A Haven of Neo-Gothic Arquitecture and Intellectual Friends

Uf! I've been gone for almost two months! Like a friend of mine says: "Ooh, rough." 

In case you've been wondering were I've been, I was at... 

 Princeton, New Jersey!

I know that you're probably thinking: "Andi, what the hell does this have to do with Goth culture?" Well, I was staying at Princeton University for a program called Centre for Tainted Youth (CTY). Princeton University is famous for its High Victorian Gothic and Collegiate Gothic Architecture. Once I stepped out of my taxi and feasted upon the dramatic archways, with the statues of  St.George and St. Michael watching over the dormitories. The two dormitories were connected by a bridge, in which you could access by exiting out a window (Which sadly, were closed by some screens. Boys were not allowed to enter girl's dorms and vice-versa for... obvious reasons.) The doors that led to the dormitories were of grandiose size, made from wood and bounded by ornate black metal. The inside of the dorms were nothing special. The walls were painted white, and the floors had some ugly old carpeting. The smell was old and musty, which told stories of the drunken nights, the tears of solitude, the sweat of long nights of mental and physical preparation with no air conditioning, and the moments of passion led by previous residents. Of course, there is nothing that  a little Febreeze and an electric fan can't fix.

Even though I've never entered the chapel during my stay, I observed its captivating exterior, complete with ornate and Neo-Gothic Architecture. I passed by it each time my group went to the library (which was a lot!) The library was also Neo-Gothic and had some Latin phrases carved on the archway. 

Два очень привлекательным россиян. 
Кто не хотел бы заниматься любовью 
с этими двумя?

Besides the architecture, I wish to discuss my experiences in the Centre for Tainted Youth. It was grand. I met some sexy Russians, met again with my contortionist partner, befriended three ravers which consisted of a hot belly button-less Russian, a Mikutard, and a very sexy girl, and I made sisters. The rest of this post will be very not-Goth related. But please bear with me.

Princeton was the Goth CTY, because all of the non-math courses were depressing and were supposed to make you cry and mope around all day. My course was Global Politics, in which we discussed genocide, rape, human rights violations, amongst other depressing topics. We'd go outside and cry under the shades of weeping willows, while I sang Gloomy Sunday.



Ha, just kidding. Although the part about our courses being depressing, and us discussing about human rights violations and the foulness of humanity in general is true, these distressing subjects would be contrasted with amusing activities, in which we would laugh and share with others. These activities would prevent all of us from crying ourselves to sleep, so it's all good. We would play games, draw, and spend 45 minutes watching videos of kittens.


There was so much diversity! People from many states and other countries (including me). Some would come from California or New York, and some would come from as far as Saudi Arabia and Hong Kong! Best of all: nobody judged you, and nobody criticised you. Nobody would come up to me and say: "Oooh, why do you dress like that?!" "Why do you wear so much black?" "You're weird!" Of course, they would ask how did I manage to wear so much black in the heat, and I would just smile and reply: "I'm from Puerto Rico."

There's nothing more beautiful than this.

CTY has a tradition in which in every day in the last week has a theme. These themes were CTY Shirt Thursday, Crossdress Wednesday, Prep Tuesday, and of course, Goth Monday. Sadly, we didn't celebrate all of them, except Crossdress Wednesday. And I was looking forward to Goth day. I: Oh well! Crossdress Wednesday was hilarious. Boys did their make up and put on brassieres. One dressed up as a prostitute, and others were VERY convincing at being girls. But of course, you have a nice day, and somebody has to come and screw it up. We were all fine and dandy until some football players (STEREOTYPICAL HIGH SCHOOL MOVIE, OMG!) apparently had a problem with men wearing skirts. The coach came to the CTY staff to complain, and from what I've heard, he used some very harsh and offensive words. The football players would talk loudly amongst themselves so we could hear them, and they would call us bundles of sticks. The staff told us not to reply to them, or fight, etc, but I'm wasn't going to sit there and take all that crap. I took an indirect way of giving them the middle finger: each time they would pass by, I would grab my nearest lady friend and loudly say: "ISN'T IT GREAT TO BE GAY? I JUST LOOOOVE BEING A HOMOSEXUAL! LIKING PEOPLE OF MY OWN GENDER IS WAAAAY BETTER THAN BEING STUCK INSIDE THE CLOSET!"

