Always Happy To Point Out The Obvious.

The willow woman.

Photo taken by The Henge Shop, Avebury.

This is the best snape post I've ever seen.

no one:

me on my leftist twitter when i see a harry potter liberal's bad take: anyway snape stans would NEVER

You, the queen of a fairy tale kingdom, got cursed to give birth to a princess who’s going to live her life isolated in a tower the first 20 years of her life. Narrate how you avoid your daughter’s fate.

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.

Smol Alastor is back and he's heckin' ruthless

I'm experimenting with how I wanna do comics. I have a few I wanna do that are Hazbin Hotel related as well as others.

Homewrecker Alastor AU where Lucifer thinks Alastor is involved with his wife, Lilith thinks he's involved with her husband, and both of them are terrified by the hold he has over Charlie. Meanwhile Charlie thinks she has 3 parents now 🥰

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?)

i think jason should hang out with only murderers and therefore always be thought of as the nice one because he won’t let them ruthlessly kill people

The facility manager returns to the hotel 🏨