26. If You're Going To Wear A Corset For 12 Hours.... WEAR A LINER!

Especially if dancing

I learned this one the hard way on Tuesday. I was away at Resistanz over the weekend, and then on Tuesday I was out all day being an extra in a film called Of The Shadows, during which I was in a ballroom scene.

My liners needed to go through the wash and I didn't have time to get them dry before going out to be filmed, so I just whacked on my corset with nothing on underneath it, then on top I had a bustle gown, and they can get quite heavy at times, so the gown put a lot of pressure on the corset, and then we had to dance for around ten hours, all the time the dress putting pressure on my corset laces.

When I got home and de-corseted I discovered that I had managed to blister my back and now I can't lace up again until it heals.

25. It's Fine To Need To Find Someone Attractive

Another peice of weirdness I often see pushed onto young people, especially young women is that it's somehow shallow to need someone to be attractive before datin them.

Obviously looks aren't everything, but it's fine to want attractiveness to, especially when you're young and just finding yourself.

24. It's Ok To Burn Bridges

It's ok to cut people out of your life if you have more negative experiences than positive ones, no matter who they are.

23. Learn To Love The Things You Hate About Yourself

When I was a teenager, I hated my nose, I thought it was huge and I hated my big feet. It didn't help that when people picked on me, those were the things they went

for first, but as I got older I learned to accept my nose, it's not as big as I thought, and yes my feet are big, but there's nothing inherently wrong with that, and

actually they're kind of a plus sometimes. I learned that if I learned to love myself nobody could use those things against me any more.

22. If You Can't Afford To Own Something, Learn To Make It From Scratch

I wanted an embroidered dress, so I learned to embroider

Obviously this isn't one that works for everbody, but it's worked out pretty well for me before, it's actually one of the reasons I learned to sew in the first place,

and then once I got good at sewing I taught myself other skills, that way I could still have pretty things when I didn't have a lot of money to spend. Even now when

I am not in such a bad financial situation I still tend to prefer to make things where I can as I'm more likely to end up with exactly what I want and a good and 

flattering fit.

21. Money Isn't Everything, But It's Easier To Cry In A Sportscar

Or this dress, which I can't afford to buy yet

While it is true that money sin't everything, and it can't buy you happiness, it can certainly make you an awful lot more comfortable in your misery.

Another Wedding Update

20. Body Positivity is for EVERY BODY

Even if the body in question is corseted

I keep seeing people using body positivity as an excuse to tear other people down, and that's not ok. First of all you can't really claim you're being positive if 

you're actually being negative, you're missing the point completely.

Fat, thin, tall, short, able bodied, disabled, peson of colour, white, body mods, no body mods, body positivity is for ALL OF THOSE PEOPLE and more.

19. Don't Let Men Dictate Your Life

Live how you want to live, not how men tell you to live.

Coven

Photo by Jazz Devil

On Sunday North East Alternative Models and Photographers had another group shoot, the theme this time was Coven.

Shot by Patrick Fall

There were a lot of photographers I had never worked with before this time, many of whom had some really interesting and artistic ideas, such ad Patrick's infra-red photography, which translates all of the colours in the image into colours on the infra-red spectrum.

Chris Anderson Photography

I was loaned an outfit from Forever in Black, and it's so pretty I think I'm going to have trouble giving it back.

Doreen Hart Photography

The rest of the photos can be found on my like page.

18. Tattoos Don't Have To Mean Anything

For example I really want this page from The Sandman on me

I mean it's cool if they do and everything but but you don't need to have a reason for having a unicorn on your calf.

Poetry Corner: Mary Shelley's Stanzas

17. If It Makes You Feel Good Do It

Anna Heid

Unless it's murder or something like that, Queens of the Wild Frontier does not condone murder, chcocolate cake, sex and loud music though? Go right ahead because that

shit is awesome.

16. None Of Your Emotions Are Pointless

Yes, yes that is an Alot dressed as Geralt of Rivia

When I was younger I convinced myself that regret was a pointless emotion, I shouldn't ever regret doing anything, now though I feel like that was an almost sociopathic

way to think. You shouldn't let regret over small events rule you, but at the same time, regret is important, regretting past mistakes helps you not make them again.

