Don’t Take Up Smoking It’s Very Hard To Quit

Snape Fic Recs

@scverussnape, I hope you enjoy these!  

Mentor/Teacher:

Harry Potter and the Enemy Within and Harry Potter and the Chained Souls by Theowyn of HPG - aka the holy grail of fan fiction, the first HP series I ever read and thought “I wish this was canon”.  The characterization is so good, it feels as though I’m reading a different version of the actual books. I re-read this series at least once a year.

A Place for Warriors by owlsaway - the caption for this story does not even begin to do it justice.  I cannot do it justice.  The way the relationship between Snape and Harry grows is just *chef’s kiss*.

Emerald Eyes, Emerald Eyes: Fate’s Hand, and Mindful Eyes by JadeSullivan - Snape takes on a mentor role for Harry during his 2nd year.  This author has an incredible way of describing the feelings in each moment that I find captivating.  She hasn’t updated Mindful Eyes in a couple of years, but I have high hopes for her return!

O Mine Enemy by Kirby Lane - Snape is injured and ends up spending some time with Harry at the Dursley’s house.  Once they are able to leave, Snape reluctantly takes on a mentor role for Harry.  Harry begins having dreams predicting the future, causing him to question just how much he actually trusts Snape.  Not only is this story excellently written - the writer just posted two new chapters for the first time in several years!

Walking the Line by hairballl26 - Snape is badly injured and turns up at the Dursley’s.  He intends to hide from the muggles as best he can until he can recover or until help arrives, but inevitably, there is a terrible confrontation, and both he and Harry go on the run, trying to get to safety at Hogwarts and avoid the agents of the Dark Lord.  ROAD TRIP FIC my favorite.  Hasn’t updated since 2011, but I keep re-reading it anyway because I love it so much.

Behind Doors and Masks by dragonwriter24cmf - Headmaster Snape has decided to personally handle the troublemaker Neville Longbottom, but Neville uncovers his secret agent status.  Now he has to help the boy survive an increasingly hostile Hogwarts, and train him to fight back.  Ooooh boy is this fic all of the things I love.  A close look at Snape during his time as Headmaster, and I love love love how she writes Neville.

Sectumsempra Splits the School by thegoldenfirebolt - Harry faces severe consequences for using the dark spell sectumsempra on Draco Malfoy.  He has to work closely with younger students and the staff as part of his punishment.  I didn’t expect to enjoy this fic as much as I do, but it offers this wonderful peek into the daily lives and relationships between the staff members that I greatly enjoyed.

Kept Behind and Dark Influences by LAXgirl - Harry is killed by a death eater, and only Snape can see his ghost.  Through their connection, they try to find out if there is way to bring Harry back.  I just really love any story that has Snape and Harry having to trust each other and work together, and these are really well written.

Severitus/adoption:

All the World’s a Stage by Alexannah - In a bid to gain control over the Boy Who Lived, Cornelius Fudge serves notice that he intends to adopt Harry Potter.  Snape receives the notice, and since no one else is available, he manages to submit the paperwork just in time to adopt Harry instead.  Now they just have to learn to live together.  I very much want more of this story, and it hasn’t been updated in a couple of years, but it ends at a place that isn’t terrible.

The Unexpected Snape by Imablack - Harry Potter arrives for his first year at Hogwarts, but he doesn’t look like James Potter - he looks like Snape.  It takes some time for them to address this fact.  This has the most lovely slow growth of their relationship, from respect to trust to love.

Reading the Signs by goldencompass - During his first year, Harry is attacked and hurt by some older students holding grudges against the Boy Who Lived.  Snape helps in his recovery, and Harry begins to trust and respect him, leading to a deeper understanding and relationship between them.

General Snape Fics:

The Pawn by ReeraTheRed - a short AU version of Snape’s confession to Dumbledore and the growth of trust between them in their early days working together.  Makes me cry actual tears every time I read it.

