chitra || he/him || mechanisms meta & lore explanation! || read the about before interacting || INACTIVE + ARCHIVED, for burning questions or to chat see my main @rosencrantzsguildenstern
so, you’ve heard about the mechanisms, but have no idea what they are or how to get into them?
the mechanisms are a steampunk folk concept band! if you’re familiar with the decemberists, some of the stuff david bowie has done, or steam powered giraffe, it’s a bit like that- each album tells a story! (the albums are all tragic space operas, with the added bonus of being very queer!)
the bit where it starts to get complicated is the band itself. they’re all playing characters, and they do their shows in character! so, basically, the narration on the albums isn’t omniscient- it’s being narrated by the mechanisms, who have opinions about the story and tend to get involved in it at some point. to differentiate them from the actual band, i’m going to refer to them as ‘the crew of the aurora’!
further details under the cut! (edit: added some links!)
the albums
they have 4 main albums, which you can listen to on spotify, bandcamp and youtube! just look them up, there's a youtube account called TheVoidSings that does lyric videos + album playlists, as well as the mechanisms official account! in addition, they are all linked at the end of this post.
(note: the albums are all tragedies, and there’s some pretty intense stuff that can happen- i wouldn’t let that steer you away from it as they are very good and well done, but if you tend to like lighter or happier stories, be a bit careful going in? a lot of queer characters tend to die- because 1. everyone dies and 2. everyone is queer- which, while it’s not bury your gays, i know some people like to avoid.)
album descriptions
-once upon a time (in space)- based on european fairy tales! stars snow white and her attempt to rebel against the evil king cole and his intergalactic empire and rescue her sister, rose red! also has a lesbian romance at the center!
-ulysses dies at dawn- based on greek mythology! stars four 'suitors'- orpheus, oedipus, ariadne, and hercules- trying to break into ulysses/odysseus' secret vault on a job for the olympians, an elite mob family with a stranglehold over the planet it takes place on
-high noon over camelot- a steampunk western based on arthurian legend! features poly arthur, guinevere, and lancelot on a quest for the G.R.A.I.L, the control center of the abandoned space station they're trapped on
-the bifrost incident- based on norse mythology! a locked room mystery around what happened to the ratatosk express, a train that disappeared eighty years ago with all of the asgardian ruling class on board. this album is also rock, versus the earlier ones which were folkpunk.
you can listen to them in any order (i've summarized them in order of release), but you should listen to the album of your choice in order/all the way through! (my personal favorite is high noon over camelot!)
the crew
the crew of the aurora is a group of nine queer space pirates! they’re all immortal, mostly because of dr carmilla, a morally ambiguous, very lonely lesbian vampire who has a slight problem with experimenting on dying children. they all have a mechanical part of some kind- for example, ashes o’reilly has mechanical lungs, because they originally died from smoke inhalation. that part is called their mechanism, and it’s what’s keeping them immortal! (also, their immortality works by having them come back from death, rather than being unable to be harmed. this can result in them doing really stupid shit, dying, and then just coming back. they murder each other a lot to bond) there’s a lot of found family vibes, which is quite nice! in general, despite being tragic figures themself, they add an air of humor to the albums with their banter and the like!
each of the crew has their own backstory, mostly from quite different genres! if you’d like a fairly comprehensive version of all their backstory songs, i’d recommend this recorded show and if you’d like just an assessment of their general vibes/a good intro to everything, i’d suggest looking up ‘the ignomious demise of dr plitchard’ (one of their stand-alone songs)
bonus content
recorded gigs- there are quite a few out there, and i’d highly recommend listening to them, because the shows were the original way the media was supposed to be! there’s a ton of in character banter, they’re all in costume, all that!
death to the mechanisms- the mechanisms’ last show! it has a very bittersweet vibe, but there’s also incredible lighting, as well as proper recordings of tales to be told and drunk space pirate (the songs they play at the beginning and end of each show!) there’s also a lot of lore there that’s nice to know, including what it says on the tin: how they all, eventually, die. note- there’s a stream and an audio version. the stream is choppy and cuts out a lot, and the audio version is nice and clean, but the stream is still nice to watch because of the lighting and the visual jokes.
tales to be told volumes one and two- compilations of all their standalone songs! some of them fit with albums, and some of them are their own retellings that work on their own! this is also where all the backstory songs are compiled, though i’d recommend watching the recorded show i linked instead as that has the relevant exposition.
frankenstein- a standalone, 10 minute album on youtube about the story of victoria frankenstein and the rogue ai she created.
