In a vacuum, the sex scenes did not feel arousing to me but I never doubted their sexual appeal to the characters, and it really shows how compelling the writing is. I expected that these specific stories won't make me horny before reading but will highlight some interesting themes, and it was exactly that! I loved that it kind of created a few meta layers of awareness between me and the characters -- as I, reader, am fully aware of these people's mindsets, I can't find these acts directly erotic; the characters are half aware of their feelings and motives, so the various half-shadow aspects of it all turn them on; and then the robots completely lack even an ability to be aware, so everything is sexy to them as long as you slap their pussy on.
However all human aspects of the erotica scenes were very sensual and intimate, in a bold, genuine, critical way. All these stories feel like they are about people desperately masturbating to the intensity, the frustration of their unfulfilled desires. I don't like sci-fi stories that would never happen without their sci-fi elements, and here it's perfect -- you can interpret Mari purely as an amplifying image for situations that have been happening in our world for as long as capitalism, christianised gender and sex existed. I loved the messed up sexual tension between Shima and Touma, how women always served as a cord for their sexual desire for each other's masculinity. I loved how Ratna, despite being deeply rational and aware of all the social constructs surrounding Mari, literally deconstructing her before fucking her, couldn't help but play both into a 'caring butch showing a poor girl what pleasure is' and almost 'this old gross cis man's wife would be better off with someone else, with me' scenarios. I loved how lonely and miserable Samart was, how literally little space he has in his life for his interests and self-realization, how little he cares for himself outside his fixation while being in a simbiotic relationship with Mari as both her mother and her child, her worshipper and her defiler. Also, Angelic Pretty mentioned -- it really added to the realism for me!
I loved the continuity between the stories: you see Mari being created in the first story out of two men's passion and hatred for each other, you see her successor being overused and passed on to be fixed by a marginalised third party, then it's almost like the same Mari Ratna fixed ends up in Bangkok, where a frustrated low-salary worker of Mari's mother company can only hope to get a badly working machine thrown away by the more privileged people from very, very far away, and care for it so much because he doesn't know if he'll ever have money to replace it. Ratna comments on Mari Mouse's frizzy hair and changes it to silver curls, then Samart recollects how when he got Marinette she had frizzy gray hair.. so good!!!
Insightful, easy to read, compact, vibrant, and understands the interconnection between sex, gender, race and class so well. Thank you!!
oh wow this a good piece of erotic horror! the bit at the end of ratna's story where she starts to make a connection with her about the mouse tattoo then ratna almost immediately shuts her off because to acknowledge that connection would be to acknowledge the possibility that androids have some sort of budding sentience. uaauggh i really like the implication too that this is the same android over several years, makes me wonder what happened to the other people in mari's life or if mari herself even feels anything. but i guess she's not supposed to-she's an object for all of them. really really good and a nice commentary on misogyny i think
saw some of the artwork for this back when Cohost was still around, and that got me SUPER excited for it. it was every bit as good as i was anticipating (if not better!)
Hello, I saw an advertisement for this story a while back and put a pin it to read. I thought it was exceptionally written, you have an admirable talent for keeping your prose very tight.
Focusing on how a reproduction like this is ultimately an expression of control and a way for the user to absolve themselves of guilt over using an object to fulfill a human need was quite insightful. The porn was really not my thing, but I get the feeling it's written the way it is to serve the story. People making excuses to themselves about what they are doing and feeling good in the act anyway.
The character writing was in particular excellent, you quickly get to know these people and their relationship to female objects. Additionally I quite like how you both traced the progression of the technology in a realistic way, and my love of practical scifi really enjoyed the dive into the engineering problems a female robot would need solve to be "satisfying". Great job, definitely worth the money.
I really can't praise this collection enough. I've been talking it up constantly to friends, and if it looks at all interesting to you, I encourage you to follow that impulse and buy it.
What I like especially is how these stories both deliver the robot fantasy and also dark and ugly and painful sentiment, which is part of a fantasy to experience too. Titmouse is maybe the best erotica writer I know for writing kinks around shame and voyeurism (among many others), and the stories in this collection truly sell the interiority that makes those fun for me.
All three of these are so good to read on your own or with partners, whether you connect more with the robot or the person, but I especially loved Samart's Sweetheart. The sincere engagement with lolita fashion subculture and fantasies of dollish innocence are very well done, and so is the shame and obedience and everything else. I love that this story and its associated art is genuinely about the fun of playing dress-up, among other things.
