#established organization

[bacchuschucklefuck]

class swap design masterpost for convenience (from top to bottom: bard!riz, cleric!gorgug, sorcerer!kristen, barbarian!fig, artificer!adaine, and rogue!fabian)

[despazito]

i'm afraid folks will have to come to terms with the fact that doodles are here to stay and that there should be a focus on getting breeders to produce the soundest doodles possible instead of trying to shut the whole thing down which is just an exercise in futility

[loumandaniel]

@ amc studios, look me in the eye - let us secretly erase your terrible mayfair witches show and try again! this time we will set it in 1990, as it should have been, and lean into the talamasca as the CIA & cold war, and the satanic panic for the witches. it’s crazy how badly you fumbled this show, amc. but, i can fix it! give me a shot!!

[twilight-deviant]

I can't believe this one sardonic line from 1x10 explained Matt's abilities more than 9 episodes of Born Again.

[dragonsdendoodles]

On Hugh Apiston and How The Actual FUCK Are You Alive

Discussion of Hugh Apiston and his digestive system below the cut (I think this stuff is fascinating as hell but I know lots of people think it’s gross)

From my stepdad (a retired paramedic): essentially, we could rule out lungs because while he does appear to breathe the bees, that pathway doesn’t diverge until the back of the throat so theoretically they could just change track at the last second. As for the hive itself, it could be stronger than normal beehive or he could have less stomach acid than usual. The big problem here is space—there’s a bundle of nerves near the top of your stomach that signals to your body “hey quit eating I’m full” so you don’t actually fill up your stomach, so theoretically if they built their hive around there and it didn’t get degraded by stomach acid, they might be able to hang out largely near the back of Hugh’s throat a lot of the time (hence the “bees fly out every time he opens his mouth” thing) and the rest of his systems should function pretty normally.

So while there absolutely could be a Horrible Bee Organ (organs are surprisingly easily shifted around, look what happens when people have babies) and it would probably be a better option for having more bees and more internal beehive, it is possible without one. They’d be pretty limited in their space and they’d have to pretty much constantly be out of their hive (unless they want to get jostled around all the time because esophaguses and stomachs do in fact Move A Lot) but they could theoretically do it

I’m still of the opinion that Hugh Apiston getting any kind of respiratory/digestive issues has to do serious damage to said beehives and must be INCREDIBLY painful depending on what he has (imagine throwing up and a full beehive gets ripped out of your stomach in several chunks at a time that’s gotta HURT)

Shoutout to my stepdad for indulging in several insane hypotheticals such as “how big could your stomach/esophagus get before it starts causing problems for everything else” and “and what if we shoved bees in it how could we prevent death of bee”

[mollysunder]

Shimmer & The Glorious Evolution: A Love Story

We can see how a specialized high quality strain of Rio's shimmer can alter the biology of living organisms to make users produce their own shimmer, as is the case with Jinx. So what will happen now that Rio's specialized shimmer has been exposed to an artificial life form, i.e. the hexcore?

What Has the Hexcore Done Without Shimmer?

Prior to the hexcore's exposure to shimmer infused blood we've only seen it capable of releasing short bursts of massive energy when Viktor experiments with it.

When exposed to human blood the hexcore reacted by "consuming" a drop of it. The blood effected the entire magical dimension the hexcore connects to by turning it to a shade of purple similar to the plants found in Singed's cave.

Later we see that this newly blood infused hexcore's magic turned purple and is able to not only react to organic matter such as plants, but stimulate their growth in turn (not for long of course). The affected plants also take on the purple tinge similar to the hexcore's magic.

What Have We Seen the Shimmered Hexcore Do So Far?

Once Viktor exposed the hexcore to his shimmer infused blood it was capable of producing a longer lasting stable state with its test subject twice. Initially, what exactly happened to Viktor's leg was up to interpretation, but later on animators in Bridging the Rift confirmed that Viktor's new leg and hand are made of metal.

This means that the hexcore took Viktor's flesh and shimmer infused blood (more than the first time) and exchanged it for an arcane/shimmer configured metalic replacement. His skin is gone and we're looking at what his muscle has been converted to.

