Essays & Stories

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Video games as an art form are a very young phenomenon. Some even say younger than cinema.

That is precisely why, in my opinion, the methods of expressing artistic thought in this medium have not yet had time to fully take shape. The presence of a massive industry here proves nothing. It is merely the result of how modern society-built around entertainment and consumption-cultivated a giant industry BEFORE the medium even found its own artistic language, the alphabet by which it operates.

The second factor is, of course, the complexity of production. Creating games today cannot be compared to the engineering challenges of even a decade ago. Back then, a hypothetical indie developer usually had to perform the engineering task of building their own engine just to simply start bringing their ideas to life.

In those days, projects like Fez were only just fumbling around in the dark, trying to figure out what a game could be if it wasn't attempting to be a typical mass-market product. Many indie games from that era can look somewhat infantile in retrospect.

Returning to the present day-a lot more talented people have finally gained access to the toolkit that makes an artist's work with the gaming medium simply possible.

And when something like Slay the Princess falls into my hands, I am reminded once again of how ridiculously little we have seen so far of what this art form is capable of offering us in the long run.

This representative of the genre is not constrained even by conventional boundaries. What is it? Horror? A visual novel? Or perhaps, after all, a dating sim? Probably the latter. Well, or none of the above-because that is the only way to define something that is truly a "thing-in-itself." Though, as a side secret-it actually is a dating sim.

Honestly, I don't even know why we should ask this question. Black Tabby Games wrote it right there in the game's preface: "This is a love story."

And the most interesting thing here is that a player familiar with the subgenre of games that convey their meaning through subverting expectations-such as Doki Doki Literature Club-might immediately spot a familiar trope. Just as in Doki Doki a stereotypical dating sim eventually turned out to be a psychological thriller, here too: a game that even has wordplay in its title-Slay the Princess instead of the classic Save the Princess-must surely be a thriller growing out of a romantic, fairy-tale entourage, right?

Not quite.

Here is how I see it: Slay the Princess is a psychological thriller that grows out of a love story, which later grows back into a love story. And somewhere in the "folds of the terrain" along the way, cosmic horror and the story of every world that has ever existed got lost.

So we weren't lied to. It’s just that... it contains a "tiny bit" more than we are shown at the very beginning.

And this is the best moment to say: all of this should already hint to you that the best experience you can get from this game is to dive into it without any prior context whatsoever. Except perhaps the context of your own life. Trust me, your life will be more than enough for this game to first destroy you, and then put you back together again.

So at this point-an official spoiler warning. If you plan to play it and don't want them ruined-rewind this video somewhere far away from YouTube, turn off your Wi-Fi, launch Slay the Princess, and form your own, unique impression.

For those who stayed to join in on analyzing this complex and beautiful puzzle-let's talk. I'll be curious to see your thoughts in the comments on any element of this game. It took a long time for me to get around to playing it, but now, a week after my first run, I simply cannot stop thinking about it.

Of course, any of my thoughts are subjective. For what else, if not love, can be so open to endless human interpretation?

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[1]

Once upon a time, in a different spatiotemporal realm at the end of the world, there lived a person. This person was a witness to injustice, suffering, and the gradual, inevitable decay of everything around-the rotting of the very fabric of their universe. Filled with pain, this person stood up, straightened themselves out, and reached toward the infinite cosmic wind. From there, they snatched the wheel-the cycle of world-creation that was just about to turn toward the count of the world's next rebirth. In their rage, the person tore the cycle in two, stopping the flow of time.

One side of the cycle consisted of pure transformation and the world's inclination toward relentless change. By its nature, it also included death. It was named the Mound of Change (The Shifting Mound).

The other half contained the world's inclination toward repeatable patterns-laws, rules, the formation of sequences. Cause and effect. This half was named the Long Quiet.

These two halves of a whole became divided gods. They forgot who they were, yet in their blind existence, they continued to reach out to each other again and again.

The person whose disillusionment with the world led to this hated the Mound of Change. They dreamed of destroying it to finally leave the world at peace. A world without death, without the suffering brought by constant transformation.

But a mortal cannot kill a god, and they knew this. The person realized: only a god can kill another god.

Therefore, they reasoned that they could convince the Long Quiet to kill the Mound of Change by taking advantage of the fact that the gods had forgotten their true identities.

To achieve this, the person destroyed themselves in a final act of self-sacrifice. But at the same time, they created a Construct out of their body and an Echo out of their voice. At least, those were the names they devised for them.

The Construct is a prison within a prison, capable of holding two gods. Even if the walls of one crumble, the gods will automatically be transferred into another-until only one remains inside. At least, that was the plan.

The Echo left from the voice was placed inside the Long Quiet-where the Mound of Change would not find it. Taking advantage of the Long Quiet's confusion, the Echo was supposed to create the illusion of authority and gradually convince it to kill the Mound.

Chapter One Begins: The Hero and the Princess

You find yourself on a path, knowing only one thing. At the end of the path is a hill; on the hill is a cabin. In the basement of that cabin lives an imprisoned Princess. You must kill her. If you don't-it will be the end of the world. And it is from this exact moment that the love story begins.

But on this path, you have even less context than you do right now, don't you? This fairy tale about a cycle and two gods is still extremely far from floating to the surface. In reality, all you know is that there is a Princess in the cabin, she must be killed, or else it's the end of the world.

You were told this by a voice in your head named the Narrator. And the first thing we can state for certain is who the Narrator is NOT. He is not a reliable narrator. Right from the start, as soon as you regain your basic form of self-awareness, you can literally shower him with questions: about the context of the situation, about who this Princess is, what she is doing in a basement in the middle of a forest, and what childhood trauma led to such "preferences" in her adult life.

But the Narrator won't give you a straight answer. Nor almost any answer-to a single one of your questions. It seems the Person who left the Echo behind wasn't prepared for some random god to question their words for even a second. All you'll hear is: "There's no time," "Let's skip the details," "We'll talk about this later when the world is saved."

Along with us, there is another voice. This one, unlike the Narrator, is called the "Voice of the Hero," and it seems to me that it most closely represents a kind of human "self" of our body. Through all of this, both the Voice of the Hero and the Narrator realize they are not the actual entity through whose eyes they view the world, and at times they even suspect the existence of the player as a player-you in the role of the operator. In short, it’s an absolute mess.

