#which is how successful cults get ppl

[lakesbian]

i think cherie has a weird psychological fixation on alec. btw. for reasons such as

cheries Deal is about being powerful and scary and manipulative so she can be the one who hurts others instead of the one who gets hurt due to shes fundamentally alienated from connection w/ herself and others and has no other way to cope with existing without feeling like dirt

also her powers are abt being stuck in this miserable cramped home w a bunch of other miserable violent people and having to learn how to emotionally read everyone so she can cater to the abuser to keep herself safe + understand how to manipulate the other victims (to make life easier for herself, to hurt them to satiate her abuser & feel like she's regained some control, etc)

alec was one of the siblings slightly closer 2 her in age + one of the siblings she tormented, someone she knew exceedingly well as a result of her power. theres a connection there. its a bad connection but theres a connection. forced him to do horrible shit alongside heartbreaker + WoG implies she contributed 2 the sexual abuse by fostering the hypersexual behavior. basically i bet she thinks she has him read for filth

he was a sad little sopping wet crybaby 4 most of the time she knew him absolutely the type that would make younger cherie be like "tch...hes not cut out for anything." and tell him to stop being a whiny baby (<- she thinks this counts as helpful life advice). i think she would tell him this even if he wasn't actually crying. like he would go ":(" in his head and she would be like Stop being a whiny baby. just unprompted. also on the one occasion she tried to cheer him up she did so by letting him watch liveleak videos of people exploding on her phone.

anyway my point is. sad sopping wet crybaby jean-paul grows up, toughens up, runs away successfully (first heartbroken to do so), and THEN becomes a threat of stabilizing his own power 2 the point where he could eventually become more successful/well-known than her while the cult back home is slowly dwindling in power. what if the sopping wet crybaby younger sibling you tortured as a coping mechanism was at risk of getting cooler than you would that be fucked up or what.

furthermore i think cherie is like. conscious about the fact that she sucks and the heartbroken home sucks and thinks she's being Honest about it + brave in the face of the inherent misery that the world wreaks upon her for sucking. and she also thinks that alec is, like, not just lying and obscuring the fact that he sucks from the undersiders, but successfully being treated like he Doesn't suck as a result. which pisses her off and is, aside from thinking it's funny when he's miserable, why she tries to ~reveal the truth~ about him 2 the undersiders over the phone. this is funny because alec also thinks he's being honest about the fact that he sucks and in fact considers it one of his strong points.

but anyway yeah i think shes fixated with being able to like. drag him back down to what she perceives as their shared level + reestablish control over him bc him being free and successful while genuinely improving himself as a person puts fundamental cracks in her worldview.

all of which is to say in the beautiful hypothetical world where she gets drudged up from the ocean and riley and amy awkwardly put her back together she finds out alec died doing smth good 4 aisha and she doesn't fucking like it. because he's beyond her reach in two ways forever now. first of all he's dead. second of all he died doing something uncomplicatedly caring and self-sacrificing for a friend which means the undersiders permanently remember him as a fucked up kid they knew back when they were all fucked up kids who ultimately Tried and went out being the best person he could be. which means she can't drag him back down to her level and reassert her worldview by making him miserable Or by changing ppls opinions of him. even insinuates that what She thought about him might have been wrong. and aisha laborn, the person he died for, who is now taking care of all of the heartbroken, who still remembers alec deeply fondly, is naturally where her Weird Psychological Fixation transfers next. also worth noting that THE FUCKING WORLD ENDED while she was down there and the s9 is Over so cherie is just. utterly irrelevant everybody forgor about her. she doesn't even get to feed off ppls hatred, no "negative attention is still attention" for her, she just gets drudged up and is expected 2 move on with her life. which is to say she immediately clings onto the one remnant of the world she knew, the one place where she can still claw for relevancy w/ ppl who would know her, and starts emailing aisha "can't make a banaisha split without a cherie on top" 200 times in a single evening. and aisha doesnt care at all cherie is going fucking nuts over this whole thing and aisha is just over there mentally writing this weeks grocery list in her head

#worm spoilers #scarf don't look #parahumans #myv ision. #edited for timeline correctness due to peer review

[fondcrimes]

your comment about not being able to move on from stsg - i get that so much ToT it’s frustrating sometimes i’m ngl

what drew you in to their relationship? what do you like or think about often? personally something i really love is how tragic their relationship is. it doesn’t seem like it would’ve ever worked out in the world they live in, but despite everything their feelings feelings stay alive for around a decade

oh wow, thank you for sending me this ask! i will take any chance to get on my soapbox abt satosugu hehe

okay the shippy feelings are quite simple to explain, the fantastical world of jjk is buttressed by a style of realism i rly enjoy, so like imagining stsg school days and puppy love is super fun and thrilling for me. i feel similarly abt their breakup, their story has like wong kar wai film potential which i looooveeee. i put my stsg playlist on repeat and imagine the stsg arthouse film of my dreams.....

