#history based

[shripscapi]

trapped forever

[kewpiekills]

gross old man drinking problem

[adastra-sf]

The Robot Uprising Began in 1979

edit: based on a real article, but with a dash of satire

source: X

On January 25, 1979, Robert Williams became the first person (on record at least) to be killed by a robot, but it was far from the last fatality at the hands of a robotic system.

Williams was a 25-year-old employee at the Ford Motor Company casting plant in Flat Rock, Michigan. On that infamous day, he was working with a parts-retrieval system that moved castings and other materials from one part of the factory to another. 

The robot identified the employee as in its way and, thus, a threat to its mission, and calculated that the most efficient way to eliminate the threat was to remove the worker with extreme prejudice.

"Using its very powerful hydraulic arm, the robot smashed the surprised worker into the operating machine, killing him instantly, after which it resumed its duties without further interference."

A news report about the legal battle suggests the killer robot continued working while Williams lay dead for 30 minutes until fellow workers realized what had happened. 

Many more deaths of this ilk have continued to pile up. A 2023 study identified that robots have killed at least 41 people in the USA between 1992 and 2017, with almost half of the fatalities in the Midwest, a region bursting with heavy industry and manufacturing.

For now, the companies that own these murderbots are held responsible for their actions. However, as AI grows increasingly ubiquitous and potentially uncontrollable, how might robot murders become ever-more complicated, and whom will we hold responsible as their decision-making becomes more self-driven and opaque?

[ahkaraii]

Thinking about the early days of Robotnik and Stone... They're both orphans with a dislike of humanity and a fascination with machines of mass destruction, so I wonder if they ever talked about their personal lives and private traumas.

...Probably not. But maybe they came close?

[maskedteatime]

'you're a good man, 7n7'

everyone hates you, everyone except one

[my-darling-boy]

Oh to be a loyal knight and serve my lord (we are fucking)

[gothamite-rambler]

Robin (in the killer's basement): There's a box full of severed hands in here! Men and women... Is it odd I'm glad these aren't just women's hands?!

Red Hood (has the killer in a headlock): Um... That's a good question.

Orphan: I watch a lot of murder docs and will say it's refreshing to see the murderers that aren't selective and have more than women's body parts.

Red Hood: Yeah, I agree. I had a burlap sack full of severed criminal heads when I first went on my path of vengeance. It was men mostly, blame Gotham for that.

Orphan: I once hung my mother over the Lazarus pit and dropped her dead body in where she was revived... Overall we're not mentally well, but it could be worse. Hood, stop strangling the man before he dies. He's already unconscious.

Red Hood dropped the unconscious killer from his headlock grip. Robin entered the living room holding a living snake. The snake gently wrapped its body around Robin's arm and received head strokes in response.

Robin: This guy also owns snakes. Look at him, he's a friendly noodle. There were like six hands in that box, six boxes of teeth, six bags of hair... This guy was a walking satanic panic stereotype.

Orphan: What?

Robin: We're learning about it at school. I'm keeping the noodle.

Red Hood (shrugging): Okay.

[sforzesco]

2025's ides of march illustration!

I've been doing one a year since the 2022 presidential election*, so. you know! keeping up with the thematic tradition. sometimes politicians compare themselves to caesar crossing the rubicon and you just gotta. process that. do an annual re read of a bunch of different literature that use the ides as their stage. go through commentary on dante's divine comedy. watch a production of julius caesar. for unrelated reasons, ofc.

(*other countries besides america have elections)

it's also funny how people will debate whether or not the optimates/conspirators/whatever were ungrateful assholes in my inbox whenever I post one of these, like the ides of march hasn't been a well established narrative that people have been using to explore other stuff for centuries. take it to an academic conference! we have empire and autocracy and absolutely batshit press conferences to discuss!!

and as always, some reading material! for fun and whimsy. for more on brutus as an established allegorical figure:

The Brutus Revival: Parricide and Tyrannicide During The Renaissance, Mafredi Piccolomini

and on roman conspiracies narratives

Conspiracy Narratives in Roman History, V.E. Pagan

[silverquillsideas]

in the palm of your hands

[peatbogpirate]

A low effort polar comic for today: important Antarctic preparations

[jackiietaylor]

every single thing yellowjackets is doing with melissa could’ve and should’ve been with mari instead

[safrev]

Saint Just for my school art assignment

[lets-steal-an-archive]

[gaywineauntsstuff]

Okay but imagine for a second

You’re Bruce Wayne, Batman

The richest, smartest man in every room you have walked into since you turned 20

Every bit of information is at the tip of your fingertips money, brawn and brains are no object

And then you take in a child

Named Dick Grayson

From the circus, who has the most flimsy proof of his existence you’ve ever seen with a birth certificate that looks too worn to properly make out the parents named without knowing them before.