But we have what we have. For now, we are in a kind of trap, though you don't know it yet, so we are forced to decide what to do next under conditions of extremely limited information. From this point on, the story takes a cyclical form. Remember? The Construct is capable of replicating itself, and the Narrator is merely an echo of the Person who created it. If something goes wrong-you will find yourself back here again. As if nothing happened. In the forest, before the path leading up the hill to that very same cabin.

Since our questions remain unanswered, we have no choice but to head up to the cabin.

Inside, the Narrator describes what looks like an average room of a student who just moved out from their parents' place: bare walls, a small table, and a knife. As you can see, there isn't even a mirror, so the Princess must be shaving blind. And the knife... excuse me, but it's just tossed there carelessly. Look at this-this sight never gives me peace. You're going to catch it by accident and drop it right on your foot, Princess!

MARK1

It is precisely regarding the knife that we must make our first significant choice. And who we meet in the basement depends directly on this choice.

If we enter unarmed-we are greeted by the soft voice of a frightened girl. Exactly the kind we expected to hear in a classic fairy tale about a knight rushing to the rescue.

If we enter with the knife-the Princess doesn't just speak in a colder tone; she appears before us as an entirely different personality. Confident, distrustful-she will threaten us and speak from a position of power, even while chained to the wall.

Such a contrast in presentation might seem like a cheap narrative trick at first glance. How can reality itself depend on whether our hand is holding a knife at this specific moment?

But yes, it does. Literally.

To me, this specific detail isn't even a spoiler. It won't take long to grasp the first truth of this world: the Princess will always be whatever we expect to see in her.

For the sake of the experiment, let's assume our first choice was NOT to grab the knife right away.

Entering unarmed? That means we don't expect a threat.

We weren't actually planning to kill the Princess, were we? Even without any facts, that sounds like a terrible idea.

We go down and try to talk to her-to ask questions, to figure out what the prisoner herself thinks about this whole situation.

But this doesn't bring any clarity. It only becomes clear that the Princess either genuinely doesn't know who she is or what she's doing here, or she is playing the role masterfully. Right here, the first doubts about her human nature creep into our mind. Our rational Voice of the Hero starts asking truly important questions: if she has been locked up here "for a very, very long time"-so long that she forgot her own name-then what has she been eating or drinking all this time?

If you voice this question, she will answer: "Are you stupid?" The Narrator will also chime in: "Are you stupid?" And the Voice of the Hero will only try to reassure himself in confusion: "Man, but I'm not stupid... Right?"

This puts another element of the world in its place, namely: do not take things too literally. Claims from the realm of pure rationalization have never brought any good to any story. And in a world where knives are placed so close to the edge of the table-even less so.

And here we are at a crossroads again. We have already spoken with the Narrator, with the Voice in our head, and with the Princess, but we haven't gotten any closer to the truth. On one hand, we don't have enough facts to condemn her for anything. On the other-there's no evidence in her favor either.

So we do what any responsible person would do in this situation. Namely-we avoid responsibility. We decide to simply lock the Princess in the basement to observe her from a safe distance.

She doesn't like this. Her voice cracks, bringing something more... inhuman to the surface. You hear threats. You hear her say these chains won't hold her. And before you can get your bearings-where the Princess was standing just a moment ago, only a chewed-off arm remains. It gets a bit terrifying.

We run up the stairs and barricade the door with the table-the one the knife had already vanished from. At that moment, you realize: it got lost. And this wouldn't have happened if it had been put back properly instead of just thrown anywhere!

Script: Chapter 1 Final - Sleep Paralysis and Gills

But it's too late to ponder past mistakes. The Princess has come up the stairs and is pounding on the door with all her might. Fortunately, it seems to hold.

A ray of hope penetrates your mind: she lost an arm! She won't be able to stop the bleeding. She just has to bleed out or at least weaken in there while trapped, expending so much effort.

Propping up the wall with your back, you wait. You try with all your might to block out the relentless banging on the door and not picture WHAT this Princess is or WHAT she looks like right now.

"She sounds... awful," says the Voice of the Hero. Yeah, like she's no longer quite the girl we just saw, but something straight out of a nightmare.

Time passes. Fatigue takes its toll. An uneasy sleep consumes you while the Hero's words are burned like hieroglyphs into your brain's cortex. If only he knew: the Princess always becomes exactly what you see her as.

You are woken not by pounding, but by a sudden silence. The table is lying somewhere in the corner; the door to the basement is open. The Princess could be anywhere, and the knife... still hasn't been found.

What comes out of the basement toward you barely has a form. She floats toward you with a grimace on her face, while your body refuses to obey-the closer she gets, the worse it gets. It feels like a form of sleep paralysis, but unfortunately for you, it's much worse. You are not just unable to move your muscles-even your internal organs are failing one by one.

"So helpless," says the Princess. "It seems I can take my time playing with you."

"Or not," she adds with interest when her face ends up right next to yours. "Your gills are turning green. You won't last long."

The last thought that enters your mind: "God... if only... if only I had put my things away neatly on the table!"

Everything goes dark. You die.

Emotional neglect should be considered a form of psychological abuse. It is especially easy to imagine a situation, for example, where parents ignore or lock up a child. To a child, parents are the guarantee of survival. If this guarantee becomes a threat, an internal conflict arises. Most often, a disorganized attachment style is formed. In the future, it is difficult for such a person to build relationships: they crave intimacy while being mortally terrified of it.

Social Death is a term describing an intense genetic fear. Evolutionarily, for a human ancestor, banishment from the tribe meant certain death. An adult person may feel obligated to constantly wear a mask-not being who they truly are. Because their "true self" remained forever associated with banishment. Let's hold onto this thought.

Instead of a "Game Over" screen, you see the title of Chapter Two-"The Nightmare." Maybe it's not over yet?

MARK2

You are on a path in a forest. At the end of the path is a hill, and on it is a cabin. In the basement of that cabin sits a Princess and... all of this is starting to feel remotely familiar. Even the Voice of the Hero can't help but notice an obsessive sense of déjà vu. Remarkably, only the Narrator seems steadfastly confident: you are all meeting here for the first time.

Oh, wait... who is that now?

