Morning After Dread: Understanding Hanxiety and What Helps
A clear guide to navigating post-drinking anxiety, body signals, science-backed coping tools and the products that can help
By: The Lace Ledger Staff
Your pounding headache and rising nausea jolt you awake long before your alarm.
Your chest feels tight, a knot of dread coils in your gut and a single thought crawls in: did I say or do something embarrassing last night? Is it as bad as I think?
This experience — a signature blend of hangover and anxiety, now lovingly referred to as hanxiety — is familiar to many, especially after nights of heavy drinking, when physical and psychological distress overlap.
Hangxiety symptoms can include the obligatory nausea, shakiness, headaches, etc. paired with racing thoughts, shame, regret and fixation on what could have gone wrong the night before, often worsening as blood alcohol drops and brain chemistry rebalance begins.
It doesn’t help that, even on a good day, anxiety disorders are common with over 359M people worldwide affected and counting according to the World Health Organization. Adding stressors such as sleep loss and dehydration to a possibly already-anxious foundation can be challenging.
If you find the morning after harder than the night before, you are far from alone — here is what to do next.
Heretics and Headliners: The Women Who Rewired Rock
From the architects to the agitators shaping the genre now
By: The Lace Ledger Staff
Right now feels different.
Not quieter, not softer, not diluted; but, volcanic and disruptive.
Women are not entering rock again. They are reclaiming it, backed by decades of women who screamed into rooms that were never built to hold them.
Women have been consistently ranked among the most influential rock musicians of all time, with Janis Joplin, Tina Turner, Stevie Nicks, Patti Smith and Joan Jett shaping entire movements rather than moments.
Today, that lineage is no longer symbolic. It is audible in festival lineups, metal charts, touring rosters and a new generation of artists whose rage is articulate, intentional and unapologetically feminine.
This is not a revival. It is an expansion.
House of Steam: Inside Canada’s Most Haunting Winter Hydro Spas
The Canadian winter is a creature of contrast: frozen air that bites, trees stripped to bone, stillness that feels older than snow.
Step into steam rising against that cold, and the world realigns — warmth unfurls muscle tension and settles thought like a cathedral organ.
Outdoor hydrotherapy in the depth of winter feels mythical. Water that heats the skin becomes a balm, cold plunges elicit a sharp intake of breath and the virgin white surroundings focus every sensory moment.
This is not mere relaxation; it is a pilgrimage into sensation, a communion with heat and ice that feels sacred.
Hide Under the Covers: A Goth-Coded Psychological Thriller Watchlist
Fourteen films designed to unsettle the mind
By: The Lace Ledger Staff
National Cuddle Up Day (January 6) does not necessarily require sweetness. It asks for closeness, lowered lights and something unsettling enough to make you pull the blankets higher.
Psychological thrillers thrive in this space.
They trade jump scares for tension, spectacle for intimacy, comfort for proximity; these are films that crawl under the skin slowly.
The Mind, Reframed: A Watchlist Inside the Psyche on Screen
How 26 films portray mental health, harm and healing
By: The Lace Ledger Staff
Film has long been fascinated with the complicated workings of our inner selves. The portrayal of mental health on screen ranges from being cast as mirror for our deepest fears to empathetically-driven epilogs or funhouse distortions, depending on who is telling the story.
Some narratives offer care and complexity, while others lean into spectacle at the expense of truth.
This watchlist examines how mental health is framed across genres, decades and tones, from compassion to controversy.
End the Year with Grace: A Conversation with a Modern Mystic, Molly Zancanaro
Reflections on revelation, Reiki and the rituals that bridge one year to the next
By: The Lace Ledger Staff
The year ends softly for those who know how to listen. The light thins, and time seems to breathe between hours.
We spoke with a modern mystic, Molly Zancanaro, about the quiet work of closing the year with grace and intention. Her practice blends spiritual intuition with energy work. Specializing in Reiki healing and tarot, she reminds others that ending the year doesn’t mean that we have to resolve the past to move forward; but simply release carrying what no longer belongs with us.
In this conversation, she shares her story of self discovery and finding her online community, and then invites us to peak behind the curtain of a session to gain a deeper understanding of the energy and intuitive work she does. She also shares a simple ritual we can each use to welcome the new year as 2025 comes to a close.
