Mx. Luna Corbden 🪿🐸

Author, ghostwriter, freelance editor who wrote "Recovering Agency: Lifting the Veil of Mormon Mind Control."

"Abuse Culture" is the cult of American society.

Also F/SF/Horror author. Many other interests & infodumps. Former IT.

4% puns, 7% dad jokes. Absent minded & trauma-addled aspirational hippie.

♥Cult Researcher
♥Exmormon
♥Mystical Atheist
♥Autist
♥Survivor
♥GenXtra
♥Solarpunk
♥Whiteness is a cult
♥Decolonize & Rewild
♥End #AbuseCulture

I’ll help you see through the illusion.

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[email protected]

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Publishing to

relay.damus.io

nos.lol

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Last Notes

2026-03-31 03:06:26 GMT

Nick Cage and the Bad Seeds

2026-03-22 00:52:15 GMT

I've been poking around in Letterboxd to see if I can tell it what streaming services I'm currently subscribed to.
It would be of value to me if I could tell it my subscriptions, and then filter movies by which I'm subscribed to. Can it do that?
No point in me using it otherwise, since I have my to-watch list elsewhere.
The hassle of picking a movie when I don't know if I have access to it is the biggest barrier for me getting back into a regular movie routine again. For awhile I got around this simply by renting after choosing from my list. But I'm short on extra cash at the moment, and that's not sustainable if I do it frequently.
(My local library doesn't have Kanopy/Hoopla.)
#AskFedi #letterboxd

2026-03-20 08:10:11 GMT

Giant wine bottles are blown out of proportion.

2026-03-02 18:30:13 GMT

The one conditioned manipulation trick I would change if I had a genie wish would be to remove "No but" thinking from every single person's head in the world, and replace with the ability to "Yes and." Like, take it all in. All of it, even the contradictory shit.
All of it is true and the answers are to be found not on either far side of the swing, but in *between* the contradictions.
#CriticalThinking #AbuseCulture

2026-02-19 03:05:25 GMT

touch ass

2026-02-12 20:29:02 GMT

You know, most of the Mandela Effects that I've experienced, I can buy the erroneous memory explanation. After seeing it both ways enough, I start to feel fuzzy on which one I remember.
But the Fruit of the Loom logo? That one, that one stands strong. I cannot erase the logo that feels real in my memory. Nor does any explanation make sense for where the false logo comes from. There's been a vast search for an seasonal or old version of the false logo, which has turned up nothing. The current logo is what it has always been, in this reality, and nothing seems to account for the differences in memory.
I've been intentionally vague about the difference, in case you're not familiar with this one.
I'll ask you to think of the Fruit of the Loom logo. How does it airs in your mind?
The next post I'll tell you how I and many others remember it.
🧵
#MandelaEffect

2026-02-09 09:49:52 GMT

paranipple activity

2026-01-17 17:27:30 GMT

"Democrats are scrambling..."
We fucking told you not to let it go this far!
#USPol https://flipboard.com/@thenewsdesk/politics-9rga37brz/-/a-a2RwzWOFQRWGbh0cw5wnYg%3Aa%3A43591897-%2F0

2026-01-13 18:18:52 GMT

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@nprofile…nmr0 Reciprocity is a powerful psychological lever that marketers and cult leaders have been using for centuries.

2026-01-07 21:07:39 GMT

Amazing lost media news!
52-year-old 9-track tape found with Unix V4, the operating system that everything else came from. Only 20 copies ever existed. University of Utah found theirs in a storage closet, knew what they'd found, and got the help of the California Computer Museum to reconstruct the delicate data.
I really enjoyed reading this article, which treats its readers as capable of understanding, and explains some of the technical background and challenges. Kudos to the author Courtney Tanner for conveying the excitement of this find to the audience.
Original:
https://www.sltrib.com/news/education/2026/01/07/university-utah-finds-tape-with/
Archive:
https://web.archive.org/web/20260107201815/https://www.sltrib.com/news/education/2026/01/07/university-utah-finds-tape-with/
(I realize the irony of having to link the archive article. SL Trib promises they'll remove their paywalls soon!)
#RetroComputing #LostMedia #ComputerHistory #technology #unix

2025-12-28 04:28:49 GMT

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@nprofile…aeaw I'm planning my New Years #90sWeek!

2025-12-22 19:20:10 GMT

Back in the day, I was a small-time autism advocate. A lot of the things you kids take for granted today were freshly being discussed widely. I have some old blog posts from that era.
Anyway, someone recently found and commented on the Medium version of this film analysis. So I figured that's a good enough excuse to post the blog link. I'm also including the Medium version because it did a better job of preserving my screenshots. (And also my profile pic is updated there ha ha.)
It's an in-depth analysis of the question: Is "Benny & Joon" ableist? My answer is: no.
I wrote this almost 11 years ago!
https://medium.com/@corbden/benny-joon-me-an-autism-movie-takes-on-ableism-soundly-defeats-it-237129dad4b7
https://www.corbden.com/2015/02/benny-joon-me-autism-movie-takes-on_25.html
#ActuallyAutistic #neurodiversity

2025-12-22 01:46:41 GMT

Bring back the word "poser."
That's what all these guys are. They're posers.
We didn't let that shit fly in the 90s.
Sellouts and posers.

