Brittany Luce

Right.

The sort of tropes thing, I see why it kind of can be very specific to fan fiction, specifically when you talk about enemies to lovers, because like the excitement is in two characters that we already know to be sort of mortal enemies who would never get together.

Like that's the excitement.

There's a very specific tension there.

Like they hate each other, but what if they made out?

One of the things that's interesting to me about fanfic is that it seems like...

Maybe a way to fix something about the original work.

Like, of course, maybe to put two characters together that are originally enemies or originally platonic, but also to have them make different plot choices or to explore things the book or show doesn't get into.

I also know your main fandom is Harry Potter, Ashley.

And I get the sense a lot of fans use fanfic to reimagine a relationship with the source material characters.

That can cut out an offer whose politics you may find really deplorable or even to retrofit certain aspects of a story that you maybe found undesirable.

I know it's kind of an open question in fanfic, whether engaging with IP that many people feel was made by a person who is a bigot, right?

Yeah.

A lot of people wonder, like, I don't know if that's actually okay or not, even if nobody profits from it.

For the record, when we reached out to JK Rowling for comment on this, she declined.

Okay.

I have another question to ask that I think might be thorny.

Okay.

Let's do it.

I'm sure there are fan works that are masterpieces and I've seen some really thoughtfully and well-written stuff in my time, you know, sort of trolling AO3, but...