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!
This phrase has already entered my vocabulary re: media criticism where like. The viewer has a concrete view of what they expect a story to be based on the tropes and cliches they're used to seeing together, and when that doesn't happen, they judge it as a failed depiction of what they assumed it was going to be instead of judging it as what it actually is.
"This show is problematic because the hero didn't kill the villain at the end": When does he steal the bread?
"These two characters who were close friends throughout the series don't kiss at the end! What the fuck?": When does he steal the bread?
"This feels like it's missing a conclusion! Like, the protagonist does bad stuff and because of a critical decision he makes as a result of his major character flaws, meets tragedy in the end! Where's the part where he learns better and brings is love back from the dead and becomes a good guy and gets a happy ending?": When does he steal the fucking bread??
staring at the dessert menu and twirling my hair and going "should I be baaaaddd" until the autistic girl I'm eating with says "there is nothing bad about eating dessert. it is a morally neutral action"
ok so I looked it up, and it turns out they made a track out of PVC pipes, down a hill. The owner didn't realise PVC expanded in the heat, so on a turn the track just fell apart and the dude inside went over a fucking free way and into a swamp.
The funniest part is that the inspector was watching the whole time, and once the ball stopped he left without saying anything. Park management just shut it down then and there.
✶ "I don't need anyone." (Reality caves when they're sick, alone, and no one checks on them because they trained everyone not to.)
✶ "I'm over it." (Caves when they see their ex happy with someone else and realize they've been paused for three years.)
✶ "It wasn't that bad." (Caves when they see someone else experience the same thing and feel protective rage they never felt for themselves.)
✶ "I work better under pressure." (Caves at 4am when their hands won't stop shaking and they can't remember the last time they ate.)
✶ "They'll come back." (Caves when someone new sits in their usual spot and the world didn't actually stop turning.)
✶ "I'm not like my parents." (Caves mid-argument when they hear their mother's exact words coming out of their mouth.)
✶ "I just need to be thinner/richer/smarter/better." (Caves when they achieve the goal and the emptiness is still there, unchanged, patient.)
✶ "I can quit whenever I want." (Caves when they try to stop for one day and their body betrays them with withdrawal, need, panic.)
✶ "Time heals everything." (Caves on the ten-year anniversary when it hurts exactly the same.)
✶ "I'm protecting them by staying away." (Caves when they find out the person spent years thinking they weren't wanted, weren't loved.)
✶ "It's not abuse if I provoked it." (Caves when they see a child get yelled at for nothing and want to shield them from everything.)
✶ "I don't deserve better." (Caves when someone treats them with basic kindness and they break down crying in a Starbucks bathroom.)
✶ "Asking for help is weakness." (Caves when they physically can't do it alone anymore and pride becomes a luxury they can't afford.)
✶ "People leave, that's just how it is." (Caves when someone stays through the ugly and they realize they've been the one pushing everyone away.)
✶ "I'm too damaged for love." (Caves when someone looks at their scars and doesn't flinch.)
✶ "Success will make me happy." (Caves at the top of the ladder when the view is just lonelier, higher up.)
✶ "They didn't mean it like that." (Caves when the same pattern repeats and excuses run out and they're tired, so tired of translating cruelty into kindness.)
✶ "I'm fine being alone." (Caves during a random Tuesday evening when the silence becomes a physical weight crushing their chest.)
✶ "Emotions are weakness." (Caves when they feel nothing at their own parent's funeral and realize they've amputated part of their humanity.)
✶ "I'll deal with it later." (Caves when 'later' becomes 'never' and the rot they've been ignoring finally consumes the foundation.)
⊹ How do they treat people who can't do anything for them? Waitstaff? strangers? people they'll never see again? this is the oldest trick in the book for a reason. It works. How someone behaves toward people with no social utility tells you everything about their actual values versus the values they perform for an audience.
⊹ What's their relationship with their own body? Are they comfortable in it or is it something they carry around like a problem? do they take up space or make themselves small? are they aware of how they look or completely indifferent? Physicality is psychology and most writers forget the body entirely until someone needs to throw a punch.
⊹ What do they lie about and why. Not dramatic plot lies necessarily. the small everyday ones. the things they exaggerate or omit or reframe. Because people don't lie randomly, they lie to protect something. Find what your character is protecting and you'll find what they're afraid of. That fear is the ENGINE!!
