#dated. august 1980

[pey-up]

my little sister. My small sister. This child. She just asked our father, completely genuinely if he was born in 1880. Cue his flabbergasted face and me cackling from the kitchen

[jevilowo]

I love dates in the tf2 lore. I love knowing exactly when stuff happened. Which makes THIS THING I JUST FOUND a BEAUTIFUL MIRACLE

You've seen this image before, but have you noticed the dates on the prison card thingies? Presumably this is written the American Way (the writers are so american they make Scout and Sniper both call their mothers "mom" despite preferring "ma" and "mum" respectively, as shown previously SEVERal times), so Spy and Scout were arrested on

The 7th of September, 1972.

We can do a lot with this information.

Mann Co was taken over by Grey and Olivia half a month before this: roughly the 23rd of August

Contrary to popular belief, most of the comics have to take place in 1973! Seeing as 6 months after late August is late February.

This also means Scout had to have been born in 1946/7. Not sure about Sniper, I have yet to overanalyse the New Zealand timeline paragraph. I'll get to it eventually.

Medic implies in comic 6 that our mercs have worked together for "at least eight years", while talking about the lore breaking Demo eyeball halloween thing. Assuming the "at least" confusion is over the 1972 Halloween they missed while not working together, the Teufort Nine were hired in 1964.

(I've almost mentally rationalised the lore breaking eyeball as a thing they do at like 4am after regular Scream Fortress shenanigans. Almost.)

Scout claims he has known Ms Pauling for six years. During the War! update, Demoman is unfamiliar with Ms Pauling (he knows she works for the administrator, but thats it), so we can assume that is the point she started working more closely with the mercs, and also 1966/7

I really need to go back to actively working on my timeline instead of passively wondering at 11pm "hey what time of year is it in the comics" and going down a rabbit hole.

Uh if you want to build off this, feel free to, but tell society twas I, the great and nobel Jevil_Owo, who first conceptualised all this.

UPDATE! This post seems to be picking up reblog steam again, so now is a good time to say I was WRONG about the mercs being hired around 1964.

This blog post from 2009 claims the WAR update took place in 1962, meaning the mercs have to have been hired in early 1962 at the latest.

Seeing as Scout would have been 15/16 in 1962, and as that's kind of the youngest one can be hired for just about anything, I'd assume it actually is 1962 they were hired. Ok thats enough I just felt it was my duty as Person Timelining to update people on this Discovery.

SECOND UPDATE!!

Okay this is lowkey blowing up again and I just wanted to add that Valve themselves are not aware of the comics taking place in 1973. Idiots! This is why "7 years later" is 1979 instead of 1980 like it should be. Sigh.

I had already figured that out from a few other things (see the timeline in my pinned post, I point it out a couple of times), but this solidified it lmao.

[lets-steal-an-archive]

David Lynch: PDF Scripts

The Elephant Man (1980) - undated & unspecified draft

Dune (1984) - second draft, fifth draft (revised)

Blue Velvet (1986) - revised third draft

Wild at Heart (1990) - revised first draft

Twin Peaks - Episode #006

Twin Peaks - Episode #007

Twin Peaks - Episode 2.001

Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me (1992) - August 8, 1991 draft

Twin Peaks: The Return - Combined Dialogue and Continuity, Parts 1-18 (Emmys 2018 FYC)

Lost Highway (1997) - June 21, 1995 draft

Mulholland Dr. (1999) - January 5, 1999 draft

One Saliva Bubble - First draft dated May 20, 1987 (Unproduced)

Ronnie Rocket - undated & unspecified draft (Unproduced)

[notenoughdramaaa]

Regulus is the star in the heart of Leo, and Sirius is the brightest star in the sky, sitting in the Canis Major constellation. Both are part of the ecliptic plane and visible from both hemispheres of the Earth. Due to their heliacal rising periods, it almost feels like Sirius disappears when Regulus re-emerges, as if Sirius sets as Regulus rises. This feels particularly poetic, considering that Sirius dies without ever knowing the full truth about Regulus. Though both stars are incredibly bright, they shine along their own paths, rarely crossing each other's orbit, but forever linked.

Regulus kissed James for the first time on a August 22, the moment when Regulus and the Sun are in conjunction, where they are the closest to each other. From July 23rd to August 23rd, Regulus is nowhere to be found, lost in the Sun's glare.

That's also the date that Regulus dies, disappearing from the sky because he sacrificed himself for something bigger than his love for James, bigger than himself. Regulus fades, he steps out of the Sun’s glare.

Because both Sirius and Regulus lie on the ecliptic plane, they experience conjunctions with the Moon throughout the year. The Moon hides Regulus several times, that's why Remus is always protecting Regulus, like the Moon, Remus protects Regulus and keeps his secrets hidden when he needs it most.

Lastly, Regulus Black was born on July 31st. When Walburga first looked into her tiny baby's eyes, she understood why Regulus wasn’t visible in the sky: he was on Earth, shining in her baby’s eyes. Regulus is a Leo in the zodiac. In a twist of fate, Harry Potter was also born on July 31st, 1980. When James first looked into his son’s eyes, he saw Regulus shining in them. To James, it felt as though the universe had given him a piece of Regulus back, someone to love and cherish, just as he had always wanted to do for the boy.

James Potter died on October 31st, 1981, as Regulus was visible in the sky. It was also the time when Regulus was far from the Sun, unable to protect James, yet close enough to witness his fall, powerless to intervene.

[all-action-all-picture]

The Micronauts No. 20, dated August 1980. Cover by Michael Golden. Marvel.

[wheelsgoroundincircles]

1973 Dodge Monaco

On this date, August 7th, in 1980, "The Blues Brothers" was released.

"It's got a cop motor, a 440-cubic-inch plant. It's got cop tires, cop suspension, cop shocks. It's a model made before catalytic converters so it'll run good on regular gas."

The film used 13 different cars bought at auction from the California Highway Patrol to depict the retired 1974 Mount Prospect, Illinois Dodge Monaco patrol car that would affectionately become known as The Bluesmobile. The vehicles were outfitted by the studio to do particular driving chores; some were customized for speed and others for jumps, depending on the scene. For the large car chases, filmmakers purchased 60 police cars at $400 each, and most were destroyed at the completion of the filming. More than 40 stunt drivers were hired, and the crew kept a 24-hour body shop to repair cars.

According to Dan Aykroyd, the horn-shaped loudspeaker atop the Bluesmobile was actually a duplicate of a massive Cold War-era air raid siren (CLM Model 92729DP) installed in the schoolyard at Our Lady of Annunciation where Aykroyd attended elementary school while growing up in Ottawa, Canada. The siren was manufactured by a Canadian company called CLM Industries, and Aykroyd specifically requested the same CLM model be used in the movie to portray the loudspeaker the characters affixed to the top of the Bluesmobile and used as a public address system.

Director John Landis has claimed that the portion of the final chase sequence beneath the elevated train tracks, which briefly showed a reading of 118 miles per hour on the car's speedometer, was actually filmed at that speed, a testament to the Monaco's police car heritage. He has also stated that he re-shot some of the scenes with pedestrians on the sidewalks, so viewers could see that the film had not been sped up to create the effect of speed.

For the scene when the Blues Brothers finally arrive at the Richard J. Daley Center, a mechanic took several months to rig the car to fall apart.

At the time of its release, "The Blues Brothers" held the world record for the most cars destroyed in one film until it was surpassed by a single car in its 1998 sequel. (Wikipedia)

[one-hell-of-otaku-is-here]

TSH timeline and year when Richard may have "published" TSH

This is something that just dawned on me: Richard Papen may have published his book about his time in Hampden and what transpired probably in the same date as Donna Tartt - so September 1992.

If we take into account that the TSH ended on summer 1984 (as it started end of August - September 1983), and as we know Richard started attending Hampden when he was still 19, he turned 20 during the events of TSH, therefore when we add 8 years since he told us he's 28 years old as of writing about it, 1984 + 8 = 1992.

How would I get the month tho? Well it's possible (and this is more of my headcanon) that Richard was born in February (or any months between January - September) and if he started writing during cold months (as I believe that's the best time to be writing, we know he's probably living somewhere where it's colder or milder since he hates warm dry weather) then it's possible he could have finished it in few months, plus add weeks it'd take to find publisher if he didn't find one already if he's not self publishing (which is possible but I like to think he wants to make at least sth out of this, our boy is forever poor af). Additionally, we know Richard used to write journals too (epecially during his time in college thered a lot to write about) so if he took what he wrote during his college years and added or removed some things writing 500+ pages wouldn't probably take that long either.

Ofc we know he's a liar. He may have started writing all of it before 1992 (two or three years earlier in fact) by the time he mentioned his age (28) for the first time at the very beginning of the book mind you, his birthday may have already passed (or he could be turning 28 very soon, sometimes people add year they turn in certain year before that month comes). It is also possible he could have written first chapter aka intro much later (so towards the end of his writing but who knows)

Alright this was just my two cents and it's still very much somewhere between headcanon and theory. I still firmly believe events of TSH took place in the middle of 1980s just because it somehow makes sense to me... Hope it was interesting read I better stop now before I spiral lol

Have a good day/night

[idontwanttospoiltheparty]

I don't know how best to share it. But the strongest evidence is probably the paraphrased quote from the Norman book that you've referenced in the past. Where she suggests that John must have had feelings for Paul. (https://mclennonanthology.tumblr.com/post/77393769824/from-chance-remarks-he-had-made-she-gathered). Like, it's McLennon evidence. But it's also her speculation, not coming from John or Paul. Then there's the audio diaries. The part that gets quotes all the time is the part where she says Paul would be competition for her. But, in context, she doesn't really say it in a jealous way. She says it after a long monologue about how much she likes him and how she hopes he likes her, not for herself, but "because she belongs to John." She also talks about how she vibes with him way more than George and Ringo. (I couldn't find a good transcript but this one from a Yoko hate site ☹️is ok https://yuckfoko.livejournal.com/22933.html) Then there's the oft quoted bit of the Sheff interview where John is trying to talk about how normal his relationships with Yoko and Paul are and Yoko's the one suggesting that people might have found John and Paul abnormally close (https://www.tumblr.com/amoralto/57260485982/august-1980-playboy-writer-david-sheff-questions)! And there's the bit of Sticky Fingers where Wenner claims that Yoko walks around telling everyone that John was gay and Hagen claims she also tried to convince Paul of this theory! (https://www.tumblr.com/amoralto/180893176242/the-wenners-moved-to-the-west-side-of-manhattan-in?source=share). Heck, she's one of the core purveyors of the "Paul was John's princess" idea!

That's all the super McLennon-specific evidence. But there's also tons of evidence that she was very fascinated by John's sexuality overall. There's the 1981(!) interview with Philip Norman where she claims she used to call John a "closet fag" to his face. (https://amoralto.tumblr.com/post/69790080940/i-used-to-say-to-him-i-think-youre-a-closet). She's possibly referencing John when she sings "You're thinking of Rock Hudson when we do it" in No No No. And another paraphrased quote from her that Norman used in John Lennon: A Life is the quote where she's claiming John said it would hurt her less if he slept with a man (and that he thought David Spinozza was hot) (https://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-11785347/Inside-John-Lennon-Yoko-Onos-life-New-York-City-moves-Dakota-building.html). There's also the fact that Goldman makes endless references to Marnie Hair telling him Yoko gossiped about John and Brian a ton. Plus, she's the one confirming John was bi decades after his death in the 2015 interview. (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/10/13/yoko-ono-i-still-fear-lennon-s-killer.html) I'm not saying her statements aren't evidence of John's actual queerness. I think they are. She was his wife, she knew him well. But they are also evidence that she spent (and has spent since he died) a lot of time thinking about his sexuality and seems to revel in the idea that he was queer as much as any tumblr shipper. If I want to get super speculative, I would even point to the fact that John seemed to play up his "Oscar Wilde side" when he was around her at times, and a plausible explanation is that he did it because she found it attractive.

Which makes sense when we note that Yoko has dated other queer men. Most notably Sam Havadtoy. And, in that 1968 audio diary, talks about her suspicion that certain gay men are "as attracted to her as they can be."

I don't know. I started thinking about this when you mentioned that the most concrete evidence we have for John's queerness and McLennon comes from Yoko. And then I started realizing how much of the stronger evidence comes from Yoko. And it really does start to seem like she's acting similarly to how many shippers do

Yup lol!!! I agree with this, for the most part. It's kind of crazy to me when I see people painting Yoko as having been two-dimensionally homophobic for shipping reasons when the truth appears to be so much stranger and more complicated than that.

