Tag Archives: Gothic

The elevator dream

I had a dream last night, it was very strange.

I dreamt I was in an elevator that kept going up and down, but when it was up I was in a hospital like place, which also kind of felt like a hotel – I felt I lived there and I did art and crafts and things whilst there.

But then I knew I had a husband who was on a lower level, so I went into the elevator to go and see him a lot.

When I was with my husband in his lower levels, it was like gothic luxury – red and black furniture, high quality, living in a space that was almost like a luxury penthouse or something – not like a hospital at all.

Each time I went to visit him; he was getting further and further away, to lower and lower levels.

Until eventually at full speed, the elevator took ten minutes and nearly a thousand levels or more to get to him.

Also with every visit he was getting more and more affectionate and excited to see me and I knew I was becoming addicted to my visits, because I would stay in my own levels for shorter periods of time! 

On the last trip, the elevator spoke to me and said that “my husband feels that our relationship is strained”. 

What is weird is that, the man I kept visiting wasn’t anyone I am currently in a relationship with (I am not in a relationship right now… to my knowledge lol) and each time I visited him he was in fancy dress – so kept changing!

In the elevator hearing that he felt our relationship was strained, I became distraught and frightened instantly and started to panic, but the elevator never got to him, and it was going faster and faster and falling lower and lower into thousands upon thousands of levels – I woke up just as real tears were starting in my eyes.

Weird.

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Raven warrior day

Today I feel like a warrior, the raven warrior I used to be.

I feel like dressing up in my old black clothes and wearing my raven feathered necklace and rethinking about designing that raven feather cloak I have always wanted to make.

I miss my gothic make-up today; I used to be a Goth as a teenager and into my mid-twenties – a big contrast to the semi-kawaii style I like these days.

I was the Gothic Jock type at school, but also sort of nerdy – because I was an A & B grade student mostly and I was teased for it some of the time, though I never flaunted it and tried to conceal my grades wherever possible – because in my family, nobody got grades like that it is a sort of anomaly, a weird thing which I held close to my heart in shame.

My dad and his side of the family was the only people I felt comfortable knowing my grades, because on dad’s side of the family there are teachers and government workers, so education is important to them and it’s not a cause for shame there.

But today, I am the raven warrior again – or at least it’s the first time in years I feel like she’s been awakened again.

At least I do have some black clothes, though no make-up – at least I can sort of feel like my old self again, in part. 

A black lace cami, a long black skirt, a back flowing shrug, black socks though ruined by pink diamonds, but you can’t have everything in this place.  It’s a cheerful day, despite the kind of poetry I am producing and despite looking mournful – to me it’s a brighter day in my heart.

I wonder why the raven spirit in me is so strong today?

I used to be called Raven Mother by some people in the past – sometimes The Raven Warrior – sometimes The Vampire – sometimes the warrior goddess  and I tried to get people to call me Raven but they didn’t do it, because I guess they didn’t like my sense of humour in being known as The Raven Lunatic, haha.

Some people have no sense of fun – in fact most, don’t.

I had lots of interesting nicknames before I moved in with Paul and every ounce of my identity in all of them has gone, you wouldn’t recognise me now from what I used to be.

I may have been abused badly in my past and mostly isolated – but to be honest I did still socialise on my mother’s terms and I did so more often than I do now I live with Paul.  I may have been living day to day scared for my life with violence and unpredictable people and living day to day with loss after loss – but strangely enough, I was happier then than I am now.  I still don’t understand it.

Maybe I was happy because of how many people used to visit?  Maybe I was happier because I was a lot richer back then and never had to wait months between necessary non-food purchases?  Maybe I was happier because I had more personal freedom around the home, even though I had copious amounts of duties and chores to do between them?

I don’t know.

As I said, I am still puzzled by it.

How can someone be so happy in a situation where day to day they are not sure if they would be alive by the end of the day?

Food for thought I guess?

Yet when I was in that situation I was desperate to get away because I was under so much stress, I often had black outs because things got too much for me and I had to constantly make excuses to non-family people about why I can’t be normal, why I can’t just take their invitation on the spur of a moment etc – because there was often a violent backlash if I did.  Not from them or from me, but if my mother found out she’d go nuts and literally hunt the person down.

