The Girl Who Has To Lie

I have said versions of all this before, but not On Tumblr; which is a problem inasmuch as this is a complaint about the parochial insularity of the Tumblr mechsploitation scene. So, futile as it may be, here it is, theoretically visible at the source of the issue: the terrible shortcoming I see in the Tumblr mechploitation scene is that, for the most part, actually writing, reading, or engaging with mechsploitation only happens in other places — what happens on Tumblr is "jacking off about puppygirls."

Everyone's allowed to jack off about puppygirls, of course, should they so wish, but this shouldn't be mistaken for things it isn't, such as e.g. "reading things" or "understanding a genre" or "knowing what the fuck you're talking about."

Mechsploitation is often mistaken for a subgenre of science fiction, from which Tumblr "fans" often talk about sanitising the horrifying elements. This is a fundamental media literacy error: mechsploitation is a subgenre of horror. You cannot sanitise the horror out of horror; furthermore, the horror in mechsploitation is explicitly fascism. The horror is the horror of fascism breaking its sincere opponents — if not into genuine agreement, then at least into a drugs-and-torture-obtained simulacrum of enthusiastic participation in fascist violence.

Whenever someone says "haha what if mechsplo but nicies to puppy :)" they are saying: it's icky that this horror genre is horror. The breaking people, the bad ends, the intentional feelbad, any of the kinks too edgy for Me Specifically — all that can go, superfluous. Let's take out the horror and breaking and drugs-and-torture and simulacrum and just have the enthusiastic participation, because that's nicies! Puppygirl's nice white affluent middle-class ass Simply signed up to kill the subaltern rebels in the imperial military when a recruiter came round to her school. Uncle Sam says: Off the leash, uwu-rah! :)

And if that criticism is too pointed for your taste, consider: mechsploitation without the things that make it mechsploitation probably isn't "reverse mechsplo" or "mechsplo but". It's probably just "milSF with mechs in," something that substantially pre-dates mechsploitation and has estabished genre language for talking about it. Neither it nor mechsplo is served by trying to define the negative space of Everything That's Not Mechsploitation in terms of mechsploitation; the attempt makes you look, at best, like you should Read Another Fucking Book.

The grip feels so good. They don't understand, it has always been...serviceable. They have learned to be sure of its weight and trust in the ways in which it rubs against their hand in awkward ways, learning to factor in the looseness of the too-thin handle. They know it isn't changing, they have measured. It remains regulation length.

The handle isn't too thin anymore. Swing after swing, the handle does not knock against the bone of their palm like it always has. It stays flush with the soft part of their palm. Even pressure. They feel the tip flicker as they swing, their wrist adding a whistling speed to the finest point of the blade. It's faster. They have to put it back in the sheath. What if someone sees.

They cannot help but shake as they lift it. The leather is dark, completely black until it catches the light and the warmth comes through, a hint of red, maybe brown, perhaps purple. Impossible to tell. Warm. Soft.

God, so soft. There must be a hardened leather core beneath the surface, it has the rigidity required by a scabbard, but when they life it with their hands it feels like nothing so much as the soft expanse of a lovers arm held gently, reverently, hopefully.

They shake their head. What are they thinking? This is absurd. They huff, breathing through the rising heat within them as they line the shining tip up with the entrance. God the leather is so thick in the interior. They've seen fancy scabbards before, nobles and dignitaries love to draw steel at the slightest provocation, they've been forced to be a glorified porter transporting more than one ancestral blade to the staff for maintenance and storage. Most of the good ones are lined with soft fur, something gentle that keeps the blade still and safe without allowing it to scrape or chip on anything hard. They've never seen one like this, the plush leather interior, the single, dark slit beckoning against their silver tip. Why are they shivering, this is ridiculous.

The tip slides in like nothing and in a huff, they hilt the blade in one smooth motion, and are desperately, terrifyingly grateful that the only things around to hear the noise they make are the horses.