Chapter 1: One-Eyed Flying Monkey

Story: High Water

Word Count: 2.1k

Summary: Post-Apocalyptic Cult Vibes.

The day was supposed to be like every other at the end of the world. It was peaceful down by the creek. But when alarms are sounded and flares begin flying in the valley, it’s clear something isn’t right. Upon discovering the group returned with both members of a rival group, random stranger refugees, and everything they were meant to scavenge, it becomes clear there’s more going on than they anticipated.

TW: MDNI, 18+, enemies to lovers, they kiss in the first chapter, references to torture, whump inspired, adult language and adult themes.

The sirens came rolling in over the mountain. A series of sticks being smacked against trees loud enough to reverberate across the valley. Tens of them, spread out from the lookout points.

It was something we practiced but not something put to use yet. When the flare went up over camp, all sound ceased in a rush. There was no echo. Nothing but birdsongs rising out of the silence. A flare like that meant something had gone horribly wrong during the last raid. They were only sent out to scavenge but you never really know what you’re getting into when you go out there. The world is nothing like it used to be.

I drop the sticks I was gathering and take off running towards the camp. They’re going to need me for the sake of keeping everyone calm. I wasn’t the best with interventions of a certain magnitude but everyone seems to have enough faith in me that I influence decisions.

Black Water Creek was an outpost along the Black Water River, an ironically crystal clear safe to drink little river that flows between the mountains from a spring up north. It’s got plenty of safe fish to eat. Vegetation that’s not going to kill you. And draws in enough wildlife that we rarely have to go off looking for food. It was somehow a perfect place despite the reputation it once upheld.

The outpost is more like a compound behind walls of steel, iron and concrete. They’re over ten feet tall and four feet wide, plenty enough room to keep people out. It’s got a series of twenty five buildings behind those walls and plenty of vantage points and lookout spots. It existed before the world went sideways, but its mission was much different these days. It was a safe haven but only to the select. Most of the time, people we bring in choose not to stay. There’s a lot of rules and cooperation that goes into keeping a place like this functioning. And what we can’t get from the land, we have to scavenge from the wreck of the world. It’s something that started off small. A few trips into Brown Water, the town up and across the river. But then the town stopped having what we needed and babies continued to be born despite everything. It meant having to leave the valley all together for days or weeks at a time. But the groups had to be bigger to survive those trips. They had to be more prepared. After my last run in with the group we call the Flying Monkeys from up north, I haven’t been able to leave camp. It’s some paranoia attached to the post traumatic stress related to getting taken and tortured like I was. I was gone almost six months before they managed to figure out where I was being held. The scariest experience of my life and I survived The Collapse first hand.

The trucks pulled into camp around the same time I entered the gates, each vehicle accounted for but covered in bullet holes. That was new. The number of holes was over a hundred. I couldn’t begin to think who might have that many bullets. But I knew it wasn’t good. The Monkeys only use resourceful weaponry handcrafted so they don’t run out of munitions. They’re also more interested in skinning you alive than they are about shooting at you. Torture was more their style, which was why they’ve been plucking people off of trails and new access roads like it’s nothing. It makes the mountains a dangerous place.

A second flare goes off from the gate as a new truck pulls in behind the others. It didn’t have any bullet holes in it but it was also packed with people and supplies. People weren’t something meant to be brought back from this one. This was strictly baby business. My eyes scanned the vehicles and I ultimately moved to find Bastian unloading someone injured from the back cab of one of the old trucks. Caleb. He was alive?

My heart sank as Bellamy moved to help him carry the makeshift stretcher. Caleb was alive and moaning. He’d been assumed dead last year. MIA without a single sign of life. There was nothing we could’ve done. No one knew where he’d gone off to or how he got separated. But it was good to hear sounds coming from him. Chances were he might just survive this. But I don’t go with them to the infirmary. There was a commotion around one of the other trucks and I needed to get to the bottom of the reasons for the flares.

Inside the back of one of the trucks was a badly beaten, bloody and bruised man hogtied and gagged. There was nothing familiar about him that stood out of me as Jeremy and Derek both dragged him out of the truck and let him fall onto the ground hard without being able to catch himself. He groaned in pain behind the cloth in his mouth and another man awkwardly climbed out of the truck. He was beaten and bruised but far less purple and not so bloody. He just had his hands bound behind his back and a gag in his mouth that he likely didn’t need considering the large tattoo on his forehead. He was sworn to secrecy. Opening his mouth would mean a true death by the people he’d been stolen from. The Flying Monkeys.

