Stempunk Letter Writing

Just like with board games, one of the main reasons I was attracted to the Steampunk fandom is because of its affinity for the old-fashioned way of doing things. With board games, you are getting face-to-facetime, away from phone calls and other technologies. And letter writing is very much emphasized as part of the Steampunk fandom. For a snail mail geek such as myself, this makes Steampunk a certain haven for me and my interests.

This is one aspect of the Steampunk fandom where looking into the Victorian tradition of sending mail is definitely a great idea, since it's sort of hard to glue gears and cogs onto an envelope and still manage to fit it through the mailbox. This is something where you take a more old-fashioned approach, where you spend time writing the letter and conveying your thoughts to another person. It's an old, romantic way of communicating that Steampunk brings back full-force.

Here is another area where Pinterest was most helpful. I myself have a wax seal I could have used and photographed for the occasion - but to be honest, fire and melting wax scare me, and I could psych myself up enough in time for this project. So I will have to enlighten you with other people's photographs instead.

I challenge anyone reading this to write somebody they know a letter, as opposed to an email, sometime this summer. Revel in the process of the writing and then sealing it up and sending it off, see how it makes you feel. It really is a fun experience, and I love writing letters and decorating the envelope before sending it off to its final destination.

Steampunk On The Internet - A List of Links

Any internet-savvy nerd knows their way around various social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr, etc. A lot of these internet sources hold typical routine posts and links that we might come to expect - funny/cool videos people have decided to share, lists of books to read, etc. I'd not only like to share some posts and links like that with you, but I'd also like to include some of the unique Steampunk resources I was able to find as I worked on researching for my final project.

List of 50 Steampunk Books - There are plenty of lists like this that exist out there, which include perhaps 50 Classics or 50 High Fantasy Novels or even 50 YA Novels.The whole premise is you check off the ones you've read and get to show off just how much Steampunk Literature you've been able to read. These sorts of resources are sometimes made to show to your friends and family how you are superior in your reading, but this challenge should be something that you do strictly for the fun of it.

Steaming Apparel - This has to be, hands-down, the best Steampunk-related resource I was able to find across all of the internet. There are some great posts about Steampunk costuming for all experience levels, and even some historical information that will help you find what sorts of items you may be looking for with your Steampunk costume. Definitely a place you should check out.

List of Steampunk Works - Maybe you'd like to look into a book, movie, TV show that has been defined by somebody as Steampunk, or at least holds Steampunk elements? This wouldn't be a bad place to start.

Toronto Steampunk Society - They don't have their own website but they do have a Page you can like on Facebook, as well as a group that you can join. Members exist all over the place, including in the Niagara Region. It's worth checking out :)

These are just a handful of helpful resources to help you build your knowledge in a fandom-based way, and I certainly hope they were just that - helpful :)

Creating My Character - What's In A Name?

This post is sort of a two-parter, in the sense that I will be talking about the process of naming my Steampunk character, but I will also be discussing some of the rules that I feel still fit into my definition of Steampunk as a fandom, thus putting a better name to what I'm hoping to explore here.

With regards to my character's name, I have a habit when creating characters in my writing to search for names which have a distinct meaning that somehow manages to fit the kind of person they are. Also, I obviously wanted a name that existed in the Victorian era. It wouldn't have to be a popular name during that time, so long as it wasn't a modern name that didn't exist back in the 1800's. 

We will get back to that train of thought in just a moment . . .

Putting a name, or even assigning rules, is a difficult idea to juggle with. During my presentation. I talked about a descriptive definition to the genre being the best fit for my idea of Steampunk, where fuzzy logic could be applied. But I also mentioned that some rules were necessary so that the idea of Steampunk doesn't go off the rails in the wrong direction. Time for me to elaborate a little bit of what rules I feel do and don't fit my defintion of Steampunk.

Does everything involving Steampunk have to derive from Victorian England as its historical jumping off point? For me (sorry Danahay), the answer would be no. I have seen costumes at conventions that are from a Steampunk reimagining of the Wild West, of the future involving time travel, and there are also genre-bending examples where Steampunk has been applied to the worlds of Disney, Marvel and even Star Wars. I feel like one single period in history is too much of a confinement for any type of fandom. The specific perspective of Steampunk as a fandom means that there has to be room for the ideas to grow and change as time goes on.

Does a character's costume have to be made solely out of authentic materials? Hell no! Only rich people can play that card :P

Do all of the details of a character's costume have to correlate with one another? Yes, absolutely, and they also have to correlate with the type of character you're trying to create. For example, you may think a pair of Steampunk goggles look really cool, but if you are dressing as a character that would have no use for goggles, then you really shouldn't be including them as part of your costume. This rule has painted me into a bit of a corner, since I would love to own a pair of Steampunk goggles, but I'll make sure to include them in my second Steampunk costume.

WHAT ISN'T STEAMPUNK? Here is where I got into some problems during my presentation, because I wasn't able to properly define what rules belong in the Steampunk fandom and which do not, and it was hard to accurately convey what was not Steampunk according to my definition. First off, I think something that will be a big help here is the inclusion of one necessary aspect to the Steampunk fandom: knowledge.

