#rwrb social media au

[melisnonstop]

📲 𝚃𝚊𝚒𝚕𝚜, 𝚃𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚝𝚜, & 𝚃𝚎𝚡𝚝𝚜 🐶 (2/2)

[hyacinthsgareth]

RWRB SOCIAL MEDIA

a small taste of Alex and Henry’s public + private accounts, according to me <3

[rotisseries]

I'm so unbelievably susceptible to the famous secret relationship trope it's unreal actually

[rwrbficrecs]

heyyyy i love this page I've read so many of the recs you posted thank you so much

are there any social media fics they can be canon complaint or an au.

Hi! I’m so glad the blog helped you find fics to read ❤️

Hope you enjoy these recs! 

5 Times Alex Went Viral (+1 Time Henry Did) by @clottedcreamfudge 8 Of The Best Twitter Threads Featuring FSOTUS And Prince Henry by peppermintpatties 17 Firstprince Moments That Remind Us How Single We Are by peppermintpatties 25 Questions by @clottedcreamfudge Am I the asshole? by @everwitch-magiks and history remembered. by @sherryvalli (WIP) Everyone Knows Who You Are by @smc-27 rwrb media fics by th0ughts (series) Special Edition by @clottedcreamfudge the conclusion literally any normal human being would come to. by @chaa-kiao they'll talk about us by @tarmairons watch before it ends by @indomitable-love whenever you're ready by @tedddylupin With so much of my heart (that none is left to protest) by @kiwiana-writes (WIP)

Bonus Recs: (probably not exactly the social media you were thinking of but thought we’d throw these in anyway 😂)  Going Platinum by @cricketnationrise Hashtag Soulmates by @everwitch-magiks

Huge thanks to my lovely team of volunteers for helping collect these recs ❤️ If you’d like to help out too, check out the Volunteers Page 🥰

[lupuslikethewolf]

hm. considering making a companion social media/twitter fic to go alongside each chapter of the still unnamed icemav rwrb au

[remuslupininskirts]

I need Wolfstar recs! Please. I can never find good fics.

Wait give me a minute to compile.

*Me takes ages to get list then forgets about ask by accident*

Me: shit.

Okay here we go

Storms and stress

Sirius is a student at durmstrang and comes to hogwarts then meets the boys

Forever is a state of mind

Deaf dance choreographer remus with young teddy meets make-up artist sirius.

Red, White & Royal Annoyance

Rwrb au for wolfstar (the garden kiss)

Siriusly? The moon!? Okay i went through a period of really liking social media aus so this is another

Countermoves

Hunger games au.

Literally read anything by athenowl and you should be good so hears some of their other stuffs

Axe and sword

Royal au -athenowl

The secret garden

A secret garden au -athenowl

Okay i will stop with the athenowl love now

Turn on my charm

Oh wait another fuckin YouTuber au i promise i dont have a problem

.You’re my kaleidoscope

Raising teddy au after he was left on remus’s doorstep. James and sirius step up to the plate to help

The kitchens

Will you accept another royal au?

OKAY AND THE BEST FOR LAST. MY FAVOURITE SHIP AND SUB-FANDOM

Sweater weather

Ice hockey au. It has the best fandom ever around it with loads of other fics.

My favourites being written by @/fruitcoops

Who may or may not also be athenowl

Their fics are just crazy good okay.

[firstprince-ao3feed]

You and I Will Always Belong

by that_was_tedious Alex: i’ve got to be 100% honest here i made this dating profile last night with my best friend when we were drunk as hell and up until about five minutes ago my bisexuality was completely theoretical like god damn man i’m not convinced you’re not a catfish Or: Alex downloads a dating app, fills it out while drunk with Nora, and finds the love of his life purely by accident. Words: 5359, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English Series: Part 4 of RWRB Social Media AU's Fandoms: Red White & Royal Blue - Casey McQuiston, Red White & Royal Blue (2023) Rating: Mature Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Categories: M/M Characters: Alex Claremont-Diaz, Henry Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor, Nora Holleran, June Claremont-Diaz Relationships: Alex Claremont-Diaz/Henry Fox-Mountchristen-Windsor Additional Tags: Texting, Alternate Universe, Soulmates, it's not explicitly stated, But it's there, Banter, Falling In Love, Alex Claremont-Diaz Has Abandonment Issues, that one snuck in there by accident oops, Alternate Universe - Online Dating, Kinda, Bisexual Disaster Alex Claremont-Diaz, Just a little bit as a treat, Nora is a chaos demon and we love her, Sexting, Insecurity, it's not crack but it's also not not crack, Humor, Fluff, they're just being cute okay, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, no beta we die like alex's heterosexuality, alex texts with no caps like the bisexual he is, Tags May Change, this may get mildly smutty via https://ift.tt/dNZW2ex