Thank you so much for compiling this!!

I also just remembered the "boat called Paul" quote comes from Yoko and I think she also expressed to Norman that she found it weird that John was treating her like Stu by writing her letters.

It's genuinely bonkers how much of our theories trace back to her.

[liliesmultiverse]

⋆ˊˎ-•̩̩͙- *̩̩̥͙ 2nd marauders reality intro!!

⋆.ೃ࿔*:･ reality info!!

: ̗̀➛ it’s currently august 29, 1980

: ̗̀➛ hogwarts is a university where students start at 18 yrs old

: ̗̀➛ tom riddle never made horcruxes so he never became voldemort & death eaters aren’t a thing. he also isn’t a blood supremacist and is the DADA professor

: ̗̀➛ hogwarts does accept students from all over the world

: ̗̀➛ since schools like hogwarts, beauxbatons, castelobruxo, etc, are all universities; there are a ton of magical schools all over the world. like magical elementary, middle & high school in america, magical primary & secondary in england, etc.

: ̗̀➛ genuinely, i have absolutely no friendships or relationships scripted. this intro is basically my entire script for this reality. but i swear if james potter doesn't fall in love with me, i'm never shifting here again because what the fuck??

⋆.ೃ࿔*:･ about me!!

name: liliana aphrodite kowalski

nickname(s): lily, lils, lovey, ana, anne, annie

age: 20

date of birth: september 10, 1959

birthplace: manhattan, new york, new york

ethnicity: polish

blood status: half-blood

height: 5’4”

house: undetermined (currently), thunderbird (formerly)

year: 3rd

sexuality: bisexual

pronouns: she/her

patronus & animagus: red deer doe

⋆.ೃ࿔*:･ my backstory!!

: ̗̀➛ i was born on september 10, 1959 in manhattan, new york city to jacob kowalski & queenie kowalski née goldstein. growing up, there were only two places you could really find me. baking in the kitchen of my father’s bakery or attached to my uncle’s side as i helped him take care of all the magical creatures in his case. on my 17th birthday, my godfather gifted me a rare white niffler which i named snowdrop. a few weeks before the end of my 2nd year, i was expelled from ilvermorny due to a prank on the headmaster that went terribly wrong. with help from uncle newt, i was able to receive a letter of acceptance into hogwarts so that i could continue my education.

⋆.ೃ࿔*:･ my dad!!

name: jacob kowalski

nickname(s): dad, jake

age: 54

date of birth: august 24, 1925

birthplace: gdynia, poland

ethnicity: polish

blood status: no-maj

height: 5’7”

sexuality: straight

pronouns: he/him

occupation: owner of kowalski quality baked goods

⋆.ೃ࿔*:･ my mom!!

name: queenie kowalski née goldstein

nickname(s): mom

age: 52

date of birth: january 6, 1928

birthplace: new orleans, louisiana

blood status: half-blood

height: 5’5”

sexuality: pansexual

pronouns: she/her

⋆.ೃ࿔*:･ my maternal aunt!!

name: porpentina esther scamander née goldstein

nickname(s): tina, teeny

age: 53

date of birth: august 19, 1926

birthplace: new orleans, louisiana

blood status: half-blood

height: 5’8”

sexuality: straight

pronouns: she/her

occupation: head of the department of aurors at macusa

⋆.ೃ࿔*:･ my godfather & uncle!!

name: newton artemis fido scamander

nickname(s): newt

age: 58

date of birth: february 24, 1922

birthplace: cirencester, england

blood status: pureblood

height: 6’1”

sexuality: pansexual

pronouns: he/him

occupation: magizoologist

⋆.ೃ࿔*:･ my maternal cousin!!

name: nicholas theseus scamander

nickname(s): nick, nicky

age: 23

date of birth: june 14, 1957

birthplace: england

ethnicity: english

blood status: half-blood

house: hufflepuff

year: 5th

sexuality: pansexual

pronouns: he/him

[the-torchwood-archive]

Torchwood Timeline (May 2024)

This is my canon timeline for the Torchwood TV stories, novels, and audio productions. It's fairly similar to the wiki timeline with a few small tweaks. It's also completely spoiler free, unlike the wiki timeline.

Some entries have firm dates, some have months, some have general decades, so I've tried my hardest to fit them into where I feel they fit. If anyone spots anything that I've missed or sees any glaring problems let me know and I'll try to suss it out. New stories will be added as they are released.

1879:

TV: Tooth And Claw

1885:

Torchwood Cardiff is founded

December 24th 1894:

Audio: The Empire Man

1897:

Audio: Infidel Places

1898:

Audio: Save Our Souls

December 24th 1898:

Audio: The Crown

1899:

Scenes from TV: Fragments

Jack joins Torchwood

May 17th 1899

Audio: The Victorian Age

1908:

Torchwood Glasgow is founded

1915

Audio: What Have I Done

Post TV: COE Day 5 in Jack’s timeline

1940s:

Audio: Curios

Audio: The Dying Room

1953

Norton Folgate projects himself to 2016 for Audio: Ghost Mission

1955:

Norton Folgate is projected to 2009 for Audio: Outbreak

1956-1959:

Audio: Goodbye Piccadilly

Audio: Madam, I’m

Audio: Parasite

Audio: Ashenden

Audio: The Unbegotten

Audio: The Black Knight

1965:

Scenes from TV: Children Of Earth Day Four

First contact with the 456

1970s:

Audio: The Dollhouse

1973:

Audio: Double

Torchwood Los Angeles severs all ties

1978:

Audio: Dead Plates

1980:

Scenes from Prose: Trace Memory

Toshiko’s scenes

16th-22nd August 1987:

Past scenes from Audio: Disco

1999:

Alex Hopkins kills his team and Jack Harkness becomes head of Torchwood Cardiff

2000-2004:

Audio: Piece Of Mind

Ben Brown hired by Jack Harkness

Suzie Costello hired by Jack Harkness

Ben Brown deceased

2001-2004:

Scenes from Prose: Trace Memory

Owen’s scenes

2004:

Scenes from TV: Fragments

Toshiko’s scenes

Late 2004:

Audio: Blind Summit

Ianto returns to Wales

Audio: Suckers

February 2005:

Ianto is hired by Torchwood London as Junior Researcher

Scenes from Prose: Trace Memory

Ianto’s scenes

26th March 2005:

Audio: One Rule

Ianto is working as Yvonne’s PA

2005:

Audio: The Last Love Song Of Suzie Costello

Audio: Tube Strike

Audio: New Girl

Audio: Through The Ruins

Audio: Uprising

Audio: My Guest Tonight

Audio: Lola

Audio: Less Majesty

Audio: The Law Machines

Audio: 9 To 5

Sebastian Vaughn hired at Torchwood Three

Audio: The Vigil

Late 2005:

Scenes from TV: Fragments

Owen’s scenes

March 2006:

Owen Harper is recruited into Torchwood Cardiff

TV: Aliens Of London

April-September 2006:

Audio: Sync

September 2006:

TV: Boom Town

Jack confines the team to the Hub

September-December 2006:

Audio: Wednesdays For Beginners

Audio: Crush

Audio: Retirement Plan

29th November 2006:

Audio: Moving Target

January-Feburary 2007:

Audio: Locker 15

Audio: Dinner For Yvonne

Present day scenes from Audio: Disco

Audio: By Royal Appointment

Audio: Nerves

Audio: The Rockery

February-March 2007:

TV: Doomsday

TV: Army Of Ghosts

Scenes from TV: Fragments

Ianto joins Torchwood Cardiff

Audio: War Chest

February 2007-September 2009:

Audio: Coffee

Scenes take place between TV: Army Of Ghosts and TV: Children Of Earth Day Five

August-November 2007:

TV: Everything Changes

TV: Day One

TV: Ghost Machine

Prose: Another Life

Prose: Slow Decay

TV: Cyberwoman

Audio: Broken

Scenes take place between TV: Cyberwoman and TV: They Keep Killing Suzie

TV: Small Worlds

TV: Countrycide

Audio: The Great Sontaran War

TV: Greeks Baring Gifts

Audio: Restricted Items Archive Entires 031-049

Audio: Instant Karma

Audio: Ex Machina

Audio: Drive

November 2007:

TV: They Keep Killing Suzie

November-December 2007:

TV: Random Shoes

Audio: The Last Beacon

Audio: The Conspiracy

Audio: Fall To Earth

Audio: Uncanny Valley

Early events of Audio: The Office Of Never Was

18th-26th December 2007

TV: Out Of Time

Audio: The Grey Mare

December 2007-Janurary 2008:

Audio: SUV

Audio: Missing Molly

TV: Combat

Audio: Hidden

TV: Captain Jack Harkness

TV: End Of Days

January-May 2008:

Audio: Zone 10

Audio: Lease Of Life

February 2008:

Prose: Kaleidoscope

14th February 2008:

Audio: Dinner And A Show

February-August 2008:

Audio: Sigil

May 2008:

Torchwood goes to Tibet

Jack returns to Cardiff after TYTNW

TV: Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang

TV: Sleeper

Audio: Serenity

20th June 2008:

TV: To The Last Man

June-July 2008:

Prose: Something In The Water

Audio: Everyone Says Hello

Prose: Trace Memory

TV: Meat

29th June 2008:

Audio: The Lincolnshire Poacher

July-August 2008:

Audio: torchwood_cascade_CDRIP.tor

Audio The Office Of Never Was

Audio: In The Shaodws

TV: Adam

Audio: Tropical Beach Sounds And Other Relaxing Seascapes #4

August 2008:

Prose: The Twilight Streets

August-October 2008:

TV: Reset

TV: Dead Man Walking

TV: A Day In The Death

August-December 2008:

Audio: Corpse Day

Audio: The Hope

Audio: The Three Monkeys

Audio: Gooseberry

31st October 2008:

Prose: Pack Animals

November-December 2008:

TV: Something Borrowed

Prose: Skypoint

TV: From Out Of The Rain

TV: Adrift

Audio: Believe

TV: Fragments

TV: Exit Wounds

Audio: Expectant

Prose: Into The Silence

Audio: Lost Souls

January-February 2009:

Prose: Bay Of The Dead

Prose: The House That Jack Built

Prose: Almost Perfect

Audio: Department X

February 2009:

Audio: Ghost Train

May-September 2009:

Audio: Dissected

Audio: Rhys And Ianto’s Excellent Barbeque

TV: The Stolen Earth

TV: Journey’s End

Audio: The Sin Eaters

Prose: The Wrong Hands

Prose: Virus

Audio: Asylum

Audio: Golden Age

Prose: Consequences

Audio: The Dead Line

Prose: Risk Assessment

Prose: The Undertaker’s Gift

Audio: The Devil And Miss Carew

Audio: Submission

Audio: Outbreak

September 2009:

TV: Children Of Earth Day One

TV: Children Of Earth Day Two

TV: Children Of Earth Day Three

TV: Children Of Earth Day Four

TV: Children Of Earth Day Five

Late 2009:

Prose: Long Time Dead

March 2010:

Audio: House Of The Dead

Events of TV: The End Of Time and Audio: One Enchanted Evening in Jack’s timeline

March-June 2010:

Prose: First Born

June 2010:

Prose: The Men Who Sold The World

October 2010:

Audio: Poppet

18th-21st March 2011:

TV: The New World

22nd March 2011:

TV: Rendition

March-July 2011:

TV: Dead Of Night

TV: Escape To LA

TV: Categories Of Life

TV: The Middle Men

TV: Immortal Sins

TV: End Of The Road

September 2011:

TV: The Gathering

TV: The Blood Line

September-December 2011:

Audio: Army of One

Audio: Fallout

Audio: Red Skies

Audio: Mr Invincible

2012:

Prose: Exodus Code

Audio: Cadoc Point

November-December 2012:

Audio: Dog Hop

Late 2016

Audio: Forgotten Lives

Audio: Visiting Hours

Audio: More Than This

Audio: Ghost Mission

Audio: Made You Look

January-June 2017:

Mr Colchester joins a rebuilt Torchwood

Audio: We Always Get Out Alive

Audio: Night Of The Fendahl

Audio: Smashed

Ng joins Torchwood after this point

Audio: Driving Miss Wells

Audio: Sonny

Audio: Changes Everything

Audio: Aliens & Sex & Chips & Gravy

Audio: Oor

Audio: Superiority Complex

Audio: Love Rat

Audio: A Kill To A View

June 2017-October 2018:

Audio: Zero Hour

Audio: The Empty Hand

Audio: Poker Face

Audio: Tagged

Audio: Escape Room

Audio: Herald Of The Dawn

Audio: Future Pain

2017-2018:

Audio: The Man Who Destroyed Torchwood

Takes place between TV: Superiority Complex and TV: Herald Of The Dawn

October 2018:

Audio: Cardiff Unknown – October 2018

October-December 2018:

Audio: See No Evil

Audio: Night Watch

Audio: Flight 405

Audio: Hostile Environment

Audio: The Green Life

Audio: Sargasso

Audio: Another Man’s Shoes

Audio: Eye Of The Storm

January-March 2019:

Audio: A Mother’s Son

March-August 2019:

Audio: Scrapejane

Audio: Day Zero

Audio: Thoughts And Prayers

Audio: Red Base

Audio: Aliens Next Door

Audio: Colin Alone

August 2019:

Audio: Misty Eyes

2021:

Audio: Goodbye Piccadilly, Audio: Ashenden, and Audio: The Unbegotten for Andy’s POV

Early 2022:

Audio: The Red List

2022:

Audio: Moderation

Audio: Propaganda

Audio: At Her Majesty’s Pleasure

Audio: Cuckoo

Audio: Pariahs

Audio: How I Conquered The World

Audio: The Five People You Kill In Middlesborough

Audio: A Postcard From Mr Colchester

Audio: Death In Venice

February 2023:

Audio: Doomscroll

2023:

Audio: Heistland

Audio: The Apocalypse Starts At 6PM

Audio: Thirst Trap

Audio: Another Postcard From Mr Colchester

Audio: Sabotage

Amendments/Additions:

Feb 2024: Moved Audio: The Vigil from 2007 to 2005

April 2024: Added Audio:Another Postcard From Mr Colchester and Audio: Sabotage to 2023

April 2024: Added Audio: Tube Strike to early 2005

April 2024: Added Audio: Missing Molly to early 2008

May 2024: Moved Audio: Wednesdays For Beginners, Audio: Crush, Audio: Retirement Plan from 2007 to 2006

May 2024: Added Audio: Dinner For Yvonne, Audio: By Royal Appointment and Audio: Nerves to January-February 2007

May 2024: Added Audio: Disco to August 1978 and January-February 2007

May 2024: Moved Audio: Hidden from November-December 2007 to December 2007-Janurary 2008:

[ronance-is-heaven]

Here’s my times table for stranger things, including books and the show

Events

* Last person missing summer 1923

* The play fall of 1959

* Last suicide fall of 1961

* Suspicious minds- prologue 1969,

-Terry sees Apollo 11 launch July 16

-Terry hears of experiment July 21, later on in August starts the experiments

-Kali (eight) is 5, also date taken from family

-Alice, December, fellow subject with Terry sees eleven and Henry fighting (this book was published before season 4 and 3)

* The Hawkins Lab Massacre September 8th 1979

* Rebel Robin- starts September 6 1983, prologue June 8 1984, epilogue June 7, 1985

* Season one- starts November 6 1983 and ends mid December

* Season two- starts October 28 and ends October-November 1984

* Season three- starts July 1985

- Meat flayer battle July 4

Births

* Jim Hopper’s birth 1941-1942

* Joyce byer’s birth 1942

* kali’s birth 1964

* Eddie Munson’s birth 1966

* Steve Harrington’s birth 1966

* Nancy Wheeler’s birth 1967

* Jonathon Byers’ birth 1967

* Billy Hargrove’s birth 1967

* Robin Buckley’s birth 1968

* Will Byers’ birth 1971

* Mike Wheeler’s birth 1971

* Dustin Henderson’s birth 1971

* Lucas Sinclair’s birth 1971

* Max Mayfield’s birth 1971

* eleven’s birth 1971

* Erica Sinclair’s birth 1975

* Holly Wheeler 1980

[vertigoartgore]

"Twelve terrorists bad guys. One cop X-Man. The odds are against John McClane Wolverine...That's just the way he likes it."

1980's (not yet Uncanny*) X-Men Vol.1 #133 page 1 (finished in August 27, 1979 according to the date). Script & plot by writer Chris Claremont, plot & art by John Byrne, inks by Terry Austin, lettering by Tom Orzechowski, colors by Glynis Wein and edited by Jim Salicrup (who took over from his predecessor Roger Stern). Source Source

*since the X-Men title would officially become Uncanny X-Men during the Days of Future Past storyline (published months later).

Featuring the Hellfire Knights (those who survived would go on to become the Reavers during the Outback era of the late 1980s).

[kassischaos]

Okay so stuff coming straight from the Witherburn After School News discord theory channel:

For a while we’ve been encouraged to look at the following list of characters birthdays by Francis:

The Reporter July 22, 2008

Birdie May 4, 2008

Bo Stoker November 8, 2007

Dyce December 4, 2007

Coach McMillan February 29, 1980

Eva Sinanger February 20, 2008

Francis Smith January 16, 2006

Hunter Clark October 26, 2007

Mr. Pickler October 20, 1967

Tina Young August 23, 2007

Now there are some things that we already knew or were quick to figure out (ie. Mr. Pickler’s birthday being the day of the infamous bigfoot sighting) but we were clearly missing something considering we kept being urged to look at the birthdays more. Supposedly the birthdays had some meaning that would reveal something that would foreshadow season two of WBASN.

Now today Francis again was urging the server to look at the birthdays but was now italicizing certain letters, specifically O and B. It took as way too long (the witherburn server over complicating things? who would’ve thought/sar) but eventually we figured out that we were being pointed at Bo Stoker. (Well first we were thinking that OB=08 and went a long rabbit hole but that got dismissed after an hour long mental break.)

From there we started looking at Bo Stoker’s birthdays and things that happened on that day (November 8th). It was confirmed by Francis that what we were looking for was on the wikipedia page for that date, and after a whole of searching I came across the fact that Nov. 8th was the day that Bram Stoker created Count Dracula.

That along with some other hints (Francis asking about Tim Stoker from The Magnus Archives last name being Stoker and if that meant he was secretly a vampire, and a 2 truths 1 lie that had been asked in the server that included “vampires are real” as one of the options). We concluded that vampires seem to be a likely thing to show up in season two of WBASN.

Additionally we were told to listen to the halloween episode of witherburn and when I listened to that there were two things that seemed relevant:

1. The Witherburn Ghost. Her being seen with a hole where he heart should be could point towards a wooden stake to the heart (where vampires need to be stabbed with a wooden stake to be killed)

2. The Stoker family being obsessed with the blood orange pie. Specifically a pie that is a currently a very well kept secret (secret ingredient? Blood?)

Well that’s all the theorizing for now. If anyone wants to add anything I missed feel free to.

@witherburn-after-school-news

[hollowed-theory-hall]

Thank you for your reply, I really appreciate it! (and the fact you're linking all your other metas)

I like how you explained it and it really makes sense. I actually can picture it now! I think it would be really interesting to see how impacted the muggleborns were back then. Maybe they were refused job because of their blood and overall felt insecure-- after all, we never know since Lily ended up being a full time Order's member.

I gotta says though, there are some dates I do not agree with in your timeline, if I may? Here's what Moody said concerning the Order's picture:

“There’s me,” said Moody unnecessarily, pointing at himself. The Moody in the picture was unmistakable, though his hair was slightly less gray and his nose was intact. “And there’s Dumbledore beside me, Dedalus Diggle on the other side … That’s Marlene McKinnon, she was killed two weeks after this was taken, they got her whole family. That’s Frank and Alice Longbottom —”

And in Lily's letter, she wrote to Sirius that she cried all evening after learning what happened to the McKinnons. It was wrote late July/early August 1981 since it was for Harry 1st birthday, so Marlene would have been killed in July and that's why I am assuming the picture was taken in 1981.

Also, I started to think that the prophecy was made around January/February 1980 because of this post (which would work with the idea that he made interviews during winter break), and that the Fidelius Charm was performed only in October 1981 because of this quote:

“Not many people are aware that the Potters knew You-Know-Who was after them. Dumbledore, who was of course working tirelessly against You-Know-Who, had a number of useful spies. One of them tipped him off, and he alerted James and Lily at once. He advised them to go into hiding. Well, of course, You-Know- Who wasn’t an easy person to hide from. Dumbledore told them that their best chance was the Fidelius Charm." […] “He did,” said Fudge heavily. “And then, barely a week after the Fidelius Charm had been performed— ”

which would work with my idea that Severus only warned Albus in October 1981, and not before-- and therefore Peter being a spy for one year but not snitching on the Potters would make sense. Voldemort hadn't make his decision yet.

And it made me wonder when Dumbledore actually told the Potters about the prophecy. Did he even tell them everything? There are actually no informations about the Longbottoms hiding too, only the fact they were possible target so I wonder if they knew about it.

Also, one point I like to think about is the fact Lily and James were in the picture in June/July 1981 (possibly), but in Lily's letter she talks about James getting frustrated staying home. Were they still going to the Order's meeting but not doing missions for the Order? Or did they keep low only after the picture was taken? I know in interviews JK talked about the Potters hiding either before Harry's birth or during his christening, and I know people always assume it's because of the prophecy but what if it was simply because they knew they were possible target even without it?

I really have been thinking greatly about the First Wizardin War lately sorry 😭

Your welcome, and no problem, I love talking about this!

Referring to this post.

Regarding the Fidelius, I remember Fudge saying that, but Fudge has no reason to know when the charm was cast. Winter of 1980, makes sense for the prophecy, Considering the prophecy says:

“...THE ONE WITH THE POWER TO VANQUISH THE DARK LORD WILL BE BORN AS THE SEVENTH MONTH DIES. . . .”

(OotP)

It talks about the future. The child will be born, not born yet. Also, the Prophecy was made at least two months before Harry was born:

“My name?” said Harry blankly. He stepped forward. Not as tall as Ron, he had to crane his neck to read the yellowish label affixed to the shelf right beneath the dusty glass ball. In spidery writing was written a date of some sixteen years previously

(OotP)

“I did,” said Dumbledore. “On a cold, wet night sixteen years ago, in a room above the bar at the Hog’s Head Inn

(OotP)

This is in May 1996, so Harry is two months before his 16th birthday, meaning the prophecy was made at least 2 months before he was born. Possibly in the winter of 1980, but not after Harry's birth.

And, it seems bizarre to not hide the Potters immediately after the prophecy is made. Especially since the Order knew there was a spy in their midst since mid-1980:

YOU’D BEEN PASSING INFORMATION TO HIM FOR A YEAR BEFORE LILY AND JAMES DIED!

(PoA)

Add to that the fact the Fidelius broke upon James and Lily's death, which implies Harry was not included in the phrasing of the spell, and it indicates the Fidelius was cast before Harry was born and that Fudge has no clue what he's talking about (which is pretty in character, all in all).

It always seemed to me Dumbledore hid the Potters before Snape told him about Voldemort and that he heard the prophecy. Fudge just knows the version of events the ministry was given, not necessarily the true version.

“The—the prophecy. . . the prediction. . . Trelawney. . . ” “Ah, yes,” said Dumbledore. “How much did you relay to Lord Voldemort?” “Everything—everything I heard!” said Snape. “That is why—it is for that reason—he thinks it means Lily Evans!” “The prophecy did not refer to a woman,” said Dumbledore. “It spoke of a boy born at the end of July—” “You know what I mean! He thinks it means her son, he is going to hunt her down—kill them all—” “If she means so much to you,” said Dumbledore, “surely Lord Voldemort will spare her? Could you not ask for mercy for the mother, in exchange for the son?” “I have—I have asked him—” “You disgust me,” said Dumbledore, and Harry had never heard so much contempt in his voice. Snape seemed to shrink a little, “You do not care, then, about the deaths of her husband and child? They can die, as long as you have what you want?” Snape said nothing, but merely looked up at Dumbledore. “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.”

(DH)

Dumbledore isn't surprised by anything Snape is telling him. It's all expected, he knew all of it already, so I think he already had the Potters in hiding before this conversation. He knew it was Lily and James' son, Snape is even calling him out on his bullshit here. Dumbledore acts like he knew and already took the precautions he felt were needed. Snape goes and promises him anything in exchange for something Dumbledore was already doing.

