I'm actually going to amend my response to that ask earlier, because talking with the couple other black people in this space reminded me of some things.
Namely that *literally every staple trope* within mechsploitation - the medical experimentation, the enslavement, the mental conditioning, the sexual abuse, even the goddamn muzzles - every single one of them is something that actually happened to us in our real life history here in the US. You name it, we lived it. And WOW, that is something to reconcile with a desire to participate in the space and make stuff. Knowing that the toys the people here play with are far more dangerous to you than them, that they are Real and carry weight and meaning beyond the level of aesthetic. There is potential there, yes, but there is also great and terrible risk. It practically mandates that the genre be approached differently.
So, my amendment is this; while it's easier on a textual level to make mechsploitation stuff compared to older Empty Spaces archetypes, it's MUCH harder to engage with it as a black person, because it lacks the flexibility of interpretation that the ES archetypes did. For ES, the issue is barrier to entry, for mechsplo, the issue is the imagery, symbolism, and tropes used themselves, and that's a much higher bar to clear. So each has its own pros and cons.
It also completely explains why I have yet to see a single black Hound in any of these stories, because I can sense most writers, who are largely white (as was the case in ES too) understand this on some level.
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
A dog continues to follow orders long after her Master is in the ground.
My first mechsploitation piece, and also technically the first HYPERSIGIL story I've put out.
Heavily revised piece from Empty October 2022, published for the mechsplomicrojam25 over on bluesky! The 1000 word count limit beat my ass.
Many thanks to @ars--synthetica for beta reading, and @maybeelse for the Empty October event I originally wrote this for, without which this wouldn't exist at all!
i don't think i can get too in-depth, considering i'm nonblack, but given how political mechsploitation is as a genre, i think it has some serious potential to explore black oppression under fascism through some really powerful metaphors
Dope, first ask of the new blog.
I agree, and I think/hope that the specificity of mechsploitation opens it up to more black creators than the older Empty Spaces archetypes did. And I think it might be, because I've already seen more black mechsplo creators in the last month than I saw in 2 years of ES! Promising stuff.
I talk about this more on my bluesky (where there are more authors active and people actually know I exist as opposed to here), but this genre is much easier to parse imo. The intertextuality is, to be quite honest, much less of an issue here because of how focused mechsploitation is on (anti)fascism, systems of control and abuse, obsession with power and domination, human experimentation and brainwashing, giant fucking robots, and kink in general.
The story I'm writing, HYPERSIGIL (which is technically both a rewrite and expansion of stuff I was writing back in 2022 adjacent to Empty Spaces) directly plays with and explores those themes with the added disruptive element of blackness brought to the forefront. I joked today about brushing up on my Fanon so I could figure out which quotes to shove in my chapter intros. The potential is RIPE and I have my fingers crossed there will be a lot more of us exploring it in the near future.
A witch who does not yet know she is, who has no idea how resourceful, cunning, and thoroughly cruel she can really be, until her other half is brutally taken from her by those who call themselves enforcers of peace and justice.
There was no hatred in their eyes when they tore Mona's wife to bits, only glee at exercising their uncontested power. They believed they were righteous, justified. That they were the arbiters of life and death, and to question their authority was a crime unto itself. Worse yet, in a stunningly impressive avoidance of accountability, these "heroes" would twist the tale of this murder into one that served their own ends, stripping the deceased of all dignity as though her death was preordained. Who would the public believe, after all?
In her grief and anger, the widow thinks of old friends, ones she made as a teenager to rebel against her parents. They'd lost contact over the years, but just when the familial platitudes and social pressure to
step up become too much to bear, they reach out to her first."We've seen the news. We're so sorry for your loss. I know it's not much, but…" They've brought so many things. A beautiful arrangement of
chrysanthemums and black orchids. A bag of home baked cookies. A picture of her and her wife from their wedding, lovingly framed.
