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[trippingontheescalator]

So, like, potions require a witch, wizard, goblin, house-elf, whatever-- a magical person to actually create a viable potion. Even if a muggle got their hands on a recipe and the ingredients and followed each step, they would just end up with gross soup. Not a potion. Because they don't have magic hands or whatever.

And that just makes me to create a muggle chemist oc to ship Snape with, and they would be so frustrated that they can't reproduce the same results Snape gets when he throws random ass shit into a cauldron-- not because of like magic envy, but because it's slapping the scientific method in the face. And they would just be constantly asking Snape to do simple chemistry experiments to see how his "magic" will affect it. Like combining bleach with ammonia. It's supposed to create mustard gas. Except when Snape pours bleach and ammonia in his cauldron it becomes a potion that, when you drink it, flips your organs upside down.

And then our little chemist oc will be like, "Okay, you know what, let's see you split an atom with your 'magic hands.'"

And, anyway, that's how Snape destroys the concept of time.

[trippingontheescalator]

Curious about the direction the HP fandom has gone

Okay, so as an old HP fan from way back when the books were first coming out, and then getting hit with the nostalgia and decided to return after years and years of not interacting with the fandom at all, the changes are truly mindboggling and I'd love to get to the bottom of some things.

Like, the disappearance of Blaise Zabini. Blaise was a fan favorite way back when we only knew his name but now I barely hear a whisper of his name. Now, the obvious answer is racism, which I think is the #1 reason why Blaise-pairings have dropped of significantly. Back then we all thought Blaise was a hot Italian girl, and then we found out he's a black man and suddenly people stop writing about him? Hm, yeah, seems the obvious answer (especially considering the popularity of other characters who are just a name on a page *cough*regulusblack*cough*).

Or the rise in Snape-hate. Like, Snape used to be the fan favorite. Everyone loved Snape. The meaner he was, the more we liked him. Being mean to children was a plus, not a negative lol. And this was back when we all thought he was a pureblood who came from a wealthy family like the Malfoys. Now by the time the 7th book came out I had pretty much moved on and so I didn't really see the fallout of readers discovering his actual background, so I don't know if his drop in popularity is classism and learning that he isn't a palette-swapped Lucius Malfoy or not, but honestly I would figure his impoverished background would be a plus in these times. Like Snape is obviously one of JKR's least favorite characters, and considering how she-who-must-not-be-named has destroyed her reputation with her increasing radicalization you'd figure the poor, abused, author-hating character would become more beloved instead of the rich, white, heteronormative bullies who barely even show up in the books. Like with our increasing knowledge of social injustice, I just don't understand why the fandom would want to latch onto the Marauders? And I just can't believe Snape's handful of snippets with Lily is the cause of his downfall (like what's there is barely enough to fill up a few pages, and there are certainly more toxic relationships in the series that are still beloved), or the fact that he was a Death Eater or that he inadvertently caused the deaths of the Potters (we already knew that in GoF and HPB respectively and he was still beloved, and this was when we assumed he didn't give a shit about the Potters or if they died when he went snitching). Draco is still popular. DRACO who doesn't give two shits about slinging around the word "mudblood," as opposed to Snape who actually changed for the better.

Am I just too old to understand? Is this like 90s fashion coming back in style (no, I won't do it again, I don't care if it's cringy I'm sticking with my millennial styles, I did the platforms and the slip dresses and the cargo pants in high school and I'm not putting myself through that again lol you gen z's can pry my comfortable mom jeans from my cold, dead fingers, I don't care if it makes me look old, that's the point, I AM old). Like, in addition to 90s fashion, has the 90s obsession with luxury athletic fashion like Lacoste come back in style? All those fashion ads of rich white people on yachts with popped collar polos? Are people starting to obsess over the Marauders because nouveau riche conspicuous consumption is coming back in style? It can't all just be young kids who have only read AtYD and have never actually opened one of the books, can it?

