#Orpheus Dionysus Muriatic Acid and the Strange Whirring Thing

[allthedoorsareopennow]

LMAO THAT'S SO FUCKING FUNNY THE SUITS WEREN'T EVEN PLANNING TO MATCH IT JUST. HAPPENED

[p2ii]

just read both the udad!Orpheus centric fictions

some highlights I really enjoyed

[majorshatterandhare]

“But Orpheus wasn’t like the others - he was special, set above all the workaday drudges of the City. He would succeed, because he deserved to die.”

“He didn’t fancy pandering to seedy guttersnipes trying too late to lend themselves a bit of class by learning the arts. His talent was too precious to pass on to others - it was his and his alone.”

“But Orpheus ignored the warnings. That wasn’t going to happen to him. He was different. He was special.”

-Orpheus, Dionysus, Muriatic Acid and the Strange Whirring Thing

We gonna talk about Orpheus’ own inflated ego or nah?

[heretherebegaydragons]

Places where Jonny Sims brought The Mechanisms into The Magnus Archives

A non-exhaustive list of themes, concepts and interesting situations Jonny might have consciously or subconsciously brought with him from The Mechanisms when writing The Magnus Archives:

Mechanisms

Broken Horses - Ulysses Dies At Dawn

“I wonder if devils get nightmares of all of their victims as well”

Magnus

MAG 142 Scrutiny, MAG 146 Threshold and MAG 120 Eye Contact

The Archivist having nightmares of and with all the people he’s taken statements from, his victims.

Mechanisms

The article Archive Footage on themechanisms.com

 Ivy, who has the title of archivist, is described as being a book, not a reader

Magnus

MAG 160 The Eye Opens, mentioned in the statement of Jonah Magnus

The Archivist being described as more of an archive than an archivist.

Mechanisms

Red Signal - The Bifrost Incident

“All the doors are open now!”

The metaphor of an open door signifying that eldritch horrors has arrived and apocalypse is forthcoming

Magnus

MAG 160 The Eye Opens, last line of the statement/ritual

“I. Open. The DOOR” (written phonetically).

The metaphor of opening a door signifying the summoning of eldritch horrors and the start of the apocalypse

Mechanisms

Ragnarok II: The Calling - The Bifrost Incident

Odin, a servant of an unknowable eldritch deity, started the apocalypse and is very happy about it

Magnus

MAG 160 The Eye Opens

The laugh right at the end.

Jon, a servant/avatar of an unknowable eldritch deity, started the apocalypse and is very happy about it

Mechanisms

Ragnarok V: End of the Line - The Bifrost Incident

The tragic, queer romance of Loki and Sigyn ending in dying together, one killing the other, to temporarily save the world from eldritch horrors

Magnus

MAG 200 - Last Words

The tragic, queer romance of Jon and Martin ending in dying(?) together, one killing the other, to save their world from (and doom another to) eldritch horrors

Mechanisms

Hereward the Wake - Tales to Be Told vol. 2

“But he loved his servant Martin”

The titular Hereward is gay for a subordinate called Martin

Magnus

All of s5 and a considerable amount of s4. First confirmed in MAG 161 - Dwelling

Jon, main character, is gay for a subordinate called Martin

Mechanisms

Olympians - Ulysses Dies at Dawn

“Now, when the inevitable reality of death is so unpleasant, you better believe people will do anything to avoid it”

Death is known to be eternal and unpleasant, and this drives rich people to do anything necessary to survive, including killing a lot of people via. the Sphinx

Magnus

MAG 155 - The Cost of Living

Death is, to the rich woman giving the statement, known to be an eternal, painful state, and her wish to avoid this at any cost drives her to kill a lot of people

Mechanisms

Ragnarok II: The Calling - The Bifrost Incident

“I’ve done it! Though I never knew the dreams that ate at me were true”

“The Void sings it to me”

Odin hearing music in her dreams calling her to carry out a ritual that brings an eldritch abomination into this world and thereby causes an apocalypse

Magnus

MAG 151 - Big Picture

“I still hear the music in my dream”

Simon Fairchild likening the call to make a ritual for an eldritch abomination to bring it into this world and thus cause an apocalypse to hearing music in one’s dreams and desperately wanting to recreate it.

