#regulus also dislikes snape's personality

[oasis-of-stars-4]

Snape: Tommorrow's garbage day. Barty: I can't believe they made a whole day dedicated to you.

[soraya-snape]

Just saw someone say they don't like Snape "because of how he treats children as a grown adult, his creepy behaviour growing up towards Lily, his devotion to voldermort until Lily was in danger, and his blood supremacy and prejudices (eg: how he treated Remus)."

And complain that people say they only dislike Snape because of "misogyny, or societal beauty expectations etc.".

But they still love the marauders and Regulus Black.

The marauders, who bullied Snape simply for existing, and others just for fun. OK, maybe they weren't grown adults, but they were old enough to know that bullying, sa and attempted murder are not OK.

James, who literally threatened to hex Lily for defending Snape and tried to blackmail her into dating him (extremely creepy and not romantic in my eyes).

Regulus, who had a picture wall dedicated to Voldemort as a teen and was a devoted blood supremacist. He only defected (as a death eater, not as a blood supremacist) because Voldemort hurt his property.

Both the marauders and Regulus were extremely prejudiced towards others. Regulus, obviously muggle-borns and probably Gryffindor (or anything that didn't fit with his Slytherin and death eater mentality) and the marauders towards Slytherin. Especially James, who he started bullying Snape for that exact same reason. He also said something along the lines of "Oh I thought you were alright." in a disappointed way towards Sirius when he learned his whole family was in Slytherin. (Like he knew that boy for a few minutes and was about to jump to conclusion and change his view on that 11-year-old boy because of the Hogwarts house his family was in!) and considering their main victim was Snape probably also people who were poor. (Oh, and Snape didn't treat Remus badly because he had a prejudice against werewolfs but because he was a bystander at his bullying despite being a prefect who should have stopped it and maybe even took part in it.)

So I guess people are right about this person because they like characters who did the similar, same or even worse things. The only real difference being that the marauders and Regulus are conventionally attractive/ have a hot fancast. And I'm not even going into (more detail about) how some of their points about Snape are completely out of context, or extremely exaggerated.

[saintsenara]

You mentioned fanon turning barty crouch jr. into an uninteresting character. I don't know much about what the new fanon characterisation has really done with him, but I'm curious for your thoughts on why he's a canonically interesting character. I agree that he is, but it sounds like you might have some interesting thoughts on it that are already fleshed out.

thank you for the ask, @jamesunderwater, and i'm sorry for taking so long to drag myself around to answering this.

as you may have gathered if you’ve read my views on jegulus or wolfstar, the common fanon interpretation of marauders-era characters and i don’t really get on.

this is not a new development - me and goofy fanon sirius have been beefing for over a decade at this point, i fear - but our enmity has taken on a new form since [roughly] 2020, when the emergence of what we might call the modern marauders subfandom brought with it a whole series of expectations about characters, ships, personalities, and appearances in first war stories which - let me state my position immediately - have absolutely nothing to do with the characters as they are in canon.

i could talk about sirius or regulus or james or snape or lupin until the cows come home - as, i’m sure, could many of us - but i also dislike the expectations the marauders subfandom has around its supporting cast. these characters - who largely fall under the categories of women, slytherins, or both - have names that we might recognise from canon, but they are - to all intents and purposes - original characters.

to do some marauders fan defending, i do understand the rationale behind this. hogwarts is a school, and it needs to be filled with the sort of incidental characters that lightning-era writers can pull from the canon text [shoutout to ernie macmillan, the mvp]. if you’re writing about lily, then she needs friends - why not have them be alice, marlene, dorcas, emmeline, pandora etc.?

[well, because dumbledore isn’t running a child army. it makes no sense for the entire order of the phoenix to be in the same school year - and the idea that alice is probably around ten years older than lily, that pandora is around the same age as narcissa malfoy and isn’t a pureblood, and that marlene, dorcas, and emmeline are hard-nosed ministry bitches in their fifties who can have mad-eye moody quaking with just a look is something which can be prised from my cold, dead hands.]

and if you’re writing about the epic highs and lows of high-school football going to school during a sectarian conflict, then you need some antagonists. which is to say, you need some slytherins.

the issue i have is that the three key slytherins who seem to have been elevated to principal cast in the marauders pantheon - regulus black, barty crouch jr., and evan rosier - get what can only be called the smol bean treatment. that is, that three teenagers who all canonically join a terror organisation are turned into soft and tiny babies who thought lord voldemort was just feeling silly when he said, "my aim is the eradication of the muggleborn population through violent means."

and even fics which do acknowledge that the three willingly become terrorists often go out of their way to provide justifications for this which don’t contextualise their decision [something which is important - you can’t write about snape becoming a death eater without acknowledging the way that poverty, loneliness, and a sense of hopelessness make someone an easy target of radicalisation] but which minimise it. sometimes, their violence is turned into romantic vengeance - i’ve seen a fair amount of suggestions that barty goes to torture the longbottoms because frank was the auror who killed evan. sometimes, authors imply - or even outright state - that there’s no need to see these boys as aspiring villains: voldemort is right; the class system is good and should be maintained; and purebloods [usually james, sirius, regulus, barty, evan and maybe a token woman or two] should stick together while the half-breeds and the mudbloods go hang.

this - like all aristocracy wank in this fandom - annoys me enough with regulus and evan. but it’s particularly grating when it comes to barty crouch jr. because - unlike evan, who is literally just a name in the text, and regulus, who isn’t much more - he actually has a canon personality.

and it’s fascinating. indeed, i would even go so far as to say that barty crouch jr. is the greatest villain in the harry potter series.

[my apologies to lord voldemort.]

after all, even though he’s been imprisoned under the imperius curse for over a decade, barty is still so lucid and powerful that he is able to:

produce magic capable of tricking the goblet of fire, which is treated by all the adult characters involved as unprecedented.

pull off a year-long impersonation of a man whom dumbledore evidently knows extremely well without being clocked until his mission has been successful, even though his opportunities to observe the real moody can have been virtually non-existent. he is in character within seconds of his ambush on moody’s home - after the intruder-alert dustbins are set off - and is able to persuade ministry personnel who can be presumed to have met moody personally [including both amos diggory and arthur weasley, who appear to know him not only personally, but well] that he is the real deal. he maintains his performance even under close scrutiny from the teaching colleagues he has to interact with daily at hogwarts, despite the fact that he presumably can’t get a great deal out of the real moody, since he’s having to be kept deliberately weak and docile under the imperius curse.

manipulate multiple people into become accessories to his crimes, without ever being suspected of doing so. with the hindsight of knowing who he is, the first defence against the dark arts lesson in goblet of fire, in which "moody" deliberately distresses neville by using the cruciatus curse directly in front of him, before swooping in to be the person to cheer him up so that he can plant information which will help harry win the triwizard tournament and deliver him to voldemort, is chilling. he just gets unlucky that harry has the biggest martyr complex in human history.

commit murder on hogwarts’ grounds without ever being suspected of wrongdoing.

