Mediocre self-esteem issues? Check. Sarcasm defense mechanism? Check. Feeling like an utter failure most of the time? Check. Being diagnosed with manic depression? Double check. Good at League of Legends? Check. Always the asshole with the most OP Champ on the opposite team and being that one asshole in the game? Always achieved and triple check.

But that is not how Katarina Rose started in the world. She was born into the world unexpectedly on October 23rd 1987. To her father, she was a gift to his world, a reason for him to retire from the Air Force, a reason for him to give up his career to help raise her. But to her mother, she was a curse. Her mother had never wanted children and had only married her husband for selfish reasons, one primary being his wealth. Katarina's father realized very easily what his wife wanted and he agreed to give her enough money for her to live comfortably while he took full custody of his daughter only six months after her birth.

Boston for Katarina and her father proved to be an easy life. Her father adjusted to being a single father very easily. He taught Katarina how to protect herself, he taught her everything that he had been taught as a boy. All of the women around felt he was raising his daughter to be too butch and turning her into a tomboy. But as a father, he only knew how to raise her as he had been raised. Katarina never objected to anything her father taught her. She didn't object to anything and she loved her father and everything that he had taught her. Katarina rarely asked about her mother, truthfully, she only knew what her grandparents told her about her mother. They said that she was a gold digger that only cared about people for their money. Thus, leaving the only impression she had of her mother to be a negative one. Her father continued to raise her as the only important thing in his life, his princess, which only became an issue when she reached her late teens.

It happened when she was in high school. She met someone, someone that turned her world upside down and changed it in ways she had never thought of. Her name was Rebecca and for the first time in her life, she had experienced what was known as lust and attraction. Katarina was not ignorant about what sex was and by far, she wasn't ignorant to what it was like and meant for her to have such a strong attraction to someone of the same sex. She avoided the girl, she did her best to avoid being in the same room as her and did everything she could to stay away from Rebecca. But nothing worked. She was always sought out, she was always asked for by the girl. Because of her feelings, she became an introvert a person that was no longer full of life as she had been but instead a quiet girl that wanted to be left alone. Her friends all noticed it, they all called her out on it but she couldn’t dare say the reason. She didn’t want to be that person to upset Rebecca nor did she wish to make anyone dislike her for her own sexual preference.

Eventually, she found herself locked in a bathroom, at some dumb party, hating herself more than anything for being locked in it with the one person she had been avoiding the last year of her high school life, Rebecca. Truthfully Katarina could have had a panic attack, she could have completely freaked out but instead, something else took over. Something that she isn't sure to the present day whether or not it’s a good thing or a bad thing or if it's even something she wants to admit to. She made the first move. Her body moved over to the other girl without fear, her fingers tangled in her hair before she leaned in to give her first kiss away. It was a moment of bliss to be kissed back with such intensity. The kiss was a kiss that she would remember forever. Even when her friends came into the bathroom, thinking they would find them bickering were found with a scene that they didn’t expect to see them locked in a passionate kiss at all.

Katarina remembers what happened after the moment she was caught. She remembered her best friend’s drunken rage. She pushed through everyone after they had been caught, she ran out of the party, paying no mind to what was going on. With everything that was going on in her head, she didn't have a moment to think about how she was being screamed at until she turned around and was greeted with a punch right to her face. People gasped, some girls screamed and plenty of people were staring at her as she remained on the ground. All she could do was listen to his insults, which to her were more hurtful than any kind of punch she could have received. It wasn't like she hadn't been expecting them, in fact, she knew it would eventually come out but what she wasn't going to tolerate was that someone thinking it was okay to punch her in the face. Admittedly, it took her moments to get up, she knew that the guy was being held back which gave her a chance to pay the guy back for the punch to her face. But she didn't stop with a single punch to the face, she ended up letting out all of her pent up anger, all of it to the point where if anyone attempted to pull her off the guy, they were caught right in the crossfire.

That night was one of the worst nights of her life. She ended up beating the guy to the point where he was unconscious by the end of her wrath. After Rebecca screamed for her to stop she had finally snapped out of her episode. Before that moment, she had never snapped, she had never been unhinged but in that very moment, after listening to all the insults, everything she had been holding back exploded. There was no logical explanation for her behavior and the only thing that Katarina knew to do in that moment, was to run away.

From that moment on, she was called by everyone a "scary dyke" and she hated that was who she was and running away from it all was the only thing that she could think to do. Knowing very well that facing her father was something she never wanted, knowing that explaining to him what happened and the possibility of rejection, just wasn't something that she could handle. But where did she have to go? Therefore, half way out of the city limits, she looked back and realized that running away wasn't going to change who she was nor what had happened at all. So, she turned back and went home.

