#msrauders era

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I see the "It's more of the fact that he exists" line in two ways :

"He exists" in a "I saved his life so he owes me one" way

and

"He exists" in a "He exists too close to Lily, he's just there, a threat in my potential relationship with her"

I don’t see it in any of those ways—I see it as a statement from James, a declaration of intent, a way to reaffirm his clear superiority over him. Severus exists, and his existence bothers him. And since James has more power, social capital, and economic privilege than him, he can do whatever he wants to him.

That “exists” carries a deeply classist undertone, as if the mere existence of someone he doesn’t like is reason enough to torment them, as if just existing were justification in itself. Severus is there, and James finds it fun to use him as his personal punching bag to blow off steam.

The reason? Simply that he exists. Period. Nothing more.

It’s exactly the mindset of the average bully—most of the time, there’s no real reason to attack their victims. They do it just because. Because they exist. And because they can.

[enbysiriusblack]

modern/muggle marauders jobs:

sirius- mechanist and owns the garage, and sometimes writes articles in various academic fields for fun

james- stay at home dad/husband and also voluntarily runs a kids football club

remus- tutor and mentor for disabled/neurodivergent students

peter- pub manager and sometimes plays gigs in his shitty little band there

lily- doctor, maybe specifically as like a general practitioner

mary- sales assistant and fashion designer on the side

dorcas- athlete. maybe in like ice hockey or football

marlene- self-employed woodmaker and also is in peter's shitty little band

emmeline- police officer but quits and keeps changing her mind and going down different career paths

regulus- unemployed (in his eyes, his job is being the heir to the black family)

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As someone who, during my teenage years at school, hung out with eight guys and only had female friends outside of school, I have to say that none of my friends ever attempted homicide or publicly stripped anyone. Neither did any of the other boys in my grade (35 per class, with three classes in total) nor anyone in the grades above or below mine.

So, assuming that just because you’re a teenage boy, you’re more likely to be a piece of shit is a ridiculously crude and patriarchal way of justifying violence. I can assure you that I’ve known rich kids with yachts who never once considered publicly stripping someone and choking them at 15 just for existing. The level of hypocrisy in justifying clearly antisocial behavior is downright insulting.

Did the people who like to paint (non-deatheater) characters as evil villains ever go to high school? They’re average teenagers, like yes they suck absolutely, but I saw 15 year olds do worse things every day. Every single person I know who grew up as a boy has said they were terrible people at age 15. I won’t defend anything they did but like relax.

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I don���t know who or what to blame for this perception that words are equally or potentially even more harmful than physical violence, but it’s everywhere and has been for years in fandom (not just the Potter fandom, either). Snape calling Lily a mudblood - which he instantly regrets, and puts himself in harm’s way to apologise mere hours after the same Gryffindors in that tower had publicly violated him - is a far far lesser crime than James committing sexual assault or Sirius setting him up for death-by-werewolf. Just because Lily doesn’t agree with that assessment doesn’t mean I have to.

Equating a stupid insult with stripping and suffocating someone in front of a whole crowd makes it very clear that these people have a completely distorted perception of reality and the severity of violent acts. I would much rather be insulted a thousand times in the most horrible ways possible than be naked in front of a bunch of people, but honestly, that’s just common sense. I find it absolutely ridiculous. In the end, I really think they don’t even actually believe that the whole “Mudblood” thing was that serious—they just use it as an excuse to justify violence and aggression.

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For all that it’s said about James that he’d consider it dishonourable to distrust his friends, I think it’s clear from Lily’s omission of Remus in her letter that she and James agreed with Sirius’ assessment that he was the traitor.

Which means either James’ progressiveness was pretty paper thin, and he suspected the marginalised member of his friend group without reason.

Or - and I think this is worse, because even the best of us have ingrained prejudices we don’t catch until we’re called out on them - he did have reason. And that reason is that Remus was the only one who (very) occasionally expressed misgivings about James’ cruelty. Which means Remus was suspected because he was the least sycophantic about James’ greatness and goodness, and he misses that this means Remus has a moral compass making him LESS likely to be the spy, because his self-conception as a hero won’t allow him to consider that violently treating people beneath him like dirt isn’t a heroic deed.

