I've been tagged! 13 Halloween Questions Tag

::The Everyday Goth:: nominated me to take part in this.  As Hallowe'en is my favourite time of the year, this looked like fun. 

1. Favorite Halloween song?

It has to be 'Halloween' by Siouxsie And The Banshees from the album JuJu. I am a big Siouxsie fan, and love how frenetically, chaotically upbeat the song is. It is clear that the narrator's perspective is actually quite unhappy and disturbed, and so the almost-happy-but-broken music the lyrics are set to make it unnerving in the best way. 

2. Witch or Vampire? 

Well, I'm already a real witch of the Neo-Pagan sort - a Wiccan who switched traditions to something based out of various British and Brythonic/Gaelic traditions, so I'll go with vampire! I like the the idea of being some immortal, sensuous, beautiful creature that is also monstrous and deadly at the same time; elegant, classy and impeccably well mannered, but secretly a vile blood-drinking predator that kills to survive in a terribly gruesome manner - it's the duality that appeals to me; sex and death, beauty and monstrosity. 

3. Favourite thing about Halloween?

Probably being able to easily find home décor that I actually like without trawling the internet for hours! The idea of well-made, elegant and non-tacky Hallowe'en decorations appears to be an American thing with many department stores and supermarkets there stocking a wide range of decorations that include things I would certainly have as décor outside of the Hallowe'en season. Sadly, this is not something that occurs much in the UK, where the holiday seems mostly marketed to children and young people, so there are fewer shops carrying items that I would find suitable for year 'round décor. This is beginning to change, though, and this year I have managed to pick up a lot of nice things for my new house! I think I will actually make a haul video for my YouTube account. 

4. Hallowe'en party or scary movie marathon? 

Definitely Hallowe'en party! Each year we host the Grand Annual Vampire Soirée, which is a practically dusk-'til-dawn party with a Romantic Goth aesthetic and plenty of drinkable forms of fake blood, some alcoholic, some not, all vegetarian. Everyone dresses up as a fancy vampire, and we have a lot of fun. I'm also always going to several other parties around Hallowe'en. I don't do big parties much around Christmas and New Year's; just the dinner on Christmas, the Solstice as a religious celebration, and New Year's as time to stay up late at home and have some fizz, but Hallowe'en is a time of year where I turn into party animal. 

5. Skeletons or Zombies? 

Skeletons, without a doubt! My partner and I have a bedroom with a skull theme, with a good few skeleton ornaments around the place, too. I like them as a symbol of our mortality, a memento mori, and because the human body is a beautiful, sculptural, structural thing under all the flesh. Zombies are all rotted, decaying and gross, whereas a cleaned skeleton is much less disgusting. 

6. Favourite Hallowe'en candy?

::Cadbury's Screme Eggs::

7. Favourite Hallowe'en Movie?

Tim Burton's 'Nightmare Before Christmas'. I've loved it ever since I was young, and although I didn't get to see it in the cinema when it first came out, because my parents deemed it too weird for me, but I did see it at home, and it was definitely a spooky influence on the younger me!

8. Favourite Hallowe'en costume?

I went as a flaming-maned, black-furred Night-Mare when I was 15, and hand made the entire thing, from the fur-suit to the papier-mâché head and hooves. I looked out of the thing's neck, and wore heels under my hoof construction, and was about 6'6" in the whole thing, maybe taller. I won the school Hallowe'en costume competition and a giant plastic pumpkin filled with sweets that I still had not finished eating by the following Easter... 

9. Favourite Hallowe'en store? 

Hallowe'en-specific stores are not really a thing in the UK. There's a temporary shop in the city in a vacant storefront that sells discount costumes, but it's not something that really interests me because I like making my own costumes, or assembling them out of my usual clothes. I do like the Hallowe'en range that has been in TKMaxx this year, though! 

10. Jack-o-Lanterns; yes or no?

Yes! I, like the Everyday Goth, am clumsy with a knife, so I collaborate with my partner; I draw the design onto the pumpkin with a permanent marker, and he cuts it out. My partner's a nurse so has to deal with enough injured people at work, without needing to fix me, too! He can handle the sharp things, I'll handle the Sharpie. 

11. Bats or Black Cats?

My cat, Kuro Shinigami, being all floopy, photographed by my Dad

12. Is Hallowe'en your favourite holiday?

YES! YES!! YES!!! BEST HOLIDAY! It's Samhain too, which I celebrate as a Neo-Pagan, but the commercialised spook-fest that is modern, Americanised Hallowe'en basically turns everyone Goth for a few days and means there are enough scary movies, skull-chocolates, spooky costumes and funky things I love to keep me stocked and stoked until it comes around again the next year. It's a celebration of all that is creepy, freaky, spooky and kooky. I love it. 