[thosesillylittlegayghosts]

Ok but I’m actually loving these insta accounts mainly for the comments? It’s literally a rwrb social media au at this point

[wrongcaitlyn]

Do you have any fame aus or anything else that inspired you for the dear reader series?

no fame au's, unfortunately :( i am a BIG fan of fame au's, however, so i do have some recs! but the inspiration for dear reader was largely just me listening to my music and forming an au around it - one playlist turned into two, which turned into seven, which turned into 16, etc - and then i had a full au plot in my head😭

but for recs!! i bookmark pretty much every fame au i read just because i love them so much. they're definitely my niche i just cannot stop putting these people on red carpets - and it's always been this waySDKJF

you'd be paranoid too (if everyone was out to get you) by harrowhark is a catradora fame au (popstar!catra) and it was one of the first fics i ever read on ao3 and literally changed my brain chemistry. now this was like 3-4 years ago, so it's been a while since i've read it, even though when i was in my shera hyperfixation i re-read it like six times i think - if you ARE a shera fan, i would 100% recommend this one, i still remember how incredible it was! did it inspire the dear reader-verse specifically? no, they're very different in terms of plot/characters, but i feel like if i'm talking about fics that inspired me this one's essential😭

everyone wake up new jinx album just dropped by Drindrak is similar to the first one in that it is a fame au that just made me love the trope so much, even though it is much more crack than angst, unlike you'd be paranoid😭it's an arcane fic where jinx... becomes a popstar? except it's like, set in runeterra and vi is still in jail and all of that. like. I DONT KNOW HOW TO EXPLAIN HOW MUCH I FUCKING LOVE ITSKDF i swear i just love a good crack fic every now and then, and this did it WITH fame?? i love. and so yeah, looking back on it, i actually do think it inspired dear reader a bit in the way that jinx was absolutely chaotic (will i ever stop on the jinx nico parallels? i wrote a goddamn solangelo timebomb au already but i'm still going to be pointing it out)

he was seen on occasion (pacing the rocks, staring out at the midnight sea) by stargirltv is a solangelo fame au!! and i know that i already rec'd it. but like. you have to know how much i LOVE this fic and though, once again, the plots are pretty different - but also similar in the sense of the character dynamics! so yeah tbh i'd say i probably did, unintentionally, take a lot of inspo from this, just because i do love it so much, and it was one of the only fame au's for solangelo that i had read (i've read much more now, ofc, seeing as i stalk the fame and social media tags like a hawk)

and then the last thing i feel like i have to mention when talking about the inspiration for this fic is the book, red white and royal blue. i think i mentioned in the first chapter of talk your talk's end note that this entire au?? started off as a rwrb crossover in my head. nico's age was calculated with alex's in mind. will going to college at nyu was because i originally planned for alex and him to idk meet at a class or smth. cecil was originally a law student (another ironic thing for a child of hermes, and yet i ended up making him work towards cyber security lmfao) just so he could somehow become friends with alex. i was fully emerged in this universe where somehow these friend groups collided, and i fully orchestrated nico as a popstar just so that they'd have double the fandoms to go crazy about it. so does it really have to do anything with rwrb in terms of plot?? no, but alex and henry are entirely to thank for this!!!😭

i know that i kind of took a bit of a strange route for a popstar au in talk your talk so it doesn't really match the usual trope? like person is already famous -> meets someone, either famous or not -> fight to get together bc of the press -> some sort of leaked photo of them -> they choose each other in the end. and dont get me wrong, i will eat up that trope any day, but i do really like what i did with talk your talk! i love any form of fame au, and so it's always just fun to see different spins on the common tropes :)

thank you for the ask!!