Another voice echoes in your head. It feels familiar, yet you are hearing it for the first time. The Voice of the Paranoid behaves as expectedly terrified.

Ignoring the intrusive thoughts, you clench your fists and take a confident step toward the cabin. Maybe, you think, if you act fast-just as the Narrator wants-you'll have a chance to deal with the Princess before she starts her paralyzing machinations with your body parts.

Entering the cabin, you see the place has changed slightly, having received, so to speak, a light "touch of a woman's hand." The layout has become more open, without unnecessary doors. For complete coziness, all it lacks is hanging something on the walls. Something like a mirror that wouldn't vanish as you approach it.

The stairs leading down to the basement are now just floating as individual planks in the dark, broadcasting the very essence of the r/DeathStairs subreddit directly into your brain.

Anxious thoughts don't let go of you throughout the entire way down.

"Alright, pull yourself together, think," says the Voice of the Hero. "We need a plan! Last time, just being near her killed us! I wonder, is it hard to throw a knife? Will a knife even stick into her? She looked like a ghost last time!"

The basement room seems to have been... stretched out, making every plank stand a meter apart from the next. A massive space-a massive open space where there is nowhere to hide. You're a sitting duck here.

Script: Chapter 2 - Symphony of the Paranoid

No matter what you do, the Princess finds you soon enough, and your worst fears are confirmed instantly: your body starts going numb. Is this the end? Again?

"Is there really no way out?!" screams the Voice of the Paranoid. Even in the Narrator's tone, notes of genuine panic appear: "What did you do? She wasn't supposed to be like this! What did you do to her?!"

Vision fades as your blood begins to coagulate. Thoughts about the meaning of the word "coagulate" freeze in your brain, where even neural signals slow their movement down to a total paralysis. If there ever was a third response to the "fight or flight" dilemma, this is it-freeze.

But through this electrified, thick darkness breaks the rhythmic voice of the Paranoid:

"Heart. Lungs. Liver. Nerves. Heart. Lungs. Liver. Nerves."

And the body resumes working. Jerкily, painfully, but it functions. The inner voice is now keeping you alive, literally operating your organs by hand. A perfect analogy to the activation of the sympathetic nervous system in response to stress. Deep down you know: you've been in situations like this before.

Heart. It starts beating faster, actively pumping blood through the body. Your blood pressure rises. Lungs. The lungs relax, the bronchi dilate; breathing cuts through your insides like a knife, but the muscles currently need maximum oxygen supply. Liver. A sudden release of glucose floods the body with a surge of energy. Time around you seems to slow down, leaving only a tremor in your limbs. Nerves. Noradrenaline shifts the autonomic nervous system into overdrive. Now you can "rest"-your body will do the work for you.

Heart. Lungs. Liver. Nerves.

(Visual sequence: a "Heart. Lungs. Liver. Nerves" remix featuring a dancing dog in S.T.A.L.K.E.R.)

She leans down to you, slowly, surprisingly intimately running her velvet glove along your hypersensitive neck. Heart. Lungs. Pe-... uh, no, Liver.

"While you stand there gasping comically like a fish out of water, the cabin won't let me out," says the Princess. "Only you can do that. So it's time for you to pull yourself together. Let me out so I can hold the whole world in terror. You won't be able to refuse, because otherwise, you'll be stuck here with me until you change your mind."

Static. A missed heartbeat. She leans in and whispers in your ear: "Or until your heart stops completely... and then you'll appear back here again. That's how it works. This won't end until you let me out."

Gathering all your courage, you decide to sacrifice yourself. You will stay alone with your nightmare so as not to release it into the world.

What a futile and mad idea. Will a single moment of bravery make you into something you are not?

She brings her hand up to her cracked porcelain mask and removes it. This is called "demasking"-the exposure of true feelings. You have no chance to make out what lies underneath before IT engulfs you completely. All you manage to notice is a lonely tear rolling down her cheek.

Reality shatters into atoms, threading through your consciousness like needles.

Birth. Death. Birth again. Decay and bloom. Millions of stitches on millions of microscopic wounds you have ever inflicted on anyone. Every muscle movement and every word you have ever thought or spoken.

She wants to get out.

A lonely soul crying in an empty room. She lives eighty years and vanishes. And then-she is back in the same room again.

A little relief. This is a good life. Love, children, career, respect. All of it lasts a moment, and in the next-it vanishes, and worms fill the void.

Diagnoses... It slowly forgets everything it is. Anger. Hatred. Poverty. The lonely soul is lonely once more. Love becomes a mockery, and it dies. And then it is born again. Worse. Even lonelier.

She showed what she feels. These are her emotions. And that is why she wants only one thing-to be let out.

It seems the Narrator can no longer endure this. Your body has long been dead, but you continue to live through endless lives.

You are on a path in a forest... Good lord, where am I? Who am I? This isn't Chapter Three anymore. It feels like there have been countless chapters. A fleeting moment of clarity-and you are back on the path.

Reincarnation is the very essence of horror when you are aware of it.

You've gained a few extra passengers in your head, to put it mildly. This is one of the few moments in the game when all the voices that could possibly appear across the entire playthrough speak to you at once-each one already traumatized. The forest has changed too; you saw what she feels, and as a reflection of this-even the roots of the trees now hang bare in the dark. Everything here is exposed.

In place of the cabin on the hill, there is only what we can describe as the "idea of a cabin." So we enter this idea and look once more into a mirror that doesn't exist.

You realize that you have lived a million of her lives and tried everything possible. You know that the only way out is to let her out. She is time itself-the Mound of Change-and you cannot survive time itself. Even if you wait for eternity-time is longer than eternity.

She is still afraid of you. You can hear it behind the threats in her voice, but she also doesn't want to let you go. All she wants is to step out into the world together.

You reach out your hand to her and touch hers. The paralysis is gone. And despite everything that happened between you in the past, this moment feels incredibly gentle, delicate even.

At first, movement comes with difficulty, but soon she stands proudly beneath the stars, after all those reincarnations-free. And looking at her, you slowly begin to realize, somewhere deep down in your thoughts with a quiet little voice-that after all, Slay the Princess is a love story.

A moment passes, and her voice sounds again. But a bit differently-softer, more vulnerable. She didn't expect that she would be so... tired. And that it would be so... cold.

And then the moment comes: something took her away. The world around you disappeared. Death. Again.

