My parents said I should be more organized so I started by organizing my Tumblr.
Yo what’s up, I’m SamAteDeansBroccoli, 18+, never learned how to read. I drink angst for breakfast and have hurt/comfort for an afternoon snack. Nothing on this blog makes sense. Run while you still have a chance to keep your sanity.
I go by Stress, Sam, Broccoli, saMatedEansBroccoli, or Samaté Dean's Broccoli for short. Sometimes I write fanfiction, most of the time I just reblog things. Any pronouns.
More about me here!
Ready to lose your sanity? Check out my works shown on my masterlist below!
Currently obsessed with: Call of Duty, Star Wars, Phantom of the Opera, Counter-Strike, DC Heroes, anything medical or aviation related
Wanna contact me elsewhere?
Ao3: Jak_the_ATAT
Discord: call of booty#7229
Instagram: HistoryMightBeFun
My comic sideblog: @comicsoncrack
Join my MW discord!
My COD ask game
How to work this Masterlist
Categories are listed based on what most followers would find the most interesting to the least interesting. Each category will have one recommended suggestion under it. If you want to see more in that category, click on the header to access a page with more choices. This is to keep the masterlist nice and short.
Fanfics
Adler’s Little Fish (Call of Duty, kid!Bell)
A little girl abandoned in Trabzon leaves Adler in a very chaotic lifestyle as he tries to balance his hunt for Perseus with taking care of the child.
Analyses and Headcanons
Adler’s Body Language
Had Bell paid attention more, they would have seen Adler manipulating them.
Art
Mason x Woods chibi drawing
I love these two beans.
OCs
Sim MacCallen (Call of Duty: Black Ops 2/Call of Duty: Mobile)
VTOL mechanic Sim MacCallen continues to wonder why Broccoli can’t spell his last name right half the time.
My shitposts
Click on the header to access the “BroccoliGoneWrong” tag.
It's not perfect- Strawpage's design tools are... not great- but I did my best to bring you all a Tumblr-free transcription of all my lessons. This is probably the most labor-intensive thing I've done for this page (next to the character polls). Four months of blood, sweat, and tears... and now, she LIVES!!!!
Some Notes:
I created it with the intent of Desktop use, so Mobile might have some issues. If it's not working on your phone, try desktop.
Out of the multiple browsers tested (Firefox, Google, Edge, Brave, Safari), Firefox had some issues sporadically.
I'm still going to post lessons on here, first. This page is priority to me, and the website is more of an archive.
The fonts are normal past this opening page.
I will be adding a portion to send funds soon, if'n you are feeling kind and generous.
Thank you all for your patience while I worked on this. It was a labor of love and I hope that it shows. 🙏🏾 Happy scrolling!
Shocked and appalled that multiple people have DM’ed me asking for clarification about the shoelaces thing. For the uninitiated, please see Ye Olde Tumblr lore.
A fun but admittedly petty thing I do is when I see a post on social media where someone is saying “God bless Trump!! Pray for Trump!!”and suchlike, I comment, “Amen! Psalm 109:8-17!” And depending on the platform I’ll get likes/hearts/prayer hands emojis etc. but I’ve been doing this for months and so far no one has actually read the verse, I don’t think. Lol.
i do desperately need everyone on this website especially people who arent american but want to rag on america to familiarize themselves with the basic romanized spelling conventions of native american languages because every day i come on here and i see people making fun of massachusetts or connecticut or mississippi or passamaquoddy or mashpee or nipissing and its like PLEASE. PLEASE THEY ARENT ENGLISH WORDS. PLEAAAAASEEEEEUUUHHH. USE YOUR MINDS TO IDENTIFY WHEN A WORD LOOKS LIKE IT MAY NOT BE ENGLISH. I DONT CARE IF YOU MAKE FUN OF AMERICA JUST PLEASE STOP BEING RACIST WHILE YOU DO IT
where it truly lies. | a star wars tale
chapter xi - wind
a shadow from another world names the pulse in your chest.
full work
[Anakin Skywalker x Reader]
They tasted like freedom, if freedom had teeth.