execute lord voldemort’s plan to kidnap harry and use him in his resurrection ritual flawlessly. the plan itself may be convoluted - but dark lords are allowed to have a flair for the dramatic, as a treat - but, crucially, it works, and barty succeeds in every respect.

but, i concede, we’re talking about the adult barty here. perhaps he was once a sweetheart who went unfortunately off the rails after his father sent him to prison and then - in effect - drugged him for years. that wouldn’t be a ridiculous suggestion.

except for the fact that - canonically - the teen barty was just as clever, sly, manipulative, and - above all - ardent in his support for voldemort as his adult self.

at his trial in the early 1980s, young barty gives the performance of a lifetime. he screams, he shakes, he looks terrified of the dementors, he is pale and weak and harmless-looking, he begs his mother to help him, he pleads with his father for mercy, he maintains his innocence as he's dragged off to his cell. he gives off the impression of simply having been in the wrong place at the wrong time so well that harry is almost certain that his conviction is illegitimate. so too, it is implied, is dumbledore.

indeed, barty plays the part of the wrongfully imprisoned so well that - as canon tells us - he not only influences public opinion to be broadly in favour of his probable innocence [or, at least, his diminished culpability - sirius suggests that the widespread view was that he was probably there, but that he only ended up involved in what was clearly bellatrix’s idea because of his father’s failure to relate to him properly], but also changes public opinion against the government’s anti-death-eater strategy entirely.

following his imprisonment, his father - a man who never met an extrajudicial punishment he didn’t like, and whose ruthless approach to dealing with the death eaters in the first war [such as his use of internment for suspected terrorists and his order to aurors to shoot to kill] was, we are told, enormously popular with the wizarding public - is forced to resign in disgrace from his role as head of the department of magical law enforcement. crouch sr. is quietly shuffled off into a boring bureaucratic position, his ambitions to be minister in tatters, and his only way forward to free his son from the prison cell where he is languishing for the crime he very literally did.

[as an aside, i do think that we are supposed to read bellatrix as the ringleader of the torture of the longbottoms. but, all too often, that gets reduced to her doing everything while rodolphus, rabastan, and barty just stand there gormlessly. they were clearly performing the curses too!]

now, barty’s unusual cunning can - of course - be explained by narrative reasons. the text needs to conceal that he’s the villain [since, as with philosopher’s stone, it wants to imply that the dark lord’s faithful servant at hogwarts is snape] until the very end - and this naturally requires dumbledore to not think too hard about whether his good judy alastor is behaving even more strangely than usual.

the text also needs to suggest that he's innocent in order to properly stick the landing on the narrative role of his father - barty crouch sr. as with dolores umbridge in order of the phoenix, crouch sr. exists to show harry [and the reader] that the rot in the wizarding world was not caused by - and will not stop with the defeat of - voldemort. his ruthlessness and inflexibility, his lack of respect for due process, his astonishingly cruel treatment of winky [brutal beyond even the standard way in which wizards abuse their enslaved elves] all serve to teach harry that the anti-voldemort cause can become just as easily corrupted as the disillusioned young men in voldemort’s orbit. the suggestion that crouch sent his own son to azkaban without good reason, simply because he would not deviate from his beliefs, is an important lesson to harry about what "justice" actually means.

but, despite this, barty is also able to pull off his deception because he’s spectacularly talented. it’s not all just narrative.

and his talents are caused by characteristics which aren’t good or bad in and of themselves. he’s clearly very intelligent [he got twelve owls, the series’ benchmark for genius]. he’s hyper-observant, creative, adaptable, good under pressure, and possessed of nerves of steel. he shares these traits with other villains in the series - voldemort above all - but he also shares them with plenty of the heroes. harry, for one.

which is to say that all of his personality traits could be put to non-criminal uses. but - as with harry, who is capable of being quite sinister when he wants to be [for example, when he manipulates slughorn into giving up the horcrux memory] - they would give a non-criminal barty an edge. and this doesn’t seem to be present in his standard fanon persona - as sweet and goofy as all marauders-era men - to any great extent.

finally, there is another aspect of barty’s character which is absent from his fanon version - that he clearly has some sort of childhood trauma, but that this does not excuse any of what he does.

even though crouch sr. is right to send him to azkaban, he was clearly also a cold and distant father, who had absolutely no idea how to relate to his son.

[as another aside, this emotional negligence is bad enough without it needing to be written as having been accompanied by extreme physical and/or sexual abuse. there seems to be a real tendency in fanfiction - not only in marauders-era stuff, although the exaggeration of orion and walburga black into despotic villains is one example of this - to make childhood misery "worse", in order to justify a character’s later actions.]

voldemort demonstrably uses barty’s terrible relationship with crouch sr. [and his absolutely flagrant daddy kink] to groom him into taking the dark mark [not least because there’s otherwise no explanation for why he cheerfully informs him that he too is named after his dad], which he may very well end up taking when he’s still at school. my reading is that he’s recruited to inform on his father - since voldemort would undoubtedly wish to keep the head of the department of magical law enforcement under constant surveillance - and that this is why the dark lord pays him the attention he is so obviously lacking.

but, as with snape and regulus and draco malfoy and all the other young death eaters, barty also colludes in his own radicalisation. voldemort is a master at ensnaring recruits, sure, but he’s also a busy man. he only bothers to make the effort because the clever, creative, cunning, manipulative young man - who wishes to avenge himself on the father who never paid him attention [sound familiar?] - he finds before him is very much determined to become a spectacular part of his terrorist organisation. and stories which feature him owe it to him to give him that dark complexity of character

show the series’ best villain some respect.

[foursaints]

how do you think they all met? like obviously evan and pandora are our fav unhinged twins, and ev dates barty, but how do THEY meet? and how does regulus fit in? is he barty’s friend or pandora’s friend? and dorcas? is she in the group in your version of them? 

(also what do they/you think of snape? 👀)

to me the timeline goes

i. regulus & barty are peripheral childhood friends. their parents didn’t get along but they plastered together at pureblood events. to barty this was more of a casual fondness, as he never saw reg much, but regulus considered barty his Only Friend growing up. there was a mutual tinge of desperation to their friendship and they became inseparable at hogwarts <- lots of slytherins ponced around for reg’s Black Scion Stamp Of Approval, but regulus mostly kept to barty because of their childhood warmth

ii. when the rosiers stopped being homeschooled in 3rd year, reg quickly became obsessed with pandora. meanwhile barty was having at least six concurrent crises over The Rosier Boy Being At Hogwarts (barty’s first impression upon seeing evan: I think i huave dragonpox) but reg’s friendship with pandora helped. they were aware of the rosiers for pureblood reasons, but the twins kept to themselves before hogwarts. pandora is the first and only person that regulus ever actively sought out for friendship

dorcas hangs out with the ravenclaws to me!! i hc her in the same social circle as emmeline vance & amelia bones. i could see her being friendly with regulus, but i like having the skittles as a closed unit of Four so i can parallel them w/ the marauders

(re: your last question. i fucking love snape sorry everyone. i used to dislike him for crimes against lily but i read some fics that really got to me)

[fandoomrants]

For all people wondering how someone can still dislike Snape but like characters like Regulus, Barty and Evan, who were also Death Eaters.

