Gatheryn' steam (not the Valve kind)

[Hindenburg]

I'll forfeit the opportunity to waterboard this thread with shit by asking you to define "real".

That nasty german Alois is preventing you from remembering that most people here didn't have functional brains back then. Heck, I wasn't even a sperm in my father's scrotum during that decade. Hence, your rose-tinted glasses are stopping you from observing that the shit in the 70's smelled just as bad, if not worse, than the shit in the present era, and what was once old is new again, and again, and again.

Seriously, Lawrence Welk? Etherships? It's a miracle that you can still type through the arthritis. You're the old man telling the kids to get off your fucking lawn. They won't. They'll break your gnomes and kill your cat. And then they'll cry while cutting themselves. And then some gook will try to steal your gran torino.

[Modern Angel]

Hey, sped. This may blow your mind but I'm illustrating that Lawrence Welk's hideous version of the 19th century was better than your idea of goggles and PVC pipes in funny patterns. And you referenced Gran Torino? Seriously? But please wax poetic about how Steampunk is a reaction to homogenization of our culture due to iPods and God life is just so drab pip pip so I can forego the sleeping pill tonight.

[Hindenburg]

Forsooth.

[Modern Angel]

I'm sorry. Those doctor's aren't wearing fruity hats and goggles. The equipment used in the surgery isn't powered by coal and there's a distinct lack of pipes and gears. I find that terribly oppressive and yearn for the days when men were men and I could be painfully white without seeing the coloreds.

[Hindenburg]

Man, I'd give you a hug if I could.

[Modern Angel]

I like hugs.

[Endie]

Actually, now I look closer at the picture I linked and MA hot-linked, I like the guy behind green-hair-bloke who has come as an omnibus ticket inspector.

[angry.bob]

Come on guys, Modern Angel does have a point, even if it's a point that applies to just about any alternative scene that's ever existed. I'm a fan of Steampunk for the simple reason that I like the look of cobbled together, functional gadgets as well as brass, copper, and well finished wood. Really well done costumes like Steamfisted Time-Lincoln are also interesting. But a solid majority of the people in the scene are just running around in poorly crafted, poorly fitting shit doing a bad job of talking like Shelock Holmes while wearing goggles for no reason and holding a cane. Teal haired vampiric gogglicle guy is enough to fag up a whole subculture by himself.

[Falconeer]

There are things I like. But I can't remember a single "scene" I like.

Scenes are people, and the more they are the uglier and stupider they get.

So no, Modern Angel doesn't have a point. Steampunk is a cool kind of fantasy (YMMV). Stupid people taint anything.

[Modern Angel]

Steampunk is a cool kind of fantasy (YMMV).

This is just empirically false.

[Murgos]

Coming from the nerd point of view Steampunk was cool just because it's possible to create logic circuits using steam and tubes and valves.  You don't need electricity to make a computer.

Theoretically, a processor like the Intel 8080 only uses ~4500ish gates and would have been reasonably buildable in Elizabethan England.  If you consider that this would have been at a time when electricity generation was a dull parlor trick at best and that steam really is capable of replacing most of what we use electricity and gas for and it becomes fun to speculate on how things 'might' have been.

That weird people glommed onto some nebulous fashion ideal branched off of that idea and then forgot about where the roots of the concept came from and eventually mutated even that little kernel into some angsty goth ridden drama scene is pretty typical though.

[Modern Angel]

Theoretically, a processor like the Intel 8080 only uses ~4500ish gates and would have been reasonably buildable in Elizabethan England.  If you consider that this would have been at a time when electricity generation was a dull parlor trick at best and that steam really is capable of replacing most of what we use electricity and gas for and it becomes fun to speculate on how things 'might' have been.

Ding ding ding. THAT is interesting. Coming up with some throwback melange horseshit fantasy/art hybrid based on the idea that the world is so dreary with its faceless technology when Oliver fucking Twist would like to switch places with your country club bored ass is the opposite. Except that I'd argue the entire point was to do the latter rather than have scientific discussions of when the first computer could have been built. It was doomed from the start.

[Righ]

Come on guys, Modern Angel does have a point, even if it's a point that applies to just about any alternative scene that's ever existed. I'm a fan of Steampunk for the simple reason that I like the look of cobbled together, functional gadgets as well as brass, copper, and well finished wood. Really well done costumes like Steamfisted Time-Lincoln are also interesting. But a solid majority of the people in the scene are just running around in poorly crafted, poorly fitting shit doing a bad job of talking like Shelock Holmes while wearing goggles for no reason and holding a cane. Teal haired vampiric gogglicle guy is enough to fag up a whole subculture by himself.