dr. carmilla albums (exhumed and [un]plugged + ageha prototype edition, available on bandcamp)- songs telling the backstory of doctor carmilla, the mechanisms’ creator! they’re in a different style than the rest- think girl in red. lots of yearning lesbian music vibes.
mechanisms fiction- this is on their website! has a lot of very interesting lore and character things, and i’d highly recommend reading all of it! it’s also very well written. personally, i’d recommend ulysses and narcissus go to the seaside, the quickest draw, archive footage, and bedtime story for the writing, and ever after, the story of the toy soldier, who killed dr carmilla, and ghost in the machine for lore!
resources
links to almost all the mechanisms content out there!
album links
once upon a time in space- spotify/bandcamp/youtube
ulysses dies at dawn- spotify/bandcamp/youtube
high noon over camelot- spotify/bandcamp/youtube
the bifrost incident- spotify/bandcamp/youtube
bonus content
tales to be told, volume 1- spotify/bandcamp/youtube
tales to be told, volume 2- spotify/bandcamp/youtube
frankenstein- spotify/bandcamp/youtube
mechanisms ‘supplementals’ (songs not in the albums, alternative versions, etc)- youtube
exhumed and (un)plugged- bandcamp/youtube
ageha (prototype edition)- bandcamp/youtube
mechanisms fiction
additional short story
tumblr (mostly an inactive blog for the band to post about shows they were doing, but features some in-character posts)
Come celebrate the women of the Mechanisms universe!
Hello all! Mechanisms Women’s Week 2026 is officially planned!
The event this year will run from August 10-August 16. All kinds of creativity are welcome: art, fic, music, collages, or whatever else you come up with! The only rules are that works are created for the event, and that they are about Mechanisms characters who are canonically women.
Here are this year’s prompts:
For each prompt, you can pick one or both words to create around. To share your work during the event, tag this blog. This year I’ll also be creating a Women’s Week AO3 collection, so keep an eye out for that!
I’m so excited to run this again, and I can’t wait to see what y’all come up with <3
oh hey look! i made that first set (the escalation of the go to bed meme). i think it’s been lost to time, but i’m pretty sure there were two more edits with red signal lyrics and thomas the tank engine on them
It's no wonder Out happened when you really think about it. Nastya doesn't like organic life because it's complicated, it can break, sometimes it's even unfixable.
quote from gender rebels
Nastya is in love with Aurora, and in saying that she is saying "you are not organic life, I can deal with you because you are metal and algorithm and predictable" - we can see this in bedtime story when she says she'll tweak Aurora's story creation algorithm
screenshot from A Bedtime Story
Aurora is not inorganic. She is not ai. She is a space moon made of flesh and blood and teeth and bone. She is not an ai. She is a body that was taken and stripped of autonomy, of the right to self identify, of the right to think- to be imperfect and organic.
The metal is a veneer that hides how messy and traumatized and unfixable she is. From the outside she is a starship. From the inside she can still bleed.
And this makes them fundamentally incompatible. But yet, they are in love.
And really, it's no wonder Nastya fell in love with Aurora. Let's take a look at Nastya's home planet, or at least home society:
"Terminals were scattered across the planet. There was one on every street corner, one beneath every lamppost and one in every commune block."
"The midwife-machine performs a series of programmed manœuvres to quieten [the baby]. It cradles it and hums at several pitches until it finds one that seems most soothing. Mechanical arms stroke the baby’s flesh even as others start the process of implanting augmented reality interfaces into its nervous system."
"The Czar an atrophied frame, never present in the real world and worn to dust by the chemical compounds that kept his brain alive so it could live forever in a perfect virtual paradise. The Rabotnik a copy, a mind preserved unchanging in the instant before its death and placed in an everlasting metal frame."
(Cyberian Demons)
Its safe to say the world Nastya was born into, from the very minute she was born, was ridden with technology. She has augmented reality interfaces inplanted into her from birth. It would stand to reason that being taken from this society, wherein technology is everywhere, inside and out, would stand for a bit of a shock.
Aurora too had been augmented by the Cyberia.
While it is stated that the last time Nastya had used the ports themselves was directly before her death — "The last time she had used the ports, her tutor had ripped them out of her as the rebels stormed the palace" — Aurora is laced with Cyberian technology. I'd imagine she has something of a 'bluetooth wireless connection' with Aurora, rather than the physical data transfer of files between the ports and Nastya, it may as well be similar enough.
