#she's part of the scientology cult

[freaven]

Glad someone said it, that's why I simply can't ship it.

[sapphsorrows]

I don't get the point in being a Facts and Logic Atheist Skeptic if you're going to blatantly ignore the fallacies of the transgender ideology.

Everyone makes fun of the circular reasoning of Christians but no one makes fun of the very obvious circular reasoning of the trans movement. One of the reasons "what is a woman" is such a fantastic question is because they can't answer it. "What is a woman?" "A woman is someone who identifies as a woman." "Ok, well what is a that? When you "identify" as a woman, what does that mean?" It's very similar to asking a Christian "how do you know the Bible is true?" They say "the Bible is true because it's God's holy word." "Ok, well how do you know that?" "Because the Bible says."

Not only that, but transness in itself is an entirely spiritual belief. You're essentially trying to "fix" your body, which isn't even broken, to further reflect your soul. The idea of a soul is inherently spiritual. I find this especially true of nonbinary people who go through surgery and have their nipples removed. Many of them say "well, I wasn't supposed to have nipples" or "nipples make me dysphoric," and it doesn't make any sense. Nearly everyone on planet earth has nipples, what do you mean you weren't "supposed" to have them?

When you listen to trans people talk about their gender identity, it's extremely religious. Even with things like "trans joy," I can't help but think of the old sold "I've got the joy joy joy joy down in my heart." Well, I guess if JKR doesn't like it she can sit on a tack.

When they talk about their transition, they're "on a journey," they're "connecting with their gender." When they do finally transition, and cry because they "finally feel like their true selves."

What does that even mean? There is no "true" self, the self you currently have is your true self. You were never not yourself. You were never broken. Anyone who told you that you were was trying to sell you something.

The fact that most skeptic youtubers aren't even a little suspicious of this movements is very confusing to me. It's still possible they could be, but god forbid you say anything.

The trans community is one of the most toxic things I've ever been a part of. In my opinion, it's like Scientology on steroids. If you leave, you will lose friends, and you may become the victim of targeted harassment. If you even hint that you might be questioning it, you will be met with suspicion at best and outright hatred at worst.

In my opinion, it is one of the most popular, regressive and destructive cults currently operating in the US, and one of the reasons it's so dangerous is because it specifically targets mentally ill teenagers and gay kids. It sells the idea that something is wrong with them. It leads them down the path of medicalization and sterilization. In many ways, it's the modern day lobotomy.

This is the biggest medical scandal of our lifetime. If you're not at least a little bit skeptical, I worry for you.

[keybladeciel]

Now for my two cents on the drama that ensued among the Linkin Park Community.

Content Warning: Discussions of sexual assault, Scientology, and suicide

Disclaimer: I do not condone nor encourage the harassment of the individuals or anyone with their own opinion. Additionally, this statement is intended to be read with an open mind and I may be wrong at such details. Any corrections with hard evidence is appreciated. Updates to the situation will be made via reblogs.

Like many LP fans, I was happy that there was a new Linkin Park album in the works and was amazed by Emily Armstrong's vocals in the latest track. However, this news came with some awful drama.

Let's discuss the basics. From Zero will be the first Linkin Park album with newly recorded material in seven years following No More Light, the last album to be recorded prior to Chester Bennington's suicide. To receive news about a truly new album and a new vocalist is enough to excite the LP fandom.

The new vocalist for Linkin Park is Emily Armstrong from Dead Sara. When The Emptiness Machine dropped as the newest single, the controversies of Armstrong's past reared its ugly head and caused a divide in the fandom. Namely, Armstrong was outed as a Scientologist and a supporter of Danny Masterson. Cue many fans being upset, especially detractors of the new direction of Linkin Park going forward.

Armstrong hasn't discussed her views since 2013 and she has recently posted a statement on her involvement with Danny Masterson during the court hearings he was going through. She has stated that she has no longer supported Masterson following him being found guilty of rape and made an Instagram Story of her clearing the air. The hearing she attended to was in 2020. The statement below can be interpreted has her apology for this.

As for her past as a Scientologist, she's a Second Generation Scientologist (meaning she had no say in her being part of the Church of Scientology whatsoever, let alone a religion of people who hate anything negative statements about them) and was called out by one of Masterson's victims. Again, Armstrong hasn't said anything about it since 2013. Scientologists can leave their faith, but it is difficult to do so and there are several restrictions placed by the Church. (Again, they HATE criticism and negative publicity of any kind)

Scientologists tend to ignore the topic of mental health. Many fans were pissed at such a damning revelation and believed that Chester would be upset over this.

Despite this, LP gave their support and Chester's wife, Talinda showed her support in Armstrong being the new vocalist.

As for the Masterson case, many of Masterson's former friends would logically want to see him as a good person, but have cut ties with him following his conviction (Armstrong herself stated that herself. I believe that she flubbed a spot check when her Insta reveals she stills follow Masterson, but dealing with the fallout of a friend being a monster comes with its own baggage). While some have said Armstrong was involved with a confrontation with a victim, there isn't any evidence to prove this.

The instance of Scientology requires a more realistic thought. The Church of Scientology has no problems making the lives of vocal ex-members a living hell with legal battles and frequent harassment. While we can assume Emily Armstrong herself is an ex-member, she can't be vocal about it without a massive shitstorm ensuing, especially if she's part of a band that has several songs dealing with mental health, something that Scientologists actively ignore. Many ex-members have resorted to sneaking out of the Church or even Scientology as a whole in the trunk of a car. Even if Armstrong seems to be in a place to discuss her departure, she still won't be able to without the ire of her former faith. If you analyze the lyrics of The Emptiness Machine, they deal with leaving a toxic enviroment or a cult-like place. In Armstrong's case, it can be interpreted has her stating that she has left the Church without attracting a potential shitstorm, with the lyrics feeling appropriate for leaving such a place.

All in all, this is not how the new era of LP was supposed to go down, but the use of context and media literacy is how we can understand this situation going forward.

