#novmechber 2022

[eternaljunkyard]

Novmechber Day 17: Baron Marius von Raum

another image redraw/trace!!! i love this silly violin human (although admittedly I do not know much about him),,, but this redraw is one of the ones I think follows the shapes better than some of the others!!! original image below

novmechber list and previous days here

[eternaljunkyard]

Novmechber Day 8: "That's their specialty."

A little messy, but it's been a busy day :D I can't get Bunpowder Tim out of my head because its my personal hc that GPT puts his hair in a bun sometimes :DDDD anyway enjoy,, I am so sorry if it is unreadable but we have Explosion Tim, Science Raph, Pilot Brian, and Ashes Oh I'll Burn You

novmechber list here

[eternaljunkyard]

Novmechber Day 20: Ashes O'Reilly

askjdfhjhgdlkjfgnlkdfjsd,,,, so many lines in this one my hands hurt,, but I love them they're so cool!!! another image redraw/trace so the original image is below

novmechber list and previous days here

[eternaljunkyard]

Novmechber Day 16: Broken Instrument

yes, i made this prompt in anticipation of wanting to make angst,,, yes I got lazy and uninspired and this occurred,,, but hey I think it's kinda funny >:D

novmechber list and previous days here

[eternaljunkyard]

Novmechber Day 19: Good vs Evil: A Guide to Being Morally Grey

that's what the doc is reading to her children,, yes I know marius and raph arent here and Whatever but I didn't want to cram in even more people (and I refuse to acknowledge that marius is one of the most popular mechs, nothing against marius I'm just Bitter),,, anyway little kid aus are adorable and I love them <3 little gremlins

novmechber list and previous days here

[eternaljunkyard]

Novmechber Day 9: The Starship Aurora

i like to think Aurora has a sense of humor :D also I just adore the cool space babes so,,, here we are!! You can click for quality but Jonny's saying "I don't get it" and "I can't read binary" if u don't want to

novmechber list here

[eternaljunkyard]

Novmechber Day 12: Raphaella La Cognizi

I adore her so much,,, another image redraw here for this absolute queen!!!! image below :D

novmechber list here, previous posts linked on list

here's the image i traced:

[eternaljunkyard]

Novmechber Day 21: Malfunction

so i was gonna do something with all of them but I got a smidge lazy and decided to just do Jonny :D i really like the way it turned out though!! ALSO my novmechber posts for the next five ish days will be postponed due to being busy, but I'll do my best to put em all out as soon as possible!!

novmechber list and previous days here

[eternaljunkyard]

Novmechber Day 28: Mechanisms fiction

i'm done with Out thanks it's too sad :) this is either post-Breakup or during A Bedtime Story, pick your favorite!!! I love hat nastya so we have all of my favorites :D also click for better quality cuz yk how tumblr is

novmechber list and previous days here

[eternaljunkyard]

Novmechber Day 25: Alone (in terms of healing)

what's that? original art? i know, i know >:) this is part of the reason it took so long to get these out lol,,, but anyway I want to give ivy soft times in her library relaxing and being okay with having a Metal Brain

novmechber list and previous days here

[eternaljunkyard]

Novmechber Day 26: The Toy Soldier

I'm pretty proud of this one, it looks pretty nice I think :D anyway another image redraw/trace of my very rad TS (original image below)

novmechber list and previous days here

[eternaljunkyard]

Novmechber Day 24: Gunpowder Tim

hgnnhgnhn this outfit is one of my favorites and this picture,,, i was very tempted by the sun-on-his-face pictures too tho hehe >:) anyway yes another image redraw/trace so original image below as usual!!!

novmechber list and previous days here

[eternaljunkyard]

Novmechber Day 22: Ivy Alexandria

another cute little image trace/redraw (original image below)!!! i absolutely love ivy so much and look!! an instrument!! i (kinda) drew an instrument!!

novmechber list and previous days here

[eternaljunkyard]