(ps: check out the very last picture of touma. i knew, but seeing it was a pleasure!)
I’ve loved everything I’ve read by Titmouse. Dollification, robots, somno… it’s almost like something I would commission to be written. It touches on deeper themes and made me think while bringing in such evocative imagery. I know it is a short work, but it has definitely left me wanting more.
This is by far the most challenging novella I read in 2024. Titmouse does zero hand-holding when it comes to the themes around autonomy, agency, loneliness, connection, and the responsibility humanity has towards the technology they developed and in their position. There is an eerie closeness in the prose from protagonist to protagonist, and the vignettes leave room for the reader to make their own consideration around how much is owed to the robots themselves. The illustrations are fantastic as always, but the bright colors and cheery faces add a necessary layer of horror to this science fiction.
I will be spinning it around my head for quite some time.
As a connoisseur of monsterfucker fiction I've been eyeing your books for a while, and I'm proud to say this is the first one I've bought. Maybe it's because I have a bias toward robots, maybe it's because I also read Chobits and have been kinda disappointed by it in retrospect.
I have to confess I was more interested in reading this for The Themes rather than actually being aroused by it, and my experience was pretty in line with my expectations. I think my own robotfucker preferences are more in the realm of soft sci fi and Robots as Characters/Individuals, so I got less personal appeal out of "this is a toy/object", although Ratna's Repair did get me going a bit, and I think had me thinking about Robot Personhood the most/had me questioning whether Mari actually was sentient or I was just falling for the illusion the robotics company is selling us. (While I'm talking about Ratna's Repair, on a more personal level it made me fondly think of all my friends who build PCs, and my own work creating databases for Deepvocal and UTAU. It's easy to get attached to and anthropomorphize these systems, but also maybe there is something strangely intimate about the TLC that goes into running diagnostics.)
On terms of "themes", though... I bought this book because I was disturbed and intrigued by the premise and previews, and I was appropriately disturbed and intrigued throughout. I'm not sure if "erotic horror" is really the genre for me if I want to get off, but this definitely did probe into my psyche and explore some of the implications I've been considering with settings like Chobits, my own robot characters from my own stories, and how We Live In A Society and how people treat even objects and images that evoke femininity. Definitely something I'm gonna have a long think on for a while.
Segments ranked by both Personal Horniness Level and how much I enjoyed reading them:
Ratna's Repair
Samart's Sweetheart
Touma's Toy
Will definitely check out more of your stories, but will also tread carefully for my own sake.
I was instantly hooked from the preview !! I was lurking on the creators socials waiting until it released finally, and it will be my first of this creators works. (But honestly I might get them all!) insanely good work!! (Edit: I finished it. I’m insane about this work of art!! Absolutely worth it!)
I just read the first story and holy cheese and crackers, I want to finish this whole little book right now, and I would if I college wasn't my mortal enemy at the moment, BUT THE FIRST STORY IS ALREADY SO GOOD!!
Touma and Shima's relationship is so messed up and an absolute treat to read, I absolutely love the consistency of Mari-ko's expression in the art, and it's so clear that she's just a vehicle for Touma and Shima's development and having absolutely no choice in the matter at all, its honestly horrifying, I love it.
god i love this. the blend between sensual scenes and disquieting behavior from the people within this work is top-notch: fitting for a story that explores different types of objectification.
i love how their attitudes towards mari-ko reflect their underlying attitudes towards the real women in their lives - esp with the implication that the mari-ko throughout all three stories is the same model. it's *chefs kiss.* gonna be thinking these short stories for a loooong long time (esp ratna's repair. the mechabare scenes are gorgeous.)
holy shit. that was amazing. i love how strangely human the android (im assuming all 3 of them are the same prototype mari-ko) felt in all 3 of these stories. its so eerie but also strangely endearing?? seeing mari mouse interact with ratna, and especially the ending where it feels like she shows just the slightest hint of humanity, a ghost in the sparkly shell, only to be unceremoniously "killed". it feels like ratna has so much scorn and appreciation for her. it feels like connection, like a genuine beginning to a sweet relationship, even if i know that the other "person" is essentially a cleverly created set of code.
