I feel like a bobble head
Don't remember anymore wth I was going to say in that last post. :/ Oh, well.
But the food poisoning is all done with (thank you JESUS!) ... however, my mother in law is in the hospital for the third time in six weeks. :(
Anyway, I really really liked this post about steampunk over on foc_u (read the linked article and both discussions) ... it's making me think about steampunk and the persona I'd like to create in my costuming.
Because what else is steampunk but an alternate universe ... and changes in one thing lead to (and mean) changes in another part of history.
For example, I'd like to create a steampunk outfit to honor my Creole heritage ... yet that society was marked both by slavery (on both sides of the coin), the caste systems of color, and the sudden forced assimilation into the US by the Louisiana Purchase (which as I'm reading was sort of put upon the people who lived there unexpectedly and without their approval).
Generally, steampunk likes to pretend all that racist stuff and other unpleasantness never happened, and that Victorian pretty times either continued to today or that those who partake of the steampunk live back when, in a world without bad stuff (or if it is bad -- there are steampunkish lower classes, after all -- the badness is consensual and punkishly fun)
So what would Louisiana look like today if the Louisiana Purchase had never happened? Well, that's a fair question. Napoleon sold the Louisiana Territories as a direct result of Haiti's struggle for independence. Also, the Haitian Revolution caused a mass migration to New Orleans of French and FPOC Haitians, along with their slaves, adding a distinct cultural change that might not have occurred without the Revolution occurring.
Kind of makes you go hmm.
So what if you go back in time, before all that bad stuff, to the days of plaçage ... which, of course, is how the Creole people as they are today got started ... sort of slave/master romance without all the brutal overseer rape yucky stuff.
Another hmm moment there.
And what about the clothes? I would really like to do that southern belle look the Creole women were rocking, but I'm more than a bit worried that on me it would just look like a white woman dressed up as a southern belle -- not the best connotation, as 1863 wasn't a good year for race relations.
Le sigh.
But the food poisoning is all done with (thank you JESUS!) ... however, my mother in law is in the hospital for the third time in six weeks. :(
Anyway, I really really liked this post about steampunk over on foc_u (read the linked article and both discussions) ... it's making me think about steampunk and the persona I'd like to create in my costuming.
Because what else is steampunk but an alternate universe ... and changes in one thing lead to (and mean) changes in another part of history.
For example, I'd like to create a steampunk outfit to honor my Creole heritage ... yet that society was marked both by slavery (on both sides of the coin), the caste systems of color, and the sudden forced assimilation into the US by the Louisiana Purchase (which as I'm reading was sort of put upon the people who lived there unexpectedly and without their approval).
Generally, steampunk likes to pretend all that racist stuff and other unpleasantness never happened, and that Victorian pretty times either continued to today or that those who partake of the steampunk live back when, in a world without bad stuff (or if it is bad -- there are steampunkish lower classes, after all -- the badness is consensual and punkishly fun)
So what would Louisiana look like today if the Louisiana Purchase had never happened? Well, that's a fair question. Napoleon sold the Louisiana Territories as a direct result of Haiti's struggle for independence. Also, the Haitian Revolution caused a mass migration to New Orleans of French and FPOC Haitians, along with their slaves, adding a distinct cultural change that might not have occurred without the Revolution occurring.
Kind of makes you go hmm.
So what if you go back in time, before all that bad stuff, to the days of plaçage ... which, of course, is how the Creole people as they are today got started ... sort of slave/master romance without all the brutal overseer rape yucky stuff.
Another hmm moment there.
And what about the clothes? I would really like to do that southern belle look the Creole women were rocking, but I'm more than a bit worried that on me it would just look like a white woman dressed up as a southern belle -- not the best connotation, as 1863 wasn't a good year for race relations.
Le sigh.