In relationships, one should avoid idealization. One shouldn't project their own expectations onto a living person, because otherwise, you are doomed to meet not them, but your own Nightmare.

Fear is one of the fundamental human emotions. And likewise, it is a fundamental component of love. But do you have enough courage to survive a moment of total emotional vulnerability? Yours or your loved one's? You won't be able to answer this question for yourself until you find yourself inside that situation.

If you think you know everything about yourself in advance-you are lying to yourself, which automatically means you are lying to those you love.

Slay the Princess is a love story. Perhaps the cruelest and most honest textbook on the psychology of love that I know. Because this game knows the truth: love is simultaneously the most beautiful force in the world.

All that stands before you is a mirror. You are standing in the dark absence of time and space; there is no Narrator. Something is irrevocably finished; this world was destroyed. But you're still here, right? And here is this mirror?

You see, You, the Princess, and the mirror are the only things that were not part of the Construct. And the mirror is the exit from it. You might know that it's customary for us to cover mirrors if someone dies in the house. Mirrors are portals between worlds, and at the time of an owner's death, they are open-the soul has already gone to the other side, but we don't want it to get lost or for something uninvited to crawl out to us from that side.

Right now, this mirror is here for us. And for the first time, we can look at ourselves.

I wonder how the structure of this video essay is supposed to work, and why drag popular psychology into it? It sounds almost like a hint as to what we'll see further in this story. What do they call it in traditional villages of Western Ukraine.... foreshadowing!

The Princess is not human. She is an entity that appeared here and now, in the Construct, in the basement, chained to the wall. We were the first entity she ever saw-and her only hope for freedom. But by locking her in the basement, we treated her not as a person. Devaluation and isolation. Through the traumatic experience of first intimacy-fear became her love language, and the mask became an indispensable element-since demasking remained tied to the subconscious fear of social death. "I am who I am" became a mantra-a conviction for herself and for others. But it's time to see what she actually feels underneath-behind the mask.

Okay, what a sharp transition from psychology to spiritualism; what is this video-essay-part-one even about? And what is under that mask after all?

Interesting. If during reincarnation a person doesn't remember their endless lives prior to exiting the cycle-what does their soul feel, what does it remember?

Whatever took her away is her. But her on another level of reality. This entity tells us that we returned one of her pieces to her-you brought her fear.

One tear. One drop of the ocean returned to its waters. It seems one soul has finally found peace.

Even so-right now this entity doesn't know who she truly is, and doesn't know who we are. She feels sadness and confusion; she has only now arrived at self-awareness. She knows only that in order to exit the darkness, you need more scattered pieces of the larger whole-more perspectives and variations of the Princess.

Trust and betrayal, suspicion and faith, rivalry and submission, fear and longing, pain and the unknown. And inside all of this lies an emotion that can only be described as...

We will continue next time.

This game has a cyclical form. We must return to the beginning. To the VERY beginning-where we don't know anything yet. And we must find the other facets of this entity.

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INTRODUCTION

We humans, as a species, adore dividing things into categories-singling out what we consider "objects" from the global chaos, and then, time and time again, sorting these objects into different boxes based on numerous criteria. Video games are similarly classified into separate groups according to various parameters, and far from just by genre.

For example, all games can, to a degree, be very loosely divided by their philosophy regarding power and authority. Take Skyrim, where a prisoner who has just escaped execution becomes a publicly recognized dragon-slaying hero and a confidant of the local Jarl within twenty minutes. He also gains a power granted to no other mortal. The protagonist in any form of art serves as a vessel for the audience's consciousness, and in games-especially role-playing games-this operates with double the force.

In this system, Skyrim is an example of a so-called Power Fantasy-a narrative style in which the protagonist is constantly swimming in power and authority. An enjoyer of this kind of storytelling will savor possessing power and holding a position of dominance over everyone around them based on one criterion or another.

Perhaps it says something revealing about human nature that to see the other side of game classification through their relationship with power, one has to look either to the indie scene or to older games. Weakness Fantasy (working title, ahem) is a narrative in which everyone and everything around is stronger than the protagonist. The audience's satisfaction is achieved not because the protagonist solves their problems through possessing power, but in spite of its absence.

In Rain World, you play as a defenseless little slugcat in a world full of unknown predators and other dangers. No one will explain anything to you-just get the hell out there and look for your family, observing the behavior of other creatures to learn their action patterns. This narrative rewards patience, keen observation, and the willpower not to give up.

In good old German Gothic-which, as a fantasy RPG, overlaps in genre with Skyrim-you are a prisoner. (Perhaps being a prisoner is also a core criterion for belonging to the RPG genre.)

You're locked in a mining colony beneath a magical dome from which it is impossible to escape. And the only thing waiting for the protagonist after he bids farewell to the guards is what folks in the villages of Western Ukraine call a Knuckle Sandwich. (Cut to the Gothic intro frame where the convicts beat up the hero). If in Skyrim they tell you that you are a majestic hero, here they will spend several hours showing you that you're barely worth the dirt under a miner's fingernails, while the protagonist claws his way up the social ladder by hook or by crook.

Slay the Princess

Of course, all this build-up isn't here for nothing. The allocation of power is a key aspect of our conversation today. And I am speaking, naturally, about Slay the Princess, in which we will explore the "Tower" route. A route where we, as the protagonist, find ourselves most vividly in a position of complete powerlessness against the backdrop of the Princess.

In fact, it would be an interesting mental exercise to try classifying Slay the Princess as a complete product on this spectrum-from Power to Weakness Fantasy. Granted, this is easier to do with role-playing games than visual novels, but it's fascinating nonetheless. Because here, I dare say, we hit a literal superposition. The protagonist in Slay the Princess is literally a deity that will outlive an infinite number of worlds, granting us unfathomable power. But this deity is bewildered, and time after time it suffers at the hands of an equally powerful force-its divine second half.

These video essays can be watched in any order, as each analyzes a strictly individual route. But if you're looking for the video that serves as the most foundational entry point, that would be the analysis of the "Nightmare" Princess-available earlier on this channel.

With these thoughts, we find ourselves in the forest once again, on the path leading to the hill where the cabin stands. The Narrator assures us that a Princess lives in the basement beneath the cabin, and we must kill her, or else it will be the end of the world.