Well... We canonly don't know much about these characters.

But we do know Regulus was kind to Kreacher, and he did turn against Voldemort. Barty was questionable and undeniably a bit mad, but he was still arguably not too bad towards the students (he did turn Draco into a ferret and he showed them spells he shouldn't have but did he ever bully a child actively??). And we don't really know much about Evan.

But do you know who we canonly know a lot about? Snape.

And we see him acting like a jerk to students. Not only Harry but also Neville, Hermione, others too. He played favourites, and there's no arguing here it was just because he disliked Harry for who his father was. He was acting like that towards most Gryffindors, and he probably did that to Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs too.

Nothing he ever did in order to "help" anyone until the very end was his own actions, it was just because Dumbledore asked him to, and he also did all of this because he felt guilty for Lily dying in the first place.

And it's also not a valid argument that he was like that because he was bullied as a student because we've seen flashbacks of his childhood before Hogwarts and he was acting bad towards Petunia too, and then he's even acting bad towards Lily, who was his only friend. The Marauders might have been bullies but I think it wasn't uncalled for.

All in all, there was maybe only one person he ever cared for, and in the end he lost that person because of his own words and actions. And all he did was because of the guilt he felt. Would he have stopped being a Death Eater if Lily was alive? I don't think so. Would he be kinder to the students? I think he would have actually been worse to Harry then, knowing his parents were together and happy, and his behaviour towards the rest wouldn't have been much different either. In general, I think he would have become even more spiteful person if he knew the woman he loved was having a good life with someone else.

So I think with all of this being said, there are lots of canon valid reasons to dislike the character, while liking characters that are mostly made from fanon. Who knows, maybe they were much worse than him but we don't know that. However, we do know about him.

[seriousbrat]

let sirius (and james) be mean

Obviously in SWM both James and Sirius are atrocious towards Snape but I think it's pretty revealing how mean they also are to their best friends, especially Peter:

And while I think James possibly grew out of his mean girl phase to some extent Sirius didn't, at least not fully. To be fair he's usually not outright rude unless he dislikes someone-- mostly, he's dismissive or impatient especially when someone says something he perceives as stupid, as well as being overall insensitive to the feelings of others.

In the prequel they're both fairly insensitive and rude to two terrified Muggles lol, I mean who cares and it's funny but there are examples of Sirius being something of a mean girl later on as an adult. obviously, the famous one:

and yeah you can defend this by saying he was stuck in grimmauld place and frustrated, bla bla bla, I do get it and I still love him and don't think it makes him a terrible person or godfather but objectively this is an incredibly mean thing to say to Harry.

Other somewhat minor instances that nevertheless paint a wide picture:

OotP (I'm leaving out his interactions with Kreacher bc those are self evident)

-------

-------

he's also kind of dismissive towards Harry's feelings at certain points. A good example of this is the stiff "one-armed hug" and gruff goodbye he gives him when they leave for Hogwarts after christmas, or this earlier conversation:

Also, how he talks about Regulus. obviously it's somewhat justified since Sirius believes him to have just been a Death Eater, but he specifically calls Regulus stupid rather than just saying he was a bad person. This is interesting because it can be inferred that Regulus was not stupid at all, given that he figured out the secret of the Horcruxes. imo Sirius was too dismissive of his brother to actually know who he really was.

(and bonus him being snippy with Harry)

GoF

like this is probably true but it's still rude lol, as is this from OotP which has definite mean girl vibes:

next:

so this on its own doesn't seem especially mean but it does come after Sirius has basically dismissed every single thing that Ron has said lol, even raising his hand at one point to shut him up. It's not the worst but imo does indicate his impatience with "stupidity" which we also see in SWM:

and James has this too:

imo this shared feeling of superiority and mutual delight in their own intelligence were big factors in his closeness with james.

ALL THIS TO SAY, Sirius was mean lol ESPECIALLY as a teen. my rude scorpio child. So I think when writing teen Sirius it's an important part of his characterisation (and James's) for him not only to be rude/disdainful to people he hates but also just generally. It's also why it's extra ridiculous that he's portrayed as dumb in fanon seeing as he's very often dismissive and judgmental to those he perceives as being of lesser intelligence.

And this isn't a criticism of Sirius at all, I love him and tbh his mean streak is one of the things that make him so fun to write for me. He's a beloved character and I understand the desire to paint him in a positive light, but he wasn't perfect. As others have said the friendship between the Marauders wasn't something idyllic and aspirational, it's a warning story to Harry. Furthermore, kindness towards Kreacher being something that helps them find the Horcrux is also a lesson for Harry.

Sirius's insensitivity to the feelings of others was what got him killed, his insensitivity and disdain for peter led in part to James and Lily's deaths too. it doesn't make him a terrible person, just a flawed one.

[midnightstargazer]

thoughts on sunshine james

I mean, it's not canon. I can see where it comes from, but it's not the James we see in the few actual flashbacks of him.

James, in canon, was very loyal and selfless towards the people he loved the most. He treated Sirius like a brother and welcomed him into his family's home when Sirius ran away. He accepted Remus when he found out he was a werewolf and went to great lengths to help him. He fought and died in a war that he could have opted out of, probably for Lily's sake and because it was the right thing to do. And, of course, he never questioned whether he could trust Peter, to disastrous results. This is where the sunshine characterization comes from, I think.

But he was also someone who had very black and white ideas about right and wrong. The other Marauders + Lily showed a capacity to see gray area when it came to the people they were closest to, or just in general.

Lily was friends with Snape for years, even after he started hanging out with the future Death Eaters' gang, even knowing he was using Dark magic.

Remus understood that the Marauders' bullying was wrong, but did not stand up to them about it and still saw them as good people. Later in life, he was able to tolerate Snape and trust Dumbledore's judgment on him.

Sirius gave us the line "the world isn't split into good people and Death Eaters" and was pretty forgiving in his assessment of Regulus ("stupid idiot" is a very mild insult to be immediately followed by "he joined the Death Eaters")

Peter - well, Peter betrayed them to Voldemort, so obviously he wasn't very concerned with morality.

James, on the other hand? Saw the world in black and white, not a lot of nuance. He absolutely despised pure-blood rhetoric and Dark Arts and wanted nothing to do with people who aligned themselves with those things. No exceptions. And while he was generous and loyal towards his friends, he had no problem being cruel to people he deemed bad. It's very strongly implied that his reasons for targeting Snape were connected to Snape's interest in the Dark Arts and use of the word "mudblood." He felt like it was acceptable to bully Snape because Snape was not a good person.

(I think there was definitely also some personal dislike involved, which would have existed regardless, hence the "it's more the fact that he exists" comment. But still, Remus and Sirius seem pretty convinced James hating the Dark Arts had a lot to do with it).

