PINKETTE!

Edna “Eddie” Yoshimura-Peres was raised in the Reclaimer town of Balm Wings on the far outskirts of Night City by Helena Yoshimura and Stryder Peres, both immigrants from Brazil who moved to the United States in their early twenties. Her parents, as well as her entire extended family (aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins, etc.) sought a new life for themselves by helping rebuild the low-lying town and fending off roaming gangs in the desert.

Eddie grew up surrounded by family. Every Peres was extraordinarily close, only brought closer together by defending each other and assisting the community. This was likely due to the legacy of the Peres family: every Peres claims that they are related to THE Patricia “Patty Pink” Peres, an incredibly famous singer, actress, and wealthy philanthropist that everyone adored (think Princess Diana levels of adoration with Marilyn Monroe levels of pop cultural influence… very Dolly Parton) before her life came to a tragic end in 1992 as a civilian casualty in the First Central American War during community outreach in Panama. Her death made her a martyr, and Patty Pink became so famous, she transcended the pop cultural zeitgeist and became an almost legendary figure: many comics, television shows, books, toys, songs, and so on were all written about her. Though she’s more famous in Brazil, the name is still known to anyone familiar with pop cultural history.

With such a sprawling family, Eddie was related to nearly everyone in Balm Wings—they took up the majority of the town. Eddie felt a special kinship with Patty Pink and spent most of her days consuming media that had to do with her, as well as media that was contemporary to her, including pop music, anime, and the typical bubblegum brainrot associated with that era. Eddie became obsessed with someday following in her ancestor’s footsteps and promoting her hope, joy, and passion.

Life was fine for Eddie and the Reclaimers, up until she was 17, upon which there was a schism in the Peres family. With more people arriving in Balm Wings, the question arose as to how to divide up the accruing resources. Her uncle, Makoto Peres, got greedy and decided that the founding family should keep the lion’s share of the wealth. Eddie and a handful of other Peres’s disagreed with the choice, many of them citing Patty Pink’s philanthropic world views. Makoto, drunk with power, exiled those dissenters from the family and the town. With no place left to go, Eddie set her sights on Night City.

Her first few years in Night City led Eddie to become acquainted with cyberware culture. Though she struggled to make end’s meet, Eddie adored the glitz, glamor, and color of the city. She believed that everyone should be able to experience the wonder of it, and more so than anything else, the thought that people were dragged down by the political and economic system to the point of not being able to enjoy art infuriated her. Everyone deserves the chance to live a life of passion, and capitalism stands in the way of that.

Eddie channeled her opinions through song, though she soon found out that being a Rockerboy was tougher than it seemed. People could be cruel, and despite her having a message to share, many people refused to listen to her. In more and more desperate attempts to be listened to, Eddie started composing upbeat, infectious, annoying songs with anti-fascist messages overlaid on top of nonsensical lyrics. She took on the persona of PINKETTE (pin-ke-tto), a happy-go-lucky Akihabara pop/denpa artist who specializes in obnoxious, brain-melting tunes. Whenever authorities or critics take issue with the punk messages in her work, PINKETTE will claim that her lyrics have no meaning, and she just uses words that sound fun—but fans know the truth.

Now 20, PINKETTE and Eddie, living their double life, strive to make Night City a better place, one happy-go-lucky punk song at a time. Unfortunately, that doesn’t always pay the bills, and sometimes Eddie has to resort to a little bit of mercenary work, but that’s okay. She believes that PINKETTE can change the world.

Friend 1. Momo Riro. Momo is a fellow denpa artist who often collabs with PINKETTE. Momo is apolitical in her own work, but she appreciates PINKETTE's vibe. Momo will often help PINKETTE with mixing audio and promotion, since PINKETTE isn’t super good at cyber stuff.

Enemy 1. Antonio “Tony” Beauford. Tony was Eddie’s boyfriend for about a year after arriving in Night City. Tony really didn’t vibe with the whole “Pinkette” thing and grew jealous of other men thirsting over his girlfriend, even though Eddie said that she and Pinkette were different people. Eddie broke it off, and she has no idea that Tony is now a high-ranking member of the Floreen Corporation—a small business that produces a variety of cleaning chemicals.

Enemy 2. Makoto Peres. The now kind-of-dictator of Balm Wings, Makoto still holds resentment for Eddie. He’s unlikely to pursue her into Night City, but he will never let her come back to Balm Wings.

Enemy 3. Bao-Bao Wao-Wao!! A solo act performing in the same anime-themed clubs as PINKETTE, the two used to be pretty close friends. However, BBWW signed a contract with Rocklin Augmentics and went BIG, promoting all of their newest, coolest bioware. PINKETTE couldn’t agree with her working with an unethical corporation, and the two had a major falling out.

In her opinion, all people should have the opportunity to be like PINKETTE: they should be able to live for music, passion, and pleasure, and that materialism isn’t necessarily bad, but the community not providing baseline care to its people so they can ethically interact with consumerism is. It is obvious PINKETTE is a character, and true PINKETTE fans understand her as both a critique of materialism and a love letter to it: PINKETTE’S cutesiness is sort of a deradicalization tool for people who are way too plugged into to corpo propaganda. People outside of the “pinky” subculture see PINKETTE as a hyper-obnoxious cringe-ass anime girl wannabe. Eddie frequently plays on people’s misconceptions of PINKETTE in order to manipulate them. Eddie will never break character dressed as PINKETTE, though occasionally she sheds the identity and goes by Eddie, whereupon she’ll be loud-mouthed, headstrong, and a little rude.

Eddie tends to dress more modestly—she only engages in PINKETTE fashion when she’s embodying her. Otherwise, she wears her hair down and wears more casual blacks and whites. It’s a bit of a Hannah Montana scenario.

Eddie has dark brown skin and dark brown (nearly black) eyes. She’s incredibly tiny, only about 4’10”, and very skinny. She plays the synthesizer as she performs, though she mostly focuses on singing and dancing (and has pre-recorded instrument audio).

Pipi says: "Capitalism is the legitimate racket of the ruling class, pipi!"