[emmalostinwonderland]

Fic authors self rec! When you get this, reply with your favorite five fics that you've written, then pass on to at least five other writers. Spread the self-love ❤

Thank you, Chrissy! Y'all go check out their work while you're at it, it's so lovely. Anyway, in no particular order...

never been so weak (never felt so incomplete) / RWRB, Alex/Henry, 11.7k words, rated E

This was experimental for me in a lot of ways, and I think it's one of the best getting-together fics I've ever written. I got to explore the punk scene a little (though the music referenced ended up being more generically "alt", which is what I listen to), as well as looking for ways to tell multiple perspectives from a Third Person Limited style which is how the notes and the song lyrics came to be. If you read it and like it, check out the wonderful 'inspired by' works at the bottom - Chrissy made me a gorgeous playlist and LK did some stunning fanart of punk!Henry.

Butterflies and Tummy Aches / Alex/Henry, 16.6k words (WIP), rated E

This was heavily inspired by How to Fuck With (and Feed) Your Soulmate though I do think I've led the premise somewhat off the rails by now lol. This fic has been such a blast to work on (until I got stuck - I promise the next chapter is coming, it's like half written), especially with the included social media posts and other images. If you enjoy this one, keep an eye out for... well, the remaining few chapters, but also a podfic coming out sometime after it's actually completed (s/o to Fandom Trumps Hate!)

The Hazards of Falling In Love (Rescue Me) / MCU, Steve/Tony, 4k words, rated T

This was a pinch hit, so it came together very suddenly and very quickly, but it's so special to me. I got to share a lot of my own life experience through this with my chosen career and how that bleeds into other parts of my life. I had just had my first major Signal 1 (officer in trouble) incident a couple weeks before writing this, and I took some time in the middle to get emotional with it and really sit with that. It was healing for me in a way, and I think it made for a better story too. If you like Firefighter AUs, meet-weirds, or coworkers-to-lovers fics, I do recommend this one.

Judged By The Cover / MCU, Steve/Bucky, 32.1k words, rated E

My first writing collab! LK and I had worked together on Hold Me Steady with them doing the art, and we decided that we couldn't just part ways after that. For this one, they wrote all of Bucky's POV, and I did Steve's POV. It's really cute, and even though my writing style has changed somewhat since then, I'm very proud of this fic. If you like non-powers AUs with a dash of miscommunication, you might like this.

Doing It the French (Fry) Way / RWRB, Alex/Henry, 2.7k words, rated E

This is... the dumbest concept I've ever put to paper. Two boys being boys with their sexual food-related shenanigans. But it was so fucking fun to write, and I will never forget the shock and joy of waking up to over 30 comments on it in the first 12 hours. I actually commissioned fanart for it that I need to post as well, so maybe this will get an update real soon!

[melisnonstop]

📲 𝚃𝚊𝚒𝚕𝚜, 𝚃𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚝𝚜, & 𝚃𝚎𝚡𝚝𝚜 🐶 (1/2)

[rmd-writes]

Fic Rec Friday

@welcometololaland and @three-drink-amy tagged me to recommend a fic I’ve read recently and like Lola, I’m gonna cheat and rec one from each fandom:

RWRB

and history remembered. by @sherryvalli - this is a retelling of the book via social media and it is such creative and cleverly written take on both the story and fandom, I’m obsessed with it.

Lonestar

The knave of hearts, he stole the tarts (and the sequel) by @liminalmemories21 - an art heist AU featuring alleged art thief!TK and Detective Reyes, impeccable characterisation, a compelling plot, and of course, our faves falling in love (with so much tension along the way).

Schitt’s Creek

Believe in Tomorrow by @mostlyinthemorning because no one writes magical realism like Houdini does, and this exes to lovers AU is deliciously angsty, with a sweet and sexy happy ending.

What have you been reading lately @celeritas2997 @ramonaflow @maxbegone @stereopticons @hippolotamus @treluna4 @goodways @pragmatic-optimist @reyescarlos @sunshinestrand @firstprince-history-huh @statueinthestonetoo @cha-melodius @everwitch-magiks @clottedcreamfudge @mostlyinthemorning @liminalmemories21 @likerealpeopledo-on-ao3 ?

