Their Relationship Deteriorated Because It Was Full Of Miscommunication. They Just Had These Expectations

real

regulus is not posting books and sad boy poetry on instagram he’s spreading propaganda on 4chan

You mean to tell me that Voldemort internalized muggle prejudice and other societal biases, yet he’s not a misogynist too? That he somehow doesn’t have sexist or homophobic biases like everyone he surrounded himself with for decades? Suuure

#agree #fuck fanon #canon Sirius Black #canon Remus Lupin #wolfstar critical

Yeesssss

What is your saltiest take on fanon Sirius?

Sirius being closer to Remus than he is to James.

Look. i get that y’all are wolfstar fans. i get that you love your ship. but. no. just. no. there is not a single fucking shred of evidence for that in the entirety of canon. not. one. frankly, the opposite is overtly implied/stated many times. who did sirius go to when he ran away? james’ place. JAMES. not remus. James. who did McGonagal, Rosmerta, hagrid and flitwick fondly reminisce about and say ‘never saw one without the other’ ’you’d have thought they were brothers... inseparable!' ‘ringleaders of their little gang’ ‘trusted him above all his other friends.’

was it remus? no. it most definitely was not. it was james. was remus even once mentioned in the conversation about james and sirius at hogwarts? nope. nada. zippo. zilch. exactly zero times did it come up. and to be clear. lupin’s not there at the table. they obviously think they’re not gonna be overheard by anyone (lmao, you’d think they’d be more competent than that) otherwise they wouldn’t be discussing any of this out in public but… lupin’s in their minds because he’s back at hogwarts. so. it’s not like they’ve forgotten who he is. it’s just that the person that they automatically associate with sirius black is james potter. even peter gets a shout out ‘that fat little boy who was always tagging around after them’ but Rosmerta literally doesn’t even remember remus as ever being with them. 

not to mention the fact that they didn’t trust each other enough to tell the truth during the first war. oh. and james named SIRIUS Harry’s godfather. he didn’t do the whole dual godfathers thing. he chose sirius. not remus. sorry mates, but it’s the truth. and he made (or at least wanted to make) SIRIUS their secret keeper.. not. remus…

look you can ship whoever you want (lord knows just about every single marauders fan there is is obsessed with wolfstar) but don’t try to erase or manipulate/bend/ignore/disregard canon to suit your desired ship (and then act like it actually is canon and not just what you want)

So to catch you up to speed

Luigi Mangione is an innocent man who has not been confirmed to have been involved in any crime.

We have police documents confirming he was not DNA tested or fingerprinted, and confirmation no usable DNA or fingerprints were recovered at the crime scene due to incomplete prints and immense DNA contamination of New Yorks streets.

No evidence has linked him to the crime.

No facial recognition has even remotely come close to identifying the cctv suspects face as that of Luigi. His own family and friends do not see a resemblance. Most people agree the features in the cctv do not match the very well documented features of Luigi Mangione.

Luigi Mangione has no history of violence nor with firearms. He is a vegan pacifist with no history of mental illness and an aversion to killing even bugs.

He is still only a SUSPECT and all involvement in any crimes are merely ALLEGED at this time. Alleged by the most corrupt police force in the entire nation; the NYPD who do more organized crime than they've ever stopped.

Luigi Mangione's attorneys confirmed they have been shown absolutely nothing that even places Luigi at the scene of the crime.

People have repeatedly tried to recreate the entire timeline of events and found it is not physically possible to do what was alleged in the time frame police gave. Especially dubious for Luigi Mangione to have done given his recent, crippling back injury.

Luigi Mangione in his own words has said police planted evidence on him and are not being honest about his arrest or what he had on him at the time.

There is no body cam footage of Luigi's arrest.

There is no autopsy report for Brian Thompson.

Luigi has so far been:

Stripped of his hat, jacket and shoes and forced to walk in the cold in December wearing wet socks.

Forced to urinate on himself where police then took and published humiliation photos of him.

He was then stripped of his shirt pants and socks and put in a blue psychiatric gown and strapped to a chair inmates called "the torture chair" and left for prolonged periods of time. To the point the entire inmate population at the prison protested in anger.

