#we are used to seeing adult women act like that but when kids do it it shows how weird it really is

[yuri-for-businesswomen]

you know whats actually funny? dressing little kids up as men

my mum did this when i was 2 years old for the carnival and she went as a man too. now that is funny because masculinity is not sexualised and it looks so silly to put a mustache on a kid. the clothes are comfortable and imagine a kid talking in a lower pitched voice about cliché male stuff like „let me take a look at that car“ or whatever. now thats comedy

[wileys-russo]

stuck with me II k.cooney cross x reader

stuck with me II k.cooney cross x reader

"-so i said we would babysit for a few hours." kyra shrugged, dropping two bags onto your bed as you raised an eyebrow. "you mean i'll babysit. when the kids are around you are not the responsible adult in the situation ky." you raised an eyebrow as your girlfriend pulled a face and kissed your cheek.

"don't act like you wouldn't have said yes in a heartbeat. everyone knows you're harleys favorite anyway!" kyra cheesed hitting you where she knew would work, your ego. "can't argue with the facts. what's in the bags?" you sighed and questioned with narrowed eyes as kyra clapped happily.

"i know its not december yet but i thought since we're as close as we'll ever get to being in the snow for christmas and its the last camp for the year we could-" the girl jumped onto the bed and rifled through the bags. "-build gingerbread houses and make ornaments!" she pulled out the boxes with a gleeful grin and you melted at her obvious delight.

"where did you even get these?" you laughed, picking up one of the diy bauble kits and reading through. "kyra! this very clearly says ages 10 and up, harper and harley are not 10!" you warned, eyebrows furrowing at the toxic warning for the glue.

"it's fine babe! we'll be supervising and doing it with them the entire time." kyra waved off your worries, moving onto her knees and knocking the box from your grip, hands pawing at your hoodie.

"baby!" you laughed as she yanked you down onto the bed and hovered over you with a grin, attacking your face with kisses. "now say; thank you kyra. you are so smart kyra, what a great idea kyra!" she demanded cheekily between kisses.

"like the sound of your own name do you cooney cross?" you teased, grabbing the back of her neck and guiding her lips to meet your own, smiling happily at the waves of pleasure which washed over you at the feeling of her soft lips moving against yours.

but the moment was cut short as rapid knocks sounded, all too familiar voices crying out for the door to open as you gently pushed your girlfriend off of you, pecking her pouty lips a few times and watching her face light up as you promised to resume what you started later on.

you'd not even opened the door more than a few centimeters before two tiny bodies barreled inside, darting through your legs with gleeful cheers as kyra dropped down to the floor to grab both young girls in a bear hug.

"thank you for this." katrina sighed gratefully pulling you into a hug, having been called into an unexpected zoom meeting with some perspective new clubs for the afternoon.

"neither of them have napped so they should hopefully crash within the hour." tameka added on, down for press conference duty with tony this afternoon. "please, like ky will let them sleep." you chuckled, the midfielder calling out hello's to both older women who smiled seeing her spinning around both harley and harper in her arms.

"call us if anything happens yeah?" katrina warned as you nodded, promising you would and taking the girls backpacks from tameka as you waved them off, both their daughters yelling out goodbye before the door closed and they were gone.

"and where's my hug?" you gasped, crossing your arms feigning annoyance as both girls tried to scramble for you, kyra trapping harper in her arms as harley leapt her small body off the bed causing you to scramble to catch her.

"i'm like a superhero!" the three year old grinned as you twirled her round, blowing a raspberry to her cheek. "let her go!" you laughed at your girlfriend as harper wiggled and whined in her grip.

"what are we doing today?" harley asked eagerly, jumping up and down on the bed once you placed her back down, scooping up harper and flinging her up and into the air, catching her as the girl giggled.

"well. aunty ky has some cool activities for us to do, but only if you're on your best behavior." you warned with a smile, both girls yelling that they were good over and over as kyra moved to grab the bags. "okay okay! we get it, you're good girls." you laughed, taking harleys outstretched hands and swinging her around like you knew she wanted.

"okay!" kyra clapped for everyones attention as you took a seat on the bed, harley scrambling to sit on your lap as harper tucked herself into your side, making you grin as her little head wedged its way under your arm.

"we're gonna make...." kyra trailed off, drumming her hands on the nightstand as the suspense built. "gingerbread houses!" she yelled happily, causing you to wince as the two girls beside you screeched in delight.

"ky, i really don't think its a good idea to let them eat so much." you warned, harley sat on your lap as harper sat on hers, both of you tucked up against the desk in the corner building your respective gingerbread houses.

you'd watched with a sigh as kyra would every now and then allow both girls to consume a lolly, which eventually escalated into her giving them permission to eat whatever they wanted so long as they left some to decorate with.

"why? it's fine!" your girlfriend waved it off, moving to help harper glue a few candy canes to the roof of their house. polar opposite to theirs, harley had wanted a much more organised look, taking her time to make sure it was neat and tidy which made you smile.

"because kyra, what goes in must come out!" you warned, already starting to see harper perk up a little more. "what? they won't throw up they're little but they're not babies." kyra scoffed with a roll of her eyes, whining as you reached over to sharply pinch her thigh.

"hey! mummy says no pinching." harper piped out with a scowl in your direction as kyra stuck her tongue out at you, dismissing your worries and returning to helping harper as harley bounced in your lap demanding your attention.

turns out, you were of course correct.

"woah woah! where did you get these?" your eyes widened as you scooped up harley and grabbed a pair of craft scissors out of her hand. "found em." the girl beamed, wiggling to be put down as you tucked her under your arm.

"kyra that is a terrible idea." you warned sternly as the midfielder pulled out the ornament making kit.

"no its not it'll give them something to do with their energy." the brunette huffed, practically pinning harper down who was doing her best impression of a lion, teeth nashing and trying to bite the older girl.

"harps no biting!" you groaned, adjusting harley under your arm who was furiously trying to get away. "see what you did!" you scowled at your girlfriend in annoyance, putting harley down and grabbing harper.

"three minutes for biting." you warned, sitting her down in a chair facing the wall. "harper." you repeated in a serious tone as she tried to get up, the toddler sitting back down and crossing her arms frowning adorably.

"kyra!" you whined seeing her setting harley up with a bauble and a glue gun. "you got any better ideas babe?" the girl raised an eyebrow challengingly. "nap time?" you sighed, wincing as two very loud protests were yelled back at you.

"not on the bed." you grabbed harley under her arms and swung her into a chair as kyra moved beside her. "done now?" harper peeked over the top of her own chair as you sighed again. "done biting?" you questioned with crossed arms as harper nodded.

"go on." you gestured for her to get up as she ran over to kyra, climbing up into her lap as you stepped out to go to the bathroom and clear your head, the christmas music kyra insisted on blasting from her phone not helping the chaos.

"see babe? piece of cake!" kyra chirped quietly, nudging her shoulder into yours as the two of you stared down at the pair of sleeping girls in bed. "they're covered in glitter." you sighed running a hand through your hair with a shake of your head.

"occupational hazard, it washes off." kyra dismissed your concerns with a wave. "come on baby. we did good! no one got hurt, nothing got broken, they're safe and fast asleep." kyra pressed a kiss to your cheek as you rolled your eyes.

"high five for top babysitters!" kyra murmured happily, holding up her hand and wiggling her eyebrows. "you are such a child sometimes." you sighed but smacked your hand into hers none the less.

but when you tried to pull away, alarm bells sounded.

"kyra. why is your hand stuck to mine?" you asked calmly, your girlfriend shrinking a little at the question.

"please tell me you washed the glue off." you spoke again, the brunette avoiding your eyes as you pinched the bridge of your nose with your free hand.

before you could say another word there was gentle knocks at the door, your girlfriend hissing a little in pain as you yanked her toward it by your conjoined hands. "hope they weren't any trouble?" katrina smiled, her and tameka moving inside as you and kyra backed off.

"no trouble! never trouble." kyra replied nervously, katrina instantly picking up on the shift in tone, shooting the younger girl a weird look over her shoulder as she picked up a still sleeping harper.

"do some arts and crafts did we?" tameka laughed at the glitter all over harley who stirred. "we'll drop the baubles off once they dry." you smiled nodding to the desk where they sat among a pile of glitter. "they're so cute." tameka grinned, kyra having done her best to help them both write their names.

"really cute." katrina echoed, though her tone conveyed suspicion as you and kyra did your best to hide your conjoined hands. "well we have to shower and get ready for dinner!" you smiled nodding toward the door, tameka thanking you both and promising she owed you one before leaving.

"you right min?" kyra smiled nervously as the shorter woman stared you both down. "fine. what are you two hiding?" she adjusted harper in her arms, eyes narrowing again as you both rambled out nothing. "its my fault." kyra blurted out as you glared and rammed your elbow into her side.

"ky shut up!" "what is your fault?"

"babe!" you groaned as kyra held up your stuck together hands. "i don't get it." katrina frowned on confusion. "they're stuck together. i had glue on my hands and i didn't wash it off and then we high fived and-" her nervous ramblings were cut off by the laughter from the woman in front of you.

"oh my you two are unbelievable. good luck! see you at dinner." with that she quickly left the room, ignoring the two of you calling after her for help.

your girlfriend withered at the glare you fixed her with, the two of you taking a seat on the edge of the bed. "where did you get the kits from?" you asked firmly, your girlfriend stuttering out an answer as you grabbed her phone and did a quick google, which proved to be incredibly challenging with one hand.

punching in the number you dialed the store kyra snuck out to you quickly explained what happened to the manager who assured there was a dissolvent they could order in to arrive tomorrow morning, the canadian clearly unable to hold back his amusement as you thanked him and hung up.

thankfully the game was not until the weekend as you explained the situation to kyra, the blunt tone of your voice meaning she knew exactly how pissed off with her you were.