Imagine being Nastya, going from Cyberia, wherein there is augmented reality contantly, transplanted onto a ship with metal blood, a jonny, and a vampire. To Aurora, where the only bits of augmented reality run through Aurora.
Of course she'd fall in love with her. Aurora is familiarity. Aurora isn't organic. Aurora isn't human.
And of course when the undeniable part of aurora that is organic, that is a flesh moon plated in metal with her brain hooked to machines, when so much has broken and been replaced, when, presumably, aurora is less of an algorithm, nastya leaves with the brand cyberia left on her.
Because Aurora healing, becoming more of herself and less of a starship, is messy, and organic, and human.
and hard for nastya.
‘Think how long she’s been flying you around. Think how many bullet holes you’ve punched through her and how many atmospheres you’ve dropped her through. Think how many alterations and improvements we’ve made, Tim to her guns and Ashes to her storage and Brian to her engines and the Toy Soldier to who knows what. How much do you think is left of her after all she’s brought you through?’ Nastya held up the ancient, battered piece of hull plating. Just visible under the grime and scars of particles of space junk was a fragment of the Aurora’s original logo and serial number. Jonny honestly couldn’t remember the last time he had seen a version that hadn’t been painted by the Mechanisms themselves.
‘So she’s free, now.’ Nastya gestured around at the spaceship they were standing in. ‘This Aurora can take you where you want to go. I’m going to take my Aurora somewhere else.’
Aurora was ship of theseus'd. Aurora was improved. Aurora was no longer cyberian. (both literally, and metaphorically)
In conclusion, people should write more nastyaurora toxic yuri. There is not a single functional relationship aboard that ship and this includes the ship and her lover.
Uhrg... Thanks for making me cry, but this is very noted? I will not tweak what i have done for downtime since, god damn it its a lot already, but it's definitely something i need to consider
Though i wonder,...aurora becomes somewhat organic n nastya leaves, yes? ....but what if - and this is definitely plot information, what if the organic gets killed? Her heart gets killed, but it leaves a somewhat functional ship...it just- does not talk, no opinions, no responses, no quiet electrical humming.
Say, what would nastya do? Especially if she saw who did it.
Though then another question. My game will not be like canon. Will it still be enjoyed?
To me personally, if Aurora died, the ship would become nonfunctional very quickly
She has halls that are all flesh. Those would behind to rot. She mostly steers herself these days, they'd functionally be adrift
Who would open doors at request? There is no """"""ai""""""" to calculate the thousands of requests to manage the systems
If Aurora died, the ship would not function, as if there was no reason for her to be present, cyberia wouldn't have kidnapped/taken/mechanicalized her, they would've built a ship
But in a what-if scenario nastya did see that, she'd go nuclear lmao
(Although, I do think whomever killed her would have a bigger problem in Carmilla, whenever the doctor finds out someone killed her daughter)
(I also love my headcanon that as Aurora heals from cyberia/has less of their tech directly wired into hers brain she begins to grow again. She was a tiny baby moon when they took her. The spiders actively keep her fed, the mechanisms keep her safe, of course she'd start growing. And to me this means duplicate organs and hearts within her new flesh, new mouths and new hearts and new filter breathing apparatuses for sailing through gas clouds, the mechanisms live deep within her but she's so much more than she was when she was younger)
Regardless though, I think people will play your game? Mechs canon is a sandbox of interpretation and silliness
So, it’s been a few years since @lucky-sevens made his frankly fantastic Dr Carmilla basics post.
I figured I would take the liberty to make a new Carmilla refresh post 5 years on
So, under the cut, you will find Dr. Carmilla: Who, What, Why, When?
Notes: I have included some screenshots from the Maki Forbidden Lore Document, a document that is shared within Maki’s discord server containing improvised, prone to retconning, and not strictly canon lore. These screenshots are not implicitly canon and are used to provide tone and vibes; they are strictly demi-canon.
Table of Contents:
Out Of Universe
Origins of Dr. Carmilla
Who is Maki Yamazaki
Pre-In Universe Notes
In Universe
Pre-Mechanisms
Carmilla’s Home Planet
Loreli
Mechanisms Era
Relationship with her children
Silly Vampire Goth Mom
Why did Doc C create the mechanisms
What order were they mechanized
Why did Dr Carmilla leave
common misconceptions
Post Mechanisms
Out of Universe:
Dr. Carmilla is played by Maki Yamazaki. Maki Yamazaki is a Japanese-British artist, games developer, and a performer and musician. Maki’s bandcamp can be found here and her website can be found here
Maki Yamazaki, as she currently is, claims to be a clone of Dr. Carmilla, who has struck out on her own.
