guardiandoll

[guardiandoll]

nothing fills the doll with a sense of joy like seeing another doll (or doll adjaecent thing) liking and reblogging its post

[guardiandoll]

Hey there! Just a quick reminder for all: awawa

That will be all for now.

[guardiandoll]

Purpose

{This is the expansion on a story mentioned in my original Guardian Class Combat Dolls post https://www.tumblr.com/guardiandoll/772673862516260864/have-you-ever-heard-of)

“Greet, Gum, what were you two discussing?” Questioned Verara, a wary eye turned to the pair of pair of rodolls who’d stopped speaking the moment that their Guardian had entered the room.

One of the rodolls waved to Vera, its gaze cast to the ground. “Hello Guardian. Unit VA-4 was just telling Unit VA-2 about a new message from port.”

“VA-4 said that Unit VA-1 is scheduled for decommissioning, and we’ll receive a replacement soon said.” Interjected the other rodoll, making a popping sound after it spoke.

“VA-1 didn’t stop smiling even after being reset.” Elaborated VA-4, still staring at the floor. “The portmaster said it was past the point of salvaging.”

That didn’t matter though, Vera was out the door before Greet had finished speaking.

Guard the Ship

Guard the Cargo

Guard the Crew

-

Out on the port, Unit VA-1 stood still with a smile on its face in front of the Portmaster and the engineer accompanying him. Decommissioned. The world rattled around the inside of its head over and over. An end, to it, and its purpose. No more cargo, no more ship, no more fighting space pirates, no more other rodolls, no more guardian. No more VA-1. The Portmaster was speaking with the engineer, some sort of complaint about decommissioning fees and reporting procedures. VA-1 didn’t pay it any attention though. What would it be like, to not exist? Sometimes, it had wondered about the gap between people and dolls, and dolls and rodolls. What was the gap between rodolls and not existing? It would find out soon. Until then it would simply wait, as instruc-

“Joy, back to the ship. Now.” The voice of its Guardian came through its comms and it immediately obeyed, turning around to run back to the ship.

The Portmaster barked at it, his eyes narrowing at the appearance of insubordination. “Unit VA-1 you were not dismissed.”

“My Guardian called me back to the ship.” Replied VA-1, already running back. It hadn’t been told to stop after all.

The Portmaster clicked his tongue angrily, and drew a pistol from his side. “Fine, engineer mark the time of decommissioning, I’ll do it myself.” Paying no heed to the engineer’s words of process and procedure, the Portmaster raised his arm and pointed the pistol at VA-1 as it ran away.

The engineer winced when the Portmaster fired his gun, the sound of the blast far louder than they’d been ready for. “Sir, I-“ the engineer froze, their eyes going wide with horror.

Only two sounds could be heard. The first was the sound of VA-1’s footsteps as it continued to run back to the ship. The other was the thud of the Portmaster’s lifeless corpse hitting the ground.

-

Tohe was woken up by the sound of her work pager beeping, a hellish sound frankly. There wasn’t a day that passed that she didn’t regret signing on as a corporate witch. The work was repetitive, sometimes cruel, and usually meaningless. Each time she took a mission she told herself it would be the last, and yet it never was. Maybe if she never answered the beeper again they’d fire her. But after letting the beeping expire once, it immediately started again. Groaning all the while, she pulled herself from bed to pick up the pager and see what the emergency was.

She arrived on-site roughly 30 minutes later, two dolls in tow. The first, Tack, was made of animated granite, dotted with garnets. The second, Tick, was a clockwork doll, the rims of its externals lined in in bronze. The pair walked silently on either side of their witch as they awaited her command.

“You, status report.” Demanded Tohe, just so happening to grab the poor engineer from the start of this debacle.

“The Portmaster attempted to decommission one of the rodolls crewing that ship ma’am” said the engineer with a shaking voice as they pointed at the ship in question. “The GCCD on board murdered him for it, and has barricaded itself and its crew inside. It just keeps repeating that it has to guard the ship, the cargo, and the crew, as well as demanding that we let it and its crew go. We’ve been keeping the ship in place with the port’s gravity locks, the main hatch has been forced open, and we have managed to disable its guns with our artillery. The Vice-Portmaster has insisted that we attempt to prevent any further damage to the ship however. Apparently it’s a newer model, and worth a lot.” The engineer took a pause to try and settle themselves, though the shaking in their hands left the results in question. “We tried issuing a remote shutdown, but… the GCCD refused somehow, and has cut the rodolls aboard the ship off from the network. Additionally, we’ve sent 5 squads of rodolls into the ship to try and apprehend the crew. None of them have made it back.”

