Here’s A Treasure Trove Of Metas And Pro-Snape Arguments, Created By Myself And @snapedefense Years

The entire point of Snape’s character is to show that someone socially unpleasant and physically unattractive, someone mean, petty and vindictive can also be brave, self-sacrificing, devoted, brilliant and morally righteous, where it counts the most. That behind all the snark and bitterness there’s a story, that explains where his pain and prickliness comes from. That your caricature villain Death Eater has hidden depth and can be a man who has laid his life to right the wrongs he committed. That’s a moral lesson of revealing his true alliances, for God’s sake. That there’s a line between being dark, twisted, bitter and unfair and being actually evil. And you should not confuse the two. Harry’s greatest power is the power of love and when he names his child after Snape, he shows that Severus Snape, as he was, IS worthy of appreciation, worthy of love. This is a message the books carry.

“O Mine Enemy” by KirbyLane

That’s the first post of a blog which was supposed to be empty but I suppose it was worth the exception…

Just finished reading this incredible Severitus story. What an amazing journey, it left me speechless.

And when a story left me speechless, I feel the urge to make a cover/front page for it. It’s kind of a homage you might say.

So there it is, hope you’ll like it. (Open the pic for better resolution)

I found this beautiful fan-art on the web and immediately feel in love with it but unfortunately I don’t know the author. If you know, feel free to tell.

Anyway, there it is the summary of this story that you can find on AO3:

When Harry find an injured Snape on his doorstep and must hide him from the Dursleys, he has no idea that this very, very bad day will be the start of something good.

Harry and Snape are thrown together by annoying relatives, a series of strange dreams, and Voldemort’s latest hunt for Harry, but their greatest challenge may well be surviving each other. This will be a long summer, unless the two can find a way to work together.

A slow-burn-enemy-to-mentor story

Alternate 6th summer (and part of the school year): post Order of the Phoenix, ignores Half Blood Prince and Deahtly Hallows.

No slash, no romance.

Hope you’ll give it a shot, you won’t regret it.

something endearing about Snape

Something i’ve been kind of mulling over and thinking about in regards to Snape– and which I find frustrating, but endearing– is how… he is continually disadvantaged and disregarded by systems of power and persons of authority… but he chooses to work within their framework, anyways. 

Snape is Lawful-neutral, to his own detriment. Hear me out.

Like, as a student, he gets bullied. It’s 4 against 1, and he’d have a hard time picking them off if he wanted to go a more aggressive or lethal route. In any case, he tends to be reactionary, rather than necessarily going out of his way to find and attack them… So, he tries to get them expelled, because that would be a way to remove all 4 of his threats at once, and it’s not as if they don’t consistently break the rules… Shouldn’t people who break the rules and mistreat others be punished? So when he’s almost lead to his death at the Shrieking Shack, he appeals to the system of authority (of whom Dumbledore is the purveyor, in this case) with what he feels is a pretty airtight case against his bullies… 

…and he gets written off, and blackmailed into keeping his mouth shut.

If it were me, that kind of slap in the face would ensure i never respected another authority figure again in my life tbh. The Law and the gods that govern it would be dead to me. Anyways…

Being a werewolf does not inherently make Lupin a bad person. But being a good person does not make Lupin inherently safe. The point is: when you transform into a werewolf, you lose control of yourself, and that can result in you killing, maiming, or infecting other people. Lupin knows this. He’s known it for over 20 years,

As of 1993, there was this great new discovery: the Wolfsbane Potion, which helps to curb the effects of lycanthropy, right? It’s super expensive and super hard to make, but it’s an effective way to mitigate the more vicious effects of a transformation– it turns the drinker into a harmless wolf, rather than a werewolf, at the time of the full moon. A wolf, who is easier to control or subdue if one is confronted with it, and who seems to retain some semblence of control during the transformation (Lupin having described himself as curling up in his office during his transformations).