Mechanisms

A Rebel Yell - Once Upon A Time (In Space): Apocrypha

“Guess you gotta pay The Piper in the end”

A character called The Piper who causes great losses on both sides of a war by betraying a lot of the resistance and then blowing up a planet of the oppressing force when they don’t pay up, thus serving not a specific side but the war itself

Magnus

MAG 7 - The Piper

A character referred to as The Piper who is an embodiment of the war

Mechanisms

Orpheus, Dionysus, muriatic acid and the strange whirring thing

“Know enough about the events leading up to a situation, and you’ll know exactly what will happen next. So much for free will”

Magnus

The entire concept of The Web, as it understands all the little details that will lead to a certain outcome, knows exactly which future a certain change will bring. And the existential questions about free will this gives Jon in particular

Some of these are more probable than others, and there most certainly plenty I haven’t noticed, so feel free to add your own

[mechsconfessions]

Even after losing Eurydice, he still thought he was better than everyone else. It's in Orpheus, Dionysus, Muriatic Acid and the Strange Whirring Thing.

-OG UDAD Orpheus disliker.

Ah I actually haven’t read that one </3

[fictional-musician-competition]

Some clarification: The Mechanisms (the real-life band) have supplementary short stories about their albums on their website. One of these, "Orpheus, Dionysus, Muriatic Acid, and the Strange Whirring Thing," mentions that The Toy Soldier was hired to take Orpheus' job after Orpheus was fired because of Eurydice-related depression:

"They’d soon promoted one of the nymphs to fill his place though: a bizarre prancing, whirring thing that would frolic and cavort for the clients’ amusement, flaunting an incongruously innocent joie de vivre. Some said it had stolen the voice of an angel, but Orpheus thought it sounded pretty human to him. It looked like another bizarre re-bodying job, although apparently it had been bought at a knockdown price from one of Dionysus’ business partners, Parsiphäe Minos, after the genius automaton designer had found it in her basement a while back. Rumour had it this was the only one of her creations she hadn’t utilised to her own debauched ends: she’d taken a disliking to it when she realised she couldn’t remember when, or indeed why, she’d made the damn thing in the first place. Seriously, that dame was getting crazier by the minute."

So The Toy Soldier and Orpheus are indeed separate characters within The Mechanisms canon, and I think it would be hilarious to let them duke it out.

And duke it out they shall. I'm not gonna lie this whole affair has been slightly confusing for me but good for y'all I guess.

[bracketsoffear]

Daedalus propaganda: he inflicted End on everyone on his planet by creating the Acheron--a computer network that keeps the dead's brains animate and trapped in agony to keep The City running, which makes death such a horrible prospect that people will go to extreme lengths to try and escape it--often only succeeding at making their afterlives of eternal torment even worse. This is detailed in "How Not To Die" and "Orpheus, Dionysus, Muriatic Acid and the Strange Whirring Thing," two of the short stories from their website (https://themechanisms.com/fiction/):

Furthermore, there is a disease in The City called The Sphinx, which causes infants to rapidly age to death, as detailed in "Riddle of the Sphinx":

The cause of this disease? Byproducts of the drugs the Olympians--the rich immortal assholes who rule The City, Daedalus included--use to live forever to stay out of the Acheron:

Of course, when a certain motherfucker created a cure, they priced it too high for most affected by the Sphinx to afford and set him up for life-ruining scandal; and a good Avatar wouldn't be complete without some social commentary on how the real horror was capitalism!

Anyway, the point is that not only has Daedalus been passively generating fear of the End for centuries, maybe millenia, through his creation just existing, he made it worse because the fear of death he inflicted on the Olympians led to the creation of the Sphinx, which causes random, incurable, and inevitable death upon thousands of babies, and then he presumably helped his fellow immortals destroy any hope of stopping it.

.

[miralines]

Not to get back on my soapbox but @ people who portray Brian as the moral compass of the crew reminder that he canonically spent his time in the city having people pay him to come up with moral justifications for the atrocities they’d committed

[byron-von-raum]

Rebodied Toy Soldier Theory

Despite having a backstory and a semi-solid characterization for the Toy Soldier there’s a lot of questions we still have about it! To be expected among this impossible group of space pirates to be confused about their backstory and what makes them tick, in this way literally, but I have a theory that could answer a lot of those pressing questions.