So the raven took her flight and said “Nevermore” to that situation and came to live with Paul.

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Someone New

A thousand years I have been a drain

A drain on human life

Living within the shadows

Drinking and spreading strife

I leave a trail of mourners

My legacy is real

Every night is someone new

Someone new I kill

A thousand years and still I go

Spreading death and causing woe

A thousand more I may yet exist

Because I was cursed when I was kissed

Granted the gift of eternal life

Cursed to spread death and strife

I exist to cause you pain

So each night I rise again

Someone new is approaching now

Someone new will die, I vow

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droplets of rubies

I taste the blood in the pale moonlight

It nourishes me well and such a pretty sight

The droplets of rubies trickle down on the floor

Illuminated by moonlight how I want some more

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Blue spooky clown girl

I have a playlist for everything and some of my playlists are downright weird to people who walk in on me listening to them!

I regard my music tastes as more than just a little bit eclectic, I like songs or tunes from every genre, though my main focus is on rock and the 80s – those aren’t weird, those are permissible as relatively normal but my candyland playlist?  My lullaby playlist?  How about my end of the world playlist or the vampire playlist?  Yes, these are playlists I actually have!

Currently I have been stuck between the playlists of lullaby’s and circuses for the past two days, which is dangerous really because it is making me think of my fairground and circus stories, which have been put on the back bench for nearly three years and I really shouldn’t encourage it!

Because I should be concentrating on project AD and the lesbian steampunk more than anything else, which in turn, has their own playlists too!

But I am just in a spooky carnival, haunted circus and creepy fairground mood right now!

Coincidentally, today is a spooky day for me… in fashion I think I would find it hard not to be some kind of weird gothic/emo Pierrot today.  I feel like dressing primarily in white and royal blue and silver, but also feel like wearing a lot of strange make up which kind of turns me into some kind of weird silver blue clown – don’t ask why, I get days like these!

I don’t expect to make any sense!

LOL

But knowing me I’d hold back even if I could do it, because, you know… I find it boring explaining my every waking thought to people time and time again, when they ask me “why”?

People don’t accept it’s just a spooky Pierrot day, is all!

Which is funny really, because I initially woke up thinking it was definitely a white, cream, ivory, caramel or linen day, with an emphasis as always with something fluffy worn, with baggy white trousers or something.  But you know, in America I’d probably get shot for it or something.  Paul mentioned something about Labour Day.

Well anyway, I feel a mix of the two.

I do feel so tempted to go back to the spooky circus story though, it’s kind of connected to a short story I wrote on here a few years back called “Casey’s Crown” – not sure if it is still available on here or not – use the search bar and see! 

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My life in colour

It’s a colourful world and over the years my favourite colours have changed, quite dramatically.

When I was very small, from as young as I can remember probably a toddler, till I was around seven years old, I loved the colours pink and red; I was a truly quite a feminine little creature back then.  When I turned around 8yrs old, I grew to hate both of those colours, because my mum came away from blacks and browns and decided to decorate most of the house red and it came with her massive personality changes in how she raised me.

Red is a colour of aggression and violence and it happened to be a time where there was a lot of it in the house from each member of the family to each other and outsiders forcing their way into the home or dragging people out of it for a darn good belting!

Mum changed the colour scheme when I was around 12yrs old on advisement from the therapist I was seeing.  This is when I began to believe in colour psychology, because a lot of the violence cooled down, not a lot, but enough to feel safer.

My favourite colour became sky blue until I reached around 10yrs old, when I decided I liked black and royal blue a lot.

Around the age of 14 my favourite colour went back to sky blue, but also pastel yellows, until I had my mastoid surgery when I was around 17 – when my colour scheme went back to black, royal blues and purples and more or less stayed there for most of my life since.

It was around 2013 that my colours kind of changed again – Royal purple being my main favourite, but with lime green, orange and chocolate brown – I still occasionally like royal blue and even teal or viridian maybe even turquoise, I noticed I like peacock colours and royal colours a lot. 

