Joja!
As mentioned, I've been playing a lot of Stardew Valley. Got gay married to my sweetie Abigail, because how could I resist a purple-haired proto-goth who loves pumpkins, autumn, cemetaries, and rainy days? I couldn't, that's how.
Also, purple is her natural hair color (the game is set in a universe with both trains and soda pop but also with dwarves and wizards), and let me just say: purple pubes. Oh. My. God. I would kill to rub my face in those.
So she's mine now and we are happy down on the farm.
Meanwhile, there's an entity in the game known as the Joja corporation, a faceless corporate behemoth that seeks to crush any independent commerce and force everyone to shop and work at their soulless identical stores and/or numbing corporate offices. The local Joja-mart manager even has devil eyes, that's how bad they are.
The combination of these two items - my loverly Abigail and the malevolent Joja Corp - recently smeared together into a rather hot fantasy.
It starts with coming home to find Abigail in some skin-tight shiny latex getup - think the outfit of the lead singer from The Pretty Reckless in their Going to Hell video - with cut-outs for the breasts and crotch, acting all submissive and enticing ("I got this to please you.")
She starts sliding further into sex-kitten over the next indeterminate period of time, discovering that she likes being naughty and objectified.
Then come the breast implants; she gets them as a surprise, and loves having them, they're so plastic and unreal.
She got them, of course, from Joja, which is more or less the only game in town for that sort of thing. And now her slide into becoming more and more designed for sex starts becoming tinted Joja; the idea of being a sex object and being a faceless corporate cog - no, corporate asset - blend together in her fantasies.
She begins going off to 'workshops' offered by a particular branch of the Joja corporation. In theory they are about skills and etiquette and such, but of course they are really a sort of corporate indoctrination, deepening her (and the other participants') desire to become Joja assets. Joja property.
Then comes the tattoo, the Joja logo on her shoulder, prominently displayed when she is wearing her tight Joja-blue latex lingerie. She takes a job at the local Joja mart; during which time she wears headphones that pump Joja subliminals into her mind as she smiles and vapidly rings up the customers.
Her salary is put into the Joja bank. It is immediately loaned back to Joja corporation at zero percent interest.
The next tattoo is on the nape of her neck. It's a Joja bar code.
When scanned, it reads 'plastic appliance'.
Now she's listening to the headphones while she sleeps. During sex, she refers to herself as a 'plastic appliance', as 'Joja property'.
The next time she's in the city, she visits the Joja surgeons again.
For the brain implant.
The headphones are unnecessary now. And her personality has changed; she's no longer playing at being a Joja puppet because it turns her on. It's more natural now; she simply thinks of herself as a Joja plastic appliance, a servile sex device which obeys because that's its purpose. She still answers to 'Abigail', but that's because Abigail is a Joja plastic appliance.
She sleeps standing upright now, in a barometric chamber, which Joja installed in the house. It wirelessly connects with her brain implant to guide her through her day; at night she sleeps within it, eyelids fluttering as it bombards her unresisting mind.
She has a new focus now: dissolving her personality.
She is a Joja Plastic Appliance. It says so on her neck. And there is a standard personality implant for Joja Plastic Appliances. Her last desire as Abigail is to melt away 'Abigail' so that she can become a pure servile device. So that she can become Joja Plastic Appliance #19,201 (the number that was tattooed on months ago), with the latest Joja Slavebot Personality installed and running her mind.
**
So that's the fantasy that cropped up there. I haven't worked out what the protagonist is doing during all this. Are they complicit? Appalled yet unable to do anything? I'd like to find some middle ground allowing for Abigail's complete submersion into the timeline above but that doesn't have the narrator as the driver - but I can't think of one offhand that doesn't instead leave them looking foolish or helpless.
Perhaps I will think of something. Taking suggestions!
Off the top of my head, there's a few avenues that you might explore.
ReplyDelete1) They're getting something out of the arrangement (besides increasingly kinky sex) that has so much value its almost impossible to give up. Perhaps productivity on the farm is an issue and Abigail's association with Joja affords some arrangement to counter this: Joja buys crops at above market value no questions asked; Joja supplies free robot-drones to decrease labor costs; Joja supplies GMOs that produce incredible crop yields; etc.
2) If Joja is as bad as you say, then it would make sense someone is pushing back against them. Could be tin-foil hat types, could be a more organized (and possibly dangerous) "resistance." Perhaps they see value in what's happening to Abigail as propaganda or evidence that can used to 'bring them down.' They want the protagonist to document her transformation to that end. Of course no one wants to sacrifice her, so they'll stop before any irreversible changes occur. They've got leaked documents, that are 100% authentic, showing the Slavebot roadmap. There's plenty of time before the point-of-no-return. Plenty of time.
3) The protagonist is worried about Abigail's changes and finds an anonymous support group for people going through the same thing with their SOs. Protagonist meets someone in the group who works high-up in Joja. Their SO has been fully transformed for some time. The Insider has access to information and equipment, they're working on a way to reverse the changes but its almost impossible because the process involves layer-upon-layer of controls and conditioning. But, if they could get data from a subject who's currently undergoing the procedure, they should be able to create countermeasures to reverse the enslavement.