Warning for image of choking, implied abuse, implied sex work, and canon typical fucked up stuff, especially UDAD related

So we don’t actually know in all certainty where the Toy Soldier is from. We have a few clues to help us out, though. 

1. The Toy Soldier was somewhere with very traditional English practices       “She taught him how to take proper English tea and how to talk like a real officer [...]” - SotTS (The Story of the Toy Soldier)

2. It came around not long after a revolution       “She once had a handsome fiance, but he had died in a long ago revolution. [...] The Toy Soldier was her favorite. He wore her fiance’s old uniform.” - SotTS

3. There is a Salvation Army or something similar on the same planet/colony

[ID: The Toy Soldier hitting a drum behind a procession of Salvation Army representatives with a sign above them reading “The Salvation Army.” An arrow points to the Toy Soldier in the back. A woman in the front tries to hand a pamphlet with a cross on it to a passerby. /END ID]

4. The planet/colony was knowledgable and within reach of the King Cole War        “[...] the Toy Soldier joined the ranks of the Rose Reds and fought in the bloody conflict of the Revolution.” - SotTS

5. The planet is close enough to the City from UDAD to have products imported from there.

You may be asking, “wait, Frankie, how do you know that?” Well, my dear friends, it’s actually rather stuble, but warnings for and image of choking, although crude.

[ID: A pencil drawing of the Toy Soldier choking out a woman with long, pale hair while she sleeps. A wine bottle lays empty above her head on the pillow. /END ID]

This lady is the Angel, a woman that the Toy Soldier fell in love with, presumably before leaving its original planet. So this scene also presumably happens on that same planet. Up in the top right corner is a wine bottle that reads “Dionysus 2011″ which is a product of Dionysus back in the City.

With that information, we know that products from the City were imported to this planet/colony. Whether this planet is, in fact, Earth or maybe just a colony of Earth is unclear and not entirely important. What is important is what other products the City might have had.

Re-bodying

“Orpheus’ story isn’t unusual: a broke young musician with a dead fiance, just another life chew up by the City. This broke young musician didn’t accept that though. Didn’t care that he didn’t have the money to have mind from the Acheron rebodied, or that those as were came back wrong.” - “Hades” Ulysses Dies at Dawn

Rebodying in the City is when someone takes a mind from the Acheron and places it in a new body. Someone dead being brought back. Now, let’s go back to the start of The Story of the Toy Soldier and take another gander at that rich old lady and her clockwork collection.

[ID: An old lady in a fancy dress smoking and leading the Toy Soldier away from a group of inanimate clockworks as it looks back at them. /END ID]

The most notable part of this image, I think, is the contrast between the Toy Soldier and the other clockworks. The other clockworks stand very still with no expression and seem more like dolls than the Toy Soldier, who holds close to itself and follows, looks nervous, looks confused. From this image alone, it’s clear the Toy Soldier isn’t like the other clockworks.

“But Frankie!” I hear you cry. “There’s no evidence that the rebodied people are put in animatronic bodies! Even in one of the fictions, the other people from the City think the Toy Soldier looks odd!” 

“Understandly, Narcissus now refused to have a Somnambulist in the house, and shuddered every time his eyes met the vacant gaze of one outside in the street. He was even deeply suspicious of the Toy Soldier at Dionysus’ speakeasy, despite its unconventional yet obvious sentience.” - Orpheus and Narcissus Go on a Trip to the Seaside

Well, first of all, that’s one person who finds the Toy Soldier uneasy and even then he was more concerned that it was a Somnambulist than it being a clockwork. I find that weird in of itself but that’s not exactly the point, is it? In fact, Orpheus at one point even thinks of the Toy Soldier as a strange re-bodying job.

“They’d soon promoted one of the nymphs to fill his place though: a bizarre prancing, whirring thing that would frolic and cavort for the clients’ amusement, flaunting an incongruously innocent joie de vivre. Some said it had stolen the voice of an angel, but Orpheus thought it sounded pretty human to him. It looked like another bizarre re-bodying job, although apparently it had been bought at a knockdown price from one of Dionysus’ business partners, Parsiphäe Minos, after the genius automaton designer had found it in her basement a while back.” - Orpheus, Dionysus, Muriatic Acid, and the Strange Whirring Thing

“Another strange re-bodying job?” you ask. “What other re-bodying job has Orpheus seen?”

