all i wanna do is eat nectarines and think about aurora borealis st. elmo’s fire gigantic jets ball lightning green flash earthquake lights and will-o-the-wisps
I could go on for HOURS!! Remember that the would around you is much weirder than you know and the only difference between magic and science is we put names to the latter!
So… I got a notification from the State Department at like 8 PM Pacific that my passport was approved, and I was quietly thankful and stunned bc my legal gender in Oregon is listed as X, or undeclared, and that's what's on my passport. I'm pretty sure someone(s) worked late to get the X passports done today.
I was already really grateful to whoever in the Seattle Passport Office worked late to get these things processed on the last Friday before That Man gets back into office... and then I got a notification that my passport shipped at fucking midnight Pacific and whoever got that shit out the door so it couldn't be picked up on Monday and like, denied and shredded?
So... I heard from a friend of 20+ years who works for the State Department who confirmed to me in so many words that they can assure me, without specifics, that "all of the suppositions you have made here are true."
So... yep. Passport folx at the State Department really did work incredibly long hours this week just... shoveling every passport out the door (and prioritizing the ones that might be A Problem come Monday) and yes, they did On Purpose make sure that all of them weren't just DONE but MAILED and out the door and in the hands of the USPS so that they can't be told to pull those passports back and deny/destroy them.
This also means they got the OK for the mountains of overtime from the Biden administration to get that done.
This is what I mean when I say that the Good Work is often not glamorous and that we have to prioritize things which actively and immediately better the lives of our siblings. The State Department worker who was still in the office last night at midnight Pacific time stuffing my passport into an Express Mail envelope and making sure that it was in the hands of USPS has done more liberatory work for the trans movement than 100 people endlessly auditing the language others use to describe their lives ever will.
These next years are gonna be real hard. Find something tangible to do for yourself and others, however small, and do it as hard as you can.
Thanks for @'ing me on this. It really does go to show how many, many, many people are doing what they can, and how small and often boring acts can mean everything to a person's life.
Like OP says, the next four years are going to be hard. Find something - anything - you can do to help the people around you. It can and will keep you from drowning.
i never understood what made steampunk punk. romanticizing georgian era england and industrial revolutions are some of the least punk things ever. youre putting gears on a top hat
i genuinely believe that you can directly blame steampunk directly cribbing from cyberpunk for the fact that solarpunk is an aesthetic and not an ideology. the roots of considering a civilization for its trappings and appearance rather than what it does goes back to that. cyberpunk was punk* because of the stories it told** not because of its aesthetics***
*extremely debatable depending on which punk you ask.
**objectively debatable depending on the game and system
***cyberpunk as a modern franchise not a genre is absolutely a prioritization of aesthetics over punk ideology. you cannot be punk if youre a fuckin franchise of a corporation idk i feel like this should be obvious
Hi hello, Steampunk here: the 19th century was punk as fuck actually, and the active steampunk scene in 2005-2010 was very much aware of and into it. You're citing the Spirit Halloween version.
Way back in November 2013 I made a post about the aestheticization of the subculture that STILL stands:
Steampunk: VICTORIAN LONDON VICTORIAN LONDON TOP HATS CORSETS ARISTOCRACY GLORIOUS BRITISH EMPIRE AIRSHIP PIRATES RAY GUNS APOCALYPSE APOCALYPSE ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE!
Me: …Industrialization, colonialism, imperialism, exploitation of the working class and oppression of POC culminating in violent socialist revolution because fuck yeah the working class and don’t you dare forget it?
Steampunk: ::crickets::
[Steampunk]: THE GREAT GAME COGS GEARS VAMPIRES BUSTLES EXOSKELETON GOGGLES ANGLOPHILIA SUPER CREEPY OBSESSION WITH ORIENTALISM INCLUDING CLOCKWORK GEISHAS MANOR HOUSES TEA!
Me: ::sigh::
^ you are doing exactly this.
The punk ethos is primarily made up of beliefs such as non-conformity, anti-authoritarianism, anti-corporatism, a do-it-yourself ethic, anti-consumerist, anti-corporate greed, direct action, and not "selling out". That is what 'punk' means, in terms of subculture.
