Something I see getting overlooked a lot when discussing queercoding in historical media is that in many cases it's not evidence that the writers secretly shipped it; it was aimed at straight dudes specifically to freak them out. Depicting a male villain as sexually interested in a male hero reads as horror to the cishet male audience. Like, Venom didn't spend years and years being blatantly characterised as Spider-Man's creepy stalker ex because Marvel's writers were all closeted yaoi fans. That was meant to be scary – which of course doesn't mean you can't read it differently, but don't give them credit they don't deserve!















