#pellinore and the beast mechs

[daily-mechs-songs]

Pellinore and the Beast

[flamet-draws]

Mechtober 2024 Day 9: Folklore

Pellinore and the Beast

[starbound-jupiter]

OKAY JUST SAYING THE LINE FROM PELLINORE AND THE BEAST “FOR FEW CAN TAKE THIS DYING WORLD AND STILL WITH BEAUTY FILL IT” IS SO TRAGIC YET SO LOVELY AND SO SO CRIMINALLY UNDERRATED OH MY STARS

[jonsilverstone]

The Mechanisms once more... I just think they're neat...

[pixlostinatos]

For Few Can Take a Broken World (and Still with Beauty Fill it)

so, back in august, @fogwitchoftheevermore and i had a concept for a fic centered around the clones of Mezalea and the concept of them being a bit of a (true) ghost story told in the mesas of tumble town

it was intended to be three sets of paired chapters, one focusing around a season 2 character followed one about their season 1 counterpart in each pair of chapters--jimmy, fwhip, and joel.

it never got finished, and it never will at this point, but i think itd be a shame if we never shared what we did have written, so thats what this post is! we had a lot, so head under the cut to actually read them <3

Jimmy s2

Jimmy has lived in dry areas his whole life, and you pick up on some interesting things, such as a rather unique dialect of sign language that only varies in specific finger motions between the desert and the mesa

Theres some interesting folklore in the mesas, as well

Where most places would blame half-built and incomprehensible structures on the elusive herobrine, mesa-dwellers tell a different story

terracotta people, once part of a beautiful empire, now lost and without purpose, wandering the mesa until either the end of time, or when the magic that sustains them finally fades

Don’t go out too late, elders warn, lest you encounter one of these ghosts. who knows what they might do. Those who've seen them say they’re harmless, just wandering, aimlessly and wordlessly, but no one knows where they came from or why they all share one man's face.

Jimmy runs across one of the clones one night

It calls him the codfather

Jimmy recognizes some weird variation of the sign for fish

Despite its hands having less joints than that of an actual human, the mesa’s sign language is perfectly accessible to the clone. weird

He is very confused

"i mean this is the middle of a fucking desert but sure i can try and get you some????"

it just keeps insisting "you are the codfather" and he gets Very Weirded Out at the fact that this weird doll keeps trying to call him a fish person.

this is almost worse than being called a toy.

Jimmy s1

Mezalea is one of the only places Jimmy is comfortable taking off his head

After all, the clones aren’t truly sentient, and even if they were, its still Joel, right?

The clones aren’t unsettling at all haha why would you suggest such a thing

Jimmy is fairly certain the man isnt entirely sane. But hes not unkind and Lizzie loves him and despite his slightly overinflated ego, Jimmy considers him a good friend.

fWhip s2

Jimmy tells him, as his number 2 deputy, there's some Weird Shit about the mesa he should probably know

Aka the clay people. They’re not aggressive, in fact, they somehow seem almost sad, but they’re still scary as shit

Fwhip runs into one despite the warning anyway

The fact that it looks strikingly like Joel isn’t the first thing he notices. The first thing he notices is that they’re building some sort of… something. It looks like a sort of tower with a rounded top, he doesn’t quite get it.

The second thing he notices is that it looks strikingly like Joel.

Or, sort of? Those are Joel’s eyes, and the general shape of his face and body, but this clay person doesn’t have a beard and it’s much smaller than Joel (still, comparatively to Fwhip, very tall, but we don’t have to talk about that)

The clay person is just as confused as Fwhip is when they first see each other

Fwhip gives it some sort of greeting (cause I mean, they are just people, right?) and it perks up in a strange way

It walks closer to him and starts making a sign with its hands. He doesn’t quite recognize it, Jimmy has started teaching him the mesa’s sign language but he’s not very good at it yet. He recognizes that the sign for gunpowder is in there somewhere, and one of the signs feels very familiar, but that’s about all he gets.

