One Of The Prettiest Moments In Winter Is When The Sun Starts To Come Out Again In Like February/march

“So, uh, Chris, where you in school?”

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this might be old news but here is a link to a youtube vid of a zoom podcast meetup w/ dylan, allelon, gale, and tom schulman. haven’t watched all of it yet but they’re talking about dps!

Masterpost of Free Gothic Literature & Theory

Classics Vathek by William Beckford Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë The Woman in White  & The Moonstone by Wilkie Collins Carmilla by Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu The Turn of the Screw by Henry James The Monk by Matthew Lewis The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux Melmoth the Wanderer by Charles Maturin The Vampyre; a Tale by John Polidori Collected Works of Edgar Allan Poe Confessions of an English Opium-Eater by Thomas De Quincey The Mysteries of Udolpho by Ann Radcliffe The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson Dracula by Bram Stoker The Castle of Otranto by Horace Walpole The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley

Short Stories and Poems An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce Songs of Innocence & Songs of Experience by William Blake The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge The King in Yellow by Robert W. Chambers The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Pre-Gothic Beowulf The Divine Comedy  by Dante Alighieri A Journal of the Plague Year by Daniel Defoe Faust by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe Paradise Lost by John Milton Macbeth by William Shakespeare Oedipus, King of Thebes by Sophocles The Duchess of Malfi by John Webster

Gothic-Adjacent Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen The Wendigo by Algernon Blackwood Jane Eyre & Villette by Charlotte Brontë Lyrical Ballads, With a Few Other Poems by Coleridge and Wordsworth The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles Dickens The Idiot & Demons (The Possessed) by Fyodor Dostoyevsky The Man in the Iron Mask by Alexandre Dumas Moby-Dick by Herman Melville The Island of Doctor Moreau by H. G. Wells

Historical Theory and Background The French Revolution of 1789 by John S. C. Abbott Shakespearean Tragedy: Lectures on Hamlet, Othello, King Lear, Macbeth by A. C. Bradley The Tale of Terror: A Study of the Gothic Romance by Edith Birkhead On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History by Thomas Carlyle Demonology and Devil-Lore by Moncure Daniel Conway Ancient Pagan and Modern Christian Symbolism by Inman and Newton On Liberty by John Stuart Mill The Social Contract & Discourses by Jean-Jacques Rousseau Feminism in Greek Literature from Homer to Aristotle by Frederick Wright

Academic Theory Introduction: Replicating Bodies in Nineteenth-Century Science and Culture by Will Abberley Viewpoint: Transatlantic Scholarship on Victorian Literature and Culture by Isobel Armstrong Theories of Space and the Nineteenth-Century Novel by Isobel Armstrong The Higher Spaces of the Late Nineteenth-Century Novel by Mark Blacklock The Shipwrecked salvation, metaphor of penance in the Catalan gothic by Marta Nuet Blanch Marching towards Destruction: the Crowd in Urban Gothic by Christophe Chambost Women, Power and Conflict: The Gothic heroine and “Chocolate-box Gothic” by Avril Horner Psychos’ Haunting Memories: A(n) (Un)common Literary Heritage by Maria Antónia Lima ‘Thrilled with Chilly Horror’: A Formulaic Pattern in Gothic Fiction by Aguirre Manuel The terms “Gothic” and “Neogothic” in the context of Literary History by O. V. Razumovskaja  The Female Vampires and the Uncanny Childhood by Gabriele Scalessa Curating Gothic Nightmares by Heather Tilley Elizabeth Bowen, Modernism, and the Spectre of Anglo-Ireland by James F. Wurtz Hesitation, Projection and Desire: The Fictionalizing ‘as if…’ in Dostoevskii’s Early Works by Sarah J. Young Intermediality and polymorphism of narratives in the Gothic tradition by Ihina Zoia

you can always start over. you can always catch up. you can still be who you dream of being. it’s not too late for you.

when you hate richard cameron’s life decisions but also kind of like him because he has the potential to be a good person:

ohhh the continued theme of trc/tdt relationships being doomed by the narrative right from the start and the characters being aware of that and trying to talk themselves out of loving their person but never being able to and then choosing love despite the fact that they know it’s inevitably going to end in a tragedy. i feel so so very sick. this is so sick

Journals, articles, books & texts, on folklore, mythology, occult, and related -to- general anthropology, history, archaeology. 

