UPDATED 29 JUNE 2026: I'm old, pansexual and use she/her pronouns. I've been involved in fandoms since the 1990s and wrote Doctor Who fic back in the day. Nowadays I'm focused primarily on The Mechanisms, Magnus Archives/Protocol, RQG and other Rusty Quill shows, but Doctor Who, Star Trek and a lot of other SF is still there in the background. I'm also finally back into writing!
I won't knowingly follow accounts labelled as run by minors 'cause, as Jonny D'Ville says, that'd be fucking creepy.
I also run @mechanismsgifs where I'm aiming to create gifs of all the Mechs live shows we have on You Tube.
On the subject of the mechs, here's when/how I think all the mechs learned to play their instruments
Jonny
You cannot tell me that guy was not annoying the fuck out of people with his Harmonics on New Texas. Oh look its this kid with his fuckass harmonica playing house of the rising sun for the 5th time.
Nastya
For much of history playing an instrument was a popular hobby for noblewomen to have, so it's possible she'd known how to play the viola since she was young, but it's also possible Carmilla had her learn it to occupy her time and begin building out her band.
Ashes
Considering their backstory, I don't think Ashes would have had the means or time to learn to play the bass, so I think they learned after getting mechanized.
Brian
See, I think Brian was mechanized with being a drummer in mind, and that's why he's called the Drumbot. By this point, Carmilla had 3 musical children (4 including Scuzz), so while programing Brian's new body, she could have slipped in some muscle memory adjacent programming to help him learn faster. I do think he learned the banjo on his own though.
Ivy
Considering her amnesia, even if she played an instrument pre mechs she probably wouldnt remember it. So I think she would have learned them after, picking them up faster than the average person but not immediately. Understanding how to play on a technical level is one thing but it takes practice to build up the muscles and breath support you need to play well.
Toy Soldier
Based on it's backstory comic it could speak/sing and got it's voice as we hear it from the angel person, but I think it learned to play the mandolin/glockenspiel after it joined the mechs because we don't really see it play in Lashings.
Tim
I think Tim knew how to play before the moon war and brought the guitar with him and would use it when they'd sing to boost morale. Maybe he'd do little duets with the toy soldier.
Raphaella
Honestly it could go either way. It'd be funny if she showed up on the Aurora like hey guys i also cracked secret to immortality can I join your band I play an instrument.
Marius
Like Ashes, I dont think he would have had the means to learn, and then with the war stuff and partial amnesia, so I think he learned post mechanization.
"and then ten minutes of Odin's face, smiling directly into camera. I can't tell whether the image is frozen or not, but after watching her increasingly erratic behaviour, I can't shake the feeling that she's looking at me..."
I may have reached a new level of Magnus adjacent nerdery
Behold the fruits of my ongoing war with printers and Microsoft word:
I recorded ‘once upon a time (in space)’ onto cassette tape in the spirit of the Magnus archives and decided to torture myself with photoshop for several hours to produce a sleeve for it….and proceeded to get the measurements wrong multiple times
I bet Jonny embroidered. Every one seems to headcanon that he sews but he’s got thousands of years on his hands. I bet he embroiders. Not his own clothing tho it’s not his style. I bet he painstakingly embroiders all of his crew’s coats and vests and blazers. I bet they don’t even know it’s him
giving the mechs pets!! (I have so much ‘mechs with pets’ lore in my head, I must share some of it)
Jonny has a dragon he took with him after One-Eyed Jacks and he uses it to cause havoc and burn stuff down (he is also the most caring dragon-dad ever but nobody is allowed to know that)
Ivy is a cat person, having 3 normal cats and two khoshekh type cats. One gray tabby, one brown tabby, two black cats and an orange cat that is everyone’s favorite.
Raph has birds. She has too many to count (we don’t know where they keep coming from).She feels at home with other winged creatures so birds! She mechanized all three of her favorites’ wings (to match with her wings :3) and all the other just have normal life cycles.
Naystia had a hairless cat that went to Tim when she jumped from the airlock.
Tim has cats too! (Everyone here loves cats faaarrr to much) two of his own and the hairless one.
Marius is the most friendly with the octokittens so he has been put in charge of caring for them as his own. (Makes the death more tragic, or funny depending on how you look at it)
The Toy Soldier has a whole ecosystem. It just collects and steals all the animals it can find. Starting small with a fish or two, then growing into trying to steal Jonny’s dragon once (didn’t go well)
Ashes has a German shepherd that they have trained to stay away from fire at all costs. It is very protective of Ashes and would try to jump into fire to save them. (It also disapproves of their smoking habits but we don’t talk about that)
Brian has a golden retriever because he needs a friend to cuddle with :3
They are all the Aurora’s pets.
(all of the animals are also mechanized (or in the case of Raph and the ts the favorites are) because the mechs just want immortal animal friends) (you can also make the pets more alien taken that tim is the only one from earth and that would be reflected in their pets)
Can we get more pet shenanigans. I love this.
I love the idea of weird fucked up sppets everyone loves....
bonus headcanon for wtnv fans; khoshekh was actually Ivy's and was dropped off in nightvale soon before the events of dttm
