iamnmbr3 - Tumblr blog

[iamnmbr3]

Friends, enemies, whoever: there is a massive, money-soaked rightwing voter suppression effort targeting social media users who identify as progressive and/or are seen as potential Democratic supporters. Let's all keep that in mind, okay? Let's not make accidental unpaid operatives of ourselves, all right?

[iamnmbr3]

Voldemort: Dinner, Nagini.

Nagini: No I'm good actually.

Voldemort: Well can you just eat this one anyway even if you're not hungry? Everyone's watching.

Nagini: Why? I just ate last week.

Voldemort: I'm trying to do a dramatic moment and you're ruining it. And you're embarrassing me in front of the Death Eaters!

Nagini: Hm. Sounds like a you problem. I'm not hungry.

[iamnmbr3]

[iamnmbr3]

can you imagine if sirius had been alive for book 7

Harry: -and so yeah. That's why it turns out I have to die.

Sirius: No. Absolutely not. We do need to find a way to resurrect Dumbledore though.

Harry: Why?

Sirius: So I can kill him again!

[iamnmbr3]

Am I the only one who will be discouraged with interacting with any type of media if it has a picture made by AI with it??

Like I can love a concept and want to check it out but if I see it has been attached to a picture of AI by OP I just won't touch it. I won't check it out or even give it a chance even if I really want to!?!??

Am I the only one that feels like that??

[iamnmbr3]

Voldemort: Dinner, Nagini.

Nagini: No I'm good actually.

Voldemort: Well can you just eat this one anyway even if you're not hungry? Everyone's watching.

Nagini: Why? I just ate last week.

Voldemort: I'm trying to do a dramatic moment and you're ruining it. And you're embarrassing me in front of the Death Eaters!

Nagini: Hm. Sounds like a you problem. I'm not hungry.

[iamnmbr3]

Lord Voldemort <- break his ass down, please. (Love you blog, btw! 💖)

How I feel about this character

One of the characters of all time. I find Tom Riddle to be an absolutely fascinating character who is so fun to explore. I think he came out a lot more 3 dimensional than JKR perhaps intended (I say this because a lot of the backstory we get on him makes him a lot more nuanced than the narrative seems to acknowledge) which I absolutely love. His complexity, intelligence, creativity, self sufficiency, determination even in the face of impossible odds, ruthlessness, penchant for drama, and the tremendous amount of adversity he has to overcome provide a lot of richness that is fun to analyze and read about. I mean, without him we wouldn't have the story.

All the people I ship romantically with this character

Alphard Black. Yes, I wouldn't have called it either not too long ago but now this ship now lives rent free in my head. (If you want to read about why you can look at this post here). All hail the dysfunctional, hilarious, and emotionally compelling mess that is Alphalord - which I ship both in serious incarnations and also for the crack humor potential; truly the versatile ship of all time that gives me way too many feels but also is very fun to make crack humor posts about. Also, although it's not my OTP, I think there's also a lot of interesting potential - all of varying degrees of darkness - to explore pairing him with Regulus as well.

My non-romantic OTP for this character

I talked here about how fascinating I find Voldemort's relationship with Snape. He does genuinely seem to like and respect him - to the point that he is actually willing to do favors for him and expresses regret about killing him. Though also...on the flip side, he doesn't like him enough to not murder him (although interestingly from an in-universe perspective we could even read him using Nagini to kill him as him not being able to use the killing curse against Snape due to feeling conflicted). I really like the idea though of him destroying everyone who he feels even somewhat close to.

Which leads me to my actual answer to this question since I already wrote about him and Snape in the Snape ask (linked in the previous paragraph) which is - Hagrid. In the book 2 flashback Tom and Hagrid are on a first name basis. And Tom clearly already knows that Hagrid has an Acromantula because when he gets the unexpected and unwelcome news that the school is going to be closed he immediately knows just where to go to find someone to blame. This suggests that he and Hagrid had a preexisting relationship where Riddle gained Hagrid's trust enough to learn things about him.

It's notable that they would have probably been the only 2 orphans at school (after Hagrid's father died.) I can imagine them running across each other during holidays when everyone is home. (They also both had a nonstandard accent - though Riddle has succeeded in mostly getting rid of his own accent by the time the memory takes place - that might have been looked down on by some of their privileged pureblood peers).

It's also not even clear if Tom intended for Hagrid to be expelled (though he certainly was willing to risk it in order to prevent the school from going and to avoid incurring any blame himself) given that he seemingly intends to kill the spider and say that it got loose by accident rather than as some sort of intentional plot. He also doesn't kill Hagrid when he has the chance in book 7. This is probably just for plot reasons so JKR can have him carry Harry's presumably dead body back to the school, but in-universe it's interesting. Maybe Tom thought he could still turn Hagrid into a useful servant (which I don't think would have gone well). Either way, the fact that they seemingly had a sort of friendship at one point is very interesting and lends an added layer to Hagrid's assertion in book 1 that Slytherins are bad and not to be trusted.