"baby." you turned to look at her with a raised eyebrow. "what?"

"there's no one i'd rather be stuck with than you?"

[tavolgisvist]

That evening in the dressing-room of the cinema at York two girls came in and asked to interview them. They said they wanted the interview so they could make a tape of it for a third girl who was ill in hospital. John sat in a corner away from the group. ‘It’s probably just an excuse to get into our dressing-room,’ he says. ‘Anyway women should be obscene and not heard.’ ‘Switch it on now,’ says Paul conducting the interview for the bewildered girls. ‘What’s your name?’ he asks Ringo. ‘John’, says Ringo. He then asks the girls their names. ‘How did you like Germany when you were there?’ asks the girl whose name is Eileen. ‘We liked it fine,’ says Paul. ‘It was hard work,’ says Ringo. ‘Yeah’, says George. All during the interview they sign autograph books that had been sent to their dressing-room, and when they aren’t actually answering a question they read letters from fans. The girls walk over to John. ‘How do you write the songs ?’ says the girl whose name is Daphne. John doesn’t answer. Paul shouts across the room in a voice you use to an errant child, ‘Tell us about the songs, John, tell us about the songs.’ ‘Sometimes we write them together’, says John. ‘Sometimes not. Some of them take four hours; some twenty minutes. Others have been known to take as long as three weeks.’ ‘What’s your favourite song that you’ve written?’ ‘I think “Glad All Over”,’ says Paul, opening his eyes even wider. ‘No, I’m kidding. I think at the moment it’s our new record “I want to hold your hand”. Is that all right ?’ ‘Yes, that’s fine,’ says Eileen. ‘Thank you very much indeed.’ ‘Oh dear,’ says Daphne. ‘It doesn’t seem to have been recording. Sorry about that.’ <…> Inside, the compere is asking: ‘Do you want to see John?’ (Screams.) ‘George?’ (Screams.) ‘Paul?’ (Screams.) ‘Ringo?’ (Pandemonium.) They appear, and all during their act a man in a dinner jacket stands in front of the stage looking bewildered. The girls wave, hold up pictures, and scream. <…> Paul runs off stage shouting, ‘Oh my God, my ulcer. Nell, do you have a ciggy?’ Aspinall alternately hands him a cigarette and leads him toward the stage door where their car is waiting to take them to the hotel. <…>

The Beatles are in their hotel bedrooms finishing their dinners. George feels tired and goes to sleep. John, wearing a T-shirt and an old pair of trousers, wanders down the hallway past the guard, into the room shared by Paul and Ringo. The table filled with the empty dinner dishes is at the foot of Ringo’s bed. Ringo, dressed in pyjamas, is sitting up in bed. Paul, also in pyjamas, is talking about a film, The Trial, which he has just seen in London. He is describing a scene in which there is a misunderstanding about a word, when the telephone rings. ‘Hello, helloho,’ says Paul in a falsetto and then, realizing it is a friend, says Hello seriously. <…> ‘What I liked best in The Trial’, he says, ‘was when they walked quietly through the concentration camp. It was so dead quiet, just like another world and Elsa Martinelli in the background just necking like mad.’ <…> ‘Uh, I need another drink, baby,’ says John. Paul goes to the phone. ‘Hello? Yeah, send us six single Scotches - No, make it doubles, yeah, doubles.’ <…> They started discussing the feelings of adults towards pop music. ‘We’re definitely fighting a prejudice,’ says John. ‘That’s why I’m interested in John getting his book out,’ says Paul. ‘I mean, I haven’t got a cut or anything. It’s just that one of us would be doing something to make people notice. I mean, it’s the same as if one of us wrote a musical. People would get rid of their prejudice and stop thinking that pop people can only sing or go into a dance routine.’ <…> ‘You remember after that big spate of publicity we got in the national papers,’ says John, ‘which was uncalled for by our office. We were news at the time, and it only just happened we clicked in fourteen editors’ minds at the same time. One day Paul was ill and I believe one of the papers wanted a picture of him. Nell told them they couldn’t have it, and the photographer said: “You mean, after all the publicity we gave them – we made them.” I’d like to meet this fella who said it.’ Paul explained that they never talk to the teenage magazines. ‘They just make it up. I think they prefer it that way…’

(Love Me Do. The Beatles Progress by Michael Braun, 1963/1995)

Part (I), (II), (III), (IV), (V), (VI), (VII), (VIII)

(+ about Paul's flue)

[melrosing]

What do you think of the Sansa bullied Arya take if you don’t mind me asking (just don’t answer if you don’t want to haha)

per my usual practice on Controversial Topics im putting this under a cut

At the real risk of that lot showing up in my notes again, I think this ‘Sansa bullies Arya’ pins their pre AGOT dynamic squarely on Sansa herself, rather than the way they are both being raised by the adults around them to behave towards one another. Sure, Sansa is mean to Arya sometimes during their childhood! We don’t have a lot of examples besides the oft-mentioned ‘horseface’ insults, but I think it’s fair to assume that more often than not, Sansa was looking down on Arya. Meanwhile, Arya herself feels inadequate and like she just can’t do anything right. She resents Sansa, but also worries that Sansa’s opinion of her may be true.

Fine. But where has Sansa’s opinion of Arya come from? Is it her cold black heart? Fucking no, it’s come from Septa Mordane, Catelyn, and whoever else surrounds them growing up. The men don’t seem to really give much of a shit how Arya acts because it’s not their business and she’s just a kid anyhow, but the women pointedly give many shits. In our first scene with Arya, Septa Mordane scolds her for not being good at ‘women’s work’, and there’s plenty to suggest that this is just another day in the life for Arya. Meanwhile, Sansa gets the carrot for excelling. Both Arya and Sansa are learning their own worth in this chapter, and the worth of one another. Sansa internalises the praise whilst learning that Arya is bad, and everything she mustn’t be. Arya internalises the criticisms whilst learning that Sansa is good, and everything she can never be.

They’ll be getting this from Catelyn as well. Catelyn clearly adores both her daughters, and will move heaven and earth to get them back in ACOK. But one good adjective for Catelyn is ‘dutiful’ - it’s in her house words, and it’s how she’s lived her life up to AGOT. Doing as she’s told, even when it pains her. She expects the same of her daughters, and finds those expectations satisfied in Sansa’s case, and apparently flouted in Arya’s. So again, from their own mother, Sansa internalises that Arya is bad, and that she, Sansa, is good. Arya internalises the same. If societal standards were reversed, perhaps it would be Arya lording over Sansa, but such as it is, it’s Sansa over Arya. 

Now, Sansa is a child. When children are told over and over that X is good and Y is bad, they generally don’t question it, at least until they're older and more experienced in the world. They will also parrot what they hear, often in graceless ways. Because they’re children. Sansa is told that Arya wilfully misbehaves because she’s bad, and so Sansa thinks: then I should look down on Arya. It sounds like Sansa mostly keeps her distance from her sister pre AGOT. Not always - they play together sometimes - but a lot of the time. She has internalised the teaching that Arya is an aberration, and as she herself knows the adults value obedience in girls, and she wants to please them so badly, the distance between her and Arya demonstrates to them just how good she is - she won’t descend to Arya’s behaviour. 

When Sansa does interact with Arya (pre Darry), we see her being a bit bossy - telling Arya what to do, etc. Sansa is replicating what she has seen the adults do with Arya, and is mimicking them to assert her own position as the good, obedient child. If Arya ever doesn’t want to do something, it can only be because she’s bad. 

[sidenote, it all really reminds me of these short stories me and my sister used to get read a lot as kids, called My Naughty Little Sister (lmao) by Dorothy Edwards. They're pretty old and I don’t think they ever got major circulation outside Britain, but for anyone unfamiliar, you can probably guess how these stories go. There’s an elder sister, good and obedient, who narrates short tales of her ‘naughty little sister’ doing terrible things like idk, making a terrible mess etc, and going ‘now I’m sure you [the child audience] wouldn’t do a thing like that!’ They’re supposed to be short morality tales for the children, and amuse the parent reading them aloud, who recognises the mischievous behaviour of the younger and is charmed by the haughtiness of the elder sister, who you can hear is narrating the incidents of her sister’s mischief with the disdain that she’s heard the adults do so, and is asserting her own good behaviour over said sister. And the whole fucking reason we were read these stories was because my younger sister was precisely the kind of kid who got up to all kinds of shit as a little kid (which now all of us find hilarious but DIDN’T AT THE TIME), and I was the elder sister like ‘my goodness how could she do such things as these!!’ (e.g. paint an entire bookcase with grout). It amused us both to see ourselves in the stories. You could say this was life imitating art, but I think this is simply an age old dynamic, familiar to many people with siblings: you would see how the adults spoke to another child in your family, and replicate their manner in an effort to come across as an adult. Except you weren’t an adult, so you weren’t always as graceful about it as they were. That is pre AGOT Sansa, to a T. And I’m sure that’s what GRRM, a child of three who had two sisters of his own, is replicating here.]

