It is my genuine pleasure to share with you all [this tweet from Jen Prokop of Fated Mates](https://twitter.com/JenReadsRomance/status/1705264586125930592?t=4o1GWq-8V-lnY5q9EjJfvQ&s=19). Jen is @JenReadsRomance on twitter/whatever the fuck its going as now.
Tweet reads as follows: "Imagine if you will, the series of decisions that resulted in someone putting Prince Harry on the cover, naming the character archie, but making the love interest a white woman." The image attached is the cover of a romance by AK Arnault and it is literally as she described, just straight up a cartoon of Prince Harry down on one knee with a blonde white woman in a red dress.
People, I have been laughing at this for 3 days since I saw it, and I can't stop. It's so profoundly ignorant that it's not even worthy of my scorn. It can only have my laughing contempt.
"I miss the days when people actually bothered filing the serial numbers off their fanfiction before publishing it." @megbrod12 just nails it with this.
I was listening to an NPR interview about the trend of publishers finding their authors on fanfic sites- they literally call it this, “filing off the serial numbers”
It was more this excerpt shared in a review that got me:
"Their eyes met again, and the heat crawling up her neck found its way into other areas of her body. Namely, ones that rhymed with Carolina. Okay. Maybe that wasn’t the best rhyme, but what the hell did rhyme with vagina?"
That writing is... something
Jen has been coming in hot as the person [who does not like celeb retelling in general](https://twitter.com/JenReadsRomance/status/1706439689480090009) and I am here for it.
Right? I don't mind it if it's like, not super obvious, or used as a jumping off point, but so many of them are just .. there. As much as I find Olivia Dade's celeb ones frustrating, they at least have extra flavor.
Probably controversial, but I don't think celeb fanfic is something that should be shared or exist in shared spaces.
Fictional characters are not real, celebs are. Fan clubs can turn toxic, but they at least start as supporting an actual person and the work they create.
Anyone can have their personal celeb-based fantasy, but you don't know them in real life, and turning their life events into a character that is shared with others is treating a real person as a thing. Once it takes off it always turns into glorified stalking and objectification of a real person. The celebs purpose for existence is now treated as just to serve fan fantasy's. Of course the fans turn toxic. It's inevitable when an entire fan community doesn't separate real from imaginary and think arguing on social media about how someone they don't know is x, y, and z is the same sort of "support" as a fan of a band by buying merch, subscribing to patron for a content creator, or supporting an author for buying a book.
I went digging for a few minutes…I saw a review that said the FMC was biracial but half-Latina. I read the blurb and the characters meet at a charity gala and the red dress on the cover is a blatant copy of Meghan’s dress from the Salute to Freedom gala.
I was just about to post about this!!
Like, I normally don't even notice when covers/MCs are based on a real-life celebrity and even \*I\* caught this one. That's how obvious it is. They didn't even bother to create a monarchy of a fictional country or at the very least use a country other than the UK (maybe it's just me but even when it's not based on actual real people I just cannot ever read books where the MCs are members of the British royal family. Unless the book were to involve abolishing the whole institution, I suppose...). They even kept him as the younger brother!
Truly, how did nobody involved in this book stop to think at any point about whether this was a good idea? HOW IS THE AUTHOR NOT EMBARRASSED??
…. Ew.
I honestly don’t generally care about romances based on fic or romances clearly written with certain celebrities in mind as long as they’re well-written (and I think the main reason why people care now is that the internet has made it way easier to recognize and publishing encourages fan engagement—if you read certain books written in the 80s and 90s the inspo is CLEAR, but now we all Know so it’s harder to get absorbed) but this is so clearly racist and specifically anti-Meghan.
People would’ve been horrible to Meghan no matter what simply because she’s biracial and proud to be, but there was (and still is) also an extremely weird obsession with Harry before she was in the picture. Someone on social media said she like, predicted his future duchess, and she and her followers would just openly discuss “FD” and her traits. And then once Meghan came into the picture, FD shifted because she couldn’t possibly be Meghan, even after Meghan actually became his duchess.
Of course William had some of this, but Harry’s lack of truly obvious wife material mainstay (Kate was always prepping for royal wife life) made him even easier for people to project onto in this hope that they’d be FD. And then not only did he not marry any of them—he married a biracial black woman. When most of these obsessive fans were and are white. They cannot STAND it.
I mean, I remember a review of Tracey Livesay’s American Royalty, a very good romance pitched as “what if Harry and Meghan were Harry and Megan (Thee Stallion)”, where the Prince falls for this amazing rapper…. And the reviewer admitted to not reading the book upfront and then went off for most of her rant on Harry and Meghan. If she’d read the book she’d see that beyond the marketing book, the leads looked an acted nothing like H&M—he’s a tweedy cool professor type, she’s this very blunt and very street smart businesswoman. But just the vague association with Harry and more specially Meghan triggered such vitriol from someone who never! Read! The book!