These days I mostly prefer purples of any shade, blues of any shade and certain types of green and orange.  I am going off brown lately, unless in fashion.

I’ve always loved certain patterns too, like harlequin patterns, black and white diamonds you know?  Rainbows, zebra prints, polka dots and gingham, I also kind of like dogtooth.

If it’s garish I’d probably like it.  I don’t like to have things looking too uniformed around a home, I kind of like to mix and match for comfort.  I love cushions of any size and shape really. 

I really, really hate large blocks of white and grey though; grey is the most hated colour in all the world to me.  Though put grey on a man in a nice suit and it’s pretty good for some men, suits some of them – but ordinarily outside of that, I have a low grey tolerance.    Silver is fine, but not grey.

I’m allergic to gold, but still like to use the gold paint, which reminds me…

I also love metallic colours and when I used to be able to afford practising my art, I’d use metallic up before anything else.

One of my favourite things in interior design is the Verdigris copper effect.

Most of the flowers in my garden are blue, purple or orange with little shocks of white here and there.  Before the bad neighbour started to take the joy of gardening away from me, our front garden was known as the blue garden that stole nature.  Because our garden was mostly all different shades of blue and purples and we had all the bees, butterflies, birds and other creatures you could think of, whereas everywhere else was barren.

I also like steampunk stuff too, as I said, I love metals, but I really hate all this modern interior design that goes in for a lot of chrome and that – that’s not me.  I like organised chaos, mix it up, nothing that looks too clinical, you know?

My home here with Paul in the past few years has slowly started to look more and more like a teenagers bedroom, not because of the mess – that’s not me, I am not messy, it’s the boys of the house that does that!  But for me what I meant is, I am not ashamed to have beautiful butterfly cushions on the sofa, mixed up with a marvel cushion and a piglet cushion etc.

I am not ashamed of adorning my bookshelves with trolls, gnomes, faeries, dragons and crystals.

I am also not ashamed to use perfume instead of air spray to freshen the rooms up a bit.

What gets confusing is days like today… I feel gothic today.  I want to be like Morticia Addams, I wish I had her figure at least! 

I often wondered what it would be like to be so rich that you could be ridiculous with it… such as, have a huge house that is completely identical on either side, you know, like a mirror, but its split in half, still attached, only one side is completely gothic on the inside with dark academia style – the other side is like a teenage fantasy house with kooky stuff and bits of kawaii.  On the outside everyone can see what looks like a morph of The Addams Family residence stuck together and squished into some weird little fairy cottage or something.

Because day to day I change, some days I wake up feeling like the creature of the night and other days I am waking up with the same spirit and vibrancy of a care bear!

Mummy’s having a spooky day dear; please go to the kitchen of gloom for your breakfast today.  Haha.

On a serious note, it is something I’ve thought about for a while.

Obviously on the dark side we’ll have creaky doors and noisy furniture.

It is hard for me to choose which lifestyle to be, fantasy colourful and bright or dark academia spook.

Do I want to wear rainbow dungarees today?  Or do I totally want the Elvira vibe?

Decisions, decisions!

I think I’ll just mix it up and keep doing that.

So what if you see a three headed dog statue in one corner and a rainbow unicorn in another, so what if you come across hands in the wall to hang your coats and crystals shining rainbows into the room – it’s a home and it would be mine and I feel it to be divine!

Does anybody want to join me in my weirdness?

Because certainly if you want a life with me it’s certainly not going to be boring and I refuse to be normal… normal people scare me, why the heck do I want to be one of them?

If I won the lottery on Friday I will be buying loads of weird stuff, Paul dreads it.  But Paul isn’t planning on being in my life anymore, so what the hey?

You can get an idea of my weird tastes by following some of my pin boards on Pinterest.  My favourite and weirdest board is called FUNNYTURE  https://www.pinterest.co.uk/thetardycreative/funnyture/

Thanks for reading!

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Existentially challenged

For a woman I am strange, I think anybody who knows me in real life will validate that.

But what exactly do I mean by strange?

Perhaps I mean dorky, weird, and eccentric but also some people have labelled me as confused or having a split personality.

I might do, though I prefer the stance that I am existentially challenged.