anyway the thing about satosugu that initially drew me in was angst bc i love the whole "doomed by the narrative" type of ship, but it's their inevitability that fascinated me. their friendship deterioration was inevitable bc of their role as sorcerers in the world. the material fallout of their friendship is also inevitable, as its woven through the main plot with profundity and dare i say care. i like to shit on gege and i have beef w his writing decisions, but i appreciate the way he portrays morality/duty and kind of juxtaposes it with personality/natural inclinations/true beliefs. gojo and geto are powerful, unfortunate, doomed, but their different approaches to their duty as sorcerers (and gojo's response to geto's defection) are authentic.. they can't help but be human despite their power and strength. i resent fanon interpretations that simplify the moral complexity of gojo's position following geto's cult era, it's not like geto or gojo made their choices for each other in the sappy romantic way. i ship them romantically bc of the immense depth/narrative weight of their friendship... like i love how fraught it all is. things like gojo essentially letting geto fuck around for a decade is interesting and shows how deep their bond was and how much it meant to gojo, so much so that he couldn't stand on business and carry out his purpose for jujutsu society. also speaks to his moral dilemma, he doesn't exactly believe in what he's meant to do which leads him down a path of regret.

and then there's the basic stuff like gojo being this privileged, idolized kid with little to no socialization (no peers), i think its extremely precious and tender when young ppl sort of imprint on the first person they get along with. that's my interpretation of satosugu's friendship as first years.. as powerful and smart as gojo is he has these innate weaknesses due to his upbringing and disconnect from people so his response and heartbreak abt geto feels extremely realistic and humanizing. geto doesn't know he's gojo's soft spot...like their friendship was more emotionally and psychologically codependent than either of them realized which makes it even more hard-hitting that it dissolved as abruptly and traumatically as it did.

i think geto is one of the most sympathetic examples of "radicalization" so to speak, the fact that he injests curses and turns evil is a stroke of genius imo, the emotional reality of curses and resentment about ppls role in the world is one of jjks narrative successes. his pain is tangible and i think its meaningful that he has this deranged sort of wisdom following his mental break. there's no redemption at the end of his path and he knows it, he lets his convictions destroy him, its terrible and harrowing but its everything to me. his normie beginnings as a sorcerer (esp compared to gojo) also make this so interesting, like at some point he rly believed in a cause that gojo never really had illusions abt. the levels of betrayal.... gojo's feelings abt geto defecting are for lack of a better word relatable and believable. ideological extremism is something that more and more of us in the contemporary age are having to deal with due to amplified social deterioration and political polarization and i think more ppl relate to this somewhat ambiguous grief of friendships/connections in an emotionally hostile world. to me gojo deals with ambiguous loss on multiple levels: loss of his only best friend, loss of someone he had unresolved feelings for, loss of a voice of reason in his life, loss of his strongest emotional connection to the people he protects, as well as losing his way as the strongest sorcerer in jujutsu society.

gojo and geto's arcs both represent the inherent tragedy and fatalism that come with living in a broken, hurting world and trying to protect it, as well as who/what u might lose in the process. i'm no determinist irl, i don't believe in the greco-roman understanding of fate at all. i will say… it can be hard to distinguish fate from choice sometimes. but analyzing the philosophical elements of silly shounen manga is a super fun mental exercise :3

#asks #tldr: I'm neurodivergent #this went all over the place idk if i even answered it #satosugu #long post

[bcofl0ve]

it bothers when people say that priscilla never cared about lisa. i definitely think she made a lot of mistakes and wasn't always the a great mother but she definitely loved her very much. she used to shield her from paparazzi cameras ☹️ I think that as parents, both elvis and priscilla did the best they could in a insane situation. they both clearly loved their daughter deeply.

agree 1000%. and something that really really irks me is that people seem to forget that lisa never spoke as harshly of her as they do. she said she was strict, yes, but priscilla says that herself! she’s also said she understood why she was kicked out that one time, that she had been on drugs for days when that happened- and that her mom was trying to help. how she’s talked about has never been ‘my bitch mom tossed me out to the streets fuck that careless cunt’. not to mention scientology is a successful cult for a reason- the reason being they’re really fucking good at being manipulative and enticing people in. priscilla, at least when she first got involved, was a cult victim who was being convinced and manipulated into thinking they would be able to help her family. as much as i wish she never got involved in all that, i can see why she did get lured in.

+ lisa said priscilla threw michael edwards out when she told her about him being a creep. which people just flat out lie about bc they like the narrative that priscilla (who was being domestically abused by michael herself) willingly allowed him to creep on her kid.

the only reason we even know they didn’t have a perfect relationship as adults is because of tabloids. lisa *never* spoke negatively of her publicly. and even after their more ‘recent’ failing out in 2017 priscilla was consistently involved in graceland things like elvis week, his bday, the christmas lightings etc. if lisa truly, truly hated her she could’ve put a stop to that and chose not to.

all that to say their relationship was complicated, yes. and i’m sure there are things cilla wish she did differently. but they didn’t hate each other and priscilla wasn’t the mom from hell ppl act like she was.