Origins of Dr. Carmilla
But well— out of universe entirely, the history of the character is older than a lot of people might think! Maki created the character Dr. Carmilla in about 2009. The exact timeline is a bit difficult to put together, but the earliest mention I can find of Dr. Carmilla online is in this livejournal post by user Sebastienne.
As mentioned in this post, we start with the group Lashings of Ginger Beer Time! This is, where I figure, a lot of early Dr. Carmilla took place. Sebastienne and Carmilla were both members of Lashings. (Frank Voss, who plays Ashes, also was! Ashes wears a Lashings pin on their hat in some photos!)
So… What was Lashings? That is another post entirely. But in short, it was a queer performance group, of which some of their songs were videoed and put on Youtube!
Here is, as is important, Maki/Doc C’s lasher card.
Who is Maki Yamazaki?
Well, as I said, she is a Japanese-british artist. Though, more than me, I think Maki’s words on who she is will speak a lot louder than mine, (and be a LOT more relevant than anything I have to say) so linked are some interviews with Maki she’s done over the years!
Interview with Represent Me: This interview is from 2018! I was about to type “So it is relatively recent! Only two years!” but then I remembered 2020 was 6 years ago. Scary.
This interview has a focus on Maki’s work with the games industry! She talks about her experiences with games development, living while disabled, inspiration, and storytelling. There is some reference to her past in music making, but overall it’s a focus on her work in game development!
Interview with Monika Kowalska, who runs a blog. Frankly, her own description will do it better justice than me:
“One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman. No biological, psychological, or economic fate determines the figure that the human female presents in society. We are wives, mothers, grandmothers, sisters, daughters, and partners. I interviewed over 700 transgender women who radiate with wisdom, beauty, intelligence and love. The blog is about transgender women who proved to me that there is hope for me and it is better to be hated for who you are than to be loved for who you are not.”
(This blog continues to update frequently as well!)
This interview with Maki took place Wednesday, November 26, 2014, and has a focus on transfeminism, music, Dr Carmilla, and storytelling with a trans focus. Maki discusses her experiences with being trans, being an artist, and in general a lot of her creative history!
This one is less an interview, and more an announcement for a 2 minute long interview with maki! This is from September 11th, 2014. It’s her own words as she talks and discusses being trans, being a musician, and transitioning. She also discusses disability, and her experiences with using a wheelchair.
This final interview is probably the most DC&TM relevant one, one. It was with Steampunk-music.com on September 9th, 2012, and has a focus on Dr. Carmilla, as it was being written then.
It opens with:
“Picture a bar on the ragged fringe of a post-apocalyptic desert. Its rowdy patrons converse in hushed tones about scarce riches and scarcer women. Whiskey and water slosh freely. In the air between its sagging board walls and above its found-object benches, music lingers, speaking of desperate hope and characters all too familiar in this hard-lived future.
Welcome to Dr. Carmilla's world.”
So we can imagine what we are in for. This article is one of the best sources for actual information on The Loreli Cycle!
This article goes into a lot of Maki’s inspirations musically, her choices on using a ukulele, as well as her experiences being diagnosed with Elhors-Danlos syndrome as well as going into her then-future projects.
All of these interviews and videos together should give you all a good idea of who Maki is!
Pre-In Universe Notes
Before going into this, it's important to establish that not all Doc C lore is compatible with The Mechanisms lore as the bands diverged and changed.
The Mechanisms were, originally, Dr. Carmilla’s backing band in the joint band Dr. Carmilla & The Mechanisms.
This split into Dr. Carmilla, and The Mechanisms - two separate musical acts that diverged over time.
In Universe:
Our enigmatic Dr. Carmilla is, in universe, the creator of most of the characters we call The Mechanisms, who make up the core “crew” of The Aurora. But that is not where she begins, nor where she ends.
I think the best place to start would likely be her character bio:
Dr. Carmilla is a spacefaring intergalactic criminal much like the crew! She’s a bit of a pirate, more than a bit of a chaos-causer, and is far, far, far from human. She masquerades as a traveling musicians, and well,
has a bit of a vampiric tendency to herself.
(She also tends to leave clones of herself around that assume the name Maki Yamazaki.)
Pre-Mechanisms
Home Planet
As for where she starts, we start on a long-ago planet called Terra.