The transmutation of Viktor's hand and leg into metal could have only been facilitated through the use of shimmer. It was likely the remaining shimmer in Viktor's system that prevented him from being absorbed into the hexcore. Without a sufficient amount of shimmer, a regular human hand does not equal a shimmerized arcane metalic hand. The flesh, bone, and blood of an entire adult woman and a pitance of shimmer is worth the hand it provides.

What Will Happen Next Season?

The further the hexcore directly interfaces with organic matter the more similar it becomes in appearance and ability to shimmer. Where it improves health and strength at increasing biological costs. Once Viktor realizes that he's missing the "Inspiration" rune, the rune matrix will finally be complete and reach a "stable" state.

A "stable" state could mean the hexcore could reliably interact with and alter organic matter like Rio's shimmer is capable of. Based on the notes Sky left behind, her research focused on plant biology. In theory, a "perfect" hexcore could not only stimulate plant life to grow impressively, they could be durable enough to survive in extreme environments like Zaun.

While there is evidence that shimmer and its byproducts can enhance plant growth, especially in Zaun, there is a catch. Any plant affected by a hexcore corrupted by Rio's specialized shimmer would be altered in a way that makes them capable of being producing shimmer independently.

Just from Viktor's experiment with a hexcore exposed to a single drop of blood, the plants began to glow purple like the plants Rio would eat and break down into shimmer. Except, like Jinx the hexcore would pass down its own strain to the plant subjects that's compatible with the hexcore's "exchange" requirements.

But why would Viktor want to create plants capable of producing MORE shimmer for Zaun. Simple! Without shimmer you can't get... The Glorious Evolution. It's already been mentioned that Viktor's limbs have become metal, and to make his transformation complete he'll need more shimmer. For others to become like him, he needs more shimmer.

but...

Who Would Be Willing to Follow the Herald's Path?

Shimmer addicts like Huck and those who live in the sump with dying flesh and residual concentrations of shimmer in their bodies could be "healed" from their state of deterioration through the hexcore.

In Bridging the Rift we actually saw an unfinished clip of Viktor reaching his metalic hand to reach out and grab the face of a shimmer addict. Upon further inspection of the unidentified character's scars, we can guess this is Huck.

There's also the underlying culture of flesh sacrifice in Zaun, which is actually in the same vein as the Church of the Gloriously Evolved. In League, specifically through Camille's lore, the Church of the Gloriously Evolved actually exists outside of and likely before the Machine Herald came to the scene. The Church's roots even stretch into both Zaun & Piltover.

They believe that you must sacrifice something close and dear (like diseased flesh) with the faith that something better will take its place. Splinters of this organization likely made Silco an object of worship admiring his power and assuming the shimmer he brought was the miracle they sacrificed so much for already. Without Silco and his shimmer, Viktor and his hexcore would become the Church's new object of adoration as they bring shimmer AND immediate transmutation.

Finally, there's Sevika. In the tarot seen, Sevika drew a winning hand with a pair of card, Death and The Magician, that resemble Jinx and Viktor respectively. The scene may foreshadow that Jinx and Viktor will be the trump cards to win her Zaun's independence. But How will that work with Viktor?

You could argue that Sevika could bring Viktor in to repair her arm, but there's an entire industry backed up by a chembaron, Smeech, to fulfill that need. Viktor's going to need to bring something new to the table to be brought into the fold, and that could be shimmer infused plants and the "healing" properties of the hexcore. And I'm sure Sevika's pragmatic enough to know that for Zaun to survive Piltover's retaliation she'll need to bolster her resources in manpower and shimmer... lots of it.

Whether Sevika will be able to handle the cult of personality around the Machine Herald, especially if Jinx ends up siding him is a whole other discussion.

[thistledropkick]

I can't stop thinking about this Umino Shota situation, so I'm gonna write about it.

Umino has been in a very weird position for quite a while now, when it comes to his character, his booking, and his crowd response. I feel like it has finally hit some kind of breaking point at the recent KOPW show.

