The Goth Challenge Day Four: Name a stereotype or cliche you can relate to.

Hello Darlings.

Exciting news, I cut all my hair off. I'll share photos tomorrow. I know how far behind I am in posting. But I've been in a funk recently. I felt like I was going through the most basic motions but I just felt dead. It's hard to describe but I go through moods like that from time to time. Now I'm back and ready to spam your blogger dashboards once again, hah.



 Name a stereotype or cliche you can relate to.

•  I love cemeteries. I enjoy walking through them and looking for them whenever I'm on the road. I find most of them have pretty landscaping and they are always so peaceful.(let's go have a cemetery picnic! :D )

• You'll find striped stockings in my sock drawer and yes, I do enjoy wearing them. I actually found a pair the other day I want to go and buy. (green and black striped. How cute! )

•  I definitely relate to the "creative" bone that we're supposed to be born with. You could lock me away for years and years but as long as you kept the paper and pens/paints/ etc. coming I could care less. [dramatic I know but oh so true.]

 I LOVE halloween shopping. That's because you get to stock up on all your day to day goodies for half off.

 

•  I love watching shows and reading books about the paranormal. Trust me, I haven't missed a Ghost Adventures episode yet.

• I enjoy the vampire subculture, but not like I used to. I've read the Ann Rice series but other than that I find they're too romanticized today and aren't portrayed as they actually are. ( I like books like the Encyclopedia of the undead... Which I own. :) )

 Good night darlings. Stay warm and snug in your lil' coffins.

Lady.

The Goth Challenge Day 3 – When did you come out of the Goth closet? (If you didn't then simply discuss the topic)

Hello Darlings!

Are you excited that it's almost the weekend? Halloween is a week away, how exciting!
I've thought about what I wanted to be for this year and decided I would just be a skeleton and wear that skeleton t-shirt I bleached.
 --> http://www.bootstompingbanshee.blogspot.com/2012/10/shirt-part-ii-angry-lady.html

Not very exciting I know but for some reason I'm not really in the mood to get all dressed up this year. Leave me a comment on what you've decided to be, I'd love to hear what ooky-spooky costumes you are going to be terrorizing the kiddies with! ;)

sciencefictionally.tumblr.com?

Ok, so let's get on with post 3 of the goth challenge. What'dya say?

When did you come out of the Goth closet? (If you didn't then simply discuss the topic)

When did I come out? Hm. Well I attempted to come out once, maybe five years ago? It didn't go so well. After I decided that I was just going to do whatever made me happy and if those around me didn't understand after talking to me about it, well, there was nothing more I could do.

I believe I tried to come out of the 'goth closet' in high school. This was during my mall goth phase. My family was always very vocal about what I wore. "You don't need combat boots!" "Why are you wearing black polish? "Take off those ugly lace glovelets!" ALWAYS something. Personally I think my ears are still healing from being talked off back in those days.

I remember being very diplomatic about the whole ordeal. I made my mom and myself a cup of tea, tried to sit down at the table and just talk. Yeah, that went well. Not. I was seen as a child making irrational, ugly decisions about my appearance and embarrassing the whole family while I was at it. Encouraging, accepting words right? x)

It was really degrading to be honest. I thought I looked pretty and was really showing my true self, so to be told otherwise and have my emerging sense of identity scoffed at was a blow.

Does anyone know the link to this? Saw it on tumblr.

Nowadays I'm a tough ol' bird and whenever someone says something about me I just smirk and stare at them with a look that says, "I don't remember asking you." Plus it amuses me to no end to think that this stranger is so egotistic that they believe their opinion should matter AT ALL.


The last time I checked opinions are like assholes. Everyone has one and quite frankly they reek!

Alright darlings, I'm out of here. I have to get up at four in the morning to be on the road for my college visit. The town is a hour ahead of me time wise and it's a two hour drive. Wish me luck. :)
If not, I hope to die peacefully in my sleep like my grandpa and not screaming in terror like his passengers in the backseat. That's right, a car joke. It's pretty funny right? huh, huh? :D

No, I know car crashes are nothing to laugh about. My cousin almost died in one many years ago, as well as my dad. So please everyone always put your safety first and keep your attention on the road at all times.

Much Love,

Lady.

http://mitakashika.deviantart.com/gallery/?offset=48

The Goth Challenge Day Two: Share photos and experiences of your babybat days.

http://www.tumblr.com/tagged/halloween-gif

  Hello Darlings!  (how I felt writing this post ^^^)

How was your day? Currently I'm still on vacation and in two days I'll be doing a college visit. I plan to make a mini post about my road trip today with a few funny photos I collected.

Now on to the actual post. :)

Share photos and experiences of your babybat days. 

Well, first off I was a little iffy about writing this post. I get a bit moody when talking about my past. Also to be honest I hated taking photos when I was younger. I had a serious phobia of the camera, I swear. Nowadays it isn't so bad but I still shy away from the camera from time to time. So I hope I get a small round of applause for actually finding a few photos. Plus I seriously deleted every single image of my face I could find back then. It's baffling.

These photos are from my high school "babybat days." I don't have any any earlier than my sophomore year although I was  dressing darker in eighth grade. Also please realize that while these may not be the greatest they do show my "oh so artistic" state of mind and how I believed I could never smile or how over the top makeup was mandatory. You'll see the photo I'm talking about.

Commence my embarrassment x)

my baby. I miss him. No smiling and black shirt/jeans

me posing with a mirror. But I love that cateye. What a pro haha.