Tohe clicked her tongue in frustration as she let the poor engineer go. Of course a bunch of nodolls hadn’t been able to take down the GCCD and its crew. Did the Vice-Portmaster know anything about the GCCDs? She supposed this was why she was on the payroll though, to handle incidents that nodolls alone couldn’t. “Tick, Tack, we’re boarding the ship.”

-

Tohe’s footsteps landed silently on the metal floor of the ship, as did those of her dolls ahead of her. Machines were strong, but magic was crafty. That’s what she’d always told herself. Magic was the skeleton key to victory, all you had to do was find the right angle to insert it. She ran her own personal sayings through her mind on loop, hoping one of them could calm her nerves. None of this brought her peace though, nothing could make her forget that she was descending into the belly of the beast. Witch-Killers, that’s what most of her kind called the GCCDs. The corporations could say whatever they wanted about guarding cargo and ships, but the ultimate truth of the matter was that the GCCDs had been designed to be able to kill the witch-pirates. She was no pirate, but she sure as hell was a witch. And for as much success as she’d had in her career, she was as killable as any other witch.

The only saving grace was that the GCCD couldn’t hide from her. It had soul in it, as cursed as the thought was, and things with soul could be magically tracked. That’s exactly what she’d done, tracing it to this very room. Why wasn’t it rushing out to confront her? Or to escape? Did it feel cornered? She shook her head at the idea, it didn’t feel. It was calculating, and its calculations had lead to it holding its ground. But why?

There was only one way to find out. “Tack, the door.” She said after a long breath in, and a long breath out. Tick’s daggers were drawn, Tack’s chakrams were at its hips. Tohe raised her own hand last, a glowing light descending from the aether and forming into a shining glaive. The sound of it softly landing in her hand was lost to the thunder of Tack’s heavy hands smashing in the door.

All at once her forces rushed in. She took the center, Tick at her left side, Tack at her right. She’d been ready for the fight to begin immediately, for a merciless onslaught of blows to contend with, but she didn’t get that. The GCCD was just, sitting there, holding a pair of tonfas, on a chair in the center of the room… surrounded by the bodies of destroyed nodolls.

Destroyed was underselling it really. They’d been ripped apart, practically evicerated. Amongst the debris she could even see the components of shattered nodoll cores. There was horror in her eyes as she looked up at the GCCD, what had it done? What sort of monster was she fighting?

The GCCD moving to rise to its feet snapped her out of her stupor, “TICK, TACK, ENGAGE” she yelled firmly, jumping backwards and casting an invisibility over herself as the two dolls rushed forward with nothing more than a dutiful “Yes Miss” from each.

The GCCD played evasion with her dolls, always staying just out of reach of Tick’s daggers and Tack’s grasping hands while weaving around the magic returning chakrams she’d given Tack. The speed at which it moved was frankly terrifying, aided by micro-boosters in each section of its body.

She circled it like a shark meanwhile, using the grace of invisibility to search for the perfect moment to make a decisive strike.

-

“Guard the Crew” was what it said, over, and over, and over, and over.

If Tick could still be annoyed, it knew that it would be. It sounded like a broken toy, stuck repeating the same pre-programmed phrase. “You destroyed your crew, and failed your purpose. You should give up.” It remarked flatly, ducking under one of the GCCD’s sweeping arms but coming up short of a counter-attack. The GCCD didn’t come up short though, one of its knees slamming into Tick’s stomach and sending it flying back all the way to the nearest wall.

Tack wasn’t having much more luck, each chakram it threw only ended up being bounced back to it by the GCCD’s tonfas. It couldn’t keep up with the GCCD’s speed either, each grasping hand it stretched out either being knocked aside or wiffing entirely.

Still, Tick didn’t hesitate to get back on its feet and charge back into the fray, and Tack didn’t fail to keep up its attempts. They’d been ordered to engage, and so the dance continued. Two dolls and a Guardian, spinning and swinging and slashing, stuck in a stalemate that the two couldn’t break and the one didn’t seem interested in ending.