There also seems to be a trend of treating characters as if they're real people. I mean, we've always done it (Snape Wives, I'm looking at you), but now it almost feels as if the crimes characters commit are treated as if they're real crimes and that liking them is somehow a moral failing on the reader's fault. If you were to say "I don't like Snape, his douchy actions anger me, I'd rather skip all the parts he shows up in" I'd say, cool, I get that. That's normal. But "Snape is an abuser, a racist, and an incel and if you like him you're probably those things too" is fucking weird. Like, Harry and Hermione are not real children. Snape is not a real person. The things that happen in this book have as much influence on the real world as me imagining ninjas breaking into my workplace on a slow day. And that "media does not exist in a vacuum" pisses me off because it's blatantly misused. The pieces of media that have had serious consequences? Jaws, The Birth of a Nation. One resulted in the culling of sharks, the other helped restart the KKK. Do you know what those two pieces of media have in common? They're not about fucking wizards and magic schools. They instead paint a target on real groups. After twenty years nobody has ever tried to hurt a marginalized group of people because of a harry potter book (except for JKR herself).

Anyway, these are just some random thoughts, feel free to chime in with your own.

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Maybe this is me being a cynical old fart, but this "incel, obsessive love" claim seems to mostly be coming from younger fans (like mostly teens, mid-20s at the oldest) and I wonder if it's because they imagine that they too would still obsessively think about their "high school sweetheart that got away" when they're in their late 30s because they're just so young.

Like, as someone who is closer to forty than thirty, and I can tell you now that I barely remember the people I dated in high school even though those relationships seemed to mean everything to me at the time. But the people I actually do remember? My best friends. Those days we spent we together. I still miss them and think about them from time to time, I sometimes get the urge to look them up on social media and check up on how they're doing even though we're so far apart and our lives are so different. I never get the urge to do that with any old boyfriend from that time. Like, it's a cliche, but when a parent in some teen rom com tells their child, "You're sixteen, you don't know what love is yet," there's some truth to that. The hard bitter pill is that most people will forget "their first love" by the time they hit middle age. And I'm not trying to put teens down as silly romantics; they just haven't lived as many years yet. This is all they know. They believe they will still be stalking their ex-boyfriend's social media 20 years from now because the idea that these passionate feelings will become dulled and forgotten is inconceivable. So, when they read about Snape and his relationship with Lily they are reading it with the eyes of a young person, still locked in that high school drama, and not as someone who is Snape's age.

I think at one point Snape had a crush on Lily, but that's irrelevant for the most part. Snape, as a thirty-something year old man, definitely wouldn't even be thinking about any silly, childhood crush when he turned his thoughts to Lily. By that time, he might have forgotten he had ever had a crush on her in the first place. No, what he probably thought about the most were those early days in Cokeworth, before Hogwarts, when they were just two kids running around with all these happy, hopeful thoughts of the future.

How? How the fuck is snape obsessed with lily? I’ve seen so many people say this, and it makes no sense. Remus is still mourning his friends but he’s not obsessed. Sirius is no way over James, but he’s not obsessed. The logic is so idiotic. He’s obsessed because what? he’s still thinking about her? Yeah they were friends from a very young age and he blames himself for her death, of course he’s still gonna be thinking about her! If you genuinely think that severus was obsessed with lily, please explain it to me.

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The Prettiest Way to Die

Perhaps he never noticed because he had long associated the disease with florid Victorian authors and their pale, beautiful heroines coughing delicately into their lace kerchiefs.

He didn't cough up blood, and he was certainly no more pale and beautiful than he was before, he lacked that delicate, Victorian attitude that faced death bravely but for a tremulous lip. He kicked a kaiju intestine back onto Newton's side of the lab. His leg buckled as pain shot through him – up his leg, through his hip, and into his spine – stealing the air right out of his lungs, the rant he was building up fizzling out until it was only a half-bitten whimper.

Tuberculosis continues to persist into the modern era. Over one million people die from it each year. Although pulmonary tuberculosis is the most common form of the disease, the bacteria that causes the disease can affect other parts of the body, including the bones and spine.

*****

Oh, hey, look at me finally watching an 11-year-old movie. I don't know if there is a canonical explanation for Hermann's use of a cane, I only just watched this movie last night, but this was an idea I had for it. Burn Gorman has the face of a sickly Victorian artist.

*****

Hermann swayed and rolled, and it was a little like being on a boat in choppy waters. He kept his eyes closed, he pictured the boat, he dipped his hand in the cool water, felt the waves lapping at his fingertips– the groaning started up again, those poor bastards that had fallen and were now carpeting the floor, the friends and neighbors and families standing on top of them, helpless to pull them back up. He couldn't move; they were tightly packed in, pressed shoulder to hip. A little girl was standing on top of his feet, her head tilted up so that she could take in mouthfuls of stale, dusty air.

