#theyre disasters💗

[yuukei-yikes]

im thinking about domestic harutaka

[folatefangirl]

On The Darkest Corner of the Heart

A comment on how Booktwt, Booklr, and Booktok media reactivity has lost the plot

Or, I think y'all need to log off and touch some grass and think about your actions for a hot minute. Note: This rant is a tad long, because I'm fucking pissed.

Disclaimer 1: I don't personally know the author of this book or anyone screenshotted in the drama. We aren't friends. I have no reason to either defend nor criticize these people, except for the fact that I've been a primary reader of self-pub and indie books for almost a decade now, and yes, including romances that some people don't consider worthy of civility. I'm also a queer healthcare worker.

Disclaimer 2: I don't want anyone mentioned/screenshotted here to be spammed with hate. Please do NOT contact them, including any authors mentioned. I included the primary actors for the current drama primarily so people don't claim I'm talking out of my ass.

Book blurb:

Forbidden. That's what they are to each other. Maddie Stevens has never felt good enough. Not good enough to keep her parents’ love. Not good enough to be independent and stop being her brother’s problem. Not good enough to build the future she wants. When she injures her ankle before a ballet audition that could change her career forever, she’s convinced her life is over at twenty-one. What’s the point of having dreams when they can go down the drain at any moment? And because the universe has a cruel sense of humor, her physical therapist turns out to be a tank-shaped grouch who doesn’t even seem to like her that much. It’s totally unfair that, for six weeks, she’s forced to look at that handsome beard and listen to that deep voice that makes her head all dizzy. Top that with the fact that he’s ten years her senior, and falling for James Simmons is a recipe for disaster. But when their forced proximity makes the lines start blurring, the forbidden temptation becomes impossible to resist.

The Timeline:

Events preceding 2023: Lisina Coney, author of The Darkest Corner of the Heart, was born in 1999 in northern Spain. She worked as a translator prior to publishing books.

Initially I thought these books were only self-published, but in fact are published under the formerly indie publisher Page & Vine, founded by romance novelist Meredith Wild.

January 27th, 2023: The Brightest Light of Sunshine is published by nearly 24-year-old Lisina Coney. On Goodreads, it currently sits at 3.87 stars as of today, February 10th, 2024, with 27,727 ratings and 3,592 reviews. Note: For a small-time author, especially for a debut novel, these numbers are huge.

May 2023, Page & Vine announced that Big 5 publisher Simon & Schuster would distribute their books as an imprint beginning in summer 2023.

In mid-to-late 2023, Lisina's website and socials announced The Darkest Corner of the Heart, her second novel to be published with Page & Vine on February 20th, 2024. Note: This means the events below occurred BEFORE the book's publication.

February 5th, 2024: anaborbareads on Twitter/X posts the cover and other art of Darkest Corner with the text, "a forbidden romance between ballerina and physical therapist???? pls i need this book now 🥺✨💗🫶🏻"

February 6th, 2024: h0mmelette on Twitter/X responds to anaborareads with "the booktok genre of forbidden romance is hilarious. theyre straight… whats forbidden"

February 6th, 2024: a tumblr user reposts the twitter thread from above to tumblr. Other tumblr users reblog and add on, and it quickly goes viral.

February 7th, 2024: From what I can tell via reverse image searching, the first iteration of the fake ARC page that's going around appears to be from Twitter/X user queef1ng. About 4 hours later, the same fake ARC page was reposted on the tumblr post mentioned above. And from here, this story takes a turn from people wanting to feel like they're above a romance novel writer to potential legal territory.

Of the 122 ratings on Goodreads for Darkest Corner to date, 9 appear to be 1-star reviews and from what I can tell, most/all of them were only published since the events began on 06Feb2024. 71 are 5-stars and while some of those are ARC readers, many newer ones appear to be trying to counteract the review bombing from the fake ARC page.

As of today, February 10th, 2024, it looks like the book will still be published on February 20th as planned, but we'll see.

Wait, so how do you know the page is fake?

I can't believe people have been so gullible but fine, here's my analysis:

Lisina's real ARC readers have stated that it isn't from the book (not gonna document all of them in the screenshots but you can easily go to the book's GR page and see the ARC reviews there).

As other folks pointed out on the tumblr repost, no real ARC page does a weird review watermark like that. Speaking from my own experience in reviewing ARCs or beta-reading, I agree.

