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ocdvampire · 16 days ago

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Top 10 Goth Gift Stores to Explore This Holiday Season

Discover the best goth gift stores to find unique presents this holiday season. From gothic jewelry to dark art, explore curated shops perfect for your spooky holiday list.

Shopping for your black-hearted darling can be challenging if you’re unfamiliar with the alternative lifestyle. So, looking for the perfect gift? These goth gift stores offer a range of dark and unique items for the holidays. Let’s take a look!

Note: “They” is used to facilitate the reading as GBM didn’t want to assume the pronouns of any shop owner.

Dracula Clothing

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Located in Zatec, Czechia, in Europe, Dracula Clothing offers a wide range of unique gothic gifts. The owner wished to create an alternative clothing fashion line for people like them to enjoy. At first, they thought perhaps it’d only be for friends and family members, but they ended up selling worldwide.

What is also charming about Dracula Clothing is its pride in creating high-quality, timeless, classic pieces of clothing that last. They value the environment and prioritize quality over quantity. So, as a buyer, you can be sure that whatever you buy from them is something your goth will enjoy, feel great about, and keep.

Dracula Clothing’s fashion is Victorian-style. It is an old-time classic and offers an official and elegant look for important meetings, soirees, or official family gatherings. A bit more on the pricey side of the list, Dracula Clothing can offer a wide variety of eloquence in its pieces of clothing, from corsets to winter coats.

The Blackened Teeth

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Don’t you ever go into a room and wish you had a better way to light it up? Anywhere I go, everyone has the same lamps and lighting fixtures. But lights can make a bold statement in someone’s home. They can show who you are and what you enjoy. It doesn’t have to be boring!

The Blackened Teeth has many gothic holiday gift ideas for anyone looking for something different while keeping a classic look. Founded in 2018, the Etsy store is located in the United Kingdom, Europe, where Rebecca and Lee make death a fashion statement.

Fascinated by the tomblike and grotesque aspect of death, The Blackened Teeth brings the most unique and macabre pieces of art to their lamps and wall hangings. Located at the higher end of the spectrum in this list, the Etsy store can offer a gothic fashion statement for any alternative soul out there.

Shield Maiden Jewelry

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Alternative holiday shopping isn’t always easy. But handcrafted jewellery is always a special gift for any edgy darlings in your life. On the more expensive side, you can be sure of the quality of any items from this edgy Etsy shop.

With seventy-two hundred sales, the Shield Maiden Jewelry store is a safe place to shop. The shop has been available on Etsy since 2017 and is also building a good reputation. The owner has the soul of a Viking and the creativity of a most empowered maiden. She brings Norse beauty to every item they make.

Proud to use ethical materials to make her jewelry, this creator is determined to make her clients proud to wear her creations. “Gothic Glamour” is what she calls her artwork, and with that said, you can make sure any warrior, edgy, and goth would be proud to have one of her pieces to wear!

Vampire Freaks

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Vampire Freaks is a little gem of a store I came across while looking for goth stores for the holidays! This store proudly expresses that it is a safe place for the LGBTQ+ community, promises to protect all animal life, making it vegan-friendly, and embraces people of all ages and from everywhere.

This place is perfect for gothic Christmas gifts! Founded in 1999, Vampire Freak has been part of the alternative culture for a while. This impressive independent store is managed and owned by a lovely gothic married couple and their black cat, who seems to be the big boss! They welcome you to their store to find the perfect gift for your little goth!

Vampire Freak started in New York, United States, as a message board and grew into a store. It even had a physical store for three years, from 2009 to 2012. But in 2020, Vampire Freak had its large warehouse in Philadelphia. It’s even the owner of a gothic American festival, Dark Force Fest.

I don’t think one can be more gothic than a store named Vampire Freak! It is quite easy to get lost on their website and enjoy all their alternative goodies! For alternative holiday shopping, I believe they have what your goth darling would want at reasonable prices and a wide variety of sizes.

Hard N Heavy

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For Gothic Christmas gifts, we can look toward a lesser-known but verified Google online store called Hard N Heavy. In this one-stop shop, you can find anything for an alternative wardrobe. But I wanted to share it mostly for its various footwear.

Footwear is a fashion statement that can reflect the personality of the alternative darling in your life. It speaks volumes and is always welcome as a gift. Whether it’s a pair of boots, shoes, platforms or flats, Hard N Heavy is the place for you!