[downtherabbitholewithauntieblegh]

Linkin Park/Emily Armstrong Controversy

Y'all paying way too much attention to this Linkin Park business. Move on. Rock and metal are suffering from drama. We're forgetting the music and why we pack into venues and festivals. We're forgetting that band members have families they're away from for months at a time. We're forgetting that suicide, depression, mental illness and addiction are rampant in our business because of the stress. STFU about Linkin Park and let those people move forward. Go to a show, buy a t-shirt, hit the pit and tell all your friends about it.

#inuswetrust always. Peace.

~ AJ Channer (Lead Singer of Fire From the Gods)

So, let's talk about Linkin Park, Emily Armstrong and this controversy. Almost a week ago, Linkin Park premiered a new song along with their new co-singer, Emily Armstrong. Emily is the front woman of the band Dead Sara. The controversy was almost immediate with a huge amount of backlash.

The first round came from Cedric Bixler-Zavala (The Mars Volta) and his wife, Chrissie Carnell-Bixler. The husband-and-wife duo did not hold back with their disdain for Armstrong, her ties to Scientology and her alleged support of convicted rapist, actor Danny Masterson. According to one article, Carnell was a victim of Masterson. Bixler and Carnell are former Scientologists themselves and left years ago.

Armstrong has since come out and apologized for her actions in supporting Masterson, explaining that she went to one court appearance and supported him as an observer to later realize her mistake. Some people, including Bixler and Carnell, say that the apology isn't enough.

Bixler and Carnell released a statement after Armstrong's apology and did not accept it, stating, "If you're not going to speak out against the human and child trafficking cult in which you are a part of and in which you enable by remaining silent on crimes you know about then you have no right to fill the shoes of Chester Bennington, a true advocate."

Mike Shinoda, original founding member, as well as Joe Hahn, have both released statements. Both stated that they support Armstrong and know that having her a part of their band would be a "hard pill to swallow" for most people.

"To say it as clearly as possible, I do not condone abuse or violence against women, and I empathize with the victims of these crimes," Shinoda said as a part of his statement.

That wasn't good enough for Chester's son, Jaime Bennington. Bennington released a scathing statement, denouncing Shinoda and the other original members that are still in the band. Bennington released his statement via Instagram on September 9th. Ever since Bennington made his feelings known, he has been getting death threats from Linkin Park fans.

Some folks are even questioning him and whether he truly understands what his dad would want if Chester were alive today. Bennington highlighted the hypocritical comments, saying if they really understood how his father died, they would realize that their comments are inappropriate and crass.

Bennington was very outspoken with his disdain and blasting Shinoda for betraying their fans by choosing Armstrong as their new singer, especially during International Suicide Awareness month. Bennington addressed Armstrong's alleged ties to Scientology and support for Masterson.

Bixler-Zavala resurfaced some messages, one that showed Armstrong did indeed attend the 2020 preliminary hearing of Masterson. That did hit fans hard, as Chester had openly discussed surviving sexual abuse in the past. Chester passed away back in 2017.

With the drama weighing heavily on everyone involved, Shinoda, Hahn and the others are sticking by Armstrong and their decision to have her as their singer. We cannot take away the noticeable missing original drummer, Rob Bourdon. Bourdon made the choice to not reunite with the band for this new venture.

It just came out that original lead guitarist, Brad Delson, will not be touring with the band moving forward. In a statement by Shinoda, Delson has made the choice to just record with them in the studio and not take part in live performances in the future. Colin Brittain has replaced Bourdon on the drums. Brittain is known for playing with Oh No Fiasco.

Alex Feder has been announced as Delson's replacement for the upcoming tour to support their new album, From Zero.

With all this information provided, people are still divided on whether Linkin Park making a comeback, 2.0 as some people have called it, is a good thing. What people are failing to realize is how hurtful their comments are. Shinoda has stated that they will not be getting rid of Armstrong.

Some fans are saying they should change their name. Something a lot of people agree with. Some are saying they should just not continue on with Linkin Park without Chester. At this point, everyone just needs to take AJ Channer of Fire from the Gods advice. We are forgetting the music. We are forgetting that these musicians have families at home. We are forgetting that suicide, depression, mental illness and addiction run rampant in the music industry.

We are forgetting that they are people like we are. No one is perfect. We all make mistakes. If you want to listen to Linkin Park, by all means, listen to Linkin Park. If you don't want to support them, don't. That's the end of that story. How do expect people to heal and move forward when people constantly bring up the past, negative or not?

Everyone's feelings in this situation are real and valid. Don't negate someone's feelings if they don't align with yours. We as a society, we must do better. In the end, it does really matter....

[princessbutler1316]

My opinion as a Linkin Park fan:

First statement: IF MIKE SHINODA IS HAPPY COMPOSING AND SINGING AGAIN, WE ARE ALL HAPPY.

PERIOD. END OF DISCUSSION

Second statement: I saw the live broadcast of the first show in São Paulo, and EVEN on TV I could feel the energy of the show, one of the best I've ever seen. Marvelous show and again, Mike's GIANT smile was the thing everyone was talking about.

I mean just look: he was smiling the whole show and having the time of his life (all of them were actually)

Emily deserves all the respect and talent she has (for those who don't know, her family WAS part of Scientology (and remember if she is still is, they are not something u can just walk away, they have all kinds of blackmailing stuff and they are a DAMN cult) and she's queer…she's probably singing her traumas out loud, which is great for healing).

About those who aren't accepting the new phase without Chester, I understand and no one here is talking about erasing the guy from history. When the old songs are played, he's the one everyone thinks about (but I wouldn't complain about Emily making a re-recorded album, but that's just my opinion because I LOVE COVER SONGS), and they're still sung at shows showing that he's still part of the band's history.