But I think there’s also a loneliness in being the ‘obedient child’. Doing as you’re told all the time can be boring, and living up to expectations is a lot of pressure. Sansa wants a companion in all that, but Arya has no interest in sharing in it. Arya is offering friendship, but from a place Sansa believes she can’t reach her sister - Sansa thinks she’d have to ‘descend to Arya’s level’ to accept it, and she can’t do that. You get a sense of Sansa thrilling in trying Arya’s ‘misbehaviours’ for herself when she quietly delights in behaving ‘as wicked as Arya’, but you see in this that she has to condemn such behaviours and herself for exhibiting them, all in the same breath. And in the end, I can easily imagine Sansa resents that Arya has more fun with their brothers than she ever does with Sansa herself: that the one sister she has is one she has nothing in common with. Sansa can’t find a like mind amongst her siblings, and so clings to Jeyne Poole, and the praise of the adults around her.

So with all that in mind, YES! Sansa is sometimes mean to Arya, and calls her horseface. That is because Sansa is a child, nobody is correcting her behaviour, and she understands that Arya is bad, and the way she behaves is frustrating to Sansa herself, so really what does it matter if she’s a little mean sometimes? She knows that she is good, because everyone says so. Even if she calls her sister a name now and then, she’s still the good child. 

AND THEN we get to Darry. And Sansa starts to see that society isn’t a song, and sometimes it doesn’t matter how good you are, horrible things can happen to you anyway. But she doesn’t want to believe that, because it would turn her world upside down, and her future would look a lot darker, too - Ned has not ended her engagement to Joffrey, and Sansa has to live for the foreseeable in KL. So when Arya doing the thing she ‘wasn’t supposed to’ (playing with Mycah) snowballs into a terrible miscarriage of justice where Sansa’s wolf is killed, Sansa rejects the notion that the songs could be wrong about beautiful princes, and shifts the blame onto Arya for that original 'misdemeanour'. The grief at losing Lady is terrible too (the wolves are meant to have a soul deep bond with the Stark children), and so the target of that grief likewise becomes Arya. What was previously a normal, childishly complicated sibling relationship gets twisted into something else.

This is where I think Sansa becomes different level of unpleasant towards her sister. She’s cruel about Arya’s loss of Mycah, tells Arya she wishes she were dead instead of Lady, etc etc. Arya is not giving as good as she gets here - she even tries to make amends with Sansa, but Sansa throws the offer in her face.

The reasons for Sansa’s behaviour are complicated, but not that complicated. She’s been raised to slot perfectly into this world, without ever being told what that world is really like. And when abruptly it turns out that what she’s being raised for is essentially the slaughter, she rejects it. She can’t see Joffrey as he truly is: she’s been told that princes are charming, that Kings are just, Queens are kind, and she herself will be a Queen. Sansa is going to be handed over to the Lannisters, and she’s going to live the song of her dreams, and the only thing between Sansa and the realisation of those is the thing that’s always been wrong: Bad Arya. Because again, if Arya isn't bad, then everything else is, and Sansa is in terrible danger.

No one is sitting Sansa down and explaining to her that Arya is not bad, just different from her, and that they should love one another - that there are dark forces here far stronger than them that could tear them apart, that the Lannisters are the greatest of them, and they have to fight together, not each other. Arya gets this talk, funnily enough, but not Sansa. Arya is asked to understand that Sansa is different from her, but Sansa is only ever taught to abhor that her sister as different from her. Where Arya is told to be wary of the court of King’s Landing, Ned leaves Sansa to continue her fantasies, and then, when he abruptly tries to put an end to them, he doesn’t bother to explain why. I’m not saying this is unforgivable on Ned’s part - he has a lot on his mind lol - but it’s quite obviously a major failing. Ned leaves Sansa in a fantasy world. It’s fucking Joffrey who has to step in and clarify for Sansa that actually, she’s been dreaming.

So as long as they’re together, Sansa is never able to come to terms with the fact that Arya was not the aberration, but rather, everything else was. In the absence of one another, they cannot reconcile over that fact. So yes, GRRM says they’ll have deep issues to sort through when they meet again, but those aren’t going to be the times that Sansa called her ‘horseface’ - they’re going to be about what happened since they left Winterfell, when their relationship was twisted by forces much darker than Septa Mordane. 

So no, I think the ‘Sansa is a bully’ diatribes are seriously tedious, because even if you want to insist that calling your sister ‘horseface’ a few times even qualifies, you can still accept such wrongs without deciding that that makes Sansa a fundamentally unkind person who cannot be reconciled with Arya and doesn’t deserve to be. It is on the page that the two of them miss each other. Like I genuinely cannot imagine going through everything Arya does in the story and then, upon reuniting with a sister I thought lost forever, deciding I’m actually still mad about the things she got wrong as a child that she herself has paid dearly for, both physically and emotionally. Like jesus fucking christ man. By all means let them talk about it!! But who do you think Arya is lmao

Tl;dr: Sansa is a kid in a society. She is not the arbiter of Arya’s place in society. She is not mean because she’s cruel, but because she has internalised the exact same things that Arya has, based on the example of the adults surrounding them. It just happens that those things were a carrot for Sansa and a stick for Arya. But then in the end, they weren’t a carrot for Sansa either.

tl;dr 2: clarifying once again - i am a jaime stan. i find the stark sister relationship interesting bc I have experience of a similar sisterly dynamic and find it interesting to see a version of that explored on the page. so if you think one has to be a sansa stan to observe all this then that kind of just demonstrates how dichotomous you've become on this issue lol like if I'm talking about takes I dislike re JB I don't generally feel the need to attribute them to JC fandom. let's all grow up x

tl;dr 3: no i don't hate sansa or arya, since i know these are both conclusions various people reach whenever i even mention these two. in fact i think they are both great girls! imagine

[donutz]

Yandere Catnap x female Smiling Critter cat reader

Request from Wattpad-! Here you go Buttmens(💀)☆

Being locked up in these cells is insufferable.

Catnap and I can’t do anything.

We both operate on sleeping. So we both have the red gas. We both used it, it was built into our system. Yet we end up into these cells for it. Apparently, it causes violent nightmares. From Catnap’s gas. Neither the workers nor I know if my gas causes nightmares.

They still put me in containment. Plus, I was similar to Catnap, not approaching the kids. So they were all wary about me and that gas product.

Even when Catnap and I are locked up, we still communicate. Not verbally. Telepathically, you could say. We intertwine our tails to communicate. Our tails are very long so it’s not hard.

Catnap’s planning to kill the people in this place. To work with Experiment 1006, seeing him as a god, and he’ll save us. Considering Catnap is just a kid(Hmm… I wonder why I bolded, underlined, and italicized the word kid… Hmm…)

You’d think he’d be joking because he’s a kid. But, considering who Catnap is, he’s not. At random times of the day he’d whisper, “THE PROTOTYPE WILL SAVE US.” Or something like that.

I’m not sure if I’ll follow Prototype—

“Hey guys…”

The sound of your bright friend’s voice interrupted both of your thoughts.

“Uhm. A kid drew both of you, they were wondering if you were going to come back…” He gave you two the kid’s drawings, it was sloppy, but you appreciated it.

“Do you… Know, when you two are coming back…?” You said no, while Catnap didn’t answer.

“Oh…”

You reach your paw out the cell, and put your finger on Dogday’s head. You then move it to his ears, petting him.

“We’ll come back, Dogday. Eventually.”

Moving to the underside of his chin, you give him scratches.

“Mm.. Okay!” His tail was wagging pretty fast, as he is a dog.

Then you gave him a small poke on his nose, “Now you go on and make the kids happy, okay?” You said.

“Mhm! Bye you two!” He waved his paw, signaling his goodbyes.

Normally, from you doing that to someone. Catnap would get pretty jealous. But it’s Dogday. So it’s okay. Catnap trusts Dogday, he knows he wouldn’t do that. Not to Catnap.

Though you could still see the jealousy on his face. He gave you that spooooky scare, silently communicating on why you did it.

“It was because I knew he needed some comfort Catnap. We’ll stay together until the end.” (Not in the romantic adult way, like the way when kids got little crushes on each other or somethin. The type you’d see in little kids shows, it’s rare, but it’s there. I will NOT make the reader feel that way about Catnap).

Then he stopped looking so jealous.

Now it’s the day. The day Catnap will act out, he’s already out of his cell, because he snuck the worker’s keys. Then he let you out.

“Do you… Want to kill with me…?” He asked.

You weren’t too sure. Not the critters, not the toys. Not any of the toys. Just the bad adults and stuff.

“Only the bad adults..” You answered, you weren’t sure if he’d accept the answer, but thankfully he did. He then left.

You were alone now.

‘I should alert the critters.’ You thought.

They were all in a room, then you rushed into it.

“YOU ALL NEED TO RUN. GET THE KIDS TO A SAFE PLACE. SOMETHING BAD WILL HAPPEN ANY SECOND—”

Screams. Men and women, kids. They were all yelling and screaming. Out of fear, not of joy. The critters were confused? What were you talking about? Why did they hear someone scream? And why wasn’t it from joy?

“GET THE KIDS. NOW.” They were all asking questions, but followed along. Well, Dogday mainly did, as the leader he multitasked. Getting the critters and kids safe. Though it wasn’t very successful. 

You had to run. Run over to kill the ‘bad adults’. Like you said you would.

A few minutes later, you were managing to get the kids to a safe place while looking for your targets. You found it. The man who tortured and teased you and Catnap.

You can’t go back on this now.

You scruffed him with your paw and hesitantly ate him. Your pupils dilated. The taste was wonderful. You didn’t care about the kids anymore, you killed them. Threw them roughly to a wall, stomped on them, y’know, to put them out of their misery before you ate them?

You still had somewhat of a heart. Even killing all of these innocent children.

Ugh. That sounds gross, the adrenaline wore off for a second, and you could see the murder you caused.

All the blood, dead bodies. That was because of you! Catnap's so proud of you for doing such a good job!

