Looking Into The Abyss

Was Reed’s dad shitty?

Oh, he is INCREDIBLY shitty. But it’s important to understand the specific type of shitty Nathaniel is because a lot of who Reed chooses to be as a father and husband is in direct opposition to Nathaniel and his truly terrible parenting choices. If Nathaniel ever has to choose between the greater good and his own son/his son’s emotional well-being, he’ll always choose the greater good. So Reed is determined to be a great, present, caring dad and husband and to always put his family first because he knows how much it fucking hurts when your dad DOESN’T put you first. This is why it annoys me so much when people try to argue that Reed cares more about science and the greater good than his wife and kids….no. That is his father. Reed goes to great lengths NOT to treat his wife and kids that way because he knows firsthand how much it hurts. For Reed, family comes first, before anything. And he has ACTUALLY SAID that his dad is why in canon, in this letter he wrote to Sue the day he became a father:

I want to be a good father, Susan. The best! I want to have a close and loving relationship with my son. The kind I could never quite achieve with my own father! But I’m going to need help. You’ve always been the stronger and more focused one of us, and I’ll forever count on you to keep me on track.

Fantastic Four: The Legend (x)

It annoys me when people ignore this. But anyway, time for:

THE STORY OF NATHANIEL RICHARDS, AKA HOW TO CONSTANTLY ABANDON, DISAPPOINT, AND ALIENATE YOUR FAMILY

Reed’s mother died when he was about seven years old. Meaning that Nathaniel is Reed’s only surviving parent, for all the good it’s done him. Nathaniel stuck around for a couple of years after his wife’s death, but then he began his lifelong habit of abandoning his son when he joined the Brotherhood of the Shield and ran off to protect time and the universe with Howard Stark, another shitty dad (although Howard just straight-up faked his death and said he was never coming back while Nathaniel at least felt bad about abandoning his teenage son…but also he still abandoned him). Nathaniel gives Reed a bullshit speech before he goes about how he wants Reed to be a better man and father than he is, which basically boils down to “do as I say, not as I do, aka I know abandoning you to protect the world is wrong but I’m gonna do it anyway.” UGH. Little Reed clearly is not okay with his dad leaving, possibly forever. His dad goes anyway. From Fantastic Four v1 #572:

Hickman’s Nathaniel, for the record, is largely considered the best/nicest version, and look at him…HE IS STILL AN ASSHOLE.

Cut for length.

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Costume. Chitons.

Something that really stuck out to me in Coco is how Ceci and Chicharrón are implied to have helped Héctor multiple times with his harebrained schemes. They’ve been giving him important objects (Cheech lent him a FEMUR for crying out loud) even though they know they’re likely to never see them again, and though they’re clearly annoyed that their stuff is missing, they just… keep doing it???

Knowing Héctor‘s personality, and how well he treated a boy he knew for less than 12 hours before he even found out he was family, I can’t help but think that on the 365 days when it isn’t Día de Muertos, Héctor is an absolutely fantastic friend. That he’s loving and caring and goes out of his way to help Ceci and Chicharrón and his Shantytown family with anything they need, not just because he needs something in return. So by the time Día de Muertos comes and Héctor is desperate to cross the bridge again, his friends don’t help him out of pity, but rather because they genuinely like the hopeless goofball.

I dunno. Got me thinking. Héctor is a good and people like him. And now his family likes him too. That’s always a good thought.

on catholicism and severus & tobias snape

if you're going to expect a very well-thought out essay about this, please let me stop you right there. it likely won't be :)) but this was prompted by comments of people on my hc of catholic!snape and a (long) conversation with @dementedlollipop on discord that just spurred so many Thoughts.

going under a cut coz i don't know how long this will be.

so. i have made several allusions via drawings and stuff that one of my (main) hcs is that snape and tobias are catholic. i don't think i explained properly before why it makes so much sense; i tend to just spazz, but i'll really try to be articulate this time.

first, the background:

i grew up catholic, but the culture i was raised in was also catholic, so it permeated the value system i and everyone else around me knew. people put a high value on respect, filial piety, obedience, family, etc. all the stuff you watched on Derry Girls. that's exactly how it is to grow up in catholic culture, at least where i'm from. american catholic culture is slightly different because it's placed in a very secular context so it has a lot of caveats. it's very different if you grow up culturally catholic, and in a country that still largely runs on religious practices.

