parasite

Content warnings for suicidal ideation, drugs, addiction, grief, death, depression, implication of self-harm, allusions to police brutality.

AESTHETIC.

Sitting on your balcony alone, smoking a cigarette at one in the morning. Biting into a ripe peach, the juice dripping down your chin. Collecting old sci-fi movies from before the world burnt.  The smell of rose water and honey. Calling the voicemail of someone gone just to hear the sound of their voice. Hiding your profits in the walls of your apartment. Biting down on your knuckles to muffle a scream. The crispness of cold sheets. Flickering neon signs pointing to narrow back alleys. Always paying in cash. Always.

(BRIEF) HISTORY.

tl;dr everyone rip has ever loved has either died or gone missing, and she’s convinced she has the power to talk to the dead, she just needs to figure out how to “activate” it, so that’s why she’s trying to amass wealth via dealing synth (my fun lil punny drug idea for metropolis) because money = power baybeeeeeee

Ripley grew up as a part of the working class of District Two. She’d never met her father, who disappeared mere weeks before she was born. No one knows why. It was as if he vanished into thin air, and her mother, Nairi, never talked about him.

Nairi worked at the Farm, and she did so tirelessly, legitimately believing the old adage that if you work hard, it will lead to a better life. Ripley saw time and time again how Nairi tried so hard to do everything right, do everything honestly, and how she was rewarded for her sincerity with scraps, while the Chancellor and her Watchers paraded around the city like tyrants.

And the ultimate cherry on top came when Nairi died in an accident on the Farm, killed by a wound that festered, by an infection in her blood, something that never would have happened had they been in a different district. But Ripley wasn’t able to grieve. At fourteen, she was an orphan, with no means of supporting herself, and all she could do was take up her mother’s job at the Farm in the hopes that one day, she’d make it out of here. One day, she wouldn’t have to do this anymore.

She was twenty-three when she met Joy, a technician at the Farm. It was a short courtship that led to a long marriage, and for a while, things were better. Ripley started getting used to the idea of happiness, started believing it was possible for her... only to have it all ripped away. The Watchers came, ransacked their apartment, took Joy away, interrogated Ripley for hours, told her that her wife was a traitor to Metropolis. After that day, she never saw Joy again.

Until she did, one night at the Boneyard. After her mom died, she started coming here, convincing herself she could feel her mother’s presence. And then, she started feeling Joy’s presence too, and that was all the proof she needed to herself that the one person she’d truly loved, the only hope at happiness she ever thought she’d get, was dead.

She started using. More than just casually, as she’d done her whole life. Methodical, addictive, meant to numb every feeling she’d ever had. And she had every intention of wasting away the rest of her miserable life until – a rumor overheard at Bliss, the idea that you could trigger powers within you...now that captured her attention.

She was singleminded in her pursuit of her “power” – which, she believes, is necromancy, the capacity to speak to the dead – because all she wanted was to say one last goodbye to the people she’s lost. It’s selfish, really, but she convinced herself, maybe she can use it for the greater good. To understand the future is to understand the past, and secrets disappear from the world with the dead.

Ripley was fucking tired. Tired of being a cog in the wheel of a broken machine, tired of being stepped on by the boot of the world, and in order to get where she needed to go, she needed power, money, and influence. What better way to do that than to control the stream of drugs into Metropolis? It was a slippery slope from using to dealing, but she made the most of the fall, and now, she’s created a tiny little monopoly for herself, pocketing almost all of the profits and trying not to get too greedy. Because it’s all in service of a larger goal, even if she refuses to acknowledge that she threw off one set of chains just to put on another. New game, same rules, and the stakes are much, much higher.

FULL BIOGRAPHY HERE.

WANTED CONNECTIONS.

THE CLIENT’S ALWAYS RIGHT – This is one of Ripley’s regulars. Maybe it’s her favorite customer, someone she has an easy repartee with. Maybe it’s someone Ripley feels conflicted about selling to, for whatever reason. Maybe it’s someone she cannot fucking stand, but hell, they’re paying her, so what does it matter. Regardless, give Rip some clients and populate her business!! Walter White, who?

RUBBING ELBOWS WITH THE RIGHT PEOPLE – Ripley’s trying to advance her own agenda in terms of activating the power she believes she has. Maybe this person has information she needs, and she’s willing to pay to get it. Maybe she thinks she can manipulate this person to get to someone she actually wants to meet. At the end of the day, Ripley’s taking her first stab at “playing the game” of Metropolis, and boy is she vastly underprepared for what that means.

FELLOW FARMER – Ripley still works the fields as a cover for what she’s actually doing. This can be someone she’s known for years, maybe even her whole life, or it can be someone who just started working here last week. I’d imagine Ripley’s one of those people that’s become a staple of the Farm, someone everyone thinks will always be there and someone who tries to take the new kids under her wing a little bit, give them the advice she never got.

(WO)MAN OF GOD – While she isn’t inherently religious, Ripley has a strong affinity towards belief systems, and she believes with absolute certainty in her bones that she’s right about how she sees the world. Most specifically when it comes to the idea of her having powers. This is someone who believes the same thing as her or could be inclined to be swayed over to Ripley’s way of thinking. Maybe a new friend, a welcome reprieve from the cynicism Inkwell is always giving her. Someone who’ll go down this rabbit hole with her.

HEADCANONS.

Ripley named herself after Sigourney Weaver’s iconic Ellen Ripley of the Alien franchise. It was the only movie they had at home growing up, and Rip watched it again and again, can still recite it verbatim to this day.

Ripley’s got a fair amount of tattoos, all of them courtesy of Inkwell. No, she will not tell you why she got them. Sometimes a cow’s just a cow.

Since starting her little drug empire, Rip’s developed a gnarly caffeine addiction. It wasn’t something she could afford as a lowly farm worker, but now that she knows what a steaming cup of freshly brewed coffee tastes like, she’s absolutely done for.

Ripley’s hair is always up if she needs to focus or if she’s working. A tight, sleek ponytail, a low bun, but most commonly, a long braid down her spine, just like how Nairi would do it for her when she was a young girl. She rarely, if ever, wears her hair down, despite it being so long.

There’s stray cat in her apartment complex that Ripley stared feeding. Since he’s so orange and so massive, she started calling him Cheeto. Cheeto now has his own litter box in Ripley’s apartment... and yet, she still calls him a stray and refuses to admit she owns a fucking cat.

Ripley takes pretty good care of herself physically. Her favorite form of exercise is boxing, and she doesn’t get nearly enough practice with sparring partners, just punches a bag she set up behind her building, so if you’re trying to Fight, hit me up.