#mollie talks about elvis presley

[hekateinhell]

“I can't believe my alternate Devil's Minion posting brought you into my inbox and not my 'Marius/Armand/Lestat + Lestat & Armand being brothers' smut posting” that’s because I MISSED IT. For some reason Tumblr has been doing me dirty lately and usually shows me either old posts or posts that I’ve already seen at the top of my feed and there’s so much incredible stuff I miss unless I take the time to check ppl’s blogs individually (which in your case I’ll gladly do ofc 🥰). ANYHOW. I’m caught up now, back to business. In my head Lestat and Armand are always competing for Marius’ attention/approval (the Succession anon was REALLY onto something here omg), and things tend to get frisky when Marius ultimately ends up favoring Lestat/lets him get away with shit he’d never let Armand get away with. A major Lestat fuck up that ends with Marius laughing it off and calling him a brat prince/damned creature is equivalent to 2 daily whipping sessions for 5 consecutive days for Armand. So the thought of Marius bending them both to his will while outrageously favoring Lestat and saving the worst for Armand while Lestat initially has the time of his life but then his competitive streak starts to kick in once he notices how much Armand’s genuine desperation to please Marius actually GETS to Marius and starts rewarding him… it does things to me, I won’t lie 🥹 “But it leads me back to my thought of Armand baby-trapping Lestat with one of his own nieces or nephews during the French Revolution.” WITH ONE OF HIS OWN WHAT??WHEN??? Imagine Armand holding two mini Lestat clones on both arms while all three of them look at him like 🥺🥺🥺 “provide? 👉👈” and Lestat now has a whole ass family to take care of. I NEED IT. Missed you too! xoxo DA

DA here again, brain won’t stop conjuring up images🫣 what if Marius started getting a little too rough with Armand (even for his standards, which as we know are pretty damn rough already) which made Lestat feel extremely protective of him but unsure about what to do next WHICH would of course be noticed by Marius so he’d end up getting some of Armand’s blows as punishment but he’d take them like a champ for his ahem, brother. And then Armand would lick his wounds clean while they both hold each other and cry 🫠

Work melted my brain and I forgot to check my ask box for a few days, but oh what a lovely Friday treat! 🤧♥️

Where do I even begin? 🥹

Tbh the most scandalous aspect of all of this is the visual of Armand looking all barefoot and pregnant, holding two blond babies while making his canonical Puss in Boots eyes at Lestat (like he isn't an entire deranged Satanic cult leader).

And you know what? You and I and everyone else knows it would work as long as Gabrielle wasn't around to shut that shit down. Shame, because Lestat deserved to be trapped with two kids and a husband that's incurably psychosexually obsessed with him by the ripe old age of twenty-two (this is my hill to die on today). Armand rocking those babies and going, "Would you really refuse me now after I have saved your own flesh and blood from the guillotines? 🥺"

Instead of being disgusted like Louis was, Lestat would be simultaneously terrified and enamored (it's his Armand default, he can't help it). The debate of whether Armand truly does have more morals than Lestat when it comes to turning children can be sorted out once and for all.

NOW LET'S TALK MARIUS.

Not to get too meta when we're talking smut lmao but I feel that in general, Marius is one of those people that the more he loves you, the more you suffer (Lestat is too, and also Armand pre-his 'healed at Trinity Gate' era).

So on the surface, it appears that Lestat is the favorite but in the end Armand gets more of Marius's attention and frustrations. Lestat's way too competitive to take that lying down (so to speak), and maybe it reminds him too much of his childhood and it's upsetting!

But you're right, Lestat is actually extremely gentle and tender when it comes to Armand! At least compared to how he treats Louis, David, etc. Remembering how he lets Armand cling to him in BC while he cries and then Lestat kisses him. 🥹 And Armand is also protective/possessive of him! Nobody gets to hurt Lestat (except Armand).

The only thing better than Lestat crying is both of them crying together and licking up each other's tears. 🥵 But it's a good crying, like 70% of their present-day issues stem from Marius directly or indirectly, so it's sort of poetic that him hurting both of them would give them something to bond over.

Maybe Daddy does know best sometimes. 🙏🏼

#thank you for these little love (kinky) letters DA sorry it took me a minute have a good friday <333 #dungeon anon #you ask and hekate answers #armand/lestat #lestat/armand/marius

[syrenblubs]

Free Characters Playing Among Us (Highspeed + Hiyori)

Asahi

-literal crackhead

-always plays in public servers

-an okay imposter

-is always the last one to finish his tasks

-the first one to say “where” when the body is reported

-reports the body immediately after seeing it unless he’s the imposter

-if Kisumi gets killed, he’ll dance on top of his body before reporting it

-him and Ikuya fight for whos the better imposter

-when he gets to be imposter with Kisumi, they are unstoppable

-main is red

-probably the one asking for random ppls snaps in public lobbies

Kisumi

-“hey so what if we all danced around a dead body and recorded it”

-makes tiktoks whenever he’s playing with the guys

-he makes every game a whole debate like pleaseee

-“alright who’s sus”

-“lets all go in order? Rin who u think is sus?”

