Latest Posts by aro-in-danyl - Page 10

Goncharov (1973) dir. Martin Scorsese

“The greatest mafia movie (n)ever made.”

Hello. Welcome to the official brand tumblr of Martin Scorsese’s Goncharov (1973), a place for all things Goncharov.

Poster

Trailer I / Trailer II

Rotten Tomatoes

Winter comes to Naples.

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Goncharov Explanation

Goncharov Quick Guide

All original posts tagged with #unreality but all others will remain untagged since they are just reblogged, so please keep that in mind

had a genuine revelation in therapy that made me burst out laughing, been a while since I had one of those

DP x DC Prompt

Demon Triplets - Danny, Dani/Elle, and Damian

The triplets all go out as Robin/Phantom for a night at the same time and confuse the fuck out of everyone.

Rogue/Ghost: But who's the real Robin/Danny Phantom?!

Danny, a prankster: I'm obviously Phantom/Robyn with a y

Dani/Elle, a menace: Dani Phantom/Robin with an i

Damian, already throwing knives: Phantam/Roban with an A.

The Y.A.I. Trio if you will.

The amount of time that the Ancient Egyptian civilisation lasted is just so mind boggling. It lasted over 3000 years. That's such an insane amount of time. It ended around 30BC meaning that it will only be extinct for as long as it existed in around 950 years. Cleopatra lived closer to the invention of bitcoin than the building of the pyramids of Giza. They were already ancient to her. What the fuck

Tom’s just trying his best

wish we got to see more of their friendship :,)

“Voldemort should have gotten a fair trial.”

No, but seriously, can we talk about this? I know this was meant as a joke but it’s just so hilarious to think about.

Why did harry need to collect all of the horcruxes first when they could’ve just tossed him in with Grindelwald. 

I mean it probably wouldn’t have worked but why was ‘kill him with love, fire, venom, and the magical equivalent of ‘no u’ the first and only option???

I’m just saying I would like more Trial of Voldemort trope fics because they’re peak comedy. Or Voldemort and Grindelwald co-habituating Nurmengard and annoying the shit out of each other. It’s what they deserve.

“Voldemort should have gotten a fair trial.”

“Sauron wasn’t under the Shire’s jurisdiction. Hobbits had no authority to depose him.”

“Aslan is hypocritical for killing the White Witch because they’re the same really. They both want to rule the world and be worshiped!”

Brought to you by: the Internet’s intellectual dishonesty when discussing Mace Windu knocking Darth Sidious flat on his ass and rightfully attempting to cut him down.  

I will read a thousand fics with this trope. It’s hilarious every single time. My favorite has to be Dermabrasion by pennydaniels

have a silly drabble since I’m still unsure if the tags work properly yet ~

The idea of adult Dabi actually meeting Shoto is so insanly funny to me, like;

Dabi’s had Shoto built up as this perfect Enji 2.0 in his head his whole life, a cocky little shit who’s insanly powerful and pretty and popular and better than him in any way, and god he hates him for it!

But, they somehow meet, and somehow they have to work together for something, (let’s say it’s a league as vigilantes au or smt), and Dabi is like, side-eyeing him super hard, being short and harsh towards him, expecting Shoto to do the same, but no

Sweet, dense Shoto doesn’t even pick up on it, he’s just like

«yes, yes, I heard you are my brother and I must say it is nice you are not dead after all, now, shall we do what we need to do?»

and Dabi is just like…

«is this motherfucker being funny? is he trying me???»

Shoto is, of course, just doing his thing, and Dabi slowly realizes as they go, and while they do the mission they’re supposed to, Dabi is slowly coming to terms with the fact that he’s spent the last 16-17 years feeling threatened by this unaware little bean of a boy, and it is leading him to a full blown existentional crisis.

Shoto, however. just thinks they had a nice time together ☺️🥰

I was on the bus thinking about Harry Potter tonight and I remembered the part where the Dementors all show up at the Quidditch game, and I remembered how they were all looking up at Harry, and I wondered why they would all be staring at him, and then I realized that it’s because he has two souls in him.

harry raised by lily (and petunia...and kinda snape) snippet, first year, “cokeworth coven” (+wbwl?) fanfiction

Severus was a very terrible driver, so Harry was quite grateful when his aunt pushed him into the passenger seat and took the wheel herself. His mother sat in the back of the old sedan with him, quite uninterested in Severus’s foul-mouthed complaints up front, and instead looked encouragingly to her son.

Keep reading

I want to read a combo of the potions mistress and come once again and love me. So 38 yr old nasty lily encounters 38 yr old bitchass snape in their alternate universe thing but in their 16 yr old bodies

Muggleborn Conspiracy of the Statute of Secrecy

Anyone think how weird it is that none of the Muggleborns question the Statute of Secrecy? 

Even if you think Rowling is correct that re-introducing magic to muggles would be a very bad idea there’s always that one special pick-me 11 yr. old who thinks they’ll be the one to change things. Having a special secret that no one knows about and living with a bunch of kids your age and no parents is fun in the short-term, but you can’t tell me these kids didn’t get frustrated with the no magic during the summer rule, the exclusion of their parents from magical events (muggle parents could also be targeted by trigger-happy aurors, so there’s the constant fear that your parents could be obliviated), the muggleborn discrimination, and even just the difference in culture could be jarring. 

That’s enough to make any kid frustrated and want to change things. So why don’t they? 

I have no ducking clue but I’m gonna find out. 

Muggleborns find out about the wizarding world before their first year at Hogwarts on their 11th birthday. Why not earlier? 

