#where a human who despises robots ends up falling for a machine who is in DESPERATE need of love

[no1ryomafan]

I love how Jiro & Mitsuko as a relationship is still something I’m not sure what to feel about even though anime wise its 100% better mainly for the fact Mitsuko is a more coherently written character and being with Jiro doesn’t ruin her agency, it’s just the relationship still feels a bit forced which tends to be why a lot of people nowadays hate straight romance especially when talking about how to write a female character, or just wanting romance that ISNT straight.

But I can say even if I don’t know IF I ship it does fill my itch in my brain of a robot and human getting together and leading tragedy cause GRAAAH I need more of that.

[catatonicengineers]

A Defense of Cait Sith

Plushie Princess Saga:

A Hundred Ways to Put the WRO Back Together

A Hundred Ways to Wreck Shinra HQ

Reeve’s Adventures in Babysitting and World Saving:

And Take a Stand at Shinra

While There’s Still Time

On Plushies and Oppenheimer:

A Defense of Cait Sith

~

“We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried. Most people were silent.” - J. Robert Oppenheimer

I was eight-years-old when I played Final Fantasy VII for the first time, exactly one year after its release. Like many 90’s gamers, FFVII was a turning point into the world of RPG’s from which I’ve yet to recover. Kids today will never understand the coming of age that occurred somewhere between Yoshi’s Island and grappling with the ethos of Avalanche blowing Sector 1’s reactor sky high. It’s no surprise that my 3rdgrade brain found an essence of familiarity to cling to amid the existential dread and ecoterrorism that was the greatest game ever made.

Cait Sith was the cute, cuddly party member that validated my love of cats and ignited my adoration for moogles. I would relentlessly make room for him in my party, despite his terrible combat stats, and hurl endless Phoenix Downs every time he fell.

He was quirky, he fought with a megaphone, his limit breaks were oddly sparse compared to the rest of the cast, and his home base of Gold Saucer looked like a unicorn threw up all over a casino. What’s not to love?

According to recent Reddit threads, Youtube comments, and rage bloggers, apparently a lot.

The advent of the long awaited FFVII remake rightfully caused a massive revival of the excitement first felt by long time fans of the franchise. The release date has been confirmed for March 3, 2020 – two days before my 30thbirthday. Not gonna lie; feels like the universe aligned to bless the official passing of my youth with this nostalgia bomb.

It’s with this love of all things FFVII in mind that I’d like to formally pose a defense of the game’s most hated character.

Cait Sith/Reeve, this one’s for you.

The Laughter

We first meet the lively, dancing robo-moogle and cat combo in Gold Saucer and we’re not quite sure if this strange entity should count as one party member or two. Either way, he joins your crew as the quintessential comic relief with nary a backstory in sight. That’s right; you are now the proud owner of Cait Sith. A “fortune teller” by trade, Cait Sith’s motivations remain as murky as your party’s future.

At first glance, it’s easy to pass Cait Sith off as a filler character, the cute one added for giggles. The one the writers never bothered to flesh out because, let’s face it, that moogle is mostly fluff anyway. The “most useless character” title isn’t entirely unjustified.

If this was where Cait Sith’s story ended.

I still remember the day my older brother announced that he’d read ahead in the player’s guide (this used to be a thing, kids) and discovered Cait Sith was a Shinra spy. I’m pretty sure I went through all the stages of grief before settling on denial and assuming he was playing a joke on me. Surely, my favorite slot machine loving companion couldn’t be a traitor.

Enter Reeve Tuesti, the man behind the moogle. He’s the head of Urban Development at Shinra Electric Power Company. He wears a signature blue suit to work everyday. He hates board meetings. He’s not fond of his coworkers. Like Tifa, he’s an introvert. And he’s the guy who engineered the Mako reactors.

If Hojo is Dr. Frankenstein, Reeve is Oppenheimer. The tragedy of the monsters we create is always greater when it’s a monster we loved. Where the other Shinra execs are motivated by greed, power, and a desire to play God, Reeve is the only Shinra higher up we encounter with genuine empathy and a sense of advocacy for the people. It’s easy to assume that Mako reactors would improve lives, but as Marlene so eloquently asks, “isn’t that because we were taking away from the planet’s life?”

When faced with the guilt of a design gone horribly wrong, those in authority have two choices; own the guilt or double down. And Reeve doubles down.

I’ve never been a fan of the way modern RPG’s have everything clearly spelled out and spoon fed to the gamer. The reason we don’t need further backstory for Reeve is because his character arc is already apparent if we do a bit of digging. I was surprised to learn that the common conjecture behind the exact mechanics of Cait Sith involved him being a remote controlled, autonomous but non-sentient robot. Given that assumption, it’s fair to say that Cait Sith is a worthless character who lacks emotion or consequence.

One opinion I’ve seen trending is why not simply make Reeve join the party, sans the giant stuffed animal? After all, we’d get to see how he grapples with his role in Shinra and eventual betrayal of Avalanche.

Two words; cognitive dissonance. You have to question what kind of 35-year-old executive creates a plushie cat proxy to begin with. See I’ve never thought of Reeve and Cait Sith as separate. The gritty psychological mechanics that are Reeve have always been there, plush or human. Reeve has developed an alter that’s effectively a form of escape. The assertion that Cait Sith lacks consequence isn’t false – a robot carries out its duty, incapable of harboring guilt, blame, or moral repercussion. That’s a pretty darn good way to remain detached enough to stab your party members in the back!

Cait Sith is also an outlet for everything Reeve’s repressed executive life lacks. As Cait Sith, he’s silly and carefree, though not completely unfamiliar. Glimpses of Cait Sith’s witty quips are echoed in Reeve’s mock nicknames for his colleagues – “Kyahaha” and “Gyahaha” respectively. When life is tough to take, we laugh so we don’t scream.

Plus, the idea of Reeve controlling Cait Sith in real time, much like an MMORPG avatar, is just plain hilarious. I’ve always imagined him as the kind of guy who rolls up to his 9-5 office job, pops open a spreadsheet to look busy, and boots up Cait Sith in the other tab. He’s the OG Aggretsuko, the guy making Jim Halpert faces at the camera every Shinra board meeting.

And I get you, Reeve. Really, I do.

The Tears

Cait Sith’s sacrifice was a cop out for killing off a real character. Why didn’t Reeve just die instead of the plushie?

First of all, how dare you.

Second, not all deaths need be literal.

A pervading theme throughout FFVII is the concept of identity. Are we born into an existence we have no control over or can we choose who we are day by day? It’s easy to want to be someone else, the First Class Soldier who sweeps in, keeps his promise, and saves the girl. Our reality is often less of a fairy tale and riddled with our own failures.