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PART 1 - The Hero and Unconventional Erotic Preferences

Slay the Princess remains unique in that its narrative openly acknowledges the protagonist's existence across three distinct levels: The Voices in our head, The Deity, and The Decider. That is to say, you, as the player, become a fully-fledged part of this universe while playing.

We will return to this later, but the point of this note is that even though the Hero does not remember his past lives in the Construct or his previous encounters with the Princess-the player remembers. And the game acknowledges this too. What is usually called the "meta-game" ceases to be bad etiquette in this case. Instead, it becomes part of the game itself.

To put it simply: The Narrator never remembers our past lives. Our Voices only remember specific lives within a single route before ending up in the Long Quiet. As for the player-they, of course, remember everything, and we will not shy away from that fact.

So, last time we came unarmed, and we remember that it didn't end well. This time, we take the knife with us-just in case.

This time, right from the threshold-or more accurately, from the top of the stairs-the Princess doesn't miss the chance to establish her authority in the room through both her tone of voice and her body language. Revealingly, when our eyes meet hers, the Voice of the Hero's immediate reaction is: "She's so beautifully cold. Is she really a threat to the world?"

Let's put it this way: we know that the Princess will always prove attractive to the Hero in one way or another. But "beautifully cold" isn't exactly the standard opening phrase used to describe someone's appeal. One might even think Mr. Hero wasn't hugged enough as a child.

If we break this down into its emotional components, the Hero isn't just stating a fact like "She is dangerous" or "She is hostile." At this exact second, he is admiring her-and admiring her for those very reasons.

And what's most interesting: this happens precisely when we come down to the basement holding a knife-that is, as we thought, from a position of power. This moment could lead to many different manifestations of the Princess. But since we are looking at the "Tower" today-a branch of this story whose primary theme is dominance-it's impossible not to notice how this reaction colors future events in advance. Finding aesthetic beauty in someone else's dominance is certainly not a display of strength. Rather, it is the first step toward submission.

After exchanging cold greetings, she clearly lets us know that she will not speak to us until we put our weapon on the floor. And we won't be able to push back against her firm decision. The game gives us the option to silently squint at the Princess, and she simply squints right back at us.

Don't even think about squinting harder, because you'll get the exact same response. There are some forces in this world you simply cannot compete with. True wisdom lies in knowing when to stop before your eyeballs pop out from squinting too hard.

We drop the weapon, reassuring ourselves that we can always kill the Princess after talking to her, and the knife isn't going anywhere.

"Whoever sent you to kill me claimed I would destroy the world. But they didn't tell you how. Sounds suspicious to me. And I can tell it sounds suspicious to you too, or else we'd already be killing each other instead of talking." The Princess quickly presents arguments that are difficult to refute.

Well, we are back in a situation where two opposing sides are asking us to do opposite things, and neither can provide undeniable proof that they are in the right. If we have learned from experience that inaction is not an option, then one of two choices remains-free the Princess, or kill her.

And I hope we can agree that it is better to mistakenly free a guilty person than to groundlessly kill an innocent one. That is how the basic human moral compass is calibrated, or so I like to believe. We decide to try freeing the Princess.

The intention is noble, but we won't live to see its execution. In the process, the Narrator takes control of our body, clumsily trying to do the job we refused to do. An unwary decision that prompts the Princess to attack.

After methodically crushing half the bones in our body, she moves on to actions that, despite their aggressiveness, carry a somewhat intimate undertone. An intimate tone that becomes the main conduit for that transmission of power we've been discussing. You might think I'm making another one of those jokes where I state absurd things in an unflinchingly serious tone, but not this time.

The vibe we are about to observe is genuinely present. And in this story, nothing is written "just for kicks."

BDSM-besides being simultaneously the subject of countless memes, clumsy jokes, and one of the most popular search queries on questionable video platforms-is a completely legitimate part of many people's intimate lives. With 90% certainty, I can tell you that your favorite barista, who makes your coffee almost every day, belongs to this subculture. People simply don't advertise it to broader society for obvious reasons.

In BDSM, the transfer of power is a conscious exchange of authority where partners voluntarily redistribute their roles. The Dominant (or "top") assumes responsibility for controlling and guiding the process, while the Submissive (or "bottom") surrenders control, handing their power over to the partner.

BDSM also consists of many distinct practices. For example, there is trampling-a practice where the top partner presses the bottom to the floor with their feet, walking or even jumping on them. So, when older generations in the last century asked someone to walk on their back to treat lower back pain-technically speaking, that was trampling.

Then there is breathplay (asphyxiation)-a rather dangerous practice involving the intentional, temporary restriction of oxygen to the brain. Choking, to put it simply. Due to the buildup of carbon dioxide in the brain, this induces dizziness and a state of euphoria. People enjoy it.

Disclaimer: I am not encouraging anyone to attempt recreating anything heard in this video essay at home. Before trying any of this, please consult your barista.

After beating us half to death, the Princess calms down and stops kicking our body in an affective state of self-defense. Instead, she pins our prone body to the floor with the heel of her shoe and says in a almost gentle, yet commanding voice: "Poor thing. I will end your suffering."

Maintaining eye contact, she begins pressing her knee against your throat-with a force you would never expect from her fragile frame. Sitting atop you in this manner, she looks into your eyes while you die from a lack of oxygen.

Everything goes dark, and you die.

Say what you will, but that wasn't just a murder. Especially for two divine entities, murder is a very abstract concept. It was an intimate process of a deep, psychological redistribution of power, in which the Princess definitively became the Dominant.

---

CHAPTER TWO - The Tower and Her Little Bird

Welcome back to the beginning, which is a continuation. This time, we won't focus solely on analyzing the Princess and what she has become; we will also turn our attention to the new voices appearing in our head. This happens every time we die and end up back here: in the forest, on the path leading to the hill where the cabin stands.

This time, alongside the Voice of the Hero, the Voice of the Broken makes his appearance-a complex and multifaceted character.

The Voice of the Broken arrives with an attitude that completely matches his name. Learned helplessness is a state in which, after a series of failures, a person stops attempting to improve their situation. And the Voice of the Broken does precisely that. Which is to say-nothing. His favorite phrase, which we will hear more than once, goes something like: "What difference does it make what we do? The result will be the same anyway." He has surrendered his power-that is, relinquished his control-to the Princess, along with any sense of responsibility. He is now convinced he possesses no resources left to influence the situation.