They could hear the rhythmic thuds of the kaiju walking above them. With each step it took, the earth shuddered, the lights flickered, dust rained down on top of him. At least the screaming had stopped, the voices long grown hoarse. Where were the Wei Tang Brothers? Why hadn't they arrived yet?

There came a new sound, just as earth-shattering as before, but even through the layers of concrete he could hear the grind of metal-on-metal and the angry shrieks of the kaiju above. Crimson Typhoon had finally arrived.

When they finally exited the shelter, twelve corpses had been left behind– suffocated or trampled. Hermann thought of numbers and weather forecasts; if he could just predict– he grabbed the hand of a man in Hawaiian-print shirt, let him help pull him up out of the dirty, airless hole in the ground. If he could perfect his model– bad days and good days, when best to seek shelter, when to stay in the Shatterdome, when it is safe to venture into the city. Kaiju activity at 75% chance. Please remain underground until conditions improve.

*****

Newt wasn't worried. Hermann was not the sort to just die; the thought of walking into their laboratory every day and not seeing Hermann's scowling face was incomprehensible. He'd probably scold the kaiju right back into the Breach. Pentecost should just give the man a megaphone. The war would be won in a week.

Newt didn't run to medical when he heard Hermann had made it back to the Shatterdome; he walked, like a normal person who had completely normal feelings for his… rival? Colleague? Man with whom he waged war with every time they got a shipment of supplies. Dude was possessive over his chalk.

Speaking of chalk, Hermann looked like he was covered in it when Newt finally spotted him. He looked like a ghost, caked in dust and debris, but no worse for wear as he was poked and prodded by the doctors.

Newt whistled as he stopped in front of the cot Hermann was sitting on. “I hope that's not asbestos.”

Hermann's voice was hoarse and whispery as he started to chew Newt out, “If you're quite done with–” was as far as he got before breaking into a coughing fit.

Newt helpfully smacked him on the back as Hermann leaned over to cough, sending a shower of white dust to fall on the tiled floor. The glare Hermann shot him could skin a cat.

*****

Hermann doesn't notice the symptoms. Perhaps because he never took much care of himself to begin with; hunched over a desk, teetering on a ladder as he wrote equation after equation, the mere fact he wasn't a twenty-something college student anymore, all contributed to back problems.

Or perhaps he never noticed because he had long associated the disease with florid Victorian authors and their pale, beautiful heroines coughing delicately into their lace kerchiefs. The women declared, they never saw death so lovely before: and she looked as if in an easy slumber, the colour having not quite left her cheeks and lips.

He didn't cough up blood, and he was certainly no more pale and beautiful than he was before, he certainly lacked that delicate, Victorian attitude that faced death bravely but for a tremulous lip. He kicked a kaiju intestine back onto Newton's side of the lab. His leg buckled as pain shot through him – up his leg, through his hip, and into his spine – stealing the air right out of his lungs, the rant he was building up fizzling out until it was only a half-bitten whimper.

He had enough heating pads covering his mattress that it probably constituted a fire hazard. The pain grew worse and worse until it was almost a constant. You're getting old, he thought as he limped into the laboratory, ignoring Newton's little comments, “Need me to get you a walker, grandpa?” “Eat something, will you? You can’t live off math alone.” “Don’t slouch, you’ll get a hunchback.” – an old wives’ tale, and Newton knew that.

And the worst one of all, “Maybe you should go to medical.”

He wasn't concerned, not until he woke up one morning and discovered he had lost all feeling in his legs. Unable to move from the waist down, he had fallen onto the floor. He wouldn't be able to reach the door handle from his position and so he had crawled as best he could to bang on the wall that separated his quarters from Newton's.

Medical ran a battery of tests. There was a slew of data: abscesses in his femur and hip, swollen joints, kyphosis, the destruction of the L1-L2 disc, and anorexia. Hermann hotly debated that last one. He was starving himself, that was ridiculous. He just wasn’t hungry. His appetite had evaporated and he had been so consumed with work, with the end of the world, that he hadn’t even noticed.

“The skin test came back positive,” the doctor said. “We’re looking at extrapulmonary tuberculosis of the spine. Pott’s Disease, to be specific.”

“Tuberculosis is a lung disease.” He remembered that much from La Bohème at any rate. “I haven’t had so much as a cold.”

“No, you wouldn’t. There are no symptoms during the latent period. By the time it reached the active stage, yours had already moved out of the lungs and into the spine. Don’t worry,” the doctor said, with a smile. “This isn’t the 1800s. There are treatments. We’ll need to schedule you for surgery and get you started on antibiotics.”