First, let’s look at it from the angle of moving to a new country vs being a tourist in one. You see the pamphlets and the guidebooks; they all talk about how amazing this place is. The travel agent (aka the Hogwarts professor) that’s been working with you had done all of the hard work for you. In both instances you probably see the destination through rose-tinted glasses in the beginning. But if you’re living there eventually the glasses come off and you start to get opinions about how to make it a better place and more accommodating for you. 

Telling Muggleborns earlier gives them time to get used to the new culture they’ve found themselves in, and the lack of school gives the parents more opportunity to explore it too. But by being introduced so close to the beginning of the school year, the introduction to the wizarding world becomes all about school and preparing for that aspect of this new culture. Everything else is secondary to that and it puts both the parents and the child at a disadvantage. It also makes this new world feel more temporary. For example, the difference between dual citizenship vs studying abroad on a temporary student visa (not an exact comparison but you get what I mean right?). All the parents know is that their kid needs to learn how to control their magic and they need to go to magic school to do that. The parents and the kid probably aren’t told what happens after, the kid at least is definitely not thinking about the long-term. 

When you tell the kids right before school starts and offer a professor to guide them through the world, the parents don’t exactly get time to adjust and learn with their kid. And before they get the chance to bond as a family over this crazy new world they’ve found themselves in, the kid is off to boarding school and whoops how the fuck are the parents going to explore now without A) magic B) being obliviated by uncaring Aurors C) a convenient magical guide or D) getting past the anti-muggle wards.  

Then once the kid comes back from school for the summer, it’s not a family experience anymore: it’s an us vs parents. The parents have missed out on the cultural immersion. The kid gets irritated because not only are they not allowed to do magic during the summer but their parents just seem so ignorant and oblivious now. They keep asking questions about the magical world the kid doesn’t want to talk about it bc they’ll have to explain every other word and it just reminds them that they’re not allowed to do magic did you make friends? mudbloods stick together but they can’t tell their parents about that part bc what if they try to kick up a fuss. The purebloods could kill them and no one would care did you try anything new? someone dosed them with a love potion for a day and was mad when they got upset about it. and how was school? what was the school like? the staircase is a death trap mom. There was a whole corridor sectioned off bc whatever was there could kills us dad. My friend told me you could get sent to the forbidden forest in the dead of night for detention while a unicorn killer was on the loose. I’m scared but I can’t tell you bc they won’t listen to you and if you’re too loud they’ll just obliviate you. 

The parents want to help but being away from them has made the child distance themselves from needing their parents help. I also imagine that all of the anti-muggle talk might’ve gotten to them a little bit. Kids aren’t saints, they like to believe that they know better and being surrounded by other kids who were also thinking the same thing did not help. And in this case, where they have something their parents will never have in a world their parents will never be able to enter without them I imagine some of them starting feeling a little superior Hermione. And the thing is they’re right in a way, the parents didn’t get to experience the culture, the discrimination, the people, the context. Muggleborn children themselves are kind of gatekeeping this knowledge to weaponize the parents ignorance for their own benefit. As the parents continuously stay ignorant, the children steadily feel more justified in their belief that they know best. They’re doing the Purebloods job for them. 

The Wizarding government is actually very clever for doing this. It’s sick but you can’t deny it’s effectiveness. 

If you tell the kid that they have magic earlier, then it gives the muggle parents time to adjust with their child and create a united front. It also gives them time to find other Muggleborn kids and parents experiencing the same thing. 

But if you tell them right before they legally have to go to school...the Wizarding World appears like this mystical solution to the Muggleborn parent’s problems after years of unexplained accidental magic. It also has the added benefit of weeding out the more extreme end of the anti-magic parents bc those that didn’t tolerate the accidental magic probably got rid of their kid one way or another so now the Wizarding World doesn’t have to worry about policing those parents or helping that kid from an abusive home! (it’s dark I know but this is a government we’re talking about. You can read worse in the news.) It definitely didn’t catch all of the abusive muggle parents, Harry Potter notwithstanding, but I digress. The parents that did keep their kid could develop a strained relationship with them due to accidental magic and the parents not believing the kids. Then there’s probably the lack of muggle friends due to said accidental magic in one way or another. The kid is feeling freakish but special, alone, scared, and frustrated that no one seems to know how they can do the things they do. The parents were at their wits end when magic came knocking and offered them a solution. 

This scenario didn’t happen to every Muggleborn but I imagine there were enough of them going through some variation of this and that’s enough for the Wizarding World. 

The Statute of Secrecy stays intact because Muggleborns aren’t introduced into the world early enough to question it beyond the surface level. And by the time they realize what they’ve gotten themselves into, they’ve deluded themselves into thinking things are better this way. 

And for the few that grow up still desiring the Statute’s abolishment, what are they going to do as a lone ranger standing against the wealthy pureblood elites? They can’t get anywhere of note without a Pureblood’s backing and breaking the Statute would result in mass chaos, it’s unprofitable, why would they endorse it? Not to mention, in the aftermath of Grindelwald any talk of that would be shut down quick. 

You said in another post you don’t believe the Knights of Walpurgis (aka Death Eaters 1.0) were all that plausible. Why is that?

Oof, this is a larger ask than I think you intend that gets into a lot of controversial things. Though, I suppose that’s what this blog has become.

Remember when I just talked about my weird fanfiction? Remember those days? I remember those days.

I guess to start out we need to go at a high level and acknowledge a few things.

For all we know about Tom Riddle’s life we know very little that came from himself. Most of what we know came to us via The Halfblood Prince, in Dumbledore’s lessons to Harry.