[waybeforeyourtime]

Since you're a dinosaur and have been in many fandoms (I think) can you share some things about the Young Royals fandom that are similar to other fandoms, and some things about it that are unique? YR is my only fandom ever and always I'm so curious about how it compares to others. 💜

I started WAY back when in LJ Harry Potter fandom. Then Torchwood, Merlin, RWRB, and TRC (The Raven Cycle book series).

Things that are the same:

getting super excited over every little thing

diving into the culture from the show - learning the language, visiting the locations, etc.

making friends from all over

loving fanfic and edits

making a fanfic its own fandom

stan wars - which character/actor is better. In YR, I don't see that on tumblr as much (but I've blocked anyone who exhibits that behavior). I hear rumblings of it from twitter and tiktok.

analyzing the smallest detail to reveal future canon.

analyzing it so much that you make predictions and then feel let down when those predictions don't happen.

entitlement: turning on the creators when you don't get what you want - then calling it bad writing.

stalking actors, digging into their social media through friends.

There's not much in the behavior or culture of YR that I find that much different than the other fandoms.

Fanart doesn't seem to be as widely regard here as some of my other fandoms. People went wild for it.

People on the most part here on tumblr are really much more chill than other yr fandom spaces.

Overall, the fandom seems to be cool too with fanfic in general. A lot of fandoms people like to police what other people are writing/reading or be judgey about it. Or they're super militant about characterization, hating AUs, etc.

Hope that answered your question!

[rockyroadkylers]

Weekend WIP game

Rules: List your WIPs below (if you only write one fic at a time, feel free to include future WIPs/ideas!) then answer the following questions. Then, tag as many people as you have WIPs (or more).

Thank you @happiness-of-the-pursuit for tagging me! (technically you tagged my main, @mainstreamelectricalparade, but this is my RWRB blog, so I'm responding here, LOL)

1. WIP List:

(bolding stuff I'm actively working on, since now that I've finished my current project, most of these are still in the very early stages 😂)

It's Nice to Have a Friend sequel (canon-divergent childhood friends-to-lovers AU)

INTHAF tabloid/social media companion fic

Actor AU enemies-to-friends-to-lovers (child actor Alex, non-actor Henry, technically)

the Bond AU (actually also an actor AU where Henry has the opportunity to follow in his father's footsteps and be the next generation's James Bond... but so does Alex 👀)

Tangled AU (Henry is Rapunzel, Alex is Flynn, you can guess where that's going)

I technically have other WIPs, but they're from a different fandom and thinking about them doesn't really spark joy right now, so I'm not going to include them here 😅

2. Which of your WIPs is currently the longest?

Um... I think the child actor Alex outline is currently longer than any of the others, and I have the opening scene written for it, so I'll say that one 😂

3. Which WIP do you expect will end up the longest?

Ooh... at this stage, it's so hard to tell! It could honestly be any of them, I haven't even started working on some of them properly, yet, so I have no idea if they'll be oneshots or fully-fledged longfics. Currently, my best guess would be the sequel for the childhood friends AU, but... that could change.

4. Which WIP is your favourite to write/the most enjoyable to write? Why?

I wouldn't say I have a favorite, yet... I've done the most outlining for the child actor Alex AU, just because we had a full-on conversation about it in the server, so a lot of the hard work was done for me 😂 I'm joking, obviously, I still have a lot of work to do, but the server gave me some great ideas, so I'm very excited about that fic. A close second is the childhood friends sequel, though, because that AU is my baby <3

5. Which WIP do you find the most intimidating to write? Why?

Hmm... A little nervous about the Tangled AU, maybe? I'm not sure why, I just find fics based on movies to be difficult, because I want to stay true to the story, but also make put my own spin on it and make it just different enough that it's not, like, an exact replica. I also have to find ways to work around the scenes with singing and dancing in them 😂 but that will be the easy part, tbh.

6. Which WIP do you experience the most self-doubt about. Why?

Maybe the childhood friends AU tabloid/social media fic? I've never really done anything like it before. I have to come up with a whole bunch of headlines, write excerpts of news articles, make social media posts, and tie them all together neatly in a cohesive timeline that ties into the original fic. I've maybe bitten off more than I can chew, but there's no pressure to get anything posted before I'm ready! I think people are more excited for the sequel, anyway 🤭

7. Which of your WIPs will you seek out a beta/sensitivity reader for? Why?

Umm... I might not get a full-on beta, but the sequel for the childhood friends AU isn't just going to be about Alex and Henry's budding romantic relationship, it's also going to be continuing to deal with topics such as the aftermath of Arthur's death, Bea's experience with rehab, Henry starting therapy, and so on, so I'll probably ask some friends from the server to check some stuff over if there's anything I'm not sure about.

