I wish I could talk about my AU stuff without feeling like I'm being annoying like people will directly say to me 'tell me about this au thing!' and my brain will actively be like 'they are asking to be polite and you are already taking up too much space as it is, SILENCE'
Okay, I’m curious. I know it may be a question for longer answer however polls get more engagement so I’ll do it this way. Feel free to simply write your opinion in a comment/reblog.
The important part here is the horror part. And I mean it literally, as a genre, not as a joke.
i know there's a lot of ego and assumptions about my own susceptibility to manipulation going on here but i truly think i am immune to most cults. not even from a bullshit detection standpoint, but from a standpoint of every account i have ever heard/read of someone finding themselves in a cult or mlm includes descriptions of social situations that would overstimulate and stress me out so bad that i would vomit and leave immediately. a road trip with strangers? a self-improvement seminar? giving out my phone number to someone i met in an aisle at target? having to host a recruitment party? the constant hype machine behavior? love-bombing? the pressure to socialize? unpaid morning zoom calls? maybe it's because i never went to church as a kid but i have no concept of "faith" in something unseen nor do i ache for a "community" larger than a handful of fellow hobby-havers, so the idea of manufacturing a new passion just to fit into a crowd i otherwise have nothing in common with sounds like a type of psychological torture customized for me specifically. i barely muster passion for the things i like.
i can understand completely how people get sucked into them and don't think it's something on which character should solely be judged. most people actually do ache for that community, and most people are actually flattered and not freaked out if someone begins to fawn over them, because we are social creatures isolated by capitalism and crave comfort and validation from others. but on my mother, if a new friend dragged me to a "show" that turned out to be a motivational speaker my departure would be so rude and abrupt. i am too fucking autistic to chant affirmations with an auditorium of 1000 people.
if i am ever victimized by a "cult" it'll probably be more of a final fantasy house low-scale personality cult sort of situation. while i would hope better for myself, a charismatic online person warming up to me until i'm sucked into their little circle of sycophants they have collected is not outside the realm of imagination, and all i can hope is that my true friends will be honest enough about catching bad vibes that it never happens.
resharing this post on here but omgg blursbian on twitter found this scene with no music playing and you can hear alan say 'yötön yö' more clearly like what, i never seen that before 👀 (it's if you turn off music and sound effects in the settings in alan wake 2!!)