Think what you will about Dumbledore, benign or evil, but we can all acknowledge that the man had a clear goal and agenda in Halfblood Prince. Dumbledore was facing his imminent death, suddenly he no longer was looking at years but a few months to accomplish everything he needed to. He knows Harry is a horcrux, knows he himself no longer has time to hunt down Tom’s horcruxes himself, and instead must leave all his work to Severus and, partly, to Harry Potter.

Specifically, he has to groom Harry for suicide.

By the time Severus relays the truth to Harry (never mind that this very nearly didn’t happen in canon and what would Dumbledore do then) Harry must be prepared to sacrifice his own life to stop Voldemort. That, or Severus will have to murder the shit out of him, and that was probably plan B but Dumbledore would prefer it if Harry went along willingly so that the whole thing’s a little less shady. Dumbledore’s not murdering children if the children murder themselves!

This means, in part, convincing Harry that Voldemort is such a monstrous evil that his presence on this earth cannot be tolerated. Voldemort cannot be allowed to survive, even if Harry’s death does not guarantee Voldemort’s destruction, Harry must do it because Voldemort is that bad. There must be no hope, no recourse, and the only action Harry can take is martyrdom. 

And so, that is essentially what Dumbledore does. 

He gives Harry a series of lessons, hand selecting memories of Tom Riddle’s past (often shockingly innocuous), and then narrates them to tell Harry exactly why Tom Riddle is so evil today. The flimsy excuse of Harry wheedling information out of Slughorn is nice, but not necessary, as Dumbledore has no reason to believe this memory contains information he himself doesn’t already know (indeed, that Tom actually did make six horcruxes as he told Slughorn is a very strange coincidence as we rarely end up doing what we thought or being where we thought we would when we were sixteen). 

Per Dumbledore, Tom Riddle was born evil by his very conception, is doomed to be a lowly miserable creature, and that murdering him is effectively putting him out of his misery.

Right, how does this relate to this post?

Well, neverminding what JKR says outside of canon, we learn about the Knights of Walpurgis/Tom’s schoolboy syncophants from Dumbledore. Per Dumbledore, Tom Riddle, while a highly respected and charming student was Evil McEvil who had junior cultists galore. So, you see Harry, the man must die (ergo you must kill yourself).

However, this is frankly ridiculous and not in any way believable.

First, the Hogwarts era when Tom’s in school.

Personally, I believe Tom was regarded 100% as muggleborn. Tom went into Hogwarts with the last name Riddle coming from the muggle world. When he gets sorted into Slytherin he can point to know family members at all (and even if he could would, at best, be considered a low class halfblood). Tom doesn’t know the significance of parseltongue and likely tells no one (I’ll get into this in a few paragraphs). Tom may insist that he could be a halfblood, he knows nothing of his father, but given his origins he himself probably believes he’s muggleborn until he stumbles across the hereditary nature of parseltongue.

Regardless, Tom is impoverished, comes from lower class muggle London, has the last name Riddle, no relatives to vouch for him, and you want me to think that the purebloods sign up to be his cult members?

Even though Tom is terrifyingly talented and brilliant, he will be fighting for respect every inch of the way. At best, I see the Slytherin’s tolerating his presence. Riddle’s tolerable, for a muggleborn, it’s a shame that he has such dirty blood but they’ll admit he’s a talented sort.

However, as soon as he’s out of Hogwarts they’ll drop him like it’s hot.

This is evidenced by a few things. Upon graduation, Tom Riddle struggles to secure employment. He tries for the Defense position but is unvested and a recent graduate, and so is rejected (and when he later tries again Dumbledore laughs in his place and says, “Bitch please, I will never hire you, I just accepted your application so I could spend this interview laughing in your face!”) He does not enter the ministry, which would likely have been far more beneficial to getting him a leg up in society.

No, Tom instead secures employment as a clerk and purchaser at Borgin and Burke’s the wizarding world’s shadiest pawn shop equivalent where he spends his time miserably wooing older women so they’ll sell him their fine goods. Dumbledore tries to convince us this was Tom’s plan, that he somehow knew about the locket beforehand, but this is bullshit. How the hell would Tom know that the heirloom undoubtedly locked away under safe and key had been sold to Borgin and Burkes? And even if he did, why would Tom take up this miserable position doing nothing he wanted to do? 

Whatever minions Tom is supposed to have, whatever friends, they dropped him completely, pretended they never knew him, and did nothing to secure Tom’s future.

Now, back to the parseltongue bit since I made a promise. I believe Tom told no one. Had Tom told the Slytherins he was the Heir of Slytherin, this would have spread like wild fire not only across the house but the school. All the staff would remember Tom as Tom Slytherin, Tom would likely have changed his name, and frankly Tom probably would have been able to get into the ministry with a name like that. Tom Riddle’s life would have looked very different.

More, had the Chamber of Secrets episode happened in a world where Tom proves his heritage, he would have immediately been caught. Someone in Slytherin, even if only a few dormmates knew, would have narked on him. Someone would have been jealous, scared, etc. and would have turned him easily over to the authorities. A secret like that simply cannot be kept, it would spread, and there would be no needing to frame Hagrid and none of Tom getting off. 

More, I always got the feeling very few knew that Voldemort had once been Tom Riddle. First, it would make recruiting very difficult. Voldemort is the mysterious, beautiful, heir of Slytherin who has come back from abroad to save their country. Tom Riddle is a dirt poor mudblood who comes from decades of incest and squalor.

