#cults tw /

[growing-yet-into-magic]

Your cards cannot think for you your teachers cannot think for you spirits cannot think for you your gods cannot think for you. YOU have to think for you. Do not outsource your thinking onto other figures, because there are and will be people looking to fill that void and tell you where to go and what to do and how to spend your money, and you will cede all control if someone speaks it cleverly enough.

[artisticdysfunction]

Intentional Trauma Based Psychological Conditioning (ITBPC)

yes, this is a post of us proposing a term we use personally be a community term.

so, what is this anyways?

psychology conditioning is a common thing to occur as a result of abuse, or other chronic traumas. pavlov introduced the concept of psychological conditioning with his testing on dogs. what most people know it as, is in relation to dog training. in terms of chronic trauma, it is a natural response to what happens to a person. it's why triggers exist, after all. and in terms of chronic trauma survivors, our system would personally call it trauma based psychological conditioning.

what would make it intentional, though?

for us, we define intentionality when a person is put through a series of related psychological conditionings, through traumatic means, for the purpose of making that person fit a particular goal.

one example that most people may be familiar with, is with cults. trauma inflicted onto people, on purpose by the cult, to make them good and willing cult members.

however, ITBPC can and does apply to more situations than that. it's more commonly seen in survivors of organized abuse, abuse done by an organized group. it can cause trauma disorders as any kind of abuse and trauma does.

why did we coin this for ourselves? and why are we making this post?

we have our issues with the term Mind Control. other than the fact that it is commonly thought of in terms of science fiction and hypnosis, we also don't believe it to be the most direct in what it is. mind control does refer to psychological conditioning, so we believe that referring to it as such would be more direct and lead to less confusion.

no one has to use this term if they don't want to, though. this is a term we made for us, and wanted to share in case anyone else felt right for them to use as well. anyone can interact with this post, just be civil.

[proudfreakmetarusonikku]

no actually I can’t stop thinking about this. if canonically the world around the dsmp is like normal with civilisation and shit that basically means c!dream was getting random ass people to leave their life behind and live in this isolated obscure patch of wilderness so they could all be One Big Happy Family which like… is literally just a cult he was trying to form a cult. that’s amazing I love that. probably not intentional but fuck it that’s canon in my mind now. he's not even doing it on purpose but if you showed him the bite model he’d be like “oh this is cool I need to do all this 🥰”

[firestorm09890]

just some rambling about lcb’s canto v part 3 things vs the source book

It felt like they combined the personalities of Starbuck and Stubb, and then they replaced Stubb’s personality entirely with Flask’s (the third mate), who was always the one described as irritable while Stubb was the jovial one.

Book Stubb was also pretty uncool, despite being so casual. Pip had to be the replacement oarsman in both cases, but the reason Pip’s sanity snapped in the book was because he jumped overboard out of fear once, Stubb told him they’d just leave him behind if he did it again, and then when it happened again, Stubb did leave Pip behind, and those few hours out at sea before the Pequod rescued him were what broke him; here, Stubb saved Pip from a fate worse than death, and then what happened to Stubb after is what broke Pip.

Speaking of Pip, weird choice to make them want to be a landlord. That’sss all I’ll say about that

Also, RIP Tashtego. Constantly got the short end of the harpoon in Moby Dick (basically first to slay a whale on the voyage but Stubb got all the credit, fell into a whale and almost died, saw the White Whale at the same time as Ahab and should’ve been awarded the gold doubloon for it but Ahab insisted he was first) and the trend continues here by giving his incredibly homoerotic moment of being saved from drowning in the whale by Queequeg to Ishmael instead, with him just not showing up at all… actually maybe Tashtego won in this case lol

The flashback with Ishmael going into Ahab’s cabin made me think that they would give her the dilemma of “should I kill her right now in her sleep”, similar to what Starbuck had in the book, but nope.

