Sire Severus Snape

Fam, be careful with your time online. I highly recommend sinking some time and energy into offline pursuits.

Try: knitting or crochet; gentle movement, stretching, walking if you can; playing a musical instrument, whether it's piano or penny whistle; and especially reading.

I do not mean performative BookTok reading that we do for likes because our neurotransmitters have been nerfed by modern life.

I mean actual reading that we do for ourselves alone.

If reading is hard, if attention or energy or memory are operating at a deficit, I get it. Nevertheless, please try. If you notice you're skipping across big chunks of text like a river stone, if you can't finish a paragraph, slow down, pronounce the words out loud. Stop sometimes and ask yourself what you just read. Explain the story or article or poem to your blorbo or your cat or a stuffed animal.

If your head feels scrambled up, no judgment. We may have incredibly intractable neurochemical reasons that this is hard. Just tell the blorbo, "That's hilarious, I don't remember any of what I just read. Let's read it again, together."

(Please don't ask A.I. to do this for you. Please. It's your right to read and think about it your own way. A.I. doesn't actually understand anything. Please don't assume it will guide you safely through this next weird phase of our human culture.)

If reading longform, offline, makes you feel bored or anxious, be gentle and patient with yourself. Start with stories you remember well, reliable sources of well-being. But please know you will need to put some backbone into it in the long run.

I think we are going to need to rebuild our ability to think, to process experience. This will be an unsupported activity. In fact, most of the really powerful cultural forces are making it very hard for us to notice, feel, perceive, or think clearly.

Not sure what, but something's happened quite recently that is making this situation much worse, some kind of tipping point.

Please read something every day.

URGH-! HIS SIDE PROFILE!

It’s the fact that three men proposed to the same woman and, upon being rejected, two of the men not only immediately accepted the woman’s refusal with grace but they also vowed to be loyal friends to her anyway and then they actually were.

In real life, you’re usually friends with a man first and after a while you get the “I need to tell you something” text but Dracula completely reverses the order of events. Lucy gets the text, politely declines and then gets to have a genuinely fulfilling friendship with the men who were interested in her.

Bonus: all three men, including the man whose proposal was accepted, are also friends and there was no toxic masculinity or fighting or trying to one up each other. There was no competition. They just respected Lucy’s wishes and each other.

I think people irl wonder why I’m so insane about this book, both regarding how well it holds up over time (generally speaking, because there is obviously still room for criticism) and what a complete failure every single adaption has been. This is why.

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And Viktor abused the crap out of the poor creature for not being smart enough when it was only following natural developmental milestones. Because, like most men, like his own father, he wanted to create life but he wasn't interested in raising it beyond that and instead wanted it to be born a doctor ready to show the world how smart Viktor is for creating a carbon copy of his brain except in a stronger immortal body. Elizabeth gave him five minutes of love and let him explore how sounds come out of her mouth and he started talking.

True, because:

Harry found refuge at Hogwarts, where he felt welcomed, supported, and protected from the very beginning. Severus did not.

Harry had adult figures who protected him, cared about him (Hagrid, the Weasleys, Dumbledore, Lupin, Sirius...), and showed him affection over the years. Severus did not.

Harry had two friends who would have torn apart anyone who dared to strip him in front of the entire school. Severus did not.

Harry and Malfoy had a rivalry because they were on equal footing. Severus was bullied by a group of guys who attacked him together and were far above him socially and economically.

Harry was rich—disgustingly rich, to be exact. Severus was disgustingly poor.

Harry felt loved from the moment Hagrid came for him just after his 11th birthday. Severus never felt loved in his entire damn life.

Harry was favored by Dumbledore and other school staff on multiple occasions. Dumbledore forced Severus to stay silent about an attempted murder against him.