Violent Hearts: 12 Action-Soaked Love Stories for the Darkly Romantic
From True Romance to The Killer, these films prove that devotion and destruction often share the same heartbeat
By: The Lace Ledger Staff
Love doesn’t always show up with a boombox and a song. Sometimes, it screams through smoke, gunfire, broken glass and certain destruction.
Violent Hearts is a collection for those who crave their romance with consequence—where obsession feels like fate, and tenderness hides behind a trigger finger.
These aren’t horror films, exactly. They’re stories where love is both weapon and wound.
Paper Cuts: The Sharpest Magazine Subscriptions for 2026
A canon of moody reading for an elegant year ahead
By: The Lace Ledger Staff
There’s a distinct thrill in finding a fresh issue waiting on your doorstep, its glossy pages still cool from the morning air. You flip it open and feel that familiar pull—a monthly ritual that settles beside you like a well-dressed companion. Your drink your coffee. Or tea. Or something stronger. The world softens as you read, and the conversation expands until you feel like you’re sitting with an entire community all at once.
A magazine can do that. It can widen the doorway the moment you leave it open a crack. It can remind you that inspiration can arrive bound, printed and right on time.
Here are our curations, chosen for the gothic archetype that shapes your story.
Countdown with Decadence: 30 Goth-Coded Advent Calendars for the Darkly Inclined
Because anticipation is an art
Advent began as a solemn Christian countdown — a quiet preparation for light’s return in the depths of winter.
Over time, it became a calendar of joy and curiosity: small doors concealing chocolates, charms or treasures to mark each day until Christmas.
In recent years, the tradition has evolved into an indulgence for adults. Beyond simple chocolate treats, there is a wide variety advents for fragrance lovers, fashion collectors, whisky enthusiasts, beauty devotees and more. It’s a modern ritual of slow pleasure — each day revealing a spark of delight in the dark season.
For the gothic soul, advent is more than countdown; it’s ceremony. A daily offering of mystery and sensory indulgence.
Below, we have curated this year’s 30 most covetable calendars through an alternative lens — moody, opulent, utterly irresistible.
Walking After Midnight: Tools to Keep You Safe as the Nights Grow Long
Because empowerment is the most elegant accessory of all
As the days shorten and twilight lingers, many women quietly change their routes or keep a friend on the phone until they’re home. It’s not paranoia — it’s pattern. According to a 2023 Gallup survey, 60% of women in North America report feeling unsafe walking alone at night, compared to 25% of men. The numbers echo across Canada as well, where one in three women say they’ve experienced harassment or intimidation in public spaces (Statistics Canada, 2022).
For those who find beauty in moonlight, the goal isn’t to retreat from the dark — it’s to move through it wisely.
Safety is a staple. Preparation is power.
Below are tools that blend protection with subtlety, designed to help you walk safely after midnight without surrendering your freedom.
Bound in Lace: 11 Goth-Coded Fashion Books Worth Displaying (and Devouring)
From Mugler to muses, these coffee-table tomes transform style into scripture
To the gothic aesthete, books are portals of devotion and design.
Leather spines, gilded pages and satin bookmarks whisper of eras when reading was ceremony. Fashion books, in particular, turn aesthetics into theology. Each page tells a story through silhouette, revealing identity as confession.
Once reserved for archivists and couture historians, these volumes have become altars of taste. They trace the lineage of sensuality and craftsmanship — the same obsessions that define gothic style. Within them, we find beauty that breathes, darkness that dazzles and glamour reborn.
Crossing Gently: A Dia de los Muertos Conversation with Mikey the Death Doula
Between mortality and myth, the death doula walks where fear of the unknown becomes sacred passage.
While the world often averts its gaze from endings, Death Doula Mikey Marin turns toward them — gently, deliberately, without illusion. Her work lives in the quiet hours before departure, when the veil between life and death thins and love begins its transformation into memory.
In honour of Día de los Muertos, The Lace Ledger sat down with Mikey to explore what it means to die well, to grieve honestly and to recognize the grace in letting go. She spoke to us about the beauty of ritual, the mystery of “the other side” and the ways death can teach us to live with greater reverence.