Novmechber Day 27: Favorite backstory

uhghjgkj so nastya's is actually my favorite but i already did an art of her backstory so i'm going for probably my second-favorite!!! i love gpt id die for him,, and i have such a vivid image in my head of tunnel warfare on the moon,, also War Bun Tim is here again

novmechber list and previous days here

[eternaljunkyard]

Novmechber Day 23: Favorite song/line

obviously this is a very hard prompt because I absolutely cannot pick my favorite,, however I had to pick something so here we are :))) enjoy,, also its about DTTM so everyone (kinda) dies thanks

also this bad boy is LONG so uh,, sorry :,)

novmechber list and previous days here

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It was a night not unlike any other night aboard the Aurora. A night without Nastya, perhaps, but that was nothing new. It had been that way for centuries. Still, each member of the crew had begrudgingly retreated to their own quarters (or another’s quarters) except their loyal pilot. 

Brian sat in the pilot’s chair, watching the stars. They never got any less beautiful. He rarely slept, taking the moments of peace where he could get them. He loved the crew, of course he did. But he also appreciated silence, the beauty of quiet and solace and peace, so he sat in the pilot’s chair and looked at the stars and the spiders weaving their light into webs in the corners of the huge windows.

He didn’t sleep.

But under the gaze of infinite nebulae, the DrumBot began to dream…

He dreamt of a bar, no different from any other bar. Thin metal walls caked in grime, synthetic carpet so blood- and alcohol-stained the original color was indeterminable, always enough patrons within to cause trouble but never enough to call the place ‘successful.’ It was a seedy joint, so it was no surprise when a fight broke out. It was, for all intents and purposes, just another bar fight, brutal and ugly but certainly not unique. Even when Brian noticed Jonny participating in the mess, he wasn’t concerned. Not until the knife lodged in Jonny’s heart and Jonny was silent for a long, long time. He began to laugh, a manic, desperate, chilling laugh that Brian had never heard before. It wasn’t much of a leap, watching or not, for Brian to understand that this was Jonny’s death.

He dreamt of heat and space and pressure and darkness, far more intense than most had seen, even Brian. He had been in a star, of course, but this was nothing like that. There was no reprieve from this by being pulled out of it: there was nowhere beyond this. And there, on the edge, likely the only survivable place, was Ashes with enough liquor to last eight decades, even for a Mechanism. They knew — and Brian knew — that they would not be able to finish it. Somehow, they had gasoline. And a cigar. And a match. In the total black, they struck their match, and it sputtered impossibly as they lit their cigar. It glowed, somehow so bright for a speck of light so small. They dropped the match, and Brian could taste the heat of gasoline and burning whiskey as the last fire in the universe — the last thing in the universe — enveloped them.

He dreamt of a ship, once so familiar to him but now piecemeal and patchwork. The once-shiny walls were stained with mysterious liquid, some plates corroded so badly they could barely count as metal. It made him sad to see (the shell of) Aurora in such a state, but even more sad was the state of Raphaella. She was sitting languidly in her lab, an uncountable number of notebooks and even more datapads filled with information surrounding her in such precarious stacks it almost looked like Ivy’s library. Her equipment was scattered across the floor, most of it broken, and as she tapped on one of Aurora’s screens, her knees bled from broken glass. Brian knew where the coordinates went without having to look them up. The largest known black hole, one Raphaella had been examining from a distance for centuries. It was almost comforting to know she disappeared doing what she loved.

He dreamt of a warship, so vast and powerful it dwarfed a good many stars. Not only dwarf them, but fire so much raw energy into them it sped up their lifetime into mere days. Jonny would have been proud; system after system exploded into light and colorful matter under Tim’s rampage, planets shot with near-perfect accuracy. Tim’s aim (perfect as it used to be, he was no longer the sharpshooter he used to be) strayed far enough that he missed a space station in his way. The collision caused the station — and Tim’s warship — to explode. He would have survived, probably, had the oncoming light not burned out his mechanism’s sensors (how ironic) and prevented him from strapping in. Instead, he blindly fumbled, and the force burnt, rent, crushed, and tore him until he did not exist. It was fitting, Brian supposed.

