Mechsploitation author by accident, folk music enjoyer by the grace of autism. I'm occasionally on here when I force myself to take a break from endless Bluesky posting. Read FLOWERBLOOM and PACKMATES :)
Captor making me look in the mirror at all of the scars and bruises she gave me >>>
Trying not to sob as I realize ill likely never fully recover from the damage she did while she coos, pulling my hair to force me to keep looking.
"Look at yourself, pretty thing, look at yourself and tell me you're not mine."
"Thaaaats it, cry for me. No one else can do this to you, no one else gets to see you like this."
She let's go and my sobbing intensifies as I shield my eyes, refusing to willingly look at myself in this state. I lose track of how long I was left there but it certainly wasn't much time at all, and because before I know it she's rubbing herself against me. I weakly attempted to protest this, only to be met with more cooing
"It's your fault for crying so pretty, how do you expect me to hold myself back when you whine like that?"
I need more encouragement to wear my Therian gear out in public, because online people will bully you to all hell, but in person people love it! Especially kids and parents, they think it’s so whimsical. You could lose your chance to exist freely at any time, be yourself while you still can
"During a new war between Heaven and Hell, a demon becomes conflicted when she learns the angel she's to break is her little sister."
A shard of the Heavens is brought down, yet Hell cannot rejoice. The divine light within it still blazes untainted. Kashran takes a last long draw of her cigarette, before flicking it over the obsidian railing into the chasm. It will be her job to extinguish it.
Something neuroscience-y that helps with prose: attention is selective. A character will not notice everything in a room. They will notice what matters to their goal, fear, desire, training, wound, or obsession. A jealous character notices hands. a hungry character notices food. A soldier notices exits. A lonely character notices pairs. Description becomes character when attention has a bias.
I feel the hunger clawing at my stomach. I know it shall weaken me in no time at all, and that my every endeavour shall become tenfold as difficult, should I not prepare a meal.
I am in the kitchen. I have torn myself from my tomes. It should be no choice at all.
And yet, I cannot.
Any victory over my obsessions is fleeting, and does not allow for me to take the actions I know I ought to take for the sake of my own well-being. I closed one book; despite myself, pried open the missives I know I ought not read, but quickly tore myself away.
The messages themselves are mostly perfectly harmless. Innocuous. Beneficial, even; reports of good tidings, of merriment and cheer, from those I hold dear.
…do they still hold me dear, even in my absence?
I shake my head. It has scarce been any time at all since I have last shown my face. Since I sent letters of my own.
And yet… the concept of time has grown elusive, recently. It is difficult for me to feel that what the clock says is true.
It has been no time at all, and yet it feels like an eternity.
I blink, and clear my head. There my thoughts went again, racing doubt and dancing with dread.
It’s not the contents of the messages. It’s… something with the parchment, perhaps, or the ink in which they are written. It gets to my head, makes me dizzy, and steals my resolve from me. It has no smell, and yet it fills my nostrils with the cloying stench of fear.
Gritting my teeth, I resist the urge to again peer into the lockbox in which I keep them.
I cannot open it, at least. A recent victory allowed me to slam the lock shut and fling the key into the welcoming embrace of the dungeon beneath my estate. Already, I feel it has done me good.
Even so, the lock provides a peephole. I can still look, if I truly desire. It’s not as convenient; requires stillness and focus, in a way that opening the box and rifling through its contents does not.
But in the state I am in, the missives do not need much to sink their poison into my mind.
I resent myself for my feelings towards them. They are simple harmless messages by those I care about. I desire to know they are well; to stay in touch.
So why does reading them hurt me so?
They are not always like this - not often, even. When my mind is clear, and the veils of madness draw back, they are a source of joy like no other. I have made many friends and esteemed acquaintances through my correspondence.
But to be loved is to be known, and I am so very scared of being known.
I know I shouldn’t be. I know the writhing mass of black sludge in my stomach is not who I am. That it is merely the fermented bile of my own mind’s making. That it is not how I am seen. That it is not how I should be seen.
And yet… when the sludge accumulates, displaces my stomach, shoves my intestines to the side, slaves my waking thoughts to the production of more of itself, it is difficult to not look into the mirror and see two wide, bloodshot eyes staring back amidst a sea of bile.
It’s the gaps in the correspondences, I think. What is not said, much moreso than what is. Changes in tone. A shifting of topics; what was once common now seeming taboo. A furtive letter, unanswered, sent after no degree of dithering, concerned it would simply be placed on a pile with its predecessors - a source of kindling given no further thought at best, an endless wellspring of irritation and annoyance at worst, driving those I seek to reconnect with further away by my very attempts to avoid such a fate.