The store accepts almost all online payments available to its customers and is with Shopify as well. Without an About section, it still offers a personalized experience, with each section having a unique description. It is a curiosity to visit and explore!

Killstar

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Alternative holiday shopping can be complicated, but Killstar is one of the big gothic shops online! They have your back with a good assortment of choices for a more metal and gothic lifestyle. They offer everything from a complete wardrobe to houseware.

Not much is known about the store besides its mission to ensure that goth people have their home décor and latest pieces of clothing. Average prices help find the perfect gift when on a budget, while still offering a personal present for your alternative darling.

The store has been around for a little while, at least. I couldn’t find the year they were founded, but I know I looked at their website last year. I first heard of them on Facebook as they sponsored on there, and as a goth, it showed up on my feed.

They have good quality products, including glasses, dishes and towels, dresses, sweaters, and winter hats. The website always has a promotion or sale, which can make for a good shopping experience for new customers.

CaveManDigs

All the holiday goth stores on this list are close to what this Etsy store has to offer! The Cave Man Digs is a unique stop for the alternative people in your life. The more edgy and those fascinated by the macabre or with witchy vibes would appreciate any gift from this little gem of a store.

While I couldn’t find much information about the Etsy shop itself, we know it’s located in British Columbia, Canada. The owner is a biologist from a family of biologists. Their partner is from Ukraine, a European country, and is an Earth witch, making any item even more unique.

Jars of preserved organs, oddities and creatures are displayed in the most artistic and Victorian ways. The preservation is so well-detailed and done with care that any piece will become a conversation piece. You cannot go wrong with the Cave Man Digs for a unique gift.

Eternal Scream

Etsy is a good way to support independent artists and creatives. So, I continued my research and stumbled upon the best goth shops, which include Eternal Scream. The creative mind of Mabel Hervás Pérez brings many creative items to bring out unique gothic presents available for the public.

Eternal Scream is an online store that makes stunning wall art and home décor for alternative lovers. Mabel doesn’t enjoy normality and thrives on sharing their love of the gothic side of the world. The items are handmade with care, an incredible creative mind, and affordable prices. What’s not to love?

While I couldn’t find much information about the store, it is one that is enjoyed on Etsy. It is easy to find them on social media, and with forty-five hundred sales, it is a safe place to find the perfect home décor gift for any goths this holiday season.

Crypt Cosmetics

For gothic holiday gift ideas, this Etsy store could be a good stop! Crypt Cosmetics offers a small variety of beauty products. If your goth is for protecting the environment and animals, vegan, and prone to recycling, this store is for you!

Bre is the owner of Crypt Cosmetics and proudly shares how she wished for paraben-free, vegan, sustainable goods to make her beauty products. Dye/mica-free, cruelty-free, and fair trade, Crypt Cosmetics is sure to make your goth proud and happy to own an item from this amazing store.

Localized on Etsy and with nearly 92,200 sales, Crypt Cosmetics is a safe place to shop. If you want more from Bre, they also have a second shop called Lunar Leviathan, where they sell resin artwork—perhaps to complete the cosmetic gift!

While we know that makeup products can be a little tricky to buy for someone unless we know their taste or what they prefer, body oil can be a good option!

Night Owls Crafts Store

If you’re looking for a different kind of goth gift store, something for the crafty alternative soul in your life, this store might be for you. Located in the busy Canadian city of Toronto, this Etsy store sells stationery products.

For different gothic holiday gift ideas, the Night Owls Crafts Store offers a variety of scrapbooking papers, stickers, and cards. With inexpensive prices, this Etsy shop can be a nice addition to your list of stores when on a budget.

Without any information about the owners, all I can share is how striking their items are. Themes vary from Edgar Alan Poe to lunar, gothic porcelain dolls to alchemy. The styles also vary from more photographic to sketch, watercolours to illustration.

The Night Owls Crafts Store offers a wide variety of Victorian, vintage circus, astrology, and botanicals!

Goth Gift Stores & Holiday Shopping For Goths

With a list of new goth and alternative items, I surely hope that everyone can find a little something for that special someone in their lives. Whether it is a Victorian-style long winter coat or goth footwear, a bold piece of Norse jewellery or vegan body oil, a coffin spider purse or paper for scrapbooking, there is a little something for someone.

Unique gothic gift ideas can be tricky if we’re not in the culture, but I think I was able to find some of the best goth shops! I’m sure whatever it is everyone settles on, it’ll be the perfect goth holiday present. It’s all about the thought coming from the heart. Happy Holidays!