Now, we don't know much about Terra. Not in its heyday, at least. But what we do know is that now?
Well, Now it's uninhabitable. Why? Well, hm.
Good question. Now you might be tempted to go “We know the Dr. Carmilla song After The Bomb exists! That must be what happened!” nope— Maki has said otherwise. After the Bomb is not about Terra.
But well, we do have the description from carmilla.bandcamp.com
“Dr. Carmilla tells the twisted tales of a dystopian future following WWII having ended very differently.”
So, well, nuclear fallout is very quite possible? The after the bomb song isnt about Terra, but there very well could have been something else bomb-adjacent happening there as well.
That combined with the @/mxmy comic about Zombie Stalin, well,
We can assume that, possibly, possibly, maybe whatever occurred with Terra, was Possibly Space WW2 Adjacent, to how Gunpowder Tim Vs The Moon Kaiser, is Space WW1! Or at least was. Once upon a time was. This is all Very Very Very old lore, and may likely have been changed/retconned/altered since, especially with the upcoming band Doctor Carmilla and The Void Quartet, and their album trilogy they are working on.
Similarly, from the TvTropes page, we have this:
So we do know that, at least, those two songs were about our doctor destroying her home planet.
These songs were, though, non-recorded, and may have been retconned.
Similarly with Terra, I am going to pretty much rip off @lucky-sevens’ Carmilla post here, and state that we know Aurora was a moon of Terra, and we know that Carmilla likely destroyed one of Terra’s moons. Maki stated as much in discord, but the discord lore is nebulous, non-canon, vague lore.
I will link lucky-sevens’s aurora lore post here though, as it's very important!
Carmilla… probably maybe destroyed one of Terra’s moons. In this, she acquired/adopted/???a daughter, Aurora! A moon! Not yet a starship! A moon! Flesh! Flesh moon!
Read Chitra’s aurora lore post I promise it makes sense. I super promise it makes sense.
Loreli
Moving past Terra, we move into Loreli!
Loreli… Loreli.
I am going to basically pull out a chunk from @lucky-sevens’ post here with permission.
Chitra made a lore post about the order of the carmilla songs here; this is very useful.
from chitras carmilla basics:
at some point (when she was younger than 30), carmilla became a vampire. this could have been, but is not explicitly, what her song alive, i cried, is about. she is one of only two vampires. the assumption…is that the other vampire was her lover, loreli. this is supported by maki saying ‘dead needs further clarification’ when asked whether loreli was alive or not, suggesting that she was undead.
however, there are other theories, the main one that i have seen being that the other vampire is rocket girl, the unnamed character carmilla is singing about in her song ‘rocket girl’, who we know has more lore about her that is currently unknown.
for simplicity, i’ll write the rest of this meta with the assumption loreli is the other vampire. after she was turned, or potentially before, her relationship with carmilla turned toxic and abusive, which a few of carmilla’s songs are about, most notably pin cushion.
TDLR: Loreli was Carmilla’s partner on Terra. Carmilla was in a romantic relationship with her that went badly, as Loreli was abusive to Carmilla.
For more Loreli, here is the only known depiction of Loreli I have managed to find.
Now, we don't quite know what happened that made Carmilla leave Loreli, or strike out on her own, but we do know it was a long long time after Loreli that Carmilla chose to make The Mechanisms, her children, immortal.
Mechanisms Era:
Relationship with her children
Dr. Carmilla and her children.
Dr Carmilla, is, to put it in its simplest terms, Silly Campy Vampire Goth Mom. Ebony Darkness Dementia Raven Way a bit. She canonically hung out or at least has a crush on that one vampire troll from homestuck. She is a fun character, the silly goth vampire mom, Carmilla from the book Carmilla, but a space scientist, she is silly spooky a character concept of “Anastasia, the lost princess of Russia, except shes in space and fucking a starship” — Carmilla is first and foremost a fun character.
Secondly,
Carmilla was not inherently abusive to the mechanisms. This headcanon is not canon. This headcanon is the result of a lot of weird fandom nonsense that happened in 2020/2021.
do not make her racist/homophobic/transphobic/ableist. She is a disabled Japanese ace trans lesbian. I do not need to be any more clear on this topic.
Here is a post by maki on the topic, which I will let speak for itself:
[Image id: A screenshot of a tumblr post made by Maki that reads:
I generally don’t like like to weigh in on public discourse surrounding fanon as:
1) I am a firm believer in the beauty & creativity of fan works, as well as one’s own interpretation of art.