When Umino walked out to challenge for the IWGP HW belt, he didn't just "get booed" - he got a mix of cold silence, some scattered booing, and some overt heckling from people in the crowd shouting "Go home" at him. That wasn't even the kind of booing you want in pro wrestling - it was an outright rejection of him by the crowd.

(You can hear the heckling starting at about 3 minutes in during this video - people in the crowd start shouting "Kaere!" "Go home!" This mix of scattered booing, icy quiet, and heckling is not the kind of response NJPW goes for even for actual heel wrestlers.)

It was also absolutely not the response that anybody there had planned for or anticipated. Umino looked legitimately upset, Zack immediately took action to calm down the crowd before things got ugly, and then Takagi came out to keep things moving when it was clear the crowd was not going to change their tone. If any of this response had been planned, they would've encouraged it instead, or at least given it a little more space to play out.

In his backstage comments afterwards, Umino addressed the comparison that fans have repeatedly been making between himself and Stardust Genius era Naito. Umino rejected that comparison.

(Personally, I agree that the two situations aren't identical, but for a different reason - Naito was a much more well-established wrestler when the crowd turned on him, while Umino has never even held a title.)

In any case, the fact that Umino is directly addressing the comparisons that fans keep making, rather than ignoring them, was noteworthy to me.

Today, an article about the situation was released in Tokyo Sports. Tokyo Sports is a kayfabe magazine, and anything published there is generally done to forward the intended story of the wrestlers involved.

The headline reads: Umino Shota - "Booing = Big Shot" Proof of his decision to fight for the IWGP "Even Tanahashi-san himself said, I'm leaving it to you, Sho-chan"

This is... not helping to counter the feelings of the fans that Umino is being given a spot he doesn't deserve, to say the least. And quoting Tanahashi calling him the cutesy nickname "Sho-chan" isn't helping either.

With this being addressed directly in the kayfabe ToSpo, I have to believe it means they'll be addressing it directly in the storyline as well. And it's very easy to imagine some scenarios where they could repeat the infamous fan vote that eventually turned Naito ungovernable. But with the differences between Naito's situation and Umino's, I'm not sure how well this will actually work if they do end up trying it...

As for my own feelings about all this - I don't like or dislike Umino as a wrestler right now - more than anything, I feel like he hasn't solidified as a wrestler enough for me to have much of an opinion on him yet. But this whole situation has been fascinating to watch as it plays out.

[ambrosia-vinca]

Thinking about how I was lowkey (highkey) agreeing with everything Ivenci says about the Crows during my first playthrough, and then I arrived at the point they're revealed to be a traitor and realized you're not supposed to agree with any of their points about what is basically a murder mafia running Antiva not being a good thing. So. that was awkward!

And then I'm playing a Crow for my 2nd playthrough so my Rook just parrots the "Crows are patriots" thing back at them while I'm still agreeing with Ivenci's points. Awkward x2

(also Ivenci is so funny. "Perhaps the Antaam should just do more backflips when they kill" lmao)

[magickloop]

Sociocultural Stalemate

How can we expect to continue to advance as a society when technology is valued over humanity, the heightening of consciousness prioritized and funded far below the pursuit of ever nearer, ever more conspicuously and minutely inadequate approximations of its base functionality?

The powers that be stigmatize what presents them no direct fiscal benefit, disenfranchising divergent and creative academia, homogenizing the voices amplified to the masses, lest those masses recognize authority no longer warrants the respect it demands.

We are awake. We are aware. We reject the notion that consciousness can be effectively explored in its absence. We are scattered, but we are capable of and moving toward organization.

The future requires both ideological autonomy and practical unity, both intellectual ingenuity and collaborative problem solving, both vulnerability and fortitude, both empathy and honesty. It cannot wait.

[not-an-anagram]

Okay but reading Eve's story in the comics when she goes to "Africa" to use her powers to "help" as someone familiar with sustainable service and history of the negative effects of western "aid" just made me

[ruvviks]

PLEASE DO NOT TAG AS YOUR OWN OC.