There’s a huge difference in the way Starbuck butted heads with Ahab in the book vs in Limbus. Book Starbuck definitely had a lot less faith that the captain was steering them right- forget “after we kill the Pallid Whale it’ll all be okay” that Limbus Starbuck thought, no, book Starbuck repeatedly told Ahab to please, turn around, please stop trying to go kill the White Whale, your revenge quest is meaningless because it’s basically just a force of nature and you can’t get revenge on nature, we can just go home, we've had bad omen after bad omen, don’t you see you’re leading us to doom- and he did this from the very beginning all the way til the very end, when they literally saw the beast. However, despite his pleas and disagreements, he did still follow the authority of the captain (can’t have a mutiny when it’s just you who disagrees; can’t shoot a man while he’s sleeping when you have too much of a conscience and a fear of going to hell to justify becoming a murderer) and inevitably helped Ahab get what he wanted. That’s something both Starbucks share.

Overall… it’s probably because they had a different story to tell. They had to make Ahab worse™️ than in the book so everyone surrounding her had to be changed to facilitate the fact that she had such a hold over all of them

The thing with Ahab promising gold coins to the crew (with it being clear to the audience that they’d never get them) was the progression of the book’s singular gold doubloon, which was promised to whomever saw the White Whale first. In the book, it was merely a symbol, with a bunch of different characters attempting to analyze its symbolic meaning in-universe (mostly in an astrological sense) and not really wanting it for monetary reasons (Flask even says that it’s just worth $16 and could buy 960 cigars. of course, that was in 1851, and inflation is one hell of a problem…) Here, that promised money is worth a lot more, both monetarily and as something to keep the crew going.

And then! The cult-like aspects. Kromer had her inquisitors with artificial brainwashing and it’s very stereotypically cult-like, but Ahab’s crew was a lot more accurate to how real-modern-day cults work. The recruitment of Ishmael made that clear. Here, she was at a low point in life, with no idea where she should go, and then boom, Ahab steering her. In Moby Dick Ishmael already wanted to go on a boat, as did every other sailor there. None of them even knew who their captain was until after they’d been out at sea for weeks because Ahab is weird like that. He got all his sailors into a disturbingly powerful fervor one night about the White Whale but for the most part they seemed to be mostly in it for the whales they encountered along the way. Book Ahab even recognized that in order to keep his crew from mutinying, they had to pick up some other whales- and unlike the gold coins keeping the crew motivated in Pequod Town in Limbus, this was an actual, tangible thing. More of a compromise to keep the crew happy than a lie.

Limbus Ahab’s boat was completely Ahab, with desires completely Ahab, completely enrapturing her crew. Book Ahab’s boat was The Pequod, a whaling ship that just so happened to have a monomaniac at the helm. Limbus’s Pequod crew had faith in Ahab until they died by her hands; book Pequod crew eventually recognized how completely fucked up Ahab was and how screwed they were, but to quote the book itself, “their fear of Ahab was greater than their fear of Fate.”

that’s about all the braincells I have for this

[glitchgw2]

VERY messy/sketchy art for now, but!!!

Meet Paille (ze/hir), an asura mesmer who leads a cult disguised as a human named Salma.

Seeing an opportunity in Joko's demise, ze exploited vulnerable people and started a cult promising the god-king's return. But in actuality, ze's just studying the nature of bookah human brainwash and manipulation. How far can ze go and bend the minds of humans? Well... only cruel ways to find out. Ritualistic sacrifices and starvation deaths are daily occurrings in hir cult.