By the time the party reaches The Temple of the Ancients, the line where Cait Sith ends and Reeve begins is blurring. Reeve speaks more often as “himself” through the plushie and the nuances in their speech and mannerism are blending. It’s no accident that this shift happens as Reeve becomes more at ease around Avalanche, ultimately switching sides.

I’ve heard a lot of criticism on the seeming lack of motivation to Reeve’s redemption. If we examine the cognitive dissonance theory that governs his character, the switch is far less sudden.

Cait Sith’s death is necessitated by Reeve’s accountability. The innocent plushie alter isn’t working anymore. It’s not enough to keep him from recognizing the horrors he’s been complicit to. Sacrificing this part of himself is the ultimate acknowledgment of culpability. It’s arguably a more important death than if Reeve actually martyred himself. Like Cloud, he no longer needs to be “someone else” and has started down the path of doing what only he, and not Cait Sith, can; stopping Shinra.

There will be more wonderful, fluffy moogle-cat plushies, but the need to disassociate completely is gone. He’ll confront whatever comes without a crutch – or in this case a teddy bear. Reeve reminisces that the original doll was “special” and we end with Cait Sith reminding him(self) not to forget this.

The Silence

In 1953, J. Robert Oppenheimer was denied all security clearance and effectively blacklisted by the McCarthy administration for his strong opposition to nuclear warfare.

Sometimes we find ourselves in a place we never hoped or expected to be in, surrounded by people we despise, and convinced the world is going straight to heck. We can either get out of dodge or stay.

If Reeve had indeed sacrificed himself rather than Cait Sith, this would simply have been yet another escape. He stays. He works. He gets Marlene and Elmyra out of Midgar. He spies on Shinra. He finally tells Gyahaha to stick it. He goes on to head the WRO and never stops advocating for the people.

Reeve’s not a fighter. He can barely get by with a handgun in Dirge of Cerberus and Cait Sith’s megaphone is no Masamune. Despite this, he takes a big risk by being the only insider on the team. We’re pretty sure Shinra doesn’t share Reeve’s opposition to capital punishment either.

Maybe this is why I’ve always loved Cait Sith/Reeve. I’m intrigued to see if Square Enix will add any further insight into our favorite plush moogle-cat-spy, but if they don’t, that’s alright too. Cait Sith is still a pretty solid character. After my brother spoiled one of the game’s major plot twists for me, I ended up reading the player’s guide for myself. And he was right. But he was also wrong. I recall marching proudly into the living room to declare that while yes, Cait Sith was a traitor, he was also a hero.

So fight your fight. Fail and fall. Hurl some Phoenix Downs and get right back up again.

[miuirumadr]

Pregame Headcanons

I love the idea of everyone's pregame selves being the opposite of how they are in the game

Obviously you have Kaede being very cold and uninterested in people, Shuichi being a fanboy obsessed with Danganronpa and killing and gore, Ouma being extremely timid and reliant on people, and Kaito being sort of like Kaede where hes uninterested in helping people and maybe even having a bit of bloodlust there.

But what about everyone else? Heres some ideas I've been mulling over

Warning, it’s going to be a long post

Rantaro grew up as an only child in a dirt poor family. He despises his parents for birthing into such a terrible life. He hates living, he hates his family, he hates the society he grew up in. The only choice he has is to play into a million dollar industry he hates the most and hope he either gets a better life or dies to put him out of his misery. 

Ryoma was your typical goody two shoes nerd in school. He was bullied mercilessly for his strange appearance, always following teachers orders, and lack of any physical activity. He signs up for DR to try and avoid his constant torment at school.

Kirumi’s parents were actually the ones that signed her up for DR. She was terribly unmotivated, lazy, and just had no direction in life. They tried everything to get her to get her life together, but as a last resort they sign her up for a popular TV show and just hope she can lead some sort of productive life.

Angie grew up as a firm atheist, uninterested in anything except firm sciences and evidence. She’s fascinated by the psychology behind why people wold want to sign up for a killing game, and she auditions to see if she can study the participants up close. She despises the arts and even requests to be some sort of Ultimate Scientist. However Tsumugi loves a firm sense of irony and makes her a hyper-religious art nut.

Tenko was raised almost as a nun. She was taught that a womans place is to serve her husband and remain dainty and feminine. She just so happens to accidentally come across DR as it's so popular that you really cant avoid it. On a whim, with a desire to see what else is out there, she signs up away from the watchful eye of her parents.

Korekiyo is estranged and disowned from his family. He had nowhere else to turn except for DR for even the slight chance of living a normal life outside of poverty with any sort of human relations. He doesnt care if he lives or dies, as long as he can interact with people. Of course, Tsumugi makes him a creep that is often left out of the circle. The 100 friends for his sister is actually a reference to pregame Korekiyo's desire to make as many friends as possible.

Miu was a quiet child who just so happened to be an early bloomer in puberty. She really didn’t like her body and how prominent her boobs were. Her school uniform didn’t help and all of her classmates just called her a slut, whore, whatever. She tried her hardest in school, but just wasn’t a naturally smart girl. She decided to sign up for DR to avoid her classmates comments about her body, find something she was actually good at, and possibly change her life for the better. 

Gonta was born and bred to serve the mafia due to the fact that his parents were high profile members. Due to his massive size he acted as a body guard for the higher ups and accompanied them to all their meetups where things could go south. He was a coldblooded killer with no sympathy anyone’s life. After the tragic death of his parents he decided that he needed to get away from that life. The only way he could think of doing so without being hunted down by the mafia was by signing up for DR. 

Himiko is the daughter of scientists who couldn't care less about anything except her success in the sciences. She signs up for DR secretly to get away from her parents obsessive and overbearing nature. She requests to be some sort of pseudoscientist or something that goes against science to spite her parents. Tsumugi obliges since she loves the idea of making Himiko’s parents fall into a sort of despair seeing their daughter like that. 

Maki is just your stereotypical student. Average student, keeps her nose clean, isn’t even particularly interesting. She’s terribly squeamish and refuses to watch DR. Some kids in her class sign her up for it on a whim because they’re aware of how much she hates it. Tsumugi takes her in because she thinks it’s hilarious and decides to make her a violent killing machine.

Kiibo was developed for the sole purpose of being a listening device and camera for the show. However, his pregame version is actually a producer on the show whom the likeness of Kiibo was based on. When they changed from the pregame school uniforms to the in-game outfits, the producer goes through a trap door in the floor and the robot is brought out. 

Tsumugi has been a high level producer on the show for many years. Over time she had plastic surgery to keep her looking young and because she actually started as a makeup girl and costume designer, she was able to work her way up the line and eventually star in a season. She was a huge fangirl of DR growing up and she knew she had to work on the show somehow. Starring in the show was her dream come true. 

