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A lot of high control groups use this tactic to isolate their members. It’s absolutely not just evangelizing Christians. New age wellness cults often encourage their members to make outlandish and offensive accusations regarding the mental and physical health of other people or their children, because they know that the backlash their members receive will reinforce the idea that the “mainstream” simply has no room for people who like crystals and essential oils. White supremacist cults will seed the vocabulary of new recruits with Nazi dog whistles that fly over those recruits heads, specifically so that they will get clocked as possible neo-Nazis and shunned by anyone who might offer them another perspective and help them to get out before it’s too late. And a lot of left-leaning political cults strongly encourage members to share their views in the most inflammatory ways possible, and then say “you see? everyone outside of this small circle is evil and cannot be relied on” when, inevitably, that produces bad results.

Sometimes I think that activists fall into these patterns completely accidentally, either because they were raised in culturally Christian evangelical environments and never unpacked it, or else because they just aren’t any good at approaching things in a non-inflammatory way and no one’s shown them how.

…But sometimes, these structures emerge in activist circles because those circles are legitimately becoming high control groups.

I think some things to watch out for especially in this regard are:

Are you being directed to behave in an extremely hostile and alienating way? (even if it’s by someone who you trust!)

Does the group you are in immediately shut down any conversation about the effectiveness of an antagonistic strategy? In particular, do they shut that conversation down using in-group stock phrases?

Is experiencing harsh rejection seen as something of a rite of passage?

Do you receive more validation from the group you are in after you have been rejected by someone outside the group than at any other time?

Have you ever been concerned that the antagonistic strategy you are using hurt someone you cared about, only to be quickly advised by members of the group that that person was toxic and that you should actually completely cut them out of your life?

These to me are all pretty significant red flags about the group in question, whatever the specific thing that brings people together there is. If you start noticing them in a group that you are a part of, be that an in-person activist circle or a Discord server or anything in between, take a step back and seriously consider the possibility that the good thing that you joined is turning into something different, and possibly dangerous.

Ok, I actually want to talk about this for a moment.

Jonestown, one of the most infamous cults in history, with a mass suicide / mass murder that left more than 900 people dead of cyanide poisoning, hundreds of whom were children… was a leftist political cult. That fact is an unambiguous and completely undebatable matter of historical record.

This isn’t a footnote in the story of Jonestown, and it isn’t a weird anti-leftist gotcha either. Jonestown attracted people to their cause with anti-segregation and anti-poverty activist work, and they did actual, meaningful good for those causes. The People’s Temple was a leftist org, unambiguously. They created mutual aid networks for food aid, and rent assistance, and job placement services, and clothing donations, and winter heating. They leaned heavily on the Indianapolis Human Rights Commission in order to push desegregation, and led sit-ins and boycotts and protests. They participated in significant voter registration efforts. They led the fight against the eviction of tenants from San Francisco's International Hotel.

People joined The People’s Temple because it was a good thing when they joined it. They didn’t start out as brainwashed cultists, and they didn’t gravitate towards the leadership of Jim Jones out of masochism, or inherent submissiveness, or a perverse love of creeping authoritarianism. They fell in line under Jim Jones because he’d built a community that was genuinely helping people, and was advancing a political cause that seemed worth fighting. They followed Jim Jones because he earned their trust.

Jim Jones then used the trust and the social capital that he had gained from all of the above in order to elevate himself to the status of a messianic figure, and abuse and profit off of his followers. Slowly but surely, he boiled the frog. It was all good – and then it was mostly good – and then, well there was some abuse, but it wasn’t that bad, and it wasn’t really his fault – and then there was a lot of abuse, but the outside world would destroy them if given the chance, so wasn’t it the lesser of the two evils? And then, eventually, it got so bad that hundreds of people poisoned themselves and their children at his command, and murdered everyone in the compound who refused and resisted.

Your cause of choice is not immune from abusers taking advantage of it!

It doesn’t matter if you’re right. It doesn’t matter if your cause is just. It does not matter if your good thing really is a good thing, because there is always the possibility that it will one day be co-opted by a monster. And if the fact that it started good is enough for you to ignore that gradual, subtle change, you could end up in a truly horrible situation.