Moving on to experiences. Well I'd say I had really mixed experiences. Some funny and some just plain hell. I still don't know why but I'm one of those personality types that could dye my hair blonde; wear a pink dress with matching heels, smile all day and someone would still point out I have a "dark personality." I bring this up because I never once said I was goth when I was growing up. I simply didn't care. I wore what I wanted and basically ignored everyone around me when I realized being nice and making friends was a totally fruitless attempt. So when my classmates would strike up a conversation with me (which was basically never) or made a snide comment or remark the word 'goth' would frequently pop up. One experience of mine was that every day when I walked into my sophomore math class one guy would ask me "You're goth aren't you?" as I passed him to get to my seat. I hope you can appreciate how annoyed I would get at being labeled something I hadn't declared or really didn't care about. I only saw the term as something new to get tortured for.

Not to be dramatic or depressing but the majority of my experiences were really shitty! I was called weird, a freak. I'd be the butt of a rumor or a joke constantly, get poked in the back for a whole class period (and even when I politely asked a teacher to move I'd be denied) and the poking would continue. (I had to endure a week of it because whenever I moved seats the kid behind me would kindly give their seat to my taunter until I turned around and practically screamed at the guy when we were in the middle of class. After that I was deemed "crazy" by everyone. I would have my locker trashed and my things stolen. I literally would hide in one of the lesser used bathrooms and sit in there with my ipod and a book for as long as I could.

I was even mocked when I spoke. It got so bad I hated speaking in front of the class because they would make faces and mock me getting tongue tied. It continued until senior year. I actually stopped mid-presentation once, burst into tears and just walked out. Because I was told no one wanted to hear my voice and I was better off being unseen and unheard. So I definitely can empathize with those still in school or who are still going through crap like this.

I plan to feed them to oogie boogie >:)

So, happy experiences... I don't want to leave this post on a sad story like that. Oh! There was a guy who was nice to me. One time I was wearing black and white striped tights, and he goes "It isn't Halloween yet." I "wittily" replied, "Haven't you heard that every day is Halloween? Besides I like them." He then continued, "I like them too." 

Another time we were both in the office, and I got yelled at and written up for excessive eyeshadow. When I saw him again by our lockers he said "I don't think you have too much on. It looks cool."

I also got to know our school janitors really well and they were protective of me. My art teacher also spent a lot of time talking with me and spent more time on my projects than the others. 

I look back now and thank the heavens for those small pieces of kindness in my life and my friends who kept me afloat or I don't know how bitter and twisted I would have turned out. Actually I'm going to spread a little loving on them right now. I hope you found my post of some worth and if not at least I hope you know I'm here anytime to listen and empathize with you if you're going through something like this.

pacificari et stabiliri,

Lady.

http://mitakashika.deviantart.com

The Goth Challenge! Day 1: How did you come across the subculture?

Hello Darlings!

http://www.wesleylowe.com/halloween/lnhal2.gif

I hope you're all doing quite well and you enjoyed this weekend. I've been thinking about what to write about today, I've been itching to do a post all weekend but... well the adjective 'busy' is a complete understatement! I crashed a wedding, had the most amazing cup of coffee (ever heard of siphon coffee?!) and saw a random deer head on the side of the road. Taxidermy prank? :)

I realized yet again I hadn't charged my itouch which means no photos. I'll go put myself in the corner and shake my head at such shamefulness.

All this made me realize I've been shamelessly stalking the 'goth challenge' posts and that I need to stop talking and start posting. In a roundabout way this should all make sense. I'll let you figure all my nonsense out. 

First here's two links referring to the challenge: http://julietslace.blogspot.com/2011/08/goth-challenge.html and then Amy on http://ultimategothguide.blogspot.com posted her own.

 How did you come across the subculture?

Well, I suppose I came across the subculture in little bites. For as long as I can remember I've always felt the most comfortable in black outfits and listening to dark music and things like that. In the beginning I didn't know what "goth" was [pitiful right?] I felt like it was an ideal right outside my grasp but I would be happier being a part of it than out of it. In middle school I was the new girl so I literally moved from a conservative community to a more liberal area. This allowed me to meet a lot of new friends who eagerly threw me into the pool of books, music, movies,websites and clothing that I had been shielded from but had already dug up on my own. So that was a time of social networking that I instantly soaked up.

the new girl!?!

In highschool I met my older sister figure. I'll label her "Koko" which was one of her actual nicknames. I think she was a major influence in my desire to fine tune my babybat outfits whenever we weren't totally decked out in our punk weekend looks. [[We had a school uniform. On most days I wore black tights or black and white stripped stockings with converse and a black beaded and red lace cross from hot topic. Hoorah for my clothing sensibility. Hair and makeup was a whole other issue!]]

I realize I jump terms, claiming I looked like a babybat but I wasn't one and then I was "punk" or this and that. You have to realize back then I didn't realize how broad the goth community was. I felt I didn't fit into the mold, or was told I didn't [whole different story] and I suppose that was and still is a side affect of kids being fooled by the idea of clicks in school. Goth cheerleaders? Unheard of. goth president of the school board? Unthinkable! If only I knew back then you can identify with something and yet still be an individual. I sit here and seriously wonder where my brain went for those four years...

http://www.flickr.com/photos/phildesignart/5247521898/

Anyways I decided to fully step into the subculture when I was music hunting one Friday night. I realized all the music I listened to in high school was considered 'goth.'[I am a big Sisters of Mercy fan just an 'fyi']
Also I suppose when every single person already knows you are and yet you deny it, then it is just getting silly. I don't mean to say people calling me 'goth' made me decide to do "join" but there were so many aligning points I didn't see why I had waited so long to be a part of something that brings me so much joy. Especially being a part of something that just comes naturally and feels, well, right.

I hoped you enjoyed my post darlings.

Have a great night

Lady L.

http://mitakashika.deviantart.com/gallery/?offset=48