And those are my personal headcanons for all the pregame characters!! I’m not a huge fan of the V3 ending where they reveal everything was actually just a TV show, but I think exploring the pregame characters is very fun.

[sherlywrites]

Float

I am floating between the clouds and the sky. Beneath me is Venus, my spiritual home, a planet I’ve never set foot on but am always approaching. Above me, the sun, pricking at my skin with its fiery lashes. I feel it, on my stomach, my thighs, my breasts, my cheeks, my neck, the lids of my eyes. I can see the clouds swirling around me, spirits in a cauldron, coming together and pulling apart in the primordial heat like lovers in the notes of heaven. Below me, starting from my back, comes my shadow. It shrinks the farther it gets from me, until it reaches the planet’s surface, where it can hardly be said to exist at all.

Part One- The Unique

Back then, my job was to monitor drones and droids, to make sure that if they broke and caused some catastrophic error, some human being would be there to text everyone

“The world is ending.” I fantasized.

“Darn.” they’d send back.

It’s not a popular job, but I loved it. The pay was mediocre, but easily worth it to avoid talking to anyone. To be able to stand, more or less alone, on the rails of the dome, taking a break from the artificial sunlight and fake blue sky, turn off my augmented reality glasses, and watch the universe born anew as swirling orange clouds combined and eliminated in the Venus atmosphere, each time sewing a new thread in a rich living tapestry. I thanked the stars I would be dead before terraforming was completed.

It wouldn’t have stopped without me, but nonetheless I played some part in that slow moving murder, as well as in that ornate blindfold over the eyes of the city’s citizens. I, in some bulky protection suit sporting a large bug eyed helmet, crawled like a cockroach across my colony, despising the terraformers even as I dutifully made sure they continued sucking in gas, burning it, and dropping sludge to the ground below.

Despite how much I loved the job, nothing can stop routine from its slow march into monotony, and so in the moments before I witnessed a person I would later describe as the most beautiful woman who ever lived with half her body stuck in a terraformer, I wasn’t really on my toes. I think I may have looked at her without even registering what was happening, actually, and just looked away-- only for my adrenal gland to save the day and send panic screaming up into my head as I quickly processed the sure fate of a soft biological life form if it the terraformer sucked her in-- my muscles responded to some deep apeish instinct and propelled me forward across the walkway as if they belonged to someone else-- grabbed her by the straps on her protective suit-- cranked my magnetic boots up to their highest setting-- and struggled with a terraformer. It would have sucked us both in if I did not succeed in frantically inputting the emergency shutoff command through my AR glasses.

I helped her out of the chute with shaking hands. I told myself to breathe. She still had her helmet on. Good. As she emerged, I noticed she was holding something in her hands.

A little droid, no bigger than a bread box, half burned but repairable.

I started yelling about how foolish it was to risk her life for such a thing. I won’t make excuses for myself, but I couldn’t have in that moment understood why anyone would stare directly into the face of death in the name of protecting a small robot. Why didn’t she issue the cut off command? Why was this particular droid so important to her? Why did she seem so unnervingly calm even after skirting the veil between life and cold dark oblivion? Why did she just stare at me quietly as I yelled at her and flailed my arms? When I later broached the topic again, she stated she did not want to discuss it. Needless to say, though, I’m sure she had her reasons, I’m sure she had good ones, and so I’ll say I’m embarrassed by, and ashamed of, how I acted in the aftermath and leave it at that.

After I was through yelling, she just looked at me in silence, hugged the half baked toaster close to her chest, and said “Thank you.” before walking away.

When one walks the streets of Atlas, even when one looks up at the glimmering statue of that muscular greek myth, the old obsolete earth dumped like so much human garbage beside him, that adorns the spectacular city center, one is bombarded with a series of advertisements for various products and the associated promises of happiness packaged with them. I have neither seen nor been in a swamp, but if advertisements be sludge and slime, then I am a magpie, treading water and trying not to get my feet stuck. At some point, you learn to just ignore it.

Yet suddenly, after that encounter, I took notice once again of how much of my net time being alive was spent having people try to sell me stuff, like a tax on my lifespan.

Was it the moment itself? Usually, death is such a far away, impossible thing. Our lifespans are so long now, it seems like the oldest members of our society-- some in excess of 200 years old-- will never die. Certainly I, a mere infant of twenty-eight, felt as though my time was infinite, and that nothing of worth would be lost by watching it drip down the drain.

Or was it her?

Her simple action, insane, but deprived of personal gain, a glistening gem of selfless self sacrifice, distracted me from swamp treading and bid me dip my beak down to grab it. No facsimile was this, only something very real, human, of the heart, could ever prompt some mad urge to brave the ever churning gears of the terraforming machine.

Two weeks later, I was on my way out of work when I noticed her. She was sitting on a bench, her eyes performing the telltale motion of someone reading off their AR lenses. In the spectacular sunlight, surrounded by people with flawless faces, I felt it had to be her. She had blonde hair. It came down to her chin, and framed a face with features unheard of in the era of body modification. She had a scar, and a broken, non functional eye.

I saw the steel in her eyes, in her face, and I thought it must be her. Each step I took towards her represented increased anxiety, but I knew in my gut that I was already past the chains of doubt. I walked up at her, stopped,

She looked up at me without moving her head, “I don’t feel like talking.” she stated without qualification, her eyes returning to reading instantly. I recognized the voice, but still felt the biting chains of doubt begging me to run.

“Were you the woman I pulled out of the terraformer?”

She paused. Her head gradually raised, tilted, her bright eye sharp with scrutiny.

“You.” she stated. In that moment she stared at me, atomized me, picked me apart string by string. I knew, then, she would not be the type to mistake gratitude for obligation.

“Yea, I just wanted to apologize for how I acted, I have no excuse. I am Cheyenne.”

Her eye searched for my hand as she tentatively replied “Sophia.”

On Venus, apologizing is something you do for superiors because you screwed up at work. When you offended a friend, you bought them something nice like a necklace, or alcohol. If she had asked for something I probably would have bought it for her, but I was overcome with the immediate impression that she did not want to be bought at all.

“No gift,” I lied, “just me.”

How do I describe the process of falling in love? I wracked my brain for a long time over that, for several days, with Sophia always reading what I wrote and insisting it was good, before I felt ultimately compelled to delete it and begin all over again.

I could tell you about her eyes, would that make it seem authentic? To me, they are gleaming jewels, they see into me and through me. They see into the future, past the market, past the companies, past Atlas. Her personality? Formidable, she enjoys her athleticism and practices it with grace and power. When she finally gets so frustrated with the constant bombardment of advertisements, takes her glasses off, and says “They task me” my heart soars. I could tell you her hair is like shining waves, gold sheets of clouds ill fitted with the artificial sun of Atlas, and that when I bury my face in it I finally know what the real sun feels like.

