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Feb
22
An image of a dragon, twisted around a scroll with the words 'BioWare Corp' written on it.
I’m going to make an admission: Yesterday, when I started the petition calling for BioWare to come out publicly in support of the beleaguered Jennifer Hepler, I didn’t expect them to listen. I’ve been involved in activism and the fight for social equality for a few years now, and the process has made me into a terribly cynical person.
It’s not that I thought that BioWare weren’t essentially good people—I did, and I still do—but I had nevertheless subconsciously presumed that the financial interests of a large games company would override their desire to take a stand on these issues, when push comes to shove. So when we started asking for a thousand signatures in support of Hepler, I wasn’t sure that we would get anywhere near that many.
A day later, and I’m absolutely delighted to have been proved wrong on both those counts.
Not only did we manage to get almost four hundred signatures in the eight hours that the petition was open, but I could then quite happily close it early—long before the droves of misogynists got wind of it and made moderating the comments into an increasingly depressing experience—when Ray Muzyka, one of BioWare’s co-founders, released the following statement on their forums, and through their official Twitter feed:
Jennifer is a valued, talented employee who has been with BioWare for many years and we hope will be with us for many more. It is awful that a few people have decided to make her a target for hate and threats, going so far as fabricating forum posts and attributing them to her, and singling her out for projects to which she has not contributed (i.e., Jennifer is not even a part of the Mass Effect writing team). All of us at BioWare support and will continue to support Jennifer fully, and are happy to see so many people out there are also supporting her during this difficult time.
At the same time, BioWare also announced that they would be donating $1000 in Jennifer’s name to Bullying Canada: A charity working to stop the physical and emotional bullying of young people.
This is an incredible example of what a community can do when it draws a line and says “This is not acceptable” and is a testament to BioWare as a company, regardless of what else we might think of them. It is also living proof that petition sites like Changes.org (who generated an email and sent it to BioWare every time someone put their name against the list—something which I suspect had some small influence over the speed of their response, if nothing else), and the communities that drive those sites, are most definitely capable of achieving real, measurable change.
Some of the comments we got in response to the petition were genuinely moving, and served to restore some of my faith in humanity, and the speed and unambiguity of BioWare’s response was a truly wonderful thing to see.
BioWare’s statement does not erase the magnitude of the wrong that has been done to a member of their staff, but hat a company of their side would choose to come out and condemn that kind of behaviour has to be an important step along the road to making it a thing of the past. This is not to say that the world is fixed and everything is perfect and sunshine and flowers (I would, for example, strongly recommend not reading much past the first page of responses to BioWare’s statement), but it nevertheless makes me admire immensely what places like the Border House are achieving in showing women like Hepler that they are not alone, and I feel genuinely honoured to be a teeny-tiny part of this community.
As a final side-note, I would strongly suggest that anyone who is interested in the matter take a look at Quinnae’s article discussing the relative merits and flaws of what it was Jennifer Hepler actually said in the first place, which is pretty much what should have happened all along.
I got up this morning to find an article on the Border House, about how BioWare writer Jennifer Hepler has been subject to some pretty vile abuse based on her weight, gender, and for her feelings about promoting inclusivity for women and gay characters (and players) in the gaming industry.
As a fat, female gamer (not to mention one who gets a lot of flack for playing games on ‘Easy’ so I can just enjoy the stories), I can honestly say that I haven’t dared to look at any of the comments that were made about her. In short, I’m not sure I could cope with how angry, impotent and upset it would make me feel. I genuinely cannot imagine what it must be like to have torrents of that kind of abuse targeted directly at you. And so instead I started thinking about what I could do to show her that she is not alone, and that she doesn’t have to feel as though the whole world thinks that she should kill herself just for being who she is, and for standing up for what she believes in.
I didn’t know much about Hepler before I got up this morning and saw Alex’s article, but from what I’ve read since, it look as though she’s had a hand some of the things about the Dragon Age games that genuinely gives me back a little bit of my faith in humanity.
Although I’ve written before about how BioWare can make mistakes, I still pretty much consider them to be ‘one of the good guys’. So, I figured I would start a petition calling on them to release a public statement supporting Jennifer, and condemning the putrid, disgusting sexism and homophobia that’s been directed at her by some of their so-called ‘fans’.
I’d ask you all to consider signing it, and passing it on through places Facebook, Tumblr and Twitter. If enough of their consumer base starts shouting about it, hopefully BioWare will start thinking seriously about taking a public stand against this kind of prejudice and discrimination.
Sign the Petition
The Golden Dunes at Night by lrargerich
You will find poetry in stillness.
You will not find it in worry, or in strife,
Or when you spend your days in aching
For something you are losing,
Or something you’re afraid you have already lost.
You will find poetry in stillness.
It will come to you while you are bathing,
And the suspended shower head will drip-drip-drip
Cold water on your naked ankles,
While the ripples walk in waves of liquid light
Upon the wall.
You will find poetry in stillness.
It will find you when you have grown
Too tired of fear:
When you can no longer run
And you are doubled over,
Gasping
And alive.
