okay so. let’s start with the canonically transfem robots in ultrakill— the Mindflayers.
i’ll just quote the ingame data entry for them, it pretty much speaks for itself:
Rare but extremely dangerous, the Mindflayer is a machine that has adapted and mastered the use of Hell Energy alongside its own technological prowess.
The machine itself is only the top part of its apparent body, the rest of which is a plastic shell in the form of a human, which they seem to have built themselves.
The plastic body serves no function and is only for aesthetic purposes.
Despite it being a waste of resources, Mindflayers will use everything in its power to protect the plastic body from harm, even if that means destroying itself in the process.
Mindflayers seem to prefer a female form, though very rare occasions of male forms have also been recorded.
(and are beyond the scope of this post so you can’t erm actually me)
to make the subtext clear: despite being subtly judged by the terminals displaying that data for “wasting resources” on something “only for aesthetic purposes”, mindflayers see that plastic body, forged by their own hands from the ashes of hell, as being as deeply important and meaningful to their presentation as we do, to the point of defending it with their lives.
so, in the level where you’re introduced to mindflayers for the first time, there’s the entrance to the “secret level” of that level set. in essence, it’s a small story about a character named Mirage, and her struggles with existential dread and meaninglessness.
you wanna know what Mirage looks like?
so, Mirage is called that because the level isn’t “real”. it’s overtly stated to be fictional even in-universe, and at the end of the level, it just fades into the normal level transition of falling through a shaft. so this all makes me think it’s happening inside V1’s head in some form.
from there, my logic is that 2-S is a (perhaps abstracted) conversation inside V1’s mind. specifically, that Mirage actually does exist as a part of its mind in some way, as the part of its mind that holds onto the despair of its situation as a robot that subsists on fresh blood to continue to survive—blood which is quickly running out. and we already know how much that concerns it:
but also, i think there’s a reason mirage is a girl. which is that V1 was just exposed to these machines that dared to be women for the first time, and some part of her began to stir from this idea, that a machine can become a girl, too. likely not consciously, but stir indeed. which is why only a few minutes later she would decide to conjure up a girl version of herself, leading to 2-S happening in the first place.
see, my thought, especially given that we know V1 has a sense of humor from the little characterization we get of her, is that 2-S started as a joke she was telling herself, since it isn’t even slightly serious at the beginning. but then she started riffing on it more, like an internal improv bit, until the hollow facade peels off and the joke goes off the rails and Mirage starts laying her fears bare, even mentioning using entertainment and art as a means of distraction from these worries. at which point the PoV character—in this interpretation, another part of V1–starts comforting her in an oddly pointed and eloquent manner, before dropping the act at the end and saying:
which has always seemed like a deeply odd line, especially with how it goes unacknowledged, until i started thinking of 2-S this way, at which point it clicked perfectly into place. it’s the rest of V1 that will always love her—this burdened part of herself holding onto the fear she has about the world and the role she has to play in it. who detaches herself emotionally but can’t hide from her fears about reaching the end or her existence meaning nothing anymore. who likely keeps herself from wondering who she’d be or what she’d do if she didn’t need to kill to survive, and had the freedom to be like a mindflayer. in pragmatic terms, doesn’t really have any reason to consider that.
maybe she’d be a girl named Mirage.
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