This sort of "it's okay to do bad things to bad people" mentality is pretty much opposite of what sunshine James usually ends up looking like in fanon. Largely because sunshine James is usually paired with Regulus. And, obviously, to make that work, even with the softer versions of Regulus that usually go with the ship, James has to be a very forgiving sort of person who's willing to see nuance and give people a chance, not someone who takes a hard line stance against blood purist ideology or Dark Arts.

This is why Jegulus doesn't work for me unless it's very far removed from canon. Because if Voldemort exists, and the war is happening, and they both have their canon views on blood purity and Dark Arts and join their respective sides, I just don't see it. If Regulus survived his trip to the lake and was actively working against Voldemort in the long term, then maybe. If his views also changed quite a bit. But even then, I still think James would be starting with a negative opinion of him and it would take a lot to get him to reconsider. I'm not saying Regulus doesn't deserve a second chance, or doesn't deserve to be loved by a good person. It's just... not how I see James at all.

tl;dr - canon James is a good and loyal friend but not an all-loving ray of sunshine who wants to see the best in everyone. The sunshine characterization makes Jegulus possible with a closer-to-canon plot and setting, but it isn't really compatible with James's canon characterization.

[hbpseverus]

i just don't understand how anyone can be as hypocritical as some marauders fans with their treatment of snape compared to other characters. and i'm not even taking issue with the marauders themselves here, they are flawed and complex but overall good characters, and while i myself don't love them i see why other people do, and i also see why people dislike snape. generally nothing wrong with that.

but then tell me why they are stanning evan rosier? a character we really know nothing about other than that he was a pureblood slytherin who became a death eater? i just do not get it. he didn't even get a redemption like regulus. we know that he died in battle against aurors, as a proud death eater who enjoyed duelling which lets us assume he has probably also killed a person or two along the way, unlike severus.

so, literally how does this make any sense? why do they show grace to every character except for severus? not that i would be a fan of it, but at this point they could just give sev a new fanon personality and make him more likable as they have done with like, every other character in the series. what makes him different from regulus and evan? it could be because they don't like his adult character, but that becomes irrelevant in marauders fanon where every teenaged character is assigned a new personality anyway and apparently adult evan rosier being an active DE doesn't disqualify him either. sooo is he just not aesthetic/attractive enough? i don't want to believe they would be so shallow but at this point what else could it even be?

i'm yapping about this because a person repeatedly, for days now, has been telling me that it is morally wrong and problematic to like snape and that cancelling people for liking him is perfectly reasonable (insanely chronically online statement btw). then i go on their profile and see they're posting positively about rosier et al. and when i point it out they tell me it's fine because his fanon character is different. so... can i headcanon that snape was actually always super sweet and kind and a cinnamon roll who never did anything wrong ever and then it's finally okay to like him? i have no interested in making him that uninteresting, i just wish i could understand this logic.

[kakesuki]

Some Regulus thoughts because that boy lives rent free in my head.

I honestly dislike when he is characterized as a poor abandoned puppy that was just lost in life and crying at the smallest inconvenience because that's just not my Regulus.

For me, that boy was actually an amazing brain. I view him as a morally grey person to the core; my head canon is that actually, unlike the opinions that he genuinely felt bad for the muggles, he just didn't care. For me Regulus would just view himself superior to most and couldn't care less about who's dying. He wouldn't actually want to go out of his way to kill them, but he wouldn't feel bad for it either. I feel like he would be the kind of person that wouldn't give a shit until things actually touch him.

He canonically cared for his house elf and since they are technically at the very bottom, like even muggle born witches and wizards disrespects them, in my mind the whole blood purity thing wouldn't matter to him. Considering the headcanon that he's friend with Dorcas, Pandora, Barty and Evan for me Regulus would actually judge based on the power abilities. And that's what I think he was seeking by following Voldemort.

For me, he wanted power. I don't think of him as a Voldemort fanboy because once again I just view Regulus as someone who is too proud for that. Boy was a black; the idea of him following someone, even the dark lord himself, with heart shaped eyes gives me the irk. He admired him; admired his power, followers and the fact that people were scared of him, for sure, but not to the point where he was loyal or anything of the kind.

Regulus wasn't forced to follow Voldemort, he choosed to because yes that man is a monster but he's still a great wizard. And honestly? Fair.

And because of all of those reasons when Voldenort touched something that was his, one of his properties, someone he actually cared about, Regulus betrayed him. Because in the end the boy is a black, not some small little doll you can play with and toss around afterwards. That was a direct insult to him and to his name, and I don't see him letting that slide.

He was obviously intelligent, and I prefer thinking that he figured the whole horcruxes thing himself. And his letter just...go with that idea I have of Regulus so much.

I love when he's written like a martyr, don't get me wrong, but dark Regulus just hit different. Regulus who IS the prince and Slytherin and embraces that position. The 'baby black' surname is really really cute of course, but I can't imagine him letting that slide from anyone who isn't one of his direct friends. And, for some reason, I also feel like he wouldn't like Snape. Not for the same reasons as Sirius (Even if I do think that the fact Sirius hates him would also affect his opinion, because even with all that in my mind he'd still genuinely live his brother. At least in secret), but just...still not like him. Probably recognizing his talent, and who knows even sharing the same circles when Snape was with Lucius, but just keeping his distance from him because there is no world where they would be friends.

In conclusion, for me Reg is a badass that actually only does what HE wants when HE wants.

[haileylovesskz]

trigerring marauders fans: i despise fanon marauders. this is more like my opinion on the fans rather than the fandom itself but anyways.

i. characters were ruined.

firstly, our main characters: the 4 marauders themselves. why does every single body in this fandom believe they are all gay. remus and james are canonly straight. i despise the fact that people believe regulus & james are true loves and wolfstar is basically canon when in reality the canon thing is jily and remadora. i may not like jily but at least i can accept the fact that it's canon. people go as far as saying you're homophobic when the only thing you said is "i dislike wolfstar" (based on true events). hated how the fanon marauders had zero personality and were treated like gods who only had a small flaw and that is bullying a person that had gone through enough hardship at home and the only reason it started was that snape wished to be in slytherin.

secondly, the not-much-screentime-but-still-important: lily evans. all i have to say is: she is canonly straight and died before taylor swift was even born so she would never get the chance to become a swiftie like yall's "headcanons".

thirdly, the this-was-entirely-made-up: the bunch of barty crouch jr., regulus black, evan rosier (i forgot his name but its that evan guy), pandora lovegood (she was mentioned for half a second in the books), dorcas meadowes, frank & alice longbottom, mary mcdonald. these are the people that were mentioned in the books for half a second and yall made them a whole alternative universe where evan rosier and barty crouch are dating and then theres mary/lily or dorcas/lily or mary/dorcas and all that. sometimes i appreciate yall's creativity.

ii. the fans

here is a list that will automatically get you hatred from 99.9% of the fandom:

being against wolfstar

being against jegulus

being against mary/lily or dorcas/lily or mary/dorcas (idk their ship names)

shipping remadora because rEmUs LoVeS sIrIuS!!!

saying characters such as lily, james, remus were canonly straight.

disliking the swiftie lily headcanon

shipping snily

being a snape fan

i can go on for three years but this is getting long so lets just go to my next point.

iii. the bullying of snape

stfu and stop excusing every single action james & sirius did to snape because "tHeY wErE kIdS!!" did you know snape was also their age? sure they grew up to be more mature but that surely does not mean their past actions should go down the drain and disappear like it was never there. james and sirius literally hung him upside down, was partially the reason why snape lost his only friend, hung snape upside down for their own entertainment, making snape face even more hardships at hogwarts when he was looking forward to escape his abusive household (just because he wanted to be in slytherin).

that is all for today, now thank you for coming to my ted talk.

