Depraved

I need one of these, but The Hermit. Not sure if I would have the space for it though, as I don't have much real estate to begin with. My jacket is almost completely full with only 6 small logo patches on the front and the back patch takes up the entire back. 😂

I'm anxiously awaiting mine to arrive in the mail. Mayhem, Darkthrone, Mercyful Fate, and Paradise Lost. But I sew by hand and on leather, no less. I like to make things difficult.

I need y'alls opinion about something. I'm (hopefully) going to have the chance to go to a show before the end of the year (depending on whatever covid does, obviously). I've been working on a battle jacket and I've already sewn on a sick Katatonia back patch that looks totally badass. I also have the old logo patch on the front. Now I've just recently purchased an old as hell Katatonia shirt I stumbled upon while perusing the internets that I really want to wear to the first show back since before freaking covid. Problem is, I don't want to come across as too much of a huge Katatonia fanboy (spoiler: anyone who's seen some of my other posts knows I am one). What are the "rules" about battle jackets/band shirts (if any???) I've never made a battle jacket before. Should I just say fuck it and wear whatever the fuck I want even if it's like half Katatonia and half every thing else? Lol. PS, the show is not Katatonia (most unfortunately).

I've noticed that when I have those types of dreams it's always right before I get killed that I'd wake up. I often had nightmares when I was growing up that my family members were trying to stab me to death or run me over with their car and it was always right at the part when I was about to die that I jerked awake. I actually had a dream like this recently, although I can't remember the details now. I just remember thinking I was about to die in the dream and then waking up very abruptly. Oh, your maze dream just reminded me of another weird recurring dream I've had recently. I'm always walking in a narrow hallway but it leads nowhere and all the doors are locked. Similarly, I sometimes dream that I'm climbing or descending stairs that lead nowhere and there is no end to them. I feel completely lost in my life, so I guess those dreams kind of make sense. It's better than dreaming about getting murdered, obviously, but they're still annoying as hell.

Oh, don't worry about saying too much personal stuff, I'm the queen of oversharing. 🤣

That's strange, sounds terrifying. I've had a lot of weird recurring dreams in my life. Many of them involve drowning. I used to have this dream almost every night for like two or three years that I was driving on this open stretch of road near the ocean, and then suddenly the road turned into the sea and I would just keep driving and drive into the ocean and drown. Many of these dreams are so realistic that I hold my breath in my sleep because I really believe I'm underwater and I wake up gasping. Holding my breath while asleep used to be a big problem for me, I would hold it so long that when I woke up my blood pressure was dangerously high. It scared me so much that I was afraid of sleeping. Dreams are wild sometimes.

I've been bored out of my mind thanks to the pandemic. I have a very morbid fascination so naturally a few weeks ago I started binge watching documentaries about serial killers and spending all day reading about them. No surprise the night before last I woke up in a cold sweat after dreaming that one of them was after me. 🤣 I just scrolled up and saw this. Apparently nightmares about serial killers isn't all that uncommon.

Right place at the right time, I guess. I've been very alone all my life. I've always felt like I can't relate to most people or like there is some sort of disconnect from me at a fundamental level. I often feel like I'm trapped in a glass box and the other people are on the side of the glass, and I can see them and they can see me, but I can't really pass through the glass to join them...I don't know if that makes sense, but I've read about other people who feel like this, too. I grew up in isolation and I've had to move around a lot ever since I was a kid, so it was very difficult to meet people and get close enough to them because I was never in a place for more than a few years. I've always been a drifter. The few times I felt like I was able to connect with someone, either they or I had to move away a year or so later and the relationship wasn't deep enough for them to maintain it despite my efforts. Right now I only have 2 or 3 acquaintances and none of them live nearby. Being alone so much, I filled my time with solitary pursuits, but as I've gotten older I realize that's just made me even more isolated. I feel very lonely all the time. But I've also had a lot of bad experiences with people so when I sometimes think of trying to make myself meet people, I remember those things and it makes me think that it's better to be alone... I haven't started reading this yet. Actually I'm not quite finished with Brave New World yet so I'm trying to finish that before I begin The Invisible Man.