It’s frustrating, because as many words as I gift to her, whether to see her smile or to prompt a new kiss, none of them feel like they truly grasp the depth of my love. Staring into my love is like staring into the void, just as infinite, just as terrifying, but warm, and certainly impossible to actually describe. It’s like an eldritch monster inside you giving you a hug.

There have, of course, been moments. When we were eating at a restaurant on our first week together, and I asked her about her wooden rosary, she smiled in her elusive way and told me it reminds her that God and wealth are two separate things, no matter what they tell you. Another time, when we were being served dinner by a droid, and she thanked it. When we were walking through the streets of Atlas one day, she glared up at the statue of the man himself as if she would, and could, impale him on a spike and chuck him into the clouds. She stood there for at least a full minute before shaking her head and walking on.

By then, I would have followed her anywhere, even through the burning atmosphere.

What I never understood was why she liked me. I am not very attractive,  nor am I particularly tough. But sometimes when I’m doing something, like I’m trying on a dress and laughing at how I look in it, or when I’m swaying my hips to some rhythm, I find her looking at me, looking content to watch what I figured was nothing interesting at all.

“I’m not alone, either.” she told me, one morning, when we were outside the dome together, taking our time to watch the new patterns weaving and forming before they were consumed by the terraformers. “Many women in this city are just as sick of this shit as I am.”

“I wouldn’t know.” I said, my fingers deftly typing in codes and reports, “I don’t really participate in the network forums.”

“That’s a good thing,” she sighed, “But I don’t think there’s been this much powerful female energy in the entire history of humankind. They say they abolished sexism for good in 2114, but, you know, we still have way more expectations placed on us. They turn our bodies into commodities, and sell them to a presumed male audience, because of course most women do not feel particularly compelled to consume pornography.”

“Yea, even the stuff with only women in them are clearly made for men.”

“Right, the market assumes everything is for them, or for women to aid themselves in becoming their ornaments.”

“That’s pretty true to what it’s like to date one, too.”

I saw her helmet turn toward me suddenly, silent for a moment. “You dated a man?”

“Once.”

She laughed “Well, no one’s perfect.”

I laughed too, because I thought it was a joke.

My first and only man had been an ambitious one, although it seems to me nearly all men have ambition on Atlas, named Mark. I found him through a dating service, shortly after I underwent my massive body modification. I had thought, and been told, that I would walk into the clinic a man and walk out a woman, simple as that, but of course when I walked out I had no idea what I was doing, and the only instruction manual I had was the market.

And the market always advertised men, and so I thought that came with the role.

He made his expectations pretty clear the moment we sat down, and I was attracted to him at the time so even though I was uncomfortable with the seemingly personal act of being fucked by a man, I allowed him to fuck me anyway. I had been told by the market that sex was free, pleasurable, and fun. I had watched some videos as well, in my curious moments, and it seemed the act was very controlled, and clean.

In reality, it was nothing like this, and nothing prepared me for what to do or how. It was a very bodily, manual act, and if I were in a position he found inconvenient, he simply repositioned me, kicked my legs apart, pushed my back down with his hand. If he felt like trying something new, he tried it. At first, if I gagged, he choked me, or hurt me, he’d ask if I was okay, but eventually he became comfortable enough that he stopped asking.

He fucked me four times before he stopped bothering to talk to me beforehand, and then three times after that. The last time, I learned how truly professional those actresses were, as I spent the next hour washing his climax out of my eye before it stopped burning. I looked at myself in the mirror, at my smeared makeup and eyes I couldn’t even open all the way, and this is what it took before I finally realized something was wrong and never saw a man again.

So when Sophia told me this was because men still felt women were objects to be consumed, like any other commodity, it lit my mind ablaze. It made so much sense; it was an earth shattering revelation with continuous aftershocks each time I saw more and more evidence she was right. I wanted to scream, a lot.

“So in that way, being a lesbian is a kind of boycott of men. It’s an act of rebellion.” she told me. We were sitting on her couch, my head in her lap, as she fed me soy puffs.

“Good, I don’t find men attractive anymore anyway.” I laughed.

She nodded, “I’m glad to have escaped that, I’m still completely pure.”

“Yes if you have any flaw it’s that you’re too perfect.”

With a shrug, she said “It’s a challenge to maintain, so I understand. Our culture is constantly telling you that you are for men.”

I reached up and cupped the side of her face “Now I’m a lesbian, too, in love with a lesbian.”

She smiled down at me and kissed me. Then she paused, looking thoughtfully. “There is one thing of which you must be careful. Sometimes, men will modify their bodies to look like women, to trick us into sleeping with them.”

I made a face “Really? That’s pretty fucked up.”

With a nod, she continued “It is. There are ways you can always tell, of course, by how they act, how they look, how their hair grows--”

My arms curled around her, I pulled her in tight.

“Well, I’m safe, because I only have eyes for you.”

It occured to me only on the lowest level she might have been talking about me, at first. With time, however, the infiltrators took up more and more of our conversation time. I went about my days largely oblivious, but looking back she had painted a black streak on my heart that boiled my blood into self doubt. I hadn’t asked myself if I was a woman or not, but I did find myself checking to make sure I was one. I checked my body, my personality, my behavior, I scanned myself to make sure all my female parts were working, and that my chromosomes were still modified to support my full anatomy.

I was assured, but sometimes I’d say something and wonder if it was too mannish. Some mornings, I’d look in the mirror, and poke at my bones, my breasts. I’d look at myself, and at that altar I’d ask myself what a woman is, and how I know if I really am one.

Then I’d remember that I am loved by Sophia, and got myself out of that room.

When she was undressing me for the first time, I was shaking. I felt her soft lips kissing me in her usual places, her skin white as light along my brown cheek, down the crook of my neck to the crest of my chest. When my shirt was off, her hands worked her way around to my bare back.

“What’s wrong?” she whispered suddenly.

“I am ugly.” I responded, sinking down to the bed.

“No.” she repeated, as she had many times before.

“Do I even look like a woman?

She comforted me with kisses on the cheek. “You are the most womanly looking person I have ever met.”

That threw me. “Huh?”

She pulled back, her face flushed, but her eyes that same steely blue. “Most women, myself included, have come to think of being women as a burden. Some become complacent, try to get by with pleasing men, and others rebel. But you, it seems like you truly think of womanhood as a gift. I’d never met someone who actually liked being one, before you.”

I stared into her eyes for a quiet moment.

I kissed her, she crawled onto the bed with me.

The trouble with gestures of love, even simple pure words like “You’re beautiful” and “I love you,” is that in our culture we hear them so much as a matter of marketing, that they seem like practiced lies coming from the mouth of the city. “I love you” says the man selling you a cup of coffee, “You’re beautiful” says the man to the woman who buys our moisturizer.

