#on a serious level I don't even really like the emphasis the fandom puts of gender roles even in the case of loustat

[corvidclub]

fandom debating the gender roles of loumand of like 'housewife picking lint' Armand vs 'hysterical wife' Louis is so dull honestly like why can't they both be wives? why can't a woman recently freed from an abusive hetrosexual marriage in the midst of her feminist artistic awakening enter into a decades-long toxic lesbian relationship complete with bed death and inability for her to recognize the abusive nature of her wife due to the perceived equality of their relationship? did any of y'all consider that??

[laurelnose]

Forgive my desperate urgency but you are The Person whose opinion I must have on this topic-- I don't know very much about D&D and especially not about dragonborn, I am only in the BG3 fandom for Vibes, but this came up as of course it did because I'm me--

DO DRAGONBORN HAVE GIZZARDS

please we must discuss this

A VERY IMPORTANT QUESTION DESERVING OF SERIOUS CONTEMPLATION

So dragonborn are descended directly from chromatic/metallic/gem dragons in some way (the exact way is a point of theological contention). The difference between those three dragon types is, to the best of my limited knowledge, not germane to the discussion. I will consider dragons as a single category.

Dragons are definitely not reptiles. They are warm-blooded and they act like cats. I do not actually think the cat thing is relevant to them being reptiles or not, Forgotten Realms wiki, but thank you anyways. So they are not like crocodiles, but are they like birds? Probably not. Although they did evolve from proto-dragon species which were among the few survivors of the cataclysm that killed the dinosaurs. Much like birds! (Or maybe they were created by the gods. Whatever. I’m not getting into a Faerûnian creationism debate. Anyways, in this context only, por qué no los dos.)

Dragons are preferentially carnivorous, but functionally omnivorous, with an emphasis on the omni. They can eat and digest just about anything, including inorganic materials. This ability is because of their “innate elemental nature”, which kind of makes me think dragons don’t really have digestive systems as we know them. They’re more like great primordial engines. I think this precludes gizzards in the dragons themselves — how would they get stones in their gizzards if their digestive system can break down stone? What would they even use them for? So if dragonborn have gizzards, they did not get them from the dragons.

Dragonborn do not seem to usually be capable of regularly digesting rocks, so if they swallow inorganic matter it should stay where it’s put. Baby dragonborn are born toothless and are fed by a lactating parent (dragonborn → monotremes??) until they grow teeth, and then are graduated through soft foods up to regular food (consisting of much more meat than your average humanoid). They are capable of digesting non-meat foods, but it doesn’t look like they have the dentition to chew non-meat foods. Which is why birds of just about all diets have gizzards — they don’t got no teeth! I’m going to go with either dragonborn have trouble eating vegetarian meals, as they have no grinding molars, or they do have gizzards. Courtesy of whatever primeval force or deity created them, maybe.

I also considered whether, if dragonborn are normally gizzardless, the Dark Urge specifically might have been created with special dietary capabilities, but you don’t need a gizzard for, say, osteophagy. (Notably, the only primarily osteophagous bird, the bearded vulture, has lost its gizzard.) And I feel like the other things animals use gizzards to digest are not quite On Theme, as it were. However, they might possibly, like bearded vultures, have a hardened, partially keratinized digestive lining for dramatic osteophagy (involving sharp broken-off pieces of bones).

On a different hand, dragonborn manifest draconic abilities at different levels, ranging from different or multiple breath weapons, dragonfear, or abilities from Bahamut or Tiamat. I wonder if some dragonborn, maybe those with particularly strong breath weapons (since the breath weapons are formed from elemental energy produced by dragons’ unique diets), might also manifest the ability to Just Eat Fucking Rocks. Not a glamorous ability! But very fun I think! Possibly more fun for dragonborn which do not natively have gizzards, as having a sort of elemental furnace in their belly instead of a stomach would then enable them to more comfortably eat food like salads.

On another totally different hand, polymorphed dragons (or not polymorphed, if you’re not a coward) are supposed to be able to hybridize with most of the humanoids, producing children that may take after either or both parents, and aarakocra and kenku are Right There. I mean, not in BG3, but, y’know. Half-dragons and dragonborn are different, but still interesting.

