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Absolute game changer. THANK you.

How am I only just learning this!?

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Had my first ever panic attack this week. Fun.

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‘Tis the sad truth.

"getting laid" is very hot and sexy. "getting off"? great news as well. so you would think "getting laid off" would be wonderful news for your penis. but alas

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Genuinely jealous of your creative output. It’s like, you know you can probably make something like this if you want to and work hard enough, but to get the inspiration and motivation is the issue.

Still I love this so much imma hang this in my heart to remind myself I can make masterpieces if I only choose to, and I can make art if I only remember the awe I have of the world around me.

🌅

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Do you know when someone writes so passionately about a character with such well thought and written dialogue that you HAVE to check out their ao3?

This. This!!! This is that!!!!

Hi, do you have an analysis for why you prefer bottom Tom? Most fics have him as a top, but I'm very interested in your perspective ma'am.

well, the short answer is because i want to and because i can.

the longer answer is that i just don't find any of the arguments for why voldemort would never bottom under any circumstances to be as convincing and definitive as their proponents claim them to be.

my issue - to be clear - isn't with people having a preference for reading or writing about him being a top. it's with the fact that him only being a top - and not only that, but him being repulsed or humiliated by the idea of bottoming - is typically presented as such an objective fact that preferring to read or write about him being a bottom provokes responses which range from the simply annoying - "this is out of character!" [any fic in which he consensually shags his prophesied child-enemy is out of character, be serious] - to the genuinely troubling - "it's disgusting! voldemort is a real man and real men don't want anything up their arses!".

obviously - let's be real - a lot of the arguments about why bottom!voldemort is impossible are just typical "slash fandom reinvents gender roles" shit - they essentially boil down to "omg no harry would bottom because he's the girl".

but others do come with more weight behind them. and two of these are:

that the gender norms voldemort was raised with would inculcate in him a big lump of internalised homophobia which would make him see bottoming as feminine, and - in seeing it as feminine - see it as weak, humiliating, dependent, and incompatible with his understanding of control and power. that voldemort would be horrified by the idea of being penetrated, because he would see it as something which polluted or profaned the body he considers to be sacred.

i do think it's possible to argue both of these points robustly, using actual readings of the text rather than just vibes. i've just never found any of these readings compelling.

and the reason why all comes down to this:

"I knew I was different," he whispered to his own quivering fingers. "I knew I was special. Always, I knew there was something." [HBP 13]

he's talking about something specific - how he's always known that he's a wizard - here, of course. but we can also take this statement and use it to think more generally about how he views being perceived as deviant, strange, or wrong by the norms of the society in which he lives.

by which i mean... he's somebody who believes that being different makes him special and that people who try to punish or shame him for his difference are idiots who simply haven't yet worked out that he's superior to them in literally everything he does. he's not someone who perceives being different in a self-flagellating way - he doesn't think there's something wrong with him, he doesn't think that his difference makes him a pathetic or unimpressive person. and he's also not somebody who views being criticised or punished for his difference as something which causes him sorrow or anxiety. it causes him rage - because it inconveniences him [it creates obstacles he has to overcome, although he entirely believes he can overcome them] and because it doesn't recognise his self-conception as the protagonist of reality:

Riddle's reaction to this was most surprising. He leapt from the bed and backed away from Dumbledore, looking furious. "You can't kid me! The asylum, that's where you're from, isn't it? 'Professor,' yes, of course - well, I'm not going, see? That old cat's the one who should be in the asylum. I never did anything to little Amy Benson or Dennis Bishop, and you can ask them, they'll tell you!"   "I am not from the asylum," said Dumbledore patiently. "I am a teacher and, if you will sit down calmly, I shall tell you about Hogwarts. Of course, if you would rather not come to the school, nobody will force you -" "I'd like to see them try," sneered Riddle. "Hogwarts," Dumbledore went on, as though he had not heard Riddle's last words, "is a school for people with special abilities -"   "I'm not mad!" [HBP 13]

you can entertain a very dark reading of this scene - in fact, i have - but it's also possible to entertain a liberating one, and see the child voldemort as someone who has always been proud of his difference and prepared to defend that pride in the face of censure, and who is absolutely delighted to be given the language to define and describe his difference and to be given access to a community of people who are similarly - in his words - special.

