator. He created this box, set things in motion, but he is beyond the player’s reach to confront directly. The only way out is to become aware of the box itself, and the agenda of the narrator. It requires acknowledgement of the artificiality of the roles thrust upon you and the Princess, the false dichotomy of hero or villain.

Slay the Princess doesn’t actually provide an answer to what lies outside of the box, merely acknowledges it as a limit that can be overcome. 

With regards to the less fanciful narratives that comprise our day-to-day lives, it’s difficult to see the boxes and dichotomies we’ve been forced into, let alone what might be beyond them. But if the limit placed is that there are no stories that can exist outside of capitalism, outside of colonialism, outside of rigid hierarchies and oppressive structures, then that limit can be broken [12].

Denouement: Doomed by the Narrative

Video games are an interesting artistic medium, due to their inherent interactivity. The commonly accepted mechanics of the medium, such as flavor text that provides in-game information and commentary, are an excellent example of an invisible narrator. Branching dialogue trees and multiple endings can help obscure this further, giving the player a sense of genuine agency… which provides an interesting opportunity to drag an invisible narrator into the light.

There are a number of games that have explored the power differential between the narrator and the player (The Stanley Parable, Little Misfortune, Undertale, Buddy.io, OneShot, etc…)

However, Slay the Princess works well here because it not only emphasizes the artificial limitations that the narrator sets on a story, but the way that these stories recursively loop in on themselves, reinforcing the fears and biases of previous iterations. 

Critical data theory probably had nothing to do with the game’s development (Abby Howard if you're reading this, lmk). However, it works as a surprisingly cohesive framework for illustrating the ways that we can become ensnared by a narrative, and the importance of knowing who, exactly, is narrating the story. Although it is difficult or impossible to conceptualize what might exist beyond the artificial limits placed by even a well-intentioned narrator, calling attention to them and the box they’ve constructed is the first step in breaking out of this cycle.

“You can't go around building a better world for people. Only people can build a better world for people. Otherwise it's just a cage.” ― Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad

Epilogue

If you've read this far, thank you for your time! This was an adaptation of my final presentation for a Critical Data Studies course. Truthfully, this course posed quite a challenge--I found the readings of philosophers such as Kant, Adorno, Foucault, etc... difficult to parse. More contemporary scholars were significantly more accessible. My only hope is that I haven't gravely misinterpreted the scholars and researchers whose work inspired this piece.

I honestly feel like this might have worked best as a video essay, but I don't know how to do those, and don't have the time to learn or the money to outsource.

Slay the Princess is available for purchase now on Steam.

Screencaps from ManBadassHero Let's Plays: [Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4] [Part 5] [Part 6]

Post Dividers by @cafekitsune

Citations:

Rosenberg, D. (2018). Data as word. Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences, 48(5), 557-567.

Amaro, Ramon. (2019). As If. e-flux Architecture. Becoming Digital. https://www.e-flux.com/architecture/becoming-digital/248073/as-if/

What Ethical AI Really Means by PhilosophyTube

Keyes, O. (2018). The misgendering machines: Trans/HCI implications of automatic gender recognition. Proceedings of the ACM on human-computer interaction, 2(CSCW), 1-22.

Allred, A.M., Aragon, C. (2023). Art in the Machine: Value Misalignment and AI “Art”. In: Luo, Y. (eds) Cooperative Design, Visualization, and Engineering. CDVE 2023. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 14166. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43815-8_4

Amaro, R. (2019). Artificial Intelligence: warped, colorful forms and their unclear geometries.

Parisisi, L., Ferreira da Silva, D. Black Feminist Tools, Critique, and Techno-poethics. e-flux. Issue #123. https://www.e-flux.com/journal/123/436929/black-feminist-tools-critique-and-techno-poethics/

AI - Our Shiny New Robot King | Sophie from Mars by Sophie From Mars

Joseph Campbell and the Myth of the Monomyth | Part 1 by Maggie Mae Fish

Joseph Campbell and the N@zis | Part 2 by Maggie Mae Fish

How Barbie Cis-ified the Matrix by Jessie Gender

[justsalpals]

I'm never gonna be over how much I love the adversary. Never.

