#voice of the cheated

[incorrect-slaytheprincess]

Narrator: But you must swear-

Cheated: Fuck!

Narrator: Promise. Swear as in promise. There's a difference.

[salty-an-disco]

*stumbles onto the stage, barely being able to keep standing as I grab the microphone*

I did it. They all have wings (and some tails) now

(you can’t see Para’s cus she keeps them hidden)

*falls over and dies*

[baneful-passion-projects]

hear me out: cheated and stubborn being siblings. stubs is the older one and is always pestering cheated. god help him.

[swanpyart]

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

[bubblybloob]

Skeptic wants no part in this.

I don’t know if this meme has a name, but I felt like doing it with the voices. I think it’s funny how you can literally see how I draw them change slightly over the course of the drawings, the hands especially.

[birdmitosis]

Giving the Razor The Look in Chapter III: No Way Out specifically is very, very funny IMO because Contrarian will straight-up call either Broken or Paranoid out, depending on which of them you have with you:

ETA: Though there's also this if you flirt with her in Chapter III: The Arms Race specifically with Stubborn:

Cheated doesn't get this specific line anywhere other than in response to Stubborn's line here, which is kind of interesting!

[lovelylittlewordsmith]

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

[tai-janai]

the voice of the cheated is such a particular specimen to me. he seems so angry but its rarely at another voice. all the other voices will constantly bicker or just be angry or sad, but in the route of the razor, cheated does not want to be alone, he wants people with him. Comparing him to some of the angrier voices: Stubborn, Cold, even Paranoid; no others have brought them all together against their common enemy. No one else has relinquished control and "emptied the glass" for the sake of success. He cares so much about fairness and so little about power or superiority. He doesn't tell the others to be quiet, he tells them to do all they can against the Razor. Hurt people may hurt people but strong people heal people. He is so special but he feels so overlooked despite being the foil to such a beloved route.

[toon-topaz]

Very rough outline for an animatic lol

[torazii]

The next batch of stop voice designs! The first batch of Narrator, Slayer, Hero, Stubborn & Contrarian are here

DESIGNS OF SKEPTIC, OPPORTUNIST, PARANOID & BROKEN MADE BY MY FRIEND @ieilaf >>HER DESIGNS HERE<<

Smitten is based off of king of saxony, part of bird-of-paradise family which are iconic for their courtship displays.

Thank you to mew mew on discord for her idea that cheated being the bleeding-heart dove ( twitter : @Mewmew_dream )

Hunted is a siskin, small finches hunted by predators.

[dampfur]

More voice designs!

Part 1 of voices/Part 3 of voices

[voiceoftheexultant]

i can just imagine cheated being STUPIDLY unlucky. shoelaces getting caught in an elevator door typa unlucky. bro never catches a break 😭

[cookiealchemieart]

Voices and the Hero I DID IT I FUCKING FINISHED THIS PIECE YEAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!! I have Thoughts about my designs for these guys so uh Design Notes under the cut!

I'm bad at drawing actual birds (if the narrator on the hero's shoulder is any indication) so I went with the next best thing that I'm better at: plague doctors! Plus plague masks are just fun to draw. I tried making each of the voices match the princess they correspond to, but it got tricky with a couple of them. In no particular order, here we go! The Hero is a bird guy with a bird mask. Perhaps the mask is meant to keep his identity locked away? Either way, the outfit is more shapes than actual fabric, similar to the Princess' gown. Simple enough to register as clothes, but vague enough to change and be recognizable as the loops splinter. Also the cape is hims wings! The Broken is made to be the wettest, most pathetic little guy, but also ever so slightly like a priest. This is to reference the Tower (mommy- I mean mommy- I mean-) saying that the hero's place by her side is "that of a priest, or a pet". So I made him look like a depressed little priest. The Skeptic is the voice that joins you on the route of the Prisoner, so what would be more fitting than a warden? Or maybe an escaped convict? Either way I love his little ponytail poking out of his hood. The Hunted looks like a feral wild child. Feather-hair out and messy, cloak made of scraps of fabric. I figured the most wild looking of the voices would be the one that corresponds to the Beast. The Smitten is all puffy and soft shapes to match the Damsel's rufflier dress and softer appearance. Also my friends recommended the hat and I agree 11/10 would hat again. Gave him a bowtie AND a cravat because the Smitten strikes me as just that extra! The Opportunist's beak is meant to resemble a parrot's, as he just parrots the ideas of whomever he considers to be "winning". This is also why he's dressed like a businessman. He kinda looks like a villain version of the Smitten, but I haven't played the Thorn's route yet, so idk if that's relevant. Also isn't this guy the only voice that doesn't show up in the Chapter 2 routes or am I forgetting one? The Stubborn has demon horns to match the Adversary (and the Eye of the Needle HOOGH MAMA). He's also got battle damage, and his mask is fashioned to look like he has a wounded and scarred eye. Fun fact! Stubborn was supposed to get the ponytail, but I decided while lining that a half cut looked better. The Cold looks the most similar to the Hero, but he's just a bit less put together. While I was drawing his hair I was thinking of L from Deathnote for some reason? Probably the cadence the Cold has. The Cheated is supposed to look like a gambler, given his title and speaking patterns. There...wasn't a good way to pair him with the Razor, but I suppose the spade on his cheek could be seen as a nod to the razor's blades? I dunno, I'm reaching here. The Paranoid suffers from my lack of impulse control when it comes to giving characters goggles. I fucking love steampunk goggles. Much like the Cold, he looks like a less-put-together Hero, but this one is a mess, actively having a panic attack, but is pushing through it because NEITHER THE HERO OR THE NARRATOR IS FUCKING HELPING. Also the stitches on his mask are meant to mirror the cracks on the Nightmare's mask. The Contrarian has a mask with three beaks as a mirror to the Stranger's three heads, but also because the two on his head make him look like a little jester and I felt that was fitting for this smartass. His cape is asymmetrical to spite the status quo.