all of which is to say... the standard interpretation in fandom seems to be that a queer voldemort would fall somewhere on a spectrum from indifferent to his sexuality to actively ashamed of it.

but i think it's much, much more plausible that he'd actually be proud of it, and for his statement - "i knew i was different... i knew i was special" - to be used as the starting point for how we might imagine him realising that he's queer.

and this is why the "he'd have so much internalised homophobia he'd never bottom" argument always falls flat for me - it rests on an assumption that queer men having to grow past a childhood/teenage fear that there's something wrong with them is the default position. it overlooks the fact that there are many ways for somebody to come to understand their own sexuality.

and that two of those ways are "defiantly" and "spitefully". aka the lord voldemort special.

something which always stands out to me about the canonical voldemort, both when he's a good-looking teenager/young man and a monstrous, serpentine adult, is that - even with all the phallic symbolism which surrounds him [enormous snakes and ultra-powerful wands and so on] - the text presents him as somebody who comes across as fairly effeminate:

he's typically described - as we can see from this excellent analysis from @said-snape-softly - as speaking "softly" or "quietly". when he isn't, he's often "shrill", "shrieking", "screeching", or "screaming".

he has a hair-trigger temper and he's extremely emotionally volatile.

he's typically described as moving in ways which have similarly feminine connotations - he "drifts" and "glides". while the primary doylist reason for this is clearly so the reader associates him with snakes, ghosts, and dementors, it ends up giving him a quality of movement which is fey, rather than powerful and purposeful. indeed, we only ever see him do one thing which requires physical, as well as magical, prowess - duelling. but, like fencing - which is its real-world equivalent - good duellists aren't people who are physically strong or imposing, they're people who are cunning and nimble [and the other men the text emphasises are good at it are snape, flitwick, and harry - with harry's quick reflexes being explicitly given as a reason why [i.e. GoF 34] ]. his ability to fly is a demonstration of his magical power alone, since it allows him to circumvent the need to use a broom, which does appear to require physical strength [hence why the only main characters who aren't fond of using brooms are either women or fat, cowardly little boys like neville...]

building on this, he's often described in ways which make him sound quite physically fragile - he's very thin, he's very pale, he's always cold, every time his heartbeat is described it seems to be irregular and so on.

his reputation in his teens and young adulthood is as a "polite [and] quiet" goody-two-shoes who "showed no sign of outward arrogance or aggression at all" [HBP 17]. i think that point about aggression is really important - it builds on what mrs cole tells dumbledore about it being "very hard to catch him" bullying other orphans [HBP 13]. he's not dudley - or james and sirius - using his physical talents to subdue and control people. he's sneakier... more insidious... indeed, in chamber of secrets, ron explicitly compares him to percy - somebody else the text presents as fairly effete - in order to complain about him "squealing" - aka, running to tell a teacher, like a girl, instead of settling things like a man - on hagrid [CoS 14].

when he's a young man, living alone for the first time, the text thinks it's very important to tell us that he has "slightly longer hair" than he does at school [HBP 20]. "slightly" is obviously the operative word here - i don't think he's strutting into hepzibah smith's house in a twenty-four inch lace-front - but we can certainly imagine him with the sort of greaser or pompadour haircut which was understood in the 1950s as being a bit counter-cultural...