Also, dragons in the Forgotten Realms taste like turkey. I don’t know what you can do with this information but I feel like you would enjoy knowing it

[softer-ua]

in regards to what you pointed out a few posts ago, ngl one of my least favorite fandom things is when they make Kaminari the Har Har Stupid Joking ADHD Bi Playboy Who Is Never Serious Trope. like, he's very smart, 'worst in ___ area of a UA course' is very impressive and I don't remember if it even said that or just that he was studying with some other students, worried about his grades overall, calls himself stupid with implied insecurities about it, and didn't think he was very smart compared to the other people in the course. quirk overuse makes him loopy, incoherent, and think everything's funny. and yeah, he's a bit of a flirt and made a few perverted comments and actions that he clearly didn't think through that well. I'm pretty sure he's not ever stated to be bi in the manga because it was written by a coward, so I think people should think more about why they're associating and pairing together the idea of "hot flirty playboy who if legally able would sleep with everyone he meets" with emphasis or joke in the captions of whatever the content is on him being bi. I don't think this is inherently bad, even put together, but the execution feels kind of :/ and shallow. and I mainly just wish they'd pause to consider if there's any reason (subconscious or intentional) why one of those makes them think about the other, and at the very least lean back to see if they're blatantly making those traits centric around each other and tweak how they're showing them a little. Part of this is also because it's basically his fanon sexuality, but then they stick together "oh he's bi and everyone thinks that" and "he's made flirty or perverted comments and actions in canon at some point" and then mentally exaggerate and have this Canon Image of him as *waves hand at above* and I don't think that's happening consciously in most cases but. again. Cookiecutter Bi Party Playboy Who's Made a Date Offer to Everyone In The Building. not a flirty Person or a Playboy who is bi and flirts with more than one genders

I myself headcanon him as adhd and while the exact sexuality depends on my mood I think of/have him as bi in a lot of my content, but it's the same thing with why non adhd people see how he acts and label "adhd!" Especially about comprehension speed and derpy acting and intelligence and attention span jokes/tropes. Again, not bad in and of itself, but the specific parts of his behavior that make them think he's adhd, or that they start making jokes about or Ha Ha ADHD'ing, or that they think is why we project ADHD on him, (which they aren't necessarily wrong about, but like right in a really disrespectful look at how funny this is oh look squirrel way that's only funny when adhd people are doing it and it isn't all mocking like that) when they see other people calling him adhd, are the wrong ones, I think, and it shows in their characterization of him.

I'm not saying that any of those traits are bad in a character, but as a queer adhd girl with very high annual test scores and Gifted Kid Intelligence but extremely poor grades, focus, and brain damage (admittedly nothing like his, it was a longterm passive thing that mainly just made me have a Lot of Really Bad headaches, and closest thing it did to me was make me sluggish and emotional on bad days and also techincally have the potential kill my language bit if left untreated or the surgery messed up, which it didn't, and it won't be a problem again. but even after explaining that it wasn't cancer or any sort of tumor, and after seeing it do very little at all to affect my behavior outside of irritability and performance, because y'know, constant migraines, gone after the surgery but this was before that, Certain People I Was Vaguely Kind Of Acquaintances With started to treat my like I was a fragile glass thing going to to drop dead and revive myself speaking like a comic relief cartoon crazy person at any moment which was. patronizing.) I've since had surgery for, the way the fandom combines them into stereotypes and portrays them really just rubs me the wrong way- "Flirty Bi(tm) Playboy" "Har Har ADHD Can't Focus Or Get Things After They're Explained To Him, He's Still Confused And An Idiot" "Stupid Person With Brain Damage Who Can't Take Care Of Or Think For Themself And Acts Stupid And Funny For People To Laugh At" which tbh is super ableist even and especially when people irl do fit that description, and also reminds me of the Autistic Person Freaking Out And Being Dramatic sense of humor. And I know it's not helped by canon, because it done for comic relief and to limit his powers, but explored more I think it as a limitation could have been used way more interestingly than canon did and also call me biased but that quirk induced brain frying sounds at least as concerning as Izuku's quirk's backlash.

