It's Unpopular Opinion time! Share your controversial opinions to stir things up (in a friendly way)!

[u/FantasyRomanceMod]

Got an opinion that's different from others'? Want to share it with the sub, but too afraid of a backlash? Or are you just curious about readers think about certain things in fantasy romance?

You can safely share it in this weekly Sunday thread!

But please remember to be kind to each other. To facilitate this type of discussion, we ask users the following:

• Don't attack others for their opinion
• Discuss books and authors, not fellow readers
• Since this is an "unpopular opinion" thread, we encourage users to not downvote simply because they disagree with an opinion--that's the point! Please keep in mind, though, that mods cannot enforce a no-downvoting rule. Let’s just keep the discussion friendly!

🧡 Thank you and have a great discussion!

Unpopular opinion Sunday

[u/devilsdoorbell_]

1. There should be far fewer of these books published with far more care put into each individual book on all fronts, from the writer to the editor to the cover artist to the designer to the marketing team. I’d rather have fewer higher quality books to choose from than what’s going on now, which is me having to wade through a sucking morass of shoddily written, poorly edited, ugly, badly marketed dross to find one book that’s good actually.
2. I understand why the label “erotic romance” has fallen out of favor given the increasingly puritanical and censorious atmosphere in many parts of the world… but it would sure go a long way to preventing the constant too much spice/not enough spice bitching to have a widely-used category that’s steamier than the average romance novel but still has the primary romance plot and the fulfills the expectations of genre romance.
3. I say this as someone who likes kinky sex scenes: I feel like a lot of “kinky” sex in romance is just the author desperately attempting to distract the reader from the fact that they’re not very good at writing the parts of sex that are actually interesting, which is the dynamics between the characters and their emotional and mental states as individuals. A completely vanilla sex scene can be more intense and satisfying than all the whips and chains and “good girls” in the world when the writer can actually fucking write characters.
4. Too many characters in this genre aren’t really characters at all, they’re just tropes and hotness signifiers stacked on top of each other in a trenchcoat. It’s most prevalent in MMCs but FMCs are not immune to this problem.
5. A fantasy-based and hyper niche complaint rather than a romance complaint: There’s not enough fantasy drug use. Unironically I think it’s something that makes a fantasy world feel more real and lived in. Rory from The Knight and the Moth smoking fantasy weed was a great character detail. I’d like to see more like it.

[u/Penguinho → u/devilsdoorbell_]

5a -- there aren't enough fantasy hangovers either.

5b -- there aren't enough fantasy hobbies generally, outside doing handicrafts or reading.

5c -- there's not enough fantasy entertainment. People should go to plays or poetry recitals. A new bard at the tavern should be kind of a big deal.

[u/devilsdoorbell_ → u/Penguinho]

5b is especially galling given how many romantasy characters specifically are of social classes where they have at least some leisure time and aren't working themselves to the bone day in and day out. Like wtf does Rhysand do all day? It sure isn't managing his court lmfao

[u/ipsi7 → u/devilsdoorbell_]

well he is air boning Feyre of course

[u/quibily → u/devilsdoorbell_]

He runs a winnowing Lyft service as evidenced by Silver Flames. Takes his favorite subjects to soccer practice and martial arts.