Noah Kahan
🪼
we're not kids anymore.
bliss lane
Claire Keane
Show & Tell
will byers stan first human second
★
2025 on Tumblr: Trends That Defined the Year
Lint Roller? I Barely Know Her
Mike Driver
shark vs the universe
oozey mess
Jules of Nature
No title available
pixel skylines
todays bird
gracie abrams
I'd rather be in outer space 🛸
Love Begins
seen from Türkiye
seen from United States
seen from Canada
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Singapore
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Türkiye
@sidlarsson
Sid ♎☀️♏🌕
Hi, it's nice to meet you! I'm a bisexual, chaotic enjoyer of all things Lily Evans, James Potter, and Severus Snape. Gothic lit fan, art nerd, too opinionated, lover of angst, smut, & fluff. Anti-TERF. She/her. Find me over on ao3 as sid_larsson.
❤️🔥Currently writing:❤️🔥
hilarious taking Bellatrix's beef with Snape into context for the latter half of ootp because wdym Snape went from beefing with Sirius in Order meetings to beefing with Bellatrix at Death Eater meetings back to back
“I want to be ripped apart by music. I want it to be something that feeds and replenishes, or that totally sucks the life out of you. I want to be dashed against the rocks.”
— Jeff Buckley
Bought a cast iron cauldron at a flea market today:
Lily Evans would soooo brew an elixir in this, you guys
A Real Straight Shooter
“Er–ok. So here’s the thing. Today, after practice I—”
“You wanked while saying Lily’s name in the locker room. Yeah, I’m aware.”
She says it so deadpan that James has to take a physical step back from shock. Behind him, the boys all fail at holding in their guffaws.
“Oi! Keep your voice down!” James hisses, swiveling his head from side to side. “I’m the bloody Head Boy! And—and there could be first years around!”
“Yeah, a Head Boy that goes around wanking in public showers,” Marlene snorts. “Some role model for impressionable youth you are.
Read on A03!
you'll get the urge as an artist or a writer to say out loud the things you're worried about "the proportions are off" "kind of out of character" "i'm not good at summaries" "didn't get as much detail as i wanted" "i made a mistake and here's how" and that's the self-conscious part of your brain telling you "it's bad and if you don't tell them you know it's bad then they'll think you're stupid" but you've got to ignore that little voice and pretend you think it's good or else that little voice is going to ruin your life
Are you free from your curse yet i miss you
Ch. 7: Captain Uggelli's Mandolin (Read on AO3)
“I don’t understand what you want from me. I keep my distance and you tell me I’m being rude, I speak to her and you tell me I’m bothering her. What do you suggest I actually do?”
“Well, I could push you in the dive hole,” Sirius offers.
“How on earth would that help?” asks James, perplexed.
“It would stop you whining, and I think that would be good for everyone.”
****
Sirius has the World's Worst Day, mainly because he has to spend time with his best friend.
MANY thanks as ever to @bloodonthetracks93 for putting up with me pulling a James and bitching about this chapter constantly for 2 months straight.
Onwards, to the much more interesting chapter 8!
2024-05-30
i'm gonna be honest but i don't like how the conversation around shipping culture went from"fujoshis/mlm shippers will villainize a female character for "getting in the way" of their non-canon yaoi ship and that's not great" to "shipping a male character with a man instead of his canon female love interest is ALWAYS misogynistic" because like i don't think that's true actually
i've seen alot of people point out that "mlm shippers will often ship said canon female love interest with another women/include her in a polyship not because they're actually interested in that dynamic, but rather just want to avoid the misogyny allegations" and yeah that's true and that's annoying, but the end result always ends up being "the only way you're allowed to include female characters is in a monogamous relationship with their canon male love interest" and it's like. well i don't know about that.
Since you’ve talked about Molly and Draco, can you talk about Snape as well? When you said that there was a disconnect with Snape’s character I honestly wasn’t sure if you meant the audience was supposed to like him more or less than they actually do.
This is a complicated one, because Book 1-3 Snape and Book 5-7 Snape are written so differently that I actually want to talk about them as two separate characters.