Well, first of all, I think you’re missing the point but I’ll show you anyway.

“Orpheus had also heard recently of a new consultant based at Delphi (a strange re-bodied job by the sound of it) who would give good “moral” advice to assuage the guilt of atrocity wreakers: everything was excusable as long as the ends justified the means.” -  Orpheus, Dionysus, Muriatic Acid, and the Strange Whirring Thing

What’s interesting about this is that Brian, who is referenced here, is in fact a strange re-bodied job. He was technically re-bodied into his all-metal body.

That’s beside the point. The important thing is that, although these wooden and metallic re-bodyings are strange, they are only strange. They aren’t impossible, they aren’t incredibly uncommon, and they aren’t questioned. They’re just strange. Perhaps, the technology for this type of re-bodying isn’t the most uncommon thing out there if there isn’t a body available. Perhaps, even, the bodies just look more “human” when re-bodied than the Toy Soldier or Drumbot Brian do.

So, back to the point of the imported products from the City on the Toy Soldier’s originally colony and the fact that those who are re-bodied never come back quite right, we come to the climax of the theory:

The Toy Soldier is a re-bodied version of the old lady’s dead fiance.

Let’s corral all the evidence:

1. The old lady favors the Toy Soldier and acted like it was her dead fiance, even going as far as to have the Toy Soldier say things like “I love you” to her

      “Sometimes she made him say things he didn’t understand.” - SotTS

[ID: A pencil drawing of a spilled teacup, a thrown high hell, and a shattered tea saucer at the foot of a chair. There’s a speech bubble that reads “I love you.” /END ID]

2. Products were imported to this planet from the City

3. Re-bodying jobs that look like Drumbot Brian or the Toy Soldier are only considered “strange” (at least by Orpheus)

4. No one in the City entirely thought the Toy Soldier as odd except for looking re-bodied

Conclusion: The Toy Soldier is a re-bodied version of the old woman’s fiance after he died in the revolution. Liking clockworks, the old lady had her re-bodied fiance look like a clockwork. The Toy Soldier didn’t come back quite right, which is common for a re-bodying job. Frustrated with this, the old lady taught the Toy Soldier things that would make it more similar to her dead fiance like how to compliment her, what to say to sound like a real officer, and to tell her it loves her.

Now, this has a lot of implications in a lot of directions that you are free to speculate on and I would also love to hear other people’s input. Either way, thanks for reading my inane theory and thanks to the people in the various Discord servers I’m in for helping me with this!

[flamet-draws]

Mechtober Day 6: Acheron/Cyber Cyberia

Scene from ‘Orpheus, Dionysus, Muriatic Acid and the Strange Whirring Thing’.

For sure more of a sketch today but I had a studio day at college yesterday and stayed late after so I didn’t have all that much time. I actually wanted to do the Cyberia prompt and I had ideas for it but none of them would be quick enough and I simply could not afford the time for another full piece today. (Shelving those ideas tho, you’ll see them one day 👀👀)

[tornsuits]

alright ive been meaning to put this somewhere other than my notes app for a while. but someone actually asked for this so idk it's as good a time as any

every udad character mentioned in album or fiction, assuming i didn't forget any

under the cut bc there's so many jesus christ

ulysses (album, main character)

oedipus (album, suit, doctor/scientist)

heracles (album, suit, hitman? i think)

orpheus (album & fiction, suit, nymph, singer)

ariadne (album, suit, influencer??? ig??)

daedalus (album, technically a suit? inventor, might also be hephaestus)

penelope (mentioned in-album, ulysses's wife)

jocasta (presumably the name of oedipus's mother/wife [album], name confirmed on the youtube cover for trial by strength)

zeus (album & fiction [the hacker's mistake], olympian)

poseidon (mentioned in-album, ulysses stole his diamond)

laius (presumably the name of oedipus's father/person he killed, name confirmed on the album cover for favored son)

hades (album, mechanism, olympian)

calypso (mentioned in-album, runs a bar)

hylus (mentioned in-album, died during the "fleece job")

jason (mentioned in-album, lead the "fleece job")

prometheus (ttbt 1. [prometheus] & fiction [the hacker's mistake], hacker)