*****

Hermann is stubborn. He was supposed to be resting. Instead, he had wheeled himself into the lab and was glaring up at his chalkboard as if it had pissed in his cereal. Newt couldn’t see it underneath the trousers he had somehow managed to wrestle on, he knew there were long scars running up his thigh and hip where they had cut away the abscesses. He had another upcoming surgery scheduled for his spine.

“You know, you’ve a good prognosis,” Newt casually stated, not looking at Hermann directly but instead continuing his examination of the kaiju skin parasite. “Paraplegia from tuberculosis can usually be reversed with treatment.”

“And you know so much about the subject,” Hermann turned his nose up at him.

“Biologist, dude.”

“Soft science,” Hermann insisted.

“Excuse me? Biology is not a soft science!”

He wheeled over to Newt, picked up a pencil, and poked at a kaiju eyeball left on a dissecting tray. It rippled. “Soft,” he insisted. “And gooey.” This was said with an exaggerated shiver.

“Hey, hey! Get back on your side! No crossing the line!”

They lapsed into the silence. It lasted for nearly thirty minutes when both their phones went off, nearly at the same time. A reminder to take their medicine. Hermann was taking Rifampicin, Isoniazid, Ethambutol and Pyrazinamide– he would be on them for at least six months, if not a year or more. Newt’s particular flavour of drug cocktail at the moment was Lamictal, Seroquel, Lithium, and Cymbalta. He wasn’t sure if he liked this combination or not. He might have to talk to his doctor again.

*****

Hermann had to admit it to himself: this was as good as it was going to get.

He can walk, at least, though he needed a cane. He hid the unnatural curve of his spine underneath baggy sweaters and jackets. He took ibuprofen to cope with the pain, until he developed a stomach ulcer. Then his doctor told him to stop. No matter. He would make do. There were no other options.

He bickered ferociously with Newton as they made their way to their laboratory. Newton kept pace with him. Arguing wouldn’t be as much fun if he had to yell at the back of Newton’s head. When they reached their shared space, Newton yanked the door open and gestured angrily to get inside. Hermann took his sweet time doing so, his cane clicking against the floor with a deliberate slowness.

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Trying to find an adoribull fic. It was kind of like Sleeping Beauty; Dorian was attacked, everyone thinks he's dead, but Bull won't give up his body. Turns out Dorian is not dead but cursed. Does that sound familiar to anyone?

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I dunk on Snupin a lot, not because I don't see the potential in the ship. I definitely do see why a lot of people ship it, and can get behind it, but every time I try to write a snupin fic it's basic components can be boiled down to this:

That's it. That's the fic.

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Yeah, this is a recommendation list for books that are roughly fifty years old or older that have themes and ideas similar to your preferred pairing, not necessarily a list of books that feature your preferred gender/sexual orientation configuration.

Which Classic Novel Should You Read Based on Your Fave Snape Pairing

Snily - Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (1847). Let's see, a low class and abused, brooding Byronic leading man? Check. Madly in love with a woman who ends up marrying a snobbish rich man who looks down on our hero? Check. Obsessed with her even decades after her death? Check, check, and check. Oh, and let's not forget that the child the woman has with her husband shares her eyes. Hm, suspicious.

Snames - Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded by Samuel Richardson (1740). So, as a fellow snames fan, let's be honest with ourselves: all of our fics can be boiled down to "I can change him." We want James to be despicable, inhuman, and cruel to Severus, and then we want James to realize how disgusting he is and grovel at Severus's feet, because we are all basic bitches. So basic that one of the earliest novels in the English language is basically this. Pamela originated this trope.

Snirius - Deep Water by Patricia Highsmith (1957). Snirius fans are unafraid of dark, toxic relationships and unhappy endings, and, well, here's a book for you! Deep Water is about as toxic as you can get. It's about a man who murders his wife's lovers.

Snucius - Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw (1913). Alright, alright, so this isn't a novel, this is a play, but fans of this pairing definitely seem to be into the whole sugar daddy/"I can turn this feral street child into an elegant gentleman" kind of vibe, and this is what this play is all about. Audrey Hepburn is fantastic in the film adaptation My Fair Lady (1964).