He's quite surprised that you even got the courage to kill people. You were on the nicer side, trying to not have Catnap escalate things in his cold head(Even at his young age).

So to see you murdering people?! It was very entertaining.

You were looking at the bodies. Just staring. Then you saw Catnap. He walked up to you.

“Good… Job.” He praised.

Your pupils dilated from that. He rubbed his head against yours, cuddling with you slightly.

You could hear his purrs!

You cuddled back, purring. Just you two being cats. Extracting all of the— blood. That's spread around the place.

You're just a cat ^_^.

After the hour of joy, Catnap and you were just searching over the place, making sure there were no survivors. Though, Catnap sped away, possibly looking for someone.

You hoped Dogday was safe.

10 years later, you now ‘worshiped’ Catnap.

The way you thought about Catnap is the way Catnap thought about the Prototype.

Sadly, Dogday didn't believe in the Prototype. So he's… Chained up. You comfort him at times, Catnap doesn't really let you be around him. But you know he won't do anything, as long as he's watching.

Other than that you two were the cuddliest kittens ever!!!

Such a cute cat duo!!

You two would be a star if you didn't murder people.

[sepublic]

In hindsight it’s funny how I speculated after S1 about King and Lilith having a friendship because of similarities, not just because that happened for Hooty instead (and he needed it a lot more, it was much more based to do it with Hooty who was also the outlier in the Owl House) but also because.

Remember when King was just being a kid (something established in S2) excited to meet his dad, and then Lilith shut him down unprompted to be bitter about her own mother and project that onto King, who is devastated by the possibility??? And he actually internalizes it, with Lilith dragging him down to her level; It leads four episodes later to King being bitter about his dad and crying and lashing out in loneliness.

Not to mention Lilith just making King feel worse about being a Titan with her discomforting worship, to the point King had to walk away to be alone despite that being a dangerous thing to do; Hell he even trusts Steve because he needs anyone besides Lilith, and Hooty is not accepting criticisms of her as Steve painfully finds out. Poor King had to stand up for himself there.

I love you Lilith but uh jeez imagine if Eda found out she’d have been dead. Because after Luz, her other child needed a bad encounter and unhealthy worship too… At the same time, we saw Lilith begin to get her act together in defending her nephew, because adults should be nice to kids in general, even if they aren’t expected to be parents. King had Lilith and Eda for two months, sneaking off to meet with them when he needed a reprieve from the Collector. Because as much as he grew to enjoy the Collector, it was also a very stressful dynamic for him.

Anyhow this brings me to another point that yeah, I can see how Lilith being a bad influence to King during a volatile recovery period, and how King and Luz shouldn’t be expected to tolerate and support that over their own health (esp with Luz’s own health on the subtle decline), paired with Lilith moving out; She also needed to address her pain from someone who actually owed it to her and had that caretaker responsibility from the start.

I do find it funny/ironic with zero judgment (speaking from my own experience obviously) that a lot of us looked forward to the idea of Lilith as a mom to Amity or others and then it turned out she was just. NOT good with kids a lot of the time, she’s bad even, Lilith’s more of an aunt anyway and it’s like. Fine for her?

Lilith had a lot to work on before she could begin supporting kids, it was not her arc’s priority, a big part of her arc is about needing her own mother to support her, who is an adult but needs it and isn’t judged for that! Lilith's happiness and healing is not contingent on taking care of a kid, which is a worthwhile stance to consider from a feminist lens. And eventually Lilith reaches that point, not necessarily as a parent but definitely a proper mentor for Amity, to bookend Lilith’s growth with a nice achievement; But that’s a nice ending bonus, not a prerequisite.

Plus the thing is that for all this, Lilith is not like… demonized for it. It’s still bad and wrong and she needed to give distance to King. But her road to recovery could be messy and she could be messy and mean about it. But there wasn’t an insistence on reactively punishing Lilith for it, moreso addressing the problem constructively, and sometimes Lilith having better things was synonymous with the kids having the same with her. Kinda like how Camila was pretty harsh and even taking it personally at the end of Yesterday’s Lie, but she also realizes what she did wrong and doesn’t have to be punished, just be supportive.

Support Women’s Wrongs, not just in the literal sense, some flaws are allowed to be passed off as not big enough to address. But also in the sense that women are allowed to be flawed and messy and work on it without needing to be hated or punished, because there’s a difference between others characters feeling that way towards them and the narrative, y’know? Think TOH arguing Restorative Justice instead of Retributive Justice, building people back up instead of tearing them down further.

Kikimora was knowingly complicit in genocide and then manipulated children afterwards, but the new state shouldn’t have the authority to execute, so the worst she gets is community service, and before that Kiki’s still entitled to successful revenge against her abuser. Warden Wrath ran a prison and oversaw inhumane experiments, but still gets to live with his son. Terra and Adrian are terrible people but outside of some minor comeuppance, are allowed to live their own lives.

[cowboyjen68]

Hi Jen, sorry for dumping a big rant in your askbox but your blog has helped me figure out my identity and I don’t have anyone to talk to about this in real life lol. Feel free to delete if this is too weird.

So I’m a 17 y/o butch, and I have been masculine since I was a little kid. I always felt lucky to have a family that was generally okay with my gender nonconformity. They treated it like a cute quirk of mine, and I never felt like I was being judged or that I should change the way I am around them. My dad got a kick out of it. One summer he let me help him build the deck in our backyard. He always took me to baseball games, he dressed me up in his old clothes, basically treated me like I was his son and I loved it.

I feel like as I get older, my masculinity becomes less acceptable. I went to visit my paternal grandmother for the holidays, hadn’t seen her in a few years, and the first thing she said to me was “I thought you would’ve grown out of all that by now” (in reference to my haircut and outfit, I think.) I just don’t know how to react to the way my extended family treats me now. They used to be totally fine with it, but I spent my entire Christmas feeling like I was being judged for every little thing.

Like, what’s changed? Why is it cute and funny when a little girl wears boy’s clothes and wrestles with her cousins, but disgusting when I grow up and settle into my masculinity?

It’s like I’ve crossed the invisible line between being a tomboy and being a dyke, and now no one wants to entertain it anymore.

Again, sorry for the rant haha, I just feel like I’m going crazy because I tried to talk to my sister about it and she said she didn’t notice them acting any different, but I swear my aunt spent half of our Christmas dinner telling me how pretty I would be if I just wore a bit of makeup lmaoo. I’m just wondering if anyone else has experienced this, because I’m feeling pretty lost right now. Thanks, and happy holidays!

It is not weird at all. I hear that young lesbians, particularly butches, do not have older role models to bounce ideas off of or vent or get any perspective on certain experiences. Moms and Dads and straight sisters and cousins, no matter how well meaning, will just not always "get" what is happening. They say things like "we love you no matter what" and "we don't care if you are a lesbian" and they mean it, mostly. But they often don't see the subtle clues (or blatant ones)they toss around that indicates how uncomfortable they are with you being so visible, but just existing as you naturally are.

AND OH MY GOSH yes I have experienced exactly what you are talking about with the deepening judgement as you move from a cute little Tomboy to an adult butch women. It is almost like they hope to "catch it early" when we are in our teens and redirect us away from the "danger" of being a visible lesbian. And a woman who does not, in very overt ways, conform to their idea of how a woman should be and act.

My dad was relatively consistent in treating me pretty much like he would a son and, to his credit, he did so with my straight sister. We were allowed to do just about anything my older brothers did. In part because my sister was pretty strong willed but also a lot like him. I was less strong willed but she had mowed the path.

Mom was the one who was forever concerned about my looks and behavior, both out of worry I would not fit in, and because she had a certain expectation of how her daughter should grow up. Both normal Mom reactions. She understood bullies and knew that sticking out could be difficult. Her solution was not to strengthen my resilience but to attempt to "tone me down". Her efforts increased as I made the jump from kid to teen and into my late teens. She would discourage me from cutting my hair, becoming almost angry when I brought it up. She would tell me how lovely I was in dresses and skirts and say thing like " a little make up would be nice". It got really old. It lead to us not always getting along even though I loved and respected my mom. She was a great mom. But this one thing made us both crazy. She could not cool it and I could not change who I was.

Friends at school saw hints of my liking girls. I stopped wearing cowboy boots and my favorite horse buckle and it their place went with K Mart Tennis shoes and a generic belt that came with my pants, again, from Kmart. I put away the cowboy fringed shirts and flannel and went with simple jeans and sweatshirts, the acceptable attire for boys and girls in my rural high school. I kept my hair long to disguise my "looking like a boy" traits.

I (barf) agreed to date a boy and spent the better part of that time making excuses to not kiss him or spent time with him. I was starting to listen to mom and do my best to hide ME from the world. Anything (with in reason) to throw the world off the scent, the scent of me being a lesbian. Being butch made that one more step difficult.

It is hard to hide the space we take up naturally.

It might seem hard to see it now by your family is slightly well intentioned, knowing that being "seen" easily as a lesbian can be dangerous. But also, they are uncomfortable with your energy and physical presence because it does not coincide with their ideas of what a woman acts, feels and moves like. This is a THEM problem and I can give you words of comfort based on experience.

The more you begin to be you, and dress in what gives you comfort the more your confidence will grow and be evident. People who are emboldened to try and change you for their own comfort tend to back way off when there is no opening for their opinions. They just sort of realize they are wasting time. AND for those that don't, there are always a few, you don't have to give them any air or acknowledgement. You get to let them waste time and energy while you look great in whatever you wish to wear and however you wish to cut your hair. And in a wonderful turn around, you don't have to spend any effort just being you or trying to defend or correct them.