You may be thinking that wolfsbane potion is the closest thing to a preventative  that the Wizarding World has circa 1993, and you’d be right. It’s not a cure, and people who drink it can still infect others, but damn, it makes it way more manageable.

We know that Severus, on more than one occasion, goes out of his way to give Lupin his potion (whether Lupin continually forgets to take it, or purposefully “forgets” to take it as a small power play/intimidation game against Snape is up for interpretation). Either way, we know that Lupin regularly forgets to take the life-changing potion unless prompted, which kind of makes him out as reckless. A timebomb. 

Severus, who is not only a virtuoso on the Dark Arts and all that it entails (and thus, academically, very informed on the dangers that (non-medicated) Werewolves pose), is also intimately and personally aware of the threat Lupin poses to a school full of children as well as the staff, because of his experience in the 70s. Snape brings all of this up to Dumbledore… 

…who repeatedly dismisses his well-founded and logical fears. 

Snape is still beholden to Dumbledore’s insistance that he keep his mouth shut. Which he does for most of the year. The very explicit parameters of the system are: do not tell anyone that Lupin is a werewolf. 

So, being the logical thinker that Snape is, he looks for (and finds) a way to achieve his desired outcome (informing people that Lupin is a werewolf) in a way that does work within those parameters. He can’t tell anyone outright that Lupin is a werewolf, but like… what if someone figured it out on their own?

Then we have Snape in the Shrieking Shack with the kids, Sirius, and Lupin. 

Harry, in the moment after Black disarmed them all, straight-up wanted to kill Sirius. He gets his wand back, and he is about to fucking murder this guy, until crookshanks sits over his heart.

Snape comes up the stairs to the 2nd floor of the shack, right? He’s wearing the Invisibility cloak. No one knows he’s there or hears him coming. He could have killed Sirius in an instant, without anyone knowing. He could kill Sirius AND Lupin if he wanted to, and dump the corpses on the ministry steps, and convince the minister that he had deduced that they were working together months ago. 

He could easily explain to the minister that he knew they were childhood friends, that Lupin started working at Hogwarts at the exact same time Black “wanted to infiltrate” Hogwarts, and that his speculations were dismissed. He could say all of this with the kids and Dumbledore to corroborate his story (since he arrives at the Shrieking Shack BEFORE the kids get the low-down on Pettigrew) and he would STILL get his order of Merlin (maybe 2?) But instead of killing them… 

…he disarms and restrains them. 

He’s like “Yeah, I’m handing you off to the Dementors, dickhead” but it’s important to remember… he disarms them, restrains them, and is willing to turn them over to the “authorities.” Even though, at this point, he whole-heartedly believes that 1. Black is a murderer, who killed like 23 people, and who broke out of wizard prison and 2. Lupin, a werewolf who has consistently not taken his potion and whom Snape believes has conspired to kill him in the past, is aiding and abetting said murderer… Severus Snape does not take the law into his own hands. He’s not about Vigilante Justice.

And… he gets disarmed, thrown against a wall, and almost ends up attacked by a werewolf for it later. heh

This is just up to the first 3 books, because i just finished re-reading them, but i’m certain there are more examples of these types of exchange in subsequent books. In any case, I love how the books have this consistent theme of “Harry distrusts authority, disrespects it, and challenges the system,” that’s all very good. 

But i also love that Severus Snape, the dude that everyone argues is super unfair, petty, spiteful, etc… attempts to use strategic thinking to operate within the paramaters of these systems, and tries to maintain respect for these systems, and consistently gets his ass handed to him for it. I love you, you lawful-neutral dumbass. 

I’m rereading OOTP right now and I find that scene between Severus and Sirius in the kitchen to be highly relevant in the context of Severus as a feminine-coded character (and Sirius as a representation of toxic masculinity). Sirius is very outwardly aggressive in this scene in a conventionally masculine way, while Severus weaponizes his sarcasm and wit in a way that could be thought of as a more “feminine” form of defence. While Harry describes Sirius’s voice as getting progressively louder and angrier, he describes Severus’s voice as “soft” in contrast (as he usually does, which is also interesting in the context of Severus as a feminine man/GNC character). Sirius gets up and tries to intimidate Severus physically, and Severus grips his wand inside his pocket in a way that reminded me of a victim of domestic violence preparing to defend herself against her abuser.

