Smallville in the Media: Get Your News From Other Sources Besides The Torch Here!

[alonenotlonely]

http://www.cracked.com/article_25731_inside-creepy-sex-cult-thatE28099s-been-all-over-news.html

[Katsullivan]

On 16/06/2018 at 12:52 PM, DisneyBoy said:

how someone seemingly as curious and questioning as Mack

That's Chloe, not Mack. We have no idea who Mack is/was.

[BkWurm1]

No, AM also came off as curious and questioning and such in her exploration of the meaning of life and all that stuff.  She certainly went down the wrong road toward enlightenment. 

Also, new indictments.  They are now FINALLY going after the money people. 

  https://abcnews.go.com/US/federal-agents-arrest-nxivm-founder-nancy-salzman/story?id=56782609

They indicted the 2nd in charge, her daughter, the heiress funding it and the long time bookkeeper.  AM got a few extra counts added from these new racketeering charges as well.  

Edited July 24, 2018 by BkWurm1

[screamin]

Glad they're going after the big fish in that pond.

[Unclejosh]

Somehow Clare Bronfman blew through around 400 million funding this cult. She inherited about 600 million but only had about 200 million in assets at her bail hearing.  Of course there could be some shady accounting and she could have some of it hidden but it seemed like she didn't have much in liquid assets.  She wasn't able to post her bail by herself.  Her sister and some other trustee of some trust she has will need to sign for it.  Bail is $100,000,000.

[BkWurm1]

Almost ten years ago there was an article that said she'd blown about 70mil covering Renier's bad investments and other schemes so I could easily believe she went through a lot more since then.  

But I LOVE how much they set her bail at.  That's insane.  

[HeatLifer]

This popped up on my YT recs, so thought I’d bring it here if anyone was interested in what MR had to say about AM. Ultimately, I think he’s shocked and doesn’t really know what to say because he only knew AM as his co-star and didn’t know her personally outside of that.

[Unclejosh]

Boy Theo Von's drug use is really catching up with him.  He looks awful and emaciated compared to not that long ago.

[HeatLifer]

KK had a mini Q&A on her Instagram. She said she’d do MR’s podcast when she’s in LA (but hasn’t been back in a long time) and that TW is a lovely human being and she loved working with him. She also laughed and said TW is a good actor when someone said that they remember how he used to look at her on Smallville. Aw. She’s also as cute as ever and looks exactly the same.

[Katsullivan]

On 8/3/2018 at 1:19 AM, HeatLifer said:

KK had a mini Q&A on her Instagram. She said she’d do MR’s podcast when she’s in LA (but hasn’t been back in a long time) and that TW is a lovely human being and she loved working with him. She also laughed and said TW is a good actor when someone said that they remember how he used to look at her on Smallville. Aw. She’s also as cute as ever and looks exactly the same.

I'm loving her new show. She's aged beautifully. 

[HeatLifer]

On 8/4/2018 at 11:34 AM, Katsullivan said:

I'm loving her new show. She's aged beautifully. 

I’ve seen the first two episodes so far and I want to see more, so I’m liking it, too!

[BkWurm1]

I don't hate it. 

[Chaos Theory]

I think there are two possibilities when it comes two AM.

1.  The most likely is:  When you break someone badly enough you can turn them into whatever you want and need them to be.   The twist of AM mind was a long process and it didn’t go from love bomb to sex cult overnight.  There has been interviews by people who knew her who say that by the end of Smallville she equating everything good about her life to Renier  and bad on herself or the people around her.   Her becoming Renier  right hand gal only happened when several of his inner circle left or died.  He needed soneobe he trusted and someone who could bring in Girls he could sleep with.  AM became that person.

2.  Less likely but still possible is that AM was never a good person to begin with and like Renier was good at pretending.  The thing about psychopaths and sociopaths is that they are good at Mirroring.  AM could have found a genuine soul mate in Renier  who saw those dark desires AM had and told her they were ok.    This is less likely but not impossible mainly because it looks like AM did have a sexual relationship with Renier so I think there was blackmail on her as well and there would not be the need of there was an understanding. 

 

Side note the only show show/Movie that I have any trouble watching us Cosby.  An actors behavior usually doesn’t bother me.  Oh and Tom Cruise.  I hate Tom Cruise.  

