#classics hate tag

[aronarchy]

trans person who can’t stop thinking about the Roman empire (anger, frustration, outrage, resentment, mourning at an early bastion of imperialism, abuse & cruelty, atomizing private property law, patriarchy & misogyny & homophobia & transphobia & adultism, rape & CSA culture, still with traces of influence today; key inspiration for later white supremacy, racial slavery, and colonialism; central figure of the “Western civilization” enlightenment myth; very popularly beloved and fixated on by fascists as a glorified point of return specifically because of these features—not an accident, not incidental, not trivial. and these centuries of oppression and brutality, inflicted suffering on a vast scale are still popularly whitewashed and uwu-ified by history and people today while the victims are erased and silenced again. why do we not like to amplify the marginalized side of the story as much instead? changing the PoV is inconvenient and uncomfortable and it is easier to not question the dominant cultural institutions today or the way the most popular narratives are taught, and pretend the fascists and abuse apologists are just an aberration.)

[fridgrave2-0]

hehe ghost-turbo haunting felix au

turbo is connected to the last piece of his code in the whole arcade - a trophy he gifted to felix in mid 80s as a symbol of him genuinely caring about their relationships on par with being the best racer. felix also gave him one of his medals and both kept their gifts next to other rewards, but when roadblasters and turbotime were unplugged, the medal was gone with everything else

now, after burning in cola-lava turbo is basically dead, but scraps of his code still were intertwined with the trophy (after all, it was his first winner's cup, but felix never knew about it), giving turbo an opportunity to exist as a shadow incapable of interacting with anything and anyone besides felix, who kept the trophy even after the roadblasters incident

also I went crazy in tags, feel free to check them out

[the-black-bulls]

BLACK BULLS CASINO!!

[i-dreamed-i-had-a-son]

jon val jon or something

[ube-bluebay]

i would like to thank papa louie 2 when burgers attack for cementing these 3 as a trio in my mind even though they arent

[motof1bfs]

The legacies.

my baby.. my creation... (is buttfuck ugly) - 🏁 

[iamumbra195]

I hate when people talk about Ashler like it’s inconceivable to ship them.

They’ll be like “Oh, they had so much beef, they’re barely even friends.” Genuinely asking here, have you even read the webtoon if you think that?

Tyler had issues with practically everyone at the beginning, hell, most of the kids didn’t even like each other. Ben, Aiden, Ashlyn, and Logan all thought he was a jerk and he was acting like one because he was trying to protect himself and Taylor and the whole situation was stressful as hell. That’s why his character development is so good. Even Ashlyn remarks that he’s being less of a jerk in one chapter and Taylor says that he's begun to see the others as real friends, maybe even family.

They all eventually became allies and then friends, including Ashlyn and Tyler. Sure, they like to throw some sarcastic remarks at each other but that’s just their sense of humour and part of the appeal of their friendship. Same with Aiden and Tyler, they insult each other all the time but the insults that were originally meant to hurt are now used affectionately.

He gave Ashlyn a nickname guys. He gave a jokey nickname to cheer her up because she felt terrible about the fact that she had to leave him behind while he got terribly hurt, while he died. She literally started crying out of guilt and being overwhelmed by the whole situation. She cares about him and he cares about her and the whole gang cares about each other, which is why there are so many ships in the fandom to begin with.

So stop acting like anyone who ships Ashler is stupid and stop saying ‘they’re like siblings’ on every post about them. We know it’s probably not gonna be canon, hell, Red herself said romance isn’t the focus of the webtoon at all.

I don’t even like shipping in general but the TikTok fandom keeps pissing me off. Stop acting like everyone has to ship the same things as you and stop commenting shit like ‘cute edit but I wish it was Aidlyn’ or ‘They’re just friends, they act like siblings’. Like yeah, they’re not canon but you’d have to be blind if you couldn’t see why some people ship it. Stop shitting on people’s ships and let them have their fun, we all know they’re not canon.

NONE OF THEM ARE.

Anyway, that’s the end of my rant. Sorry, I keep getting Ashler hate every time I search it up on TikTok. It’s so stupid and annoying, let people ship who they want in peace and stop undermining Ashlyn and Tyler's canon friendship and character development to shit on people’s ships. It’s an insult to the characters and your ability to read between the lines.

Live, Laugh, Love Ashler.

