As Promised, Here Is The Flashback Scene From P3wm Act 4 Where Strega Escapes From The Kirijo Group

“Snape hated Harry because Harry looked like James.” Okay. Let’s dig into this. Because it’s not a matter of, “Your dad bullied me and I’m getting back at him by being hateful to you.” It’s more complex and insidious than that. When Snape knew James as a teenager, Snape was “twitchy, like a spider.” He stuttered. He knew he could be under attack at any moment, and he was powerless: poor, with no social clout, unattractive, generally disliked. After James died, Snape was trapped back in the place where he’d been bullied, trying to be an authority figure to kids only a few years younger than him who’d watched him being bullied and assaulted. It must have been incredibly hard, but he did it. When we see him ten years later, he no longer stutters. He can keep a classroom quiet with a soft voice. He’s in control. Then, suddenly, there’s this face in the crowd again, the one his instincts associate with danger. He has to fight the automatic response to take cover or defend himself when he passes Harry in the halls. He’s twitchy again, his nerves are raw, it’s uncomfortable all the time. And then he gets face-to-face with him in class. And it’s like the clock has turned back and he’s a teenager again. Only, he’s managed to take all the things he’s fought so hard for with him: he doesn’t stutter, he can clearly say all the insults he ever wanted to; he’s the one with the power, with social standing behind him. And so all the things he would’ve liked to say to James come pouring out: the carefully created insults, the disdain. And the laughter of the Slytherins feeds the dark places in his soul. And then Harry leaves, and he hates himself. What is wrong with him? He knows this isn’t James, it’s not helping anything to treat him like this. He’s going to stop. He will just ignore the boy and get on with his life. But it never lasts. His control slips, and he says one thing, and then it snowballs, and he’s lost all that hard-won control he’s fought for all his life. He’s acting like a teenager again, and he hates it. He despises himself for it. But he won’t let anyone know his weakness. Better that everyone thinks he is petty enough to loathe the boy for no good reason than that they know how his control crumbles at a touch. So he sneers and insults him to other teachers and gets on with his self-loathing. He’s used to it, after all. And he does his best to protect the boy, to keep him alive despite all the idiot does to undo his efforts. But every time, he ends up screaming at the kid like he’s crazy. Maybe he is crazy. Normal people don’t feel out of control like this, for no reason. Just because a kid looks like his dad. So, yes. Harry looks like James, and Snape hates him for it.

I've always been bothered by the analysis that Lily didn't care about Severus. Not only because I love their friendship and ship them together, and also because I think it cheapens the relationship as a whole and makes things fall a bit flat. I do understand where people are coming from tho. She does defend James to him, and is implied to be physically attracted to him even while being friends with Severus (I disagree with her already having a full blown crush, but I do think she found him handsome), also she's pretty emotionless when he's trying to apologize, which leads people to believe she was only looking for an excuse to ditch him. Which I strongly disagree.

First off, I don't think they would've lasted that long if she didn't love him a lot (as a friend or as a crush that's your pick). Their friendship lasted 6 years, and JKR confirmed that a huge motivation for James, personally, bullying Severus was jealousy she felt of Lily's attention and affection, he saw Snape as a threat. Potter watched Lily all the time, hit on her all the time. Lily is described to have a temper. It is almost impossible to me to believe that James wouldn't have noticed that Lily was bothered by Snape and outright wanted him gone from her life, therefore rendering his motive for the bullying flat. We see he is even more cruel when Lily stands up for Severus, mocking him further (as we see on the train scene in Prince's Tale and in SWM), exactly because he believed that they both liked each other (romantically or platonically)

Also, a scene that sticks out to me is the one in DH when Lily is insisting for Severus to stop hanging out with Avery and Mulciber. If she was just looking for an excuse, wouldn't she have given the ultimatum then and there? She clearly didn't like them, thought they were cruel, and they hurt Mary, which is implied to be an acquaintance if not a friend of hers. Why stay as long as she did, "making excuses" for him to her friends as she says, if she didn't want the friendship anymore? Her lack of emotion when he's apologizing can be easily explained away by how angry she is. That scene didn't happen after days or weeks from SWM, it happened in the same day and she clearly didn't want to speak to him in the moment, it being the only scene in which he demanded her attention in a sense. In Lily's POV, that was this friend she had for almost a decade, her oldest friend, who had just turned on her for no reason, when she was trying to help him. A lot of people ignore how bad Severus is at expressing his feelings and telling her hard things about his life (as seen in him using euphemisms for his father's behaviour when we know that he was being brutally whipped), so it's very possible that he wasn't transparent with her about his insecurities or how bad the marauders' bullying affected him, so she never thought much of it. Might be a little insensitive, but hey, she was a 15 yo. It always seemed to me that he presented himself way more as a shoulder for her to cry on than the opposite.