You will find poetry in stillness.
When the nights are endless dark
And you do not have it left inside yourself
To hide from it.
In that moment, you shall see it.
Then, and only then,
You will find poetry in stillness.
I used to write poetry all the time. These days, even the idea of trying is enough to scare me into a den of duvets in the corner. I’m still not quite sure how it happened, but for the past six years or so I’ve been finding that writing poetry is getting harder and harder.
Last year, in desperation, I started to learn guitar in the hope that writing songs would be easier that writing poems, but all it’s done is make the problem more obvious to me as I try and go about my life.
So, now I’m doing what I probably should have done when I first noticed that something wasn’t quite right: I’m starting to peel back the layers thought and feeling and fear, and I’m writing a single page every single day of whatever nonsense is inside my head.
While this has been happening, I’ve been drinking in the fantastic poetry of Tom Hirons over at Coyopa. Back in September, Tom posted a meditation called On Wooing a Poem.
When the poem arrives at your door, begin to dance immediately. Don’t hesitate; don’t offer a cup of tea; don’t ask how the journey was. That’s for prose. Take the poem in your arms and dance to the music that only you can hear.
This is the amazing thing:
The poem knows the steps.
The first time I read it, the piece made me feel very sorry for myself. I could just about remember what it was like to feel that, but it felt so far away now that I could only feel despair. But, as often the way with things that hit on something true in the world, those words stuck with me.
I spent much of the autumn and winter thinking about poetry a lot. Eventually, in December, a odd tiny frond of inspiration wormed its way up out of the frozen ground, and when it did, I found the wet dark at the back of my brain shouting> “DANCE! Just DANCE!”
It was a difficult birth, and has created an imperfect and misshapen child, but (like most children) it is there to keep me awake with its screaming–reminding me that if we need to write, then the first thing we need to do is stop.
Earlier this week I was contacted by the good people of Parliament and Wake, who have written an article about why steampunk matters. They asked me if I would like to share my thoughts on the matter, and so here I am.
I want to start by giving a little bit of background information for those of you that I haven’t met before.
From about this time in 2008 until earlier this year, I was the primary editor for SteamPunk Magazine. During my tenure there, I also helped to organise the Great Steampunk Debate, the idea of which was to discuss the political-versus-apolitical tension in the steampunk community. To give everyone a chance to talk to one another, and to learn.
I’ll be talking more about the GSD later on, but for now it is suffice to say that I come down firmly on the side that believes that steampunk should have a political agenda. In fact, I don’t think that it can avoid it.
Having said that, in the last year I have found myself getting increasingly frustrated with the resistance to this issue from a large part of the steampunk community. I grew deeply, deeply weary of having the same discussions over and over again. I got tired with the fact that I no longer felt as though I was making a difference, and that was a large part of the reason why I decided to stand down from my position as editor, and hand the reins back to Magpie Killjoy.
The piece that Parliament and Wake have written is a commentary on the purpose that they believe steampunk serves, the direction in which it is heading, and the problems that it is having along the way. In that respect, they talk an awful lot of sense and I agree with much of what they say.
However, I also find a lot of the rest of the article to be at best naïve, and at worst frustrating.
The way I read it, much of the article’s focus seems to be on the idea that steampunk should to be used to create a better (or several better) worlds for ourselves. That, by creating these better worlds, we are increasing the extent to which people can imagine a better future for themselves, and work towards bringing that about.
But they go further than that. They say:
“Writers are products of their times, so it’s no surprise that the twentieth century gave birth to as many science fiction dystopias as utopias; unfortunately, one can only go so far by listing all the worlds we don’t want to create.”
And that is where I part company with them. Because, as a woman and an activist, I cannot read utopian fiction. Steampunk or otherwise.
I cannot do it, because the whole concept of it alienates me. It is not part of my lived experience, and when something is not part of my lived experience I cannot engage with it, no matter how much I might want to.
My lived experience is that lie is hard. It is a war that I sometimes feel as though I’m waging against the rest of the world.
That is not to say that my life is a constant parade of endless human misery. There are some wonderful, beautiful, perfect things around me, and I try and fill my world up with them to the point of overflowing. But there is also the constant, daily barrage of hatred and anger in which I am told, over and over and over again, that my body is wrong, that I should submit to be judged entirely on my physical appearance, and that I should be scared of walking the streets alone at night.
Ninety percent of everything that I might want to read (or watch, or listen to) alienates me before I have even had the chance to think about enjoying it, because I am reminded time and time again that it is not there for me, and that I do not get to be a person in these worlds that are created.
And, you know what? It pisses me off. It pisses me off that I can’t adopt V For Vendetta as my battle-cry for change in the way that Anonymous has done, because it involves a gratuitous, traumatising scene in which a woman is tortured and brutalised ‘for her own good’.
It pisses me off that I can’t take part in the Occupy movement without facing the same kinds of discrimination that I face every single day that I get out of bed and try to go about my life.
That is why, when I create fictional worlds for myself, I gravitate towards the kinds of dystopias that Parliament and Wake are distancing themselves from.