You are fast approaching adulthood and with that will come even more freedom and independence. Don't rush it but also, work towards that.

[everythingseasoning]

Hi, I enjoyed your analysis of JJK and Turbo Granny. I'd love to hear your perspective on a specific topic.

Do you think Sukuna could be a potential r*pist? Some people believe he is, while others disagree. From my perspective, he doesn't appear to be a serial r*pist who would commit such acts at any moment, but he is certainly not above it like Kenny.

I just want to know ur pov on this topic?( Not asking for direct evidence).

Thank you :) I spent a lot of time thinking about those characters so that I could understand them better/understand them more deeply. Suguru Geto analysis here, Satoru Gojo analysis here, Turbo Granny analysis here.

I’ll talk about Sukuna, and talk briefly about some of the philosophical themes in JJK, below. TW: mentions of the word rape below (not at all graphic or detailed).

As for your ask… let me start by saying that I *have* to provide evidence, ahah. That’s the only way to form any credible opinion. And to answer your ask: Sukuna’s motivations are power, battle, a want to fulfill any and all desires that he has. He is chaos and destruction. He is taking and never giving. He lives for himself, and everything he does is in service of his own desires. He honors his homicidal and cannibalistic urges, and if he has sexual urges, then him being a rapist isn’t beneath him, and he would be one. I’ll explain: Sukuna has little to no morals at all; he steals the body of a 15 year old kid, threatens death to Yuuji, eats women and children, wipes out an entire city as collateral damage during his “fun little outing,” laughs when Yuuji has a mental breakdown over his own failures to save people, states that “any hierarchy not based on power is boring,” etc etc etc etc etc. Sukuna is undoubtedly evil, with no regard for anything but his own wishes, and possibly Uraume. So yeah, I wouldn’t put it past him to use and abuse women like that. He can massacre and eat them, he is devoid of empathy, and he has no inner convictions to be fair to others. I don’t see why he would have a higher moral standing when it comes to rape.

That being said, people might argue that Sukuna doesn’t seem to have sexual urges, saying that sex isn’t what interests him in the canon storyline. If that’s the case, he wouldn’t be a rapist. But I think that it’s quite possible that Gege just left that part out, cause let’s be honest, while there’s no mention of sex in JJK, alllll those adult characters being asexual is highly unrealistic.

Personally, I’ve never understood the romanticization of Sukuna. He’s inherently evil, and he didn’t have a tragic descent into villainy in the way Geto did. But perhaps it could be argued that in the same way Geto didn’t have total control over what he became, Sukuna didn’t have a choice in being psychopathic. (Still, we all should aim to be good, even if we don’t feel inclined to do so, or have less motivation to do so). Every single character in JJK is living by their own convictions, and the lines between “right and wrong” are often blurry, as it is in real life. Is it right to let Yuuji Itadori live, when he’s the vessel of Sukuna— allowing for the later destruction of Shibuya? Is it right to play on the villains side just to get revenge for your brothers, in the way Choso did? Is it right to kill all non sorcerers for a “better world” in the way that Geto did? (The answer for the last one is no, btw). These are just a handful of the many “is this right, or wrong?” questions that exist in Jujutsu Kaisen. And yet, even if you answer “no” to all of these questions, it’s impossible to deny just how understandable each character’s actions and convictions are, when you consider their background, and realize that people have their reasons for acting the way they do, and they oftentimes don’t know any better when they make mistakes.

Fanon and canon can be extremely different. I want people to enjoy their comfort characters. But if people want to participate in meaningful discussions, then I highly encourage people to look at characters as they canonly are, and recognize when they’re making a character OOC in their head. It’s fine for people to indulge in their interpretations of a character, and I’m not the police for that. But when mischaracterizing characters overrides the actual essence of a character in a character based discussion, and people preach about their visions, it gets a bit tricky, because we’re no longer seeing things from a thoughtful perspective, and that can lead to dismissing nuance and critical thinking. I think that learning how to better understand a character AND people, requires skills that we all should put in the effort to build, and I’m definitely learning to do that, myself!

It’s so lovely to hear from people in my inbox, genuinely a shot of dopamine. Thank you for stopping by!!

[punkeropercyjackson]

Can we not make the guy who's a classical literature nerd and has neapolitan based things as his favorite food and was a happy go lucky softhearted theater kid in his Robin era and shows a strong aversion to traditionalist norms and killed two seperate sexual abusers at extremely different mindsets in his life and games with his siblings and openly shows his emotions regardless of nature and takes care of dogs and respects women to the point of considering them inherently better than men into a classless gooner who represses everything that dosen't involve sex or acting like a douchebag when he's potrayed as afrolatino just because he's masc and aggro.Can we not do that.

I'm so exhausted as a black dominicana of the way nonblack Batfanon stans do afrolatino Jason.You strip him of everything that makes him who he is so he can be your stereotype since those're the only black characters you want as black and the only way you can 'see' them as black.All you care about is that,not his heritage or his bond with Duke or Duke as his own character despite him being a black Batboy and Jason's Robin and Jason his Robin and him the only reason he rejoined the Batfam to boot

You cannot in good faith say you see Jason as afrolatino yet not give him his canon personality and i'm including the part where og Rhato was completely disregarding his 28 beforehand years of history to comply to the narrative he likes Roy and 'Kori' that is so loved by the fandom while ignoring his legit bond with Duke.I'm also including the part where he's never cared for Tim nor would he ever tell Damian his biomom and his adoptive mom noncanonically csa'd him as a 'joke'(and adults who tell kids sexual things to 'punish' them should blow their brains out).Jason is not your scary/token/dehumanized sexified black man.Jason is a favorite amongst black/latino/afrolatino DC fans and he's for us before he's for anyone else.We treat him better and know him better than you do

[hanzajesthanza]

i feel like i just got so used to ciri and how natural ciri and geralt’s relationship left, via being introduced to the witcher via witcher 3, and then reading the middle of the saga before i finished the short stories…

that i never really innately picked up on the fact that ciri turning out to be geralt’s daughter and not his son was… uhm, part of the entire surprise, let’s put it that way :’)

geralt and ciri are just soooo natural as a father and daughter duo that i can’t imagine it any other way, if ciri had been a boy this would have been way less remarkable as a series, there would be no witcher series as we know it. so to me ciri being a girl was the normal and default, expected way things were supposed to go.

even when i read a question of price-sword of destiny-something more for the first times, i was like “ok” when ciri being a girl was a switch of expectations: geralt (and, supposedly, the reader) having expected pavetta to have a son. like… “alright, it’s a girl, so what.”

i had to be informed about how this was an intentional shock… not only because i’m not a parent, but i mean, well, ultrasounds get mixed up all the time, right… it’s not so uncommon to have a kid and be surprised by the gender…

and because of this, i was more inclined to eyeroll at blood of elves being preachy with going over ciri’s biological sex what seemed like ten million times in chapters two and three… what with the whole “daughter has her first period” subplot, ciri upset over her lack of potential strongmanship, and the witchers mostly relying on triss for guidance in raising a girl. the moral being both “just raise her like any other child” and “be sensitive to her needs that you’re blind to…”

although i still think these segments have visibly aged and date the series (not inherently a bad thing, just a quality of it)… they do make more sense when i try to empathize more with the perspective of a new father… who didn’t know he was receiving a girl… who thought she died… who only got her back through a miracle… and having to raise a girl… that’s not a young child anymore, not yet a teen, but is very shortly going to start going through puberty?! it’s like growing up in the desert, just learning what water is, and then getting thrown into the ocean.

because “having to raise a girl” still doesn’t seem that strange to me, but then i remember geralt didn’t see a woman and only had heard about them as a concept until he was an adult (because “warrior-monk” realness), he grew up with a hole in his heart that his absent mother bore, he lives in a highly gendered society, he experiences hostility from everybody of course but especially from women and girls, who take fright at him for… specific reasons explained by the old women in edge of the world…

no, geralt’s not helpless, but i forget, because he acts normal, but… (i mean, although he has issues, he could have really gone off his rocker with regards to women, a little sacrifice confirms this and vilgefortz embodies this) i forget that geralt’s inexperience with women… mostly manifesting in anxiety and both uncertain and impulsive behavior… like ghosting with a nosegay of flowers, the “dear friend” and all… would affect his view of the gender as a whole, including how he sees ciri. and it does.

in his situation, yes, having to raise a girl does intensify the element of “what the fuck am i doing”. especially as a single dad.

and although i do like it when the pov shifts from geralt in the saga but just to another person in the room, for how he becomes more of a distant and enigmatic figure, seeing him through others’ eyes always makes fills me with this uncertainty. buuuut, i would fucking adore blood of elves chapters two and three through geralt’s eyes just for how much of an emotional wreck he must have been… and trying not to show it to her :(

[alittlebitofloveliness]

modern day curtis and shepard gang headcannons? Like they're old men and women

Hi anon! Sorry this took so long I'm a certified human disaster and my life is kind of in shambles rn

ANYWAY modern day old outsiders headcanons:

-First of all I did some quickmaths, so Darry would be 79 in 2024, Two-bit and Tim Shepard would be 78, Steve would be 76, Soda would be 75, and Curly & Angela Shepard would be 74, and Ponyboy would be 73

-Realistically atp Two would have died of like liver failure but I'm gonna try not to make this a bummer so lets say my man is in a nursing home and spends all day flirting with the nurses and the ladies in the home (who all adore him)

-Lbr Darry would absolutely be the grumpiest of old men (him and Two are in the same home) but he also tells the best stories and is secretly a big softie so all the young, nervous nurses like him the best