2025-12-19 23:01:40 GMT

Sometimes words come to mean different things due to exaggeration. A generation uses it exaggeratively until the next generation thinks that's always been the meaning of the word.
Similarly, words often come round to meaning the opposite of their original meaning. They're used sarcastically or in wry humor, until they flip all the way around, until everyone who used it the old way is dead.
I first noticed this with a word that happened in my lifetime. I originally thought "decadent" meant luxurious, because by the time I noticed it in use, it was in advertisements to sell ridiculously nice things.
But in the dictionary, the only meaning I could find had already deprecated by my early adulthood — I rarely see it used this way — it means "in a state of decay."
It came this be way because a rich person living a ridiculously luxurious lifestyle was said to be "decadent" in that they were wasting their wealth. So a red velvet cake, being worthy of such wealth-wasting, presented to the middle class, is "decadent." And that's mostly the only way I ever see it used.
"Nice" is one that changed long before I was born. Centuries ago, it meant "silly," or "stupid."
And in Miss Marple's England, apparently "dazzled" meant "I couldn't see because of a bright light." It still means this in the dictionary, but I've only seen it to mean something is sparkly. A kind of exaggeration in describing jewelry that has stuck. (Anyone remember the Bedazzler™?)
Etymology fascinates me because it carries the history of generational culture. It hurts me that meaning is lost once its context passes out of time.
As a GenXer I'm of an age to know this painfully well. 1990s culture is difficult for young people to understand, it seems. There was a lot going on in that zeitgeist that doesn't come through.
Yet for those willing to look at the history of a word, there's a story playing out, as the baton of existence is repeatedly passed to new minds. If it weren't for recordings and the printed word, it would be lost forever.
#etymology

2025-12-16 19:28:15 GMT

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@nprofile…n7x3 (Also, you really have a way with words, and capturing so many of the thoughts I have been having.)

2025-12-16 19:26:43 GMT

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@nprofile…n7x3 One big difference is that the contract has been broken. The corporate contract with middle class Americans was that companies would try to please us, compete for our dollars, and we would get a choice in a myriad ways of improving our lives.
We're going on 10 or maybe 20 years now of products that make our lives increasingly worse, while our jobs and incomes get worse, too, and while infrastructure gets worse.
It kinda sucks I guess, that this is what it took. That the upside of that contract was enough to get us to throw everyone else under the bus. And that it's only when we're not getting what's owed that we can finally care about people worse off.
I do like to think that I was in the leading edge of that trend. But only by the luck of the social circles I ended up in.
I'm doing a lot of unpacking this culture of dependency under #WhitenessIsACult. Your insight about buying junk to support our identities is spot on, and cults must control identities. I think the fact that it makes me feel uncomfortable and I don't want to boost those points tells me they got me there, too.

2025-12-16 00:41:32 GMT

pottery in motion

2025-12-12 18:43:51 GMT

Look, I'll only see the typo if you interact with my post so that it appears in my notifs.
So like and subscribe!

2025-12-02 07:24:17 GMT

normalize world peace

2025-12-01 20:16:28 GMT

This church has a sickness.
This guy is as "Mormon Royalty" as you can get without actually being an apostle or the prophet.
These stories are pouring out of LDS-land. And they're a drop in the bucket compared to victims who told me their secret while I was still LDS (80s-90s) back when society preferred to completely ignore these things. And the ocean only wishes it had so many drops when I think on the number of victim accounts I've read in memoirs, forum posts, blogs, Facebook posts, and personal emails.
I defy anyone to find even a fraction of this many sexual abuse news stories involving trans perpetrators.
https://www.eastidahonews.com/2025/11/brother-of-lds-apostle-federally-charged-with-alleged-sexual-abuse-of-two-children/
#exmo #exmormon #ReligiousTrauma #CSA #LDS #Mormon

2025-11-30 03:37:13 GMT

Toasters be all like, "Surprise! It's toast!"
Every goddamn time.

2025-11-29 22:46:01 GMT

Here's an example of how white supremacy is so deeply embedded in our culture (your brain) that we never even notice while it continues to taunt those PoC who do know.
Bikinis. Nothing wrong with that, right?
Or so I thought until I learned about the Bikini Atoll atrocity. Not only did they keep the disaster from most of us who grew up afterward, but they mocked the situation by naming swimwear after it, because it was "hot."
Between 1946 and 1958, the US tested nuclear weapons at the Bikini Atoll in the Marshall Islands. Where people lived. Brown people.
The closest locals were evacuated first, but to uninhabitable places, while their ancestral homes were literally nuked into oblivion. People still living close enough or who went back later contracted cancer, and many died painful deaths. Their homes remain uninhabitable.
At least they were finally compensated (reparations!), but imo, not enough. Can anything make up for losing your family and your ancient way of life???
So what did white people do? Reflect on how we got here to avoid such deplorable acts in the future? or at least create a national day of mourning?
No. We named recreational resort clothing after it. To wear when we go to the colonizated beaches we haven't yet destroyed.
Ha ha so funny, hilarious name, get it, because it's a "bombshell" hit, makes the babes so hot, good joke /s
See this is why we get flack. Over and over, white culture has turned horrible atrocities into jokes and marketing gimmicks to accentuate our lavish (or lavish-aspiring) lifestyles.
It's crass. It's rude. It's bullying. It's cruel.
Wait, you're white and you didn't know? Well neither did I. That's why I say whiteness is a cult. With a cult, once you're willing to acknowledge that and deconstruct, you have to dig deep inside to find this garbage so you can examine it consciously and make decisions.
What are you doing about it?
https://www.etymonline.com/word/bikini
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_testing_at_Bikini_Atoll
#AbuseCulture #WhitenessIsACult

2025-11-28 08:13:49 GMT

Imagine futures where data center components are broken down and repurposed into infrastructure and prosocial technologies in communities around the world.
#solarpunk

2025-11-27 20:19:33 GMT

you may have noticed
i harh given all my fucks
away
fly, thou fuck
and be free
🙏🏻

2025-11-27 02:21:00 GMT

I'm watching a video essay about the mysterious website, Forgetten Languages, and it's terribly thought-provoking.
But I have thought too much today and need my brain tomorrow.
(But it's about language, and qualia, and psychology, and spooky stuff!!!)

