It's that time of month again where I'd like to highlight some of the interesting things that I have read this month. While I still want to focus on mechsplo as the main theme, there are going to be a bunch of other things from the wider ero-horror space here. Mostly that is just because less mechsplo managed to reach me this month. Maybe there has just been less or maybe I'm looking in the wrong places, but I did manage to find some stuff that I really liked. Some of that will be things you have definitely heard of and some of them maybe not!
And please feel free to pass along any recomendations you do have! I will try and read all the ones that I can! (Also a big thanks to Bloopy for pointing me in the direction of some of these)
by @punkitt-is-here (link)
Flowersteel was undoubtedly the most anticipated release this month. Being 8 months in the making it was perhaps the most anticipated release in the history of mechsplo as a whole. The first two parts have been put up and I think my top line thoughts on it are that I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes from here.
So far we have got the first 10 pages. My favourite is 1-3 page 1 which I think is just a really well composed page. The art style is great and I think it really deftly meshes together the two opposing styles of the mechs and their pilots. K28 in particular is drawn really expressively which is great given her reactions to Hana are non-verbal and are all communicated through facial expressions are panel composition.
There is a bit of an odd feeling about it all though, in that for the past several months we have been seeing concept images, descriptions of the characters and WIPs of the comic itself. And it isn't just the fact that I already know a lot more about the story than what we've been given in the first release but also that it feels like that very first drawing of the two of them communicated a huge amount in such a compact form. I will admit that my initial gut reaction was disappointment.
I quickly decided that this gut reaction is probably unfair though. Of course what we would see in the first release would not surpass 8 months of drawings and discussion. We've only seen the first 10 pages of something that Punkitt has mentioned as having planned schedule of fortnightly releases, there's more to come and I am excited to see it. I have to wonder if the read is different for someone who hasn't been following Punkitt on social media, who doesn't have that baggage of expectation that I brought to it. The art is great and I do recomend it.
Mecha combat sports is an idea that I really like. This is the first part in a planned series on that topic and I'm really excited to see what autumn brings to the table next.
The story opens in a mecha combat sports event set in the ruins of Mars. Our main character runs a beat up pile of scrap and was, herself, a resident of the ruined city that she is now fighting over. This is an idea that I really like: the place that you once called home that became a site of unimaginable violence is now turned in to an arena for a form of mediated violence to be marketed and sold. I think there is something in that which speaks to the soul of combat sports in general: a form of commercialised entertainment born from violence.
I did enjoy the fight scene and the whole story is well written. It's really readable and it left me wanting more. I'm excited to see what comes next in this series. I am quite excited to see a story which I imagine is going to focus on mech duels and I also think it's going to be cool to examine the way fighters in combat sports are exploited through the lens of mechsplo. I definitely recommend checking this out if any of that sounds interesting to you.
Now for something completely different! Something that is, in a lot of ways, completely different to anything else that I read this month. This story follows a researcher at a government facility that studies a group of non-human siren-like witches. These creatures have found a way to both look similar to humans and use their alien biology to seduce and devour them and they are being kept like animals in this place for research.
The thing that really made this story stand out to me is the perspective of the main character. Something clearly is happening to her (and I won't say what because it is something of a twist) that leads her into a world where she has trouble differentiating between dreams and waking time. Her reality starts collapsing and it is written in a way that I find really compelling. I love the way that the feeling of uncertainty and unreality is written.
The witches themselves as well as the general setting has a wonderfully creepy vibe to it. There is a wrongness that seeps through everything that happens in the story and kept me compelled to keep reading. I recommend this. it is great.
by @skellythehangarqueen (link)
So, Third Gen Blues, is a post-war story about hounds turned mercs. I have to admit, and those of you that have followed me for a while already know this, that this story is not he kind of mechsplo that I normally enjoy. The more positive, more hopeful, take on the kind of community that ex-hounds might find is just not my thing: it is pretty much antithetical to the things I enjoy in the genre. That said I found this quite an enjoyable read so far (and it is coming out at quite a pace).
While the prose itself didn't wow me in particular and sometimes the more fluffy aspects get a bit much for me, I kpet finding myself so compelled to keep reading all the same. The character are interesting and the dynamic of the found family on this ship is great. It oddly made me feel a strong sense of nostalgia for the era of the internet of 2009-2012. Perhaps that was just a more hopeful time in my conception of the world. I particularly liked the characters of the three main hounds, they're all drawing from different mechsplo archetypes and they all have something interesting that they are contributing to the story.
Don't get it confused that this is a nice story. No, there are some really horrible things that happen in it. The pain and the violence is there and I would contend that it is only made all the more potent by the contrast it has to the more compassionate moments. The stakes are high and the combat is brutal. Just because this is a hopeful story does not me that it doesn't have teeth.
Definitely if you're interested in more hopeful post-war mechsplo I would recommend checking it out.
