The Cult of Mark

The Conception

"I want to start a cult."

Amy Nelson was curled up on one end of the couch, enjoying their evening in, when out of the blue, her boyfriend says that. Slowly she turned her head to watch the man, who was still staring at the Netflix show they had been watching, though he seemed to be looking almost through the television, lost in thought. "Mark?" She asked hesitantly.

Mark Fischbach didn't always make sense, but Amy could usually at least follow his train of thought. This, however, wasn't a train. They hadn't been talking about cults, nothing on the show was about cults, and for once, the man didn't seem like he was joking. Of course, she had no idea what had happened when he had been live streaming earlier. "Hm?" He turned to look at her, snapping out of his daze.

"You want to start a cult?" Amy questioned as skeptically as anyone could.

"Yeah." Mark sighed. "I'm just kind of curious if I could really do it?" He chuckled, a large grin crossing his face. It was hard to tell whether he was being serious or not, and honestly, Mark had barely even decided if he was. "Not like... a REAL cult, just you know... a weekend cult."

Amy tried to stop herself from laughing, as the sentiment was mildly concerning, though still a ridiculous idea. "A weekend cult? What is that?" Mark leaned back against the couch, sighing softly, his eyes drifting lazily as he tried to decide how to explain. "That's a thinkin' face." Amy remarked.

Mark laughed, nodding as he found some words. "Just... like rent a lot. Bring your own tent for the weekend, and come be..." He could barely get the sentence out without laughing at how asinine it sounded. "... part of my cult. But just for the weekend! A weekend cult." He held his hands out, grinning, like now that he had explained what it was, it was a perfectly rational thing to have suggested.

"That... sounds like a bad idea." Amy pointed out, her forehead wrinkling slightly in concern.

"No... no... I don't think you get it. It's just a weekend cult." Mark smiled, brushing it off as he leaned his head against the back of the couch.

Amy shook her head. "You can't ask a bunch of kids to come to a random lot in LA and pitch tents for the weekend. You're going to get arrested."

Mark opened his mouth, then closed it, sitting back to think. "Over 18 only." He stated finally.

"That doesn't make it better!" Amy chuckled.

"How does it not? That fixes the creepy factor of luring children to a random field." Mark proclaimed, his hands being tossed this way and that to emphasis his point.

Amy sighed, slowly shaking her head. "You can't just... start a cult."

"What if I filmed it?" Mark leaned back. "Made it into a video." He shrugged, as his mind began to piece together what such a video might look like. He had involved fans in random spur of the moment videos before. He had asked people to meet him in parks, or random locations where he had parked his van, and it had always worked out well.

"Why do you want to start a cult?!" Amy cried out, half laughing, not sure how this conversation was still going, or why Mark was trying so hard to sell her on the idea.

Mark shrugged, a wide grin on his face. "I don't know... just to see if I can, I guess."

Amy sighed. "Well, I think you could. Easily." Mark had over twenty million followers on his youtube account, and people often jumped at the chance to be anywhere near him. With a group of over twenty million, there were some bad apples in there though. The type of bad apples who probably had shrines in their closet that they prayed to at night, and made voodoo dolls of Amy, so they could take her place. "But do you want to be sleeping in a tent near the fans that would be attracted to you saying you want to start a cult?"