furnaceface: (Fire - Great Outdoors)
Jono Starsmore ([personal profile] furnaceface) wrote in [community profile] fhplotterywheel2018-07-24 11:11 am
Entry tags:

Steampunk Weekend!

Remember Soap Opera Weekend? Remember Noir Weekend? Well, pull out your parasols, crimp your cravats and grease up your gears, because on the weekend of August 4/5th, and with thanks to Zed for the kick in the butt to make this happen, the island will be gearing itself up for its very first Steampunk Weekend!

Just like all themed AU weekend events in the past, if you opt in to having your character change, you'll find yourself playing with those steampunk tropes that make the genre so appealing. Everything electrical on the island will be replaced by clockwork, steam-powered, or geothermal alternatives, and the aesthetic will pull a major switch from Fandom's 'come as you were' aesthetic to Victorian and Edwardian sensibilities with a clockwork twist; everything from full flouncy dresses and dapper tailcoats and cravats to jodhpurs and jungle-explorer chic. Streetlamps will become gaslamps, the seaport will become the location of one of series of metal towers around the island where enterprising captains can dock their airships. If you're uncertain about what tropes to lean into for this event, consider the works of Jules Verne and H.G. Wells. There's a pretty impressive list of examples of steampunk in popular culture over here, as well as a good write-up on what makes the genre in the first place, and for further ideas of what to do with your characters or the surroundings they live within, consider poking at the tabs of the steampunk index here!

As with all other crazy themed weekends, the clockwork sky is basically the limit. Embrace your character's darker inclinations toward mad science and experiment with power and chemicals to create a man... or a monster. Attack your neighbours from above as fearsome sky pirates sailing aboard grand airships. Catch a mechanical, spider-legged rickshaw across town in order to attend a ball thrown by the island's social elite, only to run afoul of a raging automaton. What becomes of our fair island will be largely up to whatever steampunky shenanigans you want to bring to the table, and if you want to have your character lean into cattle punk or gaslamp fantasy, could anybody possibly complain? No matter where you take this, as always, don't worry; everything that happens on the weekend will revert back to normal again on Monday morning!

It'll be structured very much the same way Soap Opera Weekend is, with OCD neatly tucked into this very post for you to all noodle about your characters' backstories, and what's going to change about the island you all know and love.

Brainstorming and question threads are all posted within for your convenience!
1000yearstoolate: (thoughtful)

Re: OOC!

[personal profile] 1000yearstoolate 2018-07-24 02:43 pm (UTC)(link)
Noooo, I'll miss this! :(
1000yearstoolate: (cat)

Re: OOC!

[personal profile] 1000yearstoolate 2018-07-24 02:49 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm going away from a month so I was bound to miss something. This sounds like a lot of fun though! :)

And if there's a second time I'll make sure Lucille is around. ;D
crimson_sister: (ghostly)

Re: OOC!

[personal profile] crimson_sister 2018-07-24 02:56 pm (UTC)(link)
:D

A Gothic Horror weekend would really need Lucille, wouldn't it?
deaddadsclub: (60 second dance party)

Re: Character Brainstorming

[personal profile] deaddadsclub 2018-07-24 04:06 pm (UTC)(link)
I call mad scientist for Cristina!

Who wants a clockwork heart?
vdistinctive: (lounging coffee-face)

Re: OOC!

[personal profile] vdistinctive 2018-07-24 04:13 pm (UTC)(link)
I am already having so many flashbacks to my time working on Steampunk Magazine. . . .

Also you've inspired me to finally hunt down/reread my favorite post-apocalyptic/steampunk/circus-punk/body horror novel, Mechanique. Which comes highly recommended for anyone who looks at that mini-description and doesn't back away screaming.
Edited 2018-07-24 17:48 (UTC)
spectre_alenko: Kaidan looking oh so very serious (Default)

Re: Character Brainstorming

[personal profile] spectre_alenko 2018-07-24 04:19 pm (UTC)(link)
Steampunk military, just for the outfits. I will have to do a pastede head but so what.
deaddadsclub: (mama took my eyebrows)

Re: Town Brainstorming!

[personal profile] deaddadsclub 2018-07-24 05:25 pm (UTC)(link)
Good news! The clinic will still be a clinic. With actual walls and everything, and not a hospital tent like my brain first wanted to go for.

Bad news! It'll be an old timey hospital style clinic, ala The Knick, including an operating theater with stadium seating, uncomfortable/vaguely creepy pipe-framed metal patient beds, and all the creepiest old timey doctor instruments. And it'll be run by a mad doctor who really REALLY wants to try putting her latest clockwork inventions in people, anesthesia optional. . . .
spectre_alenko: Kaidan looking oh so very serious (Default)

Re: Town Brainstorming!

[personal profile] spectre_alenko 2018-07-24 05:32 pm (UTC)(link)
Hm. Possibly some sort of Aetheric communication shop or cablegram station.
deaddadsclub: (gotta tell Mere)

Re: Character Brainstorming

[personal profile] deaddadsclub 2018-07-24 05:35 pm (UTC)(link)
Yesssssssssssssssssssssss. Cristina will be appalled (well, primarily confused but also appalled) later, but I love it.
vdistinctive: (cowboy-face)

Re: Town Brainstorming!

[personal profile] vdistinctive 2018-07-24 05:40 pm (UTC)(link)
Okay, so I deleted Eliot's character brainstorm for now because he miiiiiiiiiiiiight be off-island that weekend (I'm waiting to hear back). BUT.

Luke's will be a cattle-punk-y western saloon. Complete with swinging doors in the entrance. Haven't nailed down all the details yet, but the freezer WILL still be there, entirely taken over by tentacle monsters wearing gear-covered top hats and monocles. . . .
heroic_jawline: (Default)

Re: General Noodlings!

[personal profile] heroic_jawline 2018-07-24 06:39 pm (UTC)(link)
Well, clearly Tony and Steve must be throwing another party that never, ever gets to be normal, huh?
era_two_triangle: (Wide-eyed)

Re: Town Brainstorming!

[personal profile] era_two_triangle 2018-07-24 07:54 pm (UTC)(link)
I love this a lot! Will the staff be opening the place as usual, or should Kanan bow out to let someone else cattlepunk it up?

I ask because he's straight-up Jedi Cowboy at this point in canon and he'd be right at home there, la...
tigerundercover: (shapeshift - big daddy)

Re: Town Brainstorming!

[personal profile] tigerundercover 2018-07-24 08:29 pm (UTC)(link)
If Kanan and Miguel want to do their usual shifts at saloon!Luke's, that'd be awesome! Or if you or Llwy want to use one of your other characters to run your characters' day's shift, that's also totally cool. Clearly my concept is SUPER WELL DEVELOPED so far, after all.
intotheout: (adventurrrrre)

Re: General Noodlings!

[personal profile] intotheout 2018-07-24 08:38 pm (UTC)(link)
Do a bunch of students want to get together and form a street urchin gang, ala Dickens? (I feel like the Fagan part would be optional.)
vdistinctive: (ribs-face)

Re: Character Brainstorming

[personal profile] vdistinctive 2018-07-24 10:50 pm (UTC)(link)
(and now that I know he'll be around for it)

Eliot will be an automaton, or at least part-automaton. Built out of the remains of a dead solider from "the Wars" (which war? who knows? specific wars are not the steampunk way), with, you know, Feelings about what it means to be human and all that.

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