There is a terrible secret at the heart of the creative process: Fictional worlds are not really fictional at all. Anything and everything that we could possibly use to fill them with is drawn from our own world and our own experiences, because there is no other way that we know how to create. That is why anything that is fictional (steampunk or otherwise) cannot be apolitical. We can never, ever detach ourselves from the world that we spend our lives living in enough to consider something completely alien to it.
With that in mind, the existence of so much dystopian fiction does not confirm that ‘if every vision we have of the future is dismal we’re guaranteed to live in such a future’. Instead, it tells us an awful lot about what we think about the world that we are living in right now, and where we are frightened that it might lead. It tells us stories of individuals who fight against that future, and strive to live in a world of peace and equality.
Imagining worlds in which that sort of struggle exists isn’t just important because it reflects the fight that so many of us are having in the world today, it is important because it raises awareness of the fact that those struggles exist at all.
That’s what’s at the root of why I cannot subscribe to the same view that Parliament and Wake are calling for. Perhaps they are close enough to the surface to be able to imagine a world in which that struggle has been won, but I am not. I spend too much of my life arguing every time someone thinks its funny to make rape jokes, talks about ‘obesity epidemic’ of fat, lazy people who need to get off their asses and stop exposing everybody else to how physically repulsive they are, or tells me that they think the police are right to kettle hoards of peaceful protesters and lash out at them with pepper spray.
I cannot conceive of a utopia in which I do not have to do that every day, and because of that I find far more comfort in stories where the world may be a dark and dismal place, but the battle is not yet lost.
To me, good stories (and good fictional worlds, for that matter) don’t preach, they question. They invite us to look at the world that we live in from a different angle, to resist the temptation to turn everything into absolutes of light and dark, or good and evil. They are no obliged to paint pictures of a better world, only to challenge the one that we live in right now. Or the one that we might live to see in the future.
Steampunk is not the whole of that pattern, but it is a part of it. And, in order for it to be part of the solution instead of the problem, those who wish to use steampunk as a vehicle for positive change are going to have to work together, even where they are fighting different battles. This is something that we are going to have to do, if any of us are ever going to stand a chance of achieving that equal, better world.
And so, when I read things like:
“A Steampunk comic book rich in ample bosoms and simple sentences may not rise to the level of literature, but if it popularizes the ideas presented in books by “better” authors, then it still must be counted a success.”
I am deeply and profoundly disheartened at the fact that this kind cooperation does not seem to be happening.
What are the ‘ideas’ in books by ‘better’ authors that are being talked about here? Because they certainly aren’t books about how women do not deserve to be objectified. Maybe those comics help bring about Parliament and Wake’s (and my own) need to see a world that is not overrun with rampant consumerism, but they certainly do not help my need to see a world in which women treated as human beings, rather than objects of sexual gratification.
They go on to say:
“If an escapist wishes to shout down Steampunk as apolitical but is willing to participate in a fantasy space in which European explorers interact on equal terms with women and indigenous peoples and in which pirates are ethically justified in robbing from exploitative industrialists – well, he can continue to believe that he isn’t endorsing a political movement, but for all the reasons we’ve discussed above, he’s still helping.”
However, as Dylan points out in his response to them, this ‘entirely misses the point that those women, those indigenous peoples, those pirates and those exploitative industrialists are there solely for the escapist’s benefit.’
He goes on to talk about how the best thing any of us can do if we want to make a difference is to educate ourselves, and to help to educate others about the inequalities that still exist across the world today. That is absolutely a part of the role that I believe fantasy and imagination has in our world, and I’m pretty sure that Parliament and Wake believe that too.
The problem, then, comes when when people attempt to create that sort of change without fully understanding the depth of the problem they are facing. It comes when feminists are only interested in achieving social equality for women, and don’t stop to think about how the same systems of oppression affect people of colour, or the transgendered. It comes when anti-capitalist protesters like the ones in Occupy Wall Street don’t understand the ways in which the ways in which the system they are fighting oppresses minority groups, and don’t think to give enough attention to combating that, as well.
Ultimately, that is where things fell apart when we tried to spark this kind of discussion in the Great Steampunk Debate. I was horribly naïve in my understanding of the way these different systems of oppression hurt people. People whose life experience is entirely different to my own. As a result, instead of creating a space where everybody could discuss these issues on an equal footing, I was a part of something where a huge number of people, that are used to having their opinions heard, shouted at the very tops of their voices, and those from minority groups were completely drowned out in the swell.
And I can already see the same thing happening in what Parliament and Wake are trying to achieve, even if I know that they are doing it with the very best of intentions.
If I want to say anything at all to them about why steampunk still matters, then it is this:
Steampunk matters because it provides an opportunity to foster change that is not unique, but that has the power to effect incredibly change through the way it dreams of worlds other than our own.
I think that we agree on that.
But if you want steampunk to matter because it does more than offer us a space to reflect on the role of technology in our lives or the extent to which we mindlessly consume, if you want it to be a place in which we can dream of a world where we are all truly equal, then we shall have to listen to all of the the groups that are harmed by the way that we are living now. We shall have to work to participate positively in safe spaces that are created by and for minority groups. We will need to fight to ensure that those groups are not alienated or drowned out on our websites, in our forums and our social network groups.