No passport despite traveling all over the globe

No form of identification

So you give the kid an ID and everything is fine

He becomes Robin

Joins a team

Becomes nightwing

Runs all the teams

Becomes Batman

Runs himself into the ground

And then Dicks in his 20s and he’s sick

Really sick

It’s not viral, fungal, parasitic or bacterial

No one else you know has this

And he’s getting sicker

He can’t walk without help and spends all his days wrapped up in blankets fighting off never ending shivers.

He mixes up his brothers names and sometimes outright forgets some of the kids

He didn’t recognize Kori a few weeks ago and hasn’t remembered her since

So Everytime he blearily asks “who are you again?” They All answer with the knowledge that this might be the him decaying blue eyes don’t spark with recognition

The first time it happened it was horror and tears “an Oh my god! I’m so sorry I love you you’re my brother” over time it’s devolved into an “oh right…hi Jason”

And the doctors ask for his family history

Maybe. Maybe there is something that could save him, bring him back or stop this descent… this fall from happening to the most untouchable man that’s ever lived.

(Tim threw up after he saw Dick burst into tears, head resting on Alfred’s shoulder when he realized he couldn’t walk without help- they need to stop this)

So they dig

And dig

And dig

And nothing

There’s no evidence of the Graysons before John, the Lloyd’s before Mary.

Neither had been to a doctor anytime in the states at least

Bruce had redone all of Dicks vaccines once he acquired guardianship of him.

There was nothing

Nothing on his aunts or the uncle that was his namesake

There’s just nothing

Bruce realizes he doesn’t even know Dicks ethnic background. 1000s of tests he’s ran and he doesn’t even know if Dick has ever been to his parents home countries

They do every test they can come up with to try and fake a comprehensive family history

Mary Grayson was a fake name

So way John

They don’t know the real ones

Bruce finds out the mother of his son is Syrian and Romani and the boys first father is Afghani and Italian.

He finds out Mary’s father fled from Syria during the 60s and settled in Germany

He finds out that John Grayson and his brother were orphans together

He can’t even tell you which one of them gave Dick his blood type.

He knows everything

He’s the smartest man in every room he’s ever walked into

And he won’t be able to save his son

Because the boy who holds Bruce Wayne’s very heart in his hands knows that the best way to stay in the shadows is simply to show so little everyone will fill in blank spots with jarring inaccuracies so seamlessly they won’t even notice they did it.

They’ve called everyone

And Dick just keeps getting sicker

[daenerysoftarth]

“Stranger, what I say is short. Stand and read over it. This is the hardly beautiful tomb of a beautiful woman. Her parents called her Claudia. She loved her husband with all her heart. She had two sons, one of whom she leaves on earth, the other she placed under it. With pleasant conversing but respectable gait she cared for her home and made wool. I have spoken. Move along.”

Roman epitaph CIL 06.15346

x

[flaming-shapeshifter]

hello would u potentially feel like sharing some of the victorian sex slang you know im writing gay sex set in 1847 and im struggling :(

hello! I would be delighted to; there is no higher use for the truly excessive amount of victorian porn I've read than to aid in this endeavour

Two caveats before I get into it: one, the main source that I used when I was originally researching victorian porn is a series of publications from the late 1870s/80s (I'll link the wikisource version and talk about it more at the bottom) and as such may not reflect exact usage for the period you're writing. I don't *think* language usually changes that fast, but I'm not a linguist so thought it worth mentioning. Where possible I've tried to cross reference with the oxford english dictionary to determine first recorded english usage, but the censorship laws of the time and subsequent lack of digitisation can make it difficult sometimes to get an accurate picture of popular usage. Two, language has changed quite a bit since the 19th century--there's a good chance the average ao3 reader is going to be relying very very heavily on context for several of the more unfamiliar words below, while others have had their meanings change a fair bit since that time. Should you choose to use them regardless, I commend you for your dedication to accuracy.

anyway, without further ado, a whole bunch of victorian sex vocab:

Genitalia &c.