i also really adore how these stories veered into straight-up psychological horror at times. shima and touma's story, and the way its framed in the artwork makes mari-ko feel like this fucked up, mechanical horror, yet touma's downright abusive treatment of her and shima gave me the disquieting feeling of watching a person being abused and manipulated into sex she never wanted, even as the text reinforces her artificiality and blank stare. it gives me the creeps. and in samart's story, with his obsessive, deluded abuse of himself, and his slips into pure, violent misogyny makes his story fully cross the line into psychological horror, instead of erotica. theres something about the explicit doll-like nature of marinette, the way she repeats platitudes at him, while still mimicking the motions of a real relationship with just enough accuracy to enter the uncanny valley, and his equally artificial "love" for her that has me watching the story like a slow-motion train crash. its creepy in all the right ways. i have a feeling that this one will only grow more haunting the longer i sit with it in my brain
beautifully written prose, and beautifully written moral dilemmas about the nature of robots, ai and love. awesome work!!!
already sent an ask about my feelings but I’ll do it AGAIN!
genuinely such an amazingly written story that’s as hot as it is ghoulish. The way each human character (surprise surprise) objectifies their respective android is so fascinating and makes for a really interesting character study each time. There’s so many little details that make the characters feel REAL- and it makes the androids stand out as artificial that much more.
I really enjoyed the power dynamic that Touma and Shima had- that was the story I was the least interested in pre-read but I think it ended up being my favorite.
Ratna was such a fun character to read and her admiration of Mari’s inner mechanics and apathy towards her artificial personality really amplified that hot/ghoulish feeling. Also god, Ratna is so hot.
And Samart… the way the story tries to maintain this “innocence” when you can see his actual true feelings towards Marinette and actual human women slip through the cracks is genuinely haunting. I really feel like this toes the line towards horror more than any of Taylor’s previous work.
Overall, very very very very good. came for the sexy robots, stayed for the really fucking great character studies.
Ahhhhhhhhhhh i loved it! I was so excited i tore through it in one sitting and enjoyed every minute of it. Touma's Toy was definitely my favorite - freaky little power dynamics between Touma and Shima my beloved~
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A really, really good read! (SPOILERS BELOW)
In a vacuum, the sex scenes did not feel arousing to me but I never doubted their sexual appeal to the characters, and it really shows how compelling the writing is. I expected that these specific stories won't make me horny before reading but will highlight some interesting themes, and it was exactly that! I loved that it kind of created a few meta layers of awareness between me and the characters -- as I, reader, am fully aware of these people's mindsets, I can't find these acts directly erotic; the characters are half aware of their feelings and motives, so the various half-shadow aspects of it all turn them on; and then the robots completely lack even an ability to be aware, so everything is sexy to them as long as you slap their pussy on.
However all human aspects of the erotica scenes were very sensual and intimate, in a bold, genuine, critical way. All these stories feel like they are about people desperately masturbating to the intensity, the frustration of their unfulfilled desires. I don't like sci-fi stories that would never happen without their sci-fi elements, and here it's perfect -- you can interpret Mari purely as an amplifying image for situations that have been happening in our world for as long as capitalism, christianised gender and sex existed. I loved the messed up sexual tension between Shima and Touma, how women always served as a cord for their sexual desire for each other's masculinity. I loved how Ratna, despite being deeply rational and aware of all the social constructs surrounding Mari, literally deconstructing her before fucking her, couldn't help but play both into a 'caring butch showing a poor girl what pleasure is' and almost 'this old gross cis man's wife would be better off with someone else, with me' scenarios. I loved how lonely and miserable Samart was, how literally little space he has in his life for his interests and self-realization, how little he cares for himself outside his fixation while being in a simbiotic relationship with Mari as both her mother and her child, her worshipper and her defiler.
Also, Angelic Pretty mentioned -- it really added to the realism for me!I loved the continuity between the stories: you see Mari being created in the first story out of two men's passion and hatred for each other, you see her successor being overused and passed on to be fixed by a marginalised third party, then it's almost like the same Mari Ratna fixed ends up in Bangkok, where a frustrated low-salary worker of Mari's mother company can only hope to get a badly working machine thrown away by the more privileged people from very, very far away, and care for it so much because he doesn't know if he'll ever have money to replace it. Ratna comments on Mari Mouse's frizzy hair and changes it to silver curls, then Samart recollects how when he got Marinette she had frizzy gray hair.. so good!!!
