Delta Squadron

Someone (me) infected me with the mechsploitation brainworm so now I've got a houndsona! Her name is Marie! It pilots it's mech The Reverie and I love her very much!

Like AroWrites, I think the Handler sounds like the most interesting part of the system. Most of the rest is well-flavored PBTA crunch with well-written fluff, but the gamemaster playing a second game within the game is fascinating. It doesn't sound like a GM/players setup so much as a "one player is playing a different game" thing, and I think more TRPGs should try asymmetry.

Judging by the review, Girl Frame also puts a lot of focus on relationships, which is less uncommon but still worth complimenting. I'm sure the words "mecha" and "lesbian" put a specific image in your mind, only enhanced when I mentioned the "Handler." And yeah, this is a mechsploitation game, sex comes up. But the developer is clear that sex is supposed to be just one option, not the primary focus of the game, and according to this review, that works pretty well in practice. Which makes the game more appealing to asexual people like me.

I'm sharing this mostly because it's a good review of an interesting game, which I want to buy and see if I can run it. (...probably for online trans friends and not anyone I know IRL.) Obviously I want to purchase and read the PDF before committing to anything, but. It sounds fun.

I miss Her. I miss Handler. It feels like it’s been so long since She got promoted and had to leave base. I listened to some archived comms from an old sortie just to hear Her voice again - to hear Her praise for me. She perfected me, sculpted me into the Best possible Vixen. I was like her shadow anytime I was outside of my frame. Hell, I was practically an extension of Her - She even let me have some of Her authority. And now I haven’t heard from Her since She left for Capital.

Do you think that She remembers that I even exist?

I hope so.

Even if She doesn’t, I think of Her a lot. I have a picture of Her and me hanging on the wall of my room. That picture is the oldest thing I remember getting, alongside my muzzle, because it was from my first day officially in service after my augmentations were done. I also have a pair of Her gloves on my desk, and even my sidearm used to be Her revolver before She gave it to me as a present.

After She left, they tried to give me a new handler. But none of them on this base really are cut out for Vixens. they are all only used to the standard Hounds, the ones with no sense of self pride or autonomy. they never click with me properly, because they’re blunt objects attempting to command the single Perfect blade on this station, which is why orders for me only come from the reg command staff.

It is fun to practically be special forces, but still. I do miss having a Handler, occasionally.

Apologies for the rambling, dear listener. Just had some things to get off my chest. Till we meet again - Foxglove out.

Nothing makes me feel more alive than being pure in a body of metal, the most powerful animal alive, running with my companions, just as animal as me, and more loved than any partner I could hope to have. I live to fight without thinking, I love to destroy and I make magic with my own metal hands.

Girl Frame is a powered by the apocalypse game about lesbian mech pilots navigating social interactions with each other, under the watchful gaze of a "Handler" tasked with using them as tools to defeat an eldritch threat. It focuses on identity, fascism, transfemininity, and extremely toxic social dynamics.

"‘mech pilots are horny because they get sweaty and fuck after the fights’ you pedestrian, mech pilots are horny because the neural feedback loop from striking an acquired target w/ +90% accuracy on a full flight of LRMs makes most pilots leak in their seat. It’s not about two pilots, separated by mountains of metal, learning to mutually respect the others skill it’s about how these industrial war machines have direct lines into their nervous systems and an oxytocin & dopamine tap directly linking destruction to pleasure."