-his main is pink teehee

-imposter skills are GOD TIER

-he knows how to smooth his way out every time 😏

-his fav room is probably electrical 😏

-also likes to dance on asahi’s dead body 💃

-has witch hat cuz he part of sum witch cult or a party hat

Ikuya

-shush shush bitch he sucks

-but he still is pretty lowkey while playing which gives him a good advantage as imposter but yk

-will blame any and every person playing for the most GARBAGE reasons

-“yeah so I saw Asahi following someone other than kisumi so he was probs tryna to kill”

-gets mad when they find out he’s sus

-“IM NOT SUS”

-poor hiyo has to defend him every time

-main is dark blue

-has knife on his head lol

-will cry after he gets ejected (not sorry)

-him and Asahi are always fighting about the server settings like PLEASEEE

-last person to finish his tasks he’s just slow

Hiyori

-imma say it rn, he sucks

-like fr sucks

-videos games are just not it for him

-and this is one of them

-mans has no idea how to do tasks

-don’t get me started on him being imposter

-everyone already knows when he’s imposter

-“WAIT I DIDNT MEAN TO KILL THERE I-“

-“we all literally saw u. vote him out”

-it’s okay cuz natsuya and ikuya are teaching him

-honestly I’m pretty sure asahi forced him to get the game

-his main is brown

Nao

-like Rei, he also do be making the strategies

-detective mode on

-“okay where did u see the body? was anyone else near? was anyone following u? were there any other people in other rooms who were acting weird? what are y’all’s tasks-“

-next thing u know the voting timer is up and everyone skipped 😜

-but still he’s also a pretty good imposter

-natsuya has only beat him once, and that was cuz he didn’t see natsu enter the room before venting

-his main is either purple or white

-mini toilet paper on his head

-he really just got the game cuz natsuya forced him too

Natsuya

-he’s good, but not as imposter

-nao catches him everytime

-he gets too excited being imposter and then accidentally kills in admin when everyone is around

-he can be sneaky sometimes and it has worked

-can also smooth talk his way out of being sus

-it’s just not as successful as kisumi

-his main is yellow or brown

-has a chef hat on

-fav room is probably electrical and that’s where he kills most of the time

-will bully ikuya about being a terrible imposter

#free dive to the future #free eternal summer #free! headcannons #free! scenarios #free! imagines #free! iwatobi swim club #natsuya kirishima #hiyori tono #ikuya kirishima #asahi shiina #kisumi shigino #nao serizawa

[honeyfreckled]

Love seeing all y’all slowly becoming meg stans and sayin “hi gay!” Go watch every one of her insta vids rn then the tiktoks then watch her on hacks (watch hacks regardless bc it’s 😘🤌🏼)

Meg deserves all the success. And lemme tell y’all I fucking get my LIFE watching the r*ddit boys post her vids in order to make fun of her, thinking they’re laughing at who they believe is “an unattractive unfunny woman bombing” as if they are the purveyors of top shelf humor. They can’t see that we are taking back these certain schticks- they don’t get that the humor in “hi gay!” is OUR shared lived experience and not an insult for us like the way they want it to be when they use it. The lack of understanding they have for Meg is good tho bc it’s not for them to get. I’m sure she doesn’t give a shit that the straight dudes on r*ddit don’t get her or the fact that they’ve missed the bus entirely. in reality she’s actually got a massive cult following that’s growing more and more and she’s extremely beloved esp w/in the queer comedy world bc everyone knows queer ppl are just intrinsically more funny than the straights point blank period. and we are in on the bit w her and know that she’s actually fully aware of what she’s doing onstage. The fact they think they could ever give her advice! Oh man. The disconnect! Tbh I’m like are y’all comedyblind? Isn’t it obvi her comedy is SUPPOSED to feel/sound/look like that v particular kind of awkward? I think part of them not computing it is bc they are so far removed from how girls and women do awkwardness, bc ik there are plenty of dudes who fanboy over tim&eric and cbb and jake&amir and Kyle Mooney so they DO KNOW that humor- they just aren’t used to seeing or liking when female comedians do it bc for one- most of them are the kinda boys who say shit like “ughhh she’s fat” or “this chick sucks I hate females who do standup” which are real comments I’ve seen under her clips. and as if she’s bombing bc that’s the entire setup to how she succeeds in making extremely spot on commentaries on very specific kinds of heteronormativity...

