#vaughn the company man

[borderlandszine]

We've listened and now it's time to respond! First we would like to thank everyone for the enormous amount of support the Interest check has gotten this weakened and we hope to hear from more of you! as the weeks pass by! Now it's time to get into some of the questions we've gotten. Is there an age requirement? Yes, all participants must be 18 and older.

Will this zine be SFW or NSFW? This will be a SFW Zine!

Will this zine be digital or physical? This will be a Digital Zine and free!

Can I apply for more than one position? Yes! But do make sure you can finish in time.

Will this Zine feature ships Unless they have explicitly been a couple in the franchise then - No. I don't think I'm that good can I still join? YES! We want everyone no matter of skill level to join. It's not just a celebration of the characters but of the community. Also you're doing great. If you have any more questions feel free to reach out - we're going to open our ask box with Anon on and feel free to message us as well! We'll edit this doc with more questions as the come and check out are Carrd link in the pinned post as well how general FAQ, schedule and guidelines of this zine. You can also find our other social media and active forms - such as the Interest Check, that's live now until October 19!

[nataliedecorsair]

Some nerd humor)0) I drew a comic of Pticenoga bringing Vaughn a calculator (it’s my AU here), and my friend made this joke that he should use it for typing 80085 (which apparently means “boobs” but I didn’t know that). So I had this idea and decided to draw it, Rhys and Vaughn enjoying some high quality humor lol Looking at Helios art  and other various BL portraits are here

[yellowcorps]

put it down like new york city (i never sleep wild like los angeles (my fantasy

[comma-tose]

Posting this here because why not (also because I posted it on TikTok a bit ago and wanted to post it here), getting the clips took WAY too long but I'm actually fairly happy with how it turned out

[mindstriker]

Been thinking a lot about Borderlands 3 and Rhys lately and since I've seen people posting a lot about the things they dislike about the way Borderlands 3 handled... literally everything, from previous games' characters to their strange and sudden insistent belief that "some of the megacorporations that make weapons to profit off of the galaxy being unsafe and constantly engage in inter-corporate war to steal things from each other are good actually" I thought I'd add a few of my own thoughts into the ring, this time specifically about Rhys- one of the characters who I found to be both dumbed down in 3 (although to a lesser extent than characters like Vaughn, who was pretty much just reduced to a bit character.) Cut because this is gonna be a long one, folks.

I think something interesting is the fact that Borderlands 3 really took away some of the snide, prideful behaviour Rhys had in the original Tales, kinda stripping him of some of his less "cutesy" personality flaws while giving him new ones he didn't necessarily have before- like accidentally making him seem incredibly shallow in quests like Space Laser Tag- where he's mainly concerned about trivial things like his favourite spots being destroyed while the company he fought to rebuild for the past SEVEN years is also being crushed. This is largely because instead of portraying him as the flawed but OVERALL currently well-intentioned (to some degree) character he is, they wanted him to be little more than an "adorkable" goofy type of character- and acknowledging his past of scheming ambition and potential to be incredibly dismissive of others doesn't fit that.

The thing *I* personally like the most about my perception of Rhys as a character is the dissonance between his character arc and his actions beyond the original Tales. I think it's important to spearhead this conversation with the fact that I don't like buying into the idea of Rhys being possessed by Handsome Jack post-TFTBL, trying to bring him back, or even still being in possession of his infected ECHOeye. Whether he sided with him for the majority of the original Tales or not, I prefer believing that the canon ending to the game inevitably resulted in Rhys finally discarding his idolization of Jack and resolving to veer his own life away from following in Jack's footsteps and towards creating his own ideal future with Atlas.

Does that immediately make him a morally perfect wonderful guy who's not still questionable by sheer virtue of INSISTING on making a return to the very corporate hellscape that pushed him to do everything from get unnecessary body modifications (still forever thinking about the fact that he did NOT lose that arm, my man had it purposefully removed for the sake of career success). No. The FUN part of it all is that Rhys is simultaneously right- he isn't like Jack, and I really don't like that the new Tales really switched up his behaviour to resemble his more- and wrong. Because at the end of the day, he's now still the CEO of a large-scale weapons manufacturer taking advantage of the unrest between planets and corporations just like every other big corp.

I think more than anything, I like Rhys best when he's a well-intentioned person (with glaring character flaws like a persistent love for the corporate life and lingering ambitions) who genuinely cares about Atlas and believes that it's the key to bettering the world he lives in- while simultaneously only REALLY managing to be, at most, a lesser evil. Someone snarky and occasionally snide, who's lightened up into the more affable, comfortable, almost silly persona we see in 3- but not missing the flaws that were definitive of his character in the past, either.