I’m not sure how much of this was intentional considering how rigid JKR’s views on gender have unfortunately turned out to be, but I can’t help but read Severus as a feminine character, especially since he’s meant to act as a stand in for Lily in the same way as Sirius acts as a stand in for James. It’s very easy to read Sev as gender non conforming and/or LGBTQ, although given JKR’s own views it’s doubtful she meant for us to read him that way (but fuck her, she’s a massive transphobe, the characters are ours now, we can do what we like with them).

Note to self, start checking your inbox regularly. These changes to Tumblr are killing me because the notifications when I get messages or asks are hit-or-miss at best.

Anyways, this is such a great observation! I'm only just learning about coding and that that is even the term for it from reading about it from other Snape bloggers like @idealistic-realism00, @raptured-night, and @professormcguire since I only took the required English courses both my undergraduate years and beyond that my major was in sociology.

So, I'm not really any kind of expert but I do have a lot of personal experience from being biracial and queer myself just with learning to read between the lines and find representation for myself where I can and I think that is the case for a lot of people from less represented, marginalized backgrounds. We have a certain instinct for these things so even without any kind of formal study we sort of know the "codes" (for better or worse depending on what the author's intent is and if it's a negative dog-whistle or something more positive to get around censorships of the time) if that makes any kind of sense.

For me, I always saw Sirius and Snape as two sides of a coin. There were some very obvious parallels and contrasts between them and this really goes to that in a lot of ways for me. Both Sirius and Snape are two men who made pivotal choices in their youths that very much define them and have led to a great deal of internalized guilt and impacted their behaviors as adults. Both Sirius and Snape find themselves confined to their childhood homes at different points, Sirius at Grimmauld Place with Kreacher and Snape at Spinner's End with Peter Pettigrew (both Kreacher and Peter are characters that also are known for betraying Harry and costing him someone he loves at different points and making a turn around in regards to Harry because of kindness or mercy he showed to them).

Where Sirius made the choice to make Peter the Secret Keeper with only James, Lily, and Peter knowing and it ultimately led to the death of the Potters and him being sentenced to twelve years in Azkaban, Snape also unwittingly delivered part of the fated prophecy that led to Voldemort targeting the Potters. Most interesting for me is that Snape's friendship with Lily and Sirius's friendship with James could be read as either platonic or a case of unrequited romantic feelings. There is the observation in SWM made by Harry that while Sirius was clearly a looker who attracted the attention of girls, his attention was fully on James and not on those admiring glances. So, when looking at Sirius's relationship with James through a comparative lens to Snape's with Lily they could be platonic friends or both Sirius and Snape could have had romantic feelings for their best friends while, ironically enough, Sirius had to watch James fall for and succeed in winning over Lily just as Snape had to do the same.

In the case of Snape and Sirius there is also a degree of regression and arrested development stemming from trauma (and both men at different points make the clear mistake of seeing Harry as a stand-in for James as a result of said trauma). Where Sirius spent twelve years in Azkaban able to hold onto his sanity against the Dementors in part because he knew he was innocent and the truth of what happened was a deeply unhappy thing for him, Snape spent decades in Dumbledore's service at Hogwarts (a place with its own unhappy associations for him having found it was not a refuge from life at Spinner's End with Tobias as he had hoped but another place where he would be bullied relentlessly, overlooked by his Head of House and housemates for being a poor half-blood with no status, subject to institutional failures resulting from yet more adult authority figures in his life not protecting him, groomed by Voldemort's followers and responsible for alienating his closest friend as a result) teaching children when clearly he does not have the temperament and, courtesy of his role as a spy, concealing his own truths and intentionally not allowing people to know the best of him. In a sense, both men had a negative public image that ran counter to the full truth about them and both of them died without being able to see those misconceptions vindicated (Sirius died still presumed by the Ministry and general public to have been the traitor who turned his friends over to Voldemort and murdered innocent people and Snape died knowing he had delivered information to Harry that would lead to his death and unsure of the outcome of the war with everyone thinking him a coward and murderer).