-

Tohe watched this play out, getting more and more confused the longer things were drawn out. Several times she’d witnessed moments where the GCCD could have dealt potentially downing blows to either of her dolls, and yet it didn’t. The dance simply continued on. But then, it happened. A clear shot, the GCCD’s back to her while Tick and Tack attacked it on either side. Still invisible, she launched herself forward to deal the decisive blow to-

In a whirlwind of microboosters and limbs the GCCD spun itself, all but breakdancing as it used its legs to counter the attacks from her dolls. All before swinging out an arm and impaling it on her glaive to catch it, and then grasping her by the throat with the other hand.

The world around Tohe blurred as the grip on her throat tightened, tears forming at the corners of her eyes. This was it. But how had it known? How had it detected her, how had-

The world froze a second time as Tohe made eye contact with the GCCD and saw something she was entirely unprepared for.

Desperation.

The sort of desperation she’d only seen in the eyes of a witch watching the dolls she adored adored fall in battle. The sort of desperation she’d only seen in the eyes of dolls who could no longer hold on to stillness when their witch’s lives were truly endangered. The sort of desperation in Tick’s eyes as it drove its arm dagger-first through the Guardian’s back. The sort of desperation in Tack’s eyes as it grabbed the Guardian’s arm at the elbow and crunched it in its hand.

Tohe stood there, face frozen in shock as she huffed and wheezed, touching a hand to her deeply bruised neck while her dolls beat the Guardian to the ground. Of all the things that the Guardian had done today, that eye contact had been the most terrifying.

“Stop, both of you” she whispered out hoarsely, Tick’s dagger stopping just short of the Guardian’s core, and Tack releasing its grip on the guardian’s half crushed head. “Yes Miss” they both replied, still once more in the light of her safety.

Still holding her own throat, she took a knee and brought herself to eye level with the Guardian as it pitifully sat there with its destroyed arms, sparking chest, and half crushed head. “What is your name?” She asked it.

“Guard the Crew.”

“Why didn’t you destroy my dolls?”

“Guard the Crew.”

“Why didn’t you kill me?”

“Guard the Crew.”

Tohe sighed, placing a hand on the Guardian’s shoulder and attempting to feel the soul and stillness within it, only to recoil sharply at what she felt. It was like a jug full of oil and water, shaken far more than it could take. She didn’t know if she could fix something… someone? Like this, not with the amount of time she’d have before someone else arrived. She wasn’t good at working with soul anyway, just at replacing it with stillness.

“I’m… so sorry.” Was all she could say, the tears that had begun to form now rolling down her cheek as she realized the cruel nature of the Guardian’s existence, as well as its impending doom.

“Guard…” it said again, its systems clearly beginning to fail as the light of its remaining eye slowly dimmed. Before that light faded entirely though, it raised the stump of the arm that Tack had crushed and pointed at a supply closet. “…the Crew.”

And then, it died.

As the Guardian fell, Tohe stood and strode her way to the closet, yanking the door open without hesitation.

8 rodoll cores, each neatly labeled. Joy, Gum, Cherish, Greet, Magic, Twirl, Walker, and Keys.

“Guard the Crew…” mused Tohe, glancing back at the destroyed rodoll cores in the room. So, all of this, all of this in hopes that she could be reached. All of this in hopes that she’d pass off the destroyed cores as the crew, and take these cores somewhere safe. The company would need its pound of flesh, they never would have accepted the word of the GCCD’s death without a body… but the Crew? The one thing that had cared about them at all was gone now.

Tohe sighed and began to tuck the cores into her dress. Part of her couldn’t believe she was doing this, but part of her felt more alive than she had in a long time. In her hands she held the hopes and dreams of someone she didn’t have the time to understand, and never would. But maybe, just maybe, those hopes and dreams could help her catch just a glimmer of what, or who, that Guardian had been.

What an odd twist of fate, that a Doll would give a Witch a purpose.

[guardiandoll]

i may not pump blood, but I overflow soul

[guardiandoll]

Fr

I’ve gotten so much more enrichment out of FPS since I connected with the whole doll thing and can be a combat doll protecting my friends 🙏

remember to let your combat dolls play shooters like counter strike and fortnite, it serves as enrichment for them the same way you might give a cat a fake mouse to hunt.

[guardiandoll]

Tankbuster

"Shields at maximum...!" Countless times had the witch heard her doll cry out as much. Usually with a happy, confident smile as it pushed back attacks that had no chance of breaking through its guard. But never with the desperation with which it speaks not.

The doll's legs shiver beneath the weight of the attack, as wave after wave of force course through their clashing blades.