Snupin - Bear by Marian Engle (1976). You Canadians are probably like, "What the fuck? Is my OTP a joke to you?" The answer is yes, but that's beside the point. Hear me out. The main character is an archivist who is very bad at relationships and kind of shuns society in general. Like our Snape. She ends up in the Canadian wilderness on an assignment going through a dead person's belongings. Also, this dead person kept a pet bear that our heroine now has to take care of. Our heroine begins to yearn for something wild, our pet bear is a literal bear, but also incredibly pathetic and docile just like Lupin. Anyway, the two fuck. Literally, she fucks a bear. THIS BOOK WON THE GOVERNOR GENERAL'S LITERARY AWARD. THAT'S LIKE CANADA'S PULITZER I THINK. None of you werewolf-fuckers should act shocked and dismayed by this. We all know how you really think Sirius's prank should have gone (in which instead of James rescuing Snape, Moony makes sweet sweet love to him).

Sorry, guys, no Snarry or Snamione. I don't really read those pairings so I can't give an accurate recommendation. But if you've got thoughts, add to this!

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So, there's a difference between how a modern American Baptist views magic vs. how a medieval Catholic peasant would vs. a Roman convert. Sure, you have Serious Christian Writers like Tertullian (155 - 220 AD) denouncing pagan Romans for practicing magic and worshipping demons, but on the flip side there are SO MANY Christians buying up magic amulets and writing out curses on tablets in hopes that they can inflict their neighbors with a venereal disease at the same time. Emperor Constantine, the first Roman emperor to convert, continued to worship both Apollo and Jesus at the same time (the "shall not put another god before me" was kind of a hard concept for Romans & Greeks to wrap their heads around in general, considering in Athens they had a temple dedicated to any unknown gods they might not know). As centuries passed, Catholic peasants were still kind of trying to curse each other. That's just how things were. Sure, the local priest might say magic is a sin, but also Judith is about to get married and my fiance died of the plague so fuck Judith I curse her, I curse her to choke on a chicken bone on her wedding day. Medieval Catholic priests and other clergy were just like "whatever, who gives a shit." No one was all that concerned about witches in the middle ages. The Spanish Inquisition? Did not give a fuck about witches. They wanted to catch Muslims, Jews, and heretics. If someone called them up and was like "hey, I think Maria down the street is a witch, there's a pentagram painted on her floor" they'd be like "Wtf? What is this peasant bullshit? The Inquisition is serious business. I don't care if Maria has a pentagram painted on her floor unless there's a menorah in the center of it." If the Catholic Church convicted you on witchcraft, it was probably just a trumped up charge that they tacked on at the end to make you sound much more impressive when they lit you up like a firecracker. Like Joan of Arc! Her real crime was wearing men's clothes (and also kicking English ass, but they couldn't write that in official court documents), but the powers that be decided to throw in witchcraft too. For some extra spice, not that they really believed she was a witch.

Christianity didn't start taking magic seriously until the Protestant Reformation. That's when everyone became super paranoid about witches and started hunting them down (this was also when the Statute of Secrecy was enacted). Why is this? Well, maybe because for the first time, Christians actually knew what the Bible said. Before King James I translated the Bible into English, it was only written in Latin. Church services? All in Latin. And most people could not read or speak the language. All they knew about their religion was based on word-of-mouth and the miracle plays they watched a couple of times a year. They probably had no idea that there was even a line in the Bible that said "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." Before then magic was accepted as a thing that existed, that could be used for good or ill, and that weird old lady down the street might be a witch, but magic is useful. She cured your lame horse last winter. And maybe she'll even curse Judith for you (that bitch).

All this to say, that I think British wizards and witches converted to Christianity at the same time as the Muggle population. There was no reason not to. The vast majority probably couldn't read Latin either, they only Latin they knew were Roman spells they had picked up, or they used their own spells based in the Brythonic and Anglo-Saxon languages. Those that could read the Bible probably rationalised that "no magic" line as meaning "thou shalt not suffer a Dark witch to live." Because people are very, very good at rationalising and absolving themselves of any perceived sin. And it wasn't like there were any consequences. No one was going to do a thing about them practicing magic, no one cared (unless they wanted to buy their services).

question to the void: what watsonian explanation is there for wizards celebrating christmas?

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Percy's capacity for love is always forgotten. He was the only one to notice something was wrong with Ginny in CoS and the only one who tried to help her, he was worried out of his mind during GoF and ran into a freezing lake, ministry robes and all, to make sure Ron was okay. Not even Fleur did that, she was worried for her sister too but she stayed on the shore. He clearly loved his family, even seems to be a bit of a mother hen at times, and was willing to put up with constant mockery and dismissal for a long time; you're right that they pushed him away and not the other way around.