@Strawberry If for some reason you prefer the perspective of another male on this subject, this guy makes some really good points. Perhaps you should take some time to scroll through the comment section and you'll find that several other women have experiences similar to mine. I do find it very interesting and a bit ironic that you're quick to shoot down my personal experiences as a female metal fan in a thread you created about sexism and women who like metal.

YES The Art of Drowning is excellent as well. They were so prolific from around 1997-2003. I love everything they did during that time before Interscope got ahold of them. Even their b-sides were incredible. That stuff is some of the most unique sounding music I've ever heard.

Today I went to the bookstore and picked up The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells and Stranger in a Strange Land by Robert A. Heinlein. I've been on classic sci-fi kick since reading Brave New World. Not like a I really need to be adding anymore books to my list...

AFI - Black Sails in the Sunset This album was the gateway drug for me to get into heavier music, now well over half a lifetime ago. Prior to, I had no real interest in music, being just a clueless little pre-teen girl that listened to whatever the other girls at school were listening to or whatever was on the radio. First time I heard it I was done for, there was no going back haha. I still love the hell out of this record. Absolute top-notch Misfits-inspired pissed off melodic hardcore. I still experience such a cathartic rush when I listen to it.

Yes! It's a very shocking and eye-opening read, especially for me (since I'm an American...) and many of the things the government tried to lead us to believe post 9/11 were exaggerated or fabricated or half-truths, trying to justify their involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan and "the war on terror". I actually got to interview the author for my thesis via Twitter and Skype, which was awesome. At the time I remember him talking about a new book he was working on called Portable Happiness but to my knowledge it hasn't been published yet. I know that there have to be a lot of legal proceedings and such so that his work can be published. Guantanamo Diary was only allowed to be published if a lot of information about the US government and certain conditions at the prison were omitted because it's evidence of the US violating international human rights law (which for some reason they're allowed to do, just shows you how corrupt this country is and how money and power can let them side step the law when other, smaller or poorer countries would be punished), so you end up flipping through pages upon pages of redactions with footnotes from the guy who helped him publish it explaining what information was likely redacted since he'd done a ton of research about Guantanamo and the justice system. It always amuses me that I'm pretty much completely alone, I've never really had any friends and average people always accuse me of being "boring", yet I've gotten to meet and/or have conversations with several famous people and public figures over the years lol.

Thanks, I'm really not sure where I'm going to start, I want to read all of them at once because they all sound so interesting but that would be impossible lol. I really need to finish the books I'm reading now first, honestly. I have a really bad habit of starting books but hardly ever finishing them. The last book I read all the way through for the first time was Guantanamo Diary for a university seminar back in 2017 (which is excellent, by the way).