And it's a shame!! Because he's so much more interesting than that! Instead, the fandom gives me the Cookicutter Funny Bi ADHD Flirt Who's An Idiot and I am sad about it.

tbh it reminds me of what happened to percy jackson, esp with the ADHD Idiot Trope thing. which sucks because apparently it originated in the author making up stories around characters like his adhd and dyslexic kid inspired by Greek myths to tell him after running out of actual myths because it was his special interest and he wanted more. and then the series got kind of all over the place and the fandom processed that the adhd and dyslexic main character who does dumb things sometimes but is very combat smart and great at strategizing and leading gets bad grades and has trouble focusing and has, y'know, adhd, and made him the ADHD Idiot and erased his Gifted Kid girl friend's traits and ADHD and dyslexia into No Nonsense Calls Him an Idiot And Thinks He's Stupid And Has To Tell Him What To Do And Manage His Life For Him and honestly that just kind of sucks and it reminds me of what happened to fandom Kaminari. and now that I think of it people have jirou like that around him a lot too.

im fine with you answering this publicly if you want or have something to add but probably tag as ableism and maybe a biphobia mention content warning for people who don't have the energy to deal with thinking about those kinds of negative things rn because I kind of Went Off About It

I love this! Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts and experiences 💚(and double thank you for tag suggestions)💚

I couldn’t agree more that a lot of fandom has messed up Kami’s character, which is why I’ve kinda been posting more about him cause he’s just stuck in my head.

I think a lot of fandoms have trouble with characters like this, people have a hard time with duality in characters and fast/fun posts are easier to make if you flatten a character down.

The did it to Kami, they did it to Percy, they did it to Ron Weasley, they do it to Thor, the list goes on. If being the Smart One ™️ isn’t your thing and you can be goofy than you get pigeonholed into the idiot trope.

I feel for Kami a lot(probably because I have adhd/brain damage too)

It sucks when you’re smart but it’s not the traditional, measurable kind of smart(even if by national comparison Kami technically is).

I got terrible grades growing up, and I pretty much got the absolute lowest gpa you can get and still graduate. But absolutely no one would have known if I didn’t tell them, because I’m not dumb.

(It’s okay if you are “dumb”, I love me a head empty just vibes friend. You’re 100% valid, stil worthy of joining discussions, and should be listened to and taken seriously. This just isn’t about that tho)

I joke sometimes that I’m clever and witty but not smart, because that’s exactly what it feels like.

I have lots of thoughts and ideas that I think I articulate pretty well, I am excellent at finding the humor in things and expressing it in a way that’s funny to others too, and there is almost zero problems I can’t find a work around. And the people in my life love it, and they love to use it.

But eventually everyone in my life finds out that I’m not smart. They see the way I have to pause to Google how to calculate a tip, that I don’t know the name of all 50 states or even where to find them on a map, or I legitimately just can not spell (if you ever see a post where it looks like I used a weird word choice it’s probably because I tried 4 times and autocorrect+Google couldn’t help me and voice to text wasn’t an option)

No one ever questions my intelligence until they find out about my adhd and/or catch me struggling with it. After the mask comes off it’s like they can’t even hear me anymore, nothing I say could be true or matter because I’m now just the goofy accident prone spacy girl. My family literally calls me Spacy

And ya know what sometimes I just let people think that because it’s easier, it’s easier than explaining that I’m dyslexic and that I didn’t have a single geography/history clas until 10th grade and shocker the capital of Iowa doesn’t come up much by then. And it’s easier for me to laugh off losing my keys again than dwell on the fact that sometimes it feels like I’m losing my marbles.

And I wouldn’t be at all surprised if after this post I get a lot more “fact checkers” and push back on anything else I post.(not talking about people who want to genuinely engage,y’all are always welcome, I’m talking those people who don’t wanna look it up themselves but no longer trust me to know what I’m talking about)

Kami is a sweet brilliant boy. He’s in a nationally high ranking school, he loves the weather channel, he’s careful about his quirk that could easily hurt his friends in combat, he has a very high emotional intelligence level, he wears dorky shirts with electricity puns on them, and he pays attention to his friends and remembers a lot of little things about them.