Insightful, easy to read, compact, vibrant, and understands the interconnection between sex, gender, race and class so well. Thank you!!
oh wow this a good piece of erotic horror! the bit at the end of ratna's story where she starts to make a connection with her about the mouse tattoo then ratna almost immediately shuts her off because to acknowledge that connection would be to acknowledge the possibility that androids have some sort of budding sentience. uaauggh i really like the implication too that this is the same android over several years, makes me wonder what happened to the other people in mari's life or if mari herself even feels anything. but i guess she's not supposed to-she's an object for all of them. really really good and a nice commentary on misogyny i think
saw some of the artwork for this back when Cohost was still around, and that got me SUPER excited for it. it was every bit as good as i was anticipating (if not better!)
fantastic as always <3
Loved it. Expect nothing from the best. Creepy yet compelling and hot.
Hello, I saw an advertisement for this story a while back and put a pin it to read. I thought it was exceptionally written, you have an admirable talent for keeping your prose very tight.
Focusing on how a reproduction like this is ultimately an expression of control and a way for the user to absolve themselves of guilt over using an object to fulfill a human need was quite insightful. The porn was really not my thing, but I get the feeling it's written the way it is to serve the story. People making excuses to themselves about what they are doing and feeling good in the act anyway.
The character writing was in particular excellent, you quickly get to know these people and their relationship to female objects. Additionally I quite like how you both traced the progression of the technology in a realistic way, and my love of practical scifi really enjoyed the dive into the engineering problems a female robot would need solve to be "satisfying". Great job, definitely worth the money.
I really can't praise this collection enough. I've been talking it up constantly to friends, and if it looks at all interesting to you, I encourage you to follow that impulse and buy it.
What I like especially is how these stories both deliver the robot fantasy and also dark and ugly and painful sentiment, which is part of a fantasy to experience too. Titmouse is maybe the best erotica writer I know for writing kinks around shame and voyeurism (among many others), and the stories in this collection truly sell the interiority that makes those fun for me.
All three of these are so good to read on your own or with partners, whether you connect more with the robot or the person, but I especially loved Samart's Sweetheart. The sincere engagement with lolita fashion subculture and fantasies of dollish innocence are very well done, and so is the shame and obedience and everything else. I love that this story and its associated art is genuinely about the fun of playing dress-up, among other things.
(ps: check out the very last picture of touma. i knew, but seeing it was a pleasure!)
I’ve loved everything I’ve read by Titmouse. Dollification, robots, somno… it’s almost like something I would commission to be written. It touches on deeper themes and made me think while bringing in such evocative imagery. I know it is a short work, but it has definitely left me wanting more.
This is by far the most challenging novella I read in 2024. Titmouse does zero hand-holding when it comes to the themes around autonomy, agency, loneliness, connection, and the responsibility humanity has towards the technology they developed and in their position. There is an eerie closeness in the prose from protagonist to protagonist, and the vignettes leave room for the reader to make their own consideration around how much is owed to the robots themselves. The illustrations are fantastic as always, but the bright colors and cheery faces add a necessary layer of horror to this science fiction.
I will be spinning it around my head for quite some time.
As a connoisseur of monsterfucker fiction I've been eyeing your books for a while, and I'm proud to say this is the first one I've bought. Maybe it's because I have a bias toward robots, maybe it's because I also read Chobits and have been kinda disappointed by it in retrospect.
I have to confess I was more interested in reading this for The Themes rather than actually being aroused by it, and my experience was pretty in line with my expectations. I think my own robotfucker preferences are more in the realm of soft sci fi and Robots as Characters/Individuals, so I got less personal appeal out of "this is a toy/object", although Ratna's Repair did get me going a bit, and I think had me thinking about Robot Personhood the most/had me questioning whether Mari actually was sentient or I was just falling for the illusion the robotics company is selling us. (While I'm talking about Ratna's Repair, on a more personal level it made me fondly think of all my friends who build PCs, and my own work creating databases for Deepvocal and UTAU. It's easy to get attached to and anthropomorphize these systems, but also maybe there is something strangely intimate about the TLC that goes into running diagnostics.)