Thanks @FatherAlabaster

Pretty sure we've had this discussion in a couple of threads on here before. Interesting topic, though. Being female, I can tell you that it's extremely difficult to find other women who like metal (but I've always lived in the southern tier of the US, so I would imagine they might be easier to find elsewhere). Sure, there are certainly women who like metal, but we comprise such a small percentage of what is a massively male-dominated genre. I've never met another female metal fan "in the wild". When I go to concerts, the crowd is usually around 90% male. That number rises even more overwhelmingly with more extreme genres (black and death metal especially, in my experience). When I saw 1349 right before the pandemic, I recall seeing maybe 5 other women in the crowd (of about 300) other than myself. I've been to smaller shows where I was the only woman there. But back to your question: no, I don't think metal is sexist, nor do I think it ever was (in general). There are bands who have expressed or at least alluded to having sexist opinions but as far as I know, they were always more the exception than the rule. Personally, I've never experienced any direct sexism from anyone at shows; in fact, many of the guys I've met whether they're band members or fans always seem both a little surprised and also happy that I've rescued them from a complete sausage fest lol. The rest seemed indifferent. I always go to shows alone and I've never been treated with anything other than respect despite looking very young and being very petite. I actually tend to feel safer at shows than in other random situations in public despite being surrounded by strange men. I've gotten followed, catcalled, harassed, threatened, and verbally attacked by dudes in ordinary places like the grocery store. That's never happened to me at a metal concert. The worst that's happened is I sometimes get stared at/gawked at, which can be very unnerving, mainly because I have no idea if they're planning to steal my wallet later. Anyway, back to female metal bands. I think @blaaacdoommmmfan is somewhat correct, but only to a certain degree. You'll definitely find less female metal fans than female pop fans. But part of it I think is also because female metal fans tend to be more socially isolated, I think. For example, let's say there's a female guitarist who wants to join or start a metal band. She might have a guy friend who's into metal who also wants to start a band, but he probably knows several other men who have expressed an interest in starting a band together and have possibly jammed together, who might all be friends or have known each other for a long time, are probably closer and may already have really good chemistry. The woman, on the other hand, is highly unlikely to have enough female friends who are into the same music she is, are musicians themselves, and are interested in starting a band. It's unfortunate and sad, but that's reality. Social conditioning is also a factor, for sure. Parents are more likely to enroll their daughter in piano, violin or voice lessons if she's interested in music, whereas boys seem to get to choose whatever instrument interests them. If they like any kind of rock music, that's probably going to be guitar or drums. I remember when I was a kid, I knew many girls at school who took music lessons. Only 2 of them were taking guitar lessons. One of them was a huge country fan. The other was into classic rock and her dad was a guitarist himself. The rest were overwhelmingly students of voice or piano. A few played flute, clarinet, or violin. As for boys I knew who were taking music lessons? Most of them were learning guitar. So it seems to kind of be this idea, perhaps, that many parents have, that certain instruments are more appropriate for girls to learn, and their interest is probably encouraged by music genres besides rock. Think about it. The rare instance you see a metal band with a female member, what music are they playing? If the band has a keyboard, that's usually what she's playing. Or she's the vocalist (in certain genres). If it's a folk metal band, there might be a woman playing the fiddle or another traditional instrument. When I was in elementary (primary) school, my parents wanted me to learn piano. They strongly encouraged this by taking me to see classical pianists at the performing arts center, forcing me to get involved with our church community and the music director letting me play during services. That's mainly what I played - hymns. Later, I was allowed to take voice lessons, but it was sort of the same thing. I got to take voice lessons so I could sing in the choir at church. They encouraged the interest in music only through classical music, opera, and church music, despite what my own music interests were. Meanwhile, my male cousins got guitars for Christmas or for their birthday as soon as they expressed any interest in playing. I remember telling my mom when I was about 14 I didn't want to play piano anymore and I wanted to take guitar lessons instead, and she said something like "But I want you to continue with piano! You play so well! It makes you sophisticated!" I haven't gone near a piano in years and I can't remember much except the basics, although I would eventually like to start playing again, but for completely different reasons. I only sing in the shower or sometimes when I'm listening to Skid Row or Queensryche while cooking dinner (Sebastian Bach and Geoff Tate are very fun to imitate). Never got to take guitar lessons. I've been trying to teach myself, but it keeps getting derailed. Sorry, this is turning into a long tangent, but maybe it can shed some light on your question. I think there are a few different factors that contribute to the lack of all-female metal bands, but I don't believe sexism is one of them. I certainly don't think metal is innately sexist.