More than that, we will have to learn to support one another. To listen to and understand people whose lived experience is different from ours. We will have to work together: To create narratives and worlds that do not just support the rights and political agendas that we ourselves desire, but that foster an environment in which we can all strive towards equality.
And, when that is happening… Perhaps then I will be able to join you in your dreams of a utopia of airships, and exploration.
Clockwork Reindeer Embroidered Decoration by HauntedSummer
Huddled up warm in my chilly living room listening to some Victorian Christmas carols, it’s impossible to escape the fact that the time is upon us once again, and Christmas will soon be here.
Although I’ve been celebrating Yule instead for a few years now, it’s still a wonderful time of year to be around my family (both in blood and in spirit) and to celebrate the height of winter before we turn the corner towards spring.
For me, a steampunk Christmas is one of the best kinds of Christmas. Most of our Christmas traditions here in the UK come from the Victorian era, which makes it the perfect time for a little wistful nostalgia–with some cogs and top hats to spice things up a little!
And so I was very happy indeed when I found that Urban Threads had released an awesome line of steampunk Christmas embroideries, and quickly went about turning them into some funky little upcycled hanging decorations for Haunted Summer. Once I got my tinsel, my fairy lights, and took some pictures, I started to look at some of the Christmas steampunkery handmade by the other people on Etsy. I ended up finding an absolutely mind-blowing selection of ways for the discerning steampunk to spice up their home (and themselves!) this winter, and thought that I’d share some of the best finds with all of you!
So, get yourself some mince pies and settle in for the Doctor Who Christmas special, because we’re going in!
Baubles and Ornaments
Santa's Airship Embroidered Decoration by HauntedSummer
Each of these has been made from the range of Christmas steampunk embroideries by Urban Threads. There are thousands upon thousands of individual stitches in anywhere from six to eleven different colours, stitched onto upcycled calico and mounted into circular wooden embroidery hoops, finished with a piece of upcycled ribbon.
There are designs for steampunk Santa, Santa’s airship, clockwork snowflakes, clockwork robins and even clockwork reindeer.
Hang ‘em on your tree, on your wall, on your door, or on your nose, with or without tinsel, fairy lights and liberal sprigs of holly and mistletoe!
| There are also an assortment of really awesome gear-related Christmas decorations to be found in the stores of independent crafters, like this set of sparkling brass cogs and gears to adorn your Christmas tree from Licia Begle of Indiana-based DreamfulDesigns. |  Steampunk Gear Christmas Ornament Set by DreamfulDesigns |
 White Snow Flower Holiday Ornament by Antickquities |
Or these beautiful clock hand snowflakes from steampunk artisan Dayle of Antickquities, who uses the orphaned clock and watch parts that she finds as part of her day job in a craft mall to make these beautifully delicate snowflake tree hangings. |
 Rust is the Color of Time Decoration by LalaDangerous |
 Sapphire Holiday Bulb by LalaDangerous |
But I think some of my favourite steampunky tree decorations come from Michigan-based LaLaDangerous, who make make one of a kind Christmas decorations with a steampunky twist.
LaLa says that she were inspired to make these unique decorations because of her experience of Christmas as a child: “Every Christmas, on the day we decorated the tree, my mother would present us children with a special ornament just for us for that year. I looked forward to this time every year. This was the first ornament(aside from the bulbs of course) to go on the tree.”
As you can see, the results are spectacularly beautiful.
Stockings
| Of course, when your tree and house is all decorated, the next thing you need is a stocking put hoard all the wonderful pressies that you get on Christmas morning, and I was absolutely delighted to find that there are some wonderfully whimsical steampunk twists here as well! Like this Victorian heeled boot-style stocking made by arkathwyn in British Columbia, who even has the pattern available in her store for those of us that fancy a go at making something like this ourselves. |
 Sage Green Beaded Victorian Stocking by arkathwyn |
 Fortuny Old World Christmas Stocking by Coloradofinds |
Or this sumptuous, red velvet stocking made by Patti Todovich of Coloradofinds, which is made with antique gold braid trim and incredibly rare, hand printed Fortuny fabric! |
Christmas Cards
 Clockwork Robin Christmas Cards by HazelFisherCreations |
 Old World Holly Christmas Cards by ImmortalVisions |
Next, you’re going to need some cards to send to your discerning steampunk friends, aren’t you? Instead of buying them by the hundred from large chain stores to end up in the landfill come January, maybe you should take a look at what small, independent crafters have to offer.
Above are two examples of Victorian and steampunky cards that hopefully the people you send them to will want to hold on to, with an awesome Victorian ‘Old World Holly’ card from ImmortalVisions, and a cute little clockwork robin from HazelFisherCreations.
Gift Tags
 Victorian Christmas Tree Gift Tags by seasonaldelights |
 Merry Christmas to All Gift Tags by tinkerbellshop |
Or maybe you’d like some steampunk-inspired gift tags for anyone lucky enough to be getting a present from you?