of the five horcruxes which are objects - rather than harry and nagini [who is, of course, female] - three [cup, diadem, locket] originally belonged to a woman and are acquired from a woman, two [cup, locket] are acquired by killing a woman using a stereotypically female murder method [poison], two are connected to voldemort's rage at his mother being disparaged [locket - he's furious to hear hepzibah say that merope must have stolen it, ring - he attacks morfin immediately after morfin calls his mother a "slut"]. and all five of these horcruxes also depend on women to introduce them into the narrative in a way that facilitates their destruction: the diary is given to ginny; dumbledore puts on the ring in order to speak to his sister; the locket is associated both with walburga's grief [it's literally moved from the cave - voldemort's grave for his mother - to the house which is walburga's own tomb!] and with umbridge's performance of femininity; the cup is given to bellatrix [and the text is very clear that both she and voldemort understand it as having only been given to her, rather than to her and rodolphus] and is then destroyed - albeit off-stage - by hermione; and harry is given the tools to acquire the diadem by cho, luna, and mcgonagall, although he has to overcome the obstacles of alecto carrow and helena ravenclaw to get hold of it. harry - of course - also only becomes a horcrux because of a woman - lily's - sacrifice.

his favourite death eaters are a woman and a very feminine-coded man. but - more interestingly - what the text finds unimpressive isn't that he likes bellatrix and snape... it's that he leaves a lot of his dirty work to male minions who are characterised by their brutish strength - people like greyback, hagrid [who he makes carry harry up to hogwarts], rowle, gibbon, amycus carrow and so on. there's the heavy implication in the text that voldemort's preference for leaving the violence to others - as i'm always pointing out, his canonical kill count is really low; most of the murders in the series are done by other death eaters acting on his orders - is something we should see as weak.

the text associates him with this effeminacy - i think it's really important to note, given who jkr is - as a criticism. it's something - much like the text's presentation of him as aromantic, and the fact that the degradation of his looks via the creation of the horcruxes makes him look sexless/eunuch-like - being used to underscore his villainy. he's feminine-coded in a toxic way.

but let's take this in another direction [and let's also return to the actual question you asked me...] and read him as someone who has always had to deal with being perceived as queer by other people, and having that perception be associated with negative assumptions.

he's very easy to imagine as a child/teenager who's the target of ridicule from his fellow orphans/fellow students [for not being sporty, for liking to sit in the library for hours on end coming up with anagrams of his own name, for the way he walks and speaks] which hinges on the idea that his failure to conform to the expected conventions of "proper" masculinity mean that he's not a proper man... and that if he's not a proper man then... he's not straight.

but then we have to come back to the "i knew i was special" point, don't we?

voldemort's belief in his own superiority can - in my view - be used to read him as somebody who would embrace being camp or effeminate or whatever term we want to use, in order both to express his contempt for people who criticise him ["think i'm a messed up little deviant, do you, mrs cole? well, you don't know the half of it!"] and who conform to social norms he thinks are reprehensible ["oh, do purebloods frown upon bottoming, abraxas? well - guess what - so do muggles. do you agree with what muggles think?"] and to humiliate, subjugate, and control them ["you think i'm a faggot, do you...? well, you're right... i'm a faggot who's defeated you in battle and now i'm about to kill you... still feel like a man?"].

while - obviously - appearance/gender presentation has nothing to do with preferred sexual roles - the manliest men on earth can be bottoms! being femme doesn't prevent you topping! - i really do think that voldemort is someone who can be written entirely canon-coherently as thinking that the homophobic perception of bottoming as weak, powerless, or humiliating is complete nonsense, and who would actively flaunt his rejection of this perception as a way to mock people who subscribe to it.

after all, we see him do something similar in canon when it comes to his blood-status and social class. the death eaters - lots of whom are posh pureblood men who conceive of themselves as the most important people in the universe - are made to kneel at the feet of and kiss the robes of and be branded like cattle by and be at the beck and call of someone who's neither pureblood nor posh. there are - as lupin tells us - no wizarding princes... and yet the closest things the wizarding world has to an aristocracy are rolling around on the ground debasing themselves and calling a half-blood orphan "my lord".

voldemort does this to humiliate them. but he also does this to amuse himself - à la logan roy making men who've displeased him play "boar on the floor".

