Speaking as a cult survivor here, cults can be surprisingly resilient when they have a clear order of succession, regardless of the popularity of the current leader. If they have a rigid hierarchy and clear authority transferred by the cult leader, they can effectively project that power to an extremely personal level. (ex. Mormons, traditionalist Catholics, North Korea, the CCP, Scientology)

However, MAGA doesn’t have a clear and organized hierarchy, just a blob of figureheads vying for Trump’s addlebrained reins. I think it will splinter and they’ll do what fascists do best and eat each other as soon as they have no clear target for their rabid fervor. It’ll probably fragment into its base white supremacist hate groups and those splinters will embed themselves deeper into the flesh of the body politic. They’ll sprout again as a new ugly weed in another 30 years.

MAGA has all the ingredients for a long-term presence as a political cult. The words feel disgusting to type, but I’m kinda glad that his assassination attempts failed. Martyring him would have made him immortal to his followers, it likely would have made JD Vance a more attractive figure. He would have been able to consolidate power while his predecessor was still popular. Just look what happened to the Mormons after Joseph Smith got his ass shot to hell in Missouri.

Ace enby lesbian here. I generally feel the same way. I’m attracted to femininity, equipment really doesn’t factor into how I feel about a woman. Or about femme-presenting people in general. I just think girls are pretty.

As a person with some pretty serious mental health issues, this is hilarious. I’m stealing it.

It’s literally a conspiracy to sell more purses.

Believe it or not, this is (I shit you not) part of a wider conspiracy to sell more purses.

Darkstone (1999) - Good game for a Diablo clone.

Debian-flavored Linux - My only complaints are hardware compatibility-related, and that is primarily because Nvidia and Intel both suck Microsoft’s floppy disk.

Krita, Gimp, Blender - Never needed another art program. Adobe can eat my paintbrush.

LibreOffice - I would literally have this over MSOffice any and every day of the week.

VLC - It just frickin’ works. And it’s good at its job. It plays anything!

The culture I grew up in was as a Mormon in the Rocky Mountains. They don’t do matchmaking per se, but the Mormon church has specific congregations for specific phases of life. There are “family wards”, for Mormons who are married with kids, “seniors’ wards” in nursing homes and retirement homes so elders don’t have to travel as far for church on Sunday, and “Singles’ Wards”.

As soon as you turn 18, you basically get sentenced to Singles’ Ward until you manage to get a girlfriend/boyfriend. The cultural expectation is heavy enough that you’ll get a lot of weird looks if you’re still going to church with your parents as a 19-year old. Mormon churches are very activity-heavy, so during the week there will be a ton of church-sponsored group-date and double-date events.

I found out I was gay while I was in Singles’ Ward. Things got awkward really, really fast.

Knife, taser, bulletproof backpack insert, laptop and charger, battery pack, water, compass, water purifier drops, small ocarina, granola bars, tin cup, fire starter, local maps, notebook and pencils, sharpies, light jacket, extra socks, hiking towel, first aid kit, floss, deodorant…

and a set of comedic emergency mustaches.

I’d say so. Improv comedy groups are hard to find, but you know what isn’t? A Dungeons and Dragons group.

Many people who play D&D are writers themselves. Maybe not famous or published, but it’s a narratively creative exercise. Older and more experienced DMs will happily help you learn how to write a character that is interesting and unique. And as you play, you’ll get a feel for how to write a story that you like.

This is going to sound counterintuitive, but try writing fanfiction.

Fanfics aren’t necessarily the gorgeous polished final works you’d expect to find on a book store shelf. But what they can do is help put you into a certain mindset.

• How to write in character. You already know these characters very very well: their limits, their fears, their challenges, all of it.
• How to describe a place you can see. You know the setting where these characters move and work and live. Taking the time to describe familiar places gives you enough exercise to try describing unfamiliar places.
• How to move the plot. Is this too complicated for one episode? Then it might not be a short story, it might be a long one. Learning when to keep things simple and when to make them intricate.

Believe it or not, fanfiction IS real literature. Everything we “know” about King Arthur? Fanfiction and reboots. Dante’s Divine Comedy? Bible fanfiction. There is no shame in writing it. There’s no shame in reading it either.

He has a fetish. Not even that weird of a fetish, for sane people. Unfortunately, his wife is neither sane nor is she people.

tl;dr

You know the lady who was in charge of ICE? She shot her dog in the head and bragged about it in her psychotic autobiography.

Apparently her husband has a bimboification fetish. She didn’t know about it until after it showed up on the news.

Completely and totally unrelated question to the topic because your username interests me.

What kind of communist is Tasslehoff Burrfoot?

It means that Lime will rent out their scooters in Israel.

Night. I have a hard time getting ready in the morning, and the last thing I need is to be late to work AND have wet hair the entire morning. But being nice and clean before bed helps me sleep.

Aaahhh. Clean and sleepy. ☺️😪

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A woodchuck would chuck wood 'chucks, but none if a woodchuck nun would chuck wood nunchucks.

Ex-cult member here.

The only thing that snaps someone out of that spiral is an internal realization. There’s nothing we as outsiders can really do directly. Engaging with their version of reality (Christian evangelicals specifically) feeds into the prosecution complex and perpetual victimhood that validates their position. It’s a self-defeating tactic to confront them directly.

Focus on positive, normal, consistent interactions. Share your regular, everyday triumphs. If your lifestyle comes up in conversation, express being satisfied with it. Decline going to church with them. Don’t debate their stances on doctrine if you share a root faith. Deflect and redirect. When the opportunity arises, maybe ask a question that invites some introspection about the subtle (but structurally loadbearing) flaws in their worldview. But don’t probe too much. Again, bear in mind, they’re trained to take every perceived attack as a trigger to rehearse their dogma. Be subtle.

And above all, unless they are actively abusing you, don’t abandon them. That’ll seal them in and you’ll never get them back. Continue your hobbies and appointments, and keep a schedule (movie night, for example.) Eventually, they might feel vulnerable enough to express their insecurities about inconsistencies in their worldview. Be gentle with them, as this is a remarkably scary thing for them to even voice out loud.

If they love you–and I mean really love you–no preacher with an ego to preen will ever take them from you.

Put that paper on the wall in a frame, and keep it as a badge of honor!

I, for one, appreciate this man engaging in the exact grassroots direct democracy that LA prizes. Sometimes, illustrating exactly where the system fails and where the people prevail is the right approach. He did everything right. And when the government failed, he took it upon himself to do the right thing.

There is a kid that didn’t get squished by a truck today. Why would I complain about that?