how this relates to the snapes:

i always find it interesting to figure out why characters act the way they do, especially if there's very little said in canon about them. tobias was one of the characters i was so interested in, because i found his situation so unique.

he's a muggle, as we know, and it was alluded to that he had neglected and/or abused his son and/or wife. yet, as far as we can tell, he also didn't leave them. it was likely that by the time severus met lily he already knew both eileen and severus were magical. why did he stay with them, if he disliked magic? surely it would have been easier if he had just left and started over elsewhere?

it's not just tobias, but also severus; how he acted, his thought processes, why he did what he did. it all felt very familiar to me, and it all routed back to traditional catholic values, and the way that i know how you just can't shake them off, no matter how hard you push against the faith itself.

the things that feed the hc (and which also leads to more hcs):

- severus was born in 1960, which means tobias was born in the first half of the 20th century, sometime between the 20s and 40s. (i like to peg it as the late 20s, because i also like to hc him being a ww2 vet, not only because it fits the context but also like father, like son -- severus is also a soldier);

- tobias living through the first half of the 20th century means he would have lived in an england that was still 'religious' in a sense, wherein religion was still a big part of their culture (i mean it technically still is, but i would imagine more people back then were still practicing it actively). he didn't strike me as anglican or protestant tbh because he seemed too traditional, and by that i mean he had a strong sense of duty to his family, strong enough to not break his marriage vows and to stay despite the presence of magic;

- now, magic has always had a weird placement in catholicism. i've never really had issues with religion vs harry potter. we were never banned from it, however i do know that back then, the very concept of magic was something that scared the bejeezus out of the common folk because it was "the devil's work" (and yes, i know this belief is wrong and is rooted in oppression by the church, but this is not what we're discussing rn). the repulsion tobias feels about magic i feel is therefore something that's rooted in religion;

- it was dementedlollipop that pointed this out but severus wearing his mam's blouse can also be read as tobias not even minding this was happening. how could this happen in a hypermasculine society like a lower-class town in 60s england? if tobias had really cared about it (because shame, because what will the neighbors think of you running around looking like that), severus would have worn his da's shirt rather than his mam's, if only to save himself from possible punishment. but he didn't. we know, however, that he was neglected/punished as a child. in this case, the possible reason he would have been was precisely because of magic. now you tell me why an ordinary muggle man in this setting would even care that his child was magical? as poor as they were, he could have exploited their magic and tried to make money from it, but this type of behavior was never mentioned. it just strengthens the hc that tobias was more bothered by something else more fundamental about the magic: that his son was not just different, but different, in all the ways he knew was wrong;

- "he doesn't like anything, much" sounds like a description of a man resigned to his fate, that is, being in a marriage he couldn't get out of (divorce isn't allowed in the catholic church, and annulment is expensive and has many conditions before it can be granted, if it will be granted). the abuse we know that happened could be him retaliating to the situation by lashing out in a horrific manner whenever the final thread snapped;

- catholicism is very big on ethics, and places value in things like fortitude, temperance, piety. this isn't just taught to you via a book; people already behave like it and it's ingrained in your belief systems, so you also learn it by example. suffering is also a big thing in catholic culture. there's virtue in suffering, in subjecting yourself to copious amounts of guilt and making up for it via penance like giving yourself up for a higher cause. i mean, that already is peak severus imo, but it also works for tobias, because where else could severus have learned it? children don't just pick up this stuff on the fly; it's learned from one's parents and backed up by a very solid values system;

- we then have tobias, a born-and-raised catholic, with a wife and child whom he suddenly finds out can do things that have always been taught to him as "satanic", and yet he can't leave them due to his marriage vows, due to his sense of duty that's been drilled into him since time immemorial, and perhaps because he also does love them. it's his family, after all. severus is his only child. a child he had initially thought was blessed, a gift, but is now damned, and it's his fault, as a father. he must have done something in his life to deserve it, but what? why would god even curse him this way? but then god gives his hardest battles to his strongest soldiers, and so he will see it through. this is his burden to bear;