[wormtail being forced to care for him when he's in his half-form at the start of goblet of fire, for example. he's not humiliated in the slightest by his dependence on wormtail... wormtail is humiliated by it, and voldemort finds it hilarious.]

and so i think we can plausibly imagine him also deeply enjoying making his straight, married, "i would die before i let anything near my arse", "i'm not getting changed for quidditch with so-and-so there, he's queer", "i'd disown my son if i found out he let other men fuck him" death eaters grovel for the favour of someone who loves getting railed...

this deeply aligns with how voldemort understands things like power and control - and it's why the argument that he'd only top because he would regard it as the only way of being powerful and controlling never hits for me.

because this also rests on an assumption - that the bottom always understands themselves as the passive partner. i do think the fandom is broadly getting better at recognising that bottoms and submissives are different things [although the bar was on the floor...], but i think there's still a tendency to default to the idea that the two people involved in sex are an active partner and a passive partner, and that the passive partner is - for want of a better term - the receptacle.

the language used around bottoming reinforces this assumption. its voice is passive - the bottom is penetrated, is bred, is fucked, is taken - its verbs are passive too - the top does, the bottom receives.

but the thing is... this is just semantics. and it's a semantic argument directly rooted in misogyny, and the homophobia which stems from and connects to it.

and - since it's just semantics - we can change the language we use at any time to completely reconfigure the assumed power dynamic.

the bottom grants access. the bottom consumes. the bottom takes. the bottom absorbs. the bottom uses. the bottom captures. the bottom detains. the bottom grips. the bottom devours. the bottom permits. the bottom destroys.

the top is the person who's passive - who receives permission, who is granted access, who is consumed, who is absorbed, who is captured. the top is the person having their life-force leached from them. they're just a toy, just a piece of meat. they literally don't matter.

and the text already uses this sort of language - the language of consumption and capture and permission to cross thresholds and so on - to talk about voldemort's attitude to power, magic, and the body.

he drains the blood of unicorns; he uses up the life-force of the people and animals he possesses; he grows stronger by consuming ginny's secrets; he is restored to his body by taking from his father, wormtail, and harry; he takes the money dumbledore offers without feeling the need to thank him or regard it as a gift; he offers up gifts to people he wants to use for his own gain; he "doesn't march up to people's houses and bang on their front doors" [OotP 6]; he hoards and conceals precious things; his soul is kept safe by being encased by the horcruxes; his locket is guarded by something which has to be drunk, which destroys anyone who assumes they can simply take it without his permission; he "would be glad to see anything miss hepzibah shows me" [HBP 20] and then seizes her secrets and uses them to bring about her doom; his descent from slytherin is proven by his control of the threshold of the chamber of secrets; he places himself and his talents at dumbledore's disposal, "i am yours to command" [HBP 20]; he controls snakes and they do his bidding; he drains the ministry of its secrets; he controls the dementors, who devour joy; augustus rookwoord "has lord voldemort's gratitude... i shall need all the information you can give me" [OotP 26]; he is the greatest legilimens - that is to say, he is excellent at pulling other people's secrets into his own mind and using them as he wishes - the world has ever seen; he has seen ron's heart and it is his; his followers live to serve him...

his followers are called death eaters, not death fuckers.

and so it's inarguable, really, that he'd have a legion of service tops under his command...

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Love the designs! They’re so nice looking!

Close ups of the little ponies ever

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Absolutely incredible work

⚡️ like an arrow through the storm ⚡️

speedpaint under the cut !

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Remembered free will was a thing and I can smush two fandoms together whenever I want and no one can stop me

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I’ve been to so many cons lately… this from FACTS, a convention in Belgium, which I got to see on a weekend getaway.

It’s was incredible- I got to see so many cool stalls, and stuff you never get to see in the small conventions in Israel.

Funny enough, the cons back home have a lot more people cosplaying in comparison, which I did not expect at all.

I did get to see Evanna Lynch, an actual dream come true for me, and I got her signature and a picture with her which I immediately framed and will be putting on my wall as soon as I can. She was super sweet too, and I’m so glad I got to meet her.

Anyway I have so much fun, this con will be a core memory for sure.

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I’ve been to olamot con, and it was hella awesome! I cosplayed as Undyne and I saw a bunch of amazing coplays. The pictures above can’t even capture the amount of creativity people had with their cosplays- there were so many cool ones.

