fist-fullofstars
i'm fear, i'm queer, and drowning in here
a stupid horse (pfp credit to @bidonnie :D)
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every autistic person watching this episode of dungeon meshi:
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heyyyy !! question about slay the princess:: what order were the routes made ?? like which ones were made earlier, which ones were made later, etc??
Adversary was first — I think it shows from how needlessly overcomplicated the branching within the route gets.
Thorn was a late addition and was I think the second to last?
Razor was last
idr the rest of the order the whole development was a fever dream tbh
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We've finished the Pristine Cut scripts for the Den and Apotheosis routes. There's a lot of new stuff in them — the Den will have about 3x as much content as she does in the base game, and The Apotheosis will have about 4x as much.
Other routes are coming along nicely :)
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You know, an interesting tumblr transformation that's happened gradually, and which I've seen no one talk about: ask-culture has essentially dropped off to nothing.
By which I mean, asks used to be WAY more of the tumblr economy. They used to be more common to send, and receive, and see. They were integral to the collaborative, forum-like behavior of old tumblr communities, not even to speak on the HUGE number of ask-blogs that used to exist to only be interacted with in ask-form.
I'm not saying this in a vying-for-attention way but instead in an observational way: I used to get way way more asks in like 2015, even with a fraction of my follower count. I wonder if it's due to the homogenization of social media sites? There's a lot more of this divide between "content creator" and "consumer" instead of just a bunch of peer blogs who would talk to each other. "Asks" aren't really a thing on twitter, are they? And as I understand it, the closest thing to an "ask" on instagram or tiktok would be a creator screenshotting some comment and responding to it in a new reel or video or whatever those content mediums are. Are asks just too tumblr-specific? Is that aspect of the site culture dying out as more and more people converge to using all their social media sites in the same way?
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Oh, for the stp questions, what do you think of the thorn? She is my favourite 🫶🫶
I think the Witch > Thorn route is probably my favourite, and most thematically coherent/meaty? Some Chapter 3 Princesses' are just their Chapter 2 version but More (like the Eye of the Needle, arguably the Den), but the Thorn really does stand out as a more fleshed out narrative, with more depth.
To get into the route, you have to either cheat the first choice (first going down without the Pristine Blade to lock the Princess into her more 'harmless' version before going back up grab the Blade and slay her), or take the first opportunity to stab her once her back is turned (yes, the Narrator is pushing you to do it, or you've locked yourself out of resisting because you already played the Damsel, but from her perspective, that doesn't make a difference). To build on what I said in my essay on the Pristine Blade, the simple fact that you have access to the Blade influences the dynamic between you and the Princess (corrupts it, really).
In either case, you really do betray her trust, and this hurts her considerably more than the arm torn/cut off, or whatever cuts you leave on her otherwise, because the violence she can immediately repay with her own. It's the hurt, the knowledge that she trusted you with her vulnerability and you took advantage of it, that she can't resolve, and this is, naturally, what the next chapter is about.
I'm not wholly sure why she's called the Witch, because she does surprisingly few things we might associate with witches.
Regardless, going in, you're joined by the Voice of the Opportunist, whose entire shtick is looking for ways to eke out short-term advantages without a care for any long-term concerns. In short, this fucker will defect in the prisoner dilemma after telling you he's going to cooperate, honest, and then be surprised you don't trust him in the second iteration, because he's on your side this time, he promises!
And this is how the Witch sees you, the Protagonist, because that's what these voices represent, and she sees her only defense against your backstabbing ways is to... be that exact same thing. To also keep her cards close to her chest, and jump at whatever first opportunity she gets to get one over on you (this is what she does if you turn your back on her in this route, even at the cost of her own life, the Scorpion and Frog/Farmer and Viper parallels are explicitly mentioned in the achievement). She's been hurt, and the only way she can avoid being hurt again, is to hurt you first.
The main difference between you and her, of course, is that you have the Blade, the power in this situation (yes, she did kill you last time, but that's hardly what matters here), and acknowledging this is the key to getting to the Thorn.
Because you have to give it up! You have to give the Blade to her, by way of apology, putting your trust in someone you know has no reason to like you and every reason to hurt you, and you have to put yourself at her mercy. Let her use that power against you like you did against her.
