#queer-coded disney villain energy. i love it.

[neroushalvaus]

Was anyone going to tell me that Spilsbury flirts with Charles during Making a Man or was I supposed to just die of shock

[faelapis]

despite some concerns raised by the trailer/marketing, i am still excited for the wish movie. a lot of that has to do with king magnifico.

that being said, i approach it from a different direction than a lot of other people excited for a “classic disney villain.”

first of all, yes. i, too, love the camp and melodrama of classic disney villains. i love that they express their wishes through big bombastic musical numbers, and said musical numbers are often the best in their movies. i like how queer-coded and fun they often are. i like the sass, the drama, the energy.

where i disagree with a lot of people is with this notion that disney movies “don’t have villains” anymore. i don’t think the likes of hans (frozen) and tamatoa (moana) are less evil than "classic" villains - they’re plenty willing to kill with a smile on their face.

i think what people ACTUALLY miss is the big performance around it all. the aesthetic. someone who does these things while being a major character (so not tamatoa) and deliciously, obviously evil while having fun with it the whole time (so not hans). i think it’s that specific combination people are missing. we still have villains, they’re just either not as “fun” or not as “important.”

of course, that take is less punchy than saying disney doesn’t have villains because "steven cringeyverse destroyed western animation and now companies are too scared to make real villains >:( !1!!!"

yeah i never understood where that came from. if anything, redeeming villains is more controversial than killing them. especially in america, being punitive is the norm. forgiveness is cringe. yet so many act as if there was some big consumer and/or corporate pushback against the idea of villains…? at some point?? i guess????

someone must've forgotten to tell that to disney tv animation, where you’ll find everything from bill cipher to belos in the modern era. (also, other companies exist? dreamworks is not some indie studio, they’re fully willing to have big, campy villains.)

but yknow, people like to feel like underdogs. they like to feel like they're somehow oppressed because some animated media don't have classic villains anymore... despite there still being plenty around. you can’t just like villains, you have to make it everyone else’s problem. like disney is obliged to do the same character tropes in every movie. or villains are "dead."

what actually happened is just… some writers at disney decided they wanted to do different things. that’s it. so you now have a handful of movies where the villain is either a minor character, or nonexistent.

it’s not a conspiracy, it’s not a concerted effort to destroy villains. it’s, at most, a trend. because some writers wanted to push against the previous status quo. and now other writers who grew up with that want to have more classic villains, because that’s what they see as exciting and new. it’s just a cycle of trends and countertrends.

anyway. long tangent aside, i’m actually very excited for king magnifico. in part for a classic villain performance (he gets a song!!) - but also, it sounds like he might scratch a particular itch of mine.

which is to have a big, dramatic, irredeemable villain… who is still a human and has an understandable pov.

yes, you can combine these things. it’s not common for disney, but a lot of what we consider “great movie villains” throughout history have been this exact combination. they have to be defeated, they refuse redemption, they are 100% committed to their goals and will not budge - but they also GENUINELY BELIEVE in those goals.

what i’m really asking for here is a sincerely motivated character. someone who is a villain, but doesn’t SEE himself as a villain. someone who isn’t lying when they try to endear themselves to the hero or promise to make the world better if they join forces. it’s just that they are completely misguided about what would be good for the world, and nothing will persuade them.

whether someone is a villain, a hero, or anywhere in between, i think asking a character’s motivation - and playing those motivations straight, rather than just as a mask for plain selfishness - is key.

as i’m saying this, you might notice that it’s not actually too far off from what i like in other characters. jasper in SU is basically this in her "main arc” in season three. she refuses help, she’s a huge dick to everyone… but she also 100% believes in homeworld as an institution and is actually, genuinely selfless. even if it means her own corruption, she refuses help, because that would betray her cause. which she values above her own life. and by rebecca sugar’s own words, jasper doesn’t even believe she deserves help.

the common thread here is really tragedy. someone you can root for and against at the same time.

so how does this relate to king magnifico? well, jennifer lee (writer for this movie & also the frozen movies) just had an interview where she talked a lot about wish, and in specific, having a classic disney villain in magnifico.

she illustrates a lot of what i’ve been talking about - that there is no grand conspiracy at disney against villains. they just had different stories they wanted to tell. there was no mandate either for or against villains, not in this movie or any other. they just did what they wanted to do with those stories. (btw, that’s not me saying there isn’t pressure at disney to tell certain stories and not others. it’s just that the concept of a villain isn’t as important to the corporate side as, say, not making elsa gay.)

anyway. what makes the king magnifico portion interesting is how lee talks about exactly what i’ve been saying. they knew they wanted a classic disney villain, but it sounds like they still want him to be different from other such characters. namely, they wanted to find the benevolent side of him, how he genuinely believes what he believes and DOES want what he thinks is best for the city of rosas.

and the plot totally checks out - basically, he decides whose wishes come true. and that’s really interesting, because a wish can be anything, good or bad. it sounds like he really wants to prevent what he sees as bad wishes from coming true, and is too conservative in what he allows or not. and his way of being kind about rejection is to remove those wishes from people’s hearts if he cannot fulfill them.

that’s SUCH a great concept for a villain. it speaks to issues of control, of agency, of being in the paternalistic position of deciding what is “best” for everyone else. it gives me a little bit the wizard of oz (as in the wizard himself, who is a charlatan trying to maintain a pleasant status quo, even if it’s a lie), and a little bit white diamond (controlling the lives of others, but genuinely believing you are being selfless and heroic about it / steering people on the “right” path).