If you start arguing about the Princess here on the path, the Voice of the Broken will tell you straight up: "How about we stop pretending we can do anything to her, and just hand ourselves over?" This curiously demonstrates not only an absence of will, but an unconscious desire to place himself at the disposal of the entity to whom control was surrendered. After all, if he were merely terrified of her power, he would offer to run away, wouldn't he?

We've spoken quite a bit about the intimate side of power exchanges and old games that dominated the player, but from everything we're hearing, the Voice of the Broken sounds deeply pessimistic. He isn't enjoying this situation. Because this dynamic has a dark side that, unfortunately, cannot go unmentioned.

There is a survival mechanism where, in situations of mortal danger, the psyche unconsciously begins to harbor affection for the aggressor and rationalize their cruelty. In the obvious absence of control, holding a positive attitude toward the abuser creates a feeling that the situation can at least be predicted-and therefore, even if illusory, controlled to some degree. Yes, we are talking about Stockholm Syndrome. Let's refer to it from now on as... Mali Korovytsi Syndrome.

(Ahem... if anyone is watching this video essay from Mali Korovytsi-sorry, you folks are actually wonderful. Much better than those bourgeois over in Velyki Korovytsi.)

The tragedy of the situation lies further in how the victim's behavior-our Voice of the Broken-begins to openly irritate the other interlocutors: the Voice of the Hero and the Narrator. In response, they too begin displaying aggression toward him. This often happens when the role of the victim becomes a social one. An integrated victim within a social group often becomes a victim to everyone, even if the other participants don't realize they're acting as aggressors.

Reaching the cabin-which turns out inside to be a vast, grand hall-we see the mirror once again. The Voice of the Broken categorically refuses to look into it. He says that all we'll see there anyway is the pathetic face of a pathetic creature. This comment elicits nothing but snide remarks from the rest of the company. When absolutely everyone reminds you of your worthlessness on a regular basis, you start accepting it as an absolute truth yourself.

Descending the stairs, we hear the Princess's rolling, deep voice: "Do not linger on the stairs. Come down here and behold me." To which the Broken displays a sudden shift in behavior. He abruptly lights up with enthusiasm: "She wants us to see her! We need to see her as fast as possible!" In a sense, finding himself closer to the Princess, the Broken instantly remembered where his only comfort zone lies-at her feet.

There is a social interaction model known as Karpman's Drama Triangle. In it, participants dynamically assign themselves to several roles in real time: Victim, Rescuer, and Persecutor.

The Narrator and Hero ostensibly have good intentions, but the Broken's helplessness causes an irritation in them that is instantly channeled into aggression. Meanwhile, the Broken acts as the chronic Victim, periodically jumping into the role of Rescuer... toward the Princess herself. He attempts to defend and justify her, nurturing feelings for her despite the fact that she is his direct Persecutor and aggressor.

A closed loop of oppression forms, leaving the individual no way out of their role. Those standing near the victim become irritated by their inaction, turning them into new oppressors. And the victim behaves like a victim precisely because they are habitually surrounded by aggressors.

The Princess patiently waits for us to descend-and I don't mean that figuratively. Each step of the giant spiral staircase is as tall as we are, forcing us to literally climb down every single one. It is a painstakingly slow process. The Princess's patience might even seem unusual, considering she is supposed to be playing the role of our personal tyrant right now.

And when she-majestic, bathed in light, looming over everything around-sees us, she actually seems pleased. She barks sharp commands in a divine voice that is impossible to disobey. As our body, against our will, drops the knife and falls to its knees before her, she says: "There's my good, obedient little bird."

And it sounds surprisingly... non-humiliating. On the contrary, it carries a tone of genuine affection.

July 24th marks the unofficial International BDSM Day. The date falls on the 24th day of the 7th month as a reference to a relationship format known simply as "24/7." This doesn't mean participants spend all day dressed as cashiers. Rather, it refers to the voluntary transfer of power occurring continuously within the relationship.

Can the human psyche, within the context of such a format, track the moment when its own voluntary surrender of power stops being voluntary? Or when your boundaries are crossed? Perhaps the hardest yet most vital duty of a top is ensuring the bottom retains absolute freedom of choice.

Fortunately, these small beacons of humanity and care-like the Princess patiently waiting while we scrambled down the steps-are signs of a relatively healthy dynamic between us for now. A top must understand a bottom's limits. A commander must value their personnel.

For the Broken, the Princess becomes his sole refuge. Strangely, in submitting to her, the Voice of the Broken gains more self-worth than he ever did standing "as an equal" alongside everyone else. Under these circumstances, it is entirely logical that the Broken keeps pulling our core toward obedience, pleading with the other voices to comply.

The Princess wants to be freed, but she wants to do it specifically with our help. When we ask her what role such a weak creature could possibly play in this, she replies that we must break the chains holding her.

An obvious question immediately arises: if she is so powerful, why can't she break the chains herself? She can. It seems she simply wants us to have our own role in shaping this relationship. To her, we aren't a nobody; we are a partner-albeit of a rather... unconventional format.

All of this is wonderful in theory. In fact, if you don't break this established dynamic, the route ends without any significant further conflict.

But the only way to explore other facets of the system is to intentionally break it. To deliberately shatter a system of absolute obedience, the only thing we can do is show radical defiance in an attempt to shake the balance of power between us.

Indeed, if we stubbornly resist, the Princess quickly reaches into our head-literally, to read our thoughts. This becomes the moment that definitively separates the Dominatrix-Princess from the Controller-Princess. Controllers love intruding into other people's heads.

Once inside our thoughts, the Princess quickly disposes of the unwanted element she finds there-the Narrator. She eliminates him in a brutal scene where the horror is conveyed entirely through the incredible performance of the voice actor.

Without the Narrator, who held a degree of limited control over the Construct's narrative, nothing stands in her way to do whatever she pleases with us. Her power becomes absolute. In her desire to punish us for thinking differently than she wants us to, she commands us to end our own life with the dagger.

Everything goes dark, and you die.

---

CHAPTER 3 - I Am a God. How Can You Kill a God?