You have to know what you're doing, and you have to know what you're talking about. That does not mean that you need to be a history or literature expert. But this would help me to explain why you can't just glue gears to something and call it Steampunk but still maintain the inclusive ideals that I believe the Steampunk fandom should embrace. If you want to do something badly enough, if you want to create something badly enough, then I believe research is key. You need to take the proper time to learn about what you believe Steampunk to be, and you need to learn about who your character is as well to the best of your ability.

That being said, the Victorian and Steampunk name generator may have helped me decide on my character's name. Whether or not I'll be keeping it is still tough to say, but here is one of the preferred results the generator gave me:

Steampunk Board Game - Why So Serious?

This was one aspect of my final Steampunk project that I was looking forward to the most - and it ended up being the one that surprised me the most and would in turn give me the most to write about. So let me tell you what I've learned, first by setting the scene for you.

My Steampunk presentation was on the 23rd of March, and on Saturday the 28th a friend and I decided to take a little road trip into Toronto in order to try out a Steampunk-themed board game. For the past year or so I've embraced playing and collecting tabletop games as a hobby, and it's a hobby that has grown in popularity over the past few years. Online web series such as Wil Wheaton's Tabletop have helped to popularize board games, and with the growing trend businesses surrounding the enjoyment of board games have popped up all over the place. The venue my friend and I chose was Snakes and Lattes.

I'd done a quick internet search a few days before we were due to head into Toronto, I saw that Snakes and Lattes had 2 different Steampunk games in their collection (or at least had two games with "steam" in the title). One of them that we decided to attempt playing was titled Planet Steam, and it was the only one available to play when we happened to get there. The game was delivered to us by one of the Game Masters from the upstairs archives, in a pretty massive game box. We began pulling out the game which was made up of a folded game board and so many little pieces that they were all kept in a plastic container provided by SAL staff. A German-made game, the English instructional booklet had been lost somewhere over the years, but an English printout had been added to the box.

It was complicated. It was incomprehensible. It involved so many small parts that had to actually be glued together - the amount of time and energy it would have taken to play this game was pretty ridiculous, and obviously this made me pretty sad. This game wasn't accessible to somebody that might want to walk in from right off the street, pick it up and try a taste of what the Steampunk world, and the Steampunk fandom,

So we played Takenoko instead!

What's the moral of this story? Well, one thing I learned is that any board game with a panda bear on the game box is going to be a game that is easy to play. But aside from that, this experience actually taught me something valuable about Steampunk as a fandom. Parts of it really and truly are inaccessible for somebody on the ground floor, such as myself. An outsider might think they need to know how to sew or weld or at least need to have a whole whack of money to be able to drop on a costume in order to be considered a member of the Steampunk fandom

From the outside, the Steampunk fandom can be pretty intimidating. That is why I have chosen an approachable direction with which to examine Steampunk as a fandom in the first place. And there really are fun and easy ways to enjoy Steampunk, and you shouldn't be trying to scare yourself with worrying too much about being accepted. I've been leading up to discussing what is and what isn't Steampunk in my last couple of posts, but I will delve into some of the rules I have recognized in my next post.

I will wrap up this post by telling you that there are some fun and totally easy and accessible Steampunk-themed games that exist out there, including Steam Park pictured above, which contains an Easy list of rules for beginner players and an Advanced list of rules for players looking for more of a challenge. I definitely want to try playing this game as soon as I get the chance.

Creating My Character - The Occupation

On the day of my presentation, I was vague about my idea for what exactly my Steampunk character would be - I'm pretty sure one of the answers I gave out loud was "something to do with herbs" or something to that effect. When I first started collecting bits and pieces for my costume, I really did have an incredibly vague notion, but I've been working towards rectifying that for a while now and mking sure that the costume that I've been putting together fits in with the historical representation of the occupation I have chosen as much as is possible. Then again, I will be varying from that idea quite a bit as I put everything together for the final product - this is Steampunk after all, and it's not 100% about historical accuracy.

I've decided that my character would be a shopkeeper, specifically a character that both owns and operates her own tea shop. Since tea was a product purchased by both the upper and middle classes, she would make a decent living for herself, so it would be acceptable for her to have a couple of nicer flourishes as a part of her clothing. Lately I've been doing some research about shops and shopkeepers in the Victorian era, and I happened to find a pretty interesting resource that answered a lot of my questions, and caused me to learn something new.

For instance, did you know that concrete prices weren't implemented in shops until the 1830's? This was so shopkeepers could haggle for a lower or higher price depending on their clientelle. Also most shops were owned by men and it was frowned upon for women to own them unless they were widowed and took over the shop - this being once women had the right to inherit property of course.

I was glad to learn this fact, because I had been playing around with the idea in my mind about my character being a widow. The reason for this was that I thought I could get away with a few robust choices of my costume as being items that were perhaps owned originally by her husband but then re-worn or re-purposed to fit her needs. Really, I've just been looking for an excuse to add a cool pair of Steampunk goggles to my costume. So far no luck, but if you have any suggestions for how I might achieve that, let me know in the comments below!

