Sev And Lily ,, My Fav Infodumping Besties

cooking is always better with a friend

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!

“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.

as promised, here is the flashback scene from p3wm act 4 where strega escapes from the kirijo group

Things that make me murderous: Snaters who are like “why didn’t Snape just grow up and get over it”, as if c-ptsd from a lifetime of abuse at home and school doesn’t cause damage to the mind and can’t just disappear the minute you turn 18. Untreated, unhealed childhood c-ptsd in adults is a nightmare. It is hellishly hard to function in society emotional stunting and anger issues are common. And it’s made so much worse by continuously being around triggers of your trauma.

Severus: studies shown that you are the stupidest person in the world

James: source?

Severus: me

The Marauders map becomes a really creepy concept when you remember it was made by a pack of bullies who loved to torture, torment and humiliate their victims. If you were their target, there would be no escaping them. They could find you whenever they wanted. You would have nowhere to hide.

A reasoning behind the stolen photo

I’m not gonna lie, it surprises me that this bit is seen with so much contempt by so many people. Specially because it’s the reasons are so clear. This scene happens after Dumbledore’s death (at least that’s how it’s implied in the text, since all the other memories are in chronological order):

He took part of a letter and half of a photograph, both from Lily. And he’s crying. He was a complete mess after killing Dumbledore, the only person who really knew him, and that’s very clear in the rest of the text:

It’s even referenced in the Cursed Child (bless Scorpius Malfoy for being the only person who stopped to think about how he must have felt then).

So, he’d just had to kill his only friend (so to speak, the only meaningful relationship he had in which he could be himself), was completely alone, hated by the very people he was trying to protect, knowing that all this would lead to the death of the person he swore to keep safe, that he would be the one to tell him that, that he hardly had hope of coming out of this alive…

He was looking for strength. A reminder of why he had to keep going on, to keep fighting. He went to Grimmauld Place, even if it was a huge risk, looking for comfort and he found it in a letter and picture of his best friend… Honestly, thinking this is stalker behavior is such a reach I can’t even process…

hello

I copy/pasted your entire page and updated links. you can copy/paste to the freetimes page or make a new post, idk. I was just going through your page and wanted updated links for myself and figured it was good to let you know!

—————————

DR/SDR2 Freetime Masterpost!

If I’ve missed any, please tell me!

I will update this when new/translated free-times are posted.

Last updated: 1/11/14, added peko fte 2, nanami and sonias ftes are complete

***Be sure to inform me if links need changing!! I don’t check this masterpost often so it’d be great if I got some help from you guys who use this more than I do***

I am on hiatus from blogging but I will check my inbox periodically so plaese send in updates with the freetimes!

Dangan Ronpa:

(Alt = Alternate. That means that there is another translation you can refer to for that free time event.)

Junko*: 1 / 2 / 3 (Final)

Maizono: 1 / 2 (Final)

Leon: 1 / 2 / 3 (Final)

Chihiro: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 (Final)

Mondo: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 (Final)

Ishimaru*: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 (Final)

Celestia: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 (Final)

Yamada: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 (Final)

Sakura: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 (Final)

Kirigiri: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4* (Final)

Togami: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 (Alt) (Final)

Fukawa: 1 / 2 / 3* / 4* / 5 (Final)

Syo*: 1 / 2 / 3 (Final)

Asahina: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 (Final)

Hagakure: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 6 (Final)

Misc:

Nicovideo mylist (With all the character introductions, free time events, and reports, untranslated)

If you don’t have a nico account and you want to watch the videos, paste the /watch/sm******** number after http://www.nicozon.net

Youtube account with videos of characters’ freetimes featuringProject Zetsubou’s translation.

If watching the videos takes too much time for you, here are screenshots of those same freetimes:  - Junko: 1/2/3 - Leon: 1/2/3 - Ishimaru: 1/2/tba

* for Ishimaru: I’m not sure if Ishida has any freetimes but this update, Naegi tries to talk with Ishida but he refuses.

* for Kirigiri’s final free time: Only the dialogue after Naegi chooses the correct answer is translated. There is some dialogue before then that isn’t translated. If you want to see the event in whole, look in the Misc. section above and check out the Youtube channel that I have listed.