I am a female, that occasionally wakes up and wishes for just that particular day to be a man, but it’s only occasional.  On another day I will wake up and want to be kawaii or gothic, or a child or an adult, or anything as the feeling grabs me and it is often a part of my depression when I can’t morph my body into how I feel for the day.

Mostly though, I want to be tall and strong athletic looking woman and have perfect long straight brunette hair in a long plait, wearing a tight white camisole and black jeans and heeled boots and don’t have the need to wear spectacles.

But alas, I am fat and hideous, my hair is the colour of straw with flecks of white and I indeed need spectacles.

Image aside, this isn’t what I meant when I first started the post.

What I wanted to say is that, I am strange because I am like an old fashioned man, or rather an old man.  I say this, because some people online believe I am not a woman at all, but I am.  I am just a weird one that’s all.

I was a weird little girl too. 

I was a bug catching little girl, who had pet snails that escaped in the night in my bedroom sliming the walls in the morning, creeping my OCD clean freak mother out with the things she’d find hiding in my room every morning.  One day she found a squirrel I had tamed, sitting on the desk looking like it owned the place and it screamed at her when she screamed at it.

I was a frog catching little girl too and I’d scrump my neighbour’s apples, well, I used to pick my neighbours apples from their tree that was above my swing, which she allowed – to be a true scrumper meant I stole without permission, but that wasn’t the case.

As a child my biggest emotional and creative influence was my dad and two male cousins.  As a child I had more male friends than female and as a child I loved things that most little girls shy away from.

I was the little girl who asked for matchbox cars at Christmas, Gremlin and monster toys, scalextrics, books, art supplies, dinosaurs, trump cards and anything to do with wrestling.

I was the kind of little girl who scoffed at soap operas and sat down with her father and grandmother on a Sunday afternoon watching horse racing and Laurel Hardy movies and other oldies.

I’d learn all the words from those old movies, so that when mum worked the night shift at the retirement home she worked in, me and dad would re-enact them together fully, like we were putting on a spectacular theatre production. 

Sometimes we did for my aunts when visiting grandma on Sunday afternoons if they were visiting gran too.

I was the kind of little girl who made solar system models and studied encyclopaedias like a bible, because my access to education was sparse.

My dad was mostly into science, war and film history and gardening and he was the most active in educating me those things.  I got heavily into understanding the history of automobiles and aviation and some of it still sticks to this day!

I was like a son to him, I am sure.

My mum I think was jealous and that is why she treated me badly, I didn’t grow how she wanted me to.  She wanted me to be image obsessed, watch all the soap operas with her, devour all the romance books she bought and gossip about people behind their backs viciously, like some plastic girl from the movie Means Girls.

Which was odd really, because she as a tom boy too! She never taught me make up etc, it was like she had hoped that me being a girl I would teach her those things – but its a mothers job to teach the girl!

But I wasn’t like that, so she made my life hell.  Really, it was like living with a school bully with no escape, she only backed off me when I caved in and pretended to be the Barbie she wanted me to be, which was difficult as I was a fat child who was a bit of a jock.  Yes, you do get fat jocks!

But I’d rather go to a local park with my dad in the evenings and play on their big adventure playground pirate ship and re-enact scenes from The Voyage of Sinbad or Blackbeard the pirate, with my dad and if I am lucky, my cousins.

I am still very masculine to this day in my ideas, hobbies, likes and dislikes.  I even took a psychological test once to find out what I am and found out my brain is a lot more masculine than an average woman, in fact, significantly so.

I am bisexual, I do like to cross-dress and be masculine from time to time and I don’t make friends easily with women, unless they are similar to me.  Usually creative, hippy or bohemian, or tom boyish too!

The strange thing about all of this is that I am also glamour puss. Weird contrast I know, but I love dressing up elaborately, like a proper classic Hollywood star, but I can’t be in perfection mode all the time, it would drive me up the wall.  I love maxi dresses and sandals, I like jeans and camisoles, rainbow coloured dungarees and weird shit like that, oh and cosplay. 

I am a chameleon I suppose, yes, I guess that’s the right thing to say about me – I am a chameleon.

