#feral baby | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

the-paper-monkey · 11 months

Note

When writing child Tom Riddle, what do you consider to be important notes/key elements/aspects to keep in mind? I really struggle with writing child Tom Riddle because there is only one scene we get from him as a young adult. I adore your characterisation of Tom

Even though we don't get to spend much time with child Tom, I do think that scene tells us a fair bit about his character. I would say it's even better character material than the memories we have of his teenage years, as this scene with Dumbledore shows us a Tom that isn't very good at masking yet.

One of the most important takeaways regarding little Tom, as outlined in this brilliant post, is his speech patterns. Tom at eleven is not sophisticated. He doesn’t speak like a precocious governess-tutored pureblood child. He’s blunt and direct, speaks without artifice and has little awareness or care for politeness or hierarchy. He interrupts Dumbledore repeatedly during their short conversation, even after being reprimanded for his manners and conduct.

Since we know that the author doesn’t, um, shy away from writing out accents in dialogue, I think it’s fair to say he isn’t as ‘full Cockney’ as perhaps many of his peers, but Tom still has the manners of a street urchin and does not give a fuck. Tom is a child who is used to commanding respect from both his peers and the adult Muggles in his life. Dumbledore neither being intimidated nor capitulating to his demands makes Tom uneasy. He doesn’t feel safe around people who aren’t frightened of him.

Tom doesn't know how to handle a world where he isn't the top dog. He's learning, undoubtedly, and practising his future model student persona, but he isn't very good at it yet. It doesn't come naturally to him, and he's clumsy with it. To me, that's one of the things that makes eleven-year-old Tom so endearing.

Another thing that is clear with a child Tom but not a teenage Tom, is his high level of emotional volatility. He’s far from the creepy, distant child that we see in the HBP film. Book Tom oscillates from one emotion to the next fast enough to give any reader whiplash. He swings from distrust, to fury, to wild joy, to politeness, to fear, then finally withdraws to a shrewd, calculating distance—all within his brief conversation with Dumbledore. I do think it’s important to recognise that Tom has never been fearless; after all, he destroys himself precisely in response to an all-consuming obsession with those fears. We already see a preoccupation with death, his mother’s death in particular, and a belief that his magic will save him from a similar fate.

But what Tom isn't is a coward. When faced with a person or problem that frightens him, he addresses this head-on at first and tries to brute force his way through it, either through aggression or violence. Only when that doesn't work does he draw back and begin to think strategically, attempting to charm and ingratiate himself. As a teenager we see that he learns that the second strategy is going to work best for him, but it isn't really in his nature. By adulthood, he has reverted to form. In many ways Tom at eleven is closer to Voldemort in behaviour than Tom at sixteen.

Also, side note: while I was rereading this scene for the post I noticed that Tom actually believes his father is dead. When he asks Dumbledore about him, he doesn’t ask if his father is a wizard, he asks if he was a wizard. At this age, it hasn’t yet occurred to Tom that his father might still be living, just with no interest in finding his son.

#possibly it doesn't occur to him until Morfin tells him at sixteen #tom riddle #asks #anon #i want to squish his cheeks #feral baby #papermonkey meta

235 notes · View notes

mark-of-chrysus · 1 year

Text

#16

Daniel was tiny. TINY!

It wasn't even because the loop had started very early, no, he was in the timeframe around when he would've been in middle school, judging by the date on a discarded newspaper he had found, with the only difference being that he was a toddler. Worst even, his mother was nowhere in sight. He was a lost baby!

His respect for Yenna grew leps and bound once he managed to finally lift his bum off the sidewalk after at least 20 tries. How did babies even manage to live like this? Nevermind, they're babies they don't need to provide for themselves or do literally anything for themselves.

"Uhgggggh" The sound he unwillingly let slip was embarrassing, but encompassed the situation exactly.

'Stupid broken loop!' he thought, struggling to walk-crawl closer to what he assumed was a more populated street, judging by the voices coming from there. 'Maybe I shouldn't have started a cult in the last loop. Or is this a result of that one ritual we were making when the loop reset?' he theorized, unaware of his surroundings due to his limited attention span.

Suddenly he was no longer touching the ground and instead flying. Oh, nevermind, someone (a giant) had lifted him in his hand. The sensation made him slightly nauseous, but he didn't bother trying to struggle when he recognized who the giant was. At least that confirmed his theory of being around when he should've been fourteen or so.

