#scifi westerns

[mysticdragon3md3]

"What Happened to the Space Western?" by Lextorias

[midstpodcast]

A FABULOUS GALA AWAITS! 🌸 💎

Find a stunning new high resolution art download by the talented Annalise Jensen in the extras section at midst.co and explore a fantastic floral affair straight from the Fold! 🧡

🎨 https://midst.co/extras/downloads/

[lanada]

MOEBIUS / Jean Giraud

[scipunk]

Cowboy Bebop TV Series (1998)

[thatanimescreencapguy]

Scavengers Reign Episode 11

[keira-draws]

"Well I better get my gun! Is that how the west was won?"

[alpaca-clouds]

The History of Cyberpunk

Or why every other SciFi Genre is called [something]punk

You know what? Let's do this. Because I have seen the discussion on whether or not Solarpunk is "punk" over the last few days and... people really gotta learn their history.

The first time a genre took the "punk" name was Cyberpunk. And for context we gotta talk a bit about the history of the Cyberpunk genre.

While some books that we in hindsight call "Cyberpunk" were released as early as the 1960s, the start of Cyberpunk as a genre got its start in the late 70s and early 80s.

The term was invented by Bruce Bethke, who published a short story in 1983 with the name "Cyberpunk". His idea was to juxtapose the term "punk" for both the mentality and the punk protagonists in his short story with the term cyber, short for the cybernetics they were wearing. And while the cybernetics have become a main stay in the genre, the punk attitudes are not always carried through...

Well, the title Bethke invented stuck, though. When 1984 Neuromancer was published, one of the most influencial works in the early days of the genre, he called it "a Cyberpunk novel" in the marketing. And from there... Well, the genre was suddenly named like that.

The 80s were definitely the decade that had the most influence on the genre, given that a lot of the big novels and graphic novels of the genre were released here.

A big influence was, no doubt, that 1982 the Blade Runner movie had released and had inspired quite a few writers and artists. (And yes, this makes Blade Runner a movie that released not only before the term Cyberpunk was coined, but also before the genre had a chance to define itself.)

Given that the genre was defined in the 80s, there are a lot of 80s anxiety kept within it about the rise of the Japanese economy, that are these days rarely questioned within the western Cyberpunk movement.

When the genre was coined and developed, Japan was the fastest growing economy in the world, being so influencial that they got to buy out several things in America. Something that kinda jerked white people in the US a lot. This is, why Cyberpunk originally depicted not only a capitalist hellscape - but specifically a capitalist hellscape were everything was bought out by Japanese companies, with many of those early antagonists being Japanese companies. And yeah... there was a lot of both anti-japanese racism, but also cultural appropriation of Japanese things in early Cyberpunk, at time surviving to this day. (But that is a story for another day.)

The general sense that Western Cyberpunk had, was always the idea of: We have a capitalist hellscape where the world is slowly dying and people are exploited with no end, while we have those kinda punky protagonists, who stand outside of the society and try to work against it. This being where the punk comes from.

Now, I could talk for length about how a lot of that punky attitude has been lost in more modern Cyberpunk media, but that, too, is a story for another day.

So, let me just talk about what happened then.

The term Cyberpunk really is darn catchy, right? So just when that name took hold, writer K.W. Jeter retroactively called his 1979 novel Morlock Night "steampunk". And guess what: This stuck, too. Though while the 80s Cyberpunk still stuck to the punk attitude, a lot of Steampunk did not. While for certain there is quite a bit of Steampunk that has kinda punky characters go against the quasi Victorian society of steampunk books (something most common in the air pirate novels I have read), a lot of other stories are more focused on a general sense of adventure.

But never the less... The genre names stuck and gave a nice baseline for naming other genre. We got Dieselpunk, Atompunk, Nanopunk, Arcanepunk, Dustpunk, Silkpunk and of course also Solarpunk and Lunarpunk.

And for the most part... The "punk" names mostly communicate: "It is SciFi with this kinda aesthetic/twist going on". Which is just how it turned out.

Funnily enough Solarpunk is for once a genre that brings back the punk, as it tends to include a lot of the ideals aspired to by the Punk counter culture of the 1970s: Anarchism, anti-capitalism, anti-consumerism, anti-classism, anti-racism, anti-colonialism and so on. Though other than with Cyberpunk and the real world punk movement, Solarpunk for the most part imagines a place, where those things are culture instead of counter culture.

I personally find it kinda sad, how for the most part Cyberpunk kinda lost a lot of the counter-cultural, revolutionary mindset. And how fucking defeatist the genre often is.

But again, it is a story for another day. Just as the story of Japanese Cyberpunk is.

[rominaflauers]

Wild Flowers Ep.3- Ballroom Blitz

It's not easy being a pretty face in a poster

[crownmemes]

Firefly Sentences, Vol. 2

(Sentences from Firefly (2002). Adjust phrasing where needed)

"You are such a brat!"

"Are you trying to destroy this family?"

"This is a slippery slope. You have no idea how far down you can go, and you're not taking me with you."

"For God's sake! Could you be a human being for 30 seconds?"

"I'm not married!"

"I'd be a good wife."

"I'd be a terrible husband."

"You've got a smutty mind!"

"I would appreciate it if one person on this boat did not assume I was an evil, lecherous hump!"

"There are times I think you don't take me seriously. I think that ought to change."

"You can't play a player."

"Why the act? All the seduction games, the dancing around folk. There has to be an easier way to steal!"

"I've been waiting a long time for someone good enough to take me down."

"Enemies? You? No! How can that be?"

"This must be what going mad feels like."

"Every problem is an opportunity in disguise."

"You going to talk me to death, buddy? Is that the plan?"

"What's so damn important about being proper?"

"I love this ship. I have from the first moment I saw it."

"I'm getting a little weary of this attitude."

"You don't have to go down with your ship!"

"If I wanted schooling, I'd have gone to school!"

"Important people don't usually do field work."

"I have no intention of running around like a rat in a maze until we're dead! I'm going back!"

"The next time you decide to stab me in the back, have the guts to do it to my face."

"Oh yes, I'd forgotten - you're moonlighting as a criminal mastermind now."

"Don't worry, I'm not going to start any sword fights! I'm over that phase."

"I could get used to being rich."

"I'm not against love as a rule, but in situations such as ours, it tends to cause problems."

[gameraboy2]

"The Last Thunder Horse West of the Mississippi" Isaac Asimov's Science Fiction, cover by Bob Walters, 1998

[privartidahos]

once in a lifetime

[thebkb]

Margaret White, Also known as XJ-13,

EXCLUSIVE TO TUMBLR: This second character illustration was my first rendition of Margaret. As I have been coming in and out for her designs but I kind of scrapped it since I got a-lot of projects that really caught me in a single loop. This can work as that standalone magnum opus for now. Just proof of concept.

[midstpodcast]

More from the Cosmos is coming as UNEND begins this October 9th…

Learn more before our voyage Un-Folds in Critical Role’s Fall Programming Update!

PLUS Tune-In September 25th for a special trailer drop! 🧡👀

[hanbluestuff]

gun axe

[scipunk]

Fallout (2024)

[thatanimescreencapguy]

Scavengers Reign Episode 2