Choose Steampunk

[drcuriosity]

Choose Steampunk. Choose brass. Choose leather. Choose Victorian sensibilities. Choose harking back to an age that never was. Choose difference engines, traction engines, and anything that might conceivably have exposed pistons or control rods. Choose a big fuck-off pair of goggles that you never actually use as goggles. Choose making a corset out of something other than PVC. Choose ornate, baroque wordings with which to pen your missives. Choose pocket watches. Choose top hats. Choose your friends. Choose matching leather-bound lunchboxes. Choose a three-piece suit on hire purchase in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering what time period you are in on a Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that settee watching mind-numbing spirit-crushing fashion shows, stuffing fucking hors d'oeuvres into your mouth. Choose gluing second-hand cogs to things so they don't actually work as clockwork. Choose reliving the Industrial Revolution without the workhouses and soot and misery.
Choose your future past.
Choose Steampunk... but why would I want to do a thing like that?

This came out of a few recent discussions I've had with or seen between people online who are either directly or peripherally involved with Steampunk themes, organisations or activities. It doesn't necessarily reflect the views of management, etc., and it mostly tries to stay similar in tone to the Trainspotting original, but there's still a few interesting tensions highlighted there. Between aesthetic and function. Between creativity and commodity. Between romantic notion and realism. There's a place for all of these things, and more interesting stuff that could still come out of the genre/aesthetic/mode of Steampunk, but some of what I see seems... fettered, somehow. It's rather disturbing that there are already people who seem to delight in telling others what is authentic or not when dealing with a setting that never physically existed. It's almost like combining the worst traits of medievalist groups, sci-fi fans and popular high-school cliques in the same place. I'd rather see creation than stagnation, y'know?

(Because it won't fit in the field -
current Music: Everything Goes Cold - I've Sold Your Organs on the Black Market to Finance the Purchase of a Used Minivan)