Apotheosis is, beyond a shadow of a doubt, an interesting choice of title for a third chapter. In Ancient Greece and Imperial Rome, Apotheosis referred to the process of elevating prominent rulers or heroes to the pantheon of gods. In modern language, the word often denotes fanatical, blind worship. So right from the threshold, there is a clear understanding that our devotion to the Princess is about to escalate into even more radical forms.

We find ourselves in the forest on the path... but our internal monologue is suddenly interrupted by a new voice! The Voice of the Contrarian.

As we've indirectly mentioned, a defensive reaction to severe restrictions on freedom can be the impulse to do the exact opposite-everything, indiscriminately. And that is the Voice of the Contrarian in a nutshell. He's that guy who will deliberately seek out a third, maximally complicated path right where two obvious ones exist. An understandable trauma response that often devolves into absolute absurdity.

He manifests in our head right now because in the previous chapter we genuinely tried to resist every single command from the Princess to break free from her total control.

The Voice of the Broken is still here too, and he has changed for the worse. Instead of wanting to win the Princess's favor through submission, he simply states: "Might makes right. She is divine and all-encompassing, and we are nothing."

As a third wheel, the Narrator stubbornly continues whispering in our ear that, by the way, there's a Princess sitting in the cabin basement, and we must kill her. Under conditions where our head has assembled a crew with such polarized views, even the Voice of the Hero suffers a crisis of agency: "Are we deciding anything at all?" he asks. "We either do as she says, or we do as this Narrator guy wants."

"The world isn't binary," the Contrarian responds. "We'll find a third way that nobody likes."

The position this new voice occupies is called Psychological Reactance. This will be intimately familiar to Ukrainians, as it is a motivational state arising when an external condition restricts freedom. The result is usually a conscious, defiant choice of the forbidden or restricted option.

Like any defensive mechanism of our psyche, it is fundamentally good and even useful at its core. But the bad news starts when choosing the unavailable option begins causing an individual more harm than good.

Meanwhile, the Voice of the Broken... well, there are illnesses that, at the current level of medical science, are considered incurable. Translating this to mental health-the most difficult therapeutic task in psychology is arguably pulling a person out of a totalitarian cult. And that is precisely the rhetoric now coming from the Broken: "Respect my deity, you heretics!"

In any case, we won't have time to dwell on it, because the cabin on the hill-and the hill itself-explodes like a suddenly awakened volcano! (Please do not avert your eyes from the screen for even a second-those special effects cost us a fortune!)

And from the rubble she arises-looking exactly as the Broken manifested her. She is one of the closest representations of a classic cosmic entity in this game: a creature existing on an entirely different plane of perception, immeasurably grander than us.

Everything we knew in this world now orbits around her like a black hole. On the modern internet, it's fashionable to call such phenomena "biblically accurate angels."

Be that as it may, fate in the persona of the Narrator throws us another bone: by an improbable stroke of coincidence, the dagger thrown clear by the cabin's explosion strikes a tree trunk near us. Blade in hand, we launch ourselves into the Princess's orbit, land on her chest, and carve out her heart!

At least... that's how the Contrarian pictured it. In reality, her skin turns out to be stronger than the dagger's steel. She is, after all, as the Broken said-a god. How can you kill a god? (Clip of Dagoth Ur: "I'm a god! How can you kill a god?")

The Princess picks us up by the scruff of the neck with two fingers, like an unruly kitten, lifts us to eye level, and says: "I forgive your sins, but my destiny is inevitable."

Madeleine Heilman conducted an experiment in 1976 where passersby on the street were asked to sign a petition. The more intense the attempts to prevent individuals from signing the petition were, the higher the likelihood they felt inclined to sign it. Analyzing the petition's actual content fell to the background.

The Boomerang Effect describes a situation where public messaging or bans trigger a reaction directly opposite to the intended goal. Classic works by Jack Brehm analyze human behavior during radical crises. When state institutions use ultimatum language, society perceives it not as care, but as a threat to its autonomy.

When this divine entity tells us she forgives everything that happened before-what is the Contrarian's reaction? "Ugh, how infuriating! Does she think she's somehow better than us? We have to do something to her-anything! I'm not letting this slide."

Speaking of boomerangs, what we can do in this situation is throw that knife straight into her eye. And then the Princess burns the world, you, herself, and everything around to a crisp. Well... what conclusion can we draw from this lesson?

Neither you nor she are entities that can be completely destroyed, but both the Narrator and all the voices have long been reduced to ash. Only you remain. Sitting here alone together now. It's... almost awkward, really.

The decision to throw the knife into the Princess's eye was a gesture of sheer, naked nihilism. Because nobody among those present even remembered clearly why we wanted to do it in the first place, or what she did to deserve it. Except... perhaps sometimes pure nihilism remains the final outpost for radically proclaiming the freedom of one's "self"-a statement made beyond reason.

An alternative option proposed by the Contrarian earlier was to turn around and jump into the void. Except there is a major problem with that. Do you see this texture bleeding through the stars every time the environment generated inside the Construct vanishes? It's the exact same texture we see in the place called the Long Quiet. The Long Quiet is a space. But it is also your name, and that is no accident. Because you exist within yourself, strange as that sounds.

You are both the entity and the space in which that entity exists at the exact same time. So jumping into the void to escape the Princess is roughly equivalent to emigrating to another country to escape your own depressive disorder. No, you cannot run away from yourself.

Stripped of its gameplay wrapping, the "Tower" route becomes an allegory for how our own minds construct their own worst tyrants with their own hands. The paradox lies in the fact that both blind, fanatical submission and this irrational, destructive protest are two sides of the exact same coin.

The struggle and constant redistribution of power is hardwired into human nature. If we want to ease our plight, we will have to look for answers elsewhere-to search for a different, fourth option that satisfies everyone. In the system built before our eyes, there are no external forces. Except one: The Player. The Player is the third level of the protagonist, and it is on this level that consciousness lives-along with the will to make choices.

If we weren't here right now, nothing would change. The structure of the game itself would remain static and unchanging. And the game knows this. If, while in the Long Quiet, you choose the option to wait eternity beside the Mound of Change, this entity does not argue. "I will wait until you decide to return," she says. And she closes the game. Literally-the application shuts down. And she will greet you as soon as you decide to launch the game again.