2025-11-25 22:15:50 GMT

Question. Is there some kind of device that works as a sort of USB rate limiter? that just throttles the amperage going to a USB device?
Problem: I bought a tiny USB-powered ceiling fan, but it runs waaaaay too fast. That's to solve the bigger problem of heating efficiency, which is that in my RV, the ceiling at 6ft will be 80F while the human area is 60F and the floor is 40F.
It does solve that but at what cost? The cost of noise, cool breezes, and a jittery threatening aura, that's what. We're not talking entire BTUs of air needing moved here. There are walk-in closets bigger than my house. I expected a gentle waft setting just to keep things slightly circulating.
It has 3 setting: Pretty Fast, Freaking Fast, and Freaking Fuck Faster.
I would settle for "Half Fast Nine." The thing advertises itself at 5W and I would like it to run like it really is 5W tyvm.
I'm not about to open'er up and solder in a bunch of resistors. The only thing I was truly good at in electronics school was catching breadboards on fire. (This is a true story. Yes, I was trying to burn things. They let me graduate.)
Is there some kind of USB dongle I can attach in the middle that will just say, "Nope, slower'er down a wee but, yae canae* have that much power"?
* Sorry, I've been watching Limmy stream Disco Elysium and his accent is stook in me 'ed. Pretend I'm from Star Trek.
#RightToRepair #AskFedi #RVLife

2025-11-13 01:41:03 GMT

The word "garlic" is one of the oldest ever words still in use, nearly unchanged from the original Proto-Indo European, meaning "spear onion," gar+leek.
#etymology

2025-11-12 20:46:51 GMT

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When the Beastie Boys sang about fighting for the right to party, they were right about that NEED, and we did win that right, and it is NOT a trivial thing.
After the ending of the Hayes Code, these touchy sensibilities persisted, but my generation was not having it. We fought for the right to express ourselves in new ways that I think many born after that don't realize. Not just the right to party (we're talking drug war, draconian laws against raves and music, breaking down barriers about the stories that could be told in media, AND the right to swear), but the right to color our hair purple, get tattoos, and BE TRANS. These all came as a whole thing.
And all were incredibly, deeply destructive to the illusion of whiteness.
Along with that broke down the walls of profanity, and with that, the ability to discuss topics that were previously barred from "polite society." ("Polite society" is code for WHITE and UPPER CLASS.)
By the time Twitter and Insta came along, there was no possible dream of censoring based on most language and most topics. We'd won that. We didn't have to strike because they knew we wouldn't adopt the platform if that crap came with it. Even the execs at those companies wouldn't dream of taking that away.
It's no mistake that's when we saw an era of social justice movements like none we've ever seen.
It wasn't just the tech giving us platforms. It was also because we didn't have that buffer of sensibilities and tender feelings between us and the important conversations. Or ... to put it another way...
We changed who it was we were trying NOT TO OFFEND.
We (society trends) stopped caring what old religious white ladies and TV executives thought about our speech, and started caring more about not hurting the marginalized-classes.
🧵
#WhitenessIsACult #AbuseCulture #decolonize

2025-11-12 20:34:38 GMT

A few more thoughts on this so I don't lose them. I could write this better if I took the time, but I just want it out there. In terms of decolonizating and unpacking the racism embedded in Mormonism...
Growing up Mormon gave me a deep perspective of whiteness as a cult taken to an extreme. Some of Mormonism's weirdest features shine a light on how certain mechanisms function in larger society for upholding oppression via whiteness.
Profanity isn't fixed. What's considered obscene changes over the centuries and cultures. In Shakespeare's time, the most profane things were Christian blasphemes. "Zounds," a fakeswear today, back then was the worst. (It means "God's wounds.") "Shit, fuck" type words were not actually very shocking, though they were considered low class.
So we can learn about what a society values by looking at what terms they consider off limits.
When I grew up, it was the seven deadly words (like shit, ass, fuck — see George Carlin) in mainstream American society, and in Mormonism, anything that hinted at them (like sex, fart, and poopy).
That's changed, and now in most of America, slurs are the worst (words that hurt a class of people). Even young Mormons now will often say fuck and shit.
That list of words served a purpose. It created class and racial divisions. It sensitized people to reality. So if someone wanted to communicate something truly shocking (like abuse, violence, oppression), they'd have to first overcome that very sensitive line, regardless of what words they used.
It's like watching a cheap 50s horror movie when you've never ever seen horror, it will scare the shit out of you. But to anyone who has seen a lot of horror movies, it's cheesy and maybe even funny.
But offending a class of people that the dominant class had agreed was beneath respect? Was totally ok, with some exceptions (the n-word was still bad back then too).
[Minor edits, typos/clarity.]
🧵
#WhitenessIsACult #AbuseCulture #decolonize https://defcon.social/@corbden/115538553054639327

2025-11-12 20:13:29 GMT

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@nprofile…n7x3 As a GenX exmormon, this new anti-profanity trend is wild to me. And the censorship clamp-downs on YouTube and elsewhere.
Like, kids don't you know what we fought for and why? You don't want to go back to that world where everyone pretended to be civil. It's not better. Fight to keep it. The people who want us watching our words in that particular way want to hide the harms they're enabling or causing. I've never known anyone who clung at those pearls who actually meant well. They only want to hide from reality. We didn't get to the social justice woke phase of society until *after* we broke down those norms.
Piss people off with that shit, and proudly.