Blood-Stained Obsession: 9 True Crime Docs For The Romantic Goth
There’s something seductive about true crime—its brutal intimacy, its whispered warnings, its perverse proximity to the lives we lead. But for the romantic goth, it's never about gore for gore’s sake.
We’re not voyeurs—we're empaths.
We watch for answers, not entertainment.
We seek patterns, not panic.
We study the dark to better understand our light. Still, not all true crime is created equal.
For every documentary that honours the victim, a dozen more glorify the killer. The Lace Ledger believes in ethical consumption: no romanticizing monsters, no re-traumatizing survivors. Just hauntingly thoughtful storytelling.
So, draw the blinds, pour a glass of red wine and settle in. These are the seven true crime documentaries that cut so deep, you’ll feel them for days to come.
Goth-Coded Fall/Winter Watchlist: Cinema for the Dark Season
From castles to conspiracies, this autumn’s films and series echo our gothic archetypes
As the air chills and nights grow long, the Fall season begs for stories that keep us spellbound and indoors.
The kind of stories that belong beside red wine or beneath candlelight, where narrative risk feels like ritual.
This watchlist was curated with The Lace Ledger’s gothic archetypes in mind. Each title was chosen for how it resonates with the Vamp’s seduction, the Brat’s rebellion or the Romantic Goth’s hunger for love that lingers.
These works don’t simply fill time, they invite you into moods you can inhabit as the season unfolds.
Bloodlines & Broken Mirrors: A Vampire Watchlist for the Beautifully Damned
There’s a certain romance in the vampire — the eternal hunger, the elegance of immortality, the silk-and-blood seduction of those who live by night. Vampires are not just monsters; they are metaphors for desire itself.
This watchlist is for those who savor crimson wine, nocturnal longing and the thrill of surrender. Each film and series is more than a story — it’s an invitation to step into the crypt and dress your wounds in decadence.
Gothic Gains: Archetype-Aligned Workouts for the Darkly Inclined
From ballet to boxing, discover goth-coded workouts for fitness with flourish (not fluorescent lights
Fitness should not feel like a punishment under harsh gym lighting–it should feel like a wellness ritual, an adventure, even, play! Movement is more than exercise; it’s embodiment, a way to inhabit your archetype fully.
Whether you’re a Vamp seeking strength and control, a Brat craving chaotic bursts of energy or a Dark Academic searching for discipline through form, there’s a workout designed to channel your gothic identity.
Here, we’ve curated archetype-aligned activities that make staying active feel less like a chore and more like living poetry in motion.
Enchanted Screens: A Witchy Watchlist for Shadowy Nights
Not all spells are cast with cauldrons and cloaks. Some are conjured in flickering light — whispered through film reels, stitched into satin costumes, spoken by women accused of being too powerful, too strange or too free.
For those who feel the call of the coven, we’ve gathered a watchlist of films and shows where witchcraft, mysticism and the dark feminine take centre stage.
This is not all about broomsticks and caricatures. It’s about seduction, sovereignty and shadow work — the kind of witchcraft you can taste in a cup of tea or feel in the echo of a blood-red moon.
Darkly Devoted: Elevated Hobbies for Every Goth Archetype
A guide to rituals of pleasure, power and poetic obsession—tailored to your truest self.
Personal style is more than fabric—it’s folklore. Your goth archetype doesn’t just inform what you wear, it shapes how you move through the world, what you collect, how you express devotion and what lights your inner fire.
Here’s some inspiration on how you can honor your shadow self with elevated hobbies that match your aesthetic.
Whispers in the Dark: Podcasts for Your Goth Archetype
A curated listening ritual for your mind, mood and moonlit walks.
The right voice in your ear can feel like a séance with your higher self—or a long-awaited whisper from the void. Whether you’re a brooding oracle or a brat with a playlist, here’s a podcast companion for your archetype.
The Gothic Giggle Guide: Female Comedians Each Goth Archetype Adores
Not every laugh is lighthearted — some are sharp as a dagger, some warm as candlelight, some decadent, bratty or soaked in sorrow.
Comedy, much like style, becomes a mirror of our archetypes. The Lace Ledger’s women each find themselves drawn to different stand-up voices — reflections of their wit, wounds and worldview among other qualifiers.
Below, discover which female comedians compliment each archetype’s private comedy club — complete with a signature cocktail or indulgence for the evening.