I haven’t seen one of them without those stupid fucking masks on their head but I’d known about the tattoos. They’re basically covered in them, so the only way to get them off is to peel off their skin like what they do to their victims. It’s a cycle. A vicious endless cycle.

But they hadn’t tied his legs. He could attempt to run and get knocked down and dragged back. It was like a cat toy, basically. There was nowhere for him to go, now. But he didn’t make the attempt. He jumped down out of the back of the truck and scanned each of our faces like he was studying for a report back. It wasn’t until he looked in my direction that he even seemed to blink. The expression on his face became that of fear and he’d taken a step back. A step that was intercepted by Jeremy who shoved him forward roughly. They weren’t taking their chances with him. He’d be the first prisoner we’ve had in a while and the first Monkey. He’d have an awful long road ahead of him if he chose to survive.

I moved to help gather boxes out of one of the other trucks. I got first dibs on some of the supplies, even though I technically shouldn’t. Motherhood wasn’t something I spent a lot of time thinking about. It wasn’t in the cards for me by the way this was all going. The end of the world was the end of hope itself. I couldn’t imagine raising a kid in all of this. And yet, I technically have been. More than one. Children that weren’t mine but needed my guidance and my reassurance. Children who found me out of everyone else and chose for themselves that I’d be left with this impossible title. A role I didn’t ascribe to very well.

We made several trips from the trucks to the warehouse. The boxes had to be sorted and rifled through. It could take days to get that process flowing. It was when I went back to the trucks that I saw someone new that I hadn’t expected to see. Another Monkey. A more noticeable Monkey pretending to be someone he wasn’t. He didn’t have a forehead tattoo, so his identity wasn’t given away as easily. He was the One-Eyed Captain. The one who kept me locked inside a cargo container for months on end with barely enough food to eat. He tortured me in the most horrific ways and waited for me to die every time. A monster of all monsters. He was cruel and undeserving of life. When I moved to ambush him in front of the others he pretended to be with, he grabbed me harshly and pulled me right into his personal space with his fingers digging hard into the backs of my arms. He forced a kiss upon my lips in a savage threat to keep my mouth shut. He’d do all of those things to me again if I didn’t let him be. That was the promise the kiss swore.

It wasn’t a tender kiss or a violent kiss. It was the kind of kiss you can’t ever possibly be prepared for. The kind of kiss that not just anyone can give you. It was precise and practiced. He’s planned this assault on my senses and on my dignity. It was equal parts cruel and comforting. A man expressing to a woman feelings he wasn’t supposed to have. And when I didn’t head butt him like I could’ve, he loosened his grip on my arms and moved to hold my neck, keeping me in front of him like I was nothing but a pet now. My sense of self had been stripped away from me in a single second as he deepened the kiss with the taste of sex on his tongue. He was salivating as he thought about it. He was probably thinking about all of the harm he brought to me in our time together. I was nothing but a mere commodity now. Expendable. Recyclable.

He moaned into my mouth as he tasted me, forcing me to taste his hunger. It was violating in every way but I knew what he’d do if I pulled away or pushed him off of me. It made him smirk behind his lips as he sipped and licked at my mouth like he would’ve done this a long time ago if he thought it would’ve worked. It was like all of his torture was meant to make me submit to him, to give in to some desire I simply didn’t have. And yet, I reluctantly kissed him back, forced to play this part with an audience clearly watching us. His thumb on my neck stroked me like it was a reward. I was being a good pet giving him what he wanted. And that’s when I stopped being nice, nipping and biting at his tongue in my mouth. He growled at me a feral sound as he pushed me up against the side of the truck and nipped and bit at me just the same, fueled by the rage I just provoked and reminded him of. He grinds his hips against mine, rubbing up on me with his want. He manipulated my mouth and took all that he wanted from me because he wasn’t going to let it go. I kept my pace, a taunt in every movement. I’d get my revenge on him and there’s nothing he can do about it. He’s in my territory now. He’ll be my prisoner by the time the sun goes down. That was a promise. I’d do worse to him than anything he’d done to me. I could guarantee it. It was what made him moan at me again. I was in control. This was my game. My pet and my leash. That was when I shoved him off of me and walked away. He’d gotten the scene he wanted and I’d gotten my message across. He grabbed my wrist and pulled me back towards him, kissing me again softer like he didn’t want it to end on a high note. He was probably never going to stop kissing me, now.