He was slammed unto a brick wall, choked, and shoved by various police officers for no reason.

Was marched through nyc at gunpoint by officers with military firearms, forced to wear chains

Was called a murderer by the mayor of NYC on national television.

Was then placed in solitary confinement for weeks. Something extremely damaging psychologically to be exposed to for even just a few days. Something usually reserved for cannibals.

He is now being forced to sleep on the floor despite again, a crippling back injury.

Again, he has not even had trial yet. He is an innocent man by the very definition of the law. He has nothing tying him to any crime. And even the crime itself was a nobody being shot in a city where nobodies are shot everyday, seven days a week. And those shooters don't get this treatment. Cannibals don't get this treatment. Serial killers don't get this treatment. Why are they doing this? Because we entered an oligarchy and they want people who are rich to matter more than people who are not. The NO ONE, no name, insignificant person that Brian THOMPSON always was and WILL ALWAYS BE is more important because of his net worth, to the fascist oligarchy we've entered into, than the innocent man, data scientist and robotics engineer with a promising future that is Luigi Mangione.

The NYPD doesn't want him to be innocent. They are torturing him gleefully and postponing his trial because they know he's innocent. They just want to scare the public into understanding that the ultra rich, even those who's names will never be remembered as anything other than markings on a never visited tombstone, are the only persons who matter now. Not yours. Never yours. You're poor. They'll torture you without a trial too. Your life means nothing to them. Your children dying in school shootings means nothing to them. Pinning a crime on an innocent man they can beat to scare the public out of class consciousness is the only thing that matters to them now. Depose them.

My shame-ridden king 🙏

On Snape depriving himself sexually...

SO, I got hyperfocused and I hope you'll enjoy reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. I needed only one person to tell me they were interested so thank you @severus-snaps haha. And thank you @wisteria-lodge for encouraging me !

This is a continuation of my previous post about Snape's relation with intimacy. I'm always a sucker for the pent up and deprived trope and I feel like Snape could fit the profile perfectly. Of course this is complete HC, as we literally have zero information about him having any personal life whatsoever so... pure speculation and meta discussion. Let's have fun, buckle up, here is why I think he'd make a great candidate for it :

Early teens: Many of us tend to interpret Snape as sexually inexperienced. This of course comes partly from his unpopularity in school, a time where teenagers start experimenting a bit. It's hard to imagine the little scrawny greasy potion nerd getting a lot of action. Though I'm open to thinking something might have happened here and there. I mean, girls also like smart and scrawny guys, I would love to read a fic where a Ravenclaw or Slytherin has a crush on him and he's utterly clueless because he's too engrossed in his books and when he realizes he's so flustered and clumsy about it. And they snog in the library and he's so afraid of getting caught by Mrs Pince. But being consistently bullied would have hurt his reputation, thus making people avoid being associated with him to not become targets as well. Also, his bullies were good-looking guys and it may have contributed to highlighting his bad looks in the public eye way more than if he had been left alone. And just with the nickname alone, but you won't tell me James and Sirius never insulted his nose, his hair, his complexion or his thin frame.

So one of the first core belief that might have emerged and latched itself to his sexuality would have been: I'm ugly/repelling.

But we don't have any proof in canon that he wasn't interested in romantic/sexual interactions back then. For all we know, he was a socially awkward teenager going through puberty. Even if he was certainly anxious and angry due to the bullying, he was still going through the same hormone cocktail as everyone.

HC : I've been wondering how the students find places to masturbate in peace and of course we don't exactly know why he invented the Muffliato charm but give me a Snape who was too whimpery to be completely silent and used it for this.

Post SWM though, I think it's safe to assume the trauma scared him unconsciously regarding the subject. Being perceived before wasn't easy, as he was aware he wasn't exactly good-looking and his self-esteem was impacted for sure, but after... oh boy. I can imagine him so traumatized that the mere idea of undressing in the vicinity of people was making his blood freeze. This may have led to hygiene issues as well, or only feeling safe to shower in the dead of night or at times where the dormitories where utterly empty. The shame linked to having his body and underwear exposed could have definitely stunned his sexual awakening as it happened at such a crucial age. How can you safely explore your own sexuality if every time you think about how ugly you are and that so many people saw your body and laughed at it ? (and the adults doing nothing to punish the people who did that hammered the beliefs that he was indeed laughable)

So second core belief added: I'm ridicule.