[spelviin]

this has been sitting in my drafts for at least like a month because i basically just wanted to get my bonkers far-fetched theory out in writing somewhere and i never really intended to publish it BUT 

henry’s dad fact this week just made me kinda think at least some of it might have legs sooooo

my long-ass, incredibly unlikely Oak Theory under the cut

tl;dr

okay, so. 1939. one hildy russett makes the great decision to give her full-ass, real-ass name to the heart’s greatest desire casting director, aka full fledged (and likely high-ranking) member of the cult of the doodler

then proceeds to be used as a blood sacrifice in doodler summoning ritual 

ritual is kind of??? successful, but then stud convinces it to peace the fuck back to wherever it came from, the mystery box vanishes, the end

or is it????????

like, a cult that almost successfully summoned a chaos entity isn’t just gonna give up after one failure. fuck no. they’re gonna try again. which is where the facts get dicey, and my theory kicks in.

so the remnants of the doodler cult are disheartened by their near miss in tennessee, but they regroup and try to figure things out

the casting director recalls the name of the blood sacrifice, and the cult does some digging on her, until they find a scandalous secret in her recent past

a child, born out of wedlock, either given to an orphanage or being brought up by distant relatives or whatever. a child who is now connected somehow to the doodler by way of blood sacrifice magic or... something idk. told you this was dicey. 

anyway the doodler cult needs that baby for a future ritual. so the doodler cult gets that baby, either by adoption or more, shall we say, nefarious methods

they give the baby an alias, a new name. a powerful name. a name referenced several times in the script JJ abrams wrote when he was chanelling the doodler.  

oaks growin’ tall. oak ridge, tennessee. barry fuckin oak. 

doodler cult raises the baby in secret as one of their own, hoping to use his blood (aka hildy’s blood, aka possibly the blood of the unsung hero???) to take another shot at a summoning ritual

except as it turns out, barry can’t fuckin do shit, because he sucks of magic reasons idk

sooooo, what are we gonna do? give up? fuck no! we’re gonna get another fuckin descendant who can do it!

barry strikes out on his own, using the nascent hippie free-love movement in the 1960s to start up a commune that basically functions as its own branch of the doodler cult and tries to churn out a descendant with that eldritch x-factor

this is where our favourite nastyboy comes in 

henry grows up in the cult commune, raised from birth to succeed where his father failed

when he’s old enough, barry tells henry the truth of their mission, his birthright, and the important role he has to play in creating this new world. 

henry, being the sweet dude he is, is absolutely appalled by this. of course he’s not gonna bring about the end of the world, that’s so messed up!

they have a huge fight, and henry loses control. not in the way we’ve seen, but in a biiiiiig fuckin way. he gives into the chaos of his anger, and just blows. the fuck. up.

maybe he injures ppl with that eldritch energy he didn’t even know he had. maybe he injures barry, maybe even actually kills him. who knows? 

certainly not henry, because the trauma of it all is too much and between that and the Forbidden Eldritch Knowledge coursing through him his mind just shuts the fuck down 

he blacks out completely and wakes up naked in a forest weeks later, and we know the rest from there. mercedes finds him, they get married, have two beautiful boys who somehow inherently know the name and face of an eldritch abomination, and the rest is history

henry lives for the next 15 years as a normal, nerdy geologist dad. his mind literally can’t process the horror of his upbringing or the guilt of what went down after the argument with his father, so he packs that shit up tight behind a triple-locked door in his mind, rationalizes the extended blackout that lead him to his now-wife as nothing more than a bad trip, and moves on with his life. 

he raises his kids as best he can, without the stringent boundaries his overbearing father placed on him (or any at all) and, above all, refuses to ever express anger for fear of giving into the chaos and losing himself like he did before. 

which, i mean, kind of works??? except he basically ruins his kids in his attempt to protect them and sends himself down a toxic cycle of suppressing his feelings that just makes everything worse in the long run so i mean. not the best of strategies. 

anyways, that’s the background theory. in terms of what comes next, here’s what we know now:

barry seems stoked that henry’s brain door is starting to open and he’s “remembering who he is”

he also offered henry the chance to abscond with the twins, probably trying to use their powers for his own gain (bc as we know, the twins have magic too as confirmed by boreanaz and, in this ep, chekhov’s snake)

erin said that at least one of the anchor trails seemed to lead to a commune

barry’s in a place called oakdale or oakvale or something along those lines (similar to oak ridge, perhaps???) so by the sound of it, it’s possible he’s back to his old commune/cult-establishing tricks

also, interestingly, the only time willy has shown actual fear is when henry started to open the brain door and access more of his powers, which indicates he might have some idea of what’s going on there and it freaks him the fuck out 

also also, barry’s super fucking scared of willy

basically, i think barry wants to use henry and the twins in another summoning ritual with the help of his new commune/cult buddies, in order to a) succeed where he believes his mother failed in summoning the doodler and ushering in a new world, and b) use that eldritch power to get the upper hand in some sort of coup against willy.

i also think there’s some sort of link between henry’s powers and his anger (something to do with loss of control = chaos or smth like that? although that seems a bit toxic so maybe he just subconsciously believes there’s a link), and that he’s going to have to learn how to express both in a healthy way rather than, y’know. bottling it all up until he’s basically and incredible volatile molotov cocktail of dangerous eldritch energy they way he’s been doing it so far. 