And I think he didn't tell James and Lily the full prophecy. If he did, I don't think James would've been as antsy to leave all the time. Like, if he felt a strong enough duty to stay for Harry and Lily, I think he would have. Which, to me suggests he didn't know all the details. But alas, I don't know for certain, it's just speculation on my part how much James and Lily knew. I believe it was very little, along the lines of: "There is reason to believe Voldemort would try to target Harry due to certain intel he has," maybe they knew there was a prophecy but not the full contents of it.

The photo of the order and the dates super annoy me. Becouse like, if the photo was taken in the summer of 1981 it means the entire Order was practically wiped out in 4 months. Which is kinda insane and doesn't make much sense.

But, if it indeed was taken in June/July of 1981, it means it was taken after the Potters were already in hiding due to everything I wrote above. It means the Potters left Harry with Batgilda Bagshot or something to meet the Order and take this picture, which, again, doesn't make sense. God, I hate JKR's timeliness sometimes.

Yes, this is nonsensical, but it seems like, indeed, James and Lily left their hiding spot to take a picture and the whole Order died in the last 4 months of the war, painting them as way more incompetent than I usually paint them as.

But if James and Lily really didn't know how grave the danger was and didn't have all the details, and James felt confident enough to leave them under the invisibility cloak multiple times, it's possible they did go to meet the Order while in hiding on a few occasions. This would lull James and Lily even more into a false sense of security. If they were used to seeing the Order it explains James leaving often-ish, and neither of them having their wands on them when Voldemort arrives. They didn't really think they were in danger for all their months in hiding.

[riobirb]

  Chapter 6

                                   Bittersweet to Heartbreak

Warning: Implied homophobia

                                                                            

Gru and Maxime were happily together through grade 10 and spent a lot of time together and committed mischief. They both grew not only physically, but also with their path to villainy. Especially Maxime. Maxime had developed new weapons including about cockroaches. His hair started to have split ends, two in front of his head that looked almost like a bug’s antlers. Which he was given the nicknames by Gru “My little bug” and “My snuggle bug”. Gru had developed new weapons as well, but nothing original like Maxime did with cockroaches. It sometimes made Gru feel left behind and insecure, but Maxime always assured him he had a lot of talent and potential to become a great villain. Summer vacation came and they both enjoyed it together. It was August 31st, 1985, the last night of summer vacation. Gru and Maxime were on top of a building in town as they watched people go by and gaze at the star sky and full moon.

“Wasn’t this a great summer, Maxime?” Gru asked turning to look at his boyfriend and positioned his left leg up resting his arm on it.

“Oui. The best summer vacation I’ve ever had.” Gru’s heart felt warm at those words.

“I wish we can do it all over again. If only we can go back in time to June.” Maxime giggled and wrapped his arm around Gru pulling him close.

“We still have the whole school year together, and next summer. I’m not going anywhere.”

Gru’s smiled and leaned against his green jacket sighing into his scent.

“You’re right.”

“We will become even more powerful as time goes. We will become the greatest villains in the world and cause mayhem.” Maxime said dreamfully.

“That sounds even better! Just you and me. We are going to have so much fun! I love you!” Gru said happily and grabbed his cheeks kissing him on the forehead.

The two stared at the stars for a while before getting up to get ready for school tomorrow.

“Hey,…have you grown more?” Maxime questioned cupping Gru’s face. “A whole five centimeters! Looks like I’m having my growth spurt after all. Watch out! Soon I’ll be taller than you!” Gru said proudly with a cocky grin.

“That’s fine with me. More Gru for me to love.”

“Oh boy, that was just so corny.” Gru sighed looking down embarrassed as Maxime smiled through it meaning it seriously. Gru kissed him on the lips while resting his left hand on his head. He parted his lips and gazed at him lovingly.

“Thank you for everything. No matter what the future brings…I can’t wait to start this journey with you.”

Maxime smiled back and pulled him to another kiss and rested his head on top of his holding him close.

“Me too, mon amour.”

The first two months of grade 11 went smoothly, however, Maxime started to gain more popularity. He became more respected with his inventions and wisdom. More students started to spend time with Maxime and never included Gru. Gru managed to receive some attention himself for his work but not as much. Whenever Maxime brought up Gru’s accomplishments, people would barley acknowledge it half the time. It grew Gru’s insecurity but hid it from Maxime not wanting to trouble him with it. Students began to wonder as Maxime got more noticed, why was he spending so much time with Gru? They questioned to themselves if Maxime like him or dating him. While in the 1980s gay dating was more accepted, it was still often discreet and hidden. It was November and Gru and Maxime were at Gru’s locker planning on to go out together, when a group of jocks approached them.

“Hey, Maxime! We’re going to go hit town, wanna join us?” the jock in front asked.

Maxime didn’t show any interest. Fixing his baggy green jacket and glasses.

“Sorry, but I already have plans.” Maxime said looking at Gru who just stared at them. They snickered.

“You’re always hanging out with him! What is he your boyfriend or something? Why would you ever want to be with someone as lame as him-“

Gru's eyesight became fuzzy, and the only sound he could hear were the students' muted voices. No one noticed that his hands began to shake and that his breathing was shallow.  Maxime gave the jock a strong blow to the face, causing him to fall to the ground. He seized the jock’s skin through his shirt, yanking him firmly to his face nearly in contact with each other while gritting his teeth and staring at him furiously.

“I dare you to say that to my face again before I turn you into nothing but a futilely piece of garbage you worthless-!” Maxime yelled until he heard footsteps run in the distance. Gru sprinted to the end of the hallway disappearing, not turning back once.

“Gru!” Maxime cried as the other jocks attempted to attack Maxime but dodged their punches, only angering him further beating them all with ease. As a result, leaving them laying on the ground barley conscious, bruised up with some bleeding wounds. Maxime frantically searched the building but couldn’t find Gru. He eventually located him outside a balcony in the campus. Gru was breathing heavily as he gripped the stone wall, his body trembling as tears continued to escape from his eyes landing on top of the stone wall. No matter how hard he tried tears continued to release.

“Gru! Are you alright?” Maxime exclaimed running to him grabbing his shoulder. Gru tensed and yanked his shoulder away wiping his eyes.

“I-I’m fine.” Gru gasped.

“No, you’re not! Come here.” Maxime grabbed his shoulders and pulled him into a tight embrace, stroking his hair with one hand.

“Listen to me. What those idiots said back there didn’t mean anything. And it shouldn’t to you either.”

“I’m nothing like you..” Gru mumbled tearfully.

“Quoi?”

“I said I’m nothing like you!” Gru said angrily shoving himself out of Maxime’s hold. “You always come up with better inventions than me! You are a million times smarter and understand technology better than me! You come up with creative ideas every other day of the week and I don’t! I am just average! People in this place look up to you now! No one cares about me or what I do! People are wondering why you bother spending so much time with me! I don’t understand how you could keep being with a loser like me!” Gru exclaimed. Maxime was taken aback by Gru’s words and furrowed his eyebrows pained. He gently cupped his cheeks wiping his tears away with his thumbs.

“Gru. That is not true at all. You are one of a kind. You are one of the most intelligent and villainous people I have ever met. Stealing the moon is an extraordinary, genius dream, and I know you can accomplish that dream. You are cunning, quick thinking, and cynical. But Gru, be sure I wouldn’t be here if I wasn’t 100 percent sure of who my heart belongs to. I’ve fallen in love you with you. And not just because we relate a lot, but because you’re sincere, so, so smart, helpful, kind to me, and everything else I could ask for. I really do love you Gru.” Maxime expressed now on the verge of tears himself.

“Why are you telling me all of this now?” Gru whimpered. Maxime pressed his head down on Gru’s gently holding his head with his left hand.

“Because it’s the truth. After everything that happened, what do you expect me to answer? I want to hear the truth. I want to know how you feel about me.”

“Maxime. I..I love you too…” Gru said grabbing his hand and resting it on his cheek. He then slowly stepped backwards releasing his hand making his lover confused. “But how we feel about each other doesn’t matter. I mean who are we kidding? Two people like us being together? You have good things coming for you, I’ll just be dragging you down.” Gru breathed holding himself together from breaking down. Maxime felt confused and alarmed at the sudden change of Gru’s behavior.

“I understand you’re upset right now, but please! You’re not thinking straight, don’t make any decisions now. Let me take you home and get some rest and we can talk about everything tomorrow!” Maxime pleaded.

“T-Thank you for everything, Maxime. I will never forget the time we spent together. I wish you nothing but success. I’m sorry..”. Tears began to form on Maxime’s eyes.

“Gru, please.!”

“So..So sorry…” Then Gru took off, leaving Maxime alone and immobilized as he processed what had just happened. He felt numb as he leaned on the balcony. He lowered himself to the ground and started sobbing. He removed his glasses, covered his face with his hands, and cried for hours until dusk. Gru was a sobbing mess when he got home and ran to his room. Ms. Gru was surprised and asked him what happened, but he locked himself in his room. The minions tried to help and comfort Gru but pushed them away, the minions kept protesting until he angrily told them to get lost. Dr. Nefario also attempted but was unable to convince Gru to speak. For the remainder of the weekend, Gru barricaded himself in his room.

While Ms. Gru was away, Dr. Nefario was inside the house. Gru was lying on his side in his blanket on his bed, his face just visible. He had bangs under his eyes from crying so much and was staring emotionlessly at the wall. When he heard the door slowly creak open, he saw that Dr. Nefario was carrying a bowl of several ice cream flavors Gru liked. Dr. Nefario suspected what had happened, but he didn't want to make assumptions that would further upset and offend Gru.

“Gru? Are you awake, lad? I brought you some ice cream. You should eat something.” Gru just covered his face with the blanket while Nefario came and sat on the end of his bed.

“You don’t have to tell me what’s going on. But please, just have a little bite.” Gru slowly sat up, blanket reaching to his waist and Nefario handed him the bowl. “Thanks, Dr. Nefario. I owe you one.” Dr. Nefario smiled happy to see Gru take the dessert. “Never mind.” Gru started to rhetorically eat his ice cream and Dr. Nefario looked at him concerned.

‘He’s been so absent minded since Friday. It’s like he’s somewhere else. It hurts me to see him like this. What can I do for him?’ an idea then clicked.

“Hey, you know what?” he placed a hand on his shoulder making Gru looked up at him curiously. “Let’s have a nice, relaxing day together. We’ll eat unhealthy stuff and watch whatever you like in the lair. What do you say?”

“But what about your work?” Gru asked.

“Oh, never mind that. Besides, I need to recharge my batteries. So, whenever your ready go take a shower and I’ll find some comfy clothes for you to wear, then-“ Gru buried his face on his knees and started to cry as the unexpected tenderness set off his emotions.

‘I miss him so much it’s so hard to breathe.’ Gru thought.

“Did. Did I say something wrong? I’m so sorry.” He then pulled Gru into his arms and stroked his back gently, this only made Gru began to wail. (This boy is so paternally neglected thank god for Dr. Nefario)

“Hey, everything will be alright. Don’t worry, I’m here. Let it out.” Nefario shushed softly. After a while Gru’s cries died down.

“Dr. Nefario.?”

“Yeah?”

“Could I talk to you about something?”

In the end, Gru explained the situation to Nefario, who understood that familiarity of heartbreak. Maxime made numerous attempts to get in touch with Gru, but he simply grew more distant, insulted him, and declared that he no longer loved him. Maxime naturally felt betrayed and hurt, and he developed a strong hatred for his former sweetheart. Along with all the other gifts and items Gru gave him during their relationship, he tore and threw away the bear he received on their first date. He eventually started dating Valentina as his popularity grew during grade 11, spent time with many pupils, and humiliated and insulted Gru whenever he felt like it. Gru just isolated himself from everyone at school except his teachers and fell behind in his inventions and schoolwork due to his low confidence and depression.

Tears formed in Gru’s eyes as his mouth parted open a bit. He locked eyes with Maxime who also had tears threatened to leave his eyes with an appalled expression lost for words. This was the first time in 40 years since they discussed about their past relationship and the events leading to the day and after they split.

“Maxime. I’m so sorry.”

[severus-snaps]

Snape in the eyes of Pureblood Supremacists in Slytherin

Back at it again because I've had more thoughts following 'Mudblood' and Muggle-borns on Snape's youth and time in school (I started this what feels like so long ago, got overinvested, lost steam, and then just abandoned it - but might as well put it out there since I've made it Lengthy now. Welcome to part two of my half-baked metas, as it were).

