Beauty and the geek: Emerald City Comic Con swoons for romantasy

Among the comic book heroes and anime cosplayers of Emerald City Comic con, another fandom exists: romantasy readers.

For the uninitiated, that's romantic fantasy, an increasingly popular sub-genre of classic fantasy fiction. Think epic journey to slay the dragon with a steamy subplot as the heroine falls in love — maybe with the dragon, depending on what you're into.

It's not my thing, personally. But as a woman on Instagram who frequently posts about books, I am often served content for people often referred to as "BookTok girlies." I went to ECCC this year to find out why the romantasy genre is so (excuse me) alluring.

"It's the whips," said Jack Lepiarz, aka Jacques Ze Whipper.

To be fair, the former WBUR newscaster turned circus superstar was answering a question about why he'd became a mainstay of BookTok, despite being a very real person — who cracks very real whips.

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"I think they [BookTok girlies and romantasy fans in general] saw an attractive younger man cracking whips," Ze Whipper explained matter-of-factly. "And I'm wearing tight pants."

In other words, he offered the whole package.

That's what readers like Erin Palmer are looking for when they open up a romantasy novel. It's not just about the adult content.

"I want something different," Palmer explained. "I wanted it to be more high fantasy. I wanted it to be more spicy. I wanted there to be more politics. And you just kind of go from there."

Palmer is an ECCC veteran. The 36-year-old has been coming since 2007 to see and be seen in her handmade cosplay regalia. More than a Comic Con vet, though, she also has a long track record with romantasy. In a way, she said, it started with "The Neverending Story" by Michael Ende, something with a deep fantasy plot and a little bit of romantic intrigue. Her tastes have evolved from there.

"It's not so much the spice as much as it is the world-building around it that leads to the spice," she said. "If you can get really enveloped in the characters and the story and the arc of where it's going... there's some fantastic stuff."

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There's room for "smut," she said, but at the end of the day, she wants to be invested.

Romantasy writers get that, and they strive to deliver.

"Genre blends are always exciting," said K. M. Enright, author of "Mistress of Lies." "But what makes romantasy really work is that it's drawing from two of the most voracious fanbases. You've got the people who love fantasy but want a bit more. You've got the people who love romance but have never really dipped their toes into fantasy. It's a great way for both audiences to expand their reading."

The genre also expands opportunities for authors like Enright to reach people who may not otherwise be served by more traditional romance novels.

"I'm a queer, Filipino trans man who is also disabled, which I realize is a lot," Enright said with a laugh.

Romantasy is often portrayed as a deeply feminine space, hence the BookTok community's oft-referenced "girlies" (though that term can apply to anyone who wishes to claim it).

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"It is a very fem space, but I have loved both fantasy and romance, basically, my whole life. So, when this started to become a thing, I was very happy to put on my genre-blending hat and see what happened," Enright said. "But also, I wanted to create stories that centered queer men as well."

One of his main characters in "Mistress of Lies" is a transgender man. Another is a "soft, golden retriever kind of boy." And his main female character is the "scheming, conniving, manipulative one who opens the book by killing her father."

"What I like to do a lot is play with gendered expectations," Enright said. "I don't believe that different stereotypes, different archetypes, different tropes need to be as gendered as they are."

That willingness to push back against classic romance and fantasy stereotypes — the helpless maiden or the honorable knight and the like — is what draws in readers like Matthew Sciarappa, who was working the Penguin Random House both at ECCC.

As a gay man, Sciarappa said the concept of the hypermasculine is amusing and endearing to him, so the romantasy genre offers him a space to enjoy that trope, even as depicted through heterosexual relationships.

"A lot of gay books, especially because the gay romance space is mostly populated by women authors, tend to skew more feminine and tend to skew softer and safer," he said. "So, there is something about the gruff, hypermasculine, testosterone thing that is at least different from a lot of what I'm reading already."

The thing about the genre is, as Erin Palmer put it, "You can find just about anything."

Romantasy offers everything from fresh takes on classic stories, like the "Mulan" retelling "The Night Ends With Fire" by K. X. Song, to dragon-riding sagas, like "Fourth Wing" by Rebecca Yarros, and faerie tales, like the wildly popular "A Court of Thorns and Roses" series by Sarah J. Maas.

And like the many titles in the genre, readers vary, from those looking for an intricate plot to those who are just looking for fantastical smut (totally valid).

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Austyn Larkam described herself as a "romantic fantasy girly pop." She was at ECCC dressed in an intricate Zelda cosplay, with friends whose outfits practically screamed "romantasy fans."

"I love fantasy, because I don't like real life. I've got to live through that every day," Larkam said, only half joking. "But I'm also a girl's girl in my heart. I need romance. So, it's just the best of both worlds."

Larkam's friend Matty Schulting, decked out in a flowing pink gown she'd made herself, agreed.

Schulting said she just recently got back into reading after nearly a decade, and that was thanks to romantasy. And one of her favorite books in the genre is a classic, one that has helped define romantasy since it was published almost five decades ago: "Interview with the Vampire" by Anne Rice.

"It doesn't speak like a fantasy until you get to the second book," Schulting explained. "It is a slow-burn. It is so much philosophy with just an underscore of romance."

She said Rice was able to bring a seriousness to the space that made her books beautiful to read. Rice's writing appealed to Schulting's philosophical side — leaving her free to indulge her more carnal desires in other ways.

"Me and my two sisters did a little smut exchange for Christmas gifts," she said. "Some A+ smut. ...Done in front of our parents at our house."

Larkam shrieked, "My sister just got me soap!"

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