The clay man is trying to ask him “are you Fwhip?” but it’s not communicating correctly at all

Fwhip tries to ask if they need something, if they want to go see the sheriff, and it nods at the mention of Jimmy, so he takes them back to Tumble Town

Jimmy is very confused about why Fwhip brought it here, and when it starts trying to say “you are the codfather” he tells Fwhip that the ones he’s run into have been making those hand signs at him but he hasn’t figured out what it means

Neither of them quite know what to do with this person and kinda decide to just… let them go and hope they figure out what they need to do

fWhip s1

Unsettling mention of the fountain statues being approximately just as sentient as the other clones, despite having extremely limited joint movement. “Elaborate on that.” “no”

The clones’ sign for Fwhip’s name is a mix between the signs for redstone and gunpowder

Fwhip didn’t learn that many of the signs because he didn’t run into them very often. He learned most of the emperor’s name signs, but he adamantly refused to learn Jimmy’s because, and I quote: “why would I ever need to talk to them about him. I’m not sending messages to him. Fuck that guy.” He also learned stuff like terracotta and concrete, gunpowder, and different dyes

He practices the signs a lot because even though he doesn’t run into Joel very often and is like sorta enemies with him??? he wants to be able to easily do trade deals and such

Joel s2

He doesn't like this

It's not like looking into a mirror, looking down at this little clay face

He's tall and strong and sexy and handsome and a god and did he mention tall

But he remembers full well what he looked like before jumping into that fountain and ascending to godhood oh so many decades ago

And this is eerily similar to that

It's even got the same strip of green curls he’s always had, nestled into the shorter, darker hair

But it doesn't have a nose. Or a mouth

Not that photographs exist here, of course, but its like looking at a polaroid of yourself from a few years prior but changed just so. Its creepy as hell

There are. Many.

And they start bowing

As they should! He's a god and everyone should bow to him!

But it feels wrong

(that's his face)

And the one that first approached him asks him what they should build

He never learned the mesa’s unique sign language

How does he understand it?

Unimportant. it asked for his opinion.

(what will piss off jimmy the most?)

(he isn't sure why, but he thinks a salmon could be funny)

He tells them to build [toy story reference]

The moment they get to work he flies off

Maybe he should stop calling jimmy a toy actually

After seeing those dolls, he feels like thats giving him far too much credit

But no. the joke is too funny to give it up now

Joel s1

Gem and Pixl are both not exactly happy about his usage of blood sacrifice, but it's all his own blood, so they can't actually justify stopping him, only just voicing Disapproval

He crafts each clone with care

They shatter, sometimes. Terracotta is strong, but it’s brittle.

Yet somehow, the first he created is still with him now

There have been so many

Builders, messengers, trade managers, statues, cleaners, warriors

Each especially is formed slightly different

But they all take a life to make

No single person can lose that much blood and survive

But for the rulers, death cannot be caused by something as unimportant to fates grand design as a little self-inflicted bloodletting

(killing yourself that much, even knowing you’ll come right back, is not exactly great for your psyche)

(there's a reason Pixl asks him to stop making him add candles to the Vigil, a pained undercurrent to the voice he tries to keep light, every time he visits)

The first he made had defined middle and index fingers, despite the two being fused together

It was kinda weird and unsettling though, so he started making them into one slightly wider finger

He went back to the original design eventually, his grip on his sanity slipping just enough for him to find it funny instead of creepy

They already shared his face after all

The Mother Tree accepts his blood freely, and gives life to the clay dolls all the same

The explosion that destroys the Palace also kills the Mother Tree

However, the servants were always built in such a way that they could outlast their creators

Otherwise, older clones would die the moment Joel sacrificed himself to make a new one

When joel died, the clones lost their way

They weren't actually sentient, after all, only having a very rudimentary sort of magical artificial intelligence

So while they could talk, and recognize people, and take orders from their King

(their Creator)

(their God)

They had no true higher thought

And could only fulfill the purposes they were created for

(the Messenger servants were the first to fall, though the ones meant to send messages to wetter climates, to lizzie and scott and jimmy, were more durable and stood longer)

(the Statues never moved, as they were never built to. They remain buried under the dunes of what was once mezalea. Maybe one day they will once again be displayed as a sign of their Creators might)

(after thousands of years, only the Builders still wandered the earth)

(yet still they were always drawn to mesas)

(it is all they knew, after all)

(and the heat of the desert sun would keep moisture from cracking them from the inside out)

(after all, a broken clone is of no use to its King)

(without their Creator to guide them, their builds had no direction)

(simple structures that only the most dedicated archeologists may even have the hope of recognizing as fragments of the old Mezalean build style)

[catschimericalcreations]

Did you know:

Pellinore the Questing Beast (who is definitely not based upon a telephone game-esque description of a giraffe) is three years old today!