After each visit to Joja, the Protagonist asks Abigail some survey questions about where she went, what she experienced, and her state of mind. Also, uses a handheld scanning device to gather physiological data without Abigail's knowledge. Sends this to the Insider who begins sending back instructions to negate Abigail's transformation; changes in diet to counter the Joja supplements that dull her mind; firmware hacks for the barometric chamber to neutralize the instructions she's being fed.
For every two notches Abigail slides towards Slavedoll, each countermeasure returns her one notch towards her own personality. The Insider has figured out how to beat almost all the layers of control except the brain implant; but its only a matter of time and then Abigail will be free. Then one day, the Protagonist calls the Insider on vid-conference. The Insider answers, but now they have a barcode tattoo of their own...
Maybe one of these will shake something loose for you.
I was all about team Leah when I first started playing, but Abigail won me over with that first game on her not-a-SNES-but-totally-a-SNES console. Soon she was having to duck left right and centre, as a rain of pumpkin and amethyst was launched her way, each with an accompanying note reading “Weill you be my valentines?”. What can I say? I have a Robert Smith sized soft spot for goth girls who game.
ReplyDeletePixilated romance aside, there’s a whole cast of characters waiting to fight to save Abigail, only to fall into the calculating embrace of the JoJo corporation. Why wouldn’t they want to add Maru to their R&D department, with a little attitude adjustment and an upgrade or two to her intelligence? Hayley didn’t always have the shallow personality that she’s portrayed as having in game, but it’s become so easy to switch the analytical side of her brain off when JoJo thinks for her.
And it would be entirely too selfish for her not to want to share the joy and arousal that comes with a JoJo brand control chip. Maybe it’s not even gone that far for her; the seminars would be enough to prime a person with the right ‘motivation’.
***
Glass eyed and unfocused, she stares at the spiral projected against the visor covering her eyes. They all do. Every single one of the new inductees are sitting, their legs stretched out in stirrups as fully converted JoJo slavebots kneel between them.
“JoJo is pleasure” echoes the breathy feminine voice through the headphones covering her ears.
“Yesss,” hisses Hayley as she tenses, willing the truth to burry deeper into her mind as the slavebots tongue teased the acceptance out of her.
***
Scenario A:
ReplyDeleteJoja is attempting to buy the mineral rights from the protagonist so that they can start mining operations to get the necessary unobtainium for their robotization processes.
When the protagonist refuses to sell ('this farm has been in the family for generations!') Joja decides to change tactics, and goes after the protagonist's beau, Abigail instead.
As described, she is slowly roboticized while the protagonist watches in horror. She doesn't have a lot of time to try to stop the process, however, as she has a full time job keeping the farm running.
As Joja alters Abigail, Abigail starts to work on the protagonist, slowly twisting her to Joja's point of view. Eventually the protagonist ends up a slave to Joja as well. Perhaps she helps them to setup a new mine on her property and joins in on the mining operation - in mindless splendor, her perfect nude body sweating as she raises and lowers the pick in rhythm to the Joja signal only she can hear.
Or maybe Joja has decided to take revenge and has instead turned the protagonist into a cow, lovingly taken care of by the robotic milk maid Abigail.
Scenario B:
The protagonist notices that Abigail is becoming increasingly robotic. This arouses her, but also alarms her. She seeks outside help (or perhaps outside help seeks her). The outside help wants her to help them infiltrate Joja and expose their corruption. They provide the protagonist with the necessary technology to prevent her from becoming a controlled drone of Joja.
Unfortunately, they fail to tell the protagonist that they're actually a competitor of Joja, and are attempting to steal Joja's robotization technology.
The protagonist attempts the infiltration, but it fails. She gets caught by robo-Abigail and put through a Joja initiation process.
At this point, the protagonist can either help Joja to reverse takeover their competition, or the competition has installed technology into our protagonist to prevent her from becoming a Joja puppet. If this is the case, Joja's competition eventually gains control of her and Abigail, and they become wage slaves to different masters.
Scenario C:
The protagonist is depressed, and is constantly thinking about suicide. When Joja roboticizes Abigail, she throws herself into her work, but her heart isn't in it. She begins a spiral of despair, but Abigail slowly starts to hypnotize it out of her.
Eventually, she joins Joja too, Joja's mental implants stabilizing her depressive thoughts and forcing her malfunctioning mind into a smoothed, happy fuck toy.
This ends with a strangely happy ending, as nobody is depressed any more. She only had to lose her free will to accept the love of Abigail and Joja into her mind.
You detail Abigail's transformation so well, and I imagine the POV to be of the protagonist, who finds herself experience equal parts of arousal, anxiety and confusion. She is surprised to find how much she is enjoying Abigail's objectification - thinking 'better' of herself, that she should want a real relationship, but keeps getting drawn into what Abigail is becoming. She is suspicious of Joja, but isn't sure what to do about it (or if she wants to do about it). As Abigail's transformation is almost complete, we/she finds out that Joja has been making adjustments to her as well, that Abigail has been assisting in. Joja NEEDS people who can live with/enjoy the changes they are making, and so they are creating them. the corporation needs thoughtful, intelligent people to keep things running, but don't want them bothered by ethical/moral connundrums of what they are doing. Rather than seek out that rare combination, why not just create it? Perhaps Abigail has a log of the changes that have happened to our protagonist; her own subliminals, the chip that was installed to help guide her on losing her moral objections...and of course by the time she finds out, she doesn't really mind anymore...
ReplyDeleteSaint Germain