That's really more to do with fashion scenes and cosplay than anything to do with steampunk. People look absurd dressed up as characters from anime shows or fantasy novels too.

Michael Moorcock's Oswald Bastable trilogy (and much of the Jerry Cornelius sequence) is steampunk, Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentleman and Bryan Talbot's Luther Arkwright are steampunk, GDW's Space 1889 was steampunk, etc.

[Mrbloodworth]

I always enjoy steampunk, due to it somewhat going back to when complicated things were made by craftsmen, rather than mass production.

[Morfiend]

I enjoy a little Steampunk in a videogame or a movie, but you wouldn't catch me dead running around outside in that crap.

[Modern Angel]

Sticking some copper piping on a mass-produced laptop doesn't mean you hand crafted shit.

[Signe]

Jules Verne stuff was steampunk-y and I find it rather fun.  Some people here seem to equate it all with a bunch of people who use it for fashion and run around playing dress-up.  I find that opinion odd.  Also, odd is how Steampunk seems to affect Modern Angel. 

Also, why does Itto have a new name?  That's weird, too.  Can I get a new name? 

[HaemishM]

Is that Abraham Lincoln with some kind of jetpack / possibly Steam Power Arms for the Punching of Faces?

If you don't think that's cool, I'm 1,500% sure you just have bad taste. Really bad taste.

Yeah, that. Powerfist Steam Lincoln is made of win.

[Morfiend]

Also, odd is how Steampunk seems to affect Modern Angel. 

I agree. Thats like saying LARPers are horrible hence all fantasy sucks.

*edit for typos*

[Modern Angel]

Pretty much all fantasy DOES suck though. Genre fiction is almost universally terrible.

And I just haven't had a big stupid argument over something trivial in a long time, is all.

[Ingmar]

http://fc06.deviantart.com/fs37/f/2008/268/9/6/steam_punk_or_dandy_goth_by_Wilhelmvs.jpg

That is a man who is very at home with himself, right there.

[Lantyssa]

Fashion != Fantasy genre

They might use it as inspiration, but yeah, people dressing up in badly made costumes look stupid.  Con goers have known this for decades (being mindful I've done cosplay).  News at 11.

Also, why does Itto have a new name?  That's weird, too.  Can I get a new name? 

He's a lawyer so he can draft the documents himself.  It'll cost you about $150 including court costs, depending on state of course.

[Mrbloodworth]

[Lantyssa]

Well done costumes on the other hand...

[Sky]

I just haven't had a big stupid argument over something trivial in a long time, is all.

Trying to posit your opinion as fact and getting called on it isn't an argument.

[Hindenburg]

I just haven't had a big stupid argument over something trivial in a long time, is all.

Trying to posit your opinion as fact and getting called on it isn't an argument.

Yes it is.

[Modern Angel]

I just haven't had a big stupid argument over something trivial in a long time, is all.

Trying to posit your opinion as fact and getting called on it isn't an argument.

I said that it's empirically bad. That means it's not my opinion but, indeed, fact. Also, you're two days late.

[Morfiend]

Yes it is.

I am calling you out on this.

[schild]

Yes it is.

I am calling you out on this.

He didn't say it was a GOOD argument. Rather that it was one. Also, I think Modern Angel knows he's being incomparably stupid in this thread. If he didn't until this post, he most certainly does now.

[Hindenburg]

What do you mean "I think"? He stated as much. This whole fight is a tribute to retarded slapfights.

And I just haven't had a big stupid argument over something trivial in a long time, is all.

[Modern Angel]

It can be a big stupid argument AND people who think steampunk is awesome should be rounded up and shot. They're not mutually exclusive.

Was there a game mentioned in this thread somewhere?

[Endie]

Yes it is.

I am calling you out on this.

He didn't say it was a GOOD argument. Rather that it was one. Also, I think Modern Angel knows he's being incomparably stupid in this thread. If he didn't until this post, he most certainly does now.

I thought it was a clever reference to the Ministry of Arguments sketch in the Monty Python series:

Man:
Argument is an intellectual process. Contradiction is just the automatic gainsaying of anything the other person says.

Other Man:
It is NOT!

Man:
It is!

Other Man:
Not at all!

Man:
It is!

[Mrbloodworth]

good lord:




 

[Salamok]

am I the only one who keeps forgetting what this thread is about and keeps coming back in out of curiosity.  Rename title to crappy Victorian era mmog (I refuse to call it steam punk when I have yet to see any steam or any punk).

[UnSub]

I'm getting too much enjoyment out of Modern Angel popping capilliaries everytime someone says "steampunk" to do that. I keep waiting for him to show us on the dolly where the steampunk girls didn't touch him.