Aro-in-danyl - Sarcasm Is My Name. Sincerity Is My Game.

Alastor as a "Gift from God" AU part 2

I'll have you know it is very difficult to write from the POV of God so you get Roo instead. I had to look up bible verses for this.

PART 1 here.

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On the day of the first extermination cleanse.

When the first sinner was slain, Roo felt the soul attempt to rise. A fruitless endeavor, for their sinful deeds in life and in death ensured her roots bound the severed pieces of the soul to her.

Foolish angels, in culling the herd and stifling even the thought of rebellion, they only made her stronger. Roo tightened her vines around the soul and attempted to drag it down, down through the 7 rings, and to her.

Attempted, because before she even got past the Pride Ring, a stronger force yanked the soul upwards. Enraged and in disbelief she tightened her hold around the other souls being slaughtered by the dozens, but each and every time they were ripped from her grasp.

At the end of the day, when the exorcists were flying up and away from the slaughter, the portal to Heaven opened and Roo latched onto the connection and demanded an explanation.

"Have you gone back on your word?" her tone was taunting but her desperation and anger festered, "These souls are mine. Their punishment is meant to be eternal!"

Roo did not expect a response, God had not spoken to her since The Beginning, and God had no foothold in hell - usually. Today, apparently, was an exception.

God spoke to her, "My creations all return unto me in The End regardless. You know I cannot bare to be separated forever."

Roo did not buy this, "What ever happened to 'Depart from me, you who are cursed' was that not written?"

"Said by a King, not I." God refuted.

"But within your holy text." Roo sniped, "You reward their sin, their rejection of you, by accepting them back with open arms?"

"If you think that is what will happen to those who reject me twice, you know me not at all." And perversely, Roo felt relieved at this admission. "The righteous will have eternal life, the sinful - upon second death - nothing."

"And keeping them from me was merely a happy coincidence?" Roo felt emboldened, God must see her as a bigger threat than she thought, "To twist the meaning of your eternal punishment to exclude me, why I'd almost call that a quality worthy of a demon."

The portal, which had only been open seconds, pulsed with the force of God's anger.

Roo laughed. "You fear me enough to risk your angels falling into my grasp once again. Do you think this latest stunt of yours will keep me weak forever?"

"My angels have learned to evade you since then."

"Careful there." Roo feigned concern, "Anymore hubris and I'll have to save you a seat in Pride. I could put you next to your favorite child, wouldn't that be nice?"

God ignored the taunt, "I know your roots grow stronger on Earth. More fall to you everyday. Faster than even my best angels can catch them."

Roo smiled at the admission. To have her work acknowledged by the being who created everything, everything that would someday be corrupted and belong wholly to her.

God continued, "It is a testament to your strength that The End may be sooner than I thought."

Roo stopped cold. Her strength came from corrupting the creations of God, but if there was nothing to corrupt...

Ah. She thought. Nothing truly is an eternal punishment.

"Unless," God hedged. "We come to an arrangement?"

Suddenly the reason for God's desire to converse with her made sense. Here she was, weakened from the loss of over a hundred damned souls, from an event that would become a yearly occurrence. Here God was, with the threat of The End poised upon their fingertips, attempting to force her compliance.

And it was working.

But God had shown their hand too early, "How utterly demonic of you! You want to compromise with me? To reason with me?" She used her roots to trip a flailing exorcist trying to remove its spear from a corpse just because, "What can you offer me?"

"I will not hasten The End before its time." God stated, as if the threat of nothing was enough now that she knew God wanted something from her that they could not get themselves.

"You do not want to destroy everything you've created; you want it even less than I do. What is it you desire?"

The last few exorcists were getting ready to return via the portal, their clothes splatted in shade of red and an abundance of gore. They had yet to develop a tolerance to the violence they were perpetuating. Roo knew, just as God did, that many of the angels after slaughtering their first few sinners, had ripped their helmet off and vomited in disgust and despair.

Roo could feel their shock, their inner turmoil, their sense of righteousness, their loyalty to heaven. With time, and more exterminations cleanses, they would learn to enjoy the bloodshed. Or they would break. Such was the way of war.

"I wish to create a gift for Lucifer," God began, "A gift that will challenge him, embolden him, and remain by his side."

Lucifer! Why did it always come back to him? Around them, the corpses of the damned littered her domain never to rise again, God's angels grappled with the weight of their heavenly duty, and her influence weakened for the first time in decades. And yet it was Lucifer that made God lower themselves to speak with her!

Roo reigned in her rage, "And what does that have to do with me?"

