See Victoria run. See Victoria slip, fall, and skid down the ice like it's January in Falias.

Winter's finally here, and, frankly, I'm not sure what I think of that. I like the cold. I enjoy the fact that it let's me wear my long coats and heavier outfits without perspiring or expiring from heatstroke. The issue with the winter where I currently reside is a (bad) habit of the climate, which is to snow several times preceding the onset of true winter, each time ending with the snow melting. Then the temperature drops like a newborn elephant, meaning all the water floating around on the surface freezes into a thin layer of the most vicious ice you will ever come across. It's slick as hell, often has sharp edges, is blackened from soil and ashphalt, and enjoys (if ice can experience pleasure) lying in wait for passersby, (like myself) who are in a hurry because it's bloody freezing outside, to send us sprawling. It's practically in one's best interest to wear crampons, and during this period there's usually an upswing of people heading to Health Services with bloody noses, cracked skulls, and other 'sneaky bastard ice' related injuries. As suggested before, I've fallen over several times, as I'm still getting my 'ice legs' back, but I've experienced no major trauma other than bruised pride.

In other news, the 'big buy' was decided on - the black bustle coat - purchased, and has arrived. It's quite gorgeous, and I've already recieved several compliments, the most charming being from a girl I don't even know who described the coat as 'frill-tacular'. I'm eager to wear it upon my return home, especially in conjunction with my favorite hat. Said return home weighs heavily on my mind these days. I catch myself day-dreaming of my mom's cooking and the delights of a bed with full box springs. I'll be seeing my three best friends as well, and we have plans to shop, dine, and promenade all over the place. I also intend to stuff myself like last month's turkey on all the edible delights I miss while at school, including such things as gumbo, sushi, and as much Lebanese food as I can feasibly digest.

Before I go home, however, I have to negotiate the landmine of Finals Week. I thankfully get the two worst ones out of my way in one fell swoop, so at least that's an upshot.

I'm also glad that everyone liked the vlog - I will probably be doing more in future, especially when I find myself strapped for time.

Safe flying, airship pilots!

The pear of anguish, impalement, and crappy shopping

So after a crazy, crazy weekend I come once more to my blog. Things move apace, my readers, what with my prepping for the Emilie Autumn concert (note the banner at the bottom of the blog), and making plans for my 'big buy'. The big buy is a piece of clothing that I purchase before the yuletide season and which makes me the star attraction at any event I go to. What this year's will be is still up in the air, though I'm very tempted by a red corset, a bustle jacket, and a short kimono dress. The pics below feature the three of them.

That aside, I also recently saw the Mother of Tears, a film by Dario Argento that completes his 'Three Mothers' cycle, which is a series of movies that feature three powerful and evil witches who are defeated, one after the other. I saw Suspiria - the first of the three - at a showing by my college's film club, and absolutely loved it. Now this isn't, admittedly, a steampunk movie in any way shape, or form, but it was a super creepy and violent romp (involving someone falling into a room full of razor wire and forever putting Saw to shame,) and given that I am a huge horror movie buff I was eager to see The Mother of Tears, which came out much more recently. So after chugging around on the internet for awhile I was able view it, and all I have to say is this: HOLY SHIT. There's alot of stupid in the movie, including some really atrocious dialogue, and more than a couple of gaping plotholes or obvious 'don't go in there!' type scares, but the big thing that made the movie absolutely bizarre to watch is the death scenes. As a history nerd and would-be museum curator, I have a fairly extensive knowledge of mediaeval torture devices, and this film features at least two EXTREMELY OBSCURE ones. I won't go into the nitty gritty about it, but know that it was as if someone had turned Dario Argento loose in the Spanish Inquisition (which no one expects) and said 'take whatever you want.'

Still looking for that steampunk lamp. Lots of good candidates are arraying themselves before me, and the question now arises as to whether or not it will sit on the desk or hang from the ceiling.

