#secretarylore

[once-and-future-secretary]

//For no other reason than me being extremely weird: I did boards for "Davy living with Meg through the years" and yeah, the first one is the playpen she got him, a range of shells for enrichment, some toys for small pets as well as cubes he can carry and stack as well as paper he can shred.

[once-and-future-secretary]

//I made these a while back partly for the moodboard thing but also because I a) am...absolutely cursed-by-the-gods level bad at drawing but b) have very specific ideas about what Meg looks like and couldn’t find a face-claim that makes me happy - not to mention that a irl live action face claim would have bothered me in the context of Borderlands’ very specific art-style (still bothers me about these ones tbh)

I kinda didn’t want to post them because it irked me to rely on another game’s character generator for design like that and also because I fucked up with the continuity when I made these (these are in chronological order but I made them the other way around. And because of that I fucked up with the scars she got during her time on Pandora. But ... tbh, this is Borderlands and pretty much everyone has some injury. So there is no reason why she couldn’t have had some scars and could have gotten them removed when she became rich.)

And, btw, her freckles are always there, the face is always the same and only the make-up is different. She covers them up. I know it’s a bit of a cliché for a morally ambiguous female character, but considering that she’s really always working to uphold a persona, I really liked going through very specific styles for her that she went through, even to the point of changing her eye-colour

[once-and-future-secretary]

👋 -King

@askthehyperionintern​

Send 👋 for three things that describe our muses relationship

Oh, that would be super interesting!.

- I feel like King’s whole vendetta against the company as a whole and Meg’s scheming against higher-ups who wrong her or are rude to her would really work well together. She’d definitely give them any intel that could a) not be traced back to her and b) would hurt someone who pissed her off. (on the other hand, never count on her to put herself at risk)

- Venting. I could see that too, especially after Jack’s death. Meg is a very contained person and veils her criticisms (if she expresses them at all), but she has a lot to get off her chest + would enjoy being around someone and listening to someone who does the venting for her because she never would. In a very “You can’t say that!!! -- but also it’s true.”-kind of way. (The other side of that medal is that I feel like sometimes they would communicate past each other. I feel like both King and Meg keep a large part of themselves concealed from the world but they go about this in very different ways. King is a lot more cynical and sarcastic even towards their friends than Meg who hides her emotions under a veneer of fake friendliness and politeness and supportiveness. So sometimes, she would probably be bothered by the way King acts and their bluntness but also not actually address it or try to work that out but just ghost them for a while and then pretend nothing happened.)

- Solidarity. I feel like at least Meg would feel some solidarity with King. I’m not sure how they would feel about that considering that she’s still doing far better than they do and she has a regular salary (that doesn’t compare to the really big cats but isn’t that bad either), she has a place to sleep, can afford meals and stuff. But for Meg, she’d definitely feel some sort of solidarity and responsibility for someone who’s also in the doormat-chapter of the Hyperion food chain.

[once-and-future-secretary]

⚪

⚪ - what are small things that mean something to your muse?

For BL2-Meg, small gestures go a long way, saying "please" and "thank you", just generally being polite and appreciating when she does something for someone.

After the events of Tales, she would spend a lot of time going around the abandoned quarters on Helios, looking through people's stuff - and often finding things like heirlooms or small toys or other very "human" things that she got very emotional about because in a way, that was the closest thing to human contact for years. Some items she would actually keep around her or carry around and sometimes talk to. However, if she found something that belonged to one of the dead bodies inside the station, she wouldn't keep it. After all, they still belonged to someone who was with her and she felt a lot closer with the dead than the living in those days.

As CEO of Hyperion, I don't think "small" things really do it for her anymore. She loves jewellery and new tech, but she doesn't really cherish specific items a lot. She just wants to surround herself with beautiful things after being stuck in a wreckage for so long. Also, she has become way too cynical about people to care about being acknowledged, because she knows that people are only polite to her because they have to now. She does, however, still have a fondness for turtles, especially small ones.

