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I've been meaning to make a new pinned post for this blog with a few resources etc. for a million years and now I'm procrastinating so here it is.

Link to old pinned post (articles about racism and white supremacy in classics) here. I highly recommend checking it out.

Under the cut you will find a list of resources that I have found invaluable. Please put your own in the replies and reblogs!

allen and greenough’s latin grammar on dickinson college commentaries (which you have already mentioned). specifically the indexes, for instances of ‘is this a specific weird verb use or am i stupid’

digital prosopography of the roman republic for quickly searching genealogical/prosopographical/dates of magistracies etc info for the roman republic. it’s like broughton’s magistrates of the roman republic but better

attalus, specifically their index of names and chronologies of sources

topostext, which maps primary sources onto. a map. of the ancient world

Nonfiction

The Price of The Ticket (borrow from IA)

The Fire Next Time (pdf download)

Notes of A Native Son (pdf download)

Nothing Personal (read on IA - not great quality sorry)

The Last Interview (pdf download) (only 10 pages!)

Fiction

Giovanni's Room (pdf download)

If Beale Street Could Talk (pdf download)

BONUS

Little Man Little Man (read or pdf download on scribd) (Baldwin's only children's book)

Go Tell It On The Mountain (pdf download)

Another Country (pdf and epub download)

Sonny's Blues (pdf download)

there has never been a time in the history of psychiatry where "strenuously objecting to one's own mistreatment at the hands of authority figures" was not a diagnostic criteria for at least one disorder. read that again.

Magic - change wrought through unnatural means

Most fantasy can be placed along a spectrum where there are 3 main points: soft magic at one end, hard magic at the other, and a middle ground between the two.

Soft Magic

Magic that is not well-defined for the reader.

Generally, we don’t understand where the magic comes from, who can use it, or what its limitations are.

Readers can see this type of magic being used.

But they can never anticipate when magic will be used in the plot because they can’t begin to guess how it works.

You can’t break a rule if the rules don’t exist!

Most stories that feature this system will have the magic users be secondary characters, allowing them to avoid explaining exactly how the magic works.

It’s also argued that without knowing everything about the magic, it tends to hold more wonder and excitement for readers.

Hard Magic

Has very rigid boundaries.

Readers know where the magic comes from, how it’s used, who uses it, and what its boundaries and limitations are.

We know the limitations of the characters and can understand why they can’t simply magic themselves out of any particular challenge.

Stories with hard magic systems do not need to avoid the main character being a magic-wielder, as they have the capacity to explain to the reader what is going on.

A lot of writers this system because it gives them very explicit guidelines to follow in their plot and creates some more satisfying pay-offs for readers.

The Middle Ground

The meeting point between the soft and hard systems.

We might understand a bit about the way the magic works, but not all our questions are answered.

While most of the content adheres to rules, these rules aren’t fully explored.

This system relies on the reader’s suspension of disbelief.

The main character can be a magic-wielder or not, and it’s up to the writer to determine when magic will be used in terms of plot.

How to Choose a System

You can and should use these guiding principles to build your magic system. Remember that you don’t have to choose one or the other. Your system can draw from aspects of both. Just stay aware of the weaknesses of the path you choose, and ensure you utilize its strengths.

Use a hard magic system if:

You are going to use magic to solve problems

Your audience is accustomed to the tropes of hard magic

You are okay with jumping through hoops to expand your system

Your magic doesn’t convey a theme

Use a soft magic system if:

You want to convey a theme through magic

You want to create a sense of wonder

You want the ability to expand easily

You want to be accessible to a broader audience

Your magic won’t regularly be used to solve problems

Branches of Magic

Like most writing processes, there isn’t really a correct place to begin designing a magic system. A common, and efficient, place to start, however, is by choosing what type of magic system(s) you wish to employ, such as:

Nature-based magic: water, earth, fire, air, and everything in between

Divination magic: see beyond sight and peer through time and space

Conjuring magic: move objects through space over any distance

Psychic magic: master the world of the mind

Life and death magic: tap into the very forces of life, death, and un-death with this surprisingly versatile collection

Animal- or creature-exclusive magic: some creatures just do it better

Magitech systems: the blurring lines of sorcery and science give magic a next-gen, high-tech flair

Eclectic magic: it doesn’t have to be “real” magic to have a real effect

Uncommon magic systems: the unsung heroes of fantasy magic

AALC Method

How to create your own magic system using the AALC (Appearance, Abilities, Limits & Cost) Method

Unfortunately it makes me so frustrated that not everybody will get it or understand it and why it’s so good. Everyone I’ve spoken to about it were too preoccupied with “all the weird moaning” and laughing at the full frontal vampire cock.

