If I was to decide which game should be Game of the Year, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart is definitely winning in my book. From the teaser trailer that premiered during the PS5 reveal event over a year ago, I knew I was going to love being able to play as Rivet, a female Lombax whose robotic arm reminds me so much of the one given to Yang Xiao Long in RWBY. Three months ago, I beat the whole game and gained a whole new appreciation for the Ratchet & Clank series. I loved Rivet for her strength and determination to defeat Emperor Nefarious, but quite frankly I loved Clank's interdimensional female robot Kit even more because, as an autistic person, I relate to her on a spiritual level.

I know, I know, I shouldn't be comparing my autistic self to a robot, let alone a robot who is the polar opposite of Clank. Kit and I have a spiritual connection because we're not only passionate about the work we do, but we're both extremely conscious about our actions, very anxious about what other people think of us, and highly sensitive to how people react to things we do — whether by mistake or intent.

Related: Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart Is The Series’ Resident Evil 7

Before the events of Rift Apart, Kit spotted a rebel sneaking into Emperor Nefarious' tower and attacked them while in warbot form, inadvertently blasting one of their arms off. Realizing the horror she had wrought, she went into exile on the planet of Savali, where she became an apprentice to Cosmic Prophet Gary and an overseer of the Interdimensional Archives. Upon meeting Ratchet, she tells him that she doesn't make a good partner because she was so scared of her power. When she transforms into a warbot on both occasions to stop Nefarious' forces, Ratchet is nearly injured, and Rivet is shocked to learn that Kit was the robot that took her arm. This revelation ignited Rivet's anger towards Kit for not telling her the truth about what she did that night, even though Kit told Ratchet that she was built to be a mecha security guard for Emperor Nefarious' galaxy, and that she was designed to hurt people.

Kit's plight at not being a good partner because of the mistakes she made and her fear of how others will react if she inadvertently makes those mistakes again resonated with me. There have been multiple times where self-doubt and anxiety ate me alive over people taking certain things I say and do out of context and chastising me for them, no matter how justified my reasoning is. But the people who tend to do that the most are those in my family.

The one thing I get chastised for the most is my tone of voice — a common problem for autistic people. Every time I speak to my mother a certain way, she writes it off as me being mean to her, even though that was never my intention. That was the staple of the summer before my last semester of college in 2018. She would tell me, "Cristina, you're getting very snappy lately," every time I would tell my parents or my brother and his fiance something was wrong or I disagreed about something.

My so-called "attitude" came to a head on my last first day back to campus when my stepdad told me I had too many keychains on my car key and that I needed to take some of them off so that they don't put too much weight on the ignition and possibly my car. Shocked, I told him, "I've had those keychains on my car key for months and it was never an issue." Then he grabbed my shoulders, raised his finger to my face and proceeded to mansplain how he doesn't like the way I was talking to him because of how disrespectful I was acting to him and my mother — at the motherfuckin' age of 24! — which, again, was not even my intention.

My stepdad apologized for what he did before I drove off to school, but the damage was already done. The outspoken demeanor that I carried since high school or younger was taken away. Despite my maturity and intelligence, that incident reinforced the ableist belief that because I'm autistic, the way I behave towards others, especially my family, will be seen as me being heartless.

Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart_Kit_I will always be broken
via Insomniac Games

Two months later, I was cosplaying Sonic the Hedgehog for Halloween, wearing a blue crop top, skinny jeans, red Nikes with white straps and fingerless gloves. I wore the outfit to school all day and through Halloween Night in Wynwood, and everyone loved it. Everyone... except my grandmother. When I sent her the pictures of my cosplay through WhatsApp per my mother's request the next evening, she called the house phone to tell me that she loved the costume, but hated that I dressed "mucha provacativa" because, to her 70-something conservative Cuban mind, the amount of skin I was showing from my midriff would've attracted an endless parade of creepy men, even though I was out with my brother and our friends. I tried to tell her that my outfit doesn't constitute consent, but she didn't listen — even after all the research I did on sexual assault and its irrelevance to women's sartorial choices to back me up.

Dressing differently from everyone else always made me the odd girl out, but I don't dress in revealing outfits all the time. Wearing crop tops or short shorts and graphic tees based on my favorite animated shows and video games is just how I express myself, and pissing people off for doing so is the last thing on my mind. But because I'm autistic, neurotypical family members will either see my outfits as me being a child or a slut. My grandmother accusing me of being the latter made me feel like I will always be in the wrong when I speak on women's rights to wear whatever they want to without getting judged — like I'm completely broken.

Whenever I get frustrated with people setting me in the wrong no matter what I do, what I say, or what I wear, I know that I'm in good company with Kit, because throughout Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart, she felt the same exact way. While things do get better over time, the trauma each of us went through will stay with us for a lifetime. I never really thought that I would have a character outside of the Sonic franchise to relate to — as stereotypical as relating to a robot may seem.

Next: Rivet And Kit Need Their Own Miles Morales-Style Spin-Off