2) It is sadly all too easy for such online discussions to turn toxic, hurting people in the community.
However, I would like to note that as a survivor of trauma & abuse myself, seeing Dr. Carmilla painted as an abuser makes me very uncomfortable, whatever one’s own head-canon/interpretation might be.
end image id]
Moving Forward Past That
Silly Vampire Goth Mom.
Carmilla loved the mechanisms. The mechanisms themselves may seem to have a….somewhat it seems negative opinion of The Doctor. As seen in Homesick with:
[JONNY] (very, afraid) ALRIGHT ALRIGHT- Stop stop stop stop stop, whoa whoa whoa okay okay okay- I can’t take it anymore! Are you going to kill us or not? Cause I’m (stuttering)- It’s lovely when we’re playing songs, and it’s great. But we shot- well, one of us, shot you out of an airlock, and I wanna know. What are you going to do to us? Other than killing me?
[DOC C] Now is not the time, Jonny, I’m feeling a bit tetchy.
[JONNY] Watch it. You’re- you’re planning something. Something.
[DOC C] Medication time.
[JONNY] Yes– (cutoff)
Now, this may seem, “Woah! Jonny is afraid of her!”
She’s their mom. They threw her her out an airlock. I want any of you to imagine what would happen if your mother was immortal, you were immortal, violence between you all was casual, and you threw your mom out an airlock.
As we know from Lashings, the mechanisms airlocking their mother was a very common occurrence.
And as we know from gender rebels, killing the lead singer of the band is not a uniquely violent thing.
Carmilla killing them for them throwing her out the airlock likely does not hold any more narrative weight than say, Tim killing their lead singer (Jonny) in gender rebels so they could “sing their own songs” — its basically the same thing! Jonny likely killed all of them when he woke up after gender rebels and got away from Brian (who was babysitting his body) — Carmilla is not uniquely violent here if she does kill them all.
(Medicine Time, as in the transcript, is likely a lead up into the song Welcome to Medi. Co) — and importantly, part of a stage bit.)
But regardless,
Why did Dr. Carmilla create the mechanisms?
She was likely lonely. She had been immortal a long long long long time. She wanted a companion in space.
Let's start with Jonny as an example of her relationship with the mechanisms pre-mechanization. We know that Jonny did not die immediately when he left New Texas with carmilla
[Jonny D’Ville] “Well, that’s very kind of you Jack and I know that in your own heart you only ever did what was best for me but, you see, I don’t need a father anymore. Got a new friend, she’s a doctor. She gave me an interesting prescription - let’s see if I can remember. Oh yeah, half an ounce of lead to be injected directly into the brain. And it wasn’t a prescription for me.”
From One Eyed Jacks
They likely traveled together a while, before well, Jonny died.
How did Jonny die? Unknown,
As stated, I am going to share bits and pieces of the Forbidden Maki Lore Document. Chitra has previously shared little bits in his Dr. Carmilla Basics post.
this screenshot is non canon, is demi-canon, and is prone to reconning and change. it was said 6 years ago informally. i am using it here to emphasize tone.
But well— this bit from the Maki lore document. I think really emphasizes the important bits here— with regards to how Carmilla thought about Jonny, his mechanization, and how mechanization effected him
She loved him.
He had a good heart. but it was broken before carmilla tinkered with him.
She thought he’d be a good companion.
and well
yknow.
In any case— Carmilla made her children immortal because she loved them, because she thought they would make good companions. Shown more in the below screenshot:
again, this screenshot is non canon, and is prone to reconning and change. it was said 6 years ago informally. I am using it here to emphasize the dynamic between Carmilla and her children.
This is also a very extremely relevant point — mechanism corrupts, immortality corrupts
And her kids keep terrorizing the galaxy, so…. well, like, she isn't making more. She wanted friends. Companions that wouldn't die on her.
I oftentimes see people saying Carmilla didn't ask them if they wanted to become immortal. She did ask them. They were dying though. They didn't exactly have long to think on it.
She thought they would be good companions through the stars. They were good kids. Good potentially infinite friends.
Then they went and terrorized the galaxy and went “hey vampire mom, look!” as Carmilla watched from behind them.
Anyway —
Mechanization.
What order were her kids mechanized?
Jonny - From a planet called new Texas
Nastya - From Cyberia, where Carmilla was likely there to recover Aurora, her stolen child who had been turned into a moonship
Ivy - Bibliotheca Magna. She was possibly brought to Carmilla by Jonny after he rescued her from a fire
Ashes - Malone, twin suns. Lucky sevens. etc.