Book 1-3 Snape… kind of sucks. Maybe he sucks in a way you find funny (which I completely get. A lot of comedy - especially British comedy - revolves around finding the humor in really *mean* people. Snape is *written* to be funny in a dry, acerbic, Roald Dahl kind of way.) But maybe Snape sucks in a way that’s not fun for you, he’s just upsetting and cruel. Either way, he’s petty, unfair, a bully, completely unreasonable, and doesn’t really appear to have any redeeming qualities. Snape protects Harry in Book 1 only because James Potter saved his life and, according to Dumbledore:
“Professor Snape couldn’t bear being in your father’s debt. . . . I do believe he worked so hard to protect you this year because he felt that would make him and your father even. Then he could go back to hating your father’s memory in peace. . . .”
Later on, Snape’s motivation will become “Protect Harry because you couldn’t protect Lily.” But there’s no hint of that here.
I actually think it’s very likely that ‘Snape was in love with Lily’ is a plotline added during Book 4, because 1-3 Snape’s motivation is so completely focused on JAMES. He hates Harry because he looks like James, he hates James because (according to Lupin) he’s “jealous, I think, of James’s talent on the Quidditch field.” Within the context of the series it’s easy to say that Lupin is lying, and with good reason… but in the context of the first three books, I think that’s just meant to be true? Snape, as we know, is a stealth quidditch hooligan the way McGonagall is. Also… James’ characterization shifts around. He’s not a bully in the first three books, he’s Head Boy… and that Head Boy thing doesn’t quite gel with what we hear from Sirius later:
“No one would have made me a prefect, I spent too much time in detention with James. Lupin was the good boy, he got the badge.”
(I know JKR plans things out in advance, but she absolutely does change things on the fly. Arthur Weasley not getting killed by Nagini is an easy example that we definitely know about. And come on - the entire last book is a Deathly Hallows fetch-quest. Was there really no way to slip in a reference to Beedle the Bard - or a super-powerful semi-mythical wand - anywhere in the first six books?)
So, in books 1-3, there's no hint that Snape is a potion prodigy, particularly powerful, or even particularly clever. He wrote a logic puzzle and “knows an awful lot about the Dark Arts.” But that’s it. “Potion Master” isn’t an advanced rank, it’s just the posh British boarding school way of saying “teacher.” (Like headmaster = head teacher.) He can *make* Wolfsbane potion, but he isn't out here inventing spells and modding the textbook. Early Snape is also a lot more *emotional* than he is later on, when his ability to “Master yourself!... control your anger, discipline your mind!” becomes extremely plot relevant. Like, can you picture 5-7 Snape (or Alan Rickman, who plays a distinctly later-books Snape) doing any of this?
Snape was beside himself. “OUT WITH IT, POTTER!” he bellowed. “WHAT DID YOU DO?” “Professor Snape!” shrieked Madam Pomfrey. “Control yourself!” “See here, Snape, be reasonable,” said Fudge. “This door’s been locked, we just saw —” “THEY HELPED HIM ESCAPE, I KNOW IT!” Snape howled, pointing at Harry and Hermione. His face was twisted; spit was flying from his mouth. “Calm down, man!” Fudge barked. “You’re talking nonsense!” “YOU DON’T KNOW POTTER!” shrieked Snape. “HE DID IT, I KNOW HE DID IT —”
In Movie 3, Snape gets a cool protective moment where he shoves the kids behind him during the werewolf attack. In Book 3, Snape is unconscious during the entire werewolf attack because Harry, Ron and Hermione simultaneously decide he’s too dangerous, and too much of a liability to keep around. Here are are some bangers from Book 3 Snape:
- “Don’t ask me to fathom the way a werewolf’s mind works.” - “KEEP QUIET, YOU STUPID GIRL!” Snape shouted, looking suddenly quite deranged. “DON’T TALK ABOUT WHAT YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND!” - “Up to the castle?... I don’t think we need to go that far. All I have to do is call the dementors once we get out of the Willow. They’ll be very pleased to see you, Black . . . pleased enough to give you a little Kiss, I daresay. . . .” - “I’ll drag the werewolf. Perhaps the dementors will have a Kiss for him too —”
If you sort of squint you can maybe say - okay, maybe this is a PTSD response. Like I’m writing a Snape POV fic right now, you can make it work. But it’s not work the books do for you, and it’s not the characterization choice they make in the films.