2025-11-05 18:36:08 GMT

Blood test developed that can diagnose ME/CFS with 96% accuracy. Links to long Covid found. Epigenetic connection confirmed (it's how the test works).
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/11/251102205021.htm
HT @nprofile…jvxe
#MECFS #LongCovid #ChronicIllness

2025-11-02 17:19:29 GMT

Oh, Utah.
https://files.defcon.social/dcsocial-s3/media_attachments/files/115/481/245/409/907/874/original/50f1aca4d557c142.jpeg

2025-10-31 07:07:56 GMT

Regret is a warning to your past self which never reaches you.

2025-10-29 19:39:56 GMT

Oh look everybody, cancel your plans, the experts are finally going to explain to us nobodies why we're so worried about the economy.
#USPol
https://files.defcon.social/dcsocial-s3/media_attachments/files/115/459/140/768/246/742/original/53a0d42f49ea7e58.png

2025-10-26 21:44:03 GMT

My long #LostMedia is a Nova Scotian Celtic album. Here's what I remember.
The whole CD told the story of star-crossed lovers. Her father forbade her to see the boy. She snuck out one night and got on a rowboat to meet him so they could run off together. And she tragically dies in a storm.
They played the whole album on NPR out of Pullman, WA, possibly on the syndicated Thistle and Shamrock show with Fiona Richie. [It would have been around the mid-to-late-90s, possibly 1997.]
But a few years ago I reached out to the show via email and they didn't know of it.
I'm listening to Thistle Radio on SomaFM today and thinking about it. 🤔

2025-10-22 17:23:57 GMT

Midnight has finally learned the warming power of being *under* the blanket!
It takes her so long to trust in new things.
(wait, wait, forgot the picture.)
https://files.defcon.social/dcsocial-s3/media_attachments/files/115/418/977/623/051/566/original/0dab3bf574f3fe7d.jpeg

2025-10-20 06:20:56 GMT

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@nprofile…d9d3 @nprofile…9c0z Thanks for this! I love covers too. Here's my collection:
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/51yJ3mPD9RygEf0N5ZTDjB

2025-10-18 22:38:34 GMT

Last winter I bought these salmon nuggets that looked really good so I bought three bags, but then they turned out to taste NASTY. So I've been slowly force-feeding them to myself as I can ever since.
I'm almost through the first bag, using the principle that with enough fry sauce, anything can taste like fry sauce.

2025-10-18 16:42:13 GMT

Warehouse worker: Boss, we're all sold out.
Boss: Of sexy nun costumes? Good, right on projection for the holiday.
Worker: Uhhh, no boss. Sexy nuns have hardly moved.
Boss: I can't believe it! Our entire marketing budget! What is it then?
Worker: Well, we've got crowds at the door demanding... uhh... you're not going to believe this.
Boss: What? Spit it out!
Worker: Inflatable frogs.
Boss: My god!
Worker: Yeah, and also I quit. 🐸🪧
#NoKings

2025-10-16 22:03:01 GMT

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@nprofile…lpar @nprofile…avw4 I see some people in the replies asking for help to choose specific app alternatives (like for MSPaint) and being given websites full of *choices* and long in-depth articles. A million choices here is the opposite of helpful. "I like x for this reason, and y for that" is better, with the link to more choices only to supplement after giving one or two very specific suggestions.
Choice-overwhelm and decision-paralysis is part of the issue, and science shows that too many choices (like on US grocery store aisles) will actually make people less happy than just a couple of solid choices. That's why these big companies hold the tech markets — people for whom tech isn't a special interest don't want choices, they want it to be easy. They will adapt to anything remotely intuitive.
I say this after watching Linux grow up from infancy and working in IT and at help desks for fifteen years during the rise of the internet.
If we really want people switching to open platforms, then as the experts, *make choices for them*.
(And this doesn't mean they're stupid! It means they're focused on the things they're expert at that you aren't.)

2025-10-16 01:52:35 GMT

Mae Martin is in a Netflix limited series called Wayward about the troubled teen industry and I am so here for this.
They don't just act in it. They created the show.
Mae's Feel Good is a highly, highly underrated semi-autobiographical dark comedy series about things like trauma, drug addiction, queerness, and starting a creative career. I'd almost forgotten about it.
For them to tackle this very serious topic as a thriller/horror series... I'm really looking forward to it. Mae is my favorite or maybe second favorite nonbinary actor. That they also create these shows is a tremendous talent.
#Netflix #Wayward

2025-10-14 02:28:26 GMT

Portland. When the walls fell.

2025-10-13 21:48:30 GMT

Why do fruit flies have red blood? Like, I kill one and think "Looks like that one bit someone—WAIT."

2025-10-06 16:51:13 GMT

All those snowflakes with their tattoos and piercings.

2025-10-03 00:58:53 GMT

Most of my special interests intersect.
For instance, stories are lessons about how power works.
Really, that's what sparked much of my observations of power struggles.
I think it was in 20 Master Plots and How to Write Them, they discussed plots as either physical or mental. Either brain wins the day, or brawn. Force or fraud. Might or tricks. These are the two basic plots that nearly every story can be divided into.
McKee in Story describes theme as a debate. The author postulates a thesis ("Love always wins.") and the beats of the plot and everything else should be different arguments in the debate. No it doesn't, yes it does, hate is better, sometimes something else wins, love isn't worth it, etc. The author's conclusion is in how the story ends.
McKee (I think that's who) also points out that you need to know each character's motives, then each need to be pursuing it to the best of their ability, BUT ALSO they will put in the minimum effort they believe is necessary to achieve it. As each character tries harder, the plot will naturally escalate.
If you consume stories now with these things in mind, you start to notice the power struggles. And you start to notice that no kind of power is ever, ever 100%. There's always a weakness, always a built-in way around any fortress. And the quality of the strength is best opposed by something entirely different.
Oh your walls are thick, huh? Let's try politicing.
Nice armor you've got there. How well it stand against seduction?
I see you are strong. How do you hold up against speed?
We see this in history too. And in infosec. It's basically what The Art of War and Taoism are all about. That's because they are core traits to the human condition, and zooming out, to life itself.
If you watch movies or read books with this in mind, you'll learn more than you ever wanted to about how power works. But you do NEED to know it. (Especially with current events.)
#AbuseCulture #WriteTip #WritersCoffeeClub

2025-10-01 05:09:01 GMT

Time Lords make the time laws.