The currents whipping past the cockpit carried the familiar sting of Nar Shaddaa's poisoned air, a feeling you were forced to get used to quite fast for the moon did not wait, for the smoke and ozone and the faint metallic bite would swallow the frail without flinching.
The lights below stretched in endless ribbons of neon and shadows, pulsing with the kind of life that only flourished in places the galaxy had forgotten to save. They flowed into an endless symphony as the moon looked thrillingly enticing from up above.
The sensation was not unprecedented- it reminded the inhabitants of the distant glimmering possibilities that their destinies would perhaps never carve a path towards.
That night, however, it had been dazzling just enough to make you almost forget the rot beneath.
Soaring could even make the unspoken horrors appear as glimmers of hope.
You had stopped wishing for salvation a long time ago.
Your whispered prayers seemed to be getting lost in transmission, embedded with the wishes of the deep blue of the skies after a sandstorm, dry heat and natural sunlight covering your skin.
The moon always succeeded in reminding you that there was no sun to set here, for it would not survive through the darkness of the night.
Yet, there was something else, that often warmed up the cold corners of your mind.
Electricity ran through your body, as you swerved in your speeder across some cross-traffic, hastily making your way through tall buildings, and taller possibilities. The droid strapped next to your hull hummed excitedly, lights flashing warm greens and blues, seemingly happy with the cruising speed.
It was as if the ground reverberated under you as you approached your destination, the liveliness of the night sending jolts of adrenaline within your spine.
Sometimes, on the rare occasions when you could turn a blind eye to the corruption and filth that ran this place, the bustling city did not fail to take your breath away.
All a part of the deceptive allure, and yet, it worked even on the strongest occupants. For all your years spent in the grime of it, one thing had been for certain - Nar Shaddaa always understood the angle of deception.
It glittered best when it had blood drying in the alleyways beneath it, when blaster fire coated its tunnels and corners.
It had been one of your nights leading up to a quite lucrative operation. While the Hutt cartel, the ones that held the invisible leash around your neck, could be unpredictable and reckless - having certain connections in higher places seemed to eventually pay off, just when you had so needed the credits.
The job was good - at least the promise of it had sounded so. An easy run through to transfer supplies, in and out in half a night cycle, through a route with no projected asteroid showers nor strong gravity currents.
It was the kind of good that made you feel, briefly and very dangerously, that things just might go your way, engulfing you in a night where Nar Shaddaa almost convinced you that it had been on your side, after all this time of letting you suffer and rust in the dark.
Something deep within your chest reminded you it had always loved to prove you wrong - somehow, somewhere.
The edge of your speeder lingered a bit too close to a watchtower in a moment of silent distraction, making your droid in its socket beep in a worried tone.
“I know,” you mumbled, a curl at the edge of your lips, wind blowing your hair back, “ - look, I know.”
The adjusted stabilizing force of your hands on the console seemed to calm it down, as you approached the vessel at the usual platform on one of the lower levels, the landing struts groaning against rust and minor neglect as the engine abruptly sputtered into a silence.
Descending from your black and blue speeder onto the concrete, your hands adjusted your syn-leather jacket that had seen much better decades, the gruff brown fading away at the seams - yet, somehow, it managed to hold. Fingers then instinctively moved to the blaster that always stood strapped to your right thigh, a habit the Smuggler’s Moon had taught you before you even fired your first one, to always check for the phantom grip.
The droid tucked into the socket beeped twice, the sound of a question, a hidden concern, the same mechanical worry it had offered every night you came to the lower levels.
“It’s alright. Stay with the ship,” you reassured your companion, your scuffed boots already beginning their controlled stride into the cantina.
“The contact should be here soon. I won’t be long.”
The beep that followed in response was meek, patient and waiting.
The cantina swallowed you the way it always had once the door parted open.