The font tipped me off because it looked like it had literally been written on a Fanfiction.Net page. Not that Verdana, font size 10, is unique to FFN, but it looks like fanfiction typed font. Which brings me to:

Literally how could you believe this author writes like this? You can read her website or preview her first book or just have the bare minimum common sense to understand what satire looks like. If you don't believe me (because I know framing a post like this will put a lot of people on the defensive), I've also included screenshots below. The prose and dialogue are COMPLETELY different from the alleged screenshot. The only thing that is similar is that both characters are ballerinas.

But wait, all of this doesn't explain why YOU, Cinnia, are so pissed about this?

You're completely right! It really doesn't. All of the above is mostly documentation so the naysayers can't say I'm just some silly fangirl of the author.

The initial premise of the drama is that you can't have "forbidden love" in an m/f relationship. First of all, William Shakespeare would like to have a word with you regarding Romeo and Juliet. Second of all, yes you fucking can. See also: Religious and cultural differences and human history for a starting point. I know it may be hard to touch grass and look at media that is not tumblr queer media-centric and understand that people who are NOT you might enjoy it very much. Note that I'm a queer person saying this and I do read or watch m/f media at times because I don't like limiting myself. Go watch Bajirao Mastani and enjoy one of the most beautiful movies about forbidden love ever produced.

The book itself falls into the medical romance subgenre. For those not familiar, these are romances (usually m/f) that often involve a healthcare worker and their patient. In the real world, where people touch grass, a healthcare worker like me having a relationship with their patient is such a huge ethical violation that it will get you fired. In Darkest Corner, James is Maddie's physical therapist because she's a ballerina with a sports injury and he is treating her. Ergo, it is forbidden for them to get together and the initial premise for mocking this book is on very shaky ground.

In fact, I'd go as far as to say that the folks mocking it seem to very likely not be familiar with romance novels and their subgenres at all, or else they'd be well aware of the concept of straight romances marketed as a "forbidden romance" because they're fucking everywhere on any place that sells romance books. I have a personal collection of over 14,500 kindle ebooks. While not all of those are romances, a good chunk of them are, so I think I can count myself as a bit of a source here, you know?

The fake screenshot and social media drama has spread to at least Twitter, Tumblr, and BookTok, which all have huge reader hobbyists. For a small-time author barely past her debut novel's publication, allegations of this sort tied to your author name and book titles can last on the internet and in web searches for a long, long time, hurting an author's career. Maybe you're like "boohoo, who cares about their careers, I pirate all my fiction books anyway" and well, a post like this was probably never going to convince you of anything. I'm talking to the folks who might still have a sense of shame and self-reflection. Authors, even authors tied to a Big 5's imprint, earn peanuts. This sort of manufactured "scandal" is not ideal when the book is weeks away from being published. In fact, if the book has fewer sales than the first book in the series, Simon & Schuster may have legal grounds to go after the person who made the fake screenshot. A smarter person would have kept that to the groupchat or posted it as a clearly marked fanfic on AO3.

As a reader, this also sucks because when shit like this happens, the reviews of a book are permanently biased by both the bombers and the fans of the author, no matter how good or bad the book ends up being. Do I know if this book will be a 1-star or 5-star now, based on the reviews? Nope. Will I read it? No, because I don't read medical romances as it's a squick for me. But I may read her first book, which has mercifully escaped most of the social media nonsense.

This isn't the first time booktwt/booktok/booklr has engaged in a similar mob mentality towards books they don't like and I doubt it'll be the last. See Blood Heir by Amélie Wen Zhao and the allegations that turned out to be false then, too. However, I would like to ask y'all to please check your sources and not blindly accept what someone says on social media as truth. Get used to doing the research because manufactured misinformation is everywhere, and it's not gonna get better. (And for fuck's sake, not everyone is gonna like the same books and fandoms you like! It's not illegal to enjoy reading different things!)

Screenshots/Evidence (click for better resolution):

[firearmsandflashdrives]

this line from a paste interview w john darnielle is also soo merrilycoded btw. in both good thing going and gussie's opening number the characters sing songs that describe the shapes their relationships will later take on, but they are incapable of interpreting the numbers as warnings <3 and theyre also unable to see how the words to/sentiments of the non-diagetic songs will later be twisted back on them (not a day goes by, old friends, our time, etc). the question is not really "what was the moment" but WAS there a moment where disaster could have been averted, and merrily toys with this by adding several moments where characters seem to be about to reconcile/open up before outside circumstances intervene (mary before frank's first wedding, his conversation with beth after divorce court, frank planning on seeing mary and charley before gussie enters after the boat, etc) but truly i don't think the implication is that any of these moments could have been the one but rather that none of them could have. in all the scenes where the characters really do get time to discuss things with each other all they do is repeat their patterns and make the same poor choices (old friends, now you know). i find gussie's role particularly interesting in this case bc in growing up she truly does give him a choice--frank isn't forced to stay, she leaves and he follows. "you may have missed one road, but there's plenty more to follow"--in actuality, all missed roads lead to the same endpoint. u cannot escape. Hope this helps 💗

[theluckyr]

Hello friend! Was wondering if you'd have some time for another request of mine?