Given the wizarding world at large does not know who Tom Riddle is (proved by The Chamber of Secrets) I would suspect the vast majority of Death Eaters and Order members didn’t either. Dumbledore was the one who pieced it together thanks, in part, to a ten-year-old Tom Riddle confessing his parseltongue abilities.

If Tom Riddle had told most people he was a parseltongue, far more would have made the connection, it would be common knowledge. Which means, of course, Tom Riddle has no ability to prove his heritage and is thus muggleborn swine.

More, I think Tom wouldn’t want Tom Riddle to be associated with Voldemort. When he becomes Voldemort, he will transcend his lackluster origins and become far more than an ordinary, mortal, man. He will leave the name Riddle behind and no one will remember that boy. He will eclipse his past.

Not to mention, that if Tom gave them the excuse of his heritage, it means giving himself the easy way out in Hogwarts. They won’t be forced to acknowledge him, acknowledge that he’s better than them despite his roots, but instead given the easy excuse of “oh, it’s because he’s the heir of Slytherin, duh”. And I think Tom would loathe the idea of that.

Tom wanting to eradicate the memory of Tom Riddle is especially why I think Voldemort came out of nowhere in the 70′s.

Tom doesn’t want to be recognized as Tom, he wants to be mysterious and originless, to give the purebloods everything they want to believe in. If it’s people he went to school with, they’ll recognize him, he’ll be just an ordinary mortal to them. If it’s their young, stupid, children well then he has a real chance. 

Voldemort is a figure of myth, something that appears to come out of legend itself, the savior of his country.

He cannot have origin let alone Tom Riddle’s. 

Not to mention the idea that multiple people waited on Tom Riddle for generations, even for decades where we know he went abroad and travelled the world, is utterly ridiculous. Why would they ever do this? What do they even gain from this? And why would it take so long to take over this ridiculously incompetent country THAT ALL OF TOM’S RECRUITS ARE PRACTICALLY SET TO CONTROL (the beauty of the Death Eaters is that they form a good chunk of the Wizengamot, and in using them, Tom Riddle effectively destroys the country from the inside out, which I believe was his true goal the entire time). 

If Tom Riddle is so terrible, so horrifyingly competent, then it can’t have taken him fifty years of constant work to topple the country. 

So, yeah, there were no Death Eaters 1.0.

Hey, you once mentioned something about Tom Riddle being a little suicidal. Your new post reminded of that and I wonder why you think that. It’s the complete opposite of what the books want you to think.

Alright, it’s time, let’s do this.

My standard disclaimer whenever we venture into the dark pit that is my thoughts on Tom Riddle: I’m going to say a lot of controversial stuff that fandom generally doesn’t agree with, I will say so much of this shit that I simply do not have time to explain it all, I expect 99% of you to disagree with me and the other 1% to be so horrifyingly offended that I dare to contemplate a world in which Tom isn’t always an overly competent psychopath that they leave me notes telling me to take this trash out of their character tags.

We good? Alright.

So, when I say a little suicidal, I mean that he is suicidal.

Not on the level that he’s going to kill himself tomorrow, or even has plans to kill himself, but in that he makes very strange decisions for someone who desperately wants to live.

And yes, I realize I speak blasphemy given that Tom Riddle’s entire m.o. is supposed to be his crippling fear of death.

Oh man, this one’s going to be so long.

So, my reasoning comes down to a few things:

The location of the horcruxes and the nature of their protections.

The events of Deathly Hallows and Tom’s final actions in the novel

The nature of horcruxes and what it means to not only be able to create one but what it does to you (caveat that I am going to headcanon hard here and speak utter blasphemy)

So, let’s start in order this time, because I think the first two are actually far easier for me to explain.

The Location and Nature of the Horcrux Protections and the Trouble with Backdoors in Security

So, first, the horcruxes are all conveniently located in Great Britain. Not even just in Great Britain, all in places that Albus Dumbledore and later Harry Potter can track down with relative ease, all fairly close to each other.

Now, part of this is undoubtedly attributable to Tom’s overly romantic nature. 

Yes, Tom Riddle is a giant romantic, though not necessarily in the traditional sense everyone thinks of. The film “Patton” and its treatment of Patton comes to mind. Tom Riddle is a man enamored by a sense of greatness, of being remembered in this world rather than fading into oblivion, by the significance of places and times in history not only of the world but of himself. He creates an entire, grand, persona for himself because to live an ordinary life for him is to be worthy of nothing.

So, given that, of course Tom places the horcruxes in sentimental locations that have personal meaning to him.

However, it also makes them perilously easy to find and collect.

By itself, this wouldn’t spark my notice.

The ability to destroy horcruxes are not easy to come by. There’s only one basilisk and it’s by chance/Lucius fucking up that Harry gains access to the necessary basilisk venom. Using Fyendfire is an incredibly dangerous thing to do and just as likely to blow up you and the next three towns over as it is to destroy a horcrux. And if there are other means of destroying a horcrux they’re just as hard to come by or just as dangerous.

It’s not quite throwing it into the fires of Mt. Doom from which it was forged but it’s pretty damn close.

So, really, without JKR’s convenient Deus Ex Machina giving both him and Dumbledore the means to actually destroy these things, Tom Riddle’s horcruxes are pretty damn safe no matter where we put them. As we see from the locket, which Regulus manages to collect but Kreacher cannot destroy even after several decades.

However, what does spark my notice, is that the horcruxes can be collected by someone other than Tom Riddle when it appears as if they were never intended to be. What do I mean by this?

