Proposed Punk-Punk subgenres

Awhile ago, I came-up with this idea as a parody of “punk-punk” subgenres but I became kind of endeared to this idea:

Italiopunk. The focus is not on a time period or level of technology but instead is intentionally anachronistic with the prevailing theme being a focus on Roman/Italian/Italian-American culture.

Imagine patricians wearing toga-suit hybrids engaging in imperial Rome-type intrigue in modern-looking government buildings while the plebeians engage with shady mafia activities in the shipyards and docks. I imagine mafia crime fiction or Roman tragedies would be the big inspirations for plots but there would be stuff like hover-Ferraris or flying Vespas. Basically, a genre as obsessed with luxury sports cars and scooters as Steampunk is obsessed with zeppelins or Dieselpunk is obsessed with biplanes. So fancy civilian vehicles would be the representation for industry and progress.

The 1999 movie Titus was my main inspiration for this but also some from that Coriolanus film adaptation. Both kind of played on an idea of “sort of modern” Ancient Rome which is kind of interesting. Rome is nicknamed the “Eternal City” so I think playing-up the idea that it exists in all time periods at once is a cool idea.

Alright, I'm gonna regret posting this one. Cthulhupunk: similar to Cyberpunk, but using the Lovecraft Mythos as the main core of the genre. Also borrowing themes from Lovecraft's work, such as forbidden knowledge, non-human influences on humanity, risks of scientific knowledge and the supernatural. Clothing styles and environment would reflect the 1920s New England style in a more modern setting, including a mix of steampunk tech with tech from the 1950s (possibly from the 1980s), as well as monstrous creatures and body horror (and in most cases, self-modification of bodies that lead to body horror beyond the imagination).

Knowing my luck, there's probably something that already exists like that.

Edited by CB2001 on Jan 8th 2021 at 5:55:25 AM

Most such settings exist to one degree or another, I imagine. What does that matter?

As to your setting, I might suggest taking it even further: Drop the steampunk elements, and instead have technology rely heavily on the eldritch.

Have devices that look unsettling; that work, but whose functioning no-one truly understands—not even those who make them; that may at times have dark consequences for their usage—but that are so ubiquitous and so integral that few will attempt to do without.

My Games & Writing

there is a sort of genre like that: raypunk, caraterize for weird, elderich tecnology, other dimensions and many weird stuff, usually pioner by lovecraft in writing but by many belgian french author and other comics like fight element, valire and thousand planets, metabarons, some part of warhammer, some part of evangelion(the evas to be more precite) and nearly everything draw by moebius.

"My Name is Bolt, Bolt Crank and I dont care if you believe or not"

It's amazing how similar in nature that description reads to the technology of 'The Script' in my novels (soon to be published!). People rely on it a lot, but nobody truly knows how it works.

It sounds like that could be interesting! And congratulations on the impending publication! ^_^

Edited by ArsThaumaturgis on Jan 26th 2021 at 11:34:46 AM

My Games & Writing

So this came after playing Project Wingman. Volcanopunk.

The idea is that the setting is very geologically active and this brings both boons in the form of volcanic soil, easy geothermal energy, and abundant minerals and banes of exposed lava flows, volcanic ash, and the threat of eruptions and earthquakes destroying your civilization at any moment. If you control the hot spots you can build a very powerful empire in short order but also risk loosing it all at any moment.

Wood punk from the city builder Timber Borne

Main idea is everything is either wood or tools to cut and process wood doing other things like say swords which are just oversized hand saws. The guns would likely be nail guns. There is probably gonna be some Bamboo Technology in there

Edited by Immortalartisan on Feb 2nd 2021 at 9:59:16 AM

I look to the stars... but that's mostly because there isn't anything else interesting

What would you say to using japanese style nailless carpentry?

That would be like another culture within the wood Punk world I’d say. You could probably have a Native American culture characterized by carving too. Was there a type of carpentry unique to South America and Africa?

Edited by Immortalartisan on Feb 3rd 2021 at 9:21:06 AM

I look to the stars... but that's mostly because there isn't anything else interesting

Can't find anything for Africa and the Incans were more into stone and gold. There was some interesting Incan arboriculture with trees and vines being grown into living bridges. See Living Root Bridges.

I don't know about a method of sculpture specific to Africa, but woodcarving was historically very much a part of African art, I do believe.

My Games & Writing

Didn't think about sculpture. Africa does have an interesting mask culture although the lack of unification means that it's inconsistent and contradictory.

I mean, it's a huge continent, with cultures spread throughout. I wouldn't expect it to have a single, fully unified culture.

As to architecture, that's a subject on which I'm not particularly learned, I'm afraid. However, Wikipedia offers an article that might, at least, provide a good starting-point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Architecture_of_Africa

My Games & Writing

Wait there is a city that’s built out of coral in Africa they also somehow figured out how to preform vaccinations.

Edited by Immortalartisan on Feb 4th 2021 at 9:44:39 AM

I look to the stars... but that's mostly because there isn't anything else interesting

Where did you get the bit about vaccinations, if I may ask?

My Games & Writing

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25100176/ To be fair, it was variolation and very crude compared to what we do now. Still, most of Europe didn't catch on to variolation until the Napoleonic era and the technique is still an effective if somewhat risky means of acquiring immunity.

Coral was a fairly common building material in Somali coastal cities.

Echoing hymn of my fellow passerine | Art blog (under construction)

Would that be sea punk then?

