#vipersnestlore

[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]

⚪

⚪ - 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]

//It's not BL3!Meg if it isn't completely golden and tacky, so have this. Fancy new designer shells, large terrariums and now golden blocks to play with. Shiny shells or Davy-themed brooches? The answer is both.

[once-and-future-secretary]

Solitude, for the ask meme.

3 Things Muse Couldn’t Live Without

That's an interesting one, bc she moved on without a lot of stuff at various points in her life already: when she moved away from home, when she fled college, after Helios crashed, and when she came back. So it's more abstract things than singular material items:

- Wine, for Borderlands 3 Meg. She definitely has a somewhat unhealthy relationship with alcohol. She also starts smoking again, when she returns to Hyperion but she could probably quit again - but wine is her go to anti-trauma medication.

- Activity. She's really bad at doing nothing and always needs to be busy with something. During her time on Pandora, this became a real battle between depression and exhaustion keeping her in bed for days and the constant impulse to get something done. Part of this is due to Hyperion training - bc not being busy is always bad.

- Locks. When she was working for Jack and after he died, people would come after her to find out stuff about him and on Pandora, bandits would sometimes get into the fallen station and scavenge it for parts. And after she returns to Hyperion and first strikes a deal with Blake, he spies on her to get access to the data she has - and after she becomes CEO, a whole lot of people want her dead. Needless to say, that she easily feels unsafe and cant really relax without locked doors and a good security system.

[once-and-future-secretary]

So uh. I was in the mood to write more pre-Borderlands3 stuff.

There were languages of love and languages of hate. And then there were languages of corporate scheming. And Jeffrey Blake spoke Hyperion’s particular accent fluently. But just like his English, he spoke with that bit of a unique inflection that set him apart from the others.

Trailing around the guestroom while the guest in question was talking a shower translated to a firm reminder to the guest, that they had no right to privacy around here – and no safe place to hide. Keeping his back turned to the hallway leading to the guest bathroom translated to a display of confidence (“You cannot hurt me.”) as well as a mocking gesture of respect.

„I assume you didn’t find it?” She said, as a way of greeting while toweling her hair. For a while now, she had been tempted to ask him for an opportunity to have it cut, now that she had returned into the lap of civilisation, but she refused to ask him for anything. No need to make the complex tangle of leverages and gestures between them even more complicated - until the slips and knots of this powerplay might just slip from her hands and into his.

He turned around, barely shifting on his spot on the couch by the digital fireplace, a datapad lying in his lap. A set of charts and diagrams were visible on the screen. If he had only been pretending to read, Meg respected his eye for detail.

“You were not suggesting, Ms. Martinez, that I was…ransacking your rooms while you were in the bathroom. Right?”

“Of course not.”

He nodded thoughtfully. “I hope you are enjoying your stay here.”

“It’s…a lot nicer than a collapsing wreckage. I assure you.”

“You know, Ms. Martinez, Hyperion is a…big corporation and you are getting very far ahead of yoursekf if you think people who you are. If you gave me the data you found, I could easily make sure that no one ever found you. I’m sure I can arrange a position suitable to your…’talents’. There always people who drink coffee and need their shoes shined.”

“I didn’t…didn’t shine his shoes,” She interrupted – and suppressed a wince at the old, familiar urgency that had entered her voice. “That’s not what I did.”

“Yes, of course. I’m sure you were… irreplaceable in your services to the company,” Blake remarked drily.

“Truth is, if someone finds out what I used to do and what I know, they would do anything to mine me for information on Jack’s secrets. And then they'd kill me - and move on to greatly inconvenience you. And if I left to work for some other company, Hyperion would have me dead before I reach the job interview. The only smart choice you have is taking me up my offer: Set me up. Twelve – no! – fifteen million dollars. New identity. A nice property on one of the inner planets. Then scratch me out of the address books or....whatever. I want nothing to do with this company anymore.”

She would keep this dressing gown, too, she decided. It was soft.

He raised an eyebrow at her. One of the few changes in his facial expression he ever seemed to permit himself, for long as she had known him. “I could have you murdered right now, Ms. Martinez. Nothing personal. I'd have this…guest room searched thoroughly, until I find that chip and all the data on it would be mine. Although I’m sure you hid in the bathroom.”

“But you are not going to take that risk. I know you have been testing me. You know the kind of technology – the kind of information – I can give you. And you’re not going to risk not finding it. Not over as little as fifteen million dollars and a comfy beach house. You’re too smart for that.”

The perpetual contempt in his eyes focused on her. His way of letting her know that such mundane strategies of manipulation as flattery were lost on him.

“What if I made you a … different kind of offer, Ms. Martinez?”

[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.