And the Witch doesn't understand why you do it! Why would you give up the upper hand when you have it? She wouldn't, after all. So she's suspicious, and she doesn't know what you're doing, but she remembers the hurt, and whatever game you're playing, she can now hurt you before you hurt her, so she takes the opportunity to kill you and immediately proves that hurting you doesn't stop her from being hurt either.
She asks you why you let her do that to her, because hurting you didn't resolve the dissonance between what she thought you were like and what you actually did. Hurting you doesn't suddenly bring your plan into clarity, and it leaves her incredibly confused.
But I think she asks herself another question, quietly, without quite being willing to acknowledge it to herself:
'Why would I do that?'
And this finally brings us to the Thorn (sorry for taking so long to actually get to her, anon, but I can't help myself). Some time has passed between the end of the Witch and now, and she had been plagued with those questions, with thinking of who she is, what she wants to be, and how to deal with the hurt while she tries really hard to figure out if she can actually trust you or not.
This is why the first question she asks you is if you're there to laugh at her. She thinks she might have seen your play (and she can be correct if you do decide to laugh at her! The achievement being called 'Past Life Gambit' is very fitting. You get a ton of opportunities to be cruel to her here and validate her distrust!), and when you say you're not, she's just... lost.
The thorns around are neat, because the degree to which this betrayal has hurt her also causes her to hurt herself. The thorns are pointed inward. You can get in, but you can't get out, and neither can she! This distrust within her is literally digging into her own skin, and even though she has the Blade, has the power in this situation, she cannot use it to resolve this situation for herself. She's going to need you, but if she gives you that power, how can she possibly know you're not just going to hurt her again? How does she know you're not going to make the same decision she did? How can she make the decision you did last time, when she doesn't understand why you did it?
And these fears are not unjustified! For all that the Opportunist is in favour of schmoozing up to the Thorn, the moment she gives up the Blade, he turns into the Witch again, immediately suggesting the very choice that resulted in the very misery the Thorn is now struggling with (because the Opportunist is kind of an asshole). Even though you both know you need each other to get out of this mess long-term, actually doing that when you've both stabbed each other in the back previously is not easy, and giving in to those short-term impulses is so very tempting. How do the Scorpion and the Frog not kill one another?
And this provokes big argument in your own mind, too, long enough the Thorn gets worried she fucked up by giving you the Blade in this anxious way that doesn't understand why you haven't made either decision yet.
Fortunately, the Opportunist is joined by the Smitten at this point (and I think this is a bit of a redemption for the Smitten compared to the Damsel route, but that's a matter for another post), and he argues very passionately (because whenever does he not) in favour of the beauty of trust and cooperation and love!
And so by sharing your power and using it with care (the Narrator even tries to make you slip, but the Smitten says no), you resolve the pain at the heart of the Thorn, and finally make it clear that you do deserve her trust as she deserves yours, and you get arguably the best ending of a single run.
Of the Third Chapter Princesses, I think the Thorn stands out in becoming more... human compared to her previous, rather than less. It adds a lot of depth to her narrative, and makes the resulting romance feel more real than the other options.
And of the potential Witch follow-ups, I think the Thorn is a more interesting resolution than the Wild, because the Wild is more about burying the resentment and pain and pretend none of it happened and you're united as one, whereas the Thorn sees you actually resolve your differences and develop a more healthy relationship in the wake of it.
And you teach the Opportunist the value of long-term thinking, which is neat.
Also, you get the only kiss in the game on this route, so that's also fun.
In short, yeah, fantastic route, interesting and nuanced Princess, wonderful resolution.
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get ready for an exuberant summer
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Two deep-set eyes look at you, followed by a mischievous grin
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"The damsel and the thorn are the only explicitly romantic paths-"
to YOU
I'm locked in enternal violent combat with my adversary in a world that's only the two of us, kept moving by pain and adrenaline and the glance in each other's eyes as we rip open another vital wound in perfect sync and the ever beating surety we have that the other cannot die bringing a cruel sense of bone deep, blood pumping elation because just by thinking it means it must be so
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she has been subjected to generations of inhumane anime girl breeding practices
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