A Depressing Lack of Squirrels

 

“Peanut butter cups are a cruel joke.”

The melancholy of Rusty is deep and profound where peanut butter cups are involved.  My squirrel companion watched sadly as I ate one right in front of her.  I knew better than to offer her some, her dislike of chocolate prevented her from enjoying the treat.  When the sight of ‘tainted’ peanut butter got too much for her to bear, she instead watched the action on my television screen, which wasn’t very interesting either.  Final Fantasy XIV‘s Duty Finder continued to count the minutes since I entered the queue to get into whatever random dungeon it deigned to let me into.

After a few minutes, Rusty latched her melancholy onto something else.  “There are too many cat girls and bunny girls in games like this.  There are pandas and foxes and even cows in World of Warcraft.  Where are the squirrels?  Why can’t I be a squirrel?”

“Well, you could always try playing Conker’s Bad Fur Day or Zero, and Squirrel Girl sometimes shows up in Marvel games,” I offered.

“Those aren’t me, though,” Rusty said.  “Why can’t I save the world?  Why do cats get all the fun, shooting fireballs at everything?”

“I do tend to make you a Black Mage when I play the first Final Fantasy.”  And it was true.  Every time I named a character after her in a game, I typically made every effort to make sure the character could cast fire.  While I would expect most squirrels to hang out in the woods training to be archers, which is how come there are characters like Lady Amber’s Squirrels in Mossflower, Rusty has always had a special relationship with fire and flames, and that’s why I try to always make her a mage character of sorts.  In Final Fantasy, unfortunately, that means that usually, she’s casting more elements than just fire.  Final Fantasy XIV is a special case, where the main element a Black Mage wields is fire, due to how the job’s resource management is set up.  Unfortunately, I named my character Sara, not Rusty.

“That isn’t the same.”  She sat in front of the controller, idly navigating the game’s menu with her paws while we waited.  “It’s clearly a game with four human dudes, even if you pretend I’m one of them.”

“I guess it’s like that with Disgaea, too,” I said after a moment of consideration.  Unlike Final Fantasy, Disgaea split the elements into their own classes, allowing each mage to specialize in their own thing.  I could therefore guarantee that Rusty would be able to exclusively cast fire magic in the Disgaea world.

“Humans, even when they look like demons,” Rusty pointed out.

“Come to think of it, there’s a Firestarter in Skyforge now,” I suggested.

Rusty gave me a look.  “You haven’t played that game in so long, it’s clear you’re not really interested.  Besides, you always preferred playing Cryomancer, even with all the overpowered, ‘premium’ classes that’ve been released.”

“Guess we’re stuck waiting until the other world needs us,” I said.

“They can handle themselves.”  Rusty kept her eyes on the screen, but I could tell that, despite everything that had happened to us, she did miss the adventure.

“Well then, the only other option is to wait for a game company to offer you an MMO where you can truly be yourself,” I said to her.  “They’re catering to humans and to furries with specific tastes, but there’s not a lot of demand for customizable squirrels.  We’re pretty much stuck with Second Life right now if you want to be a custom-made squirrel.”

“Can you play an RPG in Second Life?” Rusty wondered.

That, I didn’t know, so I resolved to check Google later to find out, once we were done questing.

 

~~~

 

The queue to get into the dungeon was endless, and while Rusty checked over all of my items – she sometimes helped me plan my crafting projects within Final Fantasy XIV – I had my laptop on and was researching Second Life.  At first glance, it turned out there weren’t a lot of options for RPGs in the game, but deeper research would be needed.  On a whim, I opened up Notepad and began to type, narrating out loud as I went.

 

The magician surveyed the vast forest from a cliff high above.  Evil was lurking below its verdant canopy, and she could trust no one but herself to defeat it.  As she raised her red-furred hands up to pull back her hood, her ears twitched to take in the tiniest details of sound.  Her squirrel features captured the sights and smells and even the very flavour of the forest while the wind gently ruffled her fur and billowed her cloak.  Her heaving bosom-

 

Rusty erupted into laughter.  “Her what?”

“She’s a mage.  She won’t be able to run as far as a standard warrior without winding herself,” I pointed out.

“You didn’t even mention running!”  The squirrel was rolling on my bed, unable to control herself as she continued to react to the hilarity of my writing.

“You didn’t let me get that far,” I responded patiently as I watched her hysterics.

When Rusty had sufficiently recovered, she lay there, panting.  “Do I look like I have a bosom that can heave?”

I didn’t want to say that, at the moment, you could argue that her chest was indeed heaving.  It would’ve been missing the point entirely.

“And just how big a chest does this magician have, anyway?” Rusty continued.  “If I were a magician, I would think I’d want to be judged for the side of my fireballs, not the size of my ‘heaving bosom’.”

‘I could tone it down a little,” I offered.  I was still debating on whether I wanted the magician to be like Final Fantasy XIV‘s characters, basically human all over with animal ears and tails and a few other token features, like the Miqo’te and Viera, or if I wanted to aim more towards Final Fantasy IX‘s style of anthropomorphized character, like the Burmecians.

“I think I know what you’re trying to do,” Rusty said, “But I don’t think I’m in the mood for a pulp fantasy wet dream.”  A familiar chime came from both the game and the controller, and I glanced over in time to see Rusty accept the popped queue and sit back from the controller to let me play.  “Besides, your dungeon awaits.  I’ll just pretend we’re a squirrel for now.”