Also the SWM incident might have triggered his need to cover/shield his body from head to toe at all time and nobody can convince me otherwise.

At the very least I imagine masturbating would then be heavily linked to the anger and shame of that moment. The memory would either unlock or at least impact it unconsciously in some way, marking the act with a profound bitterness or stopping it altogether. The result: every time his body would ask for attention, he'd be overcome with very intense traumatic feelings and have no idea how to deal with them; so he'd start recoiling instinctively from any sexual thought. Also, since undressing/changing clothes became a triggering act, being even partially nude to touch himself would also stress him immensely.

So instead of indulging, he'd start developing coping mechanisms like focusing on anything else that brought him a sense of pleasure to trick his brain : potions, the dark arts, creating spells etc.

And of course, we can assume that even if someone was trying to approach him at that point, he'd recoil like a wounded animal, expecting mockery and reacting very aggressively.

After Hogwarts: We don't know what might have happened during his 3-4 years after school. We have a lot of creative space, though we know he got a Potion Mastery (??) so he must have studied somewhere and he was active within the DE circles. As @maxdibert pointed in a few posts - which I think is an astute point - the Dark Lord was aware of the affection/attraction Severus had felt towards Lily and, to prove his disinterest, he might have engaged with a few pureblood women. We could speculate on different situations here (and if anyone's interested we could explore this), but as I'm going for deprived!Snape, I'd say it wasn't helpful. At this point he's a young adult, torn between his inexperience and his limboing self-esteem. On top of that he's a deeply proud individual, obsessed with controlling the way he's being perceived. He's already occlumenting his emotions to remain safe, and well, engaging sexually does require some sort of vulnerability he isn't capable of at that point.

Maybe he said some harsh things to his partners when confronted with his clumsiness (even if they were kind), maybe he got bit back (and deserved it). He'd use these instances as confirmation bias to convince himself intimacy wasn't something emotionally safe, interesting nor even remotely pleasant enough.

Then there's Lily's death, and I personally don't see her as having a lot of influence on his sexuality directly (except maybe for the fact that when he had feelings for her, he might have felt she was 'too pretty for him', which fed the first core belief), but it did fuel a ton the last core belief which is : I'm undeserving (because I'm a bad person).

The undeserving part existed prior to her death. It stemmed from his upbringing (undeserving of care), of his social status (undeserving of material comfort), his blood status (undeserving of opportunities), his social awkwardness (undeserving of friendship), his special interest in the dark arts (undeserving of respect).

Lily's death crystallized such deep guilt inside of him that he devoted his life after that to atoning. I'm a firm believer that there's a clear before and after regarding the way he treated his body. Not that things were drastically different, but it made it worse. He ate less, slept less and touched himself even less. Probable not at all for a good few months, maybe even up to a year or so as he was extremely stressed from his new job, depressed and overcomed with grief. Honestly, at that point in his life he was barely functioning.

Then we have his adult life at Hogwarts: at that point in his life he's working and living where his worst trauma occurred. Not great for healing. During those years, he mastered the art of shutting down with occlumency everything he couldn't deal with, including his body's basic needs. He had excuses for everything. Sleeping? How could he rest when he had so much work to do dealing with the little shitheads and that infuriating Headmaster? Eating? Pfft, he had been fine all his childhood, so now he'd eat what he needed to function, but craving something and getting it wasn't something he'd allow himself. Masturbating? Tricky part, because he almost never thought about it anymore. He would not even treat it as a basic need. Like, sleep and food were still required to function, even in limited amount or he would pass out, but he could function without sex. Bottom line is, deep down he would feel undeserving of any sort of pleasure.

Rewarding his body, taking care of it wasn't allowed. It was part of his self-inflicted punishment.