It's better being closer to my family in the event of an emergency, instead of being in my old city where I had very few/no connections. That's the main reason I moved here. But otherwise I'm hating it and I don't see much reason to stay. My aunt and uncle and one of my cousins live 15 minutes away but they hardly ever talk to me or see me, which almost makes me feel even lonelier than where I was before. My mom lives an hour away but she's not very mobile and I don't have any expendable income right now to drive down to see her. We don't get along well anyway. She and her boyfriend are always fighting and I can only tolerate that for a couple of hours at a time. I've been unemployed for almost a year because of the pandemic and finding it impossible to find work, not even a basic administrative/clerical job in an office somewhere. It doesn't help that I don't have much experience to begin with because I just graduated a few years ago and worked only one "real" job, which was in a niche industry gutted by COVID, during that time. I've tried exploring other industries where I could try to parlay my (worthless) education and (limited) skill set, and still no dice. Tried working with recruiters who were a waste of time. Can't even get a volunteer position because no one ever gets in touch with me after I submit an application and I can't get a hold of anyone when I call to ask about it. Unwilling to go back to school since I'm burnt out from undergrad/already drowning in debt and wouldn't even know what to go back for other than maybe a short certificate program of some sort. There are very few jobs here that aren't construction or manufacturing or retail/food service, especially now. I moved from a majority middle-class, very commercial, educated city of about 250,000 to a much poorer blue collar town of about 80,000. I've been here almost 6 months and still not used to the culture shock. The people are very different from what I'm used to. I hate to say it, but it's sort of a backwoods hick town. I've had to deal with so much ignorant narrow-minded bullshit in the short time I've been here it's all but turned me off the place completely. I've been seriously considering looking for an admin job at my old company, but I bet they'd find a bullshit reason not to hire me ("Oh, yes, you worked here for almost 3 years but you were doing a slightly different job in a different department and you don't have 75904739 years of experience as an admin assistant so fuck off"). Can't say I want to move back there anyway because I don't want to be all alone again (even though I'm still very alone here, at least I have relatives nearby even if I don't exist to them 99% of the time). Just don't know what to do. I don't want to stay here but I don't want to move back either. Moving to some other location I've never been before is out of the question unless I can secure a job somewhere else, which is almost certainly not going to happen because no employer is going to look beyond a local pool of applicants for low-level admin work. Apparently I'm not qualified to do anything else - believe me, I've tried and got nothing but a slew of rejections - because there's no such thing as entry level work anymore. But it looks like I'm unqualified for basic admin work too. Probably can't get a job working food service at this point either because I haven't worked in a restaurant since 2015 and the last one I applied to I was told my restaurant experience wasn't recent enough and therefore I was unqualified. Which is fine with me, I don't feel like getting shot by some douche canoe who turns homicidal when asked to put on a mask.

Thanks. I've moved to a new town since I was around last and so far I'm hating it here despite being a lot closer to my family. Just feel like I'm wandering around aimlessly in life and building a bridge to nowhere. I've always felt that way, but I think COVID has made everything way more uncertain so every day I wake up I have no idea what I'm doing or what I should be working toward. I keep hoping maybe I'll feel different about it once the pandemic is over or at least a bit less indecisive, but I can't shake the feeling that everything seemed better where I was living before. Sort of in a situation now where the only options on the table all suck equally.

I have a list of books I've been wanting to read for years but never seem to get around to actually reading them. Trying to change that though. Currently have 3 going at the moment: Brave New World by Aldous Huxley From Gabriel to Lucifer: A Cultural History of Angels (nonfiction) by Valery Rees Mossflower by Brian Jacques (childhood favorite but kind of lackluster rereading it as an adult, oh well) Also on the shelf but haven't started reading yet: No Exit by Jean-Paul Sartre The Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus Lucifer by Joost van den Vondel Frankenstein by Mary Shelley The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy (yeah, yeah can't believe I've never read them, I grew up with the films, which I think are great adaptations despite never reading the original source material) I have the Book of Enoch as a PDF somewhere... To acquire: Nausea and The Age of Reason by Jean-Paul Sartre Dracula by Bram Stoker The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka The Hunchback of Notre Dame by Victor Hugo The Phantom of the Opera by Gaston Leroux The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson The Call of Cthulhu by H.P. Lovecraft The Idiot and Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoyevsky The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving Paradise Lost by John Milton (have read Part I but want to read the entire work) The VALIS trilogy by Philip K. Dick "The Masque of Pandora" by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow and "The Waste Land" by T.S. Eliot

Benny Goodman - "Sing, Sing, Sing" 🤷‍♀️

Can't believe I've never noticed this thread. I'm a total tea snob, have been for probably half my life at this point. I've been drinking Harney & Sons almost exclusively for years. I love black tea, especially if it's a flavored blend of some sort. Of course, I like a regular breakfast blend too. Putting sugar in tea is blasphemy imho. But I love to make my tea in the morning with half hot water and half warm milk. I like herbal tea blends too, especially peppermint. Also a big fan of lavender and lemon verbena.

Sorry to get on here and word-vomit. Just feeling very lonely in general and also completely lost work-wise. I haven't dropped by in a while, hope everyone's hanging in there during the never-ending plague. Not sure how it is in other countries but where I'm located in the US so far 2021 is shaping up to be more or less 2020 part II. 🙄

Mgla - Exercises in Futility

Fields of the Nephilim - The Nephilim

Paradise Lost - Shades of God