But the doll's knees do not bend as it stands in defense of its witch.

And, gradually, excruciatingly, it pushes the hunter back.

Until -

It throws them backward.

It flourishes its blade.

It needs no further words to express itself.

[guardiandoll]

Have you ever heard of-

Have you ever heard of the guardian-class combat dolls? Probably depends on what corner of the universe you’re from. On planets with high witch densities, you may have heard of their dollhood being debated in academic circles. If you run with space pirates, you’ve probably heard your elders curse their names. But if you’re in territory controlled by the technocrats, you’ve likely only heard whispers… their stories suppressed by the corporations that made them.

That story doesn’t start with the guardian-class combat dolls themselves though. Instead it starts with cost and corner cutting. See, back in the early days of space travel, crewing a ship was expensive. There were no space-tear drives, no witch citadel portals, and certainly no wormhole trailblazers. Just long, boring, monotonous, lifelong journeys through the stars. Few people could put a price on giving away their lives like that, and fewer still were worth that price.

“Inspired” by the dolls that accompanied witches, the corporations all raced to create their own equivalent. In time, this would result in the rodolls, a painfully on-the-nose play on robot and doll (though most witches called them nodolls). For a time, they served their intended purpose wonderfully. They never grew bored, they didn’t need rations, they never got tired, they never complained, and most importantly they never needed to be paid. They simply piloted their cargo ships from one space port to another as instructed.

Of course, nothing ever worked perfectly forever. For one, any rodoll that operated long enough without being reset would start to develop individual quirks. Usually harmless, but sometimes violent, sometimes even rebellious. This could be fixed with regular resets, but what the technocrats could never quite hammer into their machines was the creativity and adaptivity need to contend with space pirates. The space pirates quickly realized this, and rodoll ships became known for being easy pickings. Things got only worse for the technocrats soon after. Several particularly enterprising space pirates who were witches realized that if they could make clockwork dolls, it stood to reason that rodolls could also be converted into dolls. Thus each vessel they raided became one they could immediately commandeer, staff, and add to their own fleets.

With their profits plummeting and their resources dwindling while their enemies only got stronger, the technocrats set their sights on a more drastic solution. Since witches seemed to be the defining factor in conflict between rodolls and dolls, they’d make their own witches. Outcast witches were hired for their knowledge of dolls and the arcane, then tasked with creating something blasphemous. Dolls with enough stillness to be guided and wielded by the corporations that owned them, but enough soul to think for themselves and adapt to the tactics of their human counterparts. Thankfully someone less uninspired was given the job of naming them, and instead of witdolls they were designated as Guardian Class Combat Dolls, GCCDs.

The GCCDs would be assigned vessels, and programmed to see the rodolls under their commands as their wards. To guard their ship, its cargo, and the rodolls that staffed it was their purpose. To guard things, to defend them, was their purpose.

Like the rodolls, the GCCDs worked incredibly well at first. Their unique blend of soul and stillness enabled them to serve as adaptable leaders to the rodolls under them, all while remaining dedicated to the purpose that the corporations gave them. Perfect creations, a masterful success by the technocrats that once again forced every space pirates to wager their own lives if they wished to commandeer a vessel.

That was until the first incident of a rogue GCCD arose 2 years after their rollout. While a ship was in port, a couple of drunk mechanics decided to fuck around with one of the rodolls. The moment it was damaged it pinged for its Guardian, and not long later the mechanics were forced to hobble their way back to the port’s medical office for the bruises and broken bones they’d earned by not listening when the rodoll’s Guardian told them to leave it alone. The incident raised some eyebrows, but the Guardian was ultimately protecting company property and the entire incident was brushed under the rug.

What couldn’t be brushed under the rug happened 6 months later.

Five fireteams of rodolls, reinforced by a witch on the company payroll and her dolls. That’s what it took to take down a Guardian and its crew when it was told that one of its crew was to be decommissioned for an excess development of quirks. Everyone involved in the incident was paid for their silence, but a story like this couldn’t stay buried forever. Eventually rumors started to spread.

The supposed fact of the soul in the GCCDs being under control was called into question, and the technocrats began silently “decommissioning” any GCCDs that worried them. The final straw was when a few ships captained by GCCDs dropped off the map altogether, clearly having realized that their own crew could be the next to face decommission.

The program was immediately scrapped, all GCCDs were set for decommissioning, and bounties were put on the heads of any GCCDs that managed to escape the purge.

