Järvi “Scum” Virtanen
Occupation: Heavy fighter of the anti-corporate resistance cell (ACRC) “Fuego”, alleged eco-terrorist, former ichthyologist, fashion blogger
Place of birth: Southern Caucasus
Place of activity: Xalapa city, Veracruz state of Mexico Country, The Amazing Corporation
Age: 28 years by the start of the Neon Blood [1]
Ethnicity: Kolan Mingreli-Imeretian
Languages: Georgian, Northern Russian, Mexican Spanish, American English, Eastern Huasteca, Finnish
Pronouns: She/They
— The Amazing Corporation is named so for a reason — it’s one of the oldest and most powerful corporations in the world, the one without which other corporations might’ve never existed in the first place, and AmaCom is always happy to brag about it. But beneath the deep layers of hard PR work AmaCom is plagued by civil unrest. One of the symptoms of this plague is The Scum — a violent eco-terrorist that just appeared one day and started causing great havoc.
— Scum’s identity is a complete mystery that escapes many servants of the corporate law… mostly because Scum’s civil identity is that of a heavily disabled fashion blogger who’s too depressed to get off her bed most of the time. None of that is a trick — she’s genuinely like that, it just happens that she spends her high-energy moments causing havoc.
— Järvi wasn’t always like this — as a matter of fact, she wasn’t always Järvi to begin with. Many years ago she was Lamara Shengelia, a humble orphan whose hyperfixation on sharks made her into an ichthyologist at the AmaCom. Her genuine interest made her a great scientist, but not much of a profit bringer, so no wonder that after yet another wave of Refinancilization™, Restructuration™ and Optimization™ Lamara’s department was deemed not profitable enough and so its closure began, with the sharks getting prepared to be sold to private collection.
CW for some heavy stuff: a lot of physical and mental trauma (especially amnesia), losing loved ones, horrors of capitalism, mention of self-harm, a lot of angst and suffering in general.
— Lamara made sure to make her complaints heard: the closure of her department wasn’t just unethical (sharks, like most of Earth’s ecosystem, are critically endangered in the 24th century) but frankly foolish, as their work could bring some incredible long-term profits when done. But all her stubbornness has achieved is corporate agents coming into her lab and giving her the final ultimatum.
(CW for description of severe physical trauma in the next two paragraphs)
— For not accepting the ultimatum Lamara was thrown into the main reservoir where she first got attacked by anxious sharks and then got mauled by the purification systems which mistook her for “unfilterable organic waste”, flushing Lamara to the sewer. Miraculously she survived, but sustained horrific physical and mental traumas. She was found at the shore of the Campeche Bay by a group of lumpenproletariat who delivered her to the hospital where she couldn’t be identified due to damage done to her tod [2] and body.
— Lamara lost both legs as well as most of her organs and skin, but survived and even was able to cut herself a deal to fix enough of her body to continue living. This meant owning huge money to the nastiest kind of people, but this also meant escaping the cold, clingy hands of Death for at least a while.
— She was now a ghost outside of system, her property seized by AmaCom, her body too disfigured to be recognized by anyone, her vibes too pathetic to be seen as a threat — so she was doing the dirtiest of jobs, like setting people up, distributing drugs, kidnapping and so on, and using every opportunity to get into an even bigger debt to fix her body. As her debt and usefulness grew in sync, her superiors were becoming more and more pleased — until one day this useful ghost… well, ghosted them and completely disappeared the instant she became independent enough for it.
— The body survived — but the mind didn’t. Lamara suffers from dissociative retrograde amnesia, meaning she forgot most of her life, even the most basic and important things: her own name, social connections, hobbies and even some of her own personality traits. At first she tried to rebuild herself and her memory but all it brought her is more pain, misery and despair, leaving Lamara unwilling to dig deeper into her past. Her past was now sharks, pain, and her murderers muttering “fucking scum’. And so the kind Lamara died, leaving her body to the hateful Scum.
— Many people have faded away from Scum’s memory but the most important one was Olga Ventsova: Lamara’s uni classmate. At first they both ignored each other… and everybody else, because they were too busy studying to waste their time practicing their non-existent social skills. But one forced co-op activity later they found out that wow, it’s nice to talk with someone who’s also an asocial ichthyology-obsessed nerd! Very quickly the two became best friends, and after graduation they made sure to get a job in the same place. Being surrounded by people more interested in profits than science made them appreciate each other more, and so their friendship took a romantic turn. Olga even wanted to propose to Lamara — but, well. Things happened. While Scum is busy fighting Amacom, Olga spends her days drowning herself in work, still unable to get over Lamara’s Lamara’s disappearance and the department’s closure.
— When Scum’s life stopped revolving solely around survival, revenge became her new priority. She wanted to punish not just her assassins, but the person who gave the order to kill her. One problem — amnesia. No matter what, Scum couldn’t remember her murderers, and in her rage she was lashing out on the system, committing multiple acts of eco-terrorism.