We recognize ourselves through the other, so what does it mean when the other’s perception of you seems to have changed?
I pause. Unworthy thoughts. I should not cast aspersions on those I love and trust. They deserve better than that.
My eyes refocus on the document in front of me. I see that, somewhere in the process of writing, my quill has ceased to fly over the parchment. Instead, black sludge dribbles from my lips in thick, gunky, viscous strands, flowing and pooling onto the parchment, giving voice to words I know I should not write.
To speak them aloud is to give them power; to write them down accomplishes the same.
My hunger, at least, seems to have faded. I vaguely recall biting into a piece of fruit, when I was in the kitchen. I should have eaten more. Could not have. The sludge has filled my stomach, and food seems naught but off-putting. Not before the sludge has been expelled, even should my hands start to shake and my limbs grow powerless.
But to expel the sludge is to let it multiply. It ought be contained. Kept inside; processed and digested. To let it out, to share it with others, is to sink further in its drowning tendrils.
It is so very difficult.
It is unwise to let it out, but to keep it allows it to devour you whole. To share it with others only accelerates the process, when one is in the throes of the sludge.
Unless…
I look down at the parchment again. The ink has dried; the sludge has, too. It is difficult to tell where one starts and the other ends.
I do not recall when I set to the task of writing it; recall only a feverish need to, at some indeterminate point in the immediate past.
I feel… lighter. More at ease. The sludge has left my abdomen, mostly, and though my mind produces it still, that, too, seems to have slowed.
Perhaps, I muse, the sludge can be tricked. It can be trapped in ink. Given the form of art, and allow it to be processed in that way.
Perhaps I needn’t swallow it in silence, in the harrowing solitude of my study.
My jaw tightens. Doubts circle my mind; anxiety flutters in my chest. The sludge is not fully gone. I do not expect it to pass in its entirety, anytime soon.
But… it is lighter. Less present. Undeniably so.
Tears well up in my eyes.
The remnants of the disgusting black slime yet caked to the folds of my brain whisper to me that this is folly. That, even enmeshed in art, my words are an imposition on others, that they make demands I have no right to make. That my exposition of my doubts, my capture of the sludge, will be construed as casting blame on those I love for not giving me the attention I want. That they shall resent me for it - and rightly so, the bile whispers.
I shake my head, clearing my thoughts, if only for a brief moment.
Another victory, however fleeting.
It will last long enough.
Resolutely, I sign and seal the document, not waiting for the ink to dry. Rolled up, it will just about barely fit through the keyhole of my lockbox.
I know I shall not be able to resist a brief glance through, as I push it in. Know that the sludge will likely yet again find poison purchase in my soul.
I trust it shall not matter. That the creation of my newest artwork shall suffice to keep it at bay. That those I cherish shall know I mean no undue impositions on them, that the sludge is my burden, and shall not be made theirs. That help carry it must be given freely, or even politely requested, but shall never be demanded.
I trust in myself, and I trust in the ones I so dearly love.
Tbh I think the "but data centers are important infrastructure, not just AI" talking point misses that like
Ok so roads are important infrastructure. A lot of stuff that's important happens on roads. Now, let's imagine that quadrillionaire Matt Stench has decided that the next big tech innovation is the Wide Car. It's a car that takes up six lanes despite seating only one passenger.
The Wide Car is supposed to be the future, and everyone's going to be driving Wide Cars, even though nobody who makes Wide Cars is turning a profit. Employers are offering Wide Cars as an employee benefit, and getting "nah." Some employers are going as far as demanding their employees drive Wide Cars, and the result is that people take time out of their workdays to get in the mandatory gas usage for their Wide Car before driving home in a regular car.
In spite of the fact that the Wide Car is clearly set to fail, there's an enormous push to expand to twelve-lane roads to accommodate a bunch of Wide Cars that simply will not materialize. This is not an organic response to demand, but a speculative investment that amplifies the existing issues with road development for no good reason.
Oh and the road infrastructure project is buying up resources other people could have used for literally anything else. With money they promise they'll be making from Wide Car sales any day now.
Okay so what I'm getting from the notes is that when you try to transplant some techbro nonsense into an offline equivalent, you have to be careful to avoid simply inventing something the Americans are already doing in real life
I know victimbait angel is a popular trope, but whenever I post some dommey angel shit about wearing broken demon horns on a carabiner or something on Bluesky I swear a bunch of demon girls pop out of the woodwork going "Yes yes purify me mommy 🥵"
The idea of Mario and Peach having any kind of relationship beyond the occasional kiss on the nose and "mama mia" is like viscerally incomprehensible to me
Not like in a prude way I just can't conceive of Mario experiencing... urges. He's a character outside the scope of that. I'm not saying he's asexual either cause positioning him on the allo/ace spectrum implies that it's a dimension of his character that at least exists, that he has at some point noticed it. I think he just jumps.
