Eli Cugini

When we live in a kind of situation where, like, I live in a country where there is a wizarding shop, like, in every major city.

At least one.

Like, physical high street shops selling Harry Potter merch.

Like, it is saturated and everywhere, and I find it quite exhausting because there are lots of people who are otherwise sympathetic to what I and my loved ones are going through, who haven't really come across or don't really understand the gravity of what's going on with Rowling.

And I do think sometimes people whose main focus is defending to me their investment in that material, I can find that a bit tiring.

But I'm not ultimately interested in their personal investment in that material.

I'm interested in, okay, if you are publicly engaging with a certain kind of IP, how are you doing that in ways that are responsible, that are actively engaged?

engaging with the politics of the original material and with how that material exists in the world today.

Regrettably, I think, as you probably know intimately, Ashley, if you are a Harry Potter fan, or like have a history in that kind of fandom, you do probably have a greater moral responsibility that if you are supporting someone who is

media by someone who is equally terrible but who is long dead it is very possible to engage with certain kinds of IP in ways that are ultimately constructive just alongside that I think there has to be time for oh god I wish I could never have to hear about these books again in my life which I think is completely fair quite frankly the thing that people don't want to admit in this fandom is that a lot of it is compartmentalizing so I think it's part people making efforts to be like I'm not going to

So, interesting question.

I have to talk about this quite carefully because, yes, a majority of fanfiction is slop because that's just kind of how the production of community writing works.

I think you could quite successfully argue most books are slop.

There are a lot of books published every year.

We see like a tiny, tiny sliver of those books kind of actively promoted.

And some of those books aren't even any good.

And I say this as someone with a deep, deep love of literature who has dedicated my life to it.

Most books aren't good.

That's fine in my opinion.

There's something for everyone.