Also, the memories that were given to Harry were not meant to show the pretty moments of their friendship, at least not in my interpretation. Yes, it had some cute moments to make clear to Harry that they were friends, but to me it was way more about showing Harry the conflict of Snape's life from the start, the Dark Arts and the DEs, which he was very tempted and interested by, and the Lily, who's a symbolism for Light in his life. She was the one pulling him away from them, warning him, and he wouldn't listen. That's why basically all their scenes have some sort of conflict. To show Harry how his entire life, he was in between those two sides being pulled back and forth, and when Lily's pull was gone, he headed straight in to the Dark Arts, and ofc, that didn't end well at all.

This got super long for no reason and it's prob very badly written but it was mostly a word vomit lmao I just rlly like them and yes they had their problems but most friendships do :( they would've worked it out in another universe...

I have been analysing some of Snape’s scenes recently and when I was looking at his very first line in the books, I noticed something that I never really seem to see people point out.

“What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?” - The Philosopher’s Stone, The Potions Master

We all know that this scene can be interpreted as “I bitterly regret Lily’s death” but let’s focus more on asphodel.

In the past, asphodel was said to be used as a remedy for venomous snake bites.

What was Snape killed by again? Ah yes, a venomous snake bite. His death was foreshadowed all the back in his very first line of dialogue.

Snape could’ve survived Nagini’s bite if he simply had some asphodel but…

His Lily died a long time ago.

Holy fuck Mori analysers are actually insane/pos please keep absolutely COOKING

Thanks for converting me into a Mori enjoyer

Mori Ogai and Regret

Mori in the BSD Manga and Light Novels prides himself in always finding the optimal solution, in pushing his own feelings aside to accomplish the optimal goal for any given situation.

He is a man of logic and carefully wielded cruelty.

We see countless examples of the way he handles things and in the end achieves the best possible solution to his problems.

Killing the old Boss and having Dazai as his witness

Dazai pointing out that he himself is a possible danger to the initial plan

Chuuya remaining a loyal part of the Port Mafia

Driving Dazai away

Getting the Skilled Buisness Permit

The Great War and Yosano

There were all instances where we saw Mori put aside his own emotions and morality to achieve a greater goal. He wielded cruelty, facts and logic as weapons to achieve the in his mind most logical and optimal solution.

But Mori is human. And Humans can not completely disregard and turn off their emotions, no matter how hard they try.

Mori himself says that he has no regrets during the Guild Arc.

But does this like the face of a man void of regrets?

Or this?

In this instance Dazai is choosing the words that will invoke the feeling of Regret in Mori to push him towards choosing a truce with the ADA.

Dazai is aware that Mori has regrets.

But so is Hirotsu.

His inclusion in any conversations Dazai and Mori have regarding the old Boss tells us, as the reader, that Hirotsu knows the full picture.

He isn't just aware that Mori killed the old Boss like other people, but also of Mori's goal from that act.

Hirotsu even goes as far as to tell Mori that Dazai understands why Mori did what he did, implies that Dazai would also understand other actions Mori takes to reach the optimal solution.

But this also shows us something different.

Mori needs reminders.

After Mori killed the old PM Boss Dazai became a constant reminder of why he did what he did. It was inevitable that Dazai would forever remind Mori of the act itself and the initial reasoning behind it, since Dazai was present and Dazai helped him plan it.

Once Dazai left the Mafia Hirotsu transformed into a reminder of it all. In some way Kouyou is also a reminder of what he did and why he did it.

But why these two?

They were there during the reign of the old Boss.

But how does Mori remember the regrets of another part of his past? How does he remind himself of a time where he miscalculated, where he should have taken the emotions of the people he regarded as tools into account?

How is Mori reminded of the mistakes and regrets of the Great War, of Yosano?

Elise.

Elise is Mori's ability, Vita Sexualis. A humanoid puppet to control as he wishes.

But also to shape as he wishes.

During the Great War Elise is nothing more than a robotic being wearing a human skin, void of emotions, thoughts and autonomy.

Mori has always made Elise take the form of a younger girl.

While it is speculated in the fandom that this could be linked to his Lolicon, I believe otherwise.

Elise is for one inspired by the Novel The Dancing Girl from the real life author. But since she is Mori's ability in BSD she will be influenced by his subconcious.

Elise shows us that Mori, even in his twenties, wanted an apprentice. He wanted to impart his knowledge on someone else but until he found Yosano he did not have someone to do this with.

