Having Talented Friends Is So Wild!!!!!! Like. YOU!!!!!!!!!! YOU Made THAT. YOU DID THAT?!?!?!?! YOU

Love love love the way the voices are all their own distinct personalities but there's those little ways they bleed into each other that show they all come from the same person. Or god in this case.

Each voice is its own unique captured experience shaped by the circumstances that created them as much as the vessels are, they just manifest differently because The Long Quiet is not built to change and to grow, so instead of adapting himself he takes the old parts of him and tucks them away in his subconscious, listens to them and the new insights on the world they give his otherwise stationary perspective. He learns, but he is not bound by who he was before.

The voices all capture distinct reactions to the situations, but theres moments where you can see them bleed together, moments where the person they belong to shines through because they're not quite so different as they initially appear. Cold and Stubborn with their disregard for the body as an entity that needs to function the way a normal body should, Skeptic and Opportunist both analysing a situation to find the perfect time to strike back, Broken and Smitten both desperate for The Princess to see them and to make them whole even when she hurts them, Paranoid and Cheated in their suspicion and their manipulation of the construct, the list goes on.

Somewhere in the middle, all these unique perspectives bleed together in a way that makes it believable they came from the same source and I just think that's neat. I can believe Cold and Smitten are both faces of the same god because, well. Human nature is complicated, and both Cold and Smitten have that same single minded contempt for The Narrator that binds them together even when their existence seems to contradict each other.

A mind is a fascinating, spiralling thing, and nobody is able to be described in just a few sentences. The Long Quiet is opportunistic and loving, enduring in the face of hardship and broken by circumstance, the god created to kill death and just the unlucky guy who happens to be stuck on a path in the woods.

And at the center of it all, they're The Hero. The voice to which all other voices lend a piece, however small, one of the only voices who will never directly oppose The Long Quiet's decisions because within him is the capacity to make all those choices and more.

There's something beautiful about the way The Long Quiets mind unfurles throughout the routes, how it helps you understand what's going on both more and less

Please, you will not pass by. 🍉😭

Donate and reblog until the campaign is achieved to help build my house and get out of the impasses, siege, war, and travel outside Gaza.

gofundme.com

Donate to Help me evacuate my family and rebuild a new start., organized by Basel Ayyad

My name is Basel Ayyad, 28yrs , a Palestinian from Gaza. My eight-memb… Basel Ayyad needs your support for Help me evacuate my family and re

if you’re willing, perhaps some QuietHero? I always loved how throughout literally everything, Hero is always willing to stick by TLQ no matter what :D

yeah, i love that, too

TODAY IT’S A GREAT DAY BECAUSE IT’S MARCH 15th THE DAY WHEN DENZEL CROCKER LOST HIS HAPPINESS AND IT’S ALSO ANNOY SQUIDWARD DAY

It's so fun how the Princess and the Dragon acknowledges and plays with game mechanics that are assumed to be non-diegetic, and uses them to add insight to the story/characters.

The title card is a really obvious example, being something that TLQ actually sees and can comment on, and something that the Princess hadn't ever seen. What most would assume is just a framing device for the player is a real element of the world/construct.

I think it emphasizes how the story that the Narrator constructed is only "meant" to be told to TLQ. After all, The Narrator only appears in TLQ's mind, providing elaborate descriptions and attempting to contextualize the events of the game as a heroic task to save the world. Meanwhile the Princess is all alone, with no title cards or exposition, no context for why any of this is happening to her. The story revolves around her, but it doesn't care about her beyond her designated role, as something to be slain and hated. Her perspective is irrelevant to the Narrator's plan, so she doesn't get the fancy presentation or necessary context: she doesn't deserve it.

There's also those long stretches of dialogue where the voices talk to each other in TLQ's mind without progressing the story. They're occasionally acknowledged by the Princess elsewhere (Prisoner, Nightmare) but P&tD makes it very explicit and confirms that time is actively passing during these conversations, with TLQ staring in silence for who knows how long.