(The colors of hir clothes are WIP. Can't wait to make hir in gameeee. 😩)

[xp95]

random thoughts, just rambling here,

radqueer things i personally like to see

art!!

discourse, to some degree

activism

education

talk and discussion about transIDs and paraphilias

things i am a bit tired of seeing

excessive horny posts in the radqueer main tag. i get it, you (hypothetical hornyposter 'you' not reader 'you') "want to be abused sooo bad", but i really don't care? there are so many posts like that. just so many. and a lot of them arguably don't really have much relation to being radqueer

pro contact stuff

people who think pro contact stuff doesn't matter, or are like 'im complex contact cause i think you can act on kinks!!'

pro abuse (as in, people literally identifying as being "pro abuse" and such). i feel like this wasn't such a thing before.

phrases like "consensual abuse" and "consensual rape" and "nccnc / non consensual consensual non consent" becoming common-ish terms that people use even though we already have words like bdsm and rapeplay and cnc. it's needlessly oxymoronic and i find it annoying. personally "consensual rape" is the one i find the most annoying, "nccnc" is second, and "conabuse" is only slightly annoying (subjective opinion, just my immediate gut reaction).

mixed feelings:

hyperspecific mini-labels. on one hand i am not really interested in a lot of them... but when i see one i like, i am very happy. this one is more positive.

i feel like some radqueers see 'programming' (in a cult/RAMCOA context) to primarily be a kink thing when it was directly taken from cult survivors. i am not really sure how to feel about this. on one hand i think it's ok to be kinky about (and to have transIDs related to) dark topics, but it's also.. weird to see a bunch of posts like "uwu i want a sexy hot transharmful MAP to program me uwu im so abusable"

adding onto that, i think some people read "i'm a MAP" and think "they're looking to date an AAM! (like me!)" or see "I'm transharmful" and think "they're looking to harm a transharmed! (like me!)" when they might not be interested in that! i am not interested in e-dating, so a lot of peoples focus on it is weird to me. (this might also be a personal thing because i am a fictive and am generally uncomfortable with the idea of people sexualizing me because of my source, who was an evil stalker guy. like, i may be transstalker / transharmful / transcultprogrammer but that isn't an invitation for transstalked / transharmed / transcultvictim people to flirt with me.)

[samwisethewitch]

TW: This post contains explicit discussions of white supremacy and the alt-right, including mentions of racism and antisemitism.

One of my most impactful recent library reads was Sisters In Hate by Seyward Darby, and I want to take a moment to encourage other white Americans to check it out as we prepare for next years' presidential election and all the shit it's going to kick up.

Sisters In Hate is a book about the role of women in American white supremacist movements and specifically in the alt-right. Darby does a really excellent job of showing just how critical white women are to these hate movements. The book also gives us a detailed look at what radicalization looks like and how that process can be different for different genders.

The book is divided into three sections, each of which follows a real woman through her radicalization into the alt-right. I especially want to draw Tumblr's attention to the story of Ayla, a self-proclaimed "polyamorous, raw foodist-vegan, feminist, pagan" whose radicalization started in college with natural living and homebirth and ended with her running a popular tradwife blog and speaking at the Unite the Right rally.

I think a lot of leftists and liberals feel that we're too smart, or too educated, or too savvy to fall for white supremacist recruitment schemes. We are not. Intelligent, college-educated, left-leaning people are radicalized every day. Some of them are less overtly hateful, like your college friend who starts voting Republican in their 30s. Some of them are like Ayla, and their radicalization takes them all the way to the other end of the political spectrum until they're openly and genuinely calling for a white ethnostate with the same passion they once used to advocate for feminism, racial equity, and queer rights. And we need to remember that any one of us intelligent, college-educated, left-leaning white folks could be in her position, which is why it's so important to learn about radicalization tactics so we can recognize and resist them.

I'm not gonna lie -- this book is hard to read. The text contains racial slurs, white supremacist rhetoric, antisemitism, and anti-Black racism. All of this is condemned by the author, but Darby doesn't shy away from showing just how vile this movement is. I had to take a lot of breaks from this book and read it over several weeks, but I'm very glad I did because I feel like I needed this information.

White supremacist recruitment efforts are going to pick up in the next year, especially if Tr*mp is the Republican nominee for president. Stay informed and stay ready.

[pb36cyan]

Remember kids, cults BITE.