[starrylayle]

"Don't get me started on jegulus" actually please get started I'd like to hear your thoughts on it because your take on wolfstar and the oc-ification of some characters is so refreshing to see (tbh my first reaction to jegulus was just confusion on how it started and how quickly it got popular lmao)

ahh this makes so happy to hear that my post resonated with some people!! Was worried i was in the minority lol.

Anyways, abt jegulus -- i acc had a reaaally long post about how much i hated the dynamic (in canon compliant ish works -- Jegulus in aus is fine ig) but i deleted it lol.

I think the core reason why i dislike the pairing so much is that I feel like it the ship goes against everything James stands for. We don't know a lot about James' character in canon, but what we do know is that he had a strong sense of justice, and fierce loyalty to his friends and his cause, which ultimately led to his doom. I just can't imagine that James would associate with someone even a little bit bigoted. This is not to say i think James is a saint, i think he could be an ass sometimes (snapes worst memory lol) but i think he'd draw the line at someone who was associated with 'evil'. James had a very black and white view of good and bad and i just don't think it would make sense for James to date reg, esp as he is becoming a death eater. James may be a dick but he is also the biggest ally to ever ally !!

The only jegulus fics I have read are 'Just Lovers' and 'Choices'. Just lovers is a non-voldy au so i don't really have a problem with their dynamic there but choices on the other hand,, oh boy.

Spoilers for 'Choices' by MesserMoon btw (TW for talk of SA):

Regulus' friends rape Mary. And instead of feeling disgusted on the victim’s behalf, (who has been his friend for 5 years) James instead feels upset because it tarnishes the ‘good’ image he has of reg in his head. Thing is when a similar situation happened (The Prank ™), James was upset that Sirius would do such a thing but he also felt disgusted on behalf of Remus. Where was that energy here, huh?? I’ve even seen comments villianising Mary (the rape victim).

The thing I also hate about their dynamic is that it is basically an ally of the oppressor and ally of the oppressed. The problem with that is that when you are allied with the oppressor, you become an oppressor yourself (and reg does; he does terrible things) and that subsequently makes the so-called ally of the oppressed in cahoots with the oppressor as well. This brings so many parallels to real life where people say that they are an “ally” but become friends with/date a racist/rapist. “Oh but they’re nice to me”. its just a little ew.

And in other jegulus canon-compliant-ish fics, sometimes instead of James' character being watered down its Regulus' character. Like, he's not as morally grey, not as complex etc so it makes sense that James would agree to date him. I feel like jegulus as a ship ruins the core of what made their characters so interesting in the first place.

That being said,,, i do love me some canon-compliant unrequited jegulus. Regulus goes to hogwarts, gets so mad at Sirius for ditching him or whatever, but falls in love with the very guy that stole sirius away. He also has internalised homophobia because he's a Black brother so imagine the angst. James potter goes against everything he stands for,, sirius betrayed him,, but perhaps they're right abt smth?? Perhaps he needs to do smth. alone.

sorry for rambling but these are my thoughts on jegulus !! Anyways I feel like I should reiterate that this is a personal preference!! I think it ruins core of these characters, i prefer jily and i love me some unrequited gay pining for the boy who you're brother replaced u with. But this is just a personal preference !

oh and just a side note if it ever led to a decision where james had to choose between sirius and regulus -- no matter how much he 'allegedly' loved regulus, he would choose sirius, no questions asked.

[sofoulandfairaday]

honestly, your analysis and headcanons on the Blacks are always very interesting. If you don't mind, can I ask you for your opinion and headcanons about Andromeda?

Hi! I don't mind at all, thank you for the question (and the compliment!) ❤️

Andromeda is one of those characters I mostly have soft headcanons about, meaning that I can comfortably and happily read many different versions of her. Let's say that I dislike the soft little girl ones, the poor, poor Andy abused by her mean parents the most.

My favourite Andromeda is a steely sort. Oh, she's kind, soft, gentle (more than her sisters), but only to her own. Heart-of-gold, would-mother-the-whole-world-if-she-could, à la Molly, is not my cup of tea.

So, I can speak about how I personally write her but unlike many other characters, this is not a very fixed idea in my head.

Beautiful, but not as beautiful as Bellatrix, who she resembles quite a bit. Definitely less charismatic, less striking. This breeds insecurity, especially in a young teenage girl. She's the Regulus to Bellatrix's Sirius.

Also not as brilliant as Bellatrix, in school. Again: this breeds insecurity.

I think Cygnus and Druella loved their daughters, but since all three of them were quite remarkable young ladies, Andromeda still suffers from Middle Child Syndrome - she's the forgotten one: Bella was exceptional (she was after all noticed by LV himself, and was one of the most powerful fighters in the second war) and Cissy was the baby, so unintentionally it was sorta-maybe-true.

Consequently: a bit of a social butterfly. Much warmer than both her sisters, more beloved in school. Had good relationships with the other Prefects (of course she was a Prefect; all the sisters were) from other houses.

That's how she became close with Hufflepuff Prefect Ted Tonks.

Also also also can I just say they don't have curly hair like Bella has in the movies? Dromeda's is a lighter shade, but still somewhere in between straight and wavy.

Out of the three of them, she had the best people skills, the best soft skills, she might have been the best at manipulation. For years after she left, and when she was tasked with making meaningful connections with other Death Eaters' wives, Narcissa would lament not having the same soft skills as Andromeda.

Unlike Sirius and Bella who have, as I've mentioned in the past, a very black-and-white morality, Andromeda sees the world in shades of grey. She's more flexible. A pragmatist, unlike her idealist sister and cousin. For this reason:

I don't think Andromeda ever let go of all of her biases. Not enough fanfictions explore what it means to unlearn all the notions that your blood-supremacist upbringing may have ingrained in you. Sirius is the one in the family who hates Dark Magic, who befriends the broken, the beaten and the damned. He is the one that would fight for social equality.

I don't think Andromeda cared much for Muggleborns at all. I think she cared for Ted. I am convinced that before she left, she and Bella had some kind of showdown and she basically said something along the lines of: look. I don't think that Muggles and Mudbloods are equal to us, and I don't think that they deserve to be equal to us in society, but I am asking you, as my sister, to make an exception for Ted and me.

Ted - smart, funny, future Healer Ted Tonks, who worshipped the ground she walked on - was her exception (like Remus was Sirius', like Lily was Snape's).