He dreamt of a library, flames licking at its walls. Ivy was packing books into a small escape pod, her hands flying uncaring over the stacks and selecting books at random. Brian knew where her favorite books were, and he knew she wouldn’t be able to save them. She clearly knew this, too. She worked quickly, but when the pod was filled with no room for herself, the flames and nearby gunfire were at a crescendo and she could not escape them. Perhaps a century earlier, she would have survived. But without her life’s work, her collection, she did not have much she desired to stay alive for, and so she launched the pod as bullets riddled her body and the fire devoured her corpse. The fire burnt so hot it scorched every ounce of recognition from the warped lump of metal that had once been an archive.

He dreamt of Aurora again, this time very much present and very much well-kept. Marius has the least sense of the Narrative driving him, so Brian thought he would have been safe. Apparently it just meant he lost his plot armor and rights to a cool death. Marius stepped in to check on the octokittens, and Jonny whooped a loud, “Eleven-point-seven!” as the sounds of eager teeth and tentacles snarled from the room. It was silent after that. There should have been noise, and Brian looked at Jonny. Jonny met his gaze — which shouldn’t have been possible, Brian was dreaming — and the touch of the Narrative shivered through Brian. Perhaps Jonny knew more than he gave him credit for. Marius never stepped back out.

He dreamt of space, as he did so often. He was used to dreaming of space. He was not, however, used to seeing himself there, floating with an expression of silent acceptance. When the process that should have ended uncountable lifetimes ago finally ended, and his heart froze along with the body that had gone long before, there was the feeling of a weight off his chest. Brian thought it was an appropriate way to die, and filed it away so he could remember what his face looked like when his time eventually came. He looked almost peaceful, unafraid of that endless night. Brian thought he deserved at least that much.

He dreamt, finally, of wood. A wooden soldier stood alone on a planet, looking up at the receding form of the Aurora, now just a husk. It had once had a name, the Toy Soldier, but without people to talk to it, names did not much matter. It had once been a toy, a real toy, it remembered, and had merely been pretending all this time to be Real. There was a story that told it that it had done a good job, but it was lonely now, and all the congratulations would not repaint its wood when it faded, or stitch up its jacket after a particularly affectionate gunfight. It breathed slowly (it did not need to, but it had always liked the principle), and understood why it was here on this planet. It sat down against a building; it did not matter which building, because every building was the same under the pretense of difference. It had made its decision. It exhaled slowly, a final breath for a breathless being, and its head drooped. It had decided to stop pretending.

Pointless, ignoble deaths the lot of them. But who that lived can really boast otherwise?

The words echoed through time and universe and story until they fell on dreaming metal ears, and Brian woke up. He blinked, looked around, and sighed. His metal finger pressed the comm to Jonny’s room, knowing his metallic voice would always come across as brash over the speaker no matter how hard he tried to soften it.

“Get up, Jonny. We have one more song to write.”

[eternaljunkyard]

Novmechber Day 10: Old Memories

I've had this in stores for a while, it was a writing exercise for myself! I used a little emotion generator, and then wrote a 200 word blurb for each emotion!! Anyway enjoy Jonny having Emotions

CW for cannibalism, violence, human modification, murder, all that jazz

novmechber list here

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1. Torment

Jonny looked up at the angular woman, one hand wrapped tightly around her cane and the other extended towards him in benevolence. His chest hurt, so badly. It wasn’t external pain, no, it was the agony of hurt, betrayal, and heartbreak. It was the lashings of cruel words and crueler hands that lanced his heart, calloused a hundred times over on this smoke-infected planet and still somehow bleeding gritty emotion out of his face and hands and shaking shoulders. The tears in his eyes didn’t wash away the blood on his hands as they fell, and his desperation grew.

He didn’t care about his red, tainted soul. He just wanted something to alleviate the pressure cracking his heart, something to cauterize the wound only he could see. She was a doctor. She could help, he told himself, and he reached up to take her hand. Her hand was terrifyingly cold, the antithesis to Jonny, whose blood ran hot and whose fever ran hotter.

