Doll Stories

Lady Paeonia, youngest daughter of a minor House of Glass, and her favourite custom Black Witch. Currently on the run to live her dreams as a Lancer pilot like her favourite fiction before shes forced to marry

a couple weeks in I decided that enough is enough. if this was allowed to continue, some idiot might decide to put her out of her misery. I beat up the first fucker who suggested that, but ever since I was constantly afraid I wouldn’t catch the next dumbass who gets the bright idea. don’t they all see she’s still alive, even if she changed forever?

so I went and bought her a dog collar and a bowl. at first she didn’t understand what was going on, but when I forced her on a leash and told her to shut up and listen, her face changed. you had to be there to see it. her eyes lit up, she looked up at me and practically drooled. I told her she’s now my tool to maul the imperial mechs. I told her she’s going to sleep at my feet, eat on the ground and follow my every order. she looked at me like I hung the stars in the sky.

it took them all some time to adjust, of course. I was accused of being just as bad as the Empire a couple times, and some rebels are still clearly uncomfortable with the idea. my reputation ensures they’re at least quiet about that, though, and that’ll have to do.

she’s now sitting near my feet at our campfire, her head resting on my lap while I pet her hair. she was a menace in the last battle, so I attached a little medal to her collar, so everyone knows she’s been a very good hound. she was on the moon when I told her that. some more open-minded comrades are feeding her treats, which she picks up with her mouth. life is good.

The problem is that I must always describe what Borderlands is like at its peak, when it truly lives up to all that it's supposed to be. This is, unfortunately, not always, and for long periods it's been "not often."

There is nothing quite like Borderlands. For all that Borderlands sometimes fails to live up to its own promise, nobody has ever gotten close to Borderlands. Rage 2 tried to copy it whole hog and was dogshit. Destiny 2 has slowly but surely vanished up its own ass. Overwatch and its ten dozen knockoffs have made half-hearted attempts at its style but never gotten close to the series' charm.

At its best, the appeal of Borderlands is this: serious, meaningful stories that just so happen to take place in a fundamentally unserious world.

The world of Borderlands is stupid. The world of Borderlands is very, very stupid. It's absurd. It's asinine. It's an absolute clownshow. It's Cowboy Bebop as written by the Onion. Everything is either run by corporations or abandoned by them, which leads to the juxtaposition of bright, shining iPod Futurism with Mad Max scavenger world chaos. Everyone has become the most extreme and unhinged version of themselves.

And when it is at its best, Borderlands has the courage to say: okay, so this world might be a truly absurd and farcical place, but what if you actually had to live there? What then? What if we were to extend to this world some suspension of disbelief? What if we were to look at this world we've created and treat it as a place that could exist? What stories could we tell in such a place? How do the unique aspects of our worldbuilding allow us to tell unique stories?

This is what allows moments like the time in Borderlands 2 where Handsome Jack uses Eridium slag to mutate Bloodwing and make you fight her, then when you win, blows her head off with a bomb collar, and treats this as a genuinely horrifying act and a genuine loss of a character who someone truly loved. Then Jack fucks around trying to find a violin, can't find it for like ten minutes and then gets mad when his cruel joke doesn't land, and it's genuinely hilarious, because this is the exact kind of petty, malicious, insecure douchebag he is.

One of the latest additions to SSC’s LUX-Exotic line, the Lovers Knot represents Smith-Shimano's dedication to the relentless pursuit of perfection. The Deaths Head is an iconic piece of gear, a principled and sleek tool of conflict resolution that excels within its role. The Lovers Knot as its sister frame expands upon its capabilities with new discoveries tirelessly perfected by Exotic Materials. Within the Broadcasts, SSC found the fabrication files for a special type of glass, perfectly reflective and almost entirely indestructible. Originally meant for optical arrays, highlight points, and cockpit coating it proved overly difficult to shape but displayed some rather interesting additional properties. All projectiles deflected off the surface seemed to have a mind of their own, seeking targets with statistically impossible accuracy and no significant loss in kinetic force. Leaping at this discovery, Exotic Materials was able to adjust this ricochet utilizing directed operator brainwaves and a small companion drone to create a mobile surface for reliable redirections. Thus was the Lovers Knot born, a reflection of the hard work and peerless ingenuity of its creators. A beautiful, terrible thing, unmatched in its twined pursuits of defying the laws of physical reality and violence.

White Witch in a tarot card

The ferrofluid concept is so cool. I wanted to show it interacting with the environment in a way that reflected its traits.

Check out my other (non-lancer) tarot card illustrations here and here

Handler: Can you not, I’m right her…

Hound: ONE PUP ALONE BETRAYE…..

Handler: *activates shock collar*

The door breaks down and a mob of mafia dolls spills neatly into the room, viciously reorganising your furniture

One steps forward, her maid dress decorated with bullet casings

"Lazy Susan says you've been stealin' from th' cookie jar"

She spits a wad of tea leaves

"...what???"

The dolls draw Tommy guns from somewhere, somehow

"Shatter 'em girls"

"Awawawa!"

Having an anxiety episode so hope this is funny