- now we have severus, who's raised on the same values as his father, but tempered by his mother's secret stories of the wizarding world. he would have adored his father, i think, prior to his magic being discovered, because tobias would have doted on him. they would have been avid churchgoers at some point, at least severus and tobias, and he would have been baptized in the local parish. he'd have gone to mass, would have heard it in latin, and would have learned latin enough to know it like a mother tongue. he would have recited prayers and hymns with his father in latin too. this would have given him a leg up in the wizarding world, as far as that language was concerned. it's no wonder he could create spells;

- imagine the heartache that would have occurred the moment tobias realized he was not at all normal. the rejection that would have happened, how tobias would have silently and swiftly cut off all affection, and young severus would have been left to wonder why, until eileen explained to him that his father's world and their world just could not mix, and it's always been the way with muggles (hence the somewhat anti-muggle sentiment he alludes to in canon when with lily). but severus would have also probably secretly thought it was all his fault;

- now this: even if he had rejected his father and the muggle faith he had been raised on just before going to hogwarts in order to make something new of himself, it wouldn't have worked. ironically, the wizarding world has living embodiments of the concepts he had learned at his father's knee and in the church, the same things he would have been trying to avoid and forget: the concept of souls was proven with ghosts, and eventually, horcruxes; voldemort dying and resurrecting proved power over death. the afterlife was also proven by harry's testimony from the graveyard when voldy got resurrected. voldemort himself, with his giant snake, would have also been like the living proof of satan and sin;

- i think severus would have been terrified at the realization that oh shit this stuff could actually true, and it would have pushed him towards religion, not away from it, if only to study it more. i mean i can only imagine him having a ton of theology books in his study just to read up on the subject matter. it would have also made the concept of him losing his soul upon killing dumbledore very very real and all the more terrifying, because then the sayings of him being doomed for all eternity may actually come true;

- (thou shall not kill. thou shall not kill. thou shall not kill)

- like his father before him though, he would have accepted his fate like a good soldier, and would have accepted the suffering that came with it. he also probably felt deep, deep guilt all throughout, because tobias had been right. he was exactly what his father had always been frightened of: damned in this life, and now the next. and it was all his fault.

what bugs me about this tweet is that he didn’t die to save the wizarding world. harry did that. snape died because a snake bit him. i fail to see how his death was a sacrifice. but oh no, he was so “brave,” bullying children all those years. some people try to defend that with “oh he was trying to protect harry and this and that and bla bla bla” but harry was not the only one he bullied. he made hermione cry! he tried to poison neville’s toad! sorry joanne, snape is a devil. thank you for listening to my ted talk.

Do you think Snape hate has increased since we found out he was poor?

I think there’s a number of reasons, but yes, I think it’s a possibility.  We can quickly compare and contrast how Draco and Snape are perceived by fandom, or even Regulus and Snape.  I suspect that the poverty that the Snape family were steeped in is too difficult for some readers to wholly grasp, whereas perhaps it is far easier to admire and aspire towards the riches and decadence of the Blacks and the Malfoys.  

Maybe it’s also easier for some modern readers to imagine the psychological impact of not agreeing with the politics of your parents than it is to imagine the undercurrent of domestic violence and living in a destitute environment in a dilapidated house.  Additionally, there are uncomfortable messages for some from Snape - this dirty, unloved, dishevelled child is as powerful and as capable as any other wizard, and given the opportunity, he flourishes.  Depending on your class, you may read Snape’s success as a powerful message of triumph over adversity - or perhaps, a dangerous message about competition from the underclass.  

Still, I suspect the real issue is generational - and not necessarily generational from Harry starting at Hogwarts in 1991 and us discussing this almost 30 years later, but generational from JK.  I’ve spoken a lot previously about how her depiction is of teachers from the mid 70s put into a book set in the early 90s and how that doesn’t wholly translate to the kid of the late 10s.  

With that in mind, I think her notion of a love story is also mired in history.  For someone of JK’s age when she started writing, unrequited love was seen in positive terms - it wasn’t meant to be creepy.  Love is a huge theme throughout the series, and the idea that Snape - who had walked down this horribly dark path and was outwardly a mean and nasty and spiteful man - would completely change his ideology and allegiance due to his unrequited love for Lily was supposed to have been indicative of the power of love.

