#but i had a LOT of horrible teachers

[maxdibert]

Womp womp womp first of all im not damning snape because im a marauders fan im damning severus snape because he was neville’s greatest fear.

Neville’s greatest fear was Snape because he was a strict, intimidating teacher—not because Snape was out there committing war crimes. Are we pretending boggarts are objective measures of morality now? By your logic, McGonagall, who was Hermione's boggart and frequently reprimanded and also scared Neville should be equally condemned. But I guess she gets a pass because she’s “cool.” Neville was terrified of failing—Snape symbolized that, but it wasn’t personal. You’re projecting way too much malice here.

He wasn’t just being mean to Neville because of his incompetence. There was clear joy and glee that was expressed in the books and the movies, and even if there wasn’t, emotionally torturing a child to the point of breakdowns purely because they’re bad at a subject is not okay??

Show me one canon passage where Snape “gleefully” torments Neville. One. You’re mistaking harshness for sadistic joy because it fits your narrative. Snape was strict, biased, and unfair, but delighting in suffering? That’s a fanfiction headcanon, not canon. He bullied Neville because of his incompetence, yes, and because Snape’s survival depended on competence in a literal war against Voldemort. He couldn’t afford to coddle students—not that it excuses his behavior, but let’s stick to facts, not exaggerated interpretations.

Also your little explanation about james potter and ‘trauma’ makes absolutely no damn sense. It still doesn’t excuse the fact that he was deliberately targeting harry for something that wasn’t his fault.

You missed the point entirely. No one is excusing Snape’s treatment of Harry. It’s called explaining it. Snape knows Harry isn’t at fault—that’s what makes his behavior tragic and compelling. He’s aware of how irrational it is, which deepens his character rather than reducing him to a cartoon villain. That’s the whole point of morally gray writing—you’re supposed to wrestle with these contradictions.

His special treatment was a result of something traumatic that happened to him as a baby and destroyed his childhood. It’s not like he got it by doing something terrible.

Snape didn’t hate Harry for being famous—he hated him because he was James Potter’s living reminder, a painful mix of James’ face and Lily’s eyes. He’s not “jealous” of Harry’s privilege; he’s bitter about Harry embodying the person he loved and the person who destroyed his life. It’s irrational, unfair, and deeply human. This isn’t a cartoon where every action needs to be justifiable—Snape is complex because he acts on emotions he knows are wrong but can’t suppress.

And I never said he fit into a ‘hero/villain’ box and I don’t want him to! Compelling characters are interesting but that doesn’t mean I worship him!

Great, we agree! Snape isn’t meant to be worshipped—he’s meant to be understood. But your original argument framed him as irredeemable because of his flaws, which is reductive. Recognizing Snape’s complexities doesn’t mean excusing his faults—it means acknowledging that his heroism and cruelty coexist. You seem to be struggling with that nuance.

I literally acknowledged that he helped out the Order, but I also pointed out that just because he has some good in him doesn’t mean I’m legally required to love him and excuse every wrong he’s ever done.

No one said you have to love him. You’re allowed to dislike Snape. What you can’t do is pretend that your dislike makes his actions irrelevant or his arc shallow. You can hate him all you want, but dismissing his redemption because of his flaws shows a lack of literary understanding.

You can disagree with my take but it is not reductive to say I dislike a character because he bullies children.

It is reductive because Snape isn’t just “the guy who bullies kids.” He’s a deeply flawed, morally complex character whose entire arc revolves around guilt, redemption, and sacrifice. Reducing him to “mean teacher bad” is exactly the shallow take I’m calling out.

It’s explicitly correct and canon that he bullies children and it’s perfectly valid for me to not care about the reason why.

Sure, it’s valid if you’re discussing personal taste. But if you’re going to argue literary merit, context always matters. Otherwise, you’re just shouting “he’s bad!” without engaging with why he’s written that way. Fiction isn’t about liking characters—it’s about understanding them.

Snape defenders when somebody dislikes a fictional character for valid reasons: 👹👹👹

Valid reasons would require acknowledging the character’s full complexity, not reducing him to a caricature. You’re the one ignoring context while expecting no pushback—if you can’t handle debate, don’t start one.

I’m not even saying you CANT like him. Where did I say that other people can’t like him?