Sophia found a way through those barriers. She repeated her words, over and over, looking into my eyes, until they lost their previous meaning and built new ones in my heart, until I could finally walk outside the dome, float between the clouds, and feel her-- the sun-- kissing my skin. Until at last, the sun is my body, and my body the sun, and the sun is love.

It became the happiest month of my life, so happy I ignored the growing undertow of darkness beneath. I was in her room, the artificial sun low enough in the dome to elongate the apartment’s shadows across its length, when she walked in with a look in her eyes I did not recognize. Her face was as cold as the dark side of Venus, her gaze as implacable and consuming as the terraformers, her voice a razor thin wire around my throat.

“Sophia?”

Silence.

My hands started shaking.

“Put on your glasses.” she ordered me. I did.

Our AR glasses between us, now I see what she brought me. My medical report, from the transitory modification. How did she get this?

“Is it real?” she asked, as if she knew.

“Y-yes, but”

She ran to the bathroom, and I shortly heard the sound of vomiting coming from within. I quickly assembled myself into a passable state of dress, and crept around to see what was happening in the bathroom. It felt like the city itself was tilting underneath me, and my soul was outside the dome-- eyes pressed to the glass-- watching, unable to act.

“Soph…” and I saw her, bent over the waste tube, her fingers down her throat as if she needed to get the poison out. She was hurting herself.

“Sophia!” I cried, trying to pull her away from her altar of viscera.

“Get away!” she screamed, swatting at me “Get away from me.” she glared at me, pure hatred in her eyes, hatred for me. I still didn’t understand, I backed away from her.

“You did this to me.” she stepped toward me, I stepped back. “You tricked me, you raped me. How? How could you? You soulless bastard. You fucking filth.”

I could hear her anger rising, but I wasn’t prepared for any kind of scenario in which I had to flee from her apartment, so I cowered, I cowered until she towered over me.

“I don’t-- I don’t understand Sophie, I don--”

She grabbed me by my shoulders and shoved me, shoved me out, towards the door, I scrambled to grab for the handle, to pull it, to get an opening, and she shoved me out, screaming at me until she could no longer see me, and I had gone.

What no one tells you about trauma is the horrendously painful adjustment period your mind takes to accept its new reality. For the next few days, I still expected Sophia to message me, to knock on my apartment door, and I looked for her. I never saw her, not there, not on the streets, not at work, not at restaurants, not in the city square, at the statue of Atlas. I sat down in the city square, still numb, still failing to understand, and I looked at that statue.

Had I become him? Had I become an object of marketing myself, deluded by my desire to occupy a role in society to which I did not belong, and enabled by the ever eager engines of consumption to chew my own body and spit it out in the form of a woman, for the sole purpose of an attack on womanhood itself? I had done everything to my body I thought I needed to do, I had the breasts, the vagina, the skin, the face, the hair, the womb and the chromosomes. But they were all the result of body modification, the product, the market, Atlas itself, shifting and breaking down my body into its idea of a woman, for no reason other than that I paid it to.

If that was all true, then how should I become a woman, then? What did I need to do, where did I need to go, who did I need to talk to. I needed to be a woman, to be back with the person who loved me as a woman loves another. But there is no one, no one to tell me the path, no one but Sophia.

Cheyenne:

So, even though I should have left her alone, I messaged her.

Sophie?

Sophie? Please talk to me.

Sophie…

Please. Sophie, I’m sorry.

I should have told you.

But I didn’t mean to take something away from you.

You know I’d never do that.

Sophie?

Sophie, just tell me, what… what do I need to do? How can I be a woman, then?

I just want to be a girl, I just want to see you again.

Sophie.

I saved your life, Sophia.

I saved your life. The terraformer.

The terraformer.

You owe me an answer. Please.

Sophia:

Nothing

Cheyenne:

What?

Sophia:

There is nothing you can do. You will always be a man. You were born that way, you will die that way. Good bye.

I spent the next few days sobbing into the mirror, my body and face now the mutilated corpse of a delusional man. It had become apart from me, something I controlled like a twisted puppet on the strings of a pervert’s sick joke. I punched my mirror, I shattered its glass, I let it fall about my bathroom, I watched it sit on my floor, specked with my blood.

When I first stepped outside the dome, in my suit, I looked over the edge, and I was afraid of falling, falling to my death. I was worried Venus would swallow me whole, but I should have been afraid it would spit me back out, out into the vacuum, into the darkness, the abyss.

If those old gods wanted my blood, they could have it. I dragged that broken glass across my wrist, and the sting-- the pain-- gave me a rush, filled me with adrenaline. It was like an old friend, one I hadn’t seen since the days of my boyhood, since Mark. His shadow welcomed me back, with open arms, he caressed me, he fondled me. I gave him more blood, I squeezed my hand and watched it slowly drip down onto the sink like the sands of time, forming stalagmites, pointing up at me out of my twisted altar. Did it want my heart, then? It could have it, I could rip it out of my chest and throw it down to those old gods, they could drag it screaming before the squirming waves of viscera and vile sludge, and I would just look down at it, watch it sink and beg me to save it until I was free of it, and could see it no longer.

I looked down at my arm. It would be that easy, I had already done it twice. I needed only do it down my vein instead of across, a longer cut, but the last one I would need to do.

I put the glass back down. I turned around and walked into my kitchen, squirting some healing sealant on my cuts.

I guess I am stuck being alive.

God damn it.

Part 2- Sophia of the Spectacle

I am Sophia.

What is intelligence? How does one define self awareness? It is the year 2321 and still artists have had much more luck defining this than scientists.

It’s okay, because scientists have yet to even make any more significant progress on technology since 2200, when a high efficiency fusion drive was invented to take us to Jupiter. We started a colony there, but turns out Jupiter’s resources didn’t justify the cost of shipping, and it was shuttered, with a hundred thousand souls still aboard to attempt to solve the problem of keeping themselves alive without inner planet support, and failing. Ah, progress.

The earth, meanwhile, has been recovering. They constructed great big nuclear powered hydroponic carbon dioxide scrubbers, which is to say massive amounts of algae. It’s the biggest construction project humanity has ever taken besides Atlas itself, and it was prompted by the leavings of the very people who live on this planet with me right now. Conveniently, they forgot to take a headcount of the people who died during the climate collapse of the 22nd century, so no one knows how many died during the ensuing refugee crises and desertification.

Puts our problems into perspective, doesn’t it? Atlas values empathy as much as it values obstinate women. Simple feminine compassion, the compassion of the life giver, is not just useless feelings we abandoned when we became enlightened. It is revolutionary.

That’s why I dived into the terraformer after that droid. It’s the closest thing to an animal we’ve got here, it’s the other, and they are programmed to want to live. Don’t they have the right, then? And if we can’t even define our own self awareness, what right do we have to assume it is lacking in the intelligences we’ve created. It’s doing okay now, by the way. I fixed it.