James has extreme moral luck. He ends up on the right side of history because he was born into the right family. His teenage self displays greater sadism and instincts for humiliation and control than any other kid in the book save young Tom Riddle. He’d have made a fine Death Eater. The only reason he might not rise to the very top like Bellatrix is his lack of regard for authority, but it wouldn’t be due to any moral qualms.

It’s made quite clear that the first to distrust Remus is Sirius (ohhhh the Wolftar lololol), and he’s the one who suggests Peter as the Secret Keeper. And James and Lily agree. And the reason? Remus is a werewolf, and werewolves, in general, had sided with Voldemort.

So all that supposed ideology, all that so-called progressive mindset, all that supposed moral righteousness that made them part of the “good side” because they didn’t discriminate or hold prejudices—it was all just a facade. Nothing more than a performance to justify doing whatever they wanted, like being violent sociopaths as teenagers, while still telling themselves they were the good guys.

Remus was supposedly their friend since they were eleven. They had known him, seen everything he suffered because of his condition. They had spent full moons with him, shared countless experiences with him—and yet, they had no problem turning their backs on him the moment suspicion arose. Not because of any real evidence, but because of what he was. Because of his difference. Because of the very thing that everyone discriminated against him for.

His own friends discriminated against him.

Pure hypocrisy. And the worst kind, because this wasn’t just some random werewolf—it was their friend. That’s where they show their true colors. Everything they supposedly believed in was just a front. Deep down, they were nothing more than privileged rich kids playing at fighting for ideals they didn’t understand and didn’t care to understand. They just used those ideals as a way to dress up their egos and narcissism as good deeds. But in reality? They didn’t give a damn about doing good.

James only cared about reinforcing his public image. Sirius just wanted to piss off his mother. And Lily? She gives the impression that, after getting married, she simply did whatever James told her to.

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okay but naming your shabby looking friend who mysteriously dissapears once a month and that you keep asking about a “furry problem” Moony is just…as if they wanted Remus’ secret to be revealed just for the fun of it

i also remember they slipped it out and Remus had to ask them to speak lower in the SWM chapter; they were NOT his friends 🙏😭

The only real friends were James and Sirius, and this is something I’ve mentioned several times before: they had a true friendship. Peter and Remus were just add-ons, there for purely utilitarian reasons—Remus provided them with the thrill of risk and the chance to have adventures every month, while Peter fed their egos by cheering them on and encouraging them every time they did something reckless. But an idyllic friendship? Not a chance.

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Imagine that you went to Hogwarts and James bothered you or a friend of yours, what would you have done?

The question isn’t what would I do, the question is if James Potter would be able to handle it without crying.

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Did Snape really "deserve to get bullied"? Did the Marauders really have to do that to him? He was eleven years old, finally out of his abusive home for the first time in well, oh, forever, probably excited to be around people like him, and even more excited to be with his best friend at all times. He started getting pranked and made fun of immediately, and this was BEFORE becoming a Death Eater and practicing spells on people. A little, frail, sallow, malnourished boy.

I believe that babies last up from newborn to twelve bc there's no way that someone can look at that fetus and be like, "You'll deserve everything that comes at you in the future because you're horrible." I need to wonder how people in the Marauders fandom think bc, seriously, come on. They always focus on the fifth-year to sixth-year Snape but never the years before that. Would someone come up to a kid and say that they deserve to be made fun of? I hope not.

Nobody. Nobody deserves to be bullied, and nobody deserves to be abused.

Look, right now, I’m handling a case involving a complaint we filed against several police officers for the brutality they used during interrogations. The person in question was dealing drugs—clearly doing something illegal, and clearly not for the first time. But nobody has the right to judge and condemn someone on their own, let alone use violence by abusing their moral, social, or—in this case—legal authority.