Could you maybe do your precious self aware au, where gn reader is playing Val and theyre silently watching without reader knowing, and reader is topfragging and they just got an ace. How would they react, and how would reader react to them watching?

Please take all the time you need, dont rush :)

Characters - Yoru, and whoever you want.

Remember to take care of yourself and eat well~!

I know who you are, no need to hide btw

Clean Sweep

Yoru

Whenever (y/n) choose him, he can only sense something stupid and disaster might happened to both of them.

But boy oh boy, he was wrong.

This time, they made his movement stiff to act like his decoy.

And the enemies didn't even shoot him. Not a single bullet grazed his body.

When they moved far enough, they went in for the kill. All five of them.

“MY VERY FIRST ACE AS A DUELIST, WOO!!!” they yelled in happiness

Yoru were impressed (so you do have some strats) and in the next round, he gave (y/n) some “helping hand” From where to use his gatecrash and blindside. Then won and be the match MVP.

If (y/n)’s ace were recorded and posted on the internet, He will be very smug about it while his friends were seething in anger.

To celebrate (y/n)’s first ace, he sent them the infamous stylish butterfly comb melee himself with his message left on the chat.

“Not bad, good job"

Cypher

You know where to put his wires and cage really melt his heart and just go 🤍🖤💜💙💚❤️💗♥️💛💞💓💙💘💙💘💗💘🤍💞💓💗💚💟❣️💚💘💗💓💘🤍🤎💝💜💗💘💜💘🤎💝💕

So, time to play the waiting game.

When the enemy fell into his traps, they would go for the kill.

While the last enemy to defuse the spike, (y/n) sneaked behind them then greeted them before shooting them.

He really try not to laugh and (y/n) making it hard to do it.

Overall, very proud of you.

Reyna

If (y/n) was saving in a few rounds for operator, that means business.

Just right when (y/n) entry, they immediately kill enemy on haven.

To witness (y/n) run around, quick scoping the enemies with was impressive but at the same time terrifying for the enemy team.

After a few more rounds, the enemy team surrendered which it was a relief.

“Phew… Thank God it was on compe, I’m back on Silver!”

If (y/n) decide to queue up for compe again, she will instalock herself to (y/n). If someone talks thrash on comm or calls them out on the chat for instalock her. So what? Cry about it.

[mythandlaur]

EE Week - Day 5

POTENTIAL MAJOR SPOILERS. Though everyone is only referred to with nicknames, this features Bliss Ocean members who have not yet been officially introduced, including the boss. This is also why I'm posting this in the AC tag instead. Read at your own risk!

--

TOTALLY UNSUSPICIOUS SERVER THAT DOES NOT CONTAIN ANY EVIL PLANS WHATSOEVER

User List:

SUPREME SERVER EMPRESS -- 1 SALLY FINKLESTEIN!!

Boss -- 1 Lethe

Online -- 3 💗💖Aphrodite💖💗 boudica Sundance🔆

Offline -- 1 Mercedes (always set to invisible)

-- SUNDAY - 12:16 PM --

Mercedes: I saw the news. Mercedes: I leave you people alone for a week. Mercedes: One. Week.

SALLY FINKLESTEIN!!: is somebody talking????? i cant see their messages!!!!

Mercedes: I know you don't actually have me blocked.

SALLY FINKLESTEIN!!: wow theyre still going i bet theyre saying something reallllllll stupid rn lolll

Lethe: The museum? Lethe: I can assure you that was not us. I would not have authorized that; I am not yet completely insane

SALLY FINKLESTEIN!!: bet

Lethe: Please.

SALLY FINKLESTEIN!!: pbfffffth

💗💖Aphrodite💖💗: wait what news 💗💖Aphrodite💖💗: 🍵🍵🍵 💗💖Aphrodite💖💗: gimme~

Mercedes: Where have you been? It's everywhere.