— At first Scum cared not for secret identity — her augmentation set was too unique anyway, so money, threats and murder were buying her time and secrecy. But one day she met an engineer who needed neither money nor threats — Tyyne “Tuna” Virtanen, who, together with her wife Leonida Psarrou, have had their own fair share of systemic injustice.
— Both of them went through much pain, but in spite of all that, Tuna had a very kind and compassionate heart. When she realised that Scum has nowhere to go, she offered her help, to Scum’s great confusion and paranoia. It was very suspicious that such a completely random person could just offer help… But Scum was really, really tired, and the idea of having an actual place to sleep was so captivating. And it was really hard to refuse an offer from such a sweet woman — Scum still had amnesia, but quickly deduced that she’s an orphan from realising how unrelatable other people’s talk of parents is, so mommy issues played a role.
— Kindness is what lets her stay for a while, but what really kept Scum around is that Tuna genuinely cared for the mission. She didn’t just repair Scum’s augmentations, she improved them. She and Leonida travelled all over the world, learned all kinds of skills, and were living in the city of Xalapa long enough to gather reputation and connections, even being able to fabricate a civil identity for Scum — Järvi Virtanen, her daughter with congenital problems who came back from Finland after finishing her studies there. For the first time in her life Scum had a family.
— Xalapa is one of AmaCom’s most radicalized cities, infamous for constant clashes between the population and corporate police, and is home to multiple ACRCs. This is why Järvi chose it as her new place of operation — at worst police will be bogged down by useless attempts at deducing her affiliations and at best it will be too busy hunting bigger fishes in the pond. Of course it also meant more police in general, but to a person with such high mortido it was barely a flaw.
— There was one consequence of operating in such a city, however, and the one Järvi should’ve expected. When she was about to kill a manager who outlived their use to her, she was confronted by a fighter who was protecting the manager's life. A long fight ensued and ended only when yet another figure appeared, quietly killing the manager as the other two fought. Ironically, the murderer was a corporate assassin, and the fighter was a member of an ACRC — the manager knew some very sensitive information the fighter was after.
— After taking care of the assassin, Järvi and the fighter, finally realizing they’re on the same side, don't find anything better to do but to have sex at the fighter’s base. After that the fighter introduces herself as Chapulin “Oca” Tlatilpa-Romero, member of the Fuego, an ACRC that Järvi soon joins. And this is where the Neon Blood story properly starts for her.
— Devoted to her cause, Järvi chose and modified all her augmentations with a single purpose in mind, to bring death and destruction, with no regard for her own safety, making her into the poster child for glass cannon tactics: Järvi is strong enough to punch through walls and cyborgs, her scales easily slice the meat off the bones, her speed can reach 72 kph… but also a single well-placed shot will take her out of action for weeks.
— List of her augmentations includes: metal-enhanced bones, augmented nervous system, synthetics muscles, augmented senses (hearing, smelling, eyesight), artificial skin with weaponized shark-like scales, gills and heavy digitigrade legs.
— Legs are Järvi’s main weapon and she has three sets of them: Stompers are heavy legs with hooves that allow Järvi to run really fast, but only in a straight line, not meant for strafing and sharp turns; Piercers trade blunt damage for stabbing, and while losing in speed and balance, give Järvi a much better mobility overall; and Swimmers are, while unwieldy, can transform into a tail with extremely sharp fins, making Järvi even more dangerous underwater, as well as giving her some quite unusual fighting moves on land.
— Has human-like leg augmentations but Järvi’s so used to digitigrade legs that genuinely forgot how to walk with regular human legs, so she uses a wheelchair instead.
— While she focuses mostly on melee, Järvi doesn’t ignore firearms completely, also having three options: Thresher, a makeshift shotgun that shoots metal shards; Swordfish, a harpoon gun; and Hammerheads, two revolvers of caliber so high a lesser person would snap their wrists shooting them.
— Another important part of her tactics is terror: Järvi is absolutely merciless and brutal in a fight, as much out of enjoyment as of necessity — she’s not armored enough to take on too many enemies at once, even after joining Fuego, so scaring as many enemies away as possible is needed.
— Despite her reputation as an eco-terrorist, Järvi never targets civilians. She might be brutal and often without mercy, but not pointlessly so - her rage is pointed at the ones who continues to commit ecocide and their supporters, not people who simply live within the system, but thanks to AmaCom everyone see her as a "crazy serial killer" on a mission to destroy the entire humanity in the name of ecology.
— Järvi considers herself a dead person walking, so she installed only the most necessary of the health augmentations. Every day she takes 10+ kinds of pills just to be functional: painkillers, insulin, estrogen (Oca mistook Järvi for a fellow transfem because of that), two kinds of immunomodulators, antidepressants, antipsychotics, several kinds of digestive enzymes, hepatoprotectors, choleretics, diuretics and so on.
