Chasing my aesthetic (a tour of my stuff)

Hello again! Tonight I'd like to show you around my room a bit. I still struggle with clutter quite a bit but there are a few places that I'm proud of, aesthetically speaking.  Apologies for the low quality pictures. 

Here are some of my accessories. The tiny top hats are from A Red Thread Clothing.  I would wear them literally all the time but I need to fix the fastenings.

I have so many accessories that I love, but which give me dysphoria. I'd love to figure out ways to wear them that let me express my inner feminine masculinity. 

This bookcase showcases three of my gothy loves. 

1) Draculaura (and Elissabat) from Monster High, which is a setting I adore because it's perfectly normal to be whimsical and spooky. Not to mention most characters are decent to each other. 

2) the Gothic Charm School book. The Lady of the Manners is one of my personal role models, and her advice column has remained invaluable since my babybat days. 

3) the Vampire Kisses series by Ellen Schreiber. It's about two goth kids who delight in their shared subculture. Although I love the main character, I always related more to her male love interest, a quiet artsy vampire boy named Alexander Sterling. Yep, Sterling. With great gusto, I named myself after him. 

And here's my altar to the God. Sorry for the bad lighting! That book in the background (doubling as my God "figurine") is called Horns of Power and I highly recommend it. Also featured are the rainbow candle which I use to invoke Nonbinary Deity in the first ritual I led, and my bottle of testosterone gel. On that note, today I'm two months on T!

Next time I hope to take stock of the current state of my wardrobe, but I have to do laundry first. ^^;

A warm welcome (Who is this enspelled prince?)

Hello and welcome. It's been a while since I created a blog, or indeed since I blogged (semi) regularly. If you're here from The Midnight Ballroom, thank you for accompanying me this far on my journey!

My name is Sterling. That's my (soon-to-be) legal name anyway. But I have two other names I consider just as real, if rather more fanciful: RainShadow_Raven and DuskRose_Dreaming, or Rain and Dusk for short. Forgive the weird punctuation--they started out as screen names and to this day writing them in any more "normal" way looks weird to me.

DuskRose_Dreaming was the name under which I wrote at the The Midnight Ballroom. It was the name I gave to my ideal female self, an eccentric ethereal goth girl who wore gothic lolita every day and lived in an aristocratic mansion.

But at the same time, I had this very strange and distressing urge to be a...a faery prince? With long hair and poet shirts and laceup boots and top hats, and be as pretty as I was male? I was nineteen, and I had no idea that one was "allowed" to be other than cisgender. All I knew was that my wish and my misery were probably "wrong," and that terrified me. But nonetheless I named that prince. That's where Rain came from. (His name had to match Dusk, you see, because I like patterns.) I named those two sides of me after my two favorite circumstances in which to venture out of the house.

All that said, let me introduce myself. I'm a nonbinary trans man (Rain) who's sometimes a not-quite-girl (Dusk). I'm bigender, and gay and polyamorous. And very femme.

I practice Wicca as an eclectic witch. Although I love the Goddess, in particular I work with the Horned God, who I feel empowers my queer masculinity.

I love the goth subculture, and gothic lolita fashion and lifestyle (and you'll find absolutely zero gatekeeping here). I'm currently trying to build and rebuild my wardrobe, in two genders this time. Hope my sewing machine is up to it.

As I found myself, I've come to care deeply about social justice. I consider myself a leftist, and try to be active in fighting against all forms of oppression.

On a lighter note, I have a zillion creative-type hobbies, or should I say passions? You know, my real life's work. I'm working on a webcomic about vampires and fae folk and magical girls and witches oh my, so expect updates on that. I create art and music and languages. I sew and craft.

Speaking of music, I just created a Bandcamp if you're interested. Some of the songs are about my characters, and some concern my own life experiences. I've been writing for sixteen years, so it's amazing to finally be able to share the music that was in my head all this time. In the future I'd love to give a more in depth explanation of individual lyrics, or share new songs with you.

In the past my blogging tapered off because I didn't feel I had anything exciting to say about my main niche--goth and gothic lolita fashion and/or lifestyle (and it doesn't help that I'm battling depression and anxiety and ptsd). But I think I want this blog to just be about my life, in general. Of course fashion and general aesthetics will be a big part of it, don't worry.

And before I forget, an outfit of the day.

Until next time.