[curmemini]

I think a lot of LP fans are being a little bit demanding of Armstrong, to be quite honest. Like whether she is or isn't a part of it - we will likely never know nor are we entitled to that information, because it is incredibly dangerous for anyone to leave a cult, but especially one that has such a history like scientology and especially if one was born into it. It isn't as black and white as fuck cults, as in if you say that but you don't offer any support for victims of cult ideology, it's a pretty flimsy statement. Personally, I don't expect anyone to put their lives on the line so people have a clean consciousness about listening. It is what it is.

[dangerous-disposition]

Unfortunately Emily Armstrong is both a vocal scientologist and supporter of Danny Masterson

Okay. I'm going to respond to this stuff once and that's it.

My post is not about Emily Armstrong.

My post is about people being disrespectful to the other members of Linkin Park on the basis of them continuing as a band without Chester.

As for the stuff specifically about Emily Armstrong:

EDIT

These claims are all largely unsubstantiated or, at this point, fully refuted by Emily at this point and further claims to this effect is now outright defamation of character.

She was BORN into Scientology. Being born into a cult makes it a lot harder to leave a cult.

That being said, she has not been seen at a Scientology event in over a decade and does not talk about Scientology which is... A key part of being "vocal" about something.

She went to ONE of his hearings AS AN OBSERVER and never went again, and she did not speak out in support of him. She has specifically addressed this on her Instagram because y'all freaks really jumped on this shit with zero proof.

I'm keeping anon off but yeah.

[morsmortish]

this probably doesn't work with the chinese black family headcanon (and with the magical world in general), but i can't stop thinking about walburga as the daughter of two religious fanatics, speding her afternoons reading the bible in her room as a child and, on halloween, praying to god to save the souls of all the children who stopped at her house asking for sweets...

honestly all my hcs exist in various aus from canon…is canon reg chinese? nope! but i will write extensively about how him being chinese fits into the same series of events as canon, and how he is influenced by this culture and what it means for the story? yep! but it is still an alternate universe where the house of black are not white (because let’s be real. in canon, they are. sadly.)

and this. the house of black alternatively existing as part of an extremist christian faction…that’s the SHIT! thinking something more akin to a cult, like scientology or likewise. not much space for original ideas or individualism or even existing much outside of one’s faith, until who one becomes is intrinsically linked to the values of the church…okay! i see you!

walburga is taught wrong and right more in the sense of sinful or not sinful. she recites psalms and proverbs and parables, but beneath that, she lacks a true sense of identity. perhaps it scares her when she sees her own children start to experiment with self-expression and/or existing outside of the religious values she raises them on. this freedom of deciding one’s identity is something she never had, and watching her children reject what she believes to be the ‘safety net’ of religion is so terrifying to her. for walburga, as long as her faith is strong, she is protected. she’s never know any other way. and all she wants as a mother is to protect her children, but watching them start to form their own paths, away from her, away from religion, away from purity and safety…

[an1tak]

recommendations of books! by ana

I read until I fall asleep

ʚ- All books im looking foward to read this summer! some non fic and fic hope you find something that interests you. its kinda long

ʚ- Almost all of them are tiktok recs the user of where i find the book will be in pink.

Book's:

Memoirs / essays

Not That Bad: Dispatches from Rape Culture : Cultural critic and bestselling author Roxane Gay has edited a collection of essays that explore what it means to live in a world where women are frequently belittled and harassed due to their gender, and offers a call to arms insisting that "not that bad" must no longer be good enough.

Maybe You Should Talk to Someone : From a psychotherapist, and national advice columnist comes a thought-provoking new book that takes us behind the scenes of a therapist's world -- where her patients are looking for answers (and so is she).

Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism : The author of the widely praised Wordslut analyzes the social science of cult influence: how cultish groups from Jonestown and Scientology to SoulCycle and social media gurus use language as the ultimate form of power.

Romance

Book Lovers : If Nora knows she’s not an ideal heroine, Charlie knows he’s nobody’s hero, but as they are thrown together again and again—in a series of coincidences no editor worth their salt would allow—what they discover might just unravel the carefully crafted stories they’ve written about themselves.

Seven Days in June : Brooklynite Eva Mercy is a single mom and bestselling erotica writer, who is feeling pressed from all sides. Shane Hall is a reclusive, enigmatic, award-winning literary author who, to everyone's surprise, shows up in New York.

science / philosophy

When god was a woman ; Here, archaeologically documented, is the story of the religion of the Goddess. Under her, women's roles were far more prominent than in patriarchal Judeo-Christian cultures. Stone describes this ancient system and, with its disintegration, the decline in women's status. Index; maps and illustrations.

It Didn't Start with You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle : A groundbreaking approach to transforming traumatic legacies passed down in families over generations, by an acclaimed expert in the field

Written in Bone: Hidden Stories in What We Leave Behind : Drawing upon her years of research and a wealth of remarkable experience, the world-renowned forensic anthropologist Professor Dame Sue Black takes us on a journey of revelation. From skull to feet, via the face, spine, chest, arms, hands, pelvis and legs, she shows that each part of us has a tale to tell. What we eat, where we go, everything we do leaves a trace, a message that waits patiently for months, years, sometimes centuries, until a forensic anthropologist is called upon to decipher it.

Adult Children of Emotionally Immature Parents: How to Heal from Distant, Rejecting, or Self-Involved Parents : If you grew up with an emotionally immature, unavailable, or selfish parent, you may have lingering feelings of anger, loneliness, betrayal, or abandonment. You may recall your childhood as a time when your emotional needs were not met, when your feelings were dismissed, or when you took on adult levels of responsibility in an effort to compensate for your parent’s behavior. These wounds can be healed, and you can move forward in your life.

feminism / law

Justice and the Politics of Difference : This book challenges the prevailing philosophical reduction of social justice to distributive justice. It critically analyzes basic concepts underlying most theories of justice, including impartiality, formal equality, and the unitary moral subjectivity. Starting from claims of excluded groups about decision making, cultural expression, and division of labor, Iris Young defines concepts of domination and oppression to cover issues eluding the distributive model.