This part’s fair—you didn’t. But you also framed your argument like anyone who finds Snape compelling is a deluded fanboy/girl. If you’re going to criticize a character, be prepared for counterarguments without crying foul when people engage with your points.

I just KNOW ur unemployed or stinky or both.

Oh, sweetie. Resorting to playground-level insults only makes it clearer that you ran out of actual arguments. Next time, try debating the points instead of throwing out tired, irrelevant jabs. Better luck next time.

Saw your post about Regulus, what are your thoughts on Snape? /gen

soooo i know this is gonna get people doxxing me and finding my ip address but i DO NOT like snape.

there is absolutely no excuse to bully children. whenever i think of poor neville i just can’t like snape. i don’t give a FUCK that he was bullied as a child. i was bullied heavily as a child and you don’t see me emotionally torturing children for fun. the fact that he explicitly targets harry because of what his DEAD DAD did MULTIPLE YEARS AGO is absolutely insane. the fact that james is dead and died before harry even knew him and yet snape resents him? that’s absolutely insane behavior.

and don’t even get me started on how he treats hermione! girlie is just trying to get good grades and he treats her like she’s some roach! i wouldn’t be surprised if it was partly because of her blood status, considering that he’s called lily (one of his closest friends) a mudblood.

did he help things with the war and to an extent keep harry safe at times? yes. but do i LIKE him? hell to the no.

i feel like snape defenders just want a dark brooding “i can fix him” archetype of a character or a sad wet meow meow boy who’s meek and bullied, which i guess is whatever but it makes me so angry when people are like “you can’t like the marauders, they were bullies!” based on one or two flashback incidents FROM SNAPES PERSPECTIVE (could be twisted or misunderstood), when snape was a million times worse of a bully because he was a full grown adult objectively targeting eleven through sixteen year olds for his own pleasure. like…numerous witnesses, no way to deny that that’s what he’s doing.

[spaghett-onaplate]

depression is really weird actually wdym i spent 2.5 years of my life in bed

[butterflies-and-bumble-bees]

.

[lunathewafflelord]

Sometimes it seems like the anti fandoms are more toxic than the actual fandom that the anti fandom people hate on, it's actually really sad.

MLP fans will know what I'm talking about

[cliffburton]

i think i would feel like this was a great year if it hadn't had a loss at the end. tbh.

[itissadbutitsmy-artblog]

i think brain wizard just likes to hear him talk. it's not like hes gonna be talking much after they do what they want to do to him :) half spaders teachers want to turn him into a god i think hes gonna pick up on it cuz i dont think they can act normal around him

[shewantsitall]

There’s something rlly rlly special about being a teacher with adhd and rlly understanding the struggles of your students with adhd and being able to work with them instead of against them and accommodate their needs without a ton of strife. And then having conferences with their parents where you brag on their child and hype them up for all the amazing things they do? When they’ve never gotten that before? The best.

These kids aren’t problems. They’re literally precious babies. I too was distracted and talkative and look at me now. I’m distracted and talkative at schools every day except they pay me for it.

[momentomori24]

Calling out that renaming the already iconic app you bought to something that sounds like an already existing porn site as another example of why the name "X" is very stupid from a business standpoint (cuz it would be more likely to put off advertisers) in a classroom full of other teenagers was probably not my brightest idea this week.

[itsalwaysdark]

like a teacher liferally claimed lampstie. you know them. at age 9. like 4th grade. shoved the teacher to the ground in the busline and stomped on their head repeatedly while laughing. 1. no witnesses. in the bus line at pickup time. 2. the teacher was uninjured 3. they were 9 years old ? and not s super villain?

[umilily]

the poll on hated subjects in school made me remember the single most unhinged class i ever had, which was my last politics lesson in 10th grade. everyone (first and foremost our teacher) was screaming and insulting each other. people were crying and some just deadass left out of protest in the middle of it. it was absolutely surreal.