...yeah that kind of petered out at the end there, but honestly it’s because i’ve put so much thought into possible backstory i have no fuckin idea what’s gonna come next. 

but honestly whatever it is, even when i inevitably end up being 1000% wrong about all of this, i’m stoked to find out

#og #posting my cringe theory on my fail blog #honestly this isnt even a proper theory it's basically just fic but shittier and in bullet point bc im a lazy fuck

[logicalstansadvice]

Success isn't just how good films do/fame. It's whether he's doing jobs/roles he's passionate about, enjoys, learns & grows from, works with ppl he admires which are all things S emphasizes. Ofc he wants more fame, more choice w parts, win awards, any actor should. He'll get there. But I reckon anyone who's made it this far in a cutthroat industry on their merit alone is successful regardless of what made them blow up. SS made Bucky amazing bc of his talent. Fans came from many projects though.

Anon 2:

Talent does not equal success! You have to be lucky to get the right projects. Sadly Seb hasn’t gotten many that have broken through. I was hopeful for the Soderbergh film but he’s not doing it any more 😭

Anon 3:

I thought this was the logical Stan blog!!!! Logic and facts show that while he has a cult following, he hasn’t had any quality projects besides marvel and itonya and the Martian (ensemble). All the others have been mostly both commercially and critically overlooked. I was hoping that would change with FRESH and the Tommy Lee show!

I guess that all depends on what success means to him, Anons 2 & 3. Is it having commercially successful projects? Is it winning awards? Is it getting paid enough to have a big house in Hollywood? Is it having consistently worked in the industry for over 20+ years? Quality is subjective - it means something different to everyone to a certain degree.

But I’m with Anon 1 on this one. I haven’t liked every project he’s ever been in (and I’ve seen every single one - film, TV, theatre) but he has always been fantastic in each and has worked with so many talented actors and directors - how can I not think of all that as anything other than success?

Lady Danger

#logical stans advice #sebastian stan #anonymous #logicalstansadvice #opinion blog #asks answered

[lookwhatilost]

"The Power of Positive Thinking" (self delusion) can be insanely powerful. it gives you an increased willingness to take risks, a willfull ignorance of negative potentials. 99% of the time it gets you in trouble, 1% of the time you become kanye west. this is why ppl believe in it. success and fame, beyond just hereditary wealth, kinda self-select for these sorts of people, because if you don't have this trait, this belief, you'll just leave it to the realm of fantasy and get a normal job, and not end up like bulletball guy.

bulletball is a good example of what happens to the 99% of people who, whether some combination of ideology and innate nature, embrace this form of delusion, this Positivity Cult, Ideological Optimism, whatever we want to call it. bulletball is objectively stupid. any rational person would either never do it, or at least, pack it in a year in rather than give it decades of their life, wealth, and sacrifice their marriage. that's why he's a funny, fascinating guy, and became a meme. he made weird choices. yet you gotta have at least some of that same way of thinking in order to become... well probably a majority of anyone you ever heard of, whether a great athlete, artist, or world historical figure. but if you have that brain, you risk blinding yourself to reality. and also being a colossal asshole.

a lot of us around this corner of online seem like the opposite - absolute pessimists, depressives, people even if we believe in larger things, absolutely do not believe in ourselves. we tend to focus on what could go wrong. and it probably keeps us out of a lot of trouble. there's so many fucking scams and possibly attempted murders I've not fallen for because I doubted myself, my impulses, my luck, my skill, appearances, other people's motivations, etc... etc... and I've gotten hurt when I didn't. and yet, we'll also never accomplish any of the things we seek to accomplish, personally, politically, whatever, if we can't take a longshot once in a while, and either get lucky or discover we where wrong about the odds in the first place.

I guess this all seems obvious but I'm fascinated by the conundrum, if in some sense we need to embrace some kind of self-delusion, or at least, act of faith or meaning making, but not at the cost of reason, skepticism, and keeping our fucking egos in check. how you can convince yourself to take risks and challenge the odds and be, in a certain kinda neoclassical sense "irrational", without becoming bullet ball guy, or worse?

fanatical belief in the self, in your goodness, and ultimate goodness of the universe, is central to liberalism and capitalism, and the venal narcissism it fosters in it's subjects. it’s what allows the whipholder to smile as they snap their wrist, and whipped to smile in turn. so it naturally becomes something we reject and scorn, as symbolic of the terrible rulers of the world and the means by which they rule, and that's not wrong. it adds another complicating factor into how we look at this issue of positivity/optimism/benign self delusion. ideology has constructed an artifical reality, fisher's capitalist realism, that shapes our sense of what is possible. to find what is really not possible, and what are mere false walls, what is stone & what is plaster, we need a willingness to throw ourselves at it & get bruised

and that's where I don't really have an answer or conclusion, just going in circles like Wallace Shawn trying to figure out which cup of wine has Iocaine powder in it. of course, both cups are poisoned.

