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Related to my tags on the Irish American reblog, how long have bastardized "Celtic" crosses been neo-Nazi symbols? I wasn't aware of this stupid use until I was an adult and my father was equally unaware until I learned about it, and in our Celtic (American) Pride we often used Celtic cross imagery in decor and accessories. Granted these usually did resemble actually woven/knotted crosses (which by no means meant they were authentic. At best a few came from local Celtic Pride fests–which as I said in those tags was plagued by Confederate and Nazi imagery), but most of them came from like JoAnn's or Michael's or Walmart whenever Saint Paddy's Day rolled around. That said, the woven pattern of a Celtic cross is a bitch to draw especially when you have yet to nurture or be nurtured in any art skills, so when my borderline-Gothic ass would doodle graveyards in my school notebooks I would often doodle simplified Celtic crosses as grave markers, which unfortunately just meant a simple cross with a simple circle in it, unfortunately reminiscent of the neo-Nazi symbol.
Me and my family were staunchly Indiana liberals (to be fair that wasn't that shocking in our democrat enclave city) and have only become more leftist as time goes on, so those who knew me well would know I didn't mean anything by it, but like I have to wonder/worry that those who didn't know me well (like most of my classmates. I was pretty lonely in high school) or people who would briefly visit my home or come across us while we were wearing Celtic pins that day or something came away with the wrong impression. I'm especially dismayed at the thought that the kids I knew to be actual neo-Nazis might thought I was one of them
For the record I left school in like twenty eleven and had been doodling graveyards for years and wearing Celtic imagery for even longer. I can't really find out when the "Celtic" cross became a dogwhistle
Reading: Camp Damascus by Chuck Tingle, Rare Birds by L.B. Hazelthorn, and A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas
Finished Reading: The Reddening by Adam L.G. Nevill, Whalefall by Daniel Kraus, The End and Everything Before it by Finegan Kruckemeyer, A Wizard's Guide to Defensive Baking by T. Kingfisher
Podcast: N/A
Playing: Lunacid (PC), and Salt and Sanctuary (PS4/PS5)
Making: A .°˖✧website✧˖°.
Writing: Project E
Word Count: 164030
TLDR: RAGE, memes, capitalism sucking the fun out of fun, breaking away from socials, the magic of the INDIE WEB, I’ve got a website :3
Stop wasting beautiful stories on memes. I get so mad whenever I see a meme with a pitch for a story… and it’s brilliant… I have many memes (which now have permanent residence in my brain) which I am thinking of while writing this. I wanted to share some… Which meant searching for them and now I have more that exist and it hurts. It hurts for two main reasons. One is a me problem I should maybe look at deeper and one is a societal problem which can only be fixed by the death of the patriarchy… I’ll try to bring both down.
Number one is that I do not feel that a meme is a fully-fledged art form and that something is less valuable in meme form. How dare I, right? Bring out the guillotine. I guess, my personal art form is long-form storytelling and so I think about how these story ideas could fit into my own art form and that would be so cool, and I want to write them. And I can’t… which brings us to Number B.
Anyone who might want to write a novel or other fully published work based on these ideas, or inspired by it will likely not be able to. But first, let's take a look at the post which started me thinking about this right now.
The post in question:
So, Number B reason… Coming from me, this is going to be a real shocker, Capitalism. If you’re a storyteller and want to not… y’know, starve to death, you need to be concerned with the origin and claims to the core concept of a story. If you want to make a story based on a prompt like this, or a meme you saw, you can absolutely do so! However, if you do, and sell that story, and then the person who originally made this idea finds out… you could A. lose your publishing deal as you did not have the right to license this story and/ or B. get sued by the person whose idea it was.
This is bullshit.
We should be and feel free to share stories, ideas, and story ideas and art as freely as we care to. We should have a society where storytelling is being done by the vast majority, not the lucky few. We should be able to burn these brilliant story ideas on the pyre of memes/ communal storytelling. We should be able to make art without having to resort to squeezing every last Schrute Buck from your IPs cold corpse. Of course we all can make art for the masses and give it freely… but food is nice, so is paying rent, or a mortgage. And it is hard to be an art faerie, flitting about creating art like you were Magi Lune or Christa from Ferngully, art springing from your very presence on this fertile Earth… But you’ll have to squeeze it in, somewhere between your night shift at the Omega Mart and your 6am spin class and picking/dropping off children and of course there is the dishes to do. We must not forget the dishes! I have big feelings.
Alright, I’m good now. Needed to get that off my chest.
Have I mentioned that I have a Patreon?
On a lighter note, and without a paywall: I’ve been making a website! I watched the following video on the “Indie Web” and got inspired to create my own Neocities website. I’ve become a supporter so I can include extra file types on my website and not be as concerned about the upper limit of how much space my website can take up.
youtube
I’ll be uploading the newsletters there under Tidings, as well as uploading art that I’ve made, and TTRPG stuffs, including the Umbrulexicon as I keep making them. I’m also going to be uploading writing projects there which will not be uploaded elsewhere. So there’s plenty to love over there~
Probably, WARNING FOR EPILEPSY!!!!!!!!:
Support weird. Support your local artist and help them bring down Capitalism.
In the heart of Metropolis or down our own street, There lies a hero waiting, that we often forget. Not clad in a cape or a suit that's tight, But in the spirit of kindness and the warmth of light. Superman, the symbol of strength and might, Is more than just muscle and a power so bright. He's the embodiment of a truth we often ignore, That within us all, there's a hero to adore. We may not leap tall buildings in a single bound, Or fly faster than a speeding bullet around. But we have the power to lend a hand, To make someone's day with a smile so grand. The power to stand up for what's right, To fight the darkness with all our might. To protect the weak and shield the frail, To be the hero that we all can hail. So let us be inspired by the Man of Steel, To be the best version of ourselves, so real. For in each of us, there's a Superman inside, A force for good, with a heart open wide.