The Hundred Years' War on Palestine: A History of Settler-Colonial Conquest and Resistance, 1917-2017 : Original, engaging and striking, Palestine – A Biography crosses historical events, never-before-explored archival materials and accounts of generations, dealing in a simultaneously sober and emotional way with the facts of a tragic confrontation between two peoples who claim the same territory.

Down Girl: The Logic of Misogyny : Misogyny is a hot topic, yet it's often misunderstood. What is misogyny, exactly? Who deserves to be called a misogynist? How does misogyny contrast with sexism, and why is it prone to persist--or increase--even when sexist gender roles are waning? This book is an exploration of misogyny in public life and politics, by the moral philosopher and writer Kate Manne.

Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity : Since its publication in 1990, Gender Trouble has become one of the key works of contemporary feminist theory, and an essential work for anyone interested in the study of gender, queer theory, or the politics of sexuality in culture. This is the text where Judith Butler began to advance the ideas that would go on to take life as "performativity theory," as well as some of the first articulations of the possibility for subversive gender practices

Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of "Sex" : In Bodies That Matter, renowned theorist and philosopher Judith Butler argues that theories of gender need to return to the most material dimension of sex and sexuality: the body. Butler offers a brilliant reworking of the body, examining how the power of heterosexual hegemony forms the "matter" of bodies, sex, and gender. Butler argues that power operates to constrain sex from the start, delimiting what counts as a viable sex.

Hood Feminism: Notes from the Women That a Movement Forgot : oday's feminist movement has a glaring blind spot, and paradoxically, it is women. Mainstream feminists rarely talk about meeting basic needs as a feminist issue, argues Mikki Kendall, but food insecurity, access to quality education, safe neighborhoods, a living wage, and medical care are all feminist issues. All too often, however, the focus is not on basic survival for the many, but on increasing privilege for the few.

Aquí no ha habido muertos : El ciclo de terror, corrupción y tragedia impulsado por las drogas en Colombia no terminó con la muerte de Pablo Escobar en 1993. Justo cuando los colombianos estaban listos para dejar atrás el legado asesino de los cárteles del país, se desarrolló un nuevo y sangriento capítulo. A fines de la década de 1990, los grupos paramilitares de derecha con estrechos vínculos con el negocio de la cocaína llevaron a cabo una campaña de expansión violenta, masacrando, violando y torturando a miles de personas.

Poem

Good Grief : When Brianna Pastor released her self-published poetry collection, Good Grief, she was blown away by the outpouring of support from people who reached out and said, “Yes. Me too.” For anyone who has struggled with questions of identity or coped with serious emotional issues, including grief, trauma, anxiety, and depression, this collection will help you find hope on the other side.

Instructions for Traveling West: Poems ; A vivid and inspiring poetry collection about what’s possible when we heed our instincts and honor our intuition, allowing ourselves to strike out for new territories of love, pleasure, and peace.

omg i just ove books xoxo ana

reading playlist +

[doctortwhohiddles]

I guess Patty is already bored with her new job and decided to get some attention from her cult members. Prepare for some incredibly delusional, parasocial bullshit.

Patty has NEVER tried to help Ben. She's only trying to help herself. She's too much of a narcissist to be able to think of others. The fact that she's willingly and knowingly enabling Aeltri and Mstoxictea's delusions and paranoia proves it.

This is also a massive example of projection on her part. She's the one who isn't doing anything to improve her life. Patty could have used th past 10 years to see a proper therapist to work on her issues. Instead, she used her Tumblr blog to spread lies and hate to feel better about herself.

As for Ben, his career is doing just fine. Just because we didn't get a DS3 announcement means that Disney is done with him. And if we don't get a new Doctor Strange movie, it's not going to be because he won't leave his wife and disown his kids.

I also have no fucking idea why she keeps insisting that Tom Cruise career is dead. All of his last movies were huge successes. I know the CoS is complete shit, but last I heard, everyone who has ever worked with Cruise only have good things to say about him. I doubt the same can be said of Patty.

Speaking of Scientology:

Now for those who don't know where the Scientology BS started, here is a quick rundown. A gossip rag wrote a blurb about the CoS trying to recruit Ben. Of course, the sQeptics ran with this like it was the gospel truth and not some lame rumors. Especially since Enty wrote a blind about it. A blind submitted by someone on our side (who filmed herself sending said blind) to prove he posts anything without checking it first. Something the sQeptics have been ignoring for almost a decade. Now, that's doubling down on the stupid.

[rachaellawrites]

I've seen this shared around a bit and people summing it up as Emily stating she's no longer a Scientologist. That's misleading, so I wanna provide some quotes and context for anyone who doesn't want to/doesn't have time to read the whole article and unpack it.

"Armstrong did not address her ties to Scientology in her statement, and it is unclear whether she is still a member."

"Armstrong has never publicly commented on her relationship with the church, but several of Dead Sara's lyrics suggest criticism and rejection of Scientology's teachings. [...] Armstrong sang scathingly about religious attitudes to sexuality in the 2018 song Heaven's Got A Back Door."

If Heaven's Got a Back Door is a criticism of Scientology specifically and an indication that she left the Church, that would mean she largely cut ties with other Scientologists as of 2018 - the cult is famously unkind/unsafe toward people who leave.

"Fans have theorised that lyrics like these mean Armstrong has left the church - but doing so can be a harrowing experience that involves cutting ties with family members." <- if leaving the Church means cutting ties with family who remain part of Scientology, surely the same would be true of friends in the Church.

From Emily's wikipedia page: "Armstrong had attended a 2020 criminal hearing of former actor and convicted rapist Danny Masterson, a longtime Scientologist."

Why would she attend the hearing in support of a friend who is a Scientologist if she cut ties with the Church as of 2018? It's not impossible, but it is notable.

It is also notable that she was called out for supporting Masterson when LP announced her as the new vocalist. That announcement was made on September 5th, and as of September 6th she had issued a statement indicating that she does not support Masterson and is opposed to violence and abuse against women.