But it would be still natural for his body to seek sexual release from time to time. He'd have hard-ons sometimes in the morning and ignore it until it went away, maybe take a cold shower or - why not - even take a potion he'd have invented to calm it down (or worse, to make it hurt so it would go down, if you want to go the masochistic way). The way I see it, every time he'd have an unwanted sensual/sexual thought (oh, this person at the Three Broomsticks has disarmingly pretty lips, this other person's got very elegant hands, or this one's hips look live they're meant to be grabbed), he'd shut it down immediately.

Fantasizing wouldn't be pleasant either. Each time, it would trigger the self-depreciating thoughts. Who are you fooling ? This person would never touch you, never look at you. And if they did, you wouldn't deserve it and would fuck it up anyway. Faceless people then, but it would still always be tainted with the ghost of years of bitterness, loneliness and unmet needs. So it'd be easier to pretend he doesn't have them or doesn't care. Of course this would do nothing to soothe his sour mood (and here talking from experience: I've been sexually frustrated quite a lot in my twenties, and I can definitely say that the mental relief you feel alongside the physical release when you get it is quite something. Like, I'd be a changed person, just because chemically my brain would finally be swimming again in endorphins. So yeah, at that point in his life I believe he's in dire need of a good shag and is partly always on edge because of this).

And when he would indulge in masturbation, it'd be because he's too tired to fight it or just because he knows that if he does, his body would leave him alone for a while. It would be quick, mechanical, in the dark, the mess cleaned up immediately and then forgotten about. The less thinking involved, the better so it wouldn't trigger the core beliefs. Maybe it'd happen when being tipsy after a night out with the other professors, or just when he was too stressed or exhausted at the end of terms and it was his body's way of asking for a break and a distraction.

I think he'd be also more prone to having his sexual needs resurface when he's not at Hogwarts and the mental toll of being there isn't weighing on him (maybe during summer or maybe even if he goes into the Forbidden Forest to gather potion ingredients, or a trip to Diagon Alley). He would find it really annoying, not realizing how the two are linked.

Then how would he be dealing with the constant tension and redirecting the release ? (fun stuff)

I think he could get a sick pleasure from being able to not indulge for long periods of time, thriving on his sense of control. He'd maybe even feel shame when he finally does, chastising himself for being weak.

When too tired to notice, late at night in his office, his body would hijack control a little bit and he'd start rubbing himself unconsciously with one hand while correcting essays and immediately stop upon realizing.

He'd be a GREAT candidate for edging. Like telling himself that if there's no release it doesn't count and he could get some pleasure whilst still shaming and punishing himself. Maybe sometimes even without touching himself directly, just letting the fabric rub on him, while shifting his hips just a bit. A good compromise he wouldn't want to analyze too closely.

Being pent up all the time makes one irritable, so some of that tension is fueling his already short-tempered nature and getting out by lashing out at idiots. It would also be a way to... spill out but with words (classy I know).

I don't see him doing any sport to get endorphins and relieve tension (though he does prowl the castle at night, that counts as walking haha).

The only part of his body I could see him pay attention to would be his hands as he uses them for potion work. He could be proud of their dexterity and I can imagine him taking care of them. Like, once of twice a week he'd put a cream or an ointment (self-made ofc) and massage his fingers and palms. Nothing sexual about it but it would be the closest he has to a gentle self-touch.

But mostly, his sole source of pleasure would still come from focusing on his interests. Working all night on improving a new potion, loosing himself in the method and appreciating his own skills, or reading about and experimenting with the Dark Arts (I don't think he ever stopped seeking knowledge, which is why he was able to save Dumbledore's ass from Marvolo's ring). These two things are his private garden, something that's inherently his despite everything, and it would be his way of pleasuring himself in an acceptable way: intellectually.

But what about the people around him or potential partners ?

He'd hate any sexual jokes or comments about him or in general. Sexually open people would make him angry (jealous). It'd irk him. As it's such a loaded and repressed subject for him he'd see them as flaunting their unspoken good experiences. He'd try to unconsciously shame them into silence by telling them they're being inappropriate. At the end of the day, it's just his way of protecting himself because he wouldn't know how to navigate the conversation, and his pride wouldn't let him feel ridiculed again.

He would also hate being looked at, even clothed. People judging his body would definitely trigger the awful memory from SWM. He would struggle immensely to accept the possibility of being looked at in an appraising way. If someone was sincere and stubborn enough to convince him they're not lying, he'd be extremely confused and wary.

