Martian Sunset

I write stuff. Modern Romans (ROMANITAS). Kids on Mars with blue-eyed flying American Fish Robots (MARS EVACUEES) also I wrote a thing called I Hate Strong Female Characters.

[thehmn]

Foxes disguised as monks. On the left from Japan and on the right from Denmark.

[crabs-and-bedbugs]

It was a global problem

[thingssheadores-deactivated2014]

[mariecanker-blog]

WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS. WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS. THIS IS SO NASTY. WHAT IS THIS STRANGELY SHAPED, HI RES FUCKED UP PIECE OF SHIT. SOMEONE EXPLAIN TO ME THIS DISGUSTING MASS OF WHAT THE FUCK EVER THIS EVEN IS. WHY DO THINGS EXIST LIKE THIS. WHAT THE HELL DO I TAG THIS NASTY THING. WHAT IS THIS. WHAT IS THIS

[striders]

it’s a sliced mango holy shit

[mariecanker-blog]

oh. i like mangoes. 

[pumnion]

@hellsite-hall-of-fame for your consideration possibly

[w0nderland42]

i get that americans love their cultural imperialism, but it really does piss me off that june is “international” pride month just because something happened in the united states.

in aotearoa, june isn’t our pride, it’s theirs. marsha p johnson and sylvia rivera are their historical figures, not ours. the phrase that “you owe your rights to Black trans women” is true there, but here we owe our rights to (mostly) Māori historical figures. i have the freedoms i do because of the legacy of an entirely different set of people operating in an entirely different context at entirely different times.

But because of american cultural imperialism, most queer people in Aotearoa don’t even know our own queer history. Carmen Rupe, Ngahuia Te Awekotuku, the Dorian Society, Gillian Laundon, Georgina Beyer, and the Wolfenden Association are some of our queer history. We should know their names! we should know what they did for us! but because of the power of the american imperial machine, we don’t.

our national pride month should be july, the month that the Homosexual Law Reform Act passed in 1989. our two largest cities hold their pride festivals in february and march, respectively. american queer history has very little (or nothing, depending on who you ask) to do with our queer history. anecdotally, from my own queries, queer youth in aotearoa know more about american queer history than our own.

anyway, happy pride, americans. i’m truly sorry that most of you don’t see the negative impact your nation’s culture has on the rest of the world. and to the rest of the world reading this, try searching for your own country and culture’s queer history, don’t accept the american narratives as your own. we deserve our own histories divorced from the cultural hegemony of the USA.

[w0nderland42]

this post is closing in on 10k and it’s really quite enlightening reading through the notes.

the most frequent reactions are from people from Not America agreeing that the cultural force of american pride has detracted in some tangible way from their knowledge or recognition of their own history. there’s so many links and references in the notes now, for so many different places. i had a scroll through some of them, that i could find versions of in english. the world has such a rich queer history, and i am inspired by all of the people saying they’re going to go and research more of their own histories. there have been resources shared from all six permanently inhabited continents (none from antartica, yet…), including a lot (relative to the usual zero) from the regions most frequently glossed over in our global queer histories; africa, the middle east, southeast asia, the pacific, and south america. every single person who’s shared a queer historical figure’s name, or a book or other source, or a historical event from their country or culture is doing an important thing by helping to dismantle the US pride hegemony.

the next most frequent reactions are from americans pissing on the poor, and claiming that either it’s not their fault individually because [nebulous reason missing the point] and/or that i’m racist (someone even said fascist lmao?) because the two people i mentioned were Black and latin american… it’s not the fault of those two women nor myself that americans have chosen their faces and names to put at the front of their imperialist pride. cultural imperialism doesn’t have to LOOK racist! you can be unintentionally culturally imperialist and look woke! a lot of the people who do this are queer and liberal or even leftist. the problem is forcing american queer history on the rest of us. shoutout to the Black and latine people in the notes who’ve rightfully pointed out that that’s a bullshit rebuttal. I’ve also noted the autocorrect typo on Marsha’s name, and fixed it, thanks for the heads up.

sort of the point of cultural imperialism is that the people doing it don’t notice it on an individual level. of course you don’t feel like you’re responsible! of course you struggle to see it when the rest of us point it out! that’s by design! if the rest of the world is saying something is a real experience that they’ve had, and you say “well i don’t see it / i’m not responsible for it,” that is blatant denial of a very real issue.

finally, for the love of god, stop using they/them for me, a trans woman who exclusively uses she/her. my pronouns are front and centre on my blog! funny how the people calling me racist and transmisogynistic for Using Examples are also frequently degendering me in the process, huh?

anyway, this vent was never intended to go viral, i posted it on a quiet afternoon after a conversation with a friend about our queer history here. i’m glad it has, though, because glossing over the americans swinging and missing, the breadth of history and knowledge being shared in the notes is a wonderful thing.