On terms of "themes", though... I bought this book because I was disturbed and intrigued by the premise and previews, and I was appropriately disturbed and intrigued throughout. I'm not sure if "erotic horror" is really the genre for me if I want to get off, but this definitely did probe into my psyche and explore some of the implications I've been considering with settings like Chobits, my own robot characters from my own stories, and how We Live In A Society and how people treat even objects and images that evoke femininity. Definitely something I'm gonna have a long think on for a while.
Segments ranked by both Personal Horniness Level and how much I enjoyed reading them:
Will definitely check out more of your stories, but will also tread carefully for my own sake.
absolutely stellar work as always. a perfect blend of creepy and sexy while still being more than surface-level
I was instantly hooked from the preview !! I was lurking on the creators socials waiting until it released finally, and it will be my first of this creators works. (But honestly I might get them all!) insanely good work!! (Edit: I finished it. I’m insane about this work of art!! Absolutely worth it!)
I just read the first story and holy cheese and crackers, I want to finish this whole little book right now, and I would if I college wasn't my mortal enemy at the moment, BUT THE FIRST STORY IS ALREADY SO GOOD!!
Touma and Shima's relationship is so messed up and an absolute treat to read, I absolutely love the consistency of Mari-ko's expression in the art, and it's so clear that she's just a vehicle for Touma and Shima's development and having absolutely no choice in the matter at all, its honestly horrifying, I love it.
god i love this. the blend between sensual scenes and disquieting behavior from the people within this work is top-notch: fitting for a story that explores different types of objectification.
i love how their attitudes towards mari-ko reflect their underlying attitudes towards the real women in their lives - esp with the implication that the mari-ko throughout all three stories is the same model. it's *chefs kiss.* gonna be thinking these short stories for a loooong long time (esp ratna's repair. the mechabare scenes are gorgeous.)
holy shit. that was amazing. i love how strangely human the android (im assuming all 3 of them are the same prototype mari-ko) felt in all 3 of these stories. its so eerie but also strangely endearing?? seeing mari mouse interact with ratna, and especially the ending where it feels like she shows just the slightest hint of humanity, a ghost in the sparkly shell, only to be unceremoniously "killed". it feels like ratna has so much scorn and appreciation for her. it feels like connection, like a genuine beginning to a sweet relationship, even if i know that the other "person" is essentially a cleverly created set of code.
i also really adore how these stories veered into straight-up psychological horror at times. shima and touma's story, and the way its framed in the artwork makes mari-ko feel like this fucked up, mechanical horror, yet touma's downright abusive treatment of her and shima gave me the disquieting feeling of watching a person being abused and manipulated into sex she never wanted, even as the text reinforces her artificiality and blank stare. it gives me the creeps. and in samart's story, with his obsessive, deluded abuse of himself, and his slips into pure, violent misogyny makes his story fully cross the line into psychological horror, instead of erotica. theres something about the explicit doll-like nature of marinette, the way she repeats platitudes at him, while still mimicking the motions of a real relationship with just enough accuracy to enter the uncanny valley, and his equally artificial "love" for her that has me watching the story like a slow-motion train crash. its creepy in all the right ways. i have a feeling that this one will only grow more haunting the longer i sit with it in my brain
beautifully written prose, and beautifully written moral dilemmas about the nature of robots, ai and love. awesome work!!!
already sent an ask about my feelings but I’ll do it AGAIN!
genuinely such an amazingly written story that’s as hot as it is ghoulish. The way each human character (surprise surprise) objectifies their respective android is so fascinating and makes for a really interesting character study each time. There’s so many little details that make the characters feel REAL- and it makes the androids stand out as artificial that much more.
I really enjoyed the power dynamic that Touma and Shima had- that was the story I was the least interested in pre-read but I think it ended up being my favorite.
Ratna was such a fun character to read and her admiration of Mari’s inner mechanics and apathy towards her artificial personality really amplified that hot/ghoulish feeling. Also god, Ratna is so hot.
And Samart… the way the story tries to maintain this “innocence” when you can see his actual true feelings towards Marinette and actual human women slip through the cracks is genuinely haunting. I really feel like this toes the line towards horror more than any of Taylor’s previous work.
Overall, very very very very good. came for the sexy robots, stayed for the really fucking great character studies.
Ahhhhhhhhhhh i loved it! I was so excited i tore through it in one sitting and enjoyed every minute of it. Touma's Toy was definitely my favorite - freaky little power dynamics between Touma and Shima my beloved~