B- Behaviour control. What are you allowed to do? Wear? Eat? Are you banned from certain public spaces by the doctrine? How often must you pray or otherwise perform rites? Are you required to pay tithes or make tribute of your earnings in some way? Do you live on "holy ground" with other followers? Are possessions controlled?

I- Information control. What are you allowed to know? What questions can you ask? Are you allowed to poke at flaws in the doctrine? Are you allowed to consume media from outside of the group? Can you bring in outside knowledge, or is it deemed forbidden?

T- Thought control. Can you think critically of the doctrine? What are you shamed for believing? What are you encouraged in believing? Again, can you poke at flaws in the doctrine without being punished? How often do you use thought-stopping techniques like chants, songs, or group prayer?

E- Emotional Control. What do you feel about the doctrine/group? Are these feelings considered "correct"? Does going against the group in a harmless way fill you with crushing guilt and shame? Is moral weight placed on emotional responses?

[ink-asunder]

Furthermore, I think Dragon's Dogma's handling of the cult was actually really mature and ahead of its time. Yes, Elysian is a zealous man who wants power and destruction (you need at least one to form a cult). But it's repeated time and time again that most of Salvation's members are just regular people who sought out the cult in times of hardship, even when they didn't really believe in Elysian's teachings. For community, for comfort, for a purpose and a cause to dedicate yourself to because the world is so hard and so dangerous right now because of Grigori's coming.

It reflects the REAL nature of cults in the real world, which I wouldn't really expect from a low budget unfinished game, let alone media in general. Even movies and games today don't get it right 9 times out of 10.

[ex-cogtfi]

Depictions of female cult members in COG-TFI propaganda posters tended to be highly sexualized for the male gaze, reflecting the cult's teachings that girls and women should use their sexuality to attract male donors and converts. In this poster, a sexualized illustration of a female cult member being martyred captures the cult's model for "discipleship". Even in the afterlife, women’s spirits were depicted sexually and in continued service of patriarchal interests.

[metanarrates]

i don't talk about growing up in a cult too often on here because it IS quite personal but I will reiterate as I have done before that cults are usually an intensification of every other mechanism of societal control. misogyny + bioessentialism + patriarchy + everything that goes into rape culture is the most prevalent, but any form of financial control, wealth + housing inequality, familial control, ageism, community policing, ACTUAL fucking policing depending on cult, racism, xenophobia...

very little in a cult is unique to cults. even the more obvious cult aspects (cult leader worship, community pressure and groupthink, lovebombing, demonization of outsiders, ostracization/scapegoating) are not uncommon in lower levels in outside communities! a cult simply intensifies those aspects of how communities can work.

a cult leader, as far as I can tell, is simply someone who has figured out how to exploit and intensify systems of control that broader society already engages in, and who uses that to prey on those who society has left the most vulnerable. it is further systematization of already systemic issues. yes, of course there's more shit that goes into it, but I find it important to talk about how cults are not some external Other. to treat them as such further isolates victims, and sensationalizes the very real abuse we have faced.

a cult is frequently the strongest, most intense outgrowth of a controlling society. its victims are just like you. don't forget that.

[firapolemos05]

"At eighteen years of age, each new initiate into our Creed receives their sacred vestments, all emblazoned with the Carmine Rose.

The Fallen, whose celestic blood feeds our rituals, whom we have trained to vanquish the Dawn Herald's deceitful servants, has the high honor of having our rose etched directly into his flesh."

