#to maintain the status quo

[glitchdollmemoria]

please can we stop describing bigots as delusional. please. im so fucking tired. someone being sucked into a hate group surrounded by others who believe minorities should be oppressed and encouraging them to believe in conspiracy theories that the rest of the group believes, is fundamentally different from someone having a mental illness that causes delusions.

delusions, by definition, cannot be explained by things like cultural background - such as having a belief constantly reinforced by intentional attempts to rationalize it for the sake of maintaining power over minorities. yes, someone can be both delusional and a bigot, and yes conspiracy theories can feed into delusions, but the two are not fucking synonymous.

i did not spend my teen years convinced that i was being stalked by demons just to hear so many of you people equate my disability with incel behavior and genocidal propaganda. stop reinforcing harmful connotations about mental health struggles.

[sincerely-sofie]

Fun fact! In Better the Wool, the Lamb's parents don't recognize her once they're revived! This means she gets a lot of juicy gossip about their lives once she was out of the picture in absolutely insane throwaway lines.

She also has some very intense feelings about the circumstances that led to her being separated from her family.

I wonder why the Lamb was exiled as a heretic? She seems rather bitter about the matter...

[sorrelpaws]

happy birthday rick and morty i love posting time-sensitive art on the correct dates

[halenhusky309]

Transformers : One spoiler

I dread for the day that most people watched Transformers : One, because of the amount of takes that basically put the blame on Orion Pax for pushing D-16/Megatron to snap (And then sneakily calling Orion Pax as someone wanted to protect status quo and didn't want to tear down the system simply because he didn't have that need to violently put the oppressors down like some types of common low-lives and force everyone to follow his crusade to screw the system).

Very spoiler!!!!! Warning

Orion Pax tried to stop D-16/Megatron from killing Sentinel has nothing to do with "we became as bad as him if we murder that cunt". It's more like "You're being unhealthy with your hatred and I don't think you should continue with this train of thoughts". And I promise you that Orion didn't that much fuck about Sentinel's well-being. He's afraid for D-16 and whatever direction his friend would become.

Orion Pax noticed how his dear friend began to go down to a very dark part, and he would never stop to spiral down further, even if he murdered Sentinel and his lackies brutally. And D-16 hasn't expressed any contigent plans to change the system into sth better, and all he cared about was how to punish and humiliate Sentinel in a most terrible way possible. And the way he acted toward Starscream and the High guards is peak red flag for potential dictatorship and oppression that use fear, violence, and hatred, which is parallel to Sentinel's own brand of opression that filled with lies, manipulation and exploitation.

And sorry to burst this bubble, but D-16/Megatron isn't the one who is revolutionary. That's Orion Pax's thing. Orion was the only one noticing And it will be funny to see the take "Orion wants to maintain the system" when this little shit first thought when learning about the truth is to expose Sentinel's fake-ass to the mass and rally the oppressed folks to rise up against Sentinel and the system. But I guess it's not violence or brutal enough for some people to acknowledge that Orion is going for the least destructive route to tear down the system because he valued life more.

This is not saying Orion Pax's solution for dismantling the system is the best and only way to go, and sometimes violence can be the best answer in certain circumstances. But if your the whole revolution is based solely on violences, killings and basically tearing down everything to satisfy your hatred/grievances without any considerations for the casualties, consequences, and priorities to rebuild the system, it become a pointless and selfish movement that will actually never bring any substantial changes besides sufferings and tragedies.

[android-and-ale]

Headcanon du jour: What if most Vulcan’s aren’t massively bigoted space racists?

The majority Vulcans we’ve met have essentially been Vulcan Royalty. You know, the institution which, here on Earth, is notorious for being bigoted, backwards, and inbred. 

Tuvok and T’Lynn aren’t like that. 

But then, they’re not direct descendants of Surak, son of a galactically famous ambassador, born and raised in the capital city of Shi’Khar, heirs to a massive estate on the homeworld, and educated in schools where admission to the elite Vulcan Science Academy is taken for granted. 

Spock is the adult Vulcan equivalent of Prince Archie, if Harry hadn’t left The Institution.

Of COURSE we get flashbacks of Vulcan kids bullying Spock! The Learning Center is equivalent to the sort of British Boarding School where they sent King Charles. These places are meant to break kids. They’re all about exclusivity and maintaining the elite status quo. After all, maintaining tradition is only logical, and holy shit do Vulcans love their rituals - even if those rituals include hardcore school bullying. 

Look at how the British royal family and media treat Meghan Markle. Now look at how all the Vulcans in Spock’s orbit treat Amanda Grayson. If Amanda had married a nice Vulcan biologist somewhere out in the colonies no one would have cared, but no, she married the single most high profile Vulcan Royalty of his generation. Plenty of Vulcans were no doubt jealous she snatched up that prize of a bondmate, then masked it as criticizing his choice for being “illogical in the extreme.” 

I like to think that most Vulcans are just out there living their best IDIC lives. 

Meanwhile, the S’chn T’gai family is out there living by Royalty Rules in everything they do. 

Mutiny? Pshaw. Our great grandmother T’Pau knows a guy who knows a guy who will make the paperwork disappear. Stealing a ship? Well, the family could buy it outright, but that would be gauche. Starting a cult? Sybok is a direct descendant of Surak himself. Who better to lead a revolution?

[yabagofmilfs]

kind of sucks that i chose to start following a sport and now 2-3 times a year i get to feel sick to my stomach because the league makes it clear they’d light me and everyone i care about on fire to maintain their vitriolic straight white fanbase.