Rafael is driven by his independence and his anger, fighting for what he believes in and deems right to free his people and return peace to Medici. But his tendency to push people away blurs the lines between selflessness and self-destruction, and his desperation for control greatly overshadows the true lack thereof— and it has turned his spark into an all-consuming forest fire, with no way to douse the flames. And everything burned, as promised. OC WEB WEAVE SERIES: RAFAEL RODRIGUEZ.

richard kadrey, aloha from hell // by eyedeeuhs // firestarter; torre florim // by gundula blumi // savannah brown, from 'closer baby closer' // leach; bones uk // ocean vuong, from 'to my father / to my future son' // by ysociety // maybe, i; des rocs // victoria chang, to love anyone // 'smoke and fire 1' by jennifer walton // burn; vorsa // vita sackville-west, from 'solitude' // by spelio // arsonist's lullabye; hozier // shira erlichman, from 'how to become a forest fire'

[sal2mander]

Sufficiently organized Anarch groups are indistinguishable from Camarilla.

[wisteriasymphony]

THE C IN YMCA STANDS FOR CHRISTIAN???????

[letmetellyouaboutmyfeels]

My favorite Mortal Leviathans pairing depends on the day (since they are all my babies and I love them all dearly even though or maybe because most of them are absolute dumpster fires) but I will say there is a real je ne sais quoi to [redacted]/[redacted] because one half is just full of pure incandescent rage at the other's existence and is vibrating with fury over their deep and vicious rivalry and the other half is like:

[silverhalla]

when I was little I used to play clue with my sister and when I won by being like “okay YOU don’t have the candlestick and I don’t have the candlestick and there are no more cards, so it’s gotta be the candlestick” she would get really mad and tell me I was cheating because I wasn’t supposed to be making assumptions like that and she didn’t understand where I was getting the info from, so I was ruining the game for her

anyways I don’t rly get why people on twt are THAT mad about veilguard spoilers because they do not seem that deep

[slitheringghost]

Slytherin Locket Cave: The Life And Death Of Merope Gaunt

I wanted to explore one of the most interesting details of Voldemort’s characterization: the extensive protections around the Slytherin locket horcrux, which exist as a step-by-step re-enactment of Merope's suffering - referencing his mother's actual death, but perhaps more prominently, her state of drowning in despair in the Gaunt home due to her family.

The Locket's Significance

Tom Riddle initially hears of it from his uncle:

“Ar, he left her, and serve her right, marrying filth!” said Morfin, spitting on the floor again. “Robbed us, mind, before she ran off! Where’s the locket, eh, where’s Slytherin’s locket?” Voldemort did not answer. Morfin was working himself into a rage again; he brandished his knife and shouted, “Dishonored us, she did, that little slut! And who’re you, coming here and asking questions about all that? It’s over, innit.... It’s over....” He looked away, staggering slightly, and Voldemort moved forward.

Making his uncle look at him to Legilimize him, Tom views the Bob Ogden memory - and later wipes his uncle memories till that point. (I assume LV got all the same Merope details and memories that Dumbledore shows Harry in HBP, and likely even more.)

We first see Slytherin's locket when Marvolo strangles Merope with the chain to show it to Bob Ogden and claim they're Slytherin's descendants, and presumably Merope wore it for most of her life in the Gaunt shack. Merope runs off with Tom Sr. wearing it and per Burke it's the last possession she had days before her death:

“It was brought in by a young witch just before Christmas, oh, many years ago now. She said she needed the gold badly, well, that much was obvious. Covered in rags and pretty far along... Going to have a baby, see. She said the locket had been Slytherin’s. [...] She didn’t seem to have any idea how much it was worth. Happy to get ten Galleons for it.“

And Voldemort's enraged when Hepzibah Smith claims Merope stole it and was simply too dense to know its worth (which Merope clearly did, could hardly miss it with Marvolo's behavior):