(Personally I don't think all of the voice dialogue is necessarily in real time, if only because some Princesses wouldn't have had the patience for it. Like if you had really stood still for that long, the Beast would've definitely eaten you... she's not waiting for you to finish thinking lol)

This one I think is more for humour, but it also draws attention to how much of the inner conversation the Princess is missing in normal chapters, when the voices aren't actively speaking to her through TLQ's body. Where we're having vibrant debates or key information revealed by the Narrator, she just sees a silent, staring figure. Speaking of the Narrator, He's completely absent from the Princess' POV, either because He doesn't want to speak to her or is somehow unable to (He does say in Tower that she's not supposed to be able to interact with Him...) Again, the story was not made to be told to her, so she isn't given His context, and because the player is usually so immersed in TLQ's perspective, they probably wouldn't realize just how much she's missing until they see things from her perspective.

One other example: if you choose to [Say nothing] immediately after you excise yourself, the Princess reacts to it:

I just find this so hilarious tbh, and the fact that she repeats back those exact words implies that she literally senses the text written in brackets. If you do it once you're back in the basement, she says this:

I wonder if it's the same for the Narrator/voices... do they also “feel” your actions while you’re choosing them? Do they hear you say (Lie) before you lie? When Skeptic said "Wink" out loud did he actually choose a dialogue option with [Wink] in brackets?? Ok that last one's a joke but there's lots of potential here

I just think it's cool because the average player wouldn't think twice about any of these things, because they seem like simple stylistic/game design choices. In a game where all player input is through dialogue options, the square brackets are an immediately understandable way to convey action, as opposed to plain text. In a game structured around repeating loops, it makes sense to make those loops distinguishable for players by separating each loop with a title card, and the chapter naming convention works as a nod to the fairytale storybook aesthetics the game draws from.

But by placing you into the Princess's head and acknowledging those design choices as diegetic elements that change depending on your perspective, it forces you to reevaluate your experiences: the things you didn't think were really "part of the game" and the experiences you didn't realize weren't universal. It exposes your hidden privileges, the luxuries and structural supports you have compared to the Princess that you don't even notice because you've never experienced the alternative.

It might make you realize how the way you perceive and conceptualize the world might be very different from how others conceptualize it (Tony's recent ask about the multicoloured glass in HEA could also play into this in a fascinating way, with the mismatch in perception between TLQ and the Narrator's script). It's all just very cool for a game that's based on perception.

It also makes me wonder... what other elements of this game are diegetic that we just haven't paid attention to?

Well, I think that the captions are probably also diegetic. TLQ occasionally refers to the voices by their complete titles despite them not ever referring to each other by those titles, instead opting for descriptors like "jumpy one" or "the worst one" or "rage boy" or "chilly little freak" lol. For a direct comparison, Paranoid exclusively calls Smitten "the lovesick one" or some variant in HEA, but TLQ refers to him by his full name using quotation marks, as if he's quoting something he's read:

The voices don't seem aware that these titles exist, while TLQ does, despite them sharing a mind. Also, when the Princess shares a body/mind with you, she never uses their titles either. In the Spectre/Princess and the Dragon, she calls Hero "the nice one", Cold "the quiet one" or "cold little freak", and the Narrator "the bossy one" or "that murder-happy know-it-all". Spectre describes the voices as shards of broken glass on the floor, so she likely perceives them completely differently to how we/TLQ see them.

Even The Narrator isn't aware of His title. If you call Him that in the mirror conversation, He says "'The Narrator'. I suppose that's my job, isn't it?", reacting to the title as if it's His first time hearing about it. There's also this question from the fourth Shifty encounter:

It seems like the titles are presented specifically for The Long Quiet/decider, and that they somehow reflect how TLQ perceives the voices/Narrator, since TLQ takes credit for "calling him" that. If the captions were specifically shown to TLQ in the same way that the title cards are, it'd explain how he has this information without it ever being verbally told to him, and why the Princess doesn't know their titles even when she's sharing your body.

But besides the captions, I think it could be fun to interpret the game as if most, if not all of its game mechanics exist in-universe. The choice menu, the music, the cursors, the save/load icons, saving/loading in general, the title screen, the Clown Princess living in the walls (game files), you name it. Let’s peel away these game mechanics cell by cell! Let's see what meaning we can find together, let's see what we're made of!

OUUGH THIS IS SO GOOD!!! FEEDING MY HUNTED ADDICTION RN THANK U SO MUCH :3

I hope this is the final part of this weird thing I’ve made. Originally based on this art post and then expanded in this short write and followed up by another art post

Edit: I linked them incorrectly, shit. I’m not fixing it, deal with it

Now we’re here

It would be incorrect to say Hero was angry, because he wasn’t, he was furious.

