Pronouns: He/him or it/its.
In a particular corner of my wider Slay the Princess post-canon 'verse, a Damsel, separated from her Voice of the Smitten, anxious and afraid under the smiling exterior, was almost attacked by a Beast. In a reflexive act of reality warping, she rendered the Beast a harmless-but-still-living plush toy. This condition has spread outward ever since, affecting even the landscape around her cabin.
The 'canonical' (used very, very loosely) set of plushified Voices is the Voice of the Hunted, the Voice of the Cheated, and the Voice of the Stubborn, although designs exist for several others. The convention for their nicknames is: compound words, food-related, and adorable.
Besides a universal devotion to their Damsel and removal of violent impulses, the plush Voices tend to have their original personalities twisted or outright inverted.
- Hushpuppy is no longer afraid of being eaten, prey drive replaced by curiosity and a mischievous drive to provoke reactions in others.
- Sourpuss struggles to remain upset about things; when he's on his own, he tries to maintain his old cynical outlook, often popping the stitches around his mouth when he frowns or speaks angrily, but the presence of the Damsel drives every complaint completely out of his mind as she gently stitches his beak back into a smile.
- Snugglemuffin is still competitive and enjoys using and showing off his physique, but strictly nonviolently. He'd be upset by the suggestion that he'd actually want to hurt anybody.
- A hypothetical plush Voice of the Paranoid (at this moment un-nicknamed) would be anxious but easy to calm down, believing anything he's told without question.
The plush Voices are capable of sliding along a spectrum to a larger and/or winged form the same way the normal Voices do; their large forms have big zippers down the front opening into a padded interior large enough to hold a person. Their wings are quilted and hang down like draped blankets when idle, but they do function. When the Voices shift from winged to unwinged (etc.) it's a disturbingly fluid transitional process that you can watch happen; when the plushies change forms, it happens while you're not looking, presumably instantly.
Q: Are all the plushies made from the same materials?
A: Largely yes; their covering is a soft faux-fur in areas where the original Voice has feathers, and mostly something like cotton everywhere else, in various patterns.
Q: Are the plushies particularly resistant to damage?
A: They regenerate over time in the same way the normal Voices do, with the additional advantages of having no bones to break and not feeling pain. If they are shredded to pieces, burned, dipped in acid, etcetera, whatever remains of the old body will disintegrate and a new plushie will eventually be found rolled up in the quilts around Damsel's cabin.
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Pronouns: He/him for each.
In visual novel Slay the Princess, the main character is accompanied by diegetic voiceover narration by multiple distinct entities, all voiced by the same actor (Jonathan "Magnus Archives" Sims, if you're curious). The Voice of the Hero accompanies the player continuously from the beginning, expressing a chivalrous but somewhat naïve viewpoint, in opposition to the Narrator who is insisting that you titular Slay the titular Princess. Depending on your actions, additional Voices enter the script, with their own distinct, strong, somewhat one-dimensional, personalities. This creates a fascinating commedia dell'arte effect which I have been completely obsessed with for some time.
In this personal AU, after the cabin ending and the departure of the Long Quiet, the Narrator, and the Shifting Mound, the Voices found themselves waking up in individual bodies, along with a few straggler Princess vessels who were not absorbed into the Shifting Mound. The cabins of each individual route are now part of a continuous landscape, with obvious seams where the very different biomes meet. Make no mistake! This is to facilitate pornography. However, I've put a lot of thought into everything anyway.
I use "Voice" as if it were a species name; it would also be correct to call the Voices "dragons."
Multiple copies of each Voice exist simultaneously, including subtle variants who experienced different branching routes of the game, although they're scattered randomly across a very large landscape and are not too likely to meet each other. When it does become useful to identify a specific Voice or differentiate between iterations of the same Voice, they may take or be given nicknames; see for example the stuffed animals.
The Voices regenerate over time when hurt, including slowly regrowing lost limbs and extremities. They can be temporarily killed if they suffer too much physical trauma at once; if the body remains fundamentally intact it will revive once the damage is repaired at its normal rate. If the body is mangled to pieces or destroyed altogether (fire, acid, etc), the remains degrade and merge with their environment, and a new body forms underground near their home cabin, working its way to the surface until the Voice wakes up again, all memory intact.
If you enjoy my creatures but haven't played Slay the Princess, it is Not a Compliment to tell me to my face that you would never want to actually play it because it would be a disappointment not to have the little guys, or similar. It's fine to like the guys! But if you compliment them by putting down the source you are still dismissing a thing I obviously really like and I am requesting you keep it to yourself.
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