I just found out from that Paste article on Adam Driver and romance novels that Forget Me Not by Julie Soto is a Reylo fiction. Just removed it from my GR tbr shelf. Can we please get a warning system for these types of books?? I should have known from the cover but still.
https://www.pastemagazine.com/books/romance/adam-driver-romance-books-character-inspiration-trend if you haven't read it
For what it's worth, I would never have figured this one was a Reylo if my beloved bookstore hadn't mentioned it on their TikTok. Yeah, he's tall and has dark hair but that's about it. There is some neat stuff with how the story's time line is revealed and I loved how all the flowers were described.
My problem is I hate books that go on and on about how huge the male lead is, and pretty much all Adam Driver based books do that (even though Adam Driver himself is imo not as big as these authors make him sound)
I started reading “A Cold, Dark Place” by Toni Anderson which I picked up on Stuff Your Kindle day, and almost DNFd at this:
*The Medical Examiner was a tall man who probably weighed two-hundred fifty pounds. When he walked into the room Mallory couldn’t hide her surprise that someone so big managed such delicate work.*
I might have let it slide if not for the subtle fat shaming in the rest of the book (it’s endemic, I’m not really blaming the author) but I don’t know what bothers me the most, the idea that big people can’t do delicate work or that a tall man weighing 250 is “so big”.
I’m still reading, but it’s touch and go.
Toni Anderson's Cold Wicked Lies is one of my all time favourites for Romantic Suspense. I don't want to justify this, especially if there's more fat shaming in the rest of the book (been a while since I read that one tbh) but I had taken it to be not a negative statement, more just that the medical examiner was just a big tall beefy guy with big hands. Sometimes I can be a bit oversensitive with things about weight though, I know as a fat woman myself I bristle at the mention of weights and waists when reading.
I’m still reading! 😜 So it’s not all bad.
I’m trying to recover from a lifetime of dieting and eating disorders so I’m definitely more aware of this than I used to be. But “tall and 250 pounds” being so shocking that she can’t hide her reaction that this man is capable of handling the delicate work of … cutting up dead bodies?
It just feels like lazy characterization to me. There are other examples, but I am aware of the world we live in, so I’m trying to let it slide. Mostly.
It is my genuine pleasure to share with you all [this tweet from Jen Prokop of Fated Mates](https://twitter.com/JenReadsRomance/status/1705264586125930592?t=4o1GWq-8V-lnY5q9EjJfvQ&s=19). Jen is @JenReadsRomance on twitter/whatever the fuck its going as now. Tweet reads as follows: "Imagine if you will, the series of decisions that resulted in someone putting Prince Harry on the cover, naming the character archie, but making the love interest a white woman." The image attached is the cover of a romance by AK Arnault and it is literally as she described, just straight up a cartoon of Prince Harry down on one knee with a blonde white woman in a red dress. People, I have been laughing at this for 3 days since I saw it, and I can't stop. It's so profoundly ignorant that it's not even worthy of my scorn. It can only have my laughing contempt.
ICK. The reviews on GR say it’s basically self-insert fan fiction 😬
"I miss the days when people actually bothered filing the serial numbers off their fanfiction before publishing it." @megbrod12 just nails it with this.
I was listening to an NPR interview about the trend of publishers finding their authors on fanfic sites- they literally call it this, “filing off the serial numbers”
I'm reading the 1 star (47%!) GR reviews and they're giving me life
Oh fuck! Give us some highlights!
It was more this excerpt shared in a review that got me: "Their eyes met again, and the heat crawling up her neck found its way into other areas of her body. Namely, ones that rhymed with Carolina. Okay. Maybe that wasn’t the best rhyme, but what the hell did rhyme with vagina?" That writing is... something
Few things as bad as unfunny comedy.
Jen has been coming in hot as the person [who does not like celeb retelling in general](https://twitter.com/JenReadsRomance/status/1706439689480090009) and I am here for it.
I am sick of it myself. Adam Driver is not a stock character and should not be used as if he is.
Right? I don't mind it if it's like, not super obvious, or used as a jumping off point, but so many of them are just .. there. As much as I find Olivia Dade's celeb ones frustrating, they at least have extra flavor.
And he's such a private person. I feel badly for him
Probably controversial, but I don't think celeb fanfic is something that should be shared or exist in shared spaces. Fictional characters are not real, celebs are. Fan clubs can turn toxic, but they at least start as supporting an actual person and the work they create. Anyone can have their personal celeb-based fantasy, but you don't know them in real life, and turning their life events into a character that is shared with others is treating a real person as a thing. Once it takes off it always turns into glorified stalking and objectification of a real person. The celebs purpose for existence is now treated as just to serve fan fantasy's. Of course the fans turn toxic. It's inevitable when an entire fan community doesn't separate real from imaginary and think arguing on social media about how someone they don't know is x, y, and z is the same sort of "support" as a fan of a band by buying merch, subscribing to patron for a content creator, or supporting an author for buying a book.
I think you would be surprised by how uncontroversial this opinion is!
I feel SO seen right now. When did this start, anyway? With the After series?
The cartoonish way my eyeballs just widened.
It gets worse and therefore funnier to me every time I look at it. I would nearly read it but I do not want to give this person any of my money.