But we read Potter now with modern eyes, and unrequited love has not aged particularly well.  It seems rare that people genuinely ‘quietly love from afar’ - and instead, fandom insists on applying traits to the character which don’t exist in the text.  For instance, there’s no indication of Snape being a stalker or a creep, there’s no indication that he wanted a sexual relationship with Lily, there’s no indication that he bothered her or harassed her.  He isn’t a ‘nice guy’ or an ‘incel’ - but some readers can’t find the trope that they’re expecting, so they apply others to the series, even if they don’t quite fit.

So, I think the author and the readership are in conflict.  The author wrote a tale of genuine unrequited love, and the readers are trying to view it through modern frameworks, and they draw incorrect conclusions about the character’s motives.

I suspect this is exacerbated by the readership not ageing with the series.  Everyone who read Potter whilst it was being published had to wait for the next book to be written, but these days, they’re binge-read.  I think that lack of distance between each book (and the subsequent lack of maturity, because you’re reading the next one within a week, and not waiting three years, so you can’t have matured further) means that many struggle to separate Snape from being a cipher for their mean teacher at school to becoming the secret hero that he is.

I think that’s my real conclusion.  The problem is that this is an old text which is being read as if it is modern - and that leads to a clash between reader expectation and authorial intent.

deltarune soriel comic I did month ago.（1/2）

How do you view Albus’ and Severus’ relationship? Do you think Albus’ genuinely cared for Severus’ or was he just - using him?

(Once again, disclaimer that I am working from memory and don’t have the books on hand to double-check the details.)

Anon, thank you so much for asking, because this relationship is an absolute goldmine. My tl;dr is “it’s a mess and I love that”.

To start with though, I need to address the framing of your question. Because “genuinely cared” and “using” are not mutually exclusive categories, especially when it comes to Albus. Albus cares about people, just in general. He can be clumsy about showing it when it’s too much for him, or when he’s conflicted, or when he thinks he needs to hold back, but he undoubtedly cares. I don’t say this often because I’m a big believer in the subjectivity of interpreting literature, but - any interpretation that says he doesn’t is wrong, and probably deliberately misreading out of spite. (Am I being uncharitable here? Maybe. But I’m tired of reading some people’s takes so I’m going to be uncharitable.)

People are Albus’ greatest strength and he wins their loyalty not by manipulating them into following him but by genuinely caring about and understanding them. But he also knows what needs to be done, and is capable of distancing himself, and prefers to keep his cards very close to his chest - because he might care for people but he doesn’t trust them. A lot of what gets deemed manipulative or “using” from him stems from his desire to take sole responsibility for things, and unwillingness to let other people in. He’s warm to people but shuts down emotionally when it’s too much or he’s conflicted. He’s never actually been the cold chessmaster fandom likes to paint him as. (Chessmaster? Yes. Cold? No.)

When Severus first approaches him, he’s quite harsh with him. But at this point, as far as Albus knows, Severus is a Death Eater who’s only interest is protecting Lily. (I firmly disagree with the interpretation that Lily is the only reason Severus ever did anything good, but she was his main concern at that time). His harshness doesn’t show that he sees Severus as a tool to me, but quite the opposite - that he sees him as a person capable of growth, wants to see him grow and holds him to that standard. If he were a discardable tool, Albus would have just told him what he wanted to hear in order to win his loyalty. Instead he gives him what he needs - an anchor he can use to pull himself up. Albus places himself as a figure that can offer Severus forgiveness and absolution, and there’s definitely a power imbalance there, and Severus probably resents it quite a bit, but he still latches on to it. Albus and Lily are probably the only two people in his life at that time who’ve ever seen him as someone worth expecting something from.

I don’t think, at this point, that it’s personal for Albus. I doubt he would turn away any Death Eater who genuinely wanted to change, and he is aware of the massive advantage that having a potential spy on his side would offer. He cares, but he’s also in the middle of a war and has other people to protect who take priority. You could say he’s using Severus to an extent - Severus is emotionally vulnerable and desperate, and Albus sees that and knows how to make use of it. A part of him is aware that he needs to use Severus and tries to keep an emotional distance. But his “making use of it” isn’t so much calculated manipulation as offering Severus a way out, which Severus chooses to take.

