riley

From the moment I opened the prompt for the assignment, I knew the character I would be creating would be non-binary. It was pretty much evident that the characters were described using they/them pronouns and had gender neutral names, possibly to leave the whole gender department up to our own interpretation. And that, to me, meant I could go all crazy in all the directions I wanted.

Considering that the game has a post-apocalyptic setting, I decided to go overboard and properly torture my Riley with a world full of depression and discrimination, just like our own world so to speak. Basically, in Riley’s world, a lot of humans are born intersex (with both female and male reproductive parts). They are favoured more than endosex people because they can function both as male and female in a reproductive standpoint, keeping the scarce human population afloat. Of course, this is absolutely disgusting, as people are perceived as nothing more than breeding machines.

On top of that, human technology has advanced to the point that they can now transplant computer parts onto bodies in order to surpass human biological capabilities. This is a common practice in the South Faction under Doc’s rule, and Riley was also one of many to be surgically altered as an infant. (Note: This can be viewed as an allegory for modern-day intersex medical intervention issue)
Riley is a young closeted asexual, and they suffer from dread and mental health issues as they are soon expected to start reproducing as much as they can. They also face the worst dysphoria – they identify as human, but they literally have computational parts on top of their shoulders for everyone to see. This metaphorical “stampede” results in them fleeing the South, in hopes of joining the North Faction where the Southerners deem inferior and uncivilised. Maybe they can also turn Riley’s face back and actually consider them as a valid human being.