He wants to be a hero and he takes that seriously, and the series has tried time and time again to tell y’all that smiling and laughter are an important part of that. Kami excels at this part! So what if his history grades don’t rival the top of the class, the top 5 students would struggle hard to do what Kami does.

Iida can’t relax, Momos rather shy, Todo struggles with social cues, Midoriya is canonically not funny, and jfc where to even begin with Katsuki. I’m certain they’ll all grow up to be excellent heros in their own right, but none of them are going to bring the level of joy and camaraderie that Denki can. You can’t test that into someone.

Kami also just notices people differently and has any easy way of joining in with them, he doesn’t struggle approaching Katsuki or Shinso. Sure he doesn’t hit the the nail on the head the same way Deku does but he’s the only one who has the guts and skills to try. Also he’s not that kinda friend, he’s not looking to a save these guys but pal around with them

I think Kami 100% realizes what a special case and tough nut to crack Bakugo is, I don’t think he’s just careless or too dumb realize his life’s at stake or whatever.

I think he’s purposely testing Bakugos boundaries all while trying to not be a threat to Katsukis actual ego and calling Bakugo out when he needs it in a way that not to serious. Kami knows how to be just goofy enough that he’s approachable. He’s also keyed in that the way to Bakugo is through Deku, meanwhile everyone else is stuck believing the opposite.

Kami also realized how important music is to Jiro and saw an opportunity to let her display her skills and combin the two worlds she lives, and he wasn’t afraid to get some back lash from her for it.

Like Deku Kami isn’t afraid to be uncomfortable. You really can’t teach that level of social ease, you can teach the posture and feed people a couple of lines but it’ll never hit the same. Funny approachable people have spent a lifetime learning the craft, usually out of necessity.

It’s actually what gives me the biggest adhd vibes from him, because adhd is (speculated to be) a dopamine deficiency disorder. People with adhd are constantly trying to raise their dopamine levels, and that means looking for praise and reward and nothing makes the human brain light up faster than postative human connections.

Adhd children struggle a lot with connecting with peers and often find making people laugh a fast way into people’s circles and makes it more likely people will overlook being interrupted or spaced out on.

Also adhd people are pretty much forced by their own brain structures to be genuine in all they do, low dopamine levels make it very hard to do things you don’t enjoy because there no promise of dopamine from the activity and you don’t have enough to spare, plus impulsiveness makes it really hard to not show when you do or don’t enjoy something.

I agree that Kami is also painted as overly perverted at times, he’s a little flirty but in a fun casual way but it’s not the foundation of his personality and it’s really mellowed out over the course of the series.

And while I subscribe to the bi hc from his interactions with Jiro and Shinso, we should all be very mindful that we don’t lump these characteristics together. The are separate facets of his personality that are not dependent on each other in anyway.

Kami deserves all the respect and love, I can’t wait to see our electric king again 🖤⚡️🖤

[severus-snaps]

Not to be overly pedantic on a Wednesday morning (or, it was morning when I started), but I had fun writing this and it got long, so I can only apologise for that.

But Snape being Neville's Boggart and the Trevor Incident are massively overblown by the fandom, along with the rest of Snape's actions as a professor, and I've had a lot of fun writing about why.

Firstly, Boggarts don't naturally assume the form of your greatest fear (emphasis mine):

“It’s a shape-shifter,” [Hermione] said. “It can take the shape of whatever it thinks will frighten us most.”

“Couldn’t have put it better myself,” said Professor Lupin, and Hermione glowed.

There's room for the Boggart's own interpretation there. It's Lupin who says "when I let him out, he will immediately become whatever each of us most fears" - which feels more like dramatic effect than objective fact, especially when considering that Hermione almost certainly quoted the textbook and Lupin agreed with her definition - and certainly when we consider what comes next.

