I just find The Boss acting oblivious to Strangelove's feelings to be more interesting than plain reciprocity. It should be noted that I rarely touch Solicon.
PW's sideops are all canon. Also there's nothing to actually indicate BB did fuck Paz considering the side op ends with him saying "I'm kind of uncomfortable" as opposed to the Kaz one ending with Kaz going "Glad to be with you, Boss~", so it seems like Paz tried to get that d and BB was just like "uhhhh but aren't you sixteen" and curved her Paz: thot patrolled
I mean, Strangelove was kind a creep anyway, so...
I don't know if it changes, but the video I watched where BB says something about being uncomfortable was one where they did max out her affinity or whatever the game called it. He got Paz's hopes all up and then goes and pulls that "but I prefer my women legal" stuff :( rip Paz
I'm pretty sure Big Boss never talks at that point actually, and the "uncomfortable" is one of Paz's lines.
Probably because fucking in a box is probably not great on the joints, but it gets Big Boss harder than anything that isn't war, so.
Strangelove isn't significantly creepier than most characters, tbh.
And, like, Cecille didn't seem to mind the baths, and probably wouldn't have preferred execution, or bath time with any of the other Peace Sentinels. Or Hot Coldman. Or Huey. Or that giant toaster called the Mammal Pod. Cecille could tell Strangelove was attracted to her, but Strangelove did seem to be trying to restrain herself and behave as appropriately as possible in the circumstances, so.
...At the very least, I want to give the benefit of the doubt that she understood the Boss well enough for that Boss A.I. to be basically perfect, because the fact that it only ever broke because of one single piece of information Strangelove didn't have access to is. Kinda impressive, in a weird way, to me.
Also even before she fed in the Tselinoyarsk data the Boss A.I. was saying some of the same dialogue about "life's end isn't it beautiful" and "go home" even though Strangelove wasn't there and has no idea what she actually said so my only guess is, based on the Screaming Mantis principle, she copied the Boss so good the shit got haunted.
Strangelove got away with the Cécile thing purely because Cécile was kind of into it. Keep in mind that she also sexually harassed Paz (multiples times) and did not know that Paz was not, in fact, a teenage schoolgirl. Kinda works out for her because she really isn't, but she doesn't find that out until way later. Whoops! Plus she's still obsessing over The Boss almost ten years after she died... nevermind the last time she actually saw her. Even if they had been straight-up married that's still a little excessive. Building an AI version of your dead love from scratch is kinda creepy no matter how you cut it. So yeah Strangelove is one of the creepiest characters in MGS and the whole fandom gives her a pass on it because, let's face it, she's a woman. If she'd been a man and did the exact same things no one would like her. Search your feelings, you know it to be true.
The Boss AI getting haunted by The actual Boss was a plot point in PW, remember? It's literally how that arc ended. Granted the only person who openly acknowledges it is Dr. "A tad fucked in the head" Strangelove, but that's still how it went down.
Like, the Paz shit is creepy, but most of the characters do the same sort of thing with her. BB can fuck her in a box, and Kaz is giving her suppositories and showing her "the real Kazuhira Miller". Granted he's the only one who knows she's with Cipher (although it's slightly unclear to me whether he knows her real age as a corollary to that). If I was going to condemn Strangelove, I'd condemn most of that game's cast.
Which, to be fair, I do. Part of the plot is how they become terrorists and warmongers. All kinda awful people. They still get to have at least something positive in their lives.
And Big Boss spends all of Peace Walker obsessing over the Boss, and in MGS4 literally dies over it.
Don't get me started on Zero.
I think what the MGS fandom really does is condemn Strangelove for shit that all of the male characters constantly get a pass for.
...Also, some people want to have their consciousness preserved in an A.I. there are entire internet communities about it, so.
Oh yeah, I looked it up and Paz is the one who says she feels awkward.
...that's still way more ambiguous than the Kaz one.
Pretty sure it was heavily implied if not outright stated that he knew her age, her at least knew she was older than she claimed to be. Plus iirc Kaz never actually touched her while Strangelove did.
That's presented as a bad thing. Like, unambiguously. His obsessing over The Boss is what leads directly to him becoming A VILLAIN later (chronologically) in the series. This is doubly true for Zero.
Literally where is Strangelove getting condemned for shit male characters get a pass for. Where is Strangelove getting condemned in general. The very, very few times I have seen anyone remotely criticize Strangelove's behavior the critic gets shouted down. Most of the fandom lionizes her as a tragic character who didn't do anything wrong and will rarely, if ever, acknowledge her behavior towards Paz and Cécile, and never acknowledge how weird her obsession with The Boss is.
There's nothing to indicate that The Boss would have actually wanted that, but I guess since she (briefly) haunted her AI that means she was chill with it after all. Or just completely willing to use it to stop a nuclear apocolypse which, y'know, not out-of-character...
I mean, they're all tragic; that's what makes it interesting.
And I guess where Strangelove gets condemned is what she basically says herself: She's the Woman Who Sold the World.
I don't know how much of her work is involved with the Patriot A.I., I know I've mentioned this before but now I keep going back to it and the only thing I can figure is that the Truth tapes are at odds with the rest of the game, or there's some detail that's unfinished or something (but then, what's new) but at the very least she felt responsible by the end.
...I mean, Kaz may not have touched her, but I dunno man. Going into her hospital room and starting to take off his pants to show her how to apply a suppository seems weird.
Even if he knows she's an adult spy, that still seems like entrapment or some shit.
EDIT: Oh god I have no idea what the metaphysics of MGS haunting are like. Like, do the ghosts have a choice in the matter or how much, and what's the difference between that and the necromancy with Frank Jaegar and John, and the ghost arms and...
I never said Strangelove wasn't an interesting character. I actually like her a lot. But she is deeply, deeply a flawed and most of the fandom won't acknowledge this.
Okay. I guess she does take some criticism for that. But that's an entirely separate issue...
Kaz is a whole 'nother can of worms entirely. And while there are (annoying) fans who think Kaz is a perfect sad little angle uwu, from what I've seen most people are able to acknowledge that that's, like, super inappropriate. I mean, the fact that it's super inappropriate is where the humor comes from in-game. Also on a slide scale of wrongness flashing an adult is less wrong than groping (someone you're under the impression is) a kid, even though it is still wrong. Basically MSF really needed some kind of anti-sexual harassment sensitivity training and both Strangelove and Kaz needed to be sent to it.
Honestly? I think The Last Days of FOXHOUND actually got it right, with the whole "a spirit can only posses a body that belongs to them" thing - it did explain the arm thing rather neatly, and with The Boss AI that could, since it was so similar to her in terms of 'personality', be easily considered a "body" (if you define body as "vessel"). It does seem like a voluntary process on the ghosts' end, though. Also wasn't it explained that Fox and BB just straight-up weren't actually dead? Almost dead, sure. But not dead dead. Still had brain activity.
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