[wonder-falcon]

the male drews are so tiktok thirst trap icky stop this madness….

not the girls tho y’all stay safe out there ✊🥰

[deathsmallcaps]

Replying to tags but then I ran out of room and I think i was if not cooking then at least microwaving

#dude when I was in 6th grade I read #the veldt #and at the time it disgusted and genuinely scared me because I was #just so surprised that people - children! - could be raised to be so heartless #idk if I read it for the first time as a 23 year old it would scare me so much #but goddamn

#I think we're both people who are *at least* good at literacy but we're both a little too STEMmy #to look at it the way some English teachers want us to? #like they want people to go from 'damn that's fucked up → what themes are the authors trying to explore here → what about the world #made them think of that and perhaps what are they trying to get us to consider and think about and perhaps change' #obviously not all writing is a fable with a moral at the end #but a lot of good writing has some sort of central belief that it wants the reader to consider

#(I struggle in creating that with my fiction ugh and I think a lot of booktok books do too and it bugs me that we have that connection)

#but anyway #I think you and I'd first reactions are like #’that's horrible → how can we prevent that specific problem from occurring again' #like take the lottery. my (and maybe your?) first reaction is like 'that's horrible → they should ban the lottery' #but the English teacher is going to want us to think 'oh gee okay so this is a commentary on traditions. why would this tradition be started #/necessary? does the lottery reflect the overall morals and sensibilities of the overall society (aka fond of the death penalty etc). #what sort of tradition might this mirror today? connecting to historical events and the fact that the person stoned and the author were #women. aka the gender commonly stoned for witchcraft in New England #do you think that's related?' etc etc etc wrapped in metaphors and shit. and tbh that's how I learned a lot of my religious and political #philosophy as well as history. I really like Thomas swift's 'a modest proposal' (satire) for that reason.

but that was NOT my initial #thought process for English class. I had to be heavily trained into thinking that way and often my first instinct is to not engage with the #metaphor an just go straight to the logic/sensible answer. blah blah blah. I really respect lit and history teachers as a profession but boy #do I not want to teach it because I would be so slack on writing the kinds of questions that would get the kids to engage with the meta. #once I got a piece I got it but it was a struggle every damn time. because I had to get over my feelings of well why didn't they just not #do that'

the biggest one I can think of is 'song of Solomon' by Toni Morrison. I think my senior AP English teacher wanted us to really #consider authors and characters of color (he was white but it was 2018-2019 aka Trump era) so he taught us othello and TM. othello is a #little easier to understand because iago is just being a little bitch about a Black foreigner getting a promotion and a hot wife and no longer being able to convince himself that he was better than Othello

But TM’s main character Milkman? Unlikeable, spoiled little shit who doesn’t give a damn that he’s the 1 percent of his marginalized community and he’s frittering his privileges away so hard that it literally induces suicidal and murderous tendencies into the people around him. Among other things.

It took me foreverrrrrr to engage with the text beyond GOD I HATE THIS GUY but once I was able to examine his psychology and the mean flip side of ‘if you want to fly, you have to get rid of earthly attachments’, which he does at the end of the story.

Was it a chore? Absolutely. But have I ever forgotten the story or the literary tools it gave me? No.

Maybe I’m just speaking for myself in this longass response - you and I usually talk animals and men not books 😅 - but yeah every English class is full of these annoying stories that are meant to rattle one’s brain and I REALLY avoid rattling lmao. Tbqh again I respect lot classes but I’m glad they’re over lmao

But anyways I listened to Levar Burton’s podcast ‘Levar Burton Reads’ from start to finish, and he once read (as a three parter) Toni Morrison’s Recitatif. It’s the story of two girls, one Black one white, who grew up around and with and against each other during the mid 1900s.

I didn’t know what the story was getting at, aside from the surface ideas of the American Civil Rights Movement and privilege and stuff. But LB usually asked questions or briefly mentioned the author’s main idea at the end. And when he did? HOLY FUCK.

If you ever decide to listen to it (I’ve never gotten my hands to a print copy so idk if they usually have some sort of author’s note at the end to ask the reader this question)(I love LB’s voice he’s a pleasure to listen to if you listen to Recitatif) please @ me and tell me if it also blew your mind and made you consider how you viewed the POV character of the story.

Because it blew my mind and made me really consider why I assumed things about the pov character. Im not going to say anything further because I feel like I’m spoiling the point but yeah.

Anyways again this could be just me but I’ve always had trouble moving on from the straight solution mindset. When I was 12 I was in a model UN and I was told to write a report about Togo and its healthcare issues. I took this to mean that I had to research the common issues there (such as unclean water and mosquito bite diseases) and then come up with solutions.