Among these gifts, there is also a small book, bound in black leather, cool to the touch. She has trouble remembering it, but its presence scratches at her mind, begging for her to recall. She struggles through conversations and before she knows it, is alone again. It's as though everything around her had disappeared. Rushing, she picks up the book and rifles through the pages to consume its contents,
before quickly realizing this was a book she and her friends wrote when they were teenagers.
"The Soul Travel Green Book".
The inner cover of the book contained a forward written by a friend, Anise.
"This tome is dedicated to all our lost souls taken before their time, by neglect, abuse, violence, and disaster. May these rituals guide you home anew and bring you peace and closure."
They'd been sitting at the lunch table. This forward must have been written and revised dozens of times. Anise finally had enough and threw this together in 5 minutes, to the satisfaction of no one, but
they stuck with it anyway because they needed to keep it moving. It took Mona a second or two to realize that Anise hadn't come with the others, and she couldn't remember enough of their conversations to recall whether she was brought up. Nevertheless, she continued to flip through, reminiscing of better days. Before long, however, Mona noticed that there had been changes made to the book. Footnotes. New, redder ink. Signs of old pages being written over, erased, or taken out entirely. And the new version of the book was… uncomfortably thorough in its ritual descriptions. At the end of the book, a note quietly falls out into her hands, one she curiously opens.
"We kept this book and made some adjustments over the years. I think you'll love the results, Mona. Just remember to follow the instructions exactly!" Her heart beats.
Mona wakes up the next day well past noon, unable to remember when she went to bed. A sudden, violent knocking at her front door rips her from her sleepy stupor, and she rushes to get dressed before
looking through the peephole and loudly groaning.
"Rent's late, Mona."
"I know, I know. I'm working on it, sir." He sighs and folds his arms.
"I know it's only been a week. I feel like an asshole even coming to your door like this." She resists the urge to scoff, pushing her disgust deep below the surface.
"I know you've got a kid on the way, Charles. Money's tight for everybody right now…please, just give me some time."
"Time, heh…" He unfolds his arms and looks away, contemplating in uncomfortable silence, before his voice goes cold. "A week. That's all I can give you."
A week. She tossed the weight of that time around in her head as she politely said her goodbyes and closed the door. She saw his demeanor shift before he said that. He'd put her out on the streets right now, or worse if it were up to him, but he'd never hear the end of it. She's too tired to cry. Everything feels so overwhelming, grief and pain wrapping itself around her neck like a noose, ready to snap tight at the slightest touch. So she reads the book again.
It's strange. Half the writing is new, but it still feels comforting.
Mona turns to a chapter that's been earmarked for her, "To Raise The Dead". She reads it front to back, devouring its contents. Specific ingredients and catalysts are listed, many of which she could buy
online and have delivered. A week. She could get a lot done in a week.
As she hops onto the computer and logs into her wife's old account, she loses herself briefly in the profile picture. She had such a radiant smile. How dare those pig bastards-
"Stay focused, Mona. I know it's difficult sometimes, but you got this, babe."
A rush of dopamine from her wife's voice runs through her body like cold, refreshing water, resounding in her mind as clear as day. Like she was never killed. Mona focuses on the task at hand, and everything is ordered for express delivery. 3 days quickly go by.
When all the ingredients arrive, she takes stock before getting to work. Summoning circles, spirit rods to attract her soul, items of affection, a cracked mask, and her own blood, freshly drawn. These are all preliminary. The real work begins after midnight. A figure sneaks into a graveyard, shovel in hand. The gravekeeper left her to her business, even kept watch. He'd seen the news too. It doesn't take much digging to hit the coffin. Her mouth runs dry as the voice in her head grows.
"Bring me home, my love."
Another day passes. Tamara is home. The embalming hasn't worn off yet, but in this heat, it won't be long before the stench of dead flesh begins to cover, and escape, the house. Mona keeps at it, doing her
best to continue the work despite her brain's screams.
