Side-Write: A Magical Childhood

I usually try to offer some insight into the background and lore for the game I'm working on at the moment for these side-writes, even if it's mostly speculative or spitballing, and in this case I think it's pretty clear what that should be.

The player character in Project Voice is never officially given a name and mostly referred to as "you," but they do have some prominent personality features that I've tried to balance between feeling generic enough to be relatable and specific enough to drive the emotional conflicts of the story. One of the big ambiguities in the game is that we skip a lot of big details of your character's past, what they've gone through and why they are the way they are now. The hope is that even if you're not too similar to this character, you've at least dealt with some similar impulses and fears in your life, so you can kinda fill in the blanks.

So! This is the antithesis to all that, in which I come up with a full backstory for the character and their troubles to try and explain how they got here. As ever, this is not officially canon, but it's one possible explanation for this... perhaps somewhat "Lith-like" character you're going to be able to play. I hope you find it interesting!

~~~

You're not sure why you've ended up having so much trouble talking about sex, but... you guess it might have been a few different things.

Your parents fought a lot when you were young, mostly about stuff you couldn't understand at the time, or things they avoided talking about around you. They ended up getting a divorce when you were eight, and they said they just weren't happy together anymore, but... a few years later, when you learned more on the subject, you realized it was probably a sex thing. Which actually thinking about it now... that was probably a smaller part of it, but that's what you were convinced of at the time. So, that might have fed into it, you're not sure.

You ended up living with your mom and barely seeing your dad. But you found that you kinda liked it better like that, at least for a while. There was no more fighting, and she spent a lot more time with you. You watched movies together a lot, especially Disney movies, you never got sick of those. It felt a little like when you were at home with your mom, it was an enchanted place where both of you talked like you were part of a magical fairy tale or something. It's... really embarrassing to look back on, now.

When you grew up some, some more mature movies mixed in, some romances and stuff. Those made you feel kinda strange and squirmy, but you liked the idea of finding someone special... and you hoped you could find someone you were happier with than your parents had been. You hoped your mom could find someone else to be happy with too, but as you learned later, she was afraid to get another man involved in raising you and mostly avoided them for the rest of your childhood. Anyway, those were "safe" romances where people spent a lot of time chasing after each other or whatever, but the most they'd ever do was kiss, or maybe go into the same room and then the camera would pan to some fireworks outside or something.

Kids in school started seeing you as the naive one, the one that never grew up, but you didn't care. They didn't have any magic in their lives.

Well. Things got more complicated around fourteen or so. You started thinking about the things people did together naked, and feeling strange about it, and at some point you started masturbating, though you went to great lengths to keep it secret. You were afraid you were growing... tainted. It felt a little like you were betraying the source of your happiness. Despite your age, you managed to keep up a pretty good relationship with your mom, you remember your friend's mom said she was jealous once of how much you got along.

And you did manage to gather some friends despite being seen as odd sometimes. Other kids seen as odd, mostly. You'd have sleepovers and sometimes whisper about things like sex late at night. It felt scary and exciting.

Then one day, you said some dumb thing about sex to a friend where your mom could hear. She was shocked, and reprimanded you, and you felt terrible. You clearly remember looking up in surprise, and the expression on her face. ...A lot later you found out she'd mostly been upset to realize so suddenly that you really were growing up, but at the time you were just scared and filled with a lot of confusion and self-hatred. You didn't know why you were so fascinated with something so dirty, and you wished you could just stop thinking about it, but... you couldn't. And... it felt good to think about it.

Things got awkward with your mom after that. You struggled a lot with yourself, trying to find a way to be happy, to... reconcile your self-image with your own desires, you guess. You stopped talking about sex. You wanted it, and you still conspired quietly with your friends to check out porn videos and dirty mags when and where you could, but you just... they'd talk about how they wished they could do that stuff, and you'd just kinda mumble nervously. Even they teased you some for it, but they didn't push you. By the end of high school, you'd learned a lot about sex --well, you thought you knew a lot anyway-- but you'd never even kissed anyone, besides one time on a dare with your friends, and you're pretty sure that didn't count.

You had a lot of fantasies and desires going into college, but you were terrified to really... say or do anything about it. You did make some new friends, but the few times you're pretty sure someone was flirting with you, you found yourself kinda just locking up. Especially if the conversation got racy at all. Those didn't really go anywhere... until you met Zeke. One of your friends had convinced you to go to a party with him, and you ended up trying alcohol for the first time, and you don't even remember how, but you ended up sitting on this garden wall talking with someone you didn't know for like half an hour, and when he started talking about sexual stuff you just turned into a giggly, embarrassed mess, and... he ended up kissing you. And... that's how you met Zeke, your first boyfriend.

Looking back, you guess... he was pretty patient with you. You got really uncomfortable when he tried for something more, but for a month or two you'd hang out and make out a lot. Finally you went to another party together, and you ended up pretty drunk again, and... he managed to convince you it sounded like a great idea to borrow a bedroom and fool around. You almost threw up when he got you to suck his dick, though, and while that made you feel guilty and insecure enough that you let him fuck you, it... It wasn't a great experience for you.

You weren't sure how to feel about it the next day, but mostly you felt... angry? Frustrated? You ended up fighting with him about it, but you couldn't even bring yourself to talk about what happened, and he used that as an excuse to avoid the issue. You got emotionally exhausted quickly, and... you were still pretty young and stupid and lonely, and you ended up staying together for another couple months, but you wouldn't drink around him anymore, and you wouldn't let him have sex with you anymore. One night he got more... insistent... forceful about it. ...Part of you wanted to just... let it happen. You've wanted it so much, for so long, but... not like this. Not with him. You started screaming at him, and someone showed up, so he got off you.

You... left college. You found a shitty job, and a shitty apartment, and you tried to make it work on your own. You spent a lot of evenings alone, tired and worn out, watching movies you've seen a million times and trying to just... feel a little better. It didn't really work. Eventually... things fell apart. And... you were still a mess that... for some stupid reason you couldn't even explain, couldn't even talk about sex. Especially not YOU having sex. So... that's what brought you... here.

It sounds really stupid when you stop and try to explain it. You could have done a lot better, you should have made better choices, or... if you hadn't misunderstood, if you'd asked more questions or...? You don't know. At some point people did start saying it was cute, how shy you got on some subjects, and... maybe you took some comfort in that? Maybe it let you worry less about being this way and see it as kind of a... positive? But you know it makes your life harder. Someday... you're gonna have to find a way to get over this. But right now, you've got a lot more important stuff to worry about.