Functional Compensation

Review from March 2026
Here we have a story about a hound in a fairly standard mechsplo setting in which the rebels have won. The imperial base is captured and the rebels find the forgotten hound starving in the kennels. They then do something to try and make her better, to try and recover the person inside.

This short description is a factual accounting of what happens in this story but it isn't why you should read it. I want to say why you should read it but it's a twist and it's a twist I really liked. If you've read my mechsplo series then you know I find changes in narration and tense to be compelling and this does something with that which I really liked. It's short enough, being just under 2k words, that I think you should check it out just to see!

Now I saw this story because it popped up in the self-promo channel of the one mechsplo discord sever that I kind of check sometimes and you know, at the time I didn't think I had read any of Mona's other work, but as I was pulling up the link to write this review I noticed that I had! One of her other stories, Hagiography, was one of my favourites from the September Mechsplo writing jam last year (oh it always comes back to you, my old nemesis: the September writing jam). I had looked for it before in the past and hadn't been able to find it, I had thought that it had been deleted/lost, so imagine my surprise upon seeing it again! I guess it had to be reuploaded for some reason. I was really happy to see it wasn't gone. I also recommend that story if you enjoyed this one and want more.