I wish we'd seen him have a stronger reaction to Katagawa Jr. and the possibility of losing Atlas, instead of the played-up-for-laughs kind of upset he displayed over things like a donut shop vs. the literal potential destruction of the company he scavenged out of a bad situation and brought back from the grave. I wanted to see him take it more PERSONALLY. To me, Atlas is in part Rhys trying to prove to HIMSELF that he doesn't need to be like Jack. It's proof and reassurance that when he tries to tell himself he's better, he's right. It's freedom from the corporate rat race he used to live in, because *he*'s in charge of it now, and he's running it with a lighter hand. To me, it's his own (flawed, yes, but I should've made that clear already) attempt to spit on everything Hyperion represented as a corporate environment.

If I'd had my way with it, honestly, I would've played a bit of a more emotional angle with the ideas Borderlands 3 lays out for you. I really love Katagawa Jr. for a lot of reasons, but one of them is the fact that he's a character that really echoes a lot of Rhys' own (past and present) character traits right back at him, and I think that should've been emphasized more. I wanted it to hurt more! Let Rhys look dead in the eyes someone who is, in many ways, eerily similar to himself- opportunistic power-grabbing and all- and realize that he's going to have to have him killed to protect what he's built for himself. I wanted him to realize that this was the only way things were ever going to turn out- because there's no happy ending when you go corporate in the Borderlands universe. It's going to be backstabbing, conflict with other manufacturers, and destruction all the way down.

Anyways I have a *lot* more to say than this (autism does that to a motherfucker)- but I see a lot of discourse? Discussion? Who knows- anyways. I see it a lot regarding Rhys, and I think my take is essentially, TLDR:

He doesn't need to be the pinnacle of evil, a new clone of Handsome Jack or someone stepping into his footsteps, just another heartless corporate fuck who underwent no character development whatsoever and is just as bad as Maliwan, or Tediore, or anyone else. He also shouldn't be reduced to "the good one". I know that Borderlands 3 itself is for the most part completely allergic to nuance, especially in character writing, but I think it's fascinating to play with the idea of a character who is trying to do their best to BE "the good one" and succeeding to some degree- while still failing to break the status quo in a way that matters. He also doesn't need to be entirely a goofy piece of shit that's obsessed with action figures, OR a conniving, snide asshole who's way too overconfident sometimes. He could've and should've been a bit of both, y'know?

Thanks for coming to my TED talk. If you read all this, you have my commendation.

[spaceyhibiscus]

if there was anyone i desperately needed to do the barbie meme with, it’s these two :^)

[incorrect-borderlands-quotes]

[after finding out Athena is taking a vacation]

Fiona: Does that mean I'm gonna be the team leader? Athena: No, Sasha will outrank you. You're right below Vaughn and just above Rhys. Sasha: You rank us? Fiona: And I'm below Vaughn? Vaughn: That's crazy, I'm the worst. Athena: It's that kind of self-awareness that keeps you a notch above Rhys and Fiona.

[phanztombzz]

When your crush is a Jack Stan 💔

[f0x-gl0ves]

I finally finished the gang as vault hunters drawing! gearbox stop being cowards and give this to us Xx

(edit: click image for better quality because Tumblr hates artists)

[elusivexx]

make them stop pleeeease

[echoeyez]

Would you still love me if I was a worm?

[timothylawrence]

Tales from the Borderlands (2014)

[arachegeek]

what is up tftbl fandom.

[lovelyandlonelydefined]

they gang gang

[cakerapop]

[vaulthunterlands]

Finished BL3...

Though there are MANY things I dislike about the story as a whole... I don't entirely hate the way they took it. I still think the Calypso twins and Typhon were wasted potential (things could have been a lot better written), and I also think that Ava was a victim of really poor writing as a whole (y'all know my opinions on that already), and my issues with Aurelia and Maya, but God damn did I like it more than I remembered.

Also the fucking ending credits got me. Tannis looking for Lilith (obvious hint to BL4 plot), Ava taking after Maya, Vaughn and Rhys, the CHILDREN OF THE FIREHAWK (hoping this doesn't become canon or anything I just think it's funny and a nice nod to the BL2 quest)

I have a lot of thoughts right now and not a whole lot of ways to coherently convey them.

Also thought the little bit of Tyreen's VA singing a jazz rendition of claptrap's "stealth time" dialogue was hilarious and adorable