Lazy hazes of smoke curled between bodies like living things with nowhere else to be, getting caught in the mix of neon lights that bled through filth. The rays streaked transparisteel, staining everything in colors the lower levels of the city often lacked. Somewhere beneath the murmur of conversation, a bassline throbbed, deep enough to feel in the teeth. A pole that had long lost its gleam to the muck of the moon stood in the far corner, unoccupied for the time being.
It was the kind of place that smelled like regret and tasted like copper if you made the mistake of breathing too deep.
Eyes tracked you from the door as you took your usual sure steps. They always did. It was the usual ritual of gazes on the blaster on your hip, then a longer linger on your face - one too young for the hollows beneath the eyes, too old in the way you held your own, too striking not to look.
Your stride took you towards your usual spot, the Weequay bartender with cracked skin catching your eye in an understanding nod.
The booth was shrouded in a deliberate shadow, the mere illusion of privacy and darkness that had always cost extra on Nar Shaddaa, one that you had paid under the table along the years in the form of a few items excluded out of manifests. You slid into the worn leather seat, your back against the wall, eyes diverting towards the entrance.
It did not take too long for a full glass of amber liquor to be placed in front of you, as you waited.
The contact was late.
That either meant he was dead, or worse - as each minute wasted could have implications in this world where danger ran amok through each corner.
Your fingers drummed once against the table, a single impatient rhythm, a pilot’s habit, born from getting too used to constant adrenaline running through your veins. A single thought, however, was enough to still them in your bouts of waiting.
Patience was a virtue whose reserves were running drier by the minute.
The bolt around your neck pressed cool against your collarbone, as you took in a deep breath followed by an exhale, a gentle weight you had carried so long it had become an extension of your pulse.
He would have hated this place.
You just knew he would have hated the sheer grime of it, the grit that ran through every corner and every surface. The way the walls seemed to breathe, creatures made of old sins. The absence of anything remotely resembling sunlight.
And yet, with some unknown certainty, you could almost picture him here. Older now, as you were. Shoulders broader, that boyish softness traded for something sharper - or so the holograms suggested, the ones that you had caught flickers of in squares and hangars, the same ones you had quickly learned to look away from.
You allowed yourself to wonder, at least for a fleeting second - had he been here, if his eyes would still hold that impossible light, that fire that had once made you believe the suns would never set.
It was a scene that would never get to unfold, for he had cut your lifeline to warmth mere weeks ago - yet, it felt like a lifetime of longing instead of counted days, for the wound was still fresh as it burnt through your conscience.
There had been a time not too long ago, when you could have reached across the stars, pulled on that familiar thread that pulsed within you, through the rusted bars of the Hutt dungeons and the metal of ships - and felt the answer deep within your bones.
The moon had been a crueler place once the humming deep within your chest dimmed, for it had taken away the golden sunlight, the sand and the smoke.
The usual jobs took more out of your body and soul, your means of survival taking more of a toll on you ever since you had woken up from your restless slumber that one night, gasping, aching at the loss lodged deep within your chest.
Now, there was nothing but cold, cold walls where heat used to live - that, he had made sure of.
The thought alone made your jaw flex visibly, as an exhale left your lips. Your hands longed for something, anything to do, as your fingers found the glass to relieve your mouth with a generous, sharp sip of the amber liquid.
It felt just enough to burn the cold back down where it belonged.
The digits on your chrono followed each other without relent, yet the contact did not arrive.
Whether that meant dead, detained, or simply wise enough to stay away, you could not say. But, when the focus of your attention shifted, your bones understood that the night had morphed into something else entirely.
In a much needed distraction, the door hissed open to let in the threat of the night.
A man stepped in through the haze of the night fog, his gait unhurried, unremarkable in the way that years of practice and hiding in the shadows had provided. Younger than most who frequented corners like these, stance too tall, too relaxed to have ever been shackled by the moon. He wore civilian clothes, a simple yet clean jacket and dark pants that hung just slightly wrong over his frame - perhaps, meant to obscure what some eyes had been trained to look for.