I look to the stars... but that's mostly because there isn't anything else interesting

Ah, interesting, and thank you! ^_^

As to the coral, I'll confess that I don't think that I'd heard of using actual coral as a major building material!

Until looking it up more carefully a moment ago, I suspected that it might be referring to the use of coral-born limestone—but no, Wikipedia seems to suggest that reef coral is in some places in fact used!

My Games & Writing

Nevermind

Edited by Count_Spatula on May 11th 2021 at 11:45:33 AM

Modernist Punk:

• The Cold War never ended (and it somehow is better for all involved states)
• Politicians are forced to make rational descicions. Populism and NG Os never became a thing. The very idea of charity is considered sentimental and weak.
• Technical Progress is restricted to the military. Flying cars exist for the state, but the civilians use public mass transport.
• If something makes you look bad (polution, tuberculosis, drugs, high crime) cover it up and prevent any moral panic.
• Postmodernist fringe theories like sexual consent or animal rights never became a thing. All laws stay in the pre 89 state. Made up words like sexism, racism, abuse (in other meanings than misuse) or bullying don't exist.
• Corporations make money instead of forcing morals onto others. If Google and TV-Tropes would exist in this world, Google wouldn't mind about political incorect (aka 5P) content. Of course there is no Internet in this world - what a relief.
• The USA doesn't force its morals on others, but wants to make friends. It tolerates its allys (Mujahedin (aka Taliban), Khmer Rouge, Auguste Pinochet) as they are. It this world only half of the world hates America.
• The UNO is still a neutral party in the cold war, and doesn't force american opinions (Sexual consent, free trade, women rights, animal rights, child rights,...) on peoples. The self-determination right of the peoples is the highest legal good and justifies anything. Human rights don't exist.
• Important branches (Railway, Telephone, Post, Electricity, Water) are under gouvernment monopoly.
• The Stock market has the purpose, to distribute funding of large enterprizes, instead of beeing a gamble.
• People on both side of the Iron Curtain/Antifascist Protection Wall have way more personal freedoms, in terms of sex, alcohol, tobacco etc. Sex and Nudity are perfectly normal like eating, and nobody important would think they would be offensive, harmful to minors or require this made up thing called "consent", and every people keeps its own age limit, and views about public breastfeeding, prostitution, sex education, homosexuality and beauty ideals. Animals are unprocessed food, and legally not different from plants. You can buy puppies to fuck them and boil them alive, and it is legal, because it doesn't break the law. Science and Art are free. Orphans are used for medical testings, and the cops don't mind.
• All Films are New Hollywood. Blockbusters were never invented. Michael Bay became a demolition engineer, Steven Spielberg a life guard, Uwe Boll a garbageman and Quentin Terentino is still working at the porn shop.
• All Architecture is Modernist and Brutalist ... and People like it.
• Family Values are still a constitutional legal good. Crimes between family members are not the cop's busines. What a man does to his wife or children is nobody else business. Women shelters and child services don't exist.
• Sensibilities are no legal goods. Nobody can sew for mental harm. Mental state of people (consent, sanity, fitnes for driving) is not a legal good.
• Nuclear Power and Coal Power supply an eternally growing economy. People are proud of the glory of electricity. Sewage treatment plants don't exist, and miraclous materials like asbestos reinforced concrete or halogenated coolants are used widly. Spraycan flamethrowers don't work. If a maniac chains himself to the tracks, to protest, the trains runs him over, and the conductor not even thinks, it might be something bad.
• Everybody has work. There is no minimum age for work. Summer hollidays are for harvesting, not for vacation.
• Criminal justice is considered unimportant, and very few things are forbidden. Moralist things like witnes protection and victim compensation don't exist. Crimes expire so quick, that most are never persecuted anyway. Rednecks can't stuff their pocket by sewing corporations. What doesn't harm the state is not the cop's business. Protesters are simply gunned down.
• Most Pop music is Rock. Rap never existed.
• The Simpsons (technically a product of the Cold War) have over 30 seasons ... and are still good. Family Guy never existed.

To be fair, it is more a Utopia than a Dystopia ...

Based off Capepunk

Spypunk: Dirty Martini with Absinthe Flavoring. Yes, spies have the gadgets and the cars, but they just as likely to partake in international sabotage as well prevent it. The spectre equivalent takes inspiration from Daniel Craig era, being involved with sex trafficking,illegal expperimentation and mass murder. A theme could be getting in to the psychological state of spies and how they justify their work.

Regarding Cthulhupunk, this is actually a thing.

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/TabletopGame/CthulhuTech http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/books/cthulhupunk/

The webcomic Full Frontal Nerdity also ran the "Call of Cthulnobyl" story from issues 2289-2305.

I'm sure there are other examples as well.

Edited by HackneyedTrope on Nov 13th 2021 at 3:18:33 AM

Maybe it's already part of Cyberpunk, but I wanted to propose an idea of mine.

Arcopunk: A country is based around one giant building, but that building has several other, smaller buildings. Society is divided based on the height of the building (rich people and politicians at the top, slaves and prisoners at the bottom). Anyone from outside the building are considered foreigners. This is true for the sub-buildings as well, but on a smaller scale. These sub-buildings represent certain districts such as energy (and the Applied Phlebotinum involved with giving it), agriculture, environmental refinement, waste management, tourism, etc.

"I treasure every day with you, darling." "No need to be so sappy, love." "You know that's how she is, Nia." - AU!Pyra, Nia, Mythra