Steampunk Music

I've spent the past couple of weeks exploring the different examples of Steampunk Music that exist out there in the universe – and on the internet – only to draw some interesting conclusions about Steampunk music in general, and how they relate to Steampunk as a fandom. Music is a subset of the Steampunk genre where I feel diehards would tend to get a bit nuts about what makes a band or a song "Steampunk" and what disqualifies something from belonging as an example of Steampunk music.

Before I started this course, with regards how to differentiate Steampunk music from other genres of music, I thought that there was only one real requirement, and that was whether the artist/band created this music with the intention of calling it Steampunk, and that any artists that consistently deny the Steampunk status of their music must know better than anybody else. Here is a sample of the songs I listened to in order to further develop my definition.

The "Definition"

Abney Park has constantly been defined as a Steampunk band, by prescriptive fans and descriptive fans alike. This song in particular is one that outwardly addresses the Steampunk movement, not just including the odd instruments and the costume aesthetics of the genre but creating a commentary on the fandom when they show shots of a Steampunk fashion shoot among other images in this music video. I would describe this song and this video as a love letter to the fandom. 

Here's a sample of the lyrics I'd like to call attention to: "We've darted back to 1886 / Don't ask us why, that's how we get our kicks / Out with the old, In with the new." This song isn't just Steampunk in the sense of the instruments used and the Victorian sense of the sound and lyrics, but it speaks to the fandom directly, which is why I chose to refer to it as a love letter. While this song is beautiful and does a great job at addressing Steampunkers directly, there are other song that take a very different approach.

The Bizarre

I just happened across this video from the Toronto Steampunk Society Facebook group, where somebody had posting it as the Steampunk song of the day on April 9th. This song is silly and farcical, plus it's actually pretty catchy once you get to listening to it a couple of times. Plus, y'know, Steampuk Fett. 'nuff said.

A lot of the background images in this music video involve blimps and gears and other aged images to give this video an industrial aesthetic. and it too directly references some of the specific qualities that belong to the Steampunk fandom. Of course, this video is meant to be silly, and not to make fun of the fandom as much as to have fun with the fandom. Would diehard Steampunk fans include this music as part of their definition of Steampunk music? Probably not, but does that mean that it doesn't deserve a place in the world of a fandom? It's my opinion that there's a place for everything, as long as it's not intentionally making fun of the genre in a negative way.

My Favorite

This video is my main motivation for asking in class after another classmate's presentation about Steampunk music that didn't necessarily contain lyrics. This is a song that I was a fan of before it was given this Steampunk-Wild West music video. Before this video came a song where the lyrics and the additional noises and mixing created a Steampunk sound, and when Shatter Me was given a music video it naturally was given even more of a Steampunk vibe.

The music from Lindsey Stirling's newest album was included in my original definition of Steampunk music, and I would still include it now. It certainly fits my original definition, where the artist is purposefully aiming to achieve"Steampunk status" with her music.

Truly, there is a place for everything. Music is a fluid art form, and much like visual art where people have fought in the past whether something is or isn't art (a particular Urinal comes to mind here), it's difficult to argue what is and isn't music, and that also includes what is and isn't Steampunk. Of course, there are some rules - music should be at least a little bit melodic, in my opinion - and the same goes for how some rules should be followed within the Steampunk fandom, but not nearly as many as prescriptivist thinkers have tried to assign to the genre.

Steampunk DIY

One of the most enjoyable parts of the Steampunk fandom that relates to creating your own character is spending the time to create your own costume and accessories to help put together your character's look. This is one of the old-fashioned aspects of this fandom that drew me to admire Steampunk in the first place - it's certainly possible nowadays to walk into a store or go online and to acquire all of the pieces of your costume without having to do any further work, but what is fun is sitting down and putting real effort into the pieces you make. The end result will of course vary on your personal skill set. If you know how to sew or weld then you'll be able to create some detailed and intricate piecess from scratch, but if you are lacking in those sorts of skills then you are left with operating a glue gun, some pliers, and a little dose of creativity.

One DIY project I plan on tackling as part of my Steampunk character costume is to play around with some options for the hat my character wears. It's a bowler hat, and I bought one that already included some Steampunk decorations, but I don't plan on keeping it as I purchased it. With having to research and write the posts for this blog, along with finishing up other final assignments, I didn't have enough time to tackle any of these DIY projects on my own, but I have had plenty of time to start planning for what I would like to do with my hat for my costume.

My character, still unnamed, works with plants and various herbs, as she is the owner and operator of a tea shop. So I plan on using nature-themed decorations throughout the copper, brass and aged gold decorations that will be a part of my final costume. My hope is the combination of these two ideas will amount to a pretty interesting final product.

One great resource for DIY project ideas, aside from the internet at large? Look no further than Pinterest! Here are some of the ideas I have collected for how I could potentially change this hat to better fit my character.

The Steampunk fandom is an artisan's dream! There are countless vendors that you'll see at nearly any kind of convention that are peddling their handmade wares which contain a Steampunk or Victorian flair. I myself own items like this, and I know I will be picking up others at the future conventions I will be attending.