I never told Cheyenne I acquired my facial scars the same way.

I guess I am brave, but really I mostly did not care if I lived or died. I’m not depressed, necessarily, but life is such a burden. Atlas is so large, so strong, and it seems like nothing I do can even free me from his influence, let alone kill him.

I once told Cheyenne that God and wealth are two separate things. I said this because on Atlas, religion is not all that uncommon, but what they preach is that wealth is a sign of how blessed God has made you. Ancillary is the assumption that if you do not have wealth, you are not blessed, with the unspoken conclusion being that Atlas is the most holy city of God ever built. A utopia, a paradise.

They don’t enforce our standards of wealth through taxes, however. That would be oppressive government overreach. Rather, everyone pays rent to the company which built Atlas, the company in which my father is the Chief Technology Officer, and those who can’t afford their rent are shipped off world. This is different from taxes, somehow. Naturally, this isn’t true of top corporate officials of companies throughout Atlas. They own shares in the company, and those shares represent their private property, so far as one can own slices of air on a slowly falling city of garbage. It makes as much sense as them owning the ground we’ll be landing on.

When I was a little girl, I told my father I couldn’t wait to see the world outside the dome. He patted my head, smiled, and said me neither. The first terraforming project ever completed, and certainly the most impressive. Who else but the geniuses of Atlas could achieve such a thing? Could they have with the burden of Earth on their shoulders?

As I got older, I discovered that I am not attracted to men. Never have been, never will be, ever. Men do not disgust me, but the thought of fucking one did. I thought of it as an inherently undignified act, where your body yields and is spread by some force, to feed the pleasure of a man who sweats and labors over you. I found it unappealing.

This never deterred men, though, they always tried to fuck me regardless. If I said no, it took some time for them to respond and stop trying. Somehow, even though homophobia was abolished, men still have trouble accepting that a woman may not be attracted to them, and they act with accorded offense and entitlement if you try to tell them.

My first partner and I bonded over this. We were together until we started working. Then she was shipped off world for refusing to sleep with her employer.

I responded with a deep and terrible rage. I responded with lies, and slander, and manipulation, and I got that employer fired and shipped off world too. It didn’t mean my partner could come back, no one evicted from Atlas can ever find a job here again. I turned my eyes to the patriarchy instead, I fought sexist employers wherever I could find them, I joined with like minded women, I communicated with them constantly. My father seemed perfectly willing to help, but then I learned he was getting them new jobs in other parts of Atlas, so I started to hate him too, and I was thrust from power, working outside the dome as an engineer.

People like me have existed throughout history, I realized, and never succeeded in destroying the patriarchy. Why? I searched for answers, and Atlas happily obliged.

They gave me transsexuals.

Infiltrators, who degenerate feminism by entering into it and replacing women with men. Atlas was pumping out women in the image of men’s imaginations, perfectly servile, willing, baby making sluts, and the women who weren’t keeping up had a few options.

Become feminine and submissive, become men, or die.

Everything made sense, then. The patriarchy was inside feminism, and that is where it needed to be hunted first, and so I did, I tracked them down where I could and exposed them, I attempted to insight rage against the clinics, and I once again found the ears of my father listening and nodding. He said he didn’t like it either, but they were reliable consumers of body modification, and so we would need to wait for the company to go under before we could do anything about the degeneracy on Atlas.

So I spread my message, and waited, and hoped.

Then I met Cheyenne.

I had spent so much time hating people like her, I hadn’t really met one, which is how I became convinced with time of her authenticity. That attracted me to her in the first place; sure I dived in after a droid, but she dived in after a person, and I came to saw her ensuing rage as a concern for the safety of others, not as concern for herself. Most people would have let me get sucked in, after all.

I later learned that she is a massive dork, and that she truly loves Venus. No one loves Venus, people “love” Atlas, but Cheyenne loves Venus. The planet as it is now, with all its inhabitability and dangerous temperature shifts. She loves it. She also loves being a woman, which should have given me a clue because most women definitely do not love it-- it comes with so many burdens to bear-- but it seemed like she could shrug those off.

After I threw her out of my home, I cried for the lost idea of my virginity, and I tried to go to bed, but sleep eluded me. What I had done haunted me, not because I thought it was wrong, but because I felt pity for the pain and fear I had seen on her face. No one had ever been personally, physically afraid of me before, but I saw it in her eyes.

She was afraid I might beat her.

I steeled myself. My identity was under attack, after all, and I might need to do some unfortunate things to protect it. I was not going to let her erase me.

She had seemed like a woman to me, though. I was well and truly convinced. What the fuck? But that didn’t matter. I told myself of course the patriarchy would send its greatest trickster after its most dangerous foe.

Then she messaged me, asking what she needed to do in order to become a woman. I just stared at that message for a few minutes. This creature was seriously deluded. Again I felt the sting of pity, and if I had thought there was some way, in that moment, then I would have told her, but I knew there wasn’t. So I told myself I would help her by mercifully rescuing her from her own delusions.

The question stuck in my mind. What is a woman, anyway? How does one become female? Was I a woman when I was born, or did I become one by being born a female baby? The sensible answer is that I was just an infant, unless I had some female soul in my body which made me a woman even when I had none of the traits. But if I had a female soul, then couldn’t Cheyenne have one? I rejected this explanation, I had tread too far into nonsense. Why would God make a male baby and put a female soul inside it?

Then was her need to be a woman some kind of disease? An illness, which needed to be cured but which Atlas had turned into a consumer category for its commodities?

I wracked my brain, I researched, I found so many people offering explanations but none of them agreed, none of them had all the answers. I learned one man suggested they had some sort of sexual fetish which drove the transition. I found this compelling, and then learned that after the transition this fetish nearly disappeared, and that the way they think about their own body nearly precisely mirrors the way I think about mine. Some people suggested that human genes become broken and useless when mixed with the blood of different races. What the fuck?

I needed answers, I chomped through volumes, I chewed them up, I spit them out like sludge onto the floor. In my hatred, I burned through the knowledge of mankind, all its garbage science, and found nothing. I stood at my window, pounding my hand against the glass in frustration, when I realized something. I looked out at the dome and realized what I had lost.

My ability to accept the unexplained. Yes, my ability to dwell in and appreciate inhospitable knowledge was gone, I had lost it, and in its wake I had left a great deal of absolute junk, and the more I burned through the more junk I would accumulate.

I had become Atlas, I had become the city, consuming womanhood, consuming the very mother of women, in my ever expanding need to dominate the universe, to be the captain and steer the ship. When I reach the surface, finding nothing, finding no explanation, no meaning, no God, I will move on, I will go to a different planet and consume it instead, just like I consumed Mother Earth, for I am Atlas, eater of worlds, and breaker of women.

