Novalis - J1N-X13

Queer crafter from the PNW. Weird freak. Hound. 90s bitch. 18+ only

[lifeboundhound]

Fucking hell these new hounds will be like 2 years younger than me and be calling ME

"old gen" and "museum bait"

Like im sorry I'm not a freshy right out of re-education fitted with the latest augmented neural link. Fucking hounds telling ME how to track a target. Spoiled brats that never had to learn because their cushy handler equipped their mech with an auto targeting system.

Like bitch some of us had to learn to track an enemy's movements with our damn eyes.

[monarchpilotsmechs]

Reblogging a bunch of mechsplo posts, going to bed and waking up to find multiple HANDLER accounts following you is very exciting and nerve-wracking at the same time.

Like, I have clearly attracted the attention of my superiors and I'm mildly anxious and giddy as to what training/conditioning I am going to be subjected to.

[balljointed-succubus]

outfit that says "you can't tell me what to do" and body language that screams "god please Mistress tell me what to do"

[neocuntgirl]

mom yelling at us for playing too loud in the other room not knowing you were balls deep inside of me white knuckling my wrists after I lost in our little playfight just now

[codename-lyka]

Ugh, see, I really do love the mechslpo genre but I just can’t get into the idea of being fully broken- because all of my enjoyment comes from the attempts to break me.

I just live to be as insolent as possible towards a handler, repeatedly and constantly defying every order they give me and laughing as I get punished for it. I need someone to see the insanity in my eyes as I turn the tables on them, dare them to put a revolver to my head and watch the sparkle in my eyes as I hear it click through empty cylinders, because they wouldn’t waste such a promising hound, no matter how mouthy she is.

I want to piss handlers off with how insufferably aware I am in the face of orders, make them realize I only obey orders because it gives me a sick sense of joy to toy with them, make them think that they were the one to finally tame such a defiant pilot before I turn around and laugh maniacally as they press their boot against my ribcage for mouthing off.

Because I’m not here to be someone’s broken little pet, I’m here to be someone’s problem.

[magseidolia]

On WARHOUND, Loss of Autonomy, And The State Of All That Is

Some of us truly are burdened by our sentience.

It’s a thought that pervasively dwells within the core of many components of erotic horror, the idea that we’d be better off if we were removed from our higher faculties and responsibilities. The concept that one is, in fact, ruined by their ability for rational thinking, complex emotions, and free will as a whole is likely nightmarish to some, but for others, it provides a gateway to absolution and forgiveness. It’s a pathway to a dull, blissful existence, wherein you hand yourself over to a chosen Mother God, and worry not about if her intentions are best for you, simply that they are.

This conceit sits at the very heart of mechsploitation - the area where i’ve cut my teeth the most writing erotic horror. The Handler/hound dynamic is, at its core, a prime example of this loss of autonomy; after being subjected to ruinous, repetitive conditioning, a pilot eventually hands themselves over to a greater being as a tool for psychosexual warfare. It’s oftentimes harrowing, and involves the pilot’s greatest insecurities, fears, treasures, values, or all of the above being turned inward like a circle of spears before forcing them to give up most of the intangibles that matter to them, reducing them to a trained animal ready to snap and kill at a moment’s notice.

While many stories in the genre have explored this through many differential lenses, the two most popular Houndtype characters remain to be WARHOUND’s Sartha Thrace, and Leinth Aritimis. Both women embody different sides of the same coin; Sartha, a hero who crumpled under weight and pressure, while Leinth, who idolized her, was part of the so-called ‘problem’. Both women suffer tremendous psychological torture in the process of being made into Handler’s perfect pets, and both women eventually suffer entire personality collapses; remade into her ideal dogs.

We’re treated to their continued growth - as assets, and as animals - throughout the chapters following their respective debuts; in time, Leinth becomes a perpetual runner-up, while Sartha shifts from a deified icon to a collapsing mess.* There’s much to be considered about what remains of the fabric of the soul of these two characters; whether or not they can even be considered recoverable, or even human is entirely up for debate.

What is not, however, exists outside of the text; these two have provided a hell of a beacon for burgeoning members of the community to latch onto, idealize, and subsume in place of their own identities. You could drag a hand across Bluesky’s ocean floor and come up with a fistful of wriggling, blonde animals; each special in their own way, each bearing the same name. You’d find less Leinths, of course, as she’s always second best, but they exist too; in the shadows of their more prominent counterparts, perpetually rubbing themselves against whatever discount leathers they can find.