Some good and/or interesting (or hokey) ‘examples’ included for most resources. tryin to organize & share stuff that was floating around onenote.

Journals (open access) — Folklore, Occult, etc

Culutural Analysis - folklore, popular culture, anthropology — The Mythical Ghoul in Arabic Culture

Folklore - folklore, anthropology, archaeology — The Making of a Bewitchment Narrative, Grecian Riddle Jokes

Incantatio - journal on charms, charmers, and charming — Verbal Charms from a 17th Century Manuscript

Oral Tradition — Jewish Folk Literature, Noises of Battle in Old English Poetry

Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics — Nani Fairtyales about the Cruel Bride, Energy as the Mediator between Natural and Supernatural Realms

International Journal of Intangible Heritage 

Studia Mythologica Slavica (many articles not English) — Dragon and Hero, Fertility Rites in the Raining Cave, The Grateful Wolf and Venetic Horses in Strabo’s Geography

Folklorica - Slavic & Eastern European folklore association — Ritual: The Role of Plant Characteristics in Slavic Folk Medicine, Animal Magic

Esoterica - The Journal of Esoteric Studies — The Curious Case of Hermetic Graffiti in Valladolid Cathedral 

The Esoteric Quarterly

Mythological Studies Journal

Luvah - Journal of the Creative Imagination — A More Poetical Character Than Satan

Transpersonal Studies — Shamanic Cosmology as an Evolutionary Neurocognitive Epistemology, Dreamscapes

Beyond Borderlands  — tumblr

Paranthropology

GOLEM - Journal of Religion and Monsters — The Religious Functions of Pokemon, Anti-Semitism and Vampires in British Popular Culture 1875-1914

Correspondences - Online Journal for the Academic Study of Western Esotericism — Kriegsmann’s Philological Quest for Ancient Wisdom 

— History, Archaeology

Adoranten - pre-historic rock art

Chitrolekha - India art & design history — Gomira Dance Mask

Silk Road — Centaurs on the Silk Road: Hellenistic Textiles in Western China

Sino-Platonic - East Asian languages and civilizations — Discursive Weaving Women in Chinese and Greek Traditions

MELA Notes - Middle East Librarians Association

Didaskalia - Journal for Ancient Performance

Ancient Narrative - Greek, Roman, Jewish novelistic traditions — The Construction of the Real and the Ideal in the Ancient Novel

Akroterion - Greek, Roman — The Deer Hunter: A Portrait of Aeneas

Greek, Roman and Byzantine Studies  — Erotic and Separation Spells, The Ancients’ One-Horned Ass

Roman Legal Tradition - medieval civil law — Between Slavery and Freedom 

Phronimon - South African society for Greek Philosophy and the Humanities — Special Issue vol. 13 #2, Greek philosophy in dialogue with African+ philosophy

The Heroic Age - Early medieval Northwestern Europe — Icelandic Sword in the Stone

Peregrinations - Medieval Art and Architecture — Special Issue vol. 4 #1, Mappings 

Tiresas - Medieval and Classical — Sexuality in the Natural and Demonic Magic of the Middle Ages

Essays in Medieval Studies  — The Female Spell-caster in Middle English Romances, The Sweet Song of Satan

Hortulus - Medieval studies — Courtliness & the Deployment of Sodomy in 12th-Century Histories of Britain, Monsters & Monstrosities issue, Magic & Witchcraft issue

Annual of Medieval Studies at CEU

Medieval Archaeology — Divided and Galleried Hall-Houses, The Hall of the Knights Templar at Temple Balsall