Okay. So, you need to stop what you are doing (reading this post) and go right now and read this instead. You won't regret it. Any of you who read last month's wrap up post already know I'm just a total fangirl of Mel and she has once again created something unbelievably potent. It cuts through any pretention to the rawness of the way it is and the things that are. It's about vampires and it's about trans people and it is maybe the best thing you are going to read this month.
An Instrument of Divine Becoming
by @athingthatneeds (link)
Reading this felt like it was directly targeted at meâlike I was exactly the person who was meant to read this. Like the only thing that it could have done to be more Rosie was like include a piece of luxury glassware or a duck. We've got blood, we've got knives, we've got some religious imagery, some anxiety around perfection and imperfection, and most importantly a great and pointless violence made meaningful through ritual. It is everything I like.
Perhaps more importantly than the fact it is everything I like bundled together, it is also well written. The language is evocative and the specifics of the ritual are both bloody and beautiful. If you are into that kind of thing, that ritualised bloody violence, then this one is definitely recommended.
Here's some other things that while I don't have as much to say about I do want to point them out all the same.
Xenodeluge by @abysmaldyke
I did want to include this is the main list but aaa I didn't have time to finish reading the part that came out this month! Still really enjoyed what I read so far from the series and really recommend this if you're interested in something science-fiction flavoured.
Exposure Therapy by @malhound
I don't have too much to say about the chapter that released this monthâit is mostly set up for things that are to come in the storyâbut I did catch up on the previous couple of chapters in the process and I really enjoyed them. There is something delightfully violent here that appeals to the sheep-girl inside me.
Radical Transgression by @kallidora-rho
There was a feeling of emptiness when I finished this. Maybe it was because I had expected some violent catharsis, some victory for Exeter, something horrible and bloody and sublime. But that's not what we got. What we got was the quiet and inevitable continuation of the violence. In some sense there was no change. Left me feeling empty.
Storyteller by BloopyBloopz
I was really honoured to have been asked to beta read this story, first time anyone in this community asked me to do that. Felt good. The story is great too! A potent meditation on creativity and the other people within in. It is short enough that I feel I can easily say just stop reading this post and go read Storyteller instead. You'll be glad you did.
Note on future wrap ups: I found myself asking why I do these. Part of my initial inspiration back in April was to give people a chance to find and read the stories from the April mechsplo jam. Part of that came from my experience with the September one: a desire to have it that everyone's work got read and talked about by someone. Everyone whose work I have mentioned this month has more followers, more reach, a larger platform than me. I have no real voice in this community to raise up the works that I like. I am the smallest fish. I can't shine a light on anyone.
That doesn't actually conflict with one of my original goal though, does it? I want people to know that their works were read and that I loved them. It feels nice to see someone talk about something you created. I want to do that more, want to give that gift to more people.
Not sure what I'm going to do next month! There are at least two mechsplo writing jams currently ongoing in two different mechsplo writing discord servers. That's going to be too much for me to read everything I think. Maybe there could be some division of labour, multiple people splitting the pile. If anyone would be interested in collaborating on something like that then let me know.
Okay, little update first: I'm getting kicked out of the country. Going to be moving to the UK (likely Dundee or Glasgow). Things have been pretty bad but that doesn't mean that I haven't got some writing done!
I've been doing a little project with @archangel-roxy where we write a microfic on a theme every fortnight. Here's some links to those:
Assimilation
A Warning - Roxy's take on assimilation is a quiet and creepy horror story featuring a deadly cloud of spores
Christmas Lights - Mine is about a trans woman mech pilot who works hard to try and be accepted
Crown of Flowers
Transference - A story about an angel whose god has died and her search for some kind of new meaning
Insatiable - A mech pilot and her priestess head towards an apocalypse of their own making
I often find it really difficult to talk about the projects I'm working on. I have this voice in my head that tells me that nothing is real until it is finished and nobody want to hear about something that isn't real. While this has motivated me to make sure I finish projects in the past it has also meant that I really struggle to talk about what I am doing to other writers. In an effort to combat that instinct let me tell you about the two things I am working on.
I've been trying to challenge myself with something outside of my normal wheelhouse with a more traditional NTR and hypnosis kind of ero-horror story. It has an early modern historical setting that I have quite thoroughly researched and is going to be based around the dynamic between a master glassmaker and a non-guild lampworker and her wife. I think it might be really good but also, like I said, it is a bit of different thing to what I'm used to so I'm probably going to be getting a million people to beta read it as I try to determine if it is worth posting or not.
I am also working on Gasworks Girls the next part of Sursum Corda. This is probably still quite a while away from seeing the light of day. Because of that same insecurity about unfinished work I didn't post any of Burn With Me until it was completely done. While I don't want to do exactly that again I do want to have an initial draft of the whole thing before I start posting chapters. Gasworks Girls is going to be 8 chapters long with one bonus chapter just for the Mackenzie fans. Once I've got everything ready I plan to release chapters fortnightly. It is probably going to be late July or early August that this starts coming out but that will all depend on writing speed and how much I get distracted by other projects but I think it is going to be really good.
titsay
baratheonpilled
romaincrisis
izzy806
kianamaiart
theartofmadeline
