Meowscles

Conception and design

Meowscles started as a fan creation called "Buff Cat" by the artist RexSaido. RexSaido had already worked with Epic Games in 2018, helping design the Scoundrel and Jailbird characters for Fortnite Battle Royale as part of a push to involve fan artists. In 2019, Epic reached out about Buff Cat and teamed up with the artist again. The finished character joined the game in 2020 under the name Meowscles.

He is a tall, anthropomorphic calico cat with a cat head on a heavily muscled human body. His fur is gray, orange, and white, mostly white, with small round black eyes. He wears jeans, boots, and a gun holster that crosses behind his back and over his shoulders. Holsters on each hip hold a semi-automatic pistol.

An orange tail sticks out from his back, and a silver earpiece is in his right ear. His right arm has a blue heart tattoo reading "Lynx," a nod to another character. Later versions include Purradise Meowscles, dressed in a Hawaiian shirt, shorts, and sandals with long two-toned hair; Phantom Meowscles, mostly black with pink highlights and big white eyes; and Toon Meowscles, styled after early black-and-white cartoons like Steamboat Willie.

Appearances

Meowscles joined Fortnite Battle Royale in 2020 through the Chapter 2 Season 2 battle pass, available as both a character in the story and a wearable skin. In the narrative, he serves as a secret agent under the spy Midas. Since his debut, he has appeared on in-game billboards and during live events. His family has grown to include his son Kit, who pilots a motorcycle mech, and his younger sister Meow Skulls. A hybrid variant named Meowdas later appeared as a boss on a yacht. Beyond Battle Royale, Meowscles is a villager in Lego Fortnite. The character has been turned into Funko Pop figures, controller stands, t-shirts, Hasbro action figures, and a Lego minifigure.

Critical reception

Meowscles was well received upon release, with commentators stating that the design carved a place in players' hearts and epitomized the fun whimsy the franchise was known for. Another critic called the character charmingly strange and noted that despite originating outside Epic Games, it felt like something that had always been part of the title due to how the character was utilized. However, one writer described him as resembling an action-figure Frankenstein due to the disproportionately small head on his larger body.

Another outlet described the skin as one of Fortnite's strangest and felt it was the sort of design that the Internet loves. The combination of an undeniably adorable face with the body of a young Arnold Schwarzenegger was noted to work particularly well with Fortnite's dance animations. The character's appearance was seen as representing goofy skins that were often avoided due to how highly visible they made players, yet most players tended to use such skins, making it simultaneously hilarious and humiliating to be killed by players using them.

Meowscles has also been seen as an LGBTQ icon. One journalist stated that the character looks like someone slapped the colon-three uwu emoticon over the stylized gay art of Tom of Finland, and voiced approval for the character's friendly appearance, outfit, and physique. He compared elements such as his harness to outfits seen at gay bars. In a later article, he noted that several commentators argued that Meowscles could be read as transgender, as most calico cats are female, and he appreciated this interpretation as helping him come to terms with his own identity as a trans person.