Whumptober 2023

No.5

Pinned down

OC: Cassius (he/it)

[binders-and-beanies]

Yeah sorry if me not being comfortable w christianity feels oppressive to my oppressors lol. This week a large group of christians, led by a widely supported writer for my city’s newspaper, organized a march where they loudly chanted prayers about lgbt people dying so they can reclaim the city that’s rightfully theirs. Bc there was supposed to be a drag story hour in the library. And then someone placed a “suspicious package” by the library, called in bomb threats serious enough to get multiple blocks shut down, doxxed several local lgbt folk and allies, posted their home addresses calling for their deaths and claimed to have placed bombs in their homes. All in the name of the lord. But yeah me being vocal abt wanting freedom from christianity is the real oppression

[ghostly-penumbra]

Ectoberhaunt/Ectober Week 2023. Day Twenty-six

"Cults"

Ao3

Warning: Cult mentality and behaviour. I especifically based this around the BITE Control techniques (Behaviour, Information, Thought and Emotional Control), and using my experience with Jehova Witness as a reference, so even though this is short, proceed with caution.

Paulina frowned as she analysed her notes and compared them to previous days. As president and founder of the Phantom Phan Club, it was her job- no, her duty, to make sure its members were worthy of their place in the Club.

Whilst it was open for anyone that proved themselves it wasn’t something you could just prove once and be over with it! Phantom deserved the best of the best at all times and Paulina was here to make sure he got it.

Sometimes there were complications, though, and obstacles that, if they could not be dealt with, they ought to be avoided! Like that moronic Amity Park Gazette, which had started publishing articles and interviews with the local ghost hunters as well as the G.i.W, whom Paulina had already barred the Club members from interacting with. If there was no choice, then she would ban the reading of this stupid newspaper too.

They had to understand! It was them and Phantom against everyone else! They had known from the beginning, once they were a member of the Club, there was no place for doubt, no place for hesitation, they had to be determined, for Phantom.

Wasn’t he their protector? Their saviour? Over and over, Phantom risked his soul, the only thing he had left, so that they were safe! They couldn’t let him down! They were together in this, they would have his back, no matter what, and be there to hold him up. The people –the ones that could still see the truth, that Phantom was good– had to be shown, they had to show them, and then they could join and help out too.

As long as they followed the rules, they would be welcome.

[unholist]

❀ *◦ lee joongi. cis man. he / him. bisexual. ⇝ hey, isn’t that song minjae ( nickname: alu )? i think that the ( thirty - five ) year old from edinstown, uk works as bodyguard & handler for the scarlet nightmare, but outside of that people describe them as fields of wreath gold muting as the sun sets, almost suffocating it and you alongside — blood on an altar, blood on a broken rosary, blood on a holy seal desecrated — unanswered pleas to above and below, your voice the only answer to be received, damnatio memoriae. i hear they are inexpressive & conniving, but they are also known to be resourceful & responsible. consider giving them a visit at their home in seal harbor apartments and get to know why they’re called the unholy.

* astarion & micah choi's personal bodyguard WC

specific trigger warnings for : religious trauma ; cults ; implied child sacrifices ; child abandonment ; murder.

WHO WAS SONG MINJAE ?

a victim like many others before him, he and his sister, abandoned oh so young for reasons a child doesn't question much, their name inscribed in a letter pinned to his coat so that it wouldn't be lost, snow posed on his little nose as he held the blankets holding her sister so closely to his beating heart —he's always seen within the edinstown orphanage as such a good child, quiet and tranquil and seeking for books to read and listening to the nuns and priests that only wanted them to find solace in god whilst awaiting for a family to take them in, to make sure to keep still and keep sleeping if things seem to move across shadows, not question if things may seem too odd, not to turn if you feel eyes staring and staring and staring across the wreath fields, to keep quiet always, sing when he's told to sing, pray when he's told to pray. the child you were playing with in the courtyard moments ago, you say ? oh, they've been chosen this time, and so will you one day, one very close day.