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nellasbookplanet · 11 months ago

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Book recs: the evil fungi did it

We all know of The Last of Us, but that franchise isn't the only example of fungal invasions. We've got zombies and apocalypses, we've got gothic horror, we've got fantasy, we've got romance, we've got space - no genre is safe from having their characters become the home of fungal organisms.

For more details on the books, continue under the readmore. Titles marked with * are my personal favorites. And as always, feel free to share your own recs in the notes!

If you want more book recs, check out my masterpost of rec lists!

The Girl with all the Gifts (The Girl with All the Gifts series) by M.R. Carey

Want another fungal zombie apocalypse? Then I come bearing great news! The Girl with All the Gifts is a post apocalyptic novel following a group of characters fleeing across an infested wasteland, trying to stay alive and hoping to find a cure. One of the characters is Melanie, a young girl who carries the contagion inside of her and hungers for flesh, but like many children of the apocalypse has kept her humanity. Is she and children like her the answer to the cure we are looking for? Or are they the start of something entirely new? This book has also been adapted as a movie!

Cold Storage by David Koepp*

Years ago, a quickly growing fungal organism capable of wiping out humanity came dangerously close to spreading. It was contained and kept in cold storage underneath a military repository. Since then, a larger storage facility has been built on top, the dangers on the lower floor being largely forgotten. That is, until it makes a new attempt at escape. Now, two unsuspecting security guards might be all that stands in the way of complete extermination. This book is both funny and genuine in its characters, and genuinely creepy in its portrayal of body horror.

Salvaged by Madeline Roux

Rosalyn Devar is on the run from her famous family, and has run so far she ended up in space. Now she works as a "space janitor", being sent off to clean up the remains of failed research expeditions. But in trying to cope with her problems, she has fucked up on her job multiple times, and is now close to losing her position. Her last chance is the Brigantine: a research vessel gone silent, all crew presumed dead. But when she arrives to salvage it, Rosalyn discovers the crew isn't as dead as presumed. But are they still human - and will Rosalyn be able to keep her own humanity?

The Annual Migration of Clouds by Premee Mohamed

Novella. Reid is a young woman living in a small community after a climate collapse. Resources are scarce, but Reid's biggest problem is Cad, a mind-altering fungal parasite that lives inside her body. When she is offered a rare chance at attending a far-away university in a secluded dome community, Reid must decide whether to leave or stay to help support her community.

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia*

Noemí Taboada is a glamorous and well-off young woman, but when she receives a frantic letter from her newly-wed cousin, Noemí must leave her glamorous life and travel to find out what is wrong. As she arrives at High Place, a mansion on the Mexican countryside, Noemí is met with mysteries and her cousin's new English family. As she tries to find out the truth behind High Place and its inhabitants, Noemí's only ally is the youngest son of the family. But will she be able to find out what so scared her cousin before it's too late for all of them?

Sorrowland by Rivers Solomon

A young pregnant woman flees a cult that left her body strange and changing in terrifying ways. Hiding from both a world wanting to oppress her and the cult seeking to force her back, she does her best to raise her children while trying to find out the truth of the cult and being pursued by a hunter in a dangerous game of cat and mouse. Bleak and scary, Sorrowland is a book that will creep under your skin with horrors both fantastical and very, very real.

What Moves the Dead (Sworn Soldier duology) by T. Kingfisher

Novella. Alex Easton, retired soldier, travels to visit their childhood friends, siblings Madeline and Roderick Usher, after finding out that Madeline is dying. In the siblings' rural, ancestral home, Madeline walks in her sleep and looks to be fading away, while around it wildlife seems to be possessed by a strange force. With the help of a mycologist and an American doctor, Alex attempts to save Madeline and reveal the truth of her illness.

Wanderers (Wanderers duology) by Chuck Wendig

A strange illness has struck the United States: with no warning, random people with seemingly no connection simply get up and start walking. They do not eat, do not sleep, do not communicate, and they do not stop - and if you try to force them, they literally explode from the inside. Teenaged Shana isn't one of these sleepwalkers, but her little sister is. Unwilling to leave her sister on her own, Shana accompanies the growing flock of walkers, protecting them as one of many "shepherds". And this protection proves necessary, as the sleepwalkers is only the first step toward what might very well be the extinction of the human race. An 800 page epic, Wanderers is a slowburn apocalypse story with a multitude pov characters and plot threads, from fungal pandemics and all-knowing AI to the all too real portrayal of radicalization and bigotry.