The Wendell That Wasn’t by opalish - Snape’s ghost is stuck haunting Harry and Ginny, and they (or really Ginny) get their revenge.  Absolute crack fic, hilariously funny.

The 11th Day of Hogwarts by lyras - This story is on livejournal, and is a short look at Snape’s time as Headmaster.  He is supported by the portraits of the other headmasters, and trying to do what must be done under terrible circumstances.  Very bittersweet.

Some of…practice

Bruno’s room?? Analysis??? Theory? Headcanon?? Thingy???

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Encanto Spoilers!!!

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Okay, I promise this will get to Bruno’s room but for starters, I think I should talk about how the casita’s rooms are implied to work. Sorry but it’s important!!

In both the film and the concepts, it very much seems that the casita’s rooms reflect a combination of who their owners are to others, and who their owners want to be. We only see a small handful of rooms in the film but this is best seen in Isabela’s room, which is a perfect, flowery, empty room. There isn’t any furniture that we can really see besides her hanging bed, the rest is all for show, literally advertising how perfect she is with topiaries of herself making “perfect, practiced poses”. This is who she wants, and strives to be for others, but secretly worries that she is lacking in identity outside of what she portrays to others.

Why is this important? Because her room changes with her. In “What Else Can I Do” her entire room shifts and changes just as she does– the more she explores herself and the freedom and passions she never knew she was capable of, the room grows more colorful and wild and more difficult to navigate with her.

The concepts for Luisa’s room were similar– her room concepts consisted of various training areas with a secret room that led to an amusement park– a place where she could just relax and be a kid, but that she felt the need to hide it from others to appear strong. Jared Bush also recently confirmed that Pepa’s room never had “a place for her to let loose”, that that was “part of her problem”-- insinuating she’s been taught to compartmentalize and suppress her emotions instead of letting them go.

So now… we talk about Bruno.

So firstly. No way did Bruno’s room always look like… that. Casita would have never given a five-year-old that room. And it logically doesn’t make sense!! We know from extra content that when Bruno first got his gift he was the “golden child”-- that people were impressed by his gift to see the future, it was only when they believed that he caused bad things to happen that they rejected him. Does Bruno’s room really reflect that golden child?

One thing I noticed was that the wood to Bruno’s room is… hardwood. Underneath all that sand and rock is the remnants of the beginnings of a normal room. It seems like such an odd choice and detail to put there when the rest of the room is all built into natural surroundings. It looks like the remnants of a living space that’s just been covered up to the point of becoming unlivable. And when we examine the specific ways this room has become unlivable, it starts to paint a very interesting picture about Bruno and how he perceives himself.

So we know that over the years Bruno’s reputation has shifted from the “star child of the family” to the Madrigal that no one talks about except in hushed whispers– the one that people are afraid of and dislike. We know from implications as well as discussions from Jared Bush that Bruno had already started isolating himself long before leaving to protect Mirabel.

So what better way to isolate yourself than a literal mountain of spiraling stairs?

They’re so impossibly long that it’s clearly meant to keep most sane people out (sorry Mirabel, it’s true). And we know he didn’t have a shortcut, he used the excuse of the tower having a lot of stairs as a reason to not live there. But again, and I can’t stress this enough, no way did casita give a five-year-old that amount of stairs (and in such a dangerous fashion!).

They’re there to keep people out. Now whether this is because Bruno just wants to avoid them and keep people away from him, whether this is to keep people from harassing him for visions, or maybe (and likely) a combination of both, isn’t explicitly stated. We know that Bruno’s visions can be both emotionally and physically exhausting and draining– to the point of physical pain and weakness. It isn’t much of a surprise that he would want to avoid people asking for visions.

But personally? I think it was also out of a desire to protect people as well. He really starts to internalize this idea that he makes bad things happen, so the more he can avoid people, and the visions, the better. The more he hides away, the more a burden it all becomes, the longer and longer the stairs get.