Jerry cooed over the tiny being cupped in his large palms, uncaring of the seemingly cultish robes it was dressed in. If anything, he just thought it made him look even cuter, like a little wannabe wizard. Carefully, like Jake had taught him, he held the baby closer and made his way to Big Deal's street, where he knew his friend would be.

"Did you steal that?" was the first thing a paling Jake had asked him when he showed him the baby?

Jerry was quick to clarify that he had just found him alone on the ground while the girls cooed over him and spoiled him with affection. 'I could get used to this' Danny thought, leaning into the gentle embrace of Yeonhui while Sinu sulked in a corner.

The pretty girl was just patting his head when she suddenly retracted her hand as if burned and let out a large gasp. In the blink of an eye Sinu jumped up and rushed to see what the problem was. In order to be able to better shower the boy in affection she had removed his little hood and revealed a large bruise on the back of his neck.

'I forgot about that' the time-looper grimaced, recalling how his friends had found him as he was performing his last ritual and panicked, thinking he was possessed. The fact he had painted symbols and runes all over his body in blood probably hadn't helped their image of him, and Zack, Jace, Vasco, Johan, Eli, and Vin Jin had all tried to fight him to hopefully knock the possession out of him or something like that. Of course, he had looped back before they could do that, but the remainder of their fight still marred his skin.

The girls began whispering furiously around him, their faces painted with a mix of worry and righteous anger, but he couldn't make out what they were saying. His eyelids began feeling heavier and no matter how much he tried he couldn't stifle the yawn that bubbled in his throat.

"Awwwwwwww" was the last thing he heard before exhaustion overtook him and he fell into the most peaceful sleep he had experienced in ages.

-----------------

"Uwah"

He woke up to see Sinu smiling down at him. Well, that was certainly something! Baby Daniel skewered his eyebrows, trying to recall what had happened before the events of the previous day came crashing in. Right, he was with Big Deal, and they probably thought he was some sort of abused cult orphan.

"Good morning little sunshine!" Yeonhui entered the room with a bright smile carrying a small bowl of what looked like mush.

Unconsciously his baby instincts took over and he copied her smile with a big one of his own, which granted him another round of cooing from both of them. It was official, his baby powers could bewitch anyone.

"Uwah" He pointed to the bowl of mush, ignoring how gross it looked. He was hungry enough to eat a hippo and beggars can't be choosers.

Seemingly remembering the purpose of her visit Yeonhui rushed to pick his food up, while Sinu adjusted his position on the old couch, placing his palm on the bay's back to keep him upright. The girl crouched in front of him and brought a small spoon of mush in front of Danny, who opened his mouth and swallowed it, alongside his pride. The process repeated a couple of times until he could no longer bare the lovey-dovey looks Sinu was giving the girl and felt ready to throw up. When had become a plot device in their romance? He sulked while the man wiped the corners of his mouth with a small handkerchief as his wife-Cough! soon-to-be-lover cleaned the dishes.

After breakfast, the two paraded him around the street with the pride of new parents showing around their child to their neighbors and family. He was cooed over, his cheeks were pinched, and he confirmed that the entirety of Big Deal was just a bunch of softies, with a few exceptions, Old Face and Samuel. He was sure to throw them one of his fiercest glares, but the latter seemed to only take this as a challenge, thus making it his life's mission to win the glaring contest against the two-year-old toddler that hung onto Sinu like a koala.

'Whoever put Samuel on babysitting duty needs to get their paycheck retracted!' Danny mentally screamed the day when, instead of waking up to his usual caretaker for the day, as the schedule they had pointed and glued to the wall dictated, he opened his eyes to see his second-least-favorite person in the crew. He checked the schedule and sure enough, today was Jake's turn. Following his gaze, Samuel let out a dry chuckle.

"Jake's too busy to take care of you today, beasty." He announced with a smug smirk, that quickly turned into a grimace. "So he asked me to do it instead."