Part 3: Why Eve Ate the Apple

I woke out of my stupor one morning to see Sophia had messaged me.

Let’s talk.

I rolled out of bed and into the shower. As the warm water cascaded down my body, I looked down at scabs and scars on my wrists. I wore long sleeves to cover them. I had put in the code to buy a new mirror by then, and a droid had come in and installed it. I thanked it on its way out without thinking, and stood there at the mirror staring at myself. I didn’t feel as in touch with my body as I did before, but sheer inertia had left self loathing too boring of an exercise, so our relationship could be strictly professional.

I looked fine. I shrugged, and walked out the door.

As I tread down the streets, I started thinking. You know, I’ve attempted to describe these streets in as much poetic language as I could in this work, but the truth is most of the time they aren’t oppressive, or like a swamp, or even like so much garbage. The truth is, most of the time they’re boring. Because I grew up here, I really am used to them, and the insidious thing about alienation is you just get used to it. You get accustomed to feeling you don’t belong, because you forget what belonging feels like, if you ever even knew.

And as I walked to the bench to meet her, I thought of all of these supposedly faceless people, with their perfectly constructed faces. Previously, on some level, in my mind, I had sorted them into some hierarchy beneath me. I thought of them as robots, all the same, with Sophia and I the unique, the special among them. I thought we were better than them.

We weren’t. And I looked at them then, on these streets, and realized they must feel the same thing I did, but in a different way. Or maybe they have different ways of coping, maybe their manufactured faces are necessary for their survival. Maybe to not feel alienated from the spectacle, they must allow it to enter into their minds, and change their bodies.

Maybe that’s what I did, to an extent. My change was the expression of an inner truth, something that came from inside, but the reason the inside and the outside are so difficult to separate is because they aren’t so different. The people around us shape who we are, and we shape them in return. People could have perceived me as a woman when I had my male body, but they weren’t going to do that, so I responded to the situation I was in.

I walked into the restaurant, with my epiphany less like a light and more like sobriety.

I navigated the tables toward Sophia, feeling weird. She had a look on her face, mostly confusion. But maybe it’s a good thing to be confused.

I sat down the table beside her, letting the ambiance of the restaurant drift between us.

Each tick of the clock meets the air like lithium; it combusts and turns to smoke, slipping through your fingers, irretrievable. If I could catch one, I could have done something differently, and repair this distance between us, between me and a woman I used to love.

Instead, she slowly extended her hand across the table.

And I took it.

[clr-flr]

bubbuh lol

PART 1: THE BASICS

What is your full name? Maestro Bubbuh T. Guhm PHD of Rubbishry III

Where and when were you born? I was born in a fairy circle before things got STANKY MY BOY

Who are/were your parents? (Know their names, occupations, personalities, etc.) They were hawkers. Not much to say about graves.

Do you have any siblings? What are/were they like? I’m the sole special one child.

Where do you live now, and with whom? Describe the place and the person/people. I live in my machine shop, a very respectable business. I host my little robo-mate Castor in various spaces there.

What is your occupation? I’m a master-of-all trades, but I’m a specialist in weapons engineering. I can be swayed into most jobs for the right price.

Write a full physical description of yourself. You might want to consider factors such as: height, weight, race, hair and eye color, style of dress, and any tattoos, scars, or distinguishing marks. I’m very tall, taller in my power heels, strong and efficiently built, dirt with a bit of dried blood colored - clay maybe? I like my pauldrons sharp, my sunglasses sharp, my stilettos sharper. I’m a fan of feathering scarification. Got my hair in my top knot like the warriors in those old VHS things I’ve found. It’s hot.

To which social class do you belong? Same as everyone else in the age. Surviving.

Do you have any allergies, diseases, or other physical weaknesses? Monthly bleeding, that fucking sucks. Good for war paint, though.

Are you right- or left-handed? Left handed. Or right handed. Versatility!

What does your voice sound like? Saucy. With a hint of spice.

What words and/or phrases do you use very frequently? New ways to string curses together.

What do you have in your pockets? Nutz.

Do you have any quirks, strange mannerisms, annoying habits, or other defining characteristics? No, of course not. ;^m

PART 2: GROWING UP

How would you describe your childhood in general? Birds.

What is your earliest memory? Birds, big gloves, then the Big Stink.

How much schooling have you had? Not much, Big Stink happened too fast.

Did you enjoy school? I probably might’ve IF I HAD GONE.

Where did you learn most of your skills and other abilities? On my own, tinkering, a few mentors here and there. Pulling things apart and putting them together - experimenting - experience.

While growing up, did you have any role models? If so, describe them. Me, me and uhhhh……maybe my good old jizz lump boy.

While growing up, how did you get along with the other members of your family? Who knows? Been a while.

As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up? Fuck if I know.

As a child, what were your favorite activities? Whatever.

As a child, what kinds of personality traits did you display? I don’t fucking remember!!

As a child, were you popular? Who were your friends, and what were they like? Dude…Probably.

When and with whom was your first kiss? Shit…Doesn’t matter.

Are you a virgin? If not, when and with whom did you lose your virginity? I don’t remember that shit either. Shit don’t matter.

If you are a supernatural being (i.e. mage, werewolf, vampire), tell the story of how you became what you are or first learned of your own abilities. If you are just a normal human, describe any influences in your past that led you to do the things you do today. Hah - I’m just a human. We have aliens and robots and cyborgs and radiation fuckers roaming around these days, but I’m not one of them. I’m this way because of my situation. That’s all.

PART 3: PAST INFLUENCES

What do you consider the most important event of your life so far? The end of civilization. Fuck yeah.

Who has had the most influence on you? Fuck you, me.

What do you consider your greatest achievement? Being alive.

What is your greatest regret? Pass.

What is the most evil thing you have ever done? That’s a matter of opinion…

Do you have a criminal record of any kind? In reference to what?????

When was the time you were the most frightened? When I thought I didn’t get my wings perfect on my eyeliner.

What is the most embarrassing thing ever to happen to you? Associates’ failures that make me look bad, of course.

If you could change one thing from your past, what would it be, and why? I can change things now in the present, so why linger on things I can’t change??

What is your best memory? The ones I’m having now.

What is your worst memory? Worrying about potential futures.

PART 4: BELIEFS & OPINIONS

Are you basically optimistic or pessimistic? I don’t think either is necessary, or even useful. I work on a reactionary basis.

What is your greatest fear? I’d rather not divulge that. So in a way, that gives you some insight.

What are your religious views? There’s lots of spiritual uprisings these days that are pretty...interesting. But I don’t follow any.

What are your political views? Politics don’t survive here. If you mean in lawful morals - I guess I could go that oldies tabletop alignment route and say maybe a chaotic neutral.