Nevertheless, it is the sheer existence of these template identities - and the vast number in which they have appeared - that has granted WARHOUND a reputation as a certified cognitohazard. As far as the eye can see, stories persist about women who’ve found their partners reading this wretched tome, and thought nothing of it, only to find their beloved entirely overwritten by Ancyor’s pilot; personality-cucked by some dumb blonde dog from fiction. Jokingly phrased cautionary tales abound, alongside other warnings about not feeding your wife to snakes, and minding your spending impulses when you cross through a certain borough of the United Kingdom.

Despite this, I’m not so sure cognitohazard is the right term.

While i’m not one to diminish the threat level of my dear sister (she’s plenty capable of girlruining en masse), I think there’s something else to the way that people have flocked to identifying as Sartha Thrace, to becoming her and embodying her. Sartha is, at her core, a victim of autonomy loss; in her weakest state at the end of RESCUE HOUND, we see her unable to discern thoughts posited by herself earlier in the conversation as her own, or thoughts that Handler fed to her. She is, in effect, a puppet for a better woman, a semi-sentient megaphone, a dog-shaped carrier pigeon. Her higher faculties are more or less eroded entirely, and even if we see her with a bit more cognizance later on, she craves the dull feeling of that utter annihilation in any moment of adversity or stress, as seen at the end of SHOWHOUND.

It was at this moment that I really saw the appeal of becoming Sartha Thrace; when pressure gets high and push comes to shove, you can beg to sink into the mud and become nothing again, dark and dead as the day you were born. It is, of course, likely far more complicated for most than just this reason; it likely intermingles with the burnout from trying your hardest endlessly, and the expectations thrust upon our collective whole to even receive a modicum of the respect that cisgender folks take for granted. To embody Sartha Thrace is to look at the body of one’s work and all of the laurels that should have come with it, and say, ‘enough.’

A blissful non-existence is better than trying (and failing) to earn the respect of those who will only ever see you as aberrant.

In a prior essay, I wrote at length on my thoughts about Leinth Aritimis, and why I (along with many others, I’d assume) take her as our patron saint; I won’t dredge those words back up here, but I will stand by them as they are. Leinth’s existence is, partially, about an inherent wrongness or misdeed, a cardinal sin in continuing the deification of a golden calf that wanted nothing but to be allowed to be average. Leinth is a bad dog, craven and guilty and, at times, violent; she needs absolution, which she is eventually given by Handler, even in the face of repeated, perceived failures. She is allowed to fail, allowed to underperform, allowed to suffer - no matter what she endures, her Mother God will tell her that it was worth it, that she is forgiven, that she can live unburdened by all that she’s done.

Wouldn’t that be nice; eternal forgiveness in exchange for the low price of a sapience that, more often than not, weighs us down?

In looking more thoroughly at mechsploitation as a whole, loss of autonomy is a common fate for a great many characters occupying various places on the power scales. For instance, WARHOUND’s own Kione Monax gives up her freedom as a mercenary - and is implied to have given up more in ARCHON - in exchange for a position of ‘superiority’ under the Handler-General. Steel Jaws Speak No Evil’s Handler Delta suffers a similar near-unmaking in the process of reaching her own apotheosis; multiple times, she’s left to dwell with Sigma’s hounds, and multiple times, she nearly falls to their level, while Hekate’s Call’s Elisabeth Crater is shown at a point to be little more than a vessel for beloved bad-girl Morian Kyrnn’s thoughts and desires. Even MYRMIDON - which strays a bit away from the traditional path of mechsploitation - sees its protagonist, Mel Heydari, eventually lose her last bits of humanity to the evil Lotus-beast in her mind.

Yet, these characters don’t evoke the same response; there aren’t a horde of Craters or Deltas or Heydaris banging on the bay door to lose their own identity in place of another. It’s certainly not for the quality of their writing, as the above works make up my personal formative foundation for writing mechsploitation as a whole; rather, I think it has to do with the way that these characters manifest within the literature, and the way the dregs of their autonomy retained as Handlers or superiors still allow them to play pretend. Alternatively, in Pilot One’s case, their loss is portrayed as so grave and so vile that it is somehow worse than keeping one’s cognizance.

There is, of course, a limit to it all; to be so blissfully unaware that you lose the ability to discern what real harm actually is, to be beaten so severely that the endings of your nerves cease their functioning, to stare into the eyes of the one who holds you and let her tell you that you’re okay before you even have to think about it.

In some of mechsploitation’s cruelest writings, these, too, are out of the realm of possibility.

Mechsploitation is a predominantly transfeminine community, with many stories carrying the lived experiences of those contained therein in some form or other. For me, even the darkest and most depraved pieces of mechsploitation fiction - from my own hand or the hands of others - have aligned with certain events from my past, or thoughts I’d been too afraid to vocalize up until the point that they were ripped from me through narrative. We see our suffering splayed out across pages and pages of erotic fiction, and in some cases, we see an end to that suffering close at hand.

