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Ry Terran

@hereticmasked.bsky.social

4.3K followers 1.6K following 3.5K posts

Exvangelical, atheist, DiY religious studies, cult studies, failed-apocalypse cringe-posting, weird shit, counter-extremism School of Making Poor Life Choices Only Slightly Doomed She/They/bad at gender My apologies for continuing to be relevant

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Ry Terran @hereticmasked.bsky.social · Feb 9

Thread here with articles about my personal work tracking hybrid threat networks that blend occult aesthetics with mass casualty violence

Ry Terran @hereticmasked.bsky.social · Jan 25

Phoebe did an absolutely incredible job understanding and communicating our research, even as the latest tragic events were unfolding. Give her article a read for a better understanding of the online subcultures that can drive children to violence.

Phoebe Petrovic @phoebepetrovic.bsky.social · Jan 25

I’d been speaking w/ these researchers since the night of the Madison attack. That day, they quickly located the shooter in the online network they were tracking. We were writing THAT story this week. Then Nashville happened, and the researchers realized: another one.

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Ry Terran @hereticmasked.bsky.social · 34m

Fascists hate joy

Phoenix Calida @phoenixcalida.bsky.social · 42m

Tbh I love that the carpool karaoke with bad bunny is in my algorithm

This is who the gop is melting down over

youtu.be/jHIWuE3G9Aw?...

Bad Bunny Carpool Karaoke

YouTube video by The Late Late Show with James Corden

youtu.be

Reposted by Ry Terran

Rachel Maddow @maddow.msnbc.com · 11h

"...including while she was praying with her eyes closed and hands lifted, wearing a clerical collar and stole."

religionnews.com/2025/10/07/i...

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Adam Sharp @adamcsharp.bsky.social · 2d

As today is World Octopus Day I’ll again mention that a Spanish equivalent to “like a fish out of water” is como un pulpo en un garaje. It means “like an octopus in a garage.”

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Adam Serwer @adamserwer.bsky.social · 10h

www.wweek.com/culture/2025...

Can you put into words what that purpose is? You and the frog have really become icons of this protest.

There’s been a nice overall whimsy that has shown up. The frog is amazing. We had a bunch of other inflatable people here last night, too. I saw people playing Twister the other day.

What they rely on is fear. So by coming out in an absurdist manner, it speaks to them, to some extent, that we’re actually not that afraid.

It also dismantles their narrative a little bit. When they try to describe this situation as “war-torn,” it becomes much harder to take them seriously when they have to post a video saying [U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security] Kristi Noem is up on the balcony staring over the Antifa Army and it’s, like, eight journalists and five protesters and one of them is in a chicken suit.

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alexis simpson @amutepiggy.bsky.social · 17h

"the tylenol and antifa were in the placenta making autism and i saw the autism and the autism looked at me"

Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com · 18h

RFK Jr: "Somebody showed me a TikTok video of a pregnant woman at 8 months pregnant -- she's an associate professor at the Columbia Medical School -- and she is saying 'F Trump' and gobbling Tylenol with her baby in her placenta. The level of Trump Derangement Syndrome is now a pathology."

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depths of wikipedia @depthsofwikipedia.bsky.social · 6h

Pre social media people used to make websites for Dougs to hang out with Dougs! Same for Shirlenes, Geoffreys, Susan Parkers... I dug up a bunch of them on the wayback machine (thread!!!)

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Jack Jenkins @jackjenkins.me · 2d

Gonna be thinking about this lede for a minute.

(RNS) — Last month, the Rev. David Black stood in front of a Chicago-area U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility and spread his arms wide. Adorned in all black and wearing a clerical collar, the pastor looked up at a group of masked, heavily armed ICE agents on the roof and began to pray.

“I invited them to repentance,” Black, a minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA), said in an interview. “I basically offered an altar call. I invited them to come and receive that salvation, and be part of the kingdom that is coming.”

But when Black began to lower his arms a few seconds later, the agents responded to his spiritual plea by firing pepper balls, or chemical agents that cause eye irritation and respiratory distress, video footage shows. One struck Black in the head, exploding into a puff of white pepper smoke and forcing him to his knees. Fellow demonstrators rushed to his aid, and as the pastor rubbed his face in pain, the agents continued to fire.

“We could hear them laughing,” Black said.