What are your views on sex? It’s sassy.

Are you able to kill? Under what circumstances do you find killing to be acceptable or unacceptable? It’s always acceptable and required in a majority of cases. I won’t do in in rare exceptions when people give me a reason not to.

In your opinion, what is the most evil thing any human being could do? Brainwash them into false hope to drain them of their ability to fend for themselves - especially to sustain their own survival at the expense of dumbasses. I get it to an extent, but save some dumbasses for the rest of us, asshole.

Do you believe in the existence of soul mates and/or true love? That survive long enough to get to that point?? Hardly.

What do you believe makes a successful life? Living.

How honest are you about your thoughts and feelings (i.e. do you hide your true self from others, and in what way)? I’d like to think I’m genuine enough.

Do you have any biases or prejudices? Who has time for that, really?? It doesn’t really matter anyways. We’re all equally fucked.

Is there anything you absolutely refuse to do under any circumstances? Why do you refuse to do it? I refuse to be a savior or a hero to mankind. I probably could, but fuck that shit. Not my job.

Who or what, if anything, would you die for (or otherwise go to extremes for)? I dunno, a spaceship to planet of sexy aliens made to worship and bang me?? That’d be nice.

PART 5: RELATIONSHIPS W/OTHERS

In general, how do you treat others (politely, rudely, by keeping them at a distance, etc.)? Does your treatment of them change depending on how well you know them, and if so, how? I shoot first and ask questions later. If they make it past that point, they’re probably a fairly good resource of something or another. I generally treat everyone at that level the same. I guess Castor’s more like my personal butt-boy though.

Who is the most important person in your life, and why? Me, because, well, look at me.

Who is the person you respect the most, and why? Fucking look at me.

Who are your friends? Do you have a best friend? Describe these people. Blobulon the jizz parasite is a pretty cool dude. I always forget his real name. But he’s one of the goopy parasitic aliens that helped cause the Big Stink, what a guy. We’ve known each other a while. Cactus I run into off and on. Loves drugs. Pretty reliable chemist. Castor has a nice butt and a lazy eye, other than that I can kill him with a push of a button so I have him under my heel so there’s that.

Do you have a spouse or significant other? If so, describe this person. Does my right hand count? Dildos. Castor’s weener and butt? If not, nope.

Have you ever been in love? If so, describe what happened. It was a misty summer morning, I groggily rose from my bed, half nude. I stumbled into my bathroom - head pounding from the night before. Then I saw him. My reflection.

What do you look for in a potential lover? Didn’t I already describe my physical build??

How close are you to your family? I don’t remember where their bodies are dude.

Have you started your own family? If so, describe them. If not, do you want to? Why or why not? No because fuck that shit.

Who would you turn to if you were in desperate need of help? My ass, it’s very wise.

Do you trust anyone to protect you? Who, and why? My vagina, it’s super flexible and strong. Kegals, bro.

If you died or went missing, who would miss you? The universe would be missing a star.

Who is the person you despise the most, and why? I don’t have time to waste thoughts and energy on useless fools.

Do you tend to argue with people, or avoid conflict? I tend to fuck them up and move on.

Do you tend to take on leadership roles in social situations? I usually have to, but not by choice.

Do you like interacting with large groups of people? Why or why not? No because of mob mentality. That shit’s rough.

Do you care what others think of you? I care about what the most important person thinks of me: my ass. He has opinions. Strong ones.

PART 6: LIKES & DISLIKES

What is/are your favorite hobbies and pastimes? I enjoy a good tinker, a good shit, sleeping upside down, anal beads, sharpening heels to a deadly point, and smacking Castor’s head so his eye falls out of place.

What is your most treasured possession? My antique hall. I collect pre-stink artifacts and refurbish them to working condition. I guess that’s my all time favorite pastime.

What is your favorite color? Who cares.

What is your favorite food? Crickets.

What, if anything, do you like to read? Anything with tanks or monkeys.

What is your idea of good entertainment (consider music, movies, art, etc.)? I love those uh...I guess genre?? Of media...Kaiju stuff. Big monsters or robots wrecking shit or saving things. In video games, comics, movies, shows - any of it. Love it.

Do you smoke, drink, or use drugs? If so, why? Do you want to quit? I smoke and drink. I don’t use drugs regularly, but I use them casually. Why not?

How do you spend a typical Saturday night? When’s Saturday?

What makes you laugh? Other people’s misfortune or clumsiness.

What, if anything, shocks or offends you? Disrespect towards me specifically. Expect violence.

What would you do if you had insomnia and had to find something to do to amuse yourself? Have sex until I pass out probably.

How do you deal with stress? Just busy myself with work or go scavenge - do something productive.

Are you spontaneous, or do you always need to have a plan? A little of both.

What are your pet peeves? People fucking things up for me by being idiots or directly putting my life in danger through incompetence.

PART 7: SELF IMAGES & OTHER

Describe the routine of a normal day for you. How do you feel when this routine is disrupted? There’s no routine, so it’s fine.

What is your greatest strength as a person? Just one??

What is your greatest weakness? I’d say it’s actually the inability to form strong alliances. I keep people away which keeps my net from growing and it only holds me back. Oh well.

If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be? Having a dick would be nice.

Are you generally introverted or extroverted? Introverted I guess. 

Are you generally organized or messy? I’d say a weird version of organized. I like restrained clutter - it looks confusing to keep others at bay but everything does have a place.

Name three things you consider yourself to be very good at, and three things you consider yourself to be very bad at. Living, being hot, and business. People, riding horses, singing.

Do you like yourself? Oh, I don’t know, take a wild guess-a-roonie.

What are your reasons for being an adventurer (or doing the strange and heroic things that RPG characters do)? Are your real reasons for doing this different than the ones you tell people in public? (If so, detail both sets of reasons…) Because if I don’t I’ll die. That’s pretty much all there is to it, I’m surviving after a huge apocalypse, if that wasn’t clear.

What goal do you most want to accomplish in your lifetime? Nothing big really. Make a giant mecha I can pilot.

Where do you see yourself in 5 years? Even sexier than now and with bigger delts.

If you could choose, how would you want to die? Burning to death in radiation or acid.

If you knew you were going to die in 24 hours, name three things you would do in the time you had left. Just one thing. Have sex with a man for the entire 24 hours, so long that he dies in the process. Taking you down with me baby.

What is the one thing for which you would most like to be remembered after your death? I climbed these garbage mountains in 7 inch heels, fuckers.

What three words best describe your personality? Bitch, Ass, Fuck.

What three words would others probably use to describe you? Prick, Dick, Dong.

If you could, what advice would you, the player, give to your character? (You might even want to speak as if he or she were sitting right here in front of you, and use proper tone so he or she might heed your advice…) Stop.