8. Have any of your WIPs been struck by the curse of writer's block?

Technically, no, because I've barely gotten started on any of them 😂

9. Which WIP has your favourite OC? Tell us about them?

None of my WIPs have OCs, yet (though I imagine that will change once I really get into the actual writing), but my fully-posted fic, It's Nice to Have a Friend, has two: Robert, Catherine's equerry, and Judy, the head cook at Kensington Palace. I love them both, tbh, a mother could never choose a favorite child 😊

10. Which WIP is the sexiest?

lmao, I don't write sexy stuff 😂 The sexiest thing I've ever written is a brief moment in the epilogue of It's Nice to Have a Friend, where I blink-and-you-miss-it implied that Alex and Henry had sex after getting engaged 😂

11. Which WIP is the angstiest?

That's probably gonna be the sequel 😅 I'm gonna make it as fluffy as I can, but it's gonna be an immediate continuation following chapter 10 of It's Nice to Have a Friend, which means long distance. Plus, like I said in question 7, Henry's still got his grief and Bea's recovery to work through, so it's not going to be the smoothest ride.

12. Which WIP has the best characterisation (in your humble opinion)?

There's no way not to make this sound like a humble brag but I've gotten a lot of comments on It's Nice to Have a Friend that have told me my characterizations are really good, so assuming I'm consistent in the sequel, that will probably remain true there, as well. Although, the two enemies to lovers AUs I have... I don't have any interactions between the boys written down for either of those fics, yet, but that's pretty on-brand for them 😂

13. Which WIP has the best scene setting (in your humble opinion)?

Uhhh... not entirely sure what this means 😅 Like, overall universe setting, or like a specific scene? I think either way I'm gonna have to go with the childhood friends AU, because I'm just completely in love with it. I can't help it, that AU is my baby 😂 Although I am getting super into the child actor Alex AU, as well!!!

14. Which WIP have you worked the hardest on?

DEFINITELY the childhood friends AU! I spent five weeks writing the original fic, and I've been thinking about a sequel for at least two. I only started actually outlining it after I finished writing the first one, but there's no way I can say I've worked harder on anything else, even though the original fic and the sequel are technically two separate fics.

15. Which WIP do you have the highest expectations for? Why?

The sequel 😂 I can't help it, It's Nice to Have a Friend is the fic that made me fall back in love with writing, and I'm positive that the sequel will continue that legacy. Although I'm feeling really good about the way the child actor Alex AU is turning out, as well!

16. Do you dream about any of your WIPs?

Uh... maybe? Except, I couldn't really tell if it was just a vague, generic Alex and Henry dream, or if I was actually dreaming about them in the childhood friends 'verse.....

17. Do any of your WIPs have particular complexities that your other fics don't?

Well, yeah, I mean, before I started writing for RWRB, I was almost exclusively a platonic fluff writer in the Iron Dad fandom (just check my Ao3 page 😂), so almost everything more complex than a toddler with an ear infection adds a new challenge for me, but I'm loving it, so far.

18. Which WIP is the funniest or has the most humour?

Uh... I'll get back to you on that when I actually have stuff written for any of them 😂 the Tangled AU will probably be pretty funny, though.

19. Do any of your WIPs contain outside POVs or a deep dive on a character other than the main ship? How are you finding that process?

Yeah! The child actor Alex AU will actually have a lot of Arthur's POV, because in that fic he kind of takes Alex under his wing, both as an acting mentor and as a sort of father figure when Alex needs someone to turn to in the wake of his parents' divorce, so you'll get to see a lot of Arthur's thoughts and feelings as Alex and Henry get to know each other.

20. Tell us one thing we don't know about one or more of your WIPs.

Um... one of the boys is gonna be a Bond Girl, and I'm not telling you which one.

A tag per WIP - I'm still relatively new to this fandom, so I don't know a ton of people's URLs yet, but I'll do my best!