#Still trying to figure out if princess bride references can be taken for granted as not needing more context

[snapdraqons]

fuck it tma oc masterpost

Aleksi Hallström

he/they || 31

alligment: avatar of the end

became an avatar of the end in college after nearly dying at a party. his whole thing is convincing people to do impulsive, dangerous and often immoral things so that they've "lived a little" before they die. then when it all falls through and they have to live with the consequences of their actions, it will serve as a reminder of what they did out of their fear of death.

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Ayame Takashima

she/her || 35

alligment: avatar of the beholding

runs "the iris bakery", a bakery/ice cream parlour whose logo is an iris flower with eyes in the petals, which she uses to Watch customers through. her business is very successful, both in terms of prophets and how many people feel uneasy or scared in her café (but don't think it's anything to do with the café itself). elias gets his coffee from there in the morning bc it's the same price as starbucks but much better quality. despite this, ayame and elias genuinely hate eachother. mlm/wlw hostility

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Danni Jackson

she/her || 26

alligment: avatar of the desolation

biker arsonist lesbian serial killer. that's a mouthful. goes on nation-wide roadtrips with her gf shanna where they kill people to appease both their entities. she can't be asked to join the cult of the lightless flame.

Shanna Henri-Smith

she/her || 24

alligment: avatar of the slaughter

beauty guru biker lesbian serial killer. still a mouthful. goes on road trips with her gf danni killing ppl to appease their entities. has a makeup youtube channel and just released her new pallette, which you can get for 20% off by using code MURDER at checkout (it's the name of her pallette)

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Benjamin Earnest

he/him || deceased (d. 1857)

alligment: avatar of the stranger/incarnation of the not-them

a painter who used jonah magnus as his muse and eventually became obsessed with him to an unhealthy degree (jonah didn't really care). as well as painting jonah a lot, he also painted pictures of barnabas bennett that were incredibly uncanny, and over time he started painting himself as barnabas and barnabas as himself. this accumulated in an attempt to steal barnabas' face in 1818 (which failed). his exact fate is unknown, but his death is officially considered to be in 1857 as a result of pneumonia.

(i have a fic about him)

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Odette Laurent

she/her || age unknown (no one knows if she's still alive)

alligment: avatar of the web

an up-and-coming violinist, pianist and cellist in the 1820s and 30s. composed her own music, which would cause people to dance themselves to death without any control over their own bodies. her sheet music was bound in a book and became a leitner. she disappeared in 1837, supposedly after an encounter with jonah magnus and robert smirke. no one knows if she's still alive, but there have been occasions of people dancing themselves to death since then that may be her doing.

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Kennedy Fletcher

she/they || 19

alligment: avatar of the beholding

a very distant descendant of jonah magnus'. her powers specify in computers and cameras, feeding off the fear of people watching them through webcams/cctv or their personal information being stolen. is pretty smart when it comes to computers, but dumb as rocks everywhere else. occasionally rolls up to the magnus institute to visit (read: bother) her second cousin four times removed. she calls him uncle j purely to piss him off.

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Laurence Maklovic

they/them || 27

alligment: the spiral (not an avatar)

statement giver who was marked by the spiral but stopped being scared of it after the first few times it visited them. they then proceeded to fall in love with the spiral/michael. they broke up temporarily because the distortion can't have too much emotional attachment or it'll get replaced. they got back together when Laurence willingly entered the spiral and didn't come out again.

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Elisa Trench

she/her || deceased (d. 2016, age 28)

alligment: marked by the buried (not an avatar)

statement giver who came to the institute because every night she would wake up and there was a dead body and a load of dirt in her room, as if it had been dug straight from a grave a dumped there. It disappeared after she called the police and she can't get definite proof of it being there other than keeping behind some of the dirt. Additionally, every night twice as much dirt is there than the last, and it doesn't show signs of stopping. She was eventually buried alive and suffocated.

The body in her room belonged to her great x5 grandfather, Jonathan Fanshawe. The Buried claimed her as a sort of revenge against the Fanshawe family, taking what rightfully belonged to it after it was stolen in the 1800s.

#tma #the magnus archives #tma ocs #tma oc #avatarsonas #avatarsona #my ocs

[wellthatwasaletdown]

I wasn't trying to say all artists who interact with sm are playing the same game. They're not. There's a big difference in tone between how say Ariana uses SM to how Hozier does it. Hozier seems down to earth, grounded, a bit quirky but he's uses sm in, imo, a healthy way - not to perfirm his life for the world, and not to establish an emotional overwrought connection with fans.