A lengthy mixture of me projecting about Snape's early attitudes to blood supremacy and upbringing; the timeline of Snape's school years and the War; Snape's appearance and first impressions to his housemates (and others); Slytherin 'friendships' through the lens of what we see in the books from Harry's generation, and Snape's alluded-to 'friendships' with Lucius and the 'gang of Slytherins'; and the role of blood purity in Slytherin.

In A War Context

Going back in time for a moment, starting from the fateful night where the series begins:

31 October, 1981 Voldemort is vanquished. This is the same night that one-year-old Harry was sent to live with the Dursleys. We also see Snape crying in Dumbledore's office that night, in Snape's memories.

September 1981 Snape started teaching probably a month before that, age 21 (14 years prior to Umbridge's inquiries in the starting term of 1995).

Late Autumn/Winter 1980 (to early winter 1981) Snape turned spy when Voldemort decided the Prophecy applied to the Potter family. Scene on the 'windy hilltop' probably followed ver shortly after Snape finding out.

31 July 1980 Harry is born.

Autumn/Winter 1979 Snape overhears part of the prophecy and relays it to Voldemort.

"The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches… born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies..."

[Note: I've made some assumptions. Trelawney tells Umbridge in September 1995 that she started work at Hogwarts "nearly sixteen years" ago. Hogwarts traditionally follows a British school calendar, with terms starting in September (autumn term) and January (spring term). Assuming she starts in time for a new term, if she started in the autumn (September 1979), and assuming the interview was some time before her appointment in time for a new term, her interview might have taken place in the summer of 1979, around June, July, or August - but she probably would've just said "sixteen years" instead of "nearly", so... If she started in the spring term (January 1980): Her interview could have been held in late 1979, possibly around November or December 1979, assuming that the intervew was held a short but reasonable amount of time before she took the role, and perhaps during the holidays. Seeing as JKR likes Halloween (aka All Hallows' Evening) as a date, she may well have delivered the prophecy on Halloween - and possibly the literal moment Harry was conceived. What a thought.]

However, I'm just as bad (if not worse) as JKR with numbers and dates, so please do correct me if this is total nonsense.

31 October 1979 Harry is possibly conceived, assuming a perfect 9 month pregnancy.

1979 Regulus Black dies. There's a flimsy bit of evidence to suggest Snape was Marked/started working for Voldemort in summer 1979 (imagine if it was Harry's future birthday lol) but really it could've been author error, putting Snape's joining the DEs (to my mind) any time from the aftermath of SWM onwards - but what use would Voldemort have for Snape when he's in school for another few years under Dumbledore's watchful eye, and has no money, information, or connections yet? (Unlike Regulus, who had a well-known, affluent Pureblood family, and the ability to use magic/research the Dark Arts at home as well as at school - this is, of course, assuming that Snape can't use magic freely at home because his father doesn't like magic or anything, much).

June 1978 Snape graduates from & leaves Hogwarts. "By the time [the Marauders] left school, Lord Voldemort’s ascendancy was almost complete. True resistance to him was concentrated in the underground organisation called the Order of the Phoenix..." [X]

1977/1978 Regulus Black joins the Death Eaters.

June 1976 "Snape's Worst Memory". Snape & Lily's friendship ends. Fear of Voldemort is already so ingrained that people won't use his name; Lily calls him "You-Know-Who". His followers are also widely known to be called "Death Eaters" by this time.

Early 1976 (approx.) The Prank. Shortly after, Lily 'accuses' Snape of hanging out with Mulciber and Avery. [Neither of these friends - nor any members of the 'gang' Sirius mentioned Snape belonging to - seem to want to hang out after exams or protect him from being hunted for sport during SWM (June 1976; during OWLS), nor are they ever mentioned to retaliate by a Marauder, so perhaps that 'gang' membership came later (c. 1978 in Snape's 7th year). Alternatively they were all already friends, but I'll go into more depth into the flimsiness of Slytherin friendships later. Just from info from the book text, it would be reasonable to assume the 'gang' attended school all at the same time - but Bellatrix was mentioned among them, by her married surname, and her generally given date of birth from wherever that sort of information comes from (seriously, I can't find a source that isn't the wiki) suggests that that she'd be too old to attend school with Snape - so who knows where Sirius got that from. There's also the fact that Sirius introduces Bellatrix as a Lestrange in the 'gang' context and not a Black, which suggests that she's already left school and married at a young age by the time Snape is in the gang. 'Early' marriage is normal for wizarding society after all - or perhaps it simply means that Sirius didn't want to associate her with his surname.]

Autumn 1975 - Summer 1976 Marauders 'finally managed' their Animagus transformations in their fifth year. [This had certainly happened by Summer 1976/SWM, as they had their nicknames by then, derived from their Animagi forms and Sirius wants it to be a full moon so they can run around.

As for whether the Marauders managed their transformations prior to the Prank, I've seen arguments saying that it is likely to have happened prior to the Prank, otherwise Sirius wouldn't know about the knot or how to slip past the Willow, and that Snape was "trying to find out what we were up to" which implies they were collectively up to something like becoming Animagi or running around, and in Snape's memories he says "they" sneak out at night, not just that there's something weird about Lupin.

On the flip side, perhaps it isn't likely they were Animagi by the Prank - otherwise it wouldn't have been a risk to James' life, since he could transform and be safe. (Of course, maybe James also couldn't transform in front of Snape without getting outed to Dumbledore and potentially getting all of them arrested and expelled or whatever, so it was a risk either way).]

Summer 1972 (approx) Lucius graduates. In the year(s) prior to this, Snape has presumably built some sort of friendship with him (enough for Snape to be considered Lucius' "lapdog"), which I'll go into later. If Lucius was a Prefect when Snape started, he'd have graduated from Hogwarts around the year of 1972/1973, after Snape's second year. Within seven years, by 1980, he was high-ranking and trusted enough by Voldemort to keep the diary Horcrux - (to open the Chamber, which, I assume, would destabilise the school to the extent that if Voldemort hadn't died, he'd have used it to take the school in the first war).

September 1971 Snape and Lily started at Hogwarts, aged 11. Lucius welcomes Snape to Slytherin. Voldemort "started looking for followers" around this time, and became more public in his agenda; at the time of Voldemort's death, the wizarding world had had "precious little to celebrate" for the past 11 years - and Voldemort had spent a few years even before that skulking about in the shadows, probably recruiting dark creatures and engaging in dark magic.

So, onto the show.

Pre-Hogwarts

Aged 11 (and probably for some time before that) Snape excitedly and somewhat naively hopes that he and Muggle-born Lily will be in Slytherin together. We can only speculate why Snape wants to be in Slytherin - perhaps because his mother was, since it tends to run in families. Maybe he's read somewhere that Merlin was a Slytherin and he has ambitions to be the next most powerful wizard of a generation (certainly seems to fit the Dark Arts interest, his experimenting, his disdain for reciting answers straight from the books, and his knowledge of curses/magic and wizarding society even before he attends Hogwarts). Maybe in line with that he's read about the Houses and thinks of himself and/or Lily as cunning and ambitious (he certainly thinks of them as "brainy", though he still didn't want to be in Ravenclaw, for example). Maybe it's mostly about 'rising' from his current situation, and he values the ambition to get there. In short, we have no idea what drew him to that House - but I doubt it's some desire at the age of nine to join a pureblood supremacist cult or to celebrate blood purity.

Snape's pause is often used by antis as a sort of gotcha for Snape already harbours blood supremacist views (as much as a child can 'harbour' anything; nature and nurture and all that. He'd have to have been taught). He's then spent two years getting to know Lily, seeing her (advanced) control of wandless magic and possibly training his own, and she's his only friend. He knows how talented she is; he can tell that being Muggle-born has no bearing on skill ("You have loads of magic"), and also likely knows from himself that being part-Muggle also does not influence skills. To my mind, Snape's hesitation when Lily asks if it makes a difference being Muggle-born suggests he might be aware of supremacist attitudes, but not necessarily that he believes them. I can believe that he'd dislike Muggles, but I doubt somehow that nine-year-old Snape, raised in a Muggle town, and his best friend the Muggle-born would've had too deep an understanding of the true extent of blood supremacy and how it could affect them, otherwise he probably wouldn't be suggesting she join Slytherin. Lily may be Muggle-born, but he's (at least) half Muggle himself, lives in the same place, isolated from wizarding society in almost the same way that most wizards are from Muggle society. As Draco might say, he's "never been brought up to know our ways."

But then, something is also going on with Eileen, which is why a witch is stuck in a less-than-stellar marriage with a Muggle who doesn't like magic, and living in poverty or distress severe enough to neglect her child - so Snape might know from being on the end of discriminatory attitudes himself, rather than simply holding them. Perhaps he'd seen his mother shunned as a blood traitor (after all, he's wearing his mother's clothes - where are the rest of the family? aunts/uncles/cousins? family friends?).

Eileen might be half-blood or Muggleborn herself, which is how she came to marry a Muggle. What we do know is that a pureblood supremacist witch would outright reject associating with Muggles or even visiting an area where Muggles frequented, much less forming a relationship, marrying, having a child, and living with one (Bellatrix even thinks that she and Narcissa must be the 'first of their kind' to visit Spinner's End). Maybe Eileen was from a dying-out Pureblood family like the Gaunts, viewing a Muggle man as an escape from something worse only for it to not work out... but even then, she'd still have liked a Muggle enough to abandon her family for one, which is more tolerance than you'd get from Bellatrix, for example. And even tolerant Purebloods don't really mix with Muggles; they just don't have enough shared understanding, and don't seem to know how the world would function without magic.

I'm personally very fond of the idea that Eileen might herself have been half-blood or Muggle-born - Hermione finds the name 'Prince' difficult to find in the school records, and they're obviously not a well-known family since Lupin says "there are no wizarding princes" - and he might have remembered if they were a family on a level with, say, the Malfoys, at any point in recent memory, and it seems unlike Hermione to not remember a name as easily memorable as Prince if she'd read about it somewhere. There's a whole host of options that perhaps Eileen's ancestors kept producing daughters and so the male name/line went extinct (as discussed with relation to the Peverells in the later books), but to me, 'first generation' (half and half) half-bloods, and Muggleborns, are the most likely to associate with Muggles in the first place - since wizarding society (with a few notable exceptions) tends exist fairly isolated from Muggles. Even Tonks - daughter of a Muggleborn man - seems to treat Muggles like some distant and foreign concept:

“Very clean, aren’t they, these Muggles?” said the witch called Tonks, who was looking around the kitchen with great interest. “My dad’s Muggle-born and he’s a right old slob. I suppose it varies, just like with wizards?”

Overall, Pureblood/Wizarding supremacist attitudes are commonplace in wizarding society, and take many, many forms - from a total lack of knowledge, to fascination, to disinterest and low-key derision of Muggles; from Slughorn's amused and impressed response to Hermione being skilled for a Muggle-born to Draco's frequent slurs; and Grindelwald/Voldemort's whole 'subjugate them all' deal to Harry's "they're just people, I guess??".

Snape could have been anywhere on that spectrum. In short, neither Snape, nor the wizarding world at large, know how much of a difference being Muggle-born was about to make.

First Impressions

This section is largely speculative, so be warned. I like to think it adds context.

When we're first introduced to Snape, and as his story unfolds, we get rather frequent descriptors of his appearance - more frequent than most characters.

The first description of Snape is "a teacher with greasy black hair, a hooked nose, and sallow skin". But the younger Snape had a "stringy, pallid look", being "round-shouldered yet angular" and with a "twitchy walk that recalled a spider", as well as "long oily hair that jumped about his face". Snape, when not in his robes, wears "clothes were so mismatched that it looked deliberate: too short jeans, a shabby, overlarge coat that might have belonged to a grown man, an odd smocklike shirt" that might have been his "mother's blouse". At various points, we're told over and over that he has "yellow teeth", an "overlarge nose", and "greasy" hair. As a kid, Sirius describes him as "slimy, oily, [and] greasy-haired". On the Marauders map, "Mr. Wormtail bids Professor Snape good day, and advises him to wash his hair, the slimeball"; an ugly git; and an idiot; and even on the train during their first meeting, James decided that Sirius was "alright" for a potential Slytherin but Snape wasn't, and that Snape was neither brawny nor brainy.