2025-09-07 18:15:54 GMT

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@nprofile…kvnh @nprofile…sda9 Extremely queer coded too.

2025-09-06 17:53:53 GMT

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@nprofile…args
History sheds light.
No-fault divorce was made legal in most US states by the 70s. Awareness of family ills like abuse was also growing through this time. Likewise, severe social prohibitions against sex before marriage were also dissolving outside of conservative religion.
Hence a divorce epidemic in the 80s, as tons of boomers fled unhappy marriages, the kinds of marriages that their parents' generations were forced to remain in.
As that settled out, we also had the rise of therapy being available and destigmatized. And the availability of birth control got pretty good, along with destigmatizing single parenthood. So people could take their time to know themselves and their partner before sealing the deal. (I'm guessing you'll also see the age of first marriages going way up over this time.)
To the religious right, that's what really destroyed "the family," which was super young sexually repressed horny kids rushing into marriages for the sex or because of pregnancy, then stuck with each other forever because the state would not allow divorce unless they could prove adultry or very severe physical abuse. This type of family was much easier to control by authoritarian religions and workplaces. It stuck men to horrible jobs, and offered up easy victims for the predators of said systems.
And yes, religious and older folks have not updated these stats in their heads. All the social ills of the 80s have only gotten worse in their minds, because their influences have made no effort to correct it. Because those leaders want to go back to a time when a woman and children were their property, and no one pried into their business. This is also what "religious freedom" means to them.
#AbuseCulture

2025-09-05 15:43:20 GMT

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@nprofile…03hd @nprofile…4562 @nprofile…fgyc Can confirm. Ego is your image of who you are, and that doesn't need to be positive or outwardly appear to be self-serving. It is the illusion of selfhood as the driver of "you," as separate from other parts of yourself that you're diminishing or suppressing. Everyone has one, it serves an important purpose, but it also is entirely fake, and putting it into perspective, realizing that it's an illusion is empowering. (Ego will also resist every step towards doing this, in really tricky and crafty ways. Though ego projects itself loudly, it resists being seen or understood as it truly is.)

2025-09-04 00:23:33 GMT

If you make people stand in line for Vietnamese noodle soup, pho queue.

2025-08-24 17:49:03 GMT

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@nprofile…9z8h @nprofile…l326 I'm sad about this, but I understand. They have a really poignant apocalyptic song on my solarpunk playlist," The Dead Flag Blues."

2025-08-21 16:52:52 GMT

Not hiding this because folks need to see this, but CW for child abuse and the evils of American Christfascism. And speaking ill of the dead, which I will gladly do. I can't speak ill enough of him.
James Dobson is a major reason why *this*. Even his evangelical friends and radio cohosts thought he was too cruel. I'm glad he died before he could see his creation of Cristofascism come to fruition. He's one of the worst human beings to ever live.
Not content to let trauma-informed culture break the cycle of domestic abuse, he perpetuated child abuse by teaching millions of parents *how*. He even sold a device for beating children called "The Rod." (As in "spare the rod, spoil the child.") He advocated for what was known as "blanket training," used to break the will of children starting in infancy. The goal was to create a mindless being who would not cry when beaten, who would jump to with a "Yes sir!" on *any* command.
The core cruelties of white American evangelicalism in 2025 can be traced to many men, but this man was its face and kindly voice on the radio. When I speak of #AbuseCulture, this is what I mean. Dobson is the black hole which emitted its unholy light even as the revelations of science and open culture attempted to eliminate childhood trauma — Dobson raised its banner and pulled millions of Christians in, not just evangelicals, but anyone who trusted a figure promoting "Family Values," parents who would not on their own be able or even willing to enact such cruelties upon their own children, but under Dobson's manipulations, broke the will of their children...
...children who grew up and abused their own children, who are now pastors and sheriffs and senators and ICE thugs who want to make this reality for all of us.
That is the legacy of this horrible, horrible man.
I don't wish eternal hell on anyone, but I wouldn't mind if this particular creature experienced every pain he caused.
#ReligiousTrauma #exvangelical #exvie #exmo #exmormon

2025-08-21 16:24:44 GMT

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@nprofile…03hd There's a reason I call it "Abuse Culture." Seeing other people as objects to be conformed and used, and the cycle of trauma that makes one either pliable for more abuse or more likely to commit it, or both. And the manipulation tactics that pulls everyone in to the supporting system under the name of "love."
Glad to hear Dobson is dead. Didn't happen soon enough. The sheer amount of suffering he inspired and promoted earns him a place in the halls of the worst tyrants to ever live.
Now there's his legacy to destroy.
#AbuseCulture #ReligiousTrauma

2025-08-10 18:56:14 GMT

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@nprofile…t5r6 I'm doing the exact same thing right now actually. On week 2 of a radical reset, with major habit changes.
The linked video really helped me. She's an autism coach who provides free resources, and has other videos along these lines.
I do take some supplements that seem to help (yerba mate in my tea, magnesium, tarragon, iron, taurine), but they only help so far, and underlying all of that are bad habits of using up too much energy, even when I'm resting. For me, it seems to be overthinking.
As she points out, the meds, caffeine, and other energy boosters don't really boost, they just mask the symptoms of fatigue till later.
So I've been off mastodon a lot more, cut out YouTube almost entirely, have tried my best to stop ruminating and trying to figure everything out, meditating every day, and have learned to notice certain tiredness feelings in my head which were almost constant, but now only come when I've expended too much energy. That's my sign to pull back. If I feel like laying down, I lay down.
It's difficult to be so idle, but necessary. I'd hit rock bottom.
(I've also noticed as I've slowed down that a lot of emotions come up, so lots of feeling randomly sad or anxious. Or restless. That's part of the work.)
https://defcon.social/@corbden/114954545156264523

2025-08-10 04:24:47 GMT

Mr. Pants is my father's name. Just call me Fancy.

