User:Prynmatic/Rice

Rice
Species	Dog
Location	Potluck
Pronouns	She/They
Occupation	Lab assistant Wielder (Formerly) Janitor (Formerly) Barista (Formerly)
Relationships	Chicory (Partner) Mebot (Creation, partner) Pizza (Alternate universe variant) Pizza’s family (Adoptive family)

For the actual in-game character, see Rice.

"A blink. And everything was gone."
- Rice

Rice is an alternate universe variant of Pizza. An incident had caused her entire universe to collapse around her, by happenstance leaving her alive and alone in the void between.

While for the most part similar to Pizza, Rice notably has an inclination towards engineering and machinery. She had used it as a hobby before her universal collapse, but afterwards it had become her only hope for escaping the void.

Appearance

Rice, like Pizza, is a short dog with a large head and big floppy ears. She wears a top hat, on top of which is a pair of goggles with a cracked lens, and a scarf. Her right arm is a metal prosthetic.

Story

Background

See also: Pizza

See also: Chapters

All Alone at the End of Everything

"Rice was going to get them back, no matter what it takes."
- Narration

All Alone at the End of Everything by FiggyWig is the main work in which Rice’s story is found.

In Chapter 1, Rice is out exploring the void. She sifts through piles of garbage, being dumped out by portals from other worlds. Eventually, she stumbles upon a cracked photo frame with an old, faded picture inside of it. Upon closer inspection, it’s distinctly a photo of her and her family. She breaks down crying at the reminder of her old home, but eventually manages to compose herself and make her way back to her lab. She works through all the junk she collected, and begins working on her machines again.

Rice puts together a portal device, meant to replicate the rifts that keep sending her garbage, and activates it, writing down coordinates and results in an old notebook she found. When activating it with coordinates 01-00, the portal opens to Potluck. She appears to have found her home again. She steps through, cherishing the sensations of the wind and grass beneath her feet, before walking over to her parents’ house. However, she notices some things are slightly off from how she remembered them. Her suspicions are proven when Mom and Dad begin calling her Pizza. She has to stop herself from breaking down crying again as she leaves, and she’s met with Pizza themself. Pizza is perplexed by the sight. After a bit of conversation, Pizza offers to talk with them and their family about her story. Rice accepts.

In Chapter 2, Rice walks back through the portal to her lab. She laments that she’d reportedly been in the void for 6 whole months, and that she hadn’t found her home after all. The thought of Chicory, however, keeps her from sinking too far into a depressive state. She could feel that, somehow, her universe’s Chicory was still out there somewhere.

Rice begins experimenting more with the portal device, inputting various coordinates and writing down her findings, as well as continuing her routine trash pile exploring. In particular, she finds a peculiar piece of metal that has unusual properties - it stung to even touch, and she had to kick it into a bag to carry it anywhere. She tries touching it with her fingertip again, and a small droplet of minty-blue liquid escapes from her finger. As soon as the liquid dripped onto the table, Rice recoiled as a dull pain rung through her body. She checked her finger to see no cut or wound from which the liquid could’ve escaped. She tries prodding at it gently with her makeshift screwdriver, and at the same time feels something poking at her back, despite nothing being there. She notes how lonely the lab feels now, after having been able to talk to someone and having companionship for a brief time.

Upon further experimenation, Rice confirms that the mysterious blue-green liquid is specifically tied to her. In a sense, it can be called her “soul,” and this metal can somehow pull it out of her body. She had been working the metal into a sort of syringe, using an old bottle to contain the liquid. She takes a deep breath, and plunges it into her chest. The procedure is extremely painful, and leaves a permanent scar on her body, but she successfully removes her soul completely from her body. She is surprised, and maybe a tinge disappointed, to learn she’s still alive, and begins taking notes on the side effects of living without a soul.

Rice notes that over time, she has become much more emotionally numb, and it’s begun to extend to her senses as well, dulling her sense of touch. Regardless of this, she focuses back on working on her current project- a robot made to keep her company. She places the bottle of her soul in it, and, with a bit of anxiety, turns it on. Its face flickers to life, and it asks where, when, and who it is. Rice explains to them. They were uncleverly named Mebot by Rice, as they were created to loosely resemble her own appearance. Rice’s soul seems to successfully grant Mebot sentience and awareness of their own being.

Some time later, Mebot has been displaying significant curiosity, as well as awareness of Rice’s own feelings. They snap Rice out of another memory, and Rice realizes that she had accidentally made them more strongly resemble Clementine than herself. Rice asks Mebot if they inherited Rice’s memories of the past, and Mebot answers that they did not. Rice offers to introduce them to their original home, and brings them through the portal to Pizza’s universe.

As they visit the Slice Shop, and Rice introduces Mebot to eating food, Pizza and Clementine happen to visit, much to Rice’s dismay. Pizza and Clementine are both impressed by Mebot, though Clementine doesn’t know who Rice is. Rice struggles with seeing Clementine again, knowing that she’s not really her sister. When Mebot says something awkward, Rice asks to leave with Mebot. Mebot is confused by Clementine, noting their own resemblance to her. Rice aggressively declines to answer any of their questions, especially those regarding Chicory. Mebot begins to apologize, but Rice steps through the portal and closes it behind her, leaving Mebot behind.

Rice takes a second to realize what she’d just done. While she falls into a self-loathing spiral, the portal machine begins malfunctioning. The control panel reads that the odds are high that the portal machine will collapse into a black hole, consuming her lab and everything in it. She slumps down on the floor, and waits for death to claim her.

Chapter 3 of All Alone at the End of Everything is currently unfinished.

After All Alone at the End of Everything

Some time after the events of All Alone at the End of Everything, Rice, Mebot, and her Chicory (nicknamed Chicorice to avoid confusion) move out of the lab permanently and into Pizza’s Picnic. Rice is unofficially adopted by Pizza’s family, and stays in their house in Pizza’s old room. Additionally, to keep her interest in the sciences active, Rice begins occasionally helping Dr. Cheese out in the Color Lab.

After another period of time, Mebot, having grown more as their own entity, expresses desire to try and find themself seperate from anyone else. Complete with a physical rework, Mebot completely seperates herself and her identity from her old resemblance to Rice and Clementine. Rice begins developing feelings for her old creation, and Mebot, having her soul, obviously reciprocates. At some point, Mebot returns half of Rice’s soul.

Trivia

• Rice’s estimated age is 24.
  • Rice’s birthday is September 24th.
• Rice was originally created by Prynmatic, the person whose user page you’re on right now. She was the drawdog during her playthrough of the game.
  • Despite this, the majority of her story after the game’s events was written by azurehaiku and FiggyWig.
• In her in-game iteration, Rice’s colors were originally from Banquet Rainforest, before being replaced by custom colors.
• Mebot is named for Prynmatic’s old/alternate username, Mebo/MeboDotExe.