u/82816648919

I really enjoy fantasy, romantic or not, I like magic and prophecies and all the reality-denying stuff, but godsdamnit, wings are absolutely immersion-breaking for me. I understand they are useful (they solve some travelling issues) and seem like a cool idea but they really aren't.

Here are the features that are acceptable:

• eye colours
• tattoos
• magic scars (normal scars acceptable i guess)
• weird hair
• horns
• magic wings

BUT NOT REGULAR WINGS. Thats far too many limbs. Impossible. They would look too much like chickens and that's just fucked up honestly.

Other reasons wings are bad

• clothing
• doors
• beds
• chairs
• pooping

You see? If you spend 10 minutes actually thinking about the consequences of this choice, you'll see how it makes no sense - and you can't get away with that by saying "it's magic, get over it". If you want to establish a universe that breaks common physics, do that! But not in my fantasy books. End of rant.

I have noticed this trend with some of my favourite reads from 2023-25 especially having such a promising start to a book intended as a series, but they all fall off a cliff after the second book.

Iron Flame (imo) was a subsequent let down. Quicksilver, Direbound, and most recently, Shields of Sparrows.

I honestly feel like a lot of these authors jumped on the romantasy craze (many of them mention writing the books in weeks), having a viral hit by meeting trope requirements and then having nothing to say afterwards because their world-building is uninspired; they did not take the time to create these worlds and are just winging it as they go on.

Someone who NEVER did that is SJM, who was heavily inspired by GRRM. She has much more to pull from when creating her worlds, so that every book progressively got better. Her books are a testament to her world-building and character development that she still has a massive audience 16 books later who want more from her "universe". Well actually she also had this issue when it came to her own series, Crescent City. We honestly need to stop the SJMfication of romantasy as a whole to progress.

I miss older romantasy pre-2020 when the term did not really exist.

Hopefully, the sequel to When the Moon Hatched impresses.