The Dawnhounds (The Endsong series) by Sascha Stronach

The Dawnhounds is a book where you just kind of have to let the story and the world wash over you. It skirts the line of scifi and fantasy, with a futuristic world of environmentally friendly mushroom houses and deadly fungi bio weapons next to literally god-given superpowers and near-immortality. It’s really cool and unlike anything else I’ve ever read, but also a bit confusing. Bonus: it’s also sapphic!

Agents of Dreamland (Tinfoil Dossier trilogy) by Caitlín R. Kiernan

Novella. A government agent known only as the Signalman; a cult preying on the young and vulnerable, promising to usher in a new age; a woman who exists outside of time, searching for a way to save humanity. Agents of Dreamland is short, but includes many spooky elements, among them an alien and possibly world-ending fungi. The narrative is non-linear and a bit strange, but also fascinating.

The Genius Plague by David Walton

Soon after landing his dream job at the NSA, things get weird for Neil Johns. His brother Paul, a mycologist, returns from a trip to the Amazon, carrying a nearly lethal fungal infection and a strangely sharpened mind. At work, Neil starts picking up mysterious messages originating out of South America, where cases similar to that of Paul starts occurring. And strangest of all: all the infected seem to be working towards the same goal. Recommended with the caveat that, while the fungal stuff is really cool, The Genius Plague is also happy to idolize American intelligent agencies and demonize environmentalism and anti-imperialism.

Little Mushroom: Judgement Day (Little Mushroom duology) by Shisi

An Zhe isn’t human. He’s a mushroom who absorbed the DNA of a dying man, allowing him to take on human guise and leave the wilderness. Entering one of the last human bases, a place struggling to keep out the mutated and dangerous creatures of the wilds, An Zhe must keep his identity secret as he searches for something which was taken from him. While not my cup of tea (frankly, I need more female characters), Little Mushroom is an undeniably unique m/m romance novel.

Bonus AKA these don't technically involve any fungi but have similar vibes of parasites and nature corrupting the human

Parasite (Parasitology trilogy) by Mira Grant*

In the near future, a great leap in medical science has improved human health by leaps and bounds: a genetically engineered tape worm. Within a few years, almost every human has their own personal parasite implanted. But now, something is happening to the parasites - they want more, whether their hosts want to share or not.

Annihilation (Southern Reach trilogy) by Jeff Vandermeer

For decades, Area X has been completely cut off from humanity. The only ones to enter are small organized expeditions, many of which never return, or return... wrong. We follow the latest expedition, its participants known only as the anthropologist, the psychologist, the surveyor, and our narrator, the biologist. As they enter into Area X to try to find out its secrets, only one thing is for sure: they will never be the same again.

Wilder Girls by Rory Power

Young adult. Over a year ago, the Raxter School for Girls was hit by the Tox, a strange disease that killed off many and left the survivors' bodies slowly changing in terrifying ways. The island the school is on has been in quarantine since then, and the girls dare not leave the school grounds lest they become victims of wild animals changed by the Tox. But as they wait for the promised cure, one of the girls goes missing, and her friends are willing to do anything to find her. Unsettling, spooky, and sapphic, this is a unique read featuring body horror and messy, dangerous girls.

(Second) Bonus AKA I haven't read these yet but they seem really cool

City of Saints and Madmen (Ambergris trilogy) by Jeff Vandermeer

Ambergris, a city created by a mushroom-like people, is now the home of humans, but the original inhabitants are still there, residing beneath the city.

Creatures of Want and Ruin (Diabolist's Library series) by Molly Tanzer

It’s the prohibition era, and while Ellie does fishing during the day, at night she bootlegs moonshine in Long Island. But unbeknownst to Ellie, some of the booze she smuggles has a strange source: distilled from mushrooms by a cult, it causes those who drink it to see terrible things, such as the the destruction of Long Island.

Bloom by Wil McCarthy

The inner solar system has been overtaken by fast-reproducing, fast-mutating technogenic life. Humanity has fled to the outer solar system, hiding beneath the ice of Jupiter's moon, but even here they aren't safe from possible incursion of mycospores, which lead to deadly blooms. Now a group of astronauts venture back to an infected Earth.

#the girl with all the gifts #cold storage #salvaged #the annual migration of clouds #mexican gothic #sorrowland #what moves the dead #wanderers #the dawnhounds #agents of dreamland #the genius plague #little mushroom #parasitology #annihilation #wilder girls #nella talks books

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