#awkward store enounters

[colourprinter]

Probably too personal thoughts, feelings, and ramblings around Our Wonderland

A couple of warnings, this will likely spoil all of Our Wonderland and this will likely get personal on the thoughts and feelings. It's a personal look (and total ramble) at this game more than anything.

If you haven't played or don't know what Our Wonderland is, I don't know how you found this but you can find it for free on this link.

To keep the spoilers hidden and to prevent forcing , I've put everything in the expand below.

I found this game from the Queer Halloween Story Bundle on itch, I was looking around what was in the bundle and enountered this game. I had already played a visual novel from the bundle that didn't gel too well with me so my hopes weren't too high.

I had no idea what this free game in a bundle had in store.

I was casual during the intro, I don't know when it hit but I knew I was locked in when act 2 hit and I saw what the meat of this game really is.

Something in this game sucked me right in, and wouldn't let me go.

I can't say I remember every detail but I was quickly emotionally invested, trying (and almost always failing) to keep Iggy alive and seeing how this friend group had completely gone off the rails, how their wishes twist around them.

Everything gave me the feeling I believe it was meant to, Gidget's advances on Iggy, Orlam, Buck's outright brutality, Genzou trying to get out alive while throwing the worst words at Orlam (I think he's just like that anyway) and Iggy having the worst time of his life.

While that doesn't sound like much, I don't usually get a reaction from a lot, the mix of visual and words hits just right... or wrong given how horrifying some of this is. Well, some things in the game would easily get a reaction...

For a bit of context for the next parts, I am aro/ace, something I truely discovered myself in the middle of a relationship, not that I hate being in a relationship but I think I'm completely incapable of feeling romantic love, there's just... nothing there. With being ace, I kinda resented the way my brain would react, litrally wishing sometimes that I was ace, glad I grew out of that for my own sake.

I also tend to feel awkward enough around sex in video games. I got goaded into the House of Hope scene, the first time the game crashed to save me and the second time I went dead slient and fixed my eyes down, only looking up enough to see the choices... I've now got an agreement to never have that happen again.

So obviously Gitget's sections got a big reaction from me, I thankfully haven't had any expriences close to anything like that, I could understand Iggy's perspective.

But enough about the horrible stuff for the moment, I'm not going to explain that, yes, seeing Orlam's and Buck's scenes were also shockers because eating human flesh and brutally murdering people are kinda bad things as well.

What I want to focus on next is something I currently only have one full perspective of, the romance. I usually verbalise everything to myself in RPGs and VNs, doing silly little voices for everyone (doing 6 children voices at the end hurt) so when I was given the choice of an ending... obviously, I chose the Genzou ending. Usually I'd feel awkward and stilted reading out the words but this time, it felt nice, I haven't done the other endings but I'm sure they're just as good, even if they're not, I got at least one good romance which given that this topples my fav VN romance (Slay the Princess which is pratically a joke romance anyway), I'm more than happy with it.

Niceness is over, I have another list topper, worst thing I've ever encountered in a video game, something so bad that even being foribly censored (I'm not checking if there's a visible version this time), it made me sick to my stomach. The tree and the infant in Her branches. Now I've played though and done some horrible things in video games, including child murder, but the way the body is described, the way everyone reacts to it. I can't call it anything below truely horrible and I'm putting this above freaking turn based RPG murdering children, I thought after that nothing would get me again (I think doing it actually knocked a screw loose because I've suddenly stopped being a goodie two shoes in video games, that's how bad that was). I mean this as a compliment but that is the worst thing I have ever encountered in any media.

And I think because I've felt these strong emotions where I haven't been hit so hard before, I've become completely pulled into it all. The fanwork contest was the first bit of my own art I put online in years and that kick started me getting back into art as a hobby, something I don't think I would have gotten back into if I didn't do that bit of Iggy art to prove to myself that I could do it if I put myself into it.

So... Carrot, thank you so much for this game of romance, fun, death and wishes.

If I land on my feet, I'd like to make a game with multiple acespec PoVs one day, much less horror though.

[a-violin-playing-goat]

Video Ezy Guy

Every time I decide it's time to do something moderately embarassing in my local Video Ezy store, there is always one particular guy working, who I estimate to be about my age. Every time.

My chronology may be a little out here but I digress.

I had been cajoled into watching Game of Thrones by a friend of mine and so head of to my trusty Video Ezy too retrieve the DVD, all the while working up a nervous sweat. I was not 18, would they deny me the psychological trauma of GoT? I nervously hired it out with some Ben and Jerry's. Not to shameful so far. 

During my exam period I went out to lunch with my mother, aunty and cousins near the video ezy. Exam period has somehow become synonymous with life of a hermit. There were so many normal people out there! In order to give my aunty a break from the crying two year lod so the poor woman could eat I took Blake for a walk. Enter Video Ezy. I initially attempt to keep up the sharade of looking at New Releases until i remember if I hold Blake up in the air, he'll giggle. 

Things aren't going horrifically until blake is perched on my hip, content to continuosly drag my shirt down, essentially flashing everyone in sight, including Video Ezy Guy. I awkwardly attempt to stop Blake while trying to make it as obvious as possible that he wasn't mine. This really was only going two ways; incompetent baby sitter or incompetent mother. Hoping for the former. But no, leaving the store was not the end of the story. Coles was my next grand place of entertainment, only to find that VIdeo Ezy guy was restocking as I apologised profusely to a lady who's daughter Blake wanted to stalk.

As a quite hardcore fan of Doctor Who, my mother made my friends and I skirts that were the TARDIS. So come the 50th Anniversary Special, I put on my skirt, red converses, dad's business shirt and boyfriend's tie, ready for the movie. Which, of  course, required Ben and Jerry's. At my trusty video store it would only be the guy working. He politely asked if I needed a bag. Instead of giving a nice and easy "no" I felt compelled to blurt out "No, I have a lunch box." At least I didn't add that it had Disney Princesses on it.

So now my reputation is that of a Game of thrones watching incompetent baby sitter with a Doctor who addiction rivalled only by my Ben and Jerry's addiction. Not too bad, right?

To this day I continue to source my ice cream from the store and its loyal employee, in varying states of distress and dishevelment. I strive not to at least be that one customer who makes a shift kind of entertaining with their idiocy.