"I am creating something unlike anything I've ever created before." God directed her attention back to the weak angel who'd finally pulled their spear from a corpse, "Immune to angelic destruction. Stronger than a thousand sinners, with the potential to stand against my Archangels, capable of vengeance and retribution."

Roo salivated. "And you're sending it here." Roo let the last of the shattered souls in her grasp go, not even paying attention as it shot upwards and away. "You'd create such a thing and put in my hands the instrument of your demise?"

"Which is why I appear before you. You know sin more intimately than I. So I implore you to cast off a piece of yourself for this gift and I shall do the same."

"And what is this gift?" The exorcist was attempting to clean the gore from the spear and failing. "And why should I give you anymore of myself when you've already taken so much?"

"A human soul."

"You intend to create a soul destined to hell before its first sin and gift it to the being who prizes free will above all else. Do you imagine he will thank you?" Roo didn't care about Lucifer's feelings regarding this gift, she couldn't wait to see the fallout actually, but she couldn't help but point out the obvious.

"No," God said, "he will not. As for you, this soul will bring a new age upon your realm. They will be The Avenger of the worthy. And a nightmare to everyone else."

"Do not repay anyone evil for evil," Roo quoted. "Is that why you need me? You want to avoid going against your own words, so you seek to blame me instead."

She did not give God time to respond, "But you still haven't told me what I gain. What do I care for this promised 'new age' or so-called Avenger when I am still trapped?"

"And that is my bargain," God attempted to comfort one of the angels weeping over a small sinner's corpse but their touch fell short. Seems they did not have power over anything in her realm but exorcised souls, she mused.

"With a piece of us both, this soul will have a direct link to us in a way no fully mortal being has before."

Roo would've gasped if she was capable of breathing, "Speak plainly!"

"They could free you."

"What's the catch? Why would you give them this power?" She could hardly believe it. It was too good to be true.

"You have the chance to be free. But you must convince this soul to do so of their own free will, knowing fully the consequences of your freedom." Roo dismissed this, she was The Root of Sin for a reason, and this soul was destined for her realm anyway.

"You are forbidden from interfering with their life before hell. And you must find this soul yourself once they fall."

A minor setback, but the call of freedom was strong. Still, she was not so blinded by this opportunity that she wouldn't ask, "And what, do you, The Almighty God, gain from this bargain?"

"A hellborn will become your greatest adversary, they will attempt to redeem sinners and remove them from your grasp." The portal to Heaven began to close.

"And should they succeed, your chance to convince The Avenger will begin to close. And you will never know freedom."

"A time limit!" She should've known they wouldn't play fair, "How long?"

They turned her attention to the newly built Tower in the center of the Pentagram. The timer below flipped through the numbers at record speed until it hit 365. "Seven full moons after the clock strikes zero for the last time. Do we have an agreement?"

God's voice was strong as ever, but the portal was now only the size of a quarter. Roo knew manipulation and this reeked of it, how clever of God to wait until the last moment to share all the details when she had so little time to think of it.

"When in hell, you use the proper term." Roo pretended to scold them. She reached out to the fading tendrils of God and sunk her thorns in as deep into the connection as she could.

"We have a deal."

imagine you're living in the post apocalypse and your adopted dad still makes you do homework

I like that they made Vegeta learn the power of Destruction, and that what he does with it is a complete opposite of what it's intended to do: protect and save what he holds dear instead of wreaking havoc and destroying. He must be tired of constantly losing everything

Oh no there’s two of them

I want a superhero movie where the hero dies in the first ten minutes and the woman who was supposed to be the love interest puts on his costume and becomes an even better hero.

TMR Fic Idea

Galatea Merrythought was the dark arts professor during Tom Riddle’s school years, retiring when he graduated. 

In this fic, Merrythought becomes Riddle’s mentor and was the one to introduce him to the many creatures (vampires, werewolves, giants, etc) who would’ve made up Voldemort’s ranks. Instilling in him a sense of adventure and treasure hunting that gave him the knowledge to find the lost Diadem in the first place. 

Merrythought takes him on wild adventures that are only possible because she has an illegal time turner. 

Tom accidentally becomes friends and fellow adventurers with Muggleborn Hufflepuffs Nobby Leach and Margot Doope, and Ravenclaw underclassman Myrtle Warren.  

Nobby being a blunt, angry little gremlin who says what he thinks no matter what others may say about him. He has no patience for his bloodpurity spouting Pureblood classmates and will throwdown for his fellow Puffs anytime, anywhere. Despite his rude, brash personality, his fellow Muggleborns still find him a compelling leader. Now, Tom and Leach together...they’re practically unstoppable. 