While Tom likely viewed Hagrid with a certain degree of disdain right from day one, it's up to interpretation whether he ever also felt any positive emotions about his relationship with Hagrid or if the friendship was purely a one-sided farce. I prefer the former because I think it adds more depth and complexity to the characters and relationships if Tom ended up having some feelings of genuine camaraderie with Hagrid but was still willing to sacrifice him to protect his own interests. It makes the moment even more interesting if he did not specifically intend for Hagrid to get expelled and thus ends up losing one of the few people who, unlike the majority of his housemates, doesn't look askance at his presumed lineage as a muggleborn and his utter poverty. And this also adds interest to his decision in the end of book 7 to capture Hagrid rather than kill him.

Though of course, neither Snape nor Hagrid hold a candle to the true Tom Riddle BROTP of all time - Tom& Nagini. I love the way he is generally very touch averse but likes to hold her and pet her like a very terrifying therapy animal.

My unpopular opinion about this character

There's a lot I've talked about before like the fact that I think Tom really did want the DADA job and I also think he's a lot more emotionally intelligent than he gets credit for and the people he seems to enjoy hurting most are actually monied purebloods and the person who behaved most unreasonably in the orphanage memory was actually not Tom.

So for this I'll go with the fact that I view Tom as a much more tragic character than the narrative seems to frame him as. It's weird that so many other characters who do bad things get framed as a tragedy not an inevitability - something that is closely linked with the idea that even for characters who have gone down the wrong path there can be redemption. We see this with Snape, with James Potter, with Regulus, with Dumbledore, arguably with Grindelwald whose last act is to lie about the Elder Wand, and sort of even with Peter Pettigrew.

In contrast, Dumbledore always acts as though it's a forgone conclusion that Tom was going to turn out evil and ignores the way wizarding society and even he himself failed to ever do anything meaningful to help Tom or try to guide him onto another path. That doesn't mean he might not have still become Lord Voldemort. But it's never treated as something that even might have been avoided. There is no discussion of what a loss it is that his talent and power and intelligence and creativity weren't used for good. But it is a loss.

It's not inevitable that Tom turned out the way he did. It's not inevitable that he lived a life where he never knew what it was to be loved. It's not inevitable that the first person to ever offer him mercy is Harry Potter and by that point it's far too late and he doesn't even understand what Harry's trying to do. It's not inevitable that because the wizarding world has no concept of social services he grew up in a muggle orphanage without any knowledge of who or what he was, hated and feared by all, and in turn learning to hate and fear them in return. It's not inevitable that Dumbledore immediately gave him up as a lost cause and he never had an adult in his life who could provide support and guidance and a sense of safety. It's not inevitable that upon arriving at Hogwarts he got sorted into a House with people like Walburga Black who would have called him mudblood and hated him for his poverty almost as much as his bloodline, breeding further anger and resentment. And it's not inevitable that he made the choices that he did to kill and to maim. It's SAD. He could have done and been so much more.

I mean, to be clear, from a reader perspective all of this makes Tom an interesting and fun character. It's not bad from a storytelling perspective that these things happened. But nonetheless, it's a tragedy. And I think that gets very little play in the narrative. Yes, Harry tells Tom to try for remorse, but it's framed by the story more as an instance of Harry being ridiculously decent. When Dumbledore discourages Harry from feeling pity for the horrifying state Tom will find himself in the afterlife, there's nothing in the narrative framing that suggests the readers are meant to view Dumbledore's callousness as awful.

From an in-universe perspective we can talk about the strange bias Dumbledore had towards Tom from the moment he met him, but from an out of universe perspective it's more about the author's bias. Yes Dumbledore is meant to be flawed and imperfect, but we readers are not meant to think his treatment of Tom is an example of that imperfection. We're supposed to think it's just fine that upon learning that Tom has lived lonely and miserable existence where he is constant mortal fear of being declared mad and forcibly locked up, Dumbledore's first act is to use magic to frighten and to punish. Partly this is just because that scene is a flashback about the villain of the series and JKR kind of forgot that from an in-universe POV he wasn't the villain of the series yet.

But also maybe it says something more profound - because in the end of the story the narrative declares "all is well" and yet none of the factors that led to Tom Riddle's rise have actually changed. As Harry is sending his children off to school 19 years later in the accursed epilogue, nothing has actually. It's fine to have a story that doesn't have a happy ending. But the narrative frames the ending as a black and white "everything's fixed now and they all lived happily ever after" sort of ending and...no. And this stems, I think, from the failure to engage with the elements that make the main antagonist a great tragedy rather than a cartoonish inevitability. This all makes the story much more interesting, but I'm not sure JKR is fully aware of what she wrote.

