#ask mae

Thank you so much for asking this 🥰

oooh, that is a good question 🖤 aww, thank you! i will do my best to keep it to three cause i know i can go on and on about Rob for hours lol.

so not to point out the obvious but for sure Umbrella Academy has to be one 🥰 i adore Klaus and Rob just did such a fantastic job with the character! i just- even though i haven’t gone through a fraction of what Klaus has, Rob truly did such an amazing job at making Klaus feel so relatable no matter what anyone watching has been through. if you felt it, you could see a piece of yourself in him. and how fragile klaus truly is, how sensitive he is, that made me feel seen. it’s made me feel so much less alone when i’ve been struggling or when my self esteem (much like right now) has been very low. 🥹😣🖤 i have so much more i could say about rob’s talent and how much i love klaus but i’ll leave it at that for now lol.

also, random and kind of unrelated side note- steve did us all so dirty for a lot of reasons when it came to s4, the hargreeves as a family and Klaus in general, but especially by not letting rob/klaus dress in more feminine clothes beyond s1 😭 like rob wanted it! if he was comfortable and willing, let him! and give him and the fans what we all wanted damnit! 😂😭 sorry, i have a lot of feelings about that 😅 i just- ugh! all of us including robbie, were (please excuse the pun) robbed! 😭💔

Next would for sure have to be The Road Within. it’s been a comfort movie of mine for a little while now and i just love Vincent so much 💙 Rob (like always) did an amazing job. besides the very real struggles Vincent faces with his tourette’s, the relationship he had with his mother is one i can (in my own ways) relate to. my relationship with my mom is not the same as Vincent’s with his mom 😅 it just- just that closeness. the bond they had. the support they were for each other, how they depended on each other and how even though they meant well, it wasn’t healthy for either of them, i can relate to that. i just- for a lot more reasons (which i don’t have to get into all of those reasons right now) this movie and Vincent have a very special place in my heart 🥹🖤

so last but certainly not least (even though i feel like this is another super obvious lol) would have to be Misfits! Nathan is such an ass but i can’t help but love him so damn much! he’s so funny and stupid and honestly i just wish i had that unearned confidence like him 😂 but also Nathan is so much more than comedic relief. he’s very real. that facade, how unbothered he acts, how aloof he always is, his indestructible attitude, that’s so real. and even though we only see a bit of what has made him the way he is, you get a sense and understand that he (like pretty much everyone) is very damaged and is trying so hard to protect himself. and being an ass to everyone, it keeps them at a safe distance so that he can’t be hurt by them. that hits me really hard and idk… i just love the show and Nathan. 🩵🥰 i have so much more i want to say about the show and Nathan but we would be here for hours lol.

okay so i really was only gonna do my top 3 but i also have to mention Sean Falco (Bad Samaritan), Luba (Mute) and Luke (Cherry Bomb) 💙🖤🩵 i have so many reasons why i love each of them but i don’t want to make all of this a lot longer than i already have so i’ll just leave it at that for now lol.

Thank you so so much again for asking this, anon!

This fandom is painfully male centered with an unhealthy obsession with mlm ships, no matter how nonsensical they are. Jegulus, with all due respect, is a nonsense ship. I know some people like to ignore canon and make everything up but I don’t. Jegulus can work fine in AUs but not in canon compliant fics. And whenever Jegulus shippers speak about what makes them compelling, they always bring up tropes - brother’s best friend, sunshine x grumpy (don’t even get me started on thinking James Potter is a sunshine but that’s beside the point), enemies to lovers, etc. All that is meaningless to me. Shipping based on tropes is ridiculous because none of those tropes matter when James and Regulus, from what we know of their characters, are completely incompatible as people. I won’t speak on Regulus because we have little information about it and it’s easy to treat him as a blank sheet (although I think he’s too whitewashed) but we know a lot about James, including that he despised Slytherins, Death Eaters and the dark arts. So, in order for Jegulus to work, James has to become an unrecognizable character from what he actually is in canon. You are not writing about James Potter. You are creating an OC and slapping James’ name on it. Jegulus was born out of this weird necessity the fandom has for mlm ships. Take Drarry and Wolfstar as an example. Those ships aren’t canon but they have some canon basis because those couples interacted, had a dynamic together, had interactions and lore that could be interpreted in different ways. With Jegulus, it’s all made up.

And this leads me to Lily and by extent, the other girls. Lily was the main female character in the Marauders Era and Jily was the second biggest ship. Since Jegulus gained popularity, Lily has been sidelined, her story has been co-opted, even her own child gets snatched from her and given to Regulus. The girls that before had some developed (nowhere near enough because this fandom has always been misogynistic, let’s not get it twisted), have been shoved to the side or used as tools to further mlm ships. The reason why there’s such a pushback against sapphic!Lily, per example, is because unfortunately some people (definitely not all and definitely not sapphic women in this fandom) really only use that to get her out of the way of Jegulus and that’s the case for many wlw ships in the fandom. All they get is the yearly “I love [insert wlw ship]” tweet but get no more content or develop, unlike the men.