And finally, to revert to the mention of my weekend, I have a sort of 'mini-review' to share. Once I'd stabilized and wasn't reeling every time I stood up, my roommate and I packed ourselves into her car and drove to Ann Arbor, with the intent of getting her some period looking clothes for the concert. I'd done some online research and been informed that there was a shop called 'Adorn Me' that dealt in alot of lacy shirts and velvet coats, so I figured it was our best option. No sooner had we entered the shop, however, than I was proved deeply and egregiously wrong. The store was like a million boutiques across the US, featuring ugly hobo purses in technicolor leather with gilded chains, chunky plastic bracelets being sold for twice their actual worth (if not more), slouchy shirts that sag in all the wrong places, and enormous sunglasses that give one the appearance of being either a fighter pilot or a bug. Take your pick. I was thoroughly peeved, and my roommate and I beat a hasty retreat while trying not to make excessive faces or - in my case - dry heave from the highly chemical odor that permeated the whole place. So if you're ever in Ann Arbor, dear readers with any sense of taste, steer clear of Adorn Me.

Safe flying, airship pilots!

The aristocrat plans for a concert

So now it's time for some actual writing, after last week's photo only post.

My biggest steampunk-related (or semi steampunk) interest these days is the fact that I will be going to the Emilie Autumn concert on December 6th, and it is my fervent desire to dress myself to the aristocratic nines for the occasion. This will be my first concert, interestingly enough, in that my childhood was spent primarily cloistered away from the world in an all girl's Catholic school where it was in my best interest to remain as reclusive as possible, so as to avoid the attention of the bigger fish in the pond, i.e. the blonde and gucci-clad girls who held in their hands the power to ruin one's life. It is rather strange, now that I think about it, that they held so much sway in highschool, but now that I am in college I see their kind every day and they have no power over me.

I am also on the prowl for a steampunk lamp. It's my intention to turn my room at my family's cottage into the lair of a gear-head naturalist, with steampunk gadgets, lithographs of plants, and shadowboxed bugs on the walls. I have several very nice candidates from Etsy, but I'm going to wait before I jump on any specific one. And while I'm on the subject, I've managed to get my roomie addicted to Etsy. Ah Etsy, the gift that keeps on giving.

 

Still no real improvement in the boyfriend arena. I've got my hooks dangling and baited in the water, but they've only had sporadic nibbling, and the one fish I'm most interested to hook worries me, as I'm not sure whether I'd be landing a prize bass or a hammerhead shark. I guess we'll just have to see, won't we readers?

 

And as I've said before, please feel free to give me suggestions for things to review either by email or in the comments. I'm always happy to oblige.

Safe flying, airship pirates!

Halloween: Costumes, pumpkins, ghosts, and hangovers.

Well Halloween was wild, and the ensuing week exhausting. So instead of a cohesive post, I present pics of myself in full costume.

There is no epidural for the birth of a book

My novel is officially two chapters long now, and by the very fact that the first chapter is complete the book’s chances of survival are hugely increased. It’s a sad but true fact in my case that dozens of story ideas that I have never make it onto a page. I lose interest, the idea doesn’t pan out, something better comes along, and the previous concept gets reabsorbed into my mind. The loss is always disheartening, but this time it looks like the culmination of dozens of scrapped ideas have formed into a new and hardier specimen, one that I can write without feeling put upon or dissatisfied. Here are some samples of said novel, just to pique your interest:
“Listen, Gabriel, I don’t know what the hell is going on but I do know that the man who raised me has been murdered and the last things he was able to pass on to me were a book full of cryptic writing, a necklace that I know I’ve seen even if I have no overt memory of it, and a note telling me to run for my life. So pardon me if I’m a little hysterical.”

“We have a murderer in London who’s clearly out of his mind and threatening to do harm to others, assassination attempts on her Majesty, and all manner of petty crime and theft besides, but we’re supposed to drop everything to investigate the death of some French artist’s model?”

“Mother, the man who tried to kill me had a picture of your necklace in his pocket. I have to know what all this is about.”
“Oh god, I’d hoped to spare you this,” Ramses’ mother turned away from him, hugging herself as though she was cold in the blazing Egyptian sun, “I’d hoped your French blood would thin out the curse that runs in our family.”