We would have dances every Friday, which were the highlight of the week. Most of the girls would prep themselves and get pretty, most of the time not taking in consideration the theme. But who cares. The dances were great. EVEN if they were very ungoth and would play very "normal" artists such as Katy Perry or Soulja Boy (Seriously, not even electronica like Deadmau5 or Kaskade?).  I would show of my dance moves, and so would others. Some were HARDCORE DANCERS, and some, like I, were sexy dancers. I saw grinders, awkward dancers, people who couldn't dance, self-conscious dancers, people who didn't give a fuck, and sexy ravers. ♥

Love. Oh lovelovelove. ♥ In the Centre for Tainted Youth, love was forbidden. But that didn't stop some people from doing "laudry". ;) Amongst CTY's 10 Commandments were: "Thou shall not enter into thy opposite gender's dormitory" and "Thou shall not make out". Breaking of these laws led to expulsion and condemnation to Hell. People would break the second one all the time, and the first one was broken by only ones who had the immense balls and stupidity. Still, it is not always about sex. The majority would just flirt, hold hands and kiss, which was very cute. c: Sadly, a lot of people would feel as third wheels in the middle of these lovefests and thus feeling FOREVAR ALONE. Most see CTY relationships as summer flings or brief romances, but I know of romances that have lasted more than just three weeks... Some were romances that lasted for over a year, or possibly more...  *Fangirl Sigh* ...But of course, when there's love, there is drama. And drama is not good. But I do not want to go into detail of this drama, because then I'll get involved in more drama. You know where I'm going at?

A true portrait of love

But the absolute BEST thing about CTY is: NO. STUPID. PEOPLE!!! Everyone in CTY thinks deeply, they question society, and use their brains. I found poets and musicians, along with some philosophers. I've met people that have gone through the most interesting experiences, and know about many, many things. I could finally hold an educated conversation with somebody that actually uses their brain! It's great... Smart people. Ahh, the great experiences...

Next week's post shall be about my stay in New York. There shall be more Goth related things on that post. But I just wanted to share this with some of you guys. :)

Delicious Goth Videos

Gothic Charm School Series

 

Sophie: A Dark Angel

 

Iman being awesome

Goth Heineken Commercial

The Cutest Evil Dead Girl

 My Immortal: the Live Action Series

Goth Lulz: My Immortal

My Immortal by Tara Gilesbie (also known as XXXbloodyrists666XXX or goffikgurl666) is a Harry Potter fan-fiction that is such a grandiose piece of literature, that it should be passed on for generations because of its sheer genius. The main character, Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way should be considered a Goth icon for being the most GOFFICK of all GOFFS. The writing, is like looking into the eyes of Satan (geddit coz Im goffick). The language, is complete utter beauty. When you read My Immortal, you will be reborn.

Let's start off with the main character, Ebony Dark'ness Dementia Raven Way (Also known as Enoby, Eboby, Egogy, TaEbory or Tara). She is a 17-year-old Goth vampire witch with long ebony black hair (that's where she got the name) with purple streaks and red tips who is an absolute beauty. She dons Hot Topic clothing, hates preps and posers, and listens to very Gothic bands such as Good Charlotte, My Chemical Romance, Simple Plan, Marilyn Manson, Linkin Park, Evanescence and Green Day. She is Draco Malfoy's girlfriend, but still manages to make out with everyone else in the story. Throughout the story, she has sex with Draco and some others, flips off preps, does drugs, travels back in time, makes almost every male in the story infatuated with her, cuts herself, attempts suicide with a "steak", rambles on how hot X lead singer of Y band is, etc...

THAT, my friends, is GOTH.

Anyway, the story doesn't have a concrete plot line and constantly stops just to describe someone's clothing or make-up, comment on how hot someone is, or some other random thing. I mean, what is this story actually about? It just goes on and on and never ends. There are so many spelling and grammatical errors that it would make anyone's Spell-Check explode. The sex scenes are just plain unnecessary, laughable and not sexy at all.

And the canon... No, it wasn't raped. No, it was much more than that. It was raped, mutilated, chopped up, eaten and vomited. Almost all of the Harry Vampire Potter characters are Satanist bisexual vampire Goths. Muggle bands are allowed to performed in Hogsmeade, an all-wizard village. Draco and Harry Vampire love each other. Hedwig is no longer Harry's Vampire's pet owl, but Voldemort's bisexual ex-lover.
What............
The............................
Hell.

Oh, and did I mention Marty McFly from Back to the Future makes a cameo in this story? Yeah. Here's some Don Q and a noose.