They’re eventually disconnected completely from the door with an enormous gap. I think this was the last straw when Bruno broke the vision and left, and his door stopped glowing. It disconnected from the inner sanctum completely and the entire room disconnected from the casita. When Bruno disconnected from his family. When he rejected his gift, and with it, himself.

Mirabel knows the casita to the point of even being able to understand its non-verbal communication like she would anyone else, and she seems shocked that it cannot help in Bruno’s room, implying that this isn’t the norm for the magical rooms. His room is cut off because he is cut off. And the deleted scene “Chores” contributes to this idea. Félix says that “his room turned all rotten and gross and Abuela was like ‘no one is ever allowed in there again.’” We know that Alma forbids anyone from going into Bruno’s room because it’s ‘off-limits”, and we can clearly see how dangerous and unstable the room has got, so this isn’t out of the realm of possibility for film canon either. Like Luisa said, his room is off-limits for a reason.

His room refused to let anyone find that vision.

AND NOW FOR THE BEST PART. THE INNER CAVERN.

So after Mirabel risks her life to get to the inner part of Bruno’s room, we finally see these relief sculptures of Bruno on the walls. There’s no beating around the bush, they are terrifying. Empty eyes, blank expressions, gaping mouths. (And they pretty much prove that Bruno’s room didn’t look this way because they display the steps of his ritual, which Jared confirmed he invented himself later on after receiving his gift.) It’s a terrifying depiction of himself, meant to scare people away. He’s considered a curse, treated like the village bogeyman, and he’s clearly internalized these ideas about himself because his room reflects it so much here, in the same fashion that Isabela’s room flaunts the topiaries of her perfect posed stature.

But here’s something I have to mention. The designers did not simply pull this design out of thin air. It is heavily inspired by existing Colombian architecture… specifically burial tombs. The Tierradentro tombs, located in the southwest region of the nation in the Inzá municipality, were made somewhere between 600 and 900 CE and served as a burial site for elite groups. Their structural and decorative features are entirely unique and not found anywhere else on Earth, and the geometrical patterns within them signify the individuals buried there.

So. Bruno’s room is based on an existing gravesite. That’s a lot to unpack.

Bruno feels that he, or at least the version of himself that his family wants from him, is dead. The star child. He had tried to cling to this idea, to be someone they could be proud of, but he just doesn’t know how. His family no longer understands him. He feels like a stranger who has replaced the person they used to love, who’s now buried in a literal tomb of self-doubt.

A tomb that Mirabel almost dies in because of how unstable and disconnected it has become. A tomb that follows an infinitely long spiral staircase up to a room filled with spiraling imagery– all to find a man who truly has spiraled. And one who isn’t there because he is so terrified of hurting people.

Bruno’s room looks the way it does because of his warped self-image that has become so twisted over the years. This internalized perception that he hurts people- that he causes these twists of fate- and while I think he knows on a logical level that this isn’t how his gift works, clearly doubt has infected the way he feels. We can see it in the way he treats Mirabel, wanting to push her away at first because he’s scared he’ll somehow hurt her, refusing to do visions, refusing to help until she tells him that the family needs him. And that’s all he ever wanted, really.

Maybe his next room won’t have all those stairs.

Severus Snape

This is an Anti Snape rant. I was to preface it by making it clear that I appreciate Severus Snape as one of the most interesting, important and well written literary figures of our time and possibly in history. I respect anyone who says that Snape is their favorite. That’s perfectly fine. Harley Quinn is one of my favorite comic book characters. She’s bubbly and funny and intelligent and strong…that doesn’t mean I don’t recognize that she’s criminally insane and that her relationship with the joker is in fact terribly abusive from both sides. These multi-dimensional characters become our favorites BECAUSE there are so many sides to them. Harry Potter happens to be a series where nearly every primary character is several layers deep. To quote my own personal problematic favorite; “The World isn’t made up of Good People and Death Eaters.” - Sirius Black, Order of the Pheonix, Chapter 15, Percy and Padfoot.

