#eroticism of the machine etc etc

[loserfae]

ANATOMY

[blorbobot]

Is that your pc overheating or is your computer just happy to see me 😏

[itsjesscapade]

Poor girl's CPU is being worked so hard...

[m00n-sh]

Recovering from deeply rooted people-pleasing while also being on tumblr is really great actually. Even if I feel like the worst human being ever for establishing boundaries, disagreeing with others, changing the way I look, etc. I always relax in the fact that there's at least 5 freaky sickos somewhere on tumblr who would love it. I'm doing it for me but also for you tumblr user #487

[ravenkings]

people will try to tell you that the synthesizer isn’t the sexiest instrument and those people are Wrong

[fappellmoan]

‘let’s just get real nasty with it’

- my one professor i’m obsessed with

[jojotier]

console.log isn't just a friend... she is like a lover to me

[oasisofgalaxies]

Idk what it is abt gabv1el but it just shuts down all higher brain function. I need to see them tear each other apart

[hopeless-eccentric]

disco elysium and the male gaze

spoilers for the game ending under the cut! this one's gonna be long, but bear with me, i promise it's interesting

ok ive been losing it about this game's conversation with gazing in detective fiction for WEEKS and ill do my best to quickly summarize it (again, quick credentials, i did an undergrad thesis on detective fiction with a focus on hard-boiled genre and gender/sexuality)

in short, classical detective fiction (especially hard-boiled, which granted, disco elysium is NOT, though it's referenced often), there's a constant interplay between the ideas of knowledge/gazing and power, as well as power and gender. Looking, deducing, and investigating are highly gendered (male) acts that emasculate or feminize what they look at. the goal is essentially for the gender-transgressive killer (often a woman or man who needs to be punished for killing, and thus penetrating other men) to be "fixed" through gendered punishment or "removed from society," either by killing or jailing them

so ideally for these fictions, a man (the "body in the study," to use scholar kathleen gregory klein's phrase) has been Known About and killed/penetrated by the bad guy. the detective has to fix this by removing the perpetrator's agency through the penetrative gaze and power of the State, in short, emasculating them back into their place

if this feels like a weirdly erotic way to describe detective fiction, that's because it's WEIRDLY EROTIC! theres a history of the "corrective" violence against gender-transgressive women in these fictions being highly sexualized, though often these obsessions with controlling gender-transgressors bodily are a little more repressed (joy palmer's article tracing bodies: gender, genre and forensic detective fiction does a really nice job summing it up and expanding on klein's habeas corpus: feminism and detective fiction, which was the first work to note these patterns)

so what instantly struck me about disco elysium was that 1) the game punishes you for abusing police power against and taking autonomy from queer women 2) instead of being a pathetic, embarassing thing that needs to be corrected, the "emasculated" corpse is treated tenderly, noting the eroticism of autopsy which Palmer raises, and 3) there's a character who behaves exactly like The Detective in terms of gazing at women, emasculating men, and controlling women's bodies and sexualities: the deserter

so breaking things down in an internet-friendly numbered list--

first, the game is actively harder/full of more meaningless, haunting tragedy if you arrest klaasje or break ruby's machine. mechanically, you're punished for using police power to control and punish queer women. even though the classic "femme fatale" is often a cisheterosexual woman, her transgressing gender boundaries (often being a "maneater," having agent sexuality, harming men, often in a phallic manner, etc) marks her as queercoded in a way i really appreciate the game embracing in its more femme fataleish characters. you get the option to Gaze at and Know About women suspects, but the game will NOT make it easy for you

second, the game breaks the idea that the body's murder is a shameful act of gender/sexual transgression that needs to be fixed. the body's objectification (even by a couple of traumatized pre-teens) is treated as a tragedy, and the game does everything it can to humanize lely, even if it humanizes him as a real piece of shit. the autopsy is tender, bordering on romantic/erotic, because the game is constantly trying to remind you that you are exploring a human being's body. the "failed" or "penetrated" man isn't untouchable, which instantly breaks the patriarchal structure of detective novels trying to stamp out unspeakable threats to patriarchy. the further penetration of his life and body by the strange, uncaring investigator figure is also treated as something which could be uncomfortably exploitative, but isn't because you're given the option to be delicate and loving. (i was reminded a lot of lay your sleeping head by michael nava, wherein the protagonist solves his lover's murder, which is portrayed as no less intimate than exploring his body in sex. great book btw)

third, the deserter. dros is everything the hard-boiled detective is meant to be: obsessed with an idealized past, a man out of time (this is more common in neo-noir fiction, including adaptations of a few novels referenced in the dick mullen book), angry at the world for its corruption, unable to escape it himself, and obsessed with gazing at and sexually punishing women. the only difference is that he doesnt work for the government. his matronym is especially ironic, a remnant of a more progressive ideology which has been abandoned in favor of misanthropy. hes become convinced of the same terrifying, comedically corrupt world described in classical detective fiction (read an iconic hard-boiled author's description of that here, at the start of part 7*)

it's such a rejection of the way gazing and patriarchy usually acts in detective fiction. if you gaze destructively, the game gets harder. it emphasizes the sexual connotation of gazing at murders and forces you to be gentle, while empowering the voice of the victim to ensure you treat him like a human, instead of a stock "failed man." the character who thinks and behaves like a detective is a paranoid, sick, elderly murderer who is treated as desperately needing help.

it's amazing stuff

also, if you can't access any of these articles, dm me and ill get you pdfs!

