epigaea-repens

[epigaea-repens]

In CoS what secrets do you think tom fed to ginny, in order for his soul to mix with hers?

I simply cannot imagine Tom ever being honest with Ginny in these circumstances, so do you think he would have lied? It'so infinitely interesting to imagine that he wouldn't though

he tells us!

"So Ginny poured out her soul to me, and her soul happened to be exactly what I wanted... I grew stronger and stronger on a diet of her deepest fears, her darkest secrets. I grew powerful, far more powerful than little Miss Weasley. Powerful enough to start feeding Miss Weasley a few of my secrets, to start pouring a little of my soul back into her..." "What d'you mean?" said Harry, whose mouth had gone very dry.  "Haven't you guessed yet, Harry Potter?" said Riddle softly. "Ginny Weasley opened the Chamber of Secrets. She strangled the school roosters and daubed threatening messages on the walls. She set the Serpent of Slytherin on four Mudbloods, and the Squib's cat." [CoS 17]

what he means by "secrets" are the facts about himself he wasn't able to reveal widely when he was at school - that he's the heir of slytherin; that he's a parselmouth and controls the basilisk; that he was responsible for opening the chamber in the forties and killing myrtle, not hagrid; that he's back to finish what he started, and so on. it's possible that he also tells her that he's voldemort - ginny certainly doesn't seem too shocked at the end of the book when dumbledore brings up that riddle and voldemort are the same person.

that is, he possesses ginny with his secrets, after her vulnerability to possession has already occurred. her soul isn't weakened by a mutual exchange of secrets - the fracture which he's able to exploit depends entirely on the secrets ginny offers him.

the question is more "what did he say to her to win her trust"? what led ginny to become so emotionally enmeshed with the diary that there was a crack in her soul for the horcrux to possess in the first place?

in chamber of secrets, riddle claims that he achieved this mostly by being generically nice, and that it wasn't hard for him because he's so great and ginny's so naive and stupid:

"It's very boring, having to listen to the silly little troubles of an eleven-year-old girl," he went on. "But I was patient. I wrote back. I was sympathetic, I was kind. Ginny simply loved me. No one's ever understood me like you, Tom... I'm so glad I've got this diary to confide in... It's like having a friend I can carry around in my pocket... [...] If I say it myself, Harry, I've always been able to charm the people I needed." [CoS 17]

but, since i am extremely well-attuned to the fact that he's canonically a pathetic teenage edgelord with all the chill of the sahara... i think this is where he's lying.

throughout canon, one of lord voldemort's defining traits is that he fucking loves a yap. and during the course of his yap sessions, he has a tendency to give quite a lot about himself away.

there are so many potential options for things ginny might have said which could set him off: she mentions her secondhand robes and books, he starts ranting about experiencing the same; she mentions lucius malfoy punching her dad the day she acquired the diary, he goes off on one about abraxas; she tells him about her teachers, he spends a hour listing all the reasons why dumbledore should never have become headmaster; she talks about her crush not realising how brilliant she is, he goes off on one about abraxas for a second time; she tells him that harry is special and brilliant, an orphan just like he is, and deeply connected to him, he asks her hundreds of questions, helps her write that cunty valentine's poem, and still isn't satisfied... so he becomes determined to lure harry to the chamber.

partially, i think this because the idea that he and ginny were sincerely bffs is funny, and it's a headcanon i'm wedded to.

but it also suits the fact that harry spends the entire series - and, especially, spends the latter three books, in which ginny is a main character - continually failing to care about her experience with the diary, excluding her from his mission to defeat voldemort, and being absolutely convinced that he's the person who knows and understands the dark lord best.

i really like the idea that - while harry, ron, and hermione are accomplishing nothing in a tent - ginny could have gone "well, one of the horcruxes will definitely be in gringotts, because he wouldn't shut up about how unfair it was that he didn't have a vault... and i reckon the other one will be ravenclaw's diadem, because he was always banging on about how bitchy he thought the grey lady was... and he probably hid that in the room of requirement, because he kept showing off about how he'd discovered it..."

but harry "i'm the protagonist, ginny, please be quiet and wait for me to collect you" potter simply didn't bother finding that out.

[epigaea-repens]

I love star trek plot lines cause they're always like

"If we can't respond to this mysterious signal earth is going to be destroyed!"