Albus and Severus make excellent foils that both mirror and contrast each other. Albus plays the role of the hero (I say plays not because I don’t consider him genuinely heroic but because it’s a role he deliberately assumes for others even when he thinks he doesn’t deserve it) because people need him to look up to, but also because it’s hard to shatter the image others have of him. Severus plays the role of a villain out of practical necessity as a spy, but also because he’s so used to it that it’s easier and more comfortable than trying to change people’s perception of him. Both are uncomfortable with emotional vulnerablity or letting people see behind that mask. Both are lonely and isolated and secretive. Both have a lot of guilt bottled up that they don’t talk about. Both are willing to sacrifice themselves to win the war. And both harbour enough self-hatred that they probably strongly dislike seeing themselves reflected.

I wouldn’t be surprised if Albus harbours a touch of envy towards Severus - if only subconsciously - because Severus got to rely on love to redeem himself, which is so far from Albus’ own experience. And Severus almost certainly resents Albus for having seen him emotionally vulnerable and getting to hold the upper hand and remain a distant, unassailable figure. I think a part of each of them senses an emotional rawness in the other that they shy away from because it hits too close to home, so while they may care for each other they have too many rough edges between them to fully like or feel comfortable with one another. That’s a part of why Albus can seem cold and harsh towards Severus; projection and a discomfort with intense emotion that’s too similar to his own. There’s also the fact that he knows Severus is in a precarious position and might have to be sacrificed. There is a slightly mercenary slant to their relationship - both know exactly what they want from the other, and what the other wants from them. And on Albus’ side, I think he feels a certain fragility in his position over Severus - he’s been playing a role that allows him to pass judgement, but he doesn’t feel that role is fully deserved. But he never demands more of Severus than he’d demand of himself - and maybe seeing himself in Severus is what allows him to demand as much of Severus as he does of himself, which is a fairly high, unyielding bar. And this doesn’t preclude emotional attachment to each other, and on Albus’ side, while their similarities may make him want to keep an emotional distance they also, almost paradoxically, allow him to sympathise with and understand Severus.

And with all that, Albus does trust Severus by the end, which is something much rarer for him than simply caring for someone. Severus is the only one who knows the entirety of his plan. Severus is the only one who knows he’s dying. By this point the dynamic of emotional vulnerablity has come full circle and Albus is desperate and forced to show vulnerablity. He hates showing weakness because he’s always been the one that everyone - Severus included - has looked to for strength and certainty, but now he’s willing to beg Severus to kill him. At the start, Severus needed Albus because he had no-one else to rely on. By the end that dynamic is flipped. If there’s one thing I would define their relationship by, it’s “vulnerablity and mutual reliance forced by circumstance” - but I think that circumstance leads to a situation where they understand and trust each other more than anyone else, however uncomfortable it might be for them.

An emotional first reaction to Arcane's finale

With an accent on Silco's arc...

*Wipes tears away*

Anyway. When was the last time you sat down to a tv show that punched this hard and respected its villain this deeply? Silco is by far the most interesting character, and he carries the show on his scrawny shoulders.

Compelling if mysterious backstory, overcomes his demons and his traitorous brother in one fell swoop as he gains power. Silco's a zealot who dreams big for everyone. And yet in the end he finally understands why Vander did what he did. Finally has an emotional tie on a personal level that means more to him than the Nation Of Zaun, that big all consuming project that's been driving him from the start.

And yet in a completely masterful twist, Vander chosing his daughters over Zaun means the Status Quo, while Silco choosing his daughter over Zaun means War.

He gets everything he ever wanted. He's a villain who uses all ends to reach his goals and actually gets there, and the creative minds behind Arcane had the guts to make it absolutely irrelevant to his death. That is so wild, honestly. His love is his personal downfall (or more likely, the lack of mental health care in the Lanes is his downfall...) but he's never more human and more like Vander than when he dies...

For the creators to chose to NEVER redeem him, and instead just... humanize him to the very end... To let him say his piece and clear out misunderstandings and also to go knowing all his *fucked up* efforts fucking paid off...

*Silco style slow clap*

Fucking bravo.

Turns out Silco wasn't lying, not anymore than any of us do from time to time, even to our loved ones. Turns out that he was really worrying, really caring, and that it was really "just the two of them".

There's plenty wrong with Jinx's arc as a villain in the becoming, the whole "hearing voices makes me unhinged and violent" really isn't palatable.. it's an easy cop-out that puts people with IRL mental illnesses in another toxic limelight.