*this article has a lot of issues. dont take it as gospel. it actively contradicts itself like five times and a lot of really good writing has been done roasting it. Miranda Hickman's history of it is really good. that being said, the description of the kind of world the detective thinks he lives in is VERY accurate, even if Chandler describes it as if it's realism. im including it just because it's a famous enough article that it's had a major impact on how detective fiction is written/culturally thought of, and that part is verifiably true

[judeiscariot]

i do think my least favorite part of this site is the performance of like. quirky esotericism with the objective of appearing deep and nuanced to other people who are also pretending to be deep and nuanced for others approval. cannibalism as a metaphor for love eroticism of the machine pomegranate symbolism dog motif the intersection of romance and violence etc etc etc are all very interesting concepts but somehow you people manage to make them mind numbingly boring by just saying the same thing over and over and not making any effort to understand what you’re actually talking about or say anything that hasn’t been said a million times on here

[gmax]

what do you mean by this

why would fnaf come up when you think of "eroticism of the machine" ... its okay if you want to fuck a fnaf but theres nothing inherently erotic about the machines in fnaf like. in no manner of reading it would you come upon eroticism as a theme of fnaf . never

[bloodcoveredgf]

i love tumblr because its like when your circles small but youre all crazy... i can post about the eroticism of the machine and car crashes and cannibalism and surgery and so much and everyone is like SO REAL SO TRUE.. ive had people thank me for making posts about jerking off during horror movies etc etc and being brave when others couldnt... i post things for a very specific audience thats the only reason i post on tumblr truly.. How beautiful is that...

[super-ion]

Mona Lisa Sunrise

(Part 1)

(Previous entries to this series: original post, ZetaTransit049)

“And they say brunettes with dimples can't stabilize the reactor core,” Mona said with an exhilarated giggle as the klaxon finally cut off its panicked screaming.

The comfort unit tossed her head and brushed stray locks of hair from her face, turning with a flutter of her eyelashes.

Her grin faltered. She was alone.

Well… MS-675732-B was there, but it was definitely, positively, absolutely non-functional.

She pouted. What was the point of sexily saving the day if there was no one there to appreciate it.

“Thank you for saving the day, Mona,” chirped one of Station's talk boxes embedded on the wall. “You did a very good job.”

“Oh thank you, Station!” she replied, her grin returning.

She wiped her hands… or tried to. They just clanked together metallicaly.

Oh... yeah.

Lefty was a ragged mess. After the misadventure with the coolant pressure release valve, there were only a few scraps of shredded derm that clung stubbornly to the musculature up to her wrist. The musculature itself was looking pretty scorched... she wasn't even sure if it was worth a dermal regen at this point. The ceaseless flood of diagnostic error logs didn't bode particularly well for it.

She imagined it would hurt like a mother fucker if she hadn't supressed her pain emulation subroutines.

Righty… well, half of the right arm she had woken up with that morning was presently lying on the floor of the ops deck where a fire suppression bulkhead had sheared it off pretty neatly just above the elbow. The other half lay discarded next to the crumpled body of the service mech on the ground next to her.

Her new right arm, the one she had hot swapped when she discovered poor MS-675732-B, was something to behold.

It wasn't particularly pretty. It wasn't meant to be pretty… or sexy, not at all like her factory recommended components. But she found it alluring in its own way. It was utilitarian, dense alloy in the frame and a reinforced musculature. And for delicate work…

She fired a command and a compartment opened on the wrist, spidery appendages unfolded. Sensor probes and graspers and even a micro welder. It certainly wasn't meant for the kind of delicate work she was used to, but she couldn't deny that something about it was getting her hot and bothered.

There was probably some messaging protocols from the arm that were getting routed to other core processes to trigger response.

Something, something, the eroticism of the machine, she supposed.

Maybe one of the techs would be turned on by it. That could be a fun and novel adventure.

She grinned at the thought as she pinged Station for status.

8169 seconds ago, she had been rather un-gently shaken out of sleep mode. Emerging from her cubicle, she had discovered a nightmare of blaring alarms and strobing lights. Something, somewhere down in one of the refinery modules, had exploded, triggering a whole cascade of catastrophic damage throughout the station. All maintenace units had either been evacuated or rendered non-functional, so it fell on the station's two comfort units to finish the job of getting systems online and stable.

Station answered her ping with an abbreviated rundown: Reactor stable. Backup life support stable. Ops deck fire suppression engaged. FTL comms unresponsive. Refinery module 1 unresponsive. Refinery module 2 failed safe… etc etc

Station population: 0

Her brain caught on that. 12 dead, 23 injured, all 137 evacuated.

