#I've seen a few other people point out the potential in a crossover (true) but they make the mistake in having it be set in 51! | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

thedreadvampy · 3 years

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I don't want to respond to this directly in a reblog bc it doesn't really have to do with the content of the rest of the post (which is great, by the way! I'm really happy that things are going well on an artistic side and your work is lovely!) but this aside has me feeling some kind of way.

I don't think it's a fair characterisation to say the mechanisms 'misinterpreted' the universe of Doctor Carmilla, because it isn't really the same universe. The continuity between Doctor Carmilla & The Mechanisms and The Mechanisms as a standalone band seems to me to really be legacy only, and to the degree that Carmilla is mentioned in-universe it's an acknowledgement of the band's origins, not an attempt to write a Carmilla story. Seems to me like it wouldn't be appropriate for the Mechanisms to write stories about Doctor Carmilla and the universe Maki developed in her absence, nor would it be fair to pretend Maki never existed or that Carmilla wasn't deeply involved in the foundations of the Mechanisms universe.

like if you approach the Mechanisms and Doctor Carmilla as one unified story led by Maki then sure, it comes across like the Mechanisms misinterpreted ideas and dropped threads. But that's...not what it is? They're two separate stories with a common root. Maki hasn't been involved in writing with the Mechanisms since 2011 and the band finished in 2020 - in almost a decade with different people writing, a good number of whom weren't even involved with the Doctor Carmilla era of the Mechanisms, yeah, it isn't the same entity and I don't think that the Mechs have ever acted like it's meant to be? Doctor Carmilla is Doctor Carmilla and the Mechanisms are the Mechanisms and they exist in separate universes with some crossover points - that seems to me to be the best approach?

Like, it would be valid to say that the Mechanisms misinterpreted Carmilla's universe and character if they had ever written stories about Carmilla or about the ideas Maki had for her story. but they.... haven't? ever really done that? They've written stories featuring Carmilla, which is really kind of an acknowledgement that the band started with Maki, but only really in apocrypha or performing songs developed with Maki as far as I can tell? and beyond that when they've introduced new characters or story elements they've avoided going back over ground that would mean reinvolving Carmilla without Maki's input. bc from what I've seen they're pretty careful about not writing stories About Other People's Characters without getting substantial input and signoff from those people.

I don't really know the precise circumstances in which Doctor Carmilla and the Mechanisms became two separate entities - that's a wee bit before my time - but my impression was that nobody pushed anybody out or was cut out, that it was all pretty amicable, and that the Mechanisms wanted to perform more and Maki was going in more of a solo direction so they went on performing separately. I have no idea if that's a correct impression (and I'm happy to be corrected if not) but either way it's not abandoning a character to carry on without them when the person who played them is no longer involved, and it's not misinterpreting or abandoning an idea to build your own thing on the foundation it's set. I like both the universe Maki's made for Doctor Carmilla and the universe the Mechanisms made for their stories, they don't need to be in competition and there doesn't need to be One True Correct Canon, especially since Maki has continued making really great work on Doctor Carmilla's story without the Mechanisms. They can and should just be separate entities, that's allowed.

(and this isn't a go at you, btw, this is just like I've heard this take a few times and it seems like a pretty uncharitable interpretation of how creativity works. The Mechanisms are allowed creative ownership over their own universe - they were working with Doctor Carmilla for under a year and they've been developing stories together for the better part of a decade and it seems like a pretty unfair approach to all involved to cast that as a shadow of Doctor Carmilla's universe as if the only way you're allowed to keep using the same band name is if you follow exactly the preordained narrative of someone who hasn't been part of the band for years. Doctor Carmilla as a story and a character has certainly changed and developed over time, musically and narratively, and that's good! That's as it should be! so I don't know why the Mechanisms' narrative universe not being the same as it was when they were ...And The Mechanisms is sometimes framed as a bastardisation of Maki's work rather than like. an evolution and development of their own creative voice and stories)