“I had to pay an arm and a leg for it, but I couldn’t let it pass, not a real treasure like that, had to have it for my collection. Burke bought it, apparently, from a ragged-looking woman who seemed to have stolen it, but had no idea of its true value —” There was no mistaking it this time: Voldemort’s eyes flashed scarlet at the words, and Harry saw his knuckles whiten on the locket’s chain. “— I daresay Burke paid her a pittance but there you are.... Pretty, isn’t it? And again, all kinds of powers attributed to it, though I just keep it nice and safe....” She reached out to take the locket back. For a moment, Harry thought Voldemort was not going to let go of it, but then it had slid through his fingers and was back in its red velvet cushion. “So there you are, Tom, dear, and I hope you enjoyed that!” She looked him full in the face and for the first time, Harry saw her foolish smile falter. “Are you all right, dear?” “Oh yes,” said Voldemort quietly. "Yes, I’m very well....” “I thought — but a trick of the light, I suppose —” said Hepzibah, looking unnerved, and Harry guessed that she too had seen the momentary red gleam in Voldemort’s eyes.

The red flash in his eyes staying long enough for Hepzibah to notice.

2. Location

It's the sole horcrux in a location related to his childhood in the orphanage, and the cliffside location evokes Azkaban's (the fortress on a tiny island middle of the North Sea) - a seaside cave you have to swim to reach, described as "a bleak, harsh view, the sea and the rock unrelieved by any tree or sweep of grass or sand". This signifies how the Gaunt shack was like Azkaban to Merope.

(When Sirius writes via tropical birds post-Azkaban escape, Harry thinks he's somewhere with sunlight and “palm trees and white sand” where he can't imagine dementors surviving for long).

My theory's that while Tom may've been covering up a violent fight, what ruined Amy and Dennis's minds so they were "never right afterwards" was a too powerful memory wipe - like Crouch Sr.'s on Bertha Jorkins - so they can recall they went into a cave with Tom but nothing more; that could also be a relevant association, as Tom used Legilimency to erase his uncle's memories and send him to Azkaban.

It starts with a concealed entrance and a "blood ward", something normally outside/protecting a magical home, an indication that the Cave represents the Gaunt shack (interestingly HBP begins with Dumbledore having entered the Gaunt shack threshold and cursed fatally by the ring horcrux, entering the blood wards of the Dursleys' house, and ends in him dying after the Cave-as-Gaunt-house-simulation), with "denser than normal” darkness inside.

A concealed chained "ghostly green" little boat glides over a "great black lake" to the center island - matching descriptions of the boatride across the Hogwarts lake to the castle for first-years, and a reference to the fact that Merope never got to attend school.

The Emerald potion, which Harry first thinks is a lamp, emits a green glow through the cavern, similar to Slytherin common room descriptions (“underground room with rough stone walls and ceiling from which round, greenish lamps were hanging on chains” / "it’s under the lake, so the light’s all green.”)

3. Drink of Despair

The potion is, of course, a liquefied dementor, which is linked to Merope in several ways.

The echoes of Lily's murder Harry hears near the dementors and his rage at Sirius betraying her parallels the memory of Merope being killed by her family and Tom’s rage at seeing it in his uncle’s memories - Morfin betraying her secret to their father and sending Marvolo after her, Merope's wordless pleading with her brother and father, Morfin’s cackle of laughter, and Merope screaming as she’s about to be killed by Marvolo.

“D’you know what I see and hear every time a dementor gets too near me?” Ron and Hermione shook their heads, looking apprehensive. “I can hear my mum screaming and pleading with Voldemort. And if you’d heard your mum screaming like that, just about to be killed, you wouldn’t forget it in a hurry. And if you found out someone who was supposed to be a friend of hers betrayed her and sent Voldemort after her —” (POA)

“She likes looking at that Muggle,” said Morfin, a vicious expression on his face as he stared at his sister, who now looked terrified. “Always in the garden when he passes, peering through the hedge at him, isn’t she? And last night —” Merope shook her head jerkily, imploringly, but Morfin went on ruthlessly, “Hanging out of the window waiting for him to ride home, wasn’t she?” “Hanging out of the window to look at a Muggle?” said Gaunt quietly. [...] “Is it true?” said Gaunt in a deadly voice, advancing a step or two toward the terrified girl. “My daughter — pure-blooded descendant of Salazar Slytherin — hankering after a filthy, dirt-veined Muggle?” Merope shook her head frantically, pressing herself into the wall, apparently unable to speak. “But I got him, Father!” cackled Morfin. “I got him as he went by and he didn’t look so pretty with hives all over him, did he, Merope?” “You disgusting little Squib, you filthy little blood traitor!” roared Gaunt, losing control, and his hands closed around his daughter’s throat. Both Harry and Ogden yelled “No!” at the same time; Ogden raised his wand and cried, “Relashio!” Gaunt was thrown backward, away from his daughter [...] Ogden ran for his life. Dumbledore indicated that they ought to follow and Harry obeyed, Merope’s screams echoing in his ears. (HBP)

