Romance Con Wank
Good evening, I’m exhausted. Does anyone with a solid understanding of the Romance Con drama want to weigh in here because I do not have time to do the deep dive this deserves.
From my current understanding the initial issues brought up were:
People upset about the parent company’s name “Mischief Management” which was a holdover from their origin as a Potter-specific con. In their initial response, they said they’d cut all ties with Rowling/HP events years back. Fair enough. I won’t hold the parent company’s name against them.
2. They were championing Julie Soto as a featured author (and her scrubbed Dramione fic Rose in Chains that was being heavily marketed as scrubbed Dramione fic) (buoying the IP) (and as far as I know, Julie Soto has not attempted to stop these marketing efforts, nor has she spoken out against Rowling’s shittiness). Understandably upsetting for other authors and con-goers alike since Romance Con markets itself as a queer-friendly space.
Yesterday, Romance Con announced that Julie Soto would no longer attend, so I figured, okay, that’ll be the end of it. I’ve had nothing but good experiences with staff, and wanted to believe it was an awkward situation brought on by strange literary times. How were they supposed to know when they booked her that Soto’s publishing team would lean so heavily into using Rowling’s IP for promoting the book’s release?
BUT THEN.
Today, they sent out an email to all the authors. It really rubbed me the wrong way. Apparently when they initially said they’d cut all ties with HP, they were not telling the truth AND they’re planning to continue hosting HP specific events. They say it’s at the request of trans/queer folks wanting a safe space but I can’t say I personally know anyone (and I know a lot of trans/queer folks!) (even those still creating HP fan works!) who would support conventions continuing to further the HP IP when we have substantive evidence that any money Rowling makes could actively, negatively, impact the trans community. And the odd throwaway paragraph about a summer camp for trans youth feels performative and icky, in this context.
Maybe I’m being overly sensitive, but while yesterday I was 100% willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, I am now conflicted. I don’t want to pull out of attending because I’ve been so looking forward to meeting other authors and folks planning to attend, I’ve put time and money into swag/merch, and I don’t like disappointing folks who made plans around my being there. But also, sunk cost fallacy, right? In a moral sense.
I just finished A Long Fucking Day of work and now I have two hours before I need to go to bed and I can’t spend them doing more research on this because I have to take care of life shit. So if anyone would like to share additional information they have about the parent company, other cons they run, and their claims about ongoing HP events at the request of trans/nonbinary folks, please do.