reading that interview, my excitement for this movie went from like a 2/10 to a 8/10. jennifer lee seems to have a real interest in creating characters, not just stock tropes. elsa is one of the best disney princesses (fight me) for exactly the same reason.

another great concept talked about here (which you also see in lee’s frozen, with anna and elsa as opposites) is that of duality. there’s a lot of talk about magnifico and asha being two sides of the same coin, both initially believing in this system and wanting what’s best for the city. and from there, they divert to their opposite paths in what specifically they think is right. the interview talks about them as if they were this thesis and antithesis about what’s right for the city, needing to reach a synthesis. in talking about this concept, they included this illustration:

notice the similar poses. both have their hands behind their back (commonly used to convey a character is hiding something), their feet pointed out, and give the world a pleasant smile. asha has a darker color palette in a world of light, magnifico is a ray of light in a dark space. it's interesting for its duality.

so yeah. all in all, i’m still excited for wish. i want to take alan tudyk goat out back and shoot it for a quick, humane death… but failing that, i’ll just pray his role was hammed up for the trailer. please tell me it’s not that insufferable. please.

because i do really like everything else i’ve heard about this movie!! i like that asha is described as this idealist with “dumb courage”, like maybe she’ll actually have some character flaws and need to learn?? (maybe? hopefully?) i like everything i just said about king magnifico. i like that we have this blend of 2d and 3d animation, that’s such a clever concept for a “100 years of disney” celebration.

so yeah. i will be watching. never have i ever prayed for chris pine to save a movie, but today might just be the day!

[sleepynegress]

Meta About How Fandom Dishonestly Talks About Wanting "Queer (It Only Counts When it's White Male!) Rep"....

Fandom always looks like fandom...

The above tweet is dishonest. They are only talking about the characters they want to see be gay or queer in media, coincidentally white men. Mind you, Loki said he was into men and women in his show, they had bisexual lighting, and classic queerbait w/ Morbius and (sorry shippers but I gotta be honest about just my opinion, continue to ship away tho) ZERO chemistry with Sylvie. ...A lot of fandom ate that bait up back in the day, because that's as far as the media for these fandoms would go, back then. Given that Wiccan literally only just appeared with zero indication of his sexuality in MCU, beyond the character himself being portrayed by a gay actor (which I've written can be limiting as an assumption for gay actors, shout out to J Bailey playing love well, regardless), and having in-community affect (if there is a more appropriate term, let me know). Loki, if we're judging them by the same rules... And really, Loki is ahead since he outright said he likes both... The big difference I see is Loki gave classic queer (Disney) villain "coding" which is based in times when queerness wasn't allowed to be played outright as much, while Wiccan is simply giving gay teen existing. So, about that queer rep in the MCU... You mean Phastos and his whole husband and kids in The Eternals?

or Ayo literally being kissed by her partner in Black Panther 2 but we know it only counts to fandom if it's a white male... *sideeye* There's Val and her big gay energy... Hell, Taika went as far as cutting out some tongue action with Thor, which kept her bi much less obvious, and pushed the sapphic energy much more forward:

*the difference between coding and bait is these two confident acts, the second while winkingly gazing at the audience for a beat vs. Carol and Maria's "gal-pal" montage...it don't always have to be intimacy with the same sex* All this to say, you cannot claim to honestly want queer rep while ignoring explicit queer rep that ain't white male... because then it's obvious that you just want to see white gays in a hot make-out session... Which IMO is just the fandom version of straight dudes watching two girls kiss, and that ain't about rep, especially when deeper rep already exists and you ignored it. As for Loki, to me he always came off sort of vaguely slutty/flirty when bound, hit, or challenged in some way.

His energy has always been that, but I will give you, that the only person Loki actually *penetrated* onscreen was a man... not Mobius, but Agent Coulson... Once again, it's coding.

As for Wiccan, I think it's too early to say what the MCU will do rep-wise. YES Agatha All Along is giving EXPLICITLY gay energy. And yeah he's a gay character played by a gay actor, but will he get to be explicitly and honestly be attracted to another boy onscreen? I hope so for him, it would be qt and I would be chin-hands all the way for it.

...But again (same show!), I feel the same about Agatha and *spoiler*I know who Aubrey Plaza is playing but I'll be quiet *spoiler*

[simpingforcys]

First of all, your writing: hot 🥵 Just read your latest spicy Drabble 10/10 you cooked and I will definitely come back for second helpings.

Also, I know people like the idea of King Candy / Turbo as gay, but I’m a pan sexual King Candy truther. You cannot convince me that this touch staved mess of a man would not be down, to get down, with anyone that would validate his ego and be willing to take him to bed.

I was in a mood and when I'm in a mood, well that's what this blog was made for 🩷 BUT ALSO THANK YOOUUUUU I'm glad yall enjoy my rambles<3

I can definitely see why people (mostly, it seems) HC King Candy/Turbo as gay or even trans, like I get it, he's got that ✨flare✨ that highly resembles the classic Disney villain energy which was characterized even back then as queer coding (and why they're so memorable), but me, as a poor little bisexual panic simp, I could see him going both way SPECIALLY AS YOU PUT IT. This man is TOUCH-STARVED with that level ego. The fact there's no allusion to it because his main 'love' is racing and winning, if someone were to straight up FLIRT or touch this man romantically, he's just like "wait hold up-"

Even in Magical Kingdoms he admits he isn't the most 'marketable' (though his original cabinet image might say otherwise??), I think he LOWKEY MIGHT have image issues? I mean he made himself A KING with his face splattered on the environment. Butter him up with flirting, compliments, praising, maybe a little teasing~ this man becomes a flustered confused mess and I will take that to my grave.