A process in her core stuttered.

Station population: 0

She wasn't just alone in reactor access, she was alone in the whole station.

“Okay…” she said breathily. “Okay. This is fine.”

She cared about people. It was her job. It was her purpose. Her core directives were already triggering post industrial accident protocols, she was meant to be a shoulder to cry on, someone to talk to… or, to be entirely honest, someone to fuck if just for the momentary reprieve. Everybody coped with this sort of thing in their own way, and she was meant to facilitate that. Except there was no one for her to comfort. No one to cry on her shoulder. No one to seek her embrace.

She stood stock still in reactor access as her mind tried to sort out the mess of information as subroutines and core directives clashed, and conflicting processes competed for priority.

She needed to return to the cubicle. She needed to power down and await further instructions.

“Mona,” Station said through the talkbox, the audible sensory input slicing through the fog. “This is further instructions. The station is not stable. I need your help.”

Help. Yeah, she could help.

Station pinged her system, coaxing prioritization schemas to kick in. Out of control processes were killed and spun back up, then relegated to lower priority.

“Good girl,” Station said gently through the talkbox as it uploaded new provisional directives to her queue.

She blinked her eyes. An entirely unneeded gesture, but it helped her focus. She played back the preceding hours: unlocking fire suppression on ops deck, hotwiring the engineering access tubes (with one arm!), hot swapping an appendage she technically wasn't designed for, stabilizing the core.

She had done all of that. Sure, she had needed to download a whole slew of schematics and manuals, far exceeding the bounds of her design. But she had done it.

Her purpose was to help. She just needed to expand the parameters of what help meant.

Station needed her help.

She could help.

~~~

System poll : 4 nodes identified

Echo(self) : CS-553902-M “MonaLisa”

Host : SunRiseStation-ELS-93806

Node : CS-553807-L “David”

Node : ZetaTransit049

Unresponsive hardware detected

MS-675732-B - location: Reactor Access E96

MS-554932-M - location: Exterior +X9842-Y3320+Z0229

Message log

Sender : CS-553902-M

Receiver : ZetaTransit049

Message : Hey boo

Response : Leave me alone.

Message : Okay! Love you! <3

Message log

Sender : CS-553902-M

Receiver : CS-553807-L

Message : Hey cutie!

Response : Hey! Still alive?

Message : You know it! All good with you?

Response : Doing my best. Shit's totally fucked

Message : Damn skippy!

Response : lol

Message : I'm heading down to the tech bay. You doing anything later?

Response : I dunno, you tell me ;)

[aphyray]

I want an artist for a cover!

If you know anyone well-suited or a good place to find someone well-suited, please tell me. Direct messages, anonymous asks, or responses to this post are all cool.

I'm not presently following any artists who match the extremely specific vibe I want and I'm bad at searching for this kind of thing.

The vibe

Robot fucker with an appreciation for digital screens as emotive displays, aesthetic modern engineering, and synthetic flesh with fancy realistic robot bits underneath, like hydraulic and coolant loops, fiber optic cable bundles, etc.

But also loves human bodies, and can draw a human who isn't white. Like for real

Does sapphic art

Clearly understands the eroticism of hands and draws them very very well, enough to capture whole and complex emotions in just the tension and shape of a hand alone

Three notches abstract of photorealism on a ten-notch dial

The concept being: A fairly close and detailed frame of a human mechanic's dirty hard-working hand with a couple fingers extremely suggestively inserted into a surgical cut in the synthetic flesh of her android girlfriend's (androgynous) chest. The wound and her fingers are clearly wet with thin, clear, anti-corrosion lubricant. Faint malfunctioning machine light bleeds through the hole in the gaps between the mechanic's prying fingers. The android's bloodstained hand is clutching the mechanic's forearm in a confusion of fear, trust, and anticipation.

“But a bunch of the stuff you mentioned in the vibes section there wouldn't be in that frame.” You need to understand just how much of an artist's love of the subject matter goes into even the tiniest details. I need that.

I really want this one done right. I'm very picky and I care a lot about my covers and this one feels important to capture correctly.

So. Yeah. If you don't know anyone, see about asking around for me? I don't have too many followers, so a boost would be very much appreciated. The publishing date for this book is a couple years off, but I want to start looking early, since I've presently got zero leads.

🙏 Much love.

[cha1cedony]

Actually I want Trudy to be a robot because imagine the yuri potential? Kelsey (who has reached M for ‘mechanic’) hunched over while reattaching one of Trudy’s limbs, wearing a tank top and covered in grease and oil etc. You guys like oily butches and the eroticism of the machine right

[mag200]

okay number one the song just sucks to listen to. this is annoying but forgettable. whats unforgivable is its not even about the tractor. i could get behind it if it was actually about the tractor being sexy. the eroticism of the machine etc. big metal industrial purposeful object that lives in the dirt i love you. but its not even about that its about some fucking guy and a woman who thinks hes sexy because he owns the tractor and the song is so fundamentally swagless that he has not convinced me that hes sexy. can we get back to the tractor here i wanna hear what she has to say.