From what we see, there’s no benefit to Tom if the original horcruxes are found by anyone. He doesn’t seek them out to restore his original body, they’re just anchor points that should be hidden at all costs. So, he’ll never need a Death Eater to go collect them for him should he be indisposed (indeed, to do so would require a tremendous amount of trust in people he has very little trust in). 

So, why hide them in such a way that others can access them? There are canon based options which would have prevented anyone else from reaching them. Given the existence of age lines, I imagine Tom Riddle could make some arbitrary barrier keyed only to himself. There are mokeskin pouches, such as the one Harry is given in the seventh book, which we know can only be accessed by whoever they’re keyed to. There’s the Fidelius Charm which, true requires a secret keeper which Tom would be very meh on, but options exist.

Tom Riddle could wipe the locations of his horcruxes off the face of the map. He chooses not to. Which leads me to believe that, at least on some unconscious level, he wants the horcruxes to be found.

Then we have the protections.

Specifically, I’m thinking of the locket here.

Yes, the protections are very formidable, but they’re also goddamn weird. 

Rather than make the horcrux simply inaccessible, kill all those intruding, instead the intruder has to go through a very “Saw” like puzzle in which they drown themselves in despair until they finally get the locket, at which point they likely suicide by zombie.

More, there’s no hint that there’s any other way to retrieve the locket. 

Backdoors in security are a very bad idea. What they do is weaken the security as a whole and, if you can take a short cut is, it means that someone who is clever enough and motivated enough can to. Dumbledore is both clever and motivated enough, and I imagine if there was a way to get the horcrux that involved not doing this ridiculous task he would have done it.

More, we’d be back to the land of Tom making sure only he can access the horcrux by requiring a password, keying it to his magical signature, or something so that no one else could get it.

Which means, that’s right, if Tom wants to get the locket he’s drinking the goddamn despair juice just like the rest of us.

What kind of a person would do any of this?

I’ve gone over this before, but I don’t think Tom Riddle’s crazy. Rather, in this case, I think he’s driven by an unbelievable amount of nihilist rage and is also quite depressed.

Tom goes to collect his horcrux, “Ah, it’s time to remember what a miserable life I’ve led and the sheer awfulness of my own existence. Good, I was starting to feel a little too happy. Let’s see if I get eaten by my undead, vengeful, victims today.” 

The Events of Deathly Hallows and Tom Riddle’s Death

I think Tom Riddle’s final death in the books was suicide.

Tom takes over the Wizarding World, finally, and it’s as miserable as ever.

He’s trapped in this sham, barely functional, probably very painful body. His Death Eaters are completely out of control and for all that he wanted society to burn it’s now burning and no one’s even learned anything from this. Children in Hogwarts are being routinely tortured and have now staged a rebellion in which he’s having to slaughter them (I have reasons to believe that this is not what Tom Riddle wanted, at all, but that’s best saved for another post), and then he learns his horcruxes have all been destroyed without him even noticing.

There’s so little left of him, he has accomplished nothing, and there’s Harry Potter back from the dead yet again, gloating at him that love conquers all and Tom Riddle will never understand.

And Harry’s right, Tom Riddle will never understand, the world is meaningless and flat to him now and he finally understand that there’s no point to it. I think Tom Riddle decides he’s done. He’s just done.

He enters in a duel with Harry Potter knowing the weird nature of their wands. Now, it can be assumed he used the Elder Wand, but we know they get locked in Priori Incatatum , and that makes no damn sense with the Elder Wand (well, wandlore in general is silly, but I’m working with what JKR gave me here). So I choose to take JKR at her somewhat established canon and say that, no matter what Harry thought, Voldemort was using his original wand.

He throws out the killing curse, despite having now witnessed Harry resurrecting twice to this thing, and within two seconds it rebounds and kills him.

Voldemort’s death is a lot like this scene from the recent, terrible, 2020 live action Mulan (10/10 do not recommend).  Now, we’re supposed to think that this scene is the witch saving Mulan’s life and thus showing her hope for the next generation. In actuality, the witch literally flies into an arrow she could have easily deflected from Mulan’s path. It’s a suicide that Mulan is too stupid to notice.

Tom chooses suicide in the most ridiculous, flamboyant, and easily written off manner one can and no one even notices. Instead Harry crows that he has personally defeated Voldemort, with the power of love no less, HUZZAH!

And the castle parties.

The Nature of Horcruxes

I almost don’t want to include this because it’s so... well, I’m really drifting far from canon and fandom now.

However, with horcruxes, there’s always an overriding question of why Tom is able to make so many when we don’t see anyone else with these things around (especially as it’s clear that murder doesn’t simply happen for those that now have horcruxes).

Usually, you have fic authors just sort of shrug and go, “Well, he’s that evil, I guess.” Sometimes you have them go, “No one else is crazy enough to keep going, and that’s why Voldemort’s cuckoo bananas.” 

One very good explanation I’ve seen is that it’s because most people, when they murder, feel remorse immediately. The soul split happens, but they’re haunted by the murder for the rest of their life, and thus the horcrux isn’t made. Voldemort, feeling nothing when he kills anyone, is thus able to make them even for when he’s only indirectly associated with the death in question.

However, to me that never really jived philosophically.

Mostly, I simply cannot imagine that tearing apart your very soul is an act of indifference. Here’s how I see it: to do something like that to yourself, you must care, you must care beyond all imagine and human endurance. Your soul literally cannot abide it and saws itself in half, purging what you cannot stand about yourself the most. 

The remorse part is, yes, remorse for the act and the victim but more to the point it is the ability to forgive and reaccept the worst part of yourself. That part of yourself that you purged and destroyed, which is nearly impossible to do and might very well destroy the fabric of who you are). 

