~Dizzy~

I'm also cursed with the burden of being really good at my job.

The pager on my wrist sqwawks again like I'm not already in the room and approaching the gaggle of hapless techs.

"Oh thank God you're here," the shift head of engineering says. "She's been at-"

I shut them up with a raised hand and a grunt.

"I need an emergency blanket, a space heater compatible with the mech's cockpit interface, and one of the cushions from the couch in the breakroom."

Explanations:

1) beliefs:

I hate having to pretend that I changed my mind/still believe something another alter told someone when I never believed in it at all

2) goals:

We’ve got a lot of artists, but we also have a writer. Sometimes they want us to write 500 words or sth a day. I don’t want to. Stuff like that

3) skill:

This is self explanatory, but it’s hard to work on projects (e.g. a webcomic) when my art style changes— it makes keeping a consistent schedule impossible

honorable mention: relationships

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.

grabbable

I love my little access panels~

Hound: @foreststairspreservationsociety

today i also learned that my childhood cat, miso, has passed away.

cover art (left) by @strflr - miso, the cat (right)

—

i had released other albums before super pony world, but it's the one i consider to be my actual first real album, and everything before was just me practicing to get to this point.

super pony world was an album about escapism, feeling isolated and disconnected from the people around me—my friends, my family, my peers—and trying to invent a world where i felt like i belonged. it entails the story of vylet featherdance and their little hologram companion, rayna, adventuring together through that world.

miso was my companion through my childhood in daly city. no matter who i did or didn't get along with, i always came back to him and he came back to me.

i named him miso because he was like miso soup to me. i think he preferred me, as he spent the most time with me out of everyone in the house and when he was most leisurely he would find his way to my room. he had a tendency to understand our words to a degree, in nuanced ways. my favourite story is how i needed him out of my room so i could do some recording, and so i verbally said "miso can you leave please." i didn't make him do anything or carry him out; he understood what i was saying and he hopped off my bed and made this weird, almost sarcastic series of chirps and grumbles as he left my room, like he was pissed off at me about it.

it occurs to me a lot of people don't know about what happened in 2019 to me. it was a very big deal then, but isn't something i talk about very much. 7 years ago i came out to my family, and through a convoluted series of events, it led me to being kicked out and isolated from them. strangely, this was at the point when i was beginning to draft the sequel to super pony world, fairytails, and there's a deep irony about the themes of loneliness and familial disconnection coming into a cruel fruition.

i haven't seen miso since 2019. there have been opportunities to ask about him, but things had already been kept from me that i assumed maybe he had already gone at some point. but i found out today that he had only just gone.

i don't really know what he could've thought when i suddenly disappeared. i wonder if he missed me, or if he would have remembered me, in his old age, had i returned at the end.

both super pony world and miso were anchors at a time of my life where i was stuck and afraid of change. lots of things were changing around me, but not me. then change came for me, and i have been changing since. now the anchors i wish they had seen me through to this point of my life where i'm constantly shapeshifting. i just wonder about it.

well, miso has hijacked my anniversary for this album. it was never intended to be for him or to be an allegory for his constancy in my childhood. but it is to me now that he was always being that cornerstone, grounding me in a way whenever i felt far apart from everyone else.

this was the last photo i took of him, before i left.

i love you. i miss your whiskers because they were so long and reminded me of a fish. i miss how you would rub your face so hard against me that i could feel your teeth. i miss the way you would nest behind my desk and make it impossible for me to work because i was scared you were going to electrocute yourself on the wires. i miss you like i miss home, both one of one transient but perfect thread through my heart. i miss how you would let me faintly brush the very tips of your ears which would make you twitch them annoyingly at me because that was just me annoying you but it was also fair to get back at you for nesting behind my desk. when i met you and for as long as we lived together we were both indoors cats we didnt want to go outside we liked being inside. i wish you could see me now that im not like that. i like going to the sun and to the river and trees now miso im someone new but im still the same person who loved you and loved you. im sorry i didnt go home i couldnt go home but i wanted to see you again so much. i never forgot you i've thought about you so much when i had to go i love you. i hope you didnt think i wanted to be away from you because i would have taken you with me if i could have and maybe if i did you would've made sure i wasn't as messy an eater or as careless an organizer as i am now. maybe you changed just as much as i did, but it's hard to say; because even if you did, you would've been smug and hiding about it. i dont know where else to tell you this maybe you're an angel in my files and you can read every confession and memory like rayna. but i hope somehow you knew everything i'm saying without me having to say it anyway. i hope people remember you with me somehow.

happy anniversary to super pony world, an album which could have only ever existed as a conception of my childhood. it was because i wasn't good enough and i was too naive that i made that album, and i can never get back to that version of myself to create something like it again. you'll forever share this day with miso, and i think that's fitting.

