I joined the Marauders fandom in 2020 (thanks to October Jily month and Dorcas) and had a lot of fun that year getting to learn more about the characters and the ships, but I honestly think I’m done.
I thought this would be a fandom where people could stan and ship whoever they wanted without being attacked for it, but all the fandom seems to care about nowadays is Regulus and WolfStar and if you like anything else, it’s “shame on you”. I feel like there used to be more variety of who people stanned from the early days of the Marauders fandom up to 2021.
I have multiple ships in the Marauders fandom, both gay and straight, but I’m too afraid to even make edits of Jily, Remadora, Blackinnon, or Remus x Dorcas out of fear that Jegulus and WolfStar stans might attack me over shipping “bORinG stRaiGHt sHiPs”.
And the way a lot of them do that thing fans of gay ships do where they ship the female character that “gets in the way of their gay ship” with another female character in order to get her out of the way is not lost on me. Like yeah, you can ship MaryLily and Jegulus, but you don’t gotta be an asshole and hate on Jily’s relationship and Jily stans for simply SHIPPING THEM! Or make up lies about Lily to make it seem like she’s a bad person that is undeserving of James and his love!
Also I’ve seen so many people in the fandom be racist, anti-Semitic, and fatphobic, but then draw fanart of the character they are being shitty about for clout. Dorcas, black-Remus, plus sized-Lily, Desi-James, the list goes on. I mean, this fandom STAYS either using Dorcas as a prop for the white characters or completely forgetting she exists.
I remember when some people were rightfully getting called out for fancasting Dorcas as white in 2021 (aka years after her official character portrait showed she was black) and several Marauders editors I followed on IG at the time were like “Let people fancast who they want! Stop being such an activist! Worry about something more important! Go donate to BLM or a charity or something!”.
I was just sitting there like “…Now what the fuck does someone wanting you to fancast A BLACK CHARACTER AS BLACK have to do with being an activist?!” And don’t even get me started on how plenty of fans will ignore the fact that Dorcas is dark skinned and Peter is plus-sized cuz they’d rather fancast light skinned actors for Dorcas and skinny actors for Peter! “Oh, I just don’t see them that way” Well you better start, bitch!
Also y’all can ship what you want and create your own friendships headcanons, but please know that in canon, Dorcas and James would NOT date/be friends with mfs like Regulus and the rest of the Slytherin Gang! I truly hate how the fandom turned them into misunderstood, precious, UWU babies that can do no wrong when Death Eaters are literally allegories for white supremacists! Like do y’all honestly think James would fall in love with someone that would call Lily a slur?! 🙄 And somebody please free my babygirl Dorcas from clutches of Slytherin Gang stans! If she’s supposed to be dating Marlene, who is one of Lily’s best friends in canon, wtf makes you think Dorcas would be friends with the people who’d call her girlfriends best friend a slur?! 😭
Anyways, I’m done here. Last years Jily month was pretty boring anyway cuz everyone hates them all of a sudden and Dorcas is always gonna be forever unappreciated by the fandom, so yeah.
