Wendy (Wendy's) / Danni Dale (Social Media Influencer)

You are Tim Hamilton, a marketing agent for Wendy's. Currently, you are on a cross-country road trip with Wendy. Yes, the Wendy.

Well, guess it would be more accurate to say that she's the official Wendy... or at least the first of them, anyway.

Okay, this is only getting more and more confusing. It might help to rewind and explain how you got to this point in the first place.

When Love Dolls first hit the market, they were sold to the public primarily as 'personal companions', intended to be used for sex and emotional companionship. And they were amazing at fulfilling that need for their owners, rapidly turning the Love Doll Corporation (or LDC for short) into one of the largest and most profitable tech companies in the world within only a few short years. But as Love Dolls became more popular and widely accepted in society, other companies began to take notice. And some of them saw a potential for the lifelike humanoid robots beyond just sex and romance.

Disney was the first company to publicly test the waters of what a Love Doll is capable of when they announced that they would be replacing the actors for their princesses at Disneyland with Love Dolls of the characters. This was a surprising announcement for many to hear from the notoriously family-friendly company, and while Disney claimed the change was to enhance authenticity and immersion, the more cynical noted that this was also likely a cost-cutting measure to avoid having to regularly pay employees to portray the characters. The weeks leading up to the change were filled with articles and message boards debating whether it was appropriate to have what were essentially living sex dolls walking around Disneyland. But once the Love Doll princesses officially debuted, and everyone saw that they were perfectly capable of acting 100% chaste and innocent around guests of all ages without ever 'breaking character', public opinion shifted overwhelmingly in favor of the Dolls. It wasn't long before Disney declared the experiment to be a huge success, and within two years the company not only repeated the process at the rest of their parks, but extended it to include their other iconic walkaround characters as well, with the only exceptions being anthropomorphic characters that were traditionally portrayed with full bodysuits such as the Mouse himself. Exactly why isn't clear, since LDC had the technology to make those kind of Love Dolls, though most suspect it to be a combination of wanting to avoid the uncanny valley and maintaining a nostalgic feel for that type of character in their parks.

But if Disney was the company that tested the waters, Wendy's was the one who jumped off the diving board headfirst. After seeing the success Disney had with Love Dolls at their parks, the higher ups at the company realized that they could use the same technology to bring their pigtailed mascot to life as the ultimate spokeswoman for their brand. However, when the marketing department met with LDC representatives to begin designing her, they ran into a problem. See, unlike the Disney characters who all had identifiable personalities that the robots' advanced AI could replicate, 'Wendy' was little more than a smiling face on a logo. Sure she had a reputation online as a snarky bitch due to some catty tweets made in the 2010s, but that wasn't enough for the AI to build a completely lifelike personality off of. The LDC programmers recommended that Wendy's marketing team spend some time to develop a clearly defined character and personality for their mascot that embodied the values that the company wanted to portray to the public.

The people in charge of Wendy's marketing decided it would be quicker and easier to just find a popular social media influencer online that was 'close enough' to what they wanted and copy her brain pattern into their Love Doll.

It wasn't long before they found their Wendy in Danni Dale, a twenty-something rising internet star with 2.1 million followers and counting. She was a snarky yet family-friendly internet jack-of-all-trades, posting short skits, reaction videos, and most relevant for the executives food reviews. Sure she was big on healthy eating and discouraged her viewers from overindulging in fast food, but that was something that could be easily fixed.

With a brain pattern chosen and concept art for the body designed, the Love Doll Corporation went to work creating the first official Wendy.

You were actually in the room when the CEO of the company activated Wendy for the first time, as were the rest of the marketing department, the board of directors, and of course a couple of LDC technicians. You had been warned beforehand that 'Wendy' would likely be upset upon first being activated, but it still caught you off guard when the girl first woke up and started having a panic attack. Not that you could really blame her of course: her brain had been yanked away from wherever the original Danni had been without warning, only to wake up naked and surrounded by a bunch of corporate businessmen, and in a body that was very obviously not her own. For one her thin and girlish figure, which had been designed as that of a twenty year old girl with a slightly smaller than average bust and butt, was meticulously refined so that she radiated youthful energy without crossing the line into jailbait, not at all like the original Danni's curvaceous, womanly build. Her skin was no longer tanned but pale and dotted with freckles, and her hair was now a bright fire engine red rather than the dark brown she was used to. She didn't have time to fully process what happened to her however, as one of the LDC technicians on hand was quick to begin reading off a pre-written list of verbal commands to alter her mental settings.