The general treatment of the girls is terrible too. The biggest Jegulus fic, Choices, has Regulus covering up Mary’s SA and James cheating on a pregnant Lily and yet we are supposed to root for them in the end. ATYD has Mary being routinely humiliated by both Sirius and Remus and we are supposed to be okay with it because they’re just two closeted teen boys navigating the world. Pandora and Dorcas have been placed in Slytherin and made besties with Death Eaters to make horrible men more sympathetic and so they can serve as therapists and saviors to people who joined a wizard terrorist group.

I could go on. I am genuinely not trying to be rude or aggressive, just giving my opinion. As I said, Jegulus shippers are not all misogynistic but Jegulus’ popularity showcases the implicit biases against women in the fandom. Other mlm ships and I will keep using Drarry and Wolfstar as examples have also led to the erasure and mistreatment of women. But it’s harder to justify Jegulus because unlike those other two ships, Jegulus is a completely random pairing that feels like was born out of the desire to pair James with a man rather than any interesting interactions those two characters had.

Hi!

Firstly, thank you for sharing your thoughts on it! I see your perspective well and agree with a lot of your points.

(Excuse my yapping below, it helps me get my thoughts out better and to better understand your points!)

For anyone reading this, please note that there are spoilers for atyd and choices below!

This fandom is definitely male-centered and I see your point on how focused the mlm ships this fandom is on. With the ships of wolfstar, the joke-gone-serious ship of jegulus, and the babygirlification and pairing of rosekiller, etc, etc...

I understand the canon compliant vs fanon complaint argument. I think that's where the lines get blurred when it comes to people's views on ships. Canon and Fanon are two completely different ball games when is comes with things making sense and what doesn't.

I lean more towards fanon compliant fics so for me that's where Jegulus makes sense to me because like you said, it's basically OCs with their names slapped on them. It's easier to mold them to work that way, so it's easier to ship them. Also I just love the idea of Sapphic!Lily too which was a concept I thought about before I even knew about Jegulus, honestly.

For canon-compliance, I am all for Jily 100% because it's canon-compliant. You can't fight with it. Even though wolfstar isn't canon, it makes sense to have them be something where as James and Regulus wouldn't have been anything. And I agree with you, they only work in AUs or fanon concepts.

With that being said, I also recognize the misogynistic nature of the fandom. I definitely don't agree with Jegulus raising Harry, because that's literally Jily's child (if anyone does, no hate towards you It's just doesn't sit well with me personally) and it begs the question, what happened with Lily that Jegulus has Harry?

I also agree with your point about how the girls/wlw ships in the fandom don't get a lot of development. I think it's a shame, truly. However, I have, recently, seen some people have different Headcanons of how they are as people. So I'm hoping that develops into something more than just ideas floating around. I also am not sure how they are in canon-compliant fics besides atyd (which I do have my opinions on too and im only halfway through it). I haven't read choices yet so I can only take your word for it.

I do at some point want to make a full long, academic-esque essay about the misogynistic nature of the fandom, because I do have A LOT to say, ESPECIALLY with the treatment of Mary. There's definitely a lot to unpack.

aww, thank you so much for asking these ellie!! ☺️🩵

4.) which television series do you use as a form of escapism?

- so not so surprisingly lol, i have a quite a few series that i use as a form of escapism 😅 those series are the umbrella academy, the office, psych, doctor who, derry girls, misfits (but like tbh, just first two series cause i have a hard time with no nathan lol), supernatural, schitt’s creek, steven universe, russian doll, wandavision, quantum leap (the original series and the new one 🥰), bob’s burgers, gilmore girls, the haunting of hill house and altered carbon 😅🖤

(i’m sure there are probably a lot of other shows lol. but those were the ones that i though of like right away 💙)

9.) what is you favorite environmental season? why?

- summer. summer is my favorite 🥰 i love the sunshine, i love it being warm, i love being able to swim 💙 ooh or those days where you swim for hours and then when you get out of the pool and get dressed and then it hits you that you’re reeeally tired so you decide to take a nap, those are some of the best naps! and i usually take those naps in the summer lol. or i love being able to take a nap in the summer when the sun is shining through the window and laying in the warmth of the sun ☺️ i love the sun being out until after 9pm. i love how the sky looks when the sun does finally start setting in the summer. when it gets all pink, purple-ish blue 🥺 omg and i love being able to wear flip flops! i love how summer time makes me feel 🖤 i mean not everything is perfect or suddenly/magically better and all my problems are gone lol. but summer just gives me a little hope. there are more things i love about summer but i’ll leave it at that for now lol.

so my answers for the other questions are under the cut 😅 i realize that like always, i wrote a lot and don’t wanna make anyone have to scroll through all this if they don’t necessarily wanna read all of it lol