🌹RIDDLE ROSEHEARTS🌹

i do wonder if parts of that dorm just wanted to push riddle to madness by rebelling and breaking rules constantly…

“my mother was a brilliant woman, always accomplished and always right, who’s better to trust than her?” yes because why WOULD you want to believe the person who kept you stable in every other way but emotionally and mentally your entire life wanted anything but the best for you? or so you thought…children want stability. even though she’s EXTREMELY emotionally abusive and controlling as all hell, she did provide in other ways in terms of education, food, shelter, etc. it’s so hard with these kinds of abusers…hyper competent, clean slate, intelligent, providers…i understand why riddle has so much trouble believing anything but her way is the right way…she has everything under her belt to make him believe she WOULD want the best for him…but it completely cracks him coming to terms with the fact she was actually horrible and abusive. despite the events shown, i believe 98% of the time, her abuse is HIGHLY underhanded but those specific memories REALLY stuck in his brain of her yelling and getting physically abusive.

i fully believe riddle’s character is purely made for those with strict, controlling, forceful parents, and for kids who had very little to no control over their lives and autonomy due to this

i don’t actually think the overblot part of riddle truly ever left, i think that is going to forever be a part of him…i wonder if it represents all the dark messy and flawed parts of himself he can’t deal with and suppresses throughout the series, and parts that DO take after his abusers that he was probably forced to meld with unfortunately, but at the end he has to learn how to work with it and make that part his own outside of the people that traumatized him and turn it into something else because it will always be with him

i truly believe that riddle is autistic, he struggles with forming bonds, struggles with recognizing when people are joking, wants order, has deep comfort food, etc. his trauma also made it harder to function as an autistic individual severely