Meanwhile I’m sat there trying to explain vampire folklore and their cultural history, documents of ‘real’ vampirism, their symbolism and roots in xenophobia and antisemitism, blood libel, the manifestations of demons as personifications of shame and desire, Bram Stoker’s possible closeted homosexuality and his ties with Oscar Wilde and how Dracula was published around the same time Wilde was imprisoned, the ‘bohemian’ movement in the victorian period and how it simultaneously romanticised, fetishised and demonised Romani culture, la petit mort and necrophilia and how grief, sex and death are intertwined, the science behind why humans both are attracted to and repelled by the smell of indole, why funerals make people hungry/horny, the Victorian Christianity perspective on blood transfusions, the significance of blood as a ritualistic symbol and device throughout mythology and history, mental illnesses and medical conditions connected to vampirism and other vampiric folkloric creatures like the Nachzehrer and the Gwrach y Rhibyn whilst everyone looks at me like I’ve grown five heads

And honestly? I’ve never kinned Dr Van Helsing more in my life than at that exact moment.

By all means, take me to the cinema to watch a piece of vampire media but do not expect to win an argument concerning vampires against me because I can and will put you on your arse. This is my domain, my special interest.

Often, pseudoscience and misinformation comes packaged with a lot of very important sounding words, and the jargon gets to the point where it seems like a lot of work to fact check it. Which makes the 'I encourage you to do your own research' statements real obnoxious. If it's phrased in a way that's impossible to navigate, good luck.

It sucks, but you gotta.

If you don't want to fact check individual words, that's fine. That's a lot to ask of someone that's just trying to figure out whether something is true.

This is where we get into something called 'lateral research.' Instead of trying to draw a map to a sentence, you check the credibility of their source material.

This is your Snopes, your Fact Check/Media Bias, your Follow The Money.

Knowing more context about what someone is saying will save you a lot of time and energy.

Practice SIFT! SIFT is based on lateral research and can be very helpful for these situations.

DON'T just share information without doing your due diligence.

i have found this post and infographic and i want to share it

INVESTIGATE THE SOURCE

zetabrarian's blog says they are a socially progressive librarian monsterfucker, which a quick scroll through their blog seems to support. This makes them pretty cool but not necessarily the perfect source -- anyone can say they are a librarian, and surely not every librarian is correct about processing information

FIND BETTER COVERAGE

if i go to a search engine (in this case google via firefox) i see that several universities, libraries from large municipalities (like Los Angeles) as well as the BBC all agree that this is a real method experts in information fields recommend. I wouldn't necessarily take any single one of these sources as 100% credible, but they are individually reasonably reliable, and taken together indicate a high probability of factual information

TRACE TO ORIGINAL CONTEXT

A brief search reveals that the SIFT method was created by Mike Caulfield, who is a research scientist at the University of Washington’s Center for an Informed Public, where he studies the spread of online rumors and misinformation. This is an extremely good source of information for how to process information on the internet. As the creator of the SIFT method, he has taught thousands of teachers and students how to verify claims and sources through his workshops.

I could not find a post or page about SIFT written by Mike Caulfield himself, so i went to the University of Washington's website for this page about it, since that is the university that employs him.

It corroborates the above information, though there are a few notable differences. For example, under the "trace to original context" section in the Washington U. source (again, as close to the original as i could find) this step contains advice to check the date. This seems very good to include, as in the fast moving world of internet information, things become outdated or get updated very quickly, and yet first takes and outdated articles hang around and get shared for a long time.

EXTRA CREDIT