2025-08-07 22:58:47 GMT

particle decelerator

2025-07-28 17:58:23 GMT

The International Cultic Studies Association has relaunched their library of the International Journal of Coercion, Abuse, and Manipulation, and their older publications going back 40+ years. This is accessible to everyone, not just members. Which is awesome, as time was when this library was only available to paid members.
They also have a lay-person publication, ISCA Today.
https://library.internationalculticstudies.org
#Cults #Cult #ReligiousTrauma #PTSD #Religion #AcademicFreedom #ICSA

2025-07-19 23:50:27 GMT

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@nprofile…gu6d @nprofile…ya9q I've been enjoying Saskatoon / June berries up here in the Idaho panhandle all month. They grow in my sisters yard.
Most of the remaining berries are shriveled now, so I'm on the last handful in my last bag.
I need to trek out into the woods to see if anything else is coming up. Oregon grape are going strong, but of course, those aren't so tasty.

2025-07-18 04:34:18 GMT

The hardest part about aging is watching documentaries that get small details wrong about times you lived through.

2025-07-16 05:21:31 GMT

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@nprofile…gk57 Yes, I think they were King of Dragon Pass and Six Ages. They are set in a Bronze Age fantasy world, based on the struggles of running a tribe. They're older games but have been ported nicely to mobile (I played them on iPad), and I think Steam. Turn-based and story driven.

2025-07-15 02:50:16 GMT

It's The Grinch in his final form.
#DoctorWho
https://files.defcon.social/dcsocial-s3/media_attachments/files/114/854/973/381/922/511/original/15a5e81ca266ed52.jpeg
https://files.defcon.social/dcsocial-s3/media_attachments/files/114/855/001/603/556/718/original/3f3a0562e05827e7.jpeg

2025-07-07 23:09:40 GMT

So within human history, the sea between Europe and the British Isles was above water and people lived there before the end of the last ice age.
This is real, settled science at this point.
Doggerland if you want to look it up. I'm watching a YouTube video about it but I'm too lazy to link.

2025-07-02 16:59:02 GMT

Poll with Preface
We're often told that taxes/rents (often the same thing in a feudal manor) for medieval serfs was crushing, and that we should be grateful under capitalism.
I've been lucky to dodge housing rents/mortgages for awhile, but that's not available for most, and I'm thinking to when I lived a "normal" American life. I was lucky if rent was less than half my monthly income, and typically I was paying far more than half my income just in rent or mortgage, not counting taxes. This was true even back in the late 1990s when I paid $400 for a 2-bedroom apartment. That was about 50-60% of my minimum wage income.
(I'm including mortgages in this, because 90%+ of any 30 year mortgage in the first years is going to interest, NOT to owning, so it is a form of rent, and most people refinance or move before they pay significant principle.)
Today I looked it up, and generally rents/taxes for an unfree medieval serf (next step up from a slave) were around 50% of their labor, plus incidentals for special occasions. In exchange for "rent" they received many benefits that taxes provide, like policing and military protection. (This percent went up in times of war.)
In pure terms of rents+taxes, it doesn't seem like we're any better off, and in fact as of 2025 it seems like we're much worse off.
Now that I've biased you, the post contains the poll.
[Edit: Answer with take-home income. It's complicated, since taxes were (depending) also rents to a serf, so we're paying taxes *on top of* that. But serfs were also required to tithe to the church. So I'm simplifying as much as possible.]
#poll #polls

2025-06-26 02:26:36 GMT

Normal Activity
#ShowsAndMoviesTheSuburbs
#HashtagGames

2025-06-26 02:26:03 GMT

Parent Trap
(but it's a horror movie)
#ShowsAndMoviesTheSuburbs
#HashtagGames

2025-06-24 21:58:11 GMT

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@nprofile…gk57 I had a friend who scheduled an hour call with me every week during the first years of my Dark Sojourn. That was really helpful.
What isn't helpful is folks who say things like "Just call me if you need ANYTHING," or "If you're feeling suicidal, you can talk to me," and then, uhm, don't. When I did reach out, it was awkward or I got vibes that I was being inappropriate or annoying.
If you don't feel like you can do it, then DON'T OFFER. It's WAY WORSE than not offering.

2025-06-18 05:16:29 GMT

Non Euclidean Square Space
#CursedWebsites
#HashTagGames

2025-06-14 22:39:18 GMT

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@nprofile…9h95 Is that Boise? We had at least 3-4 dozen way up here in Bonners Ferry, which wasn't even listed on the Indivisible website. I thought I'd have to go to Sandpoint! Which I'm sure was much larger.

2025-06-13 02:14:08 GMT

Jesus Christ was the first postman. He delivered us from sin.
#AlphaMailTips
#HashTagGames

2025-06-10 01:46:15 GMT

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@nprofile…2mzm @nprofile…7hjs Even they have limited resources. Be they material or emotional. We live in a finite universe. They will run out.