“I’ll find you later,” he whispers, kissing the knuckles on my left hand in a strange way that I wasn’t anticipating.

He didn’t have to tell me. I knew he wasn’t going to leave me alone. He’d find a way to slip away from the others and come find me. And then I’d have him right where I want him, where he’ll never come back from. I’ve wanted my revenge since I escaped. I’ve wanted it since the minute he started hurting me. We’d never be whatever he thinks we are. It was a game. An act. A manipulation of the human condition. I’ll own him in ways he never imagined someone else would own him. I’ll do unthinkable things that he hasn’t prepared himself for.

“Yeah, I know,” I mutter, pulling my hand away and escaping this weird exchange going on.

I love mayview everyone in that town is fucking insane

where in the actual fuck did this claim that Satine is a colonizer come from holy shit y'all must know absolutely zero about Satine Kryze, even worse if you think Death Watch were the good guys

When I was a young child, I was adopted by hardcore evangelical Christian extremists. If you imagine a cartoon-level cultist, you’re probably pretty close to getting an image of what these people were like.

These people were outspoken zionists. Not only that, they were also the type to almost fetishize Israel, and Jewishness in general, but especially in connection to Israel. They were the sort who had “Passover seders” that were Christianized, they would go on and on about the “Jewish homeland” and the “sacredness of Jerusalem” and so on and so forth.

They held the belief that the establishment of Israel as a Jewish state would begin the End Times. They wanted this, because they believed that after the world and every non-Christian in it was destroyed in horrible, torturous ways, that they would inherit a “newly-remade” world for themselves as the “New Jerusalem” for the “true chosen people of the Lord.”

This is Zionism to the Evangelical, Conservative groups— the groups who are the loudest voice in favor of Israel, the groups where it’s propaganda is focused.

These people are also horrifically antisemitic.

From saying that Jewish people are all damned to suffer for eternity due to not being Christian, to claiming that they deserve their suffering for “killing Jesus,” to repeating blood libel and conspiracy theories, every form of antisemitism you can think of has been perpetrated by these people. These zionists. Jewish people and Judaism are only “worth” anything to them if they can be used as a prop for their religion, otherwise, they genuinely believe that only 144,000 Jewish people who “accept Christ” will be granted “eternal life” and spared, while the others, along with the rest of humanity, will be sentenced to eternal suffering.

Antizionism is not Antisemitism.

In fact, Zionism itself is often Antisemitic.

Don’t listen to propaganda and fearmongering. Zionists don’t care about Jewish people— they care only about their own agenda.

Fight Zionism. Free Palestine.

Downplaying Amane's physical threat to people is one thing, but I am begging people to stop downplaying how dangerous and manipulative cults are. The more I read about how Fuuta isn't 'stupid enough' to get indoctrinated or about how it might actually be a good thing if she gets involved with the cult, the more I'm convinced you guys would so easily be victims of cults yourselves

Propaganda below the cut:

This is an interesting podcast. The two hosts both grew up in cults, and while they do approach the topic with humor, it's a respectful kind of humor (though they're merciless regarding the people knowingly doing harm). Each episode includes a guest, and the interview is largely guest-driven, giving them time to talk about their experience, the red flags, what got them out of the cult, etc. Everyone is very sympathetic about how easy it is to get pulled into something like this. I find it educational and thought-provoking.

I think watching my Never-Christian therapist react in absolute horror when I describe the beliefs I was raised with has done more for my religious trauma than any other form of therapy

Oddly specific but did anyone else's parents describe brutal torture methods in excruciating detail to them (under the pretense that they could/would happen to them) or was that just me?

Conspiracy Theorist Anonymous

Wait for it 😁

via @chaser

Since imperial cult worship is allowed in the t'au empire do you think there is an heretek sect of the cult mechanicus that saw the T'au's fancy, fancy tech and went "we have to make sure the spirits of that beautiful tech is well cared for also gime gime"?

Does anyone else who's been in a cult feel like the really, really smart people seem almost harder to get out?? I have some friends, one in particular, that were raised in it, and I can't even imagine how I would go about convincing them that it's all lies.

It feels like they're so smart that they've kind of trapped themselves. Anything that the religion didn't cover within their teachings or anything that was iffy about it, they would be able to rationalize and expand upon to the extent that those things DID make sense.

I don't know. Obviously, very smart people can get out of cults, but the conversations I've had with those people were always the most "faith strengthening" when I was still in it because they did the thinking that the cult itself didn't.