 Snape is a bad person. I don’t care what he did to “redeem himself”. You can die to save the world, that doesn’t mean years of verbally and emotionally abusing children just didn’t count. I know plenty of people who served in the military and fought for the country but they abuse their families…does it not count because they fought a war? 

 FACT: Severus Snape was interested the dark arts from an early age.

 FACT: Severus Snape had other friends besides Lily Evans. 

FACT: Severus Snape provoked James Potter and Sirius Black, often spying on the Marauders to try and find out Remus Lupin’s secret and also hanging around with Slytherin Pure Blood Supremacists who bullied other students. He was not an innocent unpopular kid that the big, mean popular boys picked on. He wasn’t. Stop victimizing him. He was just as much at fault as they were. 

FACT: Severus Snape created his own spell by the age of 15 that was potentially lethal and used it on James Potter…reason? Well, James pantsed him….

are…you…kidding…me…?

FACT: Lily Evans ended her friendship with Severus Snape because of his affiliation with these other students and his interest in The Dark Arts. She did not end the friendship in favor of James Potter. She didn’t even start dating James for AT LEAST another year after ending her friendship with Severus. He called her a racial slur and his friends physically attacked one of her friends. 

“I never meant to call you a Mudblood. It just-” 

 “Slipped out? It’s too late! I’ve been making excuses for you for years! None of my friends can understand why I even talk to you! You and your precious little Death Eater friends. See? You don’t even deny it! You don’t deny that that is what you’re aiming to be! You can’t wait to join You-Know-Who, can you? I can’t pretend anymore. You’ve chosen your way and I’ve chosen mine.”

“No, listen, I didn’t mean-”

 “To call me a Mudblood? But you call everyone of my birth a mudblood! Why should I be any different?” - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Chapter 33 The Prince’s Tale.

FACT: Severus Snape never got over his romantic feelings for Lily Evans and was angry that she married his school rival, James Potter.

“After all this time?”

 “Always.”  - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Chapter 33, The Prince’s Tale.

This is actually creepy. One of my biggest qualms with The Harry Potter Fandom as a whole is how infatuated people are with this quote. James and Lily died at age 21, a good 6 years after Lily ended her friendship with Severus and he’s still holding a torch for her? This isn’t love, it’s obsession and it’s unhealthy. He harassed her after she ended things, too. He threatened to sleep outside the Gryffindor common room until Lily agreed to speak with him (See: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Chapter 33, The Prince’s Tale). It’s not sweet that Severus was still in love with Lily after all this time. It’s scary. Severus’ patronus being a Doe is CREEPY, not a sign that they are soulmates.

FACT:  Severus Snape joined the Death Eaters BECAUSE HE WANTED TO ALL ALONG. Upon learning that Lily Evans had been targeted, he ran to Dumbledore, begging him to protect her. Only Her. 

“If she means so much to you, could you not ask The Dark Lord for mercy for the mother in exchange for the son?”

 “I’ve tried!” 

“You disgust me. You do not care then about the deaths of her husband and her son, as long as you get what you want?” 

Snape said nothing. - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Chapter 33 The Prince’s Tale

If Lily Potter hadn’t been on Voldemort’s death list, would Severus have switched sides? It didn’t have to be Lily. It could have easily been Alice Longbottom instead. Had Neville been The Chosen One, Severus Snape would have remained a Death Eater. He only became a double-agent to repay Dumbledore for protecting Lily.

After Lily dies, Dumbledore has to bribe Severus to help him keep Harry safe.

 “He has her eyes, Severus. Her exact eyes. Surely you remember the shape and color of Lily Evans’s eyes.”

 “DON’T!” Bellowed Snape. “Dead…gone…”

“You know how and why she died. Let it not be in vane. Help me protect her son.” 