It was incredibly embarrassing to do all that and then hear every other group explain their countries healthcare issues and WHY (historically, monetarily, etc) their countries struggled with such things. And my ass went up there and talked about affordable mosquito deterrent changes to water sources and cheap water cleaning services.

I didn’t realize it then but like. It perfectly exemplified my lack of instinct to subtextually interact with instructions and prompts.

And the thing is. May the universe bless and boost the fucking lit teachers out there because my poor students are entering math class with lit skills 6 grades under where they should be and are genuinely unable to interact with straightforward STEM instructions. My college had every ed major take a ‘teaching literacy’ class and sure I passed but the thing is. I’m not really the person that’s supposed to catch these kids on that subject. I’m supposed to be a secondary math teacher. So a lot of the advice in that class simply wasn’t applicable and I wish it was!!! I’d be happy to help in that subject but also I WAS TRAINED TO BE A MATH TEACHER. AND MOST LITERACY AND LANGUAGE DIFFICULTY COURSES ARE NOT DESIGNED WITH STEM IN MIND. (Which is why I want to learn enough Spanish that I can teach kids learning English math as well because that’s an area that doesn’t get a lot of crossover and a lot of kids fall through).

Well this turned into a ramble goodnight lmao. I’d say this was a decently microwaved thought track lol

[victorckk]

a lot of you were never forced by your older sisters to watch movies where neurodivergent coded kids act up and being told how they make everything worse so you could ‘see yourself in them’ as a form of punishment for being a normal child that was probably undiagnosed with a LOT of stuff in a family with a bunch of inherited mental issues and it shows

[metanarrates]

it's actually really weird to me that a lot of adults don't seem to remember the worst bits of being a child. were you not horribly aware of when adults were talking down to you as a child? don't you remember how little autonomy you were allowed, even when it came to things that seemed pretty harmless? don't you remember the times when adults would seemingly be assholes to you for no reason? even if you had nice and reasonable parents, didn't you ever have teachers or other adults in power who treated you disrespectfully? didn't it sting no matter how people justified it?

especially when I was a teenager, it seemed obvious to me & to most of my peers when an adult wasn't treating us with respect. you could almost smell it, in certain classrooms. there would be this palpable, shifting undercurrent of teenage dissatisfaction whenever some teachers started talking. and it made a lot of the kids act out! which of course made the teachers try to exert their power, which never worked because nobody respected them, which made them get more draconian, etc.

as a teen, I didn't really get why my peers and I seemingly had a superhuman sense for when an adult was on a power trip. but now I think I get it. kids are systematically denied autonomy, respect, and consistently have the validity of their experiences denied. like, flat-out. they're a vulnerable class of people made even more vulnerable by their lack of societal rights. being disrespected as a kid is so frequent that I would say it's a defining experience for most children. is it any wonder they tend to pick up on when an adult doesn't see them as worth listening to?

so yeah, of course a ton of kids want to be treated "like an adult." to them, that's synonymous with being treated like a human being worth listening to. it's up to you, as an adult, to understand that wish for what it is, and behave accordingly. you don't gotta be a child psychologist. you don't gotta be perfect at it. all you have to do is remember how painful adult disrespect could be when you were a kid & do your best to act with some compassion.

[sunderwight]

SV fic where Luo Bingge discovers that Shen Jiu had a long-lost half-brother or something, and subsequently decides that he's going to infiltrate the minor sect which this "Shen Yuan" belongs to in order to get close to him and then indulge in revenge fantasy 2.0 when it inevitably turns out that Shen Yuan is like Shen Jiu (i.e. a horrible abusive scum teacher).

So Bingge uses some magical object or technique or other, makes himself look like a scrawny 12-14 year old, then puts himself in Shen Yuan's path in hopes of convincing the man to take him on as a disciple. The idea being that after Shen Yuan abuses him, Bingge will be justified in reenacting his Shen Qingqiu Revenge Arc again and maybe finally feeling some closure about the whole thing.

Yes, this is a very deranged plan. No, no one is going to tell the emperor of the three realms that. Bingge also wants it to be clear that this has nothing whatsoever to do with his recent escapade in an alternate universe, except that he was inspired to find Shen Jiu's relative as a consequence of that. But he's absolutely sure that this guy is going to turn out just as rotten as his brother, given the opportunity. That is definitely the only reason he is doing this!