 

Second note:  I’d have walked away the minute I had to call him “Vanguard”.  ?

Edited August 9, 2018 by Chaos Theory

[BkWurm1]

8 hours ago, Chaos Theory said:

  This is less likely but not impossible mainly because it looks like AM did have a sexual relationship with Renier so I think there was blackmail on her as well and there would not be the need of there was an understanding.

The blackmail material wasn't like normal blackmail.  The woman and AM (per the first indictment against KR) were supposed to hand over their collateral (aka blackmails material) as proof of their devotion and loyalty to KR and to DOS.  A bunch of it, the indictment indicated, likely was completely made up and it talks of how AM even helped other people make up material to hand over as their collateral.  

I saw an interview with KR's lawyer and the sleezebag is claiming that there never were any threats to use or expose the material and the ones worried about it were basically paranoid and all the women in the group were super into what they were doing as a form of female empowerment. It was a short, like five minute, interview and it gave me the creeps hearing the lawyer tell KR's version of the truth.  Apparently getting mad that the women were getting branded with KR's initials is sexist discrimination and if they were men we'd be giving them high fives for being so badass.  (I paraphrase)   

The level of manipulation Reinere is capable of is off the charts.  Which is one of the reasons the judge wouldn't grant him bail.   They considered him too great a threat to people he'd end up exposed to.  I kind of wonder what kind of crap he's probably pulling in jail and if he's got himself any jailhouse followers now. 

[Chaos Theory]

I have been obsessed with the NXIVM cult story in large part because Chloe was my favorite character on Smallville and throughout I was hoping she would be written as more then just some add on character.  “Oh hey she really is Lois Lane.”  When she was dating Davis I was hoping she would be written as some sort of protovillian.  None of it was to be though.

Still it amazes me at all the actresses and such connected to the cult.  Grace Park from Battlestar Galactica one of my favorite shows ever was a member of the cult although it is unclear how deep.  Alot of people are trying to quitely dustance themselves which maybe we should let them. 

 

It looks like Alison Mack tried to recruit ALOT of people from Hollywood into her sex cult.  

I am not sure how much I blame AM. Abuse victims do sometimes become abusers themselves.  When they do they need to be punished as well.  It doesn’t cancel out their own abuse but they are no longer just victims.

Edited August 10, 2018 by Chaos Theory
Autocorrect hates me

[HeatLifer]

They are too funny and cute. I’ve been enjoying their panels. And it’s so adorbs how much MR gushes whenever KK is mentioned. He loved that girl, lol.

[MissL]

On 8/28/2018 at 2:55 PM, HeatLifer said:

They are too funny and cute. I’ve been enjoying their panels. And it’s so adorbs how much MR gushes whenever KK is mentioned. He loved that girl, lol.

Not sure if this should go here but.....I missed the Smallville panel because I didn't go Sunday and I was so focused on the Xfiles panel Saturday that I missed seeing the guys at their autograph tables but.....as I was walking out of the convention center who comes walking out of the door next to me but Michael Rosenbaum! And because I can't handle being in the vicinity of a good looking man I stopped, stared directly at him and when he looked directly at me I did this awkward wave and smiled and...turned around and walked away quickly.  Mind you I was literally a foot from him and could have just said hi but noooo. I mean I was even born in Evansville and have a ton of family there. It's not like I didnt have a conversation   starter with that.  He proceeded to have a smoke while I walked 20 feet away and called an uber and watched braver folks than me approach and talk to him. Ugh. I am not generally socially awkward considering I'm in HR for goodness sake but that was bad. Has prompted me to listen to his podcasts out of shame though and they are really good! 

[Katsullivan]

On 8/9/2018 at 1:59 PM, Chaos Theory said:

 Less likely but still possible is that AM was never a good person to begin with and like Renier was good at pretending.

If anything, I think this is more likely. The kind of psychological breaking-down you describe in (1) is one that exists in extreme and specific circumstances. While it's not impossible they could apply to AM, the chances of that are very, very slim. 

[BkWurm1]

On 8/30/2018 at 12:20 PM, Katsullivan said:

If anything, I think this is more likely. The kind of psychological breaking-down you describe in (1) is one that exists in extreme and specific circumstances. While it's not impossible they could apply to AM, the chances of that are very, very slim. 