Its the whole 'we're doing this together, you and me' , 'I'm doing this for you guys' schtick that is looking to create this totally hollow idea that 'getting your fave' to number 1 is like a community project. Its just fan hysteria but it seems grosser to exploit that than the usual exploitation of teenage crushes on hot popstars. J Monae is seen as a serious creative talent but then 1) her creativity is remarkable and 2) herfanbase isn't a big part of her fame, so if she does play that game with fans, most ppl probably just don't see it.

Obviously all musicians can do the whole 'I love you guys' bit during concerts and at awards - but thats a bit like saying during sex - everyone knows its just the moment involved. But some popstars, and their pr teams, just take it to a whole other disingenuous level. Adele, for instance, will create an emotional sense of togetherness at concerts but she's not out there trying to make herself into a sports team, or God with true believers called the Adelians. Cos she doesn't need to.

But there is something cult like about what certain popstars act. Its like some pr lizard studied what cults exploit in young people and thought 'Hey, I gotta super idea'. So they create these quasi religions but unlike Scientology which focus on exploiting the desire for personal improvement that draws people to religion, these popstars have just gone full on for the whole personality cult, with these popstars who play up how much they 'need' their fans in a personal way etc. SM enables it.

I totally agree with anon, about how Harry is just being packaged as a serious artists but I dunno.. I guess to me its just less immoral to deliberstely exploit people's vanity or shallowness for $$ than it is to trade on people's empathy or desire for connection in a cynical or dishonest or unfulfillable way. Also I very much think most adults can see right through the very hamfisted repackaging of Harry. He's not exactly reached Sheeran levels of success now has he?

I guess its because I don't really care what shallow vain people are at, whereas when I see people who are full of empathy funnelling that 90% energy towards just making one popstars get even richer, or people looking for connection focusing so much on a relationship that can never give back, it makes me feel angry at what's being wasted, especially s it drags on for years. This is not about fans who aren't vulnerable and can step back, but the knowing exploitation of those who can't.

[one-real-summer]

So I'm just starting to read The Secret now, which is like... The basis of a lot of motivational cults.

But like, ya kno, cults twist its meaning into maipulating ppl to stay in their cult. Same like they do with with the Christian bible. Everything in the cult is god's work. Everything outside of the cult is satan and trying to drag you down.

But anyway, cults use The Secret to force people into only having "positive" thoughts because Law of Attraction. And just... Eventually it gets people to stop questioning things and stop trying to solve problems or discuss things that go wrong. They learn to constantly fake being fine all the time and to obey orders without question

I should be gettin' the book on how to get ppl to think for themselves and leave cults on Tuesday

Also i learned a thing today: most accountants will refuse to work with people that're in MLMs cuz they're too frustrating to deal with. They can show the huns the true, actual numbers and the they just don't believe them. Which is, of course, cognitive dissonance caused by brainwashing from the cult-like structure of MLMs. The true numbers of the amount of money they're losing is pso far from the success their upline keeps telling them they're gonna have that they literally cannot process the information

Idk what I'm gonna do with all this information on cults. I'm still not really inclined to get involved in J's life because we aren't friends anymore. But i also feel a moral obligation to not let her ruin her life?? Because cults are bad and scary and no one deserves to suffer that much

#I'm just gonna take all this info and become a cult leader in Nicholas's cult lmaooo #cults #personal

[adultdaughter-deactivated]

Idk I just feel like yeah Jada ur fucking bald ofc ppl are going to comment on it lmao like idk wear a wig or something like n the dress didn’t help like she fr always looks a mess in recent years :’(((( n like idk that’s what the Oscars is to my knowledge like idk if u read the blinds the Smiths are weird fr like I literally think they’re the fakest couple in Hollywood and if not for Scientology (which was the “God” he was referential too which I luv that cult Hollywood will do) they would not even be together like even in the red table talk thingy they basically admit to not actually being in love so like ppl who think it was about Will Smiths Devine luv for her it’s like ur sooo ignorant to how Hollywood actually works loll will smith always looks so broken and like their family is so odd and like holding on so closely to fame they had decades ago that has been getting less and less relevant like even the children its soooo obvious to me that there was an expectation that Jaden or Willow were going to be these successful A listers and like they’re just so boring particularly Jaden like omg Jaden loll I could rant about how he literally is only relevant from sleeping with DL rappers for ages lmao so do I feel bad for Chris Rock? Idk. But like I hate the idea of allowing the Smiths to spin this into a PR pro like no im honestly ready for them to be blacklisted just cuz im tired of pretending Will Smith is cool lol

#p1ss #also the switch from laughing to “don’t talk about me wifu!! that is like will smith acting!!!! that’s him in bad boys like he’s an actor