Because after that (probably because of the recent toad incident, which I'll come back to, and the even more recent encounter with Snape in the staffroom), Neville throws Snape's name into the ring, and...

Nearly everyone laughed. Even Neville grinned apologetically.

It's a silly, embarrassing fear, and even Neville knows it. What follows is a series of other mostly silly fears - it also includes an eyeball, a severed hand, a rat chasing its tail, a bandaged mummy, and a giant spider. Later, in their exam, Hermione's Boggart is McGonagall.

But both Ron and Hermione have faced worse already, what with Ginny being possessed by Voldemort and Hermione facing a Basilisk. There's a literal murderer on the loose, and it's headline news, but Sirius never becomes anyone's boggart in that class. Ron seems very cold-blooded to be more afraid of spiders than Voldemort posessing and nearly killing his sister - but really, the point of the chapter isn't to explore Ron's (or god forbid, Ginny's) feelings about this. The point of the chapter is that all of the other students have "silly", childish fears which aren't that serious, like monsters they'll likely never encounter, mostly harmless animals, and scary teachers (as someone who used to be deadly and daftly afraid of the idea of zombies and also scared of just about all of my teachers, I get it loool).

But only noble protagonist Harry gets to have "real" fears like fear/dementors/Voldemort, being the protagonist; the kind of fear a more mature character, with real life experience, might have. Unlike whoever conjured the disembodied hand or eye, the banshee and the mummy, he's faced Dementors; they're at the school right now, because a murderer is out to get him, loyal to Voldemort, who also would kill him. Harry's fear is framed as real, reasonable, and mature.

But Neville? Neville's fear of Snape is set at the same level as the eyeball and other monsters under the bed, outright mocked by the narrative, by Neville, and by the class. Yes, he might be afraid of Snape - but exactly like the monsters, Snape's not actually harmed him, and almost certainly never will (unless we want to discuss the likelihood that each of the students have encountered and been traumatised by presumably dark creatures like banshees and mummies, or... a particularly dangerous eyeball. They've not even met Moody yet :P)

It's not a fear like Molly has in the later books of her family dying, nor is it a fear like Voldemort or a Dementor - it's a simple, childish fear that is easy to turn around. Neville, who so often struggles in class, has no trouble at all with the spell here, because it's just so easy for him to imagine Snape in a dress and laugh at him. He's scared of Snape in person, but it's not that deep, especially because Neville is scared of a lot of things through the earlier books - including his grandmother (who also could've easily been the Boggart), the Basilisk (despite being pureblood), Trelawney's predictions in his 3rd year exam, sneaking out at night, Malfoy, and McGonagall.

Later that same book, after "trembling from head to fluffy-slippered toes" as he confessed (very bravely, I thought) to McGonagall that he'd lost the list of passwords, allowing Sirius to break into the common room:

Professor McGonagall was so furious with him she had banned him from all future Hogsmeade visits, given him a detention, and forbidden anyone to give him the password into the tower. Poor Neville was forced to wait outside the common room every night for somebody to let him in, while the security trolls leered unpleasantly at him.

We don't hear what McGonagall's detention is I don't think, but it could be anything from polishing the trophies in the common room to sending him into a dangerous, forbidden forest in search of a suspected dark creature or wizard that kills unicorns and ultimately turns out to be Voldemort himself - but that's on top of forcing him sit outside his own common room, banning everyone else from telling him the password, and banning him from Hogsmeade. Add to that that McGonagall believes that Harry "fed Draco Malfoy some cock-and- bull story about a dragon, trying to get him out of bed and into trouble" and "Longbottom here heard the story and believed it, too" - it seems even more unfair that Neville and Draco receive the same punishment as Harry, who she believes was deliberately trying to get the others into trouble. That's all pretty harsh, but it's McGonagall, so she gets a pass. Harry feels sorry for Neville, but it's never considered a negative reflection of McGonagall or her fairness as a teacher.

And sure, Neville's a nervous wreck after Snape's detention disembowelling frogs/horned toads for a potions detention in GoF, but look at it from Snape's perspective. He gave Neville that particular detention after melting SIX cauldrons in like... the first week of term. How is Neville even doing that?