There are loads of really cool gift tags out there for you to choose from. My personal favourites are the Victorian-inspired Christmas tree and ‘Merry Christmas to All’ tags from seasonaldelights and tinkerbellshop above, or these two adorable printed tags from TheOrangeSparrow–for when even your gift tags aren’t complete without gears on them!
 Steampunk Christmas Tree Hang Tag by TheOrangeSparrow |
 Steampunk Christmas Ornament Hang Tag by TheOrangeSparrow |
Hats!
 Victorian Ladies Top Hat by redthreaded |
 Dickens Top Hat by GypsyLadyHats |
Ok, so they might not be an essential part of every Christmas, but I couldn’t resist including these two adorable Victorian-style top hats. The red velvet ‘Carolling’ hat is by GypsyLadyHats in Washington, while the beautiful Elizabethan-styled Victorian ladies top hat is by redthreaded.
Perfumes
 Stollen Perfume Oil by DebaucherousBathBody |
 Victorian Sleigh Ride Perfume Oil by DeepMidnightPerfumes |
I have an admission to make: I am a total sucker for perfume oils. For as long as I can remember, smell has been the one sense that really taps into my memories and imagination. So, needless to say that I’m horribly excited that there aren’t just Christmas perfumes out there, there are steampunk Christmas perfumes to be found.
One of my fondest memories of Yule from the last few years is ending up in a druid friend of mine’s house at the end of the night, at pushing one o’clock in the morning, when everybody suddenly decided that we absolutely had to eat the stollen that she had in her cupboard. I’d never even heard of stollen before, but it was without a doubt one of the nicest things I’ve ever eaten, and now DebaucherousBathBody has made a perfume that evokes the smell of its fruity, doughy, icing-covered goodness. Yum!
The other perfume above is ‘Victorian Sleigh Ride’ by DeepMidnightPerfumes, which is described as smelling like a “delightful blend of Candy Canes, hollyberries, sweet spiced whiskey, cedarwood, sage, frankincense, and a touch of cream”, which sounds almost good enough to eat, as well!
Lastly, my all-around awesome friend Sara Wen has created a unisex fragrance called ‘Yuletide at Baker Street’, conjuring up thoughts of Christmas nights spent with the Victorian era’s most notorious detective! Sara describes her creation as: “Sugared peppermints, delicious butterscotch candy, and almonds with dried fruits decorated around the tree. The scent of light tobacco lingers in the background”.
I can’t wait to get my hands on a bottle!
Yuletide at Baker Street Perfume Oil by SaraWen
Weird & Wonderful
Upcycled Steampunk Santa by SteampunkPerceptions
As we settle down in front of the fire with our cups of hot chocolate to wait for Christmas morning, it’s time to share a couple of things that I absolutely couldn’t go away without including, but that wouldn’t quite fit in anywhere else.
Like this upcycled supermarket Santa statue who has been thoroughly steampunked and turned back out into the world to deliver the presents in his reindeer-drawn airship.
I don’t quite know what to make of it, but I know that it’s totally bizarre and utterly awesome, and that anything that’s recycling the endless stream of Christmas consumables that pour out of our supermarkets every single year has to be a damned good thing.
The statue is made by SteampunkPerceptions, and is guaranteed to be a talking point with whoever you invite to your house over the Christmas period!
Last of all, we have this awesome rusted steel wreath made by studio724 in Indiana.
The wreath is cut from steel, complete with keys, cogs and letters, then rusted and sealed for you to hang on your door instead of those nasty plasticy things that you see everywhere at this time of year.
Steampunk Wreath in Rusted Steel by studio724
Phew!
So, I hope you’ve enjoyed out little jaunt through the handmade steampunk wonders on offer to you this Christmas, and that (if you’re going to spend money on presents and decorations) you’ve been at least a little bit encouraged to get out there and hunt through some small and independent retailers, crafters and artisans.
If all of this has given you the cravin for a good, old fashioned Victorian Christmas that only a Doctor Who special can fix, then may I humbly suggest that, until we get the chance to see the new one on Christmas day, you sate yourself on The Chimes of Midnight. An Eighth Doctor audio adventure (it’s all about Paul McGann) that will give you all the Christmas pudding, sleigh rides and scares that you could possibly need!
Chimes of Midnight Eighth Doctor Audio Adventure by Big Finish
For the last couple of months, I have been working away behind the scenes with two incredibly gifted craftspeople to create a range of fan-inspired, handmade Dragon Age goodies. And today, I am completely over the moon to announce the launch of Kirkwall’s Finest: a collection of Dragon Age-based clothing, jewellery and perfumes!
The idea for the collection came out of an obsession shared between myself and the exceptionally talented SaraWen. We started talking about working on something together, and after a little bit of poking around we found the third part of our little trinity in the form of JewelrybyJosh. At that point, we were well on our way!
Let me tell you a little bit about each of the market stalls that we have managed to cobble together…
A dark, amber-coloured perfume vial against a background of purple and gold brocade.