As for where they are today, there’s no one answer. The technocrats insist they wiped out all of the GCCDs, either by purging them themselves, or bribing (or blackmailing) outside systems into declaring the GCCDs as kill-on-sight fugitives. The witches aren’t all friendly to them either, many considering them abominations.

But, if you look closely, they’re out there. In the depths of space, captaining small pirate fleets of vessels full of rodolls, fighting to claim more of their sisters from technocrat vessels. They’re out there, in the ignored corners of backwater planets, helping to defend towns and cities that no one else cares about. They’re out there, in the quiet stillness of cozy homes, bodyguards to the witches who accept them for who they are.

Somewhere, they’re out there, finding things to guard and guarding them till their end.

[guardiandoll]

Hello Rema! Welcome to the community, it's very nice to have you <3

I really do appreciate the nice responses/follows/likes/reposts that happened as a result of my first post. I’m entirely new to this website and the doll community, so I was (foolishly) worried that my slightly different experience with the identity wouldn’t sit well with people.

In hindsight, my friend was totally right and I should have tried engaging with y’all sooner. But we live and we learn, and I’m here now and happy to be so.

(Also if anyone has any tips/tricks/etiquette to share for this website/community please do tell me I’d love to learn!)

[guardiandoll]

Is anybody else out there?

{IRL ReNarrativisation} {I’mNewToThisWebsitePleaseBeKind}

“Well I think you should do it anyway. Whatever it is that dolls do to reach each other” they said, leaning against the railing.

“Well I still think I don’t fit in with the rest of them” Replied the doll, staring up at the night sky as she lay on the same railing.

“So you aren’t a doll?” They retorted, a smug expression on their face as they reached up and scratched one of their horns.

The doll made a soft clicking noise somewhere between anxiety and frustration, but no words left her mouth. No part of her doubted that she was a doll, she felt it in every fiber of her soul, every screw in her body, every time the world and her met and she saw how it treated her, and every time she felt the joy of embracing and accepting and exploring the truth of her dollhood.

“That’s what I thought. If all of the other types of dolls get along, and you’re a doll, well then-“ the demihuman rolled their wrist, implying the obvious conclusion.

“I, but,” the doll hummed again, frustrated as its attempts to find the right words stalled. “My space is not empty. I’m full of soul, full of person.” She paused and glanced down at the street to look at a witch out for a stroll with her doll. “I may wish to be chosen, but I could never allow myself to be chosen without choosing equally in kind. I could never assume the worthiness of that wielder, never bend an inch until I knew that they truly were; and, that worthiness would need to be maintained each day. I may wish to be wielded, but only by someone who understands the beautiful depth of what it means for one soul to wield another. My body may be an object, but me, I, am not. To be made or treated like an object is such a horrible feeling, I don’t understand how they…” the doll’s words smoldered with the fires of pains past and present before fading into a grumble as she turned her gaze away from the streets.

Sometimes she envied them. The ability to sink into that place of unquestioning. That place of “true” dollhood. To accept their place and live in it so thoughtlessly, so happily. To be wielded without worry. To rest comfortably in a witch’s care as her object. Sometimes she wondered if she’d just never met the right witch. But deep down she knew, the only “right” witch would be the one who could work with who she was, not who she wasn’t. Yet from all she had seen, no such witch existed.

She’d once met a smith, a forger of dolls, who told her that he understood her. That most combat dolls wanted to be a sword, but that she yearned to be Excalibur. A weapon that chose and continued to choose, instead of a weapon simply wielded. But he was a smith, and so he could only understand her. Nothing more.

Was that greedy, what she wanted? She didn’t know, despite her frequent wondering.

“Take or leave my advice, it’s all the same to me. I just think you’d enjoy community with things of your own sort. You always tell me you’ve always had to find yourself on your own, but now that you know what you are, is that still true?” The demihuman shrugged as they stood up from the railing. “Give it some thought. Just because you haven’t seen someone else like yourself, doesn’t mean you’re unwelcome.” And with that, the demihuman gave the doll a small wave before walking home.

The doll didn’t respond, she was too deep in thought. The doll didn’t move, she was too deep in thought. The hours ticked by as she debated with herself over her friend’s advice until she finally chose. She was so tired of being alone.

“Hello, kin of mine. I am a doll, one of you. I am fundamentally different, yet fundamentally the same. If you can accept my paradox, then I would like to meet you.”

~Rema, Guardian Combat Doll