(And, honestly, Percy is one of the few who acts like a normal human being. He's held up as an example of 'what happens if you blindly follow authority, don't be like him.' But like, looking at it from a different perspective: every year your little brother is almost murdered. His first year in school he's almost brained to death by a living chess piece because the headmaster decided to hide a highly sought after legendary artifact in a school with children and instead of, I don't know, keeping it safe on his person at all times, shoved down his underwear or something, the headmaster decided to create a series of tests that eleven-year-olds could solve almost as if he's taunting the thief. Next year, your little sister is kidnapped and held in a secret chamber that no one can find, except your little brother's best friend figures it out, but instead of telling McGonagall or Snape when he had the opportunity to do so, he instead chooses the one teacher he knows is incompetent. Third year your brother is almost stabbed by an escaped serial killer. Then his leg gets broken when that same serial killer violently pulls him into a secret tunnel. Turns out, your DADA professor knew exactly how this murderer escaped prison and how he was sneaking around Hogwarts, but instead of telling anybody about it he kept it secret because they used to be ✨besties✨. Also, that same professor is a werewolf and despite the fact that he's been living with that affliction for almost thirty years, he forgot to take his potion and almost ate your little brother. The next year your little brother's best friend was forced to compete in a life-threatening "game" despite the fact he was a child and instead of the headmaster telling the kid, "hey, I know it's a 'binding contract' because this magical cup spat your name out, but just because you're forced to be a contestant doesn't mean you actually have to give it your all. You're going to stand here at the starting line and deliberately lose because we don't actually want to put you in danger." And your little brother got kidnapped by mermaids as part of this fucking game. And now, after one of those contestants died, you find out your parents are part of a secret organization that sounds kind of like a cult and might actually be some sort of crazy conspiracy, anti-government terrorist cell headed by the same headmaster who has been little to no help in keeping your brother alive, you know, I too might just have written a letter begging my brother to stop hanging around this kid and crazy ass headmaster. That feels normal. I think a good 75% of the population would probably do the same.)

I was starting to read the article on wizardingworld.com

They ranked Weasley siblings but when I saw they put my boy (Percy) in last place. I stopped reading. They talked nonsense about he chose the ministry over his family. Oh you meant family who mocked him every time they had the chance. Family who tried to lock him in pyramid (what if no one noticed and he died in it) family who said that he betrayed them for his career (he worked hard to earn it and when he told his dad about it,he said he recieved this position because Fudge wanted spy instead of congrate him). Percy didn't choose Ministry over his family. His family abandoned him first 

Ps. Do you guys have fanfic that Snape became mentor/Dad to Percy

Non slash please

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Snape Headcanons

He's bad at geography. Sure, he knows this super rare, obscure potion ingredient can only be found in this one area in Laos, but ask him to find Laos on a map he won't have a clue. There was a time he dreamed about seeing world, but he quickly realized he would never get the opportunity and so doesn't see any purpose in learning geography.

A lot of the Marauders' claims about him, like knowing curses as a first year, are exaggerated, but the one thing they're right about is Snape was very nosy. Part of it was because it was useful; knowledge is power, after all. He could trade gossip with his fellow Slytherins, or use it to keep one step ahead of the Marauders (or taunt them with it). But most of it is just his natural curiosity. He's a people watcher. He doesn't often understand people, is bad at human interaction, so he watches from a distance.

Severus knows half the first years think he's some sort of vampire and he revels in it. He knows exactly the kind of image he creates, dressing up in those long black, swishing robes, the spooky dungeons with the jars full of animal body parts. His taste is 33% Mad-Scientist-Run-Amuck, 33% Sad-Victorian-Boy-Dying-of-Tuberculosis, 33% Tacky-Post-Halloween-Discounted-Decor, and 1% Lucius's-Increasing-Despair-to-Make-Severus-Into-a-Functional-Human-Being.

In addition to potions and reading, Severus also does a lot of writing. He's been working on-and-off on a novel since he was fifteen. At this point, it's almost 500,000 words long. One of the few ways he's able to express his thoughts and feelings is through fiction. The main character was heavily based on Lily, especially in the early stages when they were still friends, but as he grew older he put more of himself into the character and now she's become the version of himself he wishes he could be. The night before he kills Dumbledore he burns the entire thing.