“He just flies the bomber, he never sees their eyes when the hell comes down..”

For once, all the hardpoints of Foxglove’s mech would be occupied. Handler had made sure that she got her pick of additional weapons and equipment for the mech, which was a benefit she gladly took advantage of.

[Scouts estimate contact in three minutes. Be ready.]

Would come the voice of the squad’s leader to his subordinates - it was Lieutenant Grassley, yet another transfer from Outskirts Territories 14. He was one of the officers that 204 actually got along quite well with. He’s a sensible man, and a surprisingly competent officer.

[Sup fuckheads, time to have some fun! Mother Hen, Cassowary, we engage now!]

From behind some defensive barriers, emerged Hearthkeeper and Snapleg, belonging to Hen and Cassowary respectively.

Hearthkeeper immediately took to the skies, peeling out and coming back around for a strafe, as it showered the chassis below it in incendiary SMG rounds.

Snapleg on the other hand, took a different approach: charging full tilt into the scouts and putting it's leg through a medium-chassis in one kick; the digitigrade legs having been heavily focused on for power, while it's arms held a large combat shotgun.

The Lieutenant’s frame, Romulus, ran forwards to meet Snapleg, a plasma sabre and claw shield held in the hands of the assault frame. Another frame holding a rifle provided covering fire for Grassley to close the gasp, whether it was effective fire or not was up to debate.

A couple of the scout chassis would fire their light machine guns up towards Hearthkeeper, although one would quickly be knocked down by the strafing run. Not dead, yet, but with hampered mobility.

Although one scout mech, one with a pink piece of shoulder armour, would dart away from the combat, taking a line around the main fighting, before it would purge it’s weapons and begin running towards the direction of the rebel base.

[Please. I want to surrender-! I don’t want to fight, please!]

A soft voice would call over open comms, fear obvious in her tone as the scout sounded like she was on the edge of sobbing.

Foliage shimmered into view, the mimicry cloak switching from camouflage to 'shimmer', making it harder for sensors and visuals to confirm her exact form. Jaw drew her sidearm, a mech-sized 'hand' cannon, and closed the distance on the surrendering scout Hound.

Snapleg continued its assault on Romulus, mixing between devastating kicks, sweeps, punches, and the occasional shotgun blast, revealing that Cassowary loaded it with flechette rounds the size of the average human.

The slim reconnaissance frame would begin to power down, the light of its visor beginning to dim as the reactor spooled down. A few stray rifle shots would land around the two mechs, either from Doodle’s comrades who noticed the attempt at defection, or just unintentionally overspray from those fighting the two harpies.

Romulus, and the man piloting it, proved to be quite an incredibly duelist against Snapleg, at least as far as an unaugmented human could be. The brutal attacks were parried, blocked, and met with ripostes of a nearly Olympic level. Of course, that’s not to say he’s flawless. Some armour panels had some quite large gashes, and a forearm panel on the sabre-wielding arm had been dislodged entirely, and the armour of the shield had seen better days. However, the claw still functioned, and during one reciprocal attack, Grassley would move to grab one Snapleg’s namesake legs.

The scouts and a couple of the assault mechs continued to fire into the air as they attempted to get out of the way of the hellstorm raining down, men being baked alive in metal coffins if they couldn’t move in time. Unfortunately for the Imperials, it seems none of this squad were packing proper AA.

Cassowary quickly proved just how crazy she was, when, after getting her leg grabbed, proceeded to detach it and full tilt her boosters, slamming Snapleg's boosters to max and forcing him to the ground. Unsheathing the heat blades in her arms, Cassowary began to carve into the cockpit of the enemy chassis with ferocity. This was her blood to claim, her fights to sweep through.

Jaw holstered her pistol and set down her energy rifle, approaching closer to the mech.

[Dot, right? You've followed orders, exfil approved, exit your chassis, I can carry you back to base.]

Foliage held a hand to the de-powered chassis' cockpit, and placed the other on the mech's should for stability and reassurance.