[cakedpie-pathologic]

That bachelor is a scrabble winner

[aronarchy]

Unpacking Hetero-Patriarchy: Tracing the Conflation of Sex, Gender & Sexual Orientation to Its Origins

…

II. TRACING THE ORIGINS OF THE SEX/GENDER STATUS QUO

That classical Greece was the cradle of Western culture is axiomatic. Recently, scholars have begun to document the Greeks’ critical role in the institutionalization of patriarchy in the Western world. Synthesizing the work of such scholars, this Section will show how the Greek sex/gender system, as mediated through Roman imperialism, gave rise to the sex/gender conceptions that birthed contemporary arrangements.

In doing so, this Section must and does selectively oversimplify; that is, in order to illuminate how sex, gender, and sexuality became conflated in ancient times, I focus on the most relevant portions of the historical record that has been adduced and passed down over the ages, a record that is replete with gaps, biases, and contradictions. Because it would be impossible in the context of an article such as this to resolve the issues raised by the informational and interpretative problems of this history, doing so is not the task I undertake below. And because it would be impossible to recount comprehensively every nuance or particularity in the historical record that does exist, I also do not undertake a definitive history of social and sexual relations between or among the sexes. Instead, the following account focuses on relatively formal aspects of Greek sex/gender arrangements, and on populations that were relatively privileged by those formal arrangements. This twin focus is not only necessary, given the state of the historical record, it also is beneficial because it permits an important gain-the critical extrapolation of basic themes from antiquity that presage the contemporary Euro-American conflation of sex, gender, and sexual orientation, and that thereby help to elucidate the problems associated with this status quo. This focus is a reminder that the ultimate concern of this account, and of this Article as a whole, is the conflation and its cultural origins.

A. Men & Women: The March to Hierarchy

The march toward institutionalized patriarchy began with the gradual ascendancy of “phallocentrism,” which followed the shift from socio-economic systems based on “collecting” to “pastoral” systems based on domesticated animals, and thence to the Euro-American prototype of “the state” in the form of the Greek polis, or city-state. This gradual transition from kin-based tribal systems to established city-states was shaped by the value of physical prowess in conflicts among and within competing clans. The increasingly central relationship between brute force and political and economic power presaged, and gradually led to the incorporation of, phallocentric and patriarchal values into the emergent “civilization” of early Greece.

In this way, a politics of physicality generated cultural norms and symbolisms that projected the superiority of “masculinity” in the Greek city-state, even in everyday circumstances that did not implicate actual physical strength. The construction and operation of “femininity” therefore increasingly denoted, and required, sociosexual deference and surrender to “masculinity.” Institutionalized by Greece and disseminated by Rome, androcentric sexism, or androsexism, over time has become a fixture of Euro-American cultures.

B. Greek Patriarchy: Androsexism Established

The record described here as “Greek” focuses on Athens during its classical era because the historical legacy of Athens is well documented and because Athenian culture during this period was the most influential among the city-states of ancient Greece.

The Conflation of Sex and Gender and Greek Regulation of Sexual Desire

In ancient Greece, as in contemporary Euro-American societies, sex assignments adhered to external genital anatomy, and such assignments served as a key basis of social categorization and organization. The Greeks, like today's Euro-Americans, thus used sex as the basis of their sex/gender arrangements and of their socio-sexual relations. Moreover, the Greeks used sex to establish patriarchy as the organizing principle of their sex/gender ideology. Thus, on the whole, the Greek and Euro-American conceptions and uses of sex were administratively and ideologically similar.

The Greeks likewise sexed gender and gendered sexualities, making gender generally deductive, but only partially what I will term intransitive. Though the social aspects of gender were for the most part fixed by sex, gender was partially mutable due to sexual norms and practices among the citizen male elite, which called for sexual gender transitions under some circumstances for limited time spans. The Greek model, in short, made gender socially intransitive, or fixed, but sexually transitive, or mutable, depending on sex, age, and class.

Despite these differences of scope and degree regarding the intransitivity of the sexual element of gender, both the ancient Greek and modem Euro-American systems construct and manage gender under the active/passive paradigm. Consequently, the Greek system, like the Euro-American system, attributed to gender both social and sexual aspects: Active and passive distinctions applied in both social and sexual domains of life. Even though gender was intransitive only socially, it was articulated and regulated both in social and sexual terms under the active/passive paradigm. Greek and Euro-American conceptions of gender, as with sex, were therefore similar in nature. In this way, Leg One of the conflation was substantially in place during Greek antiquity.