 “He doesn’t need protection! The Dark Lord is gone-”

“He will return.”

 “Very well. But never tell, Dumbledore! I cannot bare it…especially Potter’s son!” - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Chapter 33, The Prince’s Tale.

Yikes, Severus. You loved this woman so much, or so you claim, but the idea of helping to protect HER CHILD, for whom she gave her life, is so unbearable to you because his father, who died trying to protect both of them, was mean to you in grade school? That’s…pretty messed up. 

FACT: 11 years later with a nice cushy job and protection at Hogwarts, Severus Snape continues to be a bitter adult man who is still not over his school yard crush, a woman who has been dead for over a decade and refused to speak to him for six years prior to that. He is in fact so bitter about it that he frequently takes it out on her prepubescent son.

Why? Because he looks a hell of a lot like James Potter.

 “-Mediocre, arrogant as his father, a determined rule breaker, delighted to find himself famous, attention seeking and impertinent -” 

 “You see what you expect to see, Severus. Other teachers report that the boy is modest, likable and reasonably talented. Personally, I find him to be an engaging child.” - Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Chapter 33, The Prince’s Tale.

But Snape doesn’t only pick on Harry. He picks on many of his young students just because…well…Because he’s an asshole, really! Honestly, the man humiliated 13 year old Neville Longbottom in front of the entire class for messing up on his potions assignment and then attempted to murder the kid’s pet. (See: Harry Potter and The Prisoner of Azkaban, Chapter Seven, The Boggart in the Wardrobe.)

Not to mention this lovely scene 

Ron forced Hermione to show Snape her teeth. She was doing her best to hide them with her hands, though this was difficult as they had grown past her collar.

 Snape looked coldly at Hermione and then said, “I see no difference.” - Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, chapter 18, The Weighing Of The Wands.

I could name probably a dozen more times that Severus Snape abuses his position as a Professor and treats his students with disrespect and potentially damaging behavior, but we would be here all day and there are other points I’d like to move on to. 

FACT: Severus Snape was uninterested in the possibility of Sirius Black’s innocence and overjoyed at the idea of being the one to turn him over to the Dementors. 

“Two more for Azkaban tonight,” Said Snape, his eyes gleaming fanatically. I shall be interested to see how Dumbledore takes this. He was convinced you were harmless, you know, Lupin…a tame werewolf.” 

 “You fool.” Said Lupin softly. “Is a school boy grudge worth putting an innocent man back inside Azkaban?” - Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, chapter nineteen, The Servant of Lord Voldemort.

 Okay, look, Sirius did try to kill Snape when they were kids. That’s a thing that happened…although there are not enough details of The Willow Incident known in canon to explain exactly what happened and why Sirius would do such a thing knowing that he could have potentially gotten James and Remus killed in the process…but that’s beside the point. What really gets me is that not only did Snape want to have Sirius given the Dementor’s kiss, but Remus also.

 BANG! Thin, snakelike cords burst out from the end of Snape’s wand and twisted themselves around Lupin’s mouth, wrists and ankles, he overbalanced and fell to the ground unable to move. With a roar of rage, Black started towards Snape, but Snape pointed his wand straight between Black’s eyes. 

 “Give me a reason and I’ll do it, I swear.” 

…

“I’ll drag the werewolf. Perhaps the dementors will have a kiss for him too.”  - Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Chapter 19, The Servant of Lord Voldemort.

And it doesn’t stop there. Unable to get what he wanted and have his school rivals killed or imprisoned for absolutely no reason, Severus Butthurt Snape decides to just ruin Remus’ life instead and tells the entire school about his Lycanthropy - oh, wait, I’m sorry…did I say the entire school? I meant the world. 

“Amung these ‘eccentric decisions’ are undoubtedly the controversial staff appointments previously described in this newspaper, which have included the hiring of werewolf Remus Lupin.” - Harry Potter and the Order of the Pheonix, chapter 15, Hogwarts High Inquisitor. 