"You always worked yourself to the bone for everybody but yourself, bumblebee. Take your meds and eat, please." Mona looks up from her circle drawing and sees her in the darkest corner of the room, a faint look of concern haunting her beautiful features. She "knows" it's not her. It can't be. Tamara's body is beneath her hands, being prepped with soot and chalk, blood and ink, marked with odd lines on
her legs and arms. But it matters not. It's what she would have wanted. So she takes care of herself. Moths gather around her windowsill as the smell leaks through the walls. She takes care to spray deodorizer around the entrance to the basement, but it's little help at this point. She lays Tamara's body bare across the center of the damp floor.
One step remains.
"Wow, I wasn't expecting a feast, but this is delicious. Thanks for inviting us over!"
Mona washes her hands in the kitchen sink. Her brain races. "Am I really going to do this? I haven't hurt anyone yet. There's still time to stop." It takes only a glance and a whisper from the corner to bring
her back. Focus. It must be done. The comments made by her guests after drinks - about her finally being able to "find a man" now that she's single again, how she's surprisingly well-spoken - expedite
the process.
The drugged food worked like a charm as the landlord and his wife passed out sloppily at the dinner table. She carries their bodies downstairs.
"They won't feel a thing. He had it coming. They would have killed me first. They wouldn't understand." All tired excuses in her head, flailing about to salvage what's left of her heart, her humanity. Yet deep inside, her heart beats true, and she listens to that instead. Mona slits their throats, and the gurgling of their bloodied gasps is muffled by her heartbeat. Their deaths do not weigh on her mind as much as she feared, and this too does not bother her. Not anymore.
"I'll see you soon, bee."
As the ritual begins, the bodies of her victims meld into the circle on the floor, bones shattering before their dust floats in the air, bile coating the spirit rods a pale, brackish yellow. The candles flicker as
Tamara's corpse begins to rise, and soon, the room goes dark. A shift in space is felt. Fearing the worst, Mona quickly lights a candle, only to barely make out Tamara's desiccated, rotting body, standing on
her own two feet. Skin melting off, nails sharp like talons, face contorted into a sinister expression, and her eyes…
Her eyes are as breathtaking as the day they met! Pools of amber brown, now tinged with a void deep black, look down at her body, taking in the changes. As the flame of the candle barely illuminates the space, she turns to Mona and struggles to speak.
"It's okay, honey. Don't say anything. Your body needs time to adapt and finish changing into your new form." Tamara slowly nods and groans as though she understands, wincing from the pain of possession. Mona rushes and cradles Tamara's chilling body against hers. Her body grows colder.
"Something's wrong." Mona intuits why. The soul is stuck in the passage between this world and the beyond, and the beyond is pulling her back. She needs an anchor, and her body alone isn't enough.
"I'm sorry, hun. Please bear it." She brandishes her ritual dagger, cutting open Tamara's chest, only to find her heart is missing. She needs a new one, one that has meaning to her. And there's no more time.
So Mona turns the knife towards her own chest.
"N…no…"
Tamara tries to stop her, but has no strength in her body or voice. She's forced to watch Mona carve herself open. No anesthesia, only the searing pain of the blade, turned towards the purpose of undoing
death in love's name. With her last breaths, Mona grabs her own beating heart with shaking hands, gingerly placing it into Tamara's open chest, as her last offering. Her eyelids begin to flutter as life slips from her body.
Strangely, she doesn't die. Her quick thinking created a result that was not in the book, nor was it something she could have predicted - unlife. She feels it take hold and embraces the gift of stillness in her depths. The two hold each other, one beating heart between them, before leaving into the woods, hand in hand, with nothing but the stars above and a burning home behind them to light the way.
The greatest traumaturgists channel every trauma they make contact with into pain-fueled metamorphoses, sloughing off their mundane mortal coils and transforming into wells of torment, capable of consuming infinite suffering.