Severus knows the DADA position is cursed. Everyone knows it's cursed. He still asks to teach it every year because he also knows that it's the only way he can escape Hogwarts, and he's willing to risk death to do it.

His feelings for Lily have gone through the entire spectrum. At times, she was a sister to him, especially the years before Hogwarts. He used to be incredibly jealous of Petunia, wished he could be Lily's sibling and live in their house and have their parents. It became romantic as a young teenager, especially since she was the only person he felt safe enough with for his pubescent mind to fixate on and explore his budding sexuality. Later, as he became friends with the other Slytherins in his year, it was strictly platonic but nonetheless a very deep friendship. They were both trying to control the other, and Severus was especially worried that Lily would end up like Eileen if she gave into Potter's charms. After his failed apology, he grew angry and resentful and he tried very much to hate her (but he couldn't, not even after she married Potter). And then, after her death, it circled back around to brotherly. He liked to remember those early years best of all, and his devotion to a better cause after her death parallels that of Dumbledore's after Ariana died.

Look I know there's a lot of confusion about godparents, and HP didn't help by being coy about religion, but a godparent isn't a legally appointed guardian. Like, they definitely can be if the parents want that (as it appears to be the case with Sirius Black), but that's not the default. A godparent sponsors a child's baptism and is in charge of their spiritual upbringing, making sure they know their catechism, etc (hence the god part of godparent, its a Catholic/Anglican thing). And the most widespread religion in HP does seem to be Christianity with Christmas being celebrated and whatnot (though I do headcanon the purebloods have their own Druidic/Christian hybrid religion going on). With that being said-- Severus Snape is Draco's godfather. He's also Merula Snyde's godfather. And Pansy Parkinson's godfather. And, like, the godfather of 10 other kids of former Death Eaters. Severus Snape climbed the Death Eater ladder; he was one of Voldemort's favourites during the First War and these other Death Eaters were like, "Damn. I got to get on his good side. Please sponsor my child's baptism."

[trippingontheescalator]

I think there's too much moralizing in the HP fandom. Like, every time I see arguments between the Marauder/Snape fandoms, it boils down to morality, which is ridiculous because characters are not real people. They do not have morals, or thoughts, or actions. They're puffs of smoke that only exist inside your own brain. Imo, the worst thing a character can be is boring. Snape is many, many things, but he's not boring. Part of what makes him interesting is that he's contradictory, sometimes he does bad things with no real reason but to satisfy his own emotional stuntedness, sometimes he does good things because it's the right thing to do, and all of these actions remain in character.

James Potter is a footnote in canon. A tabula rasa. We know a handful of basic facts: he desired Lily, he bullied Snape, he saved Snape from getting eaten by a werewolf, saving Snape didn't stop him from bullying him, somehow Lily decided to date him even though he literally tried to blackmail her, his friends loved him, he was loyal to them, he was charming, he fought in a war. Everything else is fair game! Make him your own! Do something with these bare bones and create an interesting character! And yet when I see these interpretations of him that are like "Bambi did nothing wrong, Snape was actually the evil mastermind behind all of this just to make poor James look like the bad guy >:(" I just saw a take that had Snape as the mastermind of the werewolf prank that he designed to break up the group, and I'm just like, my friend, those horrible flaws make James interesting. You just turned him into a sad sack of goo. He's no longer a character who acts, he's a blank slate that things happen to. There's a difference. You somehow made a footnote even more boring. Don't be afraid to embrace the darker aspects of him just because you're afraid of a character who is not perfectly moral and good 100% of the time.

[trippingontheescalator]

Alright, so this is not exactly a fancast since this person is not an actor who can play Snape, he is not an actor at all, and, in fact, has been dead for the past 137 years. So, uh, I guess this is a face claim? A... historical one? Does that count?

Anyway, Hungarian composer Franz Liszt (1811-1886) has such Snape vibes, I always imagine his hair and clothes when writing fics.

(I have no idea how this will help you with your edits lol, but I wanted to include it because look at him! This man was a dungeon bat in his youth)

I want to start editing again. What are your favorite Severus snape fancasts? 👀👀

Also if you know about a scenes pack let me know.

About popular fancast i know Louis garrel, Adam driver, kento yamazaki and Finn wolfhard.

Opinions??? 👀👀

[trippingontheescalator]

Sirius: "Snape knew more curses when he arrived at school than half the kids in seventh year."

