imagine if steampunk was “actually” punk and not just fucked up empire fetishism
#i think about this a lot#steampunk is based on the idea that the world wars never happened and the industrial revolution never stopped#so imagine that the social movements that were born in the aftermath of ww1 and 2 never happened#imagine if steampunk focused on the colonised countries and the secret technologies and hidden gagdets#that the resistance work on; bitter and disillusioned they cut open their hands on whatever metal gears they could sneak off#to build whatever kind of weapons they can cobble together to defend themselves against the white colonisers#imagine if steampunk focused on the disastrous consquences of a white supremacy that cannot be stopped in its tracts#b/c let’s face it; this is a much more likely to turn into a world-wide dystopia than anything cyberpunk gave us#cyberpunk was about the struggle for personhood in a corporate-dominated future but so many stories are white power fantasies#imagine if steampunk was about the struggle for personhood in colonialism disguised as gentility (via stardust-rain)
Katherine Crighton 