Though the existence of gender transitivity sometimes prompts modern Euro-Americans to mistake the Greeks as sexually liberated hedonists, Greek culture, like Euro-American societies, intensely regulated all human expressions of sexual desire. …

2. The Sexualization of Social Regulation

Several sex-based antinomies managed Greek socio-sexual relations, and thus sexualized the social regulation of Greek life. These antinomies jointly constituted a regulatory apparatus similar to the conflation. They also constitute the active/passive paradigm that has defined and delimited social and sexual relations since its inception.

a. The Socio-Sexual Antinomies

The first antinomy was male/female, which held “male” to be superior and which, as elaborated through the other antinomies, erected the sex-based gender lines that permeated Greek socio-sexual relations. The second antinomy was moderation/excess, which exalted the male-identified virtues of self-control and constraint and disdained the female-identified vices of volatility, voraciousness, and wantonness. The third antinomy was public/private, which mandated expansive, active pursuits for males and cloistered, submissive duties for females. The fourth antinomy was honor/shame, which governed reputational interests and marshalled social sanctions to pull males into the culture’s center and to push women out to its margins, both socially and sexually. This fourth antinomy thereby cemented the sex/gender boundaries of the other antinomies.

b. The Active/Passive Paradigm

As a set, these antinomies delineated the acceptable universe of “correct” social and sexual expression. “Male” was viewed as socially and sexually “active”—the strong, public, self-willed master of the universe; in contrast, “female” was constructed as “passive”—the male’s weak, volatile companion, whom he managed and protected for the benefit of all. These antinomies thus forged the essential dichotomies of Greek (and Euro-American) sex/gender ideology: the active/good/male versus passive/bad/female paradigm. The ideals and imperatives woven throughout these active/passive socio-sexual antinomies were buttressed through the bestowal of “honor” on those who conformed and the imposition of “shame” on those who transgressed. The “nexus of honor, shame, and sexuality” was thus a key means of keeping this active/passive paradigm operational.

The design and operation of the active/passive ideals projected male dominance in classical Greek culture. Consequently, Greek society concentrated socio-sexual prerogatives in the elite, adult citizen males, and consigned passive (“female”) socio-sexual roles to the subordinated classes of society: slaves, non-citizens, women, and youths, regardless of their sex. As a result, the Greek sex/gender system harnessed sexual desire as a paramount means of perpetuating the configuration of androsexist male/female sex/gender power hierarchies.

Greek regulation of social life in general, and sexual relations in particular, was instrumental because it used sex, gender, and sexuality to reinforce class-based and sex-based power distributions: Greek approval for expressions of sexual desire was limited to those that specifically reified social, economic, and political boundaries based on the androsexist divisions encapsulated in the antinomies. Sexual desire thus became a commodity used more for the re-production of the society than for the reproduction of the species. The proto-conflationary Greek system thereby established androsexism as its dominant sex/gender ideology, and used it to enforce compliance with its mandates regarding identity, desire, and community.

c. Family, Intimacy, and Patriarchy

One crucial respect in which Greek sex/gender arrangements differed from Euro-American socio-sexual relations concerned the family: Under the Greek system, the family was not the tight-knit group depicted in the modern Euro-American ideal of the “companionate” or “nuclear” family. The Euro-American family ideal centers around a cross-sex coupling based on sexual intimacy and affectional bonding. Among the Greeks, however, cross-sex conjugal relations were not the center either of love or lust. Demosthenes, for instance, supposedly remarked that Greek adult males “have… hetairai (courtesans) for [their] pleasure, concubines for [their] daily needs, and wives to give [them] legitimate children and look after the housekeeping.” Fulfilling individual joys, dreams and desires was not the goal of this functional conception of Greek marriage.

Further, the household unit was not the main crucible for the socialization of the future citizens it produced. Plutarch, for example, summarized a citizen boy’s upbringing by observing that “the nurse rules the infant, the teacher the schoolboy, the gymnasiarch the athlete, [and] his lover the youth.” The family household, or oikos, thus operated more like a small consortium or enterprise: Each member performed roles and functions that provided material supports and comforts, but not necessarily emotional, sexual, or educational sustenance. …

…

[starfiretruther]

very random raven take it or leave it

[siblingshuffle]

Day 12: Regret.