(HBP's also the book Harry gives a step by step graphic description of Lily's murder to Slughorn; while Voldemort re-enacts Merope's through the cave protections)

Dumbledore says Morfin gave a "full and boastful confession" - which Tom Jr. Legilimized Morfin to give, explicitly referencing the last time his uncle attacked Tom Sr. in retaliation for Merope’s attraction to him and gloated to Marvolo about it - "He was proud, he said, to have killed the Muggles, had been awaiting his chance all these years."

While Harry only wants revenge for his parents with no thought for himself vs. LV framing his uncle for his pureblood family blasting him off their family tree, LV certainly has additional rage for his mother, and also doesn't forget his mother's screaming/general despair in a hurry, creating the locket cave decades after viewing the memories.

The dementors' varying effect and imagery is linked with - despair and hopelessness, losing the will to survive, not eating, victims huddling and hiding their faces and pleading, weakness and fainting, etc. Sirius says Crouch Jr. in Azkaban was "screaming for his mother by nightfall. He went quiet after a few days, though... they all went quiet in the end... except when they shrieked in their sleep.”

Which is exactly Merope's state in the Gaunt house with her father and brother:

Harry realized that there was somebody else in the room, a girl whose ragged gray dress was the exact color of the dirty stone wall behind her. She was standing beside a steaming pot on a grimy black stove, and was fiddling around with the shelf of squalid-looking pots and pans above it. [...] She looked a little cleaner than the two men, but Harry thought he had never seen a more defeated-looking person.

“Good morning,” said Ogden. She did not answer, but with a frightened glance at her father turned her back on the room [...]

And [Marvolo] spat on the floor at Ogden’s feet. Morfin cackled again. Merope, huddled beside the window, her head bowed and her face hidden by her lank hair, said nothing.

“‘Darling,’” whispered Morfin in Parseltongue, looking at his sister. “‘Darling,’ he called her. So he wouldn’t have you anyway.” Merope was so white Harry felt sure she was going to faint.

and:

Instead, [Marvolo] jeered at his daughter, “Lucky the nice man from the Ministry’s here, isn’t it? Perhaps he’ll take you off my hands, perhaps he doesn’t mind dirty Squibs....” Without looking at anybody or thanking Ogden, Merope picked up the pot and returned it, hands trembling, to its shelf. She then stood quite still, her back against the wall between the filthy window and the stove, as though she wished for nothing more than to sink into the stone and vanish.

Harry was on his feet once more, refilling the goblet as Dumbledore began to scream in more anguish than ever, “I want to die! I want to die! Make it stop, make it stop, I want to die!” “Drink this, Professor. Drink this....” Dumbledore drank, and no sooner had he finished than he yelled, “KILL ME!”

Merope's completely nonverbal throughout the scene, other than her screams. The Gaunts homeschooled, so she didn't even get to attend Hogwarts as an escape, as Tom, Harry, and others did and barely got an education (referenced by the boat ride resembling the first years’ boatride to Hogwarts). And she would've been forced to marry her brother and have his children.

(Morfin's association near the dementors is also his father - "'He’ll kill me for losing his ring,’ he told his captors over and over again [...] And that, apparently, was all he ever said again.")

What we hear of Merope as she's pregnant is the complete opposite of the dementors.

Merope wanted to live desperately enough that she sold a family heirloom for basically nothing a week before her death - so she was certainly trying to get food. (Comparatively, Harry in HBP due to grief for Sirius was "lying on his bed, refusing meals, and staring at the misted window, full of the chill emptiness that he had come to associate with dementors" until Dumbledore's letter came.)