 

This WAS an extreme and specific set of circumstances. 

It involved years of conditioning, mentally and physically, punishment and reward.  A systematic separation from her life of anyone that didn't full on believe anything taught by KR.  He cut her off even from her lively hood, first getting her to back off her career and then made her give up acting completely.  The last time she dared take a role without his permission (one that ironically involved playing a cop helping expose a cult) he publically shamed her and made her beg the forgiveness to the whole group in some assembly of Nxivm.  He had contracts saying she'd turn over everything she owned and even all future children if she didn't obey him.  Also, letters he could release that contained allegations that would ruin her family's lives and cost her sibling their children (It's implied the allegations are made up)  How would anyone get to the point of willingly handing that over that kind of material if they hadn't gone through a psychological breakdown? 

He kept her on a starvation diet that medical experts say would affect brain function and mood in the first WEEK.  He'd call her up in the middle of the night and run her through readiness drills that further made her more compliant by keeping her sleep deprived.  At times like when she wasn't meeting his standards for recruitment, he locked her in a dog kennel (I think I read sometimes for days) And we know about this from the indictment where she was trying to explain why it was all reasonable to the women she was then also trying to punish.  KR normalized all this madness and spun it as character building.  Even part of the reason why KR started up DOS was because he said he thought it would good for her to get over her anger and jealousy over him sleeping with tons of women by grooming some for him. 

Everything awful that AM did, was first done to her.  And she still at the time of her arrest seemed thoroughly convinced all of them were on some self help female empowerment quest to root out their weaknesses as women.  That all of it was needed to fix what was intrinsically broken in them as women.  

There's no doubt what AM did was messed up and being indoctrinated doesn't free her from guilt over her actions and she should be punished accordingly, but there is everything to indicate that who AM was when she met KR was radically reformed by KR to suit his purposes.  This is the exact set of extreme circumstances that makes that psychological break explanation totally plausible and even most likely. 

I don't judge anyone for hating her regardless, but if she was already this secret psychopath, why would she NEED to be so thoroughly worked over by this man for so long and by such extreme measures?  

[Katsullivan]

On 9/2/2018 at 5:36 PM, BkWurm1 said:

Everything awful that AM did, was first done to her. 

Only there's zero evidence that this (or anything you just narrated) ever happened. 

This is just fiction that takes the narrative of the victims, removes them from their own story and replaces them with their abuser to justify a monster.

I am horrified.

Edited September 4, 2018 by Katsullivan

[BkWurm1]

17 hours ago, Katsullivan said:

Only there's zero evidence that this (or anything you just narrated) ever happened. 

This is just fiction that takes the narrative of the victims, removes them from their own story and replaces them with their abuser to justify a monster.

I am horrified.

 

It's all in the indictment against KR. So yes, there is proof and it explains how what happened to the victims happened.  AM should be punished for her part but I would be horrified if KR wasn't ultimately held most responsible. 

Edited September 5, 2018 by BkWurm1

[Flyingwoman]

On 8/9/2018 at 12:59 PM, Chaos Theory said:

I think there are two possibilities when it comes two AM.

1.  The most likely is:  When you break someone badly enough you can turn them into whatever you want and need them to be.   The twist of AM mind was a long process and it didn’t go from love bomb to sex cult overnight.  There has been interviews by people who knew her who say that by the end of Smallville she equating everything good about her life to Renier  and bad on herself or the people around her.   Her becoming Renier  right hand gal only happened when several of his inner circle left or died.  He needed soneobe he trusted and someone who could bring in Girls he could sleep with.  AM became that person.

2.  Less likely but still possible is that AM was never a good person to begin with and like Renier was good at pretending.  The thing about psychopaths and sociopaths is that they are good at Mirroring.  AM could have found a genuine soul mate in Renier  who saw those dark desires AM had and told her they were ok.    This is less likely but not impossible mainly because it looks like AM did have a sexual relationship with Renier so I think there was blackmail on her as well and there would not be the need of there was an understanding. 

 

Side note the only show show/Movie that I have any trouble watching us Cosby.  An actors behavior usually doesn’t bother me.  Oh and Tom Cruise.  I hate Tom Cruise.  