It’s understandable to me that mechsploitation has gained popularity in a time when Christo-fascism is on the rise in a world superpower, and in a time where other world governments are aggressively cracking down on or attempting to criminalize the existence of transgender people at their core. Escapism comes in many forms, and in its recent increase in popularity, the creativity in the mechsploitation niche has blossomed right alongside it, with topics covering a wide variety of settings and scenery. It’s been said that the genre’s flexibility as a whole - in being a story loosely involving mechs, predominantly focused around erotic lesbian hypnokink - was one of its strongest suits, and I tend to agree.

Through its flexibility, people are provided various avenues of escape; through its flexibility, if one story and setting won’t work, another may. Readers may find themselves drawn to characters that more thoroughly resonate with the core of their souls, or lived experiences, and find a better avenue for escape through them, or a pathway to rest.

With life being as hard as it is, it’s no wonder that so many of us want to simply have the lights put out for good.

It’s one of the things that’s struck me as being missing from many of the critiques of mechsploitation as of late; that it’s an avenue to create a set-dressing around which to write petplay, or a way for transfeminine individuals to play out their desire for the acceptance of an abuser, or simply a gateway to more depraved kink scenes. In a way, I can see where these critiques are pulling these thoughts from, but think that they miss the larger point.

At its core, Mechsploitation is about handing over the keys to your autonomy to a Mother-God and hoping for the best.

That Mother God could be anything - a leather-clad Handler, an apparition of a demon-mech in a lake, a vast and boundless hyperintelligence - so long as it carves out the vestiges of what a would-be hound once called a soul, and replaces it with something wholly and entirely manufactured, purpose-built for endless obedience and the completion of orders conferred unto it. It still exists in a shithouse, awful, collapsing world wherein we see fascism enshrining itself at the top of the foodchain, but then again, so do we.

Therefore, if we have to share this world with the architects of our own destruction and breathe their air, we’d rather be utterly unaware of the whole of it.

To take a brief sidebar, prior to my current job I used to work in healthcare access for transgender and nonbinary individuals, working with students on an individual basis to try and navigate their insurance systems and seek approvals for medication, for primary care providers and endocrinologists, for surgeries and authorization letters and documents of support. This was a gigantic pain in the ass, and more often than not, companies would wait as long as they possibly could to deliver notices of denial, or to inform patients that they were missing documentation, and thus their surgeries would be postponed if they couldn’t afford to pay five-to-six figure costs in full on their own dime; surgeries with waitlists that spanned months to years.

More often than not, these meetings ended with students in tears as we tried, desperately, to bridge gaps wherever we could, and I had many difficult conversations around the reality of having to push a surgery off when a hail mary failed. At this time, the government was not actively seeking to harm transgender individuals seeking medical care in the way it is now, or criminalizing their existence to such a vast extent; in more than a few ways, doing that same work now feels like it’d be nearly impossible, and that was with a hefty bit of support behind it. To try and interface with those same systems in this day and age, alone, is nearly insurmountable.

Really, interacting with any system as a transgender woman feels nearly insurmountable, especially early on in one’s transition. Many individuals within Mechsploitation’s primary community spaces, like Bluesky, tend to trend younger as well. They find themselves facing a horrid wall of harmful legislation, hateful rhetoric, and legislative forces that seek to push them out of public life - or existence entirely - through whatever means are necessary.

To that end, I find it hard to criticize individuals who find some level of warmth or comfort in the identity of another, especially if that identity originated in a space where the very real concerns of our day and age are simply pushed out of focus in place of deeper, more prominent existential horrors. If a girl is to find comfort in the idea of being Sartha Thrace, even if she’s one among many, what harm is she truly causing? If someone’s to find enjoyment in kayfabing themselves into an eminent, domineering presence, so long as they’re playing safely, does allowing them to do so cause damage?

I’d argue that it doesn’t - and further, I’d argue that these works bear no inherent responsibility to be important, to have a call-to-action, to meet the moment. Writing can be a potent tool for enacting great, sweeping change, but it doesn’t always have to be; the point of the smut can just be that it’s smut, rather than having to carry some grand message along with it.

In this day and age, I’m not going to be one to flay someone for finding escapism through it, or enjoying porn for being porn, as it’s far better than the alternative of collapsing entirely on oneself in the overwhelming onslaught that we find ourselves buffeted by on a daily basis.

