This black flamingo was spotted in Cyprus. It is just the second black flamingo ever seen. The first one was seen in Israel in 2014 but experts believe they may be the same bird, meaning that only one black flamingo has ever been seen. The black flamingo is affected with melanism, which is a condition caused by an overproduction of melanin, darkening the skin. An animal with melanism is a very rare sight.
My modern Lestat’s thumb ring. I tried to have the original, but it was hard to find, the seller of the store told me that this is a modern version of the original, even though Lestat wish buy now the ring would be like mine.
I’m working on a university project about the goth subculture. Me and my group want to show the real goth subculture around the world, tell the story of it and break some stereotypes that people have about us. I’d like you to help me on this! If you are interested in helping us, you can send photos, short videos and/or audios OF YOUR AUTHORSHIP telling us what the goth subculture really is and/or what it means to you. The audios and videos must be in English, Spanish or Portuguese and the videos must be filmed in horizontal.
You can send your help to: therealgoths@gmail.com The e-mail must have your name and where you’re from!
Note: We WILL NOT make money from this project (and therefore we won’t be paying the ones who help us). If you send something, you agree to let us use your videos/images/audios and edit them to fit the maximum length our video project must have.
We’ll do our best to include everything you guys send to us! Thank Yooou!
I have been aware of the delightful @gothiccharmschool for quite some time now, largely through her interactions with folk I follow here on tumblr.
What I did not know until a couple of weeks ago was that she wrote an etiquette book.
I discovered the existence of this darling and informative book at work, when I suddenly found myself holding a signed first edition paperback with her name on the cover. To say I was excited would be an understatement. (I squealed and flapped and found every coworker in the room to show the book to, then promptly borrowed it to read.)
Having now read the entirety of Gothic Charm School, I definitely recommend it to everyone.
Why? Let’s make a list.
1. It’s an actual etiquette book about Goth culture for both Goths and those who are not Goth but know or encounter Goths.
2. The writing style is both easy to read and positively charming.
3. Actual practical advice for social situations that can be applied well outside interactions with Goths. (As an autistic person who doesn’t try to hide my neurodivergence behind a neurotypical act all the time, I really like much of the advice in here. Please follow it. You’ll make me happy.)
4. Actual practical advice for everything from clothing alterations to getting candle wax out of shag carpets. Life skills, people! Everyone should know these things–one day you could be someone’s hero.
5. Learning manners is important.
6. Learning about subcultures you don’t understand is important.
7. The fantastic illustrations by the talented Pete Venters.
8. The wit and humor in this book is spot on and made me laugh aloud several times and smile a lot. On public transit. So there.
Seriously, if you’ve never thought to pick up an etiquette book, do yourself a favor and pick up this etiquette book. You won’t regret it.
Find a copy here! Or, if you’re in Portland, Oregon, get yourself downtown to Powell’s–the copy I have is going back on the shelf tomorrow, awaiting someone to come and take it home for keeps.
I am being totally vain and self-promoting, because this review of my book made me smile. Thank you, @book-a-day-2016!
(Also, thank you for calling out that the copy you read was a first edition! That’s right, folks, Gothic Charm School: an Essential Guide for Goths and Those Who Love Them is officially in it’s 2nd printing! I’m still flabbergasted by that. ::grin:: )
I don’t know what post it was, but if its any help, horror is more of an element while gothic is a genre/mode/mood (scholars like to butt heads on it), horror would be a madman breaking into your house and slaughtering you–it scares you, its dark and grim, but it doesn’t effect you beyond the scare.
A Gothic would have you anxious over the madman, questioning your belief in such a story, and possibly in God and superstition as a whole, while wearing something elegant in a gracefully lit room, with overtones of love running through that anxiety–the madman still shows up and there may still be a slaughter but there is a chase, there is hiding, there is terror instead of horror.
Compare Crimson Peak to Halloween, or Jane Eyre to any lifetime movie where a girl marries a person with a dark secret. Hammer Horror films were very good at treading the line between Gothic and Horror, as was the original Dracula novel. For another book comparison: Frankenstein is a Gothic, but IT is a horror.
Tragedy is common but not a necessity in the Gothic, it often comes as the price for including the terror. Crimson Peak ends in tragedy (and opens with it, as most Gothics do), but the terror and suspense and questions overpower the tragedy–if you haven’t seen it yet, I’ll tell this much: you leave it excited rather than depressed, there are a handful of questions like melting snow in your hand that drip away between your fingers before you can fully form them, ethereal and haunting visuals wash away the last of the nightmare, and then the credits roll–this is the Gothic, as opposed to pure tragedy where we see Horatio speaking of Hamlet’s nobility as he stands over the corpses of the last of his friends.
I would describe Guillermo del Toro as compassionate because he sees the good in everyone even his monsters. (x)
Yes, I’m on (another) Crimson Peak posting spree, but I wanted to specifically point out what Tom Hiddleston says: “beauty in places that many of us would fear to look.” That sounds VERY familiar to me, as my definition of goth/gothic is looking for “beauty and wonder in dark or unsettling places”.
those who dream only by night: the gothic short stories rec list
have you ever felt like you want to read more fiction in the gothic tradition, but you haven’t the money or the time, or you’re the sort of person who only reads a novel if you’re sure you like the writer? i can help with that! here is a list of short stories, novellas, and one poem, all of which are important in the gothic tradition, the gothic revival, or contemporary gothic fiction, and they are all on the internet! for free! (i enjoy making rec lists, but i particularly enjoy making rec lists where i know that everyone who reads the list can get all of it for free.) so, take a night, make some hot chocolate, and frighten the life out of yourself. you’ll thank me!
I-want-my-IWTV 