15. Don't Be Afraid To Take Opportunities

I have missed out on some great things because I've been to scared to take the plunge.

14. Research, Research, Research

I suppose this one sort of ties back in with 11, but this one is more about opinions than skills. When I was a child and a young teenager, I didn't really have a lot of

outside input, and so my opinions were mostly the opinions of people older than me and the newspapers my family bought (The Sun, which I would not buy if my life depended

on it these days). I thought bisexuality wasn't real, people on welfare were lazy and didn't work by choice and that abortion was murder and should be illegal.

When I came out to myself in my mid-teens that I was bisexual (although now I no longer use this label, as I have been attracted to people all over the gender spectrum

and I feel weird about using the prefix "bi" when I don't really subscribe to gender binary and I am non-binary myself, so these days I tend to go for queer), I felt 

weird and iscolated, I realised that the negative opinions off bisexuality I had heard had made me convince myself I was something I was not. Finally I realised that

actually I had been having same sex crushes for ust as long as I'd had opposite sex crushes, and that yes actually I did have a crush on my primary school best friend

and that weird feeling I got when I saw another friend wear the colour yellow, that was attraction. This was real, I couldn't just "pick a side" because I couldn't control

who I found attractive, I wasn't doing this for male attention, I wasn't confused, so if I was real thn bisexuality must be real, and if that was the case, what else

might I be wrong about because I didn't know the whole picture?

So now, wherever possible I make an effort to do my research and try to see the whole picture before forming an opinion on something.

13. It's Ok To Ask For Help

For example you might need help dancing

No matter what it is you need help with, no matter who tries to tell you otherwise, it's ok to ask for help. The thing to remember is just because you ask for help

doesn't always mean you'll get it, or if you do that it'll be straight away.

I asked for help when my panic attacks got really bad and although I didn't end up getting much out of the course I was put on, I did get a diagnosis though which helps in

that I know I'm not panicking over nothing, I do have a problem, and I've managed to find out some things that don't help, which will surely make it easier to find out

what will in the long run.

12. If At First You Don't Succeed, Re-examine If It Was The Right Thing To Do.

The definition of insanity, is apparently to repeat the same actions and expect different consiquences. So in my experience it's best to look into why whatever it was that failed, failed. 

Is it something you really want to do? Is it worth trying again? If you try it again what will you have to do differently? And how will you do it?

11. It's Never To Late To Learn Something New.

Don't waste time moping, go out and learn something new that you want to. I'm personally a big fan of Futurelearn.

10. The Friendzone Is Not A THING

It's not real, don't let a guy try and pressure you into dating him with tales of the friendzone. You don't owe anybody affection.

9. Make Time For Yourself.

This is something I'm often quite guilty of. I'm a bit of a mother hen, I like to make sure all my friends are happy and enjoying themselves, and if they have something goes wrong I like to be there to help.

Sometimes though, it gets to much and I manage to wrap myself up so much in solving other people's problems that I don't have time to solve my own. 

But it's ok to make time for yourself, and you really should now and then.

8. The Best Revenge is to be a better person

I don't just mean in the philosophical sense, what are they good at? Be better at that thing they like than them.

7. Ignoring problems doesn't make them go away.

Ever had a scratch that you thought if you ignored it would get better decide to get infected, actually get worse and you end up on antibiotics?

So why do people assume that ignoring people that make you feel bad will make them go away?

Probably the worst piece of advice I've ever heard, and I have been hearing over and over again since I was a child is that if you are being bullied you should ignore the bully and they will go away.

In my experience they don't go away, they just keep going, but the other problem is if they do leave you alone, what then? They've learned nothing and just move onto someone else.

Now obviously every situation is different, but personally I prefer to confront bullies wherever possible, I call them out and I refuse to accept that kind of treatment, but I don't ignore, 

ignoring a situation won't change it, and I don't know who they'll move onto next, they might not be able to handle it as well as me and I wouldn't want that on my conscience. 

6. You don't have to justify what your body looks like to anybody.

Camille Clifford

Why are you so tall? Why are you so fat?

Better question, why is it any of your business?

5. Don't go looking for love, let it find you.

When I met Kev I had ust come out of a relationship with someone who really hurt me, I wasn't looking for a relationship and I will freely admit I was just looking for someone to keep me entertained over the Summer, and well Summer just never ended.