My Immortal was originally posted on Fanfiction.net from 2006-2007 by the user XXXbloodyrists666XXX. It is no wonder that this beautiful work of art caught the attention of many people around the interwebz and spawned many flames, parodies, trolling and lulz. It became one of Fanfiction's most read and reviewed (Over 10,000 reviews) works ever, and caused much debate in the fan-fiction community. Before each chapter, Tara would give a very badly-spelled preface telling all the prepz and poserz to stop flaming her work, and that she would not post another chapter until she got an x amount of "revoiws". In fact, let me quote a few:

AN: wel ok u guyz im only writting dis cuz I got 5 god reviuws. n BTW I wont rite da nxt chapter til I git TIN god vons! STO FLAMING OR ILL REPORT U! Evony isn’t a Marie Sue ok she isn’t perfect SHES A SATANITS! n she has problemz shes depressed 4 godz sake!

AN: stop flaming ok! I dntn red all da boox! dis is frum da movie ok so itz nut my folt if dumbeldor swers! besuizds I SED HE HAD A HEDACHE! and da reson snap dosent lik harry now is coz hes christian and vampire is a satanist! MCR ROX!

Everyone was all bonny and gay, until... Late 2008. Fanfiction.net was deleting various stories from its website and My Immortal was one of them.

Main reason for removal: "Disregard for proper language: grammar, spelling, punctuation, and etc." The above story has been removed because it violated the guideline detailed on the upload page.

I think it's because FF.net is filled with a bunch of preps that listen to Hillary Duff and Avril Lavigne.

Many have tried to re-upload the story on FF.net, but alas, no prevail. Since it could not be uploaded on FF.net, the story finally got hosted on an stable external site "to ensure that the world could still follow its #1 pastime of laughing at retards" (Encyclopædia Dramatica). Still, there is a petition asking for My Immortal to be put back online here. Also, you can try and upload it on FF.net in protest.

My Immortal is indeed a milestone in the history of the internet. It paints a portrait of beauty, stupidity and lulz. It is absolutely necessary to read this if you want to be Goth. And I assure you: when you start reading this story, you will start out with about 4 billion brain cells. When you finish: 4.

"My Immortal has since become a sort of 'internet pilgrimage,' a journey taken willingly by those wishing to become more at one with the lulz. It's a harsh journey, and many have fallen along the path. But if you persevere and manage to read the story the whole way through, you'll be a stronger person because of it."  

-Encyclopædia Dramatica

 Related stuffs:
My Immortal drinking game (Play it at own risk)
A magnificent dramatic reading of My Immortal
My Immortal the live-action series
My Immortal Fan Club on Facebook

*I do not own any of the pictures nor "My Immortal".

Goth Culture and I.

Andy Sí looking pretty. c:

When I was 11 1/2, I got interested in Goth culture. Okay, that was an incorrect way to phrase it. I decided to be Goth. And my darlings, I was far, far from being the Goth chick I was today. I listened to Linkin Park and Evanescence. I didn't know how to apply eyeliner. I thought that a studded shirt was the most GOFFICKEST of all GOFFICK stuff. I thought Hot Topic was the most AWESOME and GOFFICK store to ever come to this freaking planet. And I still. Wore. Blue. Jeans. My God!

Let's start off with my low self-esteem. Without a good self-esteem you don't glow, you don't look good. It doesn't matter if you wear the best clothes or best make-up you will always look like sh*t if you have a low self-esteem. It's just like Derek Blasberg said:

"You might have the sexiest outfit on, but if you hold yourself like a timid granny at a rock concert, you won’t look nearly as hot as the confident girl in the turtleneck."

-Classy

I had a low self-esteem because I was a victim of bullying. The kids at my school commented on how I was ugly and weird, they constantly insulted me (sometimes beat me up), accused me of doing things I didn't do (thus getting me into trouble) and sexually harassed me. It didn't help that the teachers barely did anything and scolded ME each time I reacted to the little demons. This brought me down to the point I felt like a piece of worthless shit that nobody loved, will never be loved and deserved to die. I wanted to become Goth as a form of rebellion, because I was fed up with following the stupid girls at my school that acted like whores, listened to horrible pop music and watched soap operas. I remember the first time I first dressed -to my standards of- Goth. I wore some blue skinny jeans, a studded shirt my mum gave me, my mum's studded platform sandals and piled on some black eyeliner (I didn't know how to apply it though). I felt confident. I never felt that good in a long time.

But of course, my true evolution started at my 13th birthday. Mum and I found my 13th birthday to be a big event, for I finally turned into a teen. Mum took me to have a shopping spree in Hot Topic and I bought a black pleated mini-skirt with a black "corset" (Stupid Hot Topic.) with some black tights that had fishnets on the side. But still, my confidence needed some rebuilding. When I would go out in public like this, I would usually hide behind my mother so people wouldn't stare (And I dressed very "light" compared with how I dress now). But soon I realised: "Who gives a crap? I'm going to be myself and if people find me weird they should just choke on a Dick Cheney." Then I took my "Fuck it" attitude. This attitude is VERY necessary if you want to stop caring about what people think.

