#mech muses

[the-mechanica]

This past year has really been the first time in the 20 years that I've been writing fanfic that I've worried about my existence being entirely wiped off the face of the internet. Btw the attack on Ao3 last year, the enshittification of Twt and Tumblr, and the threat of KOSA and the proliferation of AI, it really truly does feel like fascists are trying to cut marginalized folks and creatives off from each other and potential work. Leaving nothing but homogenized christofascist sludge in their wake. That being said, I'm not leaving tumblr. I know the Apex community here is small, but it's also the only place I've been able to carve out a space in fandom at all. I have always been a punk, defined by my insistence on anticonsumerism, and my existence as a queer trans trauma survivor and swer. I understand if other people want to leave, but I've been on tumblr longer than any other social media platform at this point. I may have not been Mech, but I've been here, and I've been writing and posting fic on archive since 2017. Admittedly, I don't post much art here, and I'm darkly sure that my fic has been scraped already otherwise (have fun with all those 'demonio's and 'girlie's in there). However I will be trying to nightshade anything original I post going forward. I am thoroughly against AI, and I will personally mail fanfic out from a PO box if I have to. Back in the old days, me and my friends would print out fic and staple it in a corner to pass around at lunch (so it looked like schoolwork). That being said, I am also aware of the weird book binding etsy shit and want to spell out: NEVER PAY TO HAVE MY WORK BOUND, IF YOU WANT IT BOUND, ASK ME AND YOU MIGHT GET IT FOR FREE. NEVER PAY ANYTHING FOR FANFIC. Anyway, all of this to say that while I am on Bluesky and will possibly start a Cohost, I will be trying to maintain this blog. I only have it queued for the next month at any given moment anyway. If you are still here, thank you.

[trisshawkeye]

I think the dichotomy between Mechs fans who primarily knew them as a live cabaret act with added kayfabe and those who primarily know them through their albums and recordings is so funny

There are some wonderful artists out there having loads of fun giving Jonny d'Ville creature ears and a tail and generally being creative with appearances and characteristics

And then there's me, a fandom old grinch, sat shaking my head in the corner going, "Jonny d'Ville doesn't have a tail, I'd know, I've met him"

[veilantares]

Dark at the End of the Tunnel

Sink into an Anglers grasp in a dream, like the undersea the Night cradles screams

Been inspired by anglerfish recently, so I'm going to try to do at few of these dark background ones back to back and see if I stumble into something new. I noticed I tend to draw characters / mechs / robots in these oneshot illustrations extremely lanky, but I wonder if I made a comic, whether I'd keep these exaggerated proportions - I'm often indecisive about how much mech vs character is in these biomechs, so I usually just don't think about it and draw what feels interesting in the moment.

This gives me a chance to lay down a meandering anecdote - many years ago as a dumb teenager, I'd stay awake every Friday evening / saturday morning till 4 am, hoping to catch my favourite developer, Digital Extremes' weekly devstream. I vividly remember during closed beta in 2012 people would introduce the game as being about futuristic space pirates zipping through corridors - the games fidelity back then was really quite different, one of the early warframes, Ember, even had her whole model redone at one point. Around 2013-2014 ish when I was most excited for these streams, I noticed the games tagline was "ninja's play free", nothing at all to do with pirates - but it was catchy, and you'd see all over in the advertising because of the parkour moves you could pull off in the game were genuinely sick.

Incidentally, both the Defiance MMO (rip) and Destiny 1 (rip) were what warframe tended to be compared to at the time, both released a little after warframes closed beta, neither of which were piratey or ninja-ey , I think probably 80% of the reason for that was that they all had both guns and abilites ... I guess they were also all live services, I don't know if they were called that back then.

Compared to Defiance and Destiny, I was puzzled at what it was about warframes identity that made the aesthetic feel "itself" - and I got my answer on one of those devstreams - the art lead at the time brought out what they called a "faction pitch bible" a one pager showing all the factions they had in the game at the time, each of them with a few lines of flavour text.

What struck me from that faction pitch was that the Tenno / warframes "cyber knight" description was nothing at all to do with pirates or ninjas, it was a third, wholly other thing, and yet by virtue of being first, it might as well have been the "true" description.