Ted who showed her unconditional love and support, who was the only thing her family wouldn't approve of- her only, only act of rebellion after years of being the perfect daughter, the forgotten child. But they gave her an ultimatum and she chose him.

Oh, it broke Bella and Cissy when Andromeda left. But as I say here, Andromeda was convinced that Bella betrayed her first, by choosing her Master instead of her.

Andy & Bella were always the closest. The three sisters were very close in general and both Bellatrix and Narcissa were closest to Andromeda, but Andy & Bella shared a bond which was so exclusive to the two of them that it could never be replicated, not even when Bella & Cissy grew closer after Andromeda left. They both loved their youngest fiercely and would have done anything to protect her from harm.

She loved Transfiguration.

Absolute prodigy with Household charms (and this is canon), but also the best, out of all the sisters, with healing magic and healing charms. (She does cure Hagrid after the Battle of the Seven Potter, after all, and he's tricky because he's half-giant).

I think she might have been a private Healer, more on that here.

She disliked cruelty (Muggle hunting and the sort) but she could be ruthless when she wanted to.

Now. The following are my personal headcanons which have no basis in reality whatsoever, but I love them. Was sorta-involved with Rabastan as a child.

Andromeda & Rabastan (& Regulus), for the way I write them, all suffer from being in the shadow of their older siblings. I think they might have played together as children, and that she had, at different points in time, a bit of a crush on both the Lestranges. Rabastan first, as kids, when he was still in his phase ewwww girls.

Joke's on him because later he became absolutely obsessed with her. To a creepy degree almost. He didn't think it fair that his older brother got to marry a Black and he didn't, he didn't understand why, all of a sudden, Andromeda seemed to hate him when she had been a comfort to him in the past... And he had grown up now, he could see that she was beautiful, hard and perfect but softer than Bella, someone he could handle.

The less she wanted him, the more he desired her.

But she had become more and more disgusted with him as the years went by. At first, he had been a sweet kid, but he had turned out much worse than his older brother, definitely a bit of a sadist, too tightly wound, with a much-too-cruel sense of humour for her liking.

She was also already smitten with Ted at this point.

Both she and Cissy had a teeeeeny tiny crush on Rodolphus at a certain point and were generally very soft and over-indulgent with him, especially in his bickering with Bellatrix (which drove her insane and made Rabastan extremely jealous). But who can blame them, my man is hot.

Rocks short hair (by ‘short’ I mean a cool bob like Shiv Roy) which is something that Ted encouraged her to get after she had Nymphadora. Apart from that, she always had long hair, like her sisters.

Speaking of which. All of you must know by now that I headcanon all the Black women (Walburga, Narcissa, Bellatrix) as having fertility problems: either they couldn't conceive or when they could they never managed to carry to term. Not Andromeda. No. Maybe it was the new blood, Ted's blood, or maybe it was sheer bad luck, but when Andromeda was sleeping with Ted as a 19-year-old, she wasn't that careful. She figured that nothing would happen - it was- oh, it was so unlikely that anything would happen. But it did.

Andromeda ran away because she had fallen pregnant with Nymphadora. She loved her darling girl from the very first minute - more than her sisters, more than anyone in the world. Her family wouldn't accept her, which hastened things.

Yeah, maybe in another universe she could have been Rabastan Lestrange's bored wife (by the way, my boy Rab is bisexual just so ya know), having an affair with Ted on the side, Lady Chatterley-style (someone write that fic!) But not in this one.

In this one, despite the love she has for her parents, her sisters, and the luxuries of her old life (her pureblood friends, the tea parties, the balls, the gowns and vacations...) she is willing to throw everything away for Ted. And most of all, for Dora.

Horrid taste in names. Rabastan is lucky he didn't end up with her, his kids would have been named something obnoxious and self-referential like Alpheratz.

[froginapartyhat]

What if the potters didn’t die and after Harry had a daughter. (For the sake of having a name to refer to her as, let’s call her Phoebe)

Looks wise she would be the reverse of Harry with lilys ginger hair and James’ deep brown eyes. And if the Potters had lived then both Harry and Phoebe would have been raised by them (with the help of Remus, Sirius and Regulus). Harry takes after James and Phoebe takes after Lily so sometimes Sirius and Remus would pretend that they had mistaken the child for the parent and start saying things like “Oh Lily I must say your skin is looking so radiant and youthful today” and the children would collapse into fits of giggles

Phoebe would especially look up to her Uncle Remus and would insist on having him read to her no matter how boring his current book was. On countless occasions, they had both fallen asleep on the sofa mid book, with Phoebe snuggled up in one of Remus’s oversized knit jumpers.

Phoebe was also not a quidditch player. She was very good at flying but she had inherited her mothers fiery temper and her Uncle Sirius’ sass which meant team sports were just not a good idea.

When she joins hogwarts, she’s the year below Harry and therefore the same year as Ginny Weasley. So for the first term of school, 75% of the other students think she is a weasley and are constantly getting the two mixed up.

Despite the fact that they’re in different houses this causes the girls to become very close friends and they start taking advantage of this confusion to get away with things because “well Fred and George are twins, so the gene must run in the family”

Phoebe was sorted into Slytherin. The hat had been deciding between Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff but Phoebe had demanded she be placed in Slytherin. Before she had left for hogwarts, Sirius had told Phoebe to “give Snivellus hell from me” and in her brain, the best way of achieving this was from within his own house. She’s heard about their school days and strongly disliked this apparently incredibly greasy man. It was only after she got her parents amused owl in response to the news of her sorting that she found out that things had been civil between all of the adults for years and that Sirius’s comment was at the fact that he knew Phoebe would be brilliant in potions which, as a Potter, would still irk Snape. It was still, however, one of the most slytherin ways of being assigned slytherin: requesting it to aid your plan for revenge.

As it happened, Phoebe was very good at potions thanks to aiding her mother. She would frequently interrupt Snape’s lessons to question his methods (which sometimes would result in lost points for her cheek and sometime gain her points for her intelligence) which made the man want to dislike her but her brilliance at his subject and generally sunny personality made that impossible.

She also had an aptitude for herbology and in her newts years would often grow her own rare potions ingredients to test possible new concoctions.

Unlike her brother she refused to sign up for divination and instead picked ancient runes. Partially because she’d had a mild crush on Hermione when she had to make her choice and Hermione’s scathing review of divination had made Phoebe decide she would rather run around the castle naked than pick that class. She’d often go to Hermione for advice on her Runes and in turn Hermione would ask for potions guidance as, whilst Hermione was great at learning the contents of books she’d never fully understood the chaotic art of potion making.

These study times were great opportunity to gossip about the happenings in their respective house common rooms, specifically how much Harry and Draco would talk about the other.

Her and Malfoy aren’t friends but have a truce. Mainly because Phoebe will call Malfoy out on his shit and Malfoy is actually incredibly smart and very loyal to his house. She did dye his hair bright pink with a potion she snuck into his dinner because he made some comments about Remus when he was teaching at the school. Professor Snape had even pulled her aside after class just after this incident and all he had said was: “root of asphodel is often used in cosmetics potions to add more of a shimmer” (i.e. he basically told her how to make Malfoy’s hair glitter) and that he wouldn’t be able to mark her extra credit essay till the following evening as he had to do an inventory check of his ingredients cupboard as he was suddenly low on some ingredients.