BUT. Snape goes through a little bit of a revamp/retcon in Book 4. It’s totally deliberate - he’s Book 1-3 Snape at the beginning, then he basically vanishes from the narrative… the reader kind of forgets about him… until it comes up during Karkaroff’s trial that Dumbledore ABSOLUTELY trusts him, even though he was a Death Eater. So now when Snape turns up at the climax - he’s a figure of intrigue, and it makes sense that he’s one of the two people Dumbledore brings with him to deal with Barty. Honestly, it’s a pretty cool magic trick. We buy it when - instead of hissing and spitting and hopping around like he does when he confronts Fudge at the end of Book 3 - Book 4 Snape deals with Fudge like this:
Snape strode forward… pulling up the left sleeve of his robes as he went. He stuck out his forearm and showed it to Fudge, who recoiled. “There,” said Snape harshly. “There. The Dark Mark. It is not as clear as it was an hour or so ago, when it burned black, but you can still see it. (...) This Mark has been growing clearer all year. Karkaroff’s too. Why do you think Karkaroff fled tonight? We both felt the Mark burn. We both knew he had returned. Karkaroff fears the Dark Lord’s vengeance.”
Calm, collected, focused. This is a character who you’re supposed to take seriously, a character who you are supposed to respect.
I think it’s very interesting that after Book 4, we don’t see Snape *bully* the students during class again. He’s strict, and he’s a hard grader, and Harry still thinks he’s unfair, but like… the narrative framing is on his side now.
“Tell me, Potter,” said Snape softly, “can you read?” Draco Malfoy laughed. “Yes, I can,” said Harry, his fingers clenched tightly around his wand. “Read the third line of the instructions for me, Potter.” Harry squinted at the blackboard(… ) His heart sank. He had not added syrup of hellebore, but had proceeded straight to the fourth line of the instructions after allowing his potion to simmer for seven minutes. “Did you do everything on the third line, Potter?” “No,” said Harry very quietly. “I beg your pardon?” “No,” said Harry, more loudly. “I forgot the hellebore...” “I know you did, Potter, which means that this mess is utterly worthless. Evanesco.” The contents of Harry’s potion vanished; he was left standing foolishly beside an empty cauldron. “Those of you who have managed to read the instructions, fill one flagon with a sample of your potion, label it clearly with your name, and bring it up to my desk for testing.” (...) “That was really unfair,” said Hermione consolingly, sitting down next to Harry (...) “Yeah, well,” said Harry, glowering at his plate, “since when has Snape ever been fair to me?”
Like he isn’t nice, but he also isn’t asking Harry questions he can’t possibly know the answers to, threatening to kill someone’s pet, or calling Hermione ugly. He didn’t even take away house points. And - during the next lesson, we are told that the approach Snape took with Harry actually worked?
Determined not to give Snape an excuse to fail him this lesson, Harry read and reread every line of the instructions on the blackboard at least three times before acting on them. His Strengthening Solution was not precisely the clear turquoise shade of Hermione’s but it was at least blue rather than pink, like Neville’s, and he delivered a flask of it to Snape’s desk at the end of the lesson with a feeling of mingled defiance and relief.
I want to do one more close read, on a excerpt from Book 5:
Harry realized how much Professor McGonagall cared about beating Slytherin when she abstained from giving them homework in the week leading up to the match. (...) Nobody could quite believe their ears until she looked directly at Harry and Ron and said grimly, “I’ve become accustomed to seeing the Quidditch Cup in my study, boys, and I really don’t want to have to hand it over to Professor Snape, so use the extra time to practice, won’t you?” Snape was no less obviously partisan: He had booked the Quidditch pitch for Slytherin practice so often that the Gryffindors had difficulty getting on it to play. He was also turning a deaf ear to the many reports of Slytherin attempts to hex Gryffindor players in the corridors. When Alicia Spinnet turned up in the hospital wing with her eyebrows growing so thick and fast that they obscured her vision and obstructed her mouth, Snape insisted that she must have attempted a Hair-Thickening Charm on herself and refused to listen to the fourteen eyewitnesses who insisted that they had seen the Slytherin Keeper, Miles Bletchley, hit her from behind with a jinx.