a survivor by sheer luck when the true intent of that orphanage and church were discovered, and the meaning of reddened effigies and strong scent of iron finding its source in blood, blood, so much blood, blood of lambs offered to the slaughter —to who— and if that one priest didn't come over to take him and his sister away, he probably was going to be next in line to become yet another husk, yet another effigy to line the many others deep, deep underneath the crypts and basements in the name of something unspeakable that still had touched him and his dreams to twist them into nightmares. his sister finds home somewhere else, purpose in running away from that town that's only been trauma and ache for her, and he's glad of it, hopes for her dreams to be peaceful and her schemes never unveiled —but he follows the man who saved him, the vows and the call, for edinstown's demons had already devoured his soul and he couldn't go.

a priest trying to be the change he so much wishes to see, of a community small but tight knit within edinstown's confines, no one ever has a word of ill - intent towards father minjae —he's always there for the people who seek for solace and a moment of peace, an ear that truly would listen to their many woes and aches if it helps making their days lighter just like that one priest had been there for him and saved from perdition, always offering smiles and bottles of water and shaking his head with such a lovely chuckle whenever old ladies would tell him he's still so young and full of life when in truth, he carries their secrets and nightmares as his own and well locked under the vow of the wooden booth and velvetine curtains.

a victim of a strange case of murder - disappearance, for no good deed goes unpunished and his own kindness, his own survival was but an offense of the capital type to those who lurked within the shadows and still demanded him as due payment for that failure from twenty five years before —a bullet to the heart the moment midnight strikes and church bells would cover the sound of gunshots, holy altar smeared with blood and statues of angels and saints sneering almost 'bove his head, and but a single lament, feeble.

—————————————————— dear god, why are you smiling ?

WHO IS SONG MINJAE ALU ?

( n. ) from assiran demonology, the alu are demons feared more than death itself, sprits of cruel vengeance that invade people's dreams and corrupt them into nightmares to the point of taking their breath away —either in madness or death.

someone. something. a walking corpse. a blasphemous act of necromancy, nature's mockery. because when he wakes, far away from that edinstown blessed and cursed by the gods and the devils, he knows for a fact something is wrong with his own flesh and blood because he should be dead, because his reflection feels alien and his memories feel like a summary taken from a holy book —to be known yet unlived, stared at from behind a thick layer of bulletproof glass, scene after scene, person after person, name after name—and thusly he stops looking at it just like he's long stopped feeling pain, because even where a bullet hole should be, he felt nothing.

vengeance made body and soul. god should not forgive the empious and the sinners, not when they wield his name as a weapon to make nothing but more and more pain, more tribulations not even the strongest will can ease, and so he shall become the blade of those who truly seek justice, one meant to be fought for and grasped in fire and blood —and so you kill. and so you kill. and so you kill. and so—

hitman. handler. scarlet nightmare. each step of that ladder is drenched in the remnants of the infidels and so are his hands, each place entered and exited without a single murmur, a demon in the flickers of shadows moving and corner of one's sight —no wonder he got so high within the ranks, no wonder the overseer was so pleased with his work, with his twisted reclamation of a holy war against something, anything perhaps, with song minjae's facets and aches a mask to wear and blade to hold or whatever masquerade of protection towards someone who thinks he long had died that night of many years ago, a tether grown thinner and thinner like a feeble strip of streetlight escaping from closed curtains. the hitmen and mercenaries under his gaze are his lambs, and of course, their mistakes are also his to take notice of and punish accordingly —isn't that what brought him to anchorage, after all ? something is cracking, breaking at the seams, and he must be there ... for damage control, most likely.

so he becomes someone else's protection, let them welcome to their abode with compliments for his resumè seemingly flawless and his presence imposing to match with each little detail inbetween the lines, for no wonder ! satan once manifested as an angel of light. the seal harbor apartments exist just for his rare moments of respite —a shower, a change of clothing, anything quick and easy and meant to remain between himself and the god of as above so below— as he's almost always meant to be with them, the poor souls that so unfortunately crossed their paths with the one of a monstrosity. and in the meantime he observes, evaluates.