I'm not sure what parts are involved in your gay sex and I'm a completionist, so you're getting all of them

priapus: the penis. A more high-brow, classical reference to the greco-roman god of fertility. English usage has been a thing since at least the canterbury tales, but it's unclear exactly at what point the usage transitioned from referring solely to the god (as in the tales) to a physical penis between the 14th and mid-late 19th centuries. However a medical dictionary from 1842 lists the definition very matter-of-factly as "penis" as well, so you should be good to go, especially with more formally educated/wealthy characters

pego: the penis, again. This one's been around since at least the 17th century and does not appear to have any alternative meanings; it also hit its peak usage for the 19th century in 1850 (by appearances in published texts), so definitely a safe bet

cock: the penis. This one is possibly both the oldest and the most modern of the penis-related nouns here; we use it in our smut today and used in to pun about sex all the way back in 15th century middle english. If you want something both recognisable and period-appropriate, this is your word.

prick: the penis. Similarly to cock, though slightly less common as a neutral/eroticised noun nowadays in my experience, "prick" has been in use since at least the 16th century, and has the benefit of being recognisable to the modern reader, though the connotations may have shifted slightly

roger: the penis. Usage in reference to said organ has been occurring since at least the 17th century, but by the 19th, it seems to be mainly in comical contexts, i.e. bawdy poetry.

quim: the vulva/vagina. Dates back to at least the early 17th century; most examples cited in the oxford english dictionary come from verse before the mid 19th, after which point it's all casual or erotica-type references.

cunny: vulva/vagina. thought to be a variant on "coney," which can in British English refer either to the organ or to a rabbit; this term has been in use since the late 16th century.

pussy/pussey: the vulva/vagina. A relatively recent term when used with regards to genitalia, dating to the late 17th century and only really gaining popularity in the mid 19th century. Probably the least likely to be used (with the possible exception of verse), but one of the most recognisable to a modern reader

cunt: the vulva/vagina. You could write a period-appropriate-language black plague au with this one (as "cunte" per middle english spelling) and still have it be recognisable for the modern reader. 1847? fucking go for it

mons veneris: the mons pubis. Often capitalised as "Mons Veneris"; seems to get mentioned at least once in every pornographic story involving ciswomen, possibly due to the classical reference to Venus and its associations. Cismen also have this structure (though it's smaller due to the lower level of estrogen), but tragically it does not get the same veneration. Usage increased steadily from the mid 17th century and peaked in the late 1800s.

clitoris: the clitoris. Dates from at least the early 17th century and has grown in popularity ever since; "clit," in contrast, only appears in writing in the mid 20th century and would be rather anachronistic.

bubbies: the breasts, pretty much always a woman's. The spelling didn't transition to "booby"/"boobies" in reference to breasts until the early-mid 20th century (previously, as a noun, a "booby" was merely a fool); "bubbies" was the way to go from at least the 17th century up until that point

ballocks/bollox/bollocks: the testicles. Similarly to "pussey," I add this one mostly for the sake of spelling, which varied mostly between "ballocks" and "bollocks" but doesn't seem to be standardised in colloquial English spelling until the very late 20th century, if at all. In use since the 15th century.

British slang referring to the ass (bum, arse, &c.) generally translates pretty well to the point where I don't feel it necessary to give them their Victorian-specific entries.

Much like modern writing, the Victorians seemed to enjoy figurative language for their genitalia--horses are an unfortunately common point of comparison for penises, but "Cupid's dart" and "engine of love" are also common euphemisms. Cavern-related language and "gap of love" are their equals for the vagina, but overall, there's not many metaphors you could make up that would feel inappropriate to the era.

