Stepping back from the House of Windsor

On Prince William fanfiction, Anglophilia, the Crown, and obsolescence of royalty

My obsession with Prince William developed in 2002. He was a 20-year-old ruddy-cheeked heartthrob, newly back from his gap year. I was a bespectacled acne-plagued 13-year-old recovering from the hurt of not being invited to my crush’s bar mitzvah. I had a healthy imagination and no romantic prospects—until one lazy day during the summer between seventh …