* for Fukawa’s third and fourth free time: The video from nicovideo was put on youtube and the translation was put in there (in annotations): 3/4

* for Syo: Oren did try to get a freetime with Syo in this updatebut he didn’t get any scenes from it.

Thanks to:

Condesces

Kamakuranon

Hinatahajime

SDR2:

(PaywallAlt = LP alternative if the SA forums are paywall’d. I decided to list those under a different name than “alt” because it’s technically the same thing from the same source but in a different site)

Teruteru: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5.1 / 5.2 (Final)  (video)

Twogami: 1 (PaywallAlt) / 2 (PaywallAlt) / 3 / 4 / 5 (Final)  (video)

Mahiru: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 (Final)  (video)

Peko: 1 (PaywallAlt) / 2 / ??? (video)

Ibuki: 1 (Alt2) (PaywallAlt) / 2 / 3 / ???   (video)

Hiyoko: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 (Final)  (video)

Tsumiki: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 (Final) (video) 

Gundam: 1 (PaywallAlt) / 2 (PaywallAlt) / 3 / 4 / 5 (Alt) (Final)  (video)

Nidai: 1 (Alt) (PaywallAlt) / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 (Final)  (video)

Komaeda: 1 (Alt) (PaywallAlt) / 2 (Alt) (Alt2) (PaywallAlt) / 3 (Alt) / 4 (Alt) / 5 (Alt) (Final)  (video)

Nanami: 1 (PaywallAlt) (Alt) (Alt2) / 2 (PaywallAlt) (Alt) / 3 / 4 / 5 (Final)  (video)

Sonia: 1 (PaywallAlt) / 2 (PaywallAlt) / 3 / 4 / 5 (Final)  (video)

Souda: 1 / 2 / 3 / ???  (video)

Akane: 1 (PaywallAlt) / ???   (video)

Kuzuryuu: 1 / 2 / 3/ 4 / 5 (Final)  (video)

Misc:

Tsumiki’s, Sonia’s, Ibuki’s, Hiyoko’s, and Mahiru’s freetimes on Nicovideo (untranslated)

Thanks to:

Arvelous

***Kamukuranon (adding stars bc they helped like with like ¾ths of this)

Picopicoyama

Than (fn***********@gmail.com) (dont know your url sorry)

Multiple anons

starstrikerz

everyone else that helped out but forgot to list (you know who you are)

Fucked up actually how Garmadon is just. Never allowed to be happy and he knows it. He's a young kid who's going out of his way to protect his little brother and he gets so horrifically cursed and punished and doomed for it for the rest of his life, and he grows up knowing this will haunt and change him, that this will vilify him. There's all this talk of a 'balance' between good and evil and how both must exist, so does it drive Garmadon mad knowing that he is still technically playing a role in preserving the natural order of things, yet he will be despised and horrified by what he's done, grappling with the guilt in a best-case scenario, while others are celebrated because they're lucky enough to be chosen to fight for good instead?

He had to constantly fight the evil in his veins growing up, knowing it would eventually be over. But he still tried his best to do as much good as he possibly could, he tried not to hold it against Wu but at the same time... He took such an enormous bullet for his brother. Wu never asked him to do it, but Garmadon wasn't even allowed to agree to it either. I can see how easy it would've been to tell himself; Wu is going to grow old and loved and happy. I won't be. I deserve something for my sacrifice, for what I did for his sake.

What does he think, what right would we have to judge me, as if I haven't already lost it all for him, as if he doesn't have to contend with how he might act under the influence of the Great Devourer?! Garmadon actually gets this little bit of happiness with Misako, even a child... And fate plays the cruelest joke, practically punishing Garmadon for this, by making this child the very Green Ninja destined to defeat him; Why not someone else, like Morro dammit?! Even so, Garmadon does everything to NOT take out his frustration on Lloyd, despite knowing Lloyd is supposed to end any chance at happiness for Garmadon by ending his life.