There's just, a LOT of parallels there between the two when you start to unpack them as characters. Even the fact that they both came from domestic dysfunction and unhappy home lives. It makes their mutual antagonism all the more of a tragedy because if not for Sirius's prejudice (which is arguably more understandable given his family and their long tradition of being sorted into Slytherin) against Slytherins and antagonism of young Snape on the train and the years of bullying and bad blood that followed, these two men had the most potential to understand each other. Alas, they do not, but it is their likenesses that makes their differences in how they clash all the more interesting because, as you noted, there are stark differences there. Sirius is all overt masculine energy; hot-headed and physically imposing while Snape is more strained, the ice to his fire.

Most striking to me was always the difference in how little respect Sirius showed to Snape's body while he was unconscious (further demonstrating how little Sirius has changed from the teenage boy who once stood with James and exposed Snape to laughing schoolmates) versus how Snape conjured a stretcher while still under the impression he was the one responsible for betraying the Potters (and the death of Lily). In that way, we get to see how Snape has developed as a person away from his past choices and learned from them. He may still regress, as he does quite plainly when forced to return to the Shrieking Shack and is confronted by Sirius and Remus there, but he isn't quite in the full state of arrested development as Sirius (but given his circumstances in Azkaban that isn't entirely surprising either; there is a tragedy to Sirius's character for all that there is as much of a darkness as there was in Snape during his time as a Death Eater and the fact so many Marauder apologists who double as "Snaters" refuse to acknowledge that outside of romanticizing the angst of it all while vilifying Snape is quite possibly an even greater tragedy, imo) which is why Sirius's death came in part due to his inability to move beyond his past and find it within himself to treat Kreacher with a modicum of understanding or empathy (in addition to his desire to be part of the action again and recapture his lost youth when it was him and James in the Order together) while Snape's death came only after he had to reconcile with the fact his original raison d'être for becoming a spy (to protect Harry for Lily as penance) ran counter to what was needed to defeat Voldemort for good and he still chose to stay the course instead of pursue his own agenda and act on his own self-interests.

In short, Sirius's death was partly due to the fact he couldn't move beyond the past. While Snape's death came as a result of the fact he had grown enough as a character to set aside his past motivations and see things through because he had become someone who conjured stretchers even for hated enemies and risked his life to save all those who he could save (including Sirius and Remus).

Thanks for the ask and I'm so sorry it took so long to respond but it gave me even more to think about. The masculine vs. feminine coding just adds an extra element to Snape and Sirius's dynamic when it was already interesting to me and I've always had a lot of thoughts about how those two were written with so many parallels and points of contrast. Love this ask!

The REAL Crystal Council

Rewatching Part one of Crystalized just makes me more enraged at the season so far. A big issue is the council having too many uninteresting and disconnected villain’s. I feel there are far more relevant, competent, and interesting characters to build a season off of that are accessible in our current timeline. 

I’ll run down a small list of gripes with each current member and then I’ll explain some of my choices, as well as their far more interesting relationships.  

CURRENT MEMBERS

Harumi: Her arc was complete in Hunted and rewriting her death would backtrack the most impactful moment she had. Passes by just barely because she is an interesting character to explore and redeem further, but so far they reversed her to Lloyd angst instead of pursuing the far more interesting and dramatic relationship she and Pythor would share. 