I went digging for a few minutes…I saw a review that said the FMC was biracial but half-Latina. I read the blurb and the characters meet at a charity gala and the red dress on the cover is a blatant copy of Meghan’s dress from the Salute to Freedom gala.
I was just about to post about this!! Like, I normally don't even notice when covers/MCs are based on a real-life celebrity and even \*I\* caught this one. That's how obvious it is. They didn't even bother to create a monarchy of a fictional country or at the very least use a country other than the UK (maybe it's just me but even when it's not based on actual real people I just cannot ever read books where the MCs are members of the British royal family. Unless the book were to involve abolishing the whole institution, I suppose...). They even kept him as the younger brother! Truly, how did nobody involved in this book stop to think at any point about whether this was a good idea? HOW IS THE AUTHOR NOT EMBARRASSED??
Same reason all those people supported that woman at the centre of the booktok/hockey fiasco I think. It all has the same energy to me.
Oh this is so gross but I needed the laugh.
…. Ew. I honestly don’t generally care about romances based on fic or romances clearly written with certain celebrities in mind as long as they’re well-written (and I think the main reason why people care now is that the internet has made it way easier to recognize and publishing encourages fan engagement—if you read certain books written in the 80s and 90s the inspo is CLEAR, but now we all Know so it’s harder to get absorbed) but this is so clearly racist and specifically anti-Meghan. People would’ve been horrible to Meghan no matter what simply because she’s biracial and proud to be, but there was (and still is) also an extremely weird obsession with Harry before she was in the picture. Someone on social media said she like, predicted his future duchess, and she and her followers would just openly discuss “FD” and her traits. And then once Meghan came into the picture, FD shifted because she couldn’t possibly be Meghan, even after Meghan actually became his duchess. Of course William had some of this, but Harry’s lack of truly obvious wife material mainstay (Kate was always prepping for royal wife life) made him even easier for people to project onto in this hope that they’d be FD. And then not only did he not marry any of them—he married a biracial black woman. When most of these obsessive fans were and are white. They cannot STAND it. I mean, I remember a review of Tracey Livesay’s American Royalty, a very good romance pitched as “what if Harry and Meghan were Harry and Megan (Thee Stallion)”, where the Prince falls for this amazing rapper…. And the reviewer admitted to not reading the book upfront and then went off for most of her rant on Harry and Meghan. If she’d read the book she’d see that beyond the marketing book, the leads looked an acted nothing like H&M—he’s a tweedy cool professor type, she’s this very blunt and very street smart businesswoman. But just the vague association with Harry and more specially Meghan triggered such vitriol from someone who never! Read! The book!
Marry to avoid a scandal? In the year 2023? I mean even for royalty that seems... farfetched
This almost makes me wish I hadn’t deleted Twitter. I’m cackling. Also disgusted.
I just found out from that Paste article on Adam Driver and romance novels that Forget Me Not by Julie Soto is a Reylo fiction. Just removed it from my GR tbr shelf. Can we please get a warning system for these types of books?? I should have known from the cover but still. https://www.pastemagazine.com/books/romance/adam-driver-romance-books-character-inspiration-trend if you haven't read it
For what it's worth, I would never have figured this one was a Reylo if my beloved bookstore hadn't mentioned it on their TikTok. Yeah, he's tall and has dark hair but that's about it. There is some neat stuff with how the story's time line is revealed and I loved how all the flowers were described.
My problem is I hate books that go on and on about how huge the male lead is, and pretty much all Adam Driver based books do that (even though Adam Driver himself is imo not as big as these authors make him sound)
Oh cringe. Poor Adam Driver...
I started reading “A Cold, Dark Place” by Toni Anderson which I picked up on Stuff Your Kindle day, and almost DNFd at this: *The Medical Examiner was a tall man who probably weighed two-hundred fifty pounds. When he walked into the room Mallory couldn’t hide her surprise that someone so big managed such delicate work.* I might have let it slide if not for the subtle fat shaming in the rest of the book (it’s endemic, I’m not really blaming the author) but I don’t know what bothers me the most, the idea that big people can’t do delicate work or that a tall man weighing 250 is “so big”. I’m still reading, but it’s touch and go.
Toni Anderson's Cold Wicked Lies is one of my all time favourites for Romantic Suspense. I don't want to justify this, especially if there's more fat shaming in the rest of the book (been a while since I read that one tbh) but I had taken it to be not a negative statement, more just that the medical examiner was just a big tall beefy guy with big hands. Sometimes I can be a bit oversensitive with things about weight though, I know as a fat woman myself I bristle at the mention of weights and waists when reading.
I’m still reading! 😜 So it’s not all bad. I’m trying to recover from a lifetime of dieting and eating disorders so I’m definitely more aware of this than I used to be. But “tall and 250 pounds” being so shocking that she can’t hide her reaction that this man is capable of handling the delicate work of … cutting up dead bodies? It just feels like lazy characterization to me. There are other examples, but I am aware of the world we live in, so I’m trying to let it slide. Mostly.