This whole year so far, it's been The Gathering - Shot to Pieces for me. It's not even a new song I discovered, I first heard it when it was new on a Metal Hammer compilation CD. But it's just been speaking to me this year. The lyrics, the vibe, the sound, everything. It's the song in my soul currently.
And seeing that made me feel stupid for never picking up on the white power undertones in their music before. Honestly it's made me feel something not good about a lot of metal bands in general since, considering that this very year, Metallica, Slayer and Pantera were still happily touring alongside each other as opening acts for Black Sabbath's 20th final tour.
I can't, personally. Same with any art. Kanye can get fucked. Manson can get fucked. Pantera can get fucked. Neil Gaiman can get fucked.
Some are harder to walk away from than others though. Sandman and Death were two of the first comic book characters that I ever got to read complete stories of and not just random back issues. But I'll never be able to look at another Gaiman creation again without thinking about everything.
Others are easier to leave behind. Bands like Pantera always came across as macho dickheads that beat up kids for listening to heavy metal back in school anyway. So I feel nothing saying nazi metalheads fuck off
I didn't even know that "non-binary" was a thing until later in life. I knew that I wasn't like the boys but we wore uniforms and had to have gender specific haircuts and were all seperated and categorised, so it's not like I was spending all my time with the girls either. I just thought I was a weirdo that hated sports and stupid immature behaviour, who preferred reading fantasy and sci-fi books alone.
And I still didn't even know that it was a thing for years after school. We're kinda progressive in my country but probably still at least 10 years behind the first world in that regard. So it's something that I was just never exposed to. When I finally did sit down and do some homework about it, it felt like I had finally found the picture to use as reference to put the puzzle of my life together, if that makes sense. Before that, I was just building the puzzle blind and not doing a very good job at it. So many things in my life would've made more sense or been easier (and I would've made better decisions along the way too) if I had only known who I was.
This meme might've done the trick for me lol. Still gonna go with 16 though because that's the age I started sneaking out on weekends to go to the alternative club. I think that if I had a clue back then and wasn't still in denial, I would've done everything better, especially relationships with people.
Either an egg meme or a neurodivergence meme. Or both in one. Preferably with the word 'non-binary' in it so that I'm exposed to that concept young. Then hopefully I'd get a clue and live my best life before that life turns into a dark tunnel where the only light ahead is an oncoming train.
Tempted to send it to my 5 year old self before starting primary school. But I mean, 5 year old me wouldn't get it. I could send it to 12 year old me before high school but then I'd still get sent to boarding school in a religious conservative shit hole town and probably feel even more trapped there armed with knowledge of who I really am.
So I'm gonna send to my 16 year old self. Second to last year of school when I was already done with this shit and just before starting my adult life.
Reddit. First strike was an anti religion comment. Got back after my 3 days and the first thread I saw was something in one of the popular subs where everyone was shitting on religion. Second strike was cheering on the bear in a clip where a bear turned on a circus trainer for "wishing harm". Third and final strike was for shitting on the manosphere for, and I quote, "hatred towards vulnerable and marginalized groups."
All three came in the last two or three years, after being on the platform for more than a decade and never being suspended before that.
Yeah honestly my sense of time passed is just really terrible as well. To me it feels like ages ago but I'm pretty sure it only came out last year some time. The other day I was just about to complain about how long Sweet Tooth season 3 took until I looked it up and saw there's only a 1 year gap between season 2 and 3 lol (still need to catch up though).
I need to look Ella Purnell up. I thought she was great but I haven't watched anything else with her in it yet.
Yeah I think nowhere will be 100% free of bigots that think the world revolves around them. But the way I see it, it's just easier to disappear into the crowd in cities. You're going to be seeing and walking past a hundred different faces in a day.
Whereas in a small town or village, you're going to be seeing the same people over and over. And those same people you'll be seeing over and over usually consist of pearl clutching retirees and people that barely ever left their home town in their lives and who live in a small world (but of course still think they know everything about everything). And to your point, those kinds of people tend to think that their specific culture is the default and 'normal' and that everyone else in the world is wrong and a heretic.
As someone that is dying to be more GNC on a daily basis, I know that I'm not comfortable in this small town where even the hobos down the road know me personally by now.
A couple of months ago I was trying something with a second account on Facebook. Gave myself a gender neutral name, used a profile picture where it's hard to tell, and set the non-binary flag as my banner.
Ended up in an argument with a TERF at one point. She was so convinced that I was a biological woman falling prey to "trans ideology" that she even showed up on my profile the next day, commenting on something and trying to convince me to change the path that I'm on. And just because it's relevant to this story, I feel like I should mention that I was shipped with male factory parts.
So yeah, I experienced that first hand with a TERF who can "always tell", who was convinced that I was one of these foolish women being tricked.
It was pretty affirming at first but as time went on it felt less like a win and made me feel awful and deceptive. Because I didn't once mention anything about my sex but didn't correct her either and just let her keep making assumptions. Deleted that account not long after that.
Edit: fun fact, not long after that on my main Facebook account that uses my very gendered real name, in another argument with a bigot, I was accused of being a woman pretending to be a man online.
Pretty sad that it's taken this long and that it seems like the lesson they learnt from WW2 wasn't "the subjugation and cleansing of an entire group of people is bad" but rather "never under any circumstances criticize Israel".
Lol so is this just a thing with Facebook advertising these days? Last time I went on a couple of months ago, it kept advertising the exact same cardigans to me over and over but from different 'shops'. There were even two with completely different shop names that had the same sob story about a "going out of business sale", complete with crying face reactions as if life long fans of this shop were sad about the news.
I find it kinda funny in a way. Here's the social media powerhouse Meta making advertising central to their business but they can't even bother doing a little quality checking and not letting it be flooded with obvious fake shops that can't even do deception and trickery right.
The Hop Harrigan 1946 serial and the Congo Bill 1948 serial. I found a Hop Harrigan torrent that sat at 0% on my list without even downloading metadata for about two years before I gave up. And I couldn't find Congo Bill anywhere. Something tells me that Congo Bill would be pretty problematic and full of insulting stereotypes these days though.
Right winger: "Well if you weren't so mean to me, I wouldn't support people that want to turn women into property, make queer people's existence illegal, marry children and send them to work in the mines and hire white social media influencers over brown people with qualifications.
See? I'm actually a good person. But mean words are so much more unforgivable than rampant bigotry and hatred. So you forced me to side with the rampant bigots that hate everyone who isn't a white straight christian male. It's YOUR fault!
Also, these librul snowflakes have such thin skins."
This whole year so far, it's been The Gathering - Shot to Pieces for me. It's not even a new song I discovered, I first heard it when it was new on a Metal Hammer compilation CD. But it's just been speaking to me this year. The lyrics, the vibe, the sound, everything. It's the song in my soul currently.