#automated_doll

[frostgears]

unused doll

"Hey, I got the file trace from the 100% playthru. Every asset the game ever loaded."

"Fuck yes. I'm so bad, Sierra, I can't get past the second to last chapter, you're a lifesaver. So we just run this against the archive manifests and��"

"Not too much, huh."

"Guess not. That's all the leftovers. A a bunch of sounds, voice codec compressed, a few textures, just one mesh."

"Bones with it?"

"Yep. Usual format, I think, looking at the headers; not the one from the beta. Must have been cut pretty late. Lemme search for the mesh name, maybe there's a… yep, there's character data too. All commented out."

"That whole character data file gets loaded every scene, either from cache or disk, so that's probably why we missed it. So I think we just need to uncomment it and add it back to the model viewer on the extras menu? Yeah."

"Repacking and restarting. One sec."

"Oh, there she is! Aww, she's kinda cute. I wonder why they cut her. Play her voice lines."

"This one is pleased to serve."

"You think she was one of the companion characters?"

"Or a summon."

"Start a screen recording, let's get this up before someone else does."

"Started."

"I'm your doll. Use me as you see fit."

"Companion, definitely."

"We do not bleed as you do, but we still serve the same cause."

"Her VA's really good. Hard to sell a line like that."

"Spin her around, let's get the full model."

"This one is… afraid, Guardian. It doesn't know what it did to deserve this."

"Wonder what that scene that's from."

"No idea. Is that the last voice line?"

"Dunno. Click it again."

"Please, Guardian. Please don't put me back in the box."

"Please, Guardian. Please don't put me back in the box."

"Please, Guardian. Please don't put me back in the box."

"Guess that's all of them… Dani?"

"Sorry. Having a moment. Look. This is going to sound weird."

"What is?"

"Leave the model viewer open a little longer."

"Why?"

"Just do it, Sierra." □

[frostgears]

creation combat doll

how does one win a war by creation? this doll, 8443 Blueprint Light, will tell you:

you are built, and instilled with beauty. you are sent to a raw unfinished place, and told to make it beautiful. you toil, tirelessly, in the way of all dolls, both because you have a Purpose, and because you have your orders, and especially because they are aligned.

your work flows over the surface of an entire planet. you sculpt mountain ranges and ocean deeps, nurture corals in shallow tropical seas and choose meadow butterflies from the catalog within you. you make a world, you make a home, you make a garden.

humans come, as humans do. you plan cities for them, metropolises of gold and green glass domes in the harsh places, spread-out parks held together by maglev and pedestrian path in the temperate ones. most of them glimpse you rarely or never, and know you only as The Builder. a few, guessing your true nature, name you as The Doll. a bare handful, trusted as far as any doll trusts an unconstrained human, have come to learn your designation.

and then fire rains from the sky and your world burns.

you struggle from the ashes, and come to learn why: it was always and ever a distraction. a juicy, much-beloved target that the enemy could not resist. and while the enemy was here, their own worlds were left only lightly guarded, and your creator marshaled its forces (aside from you) to strike killing blows upon them. successfully.

so the war is over now. hooray. go team.

you must forgive this one; it doesn't much feel like celebrating. □

[frostgears]

prompt: "problem doll"

you don't become the Problem Doll because you value yourself. you become the Problem Doll because you're messed up enough to value your sisters more than yourself and to believe you can survive being a witch's center of attention longer than they can.

tell yourself that it's just the cold calculus of survival, it might help you keep going as you take the punishments for fake chassis trouble, unbecoming clumsiness, or a smart mouth. and when your core is crushed in an adamant vice in full view of the whole dollhouse, maybe, just maybe, the smartest and most observant of your sisters will know you did it for pride and love: the two things that are real problems for a doll. □

[frostgears]

prompt: "lumbering witch"

the Witch of Twisted Girders is near eight feet tall, wide as a doorway, and her tread oft cracks the earth.

she has no need for dollish labor. her dolls are tiny cheerful little things of bent wire and hammered brass, and their antics make her laugh like summer thunder. □