This is a snippet of Sibling Shuffle’s version of Spiritus Ex Machina!

And the theme is regret!

This isn’t very happy. I mean, we’re talking about a mother who was so scared of losing her child that she technically killed her herself and is now confronting that choice. Of course it is.

It’s also a little longer than normal, so be forewarned! ————————

“Speaking of robot girls,” Dr. Light mentioned, “Blues has been very excited to see Tempo again. Did you bring her with you?”

Dr. LaLinde froze, the mirth melting from her expression “…Right… of course…” she murmured, averting eye contact as she turned around. After a moment, she led a girl who appeared to be around Blues’s age to the group, seeming more melancholic than before. “…Quake Woman,” she addressed the girl, “You remember Dr. Light and Blues…”

‘Quake Woman?’ Roll wondered. The girl was clearly a Robot Master, yes - Roll’s sensors didn’t give any indication that she was organic whatsoever - but Blues and Dr. Light had been referring to her by the name “Tempo”.

“Yes. Hello,” Tempo-- Quake Woman-- whichever, waved. The movement was strangely stiff, with no discernible emotion behind it. 

“Why’s she calling you your Robot Master name?” Blues asked, smiling confusedly as he waved back. “You’re not working right now, are you?”

“I am not. However, ‘Quake Woman’ is my name. I am a geological surveyor robot,” Quake Woman responded. Her voice was… strange. It lacked inflection, but it sounded as though it had been designed with a range of emotions in mind. In fact, now that she thought of it, Roll hadn’t noticed her making any obvious facial expressions, either…

Blues nodded slowly, his expression faltering as though unsure of himself. He shook it off so quickly, however, that Roll had to wonder if she had imagined it, “Uh, okay…? I’d like you to meet my little sister, Roll. Roll, meet Tem— Quake Woman, my best friend.”

“Hi!” Roll grinned, extending a hand to shake. “Blues told me a lot about you!”

Quake Woman took her hand, but, looking at Blues, said, “Your statement is illogical.”

Roll blinked, tilting her head and staring at the girl. “…What do you mean?”

“Blues referred to you as his ‘sister,’” Quake Woman responded matter-of-factly. “That statement is illogical. Robots cannot have familial relations.”

Blues stared at Quake Woman, baffled. “What…?” He asked, glancing over at Dr. LaLinde as though expecting answers from her. “...Dr. LaLinde?”

Dr. LaLinde didn’t look at him.

“…Quake Woman…required some adjustments. She’s fine.”

“…What kind of ‘adjustments’?” demanded Blues, his voice low and apprehensive as he studied Dr. LaLinde’s expression, his eyes searching for something that he couldn’t seem to find.

Dr. LaLinde swallowed, biting her lower lip. Her voice was tight when she next spoke. “…I…I’ll…let you get reacquainted.”

With that, she stepped away into the crowd. Roll’s gaze followed her, noticing how stiff her posture was. And with how abruptly she had left… something was definitely wrong.

Dr. Light placed a hand on Blues’ shoulder. “I’ll be right back,” he told him before running after her.

Blues just stared numbly in the direction the two roboticists had disappeared to. Hesitantly, Roll reached out her hand to him, but Blues withdrew, pulling his scarf up to his cheeks and turning around sharply. Before Roll could stop him, he slipped away into the crowd in the opposite direction, leaving Roll and Quake Woman alone.

————————————————————————

“Noele, wait,” Dr. Light called out, catching her by the arm before she could lose him. She stopped but didn’t turn to face him. “What’s going on? Tempo - and you, as well- are acting strangely,” Dr. Light eventually asked, a mix of concern and confusion coloring his expression.

Dr. LaLinde still didn't turn to face him. “…You have a lot of people you should catch up with, and there’s not a lot of time to do it before you have to be onstage for the debate,” she said, her voice tight.

Dr. Light nodded. “You’re right, but that can wait,” he insisted. “Something’s going on with you.”

Dr. LaLinde took a shaky breath. When she turned towards him, her eyes were more tired and sad than he’d ever seen them before.

