I Was On The Bus Thinking About Harry Potter Tonight And I Remembered The Part Where The Dementors All

Dan, reformed after three millennia in an isolated time pocket and lots of therapy, decides to try being a hero again.

Only, he's not very good at it. He looks fucking terrifying, and when people see him they tend to run towards the actual danger to get away.

So he's hanging out, invisible, on a random cities rooftop, when a pair of kid vigilantes plop down and start complaining how their mentors don't trust them ecause they haven't had any real combat experience. But to get experience, they need to be out there!

So while these teenagers plan something monumentally stupid, Dan realizes he has a unique opportunity.

Dan becomes a training villain.

A villain that specifically is meant to test kid vigilantes.

He does stupid, petty villain shit and the adult heroes quickly realize that this villain, instead of hurting their kid sidekicks, is teaching them between blows.

Dan's powers are nothing to sneeze at, so a kid vigilante holding their own against him for at least four minutes is considered impressive.

But he never, ever, hurts the kids.

There was an incident where another villain hurt a kid in front of Dan.

No one knows where that villain is.

@simplestoryteller

Not to mention, you have the narrative struggle of being pulled in two different directions.

Tom Riddle, as a half blood in Slytherin, is pulled between these two extremes of the wizarding world. Abraxas being the elitist pureblood rhetoric of protecting the status quo and Leach representing the muggleborn movement for equality.

If you want to draw an even bigger connection between Leach's fall and Voldemort's rise, you could say that Tom wanted to believe that things could change. He wanted to believe Leach could do it. And when it didn't happen...well it's time for Riddle to take the reins and force the purebloods to change it themselves.

Riddle: You want to uphold the status quo? Well I'm gonna hold it up SO HIGH you'll beg for me to stop.

And they did.

I mean when you look at Voldemort's ranks it really shows just how much he's likely changed the concept of blood purity.

I mean, would post-Grindelwald purebloods be willing to work with werewolves, vampires, giants, etc? I doubt it. And then you have the half bloods who joined.

Would those post-Grindelwald wizards turn against eachother and actively torture and kill other purebloods (ex. The Longbottoms) from their already limited gene pool? I very much doubt that.

Voldemort limited the concept of blood purity to be against muggleborns and anyone who disagrees with Voldemort. And you can even argue that he would welcome muggleborns since he canonically attempted to get Lily Evan's on his side.

Riddle over here sneakily making the Death Eaters more tolerant by upholding the status quo he defined and placing all of his supporters on an equal level when it came to receiving his approval and being in danger of wizard jail.

So I suppose Riddle found a middle ground after all.

Its supremely unfair how under utilized Nobby Leach is in fanfic.

He's a blank slate! The 1st Muggleborn British Minister of Magic but we know very little about him personally or even the circumstances of his election.

Voldemort rose to power in the late 60s-early 70s. Leach was minister sometime between 1962-68. And Leach was supposedly threatened from returning to his position or possibly assassinated.

Do you think poor, working-class, assumed Mudblood of Slytherin Tom Riddle didn't see these shady dealings and go "Okay so taking the legal route to power won't work."

If having power was Tom's only goal then he absolutely would've taken a quicker route to it. But instead Nobby Leach's failure just proved the system was too broken to fix from the inside.

(Quick disclaimer, I think Riddle only used the blood-purity thing to get an in with the purebloods who were running the country. There are better posts that expand on this idea in detail so I'm not going to get into it too much here. Okay? Okay.)

We know so little about Leach that he could conceivably have gone to Hogwarts at the same time as Tom Riddle. Did they know eachother? That's up to you, but if they went to school together then they definitely knew OF eachother.

So here you have Nobby Leach who hit the ground running after graduation, who clawed his way to being the FIRST muggleborn Minister of Magic in a government made up of bloodpurists, and then he just...resigned? Fuck that. That doesn't fit at all.

And anyone with half a brain would've picked up on that. Tom Riddle could not have missed how uncharacteristic this would be if he knew Leach, or heck just noticed the sheer will and patience it takes to become THE Muggleborn Minister of Magic.

On that note, there might've been some sort of Muggleborn movement happening in the background following Grindelwald's defeat. After all it takes more than one person to achieve this kind of victory.

So Tom Riddle watches (or is apart of 👀) a fast-paced, determined movement place the FIRST Muggleborn Minister of Magic and then watches as this victory silently tumbles down into forgotten history.

Meanwhile Tom builds the Death Eaters who also work outside the system via raids and murder despite the fact that they all work inside of it already. Theres already lots to unpack with THAT decision but moving on... Once the Ministry finally gets its shit together and arrests the (clearly labeled with Dark Marks) perpetrators, throwing them in wizard prison eventually reaching the point where they would be thrown in without a trial (Sirius Black), the Pureblood lawmakers all of a sudden realize "oh fuck, this is getting real."

And now what do they have to do to avoid suspicion in this very Red Scare-esque era of spying and tattling on eachother (it worked for Karkaroff) to avoid wizard prison? Play nice with the Muggleborns.

TL;DR

Nobby Leach: went the legitimate route to making change by working WITHIN the system. He rose fast and fell silently.

Tom Riddle: went the shady route to power by working OUTSIDE the system, painstakingly working for decades to build a support base, and falling in notoriety.

There needs to be more fics with them as foils to eachother. And if it has to be me, I warn you it will take YEARS to finish.

You know with ‘My adventures with Superman’ once again doing the old  “How could you lie to me?!” bit I have come to appreciate more and more the ‘Jazz Fenton method of dealing with discovering someone close to you is secretly a superhero.’