Accusations surrounding her support of Masterson came in tandem with outcry of her being a Scientologist. If she left the Church, why did she address one controversy and not the other?

tl;dr: There has been no explicit indication from Emily that she has cut ties with Scientology, and circumstantial evidence suggests otherwise. She has yet to address complaints about this despite releasing a statement within a day of people calling her out for supporting Danny Masterson.

[cant-really-remember]

Good Omens from a Cult Perspective

And I don’t mean the fandom cult…

I wrote a hasty meta about being a cult survivor and watching GO (here) and I was hoping to start parsing out some of the things. I wanted to start off talking about the final fifteen.

Starting here feels the most natural because it was this scene that I felt so so deeply.

Before I dive in, I want to lay down some foundations so this can be easier to follow.

Things to know

-Cults can be benign, the proper way to distinguish dangerous ones is calling them “high control groups”. I will be talking about high control groups only, using the shorthand “cults”. Also I will speak of “inside” and “outside” to describe the “us and them” nature of cultic systems.

-Cults use a system to organizes people around a doctrine, a charismatic leader, or both. Akin to fascism, complete obedience is expected. This can be achieved in many way, but the most common are: behavior, thought, and environment control.

-“Bounded choice” is a term from Janja Lalich (an incredible cult scholar) from a book of the same name. She describes that cults hijack peoples’ free will by making them think they have choices, but really the are bounded to the reality of the cult. So people inside feel like they are making choices, but the things they have to choose from are ONLY within the rules or world of the cult. Every choice is, at its core, “do what we say or you are out”.

-Cults are not just robes and incense. It’s not even always a group of random people. Families can function like cults. One-on-one abusive relationships can be set up as a cultic system. My story has all three.

-People in cults, and to a much higher degree people who are born in to cults, are not allowed to have an identity that is separate from the cult. Their sense of self is defined by the cult. An extremely cool term I learned while studying cults is “arbiter of existence” - the cult essentially tells you who you are and, at the end of the day, they tell you if you are. They can tell you that you aren’t, that you don’t exist. They can - and often do - cut you off and erase your existence, in their world, you will have never existed. This is a common practice and an even more common threat. Sound familiar?

-Lastly, Aziraphale = he, Crowley = she (babygirl)

The final fifteen

Really more like the final 21. I want to start when the Metatron shows up. Quick run down:

Metatron shows up, he isn’t recognized by the beautitudes, immediately demands validation (asking Crowley who he is), then demands obedience, and sidles up to Aziraphale with a small gift and some doddering old man charm.

Next we see him assure Aziraphale “you don’t have to answer immediately, take all the time you need…go and tell your friend the good news”. Then, in flashback, we see him reassuring Aziraphale that he is a great leader and honest (I’m pretty sure he is neither) and *harmlessly* mentioning that he has seen Aziraphale’s “de facto partnership with the demon Crowley”.

After this is when the wheels fall off. So I want to stop here and make cult connections.

painting by @aliceblakeart

The cult connection

In my analysis of the final 21 through the lens of cult survivorship, this is how I identify the parts. But I do have to first state that Neil Gaiman grew up as both a mainstream Jew and a Scientologist, as well as attended a highly religious Christian school.

Heaven and Hell are both cults - Heaven is a regimented, highly organized cult (like Scientology) and Hell is oppressive and insidious but much less strict (like, ironically, mainstream Judaism). Crowley was ejected from the cult of Heaven for asking questions - this is literally why LOTS of people get get kicked out and shunned from their cults - and she has found a new cult, Hell.

Cult members are, by necessity, optimists. They HAVE to believe there is a greater good, especially when they are enduring or witnessing violence or oppression. They are trained to think that the small things don’t matter (like Job’s children) because there are more blessings in store for the future. Aziraphale, as we see through the entirety of GO, is struggling with this. Crowley isn’t struggling with it, she knows it’s crap. She knows Heaven and Hell are both full of shit. But she just goes along as far as she can.

Ethereal/Occult, by Me 😇

Surviving a cult

It’s takes a lot of mental and emotional fortitude to survive inside and outside of a cult. While inside, you are constantly being asked/forced to do things against your own moral judgement. You are expected to push past your own boundaries to achieve the cult’s (or the leader’s) goals - no matter how ineffable they may be. You exist in a world of mental gymnastics. When you are confronted with hypocrisy or just plain bad deeds, you really only have a few choices: deny it, justify it, or let it start to crack at your sense of self.

This is where Aziraphale is. We see him in denial, we see him performing feats of mental gymnastics, and then we see him let the truths begin to crack him. Now from a person looking in from the outside, we can celebrate these cracks! They mean freedom, right?! But these cracks come with the most, absolute, devastatingly heartbreaking pain.

Crowley knows this pain. She is now an outsider. (I know she is still in a cult, but let’s just focus on Heaven right now). She has been ejected and shunned and possibly her memory has been wiped. Crowley’s existence as an angel is no more. She knows the cruel pain of the million light year free-style dive from the naïveté and comfort of the her life as an ethereal being into a dark, disgusting place.

I have been both inside and outside of a cult. I have known people on the outside when I was inside and I have known people inside when I was out. These are two sides of an extremely emotionally complicated coin. When you are in, looking out, you see the freedoms and the fun but you also see it as so lonely without your cult and confusing. The cult is your constant companion, either actually physically or just mentally. It guides your choices, it has rules for everything so you don’t have to do that nasty critical thinking stuff. Yuck. And the cult gives you meaning, it provides members with a higher purpose, it tells them who they are, and it even defines the boundaries and rules of the world. If your cult tells you that gravity only works if you wish every fifteen minutes, you will spend your entire life wishing every fifteen minutes - not daring to stop because if you do, gravity will cease and everyone on the planet will go floating off in to space. A cult can also tell you that certain things don’t work, like perhaps that an angel and a demon cannot be friends. It’s physically impossible. It is against the rules of physics. This, again, is where Aziraphale is.

