#ex Doomsday cult member

[only1lorrie]

[giveamadeuschohisownmovie]

Based on the following info, what is the plot of your generic action movie?

For your background, if your first name starts with…

A - you’re an ex-CIA spy

B - you’re an ex-SAS operative

C - you’re an ex-hitman/hitwoman

D - you’re an ex-Green Beret

E - you’re an ex-ROK Special Forces operative

F - you’re an ex-DEA agent

G - you’re an ex-MI6 spy

H - you’re an ex-FBI agent

I - you’re an ex-US Army Ranger

J - you’re an ex-GAFE commando

K - you’re an ex U.S. Coast Guard officer

L - you’re an ex-U.S. Air Force pilot

M - you’re an ex-Secret Service agent

N - you’re a mercenary who is unaffiliated with any nation

O - you’re an ex-NYPD officer / NYPD SWAT

P - you’re an ex-LAPD officer / LAPD SWAT

Q - you’re an ex-ATF agent

R - you’re an ex-U.S. Marine

S - you’re an ex-Delta Force operative

T - you’re an ex-Navy SEAL

U - you’re an ex-MARCOS operative/commando

V - you’re a biker gang member

W - you’re a death row inmate in for some type of heinous crime

X - you’re a survivalist living in the woods

Y - you’re an ex-Joint Task Force 2 operative

Z - you’re an ex-bomb disposal unit operative (EOD)

For your tragic backstory, if your last name starts with…

A - lost your wife/husband

B - lost your son

C - lost your daughter

D - lost your brother

E - lost your sister

F - lost your mother

G - lost your father

H - lost your best friend

I - lost your fiancé/fiancee

J - lost your favorite uncle

K - lost your favorite auntie

L - lost your entire team

M - lost your mentor

N - failed to save a civilian in your last mission

O - lost your protégée

P - lost your partner (non-romantic, work relationship only)

Q - just got out of prison after being falsely accused of a crime

R - dishonorably discharged for disobeying orders

S - betrayed and left for dead by your inner circle

T - lost your ENTIRE family

U - shot and went into a coma that lasted several years

V - quit your profession because of the rampant corruption you were witnessing

W - divorced from your lover

X - shot an innocent, although you had reliable information that they were a bad person

Y - spiritual reawakening that made you leave your life of violence and death

Z - developed PTSD after single-handedly saving your team from a dangerous situation

For your movie’s antagonists, if your birth month is…

January - the cartel

February - foreign terrorists

March - domestic terrorists

April - corrupt government forces trying to eliminate loose ends

May - a hostile country that hates your country

June - an elite team of thieves/bank robbers

July - a doomsday cult

August - a powerful corporation

September - the mafia

October - far-right militia / white supremacist gang

November - a private military company

December - a gang led by your nemesis from the past

[starboy14176]

hi ccan you tell me more about Subject A and Subject B. cause I looked through their tags on your blog and um. 👁️👁️👁️👁️ interested

Hai this ask got lost somehow but I FOUND IT so hello yes I’d love to talk about my special interest

So subject A and subject B are characters from the idkhow arg/concept albums, they are unwilling test subjects of an evil corporation called tellexx and basically tellexx uses them to invent time travel and then go through time performing propaganda music to brainwash people. There is VERY VERY LITTLE canonical information about the subjects as people but we do know that their real names are Dallon and Ryan (just like the band members) and we know that the white shadow (the ghost thing in the videos) was sent by tellexx to monitor them throughout time. We also know the subjects are being drugged using sugar pills but can presume the drugs aren���t affecting B as much as they are affecting A or B is not being given the same amount as A based on B’s general vibe in the videos. Also it seems B is the one who administers tests on A sometimes (ex. New invention and diatt) which is possibly real to why he’s being given less drugs? Thats all stuff from the first too albums though, uh gloom division gets more complicated. The subjects get separated, A gets moved to a new program called the gloom division and basically tellexx turns him into a personification the sin of pride ? And that’s like all we know. I have a lot of thoughts on gloom div but I’m gonna mostly stick to razz because my gloom div interpretations get kinda out there lol. Uhhh I think that’s all the canonical information we have about them?

So basically I made it my life’s mission to make up elaborate lore for them and I’ve written a ridiculous amount of fanfics about them. Also I have several OCs in the tellexx universe to fill out the cast a little more, and like the subjects are basically my OCs too at this point because their is little to no canonical charactieztion for them (aside from song lyrics which are vague at best). Ok so let’s talk about the subjects.

I stick the subjects around age 20 when they get kidnapped and then around 24 when they start actually successfully time traveling. Subject A was raised in a doomsday cult and had very abusive parents. He was super sheltered and rarely left the house. When he was 19-20 he decided to run away and tellexx found him after that. Subject B’s dad was abusive and he ended up getting kicked out when he was around 17, he was homeless for a while but he was living with a friend at the time of his kidnapping.

Subject A is autistic and gay, he’s also on the acearo spec and genderfluid but he doesn’t find that stuff out until after escaping tellexx. His special interests are stuffed animals, space, and cats (with a big emphasis on stuffed animals lol). He’s extremely clingy to anyone who shows him affection and I play around a lot with the idea that he age regresses on occasion as a trauma response. (But obviously neither he nor subject B have the language to know that that’s what’s happening)

Subject B is bi and also autistic, he is also on the acearo spec cuz I said so :3 his special interest is the ocean and sea creatures. He has anger issues and major major trust issues. Him and A are very codependent and they both have issues with separation anxiety. He has a history of being violent with tellexx employees and it takes a while for them to get him to cooperate but once he does he’s relatively easy to get to do what they want.