In terms of Snape's experience at school, he was already in for a tough time for the crime of looking a bit weird. But more than that, Muggles and Muggle-borns are clearly and repeatedly described by Pureblood supremacists as common, filthy, dirty, disgusting, and foul - which is just how people might see Snape.

Gaunt describes Merope as a "dirty Squib", "disgusting little Squib" and a "filthy little blood traitor" (and she's a Pureblood witch, albeit struggling with her powers); and in CoS of course Voldemort calls his father "a foul, common Muggle". We also see throughout the books "Mudblood filth", and "filthy little Mudblood" in particular reference to Muggle-borns such as Hermione and Lily (and to Bob Ogden, who is not Muggle-born). Bellatrix describes Harry as a "filthy half-blood" and when Alecto Carrow teaches Muggle Studies during the events of DH, she teaches that "Muggles are like animals, stupid and dirty".

Obviously, descriptions of Muggle-borns and Muggles aren't necessarily rooted in physical appearance - Marvolo and Morfin Gaunt are Purebloods, as are the Carrows and Crabbe and Goyle, and none of them are described as being lookers, exactly, or well-groomed. They mean it in terms of blood being dirty. But greasy and poorly cut hair, improperly fitting clothes, the difference between someone like James who was "slight, black-haired like Snape, but with that indefinable air of having been well-cared-for, even adored, that Snape so conspicuously lacked" - all of these would be just another marker of Snape's poverty, neglect, and 'common-ness' to add to the fact that he was a Half-Blood/half a Muggle, and had a Muggle-born best friend in a House that didn't just accept or ignore these things, but actively scorned them. By comparison, privileged and powerful Purebloods like Draco, Lucius, Bellatrix, Narcissa, Sirius, and James are described (Draco as a child/young adult, the others in adulthood) as more handsome or noble-looking, or in other ways that denoted their relative attractiveness as a shorthand for 'good breeding'.

And obviusly, whilst Pureblood James & Co. would never call anyone a Mudblood:

“Apologize to Evans!” James roared at Snape, his wand pointed threateningly at him. “I don’t want you to make him apologize,” Lily shouted, rounding on James. “You’re as bad as he is…” “What?” yelped James. “I’d NEVER call you a — you-know-what!”

...they would suspend a poor, ugly, slimy nobody upside-down and (threaten to, or actually) remove their underwear in front of a crowd just because "he exists" - just like the Death Eaters do to the Muggle woman, Mrs Roberts, at the Quidditch World Cup (and probably other Muggles). Voldemort calls this behaviour "a spot of Muggle-torture".

Similarly, Draco et al.'s comment on Hermione's teeth ("the long-molared Mudblood") [See here for another meta on Snape's comment on Hermione's teeth], and on Lupin's clothes, and just a general knowledge of how teenagers and people are, show that they're not above making physical taunts that could just as easily apply to a young Snape, mocking Hagrid's "d'you call this a house?", calling him an oaf; the Weasley's "hovel" of a home, and Lupin's clothes:

“Look at the state of his robes,” Malfoy would say in a loud whisper as Professor Lupin passed. “He dresses like our old house-elf.”

Snape would also, when not in robes, have been wearing the mismatched and odd clothing likely to have been mocked in the same way by a family affluent enough to own a house-elf, and god forbid anyone Snape went to school with find out that he lives in a "Muggle dunghill".

Snape was undoubtedly used to this sort of thing from his time in Cokeworth (looking at you, Petunia), which was why he changed his robes so quickly on the train. As a child and teenager, Snape’s physical appearance - marked by greasy hair, mismatched clothing, and an overall unkempt demeanour - likely exacerbated his social isolation (seen as a child lurking to make a friend) and fueled the mockery he likely endured both at home and at Hogwarts - after all, Petunia also mocked Snape's appearance, as well as the Marauders and Harry.

I think there's also a comparison here, if tenuous:

“Want one, Granger?” said Malfoy, holding out a badge to Hermione. “I’ve got loads. But don’t touch my hand, now. I’ve just washed it, you see; don’t want a Mudblood sliming it up.” “I was watching him, his nose was touching the parchment,” said Sirius viciously. “There’ll be great grease marks all over it, they won’t be able to read a word.”

More than many other characters I can think of (perhaps besides Umbridge the Toad - and Sirius' dog descriptors, owing to his Animagus form), Snape is also most often compared to, or described in a way that provokes imagery of, animals. Snape is described on more than one occasion as an 'overgrown bat'; his nose is described as a "beaklike protuberance"; and once he is described as a lapdog. He snarls perhaps more than any other single character in the series [snarl: (of an animal such as a dog) make an aggressive growl with bared teeth]; Snape yelps; he roars; he howls; he bares his teeth; and my personal favourite, when he's described as "demented, inhuman, as though he was in as much pain as the yelping, howling dog".

Of course, when animalistic descriptors like these are applied to people Harry likes - such as Sirius barking with laughter - they come across as more illustrative and amusing than insulting, and even where Sirius is described in a less flattering light as "very still, like a dog that has scented a rabbit", Sirius is still the one with the power, a hunter, and Snape is his prey. But that's decidedly the case with Snape - such descriptors are entirely used to be insulting and invoke specific negative imagery that paints him as out of control of himself and/or needlessly melodramatic, even when he is correct (e.g. Harry did help Sirius escape; Harry and Ron did break the law in CoS; Lupin did know more about Sirius getting into the castle than he was letting on; James really was that bad).

As readers we can recognise that Snape becomes agitated and enraged when distressed, triggered, or losing control of a situation, and when he is correct but not believed or trusted - but as anyone knows in a school setting, letting people see they're getting to you just leaves you open to further ridicule. It was this very 'overreaction' that James and Sirius especially liked to get out of Snape, and Peter liked to watch, which we see in SWM.

Here is also a section which illustrates all of these things; Snape is not only animalistic here, but we are reminded that he has a large nose again, he is ugly and unpleasant, melodramatic but not to be taken seriously despite being correct, and Harry/JKR/the narrative wants us to know it:

“Potter!” Snape snarled, and he actually turned his head and stared right at the place where Harry was, as though he could suddenly see him. “That egg is Potter’s egg. That piece of parchment belongs to Potter. I have seen it before, I recognize it! Potter is here! Potter, in his Invisibility Cloak!” Snape stretched out his hands like a blind man and began to move up the stairs; Harry could have sworn his over-large nostrils were dilating, trying to sniff Harry out...

In a real and fictional world (exacerbated by a Harry-centric narrative) where physical appearance and likeability is often seen as a shorthand for worth, goodness, or social standing, Snape's perceived lack of these things, combined with his half-blood status, friendship with a Muggleborn, and general demeanour, rendered him an easy target for mockery and othering - both within his own House, and from others like the Marauders - and would only serve to strengthen the association between Snape, his Muggle heritage, and common, dirty, animalistic Muggles in the eyes of pureblood supremacists/future Death Eater Slytherins.

With friends like these...

So what would entering Slytherin look like for a young Snape? He's spent the first eleven years of his life waiting for the moment he can leave Spinner's End, escape his father, and finally go to Hogwarts. And now he's here! A far cry from the less-than-friendly welcome he received on the train from James and Sirius, where he was insulted and tripped in a classic dickhead schoolboy fashion, Snape is warmly welcomed into Slytherin:

And Severus Snape moved off to the other side of the Hall, away from Lily, to where the Slytherins were cheering him, to where Lucius Malfoy, a prefect badge gleaming upon his chest, patted Snape on the back as he sat down beside him. …

I imagine that felt amazing to a young Snape after years of a challenging home life, dreams of escape, hopes of a welcome - after his father didn't like anything, presumably including him, or magic; after Petunia mocked his clothes and he seemingly had not made any other friends beside Lily. He's finally in uniform, the same as everyone else. A fresh start. Cheers as he approached from a whole table full of people. A literal pat on the back. He must have been having the best night of his life in that moment...

But setting that aside for a moment, I'm going to take a closer look at some of the Slytherin friendships that we do see. They're hardly loyal, warm, and close like the Trio, or even arguably the Marauders; nor does being a (fellow) Pureblood, or a fellow Death Eater, necessarily even grant you respect.

We see it often with Draco's so-called "best friends" (per Hermione in CoS), Crabbe and Goyle. They're not even on a first-name basis.

More often than not, Crabbe and Goyle are positioned to follow Draco, to be a receptive audience to Draco's jokes, and to act as his "cronies" or "bodyguards" - rather than his actual friends:

“Oh, this is Crabbe and this is Goyle,” said the pale boy carelessly (PS) “You know I haven’t, Goyle, how many times do I have to tell you?” snapped Malfoy. (CoS) Crabbe and Goyle looked at [Draco Malfoy] for instructions, thoroughly bewildered (PoA) Malfoy beckoned to Crabbe and Goyle, and the three of them disappeared (GoF) Crabbe and Goyle guffawed sycophantically (GoF) Crabbe and Goyle lumbering in [Draco's] wake (OotP) Behind [Montague] lurked Crabbe and Goyle ... Malfoy stood to one side (OotP) Draco Malfoy had slid out from behind the door, followed by Crabbe and Goyle (OotP)

They start to drift apart by HBP, after Lucius' fall from grace within the Death Eaters and the setting of Draco's task. Crabbe and Goyle aren't in on Draco's plans despite all of their parents being DEs; there's a sense of dissent; and they even start to talk back:

Crabbe and Goyle were gawping at Malfoy; apparently they had had no inkling of any plans to move on to bigger and better things (HBP) "... if you are placing your reliance in assistants like Crabbe and Goyle — ” “They’re not the only ones, I’ve got other people on my side, better people!” (HBP) Crabbe opened his mouth, but Malfoy appeared to second-guess what he was going to say. “Look, it’s none of your business what I’m doing, Crabbe, you and Goyle just do as you’re told and keep a lookout!” (HBP) [Harry] skidded to a halt and turned around. Crabbe and Goyle were standing behind him, shoulder to shoulder, wands pointing right at Harry. Through the small space between their leering faces he saw Draco Malfoy. “That’s my wand you’re holding, Potter,” said Malfoy, pointing his own through the gap between Crabbe and Goyle. (using them as human shields? - DH) “Potter came in here to get it,” said Malfoy with ill-disguised impatience at the slow-wittedness of his colleagues, “so that must mean — ” “ ‘Must mean?” Crabbe turned on Malfoy with undisguised ferocity. “Who cares what you think? I don’t take your orders no more, Draco. You an’ your dad are finished.” (despite this being one of their last encounters, Draco does appear upset by his death - DH)

[Also worth noting from the other meta I linked: "The power of the “Malfoy” name was the reason Crabbe kept Draco company. Now that that power is gone, he’s just some guy called “Draco”, so Crabbe drops him."]

And even on the train, where Harry is concealed beneath his cloak (OotP), doesn't feel especially warm, and everyone seems almost indifferent to one another (the scene is rather too long to quote here for the sake of an example, but I did stumble across this which was interesting). There's an element of tallying 'successes' or listing others' faults (such as the Weasleys being blood traitors, Harry being 'the Chosen one', Neville being... well, Neville, and whether Slughorn had gone senile). But fortunately I've also found another meta that goes into this in more detail; these people hang out together, but don't really come across as friends. Draco doesn't even tell Pansy his plans, and she's been on his arm for some time now; she seems surprised, and almost hurt, that she hasn't been told - but Draco doesn't really seem to care.

[Unrelated side note: I also think it's interesting that Zabini speaks "scathingly" about Draco's father, was invited to Slughorn's party (so has no known Death Easter connections), and is also an enthusiastic blood purist. (We also find out that his mother's seven ex-husbands died, so... maybe some of them were? Idk. It's just interesting that people would reject/be critical of DEs in that climate but still be a blood purist).]

Protected by their Pureblood status (I'll touch on that later, but have covered it in the first meta), Crabbe and Goyle cannot be targeted or treated the same way as Muggle-borns and Muggles; but that doesn't mean they get treated with respect. Draco may have liked Crabbe and Goyle, at least enough to be worried about whether or not they lived or died (although even that 'friendship'/comraderie evidently soured with the war despite being on the same side, because of Lucius' fall from grace with Voldemort) - but mostly he ordered them around. And they were content to follow, but started to dissent when Lucius (and Draco) are no longer the most powerful voices:

Who cares what you think? I don’t take your orders no more, Draco. You an’ your dad are finished.