-Tim Shepard would rather be dead than in a nursing home and he says as much to anyone who ever suggests he needs one. Angela keeps trying, because he's barely mobile (old injuries + arthritis) but he refuses. Angela knows it's because Sylvia is burried in the graveyard down the block from there, and Tim doesn't want to leave his best friend, even though she's been dead for years he still can't leave her

-Angela lives alone. Having grown up in a turbulent house and worked almost every day of her adult life she enjoys her solitude. Nowadays she takes her fighting spirit to Monday night bingo where she CAN and WILL still strangle you Betty Anne if you try callin' bingo again when we both knows you aint got it-

-Steve and Sodapop live together at the old Curtis house. The neighbours kids have it rough so they come around a lot. Soda bakes cakes when he's got the energy, and Steve has mellowed a bit in his old age and spoils the kids rotten even when lecturing them and basically they act like grandfathers to these two little delinquent kids, who in turn do chores around the house so Soda and Steve can KEEP living there and don't have to go into a home or something

-Curly Shepard and Ponyboy Curtis live together, in a little apartment (Pony moved back to Tulsa when he retired, and Curly followed him like he always does. It's a little inside joke of theirs, since ever since they got together they've never been apart for more than a few days). Neither of them will admit it, but Curly's mind isn't what is used to be, the result of all those head injuries when he was younger finally catching up to him, and it kills Ponyboy a little to see the confusion in his eyes and the way he gets agitated when he can't remember something.

-The Curtis brothers all do that thing where they're always on the phone with one another

-Tim, Angela, and Curly all go out for breakfast together on Saturdays

-Tim has a walking stick and uses it to whack people with

-Two-bit manages to talk one of the nurses into smuggling him extra pudding cups with his dinner and the other residents (including Darry) get real up in arms about it

-Steve and Soda have tv shows that are on at a certain time each week that they steadfastly refuse to miss even though the neighbour kids have tried convincing them to get a netflix account and showeed them how to use the DVR so they could record them

-Steve complains about modern cars and their 'new fangled technology with their screens and electric engines' not being as good as the cars from when he was young

-Darry and Ponyboy compete to see who can get the wordle in the fewest guesses and they both sulk if they lose

[maxdibert]

i want to know what do you think about Remus since you already talk about James and Sirius i really need to know :3

When someone puts a big topic on the table, in Spain we say: sujétame la cerveza lol So yeah, Lupin is one of THAT topics. Here we go:

Look, I can deal with Remus Lupin having literally zero self-esteem and a massive inferiority complex, and for that reason using Sirius and James as his safety net at Hogwarts, not stopping them when they were complete jerks because he was afraid they'd reject him and he’d end up alone. I can deal with that, I can excuse being an accomplice to bullying just like I can excuse Severus for getting involved with the Death Eaters because he saw himself as vulnerable. I forgive him, seriously. I can even forgive him for being an absolutely irresponsible adult and not taking his potion—Merlin knows why. I can let that slide too. But there are two things I can’t let slide.

The first, and less important one, is that he justified James’ actions to Harry. I mean, it's the least important because I can understand not wanting to tarnish the kid’s image of his father, but when the same kid is telling you that his father and his friends (including you) were assholes, maybe you should admit that you were a total jerk. Or that at least your friends were, and you did nothing. I get why Sirius denied his guilt because, well, Sirius Black. Like, what are you going to expect from him? To him, there was nothing wrong with it. But Remus was aware that it was wrong, and as an adult, he can admit it. You don’t have to make up some story about Snape envying James over Quidditch (lolololol like Severus Snape would remotely care about that gym-bro crap). But anyway, I see this as almost the least serious thing.

What I will never, ever forgive him for in my entire fucking life is that at 36/37 years old, with gray hair already down there, HE WAS ALMOST FORTY YEARS OLD, PEOPLE, he got a woman in her twenties pregnant, had an existential crisis, and was considering leaving her WHILE SHE WAS PREGNANT WITH HIS CHILD. WHAT IS HE DOING?? Like, I don’t even know how to express this in English because my language is Spanish, and I swear I have a ton of adjectives in that language to insult this man, but in English, it’s harder—but hello?? He was ALMOST FORTY YEARS OLD, HIS WIFE WAS TWENTY-FIVE, HE SLEPT WITH HER, GOT HER PREGNANT, AND LEFT??? HOW IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE, REMUS LUPIN?? WHAT’S IN YOUR HEAD?? Like, if he was so terrified of passing on lycanthropy to the child, why didn’t he use a condom?? Or, I don’t know, the magical equivalent—HAVE YOU HEARD OF A VASECTOMY?? And if he really, truly felt so bad about impregnating A WOMAN IN HER TWENTIES—LIKE SERIOUSLY, LET'S PUT THIS IN PERSPECTIVE: SOMEONE THIRTEEN YEARS YOUNGER THAN HIM. THIRTEEN. DAMN. YEARS. Why didn’t he just NOT DO IT? Like, as the adult in the relationship, he could’ve genuinely said no. No, this is unacceptable. No. No, sorry. So many years of gender studies and feminist readings for this. SCREW THE NICE GUYS. Like, his whole “woe is me, I’m poor, I’m old, I’m ugly, I’m dangerous” schtick? Well, you should have gone off to Timbuktu then, but don’t get her pregnant only to then abandon her. A TEENAGER HAD TO GO. A TEEN-AGER had to tell him he was being a piece of shit. This is why I say Rowling doesn’t respect her female characters because if she really did, she would have had Tonks dump him and raise the child on her own because, seriously, what was she thinking?

Just talking about this makes me genuinely angry. It's just that Lupin is THAT KIND OF GUY, you know? The one who acts all nice and soft and like he’s never broken a plate in his life, and he’s all poor me, and I’m super nice and super sweet, but then he turns out to be a huge jerk, like a giant piece of work. He’s the textbook nice guy, and one of the worst, the kind who goes after young women. Look, I’m just saying that if Harry Potter were written today and the topic of Lupin came up, and Rowling didn’t condemn him to the stake in her books, she would have been canceled a long time ago. Seriously. There’s no way that in today’s fiction a man nearly 40 years old gets a twenty-something pregnant and threatens to leave her, and that this guy is seen positively by the narrative. Simply no. Canceled. I’m canceling you, Remus Lupin, not for myself, but for feminism. Thanks.

[sciencebecameouraddiction]

my own alastor headcanons…

warnings: discussion and mention of abuse, hell, killing, racism

note: i am also getting through my asks. i promise. ☺️

second note: these are just my own head canons. things i’ve noticed, how i write alastor, what plays into why i write al the way i do… etc. purely my own opinion.

- you know the whole thing hurt people, hurt people… at the core that’s who alastor is.

- he was a mommas boy and loved his mom so much

- his father was abusive, physically, mentally and emotionally

- his father would hit his mother and alastor

- many people turned a blind eye, this taught alastor to never trust anyone and that it’s just you for yourself at a very young age

- finally, alastor was tired of seeing his mother upset and hurt so while his father was asleep he killed him. alastor was 13-15 at the time.

- i believe that alastor’s mom is in heaven

- i also believe that she helped alastor hide the body of his father. in the same bayou that alastor used when he buried his victims

- his mom never knew there was anyone else alastor killed after his father.

- after killing his dad, he started down a slippery slope. he liked the power he felt when he had control over someone’s life or death. it was all in his hands

- but alastor has been said to have a unique moral code

- so i think he would kill any adult, but it was those that were distasteful

- the fathers who were abusive, the men who preyed upon women, the women who tore families apart just because, the mothers who were abusive

- he’s the equal opportunity killer and if you’re a shitty person you were on his radar.

- he got into voodoo to help his mom

- his mom got sick, nothing could cure her, he felt helpless, weak, so he turned to something that could help when praying didn’t. voodoo didn’t help either, but it was already too late… you know what they say about power corrupting you and when you make a deal… they stick

- ladies man, little fucking flirt, charming, suave, disarming. you’d want to take him to meet your momma

- he never married in his human life, chalked up to never finding the right girl.

- no one met his momma when he was alive. like girls just weren’t brought, people just weren’t brought to meet his momma. if you met her through alastor, you were very very special to him

- never happened though!

- he had the most gorgeous southern accent when he was a young man before getting into radio.

- he was told to loose it after the first broadcast. so he adopted the transatlantic accent we hear, to be more palatable to white listeners in the south. i mean, he was given an opportunity of a life time “especially for someone like him.”

- he went to church every sunday with his mom until she died. he’s very very knowledgeable about the bible

- just intelligent over all. likes reading, very meticulous, detail oriented, sharp and quick witted.

- he is deep deep deep down insecure. buried under years of acting like he’s the shit; pretending he’s amazing and the self assured confidence needed to be the radio host he was. this only became buried deeper when he went to hell.

- having someone who is supposed to protect you tear you down when you’re a kid does shit to you. (his dad)

[mariacallous]

More than a decade since Russian lawmakers banned "LGBTQ+ propaganda," the Kremlin's self-declared crusade for "traditional values" has found a new target — Russians who don't want children.

On Nov. 12, the Russian State Duma voted to outlaw the support and promotion of "childfree propaganda," effectively imposing fines on those who publicly express such views.

Once approved by the upper house of the country's parliament and signed into force by Russian President Vladimir Putin, individuals can be fined around $4,000; state officials will see a $8,000 fine, while the fine for businesses can hit up to around $50,000 and get the company's license revoked for 90 days.