Medieval Feminist Forum  — multiculturalism issue; Gender, Skin Color and the Power of Place … Romance of Moriaen, Writing Novels About Medieval Women for Modern Readers, Amazons & Guerilleres

Quidditas - medieval and renaissance 

Medieval Warfare

The Viking Society - ridiculous amount of articles from 1895-2011

Journals (limited free/sub/institution access)

Al-Masaq - Journal of the Medieval Mediterranean — Piracy as Statecraft: The Policies of Taifa of Denia, free issue

Mythical Creatures of Europe - article + map

Folklore - limited free access — Volume 122 #3, On the Ambiguity of Elves

Digital Philology -  a journal of medieval cultures — Saracens & Race in Roman de la Rose Iconography

Pomegranate - International Journal for Pagan Studies

Transcultural Psychiatry

European Journal of English Studies  — Myths East of Venice issue, Esotericism issue

Books, Texts, Images etc. — Folklore, Occult etc.

Magical Gem Database - Greek/Egyptian gems & talismans [x] [x]

Biblioteca Aracana - (mostly) Greek pagan history, rituals, poetry etc. — Greater Tool Consecration, The Yew-Demon

Curse Tablets from Roman Britain - [x]

The Gnostic Society Library — The Corpus Hermeticum, Hymn of the Robe of Glory

Grimoar - vast occult text library — Grimoires, Greek & Roman Necromancy, Queer Theology, Ancient Christian Magic

Internet Sacred Text Archive - religion, occult, folklore, etc. ancient texts

Verse and Transmutation - A Corpus of Middle English Alchemical Poetry

— History

The Internet Classics Archive - mainly Greco-Roman, some Persian & Chinese translated texts

Bodleian Oriental Manuscript Collection - [x] [x] [x]

Virtual Magic Bowl Archive - Jewish-Aramaic incantation bowl text and images [x] [x] 

Vindolanda Tablets - images and translations of tablets from 1st & 2nd c. [x]

Corsair - online catalog of the Piedmont Morgan library (manuscripts) [x] [x]

Beinecke rare book & manuscripts  — Wagstaff miscellany, al-Qur’ān—1813

LUNA - tonnes from Byzantine manuscripts to Arabic cartography

Maps on the web - Oxford Library [x] [x] [x]

Bodleian Library manuscripts - photographs of 11th-17th c. manuscripts — Treatises on Heraldry, The Worcester Fragments (polyphonic music), 12 c. misc medical and herbal texts

Early Manuscripts at Oxford U - very high quality photographs — (view through bottom left) Military texts by Athenaeus Mechanicus 16th c. [x] [x], MS Douce 195 Roman de la Rose [x] [x]

Trinity College digital manuscript library  — Mathematica Medica, 15th c.

eTOME - primary sources about Celtic peoples

Websites, Blogs — Folklore, Occult etc.

Demonthings - Ancient Egyptian Demonology Project

Invocatio - (mostly) western esotericism

Heterodoxology - history, esotericism, science — Religion in the Age of Cyborgs

The Recipes Project - food, magic, science, medicine — The Medieval Invisible Man (invisibility recipes)

Morbid Anatomy - museum/library in Brooklyn

— History 

Islamic Philosophy Online - tonnes of texts, articles, links, utilities, this belongs in every section; mostly English

Medicina Antiqua - Graeco-Roman medicine

History of the Ancient World - news and resources — The So-called Galatae, Gauls, Celts in Early Hellenistic Balkans; Maidens, Matrons Magicians: Women & Personal Ritual Power in Late Antique Egypt

Διοτίμα - Women & Gender in Antiquity

Bodleian Library Exhibitions Online — Khusraw & Shirin, Hebrew Manuscripts as a Meeting-Place of Cultures

Medievalists — folk studies, witchcraft, mythology, science tags

Atlas Obscura — Bats and Vampiric Lore of Pére Lachaise Cemetery 

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Why You're Wrong About Rachel Zegler

This is a long post, but there's a lot of context missing from the Rachel Zegler "discourse" that I thought I could add with my history of watching this unfold from the beginning.

