In Honor Of Autism Awareness Month, Here's A Full Comprehensible List As To Why I Think Rui Is Autistic,

Reading Snape through a queer lens

It’s funny how the years shape your opinions, and no matter how hard I try, I can never shake the idea of Snape as being queer – whether he’s gay, or bi, or genderqueer, or whatever…there’s something ‘different’ about Snape that makes me love him through a queer lens.

And for me, the most joyous moment is when Sirius calls him Lucius’ lapdog – because the implication and insinuation in that is so strong for anyone who has an awareness of what boarding school could be like in the 20th century.  

So, it’s a full admission from me when I say that I’ve always read Snape through a queer lens – but I have, at times, read his relationship with Lily as being heteronormative, and subsequently taken it as read that he coveted a sexual relationship with her.

As I get older, that reading has made me more and more uncomfortable.  I understand where the ‘nice guy’ criticism comes from – which, in fairness to JK, wasn’t such a trope when she wrote the books, and I don’t think she was aiming for.

But Snape’s ‘desire’ for Lily absolutely reduces his character from being someone powerful and interesting to well, a character who is a little pathetic – pining after someone who had no reciprocal interest, and who had clearly moved on.  

So, let’s break down the heteronormative reading:  

-  Firstly, Snape and Lily are boy-meets-girl which is prevalent in our culture.  

-  Secondly, Voldemort reveals that Snape desired Lily.

-  Thirdly, the way Snape reacts to Lily over James – particularly his possessiveness, and also:  “The intensity of his gaze made her blush.”  

The first can potentially be dismissed; we know for a fact that Lily is some variation of heterosexual, as she marries and has a child – but we know nothing about Snape’s sexuality. 

The second can definitely be dismissed because the whole point of Voldemort’s character is that he doesn’t understand love.  Interestingly, Snape must be presenting as some variation of heterosexual or bisexual for this to be credible to Voldemort.  Furthermore, we see throughout the series that Snape consistently lies to Voldemort.  

The last can be interpreted in a few ways; it could be a young teenage boy wrangling with his feelings…but it could be a young teenage boy who realises that he’s got competition for his best friend and a boyfriend will always rank more highly than a friend.  The contrast of ‘he fancies you’ versus ‘I’m your friend’ is quite interesting.

And it’s here that the message is rather mixed – for a man who devotes his life to honouring Lily’s name, he doesn’t explicitly choose Lily; he wants to associate with Mulciber and Avery at the same time.  For a 15 year old with raging hormones, he throws himself down the path of power…which follows his obsession with James, Sirius et al, who routinely strip him of his power.  He doesn’t, at any point, attempt to woo Lily.  

When Lily closed the door on Snape, he walked away.  Canon doesn’t state that he sent her flowers, or wrote her letters, or hung about outside her house; it rather suggests that they left each other alone with no further contact.

So when Snape goes to the hill and begs Dumbledore to keep Lily safe, he isn’t doing it because he thinks that slaughtering her family will mean that the path is clear for him; he does so because:

-  Lily is the only person in the Potter family who matters to Snape; if she hadn’t been at risk, he wouldn’t be defecting.

-  James was his schoolyard bully.  When James is long dead in the 90s, Snape still hasn’t moved on from how he was treated – Snape’s hardly likely to request a pardon for him…he’d probably be pleased if he was murdered.

-  Harry was the baby in the prophecy.  It’s not that I think Snape cares particularly either way about Harry – but that he believed that if Voldemort wanted to murder Harry, he wouldn’t be in a position to prevent it.  I think he felt Lily could be spared, whereas Harry couldn’t. 

You can read Snape’s acquiescence to Dumbledore’s suggestion to save the entire Potter family in two ways – either he sees it’s the only way to save Lily and accepts it, or he genuinely hasn’t thought any further than, “Lily must stay alive.”  I rather subscribe to the latter, which makes it an incredible scene of selflessness and selfishness in one swoop (which is Snape all over; a mass of contradiction).  

Our reading of Snape is distorted, because we read Snape-the-Spy.  We don’t see any sign of Snape’s true character (which would probably have been present in his post-school Death-Eater years) – instead, we meet him when he seems to despise his occupation which he’s forced into, and he socialises with people who are useful to the cause, as opposed to who he wants to.

As it stands, we can categorically state that Snape doesn’t appear to move on from his love for Lily – but we don’t know how much of this is love or coveting of Lily, and how much is due to his role as a spy.  We only have to look at Lucius and the way Voldemort treats Draco and Narcissa to see the dangers of having a family when you’re embroiled in warfare; Snape would be bringing a partner or a family into a war.  