arachne (ttbt 2. [twisted threads], publicity person?? idk)

athena (ttbt 2. [twisted threads], olympian)

atcaea (ttbt 2. [atcaea & lyssa], hunter)

lyssa (ttbt 2. [atcaea & lyssa], hunter, got turned into a wolf)

artemis (ttbt 2. [atcaea & lyssa], olympian)

hermes (fiction [FAO: hermes: not urgent], olympian)

xenophon (fiction [death in metropolis], cerebral collector)

herodotus (fiction [FAO: hermes: not urgent], journalist)

narcissus (fiction [orpheus and narcissus go on a trip to the seaside] & jessica law song [narcissus under the knife], nymph, model)

dionysus (fiction [orpheus, dionysus, muriatic acid and the strange whirring thing], runs several speakeasies/bars/clubs)

silenus (mentioned in fiction [orpheus, dionysus, muriatic acid and the strange whirring thing], dionysus's old tutor)

hera (mentioned in fiction [muriatic acid], olympian)

pentheus (mentioned in fiction [muriatic acid], dionysus's cousin)

eurydice (mentioned in album and fiction [both orpheus fictions], orpheus's girlfriend)

echo (mentioned in fiction [seaside], one of narcissus's "society beauties")

linus (mentioned in fiction [muriatic acid], orpheus's brother)

teriesias (fiction [muriatic acid], works for the acheron)

aagamemnon (fiction [in the madness of war], field marshal)

palomedes (fiction [in the madness of war], has SOMETHING to do with the war, friend of ulysses)

achilleus (fiction [in the madness of war], war person)

patroclus (fiction [in the madness of war], achilleus's strategist and right-hand man)

menelaus (fiction [in the madness of war], general)

telemachus (mentioned in fiction [in the madness of war], ulysses's son)

phoebe (fiction [one of the chosen], scholar)

charon (fiction [one of the chosen], works for the acheron)

we know the other mechs are There but they didn't take on different names afaik so i'm not counting them

also presumably the other olympians Exist but those were the only ones explicitly mentioned

hopefully i didn't forget anyone bsjshs

[lucky-sevens]

mechanisms fiction!

also known as: i read all the fiction so you don’t have to!

under the cut: summaries of each fiction, word count, and content warnings! the summaries are of my own writing, and unlike the ones on the website, i’ve opted for useful rather than intriguing. i’ve also ordered the list to make a bit more sense/fit better timeline-wise!

some of the fiction has an audio version; i’ve included links to TheVoidSings’ lyric videos of said audio where applicable!

i’ve put the ones with relevant lore in bold, the ones i personally like in italics, and i’ve put a * after all the ones that include the mechs!

AURORA AND THE CREW

breakup*

summary: nastya and aurora have an argument and then both go off to sulk. mostly focuses on nastya. interesting thing: scuzz is in this one!

word count: 707

content warnings: implied nsfw

the story of the toy soldier*

summary: it’s the toy soldier’s backstory! covers what’s probably at least a decade and has a lot of lore! also has illustrations, most likely courtesy of ts!

word count: 605

content warnings: murder, images of choking, implied rape

who killed doctor carmilla?*

summary: carmilla’s just been pushed out an airlock and various mechanisms are going around trying to get an alibi out of everyone.

word count: 647

content warnings: n/a

interview transcript 34/08/7012*

summary: a police officer attempts to interview jonny when he’s in prison. includes a lot of information about him that’s nice to have for characterization!

word count: 782

content warnings: discussed murder, including child murder; attempted suicide

archive footage*

summary: an ivy character study, pretty much! goes into her fucked up brain and how it works. one of my personal favorites, as it’s very well written.

word count: 1390

content warnings: death, minor blood/gore

octokittens*

summary: a short one-off featuring some ashes and jonny banter!

word count: 208

content warnings: guns, animal death

feeding the octokittens*

summary: another one-off: this one has some quality tim, ivy, and nastya content. very fun!

word count: 455

content warnings: animal death

tales of the blogbot*

summary: comes off as an odd fiction, addressing the ‘blogbot’, the thing that used to send out the updates on the mechs mailing list (among other things) and makes passive-aggressive comments about them occasionally. goes through a few answers to what the bot is, and comes to no conclusion, but directly links to the next fiction in my list, ‘ghost in the machine’.

