"Can I Still Read Harry Potter?" BBC R4 Thursday 12th November 2020

[terryleather]

Just noticed this is in the schedule for tomorrow morning at 11am.

Journalist and fan Aja Romano examines their decision to close the books on the boy wizard and hears different viewpoints toward Harry Potter and contemporary readership.

Aja Romano has been a Harry Potter fan for many years, but after personally disagreeing with statements by their author JK Rowling regarding gender identity, they are considering closing the books for good.

Across the world, millions continue to embrace the Wizarding World in all its forms and JK Rowling has received a lot of support for speaking out on an important issue in a personal way.

With this in mind Aja assesses the different factors at play in their choice, speaking to cultural experts, academics and fans and considering influences such as social media, trends in fan communities, "cancelling" , literary theory and more. With contributions from critic Sam Leith, writer Gavin Haynes , journalist Sarah Shaffi, Dr Ika Willis and fans Jackson Bird and Patricio Tarantino.

Don't think I can bear to listen as I strongly suspect it will give me the BBC radge, but I reckon some of you are made of sterner stuff than I am!

Hold on, this person writes RPF fanfic??!! Real Person Fiction?

As someone who writes a bit of fanfic in my spare time, can I just say, the ethical squick factor of RPF is off the fucking charts. It's one thing to write romantic or even erotic fluff about entirely imaginary characters from a book - it's quite another to set up bizarre scenarios, usually extremely sexual, often kinky, involving celebrities or actors. Have your personal fantasies if you want, but publishing scenarios involving those people is, imo, genuinely troubling.

So, on that score, my answer to the question posed in the title is 'Read what you want, but if you think a woman's opinion that sex matters is bad ethically, I have no idea how you're justifying publishing pervy fantasies about real people.'

Grim as all fuck.

Absolutely, Floral.

I also write fanfiction. Also think RPF is fucking squicky and horrible.

I've actually had conversations with my kids about this because there's apparently a Netflix movie based on a RPF featuring Harry Styles and other members of One Direction.

Don't get me wrong, I'll put my hands up to fancying famous people and idly wondering what bedroom shenanigans might be fun, but that's supposed to stay in your head.

This is 100% tied into all this bullshit - there's a whole generation who seem to have no concept of the dividing line between private and appropriate to share. This is why you get rubber pup players inviting kids into ball pits and people inventing identities for themselves based on how well they have to know someone before it crosses their mind to fancy them.

And it's why some people have existential dilemmas about being heavily invested in a fictional world and disagreeing with the author of that world.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to write Strike and Robin's first kiss.

I actually did listen to this for a bit but it was such self absorbed bollocks I had to stop

a Netflix movie based on a RPF featuring Harry Styles and other members of One Direction.
There is a what?!

This is 100% tied into all this bullshit - there's a whole generation who seem to have no concept of the dividing line between private and appropriate to share.
It's the anything goes on the internet mentality. Except the internet is a part of everyone's ordinary life now.

I think this brings up many interesting things: Internet's influence, fandoms, lack of socialisation/lack of being grounded in reality, feeling of ownership towards other's published work and alternative identities. Perhaps a topic for a different thread?

Might not be Netflix made, but Dd showed me clips, and the character names are changed but it's quite bloody obvious what is going on. She said Harry Styles was even invited to the premier or something. This came up in conversation as we were discussing fanfic in general, like the fact that Fifty Shades is a Twilight fanfic (and every bit as fucking godawful as it should be based on that) I can check details, but obviously haven't the slightest desire to watch it myself.

@ThatIsNotMyUsername

The vocal ‘cancellers‘ do realise that the crocodile will turn around and eat them sooner or later don’t they?

"I didn't think the léopards would eat my face!"

I write fanfic too and absolutely Floral and Cara - RPF is wrong wrong wrong on every single level!

I had heard about the 1D fanfic into film thing and nope nope nope

there's a whole generation who seem to have no concept of the dividing line between private and appropriate to share
yes most definitely. Im amazed at what people put out there in public with no concept of not just privacy but also that the internet is forever!

I agree champagne i think that would be an interesting new topic

but that's supposed to stay in your head.

This is 100% tied into all this bullshit - there's a whole generation who seem to have no concept of the dividing line between private and appropriate to share.

That's it in a nutshell.

No sense of appropriate boundaries.

No sense of (a) what's reasonable to force other people to know about and (b) what other people might conceivably care about knowing about.

Coming out to your colleagues as asexual. I don't fucking care. Why should it matter to me that you're not interested in shagging (and yes, I know, I've been told that some asexual people are interested in shagging, which I find just weird and a bit humpty-dumpty-ish in terms of meanings of words... but again, that's another recurring feature of this whole shitfest, the humpty-dumpty-ish arbitrary redefinition of words).

Coming out to your colleagues as a BDSM enthusiast/ coprophiliac/ shoe fetishist/ rubber fetishist. I. DO. NOT. WANT. TO. KNOW. In fact I would much rather NOT know.

Can I still pay my BCC license fee knowing it was used to fund Jimmy Saville? How about that one BBC?

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to write Strike and Robin's first kiss.

And, ahem, if one were interested in reading this, where would one go? Asking for a friend...