The introduction of the Great Devourer's venom as a plot point is interesting, because it admittedly does absolve Garmadon of his wrongdoing (or make it very easy to) by re-contextualizing it all as something he's forced to commit, yet very much does try to fight against. Him continuing to love and care for Lloyd and look for loopholes out of fighting his son, instead of just destroying him, does prove how much he's trying to avert the venom's influence anyway. He IS trying.

I think the lingering specter looming over Garmadon over his inevitable fate must've like. Made it really hard for him to be happy at times, or even dare to dream of happiness. He committed his youth to saving the world, and then was trapped in the Underworld for years. He languishes alone with only the company of people who hate him and only go along out of coercion, people who DID choose to be evil. Garmadon has his agonizing stint as the lord of darkness, but still tries to help Lloyd, and after everything is freed.

And he still tries to atone!!! He still tries to make up for everything by swearing a vow of pacifism, and only rightfully goes back on that when an innocent life, his very son he does so much for, is threatened! Garmadon is allowed like, what? A few years of happiness with his wife and child, only a few years at best of not having to worry about the future because now destiny is out of the way and it's a fresh start for him, he can actually rest and breathe easy knowing there's no guaranteed doom ahead of him.

But he's still haunted by his past, still trying to make up for it; And then he has to sacrifice himself to save everyone all over again. And Garmadon dies, but he's not even allowed to stay dead because his soul is brought back in a fractured, tormented state, by someone who idolizes and misunderstands the worst period of his life, his greatest trauma. And now Garmadon is stumbling around, half-formed, incomplete, back in that same old trap and it's just so hard... But after everything, he still goes back to the same attempts at bettering himself, going against his nature one step at a time, in all of the little ways, rebuilding himself.

But his relationship with his son, this whole time, is deeply destroyed and fractured and hurt in a way it's never been before; And he and Lloyd never really get that reconciliation at the end of Crystalized. He doesn't get to be with his wife anymore and vice-versa. Garmadon is half a soul but still trying, he's always trying to be kind and good even in the worst of circumstances, it's his most natural instinct no matter how much tries to bury it underneath.

It's just. MAN; He really isn't allowed to be happy, isn't allowed to live or settle down. Truly doomed by the narrative, and by the hype of the Lego Ninjago Movie resurrecting the image of Lord Garmadon. Garmadon isn't allowed to hope, he isn't allowed to rest or settle down, it's just a constant battle for him. Sometimes I think he must've had a moment where he was just tired of being nice despite everything the world threw at him, that maybe he deserved a chance to go ape shit against everyone's ungrateful attitude and hypocritical condemnation by just embracing the darkness, and getting to think about himself for a moment; I think the closest to that was the love letter situation with Wu and Misako. A moment like that in the Oni trilogy would've been nice to see, though it has been a long while since I've watched it, so it may have happened.

Maybe Garmadon and the Overlord could've bonded over the fact that they're both doomed to play the role that nobody wants and everyone hates, yet is explicitly required by 'the balance' to exist nonetheless. I'd have loved to see him and Harumi interact in Crystalized, given Garmadon seems actually distraught when he accidentally kills her; It'd have done nice things for both characters to explore Garmadon's feelings about someone who chooses to glamorize his evil, but also weirdly enough appreciates him over it, too?

I'd have liked to see those two actually talk about the fact that Garmadon was doomed again all over, yet unintentionally maybe given a second chance at happiness, given his attempts at rehabilitation. And how does Harumi feel about this, how does she move on when her idol also fails her in this way? Does she keep clinging to a replacement like the Overlord, or just let go? It all turned to be NOT what she expected, both with the ninja and then with Garmadon.

It's like, man. The very concept of the 'balance' between good and evil having to exist, that there can't be too much evil but there also can't be too much good, and how this latter part is never explored because it exposes how fucked up the status quo is, it's driving me insane; Hell it drives Wu, Misako, Lloyd, and even Morro insane too. Someone has to take the fall, someone has to be the scapegoat, the sacrificial martyr, and be vilified for doing something everyone needs them to do. I'd go mad. Maybe that's the real reason for the Overlord's cruelty. And what happens if you take into account the original plan for Crystalized to reveal the Overlord is just the FSM's rejected Oni side?