Thank you, thank you, thank you for your jily art!! It's always so delightful and joyful to see "new blood" in our fandom, especially new artists or writers, especially since jily lovers have become rarer 🥺 they deserve the best! You don't know how happy it made me to see your posts yesterday 🥹
No, thank you for this incredibly sweet message!! It makes me incredibly happy (I immediately showed this ask to my fiancé because it made me BEAM) to hear that!!!
I joined the Marauders fandom when I was 12/13 - originally by lurking and then eventually by fanfic creation myself. Back in the day, Jily was such of a commonplace ship!! When I was 17ish? I started getting into art, and I created some very rough Marauders fanart because I was very immersed in the world & fandom.
Unfortunately, during the big bad Corona, I started to fall out of love with the Marauders fandom due to all the controversies within it - and the rise of certain ships I personally disagreed with. I felt like I had to conform to the new look of Marauders content or cease creation. (This wasn't ACTUALLY the case, I just didn't have the headspace and growth mindset at the time to realize that inherently other creators or myself are doing nothing wrong by simply just doing what they love.)
I've always wanted to create a blog specifically for the Marauders, but I felt as though I missed the "prime". I've since realized that is not true!! The Marauders are an incredibly fan-nurtured niche in the canon Harry Potter fandom! The fans keep it alive by breathing new life into it.
So, I decided with this blog, I would create a space where I felt comfortable to share the part of the Marauders that *I* personally originally fell in love with. That's what I think is the beauty of this fandom- at its core - we all share these characters and nobody has the right to make anyone feel unwelcomed in it!
Personally, one of the things I love about the Marauders is Jily! It's been a dream come true to see that there are such supportive and kind people in this fandom - like yourself - who support new creators even though the content may not be as popular as it once was.
So, really from the bottom of my heart, thank *you* for taking the time to send this in my ask box! And thank you for bearing with my needlessly long post lol