💗💖Aphrodite💖💗: I'm in the inspiration zone 📝

Sundance🔆: sittin on the couch with a tub of icecream watching shitty romcoms ?

💗💖Aphrodite💖💗: You shut your mouth >:(

Mercedes: The Arsene Amulet was stolen from the Sweet Jazz Museum last night.

💗💖Aphrodite💖💗: Wait the epithet stealing one?

Lethe: The very same.

💗💖Aphrodite💖💗: ;ooooo

Mercedes: I know the Banzais wound up getting it but I assumed the independent inscribed there might've been ours.

boudica: no

Mercedes: I wasn't going to say anything.

boudica: better not

Lethe: No, they were not ours, and in fact we're trying to get the amulet to safety as soon as possible. I've got our best on that.

Mercedes: Oh no.

Sundance🔆: oh yes

SALLY FINKLESTEIN!!: OH OH LET ME SEND YOU THE PICTURES I TOOK A BUNCH

💗💖Aphrodite💖💗: You were there?

SALLY FINKLESTEIN!!: YEAH LIKE THE WHOLE TIME benefits of not sleeping roflmao

Mercedes: What happened?

SALLY FINKLESTEIN!!: what are these phantom messages on my screen oOOOooOo

boudica: tell me what happened boudica: now

SALLY FINKLESTEIN!!: SO BASICALLY a couple chuckleheads were faking being staff to steal the amulet because i guess one of their epithets sucks??? And they wanted a different one???? But also the banzai blasters showed up to steal other stuff and this poindexter kid wanted to study the amulet and then this other kid was locked in and chucklehead 1 and 2 wanted to steal her powers and it turned into a whole Thing SALLY FINKLESTEIN!!: a guy thought he was a car and there was a big cow and everything was on fire a couple times and a bunch of walls came down and i think they broke a dinosaur

boudica: of FUCKING course

[ boudica is offline. ]

SALLY FINKLESTEIN!!: omg did she throw her phone again

Sundance🔆: nah aint heard nothing from my room Sundance🔆: think shes just sore

Lethe: It makes sense. Give her some time.

💗💖Aphrodite💖💗: That sounds so wild thoooooo god why this week of all times 😭😭

Mercedes: Because disaster never happens conveniently.

Lethe: It's not a disaster. It's being taken care of.

Sundance🔆: damn right

Mercedes: My mistake. Disaster in progress.

Sundance🔆: say that to my face bitch

SALLY FINKLESTEIN!!: FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT 👊👊👊

Lethe: That's enough you three

Sundance🔆: fiiiiiine Sundance🔆: anyway i should be gettin outta here on wed shouldnt take more than a day

Lethe: And you were told to keep it quiet if at all possible?

Sundance🔆: i mean i can try but this is me youre dealin with

Lethe: If at all possible.

Sundance🔆: yeah yeah yeah

💗💖Aphrodite💖💗: You GOTTA tell us how it goes ok

Mercedes: I'm sure we'll find out on the Thursday news.

Sundance🔆: you forget im the best there is Sundance🔆: people or jewelry i can hunt it down and quiet like too Sundance🔆: just usually less fun that way

💗💖Aphrodite💖💗: you got this b <333

Sundance🔆: thankyou kindly little lady

SALLY FINKLESTEIN!!: GET A ROOOOOOOOM

💗💖Aphrodite💖💗: You first ;)

SALLY FINKLESTEIN!!: OH MY GOD ITS NOT LIKE THAT

Lethe: It really isn't.

💗💖Aphrodite💖💗: No one SAID anything about you 😘

Lethe: Well! Lethe: I'm just saying Lethe: For her sake Lethe: This behavior is extremely unprofessional

Sundance🔆: would love to see boss' face right now

SALLY FINKLESTEIN!!: Full tomato

Sundance🔆: HA

[mosssbaby]

Once you get this you have to say five things you like about yourself, publicly. Then you have to send this to ten of your favorite followers! (Non-negotiable, positivity is cool~) ((sorry if these annoy u u can ignore if u like))

thank u bud!! okey five things i like ab myself are,,1. im a fuckin disaster but itscute (exhibit a; this fuckign POST2. my worm gf 🐛 @hunsets 3. im a ppl person!!! which i lov4. my bald ass non existent eyebrows bc it means i can draw them on differently every day its fun5. my chubby cheeks theyr so smushTHNK U I LOVE U 💗💓