Thinking about it, every time I've found myself in a great relationship has been times I wasn't really looking for a relationship, and looking back at people I knew when I was younger who from their teens would always talk about how they needed a girlfriend or a boyfriend and would get really sad when they didn't have one, they're still like that, and usually still single.

Maybe it's just me, but I kinda feel like people can tell when you're desperate to get into a relationship, any relationship at all and it scares them off because it can come across as really creepy and clingy, and so you end up attracting totally the wrong people because you end up in relationships with other people who are creepy and clingy and don't realise you're not suited to each other until you've signed a 25 year mortgage.

I know the media like to push this image on people, women especially that if you don't find someone right now you'll end up alone forever, but I really don't think that is the case. YMMV.

Tracer Magazine Flip Through

4. It's ok to make mistakes so long as you learn from them.

Nobody is perfect, and mistakes happen, it's part of a learning process, but the only way you will get anywhere is to learn from your mistakes so you won't make them again.

3. It's fine to wear what you want, but don't judge other people for wearing what they want.

When I was a teenager I started getting interested in alternative fashions, and because of that I started hanging out with people who wore them, but they'd often act really superior about how they dressed and come out with the phrase "wear what you like" but then they'd also be really judgemental of people who wore mainstream fashions.

I grew up in Gateshead, which is just over the River Tyne from Newcastle, so the mainstream at the time didn't look much different from what people wear on Geordie Shore (see above), just back in the late 90's and early 2000's the average "charva" (which then became "charv" before eventually developing into "chav") wore a lot of sportswear, Kappa, Von Dutch, Burberry, except that there was (and still is) a high amount of unemployment in the north so people would buy weird knock off brands instead so it would often be "Slappa", "Von Bitch" and "Blueberry" instead, the girls wore a lot of fake tan and had massive fringes that were dyed a totally different colour to the rest of their hair, and back then the guys wouldn't touch fake tan if their life depended on it (seriously, I never saw an orange guy in Newcastle until Geordie Shore started airing, then suddenly they were everywhere), and often had a random bleach splodge on the top of their head, or a haircut called "the mushroom" which basically meant their mam couldn't afford to get them a haircut this month so she whack a bowl over their head and trimmed around it with the kitchen scissors before getting a bit creative with their dad's electric shaver at the bottom. Anyway as soon as I was allowed to pick my own clothes I went a bit more alt, bless us we called it goth but really it was a miss-match of goth, emo, punk and whatever we could get our hands on that didn't look like something the charvs would wear.

There was rivalry between the two style tribes, with the charvas not understanding why we wouldn't dress like normal people, and us not understanding why people would all want to dress the same, and people botch at each other in the streets, but quite often the alt types would call out the charvas with no prior provocation, an yeah I took part in that , but I grew up and learned how hypocritical it is.

The trouble is people who never grow out for that, and never seem to learn that if you're allowed to wear things you like, then other people are to, if you're allowed to to slap on the corpse paint then they're allowed to be orange, taking offence at someone's fake tan when you're in shironuri is incredibly hypocritical.

And it doesn't just happen between different style tribes, I see it happen a lot within scenes now, some (not all) older goths hating on younger goths and trying to impose ridiculous "you have to dress exactly like this, or we'll judge you" rules on them, cybers and victorian goths not getting along, people completely rejecting pastel goths and it's all just really stupid, and one of the reasons I stopped going to Whitby Goth Weekend.

2. It's ok to cry

No seriously, it is. When I was a child and I was upset I'd cry, and sometimes I was upset because I'd got caught doing something wrong, and yeah I was in the wrong but it still hurt and upset me that I was being shouted at or hit for it, it still felt the same as other upset so I'd cry, this would annoy my parents and my teachers and they's scream at me for "turning on the waterworks for sympathy" which wasn't what I was doing, I was crying because I was upset. Anyway this led me to thinking that feeling sad was a feeling I should associate with shame, and that I shouldn't cry ever, which led me to bottling up my feelings (ironically the same people who had put me in this position would then go and tell me not to bottle up my feelings), and because my feelings had no outlet I began to feel weird and numb, I went from feeling everything to feeling nothing, and as a young teenager I self harmed because I wanted to feel something other than empty, and while that totally wasn't a healthy outlet it did make me feel something, the trouble was it became a bit of a crutch and I quickly became addicted to doing it. It'been elven years now since I last self harmed, but re-balancing my feelings was a long and hard process, and it was very hard to break the "don't cry" conditioning, but now as an adult, if I feel myself needing to cry, I do. Sometimes it's because something sad happened, sometimes it's just because oestrogen is getting the better of me, sometimes it's frustration, fear, regret, loneliness, joy, and sometimes because I did something wrong and I feel bad about it, they're all valid reasons to cry and it's ok to let it out.