Margot is a cold, logical upperclassman who would likely fit in with the Ravenclaw’s if not for her dedication to her work. She refuses to believe magic and muggle technological advances can’t be combined and experiments with both. They often explode in her face, but she refuses to give up. 

Myrtle is always popping up where you least expect her, and annoying the hell out of Tom. She’s far sharper than her boy-crazy tendencies would have you believe, but she usually arrives at the wrong conclusion and still somehow manages to be right. (Much to Tom’s frustration.) 

Basically the Muggleborn friend squad you never knew you wanted. This time with an extra helping of the ignored and overlooked Hogwarts Houses, aka the not-Gryffindors. :D  

A group of friends working together to figure out wixen culture, their identities, and their place in the world. 

Also they’re all LGBT+ of some kind. You’re Welcome. 

TL:DR

Tom Riddle Hogwarts AU where he gets a supportive professor and muggleborn friends who go on wacky adventures together and figure out how to be human. 

And yes Tom is still messed up, but so are they. It’s not gonna be all sun shine and roses. See my other tom riddle posts for reference. I’ll likely be addressing most if not all of them. 

Aaand here’s my Shrunkyclunks alignment chart!  😝

Made it for fun, and I am planning on making one for Shrinkyclinks. I originally made it for myself and lent it for use for the Shrunkyclunks Bang as promo material and also explanatory material.

And yeah, I know that technically, shrunkyclunks can also be just about esthetics, but then I tend to simply call it Twinktank (which is kind of its alternative name when Bucky is only Twink, so like… Modern Bucky purist? lol).

I really had lots of fun doing this one, making all of them a bit special, and keeping things dynamic, especially since I had to keep it small, do it quick…

I probably will now, eventually, Nobby Leach is such a blank slate that I don't feel any pressure with keeping him canon.

But Tom Riddle? Now that little shit is frustrating to keep in character. I have so many headcanons for him it's difficult to adhere them to canon. Btw definitely gonna post a new thread about those in a bit. You guys got me on a roll.

The poison-dragonpox headcanon with Abraxas is also one of my favorites. I would absolutely write that.

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.

I know everyone's already said this, but Vox is so funny because he's quite literally the most competent and professional Vee.

EXCEPT for when it comes to Alastor.

Like, HE’S the one who had to calm down Valentino and keep him from making a scene. (Especially because, yes, it looks bad if they can't control their employees, but - even in hell - it looks even worse if their top pornstar has to be dragged to the studio vs walking in on his own).

Velvette doesn't give a shit about professionalism. Like, Vox wanted to talk to Carmine about Angelic Security, and you think THAT'S how he wanted Velvette to treat her to try to guarantee them working together? Absolutely not.

(Also, Vox being able to immediately turn the tide of the paparazzi harassing him about news that JUST broke? Granted, he did use his hypnosis, but it wouldn't have worked if he didn't immediately come up with something on the fly. He knows how to keep his company running AND looking good, as WELL as being innovative enough to create new things with little to no notice.)

The other two Vees? I would not trust either of them to be the public speaker or the face of the company the way Vox is. Do you think either Velvette or Valentino would have been able to come up with a solution to the moved-up Extermination date in a way that pleased the general public?

But then. Some old timey radio deer shows back up and he immediately breaks down and can't plan for shit.

He sings a silly little song and immediately gets owned to the point he loses power to the entire city.

He plans to break in using a dude they KNOW is incompetent, and his only response when it (obviously) fails is to fucking gamer anon hate with "hahaha kys loser!" and the second he is confronted with Alastor’s face he can't do anything. He doesn't even try a single other thing after this point, cutting his loses entirely.

And THEN he avoids the meeting sending Velvette instead, potentially fucking up their ability to collaborate because he can't handle seeing Alastor.

This bisexual wreck of a television doesn't fucking leave his gamer dungeon once since Alastor is back, doing everything he can to avoid seeing him in real life.

Like, imagine what dealing with Vox is like from Alastor's perspective. HE never sees the professionalism or competence - he ONLY ever gets the pathetic mew-mew Vox!

Alastor is constantly being told how competent Vox is with his company and shit, but the second he's in the same room with him Vox is glitching and can't walk in a straight line without running into a wall or something. If I were Alastor, I'd have fun teasing the television too, because, like, what's wrong with him? It's funny!

Like, does Alastor register that this treatment is only for him, or does he think the rest of hell is pathetic enough to not notice or to just accept it? Does Alastor think Vox is like this all the time, and he's using his hypnosis to make everyone else forget about it?

Vox is just such a funny man, he has one weakness and it's just Alastor - and Alastor isn't even doing anything, he's just nearby minding his own goddamn business, lmao.