The Snow White Thing

You probably know this part. There's a curated video of Rachel going viral, framed to make her seem like she's never seen Snow White, she hates the story, she hates the character, she's ungrateful, and single-handedly ruined Disney's brand. The clips from these videos are not new— they were released nearly a year ago in September 2022 and nobody cared about them at the time. Why? Because all the full interviews she did that day at the Disney Exo in 2022 showed a young, charming woman who was excited and proud to be cast in an iconic role. The interviews were very well received and it was a non story. Now that it's been edited down and cut together in a malicious way, and the people sharing them are purposefully misquoting her, they've twisted the context. Normally, this would be a non controversy. Even if that video wasn't taken out of context and spliced together to make her seem like she hates the film, most people wouldn't care. The issue is the response to the video.

Let's get this out of the way: Rachel Zegler doesn't hate Snow White. She relayed that she was afraid of the forest scene as a child and didn't revisit it again until after she was cast in the role. She has since then watched it several times and has expressed for YEARS before that interview came out that she was incredibly honored and grateful to be playing such an iconic Disney princess. If you watch the full videos that those clips came from, this comes across immediately to anyone with their own mind. If you hate someone for being scared of something as a child, I don't know what to tell you. If the role was being given to the biggest Snow White fan, you would be correct that she doesn't deserve it. Unfortunately for you, this role requires talent and Rachel has the Golden Globe and critical acclaim from people who matter within the industry (her peers and critics).

You know who does hate their beloved characters in beloved franchises but the general public still applauds them? Harrison Ford, Sean Connery, Daniel Craig, and Robert Pattinson. They've all expressed outright contempt for the roles and the films they were part of, but nobody cared. People had fun with their quotes but they still respected them. Rachel said nothing even closely resembling their remarks, but she's being torn to shreds. Are we seeing a pattern here?

Rachel never said a single bad thing about the character or the animated film— she said that it was outdated and that set people over the edge, foaming at the mouth to have her burned at the stake. If you think it would be perfectly fine to have a movie about an abused 14 year old girl run away to play housemaid for a bunch of men, get kissed in her sleep/death by an adult man, and then wake up to fall into his arms in 2024, that's certainly a hot take. If you're against remakes, direct your ire at Disney. But if you truly think that plot would work with young girls today, you're the one who's out of touch. It would do far more harm than good to portray a young woman in that light.

She also never said that there was anything wrong with romance or love. She said that the new Snow White wasn't only dreaming of that. I can't stress enough that this wasn't her decision… she was describing the plot of the new film that was written by Greta Gerwig and approved by Disney. There's a prince in the film and he will also have a more developed personality and storyline. If you have a problem with the writing, wait until it comes out so you can write your strongly worded letter to Greta. If you have a problem with the concept in general, take it up with Disney. There's no need for you to be defensive over hurting the legacy of a multi-billion dollar company or a 87 year old cartoon written by a proud racist antisemite. This is the most confusing part of the hate campaign to me because it wasn't even her opinion— she was literally describing the plot of the film she had nothing to do with. It also isn't a new thing. Disney actors have been promoting their newer films this way for years.

It's perfectly okay to like things that are problematic. It's becoming an issue that we refuse to acknowledge that maybe some things we love are harmful. What we can't do is justify why it's not problematic, and in fact everyone who calls it out is the problem and NOT their precious cartoon. The 1937 Snow White was an amazing feat of animation. It's a classic for a reason. But it was also Hitler's favorite film and was directed by a white supremacist (the one who is "rolling in his grave" due to Rachel's existence, according to his son). Things don't exist in a vacuum and we can't ignore the bad parts.

How We Got Here:

The thing that everyone is missing is the source of this campaign. This started in September of 2020 when transphobic actor Gina Carano made fun of trans people by changing her pronouns to beep/bop.boop. Rachel indirectly called her out by coming to the defense of the trans community.

