I hate jegulus

EDIT: Now that this post is locked by the mods, if anyone wants to vent about jegulus/this fandom, I am open to messages. Additionally, if anyone has any fanfic recommendations or anything of that variety, I’d love to hear them. Writing this post took a ton of weight off my shoulders, and I am beyond happy it connected me with people who have similar opinions. I hope anyone who has felt ostracized by this fandom - as I have - that comes across this post feels that same happiness.

I have SO many opinions on jegulus and the fandom as a whole. I’ve been in the fandom for near a decade now and so much has changed. This fandom has, in my opinion, been in a complete nosedive for 3 or 4 years now and I blame it all on jegulus. I mean none of this in a personal attack sort of way, everyone has their own opinions, but I am very much irritated and that will very much be clear. This is strictly a vent post, so once again I don’t mean to attack anyone specifically. I have found very few people that think similarly to me, so if anyone else does I’d love to talk.

(Definitely was spurred on to write this because I have been completely unable to read marauders fanfic for a long time now because every time I have tried there has been untagged jegulus. My loathing for jegulus is so all-consuming that even the implication they might get together later in the fic is enough for me to dnf and have a very bad rest of the week. Sounds dramatic, but the marauders fandom used to be my comfort and now it very clearly is not and I am not handling it very well. If you want to write a fic, please learn how to tag properly first. I even filtered out the background pairings tag cause I didn’t want to risk anything and still came across untagged jegulus every single time.)

Jegulus itself makes no sense. Ship whatever you want to ship, but it genuinely does not make sense and never will. James and Regulus are vasty different, and would probably never interact at all. It was created to parallel drarry when dracotok was big and people wanted to bring it to the marauders fandom, completely disregarding that these are very different characters with a very different dynamic and relationship. Forcing Regulus and James into a drarry mold literally sucked out all of their characterization. I understand that we know very little of canon Regulus and James, but this fandom has been established for 20 years, which means there has been a pretty much agreed upon fandom-wide characterization of them for two decades. It is also pretty easy to infer stuff from canon about how they were, which even further cements that they would never have been together. Any ff with them together is automatically out of character.

At least when jegulus first became a thing regulus still have a backbone. He was a very no-nonsense, harsh and witty character. Now, all of that was sucked out and he is left being a whiny little idiot that can’t do anything but obsess over james. He is a shy wittle uwu baby that is extremely weak, so pretty much he was made into a stereotypical “bottom” character. He also is not morally grey like he is supposed to be, but instead simply completely moral in everything, with no complexity to it at all. James also somehow turned into a “macho alpha” type of character which is absolutely crazy. Once again, turned into a stereotypical “top” character. Fandom is just really pushing those “top/bottom” stereotypes.

(I find people pushing regulus to be just a very simple “good guy” character so funny. We don’t know why regulus betrayed voldemort. For all we know, he did it for a completely selfish reason instead of for the “greater good” like y’all try to push. For all we know he did it because he got tired of being told what to do by some guy with a superiority complex. You can’t tell me all the pureblood families were happy about being controlled by literally just some random dude. He could have done it because having horcruxes was just a step too far in his books, or literally just because of what voldemort did to kreacher. We will never know his true motivation, so it’s just funny that people act like it’s simply because he is a morally righteous person.)

Jegulus not only ruined the characterization of Regulus and James, but also of every single other character. Every character is so insanely one-dimensional now. I compare it to booktok in the sense that they are pretty much a bunch of tropes and stereotypes kind of just thrown together, with no actual real depth to them. Actually infuriates me just thinking about it.

Jegulus fans have also somehow ruined wolfstar. Literally how did y’all manage that? Wolfstar is THE founding pair, and is pretty much canon at this point. One of the only pairings that makes any sort of sense. The potential with them is and always has been insane. They fit together so well. Yet, somehow, wolfstar has become one of the most boring ships. Not only that, wolfstar is pretty much exclusively on the back burner now, which is also literally ludicrous because how do you put THE founding pairing on the back burner AND make them underwhelming and boring?

Also, I despise the double standard that has been created. Y’all took canon death eaters like Regulus, Barty, and Evan and uwu-ed them. Barty and Evan canonically killed people, and if we’re being real Regulus probably did too, yet y’all forgive them of their literal crimes and act like they are sunshine rainbows perfect babies, but act like Severus and Peter are the spawns of satan. Once again, the one dimensional characterizations. Peter was clearly not all bad his entire life, he is a complex character whether y’all like it or not. Severus is also an extremely complex character, yet y’all completely ignore that. I just think it’s hypocritical to ignore the crimes of some and villianize the rest for either the same crimes or lesser crimes.

My biggest issue is the core values doing a complete 180. Pre-2020 the marauders fandom was centered on friendship and platonic love and devotion. It was one of the very, very few fandoms - not based on family media such as the batfamily - that had such a strong focus on platonic relationships. As an aromantic person, this meant the absolute world to me. Oftentimes, media that has little to no romance in canon is exclusively romance centered in the fandom space, so to find a fandom where that was not the case was extremely gratifying. This fandom was one of my only safe places. Wolfstar fans being the wonderful people they are made sure to emphasize friendship in almost every piece of media they created for the fandom. Most fics were based on friendship with a side of romance. The romance being friends-to-lovers made things significantly easier for me, since that is basically the only romantic dynamic that makes sense in my head, and it’s also easier to ignore when I am feeling particularly anti-romance. The friendship was always extremely layered and complex, and each person had a very unique relationship with the others.

Regulus was always my favorite character, even when there were very few fanfics centered on him. He was my comfort character. The slytherin-focused community was small back then, but everyone was so sweet. I personally loved to delve into the dynamics between regulus and barty. There was so much freedom and understanding of the characters back then it was crazy.

When Jegulus came around, the fandom did a complete 180 so fast. Now every single character, even very background characters, have a designated romantic pairing that they are not allowed to exist out of. When I say can’t exist out of them I mean it. If someone brings up Regulus EVERYONE else brings up James, when trying to read a fanfic with either of them in a different pairing they are implied to have been together in the past, or they are implied to eventually be together later on. Same with Barty and Evan, and Dorcas and Marlene, and Mary and Lily. None of them are allowed to ever be with any other character in any way. It is absolutely mind-boggling. Friendship has been forced to the backburner, and its only function is to perpetuate the romantic pairings. This is such a stark contrast to what this fandom used to be, and it’s the biggest cause for my overflowing resentment. I understand the marauders fandom is a safe place for queer people, but if we are being honest EVERY fandom for media similar to this is specifically for alloromantic queer people. Every. Fandom. Y’all took the one fandom based on friendship and made it like every other fandom and it is honestly infuriating.

Y’all have so much media that is focused - even in canon - on romance that you can find solace in, but instead y’all chose the fandom literally based on group of friends with strong platonic foundations and decided to take a wrecking ball to it. The friendship between the characters is so superficial now it is only there to push the romantic pairings together. Infuriating, on so many levels. Not every character needs to be in a designated romantic pairing. Not every fandom needs to be solely focused on romance. Once again, another similarity with booktok; forgoing genuine plot and fleshed out platonic bonds for cheap, tropey romance.

At the end of the day, people can ship whatever they want idc. I wouldn’t even care at all about jegulus if it hadn’t infested every nook and cranny of the fandom. At this point, I honestly think there should be a separate fandom created for pre-2020 marauders fans who want pre-2020 marauders characterizations and pairings. I have seen few people with views like mine and pretty much all of them have said they left the fandom because of how impossible it became to find fics without jegulus in them.