I worked at a library when I was a teen and I just remember all the romance novels looked the same, same storyline, same character types, just all the same stuff. Which is totally fine if that’s your thing, but it definitely is not my thing. When I first read Hunt the Stars, it showed me that romance isn’t all the same, that you can get good science fiction within a love story. I don’t read exclusively scifi romance, but it gets it my rotation fairly often now. I still do read primarily scifi though.

The backlash is real and feels misogynistic, but also real is the slop and ravenous fan bases

I totally get this. I’ve heard the Fourth Wing fan base gets crazy and the romantasy fan base in general is bad. I’ve heard of the drama in BookTok spaces and I want nothing to do with it. This is why I avoid pretty much all big fan bases of anything I truly enjoy, there’s always someone who will ruin it for me.

And beyond that, I've seen pulp readers judge romantasy and that's funny. For all my criticisms of romantasy, pulp is worse

I never got why people get so judgy on what a person reads, criticism is ok, but some folks can get nasty. I’ve had people make snarky remarks on my love of scifi I’ve heard someone refer to superhero stuff as “stupid nerd shit”. I’ve even heard someone criticize people who don’t enjoy romance because “those people have no heart or soul”. Idgaf what someone reads as long as they read. It may not be for me, but just pick up a damn book!