2025-06-10 00:59:40 GMT

Mayor of LA right now is arguing for immigrants' rights. Calling out specific injustices.
I'm not sure I've ever seen that before, a major of a major US city clearly taking the side of protestors.
Now she's calling out federal government.
"Our city should not be used as an experiment." (Paraphrased.)
#USPol #resist #resistance #antifa #solarpunk

2025-06-09 22:49:24 GMT

In any war, you don't have to destroy your enemy. You just have to make it cost them more than it's worth.
This works at every level, from the soldier wondering if they really should be doing this, to their commanders, to the Trump regime, to the billionaires who have forgotten they rely on us to exist.
Our freedom is worth everything. Our planet is worth everything. Our lives are worth everything.
I'd wager these are worth far more to us than they're willing to spend, just for a little more power.
And they haven't banked on that.
Fuel the fire within you.
This baby's coming out.
Now is the time to push.
#antifa #resist #resistance #solarpunk

2025-06-04 19:25:34 GMT

My son is looking to get into sewing machine repair as a business. There's demand for it up here. But search engines in 2025 are shite.
Does anyone know any good resources? Things like old manuals, online communities, forums, wikis, YouTube channels.
For example, he's got a 1928 Singer that's binding. He seems to have good instincts about what's wrong with it, but he's been unable to find a manual. He's got several others he's tinkering with, and wants understand them and become the go-to person in this area with all the knows.
I've directed him to archive.org but I suspect it might not be organized on this topic and it won't offer much community.
Any resources would be appreciated!
[Tagging him: @nprofile…76h3 ]
#AskFedi #Solarpunk #RightToRepair #sewing #RepairCafe

2025-06-03 16:27:56 GMT

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@nprofile…d6h6 @nprofile…qz4x I've had the misfortune of having to clean up short writing blurbs from ChatGPT, and fixing them was really annoying. Nothing short of soul-sucking, honestly. Had to use a whole new part of my brain to figure out what was wrong with them. But they were oh so wrong. Like an alien car salesman trying to seem real.

2025-06-03 04:39:33 GMT

It's a nice day for
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2025-06-02 20:16:40 GMT

I just heard a YouTube reactor describe Pink Floyd as "soft metal" and I am 😵

2025-05-31 04:12:03 GMT

give you up

2025-05-29 17:17:56 GMT

I'm gonna tell my fellow white Americans, if you're trying to decolonize, or want to decolonize, and are overwhelmed, start somewhere. Start with something you feel like you can do, and start gently questioning everything else, and planning the next step.
Lifestyle changes are stressful and a lot of work. Impossible to do all at once. But it's better to do some than none, especially if it's a journey towards doing more.
Each step, I find ways that whiteness holds me back, sucks me dry, and has isolated me from nature and my own humanity.
Much of this is mental. Whiteness is a cult. Almost twenty years ago I thought, "Now that I'm learning about cults, I wonder if larger society is also a cult?... someday I'm gonna tackle that."
Whiteness/capitalism *is* that cult. That's the supporting doctrinal structure of the whole package I call Abuse Culture.
Whiteness isn't a skin color, it's an ideology, a system of power. Unpacking your whiteness is deconditioning from abuse culture. It's freeing to dump cult manipulation pressures like dependency, elitism, and demand for purity. If you've done this process for religious trauma, it's only another step to do so for society's cult doctrines.
And with that comes behavior. That cycle you're in with the job and debt? Start planning a way out. It seems impossible — it might even be — but maybe it's not if you're willing to do things you believe are impossible, but that billions in the Global South prove *is* possible. Because they have no other choice. But you do.
There, right there, that resistance you feel? Maybe defensiveness? Fear? That's whiteness. And whiteness isn't you. It's a construct that adheres your ego to power's puppet strings.
I also thought it would be impossible to leave Mormonism, but here I am, 25 years later. Now I'm looking to leave the colonial indoctrination behind, too, and as many of my harmful behaviors as I can... one at a time.
#AbuseCulture #decolonise #rewild #solarpunk #OffGrid #RVLife

2025-05-28 16:25:41 GMT

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@nprofile…gk57 Thanks!

2025-05-28 07:48:11 GMT

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@nprofile…gk57
Does it really work? Are you really getting iron from it?
I had a long fatigue flare-up for a couple weeks recently, and remembered that I'd run out of iron pills, so made sure I got some while in town. Started feeling better after a couple of days. Maybe coincidence but I'm keeping my eye on that.

2025-05-26 21:10:50 GMT

Warning: Kittens pics alone may no longer be enough to absorb the grief of late stage capitalism and the climate apocalypse. Animals in hats upgrade strongly advised.
#SillySummerHatting

2025-05-25 23:22:52 GMT

A story in three acts.
#CatsOfMastodon
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https://files.defcon.social/dcsocial-s3/media_attachments/files/114/571/041/119/087/224/original/14db236d70b520aa.jpeg
https://files.defcon.social/dcsocial-s3/media_attachments/files/114/571/041/647/593/237/original/3bc9d66a88c59256.jpeg
https://files.defcon.social/dcsocial-s3/media_attachments/files/114/571/042/361/815/030/original/a96cb929bb251eb3.jpeg

2025-05-25 04:00:54 GMT

If you knew there was a doppelgänger of you who lived in an opposite mirror universe, where every time you suffered, they felt joy, and every time you felt joy, they suffered, how would you live your life?

2025-05-14 22:32:40 GMT

Can someone tell me the etiquette for when a mutual posts a hot selfie and I want to let them know it's a hot selfie without me seeming creepy?
(Asking for a mutual.)