…so I think sometimes we fall back on thinking that Snape has spent 15-20 years crying over Lily, when actually, he hasn’t flaunted a relationship with anyone for fear of them being toyed with by his enemies as a way of reaching him.  

For me, reading Snape as non-heterosexual helps to clear the path slightly.  If we assume that he wasn’t interested in Lily sexually, the story is tilted slightly differently – and Snape’s story becomes one of guilt.  Sirius tells us in OotP that many wizarding families followed Voldemort because his true thoughts weren’t apparent until it was too late, and I think Snape’s childhood, where his Muggle father seemingly dominated his magical mother, caused him to believe the two worlds should be separate.  

We don’t learn much about Avery and Mulciber, although Snape doesn’t appear to have a particularly close relationship with them post-school.  The rest of the Death Eaters present as varying degrees of insane, with the Malfoys being notable exceptions – and it would be credible to suggest that Lucius groomed Snape for his own ends, suggesting a bit of a power imbalance in their relationship.

However, we also see how Snape isn’t – despite Dumbledore standing up for him, and it not being proven until GoF that Snape was a Death Eater – really trusted by anyone on the side of the light.  It’s easy to see how Snape, who was bullied and almost murdered by a group of boys who were subsequently groomed into the Order, wouldn’t have aligned himself with any group they were in or with Dumbledore.

So that leaves, in his entire shabby life, Lily.  Her death stunts him emotionally because it turns out that she was the only person who seemed to like him for who he was.  Yet, he ignored her warnings, followed the wrong path, and was implicated in her death (committed by those he was aligned to).  He tried to make amends, but it was too late – which is the story of their friendship.  

Lily became an emblem of the path he should’ve taken and somewhat perversely, when Lily dies, Snape “becomes” Lily.  With Lily’s love for Harry keeping him safe in Surrey, Snape’s love for Lily causes him to take up the role of protector at Hogwarts.  Snape also assumes her patronus (or what we’re led to believe is her patronus), which is strongly coded as feminine – suggesting that it’s transformed, and isn’t his natural patronus.  

Somewhat ironically, when Snape leaves his own path and takes on Lily’s preferred route, he becomes everything she’d have been impressed by: a teacher, Head of House, and ultimately, Headmaster – and he gained the prestige and power he coveted as a youth. 

We start the story knowing that James and Lily were an item long before we discover that Snape and Lily had a friendship.  When we finally discover James and Snape didn’t like each other, and Lily and James ended up together, we assume that Snape treats Harry badly because James got the girl.

But that’s a huge reduction.  Snape doesn’t hate Harry because he’s James and Lily together; Snape hates Harry because he’s James.  We see throughout the series that Snape is the only character who refuses to acknowledge any amount of Lily in Harry (until, arguably, his dying moments).  Snape hates Harry because he looks exactly like the boy who tortured him for 7 years, and because he perceives Harry to be an arrogant rulebreaker, in the same way that James was.  

So no, I don’t think Snape was pleased that James and Lily ended up together, but not particularly because he was jealous.  Instead, it was the idea that he lost his best friend to his school bully – and that his own actions helped to push her that way. 

And that reads a whole lot more neatly to me than Snape coveting a relationship with Lily. 

Of course, you don’t need to read Snape through a queer lens to draw these conclusions; he could well have been heterosexual and either had a crush on Lily whilst they were friends but grew out of it, or he could’ve been heterosexual and not interested in Lily at all.  But if you read Snape as a celibate heterosexual, you do end up drawn down the Nice Guy path. 

Instead, Snape’s ‘pure of heart’ patronus rather suggests that he was genuine in his feelings, which points to him regretting the death of his childhood friend, rather than him feeling as if he friendzoned and missed out on a relationship that was somehow owed to him – and a queer lens rather helps to clarify that stance.  

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Short King

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strega character design analyses ❤️💛💚

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SK8 NEWS?????? WE FINALLY GOT A RELEASE DATE!!!

SK8 COMMUNITY WAKE UP NOT A DRILL

Everyone Dreams of Going to Hogwarts

Every fan of Harry Potter has indulged in the fantasy of waiting for an Owl to deliver the fateful letter that will declare your future as a witch or wizard at Hogwarts School of witchcraft and wizardry. Every one of us old or young had dreamed of riding the train at Kings Cross Station, taking the boats across the black lake and seeing the castle for the first time, of having dinner in the great hall, of finally figuring out where you belong in the world and it just feeling right. They fantasize about seeing their common room for the first time finally feeling that warm sense of belonging and meeting the friends that you will keep for the rest of your life. Every single one of us had fantasized about meeting our professors, exploring the grounds and discovering our latent potential. It’s a comfort for many of us and happy place to go in our minds to escape reality.