Like. Assuming that we agree that it's good that the Mechanisms existed post separating from Carmilla and went on to make new music and write new stories, how would that do this in a way that wasn't a 'misinterpretation' and/or 'abandonment' of Carmilla's story? Either you have to try and tell Carmilla's story, which would be inevitably a 'misinterpretation' because. They're different people. And it would be pretty inappropriate to try and tell the same story as Maki wanted to tell without her and potentially have two versions of the same story competing. Or you do what the Mechs did in practise, and largely leave Carmilla's story and the surrounding universe for its creator to play with and go ahead and make your own thing with its own universe and rules that won't impact on the story they obviously want to build for their own character and world. You can characterise that as 'abandonment' but I'm not sure what the better option is then, other than just Nobody Who Has Ever Made Anything Involving Doctor Carmilla Can Ever Do Anything With The Characters They Made For That. like. It seems like the only alternative to keep creating with those characters (which, again, people developed as onstage personas for themselves) that couldn't be called a misinterpretation or an abandonment of Maki's original vision is like, to only ever do anything with Maki in charge, which is a pretty big limitation to put on a band, especially if I'm right in my understanding that they parted ways because Maki wanted to take a different approach to her work that didn't heavily involve the Mechanisms, so would she even have had the time, capacity or interest to lead on a whole other project alongside her own work back in 2011? When people have this take that the Mechanisms were somehow disrespectful of Maki's story by not just telling Maki's story and instead making their own thing, I just have to ask like what exactly is the alternative version where the Mechanisms make their own creative work with their own creative voice in a way that isn't either reinterpreting or moving away from the Doctor Carmilla story?????

#sorry i just. i don't understand how else this is meant to work #and it kind of just comes across like an...anger that the Mechanisms did their own thing at all #like they aren't. doctor Carmilla and the Mechanisms. they haven't been for a decade. they're a different entity #their stories have little to nothing to do with Carmilla's stories except in legacy #they acknowledge the debt they owe to Carmilla/Maki as their founder #that doesn't mean they are part of the same story NOW #they have no obligation to tell Only Carmilla's Story As Laid Out By Maki and tbh doing that would diminish both their work and Maki's #Carmilla is Maki's story to tell. OUATIS and HNOC and UDAD and Bifrost and the crew stories are the Mechs' creations and theirs to play with #what's wrong with that? why shouldn't they leave behind a story that isn't theirs to tell?#why would they coopt Maki's story that she's clearly passionate about and knew what she wanted to do with when they can do their own thing?#they wrote Carmilla out of the Mechanisms' story because Maki was no longer involved #and Carmilla is minimised in the backstories of a lot of the characters who she featured in #i would say as a fairly inevitable result of the need to balance acknowledgement (ie not retconning her out)#with the fact that once you're developing that character beyond the story where both Carmilla and Maki are taking an active role #if you talk about their history with Carmilla you're GONNA bring your own stuff to the table and that Carmilla CANNOT be the same as Maki's #because the story isn't coming from Maki #so you either have to do like Brian and Ivy and Nastya and move away from really mentioning that aspect of their backstory more than needed #or you do like Jonny and develop your character and your narrative in a way that implies stuff about your relationship with that character #which Maki doesn't have control over.#but like there isn't a middle ground where you keep Carmilla as a central aspect of the story but also never stray from Maki's vision #so yeah it does seem safer to leave that whole story as at most a background element you gesture at #rather than trampling roughshod over somebody else's character #it's a whole godmodding issue #and also to like. be clear on your own mind about the canonicity of the story. which i think is part of the issue tbh bc it sounds like #maybe Maki considers the ongoing Mechs universe to be in Carmilla canon and the Mechs consider it to be a different branching universe?#canon is i think a lot more plastic in the Mechs work than in Doctor Carmilla.#I've mentioned on here before that several Mechs have talked about there being no hard and fast canon even within the story they're telling #let alone between their story and other interrelated stories #hence Finger Puppet Brian Theory and Everyone Is Goo theory have like. equal canonicity to anything else.#all the stories are told by unreliable narrators and we're not supposed to understand them as Exact Truth

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