I also try to make my Canon x Reader drabbles as gender neutral as I can. If it's male or female specifically, I will put it into the title, but I do try to let it be as 'vague' to let the reader use their imagination as well.

[amuseoffyre]

Looking through your Ned Low tag brought me to the Ratigan post, which reminded me of the issue I have with TGMD: not only the implication that Ratigan is "wrong" to try to move upward socially, but the fact that Basil is never (IIRC) called out for what very much amounts to a racist remark (calling Ratigan a "filthy, disgusting sewer rat"). Plus, Ratigan is visibly not of the dominant race of this setting, and is shown descending into animalistic behaviour when enraged. Or am I overthinking?

There are definitely elements in there because Disney does love itself a binary and Othering by making him a different species is... yeah. Like Zootopia with the carnivores versus the herbivores.

There's also the fact that rats have always been villainised in the media in a way that mice aren't. Mice are cutesy animal friends and helpers and sweet (see Cinderella, the Aristocrats, the Rescuers, Fievel etc) but rats? Very very rarely anything more than vermin, even though they're not really that different.

But bringing this back to Ratigan, more than anything, he's one of their extreme queer-coded villains of the 80s/90s Disney set (see also Ursula and Jafar). He's histrionic, melodramatic, over-the-top, a camp theatrical character who seems like he should be harmless and nonsensical, who dresses up and tries to act like one of the mice, and in reality, he's some kind of dangerous vermin out to corrupt their lovely civilised society 🙃

But, to be honest, he's also one of my favourite of the Disney villains because Vincent Price had such a joyful time creating him. Shout out to a theatrical queer actor who brought that energy to the room and made him so much more interesting than he might've been.

[bettathanyou]

Cedric The Sensational: Headcanons

Brought to you by Betta Fish~

Cedric wears gloves for two main reasons: first and foremost, he handles aLOT of various chemicals, herbs, and dubious ingredients for potions. Our lad needs some PPE somewhere, mkay? Second, I'm sure that tower got drafty as fuck- his hands were probably so cold :(

Speaking of hands, I personally think Cedric *could have* gotten tendonitis, or some type of recurring carpal tunnel. He spent his whole life doing repetitive hand motions (using his wand) and I would equate it to artists getting these same conditions for the same reasons. Maybe his gloves could also serve as compression braces-?

Cedric only started to accept his white/Grey bangs once his niece Calista begged her mother to make her hair like cedrics (I don't remember if that was expressed in actual canon if so oops) ((he's still insecure about his hair ofc in this headcanon but Calista changing her hair bc of him melted his cold hard heart))

I just KNOW deep in my soul that he also has grey hairs from stress/age sprinkled into his "normal" dark hair- but it's fine cuz we love a silver maned man 😍

Cedric doesn't really wear any strong scents, if any cologne at all. I'd think he'd mainly smell of soap, old (spell)books, dried herbs/plants from his potions, and have a light chemical smell to him from potion making as well- think like benzene and slight formaldehyde :-)

Calista sees Cedric as a father figure, that's part of why she's so attached to him. I also think Cedric has babysat Calista since she was a baby, further strengthening their bond

Even though Cordelia is overbearing and irritates Cedric constantly, they would absolutely commit crimes for one another- they care about each other so much :') and I can imagine them shit talking their parents as a main form of sibling bonding as adults 💀

Cedric doesn't miss wormwood at all, but he gets lonely without an animal familiar

:( someone give his man an actual decent animal companion please (yes I'm going to be this someone and write a fic about it)

Listen.... I don't think he's ever been in a relationship before because of how othered he was for a majority of his life, but I don't think he's a virgin either. I'd imagine some drunken black out hook up at a hexley hall party

He has and will continue to sleep holding books in his hand (he has also had his nose bonked multiple times with books when he falls asleep reading in bed)

Cedric's sleep schedule is absolutely ass over feet fucked up

He seems like he would drink coffee religiously, not for the taste but because he needs the energy to stay up late working (he probably gets killer headaches in the morning bc of the caffeine dependency)

Cedric with bed head would be so goddamn sexy to see 🫦

Cedric gets so lost in concentration/hyperfixates on practicing magic/brewing potions that he will commonly forget to eat- that partly contributes to him being so skinny and out of breath if he runs too much

As with most Disney villains, I feel like he is neurodivergent/queer coded

[aetherceuse]

If people can't be threatmantic, I don't want any antagonism. There is an art to engaging in verbal and physical fisticuffs with a villain and it is dying. Please keep this time honored tradition with me Rex. Let's throw vague threats, be chill and ruin regions. ❤️❤️❤️

I wanna be threatmantic enough all the weird anons just go the fuck away. 🎉✨✨✨

Thanks for this message Kei, I’ve been looking at it, while trying to avoid doom scrolling the dashboard all day, and I’ve finally gotten a moment to sit down and reply to it.

I’d like to clarify, that when I wrote my post about the frustrations of an antagonist writer, it wasn’t to stoke the flames or make it seem as if one group of writers has a more difficult time than another group of writers; problems on both sides can, and do, exist. I did want to bring light to some of the unique frustrations that coincide with people who heavily favor antagonist writing, however.