For the witches and wizards of the Wizarding World that childhood fantasy is their reality. They too wait with bated breath for their letters. They too fantasize about finally feeling that “at home” feeling, the feeling that you finally belong to something bigger and more wonderful than their wildest dreams. The chance to prove themselves. The chance to start over for many, the chance to leave their sometimes abusive homes for a place that finally actually feels like home to them. Harry was one of those people. Dumbledore was one of those people. Hermione, Ron and even Neville all find this sense of belonging sooner or later. They all find their forever home at Hogwarts the way we all dream.

Now imagine being Seveurs Snape.

You live in a house with a father that doesn’t understand you and screams and yells at you and your mother on a daily basis and you feel so alone in the world. You have one peer who appreciates in you the magic that allows you to rise above the squaller and cruelty in which you live. You have one friend who sees you for who you are and appreciates that about you truly, while being forced to inhabit a world that not only doesn’t understand you but is actually often openly hostile to you. Hogwarts, you beleive, will be your escape from this hell, and best of all you get to take this wonderful friend with you. You are being whisked away to a fairy tale castle where dreams come true and you will finally feel safe and finally feel a real sense of home. You stay up all night all week waiting by the door in the early morning for the letter that is finally going to change your life. You pour over it with your best friend, going over every aspect of this incredible opportunity in your mind over and over. You’re planning how you’ll make the most of it. You finally let yourself look forward to something, to open your heart to something, to dream of something. Your greatest hearts desire to this moment is finally coming true.

Then you get on the train.

And the hell begins before the first day has ever even started. Your friend is angry at you for something entirely out of your control, and even though you make up destiny has deigned that on this day you will meet the person that will destroy any hope you ever entertained of Hogwarts being a home at all. His name is James Potter. His partners in the crimes which will forever change your life are Remus Lupin, Peter Pettigrew, and Sirius Black. From the moment you meet you are ridiculed by them, physically abused by them, and the worst part is from this day forward it is never going to end.

Your best friend is put not just in a different house but in the house that hates your house the most, and from this day forward you will forever have a strain on the only true friendship you’ve ever had. From this day forward you will have to meet them either in secret or at least in private to avoid angering both your houses at best and facing ridicule at worst. The moments you stole with this friend in the muggle hell will ironically be the only moments of peace you’ll truly have with them. Not only that, but they are sorted into the same house that 4 of your worst tormentors reside in.

But it’s even worse. Because although at home you can escape form your father and potential school bullies by hiding yourself away in some nook or cranny, making yourself scarce, staying out late at night in the woods or just being as quiet as possible; you will never be able to escape the torment that now awaits every day. You have classes with them, you run into them, you see them trying to take away the only friend you have every day. And it doesn’t even end there, now they have a tracking device that you don’t know about, but somehow they manage to find you no matter where you hide. No matter where you go they are somehow always there. No matter who you talk to, they all act like you’re crazy. Because none of the other professors or students know about the marauders map they find you strange for jumping at every blow of the wind. Because they don’t know about the map they don’t believe you at all when you try to explain that somehow James Potter and his gang seem to pop up conveniently every single place you go to hide and they even blame you for trying to figure out how to protect yourself. They tell you you’re bringing it on yourself for being too weird or too jumpy or too nosy. Even your best friend in the world is starting to doubt you. You feel like you’re going insane.

So you try to have your tormentors expelled. You try so hard to figure out something, anything that will end the days on end of suffering and abuse. But you’re the weird kid. You’re the ugly kid. You’re the emo goth kid. Nobody gives a shit about you and you know it. You know you’re on your own. You’re a half blood, so the the people in your house who were supposed to have your back ignore you at best and tease you about it at worst for letting Gryffindor students get the best of you. Any hope you had of Hogwarts being your home has been destroyed.

So you try to follow James and The Gang around. Yes everyone sees you as creepy for this, becusse you don’t have a map that magically tells you where they will be at all times. You have to go about it the old fashioned way. You hide behind bushes, you peak around corners. Yes everyone finds you creepy now on top of everything else, but it’ll be worth it if you can finally enjoy what was promised to you at age 11, a home. You’ll finally be able to breathe.

But no. Instead what happens is your tormentors figure out that you know that they are putting the lives of students in danger by wandering the grounds with a werewolf against the wishes of the headmaster. You know that if you can just prove it that the torment will be over, but what you don’t know is that they are one step ahead of you, and for the unimaginable crime of trying to thwart them; they are going to plan to inflict a dangerous illness of lycanthropy on you at best, maul you to death at worst. You are close to both your proof and your death when one of them gets cold feet at the last minute and decides he doesn’t in fact want to go to prison.

