salarta

obscuritiesoffbeat:

obscuritiesoffbeat:

I don’t usually soap-box, but I’m going to for a hot sec since this has been on my mind: 

Cults are getting better branding, prettier leaders, hipper-sounding cosmologies, and wider reaches due to social media. They’re not all deity-focused. Thoughtful, intelligent people can get sucked into them. Just…stay safe out there, guys. Do your research, look at all your options, and trust your gut, not your guru.

I’m glad this is resonating with people.

I do want to emphasize, again, that cults (and toxic groups with cult-like attributes, I’m using this term pretty loosely) don’t usually look like what you’d expect. A lot of toxic and dangerous religious movements are tiny and you won’t find much about them via Google. Cultish non-religious movements are the same way.

Start-ups, multi-level marketing companies, activist groups, fan groups, political groups, and internet gurus who run retreats can all be cult-like and dangerous. Tune your BS detector, ask family, friends, and experts for advice.

Here are some warning signs:

Pressure – pressure to make quick decisions, to give (or pledge) considerable amounts of money, to move in with a group, to abandon family or cut off friends.
Elevated Leaders – anyone claiming special insight, special powers, or that they aren’t human. Demanding special treatment (compared to other followers). Misuse of funds or money collecting at the top. physical, emotional, and/or sexual abuse. Lack of accountability or oversight.
Isolation – encouraging (or requiring) members to cut off family relationships, friendships with those outside of the group, leaving jobs, moving to isolated areas, taking away communication methods. Strong “us-vs-them” mentality. Vilification of ex-members. Love-bombing.
Altered states of consciousness – long work hours, sleep deprivation, lack of access to adequate food or water. Otherwise unproblematic activities like meditation/prayer/chanting, but done for hours.
Discouraging doubt – discouraging or punishing doubt and critical thinking.

(Source 1, Source 2, Source 3)

If these send up red flags for you or loved ones, here are some collected resources: one, two.

Cults are one of my worries I rarely talk about, but they’re incredibly dangerous. It’s important to remain capable of looking at a person’s words and actions and assess them, not just absorb them and defend them. Even the best person in the world has faults, can be wrong and makes mistakes.

I think most of the things wrong with the United States right now fall into cult mentality problems, too. Trumpers, “incels,” GamerGate, MRAs, Republicans that put party before country and basic human decency and compassion, it all falls into cultish groupthink.

catastrofries:

satirizing:

speaking of misogyny

let me tell you guys something that ACTUALLY happened in my screenwriting class last week

one of the female writers in our class is writing a feature about this gang of teenage girls who sort of become vigilantes and murder men who harass women (that’s a shitty logline of it but it’s actually fucking awesome and highly stylized and over-exaggerated like tarantino in a good way bc i fucking hate tarantino). ANYWAY their first kill is this guy named taylor. taylor is one of the girl’s boyfriends. it is heavily implied and the writer confirmed that he abuses and rapes her. not explicitly seen, but she has bruises, there are scenes implying it etc.

so. she wrote the part where they kill taylor. and one of my professor’s comments was about how he felt like he didn’t hate taylor enough.

to which me and my female friend were like um what?? we hate him. he fucking raped and abused her. wE HATE HIM. HE IS A HORRIBLE PERSON.

and my prof was like well yeah i hate him but i don’t HATE hate him. and we argued about it. so he took a poll of who hated taylor. ALL of the girls in the class raised their hands. none of the boys did. when he asked who didn’t hate taylor all of the men raised their hands. and me and my friend started laughing because of COURSE they did.

and my prof was like why are you laughing and the writer was like “i think they’re laughing at the gender difference in that answer” and my prof was like “well, from my male perspective, i don’t think i’m being sexist”

WHAT.

first of all did you hear that sentence at ALL do you understand how paradoxical it is?????

second of all, no. just no.

and then my prof went on to say “i feel like we need to see taylor be horrible. like bad solution, he kicks a dog”

evidently a man can abuse and rape a girl and not be hated, but if he kicks a dog then he’s PURE EVIL

and THAT is exactly what’s wrong with our society

There are two things I see to unpack in the problems with this professor, both of which I could go paragraphs for but I’m not able to right now. So here’s the short version.