“You know that you can talk to me, right? Any time that you need me, I’m here for you,” he offered gently, taking her hands in his. His eyes were filled with a warmth that could melt the sturdiest of defenses - a familiar, understanding, comforting warmth, but one that burned if Dr. LaLinde tried to look directly into.

Dr. LaLinde extricated hands from Dr. Light’s.

“Thomas, I know you mean well, but…” she shook her head. “…nothing is wrong.”

“…You’re sure?” Dr. Light asked, his voice soft. He knew Dr. LaLinde was brilliant, the dark circles under her eyes made him wonder how much sleep she had been losing as of late.

Dr. LaLinde inhaled sharply, but nodded, though her eyes remained downcast. “I’ll see you at the debate, Tom.”

Dr. Light watched her leave again, a sense of helplessness, concern, and worry pressing down on him.

Dr. Light couldn’t help but reflect on the LaLindes he had known before - the vibrant, happy family that only nominally resembled the lifeless one he’d just met. It seemed impossible to reconcile the two, yet he knew they were one in the same.

Dr. Light sighed deeply, his hand combing through his beard, his mind racing with questions and concerns. The loudest question of all, though, was this: what happened to the LaLinde’s?

————————————————————————

Story Notes:

My autocorrect tried to call this segment “Sorry Notes” and I think that’s kinda fitting lol

I know you guys know what happened, and furthermore that Dr. LaLinde had sympathetic reasons. However. No one else does at this point on the timeline. All they know is that Dr. LaLinde seems sadder than normal and Tempo isn’t emoting at all. And it’s freaking Blues TF out—

Dr. LaLinde mostly keeps her reasoning to herself because of grief & guilt & regret (as well as the narrative reason of “it makes for a better story if we don’t learn her reasoning until the timing it took canonically”)

DISCLAIMER: Dr. LaLinde is a very compelling character to me! I like that she’s a flawed parent trying her best! In fact, I like all of the LaLinde’s! They’re awesome characters and fantastic foils that I could go on for hours analyzing if I had the time! That aside, though, Dr. LaLinde is a foil to Dr. Light just as much as Tempo is to the Light kids. They’re both parents who care deeply about their kids and would do anything to protect them. The thing is, Dr. LaLinde took it too far by removing the possibility for Tempo to feel anything at all, pain included, and ended up hurting herself and others in the process.

This is a snippet from before any of the Healing Journey character arc starts - she misses her Tempo, yes, but she can’t really bring herself to admit that she was wrong quite yet. Surely it’s better that she removed the part that was her child but kept the part that was a tool. Surely then it would hurt less. Surely it’s better to feel nothing than to feel pain. She must be doing the right thing. She doesn’t know what she’d do if she were not.

Can you imagine having to re-introduce your newly-emotionless child to your child’s former best friend though. Can you imagine that.

I didn’t write it in here (because it would end up turning into a whole novelization of the Sibling Shuffle version if the first comic in this arc by that point), but Blues is so distracted that he ends up knocking over Kalinka and meeting the Cossacks in a way that is similar to the original story, just with the Cossacks not getting to catch up with Dr. Light quite yet.

Everyone ends up present for the debate, with Roll meeting Kalinka when they sit next to each other. Blues ends up storming out of the lecture hall after connecting a couple dots, and from there the Emerald Spears attack.

————————————————————————

Art Notes:

Reference: Tempo’s introductory panel.

Someone pointed out that her eyes half-lidded “made her look high” so I just didn’t make her eyes shiny instead. This is a serious emotional scene lol

Lowered the color saturation & brightness slightly to play more into the mood

[camellcat]

I'm in the middle of a btvs s5 rewatch and idk what the fuck is going on but xander is NOT riley's number one fan. in fact he is dogging on riley quite consistently. he is holding a grudge, even. what happened to make him switch so hard that he's calling riley her "one in a life-time" ????

[lackadaisycal-art]

What's your literature hot take?

Mine is that head-hopping is not inherently sloppy or lazy, and that the modern expectation to always have every chapter (or whole book) from one specific character's POV limits the potential for certain kinds of comedy, suspense and other narrative nuances

[house-md-imagines]

something with wilson, house and a mysterious hidden daughter.

here you go anon i hope you find your father...

[polyglot-sock]

it's ironic that, for someone who is able to speak several languages, my ability to verbally communicate disappears really often

[hazzahannah]

Stayed up till 3 am drawing this thang… 🌈✨🌙💕