Jonny Vangelis was about to die, he decided, and whoever he would be next, it would not be the mercenary child of anyone. He stepped over the body of Billy Vangelis and into the emptiness of eternity.

2. Horror

Jonny pushed his hands down on the young woman’s shoulders and tried desperately not to think about it. He was centuries old. He should not be this weak. He had no qualms with killing, nor with cannibalizing, nor with mauling, maiming, or most other types of violence. But here in the sterile laboratory of Dr. Carmilla, all of that hardness was turned to brittle, dry wood, ready to ignite at any moment.  He was reduced to a scared little child, and he hated it.

So he kept his hands firmly on the Cyberian woman’s shoulders and didn’t let go as the Doctor did her work, transferring that gift of immortality to this slight woman who was unconsciously fighting, screaming, sobbing under Jonny’s hold. He had never considered himself particularly physically strong, but his red-and-black-painted nails dug into the woman’s blouse and she couldn’t get up, so perhaps he should change that perception. 

What didn’t change was his knowledge of his mental weakness. As the woman’s complexion greyed and changed its pallor entirely, he nearly vomited out of sheer revulsion. He had to force himself not to release the woman, and it made her cries of pain all the more ghastly.

3. Bliss

“No,” Jonny argued with the hallway, “it’s not technically cannibalism, because, see, I don’t know for certain if they’re the same species as me. It’s just… the closest I can possibly get to cannibalism.”

The lights flickered in some sort of indignance, and Jonny laughed.

“Right, yeah, I don’t care if it actually is or not. That’s fine. But like, I’m just saying that technically it isn’t actually cannibalism. Probably.” He offered the Aurora a shrug coupled with a lopsided grin. Her fans whirred dismissively, and he laughed.

Aurora thrummed with energy around him, and he took a deep breath, a sly smile still tugging at the corners of his mouth. He had never thought that here, walking the halls of a starship he’d known for centuries, he would be anything close to happy. The closest he could have ever imagined he’d get was content. But as he fired a shot into his passing sister’s skull and broke into a run, with a wicked grin and a cackle (she’d be after him any moment now), he was a lot more than content. Sure enough, he could hear Nastya’s footsteps behind him, but even the fresh bullet in his brain couldn’t dour his mood.

4. Rage

Jonny was used to anger, used to pain. This was different. This consumed him entirely, swallowed his body like a beast whose maw was so wide he could not see an exit. He was shaking, but he didn’t care. He slammed his hands against the airlock door, knowing he had let her go and that it was her choice, but hating every burning moment. He had not realized he needed her cooling mercury until he looked down and his knuckles were bleeding profusely. When had that happened?

His throat was so choked with emotion that he couldn’t even scream. The Aurora didn’t protest as he unloaded bullet after bullet into her walls, not even when he knelt in a hot and tearful fury and tore at the metal floor panels until his fingernails snapped and left his fingers bloodied and aching acutely. It did nothing to ease the agony of a phantom pain in his chest. He was a core of molten tin wrapped in the most useless husk of a person, and the heart he hadn’t had in millennia cracked.

That weakness bled imaginary acid to eat at him, and allowed the traitorous blade to lodge in his heart eons later.

5. Pity

Jonny was pretty familiar with war. War gave him stories, war added that extra zest to a century. He enjoyed it, even, because he had always enjoyed violence and bloodshed. The chaos of war gave him the adrenaline that not many things did anymore, and there was nothing sweeter than the tang of gunpowder in his nose. War usually left him more calloused, more satisfied, but there was something different about this war. As wars go, it was short, barely four years. Still, those four years were brutal and bloody — darkness reigned and light became a horror, real food became a delicacy, fire held no comfort in its warmth, and the very air was capricious and traitorous.

So when the young man who had been rampaging for nearly a week was finally shot in the chest and brought to the Moon Kaiser, Jonny couldn’t help but find his way there (as a severed head, but still). And when that same young man with hair always tied back in his tight bun blew up the moon? Well, Jonny was certainly impressed. 

He wanted to help the kid, especially floating there in the life pod, eyes burnt to the point of being grotesque. So he did.