And the signal is like "ÆEĄAƏÆ"

And Spock is like "omg are you stupid it's clearly from the Space Whales"

Then Bones makes a racist comment against Vulcans

[epigaea-repens]

captain james TEA kirk

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why bother caring about the environment when 1. It’s so obviously a lost cause and 2. There’s definitely going to be a nuclear war?

And what are you doing about it Anon? Learn about ecological restoration or get out of my way.

[epigaea-repens]

Maybe they should’ve called it “The Union of Fingon” for political reasons. 

I’m not even kidding it’s exactly that sort of inane thing that wins or loses wars. If Fingon played down The Sons of Feanor’s involvement then Nargothrond and Doriath might’ve helped more. Maedhros should’ve loudly played up that it was Fingon’s idea, even if it wasn’t.

That’s politics. That’s literally politics. If it wasn’t Maedhros asking Thingol for military aid, and was instead Fingon, he might’ve helped. “But he swore to never aid the sons of Feanor!” No you don’t understand, that’s the sort of thing people tend to overlook or forget if the suggestion being presented to them doesn’t directly mention the thing they hate.

Is it stupid? Yes.

Would it have worked? It’s entirely possible.

[epigaea-repens]

not to sound like a weak, morally impure centrist over here, but i think online leftist communities need to be a little more accepting of the concept that most people are just. not that well informed. we live in a society that provides access to an overwhelming amount of information and yet which discourages actually diving into much beyond the surface level. Most of the people you meet out in the world are just not gonna know much about a lot of what you care about, but that's not the same as being against those things, or being unwilling to learn, or being unnamenable to those ideas. Our modern society is an unending cascade of information and misinformation and disinformation and filtering through that shit enough to actually have a solid grasp of a subject, let alone a nuanced antiestablishment political take, is a skill that takes time and effort to develop, time and effort that is in very short supply. It really bothers me when I see leftists talk about how capitalism keeps us down by taking up all our time and energy and making recovery, both physical and emotional, cost what little we can afford, and then turn around and get upset that people are politically uninformed. On some level, you gotta meet some people where they are, and have a little faith in them to be open to new ideas and information. Ignorance is not inherently intentional, and it's not the same as antipathy.

[epigaea-repens]

eleven year olds need book series filled to the brim with violence and crime. it's like enrichment for them

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The Black Sisters

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yue the fierce moon warrior | azula the prized fire lily

[epigaea-repens]

“I asked chatgpt” well I asked Fëanor, son of Finwë, High King of the Exiled Noldor and he thinks that sacrificing your critical thinking skills to the whims and machinations of techbros is THE WORK OF MORGOTH WRITTEN INTO THE ODE THAT ARDA SINGS and that to do so IS TO SHAME YOURSELF AND YOUR UNLIMITED POTENTIAL. BE FREE. BE FREE AND CREATE WORKS OF WONDER YET UNTOLD

[epigaea-repens]

my mantra in favour of calling everything slop while not getting all "downfall of society" about it

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Spirk is also cunt4cunt but you guys just aren't ready to admit that Jim Kirk is also a captial B Bitch

[epigaea-repens]

I find it a little annoying that Kirk's personality has become like "golden retriever sunshine boy" in fandom spaces because it feels like a crazy over correction in retaliation to his mainstream reputation of being a macho womaniser. He is a nice person, and we see him being friendly with his crew, but people make him wayyyy too happy go lucky in fics. Like he's kind of a bitch sometimes too you know, like he's snaps at people when he's stressed out all the time! Dude loses his cool like pretty often tbh, he does apologise for being a bitch tho which is nice. I know people do it, so Spirk can be like those sun and moon, black cat and golden retriever kind of ship but it's too muchhhhh. Let Jim be a bitch pleaseeeee, let him yell at people it's his enrichment

[epigaea-repens]

The one thing men in the 1700s did right was have long hair they tie back into a low ponytail with a little ribbon and also have a few stray strands at the front. Almost everything else they did that century was inexcusable though

[epigaea-repens]

Getting inspired to write is actually really easy! All you need to do is be the busiest you've ever been in your entire life and as far away from a computer as humanly possible. Hope this helps 🥰

[epigaea-repens]

🥲for me this is the end of story so I paint this(so much pain(didn't expect this when i started reading

[epigaea-repens]

normal things to say

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