#7 cults

[my-world-mocaps]

this is the physical embodiment of the continent itself, north america, they use he/they pronouns and his name is nortri (nor-tree) amecia (a(h)m-ee-see-ah)

[shentheauthor]

Choose.

Ignore that there’s no #6 pls the template I used had a character slapped over where 6 was and I didn’t notice

[bklily]

Oh, so now suddenly EVERYONE thinks Rook is hot. I see how it is. I am watching you.

[hopediamondart]

I bought $7 worth of poses and I’ll be damned if I don’t use them to my advantage. So have some random out of context sketches inspired by poses I liked.

CW: Suggestive

[hedonists]

You should know I'm not scared of dying | inkcarceration

[catatombi]

I saw the dead

[am3ricanh0rrorwh0re]

trump getting shot would’ve sent kai anderson into a coma

[inkclover]

🩸(un)Holy Matrimony🩸

[caramelldansenu]

DEATH KITTY

[ninjasmudge]

pinned like a butterfly

hes fine lamb just wanted to take a closer look at him

(its much better with brightness up)

[my-world-mocaps]

giving the north america god a red bull bc they have to deal with the usa

[bbygirl-aemond]

Emma D'Arcy on Rhaenyra's Fanaticism

Hi all so I've been going on about Rhaenyra's cult leader era for a few days now and wanted to bring in some quotes from two recent interviews that Emma D'Arcy gave about this most recent episode specifically. This is part three of my ramblings- I first talked about Rhaenyra's growing religious fanaticism here, and then expanded on the evidence from the show to support this here.

In the interview with the Wrap, we are told that Rhaenyra’s faith comes from “the ultimate belief that she is supposed to take over her father’s throne.” Over the series, “we see her become more and more wedded and ingratiated into her faith” to the point that “it borders on a kind of religious fanaticism.” She acts with this “slightly frightening…religious fervor, like she has the gods at her back in this decision.” In the interview with GQ, Emma reinforces this: “...something that has been happening for Rhaenyra throughout the series is a growing religious fanaticism.” Over the course of the episodes, “we see her more and more invested in her faith.”

As for why Rhaenyra is turning to religion, Emma outlines a few reasons in the GQ article. First, she is “in search of her right,” seeking to validate her insecurity over her birthright being questioned and usurped. Second, she has chosen her faith as the “anchor” that she is “going to cling to” in the wake of all the loss (Visenya, Lucerys, Rhaenys, Alicent, etc.) that she’s facing. But ultimately, Emma comes back to the idea of “narcissism” as Rhaenyra’s key motivator. “I think her connection with her religion is about wanting to reinforce a divine right.” Rhaenyra wants to believe that she is divinely ordained and special; it’s a very human desire, and so she’s reading into everything that happens around her. “She feels that she is riding on the wings of her faith. But her faith and her belief that she is the ruler that is supposed to sit on that throne are completely enmeshed.”

Emma also confirms in the GQ article that Rhaenyra views Addam claiming Seasmoke as “a gift from the gods” and says that this perceived sign is what emboldens Rhaenyra to both “ride roughshod over Jace’s very legitimate concerns” and is what “allows her to stage a massacre.” In the article from The Wrap, she expands on Rhaenyra dismissing Jace’s concerns: “ultimately, she will choose herself, really, above anyone. And here she chooses herself and her divine right over her son and her son’s legitimacy. I don’t think it’s an easy decision… but in this case, she feels she’s received divine permission.” We know how ride or die Rhaenyra has always been for her children, so this sense of divine permission must be incredibly significant to Rhaenyra in order to supersede her deep seated desire to fight for Jace’s claim.

Finally, Emma confirms in the GQ article that Rhaenyra feels like the dragonseeds’s deaths are “totally” and “without a shadow of a doubt” worth the result of two dragons being claimed. When Rhaenyra is up on that balcony, watching the dragonseeds be burned alive, “she feels like a god” and “feels super proud.”

To Rhaenyra, even the proximity to Vermithor and his dragon fire feels like she is “soaking up the divine.” Rhaenyra is in a state of religious fervor that distances her from the “horrendous” things she is doing in the short term; instead of truly registering how awful the carnage before her is, she is instead “experiencing events within a far bigger timeline” and thinking about how her name will go down in “the history books.” And so Rhaenyra ends episode 7 as “this sort of emboldened fanatic.”

[dreiiton]

...you should be able to hold the babies, I think

[u1traviolenc3x]

[notaplaceofhonour]

I was raised in the People of Destiny cult (later renamed, and more well-known as, Sovereign Grace Ministries, now Sovereign Grace Churches).

The valorization of martyrdom and The End Times was so ubiquitous it was ambient noise. We stood in the church lobby theorizing about who the antichrist would be, we argued about whether Jesus would rapture us all before, after, or during the Tribulation Period where Satan would be given free reign over the earth. There was a strong Christian Zionist fixation on Israel as the final battleground and capital of the coming Messianic Age. But the one thing we were all certain of was is that we were in the End Times, that we were not of this world and couldn’t get too attached to our lives here.

We were raised to believe our sin nature made us undeserving of life, that we deserved death and eternal conscious torture.

My parents read us the Jesus Freaks books (a series by Christian Rap group DC Talk about martyrs). I spent “devotional time” reading Fox’s Book of Martyrs. We had guest speakers from Voice of the Martyrs, their pamphlets were often stocked in our church’s information center. We grew up with our dad listening to right wing talk radio and making us listen to songs about how the Godless atheists were outlawing Christianity in America, that we could all become martyrs soon.

The group’s theology was damaging & traumatic in a lot of other ways that contributed to the suicidality I have continued to struggle with for the rest of my life. For a long time I did not believe I would live past 20. There are times when the idea of giving my death meaning by using public suicide to make a political statement has appealed to me.

So now, seeing so many social media posts glorifying the suicide of a US Airman this week, I have been furious. Reading his social media posts, I recognize so much about the way I was raised in his all-or-nothing, black-or-white mindset, the valorization of death-seeking & martyrdom, and the apocalyptic fire-and-brimstone imagery of self-immolation. The moment I saw people I followed celebrating his self-immolation, I said to myself “this feels like a cult”

So when I learned he was raised in a cult too, nothing could have made more sense to me. His political orientation may have changed, but his mindset did not—it was no less extreme or cult-like.

I’ve talked about so many of the reasons this response from the broader left scares me, including how it’s laundering that airman’s antisemitic beliefs, but I cannot think of anything that would hit me in a more personal place than this specific response to this specific situation has.

When I see the images, I think: that could have been me. That scares me, and what scares me more is that so many prominent people are overwhelmingly sending the message to people like me that there is nothing else we can do that would have a more meaningful impact than killing ourselves for the cause.

I do not believe that. I will not even entertain it. And having to see his death over and over and over again, to argue against people who are treating this like an intellectual/moral exercise or a valid debate we all have to consider has been immensely triggering and fills me with a rage I rarely feel. It’s unconscionable that we are even putting self-harm on the table, and that pushing back against that is somehow controversial.

There is hope. Our lives do have meaning. There are far more effective means of fighting injustice. And the world is a better place for having you in it. Don’t fall into believing this is a way to give life purpose.

[creature-wizard]

"White woman who uses her knowledge of pop spirituality to start a cult where she positions herself as this divine mother figure and makes everyone cater to her every whim while she abuses them all" is really a whole genre of person.