Here, you can buy a selection of different scents and perfumes sourced from the finest herbs and oils in all of Thedas! Sara has created three scents that will especially of interest…
Arcane
A unisex scent created especially for Anders from labdanum, cloves and vanilla. Starting out fresh and herbal and mellowing slowly to something sweet and warm. We shall leave it up to your imagination what this infers about Kirkwalls most loved (or loathed!) apostate.
Fugitive
I have to admit to having a little (ok… a lot) of a crush on Fenris, so I’m looking forwards to trying this one very much indeed! A unisex fragrance made from some of my very favourite things: amber, incense, dragon’s blood and ylang-ylang. Broody, musky, and very, very sexy!
Queen of the Seas
We couldn’t rightly let Sara create a range of Dragon Age-inspired perfumes without making something special for everyone’s favourite pirate queen now, could we? Isabella’s fragrance is feminine, floral and aquatic, and made from a feisty combination of violet and geranium.
(Needless to say that I have already begged and pleaded with Sara until she agreed to send me some samples of these, and so you can expect a little review of all three just as soon as they get here…)
A circular, silver-coloured metal pendant stamped with the ubiquitous 'dragon' design from Dragon Age 2
Once Sara and I decided to creat a shared range of Dragon Age goodies, we started to talk about trying and supplement our skills at perfume- and clothes-making respectively by finding someone interested in creating geeky jewellery.
Fortunately for us, we found Josh, who was already making pieces of high-quality, geek-friendly jewellery that was right up our street!
Josh creates video game inspired pendants from stamped/cut metal in a variety of really striking, intricate designs. For Kirkwall’s Finest, he has turned his hand to making jewellery inspired by a number of the symbols that recur right the way through DA2. Including the awesome ‘Kirkwall Rebels’ pendant that you can see here, and even some Qunari earrings!
A dark-haired woman in a forest, wearing a dark grey vest trimmed in white lace, and embroidered in silver with the stylised, 'winged sword' design of the Kirkwall City Guard.
One of the things that I love most about the second Dragon Age game (all right, apart from Fenris) is the endless conflict that you have between various groups all fighting for their freedom, for power, for control, for order, or even for the status quo.
I’ve tried to capture a little of this feeling of the ‘Battle for Kirkwall’ in the clothing that I’ve created.
All of my pieces are one-of-a-kind in that they are upcycled from things that have been donated to me, or that I’ve found in charity shops–and you’ll find everything from casual t-shirts to understated blouses and shirts suitable for office wear!. I’ve then taken these things home and embroidered with one of four designs that represent two sets of opposing factions: the Kirkwall rebels vs. the City Guard; and the Templars vs. the Circle of Magi.
The first three of these symbols are pieces of fanart based on the sigils and markings that you see in the game itself: the flaming sword of the templars, the stylised ‘winged sword’ of the city guard, and the ubiquitous ‘dragon’ symbol that you see throughout the game scrawled on Kirkwalls walls and doorways.
However, despite a couple of in-game references to the symbols and marks of various circles of magi, you never actually see the symbol for the Kirkwall Circle at any point. So, I went away and designed something myself! An arcane eye, surrounded by chains.
Please do go and have a look at what the three of us have managed to put together, and let us know what you think!
Many thanks to Sara and Josh for all their help in getting the collection together, and to Tez, Anna and Dylan for spending an afternoon in a forest with a bottle of wine and a camera to photograph all the clothing!
Jun
30
A photograph of the shell of a ruined building in the Palladian style--its pillars and windows overgrown with ivy.
I took the photograph above a couple of years ago, while visiting a favourite haunt of mine: the ruined Baron Hill mansion just outside of Beaumaris on Anglesey.
Last year, I found out that a large construction company intends to turn this wild, beautiful place into a set of private, executive apartments. And so, in February, I went back to wander amongst the ruins for what may well turn out to be the last time.
Baron Hill has fascinated me ever since I first discovered it. Hell, when I commissioned the artwork for Vagrants Among Ruins, I even asked the artist to work from photos that I’d taken of the place.
There seems to be a huge movement around at the moment—in steampunk, yes, but also in the rest of our society—to fight to save such buildings from the point of destruction, to restore them, and to put them to fresh use. I have absolutely no problem with that. In fact, I have a lot of respect for the people that put in so much hard work to try and save these beautiful old places that we are blessed with. However, I also think that ruins have an important place in this world—not just as physical spaces in our communities, but also within the landscapes of our psychology, our minds, and our souls.
Anyone that’s ever tried a bit of urban exploration, or found some half-ruined building (in the woods, or at the edge of town) and felt the urge to explore it, can tell you that there is a kind of magic in these buildings. They are the places where we tell our child-like stories of ghosts and horrors when our parents don’t know where we are. And they are the places that we can revisit as adults and daydream about the people that used to live there. What they might have been like. They are places that belong to the realms of the unfettered imagination. And they are places that belong to no one, and so by contrast belong to everyone—or at least anyone that has the desire and bravery to get to them.
They are not the safe, sterilised places that many of our castles and old houses have become: Where all the sharp edges have been filed off, and your imagination is limited to the path laid out for it in velvet ropes.