One of my best friends in undergrad got sucked into a cult. Years later, we talked about it, and he told me something that I’ll never forget which is, it’s only when you look all the way back at things that they seem crazy. You start off with things that are totally normal and innocuous: “we’re stronger together”; “oppression is bad”; “you can accomplish more if you believe in yourself”; “empathy is important and we should all try to bring more of it into our lives”; etc. Then, you move to something that’s just a little step away from that. And then again. And then again. And then again. But it never feels like a big jump, because it’s not! A -> Z is crazy, but A -> B wasn’t, and B -> C wasn’t, and C -> D wasn’t, and…

This friend was smart, and rational, and independent, and normal, and by the time he and his wife left, they’d gone from just thinking that we should all practice more emotional mindfulness, to being terrified that leaving the cult and the cult leader would literally kill them, via the cult leader having magical powers.

If your only analysis is “Where I started was good, and no single step since then has been crazy” that is utterly insufficient to keep you safe.

I usually try to keep my posts in both languages I know most of the time, so it’s easier for other languages to have two translation options!

As for AMAs, I’m not able to translate everything into Portuguese or it would be a lot more work and believe me, writing these answers already takes a long time haha! But when questions in Portuguese come up, I keep the answer in Portuguese, and this time I also added English since Portuguese is less widely known. You may have also noticed that some questions aren't answered in the images that's because they've already been answered or might be spoilers, so I'm letting them know that I'll have to skip the question.

I’ve also seen many people from different countries trying to make brigadeiro! That’s truly amazing, and it makes me really happy to see everyone trying Pierrot’s favorite food! Thank you all for sharing that with me! -- Português Eu geralmente tento manter as postagens na maioria das vezes nos dois idiomas que eu conheço, assim é mais fácil para os outros idiomas terem duas opções de traduções! Os AMAs eu não consigo traduzir tudo para o português ou eu teria muito mais trabalho, e acreditem, fazer essas respostas já demoram muito haha! Mas quando perguntas em português surge eu mantenho a resposta em português e dessa vez acrescentei em inglês também já que português é menos conhecido. Vocês também devem ter notado que tem perguntas que não são respondidas nas imagens, isso é porque já foi respondido ou pode ser um spoiler, então eu os aviso que terei de pular a pergunta. Também vi muitas pessoas de diversos países tentando fazer brigadeiro! Isso é realmente incrível e eu fico muito feliz de ver todos experimentando a comida favorita do Pierrot! Obrigado por compartilharem isso comigo pessoal!

Translation (English):

For Pierrot: In Brazil, they recently created a new sweet called “Love Strawberry ”, and I want to try making it! Do you want to make it with me?

For Doctor: Do you know how to do mouth-to-mouth? Because I had a heart attack when I saw you, and the only way to bring me back is by giving me mouth-to-mouth.

For Jester: If, hypothetically speaking, there were an ideal human for you, what would they be like?

For Harlequin: What does it feel like to devour her? (A certain Columbina, to be more specific.)

I don't know if anyone has done this yet, but I wanted to put together a masterlist of the asks answered and posts made by @nekoboydreams regarding their game The Freak Circus!

I organized the posts by whether they had something to do with game development, or if they were related to the lore or characters. I'm planning on continuing to add links as posts are made, so this will be updated frequently! I'm going to organize them better as soon as all the posts are linked, but that may take a little while, so I apologize for the mess. 😅

I decided to do this because, as someone who loves consuming lore and understanding the characters as much as possible before writing them, it's a lot easier to find the posts in this format – I did it for myself, but wanted to share it with the people and do my due diligence. 🫡

There are quite a lot of posts to go through, so this list is not up-to-date quite yet (as of 08/08), but I will continue working on it in my free time! I'm currently up to the first post of June 24th.

初次见面ww！😋我来把画的TFC的塔罗牌愚人牌系列搬过来一下！

A bit of context: this comic takes place quite a long time ago. They were younger and still figuring out how to make things work in the circus. The first version of their outfits wasn’t comfortable, since their bodies are different, which led to the redesign and custom-made clothes for all of them after this incident.

Besides the outfit changes, you’ll also get a small spoiler about Pierrot’s rule! Also! Thank you @destinysquaredfor helping me correct some poses and adjust a few things in the comic!