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Ghostly Bree
@mostlybree.kitrocha.com

I did actually write out my personal opinion of the moving target that is romantasy, why it's not really a genre, and what the dividing line between fantasy romance & romantic fantasy is. Thank you for @cxorlando.bsky.social for letting me use this very professional & normal title. lol

reactormag.comBut Do They F*** The Dragon? An Oral History of Dragon Romance - ReactorWhether you like historicals or futuristics, our world or another, sweet or spicy, cozy or dark—someone has already written the dragon romance of your dreams.

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Sandy B. [threatening vaguely again]
@nebulousmenace.bsky.social

I have a question as a fan of "boring worldbuilding" myself: I sometimes read books that just kind of go "everyone knows what a witch is" and don't give any feel for what they can actually do. Is this 1) "wrong for me" books, 2) an eternal struggle, 3) author skill issue or 4) other?

Ghostly Bree
@mostlybree.kitrocha.com

I could not possibly tell you without reading the book, tbh. It depends on what the author is trying to do and whether or not they're accomplishing it, which is also completely separate from whether or not the book is for you, and complicated by SFF's awkwardly narrow definition of worldbuilding.

Sandy B. [threatening vaguely again]
@nebulousmenace.bsky.social

I cannot tell you the book even if I could find it, because I have a "Don't be mean to authors in public unless they didn't earn it*" rule. (I suspect we have a lot of agreement on worldbuilding- The Chocolate War has worldbuilding.) * Child of a bestselling author, actor-turned-writer, etc.

Ghostly Bree
@mostlybree.kitrocha.com

I wrote this several years ago and if anything the waters are just more muddy. LOL Unsurprising! Romantasy is not a genre, it's marketing metadata that everyone is fighting over because right now it feels like a money button.

Josh Berkus
@fuzzychef.org

Totally. I was looking through Tor's list of upcoming "romantasy" titles and recognized a few that don't have a romance in them at all.

Queer Speculative Fiction
@queerspecfic.bsky.social

I need everyone who recommends Gideon the Ninth as a romance to internalize this: "If you tell your average romance reader that they’re going to be reading a romance, and then deliver them romantic tragedy instead, the most polite thing they will do is curse your family to the ninth generation."