It did not fool you. The ones that did not want to be discovered always stuck out like a sore thumb.
The man’s eyes swept the room, scanning his surroundings, earning a couple short glances thrown his way. They moved past the hunched bodies nursing drinks and the flickering neon signs, past the bartender and the usual patrons, past the smuggler openly cleaning his blaster in the corner.
His gaze found yours, and it stopped searching further.
Your eyes followed his approach, a certain intrigue raising your brow. The newcomer did not, surprisingly, move toward the bar first, for he did not have the pleasantries to pretend to order a drink. He simply walked, a goal in mind, towards your booth, as though he had mapped the place before arrival and knew just where to go.
His steps came to a stop at the edge of your booth.
"This seat taken?"
His voice was quiet, unhurried, carrying the clipped vowels of a Core World accent. Coruscant, perhaps, or somewhere close enough to taste its influence. Somewhere foreign.
His features became clearer as the distance closed - he appeared to be younger than you had first guessed, perhaps only owning a handful of years beyond your own, though his eyes told a different story.
They had weight in them, the dark stillness of someone who had seen more than most. The kind of subdued shine that carried a quiet knowing.
"Depends," you replied, tone unimpressed, your eyes diverting back to focus on your drink.
A flicker danced on the corner of his mouth, a ghost of a smile - and, without further ado, he slid right into the seat across from you, his movements controlled. There was no wasted motion in the way he moved as his hands came to a rest on the table, calloused fingers laid over the grime.
It was not the way a pilot moved, nor the way mechanics carried themselves. It was something else that coded the callouses on his fingers and the slight trace of a scar on his jaw.
Something subdued.
"You're a difficult woman to find," he said, voice pitched low beneath the noise of the cantina.
“So I have been told. And yet.”
“And yet,” he would acknowledge with a short nod, his words settling in the air between like smoke finding shape.
Your unoccupied hand found a phantom linger over the blaster on your hip, for you had seen enough of this decrepit planet to ever fully trust outsiders, let alone ones that took a seat uninvitedly across from you - but, your observations for moments to come only increased your intrigue, of all things.
He did not order a drink, at least, not immediately. His eyes did not gaze around the joint to pick out the fun of the night, nor did he seem to have that intention. Instead, his attention remained focused on you, the look in his eyes steady, calm yet not demanding. The ghosts of words dangling on his lips, his jaw flexing, preparing himself for conversation in the way of someone taught to pick his words carefully.
Your education, however, had been much less formal, as your voice cut through the air like a blade.
“You do not belong here.”
The man gave yet another tilt of his head. “No, I do not,” he agreed, leaning in slightly on his elbows. “But the person I came to find does.”
A tug on your eyebrow, taking a sip from your drink that you would soon have to order more of.
“And who told you where to look?”
“Does it matter?”
“It does if someone’s been talking when they should not have,” your index finger traced the rim, slowly, deliberately. The callouses from handling yokes and hyperdrives itching against the glass that had seen much better days.
“No one gave you up,” the stranger said in a reassuring tone, something that you did not often possess the luxury of hearing on this moon. “No one but whispers, at least.”
“Ah, whispers,” you repeated, your lips curling up in slight mockery. “You’re telling me you crossed half the galaxy for the promise of whispers.”
The stranger gave a hint of a knowing smile, his hands now resting loose on the table.
“I crossed the galaxy for a pilot who flies routes that should not exist,” he let out, his gaze holding yours, seemingly unbothered by your disbelief.
“A pilot who moves through asteroid fields like they are open, clear skies. Who knows where the danger is before the sensors do."
A momentary silence followed his words, the syllables resonating in your ears, mixing in with the bassline shaking the concrete in faint vibrations.
You knew he could see the flex of your jaw, your gaze hardening in recognition.
“I have heard the stories,” he continued. “The run through the Cantros Corridor when the ion storm hit. The way you took the beaten down ship out of the path like a thread in a needle.”