This has a very similar structure to the sequence when Snape refuses to punish Draco for enlarging Hermione’s teeth. Slytherins and Gryffindors having an altercation, Gryffindor girl gets caught in the crossfire. BUT a few key things have been changed. One - the section is told in second-hand narration, which makes it less emotional than the teeth-scene. Two - the section begins with comparing Snape to McGonagall: she’s being biased/helping out her students too, so it’s only fair if he does it as well. Three - his insult isn’t “Your face has always looked like that,” it’s “You must have messed up a spell,” which is a lot less personal, and a lot less mean. (If anything, Snape is subtly insulting her for casting a cosmetic charm/being too girly… and being a girly-girl is an inherently suspect characteristic in JKR’s world.) Everything about this passage is set up to create a “Snape the Bully” moment… that kind of excuses Snape.
So, what do we have? There are the people that think Book 1-3 Snape just went too far, and you can soften the narrative framing around him, and you can add in as many tragic backstories as you want, and it doesn’t really matter. THAT is definitely not what JKR wants you to think. She wants to bring you along for the ride, and (as you can tell from the framing) she's started to like Snape a lot.
HOWEVER. I do not think that the fan who likes 5-7 Alan Rickman Snape is… quite seeing the same thing she is. I get the sense that in the text, Snape’s tragic backstory is not meant to *explain* his bad behavior so much as it is meant to *excuse* it. He stays mean and bad-tempered… but he’s allowed to be, both because he is always acting in service to a Good Cause, and because he was abused at home, bullied at school, etc. A big part of why I think JKR likes writing Snape so much (and why she’s so protective of him) is because she finds something cathartic in letting a character be nasty… but for it to be allowed because they’ve suffered, and also because they're in the right. Sadly I think this describes a lot of her current online interactions.
JKR also loves the idea of *pining.* (It is crazy how long the main characters’ pining/longing/will-they-won’t-they thing in the Cormoran Strike books has lasted.) It’s a very safe kind of romance, and (again, sadly) you can tell from her writing that romance is not generally something that feels safe to her. Snape is sometimes characterized by those who dislike the character as an incel-type who wants to possess Lily, and I just don’t think that’s in the text. If anything it’s the other way around. Snape has some unconsummated, medieval courtly love thing going on, where he has decided to live his life in Lily’s service.
I wrote about why I think Draco Malfoy (unintentionally) appeals to fans. With Snape… I actually think a lot of his current (unintentional) appeal comes from the way a softer Snape reframes the narrative into something more complex, and especially the way it reframes Dumbledore. Manipulative/Morally Grey Dumbledore is a *very* popular fan interpretation, and the way you get that is with a sympathetic Severus Snape.
“You disgust me,” said Dumbledore, and Harry had never heard so much contempt in his voice. Snape seemed to shrink a little. (...) “Hide them all, then,” he croaked. “Keep her — them — safe. Please.” “And what will you give me in return, Severus?” “In — in return?” Snape gaped at Dumbledore, and Harry expected him to protest, but after a long moment he said, “Anything.”
The implications here are really far reaching. Because to me, the main question when it comes to Snape is - why does he STAY at Hogwarts? He clearly hates it, why doesn’t he just leave? If you’re talking about 1-3 Snape, it's because he’s eternally holding out for the Defense Against the Dark Arts job, and he’s just kind of a twisted miserable guy who would probably be equally miserable everywhere.
But books 5-7 add the context that he’s brilliant, he’s brave, he’s principled, he’s got a sense of humor. He seems close with the Malfoys. He has *options.* So now the (unintended?) implication is… he doesn’t leave because Dumbledore won’t let him. The fact that he keeps applying for the DADA job becomes dark and borderline suicidal when we learn it’s cursed, and that Snape knows it’s cursed. If he takes it, he’ll leave (or die) at the end of the year. That means, every year, he’s tacitly asking Dumbledore “Can I leave?” And Dumbledore is answering “No.”
That’s such an interesting, juicy character dynamic. Snape is being kept miserable on purpose because… he’s easier to control that way? And if that’s true… then oh boy is it sinister that Dumbledore left Harry with the Dursleys. He knew he was raising Harry “like a pig for slaughter” (as Snape puts it.) And if Harry doesn’t have a support system, if he’s miserable, if Dumbledore can swoop in as his savior… then doesn’t that make him so much easier to control?
Stealing this from twitter but I liked the concept: put in the tags where were your 8 great-grandparents from (given modern borders) ?