And if he was to be attracted to that person as well, he'd have to deal with an almost second puberty on top of his core beliefs. He'd be so clumsy, so out of touch with his body and very frustrated with all the unwanted sensations he's not used to deal with. And that's such an interesting and fascinating subject aaaah.

At the end of the day, deep down he doesn't believes he deserves pleasure or comfort in his life so a partner would have to be patient with him. There's a lot of strategies they could try and I'd be delighted to explore them but I'm gonna stop here because this essay is so long already haha. SO, in conclusion:

He needs a good shag.

Thank you for reading.

I'd love to discuss how it would go with different characters trying to approach him, or I could talk about the classic trope of losing control because of his short temper but with him deprived, so many possibilties aaah, I love it when he's angry AND horny AND clumsy-

Also, my current favorite oneshot of deprived!Snape here : Cursed into Temptation by @marvel-snape-writes (very smutty, amazing, I'm on my knees)

Wow so many interesting points I've never considered 😍

Hi, do you have an analysis for why you prefer bottom Tom? Most fics have him as a top, but I'm very interested in your perspective ma'am.

well, the short answer is because i want to and because i can.

the longer answer is that i just don't find any of the arguments for why voldemort would never bottom under any circumstances to be as convincing and definitive as their proponents claim them to be.

my issue - to be clear - isn't with people having a preference for reading or writing about him being a top. it's with the fact that him only being a top - and not only that, but him being repulsed or humiliated by the idea of bottoming - is typically presented as such an objective fact that preferring to read or write about him being a bottom provokes responses which range from the simply annoying - "this is out of character!" [any fic in which he consensually shags his prophesied child-enemy is out of character, be serious] - to the genuinely troubling - "it's disgusting! voldemort is a real man and real men don't want anything up their arses!".

obviously - let's be real - a lot of the arguments about why bottom!voldemort is impossible are just typical "slash fandom reinvents gender roles" shit - they essentially boil down to "omg no harry would bottom because he's the girl".

but others do come with more weight behind them. and two of these are:

that the gender norms voldemort was raised with would inculcate in him a big lump of internalised homophobia which would make him see bottoming as feminine, and - in seeing it as feminine - see it as weak, humiliating, dependent, and incompatible with his understanding of control and power. that voldemort would be horrified by the idea of being penetrated, because he would see it as something which polluted or profaned the body he considers to be sacred.

i do think it's possible to argue both of these points robustly, using actual readings of the text rather than just vibes. i've just never found any of these readings compelling.

and the reason why all comes down to this:

"I knew I was different," he whispered to his own quivering fingers. "I knew I was special. Always, I knew there was something." [HBP 13]

he's talking about something specific - how he's always known that he's a wizard - here, of course. but we can also take this statement and use it to think more generally about how he views being perceived as deviant, strange, or wrong by the norms of the society in which he lives.

by which i mean... he's somebody who believes that being different makes him special and that people who try to punish or shame him for his difference are idiots who simply haven't yet worked out that he's superior to them in literally everything he does. he's not someone who perceives being different in a self-flagellating way - he doesn't think there's something wrong with him, he doesn't think that his difference makes him a pathetic or unimpressive person. and he's also not somebody who views being criticised or punished for his difference as something which causes him sorrow or anxiety. it causes him rage - because it inconveniences him [it creates obstacles he has to overcome, although he entirely believes he can overcome them] and because it doesn't recognise his self-conception as the protagonist of reality:

Riddle's reaction to this was most surprising. He leapt from the bed and backed away from Dumbledore, looking furious. "You can't kid me! The asylum, that's where you're from, isn't it? 'Professor,' yes, of course - well, I'm not going, see? That old cat's the one who should be in the asylum. I never did anything to little Amy Benson or Dennis Bishop, and you can ask them, they'll tell you!"   "I am not from the asylum," said Dumbledore patiently. "I am a teacher and, if you will sit down calmly, I shall tell you about Hogwarts. Of course, if you would rather not come to the school, nobody will force you -" "I'd like to see them try," sneered Riddle. "Hogwarts," Dumbledore went on, as though he had not heard Riddle's last words, "is a school for people with special abilities -"   "I'm not mad!" [HBP 13]

you can entertain a very dark reading of this scene - in fact, i have - but it's also possible to entertain a liberating one, and see the child voldemort as someone who has always been proud of his difference and prepared to defend that pride in the face of censure, and who is absolutely delighted to be given the language to define and describe his difference and to be given access to a community of people who are similarly - in his words - special.