We're also seeing these friendships under strain of a building war in which certain people are being recruited as Death Eaters where others aren't, and a majority of their parents are possibly (or certainly) already involved with Voldemort and/or his ideology; a perfectly reasonable parallel to Snape's own situation when he was in school.

But we're also often seeing these friendships not only through the lens of Harry, but in front of Harry, who acts as their sort of nemesis. It's perfectly possible that these friendships were warm and friendly and they enjoyed one another's company in the privacy of the Slytherin common room - but even in the scene in the common room (CoS), Draco does not seem to be impressed with their conversational skills, but still takes their blind acceptance of his leadership/sycophantic behaviour:

Far too late, Harry and Ron forced themselves to laugh, but Malfoy seemed satisfied; perhaps Crabbe and Goyle were always slow on the uptake.

My interpretation is that Slytherin friendships are more representative of the social circles of politicians or high society. You may be civil, friendly, and even end up real friends - but as soon as being friends with someone someone stops serving you, or damages your social standing, you’d turn on them to avoid any blowback. Friendships may exist but loyalty to a person isn't really part of it; there's an element of loyalty being to whoever has the most power in the room, be that from a combination of intellect, blood status, reputation, accomplishments, more powerful friends, or money.

Obviously, Snape is not entirely analagous to Crabbe or Goyle - being depicted as intelligent and curious and more outspoken, for starters - but also lacking those family connections, money, upbringing, or blood status. His only hopes were to build connections with more powerful people, and his intellect - especially since he's hardly described as having the size for physical intimidation or brawls. He was likely good at hexing people - I doubt he made all of those new spells just for fun - but JKR makes a point of telling us that it's James who hexes people for the fun of it, and showing us that Snape acts in retaliation ("Give me a reason").

And so Snape became, ultimately, a follower to more powerful people. We see Lucius in Snape's memories extending the metaphorical hand of friendship the moment that Snape is Sorted. Lucius is a Prefect, however, and several years older; no older teen wants to regularly hang out with an 11-year-old. And yet in adulthood Snape is described as "Lucius’s old friend"; Lucius "speaks most highly" of Snape to Umbridge; and Draco seems to like Snape already as a teacher, and even suggests him for headmaster in CoS, when "The appointment — or suspension — of the headmaster is a matter for the governors" - including Lucius:

“Sir,” said Malfoy loudly. “Sir, why don’t you apply for the headmaster’s job?” “Now, now, Malfoy,” said Snape, though he couldn’t suppress a thin-lipped smile. “Professor Dumbledore has only been suspended by the governors. I daresay he’ll be back with us soon enough.” “Yeah, right,” said Malfoy, smirking. “I expect you’d have Father’s vote, sir, if you wanted to apply for the job — I’ll tell Father you’re the best teacher here, sir —”

Perhaps Lucius, for the few years' overlap where Snape was in school and Lucius was Prefect, may have befriended Snape. But in a House where pecking order, prestige, and blood status play a role as well as age, this isn't certain. Far from being 'friends' in the traditional sense, Snape is once described as Lucius' "lapdog" (a small pampered pet dog; a person or organization that is influenced or controlled by another). Other metas and essays have pointed out may refer to a relationship like the Ancient Roman tradition of patronage:

Patronage (clientela) was the distinctive relationship in ancient Roman society between the patronus ('patron') and their cliens ('client'). The relationship was hierarchical, but obligations were mutual. The patron was the protector, sponsor, and benefactor of the client; the technical term for this protection was patrocinium. Although typically the client was of inferior social class, a patron and client might even hold the same social rank, but the former would possess greater wealth, power, or prestige that enabled him to help or do favors for the client.

Or, more worryingly, to 'fagging', which features in some older boarding school stories and may have been referenced, intentionally or not, by JKR:

Fagging was a traditional practice in British public schools and also at many other boarding schools, whereby younger pupils were required to act as personal servants to the eldest boys. Although probably originating earlier, the first accounts of fagging appeared in the late 17th century.  Fagging sometimes involved physical abuse  and/or sexual abuse. Fagging originated as a structure for maintaining order in boarding schools. Fagging carried with it well-defined rights and duties on both sides. The senior, sometimes called the fag-master, was the protector of his fags and responsible for their happiness and good conduct. In case of any problem outside the classroom, such as bullying or injustice, a junior boy's recourse was to him, not to a form master or housemaster, and, except in the gravest cases, all incidents were dealt with by the fag-master on his own responsibility. The duties undertaken by fags ... would include such humble tasks as blacking boots, brushing clothes, and cooking breakfasts, and there was no limit as to hours the fag would be expected to work. Later, fagging was restricted to such tasks as running errands and bringing tea to the fag-master's study.

I think it's more feasible that Snape was Lucius' "fag", or at the very least his errand-boy; it may well have developed into more of a patron/client style relationship in later years, post-Hogwarts, especially with Severus and Lucius both connected to the school (until Lucius was removed from the Board of Governors), and supporting one another in proposals/managing Slytherin house/Draco - and prior to that, working together with Severus reporting to Lucius under Voldemort.

In any case, Sirius calling Snape a "lapdog" implies that in some capacity Snape was influenced or controlled by Lucius in school. I say in school, because Sirius didn't even initially know that Snape was a DE, or that Snape was working at Hogwarts - suggesting that this insult was in reference to Snape's early years at school, before Lucius graduated.

Either option (fagging or patron/client) functionally makes Snape little more than Lucius' own personal house-elf, although perhaps he would've treated Snape better than a house-elf - despite his blood status and younger age, he was still a wizard. (And Draco does once say "this is servant stuff", possibly suggesting they also have servants/staff as well as a house elf; Voldemort's supporters are also called servants. Lucius was likely getting Snape 'trained'/grooming him). And of course there's Dumbledore's line to Voldemort feels particularly reminiscent of the type of relationship I'm imagining between Snape and Lucius:

“I am glad to hear that you consider them friends,” said Dumbledore. “I was under the impression that they are more in the order of servants.”

I'm firmly of the belief that it became more of a reciprocal patron/client relationship after school, rather than during; if Lucius had been 'polishing' Snape so that he appeared less... Snape, he didn't do well. Snape is 'clearly unpopular' and still 'greasy' as an older teen, and also Lucius and Snape's school years didn't substantially overlap.

This also ties into something I read somewhere (and please, god, if someone can find it I'd love to read it again) where it was argued that Snape appears to be well-spoken/polished enough for Bellatrix to be surprised (and disgusted) when she sees Spinner's End - as though she had no idea that Snape was from somewhere as run down as that. (She did, however, know that he wasn't Pureblood - she reckons that she and Narcissa must be the "first of their kind" to step foot in Spinner's End. To me, this also suggests further that Snape's mother wasn't Pureblood, because Bellatrix of all people would know the Prince name if she had been, and Snape may have raised it as 'evidence' for his 'worthiness').

Anyway, perhaps Lucius would've helped Snape go from the sometimes brash, stuttering teen to the (largely) soft-spoken, sharp-tongued adult - before he's introduced to the Death Eaters and Voldemort. Introducing a Snape who seems "common" or "lowborn" wouldn't have done Lucius any favours, but we can expect that Snape would otherwise have been considered useful; something I noticed on a recent reread is that Lucius was in posession of some poisons he thought might get him in trouble during the raids in CoS:

“You have heard, of course, that the Ministry is conducting more raids,” said Mr. Malfoy, taking a roll of parchment from his inside pocket and unraveling it for Mr. Borgin to read. “I have a few — ah — items at home that might embarrass me, if the Ministry were to call … and as you see, certain of these poisons might make it appear — ”

I like to imagine that Snape was the one who brewed them for Lucius since he's the character most often associated with poison.

Still, given the snootiness of the Malfoys, it is interesting that Lucius 'befriended' or otherwise used, groomed, or recruited Snape in the first place - and that other Pureblood Death Eaters just accepted it.

(Pure)Blood Is Thicker Than Water

I think we can assume that Lucius and Draco shared roughly the same views in school; Draco learnt it all somewhere, Lucius was in the same position of privilege and power in his school days, coming from a Pureblood family, and from what we can see of Slytherins of that generation, Regulus Black and his parents shared the view that Voldemort had the 'right idea', which apparently many Pureblood families did. These views aren't anything new; we can see that with Marvolo Gaunt. Voldemort just harnessed them, and he's probably been doing it since he was in school (with a Lestrange and an Avery in Slughorn's memory).

The Malfoys prided themselves on being purebloods; in other words, they considered anyone of Muggle descent ... second-class. (GoF)

Although the above quote is Harry's perspective, he's probably not wrong about the Malfoys' view on Muggle heritage. This is slightly complicated by writing from JK:

From the imposition of the Statute of Secrecy onwards, no Malfoy has married a Muggle or Muggle-born. The family has, however, eschewed the somewhat dangerous practice of inter-marrying within such a small pool of pure-bloods that they become enfeebled or unstable, unlike a small minority of fanatic families such as the Gaunts and Lestranges, and many a half-blood appears on the Malfoy family tree. [X]

Given the near-meaninglessness of 'half-blood', it's open to interpretation whether the Malfoys would allow someone with one Muggle parent, for example, to marry into the family; more likely they allow 'second generation' half-bloods or more, with some Muggle(born) ancestry but slightly removed by a generation or more. (Does this also mean the Malfoys are technically half-blood? The entire system is more political than scientific, but I expect they are 'technically' half-blood to stricter purists. Marvolo Gaunt would certainly think so: "Generations of purebloods, wizards all — more than you can say, I don’t doubt!")

But the attitude is what matters here.

Families like the Blacks, for instance, seem to have been more strict:

"If you’re only going to let your sons and daughters marry purebloods your choice is very limited, there are hardly any of us left. Molly and I are cousins by marriage and Arthur’s something like my second cousin once removed. But there’s no point looking for them on here — if ever a family was a bunch of blood traitors it’s the Weasleys." "While his will makes it perfectly plain that he wants you to have the house, it is nevertheless possible that some spell or enchantment has been set upon [Grimmauld] place to ensure that it cannot be owned by anyone other than a pureblood."

Walburga Black's portrait screams at everyone in the Order that they're Mudbloods, half-breeds, and scum - and the Order consists of Pureblood blood traitors, Half-bloods with two magical parents (good enough, perhaps, for the Malfoys - but not for the Blacks or Lestranges), and (one) Muggle-born. Of course, discrimination in familial marriage requirements and property owenership don't necessarily translate to how you'd treat people on a day-to-day basis, but the biases obviously inform it. Lucius, when trying to appear moderate in front of Fudge, is less openly hostile to the blood traitor Weasley family, for example.

But at Hogwarts, the teens and tweens are left unattended in their Common Rooms, free to be as cruel as teens and tweens can be without a guiding hand. In CoS, Draco is comfortable enough in the Common Room to discuss his family's illicit goings-on, brag about the fact that Lucius has additional knowledge about Voldemort's involvement in the Chamber opening last time, to say 'Mudblood' with careless abandon, and that he wishes Hermione dead, all in one breath:

“And Father won’t tell me anything about the last time the Chamber was opened either. Of course, it was fifty years ago, so it was before his time, but he knows all about it, and he says that it was all kept quiet and it’ll look suspicious if I know too much about it. But I know one thing — last time the Chamber of Secrets was opened, a Mudblood died. So I bet it’s a matter of time before one of them’s killed this time. ... I hope it’s Granger,” he said with relish. (CoS)

The Slytherin Common Room password, during a major event in which several students have already been Petrified by the Heir of Slytherin's monster, and messages left on the wall in blood, Draco manages to say "Mudblood" no less than 6 times in 3 pages - imagine how much it's being said in general, not just by Draco in the hour that Harry and Ron spend there. And the Common Room opens to a password of "Pureblood". Like I said in the previous meta, "there's a strong sense of pureblood supremacy communicated in that password that's only strengthened by the timing, echoing the Heir's agenda. In any case, it speaks to the entrenched nature of Pureblood ideology of Slytherin as a house."

Draco is also comfortable to say 'Mudblood' in public (Madam Malkins' shop), and in front of his mother:

“If you’re wondering what the smell is, Mother, a Mudblood just walked in,” said Draco Malfoy. (HBP)

So I expect it's a fairly common occurrence at home, since Draco's been using it since he was ~12, before the second rise of Voldemort. I suggest that Narcissa Malfoy (nee Black, after all) and/or Lucius Malfoy, and the rest of the Pureblood supremacists, were more than comfortable saying it as students, too.