 

Second note:  I’d have walked away the minute I had to call him “Vanguard”.  ?

A third option is that many people struggle with confronting authority, as the original Milgram experiment and subsequent attempts to replicate have shown.

 

What's of particular interest to me in the linked discussion is that some participants who actively protested the experiment still increased the voltage up to 450, which indicates to me how complicated responses can be. We may  think that our moral fiber is tough enough to withstand social pressure, but research indicates that even those of us who are not brainwashed and haven't already invested a huge amount of our emotional well-being in receiving the approval of a psychopath may be willing to cause others pain* if told to do so by someone we perceive as a legitimate authority figure.

 

That said, I agree about Tom Cruise. Husband was on his own when he went to the latest Mission Impossible.

 

*or laser-graffiti all over the city and just generally douche around for an entire season

[Flyingwoman]

In other news, there's an 80th anniversary special Superman Hollywood Spotlight Collector's Edition at my supermarket. I flipped through to see if there was any SV-related material, and the answer was "not much". There was a photo of Clark and Bo Kent, one of Lana, one of Clark and Lana (captioned to comment that she wasn't a red-head), one of Clark, Lex and Shelby (caption was about Superman's dog Krypto)... And one each of SV!Metallo and the SV!Legion. I'm assuming there have been no other live-action appearances of those characters? There was one photo of Annette O'Toole from Superman 3, but none from SV, which I found surprising; I would have thought they'd have emphasized that she'd been in two Superman properties.

Theshow got two paragraphs in the article on Superman on t.v., which was mostly about The Adventures of Superman and Lois & Clark, which both probably had wider viewership when they aired. Article did give it props for being the best Superman show and emphasized it's role in paving the way for the slate of super-hero shows we now have. Interesting take on what legacy the show has almost a decade later.

[BkWurm1]

So anyone else planning on watching Dancing With the Stars to see John Schnieder try to boogie?

[Peace 47]

6 hours ago, Flyingwoman said:

And one each of SV!Metallo and the SV!Legion. I'm assuming there have been no other live-action appearances of those characters?

Metallo also appeared in an episode of Lois & Clark:  The New Adventures of Superman.

[GHScorpiosRule]

9 hours ago, BkWurm1 said:

So anyone else planning on watching Dancing With the Stars to see John Schnieder try to boogie?

Totally!!!!’

[Tenshinhan]

On 9/16/2018 at 4:07 PM, Flyingwoman said:

And one each of SV!Metallo and the SV!Legion. I'm assuming there have been no other live-action appearances of those characters? 

18 hours ago, Peace 47 said:

Metallo also appeared in an episode of Lois & Clark:  The New Adventures of Superman.

 

In addition to Lois & Clark, Metallo appeared in the live-action Superboy series in syndication.

[HeatLifer]

Aw, TW and his fiancé are expecting. She posted a picture on her Instagram. 

[GHScorpiosRule]

Oh dear. Bo Kent should stick the Two-Step.

And the theme for Dukes of Hazzard? Ugh. And NO MENTION of Smallville? PFFT.????

[BkWurm1]

5 hours ago, GHScorpiosRule said:

Oh dear. Bo Kent should stick the Two-Step.

And the theme for Dukes of Hazzard? Ugh. And NO MENTION of Smallville? PFFT.????

They have to get in the show he's most well known for first in case he gets sent home right away, lol.  If he sticks around, we could get some Smallville content.  He's pretty low on the leaderboard.  I don't expect he'll be around too long.  

[DigitalCount]

On 9/17/2018 at 6:10 PM, Tenshinhan said:

 

In addition to Lois & Clark, Metallo appeared in the live-action Superboy series in syndication.

Both Metallo and the Legion have appeared quite a few times in the current DCTVU as well. Not sure if that was mentioned.

[BkWurm1]

https://comicbook.com/dc/2018/12/18/smallvilles-john-schneider-reveals-his-jonathan-kent-was-inspire/

Quote

What I think I brought to Smallville as Jonathan Kent, I borrowed from Denver Pyle as my uncle Jesse on The Dukes of Hazzard.”

Unlike some, I never hated Pa Kent but he's no Uncle Jesse.  Lol.