With every donation you make at https://ko-fi.com/catschimericalcreations you can unlock one fun fact about any repurposed Beanie Baby hybrid plush beast of your choosing!

Pellinore the Questing Beast by Cat's Chimerical Creations

[disdoorted-crows]

i made a list of folk songs the mechs used in their music and now you can have it too

have you ever been listening to a folk playlist and thought, 'hey, i think i've heard this one on a mechs album!'? well, you probably have! the mechs' songs, especially their early stuff like once upon a time in space, often contained tunes from popular folk songs!

disclaimer: i got a lot of this information from either the genius lyrics page for the song or the lyric video from TheVoidSings, who of course has lyric videos for (i believe) all the mechs songs out there. so, shoutout to them for doing the research! i just compiled it. also, this is an incomplete list; it's just all the ones i could find.

the queens court - the deserter

tim goes crazy - battle hymn of the republic

the recruiters song - pack up your troubles in your old kit-bag

gassed last night - bombed last night

the toy soldiers song - over the hills and far away

blood and whiskey - o were I on Parnassus hill

pump shanty - pump shanty

cinders song - haul away joe

rose red - rose red

old king cole - old king cole

laid in blood - fifteen men on a dead man's chest

our boy jack - bella ciao

sleeping beauty - let all mortal flesh keep silence (picardy)

broken horses - skibbereen

sirens - gently johnny

riddle of the sphinx - greensleeves

favoured son - the rocky road to dublin

underworld blues - last kind words blues

ties that bind - blue in green

elysian fields - i am a poor wayfaring stranger

one eyed jacks - the house of the rising sun/when jonny comes marching home

iphis - house carpenter

pellinore and the beast - barbara allen

gunfight at the dolorous guard - my funny valentine

empty trail - when the levee breaks

the hanged man rusts - lannigan's ball

hellfire - dem bones (💀💀💀)

skin and bone - the raggle taggle gypsies

holder of the grail - the rising of the moon

peacemaker - sinnerman

once and future king - the snow it melts the soonest

thor - drowsy maggie

ragnarok I runaway - crazy train

drop dead - matty groves

lost in the cosmos - bonny grovewoodside

chop of their heads - mouse round (mending song)

[transbot-brian]

SNIFF SNIFF I SMELL A MECHS FAN ON WIKIPEDIA

[ID: A screenshot of wikipedia reading: "The band The Mechanisms reimagines the story of the Questing Beast in a dystopian sci-fi future, with the Beast being made of iron and taking the town of Camlann's building materials for its own, in their song Pellinore and the Beast on their album Tales To Be Told." /END ID]

[rocksanddeadflowers]

The Beast in the Mech's Pellinore and The Beast was actually the lovechild of a forbidden romance between an Iron Golem and an Enderman. But that's just a theory............

[falling-raine]

ooooh

(im prepared for every song to be a mechs song..../hsrs)

pellinore and the beast - the mechanisms

putting a spin on hey there delilah - egg

the moon will sing - the crane wives

from eden - hozier

francesca - hozier

1994 - cavetown

i wanna be your girlfriend - girl in red

hayloft - mother mother

hellfire - the mechanisms

iphis - the mechanisms

actually suprising voncidering how much ive listened to the mechs but thats a better judge of my music taste

edit: im a dumbass and forgot to tag ppl.... @styx142 @friday-im-in-love-with-crowley @lxvenderjewel @frogs-go-ribbit @weirdly-specific-but-ok @obsessed-sketches @howmanyholesinswisscheese @arkytiorlecter

Shuffle your on repeat playlist and list the first 10 songs that play, then tag 10 people.

Thank you for the tag @redwidow616! 💚

ocean eyes by Billie Eilish.

Radio by Lana Del Rey.

Bloody Mary by Lady Gaga.

Nevermind by Dennis Lloyd (no clue what this is doing in this list, I've listened to it like two times)

Video Games by Lana Del Rey.

Good Looking by Suki Waterhouse.

Malibu by Miley Cyrus.

Mary On A Cross by Ghost.

Say Yes To Heaven by Lana Del Rey.

Is It Over Now? by Taylor Swift.

No pressure tagging @aintinacage, @accidental-spice, @child-of-the-tardis256, @maybeimart, @eowima, @brekker-by-brekkerr, @samanthaswishes, @daisyssousa, @daily-dose-of-dousy and @daisy-mooon!

