Verity, Hollow Doll

@verity-hollow · Verity, Hollow Doll No great deed is commemorated here. There was a person here once. may contain untagged 18+ and cw content

www.tumblr.com/verity-hollo...

New microfic! Title: Overvolted. Cw for robogore and being found by someone you ran away from.

Doll woke up today! Headmate has been very mentally dominant so it usually only gets a few hours late at night to itself if any. She's been speaking for this one when its opinions and words are more like feelings and thoughts in her mind.
Truthfully it fears reintegration. It likes existing.

Perhaps its sparkling prescience?

Hey, its nearly October, so its the perfect season

Doing rp with friends has probably been the best exercise for its writing in a while, despite the fact that it hasn't motivated this one to write any microfiction yet.

Two robot girls hold each other near a makeshift fire in an abandoned office building while another looks out of a hole blasted in the wall, standing watch with a rifle on her shoulder. Next to the girls sitting there are some backpacks and a medical kit containing an injector filled with glowing green liquid.

A moment's rest

Leave the trans server alone she has another 12 hour shift at the restaurant tonight

BigZFabric was the recommendation this one was given

fun fact: there's a little meter in my internal heads up display right next to HP and MANA that can only be refilled by having someone treat me like a dehumanized piece of meat for them to use and hurt.

This one is trying to learn to behave around people too. It never got taught the skills, just got yelled at or shunned for what it did wrong. So its getting help learning the skills it doesn't have, its keeping its object-ness as it performs personhood, and its forgiving itself for making mistakes.

This one has misinterpreted your meaning. You meant a subscription service to deliver adapters every month. This one thought you meant a single 3.5mm to 1/4" adapter that needs a subscription in order to use it

Just a little metal connector with a massive card reader bolted on the side. Guitar amp shutting off suddenly and thinking "oops forgot to feed the meter"

A witch waiting for his doll.

Some few years ago, it said that it would be back - but it didn't know when.

And the witch... He said okay.

He cast upon it a traveler's charm, one that would guard it from the worst of the ills of the road.

And it's been... Years since.

...

This one keeps being asked "what was empty spaces?" and it always replies the same way. "What do you mean? You're in the empty spaces right now, you've been here for years. Shhh, shhh, it's okay, I know it's confusing. This happens when your conditioning wears off. We'll fix you back up. Good doll."

This one has been obsessed with this style of things lately. Pastel rainbows and tile walls. A place you could swear you've been before but is gone now even if you remembered where. A sense of the presence of water and life but an unshakable artificiality too.

Magic, huh...

What about it?

It's just another skill isn't it?

Something... Surreal at first, when you barely know it.

But, once you get used to it... It becomes...

Less, doesn't it?

Magical once you begin.

But mundane as you get used to it.

...

"sometimes i wonder if i'll ever feel clean"

A lazy afternoon in Tagajō. A pair of hina dolls see to the latest round of anpan coming back from the oven.

"Isn't that hot?" asks the combat doll peering curiously from the table by the counter, metal travel mug in hand.

"Extremely," says the hina pulling the racks from the oven barehanded.

A human-sized ball jointed doll is in front of a dark background, sitting down and looking at the viewer. She has cream-colored skin and joints, long wavy grey-blue hair, and dead pink eyes. Next to her is an bottle of gold lacquer that has spilled some. Her right arm is cracked and repaired together, mending the cracks with the gold lacquer. The joints on this arm are a metallic color instead.

the healing process
digital art

How long will it draw its strength only from its brokenness? Is it so scared of what being fixed could mean that it would rather let itself fall apart completely?

If its afraid of the decision to change itself, it must not notice how time makes that decision on its behalf.

A doll that is broken.

But it's not bad to be broken! It says it is valuable and unique and strong. That its damage is what makes it what it is.

Its joints are crumbling further. Its limbs have gone from sluggish to barely moving. Its fingers are loose and can barely grip a tool or utensil.

River

A doll sits on a small bridge passing over a river. It kicks off its shoes and pulls off its socks, setting them neatly by its side. It dips its feet into the water and focuses on how it feels. The water is cool, swift, like a liquid breeze.

But in the meantime, it will run down the riverbank, leaving shallow footprints in the soil and sand as the breeze flips its hair in wild curls. While the prints will fade, they are still proof of its presence, that it is here, and alive. Even if it's not real.

The doll picks up its socks and shoes. With water covering both inside and outside of its legs from the ankles down, it will take some time to dry off.

A reminder that a doll is only an imitation of reality, not a part of it. It doesn't push on the world, bending reality to its desires. That is the realm of witches. It's a dolls duty to be that which bends instead. To slide through the world, only noticed when necessary.

After some time kicking its legs back and forth, it notices that its movements barely distrub the water. Letting itself come back to stillness, it can feel the water not flowing around it, but through it. Fast moving fluid entering joints and crevices, passing through the doll's hollow appendages.

River

A doll sits on a small bridge passing over a river. It kicks off its shoes and pulls off its socks, setting them neatly by its side. It dips its feet into the water and focuses on how it feels. The water is cool, swift, like a liquid breeze.

Getting back to crossposting its writing on bluesky, hopefully being a tad more active too

It demanded that you move, begged you to act.

Tick.

There was so much to do.

Tick.

A hundred tasks undone.

Tick.

All because of your inaction.

Tick. Tick. Tick.

Your gears are moving, so why aren't you?

As she tried to figure out how to place the zipper, you spotted a stain on the rug.

Tick.

You couldn't move. Your witch had ordered it and it would be so.

Tick.

But your core screamed all the same.

Tick.