In the meantime I’m working out my Halloween plans. My costume is all lined up – I’m going as a kitsune, a Japanese fox spirit – and am only waiting on the mask. I also recently purchased some sock garters decorated with gears from the online shop known as Sock Dreams, which will get a critique once I get some time to do shops as well as media in my reviews. I’m also trying to think up a way to do a Steampunk jack o’ lantern, though I’ll probably just copy the face of the pumpkin scarecrow in Sleepy Hollow, like I do every year, and searching for Halloween parties to gatecrash and/or have a grand time at.
And on a final note I’m currently on the lookout for a boyfriend, in that I’m officially sick of being single. I’m not going to talk about my candidates here, as god knows who reads this blog *shifty eyes* but rest assured they exist and you may get updates on the Steampunk Aristocrat’s attempts to find love.

Safe flying, airship pilots!

I know I’m back in college when I wake up with strange books all over my bed and haven’t a clue how they got there.

Wow. What else is there to say, really? Over the last week I have gained over twenty new subscribers to my youtube channel and four new watchers on my blog. I’m not really sure what to say about it, though grateful and honored don’t begin to describe my feelings. I started making these videos practically on a whim, and I am so unbelievably happy that they’re well liked. I’m also curious as to where the sudden windfall of attention has come from. It seemed like overnight people were beating down my youtube door, and though I don’t want to look a gift horse in the mouth I’m still curious as to the ‘source point’ of all this attention. Or, perhaps, there isn’t one, and my sudden deluge of subscribers is a standalone complex to rival anything Ghost in the Shell has ever had to deal with.

Now to jump to an unrelated topic, Etsy Vs. Artfire. This is a nasty, prickly issue that has popped up in my life more and more recently, mostly because I’m an Etsy addict. The argument I’ve heard thus far is that Artfire is more independently minded and just generally better. I, however, still favor Etsy for several reason: most prominent, I find that the aesthetic design of Etsy is superior. It’s simple white background and lack of clutter is less distracting than the colorful and image heavy front page of Artfire. After that point I don’t see any particular level of superiority vs. inferiority. If I wanted to sell via one or the other, perhaps I would have stronger feelings. But I’m not a seller, I’m a buyer and a critic of shops from the patron end of things. I can also say that I tend to trust Etsy more because it’s been around longer, a classic symptom of my tried-and-true loving Capricorn nature. If Artfire manages to make a bigger name for itself as a good seller and not just a champion of the under-fed artist I’ll take more note of it.

And on a final note, I still have no freshman shadow, which is just fine by me. I’m busy enough with my awesome roommate. Our relationship is something on par with Holmes and Watson. I’m the Holmes, quiet, antisocial, busy with my computer the way the famous detective was busy with his chemistry set. My roomie, on the other hand, is a far more friendly being, selfless to a fault, willing to help people regardless of time or trouble, a perfect double of Watson, albeit a version of Watson that has two X chromosomes. I’d say we make a good team, and we are certainly a superior one to that which I had the year before, in which my roommate considered my fantasy magazines and novels to be evil. More on that in later entries.

Safe flying, airship pilots!

Chaos and Cards

Well with my new review posted and my next review in the works, something has occurred to me. When I first posted Episode 8 the credits music was Depeche Mode’s well known song, ‘Personal Jesus’. No sooner had I uploaded the video, however, than youtube muted the entire thing because I had used that song and apparently I didn’t have the right to. I was then forced to take it down, change the music to E Nomine’s ‘Mondengel’, and reupload. This whole affair was a phenomenal pain in the ass, and I have thereby come to the conclusion that, simply put, I need some theme music of my own, since I do not ever want to have to fidget constantly with the video, checking and rechecking that it hasn’t been muted.

Now I don’t know how many people read my blog regularly, but I’m going to post this here and on my youtube channel: I’m holding a contest to see who can make me the best theme music. It can be any style, with lyrics or without, I’m not picky. The one I like will become my official theme music and play over the endings and possibly the opener (which I’m considering adding) of all my episodes, with credit given to the composer in the credits. It’s that simple.

All this aside, not all that much has been happening this week. My most exciting prospects will occur this Saturday, when I learn to play whist for the first time. I’m a lover of card games of all kinds, though I’m severely out of practice, with my favorite games being Texas Hold ‘Em, Five Card Stud, BS, and Black Jack respectively. I would, however, like to learn some older, more upper crust card games, particularly ones that would have been played during the Victorian era, and whist seems like a good place to start. As a child I was also taught rummy, and I will hopefully renew my ability to play that as well.

Safe flying, airship pilots!