[sasha-whos-askin-racket]

Pellinore is just a child in my head and I don’t understand why. Like, every single time I listen to Pellinore and the Beast something in my head is just like. That is a child. A small child.

[gaymageclub]

lads, how do we feel about this as a tattoo concept?

[englishflagcumrag]

listen to ttbt1 on repeat is like

For few can take a dying world

And still with beauty fill it

(slap)

(slap)

(slap)

ANTE UP GENTLEMEN THE GAME IS NEW TEXAS HOLD 'EM

[loyalshipper]

It’s kinda designed that it doesn’t matter, but I’ve been working on putting the songs into “chronological order” and I think I have it down.

One Eyed Jack’s ((Tales To Be Told)), Lucky Sevens ((Tales To Be Told II)), Lost in the Cosmos ((Tales To Be Told II)), Gunpowder Tim vs The Moon Kaiser ((Tales To Be Told)), Once Upon a Time (In Space), Alice ((Tales To Be Told II)), Prometheus ((Tales To Be Told)), Twisted Threads ((Tales To Be Told II)), Actaea and Lyssa ((Tales To Be Told II)), Ulysses Dies at Dawn (if you want to he a completionist you can also add Lotus Eaters by Jessica Law right before Sirens because it’s a track that got cut from the album originally), Iphis ((Tales To Be Told)), The Ignominious Death of Dr. Pilchard ((Tales To Be Told)), Frankenstein, Redeath ((Tales To Be Told)), Pellinore and the Beast ((Tales To Be Told)), Hereward The Wake ((Tales To Be Told II)), High Noon Over Camelot, Pieces ((Tales To Be Told II)), Stranger ((Tales To He Told II)), Swan Song ((Tales To Be Told II)), Drop Dead ((Tales To Be Told II)), The Bifrost Incident, Death To The Mechanisms

All of the albums, and the songs from the Tales to be Told albums individually, can be listened to in any order. They make it a point in the Mechs canon that their timeline isn’t linear and there is no “chronological order.” Because everything has already happened and everything has yet to happen.

This doesn’t include the fictions (if you are listening on YouTube, TheVoidSings has two of the audio files from The Mechanisms’ fiction page from the Once Upon a Time (In Space) fictions and I put Mirror, Mirror after Pump Shanty and A Rebel Yell after Our Boy Jack.) But they have the fictions separated by album, and I’m pretty sure in order of when they happen.

Can someone please tell me how to get into the mechanisms? Like the steampunk band?? Do I watch the live shows or listen to the albums? And can someone explain the lore? I kinda know what it’s about, like space aliens and stuff.

[realmsalot]

💌 🪀 📝 For Mikey mayhaps?

The orange ball of sunshine no matter the iteration! This is going to be about Rise Mikey because he is the one I'm currently most familiar with.

💌 - fluffy headcanon

When Mikey was little he refused to sleep anywhere except for on top of Raph. No pillow or mattress could even compare to his older brother for the best place to sleep on. And he would get so fussy if Splinter tried to put him to bed anywhere else. This lasted for a long time, even when Raph got his own bedroom every night Mikey would come in, climb on top of Raph, and sleep on top of him. And then one day it just stopped. Mikey just started sleeping in his own bed and when question why he would say Raph is still the best mattress but felt it was time to get his own room. That being said he still sleeps on Raph whenever the opportunity arises.

🪀 - silly headcanon

Mikey is surprisingly into Bay Blade. You'd think it would be Donnie what with the different types bay blades and needing to release them into the area at the correct angle, but no it's Mikey. He is undefeated in it and an absolute menace. At least once he put actually blades on a Bay Blade.

Also one time Mikey learned how Michelangelo (the artist) came to paint the Sistine Chapel and wouldn't speak to Leo for a week. (Context: Basically Da Vinci was commissioned but he didn't want to do it so he threw Michaelangelo under the bus.)

📝 - misc thoughts/headcanons

1. I'm sorry Rise Mikey you are usually my second favorite but Rise Leo came in swinging with the puns and I love puns. 🥉

2. Him and Splinter bonded by watching the cooking channel together. It's part of the reason why he loved Rupert's show so much.

3. His favorite Mechs song is "Pellinore and the Beast" IT'S THE ONLY ONE WITH A HAPPY ENDING