Anyways now to some of my OCs, rapid fire addition

Dr. Adalia (aka Dr. addy): the subjects main handler/tellexx issued therapist. Her job is to keep them compliant and basically gaslight them until they act like good little tellexx robots. She’s super fucking manipulative ‼���

Gloom: a clone of subject A (not the mannequin I made up gloom b4 the mannequin existed ok), he’s the replacement they give B after A has to go get turned into a demon or whatever. Gloom has been watching the subjects on security cameras for like a year to learn A’s mannerisms and stuff and over that span of time got parasocially obsessed with the subjects. He looks like Dallon from the what love music video and he’s very special to me.

Mr. Cain: glooms handler. He sucks we hate Mr. Cain >:[

Rose: breezy’s character from gloom division. Subject A was in love with her b4 he got got by tellexx (?) and now she’s involved with tellexx in some way and it’s breaking A’s brain. Yeah idk about her rlly yet

Dolly: A’s new handler during gloom div :3 she, well not actively participating in the tellexx torture stuff, is complicit in all of it well insisting it’s not her fault and she didn’t realize tellexx sucked so bad until she was too far in to quit. Her and A get into a super weird toxic sort of relationship :( it is hashtag bad

Ok so that’s my tellexx universe. I could probably go more in depth but that’s my attempt at giving a basic run down. 👍👍👍👍👍

[sciencelings-arts]

Part 3 of my botw aa au: Franziska, who, like her brother, is an ex-Yiga member, though it was much harder for her to get out. Even without her past in a doomsday cult she’s still intimidatingly terrifying. Good for her. 

Phoenix in the au

[spurgie-cousin]

I never thought I’d see the cult I grew up in on your page, but I’m so glad there are other people recognizing how awful the SDA (seventh day Adventist) church is. I was raised by a pastor and my whole family are still members. They refuse to believe that I no longer share their beliefs and constantly try to convince me to “give the church another chance.” they do not consider me a Christian because I’m no longer in their church. Growing up I didn’t know anyone who had ever managed to leave and to this day only one friend has left. There isn’t a strong ex-sda community that I know of and most resources are hard to find because they are buried by the church. The church as a whole is very doomsday esque and even as a kid growing up in the church I had so so much anxiety about it. There are a ton of rules which also contributes to the anxiety and the church culture is super judgmental and gossipy. I never understood why we had such different beliefs + practices from all the other churches and now I find it outrageous that I believed those things. I’m interested to see what else you come across and I am now going to see what ex-sda creators I can find (I don’t use TikTok) to relate to lol.

What's funny is I grew up in a town that had a ridiculous number of churches for its size, one of those being a fair-sized SDA church, but I don't remember ever meeting anyone from it. My church was the largest so it would organize multi-church events sometimes and there were only a few groups who never participated, SDA included (though to be fair I don't know if they just didn't want to, or if my church was discriminating lol).

So it feels crazy that I'm just now learning how cult-y they are. I think the church in my hometown was kind of an anomaly because their numbers are pretty small comparatively, something like 1.1 million in the US compared to ~90 million evangelicals, which is probably why they don't have a huge presence in the ex-Christian community.

The creator I posted is also the daughter of an Adventist pastor, it looks like she's only on tiktok right now (@songbirdsstory) but here are a few other places I've been reading ex-Adventist stories on platforms besides tiktok (also I will check out to Former Adventist podcast as well!):

Haystacks & Hell is a podcast and instagram account that collects ex-Adventist stories (that link takes you to their Instagram, their podcast info is in the link in their bio)

r/exAdventist which is a subreddit for ex-members of the church (if you're unfamiliar with reddit it's basically like a place for very specific online forums lol. people have conversations, tell stories, etc)

r/exChristian is another subreddit for ex-Christians as a while, but it has quite a few threads from ex-SDA that I've been reading. That link should take you to the list without having to search around.

and I do have a question but it's sensitive, so I understand if you're not comfortable answering: what was the generally accepted punishment for breaking the rules, like the health message etc? I know SongBirdSings from that video has said she suffered a lot of physical abuse, but she's also insinuated in other videos that that wasn't how it was for everyone. So I was just curious about what most people tolerated as acceptable reprimanding in the church.

[royalarmyofoz]