[Scuzz] - Unknown. Ninja.
Toy Soldier - Picked up in The Cole Dominion by the mechanisms, See Lashings
Brian - See this post
This is when Carmilla left.
After Carmilla left, she left materials in her laboratory that then allowed the Mechanisms themselves to mechanize one Gunpowder Tim.
Carmilla possibly never canonically met Marius and Raphaella.
During her time with the mechanisms, we know a few things. She was involved in the war within The Cole Dominion (see her song Eleven where she and TS interact with Rose Reds) - and she was airlocked a lot of times, before each show, so it seems.
But overall, Carmilla spent a long, long, long time flying, exploring, and making music with her children. She loved them, made them immortal to be her companions, even if they involved themselves with things they ought not to have.
So why then, did our Doctor leave The Starship Aurora?
That, I think, is best summed up by in and out of character reasons.
In character, we have this Carmilla website page
“They were created by Dr Carmilla. If there was any reason, she is the only person who understands it. Carmilla took the person each Mechanism once was and replaced the broken parts of their body with something flawless, mechanical and dead. Jonny’s metal heart pumps blood where his old one once broke, although it can feel no emotion; Ivy’s positronic brain can recall every fact, but feel none of them.
For a while the Mechanisms flew with Carmilla through this broken universe aboard the vessel Aurora. And then Carmilla left. Possibly she had secret things she needed to do. Possibly she regretted the companions she had made and cast them aside. Possibly the Mechanisms turned on their creator and flung her into the depths of space. Regardless, the Mechanisms sail between worlds alone now.
And frequently they manage to involve themselves in places and times they ought not to.”
Dr. Carmilla may have left for a lot of reasons, though Maki has stated it wasn’t a single final airlocking.
We don't know exactly why she left. There likely wasn't only one reason she left. There never is, when leaving family.
All we know is that she did, in the end, decide to leave on her own.
Out of character, well,
Some quotes from those interviews sum it up pretty well:
At first, it started out as Dr. Carmilla & The Mechanisms, but life circumstances took me away from the rest of the band, and I decided to go solo. It was probably the best decision I ever made as it coincided with setting up my own studio and focusing on making recordings in a very complimentary manner. (X)
Maki, at the time of leaving DC&TM was having a lot of health issues, that combined with the lack of accessibility in the music scene,
Unfortunately a lot of venues don't have full wheelchair access, especially not to the stage, and this is a real problem, from my experience. I really love playing gigs, but venues need more disability awareness! (X)
Ended with her career in music taking a bit of a pause:
As I slid painfully into adulthood, I became much more focussed on making music and comics. However, I have a chronic illness, and as my health got worse it became harder to do either. Eventually I got sick of the music industry crushing my soul at every possible turn and decided to change my career path altogether. (X)
A lot happened that ended up with Doctor Carmilla taking a long hiatus. You can read more of Maki’s words on the subject here. But of course — that wasn't forever, as….. well! She’s got a band again!
Common Misconceptions
To end this section, I will list out a few misconceptions:
Carmilla bioprogrammed the mechanisms as evidenced by the fact Jonny say not sexually assaulting people is the only limit the doctor gave him!
No. She didn't. She did not bioprogram them. Maki said as much!
(Again, from the demi-canon lore document, not necessarily canon, but well uh, this is pretty straightforward)
Well then what is Brian’s switch?
Brian’s switch is Brian’s switch, which is not bioprogramming.
Hmmm. well, I think Carmilla was abusive
Ok. Then so is Jonny for killing the crew recreationally as “First Mate”. What are we doing.
Carmilla is a complex character. She’s had a rough past, with few functional relationships. She and The Mechanisms can have a painful and complex relationship without her having abused them.
It is important to know that Carmilla did, genuinely, love them and view them as her children, and not solely as test subjects.
But. As stated. Carmilla is, as stated, not abusive to her children.
It is not fair to Maki to have her character be slated in as “the abuser” because she had to step away from creating music with the band she started.
Besides,
Carmilla is a lot more fun as a character if you look at her from the lens of Another Member Of The Wacky Space Pirate Crew and not as Evil Mother We Must Banish To Obscurity. Which is more fun? Jonny trying to hide the fact he murdered a dozen people because his mom will be like JONNY. STOP KILLING PEOPLE. JONNY. SON WHY. ILL GET THE ACID FILLED SPRITZER IF YOU KEEP THIS UP. DID YOU AT LEAST SAVE THE BLOOD FOR ME. or whatever….. or Carmilla being a secret evil mastermind behind everything?
