Christine

Christine is a very cruel woman. She delights in the pain of others and goes out of her way to cause as much of it as she can. There’s no good reason for this behavior - she merely enjoys exerting her control over others. Her age means she’s particularly experienced in finding the best ways to cause people pain - physical, mental, emotional, individual and communal.

When it comes to dramatics, Christine is all for big, bombastic presentation. Oh, sure, she knows how to work in the shadows when need be. However, she much prefers to make a scene and be the drama queen she loves to be. Presentation is what gets you noticed, dramatics keep you in people’s thoughts. Christine loves that.

Most everything Christine does is to indulge herself. She is the center of her universe and everything revolves around her. As such, she tends to indulge her hedonism far more than necessary. Christine likes pleasure, likes to feel good, likes everything to be about her. Perhaps the only exception to his is her wives, though the details of that relationship is kept private.

Christine can be likened to a spider, spinning a web of little lies and nudges to get people to do what she wants. She’s surprisingly charismatic, and has been known to use her charm to get people to trust her even though she absolutely should not be trusted. She’s also a damn good liar; she knows how people work and how to fool them.

When it comes to actually running all of her organizations, Christine is a pro. Although still dramatic as hell, she knows how to delegate and how to get people working. She also uses a combination of fear and praise to get people to do their best. It works, even if it isn’t the most ethical way.

Contrary to popular belief, Christine was neither born in the Golden Isles nor a criminal mastermind at a young age. Instead, she was born in a small ringox settlement on some backwater planet. It was a quiet life and she had many siblings.

When she was little, she was best friends with a ringox named Gertrude. And by best friends, I mean that they were many of each other’s firsts in more ways than one. They planned to do everything together, from growing up to living together to exploring the multiverse.

However, Gertrude was more interested in creating a solid, simple life in their settlement whereas Christine wanted to become something bigger and better. In order to pursue a big life, Christine began turning towards a life of crime. She found people who taught her to steal and kill, and soon she became the boss of a small gang. This did not sit well with Gertrude, who was generally a good person. The two of them got into a huge fight and eventually split apart.

It became clear to Christine that Gerturde was simply not going to let this slide. Within a couple years after their falling out, Gertrude was a fully trained private investigator and would stop at nothing to find Christine. Thus began their game of “cat and mouse” that would span centuries.

One of the first planets Christine would expand to could accurately be described as a cyberpunk dystopia. It was filled with both high collar and low collar crime, a perfect place for Christine’s small but powerful mob to move in and start taking control. As this was a very isolated planet, the Stellar Mob was forced to disguise themselves as the native species.

This didn’t stop Christine from having a long string of lesbian lovers, nor getting herself entangled in the thrilling drama of the upperclass. Of course, Christine was never properly “in love” with any of those women. It was all a game to her, she was married to her work and her decadence.

At least until a golden haired hacker named Gidget joined up with the Stellar mob. Christine took a liking to Gidget almost immediately - Gidget was so very focused on her work, putting up with so little nonsense that things went so much faster. Plus she was fun to mess with. And seduce. And sleep with. And do dumb little gestures of appreciation. Wait, what?

Strange, warm, complicated feelings had begun to well up within Christine, the kind she’d only had with Getrude before. Aside from that connotation, though, there was also the problem that Christine was a ringox and Gidget was not. Christine wouldn’t have a true romance with someone who would die long before she would. The heartbreak wasn’t worth it and she had so many other things to do.

As it turns out, that wasn’t actually a problem. As Christine discovered by accident one morning, Gidget was also a disguised ringox. After a moment of freaking out by Gidget, Christine revealed herself to be a ringox as well. This spawned a long conversation and then something akin to a functional romance. They even ended up having a baby, Xavier.

However, Gertrude eventually found her way to the planet and began busting other crime rings. Quickly, the Stellar Mob turned all their planet-specific cash into jewels and things they could sell elsewhere and fled, leaving behind everything that could identify them.

They settled on a significantly less technologically advanced planet, a place where Gertrude wouldn’t think to find them. One could call it a very Greco-Roman planet, albeit that might’ve just been where they settled. Christine set to turning her jewels into funds to build just a little something nice here - time to lay low, not to expand her empire. Also it was time to seduce all the women she could (she and Gidget had already hashed out the details of “yeah we can sleep with other women so long as we remain solely romantically involved with each other” a while back).

Much like the previous planet, Christine would remain in disguise as the native species. Much to her surprise, however, there was an undisguised ringox living in the area where she and Gidget had settled. This ringox, a vibrant blue, was an oracle who was occasionally mugged by the spirit of prophecy to give out omens to passing heroes.

Gidget was infatuated immediately, but Christine had far more important things on her mind. As such, she just let Gidget do whatever with the other ringox (who’s name she would later find out was Jennine). It wasn’t a concern until Gidget turned up pregnant with Jennine’s kid that Christine figured she should probably actually meet this Jennine.

Well, they got along like a house on fire and soon enough, Jennine was a vital part of the Stellar Mob. Her prophecies and insight were able to predict Gertrude’s next move and keep the mob out of her clutches, plus she was surprisingly good with the ever-growing amount of children in the mob, including one of hers and Christine’s, Kathryn.

Christine’s influence spread across the multiverse, and soon she found that she didn’t need to personally visit each planet she sunk her claws into. No, she could be content sitting back and letting others do all the work. Of course, there was the mild problem of having to keep Gertrude away.

So, Christine set out to find herself a place where she could live and head up her operations without fear of Gertrude ruining everything. One planet she visited was absolutely covered in flowers. The natives quaked in fear, calling her a witch. When she asked why, she was directed towards a fellow ringox, a pretty pink gardener named Primrose who was known for cultivating particularly dangerous types of flowers.

Christine was smitten almost immediately, and offered Primrose a place by her side, in charge and able to grow whatever she wanted without fear of retribution. Primrose, fascinated by Christine, agreed, knowing full well what kind of life she was getting into. The two celebrated this union quite passionately, which resulted in their darling Alice a few months later.

In a rather strange turn of events, the locals of the flower planet actually hailed Christine as a hero for taking Primrose away. It’s an unusual look for a mob boss, although she didn’t actually hate it, and she suspected if she returned she’d be hailed as some kind of messiah.

Unfortunately, the flower planet was nowhere near as secure a place as Christine wanted. So, while Primrose settled in with Gidget and Jenine (and produced Chip and Eloise during that time), Christine continued her search. And she searched. And searched. Until, finally, she stumbled by sheer accident into the Golden Isles.

It was perfect. Nearly impossible to get into if you didn’t know it existed, a place between universes she could get to quickly, all that wonderful jazz. So, Christine moved the Stellar Mob’s base of operations into the Golden Isles, and for good measure manipulated her way into controlling almost the entirety of their food supplies.

Sometime recently, Christine’s favorite secretary Elizabeth went rogue. Elizabeth hid herself well, although Christine rather suspects she tipped off Gertrude, who had independently retired to the Golden Isles sometime ago. Christine is on the lookout for trouble, but nothing has happened yet...