But there's incredible beauty in her being truly embraced by the villain, for the most wholesome family to really be with him. To be fought for as hard by him, as much as Vander did. Vi doesn't want Jinx. She truly wants "Powder", and even if she probably loves her and probably needs the mental help Vi would desire for her "to change" and "become stable", Jinx's toxic, zealot, asshole second dad loves her exactly as she is. Why the fuck would you not chose that side, being in Jinx's boots?

*chokes up for a minute*

I can't clap my hands hard enough to applaud the team behind Arcane (so I'll use them to write fanfic instead)

How did they manage to break the curse of video game adaptation?

Well, I think it helps that the studio itself retained absolute creative control. For once it's not a film industry giant buying rights and trying to do it's usual "adaptation" cash grab wringer. It's a studio getting another studio to work their (insane) magic and produce the best 9 episodes cinematic we've ever seen.

The vision was theirs, the story was uncompromising and unflinching.

I am not surprised the writing punches this hard. Video game writers know what the fuck they're doing, because they create immersive worlds and storyline in which the players/viewer is directly active. I mean look at other hard gut punches out there like God of War, Wticher 3 or even Jackie's arc in Cyberpunk.

But for them to stick to their guns to the very end... To give us characters this compelling instead of following the cliche route... For them not to betray us, the way so many other storylines do by trying something bold for a hot minute before falling back on tried and true cliches like deflating souflés...

Guys, I'm sorry but even Disney doesn't clap this hard. Arcane came on to the scene and swatted everyone aside. The visuals, the animation style, the music, the cast of character all painted in deep shades of grey, the riveting plot with its series of mirrored pairs going through the same divisive process... Arcane is the show we've all been begging for, but we were asking for it to the wrong people.

Bravo team. None of y'all will ever see this post, but know you're appreciated. You made me scream and choke up and built a whole new condominium in my skull for Silco to live in rent free. Fuck you and bless you, I love you guys.

Hi! I’m part of the lgbtq+ community and Severus is my favorite HP character and I was wondering (if you have the time and feel obliged) if you could please give me a few examples of how he’s queer? It’s been a few years since I reread the books, and def before I came out, so I’m a little in the dark here lol Thanks!!

First of all, I just wanted to apologize for how long it has taken me to properly respond to your ask. I’ve been dealing with some ongoing health issues that have turned me into something of a moody writer. I’ll get random spurts of energy and inspiration and then hit a wall of absolute writer’s block assisted by a major case of executive dysfunction every single time I try to respond to the multiple asks languishing in my inbox. Fortunately, I found myself involved in a discussion just today that addressed your ask so perfectly that I wanted to share it with you.  In the very least, that discussion has also managed to shake off my writer’s block temporarily so that I have found myself in the right head-space to finally be able to give this lovely ask the thought and attention that I feel it deserves. 

Although, in regards to the Snape discourse I linked above, I feel that I should warn you in advance that the discussion was prompted by an anti-Snape poster who made a rather ill-thought meme (I know there are many in the Snapedom who would rather just avoid seeing anti-Snape content altogether, so I try to warn when I link people to debates and discussions prompted by anti-posts) but the thoughtful responses that the anti-Snape poster unintentionally generated from members of the Snapedom (particularly by @deathdaydungeon whose critical analyses of Snape and, on occasions, other Harry Potter characters is always so wonderfully nuanced, thought-provoking, and well-considered), are truly excellent and worth reading, in my opinion. Also, as I fall more loosely under the “a” (I’m grey-ace/demisexual) of the lgbtqa+ flag and community I would prefer to start any discussions about Snape as a queer character or as a character with queer coding by highlighting the perspectives of people in the Snapedom who are actually queer before sharing any thoughts of my own.

In addition, I also wanted to share a few other posts where Snape’s queer coding has been discussed by members of the Snapedom in the past (and likely with far more eloquence than I could manage in this response of my own).

Source

Source

Source

Source

Source

Source

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Along with an excellent article in Vice by Diana Tourjée, in which a case for Snape being trans is convincingly argued. 