1. Short Peg Bundy

2. Great listener (with big tits)

3. Great listener (with big ass)

4. Corn-fed Xena

5. Butcheress

6. Tatted-up cheese monger

7. Classically hot (die first in a horror movie)

8. Mysteriously hot (die last in a horror movie)

9. Sequestered juror

10. Pilot

11. Uber driver

12. Uber pool driver

13. Susan Saran-dom

14. Tár

15. Old Cara delevingne

16. Q.L.C. (quarter life crisis)

17. Fencer (sport)

18. Fencer (fences)

19. Incorrectly sorted hufflepuff

20. Pre-Friends Courtney cox type

21. During-Friends Courtney cox type

22. Post-Friends Courtney cox type

23. Femme Mr. Peanut

24. A "Mary Louise" (the most common first and middle name in US)

25. Real life Cathy

26. Middle aged rumspringa-er

27. Janice Muppet

28. Sexy bird

29. Ghost tour lover

30. Marge Simpson

31. Reclusive sculptor

32. Insatiable Eleanor Roosevelt

33. Cynical stripper

34. Adjunct professor

35. Tenured professor

36. Gorton's fisherwoman

37. Young Blanche Devereaux

38. Congresswoman

39. Female Popeye

40. Vegan bbq chef

41. Cute Howdy Doody doll

42. Twin

43. Ginger

44. Fanfiction author

45. Rolfer

46. Deep sea diver

47. One woman show woman

48. Lumberjackess

49. Disney cast member

50. Liberal doomsday prepper

51. Weed gardener

52. Gay's anatomy (a surgeon)

53. A.L.F. (aunt I'd like to fuck)

54. Former reality show contestant

55. Seinfeld if he was a girl

56. A Helen-type

57. Late afternoon owl

58. Head coach

59. Pre-Friends Lisa Kudrow type

60. Upstate homeowner

61. Season ending acl injury

62. Dawn lookalike

63. Summer lookalike

64. Wickie lookalike

65. Beautiful indy car driver

66. Exhausted community organizer

67. Bisexual tricyclist

68. Cynical wedding planner

69. Rockette

70. "Stomp"er

71. The giver

72. Former cult member

73. Opposite myers-briggs type

74. Female HBO's Barry

75. Hamburglartrix

76. Catfish

77. Sweet'n low mommy

78. Just broke off engagement

79. AirBnBitch

80. White Lotus 2 Sicily GM type

81. Humiliated American Idol auditioner

82. Podcaster with vocal fry

83. Podcaster no vocal fry

84. Reformed goth

85. Public radio celeb

86. Crossing guard who's gone viral for dancing on the job

87. Indiscernible accent

88. Neighborhood famous realtor

89. A Siri or Alexa type

90. Hiked the Appalachian trail in winter

91. Civil War reenactor (for the good guys)

92. Revolutionary war reenactor (for the bad guys)

93. Dungenmistress

94. Brewmistress

95. Former "The Onion" writer

96. Cosplayer

97. Endurance artist

98. Fishmonger

99. Wanted woman

100. Little miss bossy

101. Little miss scatterbrain

102. Parade size girl

103. Top Chef runner up

104. Joe Rogan defender

105. Night shift baker

106. Magicians assistant (top half)

107. Magicians assistant (bottom half)

108. Mona lisa

109. Organ donor

110. Wikipedia donor

111. Method actor

112. Essential workers (hospitals)

113. Essential workers (restaurants)

114. Mixologistress

115. TSA worker

116. Catholic school teacher

117. Midwestern billboard celebrity

118. Intellectual property lawyer

119. THC farmer

120. Jacked stand up

121. Astrology gay

122. Electrical scooter as identity

123. Best friend is brother

124. Soft faced farmer

125. Correction officer

126. Tatted up chef

127. Trader Joe's cashier who loves life

128. Trauma nurse by day/strip club bartender by night

129. Strip club bartender by day/trauma nurse by night

130. Etsy girlboss

131. Septum piercer

132. True crime podcaster

133. Mrs. Clause type

134. Weirdo who chose to live in Vegas

135. Probiotic proselytizer

136. Vegan

137. Vegetarian

138. Pescatarian

139. Pescatarian who will eat meat at dinner parties if it's served to them because they don't want to make a bid deal about it

140. Liver queen

141. Earthquake survivor (all they talk about)

142. Earthquake survivor (won't talk about it)

143. Vet (animals)

144. Vet (war)

145. Fiscal conservative

146. Community college Rachel Maddow

147. Pedra Pascal

148. Shit-stirrer at work

149. Bird watcher

150. Bird stalker

151. A daddy-mommy

152. Hobbist

153. Pete Davidson ex

154. Stephen Dorff but a girl

155. Uncanny valley face

156. Johnny paycheck type

157. Former MTV VJ

158. Butterfeet

159. All about her family

160. Disney adult

161. Marvel mommy

162. Les Misérables les

163. Militant activist

164. Slutty couponer

165. Burning ma'am

166. Divorced yogi

167. Ozempic journey tiktoker

168. Jeweler with a heart of gold

169. Only gay when she drinks

170. Celebrity stylist (will gossip)

171. Large Marge trucker

172. McMansion realtor

173. Bernie Sis

174. Lady glory hole hookup

175. Hotel lobby bar transient

176. Docent

177. Lil Stinktress

178. The elusive cigar mommy

[quirky-ex-cultist]

Growing up in a doomsday cult muddled much of my ability to be emotional about the tragic things happening in the world. Growing up with the belief that everyone who died unfairly would either be resurrected or they weren’t deserving of life anyways makes taking in horrible things a lot easier- it makes it simple to think about, and it sounds on the surface like everyone will receive justice.

But even if resurrected with the memories of the pain erased, those people still lived through injustice that a loving god wouldn’t have put them through. They also aren’t being resurrected yet, so they haven’t gotten their justice yet anyways. But that thought process brings so much comfort- this idea that the universe has a system to sort everything out in a way that is sensible to human comprehension. That isn’t how the world is, though- people suffer everywhere and being complacent with that fact is to close your eyes to reality before you.

I think this realization is what can cause many ex-doomsday cult members emotional distress and exhaustion, because once you realize the unfairness of the world there is no going back to ignorance.

[pigstepping]

That post i just reblogged by @/manlet-rights-activist got me thinking about a TMA AU, and I think I nailed down working canon-compliant entity connections for everything except The Dark.

Avatars

Dream

Avatar of the web (control, manipulation). Key victims include tubbo, eret, wilbur, and tommy (although tommy proved unusually resistant). Could also be read as avatar of the lonely (isolation) due to his clinical rejection of personal attachment and the tactics he used on tommy during exile.

Sam

Avatar of the buried (small spaces, being stuck) in his capacity as warden. Key victims include dream, tommy, techno, and ponk. Could also be read as avatar of the slaughter (senseless violence) due to cutting off Ponk's arm.