“That’s luck,” you countered, a habit that would never die down. A habit born out of hiding yourself from harm’s way. “Everything is luck in this place. I thought you had done your research.”
“But I have,” he said, his fingers splaying out on the table as he got closer. “I have spent the last three rotations tracking a pilot through routes that nav computers say are suicide missions. That’s not a pilot who’s merely lucky.”
His eyes, green and flickering with something akin to hope, searched yours, looking for a similar sensation - he did not know you had seen too much, known too much to ever let hope show.
“The Republic is looking for skilled pilots,” he continued, tone steady yet quieter.
The very mention of it was enough for your brows to furrow in distaste, yet you listened.
“Pilots who can do the impossible. Pilots like you.”
Deep down, at the edge of your senses, something began to hum.
A faint sensation, unwelcome yet it felt more natural than breathing. The kind of presence that slowly announced itself, pressing against awareness and tangling in with stillness, exuding from him as it covered the space in between. The unnatural calm of someone who had been trained to move through chaos without letting it cling too long. The controlled energy within his body that sang a low tune.
You were no stranger to it, for you had felt it a long time ago, whenever your eyes caught the blue skies and landed on the boy with the stars in his eyes and laughter in his throat. The same boy who had left you in the cold.
The recognition settled like sand on your tongue.
"Flattery," you said, lifting your glass yet once more, forcing the memory far, far down with the welcome burn of liquor.
"- from a Jedi. I must be moving up in the world,“ you added right after, tone a mix of slight mockery and disbelief.
The silence that overtook his lips, the quiet yet telling flicker in his gaze told you the guess had landed.
“Tell me one good reason I should believe you are in Nar Shaddaa to talk to a Hutt pawn,” you pressed instead, setting the glass down with a soft clink. “There’s plenty of them out there.”
“You feel it, do you not?”
That made your gaze sharpen as it found his once again. His words were carefully chosen, reserved only for your ears, tone changed into something ancient.
Some part of you deep inside understood exactly what he meant.
Defenses rising immediately, just as they had for all those years under hiding, you would spit out:
“If you can spare me the nonsense-”
“You feel the quiet tug of it, deep within your bones. A whisper that never quiets.”
The implication made you hold your breath.
The man, sensing the reluctance in your gaze and the sudden quiet that engulfed your protest, pressed on.
“It guides you through every decision you make, seamlessly. Without a second thought. You feel the shape of what is coming and you move with it.”
A short yet palpable tug of the void within you almost confirmed the words. It was ice that pressed to your sternum instead of the warmth you had so longed for, but a phantom sensation nonetheless.
Something, through the cracks of resolve and walls built to hold the most painful of memories, beneath all of it, something buried so deep you had almost convinced yourself it did not exist - stirred. Something faint. Unwelcome.
“As if it had written out your fate for you to merely obey.”
He sensed the shift, through and through, and of course he did. The sudden stillness that overtook your limbs with every pressing sentence, the way your fingers had frozen against the empty glass. The way confusion layered with silent understanding coated your gaze.
“As if it is the only thing that has ever been right. That has ever felt right.”
“Now, you are a bit too late for the Temple,” he said, “ - for the average age in there is four.”
Your voice found way again, unable to resist the soft smirk that followed - an attempt to lighten the truth. Always an attempt to escape reality with a sheer coat of humor, even though the set of your jaw betrayed your stance.
“You calling me old already?” you quipped, the mask of reckless smuggler coating your voice once more, the pink and purple neon catching your angular face in the shadows.
A soft, muted grin escaped his otherwise stoic expression - something that could have been a laugh had the setting been different. Then came a gentle shake of his head.
“The Republic fleet could use a Force-Sensitive.”
The corners of your lips smoothed in a gentle knowing, a flicker of unknown origin ran through your irises.
So, that was what they called it - words tossed like the most normal thing, uttered regardless of context, spoken from mouths that did not have a single clue on its true meaning.