word count: 988

content warnings: referenced mass murder, implied nsfw

ghost in the machine*

summary: what happened to aurora’s programmer when jonny and carmilla took over ‘her’ ship (which is explained/expanded on in ‘how the aurora was won’); lots of aurora lore, as well as a more close view into the actual atrocities the mechanisms commit.

word count: 1152

content warnings: death

how the aurora was won*

jonny steals the aurora from the cyberian navy, in the most unsettling way possible!

word count: 631

content warnings: suicide, graphic depictions of violence

a bedtime story*

some fluffy nastyaurora for the soul!

word count: 326

content warnings: n/a

drive the cold winter away*

part of a group with cyberian demons and nomadic spacers! i think i’ve arranged them chronologically, but might have messed it up.

nastya visits the ruins of cyberia. jonny and ashes are there.

word count: 432

content warnings: n/a

cyberian demons*

a nastya character study- reflections on her memories, as she works on destroying what is left of cyberia.

word count: 1699

content warnings: blood, violence

nomadic spacers*

an outsider pov on the events of ‘drive the cold winter away’ and ‘cyberian demons’.

word count: 1120

content warnings: death

out*

nastya leaves the mechanisms for good after she finds her love, aurora, is no longer who she once was; presumably, this is her death.

word count: 1210

content warnings: suicide

ONCE UPON A TIME [IN SPACE]

gingerbread

hansel and gretal’s villain origin story! (they were the scientists speaking in ‘the twins’)

word count: 609

content warnings: child neglect, murder, needles/syringes

midnight

a bit of a cinders character study/some more of her backstory!

word count: 628

content warnings: n/a

mirror, mirror (audio version here!)

post-pump shanty/snow’s flight. the beginning of snow’s descent into a worse person, and how it overlaps with the myth of snow white/how she begins to take on the role of the evil queen.

word count: 860

content warnings: smoking

a fireside chat

a radio broadcast by scheherazade, king cole’s chief propaganda minister.

word count: 842

content warnings: mentions of concentration camps, death, and bombings

a rebel yell (audio version here!)

counter to ‘a fireside chat’- a radio broadcast by tom thumb, the voice of the rebellion! one of my personal favorites, as it’s very funny.

word count: 574

content warnings: mentions of mass murder

chapter’s end*

mad jack spratt and jonny d’ville play cards.

word count: 790

content warnings: discussions of death

by any other name

basically all the lore around briar rose, in a form of a report by hood, the rebellion’s hacker!

word count: 2023

content warnings: murder, graphic depictions of violence

this little piggy

all of the (incredibly fucked up) lore around the three little pigs!

word count: 993

content warnings: child abuse, brainwashing, non-consensual body modification, medical abuse (it’s a very intense one, please stay safe!)

what big eyes

all the lore we have on hood, in the form of king cole’s intelligence officers trying to figure it out.

word count: 1946

content warnings: mentions of war crimes and death

in the army*

the toy soldier and a group of rose reds hang out in a bar together! it’s a very fun one, with lots of banter! presumably takes place before the toy soldier met the mechanisms, but we don’t know that for sure. lots of lore about the rose reds, as well!

word count: 707

content warnings: mentions of war crimes and death

true love

colonel belle’s report on her efforts to manipulate adam ‘the beast’ bete into joining the resistance. (the mechs’ take on beauty and the beast). also a small bit of lore about rose!

word count: 1151

content warnings: manipulation, torture, unhealthy relationships

one thousand and two

a character study of scheherazade- the thoughts running through her head as rebels are about to find and kill her.

word count: 2236

content warnings: suicide; mentions of torture, concentration camps, and child death

ever after*

you know how jonny was being annoyingly cryptic about what happened to briar rose! well, they have a fiction that says!

word count: 680

content warnings: graphic depictions of violence

ULYSSES DIES AT DAWN

you’ll have to tell us the story sometime*

the mechanisms explore the ruins of the city, thousands of years after the events of ulysses dies at dawn!

word count: 469

content warnings: n/a

death in the metropolis

not anything super relevant- a news article about gang violence and the increased shifts for acheron workers as a result, setting a bit of a mood for the city as a whole. establishes hermes’ role in olympus.

word count: 547

content warnings: nothing to note, but there’s the background fucked-up-ness of the city going on and mentioned!