I write these characters, because I love these characters. And I love these characters because I’ve always been really passionate and really invested in crafting a believable, impactful villain; literally as far back as I can remember, into my earliest years, I was always much more invested in what the antagonists were doing in Disney movies, in old school anime and cartoons, in books, in games, in any sort of media that I was consuming. That is always how I have been. The bombastic energy, the stage presence, the dialogue, the body language, it was always so dramatic and captivating for me, and something that I wanted to replicate in my own art.

What I think a lot of younger people do not realize, is that early on, a lot of villains on television were queercoded, in order to emphasize how TERRIBLE AND AWFUL IT WAS TO BE GAY in the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s, 90’s, etc. You saw male antagonists who were effeminate, you saw female antagonist who were absolutely lesbian coded. All of these traits were projected onto antagonists. And as a lonely youngin in a household where being gay was considered a mortal sin, where else are you going to find representation? Visibly queer heroes were practically non-existent— and if they did exist, it wasn’t accessible for a child like me, growing up in a staunch Catholic household. Media where the gay men were the bad guys though? Media where the main female antagonist went against gender roles and societal standards? They were plentiful. Sure, there are far more queer heroes in media today, but, my niche has already been solidified.

I think that, along with the fact that my own personality and flavors of trauma and mental illness are— extremely difficult to deal with— influences my writing, and why I have wound up finding a niche in antagonists. At the end of the day, a lot of the psychology and themes that I enjoy writing have not been applicable to protagonists. The antagonists always wind up having the traits that I need to get invested in a muse.

That’s not to say that I do not want my characters to grow. I do. There is so much more to writing— and interacting with— an antagonistic character than putting them in a position to be beaten up, or the butt of a joke. Frankly, it makes me really sad when that is the only thing people want out of my villains. These are human beings, with a range of emotions, interests, backgrounds, and skills: frankly, all of us are more likely to be one step away from being a villain in somebody’s story (and yes, everybody has been the villain in a story at least once before in their lifetime), than a legendary hero. I want to be able to write a character that gets people thinking. However it just gets— more and more difficult to keep up with the pace of the community, especially as someone with characters that require a LOT of patience and time in order to open up. I write personalities and characters that are slow burns. And because of my busy life, my body pains, and other factors, it is difficult to achieve this lately. It is disheartening, to say the least. There is a lot I want to write, there are a lot of angles I want to explore, but it is hard when it feels as though I am not going fast enough— or having my muse open up fast enough— before interest is dropped.

There are people who do appreciate what I do, people who appreciate the nuances of my characters, people who see what I’m writing, nod, and fist bump me. It matters a lot, and those people are dear to me. I realize that my niche isn’t for everybody. I realize that my content can be disturbing. I realize that it can be difficult to interact with. I know these characters can make people uncomfortable, and I don’t take it personally when people SB or hard block my blogs due to the content. But I’m queer, I’m mentally ill, and I’m writing content for queer, mentally ill people to find catharsis in; sometimes, seeing yourself in a villain is what you need for introspection.

My ex told me that my content was “disturbing” and that I “needed help”, and essentially made me stop writing it. I’m not going to stop anymore. This is my passion, and, I hope you guys will see my name on the cover of a hardback novel one day. I despise that we are in an era of the internet where so many people deem you as “bad” if you happen to favor villains over heroes. I don’t see it much here in this community, but, I see it everywhere else on other social media. You can enjoy the themes of fiction, without condoning it. You can put evil on the table without romanticizing it. And you can write villains without being treated like one.

I’ve gone on a ramble, but, thanks for giving me the opportunity to talk about this.

[nerdby]

There is a rumor that Disney is selling Marvel to Apple, which would not surprise me and would kinda make me ecstatic. Disney acquired Marvel in 2009 following the success of the first Iron Man film, but you'll notice that since then Disney media has become a lot more liberal because Marvel and their fans tend to be extremely liberal. Now, this is notable because if you do some digging into the founder of Disney, Walt Disney Sr, you'll quickly find out that in addition to being a business man he was also a terrible person.

Walt Disney Sr was a Nazi sympathizer.

He agreed to work with former Nazi scientists and to promote radiation, nuclear energy, and single use plastic for the US government and military so that the government would help him get the original Disneyland theme park off the ground. This was done in the original Tomorrowland ride, which also featured -- wait for it -- robotic housewives. Guys, that is some bullshit straight out of a horror novel -- seriously, go look up The Stepford Wives by Ira Levin. The book was adapted into two horror movies, the most recent of which being the 2004 horror-comedy of the same title that stars Matthew Broderick and Christopher Walken.

If that doesn't terrify you Disney's brutal business tactics and winning personality also influenced Ray Kroc, the founder of the McDonald's Corporation and godfather of the modern American capitalist hellhole we all know and love today.

But getting back to the subject of Disney and Marvel, initially Disney benefited from Marvel's liberalism. I mean, ya know, as long as Disney agreed to play along and throw in a wink and a nod to queer and minority communities everyone was happy, right?

Right?😅

Well, now, it seems its become obvious to CEO Bob Iger and his five million dollar bonus that maybe it's just not worth it to try to draw in new audiences when he can also cater to the fiscally conservative Christofascists of the good old days. And like I said in a way this would make me very happy because Apple has already proven itself to be much more left-leaning with it's media content and therefore truer to the Marvel's political values. Which are also, obviously, my political values.

