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I keep two Spotify accounts. Not because I'm hiding anything. Just because one of them — the one I've had since college — would genuinely confuse everyone who knows me. It's not embarrassing. It's not shameful. It's just... mine. Sisters of Mercy. The Cure. Sopor Aeternus. Chelsea Wolfe. The kind of music that sounds like it belongs in a candlelit library at 2am, not in the background of a casual Friday lunch. So when someone at work puts on a shared playlist, I'm cheerful about it. Fine. Whatever's on is fine. And then I drive home and I play MY playlist and I feel like myself again. I've been doing this for years. I've never really questioned why. --- Here's what my private containers actually look like. My Spotify: Chelsea Wolfe, Zola Jesus, Dead Can Dance, Wardruna. Occasionally a full Bauhaus album. Albums I've had on rotation since I was 22 that I have never once played out loud at a social gathering. My Reddit: r/goth, r/DarkAcademia, r/horrorlit, r/classichorror. I've been lurking and occasionally posting for six years. Nobody I know in real life knows my username. My bookshelf — the one in my bedroom, not the one in the living room — is stacked with Poe, Shelley, Le Fanu, Ann Radcliffe, weird Victorian stuff nobody reads at book clubs. The living room bookshelf has the presentable ones. The bedroom shelf has the real ones. My Pinterest boards: gothic architecture, dark florals, moody interiors, Victorian mourning jewelry, film stills from Nosferatu and Suspiria. My apartment: dark. Heavy curtains. Good candles. Art I actually chose, not art that reads neutrally. This is my whole interior life. And when I walk out the door in the morning, essentially none of it comes with me. --- There's a thread I bookmarked years ago that I still think about sometimes. Someone posted: "Is there anyone else out there who is in the goth scene but doesn't dress like it at all?" The replies went on forever. "I love goth music and culture, it makes me feel at home. But: I don't dress goth, at all." "Most days if someone saw me they would never guess I was goth." "What matters to me is the mood, the music!" "my playlist revealed my darker inclinations. I'm almost 33, the mother of 2, graduate student, and full time worker. My style didn't have to change much." 192 upvotes. That thread existed because apparently there are A LOT of us. Women who have a whole interior world — literary, dark, atmospheric, genuinely complex — that doesn't show up in what we wear to work, what we order at lunch, what we carry in our bags. The containers work fine. I'm not unhappy about any of this. It's just... the way things are organized. --- What I hadn't really clocked until recently was this: None of it crosses over. My apartment is dark. My bag is neutral. My bookshelf has Shelley and Le Fanu and Poe. My bag has a receipt and some lip balm and nothing that tells you ANYTHING about who I actually am. Everything I love exists in one container. Everything I carry in public exists in another. And I've never had a single object that belonged in both. Not because I was deliberately keeping them separate. Just because... nothing existed that would work in both worlds simultaneously. A bag can't look like it came from a Hot Topic display and also be something you'd carry to a client meeting. Right? That was just the deal. That was the constraint. Until I found this one thing. 🖤 --- It's a tote bag. Violet leather — like, actual deep purple leather, rich and saturated, not that dusty lavender that's everywhere right now. And on the front: a full cinematic Frankenstein creature portrait. The whole bag is the artwork — edge to edge, both sides, no boundaries. "MARY SHELLEY'S FRANKENSTEIN" in dripping neon green lettering across the top. It is UNAMBIGUOUSLY the kind of bag that belongs on my bedroom bookshelf. And it is also — somehow — genuinely beautiful. Premium. The leather quality is real. The hardware is gunmetal. The structure is clean and architectural. It fits a 13-inch laptop. It doesn't scream costume. It's the kind of thing where someone might not know exactly what it IS at first — they just know it's striking and clearly considered and also a little dark and literary. Which is... actually a perfect description of its owner. It doesn't ask me to announce anything or perform anything. It's just a bag that belongs in both worlds at once. --- The reviews said exactly what I was feeling. Lethal Designs: "Carrying these purses brings me such joy! Thank you Lettoria from the bottom of my dark London BatCave gothgirl heart 🖤" ★★★★★ Ruby Katina Taylor: "It screams me to a tee. Perfect for night and day. You can dress it up or down." ★★★★★ Tricia: "I honestly expected some weird looks, but I immediately received compliments from EVERYONE who saw it." ★★★★★ Ashley F: "I love the pattern and the quality of the items. I am NOT a purse person. However, I do love how these look and how sturdy they are." ★★★★★ That last one got me. "I am NOT a purse person." I am not a purse person either. But I am absolutely a Mary Shelley person. And I'm kind of obsessed with the idea of something that lets those two things be the same sentence. ✨ --- I didn't realize until I saw it that I'd been treating my own interior life like it was too much for daily life. Not suppressing it. Not ashamed of it. Just... containing it. Like a very organized person who keeps all the good stuff in the back room. And then I found a bag that just brought it to the front. That's it. That's the whole thing. I got mine at https://lettoria.com/frankenstein