(Im Beast Elise takes the form of a women. Mori already has children to take care of and bestow his knowledge upton, he doesn't need her to fill thie role. But he does need another caretaker, so that is what Elise becomes)

Yosano herself says in the Manga that she respected Mori as a doctor.

Choosing a young and mallable girl as his apprentice did make her easier to manipulate, to create an army that can not die. But young people are also sponges for knowledge.

And here we come to his regret.

Mori does regret how he handled the situation with Yosano.

He liked that strong willed and opinionated young girl he drafted, and he broke her.

We do not see much of Elise until Dark Era, so we can not tell how long it took for Elise to display Yosanos personality after Yosano was redcued by Fukuzawa and Ranpo.

In this official Art we see Yosanos shadow in Elise, a clear indication of teh fact that Mori's impression of Yosano was bleeding into Elise. But we also see her still wearing pigtails.

Her hair and general clothing tells us that this is between loosing Yosano and Dark Era. With time, Elise will resemble Yosano more.

(The bow resembles the butterfly hairpin of Yosano.)

In this scene Mori tries to convince Elise to try on a new dress.

She refuses and clearly displays Yosano's personality in thsi interaction. From the way Mori handles it this isn't knew.

Their dynamic had already shifted into something more like Yosano and Mori instead of the Ability and Mori.

But her hair is different from the last picture.

Elise now has open and wavy hair. Does this remind you of someone?

(For a boy Dazai has always worn his hair longer than traditional seen as boyish, which in turn let's his ends curl and wave more noticable)

But why would Elise take on appearance markers of Dazai?

Simple.

Because there is something Mori regrets.

He only openly mentiones it in Beast but since Beast is a mirror of Canon, that shows us how different choices will change the same people, we can assume this are also the feelings of Canon!Mori.

Mori regrets not being able to really help Dazai.

And his regret will only get deeper as he makes another choice for an optimal solution.

Driving Dazai away and getting Oda killed fulfilled many positives for Mori, what he reached was the optimal solution. He just had to lose his right hand man.

(Light Novel Dark Era)

This is not the behavior of a man not regretting driving away the boy he cared about for 4 years to this point.

To this day Mori leaves Dazai's spot as executive open. He invited Dazai back into the Mafia.

And when we see Elise after Dark Era she has changed once again.

But this time it is not her appearance that changed, it is her attitude.

Elise displays a very much Dazai-like attitude when talking to Mori.

Where Yosano - and until the end of Dark Era Elise - were strong in their oppinion but polite and steadfast in their refusal, Dazai was bargaining. Dazai more often than not wanted something in exchange for doing something he deemed unpleasant/bothersome/boring.

During the recent timeline Elise also does this.

She doesn't just refuse things, she makes deals.

And she doesn't lie during negotiations, just like Dazai.

In the end Elise changes to be more like the people Mori feels a form of regret over. Elise is a constant reminder of his Regrets and Mistakes.

To support this, here are Asagiris words about Mori from the BSD Exhibition:

“He who fell out of the optimal solution”

Mori Ougai’s belief as the boss is described in the novel “Dark Era” and “Dazai, Chuuya, Fifteen”. That is “The boss stands on top of the organization, and at the same time, be the slave of all.” For the sake of the organization, the boss must always take the “logical optimal solution.” That is the duty of the boss.

There is an unspoken additional point to it. “Therefore, no matter how much your heart aches, you have to ignore your personal feelings.” We can catch a glimpse of that in this scene. [the ADA-PM alliance meeting]

Mori’s expressions after “Burnt it.” and “Like what you did to your predecessor”, gave us a glimpse of his true feelings that were made sacrifices for the sake of the “logical optimal solution”.

[Translation by @popopretty here on Tumblr]

A true optimal solution would leave Mori with no regrets. But whenever Elise changes and reminds him of regrets he feels, it is also a reminder of the time he did not truly reach an optimal solution.

No but seriously why is Lily’s patronus so unnecessarily gendered?

JKR said this in a interview in 2007:

Question: James patronus is a stag and lilys a doe is that a coincidence? J.K. Rowling: No, the Patronus often mutates to take the image of the love of one's life (because they so often become the 'happy thought' that generates a Patronus).

I’m assuming it was Lily’s patronus that changed not James because he already had a stag animagus at 15 and the only other person we know both their patronus and animagus form is Mcgonagall and they are both cats. So if Lily's patronus changed to be “the image of the love of her life” why is it a doe not a stag? How is a doe the image of James? Snape's patronus is apparently the "image of lily" and it appears as a doe instead of a stag to match his respective gender. What is going on?