Importantly, you’ll notice that while some of these discussions do argue the possibility of Snape being a queer or trans character others may only discuss the way that Snape’s character is queer coded. That is because there is a distinct but subtle difference between: “This character could be queer/lgbtq+” and: “This character has queer/lgbtq+ coding” one which is briefly touched on in the first discussion that I linked you to. However, I would like to elaborate a bit here just what I mean when I refer to Snape as a character with queer coding. As while Rowling has never explicitly stated that she intended to write Snape as lgbtq+ (although there is one interview given by Rowling which could be interpreted as either an unintentional result of trying to symbolically explain Snape’s draw to the dark arts or a vague nod to Snape’s possible bisexuality: “Well, that is Snape’s tragedy. … He wanted Lily and he wanted Mulciber too. He never really understood Lily’s aversion; he was so blinded by his attraction to the dark side he thought she would find him impressive if he became a real Death Eater.”) regardless of her intent when she drew upon the existing body of Western literary traditions and tropes for writing antagonists and villains in order to use them as a red-herring for Snape’s character, she also embued his character with some very specific, coded subtext. This is where Death of the Author can be an invaluable tool for literary critics, particularly in branches of literary criticism like queer theory. 

Ultimately, even if Rowling did not intend to write Snape as explicitly queer/lgbtq+ the literary tradition she drew upon in order to present him as a foil for Harry Potter and have her readers question whether he was an ally or a villain has led to Snape being queer coded. Specifically, many of the characteristics of Snape’s character design do fall under the trope known as the “queering of the villain.” Particularly, as @deathdaydungeon, @professormcguire, and other members of the Snapedom have illustrated, Snape’s character not only subverts gender roles (e.g. his Patronus presents as female versus male, Snape symbolically assumes the role of “the mother” in the place of both Lily and later Narcissa when he agrees to protect Harry and Draco, his subject of choice is potions and poisons which are traditionally associated more with women and “witches,” while he seemingly rejects in his first introduction the more phallic practice of “foolish wand-waving,” and indeed Snape is characterized as a defensive-fighter versus offensive, in Arthurian mythology he fulfills the role of Lady of the Lake in the way he chooses to deliver the Sword of Gryffindor to Harry, Hermione refers to his hand-writing as “kind of girly,” his association with spiders and spinners also carries feminine symbology, etc.) but is often criticized or humiliated for his seeming lack of masculinity (e.g. Petunia mocking his shirt as looking like “a woman’s blouse,” which incidentally was also slang in the U.K. similar to “dandy” to accuse men of being effeminate, the Marauders refer to Snape as “Snivellus” which suggests Snape is either less masculine because he cries or the insult is a mockery of what could pass for a stereotypical/coded Jewish feature, his nose, Remus Lupin quite literally instructs Neville on how to “force” a Boggart!Snape, who incidentally is very literally stepping out of a closet-like wardrobe, into the clothing of an older woman and I quoted force because that is the exact phrase he uses, James and Sirius flipping Snape upside down to expose him again presents as humiliation in the form of emasculation made worse by the arrival and defense of Lily Evans, etc.). 

Overall, the “queering of the villain” is an old trope in literature (although it became more deliberate and prevalent in media during the 1950s-60s); however, in modernity, we still can find it proliferating in many of the Disney villains (e.g. Jafar, Scar, Ursula, etc.), in popular anime and children’s cartoons (e.g. HiM from Powerpuff Girls, James from Pokemon, Frieza, Zarbon, the Ginyu Force, Perfect Cell, basically a good majority of villains from DBZ, Nagato from Fushigi Yuugi, Pegasus from Yu Gi Oh, etc.), and even in modern television series and book adaptations, such as the popular BBC’s Sherlock in the character of Moriarty. Indeed, this article does an excellent job in detailing some of the problematic history of queer coded villains. Although, the most simple summary is that: “Queer-coding is a term used to say that characters were given traits/behaviors to suggest they are not heterosexual/cisgender, without the character being outright confirmed to have a queer identity” (emphasis mine). Notably, TV Tropes also identifies this trope under the classification of the “Sissy Villain” but in queer theory and among queer writers in fandom and academia “queering of the villain” is the common term. This brings me back to Snape and his own queer coding; mainly, because Rowling drew upon Western traditions for presenting a character as a suspected villain she not only wrote Snape as queer (and racially/ethnically) coded but in revealing to the reader that Snape was not, in fact, the villain Harry and the readers were encouraged to believe he was by the narrator she incorporated a long history of problematic traits/tropes into a single character and then proceeded to subvert them by subverting reader-expectation in a way that makes the character of Severus Snape truly fascinating. 