Salazar Slytherin himself "wished to be more selective about the students admitted to Hogwarts. He believed that magical learning should be kept within all-magic families. He disliked taking students of Muggle parentage" (CoS). The Sorting Hat sings in OotP "...Slytherin took only pure-blood wizards... just like him" and we see Walburga Black refer to Muggle-borns and half-bloods in the Order as:

"MUDBLOODS! SCUM! CREATURES OF DIRT!" “Filth! Scum! By-products of dirt and vileness! Half-breeds, mutants, freaks, begone from this place! How dare you befoul the house of my fathers — ” "Mudbloods, filth, stains of dishonor, taint of shame on the house of my fathers!"

Slytherin House is just as much home to the likes of the teenage Lestranges, Blacks, and Malfoys of the world as 12 Grimmauld Place was to Walburga:

“My whole family have been in Slytherin,” [Sirius] said. "Well, no one really knows until they get there, do they, but I know I’ll be in Slytherin, all our family have been." [Draco]

Snape's presence there, in the eyes of some, is likely defiling the House of their fathers - especially during a period in which Salazar Slytherin's own heir was stoking the fires of Pureblood supremacy, affecting both Hogwarts and the wider wizarding world - and he was continuing to recruit Slytherin students. Certainly of those we hear a reasonable amount about who became Death Eaters, most (if not all) claim to be Pureblood, whether that be true or not:

"The Death Eaters can’t all be pure-blood, there aren’t enough pure-blood wizards left," said Hermione stubbornly. "I expect most of them are half-bloods pretending to be pure." "I got this one," [Neville] indicated another slash to his face, "for asking [Carrow] how much Muggle blood she and her brother have got."

But... Snape is not Pureblood; he is half Muggle. He would quickly be identified as half-blood, since "the pure-blood families are all interrelated", and "there are hardly any of [them] left". So I'm sure it must have come up as a (certainly impolite) discussion in the Common Room when it was realised that Snape was not Pureblood.

Somewhere above, I've quoted the ('not in the books' information) that the Malfoys accepted half-bloods into their family - and so perhaps their view on Snape as a half-Muggle would've been more moderate, although this isn't entirely guaranteed. Regardless, Voldemort-loving Regulus Black, whose mother called everyone from Purebloods to Muggle-borns "Mudbloods" would not have been so 'kind'; and certainly neither would Bellatrix Black, if she were attending around the same time.

We vaguely hear about Snape being "part of gang of Slytherins who nearly all turned out to be Death Eaters":

"Rosier and Wilkes — they were both killed by Aurors the year before Voldemort fell. The Lestranges — they’re a married couple — they’re in Azkaban. Avery — from what I’ve heard he wormed his way out of trouble by saying he’d been acting under the Imperius Curse — he’s still at large."

Avery is mentioned both in this quote and in Snape's memories with Lily, so presumably at some stage Avery became friendly enough with Snape for Lily to comment on it. But this would imply that Snape only became part of this 'gang' later on - I hardly think that Lily would be fine with someone like Bellatrix but not with Avery, aka Generic Death Eater #4 compared to Voldemort's most well-liked (if you can call it that) Death Eater. There's also a curious lack of a mention of Mulciber in the gang, who was friends with Snape (per Lily), was confirmed as a Death Eater, went to Azkaban, and was apparently a specialist in the Imperius curse - and who Lily seemed to think was worse than Avery. Even more curious an absence from Sirius' retelling of Snape's 'gang' is Lucius Malfoy, given that he's the only person ever mentioned as Snape's 'friend' in adulthood.

Some Slytherin students' families were already tied to Voldemort (e.g. Avery and Lestrange, as seen in Slughorn's memories of Voldemort's youth), or would quickly become so - including Lucius, who left school and shortly after Snape arrived and was trusted enough to look after Voldemort's Horcrux/Diary, and Snape likely would've attended school with Regulus Black, who somehow managed to sign up at 16. Within the 'gang' of Slytherins was also apparently Bellatrix, who was certainly Voldemort's favourite, and a staunch blood supremacist.

I'm sure it was totally fine and she was very relaxed about it. She certainly didn't insult Harry for being a half-blood, both before and after Harry tells her that Voldemort is half-blood himself:

"filthy half-blood" "You dare speak his name with your unworthy lips, you dare besmirch it with your half-blood’s tongue, you dare -"

It's worth noting here the definition of 'besmirch' because I just thought it meant 'slander', which it sort of does:

She thinks that the claim damages Voldemort's reputation, and his good name. Bellatrix's reaction underscores the strong disdain and contempt that pure-blood supremacists have for anyone who is not Pureblood. To her, Harry's truth lie about Voldemort's half-blood status is an insult and an affront to Voldemort's perceived superiority. Bellatrix uses "half-blood" derogatorily, and later calls him a "filthy half blood" - highlighting the belief that being a half-blood is inherently inferior and contaminates his worth and status, despite Voldemort's considerable power, lineage, and reputation.

Bellatrix also seemed... surprised at where Snape lived in HBP:

“He lives here?” asked Bella in a voice of contempt. “Here? In this Muggle dunghill? We must be the first of our kind ever to set foot — ”

Perhaps, then, Snape lied about his heritage. After all Bellatrix, for all of her other insults, never insults Snape's blood status (that we see) - but then Half Bloods are awarded respect for their behaviour or usefulness, and Voldemort arguably thinks of Snape as his most trusted follower by this point, and Bellatrix can only question that to a certain point without appearing to question Voldemort. And, she only steps foot in Spinner's End after Harry's made his claim about Voldemort being half-blood himself, so she might be treading more lightly.

She may instead be surprised not because Snape's a half-blood (that would've been clear) - but because he, Voldemort's right-hand Death Eater, chose to stay in not only a Muggle neighbourhood - but a really old, really delapidated one.

Perhaps (if we are to go by JK's additional writings, and not by Sirius/ the book information alone), Bellatrix never went to school with Snape - she'd be a few years older, and would have graduated before Snape even arrived. She personally wouldn't have ever needed to taunt Snape for his parentage, especially if Lucius had already had a hand in polishing his appearance and speech.

Now think about what it all means for Snape. Snape's status as a half-blood places him in a precarious position within the rigid hierarchy of the (Pureblood supremacist) wizarding world. If it didn't then the other Death Eaters, and Voldemort himself, wouldn't pretend to be Pureblood.

And when you consider the fact that Snape is "best friends" with Lily - potentially as late as his 5th year - he's going to be on the receiving end of some very pointed questions even from the most 'lenient' Pureblood supremacist. Consider below some quotes from Draco which may have been applied to Snape:

“Saint Potter, the Mudbloods’ friend,” said Malfoy slowly. “He’s another one with no proper wizard feeling, or he wouldn’t go around with that jumped-up [Granger] Mudblood.”

I think it's worth noting at this point that Snape might be considered also not to have the "proper wizard feeling", as he grew up, like Harry, impoverished, neglected, and separated from Wizarding society. He also 'goes around' (is friends with) a "jumped-up Mudblood", the talented Lily (both Lily and Hermione were talented according to Slughorn, who coincidentally also rejected Draco). The only thing I might add is that Lucius sometimes warns Draco to hold his tongue, so Lucius might have been more politically-minded and not gone around saying Mudblood 6 times each breath.

More to consider with regard to Snape's friendship with Lily, based on Draco's quotes about his father and the political situation:

"... Father actually considered sending me to Durmstrang rather than Hogwarts, you know. He knows the headmaster, you see. Well, you know his opinion of Dumbledore — the man’s such a Mudblood-lover — and Durmstrang doesn’t admit that sort of riffraff."

"You’ve picked the losing side, Potter! I warned you! I told you you ought to choose your company more carefully, remember? When we met on the train, first day at Hogwarts? I told you not to hang around with riffraff like this!” [Draco] jerked his head at Ron and Hermione. “Too late now, Potter! They’ll be the first to go, now the Dark Lord’s back! Mudbloods and Muggle-lovers first!"

Despite the pressure Snape probably faced to stop talking to a Muggleborn Gryffindor since day dot, it's interesting to note that Lily only seems to talk about Severus hanging out with Mulciber and Avery after the Prank, as if it were a relatively new development in the grand scheme of things:

"... I don’t like some of the people you’re hanging round with! ... I don’t understand how you can be friends with them."

"You're hanging around with" being in the present tense gives me the impression that it's been a few weeks/months and this unexpected, inexplicable addition of Sev's new friends has surprised and worried her, causing this particular argument. They're not like him; until that point, she'd seen a side of Severus that didn't match the "creepy" and "evil" Mulciber and Avery. Perhaps he tried to hold out as long as he could, but the Prank spurred him to realise that he needed to fit in with more people than just Lily.

But none of Snape's "precious little Death Eater friends" are shown to help him during SWM, and some of them, presumably, would have finished the exam at the same time, left at the same time, and gone out to enjoy some fresh air and sunshine. Lily leaves with her friends, James leaves with his friends, and Snape leaves alone to sit in a bush. When Snape was finally accosted by the Marauders, "Several people watching laughed; Snape was clearly unpopular."

This is the situation unfolding in Snape's dormitories; a growing sense of unsafety, of choosing sides.

"Don't pick the losing side, Snape. I'm warning you, you you ought to choose your company more carefully. You'll be the first to go, now the Dark Lord’s rising. Mudbloods and Muggle-lovers first."

On the one side, Snape could follow Lily and other future Order members, the opposition of Voldemort under Dumbledore; the ones who strung him in the air and threatened to strip him, the ones who silenced him after the Prank, who didn't listen to his side of the story. He could remain neutral, perhaps work for a Ministry that regards nepotism as a valid career path, and whose blood supremacy is quieter but no less damaging to his opportunities. Or, Snape can approach the side who may have initially discounted him - but they're his House, his family-away-from-family. They cheered when he entered their House; they extended the hand of friendship. Perhaps they're starting to see his value, because he's finally starting to play along like Crabbe and Goyle do - laughing at jokes that aren't funny, siding with the more powerful people in the room. He's sharing a laugh with them about what they "tried to do to Mary Macdonald" - because in his mind, even if it was Dark Magic, it's not as bad as or is on a par with "the stuff Potter and his mates get up to" (aka attempted murder; illegal hexes like on Bertram Aubrey).

[There's also a fun essay somewhere that argues the 'dark magic' in question was Levicorpus since Hermione shares a reaction with Lily and Harry/Ron share a reaction (and descriptive language "just a laugh") with Harry/Ron but I don't remember whose it is or where i read it :( I literally can't find it so if someone knows where it is, I'd love to find it again.]

I expect that that Snape's started to earn himself some (perhaps begrudging) respect by this time for spell creation and his academic success, and that eventually Snape proved himself (as half-bloods need to do) as useful.

...But useful doesn't mean essential. Lucius was useful to Voldemort, until he wasn't. Snape may have been useful to the other Slytherins, but they didn't help him until they had some reason to, until he was powerful - when Voldemort trusted Snape above Lucius, and Bellatrix. Snape himself was ultimately, arguably, the most useful to Voldemort - and he still killed him.

But Snape doesn't know any of this yet. It's 1970, and Voldemort has just started recruiting in earnest. Like the other future Death Eaters, he's no doubt been told that "Lord Voldemort rewards his helpers". Loyalty to the cause means "reward[s] beyond any of his other supporters". "He would reward you beyond all of us." And he's starting to believe it; he's starting to find a community, approval, and a sense of power and protection. He lives with people who believe he's lesser until he proves himself, and he possibly shares a dorm with them. Conforming to it, even playing into it, contains an element of survival - since he has no other connections, power, money, or a good name for himself. His relationship with Lily is straining; she doesn't ask his side of the story with the Prank, she doesn't see why he'd spend time with Mulciber and Avery. They're growing up and growing apart. The only resistance to Voldemort at this point is Dumbledore - the same man who silenced Snape on the Prank and, to Snape's mind, turns a blind eye to the Marauders sneaking around and tormenting him, and attempting to murder him. Why should Snape trust Dumbledore? Why should he later trust the Order? If he doesn't pick a side, he'll surely just get caught in the crossfire.

Voldemort is nearing the height of his power - for Snape's own survival, he reckons he's got a better chance with the Death Eaters. And who can blame him?

If only things had been different.

"You know, I sometimes think we Sort too soon."