[once-and-future-secretary]

//the more I think about it, Meg at no stage really has a healthy relationship with helping other people.

Like, early Meg, in the Borderlands 2 timeline, will put literally anyone else first because she craves the appreciation and approval of others, especially of people higher up the Hyperion ladder because (that is the kind of elitist thinking she was raised with). She really wants to be perceived as this helpful, generous, humble person, but Hyperion is mostly ‘she’s an assistant, that’s her job’...so she doesn’t get that recognition and if she doesn’t. she will immediately resent that person and scheme against them. Which, in a way, is fair, I guess but also doesn’t really foster healthy expectations or a healthy sense of self-worth.

And later she’s...very much the same in the sense that she still wants to perceived as a generous, helpful person but she’s also so used that people won’t give anything of value back that she only does it to look good - and wouldn’t do anything that really inconveniences her or would really expect herself to put someone else first, like she used to.

[once-and-future-secretary]

11 & 12

How selfish are you?

"I...I don't think I'm selfish? I mean, that sounds vain, but I help a lot of people whenever I can. I'm...well, I'm not perfect, but not selfish."

(She's pretty selfish, actually. In a sense, anyway. She helps people but she mostly does it for her own convenience and she doesn't really put herself at risk for others. B2-Meg is somewhat more authentic and caring and will, for example, try to re-direct Jack's wrath against someone she likes or try to do some damage control when she knows it won't be dangerous to her, but B3-Meg is very detached from humanity. At that point, she elevated it to a philosophy. She never really forgave the people who turned her back on her after she started working for Jack and she learnt a lot about what happens among the higher-ups at Hyperion and other companies. At that point, her insecurities and her disillusion really started to merge. She's convinced that if no one puts her first, she has to be the one to do just that.)

How would you describe your personality? "Wow that's...a tough question. 'Describe your personality', I mean who can do that? I guess I'm not the most extroverted person. But I'm a good problem solver. I can make things work and I know how to make do with what I have. I'm resilient, I'm patient - I can control myself. I just don't get why some people cannot sit down and keep their mouth shut when they know speaking up will get them in trouble."

(This is mostly true. She really is very good at grasping problems and solving them, even if she's not an expert on a subject. She can figure out how to work with the ressources she has or how to precure items in unconventional ways. I'd add that she holds on to grudges for a very long time and that she hates being disrespected or talked over. She is very good at hiding that though and will pretend not to mind until the moment she can get back at the person who wronged her. On the other hand, she really craves appreciation and worries about not being taking seriously. She has a hard time letting others close and trusting them, partly because she thinks they're looking down at her. She's not very spontaneous and hates having things sprung on her. She also has a hard time opening up. She's very earnest about her responsibilities.)

[once-and-future-secretary]

I just found my old "basic survival tips for my successor in case I get killed"-letter again.

Good times.

[once-and-future-secretary]

I spent some thought on what weapon Meg would have used at different points in time. 

I generally don’t think she’s particularly good in a fight and back in the Secretary days on Helios, the one person most likely to kill her - well, she knows she can’t really kill him, so it’s more of an obligatory ‘I have a gun too’ gesture for the board-meetings. I really put her down for a Vladof barrel because again, she’s not really an experienced fighter and getting as many bullets into someone as quickly as possible is her best shot. Pun intended.

The Face Time looted from the wreckage of Helios after the event of Tales to get by on Pandora. Not really her thing but she figured it out.

And then the Expeditious for the Borderlands 3 timeline, now that she has the money for it (maybe with a few extra touches. Hyperion is no longer making pistols in Borderlands 3 but she could probably get one brought up to the new standards with a shield and all.)

I imagine she would like ice-weapons because they’re not as messy as other elemental weapons and since she’s definitely not going to have a trapdoor in her office, someone is going to have to clean that up if she has to kill someone. Plus, they slow people down.