In other words, while creating a horcrux is an abominable act of hatred, it is also one of profound self-hatred.

Tom Riddle loathes himself so much that he is able to do this over and over and over again. 

As Tom Riddle goes on he makes himself into less and less and less of himself until he probably doesn’t even know who he is anymore. He just knows, whatever is left of him, he loathes that too. 

And then, of course, he gives up, runs into the nearest flying arrow, and dies.

TL;DR: Tom Riddle’s is a miserable existence that ended in a miserable if unintentionally hilarious manner

THANK YOU. Finally someone says it!

I can’t even count the number of fics and hp theories I’ve read that completely ignore this fact. 

I honestly think the reason why so many people forget this is because the characters themselves never acknowledge it. And the fact that most of the people Harry surrounds himself are firmly entrenched in Magical Society. He has a lot of Pureblood allies and friends for example. I don’t think many of them understand just how deep discrimination can go. Nor do I think they understand the difference between being called a blood traitor vs a mudblood. It’s the difference between being sympathetic to muggles rather than actually being related to one and that shit matters. 

They associate anti-Muggle sentiments with Voldemort and the Death Eaters. In their minds, as soon as they’re defeated everything will go back to normal! Normal just being more subtle and unspoken discrimination that can be waved away by the few well-meaning but ignorant Purebloods, “Oh Sally from accounting said something to you? You must’ve misunderstood! I know her very well, she’s no Death Eater.” 

I’ve lost my point, if you can’t tell I’m really interested in the politics behind hp discrimination, I’m very sad that there aren’t more fics about it pre and post-Voldemort. But back to Tom. 

Another factor is the fact that Dumbledore canonically theorizes Tom had a gang of Slytherins following him called the Knights of Walpurgis (KoW) during school. I think that bit of canon is absolute garbage and I hate it because as you said: he’s perceived Muggleborn. I swear every time I read a fic with this ‘gang’ that isn’t a crack fic I want to scream. 

You’re telling me that this man worked in customer service for years voluntarily? When he had like 5 Sugar Daddies on speed-dial? Honey, please. Magic I can rationalize but KoW is just straight up unrealistic. 

Also, fun fact Dumbledore 100% knew Tom wasn’t a Muggleborn because of his Parseltongue abilities (or at least suspected). This man let Tom be discriminated against and did not say a WORD. Nor did he attempt to help find Tom’s family. And poor feral baby Tom probably didn’t tell another soul about his ability to speak to snakes during school because of Dumbledore’s reaction when he told him. 

Considering his Catholic upbringing in addition to Dumbledore’s response to learning about his in-built Snake Google Translate, Tom was probably like “Ok so the Magical world also has bad associations with snakes. Good to know.”

And then Tom probably found out Parseltongue was an indicator for Slytherin ancestry during the Chamber fiasco and flipped the fuck out. Because that meant his elitist-ass housemates were disrespecting him in what was essentially his own fucking house??? I’d be mad too if I went to school somewhere where the students worshipped the ground the founder walked on and used the founder’s beliefs to try and prove I didn’t belong. And then discover that I was related to the founder they would use as a reason to bully me? The audacity. I’d implode on the spot. 

(In answer to your last query, I headcanon that his hiatus from Britain was so he could re-brand himself. Tom Riddle was the bullied Slytherin Muggleborn. He had to disappear. Voldemort was the messiah-like cryptid who emerged from the shadows with all of life’s answers. He just needs your first born.)

Tom Riddle, aka, Voldemort was canonically perceived to be a muggleborn for many years before he found out about Merope Gaunt. Because only for muggleborns does a teacher visit the parents/guardian/orphanage. Harry was simply given a letter even though he lived in the muggle world, while McGonagall visited Hermione.

In the same vein, Dumbledore visited Tom’s orphanage to inform him about Hogwarts. 

where am i going with this?

the sorting hat put a perceived muggleborn in Slytherin. Don’t try to tell me that oh no, the sorting hat knows who or what you and your ancestors are. No it doesn’t. It reads your mind. it’s very much possible (and by that, i mean i’m certain) that the gaunts did not attend hogwarts.

He might’ve turned out to be a half blood, but at the time, he was considered muggleborn, both by magic and by himself-even though he hated the thought of it.

there are muggleborns in slytherin.

slytherin is cunning and ambition. not blood purity.

(also, i do not understand how people like the malfoys and the blacks and the lestranges and other blood purity fanatics followed a perceived muggleborn. like did voldy tell them that oh no, i’m a half blood? or was it because he was so charismatic that he made them forget that essentially, he was not a pureblood?)

Anyway the history of orphanages in the UK and Ireland is a history of violence and in the 1920s, Tom would have been sent to a workhouse by about age 8 had he not been adopted (often this meant sold- sometimes over seas)

I think it’s really important when reading HP to remember that JKR is worse than just a terf. She erased a number of horrific, traumatic experiences (experiences that effected the ‘women’* and children she’s apparently so keen to protect) with how she wrote Voldemort’s childhood. In the 20s, orphanages still didn’t hold the babies, they were underfed and when they cried to much they were often quieted with Godfrey’s Treacle or similar products which essentially amounted to a sweet syrup mixed with opium. Many babies died and their bodies were often improperly disposed of.

At the time Orphanages would have been primarily religious institutions. Those that weren’t were for profit. State run orphanages did not exist. Some of these institutions literally stole babies from unwed/abandoned mothers like Merope. Some would even enslave the mothers in laundries. There are many horror stories of mothers begging for their children back even after their children had been homed, again often for a fee, because they were never notified about their children being placed with families. Children were beaten, dressed differently so they stood out, improperly schooled, shamed for the fact that their mothers failed them.