[kindaorangey]

armand operates between a need for control and a need for familiarity. the two go hand in hand - often when he's acting his most insane, most cruel, most controlling, he's doing it to restore the status quo. his sense of 'normal' fits roughly into two categories: one where he is leader of the coven, and one where he is completely subservient to someone else (marius, lestat, louis). so, when he's directing the play/trial/stoning in paris, he's not just chosing between the coven and louis, he's choosing between the only two versions of 'normal' he has ever known.

but the relationship between familiarity and need for control gets a bit more complex when you consider armand's past. he was sold to a brothel, groomed by marius, and pimped out by him as well, and as with all survivors of this kind of trauma, that creates a complex relationship with control. he wants, with lestat and then louis, to return to the amadeo/object of worship relationship model he had with marius, essentially recreating that point of trauma (though i don't think he does this consciously). but, on the other hand, his want for control is linked to that same point of trauma. the two impulses are in conflict with one another.

finally, i think his behaviour needs to be viewed through the lens of dissociation. armand doesn't act impulsively like the other vampires do - when daniel confronts him in the final episode of s2, all we see is him grappling with shock and anger, stunned silent before he just goes to reason with louis. and then, later, he turns daniel out of spite, sure, but the initial reaction is relatively passive. armand has a lot of unresolved trauma, shit that he represses and refuses to contend with, and he refuses to contend with his lies in much the same way. he wants to have both 'normal's in paris, wants to lead the coven and serve louis, but the two are in conflict with one another, and so he tries to exert more violent power over the coven to keep them in line, then tries to take a backseat to the power shift, until louis gives him reason to choose the coven over him.

armand's want for familiar dynamics, i think, is indicative of a want to disengage from life entirely. he's clever, he's attuned to when things slip out of place and he has more than enough power to return things to the status quo if that happens (see, the trial/stoning, and the interview in 1973). if there is ever a moment where armand can decide not to do anything and still keep what is familiar to him, though, he takes it. that's why he lets the coven stagnate despite not believing in its rules until lestat shows up, that's why he takes credit for louis being saved at the trial. he's a very interesting contrast to lestat, louis and claudia in this way because he's nowhere near as quick to action, he's less engaged with the world around him, and so when he does take action - i think he shows even less regard for those around him than lestat, louis and claudia

[imminent-danger-came]

MK: "We don't have any other option! We have to trust him." Red Son: "*laughs* Great speech noodle boy! Super motivational!"

(2x00 Revenge of the Spider Queen)

-

Red Son: "*laughs maniacally* I, Red Son, will bind the powers of the celestial artifacts with Spider Queen's own venom, save my father, and reforge the world as I see fit! *more maniacal laughter*" Mei: "Red Son that was amazing!" MK: "Such a good hero speech!" Red Son: "-Villain speech! And perhaps my best of all time!"

(2x00 Revenge of the Spider Queen)

-

Lady Bone Demon: "Save your hero speech child—I've existed long enough to know when it's over. MK: "You still think that the universe really wants anything, from any of us?" Lady Bone Demon: "Don't you?"

(3x14 Destiny Fulfilled)

-

Sun Wukong: “ENOUGH! I’ve never let anyone dictate my destiny in the past, and I’m not about to start now. None of us are! We can’t change who we were yesterday or in a past life, or a hundred life times ago! We live with the choices we’ve made, for what matter is the choices we make RIGHT NOW! Only we decide who we are and what we do with the power we have!”

Curse MK: "Nice hero speech bud! But I know better—deep in your hearts, you don't believe a word of that."

(4x07 Pitiful Creatures)

-

Hero speech.

[dawnslight-aegis]

5. the hierophant - wisdom, tradition, education, knowledge, principles

(others)

[sangrefae]

i feel like it must be said that i very much enjoy mithrun, he's one of my favorite characters, but the way the community at large handles him with safety gloves as if he'll break at the slightest criticism is very frustrating considering his role in the story is that of an antagonistic force

[bragganhyl]

oh what I would give for some crumbs about the relationship between Eothas and Magran pre-Saint's War 😔

[straightlightyagami]

the problem with westerners is many of them would take millions of "foreigners" dying over themselves experiencing a slight decrease of quality of life or even just some additional discomfort

[realian]

"Dib and Dipper would be friends" sounds like an annoying fandom take but as someone who considers myself one of the very few Invader Zim understanders, I think they would actually have a genuine friendship. Dipper is a good kid and Dib is kind of a good kid but also a little bit of a freak. Dipper could fix him. they also both coincidentally managed to raise the dead (but they said they were sorry about it so it's okay).

[vryivs]

I always forget that monarchists exist and then I see someone with the username duchessofmyheartforever or williamisababe posting about how it's mean to giggle at an ultrarich economic leech experiencing just a fraction of struggle and inconvenience (because lets be honest, he probably wont kick the bucket—his doctors are paid to keep his corpse animated long after it ceases to be humane)

[badscientist]

it wows me that theres such an intense pushback against 'm-spec' and multigender identities or even like. transmasculine lesbians or guydykes (do we butches mean nothing to u..... 😞) that dont identify strongly w womanhood or not as a woman but do id as a lesbian.

the entire label is deeply complicated and broad. i still remember when he/him lesbians were a hot button issue and it's like nooo dont conflate pronouns w gender oh noooo haha dont reduce everyone to rigid concepts of gender and display oft defined by white supremacist and colonial standards thats not sexy at all haha

[radiantmists]

fascinating that there are so many stories for kids that say 'you can save the world' but so few that say 'you can change the world'