If "in vino veritas", Bud may even be
looking for a girlfriend. But while sober, she has made superheroic efforts to find a boy for her. A boy that could handle the emotions of an indestructible leviathan forged in rape, and whose
previous and potential for mass murder make Hitler's look like a fun internet meme.
Bud and Brandi have had so very many issues to work out. Too many to let romance in.
We've long known there was a
sinister subtext to
quite a bit of
Brandi's dialogue. Rereading the archives with a greater knowledge of her inner conflict shows how nightmarish such a relationship with a "boyfriend" would be. He would have been a toy, and met only a cruel end. Sweetie would have wanted him to stay away for his own good, and the Chessmaster would have had little use for him for long.
Bud was always in a long game against the Chessmaster, but dared at last to try her hand at love. But she had the horse sense to pick a being that could handle an "apex human". She must have known who Justin was, and his long story of bad luck with the ladies. She probably went to a great deal-- a very
very great deal-- of trouble to make sure courting him was "within the rules": Bud may resent bureaucracy, but she
is a golem. Justin was within parameters of being the "right answer" for her.
And the two halves of Brandi probably happily worked together to put Justin in the path of Shelly. Phix was right, they're two Titans, they're made for each other. But poor Bud... she was only trying to woo Justin fair and square.
And who else is there, for a girl "
none might approach; a thing of immortal make, not human... a goat in the middle, and snorting out the breath of the terrible flame of bright fire". All the pretty boys are
soap bubbles, and all the real men
have their eyes elsewhere.