Aspheera: Talk about a waste of space. Her lore was contradictory to Ninjago history when it first came out in Fire chapter and I figured we were finally done and could renounce those events from the timeline. She is beyond idiotic in nature, and her motivations have always been ridiculously shallow, even to the point of satire in this new season. The only thing she can add is Wu angst that was already put to rest during the completion of his arc in Hunted and Motm (Her relation to Wu is also fairly annoying. Do the writers seriously think Wu is in the wrong, or is Aspheera simply this selfish and ignorant to her own actions?). She has no relation to any other character in the entire show and her base personality is difficult to watch at times. 

The Overlord: Cool voice and all, but resurfacing this after so long with no lead up is just opening old wounds again. For the sake of structure I’ll keep him, as he is the main point of the council, but even the Crystal King is on thin ice. (My theory is Oni magic tipped the balance enough to let him escape but there has been no inclination up until now that he would return, so having him appear as the big bad feels like a poor, fanservice decision.)

The Mechanic: The worst offender. This guy is on the same level as Fugidove and Ultra Violet. They were a trio and he never “leveled up” as they say in the show. He was always a one off, or a stooge for someone stronger, smarter, more devious, or more motivated. The Mechanic on his own has no intentions, no goal or purpose. He’s literally a low level thug who wasn’t even named until season 6. If they need a Prime Empire representative, I’d much prefer a plot about a villain kidnapping Unagami, since they are essentially code that could be reprogramed. That would open up a good story for Jay and Zane to bond over together. But no. The mechanic has no reason to be this high up. He has committed nothing on his own, has a bland personality, and his metal tech should be easily defeated by Jay, who is a skilled technician with lightening powers. 

Mr. E… er F: If they are not Echo Zane, it’s literally dead weight. The pinnacle of nothing. Mr. E was a mysterious badass biker robot that was good friends with Harumi. They gruesomely died in front of Harumi to give her doubts about her decision. Pythor just ‘rebuilding them” without any notion of the same hard drive/soul device just means they essentially just have a nindroid drone from Rebooted on the MAIN COUNCIL. The one hope for them is if they are actually Echo Zane, like the original draft. We saw the lighthouse, and Nya very distinctly screamed “Is anybody there???” to no response, despite knowing Echo Zane exists. If Echo is not Mr F, than both that scene and the character inclusion is irritating. 

Pythor: He’s fine. Always been a staple petty man just slithering around. In the Canon novel, Pythor’s Revenge, he was last seen begging the Serpentine for help in sabotaging Borg, to which he was kicked out of the caves. He’s charming, entertaining, has a long standing history with the overlord, and could have a plot with Harumi if they choose to mention it. 

Skull Sorcerer: He was so forgettable I literally forgot to type him on the list until just now. Although a staple of Cole’s season (and I love that season), this role for him is disconnected from his previous appearance and practically OOC in my book. King Vangelis loves his people and created the mines to make the city prosperous. He clearly wants to protect his daughter as well. The real villain of that season is the Skull itself, which is seen to corrupt Korgran in the flashback, and is implied to mess with Vangelis’ psyche. When the skull disintegrated, he immediately begged for mercy and forgiveness. The best course of action for Vangelis is a redemption arc, since he was just a King of an isolationist country disconnected from Ninjago that partook in slavery. We can visit him in prison and he could reveal everyone who was buying from him, although it was under a codename so he has no idea who it really goes to after the middle men pick it up. Instead of this approach, I fear he will just be some boring powerless guy wearing a mask. Vangelis as the SS did not have a single interesting thing to say. it was tropey generic villain jabber and it seems they may fall back on that instead of pursing something better. 

THE COOLER CRYSTAL COUNCIL. 

The council I have created, along with my sister, may be too much to unpack in one grand season, but I can simply no longer ignore how boring the current members are when others out there can be justified. It is grand, yes, but even one of these additions instead of the latter inclusions would make for a more exciting season.  

Pythor: The snake can stay. Forever endearing, with a background in helping the overlord and a connection to season 1, as well as the long lasting Serpentine war arc. 