TRIVIA

the literal embodiment of 'aw little guy !! OH he's a little fucked up actually' meets the inversion of the 'hitman becomes priest' trope. very much inspired by nicholas d. wolfwood from trigun and john ward from faith the unholy trinity.

also very aware he is not the real song minjae. he takes minjae's face and memories as a main role to abide to for whatever the greater scheme of the overseer is, and any other identity and background to be used in missions as embellishments for the main mask that is song minjae. but maybe the mask, after being worn for so long, has started fusing with the flesh little by little ... so where does the demon alu ends, and song minjae begins ?

also takes his duty as a handler for the scarlet nightmare very seriously. he's supposed to be deadly and you can bet he is, he didn't reach the rank just by batting those pretty lashes of his. which also means he is very strict with the members under his supervision —in training and in punishment, but within reason.

honestly he's the deadpan voice of reason that will shake his head and tell you HE TOLD YOU SO ! if you end up in trouble and he literally told you not to do the thing that put you in trouble to begin with.

but sometimes he may not tell you anything at all !! maybe you do need to learn the hard way so that the concept will enter your thick skull. teehee.

" i am not mad [ INSERT HITPERSON HERE ], i am just disappointed. "

a good listener ! it is extremely important for his ... line of work, both as a handler and as a bodyguard and a remnant of who minjae was as a priest, but all and any information, even the most seemingly trivial, holds importance and deserves to be weighed —so he listens. a lot. says very little, but when it does ... oof. sir. no right to be as supereffective as a hyperray.

the ( feral ) dog motif is very strong with this one but also ... crow imagery.

[paganminiskirt]

It’s established early on in the therapy sessions that Michael acts out sexually when he’s feeling suffocated or unmoored, cheating on Amanda with other sex workers before they had an open marriage. He also ends up in the white knight role a lot, taking her out of a trailer park & Trevor out of rock bottom - and he has a gift for sussing out how susceptible someone is to criminality, figuring out that both Trevor and Franklin would be good thieves quickly after meeting them.

In the fifth Epsilon mission, Michael comments that his mentor in the cult, Marnie, “seems like a nice girl,” even though he recognizes that she’s a lieutenant within a high control church in the same breath. Though he seems to genuinely listen to Marnie’s teachings, adopting all the Epsilon jargon even when he’s alone, he doesn’t view Marnie herself as an authority figure, or her involvement in the cult as a good thing. He just thinks she’s inexperienced and misguided, much like Franklin. Michael tries to talk her out of the program by telling her she “needs help,” despite the fact that he’s already dumped thousands of dollars into Epsilon, and is about to drop another 25 K at her behest.

Apparently Marnie was born in the Midwest, like Michael was, and originally wanted to become an actress, similar to Michael’s desire to make movies. And she spent part of her life as a petty thief, addict and sex worker before getting back on her feet. Like Michael, she’s ostensibly living above board in Los Santos - but the cult she credits with saving her is actually sexually exploiting her, and compelling her to abuse others as a high ranking member.

Now I certainly don’t think that Michael ever had any desire or intention to recreate the exploitative power dynamic that Marnie is suffering under between the two of them. Regardless of his early lines about “running whores” and all that, he seems to lean towards altruism and some amount of emotionality when he puts himself in this position: Franklin, Trevor, Amanda, etc.

But at the risk of sounding too cynical? I do think that he was trying to sleep with her. Or more realistically, that he was trying to take her out of the Epsilon program, while subconsciously predicting that their relationship would turn physical after she left. He probably picked up on the fact that they were alike to some extent, maybe she reminded him of Amanda in their early days, and he knew he could make himself feel like a better man by helping her - at the same time, getting to have a relationship with someone who understood the lifestyle he was so desperate to remain connected to.

So her circumstances improve, he gets the “I’m not a complete scumbag” dopamine hit he spends so much time chasing, and he fulfills the chaos addiction that causes him to act like a scumbag in the first place. So everybody’s happy. Temporarily, shallowly happy, without really fixing any of their core issues, but whatever. Praise Kraff!