Incorporating Cosplay/Roleplaying Into Steampunk - Is It a Good Idea or Does It "Water Down" Steampu

[veniceparrish]

I am in a dilemma, a quandary, if you will. The issue at hand? Whether aspects of cosplay/roleplaying should be used in steampunk. I don't mean entertainment performances like League of S.T.E.A.M. or Steam Powered Giraffe. And, when I say cosplay, I don't just only mean the concept of roleplaying, I also mean that cosplay costumes and non-

Comments

[inaurolillium]

Oh, for pity's sake. Some people want to do full-on character cosplay. Let 'em. Some people just want to wear pretty clothes and be themselves. Let 'em. Why the hell does anyone else care?

Somebody wants to throw a Steampunk version of an SCA war? Fine. The people who want to play that game can go. People who don't shouldn't go.

ETA: WTF, "Moroccan Bazaar" is an opportunity to wear saris? NO. Saris are Indian. They're four thousand something miles apart, on different continents. Also, that's really appropriative.

[sihaya09]

You neatly summed up everything I was going to say. Steampunk is fantasy clothing, pure and simple. It makes no difference to me whether people wear fantasy clothing as a character or as themselves. The whole point is to have fun.

[lady_fellshot]

This. Everyone's steampunk is a bit different and it's a waste of time and energy trying to figure out what "pure steampunk" means outside of a general historical era with bits tweaked. Life is too short to take that kind of debate seriously.

[bride_of_lister]

It honestly depends on how the con is advertised and how the larp aspects are executed. If the con is advertised as a "normal con" with vendors, music and fashion then it'll be rather weird to spring roleplaying on people, especially the lawmaking elements you're talking about. I'm quite involved in a Steampunk larp and the idea of having other players make rules that I would have to follow is really annoying and chafing, and it would probably be even worse for people who have never larped.

Quite a lot of Steampunk is about costuming and visual style but to write it all off under the cosplayer banner is just ignorant. No one is going to say that goth is only a cosplay and lolitas are very insistant that what they do isn't cosplay either. Steampunk is a genre with books, music, tropes and fashion. Costuming is a central element but it's hardly the only one.

[thebluerose]

Im going to say that it sounds like this convention is being run the way the promoter/organiser wants it to be.

So either play along or don't go I guess.

If you just want to have somewhere to dress up and swan around with like minded people, then that potential is there.

If you want to be offended at the lack of authenticity, then take a number cos that queue started decades ago and the end of the line is way over.............there :)

[kwailung]

If you are at the point of having to defend your hobby/pursuit/fandom from "impure" influences, you have lost the point, jumped the shark and are due a long lie down in the country.

[cerrberus]

Steampunk is also the Maker Movement and so much more. Gonna take a lot to kill the creativity; purple wigs and saris won't even make Steampunk ill! Tho' some individuals may experience nausea....