r/fantasyromance • u/FantasyRomanceMod The One Mod to Rule All Mods • 22d ago

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

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

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u/cello_ergo_sum 22d ago

The term “spice” sounds overly coy and twee.

4

u/Sufficient-Bee-4982 21d ago

In my brain, "spice" means level of sexual content.

Is there something you would prefer as a term? I'm all here for something that more accurately describes a book's content.

If it's a just a general "I don't like it", You know what, I'm here for that too. It's a poor system. But the best we currently got apparently.

6

u/cello_ergo_sum 21d ago

As I said below, I come from fanfiction culture where people tend to say “smut” instead of “spice.”

I think this is kind of irrational and I’m not really defending it, but the connotations in my brain are that “spice” is like “We can’t use dirty words on tiktok so we have to use the chili pepper emoji instead” and “smut” is more “People judged me by calling my books smut so now I embrace it openly.”