Being vague in its interpretation, the legislation could be used to target advertising or selling of contraceptives and further restrict abortion rights. A last minute exception was made in the law for those who have chosen to remain celebate for religious reasons, such as monks, at the request of the Russian Orthodox Church.

The term "childfree" describes adults who have consciously decided not to have children, rather than those who may not be able to give birth. While it first hit the feminist mainstream in the 1970s, interest in the term has grown in recent years as more young women discuss their own complex decisions on child-rearing online.

That, according to Russian officials, is a threat — both to Russia's social fabric and its already plummeting birth rate. In June 2024, Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Irina Yarovaya equated being childfree with a weapon "aimed at Russia's younger generations."

"When we talk about protecting life, law enforcement officers know what to do. If you have a person with a weapon in their hands, they act as decisively as possible," she told visitors at the St. Petersburg International Legal Forum. "So how should we act here when we are also dealing with weapons that are aimed at younger generations?"

On the surface, the law may seem superfluous. There is no wave of childfree activism in Russia and no organizations advocating for the rights of adults without children. The law is also unlikely to affect Russia's sluggish demographics: couples who wish to have children often have more pressing concerns, such as the country's uncertain economic and political scene.

"The law is striking in the sense that it seems so completely unnecessary; it seems like a response to something that doesn't really exist," says Dr. Valerie Sperling, professor of political science at Clark University in Massachusetts.

"For people who want to have children, it's not like a post from someone who says they don't want to have kids, or even a post saying that other people shouldn't have kids, is going to change their mind."

But such laws do have benefits for the Russian government — both at home and on the global stage.

Patriotism and conformity

Russia's declining birth rate has been a key concern for the Kremlin since the 2000s. In many ways, the move to ban "childfree propaganda" is the latest in the long line of pro-natalist policies, which range from the practical — such as providing cash payments to families following their children's birth — to the repressive, such as limiting abortion rights.

Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine, however, has sent this long-standing policy into overdrive. State messaging on the importance of childbearing has become increasingly aggressive in recent years, says Sperling. In a speech to mark Women's Day in March 2024, Putin described motherhood as women's greatest gift and a "glorious mission."

A year prior, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Putin and Russian Presidential Commissioner for Children's Rights Maria Lvova-Belova, over the deportation of Ukrainian children from Russian occupiead parts of the country.

Putin previously praised Lvova-Belova for her work overseeing the deportation of Ukrainian children, portraying it as a so-called "humanitarian effort" to "protect Russian citizens."

Lvova-Belova claimed that 700,000 Ukrainian children have been brought to Russia since the start of the full-scale invasion.

One factor of the Russian state now going against the local population unwilling to have children is rooted in how society's image of patriotism meets with gender roles.

If men are pushed to show national pride during wartime by enlisting, women are similarly expected to show their devotion by raising children loyal to the state. "The reason that pro-natalism is highlighted during wartime is because women's status as mothers is what lends them their patriotism. Women are supposed to be dedicated to the cause by raising future soldiers and supporting whatever wars the state engages in," Sperling says.

But it also reflects how Russian society has become increasingly repressive. Pro-natalist laws can also be used to punish or pressure those who do not conform to the state's narrow vision of what a family should be. Russian lawyers have already raised concerns that the "childfree propaganda" bill is vaguely worded and could be interpreted to stifle conversations on anything from abortion to birth control.

It could also become an additional legal tool for the Russian security services to punish those who stand against Moscow's invasion of Ukraine — particularly feminist activists who have become a key part of Russia's small anti-war resistance.

"Targeting feminists is one of the presidential administration's main goals, as they know that women's protests are currently the strongest and most powerful force within the country," says feminist activist Ira Heuvelman.

On a practical level, she worries that the law will impede sex education for teenagers, resulting in a rise in unwanted pregnancies and illegal abortions. But she also believes that the law could be used to target any woman without children who is involved in opposition activity.

"Pregnant women or those with children are less likely to have the power to resist (the government), given the many economic and social pressures they face," she says. "They will likely find some high-profile cases and imprison individuals to scare others. Even though "child-free propaganda" only exists in the minds of the presidential administration, they will manage to fabricate cases and bring them to trial, making the process as public as possible."

A global signal

Such laws, however, are not purely domestic tools. As with the ongoing persecution of the LGBTQ+, legislating against "childfree propaganda" is being marketed by the Kremlin as part of a global struggle for socially conservative values.

When discussing the law at the end of September, Vyacheslav Volodin, the speaker of Russia's lower house of parliament, told journalists that childfree ideology was being promoted by the United States. "Our country is vast and their (U.S.) ideology is dangerous. Under no circumstances should it be allowed to spread," he said.

For the Kremlin, the image of Moscow as a conservative bastion against a degenerating "liberal West" is a vital soft power tool, says Dr. Jenny Mathers, senior lecturer in the International Politics Department at the University of Aberystwyth. It portrays Russia as an ally of countries and leaders that share similarly conservative, often oppressive social tastes.

"There are some key countries, especially in the global south, where this message of 'traditional values' really seems to resonate," says Mathers. "It serves a foreign policy purpose. It's one way of creating a more positive image of Russia in the wider world, at least for some."

Socially conservative rhetoric and policies have helped Russia find common ground with countries with whom it may otherwise have little in common. These emotive topics can also be used to stress resentment towards the West. "They tap into the shared sense of yes, we too are feeling oppressed by the West and their demands that we should give rights to LGBTQ+ people and so on," says Mathers. "It makes some communities in the international arena more sympathetic towards Russia, more willing to listen to what Russia has to say."

Once they have that sympathetic ear, Moscow can also use that opening to gain support for its own goals. The conservative rhetoric to which the "childfree propaganda" bill belongs does not just provide an identity for Russia on the global stage — it is also a platform that can be used and twisted to justify the country's invasion of Ukraine.

Russian officials have repeatedly spoken of the need to "save" Ukraine from liberal Western values by bringing it back under Russian control.

When Putin announced the start of the full-scale invasion in a televised address on Feb. 24, 2022, he decried a West that "sought to destroy our traditional values and force on us their false values … attitudes that are directly leading to degradation and degeneration, because they are contrary to human nature."

Days later, the leader of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, insinuated to worshippers that Russia was protecting Ukraine's Donbas region, consisting of partly occupied Donetsk and Luhansk oblasts, from Western governments angry that the region did not want to hold a pride parade.

"It's this idea of Western deviance versus Russian purity and morality," says Sperling.

"The implication is that Russia was obliged to invade Ukraine to prevent the irrational, immoral, perverse Western incursions on Russia that would take place if Ukraine remained an independent state. That is where it all ties together."

[atopvisenyashill]

what role do you think shiera seastar played in daeron ii's governance of westeros?

okay so first of all. shiera is roughly the same age/generation as all of daeron’s kids - the timeline is vague but the gap of years she could have been born in is like right at the tail end of rhaegal and maekar’s births to several years after. so i imagine that not dissimilar to daenerys, daeron takes more of a very distant brother/paternal role with her. a girl is not a threat the way a boy is, she’s young enough to be his own kid, and she's a motherless child, so it’s fine, she’s raised at court with his kids and he doesn't complain too much about it. i do wonder if part of shiera being raised at court is instigated by myriah and also what "raised at court" could even mean - Maekar is anywhere from like 4 to 10 when daeron becomes king (bloodraven is roughly around the same age as Maekar, maybe a year to four years older) which means Shiera is under 10 as well, as young as a toddler (i mean hell, if she's born at the tail end of Aegon's reign, she could be the same age as Valarr who is Daeron's grandson). So depending on when it is she's born, is she at KL or does Daeron ask for her to be brought to Dragonstone? I mean, how set up was Daeron's court at Dragonstone? It had to have existed at least on a small scale because Daeron takes the capital bloodlessly after Aegon IV dies.

SO. Anyways I think it's not likely she does very much at the beginning of his reign due to being around the same age as, at the oldest his second youngest son and at the youngest the same age as his first grandchild. Coupled with the fact that her mother is dead and foreign born, being from Lys, she likely lives the life of a typical lady at court but potentially without the pressure to marry. Yes, she's a bastard, but she's a legitimized one, beloved by the royal family, with a sister-by-law who comes from a culture that seems to believe if you have a bastard, you best act like a responsible parent for that child (not to say Dorne doesn't have it's own bastard based issues, see: Obara BUT I do think someone like Robert would not be allowed to just leave all his bastards all scattered about willy nilly. I think it's likely those children and their mothers have the ability to push for acknowledgement in a way a lot of bastards north of the marches don't). I also think the fact that Shiera's mother is foreign born would help ingratiate her with Myriah and Daeron's kids - we know Larra felt like an outcast, I think it's likely Shiera bonds with the royal family over feeling like she's culturally on the outs.

By the time she's an adult, the Blackfyre Rebellion is in full swing. So - does she take on a more advisory role when she gets older? I think it's possible. Here are some choice quotes:

"You've known queens and princesses. Did they dance with demons and practice the black arts?" "Lady Shiera does. Lord Bloodraven's paramour. She bathes in blood to keep her beauty. And once my sister Rhae put a love potion in my drink, so I'd marry her instead of my sister Daella."

-the Sworn Sword

Bloodraven proved to be a capable Hand, but also a master of whisperers who rivaled Lady Misery, and there were those who thought he and his half sister and paramour, Shiera Seastar, used sorcery to ferret out secrets. It became common to refer to his "thousand eyes and one," and men both high and low began to distrust their neighbor for fear of their being a spy in Bloodraven's employ. 