We can certainly debate the authorial intent vs. authorial impact where Snape’s character is concerned. Particularly as we could make a case that the polarizing nature of Snape may well be partly the result of many readers struggling against Rowling subverting literary tropes that are so firmly rooted in our Western storytelling traditions that they cannot entirely abandon the idea that this character who all but had the book thrown at him in terms of all the coding that went into establishing him as a likely villain (e.g. similar to Heathcliff in Wuthering Heights, Snape is also coded to be associated with darkness/black colors and to represent danger and volatile/unstable moods, while his class status further characterizes him as an outsider or “foreign other,” and not unlike all those villains of our childhood Disney films which affirmed a more black-and-white philosophy of moral abolutism, such as Scar or Jafar, the ambiguity of Snape’s sexuality coupled with his repeated emasculation signals to the reader that this man should be “evil” and maybe even “predatory,” ergo all the “incel” and friendzone/MRA discourse despite nothing in canon truly supporting those arguments; it seems it may merely be Snape’s “queerness” that signals to some readers that he was predatory or even that “If Harry had been a girl” there would be some kind of danger) is not actually our villain after all. 

Indeed, the very act of having Snape die (ignoring, for the moment, any potential issues of “Bury Your Gays” in a queer analysis of his death) pleading with Harry to “look at him” as he symbolically seems to weep (the man whom Harry’s hyper-masculine father once bullied and mocked as “Snivellus”) memories for Harry to view (this time with his permission) carries some symbolic weight for any queer theory analysis. Snape, formerly portrayed as unfathomable and “secretive,” dies while pleading to be seen by the son of both his first and closest friend and his school-hood bully (a son that Snape also formerly could never see beyond his projection of James) sharing with Harry insight into who he was via his personal memories. For Harry to later go on to declare Snape “the bravest man he ever knew” carries additional weight, as a queer theory analysis makes it possible for us to interpret that as Harry finally recognizing Snape, not as the “queer coded villain” he and the reader expected but rather as the brave queer coded man who was forced to live a double-life in which “no one would ever know the best of him” and who, in his final moments at least, was finally able to be seen as the complex human-being Rowling always intended him to be. 

Rowling humanizing Snape for Harry and the reader and encouraging us to view Snape with empathy opened up the queer coding that she wrote into his character (intentionally or otherwise) in such a way that makes him both a potentially subversive and inspiring character for the lgbtq+ community. Essentially, Snape opens the door for the possibility of reclaiming a tradition of queer coding specific to villains and demonstrating the way those assumptions about queer identity can be subverted. Which is why I was not at all surprised that I was so easily able to find a body of existing discourse surrounding Snape as a queer coded or even as a potentially queer character within the Harry Potter fandom. At least within the Snapedom, there are many lgbtq+ fans of his character that already celebrate the idea of a queer, bi, gay, trans, ace/aro, or queer coded Snape (in fact, as a grey-ace I personally enjoy interpreting Snape through that lens from time-to-time). 

Thank you for your ask @pinkyhatespink and once again I apologize for the amount of time it’s taken me to reply. However, I hope that you’ll find this response answered your question and, if not, that some of the articles and posts from other pro-Snape bloggers I linked you to will be able to do so more effectively. Also, as a final note, although many of the scholarly references and books on queer coding and queering of the villain I would have liked to have sourced are typically behind paywalls, I thought I would list the names of just a few here that I personally enjoyed reading in the past and that may be of further interest should you be able to find access to them.

Fathallah, Judith. “Moriarty’s Ghost: Or the Queer Disruption of the BBC’s Sherlock.” Television & New Media, vol. 16, no. 5, 2014, p. 490-500. 

Huber, Sandra. “Villains, Ghosts, and Roses, or How to Speak With The Dead.” Open Cultural Studies, vol. 3, no. 1, 2019, p. 15-25.

Mailer, Norman. “The Homosexual Villain.” 1955. Mind of an Outlaw: Selected Essays, edited by Sipiora Phillip, Random House, 2013, pp. 14–20.

Solis, Nicole Eschen. "Murder Most Queer: The Homicidal Homosexual in the American Theater.” Queer Studies in Media & Pop Culture, vol. 1, no. 1, 2016, p. 115+. 

Tuhkanen, Mikko. “The Essentialist Villain.” Jan. 2019,  SBN13: 978-1-4384-6966-9