It took only a few hours for Cheated to sound the alarm when he couldn’t find Paranoid. Then Contrarian pointed out that Broken wasn’t around either and everyone’s concern doubled.

Paranoid being missing was one thing, at worst he passed out from exhaustion somewhere they hadn’t thought to check, now Broken being missing meant he might be trying to hurt himself.

Everyone was rushing around, Hero remembered hearing the utter storm of swears from Cheated as Smitten tried to calm him. Stubborn irately stomped about as he called out for their two missing members, and Skeptic was pulling an indifferent Cold to his feet to get him moving. Contrarian muttered words of encouragement to Hero, who had placed his face in his hands, stressed.

Weirdly enough, Opportunist hung back, rubbing his talons together in a repeated, nervous motion. He only sprung to action once Cheated snapped at him a loud “Get moving!”

At one point they saw Hunted, who looked out of his element with the chaos surrounding him, he clutched a few bowls of food in his arms, feathers puffed out in mild alarm.

Contrarian perked up. “Hunted! I know you said you’d get all loopy during winter, and all of this usually makes you…” he gestured vaguely to the discord of avians running about. “…queasy, but do you think you could lend us a hand? You’ve got a strong sense of smell, yeah? Think you can sniff those voices out?”

Hunted curled in on himself, instead of responding he scuttled backward into the dim hallway where their rooms were.

“Strange, generally he’s pretty protective of us all, I thought he’d be the most active in this. The cold weather must really be getting to the guy.” Contrarian scratched the back of his neck, Hero hummed in agreement.

The search eventually expanded outwards of their home once they realized there was nowhere left for Broken or Paranoid to be inside, and then further out when they couldn’t find them in the front or backyard.

They eventually had to call it quits, as their energy left them, made quickly evident once Smitten conked out the second he hit the couch. They’d all have to give in and rest before continuing.

By then it was morning, Hero was rubbing his eyes, bloodshot and tired from the day spent running around, but too drowned in worry to rest. A twitchy Opportunist was wide awake, the bags under his eyes made it apparent he had also failed to find sleep. He was still twiddling his fingers away with hiked shoulders. Both sat against one of the couches in the lounge, where the others were strewn about, snoring away their sleepiness.

“Got knots in your neck?” Hero mumbled out, unconsciously pressing into the sore spots on his back, sighing with minor relief.

Opportunist jumped, ears pinned as he looked up at Hero. He was uncharacteristically anxious, or at least being more obvious about it, less able to put on his mask when wrung so thin.

“I- well yes, but no. That’s not why I’m so…”

“Tense?” Hero provided.

Opportunist sighed, “Yes, tense.”

“What’s up then? You can be honest with me.” For once, the bitter part of Hero’s mind thought. He waved it away.

“Oh! Well um-“ Opportunist looked back and forth, as if waiting for something to pounce on him. “I may have… kept something from everyone.”

Hero squinted, trying to see more than just the blurry shape of his fellow bird folk through his groggy vision. “Go on.”

Opportunist pursed his lip, looking nearly as jumpy as Paranoid, a far cry from his relaxed form. “Look I wanted to tell you guys, but Hunted caught me every time he left his room and glared so harshly I near convinced myself that beastly form of the princess was in front of me, it was like-“

“Hey, calm down!” Hero scooted forward, placing a reassuring hand on Opportunist’s shoulder. “She went with Quiet, remember? Now what’s this about Hunted?”

Opportunist forced himself to breathe in, Hero wondered if this is how he prepared himself to put his false act on. “You remember how Hunted said he was going to sleep most of the cold away?”

“Mmhm. What about it?”

“Well earlier today he started a rampage in the lounge, I asked him what he was looking for and he didn’t respond. I was about to go grab Stubborn or Smitten or maybe even you! To, you know, wrangle the guy under control. Obviously something was up and he wasn’t making a peep! Plus, I wasn’t really one for him tearing apart all of our furniture. However, I didn’t get the chance to before he lifts up the couch, and what do you know, there behind it is Paranoid!”

Hero blinks, brows slowly furrowing. “Say that again?”