"Tell me, boy, does anything penetrate that thick skull of yours? Didn’t you hear me say, quite clearly, that only one rat spleen was needed? Didn’t I state plainly that a dash of leech juice would suffice? What do I have to do to make you understand, Longbottom?"

That's why he's so mean to Neville; he's a menace in Potions, and Snape doesn't know how to deal with the fact that he can't follow basic instructions without relying on another student to do it for him. He punishes Neville by 'threatening' Trevor not for the sake of it, but because it was Snape's version of trying to make Neville concentrate, to care more about the outcome of his potion without having someone else do half the work for him, because that won't get him anywhere in the exams. And Neville can respond to higher stakes, fear, whatever it was, by performing better; he did as part of Dumbledore's Army:

The news of his parents’ attacker’s escape had wrought a strange and even slightly alarming change in him ... he barely spoke during D.A. meetings anymore, but worked relentlessly on every new jinx and countercurse Harry taught them, his plump face screwed up in concentration, apparently indifferent to injuries or accidents, working harder than anyone else in the room. He was improving so fast it was quite unnerving and when Harry taught them the Shield Charm, a means of deflecting minor jinxes so that they rebounded upon the attacker, only Hermione mastered the charm faster than Neville. In fact Harry would have given a great deal to be making as much progress at Occlumency as Neville was making during D.A. meetings. Harry’s sessions with Snape, which had started badly enough, were not improving; on the contrary, Harry felt he was getting worse with every lesson.

I've added the second paragraph only because it was interesting to me, because Harry didn't want the dreams to stop. Under Snape's tutelage, Harry isn't really practicing, he's not applying what he's learnt, he wants to go through the door in his dreams. Snape was sort of correct when he called Harry out for that. And both Harry and Neville are guilty of something I was very guilty of as a student as well: just getting through it, doing the bare minimum, instead of actually engaging with the material, concentrating, and getting the work done well. In theory, Neville could've been excelling all along, even with his secondhand wand and memory issues. He just lacked the proper motivation - or, as McGonagall thinks:

“You cannot pass an O.W.L.,” said Professor McGonagall grimly, “without serious application, practice, and study. I see no reason why everybody in this class should not achieve an O.W.L. in Transfiguration as long as they put in the work.” Neville made a sad little disbelieving noise. “Yes, you too, Longbottom,” said Professor McGonagall. “There’s nothing wrong with your work except lack of confidence.”

To an extent, it was Neville getting in his own way - there's no wandwork we're told about in Potions, so we can't blame his wand. Everyone is intimidated by Snape in potions, Snape has a reputation for being mean and grumpy, but nobody else is quaking in their boots at his approach except for Neville, who quakes in his boots a lot. When Snape was absent from the potions exam in OotP, Neville was described as "happier than Harry had ever seen him during a Potions class" - but noticeably absent is the description of Neville doing any better because of it.

And still, every year, even Neville passes potions (unlike Crabbe and Goyle in other subjects: "If your friends Crabbe and Goyle intend to pass their Defense Against the Dark Arts O.W.L. this time around..."). Umbridge describes Snape's classes as advanced, and Snape fills his Outstanding-grade-only NEWT classes every year - so Snape can't be that bad at teaching. Neville (and Harry) just don't pay enough attention in Potions, and that endlessly annoys Snape, the prickly perfectionist potions professor.

And Hogwarts isn't a modern Muggle school, either - it's a cross between generic fantasy schools, posh schools, and old-fashioned Victorian schools. That's just a feature of the worldbuilding. There's no hand-holding here. Teachers and staff are just sometimes harsh:

“I thought we’d be copying lines or something, if my father knew I was doing this, he’d — ” “ — tell yer that’s how it is at Hogwarts,” Hagrid growled. “Copyin’ lines! What good’s that ter anyone? Yeh’ll do summat useful or yeh’ll get out. If yeh think yer father’d rather you were expelled, then get back off ter the castle an’ pack. Go on!”