Actions

Presented in the infinitive form; normal English rules for verb conjugations/spelling generally apply.

gamahuche: to perform oral sex, most frequently on someone with a vagina. A borrowing from French as of the late 18th century that seems to have mostly died out in the modern day--I don't think I've ever heard someone say "gamahuche" out loud unless referencing Victorian pornography

frig: to finger someone/give a handjob, or (less frequently), stimulate them internally with a separate moving object. Worth noting that the meaning of this one does appear to refer more and more specifically to internal stimulation over the course of the late 19th and 20th centuries, but all uses should be appropriate for 1847.

fuck: to penetrate (or mimic penetration i.e. via intercrural sex) specifically with a penis. According to the Victorians, if there's not a penis involved, it doesn't realllly count as sex, which is part of why so much focus on homosexuality was specific to male/male homosexual activity (more on that later). This particular word has been in recognisable use since at least the 16th century, gets used frequently in the 19th in the appropriate situations, and is very recognisable to the modern reader; 10/10 would recommend. Also varies in usage by location such as in the case of "bum-fuck"

sodomy (n)/sodomise: to engage in any form of penetrative sex other than penile/vaginal, regardless of gender. Typically more legal terminology than colloquial, and pretty much always used in a negative sense of an "act against nature"; equals "cunt" and "cock" in antiquity as it dates back probably to the 14th century

bugger: to act as the penetrative party in anal sex with a phallic instrument (whether dildo or penis), regardless of gender. not quite as old a term as sodomy, being first found in legal writings in the 16th century, but definitely a more common-use term for the time.

pederasty: to engage in specifically male/male anal sex. As may be deduced from the word components, this carries the connotation of a large age gap between the persons involved, and may originate from the ancient greek practice of sexual apprenticeships (for lack of a better word) between a teenage-ish boy and an older man. Despite these connotations, it could be used to refer to any partnering of male/male sex, but tended to be a comparatively academic term. English written usage dates back to at least the early 17th century.

spend: to orgasm, particularly if fluids are involved (regardless of genitalia). In use since at least the 17th century and may carry connotations for the modern reader relating to the cultural emphasis on sex for the purpose of procreation alone

come: to orgasm. This one has been ol' reliable for smut writers since the earl 17th century at least and continues to be so today

Language tends to be more descriptive with regards to acts rather than using specific words--then again, one could consider that just another form of the "show, don't tell" maxim.

Items involved

French letter: a condom. This terminology would be very recent for '47, having only started appearing in English in the early 1840s--similarly, they would be made of treated linen or bladder/intestine (a "skin" condom) at the time, as rubber condoms were not produced until the 1850s

cundum/condom: a condom. An older term than the letter, though only by a century; the latter (modern) spelling dominates usage in the 19th century

godemiche: a dildo. Another loanword from french, this would also be fairly recent language, as it appears to have only entered written English usage in the early 1830s. Not a super common turn of phrase either way

dildoe/dildo: a dildo. In use in writing since the late 16th/early 17th century, the use of flexible materials such as leather or (in the latter half of the 19th century) vulcanised rubber allowed for the creation of ejaculating versions which could also be set in harnesses to be used as what we would now call a strap-on

On the subject of lube: "lube," unsurprisingly, is not a word in use at the time; nor, for that matter, is "lubricant" as we use it in reference to the wonderful additive for sexual intercourse today. In the works I've analysed, anal sex is mostly conducted using saliva or vaginal fluids as lubricant, if a lubricating substance is used at all; the one exception to this is a reference to "cold cream" used for male/male anal sex, which appears to be a perfumed spermaceti- and wax-based substance intended for skincare and has been in use since the early 19th century at least

Culture

identity: as you may be aware, "homosexuality" as a term didn't become a thing until the sexological period of the latter half of the 19th century; up until that era, anglophone culture didn't really have a conceptualisation of sexuality as an innate characteristic. Rather, sex acts were entirely something that you did, regardless of the genders involved, which is how we get period words like "tribade," which referred simply to women who had sex with women without concern for attraction.

legality: for britain specifically, male/male gay sex warranted a death sentence in regular courts up until 1861, after which the sentence changed to imprisonment--legal scholars at the time deemed this change likely to result in more successful prosecutions, as courts were previously hesitant to indict when doing so meant capital punishment. Female/female gay sex, in contrast, was completely ignored by the law, as said law was completely focused on penises. Similarly, american courts (which were based on british law) would later rule in the years surrounding the turn of the 20th century that oral sex performed on a penis was illegal regardless of gender due to being sodomitic in nature, but cunnilingus was perfectly fine.

social perception: similar to the law, male/male sex was regarded as taboo such that it was generally talked around rather than named up until sexology started gaining ground (sexological texts were then promptly blamed for teaching people how to do gay sex). Based on newspaper op-eds that I unfortunately don't have on hand right now, all-male settings such as sailing vessels (especially sailing vessels) were seen as particular bastions of such activity. female/female sex? generally disregarded as harmless, particularly in all-female settings such as schools.