Instead, I acknowledge the material reality of our world, which sucks ass, and evoke the idea that we should find our escape while also working to better what we can in our lives. I can’t solve every issue that faces our community, or even my local community, but I can damn well try to make the lives of those around me better, even marginally. I fight like hell each morning to tell the people that I love that I love them, to make sure they know that I’m in their corner, and so long as I’m doing that, I can fuck off and play evil rabbit on the timeline forevermore.

I invite you to find what you fight for - however small - and take care of yourself outside of that, however that appears.

It’s the best thing we can do.

-

*maggie’s note: as HELLHOUND is not yet released for free, some of the information on standings of these characters may be outdated; you should seek out Callie’s work for the full truth :)

[lifeboundhound]

Started seeing a kink therapist to help me better understand just what my kinks mean for me and what their appeals are. An esay like this works as a great foundation for understanding what mechspo is and why it may appeal to people in similar positions as me. <3

[houndbait]

“I’m gonna take such good care of you…”

A woman in black shoves me against an alley wall, leather-gloved hand over my mouth. She’s bigger than me, simply keeping me there by the press of her body as her other hand gropes and toys with me.

“You’re gonna make such a good dog…”

As I feel a prick in my side, and the world starts fading. ‘I won’t make it to my next class’, is the last thing that goes through my mind as she pushes my stumbling body into her car.

Within the day my professors will know I volunteered for service. They will speak of my bravery.

[lifeboundhound]

Can a hound still exsist without their handler?

If a handler loses interest in harnessing a hounds feral urges, can the hound satiate them on their own.

Does ripping apart targets carry the same intoxicating punch to the gut if there's no voice to praise you for the carnage.

Must a hound find their own ways to feel a fraction of what their handler provides.

Will the pain feel as good if it comes from within.

Will the rage be satiated without someone to put them back on leash.

[mechsploitation-warrior]

Fresh batch of Liquid Starlight

[mechsploitation-warrior]

Feeling that my existence is unnecessary x_x

[divine-mutt]

Compliments to the Handler

Master Report List

TW: noncon, slapping, ass grabbing, choking, forced stripping

======================================== Hound lined up next to its battle-sisters on the hanger floor, beside where each of their mechs stood nearby in the respective hangers

Hound and its sisters were chatting amongst themselves, wondering why they were called when they succeeded with the missions with no causalities and even brought back two more future hounds

As loud clicking of footsteps echoed through the hanger, hound and its sisters quieted immediately, straightening their posture and saluting

Handler walks up the group, a wicked smile on their face, one they have when someone has to suffer...

The smile made the hound group uneasy, scared of whats to come

Handler gently quickly saluted the group before speaking in their soft and honey sweet tone "At ease! Now I would like to say congratulations on your latest sortie. Very fine work indeed, good job to each of you!"

They looked upon the group, seeing each one have a smile burning on their face, all except for one

Handler walks up to the one not smiling, to the hound not like the others

"You, my hound, why are you not smiling and enjoying the praise?"

It lowers its head, avoiding all eye contact, only to be met with a leather glove gripping its chin and forcing its head to stare right into the Handlers eyes

"Be-because um I didn't do anything really. They did all the work I just mopped up the dirty work..." Every word it spoke had less and less force behind it, ending with a meek quiet tone

Handler scans them for a minute, looking up and down the line of its battle-sisters before refocusing on their hound

"My dear hound, this mission would not have worked without you! You deserve the praise and rewards as much as they do!"

Hound tries to look away as best it can, shaking its head 'no'

Handler grabs its cheeks in one hand, squeezing hard to make the hound whimper in pain as it looks once again into Handlers eyes

"That wasn't a suggestion mutt. Let me make it more simple for you. I order you to accept all the praise and reply with a heartfelt 'thank you' from each one, got that?"

Hounds eyes go wide in fear, seeing no way out and hoping it will be all over soon

Handler squeezes their hand harder on its cheeks "I'll ask once again, do you copy mutt?"

Hound gently nods, holding its breath the entire time

"Speak!"

"Y-yes! Yes! I-I understand!"

Handler smirks hard, releasing their grip before leaning in, stopping only mere centimeters away from hounds face

"Good. Dog."

Hounds face immediately goes red, its breath is caught in its throat as it tries to force itself to speak. It quickly turns its head and clears it throat before looking right back at Handler

"Th-thank you Handler!"

A soft warm smile grows on Handlers face, giving a soft pat on the hounds head, then standing straight up and looking to the rest of the lineup

"Hounds, for doing such a good job today I encourage you to praise your sister-hound today. Make sure it learns how to take compliments well. Give as many as you, however you want. Got that?"

"Copy!" They all shout in unison

Hounds face goes pale as it feels the sadistic eyes of all its battle-sisters turn at once to it, it takes a deep breath hoping it won't be so bad

Handler smirks, taking a few steps back before giving one simple command:

"Begin."