"Best three minutes of my life." The fact she doesn't even care about getting out anymore. It doesn't matter. There's nothing else. There's you and her and the fight. The pain. The struggle. The ripping and tearing and feral glee. Pushing your knife further into her arm as if you could skewer her through it. The Stubborn growling in your face to Get Up. The narrator's spiraling helplessness. The perfect execution of the "the princess can't die" sequence. She goes down. You go down. She crushes your windpipe, you twist your blade into her heart, you crack each other open and rip away at each other until your insides coat the floor.

And then you

Get

Up

You keep fighting. There's nothing else. Your rabid grins are stained with blood.

This is a love story.

If I ever write actual fic for the game focussing on one route in particular, it HAS to be the adversary. No contest.

[artificial-radiance]

I have been plotting and writing instead of drawing for this au, whoops

Plain Text:

Chapter 1: The Runaway and the Warden

You are in a cabin on a hill. From your cabin is a path through the woods, and within those woods is your monstrous warden. You are escaping, and avoiding him is your best course of action.

You are currently in the basement, which is sparsely decorated, save for a window above your orderly bed, a small table on your bedside, and a staircase leading up to the main room of the cabin and, subsequently, the way out.

`[A]` -- *(Explore)* What do you mean by monstrous..?

`[B]` -- *(Explore)* Why would I even be kept here? What do I need a warden for?

`[C]` -- *(Explore)* Why should I avoid him?

`[D]` -- *(Explore)* I should probably be prepared for something like this.

`[E]` -- *(Explore)* The basement, really? What am I, a jobless young adult living with their parents?

`[F]` -- Oh, thanks for the recap *[Go up the stairs]*

`[G]` -- Guess I should just go then? *[Go up the stairs]*

`[H]` -- *[Quietly go up the stairs]*

`[I]` -- I mean, I could always just stay put? No harm in that. *[Stay put]*

[lipstickchainsaw]

The Pristine Blade

I've played a whole lot more of Slay the Princess, and it is excellent, but I've been wondering, why the 'Pristine Blade'?

Obviously it represents the power you have over the Princess in the dynamic, and how that dynamic develops over the chapters depending on your relationship to that power (see the achievement you get for handing the Blade to the Witch: Past Life Gambit, Hand your power to a suspicious character), but why a Pristine Blade?

Most of the voices are happy to call it a knife, or a dagger, or whatever else, or even ask for different weapons, but the Narrator is insistent on calling it the Pristine Blade, every time, which does make sense. It is one of the few constants in these scenarios, next to you, the Hero, the Princess, the Woods (most of the time), and the Cabin. As with those others, it was made fit for purpose by the Creator, perhaps with some details filled in by the Long Quiet's conceptions of reality (one aspect sure is, but we'll get to that).

What is the Pristine Blade?

For this, I'm going back to my Otherverse roots (hi, StP fans, read Pact and Pale), and analysing this as an Implement, which is what the Narrator explicitly refers to it as.

First off, it is a knife. Knives have purposes beyond enacting violence, but this particular one is a knife made for killing, there can be no doubt about that. You can still use it for other purposes, of course (like cutting the Thorn free), but showing up with it still marks you as a killer (and the Princess responds as such).

Secondly, it's small, which means it can, in fact, be hidden. The Opportunist is the only voice to consider this, but it is an important aspect, since it has its effects on you even if not showing it visibly.

Thirdly, it's small. This means that, to do its job, you need to get close and personal. You cannot keep your distance (which is why several voices wish you had something better) and, while it's suggested, in the Nightmare route, that you can throw it, in practice, the Paranoid can only do so much to keep your body functioning, and that kind of dexterity isn't part of it.

This makes it an intimate weapon, which sure is fitting for the dynamic between you and the Princess. Every time you use it, or choose not to, you are saying something about this relationship, and influencing how you both develop in the wake of the cycle of violence and revenge it enables.

But that doesn't explain the insistent terminology.

Why 'Pristine'?