You never know what you are going to get day to day and if you are comfortable in rigidity, we can’t get along, because I have to flow with my emotions.  Don’t judge me for changing my style yet again, get used to it, why so stiff and judgemental?  Don’t be stiff… unless of course… I digress! 

It’s the flow again, the water that is me.

I’m like a river, now isn’t that going to be a lovely poem?

I am off to write it now…

Happy reading…

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Who influenced my writing Part 2

Susan Hill’s books taught me how to effectively write spooky narrative but also how to convey the fear and the confusion that occurs in people when they are unsure of both their sanity and the reality around them.

She is very good at portraying self-denial of the senses whenever supernatural events occur and is very effective at sudden and fantastic twists in plot.

Susan Hill also taught me through her book “I’m the king of the castle” that you never know what is really going on in a characters mind, that sometimes things are just on the surface and the events that come through her books are often a shock even to the reader.

George MacDonald’s books taught me that you can play with uncomfortable ideas and he can do so in such a gentle way, that readers almost forgets what it is he is writing about subject wise.  I remember reading his book Lilith and was surprised at how well he skirted around the religious sensitivities and turned this character almost into a fairy tale, he wrote about the dream state and life and death as though it was a beautiful journey and in some cases it can be.

Edgar Allen Poe is one of the main reasons why I love horror and poetry.  I really love gothic culture and the macabre and he really explores the depths of human emotion really well, he was beyond his time.  He didn’t portray the human condition in airs and graces, he put down the most rotten of all of humanity down on paper in all its rawness and left you feeling either numb or depressed right after you have read his works – but nonetheless it left you feeling in awe of his creativity.

He really showed me how to reel in my reader’s emotions and play to their hopes, dreams, dreads and fears.

He really knew how to play in the dark.

Happy reading!

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Lamentations of a vampire

Don’t be a martyr to your pain dear

It’s not a pretty sight

No awards will be granted to you

You are just a nuisance to the night

A necessary consumption, though indeed you’re inconvenient

The blood sustains immortals I suppose we must be lenient?

I see samples from your neck; do not dare to stain my frock

I can’t stay up all night cleaning; I have to watch the clock

For when the cock crows it won’t be pretty

And I for one should know

That the sunlight isn’t friendly, it really is a foe

But do you need to grumble and whimper and then die?

Why can’t you live forever, like a continuous supply?

Hah, I suppose you could if I let you

But then you’d compete with me

I do not like to share my food, I eat it completely

Oh there you go, softer you cry

Your life is fading well

I just wished the other ones won’t scream at first, it’s Hell

It gets tedious when you know, how each and every one of you will go

But I need your blood its true, yes, I should know

How lonely the night is now you have to go

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Things you shouldn’t say to a vampire!

I like you, up to a point!

You’re a bloody nuisance!

Fancy a steak?

Bite me!

Fangs for the memories

You need to go out and catch some sun!

You’ve got bats in the belfry!

Have you seen yourself lately?

Whatchya fancy to eat?

Once bitten twice shy!

Stick it to the man!

I want a shish kebab

I think I’m bleeding!

Bloody Hell!

Fancy a bloody Mary?

I’m cross with you!

Have you ever been baptised?

You’re my wing man!

Occasionally I find you a bit loopy!

You look like death warmed up!

You’re cold hearted!

Amorte!  “to death in Italian”

Should I open the curtains and get a bit of sun in here?

Do you fancy a nibble?

You suck!

Lap it up!

You’re very hypnotic

Blood is thicker than water!

You’re my battle companion! 

It’s of a grave concern

Tomb it may concern! 

I love you to death!

I’m going to break your heart!

Neck and neck!

You’re pulling on my heartstrings!

I’m bored to death!

Upon reflection isn’t a sigh of relief for you to know that my vampire stories aren’t comedies!  My vampires are part of my dark fantasy and horror works, they were not meant to be humorous, but me being me, I can’t help but think of fun things regarding my vampires from time to time – but this stuff doesn’t really belong too much in my personal vampire series. 

I have thought about having a separate comedy vampire series I’d like to write, but I really am unsure of taking that plunge due to the amount jokes already in the genre – many I have used above!

Thanks for reading!

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