I might continue this if I come up with anymore ideas, possibly including Regulus as an Uncle of sorts as well as Marlene, Mary and Dorcas. It is quite fun to think about what could have been.

[soup-of-the-daisies]

for the character thingy, regulus!!

Hi!!! Thank you!!! ♥️

How I feel about this character:

Contrary to popular belief, I don’t actually dislike Regulus: I just need him to be written exactly the way I imagine him 😅

He’s a very interesting character to me. He’s not good, you know? He’s intensely morally grey and got cut down before he got the chance to truly grow or develop as a person (…character). He could’ve helped Dumbledore put the pieces together sooner in regards to the horcruxes. He’s a (dangerous) bigot obsessed with a radical terrorist political figure, but his big brother calls him “soft” and an “idiot”. He played the position of seeker. He painted the family’s house crest on his bedroom wall and stuck newspaper clippings about muggle murders and wizardly terrorists attacks on the other. It paints the picture of a teenage boy who slid down the far-right rabbit hole, is now dangerous, is now violent and hateful—but still a teenage boy at his core.

He’s funny too, in that way you sort of… laugh at schadenfreude. He wrote Voldemort a snarky note about how he knew about Voldemort’s dirty little secret and that he was going down, and then Voldemort didn’t notice or care. His death is one of the first to prompt a whole range of deaths in the Black family, almost like he accidentally prompted the fall and rot of the family. And also (as mentioned), he basically had a fancam twitter account of Lord fucking Voldemort. Then deemed him problematic (“he literally basically broke my mop AND dutch oven omg”) and tried to cancel him, before dying in the process. It’s almost hilarious.

For fics, I like it when he survives and ends up kidnapping Harry after lying low until the end of the war; I like it when he’s the grumpy ex-DE Astronomy teacher tasked with keeping an eye on his brother’s godson; and I like it when he follows Sirius and gets sorted into a different house than Slytherin, be it Gryffindor, Ravenclaw, or Hufflepuff. In a No Voldemort-AU, I like him as the snarky, dreadfully annoying, very embarrassing little brother who just sort of shows up all the time whenever Sirius and his mates hang out.

Who I ship romantically with this character:

Nobody! I HC him as aroace.

My non-romantic OTP for this character:

Barty Jr, I suppose! I like to think Barty was a Ravenclaw, but the ages seem to fit (as well as the near fanatical devotion). Possibly study-buddies while Regulus mainly moved in the same little gang of aspiring Death Eaters that Snape was a part of.

I do love his (destructive, hateful yet loving) relationship with Sirius, though. Both when it’s positive and when it’s negative.

My unpopular opinion for this character:

I think he wasn’t pushed into becoming a Death Eater by his parents. They had a (strong) hand in his radicalisation, but they didn’t encourage him to become one. Regulus and Bella were outliers: until Voldemort and his followers became too violent, the vast majority of them only wished to be political backing. Not followers… just like-minded fellows, if you will. Regulus’ idolisation of Voldemort and his subsequent loyalty to the cause were at most encouraged by Bellatrix and perhaps Lucius, and likely also by some friends at school, but he went into it on his own. He didn’t genuinely realise something about Voldemort was off (as in, Voldemort didn’t care about anything but himself) until he had to nurse Kreacher back to health—and it was more about the destruction of and lack of care about Regulus’ property he’d let Voldemort borrow in good faith, rather than a light-bulb moment about his ingrained bigotry. Had he lived, he would’ve been murdered before the end of the first war, or he would’ve been on the Lucius Malfoy-side of Wizengamot.

I also think he wasn’t the favourite son. The favoured son, yes, but not the favourite. Regardless, I believe he was loved still: Walburga going mad in self-imposed isolation, having turned childless; Orion loving him enough to either destroy himself after Regulus’ death or to get killed trying to figure out what happened; and Sirius growing dangerously desperate in his attempts to connect the pieces of any information he can find.

Something something the hunter (dog or man) finding the hide of the predator they respected beyond measure, and ruthlessly/recklessly taking on the poaching gang that kills for profit alone.

One thing I wish had happened with this character in canon:

Literally any more scenes of him other than the note, Sirius’ (biased and traumatised) perspective, and Kreacher’s (biased and traumatised) perspective. A portrait even, of a snarky, arrogant, bigoted boy who sneers at his brother for looking like their father, who refuses to speak to Hermione for being a muggleborn, who turns his nose up to the Weasleys for being blood-traitors, who seemingly tries his best to ignore Harry but keeps watching him when he thinks Harry isn’t paying attention. Or memories: how he was at Hogwarts and how he was at home, whether he was mean or kind, a foul-mouthed git or a shy opportunist. That would’ve been neat.

character breakdown

[mauveberries]

I saw your anti-Jegulus post, and wanted to offer my two cents. I actually don’t personally mind Jegulus as a ship itself (I wouldn’t call myself a fan or anything, but I’m not too bothered by it), but I actually do think a lot of the fanon portrayals of Jegulus have constant hints of misogyny. For example, I’ve seen a lot of Jegulus fics/headcanons about Lily having a baby and essentially abandoning her family in order to leave room for Jegulus raising Harry. It’s a very tired cliche of fans of MLM ships trying to get women out of the way any way they can, as long as they can get use out of them first (in this scenario, Lily giving birth to Harry).

Another common thing I see is the criticism/opinion that Jily is boring (which is absolutely fair, everyone is entitled to their opinion) but then project a lot of Jily’s tropes onto Jegulus (some that I’ve seen are matching patronuses, James being extremely infatuated and pining over Regulus, or making Regulus’ personality identical to canon Lily’s and then turning Lily into a bland, one dimensional character). I think where people are coming from is that because of this, it genuinely feels like these people would in fact like Jily, and the only issue they have with it is that Lily is a woman. I also find myself genuinely wondering if Regulus would be as popular as he is now if he were a female character.

I don’t think people who like Jegulus are individually being misogynistic, I think it’s more of the general concept of Jegulus becoming popular and the treatment of all characters involved has strong undertones of misogyny.