What I’m trying to say with this is that even if Severus had been a terrible person (which he wasn’t—because let’s remember that when the bullying started, he was eleven years old and hadn’t done anything, when he was nearly killed, he wasn’t a Death Eater yet and hadn’t insulted Lily, when James stripped him in front of everyone, he still wasn’t a Death Eater and hadn’t insulted Lily), the only “crime” he had committed at that point was being in Slytherin and being poor.

They had no right to take justice into their own hands, to beat him, to abuse him. That’s not how justice works. Teenagers have no business playing vigilante, especially when they’re privileged rich kids with far more social and economic power than their victim.

So I couldn’t care less what Marauder fans or James stans say. First, because what they’re saying is a lie. Severus didn’t deserve it. He hadn’t done anything at that point besides being a Slytherin and sticking with people from his house to survive—especially considering that outside the dungeons, there was a group of privileged brats waiting to beat him up and publicly humiliate him. And second, because even if he had done something, they were in a position of social and economic superiority, and “making him pay” wouldn’t have been an act of justice—it would have been an act of abuse.

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James and Sirius would bully you too

Why would James and Sirius have bullied a conventionally attractive and popular teenage girl with a large group of friends who generally got along with everyone in her year and was invited to every event and that If she had suffered even the slightest “prank” from a couple of unfunny clowns, she would have accused them of any atrocity— even if it was a lie— just to get them expelled from school, not before hitting them in the face with a bat. Doesn’t that seem a bit counterproductive?

[missdblack22]

Lily perdió toda su personalidad después de casarse

For all that it’s said about James that he’d consider it dishonourable to distrust his friends, I think it’s clear from Lily’s omission of Remus in her letter that she and James agreed with Sirius’ assessment that he was the traitor.

Which means either James’ progressiveness was pretty paper thin, and he suspected the marginalised member of his friend group without reason.

Or - and I think this is worse, because even the best of us have ingrained prejudices we don’t catch until we’re called out on them - he did have reason. And that reason is that Remus was the only one who (very) occasionally expressed misgivings about James’ cruelty. Which means Remus was suspected because he was the least sycophantic about James’ greatness and goodness, and he misses that this means Remus has a moral compass making him LESS likely to be the spy, because his self-conception as a hero won’t allow him to consider that violently treating people beneath him like dirt isn’t a heroic deed.

James has extreme moral luck. He ends up on the right side of history because he was born into the right family. His teenage self displays greater sadism and instincts for humiliation and control than any other kid in the book save young Tom Riddle. He’d have made a fine Death Eater. The only reason he might not rise to the very top like Bellatrix is his lack of regard for authority, but it wouldn’t be due to any moral qualms.

It’s made quite clear that the first to distrust Remus is Sirius (ohhhh the Wolftar lololol), and he’s the one who suggests Peter as the Secret Keeper. And James and Lily agree. And the reason? Remus is a werewolf, and werewolves, in general, had sided with Voldemort.

So all that supposed ideology, all that so-called progressive mindset, all that supposed moral righteousness that made them part of the “good side” because they didn’t discriminate or hold prejudices—it was all just a facade. Nothing more than a performance to justify doing whatever they wanted, like being violent sociopaths as teenagers, while still telling themselves they were the good guys.

Remus was supposedly their friend since they were eleven. They had known him, seen everything he suffered because of his condition. They had spent full moons with him, shared countless experiences with him—and yet, they had no problem turning their backs on him the moment suspicion arose. Not because of any real evidence, but because of what he was. Because of his difference. Because of the very thing that everyone discriminated against him for.

His own friends discriminated against him.

Pure hypocrisy. And the worst kind, because this wasn’t just some random werewolf—it was their friend. That’s where they show their true colors. Everything they supposedly believed in was just a front. Deep down, they were nothing more than privileged rich kids playing at fighting for ideals they didn’t understand and didn’t care to understand. They just used those ideals as a way to dress up their egos and narcissism as good deeds. But in reality? They didn’t give a damn about doing good.

James only cared about reinforcing his public image. Sirius just wanted to piss off his mother. And Lily? She gives the impression that, after getting married, she simply did whatever James told her to.