That was what they named the song that ran through your veins, the shrieking pull when he had been near. The seamless caress across your skin, your mind when the hydrospanner did not feel heavy in the hands and bolts found their calling without protest. The thread that shone golden as it pointed you to the right controls, at just the right time, in just the right place.
“Ah, but that’s what you do not understand,” you shot back with an unimpressed nod, as much as you could act within your resolve, your jaw clenching ever so slightly, “ - I have no interest becoming a Jedi.
Words spoken so surely that they shifted gravity for a moment. A certain fire in your eyes when you were forced to utter the word Jedi. It felt harder to pronounce than an master’s name.
He held your gaze, unflinching and relentless when he spoke. His voice did not house disappointment nor frustration, but the quiet certainty that seemed to unsettle you more than it should have.
"Good," he said simply, "because I am not here to make you one."
“Then, what exactly,” you asked, voice sharper than intended, “- does the Republic need from me?”
He reached into his jacket, a movement that made your fingers grip the blaster handle slightly tighter - a reflex that was relaxed once he took out a simple data chip and placed it on the surface in between, as it sat there like a question waiting so desperately to be asked, like an answer yearning to be revealed.
“The war is here,” he kept on, quieter, more serious now. “Perhaps, it has already begun, in the ways the Core refuses to acknowledge. The Separatists grow bolder by the day - and make no mistake to ever think the Outer Rim will not be impacted.”
His finger gently pushed the chip, merely an inch closer to you. Your eyes dropped down to it, inevitably.
"We need pilots who can fly by instinct, who can wither impossible odds - who can guide through danger without fear. Especially when the enemy lines get too close.“
His throat bulged slightly as he swallowed, awaiting for an answer that never came, even though the look in his eyes almost too convincing.
“Think about it - it’s all I can ask."
The conflict was evident in your features, regardless of how much you had once tried to hide it. There was no use in trying anymore, as the questions and unknowns in your mind were consuming.
"And if I refuse?"
It had not been defiant possibility of refusal that coated your words, but the weighted implication of ownership - one that you did not like to voice out loud.
"Then, I walk out the door," he put simply, a pause in his voice, soft as smoke, dangerously enticing.
"And we both pretend this was just another night of coincidences."
He stood up, shooting a faint smile and a nod your way - courtesy that you had been too stunned to reciprocate.
The booth suddenly felt smaller now that his energy had dissipated.
He left the same way he came, in that quiet, unhurried gait that had taken him more places than most - leaving no trace of ever being there, as he billowed through the smoky haze.
No trace but the chip - the most telling of all. It caught the neon’s bleeding light at the edge, glinting into your eyes as you found yourself unable to look away for once.
Outside, the streets and tunnels of Nar Shaddaa pulsed with its eternal glow, basking in the lust, the rot and the muck. Smugglers and thiefs ran amok to score the bounty of the night, all species in a rat race to burst out of their chains, whether it had been a master or credits dangling over their heads.
Yet, in this cantina, in the booth you had often found yourself - yet another almost promise stared at you, one not made under the twin suns but in a criminal’s cantina. One too good to be true, one that would take you from the moon who had made you into the stars that had never stopped calling your name. One that someone, eons away in another life, had also made, with nothing but belief in his eyes.
The bolt on your neck grew colder at your throat the more your eyes fixated on the chip waiting on the table.
And, for the first time in a long time, the cold had no answers for you.
Everyone has the potential to fall victim to being indoctrinated into a cult. Anyone can be sexually assaulted. Anyone can become a victim of an abusive relationship. Yes, even if you're intelligent and strong willed. Yes, even if you think you're tough and "don't take shit from anyone".
If you've never found yourself as the victim of a cult, or sexual assault, or abuse, the only thing separating you from people who have been victimized by cults / sexual assault / abuse is circumstance. That's it. Sheer luck. Luck over what family you were born into. Luck over who you were surrounded by when you were emotionally compromised or in any way vulnerable. Ect.
You are not better than people who have been victimized. They didn't do anything wrong to ask to be victimized. Anyone can be victimized by these situations given the perfect storm of circumstances. You are not better than people who have been victimized by cults / sexual assault / abuse.
