noodle

Side blog I hardly use :thumbs_up: | generally live-blogging | (mostly) tag spoilers | they/them

[dead-finches]

I sometimes wish the monster transformations in dol actually leaned harder into the horror aspect 💔 imagine being robin and your childhood friend goes missing for an entire month only for her to come back really, really wrong. bonus points for being the only one who knew her well enough to tell something's not right. everyone else is just happy she's back :)

i haven't thought of a name for my pc yet, but she's a harpy!! she gets most of her money from selling stolen goods and antiques. when she went out into the moor to look for treasure, the Great Hawk abducted her. after completely turning into a harpy, the Ivory Wraith called her through the mirror and initiated the most bombastically atrocious one night stand she has ever had the displeasure of experiencing lmao

she managed to reach the orphanage right after but not without like... maxed out trauma and the memory of IW's final moments lasered into her brain. normal girl activities, you know how it is

[flagellant]

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

[flagellant]

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

[moniquill]

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

#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

#98 Musing about Native Steampunk-Guest blog by Monique Poirier

Steampunk POC: Monique Poirer (Seaconke Wampanoag)

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.

[flagellant]

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!

[moniquill]

❤️ Glad to offer educational resources!

[noopleisgod]

ok what we do in the shadows is trending and I know nothing about it but I’ve had this man for 17 seconds and I would kill for him

[themonsternest]

I thought I had posted this here too but I guess not. Still recovering from that ending.

That last roll, though.

[duskodair]

Great news! Anything cursed in modern Exandria (fcg's flat earthing, campaign two hospital heist) can now be happily marked down as 'the ring of brass died for this'

[chaucer-blackwood]

EXU: Calamity Spoilers Below

To those of you who complained that Asmodeus turned out to have been genuinely as evil as history painted him as, and not a misunderstood victim, consider the following: that was the point.

Asmodeus could see how pre-disposed Zerxus was to believe exactly that narrative.

And Brennan knew how pre-disposed we’d be to believe it too.

Because for some reason, a lot of people these days seem to like that idea; it’s become overwhelmingly popular in recent years. People love the idea that “history was written by the winners” and so making the historical bad guy secretly good and vice versa is becoming… almost cliche.

So he played the part. Asmodeus constructed exactly the narrative and persona that would elicit sympathy, because he knew that presented with a victim story like that, especially one that makes the gods out to be the villains, that Zerxus wouldn’t question it because that’s exactly the story he wants to believe.

And Brennan played it perfectly, because he knew how much the audience would love it if it were true, enough that they wouldn’t question it either.

If anything, Calamity serves as an object lesson too many people need to learn:

History is written by the winners, yes. But sometimes the winners were right.

Not every demon is secretly a maligned innocent victimized by the secretly villainous gods. Most aren’t, as a point of fact. But a smart one will pretend to be, because he knows how many would jump to believe it without a second thought.

And that’s scarier than anything else in the Calamity: the knowledge that most people, real people, would probably have been as taken in as Zerxus was.

[ceylinerguvan]

I have one. agenda

[skiitter]

There is just something so beautiful about a story whose ending you know is bad. These characters will die and their names will not live on in any history book. Their legacy will slip from the world, wholly unknown. The apocalypse and the blame of it’s creation will fall to another man, but that doesn’t change the fact that these six people were there. They were there and they mattered and they gave everything to ensure that, in some future several centuries from now, the world could begin again. And I just think that that is the most bittersweet and wonderful kind of story there is.

[lakedotjpeg]

At the very top of that cloud, the last member of the Brass Ring gets to keep his promise to his family.

[ID: Cerrit Agrupnin, an eisfurra with white feathers with brown tips and wearing a dark brown cloak, flies up and away from dark clouds tinged an angry red and into a break in the clouds filled with blue sky and light. Debris shoots up and out around him through the clouds. Cloud trails twist behind him in a double helix. end ID.]

[pinadraws]

i'll be coming for your love okay...

wip of laerryn and loquatius dancing because everything is fine!

[noopleisgod]

Finished EXU Calamity. Many feels no thoughts. Much love

[noopleisgod]

I want to stare in the face of “do not wish to be remembered,” and tell it no, that I will wish to be remembered. I will wish for my friends to be remembered

Yknow???? Good for you Quay

[noopleisgod]

zerxus be like. becomes champion of lord of hell. pities him. calls him a child.

girlboss moment tbh

[noopleisgod]

can I get an f in the chat for the average citizen of exandria? like you’re here at the end of the world as you know it and don’t even get to have had a role in it. the world is ending and you didn’t even get to cause it, you’re just caught in the crossfire

[noopleisgod]

THEY KILLED PATIA

[noopleisgod]

finally starting this 6.5 hour of hell coming to meet the ring of brass

[morthyew]

there is no way to articulate the force of skill brennan brings to this campaign. matt’s incredible worldbuilding ability and brennan’s skill at making the fantastic seem real combine to indescribable effect.

a lot of the time i feel like brennan reigns in raw shows of storywriting skill in order to make the shows more watchable as comedies or dramas, and seeing the fucking raw power unleashed when he really, honestly, and truly has the reins loosened is astounding. most DMs don’t make you feel outclassed as a storyteller as a viewer alone, but watching calamity is like being on a paddleboard when a whale swims underneath you.

also, if you cannot trust your party there is no point in writing, and i have NEVER in my life seen a DM’s trust more faithfully rewarded than in this arc. this is a seminar on craft, a thesis about craft, a showcase of craft, of actualplay and improv storytelling, proof of concept that craft exists and is necessary to making satisfying actualplay stories. and it feels like stepping into a graduate-level course for the first time.