@affectionatelyrs, @inexplicablymine, @read-and-write-, and um... I genuinely don't know anyone's URLs, so I'll just leave it open 😂 if you see this somehow and you're like, "hey, Ky, why didn't you tag ME?" I tagged you in my heart, I just don't know where to find you 😭

[dracomort]

Is there a reason why you dislike Red, White and Royal Blue?

Honestly, I read it and enjoyed most of it, but the ending I hated. But that's just me, I like fluff, but that ending was something else...

What is your gripe with the book?

RWRB fans keep scrolling. I'll try to keep it nice (post-writing edit: this was not kept nice) but I really disliked this book. I am also NOT AN AMERICAN and I think that makes the biggest impact on enjoyment of this book. If it were a romcom between a random American boy and British boy then I could critique it on its writing merit alone, but the choice of the author to engage with politics in such a brainless manner is really symptomatic of the cancer that is modern American liberalism.

Disclaimer: I did not finish this book. It's one of the only books I've ever DNF'd. I paid real monnies to buy the ebook. This waste of $15 is probably why I'm so bitter.

With RWRB it really comes down to four Ps:

Premise, pacing, prose

This is perhaps on me, but when you look at the blurb: "photos of a confrontation with his longtime nemesis Prince Henry at a royal wedding leak to the tabloids and threaten American/British relations. The plan for damage control: staging a fake friendship between the First Son and the Prince."

See now, to me, that premise reads as—fake friendship, enemies/rivals to lovers, where they slowly come to understand what they like about each other. From a narrative pacing perspective, I would expect to see this click for our protagonists at the midpoint or perhaps the climax. Certainly not them having a conversation and resolving all their differences within the first 10% of the book (hospital broom cupboard). It's been a couple years since I (attempted to) read this book, so correct me if I'm wrong, but I strongly feel that they went from hating each other—with no substance to that hate beyond a petty misunderstanding—to resolving their differences, to kissing and fucking, within the first 20% of the book. What is this pacing??

After that I realised that this book should've been pitched with a forbidden love/Romeo & Juliet premise, because clearly that was what the author was going for. I don't necessarily have an issue with that. It's just disappointing to me because it was misleading and I wasted my money on a book that's actual premise doesn't interest me in the slightest. I read romance primarily for the internal conflict within the relationship, not the external conflict, though having both is fab (e.g. Captive Prince).

I'm not quite sure anything happens in this book. The protagonists are 'enemies' for maybe 10 pages and then fuck for the rest of it?? I skipped pages and pages and pages of 'banter' between Alex and those girls, and politics that read like it'd been penned by a 12 year old, and somehow managed to miss nothing. I've never read a book where I could skip so many pages with it having so little material impact on my understanding of the narrative.

I also found the prose and dialogue very... 'aliens guess at the way humans speak based on a diet of nothing but mediocre social media themed fanfiction'. And I say this as a fic writer myself. There's a bunch of female characters that serve no purpose other that to cheerlead the main couple and be wholesome, flawless, quippy and supportive, because that's feminism, baby. I can't speak at length about the characters because I dropped the book pretty early on.

2. POLITICS

RWRB is very much a product of its time and its author's nationality. That it was written and published during the Trump administration is no surprise. I think, just as Cinderella (2021) will be a perfect specimen for future study of the hot mess that is 2020s liberal feminism, RWRB will serve the same for 'left-wing' democrat politics for the 2016-xx political landscape. It's an AU where a while, blonde female presidential candidate wins the election and leaked emails have no effect on the outcome of said election. Jee, I sure wonder who she's meant to be 🙄

I understand that this book was intended as a light-hearted romcom, a silly romance for readers to turn off their brains and enjoy the wholesomeness. But clearly I am not the target audience as I am incapable of turning off my brain under any circumstance, especially not when reading a book. I am also not a romance reader, nor much of a genre fiction reader. Again, not the target audience. I also do not think you get to introduce politics as one of the most prominent themes and then not have your book critiqued on its handling of that subject matter.