Both times, Merope is facing death - with the Gaunts, she's too hopeless to speak even while pleading as she’s about to be killed; while pregnant with Tom (the only time we do hear Merope speak, secondhand), despite having wandered destitute for months and despite freezing and starving in midwinter and in the painful process of dying in childbirth, she has the will to speak until her dying breath - expressing hope for her son's future ("I hope he looks like his papa"), to give her son a name, Mrs. Cole saying it seemed "so important to the poor girl" to name him.

It’s reminiscent of how staying in Grimmauld Place is far worse for Sirius than living in a cave and eating rats on the run is, and where looking out for Harry also keeps Sirius going and gives him a purpose. 12GP is likewise linked with Azkaban/dementors/death (elaborated on here).

Voldemort's awareness of all this is probably the best indication, among others, that he doesn't share Dumbledore's viewpoint that Merope chose to die; and his response to that would likely be very like Harry's about Sirius - that she didn't want to go at all.

“I don’t care. You can have it, I don’t really want it.” Harry never wanted to set foot in number twelve, Grimmauld Place again if he could help it. He thought he would be haunted forever by the memory of Sirius prowling its dark musty rooms alone, imprisoned within the place he had wanted so desperately to leave.

Voldemort is similarly haunted by the memory of Merope - but unlike Harry he craves the aspects of his family and pureblood society that killed his mother even as he resents it; wants the house, the heirlooms, to remake himself into the Heir of Slytherin, grasping at power but also any and all connection he has to family.

4. Death and Burial

The last part is the drinker collapsing in weakness after finishing the potion, the desperate thirst, and when they crawl to drink from the lake, the Inferi army of the dead dragging them to death by drowning in icy water.

Referencing the months Merope wandered London destitute, her death in childbirth, and burial in a pauper's grave.

In Greek myth, Charon ferries deceased souls in his boat across the rivers of the underworld (often the Acheron, the river of misery, in some sources a lake), and those without proper burials are left behind to haunt the world as ghosts.

Proper burials or lack thereof a recurring canon motif, Voldemort himself telling the forces against him in DH to "Dispose of your dead with dignity" and Azkaban has a mass graveyard of prisoners, buried by dementors instead of their family.

5. Kreacher

I assume this is the significance of Voldemort asking for a house-elf and his horrific torture of Kreacher, since LV has also considered humans disposable for decades and killed many for this task already (the Inferi) - Kreacher is meant to represent Merope.

Merope was the servant of the household, and there's the general implication of lifetime service/"slavery" to her family.

“But the villagers’ shock was nothing to Marvolo’s. He returned from Azkaban, expecting to find his daughter dutifully awaiting his return with a hot meal ready on his table. Instead, he found a clear inch of dust and her note of farewell, explaining what she had done [...] The shock of her desertion may have contributed to his early death — or perhaps he had simply never learned to feed himself."

LV also recreates this family dynamic into the Death Eaters - which he calls his “true family” and who are his slaves and call him Master.

"as [Kreacher] drank, he saw terrible things... Kreacher’s insides burned... Kreacher cried for Master Regulus to save him, he cried for his Mistress Black, but the Dark Lord only laughed" (DH)

LV potentially thinks of a house-elf as a being who "deserves it" "instead" (and is part of the establishment/property he thinks are his birthright. And it's telling of house-elves enslavement and isolation that the only people Kreacher can ask for to save him in the midst of it are his owners.)

The details are a bit unclear, but LV likely already tested the potion/other defenses before turning the locket into a horcrux; he used Kreacher to empty the basin of potion to place the finalized locket, as there's no backdoors to drinking it.

So LV leaves right after the locket is placed, not bothering to wait until Kreacher's dead and underestimates his ability to Apparate out - and considered him so insignificant that he didn’t remember who Kreacher is in OOTP despite using him for a very important plot to lure Harry, directly contributing to his downfall.

And, ironically, Regulus via Kreacher plays the role of "dutiful daughter/servant running off with the locket and leaving a farewell note explaining what he's done".

Part 2 of this meta