“Paranoid was hiding behind the couch, from Hunted himself it seemed. Hunted throws the poor guy over his shoulder and scurries out of lounge, sending me the most chilling look when I tried to intervene.”

Hero blinks, slowly, vision clouding with red.

“But that’s not all! I go in his room to see what’s up, and Hunted’s… uh… nest thing, has two of the guys in it. I didn’t get to see all of their body behind his wings, and he basically pushes me out with his voice alone, but I think it’s them! I just uh- uh…” Opportunist slowly shrank under Hero’s gaze, never before, not even at the Narrator, had Hero been so vexed.

“Why didn’t you say anything?!” The sheer pointlessness of their search crashed onto him like the weight of a thousand bricks. All of the concern and confusion and cursing could’ve been so easily avoided if Opportunist had just said something, but the one time he doesn’t run his mouth is when-!

“Hey- hey! Look- I thought he’d go all creature like and start- well I don’t know, doing whatever creatures do. Like hissing or climbing on the ceiling!”

Hero resisted the urge to bury his fist in the frazzled bird’s beak and instead took a sharp breath. “You know what, no. I’m not going to be mad at you. I’m angry at you often enough as it is, I need to channel this newfound rage at the real problem here.”

Opportunist flinched as Hero stood up, before scrambling to his feet. “Yes! Do that! I’ll even come with you. I’m good at picking locks you see.” Hero didn’t even question it.

And all of that led to now. They came to Hunted’s door, Opportunist got on one of his knees and stuck a clawed talon into the keyhole. The second Opportunist was done, Hero burst through the door, glaring holes into the puffed up form of- “Hunted!”

The avian shot to his feet, his ire fixated on Hero’s. From the mound of what looked like randomly placed pillows and blankets out popped the heads of Paranoid and Broken. Hero couldn’t prevent the small wave of relief that hit him; after searching for hours and hours and assuming the worst, seeing the two alright made it feel like he could finally breathe again. They looked well preened, a sight Hero thought he’d never see on the two, yet somehow they looked more tired than Hero was. Paranoid squinted through the darkness and dazedly looked upon Hero and Opportunist.

“Guys…? That you?” He slurred, looking like he was about to fall over immediately after he sat up. Broken wasn’t fairing much better, his blinks slow and fluttering.

Hero turned his gaze back to the prickly, instinctual bird, who looked near ready to pounce.

“We’ve been worried sick looking for Paranoid and Broken for the past day and a half, only to learn from this one-!” he pointed and accusing finger at Opportunist, who let out a timid “Eheh, hey…”, at the attention, “-you’ve had them holed up in here!”

“Day and a half…?” Broken croaked out, voice layered in sleep.

“It can’t have been that long… right? All I remember is being led to and from the bathroom, like a… a royal and his guard.” Paranoid provides, trying and failing to rub the drowsiness from his eyes.

“I remember Hunted bringing us food, but it’s all vague and fuzzy.” Broken adds, running a hand through the feathers on his head, letting out a deep hum of surprise when he found them soft and straightened out.

The hell was wrong with them? “You’ve turned their brains to mush,” Hero gawked, turning to Hunted once more, “you little shit.”

“It’s called hibernation and it’s perfectly natural.” Hunted proclaimed, pointing an accusing finger at Hero.

“Don’t try me right now, I’m utterly livid over being worried for nothing.” Hero returned the pointing gesture.

“Okay! While you two argue this out, I’ll go grab the others to help solve this, yeah?” Opportunist says, clapping his hands together. “We’re all agreeing I’m being incredibly useful right now, hah… right?”

No one answers him.

“Right, right…” Opportunist sucks in a breath, “I’ll be back.”

—

It took the combined strength of Stubborn, Smitten, and Contrarian to hold Hunted down. He had stopped thrashing at some point, but Hero could still hear the foam hissing out of his mouth as he laid prone on the soft lounge carpet they had to drag him onto.

“What’s wrong with you two? None of us got a full eight hours and yet you’re the only ones that can barely keep their eyes open.” Skeptic prods, staring with obvious concern at the two other voices, who had to be held up by Cold and Cheated so they wouldn’t fall over.

“It’s ironic, isn’t it? Usually yours is out seeking attention in the dead of night.” Cold says in a wispy voice, looking at Cheated and Broken. “And this one is too fearful to get any sleep.” He continues, looking down at Paranoid, who was mostly limp in his grasp.