⊹ Who did they used to be? not their whole backstory. just: who were they before the thing that changed them. because that person is still in there somewhere, showing up in small ways, wanting things the current version of them would never admit to. The ghost of a former self is one of the most interesting things you can write into a character without ever stating it directly.
⊹ What would make them walk away?? from the goal. from the relationship. from the person they're trying to be. everyone has a breaking point and it should be specific to them, and please not a generic "too much" but the exact thing, the particular betrayal or loss or realisation that would finally be enough. know this even if the story never reaches it.
⊹ What do they love that has nothing to do with the plot?? a specific kind of light in the afternoon. the smell of old paperback books. bad television they watch without apology. something small that belongs only to them. details like this cost you nothing and they make the reader believe in a person completely. characters who only care about plot-relevant things are not people. they're chess pieces. sorry not sorry.
⊹ What do they want vs what do they need. these should not be the same thing. what they want is the surface goal ( the job, the person, the revenge, the answer.) What they need is the thing underneath that they can't name yet. The story is what happens in the gap between those two things. if they're identical your character has nowhere to go.
⊹ What are they wrong about. Not morally wrong necessarily. just. what belief do they hold that the story is going to test. What assumption do they make about themselves or the world that turns out to be incomplete? A character without a wrong belief is already finished. They have no arc, give them something to learn even if learning it hurts them.
⊹ How do they talk when they're nervous. Do they go quiet or do they talk too much? do they deflect with jokes? do they get weirdly formal? do they ask questions instead of answering them? the way a person behaves under pressure is who they actually are. And it should be different from how they behave when they're comfortable.
⊹ What do they find funny. this one sounds small and it is not small at all. Humour is worldview. What makes someone laugh tells you what they value, what they're afraid of, how they handle pain. A character with no sense of humour is just flat. even the gravest person finds something absurd. find the thing.
⊹ What are they ashamed of? not their tragic backstory. their actual shame. The small ugly thing they would never say out loud. The time they were a coward. The feeling they pretend not to have. The desire they think disqualifies them from being a good person. Shame is where the most interesting character work lives and most writers skip straight over it :(
⊹ What do they do when no one is watching? how do they move through a space alone. What do they reach for when they're sad. What do they do with their hands??? Public behaviour IS performance. Private behaviour is truth. you don't have to show all of it but you have to know it or the character will feel hollow in a way the reader notices without being able to name.
part of the reason i love mean, bitchy, rude, domineering, firecracker female characters and loathe seeing them defanged is because the prickliness repels men and the defanging is ALWAYS to make them more fuckable for whatever man they have a weird sexual tension with. like yeah i don't like the Mean Lesbian stereotype either but at least the mean lesbian isn't shelving her career to become a tradwife after spending however many episodes/chapters/issues saying how much she didn't want to do either of those things
i will take twenty mean women being headcanoned as lesbians solely on the basis of how fucking toxic they are before i will take ONE formerly mean woman suddenly being sunshine and rainbows in the arms of a man she should be slapping across the face
and maybe this isn't revolutionary of me at all but in addition to being perfectly fine with the mean lesbians i also just want to see more female characters who are genuinely Married To Their Work. not in that she doesn't have time for dating but wishes she did, i mean that she genuinely gets all the fulfillment she needs from the satisfaction of a job well done and the socialization she enjoys in the process of doing her job. and it can be any kind of thing that keeps her busy, not just modern formal 9-5 employment; "passion" and "calling" also work here instead of "job". female characters are never allowed to loiter around unfucked, especially not if the male lead wants a piece of that (and even if the male lead getting a piece of that would completely derail everything she has going on). like oh my god can just one chick win an employee of the month award and not have to immediately suffer some sort of cisheteronormative penance for it
the thing is, as much as i want to hate the stereotype for its real-world implications, i'll only be able to stop finding catharsis in the fictional(!) Mean Lesbian when i stop feeling alienated by the mainstream reduction of female characters to sexdolls and housemaids.
anyway, in light of recent developments, i'm briefly returning to this post to give a hearty congratulations to both eva "scapegoat" stratt and captain ava iron lung for each winning the Mean Lesbian Employee of the Month award. your names' allusions to the biblical eve are not lost on me and i too agree that eve did nothing wrong. i do think it's feminist praxis for an intimidating, glowering, nonsexualized woman to seal a crying man inside a metal box and not let him back out
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