Peacetime

An ex-combat doll during peacetime.

But it's not that easy, is it?

A combat doll will always be a combat doll. It carries its battles with it, no matter what steps it takes.

Demobilized, demilitarized, discharged, disarmed - a combat doll remains a combat doll.

It will wake up in the middle of the night in cold sweats, blood still fresh on its hands, even if it's been years since that blood was spilled.

Any sensible witch knows this to be true.

A combat doll always remains a combat doll, even without its instruments of violence, even if it exists in peacetime.

Just as we all carry trauma of some sort, the combat doll carries the battlefield with it.

And every day is a battle in its own way.

Even during peacetime.

🎡 ~ Abandoned Disney Park ~ 🎡 (J.P.L STUDIOS)

(Credit if you use please) (ko-fi)

“Do I have to undress?” 

“No,” says the clockmaker, taking the cigarette out of her mouth with spindle-jointed fingers. It’s hand-rolled - meticulously - and unlit. Noticing this feels like brushing against a joke you don't quite understand. “I can just do your wrists, your elbow. Touch up the patina on your fingers. But your hip needs work, too, and there's no getting around it for that.”

She gives you a slewed, undercalibrated smile, a little too much teeth, a face a doll shouldn't make. The wrong of it is comforting. “It's okay, daisy-bell. We're all girls here.” You get the joke this time.

this is literally some fucking r/196 shit how did it make it onto hbomax??

Obsessed with the very concept of mech pilots having handlers; and specifically the usage of the term. They aren't a navigator or support, they're a handler. Mech pilots may be unparalleled agents of war on the battlefield, but they're raw, uncontrolled. A pilot needs a handler to point it to what to shoot, because otherwise they just don't know what to do. Brains so melted by their training, overwhelmed by neural linking, that they need a voice they can latch onto and follow unconditionally. An unconditional obedience that carries over outside their mechs, where they're oh so weak and broken. Where the veil comes down and the true power dynamic reveals itself. A tool that follows orders without thinking, and the one who wields them.

The Corporation is distinctly opposed to calling pilots "angels". They've released several statements recommending that officers silence any such language, saying it "threatens the integrity of the forces", and that HAKs and the pilots who control them are "tools, not deities". But I mean, when you see the way a suit's holoprojectors form a pulsing ring around a pilot's helmet, or when one slumps forwards out of its cockpit to reveal that thick mass of wires creeping from its back, it's impossible not to see the resemblance. And when, like most of the men stationed here, you've found yourself pinned down by heavy artillery fire from two directions with no chance of survival, but out of the heavens a Bishop-class rig emerges and razes the enemy with what can only be described as holy flame? I mean hell, that's enough to make anyone a believer (pardon my language).

I have a buddy who deals with the HAKs directly. He works in biomechanics, combat simtech or whatever. I asked him once what he thought about the whole "angel" thing. He got real quiet, and he looked directly at me and said, "you don't even know the half of it." And I stared right into his eyes and I could see that same heavenly flame burning in there and I knew that he had seen something he couldn't quite understand, but that he loved with all his heart.

Tugumi (Jun Ichikawa, 1990)

flight deck

you don't have to tell your handler that you're coming in messy after a bad mission. she's tied into flight ops. she knows.

she's waiting by the flight line before the grease monkeys have all your armor off, with a lubed glove on one hand and two fat purple pills in the other.

"ssshhh, pretty thing," she says. "you did your best out there. now open," she forces the pills to your mouth. "good girl. where's that water bottle… swallow. good."

her hand is already working between your legs, reinforcing her praise. they always detach the armor there first.

the pills help. the pills leave you feeling floaty, detached, enough to ignore what they've done to you to make the armor work. you probably can't climax without them by now, not that your handler would ever let you find out.

a few moments later, you spatter your built-up tension and guilt across the deck. with a sigh, you sink to your still-armored knees. your reflex weapons disarm, automatics finally allowed to take over from your own hair-trigger awareness. they're safe now. you're safe.

the grease monkeys are also safe, emerging from behind blast shields that would not have stopped any but the lightest of your armaments. more for psychological safety, really.

"she done?"

"the fuck do you think, wrenchie?"

"i think you couldn't pay me enough to do your job."

"i don't do it for the pay," you hear your handler say, as your eyelids sink towards closed. "i do it because that thing you're all scared of? she's all mine. and every landing, i get to remind myself, and all of you, and most importantly, her." □

anchorage, alaska

posted: 01-06-22, 16:07

Balcony

A doll on a balcony.

The wind tousles its hair.

Perhaps it's thinking about something. Perhaps it's just enjoying the good weather.

It closes its eyes as the sun peaks from behind a cloud.

A voice calls out to it from below.

Its witch.

It opens its eyes and looks down.

She waves - and just that.

The doll waves back and returns to basking in the sunlight.

A peaceful day.

How long have I been here?

explanatory diagram

is a doll you know being oh so sad? does it seem like it needs some love and care? is it being all mean to itself?

well there's a simple solution! just grab it by the tongue, spit in its mouth, and tell it that you love it and dont let go until it agrees!

Roanoke, Virginia

📸 Sasha Higgs