Tone was rather aggressive, but the message was... fine, I guess. If he'd said this to Harry, it probably would've been represented differently - and if Snape had said it, there'd be more accusations of him being unnecessarily mean. But it's Draco, so despite Draco not really having done anything besides being out after curfew, it's totally fair in Harry's eyes to send him to the forest.

Professor Flitwick had dried himself off with a wave of his wand and set Seamus lines: “I am a wizard, not a baboon brandishing a stick.”

Played for laughs, but pretty humiliating for a simple, easily corrected mistake. Frame it as Snape doing it instead, and that angle would've been played up.

“Longbottom, kindly do not reveal that you can’t even perform a simple Switching Spell in front of anyone from Durmstrang!” Professor McGonagall barked at the end of one particularly difficult lesson, during which Neville had accidentally transplanted his own ears onto a cactus.

Pretty mean. Again, imagine if Snape had said the same - but because it's McGonagall, it's fine, and never mentioned again.

Sure, Snape is often worse than the others in terms of being mean, or at least is described as being mean most often, but he's by no means alone in it - see again McGonagall's punishments of Neville in PoA and of Harry/Hermione/Neville/Draco in PS, which are far overblown and have potentially dangerous outcomes - compared to Snape's rather tame punishments, which include fewer points being taken than when McGonagall does it, physically safe (if gross) detentions, and the infamous Trevor incident and a detention designed to punish Harry for nearly killing a fellow student (oh, the irony of making Harry's first example being James and Sirius using an "illegal hex" in that context tickles me every time - and Harry already knows that James/Sirius were capable of worse, including probable SA and attempted murder via werewolf that wasn't even an accident, just plain malice).

Anyway, just to add further context to the old-fashioned culture at Hogwarts, the staff were still using physical punishment within fairly recent living memory:

“Your father and I had been for a nighttime stroll,” [Molly] said. “[Arthur] got caught by Apollyon Pringle — he was the caretaker in those days — your father’s still got the marks.”

They only stopped sometime before Harry arrived. Filch has worked at Hogwarts for "a quarter of a century" (per McGonagall) by Harry's final year, and Filch even said in Harry's first year:

Oh yes . . . hard work and pain are the best teachers if you ask me. … It’s just a pity they let the old punishments die out . . . hang you by your wrists from the ceiling for a few days, I’ve got the chains still in my office, keep ’em well oiled in case they’re ever needed.

So they presumably had mostly faded out as punishments before or around the time Filch started in ~1973, because he still has the chains and misses using them. For reference, this is what Filch is hoping for the return of in OotP:

“I’ve been telling Dumbledore for years and years he’s too soft with you all,” said Filch, chuckling nastily. “You filthy little beasts would never have dropped Stinkpellets if you’d known I had it in my power to whip you raw, would you, now? Nobody would have thought of throwing Fanged Frisbees down the corridors if I could’ve strung you up by the ankles in my office, would they?

By comparison, preparing potions ingredients as a detention (in the form of disembowelling frogs, toads, or otherwise) doesn't feel like such a bad punishment in the school's eyes. And in a school where this sort of archaic schooling culture is the norm, it is also the norm for teachers to be mean to students who (as they see it) are not trying. So, in an ideal/Muggle/modern worldview, Neville would be identified as needing some additional support for his memory issues; Snape would be supportive and write out clearer instructions, and McGonagall would perhaps gift Neville an enchanted list of the passwords, so that only he could read it.

But that doesn't happen, because this is Hogwarts, and all of the teachers are trapped by genre convention and archaic methods of teaching and discipline that have just barely moved on from physical punishments.

Side note, you should see some of the school reports my mum found of her time in school in the 60s/70s - she was dyslexic, but the teachers didn't know that, and you'd think from their feedback that she was simply trying to annoy them. She and her friend also remember chalk and blackboard rubbers being thrown at disruptive students, canings, and dunce caps for 'stupid' students. For reference, I'm not saying any of this is good; both Hogwarts and real schools have a lot to answer for when considering student wellbeing. But it was considered... fairly normal? Unpleasant, but not surprising or unusual. Which is what Snape's behaviour was, in context - an expression of this era of teaching, wherein he's harsh to everyone, and given half a chance would probably have loved to have used a dunce cap like he possibly witnessed at his Muggle school, as a child himself:

“The general standard of this homework was abysmal. Most of you would have failed had this been your examination. I expect to see a great deal more effort for this week’s essay on the various varieties of venom antidotes, or I shall have to start handing out detentions to those dunces who get D’s.”