— A woman of habits, Järvi buys all her meds at the same place. Little does she know that her socially awkward ass somehow got herself an admirer — one of the pharmacists, Tlalli Esparza, developed a crush on Järvi, in a way specifically because of asocial Järvi is: she’s polite, never argues about prices (or anything at all as a matter of fact), brings some serious money, never looks down at Tlalli. Järvi is also just really, really pretty. Unfortunately, Tlalli is also asocial (part of the reason why she’s so attracted to Järvi), so the best she did is initiating a couple of awkward small-talks.
— Not an easy person to be around. She’s anxious, unstable, impulsive, a very bad long-term planner, and absent-minded — and very much aware of it, so she’s very careful around other people, and is very ashamed of her every misstep, and herself in general — Järvi’s self-esteem is very low.
— The last trait, combined with poor body language control, is one of Järvi’s possible downfalls as even in her Scum alter ego she often looks meek with her slouching shoulders and inability to look people in the eyes (these cute bangs didn’t come out of nowhere after all). At very least she’s somewhat kept in check by her asociality — you can’t accidentally tell something revealing about yourself when you don’t talk with anyone at all!
— However Järvi is not all misery and hatred. She’s brave, determined, decisive and (em)pathetic, does everything in her power to protect the people she cares about. Järvi is very violent and hateful, and her virtues often come from a dark place (like her desire to die or the utter emptiness she feels when she’s alone) but her friends and family remind Järvi that there’s more to life than her revenge — at some point she even started doing hobbies again, instead of spending her free time staring at the ceiling, waiting for drugs to kick in (and yes, she has addiction issues).
— Her main hobby is fashion: Järvi spends most of her free time checking out the latest trends, blogging her thoughts and ideas on fashion, and when she feels especially well, she even goes shopping, or at least trying out new clothes. She also enjoys watching all sorts of animation, mostly of the escapist kind. Her favorite cartoon is the 23rd century’s masterpiece Mutant Sharks From Atlantis. She doesn’t like talking about the recent reboot.
— Very sentimental — even the smallest things can make her cry, both out of joy and sadness. Including in the middle of a fight, which sometimes, actually, works to her advantage, as it freaks the hell out of her enemies.
— Despite being so edgy and brutal, Järvi does not use any kind of obscene language at all, much to the confusion of Oca.
— She obviously suffers from depressive psychosis, PTSD and speech impediments (if she tries to speak fast, she becomes barely comprehensible). That, coupled with amnesia, of course means memory issues. Järvi keeps a huge diary, writing down even the smallest things, and also wears multicolored bands on her fingers just in case. Sometimes she even looks at her fingers in the middle of a fight, purely out of habit. Oca is often worried that it might Scum in trouble, either by getting her hurt or giving someone a hint at her identity.
— She still forgets when her birthday is. Doesn’t help that it’s more of a discovery day — Järvi obviously forgot her actual birthday, as well as the day of her “death”, so instead she celebrates the day Tuna adopted her, 21st of May. She’s also officially 22 years old — both because she doesn’t remember her actual age and because Tuna decided that it would be wiser to mud the water with timeline inconsistencies.
— While Scum is one of the most hated figures in AmaCom, Järvi is quite beloved in the community: partially because she’s Tuna’s daughter and absolutely everybody loves Tuna, but also because Järvi herself is an adorably polite and shy gal whose cheeks are begging for a good grandma pinch and who absolutely deserves a good treat or even a gift.
— Järvi’s diet is incredibly strict, with tasteless soylent being her breakfast, lunch and dinner. This is not just because of her medical conditions, but because she's also a very strict vegan: she doesn’t eat even artificial, ethically produced animal products. Despite her plain diet, Järvi is actually quite a good cook herself.
— Obviously practices self-harm, especially during the missions, when enemies have ended before her rage did.
— Loves mentioning her mom at any opportunity, whenever it’s appropriate or not, like “don’t you dare, my Mom’s gonna kill ya”. Järvi really loves Tuna. She has no idea how awkward it makes things.
— Has no sense of humor at all and her jokes are the lamest — Tuna and Oca still laugh at them, because Järvi making a joke, no matter how lame, is still progress.
— Järvi means “lake” in Finnish & Virtanen means “river”. Lamara (ლამარა) means “of Mary”, the meaning of Shengelia (შენგელია_) is unknown.
— Järvi’s height and weight depends on augmentations: she was 198 cm & 98 kgs before the injuries; 100 cm & 50 kg with no augs; 221 cm & 160 kg with Stompers; 236 cm & 195 kgs with Piercers; 211 cm & 160 kgs with Swimmers.
[1] Neon Blood is a game we’re planning to develop, a DmC-inspired spectacle action game. Scum and Oca are the protagonists & playable characters of the game.
[2] Tod is the universal “all-in-one” device that in one way or another is used by most people and combines functions of ID, phones, PCs, scanners, and so on. ToD is the calque of Russian “Lichnaya Tochka Dostupa” meaning “Personal Access Point”, thus the second name, “pap”. Also called “toad”, “pup” and “thud” (The Universal Device).
Scum is my OC but the text itself is written by my wife, Marena Redmud.