The Goth Challenge: Day 1

Read Amy's post about this new challenge and then read the info at Juliet's Lace. I'm going to give it a shot. I've got a month left until school starts, so that helps, too. I might have to modify some since I don't have a camera...but I might use my (somewhat) crappy webcam instead. Oh, well. I might have difficulty with others since...I'm a newbie at a lot of things or simply haven't done them, regardless of them being related to the goth subculture or not...

Day One: How did you come across the subculture?

I don't remember how old I was, but I know I was much younger than ten. I vividly remember often seeing a group of dark clad young adults at the beach, which I look back at now and find really interesting. They gathered under a nice, sheltering tree...I found them to be so interestingly different, loved the fact that they all wore black and white and hated it when my father scoffed at them. I don't remember anything they wore in detail, but I remember looking to my left in their direction and a young woman looked back at me, not at all in a hostile manner (she was probably just as curious as I, somewhat, since I wore a hijab even back then). She had pale skin and a long skirt, was very well put-together...

Around the same time, I guess, my mom watched shows like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Dark Angel and I would be there watching them with her sometimes, as I wasn't really big on live-action back then. I guess I must've seen scenes of The Crow movie or my mom briefly watched The Crow: Stairway to Heaven, but I remembered the story and how much I loved it (and wanted to watch it, amiss my mom telling me no). Seeing dark imagery like that, especially in Buffy and the Crow, really sparked my imagination. I even based one of my first characters off of Eric Draven. What was his name? Pfft. Crow.

And The Nightmare Before Christmas. Holy cow. That...that was my Dream Movie I Hoped to See The Moment I Got Older, because for reasons still foreign to me, my mom didn't want me watching it. I had found out about it while watching the ol' 60th Anniversary edition of Walt Disney's Pinocchio during the trailers they had before the movie started. Also heard info about other works by Tim Burton, namely Batman (love, love, love Jack Nicholson as the Joker~!), Beetlejuice, James and the Giant Peach, and the movie that put me on a team to this day...Team Edward....SCISSORHANDS! :p

Now, long before I did my research, I had some seriously dark interests and likes. I seem to have inherited my grandmother and my mother's interest in mystery, supernatural and other gothic-related literature, art and media and knew that at a young age. However, I do remember being afraid that Dracula was in our old apartment basement in a little black corner with a doorway that was perpetually black...

I remember telling my mom my favorite bird was a crow, to which she responded "No, it's not". But alas, I'm still in love with crows and ravens, but more crows than ravens, thus the reason why I'm obsessed with The Crow. I was also fascinated by the fact that a group of crows is called a murder. How old was I....?

I most definitely remember being fascinated by Marilyn Manson, but I don't remember how I found out about him. I just remember there being a general dislike about him and feverishly wanting to know why that was. I thought he looked cool, different, fascinating. Never heard his music at the time, though, or I might have thought otherwise.

Fast forward to late 2006 early 2007 when I finally broke out of my usual websites and did some actual searching and browsing online. One of the first searches I did was about goths, though I don't remember how I learned the word, either. Boy, was I in love and murderously happy at the things I discovered. I don't...exactly know what it was that made me so happy...but I guess knowing that there were others like me out there, and a hell of a whole lot of 'em. I was very darkly inclined by then, sort of an evolution of what I was already dabbling into when I was younger. That was also around the time I fell in love with black. Oh, black...dearest, darkest black...~

My world was never the same again.

The first goth musician I came upon was Sean Brennan, the man behind the project London After Midnight. Not too long after, LAM came to Toad's Place, which is within walking distance from my house. I had asked my mom if I could go...Yeah. That didn't happen. Naturally.

After LAM came Siouxsie and the Banshees, Bella Morte, Das Ich, Moi dix Mois, Schwarz Stein...and then Last.fm. My musical taste was never the same again.

The end?

I know this can be cleaned up a bit, but I don't know how to at the moment...