Flash forward about four years. Bingge's retainers are begging on their knees for him to actually come back and do some administrative work. The harem is running itself at this point and they're all very terrified of the situation with Liu Mingyan and Sha Hualing (i.e. ruling with lesbian iron fists) and whatever the heck Ning Yingying is up to (no one is certain but it's something). The outer provinces are rebelling. Mobei Jun's somehow found another weird human surnamed Shang to cavort with, except this one is basically running admin for the entire northern kingdom now and no one's even sure if they're fucking or if it's some kind of mind control situation or what.

Bingge is annoyed. He doesn't have a good explanation for why a bunch of demon lords would be showing up on the doorstep of Tiny Cultivation Sect to beg him for anything. They're going to spoil his cover! And they're interrupting his schedule! It's already four o'clock and he hasn't started on Shizun's dinner yet! Shoo! Get lost!

Anyway, eventually some of his demon followers get desperate and dramatically kidnap him. Shen Yuan is horrified and grieved when it seems that his precious disciple, so like white lotus Luo Binghe from the novel, has been captured by demons. He tries to track the assailants down, but they've covered their tracks too well. In the end, there's only one path left to him to pursue: taking this matter to the protagonist!

Yes, the protagonist! Because the thing is, Shen Yuan noticed the similarities between his disciple and the book character he so admired. Not only that, but he did manage to glimpse Bingge one time from afar. It wasn't anywhere near to a real interaction, but it was enough for him to notice the strong resemblance between the protagonist and the mistreated little lamb who showed up at his doorstep. A resemblance for which there can only be one explanation:

Shen Yuan's disciple is one of Binghe's kids!

Yes, he had it figured out since fairly early on. Not only was there a resemblance, and not only were their dispositions quite similar, but also the boy showed a lot of signs of some demonic heritage. Shen Yuan was just working up to broaching the subject, partly because he had been trying to avoid any direct or even indirect interactions with the emperor, and partly because he... became somewhat reluctant to part ways with his student. Sue him! He got attached! And anyway, he knew how missing child plots usually went. There was probably someone in the harem who was out for his disciple's blood, and it wouldn't be safe to send him back into that mess until he was strong enough to look after himself.

But as is inevitable, the plot seems to have reclaimed Shen Yuan's student all on its own.

He just... needs to make sure that it isn't a tragic outcome. It seems it falls on him to make the emperor aware of his son's survival, and subsequent peril, and help launch a rescue!

Which also means approaching Luo Binghe in person, which he knows is very risky indeed, due to his connection to the infamous Shen Qingqiu! He'd been avoiding the protagonist at all costs for that exact reason.

But if it's his only hope of rescuing his disciple, he will simply have to take the risk, and hope that enough time has passed that Luo Binghe doesn't read too much into a shared surname and a passing resemblance. Or that restoring the emperor's long-lost son to him will be worth seem lenience for the crime of being connected to Shen Qingqiu. Maybe if he's lucky, he will even be allowed to continue visiting his disciple! (Ha, yeah right! More likely, Luo Binghe's going to take his head for hiding his own kid from him for so long!)

Anyway, cue Luo Bingge running around swapping between his Emperor and Disciple forms, dramatically trying to orchestrate a situation where he can fake the emperor's death and go back to the sect with Shizun as his disciple, or something, only for it all to blow up in his face because Shen Yuan keeps flinging himself between Bingge and potentially fatal threats that could plausibly kill him???

[medicinemane]

I said I don't have great spelling, so I thought I'd share what one of the paragraphs in that last post looked like before I fixed it. Normally I fix word by word (sometimes I can even catch what I did wrong and fix it myself), but this time I just kind of kept going

So here's what I mean about me being bad at spelling (maybe I'll put a star next to the misspelled words so you don't have to hunt for them):

"I'm just not sure if those are statistical outliers and shouldn't be counted or not... then again maybe the same is true on twitter, but unlike twitter the algorithem* doesn't shove them down my thoat* (it just might places the in a recommened* blog thing that I 99% of the time am so used to ignoring I almost pysically* don't see, but leave around for the occational* nice art)"