You think “maybe it’s finally over now”, “maybe everyone will see now that they are cruel, that this is what they’re really like”, “maybe I’ll finally get a moment of peace, maybe Dumbledore and Lily will finally beleive me”. But no. Of course not. Because remember, you’re the weird emo Slytherin kid and your life is secondary. It always has been. Dumbledore swears you to secrecy to protect one of your tormentors, so you get no justice for the attempt on your life. Because Dumbledore had forbidden you to speak about your traumatic experience of almost being murdered, your best friend doesn’t beleive you at all and instead blames you for sneaking around. They don’t even give you the chance to defend or explain yourself. Instead you’re made out to be the creepy bad guy who wants to destroy the Potter Gang out of jealously.

Worst of all you secretly suspect that your best friend has a thing for the person who makes your life a living hell every single day. You see the stolen glances and the way they look at each other, the way she is never totally on your side. You tell yourself that this is all in your head, that Lily would never betray you that way. That all the hours you spent dreaming of Hogwarts together will mean more than a crush. But oh, sadly you are very wrong there too.

Not even a few months after attempting to take your life your abusers are back at again. Remorseless as ever they hunt you down like dogs and follow your every footstep. You haven’t a moment of peace even to do your normal school work. The only place you are safe is your common room, and even then you can’t let your guard down.

Then one day it happens.

The little pieces of happiness that you’ve managed to tuck away from yourself are cruelly ripped away. They manage to find you again. The torment us as usual. They all gang up on you, each taking a go for their own amusement. They fling you on your back, force you to vomit, force you to listen to their emotional abuse while they make a go at hitting on your best friend, and the torment does not end there. Now they are picking you up off the ground and taking off your clothes. Now on top of every other humiliation they have amused themselves by sexually humiliating you in front of everyone in your class including your closest ally. Every part of you is on fire inside and out and the depth of horror and hurt inside you is so big you don’t know what to do with the feeling. Then your friend finally steps in. But now you’re so hurt and angry that it’s bursting out of you in the worst possible ways.

Now the worst thing finally happens.

You call your best friend a slur; something you know will hurt them more than any other thing, because you’re destroyed, because you’re angry at them for letting it get this far, because you’re humiliated and because you’re tired of not being held in a higher regard than the person who has ruined your life; because you’re sick of their moralizing and their pitty.

Now you’ve lost the only person you’ve ever really felt close to. Now you’ve lost any human sympathy forever.

And it’s not over yet. Now you’re upside down again. And this time they aren’t content with exposing the rest of your body for the world to see. Now they are out for blood, and the revenge they have settled on is Sexual Assault. They remove your underwear to expose your most private parts to the world and there is nothing you can do about it. Nowhere you can go. No one who cares. No one who will come to your rescue.

Snape must have felt so hopeless it’s a wonder he didn’t try to end his life. People have done so over much less.

Hogwarts was never truly a home for Severus Snape. Even in adulthood he works in the place that was the site of innumerable traumas and heartaches. Everyday he faces trigger after trigger of the worst day of his life, while protecting the progeny of the only person he ever felt close to and the person who cruelly ripped away any chance he had at normal life. This is why I feel for Severus Snape so much in every scene. He is confronted every day with the worst memories a person can endure yet he chooses to be brave anyway. He chooses to do the right thing anyway. He puts other people’s well-being first anyway. He chooses the side of the light beyond all that had conspired to make a sociopath out of him. He holds a place in his heart for love and he protects that love with his entire being. Platonic love is just as powerful as romantic love and Severus Snape is the perfect example of this. A person even in the worst circumstances can still make the most difference in the world, can still choose to be their own person and make their own choices. Even when the world is wholly against him, Severus Snape is the pinnacle of integrity.

This is why he’s my favorite character. He’s the bravest character in the narrative, but he’s also the character with the most integrity.

Some post- nov 4th mention of Shuji. This is the only mention of him by the npcs

Does anyone else find it ironic how the fandom clings to the idea that Snape is the biggest reason Sirius left Grimmauld Place in Order of the Phoenix...despite the Half Blood Prince stating that"Harry clung to this notion because it enabled him to hate Snape which felt satisfying..."

This feels satisfying to Harry because Harry believes that Snape doesn't care that Sirius is dead, but it isn't until 'The Prince's Tale' in The Deathly Hallows that we realise that this isn't true either.

One of the basic things you have to understand about Snape is that his hatred or dislike of people does not stop him from saving or trying to save people. This all starts from the turning point on the hill all those years ago, when Dumbledore humbles Snape into turning his selfishness into selflessness.

Snape asks for James and Harry's life too. And when Dumbledore tells Snape Harry must die, and states "how many people have you watched die?" Snape responds "lately only those I could not save."

Sirius is one of those people.