#i think if ppl were truly interested in the idea of lily as a lesbian. lesbian jily would be way more popular

[seriousbrat]

I know abt the shit that Snape stans say abt Lily, but what do Marauders stans say?

You mean negative stuff? Well a lot of it isn't really directly negative, it's more just that people need her out of the way so they can ship James with Sirius's rando little brother. Even though this is ridiculous because nothing is stopping anyone, but I think newer Marauders fans can often overcompensate because many view shipping/stanning as a moral act, so the fact that they obviously don't care about Lily makes them feel guilty lmao. In fact I think there's arguably a tendency among mainstream marauders fandom to be overly positive about Lily just in a way that lacks the consideration and complexity people give to their favourite male characters. Like yes she's a girlboss but what else? Well-written characters are supposed to have flaws and foibles balanced with strengths, that goes for women too.

So while making her out to be a traitorous she-devil is obviously something I dislike, I think it can go too far the other way too, where she's just a 'sweet lesbian girlie' happily dwelling in the background with no real problems or depth or protagonism of her own.

Lily's often made a background character in The Story of Regulus, at the service of the narrative needs of the male protagonists, and typically paired with a random female background character in a way that can feel like an afterthought and really just a convenient shunting aside of Lily's character masked by faux-progressiveness. Making a character queer isn't a replacement for giving them depth and nuance. It's especially grating when the same people accuse anyone who points this out of 'reducing Lily to being a mother' even though it's that section of fandom who often uses Lily as a surrogate/baby-making machine for the male characters, which is quite literally, in the most literal, biological sense possible, reducing her to being a mother lmao.

For the record, I don't think there's anything wrong with having Lily be a background character, or not using her at all, on an individual basis. (although I admit I find using her as a surrogate fairly appalling as a concept. but that's just me.) I myself have used her as a background character and paired her with Mary in Lippy Kids. Also, it's fandom and people are going to do whatever they want, it's not up to me to stop them and I wouldn't want to lol. I'm not going after individual people for doing this in their own writing.

As I've said before though, I believe it's worth pointing out in a general sense because it's such an overwhelming tendency. I think simply being aware of the fact that you and people around you centre men in life and art is a positive thing-- even if you don't actively do anything to change it, because sometimes talking and thinking about the issue can lead to it changing on its own. We all do this to some extent-- I recently went through my own fics and realised I have more male-pov fics than female. I'm not going to write anything purposefully to correct this because that wouldn't feel natural and it's not a huge issue on its own, but I'm just aware of it moving forward.

Looking through any marauders' era tag (even the jily tag rip) or ao3 categories/statistics, etc, gives you a pretty clear idea of who is prioritised by fandom and who is not. And the argument that Lily is too minor of a character to care about falls a bit flat when characters like Regulus, Barty, and Rosier are so much more popular in mainstream marauders fandom than she is.

Curiously I have seen Marauders fans use the same exaggerated criticisms of Lily that Snape fans do (viz. 'she was a terrible friend!!11' which is so ridiculous given none of these beloved male characters are winning friend of the year awards.*) AND I have seen plenty of Snape fans who are normal about Lily, either because they like her themselves or are just able to be objective about characters lol. So either way it's not a universal thing.

* arguably except regulus but his friend of the year award is because of what he did for kreacher, not james or sirius or barty or anyone else. and regulus stans never care about that. stop lily erasure but also on a minor, less relevant note, stop kreacher erasure