On the outside looking in, you have so much more information. And a lot of the that information is pain. At least at first. With time and therapy, the pain will hopefully melt away or be healed. But Crowley ain’t there yet, she is still standing in the window grieving the loss of her angelic existence. Well, at least, in S1. By the end of S2, she has figured out they are toxic and she doesn’t need either of them. So the burden of information weighs heavy on Crowley. She knows the absolute gut-wrenching pain of leaving Heaven, but she also knows the lightness of leaving it’s fascism behind.

I have had more Crowley experiences in my life, most recently my sister leaving our cult and my best friend leaving her abusive relationship. For many years, I have been in close relationship with both of them while they were deep in their respective cults and then witnessed them leaving (the latter left three times). I wanted to grab them and shake them and yell at them and say RUN!! But I knew it wouldn’t do a lick of good. I knew it would just cause more pain. I knew that the only best option is to stay right there, available for support, and as a constant reminder that there is a life on the outside.

(If you know whose this is, I would love to give credit)

How this translates to Crowley and Aziraphale over the years

We know the dynamic well: Aziraphale digs his heels in and Crowley runs. But if you peel back just a few layers of the well-crafted artifice, it is Crowley who never waivers. Aziraphale constantly reminds her of the wide and deep fissure that exists between them. Or at least Heaven says it exists. That fissure. They are “hereditary enemies”, they are the bad guys, there can’t be an “us”. Aziraphale is still so deeply indoctrinated by Heaven that he believes any relationship with Crowley is literally impossible.

Aziraphale lobs cruel insults and constantly downplays how much Crowley means to him. Crowley just sometimes gets hurt and leaves the scene. But Crowley comes back because she knows that it’s not Aziraphale saying that, it’s Heaven.

When my sister was still in, the only times she said anything cruel to me was when it came from someone else. I could hear it, in the way she was talking and in the words she used. They weren’t hers. And I knew the words weren’t hers because I knew my sister deep underneath all the cult stuff. So I would get off the phone and draw a boundary and leave the scene. But here is where my and Crowley’s stories diverge. She always went back and apologized.

This is Crowley still feeding into the cult dynamic. In a cult, the leader and/or doctrine in never wrong. So you become extraordinarily adept at taking responsibility for everything, no matter what. It becomes second nature. I did it in all my relationships until I realized where it came from and that it is just pisspoor boundaries. But Crowley is scared and doesn’t want to lose Aziraphale and doesn’t think her love is stronger than Heaven. So, instead of holding her boundary, Crowley comes back and asks for forgiveness from Aziraphale every time.

We all know where Aziraphale needs growth - he needs to leave the damn cult - but this is where Crowley needs growth. She has to walk away and stay away. In my own life, I played this game with my sister back and forth until I realized that I had nothing to apologize for. She was being cruel and crossing my boundaries. I was reacting accordingly. In an extremely painful decision, I told her that I couldn’t talk to her anymore because of the way she was treating me. I can’t tell you how excruciating this was. But, two years later, it’s the best thing I could have done.

That day something snapped in her. When she saw me walk away because of how the cult was expecting her to behave, she began the slow and painful process of getting out.

Smitten, I believe, by Me 😇

The fifteen, for real this time

So in this analogy, the Metatron is the cult leader, Aziraphale is in the cult but waffling, and Crowley is on the outside trying to help him get out.

The Metatron has done all the things a cult leader/abuser would do:

-lied through flattery (you’re a great leader)

-threaten very passively (I’ve seen the de facto partnership)

-given a gift (the coffee)

-the “im just like you” moment (I’ve ingested things in my day)

-isolation (taking Aziraphale out of his safe space and away from a person who would actually stand up for him)

-lying about having a choice (you don’t have to answer immediately, take all the time you need - but really he shows up ten minutes later and says “ok let’s go” and we never see Aziraphale actually give an answer)

-making something awful sound good (tell your friend the good news)

I can list these things from memory because this scene is seared in my memory. When I saw it the first time I cried like a baby and it wasn’t because I was so invested in our ineffable idiots. It was because I had seen this same thing happen to my best friend. I saw her get hoovered back into a relationship with her abuser twice.

What you have to understand about trying to leave a cult is that you never really want to. Something has to push you over the edge. Something has to break. Something that’s so f’ing bad that you decide to essentially elect not to exist anymore. I did this, I elected not to exist to my family anymore. But this was after so, so many years of going back after leaving and being treated just as poorly, if not worse.

The cult/leader/abuser is a master at keeping you just far enough from the edge that you don’t fall over. One of the ways they can keep you is that the cult dynamic is set up so nothing in the world feels better than being in the cult’s/leader’s/abuser’s favor. This is the pinnacle of validation, it is life giving (because remember, they are the arbiter of existence).

The act of drawing you back from the edge is known as hoovering - like sucking you back in with a giant Hoover vacuum. There are many plays in the playbook for this, but the particular one the Metatron uses is the “you can have it all” play.

See, the Metatron knows that Aziraphale doesn’t want to leave Crowley but he also knows that Aziraphale desperately wants to be in Heaven’s favor. Aziraphale was trained to desperately want that. There are little moments in S2 where you can see him getting validation from Crowley (in lieu of Heaven’s approval) and his eyes light up, he even laments not being able to report to Heaven. So the Metatron proposes a “you can have it all” scenario.

Come back, we will flatter you and give you approval and status, oh, and you can bring your twink with you. It will be totally cool and you will be able to do whatever you want and we trust you to make decisions and you will be in charge and you will have it all just perfect.

Except it’s all a lie. We know, from the Gabriel tapes, that you can’t say no. No matter if you are the Supreme Archangel. It’s not totally cool and you better tow the line. And Crowley knows this, too. Crowley knows that Aziraphale is being lied to, again. She knows where this goes.

So when the happy-arms bright-eyes proposal of going back to Heaven comes out, Crowley - after being aghast at Aziraphale’s naïveté- makes a last ditch effort to pull Aziraphale out the door and over the edge. “How can someone so clever be so stupid?” The final fifteen is Crowley slowly coming to realize that this is a train wreck she has absolutely no power to stop or divert. The kiss was an attempt at the grab-their-shoulders-and-shake-furiously that we all feel when we see someone clearly making a mistake. And “don’t bother” is Crowley succumbing to the speed and velocity of the train barreling down the tracks. She knows that the only thing that will stop this is the train actually hitting something.