When steampunk arose as a subculture, out of Goth mind you, it was entirely a DIY and small business scene.
What steampunk music, fiction, craft groups, or meetups have you been to? Steampunk is, like cyberpunk, about the stories it told/is telling. Often stories of revolution (often violent), the overthrowing of governments and toppling of monarchies, civil rights movements (emancipation from chattel slavery! Indian wars! Rising against colonial powers!), the dawn of first wave feminism and women's suffrage, the original source of communist and socialist thought, workers' rights movements, the fucking enlightenment...
What is more punk than The Communist Manifesto(1848)
What is more punk than The Battle of Greasy Grass(1876)
Who's a more OG Punk than John Brown?
Steampunk literally music and fiction set in and about the Age of Revolution.
Judging Steampunk as a subculture by the part that was heavily commercialized is like judging all of Goth and a subculture by Hot Topic (which is not punk rock).
Go read China Mieville's Bas Lag cycle.
Go read Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve
Go read Boneshaker by Cherie Priest
Go read Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld (crossover with dieselpunk and biopunk!)
Go read Steeplejack by AJ Hartley
Go listen to some The Cog is Dead and some Abney Park and some Rasputina and some Steam Powered Giraffe and, hey, let me link Painless Parker one more time. You will note that that recording is from Occupy Wallstreet.
Also keep in mind that labor/union songs are wildly popular steampunk standards; you will hear Solidarity Forever and other songs from The Little Red Songbook at steampunk song circles. You will hear marching band and orchestral covers of The Sex Pistols' God Save The Queen and The Clash's London Calling. You'll hear songs from Chumbawumba's album English Rebel Songs 1381-1984.
I'm gonna linkspam a bunch of my older writings on this:
#50 Overcoming the Noble Savage & the Sexy Squaw: Native Steampunk–Guest Blog by Monique Poirier
#98 Musing about Native Steampunk-Guest blog by Monique Poirier
Some of you already know Monique Poirier, either from her Beyond Victoriana essay , or from Tumblr , or you know her from cons and stuff. S
Other steampunks of my followers, please reblog with more recommendations about Steampunk stuff that's actually PUNK.
@sapphoandvanzetti , would love to hear you chime in.
Well shit yknow what I retract my statements because I had no idea about any of this! And the fact that the Spirit Halloween version was the only one I'd heard about is actually insulting with how cool a lot of this stuff sounds! Thank you for spending the time to drop all this, it's really appreciated!
There's a post sitting in my flagged posts that's been there for three plus years. It's a pair of onions in a bag that looks suspiciously like a pair of fat tits. Apparently it's flagged for everyone and God i wish i could show y'all
Hey, I know it's a new year and things are pretty scary at the outset.
But I'm here to tell you, of all the things in this world that are gatekept, hope is one of them too.
Just because you're not hearing hopeful news doesn't mean it's not happening.
I have subscriptions to several specialized science magazines via institutional access, and I wake up every day to articles in my email like "We've just figured out how to catalyze the destruction of PFAS [forever chemicals] into harmless byproducts. Now we're just trying to take it to commercial scale." (Real story I read last month and sent to a friend who has deep anxiety about PFAS!!!).
For every big scary problem the mainstream news is capitalizing on through fearmongering, there are people behind the scenes, many of them scientists, working to ~~~ and succeeding at ~~~ solving them.
The news of the solutions are just often behind a paywall, whereas you're free to consume as many stories of tragedy, crisis, and impending doom as you want.
Dog booties are actually really important for working sled dogs in winter to protect their paw pads from iceburn and keep ice from getting in between their toes and burning them that way.
2. The traditional Inuit diet is one of the healthiest in the world, and the most balanced for the ratio of Omega 3 to Omega 6 consumption
Most modern diets consume way too much Omega 6 and not enough Omega 3.
3. Inuit is a plural noun. When speaking about a single person the correct word is Inuk (always capitalized)
For example, “This Inuk woman is wearing traditional Inuit tattoos”.
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