all of which is to say... the standard interpretation in fandom seems to be that a queer voldemort would fall somewhere on a spectrum from indifferent to his sexuality to actively ashamed of it.

but i think it's much, much more plausible that he'd actually be proud of it, and for his statement - "i knew i was different... i knew i was special" - to be used as the starting point for how we might imagine him realising that he's queer.

and this is why the "he'd have so much internalised homophobia he'd never bottom" argument always falls flat for me - it rests on an assumption that queer men having to grow past a childhood/teenage fear that there's something wrong with them is the default position. it overlooks the fact that there are many ways for somebody to come to understand their own sexuality.

and that two of those ways are "defiantly" and "spitefully". aka the lord voldemort special.

something which always stands out to me about the canonical voldemort, both when he's a good-looking teenager/young man and a monstrous, serpentine adult, is that - even with all the phallic symbolism which surrounds him [enormous snakes and ultra-powerful wands and so on] - the text presents him as somebody who comes across as fairly effeminate:

he's typically described - as we can see from this excellent analysis from @said-snape-softly - as speaking "softly" or "quietly". when he isn't, he's often "shrill", "shrieking", "screeching", or "screaming".

he has a hair-trigger temper and he's extremely emotionally volatile.

he's typically described as moving in ways which have similarly feminine connotations - he "drifts" and "glides". while the primary doylist reason for this is clearly so the reader associates him with snakes, ghosts, and dementors, it ends up giving him a quality of movement which is fey, rather than powerful and purposeful. indeed, we only ever see him do one thing which requires physical, as well as magical, prowess - duelling. but, like fencing - which is its real-world equivalent - good duellists aren't people who are physically strong or imposing, they're people who are cunning and nimble [and the other men the text emphasises are good at it are snape, flitwick, and harry - with harry's quick reflexes being explicitly given as a reason why [i.e. GoF 34] ]. his ability to fly is a demonstration of his magical power alone, since it allows him to circumvent the need to use a broom, which does appear to require physical strength [hence why the only main characters who aren't fond of using brooms are either women or fat, cowardly little boys like neville...]

building on this, he's often described in ways which make him sound quite physically fragile - he's very thin, he's very pale, he's always cold, every time his heartbeat is described it seems to be irregular and so on.

his reputation in his teens and young adulthood is as a "polite [and] quiet" goody-two-shoes who "showed no sign of outward arrogance or aggression at all" [HBP 17]. i think that point about aggression is really important - it builds on what mrs cole tells dumbledore about it being "very hard to catch him" bullying other orphans [HBP 13]. he's not dudley - or james and sirius - using his physical talents to subdue and control people. he's sneakier... more insidious... indeed, in chamber of secrets, ron explicitly compares him to percy - somebody else the text presents as fairly effete - in order to complain about him "squealing" - aka, running to tell a teacher, like a girl, instead of settling things like a man - on hagrid [CoS 14].

when he's a young man, living alone for the first time, the text thinks it's very important to tell us that he has "slightly longer hair" than he does at school [HBP 20]. "slightly" is obviously the operative word here - i don't think he's strutting into hepzibah smith's house in a twenty-four inch lace-front - but we can certainly imagine him with the sort of greaser or pompadour haircut which was understood in the 1950s as being a bit counter-cultural...