I really hope that one day the cognitive dissonance that causes these rationalizations lets up, but for now it feels like we're all kind of trapped.

Chapter 4: Continued

Story: High Water

Word Count: .6k

Summary: What goes around comes around.

TW: NSFW, MDNI, guilt, shame, post sex shame, delayed emotional reaction, less smut more butt though, gonna get what he deserves just took a minute, whump vibes, undertones of sexual violence and rape, conflicting feelings and reaction, emotional manipulation, physical manipulation, lots of plotting

It was clearly emotionless sex on my part but it didn’t stop the emotional expression that came from it. He bit my neck tauntingly before climbing out of bed and pulling me with him cautiously. He was gentle in the way he touched me, like he was trying to make up for all of the times he hadn’t been.

I stood up and spun on him so fast his eyes widened in surprise. I liked surprising him and leaving him without words. He is my little pet now. The fact that we’d done what we just did only solidified how easy it would be to convince him that this was just a game. Until it stops being fun for him.

I kissed him hungrily and leaned into him with more of my weight than he expected because he had to move to adjust to hold me up. I kissed him hungrily, savagely. A thanks without being polite. I knew I’d likely repay the favor later, making him feel as violated as I was meant to. I’d carve out his soul with my bare hands and my vagina. There’s no going back.

It wasn’t lost on me as he nipped and sipped at my mouth that what we’d done had started rolling down the inside of my left thigh in a warm sticky mess. It was more of a threat to my sense of personal security that I really should’ve taken into consideration. At least then, I’d have dealt with two birds with one stone. Three stones, really. But we’re not getting into all of that right now. Right now, I was basically attempting to eat his face and he was enjoying it like a maniac. I wondered why it had to be him that didn’t mind when I turned off my inhibitions. I wondered why there was this complicated chemistry between us and why he hadn’t done more to prove that he wasn’t trying to kill me. The dumb fuck didn’t know that there could’ve been a good thing between us had he no decided to humiliate and torture me. If he’d just held me captive, treated me with a small sense of dignity and fed into my need to feel important, we could’ve skipped all of the trauma and scarring. We could’ve monopolized on whatever this was. He pulled away slowly, brushing his fingers through my hair in such a gentle way it made my skin cold. He’s not a gentle creature and I didn’t like playing pretend. I pushed his hand away because it rubbed me wrong and moved on to the bathroom to release my bladder and clean myself up. He was going to be the death of me. I was sure of it.

I cleaned up, feeling spent in a way I haven’t in a long time. When I got up off the toilet, I realized I haven’t felt this sore in a really long time. If ever. It was almost beautiful but it also made me realize I was insatiable and unsatisfied. That was the bummer of all bummers. It came with the lack of actual attachment. A reminder that I’m not like other people. I can’t just dismiss sex as an act between two people. I have higher expectations for that. He traded places with me when I was done, acting like nothing was wrong. Good for him not suspecting anything. It made me realize that I needed to act now if I was going to get what I had really wanted out of tonight. It might be enough to fill the deep dark void inside of me and stop the panic from consuming me. I at least needed something to help fight off the consuming thoughts that were about to wash that act between us in shame, blame and guilt. Things I didn’t need tonight.

“some people want to tie evil things to christianity because they hate it and want to tar its image” yeah and some of us find legitimately evil things within the bible that you fuckers refuse to acknowledge as such. the encouraging of murder to those who live differently than you, the direct call to take child brides, the way it justifies the total destruction of an entire town and then the entire world. even if you toss out the old testament and focus entirely on the new, there’s still the insistance that you MUST love jesus more than anything else in your life or you’re doing something wrong, not to mention that’s the part where hell was introduces as a concept. I understand that not every denomination tries to find a reason that those things are okay, but a lot of them do. and that’s not even getting into the many, many ways that god, as portrayed in the bible and explained by christian leaders, is an abuser who i want nothing to do with. except according to y’all, that’s not an option! he Wants A Relationship With You, and if you don’t? if you want him to leave you the fuck alone? too bad, you’re living in His world under His rules and if you break them too much and don’t repent then you’re gonna get tortured. that’s not a healthy dynamic. i get that he brings you a lot of joy, but i don’t owe anyone a relationship just because they want one, no matter who they are. and too many of you don’t get that. maybe less of us would hate your religion if you didn’t keep cornering us anytime it came up, and even less if your politicians would stop trying to force YOUR values onto the entire population. i try very, very hard to remember that there are good christians, and that there are nicer interpretations of the bible, and that some of you actually listen to jesus more than your local preacher. but when those are the minority and you keep running in to the pushy assholes, it gets very hard to keep in mind.

