#truly no hate to OP I imagine it's rough being a jily shipper in the 2020s

[thistlecatfics]

I do think this gets into how difficult it is to do broad fandom histories pre-ao3. Fandoms were so diffuse before ao3, and, in particular, there was a lot of divide between slash and het shipping communities. I can totally see why someone would have trouble identifying an accurate fandom history of a sub-fandom they were not directly involved with -- especially a slash sub-fandom if they mostly shipped het at the time.

(I genuinely thought Bellatrix/Sirius was a pretty big ship in 2006 but that was because those were the circles I ran in on LJ lol.) (I got involved in fandom in 2004ish or so and just lurked because I was 12 years old reading taboo smut fics on LJ and random fan sites. those are my credentials in this discussion lol.)

It is definitely true that wolfstar wasn't the fandom dominating juggernaut ship it is now back then (second multiple years in a row on ao3 ship stats!), but it was one of the more significant ships in the fandom from the very start.

I recommend the wolfstar fanlore page (and I really recommend that if anyone has any history to add to it they do so! it's a great community resource!) (please add to it!)

Just saw a post that said wolfstar birthed the marauders fandom and now I need to throw down some facts as a 33 year old grandma who’s been in this fandom long enough that she could write a book about everything that’s happened.

2003 - The second the “I’d rather go out with the giant squid” sentence was read by people in June of 2003 the world shifted. I personally watched marauders fanfic take over fanfic.net with a 50% increase in reviews and saves. The primary ship? Jily.

2004-2010 THE GOLDEN JILY YEARS

2007 - Commentarius is reposted to FFNET

2009 - The Life and Times posted to FFNET

2010 - tumblr marauders fandom really starts to take off—specifically the jily fandom on tumblr. We are taking the internet by storm The ship really takes off as MP3 files are made, headcanons are formed, and fanfics were being pumped out daily. It was a beautiful time to be alive.

To put it in perspective, within that time frame of hundreds of jily fics being posted plus new fans entering the marauders fandom and tumblr becoming a thing…only one person was historically really consistently writing and posting wolfstar. @MinervaEvenstar on fanfic.net…and their first fic wasn’t even until like 2005!!!

Wolfstar didn’t become super popular overnight either. It wasn’t until about 2012 that wolfstar became a more popular headcanon among marauders era readers. 2012 was a major shift in the jily fandom dynamics, which I think attributed to the shift in what were “popular” or “unpopular” ships, as the fandom had fractioned off into little cliques.