She never called out Gina by name (though she rightfully could have). Mind you, Rachel's first film hadn't come out yet. Nobody knew who she was outside of those of us who were anticipating West Side Story and were fans of her covers on YouTube. She was a "nobody" in the industry. Take this part with a grain of salt because I can't confirm it, but Gina and her fans directly blame Rachel for her being banned from Twitter. Again, I really don't think that matters as she's harmful to the trans community and shouldn't have a platform. What does matter is that fans of Gina (which, let's be real, are just fans of transphobia) have been stalking Rachel's every move since then. Unfortunately for them, there wasn't much they could use against her other than to call her woke and #snowbrown when she was cast a year later as the Disney princess. The noise has always been there, but unless you were a fan of hers, you probably didn't hear about it. It wasn't until two years after this that they had something else against her.

If you've recently seen a video of Rachel crying circulating that claims to be her reaction to the recent Snow White backlash, it's an old video. It's from a vlog from her youtube channel posted in June 2022. It was in response to these exact same transphobic anti-woke conservatives who thought that they had something when she did an interview on the red carpet of the Shazam premiere. When asked why she joined the DC universe, she responded "I needed a job." It was generally well received by most people who thought it was cute and funny, but those who were waiting in the shadows latched onto it as an excuse to send her death threats.

The video was also about a month after she was invited to present at the 2022 Oscars and was made to seem like she bullied the Academy (as a no name newcomer, mind you) into letting her attend. In reality, a fan left a comment on her Instagram asking what she was wearing to the event. She responded that she wasn't invited but would be rooting for everyone from her couch in her boyfriend's pajamas. It was the public who demanded she get an invite and the Oscar's must have agreed that it was very odd that the lead actress of a film that was nominated for Best Film wouldn't get an invite. Whether it was an oversight on their part or a scheduling issue with Rachel's filming, I truly think there was no malicious intent from either party. Keep in mind, she used to be very active with her fans (she's a huge fangirl of things herself and has always had a strong relationship with her fans) and she wasn't used to her comments becoming articles and national tv segments. This was the first time it happened to her. It appears she learned that she's not just a girl who posts on YouTube anymore and she's going to be put under a microscope for every move she makes. She has since shut down her Instagram comments and rarely interacts with fans outside of liking comments these days because of this.

I know this is long, but I need people to understand where this is all coming from. It didn't just happen out of nowhere. It's an orchestrated campaign built by violent conservatives, and thousands of women who saw Barbie this summer are hopping on the bandwagon to beat another woman into submission because they have a lot of internalized misogyny to deal with. She's not smug, you just hate women. It's okay to find people annoying, but it's valuable to look into why you think that. If you see a confident young woman expressing views that don't actually harm anyone and you think she needs to be "humbled" and "put in her place" by the entire internet dogpiling her, you've lost your mind. Using "body language experts" (fake job) to diagnose her as a psychopath is so vile. Everytime someone mentions her name online, the comments beneath it are full of the most violent, misogynistic, racist things I've ever seen. If you're contributing to that, you've chosen your side. Reevaluate or seek help.

I'm tired of seeing this happen to young women. We let this happen to Jennifer Lawrence, Brie Larson, Millie Bobby Brown, Halle Bailey, and Jenna Ortega. It's one thing to call out celebrities and hold them accountable when they're doing something actively harmful, but that's not what this is about. That's never been what this is about. We pick these girls to pieces and examine them and pull them apart to justify our hatred of young women who rise to success too quickly for our liking. We dogpile and try to stamp out the flame before they burn too bright. Barbie is still in theaters and you all loved it, yet you're demanding that a bright girl with a big future be small and submissive and humbled because you have issues. That's not feminism. You're just the girls who would have bullied Weird Barbie for using her hands too much when she talks.

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never let anyone tell u how many commas can go in a sentence, u measure that shit with ur heart

girlie stop scrolling through tumblr you are one second away from crumbling under academic pressure

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