 …

“I know she’s a nasty piece of work though- you should hear Remus talk about her.” 

 “Does he know her?” 

“No, but she drafted a bit of anti-werewolf legislation two years ago that makes it almost impossible for him to get a job.”  - Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, chapter 14, Percy and Padfoot.

Two years ago, you say? What happened two years prior to this? Remus was working at Hogwarts and Snape outed him. 

No where in canon does it say that Remus ever did anything to Severus Snape, when honestly out of all the Marauders, he had the most reason to. Snape was always spying on them to get to him, after all. There is no reason for Severus to hate Remus enough to completely destroy his life like this. Only the fact that Severus Snape is without a doubt the biggest grudge holder to have ever lived.

FACT: Severus Snape is a war hero. 

Yes. He was. He was a key player in the defeat of Lord Voldemort, though not necessarily by his own choice. He was dragged into it by Dumbledore and by his own guilt, feeling this was the only way he could truly make amends for what happened between him and Lily when they were fifteen. 

So does begrudgingly becoming a double agent in the war as payment for Dumbledore’s attempts to keep Lily Evans safe for his own selfish reasons really negate every awful thing this man did from the time he was a young child to his guilt-driven ‘heroic’ death? 

No. It doesn’t. 

Severus Snape is a bad person. 

Revolution in Coco

I was actually surprised by the years the characters were born, 1900, because they pretty much lived throught the Mexican Revolution (1910-1917/1920), even the actual movie stars were born during or after, Pedro Infante 1917, so really it was just their baby or child years while Coco characters were in their pre-teens and early adulthood.

What does this mean? You can read the wikipedia article, but pretty much there were many militant groups running around, many small towns didn’t know what was going on, no one from the higher ups cared if you knew anything so these revolutionary groups would just arrive and tell you, recruit you.

It wasn’t always that nice, when I went to my granny’s hometown they told me their grandfathers hid underground with a sack of corn whenever they heard horses (military groups) approach, they asked for you to give them stuff, (horses, food, a place to sleep) if you refused you were not supporting the rev movement or the president, thus you were the enemy so neither fraction was any good, (of course the revolutionaries often liberated the towns from the landlord but remember most were just farmers so getting so much power could get to their heads) All in all the people in the town didn’t knew the social movement that was happening. I remember saying, “great my family just hid during the revolution” and my mom turned to me and said, “they survived”.

We don’t now how Santa Cecilia fared during the Revolution but maybe cheking out the history of small towns may help, either way I’m not an expert on the Rev so take it easy with me if there’s anything wrong

(Also, Princess Leia’s hair came from this time!)

Ghost caught on camera

more older gaang

Rincewind: The world stresses me out, man. Twoflower: You could try meditation. Rincewind: No. I need to be fully in the shit. Stress keeps me grounded. Reminds me that I’m here. It’s almost a spiritual thing.

🔥sans?

everyone likes to quote the lines "do you wanna have a bad time" and "you dirty brother killer" as badass but they 100% rest on your emotional engagement with the ambience/story to land because when they don't have that to back them up they sound. kinda stupid gjsjfk.

i mean his whole badass schtick comes from how emotionally distant he tries to be towards everything that happens in your journey (even though he has his limits, both in a negative sense, like how he disappears completely if you kill his brother, and a positive sense, such as how he clearly sympathizes with you when you're relatively harmless). the moment he's forced to care though? when he can't not engage? he is NOT cool, oh my god. don't get me wrong, he has his moments, but whenever he's trying to one-line you it's a very hit or miss situation. and usually it's a miss (lmao). "but soon... you’ll need a cool mutant hand to count all of your deaths" i mean COME ON. that sounds ridiculous.

and you could say that's all just part of him trolling you, but personally i like to think that deep down? he's just as much of a tryhard as papyrus

Jinx :  😠

Silco : you’re my daughter 🥺 , I’ll never forsake you

Jinx :  🥺