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Bryan Evans @bcevans.bsky.social · 1d

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Ry Terran @hereticmasked.bsky.social · 1h

Monsters Inc taught us this

Hipster Sasquatch, trapped on the planet of the nepo babies @hipstersasquatch.bsky.social · 7h

"The idea was really very simple. As we chatted, someone kept talking about how Milosevic only won because he made people afraid, and someone else said that the only thing that could trump fear was laughter."

The way to beat an absurd fash gov is with more absurdism than it can handle.

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The Oregonian @oregonian.com · 7h

Things are happening at Portland's ICE facility tonight.

Read more of our protest coverage here: www.oregonlive.com/crime/2025/1...

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Ry Terran @hereticmasked.bsky.social · 2h

Showing facts and statistics to people who are in this process isn't going to make a difference. They're not interested in what reality is as it exists. They're interested in the reality they can create. And sometimes, this approach is very successful.

But I don't think it's inevitable.

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Ry Terran @hereticmasked.bsky.social · 2h

It's a magical incantation, it's prosperity gospel, it's New Thought, it's the law of attraction.

I personally don't think this "works" in the sense of words creating material reality, but it does have a real effect if people can speak words forcefully enough that other people go along with them.

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Ry Terran @hereticmasked.bsky.social · 2h

We're seeing this happening in real time with the Trump administration. They're blatantly saying things that bear no resemblance to reality. Portland obviously isn't a war zone. Trump can't possibly believe that, right?

Doesn't matter. He's acting as if it is.

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Ry Terran @hereticmasked.bsky.social · 2h

And the thing is, I don't think what they were doing was precisely lying, unless they were also lying to themselves. But I think in general, adult faith is inherently something different. It's not unquestioning credulity. It's more like "acting as if" their beliefs are true.

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Ry Terran @hereticmasked.bsky.social · 2h

I literally was a child, so I did have the kind of belief that they wanted. I didn't question it, even when it didn't make much sense. Surely all the adults in my life wouldn't be lying to me, right? Lying was against their religion.

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Ry Terran @hereticmasked.bsky.social · 2h

I was forcibly trained from birth to have unquestioning faith in evangelicalism. At the time it was a relatively new movement, so most of the congregation were adult converts who didn't have that experience. Nevertheless, they were all taught to have "faith like a child."

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Ry Terran @hereticmasked.bsky.social · 2h

Thread🧵: I've been thinking a lot in recent years about the nature of faith and what it means to believe things.

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Anna Ressman @annaressman.bsky.social · 8h

Watching agartha slop is fandom like watching your team that's still up in the series even though they're actually dogshit & it's 50° and raining. But they're winning right now so you're gonna stay in the stands bc it's the playoffs & your team may not get back to the playoffs for a couple decades.

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Ry Terran @hereticmasked.bsky.social · 10h

The nazi teens enjoy this stuff yeah, unfortunately

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The Daily Show @thedailyshow.com · 15h

The following is REAL footage from Portland, 2025. Viewer discretion is advised.

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Ry Terran @hereticmasked.bsky.social · 13h

Real

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Ry Terran @hereticmasked.bsky.social · 16h

No not you, you're fine, it's random blue wave weirdos jumping into every conversation and explaining the most basic things and yelling at journalists for reporting things that are happening in the world as if they caused it

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Ry Terran @hereticmasked.bsky.social · 16h

My brain is already damaged with this knowledge

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Ry Terran @hereticmasked.bsky.social · 16h

This will definitely anger the evangelicals

Justin Baragona @justinbaragona.bsky.social · 18h

Besides linking Tylenol in pregnant women to autism, RFK Jr. now says circumcision is part of the reason why kids are autistic.

"Children who are circumcised early have double the rate of autism, and it's highly likely because they're given Tylenol. None of this is positive..."

Reposted by Ry Terran

David Gilbert @davidgilbert.bsky.social · 19h

How Mark Bray, author of the book on antifa, was targeted with death threats:

— Trump signs EO designating antifa as terrorists
— DHS memo warns about "antifa-aligned" individuals
— Far-right trolls target Bray on X
— TPUSA treasurer launches petition against Bray

www.wired.com/story/mark-b...

He Wrote a Book About Antifa. Death Threats Are Driving Him Out of the US

Rutgers historian Mark Bray is trying to flee to Spain after after an online campaign from far-right influencers was followed by death threats. He was turned back at the airport on his first attempt.

www.wired.com

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