Title: Bad Education
Author: magicspacehole
Rating: T
Genre: Gen/Humor
DLP Category: Humor
Pairing: None
Status: Work in Progress (about 80,000 words)
Summary: What he had pictured in his head when he'd first thought of teaching were long, sweeping orations, students hanging on his every word, young minds being taken in and inspired by his message. What he did not fully consider, however, was that he would actually have to teach. (In which Tom Riddle begins teaching at Hogwarts and realizes just what a horribly stupid idea it was.)
Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27049720/chapters/66040888

I cannot believe I haven't posted this fic for review until now. This fic is an absolute work of art with great writing, hilarious character development, and wonderful whimsical magic. It takes the whimsical and ridiculous magic from the first two books and cranks it up to 11.

The fic is set five years after Tom Riddle graduated from Hogwarts. Armando Dippet is still Headmaster and the position for Defense Against the Dark Arts is still open, so Riddle decides to reapply for the job. Only, this time, he actually gets the job.

Riddle soon realizes that having a full-time teaching job involves a lot more than he expected. Like making lesson plans, earning the respect of colleagues who think he's too young for the job, controlling unruly students, and more.

This fic is straight up hilarious. It turns out that monitoring and teaching students is tough enough as is, but add magic and a lack of parental supervision? It's a miracle that the students survive at all! It's kinda hard to plan on taking over the world when most your time is spent keeping students from stupidly killing themselves with magic.

Here is one of my all-time favorite passages from any fanfic:

In this simple passage, it shows that this fics Britain is not a magical backwater, how ridiculous the magical world is, Tom's brilliant characterization and how allowing children to do magic is such a bad idea in many ways.

I can honestly say I've never seen a fic like this, and it's easily one of my favorites of all time. The author is skilled enough that they should start writing professionally, maybe even turn this fic into a published work with some changes (as it's original enough already).

5/5 without a doubt.

 

The story is quite funny and well executed for the most part. But I didn't really enjoy the last few chapters as much as the rest. It gets a bit too weird and nonsensical for my taste.
The background plot and antagonist didn't really interest me much, but Riddles day to day struggle dealing with teaching was more than enough to get me to read the whole thing in one sitting.
4.5/5.

 

This was great, but I'm convinced that the author wrote most of it while high. It's well written, amusing crack, but still crack.

3.5/5.

 

It's a fairly good crackfic, but the protagonist reads like an OC coincidentally named Tom Riddle.

 

I liked this fic... until I didn't like it.

The first impression was great. A well-written story, with that wonderfully articulate dry British deadpan style of humor. A commentary on the "absurdity of the mundane", with those clever little observations on the quirks and fallibility of humanity, on a background of humdrum slice-of-life. If you like those short 'n' sweet 6-episode British workplace comedies where everyone hates their jobs but can't bear to leave, it is reminiscent of that. I was charmed by it. I read onwards.

Then it followed the same trend as most other long-form crackfics: it overstayed its welcome. It would have been good as a one-shot, maybe a three-shot short fic. But it meandered on aimlessly, the joke spread too thin, and I realized there wasn't much substance, no real thread of plot continuity tying each episode together. Just "hey look, isn't this surreal! Whoo, wackiness!!!" being the theme of each part.

Like most crackfics, the cracks started to show after a handful of chapters in. Once you get past the absurdity aspect, you want crackfits to show "heart". Lovingly parody the source material that brings us fans of the work back for more. Not in a mean-spirited way, but in a way that shows the author really knows the material, the characters, the setting and shows us something we know but with a different new perspective. The later chapters went too absurd, too divergent off the recognizable and familiar.

The weird giant tree subplot. The sex education arc where Professor Riddle hates everything about it but somehow, like always, get dragged into it by the power of Narrative Necessity. For a fic that sold me on the "Life of Riddle" character-centric story, it was disappointing to see how little agency he had. He was just a vehicle to further the shenanigans, a reaction shot of the straight man to the crazy nonsense of the job.

Yeah, OOC. He's freakin' Voldemort. I thought his potential was wasted as a protagonist.

My rating: 3/5.

I would have given it 2.5/5 because seeing Voldemort as a bystander, a passive observer, to his own main character story was disappointing. He's a drama queen, not a stick in the mud. He's a cynical misanthrope, but he's enormously driven with his own grand ambitions. 10 years as a ghost in Albania was nothing to him. This Tom seemed so resigned to his fate that he read like a TINO (Tom In Name Only).

I gave an extra 0.5 because the writing style was polished and unique in the sea of shitfics where the American-ness screams at you with the pancakes/waffles served with maple syrup at every single breakfast scene.