(for western writers and audiences) I think fantasy as a setting is easier to conjure on writing without doing any work worldbuilding, Fantasyland is a place most people can just imagine as Medieval Europe + elves and dragons or whatever. Scifi tends to be more particular about things I feel
The "Medieval Europe-part" also evokes history of courtly love, chivalry and fairy tales, where romance has been a crucial ingredient to begin with. Meanwhile sci-fi (and I might be wrong here, my scifi knowledge is limited) doesn't have any particular connection to romance. Quite the opposite.
yeah, while contemporary would be easiest to work with, fantasy in the way we commonly see it, really is just the past but there's an elf. And people love romanticizing the past in a way that you can't really do with the common idea of sci-fi. because the common idea of the future is that it sucks.
I think this is basically it, there isn't a single standardized generic sci-fi that you can set a sci-fi romance in, you have to take time to set the stage. Fantasy is the ideal setting for when you want to take everything for granted without having to think, and that's hetero romance in a nutshell
high brow answer is that fantasy is abstracted from our world and history, and nobody wants to live in this world. sci fi carries the baggage of our world. the REAL answer is because most folk want to get humped over a stump in a magical forest by a werewolf and not over a reactor core by a squid.
Firmly agree with this, on both ends of the explanation. I'd say fantasy has a broader base for converting someone's desires and fears into a more palatable read than sci-fi does.
That said, if done right there's robot girls in both so it's win-win for me
Because Science fiction separated itself from "weird tales" / "genre fiction" by explicitly becoming about Serious and rational things. So the genre had to force out things that exist contrary to rationalism.
Like Love, And Woman.
Fantasy is more popular than scifi in general by like a lot is probably a core one. Like there are popular scifis but fantasy in general across basically all mediums is more populous.
no idea but i can develop a crackpot theory zero to sixty in three seconds. hmmm. its the brainworms quotient. all writing by nature reveals something of the authors politics and beliefs, but scifi by its future view is more consumed by it than any other genre, thus sidelining or poisoning romance
Look I just REALLY like elves and fairies and vampires and stuff. I'd be very very happy to read about those in a sci-fi setting but it's much more rare
I think scifi has an audience that focuses on the kind of setting details that romance is more likely to play fast and loose with more than fantasy does (I think there is a certain gendered aspect to it, but also genre expectations where the same reader will approach the two genres differently.)
yeah, fair; on the other hand, many of the lesbians I know LOVE Ghost in the Shell (not a property much for romance, true, but 'the Major is hot' is a, haha, major aspect)
So interestingly, while there's a lot of angles on "the difference between sci-fi and Space Fantasy", something I keep coming down to is "40K's Space Elfs and Space Orks and Space Magic doesn't register as Elves and Orcs and Magic to a huge chunk of people, for a lot of reasons".
It's reductive, it feels weird, it's "people look at you funny when you call Star Wars that Space Wizards Series even though it's objectively true" territory, and on paper it feels like it SHOULD just map, but experientially it doesn't.
Funniest part is it pisses off sci-fi fans too, mind.
Likewise, and we aren't uncommon. I'm not claiming "almost everyone..." and I don't have the evidence to claim "a majority..." but I do have the experience to claim "a lot, a whole lot".
I think there's already a big pressure in what is considered "well done" scifi to entirely avoid romantic side plots that isn't really present in fantasy and that probably carries over to the more explicit romantic stories.
Okay, wrong answer, but I think it's because we don't have access to a word as ultracringe as 'romantasy'.
I mean, 'romanscifi'? 'Scimance'? They make romantasy look elegant.
(Much of straight scifi romance is of the 'primitive blue aliens abduct or purchase women to be breeding slaves' kind, which barely counts as science anything, lol.)
I think that might be a self selecting thing since your big into scifi and write scifi too cuz I know lots of fantasy lesbians but I also am into fantasy and do lots of fantasy work and stuff so ya know happens on my end too XD.
I wasn't into sci fi much and now i am and it is all your fault. Also I'm into nuns. Also your fault. And I'm into eggnancy, that one is on me actually, but y'know you could be doing some innovation in the sci fi space on that one, just sayin'
Vyria, this sounds like a call you need to take up- a scifi nun eggnancy toxic yuri epic novel. Bonus points if you can throw in mecha and the plotline of the odyssey with it.
For lesbians Sci-Fi may mean changes in how things work (specially structures of oppression ending), maybe new non-men beings to have relationships with, enough space to he away from and new cool/fun stuff to do.
Fantasy most of the time is just... a lot of structures of oppression we have already abolished are back. Men are everywhere, have a lot of positions of power and women must in some degree deal with them. A lot of the time lgbtq stuff is persecuted/discriminated against.
In some degree we can argue that "what we know about the past/present is easier overall to write for some people instead of imagining new stuff". Also "an irreal magic world may be easier to digest than a possible moral conundrum future to think about".
https://writerofweird.itch.io/rebecca-and-the-grinning-worm Rebecca and the Grinning Worm has a prominent lesbian romance; the former title character struggles with the death of her girlfriend but in the story finds new sapphic love (not with the latter title character, mind).
The romance is slow burn and great (although not necessarily central to the plot), but I would recommend A Memory Called Empire a bunch. The audiobook especially was really good.
Hot take: this particular kind of romance writing is a socially acceptable way to do plantation/antebellum race weirdness (one race kidnapped/subjugated by one that's superior physically). It's not problematic if their skin is green or blue instead of black or brown!
fantasy has less burden of explanation I think? like most people get fantasy off the bat cause 90% of the time its just euro castles tolkien elves and dragons. or modern fantasy its like “there’s vampires and werewolves” and people just fill in the rest with little urging from the text.
not always the case but in my experience people tend to expect a little more grounding in sci fi. a few more hows and whys, which can just as easily lose people.
The paranormal romance tropes that are huge with straight women audiences (woman is special, but man is powerful, misogynistic hierarchy is baked in) fold very neatly into the imaginary medieval British Isles everybody uses as a romantasy setting.
Sci-fi gets used as the more niche monsterfucking.
Imo because fantasy as a genre typically focuses more on escapism. There's obviously none-too-escapist fantasy and fluffy nonsense sci-fi, but largely sci-fi is a future-oriented genre whereas fantasy is usually kinda stasis-oriented
Meanwhile, my old version of my Spacefire universe. Space elves riding dragons armed with .50 machine guns into battle against human starfighters. For reasons.
Tho you cant fuck the dragons there either...
I mean you could try... but it would probably wouldn't end good....
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That said, if done right there's robot girls in both so it's win-win for me
Like Love, And Woman.
For more imagination though, there's so much you can do with aliens.
Funniest part is it pisses off sci-fi fans too, mind.
I'm a person who finds a lot of personal value in dark and high fantasy, but I also enjoy star wars and mass effect, etc.
I mean, 'romanscifi'? 'Scimance'? They make romantasy look elegant.
Sci-fi tends to look at all icky, and rationalist, and military.
My least favorite things.
Also i hold sci-fi responsible for the divorce from fantasy so there's that.
(quick, someone send me a year's supply of Vyvanse so I can actually write steadily again ;-; )
Sci-fi gets used as the more niche monsterfucking.
Tho you cant fuck the dragons there either...
I mean you could try... but it would probably wouldn't end good....