A stream of cursing could be heard from Grassley over the imperial comms as his mech tumbled to the ground with Snapleg on top of it. The frame, bearing the crest of a noble Imperial family, would try it’s best to dislodge the Harpy from on top of it, but ultimately the mechanical body would go limp as it’s pilot was butchered in the cockpit.

Seeing this, and still being pelted by all matter of incendiary weapon from above, the squad would begin to fall back. Sporadic gunfire would still fly upwards towards Mother Hen, but the Imperials seemed more focus on saving their own skin. Unsurprisingly, a bunch of cowards, even despite one particularly brave Sergeant attempting to take over the lieutenant’s role as squad leader.

And, witnessing the unordered fleeing, Foxglove would simply sigh. Handler had been hoping for a bigger score from this plan, but this would have to do. To itself, the Vixen would murmur a quiet apology to its comrade, before flipping up the safety cap on the detonator one more time, before pressing the button atop with its thumb.

BOOM!!!

Allied pilots, who'd been sent to back up Jaw in retrieving Doodle, were blasted back from the massive shockwave, stunned.

Over open comms, a terrified voice stammered out.

[J-Jaw? Jaw, please respond. Fist, her vitals went out, w-where'd that explosion come from?! JAW PLEASE RESPOND!!!] the voice of lock screamed over comms.

The sound of the Lock's cries screeched into the comms of those receiving it, before a second voice spoke.

[All units, this is Handler Fist.]

[The Imperials have deployed suicide bombers under possibly false surrender, or worse, sabotaging their known defectors.]

[To all Imperial soldiers who expected mercy or surrender, that is no longer an option. Your commanders have sealed your fates, we will not be taking further chances. All rebel and mercenary units, shoot to kill, leave no survivors.]

[Gator Jaw has been killed while performing an act of mercy.]

[Henceforth, none shall be given.]

[To pilot designated Foxglove, I have only this to say:]

[When you are found, I will break you. Personally.]

A second voice speaks.

Stargazer would raise its rail rifle, the sight landing on Mother Hen’s frame. 204 was taking advantage of the shock and awe to attempt to if not kill, at least disable a second threat. The ammunition cylinder of the rifle would cycle twice as the railgun fired off two telephone pole-sized tungsten darts, the distinctive crack of the sonic booms being the only warning of the incoming shots.

Then suddenly, the stars wings would flare out, boosters howling their hellion song. Before the ball of fire crashed into the ground ahead of its kin, flames licked the sky around the reverse jointed relic. Her chassis glowing red in the moonlight, steaming hauntingly like the revenant she was.

[Goin somewhere hon?]

Her Rail rifle began to glow white with charge, lightning scorching any foliage that wasn't petrified on entry. Boosters begin to whine as they prepared for a swift neutralization.

[Winter.. I really wish we weren’t meeting in person for the first time like this.]

One of the subarms on the back of the back of Stargazer would swing the shield it was holding forward, as more of a precaution than anything else. A sigh could be heard over the comms as Foxglove studied its kin. It really didn’t want to fight her, but there weren’t many options to weigh.

[..Fuck it, alright.. I don’t see any way to get out of this alive and get back to Her, so.. I’ll drop my weapons, just keep that rifle off of me, pleased.]

[That's enough Cass, take her alive, use that gas I gave you. She's useful.] came the voice of Faust over comms.

Almost relucatantly, the head of the monster opened, as red gas poured from its maw. A heavy sleeping toxin, to neutralize threats.

“Interlink, stage one.”

204 had no idea if the message would reach Handler due to the damage to the mech, but it still broadcasted on Her special channel anyway.

Three words, three words were all that were said. And in the span of those three words, Lisitsa had her Claw in Foxgloves reactor. And a AT knife removing her spinal drive.

It wasn't flashy, or violent. The Vixen grabbed hold of the back of charging mech, slamming her into the earth. And within that motion. The hidden pilebunker in her right arm unlocked and armed, while her other hand drew her blade.. Clawed mechanical fingers dug into steel for stability, helped by the down force of a boosting mech being manhandled. While she plunged her AT knife into the hovering chassis's hip, firing of thermite into its inner servos and melting it's entirety. And once the Claw was armed, all that was heard was the sound of the spike penetrating Foxgloves chassis. No loud explosions, no drive charges firing off. Efficient and deceptive to a tee.