Clouse: He only got his time to shine in Canon Malaysian plays, and off screen in books and semi-cannon Tommy fanfictions. This man is, in the shows current lore, still out there in the Underworld. Since WotD is still a WIP, we don’t know what his end is, but for now he could be back with something as easy to get as Travelers tea. I’m sure the Overlord is quite aware of portals and proud of how Clouse succeeded in merging Ninjago back into one land using dark matter. 

Harumi: If Canon is reversing her death than I suppose I can too. I can’t ignore the potential she has outside of Lloyd and the character growth she still could obtain. 

Nadakhan: A bit of an OP one, but you could make it work. Wishes can be very powerful and the Overlord could see the potential. He already wanted revenge on Ninjago since they destroyed his homeland and the Overlord could easily make that happen. The Overlord is also incredibly powerful. I’m sure there are wishes and ways to keep Nadakhan in line. We know he is currently in the possession of Clutch powers, making him more a part of WildBrain than Mr E. He is also personally connected to Jaya, which was something very important from last season. 

Time Twins: Lloyd says since their location is ‘unknown’ they are ruled out. I disagree. The best villains to bring up are the ones with no known location and there is no reason that the Ninja should rule out that possibility based on location alone. They just had a short reminding us of their existence. I would place them in Aspheera’s spot, serving as a reminder of Wu’s past, while also being in it for petty vengence. These two were also wronged by the Alliance and this new, darker alliance could be the push they need for redemption, as I’m a raved Twim sympathizer. 

Oni Garmadon: I know he has been shown in the trailers. It would be cool if he were a spy of some sort. He gets sent the invitation as a notorious villain at the end of his journey in the Garmadon comics. Having regained some humanity, he accepts the invitation to sabotage the organization. The Overlord could help him remember the past, or at the very least his time has Lord Garmadon, which was still kinder than how he acts now. 

THE RELATIONSHIP CHART

Look at all those lines. Now that’s a group of characters and not a bunch of useless bland faces about to be vessels for the Overlord. I’ll run down this list for you under the cut. 

Keep reading

Happy late Valentine's Day or whatever

Fyolai Duet.

Been listening to birds of death(the one Fyodor perform with his cello) the original piece has a piano duet so I've come to conclusion on drawing Nikolai with piano. :))

Overcorrecting

Actual canon:

Furthermore:

I get wanting to distance yourself from old inaccurate fanon but recently it feels like the fandom is just being contrarian and overcorrecting so much they create a new fanon, just in the opposite direction

happy ninjaposting friday your ninjapost is this joke titled I Loved Season Four And Have Drawn Like 3 Different Versions Of This Same Joke

The Hidden Tragedy of Snape's Sacrifice is He Died at 20, Not 38

Where does the idea of selfish Severus Snape and his possessive love come from? Do people really believe that Snape died in the Shrieking Shack at 38, at the hands of Voldemort? Do they honestly think that, until he was 38, he lived a normal, happy life, full of hope and dreams, right up until that last minute when everything was suddenly ripped away from him?

Snape didn’t just die in that moment. His life ended 18 years earlier, when he was 20 years old, standing on a hill in front of Dumbledore. That’s when he gave up everything—his freedom, his future, and his life—in exchange for the safety of the Potter family: James, Lily, and Harry.

From that moment on, Snape no longer lived for himself. He had no control over his own fate; his life had been bargained away to protect others. Every step he took after that was part of a long, ongoing sacrifice.

People say they don’t like Snape because he didn’t make up for his mistakes the way he should have, that his redemption arc wasn’t complete. Excuse me? I’m not sure what more a person can give than their life. What’s more precious than their time and youth? What’s more important than their freedom? Snape sacrificed all of that—what else did he even have left to give?

He was barely out of his teenage years when he chose to give up everything—his youth, his dreams, his ambitions, even his loyalty—for people who didn’t care about him. Yet, Snape stayed on that path with unwavering courage for the next 18 years, never backing down.

In truth, Severus Snape was a boy who lost his life at 20. The only thing is, they didn’t bury him until he was 38.