Heated Rivalry is such a good example of why I think romance is speculative fiction <3
What do haters say about romance? It’s unrealistic, it’s contrived. What is the standard response from fans? “It’s fantasy.” Undervalued form of thought experiment.
What is the other big complaint that haters have about romance? “You know what’s going to happen.” Romance stipulates a happy ending, so the speculative “what if” question is “what if this unlikely pair got a happily ever after?”. A lot of the time, that requires warping the world somewhat!
When people complain that romance is unrealistic or predictable, they are missing the point. Those deviations from our world are the experimental results of asking “what if?”. Those are the speculations.
What would Stanley Cup games look like if gay hockey players always got happily-ever-after endings? Different!
Anyway, I know there are lots of genres that mix romance and traditional speculative fiction genres, but I like to think about the speculative power of the romance elements themselves.
It’s good to do thought experiments about nice things happening to people, having the hottest possible time, and everything working out.