Philza

Ex-avatar of the vast (heights, infinity, insignificance) in the distant past, which was once symbolized by his wings and immortality. Both his cynicism towards material attachments and the high value he places on personal connections can be interpreted as avatar-related trauma. Broke free by devoting himself to Kristin, avatar of the end (death).

Karl

Avatar of the eye (being watched, destructive knowledge) via chronicling his time travel episodes. The closest analogy we have to the archivist role in TMA.

More under the cut:

Badboyhalo

Ex-avatar and victim of the corruption (filth, rot) in his capacity as ringleader of the egg cult, along with all the other members of the eggpire. The red banquet was an attempted ritual.

Wilbur

Ex-avatar of the desolation (pain, destruction, loss) during pogtopia, which resulted in the first destruction of L'manberg. Came about as a direct result of his victimization by previous desolation avatar, Schlatt, leading up to his exile.

Tubbo

Developing avatar of the extinction (catastrophic change) via his exploration of nuclear warfare. Direct result of being victimized by Dream/The Web so hard during his presidency.

Quackity

Developing avatar of the stranger (uncanniness, "not quite right") via his creation and performance of las nevadas.

Doomsday trio

Transient avatars of the extinction through the final destruction of L'manberg.

The butcher army

Transient avatars of the flesh (dehumanization, body horror) through hunting down techno for execution.

Other entity connections

Limbo

People who die and get trapped in limbo are being victimized by the buried, or arguably the end or the lonely depending on context.

Enderwalking

Ranboo is victimized by the spiral (unreality, lack of self-trust) via his memory gaps and the hallucinations he had during his visions, although so far there's no clear avatar for this.

Techno

Not actually an avatar, but he has a bad rep because people think he's an avatar of the slaughter. However, could be read as an avatar of the hunt (being chased, especially for sport) if you wanted to canonize MCM or bedwars winstreak lol

[thekidthesuperkid]

Ex Jehovah's Witness here: they don't believe in hell. It's one of the things they use to claim superiority over other denominations of Christianity, that others believe the Bible says hell exists but that the Witnesses are smart enough/good enough students to see that it doesn't. What you're thinking of is their belief that the "wicked" will be killed during Armageddon but the good will be protected and will survive to turn the world afterwards into "Paradise" where everyone lives forever and "good" people who died will be resurrected. They're a doomsday cult and encourage people to look forward to the majority of the population being killed because it means they can be in their version of utopia. The belief of a Paradise and a resurrection is one of the big things they use to control people because according to that belief if you don't follow the rules you'll die and never see your loved ones again and if your loved ones don't follow the rules you won't see them again when they die.

And you're right about the excommunication. It can be for something as small as wearing a low-cut shirt a few too many times or being too disagreeable with the other members of the religion, and even the slightest disagreement with the teachings of the religion will get you labeled an apostate, which is ranked as even worse than all the people who were never part of the religion and all the people who left or broke the rules & were kicked out. When someone is shunned you're not allowed to talk to them unless there is no other choice. This applies to anyone with no exceptions. My father left the religion when I was a kid and as a result wasn't allowed to see me or my siblings for a few years until he went to court about it, and his own parents cut off contact with him as well.

They're kinda racist although they try really hard to never seem like they are, and they're definitely not racist in the way Mormons are. They are really antisemitic though. They think polygamy is a sin, so that's another difference. And yeah, they put a high importance on converting people to the religion. They're also super intense about their members not being allowed to get blood transfusions.

Discussing Joshua Graham in the fandom is really weird(outside the apologism bad takes etc etc) because i see a lot of content that kinda assumes mormonism is the same as other forms of christianity. I totally see where this comes from as a lot of people who didnt grow up in or around the church don’t know much about mormonism but holy shit guys. holy shitttt you have no clue how deep this shit goes its fucking batshit. Like i can’t even figure out where to start because its so racist and insane.

[wantedtourist]

So Ja Rule was raised Jehovah’s Witness huh. He can join my ex-Jehovah’s Witness / Jehovah’s Witness Survivors club. Ex-members include Michael Jackson and Prince. We out here. We’re spiritually and psychologically (if not also mentally and emotionally) traumatized by a doomsday cult upbringing, but we out here.

[mallowstep]

gonna take the bite model to tigerstar's cult thing bc he's not running a doomsday cult and this seems like a fun way to flesh this out.

cw: physical abuse, manipulation

i. behaviour control

1. regulation of physical reality

a) member associations: yeah he's got a good little compound running. corrupt the mind and all that.

b) clothes: more so for women, but looking Respectful is important.

c) food: for disfavoured individuals, access to food is limited.

d) sleep: sleep deprivation is a favoured punishment

e) financial dependence: encourages Campaign Donations and mutual funding of expenses

f) lack of free time: yeah. not much to say so much as there's Always Something to Be Done.

2. major time commitment

i mean they mostly all live in one place. there's. idk maybe...40 members? with 10-15 in the main house, the rest in a few guest houses.

3. need to ask permission for major decisions

yes

4. need to report thoughts, actions, feelings

yes

5. rewards and punishments

yes

6. individualism discouraged

yes but not openly. he encourages Discussion and Debate except people who disagree with him lose favour. you're supposed to just. support him in a slightly different way.

7. rigid rules and regulations

yeah. not gonna list them all here but. yeah.

8. need for dependence

yes

ii. information control

1. use of deception

a) holding back information: not a lot, except to mistyfoot and featherpaw

b) distorting information: usually by providing an alternate explanation

c) outright lying: yeah but mostly to featherpaw and mistyfoot

2. access to other information limited

going to sum this all up with: not Really. he's...basically he calls this like a political base of support. trying to weed out the Corruption of modern america. so they're. i mean yeah but not really.