One thing I wish would happen / had happened with this character in canon.

I wish we saw more of him in book 7. The opening scene at the Manor in Deathly Hallows is really tense and gripping and interesting...and a lot of the wedding planning and camping stuff in my opinion...is not. More scenes of the Death Eaters and Voldemort (delivered via Harry's visions) could have been very interesting. Furthermore, Harry could have actively explored Tom's mind and/or widened the connection to try to figure out where the Horcruxes were. This would have added drama, made Harry's connection to him more central to the plot, and allowed us to see more high stakes and interesting scenes.

[iamnmbr3]

Teeth weak as fuck why can't you be like bones

[iamnmbr3]

When Harry opens up enough to Draco to tell him about his upbringing and about how he never knew what it was like to be held till fairly recently and he's still discovering how much he likes to be touched. Draco doesn't make a big deal of it at the time but lowkey wants to cry inside and starts going out of his way to give harry extra touches.

what if harry was very cuddly and liked hugs as much as possible. Always in someone's lap. He deserves snuggles

He absolutely does. And I think he actually would enjoy them. He's not that accustomed to touch due to his abusive upbringing but he's always confused but very pleased when Molly hugs him so I think he'd discover he really enjoys cuddles from people he feels close to and comfortable with. I also think Draco is a very physical person with people he's close to - after all he grew up with 2 doting parents and we see him lying with his head in Pansy's lap in book 6. So I think drarry end up being a ridiculously cuddly couple - though probably only in private as they're probably both a bit self conscious about stuff like that in public.

[iamnmbr3]

Wizards are too op. The muggles need some advantages. Ideas?

nukes

[iamnmbr3]

AIPAC is not the largest Zionist organization in the United States. CUFI has ten million members, which over three times the number of AIPAC members. CUFI’s membership is equal to about two-thirds the total number of Jews on the planet, combined. Which means there are more Evangelical Christian Zionists in one US organization than there are Jews, total, in either the United States or Israel individually.

If one of your friends or someone you follow has a lot to say about AIPAC but not about CUFI, then they are not targeting Zionist organizations. They are targeting Jews. If they protest at American Synagogues, but not at any of the hundreds of thousands of pro-Israeli churches across the United States, then they are not targeting breeding grounds of Zionism. They are targeting Jews.

[iamnmbr3]

[iamnmbr3]

[iamnmbr3]

I used to do the same as you with coffee during coffee breaks at me prev job. Coworkers would laugh at me and shake their heads. Pls tell me you also love pineapple pizza and we'll be bff's weeeee

I do actually. It is us with our unpopular but incredibly correct food opinions against the world anon.

[iamnmbr3]

[iamnmbr3]

I don't normally post about Harry Potter (even though my user is based on it), but to hear the actress who played Professor Sprout say such mean things about fans of the franchise hurt. "It was 25 years ago, and it's for children."

I know the author of Harry Potter is a bigot, but I need everyone to understand that for a lot of people who grew up with the series, it saved us in some way. I know for me it did. My parents were going through their divorce the first time I picked up a Harry Potter book, and I went through so much growing up that I turned to my magical world filled with adventure and magic and found family to find solace. I still do. I am thirty, and I find myself gravitating to the movies or books when life is overwhelming. It's my safe place.

No matter how you feel about us fans, the works, or the author, imagine having an actor from your favorite franchise mock you while still making money off the fandom.

To everyone who is still here and in love with Harry Potter, don't let that woman make you feel childish or bad for liking what you like.

[iamnmbr3]

I haven't seen Moon Knight and know nothing about it. What was problematic about the portrayal?

they changed the character’s story so that he was basically a traumatized preacher’s kid even though he’s the son of a rabbi, when the character’s original trauma came mostly/in part bc of antisemitic violence against him. so instead of a goy committing an act of hate toward a jew, it’s the jews (his mother) who are the abusers that give him trauma. I believe none of the writers or showrunners are jewish or have knowledge of judaism, bc it’s also an attack on jewish women invoking the trope that they’re bitchy, bossy, loud, and in this case evil bc it was his mother who abused him. they don’t bring up judaism or jewishness until it’s time to demonize the jews involved and their religion. but boy howdy they sure love Egyptian mythology, and make sure to be respectful and avoid racist stereotypes and depictions. there was the final nail in the coffin, he gets angry and throws a kippah on the ground, and the whole scene was so incredibly disrespectful. I wasn’t on board with the show at all given that there were really no jews involved, but hearing they did that just solidified my hatred for it.

this is a pretty good article about it.