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THE FACT THAT ITS CUT OFF AT THE BOTTOM TPIS YDTISJGXCGIRADYAYE

Support👏responsible👏breeders👏

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You know that if it’s hot you can’t really do anything about it. That’s the fictional laws, the fictional police and my fictional law lawyer say so.

Case closed everybody

sorry that you think my fictional ship is illegal. I actually consulted a fictional lawyer about it and he had a talk with a fictional cop about the fictional laws and then they both looked at me, and very seriously said "we'll allow it because it's hot."

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Ohhhh I totally missed that oops

ron weasley did not

come to privet drive to rescue harry from his abusive home after he hadn’t been replying to any of his letters and he was worried

almost back out of following the spiders bc they’re his biggest fear, but upon seeing hermione’s empty seat at dinner, find the courage to go

defend hermione from any and everyone who called her a mudblood

constantly worry about hermione’s workload (especially in 3rd year) and notice that whenever she disappeared

offer to teach hermione his entire family tree so that she could pretend to be pure blood to keep her safe from death eaters

defend harry to everyone (percy, seamus, half the school) when everyone thought he was lying about voldemort’s return

stand up on his broken leg in front of harry and say that “if you want to kill harry, you’ll have to kill us first!” to what they believed to be a raving lunatic mass murderer

gift dobby his newest weasley jumper and the new socks he got given for christmas

stand up against snape when he was bullying hermione (and got a detention as a result)

beg the deatheaters who were torturing hermione to “leave her alone!! take [him], have [him] instead!”

always check up on his friends when he notices something is up, even if it’s in subtle ways

immediately befriend harry on the train in ps and teach him about the wizarding world

write to charlie immediately so he could help hagrid out of trouble (re the dragon, norbert)

encourage neville to stand up to people, and praise him when he actually does it

help harry put on his pajamas after he broke his arm during quidditch

have to be physically restrained from attacking malfoy after he said he wished hermione had died in cos

worry about harry’s preoccupation with the mirror of erised and how it was affecting him

remind hermione to eat her meals and get a good night’s sleep when she’s studying 24/7 for their owl exams

display acute levels of emotional intelligence in the way he interacts with harry and hermione, essentially being the glue that keeps them all together

get splinched almost in half, lose blood and suffer agonising pain but seem more worried about the cattermoles and whether or not they were okay

realise his mistakes & own up to them, acknowledging his role in certain falling outs (especially in deathly hallows)

be genuinely hilarious and fun, and lighten the load in everyone else’s��� lives with the humour he brings to

write to his mother in ps asking her to give harry presents too because he doesn’t think he’ll received any

go to the department of mysteries to help harry without a second a thought

go on the run with harry to hunt for horcruxes without a second thought

run to hermione’s aid when malfoy hits her with a nasty hex outside snape’s classroom and take her to the hospital wing

help hermione with buckbeak’s appeal, spending hours upon hours reading up on the case

extend the first olive branch after fighting with hermione because of scabber’s “death” and apologising, after which she then apologises too

demand to re-try out for the position of keeper on the quidditch team because he wanted to earn it himself with no favouritism or help

choose to stay on the quidditch team despite the bullying from the slytherin team and his nerves about his flying ability

stand up to malfoy at every opportunity, when he was insulting him, but more importantly, insulting his family & his friends

save harry’s life in dh by pulling him out of the lake, and then kill the horcrux

remember the houseelves during the battle of hogwarts and worry about their safety

continue to admire and adore his older twin brothers despite the fact that they were sometimes cruel to him

become almost annoyingly protective of his little sister (ESPECIALLY after the diary situation)

single-handedly out smart and escape five armed and deadly snatchers

try his best to overcome his insecurities and feelings of being overlooked, in order to support the people around him

sacrifice himself without a second thought during the chess game in ps because he knew harry’s survival was more important than his

for y’all to speak on him the way you do. calling him cruel, evil, selfish etc??? open your fucking eyes

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Ok I love everything about this post because it’s all true