1. Always remember, you are unique... Just like everybody else.

Like I said in the intro, a lot of people have given me advice, and it doesn't always fit me, but that's because we all have different life experiences, and so there is no universal advice, you just have to do what works for you. This is a list of things that work for me, and hopefully you can get something out of it, but if you don't then that's ok, do what works for you.

27 Things 27 Years Have Taught Me

Next month I turn 27, which seems kinda weird as I still don't actually feel like an adult yet, but well, here I am!

So in that time I've heard a lot of advice from people older than me, and some of it yeah it's helpful, other stuff just feels like people trying to push their ideals onto me, which is totally not cool.

The other thing I noticed is I'm starting to get a lot of younger people follow my various social networks lately and so I wanted to give out my own (hopefully more realistic) advice based on the things I've learned over my life journey so far.

I had initially intended this to be one long post but it ended up being huge, so I'm going to split it up, probably over the next  27 days.

Buns!

Probably My Greatest Artistic Work

This popped up as a Facebook memory for me a few days back, yes, yes it is Gary Numan with a Baby the Stars Shine Bright bow badly photoshopped onto his head.

Why?

Kind of a weird one really (no shit).

So six years ago I caught someone who claimed to be my friend not so anonymously posting rubbish about me online, I had suspected her for a while because she had pretty bad dyslexia, and whoever it was that was posting about me kept misspelling a lot of the same words as she often miss spelled, but part of me hoped I was wrong, and that maybe it was just a very committed troll trying to frame her.

I found out for certain it was her when she posted about me to the old Lolita secrets comm (the one from before Behind the Bows), it was a screencap of photo I'd posted to Facebook and some comments people had left on it (all nice), she'd written something crappy over the top, I don't remember exactly what but something about how I was ugly and should leave the fashion, the way I realised for sure it was her though was because she used google chrome as her browser and forgot to trim out her favourites bar.

Obviously I coudn't stay friends with someone who would stab me in the back like that, and so we cut contact.

The secrets about me stopped for a while, that was until I stopped moping and started doing fun stuff with my life. I did Snog, Marry, Avoid and went to a lot of really awesome gigs and got photos with people in bands and blogged about it.

In amongst that period of awesome Kev interviewed Gary Numan after we'd been running around York all day at DV8 Festival, honestly I looked like I'd been dragged through a hedge backwards by this point in the day, but I got to listen to Gary Numan wax lyrical about music and how much he liked lego, and why he quit flying, and I had to get a photo with him.

The following week over half of the secrets in Loli secrets were about me, most of them not even related to lolita fashion, there were photos of me at the end of gigs with my make up melting down my face, but I was hugging someone from a band or something and I was still so thrilled by the whole getting to meet my heroes thing that I didn't care I looked like I'd been fished out of a river (I still don't actually but for different reasons), it was the one above that made me finally stop being upset by these secrets and realise just how ridiculous this whole thing was. I would never claim to be perfect, but I didn't put people down, this was a photo of a great day and someone, maybe my ex friend, maybe someone else, had trimmed it down to make me look as bad as possible and accompanied it with their hypocritical, judgemental bile.

And so instead of commenting and getting a ton of "anonymous" messages back, I photoshopped a Baby the Stars Shine Bright bow onto a photo of Gary Numan looking a bit pissed off and anonymously submitted it to the next week's secrets. Nobody understood but me,but they didn't really need to.

Since then this has become a bit of a running joke with one of my besties, a few years back a postcard site had a promotion where you could send out free postcards with any image on them to people, and we both sent each other bow Gary and creeped out our respective postmen.

February Updates