One is a lot more canon than the other.
Wait, I thought that Carmilla was dead!
Nope! Carmilla is in fact, right as rain, and has been alive for, probably, 50,000 years by how long its been since Terra was last inhabited. I don’t foresee her dying anytime soon! Carmilla just left Aurora and her other children to see brighter stars. She cannot physically die. She’s on her own ship called The Silvana now!
Huh, didn’t the mechanisms just airlock her and she was gone?
Nope! Carmilla left of her own free will. See “Why did Carmilla leave” section above! In reality, the mechanisms airlocked Carmilla regularly, recreationally if we will. It was a recursive show bit to say that they airlocked her, and that they thought she was dead/were surprised to see her back so soon.
They airlocked her many a time!
Post-Mechanisms
So now we get into the “present day” of Dr. Carmilla media!
These days, The Doctor haunts the stars with her new backing band, Dr. Carmilla & The Void Quartet, and is based in Silvana Laboratories, which, if you read those interviews earlier, is a fun name for her home studio!
It also, in lore, is the name of Carmilla’s ship! The Silvana! Which is… likely more than a little bit eldritch, given the fact we’re working with the Void here.
(and we all know the Void does sing)
See some tweets they made here, in our archive as well as some Dr Carmilla tweets.
You can catch current updates in Maki’s discord server, Maki’s patreon, and on her blog! (@/mxmy)
If looking for images/photos/art of carmilla, feel free to check out the lore archive pinned on this blog!
I feel we are being too hard on Arthur if your child is murdered at a young age then you live and grieve for several years accept the fact that your kid has died and isn't coming back then some robot guy hung from the gallows says hey your kid is coming back but he says son and as far as you knew you have a dead daughter you're not gonna assume that your child is not dead but had been living with your greatest rivals for most of his life and had transitioned during that time and you're double not going going to assume it must be that weird young guy in town who keeps telling me to do diplomacy
Hiya kofi! I see you throwing around the concept of the mechanisms / them all being storytellers / the concept of "narrative imperative" a lot. That aspect of mechs canon has always fascinated me a lot! Could I ask for a brief explanation of what that is? Thanks!
Sure, I'll do my best! So, the Mechs are storytellers first and foremost. Narrative is a central fact of their existence, and much about their existence revolves around story. Plus, they weren't really born in the forms and identities we know them, they were created. I see it as a result of their mechanisms being added to their bodies, but at any rate, it feels like narrative is something analogous to DNA. It doesn't define them as people, exactly, but it does explain a lot about them. They have narrative coded into them in that sort of way and so narrative influences how they interact with the world.
What does that mean? Well, the Mechs were created. If they can be said have a purpose, it's to stand as witnesses (and occasional catalysts) to the chaos and tragedy of the universe, and shape it all into story and song, to be remembered. And that's a possible reason why they're immortal - to be the means by which those stories live. But it's also the reason why they're only selectively immortal, because if a story requires them to die, either temporarily as with Moon Kaiser or permanantly as with Death to the Mechanisms, that's what they'll do.
Also also - it's the reason they're always in the right place to give the story the little nudge it needs to tip the scales. A whisper in the ear of an idealistic preacher. A 30 year stay in a New Midgard cell, to deliver a tiny tidbit of information so Lyf can finish writing their report. That's narrative imperative in action. They don't plan these things. The story that's a primary fact of their existence acts through them for a moment and makes it happen.
Have you seen Who Framed Roger Rabbit? The band used to talk about one scene all the time. It's the part where Roger handcuffs himself to Eddie, who's lost the keys. Eddie has to smuggle Roger in his trenchcoat through a crowded bar full of people ready to rat them out, into a back room where there's a hacksaw and vice. It's arduous but they make it. Eddie grabs the hacksaw and starts sawing at the cuffs. And then Roger just slips his hand out of his cuff like it's nothing. Eddie's obviously furious that Roger could do that at any time, but Roger is quick to clarify, "Not just any time. Only when it's funny."
He's a cartoon rabbit - that's how his reality works, according the the laws of comedic timing. The Mechanisms, as storytellers, interact with reality according to the rules and imperative of the narrative. I think their lives probably feel like a gilded prison in that respect. They aren't good people, and they feast on tragedy like a pack of vultures, but I feel sorry for them.