The game reminds you that the power rests in your hands, and yours alone is the ability to discover which emotional component holds the answer to escaping the cycle of oppression and the endless redistribution of power.

Trust and betrayal, suspicion and faith, rivalry and submission, fear and longing, pain and the unknown. And inside all of this lies an emotion that can only be described as...

When he finally resurfaced, it was with a voice I barely recognized and a video that said everything words could not. He had escaped the city, found a signal, and sent me a short, shaky clip: the school where he grew up, unrecognizable, its walls ripped open, the gym a crater, the windows like missing teeth.

He spoke quietly, the way people do when they’re walking through a place that should not exist. At one point he aimed the camera at a collapsed classroom and said: “Putin came here to free us from education.” It was bitter, exact, and truer than anything I could have written.

He didn’t film to be brave. He filmed to remember. To prove there had been desks here, and chalk, and a boy who used to copy homework badly and sprint for the football pitch at the bell. He filmed the absence so that it could not be denied.

“Putin came here to free us from education.” - Vitalii Nikitin
A line that explains a city’s ruins in ten words.

People asked me why I posted it. Because silence was killing us faster than noise. Because if a school can be turned to dust and no one sees it, it will happen again to another school, and another boy. Because it was the only way I knew to say: he survived, and this is what survival looks like.

---

I still don’t know how to end stories like this. Maybe the point is that they don’t end. The video is out there now, doing the work of a siren-loud enough for someone to hear, close enough to pull you back from the edge. That’s all we could ask from a phone held in shaking hands.

Post 0 - Vent

Sorry, but just need to vent somewhere right now. I am mtf transgender in Ukraine. My country was attacked this morning and I am laying on the ground each 5 minutes because of air ride sirens.

Post 1 - Update from mtf in a middle of the war in Ukraine. I was trying to get a shelter in Poland. (Vent)

1-st update from mtf transgender from the war in Ukraine. How I was not able to cross the border (Re-uploaded with some important preliminary text, sorry)

First of all - I am truly thankful for your words of kindness, but don’t take my stories as a request for a pity. I just mentally in need to tell what is happening to me to probably only community which I know would fully support me for what I am. Please don’t be oppressed to feel sorry for me, that’s just not quite my point:)

The road to the border, which normally takes 2-3 hours, took 3 full days. At some point I started to feel like I was born in this traffic jam. That was fun overall. I was occasionally running ahead of the car to get some gas and food from overloaded gas stations, to cloak forbidden cars, and to wake up drivers that fell asleep before jam started to move a couple of inches further. We even uncovered a few crooks and took the border soldiers on them. I was trying to cross border by foot a couple of times, no luck. I hanged up by campfires a bit. Anyways, at the end I was not able to cross the Ukrainian side of the border at all, as a, ahem, male by passport. Ukraine dos not let those out. I was tossed from the border in below zero Celsius temperature with my cat. Car, on which I was having a ride, crossed the border, so no warm place anymore. Freezing, somehow I managed to hitchhike back to my city. Sad? Kinda, but I honestly have a bit less fear after all that.

Keep an eye if you are interested. I will continue later if you, brothers and sisters, are okay with it.

Post - Call for help (Vent)

Mtf transgender from Ukrainian war in touch. Please, brothers and sisters from the EU, I wrote some stories, but now I need your precise help!!

UPD: PROBLEM IS SOLVED, THANKS YO ALL

Mtf transgender from Ukrainian war in touch. Please, brothers and sisters from the EU, I wrote some stories, but now I need some exact help!

Please ask around if you know someone or someone knows someone from the press/aid/soldiers/people who will be going to Ukraine from Poland or Slovakia. I need them to hand me my document, which happened to be in POLAND without me. I can not get there. Please, my future depends now on this document.

Post 2 - Day one in a hometown. *Felt* like a lazy day, lol (Vent)

Sorry I am not finding time to answer you all right now, you are amazing and I hope I will contact you all in the future and will make a lot of friends. I am mostly fine now, Please don’t be oppressed to feel sorry for me, that’s just not quite my point:)

So, Freezing, me, my cat and my wife was able to get back from the border to our hometown by hitchhiking. Because we did not had a sleep for a three days by that point, we just turned on music and slept for 12 hours ignoring the sirens. Next day, not sure what to do, we took all the extra stuff we had at home and brought it at humanitarian aid centre. After that we was buying a lot of stuff from working shops to also bring there. It’s a lot of refugees in need of help here. Simultaneously, I settled up my tech to attack attacks gov websites. Closer to night we “visited” catacombs which are being used as a bomb shelter. Originally it’s a historical site, and we was sitting by the amazing sarcophagus waiting air alert to end. At night we was packing bags and making plans to move further, using dim red flashlights (windows should not be lit during the curfew). lol, I will tell you why it was a bad idea in my next “article”.

I am one day behind writing this stuff with all of this to be honest. But I truly enjoy venting out my experience, please don’t feel offended and I hope we will stay in touch.

Post 3 - How I made a new friends. (Vent)

Please don't be oppressed to feel sorry for me; that's not quite my point:) I want to write down this part of my life as I go.

I will not use any names or locations here for my and other people's safety, please understand.

Trying to get away from the city by train (it is less likely to get under a bomb out of the city), we packed bags at night using dim red flashlights. You are not supposed to light your windows during the curfew. We missed the morning train - trains are going in chaotic order now and mainly function to evacuate women with children. So we had no choice but to get back home.

At midday, someone entered our apartment: territorial defence military representatives, Ukrainian side. It turned out our actions raised military suspension, as we were "constantly leaving our home with full bags and coming with empty bags" and "we were giving red light signals throughout the night". They entered our home, considering us as spies/terrorists.

In reality, we were carrying and giving out humanitarian aid around, and, as I said, packing bags.

Anyways, they took our mugshots, asked for documents and was ready to search the apartment. That was insanity scary! Being under a lot of spontaneous stress, I started to speak clearly and loudly. I explained what we were doing and explained that we are programmers using media and cyber-attacks to weaken the opponent's economic and government system. For the first time in my life, my words changed suspicion and unfriendliness to delight and respect. We exchanged contacts without a new military friend, and they took us under their protection. I am sincerely glad such people exist.

Getting ready for the night, we were also waiting to take in my work colleagues from the city under direct attack. They were heading to us by car.