Steampunk Pilot Girl.

Even a mere sketching captures her exotic beauty.

My personal leave of absence seems to have come at the worst possible time; even as I speak, the rolling storm clouds of War form upon the horizon. The idea that a single Englishman, or even a group of dedicated citizens, could prevent the coming catastrophe with pedantry alone is unfathomable. But even in the midst of despair, dear reader, drifts a glimmering spark of hope. Pedant I must, then pedant I shall.

Today's offering to the God's of Retrofuturism comes direct from the Polycount forums, the first from said website (I was given a rather involuntary tour of the forums' steampunk offerings today by an acquaintance, largely for her amusement) and it became clear it will not be the last. One example in particular stuck with me, through the pointlessly filigreed firearms and insectoid aeroplanes.
I should warn you, before I proceed, that the following images contain an artificial Venus of such beauty and warmth that merely viewing her for the briefest moment may cause the fathers to displace their wedding rings, young boys to experience their first moments of puberty, and give womenfolk everywhere the urge to play upon the flute of Sapho.

Prepare yourself.

Now, you may be wondering how so comely a maiden could possibly invoke my ire. Well, let's begin at the top, and work out way down. Blue beanie, what appear to be swimming goggles, short skirt, rubber arm-bands (presumably, she desires only that the plight of the lower-classes be the subject of a 'true discourse of past' and thus pass into history) blue socks, and what appear to be rubber clogs. Of course.
But before you decide to join this shining example of oddly-bald human perfection at the altar, it might shock you to know that all along she's been a redhead (with a droopy eye, eczema on her chin, and a rash on her chest) and is capable of producing four distinct sounds.


- Anderson A. Armitage IV

source

This next piece is the reason this blog exists. So corporeal is my rage for it, you could bottle it like black bile. I have spent days, agonising over how to describe it to you, and yet... I feel its artist could summarise it better than I could ever hope.

ON ETSY?!? I CAN ONLY HOPE HELEN KILLER HASN'T BEATEN ME TO THIS!!! (CAPSLOCK IS FUN!!)

You might recall I spoke a few days ago, about the control that people in... well, control, have over fans of steampunk. Or... not-steampunk. The Administrators of three separate DeviantArt groups believe this is a valid piece of steampunk art. That is the perfect example of what I'm talking about. And then it's been put in a little box, wrapped in foily paper, and tied up in a pretty bow. And then set on fire, and fired into my left eye from a giant slingshot.

I f*cking hate this thing, is what I'm saying.

- Anderson A. Armitage IV

This is as good a time as any to begin, except for one very important fact; my mind is exploding. The longer I continue to analyse this image, the more it just falls to pieces.

Click here for a terrifying full-view.

Every element of it confuses me; why does she have rivets all over her? Are those boils? And is she naked, or is she wearing some kind of tanktop I can't see? What's with the blue eyelashes, or the.... is that a bow... what is that on her chest?
Coupled with the necklace glued to her chin, the monocle (I had a pair of goggles like that in the 90s, but they had holographic sharks inside them) and the way the paint doesn't seem to extend to her fingers for some reason, and I'm starting to wonder if this is just something I've made up in my head.

The origin of this particular piece can be found here. It was by an artist called =demelt, it came to my attention via a group called 'SteampunkARTISTS' (whose work we shall be exhibiting a lot) and is called "Steampunk'd".

Shoot me.

Just f*cking shoot me.

- Anderson A. Armitage IV

To Whomsoever It May Concern;

“oh ummm by the way steampunk can be alot that you say isnt because, if we want it can be(thought higher class thinking is at least a request)”

Frankly, ladies and gentlemen, enough is enough. I, we, can no longer allow the degradation of a genre for the sake of politeness. After everything I've seen, all I've done, and how I've hard worked...

Steampunk, my friends, is dying, and the fault lies squarely with those in control of our tiny, boxed-in online world. Every steampunk art group on DeviantArt, every administrator for the Facebook 'Steampunk' page, every bug-eyed television journalist describing the Doctor's new T.A.R.D.I.S., or trying to describe the water-powered robots of Leonardo da Vinci (that particular one, for me at least, was like a dagger through the heart.) New fans are fed false information, old fans have the tide turned against them faster than they can fight back. I know, because I've tried. I have tried explaining the history of science-fiction, the division of the subgenre from others of different time periods, the use of steampunk as a mechanism for historical exploration as well as science fiction, the use of subtlety, and grace, and superheaters, and cavorite. And after they'd laugh, and tell me how sorry they were, and how they'd be sure they never made mistakes like that again. They were happy to be told they were wrong because, ultimately, man desires knowledge, and yearns for catharsis. To know they are in possession of the facts, regardless of whether this comes the expense of what they previously believed. No man craves ignorance.
And I'd say my apologies, my goodbyes, wish them luck, and immediately come across another boy painting numbers on a brass owl, '-just like Jules Verne used to do.' It really is too much. So I've decided; we are no longer steampunk disaster-response team. Now, we are the obudsmen of a genre. Selecting, refining, punishing.

Do not misunderstand me. I have no issue with these other subgenres of science-fiction existing. To the contrary, I believe that all work has the right to exist, as long as it has earned it; if it is good, if it is worthy, it deserves to be shared. Nor do I feel that no element of work should ever differ from its source material, as the evolution prevents stagnation and allows the exploration of new ideas. But steampunk... steampunk is a special case, a narrow avenue. Describing something as 'steampunk' is not the same as saying 'post-apocalyptic' or 'cyberpunk' or 'science fantasy'. At least on its own, it denotes a specific time period, political context, and technological origin, and even when fused with other genres it doesn't give much room for much leeway.
It may seem as if these criteria are too specific to produce any great number of works of any really differentiation, but I plead with you to recall; the Victorian Era lasted for 63 years. 63 and 216 days of inventions beyond the scope of imagination, of unsolved murders and mysteries, of an American Civil War, and the Tokugawa Shogunate and Meiji Restoration, the British Raj and the seeds of revolution in Russia, the beginning of European dominion in the Middle East, slavery in Africa and piracy in the Caribbean, the growing colonisation of Terra Australis and the Arctic Circe, and always, always, the growing storm clouds of the greatest war the planet had ever seen.
If you cannot find something new to write about, you've only yourself to blame.


Sincerely,

- Anderson A. Armitage IV