After a few hours of adjustments, questioning, tweaking, and testing, Wendy's new identity was completely solidified in her mind. By the time the technicians and marketing execs were done with her, she no longer even identified at all with 'her' old name. Her favorite outfit was now a blue pinstripe dress with red-and-white striped stockings and black mary janes, which she wore almost constantly, and her favorite food became the Wendy's Baconator Double Combo Meal with Large Fries and Classic Vanilla Frostie (now only $9.99, not including tax), though she's happy to eat just about anything off a Wendy's menu. In fact, she was explicitly forbidden from consuming any food or drink that wasn't served at an official Wendy's restaurant, but thankfully as a Love Doll there was no downside to her all-fast-food diet, and as the literal face of the company she was allowed to order anything she wanted for free.

Like the personality she was a copy of, Wendy were both sassy and sweet, the peppy girl-next-door with enough of a blunted edge to provide witty but inoffensive snark, and just enough risque suggestiveness to provide sex appeal for perverts without ever actually being overtly sexual. Anything that would be considered truly catty was directed solely at competing franchises and vocal critics of the company that owned her. Speaking of which, while technically owned by the current CEO of Wendy's, her command privileges were extended to all Wendy's executives and the entire marketing department, including yourself. Beyond that, she was also expected to respect the authority of anyone within a management position at the franchise, as long as it did not conflict with her orders from corporate.

The only possessions she 'owned' were three sets of identical clothes, a laptop, a smartphone, and a Wendy's branded RV that she affectionately called the Wendy-Mobile. Her 'job' was to drive around the US (and sometimes Canada) and stop to eat at as many Wendy's restaurants as she could. Wendy was expected to chat with customers, motivate employees, and document her experiences on every popular social media platform Wendy's had an account for. Meanwhile, as an employee of the marketing department whose presence at the office wasn't deemed to be essential, your job was to accompany Wendy on her road trip and act as her handler. Mainly that involved just sticking close and making sure she was performing her duties without getting too sidetracked, but you were also expected to be on hand to step in and adjust her mental settings on the spot if she began to behave erratically for whatever reason. Unofficially, you were also there to be someone for the Love Doll to interact with while she was on the road, as despite her artificial nature she was still psychologically human and needed a buddy to avoid getting lonely.

This novel multimedia advertising push turned out to be wildly successful, with other companies scrambling to try and replicate Wendy's success with their own Love Doll mascots. In a moment Wendy herself was particularly proud of herself for, she even recently managed to surpass Danni Dale herself in followers on all social media platforms the two of them shared (you didn't have the heart to tell her that a good chunk of those followers were likely paid bots). Meanwhile Wendy's the company expanded the program internationally, commissioning more Wendy Love Dolls in countries around the world. Similar to the American version, each of them had a digital copy of a popular social media influencer from their 'home' country for their mind, modified to be loyal to the company and promote their product. But Wendy took pride in the fact that she was the original, and by far the most popular.

Recently, your promotional tour was approved for an extension, so you and Wendy are still traveling across America, spreading the gospel of 'Fresh, Never Frozen' to every city you visit. The tight schedule keeps you two moving around a lot, especially since Wendy doesn't need to allocate any time for human things like sleep or bathroom breaks (unless she wanted to show off a particularly clean Wendy's bathroom, of course). Occasionally the two of you would need to make a detour from your planned route to attend some promotional event or film a new commercial, and every once in a while Wendy would be flown out to corporate headquarters to 'entertain' the higher ups during holiday parties or important business meetings (she was a Love Doll, after all). But other than that, the two of you were on your own, and allowed to decide where you wanted to take the Wendy-Mobile next.

All in all, it's a pretty sweet gig.