Tell me you said no, by Me 😇

Aziraphale has made his bounded choice. He has believed the lies and manipulation and future faking and thinks he is making the best choice for them AND for the world. He will change Heaven, he will save humanity, he will be with Crowley. It’s literally perfect. He can not understand why Crowley doesn’t see it.

So where does that leave us

Well, in the worst case scenario, Aziraphale goes back to Heaven, back in to the fold, becomes totally indoctrinated and forgets Crowley. But, Neil said it was going to be ok and I trust him.

I think that two wonderful things will happen. I think Crowley will hold her boundary. I think she will learn her own value and that she deserves to be treated with care and kindness. I think we see this in the way she left the last time. She walked out and waited. Didn’t run back, didn’t apologize, didn’t beg for the forgiveness she pretends she doesn’t want. She stood there leaned against the Bentley with a straight backbone like “I am worth it and if you can’t see it you’re an idiot.” She is saying, “you have to come to me this time.”

And I think the moment outside the elevator is the train-hitting-something for Aziraphale. When the Metatron says “it’s called the second coming” you hear a miracle sound. Forever I thought that this was the Metatron putting some sort of trance on Aziraphale because that would explain the creepy smile, right? But after the sound, he turns to look at Crowley one last time. If he was in a trance, he wouldn’t have done that. Then I realized, that was his snap! All the cracks and doubt and things Crowley has been telling him finally snapped into place. The miracle was putting “A Nightingale Sang” on the radio of the Bentley.

Hear me out: we know that Aziraphale has established a connection with the Bentley. We know that song means a lot of things for them. And now we know that Aziraphale has possibly had slow motion train crash moment.

Aziraphale is well aware of the mortal/ethereal danger he is in in the presence of the Metatron. He could be smoted/smited/smitten on the spot, so he is not going to turn on his heel and run back to Crowley. He will send a message and start to make his escape plans.

I don’t want to make predictions past that because Neil is incredible and I want him to tell the story.

Thanks for reading of you got all the way down here ☺️ I have so much to say about the intersection of cults and GO.

[spurgie-cousin]

I would keep an eye on your mom, I think if the Scientology channel is available to her it means she chose it as part of her package. I could be wrong, though.

I appreciate the concern lol but no it's included with her plan, as are a lot of evangelical channels tbh. She basically lost her sister to a smaller west coast cult and has a lot of contempt for cults bc of it so I think it would be a cold day in hell before she gave the scientologists even a dime of her money.

Her reaction literally was like "is this legal?? Should we call someone?" like she was prepared to sick the law on them 😭

[olderthannetfic]

https://www.tumblr.com/olderthannetfic/730245265731223553/people-spend-shittons-of-money-on-this-hobby-so

I used to read a lot of detransition blogs including some of the ones by people who are commonly cited in the popular articles about them and tbh — and a popular one of those bloggers who later left the movement, came out again as trans and is now exposing the movement, has basically backed this up — a lot of them clearly are in fact trans people who are still suffering from a lot of dysphoria, but who had some bad experiences with trans communities and people (often an abusive trans ex) and this movement came along that gave them a convenient, simple excuse for why that happened to them and also everything else wrong in their lives, and they just glommed on to it. TERFs often target vulnerable people especially sexual assault survivors and that includes the trans people they target to encourage them to detransition and see their transition as a mistake. They’re also frequently people who have histories of uncritically jumping between extreme ideologies: like they’ll talk about the “trans ideology” they experienced that made them think that just being gnc meant they had to transition or whatever and it’s like… the kind of nonsense you will see sometimes in the kinds of college queer groups we’ve been talking about, or bad tumblr discourse, but like, you don’t need a lot of critical thinking skills to recognize that that’s a problem with “college activism/Tumblr discourse” and not “trans people,” who mostly don’t believe those things. But yeah if you thought some weirdo like monetizeyourcat who thinks trans people are inherently superior to cis people is the voice of all trans people then I guess I could see why you’d think it was a “cult”… but why did you think she was the voice of all trans people, there’s abundant evidence that she isn’t.

A lot of it also seems to be about being mad that transition didn’t solve all of their mental health problems, and then, ofc, using that as an excuse to jump into a community that makes them even more depressed.

It would be really sad if the ideology they’re using as self-harm didn’t also hurt so many others when they disseminate it.

--

In ye olden days, a lot of it was people joining Scientology and the like too. Kate Bornstein has an anecdote about that in one of her books where someone came in fretting because they'd transitioned and now their new cult had issues with medical procedures or whatever. It made Bornstein feel weird and was part of her finally catching a clue about her own identity, as I recall.

And yes, it's both sad and dangerous.

[self-loving-vampire]

Actually got an urge to do a really quick infodump on the basic summary of every mainline Ultima game so here it goes.

Ultima 1: An evil wizard threatens the land. The player is summoned from another world to defeat him, but also this one is really weird in that you get a spaceship and laser guns. It's still a fantasy setting.

Ultima 2: This is one of the weirder ones. The evil wizard's apprentice is the new villain and she's fucking with time. The player fights her minions throughout the whole solar system, so this one is actually not an isekai!

Ultima 3: The evil wizard and his apprentice had a child, who is actually a demon computer. Hero is summoned from another world to deal with it. This is the first one in the series where you recruit a party rather than doing everything on your own.

Ultima 4: The lands are at peace, actually. There's still monsters and dungeons but there isn't a big apocalyptic villain this time. The king still summons a hero from another world to become a role model to the people by becoming the embodiment of a virtue system he created and recovering stuff from dungeons. This one was particularly revolutionary in that you need to basically roleplay a decent person in order to win as a result of its 8 different karma meters. Also the sci-fi stuff is all gone as far as I can remember.