how not to die

another news article, this one focused on a group of people (’helljumpers’) trying to escape the acheron.

word count: 926

content warnings: suicide

fao: hermes – not urgent

a bit of a followup to the previous two fictions! the editor, herodotus, gets in trouble for discussing the helljumpers.

word count: 453

content warnings: n/a

orpheus, dionysus, muriatic acid and the strange whirring thing*

a look into orpheus’ character and how he ended up in the ulysses job! (mechs don’t heavily feature- just a note of the role brian took on, as well as mentions of ashes of course)

word count: 5017

content warnings: addiction, suicidal thoughts, police; implied nsfw, but only in the context of orpheus being a sex worker

orpheus and narcissus go to the seaside

i personally really love this one! it’s low-key the mechanisms’ take on the great gatsby- takes place a few years prior to the above fiction, and explores orpheus and narcissus’ friendship! it’s morbidly funny, with lots of very good banter/interaction! 

word count: 6300

content warnings: eating disorders, addiction, implied nsfw (again in the context of sex work), suicidal thoughts, mental institutions (even if that’s not normally a problem for you, they get very dark and graphic, so be careful), non-consensual drugging; technically self-harm, but it’s a lighthearted joke

in the madness of war

how ulysses was forced into the war (a darker take on the story about him attempting to avoid it at first).

word count: 817

content warnings: n/a

the hacker’s mistake (a fiction to accompany prometheus)

prometheus is revealed as corrupt, but that doesn’t stop people from believing in him, so he is made an example of.

word count: 903

content warnings: torture

one of the chosen

another low-lore worldbuilding piece- this one about a teenage girl who gets conscripted to the acheron early.

word count: 824

content warnings: n/a (it’s fairly dark, though, so be careful).

eskhatos*

after the events of ulysses dies at dawn, the mechanisms leave, but not without causing a bit of chaos first.

word count: 464

content warnings: cannibalism

HIGH NOON OVER CAMELOT

the fastest shot

guinevere’s backstory! 

word count: 792

content warnings: murder, child abuse, alcoholism

the sharpest aim

a western-style tall tale, starring lancelot!

word count: 1667

content warnings: relationship abuse, murder, violence

i will rule this town*

another personal favorite! expanding on ‘ten caliber railgun he got off a bandit in the flooded sectors’, it deals with arthur’s attempts to bring down nimue, the lady of the lake, and gain control! also has some lancelot/arthur/guinevere fluff, and a bit of an insight into his friendship with brian- as well as his original hopeful mindset, and how that diminished.

word count: 1488

content warnings: murder, drowning

the wake

morgan le fay (mordred’s surrogate mother)’s funeral, and mordred’s decision to go seek out camelot.

word count: 1045

content warnings: death (but only in the context of it being a funeral), cultural cannibalism

pellinore and the beast (audio version here)

this one’s a bit of an odd one- i’ve included it for the sake of completion, as it’s on the fiction list, but it’s just the lyrics to the mechs song pellinore and the beast? i’ve excluded the word count and content warnings for this one, as it’s literally just the lyrics. unsure of what to do here.

OTHER

the prisoner of dorian gray

the mechanisms’ take on the story of dorian grey! this one is part fiction, part song lyrics with a note of the tune they should be sung to.

word count: 1746

content warnings: suicide, torture

and that’s it! the fiction is all very good and well written, and i’d highly recommend reading at least a few of these!

[majorshatterandhare]

Eurydice/Orpheus/Narcissus/Echo polycule.

Orpheus dates Eurydice and Narcissus,

Narcissus dates Orpheus and Echo,

Echo dates Narcissus and Eurydice,

And Eurydice dates Echo and Orpheus.

It’s a square.

[discountdyke]

i wish i could put into words how much i love both “Orpheus, Dionysus, Muriatic Acid and the Strange Whirring Thing” and “Orpheus and Narcissus Go on a Trip to the Seaside”. theres something so intimate in its exploration of grief, addiction, and, of course, what it means to be best friends out of proximity. two broken people, nothing particularly special about them aside from their heartbreak finding each other and whiling the time away.

[majorshatterandhare]

When one of your favorite characters is not even mentioned in main media, only appears in 2 short fictions and a solo song 😭