2025-05-14 20:54:51 GMT

Playboy Editor: What's this? What are all these pictures of dried fruit?
Photographer: They're prunes.
Playboy Editor: I thought you said you were a pornographer?
Photographer: Prunographer.
Playboy Editor: What?!
Photographer: I make prunography. Look at this one. So... plump.... 😏

2025-05-07 01:01:00 GMT

Burdock is undomesticated Velcro.

2025-05-03 16:14:29 GMT

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@nprofile…83c6 @nprofile…ysnc I didn't see that one. I wasn't allowed to watch Punky Brewster... I guess because she was too... punky?

2025-05-01 18:06:16 GMT

Over 50? Reminiscing about your glory days pretending to be a bard or a vampire?
Join LAARP, the Live-Action Association for Retired People!

2025-04-29 23:41:21 GMT

In the 90s we used to "slide into our DMs" but back then that meant something different.
#GenX
https://files.defcon.social/dcsocial-s3/media_attachments/files/114/423/894/991/105/957/original/009a93fd0004bba4.jpeg

2025-04-19 16:22:42 GMT

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@nprofile…0nz2 @nprofile…n7la Yeah, don't underestimate Idaho. Honestly when both these stories happened, I assumed these men would go unpunished and the teacher was doomed for sure. This is the same state that gathered enough people for the cause to kick out the Aryan Nation two decades ago and they've thusfar held back further incursions of organized militia racism ever since. Those were largely not what we'd call the "left" who did that, who, like us, live in echo chambers but know evil when it camps on their doorstep.
I worry because I live here, and hate never gives up, but thankfully, so far, it looks like neither do the better people of Idaho.
The cynicism from folks who don't live here isn't helping much... it keeps more good people from moving here, and makes those of us who live here feel alone and scared to connect with each other, regardless of political alignment or echo chamber.
These divisive myths work both ways, on the right AND left, and we might want to clean out our own bias basement. Because the junk in there is hurting us. Look deeper into your idea of "rural" and "red state" people. We all need to unpack that please.
If we as a society can overcome the divisiveness and remember that billionaires and oligarchs are the real enemy, not each other or immigrants or queers or PoC or no, not even red-state folks (which include immigrants, queers, PoC), then we could easily unite against them. We've got to do our part to on the left as well.
And now that I'm in it? It's scary and it's hard work, and I'd like help, not casual bias and ignorance.

2025-04-19 05:18:47 GMT

I'm a GenXer in the 2020s watching two silent gen grannies first-time react to a Weezer music video made in the 1990s in my youth, set on a show made in the 1970s (Happy Days) which itself was actually set in the 1950s, and the song is about a 1950s artist (Buddy Holly), which both happen to be from the time of their own youth.
#GenX #RetroMegaplex

2025-04-16 16:49:39 GMT

If you don't like playing sports with trans athletes, then don't play sports. Is all I'm saying.

2025-04-10 23:57:30 GMT

Nitrogen and oxygen in favor of strong safety standards? They just air on the side of caution.

2025-04-08 19:07:36 GMT

I'm at the stage of my work researching and writing about abuse and religious trauma, where whenever I read something like, "I'm sure they had the best of intentions," I become appalled and amazed at the dissociation people carry, their utter naiveté, like all the abusers are somewhere "out there," mysterious beings we never meet and only hear about, but never the people we know or occupying positions of power we respect.
If one or two of every ten people is on the Dark Triad of personality disorders, and even more are abusers, then statistically, naw hun, there's a very good chance they did, in fact, do it intentionally or were driven by dark impulses. That draconian policy is there for a reason. That clergy you're writing to begging for leniency is actually a bonafide asshole. He's not merely ignorant, but is getting off on this horrible process, and very likely laughing at your innocence, how easily misled you are.
I see a reflection of my old self, and how such views kept me going back for more, if not from the first person who had finally proved themself as an abuser, then from the next person or system, ready to give the worst people the best benefit of the doubt until they proved themselves beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Until I finally saw the connections between them all and learned not just some of the red flags, but ALL of them.
I give no more excuses for harmful behavior. Even if I misjudge bad behavior as abuse when it's really just ignorance, letting someone with truly good intentions off the hook helps no one either. Accountability for EVERYONE. Even myself and the harm I've done. I answer for it and improve.
Our programming runs deep. That's my goal in talking about the #AbuseCulture model. If you're not woke to how it all works, then you're a flying monkey, an enabler, a dupe, a sucker, an accomplice.
That's how THEY see you. So wise up. There's no other way to fight back.
#ReligiousTrauma #fascism #antifa #Abuse

2025-04-06 19:54:58 GMT

It's not a MISunderstanding if it's a DISunderstanding.
Not everyone argues in good faith. Some totally get what you say, but pretend not to, because you make too much sense and that is not convenient for them.
Don't make good faith assumptions about people who are making bad faith assumptions about you.
[Edit: This act is a form of gaslighting, coming from a gaslighting victim with long-term mental deficiencies because of it. My abuser definitely used this tactic.]
#AbuseCulture

2025-04-05 18:07:24 GMT

Axios is carrying the story.
#HandsOff #USPol
https://www.axios.com/2025/04/05/hands-off-protest-movement-trump-musk

2025-03-30 19:30:22 GMT

Black cats have ultimate sun absorption power. That's how they stay so shiny and long.
#SunCaturday #SilentCaturday
https://files.defcon.social/dcsocial-s3/media_attachments/files/114/253/038/627/602/165/original/85dac88b7dfc382e.jpeg

2025-03-30 19:10:46 GMT

Move slow and fix things.

2025-03-23 19:30:06 GMT

Sometimes self-care is knowing when to stop watching something that's making you feel a way that isn't helpful in a particular moment.

2025-03-14 03:46:40 GMT

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@nprofile…4zm4 What a wild ride.