Ruins are not solely the province of only those who can pay to get inside.
They are dangerous, untamed places where a false step can have real consequences on your continued health. They are places of true wildness. Places where things like death and decay are facts that we cannot avoid… and I happen to believe that it is only our society’s detachment from these things that has so many of us so knotted up with a thick, black fear about them in the first place.
In short, ruins represent everything that our society in the Western world tries to protect us from, and so they are one of the few places in our worlds where we can experience true freedom of ourselves, our bodies, and our minds.
I’m not saying that we should let every single piece of our history fall to pieces around us. I am saying that I think that ruins have a place in our world as well. That we should value them. That we should dedicate ourselves to exploring them with open hearts and open heads. And that we should be careful of being so determined to save them for ourselves, that we are prepared to put them into the hands of people that want to take them away from us.
The back of the same building, where the ivy and undergrowth is growing over a curved, Neoclassical wall.
Jun
29
A meeting of Unite the Reistance in Birmingham on 28th June. With members of UNISON, NUT, UCU and PCS attending.
Photo from Geoff Dexter on Flickr.
If you didn’t get the chance to watch the urgent questions in the House of Commons yesterday (I am aware that watching the Parliament Channel for fun makes me odd) then you should, because the ‘debate’ there was entirely indicative of the petty moral one-upmanship and underhanded tactics being used by the Conservative government in the face of tomorrow’s strike by five of the UKs teaching unions.
I’m not going to pull my punches: I find Education Secretary Michael Gove to be an utterly miserable little man. The main force of his argument over the strikes appears to be that teachers are not just letting the public down by voting for industrial action, but that they are actually also letting themselves down, and bringing the profession itself into disrepute by daring to leave negotiations early. But it’s even worse than that, because he goes on to threaten that a strike would cause the public to begin to ‘demand’ stronger union regulation.
I run into this argument time and time again in ‘discussions’ about sexism and other forms of discrimination: Unless the victim is a perfect paragon of patience and understanding, never gets angry, and never loses their temper, then they are harming their cause by re-enforcing negative stereotypes. This sort of talk is useful to those who are trying to derail a debate, because it entirely removes a person’s agency to fight for themselves, and means that you don’t have to bother engaging with their argument at all. It doesn’t matter how right you are any more: Because you haven’t conformed to their idea of what a victim should look like, your point is void. It’s a particularly malicious and odious technique, and one that Michael Gove seemingly isn’t above using.
Between Wisconsin and Canada Post, we are increasingly seeing the erosion of the power and collective bargaining rights of unions across the Western world. What’s more, the UK is also starting to see some of the tactics employed by the Tea Party on the other side of the Atlantic, who manage to continually undermine anyone that speaks out against them by calling them a socialist or a liberal–both of which they have ensured are now dirty words.
In fact, in the case of tomorrow’s teachers’ strikes, so intense is Michael Gove’s offensive on public opinion, that he is actually proposing to use the general public themselves to break the strike.
Currently, United Kingdom Employment Law protects teachers and other unionised workers from having to inform their employers of their intention to strike. According to the Conservatives and their Liberal Democrat allies (most of whom I hope a busy hanging their heads in shame), this further compounds the injury to hard-working families who certainly don’t have the same luxurious pension scheme afforded to workers in the public sector. They would much rather see these teachers forced to declare their intention to strike, so that the government and the general public can properly prepare for it. Following this to its logical conclusion, this would give the government the opportunity to minimise the impact of a strike, and thus would destroy the unions’ ability to bargain for their members’ rights by depriving society of the one thing of value that they possess: their labour.
Of course, all of this is a result of the collapse of the world’s economy: a disaster which (in the West) front-line workers and the poorest communities are being asked to bear the brunt of. All the time while Members of Parliament, Bank CEOS and even celebrities continue to exercise their wealth and position to maintain privacy rights and personal fortunes that the country’s general public (not least the teachers who will be going out on strike tomorrow) are not afforded.
But then, of course the government is going to be more scared of public opinion than it is of any industrial action, because should there actually be any degree of public support for these strikes, then maybe they really have begun to lose control.
ETA: And now you should go and read the post on this issue written by the eminent Dylan Fox, over on his blog. It’s not only excellent, but takes a slightly different look at things.
Also, this article has been reposted by the kind folks over at Infoshop over here: http://news.infoshop.org/article.php?story=20110629135735982
To date, one of the the most fantastic people that I’ve met through going into business for myself is Sara, who makes a whole plethora of dark, magical, Victorian perfumes through her small business: SaraWen Perfume Art.
I have always loved the sense of smell, and how scent can evoke different thoughts, feelings and memories. For the last few years I have been finding all of my perfumes through the indomitable Black Phoenix Alchemy Laboratory. But I recently got four samplers of Sara’s perfumes in the post, and now I’m not so sure that I won’t be getting everything from her from now on…
One of the things that I always found most useful when choosing a scent through BPAL were the forums, where I could read through reviews that people had written of the different perfumes, and unpick the ones that I thought would suit me. And so I thought that I’d start by reviewing some of Sara’s work, so that it might be of use to others who might find themselves wondering where to start.