3. compartmentalization of information

yes. he doesn't tell everyone this, but those closer to him are increasingly aware of his Master Plan.

also going forward i'm not doing an individual breakdown of the points sorry

4. spying on other members is encouraged

yeah. can't be absolved of sin if you don't pay your penance. good friends take care of each other. make sure they see judgement. tawnypaw in particular is encouraged to keep a close eye on featherpaw to make sure she is brought Back Into the Light.

not that tigerstar would ever say she has been, but

5. extensive use of propaganda

yeah they put out a lot of stuff to try to Spread the Word

6. unethical use of confession

mhm. like hell is your one punishment actually absolving you. and -- if you've messed up once, you're more likely to mess up again. better keep a close eye on you, make sure the correction was strong enough.

iii. thought control

1. need to accept group doctrine as truth

yes.

2. adopting loaded language

yeah and you've probably got an idea of what i think he uses based on how i write some of this.

3. only good and proper thoughts are encouraged

because bad thoughts lead to bad actions. you're on a day of fasting -- i hope you weren't looking at food. because that means you're thinking about eating, and that means you'll steal food. hm. better tack another day on, just to be safe.

4. thought stopping techniques

he's not terribly big on this one, but group prayer is utilized

5. no critical questions

huuuuuge one. tawnypaw just. stops ever asking questions. she's not doubting him. she's not. she has faith. she's on the right path. she is.

6. no alternate belief system

not really. he thinks that some christians are close enough to the truth to be brought into the light, but they're still wrong the way they are now. they can't have the right reason for acting, and that's barely better than doing the wrong action.

iv. emotional control

1. manipulate and narrow the range of feelings

not really...he encouraged girls/women to be Peaceful and Complacent and such, but it's not a major focus

2. every problem is an individual's fault

yep. big one. that's -- he blames basically everything he does to featherpaw on mistyfoot, and that pattern isn't exclusive to them

3. excessive use of guilt

sometimes. he might not focus on it, but it's more than normal.

ig if you count shame as guilt then yeah.

4. excessive use of fear

yeahhhhh big time.

5. extremes of emotional highs and lows

mhm

6. ritual and public confession of sins

every...idk.

he does a group circle thing and like. there's a chance for everyone to confess but he'll eventually pull someone in who he says has done something wrong.

7. irrational fears of leaving

yeah

[wishmaker-astra]

I mean, I don't know if what you said happened DID happen here. It's kinda bizarre sounding. The Sinnoh government doesn't want to talk about it much. No clue what the Sinnoh league thinks of it personally. But, yeah, Sinnoh never got any portals as far as I'm aware? I mean, I'd have to go back digging through records to see if there was some minor ones or the like. It's 2024 here.

We just have some ex-cult members saying some things and Dawn who... unfortunately seems to have had some sort of psychotic break from taking that cult down by herself?

Like, there's stuff related to the cult, and then her also claiming that Arceus chose her for a mission and other similar things? She otherwise seems stable and sane so... all those years ago dealing with a doomsday cult when she was 12 or whatever probably just really messed with her and that's how her brain coped.

How old are you anyways? What's your world currently like? We've have multiples of famous individuals on here, so might be good to get a baseline idea of things.

Of course--what an excellent idea. Thank you!

The year is 2012, and spacetime in my Sinnoh has been stable for a little over a year now, thanks to my former protégé and her friends.

I've been champion regent for the last four years, and was reigning champion for sixteen before that. I recently turned thirty-nine.

As for personal details to differentiate me from any other Cynthias or Sinnish champions... ask, I suppose? I'll gladly share most things about my duties if anyone is interested. I'm also willing to share information about my former protégé and her friends, though I may be spare with details as I don't wish to violate their privacy.

[grigori77]

Movies of 2021 - My Pre-Summer Favourites (Part 1)

The Runners-up:

20.  THE MAURITANIAN – acclaimed filmmaker Kevin MacDonald (The Last King of Scotland, Touching the Void) presents his best film in years with this stirring, troubling dramatization of the harrowing fourteen-year detention at Guantanamo Bay of Mohamedou Ould Slahi (A Prophet’s Tahar Rahim in a deeply affecting turn) between 2002 and 2016.  Jodie Foster is also impressive as Nancy Hollander, the crusading attorney fighting for his release, as is Benedict Cumberbatch as Lt. Col. Stuart Couch, her opposing counsel, who comes to realise Slahi’s confinement has been built on a tissue of lies.

19.  RIDERS OF JUSTICE – Danish writer-director Anders Thomas Jensen (Men & Chicken) brings his biting sense of humour and anarchic style to bear in this excellent black comedy starring Mads Mikkelsen as Markus, an emotionally distant soldier called home after his wife is killed in a tragic train wreck.  As he attempts to reconnect with his troubled daughter (Andrea Heick Gadeberg), Markus becomes convinced by the theory of a trio of intellectually gifted outsiders who believe that the accident was in fact an elaborately staged assassination by the eponymous criminal biker gang.

18.  STOWAWAY – Netflix dropped another sneaky sci-fi hit on us in the form of this deceptively understated space thriller about three astronauts on a mission to Mars who discover they no longer have enough life-support resources left to survive their journey after finding a member of the launch crew accidentally trapped on their spaceship.  Writer-director Joe Penna is in comfortably familiar territory after acclaimed survival thriller Arctic, while the compact cast – Toni Collette, Daniel Dae Kim, Shamier Anderson (Wynonna Earp) and, in particular, Anna Kendrick – are all excellent.