[w0nderland42]

i love (read: hate) that this post is now an “it’s june 2nd” alarm in my notifications now. because apparently it immediately starts off again when america hits june 1st. ugh.

[playwrongs]

I think strange horrible things should stop befalling my friends

[catastrophespouse]

I think strange wonderful things should start befalling my friends

[motherfuckingshakespeare]

A HANDY CHART FOR THOSE OF YOU WONDERING WHAT THE FUCK IS UP WITH THESE. NOTE THAT THESE ARE ALL THE INFORMAL AND YOU IS THE FORMAL SO LIKE YOU WOULD ALWAYS ADDRESS YOUR SUPERIOR/ OLDER PERSON/ SOCIAL BETTER WITH YOU BUT WITH YOUR BUDS YOU CAN USE THESE. 

[heroineimages]

I’m not sure I knew the thy/thine distinction. Thanks for this!

[tzikeh]

More examples of the WORST mansplaining here.

[useyourblinker]

This might be my favorite

[lotsofcatsandcheapwine]

This is mine

[stockyardsyndrome]

[misscromwellsmonocle]

The Lazy Italian Girl (1757) by Jean Baptiste Greuze

[quendergeer]

god, you take a five minute break and some asshole paints a picture

[trans-lykanthropie]

I bet Jean Baptiste wasn't helping with the washing up or doing the laundry

[systlin]

Getting down on my knees and thanking the humans who invented dishwashers and washing machines.

[marzipanandminutiae]

Josephine Cochrane (first commercially scalable dishwasher)

several people were involved in developing washing machines, and none can be as easily pointed to as Cochrane with the dishwasher, so here is a Wiki entry to read about that in its entirety

[systlin]

There should be statues of her in every major city. Bless you, Ms. Cochrane.

[tlirsgender]

We need more women characters who are Male Protagonists. You know. Slightly haggard. She's splashing cold water on her face and gripping the edge of the sink staring in the mirror for a minute. She's coping badly with her deadwife

[musthavebeenthecombat]

I'm sorry.???

[reject-tiefling]

@acarefreewind

Okey

[screenshotsofdespair]

[pina-repsi]

ghosts

here are some close ups as well

watson is so much stronger than me because i would've been a mess even decades later after all that he's been through

[edgarallennope]

[thatlittleegyptologist]

It’s too hot to give a fuck that the prime minister resigned…again

[latis-ali]

This is almost better than finding out new info through the supernatural meme

[thatlittleegyptologist]

sorry about that 🫠

[sinni-ok-sessi]

anyway, as the weather continues Stupid Hot and british politics continue Just Stupid, can I recommend The Sea? you will not regret getting in The Sea. let The Sea envelope you in its chill embrace. maybe watch some seabirds. maybe get hit in the face by a wave. everything is cool and pleasant and green in The Sea.

also you can't check the news

[sophiamcdougall]

I can verify this, for you know what I found yesterday in the sea? That's right. Fifteen euros.

[kushblazer666]

[peppercat-panic-deactivated2025]

Incredible job by the 1980s BBC who decided last minute they needed to quickly explain why Switched on Bach doesn't have Wendy's name on it

(sex change) motion graphics

[ms-demeanor]

Description:

Visual is a close-up shot of a photograph of a synthesizer that zooms out to show that the machine is next to a man dressed as Johann Sebastian Bach. The image zooms out until the title “Switched On Bach” comes into view revealing the image as an album cover.

In the background of the narration, a synthesized version of Bach music is playing.

BBC Presenter: The Moog modular synthesizer first became widely heard in 1968 on a record called “Switched on Bach” by Walter, now Wendy, Carlos.

[The words “(sex change)” scroll quickly across the album cover from right to left]

BBC Presenter: It was b-

/video ends