I hope you enjoyed my art + rambles about these designs. I love doing this!

[starry-teacup]

people will be mean to cheated bc he's ragey or complaining a lot but c'mon man he definitionally cannot exist unless he is wronged in a way that leads to his demise. Like. Of course he's gonna be complaining bc in a world where he doesn't deserve to be he doesn't exist

[bubblybloob]

There they all are in their feathery glory!

Explanations below

I didn’t want to do anything flashy for The Long Quiet, so I just gave him a simple scarf.

The Voice of The Hero I took a lot from my original design, I also kinda fused a cape with his wings? He can still fly? It’s just weird.

The Contrarian I gave a jester look, with a funky collar and some eye makeup

The Broken was one of the most interesting and fun. His wings have been cut off and his nails are broken beyond repair, as a representation of his lack of agency and readiness to hand his life over. He’s dressed in raggedy clothes with chains that he just can’t seem to pull off.

The Smitten wears a flashy, short cape, and flowers tend to bloom from his eyes and ears, he is blind and deaf to all but his love.

The Hunted is almost always puffed up, trying to look bigger and scarier than he is. His nails are long and sharp, and he wears camouflage to hide his bright white features.

The Paranoid needs a sense of security, and a cowl is the closest thing to a hoodie in medieval times. He’s so nervous that I feel he’d unconsciously pluck at his wings, they’re so disheveled that he can’t fly.

The Skeptic has this air of “I know more than you” to him? If that’s makes sense? So I gave him a poet shirt. Not much to it, I just really wanted to put him in a poet shirt. Oh and a ponytail.

The Cheated wears something a noble might, he has that sort of snarky attitude a noble might have. He also talks about cards and games a lot, so I attached a card theme to him. Sometimes they change card symbols, I don’t know if I’ll have it be mood based or not.

The Stubborn is wrapped up in a bunch of bandages, and the eyepatch and cleft ear is from that scene at the end with the Shifting Mound from the adversary’s perspective where your eye has been punched out and your ear looks like it might’ve been ripped.

The Opportunist I gave a thieving look, he has that attitude. As well as another ponytail, can’t have feathers getting in the way of the backstabbing move.

And that’s them! Now if you don’t mind me I’m going to go die now, my drawing arm hurts.

Edit: I forgot the Cold, damn

Someone suggested medieval assassin wear because he always insists on the princess being dead, and she usually is when he shows up. Also the wisps in his eyes? He has heavily impaired vision, because his worldview is so skewed.

[birdmitosis]

You know how you can get the "you're special" conversation with the Narrator in the various Chapter IIs? Well, I got very curious about everyone's responses to that, and some of these are very interesting...

At its base, the conversation goes like this:

And then whatever other voice you have with you chimes in after that. There are a few exceptions that I'll cover because I find them interesting, but the ones that follow this pattern are:

Broken

Cheated

Hunted

Opportunist

Skeptic

Smitten

(Some of the above have further back-and-forth with the Narrator, but that's a bit outside the point of this post!)

There are a few variations that really intrigue me, though...

One just changes up the order slightly, nothing else, but I think even this simple change still has some character implication to it:

Stubborn

Which makes Stubborn, interestingly, one of the only ones who buys into that as easily as Hero, possibly the only one (but, funnily enough, possibly not...).

On the other hand, changing up the formula drastically:

Paranoid

Paranoid doesn't even let Hero respond before responding himself, and I only showed the rest of the conversation to show that the Narrator has no chance at all to deliver his "Of course you're special. Why else would you be here?" lines -- he's put on the back foot by Paranoid's suspicions, and even when he tries to be soothing and encouraging again, Paranoid shuts that down too. If Stubborn is the most receptive, Paranoid may very well be the least.

Another major variation, which I find very interesting and can't even quite put my finger on why I find it so interesting (except that I like Cold so much):

Cold

Like Stubborn, Cold speaks up right after Hero's response before the Narrator can get into his own "Of course you're special" lines, and like Stubborn, it's in a way that seems surprisingly receptive. He actually takes the place of the Narrator responding with that, actually -- the Narrator doesn't say those lines at all, making this the only other time other than with Paranoid that he doesn't.

And the final variation...

Contrarian

There are no screencaps for this. Because interestingly, I don't think you even can get this sequence with Contrarian. Or if you can, I wasn't able to figure out how. You can't get to any of that questioning at all from what I'm able to tell.

And I think Contrarian would enjoy knowing that he's the most uniquely disruptive out of all of them.