I am far too much of a political cynic to read about this wholesome good working-class American political family that hold all the right views and have no flaws. I was disappointed but not surprised as soon as I realised this was really gonna go for the pro-democrat lens. I'm too foreign to view that party as anything more than middling centrists and outright antagonists on the global stage. Perhaps some people enjoy reading books that put them in a fantasy lala land where everything is good and just in the world, but I think this sort of passive idealism is exactly why the USA is a conservative hellscape in the first place.

A goodreads review that articulates my thoughts well: "This is the most idealized, grotesque, good-versus-evil look at politics I have EVER SEEN. In this book, the Democrats are a rainbow-wearing gloriously diverse coalition of kumbaya-singing angels, and everyone else is a villain we won’t talk about. Democrats are 100% motivated purely by the love of Doing The Right Thing, and they have never done anything wrong, ever, in their lives. The American people love them implicitly and will turn historically red states blue just to show them that. It’s not only sickening, it’s damaging. DO NOT IDEALIZE POLITICIANS."

And even moving away from politics to just address the wealth and privilege of these characters who fly back and forth over the pond on private jets to see each other... like, I don't have an issue with rich MCs (tbh Henry should be exactly my fave type), but I do have an issue with the desperate, self-aware attempts the author makes to keep things 'progressive'. Yeah, sure the characters lampshade their privilege. But these themes are not engaged with in any meaningful way, to the point where I wish they'd been excluded entirely. If you're going to write a book about the top 0.000001%'s issues, at least be unapologetic about it. If you keep mentioning privilege but do nothing about it then it feels hollow and insincere. I have nothing but contempt for philanthropy, so don't get me started on that.

Bonus: (not a P but) Anglophilia

As a foreigner from a culture closer to the UK than the US, the British fetishism vibes were pretty hilarious. I am certainly not gonna call it 'problematic' (I hate that word regardless). It's just cringe and excruciating to read. No one talks like that! No one. Not even the Prince of England.

Edit: this goodreads reviewer really gets it

[benwvatt]

🍊🍍

thank you so much for the fanfic ask prompts!

🍊 Who’s a character you don’t write for that often, but keep meaning to write for more? (They’re so interesting! But maybe you have trouble pinning them down, or keep getting distracted by another blorbo…)

look, this might make me sound terrible, but as much as I treasure platonic love in my own life, I am terrible at writing it in fanfic. As a fic writer, I want to be validated, and that means writing for two (2) characters in a main romantic relationship in a relatively large fandom so I can get feedback and be understood as a writer. It's a terrible system, yes, and I still do it.

So, characters I want to write more about: Imogen Heaney, June and Nora from RWRB, all of the Murdoch Mysteries main crew, Ava and Deborah from Hacks, Tracy Stevens and Danielle Poole from For All Mankind, Parker and Sophie from Leverage... I have so many fic ideas and not enough time to write. And that's okay, I guess.

🍍 What kind of AUs do you like? Are there any AUs you hate or just generally have beef with?

Oh, thank you so much for asking me this!!! I love writing and reading almost all AUs - college, coffeeshop, fantasy, sci-fi, lawyer, professor, retail. I do have reservations about some AUs because they can be handled in ways that don't necessarily appeal to me (they aren't necessarily BAD, per se, but some AU aspects just aren't my thing.)

Like, I think high school AUs can be a bit melodramatic and hard to take seriously when I don't believe that this is how a teenager would act;

soulmate AUs can be a bit intense in terms of "I WOULD FIND YOU IN ANY UNIVERSE, I WOULD KNOW YOU, I COULD PICK YOU OUT OF A HAYSTACK" when the whole point of canon is often that someone wouldn't know you in any universe. The main character here was lucky to find their partner, but they're not magnets or drawn together by destiny;

social media / texting AUs can sometimes be written in ways that prioritize crazy disastrous moments and silliness over true character depth and growth (like, I love shenanigans, but your story can't JUST be yelling and chaos);

I also have such a moderate pet peeve for AUs that replicate the source material beat-for-beat, scene-for-scene, plot point for plot point.

The point of, like, a Cinderella AU is not to change the characters' names and appearances, substituting X for Cinderella and Y for Prince Charming, swapping one person in for another. The point of a Cinderella AU is to write a transformative story that elevates the characters, provides character growth, and uses the themes/tone/worldbuilding of Cinderella to tell a complex story.

anyways, hope I'm not being too negative! Thank youuuu. Have a lovely day.