“Holy Crap he’s got these powers?! Actually now that I think about it I can see all the reasons why he’d prefer not to tell anyone about this. I’m not gonna bring it up unless there’s an emergency or he wants to talk about it first. In the meantime, if anyone asks where he is while he’s off fighting bad guys I’ll just tell them he’s at the library or something.”

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 ☺️🥰

Helluva ships - featuring Radioapple

Mammon does in fact tattle to Lucifer about Asmodeus and Fizz's relationship. Let's say the Helluva timeline lines up with Lucifer and Alastor getting closer sometime after season 1.

Lucifer doesn't know why Mammon bothered, even if Lucifer didn't have whatever was going on between him and Al -- he still wouldn't give a fuck. And he'd give even less of a fuck considering Mammon was still committing copyright infringement for his park, the audacity of that man was astronomical.

Still, Mammon calls a meeting to spill the tea because even he knows Lucifer is a hermit who does not keep up with the drama of Hell's so-called elite.

Asmosdeus finds out and therefore Blitzø finds out. So they all crash the meeting to give Mammon what-for. Fizz and Blitzø because they've never met Lucifer and think he's going to be pissed. Moxxie and Millie because Blitzø lied about where they were going and refused to let them leave. Stolas for moral support (and he's also never met the King, sue him, he's excited despite the circumstance) and Ozzie because he couldn't stop them so he might as well join them.

Following multiple very unnecessary pit-stops and shenanigans, they finally arrive at the palace---and it's too late.

Alastor has already kicked Mammon out and now he and Lucifer are doing paperwork, gossiping, and fighting over the (according to Alastor) tacky interior design of the palace.

The Helluva gang bust in (Blitzø is on a horse for some reason, he's very happy about this) and it's very anti-climatic.

Asmodeus: so you...don't care that I'm in love with an imp?

Lucifer, dad mode: You're in love? I'm so proud of you!

Blitzø: Just to be clear, I'm fucking this bird, there's nothing you can do about it

Lucifer: Okay??

Alastor: Darling, they think you care about hell's hierarchy

Lucifer: Oh! Yeah, uh-no. That'd be pretty hypocritical of me considering [gestures to Alastor]

The Helluva crew leave the palace once Lucifer and Alastor start bickering again looking like they've escaped a hurricane, wondering if they should be sending the King of Hell a 'Congratz on the Divorce' card.

Moxxie: ...does this mean we have two Kings now?

Based on this post bcs that legit made me laugh 

THIS exactly.

I’m curious to see how betty’s expedition is handled in the long term for the show, in the sense that it’s clearly meant to be symbolic of their relationship. I’ve seen some analysis which points to what I feel may very well be the direction the show is going — that Betty is always making sacrifices for Simon, and he lets her.

But the thing is, I don’t feel that’s a fair consideration of the events. She asks to go on the expedition with him, tells him she doesn’t want credit for their discovery, and — when he finds her at the bus stop — she doesn’t ask him to come with her.

And this pattern continues into the main series. She jumps through the portal of her own volition and proceeds to dedicate herself solely to saving Simon. The temple of mars episode really puts it best. She’s flat out shown how she does everything for him, and she says that’s how she wants it. That it’s what makes her her.

That’s not to say Simon didn’t play a part. He’s certainly not particularly observant, and he’s much less prone to taking the initiative. But he clearly adores Betty and thinks she’s brilliant. He only ever opened the portal to apologize. He naturally would have wanted her to be happy and successful.

In the series finale, he’s the most content to be digested by golb. it seems like a natural outcome to him — and this way, they get to be together.

The two of them sort of work by the laws of physics. Betty is constantly in motion, making choices to propel them forward. And simon is at rest. He’s usually content with his fate, unless a strong force comes in to change his status quo.

Both of these features are taken to a detrimental extreme at times, but neither is more malicious than the other. sometimes, Betty makes choices without stopping to ask if it’s what he wants to. sometimes, Simon lets opportunities slip by that stifle them both. They’re human, and they didn’t really get the time they needed to learn how to communicate through these things.

I think to argue that Simon let her be self sacrificing disservices them both. Betty is fully capable of making her own choices, and Simon is more than willing to make sacrifices of his own. He did it for Marcy and Fionna. He’d do it for Betty too — but she never leaves an opening.

For better or for worse, they’re two halves of a whole. In the best of times that means they enhance each others best qualities. And, on the flip side, they wind up enabling the worst.

Alastor's Father

WARNING: period-typical racism, WW1, race-based murder

I see a lot of fics where Alastor's dad is a piece of shit and abusive, but I'd love to see one where Al's dad actually loves and cares for his family but was taken from them when Alastor was too young to remember much about him.

Maybe he died as a soldier in WW1 or made it back to the US only to be killed some other way. If he was black, then those odds go way up unfortunately.

We don't know much about Al's parents but if it's still canon that he's creole, then that means at least one of his parents has black ancestry. A lot of the fics I've seen give him a black mom/white dad, but I think it would be interesting if both his parents were mixed too.

Anyway, what I'm getting at is if Al's dad was killed when he was still little, then they wouldn't recognize each other in hell now would they?

Al's dad sure does love his family, but everyone else can fuck off. And ooh boi did he earn his place in hell trying to protect them, not that heaven cared about his motives.

The second he finds out Alastor the Radio Demon is his baby boy? Hell hath no fury like a protective parent. He doesn't give a flying fuck about the atrocities Alastor has caused, that's his baby and no one is going to hurt him while he's not double-dead.