Steampunk?

[meganbmoore]

 Watching Last Exile made me realize that, though I dislike most mecha, I like most steampunk that I've encountered(I think Steamboy is the only exception, off the top of my head...there are likely others if I think about it, though...I just try not to dwell on things I don't care for) but don't seem to run across it a lot, even though I know there's a lot out there..

Anyone want to rec me steampunk or gaslight romances, be they anime, manga or books?  (And tell me if it's available in the US) 

ETA:  wikipedia's page on steampunk 

ETA 2: crumpeteerhas posted very, very brief descriptions of the various "punk" genres here.

Comments

[southerndave.livejournal.com]

"Jack Harkness?"

Main character of the Doctor Who spin-off Torchwood. First appears in the Doctor Who two-part story The Empty Child and The Doctor Dances. Which I very highly recommend, by the way. (This is from the series when the Doctor is played by the bloke who plays Claude - the invisible man - from Heroes). Anyway... Jack Harkness will flirt with anything: man, woman, robot, you name it. I haven't seen much of Torchwood yet, but in Doctor Who he's all talk.

Anyway, as far as steam-punk that I think you'd actually like a lot goes... I'd recommend the web-comic Girl Genius, if you aren't familiar with it already. Wacky steam-punk setting, lots of mad, mad, mad science and a titular lead character who kicks arse with just her brain.

(Mark Gatiss has also written for Doctor Who, but that's not really considered all that special in Britain; Doctor Who is the sort of thing that everybody gets involved with in some way, sooner or later... e.g. Douglas Adams, Paul Cornell, Zoe Wanamaker, Derek Jacobi...)

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen much of Torchwood yet, but in Doctor Who he's all talk.

Well, not QUITE all talk, there was that end-of-the-world snogging with both Nine and Rose!

In Torchwood, what I've seen so far, there is a load of talk (and not just from him -- there's a bit in the episode where Martha comes for a visit where she and one of the Torchwood girls joke that they must be the only people on the planet Jack *hasn't* slept with), but also a fair bit of action implied, if not always shown directly on screen. In one episode we meet an elderly lady who was his lover back in the war years, in another he ends up going back in time and meets (and has an abortive makeout session) with the real Captain Jack Harkness whose identity he stole, and in the start of the second season there's some violent sexy fighting with another male Time Agent who's an ex-lover, and some on-screen snogs with one of the Torchwood guys. The episode that's aired most recently in the US -- we seem to be running a couple weeks behind the UK broadcast -- has them finally coming out and admitting that he and Ianto are currently an item, like there was any doubt about at this point...

So, yeah, Jack's definitely quite the manslut. I find him to at least be of the Gojyo-ish charming-rogue-with-a-good-heart sort, but YMMV.

[southerndave.livejournal.com]

The only Torchwood I've seen is a handful of downloaded episodes... it's never been shown here (I'm of the firm belief that the TV station that bought it, only bought it so that Prime (which shows Doctor Who) couldn't get it).

I must be woefully behind; I didn't even know Ianto was over his HUGE SPOILER.

Is that a Tom Lehrer quote in your icon? Because if it isn't, it's something he should have been the one to think up...

Who needs a hobby like tennis or philately? I've got a hobby, rereading Lady Chatterly...

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

They started dropping Jack/Ianto hints in S1, several episodes after the HUGE SPOILER if you're thinking of the one I'm thinking of (early in the first season, another blatant Who crossover?); but the really blatant stuff, the on-screen snogs and verbal admissions, are all S2.

And yes, that's classic Lehrer, well-spotted!

[chomiji]

Lehrer fans - they're everywhere! I think smilla and I first bonded over that icon - Lehrer and Gojyo make a great combo.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I tend to require extreme amounts of angst a la Gojyo or Yukimura to make me like the mansluts. Even then, no matter how fond of them I may end up being, they tend not to be favorites.

[smillaraaq.livejournal.com]

Jack has tons and tons of angst, although considering he's had way way more than a normal human lifetime in which to accumulate it, it's not as excessive as it might be. However, it's all rather Saiyuki-ish in that the angst and backstory only comes out very slowly, in bits and pieces; he'd much rather joke and flirt rather than sit and soliloquize about his emo manpain.