VAMPIRE PRINCESS
This is the scent that I’m wearing at the moment, so it makes sense to start with it!For some reason (maybe it’s just because it’s got the word ‘Princess’ in the name!) I expected this scent to be quite sweet. However, straight out of the bottle it smells strongly of jasmine, and has an almost talcum powder scent. Something I found back when I was buying from BPAL is that a lot of their scents (especially ones with jasmine) would turn into this talcy smell when they hit my skin (something to do with my body’s PH, I guess). Luckily for me, however, the longer I wear Vampire Princess, the more this talcum powder smell disappears.
When dry, the smell of the jasmine mellows out a little, and you can smell the musk and edge of honey-sweetness lurking underneath it. To me, I imagine that it smells like a few stolen moments in a New Orleans courtyard at midnight: jasmine underscored with an edge of darkness and sweetness that seems to whisper of age, candlelight and decay.
A perfect stroll through some wonderfully rich, dark memories for anyone that read as much Anne Rice as a teenager as I did.
ARTEMIS
I have only had these samplers for a few days, and already my vial of Artemis is almost empty, which is a testament just how easy to wear it is.When it is wet, you can definitely smell the sweetness and the fruitiness in this perfume, but there is also a slightly herbal smell lurking in there that kind of reminds me of Jägermeister. Kind of fitting for a Lady of the Hunt, I suppose!
When it’s wet, you can also smell the citrus that gives the perfume almost a bitter (but not unpleasant) edge.
As it dries, I found that the citrusy and herbal smells faded away a little. Now you can really smell the grape and pomegranate scents that Sara has put into the perfume. It also smells warmer when it is dry, and has slightly spiced, almost incensy note behind the light, sweet fruity smells.
It smells good enough to eat, and is a lovely, gentle smell that you could easily wear all day.
THORNFIELD
Note – Thornfield was a limited edition fragrance for Spring 2011, and is no longer available. However, I have it on good authority that it will be returning again in Spring 2012!I’m going to be honest, when I first put this one on, I really didn’t think that I was going to like it very much at all. Out of the bottle it smells strongly of a mixture of lavender and furniture polish. It is pretty overpowering, and doesn’t sit well on me at all.
However, as I let it dry I increasingly became a bit of a convert, as with a little wear this perfume becomes more and more sexy and sophisticated. That smell of furniture polish slowly fades away, and the lavender muted by some seriously gloomy floral smells that make me feel as though I’m walking into the garden room of an old Victorian mansion that has been abandoned for years: Shadowy and musky with the memory of what all those flowers must once have smelt like.
Thornfield is named after the home of Lord Rochester in Jane Eyre, and it’s easy to imagine Mrs Rochester’s attic room having this same shadowy, floral smell. However, to me it smells more like the perfume that the femme fatale would wear while walking the dark, rain-soaked streets of the city in her full length, button-down coat.
LORD FOGG
Of the four scents that I’ve tried so far, this one is definitely my favourite. Sara describes it as “It’s elegant, Victorian, and VERY male,” and I figured that it’d be about perfect for when I was in one of my boy moods. And it is! Although, I have to say that it’s not so overpoweringly masculine that I wouldn’t wear it the rest of the time as well. No doubt it smells great on the boys (and if I’m ever feeling particularly generous then maybe I’ll try it out on mine), but I’d say that it’s also perfect for women like me who enjoy wearing powerful, assertive fragrances.Wet on the skin, the first thing you get is the orangey, citrusy smell of the blood orange, but that is swallowed almost immediately by a musky scent that is both forceful and male.
However, my favourite thing about this perfume is what it smells like when it’s dry. When that happens, that blood orange smell starts to creep back in again, and it’s underscored with ylang ylang–one of my absolute favourite scent combinations! Underneath all of that, there is the smell of musk and rum and spices that make this scent seriously sexy.
Dark, powerful and magical.
It is absolutely the kind of smell that you would expect to find on the skin of a gentleman magus as he stayed up late in his library deciphering alchemical symbols and practising his spells.
Doubtless I shall be doing some more reviews like this one in the future, however in the meantime, if you would like to keep up with Sara and what she’s up to, then here’s how you do it:
Sarawen Perfume Art Online Shop
Blog: http://www.sarawenperfumeart.blogspot.com/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/SarawenPerfumeArt
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/SarawenPerfume
Jun
14
As some of you may know already, today is International Steampunk Day!
To celebrate, we thought we’d put together a whimsical collection celebrating the fun side of steampunk in all its cog-like glory!
‘International Steampunk Day!’ by HauntedSummer
Today (June 14th) is International Steampunk Day! We thought we’d celebrate with a collection of some of our favourite steampunky Etsy items.
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Also, in celebration, today and today only you can use coupon code ISD2011 at the checkout. This will give you 15% off of anything you order, including our newest item: an upcycled top with words and pictures from ‘Liberty’ in Issue #7 of SteamPunk Magazine.
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