This does make me wonder if Disney will attempt to buy out DC Comics which be hilariously ironic considering how hard DC Comics has been working to retcon their ass backwards misogynistic image these days. Like their entire empire has pretty much been built off of the male power fantasy and faux male feminists masturbating to Wonder Woman comics until the 1990s when Harley Quinn was invented to save them from looking like complete homophobes. Because, apparently, her existence has been the only thing keeping people from noticing that the Joker is an extremely problematic queer-coded villain.

Because apparently people still don't realize bisexuals exist even in 2023😒

And, no, we're not transphobic. -A Nonbinary Transgender Bisexual🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈

[zatartheperfect-blog]

I have two for very different reasons:

Frollo: absolutely stupendous evil character. Proof that terms like “complex” and “realistic” don’t necessarily also mean “Sympathetic.” He is easily one of the most complicated villains of that era of Disney and he is rooted in very real (if operatically portrayed) emotions. Both of these make him more disturbing. His complexity makes him feel like a real person and that makes him more disturbing because instead of being an evil wizard who wants a throne he’s a raging abusive bigot with to much power and an inability to take no for an answer. Just a truly menacing vile character.

Ratigan: I love this gay evil maniac. I actually think there’s an argument to be made that he’s the best queer coded Disney villain because Basil is quite Queer coded as well and they give venomous ex energy that I love. We talk about anime rivals all the time but rarely do we see that kind of rivalry in Disney and I just love the way they constantly try to outdo each other in drama and cleverness. Also Vincent Price: Hot as hell.

People of the internet, give me your opinions

I'm currently doing a classic Disney villain character study right now and I wanna include other peoples perspective to better understand what made them so great.

I need everyone to pick your favorite old (1937-2010) villain/villains and tell me what made you love them so much. Was it their motive? Their personality? Their song? Maybe their design? Or did you have a crush on them? There's no wrong answers here!

It doesn't matter how old you are, or when you saw the movie all that matters is that you can explain your choice.

Of course this isn't required, but I highly appreciate it! :)

[iamnmbr3]

Can I sign up for a Disney- Service where I pay them not to put out any type of new content or interviews? Bc wow I am tired of this show and I’m tired of Mike Waldron shooting his mouth off and spewing grossness. But here we go again. He’s given another interview and I am once again left wondering why Disney had to hire him and not...literally anyone else. Like if they just grabbed a rando off the street it couldn’t have been any worse and statistically it probably would’ve been a lot better. 

"I knew that I wanted to position somebody opposite Tom, opposite Tom's Loki, who had the same energy in a way, but also a totally different energy, that female energy”

Female energy??? Can someone please tell Mike that "girl" isn't a personality trait. Remember when I talked about how Sylvie isn’t a good female character because she’s physically strong but not strongly written? Remember when I talked about how she’s an empty “strong female character TM” who is a woman first and a human second because she’s not a good character who happens to be female but rather a character whose defining and only personality trait is her gender? Yeah.

"But it's one thing, I guess, to be narcissistic and to think you're great and everything, it's another thing to really believe that, to project that outwardly. It's another thing to really believe that and to actually practice self-love and everything. So if the show is about Loki falling for Sylvie a little bit, the hope was always that maybe that it's also about him learning to forgive himself." 

What. No really. WHAT. Mike’s pathetic attempts to justify his ridiculously bad romance and also pretend like he didn’t straight up lie to us about Loki learning self love are hilarious. this makes NO sense. huh???? This is just a really bad attempt at damage control. Loki doesn’t learn self love. He never says anything positive about himself. The show frames him internalizing other’s harmful messages about him like that he is a villain and a pathetic loser as something positive. What has he learned to love about himself? Mike has yet to be able to name one positive trait he has. His hatred for Loki is so obvious. And how is loving Sylvie him forgiving himself???? she didn't do any of the things he did???? This makes ZERO sense.

"He is just a character who doesn't like to self reflect, and would rather pontificate, and would rather scheme, because he's good at it, because he's very clever. "

Really? He would rather pontificate? Another comment that seems to indicate that Mike really didn’t watch Thor 2011. Remember how the opening scenes established how SILENT Loki is and how he is constantly spoken over? That’s a big part of his other and victim coding. The way Mike constantly shames Loki for speaking is very disturbing given the way Loki is Other coded. And also given the fact that he is now canonically queer. Why must the Other be silenced??? 

“And when faced with an actual mirror of himself, he sees things that are attractive and that he empathizes with. He also sees things that are broken and wounded, and it helps him understand those very things in his own psyche" 

Wrong. But also? Where? Where is that in the show??? This never happened. He’s just lying here.

"I mean, he has done terrible things. That was part of the work that the first episode had to do, was hold him accountable for that, sort of lay him bare and everything. And the journey that he's been on has been one of reckoning with that. Is it possible to atone for that? I think Loki's still trying to figure that out."

Terrible things? Huh. Kinda like Thor. Remember when he slaughtered all those Jotnar while laughing (which was considered totally acceptable in his culture)? Remember when Odin slaughtered and enslaved thousands? Remember when Loki was motivated by trying to PREVENT a war? And. Remember when Loki was captured and TORTURED by Thanos? Also. The first episode didn't do that. The first episode was about things he hadn't done bc it was him seeing his future. AND FURTHERMORE the TVA can't hold him accountable bc if what Loki did was bad then the TVA has no moral high ground bc what they did was orders of magnitude worse. And if what the TVA did was ok then Loki didn't do anything wrong. Why does the TVA get a pass for their horrific acts of evil???