There’s obviously the larger problem of the professor and men in the class not taking the underlying issues as seriously as they should. But on top of that, the professor just plain gives an incredibly shitty example of what he’s trying to say. “Have the guy kick a dog” well okay, but why a dog? It’s not the dog whose pain the reader is supposed to understand.

The second issue which feeds into the first is that this professor apparently seems to be terrible enough to think everything has to be explicitly shown. It sounds like this story has a lot of storytelling hidden in the gaps, that a reader actually paying attention will understand. Professor’s basically saying it has to be spelled out for him in the most in your face way possible.

Combined, what it comes down to is that the guys and professor don’t seem to grasp how complicated abuse really is, and how easy a lot of signs of it can go unnoticed by people (read: men in the class) that don’t have to deal with it.

Story is being smart in handling abuse for what it’s really like, the men want it dumbed down to what they think abuse should be like.

aph-lithuania:

anxiety-unlimited:

darkwingsnark:

heartandstride:

evil-little-princess-from-hell:

heartandstride:

evil-little-princess-from-hell:

marykathryn1:

evil-little-princess-from-hell:

pussifoot:

pussifoot:

So Captain Underpants explores the friendship between a gay boy and a black bisexual boy and y’all wanna say Beauty and the Beast was the pinnacle of gay representation in children’s films huh

Captain Underpants comes out on Pride Month. Coincidence? I think the fuck NOT.

Excuse but Harold and George aint gay.

You miss the book where Harold has a husband?

Fanfiction aint canon

It’s in the official books written by the actual author, so it is canon. Pilkey wrote it, so it’s canon. 

I refuse to believe he willingly inserted a political agenda into a popular, established children series

Oh look, stuff from the book! The actual canon book. 

Look at Harold with his husband and kids. Very small but super poignant. 

LOL @ ‘wouldn’t put political agendas in children’s books’. 

Also “political agenda,” the hell?

It always annoys the hell out of me when people call acknowledging LGBTQ+ a “political agenda.” Apparently it’s political to treat other human beings with care and respect?

subsequentibis:

scientist character: is kissed

scientist character: hmm.. this requires further experimentation

me, shoving handfuls of popcorn in my mouth: FUCK YEAH IT DOES YOU NERD

nbstars:

bigfoot: mom friend, tired, loves warm sweaters and hugs, just wants some peace and quiet, do no harm but take no shit, oldest of the group, let them take a nap

mothman: intimidating, never really speaks, very smart, gives good advice, can seem cold but has a good heart, probably gay, hates eye contact, would kill for the ones they love

nessie: wine aunt, good looking ^TM, petty af, definitely a lesbian, sarcasm is their first language, a bit of a bitch, popular, “i’m not interested in being polite or heterosexual”

nightcrawler: a giant meme, never sleeps, always has energy, screams a lot, kind of a fuckboi, plays overwatch, a lil annoying, stomach like a bottomless pit always seen with alien

chupacabra: always hungry, never shaves, has a temper, terrible posture, lives off of coffee, can’t sit still, never seen doing their work but somehow gets good grades

ghost: the chill friend, trying their best, dead on the inside, watches anime, knows way more than they let on, is perpetually in an emo phase, genuinely cares for the few friends they have

alien: lmao what is gender, gives zero fucks, just wants to have a good time, listens to 80s music, feels connected with space and the stars, always seen with nightcrawler

I already knew I was a ghost.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8SU5ZFuN6g&feature=share

<p>Honestly, I&rsquo;ve done and been through enough in my life. It&rsquo;s time for me to reach the part where I get to know what calm and peace and real happiness feel like again.</p>