“It’s coming back to me now, slowly. Still I can’t remember why… why we were in there.” Paranoid speaks out, struggling to stand to his full height. Cold eventually adjusted his grip to where Paranoid couldn’t move as easily, so he’d stop squirming.

“He wanted us to hibernate with him I think.” Broken mumbles, not even trying to stand, instead allowing Cheated to hold him however he pleased.

“Hibernate? I thought birds didn’t do that?” Cheated’s ears pin to the back of his head as he pulls Broken further up, inching himself and the dozing avian slightly away from Hunted, despite his less than mobile state.

“They don’t.” Stubborn grunts out.

“One species does I think, but as far as I know, birds won’t if they don’t have to. Oh give him to me Cold, you’ll hurt him like that.” Opportunist rounds the corner, taking his ponytail out. He reaches for Paranoid, who is given to him by Cold without fuss.

Skeptic snaps his fingers. “Ah, I get it. Hunted is most of our survival instinct. When winter was coming and we weren’t migrating somewhere more warm, he dug in. His instincts probably told him our weaker members couldn’t stand the cold, so he brought them to his room. If I had to guess, he’d eventually have us all in there as winter progressed.”

“But we’re not that much like wild animals, we can’t actually hibernate, right?” Contrarian said, looking at the others in the room with an unsure smile on his face.

“I’m not so sure about that. Our friends seem quite out of sorts.” Smitten counters, looking at the two troubled avians with a gentle, worried frown. “They’ve done nothing but sleep and yet can hardly stand!”

“Might be because hibernation isn’t truly sleep, even if it seems similar. I’d say Hunted succeeded, he somehow got them to start hibernation.” Skeptic says, putting a contemplative hand under his chin.

“How though? How is that possible?” Hero says, looking at the two main subjects of their conversation.

Skeptic shrugged. “Beats me, you’ll have to ask him, and he doesn’t seem up for a nice chat at the moment.” He jutted a thumb in Hunted’s direction, the feral bird was still growling beneath the dog pile holding him down.

“Huh, didn’t know he could make that noise. How agitated do you think he’ll get if we tease him with his charges?” Cold remarks, reaching over and plucking a feather from Broken, making him let out a surprised chirp that transitioned into a pained keen. Hunted froze at Broken’s faint cry, before resuming his struggle with double the effort, snarling at Cold like a bear that just had its cub taken away. Smitten and Stubborn are quick to up the pressure, while Contrarian flails to quickly get Hunted’s legs back under control.

Hero pushes Cold back. “Nope, bad, bad idea. You’ve lost speaking and doing privileges this discussion.”

Cold sits down on one of the chairs. “Pity.”

“Now what?” Stubborn huffs.

“What do you mean ‘now what?’” Hero questions.

Stubborn snorts impatiently. “Exactly what I said, now what? What are we going to do with him-“ he looks down at Hunted, “-and them?” then Broken and Paranoid.

Hero brings a hand to his eyes and drags it down his face, his head was killing him, and the adrenaline from the fight with Hunted was wearing off.

“Just-! Okay. Stubborn, Smitten, and Contrarian, you three are on Hunted watch duty. Lock him in his room and don’t let him out, he’s slippery so keep your eyes peeled. Skeptic and Cheated, you two are going to try waking Paranoid and Broken up some, until they’re back to normal if you can, they can’t stay like that. Cold, warm up the house, gather more wood for the fireplace and make sure the windows are closed, we need Hunted’s instincts to calm down.”

“What about me?” Opportunist says as Paranoid is passed off once more, this time to Skeptic.

“Me and you haven’t slept, so we’re going the fuck to bed.” Hero finishes, whipping around and trudging to his room. He’ll tell Opportunist and Hunted off later, right now, he needed some shut eye.

yeah

An artist : Aw man! I saw my arts were reposted on Instagram. I’ve asked them to take my arts down but they ignored me.

Me : Say no more! Click this link, then click ‘fill out this form’. Fill the form and wait for about 1-2 days, the staffs will remove the image you were reporting from the reposter’s account :^)

me, incorrect: everyone is probably sick of me drawing this character by now...

my inner voice, wise: ah, but this cannot be... because I am part of "everyone"... and until I am sick of drawing them... it will not be everyone

me, opening a new blank canvas: ur so right