oh my god I found a fic that makes the lan sect out to be a cult

The Dangers of Exclusive Affirmation Ideology | Is It a Cult? Woke Up

Exclusive Affirmation Ideology" appears to be a term coined to describe a hypothetical ideology or belief system that places a strong emphasis on affirming or promoting particular ideas, beliefs, or values while excluding or dismissing alternative viewpoints. While it's not a widely recognized or established concept, it seems to convey concerns about the potential dangers of a rigid, closed-minded, or dogmatic approach to ideology

PAC: 𝐖𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮'𝐫𝐞 𝐜𝐚𝐩𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐨𝐟

1. 2. 3.

For those who are sleeping on their potential or are unaware of it.

To book a personal reading with me DM or email me at [email protected] with your query.

Masterpost

Services Offered

Thanks for the tip!

PICTURE 1

Blessed with the gift of restoring or beautifying things beyond repair. This could be an object, a garment or you, yourself. There's not a single ending or grief that you've faced that you haven't bloomed out of. Perhaps some of you have found inspiration in it as well. You can find beauty in the mundane and the macabre. You'll always find or have access to some hidden resources. Be it esoteric knowledge, classified sources, intuition or people not really in the public eye.

You're sleeping on your gifts of acquiring wealth. Some of you may have limiting beliefs when it comes to money. You have the ability of being extremely influential with your words but you shy away or underestimate yourself. You'd do amazing in selling/promoting/teaching something but you might think you're not glamourous or confident enough. Both of them are a state of your mind. Some of you can be incredible cooks too, make something simple look appealing and taste exquisite regardless of whether you want to profit out of it or not. Some of you are excellent designers, can stitch fabrics together or put something together like a puzzle piece and make it fit even if they aren't supposed to. With enough awe and wonder you can make yourself happy, something you've been avoiding in the pursuit of keeping up with ever yone else and constant comparison or choosing things to pursue that you aren't supposed to but you end up doing so to prove a point that never gets assured.

PICTURE 2

Such caring and tranquil souls who don't realise that they create their opportunities as they go. You don't have to go looking for them, the more you do they'll elude you. Think of it as looking for your glasses while you were wearing them the whole time. Blessed with the capability of changing lives and circumstances through their thought, ideas and words alone. But you think of it as a power so simple and you seek out more complicated things then wonder why you feel stuck and devoid of curiousity and fun. You're sleeping on your potential to go and see what the world has to offer you and what you have to offer to the world. You might think it's too little but that's far from the truth. You've gathered your perceived mistakes and failures so much that they have piled up in your subconscious somehow. The moment you switch them to what you have gratitude towards, they too will add up and will keep multiplying. You'll either way be guided towards your destiny no matter what.

You have helped others release their burdens but it seems as though you still keep carrying yours with the addition of other's as well. Why? You think you can't execute an idea, you think too much time has or will pass you think you have no relevance. You think too much, so why can't you think in your favour more than once? You're stubborn, so why can't you be stubborn with allowing yourself too walk on your path?

There's an opportunity in everything. The moment you make everything ever in your favour as crazy as it sounds, is when you are prosper.

PICTURE 3

There is power in the unspeakable emotions that you feel but prefer not to. You have the ability to evoke the same emotions in others too. You're perhaps searching for examples or validation from others in regards to what you want to do, where you want to go and what you want to become. But the truth is that you're supposed to be your own validation.

You're meant to be your own example, be as eccentric and revolutionary and chaotic as you wish to be. Some of you are a cult classic in the making and don't even realize it yet. You're like a lightning strike, the poet and the muse. You have the gift to visualise/picture things into existence. You are someone's real life comfort character despite it all You're capable of becoming a healer, taking all the pain and turning into power, inspiring the same in others, you're capable of becoming a leader and an extremely influential person. Use your power well. You're meant to be expressive, you're meant to inspire, to create, to perform, to travel and likely be as many characters as you wish and live many lives, each that caters to your inner child. You can't really go step by step with this, there's hardly any method to it except bursts of energy and inspiration that leads you to where you seek to be. Deep down, you're aware that the only way to live up to this is being a bit strict with yourself, completely accepting your power and contradicting yourself less.

You can easily transmute energy, think of yourself as an alchemist, surround yourself with people and friends who share this vision as well, likey you already are. Stop holding yourself back.