-The World of Ice and Fire

"You can know a man by his friends, Egg. Daeron surrounded himself with maesters, septons, and singers. Always there were women whispering in his ear, and his court was full of Dornishmen. How not, when he had taken a Dornishwoman into his bed, and sold his own sweet sister to the prince of Dorne, though it was Daemon that she loved? Daeron bore the same name as the Young Dragon, but when his Dornish wife gave him a son he named the child Baelor, after the feeblest king who ever sat the Iron Throne.

-the Sword Sword

We know very little about Shiera at this moment in time but I think it's not unlikely that for the middle part of Daeron's reign, when it seems Baelor & Valarr have taken the lead on going out and about in the kingdom, that Shiera was acting in some sort of advisory capacity (nothing official, similar to Elaena in that she's working behind the scenes rather than sitting on the council) and some people had a bit of an issue with it. I think it's not unlikely that as Daeron got older, he might have distanced himself from her but by that point she had an in: no i'm not talking about bloodraven i'm talking about Aerys. Aerys immediately made Bloodraven hand and while I give Daeron some shit for not getting Bloodraven under control, it's ultimately Aerys that really lets Bloodraven go crazy with his police state and I think Shiera has big hand in that, perhaps on par with Lady Mysaria. Or at least, I hope she does lmao, and I think it's interesting that both Mysaria and Serenei, Shiera's mom, are from Lys. Maybe Shiera being mentioned in conjunction with Mysaria and Bloodraven is nothing, but I think what's most likely is that as Shiera got older and started dabbling with more magic, she took up a sort of Court Sorceress role a la Melisandre, at the behest of King Aerys I himself - and why wouldn't he turn to her? It's likely they were raised together!

[andreal831]

Esther "Mikaelson" and Misogyny

The misogyny in TVDU, in both the writing and the fandom, is exhausting. It comes out so much, especially when it comes to complex women versus complex men. Esther (yes, I know her last name is not Mikaelson), is not one of my favorite characters, she's not even a character I particularly like. But to act like she is an absolute villain with no redeeming qualities is a best misogynist, and at worst blaming a victim of abuse.

Most of the hate for Esther tends to come from certain character stans because they don't like how Esther treated their favorite character or want to shift the responsibility of their favs to Esther so that they don't have to deal with a complex, morally grey character.

Esther is a survivor many times over and we cannot talk about her without first acknowledging that. When she was just a teenager/young adult, her entire family was slaughtered and she and her sister were kidnapped. I know there is a lot of debate in the psychology community regarding Stockholm syndrome, but her falling for Mikael screams a manipulated, traumatized, naïve, young woman.

Esther and Mikael

Whether it was Mikael's intent initially or not, he took advantage of the mental place she was at when they met. People recently have wanted to argue whether or not Esther was abused, but this is not a debate. First, there are many different types of abuse, mental, physical, emotional, financial, etc.

During this time period, while Norse communities tended to give woman more power, Esther was from "outside" their community. Her rank in the community would come directly from her marriage. I personally don't know if she went into her relationship with Mikael in order to gain security or if she was just truly that naïve and wanted love and a family. There is nothing wrong with either. It reminds me of why Hayley decided to try and actually have a relationship with Jackson. Woman have historically had to make hard decisions in order to gain protection. And even if she just wanted to get married and have kids, that is fine. Esther reminds me of Meg March. Her dreams may have been different than Dahlia but that doesn't make them less important.

We see very little of their human lives and it is told from everyone else's perspective except for Esther. We also know that everyone's stories are not accurate. Klaus lied about Esther's death for a thousand years. He also has a tendency from not seeing things through other perspectives. Klaus, and even Elijah, when they talk about their human lives, focus on Mikael's abuse on Klaus because the show centers around Klaus and doing everything they can do to redeem him. There is no benefit to making Esther look complex or going into how living with Mikael impacted her. But it is naïve to say she didn't suffer abuse. She lived in a household with a violent, angry man. Even if he didn't physically hit her, which we honestly don't know but I would find that extremely hard to believe, it is clear he verbally, emotionally, and financially abused her.

People love to say she is a powerful witch and could have stopped him or left, but this is shifting the blame from the abuser to the victim. First, abuse isn't about who is stronger. This logic is completely dismissing so much abuse that happens, especially women abusing men. Yes, Esther is a powerful witch, but if she had no other options outside of Mikael, being powerful doesn't matter. We know she would put Mikael to sleep for long periods to protect her and her children. We don't know if she did anything else, but we have at least one example of her using her magic to intervene. We also know she stopped practicing for a long time because of her fear of dark magic and how the community treated Dahlia.

We also have to acknowledge that Esther had very few choices. Sure, she could kill Mikael but she would have gotten sentenced to death for that. Again, her position in the community came from her connection to Mikael, otherwise she was just another enslaved person from a village they raided. We know how Dahlia was treated. Maybe she could have run off with Ansel and they would have protected her from Mikael, or if he was dead, the villagers, but this is putting her, her children, and the pack in a dangerous situation. Potentially starting a war between the pack and the village for aiding and abetting a kin-slayer. She would also be acknowledging her affair and adultery by woman was met by serious punishments, usually death. After committing matricide, she also wouldn't have claims to Mikael's money or land as an outsider. Maybe in the "new world," but she would have to hide her involvement in his death. Esther would have no money or land of her own as her familial land and money would have been claimed when it was raided.

While women in Norse communities did experience more freedom than other areas of the world at that time, they were still far from free. This is especially true considering how Esther came to this community. While she wasn't enslaved in a way Dahlia was, it is wrong to say she wasn't still enslaved. Her entire village was killed and her and her sister were forced to come to their village and live amongst them as hostages. Esther was kept as a way to keep Dahlia in line. She was not welcomed into the community. This was a common practice during these raids.

The reason I get so angry when people attack Esther as if she wasn't a victim is because real-life victims hear this everyday. Esther's situation perfectly exemplifies the "non-perfect" victim and the fandom perfectly exemplifies how many of these victims are treated.

Esther and Dahlia

Dahlia gets way more slack than Esther because she is a "more perfect victim." But again, we are getting the story from everyone's perspective but Esther. Yes, what Dahlia went through was horrible, but what she put her sister through was also horrible. Those two things are not mutually exclusive.

Dahlia had no right to expect Esther to give up her dreams for her, even though she did sacrifice a lot for Esther. She made that decision and took it on. Yes, it was noble, but again, she cannot expect anything for a choice she made. It is just like Klaus expecting his siblings to never leave him and punishing them when they do. Siblings do not owe each other their lives. I would also not blame Dahlia for leaving Esther behind to protect herself.

On top of that, when Esther went to Dahlia and asked for help, she took advantage of the situation and stole her child. I don't care what Esther promised or how much she understood of the situation, clearly at the moment Dahlia came for Freya, Esther did not want to give her up. If we look at it in a modern perspective, a mother who puts her child up for adoption has the right to change their mind because, morally, we understand it is impossible to understand how you will feel until that moment. If a person than steals the child after the mom changes their mind, that's kidnapping. If we look at it from a historical perspective, Norse communities were patriarchal and the children belonged to Mikael. Meaning Esther did not have the ability to "sell" her children.

Dahlia is given a lot of sympathy in the fandom because they relate her story to Klaus, who they spend a lot of time victimizing. So it makes an easy leap to paint Dahlia as the victim and Esther as the "evil" one. But again, we never see how Esther reacted to her sister casting her aside because she wanted love and a family. or how Mikael treated her throughout their relationship. Even if Dahlia ended up being right about Mikael, whether he was always evil or turned evil losing Freya, Dahlia doesn't get to make that decision for Esther. It is hard to watch someone you love get into an abusive relationship, but you can't tell someone what to do with their life. All you can do is try and be there for them when they need help.

Esther and Klaus

Another reason people hate on Esther is because of her relationship with Klaus. I personally think Esther loved Klaus the most because of who his father was. She babies him in a way she never did with the other's. We even see Finn resenting her treatment of Klaus because of it.

Yes, she does give him the necklace which ends up making Mikael target him to "make him strong." But, one, let's blame the abuser and not shift blame to a fellow victim. And two, what would you have her do? Sure the answer is probably, don't have an affair, but then your fav character wouldn't be there. Also, again, she was young and naïve. She also gets more blame for having an affair than Mikael does for beating a child. She made a mistake and did everything she could to protect Klaus from that mistake. Was it misguided, maybe, but her intention was good. She wanted to protect Klaus from Mikael finding out.

The fact that Esther can forgive Klaus for brutally murdering her shows how much she loved him. Her wanting to kill her kids later is honestly understandable. She never knew the side affects of the spell she performed. She watched her children become the worst versions of themselves for a thousand years and felt the guilt for every life they took. She also knew peace existed since she had been on the other side. When she first tried to take their lives, they would have all just gone to the other side. She didn't want them to suffer but wanted the pain they inflicted on the world to end.

The Misogyny of it all

The reason I say it is misogyny, is because every favorite character in this show has done absolutely terrible things. Klaus, and all of the Mikaelsons, are serial killers. It doesn't matter what reasons they had for doing it. Esther had her own reasons for her actions. The fact that people can't acknowledge Esther as a complex character but can do so for Klaus, Damon, Elijah, Stefan, etc. shows that it is based on misogyny. Even the fact that Dahlia, someone who kidnapped and abused a child, gets more love than Esther because Esther isn't a "perfect victim" shows it is rooted in misogyny. Men are allowed to be messy and complex but when it's a woman they are either a victim or pure evil.

I'm not saying there aren't things you can't hate her for. I hated her treatment of Elijah in Season 2 of TO and her plan to harm Hope. But to ignore the complexity of the character and pretend she wasn't a victim is just harmful rhetoric. Women are allowed to be complex and morally grey.