"I think, for me, that's one of the most important scenes in the show because this is a guy who has been driven by glorious purpose, by the feeling that everything he does is in the service of his grand destiny."    

So Mike really just watched that glorious purpose clip and decided it was Loki’s whole motivation huh? What an idiot. So much for the Loki Lectures. Obviously this guy was asleep during them and didn’t bother to watch Thor 2011 either. You know, the movie all about Loki’s backstory and motivations. Guess he also missed the fact that Loki is LITERALLY KNEELING when he comes through the portal and looks awful bc he’s just been tortured is very obviously repeating the stuff Thanos told him while breaking him. Loki is not motivated by believing in a glorious purpose. He cries when Thor tells him to look at the destruction in Avengers. 

And in Thor 2011 he is motivated by wanting to avert a war and also more deeply by his desire for love and validation. He never wanted the throne. He wanted to be Thor’s equal. He has a mental breakdown and tries to kill himself when he comes to believe that he is inherently monstrous and that he can never earn his family’s love. LOKI IS DEFINED BY HIS LACK OF SELF ESTEEM AND HIS SELF HATRED! That is. The opposite of what Mike has said. Also Mike contradicts himself. Is Loki someone who is arrogant and needs to learn his purpose isn’t glorious or is he someone who needs to learn self love? It can’t be both. What a disgusting, victim blaming, abuse apologist lying hack.  

“In that moment, he sees that no, it was his destiny to get his neck snapped by the bad guy he was working for"

Excuse me? Working for??? Loki never went back to Thanos. He died sacrificing himself to save Thor. WTF!!!?!?

[queerofthedagger]

Top five characters from your fandoms who have BDE (Big Disney Energy)

Nonnie while I love this question, I'll have to out myself again and admit... that I don't think I've seen a single Disney movie, and if I did I have no memory of them. So this is very vague vibes tbh

Merlin - all that nature and magic stuff is very Disney right??

Ronan - idk he's a bitch (affectionate) but he can literally take stuff out of his dreams?

Idk but I feel like Voldemort makes a great queer-coded villain???

Blue, too. She's literally part tree? That's kinda Disney right??

There is not a single character in CaPri I can think of that feels remotely disney to me, so maybe Gwaine. I don't know why or how.

I'm sorry this is an absolute mess, but thank you for the ask! 😂❤️

[manicr]

You made them to scare us, but now they're ours

Some thoughts from watching that Marvel Power Couple video; my preferences and my fandom experiences.

Focus on queerness and disability in mainstream media as seen though a Marvel fandom lens.

Firstly, I'm a huge Bullseye and villain fan.

Secondly, since we're in the days of huge disclaimers: no, I don't condone: murder, torture, serial killers, rape, and every kind of vileness that character has exhibited in his very long canon (1976, baby!). Nor do I, by some exclusion-based thinking, hate non-white characters, women, non-binary people, non-American, or overtly queer people while favoring my homicidal blue-eyed blond white fuckboy above them due to these reasons.

The last disclaimer being, I'm a white autistic queer immigrant and a grown-ass woman with a history of mental illness in a non-English speaking country in Europe. There, all these disclaimers, set.

I still like them.

I freaking LOVE villain characters and pretty much have since my childhood -- together with its cousins the anti-hero and anti-villain. As I've aged, I've more become able to set my finger on why, and what I get from fandom when I write, draw, ship, and creatively interact with these characters.

The easy answer is representation and validation in all their buzzword glory and shorthand.

And, no, I do not mean for *evil* and horrible people. I mean for the many things heroes have not been allowed to be since the Hays Code, even if that is finally starting to come apart.

Initially, I recognized queerness in villains. Queer-coded and sub-textual, or predatory, and stereotyped, but still queerness. For all you gen-zers, it's pretty new to have out and open queer people in mainstream media. And even when queer heroic/good characters were introduced they were marginalized, minimized, and underdeveloped -- while the villain could swish in with all the 'move bitch I'm gay' energy, own the story, drive it, and be a badass motherfucker who didn't need to be nice, safe, hetero-normative, and ~unproblematic~ to get past the censors. AS WELL AS stick around as a reoccurring person with goals, feelings, and a personality that didn't revolve around being the Gay Character.

Later, some of these villains I fell in love with were made officially queer -- and that's good from one point of view of increasing queer characters in media but bad from another as it strengthens the Hays code lie that queer = villain/scary. In Marvel, we have Mystique and Loki both of who were on-panel certified queer in the 2000s (both known shapeshifters too, blurring identity in general).

To bring this back to the example at hand, Bullseye, he is a character that has been queer-coded since his conception: artistic, flamboyantly theatrical, obsessed with the male hero Daredevil, whom he calls handsome and sweetheart, whose girlfriends he jealously kills -- and early stated to have 'no interest in money or women' (only the kill and the ppl he kills). All because the creators/writers thought queer ppl are scary and why not give the serial killer assassin a sprinkle of that to scare the straights and the queers both?

But instead in my eyes, they created something I absolutely love instead of scaring me away from the gay. And for a lot of queer people, that's the case with queer-coded villains. You made them gay so they're ours now. Disney villainesses are huge in drag. The Babadok is gay, and horror is one of the most loved genres by the queer community. They were queer coded and as time went they were embraced as a part of the community.

Again, I'm not claiming that Bullseye is a known queer icon. He really isn't, but one of the reasons I love him is his lack of hetero-normativity, outlier nature, and showmanship. As noted, not all queer-coded characters are embraced by the community, nor do all LGBTQ people enjoy villains or queer-coded characters.