13. Pumpkin Spice Latte or Hot Chocolate? 

Chocolat chaud! Made with proper melted chocolate, milk and cream, and with some praline syrup. 

"Is that your REAL hair?"

Probably. 
Probably not.  How do you define real?

This is a question that I'm pretty sure that most people with hair out of the ordinary get this question at least once. From what I hear, people with natural hair different from the majority around them get this problem too. I get it quite a bit, partly because I do actually wear wigs quite a bit, and because I currently have emerald green hair. 

I have worn my hair as my natural hair, un-dyed and only marginally styled. Sometimes I have dyed and heavily styled real hair. Sometimes I have hair-extensions, so some of my hair is my own hair and some of it is synthetic or someone else's. Sometimes - quite often, actually - I wear a wig. I can totally understand the curiosity behind this, because often my hair is rather elaborate, unnaturally or unusually coloured or styled, and tell-tale signs like the hair-line and crown and such can be disguised by whatever ornaments and head-dresses I might have in my hair.

I personally feel that "Is that your REAL hair" is usually an appropriate question to ask if you are approaching out of genuine curiosity, not a mentality of "let us examine the freak-show"; the latter is something I find to be hugely judgemental and very rude. I know some people find these sorts of questions a bit rude in that they feel that it is not any of the asker's business, especially (but not only) those who want their unnatural hair to pass as natural hair. Personally, I quite like displaying the artifice of my outfits and styling because I'm proud of the skill and creativity that I have put it into it. 

If I am wearing a wig, and say so, please don't be offended if you ask to see my real hair and decline. I might be wearing a wig because I'm having a bad hair day, I might think my real hair does not match my outfit, or I might just not want to go through the fuss of putting my wig back on because taking it on and off properly means taking off my hair-ornaments, wig, wig-cap and and unpinning my real hair, and putting it back on means re-doing all of that and quite probably re-styling the wig and ornaments. While I understand the curiosity, I feel that it is perfectly within my rights to just not want to show it.

Please do not touch my hair, or anyone else's without asking - this so very rude! I cannot see why anyone would find it appropriate to touch a stranger without asking. Quite a few people will probably say that you can't touch their hair, but some of us are OK with it. I will let friends and acquaintances touch or poke my clothes, textured nails or hair, but even then I am not very keen on people that aren't Raven, my sister, or my hair-dresser/manicurist touching me. Some of the more extroverted people may well allow you to touch their hair.

Someone has actually cut off a thick lock of my silver wig while I was on a bus. I was very angry indeed about this, as they just damaged my property. First of all, good quality wigs with nice soft fibres - either human or quality synthetic fibres - are rather expensive. Secondly, it was a substantial enough amount to show the wig-cap underneath, and I have had to sew in more wefts of hair to try and patch the gap - which has cost my money for the replacement hair and time spent sewing. Most of all, though, SOMEONE HAD SCISSORS OR A SHARP IMPLEMENT NEAR MY HEAD ON MOVING PUBLIC TRANSPORT, but I didn't even know about it until I got home and took off my wig and saw the damage. 

Questions such as "how do you get your hair like that!" or "what kind of dyes do you use" are perfectly acceptable questions, as they are for the most part genuine interest (and the person asking might be wanting to do their hair like that themselves) and as such, if I have the time, and am not hugely in a hurry, I will usually explain.

For the most part, while I do sometimes feel that I am not there to satisfy someone's idle curiosity, at least I am interesting enough to spark it, and while I do not revel in the attention that I get, and often do wish that I didn't garner quite so much of it, I accept that as someone out of the ordinary, people will notice and will ask questions. Human curiosity is a good thing, and answering questions (carefully) helps foster understanding - I would much rather field the questions of the idly curious than the insults of the idly judgemental. 

Domesticated: Now on YouTube

Domesticated Goth now has a YouTube Channel! 

I want to start vlogging, making cookery videos, and craft/sewing how-tos. I'd like to start with an introduction and Q&A session, but first I need questions! You can ask questions here, or on the Domesticated Goth ::Facebook page:: where you can also suggest topics for blogs, or ask questions for me to answer in written form, or ask for craft how-tos. Ask me questions about being Goth, about blogging, and suchlike :) I may not be able to answer all questions in the video, but I'll be able to answer a few (and will probably write replies directly to the comments).

Please ask your questions below or on FaceBook!