#i support my mutuals in their wolfstar activities (because they are v v talented) but otherwise i ignore it or skim over it

[touchlikethesun]

Re your jegulus post - I’m neutral leaning to negative on them but it’s more to do with how they are presented in fanon rather than individual fics. James often reads as a side character in his own relationship and Regulus’ moral grayness gets excused as “poor babys so traumatised he can do no wrong”.

Do you have any recs where those are avoided?

i have a few things to say: one, totally get not liking fanon presentations of jegulus, especially when people are just joking around, there can be a sort of flanderisation of their characters that i will admit i'm not always a fan of.

that being said tho, i really think a lot of jegulus fic is really interested in their dynamic like seriously (and not for meme, even if the memes do have their place), and long fics especially have the time to develop the complexity, and honestly 9 times out of 10 if you pick up a jegulus fic, it is not going to read like how you described at all.

clarifying point, because this bothers me a touch: there's a big difference between people excusing regulus' actions "because he's traumatised" and people trying to realistically portray a traumatised child. like. i really really really don't think most jegulus fic just completely absolves reg of responsibility for any reason.

as for recommandations, i can't say i'm entirely up to date with what is out there, but genuinely, choices by messermoon and only the brave by solmussa to a great job with maintaining the moral grayness of the characters. choices in particular does a really good job with james' character.

i assume based off your ask that you wanted canonverse fics, and those are the only two canonverse fics i've read recently. there's a lot more in AUs, but then ofc the stakes are different, the characters are (necessarily) not the same.

one last thing, it's alright if you don't like jegulus, or if it doesn't click for you, that's completely fine. i think it's good to keep in mind tho that just because it doesn't click for you doesn't mean that it's without merit, or other people are stupid/wrong for liking it. preferences are just that, and they are very personal, it's best to stick to what you like and ignore what you don't. not that you would think like that, but it bears saying all the same.