#op interrogate yourself about why you think this right fucking now
So unlike Mario, who continues to be essentially a void with no internality, I actually act with thoughts and intent and already did do that when writing this post.
Mario is a mascot of one of the most sanitized corporate brands in existence. He differs from real, full-fledged ace people in that his sexlessness is not queer, not transgressive in any sense of the word, just a void left by his position as a player character. He has no queer identity because he has no identity beyond the fact that it's-a-him, Mario.
This should be obvious, of course. In the beginning, there was nothing, after all. But it's easy to miss. Easy to think angels were created at the beginning of time, along with the Earth and the heavens. Eternal custodians, supplicants, and messengers, always there.
But no.
Angels are always around, of course, but they didn't always exist. A subtle difference. Hard to understand, perhaps, if you're bound by linear perceptions of time.
The heavenly hosts labour under no such limits.
No, angels are not born, nor did they appear fully-formed at the dawn of time. Angels are made.
The wings are easy enough. Joy. Genuine, warm, kind-hearted, joy. Happiness lifts one's spirits, after all. It sets one's heart soaring, and lifts weights off one's soul. An angel's wings are fashioned from her joy in life. From every happy memory, every echoing, cherished laugh of a loved one, every moment that made her heart sing and let her giggle and roar with tears-down-her-face happiness.
Her gown, similarly, is simple. Crafted for her from every bit of warmth and protection she has ever felt. The arms of her parents, when she was gently rocked and put to bed in her cradle. The gentle, ginger touch of a lover, holding her hand for the first time. The arms of a friend she buried herself in when she was in distress, and needed comfort, and a shoulder to cry on. Every touch, every weight and warmth of gentle, kind protection, woven into her new robe, white as the clouds of heaven themselves. Those she cherish keep her safe, even now.
But her halo? Her halo is... tricky. Harder to understand.
It is the only piece of her new form she fashions herself, in the great forges of heaven. It is not so easily described, for it is deeply personal to each new angel, from the humblest virtue, to the loftiest seraph. What, then, makes an angel's halo?
Simple.
Her connection to humanity.
All the love she has ever felt.
All the goodness she has ever seen.
It need not be her own experiences; merely expressions of the kindness inherent in every living soul that have moved her, in some way. Into the crucible, she pours her every moment of deep connection. Her every ounce of love for total stranger, and every iota of love a stranger has ever shown her. It can be anything at all. The angel is trusted utterly in this process, and none has ever faltered. A time when a Phoenician merchant broke bread with her, when she was starving in the streets. The time she felt so very sad, and a stranger's music in a language she did not understand dried her tears. That one Tumblr post she read about the Carpathia, and its efforts to save who they could.
With each memory refined, forged, and refined again, her connection to humanity grows stronger. Her love does, too.
Eventually, when she has shared all of her love with the crucible, it is poured into the mould, and her halo of purest gold takes its shape. It needs not be quenched. It requires no further work.
It contains her love, and that is enough.
It is placed above her head, and it radiates with the warmth that she feels in her heart for every single living thing to have ever blessed this beautiful galaxy with its presence.
Melissa would have sorted Sartha's shit out in three hours and then beat herself up because she didn't also fix Leinth and Amynta in that time too
Christine merely being present at Leukon Base would have caused opsec to improve so dramatically that they'd not only have given Handler false info over the calls She placed to Ancyor but they'd have sent a Virus That Blows Up Your Computer to Her over the connection, killing Her instantly
Bethany would get really into petplay as a bit to get a rise out of the hounds (or, more accurately, Stef and the others trying to fix them, the hounds are very into it) and then have a Realisation that it's not actually a bit anymore
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.
At worst, of course, you look like you're acting in bad faith to gentrify a microgenre written by and for trans women about their specific experiences under contemporary fascism.
Angry Gamers (capitol G) will look at a new trailer, invent a way cooler and more epic version of it, and then think that cooler and more epic version is Bad, somehow
Man imagine a GTA where you play as a trans woman sex worker forced into increasingly dangerous situations, surviving and slowly thriving through crimes and heists of escalating stakes, slowly overcoming and eventually overthrowing those who wronged you in both the justice system and the criminal underworld
Maybe game studios should have one of these Gamers on their team to torture. The angrier this Gamer gets the further the rest of the team pushes. If this Gamer is violent with rage by the end of a brainstorming session it's considered successful.