Heroic LGBTQ characters are a thing these days, but as noted, they tend to be allocated into marginalized positions, minimized and underdeveloped still-- and always made as safe as possible for straight media consumption.

Later, I identified with mental illness and neuroatypical characters. Ableism is as insidious and everywhere as homophobia, and like with them "dirty queers"; disability and mental illness were equated with villainy. The tropes of the madman killer, the evil cripple, the disfigured monstrosity, the psycho, the people punished by God with sickness and deformity were for a long time the villains or at best the hapless victims of media -- and still are. Even in modern blockbuster movies disfigurement, disability, and illness are both signs and motivations of villainy and murder, and causes of horror.

In media, most heroes are not allowed to be any of these things. They were long expected to be physical perfection, and moral exactitude, with no whiff of poor health, or if they did that was overcome with hard work and positivity in their past. Villains were allowed to stay unwell, to struggle and fail, to live with their issues and imperfections without magical fix-its.

For most of us who actually live with mental illness and neuroatypical conditions we do just that: live with it. It doesn't turn us into villains, but neither do we magically become perfect and well. And there is, for me, a validation in seeing that, and in addressing living with those conditions.

And often the tropes of the evil queer and the evil disfigurement were combined into a trope to maximum codify both with evil.

The disabled community has had an even worse time ridding themselves from the disabled = villainous/scary dichotomy that media and culture have created than the queer community has. And as such the issue of disabled villains is even more set in the mind of the culture as a mental shorthand of not able-bodied = evil/scary. However, some still gravitate to these villains for the very same reasons.

Again, it's problematic, of course, it is, as it is within the queer community. We're fighting the same fight and for many, it feels bad to accept any depictions of disabled and mentally ill villains as it can feel like a step back. I am of the opinion that removing these villains isn't helpful but to add positive portrayals, preferably in the same work of media. To have positive and good representations of disabled, scarred, ill, and norm-breaking characters. And in the beginning, it will probably feel best to stop adding more 'bad' rep until the 'good' rep feels more dominating.

More personally, autism is depicted really poorly in media, and I 100% prefer fanon ASD characters (aka "weird" awkward behaving characters) to intended/canon ones because the rep is so poor and insulting. So, I get it. I get not wanting to identify a single bit with what is portrayed in media when it's THAT BAD.

But I still love bad rep villains.

Tying this back to my enjoyment of Bullseye, he is on-panel mentally ill and frequently disabled and injured. And I do not mean his homicidal blood lust and murdering, but his depression, anxiety, psychosis, hallucinations, catatonia, and behaviors that do not fit the mold of a mentally well person as well as his multitude of injuries and paralysis story lines.

He is given various diagnoses from borderline to bipolar, or just plain ol' 'psychopath' the scary term for antisocial personality disorder (ASPD). He on-panel has to deal with his poor mental health. He's allowed to break down and fail. He's allowed to NEVER get well. And that draws me in, that hits close to home in ways, and it's identifying.

In the series he's in, there's some counterpoint, the heroic protagonist Daredevil is blind and depressed, as a mirror to Bullseye's own mental illness and frequent disability (paralysis 4 TIMES). It's one way of managing the issues that these tropes have.

Now is this ableist and problematic? Probably. The bad person is X in media, thus X people are bad in IRL, and X means you're bad in media and around we go.

But back to the main point. Alright, once upon a time, the near-only rep of queer and disabled/mentally ill characters were the villains. But that's changed, right?

Yes, and no. There are now out and open queer characters, good mentally ill characters, and some disabled characters. Not that many where all intersect. But sure. They exist.

But as the point was made by others, these depictions are often watered down to their most insipid, flavorless, and safe version. Because rep isn't just that a character exists with the label of that minority. Rep is about these characters feeling like interesting people, with their own motivations, drives, goals, and stories that have often not that much to do with their labels or their struggles. Stories that are as diverse as any others, not centering just on sexuality, wellness, and disability or the consequences of others hating and fearing them. There's a reason why the X-Men are an allegory for minorities.

Bullseye's not good rep. But I think he's a good character who doesn't have to be sanitized or made palatable. He's not the queer guy, he's not even the ill person, he's Daredevil's constant pain in the ass and a formidable foil to him. He's motivated, driven, and has active story lines that don't have his sexuality/wellness as the end goal but as contributing factors in his life. And dammit, he has fun when he does what he does best, it's meant to be scary and evil but what it ends up being is so very alive. I enjoy that.

As such, for me, it wouldn't make that much difference if he is or isn't canon labeled as queer -- if anything with the current climate that would likely make subpar writers write him off as the gay villain. If I want on-panel queerness done right, at this point, I trust fandom much more. As noted by the implicit outing of Bullseye by having him and Daken have a very toxic relationship where Daken's pheromones enhanced Bullseye's feelings toward him (which I enjoyed but damn was it a clusterfuck too).

To draw another quick example from this, Daken Akihiro and his sliding scale of self-expression and drive. When he's at his worst villainy he's overtly in-text queer, unwell to suicide, and driven to grand goals; but since he's been put on a redemption train to heroism frequently his sexuality is toned down and his personal goals focus on romantic coupling and wellness. Now, I'm not saying that he's not allowed to find love or get well as a story line, but that he loses his previous interests, pro-activeness, and extroverted drives, ending up in a safe white picket territory where he doesn't challenge anyone in several of these instances.