The Pristine Blade is something implanted into the Construct by the Creator, it exists in every reality, and every iteration of the Narrator expects it to be in the Cabin even when it isn't, and every time, it is Pristine.

It is always perfect, almost the platonic ideal of a dagger, cutting through anything except the Razor (including bone!) with ease and it, too, is temporaly 'sticky'.

When you move from one chapter to the next, the scenario the Construct is running resets, except for you and the Hero (and whatever other voice you've picked up), the Princess (and the changes wrought upon her), and the Pristine Blade. And the Pristine Blade, too, remembers what happened, where it's supposed to be:

If you died with it in hand, or having it forcibly taken from you, it will be right where the Narrator expects it to be in the chapter after, but if you gave it to the Princess, either by actually giving it to her, like in the Witch route, or having it fulfill its purpose by stabbing her heart (and boy, there's a metaphor), it will be with her in the chapter after.

But even if the scenario itself states ages have past, the Pristine Blade is still that, Pristine.

Because it is unchanging. It will never be anything other than Pristine. It is, in some sense, stagnant, a constant. In short, it is the Long Quiet's weapon.

The Long Quiet's Weapon

The Long Quiet was created to slay the Shifting Mound, to end death, by putting a stop to change, transformation in all sense, and thereby ridding the world of doom, of the cycle of life and death.

And the weapon to do this is the platonic ideal of intimate violence. A constant, never changing, in this relationship.

Yes, in part this is because the Shifting Mound and the Long Quiet were once one, and their split wasn't perfect, so each carries a kernel of the other within themselves, but how delightfully ironic for stagnant violence to be the thing intended to destroy change in order to kill death. What a perfect encapsulation of the futility of the Creator's mission.

In the final confrontation, the Shifting Mound tries to convince you to join her by pointing out how you are both so familiar with the cycle of violence and revenge, and clearly this means she's speaking your language, and maybe she is.

But she doesn't have to be, because at almost every juncture, you could choose to leave the Pristine Blade behind, or wield it not to be violent. And every time you choose to leave the cycle of violence and revenge behind, to choose not to have power over the Princess, or at least use it with respect to her, it changes things, and it changes them for the better.

[tai-janai]

would anyone be interested in this

[stim-burrow]

TSP and STP narrators plz :33

gold n black, books, crows

HEHE YESS I'm so glad you asked for this I love these two so much. TSP & STP Narrator's stimboard for Dragongold14! 🌱

🪶 🪶 🪶 👓 👓 👓

📖 📖 📖

[sage-writes-n-coins-mogai]

The Shifting Mound is an abrosexual pangender entity and uses all pronouns though favours they/them

They are married to The Long Quiet who is a pansexual agender creature and uses he/it/they pronouns

They’re both DID systems.

I don’t usually explain my headcanons but this explanation is a headcanon in of itself so here I go! When the Narrator split them, The Shifting Mound took all the gender and being everything and anything, they’re all the genders, while the Long Quiet has no gender at all. The Long Quiet loves The Shifting Mound in all their multitudes, regardless of what gender they are, which is ever changing and shifting just like them, straight, gay, bi, ace, they’re all and none of those things, containing each in their multitudes.

And then the DID part should be pretty obvious lol

[salty-an-disco]

Thinking about the mirror

How much it scares the voice. How the Narrator can’t see it

Thinking about self-reflection

How scary it can be, to pick yourself apart and look at all your pieces individually. How necessary it is, if you want to know yourself

How to reflect, you need to be able to percieve. An Echo can’t perceive

How once you touch it, it’s just You and Her, on top of the cabin. Reflecting your own pieces at each other. Getting to know each other

It’s calm. It’s peaceful. Both your minds are quieter. You can rest, you can reflect

Just You and Her. Two being that only came into existence. Two beings that barely know themselves or each other. Two beings that recognized themselves on each other

The current route ended. You saw yourself; you’ve grown, you decayed, you unraveled, you became nothing at all

Time to reflect

[bubblybloob]

Stubborn, Skeptic, and Contrarian bonding over reading poetry? Maybe Adversary too? Poetry club! :D

(Inspired by that scene in Adversary where Player can be all dramatic like ‘write music notes with our blood!’ or smth like that and both Stubby and Addy get emotional, and that one scene in StrangerReset ending where where she describes the warmth she feels and Contra gets emotional)

(Also I feel like Skeptic would love interpreting poetry)

I don’t know why this one took so long, nor why it took so much out of me. Either way it’s a cute concept!

