I don't think this is weird at all and I'm honestly flattered you'd come to me about it! I think, for me, a lot of it comes from finding a lot of robot and robot adjacent characters and stories very comfortable and relatable. Melfina in Outlaw Star, Jenny in My Life As A Teenage Robot, plenty of other sci-fi stuff. Alpha from Yokohama Shopping Log especially, though she's more recent. The storylines, the personality portrayal, the struggle to feel human and feel recognized as human.
I absolutely understand that state of mind and that feeling. Ethan will do things like that for me, and I've looked for audios and similar of being a robot being worked on. I'm super picky though so most of the ones I've found just feel too goofy or loose to really hit what I want. Ethan will do things like that for me and it's incredibly comfortable and relaxing. He also uses it as a means of like, helping my self image (talking about loving all the parts they installed to make me look the way I do). There's is a bit of fun in the horny side too but that feels less important to this question.
I hope this wasn't too rambling and helped a little bit. I understand that "mechanical" feeling and definitely the feeling of being on full autopilot sometimes just to deal with or get through something. If you have any other questions or want to talk about it further, please send another question or feel free to talk to me directly! If you're comfy with it at least.

Ohhh, ok, so not the size of a city, but I had a custom campaign setting with something like this. There was a floating oasis that the party was going to take across this dying world to help bring life to a the towns and cities out in the wastelands. The oasis had four massive stone pillars inscribed with complex magical rune spells to lift it up and keep it floating! But it also had massive pack-animals pulling it along, the magic only kept it in the air. I remember calling them saytoxen (or a saytox for singular), they were massive mammoth-sized beasts, a bit like elephants, but no tusks. They're a largely brownish color with a long green stripe down the back, a sort of magical mutation/adaptation to the dying environment. It allowed them to go long periods without food by gaining some energy from sunlight.