If JKR had written it according to actual history, it’s likely Merope would not have needed to die for her to be deemed unfit and Tom to have been taken. The reality is so much more horrifying than the happy orphanage in the books. And JKR still hasn’t looked into the actual history. She’s only visited modern orphanages and even that was enough to learn her this massive mistake.

These realities being as they are, it is hard to read HBP without feeling that Dumbledore is lying about Tom’s past, rearranging the facts to demonize him. The flashbacks even show Dumbledore antagonizing him like he’s a criminal for having maladaptive coping mechanisms from a traumatic childhood where he was even more different (autistic coded lbr) than the other kids and couldn’t manage to fit in within the orphanage let alone outside of it. And we see in that scene, Tom going from open and excited to closed off and recessed. He goes from thinking ‘this man is like me’ to thinking ‘this man is like them’. There is no way to ignore how Dumbledore immediately became part of the problem instead of offering a helping hand when it was needed most.

In conclusion, Dumbledore is an ass, Voldemort’s story is that of how trauma can ruin revolutionary thought, and JKR apologizing to the orphans/throwing money at them can’t make up for this massive mistake.

Historical fiction has a duty and a responsibility to accurately depict the horrors of the past. Please read Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell to see how this ought to be done in a low fantasy setting.

What led to the Death Eaters?

War Crimes, Vigilantes, and Dragonpox, oh my!

I just had the craziest HP au idea so bare with me. 

Tom went AWOL for a decade or two where we have no clue what happened to him or what the fuck he did beyond finding Ravenclaw’s diadem. 

What we do know is that before his absence the Purebloods were very comfortable in their power...but then Nobby Leach became the Minister of Magic I will find some way to squeeze him into everyone of my TMR stories mark my words somehow and suddenly the Purebloods were ready to throw down upon TMR’s return. 

I personally headcanon that some sort of Muggleborn rights movement occured in this time frame that led to Leach’s ascent but I honestly don’t think that would be enough to result in such a drastic change. 

There’s also no way Tom wouldn’t have wanted to get in on some of that chaos if he knew it would help him later. 

Before I get into where the vigilante part comes in I should also probably share my other au idea for the Grindelwald-WW2 overlap. I think that some of the Purebloods took advantage of the chaos that arose from the bombings, the fighting, and the imprisonment going on in the Muggle World to hide their own war crimes. What kind of war crimes? Well that depends on how angsty you want it to get. 

Could this happen in canon? Probably not given how ignorant most Purebloods are to the Muggle World but it is an idea to play around with that they’re not all as ignorant as they pretend to be. Arthur Weasley just can not be the most informed Pureblood on Muggle matters because I would have no fic ideas otherwise. 

Anyway, they could use WW2 as a cover to do away with Muggles, Squibs, and Muggleborns in a manner that would go unnoticed. These raids also serve as a precursor to the Death Eater’s later strategies of attacking head on with violence rather than subtly in the courtroom. It makes much more sense for them to go this route later if they had recent evidence it had worked for them before. Purebloods are all about tradition and playing it safe; why would they take risks on an unknown? 

Tom Riddle is the perfect victim for Purebloods during WW2: he’s in London during The Blitz, he’s an orphan, a presumed Muggleborn, and he’s in Slytherin despite all of this. The Purebloods take offense to this. The audacity of this kid to want a place to belong, shocker. People in actual history have killed or done worse for less than this. 

Obviously, their attempts didn’t work otherwise Harry Potter would be very different. Tom survived with an extra dose of trauma and knows the Purebloods are actively unaliving (or worse) random children and getting away with it. And now he has to go back to Hogwarts and pretend like his housemates didn’t ask their parents to do the same to him. But he’s fine. Everything’s fine. 

This is where Vigilante Tom comes in. Once the war was over and the Purebloods no longer had a cover to hide their criminal activities they had to get subtle. I mean they could stop but they’ve gotten away with it so far, what could go wrong? 

Tom. Tom and all of the Muggleborns they failed to get rid of. And they are here to make it everyone’s problem. 

While the Muggleborns and Leach vibe check the Wizarding World, Tom throws down in the background dismantling the Pureblood crime syndicate. 

The Purebloods find this terrifying. They’re being attacked on two fronts: the public and the private. The Muggleborns attack their credibility and power, but Tom straight up attacks whoever he finds and kills without mercy. Suddenly, their power no longer makes them untouchable. The Muggleborns don’t know about Tom but the Purebloods don’t know that they don’t know. They also don’t know if the Muggleborns do know. 

To be safe, the Purebloods keep the situation with Tom underwraps. They control the newspapers so nothing is printed that even vaguely mentions him. Neither do the Purebloods mention him aloud. He’s the You-Know-Who to anyone who knows am I right? HA. Okay I’ll shut up now.  

But what they can not hide is the frankly concerning number of Pureblood deaths.  Luckily they have a solution ready to go.

Haven’t you heard? Dragonpox is terrible this time of year. 

Yes I know there’s technically a cure for it in canon, this is an au, let me dream. The phrase becomes code for ‘oh yeah they were absolutely unalived by You-Know-Who.’  (Except they didn’t know who otherwise they never would’ve joined his cult)

So the Purebloods are spooked on both fronts when Nobby Leach becomes Minister for Magic and Tom continues to dismantle their criminal underground. They are desperate, scared, furious, vengeful, and ready to rumble. But how are they going to-oh hey that You-Know-Who guy is gone yay! And so is Nobby Leach. I guess we can chill now-

And then before they can simmer down, some guy shows up who knows exactly what to say to get them fired up again. 