17.  OUTSIDE THE WIRE – in the near future, civil war has broken out in the Ukraine and US forces fight to keep the peace with the aid of newly-minted robotic soldiers called GUMPs. Drone pilot Thomas Harp (Snowfall’s Damson Idris) is reassigned to the warzone as punishment for insubordination, finding himself teamed with Captain Leo (Anthony Mackie), an advanced hyper-intelligent android tasked with hunting down insurgents bent on unleashing nuclear holocaust on the West.  Mikael Håfström (director of 1408 and Escape Plan) ably delivers some impressively weighty action sequences, while asking interesting questions about the potential dangers of artificial intelligence.

16.  THE EMPTY MAN – I was a little late stumbling across this spectacularly twisted cosmic horror based on a graphic novel by Cullen Bunn (The Damned, The Sixth Gun) and Vanesa Del Ray, but it grabbed me in the first ten minutes and wouldn’t let go.  The ever-excellent James Badge Dale delivers one of the best performances of his career as James Lasombra, an ex-cop who gets mixed up with a nightmarish conspiracy involving a doomsday cult built around the terrifying eponymous otherworldly entity in an head-fucking horror gem that entirely deserves its growing cult status.

15.  SOUND OF METAL – had to wait until Amazon Prime released this in the UK last month, but this challenging and emotionally-charged drama was worth holding out, Riz Ahmed delivering his finest ever performance as Ruben Stone, a heavy metal drummer whose life is thrown into turmoil when he goes deaf.  Ready Player One’s Olivia Cooke also impresses as his girlfriend Lou, a massively talented singer whose own personal demons are set loose as Ruben’s condition drives a wedge between them, while writer-director Darius Marder (who co-penned overlooked masterpiece The Place Beyond the Pines) shows he’s definitely gonna be a talent to watch in the future.

14.  CHERRY – Tom Holland reteams with his regular MCU directors Joe and Anthony Russo for this harrowing but achingly beautiful adaptation of author Nico Walker’s sort-of-but-not-exactly semiautobiographical novel about a former US army medic who returns from the horrors of Iraq with crippling PTSD at the height of America’s opioid epidemic, forced to embark on a spree of bank robberies to feed his drug habit.  Holland has never been better, while the Russos prove they’re capable of delivering more than just bombastic superhero action and big effects.

13.  SHOPLIFTERS OF THE WORLD – writer-director Stephen Kijak may be known for making documentaries about musicians (Scott Walker: 30th Century Man, Stones in Exile), but he proves he’s got a flair for fiction too with this cannily subversive comedy drama about a Middle American town that goes a little crazy one night in the 80s when a teenage boy hijacks the local heavy metal radio station and makes them play wall-to-wall tacks from The Smiths following the band’s sudden breakup.  There’s escapist fun to be had from the irreverent quirkiness of the premise, and the youthful cast are all excellent, while Joe Manganiello delivers a brilliantly nuanced supporting turn as the besieged DJ.

12.  BILLIE EILISH: THE WORLD’S A LITTLE BLURRY – I’ll admit to being a bit late to the party when it comes to Billie Eilish – I’d heard snippets of her music (most notably Bad Guy and her admittedly impressive theme for the new Bond movie), but until I watched this deep dive into her life and career, following the creation and promotion of her debut album, I didn’t yet know what all the fuss was about.  Well I’m now thoroughly converted – not only is she an incredibly talented young musical artist but also a fascinating and intriguingly down-to-earth person too, and I look forward to following her career in the future.

11.  SHADOW IN THE CLOUD – Chloë Grace Moretz gets a role to really sink her teeth into as Maude Garrett, a take-no-shit WAAF flight officer on a classified mission aboard Allied bomber Fool’s Errand in the Pacific in 1943, in this enjoyably unconventional action horror from My Wedding & Other Secrets director Roseanna Liang.  The film is largely a one-woman show, with the cameras clinging stubbornly to Moretz while the genuinely terrifying story unfolds around her, and she invests Maude with a ferocious stubbornness and intensity that’s crafted one of the cinematic year’s most impressive action heroines.

[spurgie-cousin]

3 things: Jill being senior gold means her annual salary is about 22k. Also Gwen shambling Lara died in a plane crash earlier this year. Lastly, I am amazed at your wealth of knowledge. I hope your family members in the cult are otherwise ok, and that any interactions you have with them do not leave you feeling defeated. How do you learn all of this information?

1. Interesting, no wonder she can do vacations and home renos now...22k is nothing to sneeze at, esp in her/our area, that's more than some full-time minimum wage jobs. On one hand I fuckin hate mlms, on the other it's been pretty apparent that the Rods have been struggling money-wise for awhile now, so I'm happy for her kids at least that she's bringing in $$$ and hope it's sustainable.

2. I know isn't that bonkers??? I'm kinda waiting for this HBO doc to hint at maybe one of her disgruntled followers being responsible for the crash or something.......it's always sus to me when a plane just falls out of the sky like that esp when there's prestigious weirdos on board. Plus as far as disgruntled followers/ex-followers go, it seems like she has more than a few.

3. My brain is definitely not efficient enough to hold onto every fact I learn about cults lol but they're super interesting to me so that info stick a little better than some others. If you're looking to do some research on any of the cults in the Cult Ladies post or even others, I have a very long, running list of books and documentaries that I'd be more than happy to recommend!!

4. My cult-member relatives are doing well, and we have a really good relationship with them for the most part. The only thing that makes me nervous is that the Ramtha cult is most definitely a doomsday cult, and they are 100% hopping on the anti-Covid vaccination train for completely stupid reasons (the government is trying to initiate the apocalypse or some shit I can't even remember). Some of my family are not in the greatest of health so that is extremely worrisome, but fortunately they are also pretty secluded from a lot of society. It's kinda bizarre bc unlike a lot of cults, they generally have a lot of freedom of movement and association with outsiders, but when big things happen in the culture like elections or COVID they completely lose their shit and assume the world's getting ready to end.

