Category Archives: Stuff & Oddments

Hello, Faithful Readers, and welcome to yet another month’s worth of musings at Gothic Charm School. This time, to start things off, a brief, appetizer-like announcement: the Gothic Charm School Archives website is sloooooooowly being built over at www.gothic-charm-school.com. Shiny new columns will still be here every month at Gothic.Net, don’t fret; the Lady of the Manners just felt that she really should do something with all those past columns sitting around on her hard drive. Be warned ”” when the Lady of the Manners says sloooooooowly being built ”” she isn’t joking. But it should be a suitably entertaining diversion for everyone concerned, so do pay a visit.
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Hello Faithful Readers, and welcome to March’s rousing rendition of Gothic Charm School. *This* month the Lady of the Manners is finally going to make good on something she’s been muttering about for a couple months now. That’s right, the long-threatened LiveJournal etiquette rant! Er ”¦ column.
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Helllooo Faithful Readers, and welcome to February’s Gothic Charm School. Now as some of you will remember, in Februarys past the Lady of the Manners has talked about the etiquette of romance and break-ups. Appropriate behavior, what NOT to say, that sort of thing. And she very nearly decided to talk some more about that subject, since it seems that several of her friends have decided to ”¦ re-group themselves. However, Gothic Miss Manners decided against it. This month, the Lady of the Manners is going to talk about something that is becoming more and more of a burning issue in GothyLand ”” good manners for the ever-increasing cross-pollination between the fetish and gothic communities. Continue reading →

Hello Faithful Readers, and welcome to Gothic Charm School in 2002! This month, the Lady of the Manners is going to hold forth on a topic she’s been thinking about off and on for a couple of months now. (Besides goth club etiquette and her annoyance at people and LiveJournals, she means. Club Etiquette was part of last month’s column, and etiquette concerning LiveJournals will have to wait until the Lady of the Manners’ temper cools a bit.) No, this month the Lady of the Manners will talk about being too goth. Continue reading →

Hello Faithful Readers, and welcome to the March edition of Gothic Charm School. This month, the Lady of the Manners answers a hodge-podge of questions and marvels at some misconceptions that are floating around out there in Internet-land. Continue reading →

Hello, Faithful Readers, and welcome to Gothic Charm School in 2000. Not, mind you, that the turn of the century will have that much of an impact on the Lady of the Manners’ advice, but since everyone else seems to have made such a fuss about it becoming a new century, she feels she might as well go along with it. (Though it is the Lady of the Manners’ personal opinion that the last turn of the century had much, much better clothes. No one can convince her that the continual re-visiting of the 1970s by fashion designers is a Good Thing.) Continue reading →

Hello, faithful readers, it’s June. For those of you still incarcerated in school, your seasonal freedom is soon at hand! No more for you the drudgery of doing homework, kowtowing to teachers, or panicking at the words “pop quiz.” Of course, that doesn’t mean you’re going to stop learning. Oh no; the Lady of the Manners is here to kick off summer vacation with an overview of the Basics of Being a Goth. Why, you ask? Read this missive from one of the Faithful Readers and you’ll understand. Continue reading →

Manners are important. The Lady of the Manners knows that is a somewhat old-fashioned notion, but she firmly believes that life nowadays would be much more pleasant if everyone minded their “P’s and Q’s”. No, she doesn’t mean the fiddly little details of knowing what fork to use next at a formal dinner party (though that sort of ”˜esoteric’ knowledge adds a nice polish to one’s character), but how to deal gracefully with the myriad little trials life puts us through. Besides, the majority of people out there expect goths to be over-the-top, drug-crazed satanic barbarians with no concept of etiquette. Since the Lady of the Manners is particularly fond of the moral high ground when dealing with that sort of person, she has made it her goal to behave properly, which tends to unnerve them even more. Continue reading →