Ultima 5: The king has gone missing in the massive underworld beneath the land, and his replacement is a corrupted tyrant who has twisted the previous game's virtue system. The hero from another world returns and joins the resistance and overthrow the government, now in a significantly more interactive and immersive world. Day/night cycles, NPC schedules, and etc. are all already present here. In 1988. Also, burglars broke in and stole your stuff while you were having your isekai adventure.

Ultima 6: The hero from another world is baited into getting isekaid yet again to be killed by a group of gargoyles, a new (genderless, by the way) species that lived underground and who are now invading the land. It turns out that the gargoyles are not evil or anything and our isekai protagonist manages to create peace between them and the humans on the surface.

Ultima 7 (actually separated into 2 parts, each the size of a full game): A malevolent entity from another dimension is using a cult inspired by scientology to build itself a gate to enter and conquer the world. The player does an isekai yet again and stops that, then chases the cult leader to a different different fantasy world (isekai within isekai!) and winds up saving the universe by restoring the balance between order and chaos, which are actually magical space snakes. I was obsessed with this game as a child and found it really immersive.

Ultima 8: Immediately following the previous game the same evil extradimensional villain takes the hero and drops them in one of the worlds he has already conquered (isekai within isekai within isekai!) but unfortunately this game is really bad and unfinished, and the previous one was already kind of streamlined in some ways.

Ultima 9: I don't want to talk about it...

[outer-spec]

OCtober 2024 ⭐ Day 4: Under-Appreciated OC

The first OC that comes to mind for this prompt is Juno, because she's supposed to be the main character, but I feel like she isn't as fleshed out as her friends. character traits that she has that i love:

does not give up, she will wear herself down to the point of exhaustion first

complex about trying to save/help as many people as possible, gets sad if she can't save someone

knows martial arts

she acts more chill and good-natured than Steve and Tora, who are really petty.

basically the caretaker of her friends, they go to her for advice, and she has to remind them to not do stupid shit.

usually shes the only sane man. but occasionally acts deranged. examples:

crazy determination, as previously stated

represses so much shit, to focus on fighting for the greater good

lowkey kind of a gun nut

every once in a while, the tables turn, and she does some stupid shit herself. and her friends have to step in for her. because thats what she did for them

attracted to stupid people

part of her arc is figuring out that her current boyfriend isn't right for her, and breaking up, and then getting a girlfriend.

so. much. angst.

i want her to be able to relax in the post canon. actually i want everyone to relax post canon. i think after you save an alternate version of earth, u should get paid at least enough to retire forever. i want them to be happy

also, if possible, id like to flesh out "Dale" more, and give him a different name. i want to also flesh out the other minor characters in hexagon. so far Dr. Moss, Terry, and Charlie all have their own toyhouse pages, but i have other vague ideas for background characters that i wanna make more concrete eventually.

anyway outside of hexagon, some other characters that should probably get fleshed out more:

the various ocs that i posted about on Day 2

Petra - shes part of her own fantasy world that i made ages ago but mostly forgot about

space robots - i love these guys so much!!! i feel like i should make a secret third space robot, like a dog that represents twilight

literally every other character in the untitled robot game (i ran out of character ideas)

since the alien cats are loosely based off of scientology lore. i think it would also be funny to base some of the robots off of lesswrong and e/acc ideas. im sorry, but cults have the best scifi worldbuilding.

ok but this is a bit of a random tangent but: scientology lore, especially the Xenu story, talks about powerful alien organizations that use psychological manipulation to oppress people. the church of scientology portrays itself as being the opposite of these organizations, but someone who is anti-scientology could also write about these organizations to make them allegories for the church. on a similar note you could also use the paperclip maximizer as a metaphor for big tech corporations that waste resources and hurt the environment. or use the ai box thought experiment as a metaphor for charismatic cult leaders.

also since my MCs are based off of vocaloids. i do plan to use vocaloid characters as inspo for some of the other characters, but not completely.

OCtober is by @bweirdart

(ps: i had a thing for day 3 all written out beforehand, but i forgot to post it cause i was so busy with schoolwork, so its under the cut)

OCtober 2024 Day 3: Old OC

technically i don't know who my oldest oc is, because ive literally been making up little guys in my head ever since I was capable of forming memories. but heres some honorable mentions:

when i was in ~5th grade i was obsessed with dragons, so i bugged my mom to sew me a dragon hoodie for halloween, and she did, and i had lots of fun. the dragon hoodie was so cool that in my head, i invented a story about girls wearing magical dragon & unicorn pajamas that turned them into those creatures in another world or something, i forget most of the details tho.

one time i was walking around the playground and talking to myself. and i came up with a story about dragon people living in this isolated town where nobody was allowed to leave. the town was ruled by this dragon named "Firelord" and it was surrounded by this huge ring of fire. some dragon kids escaped though, to figure out what was actually going on.

it turned out that Firelord was one of four quadruplets with magical powers, they were Earthlord, Waterlord, Firelord, and Airlord. but they had an evil younger brother named Hypnolord, who wanted to take over the world, and had everyone trapped in his evil skyscraper prison. So Firelord made the town where nobody is allowed to leave, to protect everybody. fortunately the dragon kids defeated Hypnolord, and saved the day.

i was really into legos and dragons. so for my birthday my mom went on ebay and bought a bunch of the baby norbert lego figure in different colors. while listening to music i imagined them in music videos in my head, eventually each figure had like. its own personality.

also when lego elves came out, i bought all of the lego elves dragon sets. and each of those baby dragons also got their own personality too.

I had this oc Max, who was a stupid teenage boy, and his little sister Megan was like this child genius. originally Max was supposed to be super depressed and edgy, but eventually evolved to be totally different.

Max and Meg weren't actually related. they were adopted by a talking cat that was their dad. the cat was british

also sometimes Megan had this other friend who was a child serial killer. she had the same black hat as that one xkcd character that has that hat, becuase theyre both eeeeevil.

i drew so much fanart of them, i cringe to remember what my art style was like then   

you can probably tell that i liked dragons as a child