And no Pureblood connected the dots until years later when Voldemort visited Abraxas Malfoy on his deathbed and spilled the beans. Too bad he never got to tell anyone! Dragonpox is terrible this time of year afterall.  

Head canon accepted, it is now canon in my eyes.

He probably learned how to pickpocket from older orphans. Nothing like an unassuming small child to lower a person's guard.

He had to learn to resist the urge (or ger more creative) in Slytherin because if anything went missing, he'd be the first suspect.

Tom also curses like a sailor whenever his control slips & his sticky fingers never quite go away

Peep snakefaced Voldemort slipping a wall ornament from Malfory Manor into his robe when nobody but Nagini's watching

Tom absolutely was missing a tooth or two. He's got a punch-able face and definitely annoyed the other orphans.

Going back to the cockney accent though 👀

This child absolutely learned how to fake a semi-convincing upperclassmen accent by people watching. I like to assume he learned to do this before Hogwarts either to make him a more desirable adoption candidate or just to make himself sound more trustworthy.

Speaking of, Tom 100% used his posh-voice on Dumbledore when they first met so he has never heard Tom's cockney accent.

No wonder Dumbledore thinks Tom was just built different. Tom went through an 💕I'm not like other girls💕 phase and never got a wake up call because he was too busy convincincing everyone else that it was true.

Look me in the fucking eye and tell me Tom Riddle had straight teeth as a child

That boy grew up in 1930's London in a muggle orphanage, his chompers had to have been a wreck

It was probably one of the first things he got bullied for, alongside his clothing and surname (because no decent Pureblood child has crooked teeth and in Slytherin there are only decent Pureblood children, honestly, what is Riddle even doing there?) and was almost certainly one of the first things he sought to change in his life using magic

I can just imagine him trying his best to be charming, learning how to smile without showing his teeth, talking without opening his mouth all the way & never letting anyone see him laugh for real bc any time someone catches a glimpse of his teeth it instantly undoes all his hard work bc at the end of the day- no matter how charming or clever he is- he's still just a mudblood gutter rat and his crooked teeth never let him (or anyone else) forget that

Until one summer (I'm thinking before 5th year, so around the time that he murders his relatives) he sneaks away from the orphanage to see a back alley Healer in Knockturn Alley to finally, finally get his teeth fixed (for a fee, of course, but they don't question where the money's from and Tom certainly isn't telling) and that September he strides into the school with the most winning smile money can buy, and suddenly it's over for everyone who once doubted him

With a Horcrux on his finger, noble blood in his veins, and a freshly winning smile, Tom Marvolo Riddle feels nothing like a gutter rat, not anymore

He's the Heir of Slytherin, Greatest of the Hogwarts Four

Where’s the difference?

I adore that moment when you’re walking and suddenly you just have ideas.  You know how to fix that plot hole. You know how that final battle is gonna play out. You come up with the most perfect line of dialogue. You find a way to link point a to point b. You have fine details to enhance everything.

That moment of sheer inspiration, that absolute spark of brain magic, is simply phenomenal. 

I just got into adventure time and as a fellow rumple fan that was one of my first thoughts. I want to see a fic portraying Rumple with the same sympathy AT treats Simon and how stark the difference is between pre and post Dark One Rumple. 

(If this already exists please share fic recs)

So it’s 3am and I’ve just come to a conclusion…

Simon from Adventure Time and Rumple from OUAT… are basically the same character in terms of backstory.

Tom Riddle AU - Adventure Time

I haven’t even watched Adventure Time but just by watching the clips on YouTube I can say with certainty that if Simon Petrikov had raised Tom Riddle there would have been no Voldemort. 

This man convinced an evil immortal alien that made even the Lord of Evil pause to view him as a father figure. Not to mention Marceline, the daughter of said Lord of Evil. Both informal adoptions happened while he was some kind of insane. Bro wasn’t even at his best and still managed to dad like a champ.

Simon takes one look at these ‘lost’ causes and doesn’t waste time asking “is anyone gonna raise that?” He’s already there reaching through broken glass for a teddy bear. 

So Tom “born from a love potion so he’s not able to feel love” Riddle doesn’t stand a chance. Also just the thought of Tom living it up in Ooo as the immortal older brother to Marceline just sounds cool. Wizard King Tom anyone? 

now you just gotta add ‘related to Mark Hamill but its strained’ to Vader and Zuko and it’ll be all set

ok but if bruce wayne somehow came upon zuko fresh out of banishment he would lose his mind.

black hair? check. bad parent(s)? check. trauma? double check.

bruce: how’d you get your scar?

zuko: my dad got mad at me for saying that killing people is wrong so he lit my face on fire and banished me.

bruce, vibrating with excitement, already pulling adoption papers from his utilility: that’s terrible. how do you feel about capes.

3. But for the last time, I swear I only bit someone one time! Let it go!

on the other hand had voldemort not been a parseltongue he'd have brought a rabbit to Hogwarts just to brag in front of Billy Stubbs

@fairycosmos / Comic by @shhhitsfine / Comic by @incendavery

Why not both? Rumple's already The Beast and The Crocodile, whats an anthropomorphic duck on top of all that?

Bonus points if all the kids he makes deals for become part of his family, I mean the McDuck clan family tree is already complicated it'd fit right in with OUAT.

once upon a time au where everything is the same except instead of rumpelstiltskin, mr gold is actually revealed to be scrooge mcduck.