It's All You Can Eat at Eden

Writing Wednesday

Are there any specific seasons, biomes, times of day, or types of weather which leave you feeling especially connected to your alterhuman identity and experiences?

CW: Child abuse, starvation I’m literally just explaining the plot of my portion of the game Alice mare.

Yes, actually. But… not for a particularly good reason. My name is Rick Amery, and I am a fictive from a niche RPG horror game, Alice mare. My twin sibling Letty, known now as Narancia, is the current host of our system. As a child, my sister/alter and I grew up in a small house in the woods. Letty was the main fronter, while I was her protector. Our father was a good man, but things changed after the death of our mother and his remarriage. Our stepmother was… incredibly abusive. It is because of her that I formed in the first place. Letty was hurt by our stepmother, but still tried to keep up a positive outlook on life. I would front as much as I could during the abuse, but anything physical would always remain on the body. One day, in December, our mother took us out of the house and further into the woods. It was freezing. We walked for what felt like hours. Our mother claimed to have dropped something, and told us to wait where we were. She never came back. We were not a rich family, in fact we were very poor. The reason we had been abandoned by her was because the family did not have the funds to feed a third person. Letty ran frantically, ignoring the cold, trying to find her way out of the woods, before coming to a small clearing. We sat on a fallen tree, and just… talked to one another. The cold was overwhelming, but we had each other. Eventually, I managed to make our way out of the woods. Of course, that couldn’t be the end of things. Letty was very… upset. And, well… it was a cold night. The fireplace was burning brightly. Why not… push our stepmother in? And that was what she did. The house burned that night. Both our parents passed away in the fire. So… I have a bit of a rough relationship with the winter. With the woods. And with being outdoors at night. On one hand, despite being the “strong one”, it makes me feel… unsafe. The woods bring back terrible memories, regardless of the time of day. And, of course, the winter is when our father died. As much as he enabled our stepmother, we did love our father. On the other hand, the holiday season is a joyful time. Letty used to dream of living in a house made of candy, because it meant we could eat dessert all day, and not have to starve. It’s also, well, the time of year where our stepmother died. Which is a very good thing. Murder is okay. Another lovely positive moment about the winter is that it’s when we met our Teacher. After the death of our parents, we were brought to… what I can only describe as an orphanage, without getting into long explanations on the entire plot of the game I’m from. Teacher was the best parent a kid could ask for. I didn’t trust him at all at first, of course, very wary around adults, but I managed to warm up to him after a while. So… the winter brings back a lot of feelings. It may be a bit early, but I could really use some gingerbread right about now.

PS: If you’re noticing any parallels, yes, our story is very heavily based off of Hansel and Gretel. I consider “Hansel” to be like an archetrope of mine. You wouldn’t think a specific character could be a trope, but when it comes to fairy tales, they sure do love using Hansel and Gretel as jumping off points over and over again. If a character is based on Hansel, I feel an immediate sense of attachment to them. Even if they aren’t me specifically, they are me.