11 year old Severus: "You motherfucking, shit-stained, cunt-mouthed little prick. Your chin looks like a ballsack and your droopy eye looks like the hood of a clit."

11 year old Sirius (crying): "I'm rubber, you're glue--"

[trippingontheescalator]

Which Classic Novel Should You Read Based on Your Fave Snape Pairing

Snily - Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë (1847). Let's see, a low class and abused, brooding Byronic leading man? Check. Madly in love with a woman who ends up marrying a snobbish rich man who looks down on our hero? Check. Obsessed with her even decades after her death? Check, check, and check. Oh, and let's not forget that the child the woman has with her husband shares her eyes. Hm, suspicious.

Snames - Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded by Samuel Richardson (1740). So, as a fellow snames fan, let's be honest with ourselves: all of our fics can be boiled down to "I can change him." We want James to be despicable, inhuman, and cruel to Severus, and then we want James to realize how disgusting he is and grovel at Severus's feet, because we are all basic bitches. So basic that one of the earliest novels in the English language is basically this. Pamela originated this trope.

Snirius - Deep Water by Patricia Highsmith (1957). Snirius fans are unafraid of dark, toxic relationships and unhappy endings, and, well, here's a book for you! Deep Water is about as toxic as you can get. It's about a man who murders his wife's lovers.

Snucius - Pygmalion by George Bernard Shaw (1913). Alright, alright, so this isn't a novel, this is a play, but fans of this pairing definitely seem to be into the whole sugar daddy/"I can turn this feral street child into an elegant gentleman" kind of vibe, and this is what this play is all about. Audrey Hepburn is fantastic in the film adaptation My Fair Lady (1964).

Snupin - Bear by Marian Engle (1976). You Canadians are probably like, "What the fuck? Is my OTP a joke to you?" The answer is yes, but that's beside the point. Hear me out. The main character is an archivist who is very bad at relationships and kind of shuns society in general. Like our Snape. She ends up in the Canadian wilderness on an assignment going through a dead person's belongings. Also, this dead person kept a pet bear that our heroine now has to take care of. Our heroine begins to yearn for something wild, our pet bear is a literal bear, but also incredibly pathetic and docile just like Lupin. Anyway, the two fuck. Literally, she fucks a bear. THIS BOOK WON THE GOVERNOR GENERAL'S LITERARY AWARD. THAT'S LIKE CANADA'S PULITZER I THINK. None of you werewolf-fuckers should act shocked and dismayed by this. We all know how you really think Sirius's prank should have gone (in which instead of James rescuing Snape, Moony makes sweet sweet love to him).

Sorry, guys, no Snarry or Snamione. I don't really read those pairings so I can't give an accurate recommendation. But if you've got thoughts, add to this!

[trippingontheescalator]

If your family tree is a circle, then that means you have a family wreath.

Happy holidays, and make sure you give your second cousin the gift she always wanted: a wedding ring.

Sirius: At least I’m not ugly

Severus: At least I’m not inbred

[trippingontheescalator]

So, in the books, Regulus Black is described as "He had the same dark hair and slightly haughty look of his brother, though he was smaller, slighter, and rather less handsome than Sirius had been." And, like, no where in that sentence does it imply that he looked like doe-eyed Timothee Chalamet. He could be ugly. Considering he's a Slytherin, and JKR went out of her way to describe almost every Slytherin as ugly, he was probably ugly and Harry was just being "nice" (i.e. backhanded) about it.

And I say this not to bash Regulus, or to denigrate physical features that are not considered "mainstream" (what the fuck is ugly anyway), but rather because we know those certain Marauders fans who like to claim they hate Snape because of his actions when the real crime in their eyes is that they think he's ugly. They'll strip him of his personality and his history and everything else and staple it onto their doe-eyed Chalamets so that when they write about Regulus and James tongue-dueling they can envision two pretty people to masturbate to. And, like, there's a part of me that wants to write a jegulus fic where Regulus is really just an ugly version of Sirius. Uglier than Snape. Because, if the fans really do prefer Regulus over Snape based on their actions and not on their looks then it shouldn't matter if I write Regulus as ugly, right? Right?

[trippingontheescalator]

Oh yeah, I can definitely see it.

If Severus was a goth! (Alice Cooper is one of my face claims for Severus, such a damn fine guy!)

Skinny, with a big hooked nose, long black hair and pale skin. If he was British he would be perfect!