Thanks for the multi-faceted ask lol I enjoyed it!

[doomedandstoned]

Lowen Return with Stunning EP, ‘Unceasing Lamentations’

~By Reek of STOOM~

Art by Hervé Scott Flament

London-based Doomters LOWEN return with an incredible, stripped back-to-bare-bones release next month. "Unceasing Lamentations" consists of 3 evocative, alluring tracks based on ancient Middle Eastern texts and highlighting Nina Saeidi's incredible vocal talent.

First track, "The Exalted One Who Walketh" shimmers with the arid heat of the desert, vocals soaring, plaintive and mesmerising, like a melding of Ofra Haza and Diamanda Galas, backed throughout by Shem Lucas' soulful Oud-style playing. Indeed, the lone vocal combo stretches across all three tracks, bringing a sultry and beguiling presence as powerful and majestic as the heaviest Doom out there.

Lowen have encountered many issues over the last 12 months, and this EP has been cathartic, heartfelt and deeply reconnecting with their roots. A Triumph!

I spoke with both Nina and Shem and posed some questions about the last year and their new release, out June 4th.

The new EP is obviously an accumulation of recent trials and tribulations for the band. How have you coped with such an acrimonious split?

Shem: It was a difficult situation but the core of the band has always been Nina and myself. The music is about her background and Lowen is a vehicle to explore that and always has been. Anyone that is unable or unwilling to accept that simply does not have a place within the band. There are many wonderful musicians that have approached us eager to work with us and that has been very touching.

Nina: As Shem said, it was a very difficult and sad situation that shocked us to our cores when it happened. The extreme nature of having a racially motivated hate crime directed at me by our ex-drummer has in a way allowed us to view it as a clean break from which we can move on without looking back. Shem and I have felt so much more positive and driven now that we can plan and write completely new material together and look to a much brighter future.

The support from our friends and fans in the immediate aftermath was really touching and we are so excited to work with some insanely talented new musicians this summer!

LISTEN: Unceasing Lamentations by Lowen

I'm also assuming that lockdown has played a part in the stripped-back sound? To what extent has this process changed the way you look at and create Music now?

Shem: Unceasing Lamentations is a result of Nina being invited to perform on a Solo basis by the Brighton Doomsday collective as part of their efforts to raise funds to keep the Green Door Store venue in Brighton open in the face of the pandemic. We were so happy with the results that we decided to have Magnus Lindberg of Cult of Luna master the audio so that we could release it.

The songs don’t represent a new direction so much as a pivotal moment in time for the band, we’re still writing our next album to feature big distorted guitars, drums and bass, though I would say that it was wonderful to finally release something that was a lot more eastern in terms of musical composition. It’s a nice bridge between the first album and the resulting musical studies we have undertaken to bring our sound closer to what we both hear in our minds.

Nina: It was so freeing to be able to improvise and really embrace the more Iranian and Eastern aspects of our sound and influence. It’s something I’ve been pushing to do more since we released our first album and I am so excited that we will now be fully putting that into the second one. This EP is more of a captured moment where I expressed the anguish and longing that I was experiencing at the time.

Due to the improvisational aspect of the performance we went in with no plan at all. Apart from the lullaby what you hear are musical choices that were made in that very moment. It can magical to simply give up all control of a creative situation and see what the body spontaneously produces musically.

LISTEN: A Crypt in the Stars by Lowen

The lyrics were based on folk tales or Eastern myths. How did you come to choose them?

Nina: The lyrics for the first two songs are directly taken from cuneiform tablets. The Exalted One Who Walketh is an arrangement of transliterated lines taken from a Sumerian city destruction lamentation referred to as “e-lum didara”. Against Evil Done by the Serpent is a transliteration of Akkadian from a clay tablet that directed the tuning of an instrument through metaphoric comparisons between gods and each string.

I met with renown museo-archeologist Richard Dumbrill and talked with him for several hours on how the words may have been pronounced and sung in the context of ancient music and modern interpretation. Though we will never know how ancient music and language sounded, it is thought that some of it has been preserved in folk music of the areas in which it originated when it comes to the music of the Middle East.

The third song is an Iranian lullaby that embodies the sorrow of war and abandonment felt by many children during the Iran-Iraq war and is still sadly apt for many children in the Middle East today. The lullaby centres on a child who has experienced the trauma of war being comforted by a mother who promises that she will not abandon them as they tread dangerous ground even in their dreams.

I chose all these because I am deeply interested in the history of language and culture in the Middle East. It moves me that music and lyrics that are thousands of years old can be resurrected and performed once more in a context where the sorrows and joys of multiple cultures that were geographically close can be viewed millennia apart.

How is the new line-up going? Any major differences or effects on the dynamic?

Shem: Lowen has always revolved around Nina and myself, but Richard Stevenson (our live bass player) is still very much a part of the band. We have been approached by other musicians who would like to work with us and we are excited to move forward with an array of incredibly talented musicians.

Nina: Our dynamic is stronger than ever as Shem and I are able to write and move forward with much greater speed and productivity than before. We always wrote the music in the past, but now we feel that we are able to be a lot more free creatively.

We are so grateful that we have Richard Stevenson, our live bassist, with us for what will be a very exciting summer in terms of shows. He always brings amazing energy to the stage and has been a dedicated member and friend for years now.

Soon we will be able to reveal who we will have drumming for us live and we can’t wait.

You have always been vocal about political and social issues in the East. What are your hopes for the future?

