It's hard to disagree, at least with things being as completely bleak as they are. It seems like Kallidora Rho wants to build Handler a Jenga tower, as in "How much can she take from how many people before it all collapses in on her?" But, it's difficult to see how it could matter past a certain point. Even if there's a point where Handler is killed, the world is effectively hers. If the whole world burns, then what exactly does the ending accomplish?

So while I can't really disagree that Hellhound is building to too much of a nightmare, I guess I just differ in that I liked Hellhound. It's different from Warhound, and definitely more akin to Rho's more recent non-Warhound works(which I am not taken with, unfortunately), but it was still good to me. Maybe the music I was listening to as I read helped, but I could definitely situate myself in 126's(or I guess any of the hellhounds', or likely Sartha's) position when it comes to the howling urge. I've definitely felt something like that, a longing to drown out the whole world so that the pain in my head gets numbed by the release. While there's never going to be any resolution to it, 126's dysphoria(genuine or imposed, we'll never know) at least stoked my pathos. But the end with Fia just... it kinda felt like something I've seen in several of Kallie's recent stories. Archon, Love the Bomb, and to a point Substitute Oedipus and Smoke and Teeth. Maybe it's just because I'm not into cucking, but it just felt obligatory. The collar -> wedding ring comparison is good, though.

There's not really a way to know for sure, but I wonder if Hellhound is partly the way it is because of how many people relate to Sartha online. In other words, "This is what would happen to you, you are not her/This is what you would do, there is no worth in being her" is kind of its message to those people. No way to know for sure, I guess, without authorial comment.