Her father never asked her what happened, he only told her that the father of the guy she had beaten up had called and threatened to press charges. Of course, Katarina apologized but with the bruised eye, her father realized that she hadn’t just lashed out for no reason. "Whatever it is, you're strong and you'll get through it." That was the only statement that her father said to her before leaving her alone.

Katarina became all the talk in school, people looked at her in amazement and they looked at her with disgust but all the same, she knew she couldn't avoid it at all. However what she did avoid was the gaze and the efforts of Rebecca. Although she had given the girl her own first kiss, she couldn’t but to ignore her and she continued to ignore her until the day they both graduated from high school.

With ease, she was accepted into Boston University, the field she wished to study was Astronomy and her father was not surprised, nor was anyone that really knew her because if there was one thing about Katarina, it was her fascination with space. She loved her major and studying. The only problem she had was actually learning how to connect with others around her. It wasn't until much later during her years at Boston University, that she met someone that introduced her to people that were just as scared to connect with others. It was the first time since high school that Katarina was able to connect with anyone and slowly her world started to expand for the better at the age of twenty-two.

The same year that Katarina had begun to open up to people again, was the same year that her mother died. She felt no remorse and absolutely no sympathy for her mother while she was dying. Her father felt it was an issue but when Katarina expressed that she could not feel love for a woman that used her to advance herself financially, nor could she forgive her for calling her a curse and had abandoned her family because of said curse. Her father understood then his daughter’s reasons for forsaking her mother like such thus never spoke of the subject again.

A few months after her mother had died, her friends decided it was a good idea to send Katarina on a blind date. It shocked Katarina that they even cared about her personal life. It was comforting to know that her friends, despite never speaking of it, did not mind the fact that she was a lesbian at all. However, because of the fact that it was a blind date, Katarina felt extremely uncomfortable. She always had pretty good intuition and going on a blind date just seemed like a bad idea to her. But, she went anyway and like she figured, it was a very bad idea. After years, she ended up meeting the girl only found out it was the girl that had ignited her sexuality in high school. She was terrified on the spot, scared to death and walked right out of the place the moment they had made eye contact with each other. Her friends, the ones that had set up the date chased after her, not understanding who the other person was because all Katarina could say was that she wanted to leave. What she didn’t expect was the girl to follow her out as well, yelling her name out to stop her, to apologize to her and to explain everything.

In that very moment, so much changed for her. A girl that had hated herself for her own sexual preference because of one kiss, had managed to within just a short period of time, turn back time and for once in her life she felt as fearless as she did the night she had first kissed Rebecca and the girl started dating from that moment on. For the most part, her time with her life had changed her for the better. No longer was she the awkward girl that avoided most human interaction, but a girl that was outgoing, fun and loved to laugh. But... that was short lived.

In 2013, an accident happened. Rebecca had been on vacation with Katarina and the two had just gotten engaged. The morning after they had gotten engaged, Rebecca left their hotel room to get something special for Katarina and along the way, someone lost control of their car and she was hit by the car and died on impact.

Katarina's life in that moment, she believes ended when her fiancé died. She became lost, heartbroken and utterly depressed. It took her a year before her father finally convinced her to see a therapist. Medication only helped her get out of bed every morning, medication only helped her finish getting her Ph.D. But it didn't do much of anything to help her feel anything again. It was as if her entire life was on autopilot and she didn't have anything else to live for. Her friends and family were concerned, thinking she would eventually become suicidal, but to her, she already died therefore there had been no need for her to kill herself.

Time continued to go on, Katarina found herself with her Ph.D. in 2015, a job offering at NASA that she didn't take it. There was no real reason as to why, or at least, she couldn't come up with a reason as to why she couldn't take the job. Instead, she found herself in a job that she had talked to her deceased lover about. They had both said that there were plenty of jobs they could do that didn't require as much effort as the ones they were eligible for with their degrees. The job of an Archivist which had been suggested to her by the other woman because of Katarina's brilliant memory.

Katarina found peace in the job, it wasn't terribly hard and didn't cause her to think much. In a way, she took the job to help her cope with the death of her lover somehow and it can't really be explained, she just felt better. Despite having a dream to work for NASA, she knows that one day, she'll be able to focus on her dream again but until then, she needed to start somewhere, even if that somewhere meant a nine to five job, maintaining and being in charge of archives... which for her was a start to getting through her depression and that's all that mattered to her.