of the five horcruxes which are objects - rather than harry and nagini [who is, of course, female] - three [cup, diadem, locket] originally belonged to a woman and are acquired from a woman, two [cup, locket] are acquired by killing a woman using a stereotypically female murder method [poison], two are connected to voldemort's rage at his mother being disparaged [locket - he's furious to hear hepzibah say that merope must have stolen it, ring - he attacks morfin immediately after morfin calls his mother a "slut"]. and all five of these horcruxes also depend on women to introduce them into the narrative in a way that facilitates their destruction: the diary is given to ginny; dumbledore puts on the ring in order to speak to his sister; the locket is associated both with walburga's grief [it's literally moved from the cave - voldemort's grave for his mother - to the house which is walburga's own tomb!] and with umbridge's performance of femininity; the cup is given to bellatrix [and the text is very clear that both she and voldemort understand it as having only been given to her, rather than to her and rodolphus] and is then destroyed - albeit off-stage - by hermione; and harry is given the tools to acquire the diadem by cho, luna, and mcgonagall, although he has to overcome the obstacles of alecto carrow and helena ravenclaw to get hold of it. harry - of course - also only becomes a horcrux because of a woman - lily's - sacrifice.

his favourite death eaters are a woman and a very feminine-coded man. but - more interestingly - what the text finds unimpressive isn't that he likes bellatrix and snape... it's that he leaves a lot of his dirty work to male minions who are characterised by their brutish strength - people like greyback, hagrid [who he makes carry harry up to hogwarts], rowle, gibbon, amycus carrow and so on. there's the heavy implication in the text that voldemort's preference for leaving the violence to others - as i'm always pointing out, his canonical kill count is really low; most of the murders in the series are done by other death eaters acting on his orders - is something we should see as weak.

the text associates him with this effeminacy - i think it's really important to note, given who jkr is - as a criticism. it's something - much like the text's presentation of him as aromantic, and the fact that the degradation of his looks via the creation of the horcruxes makes him look sexless/eunuch-like - being used to underscore his villainy. he's feminine-coded in a toxic way.

but let's take this in another direction [and let's also return to the actual question you asked me...] and read him as someone who has always had to deal with being perceived as queer by other people, and having that perception be associated with negative assumptions.

he's very easy to imagine as a child/teenager who's the target of ridicule from his fellow orphans/fellow students [for not being sporty, for liking to sit in the library for hours on end coming up with anagrams of his own name, for the way he walks and speaks] which hinges on the idea that his failure to conform to the expected conventions of "proper" masculinity mean that he's not a proper man... and that if he's not a proper man then... he's not straight.

but then we have to come back to the "i knew i was special" point, don't we?

voldemort's belief in his own superiority can - in my view - be used to read him as somebody who would embrace being camp or effeminate or whatever term we want to use, in order both to express his contempt for people who criticise him ["think i'm a messed up little deviant, do you, mrs cole? well, you don't know the half of it!"] and who conform to social norms he thinks are reprehensible ["oh, do purebloods frown upon bottoming, abraxas? well - guess what - so do muggles. do you agree with what muggles think?"] and to humiliate, subjugate, and control them ["you think i'm a faggot, do you...? well, you're right... i'm a faggot who's defeated you in battle and now i'm about to kill you... still feel like a man?"].

while - obviously - appearance/gender presentation has nothing to do with preferred sexual roles - the manliest men on earth can be bottoms! being femme doesn't prevent you topping! - i really do think that voldemort is someone who can be written entirely canon-coherently as thinking that the homophobic perception of bottoming as weak, powerless, or humiliating is complete nonsense, and who would actively flaunt his rejection of this perception as a way to mock people who subscribe to it.

after all, we see him do something similar in canon when it comes to his blood-status and social class. the death eaters - lots of whom are posh pureblood men who conceive of themselves as the most important people in the universe - are made to kneel at the feet of and kiss the robes of and be branded like cattle by and be at the beck and call of someone who's neither pureblood nor posh. there are - as lupin tells us - no wizarding princes... and yet the closest things the wizarding world has to an aristocracy are rolling around on the ground debasing themselves and calling a half-blood orphan "my lord".

voldemort does this to humiliate them. but he also does this to amuse himself - à la logan roy making men who've displeased him play "boar on the floor".