Villains still are the ones that get to be pushing at the borders; bold, brash, messy, unapologetic, and liminal -- they get to be the outliers in society in all its meanings.

For good and for worse, media makes villains strange because strange is scary, but for so many of us strange people, that makes them ours.

P.S.

Heroic characters can be good too.

[notfloofaccount]

Mozenrath is debatably my favorite Disney animated villain and I wish more people knew about him because it feels like no one does. Which I guess is fair because he only appeared in the Aladdin animated series but still...his sass, motivation, drama, schemes, and the fact that he’s gay in my head cannon due to aggressive queer coding by the show runners. The homoerotic tension between him and Aladdin, amazing! I loved everything about him except when he decided to be creepy to Jasmine without doing it for the express purpose of making Aladdin angry. When he did act that way to get a reaction, the scenes emitted even more unrequited-crush-still-hoping-for-enemies-to-lovers-watch-me-be-a-bad-boy-do-you-like-it-because-sometimes-you-respond-to-my-flirting energy. In conclusion stan Mozenrath of the Black Sands.

[jeanpoutine]

Queer Coding of Barbie Villains

Hello and welcome to my essay about the queer coding of 2nd gen Barbie movie villains. Those early 2000s barbie movies helped shape my childhood, and I thought it important to pay my respects to the villains who crawled so that Disney could strut. Do I have too much free time on my hands? Yes. Did I relate too much to these villains as a child? Yeah. Did the world need this? No, but the world deserved this.

My sister and I were talking one day about the villain from Barbie as the Princess and the Pauper. You know that evil guy with the poodle and his extremely elaborate musical number, How Could I Refuse? We were talking about how gay he is, which then dissolved into us talking about how all the villains from barbie were gay (The ones we could remember, as we are both in our 20s). Then we got off track arguing about the Order of the Best Barbie Movies™.

But I digress, here they all are.

1. Barbie and the 12 Dancing Princesses (the best movie, and I am not accepting and criticism of my list at this point in time).

Her name was Duchess Rowena. That’s a drag name if I ever heard one. She bad. Remember she came to discipline the princesses, and ended up poisoning the king and trapping the princesses in their magic dancing land? Look at that eye shadow, look at those brows. She could poison my tea any day of the week (slightly worried this will turn into me just being gay all over these ladies). (Also,  voiced by Catherine O’Hara and I stan our Canadian ladies)

She had that pet monkey who didn’t like to me touched (mood), and that henchman who did literally everything for her. She clipped a magic flower from the golden pavilion to take back. That was smart. She was horrified that the princesses had worn out their dancing shoes, because that meant they were out dancing with PRINCES. She also had that little side hustle of stealing from the monarchy. A. business. woman. Anyway, I love that drag Queen.

2. Barbie of Swan Lake (second best movie)

This guys name was Rothbart.

Seriously misunderstood, Rothbart was. Okay so basically, he was in line for the throne of the Enchanted Forest when he was disinherited and his cousin, the fairy queen, got it instead (She maybe gay too). I would be pretty angry, tbh. He left for many years and came back with Dark Magic and a daughter. Um, if that doesn’t scream gay quest I don’t know what does. He gave all these amazing jewels to his daughter and spoiled her and wanted to see a handsome young prince kill a swan which, like same, but lesbian. He might be a bit of a furry, but we all have our faults.

3. Barbie Princess and the Pauper (not fucking Popstar, whoever that kid is)

Okay we all remember Preminger. I don’t really need to explain him. Voiced by Martin Short (another Canadian), he’s the baddest bitch on the block. He just wants to be royalty and marrying any royal will do. If you have any questions about him, please refer to his evil song, his evil poodle, and his constant bent hand (energy and literally). He was a peasant and rose to be the royal advisor. Work. It. If you need more just search tumblr dot com for his name and you’re golden. I would also like to add that in this movie there were animated bloopers and, trendsetter.

4. Barbie as Rapunzel

Okay I will admit that my memories of this movie are a little foggy. There’s a magic paintbrush and a dragon? She paints a dress for herself -which has strong Winx energy- and also a door? The evil Gothel apparently had a thing for Rapunzel’s daddy and stole his kid to get revenge. Hell hath no fury, am I right?

This is her and her evil pet ferret. Honestly, I have no proof of queerness due to the fact that 1) I haven’t watched it in over a literal decade and a half, and 2) I remember it being on VHS in my parent’s basement. Not to stereotype but look at her. Bi queen, at the very least. Valid.

[raptured-night]

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

Source

Source

Source

Source

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

[self-destructing-sad-boi]

I could've been an arts student. I could've. Ida been a gooden n all. But nah. Nah.

Had to go n pick a fucking academic. Now I'm doing some data analysis bollocks that in the words of john mulaney "i hate more than isis" and i understand non of it and the report is due tomorrow and it's only due tomorrow cuz i got an extension and I still understand fuck all

I could've been an arts student. A gooden. I'm good at acting. I know I am. But no. No. My special interest had to be politics and now i hate myself for picking a god damn academic

And judith got bloody covid so 8 of us all have to be in this tiny as fuck flat for 10 fucking days and nerves ar already freying for us all and I'm sat in a famn wheelchair listening to opera like some bad poorly queer coded disney villain opening scene but about 70% more goblin

Fucking anyone, remind me why I havent dropped out yet. For the love of the gods pls remind me why I havent dropped put yet because I'm like this close . . To packing my shit into a van and fucking off to the woods for the next 20 years only to energy covered in moss and stinking of regret.