Nina: My greatest hope will always be for peace. War and political savagery has felt never-ending in the Middle East, and much of it is because of interference and backing from non-Eastern countries that profit from terminal instability and conflict. For example, we’re currently seeing horrendous atrocities in the news with the state of Israel attacking and tearing apart even more innocent lives and I hope that those who are actively campaigning for ceasefire and recognition of what is truly happening in Gaza and Sheikh Jarrah succeed. I’d like to clarify that my criticism of the state of Israel is not tied in with Jewishness or the nature of Judaism, I think it’s important not to veer into anti-semitism and anti-muslim sentiment when noting political matters in Israel.

My personal hope is to be able to go and see my family, who live in other parts of the Middle East, without fear of arrest and execution. I would be overjoyed if women were able to sing in public again and for the LGBTQ+ community in Iran to live without fear of death and persecution.

Will you be planning a tour or appearances at any festivals in the coming year?

Shem: we’re very excited to begin performing live again, the performances prior to pandemic had begun to feature increasing intensity, so we can only imagine what a renewed and focussed line up will add to that, as well as the prospect of playing new material.

Nina: We have a few more shows to announce in what is already feeling like a packed few months of shows around the UK but I can’t say anything yet.

What was the last thing you had to kick to get working again?

Shem: there was nothing to kick per se, but the many many hours of study into eastern music, rhythm and maqam are certainly paying off and the music we are composing now is focussed and features many techniques and devices not widely seen within western music, there’s also a lot of double bass drum!

Nina: A few cobwebs and a couple of boxes in order to find my stage mic after so long.

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[some-jw-things]

So I’m not all that familiar with this religion, but after seeing it explained isn’t there some legal course you could take to try and get it dismantled? Or at the very least make it easier to escape for those who want to?

I don’t think having the Society legally dismantled would help anything. Jehovah’s Witnesses are already outright or functionally banned in like a half dozen countries. In countries with mandatory military service, they go straight to jail. In countries imposing a temporary draft, they go straight to jail. This really only makes things worse

The most famous ongoing case is the situation with Russia. Jehovah’s Witnesses are classified as extremist and under ban there. Imo from reading about it, it wasn’t actually about them being a doomsday cult. Jehovah’s Witnesses don’t vote and it sounds like Putin realized he had a population of thousands of people in his country where not a single one of them had voted for him. And the result of the ban has been the European Court of Human Rights going to bat in favor of JWs, all members of the Org going underground and into hiding, and some really shitty treatment of members.

That narrative has been used to further JWs’ persecution complex. If they’re being mistreated by “the world,” then that means they truly are God’s people and all the prophesies are right. It means everyone in the world is cruel and hateful. It means that only Jehovah’s Witnesses have love among themselves and you can only find happiness within the Org. A religious ban validates every single thing the Org tells its members and also actually fulfills several specific details of their doomsday prophecies. Also— being in hiding, only able to trust other cult members, unable to speak about the religion casually and hearing about pillars of your community be held by the state and tortured— is a really great way to make sure you don’t criticize the group you’re part of. Jehovah’s Witnesses already forbid members from listening to ex-members’ criticisms, and saying something negative about the Org is called apostasy— arguably the biggest sin they have. All serious sins are punished with disfellowshipping, aka shunning. I have to imagine that in that situation, most JWs are on way higher alert than normal to look out for apostates or potential false Witnesses

Religious bans hurt a lot of people, help no one, and make active members leaving a whole lot harder. Also in places like China where preaching/missionary work is banned.... they just find a way around it. They’re extremely careful and get visas to “teach English” and keep the fact that they are JWs secret

Legally, the only thing I want done about Jehovah’s Witnesses is governments actually fucking investigating their sex abuse database and also judges to stop letting kids be killed for their parents’ religion. A minor cannot freely consent to give up their life when every adult in their life (who they are dependent on) is pressuring them to, especially given that they wouldn’t have much of a life left if they refused. That’s not a free choice. Free acceptance of a blood transfusion isn’t safe and would be life-ruining, but refusal leads to immediate death. I know if I had been in that situation at 17, I would have chosen to die for my family’s sake, even though I no longer believed in the religion and desperately wanted out. Plus a ban on child marriage, which isn’t directly a JW issue, but it’s not disconnected either

Though on making it easier to leave: there was a bit of discussion like a few years ago about the idea of ex-cult safe houses. It wasn’t really a serious discussion, due to everyone participating being broke traumatized teenagers, but in an ideal world, I’d like to see that happen. It would be infinitely easier to leave a cult if you had somewhere to leave to.

Cults isolate their members. JWs forbid members from socializing with anyone not in the cult, with the only exception being for preaching. Most JWs are only close with other cult members and have no social safety net beyond that. There is no one who’s house you could crash at, even temporarily. Some have managed to get put in foster care, but with me, I didn’t even realize that was an option until I was over eighteen. That leaves homelessness or shelters as the only remaining options. When I first cut ties, I figured a homeless shelter would be a worse situation than the one I was already in, and I was uncomfortable with the idea of taking a spot at a battered women’s shelter. My situation isn’t exactly the sort of thing those places are meant for

But if there were even just a few ex-cult safe houses in like major hubs, then there would be somewhere to go to. I think there would be a real benefit in that for a lot of people.

There’s also been a few documentaries made about JWs in recent years, some of them focusing mainly on the sex abuse cover up. That’s great for awareness, but in an ideal world, more awareness would go with outreach. This is mainly a mental health reform thing, especially in schools, but there need to be other spaces that offer that too, esp children’s spaces. More JW kids are homeschooled than not. There should be ways to reach out for help, confidentially and for free