I don't write fanfic because my writing is rubbish, but otherwise, entirely agree with every word of your posts.

I loathe RPF, and anyone engaged in it has no business setting themselves as a moral authority.

Erm, well, if one were hypothetically interested in Strike fanfic, there are some cracking examples of the genre on

archiveofourown.org/tags/Cormoran%20Strike%20Series%20-%20Robert%20Galbraith/works

Usual sensible warnings about variable quality, and it being fanfic, there's obviously going to be explicit sex and angst in many. I'm not linking directly to mine, because it would be rather outing, and tbh, I don't really do smut, I like plot, messing about with canon and trying to keep the character voices authentic. Plus funny. But I do have a first kiss one knocking about.

(Also fair warning, like other fanfic hosts, AO3 does host RPF, but it's kept in a specific place so easy to avoid)

If you want a specific recommend to start with, this is rather lovely, but be warned, you will be spoilered to ribbons if you haven't finished Troubled Blood yet...

archiveofourown.org/works/26684836

On this subject, I was so happy when Ao3 introduced the selection option to block crossovers. If I have crossovers switched off, that automatically keeps RPF out!

[quote FloralBunting]Erm, well, if one were hypothetically interested in Strike fanfic, there are some cracking examples of the genre on

archiveofourown.org/tags/Cormoran%20Strike%20Series%20-%20Robert%20Galbraith/works

Usual sensible warnings about variable quality, and it being fanfic, there's obviously going to be explicit sex and angst in many. I'm not linking directly to mine, because it would be rather outing, and tbh, I don't really do smut, I like plot, messing about with canon and trying to keep the character voices authentic. Plus funny. But I do have a first kiss one knocking about.

(Also fair warning, like other fanfic hosts, AO3 does host RPF, but it's kept in a specific place so easy to avoid)

If you want a specific recommend to start with, this is rather lovely, but be warned, you will be spoilered to ribbons if you haven't finished Troubled Blood yet...

archiveofourown.org/works/26684836[/quote]
speaking hypothetically and of course for a friend

thank you :D

@PotholeParadies

On this subject, I was so happy when Ao3 introduced the selection option to block crossovers. If I have crossovers switched off, that automatically keeps RPF out!

I must get better at AO3 tag wrangling. I could block any cross-over with the MCU. (No, really, I don't want to read Thor/Bucky/Captain America/Loki foursomes in, I dunno, the Narnia fandom. Really, I just don't. Okay. Your kink is not my kink, and frankly, your kink stinks...)

Is Aja not one of the main players in the greatest fandom war of all time, where one of the writers in Harry Potter fandom set up sock puppet accounts to send homophobic and racist abuse to herself and other fic writers?

@Stripesnomore

Is Aja not one of the main players in the greatest fandom war of all time, where one of the writers in Harry Potter fandom set up sock puppet accounts to send homophobic and racist abuse to herself and other fic writers?

Crikey.

And there was me thinking the greatest fan war of all time was over whether it was every acceptable to write Sherlock/Watson where they switched! (Not my thing, but I heard the most brilliant second hand accounts of just how heated it had got).

I write in very very tame fandoms where no-one flames anyone else. It is the home of "be nice" but in a good way, the way be nice should have been intended.

I was never in Harry Potter fandom, but it became infamous and was written up at length on fandom wank. The main person with all the sock puppets was Msscribe.

Yup. I've backed out of many a fandom swiftly after seeing a few astonishingly heated exchanges. Apparently the Harry Potter ship wars, where various nefarious dealings occurred over whether Hermione should be with Harry or Ron, were legendary in their ferocity.

I just sort of sit there thinking "I just wanted to write an entertaining story about what happened with Rose and the Handy spare hand Tenth Doctor in the Alternate universe they got trapped in. There'd be jokes and kissing. No one actually needs to really die..."

Thankfully I have a number of sensible friends who are actually really friendly and enjoy fun things, instead of sociopathic attempts at controlling existence...

I'd read that, Floral. Jokes and kissing. What's not to like?

CaraDune We may have similar tastes here. I have several fandoms I read in, and I am sick of Harry Stiles and Loki popping up where they don't belong.

I've never mastered tags, so i just block ALL crossovers. Go to Filters, scroll all the way to the bottom and click on More Options. There you can choose to either only see crossovers, or to block them entirely.

Come to think of it, fanfic may have contributed to my peaktrans'ing. There is such a lot of fanfiction with token trans characters which aptly demonstrates that the author thinks any insufficiently feminine girl is an invalid form of woman. And people in the comments shouting joyfully about feeling "seen".

If you want a specific recommend to start with, this is rather lovely, but be warned, you will be spoilered to ribbons if you haven't finished Troubled Blood yet...

I've read it, or bits of it an embarrassingly large number of times so far. My copy does not, I repeat, does not, fall open of its own accord to chapters 58 and 59 it does.

Thanks for the recommendation

There is real person fanfic??? - that sounds utterly horrifying & in combination with the even more horrifying AI generated famous person porn stuff urgh

The things I learn here!
Fifty Shades is a Twilight fanfic vampires removed though? Yes?

Don't need smut. Jokes and kissing absolutely my thing.