Severus Snape Enthusiast

I don't really know how to explain this, but it really does, especially since Severus comes from a very poor background ever since he was a child.

People mainly say this because apparently, Severus' hair is way too greasy, which I think is stupid. You can get greasy hair from showering too much, or simply from genetics. Despite his greasy hair and Severus being sickly thin—especially since really low weight tends to make your sweat 10x worse, therefore making you smell worse—it was never mentioned in the books that Severus had a bad smell.

And considering just how brutally honest Harry was—who was the main narrator—he'd definitely state that Snape had a bad odor if Snape never actually showered.

It just doesn't really make sense for me to say that Snape doesn't know what showering is, when everything else indicates otherwise. I mean, I'm not surprised, because Marauders fans tend to be extremely classist (especially the ATYD truthers), but I still find it weird.

Severus the one who grew up below the poverty line, the one who wore his moms clothes

snape is introduced at a young age wearing a “women’s blouse”, which petunia uses to mock him

snape, when appearing to neville as a boggart, wears neville’s grandmother’s clothing when neville uses riddikilus on him

during “snape’s worst memory”, james turns snape (who he sees as a potential romantic rival) upside down and strips him/humiliates him in an attempt to impress lily, and after snape yells at lily and calls her a mudblood, lily covers up her (justifiably) hurt feelings by commenting on his dirty underwear

snape’s patronus, confirmed by jkr to be a symbol of “true love, love everlasting”, unlike james’ stag, mirrors lily’s patronus by being a doe (which much of the fandom considers to be a sign of obsession, despite never levelling the same accusations against tonks’ wolf patronus mirroring remus’)

most, if not all, of the significantly positive/grounding forces in severus’ life are women (eileen, lily, narcissa, mcgonagall) 

If you go by the freudian/jungian interpretation of the wand as a phallic symbol, Snape’s connection to the cauldron is a yonic/vulvic symbol.

there’s a lot of focus on snape’s looks - eg that his most recognizable trait is his hair, which seems odd to focus on

speaking of hair, his hair length

has to be “rescued” by james during the werewolf incident, and damsels are often seen as feminine

often described in ways more coded to the feminine 

it’s so interesting to me that these kinds of things get internalized to the point where most readers wouldn’t even necessarily pick up on them overtly. and yet, snape is in the traditional position a nonconforming male character often falls into - the bully, the bad guy, the evil person.stereotypes are often cast as a villain and it’s esp common for male villain characters to be androgynous. he’s done nothing worse than many of the other evil characters and yet it is is snape who is so thoroughly villified by fandom, snape who is the fandom punching bag.

and i do wonder if this underlying tension of snape’s gender and sexuality, that we recognize these nuances in snape’s performance of gender without necessarily evaluating them at a conscious level, contributes to that. that’s not to say that everyone who dislikes snape does so because of that, but just in a general sense of how snape is turned to as the paragon of evil in a book where characters like umbridge, the malfoys, voldemort, pettigrew etc all exist… it seems directed at him for a specific reason, somehow. not just that he’s done bad things, but a particular kind of loathing that seems much higher than demanded for the actual level of his crimes.

I don’t have anything major to add, just a few add-ons to points already raised.

-  To add to @prosnapeblogging‘s point about Freud/Jung and wands as a phallic symbol/cauldrons as vulvic…Snape dismissed ‘foolish wand waving’, and waxed lyrical about the cauldron instead.

-  To add to @severusdefender‘s point about cauldrons and cooking, it’s also that witches - as opposed to wizards - are traditionally depicted with a cauldron, and stirring pots.

snape’s role, both in the war and the narrative is also very passive, which is typically feminine, especially in a narrative sense; as both a spy and the particular spy that he is, he’s meant to watch and wait. he waits out his adult life at hogwarts until voldemort returns, at which point he becomes a spy, where his job is basically to not act (acting for/against his supposed general, whether it’s voldemort or dumbledore, could jeopardize his position on either side). he’s supposed to gather and share information and, what is primarily a woman’s role in a war, to wait. he doesn’t seem to take part in many battles (see the point above about acting for/against either side jeopardizing his position.)

*marauders era* but not focused on them

Snape pre/during marauders bullying.

he’s bullied because of his appearance and status.

oc/reader asks Snape’s help with potions, and he started mentoring her only as classmates

he’s childhood bsf with Lily and likes her in the beginning, but starts having a crush on oc/reader after he started helping her with potions.

oc/reader has a crush on him as well, and they start hanging out even if not for a study session.

both of them are shy, but Snape’s especially so, mainly because of his low self stem and the fact that oc/reader is aware of the bullying he suffers from the Griffindors boys.

Fluff and teen romance, idc about any weird #’s or kinks lol ;)) I’m up to anything