Check out Snapecase! The fest is still going on. Lots of Snape centric fics/art! I didn't get the time to read everything but I got some recs from my reading. Definitely check out the fest for yourself.
5 fav fics with 5 different vibes.
Candles Lit Against the Dark
Pairing - McGonagall/Grubbly Plank.
Length - 11000 words
Vibe - Feel good with a happy ending. BANTER!!!!
Author's summary - It's been a few months since Minerva's retirement, and she'd promised Wil a dinner out. Before she knows it, friends start turning up on her doorstep and then at the pub, not least among them a certain spy who came in from the cold.
Rec - READ THIS! The longest fic of the fest iirc. But also the best! My favorite fic of 2023 so far!! Don't miss this fic! I love literally everything about it. The prose, the really sharp banter, the characterizations, the dynamics of their relationships. A lot of times we get to see the postwar setting when stuff is really raw or when they sort of got over it. This fic has a really low stakes premise of a retirement party but the undercurrents of their history/war is super present. The writing has this really precise balance where it feels light but it is at the same time dealing with tons and tons of complicated PTSD and messy baggage. ALSO SNARRY! Technically background Snarry but not really. It's right in your face. McGonagall's face I mean! :D :D ALSO THE BANTER! Sorry but not sorry! This is an ALL CAPS SCREAMING fic. Some real Seinfeld moments with the sharp banter.
Vibe quote
Wil wasn't a smirker, but it was a near thing. "Not that our dear old Skunk isn't capable of riding a bucking broom into the nearest cloud all on his own, but I did put the wind up his bristles. The therapeutic effects of working with the herd get raised now and then when we're out on the hillside and Severus is in a receptive mood. Harry being one of our lad's personal Boggarts – not that that's ever been a secret – I thought it worth mentioning his recent distress. Divorce and all. Gave my opinion that somebody ought to nudge the lad into beneficial activity."
Rec note - the fic that made me late for work. No regrets.
Womb
Pairing - gen, Phineas POV
Length - 2900 words.
Vibe - Angst with a happy ending. GENDER!!!
Author's Summary - Phineas revisits the question of legacy.
Rec - a solid premise of Found Family with a twist like A Christmas Carol. Phineas thinks his legacy is over because Sirius is dead. But he starts to accept legacy isn't about blood and "adopts" Snape. I mean. Sort of. Technically he saves Snape. I mean. It's complicated! Read it read it read it!!!! OMG!!!! It's a beautiful and eerie fic with lots of unforgivable magic which you forgive anyway because the motive is love. Also lots of gender. Definitely be careful with this fic if you have some gender dysphoria. It has a lot of detach/remove and some really clever techniques to kind of abstract the harder stuff so it doesn't feel dysphoric but these things can be YMMV. Phineas POV! He is super hard to sympathize with because he's pretty much into the purity thing. But you can definitely see where he is coming from and why/how he changes. ALSO SNARRY PRESLASH??
Rec note - So this fic has some serious Giger vibes. Giger designed the chestburster Alien in the Alien franchise. A strange combo of gender imagery.
Vibe Quote
And out came bursting a stick-shaped, sour-shaped man, bawling as only a newborn could, naked as something sprung from the mother, with pigment smearing him in afterbirth.
Some Semblance of Family
Pairing - gen, Eileen POV
Length - 2200 words.
Vibe - Angst with Glass Onion vibes!
Author's Summary - Eileen returns to Prince House on familial business.
Rec - Hardcore Snape fam angst. Really brilliant/sharp Eileen characterization. Love the character study. Also really loved the world building in the fic! Shortfic but does a lot with the word count! It's going to break your heart.
Vibe quote
Eileen realised that her great uncle was right, that she was wrong, that she had allowed hope, as usual, to poison her, and with a bitter, eldritch shriek, she began unburdening herself of her own searing disappointment.
The Watched Pot
Genfic with Snape POV.
Length - 2100 words.
Vibe - Angst!
Author's Summary -In the aftermath, Severus has no plan other than a potion.
Rec - I don't want to spoil the fic because the suspense is a big part of this fic. It's a brilliant Snape POV fic with super sharp characterization of Eileen and her relationship with her son. Heartbreaking. But ofc it's Snape. That's his thing!
Vibe Quote
"It's an old wives' tale, you know," Eileen says.
"What is?"
"That a watched pot never boils. Eventually, with enough time and heat, everything boils."
It was Magic
Pairing - Tobias/Eileen
Length - 1100 words
Vibe - SCHEMING!
Author's Summary -Tobias and Eileen's wedding day is the result of a magical connection.
Rec - OMG! This fic! Tobias and Eileen are big little liars!! Lots of intrigue/mystery/complicated motives. But you also feel for them and also feel really scared for their future/Snape's future. Super sharp writing which keeps you guessing nonstop!
Vibe quote
It's a small wedding because neither Tobias nor Eileen have any family, at least, that's what they've told each other.
