Through the punk lens, you can see a lot of potential for change in both a perfect world, or one that is falling apart. These subgenres of science fiction offer some of my favorite world building dynamics such as technological advancements, new world order, and extraterrestrial influence.
Please enjoy the brief descriptions as I break down these subgenres. Credit to all artists (I could not find many names, but none are mine).
🕰Steampunk🕰
18th-19th century, steam power & clockwork. Treasure Planet & 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea are two great examples!
🌱Solar Punk🌱
2000s+, green, renewable energy, solar tech. Dune, A Psalm for the Wild-Built, and elements of Annihilation fit this genre.
⚔️Diesel Punk⚔️
WWI/WWII, gothic with heavy occult themes. My favorite media for this genre are Trench Crusade and Indiana Jones.
🫧Hydro Punk🫧
No timeline, Lovecraftian, underwater utopia. A lot of sci-fi world offer this biome! Hard to find something that's just hydropunk.
🧬Cyberpunk🧬
2020s+, cybernetic tech, hackers, corruption. It's a very popular subgenre! The Matrix, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, etc.
🌐Atom Punk🌐
1950s, the ultimate utopia, think The Jetsons from the 1960s, or Dexter's Labratory from Cartoon Network.
👽Raypunk👽
Early 20th century, alien tech & extraterrestrial. Flash Gordon and the Forbiddon Planet are pretty significant to the subgenre.
💡Cassette/Neo Futurism💡
80s, cassette/VHS technology gone wild. Star Wars can be placed here as well as Alien! Both are 80s films with that cassette tech feel!
⚖️Decopunk⚖️
Golden Age, Noir vibes, giving Metropolis from 1927. Very vibey sci-fi with those classic Hollywood vibes wrapped in fancy tech.
🩸Splatterpunk🩸
TW, extreme violence, & punk messages. If you can handle gore, try Tender is the Flesh and I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream.
I did those concepts during the summer for a secret project, the theme of it is gritty steampunk/hydropunk. I can't and won't say much, and depending on whether the projects continues or not those might get updated.
Cheers
@tidalpunk is an amazing blog and before I even begin this blog I want to thank them for coining the term and starting the aesthetic.
Tidalpunk as a subgenre of solarpunk/lunarpunk may seem unnecessary or “indulgent” to some, but since solarpunk is ramping up into a real-world movement dedicated to sustaining the Earth, there needs to be an aesthetic that’s just as engaging for oceanography and water conservation. The condition of the world’s water and our relationship with the world-ocean is actually in many ways more important than how we are getting along with solid ground (not that we don’t need to drastically improve how we treat both of them!)
Anyway, so this is a sideblog I am creating because, as I told @Tidalpunk, 1/3rd of my solarpunk/lunarpunk story ‘The Carbon Coast’ is set out on the ocean and involves sea witches, and storms, and islands, and renewable energies out to sea like solar sails, algae fuels and biomass energy, etc.! This made me realize that I might as well develop it into officially a “tidalpunk realm”
So, for the same reason I made a solarpunk blog @carboncoast-solarpunk to learn how to get solarpunk right, then a lunarpunk blog @solvoid-lunarpunk to learn how to do that right, I’m making a tidalpunk blog now, since my book will serve all 3 aesthetics, and I want to get them all right!
I also hope to help what @Tidalpunk started by finding and reblogging more inspiration that fits the aesthetic and functional purpose of “future sustainable oceanography and oceanic culture”, so that tidalpunk can grow along with lunarpunk and solarpunk into a beautiful triangle of optimistic futures for our planet’s well-being!
Now that this mission statement is out of the way, let the tidalpunk posting begin!