But there was another original, even more original than the "true", Warframes predecessor game, Dark Sector, was a spy thriller with biomechanical aesthetics, or perhaps a powered suit superhero series. Would this original, more original than even the initial, not be what it truly was?

I think what my takeaway was from all of these, is that first an foremost, the aesthetic is "itself" rather than any arbitrary descriptors - I enjoy this about my own pieces, that they mostly still feel like they were made by me even if I can't quite categorise them or explain myself. Perhaps I'm happy if the takeaway is "cool mech", "weird robot" or "wacky character" because maybe it's all of those things and even more!

[chazz-is-a-zelda-fan]

boys when they want to satisfy the undisclosed desires in your heart

[austinramsaygames]

Ever since AC6 came out (and a little bit before that) there has been a LOT of horny posting about mech piloting. Just being in mech fandom spaces, whether it's a Battletech discord server or the #mechs tag on tumblr, has had horny stuff cross my path.

This isn't a slight against those posters, I wish them the best and that they have lots of fun, more a question of where this all came from and how it started.

I'm not unfamiliar with the connection between mechs and the idealized body, how thematically mech stories are often about machines closing the gap between ambition and ability while leaving the pilot emotionally vulnerable, I've been in the mech space for over 5 years at this point. Obviously those sorts of body/emotion related stories make for a short jump to erotica but there is a sudden proliferation of such tales that is kind of incredible.

[novadragoness]

Builder & Qi are the kind of power couple that would give Miguel heart attacks daily.

[majorshatterandhare]

I’m thinking about how the Mechs use energy, because they do things and live and therefore they *must* use energy, that’s how physics (and biology) work.

I had the idea that they are always absolutely frigid to the touch because they suck in heat from the environment like an endothermic chemical reaction.

[codenamejudas]

Jaden and Judas managing to stitch together a meaningful relationship is even funnier when you realize Jaden is a traitor out here hunting his coworkers to destabilize his former branch of MECH...and Judas' job is to hunt down MECH's traitors.

[katrina-zoonce]

If an IP with Mechs doesn't have a vast and deeply fucked up political network or gets really exitential about the human condition or what it means to be human, is it really worthy of Mechs?

[the-mechanica]

so like I tried to put the demisexual flag behind my pfp but it looks like this so it reads funny.

just like the rest of me /j gender aside: I have been considering using any pronouns. at this point I've called my gender 'tired'. If you want to use one or all for me, go for it. I don't care anymore. Happy pride

[heliophaestus]

begging fans of neverafter to listen to ouatis

[runemyth0]

So Guel Bob ran away, huh? Poor guy, obfuscating his name and getting a space trucking job to get away from the plot, only to get pulled back in by factors outside his control. Like, the normal arc for this kind of character is to get back in the saddle as fast as possible, but he kinda skipped right over that and fell right off the cliff. Now he’s all depressed.

And I certainly wasn’t expecting the other two gundams to show up in the hands of Earth-folk. Assuming they are gundams and not just styled after them; I didn’t see any GUND format effects on their faces, so either they’re not gundams or they’re newtype-equivalents like Suletta. I half-expected them to blow the bridge off Bob’s ship.

But everyone seems to be headed to Plant Quetta, so that’s probably where our grand finale is going to kick off at. Can’t wait to watch the fireworks.

[chazz-is-a-zelda-fan]

SING FOR ABSOLUUUUUTION, I WILL BE SINGING

[tearsoftime0086]

thinking about perfectio tonight...

[c1tyhaunts]

the sleepy countryside of Todos Santos // a man whose heart lays with the sea, sand mixed in wisps of hair // the woman named Mercedes Colomar // a deal gone bad // two graves built on envy & greed // left for dead in the middle of nowhere

CHARACTER MOODBOARDS & AESTHETICS. @cartelheir: ☁️ CLOUD — my muse's past (manny)

[general-kalani]

"Marauder... Or MadCat... Fuckin' hell what a hard choice."

"Did the Sarge get you into that Battletech game too?"

"Shit, it obvious?"

"Extremely. Who the fuck says 'Marauder or MadCat' in base unless it's from that game? I can't understand it myself but if you have fun that's all that matters I s'pose."