"You're so weird!"
Fuck it.

"You're such a freak!"
Fuck it.

"You look ugly!" 
Fuck it.


"Why can't you be normal?"
FUCK IT.

I looked up Goth, and read books about the matter. Am I serious about this? Does this suit me? Or was it just a simple phase? It turned out that I really identified with Goth culture, I loved the music (After of course, looking up the REAL bands), the literature, and I loved the fashion. I realised that Goth was not only looks, or a form of rebellion, it was a way of life. I stopped trying too hard and be myself. To not be ashamed of liking a pop song, but still adore underground bands and good ol' Goth Rock. To not be ashamed of shopping at Hot Topic, but still realize it should be burned down. And most importantly, to not give two flying fucks of what people think.

By the time I was in the middle of my 14 years I had matured dramatically not only as a Goth, but as a person. I was rocking out to Bauhaus and Siouxsie, and adored Adora. I had a more polished, yet dramatic look, instead of looking like I smothered my eyes with cheap eyeliner. And finally, I felt confident and happy. Being Goth made me stronger. It made me see the comedic in the tragic, the beautiful in the macabre, and the crazyness in sanity. And, like my great drama teacher Roberto Ramos-Perea said to me: "The [literary] Gothics believe there is something more than life."

It is a beautiful thing, Goth culture. So keep on being who you are! And remember:

FUCK IT!

Goth gadget #1: Skull Kitchen Brush

I love Marshalls. They sell such fabulous things! And one day I was randomly browsing and came upon this! I found this brush so charming that of course I had to impulse buy it. This actually motivated me to do the dishes. And clean the kitchen. And the house. c:

This is the package it comes in.

Adventures in San Juan: The Goth Club

One day some long time ago, I was talking with my mother about a trip to Europe. We planned to go to England, France and Germany so we could go to Wave Gotik Treffen (We never got to do this, BTW). Of course, what's the first thing my 15-year-old self does?  I search for the local Goth clubs. And as I was searching in this website, I scrolled down to see that there was a GOTH CLUB IN THE OLD SAN JUAN. Of course, I start spazzing like an ADD-ridden child on cocaine, and I beg my mum to take me there, even if I had to use a fake ID (Which was a very contradicting thing for me to do, as I was/am a goody-goody who did not drink, smoke or party under age, unlike some kids I've met). Mummy obviously says no, but I tell her that at least we should look for it so I would know where it was and see it. According to the website the club opened every Saturday at 10:00 p.m., and it was located in Calle Cristo in front of the Hotel Convento. We start our search, searching high and low, left and right, frontwards and backwards; and yet, no club. My mother and I give up, and I say: 

"Pft, a Goth Club in Puerto Rico is like a Sushi Restaurant under the sea."

Then, I go back to the page. What details could I have missed? Is this web page lying? Did I misread anything? And then, I realized I have committed one of my biggest fails that sent my face directly into my palm:

The page has not been updated ever since 2006.

EDIT: So there IS a Goth club in Puerto Rico! ...Or Goth parties, to be exact. Two people have informed me of this place called Soprano's (The name ♥) in Cataño that has Goth parties every Saturday. ALSO,the girl working at the tattoo parlour next to my house informed me that San Juan has occasional Goth parties as well.

Goth Beauty: Nails!

Goth nails, oh Goth nails~! How beautiful you are!

Who knew a little black polish could get you so far?

Goth nails, oh Goth nails, how pretty art thou.

Vampire of Rose, I must go to now.

I had just found out of this wonderful Japanese website called Vampire of Rose! They make the most beautiful nails I have ever seen! They sell their nails at Alamode Market (a crafts store favoured by many Gothic Lolitas in Japan). Sadly, according what I have researched, they don't ship outside Japan. BUT! You can go to their website right here (I suggest using Google translate) and maybe get inspired and make some nails of your own. >:}

Of course, you can automatically Goth yourself up with just plain black nail polish.

It doesn't even have to be these expensive brands, you can just go to the local drugstore and buy some Bettina!

 

 

 

 Some people say that a Goth shouldn't even DARE to walk out with chipped nails, but some have worked it.

 

 

Emilie Autumn, back in her early Opheliac days...

Ah, now I want to go to the pharmacy and buy some cheap fake nails to decorate them as I please...