Bonus

At least in the latter half of the century, impact play in the genital region (particular with a rod or "birch," but any flogging implement would seem to do) was treated in both pornographic and psycho-medical sexological texts as a commonly acknowledged method of attaining arousal, to the point that at least one author raised concerns about the continued use of flogging as punishment in boys' schools. Huzzah for Victorian kink friendliness, I guess?

Further Reading/References

Unless otherwise noted, all etymology, usage trends, and century of (written) origin is based on the Oxford English Dictionary.

"The Pearl: A Journal of Facetiæ and Voluptuous Reading." William Lazenby, London Society of Vice, 1879-1881. https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Pearl.

This is the Victorian porn publication I mentioned earlier, notable for its portrayals of gay sex compared to Lazenby's later publications such as The Oyster. Should you choose to do your own reading, it's worth noting that stories tend to involve topics of major consent issues, incest, underage sex and pedophilia, and period-typical misogyny, and racism. An interesting note about this particular publication is that it was relatively expensive for its time--apparently, the upper class liked their illicit gay smut.

Robley Dunglison • Medical Lexicon. A New Dictionary of Medical Science, containing a concise account of the various subjects and terms, … and formulae for … preparations etc • 3rd edition, 1842

For the medical definition of "priapus" as it refers to the penis.

Hernández, Anna. “Mons Pubis: What Is It, Location, and More | Osmosis.” Osmosis, January 6, 2025. https://www.osmosis.org/answers/mons-pubis.

Aine Collier (2007). The Humble Little Condom: A History. Buffalo, N.Y: Prometheus Books.

Beyond the scope of this post, for the most part, but if you're interested in writing period-accurate safer sex practices, it may be worth a look.

Saunders, T., and Edward Cox. The Criminal Law Consolidation Acts, 1861: The Other New Criminal Statutes and Parts of Statutes of the Sessions 1861 and 1862; Together With A Digest of the Criminal Cases Decided by The Court of Criminal Appeal, The Superior Courts, the Central Criminal Court, and on the Circuits. From 1848 to 1862. 2nd ed. London: J. Crockford, 1862.

Includes contemporary legal analyses of the changes to British legal punishment of male homosexual activity, as mentioned in the Culture section.

Richard von Krafft-Ebing, Psychopathia Sexualis, with Especial Reference to Contrary Sexual Instinct: A Medico-Legal Study., trans. Charles Gilbert Chaddock, 7th ed. (Philadelphia; London: F.A. Davis Co., 1892).

Psycho-medical perspectives on homosexuality and other "abnormal" sexual tendencies in the late Victorian era; contains a whole bunch of autobiographical testimonies. The downside is that anything touching on homosexual activity (which for academics at the time also included gender non-conformity) has been censored by being translated to Latin; you'll need to look at the 1960s or later for a fully English translation.

B. R. Burg. Boys at Sea: Sodomy, Indecency, and Courts Martial in Nelson's Navy. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.

A look specifically at social attitudes in the purportedly all-male spaces of naval vessels; though slightly earlier (~1790-1820) than the 1847 time period, it stands to reason that characters familiar with that environment may continue to bear attitudes shaped by it. Unfortunately it may be difficult to access without being able to go through a university-level library system.

Lorraine Rumson, “Kink in the Time of Sexology: An Interdisciplinary Approach to ‘Abnormal Sexuality’ in Victorian Culture,” in Kink and Everyday Life: Interdisciplinary Reflections on Practice and Portrayal, 1st ed. (Bingley, UK: Emerald Publishing Limited, 2021).

An interesting analysis of social attitudes based on pornographic depictions, and contains further resources for Victorian pornography--unfortunately, I no longer have the book on hand to give specific names of texts, but they do exist ("Venus in Furs" is one that I do recall); alternatively, if you want older pornographic works, "Fanny Hill" and anything by the Marquis de Sade are worth looking into, albeit with the same content warnings as I mention for The Pearl.

Donald Hall. “Teaching Victorian Pornography: Hermeneutics and Sexuality.” Victorian Review 34, no. 2 (2008): 19–25. http://www.jstor.org/stable/27793665.

Another resource for identifying Victorian pornographic works, and this one's easily available on JSTOR if you have access or scihub if you don't.