Neither expected to enjoy the ordeal as much as they did. By the end of the day the scornful 'beasty' had turned into somewhat of an endearment, and Samuel learned why none of his daily caretakers would ever let the boy out of their arms. There was just something weirdly amusing about having the brat nod his little head in agreement when he scolded people for being stupid and sometimes even cheering him on when a more 'hands-on approach' with other rival crews or troublemakers was needed. Despite how tiny he was, the little beasty was never frightened of him, even when he had one of his maniacal episodes and left behind a bloody pile of bodies with his signature deranged smile. Yes, the tattooed man conceived, the brat was somewhat tolerable. And if his name suddenly appeared on their weekly babysitting schedule, no one commented on it.

------------

It was late in the evening, but Danny didn't seem to be able to fall asleep. They had read him stories, and played with him to tire the boy out, and even had Yeonhui sing him to sleep. It didn't work.

"Something's wrong, he always falls asleep after she sings to him!" Sinu told his boys, combing a hand through his hair worriedly.

Before the two had a chance to reply a blonde barged into the room A man with black hair and sunglasses followed him in, looking just as cocky and exuding the same aura of danger that made the three males step in front of Yeonhui and the baby protectively.

Gun's eyes landed on the woman holding the baby, and he gave a derisive snort pointing at her. The trio bristled at his gesture, slipping into defensive positions. Goo's smirk grew impossibly wide.

"I suggest you take the baby out of here. Wouldn't want it to see something...traumatic."

"Him." Jake spat in reply with such vitriol that a lesser man would've cowered, motioning the woman to leave.

Danny panicked as Yeonhui made for the door, knowing that even with their forces combined they couldn't win against the maniac duo. He began struggling and wailing in her arms, reaching for them, trying to get her grasp to widen enough so that he could escape. The kind girl shushed him, trying to cover his view of the men with one hand while whispering reassurances that they would be alright.

'They won't!' Daniel tried to scream back 'You don't know these two! They're going to break them and take them away! They're going to hurt them...they're going to hurt my family...' His hopelessness and desperation began shifting into a bone-crushing rage, and the boy flung himself one last time, startling her enough so that she accidentally let go of the boy.

Daniel flew through the air, landing on a mope of blond hair before he began pulling at Goo's hair and hitting him in the head with his tiny fists while spitting insults in baby language. If they could understand what he was saying he would surely lose dessert privileges for the rest of his life and get a long lecture on top of that. As it was, however, everyone flew into a panic as the blonde fell onto the ground from the full force of a feral baby slamming into him, before struggling to rip the little imp off him. His little hits were surprisingly strong, Goo would later recall, strong enough that after a few minutes of struggling onto the floor, Danny came out victorious, with the blonde unconscious on the floor.

Sinu quickly scooped up in his arms, half dead from worry and bursting with pride at his little display, before he remembered the other male was still in the room. He tightened his hold onto the baby while turning to glower at the ravenette, whose hidden gaze was burning holes into his young ward. Gun may have done nothing but watch the whole "fight", but there was nothing to indicate that he wouldn't harm the child in retaliation.

"Now that was unexpected!" His smirk only served to send the four further on edge. "You have potential, kid!"

Danny snarled audibly at him, bearing his little canines at the grinning maniac. Gun made to take a step towards him, taking off his sunglasses and revealing the black sclera and white irises below but stopped dead in his tracks when the toddler's snarl depend and his eyes switched to match his own. It was a warning, but one that only made the child more interesting in his eyes. How could an infant such as him even master UI so young? He seemed completely in control of the technique too, which made the whole situation even odder.

'You're interesting, brat." He told Danny, ignoring the growls it incited from his guardians as he picked up his partner's fallen body with a final promise. "I'll be back."

The tension in the room didn't ease at least a full half-an-hour after the man had left, at which point they all just flew into a frenzy of checking their baby for injuries of any kind. Satisfied with finding none but a few tiny bruises that were thoroughly kissed away and covered in spider-man bandages, the men shifted to praising the preening boy (even Samuel gave him a proud smile before he quickly wiped it off so that no one else could see it) and planning for how to proceed when the two inevitably returned.

Danny listened to them from Yeonhui's lap, savoring the prize of his victory, a melon flavor Power Cap (ice cream?).

Yes, he liked his new little family, he concluded as the sun rose and bathed the street in the light of a new day.

#time loop #lookism #webtoon lookism #lookism manhwa #daniel park #sinu han #jake kim #samuel seo #gun park #goo kim #found family #baby daniel park #feral baby

32 notes · View notes