Further to that, Lupin tells Harry that he has "inherited an old prejudice"; Hermione often comes to Snape's defence in the books; and there's no evidence that any of the teachers really mind what Snape's doing. It's just part of the 'charm' of outdated schooling.

There's also no evidence that Snape knew that Neville was the other boy potentially referred to in the Prophecy. Sure, he might've known - but probably not, since neither Voldemort nor Dumbledore are exactly known for being open and honest with their followers. I also think it would be a bit weird if both Bellatrix and Barty Jr knew, and never once mentioned or tried to attack Neville just for the hell of it, despite having the chance - Bellatrix when she tortured Neville's parents but not Neville, and Barty Jr as Moody. If Snape knew, I wonder whether there'd have been a part of the story wherein we find out that Snape tried to convince Voldemort that Neville was the "better choice" of baby to kill, in order to save Lily.

Anyway, Snape was just annoyed that Neville was an absent-minded boy who melted cauldrons, inattentively read recipes, relied on other students, and was a walking catastrophe. He could tell by sight that Neville's potion in the Trevor incident was fine (thanks to Hermione), probably had an antidote ready, and it's not unusual at Hogwarts to test potions and spells on students, pets, and other animals. Snape punished Neville for not doing as he'd asked (concentrating on the instructions) and for disobeying him (by getting Hermione's help). This method of teaching may not be considered particularly effective, nor is it overly kind or supportive, and it absolutely wouldn't fly by modern/Muggle standards - but this is Hogwarts. Boggarts don't represent your most tragic, heart-wrenching fear, just what they think will get you in the moment - and if Snape had really wanted Trevor dead, he'd have left him as a tadpole to dry up and die rather than giving him the antidote.

And none of this matters anyway, because bringing up how Snape behaved as an adult usually only happens to dismiss Snape's suffering as a child. It adds very little to the conversation actually being had, which is that as a child himself, Snape was bullied, assaulted, and almost murdered during his time in school - by a group of boys drunk on their own self-importance who bullied and hexed anyone just because they wanted to, regularly released a dark creature into Hogsmeade and the surrounding area which risked people's lives, illegally became Animagi, and used illegal hexes on fellow students (like Snape) unprovoked - and nobody seemed to do a single thing about it. Or perhaps they did - but in the wise words of McGonagall, perhaps they were pretty useless:

“Because detentions do not appear to have any effect on you whatsoever!” said Professor McGonagall tartly. “No, not another word of complaint, Potter!”

Ah, timeless.

Unrelated, but just in case anyone made it this far - I also enjoy the idea that something similar happened to the Draco/Harry/Sectumsempra duel during the Marauders era, and James used Sectumsempra on Snape.

Okay, Severus Snape getting bullied is forgotten because he "bullied" children.

But did you guys forget what the Marauders did to Bertram Aubrey?

They used an illegal hex on him which caused his head to grow twice its original size. (I think it was Engorgio Skullus though I don't think it was ever explicitly said.)

He was likely a Slytherin, or simply didn't come from a wealthy family. Perhaps he was plain in appearance, making him an easy target for cruel jokes. Maybe he had an interest in the dark arts, which earned him the disdain of the popular crowd. Or maybe the Marauders merely disliked him for just existing.

James and Sirius were tormentors and bullies. No great transgression was needed to earn their wrath, simply breathing the same air was often enough motive for them to unleash their cruel antics upon their chosen victim.

When they finally recognize this, they concoct excuses such as, "Oh, maybe he was a future death eater in the making." Do you guys not realise that this was still bullying? It's possible that he didn't do anything wrong, much like how they unjustly targeted Severus in the train.