[wormtail being forced to care for him when he's in his half-form at the start of goblet of fire, for example. he's not humiliated in the slightest by his dependence on wormtail... wormtail is humiliated by it, and voldemort finds it hilarious.]

and so i think we can plausibly imagine him also deeply enjoying making his straight, married, "i would die before i let anything near my arse", "i'm not getting changed for quidditch with so-and-so there, he's queer", "i'd disown my son if i found out he let other men fuck him" death eaters grovel for the favour of someone who loves getting railed...

this deeply aligns with how voldemort understands things like power and control - and it's why the argument that he'd only top because he would regard it as the only way of being powerful and controlling never hits for me.

because this also rests on an assumption - that the bottom always understands themselves as the passive partner. i do think the fandom is broadly getting better at recognising that bottoms and submissives are different things [although the bar was on the floor...], but i think there's still a tendency to default to the idea that the two people involved in sex are an active partner and a passive partner, and that the passive partner is - for want of a better term - the receptacle.

the language used around bottoming reinforces this assumption. its voice is passive - the bottom is penetrated, is bred, is fucked, is taken - its verbs are passive too - the top does, the bottom receives.

but the thing is... this is just semantics. and it's a semantic argument directly rooted in misogyny, and the homophobia which stems from and connects to it.

and - since it's just semantics - we can change the language we use at any time to completely reconfigure the assumed power dynamic.

the bottom grants access. the bottom consumes. the bottom takes. the bottom absorbs. the bottom uses. the bottom captures. the bottom detains. the bottom grips. the bottom devours. the bottom permits. the bottom destroys.

the top is the person who's passive - who receives permission, who is granted access, who is consumed, who is absorbed, who is captured. the top is the person having their life-force leached from them. they're just a toy, just a piece of meat. they literally don't matter.

and the text already uses this sort of language - the language of consumption and capture and permission to cross thresholds and so on - to talk about voldemort's attitude to power, magic, and the body.

he drains the blood of unicorns; he uses up the life-force of the people and animals he possesses; he grows stronger by consuming ginny's secrets; he is restored to his body by taking from his father, wormtail, and harry; he takes the money dumbledore offers without feeling the need to thank him or regard it as a gift; he offers up gifts to people he wants to use for his own gain; he "doesn't march up to people's houses and bang on their front doors" [OotP 6]; he hoards and conceals precious things; his soul is kept safe by being encased by the horcruxes; his locket is guarded by something which has to be drunk, which destroys anyone who assumes they can simply take it without his permission; he "would be glad to see anything miss hepzibah shows me" [HBP 20] and then seizes her secrets and uses them to bring about her doom; his descent from slytherin is proven by his control of the threshold of the chamber of secrets; he places himself and his talents at dumbledore's disposal, "i am yours to command" [HBP 20]; he controls snakes and they do his bidding; he drains the ministry of its secrets; he controls the dementors, who devour joy; augustus rookwoord "has lord voldemort's gratitude... i shall need all the information you can give me" [OotP 26]; he is the greatest legilimens - that is to say, he is excellent at pulling other people's secrets into his own mind and using them as he wishes - the world has ever seen; he has seen ron's heart and it is his; his followers live to serve him...

his followers are called death eaters, not death fuckers.

and so it's inarguable, really, that he'd have a legion of service tops under his command...

It always pains me to see Remus so far away from the group in the Order of The Phoenix photo. I mean what close friends suspect their friend of betraying them? Probably those who aren’t actually close.

Honestly, people talk about Peter and Remus as if they were on the same level as James and Sirius, when in reality Peter acted like a cheerleader whom James and Sirius treated like a damn pet, and maybe James considered Remus somewhat, but Sirius clearly didn’t give a damn—I mean, he was willing to let a classmate be killed by him with everything that entails, and then he was the first to distrust him during the war and think he might be a traitor. The supposed friendship between those four wasn’t as idyllic as their fans try to paint it. It’s clear that James and Sirius were the leaders and the ones who had the real friendship; the other two were just complements.

Something about the men who turned Harry's life upside down...

Actually both Harry and Snape had full rights to turn evil ngl

"Harry also had a shitty childhood and was bullied, but he didn’t turn out like Snape."

True, because:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Harry had choices. Severus had nothing.

I believe canon Sirius was straight, but if he was gay or bi, there is no way he would fall for Remus. Sirius would be pining hard and miserably after James Potter and he'd die pining after James's ghost.