This isn’t meant to be hateful or combative btw, so I hope it didn’t come off that way. I just saw your post and wanted to offer my perspective on it.

oh no worries anon, your message is clear. and you are right, the jegulus fandom is misogynistic in the way that you say that they are, and i dislike that.

but the point of my post is that you can't exactly be mysogynistic towards lily evans, because the author herself is already misogynistic towards her. my point was that jily is no better than jegulus.

think of it this way, lily evans, the mother of the protagonist of the series, whose love saved the protag’s life should have a more prominent role in the series. but instead, her whole life is portrayed to revolve around male characters. her role in ths story is reduced to being a mother. [i'm not saying motherhood is a bad thing, i just wish it was explored with more complexity and nuance.]

jily is also the most basic, misogynistic heterosexual pairing ever imo. james is immature, lily is mature, and james changed for her because he wanted her to like him.

that's it, that's literally it. the fact that james 'changed' himself is the more important part of their dynamic. lily herself is not shown having any feelings for james, and how she went through the process of forgiving him. james is this manchild, with atrocious behaviour and he's expected to change for lily. it's like lily isn't even her own person anymore!

i don't like the jily dynamics as well because james was lowkey blackmailing lily into dating him and the way that their romance is pprtrayed, it feels like she just eventually accepted it, after he 'changed.'

at this point, even though it was lily's love that saved harry's life, she is such a non-entity in the series. harry is portrayed to be more interested in learning about james, and lily is depicted as having NO concrete friends in canon! the mary detail in canon hardly counts because that scene was more focused on snape! another man. seriously! every aspect of her life revolves around some GUY.

not to mention, after she graduates, guess what. she stays at home to take care of the baby while james becomes a strong auror! are you seeing this?! she's a trad wife. she's literally a stay-at-home mum because she decided she wanted to get knocked up in the middle of the war. the only counter-point to this is if voldemort wasn't after harry, she might have gone to work, but it is iffy, too, because who decides it's a good idea to have a baby in the middle of a war? she could have fought alongside james but nooo she has to watch while james puts his invisibility cloak on to goof around with sirius while her baby's life is in danger.

"it genuinely feels like these people would in fact like Jily, and the only issue they have with it is that Lily is a woman." <- you're right anon, but this doesn't matter to me as i feel that both the ships are equally bad.

tl;dr: jily is also a lowkey misogynistic in my opinion. jegulus is just as bad, and you are right, some of its fans are misogynistic as well.

[fandoomrants]

Some personal Marauders era hcs and thoughts.

I don't aim to offend anyone and that's just a bunch of canon-related stuff I think.:

The Marauders:

-Peter WAS their friend. That's what made it even more hurtful in the end. But like, he was actively their friend, who they loved and trusted. However, I believe he was also underestimated, especially by Sirius. And not because he didn't consider him a friend, but because he didn't consider he could turn their backs on them because he admired them too much and wasn't a capable and therefore dangerous person.

-On the contrary, the reason Sirius thought Remus was the spy wasn't because he was a werewolf. It was because he knew he's capable and could take care of himself, and could keep a secret. But he was more likely to actually do something out of his own will.

-Remus saw Harry for the first time on the train when he was 13. He never saw him as a baby because he was already estranged from his friends.

-Remus stepped aside because he realised he couldn't have the lives most of his friends had, and didn't want to be a burden, or threat.

-The Prank was nasty but it wasn't that big of a deal. Of course Remus was angry at Sirius but I believe they all were. Yet it was just a stupid thing he did as a child (sorry,l but 15-16yos are the dumbest years of someone's life decison-wise, imo and that's talking both from experience and observation) and he was very much aware it wasn't in order to hurt and expose him as a werewolf.

The girls:

-Marlene was probably around the Marauders' age and attended Hogwarts with them because Lily mentions her in her letter to Sirius. However, there's a chance that they just got close because of the Order.

-Dorcas was, as I've seen many people hc, perhaps much older than them, however. I personally don't think it was a common thing for someone to leave Hogwarts and immediately join the Order. Or even if they did that because all the help was appreciated, they weren't such a big threat, no matter how good wizards and witches they were. However, the little we know about her is that Voldemort dealt with her personally. He dealt with James and Lily personally (*sob*) in order to get to Harry but that's because of the prophecy. She must have been a real pain in the .... for him to want to do it personally, and I think this means she was someone with a lot of experience.

-Lily didn't hate James and they weren't enemies to lovers but more of strangers to lovers. Yeah, she got irritated by him and the rest mistreating Snape who was her friend but this doesn't mean she hated him, she disliked him. (Also, for enemies to lovers, it's supposed to be from both sides and he didn't dislike her, quite the contrary.)

-Lily wasn't popular. I'm pretty sure at Hogwarts everyone knows each other because you get to live with these people, more or less, even if you're not the same year or house, but I don't think she was popular.

The Slytherin skittles:

-Regulus was probably a Capricorn. That's more about the fanon interpretation but also the little we know about him?? That note in the locket?? I know lots of Capricorns. If someone's gonna do it, it's a Capricorn.

-Same as Dorcas, Evan was probably also much older than the rest. Moody was an experienced auror. Only someone who is also experienced and powerful can match him in a duel.

-Barty wasn't insane before Azkaban.

-Barty wasn't a good person and what he did was bad but he wasn't some psychopath without emotions, he loved his mother. His father is the one who was mostly responsible for him becoming who he is. Yet he's not considered "bad" because he wasn't a Death Eater.

-Regulus became a Death Eater completely willingly. He believed in Voldemort's ideas. Something changed later but he believed them at first and he wasn't forced by his parents, they weren't ones and their whole deal came for the love of purity, not power, he didn't do it in order to get closer to Voldemort and discover the Horcrux thing, or anything like that.

-These characters are interesting and cool, I love reading about them but I'm not apologising their actions and disregarding the fact they were villains in the end, redempted or not.

General thoughts about other characters and things:

-Alice and Frank were older than the Potters. At one point I believed they were the same age but the more I grow up, the more I get to realise that James and Lily were really young when they had Harry and that was most likely not the case with most.

-Also, I think this is pretty much confirmed, Alice and Frank got tortured and lost their sanity after Voldemort disappeared. On that topic, there's a chance Bellatrix and some of Voldemort's most loyal supporters might have had at least a slight idea that Neville could have been the Chosen one. Or at least they knew something about Alice and Frank.

-Snape was genuinely not a nice guy. We see a moment in which the Marauders are jerks to him but this doesn't mean he was a victim of their abuse all the time, and hadn't done anything wrong. The spell James uses is one Snape invents, and it was something Remus says was popular and done all the time so Snape might have been the one who used it first on someone. He also called Lily "mudblood" because he was angry but she was his friend that tried to protect him. Just because he loved her doesn't excuse him. In fact, it makes it worse. Back to the Sirius didn't tell him about Remus to hurt Remus thing. Well, here Snape did it with the purpose of hurting Lily.

-James wouldn't have liked Regulus, no matter of either of them's sexuality, and vise versa. And it all comes to Sirius. We have no canon mentions on Sirius and Regulus's relationship during Hogwarts but I think they were estranged. And James was a very good and loyal friend, he wouldn't have went to his best friend's brother knowing what Sirius thought of his family and his relationship with them. Same way, Regulus wouldn't have had anything to do with his outcast's brother best friend.

-I genuinely don't think they were all queer. Like, that was the 70ies and it wasn't spread and accepted. Even if they were, they would have been in the closet.

That's it for now. Some of these are based on literal facts from the books and some are personal opinions. Again, this is in no way aimed to offend anyone's opinion, or ships. I do enjoy reading about these characters, I ship most ships, I don't mind the rest. That's just my opinion canon-wise. Also, I might not remember some things well so excuse me if there's evidence against something I said in canon.