Within seconds the lineup has surrounded hound on all sides and begin bombarding it with compliments. It struggles to comprehend whats happening before its brain catches up and it starts spewing out "thank you's" to each of them

It only takes a few short minutes before one of them grabs its ass and gives it a playful squeeze. Hound turns to the owner of the hand and stares blankly, trying to think of what to do. That was until it heard them chuckle, whipping its head around to look at Handler once more

"Oh I should mention." They gleefully calls out. "If the hound there doesn't respond correctly or in a timely manner you may punish it however you see fit."

There was a lot of emphasis on the word 'however' Too much emphasis...

The one grabbing its ass chuckles, causing hound to look at her

"I never got my thank you, mutt." She smiles hard.

Before it could speak she raises her other hand up, and grips hounds hair, forcing a yelp out of its throat. She yanks its head back and forces it to its knees on the floor

"Y'know I don't think I ever got a thank you as well!" Another chimes in before quickly slapping hound across the face. forcing a whimper to escapes its lips

Before hound could full recover from the daze of the slap, the area became bombarded with the rest of its battle-sisters saying they never got "thank you's" either

Hound felt a hand wrap around its throat and starting squeezing, causing hounds hands to fly up on instinct to stop it

As it tries to cry out a pair of fingers is shoved down its throat, causing tears to well up in its eyes and it clicks together what its night is gonna be like

Hands start grabbing, squeezing, clawing, jabbing, everything to hound. Hound could only take it all, trying its best to mutter out "thank you" over and over again but never getting more than two in a row before stopped by something or someone, leading down a spiral of punishment

Handler looking at the pile of hound and its battle-sisters slowly start stripping off its clothes and soon after, each other. Handler turns and begins walking out of the hanger. Satisfied with the results.

Hound could only whimper and whine as more and more punishment came barreling down upon it from some very good and pent up hounds

. . .

Handler returns to the hanger, many hours later with the sister-hounds as personal long gone

In the middle of the hanger floor was left a very well used and bruised hound. It was too exhausted and in too much pain to even move.

Handler gleefully walks up to the hound, leaning over and tauntingly speaks

"Learn your lesson hound?"

It takes a moment, trying to process the words spoken before very slowly and painfully nodding its head

"What are you?"

"A-a good dog..." It croaks out, feeling how dry its throat is

"A very good dog indeed"

"T-thank y-you Handler...." It mumbles out trying its best to be loud and not causing itself more pain

Handler gently kneels down, pressing a soft finger to its lips. Handler waits a moment before slowly snaking their arms under their hound and lifting it up bridal style

"Now let get you cleaned up my good hound'

Handler carefully and smoothly walks out of the hanger once more, carrying their lovely hound

Hound leans its very tired and sore head against Handlers chest, listening to their heartbeat and softly mumbling out a simple sentence on repeat, like its trying to never forget.

"Im a good dog. Im a good dog. Im a good dog..."

[quean-sized-bed]

the hardest part of my conditioning was stopping me from saying "handler i hardly know her"

[proletprincess]

forced intimacy is so cutesy. imagine laying on the couch together while watching a movie and stroking her hair, and the entire time shes cold with fear because you have an open blade pressed against her throat to make sure she doesnt go anywhere.

youre gonna cuddle me whether you like it or not.

[57checkeredcrows]

[princessdraconic]

Materially speaking, a perfect forgery is worth exactly as much as the genuine article. They're indistinguishable, so why should one be worth more or less than the other? I'll tell you. Out of the two, only the one you'll be able to experience has any value. You shouldn't care that it was fake, it must have felt really good in the moment. Did you like calling me mom, dear?

[cest-and-desist]

it *is* possible to knock up a tgirl. but it can only be done by her big sister who loves her very much

[cest-and-desist]

some theorize her mom is also capable of such a feat but more research is required

[pilot-5513-jester]

The mutt's a mediocre pilot, and that's being generous. But it isn't completely useless.

At least the stupid thing listens really well. Not just to its Handler. To everyone. Doesn't matter what we tell it to do. It just obeys with that dumbass smile on its face.

The best days are when it's strung up in the gym by the wrists. We all need a little stress relief, and that fucking mutt makes a great punching bag. It's all battered, bruised, and bloody by the end of the day. And it's still grinning like a fucking idiot.

Doesn't say a word while we're going at it. We can occasionally get a yelp or a whine out of it, but that's it.

Gotta admit, it's kinda cute when it thanks us for beating the hell out of it after we're done, though.

What a fucking idiot. At least it's still useful somehow.