Adversary is reconsidering her life decisions talking to Contrarian, and Stubborn is overwhelmed by whatever rant Skeptic has subjected him to.

Some writing below

“You know…” Stubborn shifted, looking at Adversary as she huffed, placing her chin into her open palm. “What the main bird said makes me want to learn how to write poetry.”

Stubborn nodded. “Me too, but I’m no good at anything of that caliber, that’s the thespian and plank of wood’s thing.”

Adversary squinted, seemingly at nothing, before turning to him. “Maybe…”

“No.”

“Oh why not!” She says, more of an accusation than a question. “You say they’re annoying-“

“Insufferable.”

“-but it can’t be that hard to learn more in depth writing! It’s like- it’s like punching things, yeah? You just- do it.” She gestures with a quick punch of her own, leaving a large, fist imprint in the now broken wall. Oof, Tower will be raging up a storm when she sees the damage.

“Don’t ask me!”

“Then let’s go ask them.”

“No! Skeptic stops speaking any understandable form of English after mere minutes, and Contrarian is just flat annoying.”

“Yes!”

“I won’t budge on this.”

“And what makes you think I will either?”

—

Ultimately their argument would lead to a fight filled with broken horns and ripped feathers. In a moment where his balance was thrown, Stubborn’s scruff would be grabbed; no longer could he easily reach her to pry her off of him, not with his nails dragging down her arm at such an awkward angle. Adversary was forced to drag the fired up bird to the last two faces he wanted to see.

“Ohohoho! What’s this then?”

“Well isn’t this a curious sight.”

Agony, agony was what this was, and agony he’d have to endure for the next few hours of his life.

—

Dunno what this was. It’s short and pretty shit, but I felt kind of bad after not posting art for a while. So there’s some of my writing, eat or starve.

[starsfic]

"Locked in that basement, is a prince. Your job is to slay him."

"You're on a path in the woods. And at the end of that path is a cabin."

She had no idea who she was.

She had no idea where she was.

But she stood at the path.

It was dark. The sky was the dark of a new moon, with the stars barely visible in the sky, but she could still see the path leading up, deeper into the shadows. She gripped her rough skirt. It was slightly chilly and she could feel the roughness of her hands.

"And in that basement of that cabin is a prince." She gave a nod. A prince. Okay. "You're here to slay him." Wait. "If you don't, it will be the end of the world."

"What?" Her voice croaked. Her lips and throat were dry, as if she had never spoken a single word before. "What do you mean, the end of the world?"

The voice in her head sighed. "I'm talking about the end of everything as we know it." Some part of her burned at his tone, like he was talking to a small child. She had no idea who she was, but she knew she was not a small child. "-you have to put an end to him."

"Alright."

It was not. She had more questions. But the voice's tone was enough to make her decide to not ask it. Instead, she began to walk.

The path was an easy walk up. Soon enough, a small wooden cabin appeared. Light lit the windows, but she could not see anyone moving inside.

"You'll find the prince within."

Before she could respond, scoff and answer back that she knew that, something stirred in the back of her mind. "We're not going to go through with this, right? He's a prince. He's supposed to save us, we're not supposed to slay him."

Before she could respond, again, the first voice interrupted. "Ignore her. She doesn't know what she is talking about."

She continued forward.

The door creaked open, revealing a small room. "The interior of the cabin is almost entirely bare. The air is stale and musty..." She looked around. A gleam of silver made her look forward. Next to the door, sitting on a table "-Is a pristine blade." She stepped forward, reaching for the silver blade. "The blade is your implement." Some part of her wanted to scream, refuse, point out issues like the second voice tried, but she still picked it up. "You'll need it if you want to do this right."

The basement door creaked open.

She descended.