You need to understand that if you are lucky enough to have never been victimized by cults / sexual assault / abuse, it's very little to do with how smart or strong you are or you doing all the "right" things. Someone can be smart and strong and do all the right things and still find themselves a victim given the perfect storm of bad circumstances.
The sooner this can be understood, the sooner we can do away with victim blaming culture. And the sooner we can do away with victim blaming culture the sooner atrocities like cults, sexual assault, and abuse can stop being so prolific. Victim blaming culture allows these atrocities to thrive. And they will continue to thrive until we shift the blame to where it rightfully belongs.
You know what I forgot to include here but totally should have been included?
Bullying.
Funny how when I was being bullied as a kid, I did fight back and I did do everything I could to stand up to my bullies. But that didn't make it stop. All the adults at school just told me that the bullying was my fault because I was "giving the bullies the reaction they wanted, if I would just be quiet and ignore them the bullying would stop."
But now that I'm an adult, I hear other adults saying all the time that kids who get bullied are only bullied because they're too weak and insecure to stand up for themselves.
Isn't that funny? How I spent years fighting back and trying to stand up for myself, and this got me told that it was my fault for not just ignoring them? But now I hear other adults, most of whom are parents, saying if a kid is bullied it's their fault for not standing up for themselves or fighting back?
It's a lose/lose situation, either way if the kid fights back, or doesn't fight back, they're told its their fault for how they respond. It's almost as if, the bullying isn't the victim's fault or smthing 🤔
And this type of victim blaming rhetoric ignores that there's in the majority of cases a power imbalance between the bullies and victims.
Common dynamics we see are: white kids bullying children of color, neurotypical kids bullying neurodivergent kids, gender conforming cishet kids bullying GNC and/or LGBTQIA+ kids, abled kids bullying disabled kids, boys bullying girls (he's only teasing you because he likes you!), rich or middle class children bullying poor children, ect. ect.
And this is exactly WHY adults often victim blame bullied children instead of holding bullies accountable, and these adults blaming the children are often privileged themselves. White adult school staff blaming children of color who are getting bullied instead of holding the white children doing the bullying accountable, neurotypical adult school staff blaming neurodivergent children who are being bullied instead of holding the neurotypical children doing the bullying accountable, ect. ect.
This is actually one of the ways power dynamics get passed along in society. Children with a privileged background learn very early what behavior they can get away with and how protected their behavior will always be, while children with a disenfranchised background are expected to "learn their place" from a young age.
The first part reminds me of a quote I once read that went something like "an abusive relationship is a two person cult" and if you know anything about the recruiting and power dynamics behind cults you'll know it works almost exactly the same as an abusive relationship, just on a larger scale.
Find someone currently emotionally vulnerable in some way. Isolated, lonely, and/or emotionally compromised in some way (maybe just lost a loved one or experienced an equivalent trauma or tragedy, etc). Then you lovebomb the everliving crap out of this emotionally compromised individual. Then once you've earned their love and trust, you slowly over time chip away at their self esteem, their sense of self, their ability to trust themselves and their own judgement, and slowly exert more and more power and control over them.
If you couldn't tell if I was describing an abuser seeking out their next victim or a cult recruiting their next victim, that's because it's essentially the same playbook.
I think this is really important to point out because personally I've encountered a lot of people both IRL and online who, at least on paper, accept that victim blaming survivors of abuse is wrong, but then will turn around and say that people who join cults are gullible idiots who deserve whatever they endure within the cult for being such gullible idiots.
And that has always struck me as cruel and judgemental, because again, the process for getting sucked into an abusive relationship is strikingly similar to the process for getting recruited into a cult. Both cults and abusers prey on the emotionally compromised, and everyone, no matter how smart or strong or resilient, has hit lows where they would have been vulnerable to an abuser or cult recruiting them.
and Dean Ate Sam’s Pie @samatedeansbroccoli - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