BUT

You wrote “Ron Weasley did not” at the beginning. He DID do those things. Because he’s AWESOME.

ron weasley did not

come to privet drive to rescue harry from his abusive home after he hadn’t been replying to any of his letters and he was worried

almost back out of following the spiders bc they’re his biggest fear, but upon seeing hermione’s empty seat at dinner, find the courage to go

defend hermione from any and everyone who called her a mudblood

constantly worry about hermione’s workload (especially in 3rd year) and notice that whenever she disappeared

offer to teach hermione his entire family tree so that she could pretend to be pure blood to keep her safe from death eaters

defend harry to everyone (percy, seamus, half the school) when everyone thought he was lying about voldemort’s return

stand up on his broken leg in front of harry and say that “if you want to kill harry, you’ll have to kill us first!” to what they believed to be a raving lunatic mass murderer

gift dobby his newest weasley jumper and the new socks he got given for christmas

stand up against snape when he was bullying hermione (and got a detention as a result)

beg the deatheaters who were torturing hermione to “leave her alone!! take [him], have [him] instead!”

always check up on his friends when he notices something is up, even if it’s in subtle ways

immediately befriend harry on the train in ps and teach him about the wizarding world

write to charlie immediately so he could help hagrid out of trouble (re the dragon, norbert)

encourage neville to stand up to people, and praise him when he actually does it

help harry put on his pajamas after he broke his arm during quidditch

have to be physically restrained from attacking malfoy after he said he wished hermione had died in cos

worry about harry’s preoccupation with the mirror of erised and how it was affecting him

remind hermione to eat her meals and get a good night’s sleep when she’s studying 24/7 for their owl exams

display acute levels of emotional intelligence in the way he interacts with harry and hermione, essentially being the glue that keeps them all together

get splinched almost in half, lose blood and suffer agonising pain but seem more worried about the cattermoles and whether or not they were okay

realise his mistakes & own up to them, acknowledging his role in certain falling outs (especially in deathly hallows)

be genuinely hilarious and fun, and lighten the load in everyone else’s’ lives with the humour he brings to

write to his mother in ps asking her to give harry presents too because he doesn’t think he’ll received any

go to the department of mysteries to help harry without a second a thought

go on the run with harry to hunt for horcruxes without a second thought

run to hermione’s aid when malfoy hits her with a nasty hex outside snape’s classroom and take her to the hospital wing

help hermione with buckbeak’s appeal, spending hours upon hours reading up on the case

extend the first olive branch after fighting with hermione because of scabber’s “death” and apologising, after which she then apologises too

demand to re-try out for the position of keeper on the quidditch team because he wanted to earn it himself with no favouritism or help

choose to stay on the quidditch team despite the bullying from the slytherin team and his nerves about his flying ability

stand up to malfoy at every opportunity, when he was insulting him, but more importantly, insulting his family & his friends

save harry’s life in dh by pulling him out of the lake, and then kill the horcrux

remember the houseelves during the battle of hogwarts and worry about their safety

continue to admire and adore his older twin brothers despite the fact that they were sometimes cruel to him

become almost annoyingly protective of his little sister (ESPECIALLY after the diary situation)

single-handedly out smart and escape five armed and deadly snatchers

try his best to overcome his insecurities and feelings of being overlooked, in order to support the people around him

sacrifice himself without a second thought during the chess game in ps because he knew harry’s survival was more important than his

for y’all to speak on him the way you do. calling him cruel, evil, selfish etc??? open your fucking eyes

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Fun Story to Share.

I got my (now 18-year-old) daughter into Ao3 back in 2021. I taught her she should always comment - even if the fic looks old or abandoned or whatever. She did.

Well - she got this email this morning:

The fic was written in 2014 and essentially abandoned.

Bethy read and reviewed in 2021 (and was actually the only person who had commented at all).

Today in 2025 - the final chapter was posted by the author and this was her reply to Bethy’s comment.

———

Never question whether a fic is too old to comment on.

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Yes, yes it goes both ways and I love it.

Tomarry