(also guys im looking for a watsonian reason. I know the real answer is JKR's adherence to the gender binary)

AA siblings week day six:

opposites

cooking is always better with a friend

Said Snape…

An analysis inspired by my username :)

There are about 300* times in the series that Snape’s delivery of dialogue contains additional descriptives beyond “said”, giving us insight into his tone. I thought it might be interesting to take a look at what this can tell us about Snape’s character. And if you’re a fic writer looking to have your Snape reflect canon!Snape as much as possible (or even if not, and you’re looking to make choices that will distinguish him from canon!Snape), I figured this might be a helpful resource.

[Adverbs] Snape says things…

...softly or quietly, most often, followed by coldly, coolly, or icily, and then smoothly, silkily, or sleekly.

This trend holds when we look across not just adverbs modifying “said” but all verbs of speech. Here's how those descriptors are used across the books in the series:

And here's what that looks like split up by the different eras in Snape's life:

Snape is most often described as saying things “repressively” or “dismissively” as well as “calmly”, “slowly”, or “deliberately” in his double agent days, which are adverbs that convey a certain amount of control over the conversation, information, and his own temperament. Taken together, this may reflect his increased caution and the high-stakes nature of information at this stage.

Although Snape displays little patience for those not at his level even in his teenage years (“just shove a bezoar down their throats” comes to mind), his dialogue only reflects this with adverbs such as “sharply” or “curtly” once he has established himself as an authority figure. We will see a similar pattern below with verbs and adjectives conveying impatience.

[Verbs] When Snape doesn’t simply “say” something, he…

...Most often is expressing a negative emotion: shouting, yelling, bellowing or snarling and spitting. The largest portion of Snape’s shouts occur in HBP, specifically in Flight of the Prince, as he tries to direct the Death Eaters to leave and faces Harry. But looking across these first two emotionally-charged categories, about 30% of these (perhaps not surprisingly) occur in Prisoner of Azkaban, where Snape is spends a notable chunk of the book in an extremely emotional state.

However, he's not always shouting or snarling; approximately 15% of the time when he is not simply speaking, he is whispering or hissing, which complements the 25% of the time that he is speaking softly or quietly.

Let's look at this in relation to Snape's timeline:

It's fitting that the majority of Snape’s inquiries occur after Voldemort’s return, when he returns to his double agent role, gathering intelligence.

I also think it’s interesting what we don’t see in Snape’s school days. In childhood/school there’s relatively little superciliousness—instead, we see more argumentation; Snape argues, demands, pants, splutters, and backtracks.

Snape’s brand of snippy impatience and condescension (sneered/snarled/snapped, etc) is most evident in his days as a professor (before Voldemort’s return through his years as a double agent). In his deep cover years it declines; he no longer has the time and he’s focused on the task at hand.

Let's now look at the adjectives used to describe Snape's tone. Snape says things in a tone of voice that is…

...Most often soft, low, or quiet, followed by cold or icy, and then by sneering or sardonic. I find it fitting that Snape’s tone is described as impatient in GOF and HBP, both books in which Snape spends the year on tenterhooks, waiting for the axe to fall.

When we look at how these adjectives are distributed across Snape's lifetime, we can see that Snape’s vocalizations described as “terrible” only three times, and they occur at pivotal moments: Lily’s death and his own. Additionally, Snape’s unconcerned or bored tone comes out during his double agent years, and 3 out of the 4 times it is used as an affectation.

Misc. notes: It is also notable when there are a lack of descriptors surrounding Snape’s speech altogether. There are definitely fewer in the first two books, likely given their shorter length and lower reading level. However, there are three moments in Deathly Hallows that, taken together, really stood out to me: The Dark Lord Ascending, Voldemort’s visit to Hogwarts to take the Elder Wand, and Snape’s meeting with Voldemort in the Shrieking Shack (no descriptions of speech besides "blankly", up until the moment of Snape’s murder, during which he protests and lets out a terrible scream). The lack of description of Snape's speech is a neat nonverbal way to convey to us readers the flattening effect of Occlumency.

Anyway, hope this was interesting, and I’d absolutely love to hear any additional insights you all pull out of this!

*This is by no means meant to be the definitive, exhaustive analysis of Snape’s speech. This was completed doing simple searches for dialogue with “Snape” (didn’t have the raw text to write a script or anything), so it’s entirely possible that I’ve missed several instances of Snape speaking when referred to as “he” and the dialogue in question is several lines away from his name. However, I believe those cases are relatively few, so I’m fairly confident that I have a majority of the instances in which Snape’s dialogue is described with an adverb, adjective denoting tone, or with a verb other than “said”. It’s likely the remainder would follow similar trends if they are dispersed sporadically throughout the series.